I.

The Assembly of the Ithacans presupposes a political habit of gathering

into the town-meeting and consulting upon common interests. This usage

is common to the Aryan race, and from it spring parliaments,

congresses, and other cognate institutions, together with oratory

before the People. A wonderful development has come of this little

germ, which we see here still alive in Ithaca, though it has been

almost choked by the unhappy condition of things. Not since Ulysses

left has there been any such Assembly, says the first speaker, an old

man drawing upon his memory, not for twenty years; surely a sign of

smothered institutional life. The first thing which Telemachus in his

new career does is to call the Assembly, and start this institutional

life into activity again. Whereof we feel the fresh throb in the words

of the aged speaker, who calls him "Blessed."

Now the oratory begins, as it must begin in such a place. The golden

gift of eloquence is highly prized by Homer, and by the Homeric People;

prophetic it is, one always thinks of the great Attic orators. The

speakers are distinctly marked in character by their speeches; but the

Assembly itself seems to remain dumb; it was evidently divided into two

parties; one well-disposed to the House of Ulysses, the other to the

Suitors. The corruption of the time has plainly entered the soul of the

People, and thorough must be the cleansing by the Gods. Two kinds of

speakers we notice also, on the same lines, supporting each side; thus

the discord of Ithaca is now to be reflected in its oratory. Three sets

of orators speak on each side, placing before us the different phases

of the case; these we shall mark off for the thought and for the eye of

the reader.

1. After the short opening speech of the old man, AEgyptius, the heart

of the whole movement utters itself in Telemachus, who remains the

chief speaker throughout. His speech is strong and bold; from it two

main points peer forth. The first is the wrong of the Suitors, who will

not take the right way of wooing Penelope by going to her father and

giving the bridal gift according to custom, but consume the son's

property under pretense of their suit for the mother. The second point

is the strong appeal to the Ithacans--to their sense of right, to their

sense of shame, and to their fear of the Gods, who "in their divine

wrath shall turn back ill deeds upon the doer." But in vain; that

Ithacan Assembly contains friends and relatives of the Suitors, and

possibly purchased adherents; nay, it contains some of the Suitors

themselves, and here rises one of them to make a speech in reply.

This is Antinous, who now makes the most elaborate defense of the case

of the Suitors that is to be found in the poem. The speech is

remarkable for throwing the whole blame upon Penelope--not a gallant

proceeding in a lover; still it betrays great admiration for the woman

on account of her devices and her cunning. She has thwarted and fooled

the whole band of unwelcome wooers for three years and more by her

wonderful web, which she wove by day and unraveled by night. And even

now when she has been found out, she holds them aloof but keeps them in

good humor, though clearly at a great expense of the family's property,

which fact has roused Telemachus to his protest. Antinous, though

feeling that he and the rest have been outwitted by the woman, does not

stint his praise on that account, he even heightens it.

But we hear also his ultimatum: "Send thy mother away and bid her be

married to whomsoever her father commands, and whoso is pleasing to

her." So the will of the parent and the choice of the daughter had to

go together even in Homer's days. Of course Antinous has no ground of

right for giving this order; he is not the master of the house, though

he hopes to be; his assumed authority is pure insolence. Then why

should the Suitors injure the son because they have been wheedled by

the mother? Still they will continue to consume "his living and his

wealth as long as she keeps her present mind."

But the most interesting thing in his speech is to discover the

attitude and motives of Penelope. We see her fidelity, but something

more than fidelity is now needed, namely the greatest skill,

dissimulation, or female tact, to use the more genteel word. She has a

hard problem on her hands; she has to save her son, herself, and as

much of the estate as she can, from a set of bandits who have all in

their might. Were she to undertake to drive them away, they would

pillage the house, kill her boy, and certainly carry her off. They have

the power, they have the inclination; they are held by one small thread

in the weak hands of a woman, but with that thread she snares them all,

to the last man. Love it may be called, of a certain sort; we see how

Antinous admires her, though conscious that she has made a fool of him

and his fellows. Each hopes to win the prize yet, and she feeds them

with hope, "sending private messages to each man;" thus she turns every

one of them against the other, and prevents concerted action which

looks to violence. That wonderful female gift is hers, the gift of

making each of her hundred Suitors think that just he is the favored

one, only let it be kept secret now till the right time comes!

But Penelope uses this gift as a weapon, it is her means of saving the

House of Ulysses, while many another fair lady uses it for the fun of

the thing. Is she right? Does her end justify her means? True she is in

the highest degree to Family and State, is saving both; but she does

dissemble, does cajole the suitors. One boy, one woman, one old man in

the country constitute the present strength of the House of Ulysses;

but craft meets violence and undoes it, as always.

And yet we may grant something to the other side of her character. She

takes pleasure in the exercise of her gift, who does not? Inasmuch as

the Suitors are here, and not to be dismissed, she will get a certain

gratification out of their suit. A little dash of coquetry, a little

love of admiration we may discern peeping through her adamantine

fidelity to her husband, recollect after an absence of twenty years. As

all this homage was thrust upon her, she seeks to win from it a kind of

satisfaction; the admiration of a hundred men she tries to receive

without making a sour face. Still further she takes pleasure in the

exercise of that feminine subtlety which holds them fast in the web,

yet keeps them off; giving them always hope, but indefinitely extending

it. Verily that web which she wove is the web of Fate for the Suitors.

So much for Penelope at present, whom we shall meet again.

To this demand of Antinous to send the mother away, Telemachus makes a

noble, yes, a heroic response. It would be wrong all around, wrong to

the mother, wrong to her father, unless he (Telemachus) restored the

dower, wrong to the Gods; vengeance from the Erinyes, and nemesis from

man would come upon him for such a deed. Thus the young hero appeals to

the divine order and puts himself in harmony with its behests. Boldly

he declares, that if the Suitors continue in their ill-doing, "I shall

invoke the ever-living Gods; if Zeus may grant fit retribution for your

crimes, ye shall die within this palace unavenged." Truly a speech

given with a power which brings fulfillment; prophetic it must be, if

there be any Gods in the world. Already we have seen that Telemachus

was capable of this high mood, which communes with deity and utters the

decree from above. Behold, no sooner is the word uttered by the mortal,

than we have the divine response. It is in the form of an omen, the

flight of two eagles tearing each other as they fly to the right

through the houses of the town. Also the interpreter is present, who

tells the meaning of the sign, and stamps the words of Telemachus with

the seal of the Gods.

2. Here we pass to the second set of speeches which show more

distinctively the religious phase, in contrast to the preceding set,

which show rather the institutional phase, of the conflict; that is,

the Gods are the theme of the one, Family and State of the other. The

old augur Halitherses, the man of religion, explains the omen in full

harmony with what Telemachus has said; he prophesies the speedy return

of Ulysses and the punishment of the Suitors, unless they desist. Well

may the aged prophet foretell some such outcome, after seeing the

spirit of the son; Vengeance is indeed in the air, and is felt by the

sensitive seer, and also by the sensitive reader.

But what is the attitude of the Suitors toward such a view? Eurymachus

is the name of their speaker now, manifestly a representative man of

their kind. He derides the prophet: "Go home, old man, and forecast for

thy children!" He is a scoffer and skeptic; truly a spokesman of the

Suitors in their relation to the Gods, in whom they can have no living

faith; through long wickedness they imagine that there is no

retribution, they have come to believe their own lie. Impiety, then, is

the chief fact of this speech, which really denies the world-government

and the whole lesson of this poem. Thus the divine warning is

contemned, the call to a change of conduct goes unheeded.

3. Then we have the third set of speeches which are personal in their

leading note, and pertain to the absent Ulysses, whose kindness and

regal character are set forth by Mentor, his old comrade, with strong

reproaches toward the Ithacans for permitting the wrong to his house.

It is intimated that they could prevent it if they chose; but they are

evidently deaf to this appeal to their gratitude and affection for

their chieftain.

Leiocrates, the third Suitor, responds in a speech which is the

culmination of insolence and defiance of right. The Suitors would slay

Ulysses himself, should he now appear and undertake to put them out of

his palace. He dares not come and claim his own! Right or wrong we are

going to stay, and, if necessary, kill the owner. It is the most open

and complete expression of the spirit of the Suitors, they are a lot of

brigands, who must be swept away, if there be any order in the world.

Leiocrates dissolves the Assembly, a thing which he evidently had no

right to do; the people tamely obey, the institutional spirit is not

strong enough to resist the man of violence. Let them scatter; they are

a rotten flock of sheep at any rate.

Here the first part of the Book concludes. The three sets of speakers

have given their views, one on each side; each set has represented a

certain phase of the question; thus we have heard the institutional,

religious and personal phases. In such manner the sweep of the conduct

of the Suitors is fully brought out; they are destroying State and

Family, are defying the Gods, and are ready to slay the individual who

may stand in their way. Certainly their harvest is ripe for the sickle

of divine justice, upon whose deep foundation this poem reposes.

The Assembly of the People now vanishes quite out of sight, it has

indeed no valid ground of being. The young men seem to be the chief

speakers, and show violent opposition, while the old men hold back, or

manifest open sympathy with the House of Ulysses. The youth of Ithaca

have had their heads turned by the brilliant prize, and rush forward

forgetful of the penalty. It is indeed a time of moral loosening, of

which this poem gives the source, progress, and cure. Telemachus,

however, rises out of the mass of young men, the future hero who is to

assert the law of the Gods. In such manner we are to reach down to the

fact that the spirit of the Odyssey is ethical in the deepest sense,

and reveals unto men the divine order of the world.