Ulysses follows the direction of Nausicaa and passes to the city
stealthily in a kind of concealment; "Pallas threw a divine mist over
him," the Goddess now having the matter in hand. Moreover she appeared
to him in the shape of a young girl with a pitcher, who points out the
house of Alcinous and gives him many a precious bit of history in her
prattle. Again we must see what this divine intervention means; Pallas
is in him as well as outside of him. These are suggestions of his own
ingenuity on the one hand, yet also the voice of the situation; indeed
he knew them essentially already from the instructions of Nausicaa.
Still further, they are now a part of the grand scheme, which is in the
Olympian order, and hence is voiced by the Gods.
The poet introduces his mythical forms; we hear also the fabulous
genealogy of the Phaeacian rulers, the meaning of which has been above
set forth. They, too, Arete and Alcinous, have come from the Cyclops,
and have made the same journey as Ulysses, though in a different
manner. It must be remembered that he has had his struggle with the
giant Polyphemus, one of the Cyclops, whereof he will hereafter give
the account. But the chief matter of the communication of Pallas is to
define to Ulysses the position and character of Arete, evidently a
woman after her own heart. In this way the Goddess, taking the part of
a prattling maid, gives the royal pedigree, and especially dwells on
the importance of the queen. Also she throws side glances into the
peculiar disposition of the Phaeacians, needful to be known to the
new-comer. They are a people by themselves, distrustful of other
peoples; they too must be transcended.
It is well at this point to observe Homer's procedure in regard to
Pallas. We can distinguish two different ways of employing the Goddess.
The poet says that Pallas gives to the Phaeacian women surpassing skill
in the art of weaving. This is almost allegorical, if not quite; the
Goddess stands for a quality of mind, is subjective. Again, when she
endows Ulysses with forecast in an emergency, it is only another
statement for his mental prevision. Many such expressions we can find
in the Odyssey; Pallas is becoming a formula, indicating simply some
activity of mind in the individual. But in the important places the
Goddess is kept mythical; that is, she voices the Divine Order, she
utters the grand ethical purpose of the poem, or makes herself a vital
part thereof. Thus she is objective, truly mythical; in the other case
she is subjective and is getting to be an allegorical figure. The
Odyssey, with its greater internality compared with the Iliad, is
losing the mythus.
There is a third way of using Pallas and the Gods which is hardly found
in Homer, indeed could not be found to any extent without destroying
him. This is the external way of employing the deities, who appear
wholly on the outside and give their command to mortals, or influence
them by divine authority alone. Thus the Gods become mechanical, and
are not a spiritual element of the human soul. Virgil leaves such an
impression, and the Roman poets generally. Even the Greek tragic poets
are not free from it; especially Euripides is chargeable with this sin,
which is called in dramatic language _Deus ex machina_.
Though the Homeric poems as wholes are not allegories, yet they have
allegory playing into them. Indeed the mythus has an inherent tendency
to pitch over into allegory through culture. Then there is a reaction,
the mythical spirit must assert itself even among civilized peoples,
since allegorized Gods are felt to be hollow abstractions, having
nothing divine about them.
There can hardly be a doubt that a proper conception of the relation of
the deities to men is the most important matter for the student of
Homer. But it requires an incessant alertness of mind to see the
Homeric Gods when they appear to the mortal, and to observe that they
are not always the same, that they too are in the process of evolution.
For instance, in the present Book as well as elsewhere, Pallas must be
noted as having two characters, a mythical and allegorical, as above
unfolded. Nitzsch, whose commentary on the Odyssey, though getting a
little antiquated, is still the best probably, because it grapples with
so many real problems of the poem, says: "It is wholly in Homer's
manner to represent, in the form of a conversation with Pallas, what
the wise man turns over in his own mind and resolves all to himself"
(_Anmerkungen zu Homer's Odyssee, Band II, S. 137_). Very true, yet on
the next page Nitzsch says that it is "entirely wrong to suppose that
Pallas represents the wisdom of Ulysses _allegorically_." But what else
is allegory but this embodiment of subjective wisdom? Now Nitzsch truly
feels that Pallas is something altogether more than an allegory, but he
has failed to grasp distinctly her mythical character, the objective
side of the Goddess, and so gets confused and self-contradictory.
One of the best books ever written on Homer is Naegelsbach's _Homerische
Theologie_, which also wrestles with the most vital questions of the
poem. But Naegelsbach's stress is almost wholly on the side of the
Gods, he seems to have the smallest vision for beholding the free,
self-acting man in Homer. In his first chapter (_die Gottheit, the
Godhead_) he recognizes the Gods as the upholders and directors of the
Supreme Order (sec. 28); also they determine, or rather create
(_schaffen_) man's thought and will (sec. 42). What, then, is left for
the poor mortal? Of course, such a view is at variance with Homer in
hundreds of passages (see especially the speech of Zeus with which the
action of the Odyssey starts, and in which the highest God asserts the
free-will and hence the responsibility of the man). Naegelsbach himself
suspects at times that something is wrong with his view and hedges here
and there by means of some limiting clauses; note in particular what he
says about Ulysses (sec. 31), who is an exception, being "thrown upon
his own resources in cases of extreme need," without the customary
intervention of the Gods. But the man in his freedom, who co-operates
with the God in the providential order, is often brought before the
reader in the Iliad as well as in the Odyssey (see author's _Com. on
the Iliad_, pp. 129, 157, 216, etc.).