Next is the land of the Lotus-eaters, where Ulysses and his companions
arrive, after being driven helplessly "across the fishy deep" for nine
days (this is a favorite number in Homer) by the hostile winds. The
Lotus-eaters, "whose food is flowers" use no violence, but reach to the
new-comers their plant, the lotus, to satisfy hunger. Whoever has once
tasted of that pleasant food, straightway forgets home and the Return,
and wishes to live always among the Lotus-eaters. The will is broken,
all activity is sapped; the land of idlers it is, relaxed in a sensuous
dream life, in which there is a complete collapse of volition.
Now the point is to connect this country with the Ciconians, or rather
to see this internal condition evolving itself out of the preceding
one. For the line of conjunction must be within, of the spirit;
physically the two countries are far enough apart. In the first case,
we have noted a state of external violence, which really means a
destroying of the will. The Greeks assailed a quiet people, assailed
its will; then they were beaten and driven off, they had their negative
deed served up to themselves. Now what? There follows an internal
collapse of the will, a logical result of their own conduct, which is
hinted by their being drifted about on the seas, apparently quite
helpless. No wonder that, when they touched land again, and obtained
some food, they desired to stay there, and eat of the lotus. Yet it is
the consequence of their own act; that wanton destruction of the
Ciconian will is at bottom the destruction of their own will; they are
really assailing their own principle--a fact which is to be brought
home to them by a long and bitter experience.
But there is one man among them, who, though not guiltless by any
means, felt the nature of the Ciconian act, and who has still some
volition left in the right direction. "By force I led back to the ship
those who had tasted of the lotus, and bound them beneath the
oar-benches." The rest of the companions were ordered aboard, they
obeyed; off they sail again on the hoary deep--whitherward? Thus
Ulysses shows himself the man of will among the will-less, and solves
his part of the problem among the Lotus-eaters, setting out for the new
Unknown.
This people probably lived on the coast of Lybia according to Homer's
conception, though the land is outside the clear Greek geographical
horizon, floating mistily somewhere on its borders, half real, half
fabulous, on the way to Fairyland. We enter more distinctly the inner
realm of the spirit, as the outer realm of reality becomes less
distinct and demonstrable. The Ciconians were an actual people, the
conflict with them also actual, quite the Trojan conflict; but the
Lotus-eaters form the transition to the Wonderland of the Odyssey.
As regards the lotus, several plants were called by that name; one is
mentioned in a previous Book of the Odyssey (IV. 603) which was
probably a kind of clover growing in the damp lowlands of Greece and
Asia Minor, and utilized for grazing. Another sort was a species of
lily which grew in the valley of the Nile. But the lotus of the present
passage is generally considered to be the fruit of a shrub which yields
a reddish berry of the size of a common olive, having somewhat the
taste of a fig. This fruit is still highly esteemed in Tripolis, Tunis
and Algiers; from the last named country it has passed over to France,
and is often hawked about the streets of Paris under the name of
_Jujube_, where the passing traveler will purchase a sample, and eat of
the same, testing the truth of Homer's description, but probably not
losing thereby his desire for home and country.
The Lotus-eaters have had a famous history; they have caught the fancy
of poets and literary men who have sought in various ways to reproduce
and embellish them. Among English-speaking peoples the poem of Tennyson
on this subject is a prime favorite. But in Homer the Lotus-eaters are
not an isolated fact, they are a link in the chain of a grand
development; this inner connecting thought is the true thing to grasp.
Let us, then, penetrate the heart of the next movement of Ulysses. The
Lotus-eater gave up family and country; "chewing the lotus, he forgot
the return." His will vanished into a sensuous oblivion; he was
indifferent, and this indifference was a passive destruction of the
Greek world to which he was returning. But now in due order the active
destroyer of that world appears; behold the Cyclops, the wild man of
nature, truly a monster to the Greek institutional sense, being without
domestic and civil order. Thus we mark the inner transition: the active
principle of that which was a passive Lotus-eater is the Cyclops, a
Polyphemus. The Trojan negative result, so deeply lodged in the soul of
Ulysses and his companions, cannot remain mere indifference or
forgetfulness; it must proceed to action, to virulent destructive
action, which is now to be bodied forth in a fabulous shape. Only a few
of the weakest companions of Ulysses were ready to become Lotus-eaters,
and they were easily thrust under the oar-benches and carried away.
Here there is a fresh conflict, altogether the main one of the present
Book.