Ulysses and his companions now had to use the oar on seas without wind;
"their spirit was worn out," hope had fled from them toiling through
the becalmed deep. They arrive at the land of the Laestrigonians, a race
of giants, into whose narrow harbor surrounded by its high precipices
the ships enter, with the exception of that of Ulysses, who has learned
caution. A kind of cave of the Giant Despair is that harbor, reflecting
outwardly the internal condition of the men, after their weary labor
coupled with the repulse from AEolus.
First of all we here observe a city with a civil order; there is the
place of assembly, a king over men, with a royal palace. No husbandry
appears, but there are wagons fetching wood to town on a smooth road
(probably a made road); shepherds are specially designated, so that we
may suppose a pastoral life prevails, yet these people in their city
are not roving nomads. The Family also is noticed, being composed of
the king, queen, and daughter; the latter is bringing water from the
town fountain--a primitive, idyllic touch. But the stress is manifestly
not upon the domestic but the civil institution; the State is here in
full operation, in which fact we mark the contrast with the preceding
island, AEolia. Another sharp contrast may be drawn between the
Laestrigonians and the Cyclops; the latter are giants also, but have no
civil order.
Ulysses, therefore, witnesses the State, in due gradation after the
Family. He can come to both these institutions now, and see them at
least, for he has put down Polyphemus, who, we recollect, was the
negation of both. But only see them, not share in them; the curse of
the Cyclops is still working upon him and in him; though he destroy a
destroyer, that does not make him positive; the devil destroys the
wicked, but that does not make him good. Hence the State rejects him as
did the Family; he is by no means ready to return to Ithaca and
Penelope. Such is his experience at present.
But why should the Laestrigonians be portrayed as giants? Of course the
Fairy Tale deals in these huge beings for its own purpose. AEolus and
his children seem to have been of common stature. The fancy can often
play into the meaning, or suggest a glimpse thereof. The State may be
called the Big Man, the concentrated personality of many persons; he
strikes hard, he overwhelms the wrong-doer. Therefore he seems now so
terrible to Ulysses, and is really so to the latter's companions, of
whom all perish here except one shipful. It is the function of the
State to punish; in the sweet domestic life of AEolus, there was no
punishment, only banishment; thus we behold now the penalty, at the
hands of that institution which is specially to administer it. The
companions did no wrong to the Laestrigonians, but note that just here
judgment comes upon them. Ulysses escapes, but to him also these people
appear as destroyers, as man-devouring cannibals; so the State often
seems to the guilty, overwhelming the individual with its penal
vengeance.
The Cyclops was also a giant and a cannibal, full of hostility; but
mark the difference. He was the Strong Man of Nature, not human in
shape, with that one eye in his head; his violence was against
institutions, the violence of the wild barbarian, which has to be put
down by man. But the Laestrigonians live in a civilized order which has
to punish the transgressor; their shapes are not monstrosities of
nature, but magnified human bodies. Both are giants and cannibals, both
negative, but in a wholly different sense.
What is the location of the Laestrigonians? A subject much disputed
recently and of old, with very little profit. Some expressions are
puzzling: "The herdsman coming in greets the herdsman going out;" then
again, "a herdsman needing no sleep would earn double wages," which
implies apparently two periods for toil in twenty-four hours, the one
"for tending cows" and the other "for tending sheep;" and this is
possible, "for the paths of day and night are near" to each other, as
if somehow day and night ran their courses together. What does it all
mean? Some dim story of the polar world with its bright nights, which
story may have come from the far North into Greece, along with another
Northern product, amber, which was known to Homer, may lie at the basis
of this curious passage. But we can hardly place the Laestrigonians
under polar skies in spite of this polar characteristic. Others have
sought their locality in the Black Sea and have even seen their harbor
in that of Balaklava. All of which is uncertain enough, and destined to
remain so, but furnishes a marvelous field for erudite conjecture and
investigation. The certain matter here, and we should say the important
one also, is the institutional order and its negative attitude toward
Ulysses. That is, we must reach down and bring to light the ethical
thread which is spun through this wonderful texture of Fairy Tales,
before we have any real explanation, or connecting principle.