III.

Onward the wanderer, now with his single ship, has to sail again;

whither next? He arrives at another island called AEaea, "where dwells

the fair-haired Circe, an awful Goddess, endowed with a singing voice,

own sister of the evil-minded wizard AEaetes, both sprung of the Sun and

of Perse, daughter of Oceanus."

This genealogy we have set down in full, as given by the poet, on

account of its suggestiveness. These names carry us back to the East,

quite to primitive Arya; here is the Sun, the God of the old Vedas;

here is Perse, curiously akin to Persia, which was light-worshiping in

her ancient religion; then we come to AEaetes, father of Medea, usually

held to be of Colchis on the Eastern coast of the Black Sea, whence we

busily pass to Hellas in many a legend, and from Hellas we now have

traveled far westward into Fairyland. One ancient story, probably the

first, placed Circe in the remote East; another, this of Homer for

example, sends her to the far West; a third united the two and told of

the Flight of Circe upon the chariot of the Sun from Orient to

Occident, which is doubtless a much later form of the tale, though

ascribed to Hesiod. Circe is of a higher ancestry than Polyphemus,

though both go back in origin to the sea with their island homes; she,

however, is a child of the light-giving body, and will show her descent

in the end. Her name is related to the circle, and hints the circling

luminary, on whose car she is said to have fled once. Here in Homer,

however, we may note an inner circle of development; she passes through

a round of experience, and seems to complete a period of evolution. She

must be grasped as a movement, as a cycle of character, if you please;

she develops within, and this is the main fact of her portrayal.

The preceding etymological intimations are dim enough, yet they point

back to Asia, and to an old Aryan relationship. Not too much stress is

to be put upon them, yet they are entitled to their due recognition,

and are not to be thrown aside as absolutely meaningless. By Homer,

himself, they could not have been understood, being traces of a

migration and ethnical kinship which had been in his time long

forgotten, and which modern scholarship has resurrected through the

comparative study of language.

More important is the connection between Circe and the two preceding

portions of this Book, AEolia and the Laestrigonians. We have just seen

how both Family and State cast Ulysses off, must cast him off, since he

is without moral subordination. The inner self-control demanded by an

institutional life he has not been able to reach, after the alienation

produced by the Trojan War; the bag of winds given into his hand by

AEolus he could not keep tied. Why? Behold Circe rise up and take on

shape after his twofold experience. Really she is evolved out of

Ulysses in a certain sense; he sees her just now and not before,

because he has created her. Why is he thus repelled by Family and

State? Circe is the answer; she is the enchantress who stands for

sensuous pleasure in its most alluring form; with her is now the

battle.

Thus we approach another struggle of the hero, the longest and by far

the most elaborately unfolded, of the present Book. In many respects it

is the counterpart of the story of Polyphemus in the previous Book.

There he meets and puts down the anti-institutional man; here he meets

and puts down the anti-moral woman. The one represents more the

objective side of man's spirit, the other more the subjective; both

together image the totality of the ethical world, in its two supreme

aspects, institutions and morals.

Very famous has this story of Circe become in literature. It has

furnished proverbs, allusions, texts for exhortation; it has been

wrought over into almost every possible form--drama, novel, poem,

paramyth; from the nursery to old age it retains its charm and power.

Its meaning is plain enough, especially at first; but it grows more

weird and more profound as it develops; at last it ascends quite into

the beyond and points to the supersensible world.

Now the main point to be seized in this tale is the movement, the

development of Circe through her several stages, which are in the main

three, showing Circe victorious, Circe conquered, and Circe prophetic.

Ulysses and his companions move along with these stages, being also in

the process; but the center of interest, the complete unfolding, is

found in Circe. These three chief stages we may give somewhat more

fully before entering upon the detailed exposition.

_First._ The island is reached; some of the companions under a leader

(not Ulysses) go to Circe's abode, and are turned into swine after

partaking of her food. Circe triumphant.

_Second._ Ulysses himself then goes, having obtained the plant _moly_;

he subdues, enjoys; he releases his companions. He finally asks to be

sent home, according to the promise she had given. Circe subordinated.

_Third._ Then she reveals her prophetic power and announces the future

journey to Hades, ere he can return home. Thus she sends him on beyond

herself, and reaches her culmination in this Book.

Of these three stages the last seems inappropriate to Circe's

character, and is always a puzzle to the reader, till he probes to the

thought underlying the tale. Circe, then, is to show herself a seeress,

and foreshadow the world beyond the present. Why just that in her case?

But before the question can be answered, we must unfold the first two

stages.

I. After an introduction which names the new island and its occupant,

as well as gives a bit of her genealogy, the tale takes up Ulysses and

his companions. After a rest of two days and two nights, the hero goes

forth to spy out the land, ascends a hill whence he sees the smoke of

Circe's palace rising "through the bushes and the trees." His last

experience makes him careful, his thirst for knowledge does not now

drive him to go at once into her presence. He returns to his companions

with his information, and on the way back he kills a high-horned stag,

"which had come down from the woods to the stream to slake its thirst."

The result is a good meal for all once more, and a restoration of hope.

1. In such a mood he imparts his discovery: "I have seen with mine eyes

smoke in the center of the island." Terror-striking was the

announcement to his companions, who at once thought of "the cannibals,

Cyclops and Laestrigonians." And they had cause for fear. It may,

however, be said in advance that Circe is not a man-eater, but a

man-transformer; she is a new phase of the great experience, she

bestializes; she is negative, not so much from without as from within,

not consuming the human shape but transmuting it into that of an

animal.

A curious expression here needs some explanation. "We know not where is

east and where is west, not where the Sun goes under the earth, nor

where he rises." Why not? There have been several ways of viewing this

passage. Ulysses did not know the countries where the Sun set or rose,

though he must have seen the direction. A statement from Voss may be

here translated: "The side of night and of day he knew well, for he saw

sunrise and sunset; but he does not know into what region of the world

he has wandered away from home." One other suggestion: it may have been

very foggy or cloudy weather at the time. The internal hint, however,

is clear; he is astray, lost; he knows not what direction to take for

his return.

But something has to be done. Accordingly Ulysses divides his crew into

two portions, one commanded by Eurylochus, the other by himself. The

lot decided that Eurylochus and his company should go to the house of

Circe, and the lot always decides aright in the hand of Ulysses. Forth

they "go wailing, two and twenty companions, and leave us behind,

weeping." A tearful time for those forty-four people plus the two

leaders; which numbers give a basis for calculating the size of the

crew, of which six had been already destroyed by the Ciconians and six

by the Cyclops.

2. Soon they reach the abode of Circe, whose picture is now drawn with

characteristic touches. She is beautiful, sings with a beautiful voice,

and makes beautiful things, weaving webs such as the Goddesses weave.

Surely an artistic being; her palace is built of hewn stone, not of

natural rock, yet it lies in the depths of the forest. Here again she

shows her power: wild animals, wolves and lions, lie around--fawning

upon, not attacking men, tamed by her powerful drugs. That is, she

shows herself the mistress of nature, or rather the transformer

thereof; her mighty spell can change character and shape.

There has been a difference of opinion from antiquity down to the

present about these animals. Are they transformed men, or merely wild

animals tamed? The matter is left in doubt by the poet and either view

will answer for the passage. The connection, however, with the

transformation of the companions of Ulysses, would suggest the first

meaning. These partake of her food, with which she mingles her drug,

"in order that they might wholly forget their native country." But here

is something more than the indifference of the Lotus-eaters; these

eaters and drinkers at once become swine as to "their heads, voices and

hair," and eat the acorn and the fruit of cornel-tree, "like wallowing

pigs." Yet their mind remained "firm as before."

There can be no doubt that Time has interpreted this scene in but one

way, and Time is probably correct. Still it is not here expressly said

that the companions indulged to excess in food and drink, though they

apparently had just had a sufficiency of feasting along the sea-shore,

on venison and wine, "unspeakable meat and sweet drink." We must,

however, consider the whole to be a phase of that same lack of inner

subordination which led these people to untie the fatal bag of winds

upon a former occasion.

3. One man alone escaped to tell the story, as so often happens in such

adventures; it is Eurylochus, "who remained outside the palace

suspecting guile." When Ulysses hears the account, he proposes to go at

once and release his comrades. Eurylochus beseeches him not to attempt

it, but he persists, saying, "I shall go, a strong necessity is upon

me." Possibly in his contemptuous expression, "You stay in this place

eating and drinking," is hinted just that which he is now to put down,

in contrast with his companions. Eurylochus is the man who is unable to

solve the problem; he runs away from it, is afraid of it, and leaves

his wretched associates behind. But the problem must have a positive

solution, which here follows.

II. We are now to witness the dealings of Ulysses with Circe; he is to

subordinate her, making her into a means, not an end; she will

recognize him and submit completely, taking an oath not to do him any

harm; she will release his companions and restore them to their natural

forms at his behest; she will then properly entertain the entire crew,

no longer turning them into swine. The world of the appetites and the

senses will be duly ordered and subjected to the rational; from an

imperious enchantress Ulysses changes Circe into an instrument of life

and restoration. He is the transformer of her, not she of him; for she

will reduce man to a beast, unless he reduces her to reason.

1. Ulysses on his way to Circe's palace is met by a seeming youth

(really a God, Mercury) who warns him and gives him a plant potent

against the drugs of the enchantress. It is manifest that Ulysses has a

divine call; he knows already his problem from Eurylochus, the God

reiterates it and inspires him with courage. In addition he receives a

plant from the divine hand, whereof the description we may ponder: "The

root is black, its flower white as milk; the Gods call it _moly_, hard

it is for men to dig up." Very hard indeed! And the whole account is

symbolical, we think, consciously symbolical; it has an Orphic tinge,

hinting of mystic rites. At any rate the hero has now the divine

antidote; still he is to exert himself with all his valor; "when she

shall smite thee with her staff, draw thy sword and rush upon her, as

if intending to kill her." Thus he is to assert the god-like element in

himself, the rational, and subject to it the sensuous. It is clear that

Ulysses is beginning to master the lesson of his experience.

2. He does as the God (and his own valor) directed, and Circe cowers

down subdued. She is not supreme, there is something higher and she

knows it. At once she recognizes who it is: "Art thou that wily Ulysses

whose coming hither from Troy in his black ship has often been foretold

to me?" Such a prophecy she must have known and felt, she had mind and

was aware of a power above her, which would some day put her down,

after the Trojan time. In like manner Polyphemus, the man of nature,

has heard of a coming conqueror, and actually named him.

This one kind of subjection, however, is not enough, it must be made

universal. Every kind of subordination of the sensuous, not merely in

the matter of eating and drinking, is necessary. The next thing to be

guarded against is carnal indulgence, which may "make me cowardly and

unmanly." Hence Circe has "to swear the great oath, not to plot against

me any harm." Thus in the two chief forms of human appetite, that of

eating and drinking and that of sexual indulgence, she is subjected.

Ulysses is beginning to have some claims to being a moral hero, still

he is not by any means an ascetic. He has the Greek notion of morality;

we have a right to enjoy, but enjoyment must not make us bestial;

rational moderation is the law. He drinks of Circe's cup, but does not

let it turn him into a swine; he shares in all her pleasures, but never

suffers his head to get dizzy with her blandishments. Every seductive

delicacy she sets before him, mingled with the most charming flattery;

"I did not like the feast." Why? This leads us to the next and higher

point.

3. Lofty is the response of Ulysses: "O Circe, what right-minded man

would endure to touch food and drink before seeing his companions

released?" At once she goes to the sty and sets them free, restoring

their shapes, "and they became younger, larger, and more beautiful than

they were before." A great advantage is this to any man; it is worth

the hard experience to come out with such a gain, especially as the

companions must have been getting a little old, stooped and wrinkled,

having gone through so many years of hardship at Troy and on the sea.

4. Thus Ulysses has transformed Circe into an instrument for restoring

his fallen comrades; surely a noble act. Next she of her own accord

asks Ulysses to go to the sea-shore for the rest of his men and to

bring them to her palace for refreshment and entertainment. This he

succeeds in doing after some opposition from the terrified Eurylochus,

who has not yet gotten over his scare. Sorely did the companions need

this rest and recuperation after their many sufferings on land and sea;

"weak and spiritless they were, always thinking of the bitter

wandering." But now in the palace of Circe "they feasted every day for

a whole year," eating and drinking without being turned into swine.

Even Eurylochus follows after, "for he feared my terrible threat."

Thus we catch the sweep of this grand experience of and with Circe; if

she governs, she bestializes man; if she serves, she refreshes and

restores. Her complete subordination is witnessed; from transforming

people into swine, she is herself transformed into their helper, and

she becomes an important factor in the great Return to home and

country. But it is time to think of this Return again; the period of

repose and enjoyment must come to an end.

III. Here, then, we behold a new phase of Circe, that of the seeress

into the Beyond. Ulysses says to her at the end of the year: "Now make

your promise good, send us home, for which we long." Stunning is the

answer after that period of relaxation: "Ye must go another way, ye

must pass into the Houses of Hades." It is indeed a terrible response.

But for what purpose? "To consult the soul of the blind Theban seer

Tiresias, whose mind is still unimpaired; to him alone of the dead

Proserpine gave a mind to know." Clearly this means the pure

intelligence without body; Ulysses must now reach forth to the

incorporeal spirit, to the very Idea beyond the senses, beyond life.

The first question which arises in this connection is, How can Circe,

the enchantress of the senses, be made the prophetess of the

supersensible world? If we watch her development through the two

preceding stages, we shall see that she not only can, but must point to

what is beyond, to spirit. In the second stage she experiences a great

change, no longer transforming into the lower, but herself transformed

into the higher; she becomes a moral being, subordinating the sensuous

to the spiritual; she has, therefore, spirit in her life and manifests

it in her actions, when she is the willing means of subjecting appetite

to reason.

The same transformation we may note on her artistic side, for she

remains always beautiful. The first Circe is that alluring seductive

beauty which destroys by catering to the senses; she is that kind of

art, which debauches through its appeal to appetite and passion alone.

But the second Circe is transfigured, her service is of the spirit, she

releases from the bondage of indulgence, she aids the ethical Return to

Family and State. It is true that she never becomes a saint or a nun,

she would not be Greek if she did; moreover, according to the Greek

view, she must be transcended by the typical man, who is to rise into

an institutional life, which is hardly Circe's. Still the primal moral

subjection is shown in her career.

The domain of morals reveals the spiritual in action, the domain of

true art reveals the spiritual in representation. What shall I do with

this world of the senses? was a great question to the Greek, and still

is to us. In conduct subordinate it; in nature transform it into an

image of the higher. The work of art is a divine flash from above into

a sensuous form; this flash we separate from its material, and pass

into pure spirit; then we reach Tiresias, the mind embodied, not

limited in Space and Time.

Circe thus indicates her own limitation, which belongs to morals and

art. She is not the Infinite, but can point to it; she hints the rise

from art to philosophy. Backwards and forwards runs the suggestion in

her career; the Greek can lapse to the first Circe and die in a debauch

of the senses, or he can rise to the prophetic Circe, and lay the deep

foundation of all future thought. The Greek world, in fact, had just

this double outcome.

Ulysses, then, has to go to Hades, the supersensible realm; his heart

was wrung, "I wept sitting upon the couch, I wished no longer to live

nor to see the light of the sun." But after such a fit, he is ready for

action: "when I had enough of weeping and rolling about, I asked Circe:

Who will guide me?" Then he receives his instructions, which have

somewhat of the character of a mystic ritual, with offerings to the

dead, who will come and speak. Messages from the spirit world he will

get, but he must pass through the Ocean stream, to the groves of

Proserpine. From that point, after mooring his ship, he is to go to the

houses of Hades, where is a rock at the meeting of two loud-roaring

rivers; "pour there a libation to the dead" with due ceremony. In all

of which is the method of the later necromancy, or consultation of the

departed for prophetic purposes. Very old is the faith that the souls

of deceased persons can be made to appear and to foretell the future,

after a proper rite and invocation; nor is such a belief unknown in our

day.

Ulysses departs from Circe's palace and tells his companions concerning

the new voyage: whereat another scene of lamentation. To the Greek the

Underworld was a place of gloom and terror; he liked not the spirit

disembodied, he needed the sensuous form for his thought, he was an

artist by nature. The Homeric Greek in particular was the incarnation

of the sunny Upperworld, he shuddered at the idea of separating from it

and its fair shapes. But the thing must be done, as it lies in the path

of development as well as in the movement of this poem.

Ulysses must therefore go below, inasmuch as this world with its moral

life even, is not the finality. There is aught beyond, the limit of

death we must surmount in the present existence still; a glimpse of

futurity the mortal must have before going thither. So Homer makes the

Hero transcend life as it were, during life; and extend his wanderings

into the supersensible world.

The reader has now witnessed the three stages of this Tenth

Book--AEolus, the Laestrigonians, and Circe. The inner connection between

these three stages has also been investigated and brought to the

surface; at least such has been the persistent attempt. Especially has

Circe been unfolded in the different phases which she shows--all of

which have been traced back to a unity of character.

The intimate relation between the Ninth and Tenth Books has been set

forth along with their differences. Both belong to the Upperworld of

this Fableland; hence they stand in contrast with the Netherworld,

which is now to follow.

_BOOK ELEVENTH._

The present Book is one of the most influential pieces of writing which

man has produced. It has come down through the ages with a marvelous

power of reproduction; in many ways poets have sought to create it

over; indeed Time has imitated it in a series of fresh shapes. Virgil,

not to speak of other attempts in ancient Greek epics, has re-written

it in the Sixth Book of the AEneid; from Virgil it passed to Dante who

has made its thought the mould which shapes his entire poem--the

_Divine Comedy_.

It is one phase of the great Mythus of the Apocalypse, or the

uncovering of the Future State, which in some form belongs to all

peoples, and which springs from the very nature of human spirit. Man

must know the Beyond; especially the Hero, the spiritual Hero of his

race, must extend his adventures, not only over the world, but into the

other world, and bring back thence the news concerning those who have

already departed.

This then is the supreme Return of the Hero, the Return from beyond

life, still alive; he is to conquer not only the monster Polyphemus and

the enchantress Circe, but also the greatest goblin of all, Death.

Common mortals have to make the passage thither without returning; the

Hero must be the grand exception, else he were no Hero. Transcendent

must he be, rising above all limits, even the limit of life and death.

We have, therefore, in the present Book the Greek glance into

immortality. This is the essence of it, hence its prodigious hold upon

human kind. That the conscious individual persists after the

dissolution of the physical body is here strongly affirmed; indeed the

world beyond is organized, and its connection with the world on this

side is unfolded, in a series of striking pictures for the imagination.

It is thus a grand chapter in the history of the soul's consciousness

of its eternal portion, is in fact the middle link between the Oriental

and the Christian view of immortality.

Ulysses, as the wise man, or rather as the intellectual Hero of his

age, must go through the experience in question; he cannot return to

home and country, and be fully reconciled with his institutional life

here and now, without having seen what is eternal and abiding in the

soul. The wanderer must wander thither, the absolute necessity lies

upon him--and he must fetch back word about what he saw, and thus be a

mediator between the sensible and supersensible, between time and

eternity. In that way he means something to his people, becomes, in

fact, their Great Man, helping them vicariously in this life to rise

beyond life. The complete Return, then, involves the descending to

Hades, the beholding the shapes there, and the coming back with the

report to the living. Perhaps we ought to consider just this to be the

culmination of the whole journey, the grand adventure embracing all

possible adventures.

The connection with the preceding Book can not be too strongly

enforced. Circe points out the way to Ulysses; her nature is to point

to the Beyond, to which she cannot herself pass. In her last phase, she

was spirit, but still in the sensuous form; that spirit in her, as in

all true art and even in the world, points to its pure realm, where it

is freed from the trammels of the senses. This gives the main

characteristic of Homeric Hades; it is the supersensible world, outside

of Space and Time; or, rather with its own Space and Time, since it is

still an image.

Hence these mythical statements which seek to get beyond all known

geographical limits. Ulysses had to cross the Ocean stream, which ran

round the whole earth; to go over it was indeed to go over the border.

There below is the gloomy grove of Proserpine; there too, are the four

rivers of the Lower Regions, with names terribly suggestive; into

Acheron the stream of pain (or lake) flow Pyriphlegethon (Fire-flames)

and Cocytus (the Howler), the latter being an offshoot of Styx (Hate or

Terror). Where "the two loud-sounding rivers meet" the third one

(Acheron) is a rock, a firm protected spot seemingly, there with mystic

rites is the invocation of the dead to take place.

Thus we see that the poet's description remains spatial in his attempt

to get beyond space. He has to express himself in images taken from the

sensible world, even while pushing them beyond into the supersensible.

He makes us feel that the image is inadequate, though he has to use it;

poetry is driven upon its very limit. At this point specially we note

the kinship of the Odyssey with Romantic Art, which through the finite

form suggests the Infinite. Dante comes to mind, whose great poem is

one vast struggle of the limited symbol with the unlimited spirit which

is symbolized. Thus the old Greek song becomes prophetic, foreshadowing

the next great world-poem, or Literary Bible, written in the light of a

new epoch.

Strong is the sympathy which one feels with the ancient singer in this

attempt to probe the deepest mystery of our existence. He must have

reflected long and profoundly upon such a theme, building in this Book

a world of spirits, and laying down the lines of it for all futurity.

Probably the most gigantic conception in literature: the universal

Hero, ere he can round the complete cycle of experience, must pass

through the Beyond and come back to the Present. It deepens the idea of

the Return, till it embraces the totality of existence, by making it

reach through the Underworld, which is thus a domain in the spiritual

circumnavigation of the globe.

The structure of the Book is somewhat intricate and it requires quite a

little search to find the lines upon which it is built. It has at the

first glance a rather scattered, disorganized look; for this reason the

analytic critics have fallen upon it in particular, and have sought to

tear it into fragments. It is possible that some few lines may have

been interpolated, but it remains an organic whole, and the final

insight into it comes from viewing it in its total constructive

movement.

As the Book is an effort to make a bridge between the sensible and

supersensible realms, manifestly this separation into two realms will

constitute the fundamental division. The diremption into soul and body,

into life and death, runs through the entire narrative, also that into

men and women; but the main distinction is into Past and Present. The

sensible world when canceled becomes Past, the distant in Time and

possibly in Space; this Past through its characters, its spirits, is

made to communicate with the Present.

Moreover the Past has its distinctions. To the Greek mind of Homer's

age, specially in Phaeacia, the Trojan War is the grand central fact of

the aforetime; thus the Past divides into the Pre-Trojan, Trojan, and

immediate Past, in the Book before us. A complete sweep down into the

Now is given--the sweep of the supersensible. Also the Present has two

representatives: Ulysses along with his companions, and the Phaeacians.

In the Past, therefore, is arranged a long gallery of souls speaking to

the Present, which listens and also has its communication. The problem

now is to get a structural form which will hold the idea. Let the

following scheme be sent in advance, which scheme, however, can only be

verified or understood at the close of the Book on a careful review.

I. The first great communication of the dead and past to the living and

present, by voice and by vision; some speak, others are only seen.

1. The present and living element is made up of Ulysses and his

companions who are invoking by their rites and prayers the souls of the

Underworld. The companion Elpenor dead, but not yet buried, forms the

transition between the Present and Past.

2. The past and dead element, Pre-Trojan, is called up in two general

forms: the ancient seer Tiresias who is both Past and Future through

his mind, and, secondly, the souls of Famous Women, who pass in review

before the Present. The hint of a world-justice runs through both the

prophecies of the seer and the destinies of some of these women.

II. The second grand communication of the dead and past, now Trojan--to

the living and present, now Phaeacian prominently, given by voice and

vision.

1. The Present is here not only Ulysses far off in Hades, but the

Phaeacians in their actual sensible world. The latter demand again the

grand background and presupposition of their present life--the Trojan

epoch represented in its great spirits.

2. The Past, Trojan, in three typical Greek heroes, Agamemnon,

Achilles, Ajax. The three typical Greek women of the Trojan epoch are

also mentioned. An implicit idea of punishment, or of heroic limitation

brought home to the hero, is traceable in this portion.

III. The idea of a world-justice with its universal judgment, hitherto

only implied, now becomes explicit in Hades and organizes itself,

showing (1) the judge, Minos, (2) the culprits in four condemned ones,

(3) the saved one, Hercules, who rises out of Hades through the deed.

By implication so does the living Ulysses--hence the journey is at an

end, Hades is conquered.