II.

We now reach the second main division of the Book, which is marked by

the introduction of the audience, the Phaeacians, "who were held rapt

with the charm" of the story. Observe, too, that the palace was not

brilliantly illuminated, but shadowy--fit environment for fairy tales

(line 334). This main division is again separated into two subordinate

divisions which embrace the Present and the Past, and thus is in

structure homologous with the preceding main division. Yet both the

Present and the Past are not now the same as the previous Present and

Past.

I. First of the hearers speaks out the mother, wife of Alcinous, Arete,

in response to the compliment of Ulysses in singing of the Famous Women

of Greek legend. "Phaeacians, how does this man seem to you now in form,

stature, and mind?" Very different does he seem from what he once did;

thus she gently apologizes for her previous treatment. She appreciates

the Hero; moreover, she asks that the high guest receive hospitable

gifts without stint; "for much wealth lies in your halls by the bounty

of the Gods."

Having thus heard from the woman, we now are to hear from the man, the

representative Phaeacian, king Alcinous. In the first portion of the

Book Ulysses and his companions were the Present to which the Past

appeared in Hades. Now the Phaeacians are introduced as the Present,

which is to hear the voice of the Past from Hades. Moreover, the Past

is not the Pre-Trojan, but the Trojan Past, which we have already (in

the Eighth Book) seen to be dear to the Phaeacian heart. It is no

wonder, then, that Alcinous, as soon as he can urge his request, calls

for a song about the Greco-Trojan Heroes in the Underworld. "Tell us if

thou didst see any of those godlike Argives who followed thee to Troy

and there met their fate." Not the mother of the Hero, but the Hero

himself is now to be called up; the man wishes to listen to the deeds

of man. Demodocus, the Phaeacian bard, always sung of some phase of the

Trojan struggle, which was the popular subject of story and song in

Phaeacia. Thus we note again how the famous Past, stored away in Hades,

is made to flow into the Present, and to contribute an ideal of

heroism, and a warning also, to the living.

A touch of Homer as literary critic we should not pass by, as he does

not often take that part. Alcinous, praising the tale of Ulysses, says:

"Form of words is thine, and a noble meaning, and a mythus, as when a

minstrel sings." Three important qualities of poetry are therein set

forth: beauty of language, nobleness of content, and the fable in its

totality--all of which belong to the preceding narrative. Moreover,

Alcinous draws a sharp contrast with that other sort of storytellers,

mere liars, "of whom the dark earth feeds many," who go about

"fabricating lies, out of which we, looking into them, can get

nothing," can draw no meaning. Such at least is our view of this

passage (line 366) about which there is a difference of opinion among

commentators. At any rate we catch a glimpse of Homeric literary

criticism in Homer, who states the requirements of good poetry, and

contrasts them with the "liar" or fabricator of yarns, which are

certainly devoid of the noble spirit or worthy content.

So Ulysses is asked to begin his Trojan story, always more interesting

than that catalogue of women, at which everybody began to yawn. "It is

not yet time to go to sleep," cries Alcinous, "the night here is

unspeakably long," and still further, "I would hold out till daylight,"

listening to thy story.

II. The Trojan Past, then, is the theme; we are to behold the ghosts of

those who were famous during the War at Troy, and immediately

afterwards, both men and women. But the women are not here given a

special portion to themselves, but are woven into the general

narrative. This part of the Book is sung for the men, the opposite sex

is withdrawn into the background; still they will be duly mentioned,

since the whole conflict is over a woman. Moreover Alcinous wishes to

hear what the heroic men are doing in the future world, whither too he

must go.

1. Three Greek shades will pass before us, Agamemnon the Leader,

Achilles the Hero, and Ajax the man of strength. We shall find them

placed in a certain contrast with Ulysses, who is shown greater than

any of the three. All have been overwhelmed by fate through their own

folly or weakness, while Ulysses still lives, the master of fate, and

beholds them in Hades. Such is his triumph, which the shades themselves

declare.

First comes the soul of Agamemnon, the great King, who has the bond of

authority in common with King Alcinous. He tells the story of his own

murder in considerable detail, which story has been given twice already

in the poem. A most impressive event to the Greek mind of Homer's age;

the greatest of the rulers is wretchedly cut off from his Return by his

wife Clytaemnestra and her paramour AEgisthus. This Return is what points

the contrast between him and Ulysses; moreover the contrast is also

drawn between the wives of the two men, one the faithless and the other

the faithful woman. Still the wrong of Agamemnon is suggested by

himself: "I heard the piteous voice of Cassandra, whom Clytaemnestra

slew, crying for me; I, though dying, grasped for my sword," to no

purpose, however. Surely the wife had her wrongs as well as the

husband, out of which double guilt AEschylus will construct his mighty

tragedy.

Next after the Leader, in due order comes the Hero of the Greeks before

Troy, Achilles. He recognizes this descent to Hades as the greatest

deed of Ulysses: "What greater deed, rash man, wilt thou plan next?" It

is verily the most wonderful part of his Return, overtopping anything

that Achilles did. Still Ulysses pays him the meed of heroship: "We

Argives honored thee as a God, while living, and now thou art powerful

among the dead; therefore do not sorrow at thy death, O Achilles." But

he answers that he would rather be the humblest day laborer to a poor

man than to be King of the Shades. It is not his world, he longs for

the realm of heroic action, here he has no vocation. No Troy to be

taken, no Hector to be vanquished down in Hades; the heroic man must

sigh for the Upper World with its activity. Some consolation he gets

from the account which Ulysses gives of his son, who was in the Wooden

Horse and distinguished himself at Troy for bravery. Thus the father

lives in his son and "strides off delighted through the meadow of

asphodel." This plant is usually regarded as the _Asphodelus ramosus_,

a kind of lily with an edible tuberous root, still planted, it is said,

on graves, to furnish to the dead some food which grows in the earth.

This ancient custom has been supposed to be the source of the legend of

its being transplanted to Hades.

The third heroic shade is that of Ajax, son of Telamon, with whom

Ulysses had a rivalry, the story of which runs as follows: After the

death of Achilles, Thetis his mother offered his arms, the work of

Vulcan, to the worthiest of the remaining Greek heroes. The contest lay

between Ajax and Ulysses. Agamemnon would not decide, but referred the

question to the Trojan prisoners present, asking them which of the two

contestants had done them the most injury. They said Ulysses. Whereupon

Ajax went crazy and slew himself. Now he appears in Hades, still

unreconciled; it is really the most wretched lot of all. Ulysses here

speaks the reconciling word, growing tender and imploring; but the hero

"answered not, darting away with the other shades into Erebos." Wherein

we may well see how much greater in spirit Ulysses was than his big

muscular rival. He has reached in this respect the true outcome of

life's discipline: to have no revenges, and to speak the word of

reconciliation.

In fact the superiority of Ulysses over all these heroes is clearly

manifested. He brings no captive woman home to his domestic hearth, and

hence he has a right to count upon Penelope's fidelity, though

certainly he shows himself no saint in his wanderings. Moreover

Agamemnon lacked foresight in his Return, which Ulysses will exhibit in

a supreme degree when he first touches his native soil. The second

hero, Achilles, could not conquer Troy, then he could not conquer

Hades; yet both are conquered by Ulysses who is thus the greater.

Finally unreconciled Ajax--all are limited, incomplete, in contrast

with the complete, limit-removing Hero, who has just removed even the

limit of Death in the only way possible. Verily to him they have become

shadows, that whole heroic world before Troy is now put by him into

Hades.

Thus we see that, while the characters belong to the Trojan time, there

is a movement out of that period, it is transcended. The background

here is the Iliad, yet the incidents are taken from the Trojan war

after the action of the Iliad is brought to a close. The fates of the

three great heroes of that poem are not given in the poem; here they

are given with a tragic emphasis. Thus the Odyssey carries forward the

Iliad, supplements it, and forms its real conclusion, both being in

fact one poem. In the full blaze of the glory of Achilles the Iliad

ends; but he cannot take Troy; and still less, after his death, can

Ajax; the divine armor must go to Ulysses who has brain, then can the

city be taken. Even the son of Achilles will fight under Ulysses and

enter the Trojan Horse, the work of Pallas, of Intelligence. Thus we

catch here as in other places, glimpses of the unity of both the Iliad

and the Odyssey, the great work reflecting the one national

consciousness of Hellas in its complete cycle.

2. We should not fail to cast a separate glance at the three typical

women of the Trojan epoch--Helen, Clytemnestra, Penelope--in contrast

with the three heroes already described. They are all mentioned and

compared in the speech of Agamemnon, but do not form an organic part of

the Book by themselves, as do the Pre-Trojan women. They are wives, and

wifehood not motherhood, as in the previous case, is the phase of the

domestic relation which is the theme of song and struggle in their

lives. Possible its present importance is the reason why wifehood was

dismissed with so brief mention in the portion concerning the famous

mothers.

Note, then, the gradation of the three: Clytemnestra is the fallen

unrestored; Helen is the fallen restored; Penelope is the unfallen, who

keeps a home for her absent husband during twenty years. The tragic,

the mediated, the pure; or, to take a later analogy, the infernal, the

purgatorial, the paradisaical; such are the three typical female

characters of Homer, ranging from guilt, through repentance, to

innocence. In this framework lies quite all possible characterization.

Naturally Agamemnon shows a bitter vein of misogyny, with only his wife

in view; but he takes it all back when he thinks of Penelope.

Two of these women, Helen and Penelope, are still alive and do not

belong to the realm of Hades; the ghost of the third, Clytemnestra,

does not appear. Still all three are mentioned here in the text, and

stand in relation to the three Greco-Trojan heroes, none of whom were

restored through the Return. Ulysses, however, is the real solution of

them all; he spans all their inadequacies, masters their fates, and

reaches home. The three Greek heroes above mentioned fell by the way in

the course of the grand problem, and are seen in Hades, complaining,

unhappy, showing their full limitation. To a degree they are suffering

the penalty of their own shortcomings: which fact prepares us for the

third and last phase of the Underworld.