3. That he also makes Jason settle at Lemnos, and become sovereign of
the island, evidently in connection with his route from Thessaly to the
East.
But Thessaly, and Lemnos too, are places of the inner world: with
Lemnos the Poet appears to have been accurately acquainted; and the
line between that island and the home of Jason determines absolutely
so much as this; that the general direction of his voyage was known by
Homer, at least up to this point, to have lain to the north-eastward
through the Straits of Gallipoli.
I hold therefore that the passage of the Πλαγκταὶ is fixed immovably,
by known-world evidence, as to its general direction: that to
transplant it to the west, is to break up the foundations of Homer’s
experimental knowledge, which is always to be trusted: whereas to move
his Thrinacie eastward is merely to suppose that he gave the site which
was poetically most convenient to a tradition which, as it came to him,
had no site at all, no positive local or geographical determination.
~_Character and site of Thrinacie._~
Again, I take the island Thrinacie by itself; and I contend that,
although the report on which this delineation was founded may probably
have had its origin in Sicily, yet the Thrinacie of Homer is associated
rather with the East than with the West.
For, though he has given us no geographical means for directly
determining the site, he has supplied us with other means that belong,
not to Phœnician rumour or fireside tale, but to his own knowledge and
experience. Since nothing can be more certain, than that the leading
local association of the Sun, for Homer as for all mankind, is with the
east. It is true that he is in the west just as often as in the east;
but we certainly hold Napoleon to belong more to Corsica than to Saint
Helena; and so the mind connects the Sun with the place of his daily
birth, and not with that of his daily death. Now, without entering upon
any other question for the present, I only observe, that in Thrinacie
are the oxen with which the Sun disports himself when not engaged in
his daily labours; that is, as he himself supplies the explanation,
both before they begin, and after they are ended[603]. In deference,
then, to those associations, founded on actual nature, which for the
present purpose are strictly facts, I cannot hesitate to maintain, that
the island of Thrinacie is upon the whole, relatively to Greece, an
eastern island.
[603] Od. xii. 380.
A like inference may be drawn from the names Lampetie (λάμπειν) and
Phaethusa (φάος), which he has given to the Nymphs of the Sun. Had the
island been in his intention western, he would have called them by
names of a different etymology.
And as the Scylla passage, which is on its coast, is near the Πλαγκταὶ,
I think we shall pretty closely conform to the views of Homer, if
we make Thrinacie form the western side of the Bosphorus, and if we
separate it by an imaginary or poetical Scylla from the main land of
Turkey in Europe.
Again, it is admitted that Αἰήτης has his name from Αἰαίη. From the
personal relations of Æetes, as well as from those of his daughter
Circe, we may therefore argue respecting the site of Ææa, provided we
can attach them to any known and fixed point of the system of Homeric
ideas.
Now their parentage furnishes a point of this kind, on both the
father’s and the mother’s side. Their father is the Sun: a divinity
not, like the Apollo or Minerva[604], de-localized, but one having his
daily sojourn (out of work-hours) in the east. The mother is Perse: and
enough, I think, has been shown with respect to the import of this name
for the Achæan mind[605], to make it pretty certain that, when Homer
gives a residence to the children of Perse, he intends it to be in the
east.
[604] See Olympus, sect. iii. p. 82.
[605] See Achæis, or Ethnology, sect. x; and Olympus, sect. iv. p. 220,
on Persephone.
It is now time to bring more directly into the discussion a point much
contested--the situation of the island of Calypso. The usual modes of
solution, which place the original of this picture on the Bruttian
coast or in Malta[606], are inadmissible in spirit as well as in the
letter. For very great remoteness is the most essential point in the
description, and to bring it near would wholly change its character. It
requires eighteen days of favourable wind[607] to come by raft within
sight of Scheria from Ogygia: while even the distance from Crete to
Egypt, a greater one than from the Bruttian coast to Greece, might
be performed, as Homer thinks, in five[608]. It is the midpoint, or
ὄμφαλος[609], of a vast expanse of sea: and Mercury, passing thither
from Olympus, mentions the route as one which traverses a mighty space
of water, without habitations of men between[610]. Again, the name
of Calypso (καλύπτειν) places it wholly beyond the circle of Greek
maritime experience: as does her relation to Atlas, who holds the
pillars, that is, stands at the extremity, of earth and sea. The first
and cardinal point to be fixed therefore is its decided, if not extreme
remoteness.
[606] Schönemann de Geogr. Hom. p. 20. Nitzsch on Od. v. 50, n.
[607] Od. v. 268-75.
[608] Od. xiv. 257.
[609] Od. i. 50.
[610] Od. v. 100-2.
Next, if it is thus remote, we find by a process of exhaustion that it
must be in the north. As far as we know, Homer recognised the African
coast by placing the Lotophagi upon it, and the Ethiopians inland from
the East all the way to the extreme West. In that direction there is no
more θάλασσα, or sea. And again, as Nitzsch truly remarks, Scheria is
on the proper homeward line of the voyage of Ulysses[611]. Consequently
he cannot pass, nor can he even approach, Ithaca while on his way to
Scheria: I add, he must come to it down the Adriatic on his way to
Ithaca.
[611] Nitzsch on Od. v. 276-8.
~_Site of Ogygia to the East of North._~
Now we are provided with an important argument, drawn, like some
preceding ones, from what we may fairly call Homer’s experience, and
tending to fix the site of Ogygia in the north or north-east. It is
derived from the route taken by Mercury, when he carries the message
of the Immortals to Calypso, which in another point of view we have
already had to examine[612]:
[612] Od. v. 50.
Πιερίην δ’ ἐπιβὰς, ἐξ αἰθέρος ἔμπεσε πόντῳ.
We are obliged to suppose, as has been observed, that Mercury, who
does not march, but flies like a bird wont to hunt for fish[613], must
move in a direct line towards his object. But Pieria is a district
stretching along the shore of Macedonia; it begins in the south, to
the eastward of Olympus, and then extends due north of it. Its limits
are variously defined[614]; but the only question about it could be,
whether it verges, not to the westward, but to the eastward of North.
Again, from the route of Juno in the Fourteenth Iliad[615], no question
can arise, except what would tend to give Pieria an eastward turn.
[613] Ibid. 51-3.
[614] Cramer’s Greece, i. 204.
[615] Il. xiv. 226.
A line drawn from Olympus over the centre of Pieria would carry Mercury
to the North. It might, consistently with the condition of crossing
Pieria, diverge a little either to the east or the west of due North,
but only a little. Consequently the island of Calypso may be affirmed
to be, according to the intention of Homer, in the North, and not very
far from due North.
This conclusion is confirmed by two other arguments; which are both
of the class which I have described as legitimate, because they are
founded on Homer’s physical knowledge of the direction of the winds.
After the storm has destroyed the ship of Ulysses to the south of
Thrinacie, Notus, a wind of decidedly southerly character, carries him
back again to Scylla, Od. xii. 426: and again, when he has passed it,
he proceeds thus[616]:
[616] Od. xii. 447.
ἔνθεν δ’ ἐννῆμαρ φερόμην, δεκάτῃ δέ με νυκτὶ
νῆσον ἐς Ὠγυγίην πέλασαν θεοί.
Now there is no mention between these two passages either of any change
of wind, or of any particular wind. Consequently it seems rational to
assume that Homer meant us to understand a continuance of the wind just
named, namely Notus. Even independently of this collocation, we should
be thrown back upon the general rule of the Wanderings, which is that
southerly winds blow Ulysses away from home, while northerly ones bring
him back again.
Consequently, the natural construction to put upon the passage is, that
it was a south wind, whether a little east or west of south matters
not much, which continued to blow, and which drifted Ulysses away
from Ithaca to the island of Calypso. This is in entire accordance
with the passage which describes him as windbound by Eurus and Notus
at Thrinacie; since the way from home is presumably the exact reverse
of the way towards it. But it will be said, this implies that he
made westing on his way to Ogygia from Ææa. I answer, that this is
probably so: for Circe is described as immediately connected with the
east, while Calypso is far, as Mercury complains, from all land and
habitation: so that apparently her island is, in the intention of
Homer, materially to the westward, as well as greatly to the northward,
of Ææa. But the main direction taken from Scylla is northward; and,
since Scylla is near the Πλαγκταὶ, and the Πλαγκταὶ are the Bosphorus
of actual nature, it must be taken from a point near the Bosphorus,
along the imaginary expanse of an enlarged and westward-reaching Euxine.
According to this argument, then, Ogygia might lie upon a line drawn
from Mount Olympus in a direction not very wide either way of St.
Petersburgh.
Nor are we wholly without means of measuring the distance. He floats
(from Scylla) for nine days, and arrives on the tenth. Now this is just
what happened to the pseudo-Ulysses[617], who in the same space of time
drifted from a point near Crete to the country of the Thesprotians. We
may therefore fix Ogygia as (in the intention of the Poet), at about
the same distance from Scylla, which we measure from the south of
Epirus to a point near, yet not in sight of, Crete. But this in passing.
[617] Od. xiv. 310-15. 301-4.
The corresponding argument is derived from the homeward passage of
Ulysses, and stands as follows:
For seventeen days Ulysses pursues his raft-voyage from Ogygia to
Scheria; and the raft threatens to founder on the eighteenth. He then
floats, by the aid of the girdle he had received from Ino. Up to this
point there is no positive indication of the wind; the argument from
the relation between his course and the stars I will consider shortly.
But after he has put on the girdle, and when Neptune withdraws his
persecution, since he is now approaching the horizon of the Inner
world again, Minerva’s agency revives, and she sends a north wind or a
north-north-east wind, Boreas, to bring him to Scheria.
Now there is no reason for our supposing that Homer meant to represent
Ulysses as changing his general direction at this particular point. The
orders of Circe with respect to the stars all indicate a single right
line from Ogygia to Scheria, and neither the wind nor his course alter,
until he has seen the island on the far horizon. The natural inference
therefore is, that Boreas, the N. or N. N. E. wind, which at last
drifted him in, was the wind which had brought him all the way from the
island of Calypso, over an unbroken and unincumbered expanse of sea.
We appear to have seen, thus far, that Ogygia is greatly to the
northward, and probably somewhat to the westward, of the Strait of
Scylla. We shall obtain further light upon the site of that island, if
we can more precisely define the position of Scylla with regard to
what lay southward, as well as with respect to what lay northward, from
it.
Our _data_ are as follows:
1. Thrinacie appears to be close to Scylla, for it is reached αὐτίκα
(xii. 261).
2. The comrades of Ulysses, when they arrive at the island, and when
he attempts to dissuade them from landing, reply by asking what is to
become of them if they set sail at night, and are then caught by a
squall of Eurus or of Zephyr (284-93).
3. The ship is windbound in Thrinacie for a month by Eurus and Notus;
which may be taken in Homer as the winds that cover the whole horizon
from a point north of east to the western quarter[618].
[618] See sup. p. 274.
4. When they finally set sail, we are not told with what wind it was:
but, after they have got out of sight of the island, the sky darkens,
and mischief follows[619];
[619] Od. xii. 403-8.
αἶψα γὰρ ἦλθεν
κεκληγὼς Ζέφυρος, μεγάλῃ σὺν λαίλαπι θύων·
and the ship goes to pieces in the tempest. At length Zephyr ceases,
and Notus blows Ulysses back upon Scylla.
5. If it was the intention of Homer to place Thrinacie by the
Bosphorus, then the next point which Ulysses had to make was the
Dardanelles.
~_Scylla and the Dardanelles._~
The question therefore is, what conclusion can we draw from the
evidence now before us as to the position of Scylla relatively to the
Dardanelles? I think a pretty clear one.
We have at least two of those statements, which may be called
experimental, now before us. Homer knew the position of the mouth of
the Dardanelles. He knew the nature of the wind Notus. And there is a
third piece of evidence not unimportant, which we may here properly
bring into view. We have seen that, in Il. ii. 845, Homer confines
or contains his Thracians (ἔντος ἐέργει) by the Hellespont: and the
Hellespont with him means all the waters from the Sea of Marmora to the
northern Ægæan inclusive. Now by this he intends only a part of the
Thracians, those, say, of the plain of Adrianople. It is presumable
therefore that he believed the configuration of the coast at the two
extremities of the Dardanelles to be something like at least two of the
sides of a square, running N. and W. respectively: for unless it formed
a portion of some marked figure, it would not answer his description of
including a certain district, and the words would become applicable to
the whole of Thrace alike. Therefore it appears that Homer thought the
northern coast of the Sea of Marmora trended, from its western point,
more rapidly to the north, than is really the case.
The most decisive evidence, however, is that which had been previously
named.
When the storm came, which shattered the ship, Ulysses was on the true
course from Thrinacie to the Dardanelles. But if we know the point for
which he was making in a right line from point _x_, and if we also
know the wind which carried him back to point _x_, then the line on
which point _x_ itself lies is also known. In other words, as Notus,
or say the S.S.W. wind, carried him back upon Scylla, Scylla lies to
the N.N.E. of the inner mouth of the Dardanelles: and the unnamed wind
which takes him back to Scylla is Notus, which we are entitled to
consider as blowing (even as Boreas, its counterpart, blows from due N.
to the eastward) from any point between the limit of Eurus on the East
of South, and 45 or even 90 degrees beyond South to the westward.
Ææa, then, is in the East; with somewhat of an inclination, as measured
from Greece, towards the north. Ulysses has much westing to make, in
order to get to Scheria. Part of this is made on his passages between
Ææa and Ogygia in the farther north. The rest in the course of his
long seventeen days’ voyage from the north, which is propelled, as it
would appear, by Boreas, and therefore includes also a slight westerly
inclination.
All these arguments converge towards the same conclusions, and all of
them are mainly founded, not on Homer’s outer-world representations,
but upon indications drawn from his knowledge of nature, or else from
his experimental or otherwise familiar acquaintance with the Inner
world: that is, they are built not on the figures of his fancy, but on
the facts of his own and his countrymen’s every-day experience.
And now let us consider the adverse construction put upon the text of
the Odyssey; particularly with regard to the island of Ææa.
~_Why Ææa cannot lie North-westward._~
It is quite plain, from the accounts given of the route both ways, that
the Ocean-mouth is meant by Homer to be near the island of Ææa; that
is, within a day’s sail[620] of that island. How is this reconcilable
with the doctrine, which places the island in the far north-west? In
the north-east we have an Ocean-mouth, the situation of which the Poet,
guided up to a certain point by his inner-world knowledge, has not very
inaccurately conceived. In the north-west there is no Ocean-mouth. The
Straits of Gibraltar, though they lie rather to the south of west from
Ithaca, must be carried far into the north for the purpose; in what
form, or with what accompaniments, it is hard to conceive. To attempt
such a transposition would involve the complete abandonment of all
actual geography, and would after all leave us involved in hopeless
confusion in the effort to construct any tolerable scheme from the text
of Homer.
[620] Od. xi. 11.
~_Construction of_ Od. xii. 3, 4.~
At the mere transportation, indeed, we need not scruple overmuch, if
we could justify the proceeding by other clear indications of Homer’s
intention. But there is no such justification. It is hardly possible
to exaggerate the violence done to the text of Od. xii. 3, 4, by the
interpretation which Nitzsch (following, as I admit, Eustathius), puts
upon it. The ship, leaving the stream of Ocean, reaches the sea and the
island[621]:
[621] Od. xii. 3.
νῆσόν τ’ Αἰαίην, ὅθι τ’ Ἠοῦς ἠριγενείης
οἰκία καὶ χοροί εἰσι, καὶ ἀντολαὶ Ἠελίοιο.
The ἀντολαὶ, the rising, or rising-point of the sun, does not, he says,
mean the east, but only the first appearance of the sun on their return
from darkness, which is a kind of dawning on them. And the dwelling of
the early-born Dawn, and the place (such appears to be the meaning of
χόροι) of the Dances of her kindred or attendant Nymphs--who in later
mythology became the virgin train of Hours, that now delight us in the
frescoes of Guido and Guercino--not only do not mean anything eastern,
but apparently in this place are conceived to have no meaning whatever,
and to be an idle, indeed a most inconvenient and bewildering,
pleonasm. And thus the magic poetry of this passage and all the curious
traditions it involves, are destroyed, in order to make room--for what?
For the hypothesis that Homer places the dwelling of Morning and the
chamber of the rising Sun far to the westward of the country that he
himself inhabited[622]!
[622] In the well known case of a noble description in the Antiquary,
Walter Scott has made the sun set on the east coast of Great Britain:
but _this_ was unawares and not on purpose. Had he recited instead of
writing, the error could not have escaped correction.
There is, I confess, something almost of _naïveté_ in the confession
of Nitzsch, that ‘it sounds rather strange to interpret ἀνατολαὶ
without any reference to sunrise, since it is the customary counterpart
to δύσις, the sunset.’ But fortunately there is no Homeric evidence
against it: as indeed there cannot well be, since the word occurs in
no other passage. With respect to Ἠὼς, Nitzsch contends that it means
not dawn, but light: and he quotes the passages which say, ‘your glory
shall reach as far as Ἠὼς,’ and ‘horses, the best to be found beneath
the Sun and Ἠώς.’ Certainly it is most allowable, (though I by no means
think the sense of dawn inadmissible in these two passages,) especially
as day goes nowhere except preceded by dawn, to generalize the word
Ἠὼς so as to make it equivalent to light. But the fatal flaw in the
interpretation is this, that when Ἠὼς is thus used, it is invariably
apart from any circumstances which can give a local colour to its
meaning. But wherever there is any thing local implied, as is admitted
to be in the case before us, the ἠὼς uniformly means the east, though
with a certain indefiniteness perhaps as to northward and southward
inclination. For instance, when Homer speaks of omen-birds flying
eastwards, he describes them as flying πρὸς ἠώ τ’ ἠέλιόν τε, and the
opposite movement as ποτὶ ζόφον, which here evidently means north-west,
although it too may signify darkness in general. The whole aim of the
passage (Od. xii. 1-5) is, to fix locality; and it is in the teeth of
all Homeric usage to deprive ἠὼς in such a passage of local force,
while it confessedly can have no local meaning but an eastern one.
To me, I confess, it appears that Homer has nowhere done more,
and rarely so much, in a single passage, as in this, with a view
of declaring his intention. The island Ææa, irrespective of all
geographical argument, is, as we have seen, directly bound and fastened
to an eastern site by four separate cords. First, as the rising point
of the Sun. Secondly, as the residence of Dawn. Thirdly, because
Circe, its mistress, has the Sun, the most eastern of all mythological
conceptions except the Dawn, for her father. Fourthly, because she has
also Perse, whose name indicates a trans-Phœnician origin, for her
mother. And further, I am convinced we cannot alter the place of Ææa
without uprooting the whole Phœnician scheme of the Outer Geography.
The scope and range thus given to the adventures of Ulysses confines
them without doubt to the northern semi-circle, but allows them to
reach, within that semi-circle, to its eastern and to its western
extremities, as they are imagined by the Poet. Æolus and the
Læstrygonians are evidently placed by him in the north-west. The
hypothesis, which has here been maintained for Ææa and Calypso,
supplies an effectual counterpart, and properly fills up the eastern
corner. But, independently of all other objections, the north-western
hypothesis for these islands jumbles them, if I may so speak, in one
heap with the others, and leaves the eastern quarter towards the North
wholly unoccupied. And yet that East was, for a Greek, the source and
the scene of the richest legendary and mythological representations.
Such an incongruous view of the question would not, I think, be at all
in keeping with Homer’s ordinary modes of conceiving, handling, and
presenting his materials.
~_Construction of_ Od. v. 276, 7.~
But I am aware that, up to this time, we have left out of view a
passage, of which I freely admit that the prevailing, and in so far
the most obvious, interpretation is against me. Ulysses sails over
the sea from Ogygia, governing the rudder of his raft with art, and
watching the stars, especially the Great Bear; which at that period, I
believe, was nearer the Pole, and was a more conspicuous and splendid
astronomical object, than it now is. It was with respect to this
constellation that he had received a particular order from Calypso[623]:
[623] Od. v. 276.
τὴν γὰρ δή μιν ἄνωγε Καλυψὼ, δῖα θεάων,
ποντοπορευέμεναι ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ χειρὸς ἔχοντα.
Or, according to the common construction of the words, he was to keep
that constellation on the left during his voyage. But if his course lay
in the direction of a right line drawn from St. Petersburgh to Corfu,
it appears that Arctus, when visible to him, would be visible on the
right, and not on the left.
I could not, however, accommodate myself to this passage at such a
cost as that of oversetting an interpretation of the general scheme,
which is so deeply rooted both in the letter and spirit of the poem,
as is the eastern, and likewise somewhat north-eastern, hypothesis
for Ææa, together with a northern site for Ogygia. These two, it may
be observed, stand together. It is plain, from the times occupied by
the several stages between Ææa and Ogygia, and from the language used
where no precise time is stated, that the Poet conceived the distance
between them to be limited, though very considerable. And indeed the
north-western hypothesis for Ææa would do nothing for the passage I
have quoted, unless we also carry Ogygia into the north-west, in order
that Ulysses, on his way home from it, may have Arctus on his left.
Inasmuch, however, as the admission of the received sense for the lines
would involve us in a new series of the most complicated and hopeless
contradictions, we must look for relief in some other direction.
~_On the genuineness of the passage._~
I desire to eschew, as a general rule, the dangerous and seductive
practice of questioning the genuineness of the text because it seems to
stand in conflict with a favoured interpretation. I may however state,
without unduly relying on them, one or two particulars which, drawn
from the poem itself, may show that these two lines are not unjustly
open to the suspicion of interpolation.
1. The two lines are wholly void of any necessary connection with what
precedes and follows them, and the text is complete without them.
We should not break up the passage generally by removing them. This
argument, however, is one purely negative.
2. These lines tell us, that Calypso had bid Ulysses keep Arctus on his
left. Now Homer has given us a speech of Calypso[624] on the subject of
this voyage, in which she promises to send, from behind him, a breeze
which shall carry him home. But there is in this speech no order to
him whatever about observing the stars; and the promise of the wind in
some degree, though not perhaps quite conclusively, tends to show that
no such injunction was needed. For it is plain that, if the wind blew
fair across the open sea, he did not depend at all upon the helm, and
noticing the stars would be of no assistance to him. I rely, however,
more upon this, that there is here a sort of patchwork, very unlike
Homer’s usual method, in the mode in which the injunction is recorded.
Clearly, if Calypso gave a direction respecting the stars, the proper
place for it was in the speech where she delivered to Ulysses what may
be called his general instruction for the voyage. And I am not sure
whether another instance can be found in the whole of the poems, where
an omission of something relevant and material in one of the speeches
is supplied by a recital in the subsequent narrative. It is wholly
contrary to the manner of Homer, who so uniformly throws into speech
and the dramatic form whatever is susceptible of being thus handled.
[624] Od. v. 160-70.
3. The expression ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ χειρὸς is found nowhere else in Homer,
though the phrase ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ occurs many times.
4. There is no other passage in the Wanderings, or elsewhere in the
poems, which describes the conduct of navigation by means of the
stars. In the Iliad we have the mention of a star in connection with
sea-travelling; but it is simply as a portent, (ναύτῃσι τέρας, Il. iv.
76). On this, however, if it stood alone, I should place no commanding
stress: and it should also be observed that the objection is one which,
if admitted, would displace eight lines.
So much for the genuineness of the passage.
As respects the grammatical meaning of the phrase, I have endeavoured
to discuss it at large in a separate paper; and to show that its real
sense is in fact the reverse of that which is ordinarily assumed. It
means, I believe, a star looking _towards_ the left, and therefore a
star looking _from_ and situated _on_ the right hand in the sky.
In no case, however, can I admit it to be the true meaning of Homer,
that Ulysses is to follow a south-westward course from Ogygia to
Scheria; because this is at variance with all the trustworthy, I must
add with the consentient, indications of Homer’s intention in the whole
arrangement of the tour, as well as in the particular description of
Circe’s island. It is also in contradiction to those indications, drawn
from his inner or experimental geography, which determine at certain
points the bearings applicable to the Outer or Phœnician sphere.
Before proceeding to draw up in propositions the whole outline of the
interpretation which I venture to give to the route of Ulysses, I would
call attention to the means, which the Poet has adopted to signify to
us his own doubt and incertitude respecting its actual bearings at
several important points.
By means of the wind Boreas he indicates to us the direction, not
however the distance, of the Lotophagi. After leaving them, he tells
us nothing either of distance or direction between their country and
that of the Cyclopes. From this point he provides us with certain aids
until we reach Æolia. When in Æolia, Ulysses is to the north-west of
Ithaca: for the Zephyr given by Æolus, he says, would have carried
him home. From this isle, six days of rowing take him to Læstrygonia.
Another passage of indefinite length next carries him to Ææa; and,
arriving here, he is entirely out of his bearings; he cannot tell where
is east or west[625], the point of dusk or the point of dawn, until he
has been duly instructed by Circe: but he sees an unbounded sea (πόντος
ἀπείριτος) on every side of him.
[625] Od. x. 190.
~_Homer’s geographical misgivings._~
This expression of ignorance, put into the mouth of Ulysses, probably
conveys the true sense of the Poet; who, more or less puzzled
with even his own method of harmonizing the Phœnician reports, and
suspecting that it might not bear the test of application to actual
nature, shielded himself by anticipation, through giving us to
understand that he did not mean to submit Circe’s isle to the strict
rules of geographical measurement.
And indeed it was no wonder that he felt some diffidence, when we
recollect that he had to concentrate in a single point facts or
traditions that embraced east, north, and west. Eastern his site must
be to allow of the rising of the sun, and the accompanying legends:
he may have had misgivings, lest his Thrinacie, and also other
traditions of which he had to work up the materials, should in reality
lie westward from Greece: lastly, an appreciable northern element
was involved in the general direction of the navigation through the
Bosphorus, which in fact supplies a kind of meeting-point for the two
former. The remedy is, thus to hang the island of Circe in a vague and
shadowy distance, which gives the nearest practicable approach to an
exemption from the laws imposed by any determinate configuration of the
earth.
Nor are these the only cases, in which Homer has afforded us tokens
of his own want of clear knowledge and confidence in regard to the
scenes through which he has carried his hero. On the contrary, he has
indicated the haziness of his views, and the insecurity of the ground
he trod, by forbearing in several other instances to fix with precision
the particular winds which favoured or opposed the voyage of Ulysses,
or to particularize the distances he travelled.
~_Homeward route of Ulysses._~
We are now at liberty to approach the last portion of our subject. We
have, I trust, fixed the distinction of the Inner and Outer Geography;
ascertained the keys of the outer system, and fixed its governing
points. It remains to inquire what, according to the data ascertained,
did the Poet intend to be the route of Ulysses over the face of his
ideal map; and then, finally, to show its relation to that of Menelaus,
and to Homer’s general conception of the configuration and distribution
of the surface of the earth.
I. His first halting-place, after quitting Troy, is with the Cicones,
in Thrace. This visit was paid with scarcely a deviation from his
homeward route: and therefore it does not belong to the Outer
Geography. The Cicones of the Odyssey were probably placed near the
northernmost point of the Ægæan sea (Od. ix. 39).
II. From the country of the Cicones, he sails southward, under a
heavy north-north-east gale (Od. ix. 67), which lasts for three days.
He has then fair weather, till he gets to Cape Malea. But, as he is
rounding Cape Malea, the north-north-easter returns, and drives him
down the west coast of Cythera (now Cerigo), and so out to sea (79-81).
After nine days’ sail, with ὀλοοὶ ἄνεμοι, he reaches the land of the
Lotophagi (82-4). Now, as it took five days of the best possible wind
to sail from Crete to Egypt (Od. xiv. 253), we may perhaps assume that,
in the ten days of veering gales, about an equal distance was made
in the general direction of south-south-east indicated for us by the
Boreas of v. 82. This will place the Lotophagi on the Syrtis Major, now
the Gulf of Sidra. Here the region of the marvel-world begins: and the
mention of the ὀλοοὶ ἄνεμοι, in lieu of the pure Boreas, may be taken
as fair notice from the Poet, that he had no precise knowledge on what
portion of the coast of Africa Ulysses was to set his foot.
The Lotophagi are full of Egyptian resemblances: and it appears that,
as Egypt and Phœnicia were for Homer the two greatest border-lands
between the real and the imagined worlds, therefore Ulysses makes his
first step into the Outer world through a quasi-Egyptian people, and
his last step out of it among a quasi-Phœnician people.
III. The voyage from the land of the Lotophagi to the next stage, the
country of the Cyclopes, is without the smallest indication either
of distance or direction (103-5). But as, within the Outer sphere,
northern winds are always homeward, and southern ones carry Ulysses
outward, we may assume that Homer here intended some southern wind;
though, as he breaks at this juncture the last link with the known
world, he could not venture to state any thing like the precise point
of the compass.
Shall we place the Cyclopes of Homer on any point of _terra firma_, or
must we imagine a country for them?
Tradition has answered this question by commonly placing them in
Sicily. But a vague tradition, as we have seen, is of little authority
in regard to Homeric questions; and in this instance, I think, it may
be shown to be in error, for the following reasons:
1. The country of the Cyclopes is not an island: it is mainland (γαίη
Κυκλώπων, 106), with an island near to it, 105. By the expression γαίη,
Homer sometimes means a great island such as Crete: but we have no
authority for supposing he would apply it to Sicily.
2. It can hardly be doubted that the little which Homer probably did
know of Sicily is represented to us by his Thrinacie. And all this
consists in two points: the first, that it was an island (Od. xii.
127): the second, that it was triangular, and derived its name from
its form. But his Thrinacie he has given to the oxen of the Sun: and
therefore he certainly does not mean it to be the land of the Cyclopes,
or he would have given it the same name on both occasions. Indeed, on
the contrary, he has actually given another name to the land of the
Cyclopes: it is the εὐρύχορος Ὑπέρεια of Od. vi. 4. I may add, that
the epithet εὐρύχορος is not generally applicable to Sicily, which is
channelled all through with hill and dale, and which nowhere, unless
perhaps between Syracuse and Catania, seems to present any great
breadth of plain.
3. Besides this, Ulysses traverses very long distances[626], in order
to reach Ææa from Hypereia: but Thrinacie, on the other hand, is very
near Ææa, so that he has not retraced his distance, and therefore
cannot be in Sicily.
[626] See Od. x. 28 and 80.
Where then were situated these Cyclopes, to whose country Ulysses came
after quitting the Lotophagi? It is plain that they were not within the
Greek maritime world, or Homer would, we may be sure, have indicated
their position by the time of the voyage, or by the quarter from which
the wind blew to take him there.
I submit that Homer meant to place the Cyclopes in Iapygia, the heel of
Italy; a region nearly corresponding, on the west of the Ionian sea,
with the position of Scheria on the east. This hypothesis is consistent
with the whole evidence in the case, and might well stand on that
ground only. But it is, I think, also sustained by a separate argument
from the migration of the Phæacians[627].
[627] Od. vi. 4.
The Phæacians, descended like the Cyclopes from Neptune, were recent
inhabitants of Scheria; they formerly dwelt near the Cyclopes in
Hypereia, and were dislodged from thence by the violence of their
brutal neighbours. They removed under Nausithous, and settled in
Scheria.
They were flying from a race who had no ships with which to follow
them. If Hypereia in which they lived was Iapygia, any place in the
situation of Scheria, or near it, would be a natural place of refuge
for them. But if they had been in Sicily, Homer in all likelihood would
not have carried them beyond the neighbouring coast of Italy, which
would have afforded them the security they desired.
IV. From Iapygia or Hypereia, the country of the Cyclopes, Ulysses
proceeds to pay his double visit to Æolia. We are not assisted in
the first instance (Od. ix. 565. x. 1.) by any indication of wind or
distance. It is not unfair to presume that Stromboli, with its active
volcano, was the prototype of this gusty island. But, like other
places, it is not on the site of its prototype. For Æolus gives Ulysses
a Zephyr or north-west wind, which would have carried him home, had it
not been for the folly of his comrades (Od. x. 25, 46). The Æolia of
Homer then must conform to these two conditions: