only nominal. The links between them, although they seem strong and real
at first, do not in any sense unite the two poems. It is true that there
is the imaginary relation of time; that the _Odyssey_ relates the
subsequent adventures of one of the heroes who actually fought at the
siege of Troy; and, more important still, that it shows him to possess
upon the whole the same qualities which he possessed in the _Iliad_. But
when that is said, there remains the fact of a contrast between the
poems which almost persuades us that in the _Odyssey_ we are in a
different world. This contrast is best seen in the antithesis between
the two heroes of the poems; and indeed between the two great heroines
too. In the _Iliad_, Achilles stands for physical beauty and strength,
young enthusiasm and ardent courage. When Odysseus appears there, as he
sometimes does, he is overshone by the splendour of Achilles. Although
he is the brain of the enterprise, he is in quite a secondary place to
the physical magnificence of the younger hero. When we come to the later
poem, however, we find that intelligence has risen to the higher plane.
Odysseus is now the hero—not, like Achilles, an ideal of bodily strength
and beauty: not a man of wrath, flaming over the battlefield in
vengeance for his friend: not merely a warrior, product of a warlike
age. Odysseus is by no means lacking in courage; and he has not outgrown
the need for war. But he has many other qualities besides, and his
fighting is usually prompted by necessity.
It is significant that the character of Achilles is developed in
conflict with the war-god, Ares; while Odysseus is whelmed in a ‘sea of
troubles,’ literally heaped upon him by Poseidon. Struggling constantly
against the rage of the elements, Odysseus becomes alert and cautious,
patient and painstaking and resourceful: a great constructive energy, as
contrasted with the destroying fury of Achilles. The poet’s epithet for
Odysseus is ‘subtle’ as that for Achilles had been ‘swift’; and the
emphasis is always laid upon his qualities of brain and nerve. He is not
a very imposing figure, and has little physical beauty. When his friends
would praise him, it is gifts of mind rather than of body to which they
refer. He is ‘the just one’ who does no injury ‘as is the way of
princes’; the kindly ruler, who is ‘like a father’ to help his people;
the faithful husband who can flatter and cajole his goddess-gaoler, in
desperate anxiety to be home with his dear wife; the loyal comrade who
will risk the enchantments of Circe rather than forsake his men without
an effort; the gracious master whose servants ‘mourn and pine’ because
of his long absence. And all the way through the poem, in passages which
are too numerous to quote, there is a running tribute to his wisdom.
Zeus himself, with other gods and goddesses; kings and queens; nymphs,
naiads and enchantresses; swineherds and domestic servants; soldiers and
sailors; strangers and homefolk; friends and enemies, all add their word
to the eulogium of his wit.
Now Penelope, who is the perfect mate for such a man as this, is for
that very reason contrasted with Helen as strongly as her husband is
contrasted with the hero of the _Iliad_. It is not merely that her
personality is totally unlike Helen’s, although that is true. The
contrast is rooted in something deeper—in the whole conception of the
poet, the manner of life out of which the poem came, the theme of which
it treats. In the _Iliad_ we are quite literally moving amongst
demi-gods. Helen, reputed daughter of Tyndareus, is really the child of
Zeus; and Achilles has the nereid Thetis for his mother. Something of
their divine origin clings to them, making them awful and magnificent.
In all that they do and are they are greater than mere human folk. They
move majestically, and they are not to be approached too nearly, or
judged by the common standard, or compared with the ordinary race of
men. Troy itself, to which their names cling, was a city built by gods.
But Odysseus and Penelope are frankly mortal; and in that one fact they
approach nearer to us by many degrees. They are no longer colossal
figures hovering, as it were, about the base of Mt. Olympus, and driven
this way and that in the surge of Olympian quarrels. They are a man and
woman, with their feet firmly planted upon the earth, and their
affections rooted there too. They claim no kinship with the gods: they
take no part in Olympian warfare: they have no care for the issues which
are called great. Their story, reduced to its elements, is of the
simplest kind: the call of dear home ties upon the man, the fidelity and
prudence of the woman. And in this ‘touch of common things,’ Penelope
becomes a much more real figure than Helen.
Of course that is not to say that Penelope is ‘real’ in the technical
sense of the word. She is in fact almost as much a creature of romance
as Helen is. But she appears before us as a living woman with human
hopes and joys and sorrows; with human virtues too, and certain very
human weaknesses. We can never regard the heroine of the _Iliad_ just in
this way. If we could, and if we dared to lift the veil which the poet
always interposes between us and the character of Helen, it would stand
revealed slight and trembling in its amiability: fatally soft, with no
vein of essential strength. Now it is that essential strength which
characterizes Penelope. The wooers realized it; and Antinous made it the
chief point of his defence:
_Athena has bestowed on her
Wisdom of mind and excellence of skill_
_In beautiful devices manifold
Beyond all others, such as is not told
Even of those famous in the former time,
Achaean women lovely-tressed of old,_
_Tyro, Alcmena, and Mycene crowned—
Even among these the equal was not found
In wise devices of Penelope._[7]
There is a significant silence about Penelope’s beauty; and she has not
eternal youth as Helen has. But when we have seen her eyes light upon
her boy Telemachus, and the radiance of her face as the strange old
beggarman told her about her husband, we shall waive the question of
æsthetics. We shall be prepared to maintain Penelope’s beauty against
all-comers; and we shall not be much concerned that the poet rather
avoids the subject. For he would not dream of a soul which did not know
that sweetness and dignity and a gentle heart, grief endured patiently
and love unswerving, would make for themselves a worthy habitation.
Beside Helen’s exquisite fairness, Penelope would seem a little faded;
and her sweet gravity would be almost a reproach. She cannot compare for
one moment with Calypso, as Odysseus had to confess when the goddess
blamed him for his homesickness:
“_Goddess and mistress, be not wroth with me
Herein: for very well myself I know
That, set beside you, wise Penelope_
“_Were far less stately and less fair to view,
Being but mortal woman, nor like you
Ageless and deathless: but even so,
I long and yearn to see my home anew._“[7]
The keynote of the _Odyssey_ is struck here; and here too we may find a
hint of all that Penelope means. The thought of home is to dominate the
poem, as something so dear and sacred that innumerable toils are
suffered and infinite perils undergone to win back to it. And this
shining ideal of home is to be incarnate in Penelope. She is to
represent in her own person all that sweetens and comforts life: all the
domestic virtues which establish and perpetuate it. Thus, beside Helen
as the ideal of beauty—of physical perfection—Penelope stands as the
ideal of mental and moral worth.
* * * * *
Telemachus, whom Odysseus had left at home as a baby twenty years
before, had been sent by Athena to seek his father. The goddess had
appeared to him as he sat in his father’s hall in Ithaca, lowering upon
those unbidden guests who were his mother’s suitors. She had asked what
the unseemly revel might mean; and he had told of the long absence of
his father.
“_Ah but the spirits of storm to a death inglorious swept him,
Vanished, unseen and unheard of; and nothing but mourning and anguish
Me he bequeathed! Nor now do I sorrow and make lamentation
Only for him; for the gods send other and grievous afflictions.
All of the chief of the men who as princes rule in the islands....
All come wooing my mother and wasting the wealth of the homestead.
She dares neither reject their hateful proposals of marriage,
Nor can she end it; and thus do the men, consuming, devouring,
Ruin my home...._”[8]
The goddess counselled immediate action—to go and seek Odysseus; and
while the minstrel sang to the carousing suitors, Telemachus inwardly
resolved that he would set sail as soon as might be for Pylos and
Sparta, whither Athena directed him for tidings of his father. But he
knew that he must act quietly; and above all, that his purpose must be
kept a secret from his mother. She would certainly prevent his going,
did she know, fearing to lose son as well as husband.
Meantime, as he pondered the matter, Penelope was listening from her
lofty bower to the minstrel’s song in the hall below. He sang of the
return of the heroes from Troy; and the words reawakened in her the old
pain of longing for her husband. At last she could not bear to hear it
any longer:
_Straightway leaving her room by the high-built stair she descended;
Neither alone did she go; two maidens followed behind her.
So when at last she had come to the suitors, that fairest of women
Stood by the post of the door of the massively builded apartment,
Holding in front of her cheeks soft folds of her glistering head-dress.
There as she stood, with a trusty attendant on this and on that side,
Suddenly bursting in tears to the godlike bard she addressed her:
“Phemius, ...
... desist, I beseech, from the strain thou art singing,
Pitiful story, that ever the heart in the depths of my bosom
Woundeth....”_[8]
She is a touching figure, as she ventures out among the revellers and
begs the old man to change the theme of his lay. But Telemachus was not
in the mood to see the pathos of the scene. The charge that Athena had
laid on him had suddenly given him his manhood; and in the new sense of
responsibility, he spoke a little harshly to his mother, bidding her go
back to her loom and housewifery.
_Full of amazement she turned her to go to the women’s apartment,
Hiding the masterful words of her son deep down in her bosom.
So to her upper apartment ascending with maiden attendants
Here she lamented Odysseus her well-loved husband, till gently
Slumber was poured on her lids by the grey-eyed goddess Athene._[8]
While his mother slept, Telemachus lay awake in his own inner room
revolving plans whereby to carry out the command of Athena. He
determined first to confront the suitors publicly, before a formal
assembly of the Ithacans, and charge them with their insolence and
riotous greed. So, with the first light of morning, he summoned the
people to a meeting in the market-place, and called upon the wooers to
cease their persecution of his mother and quit his house. Antinous,
answering haughtily for them all, invented a coward’s excuses for their
conduct. Penelope was to blame, he said, for she would not decide
between them; but constantly put them off with various cunning devices.
With one pretext alone—that of weaving a shroud for Icarius—she had kept
them in suspense for many months.
_Thus then all of the day at the spacious loom she was weaving;
During the night she unravelled the web with the torches beside her.
Three long years with her secret device she befooled the Achaeans;
Till, when the fourth year came, and as season was followed by season,
Then at the last (since one of her women, who knew it, had told us),
While at the loom her magnificent web she unravelled, we caught her.
Thus was she forced, though sorely unwilling, to finish her labour._[8]
Therefore, declared Antinous, because Penelope had deceived them in this
manner, they would not depart until she had chosen a husband from among
them. Telemachus might spare his protests; indeed, he would be better
advised to coerce his mother, since they were determined to remain in
his house and devour his substance, until Penelope should yield. But
Telemachus was a child no longer, and could not be threatened with
impunity. And to their base suggestion that he should favour them
against his mother, he gave a spirited reply. Nothing should induce him
to give Penelope in marriage against her will:
“_Such word I will not utter. But for you,
If you take shame at all this wrong you do,
Quit these my halls...._
“_But if you deem it worthier still to sit,
As now, devouring one man’s livelihood
And rendering no recompense for it,_
“_Waste on: but to the deathless gods will I
Make my appeal, if haply Zeus on high
Repayment of your deeds exact from you.
So in this house you unavenged shall die._“[7]
The assembly broke up; and Telemachus hastily fitted out a ship and
sailed to seek Odysseus, all unknown to Penelope. The suitors continued
their carousals day after day, rioting and making merry, in feigned
contempt of Telemachus and his quest. But when after a time he did not
return, they grew uneasy. They had jeered at his threats of vengeance,
deeming him an untried boy; but who knew what might happen now, since he
had sailed with a crew of the stoutest fellows in the island? Might he
not return with help and drive them out? Antinous took counsel with his
friends, and determined on a murderous plan. They would man a ship, sail
after Telemachus, and lie in wait for his return, between the islands of
Ithaca and Samé; and that should be the last cruise that Telemachus
should make.
Meanwhile Penelope, busy with her household duties, believed her son to
be away with the flocks. She stayed within the women’s rooms; and except
for the clamour of the wooers, or the occasional song of the minstrel,
nothing came to her ears. But now Medon the herald heard of the plot
which was afoot against his young master, and came to warn her of it.
She greeted him with a bitter question. Had he come to order her maids
to spread the banquet for the suitors? Would that they might never feast
again! Had they not shame to deal so unjustly with her absent husband—he
who had always dealt justly with them, who had never in word or deed
done injury to any? But Medon had a harder thing yet to say; and as
gently as might be, he told her of the going of Telemachus and of the
suitors’ plot to slay him.
_Thus did he speak, and with knees and with heart all quaking she stood
there.
Speechless long she remained, struck mute, while gathering teardrops
Flooded her eyes, and the flow of her clear-voiced utterance failed,
Till at the last she recovered her speech and addressed him in answer:
“Wherefore, herald, I pray, is my son departed? He nowise
Needed to mount on a ship—on a swift-paced vessel that sailors
Ride as a horse and traverse the watery waste of the ocean.
Wills he that even his name no longer remain in remembrance?”_[8]
Penelope is overwhelmed with grief, and Medon’s explanation of her son’s
errand does not soothe her. She believes that he is lost to her for
ever, like his father; and when the herald has left her, she throws
herself down upon the floor of her room, wailing:
“_... sorrow hath Zeus the Olympian sent me
Passing the sorrows of all the friends and the mates of my childhood.
Erstwhile lost I a husband—my lord with the heart of a lion....
Now is my dearly belovèd, my son, swept hence by the storm-blasts,
Vanished from hearing and home....
Had I but known he was making him ready to fare on a journey,
Verily either at home he had stay’d, though bent on departure,
Else he had left me behind him dead in the halls of his homestead._“[8]
She casts about in her mind as to how she may save her son; and it seems
to her best to send a trusty messenger to the father of Odysseus, for
help and counsel. But the old nurse Euryclea gives good advice. She
confesses that she had known of the departure of Telemachus; but he had
sworn her with a great oath not to reveal it. It is of no use to mourn
about it; and since they can do nothing to bring him back, the better
way is to go and supplicate their guardian goddess, Athena, the Maid of
Zeus, for his safety. For her part, she believes that Telemachus will
not be forsaken in his need. Penelope wisely takes the advice of the old
nurse. She bathes, puts on clean raiment, and taking in her hand an
offering of barley-flour, she ascends to her own chamber and makes
supplication to Athena:
“_Hearken to my prayer this hour,_
“_Thou who hast thunder-bearing Zeus for Sire,
Maiden whose might no labour can out-tire!
If ever subtle-souled Odysseus here
Within these halls consumed upon the fire_
“_Fat thigh-pieces of ox or sheep to thee,
Remember it this day for good to me,
And save my son, and from us thrust away
The suitors in their evil surquedry._”
_Calling aloud so spake she, and her call
The goddess heard._[7]
[Illustration:
PENELOPE
_Patten Wilson_
]
Even while Penelope prayed, Athena was busy on her behalf; and was
bringing home to her both husband and son. Odysseus she had convoyed
safely to Ithaca, and was now leading him in disguise to the swineherd’s
cottage. And to Telemachus she had shown a way to escape the murderous
suitors, and was bringing him swiftly to the father whom he had never
seen. Of their meeting, and of their cunning plan for vengeance on the
suitors, it would take too long to tell. But in the morning, Penelope
was gladdened by the return of her son; and a little later, a poor old
beggar (no other than Odysseus himself) came among the suitors as they
sat in the hall. They glowered upon him angrily, and proud Antinous set
the vagabond Irus to fight him, for their sport. But the old beggar had
unexpected strength, and Irus was defeated. Whereon the suitors began to
bait Odysseus with jeers and taunts; and one hurled a stool at him. At
this impious deed, the guests were horrified; and Penelope, hearing of
it where she sat among her women, longed to make amends to the old man
for the cruel act. She descended into the great hall, and spoke
reprovingly to Telemachus for allowing one who had sought the shelter of
their home to be treated so basely.
“_What thing is this that hath befallen us
Within our halls that once were prosperous,
That you have suffered one who is your guest
To be despitefully entreated thus?_“[7]
But Telemachus hugged his secret knowledge of the beggar’s identity, and
kept silence, while Penelope returned to her bower. The hall was cleared
at last, and then he and his father laid their plans for the slaying of
the suitors on the following day. The noisy crew had all gone to rest;
and when Odysseus and his son had agreed upon a plan of action,
Telemachus followed them, leaving his father alone in the great hall. It
was a moment for which Penelope had been waiting; and she came down from
her room again, to question the beggar of his wanderings. There was no
light in the hall but that of the fire; and she ordered a cushioned
chair to be brought near, so that the old man might sit while she talked
with him.
“_Firstly of all, O stranger, I wish thee to answer a question:
Whence and what mortal thou beest? Tell too of thy city and
parents._“[8]
Cunning Odysseus evaded her question. She might ask him anything but
that, he said; for it gave him too much sorrow to think of his country
and his race. Penelope was only too willing to be turned aside, burning
as she was to ask for news of Odysseus. So she told the old man of her
husband, and of his sailing for Troy, and of how she was pining for his
return.
“_O that he came once more, and had care of my life as aforetime!
So were fairer my fame, and my lot more happy; for alway
Now I am sad—such woes hath a deity sent to assail me....
Wherefore little I care for my guests, or if beggars entreat me,
Little for heralds I care, who work for the weal of the people;
Wasted away is my heart as I yearn for Odysseus...._“[8]
She told him about the wooers, and the device of the shroud, which
gained her three years’ respite. But a treacherous servant had betrayed
her, and she had been compelled to finish her task.
“_Now can I neither escape from a marriage, nor yet am I able
Further device to discover; and urgently also my parents
Bid me to marry; and vexed is my son as they waste his possessions._“[8]
But having related so much of her own story, she asked again for the old
man’s name and race; and above all, would not he say whether he had seen
or heard aught of her husband? Odysseus needed all his subtlety now, as
he invented a tale of Crete and the great city of Cnossos, and Minos the
king who was his ancestor; and how on one occasion her husband had
indeed taken shelter with him there.
_Thus in the likeness of truth he related a tissue of falsehood.
Meantime, weeping she listened, her cheeks all flooded with teardrops,
Like as the snow when it melteth away from the heights of the mountains,
Thawed by the breath of the Eurus—the snow that the Zephyr hath
sprinkled._
_... And Odysseus,
Touched to the heart by the grief of his wife, felt tender compassion;
Yet did his eyes keep fixed, as of horn they had been or of iron,
Motionless under the lids. Tears came, but he skilfully hid them._[8]
There was one thing more which Odysseus must do before he could reveal
himself; and meantime he could only comfort Penelope by assuring her
that her husband still lived and was even now on his way home to her.
She shook her head sadly: that was too good to believe: the kind old man
was only trying to comfort her. But it was time for him to go to bed;
and because he disliked the giddy young serving-maids, Penelope called
up the old nurse Euryclea, and bade her wash the beggar’s feet with as
much care as if he were her master returned at last. That he was indeed
her master the nurse divined the instant that her fingers touched an old
scar upon his foot. But Odysseus hastily whispered her to say nothing of
what she had discovered; and soon the palace was asleep, with the old
beggar stretched upon sheepskins in the forecourt.
At dawn next morning Odysseus awoke, and prayed to Zeus to help him in
the great deed that he was to do that day. Soon the suitors were astir,
and the usual preparations were begun for the banquet. Penelope herself
came down from her room, to watch what would happen. For, as she had
told the beggar the night before, she could not withhold her decision
any longer. This day she must choose between the suitors. And because
they were all alike hateful to her she would decide the question by a
test: she would consent to take for her husband that man who could shoot
with Odysseus’ bow.
“_I now the suitors to that feat will call
Of axes, that he used to set in hall
Twelve in a row, like ship-stays, and far back
Standing would shoot an arrow through them all._
“_Now therefore to the suitors I will shew
This feat; and whoso in his hands the bow
Shall bend most easily, and down the line
Of the twelve axes make the arrow go,_
“_Him will I follow, putting far from me
This house of my espousals, fair to see
And full of substance, that I think in dreams
I shall remember through the days to be._“[7]
She went up into the high Treasure-chamber, and sorrowfully took down
the great bow that a friend in Sparta had given to Odysseus long ago.
She carried it forth among the suitors; and Telemachus, who was eager
for the contest which he knew would end for them in a shameful death,
swiftly set up the twelve axes in a row, through which they were to
shoot. Odysseus leaned silently against the door-post, still in his
beggar’s disguise; whilst one after another of the suitors tried to bend
the bow. But one after another miserably failed to bend it, although a
great fire was lit and a cake of lard was brought to make the bow
supple. At last, in rage and despair, they had to abandon the attempt;
and then Odysseus humbly asked if he might be allowed to try. This was a
pre-arranged signal between father and son; and in the instant outcry
that arose at the old man’s presumption, Penelope and her maids were led
away. Then Odysseus, with his son and two faithful serving-men who were
in the secret, made a bold attack upon the suitors. They were greatly
outnumbered, but their plans had been laid warily, and Athena was on
their side. Through a grim struggle they prevailed at last, and did not
cease until vengeance was complete and every evil suitor had been slain.
But Penelope, although she heard the horrible din in the hall below, had
no idea of its cause. It was probably, she thought, another of the
frequent brawls between these tumultuous wooers. She was still
completely ignorant of Odysseus’s return; and when the old nurse came
running to her with the joyful news, she believed her to be mad. She had
looked so long and so despairingly for this event that now it had come
she was utterly incredulous. Even when she heard all the ghastly story
of the slaying of the suitors, and came into the hall where her husband
stood awaiting her, she could not realize that it was he.