BOOK I._The Authoress of the Odyssey Where and when she wrote, who she was, the use she made of the Iliad, and how the poem grew under her hands

THE AUTHORESS

OF THE

ODYSSEY,

WHERE AND WHEN SHE WROTE, WHO SHE WAS, THE USE SHE

MADE OF THE _ILIAD_,

AND

HOW THE POEM GREW UNDER HER HANDS,

SAMUEL BUTLER

AUTHOR OF "EREWHON," "LIFE AND HABIT," "ALPS AND SANCTUARIES,"

"THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF DR. SAMUEL BUTLER," ETC.

"There is no single fact to justify a conviction," said Mr. Cock;

whereon the Solicitor General replied that he did not rely upon

any single fact, but upon a chain of facts, which taken all

together left no possible means of escape.

_Times_, Leader, Nov. 16, 1894.

(The prisoner was convicted).

New York

E. P. Dutton & Company

1922

[Illustration: Nausicaa (_See Preface_). (_Frontispiece_.)]

AL PROFESSORE

CAV. BIAGIO INGROIA,

PREZIOSO ALLEATO

L'AUTORE RICONOSCENTE.

PREFACE.

The following work consists in some measure of matter already

published in England and Italy during the last six years. The original

publications were in the _Athenæum_, Jan. 30 and Feb. 20, 1892, and in

the _Eagle_ for the Lent Term, 1892, and for the October Term, 1892.

Both these last two articles were re-published by Messrs. Metcalfe &

Co. of Cambridge, with prefaces, in the second case of considerable

length. I have also drawn from sundry letters and articles that

appeared in _Il Lambruschini_, a journal published at Trapani and

edited by Prof. Giacalone-Patti, in 1892 and succeeding years, as also

from two articles that appeared in the _Rassegna della Letteratura

Siciliana_, published at Acireale in the autumn of 1893 and of 1894,

and from some articles published in the _Italian Gazette_ (then edited

by Miss Helen Zimmern) in the spring of 1895.

Each of the publications above referred to contained some matter

which did not appear in the others, and by the help of local students

in Sicily, among whom I would name the late Signor E. Biaggini of

Trapani, Signor Sugameli of Trapani, and Cavaliere Professore Ingroia

of Calatafimi, I have been able to correct some errors and become

possessed of new matter bearing on my subject. I have now entirely

re-cast and re-stated the whole argument, adding much that has not

appeared hitherto, and dealing for the first time fully with the

question of the writer's sex.

No reply appeared to either of my letters to the _Athenœum_ nor to my

Italian pamphlets. It is idle to suppose that the leading Iliadic and

Odyssean scholars in England and the continent do not know what I have

said. I have taken ample care that they should be informed concerning

it. It is equally idle to suppose that not one of them should have

brought forward a serious argument against me, if there were any such

argument to bring. Had they brought one it must have reached me, and I

should have welcomed it with great pleasure; for, as I have said in my

concluding Chapter, I do not care whether the _Odyssey_ was written by

man or by woman, nor yet where the poet or poetess lived who wrote it;

all I care about is the knowing as much as I can about the poem; and I

believe that scholars both in England and on the continent would have

helped me to fuller understanding if they had seen their way to doing

so.

A new edition, for example, of Professor Jebb's _Introduction to Homer_

was published some six weeks after the first and more important of my

letters to the _Athenœum_ had appeared. It was advertised as "this

day" in the _Athenœum_ of March 12, 1892; so that if Professor Jebb had

wished to say anything against what had appeared in the _Athenœum_, he

had ample time to do so by way of postscript. I know very well what I

should have thought it incumbent upon me to do had I been in his place,

and found his silence more eloquent on my behalf than any words would

have been which he is at all likely to have written, or, I may add, to

write.

I repeat that nothing deserving serious answer has reached me from any

source during the six years, or so, that my Odyssean theories have been

before the public. The principal notices of them that have appeared so

far will be found in the _Spectator_, April 23, 1892; the _Cambridge

Observer_, May 31, 1892; the _Classical Review_ for November, 1892,

June, 1893, and February, 1895, and _Longman's Magazine_ (see _At the

Sign of the Ship_) for June, 1892.

My frontispiece is taken by the kind permission of the Messrs. Alinari

of Florence, from their photograph of a work in the museum at Cortona

called _La Musa Polinnia_. It is on slate and burnt, is a little more

than half life size, and is believed to be Greek, presumably of about

the Christian era, but no more precise date can be assigned to it. I

was assured at Cortona that it was found by a man who was ploughing his

field, and who happened to be a baker. The size being suitable he used

it for some time as a door for his oven, whence it was happily rescued

and placed in the museum where it now rests.

As regards the Greek text from which I have taken my abridged

translation, I have borne in mind throughout the admirable canons laid

down by Mr. Gladstone in his _Studies in Homer_, Oxford University

Press, 1858, Vol. I., p. 43. He holds:--

1. That we should adopt the text itself as the basis of all Homeric

enquiry, and not any preconceived theory nor any arbitrary standard of

criticism, referable to any particular periods, schools, or persons.

2. That as we proceed in any work of construction drawn from the text,

we should avoid the temptation to solve difficulties that lie in our

way by denouncing particular portions of it as corrupt or interpolated;

should never set it aside except on the closest examination of the

particular passage questioned; should use sparingly the liberty of even

arraying presumptions against it; and should always let the reader

understand both when and why it is questioned.

The only emendation I have ventured to make in the text is to read

Νηρίτῳ instead of Νηίῳ in i. 186 and ὑπονηρίτου for ὑπονηίου in iii.

81. A more speculative emendation in iv. 606, 607 I forbear even to

suggest. I know of none others that I have any wish to make. As for

interpolations I have called attention to three or four which I believe

to have been made at a later period by the writer herself, but have

seen no passage which I have been tempted to regard as the work of

another hand.

I have followed Mr. Gladstone, Lord Derby, Colonel Mure, and I may

add the late Professor Kennedy and the Rev. Richard Shilleto, men

who taught me what little Greek I know, in retaining the usual Latin

renderings of Greek proper names. What was good enough for the scholars

whom I have named is good enough for me, and I should think also for

the greater number of my readers. The public whom I am addressing

know the _Odyssey_ chiefly through Pope's translation, and will not,

I believe, take kindly to Odysseus for Ulysses, Aias for Ajax, and

Polydeukes for Pollux. Neither do I think that Hekabe will supersede

Hecuba, till

"What's Hecuba to him or he to Hecuba?"

is out of date.

I infer that the authorities of the British Museum are with me in this

matter, for on looking out Odysseus in the catalogue of the library I

find "See Ulysses."

Moreover the authors of this new nomenclature are not consistent. Why

not call Penelope Penelopeia? She is never called anything else in

the _Odyssey_. Why not Achilleus? Why not Bellerophontes? Why Hades,

when Ἀίδης has no aspirate? Why Helios instead of Eëlios? Why insist

on Achaians and Aitolians, but never on Aithiopians? Why not Athenæans

rather than Athenians? Why not Apollon? Why not either Odusseus, or

else Odysseys? and why not call him Oduseus or Odyseys whenever the

_Odyssey_ does so?

Admitting that the Greek names for gods and heroes may one day become

as familiar as the Latin ones, they have not become so yet, nor shall

I believe that they have done so, till I have seen Odysseus supplant

Ulysses on railway engines, steam tugs, and boats or ships. Jove,

Mercury, Minerva, Juno, and Venus convey a sufficiently accurate idea

to people who would have no ready made idea in connection with Zeus,

Hermes, Athene, Here, and Aphrodite. The personalities of the Latin

gods do not differ so much from those of the Greek, as, for example,

the Athene of the _Iliad_ does from the Athene of the _Odyssey_.

The personality of every god varies more or less with that of every

writer, and what little difference may exist between Greek and Roman

ideas of Jove, Juno, &c., is not sufficient to warrant the disturbance

of a nomenclature that has long since taken an established place in

literature.

Furthermore, the people who are most shocked by the use of Latin names

for Greek gods and heroes, and who most insist on the many small

innovations which any one who opens a volume of the _Classical Review_

may discover for himself, are the very ones who have done most to foist

Wolf and German criticism upon us, and who are most tainted with that

affectation of higher critical taste and insight, which men of the

world distrust, and which has brought the word "academic" into use

as expressive of everything which sensible people will avoid. I dare

not, therefore, follow these men till time has shown whether they are

faddists or no. Nevertheless, if I find the opinion of those whom I

respect goes against me in this matter, I shall adopt the Greek names

in any new edition of my book that may be asked for. I need hardly say

that I have consulted many excellent scholars as to which course I

should take, and have found them generally, though not always, approve

of my keeping to the names with which Pope and others have already

familiarised the public.

Since Chapter XIV. was beyond reach of modification, I have asked the

authorities of the British Museum to accept a copy of the _Odyssey_

with all the Iliadic passages underlined and referred to in M.S. I

have every reason to believe that this will very shortly be indexed

under my name, and (I regret to say) also under that of Homer. It

is my intention within the next few weeks to offer the Museum an

_Iliad_ with all passages borrowed by the writer of the _Odyssey_

underlined--reference being given to the Odyssean passage in which they

occur.

Lastly, I would express my great obligations to my friend Mr.

H. Festing Jones, who in two successive years has verified all

topographical details on the ground itself, and to whom I have referred

throughout my work whenever I have been in doubt or difficulty.

_September 27th, 1897_.

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION

It may be said that we owe this book, The Authoress of the Odyssey,

to Charles Lamb. Butler, in his early days, had read all the usual

English classics that young people read--Dickens, Tennyson, Thackeray,

Scott, Lamb, and so on; as he grew older, however, he became more

absorbed in his own work and had no time for general reading. When

people allege want of time as an excuse for not doing something,

they are usually trying to conceal their laziness. But laziness

was not the reason why Butler refused to read books except for the

purpose of whatever he was writing. It was that he was a martyr to

self-indulgence, and the sin that did most easily beset him was

over-work. He was St. Anthony, and the world of books was his desert,

full of charming appearances assumed by demons who were bent on luring

him to perdition. His refusal was not the cry of the slothful: "Yet

a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to

sleep"; it was the "Get thee behind me, Satan!" of one who is seeking

salvation. For he knew his weakness and that temptation comes in such

unexpected shapes that the only way of escape is by perpetual watching

and praying lest we fall. So he watched and prayed, and kept his powder

dry by minding his own business. The Devil, how- ever, was on the

watch also and had an inspiration; he baited his subtle hook with a

combination fly composed partly of the gentle Elia and partly of the

Rev. Canon Ainger. He knew that Butler, if he approached either of

these authors, would do so without suspicion, because he had looked

over his victim's shoulder one morning in the Reading Room of the

British Museum while he was making this note:

"Charles Lamb was like Mr. Darwin, 'a master of happy

simplicity.' Sometimes, of course, he says very good things,

at any rate some very good things have been ascribed to

him; but more commonly he is forced, faint, full of false

sentiment and prolix. I believe that he and his sister hated

one another, as only very near relations can hate. He made

capital out of his supposed admirable treatment of her. Aunt

Sarah likes him, so do most old maids who were told what

they ought to like about 55 yeara ago, but I never find men

whom I think well of admire him. As for Ainger's Life,

well, my sisters like it."

We need not agree, and I personally disagree, with Butler's view of

the relations between Charles and Mary Lamb, for it seems to me that

it is not supported by the Letters of Lamb. I do not suppose, however,

that Butler intended his words to be taken very seriously; nor are

they intended to be taken as direct abuse of Lamb. They are addressed

rather to Lamb's admirers, and are conceived in the spirit of the

Athenian, whose reason for helping to ostracise Aristides was that he

was so bored by hearing him perpetually called "the Just." They are

Butler's way of saying: "Don't you go and suppose that I should ever

have anything to do with self-sacrifice and devotion." And yet his

own life shows that he was himself capable of both; but, like many

Englishmen, he was shy of displaying emotion or of admitting that he

experienced it. When we remember that he had not read the Letters we

can understand his being put off Lamb first by the Essays, and then by

the admirers --Aunt Sarah, the old maids, and Canon Ainger. We must

also remember that Canon Ainger used to go and stay down at Shrewsbury

with a clergyman who, among other dissipations which he organised for

his guest, took him to tea with Butler's sisters, where he played on

their old piano which had been chosen by Mendelssohn. Nevertheless it

might have been better for Butler if he had not made the note, for

retribution followed.

In June, 1886, while we were completing the words and music of our

cantata Narcissus, which was published in 1888, Butler wrote to Miss

Butler:

"The successor of Narcissus is to be called Ulysses; and

is this time a serious work dealing with the wanderings of

the real Ulysses, and treating the subject much as Hercules

or Semele was treated by Handel. We think we could get some

sailor choruses, and some Circe and pig choruses, and the

sirens, and then Penelope and her loom all afford scope.

I made up my mind about it when I read Charles Lamb's

translation of parts of the 'Odyssey' in Ainger's book, but

please don't say anything about it." {Memoir, II, 38.)

The serpent was lurking within the leaves of Ainger's book, and

Butler was beguiled. The idea of using the story of the "Odyssey" for

the words of an oratorio led him on to re-reading the poem in the

original; but he could not make much progress just then because after

his father's death, in December, 1886, he came into possession of all

his grandfather's papers, and succumbed to the temptation of reading

them and of writing Dr. Butler's life. When he did settle down to the

poem it fascinated him, and there followed the further irresistible

temptation of translating it. His grandfather's life still kept him so

fully occupied that he did not reach Book ix till 1891; and then, as

he writes in Chapter i of The Authoress of the Odyssey: "It was not

till I got to Circe that it flashed upon me that I was reading the work

not of an old man but of a young woman." And on a letter of 9th August,

1891, which I sent to him at Chiavenna, he made this note:

"It was during the few days that I was at Chiavenna (at the

Hotel Grotta Crimee) that I hit upon the female authorship

of the 'Odyssey.' I did not find out its having been written

at Trapani till 1892."

Between 1892, when he made this discovery, and 1902, when he died,

Butler published the Life and Letters of Dr. Samuel Butler, Erewhon

Revisited, and a new and revised edition of Erewhon. These three

books were the working off of material which was already in his mind,

but everything else published during the last decade of his life grew

directly out of the "Odyssey." There was a pamphlet entitled The

Humour of Homer (1892), which was first delivered as a lecture at the

Working Men's College; there were two other pamphlets which appeared

in a Sicilian magazine (1893 and 1894), one of these being translated

into English and published in 1893; there were articles about his

Odyssean theories in The Italian Gazette, then under the editorship of

Miss Helen Zimmern, published in Florence. In 1897 came The Authoress

of the Odyssey; in 1898, The Iliad Rendered into English Prose; in

1899, Shakespeare's Sonnets Reconsidered; and in 1900, The Odyssey

Rendered into English Prose. Besides these publications there were

letters and articles about the "Odyssey" in the Athaeneum, the

Eagle and Il Lambruschini, a journal published at Trapani in Sicily.

The translation of the "Iliad" became a necessity when once that of the

"Odyssey" had been undertaken, and the book about the Sonnets was also

a consequence of the "Odyssey," for his interest in the problem of the

Sonnets, the work of the greatest poet of modern times, was aroused

by his interest in the problem of the "Odyssey," one of the two great

poems of antiquity. Besides all this he was engaged upon the words and

music of Ulysses, in making journeys to Sicily to pick up more facts

about the topography of Scheria, and in making a journey to Greece and

the Troad to investigate the geography of the "Iliad." Thus it may

be said that the last ten years of his life were overshadowed by the

"Odyssey," which dominated his thoughts--and not only his thoughts,

his letters were full of it and it was difficult to get him to talk of

anything else. I have little doubt that this perpetual preoccupation--I

may even say obsession--tended to shorten his life.

None of the eminent classical scholars paid any attention to Butler's

views on the "Odyssey," or if any did they did not say so in public,

and he resented their neglect. He was not looking for praise; as Sir

William Phipson Beale, one of his oldest friends, said to me very

acutely: "People misunderstood Butler; he did not want praise, he

wanted sympathy." It is true as he records in The Authoress (p. 269),

that "one of our most accomplished living scholars"--I do not know who

he was, though I no doubt heard at the time--chided him and accused him

of being ruthless. "I confess," said the scholar, "I do not give much

heed to the details on which you lay so much stress; I read the poem

not to theorise about it but to revel in its amazing beauty." This can

hardly be called sympathy. Butler comments upon it thus:

"It would shock me to think that I have done anything to

impair the sense of that beauty which I trust I share in

even measure with himself; but surely if the 'Odyssey' has

charmed us as a man's work, its charm and its wonder are

infinitely increased when we see it as a woman's."

Still there were some competent judges who approved. The late Lord

Grimthorpe interested himself in the problem, accepted Butler's views,

and gave him valuable suggestions about the description in the poem

of the hanging of those maidservants in Ithaca who had disgraced

themselves. Mr. Justice Wills also expressed agreement, but he did it

in a letter to me after Butler's death. These names are mentioned in

the Memoir, and there is another name which ought to have appeared

there, but I overlooked the note at the right moment.

Butler delivered at the Fabian Society a lecture entitled, "Was the

'Odyssey' written by a Woman?" At the close of the lecture Mr. Bernard

Shaw got up and said that when he had first heard of the title he

supposed it was some fad or fancy of Butler's, but that on turning

to the "Odyssey" to see what could have induced him to take it up he

had not read a hundred lines before he found himself saying: "Why,

of course it was!" And he spoke so strongly that people who had only

laughed all though the lecture began to think there might be something

in it after all.

These, however, were not the eminent Homeric scholars to whom Butler

looked for sympathy. He was disappointed by the silence of the

orthodox, and it was here that Charles Lamb got in his revenge, for the

situation never would have arisen if it had not been for that fatal

reading of "Charles Lamb's translation of parts of the 'Odyssey' in

Ainger's book."

When Keats first looked into Chapman's Homer the result was the famous

sonnet. When Lamb did the same thing the result was "a juvenile book,

The Adventures of Ulysses." He wrote to Manning, 26th February, 1808:

"It is done out of the 'Odyssey,' not from the Greek (I

would not mislead you), nor yet from Pope's 'Odyssey,' but

from an older translation of one Chapman. The Shakespeare

Tales suggested the doing of it."

I suppose that by "Ainger's book" Butler means Charles Lamb in the

"English Men of Letters Series," edited by John Morley and published

by Macmillan in 1878; at least I do not find any other book by Ainger

about Lamb which contains any mention of The Adventures of Ulysses

between that date and the date of Butler's letter to his sister in

1886. If I remember right Butler saw "Ainger's book" at Shrewsbury

when he was staying with his sisters, and I like to think that it was

a copy given to them by the author. But I doubt whether he can have

done more than look into it; if he had read it with attention he would

scarcely have spoken of Lamb's work as translation. I imagine that he

listlessly took the book up off the drawing-room table, and, happening

to open it at page 68, saw that Lamb had written The Adventures of

Ulysses; this would be enough to suggest the story of the "Odyssey"

to him, and he must have missed or forgotten Ainger's statement that

Lamb said to Bernard Barton: "Chapman is divine and my abridgement has

not quite emptied him of his divinity." What concerns us now, however,

is to note the result on Butler, which was that he embarked upon all

this apparently fruitless labour. It is interesting to note also that

as Lamb, by writing the Tales from Shakespeare, had been led to the

"Odyssey," so Butler, by choosing Ulysses as the hero of our oratorio,

was led, in a contrary direction, to the Sonnets.

We must now come nearer to modern times. The Authoress of the Odyssey

appeared in 1897, and Butler's Translation in 1900--that is about

twenty years ago; during which period, sympathy or no sympathy, the

books must have had a good many readers, perhaps among the general

public rather than among classical scholars, for now, in 1921, the

stock is exhausted and new editions of both are wanted. They have been

reset entirely, misprints and obvious mistakes have been corrected,

the index has been revised, and there are a few minor typographical

changes; but nothing has been done which could be called editing,

bringing up to date, adding supplementary matter, dissenting or

recording dissent from any of the author's views. The size of the

original page has been reduced so as to make the books uniform with

Butler's other works; and, fortunately, it has generally been possible,

by using a smaller type, to get the same number of words into each

page, so that the pagination is scarcely altered and the references

remain good. Except for the alterations about to be noted (in respect

of The Authoress), the books are faithful reprints of the original

editions.

(a) About three lines have been interpolated on page 207 which upsets

the pagination until page 209. The interpolation, which is taken

from a note by Butler in his copy of the work, is to the effect that

the authoress, in Book vii, line 137, almost calls her countrymen

scoundrels by saying that they made their final drink-offerings not

to Jove but to Mercury, the god of thieves. On this passage there is

a note in the Translation saying that the poet here intends hidden

malice; but, except for this interpolation, attention does not appear

to be called to the malice anywhere else in The Authoress.

(b) The note on page 214 is so printed that the pagination is upset for

one page.

of Ulysses is now given on a separate page, whereas formerly it was in

the text, therefore the pagination is thrown out from page 227 until

the end of the chapter, page 231. Doubt has recently been cast upon

the accuracy of the statement on pp. 226-7, that this coin certainly

belongs to the Eryx and Segesta group.

(d) Some of the headlines have been shortened because of the reduction

in the size of the page, and here advantage has been taken of various

corrections of and additions to the headlines and shoulder-notes made

by Butler in his own copies of the two books.

(e) For the most part each of the illustrations now occupies a page,

whereas in the original editions they generally appeared two on one

page. It has been necessary to reduce the plan of the House of Ulysses.

On page 31 this note occurs: "Scheria means Jutland--a piece of land

jutting out into the sea." Butler afterwards found that Jutland means

the land of the Jutes, and has nothing to do with jutting. A note to

this effect is in The Notebooks of Samuel Butler, p. 350.

On page 153 Butler says: "No great poet would compare his hero to a

paunch full of blood and fat cooking before the fire (xx, 24-28)." This

passage is not given in the abridged "Story of the Odyssey" at the

beginning of the book, but in Butler's Translation it occurs in these

words:

"Thus he chided with his heart, and checked it into

endurance, but he tossed about as one who turns a paunch

full of blood and fat in front of a hot fire, doing it first

on one side then on the other, that he may get it cooked as

soon as possible; even so did he turn himself about from

side to side, thinking all the time how, single-handed as he

was, he should contrive to kill so large a body of men as

the wicked suitors."

It looks as though in the interval between the publication of The

Authoress (1897) and of the Translation (1900) Butler had changed his

mind; for in the first case the comparison is between Ulysses and a

paunch full, etc., and in the second it is between Ulysses and a man

who turns a paunch full, etc. The second comparison is perhaps one

which a great poet might make.

In seeing the works through the press I have had the invaluable

assistance of Mr. A. T. Bartholomew of the University Library,

Cambridge, and of Mr. Donald S. Robertson, Fellow of Trinity College,

Cambridge. To both these friends I give my most cordial thanks for

the care and skill exercised by them. Mr. Robertson has found time

for the labour of checking and correcting all the quotations from and

references to the "Iliad" and "Odyssey," and I believe that it could

not have been better performed* It was, I know, a pleasure for him; and

it would have been a pleasure also for Butler if he could have known

th£t his work was being shepherded by the son of his old friend, Mr. H.

R. Robertson, who more than a half a century ago was a fellow-student

with him at Cary's School of Art in Streatham Street, Bloomsbury.

HENRY FESTING JONES.

120 Maida Vale, W.9.

4th December, 1921.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

IMPORTANCE OF THE ENQUIRY--THE STEPS WHEREBY I WAS LED TO MY

CONCLUSIONS--THE MULTITUDE OF EARLY GREEK POETESSES REMOVES

ANY _À PRIORI_ DIFFICULTY--THE MUSES AND MINERVA AS HEADS

OF LITERATURE--MAN, RATHER THAN WOMAN, THE INTERLOPER

CHAPTER II.

THE STORY OF THE ODYSSEY

Book i. The council of the gods--Telemachus and the suitors in

the house of Ulysses

Book ii. Assembly of the people of Ithaca--Telemachus starts for

Pylos

Book iii. Telemachus at the house of Nestor

Book iv. Telemachus at the house of Menelaus--The suitors

resolve to lie in wait for him as he returns, and

murder him

Book v. Ulysses in the island of Calypso--He leaves the island

on a raft, and after great suffering reaches the land

of the Phæacians

Book vi. The meeting between Ulysses and Nausicaa

Book vii. The splendours of the house of King Alcinous--Queen

Arete wants to know how Ulysses got his shirt and

cloak, for she knows them as her own work. Ulysses

explains

Book viii. The Phæacian games and banquet in honour of Ulysses 37

Book ix. The voyages of Ulysses--The Cicons, Lotus-eaters, and the

Cyclops Polyphemus

Book x. Æolus--The Læstrygonians--Circe

Book xi. Ulysses in the house of Hades

Book xii. The Sirens--Scylla and Charybdis--The cattle of the Sun

Book xiii. Ulysses is taken back to Ithaca by the Phæacians

Book xiv. Ulysses in the hut of Eumæus

Book xv. Telemachus returns from Pylos, and on landing goes to the

hut of Eumæus

Book xvi. Ulysses and Telemachus become known to one another

Book xvii. Telemachus goes to the town, and is followed by Eumæus

and Ulysses, who is maltreated by the suitors

Book xviii. The fight between Ulysses and Irus--The suitors make

presents to Penelope--and ill-treat Ulysses

Book xix. Ulysses converses with Penelope, and is recognised by

Euryclea

Book xx. Ulysses converses with Eumæus, and with his herdsman

Philœtius--The suitors again maltreat him--Theoclymenus

foretells their doom and leaves the house

Book xxi. The trial of the bow and of the axes

Book xxii. The killing of the suitors

Book xxiii. Penelope comes down to see Ulysses, and being at last

convinced that he is her husband, retires with him to

their own old room--In the morning Ulysses, Telemachus,

Philœtius, and Eumæus go to the house of Laertes 96

Book xxiv. The Ghosts of the suitors in Hades--Ulysses sees his

father--is attacked by the friends of the suitors

--Laertes kills Eupeithes--Peace is made between him

and the people of Ithaca

CHAPTER III.

THE PREPONDERANCE OF WOMAN IN THE ODYSSEY 105

CHAPTER IV.

JEALOUSY FOR THE HONOUR AND DIGNITY OF WOMAN--SEVERITY

AGAINST THOSE WHO HAVE DISGRACED THEIR SEX--LOVE OF SMALL

RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES--OF PREACHING--OF WHITE LIES AND

SMALL PLAY-ACTING--OF HAVING THINGS BOTH WAYS--AND OF MONEY

CHAPTER V.

ON THE QUESTION WHETHER OR NO PENELOPE IS BEING WHITEWASHED

CHAPTER VI.

FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS REGARDING THE CHARACTER OF

PENELOPE--THE JOURNEY OF TELEMACHUS TO LACEDÆMON 134

CHAPTER VII.

FURTHER INDICATIONS THAT THE WRITER IS A WOMAN--YOUNG

--HEADSTRONG--AND UNMARRIED

CHAPTER VIII.

THAT ITHACA AND SCHERIA ARE BOTH OF THEM DRAWN FROM TRAPANI

AND ITS IMMEDIATE NEIGHBOURHOOD

CHAPTER IX.

THE IONIAN AND THE ÆGADEAN ISLANDS--THE VOYAGES OF ULYSSES

SHOWN TO BE PRACTICALLY A SAIL ROUND SICILY FROM TRAPANI TO

TRAPANI

CHAPTER X.

FURTHER DETAILS REGARDING THE VOYAGES OF ULYSSES, TO

CONFIRM THE VIEW THAT THEY WERE A SAIL ROUND SICILY,

BEGINNING AND ENDING WITH MT. ERYX AND TRAPANI

CHAPTER XI.

WHO WAS THE WRITER?

CHAPTER XII.

THE DATE OF THE POEM, AND A COMPARISON OF THE STATE OF

THE NORTH WESTERN PART OF SICILY AS REVEALED TO US IN THE

ODYSSEY, WITH THE ACCOUNT GIVEN BY THUCYDIDES OF THE SAME

TERRITORY IN THE EARLIEST KNOWN TIMES

CHAPTER XIII.

FURTHER EVIDENCE IN SUPPORT OF AN EARLY IONIAN SETTLEMENT

AT OR CLOSE TO TRAPANI

CHAPTER XIV.

THAT THE ILIAD WHICH THE WRITER OF THE ODYSSEY KNEW WAS THE

SAME AS WHAT WE NOW HAVE

CHAPTER XV.

THE ODYSSEY IN ITS RELATION TO THE OTHER POEMS OF THE

TROJAN CYCLE, AND ITS DEVELOPMENT IN THE HANDS OF THE

AUTHORESS

CHAPTER XVI.

CONCLUSION

INDEX.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Frontispiece, Nausicaa.

The house of Ulysses

The cave of Polyphemus

Signor Sugameli and the author in the cave of Polyphemus

Map of Trapani and Mt. Eryx

The harbour Rheithron, now salt works of S. Cusumano

Mouth of the harbour Rheithron, now silted up

Map of the Ionian Islands

Map of the Ægadean Islands

Trapani from Mt. Eryx, showing Marettimo (Ithaca)

"all highest up in the sea"

Map of the voyage of Ulysses

Wall at Cefalù, rising from the sea

Megalithic remains on the mountain behind Cefalù

H. Festing Jones, Esq., in flute of column at Selinunte

Remains of megalithic wall on Mt. Eryx

Wall at Hissarlik, showing the effects of weathering

The Iliadic wall

A coin bearing the legend Iakin, and also showing

the brooch of Ulysses.

THE AUTHORESS OF THE ODYSSEY.

CHAPTER I.

IMPORTANCE OF THE ENQUIRY--THE STEPS WHEREBY I WAS

LED TO MY CONCLUSIONS--THE MULTITUDE OF EARLY GREEK

POETESSES REMOVES ANY _À PRIORI_ DIFFICULTY--THE

MUSES AND MINERVA AS HEADS OF LITERATURE--MAN, RATHER

THAN WOMAN, THE INTERLOPER.

If the questions whether the _Odyssey_ was written by a man or a

woman, and whether or no it is of exclusively Sicilian origin, were

pregnant with no larger issues than the determination of the sex and

abode of the writer, it might be enough merely to suggest the answers

and refer the reader to the work itself. Obviously, however, they have

an important bearing on the whole Homeric controversy; for if we find

a woman's hand omnipresent throughout the _Odyssey_, and if we also

find so large a number of local details, taken so exclusively and so

faithfully from a single Sicilian town as to warrant the belief that

the writer must have lived and written there, the presumption seems

irresistible that the poem was written by a single person. For there

can hardly have been more than one woman in the same place able to

write such--and such homogeneous--poetry as we find throughout the

_Odyssey_.

Many questions will become thus simplified. Among others we can limit

the date of the poem to the lifetime of a single person, and if we

find, as I believe we shall, that this person in all probability

flourished, roughly between 1050 and 1000 B.C., if, moreover, we can

show, as we assuredly can, that she had the _Iliad_ before her much as

we have it now, quoting, consciously or unconsciously, as freely from

the most suspected parts as from those that are admittedly Homer's, we

shall have done much towards settling the question whether the _Iliad_

also is by one hand or by many.

Not that this question ought to want much settling. The theory that

the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ were written each of them by various hands,

and pieced together in various centuries by various editors, is not

one which it is easy to treat respectfully. It does not rest on the

well established case of any other poem so constructed; literature

furnishes us with no poem whose genesis is known to have been such as

that which we are asked to foist upon the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_. The

theory is founded on a supposition as to the date when writing became

possible, which has long since been shown to be untenable; not only

does it rest on no external evidence, but it flies in the face of what

little external evidence we have. Based on a base that has been cut

from under it, it has been sustained by arguments which have never

succeeded in leading two scholars to the same conclusions, and which

are of that character which will lead any one to any conclusion however

preposterous, which he may have made up his mind to consider himself as

having established. A writer in the _Spectator_ of Jan. 2, 1892, whose

name I do not know, concluded an article by saying,

That the finest poem of the world was created out of the

contributions of a multitude of poets revolts all our

literary instincts.

Of course it does, but the Wolfian heresy, more or less modified, is

still so generally accepted both on the continent and in England that

it will not be easy to exterminate it.

Easy or no this is a task well worth attempting, for Wolf's theory

has been pregnant of harm in more ways than are immediately apparent.

Who would have thought of attacking Shakspeare's existence--for if

Shakspeare did not write his plays he is no longer Shakspeare--unless

men's minds had been unsettled by Wolf's virtual denial of Homer's?

Who would have reascribed picture after picture in half the galleries

of Europe, often wantonly, and sometimes in defiance of the clearest

evidence, if the unsettling of questions concerning authorship had not

been found to be an easy road to reputation as a critic? Nor does there

appear to be any end to it, for each succeeding generation seems bent

on trying to surpass the recklessness of its predecessor.

And more than this, the following pages will read a lesson of another

kind, which I will leave the reader to guess at, to men whom I will not

name, but some of whom he may perhaps know, for there are many of them.

Indeed I have sometimes thought that the sharpness of this lesson may

be a more useful service than either the establishment of the points

which I have set myself to prove, or the dispelling of the nightmares

of Homeric extravagance which German professors have evolved out of

their own inner consciousness.

Such language may be held to come ill from one who is setting himself

to maintain two such seeming paradoxes as the feminine authorship, and

Sicilian origin, of the _Odyssey_. One such shock would be bad enough,

but two, and each so far-reaching, are intolerable. I feel this, and am

oppressed by it. When I look back on the record of Iliadic and Odyssean

controversy for nearly 2500 years, and reflect that it is, I may say,

dead against me; when I reflect also upon the complexity of academic

interests, not to mention the commercial interests vested in well-known

school books and so-called education--how can I be other than dismayed

at the magnitude, presumption, and indeed utter hopelessness, of the

task I have undertaken?

How can I expect Homeric scholars to tolerate theories so subversive

of all that most of them have been insisting on for so many years?

It is a matter of Homeric (for my theory affects Iliadic questions

nearly as much as it does the _Odyssey_) life and death for them or

for myself. If I am right they have invested their reputation for

sagacity in a worthless stock. What becomes, for example, of a great

part of Professor Jebb's well-known _Introduction to Homer_--to quote

his shorter title--if the _Odyssey_ was written all of it at Trapani,

all of it by one hand, and that hand a woman's? Either my own work is

rubbish, in which case it should not be hard to prove it so without

using discourteous language, or not a little of theirs is not worth the

paper on which it is written. They will be more than human, therefore,

if they do not handle me somewhat roughly.

As for the _Odyssey_ having been written by a woman, they will tell me

that I have not even established a _primâ facie_ case for my opinion.

Of course I have not. It was Bentley who did this, when he said that

the _Iliad_ was written for men, and the _Odyssey_ for women.[1] The

history of literature furnishes us with no case in which a man has

written a great masterpiece for women rather than men. If an anonymous

book strikes so able a critic as having been written for women, a

_primâ facie_ case is established for thinking that it was probably

written by a woman. I deny, however, that the _Odyssey_ was written for

women; it was written for any one who would listen to it. What Bentley

meant was that in the _Odyssey_ things were looked at from a woman's

point of view rather than a man's, and in uttering this obvious truth,

I repeat, he established once for all a strong _primâ facie_ case for

thinking that it was written by a woman.

If my opponents can fasten a cavil on to the ninth part of a line of

my argument, they will take no heed of, and make no reference to,

the eight parts on which they dared not fasten a misrepresentation

however gross. They will declare it fatal to my theory that there were

no Greek-speaking people at Trapani when the _Odyssey_ was written.

Having fished up this assertion from the depths of their ignorance

of what Thucydides, let alone Virgil, has told us,--or if they set

these writers on one side, out of their still profounder ignorance of

what there was or was not at Trapani in the eleventh century before

Christ--they will refuse to look at the internal evidence furnished

by the _Odyssey_ itself. They will ignore the fact that Thucydides

tells us that "Phocians of those from Troy," which as I will show

(see Chapter XII.) can only mean Phocæans, settled at Mount Eryx, and

ask me how I can place Phocæans on Mount Eryx when Thucydides says it

was Phocians who settled there? They will ignore the fact that even

though Thucydides had said "Phocians" without qualifying his words by

adding "of those from Troy," or "of the Trojan branch," he still places

Greek-speaking people within five miles of Trapani.

As for the points of correspondence between both Ithaca and Scheria,

and Trapani, they will remind me that Captain Fluelen found

resemblances between Monmouth and Macedon, as also Bernardino Caimi

did between Jerusalem and Varallo-Sesia; they will say that if mere

topographical resemblances are to be considered, the Channel Islands

are far more like the Ionian group as described in the _Odyssey_ than

those off Trapani are, while Balaclava presents us with the whole

Scherian combination so far more plausibly than Trapani as to leave no

doubt which site should be preferred. I have not looked at the map of

Balaclava to see whether this is so or no, nor yet at other equally

promising sites which have been offered me, but am limiting myself to

giving examples of criticisms which have been repeatedly passed upon

my theory during the last six years, and which I do not doubt will be

repeatedly passed upon it in the future.

On the other hand I may comfort myself by reflecting that however

much I may deserve stoning there is no one who can stone me with a

clear conscience. Those who hold, as most people now do, that the

_Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ belong to ages separated from one another by

some generations, must be haunted by the reflection that though the

diversity of authorship was prominently insisted on by many people more

than two thousand years ago, not a single Homeric student from those

days to the end of the last century could be brought to acknowledge

what we now deem self-evident. Professor Jebb, writing of Bentley,[2]

says

He had not felt what is now so generally admitted, that

the _Odyssey_ bears the marks of a later time than the

_Iliad_.

How came so great a man as Bentley not to see what is so obvious?

Truly, as has been said by Mr. Gladstone, if Homer is old, the

systematic and comprehensive study of him is still young.[3]

I shall not argue the question whether the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ are

by the same person, inasmuch as if I convince the reader that the

_Odyssey_ was written by a woman and in Sicily, it will go without

saying that it was not written by Homer; for there can be no doubt

about the sex of the writer of the _Iliad_. The same canons which

will compel us to ascribe the _Odyssey_ to a woman forbid any other

conclusion than that the _Iliad_ was written by a man. I shall

therefore proceed at once to the question whether the _Odyssey_ was

written by a man or by a woman.

It is an old saying that no man can do better for another than he can

for himself, I may perhaps therefore best succeed in convincing the

reader if I retrace the steps by which I arrived at the conclusions I

ask him to adopt.

I was led to take up the _Odyssey_ by having written the libretto and

much of the music for a secular oratorio, _Ulysses_, on which my friend

Mr. H. Festing Jones and I had been for some time engaged. Having

reached this point it occurred to me that I had better after all see

what the _Odyssey_ said, and finding no readable prose translation, was

driven to the original, to which I had not given so much as a thought

for some five and thirty years.

The Greek being easy, I had little difficulty in understanding what I

read, and I had the great advantage of coming to the poem with fresh

eyes. Also, I read it all through from end to end, as I have since many

times done.

Fascinated, however, as I at once was by its amazing interest and

beauty, I had an ever-present sense of a something wrong, of a

something that was eluding me, and of a riddle which I could not read.

The more I reflected upon the words, so luminous and so transparent,

the more I felt a darkness behind them, that I must pierce before I

could see the heart of the writer--and this was what I wanted; for art

is only interesting in so far as it reveals an artist.

In the hope of getting to understand the poem better I set about

translating it into plain prose, with the same benevolent leaning, say,

towards Tottenham Court Road, that Messrs. Butcher and Lang have shewn

towards Wardour Street. I admit, however, that Wardour Street English

has something to say for itself. The "Ancient Mariner," for example,

would have lost a good deal if it had been called "The Old Sailor," but

on the whole I take it that a tale so absolutely without any taint of

affectation as the _Odyssey_ will speed best being unaffectedly told.

When I came to the Phæacian episode I felt sure that here at any rate

the writer was drawing from life, and that Nausicaa, Queen Arete, and

Alcinous were real people more or less travestied, and on turning

to Colonel Mure's work[4] I saw that he was of the same opinion.

Nevertheless I found myself continually aghast at the manner in which

men were made to speak and act--especially, for example, during the

games in honour of _Ulysses_ described in Book viii. Colonel Mure says

(p. 407) that "the women engross the chief part of the small stock

of common sense allotted to the community." So they do, but it never

occurred to me to ask myself whether men commonly write brilliant

books in which the women are made more sensible than the men. Still

dominated by the idea that the writer was a man, I conjectured that he

might be some bard, perhaps blind, who lived among the servants much

as the chaplain in a great house a couple of hundred years ago among

ourselves. Such a bard, even though not blind, would only see great

people from a distance, and would not mix with them intimately enough

to know how they would speak and act among themselves. It never even

crossed my mind that it might have been the commentators who were

blind, and that they might have thus come to think that the poet must

have been blind too.

The view that the writer might have lived more in the steward's room

than with the great people of the house served (I say it with shame) to

quiet me for a time, but by and by it struck me that though the men

often both said and did things that no man would say or do, the women

were always ladies when the writer chose to make them so. How could it

be that a servant's hall bard should so often go hopelessly wrong with

his men, and yet be so exquisitively right with every single one of his

women? But still I did not catch it. It was not till I got to Circe

that it flashed upon me that I was reading the work, not of an old man,

but of a young woman--and of one who knew not much more about what men

can and cannot do than I had found her know about the milking of ewes

in the cave of Polyphemus.

The more I think of it the more I wonder at my own stupidity, for I

remember that when I was a boy at school I used to say the _Odyssey_

was the _Iliad's_ wife, and that it was written by a clergyman.

But however this may be, as soon as the idea that the writer was a

woman--and a young one--presented itself to me, I felt that here was

the reading of the riddle that had so long baffled me. I tried to

divest myself of it, but it would not go; as long as I kept to it,

everything cohered and was in its right place, and when I set it aside

all was wrong again; I did not seek my conclusion; I did not even know

it by sight so as to look for it; it accosted me, introduced itself as

my conclusion, and vowed that it would never leave me; whereon, being

struck with its appearance, I let it stay with me on probation for a

week or two during which I was charmed with the propriety of all it

said or did, and then bade it take rank with the convictions to which I

was most firmly wedded; but I need hardly say that it was a long time

before I came to see that the poem was all of it written at Trapani,

and that the writer had introduced herself into her work under the name

of Nausicaa.

I will deal with these points later, but would point out that the

moment we refuse to attribute the _Odyssey_ to the writer of the

_Iliad_ (whom we should alone call Homer) it becomes an anonymous

work; and the first thing that a critic will set himself to do when

he considers an anonymous work is to determine the sex of the writer.

This, even when women are posing as men, is seldom difficult--indeed

it is done almost invariably with success as often as an anonymous

work is published--and when any one writes with the frankness and

spontaneity which are such an irresistible charm in the _Odyssey_, it

is not only not difficult but exceedingly easy; difficulty will only

arise, if the critic is, as we have all been in this case, dominated by

a deeply-rooted preconceived opinion, and if also there is some strong

_à priori_ improbability in the supposition that the writer was a woman.

It may be urged that it is extremely improbable that any woman in

any age should write such a masterpiece as the _Odyssey_. But so

it also is that any man should do so. In all the many hundreds of

years since the _Odyssey_ was written, no man has been able to write

another that will compare with it. It was extremely improbable that

the son of a Stratford wool-stapler should write _Hamlet_, or that a

Bedfordshire tinker should produce such a masterpiece as _Pilgrim s

Progress_. Phenomenal works imply a phenomenal workman, but there are

phenomenal women as well as phenomenal men, and though there is much

in the _Iliad_ which no woman, however phenomenal, can be supposed

at all likely to have written, there is not a line in the _Odyssey_

which a woman might not perfectly well write, and there is much beauty

which a man would be almost certain to neglect. Moreover there are

many mistakes in the _Odyssey_ which a young woman might easily make,

but which a man could hardly fall into--for example, making the wind

whistle over waves at the end of Book ii., thinking that a lamb could

live on two pulls a day at a ewe that was already milked (ix. 244, 245,

and 308, 309), believing a ship to have a rudder at both ends (ix. 483,

540), thinking that dry and well-seasoned timber can be cut from a

growing tree (v. 240), making a hawk while still on the wing tear its

prey--a thing that no hawk can do (xv. 527).

I see that Messrs. Butcher and Lang omit ix. 483 in which the rudder

is placed in the bows of a ship, but it is found in the text, and is

the last kind of statement a copyist would be inclined to intercalate.

Yet I could have found it in my heart to conceive the text in fault,

had I not also found the writer explaining in Book v. 255 that Ulysses

gave his raft a rudder "in order that he might be able to steer it."

People whose ideas about rudders have become well defined will let the

fact that a ship is steered by means of its rudder go without saying.

Furthermore, not only does she explain that Ulysses would want a rudder

to steer with, but later on (line 270) she tells us that he actually

did use the rudder when he had made it, and, moreover, that he used it

τεχνηέντως, or skilfully.

Young women know that a horse goes before a cart, and being told that

the rudder guides the ship, are apt--and I have more than once found

them do so--to believe that it goes in front of the ship. Probably the

writer of the _Odyssey_ forgot for the moment at which end the rudder

should be. She thought it all over yesterday, and was not going to

think it all over again to-day, so she put the rudder at both ends,

intending to remove it from the one that should prove to be the wrong

one; later on she forgot, or did not think it worth while to trouble

about so small a detail.

So with Calypso's axe (v. 234-36). No one who was used to handling an

axe would describe it so fully and tell us that it "suited Ulysses'

hands," and was furnished with a handle. I have heard say that a

celebrated female authoress was discovered to be a woman by her

having spoken of a two-foot _ruler_ instead of a two-foot _rule_, but

over minuteness of description is deeper and stronger evidence of

unfamiliarity than mistaken nomenclature is.

Such mistakes and self-betrayals as those above pointed out enhance

rather than impair the charm of the _Odyssey_. Granted that the

_Odyssey_ is inferior to the _Iliad_ in strength, robustness, and

wealth of poetic imagery, I cannot think that it is inferior in its

power of fascinating the reader. Indeed, if I had to sacrifice one or

the other, I can hardly doubt that I should let the _Iliad_ go rather

than the _Odyssey_--just as if I had to sacrifice either Mont Blanc or

Monte Rosa, I should sacrifice Mont Blanc, though I know it to be in

many respects the grander mountain of the two.[5]

It should go, however, without saying that much which is charming in

a woman's work would be ridiculous in a man's, and this is eminently

exemplified in the _Odyssey_. If a woman wrote it, it is as lovely as

the frontispiece of this volume, and becomes, if less vigorous, yet

assuredly more wonderful than the _Iliad_; if, on the other hand, it

is by a man, the half Bayeux tapestry, half Botticelli's Venus rising

from the sea, or Primavera, feeling with which it impresses us gives

place to astonishment how any man could have written it. What is a

right manner for a woman is a wrong one for a man, and _vice versa_.

Jane Austen's young men, for example, are seldom very interesting, but

it is only those who are blind to the exquisite truth and delicacy of

Jane Austen's work who will feel any wish to complain of her for not

understanding young men as well as she did young women.

The writer of a _Times_ leading article (Feb. 4th, 1897) says:

The sex difference is the profoundest and most far-reaching that exists

among human beings.... Women may or may not be the equals of men in

intelligence;... but women in the mass will act after the manner of

women, which is not and never can be the manner of men.

And as they will act, so will they write. This, however, does not make

their work any the less charming when it is good of its kind; on the

contrary, it makes it more so.

Dismissing, therefore, the difficulty of supposing that any woman could

write so wonderful a poem as the _Odyssey_, is there any _à priori_

obstacle to our thinking that such a woman may have existed, say, B.C.

1000? I know of none. Greek literature does not begin to dawn upon us

till about 600 B.C. Earlier than this date we have hardly anything

except the _Iliad_, _Odyssey_, and that charming writer Hesiod. When,

however, we come to the earliest historic literature we find that

famous poetesses abounded.

Those who turn to the article "Sappho" in Smith's _Dictionary of

Classical Biography_ will find Gorgo and Andromeda mentioned as her

rivals. Among her fellows were Anactoria of Miletus, Gongyle of

Colophon, Eunica of Salamis, Gyrinna, Atthis, and Mnasidica, "Those,"

says the writer, "who attained the highest celebrity for their works

were Damophylia the Pamphylian, and Erinna of Telos." This last-named

poetess wrote a long poem upon the distaff, which was considered equal

to Homer himself--the _Odyssey_ being probably intended.

Again, there was Baucis, who wrote Erinna's Epitaph. Turning to

Müller's work upon the Dorians, I find reference made to the amatory

poetesses of Lesbos. He tells us also of Corinna, who is said to have

competed successfully with Pindar, and Myrto, who certainly competed

with him, but with what success we know not. Again, there was Diotima

the Arcadian; and looking through Bergk's _Poetœ Lyrici Grœci_ I find

other names of women, fragments of whose works have readied us through

quotation by extant writers. Among the Hebrews there were Miriam,

Deborah, and Hannah, all of them believed to be centuries older than

the _Odyssey_.

If, then, poetesses were as abundant as we know them to have been in

the earliest known ages of Greek literature over a wide area in Greece,

Asia Minor, and the islands of the Ægæan, there is no ground for

refusing to admit the possibility that a Greek poetess lived in Sicily

B.C. 1000, especially when we know from Thucydides that the particular

part of Sicily where I suppose her to have lived was colonised from

the North West corner of Asia Minor centuries before the close of

the Homeric age. The civilisation depicted in the _Odyssey_ is as

advanced as any that is likely to have existed in Mitylene or Melos

600--500 B.C., while in both the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ the status

of women is represented as being much what it is at the present, and as

incomparably higher than it was in the Athenian civilisation with which

we are best acquainted. To imagine a great Greek poetess at Athens in

the age of Pericles would be to violate probability, but I might almost

say in an age when women were as free as they are represented to us in

the _Odyssey_ it is a violation of probability to suppose that there

were no poetesses.

We have no reason to think that men found the use of their tongue

sooner than women did; why then should we suppose that women lagged

behind men when the use of the pen had become familiar? If a woman

could work pictures with her needle as Helen did,[6] and as the wife of

William the Conqueror did in a very similiar civilisation, she could

write stories with her pen if she had a mind to do so.

The fact that the recognised heads of literature in the Homeric age

were the nine Muses--for it is always these or "The Muse" that is

involved, and never Apollo or Minerva--throws back the suggestion

of female authorship to a very remote period, when, to be an author

at all, was to be a poet, for prose writing is a comparatively late

development. Both _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ begin with an invocation

addressed to a woman, who, as the head of literature, must be supposed

to have been an authoress, though none of her works have come down to

us. In an age, moreover, when men were chiefly occupied either with

fighting or hunting, the arts of peace, and among them all kinds of

literary accomplishment, would be more naturally left to women. If the

truth were known, we might very likely find that it was man rather than

woman who has been the interloper in the domain of literature. Nausicaa

was more probably a survival than an interloper, but most probably of

all she was in the height of the fashion.

[1] See Introduction to the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_, by R. C. Jebb,

1888, p. 106.

[2] _Bentley_, Macmillan, 1892, p. 148.

[3] _Homer_, Macmillan, 1878, p. 2.

[4] _Language and Literature of Ancient Greece_, Longman, 1850, Vol. I,

p. 404.

[5] Shakespeare, of course, is the whole chain of the Alps, comprising

both Mont Blanc and Monte Rosa.

[6] _Iliad_, III. 126.

CHAPTER II.

THE STORY OF THE ODYSSEY.

It will help the reader to follow the arguments by which I shall

sustain the female authorship of the _Odyssey_, the fact of its being

written at Trapani on the west coast of Sicily, and its development

in the hands of the writer, if I lay before him an abridgement of

the complete translation that I have made, but not yet published. If

space permitted I should print my translation in full, but this is

obviously impossible, for what I give here is only about a fourth

of the whole poem. I have, therefore, selected those parts that

throw most light upon the subjects above referred to, with just so

much connecting matter as may serve to make the whole readable and

intelligible. I am aware that the beauty of the poem is thus fatally

marred, for it is often the loveliest passages that serve my purpose

least. The abridgement, therefore, that I here give is not to be

regarded otherwise than as the key-sketch which we so often see under

an engraving of a picture that contains many portraits. It is intended

not as a work of art, but as an elucidatory diagram.

As regards its closeness to the text, the references to the poem which

will be found at the beginning of each paragraph will show where the

abridgement has been greatest, and will also enable the reader to

verify the fidelity of the rendering either with the Greek or with

Messrs. Butcher and Lang's translation. I affirm with confidence that

if the reader is good enough to thus verify any passages that may

strike him as impossibly modern, he will find that I have adhered as

severely to the intention of the original as it was possible for me to

do while telling the story in my own words and abridging it.

One of my critics, a very friendly one, has told me that I have

"distorted the simplicity of the _Odyssey_ in order to put it in a

ludicrous light." I do not think this. I have revealed, but I have

not distorted. I should be shocked to believe for one moment that I

had done so. True, I have nothing extenuated, but neither have I set

down aught in malice. Where the writer is trying to make us believe

impossibilities, I have shown that she is doing so, and have also

shown why she wanted us to believe them; but until a single passage

is pointed out to me in which I have altered the intention of the

original, I shall continue to hold that the conception of the poem

which I lay before the reader in the following pages is a juster one

than any that, so far as I know, has been made public hitherto; and,

moreover, that it makes both the work and the writer a hundred times

more interesting than any other conception can do.

I preface my abridgement with a plan of Ulysses' house, so far as I

have been able to make it out from the poem. The reader will find that

he understands the story much better if he will study the plan of the

house here given with some attention.

I have read what Prof. Jebb has written on this subject,[1] as also

Mr. Andrew Lang's Note 18 at the end of Messrs. Butcher and Lang's

translation of the _Odyssey_. I have also read Mr. Arthur Platt's

article on the slaying of the suitors,[2] and find myself in far closer

agreement with Mr. Lang than with either of the other writers whom I

have named. The only points on which I differ from Mr. Lang are in

respect of the inner court, which he sees as a roofed hall, but which

I hold to have been open to the sky, except the covered cloister or

μέγαρα σκιόεντα, an arrangement which is still very common in Sicilian

houses, especially at Trapani and Palermo. I also differ from him in so

far as I see no reason to think that the "stone pavement" was raised,

and as believing the ὀρσοθύρα to have been at the top of Telemachus's

tower, and called "in the wall" because the tower abutted on the wall.

These are details: substantially my view of the action and scene during

the killing of the suitors agrees with Mr. Lang's. I will not give the

reasons which compel me to differ from Prof. Jebb and Mr. Platt, but

will leave my plan of the house and the abridged translation to the

judgement of the reader.

* * * * *

_A_ was the body of the house, containing the women's apartments and

other rooms. It had an upper story, in which was Penelope's room

overlooking the court where the suitors passed the greater part of

their time.

It also contained the store-room, which seems to have been placed at

the far end of the house, perhaps in a basement. The store-room could

be reached by a passage from a doorway _A'_, and also by back-passages

from a side-entrance _A"_, which I suppose to have been the back door

of the house. The women's apartments opened on to the passage leading

from _A'_ to the store-room.

_B_ and _B'_ were the Megaron or Megara, that is to say inner court,

of which _B'_ was a covered cloister with a roof supported by

bearing-posts with cross-beams and rafters. The open part of the court

had no flooring but the natural soil. Animals seem to have been flayed

and dressed here, for Medon, who was certainly in the inner court while

the suitors were being killed, concealed himself under a freshly-flayed

ox (or heifer's) hide (xxii. 363).

_B'_ was called the μέγαρα σκιόεντα or "shaded" part of the court, to

distinguish it from that which was open to the sun. The end nearest the

house was paved with stone, while that nearest the outer court (and

probably the other two sides) were floored with ash. The part of the

cloister that was paved with stone does not appear to have been raised

above the level of the rest; at one end of the stone pavement there was

a door _a_, opening on to a narrow passage; this door, though mentioned

immediately after the ὀρσοθύρα or trap door (xxii. 126), which we shall

come to presently, has no connection with it. About the middle of the

pavement, during the trial of the axes, there was a seat _b_, from

which Ulysses shot through the axes, and from which he sprang when he

began to shoot the suitors; against one of the bearing-posts that

supported the roof of the cloister, there was _c_, a spear-stand.

[Illustration: The House of Ulysses.]

All the four sides of the cloisters were filled with small tables at

which the suitors dined. A man could hold one of these tables before

him as a shield (xxii. 74, 75).

In the cloisters there were also

_d_, an open hearth or fire-place in the wall at right angles to the

one which abutted on the house. So, at least, I read τοίχου τοῦ ἑτέρου

(xxiii. 90).

_e_, the table at which the wine was mixed in the mixing-bowl--as well,

of course, as the other tables above mentioned.

_f_, a door leading into _g_, the tower in which Telemachus used to

sleep [translating ἄγχι παρ' ὀρσοθύρην (xxii. 333) not "near the

ὀρσοθύρα," but "near towards the ὀρσοθύρα"].

At the top of this tower there was a trap-door _g'_ (ὀρσοθύρα), through

which it was possible to get out on to the roof of the tower and raise

an alarm, but which afforded neither ingress nor egress.

_C_ was the outer court or αὐλή, approached by _C'_, the main entrance,

or πρῶται θύραι, a covered gateway with a room over it. This covered

gateway was the αἰθούση ἐρίδουπος, or reverberating portico which we

meet with in other Odyssean houses, and are so familiar with in Italian

and Sicilian houses at the present day. It was surrounded by _C"_,

covered sheds or barns in which carts, farm implements, and probably

some farm produce would be stored. It contained

_h_, the prodomus, or vestibule in front of the inner court, into which

the visitor would pass through

_i_, the πρόθυρον or inner gateway (the word, πρόθυρον, however, is

used also for the outer gateway), and

_k_, the tholus or vaulted room, about the exact position of which all

we know is that it is described in xxii. 459, 460, as close up against

the wall of the outer court. I suspect, but cannot prove it, that this

was the room in which Ulysses built his bed (xxiii. 181-204).

_D_ was the τυκτὸν δάπεδον or level ground in front of Ulysses' house,

on which the suitors amused themselves playing at quoits and aiming a

spear at a mark (iv. 625, 627).

The only part of the foregoing plan and explanatory notes that forces

the text is in respect of the main gateway, which I place too far from

the mouth of the λαύρα for one man to be able to keep out all who would

bring help to the suitors; but considering how much other impossibility

we have to accept, I think this may be allowed to go with the rest.

A young woman, such as I suppose the writer of the _Odyssey_ to have

been, would not stick at such a trifle as shifting the gates a little

nearer the λαύρα if it suited her purpose.

In passing, I may say that Agamemnon appears to have been killed (_Od_.

iv. 530, 531) in much such a cloistered court as above supposed for the

house of Ulysses. A banquet seems to have been prepared in the cloister

on one side the court, while men were ambuscaded in the one on the

opposite side.

Lastly, for what it may be worth. I would remind the reader that there

is not a hint of windows in the part of Ulysses' house frequented by

the suitors.

THE STORY OF THE ODYSSEY.

BOOK I.

_The council of the gods--Telemachus and the suitors in

the house of Ulysses_.

Tell me, oh Muse, of that ingenious hero who met with

many adventures while trying to bring his men home after

the Sack of Troy. He failed in this, for the men perished

through their own sheer folly in eating the cattle of the

Sun, and he himself, though he was longing to get back

to his wife, was now languishing in a lonely island, the

abode of the nymph Calypso. Calypso wanted him to marry

her, and kept him with her for many years, till at last

all the gods took pity upon him except Neptune, whose son

Polyphemus he had blinded.

Now it so fell out that Neptune had gone to pay a visit 21

to the Ethiopians, who lie in two halves, one half

looking on to the Atlantic and the other on to the Indian

Ocean. The other gods, therefore, held a council, and

Jove made them a speech about the folly of Ægisthus in 35

wooing Clytemnestra and murdering Agamemnon: finally,

yielding to Minerva, he consented that Ulysses should

return to Ithaca.

"In that case," said Minerva, "we should send Mercury to 80

Calypso to tell her what, we have settled. I will also go

to Ithaca and embolden Ulysses' son Telemachus to dismiss

the suitors of his mother Penelope, who are ruining him

by their extravagance. Furthermore, I will send him to

Sparta and Pylos to seek news of his father, for this

will get him a good name."

The goddess then winged her way to the gates of Ulysses' 96

house, disguised as an old family friend, and found

the suitors playing draughts in front of the house

and lording it in great style. Telemachus, seeing her

standing at the gate, went up to her, led her within,

placed her spear in the spear-stand against a strong

bearing-post, brought her a seat, and set refreshments

before her.

Meanwhile the suitors came trooping into the sheltered 114

cloisters that ran round the inner court; here, according

to their wont, they feasted: and when they had done

eating they compelled Phemius, a famous bard, to sing

to them. On this Telemachus began talking quietly to

Minerva: he told her how his father's return seemed now

quite hopeless, and concluded by asking her name and

country.

Minerva said she was Mentes, chief of the Taphians, and 178

was on her way to Temesa[3] with a cargo of iron, which

she should exchange for copper. She told Telemachus

that her ship was lying outside the town, under Mt. 186

Neritum,[4] in the harbour that was called Rheithron.[5]

"Go," she added, "and ask old Laertes, who I hear is now 189

living but poorly in the country and never comes into the

town; he will tell you that I am an old friend of your

father's."

She then said, "But who are all these people whom I 224

see behaving so atrociously about your house? What is

it all about? Their conduct is enough to disgust any

right-minded person."

"They are my mother's suitors," answered Telemachus, and 230

come from the neighbouring islands of Dulichium, Same,

and Zacynthus, as well as from Ithaca itself. My mother

does not say she will not marry again and cannot bring

her courtship to an end. So they are ruining me."

Minerva was very indignant, and advised him to fit out 252

a ship and go to Pylos and Sparta, seeking news of his

father. "If," she said, "you hear of his being alive, you

can put up with all this extravagance for yet another

twelve months. If on the other hand you hear of his

death, return at once, send your mother to her father's, 276

and by fair means or foul kill the suitors."

Telemachus thanked her for her advice, promised to take 306

it, and pressed her to prolong her visit. She explained

that she could not possibly do so, and then flew off into

the air, like an eagle.

Phemius was still singing: he had chosen for his subject 325

the disastrous return of the Achæans from Troy. Penelope

could hear him from her room upstairs, and came down into

the presence of the suitors holding a veil before her

face, and waited upon by two of her handmaids, one of

whom stood on either side of her. She stood by one of the

bearing-posts that supported the roof of the cloisters,

and bade Phemius change his theme, which she found too

painful as reminding her of her lost husband.

Telemachus reasoned with her, and ended by desiring her 345

to go upstairs again. "Go back," he said, "within the

house and see to your daily duties, your loom, your

distaff, and the ordering of your servants; for speech is

man's matter, and mine above all others, for it is I who

am master here."

On this Penelope went back, with her women, wondering 360

into the house, and as soon as she was gone Telemachus

challenged the suitors to meet him next day in full

assembly, that he might formally and publicly warn them

to leave his house.

Antinous and Eurymachus, their two leaders, both 383

rejoined; but presently night fell, and the whole body

of suitors left the house for their own several abodes.

When they were gone, his old nurse Euryclea conducted

Telemachus by torch light to his bedroom, in a lofty

tower, which overlooked the outer courtyard and could be

seen from far and near.

Euryclea had been bought by Laertes when she was quite 430

young; he had given the worth of twenty oxen for her, and

she was made as much of in the house as his own wife was,

but he did not take her to his bed, for he respected his

wife's displeasure. The good old woman showed Telemachus

to his room, and waited while he undressed. She took his

shirt from him, folded it carefully up, and hung it on a

peg by his bed side. This done, she left him to dream all

night of his intended voyage.

The Authoress of the Odyssey Where and when she wrote, who she was, the use she made of the Iliad, and how the poem grew under her hands · 第 1 / 27 章