How saved from storms Phæacia's coast he tro
By great Alcinous honour'd as a god,
Who gave him last his country to behold,
With change of raiment, brass, and heaps of gold.
He ended, sinking into sleep, and shares
A sweet forgetfulness of all his cares.
Soon as soft slumber eased the toils of day,
Minerva rushes through the aërial way,
And bids Aurora with her golden wheels
Flame from the ocean o'er the eastern hills:
Uprose Ulysses from the genial bed,
And thus with thought mature the monarch said.
My queen, my consort! through a length of
We drank the cup of sorrow mix'd with tears;
Thou, for thy lord: while me the immortal powers
Detain'd reluctant from my native shores.
Now, bless'd again by heaven, the queen display,
And rule our palace with an equal sway.
Be it my care, by loans, or martial toils,
To throng my empty folds with gifts or spoils.
But now I haste to bless Laërtes' eyes
With sight of his Ulysses ere he dies;
The good old man, to wasting woes a prey,
Weeps a sad life in solitude away.
But hear, though wise! This morning shall unfold
The deathful scene, on heroes heroes roll'd.
Thou with thy maids within the palace stay,
From all the scene of tumult far away!
He spoke, and sheath'd in arms incessant flies
To wake his son, and bid his friends arise.
To arms! aloud he cries: his friends obey,
With glittering arms their manly limbs array,
And pass the city-gate; Ulysses leads the way.
Now flames the rosy dawn, but Pallas shrouds
The latent warriors in a veil of clouds.
O mighty chief! (Pelides thus began) Honour'd by Jove above the lot of man! King of a hundred kings! to whom resign'd The strongest, bravest, greatest of mankind, Comest thou the first, to view this dreary state? And was the noblest, the first mark of Fate, Condemn'd to pay the great arrear so soon, The lot, which all lament, and none can shun ! Oh! better hadst thou sunk in Trojan ground, With all thy full blown honours cover'd round;
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385 Then grateful Greece with streaming eyes might raise
Historic marbles to record thy praise:
Thy praise eternal on the faithful stone
Had with transmissive glories graced thy son.
But heavier fates were destined to attend :
What man is happy, till he knows his end?
O son of Peleus! greater than mankind!
(Thus Agamemnon's kingly shade rejoin'd)
Thrice happy thou, to press the martial plain
'Midst heaps of heroes in thy quarrel slain:
395 In clouds of smoke raised by the noble fray,
Great and terrific even in death you lay,
And deluges of blood flow'd round you every way.
Nor ceased the strife till Jove himself opposed,
And all in tempests the dire evening closed.
Then to the fleet we bore thy honour'd load,
And decent on the funeral bed bestow'd:
Then unguents sweet and tepid streams we shed;
Tears flow'd from every eye, and o'er the dead
Each clipp'd the curling honours of his head.
Struck at the news, thy azure mother came;
The sea-green sisters waited on the dame:
A voice of loud lament through all the main
Was heard; and terror seized the Grecian train:
Back to their ships the frighted host had fled;
But Nestor spoke, they listen'd and obey'd
(From old experience Nestor's counsel springs,
And long vicissitudes of human things).
Forbear your flight: fair Thetis from the main
To mourn Achilles leads her azure train.'
Around thee stand the daughters of the deep,
Robe thee in heavenly vests, and round thee weep
Round thee, the Muses, with alternate strain,
In ever-consecrating verse, complain.
Each warlike Greek the moving music hears,
And iron-hearted heroes melt in tears.
The souls of the suitors are conducted by Mercury to the infernal shades. Ulysses in the country goes to the retirement of his father Laërtes; he finds him busied in his garden all alone: the manner of his discovery to him is beautifully described. They return together to his lodge, and the king is acknowledged by Dolius and the servants. The Ithacensians, led by Eupithes, the father of Antinoüs, rise against Ulysses, who gives them battle, in which Eupithes is killed by Laërtes: and the goddess Pallas makes a lasting peace between Ulysses and his subjects, which concludes the Odyssey.
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Till seventeen nights and seventeen days return'd,
All that was mortal or immortal mourn'd.
To flames we gave thee, the succeeding day,
And fatted sheep, and sable oxen slay;
With oils and honey blaze the augmented fires,
And, like a god adorn'd, thy earthly part expires,
Unnumber'd warriors round the burning pile
Urge the fleet courser's or the racer's toil;
Thick clouds of dust o'er all the circle rise,
And the mix'd clamour thunders in the skies.
Soon as absorpt in all embracing flame
Sunk what was mortal of thy mighty name,
We then collect thy snowy bones, and place
With wines and unguents in a golden vase
(The vase to Thetis Bacchus gave of old,
And Vulcan's art enrich'd the sculptured gold).
There, we thy relics, great Achilles! blend
With dear Patroclus, thy departed friend:
In the same urn a separate space contains
Thy next beloved, Antilochus' remains.
Now all the sons of warlike Greece surround
Thy destined tomb, and cast a mighty mound:
High on the shore the growing hill we raise,
That wide the extended Hellespont surveys:
Where all from age to age, who pass the coast,
May point Achilles' tomb, and hail the mighty ghost
As in the cavern of some rifted den,
Where flock nocturnal bats, and birds obscene;
Cluster'd they hang, till at some sudden shock
They move, and murmurs run through all the rock!
So cowering fled the sable heaps of ghosts,
And such a scream fill'd all the dismal coasts.
And now they reach'd the earth's remotest ends,
And now the gates where evening Sol descends,
And Leucas' rock, and Ocean's utmost streams,
And now pervade the dusky land of dreams,
And rest at last, where souls unbodied dwell
In ever-flowering meads of Asphodel.
The empty forms of men inhabit there,
Impassive semblance, images of air!
Thetis herself to all our peers proclaims
Heroic prizes and exequial games;
The gods assented; and around thee lay
Nought else are all that shined on earth before; Ajax and great Achilles are no more!
Rich spoils and gifts that blazed against the day.
Oft have I seen with solemn funeral games
Heroes and kings committed to the flames;
But strength of youth, or valour of the brave,
With nobler contest ne'er renown'd a grave,
Such were the games by azure Thetis given,
And such thy honours, oh beloved of heaven!
Dear to mankind thy fame survives, nor fades
Its bloom eternal in the Stygian shades.
But what to me avail my honours gone,
Successful toils, and battles bravely won?
Doom'd by stern Jove at home to end my life,
By curst Egysthus, and a faithless wife!
Thus they: while Hermes o'er the dreary plain
Led the sad numbers by Ulysses slain.
On each majestic form they cast a view,
And timorous pass'd, and awfully withdrew.
But Agamemnon, through the gloomy shade,
His ancient host Amphimedon survey'd;
Son of Melanthius! (he began) O say!
What cause compell'd so many. and so gay,
To tread the downward, melancholy way?
Say, could one city yield a troop so fair?
Were all these partners of one native air?
Or did the rage of stormy Neptune sweep
Your lives at once, and whelm beneath the deep?
Did nightly thieves, or pirate's cruel bands,
Drench with your blood your pillaged country's sands?
Or well defending some beleaguer'd wall,
Say, for the public did ye greatly fall?
Inform thy guest: for such I was of yore
When our triumphant navies touch'd your shore;
Forced a long month the wintry seas to bear,
To move the great Ulysses to the war.
O king of men! I faithful shall relate
Replied Amphimedon) our hapless fate.
Ulysses absent, our ambitious aim
With rival loves pursued his royal dame;
Her coy reserve, and prudence mix'd with pride,
Our common suit nor granted, nor denied;
But close with inward hate our deaths design'd;
Versed in all arts of wily womankind.
Her hand, laborious, in delusion spread
A spacious loom, and mix'd the various thread.
Ye peers (she cried) who press to gain my heart,
Where dead Ulysses claims no more a part,
Yet a short space your rival suit suspend,
Till this funereal web my labours end:
Cease, till to good Laërtes I bequeathe
A task of grief, his ornaments of death:
Lest, when the Fates his royal ashes claim,
The Grecian matrous taint my spotless fame:
Should he, long honour'd with supreme command,
Want the last duties of a daughter's hand.
The fiction pleased, our generous train complies,
Nor fraud mistrusts in virtue's fair disguise.
The work she plied, but studious of delay,
Each following night reversed the toils of day.
Unheard, unseen, three years her arts prevail;
The fourth, her maid reveal'd the amazing tale,
And show'd, as unperceived we took our stand,
The backward labours of her faithless hand.
Forced, she completes it; and before us lay
The mingled web, whose gold and silver ray
Display'd the radiance of the night and day.
Just as she finish'd her illustrious toil,
Ill fortune led Ulysses to our isle.
For in a lonely nook, beside the sea,
At an old swine-herd's rural louge he lay:
Thither his son from sandy Pyle repairs,
And speedy lands, and secretly onfers.
They plan our future ruin, and resort
Confederate to the city and the court.
First came the son; the father next succeeds,
Clad like a beggar, whom Eumæus leads;
Propp'd on a staff, deform'd with age and care,
And hung with rags that flutter'd in the air.
Who could Ulysses in that form behold?
Scorn'd by the young, forgotten by the old,
Ill-used by all! to every wrong resign'd,
Patient he suffer'd with a constant mind.
But when, arising in his wrath to obey
The will of Jove, he gave the vengeance way!
The scatter'd arms that hung around the dome
Careful he treasured in a private room:
Then to her suitors bade his queen propose
The archer's strife, the source of future woes,
And omen of our death! In vain we drew
The twanging string, and tried the stubborn yew:
To none it yields, but great Ulysses' hands;
In vain we threat; Telemachus commands:
The bow he snatch'd and in an instant bent;
Through every ring the victor arrow went.
Fierce on the threshold then in arms he stood;
Pour'd forth the darts that thirsted for our blood,
And frown'd before us, dreadful as a god!
Thro' rows of shade, with various fruitage crown'd, 255
165 The labour'd scenes of richest verdure round.
Nor aged Dolius, nor his sons were there,
Nor servants, absent on another care:
To search the woods for sets of flowery thorn.
Their orchard bounds to strengthen and adorn.
But all alone the hoary king he found;
His habit coarse, but warmly wrapp'd around;
His head, that how'd with many a pensive care,
Fenced with a double cap of goatskin hair:
His buskins old, in former service torn,
175 But well repair'd; and gloves against the thorn.
In this array the kingly gardenerstood,
And clear'd a plant, encumber'd with its wood.
Beneath a neighbouring tree, the chief divine
Gazed o'er his sire, retracing every line,
180 The ruins of himself! now worn away
With age, yet still majestic in decay!
Sudden his eyes released their watery store;
The much enduring man could bear no more.
Doubtful he stood, if instant to embrace
His aged limbs, to kiss his reverend face,
With eager transport to declare the whole,
And pour at once the torrent of his soul-
Not so: his judgment takes the winding way
Of question distant, and of soft essay:
More gentle methods on weak age employs:
And moves the sorrows to enhance the joys.
Then, to his sire with beating heart he moves,
And with a tender pleasantry reproves;
Who digging round the plant still hangs his head,
195 Nor aught remits the work, while thus he said.
Great is thy skill, oh father! great thy toil,
Thy careful hand is stamp'd on all the soil,
The squadron'd vineyards well thy art declare,
The olive green, blue tig, and pendant pear;
And not one empty spot escapes thy care.
On every plant and tree thy cares are shown,
Nothing neglected, but myself alone.
Forgive me, father, if this fault I blame;
Age so advanced may some indulgence claim.
205 Not for thy sloth I deem thy lord unkind:
Nor speaks thy form a mean or servile mind;;
I read a monarch in that princely air,
The same thy aspect, if the same thy care;
Soft sleep, fair garments, and the joys of wine,
These are the rights of age, and should be thine.
Who then thy master, say? and whose the land
So dress'd and managed by thy skilful hand?
But chief, oh tell me! (what I question most)
Is this the far-famed Ithacensian coast?
For so reported the first man I view'd
(Some surly islander of manners rude),
Nor further conference vouchsafed to stay;
Heedless he whistled, and pursued his way.
But thou, whom years have taught to understand,
Humanely hear, and answer my demand:
A friend I seek, a wise one and a brave:
Say, lives he yet, or moulders in the grave?
Time was (my fortunes then were at the best)
When at my house I lodged this foreign guest;
He said, from Ithaca's fair isle he came,
And old Laërtes was his father's name.
Yet by another sign thy offspring know;
The several trees you gave me long ago,
300 While, yet a child, these fields I loved to trace,
And trod thy footsteps with unequal pace;
To every plant in order as we came,
Well-pleased, you told its nature and its name,
Whate'er my childish fancy ask'd, bestow'd;
305 Twelve pear-trees, bowing with their pendant load, 395
And ten, that red with blushing apples glow'd;
Full fifty purple figs; and many a row
Of various vines that then began to blow.
A future vintage! when the Hours produce
310 Their latent buds, and Sol exalts the juice.
Smit with the signs, which all his doubts explain,
His heart within him melts; his knees sustain
Their feeble weight no more: his arms alone
Support him, round the loved Ulysses thrown ;
315 He faints, he sinks, with mighty joys oppress'd:
Ulysses clasps him to his eager breast.
Soon as returning life regains its seat,
To him, whatever to a guest is owed
And his breath lengthens, and his pulses beat;
Yes, I believe (he cries) almighty Jove!
Heaven rules as yet, and gods there are above.
"Tis so-the suitors for their wrongs have paid-
But what shall guard us, if the town invade?
If, while the news through every city flies,
All Ithaca and Cephalenia rise?
I paid, and hospitable gifts bestow'd:
To him seven talents of pure ore I told,
Twelve cloaks, twelve vests, twelve tunics stiff with
A bowl, that rich with polish'd silver flames,
And, skill'd in female works, four lovely dames.
At this the father, with a father's fears
(His venerable eyes bedimm'd with tears).
This is the land; but ah! thy gifts are lost,
For godless men, and rude, possess the coast:
Sunk is the glory of this once famed shore!
Thy ancient friend, oh stranger, is no more!
Full recompense thy bounty else had borne;
For every good man yields a just return:
So civil rights demand; and who begins
The track of friendship, not pursuing, sins.
But tell me, stranger, be the truth confess'd,
What years have circled since thou saw'st that guest?
That hapless guest, alas! for ever gone!
Wretch that he was! and that I am! my son !
If ever man to misery was born,
'Twas his to suffer and 'tis mine to mourn!
Far from his friends, and from his native reign,
He lies a prey to monsters of the main;
Or savage beasts his mangled relics tear,
Or screaming vultures scatter through the air:
Nor could his mother funeral unguents shed;
Nor wail'd his father o'er the untimely dead:
Nor his sad consort, on the mournful bier,
Seal'd his cold eyes, or dropp'd a tender tear!
But, tell me who thou art? and what thy race?
Thy town, thy parents, and thy native place?
Or, if a merchant in pursuit of gain,
What port received thy vessel from the main?
Or camest thou single, or attend thy train ?
Then thus the son. From Alybas I came,
My palace there: Eperitus my name.
Not vulgar born; from Aphidas, the king
Of Polyphemon's royal line, I spring,
Some adverse dæmon from Sicania bore
To this Ulysses: As the gods shall please
Be all the rest; and set thy soul at ease.
Haste to the cottage by the orchard's side,-
And take the banquet which our cares provide:
There wait thy faithful band of rural friends,
330 And there the young Telemachus attends.
Thus having said, they traced the garden o'er,
And stooping enter'd at the lowly door.
The swains and young Telemachus they found,
The victim portion'd, and the goblet crown'd.
The hoary king, his old Sicilian maid
Perfumed and wash'd, and gorgeously array'd.
Pallas attending gives his frame to shine
With awful port, and majesty divine;
His gazing son admires the godlike grace
340 And air celestial dawning o'er his face.
What god, he cried, my father's form improves ?
How high he treads, and how enlarged he moves?
Oh would to all the deathless powers on high,
Pallas and Jove, and him who rules the sky!
345 (Replied the king elated with his praise)
My strength were still, as once in better days:
When the bold Cephalens the leaguer form❜d,
And proud Nericus trembled as I storm'd.
Such were I now, not absent from your deed
350 When the last sun beheld the suitors bleed,
This arm had aided yours, this hand bestrown
Our shores with death and push'd the slaughter on;
Nor had the sire been separate from the son.
They communed thus; while homeward bent their way
355 The swains, fatigued with labours of the day:
Dolius the first, the venerable man;
Our wandering course, and drove us on your shore;
Far from the town, an unfrequented bay
Relieved our wearied vessel from the sea.
And next his sons, a long succeeding train.
For due refection to the bower they came,
Call'd by the careful old Sicilian dame,
Who nursed the children, and now tends the sire;
They see their lord, they gaze, and they admire.
On chairs and beds in order seated round,
They share the gladsome board; the roofs resound,
While thus Ulysses to his ancient friend :
Forbear your wonder, and the feast attend:
The rites have waited long. The chief commands
Their loves in vain; old Dolius spreads his hands,
Springs to his master with a warm embrace,
And fastens kisses on his hands and face;
Then thus broke out: Oh long, oh daily mourn'd!
Beyond our hopes, and to our wish return'd!
Conducted sure by Heaven! for Heaven alone
Could work this wonder: welcome to thy own!
And joys and happiness attend thy throne!
Quick through the father's heart these accents ran;
Grief seized at once, and wrapp'd up all the man :
Deep from his soul he sigh'd, and sorrowing spread
A cloud of ashes on his hoary head.
Trembling with agonies of strong delight
Stood the great son, heart-wounded with the sight:
He ran, he seized him with a strict embrace,
With thousand kisses wander'd o'er his face,
I, I am he; oh father, rise! behold
Thy son, with twenty winters now grown old;
Thy son, so long desired, so long detain'd,
Restored, and breathing in his native land:
These floods of sorrow, oh my sire, restrain!
The vengeance is complete; the suitor-train,
Stretch'd in our palace, by these hands lie slain.
Amazed, Laërtes. Give some certain sign
(If such thou art) to manifest thee mine,
Lo here the wound (he cries) received of yore,
The scar indented by the tusky boar,
When, by thyself, and by Anticlea sent,
To old Autolycus's realms I went.
Weeping they bear the mangled heaps of slain,
Inhume the natives in their native plain,
The rest in ships are wafted o'er the main.
Then sad in council all the seniors sate,
Frequent and full, assembled to debate:
Amid the circle first Eupithes rose,
Big was his eye with tears, his heart with woes:
The bold Antinous was his age's pride,
The first who by Ulysses' arrow died.
Each future day increase of wealth shall bring,
And o'er the past Oblivion stretch her wing.
480 Long shall Ulysses in his empire rest,
His people blessing, by his people bless'd.
Let all be peace-He said, and gave the nod
That binds the Fates; the sanction of the god:
And prompt to execute the eternal will,
485 Descended Pallas from the Olympian hill.
Now sat Ulysses at the rural feast,
The rage of hunger and of thirst repress'd:
To watch the foe a trusty spy he sent :
A son of Dolius on the message went,
Stood in the way, and at a glance beheld
The foe approach, embattled on the field.
With backward step he hastens to the bower,
And tells the news. They arm with all their power.
Four friends alone Ulysses' cause embrace,
Down his wan cheek the trickling torrent ran,
As mixing words with sighs he thus began:
Great deeds, oh friends! this wondrous man has wrought,
And mighty blessings to his country brought!
With ships he parted, and a numerous train,
Those, and their ships, he buried in the main.
Now he returns, and first essays his hand
In the best blood of all his native land.
Haste then, and ere to neighbouring Pyle he flies,
Or sacred Elis, to procure supplies;
Arise (or ye for ever fall) arise!
Shame to this age, and all that shall succeed!
If unrevenged your sons and brothers bleed.
Prove that we live, by vengeance on his head,
Or sink at once forgotten with the dead.
495 And six were all the sons of Dolius' race:
Old Dolius too his rusted arms put on;
And, still more old, in arms Laërtes shone.
Trembling with warmth, the hoary heroes stand,
And brazen panoply invests the band.
500 The opening gates at once their war display:
Fierce they rush forth: Ulysses leads the way.
That moment joins them with celestial aid,
In Mentor's form, the Jove.descended maid:
The suffering hero felt his patient breast
Swell with new joy, and thus his son address'd.
Behold, Telemachus! (nor fear the sight),
The brave embattled, the grim front of fight!
The valiant with the valiant must contend:
Shame not the line whence glorious you descend.
Here ceased he, but indignant tears let fall
Spoke when he ceased: dumb sorrow touch'd them all.
When from the palace to the wondering throng
Sage Medon came, and Phemius came along
(Restless and early sleep's soft bands they broke);
And Medon first the assembled chiefs bespoke:
Hear me, ye peers and elders of the land,
Who deem this act the work of mortal hand;
As o'er the heaps of death Ulysses strode,
These eyes, these eyes beheld a present god,
Who now before him, now beside him stood,
Fought as he fought, and mark'd his way with blood:
In vain old Mentor's form the god belied;
"Twas Heaven that struck, and Heaven was on his side.
A sudden horror all the assembly shook,
When slowly rising, Halitherses spoke
(Reverend and wise, whose comprehensive view
At once the present and the future knew):
Me too, ye fathers, hear! from you proceed
The ills ye mourn; your own the guilty deed.
Ye gave your sons, your lawless sons, the rein
(Oft warn'd by Mentor and myself in vain);
An absent hero's bed they sought to soil,
An absent hero's wealth they made their spoil;
Immoderate riot, and intemperate lust!
The offence was great, the punishment was just.
Weigh then my counsels in an equal scale,
Nor rush to ruin. Justice will prevail.
His moderate words some better minds persuade:
They part, and join him; but the number stay'd.
They storm, they shout, with hasty phrenzy fired,
And second all Eupithes' rage inspired.
They case their limbs in brass; to arms they run;
The broad effulgence blazes in the sun.
Before the city, and in ample plain,
They meet: Eupithes heads the frantic train.
Fierce for his son, he breathes his threats in air;
Fate hears them not, and Death attends him there.
This pass'd on earth, while in the realms above
Jinerva thus to cloud-compelling Jove:
May I presume to search thy secret soul?
Oh Power supreme, oh Ruler of the whole!
Say, hast thou doom'd to this divided state
Or peaceful amity, or stern debate?
Declare thy purpose, for thy will is fate.
Is not thy thought my own? (the god replies
Who rules the thunder o'er the vaulted skies);
Hath not long since thy knowing soul decreed,
The chief's return should make the guilty bleed?
'Tis done, and at thy will the Fates succeed.
Yet hear the issue; since Ulysses' hand
Has slain the suitors, Heaven shall bless the land.
None now the kindred of the unjust shall own;
Jorgot the slaughter'd brother and the son:
510 Wide o'er the world their martial fame was spread; Regard thyself, the living, and the dead.
Thy eyes, great father! on this battle cast,
Shall learn from me Penelope was chaste.
So spoke Telemachus! the gallant boy
Good old Laërtes heard with panting joy;
And bless'd! thrice bless'd this happy day he cries,
The day that shews me, ere I close my eyes,
A son and grandson of the Arcesian naine
Strive for fair virtue, and contest for fame!
Then thus Minerva in Laërtes' ear:
Son of Arcesius, reverend warrior, hear!
Jove and Jove's daughter first implore in prayer,
Then, whirling high, discharge thy lance in air.
She said, infusing courage with the word.
525 Jove and Jove's daughter then the chief implored,
And, whirling high, dismiss'd the lance in air.
Full at Eupithes drove the deathful spear:
The brass-cheek'd helmet opens to the wound;
He falls, earth thunders, and his arms resound.
Before the father and the conquering son
Heaps rush on heaps, they fight, they drop, they run.
Now by the sword, and now the javelin fall
The rebel race, and death had swallow'd all;
But from on high the blue-eyed virgin cried;
535 Her awful voice detain'd the headlong tide:
Forbear, ye nations, your mad hands forbear
From mutual slaughter; Peace descends to spare.
Fear shook the nations: at the voice divine
They drop their javelins, and their rage resign.
All scatter'd round their glittering weapons lie;
Some fall to earth, and some confusedly fly.
With dreadful shouts Ulysses pour'd along,
Swift as an eagle, as an eagle strong.
But Jove's red arm the burning thunder aims;
545 Before Minerva shot the livid flames;
Blazing they fell, and at her feet expired;
Then stopp'd the goddess, trembled, and retired.
Descended from the gods! Ulysses, cease;
Offend not Jove: obey, and give the peace.
So Pallas spoke: the mandate from above
The king obey'd. The virgin-seed of Jove,
In Mentor's form confirm'd the full accord,
And willing nations knew their lawful lord.
END OF THE ODYSSEY
I CANNOT dismiss this work without a few observations on the character and style of it. Whoever reads the Odyssey with an eye to the Iliad, expecting to find it of the same character or of the same sort of spirit, will be grievously deceived, and err against the first principles of criticism, which is, to consider the nature of the piece, and the intent of its author. The Odyssey is a moral and political work, instructive to all degrees of men, and filled with images, examples, and precepts of civil and domestic life. Homer is here a person,
Qui didicit, patriæ quid debeat, et quid amicis, Quo sit amore parens, quo frater amandus, et hospes : Qui quid sit pulchrum, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non, Plenius et melius Chrysippo et Crantore dicit."
Upon the whole, hè affirms the Odyssey to have less sublimity and fire than the Iliad, but he does not say it wants the sublime or wants fire. He affirms it to be a narrative, but not that the narration is defective. He affirms it to abound in fictions, not that those fictions are ill invented, or ill executed. He affirms it to be nice and particular in painting the manners, but not that those manners are ill painted. If Honier has fully in these points accomplished his own design, and done all that the nature of his poem demanded or allowed, it still remained perfect in its kind, and as much a master-piece as the Iliad.
The amount of the passage is this: that in his own particular taste, and with respect to the sublime, Longi-* nus preferred the Iliad: and because the Odyssey was less active and lofty, he judged it the work of the old age of Homer.
If this opinion be true, it will only prove, that Homer's age might determine him in the choice of his subject, not that it affected him in the execution of it; and that which would be a very wrong instance to prove the decay of his imagination, is a very good one to evince the strength of his judgment. For had he (as Madam Dacier observes) composed the Odyssey in his youth, and the Iliad in his age, both must in reason have been exactly the same as they now stand. To blame Homer for his choice of such a subject, as did not admit the same incidents and the same pomp of style as his former, is to take offence at too much variety, and to imagine, that when a man has written one good thing, he must ever after only copy himself.
The Odyssey is the reverse of the Iliad, in moral, subject, manner, and style; to which it has no sort of relation, but as the story happens to follow in order of time, and as some of the same persons are actors in it. Yet from this incidental connection many have been misled to regard it as a continuation or second part, and thence to expect a purity of character inconsistent with its nature. It is no wonder that the common reader should fall The Battle of Constantine, and the School of Athens, into this mistake, when so great a critic as Longinus are both pieces of Raphael: shall we censure the School seems not wholly free from it; although what he has of Athens as faulty, because it has not the fury and fire said has been generally understood to import a severer of the other? or shall we say that Raphael was grown censure of the Odyssey than it really does, if we consider grave and old, because he chose to represent the manthe occasion on which it is introduced, and the circum-ners of old men and philosophers? There is all the stances to which it is confined.
The Odyssey (says he) is an instance how natural it is to a great genius, when it begins to grow old and deeline, to delight itself in narrations and fables. For that Homer composed the Odyssey after the Iliad, many proofs may be given,' &c. From hence, in my judgment, it proceeds, that as the Iliad was written while his spirit was in its greatest vigour, the whole structure of that work is dramatic and full of action; whereas the greater part of the Odyssey is employed in narration, which is the taste of old age: so that in this latter piece we may compare him to the setting sun, which has still the same greatness, but not the same ardour or force. He speaks not in the same strain; we see no more that sublime of the Iliad, which marches on with a constant pace, without ever being stopped or retarded: there appears no more that hurry, and that strong tide of motions and passions, pouring one after another: there is no more the same fury, or the same volubility of diction, so suitable to action, and all along drawing in such innumerable images of nature. But Homer, like the ocean, is always great, even when he ebbs and retires; even when he is lowest, and loses himself most in narrations and incredible fictions: as instances of this, we cannot forget the descriptions of tempests, the adventures of Ulysses with the Cyclops, and many others. But though all this be age, it is the age of Homer. And it may be said for the credit of these fictions, that they are beautiful dreams, or if you will, the dreams of Jupiter himself. I spoke of the Odyssey, only to shew, that the greatest poets, when their genius wants strength and warmth for the pathetic, for the most part employ themselves in painting the manners. This Homer has done in characterising the suitors, and describing their way of life; which is properly a branch of comedy, whose particular business it is to represent
We must first observe, it is the sublime of which Longinus is writing: that, and not the nature of Homer's poem, is his subject. After having highly extolled the sublimity and fire of the Iliad, he justly observes the Odyssey to have less of those qualities, and to turn more on the side of moral, and reflections on human life. Nor is it his business here to determine, whether the elevated spirit of the one, or the just moral of the other, be the greater excellence in itself.
Secondly, the fire and fury of which he is speaking, cannot well be meant of the general spirit and inspiration which is to run through a whole epic poem, but of that particular warmth and inpetuosity necessary in some parts, to image or represent actions or passions, of haste, tumult and violence. It is on occasion of citing some such particular passages in Homer, that Longinus breaks into this reflection; which seems to determine his meaning chiefly to that sense.
silence, tranquillity, and composure in the one, and all the warmth, hurry, and tumult in the other, which the subject of either required: both of them had been imperfect, if they had not been as they are. And let the painter or poet be young or old, who designs or performs in this manner, it proves him to have made the piece at a time of life when he was master not only of his art, but of his discretion.
Aristotle makes no such distinction between the two poems: he constantly cites them with equal praise, and draws the rules and examples of epic writing equally from both. But it is rather to the Odyssey that Horace gives the preference, in the Epistle to Lollius, and in the Art of Poetry. It is remarkable how opposite his opinion is to that of Longinus: and that the particulars he chooses to extol, are those very fictions, and pictures of the manners, which the other seems least to approve. Those fables and manners are of the very essence of the work: but even without that regard, the fables themselves have both more invention and more instruction, and the manners more moral and example than those of the Iliad.
In some points (and those the most essential to the epic poem) the Odyssey is confessed to excel the Iliad; and principally in the great end of it, the moral. The conduct, turn, and disposition of the fable is also what the critics allow to be the better model for epic writers to follow; accordingly we find much more of the cast of this poem than of the other in the Æneid, and (what next to that is perhaps the greatest example) in the Telemachus. In the manners it is no way inferior: Longinus is so far from finding any defect in these, that he rather taxes Homer with painting them too minutely. As to the narrations, although they are more numerous as the occasions are more frequent. yet they carry no more the marks of old age, and are neither more prolix, nor more circumstantial, than the conversations and dialogues of the Iliad. Not to mention the length of those of Phoenix in the ninth book, and of Nestor in the eleventh (which may be thought in compliance to their characters), those of Glaucus in the sixth, of Æneas in the twentieth, and some others, must be allowed to exceed any in the whole Odyssey. And that the propriety of style, and the numbers, in the narrations of each are equal, will appear to any who compare them.
To form a right judgment, whether the genius of Homer had suffered any decay; we must consider, in both his poems, such parts as are of a similar nature, and will bear comparison. And it is certain we shall find in each the same vivacity and fecundity of invention, the same life and strength of imagining and colouring, the particular descriptions as highly painted, the figures as bold, the metaphors as animated, and the numbers as harmonious, and as various.
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