Homer's Odyssey Part 15

Ulysses must therefore go below, inasmuch as this world with its moral life even, is not the finality. There is aught beyond, the limit of death we must surmount in the present existence still; a glimpse of futurity the mortal must have before going thither. So Homer makes the Hero transcend life as it were, during life; and extend his wanderings into the supersensible world.

The reader has now witnessed the three stages of this Tenth Book--aeolus, the Laestrigonians, and Circe. The inner connection between these three stages has also been investigated and brought to the surface; at least such has been the persistent attempt. Especially has Circe been unfolded in the different phases which she shows--all of which have been traced back to a unity of character.

The intimate relation between the Ninth and Tenth Books has been set forth along with their differences. Both belong to the Upperworld of this Fableland; hence they stand in contrast with the Netherworld, which is now to follow.

_BOOK ELEVENTH._

The present Book is one of the most influential pieces of writing which man has produced. It has come down through the ages with a marvelous power of reproduction; in many ways poets have sought to create it over; indeed Time has imitated it in a series of fresh shapes. Virgil, not to speak of other attempts in ancient Greek epics, has re-written it in the Sixth Book of the aeneid; from Virgil it pa.s.sed to Dante who has made its thought the mould which shapes his entire poem--the _Divine Comedy_.

It is one phase of the great Mythus of the Apocalypse, or the uncovering of the Future State, which in some form belongs to all peoples, and which springs from the very nature of human spirit. Man must know the Beyond; especially the Hero, the spiritual Hero of his race, must extend his adventures, not only over the world, but into the other world, and bring back thence the news concerning those who have already departed.

This then is the supreme Return of the Hero, the Return from beyond life, still alive; he is to conquer not only the monster Polyphemus and the enchantress Circe, but also the greatest goblin of all, Death.

Common mortals have to make the pa.s.sage thither without returning; the Hero must be the grand exception, else he were no Hero. Transcendent must he be, rising above all limits, even the limit of life and death.

We have, therefore, in the present Book the Greek glance into immortality. This is the essence of it, hence its prodigious hold upon human kind. That the conscious individual persists after the dissolution of the physical body is here strongly affirmed; indeed the world beyond is organized, and its connection with the world on this side is unfolded, in a series of striking pictures for the imagination.

It is thus a grand chapter in the history of the soul's consciousness of its eternal portion, is in fact the middle link between the Oriental and the Christian view of immortality.

Ulysses, as the wise man, or rather as the intellectual Hero of his age, must go through the experience in question; he cannot return to home and country, and be fully reconciled with his inst.i.tutional life here and now, without having seen what is eternal and abiding in the soul. The wanderer must wander thither, the absolute necessity lies upon him--and he must fetch back word about what he saw, and thus be a mediator between the sensible and supersensible, between time and eternity. In that way he means something to his people, becomes, in fact, their Great Man, helping them vicariously in this life to rise beyond life. The complete Return, then, involves the descending to Hades, the beholding the shapes there, and the coming back with the report to the living. Perhaps we ought to consider just this to be the culmination of the whole journey, the grand adventure embracing all possible adventures.

The connection with the preceding Book can not be too strongly enforced. Circe points out the way to Ulysses; her nature is to point to the Beyond, to which she cannot herself pa.s.s. In her last phase, she was spirit, but still in the sensuous form; that spirit in her, as in all true art and even in the world, points to its pure realm, where it is freed from the trammels of the senses. This gives the main characteristic of Homeric Hades; it is the supersensible world, outside of s.p.a.ce and Time; or, rather with its own s.p.a.ce and Time, since it is still an image.

Hence these mythical statements which seek to get beyond all known geographical limits. Ulysses had to cross the Ocean stream, which ran round the whole earth; to go over it was indeed to go over the border.

There below is the gloomy grove of Proserpine; there too, are the four rivers of the Lower Regions, with names terribly suggestive; into Acheron the stream of pain (or lake) flow Pyriphlegethon (Fire-flames) and Cocytus (the Howler), the latter being an offshoot of Styx (Hate or Terror). Where "the two loud-sounding rivers meet" the third one (Acheron) is a rock, a firm protected spot seemingly, there with mystic rites is the invocation of the dead to take place.

Thus we see that the poet's description remains spatial in his attempt to get beyond s.p.a.ce. He has to express himself in images taken from the sensible world, even while pus.h.i.+ng them beyond into the supersensible.

He makes us feel that the image is inadequate, though he has to use it; poetry is driven upon its very limit. At this point specially we note the kins.h.i.+p of the Odyssey with Romantic Art, which through the finite form suggests the Infinite. Dante comes to mind, whose great poem is one vast struggle of the limited symbol with the unlimited spirit which is symbolized. Thus the old Greek song becomes prophetic, foreshadowing the next great world-poem, or Literary Bible, written in the light of a new epoch.

Strong is the sympathy which one feels with the ancient singer in this attempt to probe the deepest mystery of our existence. He must have reflected long and profoundly upon such a theme, building in this Book a world of spirits, and laying down the lines of it for all futurity.

Probably the most gigantic conception in literature: the universal Hero, ere he can round the complete cycle of experience, must pa.s.s through the Beyond and come back to the Present. It deepens the idea of the Return, till it embraces the totality of existence, by making it reach through the Underworld, which is thus a domain in the spiritual circ.u.mnavigation of the globe.

The structure of the Book is somewhat intricate and it requires quite a little search to find the lines upon which it is built. It has at the first glance a rather scattered, disorganized look; for this reason the a.n.a.lytic critics have fallen upon it in particular, and have sought to tear it into fragments. It is possible that some few lines may have been interpolated, but it remains an organic whole, and the final insight into it comes from viewing it in its total constructive movement.

As the Book is an effort to make a bridge between the sensible and supersensible realms, manifestly this separation into two realms will const.i.tute the fundamental division. The diremption into soul and body, into life and death, runs through the entire narrative, also that into men and women; but the main distinction is into Past and Present. The sensible world when canceled becomes Past, the distant in Time and possibly in s.p.a.ce; this Past through its characters, its spirits, is made to communicate with the Present.

Moreover the Past has its distinctions. To the Greek mind of Homer's age, specially in Phaeacia, the Trojan War is the grand central fact of the aforetime; thus the Past divides into the Pre-Trojan, Trojan, and immediate Past, in the Book before us. A complete sweep down into the Now is given--the sweep of the supersensible. Also the Present has two representatives: Ulysses along with his companions, and the Phaeacians.

In the Past, therefore, is arranged a long gallery of souls speaking to the Present, which listens and also has its communication. The problem now is to get a structural form which will hold the idea. Let the following scheme be sent in advance, which scheme, however, can only be verified or understood at the close of the Book on a careful review.

I. The first great communication of the dead and past to the living and present, by voice and by vision; some speak, others are only seen.

1. The present and living element is made up of Ulysses and his companions who are invoking by their rites and prayers the souls of the Underworld. The companion Elpenor dead, but not yet buried, forms the transition between the Present and Past.

2. The past and dead element, Pre-Trojan, is called up in two general forms: the ancient seer Tiresias who is both Past and Future through his mind, and, secondly, the souls of Famous Women, who pa.s.s in review before the Present. The hint of a world-justice runs through both the prophecies of the seer and the destinies of some of these women.

II. The second grand communication of the dead and past, now Trojan--to the living and present, now Phaeacian prominently, given by voice and vision.

1. The Present is here not only Ulysses far off in Hades, but the Phaeacians in their actual sensible world. The latter demand again the grand background and presupposition of their present life--the Trojan epoch represented in its great spirits.

2. The Past, Trojan, in three typical Greek heroes, Agamemnon, Achilles, Ajax. The three typical Greek women of the Trojan epoch are also mentioned. An implicit idea of punishment, or of heroic limitation brought home to the hero, is traceable in this portion.

III. The idea of a world-justice with its universal judgment, hitherto only implied, now becomes explicit in Hades and organizes itself, showing (1) the judge, Minos, (2) the culprits in four condemned ones, (3) the saved one, Hercules, who rises out of Hades through the deed.

By implication so does the living Ulysses--hence the journey is at an end, Hades is conquered.

I.

Ulysses follows the direction of Circe, indeed he is propelled by the wind which she sends, to the "confines of the Ocean stream," to the limits of this terrestrial Upperworld. Here is the land of the Cimmerians, "hid in fog and in cloud," which veils the realm of the dead; here the sun sends no beam, either rising or setting. Again it is possible that the poet may have heard some dim account of the regions of the extreme North. But the significance of the Cimmerians is to shadow forth the dark border-land between life and death, which is here that between the limited and the unlimited. We see the strong attempt of the poet to get beyond limitation in its twofold appearance: first he will transcend the external boundary of the Homeric horizon, that of the sea stretching far to the westward; still more emphatic is his effort to transcend the limits of finite thinking and to reach an infinite realm, which is the goal of the spirit. He sweeps out of sensuous s.p.a.ce, yet the poetic imagination has to remain in s.p.a.ce after all, though it be a new s.p.a.ce of its own creation. In like manner, he has to give the disembodied souls some finite nourishment in the shape of food and blood, in order that they become real. We feel in these dark Cimmerian limits his wrestle to pa.s.s over to the supersensible by thought.

I. The Present is represented by Ulysses and his companions, who now perform the rites consisting of a sacrifice and prayer to "the nations of the dead." We may find in the libation of "mingled honey, sweet wine, and water," a suggestion of the tissues and fluids of the body, while the blood of the sacrificed animals hints the principle of vitality. When the disembodied spirit tastes these elements, it gets a kind of body again, sufficient at least to be able to speak. That the sheep must be black is curiously symbolical, hinting the harmony expressed in the color of the animal and of Hades.

The souls "came thronging out of Erebus," eager to communicate. This aspiration must thus be their general condition; they wish to hear from us as much as we wish to hear from them. Hence there must be a selection, which involves a new rite, the flaying and the burning of the carca.s.ses of the animals along with "prayer to Pluto and Proserpine" king and queen of the Underworld. Yet this choice requires activity from the hero, who has to draw his sword and keep off the crowd of spirits, till the right one comes, the Theban seer Tiresias.

Thus is the Past linked into the Present, which to receive the communications of the departed by means of a ritual, in whose symbolism we see the effort of the living to know the Beyond. Now occurs a curious incident: Ulysses beholds his companion Elpenor, dead, yet unburned, and hears his first message. This soul can still speak, and be seen; it hovers half way between the two worlds, having still a material phase of the body which has not yet been burnt. Elpenor tells the nature of his death: "some deity and too much wine" did the thing--a combination which is usually effective in Homer. An unhappy condition, suspended between matter and spirit; he begs that it be ended. But the poor fellow has another request which shows the longing of the humblest Greek--the longing for the immortality of fame. "Make a tomb beside the seash.o.r.e for me, an unfortunate man, of whom posterity may hear." Thus he too will live in the mouths of men; wherein we catch possibly a gleam of Homer himself, who has certainly erected an imperishable monument to Elpenor, voicing the aspiration of the soul even in Hades.

It is the hint of a deep maternal instinct that Anticleia, "my mother deceased" comes at once to the blood and wishes communication. But Ulysses must first hear Tiresias, the strongest ties of Family are subordinate to the great purpose. Surely all are now ready to listen to the Past with its message; here comes its spirit, voiced with a fresh power.

II. We have just had the Present, and in the case of Elpenor, the immediate Past, which is not yet wholly gone. Next we take a leap to the Past of long ago, to the Pre-Trojan time, whose spirits will appear. Two sets of them, divided according to s.e.x into man and woman, we behold. But the man here is the prophet, hence what he says belongs to the Future, into which Ulysses now gets a glimpse.

Thus both Future and Past are given their place in the supersensible realm, both being abstractions from the Present, which is the reality, the world of the senses. Yet that which is abiding and eternal knows not Past, Present, or Future, or knows them all equally, having that which is common to them all, being indeed the principle of them all. In a sense we may say that Tiresias is Past, Present and Future, he is the voice of the Past speaking in the Present foretelling the Future. Then the Famous Women come forth, whose fame causes them to appear now and to be recorded. Thus the poet takes the two ancient sets and suggests that which underlies them both and makes them ever present.

1. Tiresias, though he spans the three dimensions of Time, is essentially the prophet, and so his stress is upon the Future. His body has been long dead, but his mind is left in its untrammeled activity; he may be considered as the purest essence of spirit. No senses obstruct his vision, he sees the eternal and unchangeable law; yet he must throw it into images and apply it to special cases. What a conception for a primitive poet! We feel in this figure of Tiresias that Homer himself is prophetic, foreshadowing the pure ideas or archetypal forms of Plato, and that he, in his struggle for adequate expression of thought, is calling for, and in fact calling forth, Greek philosophy.

Tiresias speaks at first without drinking of the blood, yet he has to drink of it to tell his prophecy. This little contradiction is not vital, let it not trouble us. The prophetic announcement to Ulysses includes four special cases. First, the Hero must have his struggle with Neptune on his way homeward, the G.o.d will avenge the blinding of his son, though that blinding had to take place; every man who overcomes a great power, even a natural power, will get the backstroke of his own deed. The very s.h.i.+p of Ulysses, which defies Neptune, exposes itself to a conflict which it might avoid, did it not undertake to master the G.o.d's element; such is the penalty of all victory.

Secondly, he must keep down appet.i.te, particularly at the Trinacrian Isle, and not slay the Oxen of the Sun, else the penalty will follow there too. Not to keep down pa.s.sion and appet.i.te is clearly to eat of those oxen in some way, which will be more carefully scrutinized hereafter. Then, thirdly, "thou shalt avenge the violent deeds of the Suitors, when thou hast returned home."

The common ground in these three cases of prophetic insight is retribution for the act done there above on earth. The penalty is as certain in the future as it has been in the past; violation brings punishment. Ulysses has had that experience often; note it is told him, or, if you wish to think the matter in that way, he tells it to himself for his own future experience. So the Prophet sees the universal law, he knows what abides in all the fleeting appearances of the world.

Ulysses also, were he to descend into the depths of his own soul, would find the same prophecy; indeed this descent into Hades is also the descent into himself, as well as into the outer supersensible world.

The hero in his intellectual journey has gone far, we can now behold him near the eternal verities.

But the fourth statement of the Prophet is here too, it is the word of promise. When this last conflict with the Suitors is over, then be reconciled with Neptune by a fitting sacrifice (which means that Ulysses should quit the watery element) give hecatombs to the Immortals, recognize them and their rule. Then serene old age will take thee off remote from the sea and all struggle, among a happy people, whom thou hast made happy. Such is the promise, extending quite beyond the limits of the Odyssey, which ends not at the death of Ulysses, but with his last conflict. So there is hope amid all this struggle, hope of becoming the complete man, who has reached harmony with the G.o.ds, with his people, and with himself.

In such fas.h.i.+on Tiresias calls into vision the course of the entire poem, and reaches even beyond it, embracing the whole life of Ulysses, till he too descends for the last time into Hades. Verily the prophet is Past, Present and Future; his true abode is in the realm of pure spirit. He foretells, but the Future is prefigured as the outcome of what is universal; it must be so and not otherwise, else is the world a chaos. Thus Tiresias is put at the beginning, he being the typical person of this Underworld, in which the deities, Pluto and Proserpine, do not appear, being held in the dark background. The prophet telling his prophecy is the very Figure of the Supersensible.

But again let us be reminded that these hints of pure universal thought are borne to us in images, in particular shapes, whereby ambiguity rises, and meaning runs double. Nevertheless the true-hearted reader will go down with the old poet into Hades, and there behold in these images things which lie beyond the senses; he will behold the very spirit of ancient Tiresias.

2. Having seen the Man, Ulysses is next to behold the Famous Women of the Past, which is still Pre-Trojan with one exception. Examples from all the relations of the woman in the Family are given: the mother, the maiden, the wife. Tragic and happy instances are brought before us--ideal forms taken from the ancient Mythus of h.e.l.las, and begetting in later times a prodigious number of works of art, in poetry, sculpture and painting. Here they are put into Hades, the place of the spirit unbodied, which will hereafter take on body in the drama, in the statue, and in the picture. Ulysses witnesses these shapes in advance, and gives their idea, which is to be realized in the coming ages of h.e.l.las. Truly is Homer the primordial h.e.l.lenic seer, he who sees and sets forth the archetypal forms of the future of his race. Undoubtedly he drew from mythical stores already existent, but he ordered them, shaped them anew, and breathed into them the breath of eternal life. No wonder the universal Greek hero must go to Hades to see these forms of the Past which are, however, to live afresh in the Future.

We must also consider the audience of the singer. Who are present?

First of all, Arete, mother and wife, together with Nausicaa, the maiden, to these he is specially singing. Their importance in the Phaeacian world has been already indicated; naturally they wish to hear of woman in the Family. Accordingly this portion of the Eleventh Book, the catalogue of Famous Women, or Homer's "Legende of Good Women," is organized after the relations of domestic life. Three cla.s.ses are suggested: the mothers; the maidens and the wives, of the grey aforetime.

But by all means the glory and the stress of the song are given to the mothers; the other two cla.s.ses are very briefly dismissed, as being essentially described in the first. Arete is indeed the grand center and end of womanhood; Nausicaa as maid is but a transitory phase, and as wife she is to become mother, and then take her supreme place in the chain which upholds and perpetuates humanity. So the old Greek poet must have thought; was he very far from right?

_a._ The first of these mothers to appear is Anticleia, the mother of the Hero Ulysses, of the Hero who has made this remarkable voyage to the world beyond, of its kind the supreme heroic act done by a living mortal. She, however, belongs to the immediate Past, and thus corresponds to the man, Elpenor, in the previous section, though she of course has been buried. Note, therefore, this mark of symmetrical structure.

It is the beautiful instinct of the mother, that she flits in the ghost-world to her son at once, when the chance is afforded. She has already appeared, even before Tiresias came; now she is the first after that prophet, who gives directions to Ulysses supplicating: "Tell me, O Prophet, how shall my mother recognize me as her son." Ulysses learns much from her about Ithaca, especially about his father Laertes, who now never goes to the town but stays in the fields, "with a great sorrow in his heart, desiring thy return, while old age weighs hard upon him." Such is the father, still living, whom Ulysses may yet see.