Homer's Odyssey Part 6

The misfortunes in these lands are the very deeds of the offenders returning upon them. As the G.o.ds are both subjective and objective, so are these poetic places and persons; they are both in Ulysses and outside of him, they are the inner change of the individual and the outer development of the world. Each, however, fits into the other, is inseparably intertwined with the other; both together form the double movement which is the fundamental structural fact of the present division of the Odyssey.

Of course our unfolding of the subject must follow the movement of the poem, but we shall not neglect the movement of the individual.

Accordingly Calypso's Island, Ogygia, is the realm which is to be first considered.

_BOOK FIFTH._

In this Book the reader will observe two distinct parts, which are so often found in Homer and const.i.tute the deepest distinction in his poems: these two parts are the Upper World of the G.o.ds and the Lower World of Man, both of which are shown in action and counteraction. The grand dualism between the mortal and the immortal is fused into a living narrative and makes the warp and woof of Homeric poesy. The general purport of both parts is seen to be the same at bottom: it is to remove the obstacles which stand in the way of the Return of Ulysses to home and country. These obstacles arise from the G.o.ds above and from Nature below--the divine and the physical, though the latter also is presided over by deities. Thus the Greek hero, with the aid of the higher G.o.ds, is to put down the lower ones, or convert them into aids for his advancement towards the grand end, which is his inst.i.tutional life in Family and State. In this way only can Ulysses, from his alienation, attain unto harmony with himself and with the Divine Order.

The first part of the Book gives the Council of the G.o.ds and its consequences reaching down to the mortal who is the subject of deliberation. We shall note three stages in this movement from Olympus to Earth: (1) Zeus to Hermes, (2) Hermes to Calypso, (3) Calypso to Ulysses. Thus from the highest the decree is brought below and opens the providential way.

The second part deals with the mortal, who is brought into relation with three G.o.ds, all representing phases of the physical element of water: (1) Neptune, the great deity of the sea, (2) Ino Leucothea, a lesser deity of the same, (3) the River-G.o.d, through whose channel Ulysses comes at last to land. It is manifest that he must rise beyond these water-divinities with their uncertain fluctuating element, and attain to the fixed earth with its life, ere he can find repose. We shall now develop these two parts of the Book with their subdivisions in the order stated above.

I.

First then is the divine obstacle, which has to be removed by the G.o.ds in Homer, when the individual is ready to have it removed. This obstacle is at present centered in the G.o.ddess Calypso, the marvelous concealer and extinguisher of the Hero in her island Ogygia. Neptune is not here spoken of, though his element, the sea, is mentioned as something which must also be met and transcended; the Hero through his own will can surmount this difficulty. Verily Calypso is the grand spiritual hindrance of Ulysses, and, to help him get rid of it, the Olympians a.s.semble and start the movement, the conditions being that he is internally prepared to be helped by the G.o.ds. Of the latter fact we shall note a number of indications hereafter.

Of this divine activity in removing the first obstacle we may distinguish three phases:--

1. The council of the G.o.ds on Olympus under the presidency of Zeus, and the decree there.

2. Hermes is sent by the supreme deity to Calypso, with the decree.

3. Calypso imparts the decree to Ulysses, who soon sets about doing his part.

In this brief outline we see the descent of the divine influence from Zeus the Highest, through Hermes messenger of the G.o.ds, to Calypso, a local subordinate deity, down to the mortal Ulysses who is to get the benefit thereof. Thus the poet makes his world-order ready for the deed of the man, who is now to act with all the energy of his being, and not lie back expecting the G.o.ds to do everything for him. Such is the situation between the divine and human sides, of which we shall elaborate the former a little more fully.

1. The council of the G.o.ds in which the matter is now discussed, seems somewhat like a repet.i.tion of the one at the beginning of the First Book, which indeed starts the whole poem. At present we may suppose that the poet wishes to recall that first council and its decree to the mind of the reader, inasmuch as the latter is now to begin the second grand division of the poem, the Odyssey proper, or Return of Ulysses.

Pallas takes up the complaint and arraigns Providence on an ethical ground: the good king is forgotten and the good man suffers. To the face of the Supreme Ruler she draws the conclusion: "Let not any sceptered king henceforth be kind to his people and recognize justice, but always let him be harsh and work unrighteousness." Then she cites the unhappy lot of Ulysses. But Zeus throws the charge back upon Pallas, for she already had laid the divine plan that Ulysses was to take vengeance on wrong-doing suitors, and Telemachus she could save "by her skill," if so she chose. Here Pallas again hints as she did in the First Book, the two lines on which the poem moves (Telemachus and Ulysses), and she also notes the two present obstacles (Calypso and the sea) in the way of the Return of Ulysses.

The divine activity begins work at once: Zeus sends Hermes to Calypso with the Olympian decree. Ulysses, however, is to reach home "without any escort of the G.o.ds or of mortal men;" that is, he must exercise his own free-will tremendously, there is to be no special intervention of the G.o.ds without the corresponding human effort. Note this pa.s.sage as indicating the consciousness of the poet respecting divine help; it is not to take the place of free agency, but to complement the same. The Hero will have to sail on a raft, "suffering evils;" but he will reach "the land of the Phaeacians, near of kin to the G.o.ds," where he will be "honored as a G.o.d," and will be sent home with abounding wealth, "more than he would ever have received at Troy, returning unharmed with his share of the booty." Such is the promise of the world-governor to the self-reliant man; this promise is not fate but foresight on the part of the Supreme G.o.d. "Thus is the Hero destined to see again his friends,"

namely by means of a small raft or float, which he alone must control in his own strength, without the help of G.o.d or man. Such is the reward of heroic endeavor, proclaimed by Zeus himself.

2. The messenger Hermes begins his flight down to Calypso, holding his magic wand, with which he puts men to sleep or wakens them, imparting the power of vision or taking it away. He reaches the wonderful island with its grot, the account of which has been a master-stroke in literature, and shows that the description of nature was not alien to the Greek poet, though he rarely indulges in it. One thinks that the pa.s.sage contains a suggestion of much modern writing of the kind.

It is to be noted that this island is mostly a wild product, it has had very little training from its resident. A natural house and garden we see it to be in the main; the senses, especially sight and smell, are gratified immediately by physical objects. There is little indication of Art, possibly a beginning in the singing and weaving; rude nature may have been transformed somewhat in the four fountains and in the trailing grape-vine. But this description is not made for its own sake, as are many modern descriptions of nature; the whole is the true environment for Calypso, and suggests her character.

Her name means the concealer, concealed herself in that lone sea-closed island, and concealing others. Undeveloped she is, like nature, yet beautiful; sunken still in the life of the senses, she dwells in her little paradise without any inner scission. But it must be recollected that Ulysses is not native to the island, he has come or rather fallen hither, from a higher condition. He, therefore, has the scission in himself, he longs to leave and be restored out of this realm of mere nature.

With such a longing the G.o.ds must coincide, for they are the G.o.ds of culture, of the rise out of the physical. The long Journey of Hermes hints the distance between Olympus and Calypso's isle--a distance which has its spiritual counterpart. The command of the Olympians is borne to this lower G.o.ddess; Hermes is the voice of the higher ethical divinity to the lower one of mere nature. But even the higher G.o.d has his physical counterpart, is not yet wholly a spirit; so Hermes eats his ambrosia and drinks his nectar set before him by Calypso in true Greek fas.h.i.+on and misses the smoke of sacrifices along his barren route.

It is curious to see how Hermes plays with polytheism, hinting ever so slyly the contradiction in the Greek Pantheon. "Why dost thou a G.o.d ask me a G.o.d why I come?" It is indeed an absurd question, for a G.o.d ought to know in advance. In numerous places we can trace a subtle Homeric humor which crops out in dealing with his many deities, indicating a start toward their dissolution. Then with a strong a.s.sertion of the supremacy of one G.o.d, Zeus, Hermes utters the unwilling word: Ulysses must depart from this island.

The answer of Calypso is significant, she charges the G.o.ds with jealousy; "Ye grudge the G.o.ddesses openly to mate with men," which proposition she nails by several examples. But the G.o.ds reserve to themselves the privilege of license with mortal women. A complaint still heard, not in the Olympian but in our Lower World; men are not held to the same code of morals that women are! But Calypso yields up her lover whom she "thought to make immortal and ageless." What else can she do? It is true that she saved him once and has preserved him till the present; she is, however, but a stage which must now be transcended. Appet.i.te may preserve man, still he is to rise above appet.i.te.

3. Now Ulysses is brought before us. The first fact about him is, his intense longing to return home; he is found "sitting on the sh.o.r.e, and his eyes were never dry of tears" as he looked out on the sea toward his country; "for the nymph was no longer pleasing to him," whatever may have been the case once. Surely the hero is in bonds which he cannot break, though he would; a penitential strand we may well find in his sorrow; thus he is ready for release.

Calypso, therefore, announces to him the divine plan: he must make a raft and commit himself to the waters. She has to obey, for is she not really conquered by Ulysses? Certainly the divine order requires her to send the man away from her island. Yet the return is by no means made easy, but is to be won by hardest effort; he must grapple with the waves, with angry Neptune after leaving Calypso. No wonder that Ulysses shuddered at the proposition; truly he has the choice between the devil and the deep sea, and he manfully chooses the latter. First, however, the G.o.ddess has to take the great oath "by Earth, by Heaven above and Styx below," the sum total of the physical universe, from whose presence the perjurer cannot escape, though a G.o.d, that she is not practicing any hidden guile against her much-desired guest. Always the doubter, the skeptic Ulysses will show himself, even toward a divinity.

He must test the G.o.ds also, as well as man. Very beautiful and humane is the answer of the G.o.ddess: "Such things I plan and deliberate for thee as I would devise for myself, were I in so great straits. For I too have a righteous mind, and the heart within my breast is not of iron, but compa.s.sionate."

Has a change come over the G.o.ddess through this visit from Olympus?

Hardly could she have felt this before, else she would have sent away Ulysses of her own accord. Her adjustment to the divine decree seems now to be internal, and not simply a yielding to an external power.

Still the separation costs her deep pangs, and she wonders how Ulysses, a mortal, can give her up, who is immortal, with all her beauty and the pleasures of her paradise.

The answer of Ulysses reveals the man in his present stale of mind. He recognizes Calypso as beautiful, deathless, ever young; still he must have something more than sensuous life and beauty; though it last forever, it can never satisfy. Not to be compared with the G.o.ddess in grace and stature, is his wife Penelope, still he longs for his home; "yea, though some G.o.d wreck me on the wine-dark deep, I shall endure."

But there is no doubt the other side is also present in Ulysses; he has within himself a strong sensuous nature with which is the battle, and the poem does not disguise the matter, for he is again ready to enjoy all the pleasures of Calypso's bower, after this paroxysm of home-sickness.

Such is the deep struggle of the man; such is also the divine obstacle, which has to be removed by an Olympian interference before he can return. We see that Ulysses in spite of all blandishments of the G.o.ddess and momentary weakness of himself, was ready for its removal; in his heart he has overcome Calypso, and wishes to get back to his inst.i.tutional life in Family and State. Such a man must return, the G.o.ds must be on his side, else they are not G.o.ds. According to the Greek conception, Calypso is a subordinate deity who must be put down by the Olympians; appet.i.te is not a devil, but a lower good, which must be adjusted to the higher. Note, then, that the external stream, or the world-movement represented by the G.o.ds, now unites with the internal stream, the spirit of the individual, and brings forth the great event.

As stated often before, these two streams run through all Homeric poetry.

Ulysses now makes his raft; the hero is also a s.h.i.+p-builder, being the self-sufficient man, equal to any emergency, in whom lie all possibilities. The boat, still quite primitive, is constructed before our eyes; It is the weapon for conquering Neptune, and prophesies navigation. Calypso aids him in every way, she even supplies him with tools, the axe, the adze, the augur, which imply a more advanced state of civilization than has. .h.i.therto appeared in the Dark Island. Whence did she obtain them? No special answer is given; hence we are thrown back upon a general answer. Calypso is the original wild state of nature; but her transformation has begun, she helps Ulysses in her new character. These tools are themselves formed from nature into means for subduing nature; the instrument of bronze in the hands of the wood-cutter is the master of the tree. At present Calypso is also such an instrument; she, the wild product of nature, is herself transformed into a means for helping Ulysses conquer the mighty physical element before him; an implement she has become in the hand of the G.o.ds for restoring the heroic endurer, and hence she can emblematically hand him these material implements, for they are one with her present spirit.

Indeed we may carry the a.n.a.logy one step further, turning it inwardly: Calypso, though once the inciter to sensuous desire, now helps the man put it away and flee from it; ethically she is converted into an instrument against her former self. In like manner nature is turned against nature by the thinking artificer.

Also food and drink and raiment the Island G.o.ddess furnishes for the voyage; with rare skill she tells him how to direct his course by the stars; she is mistress over the winds, it seems, for she sends the right one to blow. Wonderful indeed is the change; all those forces of nature, formerly so hostile, have been transformed into helpers, Calypso herself being also transformed. Thus we catch the outlines of the Fairy Tale or marvelous story, which tells, in a supernatural way, of man's mastery of the physical world, once so destructive, now so obedient.

Cloth for his sails she brought him, but we must recollect that she was a weaver at the start of the story. At last Ulysses pushes his raft down into the fair salt sea; Ogygia, the place of nature's luxuriance and delight, is left behind; he must quit the natural state, however paradisaical, and pa.s.s to the social order, to Ithaca, though the latter be poor and rocky. Still we may well recall the fact that the island and Calypso once saved Ulysses, when wrecked elsewhere, on account of the slaughter done to the Oxen of the Sun; this wild spot furnished him natural shelter, food, gratification; nay, it gave him love.

To be sure, the other side is not to be forgotten: it had to be transcended, when it kept him away from the higher inst.i.tutional life.

Ulysses, the wonderful, limit-transcending spirit, unfolds within even while caught in this wild jungle; he evolves out of it, as man has evolved out of it, thus he hints the movement of his race, which has to quit a cave-life and a mere sensuous existence. Such is the decree of the G.o.ds, for all time: the man must abandon Calypso, who is herself to be transformed into an instrument of his progress.

We may now begin to see what Calypso means, in outline at least. The difficulty of comprehending her lies in her twofold character: at one time she is nature, then she is the helper against nature. But just therein is her movement, her development. She is G.o.ddess of this Island, where she rules; but she is a lesser deity who has to be subordinated to the Olympians, as nature must be put under spirit. The Greek deified nature, not being able to diabolize it; still he knew that it must be ruled and trans.m.u.ted by mind. Thus Calypso is a G.o.ddess, inferior, confined to one locality, but having sensuous beauty as nature has. She, without ethical content, as purely physical, stands in the way of inst.i.tutions, notably the Family; she seduces the man, and holds him by his senses, by his pa.s.sion, till he rise out of her sway. On this side her significance is plain: she is the female principle which stands between Ulysses and his wedded wife, she not being wedded. Thus she is an embodiment of nature, from the external landscape in which she is set, to internal impulse, to the element of s.e.x. So it comes that she is represented as a beautiful woman, but beauty without its ethical content can no longer chain Ulysses. That charm is broken, in spite of pa.s.sing relapses.

Then comes the other side of Calypso's character, as already indicated: she changes, she turns and helps Ulysses put down herself and get away from her world, furnis.h.i.+ng him quite all the means for his voyage. Not without a certain regret and parting display of her charms does she do this; still the change is real, and at the last stage we must imagine a Calypso transformed or partially so.

The enchantress on her magic island is a favorite theme with the Fairy Tale, and the situation in itself rouses curiosity and wonder. The bit of land floating on the sea in appearance, yet withstanding wave and tempest, is, to the sailor, the home of supernatural beings. The story of Calypso has the tinge of nautical fancy. In like manner the story of Robinson Crusoe is that of a sea-faring people. We see in it the s.h.i.+p-wrecked man, the lone island, the struggle with nature for food and shelter. But Defoe has no supernatural realm playing into his narrative--no beautiful nymph, no Olympian G.o.ds. That twofold Homeric conception of an Upper and Lower World, of a human and divine element in the great experience, is lost; the Englishman is practical, realistic, utilitarian even in his pious observations, which he flings into his text from the outside at given intervals.

Ogygia, the abode of Calypso, means the Dark Island, upon which Ulysses is cast after the destruction of the Oxen of the Sun. Calypso, in harmony with the name of her abode, signifies the concealer--and that is what has happened to Ulysses, his light is hidden. She is the daughter of Atlas, who has two mental traits a.s.signed to him; he is evil-minded and he knows all the depths of the sea. A demonic being endowed with his dark knowledge of things out of sight; he has a third trait also, "he upholds of himself the long pillars which keep Heaven and Earth apart" (Book I. 53). Naturally under such a burden he is not in good humor. Calypso is the daughter who, along with her grot, may be conceived to have risen out of the obscure depths of the sea, with something of her father's disposition. Doubtless Greek sailors could behold in her image the dangerous rocks which lurked unseen beneath the waters around her island. The comparative mythologist finds in her tale the clouds obscuring or concealing the Sun (here Ulysses) till the luminary breaks out of his concealment and s.h.i.+nes in native glory.

Something of truth lies in these various views, but the fundamental meaning is not physical, but ethical.

II.

We now come to the great physical obstacle standing in the way of the Return of Ulysses, the sea, which, however, has always its divine side to the Greek mind. A series of water-deities will rise before us out of this mighty element, a.s.suming various att.i.tudes toward the solitary voyager. Three of them, showing themselves as hostile (Neptune), as helpful (Ino Leucothea), as saving (the River-G.o.d); all three too seem in a kind of gradation, from the vast total sea, through one of its phases, to the small stream pouring into the sea from the land. Thus the Greek imagination, playing with water, deified the various appearances thereof, specially in their relation to man. The introduction of these three marine divinities naturally organizes this second part of the Fifth Book into three phases or stages. Such is the divine side now to be witnessed.

Parallel to this runs the human side, represented by the lone hero Ulysses, who is pa.s.sing through a fearful ordeal of danger with its attendant emotions of anxiety, terror, hope, despair. A very hard test is surely here applied to weak mortal flesh. We shall observe that he pa.s.ses through a series of mental perturbations at each divine appearance; he runs up and down a scale of doubt, complaint, resolution. His weakness he will show, yet also his strength; dubitation yet faith; he will hesitate, yet finally act. Thus he saves himself at last through his own will, yet certainly with the help of the G.o.ds; for both sides have to co-operate to bring about the heroic act of his deliverance.

Pallas also comes to the aid of her favorite, but in an indirect manner. The sea does not seem to be her element. She stops the winds and "informs his mind with forecast," but she does not personally appear and speak, nor is she addressed, as is the case with the water-G.o.ds. She plays in by the way in this marine emergency; her appearances now do not organize the action. But the three appearances of the water-G.o.ds are the organic principle, their element being at present the scene of the adventure. On these lines we shall note the course of the poem in some detail.

1. Neptune returning from the Ethiopians to h.e.l.las, sees the lone sailor with his little craft from the heights of the mountain called Solyma; at once the G.o.d's wrath is roused and he talks to himself, "shaking his head." The clouds, the winds, the ocean obeyed his behest, and fell upon the voyager in a furious tempest. A huge billow whirled the raft around and threw Ulysses off into the deep; with difficulty be regained his place, and escaped death.

A vivid picture of the grand obstacle to early navigation, of which Neptune is the embodiment. Why should he not be angry at the man who seeks to tame him? The raft means his ultimate subjection. Nature resists the hand which subdues her at first, and then gracefully yields. To be sure there had to be a mythical ground for Neptune's anger at Ulysses: the latter had put out the eye of his son, the Cyclops Polyphemus, which was another phase of the subjection of wild nature to intelligence. For seventeen days Ulysses had easy sailing, guided by the stars; but the sea has its destructive side which must also be experienced by the much-enduring man.

Corresponding to this outer tempest, we observe an inner tempest in the soul of Ulysses. "O me wretched! what is now to happen to me!" Terror unmans him for the time being; regret weakens him: "Thrice happy, four times happy the Greeks who fell on Troy's broad plain!" Thus he goes back in memory to his heroic epoch and wishes for death then. Too late it is, for while he is lamenting, a wave strikes him and tosses him out into the deep; now he has to act, and this need of action saves him from his internal trituration, as well as from external death.