smote them with a wand, and in the sties of the swine she penned them.
So they had the head and voice, the bristles and the shape, of swine,
but their mind abode even as of old. Thus were they penned there
weeping, and Circe flung them acorns and mast and fruit of the cornel
tree to eat, whereon wallowing swine do always batten."
Only one had been wise enough not to enter, and he rushed back to tell
the tale to his lord. Odysseus started off alone to rescue his comrades;
and Hermes met him on the way, in the likeness of a young man, and gave
him _moly_, a magic herb, and full directions for its use, to ward off
enchantment.
Fair Circe receives him most graciously and prepares also for him the
magic potion, but for once her charm fails. He draws his sword to slay
her, and then she becomes the suppliant. She has found her match, and at
once, as if she were a mortal, falls in love with him.
Her bonhomie is
now her greatest charm. She swears a great oath not to harm him or his
companions, and restores to the natural form those whom she had already
bewitched. Royal entertainment and gracious hospitality and words of
counsel are now the order of the day--attendant nymphs, delicious
baths, and sumptuous banquets. So there they remained for a full year,
feasting on abundant flesh and sweetest wine.
Lady Circe proved herself to be the counsellor and friend of Odysseus,
and showed him how to carry out his fond desire of visiting the realm of
Hades, to seek the spirit of Theban Tiresias, that he might unfold to
the wanderer his future. Then, clad in a great, shining robe, light of
woof and gracious, with a fair golden girdle about her waist, and a veil
upon her head, she bade farewell to Odysseus and his crew, and sent a
favoring wind as a kindly escort to the dark-prowed ship.
During his descent into Hades, Odysseus discourses with the Theban seer,
who makes known to him his destiny, and also with the wraith of his
mother, who tells him that faithful Penelope abides with steadfast
spirit in his halls, and wearily for her the nights wane always and the
days in the shedding of tears; and how she herself was reft of sweet
life through her sore longing for him.
And, after her, there appears a great company of the famous women of
heroic times, wives and daughters of mighty men, who had been beloved of
gods and illustrious mortals,--Tyro, ancestress of Nestor's house; and
Antiope, mother of Amphion and Zethus, founders of seven-gated Thebes;
and Alcmene, mother of Heracles; and Epicaste, mother of Oedipus, who
was wedded to her own son; and lovely Chloris, wife of Neleus; and Leda,
mother of Castor and Pollux; and Iphimedia, and Phaedra, and Procris, and
Maera, and Clymene, and hateful Eriphyle, and innumerable other wives and
daughters of heroes,--Homer's _Catalogue of Famous Women_, who had
exerted mighty influence in heroic times.
Upon Odysseus's return to the island of AEa, Circe greets them, and once
more they enjoy meat and bread in plenty and dark red wine. And our
hero Circe leads apart and makes him sit down, and lays herself at his
feet and asks all his tale. She then warns him of the dangers he has yet
to encounter, and tells him how to meet them. Then, with words of
farewell, she sends the travellers on their voyage with a favoring
breeze. First, Odysseus encounters the Sirens, whose enchanting strains
he enjoys while he is bound tight to the mast, and the ears of his
companions are deafened with wax; he evades the Clashing Rocks, escapes
Scylla and Charybdis; and at last, on the Isle of the Sun, his comrades
slaughter and devour the sacred cattle of Helios--in violation of the
warnings of Tiresias and Circe. All are in consequence lost in a
shipwreck, save Odysseus, who, after floating about for ten days on a
raft, reaches the island of Ogygia, abode of the fair nymph Calypso, who
holds him as her beloved for eight long years and would make him
immortal.
Thus the tale ended--all are spellbound throughout the shadowy halls at
the story, and Alcinous and his courtiers offer all manner of gifts to
Odysseus. The next day, a ship is got ready for its voyage to far-off
Ithaca; the gifts are stored on board, a farewell feast is held, and
Odysseus bids farewell to his gracious hosts:
"My lord Alcinous, most notable of all the people, pour ye the drink
offering, and send me safe upon my way; and as for you, fare ye well.
For now have I all that my heart desired, an escort and loving gifts.
May the gods of heaven give me good fortune with them, and may I find my
noble wife in my home with my friends unharmed, while ye, for your part,
abide here and make glad your gentle wives and children; and may the
gods vouchsafe all manner of good, and may no evil come nigh the
people!"
Then, after a grateful farewell to Queen Arete, the hero is conducted to
the waiting ship, and there left reclining upon the soft rugs that have
been spread for him, and soon a sound sleep, very sweet, falls upon his
eyelids.
When Odysseus awakes, he is in his dear native land, though he does not
recognize it until the goddess Athena appears and tells him how he is to
regain wife and kingdom. For us, the rest of the story centres about
Queen Penelope, who for so many, m'any years has been awaiting the
return of her lord.
Odysseus, disguised by the goddess in the form of an aged beggar, goes
to the hut of the swineherd Eumaeus, with whose aid the plot for the
destruction of the wooers is to be carried out; and Athena summons
Telemachus to return from Lacedaemon to meet his father and bear his part
in the final scenes. When the young man returns to the palace, after his
interview with his father, "the nurse Euryclea saw him far before the
rest, as she was strewing skin coverlets upon the carven chairs; and
straightway she drew near him, weeping, and all the other maidens of
Odysseus, of the hardy heart, gathered about him, and kissed him
lovingly on the head and shoulders. Now wise Penelope came forth from
her chamber, like Artemis or golden Aphrodite, and cast her arms about
her dear son, and fell a-weeping, and kissed his face and both his
beautiful eyes, and wept aloud, and spake to him winged words:
"'Thou art come, Telemachus, sweet light of mine eyes; methought I should
see thee never again, after thou hadst gone in thy ship to Pylus,
secretly, and without my will, to seek tidings of thy dear father. Come
now, tell me, what sign didst thou get of him?'"
Telemachus tells his mother of his journey, and his friend Theoclymenus,
who has the gift of second-sight, prophesies the speedy return of
Odysseus. Soon the hero himself appears as a beggar in his own halls,
and is roughly treated by the haughty wooers. He soundly whips the
braggart beggar Irus, and the story of his presence is noised throughout
the house.
Constant Penelope is ever anxious to hear some word of her lord, and
every wandering stranger with a tale to tell could win rich gifts from
her by devising some story of Odysseus. She has heard of the beggar in
her halls, and summons him to her presence and questions him, and tells
him of her grief and her longing for more news of the absent one. When
crafty Odysseus fashioned a story of his entertaining her lord in Crete,
her tears flowed as she listened, and she wept for her own lord who was
sitting by her. The disguised hero had compassion for his wife; but he
craftily hid his tears, and described the appearance of Odysseus so
fully that she could not deny the certain likeness.
Then the aged nurse Euryclea, who had tended him in his youth, is asked
to wash the feet of the old man. As the crone makes ready the caldron, a
sudden fear seizes Odysseus lest when she handles his foot she might
know the scar of the wound that the boar had dealt him with its white
tusk in his boyhood. When the old woman took the scarred limb, she knew
it by the touch, and grief and joy seized her, and she called him
Odysseus, her dear child. Then would she have revealed the glad news to
Penelope, had Odysseus not seized her by the throat and made her swear
to keep his presence secret until the slaying of the lordly wooers.
Next day occurs the famous trial of the bow of Odysseus, which none of
the suitors can draw; then Odysseus gets the bow into his hands, strings
it, sends the arrow through the axheads, and finally, leaping on the
stone threshold, deals his shafts among the wooers. The wretched
company are all slaughtered, the faithless women of the household are
hanged, and ominous silence reigns over the palace of Odysseus.
Euryclea hastens to the upper chamber to bring to Queen Penelope the
good news that Odysseus has surely come and has slain the haughty
wooers. The fair lady can with difficulty believe the tidings, but she
is finally persuaded to go down to see the wooers dead and him that slew
them.
"With the word, she went down from the upper chamber, and much her heart
debated whether she should stand apart and question her dear lord or
draw nigh and clasp his head and hands. But when she had come within and
had crossed the threshold of stone, she sat down over against Odysseus,
in the light of the fire, by the further wall. Now, he was sitting by
the tall pillar, looking down and waiting to know if perchance his noble
wife would speak to him, when her eyes beheld him. But she sat long in
silence, and amazement came upon her soul, and now she would look upon
him steadfastly with her eyes, and now again she knew him not, for that
he was clad in vile raiment. And Telemachus rebuked her, and spake and
hailed her:
"'Mother mine, ill mother, of an ungentle heart, why turnest thou thus
away from my father, and dost not sit by him and question him and ask
him all? No other woman in the world would harden her heart to stand
thus aloof from her lord, who, after much travail and sore, had come to
her in the twentieth year to his own country. But thy heart is ever
harder than stone.'
"Then wise Penelope answered him, saying: 'Child, my mind is amazed
within me, and I have no strength to speak, or to ask him aught, nay, or
to look on him face to face. But if in truth this be Odysseus, and he
hath indeed come home, verily we shall be aware of each other the more
surely; for we have tokens that we twain know of, even we, secret from
all others.'
"So she spake, and the steadfast, goodly Odysseus smiled, and quickly he
spake to Telemachus winged words: 'Telemachus, leave now thy mother to
make trial of me within the chambers; so shall she soon come to a better
knowledge than heretofore.'
"Meanwhile, the housedame Eurynome had bathed the great-hearted Odysseus
within his house, and anointed him with olive oil, and cast about him a
goodly mantle and a doublet. Moreover, Athena shed great beauty from his
head downwards, and made him greater and more mighty to behold, and from
his head caused deep, curling locks to flow, like the hyacinth flower.
And as when some skilful man overlays gold upon silver, one that
Hephaestus and Pallas Athena have taught all manner of craft, and full of
grace is his handiwork, even so did Athena shed grace about his head and
shoulders; and forth from the bath he came, in form like to the
immortals. Then he sat down again on the high seat, whence he had
arisen, over against his wife, and spake to her, saying:
"'Strange lady, surely to thee, above all womankind, the Olympians have
given a heart that cannot be softened. No other woman in the world would
harden her heart to stand thus aloof from her husband, who, after much
travail and sore, had come to her, in the twentieth year, to his own
country.--Nay, come, nurse strew a bed for me to lie all alone, for
assuredly her spirit within her is as iron.'
"Then wise Penelope answered him again: 'Strange man, I have no proud
thoughts, nor do I think scorn of thee, nor am I too greatly astonished,
but I know right well what manner of man thou wert when thou wentest
forth out of Ithaca, on the long-oared galley.--But come, Euryclea,
spread for him the good bedstead outside the stablished bridal chamber
that he built himself. Thither bring ye forth the good bedstead, and
cast bedding thereon, even fleeces and rugs and shining blankets.'
"So she spake and made trial of her lord, but Odysseus in sore
displeasure spake to his true wife, saying: 'Verily, a bitter word is
this, lady, that thou hast spoken. Who has set my bed otherwhere? Hard
would it be for one, how skilled soever, unless a god were to come that
might easily set it in another place, if so he would.
But of men there
is none living, howsoever strong in his youth, that could lightly
upheave it; for a great marvel is wrought in the fashion of the bed, and
it was I that made it, and none other. There was growing a bush of
olive, long of leaf, and most goodly of growth, within the inner court,
and the stem as large as a pillar. Round about this I built the chamber,
till I had finished it, with stones close set, and I roofed it over well
and added thereto compacted doors fitting well. Next I sheared off all
the light wood of the long-leaved olive, and rough-hewed the trunk
upwards from the root, and smoothed it around with the adze, well and
skilfully, and made straight the line thereto and so fashioned it into
the bedpost, and I bored it all with the auger.
Beginning from this
headpost, I wrought at the bedstead till I had finished it, and made it
fair with inlaid work of gold and of silver and of ivory. Then I made
fast therein a bright purple band of oxhide. Even so I declare to thee
this token, and I know not, lady, if the bedstead be yet fast in its
place, or if some man has cut away the stem of the olive tree and set
the bedstead otherwhere.'
"So he spake, and at once her knees were loosened, and her heart melted
within her, as she knew the sure tokens that Odysseus showed her. Then
she fell a-weeping, and ran straight towards him and cast her hands
about his neck, and kissed his head and spake, saying:
"'Murmur not against me, Odysseus, for thou wert ever at other times the
wisest of men. It is the gods that gave us sorrow, the gods who were
jealous that we should abide together and have joy of our youth and come
to the threshold of old age. So now be not wroth with me hereat nor full
of indignation because I did not welcome thee gladly as now, when I
first saw thee. For always my heart within my breast shuddered for fear
lest some man should come and deceive me with his words, for many there
be that devise gainful schemes and evil. Nay, even Argive Helen,
daughter of Zeus, would not have lain with a stranger, and taken him for
a lover, had she known that the warlike sons of the Achaeans would bring
her home again to her own dear country. Howsoever, it was the god that
set her upon this shameful deed; nor ever, ere that, did she lay up in
her heart the thought of this folly, a bitter folly, whence on us, too,
first came sorrow. But now that thou hast told all the sure tokens of
our bed, which never was seen by mortal man, save by thee and me, and
one maiden only, the daughter of Actor, that my father gave me ere yet I
had come hither, she who kept the doors of our strong bridal chamber,
even now dost thou bend my soul, all ungentle as it is.'
"Thus she spake, and in his heart she stirred yet a greater longing to
lament, and he wept as he embraced his beloved wife and true. And even
as when the sight of land is welcome to swimmers, whose well-wrought
ship Poseidon hath smitten on the deep, all driven with the wind and
swelling waves, and but a remnant hath escaped the gray sea water and
swum to the shore, and their bodies are all crusted with the brine, and
gladly have they set foot on land and escaped an evil end; so welcome
to her was the sight of her lord, and her white arms she would never
quite let go from his neck.
"Now when the twain had taken their fill of sweet love, they had delight
in the tales which they told one to the other. The fair lady spake of
all that she had endured in the halls at the sight of the ruinous throng
of wooers, who for her sake slew many cattle, kine, and goodly sheep;
and many a cask of wine was broached. And, in turn, Odysseus, of the
seed of Zeus, recounted all the griefs he had wrought on men, and all
his own travail and sorrow; and she was delighted with the story, and
sweet sleep fell not upon her eyelids till the tale was ended."
Filled with incidents of domestic life in heroic times, the Odyssey
presents us a galaxy of women, if not more impressive, at any rate more
brilliant than that of the Iliad. Of these attractive figures, who
should first merit our consideration, if not the heroine of the poem?
Queen, wife, mother, the sentiment which most characterizes Penelope is
love of husband, child, and home; her chief intellectual trait is
prudence. We find in her the rare combination of warmth of temperament
and sanity of judgment. Her sense of prudence does not exclude depth of
devotion, longings for the absent one, and outbursts of indignation at
the wrongs inflicted on her son. Her love for Odysseus is intense and
constant. There is a beautiful legend that when Odysseus came to carry
off his bride, her father entreated her to remain with him in his old
age. The chariot is ready to bear her away, and the maiden pauses just a
moment, hesitating 'twixt love and duty. Odysseus gives her her choice;
but, drawing down her veil, she signifies that where her lover goes
there will she go. This intensity of affection marks the twenty long
years of separation. Every night, she bewails Odysseus, her dear lord,
till gray-eyed Athena casts sweet sleep upon her eyelids. She ever longs
for, though at times despairs of, his return; and she inquires of every
stranger, that she may learn something of the wanderer.
Penelope is also
a devoted mother. Ever anxious about her son, she grieves for him when
absent, and when at home guards him as far as possible from the
insolence of the wooers. In her obedience to her son, she seems to have
followed the Greek custom expected of a widow.
In her relations with the wooers, Penelope adopted the only attitude
which was possible for a woman who would wait indefinitely for the
return of her lord. Parents and son, Greek custom and precedents, all
expected that a widow should remarry after so long an interval. And the
wooers were insolent, overwhelming the palace and rapidly making away
with the patrimony of Telemachus. Hence, only by coquettish dallying
could she postpone the evil day.
In all things Penelope was a model housewife, ever engaged in feminine
tasks, overseeing her maidens at their work, watching over the younger
servants with the solicitude of a mother, and observing toward the aged
slave the deference of a daughter. But when the uncivil Melantho is
deficient in respect, the queen calls her severely to a sense of her
duty. When her husband returns, for whom she has waited during twenty
long years of widowhood, she does not throw herself straightway into his
arms. She fears a god may deceive her, and, the better to preserve for
Odysseus the treasures of the tenderness stored up in her heart, she
devises every cunning test to make sure it is really he.
Never was there
in woman's heart a more ardent flame of love and devotion; never in a
woman's head intelligence so subtle, judgment so sure.
When we fully
appreciate the charm of Penelope's character, we better understand how
the hero should sacrifice the devotion of a goddess for the love of such
a woman.
"These two meet at last together, he after his long wanderings, and she
after having suffered the insistence of suitors in her palace; and this
is the pathos of the Odyssey. The woman, in spite of her withered youth
and tearful years of widowhood, is still expectant of her lord. He,
unconquered by the pleasures cast across his path, unterrified by all
the dangers he endures, clings in thought to the bride whom he led
forth, a blushing maiden, from her father's halls. O
just, subtle, and
mighty Homer! There is nothing of Greek here more than of Hebrew, or of
Latin, or of German. It is pure humanity."
Closely interwoven with the plot of the Odyssey is the aged and touching
figure of the faithful slave Euryclea, who by her devotion has become a
member of the family she serves. Taken captive in her girlhood, she had
nursed Odysseus in his childhood, and, later, his own son, Telemachus.
Thus she is to both a second mother. She assists the queen in managing
the house, in bringing up her son, in succoring the stranger. When she
recognizes her master, how ravishing is her joy, how she longs to share
it with her mistress! Yet she knows how to keep a secret.
Circe and Calypso are styled goddesses, yet they are brought down to
earth in their love for Odysseus, and are thoroughly human in their
traits. Calypso feeds on ambrosia and nectar, and lives in a mysterious
grotto on an enchanted island; yet she loves like any mortal woman, and
bitter is her wail when she receives the command of the gods to let
Odysseus go. The enchantress Circe is much more dangerous, and takes a
ghoulish delight in metamorphosing men into swine; yet, when she falls
in love with Odysseus, she is the queenly lady, considerate of his
comrades, and in every way his guide, philosopher, and friend. Unlike
Calypso, she seeks not to detain Odysseus against the will of the gods,
but after the expiration of a year sends him on his way.
To return to the domestic heroines: Queen Arete of Phaeacia is, like
Penelope, an example of the elevated position held by women in the royal
houses of heroic times. She exerts over the subjects of her husband the
same influence she exercises in the family circle. Her children share
the reverence and affection she has from husband and people. To her
Odysseus makes supplication; for if he win her favor, sure is his return
to his native land; she bids her people prepare gifts for her guest
friend at his departure, and to her Odysseus extends the pledging cup in
saying farewell.
Where can one find phrases sufficiently subtle, expressions sufficiently
delicate, to reproduce the sweet picture of Nausicaa? Of all the
creations of poetic fancy, none equals her in perennial charm. "She is
simply," says Symonds, "the most perfect maiden, the purest, freshest
lightest-hearted girl of Greek romance." This immortal child of the
poetic imagination will, with two real women,--Lesbian Sappho, and Mary,
Queen of Scots,--have lovers in every age and in every clime. Though
merely a poet's fancy, Nausicaa is absolutely human and full of life,
and thus differs from the heroine of _The Tempest_, who of all poetic
creations most resembles her. Note her naive grace and charm, her
girlish vivacity and joy, at the beginning of the scene; and when the
occasion demands it, the girl becomes the woman, and with unaffected
simplicity and dignity