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Ἠέλιος μὲν γὰρ ἔλαχεν πόνον ἤματα πάντα
οὐδέ κοτ ̓ ἄμπαυσις γίνεται οὐδεμία
ἱπποισίν τε καὶ αὐτῷ, ἐπεὶ ῥοδοδάκτυλος Ηώς
Ὠκεανὸν προλιποῦσ ̓ οὐρανὸν εἰσαναβῆ.
τὸν μὲν γὰρ διὰ κῦμα φέρει πολυήρατος εὐνή
κωΐλη, Ηφαίστου χερσὶν ἐληλαμένη
χρυσοῦ τιμήεντος, υπόπτερος, ἄκρον ἐφ ̓ ὕδωρ,
εἴδονθ ̓ ἁρπαλέως, χώρου ἀφ ̓ Εσπερίδων
γαῖαν ἐς Αἰθιόπων, ἵνα δὴ θοὸν ἅρμα καὶ ἵπποι
ἑστᾶσ ̓, ὄφρ' Ηὼς ήριγένεια μόλη,

ἔνθ ̓ ἐπέβη σφετέρων ὀχέων Ὑπερίονος υἱός.

Fragt. 12, Bergk.

So Odysseus-Helios, after all his laborious wanderings, performs his homeward voyage from the west eastward, slumbering and by night. For no sufficient reason that is stated in the narrative, the vessel delays its departure till sunset, Ulysses embarks in silence, reclines on a couch on the prow and immediately falls into a sleep, balmy, sweet, and still as death, and continues slumbering oblivious of all he had gone through, when precisely at daybreak the bark arrives at the shore of his native land. 13 The very images by which the poet illustrates the course, speed, and destination of the marvellous vessel, endued with more than human intelligence, are borrowed from the rich fund of solar symbolism to which the vase painters resorted to illustrate the progress of the day-god. The four entire horses of the chariot of Helios, forth springing all together, as seen on earlier coins, on the later the action is varied, -the star the herald of the day, the bird above the steeds as if overtaken by them,1 are as exactly described in the account of the return of Ulysses as in any passages of Greek poetry.

The fable of the brazen-footed bulls with which Jason ploughed, would yield further illustration of these archaic types, for Jason himself stands in much the same relation to the sun-god as Odysseus. Mimnermus again is our authority; in a fragment preserved by Strabo, he tells how Jason proceeded a weary way to Aia, by the ocean stream, to obtain the golden fleece, to the city of Aietes, where the rays of the rapid sun are laid up in a golden treasury by the brim of ocean; the

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eastern Aia visited by the Argonaut is therefore the abode of the sun, and corresponds with the Ææa of the Odyssey, the island of Kirke, of whom the sun was sire.

Αιήταο πόλιν, τόθι τ' ὠκέος Ηελίοιο

ἀκτῖνες χρυσέῳ κείαται ἐν θαλάμω

Ὠκεανοῦ παρὰ χείλος, ἵν' ᾤχετο θεῖος Ἰήσων.

Mimnermus Fragt. 11. Edit. Bergk.

In the three maidens of Arete, who, with the herald of Alcinous, conduct Ulysses to the ship, bearing garments, a cista, and food and drink, and who prepare his couch in the vessel, we may discern the representatives of the Hesperian nymphs. The sun, according to Antimachus, was dismissed on his nocturnal voyage, by the Hesperid Erytheia, whose name is that of the locality where Geryon tended the herds of the sun. Even the herald had his mythical antitype in the group, in the Moiragetes, who, on ancient monuments, derived no doubt from still earlier traditions, leads a triad of nymphs with the attributes common to the Horæ, Charites, and Hesperides.

The Phæacian ship is equipped and manned by two-andfifty youths, a number which we must not doubt was derived from the weeks of the year, in this instance counted more exactly than the affection for round numbers usually permits. The herds of the sun are counted as, seven of oxen and seven of sheep, each containing fifty, and thus in total, three hundred and sixty of each; oxen and sheep, interpreted by Aristotle, I doubt not, correctly, as types of the days and nights of a lunar year.

These were the herds tended by Geryon, that Hercules drove away from Erytheia, (Macrob. v. 21, Eustath. in Dionys. 560,) and to reach which, he voyaged in the vessel of the sun, obtained from the god by his boldness; thus embarked, he gives us another parallel to Ulysses and Jason. Gems and Etruscan scarabæi, represent him recumbent in a couch with a sail.15 The craft is variously designated a transport, a cup, caldron, couch,16 while a vase painting of great beauty, exhibits Apollo passing over the waves seated on a tripod, which, like his couch,

15 Impr. d. Inst. 111. 21, 22, 23, 24. 16 Athenæus, p. 37-8; Eustath. Dionys. Perieg. 560. See Gerhard's Aus

erlesene Vasenbilder, vol. 11. 84, t. cix. and ox.

as described by Mimnermus, is winged. I have no hesitation in accepting Gerhard's interpretation of the design, as the passage of the lower hemisphere by Apollo; but it may be further observed, that the tripod becoming thus the equivalent of the sun-cup, to obtain which, Herakles threatened the god with his bow, we appear to trace up to the same source the origin of the mythus, so frequent a subject of figured antiquity, of the struggle of Apollo and Hercules for the tripod. Such an origin by no means precluded the subsequent employment of the incident, as symbolical of the contests that arose for the control of the Delphic tripod or oracle.

The intention of Homer in representing Ulysses as returning home, slumbering and at night, has been discussed by ancient and modern critics. The agreement is general, that an anomaly exists, and a collection of the various theories formed to account for it, would perhaps be instructive enough to repay the tediousness of reading, though scarcely of recording them. Poetically, it is clear how effective a contrast such a return offers to the agitations and exertions of the earlier voyages of the hero, and how perfectly it is in harmony with the calm night scenes in the house of Eumæus, with which the poet relieves the attention stimulated by adventure, and gives rest to the feelings before passing to the bustle and disorders of the palace. Nevertheless, there was justice in the enquiry for explanation, though the poetical propriety had been more correctly estimated than it seems to have been. Eustathius records several suggestions by others, and adds his own to account for the difficulty; for, to the credit of criticism it must be said, that few have ventured to get rid of the question by broad declaration that the bard was less wise than his commentators, and by declining the responsibility of discovering a wise reason for what was simply a wonderful blunder.

Aristotle, it is true, in the Poetics, considers that such an improbable fiction would have been intolerable related by an inferior poet, its absurdity being only overlooked from the exquisite beauties with which it is associated. "Herakleides, however, says Welcker, who may have heard this opinion in the discourses of Aristotle, or had the treatise itself in his hands, says, that the absurdity is on the part of those who do not divine in what the poet says here, his general intention in the character of the Phæacians. Nevertheless, the exposition in

which he essays to account for the absurdity of the Phæacians in leaving Ulysses on the earth without rousing him, and the inopportune somnolence of the hero, runs into subtleties and prolixity, and certainly explains nothing. Still less satisfactory are other explanations attempted by the ancients, such as those in Plutarch, that Ulysses, according to a Tyrrhenian tradition, was naturally sleepy, and consequently difficult of access, or that he feigned sleep from embarrassment at not being able to reward the Phæacians, or in order to conceal himself from his enemies in this manner.

"In the Scholia, again, it is supposed that the Phæacians did not wake up their passenger on his arrival, to avoid the appearance of desiring recompense for his passage. There is more soundness in the observation which is made on the occasion of the speech of Arete, (VIII. 444,) as well as at the preparation of the couch, (XIII. 79,) that the transport of passengers sleeping was a peculiarity of the Phæacian ships, just like their automatous progress, independent of sail, oars or steerage; when, however, it is added in one instance that the design of the arrangement was, that the power of the ships might not be discovered, we trace a connection with the way of thinking of Herakleides. The latest commentator, Nitzsch, assumes that the poet followed the inducement of an account of the concealment by seafaring people of the courses of their traffic, in seeking to mystify the situation of the beautiful land of the Phæacians, and invented accordingly, for this purpose, the nocturnal voyage, and the slumber of the voyager; besides this, he veiled the feelings of Ulysses on his return home by the sleep, as the painter Timanthes made Agememnon cover his face with his mantle at the sacrifice of Iphigenia. To many the marvellous means will appear far-fetched in relation to the prosaic purpose, and assuredly there are few who will not regard the stratagem to escape from describing the joyous impatience of the return home, as very extraordinary. The poet places before our eyes, touchingly and forcibly enough, the longing that preceded the departure by a simple simile; what cause had he to shirk the joy of the arrival, supposing him to have no object in sending Ulysses to sleep in the Phæacian vessel ?"

Thus far Welcker, on the comments and considerations of others, and he proceeds to set forth his own solution of the problem. He points out, with much force and unflinching de

tail, the indications, that the Phæacians were strictly a mythical people; that the original mythus in which they bore part had a certain distinct significance not unconnected with the legends of the islands of the blest, and that the poet, in working up the fable into the story of the Odyssey, kept this significance in view, and allowed it, by ingenious combination, to influence his allusions and heighten his effects. In the mythus, however, which he selects as the prototype, he is not so happy, -the story related by Tzetzes and Procopius of a tribe on the shore of the German Ocean, who ferried over by night the invisible souls of the dead to an island between Thule and Britain. The coincidences of this legend are worth examination, but placed beside one more apt, and of purer Hellenic derivation, would not require extended analysis, though its pretensions had obtained more general favour among critics than appears to have repaid the energetic advocacy of its patron.17

I confess he appears to me little more successful in his attempt to controvert the venerable opinion, that the Corcyræans were entitled to consider their country as alluded to in a particular manner, in the description of the Phæacians and their city; somewhat he does disprove, and very successfully, but I think nothing that even a zealous supporter of the claim of Corcyra need care to hold or insist on. All antiquity was in favour of the claim, and Welcker himself infers that Hesiod gave countenance to it in the Great Eoiai. Even at the present time, when the correspondence of the poem with local characteristics and population is naturally more obscure, a very strong presumptive case may be made out,-indeed presents itself.

The Odyssey nowhere makes other mention of the remarkable and beautiful island, though frequently of the neighbouring Thesprotia, which even seems to be brought into communication with Phæacia, (XIX, 271,) yet the rich fund of Hellenic mythus and worship that we have seen was already flourishing in Ambracia and Thesprotia, necessarily involves the settlement of Corcyra by some tribes, whether pure or mixed, of

17 Otherwise, that a Scandinavian illustration of Greek legend is not necessarily far-fetched, may be seen in the dissertation by MM. Depping and Michel, on the tradition of Wayland

Smith; a translation of it, together with Oehlenschläger's amplification of the legend, forms a charming little book, lately issued under the always elegant editorship of my friend Mr Singer.

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