Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 9, 1898.djvu/133

Rh Halitherses. In this connection, then, it is important to note that it would seem that the people of Ithaca, even the Boulê or Agora of the island, were on the side of the Suitors. Among them were twelve princes of the island, whose massacre nearly led to a general attack on Odysseus and his party, which was repelled only by direct divine interposition. Nestor, again, the impersonation of worldly wisdom, suggests that the people of the land may hate Telemachus. The poet, it is true, may have heard a legend that the dynasty of Odysseus were themselves interlopers. But of this there is no clear evidence in the poems. Here it is enough to point out that public opinion, instead of being enlisted in defence of a helpless princess exposed to the unwelcome attentions of a body of insolent brawlers, was obviously on the other side. This, it appears to me, lends strong support to the suggestion that in the original form of the Saga the Suitors were kinsmen, not impudent intruders. Secondly, the suggestion which I have made as to the status of the Suitors seems to be supported by the claim which they distinctly make to divide among themselves the property of the prince who was assumed to be dead. Thus Antinous proposes that after slaying Telemachus they should "keep his livelihood and his possessions," but leave the palace to Penelope and to whomsoever she might be induced or compelled to marry. "They are eager even now," says Philoetius, "to divide among themselves the possessions of our lord who is long afar." And at the crisis of his fate Eurymachus reminds Odysseus that Antinous aimed at being King of Ithaca. All this seems to me,