Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/81

59 LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE. 59 against the Greeks ; so, in the Odyssey, he appears at the very begin- ning; willing to acquiesce in the proposal of Athena for the return of Ulysses, but does not in reality despatch Hermes to Calypso till several days later, in the fifth book. It is evident that the poet is impressed with a conception familiar to the Greeks, of a divine destiny, slow in its preparations, and apparently delaying, but on that very account marching with the greater certainty to its end. We also perceive in the Odyssey the same artifice as that pointed out in the Iliad, of turning the expectation of the reader into a different direction from that which the narrative is afterwards to take; but, from the nature of the subject, chiefly in single scattered passages. The poet plays in the most agreeable manner with us, by holding out other means by which the necessary work of vengeance on the suitors maybe accomplished; and also after we have arrived somewhat nearer the true aim, he still has in store another beautiful invention with which to surprise us. Thus the exhortation twice addressed to Telemachus in the same words, in the early books of the Odyssey, to imitate the example of Orestes* (which strikes deep root in his heart), produces an undefined expectation that he himself may attempt something against the suitors ; nor is the true meaning of it perceived, until Telemachus places himself so undauntedly at his father's side. After- wards, when the father and son have arranged their plan for taking vengeance, they think of assaulting the suitors, hand to hand, with lance and sword, in a combat of very doubtful issue f- The bow of Eurytus, from which Ulysses derives such great advantage, is a new and unex- pected idea. Athena suggests to Penelope the notion of proposing it to the suitors as a prize J, and although the ancient legend doubtless repre- sented Ulysses overcoming the suitors with this bow, yet the manner in which it is brought into his hands is a very ingenious contrivance of the poet§. As in the Iliad the deepest interest prevails between the Battle at the Ships and the Death of Hector, so in the Odyssey the narrative begins, with the fetching of the bow (at the outset of the twenty-first book), to assume a lofty tone, which is mingled with an almost painful expectation ; and the poet makes use of every thing which the legend offered, as the gloomy forebodings of Theoclymenus (who is only intro- duced in order to prepare for this scene of horror ||) and the contcmpo- f Od. xvi. 295. The kii-rwn of Zenodotus, as usual, rests on insufficient grounds, and would deprive the story of an important point of its progress. Od. xxi. 4. § That this part of the poem is founded on ancient tradition appears from the fact that the j^Etolian tribe of the Euii/tamaus.-who derived their origin from Eurytus (prohahly the MtoYvm CEchalia also belonged to this nation, Strabo, x. p. 448), pos- sessed an oracle of U/gsses. Lvcophron, v. 799 ; and the Scholia from Aristotle. is connected with tbe return of Ulysses during the new moon (Od. xiv. 162; xix. 307), whtn an eclipse of the sun could take plate. This also appeaisto be a trace of ancient tradition.
 * Od. i. 302; iii. 200.
 * Among these the disappearance of the sun (Od. xx. 356) is to lie observed, which