Page:Homer. The Odyssey (IA homerodyssey00collrich).pdf/137

Rh Even in much later times, dissimulation has been held an indispensable quality in rulers; and an English philosopher tells us plainly that "the intriguing spirit, the overreaching manner, and the over-refinement of art and policy, are naturally incident to the experienced and thorough politician. At the same time, it must be remembered that Ulysses employs deceit only where it was recognised and allowed by the moral code of the age—against his enemies; he is never for a moment otherwise than true to his friends. Nay, while the kings and leaders in the Iliad are too fairly open to the reproach of holding cheap the lives and the interests of the meaner multitude who followed them, Ulysses is, throughout his long wanderings, the sole protecting providence, so far as their wilfulness will allow him, of his followers as well as of himself.

The tale of his wanderings has been a rich mine of wealth for poets and romancers, painters and sculptors, from the dim date of the age which we call Homer's down to our own. In this wonderful poem, be its authorship what it may, lie the germs of thousands of the volumes which fill our modern libraries. Not that all their authors are either wilful plagiarists or even conscious imitators; but because the Greek poet, first of all whose thoughts have been preserved to us in writing, touched, in their deepest as well as their lightest tones, those chords of human action and passion which find an echo in all hearts and in all ages.

First, that is to say, of all whose utterances we re-