Page:Homer. The Odyssey (IA homerodyssey00collrich).pdf/142

132 poems of Homer. The very figures of speech are the same. The passionate apostrophe of Moses and Isaiah—"Hear, heavens, and give ear, O earth"—is used by Juno in the Iliad, and by Calypso in the Odyssey. "Day" is commonly employed as an equivalent for fate or judgment; "the half of one's kingdom" is held to be a right royal gift; "the gates of hell" are the culmination of evil. Telemachus swears "by the woes of his father," as Jacob does "by the fear of his father Isaac;" and the curse pronounced on Phœnix by his father—that never grandchild of his begetting might sit upon his knees" —recalls the sacred text in which we are told that "the children of Machir, the son of Manasseh, were brought up on Joseph's knees."

Many and various have been the theories of interpretation which have been employed, by more or less ingenious writers, to develop what they have considered the inner meaning of the poet's tale. Such speculations began at a very early date in literary history. They were current among Greek philosophers in the days of Socrates, but he himself would not admit them. It is impossible, and would be wearisome even if it were possible, to discuss them all. But one especially must be mentioned, not wholly modern, but which has won much favour of late in the world of scholars, —that in both poems we have certain truths of physical and astronomical science represented under an allegorical form, imported into Greek fable from Eastern sources. This theory is, to say the least, so inter-