Page:Homer. The Odyssey (IA homerodyssey00collrich).pdf/53



fifth book of the poem opens with a second council of the gods. It has been remarked with some truth that the gods of the Odyssey are, on the whole, more dignified than those of the Iliad. They are divided in this poem, as well as in the other, in their loves and hates towards mortals, but their dissensions are neither so passionate nor so grotesque. Minerva complains bitterly to the Ruler of Olympus of the injustice with which her favourite Ulysses is treated, by being kept so long an exile from his home. She, too, repeats the indignant protest which the poet had before put into the mouth of Mentor, which has found vent in all times and ages, from Job and the Psalmist downwards, when in the bitterness of a wounded spirit men rebel against what seems the inequality of the justice of heaven; that "there is one event to the righteous and the wicked;" nay, that the wicked have even the best of it. "Let never king henceforth do justly and love mercy; but let him rule with iron hand and work all iniquity; for lo! what is Ulysses' reward?" Jupiter is moved by the appeal.