For know, to Sparta thy lov'd offspring came, 480 At this the father, with a father's care: Must he too suffer, he, O goddess! bear Of wand'rings and of woes a wretched share? Thro' the wild ocean plough the dang❜rous way, And leave his fortunes and his house a prey? Why would'st not thou, oh all-enlighten'd mind! Inform him certain, and protect him, kind? 485 To whom Minerva: Be thy soul at rest; And know, whatever heav'n ordains, is best. To fame I sent him, to acquire renown: To other regions is his virtue known. Secure he sits, near great Atrides plac'd; 490 With friendships strengthen'd, and with honours grac'd. But lo! an ambush waits his passage o'er; Fierce foes insidious intercept the shore: In vain! far sooner all the murd❜rous brood wand: The skin shrunk up, and wither'd at her hand: 500 A swift old age o'er all his members spread; In rags dishonest flutters with the air: A stag's torn hide is lap'd around his reins; While Pallas, cleaving the wide fields of air, 510 SELECT NOTES ΤΟ BOOK XIII. V.3. The shady rooms. s.] The epithet in the original is cxLevra, or gloomy: it is here used with a peculiar propriety, to keep in the reader's mind the exact time when Ulysses made his narration to the Phæacians, namely, in the evening of the thirtythird day: we may likewise gather from this distinction of times the exact stay of Ulysses among the Phæacians; he was thrown upon their shores on the thirty-first day in the evening, and lands about day-break on the thirty-fifth day in his own country; so that he stayed three nights only with Alcinous, one night being spent in his voyage to Ithaca from Phæacia. V. 10. For whom my chanter sings, and goblet flows With wine unmix'd, &c.] Homer calls the wine yeguatov, or wine drank at the entertainment of elders; yɛpovʊwv, or men of distinction, says Eustathius; by the bard, he means Demodocus. The same critic further remarks, that Homer judiciously shortens every circumstance before he comes to the dismission of Ulysses: thus he omits the description of the sacrifice, and the subject of the song of Demodocus; these are circumstances that at best would be but useless ornaments, and ill agree with the impatience of Ulysses to begin his voyage toward his country. These therefore the poet briefly dispatches. V. 39. As the tir'd ploughman, &c.] The simile which Homer chooses is drawn from low life, but very happily sets off the impatience of Ulysses: it is familiar, but expressive. Horace was not of the judgment of those who thought it mean, for he uses it in his Epistles. V. 73. The bowl presenting to Arete's hands; Then thus ...... .] It may be asked why Ulysses addresses his words to the queen, rather than the king? the reason is, because she was his patroness, and had first received him with hospitality, as appears from the seventh book of the Odyssey. Ulysses makes a libation to the gods, and presents the bowl to the queen this was the pious practice of antiquity upon all solemn occasions: Ulysses here does it, because he is to undertake a voyage, and it implies a prayer for the prosperity of it. The reason why he presents the bowl to the queen is, that she may first drink out of it, for so povεv properly and originally signifiles, το προ εαυλα δίδοναι τινι πίνειν, says Eustathius. Propino is used differently by the Romans. V. 112. But when the morning star with early ray Flam'd in the front of heav'n . 1 ..... From this passage we may gather, that Ithaca is distant from Corcyra or Phæacia no farther than a vessel sails in the compass of one night; and this agrees with the real distance between those islands; an instance that Homer was well acquainted with geography: this is the morning of the thirty-fifth day. V. 116. ...... A spacious port appears, Sacred to Phorcys' ......................] ........ Phorcys was the son of Pontus and Terra, according to Hesiod's genealogy of the gods: this haven is said to be sacred to that deity, because he had a temple near it, from whence it received its appellation. ..... V. 124. A gloomy grotto's cool recess.] Porphyry has wrote a volume to explain this cave of the Nymphs, with more piety perhaps than judgment; and another person has perverted it into the utmost obscenity, and both allegorically. But I confess I should rather choose to understand the description poetically, believing that Homer never dreamed of these matters, though the age in which he flourished was addicted to allegory. How often do painters draw from the imagination only, merely to please the eye? And why might not Homer write after it, especially in this place where he manifestly indulges his fancy, while he brings his hero to the first dawning of happiness? He has long dwelt upon a series of horrors, and his imagination being tired with the melancholy story, it is not impossible but his spirit might be enlivened with the subject while he wrote, and this might lead him to indulge his fancy in a wonderful, and perhaps fabulous description. V. 134. Sacred the south, by which the gods descend, But mortals enter at the northern end. I shall offer a conjecture to explain these two lines. It has been already observed, that the Ethiopians held an annual sacrifice of twelve days to the gods; all that time they carried their images in procession, and placed them at their festivals, and for this reason the gods were said to feast with the Ethiopians; that is, they were present with them by their statues: thus also Themis was said to form or dissolve assemblies, because they carried her image to the assemblies when they were convened, and when they were broken up they carried it away. Now we have already remarked, that this port was sacred to Phorcys, because he had a temple by it: it may not then be impossible, but that this temple having two doors, they might carry the statues of the gods in their processions through the southern gate, which might be consecrated to this use only, and the populace be forbid to enter by it for that reason the deities were said to enter, namely, by their images. As the other gate being allotted to common use, was said to be the passage for mortals. V. 138. Ulysses sleeping on his couch they bore, There is nothing in the whole Odyssey that more shocks our reason than the exposing Ulysses asleep on the shore by the Phæacians: The passage (says Aristotle in his Poetics) where Ulysses is landed in Ithaca, is so full of absurdities, that they would be intolerable in a bad poet; but Homer has concealed |