of suitors are to be slain by a few hands, which might shock our reason, if it were related suddenly, without any preparation to shew us the probability of it: this is the intent of Homer in this and various other places of the Odyssey: he softens the relation, and reconciles us to it by such insertions, before he describes that great event. The ancients (says Eustathius) would not here allow Ulysses to speak hyperbolically; he is that hero whom we have already seen in the Iliad resist whole bands of Trojans, when the Greeks were repulsed, where he slew numbers of enemies, and sustained their assaults till he was disengaged by Ajax. Besides, there is an excellent moral in what Ulysses speaks; it contains this certain truth (adds Dacier), that a man assisted by heaven, has not only nothing to fear, but is assured to triumph over all the united powers of mankind. V. 452. How wide the pavements float with guilty gore!] The words in the Greek are acnelov dag, which Eustathius imagines to signify the land of Ithaca; for the hall even of a palace is too narrow to be styled immense, or acmelov. But this contradicts the matter of fact, as appears from the place where the suitors were slain, which was not in the fields of Ithaca, but in the palace of Ulysses: aonelov really signifies large or spacious; and a palace that could entertain at one time so great a number of suitors might be called vast, or aon, which Hesychius interprets by λιαν πολυς, μεγας. DACIER. V. 465. Go first the master of thy herds to find.] There are many reasons why this injunction was necessary: the hero of a poem ought never to be out of sight, never out of action: neither is Ulysses idle in this recess; he goes thither to acquaint himself with the condition of his affairs, both public and domestic: he there lays the plan for the destruction of the suitors, inquires after their numbers, and the state of Penelope and Telemachus. Besides, he here resides in full security and privacy, till he has prepared all things for the execution of the great event of the whole Odyssey. ..... ... V. 469. Coracian rock ..] This rock was so called from a young man whose name was Corax, who in pursuit of a hare fell from it, and broke his neck: Arethusa his mother hear ing of the accident, hanged herself by the fountain, which afterwards took its name from her, and was called Arethusa. EUSTA THIUS. V. 502. His robe, which spots indelible besmear, &c.] I doubt not but Homer draws after the life. We have the whole equipage and accoutrements of a beggar, yet so drawn by Homer, as even to retain a nobleness and dignity; let any person read the description, and he will be convinced of it: what can be more lofty and sonorous than this verse? Ρωδαλέα, ρυποωνία κακω μεμορυίμενα καπνω. It is no humility to say that a translator must fall short of the original in such passages; the Greek language has words noble and sounding to express all subjects, which are wanting in our tongue; all that is to be expected is to keep the diction from appearing mean or ridiculous. They are greatly mistaken who impute this disguise of Ulysses in the form of a beggar as a fault to Homer; there is nothing either absurd or mean in it; for the way to make a king undiscoverable, is to dress him as unlike himself as possible. David counterfeited madness, as Ulysses poverty, and neither of them ought to lie under any imputation; it is easy to vindicate Homer, from the disguise of the greatest persons and generals in history, upon the like emergencies; but there is no occasion for it. THE ARGUMENT. THE CONVERSATION WITH EUMEUS. ULYSSES arrives in disguise at the house of Eumæus, where he is received, entertained, and lodged, with the utmost hospitality. The several discourses of that faithful old servant, with the feigned story told by Ulysses to conceal himself, and other conversations on various subjects, take up this entire book. |