VI
Space does not allow us to give a detailed criticism of the Odyssey as a poem, and determine its relation to the Iliad. We must content ourselves with quoting the words of the most eloquent of ancient critics, which sum up the subject with admirable brevity and insight: "Homer in his Odyssey may be compared to the setting sun: he is still as great as ever, but he has lost his fervent heat. The strain is now pitched in a lower key than in the 'Tale of Troy divine': we begin to miss that high and equable sublimity which never flags or sinks, that continuous current of moving incidents, those rapid transitions, that force of eloquence, that opulence of imagery which is ever true to nature. Like the sea when it retires upon itself and leaves its shores waste and bare, henceforth the tide of sublimity begins to ebb, and draws us away into the dim region of myth and legend."[2]
1. Butcher and Lang's translation. [(return)]
2. Longinus: "On the Sublime." Translated by H.L. Havell, B.A. p. 20. Macmillan & Co. [(return)]