Homer's Odyssey / A Commentary

by Denton Jaques Snider

But the Greeks united the two sides—that which appears and that which is, or the world of sense, and the world of spirit—and thereby produced art, the plastic forms of Gods and Men. Hellas brought forth to the sunlight Beauty, which Egypt never could. Even here Egyptian Proteus leads Menelaus to the Greek Gods, and becomes himself a kind of antecedent Hellenic deity. Egypt means to Greek Menelaus two things: first, it is a land of error, of alienation, of darkness; secondly, it has its light, its wisdom, which, when he finds, points him homeward to Hellas, to his own Gods.

Deeply suggestive become all these mythical hints, when we once are in touch with their spirit. We naturally pass to the Hebrew parallel, since that other great world-historical people of antiquity, the Israelites, had their experience also with Egypt. For them, too, it was a land of darkness, slavery, divine estrangement. They also sought a Return, not dissimilar to the Greek Return, to their true home. It was a long, terrible time, a wandering not on the water, like the sea-faring Hellene, but in the wilderness and desert, like the sand-faring Semite. All the companions (but two) were lost, and the leader also; moreover that leader was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, but had to get out of it and away from it, and lead his people into their own possessions. Much light Egypt with all its darkness furnished to Moses and Judea; much to Menelaus and to Hellas. So the two chief streams of human culture, the Greek and the Hebrew, are traced back to the Egyptian source in the earliest books, or Bibles of the two peoples themselves.

Moreover we find the form of the two grand experiences quite the same; there is a going into Egypt, the land of dazzling riches and power and civilization; there is the misfortune and trial in that land after a time of prosperity, finally, there is the Return home, with many wanderings and sufferings. Both peoples bring with them what may be called the Egyptian idea, yet each transforms it into its own spirit after its own fashion.

Still further we may follow this thought and behold it as universal. The form of separation and return is fundamental in human spirit; this is its inherent movement, and the shape which it imparts to the great works of literature. The very destiny of man is cast into this mould; there is, first, his estrangement, the fall from his high estate; then is his return to harmony with the divine order. The Hebrew Bible begins with the Fall of Man; that is the first chapter; the rest of the book is his rise, and marks out the path of his Return which, of course, shows many sinuosities. Such is the deepest fact of the human soul, and to image it, there springs into existence the corresponding literary form. Not that it was taken consciously by the poet or maker after much ratiocination; he has to take it, if he sees the universe as it is. This form is the form of the everlasting reality, of which he has the immediate vision, it is also the form of very selfhood, of the Ego.

Though different in many things, the Odyssey and the Bible are both, at bottom, Returns. They restore the man after alienation. Indeed we may behold the same form as fundamental in all Great Literary Books—in Homer, in Dante, in Shakespeare, in Goethe.

Many things connected with this catching and holding of Proteus are suggestive, but they are the flash of the poet into the depths, and must be seen with the poetic glance, for they bear with much loss the heavy translation into thought. How this Eidothea, the Goddess of Appearance, turns against her own father, and helps to make him reveal himself in his true shape; how Menelaus and his three comrades put on the skins of the sea-calves, and deceive the deceiver, applying the latter's art of transformation to himself, and destroying appearance with appearance; how the poor mortals almost perish through the odor of the skins of the sea-calves, thus showing their human weakness and limitation, till ambrosia, the food of the Immortals, is brought by the Goddess, which at once relieves them of their mortal ailment—these and other incidents have their subtle, far-reaching hint of the supersensible world. The whole story is illumined with one thought, how to master the material show of things and reach their spiritual inwardness.

But the chief duty of these people, now disguised to destroy disguise, is to hold the Old Man fast when they have once caught him, that shifty, ever-changing Old Man of the Sea. Let him turn to water, to a snake, to a lion, to a tree—hold him fast; he is the One under them all and will at last reveal himself. Very necessary, indeed, is it to hold fast, and never let go in the grand play of Appearances; the strength of the man is shown by his ability to hold fast, amid the fleeting shadows of Time.

Menelaus holds the Old Man fast, and asks: What God detains me from my return? The answer comes home strong: Thou hast neglected the sacrifice due to Zeus and the other deities; thou hast not recognized the Gods. Verily the heart of the difficulty; Menelaus has not placed himself in harmony with the divine order, in which he must act. What then? Go back to the beginning, back to Egypt, and start aright; commence thy return again with the new light, recognize Zeus and the Gods by sacrifice there, and thou shalt see home. Thus the Egyptian estrangement is removed, the Greek hero of wisdom must reach beyond the experience of Egypt and be restored to the Greek Gods.

At once Menelaus was ready to obey, though "his heart was broken" at the thought of recrossing the sea to Egypt, for the "way was long and difficult." Still he will do it; and next he is given a look into the Distant and Future, a glance into the soul of things separated from him by Space and Time. He will know concerning the Returners, in deep accord with the spirit of the poem. He hears of the awful death of Ajax, son of Oileus, he hears of the sad fate of his brother Agamemnon; also the Old Man of the Sea tells him a few words concerning Ulysses, who is still alive but cannot get away from the isle of Calypso. News just good enough to give hope to the son who is eagerly listening, and hears that his father still lives.

Finally, Menelaus learns of his own future existence from the Old Man, who is in person the very embodiment of what lies beyond the senses, of immortality. "The Gods have decreed thou shalt not die, O Menelaus, but shalt dwell in the Elysian Plain, at the ends of the earth." He is the husband of Helen, and coupled forever with her destiny; he is, through her, of the divine family of Zeus. Such is the promise, has it not been fulfilled?