Homer's Odyssey / A Commentary

by Denton Jaques Snider

But he did not do it, he could not do it; herein lies his limitation and theirs also, in fact, the limitation of the entire Greek world. What did these companions do? "They perished by their own folly;" they would not obey the counsel of their wise man; they rejected their Hero, who could not, therefore, rescue them. A greater wisdom and a deeper suffering than that of Ulysses will be required for their salvation, whereof the time has not yet come. He would bring them home, but "they ate of the oxen of the sun;" they destroyed the attribute of light in some way and perished. The fact is certainly far-reaching in its suggestion; a deep glance it throws into that old heathen world, whose greatest poet in the most unconscious manner hints here the tragic limitation of his people and his epoch. It is a hint of which we, looking back through more than twenty-five centuries can see the full meaning, as that meaning has unfolded itself in the ages. Time is also a commentator on Homer and has written down, in that alphabet of his, called events, the true interpretation of the old poet. Still the letters of Time's alphabet have also to be learned and require not only eyesight but also insight.

The Invocation puts all its stress upon Ulysses and his attempt to save his companions. It says nothing of Telemachus and his youthful experience, nothing of the grand conflict with the suitors. Hence fault has been found with it in various ways. But it singles out the Hero and designates three most important matters concerning him: his knowledge, his suffering, his devotion to his companions. Enough; it has given a start, a light has been put into our hand which beams forward significantly upon the poem, and illumines the mazes of the Hero's character.

Mark again the emphatic word in this Invocation; it is the Return (nostos), the whole Odyssey is the Return, set forth in many gradations, from the shortest and simplest to the longest and profoundest. The idea of the Return dominates the poem from the start; into this idea is poured the total experience of Ulysses and his companions. The two points between which the Return hovers are also given: the capture of Troy and the Greek world. Not a mere book of travels or adventure is this; it contains an inner restoration corresponding to the outer Return, and the interpreter of the work, if he be true to his function, will trace the interior line of its movement, not neglecting the external side which has also a right to be.

The Obstacles. Two of these are mentioned and carried back to their mythical sources. All the returning heroes are home from Troy except the chief one, Ulysses, whom Calypso detains in her grot, "wishing him to be her husband;" she, the unmarried, keeps him, the married, from family and country, though he longs to go back to both. She is the daughter of "the evil-minded Atlas," a hoary gigantesque shape of primitive legend, "who knows the depths of all the sea,"—a dark knowledge of an unseen region, from which come many fatalities, as shipwreck for the Greek sailor or earthquake for the volcanic Greek islands; hence he is imagined as "evil-minded" by the Greek mythical fancy, which also makes him the supporter of "the long columns which hold Heaven and Earth apart"—surely a hard task, enough to cause anybody to be in a state of protest and opposition against the happy Gods who have nothing to do but enjoy themselves on Olympus. Sometimes he refuses to hold the long columns for awhile, then comes the earthquake, in which what is below starts heavenward. Of this Atlas, Calypso is the offspring, and possibly her island, "the navel of the sea," is a product of one of his movements underneath the waters.

Here we touch a peculiar vein in the mythical treatment of the Odyssey. The fairy-tale, with its comprehensive but dark suggestiveness, is interwoven into the very fibre of the poem. This remote Atlas is the father of Calypso, "the hider," who has indeed hidden Ulysses in her island of pleasure which will hereafter be described. But in spite of his "concealment," Ulysses has aspiration, which calls down the help of the Gods for fulfillment. Such is the first obstacle, which, we can see, lies somewhere in the sensuous part of human nature.

The second obstacle is Neptune, whom we at once think of as the physical sea—certainly a great barrier. The wrath of Neptune is also set off with a tale of wonder, which gives the origin of Polyphemus, the Cyclops—a gigantic, monstrous birth of the sea, which produces so many strange and huge shapes of living things. But Neptune is now far away, outside of the Greek world, so to speak, among the Ethiopians. This implies a finite element in the Gods; they are here, there, and elsewhere; still they have the infinite characteristic also; they easily pass from somewhere into everywhere, and Ulysses will not escape Neptune.

Such, then, are the two obstacles, both connected far back with mythical beings of the sea, wherein we may note the marine character of the Odyssey, which is a sea-poem, in contrast with the Iliad, which is a land-poem. The physical environment, in which each of these songs has its primary setting, is in deep accord with their respective themes—the one being more objective, singing of the deed, the other being more subjective, singing of the soul.

And even in the two present obstacles we may note that the one, Neptune, seems more external—that of the physical sea; while the other, Calypso, seems more internal—that of the soul held in the charms of the senses.

The Assembly of the Gods. The two obstacles to the return of Ulysses are now to be considered by the Gods in council assembled. This is, indeed, the matter of first import; no great action, no great poem is possible outside of the divine order. This order now appears, having a voice; the supreme authority of the world is to utter its decree concerning the work. The poet at the start summons before us the governing principle of the universe in the persons of the Olympian deities. On the other hand, note the solitary individual Ulysses, in a lonely island, with his aspiration for home and country, with his plan—will it be realized? The two sides must come together somehow; the plan of the individual must fit into the plan of the Gods; only in the cooperation of the human and divine is the deed, especially the great deed, possible. Accordingly we are now to behold far in advance the sweep of the poem, showing whether the man's purpose and hope be in harmony with the government of the Gods.

Zeus is the supreme divinity, and he first speaks: "How sorely mortals blame the Gods!" It is indeed an alienated discordant time like the primal fall in Eden. But why this blame? "For they say that evils come from us, the Gods; whereas they, through their own follies, have sorrows beyond what is ordained." The first words of the highest God concern the highest problem of the poem and of human life. It is a wrong theology, at least a wrong Homeric theology, to hold that the Gods are the cause of human ills; these are the consequences of man's own actions. Furthermore, the cause is not a blind impersonal power outside of the individual, it is not Fate but man himself. What a lofty utterance! We hear from the supreme tribunal the final decision in regard to individual free-will and divine government.