In Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, the same subject is worked over very fully and is indeed the main pivot of the drama, in which Achilles is substantially deposed from his heroship and replaced by Ulysses. The contest between mind and might or skill and courage, is what the English poet took from his Greek elder brother in part and in part derived from later legend. The struggle between brain and brawn was indeed a vital one in the Greek camp; there was always the danger lest the spirit would got lost in its physical manifestation. Indeed the danger of the Greek world was just this, and it perished at last of the same disease which we already notice at Troy. It fell to a worship of the sensuous in life and art, and so lost its soul in a grand debauch.
2. King Alcinous has noticed that Ulysses hid his face and wept at the song of the bard. Thus strong emotion seizes him on hearing the strife at Troy, while the Phæacians listen with delight. Such is the contrast, hinting two very different relations to the song. But the king will divert him from his grief, and so calls for the games to show him "how much we excel others in boxing, wrestling, leaping and running." The quoit was also one of the games.
In like manner Achilles is diverted from his sorrows for his friend Patroclus, by an elaborate exhibition of games, which are set forth in Book Twenty-Third of the Iliad. Contests of strength and skill they are, showing the body under control of mind and manifesting the same up to a certain point. They have an artistic side and train the man physically, requiring also no little mental alertness.
When the Phæacian contestants had finished, there was an attempt to bring Ulysses into the game and have him show what he was, but he declined the courteous invitation; "cares are in my mind more than games." Then Euryalus taunts him with being a merchant, or robber, and no athlete. Ulysses makes a caustic reply, picks up the quoit, and hurls it far beyond the marks of the others; then with some display of temper he challenges any of the Phæacians present to any kind of contest. He even becomes boastful, and tells what he is ready to do in the way of games; still further, he can shoot the bow and throw the javelin in heroic fashion—which accomplishments he will employ with telling effect against the suitors hereafter.
Alcinous pacifies him with gentle words, and proceeds to withdraw all his previous claims extolling Phæacian athletic skill. The soft arts of peace are theirs; "in boxing and in wrestling we have small fame;" but on the other hand "we delight in feasts, we love the harp and dance;" new clothes are in favor, and "we like the warm bath and bed." Very different is now the call of King Alcinous from that last one: let the stranger see "how much we excel others in the dance and song," to which is strangely added seamanship. Such is the preparation for the lay of the loves of Mars and Venus.
Through these games the heroic strand in the stranger has been brought to light, somewhat in contrast with the Phæacians. As he had a contest of mind with Achilles at Troy, so he has now a contest which shows his physical might; he is no weakling in spite of his intellect. Pallas too does not fail him, she marks his superiority in the throw of his quoit, and thus inspires him with courage.
II.
We have now reached the second song of the bard, for the way has been smoothed by the preceding description of the luxurious delights of the Phæacians. It is often called the Loves of Venus and Mars, or the Adulterers caught on Olympus. From time immemorial much doubt of various sorts, poetical, moral, philological, has been cast upon this song. Some ancient commentators have regarded it an interpolation, not a genuine part of Homer; modern expositors have not hesitated to follow the same opinion.
And indeed there are strong grounds for suspicion. Almost every reader feels at the first perusal its jar with the general character of this idyllic Phæacian world; it is decidedly adverse to the spirit of Arete and Nausicaa, as previously unfolded; the fact would almost seem impossible that, in an atmosphere created chiefly by these two women, there could be such a kind of artistic enjoyment. The most conservative reader is inclined here to agree with those who perform an act of excision upon the text of Homer. The whole passage grates too harshly upon nerves which have been attuned to the sweet innocent life depicted in the two preceding Books.
The objections to the song may be summed up in the following heads. (1) It is inconsistent and deeply discordant with the ethical tone of Phæacia already given. (2) It does not further Ulysses in any way, it shows no trait in his character, unless his faint approval signifies his liking for such songs. Nor does it seem on the surface to connect him with Troy, as do the other two songs of Demodocus. (3) It gives an unworthy view of the Gods, degrading them far below Homer's general level, reducing them to ordinary burlesque figures which violate all decency, not to speak of morality. (4) Philologists have picked out certain words and expressions peculiar to this passage, which, not being employed by Homer elsewhere, tend to indicate some other author.