Homer's Odyssey / A Commentary

by Denton Jaques Snider

But who was the author of such work? Not the original Homer, but some later matcher and patcher, imitator or redactor. It is not easy to tell from Kirchhoff just how many persons may have had a hand in this making of the Odyssey, as it lies before us. In his dissertations we read of a motley multitude: original poet, continuator, interpolator, redactor, reconstructor, imitator, author of the older part, author of the newer part—not merely individuals, but apparently classes of men. Thus he anatomizes old Homer with a vengeance.

BOOK SECOND.

The general relation between the First and Second Books is to be grasped at once. In the First Book the main fact is the Assembly in the Upper World, together with the descent of the divine influence which through Pallas comes to Telemachus in person, gives him courage and stirs him to action. This action is to bring harmony into the discordant land. In the Second Book the main fact is the Assembly in the Lower World, together with the rise of Telemachus into a new participation with divine influence in the form of Pallas, who sends him forth on his journey of education. We behold, therefore, in the two Books a sweep from above to below, then from below back to the divine influence. Earth and Olympus are the halves of the cycle, but the Earth is in discord and must be transformed to the harmony of Olympus.

Looking now at the Second Book by itself, we note that it falls into two portions: the Assembly of the People, which has been called together by Telemachus, and the communion of the youth with Pallas, who again appears to him at his call. The first is a mundane matter, and shows the Lower World in conflict with the divine order—the sides being the Suitors on the one hand and the House of Ulysses on the other. The second portion lifts the young hero into a vision of divinity, and should lift the reader along with him. Previously Pallas had, as it were, descended into Telemachus, but now he rises of himself into the Goddess. Clearly he possesses a new power, that of communion with the Gods. These two leading thoughts divide the Book into two well-marked parts—the first including lines 1-259, the second including the rest.

I.

The Assembly of the Ithacans presupposes a political habit of gathering into the town-meeting and consulting upon common interests. This usage is common to the Aryan race, and from it spring parliaments, congresses, and other cognate institutions, together with oratory before the People. A wonderful development has come of this little germ, which we see here still alive in Ithaca, though it has been almost choked by the unhappy condition of things. Not since Ulysses left has there been any such Assembly, says the first speaker, an old man drawing upon his memory, not for twenty years; surely a sign of smothered institutional life. The first thing which Telemachus in his new career does is to call the Assembly, and start this institutional life into activity again. Whereof we feel the fresh throb in the words of the aged speaker, who calls him "Blessed."

Now the oratory begins, as it must begin in such a place. The golden gift of eloquence is highly prized by Homer, and by the Homeric People; prophetic it is, one always thinks of the great Attic orators. The speakers are distinctly marked in character by their speeches; but the Assembly itself seems to remain dumb; it was evidently divided into two parties; one well-disposed to the House of Ulysses, the other to the Suitors. The corruption of the time has plainly entered the soul of the People, and thorough must be the cleansing by the Gods. Two kinds of speakers we notice also, on the same lines, supporting each side; thus the discord of Ithaca is now to be reflected in its oratory. Three sets of orators speak on each side, placing before us the different phases of the case; these we shall mark off for the thought and for the eye of the reader.

1. After the short opening speech of the old man, Ægyptius, the heart of the whole movement utters itself in Telemachus, who remains the chief speaker throughout. His speech is strong and bold; from it two main points peer forth. The first is the wrong of the Suitors, who will not take the right way of wooing Penelope by going to her father and giving the bridal gift according to custom, but consume the son's property under pretense of their suit for the mother. The second point is the strong appeal to the Ithacans—to their sense of right, to their sense of shame, and to their fear of the Gods, who "in their divine wrath shall turn back ill deeds upon the doer." But in vain; that Ithacan Assembly contains friends and relatives of the Suitors, and possibly purchased adherents; nay, it contains some of the Suitors themselves, and here rises one of them to make a speech in reply.

This is Antinous, who now makes the most elaborate defense of the case of the Suitors that is to be found in the poem. The speech is remarkable for throwing the whole blame upon Penelope—not a gallant proceeding in a lover; still it betrays great admiration for the woman on account of her devices and her cunning. She has thwarted and fooled the whole band of unwelcome wooers for three years and more by her wonderful web, which she wove by day and unraveled by night. And even now when she has been found out, she holds them aloof but keeps them in good humor, though clearly at a great expense of the family's property, which fact has roused Telemachus to his protest. Antinous, though feeling that he and the rest have been outwitted by the woman, does not stint his praise on that account, he even heightens it.

But we hear also his ultimatum: "Send thy mother away and bid her be married to whomsoever her father commands, and whoso is pleasing to her." So the will of the parent and the choice of the daughter had to go together even in Homer's days. Of course Antinous has no ground of right for giving this order; he is not the master of the house, though he hopes to be; his assumed authority is pure insolence. Then why should the Suitors injure the son because they have been wheedled by the mother? Still they will continue to consume "his living and his wealth as long as she keeps her present mind."