ὀψὲ κακῶς νεῖαι ὸλέσας ἄπο πάντας ἑταίρους·
The first line of the addition to Teiresias' original prophecy (xi. 115) is also found with a slight variant in ix. 535, but it merely states that Ulysses will find trouble in his house, without mentioning what the trouble is to be.
With the two exceptions above noted, there is not only nothing in the original poem (i.e., Book i. 1-79 and v. 28—xiii. 187 or thereabouts) to indicate any intention of dealing with the suitors, but there are omissions which make it plain that no such intention existed. In the poem the Muse is only asked to sing the Return of Ulysses. In the speech of Jove at the council of the gods (i. 32-43), he is not thinking about the suitors, as he would assuredly do if the writer had as yet meant to introduce them. In repeated speeches of the gods, and especially in Book v. which is Book i. of the original poem (see lines 36-42, 288, 289, and 345),[2] it seems that Ulysses' most serious troubles were to end when he had reached Scheria. So again Calypso (v. 206-208) tries to deter him from leaving her by saying that he little knows what he will have to go through before he gets home again, but she does not enforce her argument by adding that when he had got to Ithaca the worst was yet to come. I have already dealt with the silence of Ulysses' mother in Hades.
Noting, therefore, that omission is a more telling indication of scheme than lines which, when a new subject is being grafted on to an old one, are certain to be inserted where necessary in order to unify the work, I have no hesitation in believing that Books i. 1-79 and v. 28—xiii. 187 or thereabouts, formed as much as the authoress ever wrote of the original poem; I have the less hesitation in adopting this conclusion because, though I believe that I came to it independently as any one must do who studies the Odyssey with due attention, I find myself in substantial agreement with Kirchhoff in spite of much difference of detail, for I cannot admit that the two poems are by two or more separate people.
The introduction of lines xi. 115-137 and of line ix. 535, with a writing of a new Council of the gods at the beginning of Book v. to take the place of the one that was removed to Book i. 1-79, were the only things that were done to give even a semblance of unity to the old scheme and the new, and to conceal the fact that the Muse after being asked to sing of one subject spends two thirds of her time in singing a very different one, with a climax for which no one had asked her. For, roughly, the Return occupies eight Books and Penelope and the suitors sixteen.
That lines xi. 115-137 were non-existent when Book xiii. was being written is demonstrated by the fact of Ulysses' saying to the Phæacians that he hoped he should find his wife living with her friends in peace (xiii. 42, 43). He could not have said this if Teiresias had already told him that his house would be full of enemies who were eating up his estate, and whom he would have to kill. He could hardly forget such a prophecy after having found Teiresias quite correct about the cattle of the Sun-god. Indeed he tells Penelope about his visit to Hades and his interview with Teiresias (xxiii. 323), so it is plain he remembered it. It is plain, again (from xiii. 382 &c.), that Ulysses was then learning from Minerva about the suitors for the first time—which could not be if Teiresias' prophecy had been already written.
It is surprising; seeing what a little further modification would have put everything quite straight, that the writer should have been content to leave passages here and there which she must have known would betray the want of homogeneity in her work, but we should be very thankful to her for not having tidied it up with greater care. We learn far more about her than we should do if she had made her work go more perfectly upon all fours, and it is herself that we value even more than her poem. She evidently preferred cobbling to cancelling, and small wonder, for if, as was very probably the case, the work was traced with a sharply pointed style of hardened bronze, or even steel,[3] on plates of lead, alteration would not be so easy as it is with us. Besides, we all cobble rather than cancel if we can. It is quite possible, but I need hardly say that it is not more than a mere possibility, that the abruptness of the interpolation in Book iv. lines 621-624, may be due simply to its having been possible to introduce four lines without cutting the MS. about very badly, when a longer passage would have necessitated a more radical interference with it.
We look, then, for the inception of the poem in Books i. 1-79 and v. 28-xiii. 187 or thereabouts, or more roughly in Books v.-xii. inclusive. These Books, though they contain no discrepancies among themselves except the twenty lines added to the prophecy of Teiresias above referred to are not homogeneous in scope, though they are so in style and treatment. They split themselves into two groups of four, i.e., v.-viii. and ix.-xii. The first group is written to bring Ulysses to Scheria and to exhibit the Phæacians and the writer herself—the interest in Ulysses being subordinate; the second is written to describe a periplus of Sicily.
Books ix.-xii. appear to have been written before Books v.-viii. We may gather this from the total absence of Minerva. It is inconceivable that having introduced the Goddess so freely in Books v.-viii. the writer should allow her to drop out from the story when there was such abundant scope for her interference. These Books are certainly by the same hand as the rest of the poem. They show the same amount of Iliadic influence; nowhere does a woman's hand appear more plainly; nowhere is Sicily, and more particularly Trapani, more in evidence, direct or indirect. It is from the beginning of Book ix. that we get our conviction that the Ionian islands were drawn from the Ægadean, and the voyages of Ulysses, as I have already shown, begin effectively with Mt. Eryx and end with Trapani. We may, therefore, dismiss all idea that Books ix.-xii. are by another writer.
Not only is the absence of Minerva inexplicable except by supposing that at the time these Books were written it was no part of the writer's scheme to make her such a dea ex machinâ as she becomes later, but the writer shows herself aware that the absence of the goddess in Books ix.—xii. requires apology, and makes Ulysses upbraid her for having neglected him from the time he left Troy till she took him into the city of the Phæacians (xiii. 314-323). The goddess excuses herself by saying she had known all the time that he would get home quite safely, and had kept away because she did not want to quarrel with her uncle Neptune—an excuse which we also find at the end of Book vi., in which Book she has, nevertheless, been beautifying Ulysses and making herself otherwise useful to him. I suppose Neptune did not mind how much his niece helped Ulysses, provided she did not let him see her.