[CHAPTER XI.]
WHO WAS THE WRITER?
I believe the reader will by this time feel no doubt, from my earlier Chapters that the Odyssey was written by one woman, and from my later ones that this woman knew no other neighbourhood than that of Trapani, and therefore must be held to have lived and written there.
Who, then, was she?
I cannot answer this question with the confidence that I have felt hitherto. So far I have been able to demonstrate the main points of my argument; on this, the most interesting question of all, I can offer nothing stronger than presumption.
We have to find a woman of Trapani, young, fearless, self-willed, and exceedingly jealous for the honour of her sex. She seems to have moved in the best society of her age and country, for we can imagine none more polished on the West coast of Sicily in Odyssean times than the one with which the writer shews herself familiar. She must have had leisure, or she could not have carried through so great a work. She puts up with men when they are necessary or illustrious, but she is never enthusiastic about them, and likes them best when she is laughing at them; but she is cordially interested in fair and famous women.
I think she should be looked for in the household of the person whom she is travestying under the name of King Alcinous. The care with which his pedigree and that of his wife Arete is explained (vii. 54-77), and the warmth of affectionate admiration with which Arete is always treated, have the same genuine flavour that has led scholars to see true history and personal interest in the pedigree of Æneas given in Il. xx. 200-241. Moreover, she must be a sufficiently intimate member of the household to be able to laugh at its head as much as she chose. No pedigree of any of the other dramatis personæ of the Odyssey is given save that of Theoclymenus, whose presence in the poem at all requires more explanation than I can give. I can only note that he was of august descent, more than sub-clerical, and of a different stamp from any other character to whom we are introduced.
The fact that the writer should be looked for in a member of King Alcinous' household seems further supported by the zest with which this household and garden are described (vii. 81-132), despite the obviously subrisive exaggeration which pervades the telling. There is no such zest in the description of any other household, and the evident pleasure which the writer takes in it is more like that of a person drawing her own home, than either describing some one else's or creating an imaginary scene. See how having begun in the past tense she slides involuntarily into the present as soon as she comes to the women of the house and to the garden. She never does this in any other of her descriptions.