“There the Phæacian chieftains eat and drink,
While golden youths on pedestals upbear
Each in his outstretched hand a lighted link,
Which nightly on the royal feast doth flare.
And in the house are fifty handmaids fair;
Some in the mill the yellow corn grind small;
Some ply the looms, and shuttles twirl, which there
Flash like the quivering leaves of aspen tall;
And from the close-spun weft the trickling oil will fall.”
King Alcinous sits on his golden throne, “quaffing his wine like a god.” His queen, Arete, sits beside him, weaving yarn of the royal purple. Warned by his kind friend the princess, Ulysses passes by the king’s seat, and falls at the feet of the queen. In the court of Phæacia—whether the story be disguised fact or pure fiction, whether the poet was satiric or serious—the ruling influence lies with the women. The mist in which Minerva had enveloped his person melts away; and while all gaze in astonishment at his sudden appearance, he claims hospitality as a shipwrecked wanderer, and then, after the fashion of suppliants, seats himself on the hearth-stone. The hospitality of Alcinous is prompt and magnificent. He bids one of his sons rise up and cede the place of honour to the stranger. If he be mortal man, the boon he asks shall be granted; but it may be that he is one of the immortals, who, as he gravely assures his guest, often condescend to come down and share the banquets of the Phæacians, and make themselves known to them face to face. Ulysses assures his royal host, in a passage which is in itself sufficient to mark the subdued comedy of the episode, that far from having any claim to divinity, he is very mortal indeed, and wholly taken up at present with one of the most inglorious of mortal cravings:—
“Nothing more shameless is than Appetite,
Who still, whatever anguish load our breast,
Makes us remember, in our own despite,
Both food and drink. Thus I, thrice wretched wight,
Carry of inward grief surpassing store,
Yet she constrains me with superior might,
Wipes clean away the memory-written score,
And takes whate’er I give, and taking, craveth more.”[33]
There is every appliance to satisfy appetite, however, in the luxurious halls of Alcinous. While Ulysses is seated at table, Queen Arete, careful housewife as she is with all her royalty, marks with some curiosity that the raiment which their strange guest wears must have come from her own household stores—so well does she know the work of herself and her handmaidens. This leads to a confession on Ulysses’ part of his previous interview with Nausicaa, whom he praises, as he had good right to do, as wise beyond her years. So charmed is the king with his guest’s taste and discernment, that he at once declares that nothing would please him better than to retain him at his court in the character of a son-in-law. Ulysses (whose fate it is throughout his wanderings to make himself only too interesting to the fair sex generally) is by this time too much accustomed to such proposals to show any embarrassment. With his usual diplomacy he puts the question aside—bowing his acknowledgments only, it may be, though Homer does not tell us even so much as this. The one point to which he addresses himself is the king’s promise to send him safe home, which he accepts with thankfulness. Before they retire for the night, the queen herself does not disdain to give special orders for their guest’s accommodation. She bids her maidens prepare
“A couch beneath the echoing corridor,
And thereon spread the crimson carpets fair,
Then the wide coverlets of richness rare,
And to arrange the blankets warm and white,
Wherein who sleepeth straight forgets his care.
They then, each holding in her hand a light,
From the great hall pass forth, and spread the robes aright.”
The combination of magnificence with simplicity is of a wholly Oriental character. The appliances of the court might be those of a modern Eastern potentate; yet the queen is a thrifty housekeeper, the princess-royal superintends the family wash, and the five sons of the royal family, when their sister comes home, themselves come forward and unyoke her mules from the wain which has brought home the linen.
The next day is devoted to feasting and games in honour of the stranger. Amongst the company sits the blind minstrel Demodocus, in whose person it has been thought that the poet describes himself—
“Whom the Muse loved, and gave him good and ill;
Ill, that of light she did his eyes deprive,
Good, that sweet minstrelsies divine at will
She lent him, and a voice men’s ears to thrill.
For him Pontonous silver-studded chair
Set with the feasters, leaning it with skill
Against the column, and with tender care
Made the blind fingers feel the harp suspended there.”
Such honour has the bard in all lands. The king’s son does not disdain to guide “the blind fingers;” and when the song is over, the herald leads him carefully to his place at the banquet, where his portion is of the choicest—“the chine of the white-tusked boar.” The subject of his lay is the tale which charms all hearers—Phæacian, Greek, or Roman, ancient or modern, then as now—the tale of Troy. Touched with the remembrances which the song awakens, Ulysses wraps his face in his mantle to hide his rising tears. The king marks his guest’s emotion: too courteous to allude to it, he contents himself with rising at once from the banquet-table, and giving order for the sports to begin. Foot-race, wrestling, quoit-throwing, and boxing, all have their turn; and in all the king’s’ sons take their part, not unsuccessfully. It is suggested at last that the stranger, who stands silently looking on, should exhibit some feat of strength or skill. Ulysses declines—he has no heart just now for pastimes. Then one of the young Phæacians, Euryalus, who has just won the wrestling-match, gives vent to an ungracious taunt. Their guest, he says, is plainly no hero, nor versed in the noble science of athletics; he must be some skipper of a merchantman, “whose talk is all of cargoes.” He brings down upon himself a grand rebuke from Ulysses:—
“Man, thou hast not said well; a fool thou art.
Not all fair gifts to all doth God divide,
Eloquence, beauty, and a noble heart.
One seems in mien poor, but his feebler part
God crowns with language, that men learn to love
The form, so feelingly the sweet words dart
Within them. First in councils he doth prove,
And, ’mid the crowd observant, like a god doth move.