ITHAKA.
The argument of the poem is found in the very title. Ithaka, according to the Odyssey, was the native island of Odysseus, to which the hero of the epic, after having taken part in the Trojan War, returned only after years of reverses and vicissitudes.
6. Herakles' stoder, Gibraltar and the high rock on the opposite coast, known in classic lore as the Pillars of Hercules.
30, 32. smekning—räkning—see SNOILSKY, Den tjänande brodern, 14-15, note.
MODERSPRÅKET.
3. Fantasos' tömmar—carrying out the classic figure of Fancy as "the wingéd horse."
8. Allusion to John 1, 1-3.
9, 11. sen—vän—an extreme form of the "Stockholm rhyme," the vowels differing both in sound and in quantity.
20. The masculine epithet ledsven, in the midst of the feminine sagoförtäljerska, följeslagerska, bikterska, trösterska, drömmerska, is somewhat disconcerting.
Babylons vimmel refers to the Babel of tongues.