WOMAN

VOLUME I

GREEK WOMEN

by

MITCHELL CARROLL, Ph.D.

Professor of Classical Philology in the George
Washington University

ASPASIA
After the painting by Henry Holiday.
Aspasia was born in Miletus. At an early age, accompanied
by another young girl, Thargelia, she went to Athens.
Their beauty and talents soon won them
distinction--Thargelia married a king of Thessaly, and Aspasia
married Pericles, "more than a king," says Plutarch.
The home of Aspasia in Athens was frequentrd by the élite
of the city and state, attracted by her beauty, her art
of speaking, and her influence. Socrates valued her great
mind, and even called himself one of her disciples. Plato
speaks of her great reputation. She was born in the fifth
century before Christ. The date of her death is not known.

WOMAN

In all ages and in all countries

VOLUME I

GREEK WOMEN

by

MITCHELL CARROLL, Ph.D.

Professor of Classical Philology in the George Washington University

Illustrated

PHILADELPHIA
GEORGE BARRIE & SONS, PUBLISHERS

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

The history of woman is the history of the world. Strait orthodoxy may remind us that man preceded woman in the scheme of creation and that therefore history does not begin with woman; but this is a specious plea. The first historical information that we gain regarding Adam is concerned with the creation of woman, and there is nothing to show us that prior to that time Adam was more active in mind or even in body than a mollusc. It was not until the coming of woman that history began to exist; and if the first recorded act of the woman was disastrous in its consequences, at least it possesses the distinction of making history. So that it may well be said that all that we are we owe to woman. Whether or not the story of the Garden of Eden is to be implicitly accepted, there can be no doubt that from the moment of the first appearance of mankind on the scene woman has been the ruling cause of all effect.

The record of woman is one of extremes. There is an average woman, but she has not been found except in theory. The typical woman, as she is seen in the pages of history, is either very good or very bad. We find women saints and we find women demons; but we rarely find a mean. Herein is a cardinal distinction between the sexes. The man of history is rarely altogether good or evil; he has a distinct middle ground, in which we are most apt to find him in his truest aspect. There are exceptions, and many; but this may be taken as a rule. Even in the instances of the best and noblest men of whom we have record this rule will hold. Saint Peter was bold and cautious, brave and cowardly, loving and a traitor; Saint Paul was boastful and meek, tender and severe; Saint John cognized beyond all others the power of love, and wished to call down fire from heaven upon a village which refused to hear the Gospel; and it is most probable that the true Peter and Paul and John lived between these extremes. Not so with the women of the same story. They were throughout consistent with themselves; they were utterly pure and holy, as Mary Magdalene,--to whose character great wrong has been done in the past by careless commentary,--or utterly vile, as Herodias. Extremism is a chief feminine characteristic. Extremist though she be, woman is always consistent in her extremes; hence her power for good and for evil.

It is a mistaken idea which places the "emancipation" of woman at a late date in the world's history. From time immemorial, woman has been actively engaged in guiding the destinies of mankind. It is true that the advent of Christianity undoubtedly broadened the sphere of woman and that she was then given her true place as the companion and helper rather than the toy of man; but long before this period woman had asserted her right to be heard in the councils of the wise, and the right seems to have been conceded in the cases where the demand was made. Those who look upon the present as the emancipation period in the history of woman have surely forgotten Deborah, whose chant of triumph was sung in the congregation of the people and was considered worthy of preservation for all future ages to read; Semiramis, who led her armies to battle when the Great King, Ninus, had let fall the sceptre from his weary hand, and who ruled her people with wisdom and justice; and others whose fame, even if legendary in its details, has come down to us. Through all the ages there was opportunity for woman, when she chose to seize it; and in many cases it was thus seized. Rarely indeed do we find the history of any age unconcerned with its women. Though their part may at times seem but minor, yet do they stand out to the observant eye as the prime causes of many of the great events which make or mark epochs. When we think of the Trojan War, it is Agamemnon and Priam, Achilles and Hector, who rise up before our mental vision as the protagonists in that great struggle; but if there had been no Helen, there would have been no war, and therefore no Iliad or Odyssey. We read Macaulay's stirring ballad of Horatius at the Bridge, and we thrill at the recital of strength and daring; but if it had not been for the virtue of Lucretia, there would have been no combat for the bridge, and the Tarquins might have ended their days in peace in the Eternal City. And, in later times, though Mirabeau and Robespierre and Danton and Marat fill the eye of the student of the cataclysmic events of the French Revolution, it was the folly of Marie Antoinette that gave these men their opportunity and even paved the way for the rise and meteoric career of a greater than them all.

These are instances of mediate influence upon great events; but there have been many women who ham exerted immediate influence upon the story of mankind. That which is usually mistermed weakness is generally held to be a feminine attribute; and if we replace the term by the truer word,--gentleness,--the statement may be conceded. But there have been many women who have been strong in the general sense; and these have usually been terribly strong. Look at Catherine of Russia, vicious to the core, but powerful in intellect and will above the standard of masculine rulers. Look at Elizabeth of England, crafty and false, full of a ridiculous vanity, yet strong with a strength before which even such men as Burleigh and Essex and Leicester were compelled to bow. Look at Margaret of Lancaster, fighting in her husband's stead for the crown of England and by her undaunted spirit plucking victory again and again from the jaws of defeat, and yielding at last only when deserted by every adherent. Look at Clytemmstra and Lady Macbeth, creatures of the poet's fancy if you will, yet true types of a class of femininity. They have had prototypes and antitypes, and many.

Women have achieved their most decisive and remarkable effects upon the history of mankind by reaching and clinging to extremes. Extremism is always a mark of enthusiasm, and enthusiasm accomplishes effects which must have been left forever unattained by mere regulated and conscientious effort. The stories of the Christian martyrs show in golden letters the devotion of women to a cause; and I have no doubt whatever that it was in the deaths of young maidens, in their hideous sufferings borne with resignation and even joy, that there came the conviction of truth which is known as the seed which was sown in the blood of the martyrs. The high enthusiasm which supported a Catherine and a Cecilia in their hours of trial was strong to persuade where the death of a man for his convictions would have been looked upon as a matter of course. It is from this enthusiasm and extremism that there sounds one of the key-notes of woman's nature--her loyalty. Loyalty is one of the blending traits of the sexes; yet, if I were compelled to attribute it distinctively to one sex, I should class it as feminine in its nature.

Loyalty to one idea, to one ideal, has been a predominant characteristic of woman from time immemorial. Sometimes this loyalty takes the form of patriotism, sometimes of altruism, sometimes of piety in true sense; but always it has its origin and life in love. The love may be diffused or concentrated, general or particular, but it is always the soul of the true woman, and without it she cannot live. Love for her God, love for her race, love for her country, love for the man whom she delights to honor--these may exist separately or as one, but exist for her they must, or her life is barren and her soul but a dead thing. Love, in the true sense of the word, is the essence of the woman-soul; it is the soul itself. She must love, or she is dead, however she may seem to live. That she does not always ask whether the object of her love, be it abstract or concrete, be worthy of her devotion is not to be attributed to her as a fault, but rather as a virtue, since the love itself expands and vivifies her soul if itself be worthy. It is at once the expression and the expenditure of the unsounded depths of her soul; it is through its power over her that she recognises her own nature, that she knows herself for what she is. The woman who has not loved, even in the ordinary human and limited meaning of the word, has no conception of her own soul.

Thus far I have spoken of love in its broad sense, as the highest impulse of the human soul. But there is another and a lower aspect of love, and this is the one most usually meant when we use the word,--the attraction of sex. Even thus, though in this aspect love becomes a far lesser thing, it possesses no less power. The passion of man for woman has been the underlying cause of all history in its phenomenal aspects. The favorite example of this power has always been that of Cleopatra and Mark Antony; but history is full of equally convincing instances.

To love and to be loved; such is the ultimate lot of woman. It matters not what accessories of existence fate may have to offer; this is the supreme meaning of life to woman, and it is here that she finds her true value in the world. She may read that meaning in divers manners; she may make of her place in life a curse or a blessing to mankind. It matters not; all returns to the same cause, the same source of power. The strongest woman is weak if she be not loved, for she lacks her chief weapon with which to conquer; the weakest is strong if she truly have won love, for through this she can work miracles. Her strength is more than doubled; heart and brain and hand are in equal measure, for that with which the heart inspires the brain will be transmitted by the heart to the hand, and the message will be too imperative to fear failure.

It is a strange thing--though not inexplicable--that your ambitious woman is far more ruthless, far more unscrupulous, far more determined to win at any cost, than is the most ambitious of men. Again comes the law of extreme to show cause that this should be; but the fact is so sure that cause is of less interest. Not Machiavelli was so false, not Caligula was so cruel, not Cæsar was so careless of right, as the woman whose political ambition has taken form and strength. That which bars her path must be swept aside, be it man or notion or principle. She sees but the one object, her goal, looming large before her; and she moves on with her eyes fixed, crushing beneath her feet all that would turn her steps.

I have spoken of the cruelty of an ambitious woman; and it is worth while to pause a moment to consider this trait as displayed in women--not as a means, but as an end. There have been men who loved cruelty for its own sake; but they are few, and their methods crude, compared with the woman who have felt this strange passion. In the days of human sacrifices, it was the women who most thronged to the spectacles, who most eagerly fastened their eyes upon the expiring victims. In the gladiatorial combats, it was the women who greeted each mortal thrust with applause, and whose reversed thumbs won the majority for the signal of death to the vanquished. In the days of terror in France, it was the woman who led the mob that threatened the king and queen, and hanged Foulard to a lamp post after almost tearing him to pieces; it was the women who sat in rows around the guillotine, day after day, and placidly knit their terrible records of death; it was the women who cried for more victims, even after the legal murderers of the tribunals grew weary of their hideous task of condemnation.

Not only thus--not only under the influence of excitement and passion--but in cold blood, there are instances among women of such ghastly cruelty that men recoil from the contemplation of such deeds. There is record of a Slavonic countess whose favorite amusement was to sit in the garden of her country palace, in the rigors of a Russian winter, while young girls were stripped by her attendants and water poured slowly over their bodies, thus giving them a death of enduring agony and providing the countess with new, though unsubstantial, statues for her grounds. This not more than two centuries ago, and in the atmosphere of so-termed Christianity. The annals of the Spanish Inquisition would be ransacked in vain for such ingenuity of torture; and though the Inquisitors may have grown to love cruelty for its own sake, they at least alleged reason for their deeds; the Russian countess frankly sought amusement alone.

Yet in these things there is to be found no general accusation of women. That cruelty should be carried by them to its extreme, that they should love it for its own sake, is but the development of extremism, and is isolated in examples, at least by periods. The Russian countess was not cruel because she was a woman, but, being cruel of nature, she was the more so because of her sex. The ladies of imperial Rome did not love the sight of flowing blood because they were women, but, being women, they carried their acquired taste to bounds unknown to the less impulsive and less ardent nature of men.

Yet there comes a question. Is this lust for blood, this love of cruelty; latent in every woman and but restrained, by the gentler teachings and promptings of her more developed nature in its highest presentation? So some psychists would have us believe; but they have only slight ground for their sweeping assertion. That civilisation is but restrained savagery may perhaps be conceded; but if the restraint has grown to be the ever-dominant impulse, then has the savage been slain. It is not, as some teach, that such isolated idiosyncrasies as we have considered are glimpses of the tiger that sleeps in every human heart and sometimes breaks its chain and runs riot. As a rule, these things are matters of atmosphere. Setting aside such pure isolations as that of the Russian countess, it will almost invariably be found that the display of feminine cruelty, or of any vice, is of a time and place. There has never been a universal rule of feminine depravity in any age. Babylon, Carthage, Greece, Rome, and all the olden civilisations have had their periods when female virtue was a matter of laughter, when women outvied men in their moral degradation, when evil seemed triumphant everywhere; but there always remained a few to "redeem the time," and salvation always came from those few. Moreover, the sphere of immorality and crime was always limited. The Roman world, when it was the world indeed, might be given up to vice and sin, displayed in their most atrocious forms by the women of the Empire; but there still stood the North, calm, virtuous, patient, awaiting its opportunity to "root out the evil thing" and to give the world once more a standard of purity and righteousness. The leaven of Christianity was effective in its work upon the moral degradation of the Roman Empire; but it was not until the scourge of the Northmen was sent to the aid of the principle that success was fully won. So the North was not of the same day with Rome in civilised vice, and the reign of evil in the Latin Empire was but the effect of conditions, not the instincts of humanity. Rome was taught evil by long and steadfast evolution; it did not spring up in a day with its deadly blight, but was the result of progressive causation.

It may be doubted if the feminine intellect has increased since the dawn of civilisation. To-day woman stands on a different plane of recognition, but by reason of assertiveness, not because of increased mental ability. As with that of man, the possibilities of woman's intellect were long latent; but they existed, and the result is development, not creation of fibre. I repeat that I do not believe that the feminine intellect has grown in power. I doubt if the present age can show a mind superior in natural strength to that of Sappho; I do not believe that the present Empress of China, strong woman as she is, is greater than Semiramis, or that even Elizabeth of England was the equal of the warrior-queen of Babylon. But there can be no doubt that there exists a broader culture to-day than ever before and that thus the intellectual sum of women is always growing, though there comes no increase in the mental powers of the individual. It has been so with man. We boast of the mighty achievements of our age; but we have not yet built such a structure as that of the Temple of the Sun at Baalbec, or the Pyramid of Cheops at Ghizeh. We pride ourselves upon our letters; but the grandest poem ever written by man was also the first of which we have record--the Book of Job, and we do not even know the name of the poet who thus set a standard which has never since been reached. We may claim Shakespeare as the equal of Homer in expression; but it requires true hero worship among his admirers to place the Elizabethan singer upon an equality with the old Greek in any other respect. There has been no growth of individual intellect in either sex since the days of which we first find record; but there has been an increase of average and a definition of tendency which are productive of higher general result. And the natural consequence of this state of things is found in the fact that even a Sappho in the world of letters would not stand out so prominently, would not be considered such a prodigy, were she to come in these days. We should admire her genius and her powers without feeling the sensation of wonder that these should be possessed by a woman. It is in the recognition of this fact that we are better enabled to understand the changing aspect in the relations of women to men during these latter years. There has been no alteration in the possibilities within the grasp of the individual, but great change within those which can be claimed by the sex at large. Women can do no more now than in the olden days when they were considered as almost inferior to animals; but woman has profited by the opportunities of her time, and is every day developing powers until now unsuspected.

The whole value of history is in teaching us to understand our own time and to prognosticate the future with some degree of correctness. More especially is this true of all class history, and the story of sex development may be so rated. It is to find the reason of what is and the nature of what is to come that we turn to the records of the past and ask them concerning their message to us of these things. In our retrospective view of woman, we shall, if we are alive to suggestion, find steadfast tendencies of development. It is true that these tendencies do not always remain in the light; like rivers, they sometimes plunge underground and for a time find their paths in subterranean channels where they are lost to sight; but they always reëmerge, and at last they find their way to the central sea of the present. Future ages will doubtless mark the course of those tendencies not only up to but through our own age; for though I have spoken of a central sea, the simile is hardly correct, inasmuch as the true ocean which is the goal of these rivers is not yet in the sight of humanity. But we at least find promise of that ocean in the steadfast and determined course of the streams which flow toward it; progress has always a goal, though it may be one long undiscerned by the abettors of that progress. So it is with the story of woman. We know what she has been; we see what she is; and it is possible dimly to forecast what she will be. Yet I dare to assert that there will be no radical change; there may be new direction for effort, new lines of development, but the essential nature will remain unaltered. It is not, however, with this informing spirit that we have to do in such a work as this. There have been many misconceptions regarding woman; I would not venture to claim that none now exist. Yet there is a general consensus of agreement concerning her dominating and effective characteristics, and the probability is that in these general laws so laid down the common opinion is of truth.

Of course, I would not dare to make such an absurd claim that there exists, or has ever existed, a man who could truthfully say that he knew woman in the abstract; but that does not necessarily mean that knowledge of the tendencies and characteristics of the sex is impossible. The reason of the dense ignorance which prevails among men concerning women is that the men attempt to apply general laws to particular cases; and that is fatal. It is absolutely necessary, if we are to gather wisdom and not merely knowledge from our researches in history, that we should take into account the result of combination of traits. Otherwise we should not only find nothing but inconsistency as a consequence of our study, but we should utterly fail to understand the tendencies of that which we learn. We must be broad in our judgments if we are to judge truly. When we read of the Spartan women sending forth their sons to die for their country, we must not believe that they were lacking in the depth of maternal affection which is one of the most beautiful characteristics of the feminine nature. Doubtless they suffered as keenly as does the modern mother at the death of her son; but they were trained to subordinate their feelings in this wise, and their training stood them in stead of stoicism. Nay, even when we read of the profligacy of the women of imperial Rome, we must not look upon these women as by nature imbruted and degraded, but we must understand that they but yielded to the spirit of their environment and their schooling. They were not different at heart, those reckless Mænads and votaries of Venus, from the chaste Lucretias or holy Catherines of another day; they simply lacked direction of impulse in right method, and so missed the culmination of their highest possibilities.

There is an old saying which tells us that women are what men make them. Thus generally stated, the saying may be summed up as a slander; but it has an application in history. There can be no doubt that for millenniums of the world's adolescence women were controlled and their bearing and place in society modified by the thought of their times, which thought was of masculine origin and formation. This state of affairs has long since passed away, and it may be said that for at least a thousand years, in adaptation of the saying which I have quoted, the times have been what women have made them. It was the influence of women which brought about the outgrowths of civilisation in the dawn of Christianity that have survived until now. It was the influence, if not the actual activity, of women that was responsible for the birth of chivalry and the rise of the spirit of purity. It was the influence of women that made possible such characters as those of Bayard and Sir Philip Sydney. It was the influence of women that softened the roughness and licentiousness of a past day into the refinement and virtue which are the possessions of the present age.

There has always, in the worst days, been an undercurrent of good, and its source and strength are to be found in the eternal feminine spirit, which in its true aspects always makes for righteousness.

The world's statues have, with few exceptions, been raised to men, the world's elegies have been sung of men, the world's acclamations have been given to men. This is world justice, blind as well as with bandaged eyes. Were true justice done--were the best results, the results which live, commemorated in stone, the world itself, to adapt the hyperbole of the Evangelist, could hardly contain the statues which would be reared to women. But it is precisely in the cause for this neglect that there lies the value of the work which has been done by woman for the welfare of mankind. It is one of the truths of history that the greatest and most enduring effects have always been accomplished in the least conspicuous manner.

The man who searches effect for cause must find his goal most often in the influence of a woman. Not always for good; that could not be. But it would seem that all that has endured has been for good, and that the evil which has been wrought by woman--and it has not been slight--has been ephemeral in all respects. I know of no enduring evil that can be traced to a woman as its source; but I know of no constant good which did not find either its beginning or its fostering in a woman's thought or work. Poppæa leaves but a name; Agrippina leaves an example. It may be true of men that the evil that they do lives after them, while the good is oft interred with their bones; but it is not true of women. Of course, there is a sense in which it is true--in the descent from mother to son of the spirit of the unrighteous mother; but even this would not seem to hold as a rule, and the effects are often modified by the influence of a love for a higher nature. The sum of woman's influence upon the destinies of the world is good, the balance inclines steadily toward the best. Woman is the hope of the world.

It is to find the persistence of this influence that we search her history. Sometimes we shall find strange factors in the equation that gives the sum, strange methods of attaining the result; but the result itself is always plain. Nor is there ever entire lack of contemporary influence of good, even when the evil seems predominant. If we read of an Argive Helen bringing war and desolation upon a nation, we shall find in those same pages record of a Penelope teaching the world the beauty of faith and constancy. If we trace the story of a Cleopatra ruining men with a smile, we shall find in the same day an Octavia and a Portia. If we hear of the Capitol betrayed by a Tarpeia, we have not far to seek for a Cornelia, known to all time as the Mother of the Gracchi. And it is those who made for good whose names have come down to us as incentives and examples. The more closely we read our history, the more surely are we convinced that the tendency has always been upward; the progress has been steadfast from the beginning, and it has carried the world with it.

As I began with the statement that the history of woman is the history of the world, so I end. This truth at least is sure. The earth is very old; it has seen the coming and the going of many races, it has witnessed the rise and fall of uncounted dynasties, it has survived physical and social cataclysms innumerable; and it still holds on its way, serenely awaiting its end in the purpose of its Creator. What that end shall be no man may know; but it is the end to which woman shall lead it.G.C.L.
Johns Hopkins University.

PREFACE

It is the purpose of this volume to give a simple sketch of the history of Greek womanhood from the Heroic Age down to Roman times, so far as it can be gathered from ancient Greek literature and from other available sources for a knowledge of antique life. Greek civilization was essentially a masculine one; and it is really remarkable how scant are the references to feminine life in Greek writers, and how few books have been written by modern scholars on this subject. In the preparation of this work, the author has consulted all the authorities bearing on old Greek life, acknowledgment of which can only be made in general terms. He feels, however, particularly indebted to the following works: Mlle. Clarisse Bader, La Femme Grecque, Paris, 1872; Jos. Cal. Poestion, Griechische Philosophinnen, Norden, 1885; ibid., Griechische Dichterinnen, Leipzig, 1876; E. Notor, La Femme dans l'Antiquité Grecque, Paris, 1901; R. Lallier, De la Condition de la Femme Athénienne au Veme et au IVeme Siècle, Paris, 1875; Ivo Bruns, Frauenemancipation in Athen, Kiel, 1900; Walter Copeland Perry, The Women of Homer, New York, 1898; Albert Galloway Keller, Homeric Society, London, 1902; and Mahaffy's various works, especially Social Life in Greece from Homer to Menander, and Greek Life and Thought. In making quotations from Greek authors, standard translations have been used, of which especial acknowledgment cannot always be given, but Lang, Leaf and Myers' Iliad, Butcher's and Lang's Odyssey, Wharton's Sappho, and Way's Euripides, call for particular mention.

In the spelling of Greek proper names the author has endeavored to adapt himself to the convenience of his readers by being consistently Roman, and has used in most cases the Latin forms. He has retained, however, the Greek forms where usage has made them current, as Poseidon, Lesbos, Samos, etc., and has invariably adopted forms, neither Greek nor Latin, which have become universal, as Athens, Constantinople, Rhodes, and the like. The Greek names of Greek divinities have been preferred to their Roman equivalents.

To conclude, my thanks are due to the publishers for their uniform courtesy and help, and to Mr. J.A. Burgan for the careful reading of the proof; nor could I have undertaken and carried through the work without the sympathetic aid and encouragement of my wife.
MITCHELL CARROLL.
The George Washington University.

I

GREEK WOMEN

Whenever culture or art or beauty is theme for thought, the fancy at once wanders back to the Ancient Greeks, whom we regard as the ultimate source of all the æsthetic influences which surround us. To them we look for instruction in philosophy, in poetry, in oratory, in many of the problems of science. But it is in their arts that the Greeks have left us their richest and most beneficent legacy; and when we consider how much they have contributed to the world's civilization, we wonder what manner of men and women they must have been to attain such achievements.

Though woman's influence is exercised silently and unobtrusively, it is none the less potent in determining the character and destiny of a people. Historians do not take note of it, men overlook and undervalue it, and yet it is ever present; and in a civilization like that of the Greeks, where the feminine element manifests itself in all its higher activities,--in its literature, its art, its religion,--it becomes an interesting problem to inquire into the character and status of woman among the Greek peoples. We do not desire to know merely the purely external features of feminine life among the Greeks, such as their dress, their ornaments, their home surroundings; we would, above all, investigate the subjective side of their life--how they regarded themselves, and were regarded by men; how they reasoned, and felt, and loved; how they experienced the joys and sorrows of life; what part they took in the social life of the times; how their conduct influenced the actions of men and determined the course of history; what were their moral and spiritual endowments;--in short, we should like to know the Greek woman in all those phases of life which make the modern woman interesting and influential and the conserving force in human society. Yet, when we estimate our sources of information, we find that there is no problem in the whole range of Greek life so difficult of solution as that concerning the status and character of Greek women.

The first condition of a successful study of Greek women is to familiarize one's self with the milieu in which they lived and moved. To do this we must adapt ourselves to a manner of life and to conceptions and feelings widely different from our own. The Greek spirit of the fifth century before the Christian era has but little in common with the spirit of the twentieth century; and unless we gain some insight into the spirit of the Greeks, we cannot understand the fundamental differences between the life of the Greek woman and that of the modern woman. Let us note a few respects in which this difference shows itself.

The Greek attitude toward nature was that of reverent children who saw everywhere therein manifestations of the divine. To them everything was what we call supernatural. If wine gladdened the heart of man, it was the influence of a god. If love stirred the breast, a god was inspiring man with a sweet influence, and the divine power must not be resisted. The gods themselves yielded to the impulses of love; why should not men? Furthermore, Greek thought conceived of the human being as the noblest creation of nature. Christian theology conceives of the body as the prison house of the soul, from which the soul must escape to attain its highest development; the Greeks, on the other hand, regarded body and soul as forming a complete, inseparable, and harmonious unit. There was no impulse toward distinguishing between the two, no restless reaching out toward something regarded as higher and nobler; seeing infinite possibilities in man as man, the Greek sought only the idealization of the human being as such, the completion and realization of the highest type of humanity, physical and spiritual. Because of this peculiar conception of man, the gods of the Greeks rose out of nature and did not transcend it. Some of them were personifications of the forces of nature; others were merely, according to Greek ideas, the highest conceptions of what was admirable in man and woman. When we consider the goddesses of the Olympian Pantheon, we see that this conception of the ideal in woman must have been very high, manifesting itself in the characters of Hera, the goddess of marriage and of the birth of children; Athena, "intellect unmoved by fleshly lust, the perfection of serene, unclouded wisdom;" Demeter, goddess of agriculture and of the domestic life; Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty and the idealization of feminine graces and charm; Artemis, the maiden divinity never conquered by love, and the protectress of maidens; and Hestia, goddess of the hearth and preserver of the sanctity of the home.

It is difficult for us to appreciate the passionate love of beauty which animated the Greeks.

"What is good and fair

Shall ever be our care.

That shall never be our care

Which is neither good nor fair."

This immortal burden from the stanzas of Theognis, sung by the Muses and Graces at the wedding of Cadmus and Harmonia, "strikes," says Symonds, "the keynote to the music of the Greek genius." This innate love of beauty, fostered by natural surroundings and held in restraint by a sense of measure, was the most salient characteristic of the Greek people. It is impossible for us to realize the intensity of the Greek feeling for beauty; and to them the human body was the noblest form of earthly loveliness. To illustrate, we may recall the incident of Phryne's trial before the judges. Hyperides, her advocate, failing in his other arguments, drew aside her tunic and revealed to them a bosom perfectly marvellous in its beauty. Phryne was at once acquitted, not from any prurient motives, but because "the judges beheld in such an exquisite form not an ordinary mortal, but a priestess and prophetess of the divine Aphrodite. They were inspired with awe, and would have deemed it sacrilege to mar or destroy such a perfect masterpiece of creative power." Nor was the Greek conception of beauty purely sensual. Through the perfection of human loveliness they had glimpses of divine beauty, and "the fleshly vehicle was but the means to lead on the soul to what is eternally and imperishably beautiful." Thus the lesson of the Phædrus and Symposium of Plato is that "the passion which grovels in the filth of sensual grossness may be transformed into a glorious enthusiasm, a winged splendor, capable of rising to the contemplation of eternal verities and reuniting the soul of man to God."

This last reflection leads us to the most important difference between ancient and modern conceptions, that in regard to the relations between the sexes. We of the Christian era have a clear doctrine of right and wrong to guide us, a law given from without ourselves, the result of revelation. The Greeks, on the other hand, "had to interrogate nature and their own hearts for the mode of action to be pursued. They did not feel or think that one definite course of action was right and the others wrong; but they had to judge in each case whether the action was becoming, whether it was in harmony with the nobler side of human nature, whether it was beautiful or useful. Utility, appropriateness, and the sense of the beautiful were the only guides which the Greeks could find to direct them in the relations of the sexes to each other." Hence we find that the Greeks deemed permissible much which offends the modern sense of propriety; for example, when maidens captured in war became for a time the concubines of the victors, as Chryseis in the Iliad, and were afterward restored to their homes, they were not thought in the least disgraced by their misfortune; "for if such a stain happen to a woman by force of circumstances," says Xenophon, "men honor her none the less if her affection seems to them to remain untainted."

How, then, are we to bridge over the gulf which separates us from the Greeks? What are our sources of knowledge of Greek woman and her manner of life?

We must first of all know the country of the Greeks. The influence of country and climate on the Greek nationality has been frequently emphasized, and the physical phenomena which moulded the characters of the men must also have affected the women. A climate so mild that, as Euripides says, "the cold of winter is without rigor, and the shafts of Phoebus do not wound;" a soil midway between harsh sterility and luxurious vegetation; a system of fertile plains and rugged plateaus and varied mountain chains; a coast indented with innumerable inlets and gulfs and bays--these were the physical characteristics which moulded the destinies of Greek women. Furthermore, the modern Greek people trace the threads of their history unbroken back to ancient times, in spite of the incursions of alien peoples and years of subjugation to the Turk. Many ancient customs survive, such as the giving of a dowry and the bathing of the bride before the wedding ceremony. On the islands of the Ægean, where there has been but little intercourse with foreigners, the type of features so familiar to us from Greek sculpture still prevails, and the visitor can see beautiful maidens who might have served as models for Phidias and Praxiteles. The configuration of the land led to the Greek conception of the city-state--the feature of internal polity which had most to do with the seclusion of women.

Greek literature, however, is our chief source of knowledge in this regard, yet even the information afforded by that literature is inadequate and unsatisfactory in the glimpses it gives of the life of woman. All that we know about Greek women, with the exception of the fragments of Sappho's poems, is derived from chronicles written by men. Now, men never write dispassionately about women. They either love or hate them; they either idealize or caricature them. Furthermore, Greek literature was not only written by men, but also by men for men. The Greek reading public, the audience at the theatre, the gathering in the Assembly and in the law courts, were almost exclusively masculine. Remarks indicating the inferiority of the frailer but more fascinating sex are even in our day not altogether displeasing to the average man, and constitute one of the stock motifs of humor; hence it is not to be taken too seriously that on the Greek stage there was much abuse of woman--though this is offset by passages in which the sex is extravagantly praised. Euripides was once called a woman hater in the presence of Sophocles. "Yes," was the clever response, "in his tragedies."

Then, aside from the point of view of the writer, only meagre facts can be gleaned here and there from Greek literature regarding the life of Greek women. Only by gathering and comparing disparate passages collected from writers of different views, of different States, and of different periods, can we get anything like a systematic presentation of the outward aspect of feminine life. We are more fortunate, however, when we consider the subjective side; for the Greek epos and drama present feminine portraitures which necessarily reflect, more or less clearly, the thought and feelings of woman in the age in which the poet flourished. Homer gives an accurate portrayal of the Heroic Age, on the borderland of which his own life was passed, while memories of it were still fresh in the minds of men. The Athenian tragedians also locate their plots in the Heroic Age, but they endow their characters with a depth of thought, with a power of reflection, with an insight into the problems of life, which were altogether foreign to men and women in the childhood of the world, and were characteristic of Athens in its brilliant intellectual epoch. Hence a history of Greek womanhood must draw largely from the works of the poets, and must endeavor to give a picture of the women who figure in the Iliad and the Odyssey and in the dramas of Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. The lyric poets of Greece are also of unique importance in the study of ancient humanity, for they reveal the hearts of men and women and make known the conflicts of the soul. The historical women of Hellas are few in number, and are known to us only through meagre passages in the historians, orators, and philosophers.

A third source of information is Greek art. When woman figures so largely in the few relics of antiquity which have come down to us intact, what a commentary on ancient womanhood must the art of the Greeks have been, before the ruthless hands of Romans and barbarians and the tooth of time effaced her most precious treasures! The vase paintings of the Greeks illustrate every phase of private life, and abound in representations of the maiden and the matron, in the home, at the loom, in the bridal procession, at the wedding. And Greek sculpture presents ideal types of woman, perfect physically and highly endowed with every intellectual and sensuous charm. From these works of plastic art, abounding in the museums of Europe, we know that the Greek woman was beautiful, the peer of man in physical excellence. In form, the Greek woman was so perfect as to be still taken as the type of her sex. "Her beauty, from whatever cause, bordered closely upon the ideal, or rather was that which, because now only found in works of art, we call the ideal. But our conceptions of form never transcend what is found in nature. She bounds our ideas by a circle over which we cannot step. The sculptors of Greece represented nothing but what they saw; and even when the cunning of their hand was most felicitous, even when love and grace and all the poetry of womanhood appeared to breathe from their marbles, the inferiority of their imitation to the creations of God, in properties belonging to form, in mere contour, in the grouping and development of features, must have sufficed to impress even upon Phidias, that high priest of art, how childish it was to rise above nature." But it is not merely physical perfection which appeals to us in these masterpieces of plastic art. Love and tenderness and every womanly charm find expression in every feature of the countenance; and there is, above all, a moral dignity, an elevation of soul, a spiritual fervor, which lift us from things of earth and impart aspirations toward the eternal. The women who gave insight and inspiration to the sculptor in his portrayal of Hera and of Athena and of Aphrodite must have possessed in some measure the qualities imparted by the artist to his works. The status of woman among the Greeks differs according to the period, tribe, and form of government, and all the various phases of life and civilization arising from these must be taken into consideration in reaching our conclusions. Greek history falls into certain well-defined periods which are distinct in culture and civilization. There is first the Heroic Age, portrayed in Greek mythology and in the Homeric poems, the age of demigods and valiant warriors and noble women. This is the monarchical period in Greek history. Kings presided over the destinies of men, and about them were gathered the nobles. Society was aristocratic; the life portrayed was the life of courts. A court made a queen necessary; and where there is a queen, woman is always a source of influence and power for good or evil, and wins either the deference and regard, or the fear and resentment of men. Succeeding the Heroic Age, there followed the "storm and stress" period in Greek life, when monarchies were overturned and gave place to oligarchies, and they, in turn, to tyrannies; when commerce was developing, colonies were being sent out to distant parts of the Mediterranean, and the aristocratic classes were enjoying the results of wealth and travel and the interchange of social courtesies. In this period, epic poetry declined, and lyric poetry took its place in the three forms of elegiac, iambic, and melic; the arts, too, were beginning to be cultivated. This is the Transition Age of Greece. In aristocratic circles, among the families of the oligarchs and in the courts of tyrants, woman continued to hold a prominent place; but among the poorer classes, who were ground down by the aristocrats, life was hard and bitter, and woman was censured as the source of many of the ills of mankind.

The Transition Age constitutes the portal admitting to Historical Greece proper. In most communities, the levelling process has gone on, and democracies have taken the place of oligarchies and tyrannies. The people have asserted themselves and are regnant. It is a noteworthy fact in Greek history that where democracy prevailed woman was least highly regarded and had fewest privileges. In Athens, where democracy was all-controlling, feminine activities were confined largely to the women's apartments of the house. In other cities, oligarchies continued to have power, and an aristocracy was still recognized, as at Sparta; and here the privileges and freedom of woman were very great.

The early tribal divisions among the Greeks must also be taken into consideration. The Achæans are closely identified with the Heroic Age; they built up the powerful States in the Peloponnesus, and undertook the first great national expedition of Hellas. Thus the Achæans are the representative Homeric people, with its monarchical life and the prominent social status of its women. The Achæan civilization gave way before the Dorian migration, and ceased to be a factor in Greek history. Of the three remaining divisions, the Æolians inhabited parts of Thessaly, Boeotia, and especially the island of Lesbos, and the Greek colonies of Asia Minor along the shores of the North Ægean. Their most brilliant period was during the Transition Age, when Lesbos was ruled by a wealthy and powerful aristocracy and later by a tyranny, and when lyric poetry reached its perfect bloom in the verses of Sappho. Æolian culture was marked by its devotion to music and poetry and by its richness and voluptuousness. At no other time and place in the whole history of Hellas did woman possess so much freedom and enjoy all the benefits of wealth and culture in so marked a degree as among the Æolian people of Lesbos.

The Dorian and the Ionian peoples occupied the arena during the historical period; and, representing as they did opposing tendencies, they were continually in conflict. The Dorians mainly occupied the Southern and Western Peloponnesus, Argos, Corinth, Megara, Ægina, Magna Græcia, and the southern coast of Asia Minor; the Ionians inhabited Attica, Euboea, most of the islands of the Ægean, and the famous twelve Ionian cities along the coast of Asia Minor. The chief city of the Dorians was Sparta; but Sparta had a form of government peculiar to itself, which must not be taken as representing all the Dorian States. Yet among the Dorian States in general there was much the same degree of freedom enjoyed by women as in Sparta, though they were not subjected to the same harsh discipline.

The Ionian cities of Asia Minor were greatly influenced by Asiatic love of ease and luxury, and they introduced into Greece many aspects of the civilization and art of Asia. There is a tradition that when the Ionians migrated from Hellas to Asia Minor they did not take their wives with them, as did the Dorians and Æolians, and, consequently, they were compelled to wed the native women of the conquered districts. As they looked upon the wives thus acquired as inferior, they were glad to shut them up in the women's apartments, following the Oriental custom, and to treat them as domestics rather than as companions. Thus is supposed to have arisen the custom of secluding the women of the household, which rapidly spread among Ionian peoples, even in Continental Greece.

Athens was the chief city among the Ionian peoples, but it developed a civilization peculiarly its own, known as the Attic-Ionian, combining much of the rugged strength and vigor of the Dorians with the refinement, delicacy, and versatility of the Ionians. Yet the status of woman in the city of the violet crown was a reproach to its otherwise unapproachable preeminence. Nowhere else in entire Hellas were Greek women in like measure repressed and excluded from the higher life of the men as among the Athenians. Consequently, the name of no great Athenian woman is known to us. But the Ionian repression of women of honorable station led to the rise of a class of "emancipated" women, who threw off the shackles that had bound their sex and united their fortunes with men in unlawful relations as hetæræ, or "companions." Owing to their pursuit of the higher learning of the times and their cultivation of all the feminine arts and graces, the hetæræ constituted a most interesting phenomenon in the social life of Greece, and played an important role in Greek culture, especially in Athens. As the centre of culture for Hellas, and as the exponent of literature and art for the civilized world, Athens demands especial attention in its treatment of women.

The classical period of Greek history was succeeded by the Hellenistic Age, an epoch introduced by the spread of the Greek language and culture over the vast empire of Alexander the Great. The theory of the city-state had been one of the chief causes of the seclusion of women; and as Alexander broke down the barriers between the Greek cities and introduced uniformity of life and manners throughout his empire, from this time on the status of woman is gradually elevated, her attention to the higher education becomes more general, and she takes a more prominent part in culture and politics and all the living interests of the day. Alexandria usurps the place of Athens as the chief centre of Greek life and thought, and here the Greek woman plays a conspicuous and prominent role. Then, as Rome spread her conquests over the Orient, the Græco-Roman period succeeds the Hellenistic, and through the intermingling of alien civilizations a womanhood of purely Greek culture is merged into the cosmopolitan womanhood of the Roman world. Christianity rapidly becomes the leaven that permeates the lump of the Roman Empire, and, appealing as it did to all that was highest and best in feminine character, finds ready acceptance among the women of Hellenic lands. The woman of Greek culture, with rare exceptions, ceases to exist, and our subject reaches its natural termination.

II

WOMANHOOD IN THE HEROIC AGE

The life of the earliest Greeks is mirrored in their legends. Though not exact history, the heroic epics of Greece are of great value as pictures of life and manners. Hence we may turn to them as valuable memorials of that state of society which must be for us the starting point of the history of the Greek woman.

The evidence of Homer regarding the Heroic Age is comprehensive and accurate. The discoveries of recent years are making Troy and Mycenæ and other cities of Homeric life very real to us. We find that Homer accurately described the material surroundings of his heroes and heroines--their houses and clothing and weapons and jewels. The royal palaces at Troy and Tiryns and Mycenæ have been unearthed, and we know that their human occupants must have been persons of the character described by Homer, for only such could have made proper use of the objects of utility and adornment found in these palaces and now to be studied in the museums of Europe. Hence we are driven to the conclusion that though Agamemnon be a myth and Helen a poet's fancy, yet men and women like Agamemnon and Helen must once have lived and loved and suffered on Greek soil.

Furthermore, great movements in the world's history are brought about only by great men and great women. The great epics of the world tell the stories of national heroes, not as they actually were, but idealized and deified by generations of admiring descendants. Hence, behind all the marvellous stories in myth and legend were doubtless actual figures of men and women who influenced the course of events and left behind them reputations of sufficient magnitude to give at least a basis for the heroic figures of epic poetry.

To appreciate the elements from which the immortal types of Greek Epic were composed, a comparison with the Book of Judges is apposite. In Judges we have represented, though in disconnected narrative, the heroic age of Ancient Israel, and from material such as this the national epic of the Hebrew people might have been written. In such an epic, women like Deborah and Jephthah's Daughter and Delilah would be the idealized heroines, as are Penelope and Andromache and Helen in Homeric poems. It is not unreasonable, therefore, to suppose that in the Achæan Age there lived actual women, of heroic qualities, who were the prototypes of the idealized figures presented by Homer and the dramatic poets.

Woman must have played a prominent role in the childhood of the Greek world, for much of the romantic interest which Greek legend inspires is derived from the mention of the women. Helen and Penelope, Clytemnestra and Andromache, and the other celebrated dames of heroic times, stand in the foreground of the picture, and are noted for their beauty, their virtues, their crimes, or their sufferings. Thus, a study of the history of woman in Ancient Greece properly begins with a contemplation of feminine life as it is presented in the poems of Homer.

Homer's portrayal of the Achæan Age is complete and satisfactory, largely because he devotes so much attention to woman and the conditions of her life. His chivalrous spirit manifests itself in his attitude toward the weaker sex. Homer's men are frequently childish and impulsive; Homer's women present the characteristics universally regarded as essential to true womanhood. They even seem strangely modern; the general tone of culture, the relation of the sexes, the motives that govern men and women, present striking parallels to what we find in modern times.

Homer has presented to us eternal types of womanhood, which are in consequence worthy of the immortality they have acquired. At present, we shall merely seek to learn from these works as much as possible about the life of woman as seen in the customs of society, and in archæological and ethnographic details.

That which strikes us as most noticeable in the organization of society in heroic times is its patriarchal simplicity. Monarchy is the prevailing form of government. "Basileus," "leader of the people," is the title of the sovereign, and every Basileus rules by right hereditary and divine: the sceptre of his house is derived from Zeus. The king is leader in war, head of the Council and of the Assembly of the people, and supreme judge in all matters involving equity. The "elders" constitute the Council, and the people are gathered together in Assembly to endorse the actions of their chiefs. The Iliad describes the life of a Greek camp; but Agamemnon, the suzerain, has under him men who are kings at home. The Odyssey describes civil life in the centres where the chieftains at Ilium are royal rulers. The two epics are chiefly concerned with the lives of these kings and their families. It is the life of courts and kings, of the aristocracy, with which Homer makes us familiar; and in the monarchies of Homer the status of woman is always elevated and her influence great. The wife shares the position of her husband, and his family are treated with all the deference due the head. As the king derives his authority by divine right, the people live peaceably under the government of their chief as under the authority and protection of the gods. Such are the salient features of the Homeric polity.

With what inimitable grace does the poet initiate us even into the life of the little girl at her mother's side. Achilles is chiding Patroclus for his tears: "Wherefore weepest thou, Patroclus, like a fond little maid that runs by her mother's side and bids her mother take her up, and tearfully looks at her till the mother takes her up?" Now, let us note the maiden at the dawn of womanhood. The mother had prayed that her daughter might grow up like Aphrodite in beauty and charm, and like Athena in wisdom and skill in handiwork. Father and mother observe with happiness her radiant youth; and her brothers care tenderly for her. Her pastimes consist in singing and dancing and playing ball and the various forms of outdoor recreation. Young men and maidens join together in these sports. Homer represented such scenes on the Shield of Achilles: "Also did the lame god devise a dancing place like unto that which once in wide Cnossos Dædalus wrought for Ariadne of the lovely tresses. There were youths dancing and maidens of costly wooing, their hands upon one another's wrists. Fine linen the maidens had on, and the youths well-woven doublets, faintly glistening with oil. Fair wreaths had the maidens, and the youths daggers of gold hanging from silver baldrics. And now they would run round with deft feet exceeding lightly, as when a potter sitting by his wheel that fitteth between his hands maketh trial of it whether it will run: and now anon they would run in line to meet each other." Such were their pastimes, and equally joyous were their occupations. To the maidens seem to have been chiefly assigned the outdoor tasks of the household, which would contribute to their physical development. Thus the Princess Nausicaa and her girl friends wash in the river the garments of fathers and brothers; and the Shield of Achilles represented a vintage scene where "maidens and striplings in childish glee bear the sweet fruit in plaited baskets, and in the midst of them a boy made pleasant music on a clear-toned viol, and sang thereto a sweet Linus-song, while the rest with feet falling together kept time with the music and the song."

The education of the girls was of the simplest character. They grew up in the apartment of the mother, and learned from her simple piety toward the gods a modest bearing, skill in needlework, and efficiency in the management of a household.

While enjoying a freedom far greater than that allowed to maidens in the classical period, the Homeric girls did not take part in the feasts and pastimes of court life. Thus the poet tells us that Nausicaa, who is a perfect picture of the Greek girl in the springtime of her youth and beauty, "retired to her chamber upon her return to the palace, and supper was served to her by a nurse in her apartments," while Odysseus was being graciously entertained by her father and mother in the court below. Strict attention to the convenances of their sex and station was required of these primitive women; and the high-minded maiden Nausicaa feared evil report should the stranger, Odysseus, be seen with her in the streets of the city, as such intimacy would be a "shame" to her, a maiden; while it was also a "shame" for a married woman to go alone into the presence of men, even when in her own house, though she could enter their presence when attended by her handmaidens. Thus Penelope is followed by her maidens when she goes to the hall of the men to hear the minstrel Phemius. "Bid Antinoë and Hippodamia," says she, "come to stand by my side in the halls, for alone I will not go among men, for I am ashamed." Nor did Helen and Andromache ever appear in public without their handmaidens. In seeming opposition to this excessive modesty was that office of hospitality which ofttimes required young women to bathe and anoint the distinguished strangers who were guests in the house. Thus Polycaste, the beautiful daughter of Nestor, bathed and anointed Telemachus, and put on him a cloak and vest. Helen performed like offices for Odysseus when he came in disguise into Troy, and Circe later for the same hero. Though the poet's statements may at times, in matters of outward appearance, do violence to modern social rules, yet, because life in heroic times was simpler and less conventional, there could innocently be greater freedom of expression between the sexes regarding many matters which are tabooed in good society in this very conventional age. Hence such passages as those cited are to be taken rather as an evidence of the innocence and ingenuousness of Homer's maidens than as an imputation of lack of modesty.

There are many indications pointing to the universal beauty of Homeric women. Thus a favorite epithet of the country is "Hellas, famed for fair women." There are also numerous epithets applied to Homeric characters significant of beauty, as "fair in form," "with beautiful cheeks," "with beautiful locks," "with beautiful breasts," and the like, demonstrating the universal love of physical beauty as well as the prevalence of beautiful types.

Marriage was a highly honorable estate, and both young men and maidens looked forward to it as a natural and desirable step in the sequence of life. The preliminaries were of a distinctly patriarchal type. The marriage was usually a matter of arrangement between the suitor and his intended father-in-law. Sometimes a man might win his bride by heroic deed or personal merit; but usually the successful suitor was he who brought the most costly wedding gifts. Thus the characteristic feature was wife purchase. Usually these gifts were offered to the bride's father or family; but in the case of the (supposed) widow Penelope, they were presented to the woman herself. The gifts were added to the wealth of the bride's household. The idea of dower as such is foreign to the Homeric poems, though the poet occasionally represents the bride as receiving from parents rich gifts, which apparently were to be her personal property, in addition to the nuptial gifts from her family, consisting of herds or jewels or precious raiment.

From the eagerness with which suitors sought to win the regard of the maiden, it would seem that she had some choice in the selection of a husband; but in general the father decided whom he would have for his son-in-law, though at times the maiden was given her choice from a number of young men approved by her father. Widows were expected to remarry; and in their case considerable freedom of choice existed.

The marriage ceremonies were of a social rather than religious or civil character. The wedding day was celebrated by a feast provided by the groom in the house of the bride's father. All the guests were clad in their most costly raiment, and they brought presents to the young couple. In these patriarchal times, when the father was both chief and pontiff, so that his approval gave a sacred character to the union, the leading away of the bride from the house of her father seems to have constituted the most important act of the marriage ceremony. In the description of the Shield of Achilles, Homer gives us a glimpse of this solemnity. Under the glow of torches, surrounded by a joyous company, dancing and singing hymeneal songs, the bride was led to the house of her future husband. She was veiled, a custom that was a survival of the old attempt to avoid angering the ancestral spirits by withdrawing unceremoniously from their surveillance. The gods presided over marriage, but no priest or sacrifice was needed; no ceremonies have been recorded which confirm the theory of bride capture, so often said to be at the basis of Homeric marriages, nor is there mention of any ceremonial rites on the wedding night.

Marriage among the Homeric Greeks had primarily two distinct objects in view: the preservation of a pure line of descent, and the protection of the property rights of the family. Hence the wife and mother had in her hands all the sacred traditions of the family; if these were preserved by her, she added to their glory; if violated, the prestige of the family suffered untold loss. In consequence, there was no polygamy and no divorce. Monogamy could be the only sanctioned form of marriage where such conceptions of wedded life prevailed. Concubinage existed, especially when the husband was long absent from home; but it was looked upon with disfavor and frequently led to unfortunate consequences, as in the cases of Phoenix and Agamemnon. Hetairism and prostitution did not receive in the Homeric days the recognized place that was later accorded them in the social structure of the Greeks. The many instances of conjugal devotion in the Iliad and the Odyssey, as seen, for example, in Hector and Andromache, Odysseus and Penelope, Alcinous and Arete, show the high average of marital fidelity in heroic times. There are also many minor indications that the ties of the family were very sacred among the Achæans, and that conjugal affection was very strong. One of the lamented hardships of the long siege was separation from one's wife: "For he that stayeth away but one single month far from his wife in his benched ship fretteth himself when winter storms and the furious sea imprison him; but for us the ninth year of our stay here is upon us in its course." And the prayer of Odysseus for Nausicaa shows the Greek love of home and happy married life: "And may the gods grant thee all thy heart's desire: a husband and a home, and a mind at one with his may they give--a good gift; for there is nothing mightier and nobler than when man and wife are of one heart and mind in a house, a grief to their foes, and to their friends great joy, but their own hearts know it best."

The view taken of adultery is a good test of the position of woman in society. In Homeric times, adultery was regarded as the violation of a property right. There are few harsh words in the Iliad against Helen; all the anger of the Greeks was concentrated against Paris, who had violated the bond of guest friendship, and had alienated his host's property. Menelaus readily pardoned Helen, when material reparation had been exacted; there is no moral reprehension of the adultery itself. Clytemnestra was violently condemned, less because she yielded to the seductions of Ægisthus than because her crime led to the murder of her husband. There seems to have been also a natural perpetuity of the marriage contract. To the Greeks, Helen was always the wife of Menelaus. The ideal for the wife was single-hearted loyalty toward her husband; faithfulness and submission were the principal virtues of women. Moral lapses by men were frequent, and the same standard of marital rectitude was not required from them as from the women of the heroic days.

The social manners of the time, and especially the elevated position of the matron, may be gathered from Homer's account of Telemachus's reception at the palace of King Menelaus in Sparta. He and his friend Pisistratus are conducted into the great hall, where, after having bathed and anointed themselves and put on fresh raiment, they are received by their host, Menelaus. They are placed on chairs beside him, and a repast is brought, of which they are invited to partake. Menelaus does not yet know who his guests are, but he has observed that Telemachus weeps when Odysseus is mentioned in conversation.

While he is pondering on this, Helen comes forth into the hall from her "fragrant vaulted chamber" in the inner or woman's part of the house. With her are three handmaids, one of whom sets for her the well-wrought chair, a second brings a rug of soft wool, while the third places at her side a silver basket on wheels, across which is laid a golden distaff charged with wool of violet blue. Helen immediately takes a leading part in the entertainment of the guests, one of whom, with woman's intuition, she is the first to recognize, and they converse far into the night. Then good cheer is spread before them, and Helen casts into the wine whereof they drink "a drug to lull all pain and anger and bring forgetfulness to every sorrow." Presently Helen bids her handmaids show with torches the guests to their beds beneath the corridors, where bedsteads have been set with purple blankets and coverlets and thin mantles upon them.

Here, in her royal palace, Helen is in every sense a queen. Endowed with charms of intellect, as well as of person, she regulates the life and determines the tone of the society about her; and she is but an example of the high social position of the Homeric women.

The Homeric matron had as her regular duties the management of the household, and was trained in every domestic occupation. Spinning and weaving were her chief accomplishments, and all the Homeric heroines were highly skilled in the textile arts. The garments worn by the men were fashioned at home by handmaidens under the superintendence of their mistress, who herself engaged in the work. Penelope had fifty slave maidens to direct in the various duties of the household. The daughters of Celeus, like Rebecca of old, went to the well to draw water for household use; and the clothes washing of the Princess Nausicaa and her maidens has been already mentioned. So, by the side of the refinement and elegance of the Homeric Age we have a simplicity of manners that but adds to the charm.

In spite of these beautiful instances of domestic harmony and affection, the women of Homer had really no rights, in the modern sense of the term. Throughout the whole of life their position was subject to the will or the whims of men. At marriage, woman merely passed from the tutelage of her father to that of her husband, who had absolute power over her. But though the power of the husband was absolute, yet he was generally deferential toward the wife he loved, and was frequently guided by her opinions. Thus, the Phæacians say of Queen Arete: "Friends, this speech of our wise queen is not wide of the mark, nor far from our deeming, so hearken thereto. But on Alcinous here both word and work depend." With Arete lay the real seat of authority, though she could claim no rights, and doubtless the tactful and clever Homeric woman was, as a rule, the dominating influence in the palace.

When the husband died, the grown-up son succeeded to his rights, and it was in his power, if he saw fit, to give his widowed mother again in marriage. Penelope's obedience to her son Telemachus is one of the striking features of the Odyssey. He had it in his power to give her in marriage to any of the suitors, but he refrained, from filial affection and mercenary motives. "It can in no wise be that I thrust forth from the house, against her will, the woman that bare me and reared me," says Telemachus; and he continues: "Moreover, it is hard for me to make heavy restitution to Icarius, as needs I must if, of my own will, I send my mother away."

Far worse, however, was the lot of the widow whose husband had been slain in battle. She became at once the slave of the conqueror, to be dealt with as he wished. Hector draws a gloomy picture of the fate of Andromache in case he should be slain: "Yea, of a surety I know this in heart and soul; the day shall come for holy Ilium to be laid low, and Priam and the folk of Priam of the good ashen spear. Yet doth the anguish of the Trojans hereafter not so much trouble me, neither Hecuba's own, neither King Priam's, neither my brethren's, the many and brave that shall fall in the dust before their foemen, as doth thine anguish in the day when some mail-clad Achæan shall lead thee weeping and rob thee of the light of freedom. So shalt thou abide in Argos and ply the loom at another woman's bidding, and bear water from Fount Messeis or Hyperia, being grievously entreated, and sore constraint shall be laid upon thee. And then shall one say that beholdeth thee weep: 'This is the wife of Hector, that was foremost in battle of the horse-training Trojans, when men fought about Ilium.' Thus shall one say hereafter, and fresh grief will be thine for lack of such an husband as thou hadst to ward off the day of thraldom. But me in death may the heaped-up earth be covering, ere I hear thy crying and thy carrying into captivity." Similar lamentations over the harsh treatment of the widows and the sad lot of the orphans, when the natural protector had been slain, occur again and again. When taken captive, the noblest ladies became the concubines of the victor, and were disposed of at his pleasure. Briseis is a striking instance of this. She was a maiden of princely descent, whose husband and brother had been slain by Achilles. Yet she looked upon her position as a captive as quite in the natural order of things. She manifestly became much attached to her captor, and left "all unwillingly" when she was carried off to Agamemnon's tent. When she was restored to Achilles, she laments the fallen Patroclus, who had promised to make her godlike Achilles's wedded wife.

Many female slaves of noble descent are mentioned by Homer, and their positions in the households of their mistresses are frequently of importance. Thus Euryclea, who had nurtured Odysseus and reared Telemachus, was practically at the head of the domestic affairs of the palace, and her relations with Penelope were most affectionate. The other slaves were divided into several classes, according to their different qualities and abilities. To some were assigned the menial offices, such as turning the handmills, drawing the water, and preparing the food for their master; while others were engaged in spinning and weaving, under the direct oversight of their lady mistress.

It is but natural that the great ladies of heroic times, reared in the luxury of courts, attended by numerous slaves, and exercising an elevating influence over their husbands through their personal charms, should devote great attention to the elegancies of the costume and the toilet. The Greek love of beauty led to love of dress. Numerous epithets point to this characteristic of Homeric ladies; as "with beautiful peplus," "well-girdled," "with beautiful zone," "with beautiful veil," "with beautiful sandal," and the like; and care in dressing the hair is seen in such phrases as "with goodly locks," "with glossy locks."

The Homeric poems describe for us the dress of the Æolico-Ionians down to the ninth or eighth centuries before Christ, and it differs in many important particulars from that of the classical period as seen in the Parthenon marbles.

The women wore only one outer garment, the peplus, brought to Hellas from Asia by the Aryans, which garment the Dorian women continued to wear until a late period. The peplus in its simplest form consisted of an oblong piece of the primitive homemade woollen cloth, unshapen and unsewn, open at the sides, and fastened on the shoulders by fibulæ, and bound by a girdle; but, undoubtedly, as worn by Homeric princesses it assumed a much more regular pattern and was richly embroidered. The pharos was probably a linen garment of Egyptian origin, which was sometimes worn instead of the peplus. Thus the nymph Calypso "donned a great shining pharos, light of woof and gracious, and about her waist she cast a fair golden girdle, and a veil withal on her head." Both these garments left the arms bare, and, while frequently of some length behind, as seen in the epithet "the robe-trailing Trojan dames," were short enough in front to allow the feet to appear.

As the peplus was open at the sides, the girdle was the second most important article of feminine attire. This was frequently of gold, as in Calypso's case, and adorned with tassels, as was Hera's girdle with its hundred tassels "of pure gold, all deftly woven, and each one worth an hundred oxen." But the girdle of girdles was the magic cestus of golden Aphrodite, which Hera borrowed in order to captivate Zeus. The tightened girdle made the dress full over the bosom, so that the epithet "deep-bosomed"--that is, with full, swelling bosom--became frequent. Another characteristic article of dress was the kredemnon, a kind of veil, of linen or of silk, in color generally white, though at times dark blue. It was worn over the head, and allowed to fall down the back and the sides of the head, leaving the face uncovered. There was no garment, like a cloak, to be worn over the peplus. For freer movement women would cast off the mantle-like kredemnon, which answered all the purposes of a shawl. Thus Nausicaa and her companions, when preparing for the game of ball, "cast off their tires and began the song," and Hecuba, in her violent grief, "tore her hair and cast from her the shining veil." There were also metal ornaments for the head, the stephané, or coronal, and the ampyx, a headband or frontlet. The kekryphalos was probably a caplike net, bound by a woven band; Andromache "shook off from her head the bright attire thereof, the net, and woven band." Other feminine ornaments were: the isthmion, a necklace, fitting close to the neck; the hormos, a long chain, sometimes of gold and amber, hanging from the nape of the neck over the breast; and peronæ, or brooches, and ear-rings of various shapes, either globular, spiral, or in the form of a cup, Helen, for example, "set ear-rings in her pierced ear, ear-rings of three drops and glistening; therefrom shone grace abundant."

To embrace in one general description these various articles of feminine attire, "we may think of Helen as arrayed in a colored peplus, richly embroidered and perfumed, the corners of which were drawn tightly over the shoulders and fastened together by the perone. The waist was closely encircled by the zone, which was, no doubt, of rich material and design. Over her bosom hung the hormos of dark red amber set in gold. Her hair hung down in artificial plaits, and on her head was the high, stiff kekryphalos, of which we have spoken above, bound in the middle by the plekté anadesme. Over the forehead was the shining ampyx, or tiara, of gold; and from the top of the head fell the kredemnon, or veil, over the shoulders and back, affording a quiet foil to the glitter of gold and jewels."

Such is the picture of the Heroic Age as drawn for us by Homer. It is a bright picture in the main, though the treatment of the widows and the captive maidens throws on it dark shadows. But when we become acquainted with the heroines of this age, and study their characters in the environment in which Homer places them, we shall be all the more impressed with the high status maintained by the gentler sex at the dawn of Greek civilization.

Before treating of the heroines of Homer, however, let us briefly notice the maidens and matrons of Greek mythology who do not figure so conspicuously in the Chronicles of the Trojan War, but who have won a permanent place in art and in literature.

We should not fail to mention the mortal loves who became through Zeus the mothers of heroes,--Europa, whom he wooed in the form of a white bull, and carried away to Crete, where she became the mother of Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Sarpedon; Semele, who was overcome with terror when Zeus appeared in all his godlike array, and who gave birth to Dionysus, god of the vine; Leda, wooed by Zeus in the guise of a snow-white swan, the mother of Helen, and of Castor and Pollux; Alcmene, mother of Heracles; Callisto, changed, with her little son Arcas, because of the jealousy of Hera, into the constellations known as the Great and the Little Bear; and, finally, Danaë, daughter of Acrisius, King of Argos, locked up by her tyrannical father in a brazen tower, but visited by Zeus as a golden shower. The offspring of this union was the hero Perseus. King Acrisius, in dread of a prophecy that he was destined to be slain by his grandson, had the mother and helpless infant enclosed in an empty cask, which was consigned to the fury of the sea. Terrified at the sound of the great waves beating over their heads, Danaë prayed to the gods to watch over them and bring them to some friendly shore. Her piteous prayers were answered, and mother and child were rescued and found a hospitable haven on the island of Seriphos,

"When rude around the high-wrought ark

The tempests raged, the waters dark

Around the mother tossed and swelled;

With not unmoistened cheek she held

Her Perseus in her arms and said:

'What sorrows bow this hapless head!

Thou sleepst the while, thy gentle breast

Is heaving in unbroken rest,

In this our dark, unjoyous home,

Clamped with the rugged brass, the gloom

Scarce broken by the doubtful light

That gleams from yon dim fires of night.

But thou, unwet thy clustering hair,

Heedst not the billows raging wild,

The moanings of the bitter air,

Wrapt in thy purple robe, my beauteous child!

Oh! seemed this peril perilous to thee,

How sadly to my words of fear

Wouldst thou bend down thy listening ear!

But now sleep on, my child! sleep thou, wide sea!

Sleep, my unutterable agony!

Oh! change thy counsels, Jove, our sorrows end!

And if my rash, intemperate zeal offend,

For my child's sake, his father, pardon me!'"

The god Apollo, too, had his mortal loves: the fair maiden Coronis, whom in a fit of jealousy he shot through the heart,--the mother of Æsculapius, the god of healing; Daphne, the beautiful nymph, who would not listen to his entreaties, and was finally changed into a laurel tree; and the muse Calliope, by whom he became the father of Orpheus, who inherited his parent's musical and poetical gifts. The story of the loves of Orpheus and his beautiful wife, Eurydice, is one of the most touching in all literature: how she died from the bite of a venomous serpent, and her spirit was conducted down to the gloomy realms of Hades, leaving Orpheus broken-hearted; how Zeus gave him permission to go down into the infernal regions to seek his wife; how he appeased even Cerberus's rage by his music, and Hades and Proserpina consented to restore Eurydice to life and to her husband's care, but on the one condition that he should leave the infernal regions without once turning to look into the face of his beloved wife; and how he observed the mandate until just before he reached the earth, when he turned, only to behold the vanishing form of the wife he had so nearly snatched from the grave. The rest of his days were passed in sadness, and finally some Bacchantes, enraged at his sad notes, tore him limb from limb, and cast his mangled remains into the river Hebrus. "As the poet-musician's head floated down the stream, the pallid lips still murmured 'Eurydice!' for even in death he could not forget his wife; and as his spirit floated on to join her, he incessantly called upon her name, until the brooks, trees, and fountains he had loved so well caught up the longing cry and repeated it again and again."

The story of Niobe is one of the best-known Greek legends, because of its exquisite portrayal in art. Niobe, daughter of Tantalus, the mother of fourteen children,--seven manly sons and seven beautiful daughters,--in her pride taunted the goddess Latona, mother of Apollo and Artemis, because her offspring numbered only two. She even went so far as to forbid her people to worship the two deities, and ordered that all the statues of them in her kingdom should be torn down and destroyed. Enraged at the insult, Latona called her children to her, and bade them slay all the children of Niobe. Apollo, therefore, coming upon the seven lads as they were hunting, slew them with his unfailing arrows; and while the mother was grieving for the loss of her sons, Artemis began to slay her daughters. In vain did the mother strive to protect them, and one by one they fell, never to rise again. Then the gods, touched by her woe, changed her into stone just as she stood, with upturned face, streaming eyes, and quivering lips.

Three other heroines of mythology deserve to be enrolled within this brief chronicle: Andromeda, Ariadne, and Atalanta. The Princess Andromeda, a lovely maiden, was being offered as a sacrifice to a terrible sea monster who was devastating the coast. She was chained fast to an overhanging rock, above the foaming billows that continually dashed their spray over her fair limbs. As the monster was about to carry her off as his prey, the hero Perseus, returning from his conquest of Medusa, suddenly appeared as a deliverer, slew the monster, freed Andromeda from her chains, restored her to the arms of her overjoyed parent, and thus won the princess as his bride.

Far more pathetic is the story of the Princess Ariadne, daughter of King Minos of Crete, who fell in love with the Athenian hero Theseus when he came to rescue the Athenian youths and maidens from the terrible Minotaur. She provided him with a sword and with a ball of twine, enabling him to slay the monster and to thread his way out of the inextricable mazes of the labyrinth. Theseus in gratitude carried her off as his bride; but on the island of Naxos he basely deserted her, and Ariadne was left disconsolate. Violent was her grief; but in the place of a fickle mortal lover, she became the fair bride of an immortal, the genial god Dionysus, who discovered her on the island and wooed and won her.

Atalanta, the third of this illustrious group, the daughter of Iasius, King of Arcadia, was a famous runner and sportswoman. She took part with Meleager in the grand hunt for the Calydonian boar, and it was she who at last brought the boar to bay and gave him a mortal wound. When Atalanta returned to her father's court, she had numberless suitors for her hand; but, anxious to preserve her freedom, she imposed the condition that every suitor should engage with her in a footrace: if he were beaten, his life was forfeited; if successful, she would become his bride. Many had thus lost their lives. Finally, Hippomenes, a youth under the protection of Aphrodite, who had bestowed on him three golden apples, desired to race with the princess. Atalanta soon passed her antagonist, but, as she did so, a golden apple fell at her feet. She stooped to pick it up, and Hippomenes regained the lead. Again she passed him, and again a golden apple caused her to pause, and Hippomenes shot ahead. Finally, just as she was about to reach the goal, the third golden apple tempted her to stop once more, and Hippomenes won the race and a peerless bride.

III

WOMEN OF THE ILIAD

The reader of the Iliad and the Odyssey finds himself in an atmosphere altogether human. As he peruses these pages, so rich in pictures of the life and manners of heroic times, it matters little to him whether the men and women of epic song had merely a mythical existence, or were, in fact, historical figures. The contemporaries of Homer and later Greeks had an unshaken belief in the reality of those men and women; and the poet has breathed into them the breath of genius, which gives life and immortality.

We have in these poems the most ancient expression of the national sentiment of the Greeks, and from them we can form a correct idea of the relations of men and women in prehistoric times, and of the character and status of woman in the childhood of the Greek world.

It is a noteworthy fact that the plots of both the Iliad and the Odyssey--as well as the most interesting episodes they contain--turn upon love for women; and a clear idea of the importance of woman in the Heroic Age could not be given better than by briefly reviewing the brilliant panorama of warlike and domestic scenes in which woman figures.

We are first introduced to a Greek camp in Troy land. During ten long years the hosts of the Achæans have been gathered before the walls of Ilium. What is the cause of this long struggle? A woman! Paris, son of King Priam, had carried off to his native city Queen Helen, wife of Menelaus, King of Sparta. Aided by the wiles of Aphrodite, to whom he had awarded the golden apple as the fairest in the contest of the three goddesses, Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite, Paris succeeded in winning the heart of this fairest of Greek women and in persuading her to desert husband and daughter to follow the fortunes of a handsome stranger. On the isle of Cranaë their nuptial rites were celebrated, and after much voyaging they reached their new home in Troy, where King Priam, fascinated with the beauty and grace of this new daughter, in spite of his dread of the consequences, graciously received the errant pair. The Greek chieftains bound themselves by an inviolable oath to assist the forsaken husband to recover his spouse, and, marshalling their forces, they entered upon the long and tedious war. Thus, a woman was the cause of the first great struggle between Orient and Occident, of the assembling of the mighty hosts of the Achæans under King Agamemnon, of ten years of siege and struggle and innumerable wars, of the hurling of many valiant souls to Hades, of the fall of Troy, and of the varied wanderings and dire fortunes of the surviving heroes and heroines of the epic story.

The Iliad does not tell the whole story of the Trojan War; Homer invites the muse to sing of but one episode thereof--the dire wrath of Achilles. The cause of that violent outburst is also a woman. The Greek chieftains are gathered in the place of assembly, along the banks of the Scamander. In their midst is an aged priest of the town of Chryse, bearing in his hand the fillets of Apollo, the Far-darter, upon a golden staff. He beseeches the Greeks to restore to him his dear child, the maiden Chryseis, their captive, and to accept in return the proffered ransom, reverencing the god. There is a sympathetic murmur among the chieftains, who urge the granting of the petition; but the thing pleases not the heart of Agamemnon, king of men, who had received the beautiful captive as his own share of the booty, and for love of her will not give her up. So he roughly sends the old man away, and lays stern charge upon him not to be seen again near the ships of the Achæans. Outraged in his dignity as a priest and in his tenderness as a father, the aged sire prays to Apollo, who at once sends dire pestilence upon the Greeks; and the pyres of the dead burn continually in multitude. Nine days speed the god's shafts throughout the host, and on the tenth the valiant warrior Achilles summons the folk to assembly, and bids Calchas, "most excellent of augurs," declare the cause of the pestilence. Calchas, after much hesitation, responds that the Far-darter has brought war upon the Greeks because Agamemnon has done despite to the priest, and has not set his daughter free and accepted the ransom.

Agamemnon is violently enraged at the seer; his dark heart within him is greatly filled with anger, and his eyes are like flashing fire. He charges the seer with never saying anything that is pleasant for him to hear. And as for Chryseis, he would fain keep her himself in his household; for he prefers her even before Clytemnestra, his wedded wife, to whom she is nowise inferior, neither in favor nor stature nor wit nor skill. Yet if she be taken away from him for the good of the people, he demands another prize forthwith, that alone of the Greeks he may not be without reward. Then is the valiant Achilles enraged at the covetousness of his chief, and a violent quarrel ensues. At last, Agamemnon asserts that he will send back Chryseis, but he will come and take in return Achilles's meed of honor, Briseis of the fair cheeks, that Achilles may know how far the mightier is he and that no other may hereafter dare to rival him to his face.

Then is the son of Peleus the more enraged, and, had not the goddess Athena appeared and restrained his wrath, he would have assailed Agamemnon on the spot. However, he speaks again with bitter words and declares that hereafter longing for Achilles will come upon the Achæans one and all; for no more will he fight with the Greeks against the Trojans. So the assembly breaks up, after this battle of violent words between the twain. Achilles returns to his huts and trim ships, with Patroclus and his company; and Agamemnon sends forth Odysseus and others on a fleet ship to bear back to her father the lovely Chryseis, and to offer a hecatomb to Apollo. Thus Chryseis is restored to her father's arms, and appears no more in the story.

But Atrides ceases not from the strife with which he has threatened Achilles. He summons straightway two heralds, and bids them go to the tent of Achilles and take Briseis of the fair cheeks by the hand and lead her to him. Unwillingly they go on their mission, and find the young warrior sitting sorrowfully beside his hut and black ship. He knows wherefore they come, and bids his friend Patroclus bring forth the damsel and give them her to lead away. And Patroclus hearkens to his dear companion, and leads forth from the hut Briseis of the fair cheeks, and gives her to the heralds. And the twain take their way back along the ships of the Achæans and with them goes the maiden, all unwilling.

In this moment of grief at the loss of the woman he loves, Achilles bethinks him of his dear mother, the Nereid Thetis, and, stretching forth his hand toward the sea, he prays to her to hearken to him. His lady mother hears him as she sits in the sea depths beside her aged sire, and with speed she arises from the gray sea, and sits down beside him and strokes him with her hand and inquires the cause of his sorrow. Into her sympathetic ear he tells all the story of his wrongs, and the goddess shows herself the tenderest and most loving of mothers. He bids her seek justice for him at the throne of mighty Zeus, with whom she is potent on account of favors she has done him. She bewails with her son that she has borne him to brief life and evil destiny; but she bids him continue wroth with the Achæans, and refrain utterly from battle, while she will early fare to Zeus's palace upon Mount Olympus, and she thinks to win him. True to her promise, she betakes herself to sunny Olympus and finds the father of gods and men sitting apart from all the rest upon the topmost peak. She clasps his knees with one hand as a suppliant and with the other strokes his chin, and prays him to do honor to her son and exalt him with recompense for the gross wrong he has suffered. And Zeus, though he knows that it will lead to strife with Lady Hera, his spouse, promises to heap just vengeance upon Agamemnon.

Thus, upon the very threshold of the Iliad, the chord of maternal affection is struck; and when the wild passions of early manhood have led to sorrow and humiliation, the mother appears, affording sympathy and comfort, and is ready to traverse sea and earth and heaven to intercede for her wronged and grief-stricken son.

Achilles remains away from battle, sulking beside the ships. The odds are now in favor of the Trojans in the conflict that is being waged. Both sides are weary of continual fighting, and a single combat is arranged between Menelaus and Paris, the wronged husband and the present lord of Helen. The meed of victory is to be Helen herself, with all her treasures, she now appearing for the first time in the Epos.

Helen is summoned from her palace to witness the combat. So she hastens from her chamber, attended by two handmaidens, and comes to the place of the Scæan gates, where are gathered King Priam and the elders of the city.

Homer nowhere attempts to describe Helen's beauty in detail, but impresses it upon the reader merely by showing the bewitching effect of her presence upon others. Even these sage old men fall under the spell of her divine beauty, and, when they see her coming upon the towers, softly speak winged words, one to the other:

"Small blame is it that Trojans and well-greaved Achæans should for such a woman long time suffer hardships; marvellously like is she to the immortal goddesses to look upon. Yet even so, though she be so goodly, let her go upon their ships and not stay to vex us and our children after us."

Priam, however, addresses his beautiful daughter-in-law with gentle words, laying the blame, not on her, but on the gods, for the dolorous war of the Achæans. Helen utters expressions of self-reproach, and then, at Priam's request, points out the famous warriors of the invading host.

Paris is vanquished in the single combat, and Menelaus would have slain his foe, and in that moment have regained Helen, had not the goddess Aphrodite snatched up Paris in a cloud and transported him to his chamber. Aphrodite then appears to Helen, in the form of an aged dame, and bids her return to her lord. Helen recognizes the goddess, and her scornful, bitter reply shows how the high-spirited lady rebelled at the chains with which Aphrodite bound her. The wrath and menace of Aphrodite, however, overcome her noble resolution, and she reluctantly returns. When she sees her husband, she chides him scornfully for his cowardice, and regrets that he had not perished at the hands of Menelaus. But Paris is unaffected by her reproaches. His thoughts, as ever, are not of war, but of love, and Helen, owing to the subtle power of Aphrodite, cannot long resist his caresses. Meanwhile, the injured husband rages through the host like a wild beast, if anywhere he might set his eyes on and slay the wanton Paris.

We are now approaching a series of domestic scenes, in which figure the three principal female characters of the Iliad. Owing to the abortive issue of the single combat, the truce between Greeks and Trojans is declared at an end, and the forces once more array themselves in conflict. The Trojans are being hard pressed. Hector returns to the city to command Hecuba, his mother, to assemble the aged dames of Troy, who should go to Athena's temple and supplicate the goddess to have compassion on them. At the gates the Trojans' wives and daughters gather about him, inquiring of their loved ones. As he enters the royal palace, his beautiful mother meets him and clasps him by the hand, and bids him, weary of battle, pause to take refreshments. But Hector resists her solicitous entreaties, urges her to gather the aged wives together, and, with the most beautiful robe in the palace as an offering, to go to the temple and supplicate Athena to have mercy. Hecuba does as he commands, and the solemn procession mounts the citadel and implores the goddess to have mercy on them and turn the tide of combat. The goddess, however, is inflexible: she denies their prayer.

Hector, meanwhile, stops at the palace of Paris. He finds Helen seated among her handmaidens, distributing to them their tasks, and Paris polishing his beautiful armor. Hector severely rebukes his brother; but words of scorn make but little impression on the smooth and courteous Paris. Helen now addresses Hector, for whom she has a sisterly love and admiration that contrasts painfully with her contempt for her cowardly lord; and her words reveal the bitterness of her heart, because of her evil destiny and because "even in days to come we may be a song in the ears of men that shall be hereafter." Hector responds with sympathetic regard to the sisterly confidence of Helen, and bids her rouse her husband once more to enter the combat, while in the meantime he will go to his own house to behold his dear wife and infant boy; for he knows not if he shall return home to them again, or if the gods will now overthrow him at the hands of the Achæans.

When Hector comes to his palace, he finds not his beautiful wife, white-armed Andromache, within; upon inquiry he learns that, through anxiety because of the battle, like one frenzied, she had gone in haste to the wall, and the nurse bearing the child was with her. Hector hastens to the Scæan gates, and as he approaches them there came his dear-won wife, running to meet him, and with her the handmaid bearing in her bosom the tender boy, Hector's loved son Astyanax. Hector smiles and gazes at the boy; while Andromache stands by his side weeping and clasps his hand in hers, and urges him to take thought for himself and to have pity on her, forlorn, and on their infant boy. Hector tells her that he takes thought of all this, that his greatest grief is the thought of her anguish in the day when some mail-clad Achæan shall lead her away and rob her of the light of freedom, but it is his part to fight in the forefront of the Trojans. He lays his son in his dear wife's bosom, and, as she smiles tearfully upon the lad, her husband has pity to see her, and gently caresses her with his hand and seeks to console her. He bids her return to her own tasks, the loom and distaff, while he provides for war. So part these heroic souls. Hector sets out for the battlefield; and his dear wife departs to her home, oft looking back and letting fall big tears. When she reaches her house, she gathers her handmaidens about her, and stirs lamentations in them all. "So bewailed they Hector, while yet he lived, within his house; for they deemed that he would no more come home to them from battle nor escape the fury of the hands of the Achæans."

The closing scenes of the dramatic recital time and again present these three women--Hecuba, Helen, and Andromache. Achilles continues to sulk away from battle, in spite of Agamemnon's attempt at reconciliation. The Trojans are winning victory after victory. Achilles's comrade Patroclus finally gets permission to don the great warrior's armor, and he enters the conflict. Hector, supposing him to be Achilles, engages with him in combat and finally slays him. Achilles is overwhelmed with grief at the death of Patroclus. His lady mother, Thetis, rises from the depths of the sea to console him, and provides him a suit of armor fashioned by Hephæstus. Agamemnon and Achilles are reconciled before the assembly of the Achæans, and fair-faced Briseis is restored to her lover. She utters shrill laments over the body of Patroclus, who had been ever kind to her. Achilles enters the combat, clad in the armor of Hephæstus. Hector alone dares to face him, and he is slain, and his lifeless body is dragged behind Achilles's chariot as he drives exultantly toward the ships. Piteous wailings are heard from the walls, wailings of the aged Priam, and of the sorrowful Hecuba, whose cry is the full bitterness of maternal grief.

Within the city, in the inner chamber of her palace, a young wife is engaged in weaving a double purple web and directing the work of her handmaidens. Her thoughts are all of her warrior husband, and she has had a servant set a great tripod upon the fire that Hector might have warm washing when he comes home out of the battle--fond heart all unaware how, far from all washings, bright-eyed Athena has slain him by the hand of Achilles! But suddenly she hears shrieks and groans from the battlements, and her limbs tremble and the shuttle falls from her hands to earth. She dreads terribly lest Hector has met his fate at the hand of Achilles. Accompanied by her handmaidens, she rushes to the battlements, and beholds his lifeless body dragged by swift horses toward the hollow ships. Then dark night comes on her eyes and shrouds her, and she falls backward and gasps forth her spirit; and when at last her soul returns into her breast, she bewails her own sad lot and that of her child, deprived of such a husband and father.

The succeeding days are spent in gloom and sorrow, each side bewailing the loss of a favorite warrior. King Priam finally recovers the body of Hector from Achilles, and brings it back to Hector's palace, where the women gather about the corpse--and among them white-armed Andromache leads the lamentation, while in her hands she holds the head of Hector, slayer of men. Hecuba, too, grieves for Hector, of all her children the dearest to her heart; and, lastly, Helen joins in the sore lament, sorrowing for the loss of the dearest of her brethren in Troy, who had never spoken despiteful word to her, but had always been kind and considerate. Here the long story reaches its natural conclusion. The Iliad opens with a scene of wrath occasioned by man's passion for woman, and closes with a scene of mourning--women grieving for the loss of a slain husband and son and friend--knightly Hector.

Before we bid farewell to the martial tableaux presented to us in the Iliad, and direct our attention to the domestic scenes of the Odyssey, let us take a final glance at the heroines who have appeared in the first Homeric epos.

Worthy of note is the atmosphere of beauty and delicacy and charm with which the poet has enveloped Helen of Troy. She has committed a grievous fault, but there is in the recital nothing which offends the moral sense. This is because the poet has portrayed her with none of the seductions of vice, but with all the allurements of penitence. She has sinned, but it has been because of the mysterious and irresistible bond which united her to the goddess of love; her moral nature has not been perverted, and she is filled with shame and remorse because of the reproach that has been cast upon her name. By a long and bitter expiation, she has atoned for her fault; and memories of the days long past abide with her in all their sweetness and purity. One can but contrast the difference of attitude with which she addresses Priam and Hector on the one hand, and Aphrodite and Paris on the other. For the former she has the utmost consideration and respect, and in their presence she feels most keenly how compromised is her position; for the latter, the causes of her fall, she has nothing but the scorn and contempt of a cultivated and high-spirited queen. In portraying the regret of Helen for her first husband, and her contempt toward her second; in representing Menelaus and the Greeks as fighting to avenge "the longings and the groans of Helen"; and in subtly suggesting how inevitable are the chains with which Aphrodite has bound her, the poet wins for her our sympathy and admiration. Homer nowhere tells us of the reconciliation of Menelaus and Helen, after the fall of Troy; but in the Odyssey he presents a beautiful picture of Helen in Sparta, a queen once more, beloved of husband and attendants, and presiding over her palace with courtly grace and dignity; and in the prophecy of Proteus, the Old Man of the Sea, the destiny of the fair queen is suggested in that of her faithful spouse: "But thou, Menelaus, son of Zeus, art not ordained to die and meet thy fate in Argos, the pasture land of horses; for the deathless gods will convey thee to the Elysian plains and to the world's end, where is Rhadamanthus of the fair hair, where life is easiest for men. No snow is there, nor yet great storm, nor any rain, but always ocean sendeth forth the breeze of the shrill blast to blow cool on men; yea, for thou hast Helen to wife, and thereby they deem thee son to Zeus."

Thus, because wedded to Zeus-begotten Helen, Menelaus himself is deathless and immortal, and Homer meant, no doubt, to picture the royal couple passing together in the Isles of the Blest the æons of eternity.

Homer provided the literary types for all succeeding Greek poets, and it is but natural that so bewitching a conception as Helen should be frequently portrayed and adopted. But with the change in form of government from monarchy to oligarchy, and from oligarchy to democracy, the old epic conception of heroes and heroines frequently suffers disparagement. In later periods, men began to meditate on moral questions, and poets who sought to weigh the problems of human life and destiny saw in Helen's career the old, old story of sin and sufering, and they could not with Homeric chivalry gloze over that fatal step which caused the wreck of empires and brought infinite woes to men.

Stesichorus was the first poet to charge Helen with all the guilt and suffering of Hellas and of Troy; but for this offence against the daughter of Zeus, says tradition, he was smitten with blindness, and did not recover his sight until he had written the recantation beginning: "Not true is that tale; nor didst thou journey in benched ships, nor come to town of Troy,"--in which he adopted the theory that the real Helen remained in Egypt, while a phantom accompanied Paris to Troy.

Æschylus searches into the dire consequences of Helen's sin, and on her shoulders lays all the sufferings of Agamemnon and his descendants. "Rightly is she called Helen," says he; "a hell of ships, hell of men, hell of cities." He regards her as the very incarnation of evil, the curse of two great nations. Yet even stern Æschylus yields due reverence to her all-conquering beauty:

"Ah! silent, see she stands;

Each glowing tint, each radiant grace,

That charm th' enraptur'd eye, we trace;

And still the blooming form commands,

Still honor'd, still ador'd,

Though careless of her former loves,

Far o'er the rolling sea the wanton roves."

He also represents her forsaken husband ever dreaming of her, enraptured of her beauty:

"Oft as short slumbers close his eyes,

His sad soul sooth'd to rest,

The dream-created visions rise

With all her charms imprest:

But vain th' ideal scene that smiles

With rapt'rous love and warm delight;

Vain his fond hopes; his eager arms

The fleeting form beguiles,

On sleep's quick pinions passing light."

Æschylus is not the only one of the early dramatists to whom Helen furnished a worthy theme; the titles of four lost plays show that Sophocles wrote of the Argive queen. There is no means of knowing, however, how this master dealt with the romance. Judging from his treatment of the Antigone legend, it is probable that Sophocles treated Helen as a woman of rare beauty and power, more sinned against than sinning, and subjected her character to the most profound analysis.

While Æschylus deprived Helen of something of the delicacy and charm with which Homer had invested her, Euripides, in a number of his plays, goes even further, and brings her down to the level of common life. Upon her beautiful head were heaped the reproaches of the unfortunate maidens and matrons of Greece and Troy for the woes they had to suffer, and we must not always take the sentiments of a Hecuba or a Clytemnestra as expressing the poet's own convictions. In the Daughters of Troy, he represents her in violent debate with her mother-in-law, Hecuba, before Menelaus, leaving with the reader the impression that she is a guilty, wilful woman of ignoble traits, and in other plays he lays on her the load of guilt for all the dire consequences of her act; yet in his treatment of Helen there is always an ethereal element, hard to define, but recognizable. She causes ruin and destruction, she is roundly abused and reproached, yet she herself does not deal in invective and is proof against all physical ill, being finally deified as the daughter of Zeus, while suffering is invariably the fate of those who abuse and censure her. And, like Stesichorus, Euripides in his old age makes a recantation. In the Helen, he follows the Stesichorean version, and dramatizes the legend that, after she was promised to Paris by Aphrodite, Hera in revenge fashioned like to Queen Helen a breathing phantom out of cloud land wrought for Priam's princely son; while Hermes caught her away and transferred her to the halls of Proteus, King of Egypt, to keep her pure for Menelaus. Thus it was for a phantom Helen that Greek and Trojan fought at Troy; while the real Helen passed her days amid the palm gardens of Egypt, eagerly awaiting the return of Menelaus, and bewailing her ill name, though she was clean of sin. After the war, she is happily reunited with her lord.

It is hard, however, to besmirch a conception of ideal beauty, and later writers, casting aside the imputations of the dramatists, returned to the Homeric type. The Greek rhetoricians found in Helen a fruitful subject for panegyric, and made her synonymous with the Greek ideal of beauty and feminine perfection. Isocrates praises her as the incarnation of ideal loveliness and grace; beauty is all powerful, he says, and the Helen legend shows how beauty is the most desirable of all human gifts. Theocritus, in his exquisite Epithalamium, pays an unalloyed tribute to her beauty and goodness. She is "peerless among all Achæan women that walk the earth;--rose-red Helen, the glory of Lacedæmon;--no one is so gifted as she in goodly handiwork;--yea, and of a truth, none other smites the lyre, hymning Artemis and broad-breasted Athena, with such skill as Helen, within whose eyes dwell all the Loves."

Quintus Smyrnæus, of the fourth century of our era, who wrote a Post-Homerica, emphasizes the demonic influence that controlled the fate of Helen, and lays her frailty to the charge of Aphrodite. He gives a beautiful picture of the queen as she is being led to the ships of the Achæans: "Now, Helen lamented not, but shame dwelt in her dark eyes and reddened her lovely cheeks ... while round her the people marvelled as they beheld the flawless grace and winsome beauty of the woman, and none dared upbraid her with secret taunt or open rebuke. Nay, as she had been a goddess, they beheld her gladly, for dear and desired was she in their sight."

Thus the Helen legend became the allegory of Greek beauty, and so exquisite an ideal, uplifting the spirit and satisfying one's longing for higher things, strikes a responsive chord in the hearts of lovers of beauty in every clime. The romance of Helen, after lying dormant for centuries, came to life again in the legend of Faust. Marlowe treated merely the external phases of the Faust legend; Goethe allegorized the whole, and in the loves of Faust and Helen symbolized the passion of the Renaissance for the Greek ideal of beauty; the fruit of the union of the two is Euphorion, the genius of romantic art. Nor has Helen exerted less influence on modern English poets. Landor, in numerous poems, portrays the sweetness of her character and the omnipotence of her beauty and charm; Swinburne dwells on the innocence and joyfulness of her childhood; Tennyson speaks of her as

"A daughter of the gods, divinely tall,

And most divinely fair;"

and Andrew Lang has written a lengthy poem on the Helen legend, in which he ascribes her frailty to the irresistible power of Aphrodite. Thus Homer and the Homeric Age are inextricably entwined about the name of Helen. It is significant in the study of Greek women that at the very dawn of Greek civilization we should find such an ideal conception of womanhood--one that universally captivates the fancy and has exerted an influence through all succeeding ages.

Let us now pause a moment to contemplate the most lovable of all the women of Homer, Hector's spouse, white-armed Andromache. Homer does not devote much space to her--only the famous parting scene and the two lamentations which she utters over her fallen husband. Yet, as the ideal type of the soldier's wife, the loving mother, she has taken a hold on the modern imagination and is the best known of all the female characters of Greek epos. We know that she must have been beautiful, though Homer uses only one epithet to describe her; we know that she must have been brave and devoted and domestic, for Homer has painted for us an ideal picture which portrays her with all these and many other lovable attributes. Andromache is neither Trojan nor Greek; she is universal; and wherever there are scenes of husband parted from wife, of uncertainty as to the issue of the combat and the destiny of the children, Andromache will be the great prototype. Andromache feels in her heart that sacred Ilium is doomed, and, in those cruel times when might was right, she knew but too well what was to be the fate of herself and the lad Astyanax. Euripides tells us how the forebodings of Andromache came true, and dwells on those sad days for the daughters of Troy when the mailed hand of the Achæans carried them off captive after the fall of the city and determined their destiny by lot.

Andromache was apportioned to Neoptolemus, Achilles's valiant son, and in Euripides's Daughters of Troy she reappears, with her child in her arms, haled forth to her new bondage. Sadly she bewails her lost Hector, who could have warded off from her the curse of thraldom. The Greek herald, Talthybius, demands from her the lad Astyanax, whom the Greeks have decided to hurl from the battlements of Troy. The child is ruthlessly torn from his mother's embrace, and she is led off to the hollow ships. Neoptolemus takes her over sea to his home in Thessaly, and loves her and treats her with a kindness and consideration that are sweetly perfect. To him she bears a son in her captivity; but not of her own will does she share his couch, for her heart is true to the memory of Hector. After many years, Neoptolemus weds Hermione, daughter of Menelaus and Helen, a princess of Sparta. To them no child is born, and Hermione's heart is filled with anger and jealousy toward the thrall, whom her husband still treats tenderly. With her father, Menelaus, Hermione, during Neoptolemus's absence, plots the destruction of Andromache and her boy, but the aged Peleus protects the defenceless ones. Neoptolemus is slain at Delphi, and Thetis, who appears at the close of the Andromache, thus solves the problem of fate:

"And that war-captive dame, Andromache,

In the Molossian land must find a home

In lawful wedlock joined to Helenus,

With that child who alone is left alive

Of AEacus' line. And kings Molossian

From him one after other long shall reign

In bliss."

Readers of Virgil will recall how Æneas found Andromache in the Molossian land, and how her heart yearned for the lad Ascanius, who reminded her of the lost Astyanax. Euripides has been true, in the main, to the Homeric conception of Andromache, and endows her in her captivity with the same womanliness and domestic traits that won our hearts in the Iliad; nevertheless, there is about her the infinite sadness that is natural to one who has lost all that life holds dear. Yet Euripides falls so infinitely below the master that the picture which will abide longest in the memory is the parting scene in the Iliad.

Homer endows his minor characters with an interest that is no less real to us than that given to Helen and Andromache. Of these lesser characters, a few stand out insistent of our notice. At the threshold of the story, Chryseis and Briseis appear as the innocent causes of the quarrel of the chieftains. Chryseis is still a maiden, as far as can be inferred, and had not lost kindred and friends when taken captive; for her father, the priest of sacred Chryse, comes to beg her release, with boundless ransoms. Hence her day of captivity is brief, and the aged father joyously welcomes his beloved daughter. She must have been beautiful and clever, for Agamemnon prized her far above Clytemnestra.

The story of Briseis is a much sadder one, and graphically illustrates the fate of a gentlewoman who fell into the hands of the foe. She was a captive widow, husband and kindred having been slain by Achilles. But her captor loved her devotedly, and to him she was a wife in all but in name; and Patroclus had promised her that she should in time become the wedded wife of Achilles. The young warrior weeps bitterly when she is taken from him, but at the close of the Iliad we see them happily reunited. She is remembered because of the great passions that gathered about her.

Homer presents two pictures of heroic motherhood in sorrow,--Hecuba and Thetis; for the latter, though a goddess, is perfectly human in her devotion to her fated son, Achilles. To her he goes for comfort, and she is ever resourceful in responding to his wants. She weeps over his destiny, but, since he has chosen the better part, she nobly supports him in every struggle. Hecuba is truly the companion of her husband, King Priam, associated with him in his projects, and sharing his counsels. She has borne him nineteen children, and these she has seen slain, one after another, by the hand of the foe. Hector is her favorite son, in whose courage she recognizes the bulwark of Ilium. When she sees him exposed to certain death, her anxiety overcomes her pride and she beseeches him to come within the walls; and when at last her son has succumbed, we find in her the same mingling of grief and of pride. Her wild despair seems to be assuaged by the thought that her son died gloriously. This heroic sentiment sustains her before the corpse of Hector, and even in her lamentation she voices her calm courage.

IV

WOMEN OF THE ODYSSEY

Ten years have passed since the fall of Ilium, and the various heroes of the Greeks have met with diverse fortunes. Agamemnon, king of men, has returned to his fatherland, but merely to find treason and death at the hands of Ægisthus, the new lord of Clytemnestra, his wife. Menelaus, after long wanderings, especially in Egypt, has reestablished his kingdom in Sparta, with Helen as his queen. Odysseus, King of Ithaca, had the longest and most perilous voyage homeward, and, after meeting with various misadventures, has been detained for nearly eight long years, consuming his own heart, in the island paradise of Calypso, Meanwhile, on his own island, Ithaca, things have begun to go amiss. The island chiefs, men of the younger generation, begin to woo Penelope and to harass her son, Telemachus. The wooers, after being rebuffed for years by the fair queen, are becoming insolent, quartering themselves upon her, and devouring her substance. At this time the action of the Odyssey begins.

The determined time has now arrived when, by the counsels of the gods, Odysseus is to be brought home to free his house, to avenge himself on the wooers, and to recover his kingdom, Pallas Athena is the chief agent in the restoration of Odysseus to his fatherland. She beseeches Zeus that he may be delivered, and in accordance with this prayer Hermes is sent to Calypso to bid her release Odysseus. Meanwhile, the goddess, in human form, visits Telemachus in Ithaca, and urges the young prince to withstand the suitors who are devastating his house, and to go in search of his father. Touched by the words of the goddess, youth rapidly gives way to manhood, and Telemachus determines to assert his rights and to find his father.

After the departure of the goddess, the prince enters the court where the suitors are gathered, listening to the singing of the renowned minstrel Phemius; and his song was of the pitiful return of the Achæans. We now have our first vision of discreet Penelope. From her upper chamber she hears the glorious strain, and she descends the high stairs from her apartments, accompanied by two of her handmaids. "Now, when the fair lady had come unto the wooers, she stood by the doorpost of the well-builded roof, holding up her glistening tire before her face; and a faithful maiden stood on either side of her." She begs Phemius to cease from this sorrowful strain, which wastes her heart within her breast, since to her, above all women, hath come a sorrow comfortless, because she holds in constant memory so dear a head,--even that man whose fame is noised abroad from Hellas to mid-Argos. Telemachus gently rebukes his mother for interrupting the song of the minstrel, and bids her return to her chamber and to her own housewiferies, the loom and distaff, and bid the handmaids ply their tasks. Then in amaze she goes back to her chamber, for she lays up the wise saying of her son in her heart. She ascends to the upper chamber with the women, her handmaids, and there bewails Odysseus, her dear lord, till gray-eyed Athena casts sweet sleep upon her eyelids.

Telemachus begins to assert himself before the violent suitors. When night falls and each goes to his own house to lie down to rest, the young prince is attended to his chamber by the aged Euryclea, who had nursed him when a little one. She bears the burning torches, and prepares the chamber for her young master; and when he takes off his soft doublet, she folds and smooths it and hangs it on a pin by the jointed bedstead. Then she goes forth from the room, and there, all night long, wrapped in a fleece of wool, Telemachus meditates in his heart upon the journey that Athena has shown him.

The next day, after a stormy meeting of the assembly, Telemachus secretly sets sail for Pylus, accompanied by the goddess Athena, in the form of Mentor. Only Euryclea, the youth's faithful nurse, knows of his journey, and she has taken a great oath not to reveal it to his mother till the eleventh or twelfth day. Nestor graciously receives Telemachus at Pylus, and, as he himself has no news of Odysseus, sends him on to Sparta, to King Menelaus, in the company of his own son, Pisistratus. The young men are graciously received by Menelaus and Helen, and Telemachus learns that Odysseus was a captive on an island of the deep in the halls of the nymph Calypso.

Meanwhile, the suitors in Ithaca learn of Telemachus's departure and lay an ambush to intercept him on his return. Discreet Penelope, too, learns by chance of his absence, and of the plots of the wooers, and her heart melts within her at the thought of danger to her child. The good nurse Euryclea tells her of Telemachus's plan, and lulls her queen's grief. Penelope returns to her chamber and prays to Athena to save her dear son and ward off from him the malice of the suitors. As she lies there in her upper chamber, fasting, and tasting neither meat nor drink, and musing over the fate of her dear son, gray-eyed Athena makes a phantom in the likeness of Penelope's sister, Iphthime, and sends her to comfort Penelope amid her sorrow and lamenting. Reassured by the phantom concerning her son, the devoted matron begs for news of her husband, pleading to know whether he be alive or dead, but this information is denied her. Yet the heart of the disconsolate wife and mother is cheered, so sweet was the vision that came to her in the dead of night.

Homer now transports us to an assembly of the gods. Athena tells the tale of the many woes of Odysseus, and Zeus commands Hermes, the messenger god, to bid Calypso release Odysseus and start him on his voyage to the Phæacians, who are destined to return the wanderer to his own dear country. Hermes quickly reaches the far-off isle of Ogygia, where was the grotto of the nymph of the braided tresses. The fair goddess at once knows him, and, after giving him entertainment, inquires his message. Calypso regretfully and well-nigh rebelliously receives the command of Zeus, and complains of the jealousy of the gods, who forbid goddesses openly to mate with men. Yet, as none can make void the purpose of Zeus, she will obey the command. Hermes departs, and the nymph goes on her way to the great-hearted Odysseus. She finds him sitting on the shore; his eyes were never dry of tears, his sweet life was ebbing away as he mourned for his return, and through his tears he looked wistfully over the unharvested deep. Calypso bids him sorrow no more, for she will send him away, and directs him how to prepare a barge on which to make the voyage. Four days are devoted to the making of the barge, and on the fifth the goddess sends him on his way, providing him with food and drink for his journey, and causing a gentle wind to blow.

Goodly Odysseus joyously sets his sail to the breeze, and keeps his eye on the star Orion, which the fair goddess had bidden him to keep ever on his left as he traverses the deep.

Seventeen days he sails placidly along, and on the eighteenth appear the shadowy hills of the land of the Phæacians, whither he is bound. Then spies him his old enemy, Poseidon, and the earth shaker gathers the clouds and rouses the storms, and down speeds night from heaven. The great waves smite down upon Odysseus, and he loses the helm from his hand and the mast is broken. He is thrown from his raft; but, again clutching it, clambers upon it, avoiding grim death. Woman is again destined to be the means of salvation for the hero. Ino of the fair ankles, daughter of Cadmus, in time past a mortal maiden, but now a sea nymph, Leucothea, marks his dire straits and takes pity upon him, and gives him her veil to wind about him when he throws himself into the deep. When his raft is at last broken asunder, he wraps the veil about him; and for two days and nights it bears him up until at length he makes the rugged shore. Throwing the veil into the stream, to be wafted back to fair-ankled Ino, Odysseus, bruised and battered, clambers among the reeds on the bank. He finds a resting place underneath two olive trees, and Athena sheds sweet sleep upon his eyelids.

That same night, the daughter of the king of the Phæacians, Nausicaa, beautiful like the goddesses, was sleeping in a sumptuous chamber. For it was to the island domain of King Alcinous, Scheria, land of the Phæacians, that Odysseus had come. To the palace of the king went Athena, devising a return for the great-hearted Odysseus.

"She betook her to the rich-wrought bower, wherein was sleeping a maiden like to the gods in form and comeliness, Nausicaa, the daughter of Alcinous, high of heart. Beside her, on each hand of the pillars of the door, were two handmaids, dowered with beauty from the Graces, and the shining doors were shut.

"But the goddess, fleet as the breath of the wind, swept toward the couch of the maiden, and stood above her head."

In the semblance of Nausicaa's favorite girl friend and comrade, the goddess addresses her:

"'Nausicaa, how hath thy mother so heedless a maiden to her daughter? Lo! thou hast shining raiment that lies by thee uncared for, and thy marriage day is near at hand, when thou thyself must needs go beautifully clad, and have garments to give to them who shall lead thee to the house of the bridegroom. And, behold, these are the things whence a good report goes abroad among men, wherein a father and lady mother take delight. But come, let us arise and go a-washing with the breaking of the day, and I will follow thee to be thy mate in the toil, that without delay thou mayst get thee ready, since truly thou art not long to be a maiden. Lo! already they are wooing thee, the noblest youths of all the Phæacians, among that people whence thou thyself dost draw thy lineage. So come, beseech thy noble father betimes in the morning to furnish thee with mules and a wain to carry the men's raiment, and the robes, and the shining coverlets. Yea, and for thyself it is seemlier far to go thus than on foot, for the places where we must wash are a great way from the town.'"

So spake the gray-eyed Athena, and departed to Olympus, seat of the gods.

"Anon came the throned Dawn, and awakened Nausicaa of the fair robes, who straightway marvelled on the dream, and went through the halls to tell her parents, her father dear and her mother. And she found them within, her mother sitting by the hearth with the women, her handmaids, spinning yarn of sea-purple stain, but her father she met as he was going forth to the renowned kings in their council, whither the noble Phæacians called him. Standing close by her dear father, she spake, saying: 'Father, dear, couldst thou not lend me a high wagon with strong wheels, that I may take the goodly raiment to the river to wash, so much as I have lying soiled? Yea, and it is seemly that thou thyself, when thou art with the princes in council, shouldst have fresh raiment to wear. Also, there are five dear sons of thine in the halls, two married, but three are lusty bachelors, and these are always eager for new-washen garments wherein to go to the dances; for all these things have I taken thought.'

"This she said, because she was ashamed to speak of glad marriage to her father; but he saw all and answered, saying:

"'Neither the mules nor aught else do I grudge thee, my child. Go thy ways, and the thralls shall get thee ready a high wagon with good wheels, and fitted with an upper frame.'"

So, in obedience to the king's command, the mule team is made ready in the courtyard, and the maiden and her mother store in the wagon the raiment, a basket filled with all manner of food, and wine in a goatskin bottle, and olive oil in a golden cruse, that the princess and her maidens might anoint themselves after the bath. Then Nausicaa herself takes the whip and the reins, and she and her attendants start off for a joyous holiday. When they reach the stream of the river, the maidens unharness the mules and turn them loose to graze on the honey-sweet clover. Then they take out the garments, wash and cleanse them from all stains, and spread them out along the shore to dry. Work over, they bathe, anoint themselves with olive oil, and partake of their noonday meal on the river banks. Now for an afternoon of maidenly pastime. They indulge in the choral game of ball, laying aside their headdresses, and among them Nausicaa of the white arms, who outshone in beauty her maiden company, began the song.

But Athena is overruling this girlish frolic, for the rescue of her hero. The princess throws the ball at one of her companions, but it misses her and falls into the eddying river, whereat the maidens all raise a piercing scream, as only maidens can. Odysseus is awakened, and, sitting up, wonders into what sort of land he is come; surely it was the shrill cry of maidens, but whether of nymphs or of mortals he cannot tell. He will make essay, however; and, tearing a leafy bough from a tree to cover him, he sallies forth from the thicket like a mountain-bred lion. Loathsome and terrible, being disfigured by the brine of the sea, does he appear to the maidens, and they flee cowering here and there about the shore. Only Alcinous's daughter stands firm, for Athena gives her courage of heart and takes all trembling from her limbs. Odysseus does not venture to approach in the attitude of a suppliant, but, standing aloof, beseeches her compassion with sweet and cunning words:

"I supplicate thee, O queen, whether thou art a goddess or a mortal! If indeed thou art a goddess of them that keep the wide heaven, then to Artemis, the daughter of great Zeus, I mainly liken thee, for beauty and stature and shapeliness. But if thou art one of the daughters of men who dwell on earth, thrice blessed are thy father and thy lady mother, and thrice blessed thy brethren. Surely their souls ever glow with gladness for thy sake each time they see thee entering the dance, so fair a flower of maidens! But he is of heart the most blessed beyond all other who shall prevail with gifts of wooing, and lead thee to his home. Never have mine eyes beheld such an one among mortals, neither man nor woman; great awe comes upon me as I look on thee.

"But, queen, have pity on me; for, after many trials and sore, to thee first of all am I come, and of the other folk who hold this city and land I know no man. Nay, show me the town, give me an old garment to cast about me, if thou hadst, when thou camest here, any wrap for the linen. And may the gods grant thee all thy heart's desire: a husband and a home, and a mind at one with his may they give--a good gift; for there is nothing mightier and nobler than when man and wife are of one heart and mind in a house, a grief to their foes, and to their friends great joy, but their own hearts know it best."

Then Nausicaa of the white arms answered him, and said: "Stranger, forasmuch as thou seemest no evil man nor foolish--and it is Olympian Zeus himself that giveth weal to men, to the good and to the evil, to each one as he will, and this thy lot doubtless is of him, and so thou must in any wise endure it:--now, since thou hast come to our city and our land, thou shalt not lack raiment, nor aught else that is the due of a hapless suppliant, when he has met them who can befriend him. And I will show thee the town, and name the name of the people. The Phæacians hold this city and land, and I am the daughter of Alcinous, great of heart, on whom all the might and force of the Phæacians depend."

The princess then calls her maidens and bids them give the stranger meat and drink, and olive oil for his bath, and raiment to put on. And when he had bathed and anointed himself, and had put on the raiment, Athena "made him greater and more mighty to behold, and from his head caused deep, curling locks to flow, like the hyacinth flower," shedding grace about his head and shoulders.

"Then to the shore of the sea went Odysseus apart, and sat down, glowing in beauty and grace; and the princess marvelled at him, and spake among her fair-tressed maidens, saying:

"'Listen, my white-armed maidens, and I will say somewhat. Not without the will of all the gods who hold Olympus hath this man come among the godlike Phæacians. Erewhile he seemed to me uncomely, but now he is like the gods that keep the wide heaven. Would that such an one might be called my husband, dwelling here, and that it might please him here to abide! But come, my maidens, give the stranger meat and drink.'"

Food is set before the famishing Odysseus, and, after his hunger is appeased, Nausicaa prepares for the homeward return. She addresses the hero, and gives him full directions how to reach her father's palace; part of the way he may accompany her, but not when they approach a populous part of the city; for she dreads the unfriendly comments of loungers and passers-by.

"And some one of the baser sort might meet me and say: 'Who is this that goes with Nausicaa, this tall and goodly stranger? Where found she him? Her husband he will be, her very own. Either she has taken in some shipwrecked wanderer of strange men, for no men dwell near us; or some god has come in answer to her instant prayer; from heaven has he descended, and will have her to wife for evermore. Better so, if herself she has ranged abroad and found a lord from a strange land; for verily she holds in no regard the Phæacians here in this country, the many men and noble who are her wooers.' So will they speak, and this would turn to my reproach. Yea, and I myself would think it blame of another maiden who did such things in despite of her friends, her father and mother being still alive, and was conversant with men before the day of open wedlock. But, stranger, heed well what I say, that as soon as may be thou mayst gain at my father's hands an escort and a safe return. Thou shalt find a fair grove of Athena, a poplar grove near the road, and a spring wells forth therein, and a meadow lies all around. There is my father's demesne, and his fruitful close, within the sound of a man's shout from the city. Sit thee down there, and wait until such time as we may have come into the city and reached the house of my father. But when thou deemest that we are got to the palace, then go up to the city of the Phæacians, and ask for the house of my father Alcinous, high of heart. It is easily known, and a young child could be thy guide, for nowise like it are builded the houses of the Phæacians, so goodly is the palace of the hero Alcinous. But when thou art within the shadow of the halls and the court, pass quickly through the great chamber, till thou comest to my mother, who sits at the hearth in the light of the fire, weaving yarn of sea-purple stain, a wonder to behold. Her chair is leaned against a pillar, and her maidens sit behind her. And there my father's throne leans close to hers, wherein he sits and drinks his wine, like an immortal. Pass thou by him, and cast thy hands about my mother's knees, that thou mayst see quickly and with joy the day of thy returning, even if thou art from a very far country. If but her heart be kindly disposed toward thee, then is there hope that thou shalt see thy friends, and come to thy well-builded house and to thine own country." The clever maiden had already learned where lies the real seat of authority.

Soon stranger and maiden part, and Nausicaa drives to the gateway of the palace, and her brothers loose the mules from the car and carry the raiment within; then the maiden passes to her chamber, where her attendant Eurymedusa meets her and prepares her supper. And at this point Nausicaa slips out of the main thread of the story, for maidens were not allowed to take part in the public functions with which the king entertained his guest.

When Odysseus has met with a favorable reception from the royal pair, the queen recognizes the garments which he wears, and this leads to the story of his rescue, but as yet he withholds his name. Alcinous is inclined to censure his daughter for not bringing the rescued one to the house when she returned with her maidens, but Odysseus gallantly defends the blameless maiden. And Alcinous, moved by his princely bearing, expresses the wish that so goodly a man would wed his daughter, and be called his son, there abiding. But the king does not insist, and the invitation was probably merely a courteous form of expression customary in those early days.

Only one more glimpse do we have of the Princess Nausicaa. After a day of athletic contests and various entertainments, Odysseus has arrayed himself for the evening, and is going to join the chiefs at their wine.

"And Nausicaa, dowered with beauty by the gods, stood by the doorpost of the well-builded hall, and marvelled at Odysseus, beholding him before her eyes, and she uttered her voice and spake to him winged words:

"'Farewell, stranger, and even in thine own country bethink thee of me upon a time, for that to me first thou owest the ransom of life.'

"And Odysseus of many counsels answered her, saying: 'Nausicaa, daughter of great-hearted Alcinous, yea, may Zeus, the thunderer, the lord of Hera, grant me to reach my home and see the day of my returning; so would I, even there, do thee worship as to a god, all my days for evermore, for thou, lady, hast given me my life.'"

Thus delicately did Odysseus make a patron saint of the pure-hearted maiden, who had so innocently shown her fondness for him.

Royally was Odysseus entertained by King Alcinous and his noble-hearted queen, Arete, daughter of his brother, who "was honored by him as no other woman in the world is honored, of all that nowadays keep house under the hand of their lords. Thus she hath, and hath ever had, all worship heartily from her dear children and from her lord Alcinous and from all the folk, who look on her as on a goddess, and greet her with reverent speech when she goes about the town. Yea, for she, too, hath no lack of understanding. To whomsoever she shows favor, even if they be men, she ends their feuds."

After the feast, Demodocus the minstrel sang the story of the Wooden Horse; and at the memory of all he had suffered, the heart of Odysseus melted and the tears wet his cheeks beneath his eyelids. His host marked his grief, and begged him to tell the story of his adventures. Odysseus complied by giving an account of his wanderings, from the fall of Troy up to his arrival among the Phæacians. The hero had struggled time and again against men, against giants and monsters, against the forces of nature, and finally against an adversary yet more powerful--the love of goddesses.

Among his adventures was the story of his trip to the isle of Æa, where dwelt Circe, an awful goddess, of mortal speech, own sister of the wizard Æetes, and aunt of the more terrible enchantress Medea. She dwelt in a house of polished stone, and all round her palace mountain-bred wolves and lions were roaming, whom she herself had bewitched with evil drugs. As half his band approached the house, they heard Circe singing in a sweet voice as she passed to and fro before the great web, imperishable, such as is the handiwork of goddesses, fine of woof and full of grace and splendor; truly a fascinating goddess was she, though rather gruesome in her surroundings. When the comrades of Odysseus called to her, she graciously invited them in. "So she led them in and set them upon chairs and high seats, and made them a mess of cheese and barley meal and yellow honey with Pramnian wine, and mixed harmful drugs with the food to make them utterly forget their own country. Now, when she had given them the cup and they had drunk it off, presently she smote them with a wand, and in the sties of the swine she penned them. So they had the head and voice, the bristles and the shape, of swine, but their mind abode even as of old. Thus were they penned there weeping, and Circe flung them acorns and mast and fruit of the cornel tree to eat, whereon wallowing swine do always batten."

Only one had been wise enough not to enter, and he rushed back to tell the tale to his lord. Odysseus started off alone to rescue his comrades; and Hermes met him on the way, in the likeness of a young man, and gave him moly, a magic herb, and full directions for its use, to ward off enchantment.

Fair Circe receives him most graciously and prepares also for him the magic potion, but for once her charm fails. He draws his sword to slay her, and then she becomes the suppliant. She has found her match, and at once, as if she were a mortal, falls in love with him. Her bonhomie is now her greatest charm. She swears a great oath not to harm him or his companions, and restores to the natural form those whom she had already bewitched. Royal entertainment and gracious hospitality and words of counsel are now the order of the day--attendant nymphs, delicious baths, and sumptuous banquets. So there they remained for a full year, feasting on abundant flesh and sweetest wine.

Lady Circe proved herself to be the counsellor and friend of Odysseus, and showed him how to carry out his fond desire of visiting the realm of Hades, to seek the spirit of Theban Tiresias, that he might unfold to the wanderer his future. Then, clad in a great, shining robe, light of woof and gracious, with a fair golden girdle about her waist, and a veil upon her head, she bade farewell to Odysseus and his crew, and sent a favoring wind as a kindly escort to the dark-prowed ship.

During his descent into Hades, Odysseus discourses with the Theban seer, who makes known to him his destiny, and also with the wraith of his mother, who tells him that faithful Penelope abides with steadfast spirit in his halls, and wearily for her the nights wane always and the days in the shedding of tears; and how she herself was reft of sweet life through her sore longing for him.

And, after her, there appears a great company of the famous women of heroic times, wives and daughters of mighty men, who had been beloved of gods and illustrious mortals,--Tyro, ancestress of Nestor's house; and Antiope, mother of Amphion and Zethus, founders of seven-gated Thebes; and Alcmene, mother of Heracles; and Epicaste, mother of Oedipus, who was wedded to her own son; and lovely Chloris, wife of Neleus; and Leda, mother of Castor and Pollux; and Iphimedia, and Phædra, and Procris, and Mæra, and Clymene, and hateful Eriphyle, and innumerable other wives and daughters of heroes,--Homer's Catalogue of Famous Women, who had exerted mighty influence in heroic times.

Upon Odysseus's return to the island of Æa, Circe greets them, and once more they enjoy meat and bread in plenty and dark red wine. And our hero Circe leads apart and makes him sit down, and lays herself at his feet and asks all his tale. She then warns him of the dangers he has yet to encounter, and tells him how to meet them. Then, with words of farewell, she sends the travellers on their voyage with a favoring breeze. First, Odysseus encounters the Sirens, whose enchanting strains he enjoys while he is bound tight to the mast, and the ears of his companions are deafened with wax; he evades the Clashing Rocks, escapes Scylla and Charybdis; and at last, on the Isle of the Sun, his comrades slaughter and devour the sacred cattle of Helios--in violation of the warnings of Tiresias and Circe. All are in consequence lost in a shipwreck, save Odysseus, who, after floating about for ten days on a raft, reaches the island of Ogygia, abode of the fair nymph Calypso, who holds him as her beloved for eight long years and would make him immortal.

Thus the tale ended--all are spellbound throughout the shadowy halls at the story, and Alcinous and his courtiers offer all manner of gifts to Odysseus. The next day, a ship is got ready for its voyage to far-off Ithaca; the gifts are stored on board, a farewell feast is held, and Odysseus bids farewell to his gracious hosts:

"My lord Alcinous, most notable of all the people, pour ye the drink offering, and send me safe upon my way; and as for you, fare ye well. For now have I all that my heart desired, an escort and loving gifts. May the gods of heaven give me good fortune with them, and may I find my noble wife in my home with my friends unharmed, while ye, for your part, abide here and make glad your gentle wives and children; and may the gods vouchsafe all manner of good, and may no evil come nigh the people!"

Then, after a grateful farewell to Queen Arete, the hero is conducted to the waiting ship, and there left reclining upon the soft rugs that have been spread for him, and soon a sound sleep, very sweet, falls upon his eyelids.

When Odysseus awakes, he is in his dear native land, though he does not recognize it until the goddess Athena appears and tells him how he is to regain wife and kingdom. For us, the rest of the story centres about Queen Penelope, who for so many, m'any years has been awaiting the return of her lord.

Odysseus, disguised by the goddess in the form of an aged beggar, goes to the hut of the swineherd Eumæus, with whose aid the plot for the destruction of the wooers is to be carried out; and Athena summons Telemachus to return from Lacedæmon to meet his father and bear his part in the final scenes. When the young man returns to the palace, after his interview with his father, "the nurse Euryclea saw him far before the rest, as she was strewing skin coverlets upon the carven chairs; and straightway she drew near him, weeping, and all the other maidens of Odysseus, of the hardy heart, gathered about him, and kissed him lovingly on the head and shoulders. Now wise Penelope came forth from her chamber, like Artemis or golden Aphrodite, and cast her arms about her dear son, and fell a-weeping, and kissed his face and both his beautiful eyes, and wept aloud, and spake to him winged words:

"'Thou art come, Telemachus, sweet light of mine eyes; methought I should see thee never again, after thou hadst gone in thy ship to Pylus, secretly, and without my will, to seek tidings of thy dear father. Come now, tell me, what sign didst thou get of him?'"

Telemachus tells his mother of his journey, and his friend Theoclymenus, who has the gift of second-sight, prophesies the speedy return of Odysseus. Soon the hero himself appears as a beggar in his own halls, and is roughly treated by the haughty wooers. He soundly whips the braggart beggar Irus, and the story of his presence is noised throughout the house.

Constant Penelope is ever anxious to hear some word of her lord, and every wandering stranger with a tale to tell could win rich gifts from her by devising some story of Odysseus. She has heard of the beggar in her halls, and summons him to her presence and questions him, and tells him of her grief and her longing for more news of the absent one. When crafty Odysseus fashioned a story of his entertaining her lord in Crete, her tears flowed as she listened, and she wept for her own lord who was sitting by her. The disguised hero had compassion for his wife; but he craftily hid his tears, and described the appearance of Odysseus so fully that she could not deny the certain likeness.

Then the aged nurse Euryclea, who had tended him in his youth, is asked to wash the feet of the old man. As the crone makes ready the caldron, a sudden fear seizes Odysseus lest when she handles his foot she might know the scar of the wound that the boar had dealt him with its white tusk in his boyhood. When the old woman took the scarred limb, she knew it by the touch, and grief and joy seized her, and she called him Odysseus, her dear child. Then would she have revealed the glad news to Penelope, had Odysseus not seized her by the throat and made her swear to keep his presence secret until the slaying of the lordly wooers.

CIRCE
After the painting by Henri P. Motte.
The myth of Circe turning the companions of Ulysses
into swines shows the religious belief, in ancient Greece, in
magical transformation of human beings into animals.

Next day occurs the famous trial of the bow of Odysseus, which none of the suitors can draw; then Odysseus gets the bow into his hands, strings it, sends the arrow through the axheads, and finally, leaping on the stone threshold, deals his shafts among the wooers. The wretched company are all slaughtered, the faithless women of the household are hanged, and ominous silence reigns over the palace of Odysseus.

Euryclea hastens to the upper chamber to bring to Queen Penelope the good news that Odysseus has surely come and has slain the haughty wooers. The fair lady can with difficulty believe the tidings, but she is finally persuaded to go down to see the wooers dead and him that slew them.

"With the word, she went down from the upper chamber, and much her heart debated whether she should stand apart and question her dear lord or draw nigh and clasp his head and hands. But when she had come within and had crossed the threshold of stone, she sat down over against Odysseus, in the light of the fire, by the further wall. Now, he was sitting by the tall pillar, looking down and waiting to know if perchance his noble wife would speak to him, when her eyes beheld him. But she sat long in silence, and amazement came upon her soul, and now she would look upon him steadfastly with her eyes, and now again she knew him not, for that he was clad in vile raiment. And Telemachus rebuked her, and spake and hailed her:

"'Mother mine, ill mother, of an ungentle heart, why turnest thou thus away from my father, and dost not sit by him and question him and ask him all? No other woman in the world would harden her heart to stand thus aloof from her lord, who, after much travail and sore, had come to her in the twentieth year to his own country. But thy heart is ever harder than stone.'

"Then wise Penelope answered him, saying: 'Child, my mind is amazed within me, and I have no strength to speak, or to ask him aught, nay, or to look on him face to face. But if in truth this be Odysseus, and he hath indeed come home, verily we shall be aware of each other the more surely; for we have tokens that we twain know of, even we, secret from all others.'

"So she spake, and the steadfast, goodly Odysseus smiled, and quickly he spake to Telemachus winged words: 'Telemachus, leave now thy mother to make trial of me within the chambers; so shall she soon come to a better knowledge than heretofore.'

"Meanwhile, the housedame Eurynome had bathed the great-hearted Odysseus within his house, and anointed him with olive oil, and cast about him a goodly mantle and a doublet. Moreover, Athena shed great beauty from his head downwards, and made him greater and more mighty to behold, and from his head caused deep, curling locks to flow, like the hyacinth flower. And as when some skilful man overlays gold upon silver, one that Hephæstus and Pallas Athena have taught all manner of craft, and full of grace is his handiwork, even so did Athena shed grace about his head and shoulders; and forth from the bath he came, in form like to the immortals. Then he sat down again on the high seat, whence he had arisen, over against his wife, and spake to her, saying:

"'Strange lady, surely to thee, above all womankind, the Olympians have given a heart that cannot be softened. No other woman in the world would harden her heart to stand thus aloof from her husband, who, after much travail and sore, had come to her, in the twentieth year, to his own country.--Nay, come, nurse strew a bed for me to lie all alone, for assuredly her spirit within her is as iron.'

"Then wise Penelope answered him again: 'Strange man, I have no proud thoughts, nor do I think scorn of thee, nor am I too greatly astonished, but I know right well what manner of man thou wert when thou wentest forth out of Ithaca, on the long-oared galley.--But come, Euryclea, spread for him the good bedstead outside the stablished bridal chamber that he built himself. Thither bring ye forth the good bedstead, and cast bedding thereon, even fleeces and rugs and shining blankets.'

"So she spake and made trial of her lord, but Odysseus in sore displeasure spake to his true wife, saying: 'Verily, a bitter word is this, lady, that thou hast spoken. Who has set my bed otherwhere? Hard would it be for one, how skilled soever, unless a god were to come that might easily set it in another place, if so he would. But of men there is none living, howsoever strong in his youth, that could lightly upheave it; for a great marvel is wrought in the fashion of the bed, and it was I that made it, and none other. There was growing a bush of olive, long of leaf, and most goodly of growth, within the inner court, and the stem as large as a pillar. Round about this I built the chamber, till I had finished it, with stones close set, and I roofed it over well and added thereto compacted doors fitting well. Next I sheared off all the light wood of the long-leaved olive, and rough-hewed the trunk upwards from the root, and smoothed it around with the adze, well and skilfully, and made straight the line thereto and so fashioned it into the bedpost, and I bored it all with the auger. Beginning from this headpost, I wrought at the bedstead till I had finished it, and made it fair with inlaid work of gold and of silver and of ivory. Then I made fast therein a bright purple band of oxhide. Even so I declare to thee this token, and I know not, lady, if the bedstead be yet fast in its place, or if some man has cut away the stem of the olive tree and set the bedstead otherwhere.'

"So he spake, and at once her knees were loosened, and her heart melted within her, as she knew the sure tokens that Odysseus showed her. Then she fell a-weeping, and ran straight towards him and cast her hands about his neck, and kissed his head and spake, saying:

"'Murmur not against me, Odysseus, for thou wert ever at other times the wisest of men. It is the gods that gave us sorrow, the gods who were jealous that we should abide together and have joy of our youth and come to the threshold of old age. So now be not wroth with me hereat nor full of indignation because I did not welcome thee gladly as now, when I first saw thee. For always my heart within my breast shuddered for fear lest some man should come and deceive me with his words, for many there be that devise gainful schemes and evil. Nay, even Argive Helen, daughter of Zeus, would not have lain with a stranger, and taken him for a lover, had she known that the warlike sons of the Achæans would bring her home again to her own dear country. Howsoever, it was the god that set her upon this shameful deed; nor ever, ere that, did she lay up in her heart the thought of this folly, a bitter folly, whence on us, too, first came sorrow. But now that thou hast told all the sure tokens of our bed, which never was seen by mortal man, save by thee and me, and one maiden only, the daughter of Actor, that my father gave me ere yet I had come hither, she who kept the doors of our strong bridal chamber, even now dost thou bend my soul, all ungentle as it is.'

"Thus she spake, and in his heart she stirred yet a greater longing to lament, and he wept as he embraced his beloved wife and true. And even as when the sight of land is welcome to swimmers, whose well-wrought ship Poseidon hath smitten on the deep, all driven with the wind and swelling waves, and but a remnant hath escaped the gray sea water and swum to the shore, and their bodies are all crusted with the brine, and gladly have they set foot on land and escaped an evil end; so welcome to her was the sight of her lord, and her white arms she would never quite let go from his neck.

"Now when the twain had taken their fill of sweet love, they had delight in the tales which they told one to the other. The fair lady spake of all that she had endured in the halls at the sight of the ruinous throng of wooers, who for her sake slew many cattle, kine, and goodly sheep; and many a cask of wine was broached. And, in turn, Odysseus, of the seed of Zeus, recounted all the griefs he had wrought on men, and all his own travail and sorrow; and she was delighted with the story, and sweet sleep fell not upon her eyelids till the tale was ended."

Filled with incidents of domestic life in heroic times, the Odyssey presents us a galaxy of women, if not more impressive, at any rate more brilliant than that of the Iliad. Of these attractive figures, who should first merit our consideration, if not the heroine of the poem?

Queen, wife, mother, the sentiment which most characterizes Penelope is love of husband, child, and home; her chief intellectual trait is prudence. We find in her the rare combination of warmth of temperament and sanity of judgment. Her sense of prudence does not exclude depth of devotion, longings for the absent one, and outbursts of indignation at the wrongs inflicted on her son. Her love for Odysseus is intense and constant. There is a beautiful legend that when Odysseus came to carry off his bride, her father entreated her to remain with him in his old age. The chariot is ready to bear her away, and the maiden pauses just a moment, hesitating 'twixt love and duty. Odysseus gives her her choice; but, drawing down her veil, she signifies that where her lover goes there will she go. This intensity of affection marks the twenty long years of separation. Every night, she bewails Odysseus, her dear lord, till gray-eyed Athena casts sweet sleep upon her eyelids. She ever longs for, though at times despairs of, his return; and she inquires of every stranger, that she may learn something of the wanderer. Penelope is also a devoted mother. Ever anxious about her son, she grieves for him when absent, and when at home guards him as far as possible from the insolence of the wooers. In her obedience to her son, she seems to have followed the Greek custom expected of a widow.

In her relations with the wooers, Penelope adopted the only attitude which was possible for a woman who would wait indefinitely for the return of her lord. Parents and son, Greek custom and precedents, all expected that a widow should remarry after so long an interval. And the wooers were insolent, overwhelming the palace and rapidly making away with the patrimony of Telemachus. Hence, only by coquettish dallying could she postpone the evil day.

In all things Penelope was a model housewife, ever engaged in feminine tasks, overseeing her maidens at their work, watching over the younger servants with the solicitude of a mother, and observing toward the aged slave the deference of a daughter. But when the uncivil Melantho is deficient in respect, the queen calls her severely to a sense of her duty. When her husband returns, for whom she has waited during twenty long years of widowhood, she does not throw herself straightway into his arms. She fears a god may deceive her, and, the better to preserve for Odysseus the treasures of the tenderness stored up in her heart, she devises every cunning test to make sure it is really he. Never was there in woman's heart a more ardent flame of love and devotion; never in a woman's head intelligence so subtle, judgment so sure. When we fully appreciate the charm of Penelope's character, we better understand how the hero should sacrifice the devotion of a goddess for the love of such a woman.

"These two meet at last together, he after his long wanderings, and she after having suffered the insistence of suitors in her palace; and this is the pathos of the Odyssey. The woman, in spite of her withered youth and tearful years of widowhood, is still expectant of her lord. He, unconquered by the pleasures cast across his path, unterrified by all the dangers he endures, clings in thought to the bride whom he led forth, a blushing maiden, from her father's halls. O just, subtle, and mighty Homer! There is nothing of Greek here more than of Hebrew, or of Latin, or of German. It is pure humanity."

Closely interwoven with the plot of the Odyssey is the aged and touching figure of the faithful slave Euryclea, who by her devotion has become a member of the family she serves. Taken captive in her girlhood, she had nursed Odysseus in his childhood, and, later, his own son, Telemachus. Thus she is to both a second mother. She assists the queen in managing the house, in bringing up her son, in succoring the stranger. When she recognizes her master, how ravishing is her joy, how she longs to share it with her mistress! Yet she knows how to keep a secret.

Circe and Calypso are styled goddesses, yet they are brought down to earth in their love for Odysseus, and are thoroughly human in their traits. Calypso feeds on ambrosia and nectar, and lives in a mysterious grotto on an enchanted island; yet she loves like any mortal woman, and bitter is her wail when she receives the command of the gods to let Odysseus go. The enchantress Circe is much more dangerous, and takes a ghoulish delight in metamorphosing men into swine; yet, when she falls in love with Odysseus, she is the queenly lady, considerate of his comrades, and in every way his guide, philosopher, and friend. Unlike Calypso, she seeks not to detain Odysseus against the will of the gods, but after the expiration of a year sends him on his way.

To return to the domestic heroines: Queen Arete of Phæacia is, like Penelope, an example of the elevated position held by women in the royal houses of heroic times. She exerts over the subjects of her husband the same influence she exercises in the family circle. Her children share the reverence and affection she has from husband and people. To her Odysseus makes supplication; for if he win her favor, sure is his return to his native land; she bids her people prepare gifts for her guest friend at his departure, and to her Odysseus extends the pledging cup in saying farewell.

Where can one find phrases sufficiently subtle, expressions sufficiently delicate, to reproduce the sweet picture of Nausicaa? Of all the creations of poetic fancy, none equals her in perennial charm. "She is simply," says Symonds, "the most perfect maiden, the purest, freshest lightest-hearted girl of Greek romance." This immortal child of the poetic imagination will, with two real women,--Lesbian Sappho, and Mary, Queen of Scots,--have lovers in every age and in every clime. Though merely a poet's fancy, Nausicaa is absolutely human and full of life, and thus differs from the heroine of The Tempest, who of all poetic creations most resembles her. Note her naive grace and charm, her girlish vivacity and joy, at the beginning of the scene; and when the occasion demands it, the girl becomes the woman, and with unaffected simplicity and dignity she addresses the hero. No wonder that Odysseus should seem the Prince Charming for whom she had been waiting; and there may have been a slight chill of disappointment when, in expressing his gratitude for his deliverance, he made her his patron saint instead of his sweetheart. Yet, no doubt, she soon learned that the unknown hero was the great Odysseus, husband of faithful Penelope, and hers was too buoyant, too healthy a nature to pine away and die at the shattering of a dream. Then, even if he had been a widower, he was too old for this bright beauty. But what an ideal father-in-law he would make! And if the young Telemachus should only come to Scheria!--and how do we know that he did not later arrive there, sent a-courting by Odysseus after the restoration of his realm? Eustathius preserves a tradition, based on such good authorities as Hellanicus and Aristotle, that Telemachus actually did wed the Princess Nausicaa; and the Athenian orator Andocides claimed to be a descendant of this illustrious pair.

So beautiful a legend could not escape treatment by later poets. Alcman, one of the earliest lyric composers, describes in a poem the meeting of Odysseus and Nausicaa, and Sophocles wrote a drama entitled Nausicaa, or The Washers; and there is a tradition that, contrary to his usual custom, the poet himself "appeared as an actor, winning much applause by his beauty and grace in the dancing and rhythmic ball play, in the character of Nausicaa herself." Lucian names her among the heroines of mythical times who, through their goodness of heart, humanity, gentleness of demeanor, and compassion toward the needy, deserve to rank as patterns of womanly virtue.

With such brilliant pictures of domestic life--the queens Penelope, Helen, and Arete, exerting a womanly influence in the palaces, the goddess-lovers Circe and Calypso on their enchanted islands, the slave Euryclea tenderly caring for mistress and young master, and the maiden Nausicaa, engaged in occupation and in pastime with her girl friends--the Odyssey is a mirror reflecting the character of the Heroic Age of Greece.

V

THE LYRIC AGE

From the fascinating visions of the heroic past as they are presented in the Homeric poems, we must now prepare to descend to the actualities of life as they disclose themselves at the dawn of Greek history. Hesiod, the epic poet of Boeotia, constitutes the bridge, as regards social conditions, between the Heroic Age and the early historical periods of the various peoples and cities of Greece. He describes the actual conditions about him, and gives us glimpses of the life of the Greek people which prepare us for the great changes that have taken place through the overturning of monarchies, the spread of commerce and colonization, and the awakening of the common people to a sense of their rights and their power. Hence we may expect to find in his poetry much light on the status of woman in remote times.

Hesiod is usually ascribed to the second half of the ninth century before the Christian Era. He lived at Ascra, near Mount Helicon, in Boeotia, the original home of the Æolians. Amid agricultural surroundings the poet grew up. Defrauded by his brother Perses of part of his inheritance, he experienced hardships that quickened his sympathy for the plain people and led him to reflection on life and its problems. He was commissioned by the Muses, who appeared to him on Mount Helicon, to utter true things to men--a phrase which strikes the keynote to his poetry, for he dealt in realities and sought to alleviate the social conditions of his times. His principal works are the Works and Days and the Theogony; there was also a Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, attested by many allusions in classical writers, but, unfortunately for our purpose, altogether lost to us. Very probably in this work, Hesiod or his school told of the aristocratic women of Greek mythology, from whose union with gods had sprung heroes. Lacking this, Hesiod is to us "the poet of the Helots," and we gain from him only knowledge of the common people of Boeotia and their manner of life.

Hesiod's estimate of women is vastly inferior to that of Homer. Homer, who sang for aristocratic ladies at the court of kings, has introduced us into a society where women presided over their houses with grace and dignity, and softened and refined the rough, warlike manners of men. Hesiod, the poet of the plain people, is impressed with the hopelessness of the conditions about him. The people are oppressed by the nobles; it is impossible for them to obtain justice; the world seems all wrong. And in seeking the causes of existing evils, the poet traces them back to the one great evil which the gods have inflicted upon men; and that is--woman.

This indictment first finds expression in his version, of the myth of Pandora, the Mother Eve of Greek legend.

Hesiod tells us in this poem that in old days the human race had the use of fire, and in gratitude to the gods offered burnt sacrifice. But Prometheus had defrauded the gods of their just share of the sacrifices and had compelled Zeus to be content with merely the bones and fat; and, in return for this deception, Zeus devised grievous troubles for mortals by depriving them of fire. Prometheus then stole fire from heaven. Zeus, angered at being outwitted by the crafty Prometheus, determined to inflict on men a bane from which they would not quickly recover. He straightway commanded Hephæstus to mix earth and water, to endow the plastic form with human voice and powers, and to liken it to a heavenly goddess--virginal, winning, and fair. Athena was commanded to teach her the domestic virtues; Aphrodite, to endow her with beauty, eager desire, and passion that wastes the bodies of mortals; and Hermes, to bestow on her a shameless mind and a treacherous nature. All obeyed the command of Zeus, and in this manner was fashioned the first woman. Then Athena added a girdle and ornaments; the Graces and Persuasion hung their golden chains over her body, and the Hours wove for her garlands of spring flowers. The name given this fascinating creature was Pandora, because each of the gods had bestowed on her gifts to make her a fatal bane unto mortals.

Hermes then led her down to earth to present her to Epimetheus, whom his brother Prometheus had bidden never to receive any presents from Olympian Zeus. Epimetheus, however, was captivated by Pandora's beauty and received her, and only after the evil befell did he remember his brother's command. Until the advent of woman, men, it is said, had lived secure from trouble, free from wearisome labor, and safe from painful diseases that bring death to mankind. But now Pandora with her hands lifted the lid from the great jar with which the gods had dowered her, the great jar wherein these evils had been securely imprisoned, and let them loose upon the earth. With the sorrows, hope had been confined; but when they were loosed, hope flew not forth, for too soon Pandora closed the lid of the vessel. Hence, laments Hesiod, hopeless is the lot of humanity, while innumerable ills pass hither and thither among hopeless men. Such is the mythus of the fall of man, as imagined by the early Greeks. Man was punished for rebelling against the will of heaven. Woman is the instrument of his chastisement, thrust upon him by the angry deity. She possesses every charm, every allurement, but her very fascination is a chief cause of ill to man. He in his folly receives her, and thence befall him all the ills of life. The whole argument of Hesiod in this passage indicates that he regarded woman as "a necessary deduction from the happiness of life," as "the rift in the lute that spoils its music." Contrasted with the Hebrew story, the Greek represents woman as closing the door of hope to man; while the Hebrew version sees in her seed the hope of the salvation that is to overcome the evils of the fall. Even stronger is Hesiod's invective against the female sex in the Theogony, where he repeats the story of Pandora, and concludes with the following reflections: