To search the woods for sets of flowery thorn, "Great is thy skill, O father! great thy toil: Twelve cloaks, twelve vests, twelve tunics stiff with gold, A bowl, that rich with polish'd silver flames; This is the land; but ah! thy gifts are lost, Sunk is the glory of this once famed shore! "But tell me, stranger, be the truth confess'd, What years have circled since thou saw'st that That hapless guest, alas! for ever gone! [guest? (Wretch that he was; and that I am!) my son! If ever man to misery was born, 'Twas his to suffer, and 'tis mine to mourn! Our wandering course, and drove us on your shore: ran; Grief seized at once, and wrapt up all the man : Trembling with agonies of strong delight Amazed, Laertes: "Give some certain sign, (If such thou art) to manifest thee mine." Lo here the wound (he cries) received of yore, The scar indented by the tusky boar, When by thyself and by Anticlea sent, To old Autolycus's realms I went. Yet by another sign thy offspring know: The several trees you gave me long ago, While, yet a child, these fields I loved to trace, And trod thy footsteps with unequal pace; To every plant in order as we came, Well-pleased you told its nature, and its name; Whate'er my childish fancy ask'd, bestow'd; Twelve pear-trees bowing with their pendent load, And ten, that red with blushing apples glow'd ; Full fifty purple figs; and many a row Smit with the signs which all his doubts explain, To this Ulysses: "As the gods shall please Be all the rest; and set thy soul at ease. Haste to the cottage by this orchard side; And take the banquet which our cares provide: There wait thy faithful band of rural friends; And there the young Telemachus attends." Thus having said, they traced the garden o'er, And stooping enter'd at the lowly door. The swains and young Telemachus they found, The victim portion'd, and the goblet crown'd. The hoary king, his old Sicilian maid Perfumed and wash'd, and gorgeously array'd. Pallas attending gives his frame to shine With awful port, and majesty divine; His gazing son admires the godlike grace, And air celestial dawning o'er his face. "What god (he cried) my father's form improves? How high he treads, and how enlarged he moves!" "Oh! would to all the deathless powers on high, Pallas and Jove, and him who gilds the sky! They communed thus: while homeward bent their way The swains, fatigued with labours of the day; Who nursed the children, and now tends the sire: Beyond our hopes, and to our wish, return'd! Could work this wonder: welcome to thy own! And straight resumed his seat; while round him bows Each faithful youth, and breathes out ardent vows; Then all beneath their father take their place, Rank'd by their ages, and the banquet grace. Now flying fame the swift report had spread Big was his eye with tears, his heart with woes: has wrought, And mighty blessings to his country brought. Shame to this age, and all that shall succeed, Here ceased he, but indignant tears let fall Spoke when he ceased: dumb sorrow touch'd them all. When from the palace to the wondering throng "Hear me, ye peers and elders of the land, Who deem this act the work of mortal hand! As o'er the heaps of death Ulysses strode, These eyes, these eyes beheld a present god, Who now before him, now beside him stood, Fought as he fought, and mark'd his way with blood: In vain old Mentor's form the god belied; "Twas heaven that struck, and heaven was on his side." A sudden horror all the assembly shook; When, slowly rising, Halitherses spoke, (Reverend and wise, whose comprehensive view At once the present and the future knew :) "Me too, ye fathers, hear! from you proceed The ills ye mourn: your own the guilty deed. Ye gave your sons, your lawless sons, the rein, (Oft warn'd by Mentor and myself in vain :) An absent hero's bed they sought to soil; An absent hero's wealth they made their spoil: Immoderate riot, and intemperate lust! The offence was great, the punishment was just. Weigh then my counsels in an equal scale, His moderate words some better minds persuade: They meet: Eupithes heads the frantic train. Fierce for his son, he breathes his threats in air; Fate hears them not, and death attends him there. This pass'd on earth, while in the realms above Minerva thus to cloud-compelling Jove: May I presume to search thy secret soul? "Is not thy thought my own? (the god replies Now sat Ulysses at the rural feast, The rage of hunger and of thirst repress'd: To watch the foe a trusty spy he sent : A son of Dolius on the message went, Stood in the way, and at a glance beheld The foe approach, embattled on the field. With backward step he hastens to the bower, And tells the news. They arm with all their power. Four friends alone Ulysses' cause embrace; And six were all the sons of Dolius' race: Old Dolius too his rusted arms put on; And, still more old, in arms Laertes shone. Trembling with warmth, the hoary heroes stand, And brazen panoply invests the band. The opening gates at once their war display: Fierce they rush forth; Ulysses leads the way. That moment joins them with celestial aid, In Mentor's form, the Jove-descended maid: The suffering hero felt his patient breast Regard thyself, the living, and the dead." Thy eyes, great father! on this battle east, Shall learn from me Penelope was chaste.” So spoke Telemachus! the gallant boy Good old Laertes heard with panting joy; "And, bless'd! thrice bless'd this happy day! (he cries) The day that shows me, ere I close my eyes, "Son of Arcesius, reverend warrior, hear! run. Now by the sword and now the javelin fall Fear shook the nations: at the voice divine So Pallas spoke: the mandate from above POSTSCRIPT TO THE ODYSSEY. I CANNOT dismiss this work without a few observations on the true character and style of it. Whoever reads the Odyssey with an eye to the Iliad, expecting to find it of the same character, or of the same sort of spirit, will be grievously deceived; and err against the first principle of criticism, which is to consider the nature of the piece, and the intent of its author. The Odyssey is a moral and political work, instructive to all degrees of men, and filled with images, examples, and precepts of civil and domestic life. Homer is here a person Qui didicit patriæ quid debeat, et quid amicis, Quo sit amore parens, quo frater amandus, et hospes. Qui quid sit pulchrum, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non, Plenius ac melius Chrysippo et Crantore dicit. The Odyssey is the reverse of the Iliad, in moral, subject, manner, and style; to which it has no sort of relation, but as the story happens to follow in order of time, and as some of the same persons are actors in it. Yet from this incidental connexion many have been misled to regard it as a continuation or second part, and thence to expect a parity of character inconsistent with its nature. It is no wonder that the common reader should fall into this mistake, when so great a critic as Longinus seems not wholly free from it; although what he has said has been generally understood to import a severer censure of the Odyssey than it really does, if we consider the occasion on which it is introduced, and the circumstances to which it is confined. "The Odyssey (says he) is an instance, how natural it is to a great genius, when it begins to grow old and decline, to delight itself in narrations and fables: for, that Homer composed the Odyssey after the Iliad, many proofs may be given, &c. From hence in my judgment it proceeds, that as the Iliad was written while his spirit was in its greatest vigour, the whole structure of that work is dramatic and full of action: whereas the greater part of the Odyssey is employed in narration, which is the taste of old age; so that in this latter piece we may compare him to the setting sun, which has still the same greatness, but not the same ardour, or force. He speaks not in the same strain: we see no more that sublime of the Iliad which marches on with a constant pace, without ever being stopped, or retarded; there appears no more that hurry, and that strong tide of motions and passions, pouring one after another: there is no more the same fury, or the same volubility of diction, so suitable to action, and all along drawing in such innumerable images of nature. But Homer, like the ocean, is always great, even when he ebbs and retires; even when he is lowest, and loses him | self most in narrations and incredible fictions: as instances of this, we cannot forget the descriptions of tempests, the adventures of Ulysses with the Cyclops, and many others. But though all this be age, it the age of Homer:-and it may be said, for the credit of these fictions, that they are beautiful dreams, or if you will, the dreams of Jupiter himself. I spoke of the Odyssey only to show, that the greatest poets when their genius wants strength and warmth for the pathetic, for the most part employ themselves in painting the manners. Homer has done, in characterising the suitors, and describing their way of life; which is properly a branch of comedy, whose peculiar business it is to represent the manners of men." This We must first observe, it is the sublime of which Longinus is writing: that, and not the nature of Homer's poem, is his subject. After having highly extolled the sublimity and fire of the Iliad, he justly observes the Odyssey to have less of those qualities, and to turn more on the side of moral, and reflections on human life. Nor is it his business here to determine, whether the elevated spirit of the one, or the just moral of the other, be the greater excellence in itself. Secondly, that fire and fury of which he is speaking, cannot well be meant of the general spirit and inspiration which is to run through a whole epic poem, but of that particular warmth and impetuosity necessary in some parts, to image or represent actions or passions, of haste, tumult, and violence. It is on occasion of citing some such particular passages in Homer, that Longinus breaks into this reflection; which seems to determine his meaning chiefly to that sense. Upon the whole, he affirms the Odyssey to have less sublimity and fire than the Iliad; but he does not say it wants the sublime or wants fire. He affirms it to be narrative; but not that the narration is defective. He affirms it to abound in fictions; not that those fictions are ill invented, or ill executed. He affirms it to be nice and particular in painting the manners; but not that those manners are ill painted. If Homer has fully in these points accomplished his own design, and done all that the nature of his poem demanded or allowed, it still remains perfect in its kind, and as much a masterpiece as the Iliad. The amount of the passage is this; that in his own particular taste, and with respect to the sublime, Longinus preferred the Iliad: and because the Odyssey was less active and lofty, he judged it the work of the old age of Homer. If this opinion be true, it will only prove, that Homer's age might determine him in the choice of his subject; not that it affected him in the execution of it: and that which would be a very wrong |