1 827. J Notes for the Month. 515 



Gods for abandoning Ulysses, whom she protects, founds her intercession not upon 

 the number of his sacrifices, but upon the justice and worth of the hero. * I will 

 not detain you by force/ says Alcinous, in another place, to Ulysses disguised ; 

 ' such an act would be displeasing to Jupiter. If 1 killed you after having re- 

 ceived you here, with what confidence could I address my prayers to the mighty 

 of heaven ?' 



" The Gods of the Odyssey interpose as ex-afficio in the deeds and relations of 

 mortals. They traverse the eartji disguised, to observe the acts of crime or virtue. 



" In the Hiad, their resentment always founds itself upon some sacrifice neglected, 

 or some insult offered to their priests : in the Odyssey, the crimes of men against 

 men draw down their severity. In the Iliad, the gifts conferred by the Gods on 

 men, are always strength, courage, prudence, or cunning : in the Odyssey, they 

 inspire us with virtue, of which happiness is the reward. 



" The distance which separates man from the Gods is also considerably widened 

 in the latter poem. In the first, the Deities all act, and they are acting inces- 

 santly. In the second, Minerva is almost the only deity that interferes. In the 

 one poem, the Gods act like men; they strike blows wi'h their own hands; they 

 utter shouts that ring through heaven and earth ; they snatch from the warriors 

 their broken arms. In the other, Minerva works only by secret inspirations, or at 

 least in a manner mysterious and invisible. 



" In the Iliad, when the immortals desire to be concealed from men's eyes, they 

 are obliged to encompass themselves with a cloud : their nature is to be visible. 

 Often they are detected in despite of all these efforts. Minerva, when she de- 

 scends from heaven, is seen, both by the Greeks and Trojans : and, to hide himself 

 from the sight of Patroclus, Apollo envelops himself in thick darkness. But, in 

 the Odyssey, it is declared impossible to discover a deity against his will : at this 

 second epoch, therefore, the nature of the immortals has advanced ; their cha- 

 racter is to be invisible, and it is a prodigy when they are seen. 



" Again, in the Iliad, Thetis is compelled by the command of Jupiter to espouse 

 Peleus. In the Odyssey, the Gods disapprove of alliances with mortals. Such a 

 mixture of races appears to them unfit and inconvenient. Jupiter forbids Calypso 

 to espouse Ulysses, and strikes lasion with a thunderbolt for forming an ambitious 

 alliance with Ceres." 



If we carry these comparisons beyond the real state of religious belief or 

 feeling, the evidence becomes stronger still. 



" In the Odyssey, we perceive (as it seems to us) the commencement of a period 

 which has a tendency to be pacific : the first developments of legislation; the 

 early essays of commerce ; the creation of amicable relations among people mutu- 

 ally interested in such arrangement : all replacing, by voluntary negotiation, 

 brutal force, and, by exchanges, freely consented to, violence and spoliation. 



" One of the characteristic traits of the Odyssey is a curiosity, an avidity of 

 knowledge a proof of the dawn of an epoch of repose and leisure. Ulysses is 

 announced as having learned an infinite deal : observed the manners of various 

 nations. He prolongs his voyage, and encounters a thousand perils for the sake 

 of instruction. The eulogium of science is frequently pronounced; and that 

 sentiment is incorporated even in the fables. All this refers clearly to a period 

 posterior to that of the Iliid\ where the Greeks, occupied with the immediate 

 interests of their own lives, and expending all their strength in attack and defence, 

 scarcely have time for any other business to look around them. 



" The state of woman too which always rises with a rising civilization is quite 

 differently described in the Iliad and in the Odyssey. Alete, the wife of Alcinous, 

 exercises an extended influence both over her husband and his subjects. The 

 delicate modesty of Nausica too, and her sensibility, shew a condition at the 

 time of considerable refinement. The description that she gives of the scandalous 

 humour of the Phoenicians, before whom ' she dares not pass through the city 

 with a stranger,' shew the tactics and relations of a polished and a pacific state. 

 So again, we may mark, the difference between Penelope in the Odyssey, and all 

 the women of the Greek heroic time (Andromache excepted); who are Eriphryle, 

 Helena, Clytemnestra, Phidia all of them capable of treason, adultery, and 

 murder. In answer to this last point it has been urged, that the state of women 



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