The Odyssey of Homer

rnia THE ODYSSEY OF HOMER TRANSLATED BT GEORGE HERBERT PALMER ALFORD PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY ttmcrs'i&c press Cambridge COPYRIGHT, 1884, l39'. &110 I9 IJ BY O. H. PALMER ALL RIGHTS RESERVED IT bf ibfril>r prr CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS PRINTED IN THE U.SJU SRLF URL OTTOrSo) irpWTOV 1] fWt 7TOT6 Sw/fOS i8t<T0ai PREFACE. IN this translation of the Odyssey I have had the following aims : To give to the thought of Homer a more direct and simple expression than has hitherto been judged ad- missible ; to be at once minutely faithful to the Greek original and to keep out of sight the fact that either translator an original or a exists ; to present especially the objective, unreflective, realistic, and non-literary features of the primitive story ; to report in all their delicacy the events which Homer reports, to exhibit his attitude of mind toward them, and to produce again the impression produced by him that things so in to did happen just ; the wording, discard origi- nality and to make free use of the fortunate phrases f preceding translators ; but to employ persistently the veracious language, the language of prose, rather than the dream language, the language of poetry; and still to confess that the story, unlike a bare record of fact, is throughout, like poetry, illuminated with an of to this underglow joy ; mark gently permeating joy by a simple rhythm, a rhythm so unobtrusive and so free from systematic arrangement that no one need *1 PREFACE. turn matter to from the mark the movement ; above all, to discharge a debt of gratitude to the great friend who for twenty-five years has been showing me the of himself and of the world beauty ; and finally, to make it plain that I cannot attain these aims, and to commend them to others as alluring and impos- sible. CAMBBXDGB, February 21, 1881. INTRODUCTION. WHEN the poems of Homer were written, no man knows. We shall not be far wrong if we say . i i Date- they came into being a thousand years before the Christian era, or about as early as we find the Greek race. At the dawn of authentic history portions of them were chanted about the cities of the Grecian mainland, southern Italy, Sicily, the islands of the ^gean, and the coast of Asia Minor. Through- out the continuance of Greek civilization they were the chief ingredient in the education of the young and the chief literary delight of the men of mature years. So universally did they enter into the making of the Greek mind that it is no exaggeration to say that every one of that race of whom we have certain historical knowledge was "by this vision splendid upon his way attended." Yet unfortunately we have little knowledge of their author, a circumstance due in part to his greatness. Founders are seldom known. Buddha, Theseus, King Alfred, Shakespeare, John Harvard, are shadowy figures standing at the dim beginning of important eras largely created by them- selves. By the time the importance of such men is comprehended and we turn to inspect their person- ality, they are gone, hidden behind the majesty f their works. Yin INTRODUCTION. Moreover, the question When and by whom was the Odyssey written? is not so simple as it MAterUL sounds. A great work has many sources. Its creator, however creative, finds much of his material already prepared. Shakespeare invented few of his plots. He took characters, scenes, and conversa- tions from novels and histories where their power had already been proved. Sometimes he altered old plays. In deference to later taste his own have frequently been altered. A poem, therefore, even in the clear light of modern times and among a people possessing strong notions of literary birthright, may not be con- structed throughout by a single author nor contain within itself security against change. How much more, then, in an age accustomed to tradition and care- less of individual performance, may we expect the substance of a poem to bear the marks of many minds. Into the Odyssey has gone a mass of histories, legends, mythologies, genealogies, ideals of character, manners, modes of life, which must have required centuries to mature. The book is an epitome of a civilization, with all that civilization's variegated dreams, records, and inventions. To what extent this accumulated material was already shaped before its appearance here Authorthip. T f we cannot say. .Possibly enough fragments of early song contribute something to the large harmony, and later times may also have admitted inter- polations. Peculiarities of style and diction which mark portions of the poem might in this way be most easily explained. Here and there, too, critics have suspected such incongruities in the narrative, or have found a single action or character thrown into such questionable prominence, that they have imagined it INTRODUCTION. be possible to tell where the piecing has occurred. But while an abundance of this sharp-sighted criticism has been spent upon the poem, no critic has had any large success in convincing others of his conclusions. All are at least agreed that in the Odyssey more than in the Iliad there is a prevailing evenness of style, firmness of plot, and harmony in the presentation of characters and situations. Whatever diverse poetic materials were originally employed, the resulting unity is conspicuous and astonishing. The Odyssey is no ehance conglomerate. It is a masterpiece of poetic art, beautiful in its parts, and no less beautiful in its structure, bearing throughout the impress of a single mind his whom we rightly call Homerus, the Joiner, the Composer. The poem presupposes the events of the Trojan war, believed to a war which fifty years ago was The Tale of Tr be mythical, but which the excavations of y- Dr. Schliemann at the site of the city have shown to have historic basis. The incidents referred to are these : Paris, the son of Priam, King of Troy, carried off to Troy Helen, the wife of Menelaus, King of Lacedsemon. At the summons of his brother, Aga- memnon, King of Argos and Mycenae, the princes of Greece and the neighboring islands united in an expe- dition for her recovery. Troy, too, summoned its allies and for ten years endured a close siege. The Greek camp lay along the seashore where a landing was first effected. Between this and the city stretched a plain on which fighting was almost constant. Dissensions and pestilence at last broke out in the Greek army and were followed by the series of battles described in the Iliad. Despairing of capturing the city by force, the Greeks resorted to stratagem. They sailed away, X INTRODUCTION. leaving upon the shore a huge wooden horse in which were hidden Menelaus and a band of resolute men. The Trojans foolishly dragged the trophy within their walls. The following night the men within it crept from their ambush, threw open the gates of Troy to the returning Greeks, and carried fire and slaughter through the rich city. The objects of the joint expe- dition and each were now accomplished ; surviving chief, taking his share of plunder, assembled his ships, sailed away, and was soon established once more in his former home. Or rather, all but one came safely home. Among * n e The island tne men ^ w oden horse was Odysseus, of ithaoa. Ulysses, as the Romans afterwards called him, the ruler of the little island of Ithaca. Ten years before, he had left in Ithaca his young wife, Penelope, and his infant son, Telemachus. For ten years more he was to be parted from them, wandering among seas and islands, whose god, Poseidon, he had offended. When half that time was gone, and Odys- seus did not like the other leaders return, reports of his death were spread, and Penelope was urged to take another husband. In the remote state of Ithaca when the rightful sovereign was absent, the prince but a boy, and the ruler a beautiful and wealthy woman, disorganization easily set in. The princes of the conn- try and of the neighboring islands gathered at the palace, and, under excuse of wooing Penelope, lived at free quarters there, wasting the substance of Odys- seus and corrupting nearly all his retainers. Penel- ope, powerless to restrain their lawlessness, but be- lieving Odysseus still alive, could defend herself from the dreaded marriage only by matching woman's wit against dull force and numbers. INTRODUCTION XI This, then, is the twofold story of the Odyssey: the story of a loyal wife, sagaciously watch- iug through years of turmoil for the coming Theme in she trusts of the husband whose power ; and the story of that resourceful husband himself, who, when men, gods, and nature are arrayed against him, triumphs over all and by cool intelli- gence, patient courage, and a tenacious heart that ever rejoiced in danger, forces a way single-handed one man against the world, but obedient to the voice of wisdom until he wins once more his wife, child, and kingdom. The theme of the Odyssey is the domi- nance of mind over circumstance, a theme deeply fixed in the genius of the Greek race, and continually emphasized by Homer in the standing epithets at- tached to his three leading characters : Odysseus is "the wise" (TroAv/AT/ris), Penelope "the heedful" " " (Trepu^MJv), and Telemachus the discreet (7re7rvu/Ae- vos). The form given to the poem by this ethical mo- tive is naturally that of a story of adventure, a story matchless in its combination of plainness, profundity, and range of human interest, and one that has prob- ably affected western civilization more deeply than any piece of writing outside the Bible.

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