The Odyssey of Homer Translated by Alexander Pope An Electronic Classics Series Publication The Odyssey of Homer trans. Alexander Pope is a publication of The Electronic Classics Series. This Portable Document file is furnished free and without any charge of any kind. Any person using this document file, for any purpose, and in any way does so at his or her own risk. Neither the Pennsylvania State University nor Jim Manis, Editor, nor anyone associated with the Pennsylvania State University assumes any responsibility for the material contained within the document or for the file as an electronic transmission, in any way. The Odyssey of Homer trans. Alexander Pope, The Electronic Classics Series, Jim Manis, Editor, PSU- Hazleton, Hazleton, PA 18202 is a Portable Document File produced as part of an ongoing publication project to bring classical works of literature, in English, to free and easy access of those wishing to make use of them. Jim Manis is a faculty member of the English Department of The Pennsylvania State University. This page and any preceding page(s) are restricted by copyright. The text of the following pages are not copyrighted within the United States; however, the fonts used may be. Cover Design: Jim Manis Copyright © 2004 - 2012 The Pennsylvania State University is an equal opportunity university. Pope which progress has gained a strong ascendency over preju- The Odyssey of dice, and in which persons and things are, day by day, find- ing their real level, in lieu of their conventional value. The same principles which have swept away traditional abuses, Homer and which are making rapid havoc among the revenues of sinecurists, and stripping the thin, tawdry veil from attrac- Translated by tive superstitions, are working as actively in literature as in society. The credulity of one writer, or the partiality of an- Alexander Pope other, finds as powerful a touchstone and as wholesome a chastisement in the healthy scepticism of a temperate class INTRODUCTION of antagonists, as the dreams of conservatism, or the impos- Scepticism is as much the result of knowledge, as knowledge tures of pluralist sinecures in the Church. History and tra- is of scepticism. To be content with what we at present know, dition, whether of ancient or comparatively recent times, are is, for the most part, to shut our ears against conviction; subjected to very different handling from that which the in- since, from the very gradual character of our education, we dulgence or credulity of former ages could allow. Mere state- must continually forget, and emancipate ourselves from, ments are jealously watched, and the motives of the writer knowledge previously acquired; we must set aside old no- form as important an ingredient in the analysis or his his- tions and embrace fresh ones; and, as we learn, we must be tory, as the facts he records. Probability is a powerful and daily unlearning something which it has cost us no small troublesome test; and it is by this troublesome standard that labour and anxiety to acquire. a large portion of historical evidence is sifted. Consistency is And this difficulty attaches itself more closely to an age in no less pertinacious and exacting in its demands. In brief, to 3 The Odyssey of Homer write a history, we must know more than mere facts. Hu- controversy; but upon everything else, even down to the au- man nature, viewed under an introduction of extended ex- thorship of plays, there is more or less of doubt and uncer- perience, is the best help to the criticism of human history. tainty. Of Socrates we know as little as the contradictions of Historical characters can only be estimated by the standard Plato and Xenophon will allow us to know. He was one of which human experience, whether actual or traditionary, has the dramatis personae in two dramas as unlike in principles furnished. To form correct views of individuals we must re- as in style. He appears as the enunciator of opinions as dif- gard them as forming parts of a great whole—we must mea- ferent in their tone as those of the writers who have handed sure them by their relation to the mass of beings by whom them down. When we have read Plato or Xenophon, we they are surrounded; and, in contemplating the incidents in think we know something of Socrates; when we have fairly their lives or condition which tradition has handed down to read and examined both, we feel convinced that we are some- us, we must rather consider the general bearing of the whole thing worse than ignorant. narrative, than the respective probability of its details. It has been an easy, and a popular expedient of late years, It is unfortunate for us, that, of some of the greatest men, to deny the personal or real existence of men and things whose we know least, and talk most. Homer, Socrates, and life and condition were too much for our belief. This sys- Shakespere have, perhaps, contributed more to the intellec- tem—which has often comforted the religious sceptic, and tual enlightenment of mankind than any other three writers substituted the consolations of Strauss for those of the New who could be named, and yet the history of all three has Testament—has been of incalculable value to the historical given rise to a boundless ocean of discussion, which has left theorists of the last and present centuries. To question the us little save the option of choosing which theory or theories existence of Alexander the Great, would be a more excusable we will follow. The personality of Shakespere is, perhaps, the act, than to believe in that of Romulus. To deny a fact re- only thing in which critics will allow us to believe without lated in Herodotus, because it is inconsistent with a theory 4 Pope developed from an Assyrian inscription which no two schol- According to this document, the city of Cumae in Æolia ars read in the same way, is more pardonable, than to believe was, at an early period, the seat of frequent immigrations in the good-natured old king whom the elegant pen of Florian from various parts of Greece. Among the immigrants was has idealized—Numa Pompilius. Menapolus, the son of Ithagenes. Although poor, he mar- Scepticism has attained its culminating point with respect ried, and the result of the union was a girl named Critheis. to Homer, and the state of our Homeric knowledge may be The girl was left an orphan at an early age, under the guard- described as a free permission to believe any theory, pro- ianship of Cleanax, of Argos. It is to the indiscretion of this vided we throw overboard all written tradition, concerning maiden that we “are indebted for so much happiness.” Homer the author or authors of the Iliad and Odyssey. What few was the first fruit of her juvenile frailty, and received the authorities exist on the subject, are summarily dismissed, al- name of Melesigenes from having been born near the river though the arguments appear to run in a circle. “This can- Meles in Boeotia, whither Critheis had been transported in not be true, because it is not true; and that is not true, be- order to save her reputation. cause it cannot be true.” Such seems to be the style, in which “At this time,” continues our narrative, “there lived at testimony upon testimony, statement upon statement, is Smyrna a man named Phemius, a teacher of literature and consigned to denial and oblivion. music, who, not being married, engaged Critheis to manage It is, however, unfortunate that the professed biographies of his household, and spin the flax he received as the price of Homer are partly forgeries, partly freaks of ingenuity and imagi- his scholastic labours. So satisfactory was her performance nation, in which truth is the requisite most wanting. Before of this task, and so modest her conduct, that he made pro- taking a brief review of the Homeric theory in its present con- posals of marriage, declaring himself, as a further induce- ditions, some notice must be taken of the treatise on the Life ment, willing to adopt her son, who, he asserted, would be- of Homer which has been attributed to Herodotus. come a clever man, if he were carefully brought up.” 5 The Odyssey of Homer They were married; careful cultivation ripened the talents memoirs of all that he deemed worthy of preservation. Hav- which nature had bestowed, and Melesigenes soon surpassed ing set sail from Tyrrhenia and Iberia, they reached Ithaca. his schoolfellows in every attainment, and, when older, ri- Here Melesigenes, who had already suffered in his eyes, be- valled his preceptor in wisdom. Phemius died, leaving him came much worse; and Mentes, who was about to leave for sole heir to his property, and his mother soon followed. Leucadia, left him to the medical superintendence of a friend Melesigenes carried on his adopted father’s school with great of his, named Mentor, the son of Alcinor. Under his hospi- success, exciting the admiration not only of the inhabitants table and intelligent host, Melesigenes rapidly became ac- of Smyrna, but also of the strangers whom the trade carried quainted with the legends respecting Ulysses, which after- on there, especially in the exportation of corn, attracted to wards formed the subject of the Odyssey. The inhabitants of that city. Among these visitors, one Mentes, from Leucadia, Ithaca assert, that it was here that Melesigenes became blind, the modern Santa Maura, who evinced a knowledge and in- but the Colophonians make their city the seat of that mis- telligence rarely found in those times, persuaded Melesigenes fortune.