Part 3 (2/2)
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 ill.u.s.trates 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 pa.s.sions that gathered about her.
Homer presents two pictures of heroic motherhood in sorrow,--Hecuba and Thetis; for the latter, though a G.o.ddess, 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 n.o.bly supports him in every struggle. Hecuba is truly the companion of her husband, King Priam, a.s.sociated 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 succ.u.mbed, we find in her the same mingling of grief and of pride. Her wild despair seems to be a.s.suaged 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 pa.s.sed 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 aegisthus, 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 hara.s.s 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 G.o.ds, 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 G.o.ddess, 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 G.o.ddess, youth rapidly gives way to manhood, and Telemachus determines to a.s.sert his rights and to find his father.
After the departure of the G.o.ddess, 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 Achaeans.
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 h.e.l.las 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 a.s.sert 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 a.s.sembly, Telemachus secretly sets sail for Pylus, accompanied by the G.o.ddess 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. Rea.s.sured 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 a.s.sembly of the G.o.ds. Athena tells the tale of the many woes of Odysseus, and Zeus commands Hermes, the messenger G.o.d, to bid Calypso release Odysseus and start him on his voyage to the Phaeacians, 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 G.o.ddess 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 G.o.ds, who forbid G.o.ddesses 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 sh.o.r.e; 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 G.o.ddess 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 G.o.ddess 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 Phaeacians, 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 sh.o.r.e. 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 Phaeacians, Nausicaa, beautiful like the G.o.ddesses, was sleeping in a sumptuous chamber. For it was to the island domain of King Alcinous, Scheria, land of the Phaeacians, 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 G.o.ds 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 s.h.i.+ning doors were shut.
”But the G.o.ddess, 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 G.o.ddess addresses her:
”'Nausicaa, how hath thy mother so heedless a maiden to her daughter?
Lo! thou hast s.h.i.+ning 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-was.h.i.+ng 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 n.o.blest youths of all the Phaeacians, among that people whence thou thyself dost draw thy lineage. So come, beseech thy n.o.ble father betimes in the morning to furnish thee with mules and a wain to carry the men's raiment, and the robes, and the s.h.i.+ning 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 G.o.ds.
”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 n.o.ble Phaeacians 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 l.u.s.ty bachelors, and these are always eager for new-washen garments wherein to go to the dances; for all these things have I taken thought.'
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