Part 12 (1/2)

But one of the suitors, Melanthius, clih one of the lanterns of the hall and clambered over the roofs to the armoury unseen by Ulysses

And while the deadly arrows sped with bitter reat sheaf of spears and flung the his comrades

They seized upon the spears with a fierce cry of joy, and Ulysses'

heart failed hi

They began to run up the hall towards the steps

Then at last Athene saw that her time had cos death to the sons of ht of spears all went far wide of the mark, and some fell with a rattle upon the floor

With one cry of triu the crowd

Hither and there flashed the three swords like swooping vultures, and Athene took all power from the princes, and one by one they screamed and met their doom

And soon the din of battle died away, and save for a faintthe hall was silent

And the princes, the pride of the islands, lay fallen in dust and blood, heaped one on the other, like a great catch of fishes turned out from a fisherman's nets upon the shore

Eus, and raised the bars so that the sunlight caht rays like a powder of tiny lives

Then Ulysses called the servants and bade them carry the bodies away

And he ordered Euryclea to wash the blood-stained floors, and to bring sulphur and torches that the place reat beacons flared on the hills, and far out to sea the fisherain”

And while the hted palace and the people passed before the gates shouting for joy, old Euryclea spread thetorches

And when all was prepared, the old nurse went to Ulysses and Penelope and led thee chamber, as she had led them twenty years before

Then the music ceased in the palace halls and silence fell over all the house

A NOTE ON HOMER AND ULYSSES

The uncertainty which prevails as to the actual birthplace of Homer also extends to the exact period at which he flourished Doubts have been expressed by some modern scholars as to whether the poet ever existed as a personality The view that the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ were not the work of an individual, but merely a collection of old folklore verse welded into a whole byfrom crystallised tradition, is, however, not a tenable one, and need not be discussed here

As far as we are able to place the poet in his period correctly, we can say with some certainty that he flourished at a time between 800 and 900 years before the birth of Christ

The Arundelian marbles fix his era at 907 years before the dawn of Christianity About the life of thewhatever is known There is a tradition that he had a school of followers in the Island of Chios, and we have early records of celebrations held there in his honour every few years But no proof whatever exists of the truth of the supposition, though up to quite modern times the islanders maintained and believed in it

In the same way end which cannot be proved or disproved Yet at a time when literature must have been almost purely oral, his blindness need have been no bar to the exercise of his talent It has been said, and the theory is at least an interesting one, that the music and sonance of Homer's lines came from the fact that they were composed to be _spoken_ rather than _read_ That the blindness of Milton did not in any way detract frorandeur of his verse is an undoubted fact, and yet Milton had to _speak_ every line before he could have it recorded by others