That opinion has not survived the essay by Mr. J. L. Myres on the "Plan of the Homeric House." [Footnote: _Journal of Hellenic Studies_, vol. XX, 128-150.] Quite apart from arguments that rest on the ground plans of palaces at Mycenae and Tiryns, Mr. Myres has proved, by an exact reading of the poet's words, that the descriptions in the _Odyssey_ cannot be made intelligible on the theory that the poet has in his mind a house of the Hellenic pattern. But in his essay he hardly touches on any Homeric house except that of Odysseus, in which the circumstances were unusual. A later critic, Ferdinand Noack, has demonstrated that we must take other Homeric houses into consideration. [Footnote: _Homerische Palaeste_. Teubner. Leipzig, 1903.] The prae-Mycenaean house is, according to Mr. Myres, on the whole of the same plan as the Hellenic house of historic days; between these comes the Mycenaean and Homeric house; "so that the Mycenaean house stands out _as an intrusive phenomenon_, of comparatively late arrival _and short of duration_..." [Footnote: Myres, _Journal_ of _Hellenic_ Studies, vol. xx. p. 149.] Noack goes further; he draws a line between the Mycenaean houses on one hand and the houses described by Homer on the other; while he thinks that the "_late_ Homeric house," that of the closing Books of the Odyssey, is widely sundered from the Homeric house of the _Iliad_ and from the houses of Menelaus and Alcinous in earlier Books of the _Odyssey._ [Footnote: Noack, p. 73.] In this case the Iliadic and earlier Odyssean houses are those of a single definite age, neither Mycenaean of the prime, nor Hellenic--a fact which entirely suits our argument. But it is not so certain, that the house of Odysseus is severed from the other Homeric houses by the later addition of an upper storey, as Noack supposes, and of women's quarters, and of separate sleeping chambers for the heads of the family. The _Iliad,_ save in two passages, and earlier Books of the _Odyssey_ may not mention upper storeys because they have no occasion, or only rare occasion, to do so; and some houses may have had upper sleeping chambers while others of the same period had not, as we shall prove from the Icelandic parallel.