We have already noticed the creed of the poet to be that every action has its penalty; the deed, even the good deed, is the fruit of a conflict and puts down something which has its might, aye its right, which is soon to make itself felt in counteraction. _Es raecht sich alles auf Erden_, sings our last world-poet in full harmony with his eldest brother. It is not surprising that Alcinous at this point remembers an "ancient God-spoken oracle," which had uttered in advance the wrath of Neptune and the present penalty. In like manner, Polyphemus, in his crisis, remembered a similar oracle. It is indeed the deep suggestion of Nature which the sages have heard in all times. The poet takes his thought and works it into a mythical shape, in which, however, we are to see not merely the story but the insight into the world order. Ulysses now leaves the sea, after having been chiefly in a struggle with it for years, ever since he sailed from Troy. It was the element in his way, the environment always hostile to him; Neptune was the deity who was angry and made him suffer. Still the God of the sea could not prevent his Return, such was the will of Zeus. Thus we cast a glance back at the Phaeacians who vanish, and at Neptune who also vanishes. The poem henceforth quits the sea, after marking the fate of the sea-faring people of Phaeacia. That great mysterious body of water, with its uncertainties of wind and wave, with its hidden rocks and magic islands, is now to drop out of the horizen of the Odyssey. It is the great sea-poem of the Greeks, yes of the world; the sea is the setting of its adventurous, marvelous, illimitable portion. It comes out the sea, with its realm of wonders; henceforth it is a land poem in the clear finite world. Ulysses the Hero must turn his face away from the briny element; not without significance is that command given him that he must go till he find a people who take an oar for a winnowing-fan ere he can reach peace. So the fairy-ship ceased to run, but the steam-ship has taken its place in these Ithacan waters. Still the poetic atmosphere of the Odyssey, in spite of steam, hovers over the islands of western Greece to-day; the traveler in the harbor of Corfu, will look up at the city from the deck of his vessel and call back the image of Phaeacia, and if he listens to the speech of the Greek sailors, he will find words still in use which were employed by old Homer, possibly were heard by the poet in this very harbor. III. Next comes the most important and longest portion of the Book, turning the glance forward to Ithaca and the future, also to the great deed of the poem. A new deity appears when Neptune vanishes, not a hostile power of Nature but a helpful spirit of Intelligence--it is the Goddess of Wisdom, Pallas. This divine transition from the one God to the other is the real inner fact, while the physical transition is but the outer setting and suggestion.