Homer's Odyssey: A CommentarySnider, Denton Jaques
Philosophy
Homer's Odyssey: A Commentary
Snider, Denton Jaques
Epic poetry, Greek -- History and criticism; Homer. Odyssey; Odysseus, King of Ithaca (Mythological character) -- In literature
4. Still a fight occurs in which Laertes and Dolius with his six sons,
take part. Old Laertes is now to have his warlike meed, be kills old
Eupeithes, so that the male members of the House of Ulysses for three
generations--son, grandson, grandfather--have each killed his man.
5. Pallas hereupon stops the conflict, and the last lines of the poem
announce the peace which she makes under the form and voice of Mentor.
Surely the work of wisdom (Pallas) as well as of supreme law (Zeus)--to
stop the self-repeating blood-feud. Thus is the deep rent in the State
healed by aid of Zeus and Pallas. It should be observed that Pallas at
the end of the _Eumenides_ of the poet AEschylus released Orestes, who
is pursued by the Furies, from the guilt of his mother's blood, by
casting the decisive ballot in the court of Areiopagus. Here we find
another link between Homer and AEschylus.
Very hurried are these later incidents of the Book, but they are
necessary to complete the poem. The blood-feud is harmonized, the Gods
again make themselves valid in the land by introducing peace and
harmony, which had been undermined by the Suitors. Property, Family,
State, are restored, and the Divine Order of the World in the person of
the Gods is recognized. Only with this conclusion is the negative
conduct of the Suitors completely undone, and a positive institutional
life becomes possible. It is true that in the hurry of coming to an
end, the poet says nothing of the journey enjoined by Tiresias in
Hades, the journey to a distant people who would take an oar for a
winnowing fan. Still we may suppose that it was performed, and that
angry Neptune, the great enemy of Ulysses among the Gods, was also
reconciled. But, chiefly, Ulysses has above on this earth realized the
idea of a world-justice, which we found running through all Hades, in
the statements of Tiresias, in the fates of the great Greek heroes, in
the punitory portion presided over by Minos. From this point of view
the Odyssey may be truly regarded an image of the working of the Spirit
of History, and the poem holds good for all time.
_SUMMARY._
In concluding these lengthy studies of the Iliad and the Odyssey, we
shall try to grasp each of the poems as a whole, and then the two
together is one great totality sprung of one people and of one
consciousness. The central fact out of which both poems arise, to which
and from which both poems move, is the Trojan War. This War, whether
mythical or historical, is certainly the most famous, and probably the
most significant that ever took place on the earth.
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