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
Also food and drink and raiment the Island Goddess furnishes for the
voyage; with rare skill she tells him how to direct his course by the
stars; she is mistress over the winds, it seems, for she sends the
right one to blow. Wonderful indeed is the change; all those forces of
nature, formerly so hostile, have been transformed into helpers,
Calypso herself being also transformed. Thus we catch the outlines of
the Fairy Tale or marvelous story, which tells, in a supernatural way,
of man's mastery of the physical world, once so destructive, now so
obedient.
Cloth for his sails she brought him, but we must recollect that she was
a weaver at the start of the story. At last Ulysses pushes his raft
down into the fair salt sea; Ogygia, the place of nature's luxuriance
and delight, is left behind; he must quit the natural state, however
paradisaical, and pass to the social order, to Ithaca, though the
latter be poor and rocky. Still we may well recall the fact that the
island and Calypso once saved Ulysses, when wrecked elsewhere, on
account of the slaughter done to the Oxen of the Sun; this wild spot
furnished him natural shelter, food, gratification; nay, it gave him
love.
To be sure, the other side is not to be forgotten: it had to be
transcended, when it kept him away from the higher institutional life.
Ulysses, the wonderful, limit-transcending spirit, unfolds within even
while caught in this wild jungle; he evolves out of it, as man has
evolved out of it, thus he hints the movement of his race, which has to
quit a cave-life and a mere sensuous existence. Such is the decree of
the Gods, for all time: the man must abandon Calypso, who is herself to
be transformed into an instrument of his progress.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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