In the Odyssey, it is the battle with the sea which does most to toughen and supple and make indomitable. The soldier and sailor are the pioneers of the race. These and the tiller of the earth are the strong roots out of which are to grow the flower and fruit. In the Iliad, woman appears in Helen as the tempting prize and the gage of battle, and in Andromeda as the tender wife foredoomed to bereavement and captivity. In the Odyssey, woman plays a higher part--as Penelope, faithful and prudent and patient wife, fit spouse for Odysseus; as Eurydice, the devoted old nurse; and as Nausicaa, loveliest of pristine maidens. "The story of her worth shall never die; but for all humankind immortal ones shall make a gladsome song in praise of steadfast Penelope." It is a noble story: the fidelity of a wife, the undaunted courage of a man; a long battle with adversity, crowned with the joy of love's reunion; the meeting with servant, nurse, dog, son, wife, father. Odysseus fights his battle as every hero must,--against hostile nature and man,--by courage and patience and craft, and a confidence that the heavenly power will somehow bring him through. So at the heart of the Iliad and the Odyssey is an austere and sweet message. The singers who embodied it in tales which stir every pulse with delight were among the supreme teachers of mankind. The inner meaning of humanity's story which their songs display is still the lesson set us,--out of adversity man may win fortitude; through battle, shipwreck, and overthrow he scales the heights of manhood; and the faithful pilgrimage ends in a home which is dearer for all troubles past. The Homeric poems show man in his first full awaking to beauty and to music. They show more. The fashioning of the supernal world in man's mind varies with people and with time. Here it is Zeus and Hades, again it will be Jehovah and Satan, and then Heaven and Hell. But in the Iliad and Odyssey the human heart recognizes its rightful lords as long as it shall endure,--Courage and Pity, Fortitude and Fidelity. Socrates is the man who has actually achieved goodness, and tries to make a science and art of goodness, to find a way in which it can be clearly known and rationally and effectively taught. "Can virtue be taught?" is his characteristic question. The chief result of his keen scrutiny is to bring to light how little men really know of the higher life,--how little he knows of it himself. The effect of this revelation of ignorance is not a despair of truth, but a humility which is the beginning of wisdom. The deepest thing in Socrates is his knowledge of the good life as a reality, and of the joy and peace which it brings. Secure in this, he can go on in the most fearless temper, and even with light-hearted jesting, to sift the questions. Intellectually, his main achievement is to bring out clearly the problems to be faced, and to give an immense stimulus to the higher class of minds.