But Odysseus and Penelope are frankly mortal; and in that one fact they approach nearer to us by many degrees. They are no longer colossal figures hovering, as it were, about the base of Mt. Olympus, and driven this way and that in the surge of Olympian quarrels. They are a man and woman, with their feet firmly planted upon the earth, and their affections rooted there too. They claim no kinship with the gods: they take no part in Olympian warfare: they have no care for the issues which are called great. Their story, reduced to its elements, is of the simplest kind: the call of dear home ties upon the man, the fidelity and prudence of the woman. And in this ‘touch of common things,’ Penelope becomes a much more real figure than Helen. Of course that is not to say that Penelope is ‘real’ in the technical sense of the word. She is in fact almost as much a creature of romance as Helen is. But she appears before us as a living woman with human hopes and joys and sorrows; with human virtues too, and certain very human weaknesses. We can never regard the heroine of the _Iliad_ just in this way. If we could, and if we dared to lift the veil which the poet always interposes between us and the character of Helen, it would stand revealed slight and trembling in its amiability: fatally soft, with no vein of essential strength. Now it is that essential strength which characterizes Penelope. The wooers realized it; and Antinous made it the chief point of his defence: _Athena has bestowed on her Wisdom of mind and excellence of skill_ _In beautiful devices manifold Beyond all others, such as is not told Even of those famous in the former time, Achaean women lovely-tressed of old,_ _Tyro, Alcmena, and Mycene crowned— Even among these the equal was not found In wise devices of Penelope._[7] There is a significant silence about Penelope’s beauty; and she has not eternal youth as Helen has. But when we have seen her eyes light upon her boy Telemachus, and the radiance of her face as the strange old beggarman told her about her husband, we shall waive the question of æsthetics. We shall be prepared to maintain Penelope’s beauty against all-comers; and we shall not be much concerned that the poet rather avoids the subject. For he would not dream of a soul which did not know that sweetness and dignity and a gentle heart, grief endured patiently and love unswerving, would make for themselves a worthy habitation. Beside Helen’s exquisite fairness, Penelope would seem a little faded; and her sweet gravity would be almost a reproach. She cannot compare for one moment with Calypso, as Odysseus had to confess when the goddess blamed him for his homesickness: “_Goddess and mistress, be not wroth with me Herein: for very well myself I know That, set beside you, wise Penelope_