Stories from the Odyssey | Page 4

our doors; and it is almost
appalling to think of the millions of toiling hands and busy brains
which must pass all their days in unceasing toil, in order that the
humblest citizen may find his daily wants supplied. To give only one
example: how vast and tremendous is the machinery which must be set
at work before a single letter or post-card can reach its destination! This

multiplication of needs, and endless subdivision of labour, too often
results in stunting and crippling the development of the individual, so
that it becomes harder, as time advances, to find a complete man, with
all his faculties matured by equable and harmonious growth.
Very different were the conditions of life in the Homeric age. Then the
wealthy man's house was a little world in itself, capable of supplying
all the simple wants of its inhabitants. The women spun wool and flax,
the produce of the estate, and wove them into cloth and linen, to be
dyed and wrought into garments by the same skilful hands. On the
sunny slopes of the hills within sight of the doors the grapes were
ripening against the happy time of vintage, when merry troops of
children would bring them home with dance and song to be trodden in
the winepress. Nearer at hand was the well-kept orchard, bowing under
its burden of apples, pears, and figs; and groves of grey olive-trees
promised abundance of oil. In the valleys waved rich harvests of wheat
and barley, which were reaped, threshed, ground, and made into bread,
by the master's thralls. Herds of oxen, and flocks of sheep and goats,
roved on the broad upland pastures, and in the forest multitudes of
swine were fattening on the beech-mast and acorns.
And the owner of all these blessings was no luxurious drone, living in
idleness on the labour of other men's hands. He was, in the fullest sense
of the word, the father of his household. His was the vigilant eye which
watched and directed every member in the little army of workers, and
his the generous hand which dealt out bountiful reward for faithful
service. If need were he could take his share in the hardest field labour,
and plough a straight furrow, or mow a heavy crop of grass from dawn
till sunset without breaking his fast. Nothing was too great or too little
to engage his attention, as the necessity arose. He was a warrior, whose
single prowess might go far in deciding the issue of a hard-fought
battle--an orator, discoursing with weighty eloquence on grave
questions of state--a judge, whose decisions helped to build up the as
yet unwritten code of law. Descending from these high altitudes, he
could take up his bow and spear, and go forth to hunt the boar and the
stag, or wield the woodman's axe, or the carpenter's saw and chisel. He
could kill, dress, and serve his own dinner; and when the strenuous day
was over, he could tune the harp, discourse sweet music, and sing of
the deeds of heroes and gods.

Such was the versatility, and such the many-sided energy, of the Greek
as he appears in the Iliad and Odyssey. And as these two poems contain
the elements of all subsequent thought and progress in the Greek nation,
so in the typical character of Odysseus are concentrated all the qualities
which distinguish the individual Greek--his insatiable curiosity, which
left no field of thought unexplored--his spirit of daring enterprise,
which carried the banner of civilisation to the borders of India and the
Straits of Gibraltar--and his subtlety and craft, which in a later age
made him a byword to the grave moralists of Rome.
In the Iliad Odysseus is constantly exhibited as a contrast to the
youthful Achilles. Wherever prudence, experience, and policy, are
required, Odysseus comes to the front. In Achilles, with his furious
passions and ill-regulated impulses, there is always something of the
barbarian; while Odysseus in all his actions obeys the voice of reason.
It will readily be seen that such a character, essentially intellectual,
always moving within due measure, never breaking out into
eccentricity or excess, would appeal less to the popular imagination
than the fiery nature of Pelides, "strenuous, passionate, implacable, and
fierce." And on this ground we may partly explain the unamiable light
in which Odysseus appears in later Greek literature. Already in Pindar
we find him singled out for disapproval. In Sophocles he has sunk still
lower; and in Euripides his degradation is completed.
VI
Space does not allow us to give a detailed criticism of the Odyssey as a
poem, and determine its relation to the Iliad. We must content
ourselves with quoting the words of the most eloquent of ancient critics,
which sum up the subject with admirable brevity and insight: