head away, and without looking behind.' When she had thus spoken, the goddess gave him the girdle; then still retaining the form of a bird, she plunged again into the sea, and the waves concealed her. The patient Ulysses commenced to deliberate with himself: 'Perhaps this is some god who wishes to destroy me, by ordering me to quit my vessel. I will not do it; for the land, where she tells me I will be saved, if I reach it, is still a long way off. I prefer as long as the planks of my vessel can resist the fury of the waves, to remain and bear the storm. When the waves will have wrecked it, I will then swim to the land. This is the best course that I can take.' "While these reflections were passing through his mind, Neptune raised an immense wave of formidable height, which, breaking over the vessel of Ulysses, as a blast of wind scatters a bundle of straw here and there upon the waves, wrecked the vessel into a thousand pieces. Ulysses leaped quickly upon a beam, and straddling it crosswise, as if on horseback, he pulled off his clothes, the cherished gift of Calypso he then threw over his breast the girdle of Leucothöe, and stretching out his arms, he leapt into the sea, and commenced to swim towards the land. Neptune saw him, and shaking his head, 'Go now,' says he, wander upon the waves until you can reach the land where men, the children of Jupiter, inhabit.' And after saying these words, he disappeared and went into the temple of Egeum. Minerva then endeavoring to save Ulysses, whom she protected, restrained the blowing of the winds, except that of Boreas, so that driving the waves upon the shore of the Thracians, it would assist him in escaping death. 6 During two entire days and nights, Ulysses wandered about on the waves. Often his heart became discouraged, and anticipated death; but on the third day, the dawn appeared with a clear and serene sky. The wind was lulled and a calm was spread over the waters. He then saw the land; it was near; and he raised himself on the waves to observe it. Not when sweet life returns to a father who has for a long time been suffering from illness; when his sons see him cheered up after a long dejection, delivered at last by the gods, was more dear to the eyes of his sons, than was the sight of the land and the sweet verdure to the eyes of Ulysses. He swam, striving with his hands and feet to 6 reach this beloved land. But when he was not further than the reach of the human voice, he heard the noise of the sea breaking over the rocks on the shore. The waves roared in striking against the land, for there was no harbor, nor easy access to the shore. Ulysses began again to be afflicted Alas!' exclaimed he, after having seen the land which I feared I would never more see, after having crossed over the sea, can I find no way of getting out of the waves? All these rocks are steep, and the water which breaks over the banks raises an inaccessible wall. The sea is so deep that I cannot touch bottom with my feet any where. If the waves throw me against a rock, I cannot hold on to it; and if I swim further, who knows if I will find some harbor, or favorable creek? And then the storm may carry me off again to sea, or perhaps some hostile deity may send some monster like Amphitrite to devour me; for I know how terrible is the anger of Neptune against me.' "Thus thought Ulysses. But suddenly the waves pitched him on the shore. His body would have been broken and his flesh mangled, if Minerva had not inspired him to seize with both hands a rock, to which he clung groaning until it passed by. The wave passed, and he escaped the rock which he feared; but in returning, it carried him off, and threw him back into the sea; and as the polypus, drawn from the bottom of the sea, preserves in its broken filaments particles of sand and pebbles, so the skin of the hero stuck to the points of the rock which he had embraced. Carried off again into the sea, he was this time about to perish. Minerva advised him to swim a little further on, and he would arrive at the mouth of a river where the waters were calm and beautiful. There the shore had no rocks, and was sheltered from the winds. 'Hear me, whoever you are, beneficent River,' cried Ulysses; 'I come to you as a suppliant, who has narrowly escaped the anger of Neptune. The immortal gods themselves respect whoever, among men, comes wandering and weak as I am in approaching your waters, in embracing your knees after having suffered so much. Have pity upon me, O River! I am your guest and your suppliant!' "Thus prayed Ulysses; and the river, moved with pity, calmed its waters, and received him into her bosom. His knees were bent with fatigue, his arms fell exhausted by the side of his body, so much had he suffered from the sea. His limbs were swollen with pain, the briny waters streamed from his mouth and nostrils; he could not breathe or speak. However, by degrees he recovered his breath, his spirits revived, and then his first care was to remove from his breast the immortal girdle of Leucothöe, and to throw it back into the waves, without looking behind him. The waves carried it off, and the goddess received it in her hands; then Ulysses, going out of the river, sat himself down on the sedge on the shore, and kissed the land which preserves and nourishes We have not interrupted this admirable narrative by any reflections; but it is well to remark the singular art with which Homer has varied the incidents of his storm, and with what tact he managed to keep up the interest. There is only one individual, viz. Ulysses, who is always in danger; and yet his description is never monotonous, because it is, if we may so speak, divided into different pictures, which constantly excite the attention of the spectator. Thus, Ulysses is precipitated into the waves; but recovers himself by seizing his disabled ship; and it is there that Homer represents him weak, exhausted, wandering at the mercy of the winds and waves, but sustained by his courage, and fortunate in having escaped a horrible death; for Homer well knew that the sea and its waves, sometimes white and sometimes black, interest us no less than the sentiments of his hero. Other painters of tempests are absorbed in the description of the material accidents of the storm. Homer always exhibits man and human sentiments. When he introduces a goddess of the sea, the beautiful Leucothöe, who comes to assist Ulysses, he does not forget to tell us that she was once a mortal; and for this reason she takes pity on Ulysses, and wishes to save him. Her pity proceeds from the sympathy which she feels for the sufferings of the whole human family. If Leucothöe, in the tempest of Homer, has a superior part to that of Neptune, the persecutor of the hero, or of Minerva herself, who protects Ulysses, she owes it to her condition, half mortal and half goddess. She can do something for the safety of Ulysses, but she cannot do every thing. It is owing to this fact that she interests us, and it is for this cause that she does not destroy the interest which is attached to the hero. Virgil, in giving to the gods and goddesses the first characters in his tempest, perhaps believed that he would make the tempest more marvellous* and poetical, but he had made it less interesting. We admire the courage and industry of Ulysses, overcoming the violence of the storm, more than Neptune chiding Æolus, calming the agitated waves, and with a stroke of his trident drawing out vessels obstructed by the rocks, for it is easier to invent prodigies than to excite emotions. But this constitutes the merit of the tempest of Homer. It is not descriptive, like that of Ovid, nor mythological, like that of Virgil; it is full of man and his emotions, instead of being full of nature and its accidents, or of the gods and their miracles. The perils of Ulysses create all his interest, and nowhere in antiquity is the struggle of man against danger represented with more fidelity. In this struggle, such as Homer has represented it, man suffers much, but does not permit himself to be dejected; he resists, sustained by the love of life, and finally overcomes nature itself, by the force of industry and patience. It is a particular kind of courage, and the grandeur of which appears only in the denouement of the struggle, and by obtaining the victory; for, during the struggle, the hero does not hesitate to complain and lament. If we judge by his words, he seems weak and discouraged; but if we consider his actions, he is firm and indomitable. Some elevate themselves above danger by the power of resignation, and they seem to despise danger rather than to overcome it. But the patience of Ulysses by no means resembles Christian resignation: it is the triumph of industrious and intelligent firmness, which never desponds nor becomes weary, rather than the calmness which a confidence in God inspires. * Interea magno misceri murmure pontum dicto citius tumida æquora placat ENEID. A celebrated English romancer, Daniel De Foe, seems to have been inspired by Homer in the description of the storm which casts Robinson Crusoe on the desert island. There are, between the shipwreck of Ulysses and that of Robinson, points of resemblance which chance alone could not explain. The vessel of Robinson, we are aware, no more resembles the vessel of Ulysses than the marine of our time resembles that of the earliest days of navigation, and our mariners would perhaps laugh at the storms which made Ulysses tremble; but, sooner or later, there comes a time when all tempests resemble each other; when man, whether he be upon a bark decked like the vessels of the Greeks in the days of Ulysses, or upon a three-decked vessel, sees the sea face to face, and has no other resource but his courage to save himself. It is at this critical moment that there is a striking resemblance between the shipwreck of Ulysses and that of Robinson Crusoe; the details are the same, and so are the emotions. Like Ulysses, Robinson is cast violently against the shore by the sea, and in order to prevent the wave from carrying him off, he clings like Ulysses to a rock, letting the waves pass over his head until he has a little recovered his breath. De Foe has not forgotten to describe the inexpressible joy which Robinson experiences when, seated on the grass on the shore, he sees himself safe from the fury of the waves; and this joy recalls to our memory the joy of Ulysses seeing at a distance the land and its sweet verdure. But here we must remark a difference between the genius of the ancients and that of the moderns. The princpal object of the ancients was to describe, the moderns endeavor to explain; the ancients addressed themselves to the imagination, the moderns to the reaThus, when Homer wishes to give an idea of the joy of Ulysses in seeing the land, he does not undertake to explain the different sentiments which agitate his heart; he selects from the sweetest affections of humanity that which is most sacred, filial affection; and this same affection he seizes in a moment of the purest and liveliest joy, in the joy which the convalescence of a father causes to his devoted children. He takes care to explain this ineffable joy; and yet it is by the aid of this joy which he does not explain, that he gives us the idea of the joy of Ulysses. The comparison strengthens the idea rather than defines it. De Foe, on the contrary, endeavors to define the joy of Robinson by comparing it to son. |