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Show CONDENSED $ CLASSICS I I I HOMER'S ODYSSEY :j: t Condensation by .J. Prof. William Fenwick Harris .j. vji V-' , The Greek were prinres of iitovy-trlllnj?, iitovy-trlllnj?, and Homer "n their IiIdk. W ho he wnn and where he lived It one of the unanswered unan-swered question of hlNtory. Seven fltleN and more elnlllled him a their g r e a t e nt nource of pride. The moat we run be sure of 1m that to on bnve come down two of the ninny poeinH that benr his name, the Iliad and the OdynHey. I.Ike the Hebrew Rihle. thev hnve become pnrr of the herltnL-e of nnlverttal humanity. We enll them epic poemi) they are rather prrent historical romnnces. Hftrh linn n Htory of ItM own; In the Illnd It Iji the wrnth of Achillea nnlnNt KIuk Atrnnicmnon; In the OdyBHey It la the wrlndcrinRH of OdyHpeua on his way back from the wars at Troy. Back of them both tin remoter caune Ih the tale of the fntnl beauty of Helen. In enrh are Innumerable short stories, which bnve been storehouses of romances ro-mances for writers ever since first they became known. It Is one of the mnrvels of the Greeks that they step out of the mi-it of unrecorded history with a hlc-hly seveloped civilization, portrayed In two f the world's masterpieces of literature. litera-ture. The Greeks In later years wrote "lives" of Ilfimer with creat exnetness ad minute detail. They knew no more bout the "blind bard" than do we. Indeed, thc-y were not even sure that one poet wrote both tales. But that the stories were the work of supreme renins they were as sure as have been all men since their day who have read them. Homer was the Greeks "hest seller"; they fhronvred In thousands to hear him recited: their rellRlon. their thought, their cdti- ntlon were all bnsrd on him, nnder whose name Is told the frreat tory of their heroes. 5T IS the tenth year since Troy has fallrn. Though the Iliad did not so beyond the death of Hector at Achilles' hands, other stories carried on the tale through the death of Achilles, the capture of Troy by the Greeks by means of the strategera of the wooden horse, the sacking and burning of the city, the death of I'riam and his queen, the slavery of Andromache which Hector had fore-yen, fore-yen, the slaughter of the little son I o loved so dearly, the escape of .neas with his aged father. After the booty had been divided, r.e Greek chiefs took leisurely courses t-j their homes. The great King Aga-, uemnon sent his dramatic night let-' ler, announcing to his queen at home tv the light of flames leaping from hilltop to hilltop across the sea that Troy had fallen; for his pains he met Tie dramatic death at the hand of Queen Klytalmnestra which Aeschylus Aeschy-lus has made forever famous in his great play, "Agamemnon ;" the latter has in it the beginning of the story of Orestes, the close Greek counterpart counter-part of Hamlet. The king's brother, Henelaus, had better fortune; he had Journeyed homeward with his erstwhile erst-while Queen Helen, as if the great Trojan episode had never been, and waa reigning again in peace and quiet with the World's Desire by his side at Sparta, with no dread of a marauding maraud-ing Paris sent on the quest of beauty by Aphrodite. And so, too, the other princes had returned with varying fortunes. But not so the Great Adventurer. Troy had taken ten years to capture ; ten years more gtlll found the wily Odysseus detained In the Isle of Ogygia by the fair Calypso. Meanwhile Mean-while the patient Penelope bides at home, beset by the riotous suitors who make Liberty hall of the absent king's palace and would force the queen to wed. one of them. She, ever as alert and resourceful as her wandering lord, puts off her promise till she has woven a web of which she each night unravels what she has done during the day. ; This first great story of wandering adventure has a much more perfect saity than the Iliad. It centers closely close-ly afiottt tbe person of Odysseus, and divides itself Into three parts, .the ad-rentures ad-rentures of Telemaohus in quest of Odysseus, the wanderings of the hero, and his return home, where with the few still faithful to him he makes bimself his own detective, lays the scene for the destruction of the villains, vil-lains, and finally Drings about the happy ending which has so constantly distressed critics of the novel and the theater since man began to write and ordinary folk to listen cr to read. In the first chapter, which comprises the first four "books" of the Odyssey, young Telemachus, amidst the mock-cry mock-cry of the suitors, starts in quest of his father, and makes the rounds of the courts of our old friend Nestor, ting of Pylos, and of Menelaus and Helen at Sparta, where he learns the whereabouts of his father, and then starts homeward. At this moment It is at last made possible for Odysseus to start on his way home. But the sea, ever his enemy, again rlays him false, and he Is wrecked once more, though he is cast ashore on the land of the Phuea-clans. Phuea-clans. There begins In the land of this fabulous folk one of the most mar-volotis mar-volotis adventures of the man of marvels. mar-vels. Probably the scene that remains In the minds of the great majority of renders of Greek literature as the fairest bit of Idealized beauty in it ail Is the picture of the young Princess Nausicaa. She had gone down to the river mouth with her handmaidens to wash linen; their work done, they fell to playing ball upon the shore, whore Odysseus, beneath the shade of the bushes, was sleeping off the weary travail of his long swim. "Then having hav-ing bathed and anointed themselves sleekly with olive oil, they took their meal by the banks of the river and waited for the clothes to dry in the bright rays of the sun. And when they had cheered themselves with food, maids and mistress alike, they began to play ball, casting aside their veils. And for them fair-armed Nausicaa Nau-sicaa began the song. As Artemis the archer-goddess goeth down from a mountain, either lofty Taygetus or Erymanthus, taking her sport with boars and swift deer, and with her the wood-nymphs sport, daughters of aegis-bearing Zeus, and Leto rejoiceth in heart, and over all she holdeth head and brows, and easy to mark is she, though all be fairso was the unwed maid conspicuous among her attendants." The day's work and the sport were over; they were about to depart and leave the weary sleeper under the bushes when one last throw sent the ball spinning into the water. Instant and unanimous scream from princess and from maids ! So Odysseus was introduced to Phaeacia, and the introduction proved well that the hero knew not only the ways of men, but of maids as well. Of the many pleasing things he said to the princess to win her favor, one stands out conspicuous his comparison compari-son of her perfect youth to the young shoot of a palm tree he had seen in Delos. Whoever has a gardener's eye knows instantly the perfect tribute. Then followed the presentation of the royal wanderer at the court of King Alcinous and Queen Arete anc1 the tale of his adventures since leaving leav-ing Calypso's isle. The king is mover1 and promises to help the stranger or his way. A feast is held ; the cour" bard sings of Troy the strangei weeps; the king presses him to tell his story. It was a wondrous tale he had to tell, the like of which was never heard before or since. Beginning Begin-ning with the fall of Troy, he had made his course to Thrace, to the Lotus-eaters, to the land of the Cyclops, Cy-clops, when befell the adventure with Polyphemus, whose one eye he put out; next the trying experience with the perverse winds of Aeolus, with the Laestrygonians, and with the enchantress en-chantress Circe, who turned her vis-itors vis-itors into swine. Then came the tie- scent to Hades, which set the fashion for Virgil and for Dante nnd all the j others who have essayed that great ; adventure. The sirens, Scylla and : Charybdis, and other adventures I brought the tale up to Calypso once ; more. ! Alcinous and the Pliaeacians sent j Odysseus on his way to his home at Ithaca. But his old enemy Poseidon turned the ship to stone, and the wanderer wan-derer reached home alone, in the guise of an old beggarman, where he arrived as his son, Telemachus, was returning from his travels. I Then began the thrilling tale of the wiles and guiles to win his own from the suitors who had taken his place, the harbor of refuge with faithful old Eumaeus, the swine-herd, the recognition recog-nition by Telemachus, the death il the true old dog Argos on sight of his long absent master, the interview with Penelope, the recognition by his old nurse who knows him by a scar upon his leg, the final great trial of strength, between the old beggarman and tha i suitors ; they cannot even bend the famous bow of Eurytus; he, however, strings it with ease and sends an arrow singing through the holes of twelve battle-axes, set up one behind another. At that instant .the beggarmar throws off his disguise and with Telemachus Tele-machus and only two faithful followers follow-ers slays the evil suitors, wins back his true wife who has waited patiently patient-ly all these long years, and hastens to greet his old father, Laertes. Impossible romance? I dare say. Tet oDe of the most human stories ever told. Copyright, 1919. by the Post Publishing Co. (The Boston Post). Copyright in the United Kingdom, the Dominions, its Colonies Col-onies and dependencies, under the copyright copy-right act. by the Post Publishing Co.. Boston, Mass., U. S. A. All rights reserved. |