No More Learning

But our anger is dissolved in tears, when at last, feeling sure that her husband and none other is there verily before her eyes, she flings her arms around him in that long and close embrace.
Homer, even in this supreme moment, has sustained her character by a trait which, however delicate, can hardly escape notice. Her lord is weary and would fain seek the solace of his couch. But he has dropped a hint that still more labors are in store for him. Then Penelope replies that his couch is ready at all times and whensoever he may need; no hurry about that. Meanwhile, she would like to hear the prophecy of Teiresias. Helen, the bondwoman of dame Aphrodite, would not have waited thus upon the edge of love's delight,
long looked for with strained widow's eyes. Yet it would be unfair to Penelope to dwell only on this prudent and somewhat frigid aspect of her character. She is perhaps most amiable when she descends among the suitors, and prays Phemius to cease from singing of the heroes who returned from Troy. It is more than she can bear to sit weaving in the silent chamber mid her damsels, listening to the shrill sound of the lyre and hearing how other men have reached their homes, while on the waves Odysseus still wanders, and none knows whether he be alive or dead.
It may be noticed that just as Helen is a mate meet for easily persuaded Menelaus and luxurious Paris, so Penelope matches the temper of theastute, enduring, persevering Odys
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seus. As a creature of the fancy, she is far less fascinating than Helen ; and this the poet seems to have felt, for side by side with Penelope in the Odyssey he has placed the attractive forms of Circe, Calypso, and Nausicaa. The gain is double. Not only are the hearers of the romance gladdened by the con trast of these graceful women with the somewhat elegiac figure of Penelope, but the character of Odysseus for constancy is greatly enhanced. How fervent must the love of home have been in the man who could quit Calypso, after seven years' sojourn, for the sake of a wife grown gray with twenty widowed years ! Odysseus tells Calypso to her face that she is far fairer than his wife, " I know well that Penelope is inferior to thee in form and stature, to the eyes of men. " But what Odysseus leaves unsaid — the grace of the first woman who possessed his soul — constrains him with a deeper, tenderer power than any of Calypso's charms. Penelope, meanwhile, is pleading that her beauty in the absence of her lord has perished, "Of a truth my goodliness and beauty of person the gods destroyed what time the Argives went up into Troy town. "
These two meet at last together, he after his long wander ings, and she having suffered the insistence of the suitors in her palace ; and this is the pathos of the Odyssey. The woman, in spite of her withered youth and tearful years of widowhood, is still expectant of her lord. He, unconquered by the pleas ures cast across his path, unterrified by all the dangers he en dures, clings in thought to the bride whom he led forth, a blushing maiden, from her father's halls. O just, subtle, and mighty Homer ! There is nothing of Greek here more than of Hebrew, or of Latin, or of German. It is pure humanity.
Calypso is not a woman, but a goddess. She feeds upon ambrosia and nectar, while her maidens spread before Odysseus the food of mortals. Between her and Hermes there is recog nition at first sight ; for god knows god, however far apart their paths may lie. Yet the love that Calypso bears Odysseus brings this daughter of Atlas down to earth ; and we may reckon her among the women of Homer. How mysterious, as the Greek genius apprehended mystery, is her cavern, hidden far away in the isle Ogygia, with the grove of forest trees before it and the thick vine flourishing around its mouth. Meadows of snowflake and close-flowering selinus gird it
round ; and on the branches brood all kinds of birds. Under those trees, gazing across the ocean, in the still light of the
336 THE WOMEN OF HOMER.
evening star, Odysseus wept for his far-distant home. Then, heavy at heart, he gathered up his raiment, and climbed into Calypso's bed at night. "For the nymph pleased him no longer. Nathless, as need was, he slept the night in hollow caverns, beside her loving him who loved her not. "
To him the message of Hermes recalling him to labor on the waves was joy ; but to the nymph herself it brought mere bitterness : " Hard are ye, gods, and envious above all, who grudge that goddesses should couch thus openly with mortal men, if one should make a dear bedfellow for herself. For so the rosy-fingered morning chose Orion, till ye gods that lead an easy life grew jealous, and in Ogygia him the golden-throned maid Artemis slew with her kind arrows. " This wail of the immortal nymph Calypso for her roving spouse of seven short years has a strange pathos in it. It seems to pass across the sea like a sigh of winds awakened, none knows how, in summer midnight, that swells and dies far off upon moon-silvered waves. The clear human activity of Odysseus cuts the everlasting calm of Calypso like a knife, shredding the veil that hides her from the eyes of mortals. Then he fares onward to resume the toils of real existence in a land whereof she nothing knows. There is a fragment of his last speech to Penelope, which sounds like an echo of Calypso's lamentation. " Death," he says, " shall some day rise for me, tranquil from the tranquil deep, and I shall die in delicate old age. " We seem to feel that in his last trance Odysseus might have heard the far-off divine sweet voice of Calypso calling him, and have hastened to her cry.
Circe is by no means so mysterious as Calypso. Yet she belongs to one of the most interesting families in Greek ro mance. Her mother was Perse, daughter of Oceanus; her father was Helios; she is own sister, therefore, to the Colchian iEetes, and aunt of the redoubtable Medea. She lives in the isle of Jiaea, not, like Calypso, deep embowered in groves, but in a fair open valley sweeping downward to the sea, whence her hearth smoke may be clearly descried. Nor is her home an ivy-curtained cavern of the rocks, but a house well built of polished stone, protected from the sea winds by oak woods. Here she dwells in grand style, with nymphs of the streams and forests to attend upon her, and herds of wild beasts, human-hearted, roaming through her park. Odysseus always speaks of her with respect. Like Calypso, she has a fair shrill
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voice that goes across the waters, and as her fingers ply the shuttle, she keeps singing through the summer air. By virtue of her birthright, as a daughter of the sun, she understands the properties of plant and drug. Poppy and henbane and man- dragora — all herbs of subtle juice that draw soul-quelling poison from the fat earth and the burning sun — are hers to use as she thinks fit. And the use she makes of them is mali cious; for, fairylike and wanton, she will have the men who visit her across the seas submit their reason to her lure. There fore she turns them to swine; and the lions and wolves of the mountain she tames in like manner, so that they fawn and curl their long tails and have no heart to ravin any more.
Circe is not made out particularly wicked or malignant. She is acting only after her kind, like some beautiful but bale ful plant — a wreath, for instance, of red briony berries, whereof if children eat, they perish. The world has lived long and suffered much and grown greatly since the age of Homer. We cannot be so naif and childlike any longer. Yet the true charm of Circe in the Odyssey, the spirit that distinguishes her from Tannhaiiser's Venus and Orlando's Fata Morgana and Rug- giero's Alcina and Tancred's Armida, lies just in this, that the poet has passed so lightly over all the dark and perilous places of his subject. This delicacy of touch can never be regained by art. It belonged to the conditions of the first Hellenic bloom of fancy, to suggest without insistence and to realize without emphasis. Impatient readers may complain of want of depth and character. They would fain see the Circe of the Odyssey as strongly moralized as the Medea of Euripides. But in Homer only what is human attains to real intensity. The marvelous falls off and shades away into soft air tints and delightful dreams. Still, it requires the interposition of the gods to save Odysseus from the charms of the malicious maid. Odysseus's sword and strong will must do the rest. When Circe has once found her match, we are astonished at the bon homie which she displays. The game is over. There remains nothing but graceful hospitality on her part, — elegant banquets, delicious baths, soft beds, the restoration of the ship's crew to their proper shape, and a store of useful advice for the future.
One more female figure from the Odyssey remains as yet untouched ; and this is the most beautiful of all. Nausicaa has no legendary charm; she is neither mystic goddess nor weird woman, nor is hers the dignity of wifehood. She is
vol. ii. — 22
338 THE WOMEN OF HOMER.
simply the most perfect maiden, the purest, freshest, lightest- hearted girl of Greek romance. Odysseus passes straight from the solitary island of Ogygia, where elm and poplar and cy press overshadow Calypso's cavern, into the company of this real woman. It is like coming from a land of dreams into a dewy garden when the sun has risen: the waves through which he has fared upon his raft have wrought for him, as it were, a rough reincarnation into the realities of human life. For the sea brine is the source of vigor; and into the deep he has cast, together with Calypso's raiment, all memory of her.
A prettier picture cannot be conceived than that drawn by Homer of Nausicaa with her handmaidens thronging together in the cart, which jogs downward through the olive gardens to the sea. The princess holds the whip and drives ; and when she reaches the stream's mouth by the beach, she loosens the mules from the shafts, and turns them out to graze in the deep meadow. Then the clothes are washed, and the luncheon is taken from the basket, and the game of ball begins. How the ball flew aside and fell into the water, and how the shrill cries of the damsels woke Odysseus from his sleep, every one remem bers. The girls are fluttered by the sight of the great naked man, rugged with brine and bruised with shipwreck. Nausicaa alone, as becomes a princess, stands her ground and questions him. The simple delicacy with which this situation is treated makes the whole episode one of the most charming in Homer. Nothing can be prettier than the change from pity to admira tion, expressed by the damsel, when Odysseus has bathed in running water, and rubbed himself with oil and put on goodly
raiment given him by the girls. Pallas sheds treble grace upon his form, and makes his hair to fall in clusters like hyacinth blossoms, so that an artist who molds figures of gilt silver could not shape a comelier statue. The princess, with yester night's dream still in her soul, wishes he would stay and be her husband.
The girlish simplicity of Nausicaa is all the more attractive because the Phaeacians are the most luxurious race described by Homer. From this soft, luxurious, comely, pleasure-loving folk Nausicaa springs up like a pure blossom — anemone or lily of the mountains. She has all the sweetness of temper which distinguishes Alcinous ; but the voluptuous living of her people has not spoiled her. The maidenly reserve which she displays in her first reception of Odysseus, her prudent avoid ance of being seen with him in the streets of the town while he
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ia yet a stranger, and the care she takes that he shall suffer nothing by not coming with her to the palace, complete the portrait of a girl who is as free from coquetry as she is from prudishness. Perhaps she strikes our fancy with most clear ness when, after bathing and dressing, Odysseus passes her on his way through the hall to the banquet. She leaned against the pillar of the roof and gazed upon Odysseus, and said, " Hail, guest, and be thou mindful of me when perchance thou art in thine own land again, for to me the first thou dost owe the price of life. " This is the last word spoken by Nausicaa in the Odyssey. She is not mentioned among the Phseacians who took leave of the hero the day he passed to Ithaca.
Andromache offers a not inapt illustration to these remarks. She is beautiful, as all heroic women are ; and Homer tells us she is "white-armed. " We know no more about her person than this ; and her character is exhibited only in the famous parting scene and in the two lamentations which she pours forth for her husband. Yet who has read the Iliad without carrying away a distinct conception of this, the most lovable among the women of Homer ? She owes her character far less to what she does and what she says than to how she looks in that ideal picture painted on our memory by Homer's verse. The affection of Hector for his wife, no less distinguished than the passion of Achilles for his friend, has made the Trojan prince rather than his Greek rival the hero of modern romance. When he leaves Dion to enter on the long combat which ends in the death of Patroclus, the last thought of Hector is for Andromache. He finds her, not in their home, but on the wall, attended by her nurse, who carries in her arms his only son, — "Hector's only son, like unto a fair star. "
" Her first words, after she has wept and clasped him, are :
Love, thy stout heart will be thy death, nor hast thou pity of thy child or me, who soon shall be a widow. My father and my mother and my brothers are all slain ; but, Hector, thou art father to me and mother and brother, and thou, too, art the husband of my youth. Have pity, then, and stay here in the tower, lest thy son be orphaned and thy wife a widow. " The answer is worthy of the hero. "Full well," he says, " know I that Troy will fall, and I foresee the sorrow of my brethren and the king ; but for these I grieve not : to think of thee, a slave in Argos, unmans me almost ; yet even so I will not flinch or shirk the fight. My duty calls, and I must away. " He stretches out his mailed arms to Astyanax, but the
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child is frightened by his nodding plumes. So he lays aside his helmet, and takes the baby to his breast, and prays for him. Andromache smiles through her tears, and down the clanging causeway strides the prince. Poor Andromache has nothing left to do but to return home and raise the dirge for a husband as good as dead.
When we see her again in the 22d Iliad, she is weaving, and her damsels are heating a bath against Hector's return from the fight. Then suddenly the cry of Hecuba's anguish thrills her ears. Shuttle and thread drop from her hands ; she gathers up her skirts, and like a Maenad flies forth to the wall. She arrives in time to see her husband's body dragged through dust at Achilles' chariot wheels away from Troy. She faints, and when she wakes it is to utter the most piteous lament in Homer — not, however, for Hector so much, or for herself, as for Astyanax. He who was reared upon a father's knees and fed with marrow and the fat of lambs, and, when play tired him, slept in soft beds among nursing women, will now roam, an orphan, wronged and unbefriended, hunted from the com pany of happier men, or fed by charity with scanty scraps. And to the same theme Andromache returns in the vocero which she pours forth over the body of Hector. " I shall be a widow and a slave, and Astyanax will either be slaughtered by Greek soldiers or set to base service in like bondage. " Then the sight of the corpse reminds her that the last words of her sorrow must be paid to Hector himself. What touches her most deeply is the thought of death in battle, —
For, dying, thou didst not reach to me thy hand from the bed, nor say to me words of wisdom, the which I might have aye remem bered night and day with tears.
ODYSSEUS AND POLYPHEMUS. (Translated from the Odyssey by S. H. Butcher and Andrew Lang. )
"And we came to the land of the Cyclopes, a froward and a lawless folk, who trusting to the deathless gods plant not aught with their hands, neither plow : but, behold, all these things spring for them in plenty, unsown and untilled, wheat, and barley, and vines, which bear great clusters of the juice of the grape, and the rain of Zeus gives them increase. These have neither gatherings for council nor oracles of law, but they
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dwell in hollow caves on the crests of the high hills, and each one utters the law to his children and his wives, and they reck not one of another.
"Now there is a waste isle stretching without the harbor of the land of the Cyclopes, neither nigh at hand nor yet afar off, a woodland isle, wherein are wild goats unnumbered, for no path of men scares them, nor do hunters resort thither who suffer hardships in the wood, as they range the mountain crests. Moreover it is possessed neither by flocks nor by plowed lands, but the soil lies unsown evermore and untilled, desolate of men, and feeds the bleating goats. For the Cyclopes have by them no ships with vermilion cheek, not yet are there shipwrights in the island, who might fashion decked barks, which should accomplish all their desire, voyaging to the towns of men (as ofttimes men cross the sea to one another in ships), who might likewise have made of their isle a goodly settlement. Yea, it is in no wise a sorry land, but would bear all things in their season ; for therein are soft water meadows by the shores of the gray salt sea, and there the vines know no decay, and the land is level to plow ; thence might they reap a crop exceeding deep in due season, for verily there is fatness beneath the soil. Also there is a fair haven, where is no need of moorings, either to cast anchor or to fasten hawsers, but men may run the ship on the beach, and tarry until such time as the sailors are minded to be gone, and favorable breezes blow. Now at the head of the harbor is a well of bright water issuing from a cave, and round it are poplars growing. Thither we sailed, and some god guided us through the night, for it was dark and there was no light to see, a mist lying deep about the ships, nor did the moon show her light from heaven, but was shut in with clouds. No man then beheld that island, neither saw we the long waves rolling to the beach, till we had run our decked ships ashore. And when our ships were beached, we took down all their sails, and ourselves too stept forth upon the strand of the sea, and there we fell into sound sleep and waited for the bright Dawn.
" So soon as early Dawn shone forth, the rosy-fingered, in wonder at the island we roamed over the length thereof : and the Nymphs, the daughters of Zeus, lord of the Eegis, started the wild goats of the hills, that my company might have where with to sup. Anon we took to us our curved bows from out the ships and long spears, and arrayed in three bands we began shooting at the goats ; and the god soon gave us game in
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plenty. Now twelve ships bare me company, and to each ship
fell nine goats for a portion, but for me alone they set ten
apart.
" Thus we sat there the livelong day until the going down of
the sun, feasting on abundant flesh and on sweet wine. For the red wine was not yet spent from out the ships, but somewhat was yet therein, for we had each one drawn off large store thereof in jars, when we took the sacred citadel of the Cicones. And we looked across to the land of the Cyclopes who dwell nigh, and to the smoke, and to the voice of the men, and of the sheep and of the goats. And when the sun had sunk and darkness had come on, then we laid us to rest upon the seabeach. So soon as early Dawn shone forth, the rosy-fingered, then I called a gathering of my men, and spake among them all : —
" ' Abide here all the rest of you, my dear companions ; but I will go with mine own ship and my ship's company, and make proof of these men, what manner of folk they are, whether fro- ward, and wild, and unjust, or hospitable and of god-fearing mind. '
" So I spake, and I climbed the ship's side, and bade my company themselves to mount, and to loose the hawsers. So they soon embarked and sat upon the benches, and sitting orderly smote the gray sea water with their oars. Now when we had come to the land that lies hard by, we saw a cave on the border near the sea, lofty and roofed over with laurels, and there many flocks of sheep and goats were used to rest. And about it a high outer court was built with stones, deep bedded, and with tall pines and oaks with their high crown of leaves. And a man was wont to sleep therein, of monstrous size, who shepherded his flocks alone and afar, and was not conversant with others, but dwelt apart in lawlessness of mind. Yea, for he was a monstrous thing and fashioned marvelously, nor was he like to any man that lives by bread, but like a wooded peak of the towering hills, which stands out apart and alone from others.
" Then I commanded the rest of my well-loved company to tarry there by the ship, and to guard the ship, but I chose out twelve men, the best of my company, and sallied forth. Now I had with me a goatskin of the dark wine and sweet, which Maron, son of Euanthes, had given me, the priest of Apollo, the god that watched over Ismarus. And he gave it, for that we had protected him with his wife and child reverently;
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for ho dwelt in a thick grove of Phoebus Apollo. And he made me splendid gifts ; he gave me seven talents of gold well wrought, and he gave me a mixing bowl of pure silver, and furthermore wine which he drew off in twelve jars in all, sweet wine unmingled, a draught divine ; nor did any of his servants or of his handmaids in the house know thereof, but himself and his dear wife and one house dame only. And as often as they drank that red wine honey sweet, he would fill one cup and pour it into twenty measures of water, and a marvelous sweet smell went up from the mixing bowl: then truly it was no pleasure to refrain.
" With this wine I filled a great skin, and bare it with me, and corn too I put in a wallet, for my lordly spirit straightway had a boding that a man would come to me, a strange man, clothed in mighty strength, one that knew not judgment and justice.
" Soon we came to the cave, but we found him not within ; he was shepherding his fat flocks in the pastures. So we went into the cave, and gazed on all that was therein. The baskets were well laden with cheeses, and the folds were thronged with lambs and kids ; each kind was penned by itself, the firstlings apart, and the summer lambs apart, apart too the younglings of the flock. Now all the vessels swam with whey, the milk pails and the bowls, the well- wrought vessels whereinto he milked. My company then spake and besought me first of all to take of the cheeses and to return, and afterwards to make haste and drive off the kids and lambs to the swift ships from out of the pens, and to sail over the salt sea water. Howbeit I hearkened not (and far better would it have been), but waited to see the giant himself, and whether he would give me gifts as a stranger's due. " Yet was not his coming to be with joy to my company.
Then we kindled a fire, and made burnt offering, and our selves likewise took of the cheeses, and did eat, and sat waiting for him within till he came back, shepherding his flocks. And he bore a grievous weight of dry wood, against supper time. This log he cast down with a din inside the cave, and in fear we fled to the secret place of the rock. As for him, he drave his fat flocks into the wide cavern, even all that he was wont to milk ; but the males both of the sheep and of the goats he left without in the deep yard. Thereafter he lifted a huge door- stone and weighty, and set it in the mouth of the cave, such an one as two and twenty good four-wheeled wains could not raise
ODYSSEUS AND POLYPHEMUS.
from the ground, so mighty a sheer rock did he set against the doorway. Then he sat down and milked the ewes and bleating goats all orderly, and beneath each ewe he placed her young. And anon he curdled one half of the white milk, and massed it together, and stored it in wicker baskets, and the other half he let stand in pails, that he might have it to take and drink against supper time. Now when he had done all his work busily, then he kindled the fire anew, and espied us, and made question : —
"'Strangers, who are ye? Whence sail ye over the wet ways ? On some trading enterprise or at adventure do ye rove, even as sea robbers over the brine, for at hazard of their own lives they wander, bringing bale to alien men. '
" So spake he, but as for us our heart within us was broken for terror of the deep voice and his own monstrous shape ; yet despite all I answered and spake unto him, saying : —
" ' Lo, we are Achaeans, driven wandering from Troy, by all manner of winds over the great gulf of the sea ; seeking our homes we fare, but another path have we come, by other ways : even such, methinks, was the will and the counsel of Zeus. And we avow us to be the men of Agamemnon, son of Atreus, whose fame is even now the mightiest under heaven, so great a city did he sack, and destroyed many people ; but as for us we have lighted here, and come to these thy knees, if perchance thou wilt give us a stranger's gift, or make any present, as is the due of strangers. Nay, lord, have regard to the gods, for we are thy suppliants ; and Zeus is the avenger of suppliants and sojourners, Zeus, the god of the stranger, who fareth in the company of reverend strangers. '
" So I spake, and anon he answered out of his pitiless heart : ' Thou art witless, my stranger, or thou hast come from afar, who biddest me either to fear or shun the gods. For the Cy clopes pay no heed to Zeus, lord of the aegis, nor to the blessed gods, for verily we are better men than they. Nor would I, to shun the enmity of Zeus, spare either thee or thy company, unless my spirit bade me. But tell me where thou didst stay thy well-wrought ship on thy coming? Was it perchance at the far end of the island, or hard by, that I may know ? '
" So he spake tempting me, but he cheated me not, who knew full much, and I answered him again with words of guile : " ' As for my ship, Poseidon, shaker of the earth, brake it to pieces, for he cast it upon the rocks at the border of your
ODYSSEUS AND POLYPHEMUS. 345
" So I spake, and out of his pitiless heart he answered me not a word, but sprang up, and laid his hands upon my fellows, and clutching two together dashed them, as they had been whelps, to the earth, and the brain flowed forth upon the ground, and the earth was wet. Then cut he them up piece meal, and made ready his supper. So he ate even as a moun tain-bred lion, and ceased not, devouring entrails and flesh and bones with their marrow. And we wept and raised our hands to Zeus, beholding the cruel deeds ; and we were at our wits' end.
And after the Cyclops had filled his huge maw with human flesh and the milk he drank thereafter, he lay within the cave, stretched out among his sheep.
country, and brought it nigh the headland, and a wind bare it thither from the sea. But I with these my men escaped from utter doom. '
" So I took counsel in my great heart, whether I should draw near, and pluck my sharp sword from my thigh, and stab him in the breast, where the midriff holds the liver, feeling for the place with my hand. But my second thought withheld me, for so should we too have perished even there with utter doom. For we should not have prevailed to roll away with our hands from the lofty door the heavy stone which he set there. So for that time we made moan, awaiting the bright Dawn.
"Now when early Dawn shone forth, the rosy-fingered, again he kindled the fire and milked his goodly flocks all orderly, and beneath each ewe set her lamb. Anon when he had done all his work busily, again he seized yet other two men and made ready his midday meal. And after the meal, lightly he moved away the great doorstone, and drave his fat flocks forth from the cave, and afterwards he set it in his place again, as one might set the lid on a quiver. Then with a loud whoop, the Cyclops turned his fat flocks towards the hills ; but I was left devising evil in the deep of my heart, if in any wise I might avenge me, and Athene grant me renown.
" And this was the counsel that showed best in my sight. There lay by a sheepfold a great club of the Cyclops, a club of olive wood, yet green, which he had cut to carry with him when it should be seasoned. Now when we saw it we likened it in size to the mast of a black ship of twenty oars, a wide merchant vessel that traverses the great sea gulf, so huge it was to view in bulk and length. I stood thereby and cut off from it a portion as it were a fathom's length, and set it by my
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fellows, and bade them fine it down, and they made it even, while I stood by and sharpened it to a point, and straightway I took it and hardened it in the bright fire. Then I laid it well away, and hid it beneath the dung, which was scattered in great heaps in the depths of the cave. And I bade my company cast lots among them, which of them should risk the adventure with me, and lift the bar and turn it about in his eye, when sweet sleep came upon him. And the lot fell upon those four whom I myself would have been fain to choose, and I appointed my self to be the fifth among them. In the evening he came shepherding his flocks of goodly fleece, and presently he drave his fat flocks into the cave each and all, nor left he any without in the deep courtyard, whether through some foreboding, or perchance that the god so bade him do. Thereafter he lifted the huge doorstone and set it in the mouth of the cave, and sitting down he milked the ewes and bleating goats, all orderly, and beneath each ewe he placed her young. Now when he had done all his work busily, again he seized yet other two and
made ready his supper. Then I stood by the Cyclops and spake to him, holding in my hands an ivy bowl of the dark wine : —
"'Cyclops, take and drink wine after thy feast of man's meat, that thou mayest know what manner of drink this was that our ship held. And lo, I was bringing it thee as a drink offering, if haply thou mayest take pity and send me on my way home, but thy mad rage is past all sufferance. O hard of heart, how may another of the many men there be come ever to thee again, seeing that thy deeds have been lawless? '
"So I spake, and he took the cup and drank it off, and found great delight in drinking the sweet draught, and asked me for it yet a second time : —'
" ' Give it me again of thy grace, and tell me thy name straightway, that I may give thee a stranger's gift, wherein thou mayest be glad. Yea for the earth, the grain giver, bears for the Cyclopes the mighty clusters of the juice of the grape, and the rain of Zeus gives them increase, but this is a rill of very nectar and ambrosia. '
"So he spake, and again I handed him the dark wine. Thrice I bare and gave it him, and thrice in his folly he drank it to the lees. Now when the wine had got about the wits of the Cyclops, then did I speak to him with soft words : —
" ' Cyclops, thou askest me my renowned name, and I will declare it unto thee, and do thou grant me a stranger's gift, as
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thou didst promise. Noman is my name, and Noman they call me, my father and my mother and all my fellows. '
"So I spake, and straightway he answered me out of his pitiless heart : —
" ' Noman will I eat last in the number of his fellows, and the others before him : that shall be thy gift. '
" Therewith he sank backwards and fell with face upturned, and there he lay with his great neck bent round, and sleep, that conquers all men, overcame him. And the wine and the fragments of men's flesh issued forth from his mouth, and he vomited, being heavy with wine. Then I thrust in that stake under the deep ashes, until it should grow hot, and I spake to my companions comfortable words, lest any should hang back from me in fear. But when that bar of olive wood was just about to catch fire in the flame, green though it was, and began to glow terribly, even then I came nigh, and drew it from the coals, and my fellows gathered about me, and some god breathed great courage into us. For their part they seized the bar of olive wood, that was sharpened at the point, and thrust it into his eye, while I from my place aloft turned it about, as when a man bores a ship's beam with a drill while his fellows below spin it with a strap, which they hold at either end, and the auger runs round continually. Even so did we seize the fiery- pointed brand and whirled it round in his eye, and the blood flowed about the heated bar. And the breath of the flame singed his eyelids and brows all about, as the ball of the eye burnt away, and the roots thereof crackled in the flame. And as when a smith dips an ax or an adz in chill water with a great hissing, when he would temper it — for hereby anon comes the strength of iron — even so did his eye hiss round the stake of olive. And he raised a great and terrible cry, that the rock rang around, and we fled away in fear, while he plucked forth
from his eye the brand bedabbled in much blood. Then mad dened with pain he cast it from him with his hands, and called with a loud voice on the Cyclopes, who dwelt about him in the caves along the windy heights. And they heard the cry and flocked together from every side, and gathering round the cave asked him what ailed him : —
" ' What hath so distressed thee, Polyphemus, that thou criest thus aloud through the immortal night, and makest us sleepless ? Surely no mortal driveth off thy flocks against thy will : surely none slayeth thyself by force or craft? '
348 ODYSSEUS AND POLYPHEMUS.
" And the strong Polyphemus spake to them again from out the cave : ' My friends, Noman is slaying me by guile, nor at
all by force. '
" And they answered and spake winged words : '
If then no man is violently handling thee in thy solitude, it can in no wise be that thou shouldest escape the sickness sent by mighty Zeus.
Nay, pray thou to thy father, the lord Poseidon. '
" On this wise they spake and departed ; and my heart within
me laughed to see how my name and cunning counsel had be guiled them. But the Cyclops, groaning and travailing in pain, groped with his hands, and lifted away the stone from the door of the cave, and himself sat in the entry, with arms outstretched to catch, if he might, any one that was going forth with his sheep, so witless, methinks, did he hope to find me. But I advised me how all might be for the very best, if perchance I might find a way of escape from death for my companions and myself, and I wove all manner of craft and counsel, as a man will for his life, seeing that great mischief was nigh. And this was the counsel that showed best in my sight. The rams of the flock were well nurtured and thick of fleece, great and goodly, with wool dark as the violet. Quietly I lashed them together with twisted withies, whereon the Cyclops slept, that lawless monster. Three together I took : now the middle one of the three would bear each a man, but the other twain went on either side, saving my fellows. Thus every three sheep bare their man. But as for me I laid hold of the back of a young ram who was far the best and the goodliest of all the flock, and curled beneath his shaggy belly there I lay, and so clung face upward, grasping the wondrous fleece with a steadfast heart. So for that time making moan we awaited the bright Dawn.
" So soon as early Dawn shone forth, the rosy-fingered, then did the rams of the flock hasten forth to pasture, but the ewes bleated unmilked about the pens, for their udders were swollen to bursting. Then their lord, sore stricken with pain, felt along the backs of all the sheep as they stood up before him, and guessed not in his folly how that my men were bound beneath the breasts of his thick-fleeced flocks. Last of all the sheep came forth the ram, cumbered with his wool, and the weight of me and my cunning. And the strong Polyphemus laid his hands on him and spake to him, saying : —
" ' Dear ram, wherefore, I pray thee, art thou the last of all the flocks to go forth from the cave, who of old wast not wont
ODYSSEUS AND POLYPHEMUS. 349
to lag behind the sheep, but wert ever the foremost to pluck the tender blossom of the pasture, faring with long strides, and wert still the first to come to the streams of the rivers, and first didst long to return to the homestead in the evening. But now art thou the very last. Surely thou art sorrowing for the eye of thy lord, which an evil man blinded, with his accursed fel lows, when he had subdued my wits with wine, even Noman, whom I say hath not yet escaped destruction. Ah, if thou couldst feel as I, and be endued with speech, to tell me where he shifts about to shun my wrath ; then should he be smitten, and his brains be dashed against the floor here and there about the cave, and my heart be lightened' of the sorrows which Noman, nothing worth, hath brought me !
" Therewith he sent the ram forth from him, and when we had gone but a little way from the cave and from the yard, first I loosed myself from under the ram and then I set my fellows free. And swiftly we drave on those stiff-shanked sheep, so rich in fat, and often turned to look about, till we came to the ship. And a glad sight to our fellows were we that had fled from death, but the others they would have bemoaned with tears ; howbeit I suffered it not, but with frowning brows forbade each man to weep. Rather I bade them to cast on board the many sheep with goodly fleece, and to sail over the salt sea water. So they embarked forthwith, and sat upon the benches, and sitting orderly smote the gray sea water with their oars. But when I had not gone so far, but that a man's shout might be heard, then I spoke unto the Cyclops taunting him : —
" ' Cyclops, so thou wert not to eat the company of a weak ling by main might in thy hollow cave ! Thine evil deeds were very sure to find thee out, thou cruel man, who hadst no shame to eat thy guests within thy gates, wherefore Zeus hath requited thee, and the other gods. '
"So I spake, and he was yet the more angered at heart, and he brake off the peak of a great hill and threw it at us, and it fell in front of the dark-prowed ship. And the sea heaved beneath the fall of the rock, and the backward flow of the wave bare the ship quickly to the dry land, with the wash from the deep sea, and drave it to the shore. Then I caught up a long pole in my hands, and thrust the ship from off the land, and roused my company, and with a motion of the head bade them dash in with their oars, that so we might
350 ODYSSEUS AND POLYPHEMUS.
escape our evil plight. So they bent to their oars and rowed on. But when we had now made twice the distance over the brine, I would fain have spoken to the Cyclops, but my com pany stayed me on every side with soft words, saying : —
" ' Foolhardy that thou art, why wouldst thou rouse a wild man to wrath, who even now hath cast so mighty a throw towards the deep and brought our ship back to land, yea and we thought that we had perished even there? If he had heard any of us utter sound or speech, he would have crushed our heads and our ship timbers with a cast of a rugged stone, so mightily he hurls. '
" So spake they, but they prevailed not on my lordly spirit, and I answered him again from out an angry heart : —
" ' Cyclops, if any one of mortal men shall ask thee of the unsightly blinding of thine eye, say that it was Odysseus that blinded it, the waster of cities, son of Laertes, whose dwelling is in Ithaca. '
" So I spake, and with a moan he answered me, saying : —
" ' Lo now, in very truth the ancient oracles have come upon me. There lived here a soothsayer, a noble man and a mighty, Telemus, son of Eurymus, who surpassed all men in soothsaying, and waxed old as a seer among the Cyclopes. He told me that all these things should come to pass in the aftertime, even that I should lose my eyesight at the hand of Odysseus. But I ever looked for some tall and goodly man to come hither, clad in great might, but behold now one that is a dwarf, a man of no worth and a weakling, hath blinded me of my eye after subduing me with wine. Nay, come hither, Odysseus, that I may set by thee a stranger's cheer, and speed thy parting hence, that so the Earth Shaker may vouchsafe it thee, for his son am I, and he avows him for my father. And he himself will heal me, if it be his will ; and none other of the blessed gods or of mortal men. '
" Even so he spake, but I answered him, and said : ' Would god that I were as sure to rob thee of soul and life, and send thee within the house of Hades, as I am that not even the Earth Shaker will heal thine eye ! '
" So I spake, and then he prayed to the lord Poseidon stretch ing forth his hands to the starry heaven : ' Hear me, Poseidon, girdler of the earth, god of the dark hair, if indeed I be thine, and thou avowest thee my sire, — grant that he may never come to his home, even Odysseus, waster of cities, the son of
ODYSSEUS AND POLYPHEMUS. 351
Laertes, whose dwelling is in Ithaca ; yet if he is ordained to see his friends and come unto his well-builded house, and his own country, late may he come in evil case, with the loss of all his company, in the ship of strangers and find sorrows in his house. '
"So he spake in prayer, and the god of the dark locks heard him. And once again he lifted a stone, far greater than the first, and with one swing he hurled it, and he put forth a measureless strength, and cast it but a little space behind the dark-prowed ship, and all but struck the end of the rudder. And the sea heaved beneath the fall of the rock, but the wave bare on the ship and drave it to the further shore.
" But when we had now reached that island, where all our other decked ships abode together, and our company were gathered sorrowing, expecting us evermore, on our coming thither we ran our ship ashore upon the sand, and ourselves too stept forth upon the seabeach. Next we took forth the sheep of the Cyclops from out the hollow ship, and divided them, that none through me might go lacking his proper share. But the ram for me alone my goodly-greaved company chose out, in the dividing of the sheep, and on the shore I offered him up to Zeus, even to the son of Cronos, who dwells in the dark clouds, and is lord of all, and I burnt the slices of the thighs. But he heeded not the sacrifice, but was devising how my decked ships and my dear company might perish utterly. Thus for that time we sat the livelong day, until the going down of the sun, feasting on abundant flesh and sweet wine. And when the sun had sunk and darkness had come on, then we laid us to rest upon the seabeach. So soon as early Dawn shone forth, the rosy-fingered, I called to my company, and commanded them that they should themselves climb the ship and loose the hawsers. So they soon embarked and sat upon the benches, and sitting orderly smote the gray sea water with their oars.
"Thence we sailed onward stricken at heart, yet glad as men saved from death, albeit we had lost our dear companions. "
352 ULYSSES.
ULYSSES.
By ALFRED TENNYSON.
[Alfred Tennyson, Baron Tennyson : English poet ; born at Somersby, England, August 6, 1809 ; died at Aldworth, October 6, 1892. His first poems were published with his brother Charles' in a small volume entitled "Poems of Two Brothers," in 1827. Two years later he won the chancellor's gold medal for his prize poem, "Timbuctoo. " The following year came his "Poems Chiefly Lyrical. " In 1832 a new volume of miscellaneous poems was published, and was attacked savagely by the Quarterly Review. Ten years afterward another volume of miscellaneous verse was collected. In 1847 he published " The Princess," which was warmly received. In 1850 came " In Memoriam," and he was appointed poet laureate to succeed Wordsworth. Among his other works may be mentioned: "Idylls of the King" (1859), "Enoch Arden" and "The Holy Grail" (1869), "Queen Mary" (1875), "Harold" (1876), "The Cup" (1884), "Tiresias" (1885), "Locksley Hall Sixty Years After" (1886), "The Foresters" and "The Death of Oinone" (1892)].
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags, Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel :
I will drink Life to the lees : all times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those That loved me, and alone ; on shore, and when Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Iam become aname ;
Vext the dim sea :
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known ; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments, Myself not least, but honored of them all ;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met ;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untraveled world, whose margin fades
Forever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use !
As tho' to breathe were life. Life piled on life Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains : but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things ; and vile it were
ULYSSES. 353
For some three suns to store and hoard myself, And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star, Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the scepter and the isle — Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill
This labor, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centered in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port ; the vessel puffs her sail :
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with me— That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads — you and I are old ;
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil ;
Death closes all : but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks :
The long day wanes : the slow moon climbs : the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows ; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down :
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides ; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven ; that which we are, we are ;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
vol. ii. —23
354 NATURE AND MAN IN GREECE.
NATURE AND MAN IN GREECE.
By ERNST CTJRTIUS.
(From " History of Greece. ")
[Ernst Cubtius, one of the leading modern historians of Greece, antiqua rian, geographer, and philologist, was born at Lttheck, Germany, September 2, 1814 ; died July, 1896. He studied philology at Bonn, Gottingen, and Berlin, and spent 1837-1840 in Greece as tutor to Brandis, the confidential adviser to King Otho, then with K. O. Miiller ; graduated at Halle in 1841. He became extraor dinary professor in the University of Berlin, tutor to the Crown Prince, after wards Emperor Frederick ; in 1856 professor at GBttingen ; in 1868 ordinary professor of classical archaeology at Berlin, and director of the cabinet of antiq uities in the Royal Museum. He has been permanent secretary of the Academy of Sciences, president of the Archaeological Society, and editor of the Archceo- logical Journal, and founded the German Archaeological Institute at Athens. In 1874 he was German commissioner to Greece to negotiate for permission to excavate at Olympia. His chief works are " Peloponnesus " (1851-1852), " His tory of Greece" (1852-1867), — a standard work, but most valuable for the exhaustive topographical knowledge brought to bear on historical problems,— "The Ionians and their Migrations" (1855), "Attic Studies" (1864), "Seven Maps of Athens" (1886), " History of the City of Athens" (1891). ]
We speak of Europe and Asia, and involuntarily allow these terms to suggest to us two distinct quarters of the globe, sepa rated from one another by natural boundaries. But where are these boundaries ? Possibly a frontier line may be found in the north, where the Ural Mountains cut through the broad com plexes of land; but to the south of the Pontus nature has nowhere severed east from west, but rather done her utmost closely and inseparably to unite them. The same mountain ranges which pass across the Archipelago extend on dense suc cessions of islands over the Propontis : the coast lands on either side belong to one another as if they were two halves of one country : and harbors such as Thessalonica and Athens have from the first been incomparably nearer to the coast towns of Ionia than to their own interior, while from the western shores of their own continent they are still farther separated by broad tracts of land and by the difficulties of a lengthy sea voyage.
Sea and air unite the coasts of the Archipelago into one connected whole ; the same periodical winds blow from the Hellespont as far as Crete, and regulate navigation by the same conditions, and the climate by the same changes. Scarcely a single point is to be found between Asia and Europe where, in clear weather, a mariner would feel himself left in a solitude
NATURE AND MAN IN GREECE. 355
between sky and water ; the eye reaches from island to island, and easy voyages of a day lead from bay to bay. And there fore at all times the same nations have inhabited either shore, and since the days of Priam the same languages and customs have obtained both here and there. The Greek of the islands is as much at home at Smyrna as he is at Nauplia ; Salonichi lies in Europe, and yet belongs to the trading towns of the Levant ; notwithstanding all changes of political circumstances, Byzantium to this day ranks as the metropolis on either side ; and as one swell of the waves rolls from the shore of Ionia up to Salamis, so neither has any movement of population ever affected the coast on one side without extending itself to the other. Arbitrary political decisions have in ancient and mod ern times separated the two opposite coasts, and used some of the broader straits between the islands as boundary lines ; but no separation of this kind has ever become more than an ex ternal one, nor has any succeeded in dividing what nature has so clearly appointed for the theater of a common history.
As decided as the homogeneous character of the coast lands, which lie opposite one another from east to west, is the differ ence between the regions in the direction from north to south. On the northern border of the iEgean Sea no myrtle leaf adorns the shore, and the climate resembles that of a district of Central Germany ; no southern fruit grows in any part of Roumelia.
With the 40th degree of latitude a new region begins. Here, on the coasts, and in the sheltered valleys, occur the first signs of the neighborhood of a warmer world, and the first forests of constant verdure. But here, also, a trifling elevation suffices to change the whole condition of its vicinity ; thus a mountain like Athos bears on its heights nearly all European species of trees at once. And totally and utterly different is the natural condition of the interior. The Bay of Joannina, lying nearly a degree farther south than Naples, has the climate of Lombardy : in the interior of Thessaly no olive tree will flourish, and the entire Pindus is a stranger to the flora of Southern Europe.
At the 39th degree, and not before, the warm air of sea and coast penetrates into the interior, where a rapid advance makes itself visible. Even in Phthiotis rice and cotton are already grown, and frequent specimens of the olive tree begin to occur. In Eubcea and Attica there are even scattered instances of the palm tree, which in larger groups adorns the southern Cyclades,
356 NATURE AND MAN IN GREECE.
and which in the plains of Messenia will, under favorable cir cumstances, at times even produce edible dates. None of the rarer southern fruits prosper in the neighborhood of Athens without special cultivation ; while on the east coast of Argolis lemon and orange trees grow in thick forests, and in the gardens of the Naxiotes even the tender lime ripens, whose fragrant fruit, plucked in January, is transported in the space of a few hours to coasts where neither vine nor olive will flourish.
Thus, within a boundary of not more than two degrees of latitude, the land of Greece reaches from the beeches of Pindus into the climate of the palm ; nor is there on the entire known surface of the globe any other region in which the different zones of climate and flora meet one another in so rapid a succession.
The results are a variety in the living forms of nature and an abundance of her produce, which necessarily excited the minds of the inhabitants, awakened their attention and indus try, and called mercantile interchange into life among them.
These differences of climate are, as a rule, common to both shores. Yet even the regions of the eastern and western shores, with all their homogeneousness, show a thorough difference be tween one another ; for the similarity of the shores is not more strongly marked than the difference in the formation of the countries themselves.
It would seem as if the . 3Sgean were in possession of the peculiar power of transforming, after a fashion of its own, all the mainland — in other words, of everywhere penetrating into and breaking it up, of forming by this resolving process islands, peninsulas, necks of land, and promontories, and thus creating a line of coast of disproportionately great extent, with innumer able natural harbors. Such a coast may be called a Greek coast, because those regions in which Hellenes have settled possess it as peculiar to them before all countries of the earth.
In Asia great complexes of countries possess a history com mon to all of them. There one nation raises itself over a mul titude of others, and in every case decrees of fate fall, to which vast regions, with their millions of inhabitants, are uniformly subjected. Against a history of this kind every foot breadth of Greek land rises in protest. There the ramification of the mountains has formed a series of cantons, every one of which has received a natural call and a natural right to a separate existence.
NATURE AND MAN IN GREECE. 357
The villagers of wide plains quail at the thought of defend ing their laws and property against an overpowering force of arms; they submit to what is the will of heaven, and the sur vivor tranquilly builds himself a new hut near the ruins of the old. But where the land which has been with difficulty culti vated is belted by mountains with lofty ridges and narrow passes, which a little band is able to hold against a multitude, there men receive, together with these weapons of defense, the courage for using them. In the members of every local federa tion arises the feeling of belonging together by the will and command of God ; the common state grows by itself out of the hamlets of the valley; and in every such state there springs up at the same time a consciousness of an independence fully justified before God and man. He who desires to enslave such a land must attack and conquer it anew in every one of its mountain valleys. In the worst case the summits of the moun tains and inaccessible caves are able to shelter the remnant of the free inhabitants of the land.
But, besides the political independence, it is also the mul tiplicity of culture, manners, and language characteristic of Ancient Greece which it is impossible to conceive as existent without the multiplicitous formation of its territory, for with out the barriers of the mountains the various elements compos ing its population would have early lost their individuality by contact with one another.
Now Hellas is not only a secluded and well-guarded coun try, but, on the other hand, again, more open to commerce than any other country of the ancient world. For from three sides the sea penetrates into all parts of the country; and while it accustoms men's eyes to greater acuteness and their minds to higher enterprise, never ceases to excite their fancy for the sea, which, in regions where no ice binds it during the whole course of the year, effects an incomparably closer union between the lands than is the case with the inhospitable inland seas of the North.
Men soon learn all the secrets of the art of river navigation to an end, but never those of navigating the sea; the differ ences between dwellers on the banks of a river soon vanish by mutual contact, whereas the sea suddenly brings the greatest contrasts together; strangers arrive, who have been living under another sky and according to other laws: there ensues an endless comparing, learning, and teaching, and the more remu nerative the interchange of the produce of different countries, the
358 NATURE AND MAN IN GREECE.
more restlessly the human mind labors victoriously to oppose the dangers of the sea by a constant succession of new inventions.
The Euphrates and the Nile from year to year offer the same advantages to the population on their banks, and regulate its occupations in a constant monotony, which makes it possible for centuries to paso over the land without any change taking place in the essential habits of the lives of its inhabitants. Revolu tions occur, but no development, and mummylike, the civiliza tion of the Egyptians stagnates, enshrouded in the valley of the Nile ; they count the monotonous beats of the pendulum of time, but time contains nothing for them ; they possess a chro nology, but no history in the full sense of the word. Such a death in life is not permitted by the flowing waves of the ^Egean, which, as soon as commerce and mental activity have been once awakened, unceasingly continues and develops them.
Lastly, with regard to the natural gifts of the soil, a great difference prevailed between the eastern and western half of the land of Greece. The Athenian had only to ascend a few hours' journey from the mouths of the rivers of Asia Minor to assure himself how much more remunerative agriculture was there, and to admire and envy the deep layers of most fertile soil in . 3iolis and Ionia. There the growth of both plants and animals manifested greater luxuriance, the intercourse in the wide plains incomparably greater facility. We know how in the European country the plains are only let in between the mountains like furrows or narrow basins, or, as it were, washed on to their ex- tremest ridge ; and the single passage from one valley to the other led over lofty ridges, which men were obliged to open up for themselves, and then, with unspeakable labor, to provide with paths for beasts of burden and vehicles. The waters of the plains were equally grudging of the blessings expected from them. Far the greater number of them in summer were dried- up rivers, sons of the Nereides dying in their youth, according to the version of mythology ; and although the drought in the country is incomparably greater now than it was in ancient times, yet, since men remembered, the veins of water of the Ilissus, as well as of the Inachus, had been hidden under a dry bed of pebbles. Yet this excessive drought is again accompa nied by a superabundance of water, which, stagnating in one place in the basin of a valley, in another between mountains and sea, renders the air pestiferous and cultivation difficult.