Ουτε ποτ' ομβρος, Αλλ' αιει Ζεφύροιο λιγυπνείοντας αρητας ODYSS. iv. 566. Stern winter smiles on that auspicious clime; POPE. Accordingly, to distinguish the very different natures of these poems, it was anciently the practice of those who publicly recited them, to represent the Iliad, in allusion to the bloodshed it described, in a robe of scarlet; and the Odyssey, on account of the voyages it relates, in an azure vestment. The predominant passion of Ulysses being the love of his country, for the sake of which he even refuses immortality, the poet has taken every occasion to display it in the liveliest and most striking colours. The first time we behold the hero, we find him disconsolately sitting on the solitary shore, sighing to return to Ithaca, Νοστον οδυρόμεναν, weeping incessantly, and still casting his eyes upon the sea, Ποντον επ' ατρύγετον δερκέσκετο, δακρυα λείβων. "While a goddess," says Minerva at the very beginning of the poem, " by her power and her allurements detains him from Ithaca, he is dying with desire to see even so much as the smoke arise from his much loved island:" tarda fluunt ingrataque tempora! While the luxurious Phæacians were enjoying a delicious banquet, he attended not to their mirth and music, for the time approached when he was to return to Ithaca: they had prepared a ship for him to set sail in the very next morning; and the thoughts of his approaching happiness having engrossed all his soul," He sat, and eyed the sun, and wish'd the night -Δη γαρ μενεαινε νεεσθαι. To represent his impatience more strongly, the poet adds a most expressive simile, suited to the simplicity of ancient times: "The setting of the sun," says he, "was as welcome and grateful to Ulysses, as it is to a well laboured ploughman, who earnestly waits for its decline, that he may return to his supper, Δορπον εποίχεσθαι, while his weary knees are painful to him as he walks along." - Βλάβεται δε τα γουνατ' ιοντι. "Notwithstanding all the pleasures and endearments I received from Calypso, yet," says our hero, "I perpetually bedewed with my tears the garments which this immortal beauty gave to me." - Είματα δ' αιει Δακρυσι δευεσκον τα μοι αμβροτα δωκε Καλυψω. We are presented in every page with fresh instances of this love of his country; and his whole behaviour convinces us, Ως ουδεν γλυκιον ης πατριδος ουδε τοκήων. This generous sentiment runs like a golden vein throughout the whole poem. If this animating example were duly and deeply inculcated, how strong an impression would it necessarily make upon the yielding minds of youth, when melted and mollified by the warmth of such exalted poetry! Nor is the Odyssey less excellent and useful, in the amiable pictures it affords of private affections and domestic tendernesses, and all the charities Of father, son, and brother MILTON. When Ulysses descends into the infernal regions, it is finely contrived that he should meet his aged mother Anticlea. After his first sorrow and surprise, he eagerly inquires into the causes of her death, and adds, "Doth my father yet live? does my son possess my dominions, or does he groan under the tyranny of some usurper, who thinks I shall never return? Is my wife still constant to my bed? or hath some noble Grecian married her?". These questions are the very voice of nature and affection. Anticlea answers, that 66 She herself died with grief for the loss of Ulysses; that Laertes languishes away life in solitude and sorrow for him; and that Penelope perpetually and inconsolably bewails his absence, and sighs for his return." When the hero, disguised like a stranger, has the first interview with his father, whom he finds diverting his cares with rural amusements in his little garden, he informs him that he had seen his son in his travels, but now despairs of beholding him again. Upon this, the sorrow of Laertes is inexpressible: Ulysses can counterfeit no longer, but exclaims ardently, I, I am he! O father, rise! behold And the discovery of himself to Telemachus, in the sixteenth book, in a speech of short and broken exclamations, is equally tender and pathetic. The duties of universal benevolence, of charity, and of hospitality, that unknown and unpractised virtue, are perpetually inculcated with more emphasis and elegance than in any ancient philosopher, and I wish I could not add than in any modern. Ulysses meets with a friendly reception in all the various nations to which he is driven; who declare their inviolable obligations to protect and cherish the stranger and the wanderer. Above all, how amiable is the behaviour of Eumeus to his unknown master, who asks for his charity. "It is not lawful for me," says the Atos "Yoopos, "I dare not despise any stranger or indigent man, even if he were much meaner than thou appearest to be; for the poor and strangers are sent to us by Jupiter!" "Keep," says Epictetus," continually in thy memory, what Eumeus speaks in Homer to the disguised Ulysses." I am sensible, that many superficial French critics have endeavoured to ridicule all that passes at the lodge of Eumeus, as coarse and indelicate, and below the dignity of Epic poetry: but let them attend to the following observation of the greatest genius of their nation: "Since it is delightful," says Fenelon, "to see in one of Titian's landscapes the goats climbing up a hanging rock, or to behold in one of Tenier's pieces a country feast and rustic dances; it is no wonder that we are pleased with such natural descriptions as we find in the Odyssey. This simplicity of manners seems to recall the golden age. am more pleased with honest Eumeus than with the polite heroes of Clelia or Cleopatra." The moral precepts with which every page of the Odyssey is pregnant, are equally noble. Plato's wish is here accomplished; for we behold Virtue personally appearing to the sons of men, in her most awful and most alluring charms. The remaining reasons, why the Odyssey is equal, if not superior to the Iliad, and why it is a poem most peculiarly proper for the perusal of youth, are; because the great variety of events and scenes it contains interest and engage the attention more than the Iliad ; because characters and images drawn from familiar life, are more useful to the generality of readers, and are also more difficult to be drawn ; and because the conduct of this poem, considered as the most perfect of Epopees, is more artful and judicious than that of the other. The discussion of these beauties will make the subject of some ensuing paper. No. 76. SATURDAY, JULY 28, 1753. Duc me, Parens, celsique dominator poli, SENECA ex CLEANTHE. Conduct me, thou of beings cause divine, HARRIS. BOZALDAB, Caliph of Egypt, had dwelt securely for many years in the silken pavilions of pleasure, and had every morning anointed his head with the oil of gladness, when his only son Aboram, for whom he had crowded his treasuries with gold, extended his dominions with conquests, and secured them with impregnable fortresses, was suddenly wounded, as he was hunting, with an arrow from an unknown hand, and expired in the field. Bozaldab, in the distraction of grief and despair, refused to return to his palace, and retired to the gloomiest grotto in the neighbouring mountain he there rolled himself on the dust, tore away the hairs of his hoary beard, and dashed the cup of consolation that patience offered him to the ground. He suffered not his minstrels to approach his presence; but listened to the screams of the melancholy birds |