. His problem, too, he has, and it
is spiritual; the Mythus is his statement, honest, earnest, final. No,
he was not playing at story-telling, though it must have given him
pleasure; nor was his object merely to delight somebody, though he
certainly has delighted many by his song. He was the true Poet,
upholding his own worth and that of his vocation; he was loyal to the
Muse whose word he must sing whether it find listeners or not. Homer
built his legendary structure to live in, not to play in; with all his
sportiveness, he is a deeply earnest man; if his Zeus sometimes takes
on a comic mask, it is because Providence is a humorist. Homer, when he
mythologizes, is thinking, thinking as profoundly as the philosopher,
and both are seeking to utter to men the same fundamental thought. The
reader is to think after the poet, if not in the immediate mythical
form, then in the mediate, reflective way.

The present Tale seeks to give an answer to the two main questions of
Telemachus: Where is my father now? And, Will he return home? To answer
the one question requires a knowledge of what is distant in Space; to
answer the other question requires a knowledge of what is distant in
Time. Can we not see that herein is an attempt to rise out of that
twofold prison of the spirit, Space and Time, into what is true in all
places and times? In other words, Menelaus unfolds in a mythical form,
the Universal to his young pupil, and we may now see in what manner he
gives the lesson.

He leaps at once into the middle of his theme; he was in Egypt and
detained there by the Gods, "though longing to return home." Such is
the great initial fact, he did not do his duty to the Gods. Without
their aid or without their adequate recognition, he seeks to come home.
This indicates the spiritual difficulty; he is indifferent to or a
disbeliever in the Divine. The Gods are the upholders of the
world-order, they are the law and the spirit of the reality. Clearly
Menelaus could not or did not fit himself into the providential system.
Neglect of the Gods--that detains him, must detain him. The result is,
he and his companions are wasting away on an island, without any chance
of return.

The question of the hour is, How shall I get out of the difficulty?
Only in one way: Acknowledge the Gods, put yourself into harmony with
their order, then the outer world and the inner man will be one, and
must bring about the deed, which is the return. We are now to wi