kind of
scale from the universal one, Neptune, down to a local one, that of the
river. The middle one, Ino, is the humane kindly phase of the great
deep, showing her kinship with man; Neptune was the ruder god of the
physical sea, and, to the Homeric Greek, the most powerful and natural.
No wonder that he was angry at that little raft and its builder; it
meant his ultimate subjection.

The prayer of Ulysses to the River-God is, on the whole, the finest
passage in the present Book. It shows him now a man of faith, humbled
though he be to the last degree of misery: "Hear me, ruler, whoever
thou art, I approach thee much-besought. The deathless Gods revere the
prayer of him who comes to them and asks for mercy, as I now come to
thy stream. Pity, ruler, me thy suppliant." Certainly a lofty
recognition of the true nature of deity; no wonder that the River
stayed his current, smoothed the waves and made a calm before him. Such
a view of the Gods reveals to us the inner depths of the Hero's
character; it calls to mind that speech of Phoenix in the Iliad (Book
Ninth) where he says that the Gods are placable. As soon as Ulysses
makes this utterance from his heart, he is saved, the Divine Order is
adjusted to his prayer, he having of course put himself into harmony
with the same. He has no longer any need of the protecting veil of the
sea-goddess Ino, having escaped from the angry element, and obtained
the help of the new deity belonging to the place. He restores the veil
to the Goddess according to her request, in which symbolic act we may
possibly read a consecration of the object which had saved him, as well
as a recognition of the deity: "This veil of salvation belongs not to
me, but to the Goddess." Not of his strength alone was he saved from
the waves.

Such is one side of Ulysses, that of faith, of the manifestation of the
godlike in man, especially when he is in the very pinch of destruction.
But Ulysses would not be Ulysses, unless he showed the other side too,
that of unfaith, weak complaint, and temporary irresolution. So, when
he is safe on the bank of the stream, he begins to cry out: "What now
am I to suffer more! If I try to sleep on this river's brink for the
night, the frost and dew and wind will kill me; and if I climb this
hill to yonder thicket, I fear a savage beast will eat me while I
slumber." It is well to be careful, O Ulysses, in these wild solitudes;
now let the petulant outburst just given, be prepar