we can
observe the same development suggested with greater distinctness.
Already in the previous Book it was stated that the Phaeacians at first
"dwelt near the insolent Cyclops," from whom they had to make the
removal to their present island on account of violence done them by
their neighbors. But now we hear that both Alcinous and Arete are
descended on one side from the daughter of King Eurymedon, "who ruled
over the arrogant race of Giants," all of whom, both king and "wicked
people," had perished. On the other side the royal pair had the sea-god
Neptune as their progenitor who was also the father of the Cyclops
Polyphemus. It is impossible to mistake the meaning of this genealogy
and the reason of its introduction at the present conjuncture. The
Phaeacians likewise were sprung of the wild men of nature, and had been
at one time savages; but they had changed, had separated from their
primitive kindred and begun the march of civilization. The poet has
manifestly before his mind this question: why does one branch of the
same people develop, and another branch lag behind; why, of two
brothers, does one become civilized and the other remain savage? Of
this dualism Greece would furnish many striking illustrations, whereof
the difference between Athena and Sparta is the best known. Here the
change from the locality of the Cyclops, implying also the change in
spirit, is made by a hero-king, "the large-souled Nausithous,"
evidently a very important man to the Phaeacians. Then this respect
given to the woman has often been noted as both the sign and the cause
of a higher development of a people. At any rate the Phaeacians have
made the great transition from savagery to civilization, and thus
reveal the inherent possibilities of the race.
We now begin to catch a hint of the sweep of the poem in these
portions. Ulysses who has lapsed or at least has become separated from
his institutional life, must travel back to the same through the whole
rise of society; he has to see its becoming in his own experience, and
to a degree create it over again in his own soul, having lost it. Hence
the evolution of the social organism passes before his eyes, embodied
in a series of persons and places.
In this Seventh Book, therefore, Ulysses is to make the transition to
Family and State as shown in Phaeacia, and as represented by Arete and
Alcinous. We shall mark three leading divisions:--
I. Ulysses enters the city in the dark, when he
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