is met by Pallas and
receives her instructions. The divine principle again comes down and
directs.
II. The external side of this Phaeacian world is shown in the city,
garden, and palace of the king; nature is transformed and made
beautiful for man. All this Ulysses now beholds.
III. The internal side of this Phaeacian world, its spiritual essence,
is shown in the domestic and civil life of the rulers and nobles; of
this also Ulysses is the spectator, recognizing and appropriating.
Thus we see in the Book the movement from the divine to the human,
which we have so often before noticed in Homer. The three parts we may
well put together into a whole: the Goddess of Intelligence informs the
mind of man, which then transforms nature and builds institutions. Here
Pallas simply directs Ulysses, who, however, is now to witness the
works of mind done in Phaeacia, to recognize them and to take them up
into his spirit.
I.
Ulysses follows the direction of Nausicaa and passes to the city
stealthily in a kind of concealment; "Pallas threw a divine mist over
him," the Goddess now having the matter in hand. Moreover she appeared
to him in the shape of a young girl with a pitcher, who points out the
house of Alcinous and gives him many a precious bit of history in her
prattle. Again we must see what this divine intervention means; Pallas
is in him as well as outside of him. These are suggestions of his own
ingenuity on the one hand, yet also the voice of the situation; indeed
he knew them essentially already from the instructions of Nausicaa.
Still further, they are now a part of the grand scheme, which is in the
Olympian order, and hence is voiced by the Gods.
The poet introduces his mythical forms; we hear also the fabulous
genealogy of the Phaeacian rulers, the meaning of which has been above
set forth. They, too, Arete and Alcinous, have come from the Cyclops,
and have made the same journey as Ulysses, though in a different
manner. It must be remembered that he has had his struggle with the
giant Polyphemus, one of the Cyclops, whereof he will hereafter give
the account. But the chief matter of the communication of Pallas is to
define to Ulysses the position and character of Arete, evidently a
woman after her own heart. In this way the Goddess, taking the part of
a prattling maid, gives the royal pedigree, and especially dwells on
the importance of the queen. Also she throws side glances into the
peculiar disposition
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