is king. The second fact pertaining to this Isle is that a
wall of brass encircles it not to be broken through; "and the cliff
runs up sheer from the sea." Manifestly two opposite ideas are
suggested in this description: the fixed and the movable; the island
within itself is bound fast, and cannot be driven asunder; yet it
floats in the most unstable of elements, in the sea and winds. Such is
the physical environment, clearly mirroring the meaning. Something
permanent in the midst of all that is mutable we may expect to find
here.

On the island dwell the King of the Winds and his wife, along with six
blooming sons and daughters. He gave his daughters to his sons for
wives; a custom not elsewhere found in Homer outside of the realm of
the Gods; yet is claimed to have been a very ancient custom, which the
Ptolomies revived in Egypt. At any rate here is the picture of the
Family in its patriarchal form, wholly separated from other connections
and set apart by itself, on the brass-bound precipitous island. The
Family is abstracted from the rest of the world and given a
dwelling-place.

At this point we begin to catch a glimpse of the significance of the
story. The Family is the first power which seizes the emotions and
passions and caprices of men (the winds of his soul) and starts the
taming of them; the marriage tie is fixed, is not for a day; thus the
Family makes itself permanent, and makes the human being stable through
feeling and duty. None but married people are here; very different will
it be hereafter in the island of Circe. The king of the winds is not
only AEolus, but also his institution, the Family, rules here, for there
is no State to be governed. Not polygamy, but monogamy, as the great
Homeric principle of domestic life, do we witness--the mutual devotion
of one man and one woman. Externally we found the fixed and the
floating; internally also we discover the fixed and the floating, or
rather, that principle which fixes the floating, and makes the world
stable. Thus we see the reason why Homer puts the Family upon the Isle
of the Winds.

It is no wonder, therefore, that in such a place is held up before us a
picture of happiness and plenty. "All feast from day to day with
endless change of meats;" why ask whence the viands come? The inner
peace provides them. Even the sound of flutes is heard round about,
according to one way of translating the passage; music attunes the
everlasting festival. Not mere