meric Hades; it is the supersensible world, outside
of Space and Time; or, rather with its own Space and Time, since it is
still an image.

Hence these mythical statements which seek to get beyond all known
geographical limits. Ulysses had to cross the Ocean stream, which ran
round the whole earth; to go over it was indeed to go over the border.
There below is the gloomy grove of Proserpine; there too, are the four
rivers of the Lower Regions, with names terribly suggestive; into
Acheron the stream of pain (or lake) flow Pyriphlegethon (Fire-flames)
and Cocytus (the Howler), the latter being an offshoot of Styx (Hate or
Terror). Where "the two loud-sounding rivers meet" the third one
(Acheron) is a rock, a firm protected spot seemingly, there with mystic
rites is the invocation of the dead to take place.

Thus we see that the poet's description remains spatial in his attempt
to get beyond space. He has to express himself in images taken from the
sensible world, even while pushing them beyond into the supersensible.
He makes us feel that the image is inadequate, though he has to use it;
poetry is driven upon its very limit. At this point specially we note
the kinship of the Odyssey with Romantic Art, which through the finite
form suggests the Infinite. Dante comes to mind, whose great poem is
one vast struggle of the limited symbol with the unlimited spirit which
is symbolized. Thus the old Greek song becomes prophetic, foreshadowing
the next great world-poem, or Literary Bible, written in the light of a
new epoch.

Strong is the sympathy which one feels with the ancient singer in this
attempt to probe the deepest mystery of our existence. He must have
reflected long and profoundly upon such a theme, building in this Book
a world of spirits, and laying down the lines of it for all futurity.
Probably the most gigantic conception in literature: the universal
Hero, ere he can round the complete cycle of experience, must pass
through the Beyond and come back to the Present. It deepens the idea of
the Return, till it embraces the totality of existence, by making it
reach through the Underworld, which is thus a domain in the spiritual
circumnavigation of the globe.

The structure of the Book is somewhat intricate and it requires quite a
little search to find the lines upon which it is built. It has at the
first glance a rather scattered, disorganized look; for this reason the
analytic critics have fallen upon it in particu