p to
the Past of long ago, to the Pre-Trojan time, whose spirits will
appear. Two sets of them, divided according to sex into man and woman,
we behold. But the man here is the prophet, hence what he says belongs
to the Future, into which Ulysses now gets a glimpse.

Thus both Future and Past are given their place in the supersensible
realm, both being abstractions from the Present, which is the reality,
the world of the senses. Yet that which is abiding and eternal knows
not Past, Present, or Future, or knows them all equally, having that
which is common to them all, being indeed the principle of them all. In
a sense we may say that Tiresias is Past, Present and Future, he is the
voice of the Past speaking in the Present foretelling the Future. Then
the Famous Women come forth, whose fame causes them to appear now and
to be recorded. Thus the poet takes the two ancient sets and suggests
that which underlies them both and makes them ever present.

1. Tiresias, though he spans the three dimensions of Time, is
essentially the prophet, and so his stress is upon the Future. His body
has been long dead, but his mind is left in its untrammeled activity;
he may be considered as the purest essence of spirit. No senses
obstruct his vision, he sees the eternal and unchangeable law; yet he
must throw it into images and apply it to special cases. What a
conception for a primitive poet! We feel in this figure of Tiresias
that Homer himself is prophetic, foreshadowing the pure ideas or
archetypal forms of Plato, and that he, in his struggle for adequate
expression of thought, is calling for, and in fact calling forth, Greek
philosophy.

Tiresias speaks at first without drinking of the blood, yet he has to
drink of it to tell his prophecy. This little contradiction is not
vital, let it not trouble us. The prophetic announcement to Ulysses
includes four special cases. First, the Hero must have his struggle
with Neptune on his way homeward, the God will avenge the blinding of
his son, though that blinding had to take place; every man who
overcomes a great power, even a natural power, will get the backstroke
of his own deed. The very ship of Ulysses, which defies Neptune,
exposes itself to a conflict which it might avoid, did it not undertake
to master the God's element; such is the penalty of all victory.
Secondly, he must keep down appetite, particularly at the Trinacrian
Isle, and not slay the Oxen of the Sun, else the penalty will