ns of St. John in the Island
of Patmos, joint product of Greek and Hebrew spirit, showing truly the
dissolution of the Hellenic ideal.

Thus Ulysses, the supreme spiritual Hero of the Greeks, is shown
running away from the Underworld, fearing to look upon coming shapes in
Hades; about which fact two reflections can be made: first, Ulysses had
to do this in order to remain a Greek; secondly, the poet clearly
announces, in such an action, that there is another world lying beyond
his world, that underneath the Greek Hades is another Hades, which
threatens to rise into view. That Hades will burst up hereafter and
become the Christian Hell. Ulysses confesses that there is a realm
beyond him there, which he has not conquered, has not even dared to
see, and thus he significantly points to the future. The Gorgon is a
shadowy anticipation of fiends, of devils, of the infernal monsters of
the Romantic Netherworld of Dante, who is to be the next great Hero,
passing into the dark world beyond with a new light. To be sure, Virgil
sends AEneas into Orcus, and makes such descent a Book of his poem, but
Virgil too speaks of a realm beyond his Orcus, which his Hero does not
enter. Thus the Roman poet shows substantially the same limits as the
Greek poet, whom he has for the most part copied.

Here again we find a conception embodied in song, on which the human
mind has moved through many ages. Poetry, Art, Theology, have taken
from this Eleventh Book of the Odyssey many creative hints: it is truly
an epoch-making work in the history of man's spiritual unfolding. As
already stated, Virgil repeats it, Dante grows out of it and makes it
over, in accord with the spirit of Christendom, which has many a root
running back to this Homeric Hades. The present Book may be called the
Greek prophecy heralding medieval Art, and shows old Homer
foreshadowing Romanticism. Did he not see the limits of his world? The
particular connecting link between two Literary Bibles, Homer and
Dante, is just the present Book, even if Dante never read Homer. For
the study of Universal Literature it is, therefore, a specially
important document. A many-sided production also; its poetic, its
religious, its artistic, its philosophical sides are all present in
full activity and put to test the spiritual alertness of the reader.

Wherein does the negative nature of Hades lie? The question rises from
the fact that Ulysses in Fableland has been declared to be passing
thr