the culmination of the poem. Not now
the disciplinary, but the practical preparation it is, when one is
ready and resolved internally, and is seeking the method and means.
Both Ulysses and Telemachus have had their training; now it must pass
into action.

We behold, first, Ulysses making the transition from Phaeacia to Ithaca,
and thence to the fortress of loyalty, from which the movement is to be
made. Secondly we see all the instruments getting together, and being
prepared for the work, particularly the three heroes of the attack.
Finally we observe Ulysses inquiring and learning all about the
situation in Ithaca; he obtains everything that information at second
hand can give. But hearsay is not enough; he must see at first hand.
Thus we pass to the palace, and out of the first series of four Books,
which we are next to consider separately.

_BOOK THIRTEENTH._

In general, we have in this Book the grand transition from Phaeacia to
Ithaca, in both of its phases, physical and spiritual. The sea is
crossed from land to land in a ship; the idyllic realm is left behind,
and the real world with its terrible problem is encountered. Phaeacia
was quite without conflict. Ithaca is just in the condition of conflict
and discord. Phaeacia, moreover, was a land of looking back at the past,
of reminiscence and retrospection; Ithaca is the land of looking
directly into the face of the future, with the deed to follow at once;
it is the field for action and not contemplation. Not only spatially,
but also in thought we must regard this transition.

Ulysses has both these worlds in him; he is the man of thought and the
man of action. Hitherto in his career the stress has been upon the
former; henceforth it is to be upon the latter. In this Book, which is
the overture marking the change in the key-note of the poem, we have
three distinct facts brought out prominently and through them we can
grasp the general structure. There is, first, the departure of Ulysses
from Phaeacia and arrival at Ithaca; secondly, when this is finished,
there is the glance backward, on the part of the poet, to the
miraculous voyage and to Phaeacia itself, in which glance Neptune plays
an important part; thirdly, there is the glance forward, which occupies
most of the Book, taking in Ithaca and the future, in which glance
Pallas, the Goddess of foresight, gives the chief direction, and
Ulysses is her mortal counterpart. This is, accordingly, to a large