er directly showed, for he
always makes the gods (O. viii. 325):--

The givers of good things,--

these things also men pray the gods to furnish them, as being plainly
neither useless to them nor indifferent, but advantageous to happiness.

What the goods are men aim at, and through which they are called happy,
he declares in many places. But all of them together were centred in
Hermes (I. xxiv. 376):--

Blessed are thy parents in a son so grac'd,
In face and presence, and of mind so wise.

He bears witness to his beauty of body, his intelligence, and his
lineage. Separately he takes them up (I. vi. 156):--

On whom the gods bestowed
The gifts of beauty and of manly grace,
And Zeus poured out lordly wealth,--

for this, too, is a gift of God (O. vi. 188):--

For Zeus himself gives prosperity to mortals.

Sometimes he esteems honor a good (I. viii. 540):--

Would that I might be adored as Athene and Apollo.

Sometimes good fortune in children (O. iii. 196):--

So good a thing it is that a son of the dead should be left.

Sometimes, too, the benefit of one's family (O. xiii. 39):--

Pour ye the drink offering, and send me safe on my way, and
as for you, fare ye well. For now I have all my heart's
desire,--an escort and loving gifts. May the gods of heaven
give me good fortune with them and may I find my noble wife
in my home, and my friends unharmed while ye, for your part,
abide here, and make glad your gentle wives and children, and
may the gods vouchsafe all manner of good and may no evil
come, nigh the people.

That in a comparison of goods valor is better than wealth, he shows in
the following (I. ii. 872):--

With childish folly to the war he came,
Laden with stress of gold; yet naught availed
His gold to save him from the doom of death.

And (O. iv. 93):--

I have no joy of my lordship among these my possessions.

And that intelligence is better than beauty of form (O. viii. 169):--

For one man is feebler than another in presence, yet the
gods crown his words with beauty.

It is evident that bodily excellence and external things he considers
as good, and that without these virtue alone is not sufficient for
happiness he declares in the following way. He created two men who
attained to the height of virtue, Nestor and Odysseus, different indeed
from one another, but like o