we must assume an age of rude licence even in the midst of considerable civilisation, when, unless a king or chief could hold his own by the strong hand, there was small chance of his rights being respected. A partial explanation may also lie in the fact that the wealth of the king was regarded as in some sort public property, and that to keep open house for all whose rank entitled them to sit at his table was probably a popular branch of the royal prerogative. Telemachus is an only son, and he and his mother have apparently no near kinsmen to avenge any wrong or insult that may be offered. There is, besides, somewhat of weakness and tameness in his character, more than befits the son of such a father. He is a homenurtured youth, of a gentle and kindly nature, a dutiful and affectionate son; but his temperament is far too easy for the rude and troublous times in which his lot is cast, and the roystering crew who profess at least to be the wooers of Penelope have not been slow to find it out. Some kindly critics ("Christopher North" among the number) have refused to see any of these shortcomings in the young prince's character; but his father Ulysses saw them plainly. For thus it is he speaks, at a later period of the tale, under his disguise of a mendicant:

"Had I but youth as I have heart, or were
The blameless brave Ulysses, or his son,
Then let a stranger strike me headless there,
If against any I leave revenge undone !"

But this is anticipating somewhat too much. We must return to the opening of the poem.

The fate of Ulysses, so far as any knowledge of it has reached his wife and son, lies yet in mystery. Only the gods know-and perhaps it were as well for Penelope not to know-in what unworthy thraldom he is held. He has incurred the anger of the great Sea-god, and therefore he is still forbidden to reach his home. He has lain captive now for seven long years in Ogygia, the enchanted realm of Calypso

"Girded of ocean in an island-keep,

An island clothed with trees, the navel of the deep.

"There dwells the child of Atlas, who can sound
All seas, and eke doth hold the pillars tall
Which keep the skies asunder from the ground.
There him, still sorrowing, she doth aye enthral,
Weaving serene enticements to forestal

The memory of his island-realm."

But the goddess of wisdom, who was his protecting genius throughout the perils of the great siege, and by whose aid, as we have seen in the Iliad, he has distanced so many formidable competitors in the race for glory, has not forgotten her favourite. The opening

scene of the Odyssey shows us the gods in council on Olympus. Neptune alone is absent; he is gone to feast, like Jupiter in the Iliad, with those mysterious people, the far-off Ethiopians

"Extreme of men, who diverse ways retire,

Some to the setting, some the rising sun."

Minerva takes the opportunity of his absence to remind the Father of the gods of the hard fate of Ulysses, so unworthy of a hero who has deserved so

well both of gods and men. It is agreed to send Mercury, the messenger of the Immortals, to the island where Calypso holds Ulysses captive in her toils, to announce to him that the day of his return draws near. Minerva herself, meanwhile, will go to Ithaca, and put strength into the heart of his son Telemachus, that he may rid his house of this hateful brood of revellers, and set forth to make search for his father. The passage in which the poet describes her visit is a fine one, and it has been finely rendered by Mr Worsley:

"So ending, underneath her feet she bound
Her faery sandals of ambrosial gold,
Which o'er the waters and the solid ground
Swifter than wind have borne her from of old;
Then on the iron-pointed spear laid hold,
Heavy and tall, wherewith she smites the brood
Of heroes till her anger waxes cold;

Then from Olympus swept in eager mood,
And with the island-people in the court she stood

"Fast by the threshold of the outer gate

Of brave Odysseus in her hand she bore
The iron-pointed spear, heavy and great,
And, waiting as a guest-friend at the door,
Of Mentes, Taphian chief, the likeness wore ;
There found the suitors, who beguiled with play
The hours, and sat the palace-gates before
On hides of oxen which themselves did slay-

Haughty of mien they sat, and girt with proud array."

As the young prince sits thus, an unwilling host in his father's hall, meditating, says the poet, whether or no some day that father may return suddenly and take vengeance on these invaders of his rights, against whom he himself seems powerless, he lifts his eyes

and sees a stranger standing at the gate. With simple and high-bred courtesy-the courtesy of the old Bible patriarchs, and even now practised by the Orientals, though the march of modern civilisation has left little remnant of it in our western isles-he hastes to bid the stranger welcome, on the simple ground that he is a stranger, and will hear no word of his errand until the rights of hospitality have been paid. Eager as he is to hear possible news of his father, he restrains his anxiety to question his guest. Not until the handmaidens have brought water in the silver ewers, and the herald, and the carver, and the dame of the pantry (it is a right royal establishment, if somewhat rude) have each done their office to supply the stranger's wants, does Telemachus ask him a single question. But when the suitors have ended their feast, they call for music and song. They compel Phemius, the household bard, to make mirth for them. Then, while he plies his voice and lyre for their entertainment, the son of Ulysses whispers aside with his visitor. Who is he, and whence does he come? Is he a friend of his father's? For many a guest, and none unwelcome, had come to those halls, as the son well knows, in his day. Above all, does he bring news of him? Then the disguised goddess tells her story, with a circumstantial minuteness of invention which befits wisdom when she condescends to falsehood :—

"Know, my name is hight
Mentes, the son of brave Anchialus,
And sea-famed Taphos is my regal right;
And with my comrades am I come to-night

Hither, in sailing o'er the wine-dark sea

To men far off, who stranger tongues indite.
For copper am I bound to Temesè,

And in my bark I bring sword-steel along with me.

"Moored is my ship beyond the city walls,
Under the wooded cape, within the bay.
We twain do boast, each in the other's halls,
Our fathers' friendship from an ancient day.
Hero Laertes ask, and he will say."

But of Ulysses' present fate the guest declares he knows nothing; only he has a presentiment that he is detained somewhere in an unwilling captivity, but that, "though he be bound with chains of iron," he will surely find his way home again. But in any case, as his father's friend, the supposed Mentes bids Telemachus take heart and courage, and act manfully for himself. Let him give this train of riotous suitors fair warning to quit the palace, and waste his substance no more; let his mother Penelope go back to her own father's house (if she desires to wed again), and make her choice and hold her wedding-banquet there; and for his own part, let him at once set sail and make inquiry for his father round the coasts of Greece. It be that Nestor of Pylos, or Menelaus of Spartathe last returned of the chiefs of the expedition-can give him some tidings. If he can only hear that Ulysses is yet alive, then he may well endure to wait his return with patience; if assured of his death, it will befit him to take due vengeance on these his enemies. The divine visitor even hints a reproach of Telemachus' present inactivity:

may