Stories from the Odyssey

Stories from the Odyssey

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Stories from the Odyssey, by H. L.
Havell
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Title: Stories from the Odyssey
Author: H. L. Havell
Release Date: October 12, 2004 [eBook #13725]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STORIES
FROM THE ODYSSEY***
E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Fred Robinson, and the Project
Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team

STORIES FROM THE ODYSSEY
Retold by
H. L. HAVELL B.A.
Late Reader in English in the University of Halle Formerly Scholar of
University College Oxford
Author of Stories from Herodotus, Stories from Greek Tragedy,
_Stories from the Æneid_, Stories from the Iliad, etc.

[Illustration: Reading from Homer]

"O well for him whose will is strong! He suffers, but he will not suffer
long; He suffers, but he cannot suffer wrong: For him nor moves the
loud world's random mock Nor all Calamity's hugest waves confound

Who seems a promontory of rock, That compass'd round with turbulent
sound In middle ocean meets the surging shock, Tempest-buffeted,
citadel-crown'd." TENNYSON

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
TELEMACHUS, PENELOPE, AND THE SUITORS
THE ASSEMBLY; THE VOYAGE OF TELEMACHUS
THE VISIT TO NESTOR AT PYLOS
TELEMACHUS AT SPARTA
ODYSSEUS AND CALYPSO
ODYSSEUS AMONG THE PHÆACIANS
THE WANDERINGS OF ODYSSEUS
THE VISIT TO HADES
THE SIRENS; SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS; THRINACIA
ODYSSEUS LANDS IN ITHACA
ODYSSEUS AND EUMÆUS
THE RETURN OF TELEMACHUS
THE MEETING OF TELEMACHUS AND ODYSSEUS
THE HOME-COMING OF ODYSSEUS
THE BEGGAR IRUS
PENELOPE AND THE WOOERS
ODYSSEUS AND PENELOPE
THE END DRAWS NEAR; SIGNS AND WONDERS
THE BOW OF ODYSSEUS
THE SLAYING OF THE WOOERS
ODYSSEUS AND PENELOPE
CONCLUSION
PRONOUNCING LIST OF NAMES

ILLUSTRATIONS
READING FROM HOMER (L. Alma Tadema)
PENELOPE (The Vatican, Rome)
TELEMACHUS DEPARTING FROM NESTOR (Henry Howard)
ODYSSEUS AND NAUSICAÄ (Charles Gleyre)
ODYSSEUS AND POLYPHEMUS (J. M. W. Turner)
CIRCE (Sir E. Burne-Jones)

THE RETURN OF ODYSSEUS (L. F. Schützenberger)
ODYSSEUS AND EURYCLEIA (Christian G. Heyne)

INTRODUCTION
The impersonal character of the Homeric poems has left us entirely in
the dark as to the birthplace, the history, and the date, of their author.
So complete is the darkness which surrounds the name of Homer that
his very existence has been disputed, and his works have been declared
to be an ingenious compilation, drawn from the productions of a
multitude of singers. It is not my intention here to enter into the endless
and barren controversy which has raged round this question. It will be
more to the purpose to try and form some general idea of the
characteristics of the Greek Epic; and to do this it is necessary to give a
brief review of the political and social conditions in which it was
produced.
I
The world as known to Homer is a mere fragment of territory,
including a good part of the mainland of Greece, with the islands and
coast districts of the Ægæan. Outside of these limits his knowledge of
geography is narrow indeed. He has heard of Sicily, which he speaks of
under the name of Thrinacia; and he speaks once of Libya, or the north
coast of Africa, as a district famous for its breed of sheep. There is one
vague reference to the vast Scythian or Tartar race (called by Homer
Thracians), who live on the milk of mares; and he mentions a
copper-coloured people, the "Red-faces," who dwell far remote in the
east and west. The Nile is mentioned, under the name of Ægyptus; and
the Egyptians are celebrated by the poet as a people skilled in medicine,
a statement which is repeated by Herodotus. The Phoenicians appear
several times in the Odyssey, and we hear once or twice of the
Sidonians, as skilled workers in metal. As soon as we pass these
boundaries, we enter at once into the region of fairyland.
II
In speaking of the religion of the Homeric Greeks we have to draw a
distinction between the Iliad and the Odyssey. In the Iliad the gods play
a much livelier and more human part than in the latter poem, and it is
highly remarkable that the only comic scenes in the first and greatest of
epics are those in which the gods are the chief actors--as when the lame

Hephæstus takes upon him the office of cupbearer at the Olympian
banquet, or when Artemis gets her ears boxed by the angry Hera. It
would almost seem as if there were a vein of deliberate satire running
through these descriptions, so daring is the treatment of the divine
personages.
In the Odyssey, on