The Odyssey | Page 4

have given some account of the
genesis of the two books.
The size of the original page has been reduced so as to make both
books uniform with Butler's other works; and, fortunately, it has been
possible, by using a smaller type, to get the same number of words into
each page, so that the references remain good, and, with the exception
of a few minor alterations and rearrangements now to be enumerated so
far as they affect the Translation, the new editions are faithful reprints
of the original editions, with misprints and obvious errors corrected--
no attempt having been made to edit them or to bring them up to date.
(a) The Index has been revised.
(b) Owing to the reduction in the size of the page it has been necessary
to shorten some of the headlines, and here advantage has been taken of
various corrections of and additions to the headlines and shoulder-notes
made by Butler in his own copies of the two books.
(c) For the most part each of the illustrations now occupies a page,
whereas in the original editions they generally appeared two on the
page. It has been necessary to reduce the plan of the House of Ulysses.
On page 153 of "The Authoress" Butler says: "No great poet would
compare his hero to a paunch full of blood and fat, cooking before the
fire (xx, 24-28)." This passage is not given in the abridged Story of the
"Odyssey" at the beginning of the book, but in the Translation it occurs
in these words:
"Thus he chided with his heart, and checked it into endurance, but he

tossed about as one who turns a paunch full of blood and fat in front of
a hot fire, doing it first on one side then on the other, that he may get it
cooked as soon as possible; even so did he turn himself about from side
to side, thinking all the time how, single- handed as he was, he should
contrive to kill so large a body of men as the wicked suitors."
It looks as though in the interval between the publication of "The
Authoress" (1897) and of the Translation (1900) Butler had changed his
mind; for in the first case the comparison is between Ulysses and a
paunch full, etc., and in the second it is between Ulysses and a man
who turns a paunch full, etc. The second comparison is perhaps one
which a great poet might make.
In seeing the works through the press I have had the invaluable
assistance of Mr. A. T. Bartholomew of the University Library,
Cambridge, and of Mr. Donald S. Robertson, Fellow of Trinity College,
Cambridge. To both these friends I give my most cordial thanks for the
care and skill exercised by them. Mr. Robertson has found time for the
labour of checking and correcting all the quotations from and
references to the "Iliad" and "Odyssey," and I believe that it could not
have been better performed. It was, I know, a pleasure for him; and it
would have been a pleasure also for Butler if he could have known that
his work was being shepherded by the son of his old friend, Mr. H. R.
Robertson, who more than half a century ago was a fellow-student with
him at Cary's School of Art in Streatham Street, Bloomsbury.
HENRY FESTING JONES. 120 MAIDA VALE, W.9. 4th December,
1921.

The Odyssey
Book I
THE GODS IN COUNCIL--MIVERVA'S VISIT TO ITHACA--THE
CHALLENGE FROM TELEMACHUS TO THE SUITORS.
Tell me, O Muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide

after he had sacked the famous town of Troy. Many cities did he visit,
and many were the nations with whose manners and customs he was
acquainted; moreover he suffered much by sea while trying to save his
own life and bring his men safely home; but do what he might he could
not save his men, for they perished through their own sheer folly in
eating the cattle of the Sun-god Hyperion; so the god prevented them
from ever reaching home. Tell me, too, about all these things, oh
daughter of Jove, from whatsoever source you may know them.
So now all who escaped death in battle or by shipwreck had got safely
home except Ulysses, and he, though he was longing to return to his
wife and country, was detained by the goddess Calypso, who had got
him into a large cave and wanted to marry him. But as years went by,
there came a time when the gods settled that he should go back to
Ithaca; even then, however, when he was among his own people, his
troubles were not yet over; nevertheless all the gods had now begun to
pity him except Neptune, who