brawls, listen to Phemius, this gifted minstrel's heaven-attempered song.' -To-morrow meet me in counciland I will dismiss you to your own homes-if thither you go not at my command, I warn you that vengeance is preparing against you in heaven-and that no hand will be outstretched to save you when its hour is come. You are all doomed to die!" They too are astonished-gnaw their mute lips-and are sore afraid. But there is not a coward among them-and they recover courage to jibe and jeer-yet are they tamedand their eloquence wants fire. An tinous himself, even in the war of words, is now no match for Telemachus. The fearless Youth, in the joy of hope, lies to his insulter. He believes his father will return-for he trusts to the "veil'd divinity," but he calls her by the feigned name of the feigned Taphian chief, and inly exulting, says, "My sire will return no more." The close of the scene is as perfect as its opening and its progress-and how delightful to us of these artificial and civilized days is the picture of the domestic life of the simple heroic age! "Now in sweet interchange of song and dance, In either hand a torch his step before. With bolt and brace secured :-the Prince, there laid One great purpose nobly conceived changes the whole character, by shewing the whole of life under a new aspect. Say, rather, it brings out the character, and makes the man feel and know what he is, as he firmly plants his foot on the threshold of his own house, which a high destiny calls on him to leave, and to go forth in power on a career that must have a glorious end. Look on the Telemachus of the Morn of Hope. Is he not "attired With sudden brightness like a morn inspired ?" Homer rejoices to look on himhe lavishes beauty on his head-but not from his own hands-the glory there is shed by Pallas. It is an emanation from the young hero's own awakened heart. So Ulysses looked—when, but a few years older, he set sail for Troy. How his nurse must have gazed on him going forth in the morning sun-Euryclea, whom his grandfather purchased when a virgin for twenty oxen, but respected her virginity from fear of his wife. She nursed, too, Ulysses -yet never loved she him so dearly as Telemachus, for love descends, and settles on its latest-its last object-soft as snow and sweet as light-accumulated and accumulating there till the eyes wax dim and the heart scarcely beats-at the last gasp of life. His nurse loved him more than did even his own mother; for his own mother was a Queen, and his nurse was a slave. Penelope had been lamenting for twenty years her absent, or her lost lord-and the stream of sorrow kept flowing on from the fountain of love, that needed not to be fed-inexhaustible in a woman's heart as the sea. There was an affection, holiest of the holy, which she could not transfer but to the assured place of his lifeless rest. It had imagined a hundred graves for her Ulysses-it had been haunted far oftener by his ghost. But his ship too had often sailed through her dreams-and often had sleep laid her in her hero's bosom. The face-the form of her son had a thousand times troubled her-so like those of him who was not—or was somewhere, known but to the Ruler of the Skies. By fits and starts to her must her Telemachus have been all in all. But she had dignities to guard-and indignities to endure-and duties to perform-and suits to repel-and temptations to resist-and fears to banish -and hopes to bring from afar—and all because she was faithful to the husband of her youth-to him for whose sake she had covered her face with her veil-and to whom she had said in a sweet low voice, when her father Icarius asked her would she go or stay-"I go to Ithaca, Ulysses, with Thee!" But Euryclea was-as you know—a mere aged slave. She may have had some swineherd groom for a husband-half a century ago -and a swarm of children; but we hear nothing of them-only of two sons of hers do we hear-and they are-Ulysses and Telemachus. Perhaps she once loved Laertes, when they were in their prime-she in the bloom of purchase-and from fear an unenjoyed handmaid that decked the nuptial couch. Both old now, and weak and miserable-but she the happier far, because repining not now very painfully even for Ulysses, and having no care-no love nothing to live for-but that bright Boy climbing up to manhood, and now standing majestically as on a hill-top between her and the sky. She the slave belonged to him, Prince Telemachus; but he belonged to her, Nurse Euryclea; and now that he is about to sail in search of his Father, it is to her he confides the secretfor in that still, simple, sworn heart of hers he knows it will lie buried beneath a weight of wishes for his safe return, nor be confided even to the air, that might repeat the whisper, if one word of it were joined with the name of her Telemachus even in her prayers. Twelve days is a long time to keep a secret-in fear and trembling too; but Euryclea kept it—and would have kept it against all instruments of torture angrily seeking to tug it out of her heart. Her trustful silence was proof alike against fear and joy. Think for a moment-but no more now-of her discovery of the scar and whose feet they were that it was at last given her in that bath to embrace ! But here is Telemachus walking to the Council in the light-as we said-of the Morn of Hope: "Ulysses' son, when first Aurora spread Round him celestial glory Pallas cast. Awed to mute wonder through the admiring throng Then 'mid the yielding elders pass'd alone, And sat unquestion'd on his father's throne." Nothing can be more finely illustrative of the character in the first book shewn to belong to Telemachus, than his whole conduct during the council that is held in the second-yet his speeches-as they are reported by Homer-have not escaped criticism. It was certainly-an admirable first appearance. Till now no council had been called in Ithaca since the departure of Ulysses. It must have been rather a formidable thing for so young a person to rise up and arraign the Suitors before the peers. Telemachus does not rise till old Ægyptius asks by whom the council had been summoned; and then he indeed does rise, and majestically, and answers-"Behold him who convened the council-I am he!" We have heard it said by an apostate Tory, now fallen from Whig into Radical, that his speech has no bones. But no speech had ever a more pithy spine. Only its spine is straight-and the speech it self clothed with flesh-and-blood life. Bones are only observable in distortion or the rickets-but deformity is seldom strength-abrupt, awkward, angular osseous projections do not constitute a speech, but a skeleton. What had he to prove? Nothing. They knew all it was possible he could have to say-but he was desirous to ascertain if theythe peers-were insensible to shame -tongue-and-hand-tied — that isgagged and manacled by fear. Was the House swamped? Or basely waiting to see who should be at the Head of Affairs? He, in a few touching words, reminds them of his no ble father, who once governed them all, even as a father his children; he speaks of the imminent ruin of his house, and of his mother's persecution by the Suitors, which he calls "a more alarming ill" than the loss of his father; for were the palace freed, and the island under law, he might, without offence to nature, weep for Ulysses no more, and be indeed happy as a king. We say so -not Telemachus. But there has been a conspiracy among critics to accuse and convict the young prince of selfishness, and want or weakness of natural affection—and as a painful proof of their charge, they point to this passage of which the good sense, say we, is as conspicuous as the right feeling-and altogether worthy the heir-apparent. There is no exaggeration of any grief or grievance, and he speaks fervently the simple truth. He had never seen his father. His feelings were those of love, and honour, and reverence, and awe, towards a being whom his heart and imagination created and called Father created, if we may say so, of attributes furnished to fancy by all the voices of the Isle that sighed for Ulysses. Yet him fain would he seek over land and sea-and for his sake was he now sounding the souls of the Peers in Council to ascertain if any generous sentiments slept there, that might be awakened by his return, and rise up to the rescue. Cowper here is very Homeric-far more so than Sotheby. "Resent, yourselves, this outrage; dread the blame Which else ye must incur from every state Around us, and the anger of the gods, Lest they impute these impious deeds to you. I next adjure you by Olympic Jove, By Themis, who convenes and who dissolves All councils, that ye interpose, my friends! To check them, and afford to my distress A solitary and a silent home. But if Ulysses, my illustrious sire, Whose wrongs ye purpose to avenge on me, Then aid them openly; for better far, Were my condition, if yourselves consumed My revenue; ye should compensate soon My sufferings at your hands; for my complaints Nor cease till I were satisfied for all; But now, conniving at the wrong, ye pierce My soul with anguish not to be endured!' He spoke impassion'd, and to earth cast down His tears were tears of disappointment, shame, indignation, and rage. He had shewn he did not fear the suitors-while he bitterly confessed he had not power to rid his house of them, or put them all to death. But he called on the Council to raise up all Ithaca to redress his wrongsthey sat mute-and therefore he dashed down his sceptre, and wept. And what ensued? "Pity at that sight seized all the people." But what is the use of pity? To dry a maiden's tears. And who were the people? Not knowing we cannot say -but we suppose the Suitors-natives and aliens - had their adherents in that assemblage-a course of connivance generates falsehood and fear-kills loyalty and patriotism-deadens, if it does not destroy, all sense of justice-bends the necks of nobles as if they were serfs or villains-and "Slips the slave's collar on, and snaps the lock." Up starts Antinous to answer him whom he scornfully calls "highsounding orator," and we admire his speech. In it he narrates the pious fraud of Penelope in weaving and unweaving the famous web-a funeral robe-so feigned she-for the ancient Laertes-and we can imagine that Telemachus listened with a smile. Nor displeased could he have been to hear even from such lips such a character of his mother. "Studious alone to merit praise for arts By Pallas given her largely; matchless skill To weave the splendid web; sagacious thought; And shrewdness such as never fame ascribed To any beauteous Greek of ancient days, Transcends in knowledge, ignorant alone, Noble English of noble Greek-dear Cowper-and it must have been difficult for Telemachus, hearing such eulogium, to hate Antinous with all his heart-so filial was it as well as heroicplacable, had the Suitors ceased -nor yet imto devour his house. He would have forgiven them even at the eleventh hour-but there was onePenelope's own dear Dread-inaccessible to forgiveness-and though he was now far-off-not long the time till he was to be near—and then -but now the Prince hears Antinous tell him, that either his mother must be dismissed from the palace and forced to wed, or that they will all continue to banquet at his cost-and burst of filial affection that glows if you are not satisfied with the through his righteous rage, and makes it more withering in its intensity, you must look for nature and the truth of nature where you choose, but can never hope to find them in Homer. fied even that abject assembly-and The reply of Telemachus electriastounded the profligates who had made it base. But it did more than move the timid and the tyrannical— it stirred the sky and was heard by Jove. We know not how the passage may look in prose-but in the Greek it is as portentous poetry as ever flashed luridly from a gloomy shrine. CHRISTOPHER north. LITERALLY, AND LINE FOR LINE WITH THE ORIGINAL. But when they indeed came to the midst of the many-voiced (roλúpnuov) There sweeping-round they shook their numerous plumes, And gazed on the heads of all, and looked destruction : And with their talons having lacerated-their-own jaws, and their necks around, They rushed to the right through (over) their (the people of Ithaca's) houses and city. They (the people) were-stunned-with-amazement at the birds, as they gazed And they pondered in their hearts, what this was to bring-about. Mastorides, who alone excelled his years-mates In the knowledge of birds (auguries), and in interpreting portentous omens, "Listen to me verily, ye people-of-Ithaca, in what I shall say: The wooers above-all I single-out in this my speech, Since for them great destruction is revolving: Ulysses not Long apart from his friends shall be, but even now somewhere Near at hand he is, and for these very men is he planning (pursue, planting) slaughter and destiny, (Yes) for-all-of-them: and evil shall come on many more of us Who inhabit Ithaca favourably-situated-towards-the-west (or conspicuous); but Let us deliberate how we shall put a stop to this, and let them (the wooers) too For on that man ( Ulysses), I say, has every thing been brought about— The Greeks, and along with them went Ulysses fertile-in-expedients, I declared that (after) having suffered many evils, (after) having lost all his associates, Unknown to all, in the twentieth year, Home should he come;—and now truly is all this being-brought about." Eustathius-as we find him in Pope -for we have not himself at handsays well, "This prodigy is ushered in very magnificently, and the verses are lofty and sonorous. The Eagles are Ulysses and Telemachus: by Jove's command they fly from a mountain's height: this denotes that the two heroes are inspired by Jupiter, and come from the country to the destruction of the suitors: The eagles fly with wing to wing conjoined; this shews that they act in concert and unity of councils: at first they float upon the wind; this implies the calmness and secrecy of the approach of those heroes: at last they clang their wings, and hovering beat the skies; this shews the violence of the assault: with ardent eyes the rival train they threat. This, as the poet himself interprets it, denotes the approaching fate of the suitors. Then sailing over the domes and towers, they fly full towards the East; this signifies that the suitors alone are not doomed to destruction, but that the men of Ithaca are involved in danger, as Halitherses interprets it." Good. But why did the Bishop-if he wrote this at all-which we doubt-our faith being small in the notes furnished to Pope by Brome-omit mention of their tearing one another's necks? Because, perhaps, he did not understand it. Why did the Royal Birds, imaging Father and Son, take a turnup in the sky? Was it because they saw no other mode of letting the wretches beneath see that there was to be a fight in the Palace? Or was it merely in mirth and glee that the Eagles, full of might and fight, joined combat in the air, by way of a spree? Or was it to shew the Suitors how Eagles fought? Every thing in Homer, and in every other Great Poet, has a meaning; and you may adopt whichever of our conjectures you willbut as you love us, do not slur the tussle over as a mere tissue of words. Halitherses, as an augur, said enough to frighten all but the infatuated; but he was not bound to explain all the omen-enough that he predicted dismay, disaster, and death. How do the translators handle the two Eagles? Let us see. Brome did Beta for Pope-and here is Brome: BROME. With that the Eagles from a mountain's height, |