s copious fountains nearly always have); but Homer does not
say "spring," he says simply flow, and uses only one word for "growing
softly," or "richly," of the tall trees, the vine, and the violets.
There is, however, some expression of sympathy with the sea-birds; he
speaks of them in precisely the same terms, as in other places of
naval nations, saying they "have care of the works of the sea."

If we glance through the references to pleasant landscape which occur
in other parts of the _Odyssey_, we shall always be struck by this
quiet subjection of their every feature to human service, and by the
excessive similarity in the scenes. Perhaps the spot intended, after
this, to be most perfect, may be the garden of Alcinous, where the
principal ideas are, still more definitely, order, symmetry and
fruitfulness;[89] the beds being duly ranged between rows of vines,
which, as well as the pear, apple, and fig trees, bear fruit
continually, some grapes being yet sour, while others are getting
black; there are plenty of "_orderly_ square beds of herbs," chiefly
leeks, and two fountains, one running through the garden, and one
under the pavement of the palace to a reservoir for the citizens.
Ulysses, pausing to contemplate this scene, is described nearly in the
same terms as Mercury pausing to contemplate the wilder meadow; and it
is interesting to observe, that, in spite of all Homer's love of
symmetry, the god's admiration is excited by the free fountains, wild
violets, and wandering vine; but the mortal's, by the vines in rows,
the leeks in beds, and the fountains in pipes.

Ulysses has, however, one touching reason for loving vines in rows.
His father had given him fifty rows for himself, when he was a boy,
with corn between them (just as it now grows in Italy). Proving his
identity afterwards to his father, whom he finds at work in his
garden, "with thick gloves on, to keep his hands from the thorns," he
reminds him of these fifty rows of vines, and of the "thirteen
pear-trees and ten apple-trees" which he had given him: and Laertes
faints upon his neck.[90]

If Ulysses had not been so much of a gardener, it might have been
received as a sign of considerable feeling for landscape beauty, that,
intending to pay the very highest possible compliment to the Princess
Nausicaa (and having, indeed, the moment before gravely asked her
whether she was a goddess or not), he says that he feels, at seeing
her, exactly as he did when