says: "They have soft _marshy_ meadows near the sea, and good, rich,
crumbling, ploughing-land, giving fine deep crops, and vines always
giving fruit"; then, "a port so quiet, that they have no need of
cables in it; and at the head of the port, a beautiful clear spring
just _under a cave_, and _aspen poplars all round it_."[105]

This, it will be seen, is very nearly Homer's usual "ideal"; but,
going into the middle of the island, Ulysses comes on a rougher and
less agreeable bit, though still fulfilling certain required
conditions of endurableness; a "cave shaded with laurels,"[106] which,
having no poplars about it, is, however, meant to be somewhat
frightful, and only fit to be inhabited by a Cyclops. So in the
country of the Laestrygons, Homer, preparing his reader gradually for
something very disagreeable, represents the rocks as bare and "exposed
to the sun";[107] only with some smooth and slippery roads over them,
by which the trucks bring down wood from the higher hills. Any one
familiar with Swiss slopes of hills must remember how often he has
descended, sometimes faster than was altogether intentional, by these
same slippery woodman's truck roads.

And thus, in general, whenever the landscape is intended to be lovely,
it verges towards the ploughed lands and poplars; or, at worst, to
_woody_ rocks; but, if intended to be painful, the rocks are bare and
"sharp." This last epithet, constantly used by Homer for mountains,
does not altogether correspond, in Greek, to the English term, nor is
it intended merely to characterize the sharp mountain summits; for it
never would be applied simply to the edge or point of a sword, but
signifies rather "harsh," "bitter," or "painful," being applied
habitually to fate, death, and in _Odyssey_ xi. 333, to a halter; and,
as expressive of general objectionableness and unpleasantness, to all
high, dangerous, or peaked mountains, as the Maleian promontory (a
much-dreaded one), the crest of Parnassus, the Tereian mountain, and a
grim or untoward, though, by keeping off the force of the sea,
protective, rock at the mouth of the Jardanus; as well as habitually
to inaccessible or impregnable fortresses built on heights.

In all this I cannot too strongly mark the utter absence of any
trace of the feeling for what we call the picturesque, and the
constant dwelling of the writer's mind on what was available,
pleasant, or useful: his ideas respecting all landscape being not
uncharac