The two points between which the Return hovers are also
given: the capture of Troy and the Greek world. Not a mere book of
travels or adventure is this; it contains an inner restoration
corresponding to the outer Return, and the interpreter of the work, if
he be true to his function, will trace the interior line of its
movement, not neglecting the external side which has also a right to
be.

_The Obstacles._ Two of these are mentioned and carried back to their
mythical sources. All the returning heroes are home from Troy except
the chief one, Ulysses, whom Calypso detains in her grot, "wishing him
to be her husband;" she, the unmarried, keeps him, the married, from
family and country, though he longs to go back to both. She is the
daughter of "the evil-minded Atlas," a hoary gigantesque shape of
primitive legend, "who knows the depths of all the sea,"--a dark
knowledge of an unseen region, from which come many fatalities, as
shipwreck for the Greek sailor or earthquake for the volcanic Greek
islands; hence he is imagined as "evil-minded" by the Greek mythical
fancy, which also makes him the supporter of "the long columns which
hold Heaven and Earth apart"--surely a hard task, enough to cause
anybody to be in a state of protest and opposition against the happy
Gods who have nothing to do but enjoy themselves on Olympus. Sometimes
he refuses to hold the long columns for awhile, then comes the
earthquake, in which what is below starts heavenward. Of this Atlas,
Calypso is the offspring, and possibly her island, "the navel of the
sea," is a product of one of his movements underneath the waters.

Here we touch a peculiar vein in the mythical treatment of the Odyssey.
The fairy-tale, with its comprehensive but dark suggestiveness, is
interwoven into the very fibre of the poem. This remote Atlas is the
father of Calypso, "the hider," who has indeed hidden Ulysses in her
island of pleasure which will hereafter be described. But in spite of
his "concealment," Ulysses has aspiration, which calls down the help of
the Gods for fulfillment. Such is the first obstacle, which, we can
see, lies somewhere in the sensuous part of human nature.

The second obstacle is Neptune, whom we at once think of as the
physical sea--certainly a great barrier. The wrath of Neptune is also
set off with a tale of wonder, which gives the origin of Polyphemus,
the Cyclops--a gigantic, monstrous birth of the sea, which produces so
many strange and hug