l reach
"the land of the Phaeacians, near of kin to the Gods," where he will be
"honored as a God," and will be sent home with abounding wealth, "more
than he would ever have received at Troy, returning unharmed with his
share of the booty." Such is the promise of the world-governor to the
self-reliant man; this promise is not fate but foresight on the part of
the Supreme God. "Thus is the Hero destined to see again his friends,"
namely by means of a small raft or float, which he alone must control
in his own strength, without the help of God or man. Such is the reward
of heroic endeavor, proclaimed by Zeus himself.

2. The messenger Hermes begins his flight down to Calypso, holding his
magic wand, with which he puts men to sleep or wakens them, imparting
the power of vision or taking it away. He reaches the wonderful island
with its grot, the account of which has been a master-stroke in
literature, and shows that the description of nature was not alien to
the Greek poet, though he rarely indulges in it. One thinks that the
passage contains a suggestion of much modern writing of the kind.

It is to be noted that this island is mostly a wild product, it has had
very little training from its resident. A natural house and garden we
see it to be in the main; the senses, especially sight and smell, are
gratified immediately by physical objects. There is little indication
of Art, possibly a beginning in the singing and weaving; rude nature
may have been transformed somewhat in the four fountains and in the
trailing grape-vine. But this description is not made for its own sake,
as are many modern descriptions of nature; the whole is the true
environment for Calypso, and suggests her character.

Her name means the concealer, concealed herself in that lone sea-closed
island, and concealing others. Undeveloped she is, like nature, yet
beautiful; sunken still in the life of the senses, she dwells in her
little paradise without any inner scission. But it must be recollected
that Ulysses is not native to the island, he has come or rather fallen
hither, from a higher condition. He, therefore, has the scission in
himself, he longs to leave and be restored out of this realm of mere
nature.

With such a longing the Gods must coincide, for they are the Gods of
culture, of the rise out of the physical. The long Journey of Hermes
hints the distance between Olympus and Calypso's isle--a distance which
has its spiritual counterpart. The