g together, making a complete work on the education of man,
as it could be had in that old Greek world. This part is the Odyssey
proper, or the Ulyssiad.

III. The third part brings together father and son in Ithaca; then it
portrays them uniting to perform the great deed of justice, the
punishment of the suitors. This part embraces the last twelve Books,
but is not distinctly set forth in the plan of Pallas as here given.

Such is the structure of the poem, which is organized in its main
outlines from Olympus. It is Pallas, the deity of wisdom, who has
ordered it in this way; her we shall follow, in preference to the
critics, and unfold the interpretation on the same organic lines. Every
reader will feel that the three great joints of the poetical body are
truly foreshadowed by the Goddess, who indeed is the constructive
principle of the poem. One likes to see this belief of the old singer
that his work was of divine origin, was actually planned upon Olympus
by Pallas in accordance with the decree of Zeus. So at least the Muses
have told him, and they were present. But the grandest utterance here
is that of Zeus, the Greek Providence, proclaiming man's free will.

Very old and still very new is the problem of the Odyssey; with a
little care we can see that the Homeric Greek had to solve in his way
what every one of us still has to solve, namely, the problem of life.
Only yesterday one might have heard the popular preacher of a great
city, a kind of successor to Homer, blazoning the following text as his
theme: God is not to blame. Thus the great poem has an eternal subject,
though its outer garb be much changed by time. The soul of Homer is
ethical, and that is what makes him immortal. Not till we realize this
fact, can we be said in any true sense, to understand him.

TELEMACHIAD.

The Introduction being concluded, the story of Telemachus begins, and
continues till the Fifth Book. Two main points stand forth in the
narrative. The first is the grand conflict with the suitors, the men of
guilt, the disturbers of the divine order; this conflict runs through
to the end of the poem, where they are swept out of the world which
they have thrown into discord. The second point of the Telemachiad is
the education of Telemachus, which is indeed the chief fact of these
Books; the youth is to be trained to meet the conflict which is looming
up before him in the distance. Thus we have one of the first
educational books of th