ut hints what they are to become.

In general, we pass in this second part of the present Book as we have
divided it, to the sensuous element of the Phaeacian world, the
inactive, quiet, self-indulgent phase, in decided contrast to the
preceding part which shows a love of manly action in games and in war.
Let us still further develop the twofold way in which this fact is
brought out.

1. The second song of Demodocus has the general theme of the Trojan War
and suggests the grand event of the aforetime. It manifestly carries
the Trojan scission into Olympus and drives out in disgrace the Trojan
deities. Vulcan, the wronged husband, is the divine artificer; he makes
a network of chains which could not be broken, "like a spider's web, so
fine that no one could see it, not even a God;" in this snare the
guilty deities are caught, exposed, punished. These invisible, yet
unbreakable chains have an ethical suggestion, and hint the law which
is also to be executed on Olympus, as it was below in Troy. As Vulcan
is the artist among the Gods, we are prompted to find also an artistic
bearing in the scene; the artist catches the wrong-doers by his art and
holds them fast in a marvelous net where they still lie, and shall lie
for all time; even the intercession of Neptune cannot get them free.
The scene is indeed caught out of the reality and holds to-day; the
dashing, finely-uniformed son of Mars (so called at present) is most
apt to win the heart of the gay, fashionable, beautiful daughter of
Venus, have an escapade, and cause a scandal. Oft too they are caught
in our modern, most adroitly woven spider's web, which goes under the
name of newspaper, and held up, if not before a seeing Olympus, at
least before a reading public, which not seldom indulges in
conversation very much in the style of the Gods as here set forth. We
moderns do not go to the market-place to hear such a strain, but have
it brought to us in the Morning Journal. One advantage the Phaeacian
had: Arete and Nausicaa did not go to the market-place, where this song
was sung, only men were there, but the print will enter the household
where are wife and daughter. At any rate, we have to pronounce the song
of Demodocus typical, universal, nay, ethical in spite of its
light-hearted raillery, inasmuch as the deed is regarded as a breach of
divine law, is exposed and punished, and the recompense for the release
of the guilty pair, the penalty, is duly stated in accordance