ll
not long be absent from Ithaca;" she also hints the purpose of the
Gods, which is on the point of fulfillment. Be no longer a child;
follow the example of thy father; go and learn about him and emulate
his deeds. Therewith the Goddess furnishes to the doubting youth a plan
of immediate action--altogether the best thing for throwing off his
mental paralysis. He is to proceed at once to Pylos and to Sparta "to
learn of his father" with the final outlook toward the destruction of
the suitors. She is a veritable Goddess to the young striver, speaking
the word of hope and wisdom, and then turning him back upon himself.

Here again we must say that the Goddess was in the heart of Telemachus
uttering her spirit, yet she was external to him also. Her voice is the
voice of the time, of the reality; all things are fluid to the hand of
Telemachus, and ready to be moulded to his scheme. Still the Goddess is
in him just as well, is his thought, his wisdom, which has now become
one with the reason of the world. Both sides are brought together by
the Poet in the most emphatic manner; this is the supreme fact in his
procedure. The subjective and objective elements are one; the divine
order puts its seal on the thought of the man, unites with him, makes
his plan its plan. Thus the God and the Individual are in harmony, and
the great fulfillment becomes possible. But if the thought of
Telemachus were a mere scheme of his own, if it had not received the
stamp of divinity, then it could never become the deed, the heroic
deed, which stands forth in the world existent in its own right and
eternal.

The Goddess flits away, "like a bird," in speed and silence. Telemachus
now recognizes that the stranger was a divinity. For has he not the
proof in his own heart? He is indeed a new person or the beginning
thereof. But hark to this song! It is the bard singing "the sad return
of the Greeks"--the very song which the poet himself is now singing in
this Odyssey. For it is also a sad return, indeed many sad returns, as
we shall see hereafter. Homer has thus put himself into his poem
singing his poem. Who cannot feel that this touch is taken from life,
is an echo of his own experience in some princely hall?

But here she comes, the grand lady of the story, Penelope, the wife of
Ulysses, as it were in response to the music. A glorious appearance at
a happy moment; yet she is not happy: "Holding a veil before her face,
and shedding tears, she besp