oke the bard: Phemius cease from this sad
song, it cuts me to the heart." It reminds her of her husband and his
sorrowful return, not yet accomplished; she cannot endure the anguish
and she begs the bard to sing another strain which may delight his
hearers.

This, then, is the sage Penelope whose character will be tested in many
ways, and move through many subtle turns to the end of the poem. In
this her first appearance we note that she proclaims in the presence of
the suitors her undying love for her husband. This trait we may fairly
consider to be the deepest of her nature. She thinks of him continually
and weeps at his absence. Still she has her problem which requires at
times all her female tact, yes, even dissimulation. Reckless suitors
are pressing for her hand, she has to employ all her arts to defer the
hateful marriage; otherwise she is helpless. She is the counterpart of
her husband, a female Ulysses, who has waited twenty years for his
return. She also has had a stormy time, with the full experience of
life; her adventures in her world rival his in his world. But
underneath all her cunning is the rock of eternal fidelity. She went
back to her room, and wept for her husband "till Pallas closed her
eye-lids in sweet sleep."

Nor can we pass over the answer of Telemachus, which he makes at this
point to his mother. It may be called a little Homeric treatise on
poetry. "Mother, let the poet sing as his spirit moves him;" he is not
to be constrained, but must give the great fact; "poets are not to
blame but Zeus," for the sad return of the Greeks; "men applaud the
song which is newest," novelty being already sought for in the
literature of Homer's time. But the son's harsh reproof of the mother,
with which his speech closes, bidding her look after her own affairs,
the loom and distaff and servants, is probably an interpolation. Such
is the judgment of Aristarchus, the greatest ancient commentator on
Homer; such is also the judgment of Professor Nitzsch, the greatest
modern commentator on the Odyssey.

II.

The other side of the collision is the party of suitors, who assail the
House of Ulysses in property, in the son, in the wife, and finally in
Ulysses himself. They are the wrong-doers whose deeds are to be avenged
by the returning hero; their punishment will exemplify the faith in an
ethical order of the world, upon which the poem reposes as its very
foundation. They are insolent, debauched, unjust; they