ror in the very statement of the transaction. He confesses to
Alcinous and the Phaeacians his negative attitude to the State and the
consequences thereof; he confesses to Arete in what way he has violated
her institution. Here lies the necessity: this confession is absolutely
needful to his soul to free it of its negative past. He has become
conscious of his condition, and utters his confession to these people
who are the opposite of it, and thus gets rid of his limitation. The
psychologic ground of his telling his own story is that he must.

To be sure, this is all done in a mythical form, which is somewhat
alien to our method of making a confession. Then Homer does not
moralize by the way, he does not usually approve or condemn; he simply
states the deed and its consequences. His procedure is objective, truly
artistic, letting the thing speak for itself. The modern reader,
however, likes to have moral observations interspersed, which will stir
up his sentiments, and save him the trouble of thinking the matter out
for himself.

Yet Ulysses, on the other hand, is always striving to reach out of his
error, to transcend his limitation. His mistake flings him to the
earth, but he gets up again and marches forward. Thus he asserts his
own infinite worth; he is certain to reach home at last and accomplish
the grand Return.

But he does not bring back his companions. These often seem to be lower
unheroic phases of human nature, which the hero must throw off in the
course of his development. In general, they may be considered to be in
him, a part of himself, yet they are real persons too. This rule,
however, will not always apply. Still his companions are lost, having
"perished by their own folly," while he is saved; the wise man is to
live, the unwise to pass away.

The pivotal sin committed by Ulysses in Fableland is against Neptune,
who is angry because Ulysses put out the eye of his son Polyphemus. So
the God, after the affair of the Oxen of the Sun, becomes the grand
obstacle to the Return, and helps to keep the hero with Calypso. Such
is the mythical statement in which three conceptions seem to blend. (1)
Neptune is the purely physical obstacle of the sea, very great in those
early days. (2) Nature has her law, and if it be not observed, the
penalty follows, when she may be said to be mythically angry. If a man
jump down from a high precipice, he violates a law of nature,
gravitation, and she executes him on the spot