, it may be; she is always
angry and quick to punish in such cases; but he may climb down the
height and escape. In like manner a man, undertaking to swim across the
sea, encounters the wrath of Neptune; but he may construct a ship, and
make the voyage. (3) Finally there is the ethical violation: we shall
see in the narrative, how Ulysses, after appealing to humanity, becomes
himself inhuman and a savage toward Polyphemus, who then curses him and
invokes father Neptune with effect. So the God visits upon Ulysses the
punishment for his ethical offense, which is the main one after all. In
this way Fableland through the story of Polyphemus contains a leading
motive of the Ulyssiad, and thereby of the whole Odyssey, and Ulysses
is seen to be detained really by his own deed.

8. The general structure of these four Books is simple enough. They
form a series of adventures, with three to a Book. Though the
connection seems slight on the surface, there are inner threads which
bind intimately together the separate adventures; one of the points in
any true interpretation is to raise these threads to light. The general
movement of the whole may be regarded as threefold: the sensible world
(two Books), the supersensible Hades (one Book), the sensible world a
second time (one Book). Very significant are these changes, but it is
hardly worth while to forecast them here; they must be studied in
detail first, then a retrospect can be given, as the contents of the
four Books will be present in the reader's mind. We may now say,
however, that this sweep from the sensible into the supersensible, and
back again to the sensible, has in it the meaning of a soul's
experience, and that the second sensible realm here mentioned is very
different from the first.

The central fact of Fableland is, accordingly, that the man must get
beyond the realm of the senses, and hold communion with pure spirit,
with the prophet Tiresias, and then come back to the real world,
bringing the wisdom gained beyond, ere he can complete the cycle of the
grand Return.

_BOOK NINTH._

Ulysses is now called for by Alcinous, and he is to be the singer. At
first he naturally pays a compliment to his predecessor Demodocus: "A
pleasant thing to hear a bard such as this," with a voice like unto
that of the Gods. Then he gives a delicate touch of commendation to the
whole people "sitting in a row and listening to the singer" who is
chanting the famous deeds of the