mething for which vengeance awaits
him, so he urges his companions to flee at once. But they would not
obey, they stayed there "drinking much wine and slaughtering sheep and
oxen along the sea-shore." Revel and feasting follow, till the
Ciconians rouse the outlying neighbors and drive the Greeks to the
ships, with the loss of six companions for each ship. Such is the first
incident after the Trojan War, showing clearly the destructive phase
thereof, which has been drilled into the character by so long a period
of bloodshed.

This is not yet Fairyland, but a real people and a real conflict. The
Ciconians in the later historic time of Herodotus still dwelt in
Thrace. Grotius in his famous book _On the Rights of Peace and War_
cites the present instance as a violation of international justice. The
grand positive ground of attacking Troy is not found here; there was no
Helen detained in wrongful captivity. The sack of Ismarus pictures the
evil results which spring from all war, even the most just. Again we
must affirm that this deed of wrongful violence is the start toward the
great Return, and hints what has to be overcome internally by the
journey through Fairyland.

Later we find a fact, not here mentioned, pertaining to the sack of the
city of the Ciconians. Ulysses had saved Maron, the priest of Apollo,
who in gratitude gave him the strong wine with which he overcame
Polyphemus in the cave. His merciful deed thus helped him conquer the
monster of nature. But in general it is plain that Ulysses, though
desiring to get back to an institutional life, is not ready by any
means for such a step; he is in reality hostile to the very essence of
institutional life. He is too much like the suitors now to be their
punisher.

All put to sea again, to be tossed on that unruly element, with their
little vessels exposed to wind and wave. "They call thrice by name each
one of their dead companions" ere they set out; the meaning of this
invocation has been much discussed, but it probably rests upon the
belief that they could thus call the souls of the deceased to go along
with them to home and country. The fact that just six were lost from
each ship was made the ground of an assault upon Homer in antiquity by
Zoilus, famed as the Homeromastix, or Homer's trouncer.

The great sea with its tempests is now before them, heaving and
tossing; after the attack upon the Ciconians we can well imagine that
this storm has its inner counterpa