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rt in the soul of Ulysses. Does he not show within himself a deep scission--between his desire to return and his deed? At any rate he is borne forward; when he sought to round Maleia, the southern point of Greece (now Cape St. Angelo), and sail home to Ithaca, he was carried out to sea by the winds, beyond the Island Cythera, across the main toward the coast of Africa. Thus he is swept outside the boundaries of Hellas proper into a region dimly known, half-mythical; he cannot make the sharp turn at Maleia, inside the Greek world; he must go beyond it and there reach his final experience. Not simply physical is this description, else it would be a mere statement in geography; it is also spiritual and hence rises into poetry. II. Next is the land of the Lotus-eaters, where Ulysses and his companions arrive, after being driven helplessly "across the fishy deep" for nine days (this is a favorite number in Homer) by the hostile winds. The Lotus-eaters, "whose food is flowers" use no violence, but reach to the new-comers their plant, the lotus, to satisfy hunger. Whoever has once tasted of that pleasant food, straightway forgets home and the Return, and wishes to live always among the Lotus-eaters. The will is broken, all activity is sapped; the land of idlers it is, relaxed in a sensuous dream life, in which there is a complete collapse of volition. Now the point is to connect this country with the Ciconians, or rather to see this internal condition evolving itself out of the preceding one. For the line of conjunction must be within, of the spirit; physically the two countries are far enough apart. In the first case, we have noted a state of external violence, which really means a destroying of the will. The Greeks assailed a quiet people, assailed its will; then they were beaten and driven off, they had their negative deed served up to themselves. Now what? There follows an internal collapse of the will, a logical result of their own conduct, which is hinted by their being drifted about on the seas, apparently quite helpless. No wonder that, when they touched land again, and obtained some food, they desired to stay there, and eat of the lotus. Yet it is the consequence of their own act; that wanton destruction of the Ciconian will is at bottom the destruction of their own will; they are really assailing their own principle--a fact which is to be brought home to them by a long and bitter experience. But there is o
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