when delivered; the same event
recurring, as when the boat is rowed, the banquet prepared, or the
armor put on, is described in the same language. Such is usually felt
to be a mark of epic simplicity, of the naive use of language, which
will not vary a phrase merely for the sake of variety. But Kirchhoff
and his followers will have it just the other way; the early poet never
varies or repeats, only the later poet does that. So he seeks out a
large number of passages in the rest of the Odyssey, and in the Iliad
also, which have something in common with passages of this First Book,
especially in the matter of words, and easily finds it to be a "cento,"
a mixed mass of borrowed phrases.

But who was the author of such work? Not the original Homer, but some
later matcher and patcher, imitator or redactor. It is not easy to tell
from Kirchhoff just how many persons may have had a hand in this making
of the Odyssey, as it lies before us. In his dissertations we read of a
motley multitude: original poet, continuator, interpolator, redactor,
reconstructor, imitator, author of the older part, author of the newer
part--not merely individuals, but apparently classes of men. Thus he
anatomizes old Homer with a vengeance.

_BOOK SECOND._

The general relation between the First and Second Books is to be
grasped at once. In the First Book the main fact is the Assembly in the
Upper World, together with the descent of the divine influence which
through Pallas comes to Telemachus in person, gives him courage and
stirs him to action. This action is to bring harmony into the
discordant land. In the Second Book the main fact is the Assembly in
the Lower World, together with the rise of Telemachus into a new
participation with divine influence in the form of Pallas, who sends
him forth on his journey of education. We behold, therefore, in the two
Books a sweep from above to below, then from below back to the divine
influence. Earth and Olympus are the halves of the cycle, but the Earth
is in discord and must be transformed to the harmony of Olympus.

Looking now at the Second Book by itself, we note that it falls into
two portions: the Assembly of the People, which has been called
together by Telemachus, and the communion of the youth with Pallas, who
again appears to him at his call. The first is a mundane matter, and
shows the Lower World in conflict with the divine order--the sides
being the Suitors on the one hand and the Ho