es, fiends, in general of romanticism.

So much for Circe in her new relation in the present Book; how about
Ulysses? It is manifest that he too is prepared for a fresh experience.
He has been in the Underworld and great has been the profit. There he
has seen the famous men and women of old and beheld the very heart of
their destiny; the Trojan and the Pre-Trojan worthies sweeping backward
through all Greek time he has witnessed and in part heard; he has
become acquainted with the prophet Tiresias who knows Past, Present and
Future, who is the universal mind in its purity from all material
dross; he has beheld the Place of Doom and its penalties, as well as
the supreme Greek Hero, the universal man of action, Hercules. Nor must
we forget that he has run upon a limitation, that Gorgon from whom he
fled. Truly he has obtained in this journey to Hades a grand experience
of the Past, of all Greek ages, which is now added to his own personal
experience. So this Past, with its knowledge, is to be applied to the
Future, whereby knowledge becomes foreknowledge, and experience is to
be transformed into prophecy. Mark then the transition from the
previous to the present Book: when Ulysses comes back to the world of
sense, he will at once see in it the supersensible, which he has just
behold; he must hear in the Present a prophetic voice, that of Circe
proclaiming the Future.

Thus Ulysses is now ready to listen to the coming event and to
understand its import. It is to be observed that up to the Eleventh
Book he has had experience merely; he took everything as it came, by
chance, without knowing of it beforehand; he simply happens upon the
Lotus-eaters, Polyphemus, Circe, though the careful reader has not
failed to note an interior thread of connection between all these
adventures. As to Hades, it is pointed out to him in advance by Circe,
though all is not foretold him; but in the Twelfth Book, now to be
considered, he has everything in detail laid open to him beforehand. A
great change in manner of treatment; why? Because Ulysses must be shown
as having reached the stage of foreknowledge through his journey to
Hades; hitherto he was the mere empirical man, or blind adventurer,
surrendering himself to hazard and trusting to his cunning for getting
out of trouble. But now he foresees, and Circe is the voice thereof; he
knows what he has to go through before he starts, here in the
Upperworld, to which he has come back, and throug