d sold into
slavery; still the most terrible calamities to himself and his master
and to the House of Ulysses, have not shaken his fealty to the Gods.
Thus in common with Telemachus and Ulysses he has faith in the Divine
Order, and can cooperate with them in realizing the same in Ithaca.
Very different has been his discipline from that of the other two, both
of whom became negative and had to be sent away from home for training,
but Eumaeus has remained in his hut and never swerved in his fidelity to
his sovereigns above and below, though he does not understand the
providential reason for so much wrong and suffering.

To these three men we are to add the woman, Penelope, who has her part,
perhaps the most difficult in this difficult business. She cannot
resort to violence, she must use her feminine weapon, tact, with a
degree of skill which makes her an example for all time. Indeed not a
few of her sex declare that she has overdone the matter, and that her
acts are morally questionable. But there can be no doubt that it is the
part of tact to find fault with tact, and that woman will always decry
woman's skill in artifice, without refraining from its employment
altogether; indeed just that is a part of the artifice.

For this and similar reasons the moral bearings of this portion of the
Odyssey have always aroused discussion. In general, the question comes
up: What constitutes a lie? Is the disguise of Ulysses justifiable? Is
the subtlety of Penelope morally reprehensible? The old dispute as to
conduct rises in full intensity: Does the end justify the means? Two
parties are sure to appear with views just opposite; the one excuses,
the other condemns, often with no little asperity. The Odyssey has been
denounced even as an immoral Book and both its hero and heroine have
been subjected to a burning ordeal of literary damnation.

The poet has, however, his wrongful set, the Suitors, about whose
character there is no disagreement. They are the negation of that
Divine Order which is to be restored by those who believe in it--the
three men who come together at the hut of the swineherd, and who have
been trained by the time and circumstances just to this end. Ulysses
has had to pass through his negative period and overcome the same
within; now he is prepared to meet the Suitors and to destroy them
without the negative recoil which came upon him after destroying the
city of Troy. He can do a necessary deed of violence without