ous of his divine
mission, not failing however to tell them: "I shall surely make the
voyage, not in vain it will be." He obtains food and wine from the aged
stewardess Eurycleia, who seeks to dissuade him. Then too his mother
must not know of his plan, she would keep him still a boy in the house,
whereas he has become a man.

2. Pallas in the semblance of Telemachus goes through the town to
secure the ship and crew. Then she pours over the Suitors a gentle
sleep after their revel; she takes away their wisdom, yet it is their
own deed, which just now has a divine importance. Finally she brings
all to the ship, seizes the helm and sends the favoring breeze. Or, as
we understand the poet, intelligence brings about these things under
many guises; even nature, the breeze, it takes advantage of for its own
purpose.

Thus Pallas has the controlling hand in this second part of the Book,
she is above man and nature. We can say that the controlling spirit is
also Telemachus, who manifests Reason, controlling and directing the
world. Note the various forms which she assumes, as Mentor, as
Telemachus; then again she works purely through mind, in the natural
way, as for example, when Telemachus goes home and obtains his food and
wine for the voyage. The poet thus plays with her shape; still she is
essentially the divine intelligence which seizes upon men and
circumstances, and fits them into the order universal, and makes them
contribute to the great purpose of the poem. Still the Goddess does not
destroy man's freedom, but supplements it, lifting it out of the domain
of caprice. Telemachus willingly wills the will of Pallas.

Already it has been remarked that the Goddess is made to command
nature--the breeze, the sleep of the Suitors. It is the method of fable
thus to portray intelligence, whose function is to take control of
nature and make her subserve its purpose. The breeze blows and drives
the ship; it is the divine instrument for bringing Telemachus to Pylos,
a part of the world-order, especially upon the present occasion. The
born poet still talks that way, he is naturally a fabulist and cannot
help himself. In his speech, the hunter does not chase the deer, but
brings it before his gun by a magic power; the mystic fisher calls the
fishes; the enchanted bullet finds its own game and needs only to be
shot off; the tanner even lays a spell upon the water in his vat and
makes it run up hill through a tube bent in a charm. B