have seen the spiritual gift of Egypt to the Greek mind shadowed forth
in the story of Menelaus in the Fourth Book. In these latter Books of
the Odyssey the Phoenician intercourse with Hellas is more strongly
emphasized, with glances into their art, their trade, their navigation.
All this Phoenician development the Greek looks at in a wondering way
as if miraculous; he is reaching out for it also. To be sure the
Phoenician has a bad name, as a shrewd, even dishonest trader. Still
he is the middleman between nations, and a necessity.

Thus it appears that the Greeks have lost their Aryan connection, and
have become the heirs of a Semitic civilization. Homer does not seem to
know his Indo-European kinship, but he does connect Hellas with
Phoenicia and Egypt in many a spiritual tie. These ties take, for the
most part, a mythical form, still they must have been a great fact,
else they could not have influenced the mythology of the Greek race. So
the present tale through the fiction of the myth-maker, hints the chief
social fact of the time.

The fiction in the previous Book, which Ulysses began to tell to
Pallas, also started in Crete, looked back at the Trojan war, and
connected with Idomeneus, the great hero of Cretan legend in the affair
of Troy. The Phoenican trader in his ship comes in there too. But
that tale is cut short by the Goddess, who knows the disguise. In the
present case, however, the swineherd makes no such discovery. The next
Book will also have its corresponding tale.

Ulysses has thus told all about himself to the swineherd, has even
hinted in one place his disguise. He speaks of Ulysses having gone to
Dodona to consult the sacred oracle "whether he should return to Ithaca
openly or secretly, after so long an absence." He runs along the very
edge of discovering himself. But the swineherd will not believe; "the
Gods all hate my master" is still his view. Already a lying AEtolian had
deceived him with a similar tale, which also introduced Idomeneus and
the Cretans. Ulysses has before himself a new picture of doubt, and its
blindness; quite a lesson it must have been to the skeptical man.

The story, in its deepest suggestion, hints the manner of providential
working, as seen by the old bard. Eumaeus has already had his prayers
for the return of his master fulfilled, though he does not know it, and
believes that they never will be fulfilled. Still he never gives up his
divine loyalty and turns atheist.