ny fell!" (XIV. 68.) Striking is his contrast herein with the
Phaeacians, and with their love of the Trojan conflict.

We have already stated that this entire Ithakeiad resembles the novel,
giving pictures of the social life of the time, and elevating the
humblest man into heroship. In like manner, this story of Eumaeus might
almost be called a novelette, truly an Homeric novelette interwoven
into the greater totality of the novel here presented in the Ithakeiad,
and finally into the entire Odyssey. It has its correspondence with the
Fairy Tale of the previous portions of the poem, yet stands in sharpest
contrast. Here is no supernatural world far away, but it is the
present, it is human life just now, and the hero lives before us. Here
are no superhuman beings, like Calypso, Circe, Polyphemus, Proteus; the
environment, the coloring, the art-form are totally changed. Nor is it
an heroic tale of Troy, with its order of Gods, descending and
interfering in human affairs; no grand exploits of arms, no mighty
mustering of glorious warriors. Not high and magnificent Achilles in
all the pride of his colossal individuality, but humble Eumaeus, a slave
and a swineherd, has become the Homeric hero. Surely a new style, and a
new world-view; yet surely Homer's, not the work of any other man.

It has been already made plain that we have passed from the Idyl, and
Heroic Epos, and the Fairy Tale of the first portions of the Odyssey
into the Social Romance, which takes the picture of society as its
setting. Every human being can now be made a slave; man-stealing,
woman-stealing, child-stealing, give the motives for the strangest
turns of destiny. Already Ulysses in his fictitious tale of the
previous Book has become a maker of the novelette; but Eumaeus tells a
true tale of his own life, it has no disguise; he knows his past, he is
aware of his origin. Thus he is an example, showing how the man is
still a fate-compeller in such a state of society. Though a slave
externally, he can still be a king within; though struck by the hardest
blow of destiny he can still remain loyal to the Divine Order and
obtain its blessing.

It is interesting to note the significance of this Phoenician
background, with its universal commerce. The Phoenician traded
already in remote antiquity with the extremes of the Aryan race, from
India in the East to Britain in the West, including the whole
intervening line of Aryan migration, Persia, Greece, Italy, Gau