heir violence in his own person. He is in disguise and gets
full possession of the fact before he proceeds to the deed. The
insolent, destructive conduct of the Suitors is set forth in all
fullness, as well as the subtle attempt of the wife to thwart them;
then the blow falls which sweeps them and their deeds out of existence.
Restoration follows after this terrible act of vengence; Ulysses,
having done his great destructive work, is to show himself
constructive, not simply the destroyer, but the healer and restorer.

How can we best see the sweep of these eight Books and their organic
connection with the total Odyssey? No mere formal division will answer,
nor any external separation into parts. The inner movement of the
thought is to be found and shown as the organizing principle. On the
whole the joints of the structure are not so manifest as in the
Telemachiad and the Ulyssiad; still they exist. Already it has been
often said that the essential character of the Suitors is that of
destroyers; Ulysses is the destroyer of these destroyers; but in
destroying destruction he is also the restorer. Now just these three
stages of the movement of the inner thought are the three organic
divisions of the last eight Books; that is, the thought organizes the
poem. Let us look more closely.

I. The first five Books (XVII-XXI) are devoted to revealing the Suitors
as destroyers to Ulysses in person, though he be disguised. Three
strands are interwoven into the texture, which we may separate for the
purpose of an examination.

1. The Suitors are destroying what may in general be called the
institutional world in its three leading forms: (1) Property, (2)
Family, (3) State. To these may be added their disregard and even open
defiance of the Gods, who are the upholders, or rather the personified
embodiment of all institutional life. Hence the statement may be made
that the Suitors are, as far as their deeds go, the destroyers of the
Divine Order of the World; they are spiritually negative.

2. The second strand is that of Ulysses (to whom Telemachus and the
swineherd can be added) who is to behold with his own eyes, to
experience in his own person, the character and acts of the Suitors;
then he is also to plan and prepare for their destruction. As he has
overcome his own negative condition inwardly, in the spirit, he must be
able to overcome the same condition outwardly, in the world.

3. The third strand is that of Penelope, the w