s here to be invited. A ring of modern sentiment is surely
heard in this passage; the subjective element of Christendom seems
embodied in that swineherd a thousand years before its time.

The poet does not leave out of this Book the previous tendency of
Ulysses to romancing. In the talk with Antinous he begins another tale
or rather the old one, with Egypt and Cyprus in the background. It is,
in substance, the story of the attack on the Ciconians, which Ulysses
cannot help telling when he looks back toward his Trojan period. Here
again it is truth in the form of fiction.

Meantime the uproar has called forth Penelope, who desires to see the
strange beggar. The wish is conveyed to Ulysses, who artfully requests
that the interview be deferred till night-fall; the wife might see
through his disguise. The time for this recognition has not yet come.
She wishes to hear of her husband, thinks of him in some such pitiable
plight as this beggar is in; she shows sympathy. A charitable
disposition is indeed a characteristic of the whole household, nurses
and all; misfortune has brought its blessing. Herein the contrast with
the Suitors is emphatic, they are a stony-hearted set, trained by their
deeds to violence and inhumanity.

Eumaeus praises the minstrel talent of Ulysses; the poet endows his hero
with the gift of song in this poem; compare the praise given by
Alcinous to the singer of Fableland. So Achilles in the Iliad was found
by the embassy singing the glory of heroes. Nor must we pass by that
deeply-grounded belief in the good-luck which comes from a sneeze.
Telemachus sneezes at the right moment, and Penelope interprets the
omen, with a smile, however, which hints a touch of humorous
incredulity. Finally we may reflect upon that true Homeric view of the
world indicated in the words of Telemachus: "All these matters will be
cared for by myself and the Immortals." These are the two sides working
together throughout the poem.

_Book Eighteenth._ Ulysses, as beggar, has now gotten a foothold in his
own house. He has made the transition in disguise from the hut to the
palace; he has tried his preliminary test upon the Suitors, the test of
charity, and found out their general character. He is not recognized,
on account of external disguise in part; yet this disguise has its
internal correspondence.

The present Book is one of warnings; on all sides the Suitors are
admonished of the day of wrath which is coming. In Homeric