in many ways; Nestor, the
purely Hellenic soul, knows of that wider knowledge, though it be not
his, and he knows that it should be possessed.

In this Book as elsewhere in the Odyssey the grand background is the
Trojan war. The incidents of the Iliad are hardly alluded to, but are
certainly taken for granted; the Post-Iliad is the field of interest,
for in it the Returns take place. Thus the two great poems of Homer
join together and show themselves as complements of each other.

II.

Now comes the separation which marks the second portion of the Book.
Pallas, in the guise of Mentor, coincides with Nestor in advising
Telemachus to pay a visit to Menelaus, and then she departs, "sailing
off like a sea-eagle," whereat great astonishment from all present.
That is, she reveals herself; all recognize the Goddess, and probably
that is the reason why she can no longer stay. She has become internal.
Telemachus is now conscious, as she disappears, and he has his own
wisdom; he has seen Pallas, and so he must go without her to Sparta.
Hardly does he need her longer, being started upon the path of wisdom
to know wisdom. At the court of Nestor, with its deeply religious
atmosphere, she can appear; but she declines to go with him in person
to Menelaus, though she advises the journey. All of which, to the
sympathetic reader, has its significance. Still Pallas has by no means
vanished out of the career of Telemachus; she at present, however,
leaves him to himself, as she often does.

Nestor, too, responds to the marvelous incident in true accord with his
character; he invokes her with prayer and institutes a grand sacrifice,
which is now described in a good deal of detail. Just as the Book opens
with a sacrifice to a deity, so it closes with one--the two form the
setting of the whole description. Thus the recognition of the Gods is
everywhere set forth in Nestor's world; he is the man of faith, of
primitive, immediate faith, which has never felt the doubt.

It is well that Telemachus meets with such a man at the start, and gets
a breath out of such an atmosphere. He has seen the ills of Ithaca from
his boyhood; he may well question at times the superintendence of the
Gods. His own experience of life would lead him to doubt the existence
of a Divine Order. Even here in Pylos he challenges the supremacy of
the Olympians. When Nestor intimates that his father will yet return
and punish the Suitors, with the help of Pallas, or tha