ith them; they have been left in the yards, so they have
had nothing to eat. When he has milked the ewes, the giant lets
each one of them have her lamb--to get, I suppose, what strippings
it can, and beyond this what milk the ewe may yield during the
night. In the morning, however, Polyphemus milks the ewes again.
Hence it is plain either that he expected his lambs to thrive on one
pull per diem at a milked ewe, and to be kind enough not to suck
their mothers, though left with them all night through, or else that
the writer of the Odyssey had very hazy notions about the relations
between lambs and ewes, and of the ordinary methods of procedure on
an upland dairy-farm.

In nautical matters the same inexperience is betrayed. The writer
knows all about the corn and wine that must be put on board; the
store-room in which these are kept and the getting of them are
described inimitably, but there the knowledge ends; the other things
put on board are "the things that are generally taken on board
ships." So on a voyage we are told that the sailors do whatever is
wanted doing, but we have no details. There is a shipwreck, which
does duty more than once without the alteration of a word. I have
seen such a shipwreck at Drury Lane. Anyone, moreover, who reads
any authentic account of actual adventures will perceive at once
that those of the Odyssey are the creation of one who has had no
history. Ulysses has to make a raft; he makes it about as broad as
they generally make a good big ship, but we do not seem to have been
at the pains to measure a good big ship.

I will add no more however on this head. The leading
characteristics of the Iliad, as we saw, were love, war, and
plunder. The leading idea of the Odyssey is the infatuation of man,
and the key-note is struck in the opening paragraph, where we are
told how the sailors of Ulysses must needs, in spite of every
warning, kill and eat the cattle of the sun-god, and perished
accordingly.

A few lines lower down the same note is struck with even greater
emphasis. The gods have met in council, and Jove happens at the
moment to be thinking of AEgisthus, who had met his death at the
hand of Agamemnon's son Orestes, in spite of the solemn warning that
Jove had sent him through the mouth of Mercury. It does not seem
necessary for Jove to turn his attention to Clytemnestra, the
partner of AEgisthus's guilt. Of this lady we are presently told
that she was naturally of an