eccentric, we find similar laws of growth
among all peoples.

The number of things which can stimulate the human mind is somewhat
definite and limited. Among them, for example, is death. This happens
everywhere, and the death of a dear one may cause the living to
imagine ways of being reunited. The story of Orpheus and Eurydice may
thus arise spontaneously and perpetually, wherever death and affection
exist. Or, there may be a separation from home and friends, and the
mind runs back in distress and longing over the happy past, and the
state of consciousness aroused is as definite a fact among savages
as among the civilized. A beautiful passage in Homer represents Helen
looking out on the Greeks from the wall of Troy and saying:

And now behold I all the other glancing-eyed Achaians, whom
well I could discern and tell their names; but two captains
of the host can I not see, even Kastor tamer of horses and
Polydukes the skilful boxer, mine own brethren whom the same
mother bare. Either they came not in the company from lovely
Lakedaimon; or they came hither indeed in their seafaring
ships, but now will not enter into the battle of the warriors,
for fear of the many scornings and revilings that are
mine.[261]

When this passage is thus stripped of its technical excellence by a
prose translation, we may compare it with the following New Zealand
lament composed by a young woman who was captured on the island of
Tuhua and carried to a mountain from which she could see her home:

My regret is not to be expressed. Tears, like a spring, gush
from my eyes. I wonder whatever is Tu Kainku [her lover]
doing, he who deserted me. Now I climb upon the ridge of Mount
Parahaki, whence is clear the view of the island of Tuhua.
I see with regret the lofty Tanmo where dwells [the chief]
Tangiteruru. If I were there, the shark's tooth would hang
from my ear. How fine, how beautiful should I look!... But
enough of this; I must return to my rags and to my nothing at
all.[262]

The situation of the two women in this case is not identical, and it
would be possible to claim that the Greek and Maori passages differ
in tone and coloring; but it remains true that a captive woman of any
race will feel much the same as a captive woman of any other race when
her thoughts turn toward home, and that the poetry growing out of such
a situation will be everywhere of the same gen