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We have adopted La Roche's text (Homeri Odyssea, J. La
Roche, Leipzig, 1867), except in a few cases where we
mention our reading in a foot-note.

The Arguments prefixed to the Books are taken, with very
slight alterations, from Hobbes' Translation of the
Odyssey.

It is hoped that the Introduction added to the second
edition may illustrate the growth of those national legends
on which Homer worked, and may elucidate the plot of the
Odyssey.


PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.

Wet owe our thanks to the Rev. E. Warre, of Eton College,
for certain corrections on nautical points. In particular,
he has convinced us that the raft of Odysseus in B. v. is a
raft strictly so called, and that it is not, under the

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The Odyssey is generally supposed to be somewhat the later
in date of the two most ancient Greek poems which are
concerned with the events and consequences of the Trojan
war. As to the actual history of that war, it may be said
that nothing is known. We may conjecture that some contest
between peoples of more or less kindred stocks, who
occupied the isles and the eastern and western shores of
the Aegean, left a strong impression on the popular fancy.
Round the memories of this contest would gather many older
legends, myths, and stories, not peculiarly Greek or even
'Aryan,' which previously floated unattached, or were
connected with heroes whose fame was swallowed up by that
of a newer generation. It would be the work of minstrels,
priests, and poets, as the national spirit grew conscious
of itself, to shape all these materials into a definite
body of tradition. This is the rule of development--first
scattered stories, then the union of these into a NATIONAL
legend. The growth of later national legends, which we are
able to trace, historically, has generally come about in
this fashion. To take the best known example, we are able
to compare the real history of Charlemagne with the old
epic poems on his life and exploits. In these poems we find
that facts are strangely exaggerated, and distorted; that
purely fanciful additions are made to the true records,
that the more striking events of earlier history are
crowded into the legend of Charles, that mere fairy tales,
current among African as well as European peoples, are
transmuted into false history, and that the anonymous
characters of fairy tales are converted into historical
personages. We can also watch the process by which feigned
genealogies were constructed, which connected the princely
houses of France with the imaginary heroes of the epics.
The conclusion is that the poetical history of Charlemagne
has only the faintest relations to the true history. And we
are justified in supposing that, quite as little of the
real history of events can be extracted from the tale of
Troy, as from the Chansons de Geste.

By the time the Odyssey was composed, it is certain that a
poet had before him a well-arranged mass of legends and
traditions from which he might select his materials. The
author of the Iliad has an extremely full and curiously
consistent knowledge of the local traditions of Greece, the
memories which were cherished by Thebans, Pylians, people
of Mycenae, of Argos, and so on. The Iliad and the Odyssey
assume this knowledge in the hearers of the poems, and take
for granted some acquaintance with other legends, as with
the story of the Argonautic Expedition. Now that story
itself is a tissue of popular tales,--still current in many
distant lands,--but all woven by the Greek genius into the
history of Iason.

The history of the return of Odysseus as told in the
Odyssey, is in the same way, a tissue of old marchen.
These must have existed for an unknown length of time
before they gravitated into the cycle of the tale of Troy.

The extraordinary artistic skill with which legends and
myths, originally unconnected with each other, are woven
into the plot of the Odyssey, so that the marvels of savage
and barbaric fancy become indispensable parts of an
artistic whole, is one of the chief proofs of the unity of
authorship of that poem. We now go on to sketch the plot,
which is a marvel of construction.

Odysseus was the King of Ithaca, a small and rugged island
on the western coast of Greece. When he was but lately
married to Penelope, and while his only son Telemachus was

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ten long years, and only suffered him to land in Ithaca,
'alone, in evil case, to find troubles in his house.' This
is a very remarkable point in the plot. The story of the
crafty adventurer and the blinding of the giant, with the
punning device by which the hero escaped, exists in the
shape of a detached marchen or fairy-tale among races who
never heard of Homer. And when we find the story among
Oghuzians, Esthonians, Basques, and Celts, it seems natural
to suppose that these people did not break a fragment out
of the Odyssey, but that the author of the Odyssey took
possession of a legend out of the great traditional store
of fiction. From the wide distribution of the tale, there
is reason to suppose that it is older than Homer, and that
it was not originally told of Odysseus, but was attached to
his legend, as floating jests of unknown authorship are
attributed to eminent wits. It has been remarked with truth
that in this episode Odysseus acts out of character, that
he is foolhardy as well as cunning. Yet the author of the
Odyssey, so far from merely dove-tailing this story at
random into his narrative, has made his whole plot turn on
the injury to the Cyclops. Had he not foolishly exposed
himself and his companions, by his visit to the Cyclops,
Odysseus would never have been driven wandering for ten
weary years. The prayers of the blinded Cyclops were heard
and fulfilled by Poseidon.

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The reader has now before him a chronologically arranged
sketch of the action of the Odyssey. It is, perhaps,
apparent, even from this bare outline, that the composition
is elaborate and artistic, that the threads of the plot are
skilfully separated and combined. The germ of the whole
epic is probably the popular tale, known all over the
world, of the warrior who, on his return from a long
expedition, has great difficulty in making his prudent wife
recognise him. The incident occurs as a detached story in
China, and in most European countries it is told of a
crusader. 'We may suppose it to be older than the legend of
Troy, and to have gravitated into the cycle of that legend.
The years of the hero's absence are then filled up with
adventures (the Cyclops, Circe, the Phaeacians, the Sirens,
the descent into hell) which exist as scattered tales, or
are woven into the more elaborate epics of Gaels, Aztecs,
Hindoos, Tartars, South-Sea Islanders, Finns, Russians,
Scandinavians, and Eskimo. The whole is surrounded with the
atmosphere of the kingly age of Greece, and the result is
the Odyssey, with that unity of plot and variety of
character which must have been given by one masterly
constructive genius. The date at which the poet of the