Say 'twas Ulysses; 'twas his deed, declare, 590 Ulysses, far in fighting fields renown'd, 595 Skill'd the dark fates of mortals to declare, And learn'd in all wing'd omens of the air) 600 I deem'd some godlike giant to behold, Oh! could this arm (I thus aloud rejoin'd) 610 And send thee howling to the realms of night! As sure, as Neptune cannot give thee sight. Thus I: while raging he repeats his cries, 615 With hands uplifted to the starry skies: Hear me, O Neptune! thou whose arms are hurl'd From shore to shore, and gird the solid world. If thine I am, nor thou my birth disown, And if th' unhappy Cyclop be thy son; Let not Ulysses breathe his native air, Laertes' son, of Ithaca the fair. 620 625 If to review his country be his fate, With imprecations thus he fill'd the air, 629 And gain'd the island where our vessels lay. 635 Our sight the whole collected navy cheer'd, And him (the guardian of Ulysses' fate) With pious mind to heav'n I consecrate. 640 646 But the great god, whose thunder rends the skies, While thoughtless we indulge the genial rite, SELECT NOTES TO BOOK IX. V. 3. How sweet the products of a peaceful reign, &c.] This passage has given great joy to the critics, as it has afforded them the ill-natured pleasure of railing, and the satisfaction of believing they have found a fault in a good writer. It is fitter, say they, for the mouth of Epicurus than for the sage Ulysses, to extol the pleasures of feasting and drinking in this manner: he whom the poet proposes as the standard of human wisdom, says Rapin, suffers himself to be made drunk by the Phæacians. But it may rather be imagined, that the critic was not very sober when he made the reflection; for there is not the least appearance of a reason for that imputation. Plato, indeed, in his third book de Repub. writes, that what Ulysses here speaks is no very proper example of temperance; but every body knows that Plato, with respect to Homer, wrote with great partiality. Athenæus in his twelfth book gives us the following interpretation: Ulysses accommodates his discourse to the present occasion; he in appear. ance approves of the voluptuous lives of the Phæacians, and having heard Alcinous before say, that feasting and singing, &c. was their supreme delight, he by a seasonable flattery seems to comply with their inclinations; it being the most proper method to attain his desires of being conveyed to his own country. He compares Ulysses to the polypus, which is fabled to assume the colour of every rock to which he approaches: thus Sophocles, Νοει ώξος ανδρι σωμα Πελύπε, οπως 1 That is, In your accesses to mankind observe the polypus, and adapt yourself to the humour of the person to whom you apply.' Eustathius observes that this passage has been condemned, but he defends it after the very same way with Athenæus. It is not impossible but that there may be some compliance with the nature and manners of the Phæacians, especially because Ulysses is always described as an artful man, not without some mixture of dissimulation: but it is no difficult matter to take the passage literally, and to give it an irreproachable sense. Ulysses had gone through innumerable calanities, he had lived to see a great part of Europe and Asia laid desolate by a bloody war; and after so many troubles, he arrives among a nation that was unacquainted with all the miseries of war, where all the people were happy, and passed their lives with ease and pleasures: this calm life fills him with admiration, and he artfully praises what he found praise-worthy in it; namely, the entertainments and music, and passes over the gallantries of the people, as Dacier observes, without any mention. Maximus Tyrius fully vindicates Homer. It is my opinion, says that author, that the poet, by representing these guests in the midst of their entertainments, delighted with the song and music, intended to recommend a more noble pleasure than eating and drinking, such a pleasure as a wise man may imitate, by approving the better part, and rejecting the worse, and choosing to please the car rather than the belly. 12 Dissert. If we understand the passage otherwise, the meaning may be this: I am persuaded, says Ulysses, that the most agreeable end which a king can propose, is to see a whole nation in universal joy, when music and feasting are in every house, when plenty is on every table, and wines to entertain every guest: this to me appears a state of the greatest felicity. In this sense Ulysses pays Alcinous a very agreeable compliment; as it is certainly the most glorious aim of a king to make his subjects happy, and diffuse an universal joy through his dominions: he must be a rigid censor indeed who blames such pleasures as these, which have nothing contrary in them to virtue and strict morality; especially as they here bear a beautiful op. position to all the horrors which Ulysses had seen in the wars of Troy, and shew Phæacia as happy as Troy was miserable. I will only add, that this agrees with the oriental way of speaking; and in |