Snider, A Commentary on the Odyssey of Homer - I

From, Homer's Odyssey: A commentary
[Please note that the Table of Contents here published, is created by Elpenor and is not to be found in the print version]

And all these floating metaphysical gossamers are found in Homer! Yes, but not in a metaphysical form; Homer's organ is poetic, he lived in the age ere philosophers had dawned. Still he too had before him the problems of the soul and of the world. Nor would he have been a true Greek unless he had grappled with this Play of the Negative, which had some marvelous fascination for the Greek mind. It is the leaven working in the Sophists with their subtle rhetoric, in Socrates with his negating elenchus, in Plato with his confounding dialectic. Homer, as the prophet of his people, foreshadowing all forms of Greek spirit and of Greek literature, bring to light repeatedly this Play of the Negative.

The modern German, in more respects than one the spiritual heir of the ancient Greek, has not failed to give evidence of his birthright in the same direction. Kant's Critique, and Hegel's Logic are the most desperate efforts to grasp this slippery, double-doing and double-thinking Negative, infinitely elusive, verily the old Serpent. But the supreme attempt is the modern poetic one, made by Goethe in his Faust poem, in which is embodied anew the mighty Negative, who is now none other than the devil, Mephistopheles. Thus the last world-poet reaches across the ages and touches elbows with the first world-poet in a common theme.

Thus Ulysses nullifies the Cyclops, inflicting three deprivations through his three means: the charred stick takes away vision, the strong wine takes away strength, the ambiguous pun prevents help. The pun also announces covertly to Polyphemus the nature of the power which is undoing him, but he does not and cannot understand that. But the problem of Ulysses is not at an end with simply nullifying the Cyclops; he and his companions are not yet outside of the cave. Herewith we come to a new stage of process.

3. This is the escape, to which the strong giant must be made to contribute, he is skillfully turned against himself. The great stone is removed by him from the mouth of the cave, but he places himself there at the entrance, and no human being can pass. Still, the herds have to go out to their pasture. Ulysses dexterously binds three large sheep together, fastens a companion under the middle one, while he clings beneath a huge ram, and out they move together. But the giant stops just this ram and talks to it, being his favorite of the flock. The man of nature is again outwitted by the man of intelligence, allowing his enemy to slip through his very fingers. The conversation of the blind Cyclops with the dumb animal is pathetic; his one solitary friend apparently, the only creature he loved, is compelled to silent service against its master. "Why art thou last to leave, who wast always first? Dost thou long to see the eye of thy ruler, which has been put out by that vile wretch, Nobody?" So the Cyclops speaks, without seeing or knowing, yet with a touch which excites sympathy for his misfortune.

The special characteristic of this scene is that Ulysses does not now destroy, but employs Polyphemus and his property. Nature must be used by intelligence to overcome nature; the strength of the giant must be directed to rolling away the big stone; his herds are taken to bring about the escape of his foes, and he is turned into an instrument against himself. Thus he is no longer negated as in the last scene, but utilized; having been subdued, he now must serve.

Ulysses and his companions are outside the cave, having gotten rid of those dark and fearful limits which walled them in with a monster. Mind, thought has released them; soon they are on their ship in a free element. But the end is not yet; even Polyphemus, the natural man, must come to know who and what has subjected him, he too is in the grand discipline of the time.

D. Snider
A Commentary on the Odyssey of Homer - Part I

Learned Freeware

D. Snider A Commentary on the Odyssey of Homer - Part I

Learned Freeware

D. Snider
A Commentary on the Odyssey of Homer - Part I