546

551

Around it, lest, upon thy voyage home,
Thou suffer loss, when haply thou shalt take
A pleasant slumber in the dark-hulled ship."
Ulysses, the sagacious, heard, and straight
He fitted to its place the lid, and wound
And knotted artfully around the chest
A cord, as queenly Circé long before
Had taught him. Then to call him to the bath
The housewife of the palace came. He saw
Gladly the steaming laver, for not oft
Had he been cared for thus, since he had left
The dwelling of the nymph with amber hair,
Calypso, though attended while with her 554
As if he were a god. Now when the maids
Had seen him bathed, and had anointed him
With oil, and put his sumptuous mantle on,
And tunic, forth he issued from the bath,
And came to those who sat before their wine.
Nausicaä, goddess-like in beauty, stood
Beside a pillar of that noble roof,
And looking on Ulysses as he passed,
Admired, and said to him in winged words:

560

"Stranger, farewell, and in thy native land Remember thou hast owed thy life to me.” 565

EXPLANATORY NOTES

1. Some translators of the Odyssey use the Greek names throughout: Odysseus, Zeus, Hera, Pallas Athena, Poseidon, Artemis, Hephaestus; but Bryant in his translation prefers to use the Latin names: Ulysses, Jupiter or Jove, Juno, Minerva, Neptune, Diana, Vulcan. He gives as his reason for doing so the fact that Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, and other early writers used these forms and made them familiar to English readers.

2. The Odyssey was composed originally in the Greek language, but many translations, both verse and prose, have been made into the modern languages. Among the best-known translations in English are those of Bryant, Palmer, Butcher and Lang, Morris, Pope, and Chapman.

QUESTIONS AND TOPICS

1. Find a passage that shows the treatment of strangers in Homeric times. Read lines 347 to 364, Book VI; what is your opinion of gossips two thousand years ago? Find a passage that gives reasons for the high regard in which Arete is held by the Phæacians. Try to make a sketch of the hall and garden of Alcinous from Homer's description. How do

you answer the question implied in lines 316 to 318, Book VII? What is your opinion of Euryalus? How do the sports described in Book VIII compare with the events in a modern athletic meet?

2. In his translation Bryant tried to preserve some of the qualities of the original poem; one of these is the double adjective, such as, brighteyed, lusty-limbed. Find others that you think are striking. Another characteristic of the Odyssey is the use of appositives; find examples that you think interesting.

3. You will find it interesting to compare some particular passage in as many different translations as you may have access to (see list under Explanatory Notes, above.) Choose a passage of your own selection or use one of the following: description of Olympus, Book VI, lines 53 to 62; the wish of Ulysses for Nausicaä, Book VI, lines 227 to 234; Nausicaä's reason for thinking war cannot come to the Phæacians, Book VI, lines 256 to 259; "The bold man ever is the better man," Book VII, line 58; greeting to the guests, Book VII, lines 181 to 185; Homeric athletes, Book VIII, lines 182 to 185; ideas of hospitality, Book VIII, lines 260 to 265. 4. In his wanderings Ulysses had twelve adventures. If each one of twelve pupils pre

pares himself to tell one of these adventures to the class, all the members will have an opportunity to become acquainted with the whole story of the Odyssey. Select one of the following: the Ciconians, Book IX, lines 49 to 76; the Lotus-eaters, Book IX, lines 102 to 129; the Cyclops, Book IX, lines 130 to 670; Aeolus, Book X, lines 1 to 99; the Laestrigonians, Book X, lines 100 to 160; Circe, Book X, lines 161 to 692; visit of Ulysses to the land of the Dead, Book XI; the Sirens, Book XII, lines 185 to 240; Scylla and Charybdis, Book XII, lines 241 to 311; the Oxen of the Sun, Book XII, lines 812 to 517; Calypso, Book XII, lines 518 to 556 and Book VII, lines 289 to 357; among the Phæacians, Book VI to line 150 of Book XIII.

Books XIV to XXIV describe the return of Ulysses to his home in Ithaca, how he makes

himself known to his son Telemachus, to his wife Penelope, and to his father Laertes. One of the most interesting incidents of the poem is the story of how the dog Argus recognizes his former master, Ulysses, Book XVII, lines 355 to 398. The poem ends with the slaying of the suitors and the reëstablishment of Ulysses as king of Ithaca.

5. Show how the adventure with the Cyclops and the curse of Neptune form the plot of the story. Which adventure resulted in the loss of all the ships except that of Ulysses? In which adventure was Ulysses's ship lost? How do you account for seven out of the ten years of Ulysses's wanderings? Where did he spend one year of his wanderings?

Class Reading. Select a unit of the narrative that particularly appeals to you and be prepared to read it in class.

Achaian (à-ka'yǎn) Achilles (ȧ-kil'ēz)

Acroneus (å-krōn'ūs)

Agamemnon (ǎg'å-měm ́non) Alcinoüs (ǎl-sin'ō-us) Amphialus (ăm-fi'å-lus)

Anabasineüs (ăn-å-bäs'I-në'us)

Anchialus (ăn-kî'å-lŭs)

Apollo (ȧ-pol'ō)

Areté (à-rë'tē)

Mars (märz)

Demodocus (dê-mŏd'ô-küs)

Diana, Dian (di-ăn’ả, di’ăn)

Dymas (di'mǎs)

Echeneus (ē-kē’nūs)

Elatreus (ê-lǎt'rūs)

Epirote (ê-pi'rōt)

Epirus (ê-pi'rus) Erectheus (ê-rek'thūs) Eretmeus (ĕ-rět'mūs)

Olympian (ô-lăm p-ăn)
Olympus (ô-lim'pus)
Pallas (păl'ǎs)

Peleus (pē lūs)

Peribæa (pĕr-1-bē'ȧ)

Phæacia (fe-a'shȧ)

Phæacian (fe-ã'shăn)

Philoctetes (fil-ok-tē'tēz)

Phoebus (fe'bus)

Polybus (pŏl'I-bus)

'Polyneius (pol-I-nē'us)

Ponteus (pon-tē'us)

Pontonoüs (pon-tô-nō'us)

Proreus (prō'rūs)

Protonous (prō-to-nō'üs)

Prymneus (prim-ne'us)

Pythia (pith'I-å)

Rhadamanthus (råd-å-măn'thūs) Rhexenor (rex-ē'nŏr)

Scheria (ske'rï-ȧ)

Taygetus (tâ-Ij'ê-tŭs)

Tecton (těk'ton)
Thoön (thō'on)
Tityus (tIt'I-us)
Ulysses (u-lis'ēz)
Vulcan (vül kăn)

I

The word "ballad" usually suggests a short story in verse, just as an epic may be thought of as a verse-novel. This is a very incomplete definition, however, as there are many short narrative poems which we do not call ballads. Sometimes

the name is applied to a sentimental song, and it is true that a ballad is always a song. If we look up the word in a dictionary we find that it comes from an old French word meaning "to dance." At one time, therefore, the ballad seems to have been a song for a dancing chorus. Story, song, dancehere are three ingredients that appear to be mixed up in that form of composition which is called a ballad.

To name some of the ingredients, however, or all of them, is not to give a definition. In "Sir Patrick Spens," for example, the short story characteristic comes out very plainly. There is an abrupt beginning, which puts you at once into possession of the necessary facts: the king sitting in his tower, calling for a good sailor to be sent on a dangerous mission; the naming of Sir Patrick for this mission by an elderly knight; the commission which the king sent to Sir Patrick. All this is told in three stanzas of four lines each. The second part of the story, consisting of four stanzas, tells us the character of Sir Patrick: his pride in being selected, succeeded by his realization that he is really being sent into a trap by an enemy; and this is immediately followed by the forebodings of a superstitious old sailor who fears that his master is going to his death. Of the voyage we are told nothing; a single stanza suffices for the wreck for which we have been prepared by the previous part of the story; and the ballad ends with three stanzas that tell of the grief of the wives and sweethearts of the sailors, with a final stanza saying that the men were fifty fathoms under the sea.

The similarity between the ballad plot and the plot of the short story is apparent. A single incident is related, from a single point of view. Nothing is told that is not necessary to give this effect. Indeed, the very things that one would expect to be told in detail are left to the imagination. We are not told why the King wished to send his men on such a mission, or what was the truth about the grudge which led the King's counselor to choose Sir Patrick for a journey that meant death; or what Sir Patrick did, or the cause of the wreck. The main incidents seem to be suppressed. Rather, they stand out more significantly because they are merely suggested by the sailor's forebodings, the grief of the ladies, and the tragic simplicity of the closing lines. Very likely these omissions are due to the fact that the story was wellknown to the audience for whom the ballad was composed, so that it was not felt to be necessary to give details. What the balladist wanted to do was to express the horror, the emotion, that those who knew all the details felt when they heard of the fate of the brave sailor and his men. Contrast this with the modern newspaper which gives every minute detail of a celebrated murder mystery. Edition after edition appears, with pictures, conjectures, stories of the lives of the victim and his associates; no detail is too trivial. The ballad is reticent; it conceals more than it reveals; yet it gains tremendous effect by its very economy.

II

The ballad, then, is a tale. It is a short story told with the utmost economy in verse. And yet, it differs from the short story in several very remarkable particulars. For one thing, you get no impression of the author. It is impersonal. If you compare Poe's "Masque of the Red Death" with the ballad, you will see the

difference. The horror inspired by the tragedy of Sir Patrick Spens is like that of some great catastrophe in actual life: the fall of a theater roof upon a happy, laughing audience; the sudden destruction wrought by a tornado. It is elemental. The horror inspired by Poe's story is like that of a tragedy acted on the stage, where setting, lighting effects, speech, and gesture, are all carefully designed to produce the effect desired. It is not that one method is bad and the other good. It is just that the two things differ.

more

Another illustration of the impersonal character of the ballad is even striking. In the stories by O. Henry, for example, you are not conscious of taking any part in the action. Your attitude is that of a listener or a spectator. You cannot imagine yourself a part of a group of men and women, all of whom are brought into immediate relation to the action. In the ballad, on the other hand, this feeling that the reader or listener is one of such a group is present. The very fact that you are not told exactly what happened implies that this was not necessary; you are already supposed to know these things. You will see it clearly if you will imagine that you are one of a group of people who have been powerfully moved by the tragic fate of Sir Patrick. You knew him or some of his men. In this group the tragedy is being discussed. One man says he heard that Sir Patrick suspected the hand of an enemy, but that he was too brave to draw back even though he knew the voyage meant death. Another says that an old sailor observed portents and omens that promised a tragic outcome. A third adds that such omens ought never to be disregarded. Others wonder how the wives and sweethearts of the dead sailors felt when they heard the news, and they speak of the unutterable sadness of their waiting at home, day after day, for tidings. And at last someone speaks of the dead men themselves, lying down there fifty fathoms under the sea, their dead eyes open, their bodies gently rolling from side to side with the motion of the water, or too far below the surface ever to move.

You see

you have, in reality, a succession of broken

bits of talk, expressions of mood, not a story told in an orderly way or written up for the newspaper. One member of the group and then another adds his bit. There are moments of silence between. All are thinking of the horror, and deeply moved. Then perhaps one, or two, or three, begin to put the thing into words. The words fit some simple song that everyone knows. The group begins to sing the song. The ballad is born.

Thus the ballad seems not to be a story at all but just the expression of the feelings of a whole group of people. It differs from the story in that it seems to tell itself. It is not the work of an author who gives to the events an interpretation or who carefully chooses details so that a definite impression is built up in the mind of the reader. It expresses the reactions of a group. It is impersonal. It is a tale telling itself.

III

The third characteristic of the ballad is that it is designed to be sung. There is abundant evidence of this. In certain parts of the United States one may still hear some of these ballads sung to airs that are themselves very old. This will not much longer be possible. The ballad belongs to a way of life in which automobiles, telephones, and victrola records were unknown. It cannot breathe the same atmosphere with the song from a Broadway musical comedy, stamped on rubber disks and sent to every hamlet in the nation.

The ballad is a form of lyric poetry. Like other lyrics, it may be read or recited, but it is best when it is sung. This is true not only of the traditional ballads that were handed down for generations by word of mouth before they were ever written or printed, but also of ballads that were written like any other form of lyric. For example, in one of Shakespeare's plays a peddler comes to a country festival with printed ballads to sell. He gives a list of these, telling something about the story and naming the airs, or music, to which they are to be sung. Many of Burns's lyrics are very similar to the ballads, and in any edition of his

poems you will find the names of the tunes. Sir Walter Scott, who was a great collector of the old folk ballads, named his collection The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, thus indicating the fact that the ballads were such as might have been sung by the ancient minstrels. In very early times, it is likely that the ballads were made in the presence of a group of people who joined immediately, in the very act of composition, in singing them. Perhaps, too, the singing was accompanied by rhythmic motion akin to the dance. But always the song is an essential.

Our definition of the ballad is now complete. It is a short story in verse; it is told without any of the decorations of literary art, expressing the feeling or mood not of an author but of a group, so that it seems to tell itself; and it is designed to be sung, not read or recited. These ideas are best expressed in a definition that has become famous for its completeness: "A ballad is a tale telling itself in song."

IV

It remains to say something about the themes and the style of the ballads, and about the life that they reflect.

Ballads have been made by all races and nations from the remotest antiquity. Since they represented the folk, ordinary people without the leisure or training to appreciate more carefully wrought poetry and prose, people who could neither read nor write, they were not written on paper or parchment but handed down orally from one generation to another. The epic poet might use stories that had long been known in ballad form, but he changed them, added reflections of his own, gave them poetic figures, and supplied material to fill in gaps in the narrative, so that the original ballad was transformed. It follows that only a few ballads have been preserved by any nation in proportion to the vast number that have been made. Indeed, educated men did not take much interest in this poetry of the common people until comparatively recent times. Toward the end of the eighteenth century, Bishop Percy made a collection of old ballads and ro

mances that he called Reliques of English Poetry. About the same time, Robert Burns and other poets took advantage of the growing interest in old Scottish tunes by writing new lyrics, some of them ballads, to be sung to these tunes. A little later Sir Walter Scott published his great collection called the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.

This growing interest in the ballads led to more careful study of them and to a search for others that had not yet been written down. This study brought forth many versions of some of the ballads, certain of these versions being found in America. In all cases the ballad is taken down orally by someone who is fortunate enough to hear it sung. Generally a folk ballad can now be found only in some remote region little affected by civilization and in which the present inhabitants can trace their descent to pure old English or Scottish stock.

The themes of the ballads are varied. Some deal with the wars of the clans on the Scottish border and with other heroic matters, such as single combats between rival chiefs or the death of a hero. Many are romantic, telling of star-crossed lovers, or of a maid wooed by a lord in the disguise of a beggar, or the supplanting of a maiden by a rival. Some deal with the supernatural: a lover's ghost returns to claim the bride, or a mother is visited by the ghosts of her sons, or a fairy claims a mortal lover. A few are humorous, but not many; the outlook on life that we find in the ballads is usually tragic. They deal with elemental themes: love, death, friendship, deadly enmity. Even the supernatural is treated in the same realistic manner. The ballad does not try to persuade you that there may be ghosts; it takes ghosts, fairies, supernatural creatures for granted. This is why, in the ballad about the wife of Usher's Well, you will find no attempt to make the flesh creep, to inspire terror of the unknown world, as in Shakespeare's account of Hamlet's father's ghost or in some of Poe's tales of the supernatural. You are not even told that these visitors are ghosts; it is taken for granted.

From all this it will appear also that