Village books

The scepticism of the Iliad
is that of Hume or Gibbon; that of the Odyssey (if any) is like the
occasional mild irreverence of the Vicar's daughter. When Jove says
he will do a thing, there is no uncertainty about his doing it.
Juno hardly appears at all, and when she does she never quarrels
with her husband. Minerva has more to do than any of the other gods
or goddesses, but she has nothing in common with the Minerva whom we
have already seen in the Iliad. In the Odyssey she is the fairy
god-mother who seems to have no object in life but to protect
Ulysses and Telemachus, and keep them straight at any touch and turn
of difficulty. If she has any other function, it is to be patroness
of the arts and of all intellectual development. The Minerva of the
Odyssey may indeed sit on a rafter like a swallow and hold up her
aegis to strike panic into the suitors while Ulysses kills them; but
she is a perfect lady, and would no more knock Mars and Venus down
one after the other than she would stand on her head.


Pages:
86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110