Village books

She is, in
fact, a distinct person in all respects from the Minerva of the
Iliad. Of the remaining gods Neptune, as the persecutor of the
hero, comes worst off; but even he is treated as though he were a
very important person.
In the Odyssey the gods no longer live in houses and sleep in four-
post bedsteads, but the conception of their abode, like that of
their existence altogether, is far more spiritual. Nobody knows
exactly where they live, but they say it is in Olympus, where there
is neither rain nor hail nor snow, and the wind never beats roughly;
but it abides in everlasting sunshine, and in great peacefulness of
light wherein the blessed gods are illumined for ever and ever. It
is hardly possible to conceive anything more different from the
Olympus of the Iliad.
Another very material point of difference between the Iliad and the
Odyssey lies in the fact that the Homer of the Iliad always knows
what he is talking about, while the supposed Homer of the Odyssey
often makes mistakes that betray an almost incredible ignorance of
detail.


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