ARGUMENT OF THE FIRST BOOK. In a Council of the Gods, Minerva calls their attention to Ulysses, still a wanderer. They resolve to grant him a safe return to Ithaca. Minerva descends to encourage Telemachus, and in the form of Mentes directs him in what manner to proceed. Throughout this book the extravagance and profligacy of the suitors are occasionally suggested. ODYSSEY. f BOOK I. MUSE make the man thy theme, for shrewdness fam'd And genius versatile; who far and wide A Wand'rer, after Ilium overthrown, Discover d various cities, and the mind And manners learn'd of men in lands remote. The rest, all those who had perdition 'scap'd 1 Alike desirous, in her hollow grot Calypso, beauteous Goddess, still detain'd Friends only should he meet, but many a foe), There sitting, pleas'd he banqueted; the Gods Orestes, and retracing in his thought That dread event, the Immortals thus address'd: *The Ethiopians, according to Diodorus Siculus, are said to have been the first of the human race, who celebrated the worship of the Gods; from whom they received, in recompense of their devotions, an immunity from conquest by the kings their neighbours. Their suff'rings, far more truly the result To his own bed, and him at his return To whom Minerva, Goddess azure-ey'd: * Chrysippus, as quoted by Gellius, inveighs with much reasonable indignation against those profligate and audacious persons, who, to excuse a slavish obedience to their lusts, have recourse to the plea of Fatality, ascribing all their wickedness, not to their own impious rashness, the proper and true source of it, but to the will of Heaven.-Homer however, as he observes, the wisest as well as the most ancient of the poets, was the first also to censure this egregious folly.-C. † Argus, the son of Arestor, was called the Toλuouμaros núwv or dog with many eyes, on account of the vigilance with which he guarded Io the daughter of Inachus; but Mercury, by command of Jupiter, slew him, and was thence entitled the Argicide.-B. |