Page:Homer. The Odyssey (IA homerodyssey00collrich).pdf/55

This page has been validated.
ULYSSES WITH CALYPSO.
45

it into words for her, that Jupiter should surely have some sympathy for weaknesses of which he set so remarkable an example.] But she will obey, as needs she must. Ulysses shall go; only he must build himself a boat, for there is none in her island. She goes herself to announce to him his coming deliverance. She finds him sitting pensively, as is his wont, on the sea-beach, looking and longing in the direction of Ithaca.

"Companion of the rocks, the livelong light,
He dreaming on the shore, but not at rest,
With groans and tears and lingering undelight
Gazed on the pulses of the ocean's breast."

His heart is in his native island; but, sooth to say, he makes the best of his present captivity. He endures, if he does not heartily reciprocate, the love of his fair jailer, The correspondence in many points of these Homeric lays with the legends of mediæval Christendom, especially with those of Arthur and his Round Table, has been already noticed. It has been said also that, on the whole, the moral tone of Homer is far purer. But there is one bright creation of mediæval fiction which finds no counterpart in the song of the Greek bard. It was only Christianity—one might almost say it was only mediæval Christianity—which could conceive the pure ideal of the stainless knight who has kept his maiden innocence,—who only can sit in the "siege perilous" and win the holy Grail, "because his heart is pure." Among all the heroes of Iliad or Odyssey there is no Sir Galahad.

Calypso obeys the behest of Jove reluctantly, but