Page:Homer. The Odyssey (IA homerodyssey00collrich).pdf/129

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THE RECOGNITION BY PENELOPE.
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"Sweet as to swimmers the dry land appears, Whose bark Poseidon in the angry sea Strikes with a tempest, and in pieces tears, And a few swimmers from the white deep flee, Crested with salt foam, and with tremulous knee Spring to the shore exulting; even so Sweet was her husband to Penelope, Nor from his neck could she at all let go Her white arms, nor forbid her thickening tears to flow."

When they retire to rest, each has a long tale to tell. The personal adventures of Ulysses alone (however careful he might have been to abridge them in some particulars for his present auditor) would have made up many an Arabian Night's entertainment. There would surely have been little time left for Penelope's story, but that Minerva's agency lengthens the ordinary night—

"Nor from the rolling river of Ocean's stream Suffered the golden-thronèd Dawn to beam, Or yoke the horses that bear light to men."

Here, according to our modern notions of completeness, the Odyssey should surely end. Accordingly some critics have surmised that the twenty-fourth and last book is not Homer's, but a later addition. But we may very well suppose that the primitive taste for narrative in the poet's day was more simple and child-like; that an ancient Greek audience would inquire, as our own children would, into all the details of the sequel, and not be satisfied even with the comprehensive assertion that "they lived happy ever afterwards." We have therefore, in the text as it has come down to us, a kind of supplement to the tale, which, as is the case

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