Boston University - HUB Yearbook (Boston, MA)

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26 BOSTON UNIVERSITY YEAR BOOK. In the third place, the point reached by the party in the realm of the dead is described by the term in-6 564119. If, now, this expression is intended to indicate a point of compass, as well as the gloominess of the place visited, it could not have been better chosen, since it describes the location precisely in accordance with all other indications, and iixes it as below the Ocean-stream, and in what was to the poet the Western Hemisphere, making the spot thus precisely ff under the dark CWestj, to use the very terms which various translators have employed in render- ing the passage! - So much for Aiaie. But our hemispherical conception of Ho1ner's Abode of Living Men equally clears up the long-standing mystery as to the location of Calypso's isle, Ogygia. On this subject, as a recent author says, ff volumes have been written. Gladstone and others place the witching isle far to the north of Greeceg Bunbury and others, far to the westg Ukert and others, far to the south-westg Volcker and others, in the highest north-westg Merivale and others, like Callimachos of old, leave it in the centre of the Mediterranean Sea, and identify it with ff Malta or its neighbor Gozo 5 and so on to the end of the list. 1 See Homer's Abode of the Dead flatest edition in Paradise Found, pp. 467-4871. A few days ago 1Feh. 11, 18853 the writer came, for the first time, upon a reference to the Odyssean Hades, which, though barely inci- dental, and apparently forming no part of a comprehensive interpretation of Homeric cosmology, curiously conforms tothe doctrine set forth in The True Key. Speaking of the religious ideas of the Greeks, the writer, Mr. R. P. Knight, remarks: The fate of the terrestrial soul, the regions to which it retired at the dissolution of the body, and the degree of sensibility which it continued to enjoy. are subjects of much obscurity. In the Odysseyit is allowed a xucre, nnlsemhlo existence in the darkness of Tas POLAR imoions, without any reward for virtue or punishment for vice. -The Classical Journal, London, 1822, vol. xxvi. p. 41. Compare Da.nte's wonderfully graphic picture of Odysseus' ilnal and unreturning Desccnsus ad injeros, in the Inferno, canto xxvi., and the significance of the lines:- Tutte la stelle gin delle altro polo Vedea la nottc, c il nostro tanto basso Che non surges. di for del niarin suolof'

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HOMER'S ABODE OF THE LIVING. 25 sunset is lost in sunrise. The venerable paradox is only a new and perfect index to the exact location which scholars have so long and so vainly sought. ' Such being the position of Aiaie, the direction of Odys- seus on his voyage to Hades and back is settled beyond a doubt. In Gladstone's map, the course of this voyage is laid down as first north, then east, then a long way south, rounding in at last a little to the west, and having the landing on the nearer shore of the Ocean-strea1n.1 In Bunbury's map, on the contrary, the course is due west, and the landing on the farther shore of the Ocean. Two representations could hardly contradict each other more completely: neither is at all correct. What are the requirements of the poem? First, it must be a voyage southward 3 for Kirks states that it is to be by the blast of Boreas that they are to be borne forward.2 Locating Hades and Aiaic as we have, this is precisely the wind we need to take the ship down to and across the Ocean-river. In the second place, if one follows V6lcker's interpretation,-to which, for our part, we attach but slight importance,-after reaching the Ocean- river, the voyagers are represented as sailing up-stream for some distance before landing, and afterward returning down-stream? This part of the journey, then, on a spherically conceived Homeric Earth, would be alongthe lower shore of the Equatorial Ocean-stream, from the me- ridian of Aiaic, in the direction of the meridian of Ithaca, in' a course opposite to the apparent motion of the sun. 1 Later, ln his Primer of Homer, p. 60, Mr. Gladstone transfers the en- trance to Hades to the outer shore, the farther bank of the Ocean-stream. He thinks, however, that, in this part of his work, the poet was in a confused and bewildered state of xnindf' and that his latitudes were thrown into something like purposed confusion, p. til. 2 od. X. 507. H 3 Odyssey, book xi. 6385 xii. 1, 2. Comp. Vohclusli: Ihm1.erisf-he Geog- rnphie, sects. 61, 74. The current was conceived of as in the direction of tho motion ol' the hands of a watch.

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HOMEIPS ABODE OF' THE LIVING. 27 Mr. Gladstone apologetically remarks, The poet's descriptions are very vague, especially as to the island of Calypso. The fact seems to be that he was misled, not only by falsehood, but also by truth. When informants, Speaking of the same region, described it as one of all-but perpetual day, and also as one of night all-but perpetual, although both of these statements were true, he had not the key to their truth, and thus could only seek refuge in vagueness from contradiction. 1 Nearly two thousand years ago, the best geographers knew as little as now what to make of Hon1er's language. Here is Pliny's attempt to wrestle with it: ff The island of Ogygia, so called by Homer, is the habitable land an that whole hemisphere which the ancients believed to be surrounded on all sides by the Ocean, for which reason it is called Navel Island, that is, the middle of the Ocean. There he places Calypso, the daughter of Atlas, who knows the foundations of the Ocean, and supports upon immense pillars the weight of Heaven and Earth. This is Nature herseUQ such as she appears in that hemisphere, and Homer gives her the name of a woman then very well known, because there are many things in nature which she keeps concealed 5 the word Kalufvrmv signifying to conceal. 2 Perhaps the latest and most convenient method of dis- posing of the whole question is that adopted by Henry 1 Juventus Mundi, p. 480. 2 Compare the following: It is hardly necessary to observe that the Homeric geography in regard to all these distant lands must he considered as altogether fabulous. We are wholly at a loss to account for the locali- ties assigned by the Greeks in later days to the scenes of the Odyssey: it is certain that nothing can less accord with the data Csuch as they areb supplied by Homer than the identifications they adopted. Edward H. Bunbury, in Sinith's Dictionary Qf Greek and Roman Geography, art. 0g,vgia Many years ago, after a personal inspection of Ithaca and Corcyra., Lencadia and Strongyle, Seylla and Charylnlis, Taphros and the Hellespont, mythical Scheric and the land of the Lotophagoi, the present writer reached the conclusion that the shores and islands of the Mediterra- nean afford no key to these immortal Homeric voyages, and that the secret of many of the traditional identliications reported by scholiasts and gcographers is substantially the one suggested in motto third to the present paper.