Who is ulysses leaving in charge of ithaca

As she spoke the goddess dispersed the mist and the land appeared. Then Ulysses rejoiced at finding himself again in his own land, and kissed the bounteous soil; he lifted up his hands and prayed to the nymphs, saying, "Naiad nymphs, daughters of Jove, I made sure that I was never again to see you, now therefore I greet you with all loving salutations, and I will bring you offerings as in the old days, if Jove's redoubtable daughter will grant me life, and bring my son to manhood.

Let us see how we can best manage it all. Therewith she went down into the cave to look for the safest hiding places, while Ulysses brought up all the treasure of gold, bronze, and good clothing which the Phaeacians had given him. They stowed everything carefully away, and Minerva set a stone against the door of the cave. Then the two sat down by the root of the great olive, and consulted how to compass the destruction of the wicked suitors.

And Ulysses answered, "In good truth, goddess, it seems I should have come to much the same bad end in my own house as Agamemnon did, if you had not given me such timely information. Advise me how I shall best avenge myself. Stand by my side and put your courage into my heart as on the day when we loosed Troy's fair diadem from her brow.

Help me now as you did then, and I will fight three hundred men, if you, goddess, will be with me. I will begin by disguising you so that no human being shall know you; I will cover your body with wrinkles; you shall lose all your yellow hair; I will clothe you in a garment that shall fill all who see it with loathing; I will blear your fine eyes for you, and make you an unseemly object in the sight of the suitors, of your wife, and of the son whom you left behind you. Then go at once to the swineherd who is in charge of your pigs; he has been always well affected towards you, and is devoted to Penelope and your son; you will find him feeding his pigs near the rock that is called Raven [17] by the fountain Arethusa, where they are fattening on beechmast and spring water after their manner.

Stay with him and find out how things are going, while I proceed to Sparta and see your son, who is with Menelaus at Lacedaemon, where he has gone to try and find out whether you are still alive. Did you want him too to go sailing about amid all kinds of hardship while others are eating up his estate? Minerva answered, "Never mind about him, I sent him that he might be well spoken of for having gone.

He is in no sort of difficulty, but is staying quite comfortably with Menelaus, and is surrounded with abundance of every kind. The suitors have put out to sea and are lying in wait for him, for they mean to kill him before he can get home. I do not much think they will succeed, but rather that some of those who are now eating up your estate will first find a grave themselves.

As she spoke Minerva touched him with her wand and covered him with wrinkles, took away all his yellow hair, and withered the flesh over his whole body; she bleared his eyes, which were naturally very fine ones; she changed his clothes and threw an old rag of a wrap about him, and a tunic, tattered, filthy, and begrimed with smoke; she also gave him an undressed deer skin as an outer garment, and furnished him with a staff and a wallet all in holes, with a twisted thong for him to sling it over his shoulder.

When the pair had thus laid their plans they parted, and the goddess went straight to Lacedaemon to fetch Telemachus. This puts coined money out of the question, but nevertheless implies that the gold had been worked into ornaments of some kind. I suppose Teiresias' prophecy of bk.

More probably the prophecy was an afterthought, intercalated, as I have already said, by the authoress when she changed her scheme. A male writer would have made Ulysses say, not "may you give satisfaction to your wives," but "may your wives give satisfaction to you. The land was in reality the shallow inlet, now the salt works of S. Cusumano--the neighbourhood of Trapani and Mt. Eryx being made to do double duty, both as Scheria and Ithaca. Hence the necessity for making Ulysses set out after dark, fall instantly into a profound sleep, and wake up on a morning so foggy that he could not see anything till the interviews between Neptune and Jove and between Ulysses and Minerva should have given the audience time to accept the situation.

See illustrations and map near the end of bks. This cave, which is identifiable with singular completeness, is now called the "grotta del toro," probably a corruption of "tesoro," for it is held to contain a treasure. See The Authoress of the Odyssey, pp.

Doubtless the road would pass the harbour in Odyssean times as it passes the salt works now; indeed, if there is to be a road at all there is no other level ground which it could take. See map above referred to. The rock at the end of the Northern harbour of Trapani, to which I suppose the writer of the "Odyssey" to be here referring, still bears the name Malconsiglio--"the rock of evil counsel.

My friend Cavaliere Giannitrapani of Trapani told me that his father used to tell him when he was a boy that if he would drop exactly three drops of oil on to the water near the rock, he would see the ship still at the bottom. The legend is evidently a Christianised version of the Odyssean story, while the name supplies the additional detail that the disaster happened in consequence of an evil counsel.

It would seem then that the ship had got all the way back from Ithaca in about a quarter of an hour. And may we not add "and also to prevent his recognising that he was only in the place where he had met Nausicaa two days earlier. All this is to excuse the entire absence of Minerva from books ix.

We have met with this somewhat lame attempt to cover the writer's change of scheme at the end of bk. I take the following from The Authoress of the Odyssey, p. The other cave presents no special features, neither in the poem nor in nature. There is no attempt to disguise the fact that Penelope had long given encouragement to the suitors.

The only defence set up is that she did not really mean to encourage them. Would it not have been wiser to have tried a little discouragement? See map near the end of bk. Ruccazzu dei corvi of course means "the rock of the ravens. The real reason for sending Telemachus to Pylos and Lacedaemon was that the authoress might get Helen of Troy into her poem.

He was sent at the only point in the story at which he could be sent, so he must have gone then or not at all. Updated February 28, Infoplease Staff. The Sirens, Scylla and Charyb This poem is written as a dramatic monologue: the entire poem is spoken by a single character, whose identity is revealed by his own words. Many of the lines are enjambed, which means that a thought does not end with the line-break; the sentences often end in the middle, rather than the end, of the lines.

SparkTeach Teacher's Handbook. Themes Motifs Symbols. Page 1 Page 2. His first sea voyage illustrates a little of this defenselessness for him as he grasps the power of the ocean, to do with him as it would. In his own words he describes this frightening concept, "The ship was no sooner gotten ou He no longer did what he felt like at the moment, but thought long and hard on each decision he had to make.

When he was rescued from his Island he returned to Brazil, settled his affairs there, was more than fair to all those involved, and left to avoid the inquisition. Open Document. Essay Sample Check Writing Quality. While he originally thought he would find peace in his kingdom, he feels just the opposite. Ulysses is now old and debates how he truly wants to spend the last of his days.

When relating the place he has returned to in Ithaca, Ulysses comments about three main disappointments: his wife, his son, and his people. Reflecting on his twenty years of adventure has made him question his decision to come back to Ithaca. He needs to prove to himself that the journey was better than actually reaching the destination before abandoning all he has worked to return to. Through comparison of what he has experienced on the sea to what he has to look forward to in Ithaca, Ulysses is able to convince himself that he is justified in desiring to return to the sea with his fellow seamen.

In the first stanza, Ulysses addresses the way his wife and home have become undesirable since his return. A hearth is supposed to be the home of a fire, and a still hearth would be one that is quiet, still, and unused. A still hearth does not do the home any good in keeping it warm and homely. Perhaps Ulysses does not feel welcomed by his wife, and she does not kindle a fire within his heart like he remembers. At home he has to deal with an old wife, a mediocre son, and a barbaric people.

Even more so, he reflects on the fulfilling, adventurous, and legendary life he had before returning home. Through the contrasting of his present life on Ithaca with his past life on the sea and future possibilities of adventure, Ulysses is able to persuade himself that he is justified in his desire to leave home once again and explore the world on the seas.

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