Mountain Home Republican. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1915-1946, 1921-10-22

f;s5Sss53 &yaSa&2A, N&sszsfs&#A IftAu anu thG
SsssS Odyssey.
n Like the Hebrew
EL-.@-l =. Z s!S---------a Bible, they have
become part OF
Inc heritage of universal humanity.
We call them epic poemst they nre
rather great historical romnnces.
Each has "A story of its own; In the
utad IL in the wrath of Achilles against
King Aganemn0nj In the Odyssey 1T
la the yyanderings of Odysseus ON his
way hack from the wars at Troy. Back
Of them both an remOter cause In the
tnIe of the fatal beauty OF Helen. In
sacl are innumerabie short stories,
which have been storehouses Of ro-
nances for writers ever since frst they
became known.
lit In one of the marvels OF the
Greeks that they step out of the mlst
Of unreeorded history with a highly
developed civilization, portrayed In two
OF the worlds masterpieces of itera-
tnre. The Greeks in later years wrote
"iivesn of Homer with great exactness
and minute detail. They knew mo more
about the @bilnd bard" than do we.
indeed, they were mot even sure that
one poet wrote both tales. But that
the stories were the work of supreme
genius they were as sure as have been
all men since their day who have read
them.
Homer was the Greeks, fbest seilere;
they thronged I'm thousands TO hear him
recited; their religion, their thought,
their education were all based ON him,
| under whose name Ia told the great
story of their heroes.
IT rs the tenth year since Troy has
n fallen. Though the Iliad did not
'a~ go beyond the death of Hector at
Achilles hands, other stories carried
on the tale through the death of
Achilles, the capture of Troy by the
Greeks by means Of the strategem Of
the wooden horse, the sacking and
burning Of the city. the death of
Priam and his queen. the slavery of
Andromache which Hector had fore
seen, the slaughter of the little son
he loved so dearly, the escape of
Aeneas with his aged father.
After the booty had been divided,
the Greek chiefs took lelsurely courses
to their homes. The great King Aga
memnon sent his dramatic night let
ter, announcing to his queen at home
by the light Of flames leaping from
hilltop to hilltop across the sea that
Troy had fallen; for his pains he met
the dramatic death at the hand OF
Queen Klytaimnestra which Aeschy.
lus has made forever famous in his
great play, "Agamemnon;" the latter
has In 1t the beginning of the story
Of Orestes, the close Greek counter
part of Hamlet. The kings brother
Menelaus, had better fortune; he had
5ouneyed homeward with his erst
while Queen Helen, as If the great
Trojan episode had never been, and was
reigning again In peace and quiet Will
the Worlds Desire by his side al
Sparta, with no dread of maraud
Ing Paris sent on the quest of beaut,
by Aphrodite. And so, too, the Other
princes had returned with varying
fortunes.
But not so the Great Adyenturer
Troy had taken ten years to capture
ten years more still found the willy
Odysseus detained in the Isle o.
Ogygia by the fair Calypso. Mean
while the patient Penelope bides a
home. beset by the riotous sultors wht
make Liberty hall of the absent king:
palace and would force the queen I,
wed one Of them. She, ever as aler
and resourceful as her wanderln,
lord, puts off her promise till she ha,
woven a web-of which she each nigh
unravels what she has done durin,
the day.
This first great story of wanderin,
adventure has much more perfec
unity than the Iliad It centers close
~ about the person of Odysseus, an,
divides itself into three parts. the ad
ventures of Telemachus in quest o
Odysseus, the wanderings of the hero
and his return home, where with tn,
few still faithful to him he make
himself his own detective, laws tn
scene for the destruction of the vii
lains, and finally brings about th
happy ending which has so constant,
distressed critics of the novel and TN
theater since man began to write an,
ordinary folk to listen or to read.
| In the first chapter, which comprise
the first four "hoo1s" of the Odyssey
Young Telemachus, amidst the mock
cry of the suitors, starts in quest q
his father. and makes the rounds q
The courts of our old friend Nesto,
ing of Pylos, and of Menelaus am
ielen at Sparta, where he learns tn
whereabouts of his father, and the
iarts homeward.
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