Samuel Butler

“ The caves bore traces of prehistoric man by way of ancient meals now petrified.
It is noticeable that forms of the word σπέος or ἄντρον (cave) appear forty-five times in the "Odyssey" as against only six in the "Iliad," which, allowing for the greater length of the last named poem, is about in the proportion of 10 : 1. We may surmise, therefore, that the "Odyssey" hails from a district in which caves abounded.
As regards "the wall of bronze" which the writer of the "Odyssey" tells us ran round the island of Æolus, it is hard to say whether it was purely fiction or no. ”

“ The roads among the mountains, connecting these towns, are mere mule paths. The mountains abound in caves known only to the brigands and shepherds.
The "Odyssey" says of the Cyclopes:
They have neither places of assembly nor laws, but live in caves on the tops of high mountains; each one of them rules over his own wife and children, and they take no account of any one else (ix. 112-115) .
I saw several families of cave-dwellers at a place called le grotte degli Scurati on Cofàno about fifteen miles North of Trapani. ”

“ She does not mean to have pigs at first—the men whom Circe bewitched on previous occasions were turned into wolves and lions—but the force of association is too strong for her, and Ulysses’ men are turned into pigs after all. ”

“ My map of the Ægadean islands () combined with that of Trapani and Mt. Eryx (p. 164) will show the course Ulysses would make from Favognana to the Grotta di Polifemo—which is far the largest cave near Trapani, and is still used as a place in which to keep a large flock of sheep by night. The two rocks which Polyphemus threw should be seen, the first as the Asinelli, * and the second as the two small islands called Formiche, which, being close together, are taken as one. ”

“ Neptune, therefore, is made to catch sight of him at this moment and to raise a frightful hurricane; sea and sky become obscured in clouds, with a darkness as dense as night (v. 291-294) , and thus Ulysses is carried a long distance apparently to the North, for when he has been taken far enough, Minerva blows him two days and two nights before a North wind, and hence Southwards, till he reaches the harbour near which Nausicaa can meet him. ”

“ At other times there is hardly anything noticeable.
Passing over the nine days drifting in the sea, which take Ulysses from Charybdis to the island of Calypso, i.e. Pantellaria—and we may be sure he would have been made to take longer time if the writer had dared to keep him longer without food and water—it only remains for me to deal at somewhat fuller length than yet I have done with the voyage from Pantellaria to Trapani. ”

“ The giants are only the Cyclopes over again, and are doubtless the descendants of the people who built the noble megalithic walls of Eryx. Hypereia, or Upper-town, was probably at the Eastern end of the top of Mt. Eryx on a site where a very ancient wall, of totally different character to those of the Sican city at the West end of the mountain, may yet be traced. The remains of this wall are just above the Ruccazzù dei Corvi, in Count Pepoli's grounds, and were first shown me by the Count. A stranger is little likely to find them unless conducted by one who has seen them. ”

“ What I have to say about Circe's island is so speculative that I write it in fear and trembling. I see that Circe's house is, like Eumæus's pig farm, "in a place that can be seen from far" (x. 211) , and I see also that Ulysses approaches it "over the top of the mountain" (x. 281) , as he does Eumæus's hut (xiv. 2) . I remember the pigs, and I cannot refrain from thinking that though the writer tells us in the first instance that the island was a low one (x. 196) , her inability to get away from her own surroundings is too much for her, and she is drifting on to the top of Mt. ”

“ Very much depends upon the state of the winds, which sometimes bank the water up in the angle between the toe of Italy and the North coast of Sicily, on which a current and strong eddies occur in the Straits of Messina. ”

“ Should this be so, his name as likely as not was Conturràno, or something near it, in the days of the "Odyssey," and it was with the κόντος commemorated in his own name that Ulysses blinded him. The giant has grown greatly since the "Odyssey" was written, and large as the grotta di Polifemo is, he could never get inside it; for he rests his feet on the plain while he props his stomach on the top of Mt. Eryx, and bending forward plunges his huge hands into the sea between Bonagia and Cofàno, to catch tunnies. When disturbed he tears great rocks from the top of Mt. ”

“ According to Admiral Smyth it is just outside Messina harbour, and is now called Galofaro. Admiral Smyth says of it:
To the undecked boats of the Rhegians, Locrians, Zancleans, and Greeks, it must have been formidable; for even in the present day small craft are sometimes endangered by it, and I have seen several men-of-war, and even a seventy-four-gun ship, whirled round on its surface; but by using due caution there is generally very little danger or inconvenience to be apprehended (Sicily and its Islands, Murray, 1824, p. 123) . ”