Samuel Butler

“ So those who know the cantata "Narcissus" will admit that there are people who are fully aware that there is no music in this world so great as Handel's, but who will still try to write music in the style of Handel, and when they have done it, hardly know whether they have been more in jest or earnest, though while doing it they fully believed that they were only writing, so far as in them lay, the kind of music which Handel would have written for such words had he lived a hundred years or so later than he did. ”

“ It is surprising, seeing what a little further modification would have put everything quite straight, that the writer should have been content to leave passages here and there which she must have known would betray the want of homogeneity in her work, but we should be very thankful to her for not having tidied it up with greater care. We learn far more about her than we should do if she had made her work go more perfectly upon all fours, and it is herself that we value even more than her poem. ”

“ These Books are certainly by the same hand as the rest of the poem. They show the same amount of Iliadic influence; nowhere does a woman's hand appear more plainly; nowhere is Sicily, and more particularly Trapani, more in evidence, direct or indirect. It is from the beginning of Book ix. that we get our conviction that the Ionian islands were drawn from the Ægadean, and the voyages of Ulysses, as I have already shown, begin effectively with Mt. Eryx and end with Trapani. We may, therefore, dismiss all idea that Books ix.–xii. are by another writer. ”

“ When he had thus spoken he said to his son Mercury: "Mercury, you are our messenger, go therefore and tell Calypso we have decreed that poor Ulysses is to return home. He is to be conveyed neither by gods nor men, but after a perilous voyage of twenty days upon a raft he is to reach fertile Scheria, &c." (v. 28-34) .
From this point the poem continues with only one certain, and another doubtful, reference to the suitors and Penelope, until (according to Kirchoff) line 184 of Book xiii. ”

“ There can be little doubt from the distinctive peculiarities with which the poet has invested its inhabitants, and the precision and force of the sarcasm displayed in his portrait of their character, that the episode is intended as a satire on the habits of some real people with whom he was familiar. ”

“ The gods meet in council and Jove makes a speech about the revenge taken by Orestes on Ægisthus (i. 26–43) ; Minerva checks him, turns the subject on to Ulysses, and upbraids Jove with neglecting him (i. 44–62) . Jove answers that he had not forgotten him, and continues:
"Bear in mind that Neptune is still furious with Ulysses for having blinded an eye of Polyphemus, king of the Cylopes. Polyphemus is son to Neptune by the nymph Thoösa, daughter to the sea-king Phorcys, but instead of killing him outright he torments him by preventing him from getting home. ”

“ We look, then, for the inception of the poem in Books is 1–79 and v. 28–xiii. 187 or thereabouts, or more roughly in Books v.—xii. inclusive. These Books, though they contain no discrepancies among themselves, except the twenty lines added to the prophecy of Teiresias above referred to, are not homogeneous in scope, though they are so in style and treatment. They split themselves into two groups of four, i.e., v.–viii. and ix.–xii. The first group is written to bring Ulysses to Scheria and to exhibit the Phæacians and the writer herself—the interest in Ulysses being subordinate ”