nus: before the use of dials or clocks the ancients distinguished the day by some remarkable offices or stated employments; as from the dining of the labourer, ......... What time in some sequester'd vale The weary woodman spreads his sparing meal." Iliad xi. ver. 119. See the Annotations; so here from the rising of the judges: and both denote the midday, or noontide hour. V. 532. When the tenth sun descended to the main.] This account is very extraordinary. Ulysses continued upon the mast ten days, and consequently ten days without any nourishment, Longinus brings this passage as an instance of the decay of Homer's genius, and his launching out into extravagant fables. THE ARGUMENT. THE ARRIVAL OF ULYSSES IN ITHACA. ULYSSES takes his leave of Alcinous and Arete, and embarks in the evening. Next morning the ship arrives at Ithaca; where the sailors, as Ulysses is yet sleeping, lay him on the shore with all his treasures. On their return, Neptune changes their ship into a rock. In the mean time Ulysses awaking, knows not his native Ithaca, by reason of a mist which Pallas had cast round him. He breaks into loud lamentations; till the goddess, appearing to him in the form of a shepherd, discovers the country to him, and points out the particular places. He then tells a feigned story of his adventures, upon which she manifests herself, and they consult together of the measures to be taken to destroy the suitors. To conceal his return, and disguise his person the more effectually, she changes him into the figure of an old beggar. |