their Teutonic home. It relates three great adventures of its hero, and tells us something of his life from boyhood until his death. It has the dignity and stateliness required by the epic form, and the life led by Hrothgar, Beowulf, and Hygelac, the principal persons of the story, has much of the simplicity of greatness that we have already noted in the Homeric epic.

Of the epic in other countries there is no space to treat. Many sagas, or herostories, have come down to us from Icelandic, Norse, and old German sources. Some of these have been retold in modern verse by Arnold in "Balder Dead" and by William Morris in the "Earthly Paradise." A mass of German legend attained epic form in the Middle Ages in the Nibelungenlied, and some of these stories were used by Wagner in his operas. In France, the Song of Roland is the greatest of a large number of epic tales that grew up around the name of Charlemagne and his knights, while the Arthurian legend, made English by the prose of Malory's Morte d'Arthur in the fifteenth century and Tennyson's

Idylls of the King in the nineteenth, first took on epic form in French poetry of the twelfth century.

Later epics are imitations of the heroic poems that sprang from peoples just attaining national consciousness and a relatively high state of civilization. Spenser's Faerie Queene is one of these, belonging to the end of the sixteenth century, and adapting some of the character of the Arthurian romances to an allegory of the founding of England, the greatness of the reign of Elizabeth, and the character of the ideal hero as conceived by the people of Shakespeare's time. A century later John Milton wrote the epic of Paradise Lost, biblical rather than historical in theme, imitative of Vergil, but summing up the thought of his time in regard to Providence and man's destiny. No epic of the founding of the United States exists, but Longfellow gathered many Indian legends into a noble poem expressive of Indian character and civilization, so that Hiawatha became, in our thought at least, the Ulysses or Aeneas of his race.

Nausithoüs, led them to a new abode,
And planted them in Scheria, far away
From plotting neighbors. With a wall he
fenced

Their city, built them dwellings there, and reared

Fanes to the gods, and changed the plain to fields.

But he had bowed to death, and had gone down

14

To Hades; and Alcinoüs, whom the gods
Endowed with wisdom, governed in his stead.
Now to his palace, planning the return
Of the magnanimous Ulysses, came
The blue-eyed goddess Pallas, entering
The gorgeous chamber where a damsel slept,
Nausicaä, daughter of the large-souled king
Alcinoüs, beautiful in form and face
As one of the immortals. Near her lay,
And by the portal, one on either side,
Fair as the Graces, two attendant maids.
The shining doors were shut. But Pallas came
As comes a breath of air, and stood beside
The damsel's head and spake. In look she
seemed

21

27

"Nausicaä, has thy mother then brought forth

35

A careless housewife? Thy magnificent robes
Lie still neglected, though thy marriage day
Is near, when thou art to array thyself
In seemly garments, and bestow the like
On those who lead thee to the bridal rite;
For thus the praise of men is won, and thus
Thy father and thy gracious mother both
Will be rejoiced. Now with the early dawn
Let us all hasten to the washing-place.

41

49

Of the Phæacians, for thy birth, like theirs,
Is of the noblest. Make thy suit at morn
To thy illustrious father, that he bid
His mules and car be harnessed to convey
Thy girdles, robes, and mantles marvelous
In beauty. That were seemlier than to walk,
Since distant from the town the lavers lie."
Thus having said, the blue-eyed Pallas went
Back to Olympus, where the gods have made,
So saith tradition, their eternal seat.
The tempest shakes it not, nor is it drenched
By showers, and there the snow doth never
fall.

55

rose,

66

Clad royally, as marveling at her dream
She hastened through the palace to declare
Her purpose to her father and the queen.
She found them both within. Her mother sat
Beside the hearth with her attendant maids,
And turned the distaff loaded with a fleece
Dyed in sea-purple. On the threshold stood

52. laver, cistern for washing, also basin or bowl for water.

"Ah me! upon what region am I thrown? What men are here wild, savage, and unjust, Or hospitable and who hold the gods In reverence? There are voices in the air, Womanly voices, as of nymphs that haunt 154 The mountain summits, and the river-founts, And the moist, grassy meadows. Or perchance Am I near men who have the power of speech? Nay, let me then go forth at once and learn." Thus having said, the great Ulysses left 159 The thicket. From the close-grown wood he rent With his strong hand a branch well set with leaves,

166

And wound it as a covering round his waist.
Then like a mountain lion he went forth,
That walks abroad, confiding in his strength,
In rain and wind; his eyes shoot fire; he falls
On oxen, or on sheep, or forest-deer,
For hunger prompts him even to attack
The flock within its closely guarded fold.
Such seemed Ulysses when about to meet
Those fair-haired maidens, naked as he was,
But forced by strong necessity. To them 171
His look was frightful, for his limbs were foul
With sea-foam yet. To right and left they fled
Along the jutting river-banks. Alone

The daughter of Alcinoüs kept her place, 175
For Pallas gave her courage and forbade
Her limbs to tremble. So she waited there.
Ulysses pondered whether to approach
The bright-eyed damsel and embrace her knees
And supplicate, or, keeping yet aloof,
Pray her with soothing words to show the way
Townward and give him garments. Musing

thus,

. 180

201

205

Beholding such a scion of their house
Enter the choral dance. But happiest he
Beyond them all, who, bringing princely gifts,
Shall bear thee to his home a bride; for sure
I never looked on one of mortal race,
Woman or man, like thee, and as I gaze
I wonder. Like to thee I saw of late,
In Delos, a young palm-tree growing up
Beside Apollo's altar; for I sailed
To Delos, with much people following me,
On a disastrous voyage. Long I gazed
Upon it wonder-struck, as I am now-
For never from the earth so fair a tree
Had sprung. So marvel I, and am amazed
At thee, O lady, and in awe forbear
To clasp thy knees. Yet much have I endured.
It was but yestereve that I escaped
From the black sea, upon the twentieth day,
So long the billows and the rushing gales 215
Farther and farther from Ogygia's isle
Had borne me. Now upon this shore some god
Casts me, perchance to meet new sufferings
here;

211

255

261

My handmaids, when a man appears in sight?
Ye think, perhaps, he is some enemy.
Nay, there is no man living now, nor yet
Will live, to enter, bringing war, the land
Of the Phæacians. Very dear are they
To the great gods. We dwell apart, afar
Within the unmeasured deep, amid its waves,
The most remote of men; no other race
Hath commerce with us. This man comes to us
A wanderer and unhappy, and to him
Our cares are due. The stranger and the poor
Are sent by Jove, and slight regards to them
Are grateful. Maidens, give the stranger food
And drink, and take him to the river-side
To bathe where there is shelter from the wind."
So spake the mistress; and they stayed their
flight

267

To cleanse my shoulders from the bitter brine, And to anoint them; long have these my limbs Been unrefreshed by oil. I will not bathe 280 Before you. I should be ashamed to stand Unclothed in presence of these bright-haired maids."

He spake; they hearkened and withdrew, and told

The damsel what he said. Ulysses then 284 Washed the salt spray of ocean from his back And his broad shoulders in the flowing stream, And wiped away the sea-froth from his brows. And when the bath was over, and his limbs

She spake; they heard and cheerfully obeyed, And set before Ulysses food and wine. The patient chief Ulysses ate and drank Full eagerly, for he had fasted long. White-armed Nausicaä then had other cares. She placed the smoothly folded robes within The sumptuous chariot, yoked the firm-hoofed mules,

320