Who Homer was, when and where he lived, we do not know. He belongs to a time before history has records. He sang for a people whose life was very simple, not only without all the comforts and conveniences of modern 5 times but with few tools, few writings, and with little knowledge of the world beyond the city walls. We do not even know whether Homer could write or whether he merely memorized the verses that he chanted. What we do know is that out of that remote time came two great poems, 10 the Iliad and the Odyssey, so noble in their plan, so beautiful in their verse that they must have been composed by a man of the greatest poetic genius. The Greeks called him Homer; and as they grew in knowledge and prosperity, they treasured his poems from generation to generation 15 and passed them down for the delight of many peoples of strange lands and distant centuries. The Iliad tells of Achilles, the bravest of the Greeks, who besieged the city of Troy and of Hector, the bravest of its defenders, who fell at last by the hand of his heroic foe. The 20 Odyssey tells of Odysseus (or Ulysses), one of the Greek chieftains at Troy, who after its destruction wandered for many years and met many adventures before he finally reached his home and his faithful wife Penelope. Such tales. of heroes, called epic poems, are to be found in almost every 25 language. In all cities, for many races in the dawn of civilization, minstrels have sung stories of the great deeds of a still earlier day. Most of those songs have been lost; some have been preserved and, like the Homeric poems, have been cherished by great peoples. But none have been so much loved as these two epics that tell of that ancient war between the Greeks and Trojans. They were first recited on some such occasion as we have imagined and since then they have never been forgotten. They tell of a past so distant that it is scarcely known ex- 5 cept through their verses, of gods who have long since ceased to be worshiped, and are written in a language lost to the speech of men. Yet they are as fresh and alive to-day as when they were first chanted to the youths and maidens of that forgotten Grecian city. Listen to what Andrew Lang 10 says of the Homer of to-day. "Homer is a poet for all ages, all races, and all moods. To the Greeks the epics were not only the best of romances, the richest of poetry; not only their oldest documents about their own history, they were also their Bible, their treas- 15 ury of religious traditions and moral teaching. With the Bible and Shakespeare, the Homeric poems are the best training for life. There is no good quality that they lack ; manliness, courage, reverence for old age and for the hospitable hearth; justice, piety, pity, a brave attitude toward 20 life and death, are all conspicuous in Homer. He has to write of battles; and he delights in the joy of battle, and in all the movement of war. Yet he delights not less, but more, in peace; in prosperous cities, hearths secure, in the tender beauty of children, in the love of wedded wives, in 25 the frank nobility of maidens, in the beauty of earth and sky and sea, and seaward murmuring river, in sun and snow, frost and mist and rain, in the whispered talk of boy and girl beneath oak and pine tree.” Odysseus after the fall of Troy had set sail for his home in Ithaca, but owing to the hostility of the gods suffered all sorts of perils. Athene, however, befriended him; and at last he was cast ashore on Phæacia. Then he crept along up a river and went to sleep covered by dry leaves. So there he lay asleep, the steadfast goodly Odysseus, fordone with toil and drowsiness. Meanwhile Athene went to the land and the city of the Phæacians, to the house of King Alcinous. She betook her to the rich-wrought bower, 5 wherein was sleeping a maiden like to the gods in form and comeliness, Nausicaa, the daughter of Alcinous, high of heart. Beside her on either hand of the pillars of the door were two handmaids, dowered with beauty from the Graces, and the shining doors were shut. 10 But the goddess, fleet as the breath of the wind, swept towards the couch of the maiden, and stood above her head, and spake to her in the semblance of the daughter of a famous seafarer, Dymas, a girl of like age with Nausicaa, who had found grace in her sight. In her shape the gray15 eyed Athene spake to the princess, saying: "Nausicaa, how hath thy mother so heedless a maiden to her daughter? Lo, thou hast shining raiment that lies by thee uncared for, and thy marriage-day is near at hand, when thou thyself must needs go beautifully clad, and have 20 garments to give to them who shall lead thee to the house of the bridegroom! And, behold, these are the things whence a good report goes abroad among men, wherein a father and lady mother take delight. But come, let us arise and go a-washing with the breaking of the day, and I will follow with thee to be thy mate in the toil, that without delay thou mayst get thee ready, since truly thou art not long to be a maiden. Lo, already they are wooing thee, 5 the noblest youths of all the Phæacians, among that people whence thou thyself dost draw thy lineage. So come, beseech thy noble father betimes in the morning to furnish thee with mules and a wain to carry the men's raiment, and the robes, and the shining coverlets. Yea and for 10 thyself it is seemlier far to go thus than on foot, for the places where we must wash are a great way off the town." So spake the gray-eyed Athene, and departed to Olympus, where, as they say, is the seat of the gods that standeth fast for ever. Not by winds is it shaken, nor ever wet 15 with rain, nor doth the snow come nigh thereto, but most clear air is spread about it cloudless, and the white light floats over it. Therein the blessed gods are glad for all their days, and thither Athene went when she had shown forth all to the maiden. 20 Anon came the throned Dawn, and awakened Nausicaa of the fair robes, who straightway marvelled on the dream, and went through the halls to tell her parents, her father dear and her mother. And she found them within, her mother sitting by the hearth with the women her hand- 25 maids, spinning yarn of sea-purple stain, but her father she met as he was going forth to the renowned kings in their council, whither the noble Phæacians called him. Standing close by her dear father she spake, saying: "Father, |