Produced by Anne Soulard, Juliet Sutherland, Charles
Bidwell, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
This work is designed as a supplement to the Adventures of Telemachus. Ittreats of the conduct and sufferings of Ulysses, the father of Telemachus.The picture which it exhibits is that of a brave man struggling withadversity; by a wise use of events, and with an inimitable presence ofmind under difficulties, forcing out a way for himself through theseverest trials to which human life can be exposed; with enemies naturaland preternatural surrounding him on all sides. The agents in this tale,besides men and women, are giants, enchanters, sirens: things which denoteexternal force or internal temptations, the twofold danger which a wisefortitude must expect to encounter in its course through this world. Thefictions contained in it will be found to comprehend some of the mostadmired inventions of Grecian mythology.
The groundwork of the story is as old as the Odyssey, but the moral andthe coloring are comparatively modern. By avoiding the prolixity whichmarks the speeches and the descriptions in Homer, I have gained a rapidityto the narration which I hope will make it more attractive and give itmore the air of a romance to young readers, though I am sensible that bythe curtailment I have sacrificed in many places the manners to thepassion, the subordinate characteristics to the essential interest of thestory. The attempt is not to be considered as seeking a comparison withany of the direct translations of the Odyssey, either in prose or verse,though if I were to state the obligations which I have had to one obsoleteversion, [Footnote: The translation of Homer by Chapman in the reign ofJames I.] I should run the hazard of depriving myself of the very slenderdegree of reputation which I could hope to acquire from a trifle like thepresent undertaking.
The Cicons.—The Fruit of the Lotus-tree.—Polyphemus and the Cyclops.—
The Kingdom of the Winds, and God Aeolus's Fatal Present.—The
Laestrygonian Man-eaters.
The House of Circe.—Men changed into Beasts.—The Voyage to Hell.—The
Banquet of the Dead.
The Song of the Sirens.—Scylla and Charybdis.—The Oxen of the Sun.—The
Judgment.—The Crew Killed by Lightning.
The Island of Calypso.—Immortality Refused.
The Tempest.—The Sea-bird's Gift.—The Escape by Swimming.—The Sleep inthe Woods.
The Princess Nausicaa.—The Washing.—The Game with the Ball.—The Courtof Phaeacia and King Alcinous.
The Songs of Demodocus—The Convoy Home.—The Manners—Transformed to
Stone—The Young Shepherd.
The Change from a King to a Beggar.—Eumaeus and the Herdsmen—Telemachus.
The Queen's Suitors—The Battle of the Beggars.—The Armour Taken Down.—
The Meeting with Penelope.
The Madness from Above—The Bow of Ulysses.—The Slaughter.—The
Conclusion.