When it is
perfect, we have, as in the above instances, the foliage and meadows
together; when imperfect, it is always either the foliage or the
meadow; pre-eminently the meadow, or arable field. Thus, meadows of
asphodel are prepared for the happier dead; and even Orion, a hunter
among the mountains in his lifetime, pursues the ghosts of beasts in
these asphodel meadows after death.[98] So the sirens sing in a
meadow; [99] and throughout the _Odyssey_ there is a general tendency
to the depreciation of poor Ithaca, because it is rocky, and only fit
for goats, and has "no meadows";[100] for which reason Telemachus
refuses Atrides's present of horses, congratulating the Spartan king
at the same time on ruling over a plain which has "plenty of lotus in
it, and rushes," with corn and barley. Note this constant dwelling on
the marsh plants, or, at least, those which grow in flat and
well-irrigated land, or beside streams: when Scamander, for instance,
is restrained by Vulcan, Homer says, very sorrowfully, that "all his
lotus, and reeds, and rushes were burnt";[101] and thus Ulysses, after
being shipwrecked and nearly drowned, and beaten about the sea for
many days and nights, on raft and mast, at last getting ashore at the
mouth of a large river, casts himself down first upon its _rushes_,
and then, in thankfulness, kisses the "corn-giving land," as most
opposed, in his heart, to the fruitless and devouring sea.
Pages:
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151