If need were he could take his share in the
hardest field labour, and plough a straight furrow, or mow a heavy
crop of grass from dawn till sunset without breaking his fast. Nothing
was too great or too little to engage his attention, as the necessity
arose. He was a warrior, whose single prowess might go far in deciding
the issue of a hard-fought battle--an orator, discoursing with weighty
eloquence on grave questions of state--a judge, whose decisions helped
to build up the as yet unwritten code of law. Descending from these
high altitudes, he could take up his bow and spear, and go forth to
hunt the boar and the stag, or wield the woodman's axe, or the
carpenter's saw and chisel. He could kill, dress, and serve his own
dinner; and when the strenuous day was over, he could tune the harp,
discourse sweet music, and sing of the deeds of heroes and gods.
Such was the versatility, and such the many-sided energy, of the Greek
as he appears in the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_. And as these two poems
contain the elements of all subsequent thought and progress in the
Greek nation, so in the typical character of Odysseus are concentrated
all the qualities which distinguish the individual Greek--his
insatiable curiosity, which left no field of thought unexplored--his
spirit of daring enterprise, which carried the banner of civilisation
to the borders of India and the Straits of Gibraltar--and his subtlety
and craft, which in a later age made him a byword to the grave
moralists of Rome.
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