Allowing Ulysses to be only another name for the sun-god, who appears in myths as Indra, Apollo, William Tell, the sure-hitter, the great archer, whose arrows are sunbeams, it is a degrading conception of him that he was obliged to lash himself to the mast when he went into action with the Sirens, like Farragut at Mobile, though for a very different reason.We should be forced to believe that Ulysses was not free from the basest mortal longings, and that he had not strength of mind to resist them, but must put himself in durance; as our moderns who cannot control their desires go into inebriate asylums.
Mr.Ruskin says that "the Sirens are the great constant desires, the infinite sicknesses of heart, which, rightly placed, give life, and, wrongly placed, waste it away; so that there are two groups of Sirens, one noble and saving, as the other is fatal." Unfortunately we are all, as were the Greeks, ministered unto by both these groups, but can fortunately, on the other hand, choose which group we will listen to the singing of, though the strains are somewhat mingled;as, for instance, in the modern opera, where the music quite as often wastes life away, as gives to it the energy of pure desire.Yet, if I were to locate the Sirens geographically, I should place the beneficent desires on this coast, and the dangerous ones on that of wicked Baiae; to which group the founder of Naples no doubt belonged.
Nowhere, perhaps, can one come nearer to the beautiful myths of Greece, the springlike freshness of the idyllic and heroic age, than on this Sorrentine promontory.It was no chance that made these coasts the home of the kind old monarch Eolus, inventor of sails and storm-signals.On the Telegrafo di Mare Cuccola is a rude signal-apparatus for communication with Capri,--to ascertain if wind and wave are propitious for entrance to the Blue Grotto,--which probably was not erected by Eolus, although he doubtless used this sightly spot as one of his stations.That he dwelt here, in great content, with his six sons and six daughters, the Months, is nearly certain; and I feel as sure that the Sirens, whose islands were close at hand, were elevators and not destroyers of the primitive races living here.
It seems to me this must be so; because the pilgrim who surrenders himself to the influences of these peaceful and sun-inundated coasts, under this sky which the bright Athena loved and loves, loses, by and by, those longings and heart-sicknesses which waste away his life, and comes under the dominion, more and more, of those constant desires after that which is peaceful and enduring and has the saving quality of purity.I know, indeed, that it is not always so; and that, as Boreas is a better nurse of rugged virtue than Zephyr, so the soft influences of this clime only minister to the fatal desires of some: and such are likely to sail speedily back to Naples.
The Sirens, indeed, are everywhere; and I do not know that we can go anywhere that we shall escape the infinite longings, or satisfy them.
Here, in the purple twilight of history, they offered men the choice of good and evil.I have a fancy, that, in stepping out of the whirl of modern life upon a quiet headland, so blessed of two powers, the air and the sea, we are able to come to a truer perception of the drift of the eternal desires within us.But I cannot say whether it is a subtle fascination, linked with these mythic and moral influences, or only the physical loveliness of this promontory, that lures travelers hither, and detains them on flowery meads.
End of Volume Two of The Complete Writings of Charles Dudley Warner The Complete Writings of Charles Dudley Warner Volume 3by Charles Dudley Warner CONTENTS:
IN THE WILDERNESS
HOW SPRING CAME IN NEW ENGLAND
CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH
POCOHANTAS
IN THE WILDERNESS
HOW I KILLED A BEAR
So many conflicting accounts have appeared about my casual encounter with an Adirondack bear last summer that in justice to the public, to myself, and to the bear, it is necessary to make a plain statement of the facts.Besides, it is so seldom I have occasion to kill a bear, that the celebration of the exploit may be excused.
The encounter was unpremeditated on both sides.I was not hunting for a bear, and I have no reason to suppose that a bear was looking for me.The fact is, that we were both out blackberrying, and met by chance, the usual way.There is among the Adirondack visitors always a great deal of conversation about bears,--a general expression of the wish to see one in the woods, and much speculation as to how a person would act if he or she chanced to meet one.But bears are scarce and timid, and appear only to a favored few.
It was a warm day in August, just the sort of day when an adventure of any kind seemed impossible.But it occurred to the housekeepers at our cottage--there were four of them--to send me to the clearing, on the mountain back of the house, to pick blackberries.It was rather a series of small clearings, running up into the forest, much overgrown with bushes and briers, and not unromantic.Cows pastured there, penetrating through the leafy passages from one opening to another, and browsing among the bushes.I was kindly furnished with a six-quart pail, and told not to be gone long.