Homer on Athena's Return to Olympus

Homer, Alexander Pope (T) · Mystic Verse and Insights Series · 1 page

The shortest file in the section: *a single page holding eight lines from the sixth book of the Odyssey* in Alexander Pope's translation, with a footnote explaining the moment — Pallas Athena returning to Olympus after appearing to Nausicaä in a dream.

The lines describe the destination rather than the journey. Athena sails to the palaces of heaven borne on the wings of wafting gales, and what she arrives at is defined almost entirely by negatives: a region mild of peace, full joy, and calm eternity of ease, where no rude winds presume to shake the skies, no rains descend and no snowy vapours rise. Against that stillness the two positive images stand out — the blest reposing on immortal thrones, and the firmament glowing with living splendours. The passage is included in this series as a description of an unchanging state set against the weather of the world below, which is the same contrast several other files in the section make in doctrinal terms.

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