This work is designed as a supplement to the Adventures of Telemachus. It
treats of the conduct and sufferings of Ulysses, the father of Telemachus.
The picture which it exhibits is that of a brave man struggling with
adversity; by a wise use of events, and with an inimitable presence of
mind under difficulties, forcing out a way for himself through the
severest trials to which human life can be exposed; with enemies natural
and preternatural surrounding him on all sides. The agents in this tale,
besides men and women, are giants, enchanters, sirens: things which denote
external force or internal temptations, the twofold danger which a wise
fortitude must expect to encounter in its course through this world. The
fictions contained in it will be found to comprehend some of the most
admired inventions of Grecian mythology.
The groundwork of the story is as old as the Odyssey, but the moral and
the coloring are comparatively modern. By avoiding the prolixity which
marks the speeches and the descriptions in Homer, I have gained a rapidity
to the narration which I hope will make it more attractive and give it
more the air of a romance to young readers, though I am sensible that by
the curtailment I have sacrificed in many places the manners to the
passion, the subordinate characteristics to the essential interest of the
story. The attempt is not to be considered as seeking a comparison with
any 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 obsolete
version, [Footnote: The translation of Homer by Chapman in the reign of
James I.] I should run the hazard of depriving myself of the very slender
degree of reputation which I could hope to acquire from a trifle like the
present undertaking.
Read next: CHAPTER ONE - 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.
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