For my own part,however whimsical it may appear,I confess I have thought the strange story of Circe in the Odyssey no other than an ingenious allegory,in which Homer intended to convey to his countrymen the same kind of instruction which we intend to communicate to our own in this digression.As teaching the art of war to the Greeks was the plain design of the Iliad,so was teaching them the art of navigation the no less manifest intention of the Odyssey.For the improvement of this,their situation was most excellently adapted;and accordingly we find Thucydides,in the beginning of his history,considers the Greeks as a set of pirates or privateers,plundering each other by sea.
This being probably the first institution of commerce before the Ars Cauponaria was invented,and merchants,instead of robbing,began to cheat and outwit each other,and by degrees changed the Metabletic,the only kind of traffic allowed by Aristotle in his Politics,into the Chrematistic.
By this allegory then I suppose Ulysses to have been the captain of a merchant-ship,and Circe some good ale-wife,who made his crew drunk with the spirituous liquors of those days.With this the transformation into swine,as well as all other incidents of the fable,will notably agree;and thus a key will be found out for unlocking the whole mystery,and forging at least some meaning to a story which,at present,appears very strange and absurd.
Hence,moreover,will appear the very near resemblance between the sea-faring men of all ages and nations;and here perhaps may be established the truth and justice of that observation,which will occur oftener than once in this voyage,that all human flesh is not the same flesh,but that there is one kind of flesh of landmen,and another of seamen.
Philosophers,divines,and others,who have treated the gratification of human appetites with contempt,have,among other instances,insisted very strongly on that satiety which is so apt to overtake them even in the very act of enjoyment.And here they more particularly deserve our attention,as most of them may be supposed to speak from their own experience,and very probably gave us their lessons with a full stomach.Thus hunger and thirst,whatever delight they may afford while we are eating and drinking,pass both away from us with the plate and the cup;and though we should imitate the Romans,if,indeed,they were such dull beasts,which I can scarce believe,to unload the belly like a dung-pot,in order to fill it again with another load,yet would the pleasure be so considerably lessened that it would scarce repay us the trouble of purchasing it with swallowing a basin of camomile tea.A second haunch of venison,or a second dose of turtle,would hardly allure a city glutton with its smell.Even the celebrated Jew himself,when well filled with calipash and calipee,goes contentedly home to tell his money,and expects no more pleasure from his throat during the next twenty-four hours.Hence I suppose Dr.South took that elegant comparison of the joys of a speculative man to the solemn silence of an Archimedes over a problem,and those of a glutton to the stillness of a sow at her wash.A simile which,if it became the pulpit at all,could only become it in the afternoon.Whereas in those potations which the mind seems to enjoy,rather than the bodily appetite,there is happily no such satiety;but the more a man drinks,the more he desires;as if,like Mark Anthony in Dryden,his appetite increased with feeding,and this to such an immoderate degree,ut nullus sit desiderio aut pudor aut modus.
Hence,as with the gang of Captain Ulysses,ensues so total a transformation,that the man no more continues what he was.
Perhaps he ceases for a time to be at all;or,though he may retain the same outward form and figure he had before,yet is his nobler part,as we are taught to call it,so changed,that,instead of being the same man,he scarce remembers what he was a few hours before.And this transformation,being once obtained,is so easily preserved by the same potations,which induced no satiety,that the captain in vain sends or goes in quest of his crew.They know him no longer;or,if they do,they acknowledge not his power,having indeed as entirely forgotten themselves as if they had taken a large draught of the river of Lethe.
Nor is the captain always sure of even finding out the place to which Circe hath conveyed them.There are many of those houses in every port-town.Nay,there are some where the sorceress doth not trust only to her drugs;but hath instruments of a different kind to execute her purposes,by whose means the tar is effectually secreted from the knowledge and pursuit of his captain.This would,indeed,be very fatal,was it not for one circumstance;that the sailor is seldom provided with the proper bait for these harpies.However,the contrary sometimes happens,as these harpies will bite at almost anything,and will snap at a pair of silver buttons,or buckles,as surely as at the specie itself.Nay,sometimes they are so voracious,that the very naked hook will go down,and the jolly young sailor is sacrificed for his own sake.