and  the  fishy  sea.^  Though  the  god  has  power  to  pene-
trate the  soUd  sphere,^  it  is  down  no  yawning  chasm  that
his  chariot  disappears.  As  far  as  we  can  trace  him  and
his  victim,  they  are  still  at  the  surface,  simply  moving
from  the  upper  to  the  lower  hemisphere.^  In  perfect
accordance  with  the  requirement  formulated  by  Volcker,
Odysseus  and  his  companions  descend  (xi.  57,  476),
while  the  ghosts  ascend  (xi.  38),  to  reach  the  meeting-
place  on  the  lower  edge  of  the  Ocean-stream.  Beautifully
exact  and  strikingly  natural  is  now  the  poet's  declaration
that  Tartaros  is  "as  far  below  Hades  as  earth  from
heaven,"  —  a  declaration  as  fatal  to  many  of  the  fifteen  or
more  traditional  explanations  of  Homer's  Hades  as  it  is
to  Flach's  elaborate  and  ingenious  diagram  of  the  Hades
of  Hesiod.*  With  this  inverted  hemisphere  for  the  king-
dom of  the  dead,  Voss  need  not  longer  trouble  himself
about  the  mention  of  "  clouds"  therein.^  In  fine,  with
the  correct  Homeric  conception  of  the  earth  and  of
Hades,  the  manifold  alleged  contradictions  of  the  poet
instantaneously  vanish.     Better  than  that,  the  dual  im-

i  Homeric  Hymn  to  Demeter,  30-35.  Foerster  places  the  origin  of
this  hymn  early  in  the  seventh  century  before  Christ :  Der  Raub  und
Rilckkehr  der  Persepkonh  Stuttgart,  1874 :  pp.  33-39-  See  Sterrett,
Qua  in  Re  Hymni  Homerici  qtiinque  Majores  inter  se  different  Anti-
quitate  vel  Homeritate,  Boston,  1881.
2  Lines  16-18.  Precisely  so  in  the  Indian  epic,  the  Ramayana :  one
and  the  same  point  in  Hades  is  reached,  whether  we  accompany
Ansuman  digging  through  the  heart  of  the  earth,  or  follow  the  god-
dess Ganga  along  the  surface  of  the  earth  and  across  the  Ocean-
bed.    Book  I.,  canto  xl.     Compare  Odyssey,  xi.  57,58.
