Ulysses

Historical scholarship

Passages quoted verbatim from public-domain reference works. They reflect the scholarship of their time, not current consensus, and may use obsolete spellings.

• 1884From the archives

  Ulysses— “hater”

  The poem that no doubt suggested the _Æneid_, the Homeric story of the Greek wanderer, contains some of those elements that so wonderfully show the kindred of far distant nations. We are content to call this wonderful poem by something approaching to its Greek title, though we are pleased to term the hero by the Latin travestie of his name—Ulysses, the consequence, it is supposed, of some transcriber having mistaken between the letters Δ and Λ. The Romans, likewise, sometimes…

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  The poem that no doubt suggested the _Æneid_, the Homeric story of the Greek wanderer, contains some of those elements that so wonderfully show the kindred of far distant nations. We are content to call this wonderful poem by something approaching to its Greek title, though we are pleased to term the hero by the Latin travestie of his name—Ulysses, the consequence, it is supposed, of some transcriber having mistaken between the letters Δ and Λ. The Romans, likewise, sometimes called him Ulixes; the Greek σσ and ξ being, by some, considered as the same letter. Οδυσσεύς (Odysseus), his true name, is traced to the root δυς (dys), hate, the Sanscrit _dvish_, and from the same source as the Latin _odio_. Italians talked of Uliseo, and Fenelon taught the French to honour his favourite hero as _le fils du grand Ulisse_; but the only place where the name is now used is Ireland, probably as a classicalism for the Danish legacy of Ulick—Hugleik, or mind reward.…

  Yonge, History of Christian Names (1884), Part III, Chapter II (Names From Greek Mythology), Section X (Heroic Names) · Public domain (Project Gutenberg)