Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

APPENDIX OF ADDITIONAL NOTES.

I.

Οι γλαυκώπις, φ. 1.

I have translated this word grave or solemn-eyed: some further explanation seems to be required.

That the epithet signifies colour in Homer, no one, I suppose, now believes, though it seems to have been the common view among the ancients at a comparatively late period that it did. (Lucian. Deor. dial. 8, p. 226; 20, p. 262, etc.)

Yet this view can hardly ever have been entertained by the learned: Hesychius does not even mention it; his interpretation of the word is s.v.

γλαυκώπις. φοβερὰ ἐν τῷ ὁρᾶσθαι, λαμπρόφθαλμος, εὐόφθαλμος. The Etymologicon Magnum will illustrate Hesychius; the following interpretations are given :—

(1.) γλαυκόφθαλμος, καλή.

(2.) γλαυκοὺς καὶ καταπληκτικοὺς τοὺς ὤπας (8 ἐστι τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς ἔχουσα.

(3.) ἀπὸ τοῦ δεινὸν γλαύσσειν τοῖς ὀφθαλμοῖς, ὅ ἐστιν ἀπαίθειν. (4.) ἀπὸ τοῦ γλαῦκα ἐπίζεσθαι, ὅ ἐστιν ἐντρέπεσθαι.

(5.) ἀπὸ τοῦ Γλαυκοπίου ὄρους, ὃ Λυκαβηττος καλεῖται.

(6.) παρὰ τὸ γλαύσσω, γλαύξω· ἐξ οὗ καὶ ἡ γλαύξ, τὸ ὄρνεον. From these instances it would appear that the word γλαύσσω had the meaning of 'glaring' or 'staring'; and this is quite borne out by the later meaning of γλαυκός as an epithet of colour: a word originally signifying glittering' or 'sparkling' could hardly ever have come to mean 'grey." It is interesting in this connection to note Apollonius Rhodius' use of διαγλαύσσειν of the grey light of the dawn-Arg. 2, 1280,

[ocr errors]

ἦμος δ ̓ οὐρανόθεν χαροπὴ ὑπολάμπεται ἠὼς

ἐκ περάτης ἀνιοῦσα, διαγλαύσσουσι δ ̓ ἀταρποί.

II.

Οι μύθου επισχεσίην, φ. 71.

It is difficult entirely to set aside the positive assertion of the ancient commentators that μῦθος here = στάσις. That at least must have been the traditional interpretation. It is, perhaps, worth while to suggest that uûeos may be in this passage a dialectic variation for μοῖθος = μόθος.

For μοῖθος we have an exact parallel in ψοῖθος word found in the lexica, as i.g. ψόλος.

[blocks in formation]

III.

On the meaning of διοϊστεύειν πελέκεων, σιδήρου.

My note on purns oteiλeiñs, p. 422, implies the adoption in substance of A. Goebel's explanation of this difficult matter, which has been also accepted by Mr. Merry in his small edition of Od. xiii.-xxiv. It may still be doubted whether Goebel has finally settled the question, though his solution seems certainly more satisfactory than any other yet suggested.

The old explanation, according to which the axe-heads were ranged in a row, with their blades in the ground, so that the archer might shoot through the holes into which the hafts were fitted,-survives only by sheer force of tradition in the face of such objections as it is open to. For

(1.) The archer would have to lie flat on the ground in order to bring his aim to the level of the holes: whereas Odysseus shoots αὐτόθεν ἐκ δίφροιο καθήμενος.

(2.) σTecλech is in this case supposed to mean the hole through which the arrow was to pass. What, then, is the meaning of Tρúrns σTEλens in p. 421? If we translate, as we naturally should, he did not miss the first hole of all the axes,' this is obviously not what the poet intends: we have then to take the words to mean 'from the first hole onwards,' 'a genitive,' as Fäsi calls it, of the point of starting,' which is very questionable Greek.

(3.) The hafts of the axes must have been strangely unwieldy, if the holes into which they were fitted were large enough to allow an arrow to pass through twelve of them in succession.

(4.) Homer speaks not of axe-heads, but of axes, as may be seen from the description of the way in which they were placed. To proceed then to Goebel's explanation :1

It is first necessary to consider the lines T. 572 sqq., where Penelope describes the exercise with additional detail:

νῦν γὰρ καταθήσω ἄεθλον

τοὺς πελέκεας, τοὺς κεῖνος ἐνὶ μεγάροισιν ἑοῖσιν
ἵστασχ ̓ ἑξείης δρυόχους ως δώδεκα πάντας·

στὰς δ ̓ ὅγε πολλὸν ἄνευθε διαῤῥίπτασκεν διστόν.

It is on the suggestion contained in the words Spvóxovs is that Goebel bases his explanation.

1 Lexilogus zu Homer und den Homeriden, vol. i. pp. 448 sqq. s. v. πελεκυς.

The Spúoxo are the props used to form a cradle for a ship on shore; a similar cradle would be formed by a row of axes of the shape represented in Fig. 1, standing one behind the other. The feat then to be performed by the archer is to shoot from end to end of this cradle, through the series of bays formed by the blades of the axe projecting on each side beyond the top of the handle.

Further, Goebel asserts that, according to the analogy of πλευρή πλευρόν, ἄκρη ἄκρον, δρεπάνη δρέπανον, and the like, the meaning of στειλειή cannot be different from that of στειλειόν, but that both words equally mean the handle of the axe: then πρώτη στειλειή will be * the end of the handle (like πρώτη ἄντυξ, the edge of the rim, etc.), and Odysseus' skill was shown in just grazing without touching each handle-end in the whole

row.

In confirmation of his view of the meaning of oreλen, Goebel quotes Ap. Rh. iv. 957, ὀρθὸς ἐπὶ στελεῇ τυπίδος βαρὺν ὦμον ἐρείσας Ηφαιστος θηεῖτο, where there is no doubt about the meaning of στελεῇ. στελεἡ of course = στειλειή, just as στελεόν appears to be the late form of στειλειόν.1

The objection to this explanation is that the form of axe imagined by Goebel is of too recent a date: so far as we know,e.g. from Dr. Schliemann's discoveries at Mycenae, -the axe of the heroic age was of the shape represented in Fig. 2. Such axes might indeed be ranged in a row, so as to have the appearance of Spúoxo, but they present no opening through which an archer could be said to shoot.

Mr. A. Lang2 suggests that the axes may have been of the form represented in Fig. 3. Such an axe figures on one of the metopes of Selinus (Benndorf, Metopen von Selinunt, etc., pl. vii.)

An axe of this kind would certainly be easy to shoot through; but then, what is to be made of the words πρώτης στειλειής ?

Here, at least, in taking σreλeiŃ as = στειλειόν, Goebel seems to have made a real discovery; and axes of the shape which he suggests will serve us provisionally to form our picture of the scene described in Book xxi.

1 In Anthol. vi. 205, in an epigram of Leonidas of Tarentum, is mentioned ἐστελεωμένος οὗτος

ἐμβριθής, τέχνας ὁ πρύτανις, πέλεκυς.

2 In Appendix on this passage to the Translation of the Odyssey by Messrs. Butcher and Lang.

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

ταὶ μέν τ' ἐν πεδίῳ νέφεα πτώσσουσαι ἵενται.

It may perhaps be considered somewhat harsh and un-Homeric to take vépea by itself, as I have taken it, in my note on this passage, to bear the whole weight of a simile. I would now suggest that the words év medių vépea should be joined closely together; They then are scattered abroad, cowering in fearclouds in the plain.' As for the use of Twoσew, the word is no doubt used transitively in some passages, as T. 426, ovd' av ἔτι δὴν ̓Αλλήλους πτώσσοιμεν ἀνὰ πτολέμοιο γεφύρας. But it may be doubted whether any one would use TTσoe in the sense of cowering in fear from any object that was not likely to pursue ; and the birds here were certainly in no danger of pursuit either from snares or the clouds of heaven. Nor can we well take vedea to mean the clouds of pursuing birds of prey; for (1) if this were the meaning it would surely be explained more fully by a poet who delights in detail, and (2) the description would not be true to nature-a fatal objection when Homer is in question. The truth is that the ancient commentators, when they offered as alternatives for explaining νέφεα either νεφέλας, παγίδας, οι τὸν τῶν νεφελῶν τόπον, τὸν ἀέρα, supposed the word to follow, not πτώσσουσαι, but ἴενται. For ἴενται (not ἵενται) was their reading, which they took to be from teual, a middle form of el, so that they interpreted either 'cowering in fear they went into the snares,' or 'in terror they made for the open sky.' But the existence of this word teua is not now admitted.

« ForrigeFortsett »