The Authoress of the Odyssey

32

i. e. which seemed to fly past them.

33

According to tradition, she had hanged herself on hearing a report of the death of her son.

34

See Chapter XII, near the beginning.

35

In almost all other places he is called Melanthius.

36

All this might very well be, if the scene is laid in an open court, but hardly if it was in a hall inside a house.

37

ἐς μέσσον (line 447).

38

They might very well fight in the middle of an open court, but hardly in a covered hall. They would go outside.

39

ἐν μεγάροισιν, but not ἐν μεγάροισι σκιόεσσι.

40

There is no indication as though they went out to do this; they seem to have emptied the ashes on to the open part of the court.

41

I have repeatedly seen geese so feeding at Trapani and in the neighbourhood. In summer the grass is all burned up so that they cannot graze as in England.

42

This is the only reference to Sardinia in either Iliad or Odyssey.

43

If Telemachus had never seen anything of the kind before, so probably, neither had the writer of the Odyssey– at any rate no commentator has yet been able to understand her description, and I doubt whether she understood it herself. It looks as though the axe heads must have been wedged into the handles or so bound on to them as to let the hole be visible through which the handle would go when the axe was in use. The trial is evidently a double one, of strength as regards the bending of the bow, and accuracy of aim as regards shooting through a row of rings.

44

It is not expressly stated that the "stone pavement" is here intended. The Greek has simply ἆλτο δ᾽ ἐπὶ μέγαν οὐδόν, but I do not doubt that the stone pavement is intended.

45

This again suggests, though it does not prove, that we are in an open court surrounded by a cloister, on the rafters of which swallows would often perch. Line 297 suggests this even more strongly, "the roof" being, no doubt, the roof of the cloister, on to which Minerva flew from the rafter, that her ægis might better command the whole court.

46

Probably the hide of the heifer that Philœtius had brought in that morning (xx. 186).

47

This room was apparently not within the body of the house. It was certainly on the ground floor, for the bed was fixed on to the stump of a tree; I strongly suspect it to be the vaulted room, round the outside of which the bodies of the guilty maids were still hanging, and I also suspect it was in order to thus festoon the room that Telemachus hanged the women instead of stabbing them, but this is treading on that perilous kind of speculation which I so strongly deprecate in others. If it were not for the gruesome horror of the dance, in lines 129 – 151, I should not have entertained it.

48

Select Letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley, edited by Richard Garnett, Kegan Paul Trench & Co., 1882, p. 149.

49

Od. x. 278, 279; cf. Il. XXIV. 347, 348.

50

Talking of Homer Fielding says, "I had the curiosity to ask him whether he had really writ that poem [the Iliad] in detached pieces and flung it about all over Greece, according to the report that went of him. He smiled at my question, and asked me whether there appeared any connection in the poem; for if there did he thought I might answer for myself." This was first published in 1743, and is no doubt intended as a reply to Bentley. See Jebb's Introduction to Homer, ed. 1888, note 1 on p. 106.

51

The part about the bard is omitted in my abridgement.

52

Studies on Homer and the Homeric age. – Oxford University Press 1858, p. 28.

53

Od. xxii. 473, cf. Il. XIII. 573.

54

I should explain to the non-musical writer that it is forbidden in music to have consecutive fifths or octaves between the same parts.

55

Od. i. 356-359, cf. Il. VI. 490-493. The word "war" in the Iliad becomes "speech" in the Odyssey. There is no other change.

56

Od. ii. 15-23.

57

Od. iv. 186-188. Neither of these passages is given in my abridgement.

58

Od. ii. 127-128 and 203-207.

59

Od. x. 40, this passage is not given in my abridgement.

60

Od. viii. 38-40, cf. also 61. It would seem that Alcinous found the provisions which the poorer guests cooked for themselves and ate outside in the court yards. The magnates ate in the covered cloister, and were no doubt cooked for.

61

See Chapter X.

62

A few years ago the stone work at the entrance to the harbour of Selinunte was excavated, but it was silted over again in a single winter.

63

Shown in the plan as the Salt Works of S. Cusumano.

64

Of recent years an excellent carriage road has been made from Trapani to the town on the top of Mt. Eryx, but pedestrians still use the old path, which in places is very rough.

65

In the Odyssey more generally called Same.

66

The name Favognana is derived from Favonius, this wind blowing on to Trapani from off the island. It is, however, also and perhaps most frequently called Favignana.

67

Gr. Τὴν γὰρ δή μιν ἄνωγε Καλυψὼ δῖα θεάων ποντοπορευέμεναι ἐπ᾽ ἀριστερὰ χειρὸς ἔχοντα.

68

We may neglect the Pleiades, as introduced simply because they are in the Iliadic passage (xviii. 486-489) which the writer of the Odyssey is adopting with no other change than taking out the Hyades and Orion, and substituting Boötes. This she was bound to do, for she could not make Ulysses steer towards both the Bear and Orion, when she is just going to tell us, as the Iliad does, that Orion is on the other side of the sky. The Pleiades she has allowed to stand – which of us knows in what quarter of the heavens (let alone the Precession of the Equinoxes) they are to be looked for? – and it is made quite clear that the Bear is the constellation by which Ulysses is steering.

69

At Messina a few months since I saw a printed handbill about the hours when the boat would start for Reggio, in which Italy was called "Terra firma," as though a sense of instability attached itself to any island.

70

The name seems derived from λᾶας, τρυγάω, and αἶα, Œnotria is from οἶνος, τρυγάω, and αἶα. I have read, but forget where, that Œnotria is only a Greek rendering of Italia, which is derived from vites, alo, and some Latin equivalent for αἶα. The modern Italian word lastricare, "to pave roads with stone," is probably derived from the same roots as Læstrygonian.

71

Segesta would have been seen from the top of Mt. Eryx gleaming in the summer sunset, and I think there would have been some kind of allusion to it.

72

The Asinelli is a single islet much in the shape of a ship heading straight for Favognana. There is nothing plural about it, and one does not see why it should have a plural name. Who were the "asses" or "fools"?

73

Virgil does not let it pass unnoticed. He writes: —

"Cernimus adstantes nequidquam lumine torvo

Ætnæos fratres…

Æn. III. 667, 678.

He calls the Cyclopes "Ætnæan" because he places them on Mt. Etna.

74

There is no Phœnician work in the bastion shown in my illustration, the restorations here are medieval.

75

Introduction to Homer, Ed. 1888, pp. 172, 173.

76

On its earlier coins Syracuse not unfrequently appears as Syra.

77

The fact that Σικανίης (xxiv. 397) should not have got corrupted into Σικελίης – which would scan just as well – during the many centuries that the island was called Σικελία, suggests a written original, though I need hardly say that I should not rely on so small a matter if it rested by itself.

78

See Prof. Jebb's Introduction to Homer, ed. 1888, Note I on p. 43.

79

Murray, 1830.

80

The Mycenæan Age, by Dr. Chrestos Tsountas and Dr. J. Irving Manatt, Macmillan, 1897, p. 369.

81

The dark line across my illustration is only due to an accident that happened to my negative. I believe (but am not quite sure, for my note about it was not written on the spot) that the bit of wall given in my second illustration has nothing to do with the Iliadic wall, and is of greatly later date. I give it to show how much imagination is necessary in judging of any wall that has been much weathered.

82

Ed. 1888, note on p. 91.

83

Herodotus tells us (I. 163) that the Phocæans were the first people to undertake long voyages, exploring the Tuscan sea, and going as far as Cadiz. He says that their ships were not the round ones commonly used for commerce, but long vessels with fifty oarsmen. The reader will recollect that this feature of Phocæan navigation is found also among the Phæacians, who sent Ulysses to the place that we are to take as Ithaca, in a vessel that had fifty oarsmen.

84

One cannot help wondering whether the episode of the Lotus-eaters may not be due to the existence of traditions among the Phæacians that their ancestors had made some stay in Libya before reaching Sicily.

85

Od. xix. 410, 432.

86

Drepanum means a curved sword or scymitar. Drepane is a sickle.

87

See Smith's Dictionary of Classical Geography, under Corcyra, where full references will be found.

88

ἡυεῖς δέ κλέος οἷον ἀκούομεν, οὐδέ τι ἴδμεν, Il. II. 486.

89

Introduction to Homer, Macmillan, 1888, p. 172.

90

None of these three passages will be found in my abridgement.

91

Cf. Od. ix. 391-393.

92

iv. 73, xv. 460, xviii. 296.

93

I see that my grandfather, Dr. Butler, of Shrewsbury, accepts it in his Antient Geography, published in 1813, but I do not know where he got it from.