Chapter XVII: HOMER: Hunters of deep sea prey, have we caught anything? (3)

2515 (return) [ Such seems to be the meaning indicated by the context, though the verb is taken by Allen and Sikes to mean, ‘to be like oneself’, and so ‘to be original’.]

2516 (return) [ Kuhn points out that there is a lacuna here. In l. 109 the borer is described, but the friction of this upon the fireblock (to which the phrase ‘held firmly’ clearly belongs) must also have been mentioned.]

2517 (return) [ The cows being on their sides on the ground, Hermes bends their heads back towards their flanks and so can reach their backbones.]

2518 (return) [ O. Muller thinks the ‘hides’ were a stalactite formation in the ‘Cave of Nestor’ near Messenian Pylos,—though the cave of Hermes is near the Alpheus (l. 139). Others suggest that actual skins were shown as relics before some cave near Triphylian Pylos.]

2519 (return) [ Gemoll explains that Hermes, having offered all the meat as sacrifice to the Twelve Gods, remembers that he himself as one of them must be content with the savour instead of the substance of the sacrifice. Can it be that by eating he would have forfeited the position he claimed as one of the Twelve Gods?]

2520 (return) [ _Lit_. “thorn-plucker”.]

2521 (return) [ Hermes is ambitious (l. 175), but if he is cast into Hades he will have to be content with the leadership of mere babies like himself, since those in Hades retain the state of growth—whether childhood or manhood—in which they are at the moment of leaving the upper world.]

2522 (return) [ Literally, ‘you have made him sit on the floor’, _i.e._ ‘you have stolen everything down to his last chair.’]

2523 (return) [ The Thriae, who practised divination by means of pebbles (also called THRIAE). In this hymn they are represented as aged maidens (ll. 553-4), but are closely associated with bees (ll. 559-563) and possibly are here conceived as having human heads and breasts with the bodies and wings of bees. See the edition of Allen and Sikes, Appendix III.]

2524 (return) [ Cronos swallowed each of his children the moment that they were born, but ultimately was forced to disgorge them. Hestia, being the first to be swallowed, was the last to be disgorged, and so was at once the first and latest born of the children of Cronos. Cp. Hesiod _Theogony_, ll. 495-7.]

2525 (return) [ Mr. Evelyn-White prefers a different order for lines #87-90 than that preserved in the MSS. This translation is based upon the following sequence: ll. 89,90,87,88.—DBK.]

2526 (return) [ ‘Cattle-earning’, because an accepted suitor paid for his bride in cattle.]

2527 (return) [ The name Aeneas is here connected with the epithet AIEOS (awful): similarly the name Odysseus is derived (in _Odyssey_ i.62) from ODYSSMAI (I grieve).]

2528 (return) [ Aphrodite extenuates her disgrace by claiming that the race of Anchises is almost divine, as is shown in the persons of Ganymedes and Tithonus.]

2529 (return) [ So Christ connecting the word with OMOS. L. and S. give = OMOIOS, ‘common to all’.]

2530 (return) [ Probably not Etruscans, but the non-Hellenic peoples of Thrace and (according to Thucydides) of Lemnos and Athens. Cp. Herodotus i. 57; Thucydides iv. 109.]

2531 (return) [ This line appears to be an alternative to ll. 10-11.]

2532 (return) [ The name Pan is here derived from PANTES, ‘all’. Cp. Hesiod, _Works and Days_ ll. 80-82, _Hymn to Aphrodite_ (v) l. 198. for the significance of personal names.]

2533 (return) [ Mr. Evelyn-White prefers to switch l. 10 and 11, reading 11 first then 10.—DBK.]

2534 (return) [ An extra line is inserted in some MSS. after l. 15.— DBK.]

2535 (return) [ The epithet is a usual one for birds, cp. Hesiod, _Works and Days_, l. 210; as applied to Selene it may merely indicate her passage, like a bird, through the air, or mean ‘far flying’.]

2601 (return) [ The _Epigrams_ are preserved in the pseudo-Herodotean _Life of Homer_. Nos. III, XIII, and XVII are also found in the _Contest of Homer and Hesiod_, and No. I is also extant at the end of some MSS. of the _Homeric Hymns_.]

2602 (return) [ sc. from Smyrna, Homer’s reputed birth-place.]

2603 (return) [ The councillors at Cyme who refused to support Homer at the public expense.]

2604 (return) [ The ‘better fruit’ is apparently the iron smelted out in fires of pine-wood.]

2605 (return) [ Hecate: cp. Hesiod, _Theogony_, l. 450.]

2606 (return) [ _i.e._ in protection.]

2607 (return) [ This song is called by pseudo-Herodotus EIRESIONE. The word properly indicates a garland wound with wool which was worn at harvest-festivals, but came to be applied first to the harvest song and then to any begging song. The present is akin the Swallow-Song (XELIDONISMA), sung at the beginning of spring, and answered to the still surviving English May-Day songs. Cp. Athenaeus, viii. 360 B.]

2608 (return) [ The lice which they caught in their clothes they left behind, but carried home in their clothes those which they could not catch.]

2701 (return) [ See the cylix reproduced by Gerhard, _Abhandlungen_, taf. 5,4. Cp. Stesichorus, Frag. 3 (Smyth).]

2801 (return) [ The haunch was regarded as a dishonourable portion.]

2802 (return) [ The horse of Adrastus, offspring of Poseidon and Demeter, who had changed herself into a mare to escape Poseidon.]

2803 (return) [ Restored from Pindar Ol. vi. 15 who, according to Asclepiades, derives the passage from the _Thebais_.]

2901 (return) [ So called from Teumessus, a hill in Boeotia. For the derivation of Teumessus cp. Antimachus _Thebais_ fr. 3 (Kinkel).]

3001 (return) [ The preceding part of the Epic Cycle (?).]

3002 (return) [ While the Greeks were sacrificing at Aulis, a serpent appeared and devoured eight young birds from their nest and lastly the mother of the brood. This was interpreted by Calchas to mean that the war would swallow up nine full years. Cp. _Iliad_ ii, 299 ff.]

3003 (return) [ _i.e._ Stasinus (or Hegesias: cp. fr. 6): the phrase ‘Cyprian histories’ is equivalent to “The Cypria”.]

3004 (return) [ Cp. Allen “C.R.” xxvii. 190.]

3005 (return) [ These two lines possibly belong to the account of the feast given by Agamemnon at Lemnos.]

3006 (return) [ sc. the Asiatic Thebes at the foot of Mt. Placius.]

3101 (return) [ sc. after cremation.]

3102 (return) [ This fragment comes from a version of the _Contest of Homer and Hesiod_ widely different from that now extant. The words ‘as Lesches gives them (says)’ seem to indicate that the verse and a half assigned to Homer came from the _Little Iliad_. It is possible they may have introduced some unusually striking incident, such as the actual Fall of Troy.]

3103 (return) [ _i.e._ in the paintings by Polygnotus at Delphi.]

3104 (return) [ _i.e._ the dead bodies in the picture.]

3105 (return) [ According to this version Aeneas was taken to Pharsalia. Better known are the Homeric account (according to which Aeneas founded a new dynasty at Troy), and the legends which make him seek a new home in Italy.]

3201 (return) [ sc. knowledge of both surgery and of drugs.]

3301 (return) [ Clement attributes this line to Augias: probably Agias is intended.]

3302 (return) [ Identical with the _Returns_, in which the Sons of Atreus occupy the most prominent parts.]

3401 (return) [ This Artemisia, who distinguished herself at the battle of Salamis (Herodotus, vii. 99) is here confused with the later Artemisia, the wife of Mausolus, who died 350 B.C.]

3402 (return) [ _i.e._ the fox knows many ways to baffle its foes, while the hedge-hog knows one only which is far more effectual.]

3403 (return) [ Attributed to Homer by Zenobius, and by Bergk to the _Margites_.]

3501 (return) [ _i.e._ ‘monkey-men’.]

3601 (return) [ Lines 42-52 are intrusive; the list of vegetables which the Mouse cannot eat must follow immediately after the various dishes of which he does eat.]

3602 (return) [ lit. ‘those unable to swim’.]

3603 (return) [ This may be a parody of Orion’s threat in Hesiod, “Astronomy”, frag. 4.]

3701 (return) [ sc. the riddle of the fisher-boys which comes at the end of this work.]

3702 (return) [ The verses of Hesiod are called doubtful in meaning because they are, if taken alone, either incomplete or absurd.]

3703 (return) [ _Works and Days_, ll. 383-392.]

3704 (return) [ _Iliad_ xiii, ll. 126-133, 339-344.]

3705 (return) [ The accepted text of the _Iliad_ contains 15,693 verses; that of the _Odyssey_, 12,110.]

3706 (return) [ _Iliad_ ii, ll. 559-568 (with two additional verses).]

3707 (return) [ _Homeric Hymns_, iii.]