“But nice regard for the fine feeling ear.”
I have here with a certain freedom of version expressed Kl.’s idea, that the preference expressed by Orestes for a male ear to receive his message arose from the nature of his news; but I do not think it is “inept” to believe, with Bl. and Peile, that we have here merely an instance of the general secluded state in which Greek women lived, so that it was esteemed not proper to talk with them, in public—as Achilles says, in Euripides—
ἀισχρὸν δέ μοὶ γυναιξὶν συμβὰλλειν λόγους.
“For me to hold exchange of words with women
Were most improper.”—Iphig. Aulid. 830.
“Hot baths.”
To an English ear this sounds more like the apparatus of modern luxury than the accompaniment of travel in the stout heroic times. It is a fact, however, as Kl. well notes, that of nothing is there more frequent mention in Homer than of warm baths. This is especially frequent in the Odyssey, where so many journeys are made. Telemachus, for instance, at Pylus, is washed by the beautiful Polycaste, the youngest daughter of his venerable host; and the poet records with pleasure how “out of the bath he came in appearance like to the immortal gods” (III. 468), a verse which might serve as a very suitable motto to a modern work on Hydropathy.