[12] Ganymedes, ἀνήρπασε θέσπις ἄελλα, h. Ven., 208, as the θύελλα (= Ἅρπυια) did the daughters of Pandareos. The eagle is the addition of later poetry.
[13] Λ 1; ε 1.
[14] Ἠὼς . . . ἀπ’ Ὠκεανοῖο ῥοάων ὤρνυθ’, ἵν’ ἀθανάτοισι φόως φέροι ἠδὲ βροτοῖσιν, Τ 1 f.: cf. ψ 244 (h. Merc., 184 f.). So also h. Ven., 224 ff., says of Tithonos: Ἠοῖ τερπόμενος χρυσοθρόνῳ ἠριγενείῃ ναῖε παρ’ Ὠκεανοῖο ῥοῇς ἐπὶ πείρασι γαίης, in good Homeric style. It seems that the magic island Aiaia was considered the home of Eos (and of Tithonos): μ 3: νῆσόν τ’ Αἰαίην, ὅθι τ’ Ἠοῦς ἠριγενείης [82] οἰκία καὶ χοροί εἰσι ἀντολαὶ ἠελίοιο. I need not here go into the attempts made even in antiquity to explain the much-discussed difficulty introduced by this verse and to bring it into conformity with the westerly situation of Aiaia implied in the rest of the Odyssey. One thing is certain: the first composer of this verse thought of Aiaia as lying towards the east. Only the last resources of the commentator’s art could situate the place of the “sun’s uprising” and the “dwelling of the Dawn” in the west.
[15] Among innumerable unsuccessful attempts made by the ancients at finding an etymological derivation for the word Ἠλύσιον (Sch., δ 563, Eust., p. 1509, Hesych., s.v., etc., also Cels. ap. Orig., Cels. vii, 28, p. 53 L.) occurs also the right one, E.M., 428, 36: παρὰ τὴν ἔλευσιν, ἔνθα οἱ εὐσεβεῖς παραγίνονται. The grammarians seem to have disputed over the question, did Menelaos live for ever in Elysion? It was agreed on all hands that he reached that abode alive, without separation of psyche from body; but the over-subtle thought that the prophecy meant that he too should die there though not in Argos—not that he should never die at all: so esp. E. Gud., 242, 2 ff. This was the opinion also of those who derived Ἠλύσιον from the fact that there the ψυχαὶ λελυμέναι τῶν σωμάτων διάγουσι: Eust., 1509, 29, E.M., etc. The etymology is as bad as the interpretation of the line. The line remained, however, throughout antiquity as a curiosity; intelligent readers understood the prophecy quite rightly as referring to the translation of Menelaos to everlasting life without separation of ψυχή from body; e.g. Porph. ap. Stob., Ecl. i, p. 422, 8 ff., W. So, too, those who gave the right interpretation of fact, but rested it upon the more dubious etymology: Ἠλύσιον οὐλύσιον, ὅτι οὐ διαλύονται ἀπὸ τῶν σωμάτων αἱ ψυχαί. Hesych. (cf. E.M., 428, 34–5; Sch., δ 563; Procl. on Hes., Op., 169).
[16] οὐ μὴν φαίνεταί γε (ὁ ποιητής) προαγαγὼν τὸν λόγον ἐς πλέον ὡς εὕρημα ἄν τις οἰκεῖον, προσαψάμενος δὲ αὐτοῦ μόνον ἅτε ἐς ἅπαν ἤδη διαβεβοημένου τὸ Ἑλληνικόν—to adopt the words that Pausanias (10, 31, 4) uses of a similar case.
[17] The reasons for the special favour shown to Rhadamanthys are as unknown to us as they evidently were to the Greeks of later times. What is generally said of the “justice” of Rhad. rests upon private opinion only and does not supply the place of the precise legend that should have justified his translation. That he once had a complete legend of his own may be guessed from the allusion to him in η 323, though that passage still leaves us quite in the dark. At any rate, it certainly does not follow from that reference that while dwelling in Elysion he was a neighbour of the Phaeacians as Welcker thinks: nor further that he had always been a dweller in Elysion, as Preller supposes, instead of being transported there. Nothing in the former passage justifies us in regarding him as then dwelling in Elysion; while the other reference to him must be supposed to mean that Rhad. just as much as Menelaos, was translated to Elys. (and so e.g. Paus. understood the poet 8, 53, 5: πρότερον δὲ ἔτι Ῥαδάμανθυν ἐνταῦθα ἥκειν; doubtful: Aesch. fr. 99, 12–13). In fact, we have lost the legends which gave the details of his translation: his figure had become isolated and had not entered into the greater circle of epic figures—and as a consequence his mythical context soon disappeared too.
[18] Hasisatra’s Translation: see the translation of the Babylonian account in Paul Haupt’s Der Keilins. Sintfluthber. (Leip. 1881), p. 17, 18. The expressions used by the Greek-writing reporters are exactly like those common in Greek accounts of translation: γενέσθαι ἀφανῆ [83] (τὸν Ξίσουθρον) μετὰ τῶν θεῶν οἰκήσοντα, Beros. ap. Sync., p. 55, 6, 11 Di.; θεοί μιν ἐξ ἀνθρώπων ἀφανίζουσι, Abydenus ap. Syncell., p. 70, 13. Of Enoch we read, Gen. 524: οὐχ εὑρίσκετο ὅτι μετέθηκεν αὐτὸν ὁ θεός (μετετέθη, Ecclus., 4416; Hebr. 115); ἀνελήφθη ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς, Ecclus. 4914; ἀνεχώρησε πρὸς τὸ θεῖον, Jos., AJ. i, 3, 4 (of Moses: ἀφανίζεται, Jos., AJ. iv, 8, 48). On the translation of Enoch and Elijah, see also Schwally, D. Leben. nach d. Tode n. d. Vorst. d. a. Israel (1892), p. 140. Translation of the living into Sheol often in the O.T., see Schwally, p. 62. Even Enoch has not escaped the fate of being regarded by comparative mythologists as the sun. Enoch may be given up to them, if the Orientalists have no objection; but it seems a pity that the theory, in accordance with the favourite argument from analogy, should be applied to Greek Translation-myths too, so that we should see the whole series of such figures, from Menelaos to Apollonios of Tyana, transformed by magic into mythological suns (or dawns, water-meadows, thunder-clouds, etc.).
[19] μαλθακὸς αἰχμητής, Ρ 588.
[20] Ξ 321–2.
[21] One might even suspect that Menelaos is translated to everlasting life not merely because he has Helen, Zeus’ daughter, to wife: οὕνεκ’ ἔχεις Ἑλένην as Proteus tells him, but in imitation of a much earlier mythical tradition, according to which Helen herself was translated and made immortal. No ancient tradition reports the death of Helen—with the exception of the absurd invention of Ptolemaios Chennos (Phot. Bibl., p. 149a, 37 Bk.; 42; 149b, 1 ff.) and the not very superior aetiological myth in Paus. 3, 19, 10. On the other hand, we often hear of her deification, living on the island Leuke or else in the Islands of the Blest. It was not unnatural that mythological tradition should have at an early period set free the most “daemonic” of women from the usual fate of mankind and that Menelaos should rather have followed her example than she his (as Isoc. 10, 62, definitely says).