Odyss. xix. 389, Ulysses removes from the light of the hearth into the shade, lest the nurse, who had already discovered a striking resemblance in his shape, voice, and limbs, to those of her lost master, by handling his thigh, and seeing all at once the scar on it, should be convinced that he could be no other, and betray him. This Mr. C. translates thus: p. 453.
"Ulysses (for beside the hearth he sat)
Turn'd quick his face into the shade, alarm'd
Lest, handling him, she should at once remark
His scar, and all his stratagem unveil."
He who, unacquainted with the rest, should read these lines, would either conclude that the nurse had not looked at the face before, or that the scar was in the face. Minerva had taken care that Ulysses should not be discovered by his countenance, making identity vanish into mere resemblance; but as the scar in such a place, without a miracle, could belong only to Ulysses, he attempted to elude the farther guesses of the nurse, by having his thigh washed in the dark.
Odyss. viii. 400, Euryalus, eager to appease Ulysses for the affront offered to him, addressed Alcinous his chief—
Τον δ' αυτ' Ἐυρυαλος ἀπαμειβετο, φωνησεν τε
Ἀλκινοε κρειοι.——
But Mr. C. turns Alcinous into his father;
"When thus Euryalus his sire addressed."
The sons of Alcinous were Laodamus, Halius, and Clytoneus.
When Mr. C., Odyss. xi. v. 317, seq. tells us that Alcmena bore Megara to Creon, he says surely what Homer has not said,[30] who mentions Megara as the daughter of Creon, and one of the women Ulysses saw, and not as the sister and wife of Hercules together.