[75]
[ If the other islands lay some distance away from Ithaca (which the word {Greek} suggests), what becomes of the πόρθμος or gut between Ithaca and Samos which we hear of in Bks. iv. and xv.? I suspect that the authoress in her mind makes Telemachus come back from Pylos to the Lilybaean promontory and thence to Trapani through the strait between the Isola Grande and the mainland—the island of Asteria being the one on which Motya afterwards stood.]
[76]
[ “Il.” xviii. 533-534. The sudden lapse into the third person here for a couple of lines is due to the fact that the two Iliadic lines taken are in the third person.]
[77]
[ cf. “Il.” ii. 776. The words in both “Iliad” and “Odyssey” are [Footnote Greek]. In the “Iliad” they are used of the horses of Achilles’ followers as they stood idle, “champing lotus.”]
[78]
[ I take all this passage about the Cyclopes having no ships to be sarcastic—meaning, “You people of Drepanum have no excuse for not colonising the island of Favognana, which you could easily do, for you have plenty of ships, and the island is a very good one.” For that the island so fully described here is the Aegadean or “goat” island of Favognana, and that the Cyclopes are the old Sican inhabitants of Mt. Eryx should not be doubted.]
[79]
[ For the reasons why it was necessary that the night should be so exceptionally dark see “The Authoress of the Odyssey” pp. 188-189.]