[95]
[ Melampus, vide book xv. 223, etc.]
[96]
[ I have already said in a note on bk. xi. 186 that at this point of Ulysses’ voyage Telemachus could only be between eleven and twelve years old.]
[97]
[ Is the writer a man or a woman?]
[98]
[ Cf. “Il.” iv. 521, {Greek}. The Odyssean line reads, {Greek}. The famous dactylism, therefore, of the Odyssean line was probably suggested by that of the Ileadic rather than by a desire to accommodate sound to sense. At any rate the double coincidence of a dactylic line, and an ending {Greek}, seems conclusive as to the familiarity of the writer of the “Odyssey” with the Iliadic line.]
[99]
[ Off the coast of Sicily and South Italy, in the month of May, I have seen men fastened half way up a boat’s mast with their feet resting on a crosspiece, just large enough to support them. From this point of vantage they spear sword-fish. When I saw men thus employed I could hardly doubt that the writer of the “Odyssey” had seen others like them, and had them in her mind when describing the binding of Ulysses. I have therefore with some diffidence ventured to depart from the received translation of ἰστοπέδη (cf. Alcaeus frag. 18, where, however, it is very hard to say what ἰστοπέδαν means). In Sophocles’ Lexicon I find a reference to Chrysostom (l, 242, A. Ed. Benedictine Paris 1834-1839) for the word ἰστοπόδη, which is probably the same as ἰστοπέδη, but I have looked for the passage in vain.]