[29] In almost all other places he is called Melanthius.
[30] All this might very well be, if the scene is laid in an open court, but hardly if it was in a hall inside a house.
[31] ἐς μέσσον (line 447).
[32] They might very well fight in the middle of an open court, but hardly in a covered hall. They would go outside.
[33] ἐν μεγάροισιν, but not ἐν μεγάροισι σκιόεσσι.
[34] There is no indication as though they went out to do this; they seem to have emptied the ashes on to the open part of the court.
[35] I have repeatedly seen geese so feeding at Trapani and in the neighbourhood. In summer the grass is all burned up so that they cannot graze as in England.
[36] This is the only reference to Sardinia in either Iliad or Odyssey.
[37] If Telemachus had never seen anything of the kind before, so probably, neither had the writer of the Odyssey—at any rate no commentator has yet been able to understand her description, and I doubt whether she understood it herself. It looks as though the axe heads must have been wedged into the handles or so bound on to them as to let the hole be visible through which the handle would go when the axe was in use. The trial is evidently a double one, of strength as regards the bending of the bow, and accuracy of aim as regards shooting through a row of rings.
[38] It is not expressly stated that the "stone pavement" is here intended. The Greek has simply ἆλτο δ᾽ ἐπὶ μέγαν οὐδόν, but I do not doubt that the stone pavement is intended.