[4] We may neglect the Pleiades, as introduced simply because they are in the Iliadic passage (xviii. 486-489) which the writer of the Odyssey is adopting with no other change than taking out the Hyades and Orion, and substituting Boötes. This she was bound to do, for she could not make Ulysses steer towards both the Bear and Orion, when she is just going to tell us, as the Iliad does, that Orion is on the other side of the sky. The Pleiades she has allowed to stand—which of us knows in what quarter of the heavens (let alone the Precession of the Equinoxes) they are to be looked for?—and it is made quite clear that the Bear is the constellation by which Ulysses is steering.
[5] At Messina a few months since I saw a printed handbill about the hours when the boat would start for Reggio, in which Italy was called "Terra firma," as though a sense of instability attached itself to any island.
[6] The name seems derived from λᾶας, τρυγάω, and αἶα, Œnotria is from οἶνος, τρυγάω, and αἶα. I have read, but forget where, that Œnotria is only a Greek rendering of Italia, which is derived from vites, alo, and some Latin equivalent for αἶα. The modern Italian word lastricare, "to pave roads with stone," is probably derived from the same roots as Læstrygonian.
[7] Segesta would have been seen from the top of Mt. Eryx gleaming in the summer sunset, and I think there would have been some kind of allusion to it.
[CHAPTER X.]
FURTHER DETAILS REGARDING THE VOYAGES OF ULYSSES, TO CONFIRM THE VIEW THAT THEY WERE MAINLY A SAIL ROUND SICILY, BEGINNING AND ENDING WITH MT. ERYX AND TRAPANI.
What I have said in the preceding chapter should be enough to establish that the course taken by Ulysses was the one indicated in my map, but I have remarks to make on the Cyclopes, the wall round the island of Æolus, the Sirens, the Wandering Cliffs, and other matters connected with the voyages which I have reserved in order to keep the general view more broad and simple.