previous next

[419] κληῖσι. The rendering ‘thwarts’ or ‘rowing benches’ seems the best for this word. We may take the name from the analogy of the bar on a door. The bar crosses it and holds it firm, as the thwarts stiffen and fix the framework of the ship. Or we may remember that “κληίς” is also the ‘collar-bone,’ and the position which the bone occupies with regard to the ribs reminds us at once of the relation of the thwart to the ship's ribs. Others prefer to render “ἐπί” not ‘on,’ but ‘at,’ and to understand by “κληῖδες” the thole pins to which the oars were attached by leathern loops; cp. Od.4. 782.

Homer's Odyssey. W. Walter Merry. James Riddell. D. B. Monro. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1886-1901.

The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide References (1 total)
  • Commentary references from this page (1):
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: