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[263] νεμεσίζετο, used only here with accusative. In the same sense, but without an object, the word occurs Od.2. 138(cp. 64) and Il.17. 254“νεμεσιζέσθω δ᾽ ἐνὶ θυμῷ Πάτ ροκλον Τρωῇσι κυσὶν μέλπηθρα γενέσθαι”. The meaning is ‘to stand in awe of;’ lit. ‘to be angry with, or ashamed of, one's self before another.’ So Il.11. 648“αἰδοῖος νεμεσητός Il., 13. 122 αἰδὼς καὶ νέμεσις”. Ilus dared not give the poison, but, in the case of Anchialos, his deep love (φιλέεσκε γὰρ αἰνῶς) for Odysseus overcame every other consideration. There is no mention of poisoned arrows in the Iliad; in the Odyssey (which deals less with openhand fighting than with the shifts and cunning of hunters, or pirates such as the Taphians were), the practice is thus alluded to, but in such words that it is evident there was a strong feeling against it as barbarous or impious. In Virg. Aen.9. 770, Amycus the Trojan poisons his arrows to slay wild beasts with, and the Scythians are described by Pliny (H. N. 11. 53), as using the venom of serpents for the same purpose. Heracles according to the legend shoots Nessus with an arrow that had been dipped in the blood of the Hydra; but the wound that he inflicted on the Centaur became the cause of his own destruction.

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

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