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[441] βῆ ῤ̔ ἴμεν … ἱμάντι. The explanation given by the Schol. here, and approved by Casp. Sagittarius apud Graev. Thesaur. 455, seems inaccurate from the introduction of modern complications. See especially Eustath. 1900, who attempts to simplify the interpretations offered on Od. 21.46. The common use of the word “κληίς” in Homer is the bar or bolt of the door; called in Il.24. 453“ἐπιβλής”, in the description of the pavilion of Achilles—

“θύρην δ᾽ ἔχε μοῦνος ἐπιβλὴς”

“εἰλάτινος, τὸν τρεῖς μὲν ἐπιρρήσσεσκον Ἀχαιοὶ”,

“τρεῖς δ᾽ ἀναοίγεσκον μεγάλην κληῖδα θυράων”.

This was evidently a bar of unusual size. The same thing goes by the name of “ὀχεύς”, or, where there were two, “ὀχῆες” Od.21. 47, “ὀχῆες ἐπημοιβοί” Il.12. 456.These were especially for folding doors, “σανίδες”. In the present passage the meaning is tolerably simple. On the inside of the door, within the room, a bar or bolt, probably of wood, was made to slide backwards and forwards, horizontally. There was a hole cut in the doorpost or jamb (“σταθμός”) to receive one end of the bar, and when the bar was pushed into this hole the door was fastened.

Any one inside the room could of course move the bolt at pleasure, and fasten or unfasten the door, as the bolt was altogether on the inside of the door. In order, however, to make it possible to work the bolt from the outside, there was a hole or slit made right through the door close to the bolt, and through this slit a strap (“ἱμάς”) passed, attached to the bolt, and hanging down on the outside of the door. The strap and its slit were near the doorpost (cp. “σταθμοῖο παρὰ κληῖδα” Od.4. 838, with “παρὰ κληῖδος ἱμάντα” Od.4. 802), and it was so arranged that, on pulling the strap after the door was closed, the bolt was shot into the hole in the jamb; “ἐπὶ δὲ κληῖδ᾽ ἐτάνυσσεν ἱμάντι”, ‘she drew home (“ἐπί”) the bolt by its strap.’

On the outside of the door there was a hook, called “κορώνη”, which served as a handle by which to pull the door to (“ἐπ-ερύειν”, in later Greek “ἐπισπᾶσθαι”).

But this was not the only use of the “κορώνη”. It was usual, where security was an object, to tie the loose end of the strap (that hung down on the outside after shooting the bolt) round this hook or handle. The more complicated the knot, the more secure the fastening. Cp. Od.21. 241“θύρας . . κληῖσαι κληῖδι θοῶς δ᾽ ἐπὶ δεσμὸν ἰῆλαι”. So when Penelope ( Od.21. 46) goes to open the door of the “θάλαμος”, the first thing was “ἥ γ᾽ ἱμάντα θοῶς ἀπέλυσε κορώνης”, for till this was done the bolt could not be moved.

So far the interpretation is tolerably clear. But a complication is introduced by the fact that “κληίς” is also used in another sense, viz. the more ordinary one of ‘key.’ Cp. Od.21. 6

“εἵλετο δὲ κληῖδ᾽ εὐκαμπέα χειρὶ παχείῃ”

“καλὴν χαλκείην, κώπη δ᾽ ἐλέφαντος ἐπῆεν”.

So, when she reached the door, and had untied the strap from the “κορώνη”—

“ἐν δὲ κληῖδ᾽ ἧκε, θυρέων δ᾽ ἀνέκοπτεν ὀχῆας”

“ἄντα τιτυσκομένη”.

It is not easy to describe the shape of the earliest form of “κληίς”. The epithet “εὐκαμπής”, Od.21. 6, is interpreted by Eustath. as “δρεπανοειδής”. This falls in exactly with the “clavis adunca trochi” Propert. 4. 14. 6 , on which Paley remarks that the clavis adunca is ‘a hooked wire,’ adding that ‘iron hoops are not unfrequently to be seen at the present day, driven precisely in this manner.’ Now such a hooked wire inserted at the slit through which the strap hung would easily catch at any projection, or fall into any hole in the bolt, and so could be used to pull it back from the jamb, and unlock the door. The ‘Laconian key,’ which must have been of an early pattern, as the Lacedaemonians were credited by the Greeks with the invention of keys, is just such a hook of flat wire with three vertical teeth rising from the hook corresponding with holes in the bolt into which the teeth fitted. Cp. Aristoph. Thesm.421“κλειδία κρυπτὰ κακοηθέστατα Λακωνίκ᾽ ἄττα, τρεῖς ἔχοντα γομφίους”, and the next improvement on this was the more complicated system of the “βάλανος” and “βαλανάγρα”. See Thucyd. 2. 4.

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

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