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[190] This line has created a great deal of difficulty to the commentators. How could any one, who had spoken such words in vv. 185, 187 as “ἠέλιος κατέδυ” and “φάνη Ἠώς”, express his ignorance in v. 190 of the position of East and West? Crates and Strabo would say that ζόφος meant rather North than West, and that one might well be uncertain of the exact whereabouts of this point. But such a solution is rendered impossible by the epexegesis οὐδ᾽ ὅπῃ … ἀννεῖται. The Scholl. suggest that the hero is aghast at the circumstances in which he finds himself (“δεινοπαθῶν”), or, apparently, that his wanderings have brought him to a point where all ordinary phenomena are reversed or confused (“ἐκτετοπισμένη φαίνεται ἡ πλάνη τοῦ Ὀ.”). Ukert thinks that the last few days had been so cloudy, that it had been impossible, as it were, to ‘take an observation.’ But surely the sentence expresses merely in a general way that he is quite ignorant of his locality. ἠώς and ζόφος represent a sort of exhaustive ‘dichotomy’ of the world: cp. Od.1. 23; 8.29; 13. 240 Od., 241.All that Odysseus means to say is that he has not the least idea where they are; the words from οὐδ᾽ ὅπῃ ἠέλιος to ἀννεῖται having no more specific meaning than to expand “ἠώς” and “ζόφος”. In Il.12. 239Hector wishes to say that he recks nothing of the flight of augurial birds, no matter in what direction they fly, “εἴτ᾽ ἐπὶ δεξἴ ἴωσι πρὸς ἠῶ τ᾽ ἠέλιόν τε”,

“εἴτ᾽ ἐπ᾽ ἀριστερὰ τοί γε ποτὶ ζόφον ἠερόεντα”, the general sense of this and the other passages being that the world is roughly divided between East and West, no particular notice being taken of North and South. Compare the idiomatic use of the French ‘s'orienter.’

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

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