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[115] δήεις … κατέδουσι. The visit of Odysseus to the shades falls at the end of the third year after the taking of Troy. Now the words in Od.2. 106 foll. make it evident that the misconduct of the suitors, which lasted till Odysseus reached home, did not begin more than four years before his arrival, that is to say it may have shown itself first in the seventh year after the end of the war. But Teiresias speaks as if the outrages in the house of Odysseus were already going on, unless we can persuade ourselves that the tense of δήεις colours the whole passage, and throws the force of a future upon κατέδουσι. Another way of disposing of the difficulty is to treat “κατέδουσι” as a sort of prophetic present. But a comparison of vv. 184-189, and 449, shows a further inaccuracy; for Telemachus is spoken of as a grown man, which he may have been at the time of his father's return; but which he was not seven years earlier. This is noticed by Schol. on Od. 2.313 “ἐγὼ δ᾽ ἔτι νήπιος ἦα”, to which is added, “τοῦτο σημειοῦται Ἀριστοφάνης, ὅτι ἱκανὰ ἔτη ἐγεγόνει ἀφ᾽ οὗ οἱ μνηστῆρες συνήχθησαν: τοῦτο δὲ πρὸς τὸ ἐν τῇ Νεκυίᾳ, ὅτι δεῖ εἶναι ‘οἵ τοι βίοτον κατέδοιεν’ οὐ ‘κατέδουσιν”.’ But, as La Roche remarks, Aristarchus must have read “κατέδουσι”, as may be gathered from the Schol. of Aristonicus on this passage, “ὅτι οὐκ ἐνήλλακται ὁ χρόνος ὡς τὸ ‘σύν τε μεγάλῳ ἀπέτισαν”’ ( Il.4. 161, where Zenodotus wrote “τίσουσιν”）“: οὐ γὰρ ἦσαν οἱ μνηστῆρες συνηγμένοι ἐς τὸν οἶκον Ὀδυσσέως”.

For the collocation δήεις δ᾽ ἐν πήματα οἴκῳ see on Od. 6.167, crit. note.

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

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