[244] κυρτωθέν. Cp. Virg. Georg.4. 360‘At illum
(Aristaeum) curvata in montis faciem circumstetit unda,accepitque sinu vasto.’ On which passage Conington interprets the Homeric expression as describing ‘a wave . . swelling to the height of a mountain, and furnishing by the displacement occasioned by its rising a cavity beneath its surface, in which a person might hide himself.’ The idea readily suggests itself to anyone who watches the overarching of a wave just before its fall —‘the hollow ocean ridges.’ Eustath. expresses it neatly, “τὸ δὲ κύρτωθὲν κῦμα ὡς εἰς θαλάμου ὄροφον ἐσχεδίασται”. Cp. Il.21. 239.
