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[3] Αἰαίην. There appears to be a real contradiction in the position here assigned to Circe's island. From b. 10 we gather that Odysseus, after his disaster that befel from the opening of the wind-bag, sailed in a N. W. direction from the isle of Aeolus towards the country of the Laestrygonians; and from thence, keeping the same direction, he reaches Aeaea, still further to the North and West. In the present passage, it looks at first sight as if Aeaea were placed in the extreme east, at the sunrising; and the description is given in the most definite language. This difficulty was rather evaded than elucidated by the ancient commentators, who generally concur in interpreting the passage, “ταῦτα ὡς πρὸς σύγκρισιν τοῦ Ἅδου: θέλει γὰρ εἰπεῖν ὅτι ἐκ τοῦ Ἅδου ἐς τὰ φωτεινὰ διήλθομεν” (Schol. B. ). This interpretation, which implies, as it were, a clear defining line between the land of darkness and the land of light, is substantially adopted by Voss, Nitzsch, Klausen, and others. Grotefend (Geogr. Ephem. 48. p. 266 foll.) proposes to place Aeaea in the East: but, although this view appears to have been maintained in later times, it is not found in Homer. Völcker (Homer. Geog.31) would escape the difficulty by representing Eos here as a goddess, rather than as the physical conception of the dawn; but this leaves ἀντολαὶ Ἠελίοιο unexplained. The real solution seems to lie in the fact that Homer regards the extreme West and extreme East as an almost identical point. See note on the description of the short Laestrygonian nights Od.10. 81, where the line of Aratus, quoted in Schol. H., lays the ground of the interpretation, “ἧχί περ ἄκραι μίσγονται δύσιές τε καὶ ἀντολαί”. Mr. Gladstone has adopted the same view about Aeaea in Homeric Synchronism, p. 226 foll. ‘The island of Kirkè is strongly identified with the East . . there is a point where the darkness and the dawn approach one another, and the Sun, when he rises, is not far from the place of his setting.’

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

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