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[12] τὸ μέλαν ‘the dark part,’ viz. the heart of the oak.

τὸ μέλαν δρυός. Cp. the adj. “μελάνδρυος” ‘with dark wood,’ as in Aesch. fr. 235 “πίτυος ἐκ μελανδρύου”.

ἀμφικεάσσας ‘splitting off all round,’ i.e. splitting so as to separate the softer outside and leave the heart. The article is used (as with comparatives) to mark a contrast, here between the darker and the lighter wood: H. G. § 260 (e.

Aristarchus took “τὸ μέλαν” to be the bark (“φλοιός”), and this view is adopted by Ameis and others. But the bark would hardly be called ‘the black part of the wood,’ and the process of stripping it off would not be splitting.

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

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