[268] εἴ ποτ᾽ ἔην. This well-known formula is generally understood as a pathetic expression of doubt whether a former happiness ever really existed. It seems rather to be an assurance: ‘Ulysses was my father if he lived’ (as of course he did); i.e. ‘as surely as there was a Ulysses.’ So in Il.3. 180“δαὴρ ἐμὸς ἔσκε . . . εἴ ποτ᾽ ἔην γε”, ‘Agamemnon was my brother-in-law, as surely as he was at all’: and Il.11. 762.
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Homer's Odyssey. W. Walter Merry. James Riddell. D. B. Monro. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1886-1901.
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