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[149] τοῦ πατρός. The force of the article probably is to point the contrast: ‘my father is the one whom I should choose.’ See the examples of the article with “πατήρ” and other words of relationship given in H. G. § 261, 3.

This is one of the passages in which Zenodotus probably read οὗ for “τοῦ”, and understood it in a ‘general reflexive’ sense, here=‘our own.’ We know that he read in Il.11. 142“νῦν μὲν δὴ οὗ πατρὸς ἀεικέα τίσετε λώβην”. On this question also I must refer to the discussion in H. G. § 255. It still seems to me most probable that the reflexive ἑός or ὅς was originally used of the Third person only, and that the extension to the First and Second persons, though ancient, was on the whole postHomeric.

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

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