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[216] ἁδινώτερον. The adj. “ἁδινός” means ‘thick,’ ‘full’ (Buttmann, Lex.s.v.). Applied to sound it suggests a continuous or ‘thick-coming’ cry. It may be connected with “ἅδην” ‘fully,’ ‘richly,’ “ἆτος” (for “ἄατος”） ‘unsatisfied,’ and Lat. sa-tis, sa-tur.

ἤ τε ‘than,’ cp. Il.4. 277“μελάντερον ἠΰτε πίσσα”, where Bekker proposed to read “ἠέ τε”. If this is not adopted we must read ηὖτ᾽ or εὖτ᾽ here (Buttmann, Lex.s.v.). The former is supported by one good manuscript, viz. F. This “ηὖτε” or “εὖτε” is evidently to be identified with “ἠΰτε” ‘like as.’ The disyllabic form is found with the meaning ‘as’ or ‘like’ in two places in the Iliad, viz. 3. 10 “εὖτ᾽ ὄρεος κορυφῇσι κτλ.” (ancient variants “ἠΰτ᾽ ὄρευς” and “ὥς τ᾽ ὄρεος”), and 19. 386 “τῷ δ᾽ εὖτε πτερὰ γίγνετ᾽ κτλ.” (v. l. “ηὖτε” and “αὖτε”). In the latter place “ἐΰτε” is possible: cp. the variation of “ἠϋ-, ἐΰ”, and “εὖ”.

There remains the question,—what is the force of the comparative followed by “ἠΰτε”? Buttmann and other modern scholars have taken “ἠΰτε” as equivalent to ‘than,’ comparing the use of as in provincial English, and of als and wie in German. The difficulty, however, is not the use of a word with the double sense of ‘like as’ and ‘than,’ but the improbability that such a use, if it existed in the language, should occur so very rarely. It must be said, too, that the phrase ‘blacker than pitch’ is an exaggeration, such as Homer does not resort to in his descriptions of nature. In the ancient view, put forward or at least maintained by Aristarchus, the comparative was used as a positive (“ἡ διπλῆ ὅτι κέχρηται τῷ συγκριτικῷ ἀντὶ ἁπλοῦ” Aristonicus, “στικτέον μετὰ τὸ μελάντερον” Nicanor). That is to say, “μελάντερον” does not express a degree of blackness, but blackness instead of its opposite. Bekker (H. B. 1. 312) quotes as instances “ἀκιδνότερος” ( Od.8. 169), “κουφότερον” (8. 201), comparing Lucian ( Philopatr.4) “Αἰθίοψι ἀνδράσι μελαντέροις καὶ τὴν ὄψιν ἐζοφωμένοις”. The meaning ‘dark and pitch like’ seems sufficiently Homeric. So here “ἁδινώτερον”, of a cry that comes fast, like the cry of certain birds, cp. “ἐπασσύτερος”. A good parallel to the form of the sentence is to be found in Herodotus (3. 23) “ἐπὶ κρήνην σφι ἡγήσασθαι, ἀπ᾽ ἧς λουόμενοι λιπαρώτεροι ἐγίνοντο, κατάπερ εἰ ἐλαίου εἴη”, where the meaning is not that they became more shining than if it were a fountain of oil, but that they shone as with oil.

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

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