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[95] This conventional line is found in Od.1. 140. Od., 4. 56. Od., 7. 176, and (in some MSS.) in 10. 372. Od., 15. 139.It was explained by Aristarchus (see the comment of Aristonicus on Od. 4.54-56) as applying to the cases in which hasty preparation is made for an unexpected guest. On that ground, apparently, he rejected 1. 140 (or possibly did not find it in his sources). In his view—if we may judge of it from the argument in Athenaeus (V. p. 193 b)—the εἴδατα of this line are pieces of meat, the remnants of a former feast, which the “ταμίη” has in her store: consequently they are superfluous when meat is otherwise provided in the usual way. This theory is surely open to much objection. There is no reason for confining the word “εἴδατα” to meat (see Brosin, De Coenis Homericis, p. 55). In the style of Homer the participial phrase “εἴδατα πόλλ᾽ ἐπιθεῖσα” after “σῖτον παρέθηκε” would naturally be taken as a simple epexegesis. And “εἴδατα” may well denote the various ‘bake meats’ that the “ταμίη” would bring in her basket (like Pharaoh's chief baker, Gen. xl. 17). In general, the bread and the wine are in the keeping of the “ταμίη” (cp. Il.19. 44“ταμίαι σίτοιο δοτῆρες”; but the meat is freshly killed, roasted on the spot, and taken in hand at once by the “δαιτρός”, who gives the portions. It is only in the humble household of Eumaeus that we hear of remnants from a former meal ( Od.16. 50). It does not seem at all likely that a stately formula, like the line in question, should have been framed for such a case.

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

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