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[233] οἷόν τε κρομύοιο λόπον κάτα ἰσχαλέοιο. With this reading the sense must be ‘like as (it glistens) over the skin of a dried onion.’ That is, the tunic glistened all over like the surface of a dried onion. Or, reading κατά, and taking “οἷόν τε λόπον” as = “οἷός ἐστι λόπος”, ‘as is the peel over (covering) a dried onion’: “κατά” with a gen. as 18. 355. The explanation of “λόπον κάτα” as =‘after the fashion of peel’ is surely untenable. Several MSS., however, read “καταϊσχαλέοιο”, which is free from difficulty. The prep. may be used as in “καταριγηλός, κατηρεφής”, &c.

The passage is referred to in a fragment of the Comic poet Theopompus (Mein. ii. 806) “χιτῶνά μοι φέρων δέδωκας δαιδάλεον ὃν ᾔκασεν ἄρισθ᾽ Ὅμηρος κρομμύου λεπυχάνῳ”. ‘The “χιτών” or shirt, a cut and sewn linen garment which fits like an onion peel, in sharp contrast with the mere web of woollen girt about the loins as an apron or thrown over the shoulders like a cloak’ (Tsountas and Manatt, p. 161).

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

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