previous next

[131] πατὴρ … τέθνηκε. With the strongly resumptive pronoun “ὅ γε” in the second clause, it seems wrong to translate merely, ‘My father, elsewhere in the world (see Od.1. 425) is haply alive or dead.’ But rather, ‘As to my father, he is away elsewhere in the world—whether he be alive or dead’ [we know not]. In this way “ζώει ὅ γ᾽ ἦ τέθνηκε” is an expression of doubt thrown into the form of an indirect question, so that (by rule given Od.1. 175) “ἦ” in the second clause takes the circumflex. Cp. “οὐδέ τι ἴδμεν ζώει ὅ γ᾽ ἦ τέθνηκε” Od.4. 109, “οὐ μὲν κεῖνον . . ἀγορεύσω ζώει ὅ γ᾽ ἦ τέθνηκε” ibid. 837; cp. Od.11. 464.Probably, the ultimate explanation is that we really have here a direct question, ‘Is he alive or dead?’ But it is a question which is asked of the speaker's own mind; so that it easily passes into a mere expression of uncertainty. See Monro, H. G. § 341.

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

The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide References (4 total)
  • Commentary references from this page (4):
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: