previous next

[349] καὶ καθάπαξ ‘once for all,’ ‘outright.’

φέρεσθαι ‘to take with him.’

350-358 repeat 1. 356-364, with τόξον in place of “μῦθος”. And in both places the first four lines (here 350-353) are an adaptation, or parody, of Hector's words to Andromache, Il.6. 490-493. This is shown by the fact that the “πόλεμος δ᾽ ἄνδρεσσι μελήσει” of Hector's speech is more intelligible and appropriate than the parallel phrase in either passage of the Odyssey. Here it is distinctly inappropriate, because the bow was in the charge of Penelope, and the contest was brought about by her. But probably the poet had in view the ironical double meaning of “μελήσει”. The bow was to be ‘the concern of the men, all of them,’ in a sense which they did not anticipate.

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 (1 total)
  • Commentary references from this page (1):
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: