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[137] αὐλῆς καλὰ θύρετρα must be the same as “θύραι αὐλῆς” (21. 389) or “θύραι αὐλεῖαι” (18. 239, &c.), viz. the gate of the court-yard. It was ‘terribly near’ Ulysses, i. e. within bow-shot of him. And ‘the mouth of the “λαύρη” was difficult’: it was so narrow that one man could bar the passage into the courtyard. The Suitors would emerge from it one by one, and then would have to cross the “αὐλή” and unfasten the gate within range of the arrows.

Some understand “αὐλῆς θύρετρα” of a door at the end of the “λαύρη”, where it debouches into the “αὐλή”. But “στόμα λαύρης” would then be a mere description of “αὐλῆς θύρετρα”, which the form of the sentence seems to forbid.

139 “ἀλλ̓ ἄγεθ̓ κτλ.” It now occurs to Melanthius that the “ὀρσοθύρη”, though it is not a good means of escape, may be useful in another way. Seeing that Ulysses and his companions are armed, he guesses that the arms have been brought from the store in the “θάλαμος” (l. 109): and he remembers that the way to the “θάλαμος” through the “ὀρσοθύρη” is still open.

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

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