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[309] δαίνυ τάφον, ‘gave a funeral banquet.’ So “δαινύναι γάμον” Od.4. 3.For such a feast see Il.23. 29; 24.82. The Schol. states that vv. 309, 310 were wanting in some edd.; adding “ὁ δὲ Ἀρίσταρχός φησιν ὅτι διὰ τούτων παρυποφαίνεται ὅτι συναπώλετο Αἰγίσθῳ ἡ Κλυταιμνήστρα. τὸ δὲ εἰ καὶ ὑπὸ Ὀρέστου, ἄδηλον εἶναι”. Certainly, here alone, if anywhere (as Nitzsch remarks), does Homer attribute the death of Clytaemnestra to Orestes. We are given to understand clearly that she died with Aegisthus, who met his death (197) at the hand of Orestes. Most probably Homer's legend imputed the mother's death to him as well; but he suppresses the explicit mention of this feature of the story, only by this artifice to deepen the impression of Orestes' great misfortune. Orestes is however represented as justified in the eyes of his own people to whom he gave the feast; nor is there any mention of the persecution of the Erinnyes. For the growth and the different forms of the story see Schneidewin's Sophokles, Einleit. zur Elektra.

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

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