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[841] ἐναργές. There is nothing in this epithet incompatible with the ordinary interpretation of “ἀμαυρόν”. The dream, though ‘dim’ to the bodily sense, had a ‘clear meaning’ to the mind.

ἐπέσσυτο implies the rapid movement with which the phantom had hastened to her. Cp. Od.6. 20.

νυκτὸς ἀμολγῷ. Even Buttmann's ingenious theory about this word leaves the etymology more than doubtful. Of more modern philologists, some seek to establish the identity of “ἀμολγός” with “ἀμαυρός”, i. e. “ἀμαρϝός”; others compound it of the euphonic “ἀ” and “μολύνειν, μελαίνειν”, or, adopting the Hesychian interpretation, “μολγός”=“νέφος”, render it, ‘the cloudless night.’ Meyer attempts to connect the word with the Scandinavian myrkyr, ‘darkness.’

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

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