previous next

[240] “αὖα πάλαι, περίκηλα”, ‘long ago sapless and dry.’ The same epithets are used of billets for firing, Od.18. 309.Here the meaning must be that the trees were dead though still standing, and in that condition they might serve, on an emergency, in place of properly seasoned wood.

πλώοιεν is from “πλώω”, i. e. “πλόϝω”, a bye-form of “πλέω”. It has the meaning of floating (cp. Il.21. 302) rather than of sailing. So “πλωτὴ νῆσος” Od.10. 3.

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 (3 total)
  • Commentary references from this page (3):
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: