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[482] ἐπαμήσατο, ‘gathered together.’ So “ἀμησάμενος”, Od.9. 247, of the Cyclops collecting the curd he had made. Cp. Il.24. 164“κόπρος ἔην κεφαλῇ τε καὶ αὐχένι τοῖο γέροντος”

“τήν ῥα κυλινδόμενος καταμήσατο χερσὶν ἑῇσι”. If ἀμᾶν in the sense of ‘cutting’ and ἀμᾶσθαι in the sense of ‘collecting’ are words with the same etymology, it is difficult to understand the wide divergence of meaning in the two voices. It may be that ‘collect’ is the true meaning of both, and that the idea of ‘cutting’ has come in without reference to etymology because it is the ordinary and recognised way of ‘gathering’ the harvest. The quantities also vary: the active gives “α_μ”, while the middle voice and the verb in compounds have “α^μ”. It has been proposed to connect the word with “ἅμα” or “ἄμυδις”, but more likely the initial “α” is merely prosthetic, so that we may connect the word with mähen, ‘to mow,’ or Lat. me-to, mes-sis. The process here described is the piling of a broad cushion or bed of leaves on which to lie.

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

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