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[637] μολπ̂ης acc. to Ar. meant only sport or dance, not song. But though the former sense is required in Od. 6.101, where it is applied to the game of ball at which Nausikaa plays, yet here, in an enumeration of sensual pleasures, it is not likely that music should be entirely omitted, and a word used which is hardly distinguished from the following “ὀρχηθμός”. So in Od. 1.152, with its context, and Od. 21.430, “μολπή” clearly implies music. The simple explanation is that the word is exactly similar to our ‘play,’ in having both a more general application to any sport (as in “μέλπηθρα, δήιωι μέλπεσθαι Ἄρηϊ,” 7.241, etc.) and a special sense in connexion with music, as here and 1.474, q.v. (See Lehrs Ar. 138 ff.) Some critics rejected the line altogether as superfluous. Cf. Pindar N. vii. 53 “κόρον δ᾽ ἔχει καὶ μέλι καὶ τὰ τέρπν᾽ ἄνθε᾽ Ἀφροδίσια”.

The Iliad, edited, with apparatus criticus, prolegomena, notes, and appendices. Walter Leaf. London. Macmillan. 1900.

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