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[87] ἀδινάων (or, as Aristarchos seems, from a scholium of Herodianos on this passage, to have written the word, “ἁδινάων”), busy. The word seems to express originally quick restless motion, and is thus applied to the heart (16.481, Od. 19.516), to sheep (Od. 1.92, Od. 4.320), and to flies (2.469); then to vehemence of grief (23.225, Od. 24.317, and often), and to the passionate song of the Sirens (Od. 23.326). According to the explanation of the ancients, adopted by Buttmann, the primary sense is dense; but this gives a much less satisfactory chain of significations. It is then particularly hard to explain the application of the word to the heart; few will be thoroughly satisfied with the supposition that it means ‘composed of dense fibres,’ while a more probable epithet than ‘busy’ or ‘beating’ could not be found.

It may be noticed that both ἔθνεα εἶσι (which Bentley emended “ἔθνε᾽ ἴασι”) and αἱ δέ τε ἔνθα (l. 90: “αἱ δὲ καὶ ἔνθα” Brandr.) are cases of hiatus illicitus; i.e. they occur at points where there is no caesura nor any tendency to a break in the line which might account for them. Of the fifty-three cases of such hiatus in Homer, twenty-three occur at the end of the second foot, and twentyone in or at the end of the fifth; six are found in the first, two in the third, and only one in the fourth. Of the twenty-one in the fifth foot, all are in the trochaic caesura except this, 11.678 (= Od. 14.100), 13.22, 14.285, 358, 18.4, Od. 5.257, Od. 9.553, Od. 10.68. (See note on 18.4.) A complete list will be found in Knös De digammo Homerico p. 47. The hiatus is legitimate if found (1) in the trochaic caesura of the third foot; (2) in the bucolic diaeresis; (3) at the end of the first foot, though this is much rarer than the other two, and is perhaps only permissible when coinciding with a pause in the sense; van L. Ench. pp. 77-78. See also note on 105. (In reckoning cases of hiatus Knös omits genitives in “-αο” and “-οιο”, which in his opinion do not suffer elision, and words like “περί, τι”, and others, which certainly do not.)

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

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