previous next

[52] As Nikanor points out, this line may be punctuated in two ways: (a) as in the text; (b) with the comma after “τεθνᾶσι” instead of “δόμοισιν”. The latter has the advantage of giving a better antithesis to “μινυνθαδιώτερον”, ‘we shall indeed carry our grief to the grave (cf. the same idea in 389), but the people will the sooner be consoled.’ On the other hand the line occurs four times in the Od. (Od. 4.834, Od. 15.350, Od. 20.208, Od. 24.264), and there we must always take the two halves together, supplying “εἰσίν” (“ἐστίν”). This consideration is decisive, unless we are prepared to suppose that the poets of the Odyssey borrowed the line without noticing or understanding how it was to be taken. This is not absolutely impossible, as there are a good many cases where lines are taken from earlier portions with a slight change of connexion; but it is certainly not necessary.

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

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 (4 total)
  • Commentary references from this page (4):
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: