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[198] The variants “τ᾽ ἐσσεύαιτο” and “τ᾽ ἐσσεύατο” are relics of an original “τε σσεύαιτο”. This verb is always treated metrically as if it began with a double consonant, and this was expressed graphically. “ἐσσεύατο” is evidently the correction of a grammarian who was offended that an aor. opt. should have what he thought was an augment. If Heyne is right in conjecturing that there was a variant “ὕλην τε σεύαιντο”, it would mean start the wood a-burning; the aor. is both trans. and intrans. This would naturally go with “νεκρόν” in 197. For ὠκέα δ᾽ Ἶρις Bentley conj. “ὦκα δὲ Ϝῖρις”, which is strikingly confirmed by the reading of “παπ. λ”. But it is clear that the name, though it probably had the “ϝ”, lost it at a very early period. The only passage which requires it is 8.409 (= 24.77, 159); in all other cases where a hiatus precedes, it is in the diaeresis after the first or fourth foot. The very common “ὠκέα Ἶρις” at the end of a line is rather an argument against the “ϝ”; for “ὠκέα” is a most suspicious form for “ὠκεῖα” (“ὠκέϝια”), and practically without analogy. It would seem that we should rather read “ὠκέϊ᾽ Ἶρις”. (It would, however, then follow that the wrong form “ὠκέα” had crept in early enough to enable it to be introduced here.) In 5.353, 365, the “ϝ” is inadmissible; cf. also 11.27. This is the only case where Iris goes on an errand without being sent by a god.

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

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