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[528] ἐάων, a most obscure word recurring only in the phrases “θεοὶ δωτῆρες ἑάων” (Od. 8.325, Hes. Theog. 111), “Ἑρμεία δῶτορ ἑάων” (Od. 8.335). Here at least it means good things, and hence it is commonly referred to “ἐύς”. It can be nothing but the gen. of a fem. “ἑή”, and how this can come from “ἐύς” no one has yet shown. The hiatus, too, seems to indicate loss of “ϝ”, which “ἐύς”, so far as we know, never had. (That this trace of “ϝ” should not appear in the other passages is natural enough, owing to their lateness.) Brugmann has suggested that “ἑή” may = sua, a fem. like “ἴση”, meaning “a man's own due,” so that the gods are “the givers of men's lots.” This explanation fails, however, in face of the fact that the present line, which on his view must be due to a misunderstanding of “δωτῆρες ἑάων”, is older than those in which that phrase occurs. The word must therefore remain among the unsolved problems of the language.

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

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