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[4] φύγον: observe the aor. in the simile — a sort of ‘gnomic’ aor. followed by the present. The voice of the crane in the sky is a sign of winter in Hes. Op. 450.‘The crane is in Greece a bird of passage only . . it breeds farther north, in Macedonia and on the Danube,’ Thompson Gloss. p. 41. See Herod. ii. 23, where this passage is partly quoted. For ἀθέσφατος see Buttm. Lex., where the word is explained as a hyperbole, ‘such as not even a god could utter’; but such hyperbole is not Homeric. Rather ‘not according to an utterance of the gods, hence vaguely portentous, unblest ’ (Monro). But the form of the word is unexplained.

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

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  • Commentary references from this page (2):
    • Herodotus, Histories, 2.23
    • Hesiod, Works and Days, 450
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