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[902] ὀπός, fig-juice used to curdle milk for cheese, the lac ficulneum of the Romans (Heyne quotes Columella R. R. vii. 8. 1, Varro ii. 11. 4, Pliny xvi. 38). The juice of ‘lady's bedstraw’ (Galium verum) was used for the same purpose in Cheshire and other parts of England at the beginning of this century (Notes and Queries, Sept. 21, 1889), but is now superseded by calf's rennet, which was also employed by the Greeks (“πυετία, τάμισος”). ἐπειγόμενος might quite well be taken as a passive, being stirred; but the common Homeric use of the participle is rather in favour of taking it as a mid., makes haste to curdle (cf. 6.388 “ἐπειγομένη ἀφικάνει,” 23.119, Od. 11.339); the point of the simile lies in the speed of the process, so that the repetition of the same idea in “μάλ᾽ ὦκα” in the next line is excusable.

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

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