previous next

[215] Though the MS. testimony is strong in favour of εἰ here, the scholia only discuss “ἦ” and “ἤ” as variants. The latter is inadmissible here; the former, preceded by a colon, may be defended by passages where it introduces short parenthetical sentences, as 7.393, 11.362, 22.280 (H. G. § 338). All these cases are, however, so far different that “ἦ” retains its original force of strong affirmation, and in none of them could “εἰ” be substituted without detriment to the sense. Here, however, there is no need of asseveration about the relative age of Menelaos, and if “ἦ” is right, it means no more than “εἰ”, which it is therefore better to retain.

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 (3 total)
  • Commentary references from this page (3):
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: