previous next

[418] κακῆι αἴσηι must have the same sense as “αἶσα” above, and therefore mean to an evil fate; cf. 22.477 “ἰῆι ἄρα γεινόμεθ᾽ αἴσηι,” 7.218 “προκαλέσσατο χάρμηι”, and perhaps 16.203 “χόλωι ἄρα σ᾽ ἔτρεφε μήτηρ”. αἶσα is one of the Homeric words which the Cyprian inscriptions have shewn us yet alive in the primitive sense of measure: “τῶ Διὸς τῶ ϝοίνω αἶσα ἔτι γ́ χόες” (Collitz no. 73). Cf. also Hegesandros ap. Athen. viii. 365 d “Ἀργεῖοι .. καλέουσι .. τὴν μερίδα αἶσαν. τῶ”, not “τῶι”, is the reading of A in all passages where it means therefore; and with this grammatical tradition agrees. It seems to be a genuine relic of the old ablative; compare “πω” with “πως”, and perhaps “οὕτω” with “οὕτως”. (M. L. Earle in C. R. xi. 243 would read “τώς” here, so ill-starred did I bear thee. This seems very probable; there is no place for an inferential particle here.)

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: