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[487] Ar. athetized 487-99 on the grounds that the destitution predicted is absurd for a son of the royal race while Priam and Hector's brothers are still alive; and that the whole passage is a commonplace on the sorrows of orphanage with no application to the case of Astyanax. Of the justice of this criticism there can be no doubt; but it is clear that the athetesis does not reach far enough. 500-4 are pointless, except as a contrast to the preceding picture of starvation; 506-7 are a very clumsy addition, and frigid in the extreme. On the other hand, it is not clear that 48788 may not belong to the original passage; ἔσσοντ᾽ (489) is a familiar touch of the interpolator, who is always anxious to supply a verb where it is not needed. 508 will follow 488 well enough. It will be noticed that the rejected passage contains “ἅπαξ λεγόμενα” of a sort quite unfamiliar in Epic poetry; “ἀπουρήσουσιν, παναφήλικα, ὑπεμνήμυκε, ὑπερώιην, ἀμφιθαλής”.

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

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