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[42] The anacoluthon is surprising, the two relatives ὅς and ἐπεί having only one principal verb between them. We have similar but less violent cases in 8.230 “ἃς ὁπότ᾽ ἐν Λήμνωι ἠγοράασθε”, and in 17.658, where see note. But there, as is pointed out, a verb is supplied for “ὅς” after all in 664, the original construction having only been interrupted by the internal growth of the description. Here we must supply “ἄγρια οἶδεν” from the preceding line — an unnatural artifice. Probably 42-5 are all interpolated. The last line undoubtedly is; 42-3 have all the appearance of an imitation of the simile in P by a late hand who regarded the “ἐπεί” as ‘redundant’ on the apparent analogy of the “ὅτε” in the familiar “ὡς ὅτε”. If, as Athenaios states, Ar. held that “ἐπὶ μόνων ἀνθρώπων δαῖτας λέγει ὁ ποιητής, ἐπὶ δὲ θηρίων οὐκέτι” (see on 1.5), he must have obelized this couplet, though the scholia give no hint of it; it is impossible to believe that he took “βροτῶν δαῖτα” together, as Lehrs would have. (See, however, Ludwich, ii. 88, note.) βροτῶν is a strange expression but possible in a god's mouth. Compare “οὗτος μὲν Φόβος ἐστὶ βροτῶν” on the chest of Kypselos (notes on 11.28, 37). The variant “βοτῶν” seems to be an old conj. Nikanor suggests “εἴξηισ᾽” for “εἴξας”, ingeniously but not rightly; the lion's ‘yielding to his impulse’ cannot be made the subject of a distinct clause as though it were quite separate from his attacking the herds, but is only in place in the subordinate participial construction.

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

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