previous next

[414] ἴωμι is Nauck's conj. for “ἵκωμαι”, which is found in all MSS., and does not even receive a passing comment in the scholia. The line is occasionally quoted by the grammarians to prove that final “-αι” can be short before a consonant, in explanation of the fact that it counts as short for purposes of accentuation. Numerous emendations have been proposed; Hugo Grotius' “ἵκοιμι” held the field for a long time, but it is a mere vox nihili; the act. “ἷκον” is unknown to Greek, unless the very doubtful “ἱκόντ᾽” (or “ἵκοντ᾽”?) of Pind. P. ii. 36 be regarded as another case of it. The same objection applies to “ἴκυμι” introduced by Wolf and supported by a wrong report of the reading of A, now corrected by Allen. Others have corrected φίλην into “ἐμήν” (Bentley), “ἰών” (Heyne), “ἑήν” (Brugmann). For the last, to be taken in the sense of (my） own, see App. The A. obvious objection to it is that it would have been corrupted not into “φίλην” but into “ἐμήν”. There is no reason why “ἐμήν” or “ἰών” should have been corrupted at all, unless it be by a reminiscence of the frequent repetition of the phrase “φίλην ἐς πατρίδα γαῖαν” (fifteen times in Iliad and thirteen in Od.). On the whole Nauck's conj. “ἴωμι” best fulfils the conditions; it is near to the MSS., and the unfamiliar ending “-ωμι” has almost invariably led to corruption (see on 1.549). We should, indeed, have expected “ἴοιμι”. But an intermediate “ἴωμαι” is quite possible; cf. the error of a“ἐθέλωμαι” for “ἐθέλωμι” in the schol. on 397.

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 (1 total)
  • Commentary references from this page (1):
    • Pindar, Pythian, 2
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: