1. Equip, Fit out, Arrange, Prepare. In this sense it is applied to armaments, both to hosts and to individuals, and thus in reference to warlike preparations expresses nearly the idea of “Arm.” This is, it seems to me, the meaning of the word in the verse of Homer already alluded to. The passage is in the Iliad xii. 325, where Sarpedon is addressing Glaucus, and says, “If we could hope, my friend, after escaping this contest, to shun forever old age and death, I would neither myself fight among the foremost, nor _prepare_ you for the glorious strife.” (Or as Heyne more freely renders it, _hortarer_, “urge,” or “incite.”) The inappropriateness of the meaning “send,” given in this place by Clark, (_mitterem_) and one of the scholiasts, (πεμποιμι) consists in the fact, that the hero speaking was himself to accompany or rather lead his friend into the deadly struggle, and of course could not be properly said to _send_ him, if he went with him or before him. It was the partial consideration of this circumstance, no doubt, which led the same scholiast to offer as an additional probable meaning, that of “prepare,” “make ready,” (παρασκευαζοιμι,) as though he had some misgiving about the propriety of his first translation. For a full account of these renderings, see Heyne in loc. and Stephens’s Thesaurus sub voc. In the latter also, under the second paragraph of Στελλω, are given numerous other passages illustrating this usage, in passive and middle as well as active forms, both from Homer and later writers. In Passow’s Griechisch Wörterbuch, other useful references are given sub voc.; and in Damm is found the best account of its uses in Homer. 2. In the applications of the word in this first meaning, the idea of equipment or preparation was always immediately followed by that of future action, for the very notion of equipment or preparation implies some departure or undertaking immediately subsequent. In the transitive sense, when the subject of the verb is the instrument of preparing _another_ person for the distant purpose, there immediately arises the signification of “_send_,” constituting the second branch of definition, which has been so unfortunately mistaken for the root, by all the common lexicographers. In the reflexive sense, when the subject prepares _himself_ for the expected action, in the same manner originates, at once, the meaning “_go_,” which is found, therefore, the prominent secondary sense of the middle voice, and also of the active, when, as is frequent in Greek verbs, that voice assumes a reflexive force. The origin of these two definitions, apparently so incongruous with the rest and with each other, is thus made consistent and clear; and the identity of origin here shown, justifies the arrangement of them both together in this manner.