This meaning is in exact accordance with the North-eastern, and is entirely opposed to the North-western, hypothesis. And I venture to believe that, itself established by sufficient evidence from other passages in the poems, it enables us to give a meaning substantially, though perhaps not minutely self-consistent, though of course one not based upon the true configuration of the earth’s surface as it is now ascertained, to every passage in Homer which relates to the Outer Geography of the Odyssey. Both ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ and ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ χειρὸς are used repeatedly in the Hymn to Mercury[680]. One of the passages resembles in its form that of the eagle, Il. xii. 219. It is this: [680] Hymn. Merc. 153. Cf. 418, 424, 499. κεῖτο, χέλυν ἐρατὴν ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ χειρὸς ἐέργων. And probably the basis of the idea is the same. The really correct Greek expression for ‘on the left hand’ I take to be χειρὸς ἐξ ἀριστερᾶς, which is used by Euripides[681]. [681] Hecuba 1127. ~_Sense altered in later Greek._~ But in the later Greek the idea of the point of arrival prevailed over that of the point of departure: and, conventionally at least, the ἐπιδέξια, with its equivalent ἐνδέξια, came to mean simply ‘on the right,’ and ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ, ‘on the left.’ It is worth notice, that we have a like ambiguous use in English of the word _towards_. Sometimes towards the left means being on the left: sometimes it means moving from the right in the direction of the left: and a room ‘towards the south’ means one with its windows on the north, looking out over the south, like as the star Arctus looks out towards the left of Ulysses[682]. [682] I have observed that δεξιὸς ὄρνις means a bird flying from the left towards the right, and ἀριστερὸς ὄρνις, the reverse. Here however the force of the epithet is derived from immediate connection with the motion implied, and with the doctrine of omens: δεξιὸς ὦμος would of course be the right shoulder, and δεξιή, as we have seen, may stand alone to signify the right hand. And so in general with these words, when used as epithets, apart from a preposition implying motion, and from any relation to omens. IV. AOIDOS. SECT. I. _On the Plot of the Iliad._ ~_Theory of Grote on the Iliad._~