When, in Odyss. iv. v. 73, Telemachus describes the mansion of
Menelaus, Mr. C., with all the translators, renders Ἠλεκτρον
'amber,' contrary to the explanation of Pliny, who defines electrum
to be gold, containing a fifth part of silver, and quotes the
Homeric passage.[29] Amber ornaments, we believe, are not mentioned
by Homer in the singular. Thus, in Odyss. xviii. 294-5, the golden
necklace presented by Eurymachus, is called Ἠλεκτροισιν ἐερμενον,
inlaid with amber drops.
Homer, Odyss. xi. v. 579, seq., places two vultures by the sides of
Tityus, who entered his entrails, and tore his liver by turns, and
adds, to enhance the terror of the image,
ὁ δ' οὐκ ἀπαμυνετο χερσι,
'he had not hands to rescue him;' entranced, no doubt, or chained
to the ground. This Mr. C. translates--
"----Two vultures on his liver prey'd,
Scooping his entrails; nor suffic'd his hands
To fray them thence."----
Why not, if he had a hand for each vulture, unless we suppose him
chained or entranced?
Odyss. xix. 389, Ulysses removes from the light of the hearth into
the shade, lest the nurse, who had already discovered a striking
resemblance in his shape, voice, and limbs, to those of her lost
master, by handling his thigh, and seeing all at once the scar on
it, should be convinced that he could be no other, and betray him.
This Mr. C. translates thus: p. 453.
"Ulysses (for beside the hearth he sat)
Turn'd quick _his face_ into the shade, alarm'd
Lest, handling him, she should at once
remark His scar, and all his stratagem unveil."
He who, unacquainted with the rest, should read these lines, would
either conclude that the nurse had not looked at the face before,
or that the scar was in the face. Minerva had taken care that
Ulysses should not be discovered by his countenance, making
identity vanish into mere resemblance; but as the scar in such a
place, without a miracle, could belong only to Ulysses, he
attempted to elude the farther guesses of the nurse, by having his
thigh washed in the dark.
Odyss. viii. 400, Euryalus, eager to appease Ulysses for the
affront offered to him, addressed Alcinous his chief--
Τον δ' αυτ' Ἐυρυαλος ἀπαμειβετο, φωνησεν τε
Ἀλκινοε κρειοι.----
But Mr. C. turns Alcinous into his father;
"When thus Euryalus his _sire_ addressed."
The sons of Alcinous were Laodamus, Halius, and Clytoneus.
When Mr. C., Odyss. xi. v. 317, seq. tells us that Alcmena bore
Megara to Creon, he says surely what Homer has not said,[30] who
mentions Megara as the daughter of Creon, and one of the women
Ulysses _saw_, and not as the sister and wife of Hercules together.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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