[101] [ I suppose this line to have been intercalated by the author when lines 426-446 were added.] [102] [ For the reasons which enable us to identify the island of the two Sirens with the Lipari island now Salinas—the ancient Didyme, or “twin” island—see The Authoress of the Odyssey, pp. 195, 196. The two Sirens doubtless were, as their name suggests, the whistling gusts, or avalanches of air that at times descend without a moment’s warning from the two lofty mountains of Salinas—as also from all high points in the neighbourhood.] [103] [ See Admiral Smyth on the currents in the Straits of Messina, quoted in “The Authoress of the Odyssey,” p. 197.] [104] [ In the islands of Favognana and Marettimo off Trapani I have seen men fish exactly as here described. They chew bread into a paste and throw it into the sea to attract the fish, which they then spear. No line is used.] [105] [ The writer evidently regards Ulysses as on a coast that looked East at no great distance south of the Straits of Messina somewhere, say, near Tauromenium, now Taormina.] [106] [ Surely there must be a line missing here to tell us that the keel and mast were carried down into Charybdis. Besides, the aorist {Greek} in its present surrounding is perplexing. I have translated it as though it were an imperfect; I see Messrs. Butcher and Lang translate it as a pluperfect, but surely Charybdis was in the act of sucking down the water when Ulysses arrived.] [107] [ I suppose the passage within brackets to have been an afterthought but to have been written by the same hand as the rest of the poem. I suppose xii. 103 to have been also added by the writer when she decided on sending Ulysses back to Charybdis. The simile suggests the hand of the wife or daughter of a magistrate who had often seen her father come in cross and tired.] [108] [ Gr. πολυδαίδαλος. This puts coined money out of the question, but nevertheless implies that the gold had been worked into ornaments of some kind.] [109] [ I suppose Teiresias’ prophecy of bk. xi. 114-120 had made no impression on Ulysses. More probably the prophecy was an afterthought, intercalated, as I have already said, by the authoress when she changed her scheme.] [110] [ A male writer would have made Ulysses say, not “may you give satisfaction to your wives,” but “may your wives give satisfaction to you.”] [111] [ See note [64].] [112] [ The land was in reality the shallow inlet, now the salt works of S. Cusumano—the neighbourhood of Trapani and Mt. Eryx being made to do double duty, both as Scheria and Ithaca. Hence the necessity for making Ulysses set out after dark, fall instantly into a profound sleep, and wake up on a morning so foggy that he could not see anything till the interviews between Neptune and Jove and between Ulysses and Minerva should have given the audience time to accept the situation. See illustrations and map near the end of bks. v. and vi. respectively.]