The Odyssey: Rendered into English prose for the use of those who cannot read the originalHomer
General
The Odyssey: Rendered into English prose for the use of those who cannot read the original
Homer
Epic poetry, Greek -- Translations into English; Homer -- Translations into English; Odysseus, King of Ithaca (Mythological character)
Modern excavations establish the existence of two and only two
pre-Dorian communities at Syracuse; they were, so Dr. Orsi informed me,
at Plemmirio and Cozzo Pantano. See The Authoress of the Odyssey, pp.
211-213.]
[136] [ This harbour is again evidently the harbour in which Ulysses
had landed, i.e. the harbour that is now the salt works of S.
Cusumano.]
[137] [ This never can have been anything but very niggardly pay for
some eight or nine days’ service. I suppose the crew were to consider
the pleasure of having had a trip to Pylos as a set off. There is no
trace of the dinner as having been actually given, either on the
following or any other morning.]
[138] [ No hawk can tear its prey while it is on the wing.]
[139] [ The text is here apparently corrupt, and will not make sense as
it stands. I follow Messrs. Butcher & Lang in omitting line 101.]
[140] [ i.e. to be milked, as in South Italian and Sicilian towns at
the present day.]
[141] [ The butchering and making ready the carcases took place partly
in the outer yard and partly in the open part of the inner court.]
[142] [ These words cannot mean that it would be afternoon soon after
they were spoken. Ulysses and Eumaeus reached the town which was “some
way off” (xvii. 25) in time for the suitor’s early meal (xvii. 170 and
176) say at ten or eleven o’ clock. The context of the rest of the book
shows this. Eumaeus and Ulysses, therefore, cannot have started later
than eight or nine, and Eumaeus’s words must be taken as an
exaggeration for the purpose of making Ulysses bestir himself.]
[143] [ I imagine the fountain to have been somewhere about where the
church of the _Madonna di Trapani_ now stands, and to have been fed
with water from what is now called the Fontana Diffali on Mt. Eryx.]
[144] [ From this and other passages in the “Odyssey” it appears that
we are in an age anterior to the use of coined money—an age when
cauldrons, tripods, swords, cattle, chattels of all kinds, measures of
corn, wine, or oil, etc. etc., not to say pieces of gold, silver,
bronze, or even iron, wrought more or less, but unstamped, were the
nearest approach to a currency that had as yet been reached.]
[145] [ Gr. ἐς μέσσον.]
[146] [ I correct these proofs abroad and am not within reach of
Hesiod, but surely this passage suggests acquaintance with the Works
and Ways, though it by no means compels it.]
[147] [ It would seem as though Eurynome and Euryclea were the same
person. See note 156]
[148] [ It is plain, therefore, that Iris was commonly accepted as the
messenger of the gods, though our authoress will never permit her to
fetch or carry for any one.]
[149] [ i.e. the doorway leading from the inner to the outer court.]
[150] [See note 156]
[151] [ These, I imagine, must have been in the open part of the inner
courtyard, where the maids also stood, and threw the light of their
torches into the covered cloister that ran all round it. The smoke
would otherwise have been intolerable.]
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