第 96 节

e.]

[132] [ See note [83].]

[133] [ cf. “Od.” xi. 196, etc.]

[134] [ The names Syra and Ortygia, on which island a great part of the Doric Syracuse was originally built, suggest that even in Odyssean times there was a prehistoric Syracuse, the existence of which was known to the writer of the poem.]

[135] [ Literally “where are the turnings of the sun.” Assuming, as we may safely do, that the Syra and Ortygia of the “Odyssey” refer to Syracuse, it is the fact that not far to the South of these places the land turns sharply round, so that mariners following the coast would find the sun upon the other side of their ship to that on which they’d had it hitherto.

Mr. A. S. Griffith has kindly called my attention to Herod iv. 42, where, speaking of the circumnavigation of Africa by Phoenician mariners under Necos, he writes:

“On their return they declared—I for my part do not believe them, but perhaps others may—that in sailing round Libya [i.e. Africa] they had the sun upon their right hand. In this way was the extent of Libya first discovered.

“I take it that Eumaeus was made to have come from Syracuse because the writer thought she rather ought to have made something happen at Syracuse during her account of the voyages of Ulysses. She could not, however, break his long drift from Charybdis to the island of Pantellaria; she therefore resolved to make it up to Syracuse in another way.”

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.]

[152] [ Translation very uncertain; vide Liddell and Scott, under {Greek}]

[153] [ See photo on opposite page.]

[154] [ cf. “Il.” ii. 184, and 217, 218. An additional and well-marked feature being wanted to convince Penelope, the writer has taken the hunched shoulders of Thersites (who is mentioned immediately after Eurybates in the “Iliad”) and put them on to Eurybates’ back.]

[155] [ This is how geese are now fed in Sicily, at any rate in summer, when the grass is all burnt up. I have never seen them grazing.]

[156] [ Lower down (line 143) Euryclea says it was herself that had thrown the cloak over Ulysses—for the plural should not be taken as implying more than one person. The writer is evidently still fluctuating between Euryclea and Eurynome as the name for the old nurse. She probably originally meant to call her Euryclea, but finding it not immediately easy to make Euryclea scan in xvii. 495, she hastily called her Eurynome, intending either to alter this name later or to change the earlier Euryclea’s into Eurynome. She then drifted in to Eurynome as convenience further directed, still nevertheless hankering after Euryclea, till at last she found that the path of least resistance would lie in the direction of making Eurynome and Euryclea two persons. Therefore in xxiii. 289-292 both Eurynome and “the nurse” (who can be none other than Euryclea) come on together. I do not say that this is feminine, but it is not unfeminine.]

[157] [ See note [156]]

[158] [ This, I take it, was immediately in front of the main entrance of the inner courtyard into the body of the house.]

[159] [ This is the only allusion to Sardinia in either “Iliad” or “Odyssey.”]

[160] [ The normal translation of the Greek word would be “holding back,” “curbing,” “restraining,” but I cannot think that the writer meant this—she must have been using the word in its other sense of “having,” “holding,” “keeping,” “maintaining.”]

[161] [ I have vainly tried to realise the construction of the fastening here described.]

[162] [ See plan of Ulysses’ house in the appendix. It is evident that the open part of the court had no flooring but the natural soil.]

[163] [ See plan of Ulysses’ house, and note [175].]

[164] [ i.e. the door that led into the body of the house.]

[165] [ This was, no doubt, the little table that was set for Ulysses, “Od.” xx. 259.

Surely the difficulty of this passage has been overrated. I suppose the iron part of the axe to have been wedged into the handle, or bound securely to it—the handle being half buried in the ground. The axe would be placed edgeways