Note 1196 — Chapter IV · THE RELATION OF SOUL AND BODY. (continued 3)

Hom. Il. IV. 295, Ἀμφὶ μέγαν Πελάγοντα, Ἀλάστορά τε, Χρόμιόν τε. The hiatus in the third foot has been made the basis of a suggestion, to which Mr P. Giles has kindly called my attention, that ἀλάστωρ should begin with a digamma. There is however no need for the supposition, since hiatus after the trochaic caesura is not infrequent (e.g. Il. I. 569) and some license is generally allowed in any case in the metrical treatment of proper names; moreover, in Il. VIII. 333, we have a line δῖος Ἀλάστωρ which makes against the original existence of a digamma in the word.