Note 2649 — Chapter III

And the close-fighting Mysians, and the illustrious Hippemolgi, milk-nourished, simple in living, and most just of men. Iliad xiii. 5. The word which Cowper renders “blest with length of days,” and Buckley “simple in living,” is ἄβιοι. Its signification is very uncertain. Some propose to derive it from α, privative, and βιὸς, a bow, or bowless; while others regard it as a proper name, Abii. In Lucian’s Dialogues of the Dead, xv. 3, it means, without a living, poor, as derived from α, privative, and βίος, a means of living, livelihood. Cowper’s meaning is made up from α, intensive, and βίος, life.