Note 353 — BOOK THE TENTH.

Footnote 353: (return) Buttm. Lexil. p. 369: “I translate θοὴ νύξ by the quick and fearful night; and if this be once admitted as the established meaning of the Homeric epithet, it will certainly be always intelligible to the hearer and full of expression. ‘Night,’ says a German proverb, ‘is no man’s friend;’ the dangers which threaten the nightly wanderer are formed into a quick, irritable, hostile goddess. Even the other deities are afraid of her, who is (Il. Θ, 259) θεῶν δμήτειρα καὶ ἀνδρῶν; and Jupiter himself, in the midst of his rage, refrains from doing what might be νυκτὶ θοὴ ἀποθύμια. Nor is the epithet less natural when the night is not personified: for as ὀξεῖς καιροί are dangerous times, so by this word θοή it may be intended to mark the swiftness and imminency of dangers which threaten men who go διὰ νύκτα μέλαιναν.”