Note 25
[ The heart, liver, lights, kidneys, etc. were taken out from the inside and eaten first as being more readily cooked; the {Greek}, or bone meat, was cooking while the {Greek} or i…
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Notes to The Odyssey — Page 2
187 notes in Samuel Butler translation. Follow a thought back to its place in the book.
187 notes
Note 26
[ i.e. skewers, either single, double, or even five pronged. The meat would be pierced with the skewer, and laid over the ashes to grill—the two ends of the skewer being supported …
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[ cf. “Il.” xvii. 567. {Greek} The Odyssean lines are—{Greek}]
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[ Reading {Greek} for {Greek}, cf. “Od.” i. 186.]
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[] [ The geography of the Ægean as above described is correct, but is probably taken from the lost poem, the Nosti, the existence of which is referred to “Od.” i. 326, 327 and 350,…
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[ The writer—ever jealous for the honour of women—extenuates Clytemnestra’s guilt as far as possible, and explains it as due to her having been left unprotected, and fallen into th…
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[ The Greek is {Greek} cf. “Iliad” ii. 408 {Greek} Surely the {Greek} of the Odyssean passage was due to the {Greek} of the “Iliad.” No other reason suggests itself for the making …
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[ cf. “Il.” I. 458, II. 421. The writer here interrupts an Iliadic passage (to which she returns immediately) for the double purpose of dwelling upon the slaughter of the heifer, a…
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[ cf. “Il.” xxiv. 587, 588 where the lines refer to the washing the dead body of Hector.]
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[ See illustration on opposite page. The yard is typical of many that may be seen in Sicily. The existing ground-plan is probably unmodified from Odyssean, and indeed long pre-Odys…
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[ This journey is an impossible one. Telemachus and Pisistratus would have been obliged to drive over the Taygetus range, over which there has never yet been a road for wheeled veh…
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[ The lines which I have enclosed in brackets are evidently an afterthought—added probably by the writer herself—for they evince the same instinctively greater interest in anything…
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[ Sparta and Lacedaemon are here treated as two different places, though in other parts of the poem it is clear that the writer understands them as one. The catalogue in the “Iliad…
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[ These last three lines are identical with “Il.” vxiii. 604-606.]
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[ From the Greek {Greek} it is plain that Menelaus took up the piece of meat with his fingers.]
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[ Amber is never mentioned in the “Iliad.” Sicily, where I suppose the “Odyssey” to have been written, has always been, and still is, one of the principal amber producing countries…
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[ This no doubt refers to the story told in the last poem of the Cypria about Paris and Helen robbing Menelaus of the greater part of his treasures, when they sailed together for T…
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[ It is inconceivable that Helen should enter thus, in the middle of supper, intending to work with her distaff, if great festivities were going on. Telemachus and Pisistratus are …
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[ In the Italian insurrection of 1848, eight young men who were being hotly pursued by the Austrian police hid themselves inside Donatello’s colossal wooden horse in the Salone at …
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[ The Greek is {Greek}. Is it unfair to argue that the writer is a person of somewhat delicate sensibility, to whom a strong smell of fish is distasteful?]
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[ The Greek is {Greek}. I believe this to be a hit at the writer’s own countrymen who were of Phocaean descent, and the next following line to be a rejoinder to complaints made aga…
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[ Surely here again we are in the hands of a writer of delicate sensibility. It is not as though the seals were stale; they had only just been killed. The writer, however is obviou…
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[ We were told above (lines 356, 357) that it was only one day’s sail.]
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[ I give the usual translation, but I do not believe the Greek will warrant it. The Greek reads {Greek}. This is usually held to mean that Ithaca is an island fit for breeding goat …
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