Note 49
[ See note on line 3 of this book. The reader will observe that the writer has been unable to keep the women out of an interpolation consisting only of four lines.]
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Notes to The Odyssey — Page 3
187 notes in Samuel Butler translation. Follow a thought back to its place in the book.
187 notes
Note 50
[ Scheria means a piece of land jutting out into the sea. In my “Authoress of the Odyssey” I thought “Jutland” would be a suitable translation, but it has been pointed out to me th…
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[ Irrigation as here described is common in gardens near Trapani. The water that supplies the ducts is drawn from wells by a mule who turns a wheel with buckets on it.]
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[ There is not a word here about the cattle of the sun-god.]
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[ The writer evidently thought that green, growing wood might also be well seasoned.]
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[ The reader will note that the river was flowing with salt water i.e. that it was tidal.]
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[ Then the Ogygian island was not so far off, but that Nausicaa might be assumed to know where it was.]
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[ Greek {Greek}]
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[ I suspect a family joke, or sly allusion to some thing of which we know nothing, in this story of Eurymedusa’s having been brought from Apeira. The Greek word “apeiros” means “in…
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[ Polyphemus was also son to Neptune, see “Od.” ix. 412, 529. he was therefore half brother to Nausithous, half uncle to King Alcinous, and half great uncle to Nausicaa.]
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[ It would seem as though the writer thought that Marathon was close to Athens.]
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[ Here the writer, knowing that she is drawing (with embellishments) from things actually existing, becomes impatient of past tenses and slides into the present.]
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[ This is hidden malice, implying that the Phaeacian magnates were no better than they should be. The final drink-offering should have been made to Jove or Neptune, not to the god …
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[ The fact of Alcinous knowing anything about the Cyclopes suggests that in the writer’s mind Scheria and the country of the Cyclopes were not very far from one another. I take the…
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[ “My property, etc.” The authoress is here adopting an Iliadic line (xix. 333), and this must account for the absence of all reference to Penelope. If she had happened to remember…
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[ The at first inexplicable sleep of Ulysses (bk. xiii. 79, etc.) is here, as also in viii. 445, being obviously prepared. The writer evidently attached the utmost importance to it…
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[ There were two classes—the lower who were found in provisions which they had to cook for themselves in the yards and outer precincts, where they would also eat—and the upper who …
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[ Translation very dubious. I suppose the {Greek} here to be the covered sheds that ran round the outer courtyard. See illustrations at the end of bk. iii.]
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[ The writer apparently deems that the words “as compared with what oxen can plough in the same time” go without saying. Not so the writer of the “Iliad” from which the Odyssean pa…
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[ It was very fortunate that such a disc happened to be there, seeing that none like it were in common use.]
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[ “Il.” xiii. 37. Here, as so often elsewhere in the “Odyssey,” the appropriation of an Iliadic line which is not quite appropriate puzzles the reader. The “they” is not the chains…
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[ The reader will note that Alcinous never goes beyond saying that he is going to give the goblet; he never gives it. Elsewhere in both “Iliad” and “Odyssey” the offer of a present…
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[ “Il.” xviii. 344-349. These lines in the “Iliad” tell of the preparation for washing the body of Patroclus, and I am not pleased that the writer of the “Odyssey” should have adop…
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[ see note [64] : ]
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