Note 97
[ Is the writer a man or a woman?]
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Notes to The Odyssey — Page 5
187 notes in Samuel Butler translation. Follow a thought back to its place in the book.
187 notes
Note 98
[ Cf. “Il.” iv. 521, {Greek}. The Odyssean line reads, {Greek}. The famous dactylism, therefore, of the Odyssean line was probably suggested by that of the Ileadic rather than by a…
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[ Off the coast of Sicily and South Italy, in the month of May, I have seen men fastened half way up a boat’s mast with their feet resting on a crosspiece, just large enough to sup…
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[ The writer is at fault here and tries to put it off on Circe. When Ulysses comes to take the route prescribed by Circe, he ought to pass either the Wanderers or some other diffic…
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[ I suppose this line to have been intercalated by the author when lines 426-446 were added.]
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[ For the reasons which enable us to identify the island of the two Sirens with the Lipari island now Salinas—the ancient Didyme, or “twin” island—see The Authoress of the Odyssey,…
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[ See Admiral Smyth on the currents in the Straits of Messina, quoted in “The Authoress of the Odyssey,” p. 197.]
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[ In the islands of Favognana and Marettimo off Trapani I have seen men fish exactly as here described. They chew bread into a paste and throw it into the sea to attract the fish, …
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[ The writer evidently regards Ulysses as on a coast that looked East at no great distance south of the Straits of Messina somewhere, say, near Tauromenium, now Taormina.]
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[ Surely there must be a line missing here to tell us that the keel and mast were carried down into Charybdis. Besides, the aorist {Greek} in its present surrounding is perplexing.…
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[ I suppose the passage within brackets to have been an afterthought but to have been written by the same hand as the rest of the poem. I suppose xii. 103 to have been also added b…
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[ Gr. πολυδαίδαλος. This puts coined money out of the question, but nevertheless implies that the gold had been worked into ornaments of some kind.]
Read the noteNote 109
[ I suppose Teiresias’ prophecy of bk. xi. 114-120 had made no impression on Ulysses. More probably the prophecy was an afterthought, intercalated, as I have already said, by the a…
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[ A male writer would have made Ulysses say, not “may you give satisfaction to your wives,” but “may your wives give satisfaction to you.”]
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[ See note [64].]
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[ The land was in reality the shallow inlet, now the salt works of S. Cusumano—the neighbourhood of Trapani and Mt. Eryx being made to do double duty, both as Scheria and Ithaca. H…
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[ This cave, which is identifiable with singular completeness, is now called the “grotta del toro,” probably a corruption of “tesoro,” for it is held to contain a treasure. See The…
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[ Probably they would.]
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[ Then it had a shallow shelving bottom.]
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[ Doubtless the road would pass the harbour in Odyssean times as it passes the salt works now; indeed, if there is to be a road at all there is no other level ground which it could…
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[ The rock at the end of the Northern harbour of Trapani, to which I suppose the writer of the “Odyssey” to be here referring, still bears the name Malconsiglio—“the rock of evil c…
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[ It would seem then that the ship had got all the way back from Ithaca in about a quarter of an hour.]
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[ And may we not add “and also to prevent his recognising that he was only in the place where he had met Nausicaa two days earlier.”]
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[ All this is to excuse the entire absence of Minerva from books ix.-xii., which I suppose had been written already, before the authoress had determined on making Minerva so promin…
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