William Morris Archive

by Peter Wright 

Page 1, Line 8. the Rider of the Air. See note on line 28 below.

Page 2, Line 18. Calypso. the ‘coverer’ or ‘concealed’; probably so named from her function in the story.                The Godhead’s glory translates ‘dia theaon’ to  ‘divine among goddesses’.

Page 2, Line 24. Poseidon. For the cause of his enmity to Odysseus, see, below lines 73-79, and Books v and ix.

Page 2, Line 26. The Aethiopians. In the Iliad, Book I, 423-25, all the Gods are for some time absent from their normal seat on Olympus, feasting with the Aethiopians by the Ocean, where great sacrifices are offered: cf. Iliad, XXIII,  205-6. Here only Poseidon has gone to that offering of bulls. The sacrifice ‘a hundred fold’, reported in line 29, refers literally to one of a hundred of beasts, a ‘hecatomb’, but when mentioned, often, later in the epic, probably signifies only a large-scale offering. 

Page 2, Lines 27-28. sundered atwain ….where the High Rider setteth and … where he riseth again. The Aethiopians, ’Burnt-faced men’, were imagined as having skins darkened by their closeness to the course of the Sun, far to the south of lands inhabited by Hellenes. By the time the Odyssey was being composed, a distinction was being drawn, as here, between Aethiopians dwelling in ‘Libya’ (Africa), where Herodotus, in his History, Book 3, chiefly places them up the Nile, and those in the far East (i.e. in India), from which  Memnon, son of the Dawn Goddess, led his people to the aid of Troy: cf. below, Note on Book. iii, line 111.

Page 2, Line 28.  the High Rider. Here translating ‘Hyper-Ion’, the ‘Goer Above’, referring either, as probably here, to the Sun-God, ‘Helios’, or occasionally to the Titan of that name, his parent and possibly predecessor as ruler of the sun, whom Keats chose as the titular character of his unfinished epic of 1819.

Page 2, Lines 33-47. Aegisthus  …. Orestes, Agamemnon’s son. Cf. ‘Dramatis Personae’.  Often in the Odyssey, e.g. in Books i-iv, xi, and xxiv, a parallel is suggested between the contrasting themes of  Odysseus with the loyal wife Penelope and son Telemachus, who protect his honor, and Agamemnon, slain by his enemy Aegisthus and his faithless wife Clytemnestra and to be avenged by his son Orestes, who is later, e.g. in lines 300-02 [HO 298-300 ], offered as an example for Telemachus to take revenge on the Wooers.

Page 3, Line 55. an isle of the circling Ocean. Homer does not here name ‘Ocean’ (for which see note on Book xi, line 13), but says the isle is ‘amphirutes’, ‘flowed around’.

the navel of the Sea. In the primitive Greek concept of their world’s shape, its flat disc had a center point or navel, ‘omphalos’, believed to be at Delphi: to find it Zeus had despatched from its eastern and western edges two eagles flying equally fast, who met at Delphi. So here the sea has also a navel, or point equally far distant from land.

Page 3, Line 57. Atlas the baleful. The giant Atlas, son of a Titan, had joined in their warfare against Zeus, and was condemned to keep apart Earth and Heaven.

all ocean wells. In Homer, the depths of the sea

Page 3, Lines 58-9. he holdeth in his hand The … pillars that sunder the heavens from the … land. Homer does not apparently imagine that Atlas actually supports the sky on his shoulders, as often shown later in art, from a metope (no. 10) (by implication) of the 5th-century temple of Zeus at Olympia, to the version by Burne-Jones, seventh in his initial series of the story of Perseus (now Southampton Art Gallery), where the giant’s shoulders bear the celestial globe. Rather he ’holds’/up (the hand is Morris’s insertion) long pillars that sever earth from heaven. In the 5th century, Aeschylus (in Prometheus Bound, 348--50) has Atlas bear the ‘pillar of earth and heaven’ on his shoulders. George Rawlinson suggests, in his translation of Herodotus’ History (tr. 1859, vol. II, p. 163, note on Book 4, ch. 184), that early Greek imagination confounded the great mountain range stretching across Northern Africa, which later bore Atlas’ name and gave it to the Atlantic Ocean, with the isolated ’heaven-reaching’ (12,000 ft.) peak of Teneriffe in the Canaries out in that ocean.

Page 4, Lines 74-6. For the parentage of the Cyclops, below, Book ix.

Phorcys. A sea-god, in myth ancestor mostly of monsters such as the Gorgons, the Chimera, the Sphinx, and Cerberus, the hound guarding Hades.

Page 4, Line 89. [ HO 85 ] the Slayer of Argus. (also ‘the Bane of Argus’ or ‘Argus-bane’) Here, and elsewhere, e.g. in Bk. v,  a regular epithet of the gods’ messenger, Hermes. Zeus, having seduced Ino, daughter of a river god in Argos, to avoid blame from his spouse Hera, changed Ino into a beautiful cow, which Hera claimed, and set the many-eyed giant Argus to keep watch over her. On Zeus’ orders, Hermes put Argus to sleep with his music and cut off his head. Ino, thus delivered, after many wanderings, came to Egypt and (in human shape) gave birth to a son, from whom descended in the sixth generation the king Acrisius, of whose ‘Doom’ Morris told in The Earthly Paradise, with the stories of his daughter Danae and her son Perseus.

Hermes the Flitter. Morris’s version of the epithet ’diaktoros’, usually taken to refer to Hermes’ function as guide of ghosts to the Underworld.  Morris may also have been thinking of the god’s flying sandals, mentioned in Bk. v. 44. 'Flittermouse' is a country term for a bat.

Page 4, Line 90. Ogygia. A purely mythical isle.

Page 5, Line 104. The mighty spear. Athena’s weapon as a goddess of war.

Page 5, Line 107. Olympus. The lofty mountain which is the seat of the Gods. Identified geographically with the almost 10,000  ft. peak, the highest in Greece, at the north end of the range east of Thessaly.

Page 5, Line 109. henchmen. Morris often translates (but cf. line 157) 'kerux', pl. 'kerukes'; a common Homeric word for those who bear messages and make announcements, not by the usual modern term; 'herald', but as ‘henchman’, meaning in late medieval English a personal attendant, often young, on persons of standing. He perhaps wished to avoid the association of the medieval heralds with the ‘coats-of-arms’ of the feudal aristocracy.

Page 5, Line 110. Mentes … the Taphian Chief. Mentes does not appear elsewhere in myth. The Taphians, noted as sea-farers (cf. line 185) and as pirates, ’sea-thieves’, especially kidnappers (See Book xv, 427; Book xvi, 426), occupied a range of small islands between Ithaca and the north-western Greek mainland. 

Page 5, Line 129. when thou hast tasted of meat. It was the custom of hospitality in heroic times to offer guests food before asking their business.

Page 6, Line 134. [HO 130] a chair ’thronos’. The most honourable and stateliest Greek seat, usually square-framed.

Page 6, Line 136. [HO 132] his painted seat ‘klismos poilkilos’.  A many-colored chair with curved supports. In line 149 (below) the Wooers use both types of seating. Homer usually envisages his people taking their meals seated, rather than reclining on couches as was the later Hellene practice at feasts.

Page 6, Line 141. the silver bowl for the washing. Homer’s people, like Europeans for many ages thereafter, having no forks, found it desirable to cleanse their fingers before, and sometimes after (cf. Book iii, line 338), handling their food. 

Page 6, Line 142. [HO 140] the polished board. Greek meals were usually served on one small table to each guest. In Book xxii, 73 [HO 74], Eurymachus suggests that the Wooers use their tables (‘boards’) to shield themselves from Odysseus’ arrows.

Page 6, Line 146. [HO 141] trenches. Tr. ’pinakes’: wooden platters.

Page 6, Line 150. [HO 147] maunds. baskets

Page 7, Line 160. [HO 156] the Grey-eyed. Morris is translating ‘glaukopis’, which can also mean ‘bright-eyed’ or ‘owl-faced’. The owl was Athena’s ‘totem’ bird. 

Page 7, Line 170. [HO 167] cherishing rede. Translating a word meaning ’warming’ counsel.  

Page 7, Line 177. [HO 173] Since afoot … thou camest to us not.  A standard jest addressed to visitors to an island; cf. Book xiv, line 290. Book xvi. line 59.

Page 8, Line 188. [HO 184] To Temesa seeking for brass, and bright iron I bear with me. Probably Mentes will voyage to a city in Cyprus, to acquire bronze (chalcos), obtainable in that island, famous for the mines of copper, to which it gave its name. In epic tradition iron, though by the time such poems were being composed it was becoming the chief material for tools, was still a rare and valuable metal, while bronze was the main substance used for weapons.

Page 8, Line 190. [HO 186] the woody Neion’s sides. Neion, the main mountain in the southern part of Ithaca, apparently rising above the royal house: cf. Bk. iii, 81. [WM] 

Page 8, Line 201. [HO 199] hoarded. detained

Page 8, Line 211. well waxen. well-grown

Page 9, Line 229. [HO 226] Is it a gild or a wedding? No meeted meal. Morris probably means by a ‘gild’ a common feasting like that shared by medieval guildsmen, and by a ‘meeted meal’ one performed in good order. Of the words he is rendering ‘eilapine’ means ‘a feast with a single host, and ‘eranos’ a communal feast.

Page 9, Line 230. [HO 227] with pride … swollen. Rendering ‘hubridzontes’: acting with wanton insolence, one of the worst offences against Hellenic ethics.

Page 9, Line 244. [HO 241] the Wights of the Whirlwind. The noisome, winged (female-headed) spirits (originally probably just whirlwinds) which in the Argonauts’ story foul and snatch away their host King Phineus’ food, and in the Aeneid that of the exiled Trojans. Morris called them in Jason, Book 5, the ‘Snatchers’, and in his Aeneid translation simply ‘Harpies’.

Page 10, Line 248. [HO 246] Dulychium or Same, or Zacynthus’ woody shore. These are the other three islands of the Cephallenian realm which Odysseus ruled. Dulichium is probably not the small island so named in classical times, which in the Iliad (Bk. II, 625-7) was under another leader Meges, but rather, since it produced almost half the 108 Wooers (See Bk. xvi, 247--51), and is called ’polupuros: rich in corn’ (Book xiv, 335 ), the larger Leucas, the most northerly of the group. Same is the middle island, the modern Cephallenia, which contained a place called Same/os, and Zacynthus (once Zante) whose ancient name has been reinstated, the most southerly.

Odysseus’ former realm, later the Ionian Isles, were almost the only Greek lands never to be subjected to the Turkish sultans. Possessed by Venice from the 15th century to 1797, they were controlled by Britain from 1815 (until ceded to Greece in 1864), during half Morris’s lifetime.

Page 10, Line 261. [HO 259] from Ephyra. Not Corinth, which was sometimes given that name in legendary tales, but a place on the west coast of Epirus, rather north of the Cephallenian isles.

Ilus, … Mermerus’ son. A Mermerus, a son of Jason and Medea (notorious for her skill at poisoning)  who had apparently escaped his mother’s knife and reached manhood, was in one story killed hunting near Corcyra, near that coast: Gantz, Early Greek Myth, vol. i, pp. 368, 372.

Page 11, Lines 277-80. [HO 275-8] thy mother … home to her father  … let her return ... And men will make her a wedding. The proposal is that Penelope’s possible second marriage would be arranged, presumably at Sparta, by her father Icarius, who would provide a substantial dowry, relieving Telemachus’ inheritance of that cost, and of the ‘wasting’ caused by her Wooers: cf. line 290. Her son believes, however, ( Bk. ii, 132-4) that if he insists she return to her father, he will have to return that dowry.

Page 11, Line 282. [HO 280] a twenty-banked ship. With twenty rowing benches, apparently for ten rowers each side; cf, Book ii, 212. In Jason, Morrs had provided some fifty heroes to row the Argo, so that in Greek terms it was a ’pernteconter’ with twenty-five oars a side..

Page 11, Line 287. [HO 285] tawny Menelaus. yellow-haired; cf. Book iii, 168.

Page 12, Line 329. [HO 327] Pallas’ heavy doom. Presumably the same cause of anger as in Book iii, 145. 

Page 12, Lines 330-2. [HO 328-30] the child of Icarius heard it above in the upper room … Down then from the stair high-builded of her house she cometh along. The imagined overall layout of the Homeric house is uncertain. It may not have been two-storeyed (though some Minoan and Mycenaean palaces were: R. Higgins, Minoan and Mycenaean Art, Thames & Hudson, 1967/77), pp. 18-23, 83-6), but, as this passage and similar ones show (e.g. Book xvi, line 449; Book xviii, line 206; Book xxi, line 4;  Book xxiii, lines 1, 85), was on more than one level, with the women’s quarters, where Penelope dwells, on a higher one than the hall (‘megaron’) where the men feast.

Page 13, Line 346. [HO 344] in Hellas. Here probably not the whole land of Greece, but the small region, in southern Thessaly, to which that name had originally been applied, only later being extended to the whole country.

Page 13, Line 352. [HO 350] the Danaans. A term usually applied to the Achaean warriors who fought at Troy, under the command of the king of Argos. Before the House of Atreus, that realm had been ruled by descendants of Danaus, great-great-grandson of Zeus and Io, for some eight generations.

Page 13, Line 358. [HO 357] the rock. the distaff that holds wool being spun

Page 14, Line 364. [HO 362] with wife and with serving-maid. Translating ‘sun amphpoloisi gunaixi’: with serving women; tr. in line 358 as ‘handmaids’.

Page 14, Line 389. [HO 387] the heirloom. The inheritance (Grk. ‘patroiaos’.)

Page 15, Line 396, 401. [HO 393, 401] King of Achaeans. In these lines, forms of ‘basileus’: king,  in the first refer to men of princely standing, and only in the second to an actual holder of royal authority.

Page 15, Line 408. Some wizard. Translating ‘theopropos’: prophet.

Page 16, Line 445. in the flower of the fleece. In ancient times no distinction was made,  as by the Central Middle Ages, between (linen) sheets next to the skin, and (woollen) blankets outside them. Bedding in the epic, piled up above and below the sleeper, consisted of blankets and coverlets. The prosperous Nestor, in Book iii, lines 351, offers his guests only ‘blankets’ and ‘rugs’. In Book xix, 326-8, 336-9, Odysseus declines such bedding, whereas in Book xx, 1-4, he accepts skins and fleeces. Here. Telemachus has the finest-woven wool for his bed. When, however, Odysseus was coming home on a Phaeacian ship, he was given a linen sheet to rest on over (?) his rugs; Book xiii, lines 74, 118.