by Peter Wright

Page 33, Line 4. The Burg of Neleus. Nestor’s father Neleus [A], from Thessaly (for his ancestry, see Note on Book xi, 235-59.), established himself at Pylos in the south-west Peloponnese, which an aggrieved Heracles sacked, killing all his sons except Nestor; cf. Iliad, book xi, 688-92.

the … Earth-shaker. Poseidon was already the leading god worshipped at Pylos in Mycenaean times, as the Linear B tablets found thee witness: Burkert, Greek Religion, 136.

Page 34, Line 36. Pisistratus son of Nestor. This younger son, not mentioned, unlike his brother Thrasymedes (below line 39), in the Iliad, has a place in legend only for his meeting and journeys with Telemachus. His name was later born by another Pisistratus, who, claiming Neleid descent, ruled Athens continuously 546-27. That shared naming, and a few scattered ancient reports that he, or his younger son Hipparchus, had some regulation done to the Homeric epics, possibly requiring the rhapsodes who recited them to perform them in full at festivals, and not, merely the most vivid and popular episodes, led to 19^th-century German philologists putting forward a theory that the Pisistratids of 6^th-century Athens were responsible for compiling those epics into their current form out of earlier heroic lays. That theory has now been largely abandoned. (The Athenians were hardly glorified in the Iliad as we have it: their only substantial appearance in the fighting is during the assault on the Achaean wall, when their leader, not from their traditional Erechtheid dynasty, alarmed at attacking Trojan allies, hastily appeals for help from the greater Ajax: Iliad, Book XII, 329-51.

Page 34, Line 42. Zeus the Shielded. Tr. ‘aigiochoios’: The god as wearer of a mantle made of goatskin (also sometimes worn by Athena), which served for both defence and attack: in Book xxii, lines 298-9, Athena uses it to terrify the Wooers. For a description of the aegis, Iliad, Book V, 736-44.  Morris occasionally later speaks of Zeus as ‘aegis-bearer.

Page 35, Lines 73-5. As the strong-thieves of the waters. Thucydides, in the discussion of early Greek politics and society that opens the first book of his History, probably reflecting on these lines, notes, in Ch. 5, that in that ancient period it was not reckoned discourteous to ask strangers arriving by sea whether they were engaged in piracy.

Page 36, Line 78. great grace. for ‘mega kudos’: great glory

Page 36, Line 91. by Amphitrite’s billows. Amphitrite, a daughter of the sea-god Nereus, was later recognised as the official consort of Poseidon.

Page 37, Line 110. Patricclus. This mention of Achilles’ friend immediately after the great heroes Ajax and Achilles suggests that the poet, though he does not refer to any actual events in the Iliad, was fully aware of the important part that Patroclus played in that epic.

Page 37, Line 111. [HO 112] Antilochus my son. Antilochus, prominent among the younger Achaean warriors at Troy, a sympathetic companion to Achilles in his grief after Patroclus’ death, also in Book XXIII  a good runner and daring charioteer, was killed soon after, defending his father Nestor under attack by the Aethiopian champion Memnon, son of the Dawn Goddess by the Trojan prince Tithonus (brother of King Priam), see Book iv, 186-7; Greek Epic Fragments, ed. West, 111-13; Pindar, Pythian Odes, no. vi, lines 28-42. 

Page 38, Line 135. the Wrath of the Grey-eyed Goddess. (cf. below, line 145: the dreadful Wrath of Athena) The anger of Athena, who had devotedly championed the Achaeass throughout the Trojan War, was later said to have been roused against them by the lesser Ajax, the Locrian, son of  Oileus, during the sack of Troy, seizing the Trojan prophetess Cassandra from the image of that goddess at which she had taken refuge and raping her: cf. below, Book iv, 500. Euripides, Trojan Women, lines 65-76, confirms this motive for the goddess.

Page 38, Line 159. Tenedos. A small island a little south-west of Troy.

Page 39, Line 167. the son of Tydeus. (Cf. below, lines 180-1 Tydides ... Diomede, Tamer of Horses) Tydeus, son of the Aetolian king Oeneus, married in exile a daughter of Adrastus, king of Argos, and took part, as one of the "Seven against Thebes" in the war between the sons of Oedipus, in which he was killed. His son Diomedes, prominent in the Iliad, where and elsewhere he was a comrade of Odysseus in dangerous enterprises, had a claim to rule at Argos: sf. Iliad, Book II, 559-68. Later legend told how his wife’s misconduct drove him into exile in Italy, where he appears briefly in the Aeneid: Book 11, 225-95, refusing to fight the Trojans any more. [tr. Morris, pp.  319-22]

Page 39, Lines 169-78. Lesbos … Chios …Euboea … Geraestus. The part of the Achaean fleet which Nestor had joined had two choices, either to sail near the west coast of Asia Minor, keeping under the shelter of the islands, close to it, of Lesbos and Chios, or to sail directly across the Aegean south-west towards the long island of Euboea, lying parallel to Boeotia, whose south-eastern cape is at Geraestus. (Psyria is an islet west of the north end of Chios.) In the event, Poseidon’s omens direct them to follow the open-sea route, and they reach home safely. 

Page 39, Line 188. the Myrmidon folk. The warriors from Phthia in Thessaly, whom Achilles led to Troy: see e.g. Iliad, Book II, 681-94; Book XVI, 255-6. Their name was later derived from an etymological legend: Achilles’ grandfather, the pious Aeacus, ruling in Aegina, had lost most of the people of that island to a drought. He prayed for a remedy to his father Zeus, who transformed a swarm of ants (‘myrmekes’) into a new people for him. His son Peleus brought that name, and some followers, to his Thessalian exile.

Page 39, Line 189. the son of great-heart Achilles. Achilles’ mother Thetis, to evade a prophecy that he would die if he fought at Troy, concealed him, disguised as a girl, on the mid-Aegean isle of Scyros, whose king’s daughter Deidameia loved him. (The fullest ancient narrative is in Book 1 of the ‘Silver-Age’ Roman poet Statius’ unfinished Achilleis, where the love is presented as mutual.) The son whom she bore to him, called Pyrrhus from his red hair and later Neoptolemus ‘young warrior’, was called to Troy after his father’s death to take his place as an Achaean champion. (Some traditions held that it had taken the Achaeans almost ten years to assemble their forces and make their way to Troy, (cf. Iliad,  Book XXIV. 765), so that Achilles’ son had time to reach fighting age by the tenth year of the siege.) When the city was captured, he slaughtered the aged Trojan king Priam, as is told in the Aeneid, Book 2, 499-558. For his later fate, see Note on Odyssey, Book iv, 3-9.

Page 39, Line 190. the son of Poias, Philoctetes. When Heracles, his flesh in torment from the poisoned robe sent by mistake by his last wife Deianeira, had built a funeral pyre on Mount Oeta to consume his mortal body, he gave his bow and poisoned arrows to a passing shepherd, Poias, or his son Philoctetes, as a reward for setting fire to it. Philoctetes, whose domain was in Thessaly, was brought to Troy after being marooned for ten years on Lemnos with a snakebite (See Iliad, Book II, 716-25.), and used those weapons to give Paris the mortal wound which his deserted lover Oenone refused to heal, as is told in ‘The Death of Paris’ in Morris’s Earthly Paradise, in lines 111-60.

Page 40, Line 191. Idomeneus … unto Crete. Idomeneus, king of Crete, son of Deucalion and grandson of Minos, led the Cretan contingent to Troy, where he was prominent as a veteran warrior in the Achaeans’ great defensive battles in Iliad, Books XI-XVII. For Odysseus’ later apparent fictions about him, see Odyssey, Books xiii, xiv, xix.

Page 40, Lines 193-200. the son of Atreus … Aegisthus for him wove woeful bane … the son of the murdered ... slew his father’s bane. Again a parallel (cf. lines 203-8) between Orestes’ vengeance for his father Agamemnon and Telemachus’ possible slaying of the Wooers. Homer nowhere states directly that Orestes also killed his mother Clytemnestra, though he does celebrate his father’s death-feast over ’his baleful mother’ (line 310). (In the Attic tragedies on that theme she is the prime mover in her husband’s betrayal and slaying: in line 235 her ‘woeful wiles’  are partly blamed for his death, but lines 283-95 show Aegisthus taking the initiative in removing the guardian bard left with her and then seducing her. despite her initial reluctance.)

Page 40, Lines 218-19. the Grey-eyed Athena would befriend thee, as … she cherished Odysseus. For Athena’s particular involvement with Odysseus at Troy, e.g. Iliad, Book II, 155-81; Book X, 460-4; Book XXIII, 768-82.

Page 41, Line 245. o’er three generations of men ... hath he been the king. In the Iliad, Book I, 250-1, Nestor is said to have survived two mortal generations, his contemporaries and their children, and to be ruling at Pylos over a third. Reckoning thirty years to a generation, this probably meant that he is in his sixties. Here, with his description as ’deathless’, there is an approach to the later misunderstanding by which he would be almost a centenarian at Troy (and his sons rather old to fight there.).

Page 42, Line 248. Where then was Menelaus? That king’s rather extended eight-year voyage home from Troy, (see lines 311-12, and Book iv, 80-99); let Aegisthus rule for eight years (see lines 315-6).

Page 42, Lines 263. In the nook of Argos. For Homer, it was not at Agamemnon’s royal seat at Argos or Mycenae (cf. line 305), as in the versions in Attic tragedy, that he was killed, but at Aegisthus’  home elsewhere in Argos, to which he had been invited for a feast, see Book iv, 512-535 [HO 513-37]; Book xi, 409-34.

Page 43, Line 278. Sunium. The south-western cape of Attica.

Page 43, Line 282. Phrontis son of Onetor. ‘Thoughtful’ son of ‘Helpful’

Page 43, Line 285. that he might bury his fellow. It was a duty of kinsmen or comrades to bury with proper rites the dead, whose ghosts could not otherwise enter fully into the company of spirits in Hades: cf. Elpenor’s appeal to Odysseus, Book xi, 50-80; and that of Patroclus to Achilles, Iliad, Book XXIII, 69-76. 

Page 43, Lines 287-90. that steep headland of Malaea … the blast of the wind. The high cape of Malea, ending the easternmost of the three extremities of the Peloponnese, produced storms making it difficult for sailing vessels to pass safely until well into the Middle Ages: cf. H. F. M.  Prescott, Once to Sinai (Eyre & Spottiswode, 1957), 232-4, 237.

Page 43, Lines 291-300. unto Crete… Cydonian folk … The outermost ss of Gortys … against the leftward ness To Phaestus … anigh the Egyptian shore. The Cydonians dwelt in the western end of  Crete, while Gortyn stood in central Crete, south of  Mount Ida, with Phaistos (where a major Minoan palace has been uncovered), near the coast. a little to the southwest. Apparently, Menelaus’ fleer, storm-driven past that western end, were mostly blown by a southwest wind back against the middle of the dangerously rocky southern coast of Crete. The few which escaped shipwreck there were driven south towards the coast of Egypt.

Page 44, Line 306-9. came Orestes … he betook him home from Athens and slew ...  Aegisthus. In later versions Orestes had been in exile in Phocis, protected by its ruler Strophius, husband of a sister of his father, and only came to Athens afterwards to be purified of the guilt for his mother’s slaying. 

Page 44, Line 324. twi-car. Tr. ‘diphros’: A two-horse chariot.

Page 44, Line 350. guest-friends. Tr. ‘xeinoi’: It was the Hellenic practice for friends to provide a mutual exchange of hospitality when one visited the other’s house.

Page 46, Line 366. those …  Cauconians. The Caucones were a people dwelling in Elis in the northwest Peloponnese.

Page 46, Line 347. owed unto me is increase. Tr. ‘Chreios’: in the Greek does not mean interest, but simply a debt.

Page 46, Line 378. the Trito-born. The meaning of this title is uncertain: possibly there was some association with water, as in the name of Poseidon‘s spouse Amphitrite. A lake called Tritonis, where in one legend the goddess was born, was discovered, by the Hellene colonists of Cyrene, near the coast of eastern Libya. A later legend had the water-god Triton as foster-father of Athena.   

Page 46, Line 391. in its eleventh year. Nestor’s sweet wine has been kept for rather longer than the period of up to five years for which most ancient vintages could easily be preserved.

Page 47, Line 394. Athena, Zeus the Shield-bearer’s May. i.e, the maiden of aegis-bearing Zeus. See Note to Book ii, line 42.

Page 47, Line 399. the echoing cloister. Tr. ‘aithousa’: a corridor with openings to let in sunlight. Kings’ houses described in Homeric epic had apparently in their entrance courtyards a roofed ‘portico’ on posts, where, as here, beds for guests could be set: cf. Book xv, line 5; Book xxi, line 390. Morris usually styles them ‘cloisters’.

Page 47, Lines 413-6. Echephron … Stratius … Perseus … Arêtes ... Thrasymedes. Of the six surviving sons of Nestor only Thrasymedes is occasionally mentioned in the Iliad.

Page 48, Lines 430-472. An early and well-detailed description of how ancient sacrifice of beasts was conducted, providing nourishment first for gods and afterwards for men; cf. W, Burkert, Greek Religion, tr. J. Raffan (Blackwell, 1985),.esp. 555--59.. Homer’s heroes were great meat eaters; but in later periods ordinary people most often got meat to eat from organized sacrifices:  hence the early Christians’ difficulty, witnessed in St. Paul’s epistles, about meat offered to idols.

Page 48, Line 445. the barley-sprinkling. It was the custom to cast barley grains at the victim; cf. line 447.

Page 49, Line 464. bathed by Polycaste the fair. An entry in the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women (fr. 12) had Telemachus later wedded to this daughter: Hesiod, Homeric Hymns, & Homerica, ed. H.G Evelyn-White (Heinemann, Loeb Libr. rev, edn. 1936), p 163.

Page 49, Line 468. a frock. Tr. ‘chiton‘: a tunic.

Page 50, Lines 488-9. Pherae. Not the city in Thessaly, where Admetus reigned, but a place in Messenia, northeast of the Messenian gulf. 

Page 50, Line 488-9. Diocles … Orsilochus .. Alpheus. Diocles (one of the few really minor characters who appear in both Homeric epics) had twin sons, one named for his grandfather, who were both killed, fighting at Troy, by Aeneas; Menelaus, their father’s neighbor, wished to avenge them: Iliad, Book V, 542-64. Diocles’ grandfather was the god of the River Alpheus, which flows from Arcadia through southern Elis (in the Iliad Pylian territory),  past the precinct of Olympian Zeus.