by Peter Wright

Page 112, Line 20. that bare the pitcher’s load. Presumably on her head.

Page 113, Line 36. as a thought that flitteth. Introducing the magical swiftness of the Phaeacians’ ships; cf. lines 109, 321-8.

Page 114, Lines 58-60. Eurymedon high of mind ... the Giants in their pride ... And he wrecked his folk infatuated. The Giants of Hellenic myth are not unlike those of Nordic myth, whom Morris knew from the Eddas, opponents of the Gods dwelling on the margins of the world, massive and mighty, but uncouth. Nothing is certainly extant about Eurymedon or his people. One Giant so named was involved in some versions of the War of the Giants against the Gods (of which Homer does not seem to have spoken), and he or another was supposed to have raped Hera before her marriage to Zeus: Gantz, Early Greek Myth, 445-54. In line 206 the Giants are nevertheless admitted to be kin to the Gods.

Page 114, Lines 61-78. Nausithous ... Rhexenor ... Alcinous ... Arete ... her as a helpmate Alcinous wooed and won ... With such worship as no woman on earth hath had before Greek morality condemned as incestuous unions between parent and child and between full siblings, but allowed, and in Athens even encouraged, those between uncle and niece, as helping preserve the sacred rites that belonged to citizen families: cf. G. M. MacDowell, The Law in Classical Athens (Thames & Hudson, 1978), 5-7. The great authority accorded here, and in Book vi, 303-25, to Queen Arete is remarkable, compared with the normally patriarchal practices of Hellenic society, and half-tends to assist Samuel Butler’s theory of female authorship.

Page 115, Lines 80-1. unto Marathon hied she. Marathon, in a bay northeast of Athens, the center of an ancient league with its own rituals, but now chiefly famous as the site of the first great battle in which Hellenes defeated a Persian army. Although the poet usually suggests that the Phaeaciians dwelt west of Greece, the goddess seems to be approaching Athens from the northeast.

into Erechtheus’ homestead. In ancient times the shrine of Athens’ patron goddess would have been within the palace of its aboriginal kings, whose line included Erechtheus; it probably stood on the north side of the Acropolis, on the site later occupied by temples to her, and finally by the surviving Erectheum.    

Page 115, Line 87. the frieze. Tr. ‘thrinkos’: better ‘the cornice’.

Page 115, Line 91. dogs of gold and silver. These, and the ’serving swains of gold’ in line 100, are presumably active automata (cf. line 94), like the wheeled golden tripods that Hephaestus is making in Iliad, Book XVIII, 173-7.

Page 117, Lines 137-8. they poured forth wine … to the keen-eyed Argus-bane. Presumably a libation before sleeping; cf. Book v, 47-8.

Page 119, Line 197. the Dreadful Spinners. Tr. ‘Klothes’: the Fates who spin the threads of men’s destinies; not yet distinguished into a named triad.

Page 119, Line 206. the Cyclops. For whom see note on Book ix, 166.

Page 119, Line 216. the belly-beast. The belly compared (‘kunteros’) to a dog.

Page 121, Line 271. Poseidon the Earth-shaker. The poet has given Odysseus his own knowledge.

Page 121, Line 286. sleep … the God about me shed. Here simply ‘theos’, unidentified.

Page 123, Lines 323-6. Rhadamanthus … Tityus the great Earth’s very son. No myth is extant explaining why Rhadamanthus was ’following’ Tityus for such a distance, unless he was involved, as a judge, with Tityus’ sin, for which see  Book xi, 576-81. The Earth’s sons are often Giants: Hesiod, Theogony, 185.