by Peter Wright

Page 266, Line 16. her mother. Tr. ‘kasignetoi’: kinsmen.

Page 267, Line 23. and seeketh of him not. Tr. ‘oude metalla’: nor inquires after him.

Page 268, Line 46. the whole-hoofed horses. i.e, solid-hoofed.

Page 271, Line 151. the folk-herd. Tr. ‘poimeni laon’: shepherd of the people.

Page 273, Lines 160-181 (esp. line 175). And hath ravished the goose that was cherished. This omen, foretelling from the eagle’s seizing the goose, that Odysseus will overcome the Wooers,  is repeated in Penelope’s dream in Book xix, lines 535-50.

Page 274, Lines 222-239. Melampus ... Neleus’ daughter … Phyla us ... Phylace. Neleus, ruler of Pylos, had declared that no man should wed his daughter Pero, who could not bring as a bride-price the prized cattle herd of Iphiclus (or his father Phylacus), lord of Phylace  (usually identified as Phylace in Thessaly: cf. Iliad, Book II, lines 695-10; though another Phylace in Southern Arcadia would seem more practicable for driving cattle from). Melampus, who had obtained, the first man to do so, gifts of prophecy and knowledge of the language of birds through snakes licking his ears after he had shown kindness to them, wished to win Pero as a bride for his brother Bias, and tried to steal those cattle. He was caught and imprisoned for a year, but won his release, and the cattle, by using his powers as seer to reveal potential trouble for his captor’s house, and cure Iphiclus of sexual impotence, and so he could wed Pero to Bias. The vengeance that Melampus took on Neleus, apparently for holding his goods during his year’s (forced) exile, seems peculiar to this version of the story. The ‘Wreaker’ (‘Erinus’) in line 234 is one  the spirits who seek punishment for evil-doing, especially that perpetrated between kinsfolk; best known in Aeschylus as those who pursue Orestes for killing his mother.

Page 275, Lines 240-56. And there should he lord it after the Argive far and wide. Melampus obtained third shares in the Argive kingdom for himself and his brother in return for curing the daughters of its king Proetus of madness, then each wedding one of them.

Of the descendants, here named, of the two sons of Melampus, some noted as prophets in both lines, few have surviving legends concerning them. Cleitus became another of the victims of the Dawn goddess’s desire for handsome young men (cf. Book v. lines 121-2)

Polypheides’ new home at Hyperesia may have been in Attica.

For Amphiaraus, his treacherous wife, and his son Alcmaeon, see Note on Book xi, lines 327-8.

The passages about Theoclymenus here and in Books xvii and xx have been suspected of being interpolated because they are not necessary to the development of the story.

Page 275, Line 293. the lift. The air.

Pages 275-6, Lines 295-300. Crouni … Chalcis ... Pheae ... Elis ... the Epeians ... the Tapering Islands. The Epeians dominated Elis in the north-west Peloponnese. The other places will lie along the western coasts of Greece, In Greek the ‘Tapering Islands’ are ‘nesoi ..thoai’: sharp-pointed islands.

Page 277, Line 313. For 'the house Odysseus', read ‘the house of Odysseus’. Presumably a misprint.

Page 280, Line 404. where turneth the sun to go down. In Greek simply ‘tropoi heelioio’: the sun’s turnings; rising or setting not specified; taken sometimes as the solstice.

Page 281, Line 427. Taphian men. Cf. Note on Book i, line 186.

Page 282, Line 460. amber. Tr. ‘elektron’: not amber, but electrum.  cf. Note on Book iv, line 173.

Page 282, Line 461. my mother beworshipped. Tr. ‘potnia’, often tr. to ‘lady’, meaning a subject of reverence,  but rather of social respect than of religious adoration. Often later applied to Penelope, e.g. Book xix, lines 154, 262, 336.

Page 284, Line 522. sovereignty. Tr. ‘geras’: prize of honour.