10
Heading Νηρίτῳ instead of Νηίῳ, cf. Book xiii. 96, &c., and 351, where the same harbour is obviously intended.
11
12
The mountain is singular, as though it were an isolated mountain rather than a range that was in the mind of the writer. It is also singular, not plural, in the parallel cases of xv. 175 and xix. 538.
13
Reading ὑπονηρίτου for ὑπονηίου,
14
The reader will note that the fact of Orestes having also killed his mother is not expressly stated here, nor in any of the three other passages in which the revenge taken by Orestes is referred to – doubtless as being too horrible. The other passages are
15
For fuller translation and explanation why I have bracketed the passage, see Chapter VI.
16
It is curious that the sleeping arrangements made by Helen for Telemachus and Pisistratus, as also those made for Ulysses by Queen Arete (vii. 336, &c.), though taken almost verbatim from those made by Achilles for Priam and Idicus (
17
For explanation why I bracket this passage see Chapter VI.
18
Scheria means "Jutland" – a piece of land jutting out into the sea.
19
Gr. πάππα φίλ', line 57.
20
Penelope and Calypso also had gardens: so had Laertes (xxiv. 217). I remember no allusion to them in the
21
It is a little odd that this disc should have been brought, considering that none such were used by the Phæacians. We must suppose that Minerva put it in along with the others, and then shed a thick darkness over it, which prevented the attendants from noticing it.
22
Alcinous never seems to have got beyond saying that he was going to give the cup; he never gives it, nor yet the talent – the familiar ῶς εἰπὼν ἐν χερσὶ τίθει κ.τ.λ. is noticeably absent. He found the chest, and he took a great deal of pains about stowing the presents in the ship that was to take Ulysses to Ithaca (see xiii. 18, &c.), but here his contributions seem to have ended.
23
Dwellers on the East coast of Sicily believe the island here referred to to be Acitrezza, between Acireale and Catania. I have been all over it and do not believe that it contains more than two acres of land on which any goat could ever have fed. The idea that the writer of the
24
See Chapter xv. for reasons why I have bracketed lines 115 – 137.
25
Ulysses was to appease Neptune's anger by going as a missionary to preach his name among a people that did not know him.
26
The want of coherence here is obvions, but as it is repeated when Ulysses ought to come to the wandering cliffs (which he never does) it must be referred to a
27
I suppose this line to have been added when lines 426 – 446 of this book were added.
28
The wandering cliffs are certainly intended, for when Ulysses is recapitulating his adventures in Book xxiii. he expressly mentions having reached the πλαγκτὰς πέτρας, just after the Sirens, and before Scylla and Charybdis (xxiii. 327). The writer is determined to have them in her story however little she may know about them.
29
I incline to think that these lines are an after thought, added by the writer herself.