uadey : Te) Ss" of the ol specific objections which follows is indeog te list 0 pressive? for 207 lines of text Page cit, Gat, ress snow later, there are several S 32 «etn, all endeavor £0 & idable array of i Plausipy, , rg, As wil tions for this forme Y of irregularities “Sto, cal Ce “ely correct about every one of them, Howe ® Page 1 nat he is in fact not correct about most ever, jeast twenty-two of the thirty-two seem to me to be oF them sible errors of Page rather than of Homer.® Let ug Probable A twenty-two briefly? View the 1. line 237 einsiv bg Bou: a late grammatical use to Page, but explained by L. R. Palmer ? as an indirect accor, li not an indirect statement, and thus perfectly regular fo Uestio, réqov epandy: explained by Van der vane 8 Who 2. 1, 242, %0° gives two similar examples, as a type of expression h Characte,. Cteristi CE ic Jang" 8 0, of the poet of the Odyssey. 3 Page, op. cit, p. 11%. « Ibid., p. 102. 5 T must admit, and it is perhay i 1 n : ips obvious, th Tings. For a more thorough treatment of Pintean Not a special eee a a of course he should ais T refer the ry in tee ae aris, 1953, 1958) Consult P. ler iguage of Homer (Cambridge, nea) T tea: Shipp, ‘sat at John Fino! inley’s new study of the Odysse ohana ¢ ‘Y appeared too |; A le * : nguage of Homer”, in We" ea ee? and Stubbin; ings, P. 158. ® Van der Valk, , Textual Critic cism, pp. 52- + 52-53.THE LAERTES SCENE 47 1, 245, «3 rot xowdh yet: Page calls this an “idiom of later 3: put there is no need to understand this expression as an es and xous8h as “care” is a specifically Homeric, not a late, idiom, word. » A r ‘ cg . 1 247, obx Byxvn 0b meaarh: This synizesis is not clearly ir- : Page himself cites four other Homeric examples. 5, 1. 250, adypets: “‘abyuety and its cognates are foreign to the omesic poems,” says Page, but this is an argument from silence, pout a rather unusual word, . 1. 251, depying: a perfectly regular formation from depyéc (ike, as Page himself admits, xaxoepyin in Od. 22.374.) * | 1, 252, BotAetov: another argument from Homeric silence. Found in cognate forms six times in Homer. It is a peculiar fact that Homer did not make more use of the Soikog words, but that fact does not impugn this passage, as Homer clearly knew the stem jon, and Bothoc itself (though not used by Homer) is found on the Pylos tablets. Exbse demonstrates that the -e10¢ termination has good parallels, but Shipp (p. 362) says it is a Doric formation, 8 1. 252, émnpémet: another argument from silence. This is a perfectly ordinary Homeric formation; e.g. uerampéme is a favorite compound in Homer. 9. 1. 252, dptigewv: Page says that in the Homeric poems, “qgn-compounds are very rare.” But they arerarealsoin later Greek literature, if we distinguish between later compounds formed from en, “just, newly,” which Homer does not use, and those formed from dpnioc, “complete, sound,” which he does use. dpcigeay is clearly of the latter type, similar to the ‘rare’ but characteristically Homeric deriemfg and &primoc. 10, 1. 268, gidfav: an interesting example of Page’s methods. Our critic reaches the height of his courtroom style on this rather tenuous objection; beginning with an “It is obvious that—” he goes on to call his opponents “contortionists,” and concludes his note with a resounding “‘no Greek ever repeated this blunder.” The gist of his argument, restated somewhat less passionately, is this: the author of 1. 268 has used giAlwv as the nom. sing. compara- tive of gio, This, according to Page, is an impossible, un-Greek * Tam grateful to the editors of Mnemosyne for pointing out that depying (ith long iota) can also represent deyeins. This is a regular derivation from * &-Feprfc, a conpound that is paralleled by Mycenean ke-re-si-jo weke KenauaFepis.RTES SCENE pus LAB ; : on a misreading of 8 an itt ase omparative adjective? 950 fh jon, 29 easly” fl its * Dut iat oti “obvious adjective Page a does a tthe et let inns (we problem about Te aoe ae 1S that ae i pie Of Spe maior and Lang, and CB Palmer in thei thy c m Scott—the “contortionisty» “i tray of ft, i jadell an Page’s reading of the erg; 0! Wh aks) 4886" as in xxiv Homer formed the tl be think that t gra would urge that their ready Pat ‘nog Hike oe a following grounds: the whole section is of 31 iso ct OF ote the important first words) reads, ft hi not qu? cere 0pevOS, Be /Eelvov amredanéy a Tre gph bo par stranger” begins Penelope, adi area tu, a seus and then she finds it ecessary to pa t Odyseert this affectionate word “git""—"(r gy Diy per sudden use 1 s0 wise has ever come to my house mor, de ty se hoses the habit of calling strange beggars « an elope § in the interview she has limited herselg ene until this pow which she has used six times. Now, however tl severe “BN anger is over; she is satisfied that he is no ee testing of bee suspects that he is Odysseus himself), and she fxd Psias PE ate form of address. The 89 which fling hat her next words will give Parenthetically hee pa he word “glx.” Page's reading, ‘“no man 80 wise he "neglects the logical structure of the sen, ter indicates ¢ ‘he entire interview. 77 a. 1 273 Eewhua: Page's comment is “our poet was unaware that Zewhuov is established in use in the epic as a substantive, not fs an adjective.” But Eeorhia as an adjective with 88pa is clearly the older, fuller form for which the substantive Eewha is an ab- herefore unlikely to have been the contribu. breviation; it seems t ; tion of the late, ignorant Athenian whom Page urges on us as the author of the episode. Also, like “our poet,” I was unaware that Homer had “established” any list of officially approved forms Erbse (p. 210) thinks, however, that the word is used here as ¢ substantive, in apposition with 86. He cites several parallels, 12. 1.286, fevln: occurs also in 1. 314. Zev- for Eetv- occurs several times in the earlier books of the Odyssey, though not in the Iliad; the formation seems therefore unobjectionable. 13. and 14. I 319 and 320, mpoBrube and émdduevos: PageTHE LAERTES SCENE 49 finds these words (although Homeric) ‘insensitive’ and ‘unsuitable.’ Like Aristarchus, he would presumably like to excise any Homeric expressions which seem to him excessively vivid or vigorous. It is a matter of taste. But the fact remains that there is no linguistic objection to these words. 15. 1 341, évounvas: évouatve is a fairly common Homeric word, usually meaning ‘repeat,’ ‘name,’ or ‘say.’ Here, to be sure, it is sed with an implication of promising, but naming is also implied. shipp (p- 362) cites two examples with similar meaning from the Iliad. Perhaps the use with future infinitive is a bit odd, but the sense is clear and the form évoyatve definitely not “remote from the old Epic.” 16. 1. 342, Biarpbyto¢: Page’s only comment is “His Suatphyiog js, as one might hope, unique.” It is not, however, entirely clear why ‘one might hope’ this; Stazpuytog is a seed-catalogue sort of word, presumably of limited usefulness in philosophy, history, tragedy, and so on, which would explain its absence from other Greek literature, but no doubt extremely useful in the daily con- verse of the grape-grower. Analogously, the English word “ever- bearing” does not find a place in Webster's New Collegiate Dic- tionary, but anyone who cultivates strawberries knows and uses the word. Much circumlocution would be needed if “everbearing” did not exist, and dtaxptrytog is a useful word of exactly the same kind. That in Homer's time there were some grape varieties with the characteristic of bearing continuously throughout the summer is indicated by vii, 122 ff. The da—is, however, odd. xy. 1. 343, nv: this word, which Page calls “another monster,” occurs several other times in Homer, and only in Homer. It is hard, then, to see how it can possibly be evidence for late authorship. 18. 1. 343, év&: the adverbial use without tmesis is rare, but can be found in Iliad XVIII, 562, in a sentence which, interestingly enough, is also about vines. It is certainly not a ‘late’ or Attic usage, and therefore, like the previous example, does not seem to give much help to Page’s case. 19. 1. 360, xpofmeu’: occurs contracted also in Iliad VIII, 357 Odyssey xxi, 354, etc., but perhaps Page and others are right in ‘correcting’ these. Perhaps, too, they are wrong. Erbse (p. 217) cites g00d parallels. 20. 1. 388, & Epywv poytovres: a logical usage. There is room for argument (and there is argument) as to whether poyeiv means