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Book Nine
557 KccAAiacpupou (3X //., ix Od.): epithets of women are almost all
concerned with their appearance (|3a6u£covos, POCOUKOATTOS, ev/TrAoKauos,
f|UKO|ios, KOCAT|, AeuKcbAevos), those for heroes with their status and accomplishments.
KOcAAiacpupos excited bT's imagination: crr|ueTov eoriv au|j-
|i6Tpias acouaTos. Marpessa has the typical pre-Hellenic suffix -Tjaaa: her
rape by Apollo seems to have a falsely etymological basis, as if < u&pTnreiv.
Eur|vivr|: -\vr\ serves as a patronymic suffix, 'd. of Euenos', like 'A8pr|(7Tivr|
(5.412), cf. Risch, Wortbildung 101.
558-9 "I8eco 8 s , 6s ..., with 'irreducible' metathesis, illustrates vernacular
language adapted to epic techniques of verse-making, being a blend, as
it were, of "I86C0, 6s ... (cf. "AATECO, 6S ..., 2 I .86), where -eco may be reduced
to -a', and e.g. "ISccv 6\ 6s ... (cf. Aiveiav, 6s .. •, 11.58). The pattern of the
verse, name with or without connective + relative clause, is formular.
559-61 Idas drew his bow against Apollo, not in a contest for a bride as
560 seems to imply but, according to Paus. 5.18.2 (description of the Chest
of Kupselos), to defend his wife against the god's licentiousness. Idas was an
important figure in heroic saga. He and his brother Lunkeus sailed on the
Argo (Ap. Rhod. 1.152, etc.) and were slain in a quarrel over cattle by the
Dioskouroi (Cypria fr. 13 Davies, Pind. N. 10.60-70). Idas' father was
Aphareus, whose name (in the form Aphares) reappears as the name of
Althaie's brother (see 52411.). As frequently Homer gives the impression of
knowing more than he tells.
561-3 Kleopatre is apparently the heroine's original name replaced
within her family (TOTE ... KaAeeoxov) by Alkuone. The explanation is
whimsical; it is likely that Alkuone is primary and Kleopatre secondary,
possibly an invention for this story, as the oddity of this digression suggests
(so Schadewaldt, Iliasstudien 140). It would be fanciful, but perhaps not too
fanciful, to hear in the name Kleo-patre an echo of Patro-klos, the friend
with whom Akhilleus is now whiling away his time. E. Howald, RhM 73
(1924) 411, cf. Der Dichter der Mas (Zurich 1946) 132, first made this point,
but assumed that Patro-klos was secondary to Kleo-patre. The change of
name is suggestive that the poet invented this detail in order to improve the
fit of the parable.
563 OTTOV, 'fate', is barely sense but may stand in this very compressed
and allusive passage (OTKTOV, 'plaintive wail', Leaf, but cf. opvis, 6c irapa
7T€Tpivas TTOVTOU 8eipa8as, OCAKUCOV, lAeyov OTTOV [oiKTpov Barnes] &ei86is
Eur. IT 1089). What is meant is that Marpessa mourned as the &AKUCOV
mourned for its mate. OCAKUCOV is classically the name of the kingfisher, but
that bird does not sing, plaintively or otherwise; in spite of ornithology a
considerable mythology grew up around the bird, see Thompson, A Glossary
of Greek Birds (Oxford 1936) 46-51.
565 = 4.513. "nrecJCTEi, 'digest': Meleagros, like Akhilleus in the earlier
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