Untitled - Get a Free Blog

Book Ten
75—8 The poet perhaps forgets the corslet in order to devote two and a
half lines to Nestor's splendid belt. It must be by chance that no corslets at
all are mentioned in this Book; the spies had good reason to be lightly
armed. 8copf)crcTonro at the end of 78 is obviously used in a general sense.
79 6TT6Tp£TT8: the intransitive sense 'give way to' (cf. Hdt. 3.36) occurs
only here in the epic.
80-1 The rhythm of the verse justifies a comma after sir' dyKcovos, but
with en' dyKcovos KE9CCAT)V eTraeipocs compare eir' dyKcovos K69aAf]v cxxsOe,
Od. 14.494. — ecjepeeiveTO uOOcp is the only occurrence of this middle in the
Iliad (4X Od., including epseivsTO uO8cp, 17.305). For other metrically motivated
middles, usually located before the bucolic diaeresis, see Meister,
Kunstsprache 19-20.
83 = 24.363 (with duppoo-irjv). VUKTOC 8I' 6p9vair|v (see 4 m.) is read here
but VUKTCC 81' duppoarnv in the parallel questions at 41 and 142. The variation
may be fortuitous, but in view of the close proximity of the occurrences
it suggests an unusual self-consciousness about repetitive diction.
84 Aristarchus thought the verse beside the point (ocKoapos) and linguistically
incompetent, since a synonym of 9uAac; (oOpos) was required
whereas oupsus = fjuiovos. His answer of course was athetesis (Arn/A).
85 TiTTTE 8E ae XP £C0 is Odyssean {Od. 1.225, 4-3 12 )-
87 Agamemnon uses the full form of address in beginning his conversation
with Nestor, in contrast to the familiar language which the Atreidai
brothers used towards each other. Nestor replies with the same formality at
103; both then assume a warmer tone (co yepov 120, no vocative at 129).
88 yvcoaeai: the future tense functions as a polite imperative.
89 Agamemnon, like other men (e.g. Asios, 12.164-6, Odysseus, Od.
5.303-5), blames Zeus when things go wrong, a tendency that the god
resented {Od. i.32ff.).
89-90 = 9.609-1 o (from eis 6 K S duTuf|). duT|if| is the hot breath (of life).
91 7rAd£ouai is either 'I am distraught', cf. 2.132, or more likely 'I am
wandering here because ...' For vf|8uuos (< tyev f\§\)\\os etc. by false
division according to Leumann, HW 44-5) see 2.i-2n. f|6unos, i.e.
pf)8u|Jios, is attested as a v.l. in many places but is otherwise not found in
the epic: f|8uuos without p is first found at HyHerm 241, 449, and [Hesiod]
fr. 330 M-W.
93-5 Agamemnon's symptoms of alarm, though not the language in
which he expresses them, are like those of Andromakhe (22.452-5).
94 dAaAuKTnucci, 'be troubled', is hapax legomenon in the epic: an Ionic
verb, the present dAi/KTeco being attested in Hippocrates (MM/. 1.5), cf.
dAi/KTd£co, Hdt. 9.70.
95 The pomposity of Agamemnon's calling his own limbs 9ai8iua is an
unintended consequence of the formular style, and so also must be the
165