Untitled - Get a Free Blog

Book Eleven
who found their intended victim too hot to handle (so bT), as the following
simile makes clear. Zenodotus read PIETCX oxpicn, 7rf)ua 8E lAaav, which at
least gives the right sense.
414-18 A boar simile, cf. 5.78off., 12.1461!., 13.471—5, and i7.28iff.,
also [Hesiod], Aspis 386-91 (a fine description with details unknown to the
Iliad). The boar is a good figure for truculent counter-aggression when
under attack, as the lion represents primary aggression.
419 All 91A0S is one of the Iliad's most frequent generic epithets (17X ),
though only here and at 473 applied to Odysseus. It is remarkable that the
word is absent from the Odyssey, the Hymns, and the Hesiodic corpus (including
Aspis).
420-7 When a warrior is hard pressed by superior numbers he retreats
until he is received into the ranks of his own side, cf. the retreat of Aias
(563-74). It is therefore unusual that Odysseus stands his ground and
engages in a small aristeia culminating in a minor duel. He does not retreat
till 461.
422 06cova: there are two other Trojans named Thoon, 5.152 and 12.140
cf. 13.545, both slain. "Ewouov: too much attention should not be paid to
the personnel in these uncommented lists of slain. An v Evvo|ios oicoviorrjs,
for example, alive at 17.218, was commander of the Mysians at 2.858-60
where he is expressly stated to have been killed by Akhilleus c at the river'
(though he is not mentioned in books 20-1). Several MSS, including
B, read "Opuevov, probably by contamination with 12.187 ocuTap iTrerra
FFuAcova KCCI "Opuevov e^evdpi^ev ~ auTap emiTa 06cova KCCI "Opuevov
e^evdpi^ev.
423 =20.401 with e lTTTTo5d|iavTa for XsponSduavTa, as if the jingle -
8d|iavTa ... dt^avTcc stuck in the poet's subconscious mind. XEpaiSduavTa:
only here.
424 TrpoTurianv: ancient commentators were generally agreed that this
rare word denoted the belly or even the dcrtpOs, 'crotch' (where Homeric
decency forbade anyone to be wounded, according to T); for that location
cf. Tyrtaeus fr. 10.25 West. The exception was the doctor Phylotimos who
took the word to mean the neck (Arn/A).
425 dyoorco: 'with crooked hand' (?), only in the extended formula 6 6'
ev Kovirjcn Treacov eAe yalccv dyoorco (5X //. of which this is the first occurrence,
not in Od. or the Hesiodic corpus, in neither of which would there be
much use for it). The precise sense and the etymology are uncertain.
426-7 Kharops and his brother Sokos ('Strong', probably, cf. 20.72)
appear only in this episode. Another son of Hippasos (or a Hippasos), one
Hupsenor, is killed at 13.411. There are many such minor links between
books 11, 12, and 13, indicating that these books of battle narrative form
some kind of internal unit within the Iliad. A Hippasos also begat the
Paeonian Apisaon (17.348), on whom see 577-9511. Kharops is one of those
271