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Book Twelve
passage and down to 470 - only in the brief formulas 9ai8iuos "EKTCOP and
VUKTI Got), cf. bT to 22.61 (Priam's vision of the sack of Troy) 8ai|iovicos 5E
TOCOTCC UTT' oyiv f^yayEv EV (3paxEi, xpr\a6i\x£vos &ua Kal dirEpiEpycos TOCIS
Ai^ecrr ou yap \jvyop69ous f\ 8ai5aAfovs OaA&nous Aeyei O06E OuyotTpas
KCCAAIKOUOUS fj KaXXiCT9upous, dAA* d-TTfjAAaKTai TCOV ETTIOETCOV OCUTCO TOC
6uoTUXo0vTa TCOV CTtou&Tcov: see 22.6i~5n. Metrically the passage races
forward with many medial sentence-breaks, skewed sentences, light enjambments,
and two fine threefolder verses (464, 466).
The present are almost the circumstances that Akhilleus had envisaged
at 9.650-5, the eleventh hour at which he would intervene; almost, but not
quite, for the Trojans have only carried the wall and in the few moments
before they can reach the ships Zeus turns his eyes to other things (13.1-9).
The course of the Great Battle then repeats itself with a temporary Achaean
success followed by their decisive rout.
459 The Oaipoi are pivots, working in hollows cut in the threshold and
lintel, that served the same purpose as hinges, to secure the gate in position
and permit it to turn. Hektor does not burst the gate open; he smashes it
out of its seating in the masonry.
462—3 The comparison of an advancing warrior, bent on wreaking great
deeds, to night is all the more effective for being imprecise, cf. the descent
of Apollo at 1.47 VUKTI eoiKcos. Hektor's complexion, we are to imagine in
spite of his standard epithet 9ai6iuos in 462, is livid ('black as night 5 )
with the fury and effort of his attack. This contrasts, as Eust. noted, with the
terrifying flashing of his battle gear, AduTrE 8s yjxhK& | cruepSaAeco.
464 The adverbial oruepSaAeov (KCCO' ETEpav ypcKpfjv Eust.) would be a
more straightforward syntax, but oyepSccXko is secure as an epithet of
XCCAKCO at 13.192 in verses conceptually similar to 463-4.
465 For the alternatives OUK dv (most MSS) and ou KSV (Aristarchus) see
i3.288~9n. The vulgate reading (and lectio difficilior) ipUKOKOi for IpuKCCKev
(Aristarchus and some late MSS) is equally acceptable in the epic in the
sense 'would have held back', cf. 5.311 KOCI VU KEV EV0' d-rroXoiTO ... Aivsias,
'A would have perished', and the other examples cited in Goodwin, Syntax
161-2. The past indicative is the classical construction.
466 VOCT91 OECOV anticipates the intervention of Poseidon that immediately
follows (13.1 off.), m/pl 5' OCTCTE 665f|6i: Hektor is berserk, cf. 13.474
(a raging boar), 15.607 (Hektor), 15.623 (Hektor again), and the formula
9Xoyi EIKEAOS etc. (7 x ). He is Xv;aacb8r|s at 13.53. The image is apposite here
but already well-established, see 8.299, 9- 2 3^- 9-3°5- Blazing eyes (always
OCJCTE, not ouucrra or O90aX|ioi except at 13.474) are symptomatic of fury,
whether of battle-fury or plain anger, cf. 1.104, 19.16-17, 19.365-6, and
2X in Od. See also the remarkable description of Hektor at 15.605-10.
The neuter dual OCTCTE, like the neuter plural, construes with singular verb,
365