Τhe LSJ has “if really, if indeed, Il.3.25, etc.”. However, this usage would seem to go much better with the next definition “esp. even if, even though, Il.7.117, Od.1.167, etc.;” And Leaf’s note is “εἴ περ ἄν, even if, B 597”. The Supplement updates the entry for εἴπερ, but doesn’t correct this. Is it an error, or am I missing something?
I can only comment from my own limited experience, but the comparison below of Merry & Riddell and the Oxford commentary from Heubeck, West & Hainsworth (1988) for a short passage from Book 6 should give you a good idea of the difference. Merry is much more exegetical and tends to quote and interpret from the scholia a lot, sometimes without attribution e.g. the discussion of the prepositions in ὑπεκπρορέει - we had a discussion about the scholia relating to this word last week in the Odyssey reading group.
Heubeck &al. are more selective in what they comment on but there’s lots of stuff that wouldn’t have been available to Merry & Riddell, such as the discussions of IE roots. They quite often send you off to another book to read more.
I’ve found that Merry is so profuse that it’s quite fun to read, whereas Heubeck can be more useful but is very terse. The discussion of species of grass by Merry at line 90 led me on to look into Doorba, more commonly known as doob grass and possibly the source of the word doobie. Completely irrelevant but completely delightful. I can’t comment on whether there are any huge problems with Merry’s approach, but others might have opinions.
Ameis - Heintze has the same note referring to B597.
Willcock translates it in his notes as:
“He eats it eagerly (μάλα), even though the dogs and men run at him.”
I wonder what the entry looks like in the latest edition of the LSJ.
I thought perhaps there was a later edition than that containing the Supplement, but after a little research saw that that edition is the latest, so perhaps they need to correct their punctuation next time round.
