Odyssey, Books 11 and 12

Greek Homeric Greek and Early Greek Poetry
1
    1. βόθρον ὄρυξ᾽ ὅσσον τε πυγούσιον > ἔνθα καὶ ἔνθα

How should I read the last expression? Would you say that it is as
accompanied by some gesture indicating the size of the hole?
2. > 134. πᾶσι μάλ᾽ ἑξείης. > θάνατος δέ τοι ἐξ ἁλὸς αὐτῷ

  1. ἀβληχρὸς μάλα τοῖος ἐλεύσεται, ὅς κέ σε πέφνῃ

Though the sense of the passage as a whole is clear (i.e. he will die
of old), I’m not sure about the meaning of the expression ἐξ
ἁλὸς. Here is my interpretation: death will come from the sea to you
yourself (ἐξ ἁλὸς αὐτῷ), and you shall not have to go to the sea to
seek her (as it seems that you are doing now, with your dangerous
adventures through the sea), but instead she will come from the sea to
you (note the emphasis added by αὐτῷ). Do you see any problem with
this reading? I’ve checked some translations and it is rendered as
just as “out of the sea”.
3. > 341. κτήματ᾽ ἐνὶ μεγάροισι θεῶν ἰότητι > κέονται> .

κέονται → κεῖνται ?
4. > 347. τὸν δ᾽ αὖτ᾽ Ἀλκίνοος ἀπαμείβετο φώνησέν τε:

  1. ‘> τοῦτο μὲν οὕτω δὴ ἔσται ἔπος> , αἴ κεν ἐγώ γε
  2. ζωὸς Φαιήκεσσι φιληρέτμοισιν ἀνάσσω:

a. I’m not sure how should I read τοῦτο μὲν οὕτω. Does τοῦτο…ἔπος refer
to the words of his wife, or to the words that he is going to say?

(Context: his wife has ordered the men to give presents to Odysseus,
but an old Phaenician said that Alcinous is who has the last word
after all).

b. How would you translate αἴ κεν ἐγώ γε ζωὸς Φαιήκεσσι φιληρέτμοισιν
ἀνάσσω? I’d expect:

  • Either: αἴ κεν ἐγώ γε Φαιήκεσσι φιληρέτμοισιν ἀνάσσω, without the
    adjective “alive”, which sounds strange with αἴ.

  • Or: ὄφρα κεν ἐγώ γε ζωὸς Φαιήκεσσι φιληρέτμοισιν ἀνάσσω. reading αἴ
    as ὄφρα, “while I’m alive ruling over the Phaenicians”.

    1. μή οἱ μῦθον ἅπαντα πιφαυσκέμεν, ὅν κ᾽ ἐὺ εἰδῇς,
  1. ἀλλὰ τὸ μὲν φάσθαι, τὸ δὲ καὶ κεκρυμμένον εἶναι.

The infinitive used for the imperative is common in the second person,
but I haven’t seen it before in the third person: εἶναι = ἐστώ? Just
to be sure, the reading would be: “Do not tell her everything that you
know, but say a part and let the other be hidden”?
6. > 364. ζώει ὅ γ᾽ ἦ τέθνηκε: κακὸν δ᾽ ἀνεμώλια βάζειν.’

Could be ἀνεμώλια related with the formulaic ἔπεα πτερόεντα? I’ve
never been sure about the sense of that expression, but here the
connotation is clear: vain, useless words carried by the wind.
7. > 543. οἴη δ᾽ Αἴαντος ψυχὴ Τελαμωνιάδαο

  1. νόσφιν ἀφεστήκει, κεχολωμένη εἵνεκα νίκης,
  2. τήν μιν ἐγὼ νίκησα δικαζόμενος παρὰ νηυσὶ
  3. τεύχεσιν ἀμφ᾽ Ἀχιλῆος: ἔθηκε δὲ πότνια μήτηρ.
  4. παῖδες δὲ Τρώων δίκασαν καὶ Παλλὰς Ἀθήνη.
  5. ὡς δὴ μὴ ὄφελον νικᾶν τοιῷδ᾽ ἐπ᾽ ἀέθλῳ:
  6. τοίην γὰρ κεφαλὴν > ἕνεκ᾽ αὐτῶν > γαῖα κατέσχεν,

(Odysseus in the Hades, speaking about the death of Ajax). I’m not
sure about the antecedent of ἕνεκ᾽ αὐτῶν. I have two interpretations:

  • Because of the armor of Achilles.

  • Because of those who arranged the ἄεθλος (παῖδες δὲ Τρώων δίκασαν
    καὶ Παλλὰς Ἀθήνη).

    1. σμερδαλέος δέ οἱ ἀμφὶ περὶ στήθεσσιν ἀορτὴρ[141]
  1. χρύσεος ἦν τελαμών, ἵνα θέσκελα ἔργα τέτυκτο,
  2. ἄρκτοι τ᾽ ἀγρότεροί τε σύες χαροποί τε λέοντες,
  3. ὑσμῖναί τε μάχαι τε φόνοι τ᾽ ἀνδροκτασίαι τε.

  4. μὴ τεχνησάμενος μηδ᾽ ἄλλο τι τεχνήσαιτο,

Odysseus is describing the sword of Heracles (of his phantom). I
didn’t understand the last verse, which I suppose refers to the artist
who worked the figures on the sword.
9. > οὐδέ κεν > ἀμβαίη > βροτὸς ἀνὴρ οὐδ᾽ > ἐπιβαίη> ,

Do you see any difference between the two verbs?
10. > 125. μητέρα τῆς Σκύλλης, ἥ μιν τέκε πῆμα βροτοῖσιν:

  1. ἥ μιν ἔπειτ᾽ ἀποπαύσει ἐς ὕστερον ὁρμηθῆναι.

I’m not quite sure of the meaning here, is Circe saying that the
mother of the Scylla will squabble the Scylla? Like a naughty child,
she means? :slight_smile:
11. > 181. ἀλλ᾽ ὅτε τόσσον ἀπῆμεν ὅσον τε γέγωνε βοήσας,

  1. ῥίμφα διώκοντες, τὰς δ᾽ οὐ λάθεν ὠκύαλος νηῦς
  2. ἐγγύθεν ὀρνυμένη, > λιγυρὴν δ᾽ ἔντυνον ἀοιδήν> :

According to my notes, ἔντυνον ἀοιδήν is translated as “struck up to sing”, but I haven’t seen any
other apparition of this word with the same meaning in LSJ. The only
meaning seems to be “to prepare, to make ready”. Do you see any
problem with that meaning here? “They [the sirens] had ready for us
their song”. That makes sense for me, because Circe had already
anticipated this to them, so the sirens had ready the song that they
were already expecting.
12. > 217. σοὶ δέ, κυβερνῆθ᾽, ὧδ᾽ ἐπιτέλλομαι: ἀλλ᾽ ἐνὶ θυμῷ

  1. βάλλευ, ἐπεὶ νηὸς γλαφυρῆς οἰήια νωμᾷς.

  2. τούτου μὲν καπνοῦ > καὶ κύματος ἐκτὸς ἔεργε

  3. νῆα, σὺ δὲ σκοπέλου ἐπιμαίεο, μή σε λάθῃσι
  4. κεῖσ᾽ ἐξορμήσασα καὶ ἐς κακὸν ἄμμε βάλῃσθα.’

Odysseus gives his comrades precise orders about how they should
behave in order to survive the Scylla (though they are still happily
ignorant of their inter-Scylla-et-Charybdis situation). I don’t
understand the first part of the third verse: of which καπνός is he
talking about?
13. > 312. ἦμος δὲ τρίχα νυκτὸς ἔην, μετὰ δ᾽ ἄστρα > βεβήκει> ,

  1. ὦρσεν ἔπι ζαῆν ἄνεμον νεφεληγερέτα Ζεὺς
  2. λαίλαπι θεσπεσίῃ, σὺν δὲ νεφέεσσι κάλυψε
  3. γαῖαν ὁμοῦ καὶ πόντον: > ὀρώρει > δ᾽ οὐρανόθεν νύξ.

How would you explain both pluperfects here?

2

Hello again, huilen!

A few quick notes…

  1. ἔνθα καὶ ἔνθα is to be translated in a bit different ways in different contexts. “hither and thither”, “there and back”. Here I think it means “from here to there” → “from one side to the other”, i.e. the diameter of the hole. Another interpretation, supported by Cunliffe, is that it means (a cubit) “to this side and that side” → “in length and in breadth”, i.e. a cubit square, in which case we are talking about surface area.

Maybe some gesture was part of the expression originally, but I think the expression is already stereotyped in Homer’s time.

  1. This describes events that will happen to Odysseus after the end of the Odyssey. These events are related in a lost epic called Telegony, which is later than the Odyssey and clearly inferior in quality. There are only some fragments left of it. Of course, the Odyssey poet didn’t necessarily have quite the same story in mind as the later Telegony poet. Anyway, this just says Odysseus’ death will come from the sea, and whatever that means is not told in the Odyssey.

  2. Historical morphology is not my thing. Ask Chantraine :wink:

  3. a) I think τοῦτο (and rest of the “family”) usually refers to what has been said before and τόδε (etc) to what follows.
    b) “if I’m [still] alive and rule the Phaeacians” → “as long as I live and rule the Phaeacians.” Your second thought is correct.

  4. It is a bit untypical but you must be correct.

  5. That’s an interesting comparison. No one knows for sure what ἔπεα πτερόεντα means, but one interpretation is that it means “feathered”, like an arrow, to help the words fly straight to the target like an arrow. Thus, words that are not πτερόεντα would be carried off their target by the wind. Hmm…

3

  1. I think you’re right – a gesture, perhaps length and width.

  2. Perhaps this is meant to be a little mysterious – an obscure prophecy.

  3. κέονται – a thematic (-ω verb) ending slapped onto a verbal root that is normally athematic (-μι verb). The normal athematic form κέαται wouldn’t fit the meter.

  4. This seems to refer to the orders A. gives in the following verses–which confirm and amplify what his wife has just said. Addendum: I think Paul is right about this: A. is confirming what his wife has just said, but he is amplifying it and giving it his seal of approval.

αἴ κεν ἐγώ γε ζωὸς Φαιήκεσσι φιληρέτμοισιν ἀνάσσω – ἀνάσσω with αἴ κεν must be subjunctive, so I would interpret this more along the lines of “as long as” rather than a simple condition. But it’s really just an emphatic way of asserting his authority as ruler.

  1. These infinitives are all commands, of course. I wouldn’t say that they’re used for the imperative. Rather, one of the functions of the infinitive is to express commands, similar to the imperative.

  2. I don’t think ἀνεμώλια has anything to do with ἔπεα πτερόεντα – it just means “full of wind”, "empty.

ἔπεα πτερόεντα? I’ve never been sure about the sense of that expression,

You are not alone.

  1. It’s clearly the armor of Achilles.

  2. The images on the belt are terrifying. The idea is, “I wish the craftsman having fashioned that one never fashioned another one.” This seems to be an example of the second negation (μηδ᾽), which is compound, reinforcing the first (μὴ).

  3. λιγυρὴν δ᾽ ἔντυνον ἀοιδήν – maybe “they were striking up their song”.

  4. καπνοῦ – probably mist, not smoke. LSJ glosses this as “spray.”

That’s all I have time for right now.

4

Started typing and then got way to busy, some good answers, just to help:

ἔνθα καὶ ἔνθα : Keep reading Greek, you’ll see this expression a lot. It’s rather idiomatic in combination and you need to learn to feel for it. Sometimes it’s like “here and there”, but in this case it’s more local. Imagine him orusswn here, and here…with respect to the ground. So, a largish hole, all around him etc.

  1. Yes, see the very similar: καὶ τὰ μὲν ἐν σπήεσσι θεῶν ἰότητι κέονται In 16.

  2. Etymologically this can also mean to boil, so the earlier since could be broader in the sense of surf, mist, smoke etc. Nowadays the meaning has shifted specifically onto tobacco.

5

  1. note that the neuter ἄεθλον means “prize”, while the masculine ἄεθλος is “competion”. Here “prize” is meant.

  2. “…the mother of Skylla, who had given birth to her [=Skylla] [to be] a curse for mortals [πῆμα βροτοῖσιν is predicative]. She [=the mother] will then prevent her [=Skylla] from attacking again.”

  3. (μετα)βεβήκει: this is basically a preterit of the perfect, i.e. a state resulting from a preceding event, situated in the past, just as a perfect is situated in the present. “Had advanced on their course”, or something like that. According to Merry, this means that the stars had crossed their zenith and were declining.

ὀρώρει: this is more special, I think this usage is largely confined to Homer and early epic. This is a sort of dramatic pluperfect, difficult to render into English. “[Before you they noticed,] night had already fallen from sky”

6

Hello :slight_smile:, thanks for the good answers.

I’ve been thinking about ἔνθα καὶ ἔνθα: I’ve to admit that, although
I’ve found the expression a number of times, I’ve never really
internalized it, I suppose it is a question of keep reading as already suggested.

Nevertheless, I couldn’t resist the temptation and I checked the other
places (in the Odyssey) where the expression appears.

I’ve tagged each apparition according to where it seems to be the
emphasis in each case (where more than one meaning is possible I’ve
applied more than one tag).

|   | 2.213 | 5.327 | 7.86 | 10.517 | 11.25 | 14.11 | 19.524 | 20.24 |
|---+-------+-------+------+--------+-------+-------+--------+-------|
| 1 |       | X     |      |        |       |     X |        |     X |
| 2 | X     | X     |      |        |       |       |      X |       |
| 3 | X     |       |    X |        |       |       |        |       |
  1. The emphasis is on the repetition/continuation of something.
  2. The emphasis is on the hesitating/erratic character of something.
  3. The emphasis is on the ubiquity of something.

ἀλλ’ ἄγε μοι δότε νῆα θοὴν καὶ εἴκοσ’ ἑταίρους,
οἵ κέ μοι > ἔνθα καὶ ἔνθα > διαπρήσσωσι κέλευθον.

– Odyssey 2.213-4 (Tags: 3, 2)



τὴν δ’ ἐφόρει μέγα κῦμα κατὰ ῥόον > ἔνθα καὶ ἔνθα> .

– Odyssey 5.327 (Tags: 2, 1)



χάλκεοι μὲν γὰρ τοῖχοι ἐληλέδατ’ > ἔνθα καὶ ἔνθα> ,
ἐς μυχὸν ἐξ οὐδοῦ, περὶ δὲ θριγκὸς κυάνοιο·

– Odyssey 7.86-7 (Tags: 3)



βόθρον ὀρύξαι ὅσον τε πυγούσιον > ἔνθα καὶ ἔνθα

– Odyssey 10.516-20 (Tags: ?)



βόθρον ὄρυξ᾽ ὅσσον τε πυγούσιον > ἔνθα καὶ ἔνθα

– Odyssey 11.25 (Tags: ?)



σταυροὺς δ’ ἐκτὸς ἔλασσε διαμπερὲς > ἔνθα καὶ ἔνθα

– Odyssey 14.11 (Tags: 1)



ὣς καὶ ἐμοὶ δίχα θυμὸς ὀρώρεται > ἔνθα καὶ ἔνθα> ,

– Odyssey 19.524 (Tags: 2)



τῷ δὲ μάλ’ ἐν πείσῃ κραδίη μένε τετληυῖα
νωλεμέως· ἀτὰρ αὐτὸς ἑλίσσετο > ἔνθα καὶ ἔνθα> .

– Odyssey 20.23-4 (Tags: 1)

The only apparition that seems to diverge from the others is this one
in question (and that one at Od. 10.516, but they should be considered
the same to the purpose, because 10.516 consists on Circe’s
instructions to Odysseus of making the hole in question):

Od. 10.516. βόθρον ὀρύξαι ὅσον τε πυγούσιον ἔνθα καὶ ἔνθα

Od. 11.25. βόθρον ὄρυξ᾽ ὅσσον τε πυγούσιον ἔνθα καὶ ἔνθα

Considering only this evidence (I haven’t checked out of
the Odyssey), I would feel more inclined to subsume it within group 1,
interpreting it as “dig continuously, with out a break”, though I’m agree that here
the context would suggest that the meaning is rather spacial,
accompanying the notion of measure given by ὅσσον τε πυγούσιον.

7

Sorry for this irrelevant post, but just to correct myself and be absurdly peacefully keeping other people with the last news of my mistakes :slight_smile:: I think I was quite erred with the first meaning of ἔνθα καὶ ἔνθα: I don’t think any more that there is any notion of repetition in the expression itself, may be the meaning was in some of the contexts where I found the expression and I was confused (specially where some of the passages belong to chapters that I haven’t read yet).

8

Well, this ἔνθα καὶ ἔνθα is pretty difficult to nail down, isn’t it…? At least I can’t give an all-encompassing definition for it. You just have to develop a feel for it, like Scribo said (and you noticed that we interpreted it a bit differently in that particular place).

ἀλλ’ ἄγε μοι δότε νῆα θοὴν καὶ εἴκοσ’ ἑταίρους,
οἵ κέ μοι ἔνθα καὶ ἔνθα διαπρήσσωσι κέλευθον.

– Odyssey 2.213-4

This actually means “there and back”, i.e. “a round-trip”.