Perhaps Homer was aware of the temple of Artemis at Ephesus and saw this:
https://www.thoughtco.com/artemis-of-ephesus-116920
Or, if he was actually blind, someone described it to him. Supposedly the temple existed as early as 800 BC. Too late for Odysseus, but not for Homer.
I’m not at all certain that Nausicaa would be flattered by a likening to the statue illustrated in Aetos’ link. But maybe I’m taking his post too seriously.
I’m not at all certain that Nausicaa would be flattered by a likening to the statue illustrated in Aetos’ link. But maybe I’m taking his post too seriously.
It was mostly tongue in cheek-although I didn’t want to rule out the possibility of Odysseus (or a non-blind Homer) perhaps having seen statues or images of the goddess.
ἔδεισαν versus ἔδδεισαν
I was reading Book 13 in Allen’s OCT edition and came across line 184
῾Ὼς ἔφαθ᾽, οἱ δ᾽ ἔδεισαν, ἑτοιμάσσαντο δὲ ταύρους.
which needs something doing with ἔδεισαν to fit the metre. The LSJ at δείδω A has “aor. ἔδεισα, in Hom. ἔδδεισα (i.e. ἔδϝεισα, cf. ὑποδδείσας, = ὑποδϝείσας)” - Merry and Ludwich both have it as ἔδδεισαν. Why does Allen’s methodology have him leave it as ἔδεισαν?
Edit: I’ve just realised that this is actually relevant to this week’s passage - 6.165 ὡς σέ, γύναι, ἄγαμαί τε τέθηπά τε, δείδιά τ ̓ αἰνῶς - so there’s no lingering digamma in δείδιά, is that right? I don’t really understand how δείδιά is formed.
Hi Sean,
It’s the 2nd perf. of δείδω. The root of δέδια is δϝi- , strong forms δϝει-, δϝοι-. See Smyth 703, 703D.:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0007%3Asmythp%3D703 and
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0007%3Asmythp%3D703%20D
P.S. That piece from the Onion was hilarious! (I knew he was going to keep the chocolates!)
The digamma is inconsistently observed throughout the Homeric poems.
It’s thought that the digamma had ceased to be pronounced by the time written texts of the Homeric poems were composed, however that process may have occurred. But the aoidos or aoidoi who composed the poems worked in a traditional medium that drew on a repertory of traditional formulas – fixed groups of words that had a specific metrical shape – which could be strung together to produce more or less well-formed hexameters.
Many of the older formulas in the repertory of the aoidoi contained digammas that resulted in lengthening of preceding short syllables or, at the beginning of a word, occurred between a vowel at the end of the preceding word and another vowel. After the digamma disappeared, formulas like this gave rise to prosodic anomalies: a short/light syllable that was lengthened even though it was followed by just one consonant or a hiatus.
The aoidoi were not composing by stringing together individual words, but rather by stringing together whole formulas. When they used old formulas that had originally included digammas, they didn’t reshape them to eliminate metrical irregularities – they just plugged them in regardless of the metrical and prosodic “rules.” That’s why traces of lost digammas show up in the texts as metrical irregularities.
But at the same time, newer formulas were constantly being created in a dynamic process. Formulas created after the loss of the digamma reflected the contemporary digamma-less language of the aoidoi. As a result, as noted above, the digamma is “observed” inconsistently in the texts of the Homeric poems.
Some manuscripts (especially the papyri, as opposed to the medieval ms. tradition) would reflect the loss of the digamma in ἔδFεισαν, and the lengthening of ἔ-, by a doubling of δ, as ἔδδεισαν, and probably this was the way the word would have been pronounced orally. Some editors normalize this spelling throughout the texts, even where the medieval manuscript tradition doesn’t reflect this spelling. Both West (2017) and van Thiel (1997) follow this practice, but Allen apparently doesn’t and instead normalizes the spelling with just one δ. But in the end, it’s not really important.
The printed texts of the Homeric poems that are available today (as well as modern editions of other ancient Greek texts) contain many minor spelling choices by modern editors that aren’t really of any great moment. The manuscripts are generally all over the place. If all of the minor spelling variations and obvious errors that show up in the manuscripts were to be reflected in the critical apparatus of modern editions of the Homeric poems at the bottom of the page, the apparatuses would be so cluttered with trivial and irrelevant variants as to be utterly useless. That’s what editors are for: making intelligent choices about what to print in the text and what to include in the critical apparatus.
Thanks Hylander for your very interesting response! Part of the reason that I was asking about Allen’s methodology was that I saw the Harley 6325 manuscript has ἔδδεισαν so I was wondering if Allen was somehow making a point or ‘restoring’ some tradition in contrast with other editors - I’m a complete novice at this kind of thing and you make a convincing case for it not being something particularly important.
Ha! It’s great, isn’t it? I might invest in some pencils for the group.
δείδω is a very confusing verb. I’m not sure I completely understand Smyth. From what I have read there and elsewhere, this is what I understand (which may be completely wrong):
δείδια =δεί (Homeric reduplication instead of δέ) + δϝi + α = δείδϝια (and therefore no problem with the metre at 6.165)
ἔδεισαν = augment + δϝει- + aorist ending = ἔδϝεισαν
δείδω (only attested pres. 1st sing.) = “a present in form, is really a perfect for δέ-δϝο(ι)-α”. I have no idea what this means! I had thought the second δ was being lost in the aorist but this suggests the root is at δω and δεί is equivalent to the δεί in δείδια (i.e. reduplication), not the δει in ἔδεισαν.
δείδω (only attested pres. 1st sing.) = “a present in form, is really a perfect for δέ-δϝο(ι)-α”.
I see you’ve found 445 D.! I think what’s happening here is the (ι) is being dropped (being followed by a vowel, Smyth 43), which leaves δε-δϝοα, which contracts to δε-δϝω. I’m not certain about this bit, but I believe δε becomes δει due to the loss of the ϝ (compensatory lengthening), or perhaps due to metrical lengthening in Homer (Smyth 28D), thus giving us δείδω.
δείδια =δεί (Homeric reduplication instead of δέ) + δϝi + α = δείδϝια (and therefore no problem with the metre at 6.165)
I would guess (without having hunted this down) that δεί- instead of normal reduplication δέ- is simply a lengthening of the vowel to preserve the metrical shape of the word in a formula that originated before loss of the digamma, just like the doubling of δ in ἔδδεισα.
The “spurious diphthong” ει is not really a diphthong, but rather an orthographic convention representing the long vowel corresponding in articulation to the short vowel ε.
(In many words, however, ει represents orthographically what was originally an actual diphthong ε + ι, which, if I’m not mistaken, at some point lost its character as a diphthong and merged with the long ε pronunciation of the spurious diphthong.)
Thanks both!