Page 425 - the-odyssey

sey’ are [Greek]. In the ‘Iliad’ they are used of the horses of
Achilles’ followers as they stood idle, ‘champing lotus.’
{78} I take all this passage about the Cyclopes having no
ships to be sarcastic—meaning, ‘You people of Drepanum
have no excuse for not colonising the island of Favognana,
which you could easily do, for you have plenty of ships, and
the island is a very good one.’ For that the island so fully de-
scribed here is the Aegadean or ‘goat’ island of Favognana,
and that the Cyclopes are the old Sican inhabitants of Mt.
Eryx should not be doubted.
{79} For the reasons why it was necessary that the night
should be so exceptionally dark see ‘The Authoress of the
Odyssey’ pp. 188-189.
{80} None but such lambs as would suck if they were
with their mothers would be left in the yard. The older
lambs should have been out feeding. The authoress has got
it all wrong, but it does not matter. See ‘The Authoress of the
Odyssey’ p.148.
{81} This line is enclosed in brackets in the received text,
and is omitted (with note) by Messrs. Butcher & Lang. But
lines enclosed in brackets are almost always genuine; all
that brackets mean is that the bracketed passage puzzled
some early editor, who nevertheless found it too well estab-
lished in the text to venture on omitting it. In the present
case the line bracketed is the very last which a full-grown
male editor would be likely to interpolate. It is safer to in-
fer that the writer, a young woman, not knowing or caring
at which end of the ship the rudder should be, determined
to make sure by placing it at both ends, which we shall find

The Odyssey