Page 431 - the-odyssey

the fish, which they then spear. No line is used.
{105} The writer evidently regards Ulysses as on a coast
that looked East at no great distance south of the Straits of
Messina somewhere, say, near Tauromenium, now Taormi-
na.
{106} Surely there must be a line missing here to tell us
that the keel and mast were carried down into Charybdis.
Besides, the aorist [Greek] in its present surrounding is per-
plexing. I have translated it as though it were an imperfect; I
see Messrs. Butcher and Lang translate it as a pluperfect, but
surely Charybdis was in the act of sucking down the water
when Ulysses arrived.
{107} I suppose the passage within brackets to have been
an afterthought but to have been written by the same hand
as the rest of the poem. I suppose xii. 103 to have been also
added by the writer when she decided on sending Ulysses
back to Charybdis. The simile suggests the hand of the wife
or daughter of a magistrate who had often seen her father
come in cross and tired.
{108} Gr. [Greek]. This puts coined money out of the
question, but nevertheless implies that the gold had been
worked into ornaments of some kind.
{109} I suppose Teiresias’ prophecy of bk. xi. 114-120 had
made no impression on Ulysses. More probably the proph-
ecy was an afterthought, intercalated, as I have already said,
by the authoress when she changed her scheme.
{110} A male writer would have made Ulysses say, not
‘may you give satisfaction to your wives,’ but ‘may your
wives give satisfaction to you.’

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