Page 442 - the-odyssey

and 146 of bk. xxi we can locate the approach to the [Greek]
with some certainty.
{176} But in xix. 500-502 Ulysses scolded Euryclea for of-
fering information on this very point, and declared himself
quite able to settle it for himself.
{177} There were a hundred and eight Suitors.
{178} Lord Grimthorpe, whose understanding does not
lend itself to easy imposition, has been good enough to write
to me about my conviction that the ‘Odyssey’ was written by
a woman, and to send me remarks upon the gross absurdity
of the incident here recorded. It is plain that all the author-
ess cared about was that the women should be hanged: as
for attempting to realise, or to make her readers realise,
how the hanging was done, this was of no consequence. The
reader must take her word for it and ask no questions. Lord
Grimthorpe wrote:
‘I had better send you my ideas about Nausicaa’s hang-
ing of the maids (not ‘maidens,’ of whom Fronde wrote so
well in his ‘Science of History’) before I forget it all. Luckily
for me Liddell & Scott have specially translated most of the
doubtful words, referring to this very place.
‘A ship’s cable. I don’t know how big a ship she meant,
but it must have been a very small one indeed if its ‘cable’
could be used to tie tightly round a woman’s neck, and still
more round a dozen of them ‘in a row,’ besides being strong
enough to hold them and pull them all up.
‘A dozen average women would need the weight and
strength of more than a dozen strong heavy men even over
the best pulley hung to the roof over them; and the idea

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