{143} I imagine the fountain to have been somewhere about where the church of the Madonna di Trapani now stands, and to have been fed with water from what is now called the Fontana Diffali on Mt. Eryx.
{144} From this and other passages in the "Odyssey" it appears that we are in an age anterior to the use of coined money--an age when cauldrons, tripods, swords, cattle, chattels of all kinds, measures of corn, wine, or oil, etc. etc., not to say pieces of gold, silver, bronze, or even iron, wrought more or less, but unstamped, were the nearest approach to a currency that had as yet been reached.
{145} Gr. is [Greek]
{146} I correct these proofs abroad and am not within reach of Hesiod, but surely this passage suggests acquaintance with the Works and Ways, though it by no means compels it.
{147} It would seem as though Eurynome and Euryclea were the same person. See note {156}
{148} It is plain, therefore, that Iris was commonly accepted as the messenger of the gods, though our authoress will never permit her to fetch or carry for any one.
{149} i.e. the doorway leading from the inner to the outer court.
{150} Surely in this scene, again, Eurynome is in reality Euryclea. See note {156}
{151} These, I imagine, must have been in the open part of the inner courtyard, where the maids also stood, and threw the light of their torches into the covered cloister that ran all round it. The smoke would otherwise have been intolerable.
{152} Translation very uncertain; vide Liddell and Scott, under [Greek]
{153} See photo on opposite page.
{154} cf. "Il." ii. 184, and 217, 218. An additional and well-marked feature being wanted to convince Penelope, the writer has taken the hunched shoulders of Thersites (who is mentioned immediately after Eurybates in the "Iliad") and put them on to Eurybates' back.
{155} This is how geese are now fed in Sicily, at any rate in summer, when the grass is all burnt up. I have never seen them grazing.
{156} Lower down (line 143) Euryclea says it was herself that had thrown the cloak over Ulysses--for the plural should not be taken as implying more than one person. The writer is evidently still fluctuating between Euryclea and Eurynome as the name for the old nurse. She probably originally meant to call her Euryclea, but finding it not immediately easy to make Euryclea scan in xvii. 495, she hastily called her Eurynome, intending either to alter this name later or to change the earlier Euryclea's into Eurynome. She then drifted in to Eurynome as convenience further directed, still nevertheless hankering after Euryclea, till at last she found that the path of least resistance would lie in the direction of making Eurynome and Euryclea two persons. Therefore in xxiii. 289-292 both Eurynome and "the nurse" (who can be none other than Euryclea) come on together. I do not say that this is feminine, but it is not unfeminine.
{157} See note {156}
{158} This, I take it, was immediately in front of the main entrance of the inner courtyard into the body of the house.
{159} This is the only allusion to Sardinia in either "Iliad" or "Odyssey."
{160} The normal translation of the Greek word would be "holding back," "curbing," "restraining," but I cannot think that the writer meant this--she must have been using the word in its other sense of "having," "holding," "keeping," "maintaining."
{161} I have vainly tried to realise the construction of the fastening here described.
{162} See plan of Ulysses' house in the appendix. It is evident that the open part of the court had no flooring but the natural soil.
{163} See plan of Ulysses' house, and note {175}.
{164} i.e. the door that led into the body of the house.
{165} This was, no doubt, the little table that was set for Ulysses, "Od." xx. 259.
Surely the difficulty of this passage has been overrated. I suppose the iron part of the axe to have been wedged into the handle, or bound securely to it--the handle being half buried in the ground. The axe would be placed edgeways towards the archer, and he would have to shoot his arrow through the hole into which the handle was fitted when the axe was in use. Twelve axes were placed in a row all at the same height, all exactly in front of one another, all edgeways to Ulysses whose arrow passed through all the holes from the first onward. I cannot see how the Greek can bear any other interpretation, the words being, [Greek]
"He did not miss a single hole from the first onwards." [Greek] according to Liddell and Scott being "the hole for the handle of an axe, etc.," while [Greek] ("Od." v. 236) is, according to the same authorities, the handle itself. The feat is absurdly impossible, but our authoress sometimes has a soul above impossibilities.