13.759-60 No blood-price came his way... in battle: see note 18.581-92.
13.918 Fresh reserves just come from Ascania’s fertile soiclass="underline" this passage does not square with the Catalogue in Book 2, where Ascanius and his contingent are already in place with the Achaean forces. “Once again, the normal accuracy of the poet causes us to notice a small inconsistency” (Willcock, vol. 2, p. 224).
14.35-44 The picture of the Achaean ships berthed on the beach is, at times, somewhat obscure. We have understood the lines to mean that the first ships to land (ten years before) were those of Diomedes, Odysseus and Agamemnon. They had been drawn up on the beach, “far away from the fighting”; a defensive wall was built ahead of their stems (they were positioned ready for relaunching). This is not of course the same wall as that later built around the whole of the Greek encampment (see note 7.386-95). As the next contingents arrived, they could not be accommodated in the enclosure; their crews dragged them up in rows (presumably on either side of the first ships to land) and filled the whole stretch of the bay.
14.148 One of Adrastus’ daughters: Tydeus married one of them, Polynices the other (Diomedes, son of Tydeus, married Aegialia, who was, according to some authorities, the daughter, according to others, the granddaughter, of Adrastus).
14.244 Ocean, fountainhead of the gods, and Mother Tethys: the word translated “fountainhead” suggests that Ocean and his wife Tethys were the parents of the Olympian gods. This is contrary to the standard version, Hesiod’s Theogony, an account of the genealogy of the gods, which made Ocean and Tethys children of Uranus and Gaia, like all the Titans. There, Ocean is the father of all the rivers and the springs. During the war of the Olympians and the Titans, Rhea, wife of Cronus and mother of Zeus and Hera, had sent Hera to Ocean and Tethys for safekeeping. See note 8.554.
14.356 All unknown to their parents: Zeus and Hera are incestuous brother and sister, both born of Cronus and Rhea, as well as husband and wife, king and queen of the gods.
14.390-91 Demeter bore Zeus a daughter, Persephone, and his children by Leto were Apollo and Artemis.
15.32-39 Grief for Heracles: Hera, who hated Heracles and persecuted him throughout his life, since he was the son of Zeus by a mortal woman, Alcmena, had caused a storm to blow him off his course on his return from sacking Troy. See 14.300-16, 18.139-41, 19.112-46, Introduction, p. 42.
16.278-79 The Selli / sleeping along the ground: the priests of the oracle of Zeus at Dodona were an ascetic brotherhood, sleeping on the ground and going barefoot, probably to maintain contact with the chthonic deities.
16.715-16 These lines (614-15 in the Greek) are omitted by many of the manuscripts and excised as an interpolation by many editors.
17.623 His mind had changed, at leasr for a moment: i.e., Zeus now gives victory to the Achaeans. Some scholars think it means his mind had changed about allowing the gods to intervene, but that change of mind comes late, in Book 20. “At least for a moment” is not in the Greek but seems justified since in fact Zeus changes his mind again a few lines later (672-75).
18.43-56 All the Nereids: the translation attempts to render the Homeric names of the Nereids with reference to their root meanings in the Greek. The translator has followed the lead of William Arrowsmith’s excellent version, the first in modern English to treat the passage in this way (The Craft and Context of Translation, ed. Arrowsmith and Shattuck [Austin, Tex., 1961], p. 19). In their translations of the Odyssey, W. H. D. Rouse (1937) and Robert Fitzgerald (1961) have done the same in rendering the Phaeacian princes’ names (8.111-16 in the Greek), all of them fittingly nautical for a seafaring people.
18.462 My great falclass="underline" it is not clear whether this was the fall described in 1.712- 16, or indeed whether Hephaestus’ lameness was the result of that fall or a birth defect. The point of the story is simply to provide a reason for his willingness to help Thetis.
18.569-71 The Wagon: the constellation also known as the Big Dipper and the Great Bear. As seen from the northern hemisphere, it never disappears below the horizon or, as Homer puts it, “plunge[s] in the Ocean’s baths.” The Great Bear is referred to as “she” (570) because she was originally the nymph Callisto, who ranged the woods as one of the virgin companions of the goddess Artemis. Zeus made her pregnant, and when this could no longer be concealed, Artemis changed her into a bear and killed her. Zeus in turn changed her into the constellation.
18.581-92 A quarrel had broken out: as in many tribal societies, compensation for a killing might be offered to and accepted by the victim’s relatives. (See 18.108, 21.32.) If it were not offered, the relatives would pursue the killer to exact blood for blood: his only recourse would be to go into exile, as so many of the Achaean heroes of the Iliad did (Patroclus, for example, 23.103-8, and Tlepolemus, 2.756-66). The language in this passage is ambiguous: it may mean that one side offered payment and the other refused (the interpretation we have followed) or that one man claims he has paid and the other disputes his statement.
18.595 Or share the riches with its people: i.e., they would cease hostilities if offered half the city’s wealth.
18.666 A dirge for the dying year: the Greek word is linos. This was a dirge, a mouming song, appropriate for vintage time—the end of summer. The name may have come from the Greek expression of sorrow, corresponding to our “Alas!”—ailinon. But there was also a mythical figure, Linus, a great musician, who was killed and for whom there were ceremonies of mourning.
19.106 Ruin, eldest daughter of Zeus: see note 2.130.
19.145 Born of your own stock: Perseus was the son of Zeus and Danaë. See 14.383-84 and note 2.748.
19.494 Cut down by a deathless god and mortal man: eventually, beyond the compass of the Iliad, Achilles will fall at the hands of Paris. According to legend, Paris is either assisted by Apollo—who guides a fatal arrow to Achilles’ right heel, the one vulnerable part of his body—or replaced by the god, who assumes his likeness and shoots Achilles down directly. See 22.422-24 and notes 1. 1, 3.174.
20.65-89 The sides taken by the gods are consistent with the sympathies they display throughout the poem. Hera, Athena and Poseidon have aided the Achaeans from the start. (See note 24.35-36.) Hephaestus could be expected on the same side as his mother, Hera, and Hermes, born in a cave on Mount Cyllene in central Greece, naturally favored the Achaeans. Ares, Apollo and, of course, Aphrodite, to whom the Trojan Paris gave the prize in the beauty contest, have supported the Trojans all along. Leto and Artemis are the mother and sister of Apollo, and Xanthus is the principal Trojan river.
20.174 Sea monster: see note 5.733-38.
20.220-28 The time I caught you: Achilles refers to his capture of Lymessus, the town where he acquired Briseis as his share of the booty. See 2.784-88, 19.66- 68 and 20.106-8.