[502] This line introduces his second sin and final catastrophe, and thus forms the opposition to πρῶτα in v. 500. Transl. ‘And indeed he would have escaped doom, hated though he was by Athena, had not he hurled forth a haughty boast, and been sore besotted.’ In place of a new verb introduced by καί, we should expect here “μέγ᾽ ἀασθείς” as a descriptive addition to ἔπος ἔκβαλε. In Virgil, Aen.1, the initial act is attributed to Minerva, and not, as here, to Poseidon. φῆ ῥα explains what the “ἔπος” was. With “ἔπος ἐκβάλλειν” compare Il.18. 324 and Lat. ‘iactare verba.’ Sophocles ( Aj.302) uses “λόγους ἀνασπᾶν” in a similar sense, with which compare Plat. Theaet.180A “ὥσπερ ἐκ φαρέτρας ῥηματίσκια ἀνασπῶντες ἀποτοξεύουσι”. In ἀάσθη we have a word not denoting physical injury, as Bothe seems to think, but rather the judicial blindness or infatuation which heaven permits to come upon the guilty. Cp.
, where the last three words are explanatory of “ἀάσθην”.“ μάλα πολλὸν ἀάσθην
σχέτλιον, οὐκ ὀνομαστόν, ἀπεπλάγχθην τε νόοιο
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