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[37] 37 = 24.741. Interpreters are divided in both places between ἄρρητον and “ἀρητόν” (MS. testimony is indifferent'. The former occurs Od. 14.466 “ἔπος ἄρρητον” = unspoken; from this to the sense unspeakable is an easy step, see note on 14.195-96 and cf. “ἄσπετος”. If we read “ἀρητόν” it should mean prayed for, like “πολυάρητος” Od. 6.280, Od. 19.404. But out of this no reasonable sense can be got, in spite of the desperate efforts of the scholiasts (“εἰς τοῦτο αὐτοὺς κατέστησας ὥστε εὐχὴν ἡγεῖσθαι τὸ θρηνεῖν τὸν ἑαυτῶν παῖδα, καὶ ἔχειν ἐξουσίαν σχολάζειν γόοις καὶ θρήνοις”, Schol. A). Others therefore take it in the sense ‘prayed against,’ i.e. accursed. This sense occurs in the compounds “ἐπαρή” and “καταράομαι”, but not in the simple “ἀρή” and “ἀράομαι”, which merely mean prayer, pray, whether for good or ill. We have therefore no right to import it into the adj.; because an ill may be prayed for against some one else it does not follow that prayed for = prayed against. At best we might say that the sentence means thou hast brought on his parents the woe for which thou hast prayed (against them). Any derivation from “ἀρή” (“ἄρης”? see 12.334), mischief, is excluded by the “α^”.

The Iliad, edited, with apparatus criticus, prolegomena, notes, and appendices. Walter Leaf. London. Macmillan. 1900.

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