previous next

[318] λὶς ἠυγένειος, “ἐμπείρως πάνυ: αἱ γὰρ θήλειαι κάλλιστον ἔχουσι γένειον, οἱ δὲ ἄρσενες χαίτην. νῦν δὲ ἐπὶ θηλείας: ἄρσην γὰρ οὐ σκυμναγωγεῖ. τὸ δὲ λέαινα ϝεώτερον ὄνομα”, Schol. See 17.134. Evidently H. uses “λέων” in a generic sense just as we use ‘horse’ to include ‘mare’ — or to speak more strictly, “λέων” is the only word in his vocabulary for lion and lioness, “λέαινα” being a later formation. The masc. form naturally calls for masc. gender in adjectives, even when the female is specially referred to.

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

The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide References (1 total)
  • Commentary references from this page (1):
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: