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[4] The hiatus at the end of the fifth foot can hardly be right. It is easy enough to read with Heyne “τὸ . . ὃ . . τετελεσμένον” (note the variant of Pap. ι), or with Bentley “τετελεσμέν᾽ ἄῤ”, but the cause of the corruption is left unexplained; the tendency is always the exact opposite, viz. to remove the hiatus even where it is legitimate. For other cases see note on 2.87. We may add the common “πότνια Ἥρη” (“Ἥβη” 4.2); the “α” may have been originally long, but if so the length was completely forgotten before Homeric times, and survives only in this phrase, possibly a combination consecrated by antiquity and therefore superior to the ordinary rules of metre. There is some little ground for attributing similar primitive length to the “α” of the neut. plur., which would explain both this line and N 22; see H. G. § 374 (cf. § 382).

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

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    • Homer, Iliad, 4.2
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