previous next

[35] ἐπὶ . . κέκασται, tmesis; and so also perhaps in 24.535 “πάντας ἐπ᾽ ἀνθρώπους ἐκέκαστο”. It is true that “ἐπί” there may be taken as a real preposition, on the analogy of 14.742 “κάλλει ἐνίκα πᾶσαν ἐπ᾽ αἶαν,” Od. 24.509 “κεκάσμεθα πᾶσαν ἐπ᾽ αἶαν”, and in Od. we elsewhere find “κεκάσθαι” intrans. with “ἐν” or “μετά” (with dat.). On the other hand in Il. the verb takes either the direct acc. of the object excelled (14.124) or the gen. of comparison (24.546), and, as van L. remarks, the name “Ἐπικάστη” offers some support to the compound “ἐπικεκάσθαι”, which is not elsewhere found. Rhythm and sense alike forbid us to take ἐπὶ φρεσί together. “κέκαστο” of most MSS. is probably a reminiscence of 24.535. There is some support for “ἐνί” in place of ἐπί, but this does not help. Hermes, Hephaistos, Artemis and Leto are all new to the war, in which, outside this and the next book, they take no part whatever.

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 (5 total)
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: