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[14] The simile is clearly that of the small but incessant trickling of a spring which opens on the face of a precipice, and streaks it with dark lines (of lichen. etc.), where the water, itself looking black, flows down — a very common phenomenon in limestone countries. μελάνυδρος is commonly explained of the dark colour of deep water. But a deep well just at the top of a precipice can hardly have been a familiar phenomenon. The simile, which Zen. omitted, is probably borrowed from 16.3-4.

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

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