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[445] ἀμβροσίην. Buttm. remarks that as the gods are said to anoint themselves with beauty, “κάλλεϊ ἀμβροσίῳ χρίεσθαι” Od.18. 192 foll., so they feed on immortality, “ἀμβροσίη”. He quotes from Lucian, Deor. Dial.4“νῦν δὲ ἄπαγε τὸν Γανυμήδην, καὶ πιόντα τῆς ἀθανασίας ἄγε οἰνοχοήσοντα ἡμῖν”. Because the radical meaning of “ἀμβροσίη” is thus indefinite, it is easily applicable to many different substances. That it was the food which sustained immortality may be gathered from Od.5. 196 foll, where Calypso eats ambrosia herself, but gives Odysseus the ‘bread of men.’ It was the regular eating of ambrosia and not the single taste that conferred immortality, as we find that Achilles is fed with nectar and ambrosia, Il.19. 353; and yet he did not possess the privilege of freedom from death. Bergk remarks that originally nectar was the only special food of the gods, but that gradually a distinction grew up between nectar as drink, and ambrosia as food, and that this distinction is more noticeable in the Odyssey than in the Iliad. Among the various uses to which ambrosia is applied in Homer, we find that Hera is anointed with it, Il.14. 170; so also is Sarpedon, Il.16. 680; the corpse of Patroclus is kept from decay by its use, Il.19. 38, in which passage it is spoken of as some distinct essence or perfume. There is no need to understand, with the old commentators, such a noun as “ἐδωδή” or “τροφή”, for “ἀμβροσίη” is an instance of the substantival use of the feminine adjective. See next note.

Homer's Odyssey. W. Walter Merry. James Riddell. D. B. Monro. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1886-1901.

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