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[127] Θρινακίη νῆσος may be supposed to lie to the N. W. of Scylla's rock, but at no great distance from it (cp. vv. 325, 427 foll.). It belongs still to fable-land. The ancients identified it with Sicily (cp. Strabo 6. 265; Thuc.6. 2), regarding “Θρινακίη” as equivalent to “Τρινακρία” (“τρεῖς, ἄκραι”). It is more likely that the name may be referred to “θρῖναξ”, a trident or three-pronged fork, and the etymology may serve to connect the island with some legend about Poseidon; perhaps that he raised the island from the sea-bed with his trident. Düntzer, comparing the words “θρίοι” [?] and “θρίαμβος”, thinks that the word may mean ‘windswept,’ or ‘stormy.’ The island is represented as uninhabited, except by the herds of Helios and the nymphs that tended them. Gladstone (Homeric Synchronism, p. 268) quotes from Lauth, (Homer und Aegypten) to the effect that “Θρινακίη” may be identified with an island named in the Book of the Dead as belonging to the Sun-god (Ra). The Egyptian form of the name he gives as T-hri-náchiu =‘the-between-prongs,’ i.e. pointed rocks.

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

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    • Thucydides, Histories, 6.2
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