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[313] δηθὰ αὔτως εἴσῃ (“εἶσθα” Bekk.) ‘for a long time you will go about doing no more than making trial.’

317 (=19. 498., 22. 418). νηλείτιδες. Of the various forms offered to our choice, here and in the two other places where this line appears (see the crit. note), the two which have most external support are “νηλιτεῖς” and “νηλίτιδες”. If however, as seems probable, the word meant ‘unoffending,’ from “ἀλιτεῖν”, the second syllable should be written with “ει” (not “ι_”): cp. “ἀλείτης” ‘offender,’ rightly so written by Aristarchus, also the ‘ablaut’ form “ἀλοιτός” (Lycophr. 136). Evidently “νηλειτής” is related to “ἀλι^τεῖν” as “νημερτής” to “ἁμαρτεῖν”. Further, we have sufficient authority for preferring the uncontracted ending “-έες”, to the advantage of the metre. The final question, therefore, lies between “νηλειτέες” and “νηλείτιδες”. Both forms doubtless existed, and may well have existed together in the language of which this line is an archaic fragment; but in the present context the feminine form has a good deal of point. It should be observed, however, that a fem. “νηλεῖτις” does not answer regularly to “νηλειτής” (gen. “-έος”), but rather to a masc. of the First Declension (possibly “νηλείτης”, negative of “ἀλείτης”). Cp. the fem. forms “ἐργάτις, ληῗτις, δασπλῆτις, χερνῆτις”, &c., which answer to barytone masc. forms in “-της”.

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

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