previous next

[422] ἱκέτας ἐμπάζεαι. This cannot be applied to Telemachus, who was in no sense a ‘suppliant’ to the Suitors. It must refer to the story which Penelope proceeds to tell, about the father of Antinous coming as a suppliant (“ἵκετο φεύγων”) to Ulysses, and receiving his protection; in consequence of which Antinous was bound by a sacred tie (“ὁσίη”) to the house of Ulysses. Thus the sense is not ‘you neglect (certain persons who are) suppliants,’ but, more generally, ‘you disregard the order or class of suppliants,’—the relation of suppliant and protector. Elsewhere “ἐμπάζομαι” takes a gen. of the person or thing that is cared for, as 19. 134 “οὔτε ξείνων ἐμπάζομαι οὔθ᾽ ἱκετάων”. Possibly the use of the acc. marks this difference of meaning; as with “οἶδα” and “μέμνημαι” the acc. is used when the existence of a person or thing constitutes the fact known or remembered (H. G. § 140 (3), § 151 d). The ancients, who saw that Antinous, as representing his father, was the suppliant, met the difficulty by holding that “ἱκέτης” was a word of double meaning, and might denote the protector of the suppliant (viz. Ulysses or Telemachus), just as “ξεῖνος” meant ‘host’ as well as ‘guest.’ Of this, however, there is no other evidence.

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

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 Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: