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[18] δὔ ἀμφίπολοι. So Penelope ( Od.1. 331) is accompanied by two handmaidens. The present passage shows that the maidens slept in their young mistress's room at night; probably upon mattresses on the floor, placed so near the door that it could not be opened without waking the attendants.

χαρίτων. Homer mentions no definite number of ‘Graces,’ and names only one, “Πασιθέην” (i.e. “πᾶσι θέα”, omnibus spectaculum) “χαρίτων μίαν ὁπλοτεράων” Il.14. 275.And in Il.18. 382 the wife of Hephaestus is called “Χάρις”, named by Hesiod , Hesiod Theog.945, Aglaia. “Χάριτες” are described as attendants of Aphrodite Hom. Od.8. 364, and, generally, “‘habebatur Gratiarum donum quicquid venustum aut gratum erat, teste Pindaro, Olymp. 14’” (Bothe ad loc.). Hesiod ( Hesiod Theog.909 foll.) calls them daughters of Eurynome, and names them Aglaia, Euphrosyne, and Thalia. Later mythology represented them as the daughters of Aphrodite by Bacchus. The cult of the “Χάριτες” was doubtless of very old standing in the Boeotian Orchomenus, in Sparta, Athens, and Paros. In Sparta, only two were worshipped, by the names of “Κλήτα” and “Φαέννα”: in Athens they were called “Αὐξώ” and “Ἡγεμόνη”.

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

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