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[142] ὥς, so, by his own folly. The order of the words prevents our taking “ὡς” as expressing a wish as in 18.107 “ὡς ἔρις ἔκ τε θεῶν ἔκ τ᾽ ἀνθρώπων ἀπόλοιτο. σιφλώσειε, ἅπ. λεγόμενον”, and quite obscure in origin. It caused Ar. to athetize the line, if we may judge from the note of Schol. T (probably An.). No form of the word occurs till the late imitative Epics, who can only have guessed at the meaning. Ap. Rhod.i. 204 has “πόδε σιφλός”, so he took the verb to mean cripple; and this is the common interpretation, though it can hardly be said to give a satisfactory sense. Eust. says that the adj. was a Lykian word, used of hollow reeds. He and the Et. Mag. also quote a form “σιπαλός” from an unnamed poet “ἀλλὰ σὺ μὲν σιπαλός τε καὶ ὀφθαλμοῖσιν ἔφηλος”, where it clearly means blind. This too is apparently the sense in the fragment in Oxyrhynchus Papyri i. p. 37, . . “Γλαύ”]“κωι Λυκίωι, ὅτε σιφλὸς ἔπειγε” [“ἀνθ᾽ ἑκατομβοί”]“ων ἐννεάβοια λαβεῖν” (has the reference to the Lykian any significance?). Hentze suggests that the sense blind is particularly appropriate with “δερκομένωι”, ‘may God blind his eyes thus as he is feeding them on the woes of his friends.’ This is ingenious, but hardly Homeric. If we may accept the statement of Eust. that the word was not really Greek, but borrowed, a strikingly appropriate explanation can be found in the Semitic languages; for the Hebrew shâphal (safala) is the verb which is regularly used of bringing low the haughtiness of the proud by the hand of God; e.g. Isaiah ii. 17 ‘the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low ’; x. 33 ‘the haughty shall be humbled ’; and so Daniel v. 19, vii. 24, and often. “σιφλός” of the bent reed would give the required intermediate form. But little stress can be laid upon this, as the few Semitic words which have been identified in primitive Greek are all names of objects which we may reasonably suppose to have been imported from the East (e.g. “χιτών, οἶνος”, etc.). See also note on “ἀσύφηλος”, 9.647.

The Iliad, edited, with apparatus criticus, prolegomena, notes, and appendices. Walter Leaf. London. Macmillan. 1900.

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