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[336] The punctuation of the text is that of Turnebus, Barnes, Clarke, Ernesti, P. Knight, and Brandreth, and has been recently supported by Cauer. The sense is unimpeachable: ‘why should he take my share (Briseis)? He has a wife of his own, let him be content with her.’ The usual punctuation places a comma after “εἵλετ᾽”, and a colon after “θυμαρέα”: ‘he has taken and is keeping my wife — well then, let him have his joy of her.’ This assumes that Achilles can call Briseis an “ἄλοχος”. But that word is always used of a legitimate wife (cf. Od. 14.202 “γνήσιοι ἐξ ἀλόχου”; opposed to “δούλη” 3.409; a term of honour in 1.546), and Achilles is thus not only inconsistent with his own words in 395 ff., but, what is more serious, he is false to his own dignity in even pretending rhetorically that he has married a captive. See further on 19.298. θυμαρέα: so Od. 17.199, Od. 23.232; the “α” seems to be a relic of the old Epic, and has been supplanted by the regular Ionic “η” in Od. 10.362 “θυμῆρες κεράσασα” .

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

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