wall, not to be broken;[1] and a smooth rock runs up it; and twelve children of him are born in his palace; six daughters, and six sons in full vigour. There he gave his daughters[2] to be wives to his sons. They always banquet near their dear father and their good mother; and near them lie many dainties. And the sweet-odoured dwelling sounds around the hall during the days, and at nights they sleep again near their chaste wives, on tapestry, and on compact beds: and we came indeed to their city and beautiful houses. And he entertained me during a whole month, and inquired every thing, of Ilium, and the ships of the Argives, and the return of the Grecians; and I told him all things rightly. But when at length I asked for a journey, and desired him to send me, he did not at all refuse, but prepared an escort, and having skinned a bladder of an ox of nine years old, he gave it me, in which he bound the ways of the blustering[3] winds; for the son of Saturn made him the keeper of the winds, both to still and to raise whichever he wishes. And he bound it in the hollow ship with a shining silver rope, that not even a little breath might escape. But for me he sent forward the blast of the west wind to blow, that it might waft both my ships and ourselves. Nor was he destined[4] to accomplish it; for we perished by our own infatuation.
- ↑ Observe the force of ἄῤῥηκτος. Cf. Æsch. Prom. 6, ἐν ἀρρήκτοις πέδαις.
- ↑ Figuratively, signifying the twelve winds, "quia venti facili commiscentur," as Riccius, p. 412, observes. It may be well to observe that some authors make Æolus the son of Jove, others of Neptune. Cf. Serv. on Æn. i. 56. Hyginus, Fab. 125, Poet. Astr. ii. 18, and Pliny, Hist. N. vii. 56, make him the son of Hellen.
- ↑ The Scholiast explains βυκτάων, that blow constantly, or well-blowing, from the root BY (cf. Liddell and Scott). I think there is a sort of mixed sense, = densely filling the sails, ἀθρόως πνεόντων καὶ πληρούντων τὰ ἱστία. Schol. Ambros. Cf. Apoll. Rh. iii. 1327, βυκτάων ἀνέμων βρόμος. In a MS. Lexicon, quoted by Alberti on Hesych. p. 779, it is interpreted, "valde resonantium," like Virgil's "luctantes ventos tempestatesque sonantes," Æn. i. 57.
- ↑ I cannot understand the difficulties raised about αὐτοὺς and ἀυτῶν
463, seems to prefer the common explanation. But a passage of Dionys. Piereg. 461, sqq., evidently imitated from Homer, favours Ernesti's interpretation, where he says that the Æolian Isles are called πλωταὶ, because μέσσον ἔχουσι περίπλοον ἀμφιέλικτον, which Eustathius there explains by ὅτι περιπλέονται. Cf. De Pinedo on Steph. Byz. p. 45. Quintus Calaber, iii. 696, sqq., and xiv. 473, sqq., deserves to be compared with Homer, whom he has imitated with some success.
