Homeric papyrus ( Odyssey 21.168-176)

Description

Homer, Odyssey 21.168-176. The text is fully vulgate with the exception of the substitution of (apparently) a present or aorist active participle for the substantive "mnesteres" in 174, corrected by M. 2;173: "oiston": the dot over iota is intended as a diaeresis mark.;174: 'mnesteres a]gauoi' tacha therapo]ntes aga[uoi: what M. 1 actually wrote is not recoverable. It may have been either the presentactive participle of "mnesteuw, mnesteuontes", which mdoes not occur in Homer, or the aorist active participle, "mnesteusantes", which occurs only at Od. 4.684. Either of these would give a meaning reasonably close to that of the vulgate text (m. 2's correction supra is apparently vulagte); but each would corrupt the meter. At Il. 19.281, we read "therapontes agauoi" in the same position as "mnesteres agauoi" here. It is possible then that m. 1 wrote the phrase from Iliad as a reminiscent variant; the phrase has at least the advantage of fitting the meter.