DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1004#0321
276
GEOGRAPHICAL LIMITS OF HOMERIC FABLES.
seems to be, that it does not require so much to be expunged as to be ex-
plained. In it, we may observe, the islands are grouped about Ithaca:
Ithaca, therefore, itself, is not placed at the western extremity of them all.
It seems, also, very natural that, after enumerating the islands collectively,
the narrator should digress to particularize their individual positions, that he
should assume Zacynthus, the last mentioned, as the point to which the rest
should be referred, and that he should add, in conclusion, that Zacynthus
(and not Ithaca) lay to the west, and the other islands in an easterly direc-
tion from it. To Zacynthus, therefore, and not to Ithaca, we refer the lines
" It stedfast stands, highest above the wave
Westward; the rest apart, to eastern Sun;"
And so, we believe, did Virgil long ago, when he wrote—
"Woody Zacynthns o'er mid wave appears."
Thus the geography of Homer becomes true.
One more remark on the general question. In the Odyssey, the Region of
Fable begins at the Leucadian rock, and stretches from that point in a
northerly direction. That rock's position, on the road by which the Shades
of the Suitors are conducted by Mercury from Ithaca to Hades, is an
indication of this. No one can pass from the description of Phaiacia to
GEOGRAPHICAL LIMITS OF HOMERIC FABLES.
seems to be, that it does not require so much to be expunged as to be ex-
plained. In it, we may observe, the islands are grouped about Ithaca:
Ithaca, therefore, itself, is not placed at the western extremity of them all.
It seems, also, very natural that, after enumerating the islands collectively,
the narrator should digress to particularize their individual positions, that he
should assume Zacynthus, the last mentioned, as the point to which the rest
should be referred, and that he should add, in conclusion, that Zacynthus
(and not Ithaca) lay to the west, and the other islands in an easterly direc-
tion from it. To Zacynthus, therefore, and not to Ithaca, we refer the lines
" It stedfast stands, highest above the wave
Westward; the rest apart, to eastern Sun;"
And so, we believe, did Virgil long ago, when he wrote—
"Woody Zacynthns o'er mid wave appears."
Thus the geography of Homer becomes true.
One more remark on the general question. In the Odyssey, the Region of
Fable begins at the Leucadian rock, and stretches from that point in a
northerly direction. That rock's position, on the road by which the Shades
of the Suitors are conducted by Mercury from Ithaca to Hades, is an
indication of this. No one can pass from the description of Phaiacia to