From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Wed Dec 31 1997 - 07:02:50 EST
An editorial correction, and a confession: unless I'm copying a text
directly from a correct printed edition, I'm more than likely to make some
sort of error in citing from memory!
At 6:33 PM -0600 12/30/97, Carl W. Conrad wrote:
>At 7:33 AM -0600 12/30/97, Carlton Winbery wrote:
>>
>>and pl., not that many people really want to know. Was the EW pronounced
>>as a dipthong? Probably not.
>
>Yes, I think it probably WAS, inasmuch as it filled a single syllable, as I
>remember when I first encountered the opening line of the Iliad:
>
> MHNIN AEIDE, QEA, PHLHIADEW ACILLHOS ...
>
>Here the -EW is the metathesized m.gen.sg. ending for 1st declension m.
>nouns (later Attic and Koine -OU); it was originally -AIO, then -AO, then
>-HO, then (metathesized) -EW. I've always thought it must have sounded
>pretty much like a Canadian or Tidewater -OU-diphthong as in "out." Then
>the ending of ACILLHOS is the older UN-metathesized gen.sg. of ACILLEUS.
>One of the fascinating things about Homer is the variety of forms from
>different dialects used in the formulae to serve the different metrical
>requirements of different positions in the line.
Stephen Carlson has kindly called my attention (off-list!) to my gaffe in
citation of the opening line of the Iliad: the genitive form of the last
word is and must be ACILHOS with a single lambda--otherwise the word won't
scan as it should ( u u _ u ) but rather as u _ _ u . He and I both
memorized this line, but he correctly--he wrote and I responded to him as
follows:
>>I will always be grateful to my Greek teacher, Dr. Helen Pope, for having
>>required me to memorize the proem to the Iliad.
>
>Yes, I remember your having said this at least once before. The fact is
>that I >was never required to memorize the proems to Iliad, Odyssey, and
>Aeneid but did >so by virtue of repeated contemplations and recitations of
>them. But the fact >is also that in my case the memorization didn't extend
>so completely to the >correctly-spelled forms--I simply committed the
>rhythmic enunciation of the >text in its metrical, i.e. hexameter, form.
>In this particular instance, my >mis-citation of the form ACILHOS is the
>more egregious in that I was commenting >at the same time on the variant
>dialectal forms employed by the bard in fitting >the content formulaicly
>to the successive cola of the hexameter line.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cconrad@yancey.main.nc.us
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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