Leonard Muellner
Last updated at
April 10, 2020, 8:39 p.m.
{"blocks":[{"key":"8m68f","text":"Odysseus is the only epic personage to share with Hermes the epithet polutropos (Homeric Hymn 4.13). Similarly, in Homeric Hymn 28.2, the second hymn to Athena , she has the epithet polumētis 'cunning in many ways', which is otherwise restricted to Odysseus in the Iliad (I.03.216) and the Odyssey (O.04.763, O.20.168, 22.1). By no coincidence, these are the two divinities who preside over the return of Odysseus as planned by Athena and Zeus in this narrative. See also Odyssey 1.98 and comments on it below. Note also the only other occurrence of polutropos in Homer (O.10.330), applied to Odysseus by Circe when she figures out who he is because he does not take on the appearance of a pig and go to the sty when struck by her rhabdos 'staff, wand'. She explains in the next line (O.10.331) that Hermes (identified only via his epithets, not his name, as though to raise awareness of such terms and who owns them) continually warned her about Odysseus's arrival.","type":"unstyled","depth":0,"inlineStyleRanges":[{"offset":69,"length":10,"style":"ITALIC"},{"offset":182,"length":9,"style":"ITALIC"},{"offset":265,"length":5,"style":"ITALIC"},{"offset":290,"length":7,"style":"ITALIC"},{"offset":473,"length":7,"style":"ITALIC"},{"offset":551,"length":10,"style":"ITALIC"},{"offset":734,"length":23,"style":"ITALIC"},{"offset":760,"length":1,"style":"ITALIC"}],"entityRanges":[],"data":{}}],"entityMap":{}}