The “speaking name” (nomen loquens) of Îros (῏Ιρος), Ο.18.006, is linked here with the name of Îris (῏Ιρις), the goddess who functions as divine messenger. On the name of Iris, see the comment on I.17.547–549. Iros too carries messages, as we see here from the use of apangellein ‘carry messages’ at O.18.008; unlike Iris, however, Iros carries messages indiscriminately: ‘whenever anyone tells him [to carry a message]’, O.18.008. Such an indiscriminate function as performed by Iros is ridiculous compared to the deliberate and serious function performed by Iris, who carries only those messages that are sent by the immortal gods themselves. Just as Iros himself has no inner ‘force’—no īs and no biē, as we saw at O.18.003 and O.18.004 respectively, so also the messages that he carries from one random person to another random person have no inner ‘force’ either. To be contrasted is the goddess Iris, who as carrier of divine messages is the embodiment of the inner ‘force’ that is contained in these messages: her name actually derives from the root *u̯ī- as in īs ‘force, violence, strength’. Also, as I point out in the comment at I.17.547–549, the conventional association of this goddess Iris with windspeed is parallel with the association of windspeed with the words īs and biē, which both mean ‘force, violence, strength’.