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Originally Posted by HarryT
I think my favourite epithet is one of Apollo's: "destroyer of ants". Why or how someone came up with that one, I can't imagine!
Apollo is, to my mind, probably the most interesting of the gods in both the Iliad and the Odyssey. Today, we probably most often associate Apollo with the Sun god, but that was a much later association. The Greek god of the Sun was called "Helios", and in was only in about the 3rd century AD that Apollo "merged" with Helios. In both Homer and in the much later Aeneid, Apollo has nothing whatsoever to do with the Sun.
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“Destroyer of ants,” that's good. Here is another one that I have just started noticing in Book 7 (probably because you have alerted me to look for them): “single-foot horses.” I can't help but imagine a horse hopping along on a single foot like a Pogo Stick™. I suppose a body of these epithets were built up over time. I can imagine other
rhapsodes, on hearing say “breakers of horses” the first time saying to themselves, “Oh that's good. I will have to add that to my repertoire.”
Quote:
Originally Posted by sun surfer
OK, I'm reading the same translation as you, but I took white arms to mean something very different. I was thinking of the phrase where white arms means "non-firearm weapons" and since it's used to describe I think Hera and Athene I was taking it to mean they were some battle-ready women!
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HarryT please correct me if I am wrong, but I do believe that it does mean no more than that they have very white skin. I know historically across all cultures milky white skin has been considered a mark of high social/economic status for women. No hours toiling in the Sun, nor hard work that would blemish their lovely white arms and hands, for these ladies.
So I may be the only one who whenever I read or write the word Trojans at least from time to time thinks of a certain eponymous product. So I grew curious about if the product name was really originally a reference to the unreachable walls of Troy? It would seem so. Thankfully that name was chosen instead of a possible alternate name of Constantinoples. There, that is out of my system and I promise not to mention it again.