A Scented Dress: Il. 14. 172 and P.Tebt. 697 (Od. 5. 232ab)

Abstract

The meaning of the Homeric hapax ἑδανῷ in the description of Hera’s
dressing in the Iliad (14. 172) was already discussed in antiquity. Modern scholars have
suggested that ἑδανῷ could be actually a corruption of an original ἑανῷ, “dress”. The
paper argues that a possible argument in favour of this view is the parallel description
of the dressing of Calypso in book 5 of the Odyssey (228 ff.), a passage that occurs, in an
interestingly expanded form, in a Tebtunis papyrus of the second century BC.