Abstract

‘And now invoking as our helper overseas Zeus' calf and the son of the flower-browsing ancestress cow by conception from the on-breathing of Zeus—’: so begins the appeal of Danaos' daughters to their forefather Epaphos; the opening sentence is interrupted by a digression and never completed. In 43 M reads is almost universally adopted. However, is printed in the current Oxford text. Porson's emendation was attacked by Tucker on various grounds: it was palaeographically unsatisfactory, it added an otiose epithet to but left unqualified, it involved a ‘scarcely Greek’ use of the participle, and it coined a form in having the unique sense ‘graze’ instead of ‘handle’. My purpose is to defend as the true reading and to explore its contextual significance. I begin by taking Tucker's objections in order.