{47} We were told above (lines 357,357) that it was only one day’s sail.

{48} I give the usual translation, but I do not believe the Greek will warrant it.  The Greek reads [Greek].

This is usually held to mean that Ithaca is an island fit for breeding goats, and on that account more delectable to the speaker than it would have been if it were fit for breeding horses.  I find little authority for such a translation; the most equitable translation of the text as it stands is, “Ithaca is an island fit for breeding goats, and delectable rather than fit for breeding horses; for not one of the islands is good driving ground, nor well meadowed.”  Surely the writer does not mean that a pleasant or delectable island would not be fit for breeding horses?  The most equitable translation, therefore, of the present text being thus halt and impotent, we may suspect corruption, and I hazard the following emendation, though I have not adopted it in my translation, as fearing that it would be deemed too fanciful.  I would read:—­[Greek].

As far as scanning goes the [Greek] is not necessary; [Greek] iv. 72, [Greek] iv. 233, to go no further afield than earlier lines of the same book, give sufficient authority for [Greek], but the [Greek] would not be redundant; it would emphasise the surprise of the contrast, and I should prefer to have it, though it is not very important either way.  This reading of course should be translated “Ithaca is an island fit for breeding goats, and (by your leave) itself a horseman rather than fit for breeding horses—­for not one of the islands is good and well meadowed ground.”

This would be sure to baffle the Alexandrian editors.  “How,” they would ask themselves, “could an island be a horseman?” and they would cast about for an emendation.  A visit to the top of Mt.  Eryx might perhaps make the meaning intelligible, and suggest my proposed restoration of the text to the reader as readily as it did to myself.

I have elsewhere stated my conviction that the writer of the “Odyssey” was familiar with the old Sican city at the top of Mt.  Eryx, and that the Aegadean islands which are so striking when seen thence did duty with her for the Ionian islands—­Marettimo, the highest and most westerly of the group, standing for Ithaca.  When seen from the top of Mt.  Eryx Marettimo shows as it should do according to “Od.” ix. 25,26, “on the horizon, all highest up in the sea towards the West,” while the other islands lie “some way off it to the East.”  As we descend to Trapani, Marettimo appears to sink on to the top of the island of Levanzo, behind which it disappears.  My friend, the late Signor E. Biaggini, pointed to it once as it was just standing on the top of Levanzo, and said to me “Come cavalca bene” ("How well it rides"), and this immediately suggested my emendation to me.  Later on I found in the hymn to the Pythian Apollo (which abounds with tags taken from the “Odyssey”) a line ending [Greek] which strengthened my suspicion that this was the original ending of the second of the two lines above under consideration.