Commentary on line 5
This fine simile is essentially like that of 22.26-9, whence we see that the star of summer is Seirios, the dog of Orion. For o)pwrino/s, which hence must mean the dog-days, the time of the heliacal rising of Seirios, rather than what we call autumn, cf. also 16.385, 21.346, Od. 11.192 (τεθαλυῖα, as the season of fruit'. The Homeric division of the year is into spring, early summer (θέρος), late summer (ὀπώρη), and winter, and corresponds with the fact that the transition from the heat of summer to the cold of winter is in Greece extremely rapid. The scansion ὀπωρῑνός, though invariable in H., is strange beside ἐαρινός with ῐ. Cf. ἀγχιστῖνοι. A very conjectural explanation and etymology will be found in Schulze Q. E. p. 474. For the elision of -ι of the dat. cf. H. G. 376 (3).
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