OF THE ALLEGORIES.

[his] fatherland, and his progenitors, along with his teachers,
and the times in which he happened to live, and how many books he wrote,
and where and how he departed, having finished his life.
And indeed, learn also the subject matter of the Iliad
in every detail, and the forms of the Greeks.
Then, if you wish, after these things, I shall refashion the whole Iliad,
just as your will commands.
Meanwhile, before all else, learn the lineage of the poet.
Homer the all-wise, the sea of words,
though full of nectar, not of salty waters,
is said to have seven uncertain fatherlands,
the offspring of seven fathers, and these also uncertain.
For he is said to exist from Thebes in Egypt;
to others he is a Babylonian, to others he seems a Chian,

(43) B C, fatherland. A, fatherlands. Soon, "is said to have seven fatherlands."
(44) A, "how many books he writes."
(45) C, Burg., departed. A B, he left. I preferred the first aorist to the form of the second aorist because the former was very common in the age of Tzetzes. Since Lycophron had written 'leaving' (v. 16), Tzetzes comments thus: "leaving and having abandoned," interpreting a rarer and more exquisite word with a more common one. Lobeck, dealing with this matter in his notes to Phrynichus, p. 714, cites from the Chiliads of Tzetzes, 5, 428, the participle 'left', which causes some doubt since it is used in no sense for 'left behind' (which has been left), and I attempted to emend that not without probability in Theophylact Simocatta, p. 180; but recently I found 'left' in the good codex 2644. He also said "he departed his life" in Chiliad 4, 34; "you left behind" in Chiliad 9, 355, where the reading of the codex is better. There is "he abandoned" below, v. 359. Libanius, a more refined writer—though not to be corrected without a codex—presents the first aorist in his description of the dying Polyxena, vol. 4, p. 1089: "This also seemed to me well done by the creator... neither to tear the tunic to the whole, nor to leave [it] without the tunic to the maiden." One must read at least "the maiden." See the notes to Eunapius, p. 582, and to Choricius, p. 342.

(48) B, "if you wish."
(51) B, without the preceding 'the' (the), which should have been rubricated, but was neglected, if not faded. I will generally not note this. Verses 51, 52, 53, 54 are found also in Chiliad 13, 626-629; cf. Allatius, 'On the Fatherland of Homer', c. 12. He also said below II, 116, Y, 35, F, 107, and in the iambics, v. 249: "Homer himself, the sea of words." Manasses says that Constantine Monomachos, Annal. 6254, was "a sea of generosity, a very sweet lake." Thus, to Nicetas, Manuel was called the Comnenus, p. 40 B, "a sea of generosity." Theophylact Simocatta, Dial. p. 27: "Theophrastus, the sea of the tongue." See the note there. And one should compare Tzetzes with himself, to whom, Omega, 44, Homer was called "the spring of graces."
(55) Allatius used this verse in 'On the Fatherland of Homer', c. 4, which see.
(56) B, of Chios. A, "he seems to others a Chian." B C have my reading, which Allatius knew when reciting the verse, ibid. cc. 3, 12; which see.