Virgil
[37] The seeming incongruity of this line with line 560, is reconciled by
supposing that Ulysses exerted his voice, naturally loud, in an
extraordinary manner on this second occasion. See Clarke.
The Annotated Edition
Virgil by Homer
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This text isn't a poem — it seems to be a footnote from a translator or editor (numbered [37]) addressing a perceived inconsistency between two lines in a larger epic, probably the *Odyssey*.
- Poet
- Homer
- Core theme
- Art
§01Quick summary
What this poem is about
This text isn't a poem — it seems to be a footnote from a translator or editor (numbered [37]) addressing a perceived inconsistency between two lines in a larger epic, probably the *Odyssey*. The note suggests that the contradiction might be resolved by considering that Ulysses (Odysseus) raised his naturally loud voice even more on the second occasion. There's no historical record of a poem called "Virgil" by Homer.
§02Themes
Recurring themes
§03Line by line
Stanza by stanza, with notes
[37] The seeming incongruity of this line with line 560...
Editor's note
This is a single prose footnote, not a stanza. The editor points out a contradiction in the surrounding epic text—specifically, a character's voice seems inconsistent in two instances. To resolve this issue, the editor references scholar Clarke, who suggests that Ulysses simply decided to shout louder the second time. This serves as a textual gloss, not as verse.
§04Tone & mood
How this poem feels
The tone is academic and informative. It comes across as straightforward and unembellished, aiming to clean up any loose ends before the reader has a chance to catch them.
§05Symbols & metaphors
Symbols & metaphors
- Ulysses' voice
- In the wider Homeric tradition, Ulysses' voice signifies his heroic authority and persuasive power. The footnote's focus on *how loud* he spoke shows how much ancient and early-modern readers valued every physical detail of the hero.
- Line numbers (line 560)
- The use of specific line numbers indicates that this is a scholarly tool, reminding readers that the text in question is a respected work that they should reference closely.
- Clarke
- The mention of Clarke—likely Samuel Clarke, the 18th-century classical scholar—represents the entire tradition of scholarly commentary that has built up around Homer over the centuries, layer by layer.
§06Historical context
Historical context
Homer is linked to two key epics of Western literature, the *Iliad* and the *Odyssey*, which were created in the Greek oral tradition around the 8th to 9th century BCE. The text provided here isn't a poem by Homer but rather an editorial footnote, likely from an English translation or commentary from the 18th or 19th century. Samuel Clarke released a notable Latin-annotated version of Homer in the early 1700s, and many later English translators, like Cowper and Pope, drew from or reacted to his notes. Footnotes like this were common in scholarly editions at the time, as editors often felt they needed to defend Homer against claims of inconsistency. The title "Virgil" associated with this entry seems to be a cataloguing mistake, given that Virgil was a Roman poet who lived about 700 years after Homer.
§07FAQ
Questions readers ask
No. What’s been provided is a single editorial footnote from what appears to be an annotated translation of Homer — likely the *Odyssey*. It contains prose commentary, not verse, and the title 'Virgil' doesn’t correspond to any known work by Homer.
Almost certainly, Samuel Clarke (1675–1729) was a British philosopher and classicist known for his widely used annotated edition of Homer's *Iliad* in both Greek and Latin. Many later translators and editors often referenced his notes.
Early modern scholars regarded Homer's text as almost sacred, believing that every detail needed to remain consistent. If the hero's voice appeared to act differently in two sections, they viewed that as a significant issue to address—even if the resolution (he just shouted louder) seems obvious to us now.
Without the surrounding text, we can't know for sure, but the note suggests that whatever occurs at the annotated line seems to contradict something at line 560—likely a description of Ulysses's use of his voice. The editor's solution is that Ulysses put in extra effort the second time around.
This appears to be a metadata or cataloguing mistake. Virgil, a Roman poet who lived from 70 to 19 BCE, is primarily recognized for the *Aeneid*. He and Homer are distinct authors, each from different centuries and writing in different languages. It's possible that their names were accidentally swapped or mislabelled at some point in the data processing.
Ulysses is the Latin version of Odysseus, the hero from Homer's *Odyssey*. Roman authors, including Virgil, often used the Latin name, which can lead to confusion between the two names in subsequent scholarship.
Not in any significant way. There's no meter, no imagery, no identifiable speaker, and no narrative arc present — just an editor's note. To truly analyze Homer's poetry, we would need to look at the verse text itself.
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