11.

For instance, with respect to Ithaca, when the poet says,

“and they who possessed Ithaca, and Neritum with its waving woods,”635

he denotes by the epithet, that he means Neritum the mountain. In other passages he expressly mentions the mountain;

“I dwell at Ithaca, turned to the western sun; where is a mountain, Neritum, seen from afar with its waving woods;”636

but whether he means the city, or the island, is not clear, at least from this verse;

“they who possessed Ithaca, and Neritum.”

Any one would understand these words in their proper sense to mean the city, as we speak of Athens, Lycabettus, Rhodes, Atabyris, Lacedæmon, and Taygetus, but in a poetical sense the contrary is implied.

In the verses,

“I dwell at Ithaca, turned to the western sun, in which is a mountain Neritum,”

the meaning is plain, because the mountain is on the island and not in the city; and when he says,

“we came from Ithaca situated under Neium,”637

it is uncertain whether he means that Neium was the same as Neritum, or whether it is another, either mountain or place. [He, who writes Nericum for Neritum, or the reverse, is quite mistaken. For the poet describes the former as “waving with woods;” the other as a “well-built city;” one in Ithaca, the other on the sea-beach of Epirus.]638