Monday, July 08, 2024
Stock or Stone
Homer, Odyssey 19.162-163 (tr. A.T. Murray, with his note):
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"Yet even so tell me of thy stock from whence thou art;
for thou art not sprung from an oak of ancient story, or from a stone."1
1 The phrase appears to be a quotation from older folk-poetry. The meaning here is: "You have not a merely casual origin, as though you were sprung from an oak or a stone; you have human ancestors; tell me of them." The phrase recurs in Il. xxii.126 ; Hesiod, Theog. 35 ; and in Plato, Apol. 34 D, and Repub. 544 D.
ἀλλὰ καὶ ὥς μοι εἰπὲ τεὸν γένος, ὁππόθεν ἐσσί.
οὐ γὰρ ἀπὸ δρυός ἐσσι παλαιφάτου οὐδ᾽ ἀπὸ πέτρης.
