Winged Feet

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sun May 2 20:29:52 EDT 1999


At 12:18 PM -0700 4/30/99, clayton stirling bartholomew wrote:
>This is slightly off topic.
>
>I was looking for an epithet like PODARKHS (Iliad A:121) but with the
>meaning winged feet. I found almost what I was looking for in Ovid
>Metamorph. 2:229 and Aristophanes Thes.1100 ( PODA hUPOPTERON) but I
>could not find this phrase used as an epithet. Perhaps there is no such
>usage. I was under the impression that this was used as an epithet of
>Hermes, Mercury perhaps others.
>
>And while we are already off topic, what about the symbol of the foot
>with wings. Anyone know anything about the history of this symbol?

I've watched the thread developing--and moving downhill into an OT
discussion of "feet" as euphemism sustained by great care to cite the
passages in question from the LXX!

But I just wondered whether what Clay may have had in mind could have been
the recurrent formulaic epithet for Achilles: PODAS WKUS--it always appears
in a nominative phrase fitting into the slot in the hexameter following the
strong caesura of the fourth foot: PODAS WKUS ACILLEUS. That's not a
compound word at all, of course, but a phrase consisting of an adjective
and an accusative of specification--and yet, it has something of the sound
of PODARKHS, if one is probing from a distant memory. Does this have any
bearing on what you were asking, Clay?

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/



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