[1393] ὀδὰξ … ὀδοῦσιν: 'biting it with their teeth.' The pleonasm is merely apparent, as ὀδάξ and ὀδούς are prob. from different roots. Cf. 4. 18, “κουρὶξ Ἑλκομένη πλοκάμους”. Ap. may have regarded these as justifiable extensions of the curious Homeric λὰξ ποδί. ὀδάξ is from Il. 2. 418, “πρηνέες ἐν κονίῃσιν ὀδὰξ λαζοίατο γαῖαν”. Some needlessly try to take ὀδοῦσιν of the dragon's teeth, 'biting the clods broken for the dragon's teeth,' which is suggested by the ending of 1336, βῶλον ὀδόντας. Brunck adopts ὀκλάξ, the conjecture of Abresch, but, even granting that ὀκλάξ can be used for γνύξ (as in 1308), it is inconsistent with πρηνεῖς in the following line. Lehrs accepts Hermann's ἀρούρης, regarding ὀδοῦσιν as a gloss on ὀδάξ, but such a familiar word would not require a gloss. For Merkel's ὔλοξιν see on 1054; he keeps ὀδοῦσιν in his text.
τετρηχότα: 'rough,' see note to 1.1167. As βῶλος elsewhere in the poem is always fem., we must, with Merkel, consider this as an instance of the Schema Atticum, cf. 3. 21. Masculine forms of participles as well as adjectives can be used as feminine in epic, e.g. Hes. fr. 703, “δαϊζομένοιο πόληος.” For the varying gender of βῶλος in late Greek v. L. and S.This text is part of:
Argonautica. Apollonius Rhodius. George W. Mooney. London. Longmans, Green. 1912.
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