[Hektor] did not swear the incongruous utterance as a false oath willingly; instead [it was a false oath] because what he swore to was not about to come to pass.[1]
"And [he] being especially careful [not] to be convicted of swearing falsely."[2]
*)epi/orkon a)nw/mosen: ou) to\ e)/cwqen e)pipefwnhme/non e)pi/orkon w)/mosen e(kousi/ws: a)ll' e)peidh\ ou)k e)/melle teleiwqh=nai ta\ o)mwmosme/na. kai\ e)piorki/as a(lw=nai ma/lista fulatto/menos.
The headword phrase occurs in
Homer,
Iliad 10.332 (web address 1), except that
Homer has
e)pw/mosen ('swore to') instead of the otherwise unattested
a)nw/mosen found here;
a)pw/mosen, which would normally mean 'swore off' or 'refused to swear' was an alternative reading known to early commentators (and rejected by them; cf.
Eustathius ad loc.), and it is conceivable that this could be behind the Suda's erroneous reading.
[1] A garbled paraphrase of comments from the
scholia to the
Homer passage (see above), based ultimately on Aristonicus. In the original, the "incongruous utterance" was not a reference to Hektor's oath, but to
Homer's characterization of that oath as a false one. For the use of
e)/cwqen ('outside') in the sense of 'incongruous' or 'out of character', see the Aristonicus' comments in the
scholia to 10.240.
[2] This additional comment, which occurs only in mss GIM (and cf.
alpha 1382), apparently quotes or refers to a different passage altogether, and contains not the headword adjective but the related noun
e)piorki/a ('perjury', 'swearing falsely'). Adler suggests Symeon Metaphrastes as a possible source.
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