168-9. I have transposed these lines, assuming that they were misplaced
by a copyist. Guido's Latin favours the change, and the whole passage
will illustrate the English translator's methods:
_Oyleus uero Aiax qui cum 32 nauibus suis in predictam incidit
tempestatem, omnibus nauibus suis exustis et submersis in mari, in
suis uiribus brachiorum nando semiuiuus peruenit ad terram; et,
inflatus pre nimio potu aque, uix se nudum recepit in littore, vbi
usque ad superuenientis diei lucem quasi mortuus iacuit in arena, [et]
de morte sua sperans potius quam de uita. Sed cum quidam ex suis nando
similiter a maris ingluuie iam erepti nudi peruenissent ad littus,
dominum eorum querunt in littore [et] si forsitan euasisset. Quem in
arena iacentem inueniunt, dulcibus uerborum fouent affatibus, cum nec
in uestibus ipsum nec in alio possunt subsidio refouere._ (MS. Harley
4123, fol. 117 a—the bracketed words are superfluous.)
178. _Telamon_ was not at the siege, and his name appears here and in l.
150 as the result of a tangle which begins in the confusion of Oyleus
Ajax with Ajax the son of Telamon. In classical writers after Homer it
is Oyleus Ajax who, at the sack of Troy, drags Cassandra from the temple
of Minerva. This is the story in Dictys. Dares, like Homer, is silent.
In Benoît de Sainte-Maure's poem (ll. 26211-16), the best MSS. name
Oyleus Ajax as Cassandra's captor, but others have '_Thelamon Aiax_',
i.e. Ajax, the son of Telamon. Guido read Benoît in a MS. of the latter
class, and accordingly makes _Telamonius Aiax_ do the sacrilege. With
the English translator this becomes _Telamon_ simply (Bk. xxix, ll.
11993-7). So when later, in Bk. xxxi, he comes to describe the
shipwreck, he replaces Guido's _Aiax_ by _Telamon_, and spoils the story
of Minerva's vengeance on the actual violator of her sanctuary.