From Jim Nohrnberg
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>The locus classicus for the mythicised malodorous seal or phoci in the
>flocks of Proteus, the Shepherd of the Sea and Old Man of the Ocean, is
>Homer, Odyssey IV, 435-49, where the daughter of that deity uses ambrosia
>as an antidote. See ll. 441f: teire gar ainos / phokaon halotrepheon
>olootatos odme (for the pestilent stink of those sea-bred seals sorely
>oppressed us). Granted, these are not live seals, but seal skins, but the
>context, which is metamorphic like the scapegoating of Spenser's Faunus,
>indicates that sea-monsters all offend the sense of smell: you would not
>want to bed down with one, dead or alive. (I will forbear further examples
>for now, in the interests of turning 50 pp. into 15 min. sometime before
>Thurs.)
> --Jim Nohrnberg.
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