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1 1 The ancient Greek hero in 24 hours Gregory Nagy Table of contents - Introduction to the book - Part I. Heroes as ref...

The ancient Greek hero in 24 hours Gregory Nagy

Table of contents - Introduction to the book - Part I. Heroes as reflected in epic and lyric poetry - Introduction to Homeric poetry Hour 1. The Homeric Iliad and the glory of the unseasonal hero The meaning of kleos The kleos of Achilles as epic ‘glory’ A much shorter version of epic ‘glory’ The immortalizing power of kleos as epic ‘glory’ The meaning of hōrā The need for heroes to “script” their own death Hēraklēs as a model hero The Labors of Hēraklēs Hēraklēs and the meaning of kleos Hēraklēs and the idea of the hero Achilles and the idea of the hero Achilles and the meaning of kleos Hour 2. Achilles as epic hero and the idea of total recall in song The meaning of memnēmai Phoenix and his total recall The idea of kleos as a medium of total recall The idea of kleos as epic narrative An epic tale told by Phoenix The form of epic poetry

2 To sing the klea andrōn ‘glories of men’ The klea andrōn ‘glories of men’ as heroic song The concept of a speech act Back to the epic tale told by Phoenix The emotions of fear and pity The story of Meleager and Kleopatra Plato’s reading of the Iliad The epic choice of Achilles Hour 3. Achilles and the poetics of lament The meaning of akhos and penthos A man of constant sorrow Achilles and Penthesileia the Amazon The essentials of singing laments A conventional gesture in women’s laments A typological comparison of laments The first lament of Andromache What Achilles sang The song of Kleopatra Hour 4. Achilles as lyric hero in the songs of Sappho and Pindar The meaning of aphthitoThe imperishable glory of Achilles in a song of Pindar The lyric glory of Achilles The imperishable glory of Hector and Andromache in a song of Sappho Achilles as a bridegroom Achilles as a focus of lament The unfailing glory of Achilles Contrasting the artificial and the natural

3 The unwilting glory of Achilles Achilles as a model for singing lyric songs of glory Models of lament Hour 5. When mortals become ‘equal’ to immortals: death of a hero, death of a bridegroom The meaning of daimōn The expression ‘equal to a daimōn’ Apollo as divine antagonist of Achilles Arēs as divine antagonist of Achilles Achilles as ideal warrior and ideal bridegroom The historical background of Sappho’s songs Transition to Sappho’s songs Arēs and Aphrodite as models for the bridegroom and the bride Song 31 of Sappho Song 1 of Sappho The ritual background of Song 1 of Sappho The Maiden Song of Alcman A typological comparison of initiation rituals Song 16 of Sappho Another song of Sappho Back to Song 16 of Sappho Back to Song 31 of Sappho Epiphany and death Erōs and Arēs Arēs as a model for Achilles Achilles the eternal bridegroom Briseis as a stand-in for Aphrodite

4 The merging of identity in myth and ritual Distinctions between real death and figurative death in lyric Apollo as model for Achilles Fatal attraction Hour 6. Patroklos as the other self of Achilles The meaning of therapōn Patroklos as therapōn Anatolian origins of the word therapōn Early Greek uses of the words therapōn, theraps, therapeuein The therapōn as charioteer The therapōn as a ritual substitute Arēs as divine antagonist of Patroklos and Achilles The therapeutic function of the therapōn Patroklos as the other self of Achilles Ramifications of the idea of another self Comment 6. Simone Weil on sacrificial substitution Hour 7. The sign of the hero in visual and verbal art The meaning of sēma The sign of the hero at a chariot race The sign in the visual arts Selected examples of signs in the visual arts Comment 7a. Myth and ritual in pictures of chariot scenes involving Achilles Comment 7b. Apobatic chariot racing Comment 7c. Apobatic chariot fighting Comment 7d. Distinctions between chariot fighting and chariot racing Comment 7e. Homeric poetry at the festival of the Panathenaia in Athens Comment 7f. Signs of alternative epic traditions as reflected in Athenian vase paintings

5 Comment 7g. The apobatic moment Hour 8. The psychology of the hero’s sign in the Homeric Iliad The meaning of psūkhē The psūkhē of Patroklos in the Iliad The psūkhē of Patroklos in the picture painted on the Münster Hydria Achilles and Patroklos as cult heroes of apobatic chariot racing An athletic event at Eleusis Achilles and Dēmophōn as cult heroes of festivals Achilles as a model of rhapsodic performance Achilles and Patroklos as cult heroes of a poetic event The prefiguring of Achilles by Patroklos Heroic immortalization and the psūkhē The psūkhē as both messenger and message A fusion of heroic myth and athletic ritual Back to the glory of the ancestors Back to the meaning of Patroklos Comment 8a. About the ritual origins of athletics Comment 8b. The meaning of aethlos / āthlos Comment 8c. Back to the Panathenaia Comment 8d. Patroklos as a model for Achilles Comment 8e. The mentality of re-enactment at festivals Hour 9. The return of Odysseus in the Homeric Odyssey The meaning of nostos The roles of Odysseus The complementarity of the Iliad and Odyssey The heroic mentality of achieving nostos A nostos in the making

6 Echoes of lament in a song about homecoming Hour 10. The mind of Odysseus in the Homeric Odyssey The meaning of noos The interaction of noos and nostos The hero’s return to his former social status The hero’s return from the cave The return to light and life The journey of a soul Hour 11. Blessed are the heroes: the cult hero in Homeric poetry and beyond The meaning of olbios Signs of hero cult Different meanings of the word olbios for the initiated and the uninitiated How a Homeric hero can become truly olbios The death of Odysseus A mystical vision of the tomb of Odysseus Two meanings of a sēma An antagonism between Athena and Odysseus Conclusion: the seafarer is dead and the harvest is complete Hour 12. The cult hero as an exponent of justice in Homeric poetry and beyond The meaning of dikē An occurrence of dikē as ‘justice’ in the Odyssey The Golden Generation of humankind Hesiod as an exponent of justice Metaphors for dikē and hubris The Silver Generation of humankind Two further generations of humankind

7 Hesiod in the Iron Age Back to Hesiod as an exponent of dikē A reconnection of generations in an orchard Looking ahead into the future, from the heroic age to the historical age - Part II. Heroes as reflected in prose media Hour 13. A crisis in reading the world of heroes The meaning of krinein A story about the meaning of olbios in the Histories of Herodotus Another story about the meaning of olbios in the Histories of Herodotus Variations in discriminating between the real and the unreal Variations in discriminating between justice and injustice Heroes as exponents of justice in poetry after Homer and Hesiod Hour 14. Longing for a hero: a retrospective The meaning of pothos Testimony from the Hērōikos of Philostratus Longing for Protesilaos in the Homeric Iliad The sacred eroticism of heroic beauty The beauty of seasonality in a Modern Greek poem The beauty of the hero in death A beautiful setting for the beautiful cult hero Paroxysms of sentimentality in worshipping cult heroes Back to the tumulus of Achilles Longing for Achilles: you’re going to miss me Longing for Patroklos: I’ll miss him forever Hour 15. What the hero ‘means’ The meaning of sēmainein

8 What Protesilaos ‘means’ The mystery of a cult hero What Herodotus ‘means’ More on the mystery of a cult hero Back to the ‘meaning’ of Protesilaos Initiation into the mysteries of a cult hero The descent of an initiand into the nether world of a cult hero A brief commentary on the text about the descent The oracular consultation of heroes An initiation for the reader The personal intimacy of experiencing a heroic epiphany Ritual correctness in making mental contact with the cult hero How the cult hero communicates More on the oracular consultation of heroes Coming back once again to what the hero ‘means’ The cult hero as a medium - Part III. Heroes as reflected in tragedy - Introduction to tragedy Hour 16. Heroic aberration in the Agamemnon of Aeschylus The meaning of atē Hour 17. Looking beyond the cult hero in the Libation Bearers and Eumenides of Aeschylus The meaning of tīmē Hour 18. Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus and the power of the cult hero in death The meaning of kolōnos Hour 19. Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus and heroic pollution

9 The meaning of miasma Hour 20. The hero as mirror of men’s and women’s experiences in the Hippolytus of Euripides The meaning of telos Hour 21. The hero’s agony in the Bacchae of Euripides The meaning of agōn - Part IV. Heroes as reflected in two dialogues of Plato Hour 22. The living word Part I: Socrates in Plato’s Apology and Phaedo The meaning of daimonion Hour 23. The living word Part II: more on Plato’s Socrates in the Phaedo The meaning of sōzein - Part V. Heroes transcended Hour 24. The hero as savior The meaning of sōtēr

Introduction to the book The readings 00§1. The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours is based on a course that I have taught at Harvard University ever since the late 1970s. This course, “Concepts of the Hero in Greek Civilization,” centers on selected readings of texts, all translated from the original Greek into English. The texts include the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey; the Hesiodic Theogony and Works and Days; selected songs of Sappho and Pindar; selections from the Histories of Herodotus; the Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, and Eumenides of Aeschylus; the Oedipus Tyrannus and Oedipus at Colonus of Sophocles; the Hippolytus and Bacchae of Euripides; and the Apology and Phaedo of Plato. Also included are selections from Pausanias and Philostratus. These texts are supplemented by pictures, taken mostly from Athenian vase paintings. Copies of those pictures will be shown in Hour 7. 00§2. The texts I have just listed are available free of charge in an online Sourcebook of original Greek texts translated into English (chs.harvard.edu), which I have edited with the help of fellow teachers and researchers. The process of editing this Sourcebook is an ongoing project that I hope will outlast my own lifetime. All the translations in this online Sourcebook are free from copyright restrictions. That is because the translations belong either to me or to other authors who have waived copyright or to authors who died in a time that precedes any further application of copyright. The texts of these translations in the Sourcebook are periodically reviewed and modified, and the modifications are indicated by way of special formatting designed to show the differences between the original translator’s version and the modified version. 00§3. The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours is divided into five parts. The number of hours dedicated to each part is tightened up as the argumentation intensifies, and the hours themselves get shorter. Part I, taking up Hours 1 through 12, is primarily about heroes as reflected in the oldest surviving forms of ancient Greek epic and lyric poetry. Part II, Hours 13 through 15, is about heroes as reflected in a variety of prose media. Part III, Hours 16 through 21, is about heroes in ancient Greek tragedy. Part IV, Hours 22-23, is about heroes as reflected in two dialogues of Plato. And Part V, confined to Hour 24, is about the hero as a transcendent concept. Interwoven with the 24 Hours are Comments that follow some but not all of these hours. These Comments, which are numbered to match the number of the hour after which they occur, will add more hours of reading, and the reader may choose to postpone them in the course of a first reading.

About the dating of the texts quoted in the selected readings 00§4. The time span for most of these texts extends from the eighth through the fourth centuries BCE (“Before the Common Era”). Some of the texts, however, date from later periods:

11 for example, Pausanias is dated to the second century CE (“Common Era”). When I say “ancient Greek history,” the term ancient includes three periods: archaic (from the eighth century down to roughly the middle of the fifth) classical (roughly, the second half of the fifth century) post-classical (fourth century and beyond). A convenient point for dividing classical and post-classical is the death of Socrates in 399 BCE.

About the historical setting for the primary sources: “ancient Greece” [[The online version will be correlated with World Map.]] “One is no longer at home anywhere, so in the end one longs to be back where one can somehow be at home because it is the only place where one would wish to be at home: and that is the world of Greece.” Friedrich Nietzsche [[from part Two of “Der Wille zur Macht”]] 00§5. In the ancient world of the classical period, “Greece” was not really a “country” or a “nation,” as we ordinarily think of these terms. Rather, it was a cultural constellation of competing city-states that had a single language in common, Greek. In the classical period, speakers of the Greek language called themselves Hellēnes or ‘Hellenes’. 00§6. Among the most prominent of the ancient Greek city-states were Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Argos, and Thebes, all of them located in the part of the Mediterranean region that we know today as “modern Greece.” There were also other prominent ancient Greek city-states in other parts of the Mediterranean region. To the East, on the coast of Asia Minor, which is now part of the modern state of Turkey, were Greek cities like Miletus and Smyrna (now Izmir); facing the coast of Asia Minor were Greek island states like Samos and Chios. Further to the North was a federation of Greek cities on the island of Lesbos and on the facing mainland of Asia Minor. Still further to the North, guarding the entrance to the Black Sea, was the Greek city of Byzantium, later to be called Constantinople (now Istanbul). To the South, in African Libya, was the Greek city of Cyrene. Further to the East in Northern Africa, in Egypt, was the arguably greatest of all Greek cities in the ancient world, Alexandria, founded by Alexander the Great in the fourth century BCE. To the West were other great Greek cities like Syracuse on the island of Sicily as well as Tarentum and Neapolis (now Napoli or Naples) in what is now the modern state of Italy. Still further to the West, in what is now the modern state of France, was the Greek (formerly Phoenician) city of Massalia (now Marseille). 00§7. The ancient Greeks would agree that they shared the same language, despite the staggering variety of local dialects. They would even agree that they shared a civilization,

12 though they would be intensely contentious about what exactly their shared civilization would be. Each city-state had its own institutions, that is, its own government, constitution, laws, calendars, religious practices, and so on. Both the sharing and the contentiousness lie at the root of the very essence of the city-state. What I am translating here as ‘city-state’ is the Greek word polis. This is the word from which our words political and politics are derived. 00§8. In the fourth century BCE, the Greek philosopher Aristotle made a basic observation about the ancient Greek polis in a treatise known today as the Politics. Here is the original Greek wording, ho anthrōpos phusei politikon zōion (Aristotle Politics I 1253a2–3), which can be translated literally this way: ‘A human [anthrōpos] is by nature an organism of the polis [politikon zōion]’.1 We see in this wording the basis for a distinctly Greek concept of civilization. What Aristotle is really saying here is that humans achieve their ultimate potential within a society that is the polis. From this point of view, the ultimate in human potential is achieved politically. The original Greek wording of this observation by Aristotle is frequently rendered this way into English: ‘Man is a political animal’. Such a rendering does not do justice to the original formulation, since current uses of the word political do not convey accurately the historical realities of the ancient Greek polis. 00§9. Here are some basic aspects of Greek civilization that most ancient Greeks in the classical period could agree about: 1. interpolitical festivals. Two primary examples are the Olympic festival (= “Olympics”) at Olympia and the Pythian festival at Delphi. 2. interpolitical repositories of shared knowledge. A primary example is Delphi. 3. interpolitical poetry. Two primary examples are a set of monumental poems known as the Iliad and Odyssey, attributed to a prehistoric figure named Homer, and another set of poems known as the Theogony and Works and Days, attributed to a prehistoric figure named Hesiod.2 00§10. I have used the term interpolitical here instead of international because I do not want to imply that each polis was a nation. In most of my published work, however, I use the term Panhellenic instead of interpolitical. The term Panhellenic or pan-Hellenic is derived from the ancient Greek compound noun pan-Hellēnes ‘all Greeks’, which is attested in the Hesiodic Works and Days (528)3 in the sense of referring to ‘all Greeks under the sun’4 (526-528).5 1

ὁ ἄνθρωπος φύσει πολιτικὸν ζῷον. English-language translations of the entire Homeric Iliad and Odyssey and of the entire Hesiodic Theogony and Works and Days are available in the online online Sourcebook of original Greek texts translated into English (chs.harvard.edu). 3 πανελλήνεσσι. 4 ἠέλιος ... πανελλήνεσσι φαείνει. 2

13 This use of the compound noun pan-Hellēnes in the absolutizing sense of ‘all Greeks’ helps explain the later use of the non-compound noun Hellēnes ‘Hellenes’ to mean ‘Greeks’ in the classical period; earlier, that noun Hellēnes had been used to designate a sub-set of Greeks dwelling in Thessaly rather than any full complement of Greeks. As the linguistic evidence shows, the non-compound noun Hellēnes acquired the meaning of ‘Greeks’ from the built-in politics of the compound noun pan-Hellēnes, the basic meaning of which can be paraphrased this way: Hellenes (as a subset of Greeks) and all other Greeks (as a notionally complete set of Greeks).6 00§11. I understand the concept of Panhellenic or Panhellenism as a cultural as well as political impulse that became the least common denominator of ancient Greek civilization in the classical period. And the impulse of Panhellenism was already at work in Homeric and Hesiodic poetry. In the Homeric Iliad, for example, the names Achaeans and Danaans and Argives are used synonymously in the universalizing sense of Panhellenes or ‘all Hellenes’ or ‘all Greeks’. 00§12. In the Classical period, an authoritative source goes on record to say that Homer and Hesiod are the foundation for all civilization. That source is the historian Herodotus, who lived in the fifth century BCE. According to Herodotus (2.53.1-3), Homer and Hesiod are the repository of knowledge that provides the basics of education for all Hellenes.7 And such basics, as we will see in this book, are conceived primarily in terms of religion, which requires an overall knowledge of the forms and the functions of the gods. 00§13. Here I make two points about the historical realities of ancient Greek religion: 1. When we apply the term religion to such traditional practices as the worship of gods in the classical period of Greek civilization as also in earlier periods, we need to think of such practices in terms of an interaction between myth and ritual. Here is a quick working definition of myth and ritual together. Ritual is doing things and saying things in a way that is considered sacred. Myth is saying things in a way that is also considered sacred. So ritual frames myth. 2. Not only were the gods worshipped in ancient Greek religion. Heroes too were worshipped. Besides the word worship, we may use the word cult, as in the term hero cult.

Nagy 2009a:274-275. Secondary sources such as “Nagy 2009a” are all listed in the Bibliography at the end of this book. In most cases, I will use abbreviations that can be looked up at the first page of the Bibliograpy. An example of such abbreviations is “HQ” in the note that follows. 6 HQ 39n40. From the start, I alert the reader to the fact that notionally is one of my favorite words. I use it to indicate that the statement I am making reflects not my own thinking but rather the thought patterns of others. 7 Commentary in PH 215-216 = 8§2.

14 Other relevant concepts are cultivate and culture. The concepts of (1) a hero cult and (2) the cult hero who is worshipped in hero cult will figure prominently in the readings ahead. 00§14. Our readings will start with Homer. This prehistoric figure, who is credited with the composition of the Iliad and Odyssey, represents an interpolitical or Panhellenic perspective on the Greeks. Homeric poetry is not tied down to any one polis. It presents the least common denominator in the cultural education of the elite of all city-states. 00§15. But how can a narrative or “story” like the Iliad become an instrument of education? This book offers answers to that question.

Introduction to Homeric poetry 0§1. Before I delve into the 24 hours of this book, I offer an introductory essay that is meant to familiarize the reader with Homeric poetry, which is the primary medium that I will be analyzing in the first 11 hours. 0§2. Homeric poetry is a cover term for two epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey. The major part of this introduction will deal with the Iliad.1 As I will argue, this epic of the Iliad is in and of itself the best introduction to its companion-piece, the epic of the Odyssey. 0§3. Admired through the ages as the ultimate epic, the Iliad, along with the Odyssey, was venerated by the ancient Greeks themselves as the cornerstone of their civilization. By force of its prestige, the Iliad sets the standard for the definition of the word epic: an expansive poem of enormous scope, composed in an old-fashioned and superbly elevated style of language, concerning the wondrous deeds of heroes. That these deeds were meant to arouse a sense of wonder or marvel is difficult for the modern mind to comprehend, especially in a time when even such words as wonderful or marvelous have lost much of their evocative power. Nor is it any easier to grasp the ancient Greek concept of hero (the English word is descended from the Greek), going beyond the word’s ordinary levels of meaning in casual contemporary usage. 0§4. What, then, were these heroes? In ancient Greek traditions, heroes were humans, male or female, of the remote past, endowed with superhuman abilities and descended from the immortal gods themselves. A prime example is Achilles. This, the greatest hero of the Iliad, was the son of Thetis, a sea-goddess known for her far-reaching cosmic powers. 0§5. It is clear in the epic, however, that the father of Achilles is mortal, and that this greatest of heroes must therefore be mortal as well. So also with all the ancient Greek stories of the heroes: even though they are all descended in some way or another from the gods, however many generations removed, heroes are mortals, subject to death. No matter how many immortals you find in a family tree, the intrusion of even a single mortal will make all successive descendants mortal. Mortality, not immortality, is the dominant gene. 0§6. In some stories, true, the gods themselves can bring it about that the hero becomes miraculously restored to life after death - a life of immortality. The story of Hēraklēs, who had been sired by Zeus, the chief of all the gods, is perhaps the most celebrated instance. In Hour 1 of this book, we will examine the broad outlines of the story. But even in the case of Hēraklēs, as we will see, the hero has to die first. It is only after the most excruciating pains, culminating in his death on a funeral pyre on the peak of Mount Oeta, that Hēraklēs is at long last admitted 1

This introduction to Homeric poetry is based on an essay I wrote (Nagy 1992) to introduce the “Everyman’s Library” 1992 edition of Robert Fitzgerald’s translation of the Homeric Iliad.

16 to the company of immortals. In short, the hero can be immortalized, but the fundamental painful fact remains: the hero is not by nature immortal. 0§7. As I will argue in Hours 10 and 11, the Odyssey is an extended narrative about heroic immortalization. But this immortalization happens only on a symbolic level. As we will see, the Odyssey makes it clear that Odysseus will have to die, even if it happens in a prophecy, beyond the framework of the epic. 0§8. By contrast with heroes, the gods themselves are exempt from the ultimate pain of death. An exception that proves the rule is the god Arēs, who goes through the motions of death after he is taken off guard and wounded by the mortal Diomedes in Scroll V of the Iliad.2 As we will see in Hour 5, there is a touch of humor in the Homeric treatment of this death scene, owing to the fact that such a “death” as experienced here by the Olympian god Arēs is only a mock death. In the world of epic, the dead seriousness of death can be experienced only by humans. 0§9. Mortality is the dominant theme in the stories of ancient Greek heroes, and the Iliad and Odyssey are no exception. Mortality is the burning question for the heroes of these epics, and for Achilles and Odysseus in particular. The human condition of mortality, with all its ordeals, defines heroic life itself. The certainty that one day you will die makes you human, distinct from animals who are unaware of their future death and from the immortal gods. All the ordeals of the human condition culminate in the ultimate ordeal of a warrior hero’s violent death in battle, detailed in all its ghastly varieties by the poetry of the Iliad. 0§10. This deep preoccupation with the primal experience of violent death in war has several possible explanations. Some argue that the answer has to be sought in the simple fact that ancient Greek society accepted war as a necessary and even important part of life. Others seek a deeper answer by pointing to the poet’s awe-struck sense of uncontrollable forces at work in the universe, even of a personified concept of Force itself, which then becomes, through the poet’s own artistic powers, some kind of eerie esthetic thing. 0§11. But there are other answers as well, owing to approaches that delve deeply into the role of religion and, more specifically, into the religious practices of hero worship and animal sacrifice in ancient Greece. Of particular interest is the well-attested Greek custom of worshipping a hero precisely by way of slaughtering a sacrificial animal, ordinarily a ram. A

I deliberately said “Scroll V” of the Iliad, not “Book V.” My intent is to drive home the reality of the “scrolls” or “rolls” of papyrus on which the “books” of the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey were written in the ancient world. Here and everywhere, I number the “books” of the Iliad in upper-case roman numerals and the corresponding “books” of the Odyssey in lower-case roman numerals.

17 striking example is the seasonally recurring sacrifice of a black ram at the precinct of the cult hero Pelops at the site of the Olympics (Pausanias 5.13.1-2).3 0§12. There is broad cultural evidence suggesting that hero worship in ancient Greece was not created out of stories like that of the Iliad and Odyssey but was in fact independent of them. The stories, on the other hand, were based on the religious practices, though not always directly. There are even myths that draw into an explicit parallel the violent death of a hero and the sacrificial slaughter of an animal. For example, the description of the death of the hero Patroklos in Iliad XVI parallels in striking detail the stylized description, documented elsewhere in Homeric poetry (Odyssey iii), of the slaughter of a sacrificial heifer: in both cases, the victim is first stunned and disoriented by a fatal blow from behind, then struck frontally by another fatal blow, and then finally administered the coup de grâce. For another example, we may consider an ancient Greek vase-painting that represents the same heroic warrior Patroklos in the shape of a sacrificial ram lying supine with its legs in the air and its throat slit open (lettering next to the painted figure specifies Patroklos).4 0§13. Evidence also places these practices of hero worship and animal sacrifice precisely during the era when the stories of the Iliad and Odyssey took shape. Yet, curiously, we find practically no direct mention there of hero worship and very little detailed description of animal sacrifice.5 Homeric poetry, as a medium that achieved its general appeal to the Greeks by virtue of avoiding the parochial concerns of specific locales or regions, tended to avoid realistic descriptions of any ritual, not just ritual sacrifice. This pattern of avoidance is to be expected, given that any ritual tends to be a localized phenomenon in ancient Greece. 0§14. What sacrificial scenes we do find in the epics are markedly stylized, devoid of the kind of details that characterize real sacrifices as documented in archaeological and historical evidence. In real sacrifice the parts of the animal victim’s body correspond to the members of the body politic. The ritual dismemberment of the animal’s body in sacrifice sets a mental pattern for the idea of the reassembly of the hero’s body in myths of immortalization. Given, then, that Homeric poetry avoids delving into the details of dismemberment as it applies to animals, in that it avoids the details of sacrificial practice, we may expect a parallel avoidance of the topic of immortalization for the hero. The local practices of hero worship, contemporaneous with the evolution of Homeric poetry as we know it, are clearly founded on religious notions of heroic immortalization.6

PH 123 = 4§10, with further references and commentary. This painting, along with another related painting, is analyzed by Tarenzi 2005, who makes major improvements on the earlier interpretations of Griffiths 1985 and 1989. 5 There are, however, a number of indirect references to hero cult: Nagy 2012. 6 More in Nagy 2012. 4

18 0§15. While personal immortalization is thus too localized in orientation for epics, the hero’s death in battle, in all its stunning varieties, is universally acceptable. The Iliad seems to make up for its avoidance of details concerning the sacrifices of animals by dwelling on details concerning the martial deaths of heroes. In this way Homeric poetry, with its staggering volume of minutely detailed descriptions of the deaths of warriors, can serve as a compensation for sacrifice itself.7 0§16. Such deep concerns about the human condition are organized by Homeric poetry in a framework of heroic portraits, with those of Achilles and Odysseus serving as the centerpieces of the Iliad and Odyssey respectively. 0§17. I concentrate here on Achilles. Here is a monolithic and fiercely uncompromising man who actively chooses violent death over life in order to win the glory of being remembered forever in epic poetry (Iliad IX 413). Here is a man of unbending principle who cannot allow his values to be compromised - not even by the desperate needs of his near and dear friends who are begging him to bend his will, bend it just enough to save his own people. Here is a man of constant sorrow, who can never forgive himself for having unwittingly allowed his nearest and dearest friend, Patroklos, to take his place in battle and be killed in his stead, slaughtered like a sacrificial animal - all on account of his own refusal to bend his will by coming to the aid of his fellow warriors. Here is a man, finally, of unspeakable anger, an anger so intense that the poetry of the Iliad words it the same way that it words the anger of the gods, even of Zeus himself. 0§18. The gods of the Iliad express their anger actively, as in descriptions of the destructive fire unleashed by the thunderbolt of Zeus. The central hero of the Iliad at first expresses his anger passively, by withdrawing his vital presence from his own people. The hero’s anger is directed away from the enemy and toward his own people, whose king, Agamemnon, has insulted Achilles’ honor and demeaned his sense of self. This passive anger of Achilles translates into the active success of the Trojan enemy in the hero’s absence, and for now the most successful of them all is Hector, the Trojan hero who becomes the most hated opponent of Achilles. Hector’s temporary success is compared, ironically, to the destructive fire unleashed by the thunderbolt of Zeus. In this way, the passive anger of the hero translates symbolically into the active anger of the god.8 Then, in response to the killing of Patroklos by Hector, Achilles’ anger modulates into an active phase - active no longer in a symbolic but in a real sense. The hero’s anger is redirected, away from his own people and back toward his enemy, especially toward Hector.

7 8

PH 143 = 5§13n40 BA 321-338 = 20§§5-19.

19 0§19. This new phase of Achilles’ anger consumes the hero in a paroxysm of selfdestructiveness. His fiery rage plummets him to the depths of brutality, as he begins to view the enemy as the ultimate Other, to be hated with such an intensity that Achilles can even bring himself, in a moment of ultimate fury, to express that most ghastly of desires, to eat the flesh of Hector, the man he is about to kill. The Iliad is the story of a hero’s pain, culminating in an anger that degrades him to the level of a savage animal, to the depths of bestial*ty. This same pain, however, this same intense feeling of loss, will ultimately make the savage anger subside in a moment of heroic self-recognition that elevates Achilles to the highest realms of humanity, of humanism. At the end of the Iliad, as he begins to recognize the pain of his deadliest enemy, of the Other, he begins to achieve a true recognition of the Self. The anger is at an end. And the story can end as well. 0§20. We find the clearest statement about the subject of the Iliad in the original Greek poem’s very first word: Anger.9 The song of the Iliad - for at the time, poets were singers, performers, and their poems were sung - is about the anger, the doomed and ruinous anger, of the hero Achilles:

Hour 0 Text A |1 Anger [mēnis], goddess, sing it, of Achilles son of Peleus - |2 catastrophic [oulomenē] anger that made countless pains [algea] for the Achaeans, |3 and many steadfast lives [psūkhai] it drove down to Hādēs, |4 heroes’ lives, but their bodies10 it made prizes for dogs |5 and for all birds, and the Will of Zeus was reaching its fulfillment [telos] - |6 sing starting from the point where the two - I now see it - first had a falling out, engaging in strife [eris], |7 I mean, [Agamemnon] the son of Atreus, lord of men, and radiant Achilles. |8 So, which one of the gods was it who impelled the two to fight with each other in strife [eris]? |9 It was [Apollo] the son of Leto and of Zeus. For he [= Apollo], infuriated at the king [= Agamemnon], |10 caused an evil disease to arise throughout the army, and the people were getting destroyed. Iliad I 1-1011 9

The Greek word here is mēnis (μῆνιν … in Iliad I 1), which has been thoroughly and perceptively analyzed by Muellner 1996. 10 The word for ‘body’ here is autos, which means literally ‘self’. So the bodies of the heroes who were killed in the Trojan War are the heroes ‘themselves’. By contrast, the psūkhai ‘lives’ of the heroes that are driven down to Hades are not the heroes ‘themselves’. After death, psūkhē ‘life’ is no longer the ‘self’. 11 |1 Μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος |2 οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί’ Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε’ ἔθηκε |3 πολλὰς δ’ ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς Ἄϊδι προΐαψεν |4 ἡρώων, αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν |5 οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι, Διὸς δ’ ἐτελείετο βουλή, |6 ἐξ οὗ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα διαστήτην ἐρίσαντε |7 Ἀτρεΐδης τε ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν καὶ δῖος ᾿Αχιλλεύς. |8 Τίς τάρ σφωε θεῶν ἔριδι ξυνέηκε μάχεσθαι; |9 Λητοῦς καὶ Διὸς υἱός· ὃ γὰρ βασιλῆϊ χολωθεὶς |10 νοῦσον ἀνὰ στρατὸν ὄρσε κακήν, ὀλέκοντο δὲ λαοί.

20 The singer was following the rules of his craft in summing up the whole song, all 100,000 or so words, in one single word, the first word of the song.12 0§21. So also in the Odyssey, the first word, Man, tells the subject of the song.13 There the singer calls upon the Muse, goddess of the special Memory that makes him a singer, to tell him the story of the Man, the versatile man, the hero Odysseus, who wandered so many countless ways in his voyages at sea after his heroic exploit of masterminding the capture and destruction of Troy. The Muse is imagined as telling the singer his song, and the singer can then sing this song to others:

Hour 0 Text B |1 That man, tell me O Muse the song of that man, that versatile [polu-tropos] man, who in very many ways |2 veered from his path and wandered off far and wide, after he had destroyed the sacred city of Troy. |3 Many different cities of many different people did he see, getting to know different ways of thinking [noos]. |4 Many were the pains [algea] he suffered in his heart [thūmos] while crossing the sea |5 struggling to merit [arnusthai] the saving of his own life [psūkhē ] and his own homecoming [nostos] as well as the homecoming of his companions. |6 But do what he might he could not save his companions, even though he very much wanted to. |7 For they perished through their own deeds of sheer recklessness, |8 disconnected [nēpioi]14 as they were, because of what they did to the cattle of the sun-god Helios. |9 They ate them. So the god [Helios] deprived them of their day of homecoming [nostimon]. |10 Starting from any single point of departure, O goddess, daughter of Zeus, tell me, as you have told those who came before me. Odyssey i 1-1015

0§22. In the same way in the Iliad, the singer calls upon the Muse to tell the story of the Anger, the catastrophic anger, of the hero Achilles, which caused countless losses and woes for Greeks and Trojans alike in the war that culminated in the destruction of Troy.

Muellner 1996. Albert Lord (1960) used the words singer and song in his definitive study of oral poetics. 13 The Greek word here is anēr (ἄνδρα … in Odyssey i 1). 14 On the meaning of nēpios as ‘disconnected’, see the Glossary. 15 |1 ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, Μοῦσα, πολύτροπον, ὃς μάλα πολλὰ |2 πλάγχθη, ἐπεὶ Τροίης ἱερὸν πτολίεθρον ἔπερσε· |3 πολλῶν δ’ ἀνθρώπων ἴδεν ἄστεα καὶ νόον ἔγνω, |4 πολλὰ δ’ ὅ γ’ ἐν πόντῳ πάθεν ἄλγεα ὃν κατὰ θυμόν, |5 ἀρνύμενος ἥν τε ψυχὴν καὶ νόστον ἑταίρων. |6 ἀλλ’ οὐδ’ ὧς ἑτάρους ἐρρύσατο, ἱέμενός περ· |7 αὐτῶν γὰρ σφετέρῃσιν ἀτασθαλίῃσιν ὄλοντο, |8 νήπιοι, οἳ κατὰ βοῦς Ὑπερίονος Ἠελίοιο |9 ἤσθιον· αὐτὰρ ὁ τοῖσιν ἀφείλετο νόστιμον ἦμαρ. |10 τῶν ἁμόθεν γε, θεά, θύγατερ Διός, εἰπὲ καὶ ἡμῖν.

21 0§23. We see from this paraphrasing of the beginnings of both the Iliad and the Odyssey that the rules of the singer’s craft extend beyond the naming of the main subject with the first word. In the original Greek of both the Iliad and the Odyssey, the first word announcing the subject - Anger, Man - is followed by a specially chosen adjective setting the mood - doomed anger, versatile man - to be followed in turn by a relative clause that frames the story by outlining the plot - the catastrophic anger that caused countless pains, the versatile man who wandered countless ways. 0§24. The symmetry of these two monumental compositions, the Iliad and Odyssey, goes beyond their strict adherence to the rules of introducing an ancient Greek song. For they counterbalance each other throughout their vast stretches of narrative, in a steady rhythmic flow of verses known as dactylic hexameters (the Iliad contains over 15,000 of these verses and the Odyssey, over 12,000). The counterbalancing focuses on the central plot and the characterization of the principal hero in each. Achilles’ monolithic personality, that of the mightiest warrior of his era who was monumentally proud of his martial exploits and his physical prowess, is matched against the many-sidedness of Odysseus, famed for his crafty stratagems and cunning intelligence. 0§25. The symmetry of the Iliad and Odyssey goes even further: between the two of them, these two songs give the impression of incorporating most of whatever was worth retelling about the heroic age - at least from the standpoint of the Greeks in the Classical period of the fifth century BCE and thereafter. The staggering comprehensiveness of these two songs is apparent even from a cursory glance. For example, the Iliad not only tells the story that it says it will tell, about Achilles’ anger and how it led to countless pains as the Greeks went on fighting it out with the Trojans and striving to ward off the fiery onslaught of Hector. It also manages to retell or even relive, though with varying degrees of directness or fullness of narrative, the entire Tale of Troy, including from the earlier points of the story-line such memorable moments as the Judgment of Paris, the Abduction of Helen, and the Assembly of Ships. More than that: the Iliad foreshadows the Death of Achilles, which does not occur within the bounds of its own plot. In short, although the story of the Iliad directly covers only a short stretch of the whole story of Troy, thereby resembling the compressed time-frame of Classical Greek tragedy (Aristotle makes this observation in his Poetics), it still manages to mention something about practically everything that happened at Troy, otherwise known as Ilion. Hence the epic’s title - the Tale of Ilion, the Iliad. The Odyssey adds much more, especially about the so-called epic Cycle. It even features the story of the Trojan Horse in Scroll viii. 0§26. For the Greeks of the fifth century BCE and thereafter, the Iliad and Odyssey, these two seemingly all-inclusive and symmetrical songs, were the creation of the Master Singer called Homer, reputed to have lived centuries earlier. Homer was presumed to be contemporaneous or near-contemporaneous with another Master Singer called Hesiod, who was credited with two other definitive symmetrical songs, the Theogony and the Works and Days.

22 About the real Homer, there is next to nothing that we can recover from the ancient world. Nor do we have much better luck with Hesiod, except perhaps for whatever the singer says about himself in his own two songs. In the case of Homer, we do not even have this much to start with, at least not in the Iliad or the Odyssey: in neither song does the singer say anything about himself that could be construed as historical information.16 It can even be said that there is no evidence for the existence of a Homer - and hardly that much more for the existence of a Hesiod. 0§27. What we do know for sure, however, is that the Greeks of the Classical period thought of Homer and Hesiod as their first authors, their primary authors. So it is not only for the modern reader that Homer and Hesiod represent the earliest phase of Greek literature. It is moreover a historical fact that Homer and Hesiod were eventually credited by the ancient Greeks with the very foundation of Greek literature. As I noted earlier, our primary authority for this fact is none other than the so-called Father of History himself, Herodotus, who observes in Scroll II (53.1-3) of his Histories that Homer and Hesiod, by way of their songs, had given the Greeks their first definitive statement about the gods. In a traditional society like that of the ancient Greeks, where the very idea of defining the gods is the equivalent of defining the society itself, this observation by Herodotus amounts to a claim that the songs of Homer and Hesiod are the basis of Greek civilization. 0§28. Who, then, was Homer? It is no exaggeration to answer that, along with Hesiod, he had become the prime culture hero of Greek civilization in the Classical period of the fifth century and thereafter. It was a common practice of the ancient Greeks to attribute any major achievement of society, even if this achievement may have taken place through a lengthy period of social evolution, to the personal breakthrough of a culture hero who was pictured as having made his monumental contribution in the earliest imaginable era of the culture. Greek myths about lawgivers, for example, tended to reconstruct these figures, whether or not they really ever existed, as the originators of the sum total of customary law as it evolved through time.17 The same sort of evolutionary model may well apply to the figure of Homer as an originator of heroic song.18 0§29. The model can even be extended from Homer to Homeric song. There is evidence that a type of story, represented in a wide variety of cultures where the evolution of a song tradition moves slowly ahead in time until it reaches a relatively static phase, reinterprets itself as if it resulted from a single event. There were many such stories about Homer in ancient Greece, and what matters most is not so much the stories themselves but what they 16

In the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, however, the speaker who presents himself as Homer in this hymn has much to say that is parallel to what the speaker of the Hesiodic Theognony says about himself. See Nagy 2009a. 17 Nagy 1985:32 = §13. 18 HQ 29-63.

23 reveal about society’s need to account for the evolution of Homeric song. The internal evidence of the Homeric verses, both in their linguistic development and in their datable references, points to an ongoing evolution of Homeric song embracing a vast stretch of time that lasted perhaps as long as a thousand years, extending from the second millennium BCE. This period culminated in a static phase that lasted about two centuries, framed by a formative stage in the later part of the eighth century BCE, where the epic was taking on its present shape, and a definitive stage, in the middle of the sixth, where the epic reached its final form.19 0§30. The basic historical fact remains, in any case, that the figure of Homer had become, by the Classical period of the fifth century BCE, a primary culture hero credited with the creation of the Iliad and Odyssey. Little wonder, then, that so many Greek cities - Athens included - claimed to be his birthplace. Such rivalry for the possession of Homer points to the increasingly widespread refinement of his identity through the cultural significance of Homeric song. 0§31. The subject of the Iliad bears witness to the cultural primacy of Homer in Greek civilization. The subject of this epic is not just the Anger of Achilles in particular and the age of heroes in general. The Iliad purports to say everything that is worth saying about the Greeks the Hellenes, as they called themselves in the Classical period. Not that the Iliad calls them Greeks. The Greeks in this song are a larger-than-life cultural construct of what they imagined themselves to have been in the distant age of heroes. These Greeks are retrojected Greeks, given such alternative Homeric names as Achaeans, Argives, Danaans, all three of which are used interchangeably to refer to these heroic ancestors whose very existence in song is for the Greeks the basis for their own self-definition as a people. It is as if the Iliad, in mirroring for the Greeks of the present an archetypal image of themselves in the past, served as an autobiography of a people. 0§32. On the surface these ancestral Greeks of the Iliad are on the offensive, attacking Troy. Underneath the surface, they are on the defensive, trying desperately to ward off the fiery onslaught of Hector, the leading Trojan hero. Here is how the words of Hector foretell the climactic moment when his fire will reach the ships of the Achaeans:

Hour 0 Text C |180 But when I get to the hollow ships |181 let there be some memory [mnēmosunē], in the future, of the burning fire, |182 how I will set the ships on fire and kill |183 the Argives [= Achaeans] right by their ships, confounded as they will be by the smoke.20 Iliad VIII 180-18321

19 20

HQ 41-43. Commentary in BA 335 = 20§16.

24 0§33. With all their ships beached on the shores of the Hellespont, marked for destruction by the threatening fire of Hector, the ancestral Greeks are vulnerable to nothing short of extinction. The Iliad makes it quite clear: if their ships burn, the Greeks will never return home, to become the seafaring nation who are the present audience of the Iliad. In the Iliad, the very survival of this seafaring nation is at stake. 0§34. But what exactly is this Greek nation? The very idea of nationhood is an incongruity if we apply it to the era when the Iliad and Odyssey took shape. From the eighth through the fifth centuries BCE, as I have already noted, the geographical area that we now recognize as ancient Greece was an agglomerate of territories controlled by scores of independent and competing city-states. The most important and prestigious of these were Athens, Sparta, Argos, Thebes, and Corinth. Each city-state, or polis, was a social entity unto itself, with its own government, customary laws, religious practices, dialect. The topic of the city-state will take us, in Hours 9 10 11, to the hidden agenda of the Odyssey. 0§35. The fragmentation of Greece in this era was so pronounced that, looking back, it is hard to find genuine instances of cultural cohesion. One early example is the Olympics; another is the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi; still another, and the most obvious, is the poetic legacy of Homer and Hesiod. The Homeric Iliad and Odyssey together can be viewed as a marvel of cultural synthesis, integrating the diverse institutional heritage of this plurality of citystates, this kaleidoscopic Greek-speaking world, into a unified statement of cultural identity, of civilization. 0§36. The cultural universalism of the Iliad and Odyssey can best be appreciated when we consider the extent of the diversity that separated the Greek city-states from each other. Nowhere is this diversity more apparent than in the realm of religious practices. How people worshipped any given god, as we know from the historical evidence of the Classical era and thereafter, differed dramatically from one city-state to another. Yet the Iliad and Odyssey spoke of the gods in a way that united the varied cultural perceptions and sensitivities of a vast variety of city-states, large and small. The religious dimensions of these gods, with Zeus, Hērā, Athena, Poseidon, and Apollo in the forefront, were destined to be shaded over by this Homeric process of synthesis, but their divine reality became highlighted as a cultural permanence in the same process. The modern reader may be struck by what seems on the surface to be a distinctly irreligious attitude of Homeric song towards the gods, but the universal cultural edifice of these gods’ lofty abode on Mount Olympus was in fact built up from a diversity of unspoken religious foundations. When Herodotus is saying that Homer and Hesiod, by way of their songs, had given the Greeks their first definitive statement about the 21

|180 ἀλλ’ ὅτε κεν δὴ νηυσὶν ἔπι γλαφυρῇσι γένωμαι, |181 μνημοσύνη τις ἔπειτα πυρὸς δηΐοιο γενέσθω, |182 ὡς πυρὶ νῆας ἐνιπρήσω, κτείνω δὲ καὶ αὐτοὺς |183 Ἀργείους παρὰ νηυσὶν ἀτυζομένους ὑπὸ καπνοῦ.

25 gods, he is in effect acknowledging the Olympian synthesis that had been bestowed on civilization by Homeric and Hesiodic song. It is the history of Greek civilization, then, that the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey define. 0§37. To say that an epic like the Iliad is about the Greeks and what it is to be a Greek is not far from saying that the Iliad is about Achilles. We have already seen how this hero, as the very first words of the song make clear, is the focal point of the Iliad. Given the importance of the Iliad to the Greeks, we may interpret this single fact to mean that Achilles is also a focal point of Greek civilization. Just how important he is, however, can be illustrated beyond the testimony of Homeric song. Let us take for example an inherited custom connected with the premier social event for all Greeks, the festival of the Olympics. We know from ancient sources that the traditional ceremony inaugurating this seasonally recurring Panhellenic festival centers on Achilles: on an appointed day when the Games are to begin, the local women of Elis, the site where the Olympics were held, fix their gaze on the sun as it sets into the Western horizon - and begin ceremonially to weep for the hero (Pausanias 6.23.3).22 0§38. The prestige accorded by ancient Greek civilization to the figure of Achilles, and the strong emotional attachment that goes with it, is worthy of our attention especially because modern readers, both men and women, young and old, often find themselves relatively unresponsive to this sullen and darkly brooding hero. Few today feel empathy for his sorrow, which the hero of the Iliad himself describes as an everlasting one. The modern reader finds it much easier to feel empathy for Hector, the champion hero of the Trojans. In Iliad VI, Hector’s heart-wrenching farewell to his wife and small son, soon to become his widow and orphan, is often singled out by modern readers as the most memorable scene of the entire epic. For the ancient Greeks as well, we may be sure, the figure of Hector evoked empathy. The difference, however, is that for them, the pathos of Hector resembles most closely the pathos of Achilles himself. Just as Hector’s death evokes the sorrow of unfulfilled promise, even more so does the death of Achilles. 0§39. While Hector is the idealized husband and father cut down in his prime, Achilles is the idealized bridegroom, sensual in his heroic beauty and likewise doomed to an untimely death. In the songs of Sappho, as we will see in Hour 5, it is Achilles who figures as the ultimate bridegroom. The very mention of him in song conjures up the picture of a beautiful plant that is cut down at the peak of its growth. This is how his own mother sings of Achilles in Scroll XVIII of the Iliad, in a beautiful song of lament that prefigures the hero’s untimely death:

Hour 0 Text D |54 Ah me, the pitiful one! Ah me, the mother, so sad it is, of the very best. |55 I gave birth to a faultless and strong son, |56 the very best of heroes. And he shot up [anedramen] equal [īsos] 22

BA 9 = Introduction §17; also BA 114 = 6§26.

26 to a seedling [ernos]. |57 I nurtured him like a shoot in the choicest spot of the orchard, |58 only to send him off on curved ships to Troy, to fight Trojan men. |59 And I will never be welcoming him |60 back home as returning warrior, back to the House of Peleus. |61 And as long as he lives and sees the light of the sun, |62 he will have sorrow [akh-nutai], and though I go to him I cannot help him. Iliad XVIII 54-6223 0§40. All the wistful beauty of sorrow for a life cut short comes back to life in song, and that song of the hero’s mother extends into a song that becomes the Iliad itself, as we will see in Hours 3 and 4. For the culture of the Greeks was, and still is, a song culture.24 For them, to weep is to sing a lament, and the sorrow, in all its natural reality of physically crying and sobbing, is not at all incompatible with the art of the song: it flows into it. 0§41. If we consider the evocative power that we can sometimes find in even the simplest contemporary popular tunes about the sorrows of war and death, we will have at least something to compare with the emotional and esthetic response to Achilles in the song culture of the ancient Greek world. Thinking of Achilles leads to beautiful sad songs. As we recall the detail about the institutionalized weeping of the local women at the commencement of the Olympics, we may note that this act of weeping was considered an act of singing - or keening. In the words of the fifth-century poet Pindar, the keening of the Muses, the ‘Maidens of Helicon’, over the dead Achilles extends into the song of the present. I preview here the words of Pindar, which I will analyze in some detail when we reach Hour 4:

Hour 0 Text E |56 Even when he [= Achilles] died, the songs did not leave him, |57 but the Maidens of Helicon [= the Muses] stood by his pyre and his funeral mound, |58 and, as they stood there, they poured forth a song of lamentation [thrēnos] that is famed far and wide. |59 And so it was that the immortal gods decided |60 to hand over the man, genuine [esthlos] as he was even after he had perished [phthi-n-ein]25 in death, to the songs of the goddesses [= the Muses]. Pindar Isthmian 8 lines 56-6026 23

|54 ὤ μοι ἐγὼ δειλή, ὤ μοι δυσαριστοτόκεια, |55 ἥ τ’ ἐπεὶ ἂρ τέκον υἱὸν ἀμύμονά τε κρατερόν τε |56 ἔξοχον ἡρώων· ὃ δ’ ἀνέδραμεν ἔρνεϊ ἶσος· |57 τὸν μὲν ἐγὼ θρέψασα φυτὸν ὣς γουνῷ ἀλωῆς |58 νηυσὶν ἐπιπροέηκα κορωνίσιν Ἴλιον εἴσω |59 Τρωσὶ μαχησόμενον· τὸν δ’ οὐχ ὑποδέξομαι αὖτις |60 οἴκαδε νοστήσαντα δόμον Πηλήϊον εἴσω. |61 ὄφρα δέ μοι ζώει καὶ ὁρᾷ φάος ἠελίοιο |62 ἄχνυται, οὐδέ τί οἱ δύναμαι χραισμῆσαι ἰοῦσα. 24 On this term song culture, I offer a critical analysis in PH 19 = 1§5n7. 25 In Hour 4, I will elaborate on the word phthi-n-ein in the sense of ‘perish’ and even ‘wilt’. 26 |56 τὸν μὲν οὐδὲ θανόντ’ ἀοιδαὶ έλιπον, |57 ἀλλά οἱ παρά τε πυρὰν τάφον θ’ Ἑλικώνιαι παρθένοι |58 στάν, ἐπὶ θρῆνόν τε πολύφαμον ἔχεαν. |59 ἔδοξ’ ἦρα καὶ ἀθανάτοις, |60 ἐσλόν γε

27 0§42. The sadness of Achilles’ song is of course a necessity of tradition, just as the hero’s death, his mortality, is necessary. The hero, the story of the hero, cannot be complete if he lives on. For in death the hero wins the ultimate prize of life eternal in song. As Achilles himself declares, his heroic death will transcend the fleeting beauty of earthbound life:

Hour 0 Text F |410 My mother Thetis, goddess of the silver feet, tells me that |411 I carry the burden of two different fated ways [kēres] leading to the final moment [telos] of death. |412 If I stay here and fight at the walls of the city of the Trojans, then my safe homecoming [nostos] will be destroyed for me, but I will have a glory [kleos] that is imperishable [aphthiton]27. |414 Whereas if I go back home, returning to the dear land of my forefathers, |415 then it is my glory [kleos], genuine [esthlon] as it is, that will be destroyed for me, but my life force [aiōn] will then |416 last me a long time, and the final moment [telos] of death will not be swift in catching up with me. Iliad IX 410-41628 0§43. The Greek word kleos, which translates here as ‘glory’, conventionally refers to the glory of song, while aphthiton or ‘imperishable’ evokes the idea of a vitality that animates the universe.29 The hero’s glory in song, then, unlike the hero, will never die. For Achilles, as we will see in Hour 4, the song of kleos will remain forever alive in the civilization that sings his glorious epic. 0§44. For Odysseus, as we will see in Hour 9, no such choice needs to be made. The song of his homecoming, his nostos, will be the same thing as his kleos. Like the kleos of Achilles, the kleos of Odysseus - and of Penelope - will be sung for all time, as we hear it proclaimed at the end of the Odyssey. 0§45. But how was Homeric poetry transmitted, supposedly for all time? A crucial aspect of Homeric transmission (and we will see more about this later on, in Comment 7e) was the tradition of performing the Iliad and the Odyssey at a seasonally recurring festival in Athens. The festival was the Great Panathenaia, celebrated every four years in mid August, and the performers of Homeric poetry at this festival were professional reciters known as φῶτα καὶ φθίμενον ὕμνοις θεᾶν διδόμεν. |61 τὸ καὶ νῦν φέρει λόγον, ἔσσυταί τε Μοισαῖον ἅρμα Νικοκλέος |62 μνᾶμα πυγμάχου κελαδῆσαι. 27 In Hour 4, I will elaborate on the meaning of aphthiton as ‘imperishable’ and, in some specialized contexts, as ‘unwilting’. 28 |410 μήτηρ γάρ τέ μέ φησι θεὰ Θέτις ἀργυρόπεζα |411 διχθαδίας κῆρας φερέμεν θανάτοιο τέλος δέ. |412 εἰ μέν κ’ αὖθι μένων Τρώων πόλιν ἀμφιμάχωμαι, |413 ὤλετο μέν μοι νόστος, ἀτὰρ κλέος ἄφθιτον ἔσται· |414 εἰ δέ κεν οἴκαδ’ ἵκωμι φίλην ἐς πατρίδα γαῖαν, |415 ὤλετό μοι κλέος ἐσθλόν, ἐπὶ δηρὸν δέ μοι αἰὼν |416 ἔσσεται, οὐδέ κέ μ’ ὦκα τέλος θανάτοιο κιχείη. 29 More in Hour 4 about such an evocation.

28 rhapsōidoi or ‘rhapsodes’. An important source of information about the Classical phase of this Homeric tradition is Plato’s Ion, a dialogue named after a virtuoso rhapsode who was active in the late fifth century BCE and who specialized in performing the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey. In Plato’s Ion (535d), we see a vivid description of the rhapsode Ion in the act of performing Homeric poetry before an audience of more than 20,000 at the Great Panathenaia. What I find especially remarkable about this description is the highlighting of moments when the audience, supposedly all 20,000 of them, reacts to climactic moments in the narration of the Iliad and Odyssey. At these moments, they all break down and weep as they visualize the saddest things they are hearing - or feel their hair stand on end as they visualize the most terrifying things. I said visualize here because the word for ‘audience’ in the original wording of Plato’s Ion is theōmenoi, which literally means ‘spectators’ or, better, ‘visualizers’:

Hour 0 Text G SOCRATES: Hold it right there. Tell me this, Ion – respond to what I ask without concealment. When you say well the epic verses and induce a feeling of bedazzlement [ekplēxis] for the spectators [theōmenoi] – as you sing of Odysseus leaping onto the threshold and revealing himself to the suitors and pouring out the arrows at his feet, or of Achilles rushing at Hector, or something connected to the pitiful things about Andromache or Hecuba or Priam – are you then in your right mind, or outside yourself? Does your mind [psūkhē], possessed by the god [enthousiazein], suppose that you are in the midst of the actions you describe in Ithaca or Troy, or wherever the epic verses have it?30 Plato Ion 535b-c31 0§46. From the standpoint of Aristotle’s Poetics (1449b24-28), the audience at such climactic moments of Homeric narration is experiencing the primal emotions of phobos ‘fear’ and eleos ‘pity’’. And, as we see from the words of Plato’s Ion, the performer of Homeric poetry brings to life these climactic moments of fear and pity as he retells the story. There he is, standing on an elevated platform and gazing down upon a sea of faces in the audience. His eyes seek out and find contact with their eyes, and now the audience can all react simultaneously to the rhapsode’s Homeric performance. Looks from eyes filled with tears alternate with looks of terror or even sheer wonder as the story of Homeric song oscillates from one emotion to another. Here is the way the rhapsode describes his audience:

Commentary in HC 417-418, 447-449 = 3§§143-144, 199-200. ΣΩ. Ἔχε δή μοι τόδε εἰπέ, ὦ Ἴων, καὶ μὴ ἀποκρύψῃ ὅτι ἄν σε ἔρωμαι· ὅταν εὖ εἴπῃς ἔπη καὶ ἐκπλήξῃς μάλιστα τοὺς θεωμένους, ἢ τὸν Ὀδυσσέα ὅταν ἐπὶ τὸν οὐδὸν ἐφαλλόμενον ᾄδῃς, ἐκφανῆ γιγνόμενον τοῖς μνηστῆρσι καὶ ἐκχέοντα τοὺς ὀιστοὺς πρὸ τῶν ποδῶν, ἢ Ἀχιλλέα ἐπὶ τὸν Ἕκτορα ὁρμῶντα, ἢ καὶ τῶν περὶ Ἀνδρομάχην ἐλεινῶν τι ἢ περὶ Ἑκάβην ἢ περὶ Πρίαμον, τότε πότερον ἔμφρων εἶ ἢ ἔξω {c} σαυτοῦ γίγνῃ καὶ παρὰ τοῖς πράγμασιν οἴεταί σου εἶναι ἡ ψυχὴ οἷς λέγεις ἐνθουσιάζουσα, ἢ ἐν Ἰθάκῃ οὖσιν ἢ ἐν Τροίᾳ ἢ ὅπως ἂν καὶ τὰ ἔπη ἔχῃ; 31

Hour 0 Text H As I look down at them from the platform on high, I see them, each and every time, crying or looking terrified, filled with a sense of wonder at what is being retold. Plato Ion 535e32 0§47. Yes, the songs of Achilles and Odysseus were ever being retold, nurtured by the song culture that had generated them. But even beyond the song culture, beyond Greek civilization, the epic lives on even in our time, and the wonder of it all is that one of its heroes himself foretold it.

καθορῶ γὰρ ἑκάστοτε αὐτοὺς ἄνωθεν ἀπὸ τοῦ βήματος κλάοντάς τε καὶ δεινὸν ἐμβλέποντας καὶ συνθαμβοῦντας τοῖς λεγομένοις.

Hour 1. The Homeric Iliad and the glory of the unseasonal hero The meaning of kleos 1§1. There are two key words for this hour. The first of the two is kleos ‘glory, fame, that which is heard’; or, ‘the poem or song that conveys glory, fame, that which is heard’. We will turn to the second of the two words when we reach the paragraphs starting at §26. 1§2. But I start with kleos ‘glory’. This word was used in ancient Greek poetry or song to refer to the poetry or the song that glorifies the heroes of the distant heroic past. Since the references to kleos in ancient Greek poetry and song make no distinction between poetry and song, I will simply use the word song whenever I refer to the basic meaning of kleos. 1§3. A specific form of poetry is epic, which is the medium of the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey, and a general form of song is what we know today as lyric. I will have more to say later about epic and lyric. For now I simply repeat my working definition of epic, as I formulated it in the Introduction to Homeric poetry: an expansive poem of enormous scope, composed in an old-fashioned and superbly elevated style of language, concerning the wondrous deeds of heroes. 1§4. The song of kleos glorifies not only the heroes of the distant past, which is a heroic age. It glorifies also the gods - as they existed in the heroic age and as they continued to exist for their worshippers at any given moment in historical time. 1§5. Why did the ancient Greeks glorify heroes? Partly because they worshipped not only gods but also heroes. As I noted in the Introduction, we see here a fundamental fact of ancient Greek history: the ancient Greeks practiced hero worship, to which I refer more specifically as hero cult. 1§6. Let us return to the main topic of this hour, as signaled by the key word kleos. This word was used in Homeric poetry to refer to both the medium and the message of the glory of heroes. The dictum of Marshall McLuhan applies here (Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, 1964): the medium is the message.

The kleos of Achilles as epic ‘glory’ 1§7. I begin by concentrating on the medium of song as marked by the word kleos. In ancient Greek song culture, kleos was the primary medium for communicating the concept of the hero, which is the primary topic (or “message”) of these 24 hours. 1§8. In the Iliad, the main hero of the Iliad, Achilles, is quoted as saying …

Hour 1 Text A = Hour 0 Text F |410 My mother Thetis, goddess of the silver feet, tells me that |411 I carry the burden of two different fated ways [kēres] leading to the final moment [telos] of death. |412 If I stay here and fight at the walls of the city of the Trojans, then my safe homecoming [nostos] will be destroyed for me, but I will have a glory [kleos]1 that is imperishable [aphthiton].2 |414 Whereas if I go back home, returning to the dear land of my forefathers, |415 then it is my glory [kleos],3 genuine [esthlon] as it is, that will be destroyed for me, but my life force [aiōn] will then |416 last me a long time, and the final moment [telos] of death will not be swift in catching up with me. Iliad IX 410-4164 1§9. This translation, which is my own, is different from what we read in Samuel Butler’s translation of the Iliad (London 1898), which is available online for free by way of the Perseus Project (and also by way of other media, such as Project Gutenberg). The original wording of Butler (1898) is as follows: My mother Thetis tells me that there are two ways in which I may meet my end. If I stay here and fight, I will not return alive but my name will live for ever: whereas if I go home my name will die, but it will be long ere death shall take me. 1§10. In the Sourcebook of original Greek texts (in English translation) about the ancient Greek hero (chs.harvard.edu), which as I already said is available online for free, the reader will see that I use my own translation for the verses we have just been considering, Iliad IX 410-416. In general, however, the translated text of the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey in this online Sourcebook is based on Butler’s original translation (Iliad 1898 and Odyssey 1900). In editing this Sourcebook with the help of fellow teachers and researchers, my practice has been to modify the original translation wherever I see a need to substitute a more accurate translation, as in the case of Iliad IX 410-416. This practice is made possible by the fact that Butler’s translation, just like all the other translations used in this online Sourcebook, is free from copyright restrictions. As I said in the Introduction, the texts of all the translations in the Sourcebook are periodically reviewed and modified, and the modifications are indicated by way of special formatting designed to show the differences between the original translator’s version and the modified version. 1

Here, then, is the key word: kleos ‘glory’. In Hour 4, I will elaborate on the word aphthiton in the sense of ‘imperishable’. 3 So kleos ‘glory’ is evidently being contrasted with nostos ‘homecoming’. 4 |410 μήτηρ γάρ τέ μέ φησι θεὰ Θέτις ἀργυρόπεζα |411 διχθαδίας κῆρας φερέμεν θανάτοιο τέλος δέ. |412 εἰ μέν κ’ αὖθι μένων Τρώων πόλιν ἀμφιμάχωμαι, |413 ὤλετο μέν μοι νόστος, ἀτὰρ κλέος ἄφθιτον ἔσται· |414 εἰ δέ κεν οἴκαδ’ ἵκωμι φίλην ἐς πατρίδα γαῖαν, |415 ὤλετό μοι κλέος ἐσθλόν, ἐπὶ δηρὸν δέ μοι αἰὼν |416 ἔσσεται, οὐδέ κέ μ’ ὦκα τέλος θανάτοιο κιχείη. 2

32 1§11. That said, I return to Samuel Butler’s translation of Iliad IX 410-416, as I quoted it in §9. It is a literary translation, not a literal one. In general, Butler’s translation of the Iliad and Odyssey is literary, meant to be pleasing to the ear when read out loud. In the case of Iliad IX 410-416, Butler’s translation successfully captures the general idea of what is being said by Achilles. I focus our attention on the part that I highlighted earlier: I will not return alive but my name will live for ever. In place of this literary version, the Sourcebook shows my more literal translation of the original Greek, which is contained in one single verse: then my safe homecoming [nostos] will be destroyed for me, but I will have a glory [kleos] that is imperishable [aphthiton]. Iliad IX 413 1§12. In what follows, I will be making a set of arguments that I will now encapsulate here in one thesis sentence: In Iliad IX 413, the main hero of the Iliad leaves as his signature the kleos of his own epic, which turns out to be the Iliad. 1§13. In order to make the arguments I hope to make, I will start by offering my working interpretation of this verse. From here on, I will refer to this kind of interpretation as exegesis, which is an ancient Greek term referring to a close reading of a given text. Here, then, is my exegesis, which I format as a block paragraph: Achilles has started to understand the consequences of his decision to reject the option of a safe nostos or ‘homecoming’. He is in the process of deciding to choose the other option: he will stay at Troy and continue to fight in the Trojan War. Choosing this option will result in his death, and he is starting to understand that. In the fullness of time, he will be ready to give up his life in exchange for getting a kleos, which is a poetic ‘glory’ described as lasting forever. This kleos is the tale of Troy, the Iliad (the name of the poem, Iliad, means ‘tale of Ilion’; Ilion is the other name for ‘Troy’). Achilles the hero gets included in the Iliad by dying a warrior’s death. The consolation prize for his death is the kleos of the Iliad.

A much shorter version of epic ‘glory’ 1§14. Having considered the kleos or epic ‘glory’ of Achilles, I turn to the kleos of another hero:

Hour 1 Text B |218 Tell me now you Muses dwelling on Olympus, |219 who was the first to come up and face Agamemnon, |220 either among the Trojans or among their famous allies? |221 It was

33 Iphidamas son of Antenor, a man both good and great, |222 who was raised in fertile Thrace the mother of sheep. |223 Kissēs in his own house raised him when he was a child. |224 Kissēs was his mother’s father, father to Theano, the one with the fair cheeks. |225 When he [= Iphidamas] reached the stage of adolescence, which brings luminous glory, |226 he [= Kissēs] wanted to keep him at home and to give him his own daughter in marriage, |227 but as soon as he [= Iphidamas] had married, he left the bride chamber and went off seeking the kleos of the Achaeans |228 along with twelve curved ships that followed him. Iliad XI 218-2285 1§15. This passage, Text B, resembles Text A in the way it highlights a hero’s obsession with the goal of dying the right way in order to be remembered forever in the kleos or ‘glory’ of song. In this case, however, the hero is not a major figure of the Iliad, like Achilles. Rather, the hero here in Text B is mentioned only this one time in the Iliad, in what amounts to a short story embedded inside the overall story of the Iliad. 1§16. To distinguish the story of the Iliad from such short stories that exist inside the story of the Iliad, I will as a rule refer to the Iliad as the Narrative, with an upper-case N, and to the stories inside the Iliad as narratives, with lower-case n. Such narratives are micronarratives in comparison to the macro-Narrative that is the Iliad. Also, I will as a rule use the word Narrator in referring to ‘Homer’, whom I have already described as a culture hero venerated by the ancient Greeks as the ultimate ‘singer’ of the Iliad and Odyssey. 1§17. In order to appreciate the poetic artistry that produced the micro-narrative that we have just read in Text B, we must consider the artistic device of compression in the traditional media of ancient Greek songmaking. This device of compression is to be contrasted with the device of expansion. Whereas expansion produces macro-narratives, such as the monumental composition of the Iliad itself, compression produces micro-narratives, such as the story-within-a-story that we are now considering.6 In many ways, a “trailer” in today’s culture of film-making is produced by techniques of compression that resemble the techniques used in producing such micro-narratives in ancient Greek songmaking. 1§18. I concentrate on the next-to-last verse of this micronarrative:

|218 Ἔσπετε νῦν μοι Μοῦσαι Ὀλύμπια δώματ’ ἔχουσαι |219 ὅς τις δὴ πρῶτος Ἀγαμέμνονος ἀντίον ἦλθεν |220 ἢ αὐτῶν Τρώων ἠὲ κλειτῶν ἐπικούρων. |221 Ἰφιδάμας Ἀντηνορίδης ἠΰς τε μέγας τε |222 ὃς τράφη ἐν Θρῄκῃ ἐριβώλακι μητέρι μήλων· |223 Κισσῆς τόν γ’ ἔθρεψε δόμοις ἔνι τυτθὸν ἐόντα |224 μητροπάτωρ, ὃς τίκτε Θεανὼ καλλιπάρῃον· |225 αὐτὰρ ἐπεί ῥ’ ἥβης ἐρικυδέος ἵκετο μέτρον, |226 αὐτοῦ μιν κατέρυκε, δίδου δ’ ὅ γε θυγατέρα ἥν· |227 γήμας δ’ ἐκ θαλάμοιο μετὰ κλέος ἵκετ’ Ἀχαιῶν |228 σὺν δυοκαίδεκα νηυσὶ κορωνίσιν, αἵ οἱ ἕποντο. 6 More on expansion and compression in HQ 76-77.

34 but as soon as he had married, he left the bride chamber and went off seeking the kleos of the Achaeans Iliad XI 227 1§19. This micro-narrative is about a hero who decides to interrupt his honeymoon and go to Troy to fight on the side of the Trojans against the Achaeans. These Achaeans, as we saw in the Introduction, are the Greeks of the heroic age. So now, this hero has just been killed in battle. Why did he give up his life, a life of newlywed bliss, just to fight and die at Troy? The Narrator of the macro-Narrative gives the answer to this question: this hero did it in order to get included in the kleos or epic ‘glory’ of the Greek song culture. He was ‘seeking the kleos of the Achaeans’. This kleos is the macro-Narrative of the Iliad. 1§20. We see here a hero getting included in the Iliad by dying a warrior’s death. To that extent, he is like the major hero Achilles, whose death is the core theme of the Iliad. But this minor hero, Iphidamas, dies for just a “bit part.” By contrast, Achilles will die for the lead part.

The immortalizing power of kleos as epic ‘glory’ 1§21. So why is the kleos of the Achaeans so important that you are ready to die for it not only if you are Achilles, the best of the Achaeans, but even if you are not an Achaean, as in the case of our “bit player” Iphidamas? The answer has to do with the immortalizing power of kleos as epic ‘glory’, which as we have seen is described as aphthiton ‘imperishable’ in Iliad IX 413. Achilles will chose the glory of epic song, which is a thing of art, over his own life, which is a thing of nature. The thing of art is destined to last forever, while his own life, as a thing of nature, is destined for death. 1§22. In the culture represented by the heroes of the Iliad, the distinction between art and nature, between the artificial and the natural, is not the same as in our modern cultures. Their culture was a song culture, as I have described it earlier. In our modern cultures, artificial implies “unreal” while natural implies “real.” In a song culture, by contrast, the artificial can be just as real as the natural, since the words of an “artificial” song can be just as real as the words of “natural” speech in a real-life experience. In a song culture, the song can be just as real as life itself. 1§23. In ancient Greek song culture, the tale or story of the Iliad was felt to be not only real but also true. As we will see in later hours, the Homeric Iliad was felt to convey the ultimate truth-values of the ancient Greek song culture. 1§24. Because we as users of the English language have a different cultural perspective on the words tale or story, which for us imply fiction and are therefore not expected to be

35 “true,” I have also been using the more neutral word narrative in referring to the tale or story of the Iliad and other such tales or stories.7 1§25. As I have been arguing, the epic macro-Narrative of the Iliad is just as real to its heroes as their very own lives are real to them. For Achilles, the major hero of the Iliad, the song of kleos is just as real as his very own life is real to him. The infinite time of the artificial song, the kleos aphthiton or ‘imperishable glory’ at Iliad IX 413, is just as real to him as the finite time of his natural life.

The meaning of hōrā 1§26. The very idea of such a coexistence between infinite time and finite time brings me to the second key word for this hour. It is hōrā (plural hōrai) ‘season, seasonality, the right time, the perfect time’. This word hōrā stood for natural time in a natural life, in a natural lifecycle. The English word hour is derived from ancient Greek hōrā. Relevant are such expressions in English as The hour is near. 1§27. The goddess of hōrā (plural hōrai) was Hērā (the two forms hōrā and Hērā are linguistically related to each other). She was the goddess of seasons, in charge of making everything happen on time, happen in season, and happen in a timely way. 1§28. Related to these two words hōrā and Hērā is hērōs (singular) / hērōes (plural), meaning ‘hero’. As we will see, the precise moment when everything comes together for the hero is the moment of death. The hero is ‘on time’ at the hōrā or ‘time’ of death. Before death and in fact during their whole lifetime, however, heroes are not on time: as we will see, they are unseasonal. 1§29. In Text A, we have seen Achilles thinking about his future death as glorified by the medium of kleos. In a sense, we see him “scripting” his death. And this “scripting” is all about timing. The timing of heroic death is all-important for the hero.

The need for heroes to “script” their own death 1§30. Here I return to a point I made earlier: in a song culture, the song can be just as real as life itself. To experience song in a song culture is to experience a real-life experience. But there is a paradox here, as we will see: for the Greek hero, the ultimate real-life experience is not life but death. In some situations, as we will also see in later hours, death can even become an alternative to sex. So death must be a defining moment of reality for the hero, and it must not be feared but welcomed, since the hero must ultimately achieve the perfect moment of a perfect death. And such a perfect moment must be recorded in song, which 7

A modern attempt to capture a sense of the “trueness” of song is a poem by Wallace Stevens, “Peter Quince at the Clavier” (1915).

36 brings kleos or ‘glory’. So heroes feel a need for “scripting” their own death with their dying words. 1§31. In ancient Greek traditions, a hero’s dying words can be pictured as a swan song. We find an example in Aeschylus Agamemnon 1444-1445, a passage we will encounter in Hour 16.8 In that passage, we will read the words of the last song of sorrow sung by Cassandra, one of the most engaging female heroes we will encounter in the ancient texts we read. As we will see, this final song of Cassandra before she dies is pictured as her swan song. 1§32. According to such traditions, the swan sings its most beautiful song at the moment of its death. We will consider this myth in more detail toward the end of this book, when we read Plato’s Phaedo: in that work, Socrates talks about the concept of the swan song at the moment of his own death by hemlock. What Socrates is quoted as saying in the Phaedo, as we will see, turns out to be his own swan song. 1§33. I see a point of comparison in modern popular culture. The example I have in mind comes from the film Bladerunner, directed by Ridley Scott (1982), based on the science fiction novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick (1968). In particular, I have in mind the moment when Roy Blatty, an artificial human, “scripts” his own death, which is meant to be natural. [[In “live” meetings, I show at this point a clip entitled “Like tears in rain. Time to die,” from Bladerunner (1982), directed by Ridley Scott. I draw attention here, for the first time, to a collection of film clips, with commentaries that accompany them. These film clips and commentaries can be found at chs.harvard.edu. I wrote these commentaries with the purpose of complementing some of the observations I make in The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours.]] 1§34. We now turn to a model for Achilles in the “scripting” of his own death. This model is a hero from an earlier age, who exemplifies the perfect timing of his own death. That hero is Hēraklēs, otherwise known by the Romanized version of his name, Hercules.

Hēraklēs as a model hero 1§35. Hēraklēs is more than a model for Achilles. He is a model for all heroes. As we will see, his story brings to life the meaning of the ancient Greek word for hero, hērōs, and the meanings of the related words for seasonality, hōrā, and for the goddess of seasonality herself, Hērā. As we will also see, even his name tells the story: Hēraklēs means ‘he who has the kleos of Hērā’.

An English-language translations of Aeschylus’ Agememnon is available in the online Sourcebook (chs.harvard.edu).

37 1§36. In the Iliad, we find an embedded micro-narrative that tells the story of Hēraklēs as it relates to the story of Achilles in the macro-Narrative that is the Iliad. I quote the entire micro-narrative:

Hour 1 Text C |76 Then Agamemnon, the king of men, spoke among them, |77 right there from the place where he was sitting, not even standing up in the middle of the assembly. |78 “Near and dear ones,” said he, “Danaan [= Achaean] heroes, attendants [therapontes] of Arēs! |79 It is a good thing to listen when a man stands up to speak, and it is not seemly |80 to speak in relay after him.9 It would be hard for someone to do that, even if he is a practiced speaker. |81 For how could any man in an assembly either hear anything when there is an uproar |82 or say anything? Even a public speaker who speaks clearly will be disconcerted by it. |83 What I will do is to make a declaration addressed to [Achilles] the son of Peleus. As for the rest of you |84 Argives [= Achaeans], you should understand and know well, each one of you, the words [mūthos] that I say for the record. |85 By now the Achaeans have been saying these words [mūthos] to me many times, |86 and they have been blaming me. But I am not responsible [aitios]. |87 No, those who are really responsible are Zeus and Fate [Moira] and the Fury [Erinys] who roams in the mist. |88 They are the ones who, at the public assembly, had put savage derangement [atē] into my thinking [phrenes] |89 on that day when I myself deprived Achilles of his honorific portion [geras]. |90 But what could I do? The god is the one who brings everything to its fulfillment [teleutân]. |91 That goddess Atē, senior daughter of Zeus - she makes everyone veer off-course [aâsthai], |92 that catastrophic one [oulomenē], the one who has delicate steps. She never makes contact with the ground of the threshhold, |93 never even going near it, but instead she hovers over the heads of men, bringing harm to humans. |94 In her harmfulness, she has incapacitated others as well [besides me], and I have in mind one person in particular. |95 Yes, once upon a time even Zeus veered offcourse [aâsthai], who is said to be the best |96 among men and gods. Even he |97 was deceived; Hērā did it, with her devious ways of thinking, female that she is. |98 It happened on the day when the powerful Hērakleēs |99 was about to be born of Alkmene in Thebes, the city garlanded by good walls. |100 He [= Zeus], making a formal declaration [eukhesthai], spoke at a meeting of all the gods and said: |101 “hear me, all gods and all goddesses, |102 and let me say to you what the heart [thūmos] in my chest tells me to say. |103 Today the goddess who presides over the pains of childbirth, Eileithuia, will help bring forth a man into the light, |104 revealing him, and he will be king over all the people who live around him. |105 He comes from an ancestral line of men who are descended from blood that comes from me.” |106 Thinking devious thoughts, the goddess Hērā addressed him [= Zeus]: |107 “You will be mistaken, and you will not be able to make a fulfillment [telos] of the words [mūthos] that you have spoken for the record. |108 But come, Olympian god, swear for me a binding oath: 9

The previous speaker was Achilles.

38 |109 swear that he will really be king over all the people who live around him, |110 I mean, the one who on this day shall fall to the ground between the legs of a woman |111 who is descended from men who come from your line of ancestry, from blood that comes from you.” |112 So she spoke. And Zeus did not at all notice [noeîn] her devious thinking, |113 but he swore a great oath. And right then and there, he veered off-course [aâsthai] in a big way. |114 Meanwhile, Hērā sped off, leaving the ridges of Olympus behind, |115 and swiftly she reached Achaean Argos. She knew that she would find there |116 the strong wife of Sthenelos son of Perseus. |117 She was pregnant with a dear son, and she was in her eighth10 month. |118 And she brought him forth into the light, even though he was still one month short. |119 Meanwhile she put a pause on the time of delivery for Alkmene, holding back the divine powers of labor, the Eileithuiai. |120 And then she herself went to tell the news to Zeus the son of Kronos, saying: |121 “Zeus the father, you with the gleaming thunderbolt, I will put a word into your thoughts: |122 there has just been born a man, a noble one, who will be king over the Argives. |123 He is Eurystheus son of Sthenelos son of Perseus. |124 He is from your line of ancestry, and it is not unseemly for him to be king over the Argives.” |125 So she spoke, and he was struck in his mind [phrēn] with a sharp sorrow [akhos]. |126 And right away she grabbed the goddess Atē by the head - that head covered with luxuriant curls - |127 since he was angry in his thinking [phrenes], and he swore a binding oath |128 that never will she come to Olympus and to the starry sky |129 never again will she come back, that goddess Atē, who makes everyone veer off-course [aâsthai]. |130 And so sayng he threw her down from the starry sky, |131 having whirled her around in his hand. And then she [= Atē] came to the fields where humans live and work. |132 He [= Zeus] always mourned the fact that she ever existed, every time he saw how his own dear son |133 was having one of his degrading Labors [āthloi] to work on. |134 So also I [= Agamemnon], while the great Hector, the one with the gleaming helmet, |135 was destroying the Argives [= Achaeans] at the sterns of the beached ships, |136 was not able to keep out of my mind the veering [atē] I experienced once I veered off-course [aâsthai]. |137 But since I did veer off-course [aâsthai] and since Zeus took away from me my thinking, |138 I now want to make amends, and to give untold amounts of compensation. Iliad XIX 76-13811 10

In the original Greek, with its inclusive counting system (which has no concept of zero), the numbering is ‘seventh’. 11 |76 τοῖσι δὲ καὶ μετέειπεν ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν Ἀγαμέμνων |77 αὐτόθεν ἐξ ἕδρης, οὐδ’ ἐν μέσσοισιν ἀναστάς· |78 ὦ φίλοι ἥρωες Δαναοὶ θεράποντες Ἄρηος |79 ἑσταότος μὲν καλὸν ἀκούειν, οὐδὲ ἔοικεν |80 ὑββάλλειν· χαλεπὸν γὰρ ἐπισταμένῳ περ ἐόντι. |81 ἀνδρῶν δ’ ἐν πολλῷ ὁμάδῳ πῶς κέν τις ἀκούσαι |82 ἢ εἴποι; βλάβεται δὲ λιγύς περ ἐὼν ἀγορητής. |83 Πηλεΐδῃ μὲν ἐγὼν ἐνδείξομαι· αὐτὰρ οἱ ἄλλοι |84 σύνθεσθ’ Ἀργεῖοι, μῦθόν τ’ εὖ γνῶτε ἕκαστος. |85 πολλάκι δή μοι τοῦτον Ἀχαιοὶ μῦθον ἔειπον |86 καί τέ με νεικείεσκον· ἐγὼ δ’ οὐκ αἴτιός εἰμι, |87 ἀλλὰ Ζεὺς καὶ Μοῖρα καὶ ἠεροφοῖτις Ἐρινύς, |88 οἵ τέ μοι εἰν ἀγορῇ φρεσὶν ἔμβαλον ἄγριον ἄτην, |89 ἤματι τῷ ὅτ’ Ἀχιλλῆος γέρας αὐτὸς ἀπηύρων. |90 ἀλλὰ τί κεν ῥέξαιμι; θεὸς διὰ πάντα τελευτᾷ. |91 πρέσβα

39 Before I proceed with my argumentation, I have to pause in order to give a commentary on details in the text that will not be obvious to someone who has read it for the first time ever.

Commentary on Hour 1 Text C - Verses 76-82. Agamemnon, who is the high king among all the kings of the Achaean warriors participating in the war at Troy, is speaking here in a public assembly of the Achaeans. Strangely, he speaks to his fellow warriors while remaining in a seated position (77), saying that it is a good thing to listen to a man who speaks in a standing position and that it is hard for even a good speaker to hupoballein12 him (80). So what does this mean? Achilles had just spoken to the assembly at verses 56–73, and verse 55 makes it explicit that he was standing.13 In the Greek-English dictionary of Liddell, Scott, and Jones (henceforth abbreviated as LSJ), hupoballein is interpreted as ‘interrupt’ in the context of verse 80 here. A related context is the adverb hupoblēdēn14 at Iliad I 292, where Achilles is responding to Διὸς θυγάτηρ Ἄτη, ἣ πάντας ἀᾶται, |92 οὐλομένη· τῇ μέν θ’ ἁπαλοὶ πόδες· οὐ γὰρ ἐπ’ οὔδει |93 πίλναται, ἀλλ’ ἄρα ἥ γε κατ’ ἀνδρῶν κράατα βαίνει |94 - βλάπτουσ’ ἀνθρώπους· κατὰ δ’ οὖν ἕτερόν γε πέδησε. |95 καὶ γὰρ δή νύ ποτε Ζεὺς ἄσατο, τόν περ ἄριστον |96 ἀνδρῶν ἠδὲ θεῶν φασ’ ἔμμεναι· ἀλλ’ ἄρα καὶ τὸν |97 Ἥρη θῆλυς ἐοῦσα δολοφροσύνῃς ἀπάτησεν, |98 ἤματι τῷ ὅτ’ ἔμελλε βίην Ἡρακληείην |99 Ἀλκμήνη τέξεσθαι ἐϋστεφάνῳ ἐνὶ Θήβῃ. |100 ἤτοι ὅ γ’ εὐχόμενος μετέφη πάντεσσι θεοῖσι· |101 κέκλυτέ μευ πάντές τε θεοὶ πᾶσαί τε θέαιναι, |102 ὄφρ’ εἴπω τά με θυμὸς ἐνὶ στήθεσσιν ἀνώγει. |103 σήμερον ἄνδρα φόως δὲ μογοστόκος Εἰλείθυια |104 ἐκφανεῖ, ὃς πάντεσσι περικτιόνεσσιν ἀνάξει, |105 τῶν ἀνδρῶν γενεῆς οἵ θ’ αἵματος ἐξ ἐμεῦ εἰσί. |106 τὸν δὲ δολοφρονέουσα προσηύδα πότνια Ἥρη· |107 ψευστήσεις, οὐδ’ αὖτε τέλος μύθῳ ἐπιθήσεις. |108 εἰ δ’ ἄγε νῦν μοι ὄμοσσον Ὀλύμπιε καρτερὸν ὅρκον, |109 ἦ μὲν τὸν πάντεσσι περικτιόνεσσιν ἀνάξειν |110 ὅς κεν ἐπ’ ἤματι τῷδε πέσῃ μετὰ ποσσὶ γυναικὸς |111 τῶν ἀνδρῶν οἳ σῆς ἐξ αἵματός εἰσι γενέθλης. |112 ὣς ἔφατο· Ζεὺς δ’ οὔ τι δολοφροσύνην ἐνόησεν, |113 ἀλλ’ ὄμοσεν μέγαν ὅρκον, ἔπειτα δὲ πολλὸν ἀάσθη. |114 Ἥρη δ’ ἀΐξασα λίπεν ῥίον Οὐλύμποιο, |115 καρπαλίμως δ’ ἵκετ’ Ἄργος Ἀχαιικόν, ἔνθ’ ἄρα ᾔδη |116 ἰφθίμην ἄλοχον Σθενέλου Περσηϊάδαο. |117 ἣ δ’ ἐκύει φίλον υἱόν, ὃ δ’ ἕβδομος ἑστήκει μείς· |118 ἐκ δ’ ἄγαγε πρὸ φόως δὲ καὶ ἠλιτόμηνον ἐόντα, |119 Ἀλκμήνης δ’ ἀπέπαυσε τόκον, σχέθε δ’ Εἰλειθυίας. |120 αὐτὴ δ’ ἀγγελέουσα Δία Κρονίωνα προσηύδα· |121 Ζεῦ πάτερ ἀργικέραυνε ἔπος τί τοι ἐν φρεσὶ θήσω· |122 ἤδη ἀνὴρ γέγον’ ἐσθλὸς ὃς Ἀργείοισιν ἀνάξει |123 Εὐρυσθεὺς Σθενέλοιο πάϊς Περσηϊάδαο |124 σὸν γένος· οὔ οἱ ἀεικὲς ἀνασσέμεν Ἀργείοισιν. |125 ὣς φάτο, τὸν δ’ ἄχος ὀξὺ κατὰ φρένα τύψε βαθεῖαν· |126 αὐτίκα δ’ εἷλ’ Ἄτην κεφαλῆς λιπαροπλοκάμοιο |127 χωόμενος φρεσὶν ᾗσι, καὶ ὤμοσε καρτερὸν ὅρκον |128 μή ποτ’ ἐς Οὔλυμπόν τε καὶ οὐρανὸν ἀστερόεντα |129 αὖτις ἐλεύσεσθαι Ἄτην, ἣ πάντας ἀᾶται. |130 ὣς εἰπὼν ἔρριψεν ἀπ’ οὐρανοῦ ἀστερόεντος |131 χειρὶ περιστρέψας· τάχα δ’ ἵκετο ἔργ’ ἀνθρώπων. |132 τὴν αἰεὶ στενάχεσχ’ ὅθ’ ἑὸν φίλον υἱὸν ὁρῷτο |133 ἔργον ἀεικὲς ἔχοντα ὑπ’ Εὐρυσθῆος ἀέθλων. |134 ὣς καὶ ἐγών, ὅτε δ’ αὖτε μέγας κορυθαίολος Ἕκτωρ |135 Ἀργείους ὀλέκεσκεν ἐπὶ πρυμνῇσι νέεσσιν, |136 οὐ δυνάμην λελαθέσθ’ Ἄτης ᾗ πρῶτον ἀάσθην. |137 ἀλλ’ ἐπεὶ ἀασάμην καί μευ φρένας ἐξέλετο Ζεύς, |138 ἂψ ἐθέλω ἀρέσαι, δόμεναί τ’ ἀπερείσι’ ἄποινα. 12 ὑββάλλειν. 13 For more on this contrast between the seated Agamemnon and the standing Achilles, see Elmer 2013:127. 14 ὑποβλήδην.

40 Agamemnon in the course of their famous quarrel. Some translate that adverb as ‘interruptingly’.15 Instead, I interpret hupoballein and hupoblēdēn as ‘speak in relay [after someone]’ and ‘speaking in relay’ respectively, and I argue that the concept of relay speaking is a characteristic of competitive speech-making.16 As Richard Martin has shown, the Iliad can dramatize Agamemnon and Achilles in the act of competing with each other as speakers, not only as warriors and leaders, and Achilles is consistently portrayed as the better speaker by far.17 At Iliad I 292, where I interpret hupoblēdēn as ‘speaking in relay’, Achilles engages in verbal combat with Agamemnon not so much by way of ‘interrupting’ but by picking up the train of thought exactly where his opponent left off - and outperforming him in the process. So, here at Iliad XIX 80, Agamemnon backs off from verbal combat with Achilles, using as an excuse the fact that he is wounded: I can’t stand up, and therefore I can’t compete by picking up the train of thought where Achilles left off - and therefore I can’t out-perform him (and perhaps I don’t anymore have the stomach even to try to do so). The successful performer remains standing, and the unsuccessful performer fails to stand up and compete by taking his turn, choosing instead to sit it out. He will still speak to Achilles, but he will speak without offering any more competition.18 - Verse 83. Instead of competing with Achilles as a public speaker, Agamemnon says that all he wants to do now is to make Achilles an offer. - Verses 83-84. Agamemnon says that he will say a mūthos (84, 85). As Richard Martin has shown, this word as used in Homeric poetry means ‘something said for the record’; mūthos “is a speech-act indicating authority, performed at length, usually in public, with a focus on full attention to every detail.”19 Another example of mūthos occurs at verse 107, where it is Zeus who says something for the recrod. Among the sub-categories of the kinds of things that are ‘said for the record’ are stories that we call myths. In Homeric terms, any story that is called a mūthos is genuine and true, because it is said for the record; the modern derivative myth has obviously veered from this meaning.20 Verses 85-86. According to Agamemnon, the myth about Herakles has been used against him by the Achaeans. But he will now use the same myth to excuse himself. Verses 86-87. The kind of excuse that Agamemnon uses - that he is not personally aitios ‘responsible’ because the gods caused him to experience atē ‘derangement’ - is explored at length in Greek tragedy. We will see it most clearly in a tragedy of Aeschylus, the Agamemnon, as analyzed in Hour 16. 15

Details in PR 20. PR 21-22. 17 Martin 1989:117; also 63, 69–70, 98, 113, 117, 119, 133, 202, 219, 223, 228. 18 PR 21. 19 Martin 1989:12. See also 20 HQ 119-125, 127-133, 152. 16

41 Verse 88. The word atē ‘derangement’ is both a passive experience, as described here by Agamemnon, and an active force that is personified as the goddess Atē, as we see later at verse 91 and following. Verse 91. In Homeric poetry, the word atē ‘derangement’ is perceived as a noun derived from the verb aâsthai ‘veer off-course’.21 Verse 95. Once again, aâsthai ‘veer off-course’ is used as the verb of atē ‘derangement’. Verse 105. The wording of Zeus hides the fact that Hēraklēs was fathered directly by him. Verse 111. The wording of Hērā hides the fact that she is speaking about the mother-to-be of Eurystheus, and this woman is the wife of the hero Sthenelos who is the son of the hero Perseus, who in turn was fathered directly by Zeus. Later, at verses 116 and 123, the identity of this woman is revealed. For now, however, Zeus is being deceived into thinking that Hērā is speaking about the mother-to-be of Hēraklēs. Verse 113. Once again, aâsthai ‘veer off-course’ is used as the verb of atē ‘derangement’. Verse 117. The mother-to-be of Eurystheus is said to be in her eighth month of pregnancy, and so she has one more month to go before her due date. In the original Greek, with its inclusive counting system (Greek had no concept of zero), the actual numbering is ‘seventh’, but I translate it as ‘eighth’. Verses 136-137. Once again, aâsthai ‘veer off-course’ is used as the verb of atē ‘derangement’. Now that this commentary is in place, I can return to my line of argumentation. 1§37. In the passage we have just read, Text C, the high king Agamemnon is telling the story about Hēraklēs and his inferior cousin Eurystheus. The goddess Hērā accelerated the birth of Eurystheus and retarded the birth of Hēraklēs, so that Eurystheus the inferior hero became king, entitled to give commands to the superior hero Hēraklēs. As we see in the Herakles of Euripides, Hēraklēs qualifies as the supreme hero of them all, the aristos ‘best’ of all humans (verse 150; see also verses 183, 208, 1306).22 Still, the heroic superiority of Hēraklēs is trumped by the social superiority of Eurystheus, who is entitled by seniority in birth to become the high king and to give orders to Hēraklēs. Similarly, the heroic superiority of Achilles is trumped by the social superiority of Agamemnon at the beginning of the Iliad. 1§38. The twist in this story told by Agamemnon, in micro-narrative form, is made clear by the macro-Narrative of the story that is the Iliad. In terms of Agamemnon’s micro-narrative, 21

Extensive commentary on the meaning of atē in PH 242-243 = 8§§41-42. An English-language translation of Euripides’ Herakles is available in the online Sourcebook (chs.harvard.edu). 22

42 the point of his story is that Atē the goddess of ‘derangement’ made it possible for Zeus himself to make a mistake in the story about Hēraklēs, just as this same goddess Atē made it possible for Agamemnon to make a mistake in the story of the Iliad. In terms of the macro-Narrative of the Iliad, however, the parallel extends much further: the mistake in the story about Hēraklēs and Eurystheus is that the hero who was superior as a hero became socially inferior, and that is also the mistake in the story about Achilles and Agamemnon as narrated in the overall Iliad: Achilles is superior to Agamemnon as a hero, but he is socially inferior to him, and that is why Agamemnon seemed to get away with the mistake of asserting his social superiority at the expense of Achilles. Like Hēraklēs, who is constrained by the social superiority of Eurystheus and follows his commands in performing āthloi ‘labors’ (XIX 133), so also Achilles is constrained by the social superiority of Agamemnon in offering no physical resistance to the taking of the young woman Briseis, his war prize, by the inferior hero. 1§39. The performance of āthloi ‘labors’ by Hēraklēs is mentioned in passing by this micro-narrative in the Iliad (XIX 133). As we are about to see from other sources, the Labors of Hēraklēs lead to the kleos ‘glory’ that Hēraklēs earns as a hero, and these labors would never have been performed if Hērā the goddess of seasons had not made Hēraklēs the hero unseasonal by being born after rather than before his inferior cousin. So, Hēraklēs owes the kleos that he earns from his Labors to Hērā.

The Labors of Hēraklēs 1§40. There are many different kinds of Labors performed by Hēraklēs, as we see from an extensive retelling by Diodorus of Sicily (4.8-4.39). The work of this author, who lived in the first century BCE, is not part of our reading list of ancient texts, as contained in the Sourcebook, and so I need to summarize his narrative here in order to highlight some essential features of the overall story of Hēraklēs. 1§41. One of the Labors of Hēraklēs, as we see from Diodorus, was the foundation of the athletic festival of the Olympics. The story as retold by Diodorus (4.14.1-2) says that Hēraklēs not only founded this major festival: he also competed in every athletic event on the prototypical occasion of the first Olympics. On that occasion, he won first prize in every Olympic event. This tradition about Hēraklēs is the perfect illustration of a fundamental connection between the labor of a hero and the competition of an athlete at athletic events like the Olympics. As we can see when we read Comment 8b, the hero’s labor and the athlete’s competition are the “same thing,” from the standpoint of ancient Greek concepts of the hero. The Greek word for the hero’s labor and for the athlete’s competition is the same: āthlos. Our English word athlete is a borrowing from the Greek word āthlētēs, which is derived from āthlos. 1§42. Before we consider further Labors performed by Hēraklēs, I offer a paraphrase of the beginning of the story of these Labors as narrated by Diodorus (4.9.2-4.9.5):

43 The supreme god and king of gods, Zeus, impregnates Alkmene, a mortal woman (4.9.2). The wife of Zeus, the goddess Hērā, is jealous; she decides to intervene in the life of the hero who is about to be born, Hēraklēs (4.9.4). If this hero had been born on schedule, on time, in time, he would have been the supreme king of his time; but Hērā makes sure that Hēraklēs is born not on schedule, not on time, not in time. Hēraklēs’ inferior cousin, Eurystheus, is born ahead of him and thus is fated to become king instead of Hēraklēs (4.9.4-5). During all of Hēraklēs’ lifetime, Eurystheus persecutes him directly; Hērā persecutes him indirectly. The superior hero has to spend his entire lifespan obeying the orders of the inferior king (4.9.5). Hēraklēs follows up on each one of the orders, and his accomplishments in the process add up to the Labors of Hēraklēs. 1§43. In the classical period, the Labors of Hēraklēs were represented most famously in a set of relief sculptures that decorated the two longitudinal sides of the Temple of Zeus in Olympia, built in the fifth century BCE. These relief sculptures, the technical term for which is metopes, focused on a canonical number of twelve Labors performed by Hēraklēs. Diodorus narrates all these Twelve Labors (4.11.3-4.26.4): - Hēraklēs kills the Nemean Lion (4.11.3-4) - Hēraklēs kills the Lernaean Hydra (4.11.5-6) - Hēraklēs kills the Erymanthian Boar (4.12.1-2) - Hēraklēs hunts down the Hind with the Golden Horn (4.13.1) - Hēraklēs clears the Stymphalian Marsh of the noxious birds that infested it (4.13.2) - Hēraklēs clears the manure from the Augean Stables (4.13.3) - Hēraklēs captures the Cretan Bull alive and brings it to the Peloponnesus (4.13.4) - Hēraklēs corrals the Horses of Diomedes, eaters of human flesh (4.15.3-4) - Hēraklēs captures the cincture or ‘girdle’ of the Amazon Hippolyte (4.16.1-4) - Hēraklēs rustles the Cattle of Geryon (4.17.1-2) - Hēraklēs descends to Hādēs and brings up Cerberus the Hound of Hādēs from the zone of darkness to the zone of light and life (4.26.1) - Hēraklēs gathers the Golden Apples of the Hesperides (4.26.2-4). 1§44. In the catalogue of the Labors of Hēraklēs as sung and danced in praise of the hero by the chorus in the tragedy by Euripides entitled the Herakles (lines 348-440), the last of these Labors to be mentioned is the descent of Hēraklēs to Hādēs (425-435); in the imagery of Euripides, and elsewhere in Greek poetry and song as we will see later on, the experience of

44 going into Hādēs is explicitly the experience of dying, and the experience of coming back out of Hādēs is implicitly the experience of resurrection (lines 143-146).

Hēraklēs and the meaning of kleos 1§45. Hēraklēs’ heroic deeds in performing these Labors and many others are the raw material for the heroic song, kleos, that is sung about him. The connection of the name of Hēraklēs with these deeds and with the medium of kleos that glorifies these deeds is made explicit in the Herakles of Euripides (lines 271, 1335, 1370). This connection of the hero’s name with these deeds of kleos is also made explicit by Diodorus (1.24.4 and 4.10.1).23 And, as I have already noted, Hēraklēs owes the kleos that he earns from his Labors to Hērā. That is how he gets his name Hēraklēs, which means ‘he who has the kleos of Hērā’.24 The goddess of being on time makes sure that the hero should start off his lifespan by being not on time and that he should go through life by trying to catch up - and never quite managing to do so until the very end. Hēraklēs gets all caught up only at the final moment of his life, at the moment of death. 1§46. I continue here my paraphrase of Diodorus (4.38.1-4.39.3): At the final moment of Hēraklēs’ heroic lifespan, he experiences the most painful death imaginable, climaxed by burning to death. This form of death is an ultimate test of the nervous system, by ancient Greek heroic standards. Here is how it happens. Hēraklēs is fatally poisoned when his skin makes contact with the sem*n of a dying Centaur. The estranged wife of Hēraklēs, Deianeira, had preserved this poisonous substance in a phial, and she smears it on an undergarment called a khiton that she sends to Hēraklēs in a vain attempt to regain his affections; the hero had asked for a cloak and a khiton to be sent to him so that he could perform a sacrifice to Zeus after capturing Iole, a younger woman whom he now intends to marry (4.38.1-2). Hēraklēs gets dressed for the sacrifice and puts on the khiton. The consequences are fatal. Once the skin of Hēraklēs makes contact with the poison smeared on the undergarment, he starts burning up on the inside as the poison rapidly pervades his body from the outside. The pain is excruciating, and Hēraklēs knows he is doomed. He arranges with the people of Trachis to have them build for him a funeral pyre on the peak of Mount Oeta, and then he climbs up on top of the funeral pyre (4.38.34). He yearns to be put out of his misery, ready to die and be consumed by the fires of the

Diodorus 1.24.4, attributes this information to Matris of Thebes FGH 39 F 2; in 4.10.1, Diodorus actually retells the version attributed to Matris. 24 On the linguistic validity of the etymology of his name, see HQ 48n79. The problem of the short a in the middle of the form Hērăklēs can best be addressed by comparing the short a in the middle of the form Alkăthoos, the name of a hero of Megara (as in Theognis 774) who is closely related thematically to Hēraklēs. I owe this solution to Alexander Nikolaev.

45 funeral pyre; he calls on his friend Philoktetes to light his pyre (4.38.4).25 At that precise moment of agonizing death, a flaming thunderbolt from his father Zeus strikes him. He goes up in flames, in a spectacular explosion of fire (4.38.4-5). In the aftermath, those who attended the primal scene find no physical trace of Hēraklēs, not even bones (4.38.5). They go home to Trachis, but Menoitios, the father of Patroklos, will later establish a hero cult for Hēraklēs at Opous, and the Thebans have a similar hero cult for him (4.38.1). Others, however, especially the Athenians, worship Hēraklēs not as a hero but as a god (4.39.1). The rationale for this alternative custom is given by the continuation of the myth as retold by Diodorus: at the moment of his death, Hēraklēs regains consciousness and finds himself on the top of Mount Olympus, in the company of the gods (4.39.2-3). He has awakened to find himself immortalized. He is then adopted by the theoi ‘gods’ on Mount Olympus as one of their own (the technical Greek term is apotheosis). Hērā now changes identities - from Hēraklēs’ stepmother to Hēraklēs’ mother (4.39.2). The procedure is specified by Diodorus, and I translate literally (4.39.2): ‘Hērā got into her bed and drew Hēraklēs close to her body; then she ejected him through her clothes to the ground, re-enacting [= making mīmēsis of] genuine birth’ (tēn de teknōsin genesthai phasi toiautēn: tēn Hēran anabasan epi klinēn kai ton Hēraklea proslabomenēn pros to sōma dia tōn endumatōn apheinai pros tēn gēn, mimoumenēn tēn alēthinēn genesin).26 1§47. Birth by Hērā is the hero’s rebirth, a birth into immortality.27 Death by lightning is the key to this rebirth: the thunderbolt of Zeus, so prominently featured in the poetry of cosmogony and anthropogony, simultaneously destroys and regenerates: Elysium, one of many different names given to an imagined paradisiacal place of immortalization for heroes after death, is related to the word en-ēlusion, which designates a place struck by lightning - a place made sacred by contact with the thunderbolt of Zeus.28 As I said in the Introduction to the book (0§6), the hero can be immortalized, but the fundamental painful fact remains: the hero is not by nature immortal. 1§48. By now we can see that the name Hēraklēs ‘he who has the glory [kleos] of Hērā’ marks both the medium and the message of the hero. But when we first consider the meaning of the name of Hēraklēs, our first impression is that this name is illogical: it seems to us strange that Hēraklēs should be named after Hērā - that his poetic glory or kleos should depend on Hērā. After all, Hēraklēs is persecuted by Hērā throughout his heroic lifespan. And yet, without this unseasonality, without the disequilibrium brought about by the persecution of 25

Thinking of Jim Morrison’s 1966 recording of “Light my fire,” I recall these words: “Try now we can only lose / And our love become a funeral pyre / Come on baby, light my fire / Come on baby, light my fire / Try to set the night on fire, yeah ... .” 26 In Comment 8g below, I will analyze the meaning of mīmēsis as ‘re-enactment’. 27 This formulation comes from the analysis in EH §75, and the rest of my paragraph here draws further on that analysis. 28 GM 140-142.

46 Hērā, Hēraklēs would never have achieved the equilibrium of immortality and the kleos or ‘glory’ that makes his achievements live forever in song.

Hēraklēs and the idea of the hero 1§49. At the core of the narratives about Hēraklēs is the meaning of hērōs ‘hero’ as a cognate of Hērā, the goddess of seasonality and equilibrium, and of hōrā, a noun that actually means ‘seasonality’ in the context of designating hero cult, as in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter 265.29 The decisive verse that I cite here from Homeric Hymn to Demeter will be quoted in Hour 8 Text C and analyzed in Hour 8§§20-21. The unseasonality of the hērōs in mortal life leads to the telos or ‘fulfillment’ of hōrā ‘seasonality’ in immortal life, which is achieved in the setting of hero cult, as we will see in Hour 13§§11-22. Such a concept of telos as ‘fulfillment’ is also expressed by an adjecival derivative of telos, which is teleia, used as a cult epithet that conventionally describes the goddess Hērā.30 That is, Hērā is the goddess of telos in the sense of ‘fulfillment’, as we will see in Hour 13§18. 1§50. Overall, the narratives about Hēraklēs fit neatly into a model of the hero as I outline it in a general article I have published on the topic of the epic hero.31 I offer here a shortened version of the outline that I develop there. In terms of that outline, there are three characteristics of the hero: 1. The hero is unseasonal. 2. The hero is extreme - positively (for example, ‘best’ in whatever category) or negatively (the negative aspect can be a function of the hero’s unseasonality). 3. The hero is antagonistic toward the god who seems to be most like the hero; antagonism does not rule out an element of attraction - often a “fatal attraction” - which is played out in a variety of ways. 1§51. All three characteristics converge in the figure of the hero Hēraklēs: 1. He is made unseasonal by Hērā. 2. His unseasonality makes it possible for him to perform his extraordinary Labors. He also commits some deeds that are morally questionable: for example, he destroys the city of Iole and kills the brothers of this woman in order to capture her as his bride - even though he is already married to Deianeira (Diodorus of Sicily 4.37.5).

PH 140n27 = 5§7; GM 136. This cult epithet for Hērā, teleia, is attested for example in Aristophanes Women at the Thesmophoria 973. 31 EH §§105-110. 30

47 3. He is antagonistic with Hērā throughout his lifespan, but he becomes reconciled with her through death: as we have seen, the hero becomes the virtual son of Hērā by being reborn from her. As the hero’s name makes clear, he owes his heroic identity to his kleos and, ultimately, to Hērā. A parallel is the antagonism of Juno, the Roman equivalent of Hērā, toward the hero Aeneas in Virgil’s Aeneid. 1§52. Before we go on, I must highlight the fact that the story of Hēraklēs includes the committing of deeds that are morally questionable. It is essential to keep in mind that whenever heroes commit deeds that violate moral codes, such deeds are not condoned by the heroic narrative. As we will see later, in Hours 6 7 8, the pollution of a hero in myth is relevant to the worship of that hero in ritual. 1§53. That said, I now proceed with paraphrases of two further details about the life of Hēraklēs: - Hērā finds an abandoned baby, who happens to be Hēraklēs. She takes a fancy to the baby and breast-feeds it, but the baby bites her. This part of the narrative is reported by Diodorus of Sicily (4.9.6). Another part of the narrative is reported elsewhere: the breastfeeding of Hēraklēs by Hērā goes awry and results in a cosmic spilling of milk, a galaxy (Greek galakt- means ‘milk’) - that is, the Milky Way ([Eratosthenes] Katasterismoi 3.44; Hyginus Astronomica 2.43; “Achilles” Astronomica 24). - Hēraklēs’ mortal mother, Alkmene, conceives another son by her mortal husband, Amphitryon, on the same night when she conceives her son Hēraklēs by her immortal paramour, Zeus (Apollodorus Library 2.4.8). This twin, Iphikles, is mortal. The other twin, Hēraklēs, is mortal only on his mother’s side. I do not say half-mortal or half-divine in this case, and I will give my reasons when we reach Hour 6.

Achilles and the idea of the hero 1§54. Now that I have outlined the basics of the narratives about Hēraklēs, I turn to the basics about Achilles. We find in the figure of Achilles the same three heroic characteristics that we found in figure of Hēraklēs: 1. He is unseasonal: in Iliad XXIV 540, Achilles is explicitly described as is pan-a-(h)ōr-ios ‘the most unseasonal of them all’.32 His unseasonality is a major cause of his grief, which makes him a man of constant sorrow. In using this phrase, I have in mind here the title of a traditional American folk song, first recorded by Dick Burnett, a partially blind fiddler from Kentucky. The grief over the unseasonality of Achilles is best expressed by the hero’s mother Thetis in Iliad XVIII 54-62, a passage that will figure prominently in Hour 4§23.

HQ 48.

48 2. He is extreme, mostly in a positive sense, since he is ‘best’ in many categories, and ‘best of the Achaeans’ in the Homeric Iliad; occasionally, however, he is extreme in a negative sense, as in his moments of martial fury. In Hour 6, I will have more to say about such martial fury, otherwise known as warp spasm. 3. He is antagonistic to the god Apollo, to whom he bears an uncanny resemblance. Again in Hour 6, I will have more to say about the antagonism of Apollo with the hero Achilles.

Achilles and the meaning of kleos 1§55. There is another important parallel between Hēraklēs and Achilles: the use of the word kleos ‘glory’ in identifying Hēraklēs as a hero is relevant to the fact that the same word is used in identifying Achilles as an epic hero in the Homeric Iliad. In the Iliad, kleos designates not only ‘glory’ but also, more specifically, the glory of the hero as conferred by epic. As we have seen in Hour 1 Text A, Iliad IX 413, Achilles chooses kleos over life itself, and he owes his heroic identity to this kleos.33 1§56. So we end up where we started, with the hero Achilles. He chooses kleos over life itself, and he owes his heroic identity to this kleos. He achieves the major goal of the hero: to have his identity put permanently on record through kleos. For us, a common way to express this goal is to say: “you’ll go down in history.” For the earliest periods of ancient Greece, the equivalent of this kind of “history” is kleos. 1§57. In J. D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye (1951), Holden Caulfield is given this lesson by the teacher: “The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.” 1§58. My guess is that Achilles would respond negatively to such a teaching: in that case, I would rather be immature than mature. Still, as we will see, Achilles will achieve a maturity, a seasonality, at the moment in the Iliad when he comes to terms with his own impending heroic death. 1§59. I close for now by quoting what the teacher goes on to say in Salinger’s narrative: “Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You’ll learn from them … if you want to. It’s a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn’t education. It’s history. It’s poetry.” - the highlighting is mine.

HR 39-48.

Hour 2. Achilles as epic hero and the idea of total recall in song The meaning of memnēmai 2§1. The key word for this hour is memnēmai, which means ‘I have total recall’ in special contexts and ‘I remember’ in ordinary contexts. The special contexts involve memory by way of song. I will get to the specifics later.

Hour 2 Text A |527 I totally recall [me-mnē-mai] how this was done - it happened a long time ago, it is not something new - |528 recalling exactly how it was. I will tell it in your company - since you are all near and dear [philoi]. Iliad IX 527-5281 2§2. In the paragraphs that follow, I offer an exegesis of this passage (in the previous hour, I defined this word exegesis as an ancient Greek term referring to a close reading of a given text). 2§3. So now I proceed to analyze the verb memnēmai, containing the root mnē-, which means ‘I remember’. When this verb takes an object in the genitive case, it means ‘I remember’ in a general sense: ‘I have memories of …’. But when this verb takes an object in the accusative case, as here, it means ‘I remember’ in a special sense: ‘I remember totally …’.

Phoenix and his total recall 2§4. The hero Phoenix, an old man, is about to tell a tale that he says he remembers totally. This tale is a micro-narrative embedded in the macro-Narrative that is the Iliad. Before Phoenix tells his tale, he speaks to those who are listening to him, telling them that they are philoi ‘near and dear’ to him. Who are these ‘near and dear’ listeners? 2§5. From the standpoint of Phoenix, there are five listeners. These are (1) the hero Achilles; (2) the hero Patroklos, who is the best friend of Achilles; (3 and 4) the heroes Ajax and Odysseus; and (4 and 5) two professional announcers or ‘heralds’. From the standpoint of those who are listening to a performance of the Homeric Iliad, however, they too are listeners. So the question is, are they too ‘near and dear’? My answer, as we will see in what follows, is that the audience of Homeric poetry are presumed to be near and dear. 2§6. The word philoi, which I translate here as ‘near and dear’, can also be translated simply as ‘friends’ in this same context. This word philos (this is the singular form; the plural is philoi) means ‘friend’ as a noun and ‘near and dear’ as an adjective. It is a term of endearment, 1

|527 μέμνημαι τόδε ἔργον ἐγὼ πάλαι οὔ τι νέον γε |528 ὡς ἦν· ἐν δ’ ὑμῖν ἐρέω πάντεσσι φίλοισι.

50 an emotional term. As we will see later, this emotional term is most important for understanding the story of Phoenix. 2§7. Phoenix says that he has a total recall of the tale he is about to tell his ‘near and dear’ listeners. In the original Greek, as I noted a minute ago, the word for such total recall is memnēmai. But the term I use here, total recall, is borrowed from popular culture. I have in mind a film entitled Total Recall (1990), directed by Paul Verhoeven, featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sharon Stone, which was based on a science fiction “novelette” by Philip K. Dick, “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale,” first published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (April 1966). 2§8. I find it relevant here to recall something we have just read in the previous hour. It was a quotation from J. D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, where Holden Caulfield is being given a lesson by his teacher: “The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.” The teacher goes on to say: “Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You’ll learn from them … if you want to. It’s a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn’t education. It’s history. It’s poetry.” - the highlighting is mine. 2§9. The word “history” here refers simply to keeping a record. For the moment, I highlight the idea of keeping a record. We have an interesting way of using the word “record” these days - in an era when new technologies have replaced the old vinyl “records.” Some of us still speak of “records” even though vinyl imprints hardly exist any more. I suspect we speak this way because the idea of memory is embedded in the word “records.” 2§10. Let us pursue further the concept of keeping a record, recording, putting on record. In the earliest phases of ancient Greek song culture, the process of keeping a record of things that must be remembered, of putting things on the record, was not ordinarily done by way of writing. Writing did not become a widespread technology in the ancient Greek world until around the fifth century BCE, and even then it was confined to the uppermost strata of society. In the archaic period of Greek history (that is, the era extending from the 8th century to the middle of the 5th, as I noted in the Introduction), the idea of recording was mostly a matter of memory and of techniques of memory, mnemonics. It is in this connection that we confront the mentality of total recall. 2§11. The wording total recall is meant to convey a special mentality of remembering, of putting things on record, common in traditional societies. In terms of this mentality, to remember is to re-live an experience, including someone else’s experience, including even the experiences of heroes in the remote past of the heroic age.

The idea of kleos as a medium of total recall 2§12. The process of remembering in ancient Greek song culture requires a special medium, song. When I say song here, I include poetry, even though the word poetry in modern usage is understood to be different from song. In the ancient Greek song culture, however, both poetry and song are understood to be a medium of singing. And such singing is an oral tradition. The epic poetry of the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey derives from such an oral tradition of singing, which is a process of composition-in-performance. That is, composition is an aspect of performance and vice versa.2 In this kind of oral tradition, there is no script, since the technology of writing is not required for composition-in-performance. In Homeric poetry, the basic medium of remembering is heroic song or kleos. 2§13. This word kleos ‘glory’, which we considered in Hour 1, will figure prominently here in Hour 2 as well. I started the present hour by referring to a tale told by the old hero Phoenix. When he introduces his tale, Phoenix uses this word kleos in the context of referring to his total recall:

Hour 2 Text B (which includes Text A) |524 This is the way [houtōs] that we [= I, Phoenix] learned it, the glories [klea] of men [andrōn] of an earlier time [prosthen], |525 who were heroes [hērōes], whenever one of them was overcome by tempestuous anger. |526 They could be persuaded by way of gifts and could be swayed by words. |527 I totally recall [me-mnē-mai] how this was done - it happened a long time ago, it is not something new - |528 recalling exactly how it was. I will tell it in your company - since you are all near and dear [philoi]. Iliad IX 524-5283 2§14. The word klea ‘glories’ the abbreviated plural form of kleos ‘glory’, is combined here in verses 524 and 525 with tōn prosthen … andrōn ‘of men of an earlier time’ and hērōōn ‘of heroes [hērōes]’. This expression tōn prosthen … klea andrōn | hērōōn ‘the glories of men of an earlier time, who were heroes’, or a shorter form of the expression, klea andrōn ‘the glories of men’, is used in Homeric poetry to refer to epic narrative. When Phoenix uses this expression here, he is referring to an epic tale that he is about to tell about the hero Meleager. As we will see, this same expression klea andrōn (hērōōn) ‘the glories of men (who were heroes)’ applies not only to the epic narrative about Meleager. It applies also to the epic narrative about Achilles, which is the Iliad.

The idea of kleos as epic narrative 2§15. In general, the word kleos applies to epic narrative as performed by the master Narrator of Homeric poetry. Etymologically, kleos is a noun derived from the verb kluein ‘hear’, and it means ‘that which is heard’. In the Iliad, the master Narrator declares that the epic he narrates is something he ‘hears’ from goddesses of poetic memory called the Muses, who know everything because they were present when everything was done and when everything was said. Here is the passage where the master Narrator makes his declaration:

Hour 2 Text C |484 And now, tell me, O Muses, you who live in your Olympian abodes, |485 since you are goddesses and you were there and you know everything, |486 but we [= the Narrator] only hear the kleos and we know nothing |487 - who were the chiefs and princes of the Danaans [= the Achaeans]? Iliad II 484-4874 2§16. When we read this passage for the first time, our first impression may be that the Narrator of epic is making a modest statement about the limitations of his own knowledge. In fact, however, what we are seeing here is just the opposite. The Narrator is making a most proud and boastful statement. He is boasting that his mind is directly connected to what the Muses as goddesses of memory actually saw and heard. The Muses ‘tell’ him what they saw and heard. What he narrates about heroes and even about gods is exactly what the Muses saw. What he quotes from the spoken words of heroes and even of gods is exactly what the Muses heard. The Narrator’s mind is supposed to see and hear what the Muses saw and heard. His mind has the power of total recall. 2§17. The Narrator here is calling on the Muses as goddesses of memory to tell him a part of the epic narrative about the Trojan War. This part of the tale of Troy is generally known as the Catalogue of Ships and it tells about which warriors came to Troy and in how many ships and so on. The Muses are expected to tell the tale exactly to the Narrator, and the Narrator will tell the tale exactly to his listeners. Modern readers can easily get distracted and even bored when they read through the Catalogue, but it was of the greatest cultural interest and importance to the listeners of the Iliad in ancient times. So important was the Catalogue that the Narrator needed special powers of memory to get it right. That is why the Narrator here prays to the Muses, as if he had just started his overall narration. In fact, however, he has already prayed to ‘the Muse’ at the start of the Iliad.

|484 Ἔσπετε νῦν μοι Μοῦσαι Ὀλύμπια δώματ’ ἔχουςαι· |485 ὑμεῖς γὰρ θεαί ἐστε πάρεστέ τε ἴστέ τε πάντα, |486 ἡμεῖς δὲ κλέος οἶον ἀκούομεν οὐδέ τι ἴδμεν· |487 οἵ τινες ἡγεμόνες Δαναῶν καὶ κοίρανοι ἦσαν.

53 2§18. The Muses, as we have just seen, are supposed to know absolutely everything. They are all-knowing, that is, omniscient. So the omniscient Muses are goddesses of total recall, and their absolute power of recall is expressed by an active form of the verb mnē- in the sense of ‘remind’ at Iliad II 492.5 The master Narrator of the Iliad receives from these goddesses their absolute power of total recall when he prays to them to tell him everything about the Achaean forces that sailed to Troy (II 484, 491-492). Inspired by the omniscient Muses, the master Narrator becomes an omniscient Narrator. Although he says he will not exercise the option of telling everything in full, deciding instead to tell only the salient details by concentrating on the names of the leaders of the warriors who sailed to Troy and on the precise number of each leader’s ships (II 493), the master Narrator insists on his power of total recall.6 The very idea of such mental power is basic to Homeric poetry. 2§19. The Narrator is saying here that he does not have to know anything: all he has to do is to ‘hear the kleos’. Since the goddesses of memory were there when the heroic actions happened, and since they saw and heard everything, they know everything. The Narrator needs to know nothing, he needs to experience nothing. To repeat, all he has to do is to ‘hear the kleos’ from the goddesses of memory and then to narrate what he is hearing to those who are listening to him. 2§20. What the omniscient Muses see and what they hear is a total recall: they recall everything that has ever happened, whereas the Narrator only hears ‘that which is heard’, which is the kleos from the Muses.7 The Narrator of epic depends on these goddesses to tell him exactly what they saw and to quote for him exactly what they heard. 2§21. But what about a story-within-a-story, that is, where a narrator narrates a micronarrative within the macro-Narrative of the Iliad? In such a situation, the narrator of that micro-narrative has to reassure his listeners that he has total recall matching the total recall of the Narrator of the macro-Narrative, which is the Iliad. This is what happens when the old hero Phoenix, in Iliad IX, begins to narrate to the hero Achilles and to the other listeners the story of the earlier hero Meleager. Phoenix is telling this story about Meleager because he wants to persuade Achilles to accept the offer of Agamemnon. That is the purpose of this narrator. As we will see, however, the purpose of the master Narrator of the Iliad is different: it goes far beyond the purpose of Phoenix.

BA 17 = 1§3n2; see also West 2007:34. The noun Mousa ‘Muse’ derives from the Indo-European root *men-, the basic meaning of which is ‘put in mind’ in verb formations with transitive function and ‘have in mind’ in those with intransitive function. This etymology is reflected in the mythological relationship of the divine Muses with mnēmosunē in the sense of ‘poetic recall’, personified as their divine mother, Mnemosyne. 6 HTL 175n78; also 80n75. 7 BA 15-18 = 1§§2-4.

54 2§22. When Phoenix says he has total recall, totally recalling the epic action he narrates, his power of memory depends on the power of the omniscient Narrator who tells the framing story of the Iliad, and that power in turn depends on the power of the omniscient Muses themselves, who are given credit for controlling the master Narrative. Phoenix has total recall because he uses the medium of epic poetry and because his mind is connected to the power source of that poetry.

An epic tale told by Phoenix 2§23. In Text B, as we have seen, Phoenix refers to his tale as tōn prosthen … klea andrōn | hērōōn ‘the glories [kleos plural] of men of an earlier time, who were heroes’ (IX 524-525). It is an epic tale about the hero Meleager and his anger against his people, parallel to the framing epic tale about the hero Achilles and his anger against his own people, the Achaeans (as I noted the Introduction to this book, these people are also known as the Argives or the Danaans). The telling of the tale by Phoenix is an activation of epic within epic. 2§24. Phoenix is a hero in the epic of the Homeric Iliad, and this epic is a narrative about the distant heroic past - from the standpoint of listeners who live in a present tense devoid of contemporary heroes. But Phoenix here is narrating to listeners who live in that distant heroic past tense. And his narrative-within-a-narrative is about heroes who lived in an even more distant heroic past tense. 2§25. There are close parallels between the framing epic about the anger of Achilles and the framed epic about the anger of Meleager. Just as the framed epic about Meleager is a poetic recollection of the klea ‘glories’ of heroes of the past, so too is the framing epic about Achilles. That framing epic, which is the Iliad, is a poetic recollection by the Muse whom the master Narrator invokes to sing the story of the anger of Achilles (I 1). As the narrator of a framed epic, Phoenix does not have to invoke the Muses as goddesses of memory, since the Narrator of the framing epic has already invoked them for him. 2§26. In performing tōn prosthen … klea andrōn | hērōōn ‘the glories [kleos plural] of men of an earlier time, who were heroes’ at Iliad IX 524-525, as quoted in Text B, Phoenix expresses himself in the medium of poetry because he is speaking inside a medium that is poetry. He is speaking in the language of epic poetry just as the master Narrator, who is quoting him, also speaks in that same language. When Phoenix says memnēmai, he is in effect saying: I have total recall by way of speaking in the medium of epic poetry.

The form of epic poetry 2§27. The form of this medium of epic poetry, which calls itself kleos or klea andrōn, is called the dactylic hexameter. Over 15,000 of these dactylic hexameter lines make up the Iliad. Here is the basic rhythm of this form:

55 —uu—uu—uu—uu—uu—— (“— ” = long syllable, “u” = short syllable) {At chs.harvard.edu, I illustrate how the rhythm sounds by reciting Iliad I 1-13.} 2§28. When the master Narrator speaks the kleos or klea andrōn, he is speaking in dactylic hexameters. When the master Narrator quotes characters speaking, whether these characters are heroes or gods, they too are speaking the kleos or klea andrōn, and so they too are imagined as speaking in dactylic hexameters. That is how the Muses, who saw everything and heard everything, speak the kleos or klea andrōn. Notionally, the Muses heard the heroes and gods speaking in dactylic hexameters, and then the Muses spoke these dactylic hexameters for the master Narrator to hear, so that he may speak them to his listeners.8

To sing the klea andrōn ‘glories of men’ 2§29. In Text B, Iliad IX 524-525, we have seen the expression tōn prosthen … klea andrōn | hērōōn ‘the glories of men of an earlier time, who were heroes’ at the beginning of the epic tale told by Phoenix. I will now contrast this context of klea andrōn with the context of another example of this same expression, klea andrōn ‘glories of men (heroes)’. This other example occurs at a slightly earlier point in the master Narrative, in Iliad IX 189, where Achilles himself is pictured as literally ‘singing’ (aeidein) the klea andrōn in his shelter.9 The master Narrator does not say what the subject of this song sung by Achilles may have been. All we are told is that Achilles was ‘singing’ (aeidein) the klea andrōn, and that he was accompanying himself on a lyre. Here is the passage that shows the key wording:

Hour 2 Text D |185 The two of them10 reached the shelters and the ships of the Myrmidons, |186 and they found Achilles diverting his heart [phrēn] as he was playing on a lyre [phorminx], |187 a beautiful one, of exquisite workmanship, and its cross-bar was of silver. |188 It was part of the spoils that he had taken when he destroyed the city of Eëtion, |189 and he was now diverting his heart [thūmos] with it as he was singing [aeidein] the glories of men [klea andrōn]. |190 Patroklos was the only other person there. He [= Patroklos] sat in silence, facing him [= Achilles], |191 and waiting for the Aeacid [= Achilles] to leave off singing [aeidein]. |192 8

As I said at the beginning, I use the word notionally to indicate that the statement I am making reflects not my own thinking but rather the thought patterns of others. 9 Here and elsewhere, I refer to the klisiē of Achilles as a ‘shelter’, not a ‘tent’. I explain why in HPC 152-153 = II§§56-59. 10 In the original Greek, it is not clear whether the wording for ‘the two of them’ refers to Ajax and Phoenix or to Ajax and Odysseus or to a combination of all three, who are being accompanied by the two heralds Odios and Eurybates (on whom see Iliad IX 170). For an survey of different interpretations, see HQ 138-145.

56 Meanwhile the two of them11 came in - Odysseus12 leading the way - |193 and stood before him. Achilles sprang from his seat |194 with the lyre [phorminx] still in his hand, |195 and Patroklos, when he saw the guests, rose also.13 Iliad IX 185-19514 2§30. The medium of klea andrōn ‘glory of heroes’ is represented here as an act of singing, even though the medium of epic as performed by rhapsodes in the Classical period was recited rather than sung.15 By recited I mean (1) performed without singing and (2) performed without instrumental accompaniment.16 Still, the medium of epic refers to itself as an act of singing, as we see even in the first verse of the Iliad (I 1), where the Narrator prays to the Muse to ‘sing’ (aeidein) to him the anger of Achilles. Similarly in the Odyssey (viii 83), the epic performer Demodokos is described as ‘singing’ (aeidein) the klea andrōn ‘glory of heroes’, and he sings while accompanying himself on the lyre (viii 67). 2§31. What we see in Text D, the passage I just quoted from Iliad IX 185-195, is a clue about Achilles himself as a virtuoso performer of song. He is not only the subject of songs sung by the master Narrator of epic - songs that would qualify as klea andrōn ‘glories of men (heroes)’. Achilles is also the performer of such songs. And the same goes for Patroklos or Patrokleēs, the meaning of whose name encapsulates, as we will see, the very idea of klea andrōn. And, as we will also see, Patroklos in this passage is waiting for his turn to sing the klea andrōn.

The klea andrōn ‘glories of men’ as heroic song 2§32. In a lecture delivered at Skidmore College in 1990, Albert B. Lord spoke about a medium that he described as heroic song. According to Lord, the Homeric expression klea andrōn ‘glories of men (heroes)’ refers to such a medium.

See the previous note. In the original Greek, it is not clear whether Odysseus is named here in addition to the two others or as one of the two others. In my view, the unclearness in this context is intentional: see HQ 141-144. 13 As the context makes clear (Iliad IX 200-204 and thereafter), the scene is taking place inside the shelter of Achilles, not outside it. 14 |185 Μυρμιδόνων δ’ ἐπί τε κλισίας καὶ νῆας ἱκέσθην, |186 τὸν δ’ εὗρον φρένα τερπόμενον φόρμιγγι λιγείῃ |187 καλῇ δαιδαλέῃ, ἐπὶ δ’ ἀργύρεον ζυγὸν ἦεν, |188 τὴν ἄρετ’ ἐξ ἐνάρων πόλιν Ἠετίωνος ὀλέσσας· |189 τῇ ὅ γε θυμὸν ἔτερπεν, ἄειδε δ’ ἄρα κλέα ἀνδρῶν. |190 Πάτροκλος δέ οἱ οἶος ἐναντίος ἧστο σιωπῇ, |191 δέγμενος Αἰακίδην ὁπότε λήξειεν ἀείδων, |192 τὼ δὲ βάτην προτέρω, ἡγεῖτο δὲ δῖος Ὀδυσσεύς, |193 στὰν δὲ πρόσθ’ αὐτοῖο· ταφὼν δ’ ἀνόρουσεν Ἀχιλλεὺς |194 αὐτῇ σὺν φόρμιγγι λιπὼν ἕδος ἔνθα θάασσεν. |195 ὣς δ’ αὔτως Πάτροκλος, ἐπεὶ ἴδε φῶτας, ἀνέστη. 15 HC 362-363, 370-371 = 3§§29, 41. 16 PR 36, 41-42. 12

57 [[In “live” meetings, I show at this point a clip entitled “Albert Lord talks about heroic song.”]] http://chs119.chs.harvard.edu/mpc/about/due.html 2§33. Lord was comparing here the ancient Homeric medium of epic with media of “heroic song” that survived into the twentieth century. Among these survivals is a tradition of epic singing in the South Slavic areas of the Balkans, specifically in the former Yugoslavia. Lord (who died in 1991) and his teacher Milman Parry (who died in 1935) pioneered the systematic study of oral traditions of such heroic song in the former Yugoslavia, especially in Bosnia and in parts of Serbia. Both Parry and Lord were professors at Harvard University (Parry died a violent death at age 33, when he was still only an assistant professor; as for Lord, he eventually became one of the most accomplished and respected senior professors in the history of the university). Both Parry and Lord were Classicists as well as ethnographers, and their knowledge of Homeric poetry turned out to be a valuable source of comparative insights in their study of the living oral traditions of the South Slavic peoples. For an introduction to the pathfinding research of Parry and Lord, I recommend the well-known book of Albert Lord, The Singer of Tales.17 2§34. In the clip from Lord’s 1990 lecture mentioning the klea andrōn ‘glories of men (heroes)’, he refers to one of the greatest singers whose songs were studied by Parry and Lord, Avdo Međedović. One of Avdo’s songs, recorded by Milman Parry of Harvard, contained as many as 12,000 lines. 2§35. What is a “line” in the case of South Slavic heroic songs? The basic rhythmical unit is the heroic decasyllable, and the basic rhythm of this unit is - u - u - u - u - u. This was the rhythmical framework for the wording used by singers like Avdo in composing their heroic songs. [[In “live” meetings, I show at this point a clip entitled “Avdo sings a song of heroes.” http://chs119.chs.harvard.edu/mpc/gallery/avdo.html ]] 2§36. In this light, let us consider again the tale told by Phoenix. As we saw in Text A, Iliad IX 527-528, the key word that introduces this old hero’s narrative is memnēmai (527), which I translate as ‘I have total recall, I totally recall’.

Lord 1960; in 2000, there was a second edition published by Stephen Mitchell and myself, and the two of us wrote a new introduction that dealt with the impact of Lord’s work since 1960.

58 2§37. Phoenix has total recall because he uses the medium of epic song and because his mind is connected to the power source of such singing; in fact, he has to use song, because he is inside the medium of song. To repeat, he is speaking in dactylic hexameters, just like the Narrator who quotes him. When Phoenix says memnēmai, he is in effect saying: ‘I have total recall by means of using the medium of epic song’. 2§38. Similarly, as we have already seen in Hour 1, kleos means not just glory but glory achieved by way of using the medium of song. This medium is a way of speaking in a special way, of using special speech. On this subject, I cite an essential work by Richard Martin: he shows that narratives within the master Narrative of the Iliad contain markers for and about the listeners of the master Narrative.18 2§39. So a special way of speaking, a special speech, marks what is being performed, not just said. Here I repeat the essential wording in Text B, Iliad IX 524-525, where Phoenix says: |524 This is the way [houtōs] that we [= I, Phoenix] learned it, the glories [klea] of men [andrōn] of an earlier time [prosthen], |525 who were heroes [hērōes], whenever one of them was overcome by tempestuous anger. The epic poetry of kleos is a performance. And, as we have seen, this performance is figured as a kind of singing. 2§40. We moderns need to keep in mind that some of the things we tend to do in everyday ways, like remembering something, can be done differently in premodern societies. We have already seen an example in ancient Greek song culture, where the total recall of something can be accomplished by singing it. More generally, singing something can be the same thing as doing something in the world of some song cultures.

The concept of a speech act 2§41. Relevant here is the concept of a speech act, as originally formulated by J. L. Austin in his influential book How to do Things with Words (edited by J. O. Urmson, Oxford 1962), based on the William James Lectures that Austin delivered at Harvard University in 1955. In terms of Austin’s theory, there are situations where you actually do things by way of saying things. But you have to say these things in the right context. For example, “You’re fired!” is a speech act, but only in certain contexts, as when an employer says these words to an employee. Another example is “I do,” which is a speech act only in the context of answering the question: “Do you take this woman/man to be your lawfully-wedded wife/husband?” Still another example is “All hands on deck,” which is a speech act only in the context of sailing a ship, when the commanding officer says these words.

Martin The Language of Heroes (1989).

59 2§42. Something that Austin did not consider in the book I just cited is the idea that poetry or song can also be a speech act when poetry or song are performed in oral traditions.19 This idea is very much at work in the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey. As I have shown in my research, Homeric poetry can be considered a speech act in its own right because it is a medium that is performed. This kind of poetry comes to life only in performance, in live performance. And such performance could take place within the framework of an oral tradition, which as I already said is a specialized language of composition-in-performance.20 And a culture that uses poetry or song as a speech act is what I have been calling a song culture. 2§43. All through this hour, starting with Iliad IX 527 in Text A, I have been concentrating on a most striking example of such a speech act: it is the total recall, by the old hero Phoenix, of the epic tale of Meleager and Kleopatra.

Back to the epic tale told by Phoenix 2§44. This tale that Phoenix tells is a beautiful example of compression. (I have already explained the principle of compression in Hour 1). As we are about to see, the climax of the compressed narrative told by Phoenix will be signaled at a moment in the tale where the wording describes a woman who is crying. The name of this woman, as we will also see, is Kleopatra. I now turn to this climactic moment, as narrated by Phoenix:

Hour 2 Text E |550 So long as Meleager, dear [philos] to Arēs, was fighting in the war, |551 things went badly for the Kouretes [of the city of Pleuron], and they could not |552 put up a resistance [against the Aetolians] outside the city walls [of Pleuron, the city of the Kouretes], even though they [= the Kouretes] had a multitude of fighters. |553 But as soon as anger [kholos] entered Meleager - the kind of anger that affects also others, |554 making their thinking [noos] swell to the point of bursting inside their chest even if at other times they have sound thoughts [phroneîn], |555 [then things changed:] he [= Meleager] was angry [khōomenos] in his heart at his mother Althaea, |556 and he was lying around, next to his wife, whom he had courted and married in the proper way. She was the beautiful Kleopatra, |557 whose mother was Marpessa, the one with the beautiful ankles, daughter of Euenos, |558 and whose father was Idēs, a man most powerful among those earthbound men |559 who lived in those times. It was he [= Idēs] who had grabbed his bow and had stood up against the lord |560 Phoebus Apollo, and he [= Idēs] had done it for the sake of his bride [numphē], the one with the beautiful ankles [= Marpessa]. |561 She [= Kleopatra] had been given a special name by the father and by the queen mother back then [when she was growing up] in the palace. |562 19 20

HQ 132-133. Again, HQ 132-133.

60 They called her Alcyone, making that a second name for her, because her |563 mother [= Marpessa] was feeling the same pain [oitos] felt by the halcyon bird, known for her many sorrows [penthos]. |564 She [= Marpessa] was crying because she had been seized and carried away by the one who has far-reaching power, Phoebus Apollo. |565 So, right next to her [= Kleopatra], he [= Meleager] lay down, nursing his anger [kholos] - an anger that brings pains [algea] to the heart [thūmos]. |566 He was angry [kholoûsthai] about the curses [arai] that had been made by his own mother. She [= Meleager’s mother Althaea] had been praying to the gods, |567 making many curses [arâsthai] in her sorrow [akhos] over the killing of her brother [by her son Meleager]. |568 Many times did she beat the earth, nourisher of many, with her hands, |569 calling upon Hādēs and on terrifying Persephone. |570 She had gone down on her knees and was sitting there; her chest and her lap were wet with tears as she prayed that they [= the gods] should consign her son to death. |571 And she was heard by a Fury [Erinys] that roams in the mist, |572 a Fury heard her, from down below in Erebos - with a heart that cannot be assuaged. |573 And then it was that the din of battle could be heard all around the gates [of the people of Calydon], and also the dull thump |574 of the battering against their walls. Now he [= Meleager] was sought out by the elders |575 of the Aetolians [= the people of Calydon]; they were supplicating [lissesthai] him, and they came along with the best priests of the gods. |576 They were supplicating him to come out [from where he was lying down with his wife] and rescue them from harm, promising him a big gift. |577 They told him that, wherever the most fertile plain in the whole region of lovely Calydon may be, |578 at that place he could choose a most beautiful precinct [temenos] of land,|579 fifty acres, half of which would be a vineyard |580 while the other half would be a field open for plowing. |581 He was also supplicated many times by the old charioteer Oineus, |582 who was standing at the threshold of the chamber with the high ceiling |583 and beating at the locked double door, hoping to supplicate him by touching his knees. |584 Many times did his sisters and his mother the queen |585 supplicate [lissesthai] him. But all the more did he say “no!” Many times did his companions [hetairoi] supplicate him, |586 those who were most cherished by him and most near and dear [philoi] of them all, |587 but, try as they might, they could not persuade the heart [thūmos] in his chest |588 not until the moment when his chamber got a direct hit, and the walls of the high fortifications |589 were getting scaled by the Kouretes, who were starting to set fire to the great city [of Calydon]. |590 Then at long last Meleager was addressed by his wife, who wears her cincture so beautifully around her waist. |591 She was crying as she supplicated [lissesthai] him, telling everything in detail |592 - all the sorrowful things [kēdea] that happen to those mortals whose city is captured. |593 They kill the men. Fire turns the city to ashes. |594 They take away the children and the wives, who wear their cinctures so beautifully around their waists. |595 His heart was stirred when he heard what bad things will happen. |596 He got up and went off. Then he covered his body with shining armor. |597 And this is the way [houtōs] he rescued the Aetolians from the evil day [of destruction.|598 He yielded to his heart [thūmos]. But they [= the Aetolians] no longer carried out the fulfillment [teleîn] of their offers of gifts |599 - those many pleasing [kharienta]

61 things that they had offered. But, in any case, he protected them from the evil event. |600 As for you [= Achilles], don’t go on thinking [noeîn] in your mind [phrenes] the way you are thinking now. Don’t let a superhuman force [daimōn] do something to you |601 right here, turning you away, my near and dear one [philos]. It would be a worse prospect |602 to try to rescue the ships [of the Achaeans] if they are set on fire. So, since the gifts are waiting for you, |603 get going! For if you do that, the Achaeans will honor [tīnein] you - same as a god. |604 But if you have no gifts when you do go into the war, that destroyer of men, |605 you will no longer have honor [tīmē] the same way, even if you have succeeded in blocking the [enemy’s] forces of war. Iliad IX 550-60521 2§45. I draw special attention to verse 556 here, where we see the name of Kleopatra, who is the wife of Meleager. (This figure is not to be confused with the historical figure 21

|550 ὄφρα μὲν οὖν Μελέαγρος ἄρηι φίλος πολέμιζε, |551 τόφρα δὲ Κουρήτεσσι κακῶς ἦν, οὐδὲ δύναντο |552 τείχεος ἔκτοσθεν μίμνειν πολέες περ ἐόντες· |553 ἀλλ' ὅτε δὴ Μελέαγρον ἔδυ χόλος, ὅς τε καὶ ἄλλων |554 οἰδάνει ἐν στήθεσσι νόον πύκα περ φρονεόντων, |555 ἤτοι ὃ μητρὶ φίλῃ Ἀλθαίῃ χωόμενος κῆρ |556 κεῖτο παρὰ μνηστῇ ἀλόχῳ καλῇ Κλεοπάτρῃ |557 κούρῃ Μαρπήσσης καλλισφύρου Εὐηνίνης |558 Ἴδεώ θ’, ὃς κάρτιστος ἐπιχθονίων γένετ’ ἀνδρῶν |559 τῶν τότε· καί ῥα ἄνακτος ἐναντίον εἵλετο τόξον |560 Φοίβου Ἀπόλλωνος καλλισφύρου εἵνεκα νύμφης, |561 τὴν δὲ τότ’ ἐν μεγάροισι πατὴρ καὶ πότνια μήτηρ |562 Ἀλκυόνην καλέεσκον ἐπώνυμον, οὕνεκ’ ἄρ’ αὐτῆς |563 μήτηρ ἀλκυόνος πολυπενθέος οἶτον ἔχουσα |564 κλαῖεν ὅ μιν ἑκάεργος ἀνήρπασε Φοῖβος Ἀπόλλων· |565 τῇ ὅ γε παρκατέλεκτο χόλον θυμαλγέα πέσσων |566 ἐξ ἀρέων μητρὸς κεχολωμένος, ἥ ῥα θεοῖσι |567 πόλλ’ ἀχέουσ’ ἠρᾶτο κασιγνήτοιο φόνοιο, |568 πολλὰ δὲ καὶ γαῖαν πολυφόρβην χερσὶν ἀλοία |569 κικλήσκουσ’ Ἀΐδην καὶ ἐπαινὴν Περσεφόνειαν |570 πρόχνυ καθεζομένη, δεύοντο δὲ δάκρυσι κόλποι, |571 παιδὶ δόμεν θάνατον· τῆς δ’ ἠεροφοῖτις Ἐρινὺς |572 ἔκλυεν ἐξ Ἐρέβεσφιν ἀμείλιχον ἦτορ ἔχουσα. |573 τῶν δὲ τάχ’ ἀμφὶ πύλας ὅμαδος καὶ δοῦπος ὀρώρει |574 πύργων βαλλομένων· τὸν δὲ λίσσοντο γέροντες |575 Αἰτωλῶν, πέμπον δὲ θεῶν ἱερῆας ἀρίστους, |576 ἐξελθεῖν καὶ ἀμῦναι ὑποσχόμενοι μέγα δῶρον· |577 ὁππόθι πιότατον πεδίον Καλυδῶνος ἐραννῆς, |578 ἔνθά μιν ἤνωγον τέμενος περικαλλὲς ἑλέσθαι |579 πεντηκοντόγυον, τὸ μὲν ἥμισυ οἰνοπέδοιο, |580 ἥμισυ δὲ ψιλὴν ἄροσιν πεδίοιο ταμέσθαι. |581 πολλὰ δέ μιν λιτάνευε γέρων ἱππηλάτα Οἰνεὺς |582 οὐδοῦ ἐπεμβεβαὼς ὑψηρεφέος θαλάμοιο |583 σείων κολλητὰς σανίδας γουνούμενος υἱόν· |584 πολλὰ δὲ τόν γε κασίγνηται καὶ πότνια μήτηρ |585 ἐλλίσσονθ’· ὃ δὲ μᾶλλον ἀναίνετο· πολλὰ δ’ ἑταῖροι, |586 οἵ οἱ κεδνότατοι καὶ φίλτατοι ἦσαν ἁπάντων· |587 ἀλλ’ οὐδ’ ὧς τοῦ θυμὸν ἐνὶ στήθεσσιν ἔπειθον, |588 πρίν γ’ ὅτε δὴ θάλαμος πύκ’ ἐβάλλετο, τοὶ δ’ ἐπὶ πύργων |589 βαῖνον Κουρῆτες καὶ ἐνέπρηθον μέγα ἄστυ. |590 καὶ τότε δὴ Μελέαγρον ἐΰζωνος παράκοιτις |591 λίσσετ’ ὀδυρομένη, καί οἱ κατέλεξεν ἅπαντα |592 κήδε’, ὅσ’ ἀνθρώποισι πέλει τῶν ἄστυ ἁλώῃ· |593 ἄνδρας μὲν κτείνουσι, πόλιν δέ τε πῦρ ἀμαθύνει, |594 τέκνα δέ τ’ ἄλλοι ἄγουσι βαθυζώνους τε γυναῖκας. |595 τοῦ δ’ ὠρίνετο θυμὸς ἀκούοντος κακὰ ἔργα, |596 βῆ δ’ ἰέναι, χροῒ δ’ ἔντε’ ἐδύσετο παμφανόωντα. |597 ὣς ὃ μὲν Αἰτωλοῖσιν ἀπήμυνεν κακὸν ἦμαρ |598 εἴξας ᾧ θυμῷ· τῷ δ’ οὐκέτι δῶρα τέλεσσαν |599 πολλά τε καὶ χαρίεντα, κακὸν δ’ ἤμυνε καὶ αὔτως. |600 ἀλλὰ σὺ μή μοι ταῦτα νόει φρεσί, μὴ δέ σε δαίμων |601 ἐνταῦθα τρέψειε φίλος· κάκιον δέ κεν εἴη |602 νηυσὶν καιομένῃσιν ἀμυνέμεν· ἀλλ’ ἐπὶ δώρων |603 ἔρχεο· ἶσον γάρ σε θεῷ τίσουσιν Ἀχαιοί. |604 εἰ δέ κ’ ἄτερ δώρων πόλεμον φθισήνορα δύῃς |605 οὐκέθ’ ὁμῶς τιμῆς ἔσεαι πόλεμόν περ ἀλαλκών.

62 Kleopatra, also spelled in the Romanized form Cleopatra.) I also draw attention to verse 562, where we see the second name of the wife of Meleager, which is Alcyone. In ancient Greek lore, the alcyon / halcyon is a bird that sings songs of lament over the destruction of cities. In Hour 3, I will follow up on the lament of Kleopatra and the general idea of lament in ancient Greek song culture. 2§46. The story of Meleager and his lamenting wife Kleopatra is a micro-narrative meant for Achilles and for the Iliad, which is the macro-narrative about Achilles; in its compressed form, the Meleager narrative “replays” or “repeats” some of the major themes of the expanded form that is the Iliad. 2§47. An essential word in the micro-narrative is the adjective philos ‘near and dear’ at verse 601. The superlative form of this adjective is philtatos ‘most near and dear’, or philtatoi in the plural. The plural form philtatoi ‘most near and dear [philoi]’ is applied to the companions of Meleager at verse 586. As we are about to see, this adjective philos measures the hero’s ascending scale of affection: elders, priests, father, sisters, mother, companions [hetairoi], and, finally, wife. 2§48. I will now explain why I highlight the word wife at the very end of this list of words. The sequence in which these words are presented in the narration corresponds to a principle that I have just described as the hero’s ascending scale of affection. As we are about to see, the placement of the wife in the final position of this sequence is dictated by the logic of the micro-narrative itself, not by the logic of its narrator Phoenix. And the logic of this micronarrative is shaped by the emotions of Meleager. 2§49. The emotions of Achilles, which shape the macro-Narrative of the Iliad, can be understood by thinking through these emotions of Meleager, which shape the micro-narrative told by Phoenix in Iliad IX. A key to these emotions is the principle of an ascending scale of affection.22 As we are about to see, this principle is on full display in the Meleager narrative, which calls itself klea andrōn ‘glories of men’ (IX 524), told in the midst of philoi ‘friends, near and dear ones’ (IX 528), as we saw in Text B. 2§50. As we analyze the emotions that are activated in this micro-narrative, it is important to consider again the meaning of philoi ‘friends, near and dear ones’, and this word’s links with the emotion of love. The lament of Kleopatra highlights the emotion of love as well as the emotion of sadness or sorrow or grief as well as the emotion of anger as well as the emotion of fear. The story of Meleager and Kleopatra explores the combinations and permutations of all these emotions.

The term ascending scale of affections is explained in BA 104-105 = 6§15, including references to the history of the term.

63 2§51. The song culture of “Classical” opera likewise explores such combinations and permutations of emotions. In the Renaissance, opera was thought to be a “reinvention” of ancient drama and, by extension, of epic themes transmitted by drama, especially by tragedy. 2§52. In opera, confusion of emotions is an emotion in its own right, since it is meant to be a mixture of more than one emotion. That is, confusion results from a fusion of grief and anger, anger and hate, hate and love, and so on. Such fusion, as we will see later, is evident in Greek epic and tragedy as well. 2§53. In the story of Meleager and Kleopatra, two emotions that we see foregrounded are fear and pity.

The emotions of fear and pity 2§54. Aristotle thought that the emotions of phobos ‘fear’ and eleos ‘pity’ are essential for understanding tragedy (Poetics 1449b24-28). The same can be said for understanding the epic of the Iliad, which Aristotle understood to be a prototype of tragedy.23 Here I offer some background on these and other emotions as expressed in ancient Greek song culture. 2§55. The English translations ‘fear’ and ‘pity’ do not quite capture the range of meanings embedded in the original Greek words. It is easier if we start thinking of the contrast of fear and pity in different terms: fear: a feeling of repulsion when you see or hear someone else suffering (that is, you feel like getting as far away as possible from that person) pity: a feeling of attraction when you see or hear someone else suffering (that is, you feel like getting closer to that person). When you yourself are suffering, you feel grief. When you feel fear or pity, you are repelled by or attracted to the grief. 2§56. Of course, the emotion of fear goes beyond what you feel about the grief of others: you can more basically fear for yourself. But the same basic feeling is at work when you experience fear in reaction to someone else’s suffering: you are afraid that something might happen to you that will make you suffer the same way. Another word that I will use, from here on, to express the idea of fear is terror. 2§57. This background will help us analyze the micro-narrative about Meleager and his wife Kleopatra.

HC 78 = 1§10.

64 2§58. In the case of the emotions that we know as sadness and love, I can show some analogies in contemporary popular media: [[In “live” meetings, I show at this point two clips, both from Bladerunner. The first is entitled “Implants, just implants,” and the second is “You play beautifully,” from Bladerunner. chs.harvard.edu]] Both these film clips illustrate the idea that the musical recalling of a memory is the “same thing” as the reliving of an experience, with all its emotions. If you “recall” someone else’s experience by way of song or music, then that experience and all its emotions become your own, even if they had not been originally yours.

The story of Meleager and Kleopatra 2§59. The total recall of Phoenix in telling the story of Meleager focuses on the wife of Meleager, named Kleopatra, and on the meaning of her name Kleopatra. This name Kleopatra in the micro-narrative will be relevant to the name of Patroklos, the best friend of Achilles, in the macro-Narrative.24 2§60. As Achilles contemplates the decisions he has to make in the course of a narrative that centers on his own epic actions, he is invited by Phoenix to contemplate the decisions made by an earlier hero in the course of an earlier epic. As we saw earlier, that hero is Meleager, who figures in an earlier epic called the klea andrōn | hērōōn ‘the glories of men who were heroes’ in Iliad IX 524-525, Text B. The framed epic about Meleager, quoted as a direct speech by the framing epic, is introduced by way of a special word houtōs ‘this way’ at IX 524, Text B, signaling the activation of a special form of speech known as the ainos.25 Here is my working definition of this word: an ainos is a performance of ambivalent wording that becomes clarified once it is correctly understood and then applied in moments of making moral decisions affecting those who are near and dear.26 2§61. The ainos that Phoenix tells in the Iliad, drawing on narratives concerning the hero Meleager, is intended to persuade Achilles to accept an offer made by Agamemnon. That is the short-range intention of Phoenix as a narrator narrating within the master Narration that is the Iliad. But the long-range intention of the master Narrator is quite different from the short-range intention of Phoenix. The master Narrative shows that the embedded narrative of Phoenix was misguided - that is, misguided by hindsight. If Achilles had accepted the offer of

In what follows, I give an epitomized version of an argument I presented in Nagy 2007b (“Homer and Greek Myth”). 25 PH 200 = 7§1n4. 26 PH 199-202 = 7§§1-4.

65 Agamemnon, as Phoenix had intended, this acceptance would have undermined the epic reputation of Achilles.27 2§62. So the reaction of Achilles to the ainos performed by Phoenix needs to be viewed within the framework of the master Narrative performed by the master Narrator. From the standpoint of Achilles as a character who takes shape within the plot of the overall epic that is the Iliad, the consequences of his decisions in reacting to the subplot of the epic about Meleager are still unclear at the moment when he makes these decisions. From the standpoint of the master Narrator who narrates the plot of the Iliad, on the other hand, the consequences are quite clear, since the master Narration takes shape by way of an interaction between the framed micro-narrative about the anger of Meleager and the framing macro-Narrative about the anger of Achilles. The short-range agenda of Phoenix and Achilles will be transformed into the long-range agenda of the master Narrative, which will ultimately correspond to what actually happens to Achilles in his own heroic life. In the world of epic, heroes live out their lives by living the narratives that are their lives. 2§63. The point of the story as told by Phoenix is that Achilles must identify with those who are philoi ‘near and dear’ - and must therefore rejoin his comrades in war. Phoenix himself, along with Odysseus and Ajax, is a representative of these comrades by virtue of being sent as a delegate to Achilles. 2§64. More must be said here about the word philos (in the singular) or philoi (in the plural), which as we have seen means ‘friend’ as a noun and ‘near and dear’ as an adjective. The translation ‘dear’ conveys the fact that this word has an important emotional component. As we will see, the meaning of the framed micro-narrative of Phoenix emerges from the framing macro-Narrative of the Iliad. As we will also see, the central theme has to do with the power of emotions, and the central character turns out to be someone who is not mentioned a single time in the framed micro-narrative: that someone is Achilles’ best friend, the hero Patroklos. 2§65. From the standpoint of Phoenix as narrator, the word philoi applies primarily to Achilles at the moment when he begins to tell his story (IX 528). But this word applies also to the whole group of epic characters who are listening to the telling of this story. This group, as we have seen, is composed of (1) Odysseus and Ajax, who are the other two delegates besides Phoenix; (2) the two heralds who accompany the three delegates; (3) Achilles himself; and (4) Patroklos. Inside the story told by Phoenix, the comrades who approach Meleager as delegates are the philtatoi, that is, those persons who are ‘nearest and dearest’ to the hero (IX 585-587). So, from the short-range perspective of Phoenix as the narrator of the ainos about Meleager, the three comrades who approach Achilles as delegates must be the persons who are nearest and dearest to him. From the long-range perspective of the master Narrator, however, it is not 27

HQ 142-143.

66 Phoenix and the two other delegates but Patroklos who must be nearest and dearest to Achilles. Later on in the Iliad, after Patroklos is killed in battle, Achilles recognizes this hero as the one who was all along the philtatos, the ‘nearest and dearest’ of them all (XVII 411, 655).28 2§66. The story about Meleager as narrated by Phoenix is already anticipating such a long-range recognition. The micro-narrative indicates, by way of the sequence of delegates who are sent to Meleager, that hero’s ascending scale of affection. The order in which the delegates are mentioned corresponds to the order in which they are placed in the hero’s emotional world of affections. Delegates that are mentioned earlier are placed relatively lower in the hero’s ascending scale of affection, while delegates that are mentioned later are placed relatively higher. The scale of lower to higher goes from the elders [verse 574] to the priests [verse 575] to the father [verse 581] to the sisters [verse 584] to the mother [verse 584] to the comrades [verse 585]. At first it seems as if the comrades are at the top of Meleager’s ascending scale of affection, since they seem to be the last and the latest delegates to be mentioned, and, on top of that, they are actually described by Phoenix as philtatoi, the ‘nearest and dearest’ (IX 585-587). But there is someone who is even nearer and dearer to Meleager than the comrades. In the logic of the story, that someone turns out to be the wife of Meleager (IX 588-596). In Meleager’s ascending scale of affection, the wife of the hero ultimately outranks even the comrades approaching him as delegates. Likewise in Achilles’ ascending scale of affection, there is someone who ultimately outranks the comrades approaching him as delegates. For Achilles that someone is Patroklos, who was all along the philtatos, the ‘nearest and dearest’ of them all (XVII 411, 655). The name of this hero in its full form, Patrokleēs, matches in meaning the name given to the wife of Meleager in the ainos narrated by Phoenix: she is Kleopatra (IX 556). These two names, Patrokleēs / Kleopatra, both mean ‘the one who has the glory [kleos] of the ancestors [pateres]’.29 Both these names amount to a periphrasis of the expression tōn prosthen … klea andrōn | hērōōn ‘the glories [kleos plural] of men of an earlier time, who were heroes’ (IX 524-525), which refers to the ainos narrated by Phoenix to a group of listeners including not only the delegates approaching Achilles but also Achilles and Patroklos themselves (IX 527-528). Phoenix is presuming that all his listeners are philoi ‘near and dear’ to him (IX 528). I already quoted all this wording in Text B. 2§67. Even before the arrival of the delegates, Achilles himself is pictured as singing the glories of heroes, the klea andrōn (IX 189). At this moment, he is alone except for one person. With him is Patroklos, who is intently listening to him and waiting for his own turn to sing, ready to start at whatever point Achilles leaves off singing (IX 190-191). As Patroklos gets ready to continue the song sung by Achilles, the song of Achilles is getting ready to become the song of Patroklos. So the hero whose name conveys the very idea of klea andrōn ‘glories of men

28 29

BA 104-105 = 6§15. BA 104-105, 106-109 = 6§§15, 17-19.

67 (who are heroes)’ is figured here as the personal embodiment of the klea andrōn.30 I already quoted all this wording in Text D. 2§68. As we will see in hours to come, Achilles himself is a virtuoso in expressing emotions by way of song, that is, by way of klea andrōn. Especially the emotions of sorrow, anger, hatred, and even love. 2§69. The ainos told by Phoenix, to which he refers as klea andrōn at Iliad IX 524 as quoted in Text B, connects with the song of Achilles, to which the master Narrator refers likewise as klea andrōn, at IX 189, as quoted in Text D. The ainos also connects with Patroklos as the one person who is nearest and dearest to Achilles. Patroklos is at the very top of that hero’s ascending scale of affection. 2§70. What must mean more than anything else to Achilles is not only Patroklos himself but also the actual meaning of the name Patrokleēs, which conveys the idea of the klea andrōn. For Achilles, the words klea andrōn represent the master Narrative in the actual process of being narrated in the epic of the Iliad. For Achilles, it is a narrative of his own making. And it is the speech act of narration in the making. 2§71. Just as the song of Achilles is identified with the master Narrative of the Iliad, so also the style of this hero’s language is identified with the overall style of the master Narrator. In other words, the language of Achilles mirrors the language of the master Narrator. Empirical studies of the language of Homeric diction have shown that the language of Achilles is made distinct from the language of other heroes quoted in the Iliad, and this distinctness carries over into the language of the master Narrator, which is thus made distinct from the language of other narrators of epic.31 It is as if the klea andrōn as sung by Achilles - and as heard by Patroklos - were the model for the overall klea andrōn as sung by Homer. 2§72. The ainos as told by Phoenix, to which he refers as klea andrōn at Iliad IX 524 as quoted in Text B, connects with the overall klea andrōn as told by the master Narrator. The connection is made by way of poetic conventions distinguishing the ainos from epic. One of these conventions is a set of three features characterizing the rhetoric of the ainos. Unlike epic, the ainos requires three qualifications of its listeners in order to be understood: 1. The listeners must be sophoi ‘skilled’ in understanding the message encoded in the poetry. That is, they must be mentally qualified. 2. They must be agathoi ‘noble’. That is, they must be morally qualified.

30 31

PP 72-73, PR 17. Martin 1989:225, 227, 233, 237.

68 3. They must be philoi ‘near and dear’ to each other and to the one who is telling them the ainos. That is, they must be emotionally qualified. Communication is achieved through a special sense of community, that is, through recognizing “the ties that bind.”32 2§73. Each of these three features of the ainos is made explicit in the songmaking medium of Pindar, whose songs date back to the first half of the fifth century BCE. The medium of Pindar actually refers to itself as ainos.33 2§74. One of these three features of the ainos is also made explicit in the ainos narrated by Phoenix, that is, in the tōn prosthen … klea andrōn | hērōōn, ‘the glories [kleos plural] of men of an earlier time, who were heroes’ at Iliad IX 524-525 as quoted in Text B. When it comes to the emotional qualifications required for understanding the ainos spoken by Phoenix, we have already seen that the speaker refers to his listeners as philoi ‘near and dear’ to him (IX 528). So the emotional requirements of the ainos are made quite explicit. By contrast, when it comes to the moral requirements for understanding the ainos, they are merely implicit in the word philoi. The moral message as encoded in his ainos becomes explicit only at a later point, once the outcome of the master Narrative is clarified. That point is reached when Patroklos is killed while fighting for his comrades. It is only then that Achilles, for whom the story about the anger of Meleager was intended, ultimately recognizes the moral message of that story. 2§75. This kind of recognition, to borrow from the wording used in the lyric poetry of Pindar, shows that the listener has become sophos ‘skilled’ in understanding the message encoded in the ainos. In the story told by Phoenix, that message is conveyed by the figure of Kleopatra, who is nearest and dearest to Meleager in that hero’s ascending scale of affection. In the logic of the embedded narrative, that figure promotes the moral principle of fighting for one’s comrades, just as the figure of Patroklos, who is nearest and dearest to Achilles, promotes the same principle in the logic of the master Narrative. 2§76. Patroklos not only promotes that principle: he exemplifies it through his own epic actions, thereby forfeiting his life. Then, responding to the lesson learned from the death of Patroklos, Achilles will express his willingness to forfeit his own life in order to avenge the death of Patroklos (Iliad XVIII 90-126). Thus Achilles will be justifying the principle for which Patroklos had died, this principle of klea andrōn.

PH 148 = 6§5. See also Nagy 2011 §131, citing Schwartz 2003:383, who has shown that the three requirements for understanding the ancient Greek ainos, as I have just summarized them here, are related to a cognate set of three requirements for understanding the phraseology that he analyzes in the Zoroastrian texts of the ancient Iranian Gāthās, especially with reference to the Yasnas 30, 31, and 46 (pp. 383-384). Schwartz has thus found comparative evidence indicating that the poetics of the ainos stem from Indo-European prototypes. 33 PH 148-150 = 6§§5-8.

Plato’s reading of the Iliad 2§77. Plato, who lived in the fourth century BCE, shows his understanding of this moral principle as developed in the master Narrative of the Iliad: in Plato’s Apology (28c-d), we see a paraphrase of the relevant verses of the Iliad (XVIII 90-104), along with some quotations of the original wording. Likewise in Plato’s Symposium (179e-180a), we see another paraphrase of the same verses. In the case of this second paraphrase, however, the choice made by Achilles to forfeit his life in order to avenge the death of Patroklos appears to be conflated with another choice that faces the hero. At an earlier point in the Iliad, in the context of the so-called Embassy Scene where Achilles is speaking to Phoenix and the other delegates (IX 410-416), he says that he must decide between two kēres ‘fated ways’ (IX 411): either he dies at a ripe old age after a safe nostos ‘homecoming’ to his homeland Phthia or he dies young on the battlefield in Troy - and thereby wins for himself a kleos ‘glory’ that will last forever (IX 413). This is the passage I quoted already in Hour 1 Text A. 2§78. Plato’s apparent conflation of two choices facing Achilles turns out to be justified: the two choices are in fact one choice. In the Embassy Scene of the Iliad, when Achilles says he must choose between two kēres ‘fates’ (IX 411), either a nostos ‘homecoming’ or a kleos ‘glory’ that will last forever (IX 413), he is actually not yet ready to make his choice: the two alternative fates have simply been foretold for him by his mother, the goddess Thetis (IX 410411). Later on, after Patroklos has been killed, Achilles is facing the same choice, but by now he has made his decision. He says that there cannot be a homecoming for him (nosteîn XVIII 90) because he must kill Hector in order to avenge the death of Patroklos, and, once he kills Hector, his own death in battle will become a certainty (XVIII 90-93), just as his mother had foretold - and as she now foretells again (XVIII 96-97). By choosing to kill Hector, Achilles chooses to die young on the battlefield, and he refers to this death as his inevitable kēr ‘fate’ (XVIII 115). As his compensation, however, he will now win kleos ‘glory’ for himself (XVIII 121).

The epic choice of Achilles 2§79. So, ultimately, Achilles decides to choose kleos over life itself. Earlier on, however, when the choice is first formulated in the Embassy Scene, it is not yet clear which of the two kēres ‘fated ways’ (IX 411) will be chosen by the hero - whether it will be a nostos ‘homecoming’ or the kleos ‘glory’ that will last forever (IX 413). The hero is saying that he loves life more than any property he can win for himself by fighting in Troy, and such property is defined in terms of raiding cattle in particular and acquiring wealth in general (IX 401-408). Still earlier on, in the so-called Quarrel Scene at the very start of the epic, in Iliad I, such property is being defined in terms of the women as well as the cattle and the general wealth that the hero has already acquired in the course of raiding the territories of Aeolic-speaking Greeks in the vicinity of Troy.

70 2§80. I add here that the word Aeolic refers to the Greek dialect spoken on the island of Lesbos and the facing mainland of Asia Minor, as well as the dialect spoken in Thessaly, the homeland of Achilles. Thessaly is on the European side of the Aegean sea. As we will see later, the European provenance of Aeolic Achilles is politicized in the poetic traditions about this hero. 2§81. At the start of the Iliad, the hero’s sense of tīmē ‘honor’ is simply a function of all the property he has acquired. The prime example is Briseis, a woman whom Achilles captured in one of his raiding expeditions in the territories of the Aeolic-speaking Greeks of Asia Minor, especially on the island of Lesbos and on the facing mainland: in the Quarrel Scene at the beginning of the Iliad, when Briseis is forcibly taken from Achilles by Agamemnon, she is treated merely as a war-prize, a trophy, and the hero’s loss is seen as a loss of property. And yet, though the hero’s honor is being expressed exclusively in terms of property in the Quarrel Scene of Iliad I, things have changed by the time Achilles speaks to Phoenix in the Embassy Scene of Iliad IX. By then, Achilles has rethought the loss of Briseis. By now this loss has become the loss of a personal relationship, and Achilles even says he loves Briseis as he would love a wife (IX 340-343). I will have more to say about this in Hour 8. 2§82. Here I must return to the story told by the old man Phoenix to the young man Achilles about the hero Meleager and his wife Kleopatra (Iliad IX 527-599). I highlight again the fact that the old man refers to his story as tōn prosthen … klea andrōn | hērōōn, the ‘glories of men of an earlier time, who were heroes’ (IX 524-525). This story about Meleager, a hero who seems at first to love his wife more than he loves his own comrades, will now take on a special meaning for the hero of the master Narrative that is the Iliad. 2§83. But there are vital questions that remain: does Achilles love his would-be wife more than he loves his comrades - or even more than life itself? Here is where the name of Meleager’s own wife, Kleopatra, becomes essential. As we have seen, the meaning of Kleopatra is parallel to the meaning of Patrokleēs, the name of the one person who means more to Achilles than anyone else in the whole world. After Patroklos is killed, this hero is recognized as the one single person who was nearest and dearest to Achilles. After the death of Patroklos, Achilles can now say that he has all along valued Patroklos as much as he has valued his own life (XVIII 80-82). 2§84. So the hero Ajax misses the point when he accuses Achilles of loving Briseis more than he loves his comrades (IX 622-638). Achilles loves his would-be wife the same way that Meleager loves Kleopatra, but there is a deeper meaning to be found in that hero’s love for Kleopatra, and that deeper meaning has to do with the relevance of the name of Kleopatra to Achilles. What Achilles loves more than anything else in the whole world is what the name of Kleopatra means to Meleager - and what the name of his own nearest and dearest comrade Patroklos means to him. That is because these two names Patrokleēs / Kleopatra both mean ‘the

71 one who has the glory [kleos] of the ancestors [pateres]’, and, as I have argued, both these names amount to a periphrasis of the expression tōn prosthen … klea andrōn | hērōōn ‘the glories [kleos plural] of men of an earlier time who were heroes’ (IX 524-525). 2§85. Just as Patroklos made the epic choice of loving his comrades more than life itself, actually giving up his life for them, so also Achilles will now make the epic choice of giving up his own life for his comrade Patroklos - and for the meaning of Patroklos. The meaning of the name of Patroklos, ‘the one who has the glory [kleos] of the ancestors [pateres]’, recapitulates the epic choice of Achilles, who ultimately opts for kleos over life itself. That is why, as we will see in Hour 4, the epic kleos chosen by Achilles must be aphthiton ‘imperishable’ forever (IX 413): the kleos of Achilles must not ever lose its divine vitality.

Hour 3. Achilles and the poetics of lament The meaning of akhos and penthos 3§1. There are two key words for this hour, akhos and penthos, and the meaning of both words is ‘grief, sorrow; public expression of grief, sorrow, by way of lamentation or keening’.

A man of constant sorrow 3§2. The word akhos is connected with the name of Achilles in the Iliad. And the meaning of the word akhos, which conveys intense grief, sorrow, pain, is connected with a central theme that is linked with Achilles in the Homeric Iliad: Achilles is a man of constant sorrow. I have already used this phrase once before, in Hour 1, where I was thinking of the title of a traditional American folk song. I am thinking now also of an expression in Isaiah 53:3 as translated in the King James Bible: ‘a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief’. One of my major research projects over the years has been the study of this central theme of grief and sorrow as experienced by Achilles and by his people, the Achaeans. Essential for such a study are the principal words that express all that grief and sorrow, namely, akhos and its synonym penthos. We can see this theme of grief and sorrow already at the very beginning of the Iliad:

Hour 3 Text A |188 Thus he [= Agamemnon] spoke. And the son of Peleus [= Achilles] felt grief [akhos], and the heart |189 within his shaggy chest was divided |190 whether to draw the sharp sword at his thigh |191 and make the others get up and scatter while he kills the son of Atreus [= Agamemnon], |192 or whether to check his anger [kholos] and restrain his heart [thūmos]. Iliad I 188-1921 3§3. So Achilles experiences akhos right away, and the grief, sorrow, and pain of this akhos modulates right away into kholos, anger.

Achilles and Penthesileia the Amazon 3§4. Just as the word akhos is connected with the name of Achilles, its synonym penthos is connected with the name of an Amazon called Penthesileia. The story of Penthesileia the Amazon is preserved in an ancient plot summary of a lost epic, the Aithiopis or ‘Song of the Ethiopians’, attributed to Arctinus of Miletus, which belonged to a body of epic poetry known in the ancient world as the epic Cycle:

|188 Ὣς φάτο· Πηλεΐωνι δ’ ἄχος γένετ’, ἐν δέ οἱ ἦτορ |189 στήθεσσιν λασίοισι διάνδιχα μερμήριξεν, |190 ἢ ὅ γε φάσγανον ὀξὺ ἐρυσσάμενος παρὰ μηροῦ |191 τοὺς μὲν ἀναστήσειεν, ὃ δ' Ἀτρεΐδην ἐναρίζοι, |192 ἦε χόλον παύσειεν ἐρητύσειέ τε θυμόν.

Hour 3 Text B |22 The Amazon Penthesileia, arrives, |23 as an ally of the Trojans. She is the daughter of Arēs and Thracian |24 by birth. In the middle of her aristeia [= greatest epic moments], Achilles kills her and the Trojans |25 arrange for her funeral. And Achilles kills Thersites, who reviled |25 him with abusive words for conceiving a passionate love for Penthesileia, |27 so he said. plot-summary by Proclus of the Aithiopis by Arctinus of Miletus p. 105 lines 22-262 What we read here is all that we have left, unfortunately, about Penthesileia the Amazon in this ancient plot-summary.3 3§5. We must ponder a basic question about the plot of this lost epic, the Aithiopis, as retold by Proclus in his plot-summary. The question is this: when Thersites says that Achilles is in love with the Amazon Penthesileia, why is Achilles angry enough to kill him? My answer is this: it would seem that Achilles is in a state of denial about having fallen in love with the beautiful and powerful Amazon whom he has just killed. 3§6. As we know from the narrative about Thersites in Iliad II, we are dealing here with a character who understands the truth about heroes, even though he retells that truth in a distorted and offensive way that make the offended heroes want to kill him. A close reading of the Thersites narrative in Iliad II shows that there is a kernel of truth in what he says about Agamemnon and Achilles when he speaks in public about the big quarrel between those two heroes.4 Thersites is lucky to escape with his life for what he says here in the Iliad, but his luck finally runs out in the Aithiopis. 3§7. We know that Thersites was on to something when he mocked Achilles for falling in love with Penthesileia. We know this from the evidence of ancient vase-paintings, dating from the sixth and fifth centuries, where we see depictions of the actual moment when Achilles kills the beautiful Amazon. [[Here are two examples. They are two vase paintings, showing the killing of the Amazon Penthesileia by Achilles http://www.theoi.com/image/img_penthesileia.jpg (late 6th c.) 2

|22 Ἀμαζὼν Πενθεσίλεια παραγίνεται |23 Τρωσὶ συμμαχήσουσα, Ἄρεως μὲν θυγάτηρ, Θρᾷσσα δὲ τὸ |24 γένος· καὶ κτείνει αὐτὴν ἀριστεύουσαν Ἀχιλλεύς, οἱ δὲ Τρῶες |24 αὐτὴν θάπτουσι. καὶ Ἀχιλλεὺς Θερσίτην ἀναιρεῖ λοιδορηθεὶς |25 πρὸς αὐτοῦ καὶ ὀνειδισθεὶς τὸν ἐπὶ τῇ Πενθεσιλείᾳ |26 λεγόμενον ἔρωτα 3 An English-language translation of the entire ancient plot-summary of the Aithiopis in available in the online Sourcebook (chs.harvard.edu). 4 BA 259-264 = 14§§10-14.

74 http://www.easypedia.gr/el/images/shared/0/02/Akhilleus_Penthesileia_Staatliche_Anti kensammlungen_2688.jpg (mid fifth c.)]] 3§8. These evocative paintings, which show the eye contact between Achilles and Penthesileia at the precise moment when he plunges his weapon into her beautiful body, convey a remarkable convergence of themes linked with death and sex - and we will observe many other examples of such convergence as we proceed in our readings from ancient Greek song culture. Coming up, in Hour 5, is an example from the lyric songs of Sappho, Song 31. 3§9. A big question remains: why would Achilles fall in love with the Amazon Penthesileia in particular? A key to the answer is the name of this Amazon, Penthesileia, which means ‘she who has penthos for the people [lāos]’. This name is a perfect parallel to the name of Achilles, the full form of which can be reconstructed linguistically as *Akhi-lāos and which is understood in the specialized language of Homeric poetry to mean ‘he who has akhos for the people [lāos]’.5 Not only the names of these epic characters but even the characters themselves are beautifully matched. When Achilles and Penthesileia are engaged in mortal combat, as we see in the vase paintings, their eyes meet at the precise moment when he kills her. And what Achilles sees in Penthesileia is a female reflection of his male self. All along, Penthesileia has been his other self in the feminine gender, as even her name shows, and now he has killed her. The death of Penthesileia thus becomes a source of grief, sorrow, and overwhelming sadness for Achilles, this man of constant sorrow. Both these epic names - and the epic characters that are tied to them - have to do with themes of lament, as signaled by the words akhos and penthos. Both these words point to the ‘grief’ or ‘sorrow’ or ‘sadness’ of lament.

The essentials of singing laments 3§10. How, then, is ‘grief’ or ‘sorrow’ or ‘sadness’ expressed by lament? It is by crying and singing at the same time. When people like you and me cry, we just cry. When people in a song culture cry, they lament. That is, they sing while they cry, they cry while they sing, and this kind of singing is crying; this kind of crying is singing. The physical aspects of crying are all integrated into the singing: the flow of tears, the choking of the voice, the convulsions of the body, and so on, are all part of the singing. 3§11. Anthropologists have collected many examples of laments that are sung and cried by persons in the depths of real grief. I could illustrate here by way of citing performances in Modern Greek contexts. There has been a great deal of ethnographic collecting of and research on laments in Modern Greek song culture. A particularly useful work that surveys the vast evidence is the book of Margaret Alexiou, The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition.6 But I choose here instead to focus on a lament in the context of a historically unrelated song culture. In doing so, 5

This reconstruction is explained in BA 94-117 = 6§§1-30 and in HTL 131-137. Alexiou 1974; the second edition features an important new introduction by Yatromanolakis and Roilos 2002. 6

75 I am engaging in typological comparison, which is a kind of comparative method that has to do with the study of parallelisms between structures as structures pure and simple, without any presuppositions. Such a mode of comparison is especially useful in fields like linguistics: comparing parallel structures in languages - even if the given languages are unrelated to each other - is a proven way of enhancing one’s overall understanding of the linguistic structures being compared.7 3§12. The lament I have in mind is a northern Hungarian lament, sung - and cried - by an old woman who was mourning two adult sons, both of whom were evidently killed in war. The recording of the lament was initiated many years ago by Zoltán Kodály, himself a Hungarian. Kodály was not only a celebrated composer and pianist (my late father, also a pianist, was one of his pupils). He was also a respected ethnographer and ethnomusicologist who studied the song cultures of Eastern Europe and elsewhere. He arranged for the “live” recordings of a wide variety of folk performances (between 1934 and 1940), including laments. What I transcribe here is a part of the lament I have chosen:8 01. jaj jaj énnekem bánatos anyának! 02. jaj jaj jaj jaj, jaj jaj jaj, Gézikám! 03. Elrabolták a fiam tőlem 04. Gézikám, Gézikám! 05. Hun vagy édes fiam? 06. Drága gyerekem! 07. jaj jaj jaj jaj jaj jaj! 08. jaj minden szentek napja 09. úgy járkálok a sírok közt, 10. hogy nem tanálom a sírodat 11. Gézikám édes fiam 12. Gézikám Dezsőkém 13. Dezsőkém édes fiam 14. drága gyerekeim! 15. Hun vagytok, merre vagytok? 16. jaj de szerencsétlen anya vagyok! 17. A gyerekeim elsodródtak tölem messze a vihar. 18. Nem tanálom, nem tanálom, 19. jaj nekem, jaj nekem! 20. Itthon vagyok evvel a bánatos szívü apátokval, 21. akinek minden héten kiszedik a vérit. 22. Jaj jaj jaj, olyan kínosan néz szegény! 7 8

jaj jaj for me, sorrowful mother! jaj jaj jaj jaj, jaj jaj jaj, my little Géza! They robbed my son from me. my little Géza! my little Géza! where are you, my sweet son? my dear child jaj jaj jaj jaj jaj jaj jaj, every saint’s day, how I wander among the graves - but I can’t find your grave. my little Géza, my sweet son my little Géza, my little Dezső my little Dezső, my sweet son my dear children where are you, where are you headed? jaj, how luckless a mother I am My children have been swept away, far away, by the storm. I can’t find them, I can’t find them. jaj for me, jaj for me I’m here at home with this father of yours with the sad heart. Every week they rip out his veins jaj jaj jaj, he looks so tortured

On the concept of typological parallels, see EH §4, with bibliography. The recording was distributed by Qualiton (1964). Transcribed by Henry Bayerle.

76 23. Jaj jaj jaj jaj jaj jaj nekem 24. Hova legyek, mit csináljak? 25. Kihö forduljak panaszra? 26. Ki segít rajtam, ki vigasztal engem? 27. Ki ad nekem egy darabka kenyeret 28. édes fiaim énnekem? 29. jaj… 30. jaj, hova legyek, mit csináljak? 31. jaj, kihö menjek? 32. Kihö menjek panaszra, édes fiaim, drága gyerekeim? 33. Nincs aki azt mondaná nekem, 34. hogy édesanyám de szeretlek! 35. Gézikám drága gyerekem, 36. aki ölelt-csókolt minden pillanatban engem. 37. Anyukám, nem tehetek róla, 38. de nagyon-nagyon szeretlek!

Jaj jaj jaj jaj jaj jaj 6x for me where am I headed, what am I to do? where shall I turn for consolation? who will help me, who will comfort me? who will give to me a little piece of bread, my sweet sons, to me? jaj… jaj, where am I headed, what am I to do? jaj, where am I to go? where shall I turn for consolation, my sweet sons, my dear children? There is nobody who would say to me, My sweet mother, how I love you! My little Géza, my dear child, who hugged and kissed me every moment. My dear little mother [= "mommy"], I can't help it, but I love you very very much.

[[In “live” meetings (chs.harvard.edu9) I play back at this point the part of the lament I just quoted (the recording is from Side 1 Section 12 of a vinyl record distributed by Qualiton Production 1964).]] Pondering the words of this lament, I note here especially the many ways in which the lamenting woman expresses here her feelings of losing control and order. There is a sense of disorientation that sets in, especially at lines 18 and following, and this disorientation leads to a time warp: at lines 32 and following, the lamenting woman’s memories modulate from the present to the distant past, back when she is still a young mother taking care of her loving child. Her lamenting words picture the child as he is kissing her, trying to comfort her, and the child’s words are quoted directly: I am so sorry, ‘Mommy’, I can’t help it, I didn’t mean to hurt you. The incapacitation caused by death is all-pervasive here. Earlier, at lines 20-21, the father too is pictured as incapacitated with grief, as if all his blood had been forcibly drained from his body. 3§13. It is a well-known fact, learned from ethnographic research on laments, that such sad songs centering on the death of loved ones can modulate into love songs.10 And not only can laments modulate into love songs. The converse also happens: love songs can modulate into laments, especially in the case of love songs that center not only on lovers who are lost or 9

For general information about the connecting of Hungarian laments, see http://www.zti.hu/folkmusic/folk_music_research_workshop.htm#cata. 10 Nagy 2010b (“Ancient Greek Elegy”) 34.

77 dead but also on the loss or death of love itself. Just as laments express sorrow and love together in the course of mourning the death of a loved one, so also love songs can readily express the same two emotions of sorrow and love together. And why should a traditional love song be sad? It is because most traditional love songs are preoccupied with the themes of unrequited love. And, in most song cultures, love songs about unrequited love are felt to be deeply erotic. 3§14. I show here an example. It is a Hungarian love song, from the region of Transylvania, and the name of the love song is Szerelem, which means ‘love’. This song was used by the director of the film The English Patient (1996), both at the beginning of the film and also in the course of the action in the film, as for example in an intensely erotic love scene where the Hungarian character in the story of the film plays on an old “phonograph” machine a vinyl record of this love song . I give here the words of the first two stanzas only: Szerelem, szerelem,

O, love love

átkozott gyötrelem,

accursed torture

mért nem virágoztál

why did you not blossom

minden fatetején?

on every treetop?

Minden fa tetején,

On the top of every tree,

diófa levelén.

on the leaf of a walnut tree,

úgy szakisztott volna

so it would have been plucked by

minden leány s legény.

every maiden and unmarried young man.

When you listen to this song, you hear an example of stylized crying. That is to say, the singer is not really crying, since the crying is stylized. 3§15. In most traditional song cultures, including Greek song culture, laments and love songs are performed primarily by women, and many of the formal gestures of lament are specific to women. The performance of songs by women is a most important matter in ancient Greek song culture. And it is a most important matter to consider right now, as we study the Homeric Iliad, since the traditions of such performances pervade the Iliad. And I argue that Homeric poetry needs to be rethought in the light of the women’s song traditions that pervade it.

A conventional gesture in women’s laments 3§16. A moment ago, I mentioned formal gestures of lament that are specific to women. Now I point to an example of such a gesture in the singing of ancient Greek laments: women conventionally let down the hair while lamenting. This spontaneous but traditional gesture is an expression of loss of control and order in one’s personal life. There are also other spontaneous but traditional ways of expressing loss of control and order, such as tearing your hair, scratching your cheeks, ripping your fine clothing. 3§17. In the case of letting down the hair, this ritual gesture is normally preceded by the equally spontaneous but traditional ritual gesture of ripping off the headdress that holds the hair together and keeps it composed. 3§18. Here I repeat, from the Introduction to the book, my working definition of ritual and myth. Ritual is doing things and saying things in a way that is considered sacred. Myth is saying things in a way that is also considered sacred. So ritual frames myth. 3§19. Once the headdress is torn off, the hair gets let down and becomes completely undone. A spectacular example is the scene in Iliad XXII when the wife of Hector, Andromache, rips off her headdress, which is the most elaborate headdress to be found in Homeric poetry, before she starts to sing a lament over the death of her husband. By ripping off this headdress, Andromache is letting down her beautiful curly hair, violently undoing it. In effect, what the Homeric narration presents here to the mind’s eye is the complete undoing of a woman’s composure. Andromache will perform her lament, crying and singing, with her hair completely undone:

Hour 3 Text C |460 She [= Andromache] rushed out of the palace, same as a maenad [mainás],11 |461 with heart throbbing. And her attending women went with her. |462 But when she reached the tower and the crowd of warriors, |463 she stood on the wall, looking around, and then she noticed him. |464 There he was, being dragged right in front of the city. The swift chariot team of horses was |465 dragging him, far from her caring thoughts, back toward the hollow ships of the Achaeans. |466 Over her eyes a dark night spread its cover, |467 and she fell backward, gasping out her life’s breath [psūkhē]. |468 She threw far from her head the splendid adornments that bound her hair |469 - her frontlet [ampux], her snood [kekruphalos], her plaited headband [anadesmē], |470 and, to top it all, the headdress [krēdemnon] that had been given to her by golden Aphrodite |471 on that day when Hector, the one with the waving plume on his helmet, took her by the hand and led her |472 out from the palace of Eëtion, and he gave countless courtship presents. |473 Crowding around her stood her husband’s sisters and his brothers’ wives, |474 and they were holding her up. She was barely 11

There will be more to say about maenads in what follows.

79 breathing, to the point of dying. |475 But when she recovered her breathing and her life’s breath gathered in her lung, |476 she started to sing a lament in the midst of the Trojan women. Iliad XXII 460-47612 3§20. In the verses that follow, the beautiful song of lament sung by Andromache is quoted in full by the master Narrator (XXII 477-514). In order to appreciate this lament in context, we need to understand the scene of dishevelment that leads up to it, which I have studied at length in an article. Here is an abridged version of what I say about it there:13 When Andromache suddenly sees the corpse of Hector, dragged behind the chariot of Achilles, she falls into a swoon (XXII 466-467) while at the same time tearing off her elaborate krēdemnon ‘headdress’ (XXII 468-470). In this passionate moment, as her eyes are just about to behold the dreaded sight of her husband’s corpse, she is described as looking ‘just like a Maenad’ (mainadi īsē XXII 460). Earlier in the Iliad, in an analogous context, Andromache is pictured as ‘looking like a woman possessed’ (mainomenēi eïkuia VI 389) as she rushes toward the walls of Troy to see for herself the fate of the Trojans on the battlefield. In this dramatic context, I draw attention to the evocative word krēdemnon ‘headdress’ (XXII 470). It refers to the overall ornamental hair-binding that holds together three separate kinds of ornamental hair-binding that serve to keep Andromache’s hair in place, under control (XXII 469).14 When Andromache violently tears off from her head this most elaborate headdress, causing her hair to come completely undone, she is ritually miming 12

|460 (Ὣς φαμένη) μεγάροιο διέσσυτο μαινάδι ἴση |461 παλλομένη κραδίην· ἅμα δ’ ἀμφίπολοι κίον αὐτῇ |461 αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ πύργόν τε καὶ ἀνδρῶν ἷξεν ὅμιλον |463 ἔστη παπτήνασ’ ἐπὶ τείχεϊ, τὸν δὲ νόησεν |464 ἑλκόμενον πρόσθεν πόλιος· ταχέες δέ μιν ἵπποι |465 ἕλκον ἀκηδέστως κοίλας ἐπὶ νῆας Ἀχαιῶν. |466 τὴν δὲ κατ’ ὀφθαλμῶν ἐρεβεννὴ νὺξ ἐκάλυψεν, |467 ἤριπε δ’ ἐξοπίσω, ἀπὸ δὲ ψυχὴν ἐκάπυσσε. |468 τῆλε δ’ ἀπὸ κρατὸς βάλε δέσματα σιγαλόεντα, |469 ἄμπυκα κεκρύφαλόν τε ἰδὲ πλεκτὴν ἀναδέσμην |470 κρήδεμνόν θ’, ὅ ῥά οἱ δῶκε χρυσῆ Ἀφροδίτη |471 ἤματι τῷ ὅτε μιν κορυθαίολος ἠγάγεθ’ Ἕκτωρ |472 ἐκ δόμου Ἠετίωνος, ἐπεὶ πόρε μυρία ἕδνα. |473 ἀμφὶ δέ μιν γαλόῳ τε καὶ εἰνατέρες ἅλις ἔσταν, |474 αἵ ἑ μετὰ σφίσιν εἶχον ἀτυζομένην ἀπολέσθαι. |475 ἣ δ’ ἐπεὶ οὖν ἔμπνυτο καὶ ἐς φρένα θυμὸς ἀγέρθη |477 ἀμβλήδην γοόωσα μετὰ Τρῳῇσιν ἔειπεν· 13 Nagy 2009 (“Did Sappho and Alcaeus ever meet?”) 249-250. 14 The three separate terms for ornamental hair-bindings here are ampux ‘frontlet’, kekruphalos ‘snood’, and anadesmē ‘headband’ (Iliad XXII 469); the overall hair-binding or ‘headdress’ that keeps it all in place is the krēdemnon (XXII 470). Similarly, Varro (On the Latin language 5.130) speaks of three separate terms for ornamental hair-bindings traditionally used by Roman matrons: lanea ‘woolen ribbon’, reticulum ‘net-cap’ or ‘snood’, and capital ‘headband’. To these three words Varro (7.44) adds a fourth, tutulus (derived from the adjective tutus ‘providing safety’), which seems to be an overall term for the generic headdress worn by brides and Vestal Virgins as well as matrons.

80 her complete loss of control over her own fate as linked with the fate of her husband: we see here a ritually eroticized gesture that expresses her extreme sexual vulnerability as linked with the violent death and disfiguration of her husband. For Andromache to do violence to her own krēdemnon is to express the anticipated violence of her future sexual humiliation at the hands of the enemy. Pointedly, the goddess Aphrodite herself had given this krēdemnon to Andromache on her wedding day (XXII 470-471). Such explicit association of the krēdemnon with Aphrodite reveals its erotic properties. The undoing of a woman’s hair, caused by the undoing of her krēdemnon, produces what I will call an Aphrodisiac effect. So long as a woman’s krēdemnon is in place, her sexuality is under control just as her hair is under control. When the krēdemnon is out of place, however, her sexuality threatens to get out of control. 3§21. The lament that is sung by Andromache when she sees the corpse of Hector dragged behind the speeding chariot of Achilles is arguably the most artistic and elaborate of all the laments quoted in the Iliad (XXII 477-514). It is also the most lengthy of all Homeric laments. Later on, toward the end of the Iliad, Andromache sings a lament at the funeral of Hector in Troy, and this lament too is quoted in full by the master Narrator (XXIV 725-745). And, earlier on, when Andromache speaks to her husband for the last time in a tearful farewell scene, her words correspond formally to the words of a lament that could have been sung, with adjustments, at the funeral of Hector, and these words too are quoted in full by the master Narrator (VI 407-439). 3§22. I need to say one more thing right now about the first of the three laments performed by Andromache: in this first lament, Andromache is singing and crying over the death of her husband Hector even before he dies. In this case, her lament is an act of premonition.

A typological comparison of laments 3§23. I offer here a typological parallel to Andromache’s first lament as an act of premonition.15 It comes from the Korean film Ch’unhyang (2000), which is based on a traditional Korean p’ansori narrative about a righteous young woman named Ch’unhyang, who is of low social status but high moral principles. 3§24. I show here a scene from this narrative, where the young woman breaks out in lament when she absorbs the sad news of a terrible fate that awaits her. In this scene, the secret husband of Ch’unhyang announces that he will abandon her, though only for a while, he claims. The reaction of Ch’unhyang is instantaneous grief. Her sorrow is mixed with feelings of love for her husband, and with feelings of fear and anger that she will lose him forever. She bursts into a lament, accompanied by ritual gestures, such as the violent tearing of her clothes, 15

On the concept of typological parallels, see again EH §4, with bibliography.

81 which is a ritual premonition of the violence she will endure because of her low social rank, now that her high-ranking secret husband is leaving her. This violent tearing of clothes dramatizes her sexual vulnerability in the uncertain future that now awaits her. In the plot of the Ch’unhyang narrative, that vulnerability will turn out to be a grim reality for this abandoned woman, whose low social status makes her become the tragic victim of predatory men of high social status. Her lament is a premonition that anticipates this reality, as she keeps on crying and singing. And the master Narrator quotes the lament of Ch’unhyang as she cries and sings. This way, by quoting the lament of Ch’unhyang, the Narrator performs his own stylized crying and singing, which is more artistic than the lament of Ch’unhyang. When Ch’unhyang is lamenting, her crying and singing is more natural, not as musical as the stylized crying and singing of the master Narrator, and her lament echoes in a kind of delayed reaction the singing of her lament as performed by the master Narrator. In the middle of her lament, the macro-Narrative of the film shows flashbacks to happy moments in the past when Ch’unhyang is seen making love to her secret husband. These erotic flashbacks have the effect of intensifying the sorrow of Ch’unhyang as she thinks back to those happy moments in the past that preceded her excruciating pain and suffering in the present. And, conversely, her sorrow intensifies the eroticism of these flashbacks. [[In “live” meetings, I show at this point a clip from the film Ch’unhyang (2000), directed by Im Kwon-taek.]] 3§25. The macro-Narrative of the film Ch’unhyang actually shows the master Narrator in action. The camera shows him performing before a large audience representing a broad cross-section of ages and social status. The master Narrator is telling about the excruciating pain and suffering inflicted on Ch’unyhang by her high ranking tormentor, a magistrate who seeks to alienate her affections from her absent husband. The earlier lament of premonition sung by Ch’unhyang, accompanied by acts of ritual self-degradation like the ripping of her fine clothing, now becomes a lament of actuality, where she cries and sings over the excruciating pain that is being inflicted on her. And the lament that she sings while she is being tortured is quoted by the master Narrator himself, whose stylized crying and singing is foregrounded against the background of the natural crying and singing of Ch’unhyang as she endures the pain inflicted on her. Her crying and singing are echoing the stylized crying and singing of the master Narrator who is quoting her sad song: [[In “live” meetings, I show at this point a clip from Ch’unhyang. What we may observe, in “reading” the laments of the character named Ch’unhyang, is a typological parallel to the laments of Andromache in the Homeric Iliad. ]].

The first lament of Andromache 3§26. With this comparison in place, I will now analyze the first of the three laments of Andromache in the Iliad. I quote only a part of this lament, where we see Andromache singing

82 and crying over the death of her husband Hector even before he dies. As I said before, her lament is an act of premonition:

Hour 3 Text D |407 What’s gotten into you [Hector] - some kind of superhuman force [daimōn]? Your own power [menos] is going to make you perish [phthi-n-ein]. You are not showing pity, |408 not thinking of your disconnected [nēpiakhos] son, and not thinking of me, deprived as I am of good fortune. I will soon become a widow, |409 your widow, since you will soon be killed by the Achaeans. |410 They will all rush at you. It would be better for me, |411 if I should lose you, to lie dead and be covered over by the earth, since there will no longer |412 be anything left to comfort me when you have met your fate. |413 I will have nothing but sorrows [akhos plural]. I have neither a father nor a queen mother now. |414 My father was killed by radiant Achilles |415 when that one destroyed the beautifully flourishing city of the Cilicians, |416 Thebe, with its lofty gates. So he [= Achilles] killed Eëtion, |417 but he did not strip him of his armor - at least he had that much decency in his heart [thūmos] - |418 and he honored him with the ritual of cremation, burning him together with his armor. |419 Then he heaped up a tomb [sēma] for him, and elm trees were generated [phuteuein] around it |420 by forest nymphs who are daughters of Zeus, holder of the aegis. |421 I had seven brothers in my father’s house, |422 but on the same day they all went down into the house of Hādēs. |423 For they were all killed by Achilles, swift of foot, the radiant one, |424 while they were guarding their ranging cattle and their bright-fleeced sheep. |425 My mother - her who had been queen of all the land under Mount Plakos - |426 he [= Achilles] brought here along with the captured treasures, |427 and freed her for the price of an untold amount of property, |428 but then, in the house of your father [= Priam], she was shot down by Artemis, shooter of arrows. |429 Oh, Hector, you who are to me a father, a queen mother, |430 a brother, and a husband in his prime - |431 have pity on me; stay here at the fortifications; |432 don’t make your child an orphan, and your wife a widow. Iliad VI 407-43216 16

|407 δαιμόνιε φθίσει σε τὸ σὸν μένος, οὐδ’ ἐλεαίρεις |408 παῖδά τε νηπίαχον καὶ ἔμ’ ἄμμορον, ἣ τάχα χήρη |409 σεῦ ἔσομαι· τάχα γάρ σε κατακτανέουσιν Ἀχαιοὶ |410 πάντες ἐφορμηθέντες· ἐμοὶ δέ κε κέρδιον εἴη |411 σεῦ ἀφαμαρτούσῃ χθόνα δύμεναι· οὐ γὰρ ἔτ’ ἄλλη |412 ἔσται θαλπωρὴ ἐπεὶ ἂν σύ γε πότμον ἐπίσπῃς |413 ἀλλ’ ἄχε’· οὐδέ μοι ἔστι πατὴρ καὶ πότνια μήτηρ. |414 ἤτοι γὰρ πατέρ’ ἁμὸν ἀπέκτανε δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς, |415 ἐκ δὲ πόλιν πέρσεν Κιλίκων εὖ ναιετάουσαν |416 Θήβην ὑψίπυλον· κατὰ δ’ ἔκτανεν Ἠετίωνα, |417 οὐδέ μιν ἐξενάριξε, σεβάσσατο γὰρ τό γε θυμῷ, |418 ἀλλ’ ἄρα μιν κατέκηε σὺν ἔντεσι δαιδαλέοισιν |419 ἠδ’ ἐπὶ σῆμ’ ἔχεεν· περὶ δὲ πτελέας ἐφύτευσαν |420 νύμφαι ὀρεστιάδες κοῦραι Διὸς αἰγιόχοιο. |421 οἳ δέ μοι ἑπτὰ κασίγνητοι ἔσαν ἐν μεγάροισιν |422 οἳ μὲν πάντες ἰῷ κίον ἤματι Ἄϊδος εἴσω· |423 πάντας γὰρ κατέπεφνε ποδάρκης δῖος Ἀχιλλεὺς |424 βουσὶν ἐπ' εἰλιπόδεσσι καὶ ἀργεννῇς ὀΐεσσι. |425 μητέρα δ’, ἣ βασίλευεν ὑπὸ Πλάκῳ ὑληέσσῃ, |426 τὴν ἐπεὶ ἂρ δεῦρ’ ἤγαγ’ ἅμ’ ἄλλοισι κτεάτεσσιν, |427 ἂψ ὅ γε τὴν ἀπέλυσε λαβὼν ἀπερείσι’ ἄποινα, |428 πατρὸς δ’ ἐν μεγάροισι βάλ’ Ἄρτεμις ἰοχέαιρα. |429 Ἕκτορ ἀτὰρ σύ μοί ἐσσι πατὴρ καὶ

83 3§27. As we see in these words of Andromache’s lament, the word akhos ‘grief, sorrow’ at verse 413 is used to express the performance, the singing, of lament. 3§28. In the course of lamenting her sorrows, Andromache makes special mention of the death of her father, whose name is Eëtion – as we know from another context that we will be considering in less than a minute from now. From what Andromache says, it is clear that her father would rank highest in her ascending scale of affection - if he were alive. But her father is dead, and so too are her seven brothers and her mother. For Andromache, all she has left is her husband Hector, who is now the entirety of her ascending scale of affections. Hector has become for Andromache her father, brothers, and mother as well as her husband. In effect, Andromache is telling Hector: you’re my everything.

What Achilles sang 3§29. The death of Eëtion, Andromache’s father, who would have ranked highest in Andromache’s ascending scale of affection, deepens the irony in a passage we saw earlier. Here I repeat only the relevant verses of that passage:

Hour 3 Text E = Hour 2 Text D |185 The two of them reached the shelters and the ships of the Myrmidons, |186 and they found Achilles diverting his heart [phrēn] as he was playing on a lyre [phorminx], |187 a beautiful one, of exquisite workmanship, and its cross-bar was of silver. |188 It was part of the spoils that he had taken when he destroyed the city of Eëtion, |189 and he was now diverting his heart [thūmos] with it as he was singing [aeidein] the glories of men [klea andrōn]. |190 Patroklos was the only other person there. He [= Patroklos] sat in silence, facing him [= Achilles], |191 and waiting for the Aeacid [= Achilles] to leave off singing [aeidein]. |192 Meanwhile the two of them came in - Odysseus leading the way - |193 and stood before him. Achilles sprang from his seat |194 with the lyre [phorminx] still in his hand, |195 and Patroklos, when he saw the guests, rose also. Iliad IX 185-195 3§30. We see Achilles here singing the klea andrōn, the ‘glories of heroes of the past’ (Iliad IX 189) - while accompanying himself on a lyre. And the lyre that he is playing had once belonged to Eëtion, the father of Andromache. As we have just seen from the words of Andromache, Achilles had killed her father Eëtion. And, evidently, Achilles took away as his prize the lyre of Eëtion, and now he is playing on that lyre as he sings the klea andrōn, the ‘glories of men’. You could say that Achilles is strumming the pain of Andromache. I am reminded of the words of the song original sung by Roberta Flack, Killing me softly (1973): “Strumming my pain with his fingers, singing my life with his words, ...” πότνια μήτηρ |430 ἠδὲ κασίγνητος, σὺ δέ μοι θαλερὸς παρακοίτης· |431 ἀλλ’ ἄγε νῦν ἐλέαιρε καὶ αὐτοῦ μίμν' ἐπὶ πύργῳ, |432 μὴ παῖδ’ ὀρφανικὸν θήῃς χήρην τε γυναῖκα.

84 3§31. You have to ask yourself: what was Achilles singing about when he sang the klea andrōn, the ‘glories of heroes of the past’ (Iliad IX 189)? The master Narrator of the macroNarrative does not say. There is no quoting or even paraphrasing of the subject of the song sung by Achilles here. But there is a hint about that subject, and that hint is embedded in another vitally important nearby mention of klea andrōn in the Iliad. We have already seen it. It happens in Text B of Hour 2, where Phoenix is telling the story of the hero Meleager and his wife Kleopatra, and the old man refers to his micro-narrative as tōn prosthen … klea andrōn | hērōōn ‘the glories [kleos plural] of men of an earlier time who were heroes’ (IX 524-525). And what is the subject of that micro-narrative? From the standpoint of Phoenix as the narrator, the subject is the love that a hero owes to his comrades. From the standpoint of the master Narrator of the macro-Narrative that is the Iliad, however, the subject is nothing less than the meaning of Kleopatra herself, of her name, which signals the ‘glories of the ancestors’, the ‘glories of heroes of the past’.

The song of Kleopatra 3§32. The meaning of Kleopatra, as well as the meaning of the song about Kleopatra as told by Phoenix, is relevant to the very idea of lamentation. Inside the song about Kleopatra, that is, inside the klea andrōn as performed by Phoenix, Kleopatra is actually shown performing a lament, singing it to her husband Meleager, and her song of lament is actually paraphrased in this song of and about Kleopatra (Iliad IX 590-594). In this song, that is, in the klea andrōn as performed by Phoenix (IX 524), we see that Kleopatra has a second name besides Kleopatra, and that second name is a clear signal of lamentation. That second name is Alcyone, and the meaning of that name is transparent. In ancient Greek traditions, as I noted in Hour 2, the alcyon / halcyon is a bird that is linked with singing songs of lament, and the Iliad makes this link explicit in referring to the name Alcyone, given to the lamenting Kleopatra by her lamenting mother and father:

Hour 3 Text F (part of Hour 2 Text E) |561 She [= Kleopatra] had been given a special name by the father and by the queen mother back then [when she was growing up] in the palace. |562 They called her Alcyone, making that a second name for her, because her |563 mother [= Marpessa] was feeling the same pain [oitos] felt by the halcyon bird, known for her many sorrows [penthos]. |564 She [= Marpessa] was crying because she had been seized and carried away by the one who has far-reaching power, Phoebus Apollo. | Iliad IX 561-56417

|561 τὴν δὲ τότ’ ἐν μεγάροισι πατὴρ καὶ πότνια μήτηρ |562 Ἀλκυόνην καλέεσκον ἐπώνυμον, οὕνεκ’ ἄρ’ αὐτῆς |563 μήτηρ ἀλκυόνος πολυπενθέος οἶτον ἔχουσα |564 κλαῖεν ὅ μιν ἑκάεργος ἀνήρπασε Φοῖβος Ἀπόλλων.

85 3§33. Can we say, then, that the klea andrōn sung by Achilles himself is the song of Kleopatra? Yes and no. It is the song of Kleopatra, but it is not only her song. It is also the song of Patroklos. As we have seen in Hour 2, the meaning of the name of Kleopatra is also the meaning of the name of Patroklos, ‘the one who has the glory [kleos] of the ancestors [pateres]’, and this meaning recapitulates the epic choice of Achilles, who ultimately opts for kleos over life itself. The name of Kleopatra contains the same elements as does the name of Patroklos, only in reverse: ‘the one who has the glory [kleos] of the ancestors [pateres]’.

Hour 4. Achilles as lyric hero in the songs of Sappho and Pindar The meaning of aphthito4§1. The key word for this hour is aphthito- in the sense of ‘imperishable’. And, by the time we reach the end of this hour, we will see that aphthito- can also be interpreted as ‘unwilting’ in some specialized contexts. We already saw this word when we were reading Text A in Hour 1, where the hero Achilles tells about a prophecy made by his divine mother Thetis: |412 If I stay here and fight at the walls of the city of the Trojans, then my safe homecoming [nostos] will be destroyed for me, but I will have a glory [kleos] that is imperishable [aphthiton]. Iliad IX 412-4131 4§2. Such an idea of a kleos or poetic ‘glory’ that is aphthiton or ‘imperishable’ forever can be found not only in epic poetry. It can be found also in lyric poetry. For example, as we will soon see, the identical expression kleos aphthiton ‘imperishable glory’ is used in a song of Sappho, who flourished in the late seventh and early sixth century BCE. And the same idea of ‘imperishable glory’ is found in a song of Pindar, who flourished in the first half of the fifth century BCE. Although the era of Pindar is more than a century later than the era of Sappho, I will start in Text A with the relevant passage from Pindar (Isthmian 8 lines 56-62). Then I will move to text B, which is the relevant passage from Sappho (Song 44, with special reference to kleos aphthiton ‘imperishable glory’ at line 4).2

The imperishable glory of Achilles in a song of Pindar 4§3. That said, I am ready to focus on a passage that expresses the idea of kleos aphthiton ‘imperishable glory’ - but without directly using the words kleos and aphthiton. The passage I will quote, Text A, is taken from a choral lyric song of Pindar. This song is honoring the athletic victory of an aristocrat from the island state of Aegina. The athlete’s name is Kleandros. Besides Kleandros, the song also honors his cousin, named Nikokles. And, ultimately, the song honors the hero Achilles, whom the aristocrats of Aegina claimed as one of their ancestors.3 Here is what the lyric wording says about Achilles:

|412 εἰ μέν κ’ αὖθι μένων Τρώων πόλιν ἀμφιμάχωμαι, |413 ὤλετο μέν μοι νόστος, ἀτὰρ κλέος ἄφθιτον ἔσται. 2 This expression kleos aphthiton ‘imperishable glory’ is also used in a lyric composition of Ibycus (PMG S151.47-48), who flourished in the second half of the sixth century BCE. 3 On the Aiakidai ‘Aeacids’ = ‘descendants of Aiakos’ (among whom are Achilles and Ajax) as notional ancestors of the aristocratic lineages of the island state of Aegina, see Nagy 2011a.

Hour 4 Text A (see also Hour 0 Text E) |56 Even when he [= Achilles] died, the songs did not leave him, |57 but the Maidens of Helicon [= the Muses] stood by his pyre and his funeral mound, |58 and, as they stood there, they poured forth a song of lamentation [thrēnos] that is famed far and wide. |59 And so it was that the immortal gods decided |60 to hand over the man, genuine [esthlos] as he was even after he had perished [phthi-n-ein] in death, to the songs of the goddesses [= the Muses]. |61 And this, even now, wins as a prize the words of song, as the chariot-team of the Muses starts moving on its way |62 to glorify the memory of Nikokles the boxer. Pindar Isthmian 8.56-624 4§4. So the lyric song is saying that Achilles will die in war and will thus stop flourishing, that is, he will ‘perish’, phthi-n-ein, but the medium that conveys the message of death will never perish. This medium is pictured as a choral lyric song eternally sung by the Muses as they lament Achilles after he is cut down.5 The lyric song is pictured as a lament that will be transformed by the Muses into a song of glory. Although Achilles will personally ‘perish’, phthi-n-ein, the song about him is destined to have a poetic glory that will never perish. The lyric wording here corresponds to the epic wording that we have noted in Iliad IX 413, quoted in Hour 1 Text A, where it is foretold that the poetic kleos ‘glory’ of Achilles will be a-phthi-ton ‘imperishable’ forever.6 The Homeric usage of kleos in such contexts is parallel to the usage of this same word in the songmaking of Pindar, whose words proudly proclaim his mastery of the prestige conferred by kleos or poetic ‘glory’ (as in Nemean 7.61-63).7 4§5. I follow up here with a brief exegesis of Text A, the Pindaric passage that I quoted just now (Isthmian 8 lines 56-62).8 4§5a, According to Pindar’s song, the death of the athlete Nikokles (we do not know for sure how he died, but he may have been killed in the Persian War of 480 BCE) will not impede the glory that he merited as a victorious boxer: rather, the death of this athlete is said to be the

|56 τὸν μὲν οὐδὲ θανόντ’ ἀοιδαὶ έλιπον, |57 ἀλλά οἱ παρά τε πυρὰν τάφον θ’ Ἑλικώνιαι παρθένοι |58 στάν, ἐπὶ θρῆνόν τε πολύφαμον ἔχεαν. |59 ἔδοξ’ ἦρα καὶ ἀθανάτοις, |60 ἐσλόν γε φῶτα καὶ φθίμενον ὕμνοις θεᾶν διδόμεν. |61 τὸ καὶ νῦν φέρει λόγον, ἔσσυταί τε Μοισαῖον ἅρμα Νικοκλέος |62 μνᾶμα πυγμάχου κελαδῆσαι. 5 PH 204-206 = 7§6. 6 A fuller version of the argument is made in BA 176-177 = 10§§3-4; also in PH 204-206 = 7§6. I disagree with what is said by Rodin 2009:296 about the relevant wording of Pindar Isthmian 8.56-60. I especially disagree with his argument that the kleos of Achilles is restricted to epic. As we will now see, the kleos of Achilles is pictured as extending into lyric, including such forms as the victory odes of Pindar. See also Nagy 2007a (“Lyric and Greek Myth”) 36. 7 PH 147 = 6§3. 8 There is a fuller version of this exegesis in PH 204-206 = 7§§6-7.

88 key to the continuation of his glory, just as the death of Achilles was the key to the extension of the glory of heroes into the historical present. 4§5b. Pindar’s song says that the death of Nikokles, by virtue of his deeds in the historical present, will be honored by the same tradition of song that honored the death of Achilles by virtue of that hero’s deeds in the heroic past. Thus the name of Nikokles, Nīkoklēs ‘he who has the glory [kleos] of victory [nīkē]’, has a meaning that is relevant to the themes of Pindar’s lyric song. 4§5c. But there is another name in this song that is even more relevant. The cousin of Nikokles, whose victory in an athletic event of boxing is highlighted in the song, was a young man named Kleandros, who won in the athletic event of the pankration at the festival of the Isthmia (celebrated at the Isthmus of Corinth) and who was the primary recipient of honor in this lyric song of Pindar. The name of Kleandros, Kleandros ‘he who has the glories of men [klea andrōn]’, is proclaimed as the first word of this whole song of Pindar’s (Isthmian 8.1). This placement of his name at the very beginning of the song composed in his honor is remarkable. In no other victory song of Pindar do we find the name of a victor placed in absolute initial position. And the meaning of this name fits perfectly the meaning of the expression klea andrōn ‘the glories of men’ as we have seen it being used in epic:

Hour 4 Text B (part of Hour 2 Text B) |524 This is the way [houtōs] that we [= I, Phoenix] learned it, the glories [klea] of men [andrōn] of an earlier time [prosthen], |525 who were heroes [hērōes], whenever one of them was overcome by tempestuous anger. Iliad IX 524-525

Hour 4 Text C = Hour 2 Text D |185 The two of them reached the shelters and the ships of the Myrmidons, |186 and they found Achilles diverting his heart [phrēn] as he was playing on a lyre [phorminx], |187 a beautiful one, of exquisite workmanship, and its cross-bar was of silver. |188 It was part of the spoils that he had taken when he destroyed the city of Eëtion, |189 and he was now diverting his heart [thūmos] with it as he was singing [aeidein] the glories of men [klea andrōn]. |190 Patroklos was the only other person there. He [= Patroklos] sat in silence, facing him [= Achilles], |191 and waiting for the Aeacid [= Achilles] to leave off singing [aeidein]. |192 Meanwhile the two of them came in - Odysseus leading the way - |193 and stood before him. Achilles sprang from his seat |194 with the lyre [phorminx] still in his hand, |195 and Patroklos, when he saw the guests, rose also. Iliad IX 185-195

89 In these two passages from Iliad IX, as we have already seen in Hour 2, the term klea andrōn ‘glories of men’ refers in the first case to an allusive tale told by Phoenix to Achilles about Meleager and Kleopatra (524) and, in the second case, to a song sung by Achilles in his shelter (189).

The lyric glory of Achilles 4§6. The word kleos, when it is used in epic, is not limited to the ‘glory’ of epic. As I will now argue, the epic kleos chosen by Achilles in Iliad IX (413) is also a lyric kleos. And Achilles himself is not only an epic hero: he is also a lyric hero. The epic wording of the Homeric Iliad clearly recognizes that the kleos of Achilles is lyric as well as epic. 4§7. In my argumentation, I will start with a telling detail. As we can see in the epic of the Iliad, Achilles is pictured as singing the klea andrōn ‘glories of men’ (IX 189) while accompanying himself on a phorminx (IX 186, 195), which is a kind of lyre, by which I mean simply a stringed instrument. So it is pertinent to note already at this stage that the lyre typifies ‘lyric’ poetry in ancient Greek song culture. Granted, the mention of a lyre in this passage of the Iliad is not decisive, since we can find Homeric contexts that show a singer accompanying himself on a phorminx while performing either epic tales (as in Odyssey viii 67, 99, 105, 537) or songs that are both sung and danced (as in viii 254, 257, 261).9 Still, the fact remains that Achilles is accompanying himself on a lyre (IX 186, 195) when he sings the klea andrōn ‘glories of men’ in his shelter (IX 189). And all I am saying at this point is that such singing could be lyric as well as epic. 4§8. Pursuing this argument further, I now return to a passage that came up in the previous hour. It is Text D of Hour 3, Iliad VI 407-416, 421-432, where Andromache laments the death of her father, whose name is Eëtion. In the light of that passage I quoted earlier, we have seen the deep irony of the reference to the lyre of Achilles in the passage I quoted just a minute ago, Text C, from Iliad IX 185-195. Here we see Achilles playing on the lyre that once belonged to Eëtion, the father of Andromache. He is singing and accompanying himself on the lyre. And such self-accompanied singing to the lyre, as I just noted, is the basic principle of what we call lyric poetry. And the lyric poem - or, better, lyric song - that Achilles is performing here in Iliad IX 189 is the klea andrōn, the ‘glories of men’. 4§9. A fuller way of referring to such glories, as we saw in Text B, Iliad IX 524-525, is tōn prosthen … klea andrōn | hērōōn ‘the glories [kleos plural] of men of an earlier time, who were heroes’. In this Text B, as we have seen, the narrator is Phoenix, who is performing a 9

Of the three performances of Demodokos in the narration of Odyssey viii, the first and the third are epic while the second is “lyric,” in the sense that the second performance includes singing and athletic dancing to the rhythm and melody of the words being sung. See HPC 79-93 = I§§188-223.

90 compressed epic narrative about the hero Meleager and his wife Kleopatra. As we have also seen, the name Kleo-patra means ‘she who has the kleos of the ancestors’. In this case, I have described the narrative of Phoenix as an epic within the epic that is the Homeric Iliad. So the klea andrōn ‘glories of men’ can be either epic or lyric. 4§10. When Achilles sings the klea andrōn ‘glories of men’ in Iliad IX (189), his only audience is his best friend Patroklos, who is waiting for his own turn to sing (190-191). As we have already seen, the one-man audience of the song is also the hidden subject of the allusive tale here. And that is because, as we have also seen, the name Patro-kleēs means ‘he who has the kleos of the ancestors’. 4§11. In Iliad IX (189), we see the word kleos ‘glory’ being used explicitly, but the reference to the glory of Patroklos is only implicit; and this kleos, given by the medium of epic, describes itself elsewhere as aphthiton ‘imperishable’ (413). In Pindar’s Isthmian 8 (56-60), by contrast, the word kleos is not being used in referring to glory given by the medium of lyric, though we have already seen it used that way in other lyric contexts, as in Nemean 7 (61-63). Nevertheless, the actual reference to the glory of Achilles is explicit here in Isthmian 8. And, although Isthmian 8 does not show the form aphthito- ‘imperishable’ with reference to the glory of Achilles, it does show the word phthimenos ‘perished’ with reference to Achilles himself as the hero who has personally perished while his glory remains imperishable. And this glory extends all the way into the glory of the victorious athlete in the historical present. 4§12. In Pindar’s lyric song, as in the epic of the Iliad, the kleos of the ancestors plays a role. In the lyric song, however, the kleos of the ancestors is realized not in the idea built into the name of Patroklos, the kleos of the ancestors, but rather in the actual kleos of the victor’s own ancestors. In this particular song, moreover, the kleos of the victor’s ancestors is realized in the victor’s own name, Kleandros. The victor Kleandros is living proof that the kleos or poetic ‘glory’ of his family is predicated on the achievements of its members. The victor who is being celebrated here in Pindar’s lyric song was expected to be celebrated from the start, from the very time that he was named after he was born. He was expected to become what he became through his athletic victory. And he was fortunate enough to live up to his name. A person’s name, which he is given at birth on the basis of his ancestry, commits him to his identity. In the case of Kleandros, we see that a historical person can fit the themes of Pindar’s songmaking tradition. Even the identity of a historical person, as defined by his name, can fit such themes. This can happen because the family’s prestige and their very identity depend on the traditional institution of glorification by way of song. 4§13. Here I return to my argument that the epic kleos to be chosen by Achilles in Iliad IX 413, quoted in Hour 1 Text A,is also a lyric kleos, as we can see from the fact that Achilles is pictured as singing the klea andrōn ‘glories of heroes’in Iliad IX 189, quoted in Text C, while he accompanies himself on a lyre, which as we have just seen is the stringed instrument that

91 typifies ‘lyric’ poetry in ancient Greek song culture. And, I must now emphasize, the lyric song that Achilles sings is relevant to the themes of lament. As we have already noticed, this precious musical instrument had been plundered by Achilles when he captured the native city of Andromache (IX 186-189). The link here with Andromache is essential, in view of the fact that this woman is featured as singing three of the greatest laments in the Iliad. As I have already noted in Hour 3, Andromache is performing a formal lament for Hector in Iliad XXIV (725-745); also in Iliad XXII (477-514), much of what she says corresponds morphologically to the words of a formal lament. And, already in her first appearance, in Iliad VI (407-439), the language of lament is evident in her words as she and Hector part forever, she going back to her weaving at the loom while he goes off to his death.10 4§14. The song of klea andrōn ‘glories of heroes’ sung by Achilles inside the epic of the Homeric Iliad (IX 189) is like an echo of songs of lament about love and bittersweet sorrow as heard in the lyric tradition.11 In that tradition, such songs of lament are typically linked not only with Achilles but also with that most celebrated pair of doomed lovers in ancient Greek song culture, namely, Andromache and the man who earns the ultimate hatred and fury of Achilles in the Iliad, Hector.12 The kleos of Achilles is a form of song that dwells on the hatred and the fury, the love and the sorrow - and on the power of song in expressing all these intensely lyrical feelings.

The imperishable glory of Hector and Andromache in a song of Sappho 4§15. The kleos or ‘glory’ of Achilles in epic is interchangeable with the kleos or ‘glory’ of Hector and Andromache in lyric, as we learn from Song 44 of Sappho, which is about the wedding of this doomed couple.13 Song 44 is fragmentary, and I quote here only some salient lines:

Hour 4 Text D |4 … and the rest of Asia … imperishable glory [kleos aphthiton]. |5 Hector and his companions led her, the one with the glancing looks, |6 from holy Thebes and … Plakia, they led her, the lovely Andromache |7 in ships over the salty |8 sea. Many golden bracelets and purple |9 robes …, intricately-worked ornaments, |10 countless silver cups and ivory. |11 Thus he spoke. And his dear father quickly leapt up. |12 And the news reached his dear ones 10

HC 579-580 = 4§262. Nagy 2007a (“Lyric and Greek Myth”) 36-38. 12 HPC 239-240 = II§297. 13 There is much debate about the occasion for singing such a song: there is a quick survey of differing opinions in Dale 2011, especially pp. 58 and 61. I agree with Dale and others when they say that there is no reason to insist that the occasion must be a wedding. But I must add that there is no reason to assume that sad songs cannot be sung at weddings. 11

92 throughout the broad city. |13 And the Trojans yoked to smooth-running carriages |14 the mules. And the whole ensemble climbed on, |15 all the women and maidens | … |21 looking just like the gods [ikeloi theois] |22 … holy |23 set forth into Troy … |24 And the sweet song of the pipe mixed … |25 And the sound of the cymbals, and then the maidens |26 sang a sacred song, and all the way to the sky |27 traveled the wondrous echo … |28 And everywhere through the streets … |29 Mixing bowls and cups … |30 And myrrh and cassia and frankincense were mingled. |31 And the older women cried out elelu. |32 Meanwhile all the men sang out a lovely high-pitched song, |33 calling on Apollo Pāōn, the far-shooter, master of playing beautifully on the lyre. |34 And they sang the song of Hector and Andromache, both looking just like the gods [theoeikeloi]. from Song 44 of Sappho (“The Wedding of Hector and Andromache”)14 4§16. There is an all-important comparison to be made here: the happy bride and bridegroom, in the wording of line 4 of Song 44 of Sappho, are destined to have kleos aphthiton ‘imperishable glory’, and the phrase that we see being used here in Sappho’s song is identical with the kleos aphthiton ‘imperishable glory’ of Achilles in line 413 of Iliad IX, as quoted in Hour 1 Text A. 4§17. We saw in Iliad IX 413 that the main hero of the Iliad leaves as his signature the kleos of his own epic, which turns out to be the Iliad. Now we see that the kleos aphthiton ‘imperishable glory’ of Achilles in Iliad IX is matched by the kleos aphthiton ‘imperishable glory’ of Hector and Andromache in Song 44 of Sappho. In the first case, the context of winning such glory is war. In the second case, the context is a wedding. 4§18. Since Song 44 of Sappho is about a wedding, it is important to note right away the traditional wording that applies to brides at weddings. That word is numphē, which means both ‘bride’ (as in Iliad XVIII 492) and ‘goddess’, that is, ‘nymph’ (as in Iliad XXIV 616). By implication, the ritual occasion of a wedding, as formalized in a bridal song, collapses the 14

|4 τάς τ’ ἄλλας Ἀσίας .[.]δε.αν κλέος ἄφθιτον· |5 Ἔκτωρ καὶ συνέταιρ̣[ο]ι ἄγ̣οι̣σ’ ἐλικώπιδα |6 Θήβας ἐξ ἰέρας Πλακίας τ’ ἀ.[..]νάω |7 ἄβραν Ἀνδρομάχαν ἐνὶ ναῦσιν ἐπ’ ἄλμυρον |8 πόντον· πόλλα δ’ [ἐλί]γματα χρύσια κἄμματα |9 πορφύρ[α] καταύτ[..]να, ποί̣κ̣ι̣λ’ ἀθύρματα, |10 ἀργύρα̣ τ̣’ ἀνά̣ρ[ι]θ̣μα [ποτή]ρ[ια] κἀλέφαις. |11 ὢς εἶπ’· ὀτραλέως δ’ ἀνόρουσε πάτ[η]ρ̣ φίλος· |12 φάμα δ’ ἦλθε κατὰ πτ̣όλιν εὐρύχο̣ρ̣ο̣ν φίλοις. |13 αὔτικ’ Ἰλίαδαι σατίναι[ς] ὐπ’ ἐυτρόχοις |14 ἆγον αἰμιόνοις, ἐ̣π̣[έ]βαινε δὲ παῖς ὄχλος |15 γυναίκων τ’ ἄμα παρθενίκα[ν] τ..[..].σφύρων, |21 [… ἴ]κελοι θέοι[ς] |22 […] ἄγνον ἀολ[λε]|23 ὄ̣ρ̣ματ̣α̣ι̣[…]νον ἐς Ἴλιο[ν] |24 αὖλος δ’ ἀδυ[μ]έλησ̣[…] τ’ ὀνεμίγνυ[το]|25 ⌊καὶ ψ[ό]φο[ς κ]ροτάλ[ων…]ως δ’ ἄρα πάρ[θενοι |26 ἄειδον μέλος ἄγν̣[ον ἴκα]νε δ’ ἐς α̣ἴ̣θ̣[ερα] |27 ἄχω θεσπεσία̣ γελ̣[…] |28 ⌊πάνται δ’ ἦς κὰτ ὄδο[…] |29 κράτηρες φίαλαί τ’ ὀ[...]υεδε[..]..εακ[.].[…] |30 μύρρα καὶ κασία λίβανός τ’ ὀνεμείχνυτο |31 γύναικες δ’ ἐλέλυσδον ὄσαι προγενέστερα[ι] |32 ⌊πάντες δ’ ἄνδρες ἐπήρατον ἴαχον ὄρθιον33 Πάον’ ὀνκαλέοντες ἐκάβολον εὐλύραν, |34 ὔμνην δ’ Ἔκτορα κἈ⌋νδρομάχαν θεοεικέλο[ις]. (In this transcription, the sign “[…]” is not meant to indicate the number of letters that are missing: it is merely a short-hand indication of lacunae.)

93 distinction between ‘bride’ and ‘goddess’. The same can be said, as we will see in Hour 5, about the distinction between ‘bridegroom’ and ‘god’. 4§19. At the climax of the wedding of Hector and Andromache as narrated in Song 44 of Sappho, the bride and groom are transformed into gods - at the actual moment of that climax. I will make that argument in Hour 5. And I will also make a related argument there. In Hour 5, we will see how something comparable happens at the climactic moment of war: at the actual moment of that climax, the warrior is transformed into a god. 4§20. Here I highlight the epithet theoeikeloi ‘looking just like the gods’, applied to Hector and Andromache as the bridegroom and the bride in line 34 of Song 44 of Sappho; also relevant is ikeloi theois ‘looking just like the gods’ applied to the couple in line 11. This same epithet theoeikelos ‘looking just like the gods’ is used in the Iliad, but there it is reserved for Achilles (I 131, XIX 155). No other hero receives this epithet in that epic. So the doomed couple and the doomed Achilles are all part of one song, one kleos. Such is the kleos that Sappho’s Song 44 is recreating. In the songmaking traditions of women, this song is morphologically related to but distinct from the epic songs that derive primarily from the songmaking traditions of men. To put it another way, Song 44 of Sappho is an example of epic as refracted in women’s songmaking traditions.15

Achilles as a bridegroom 4§21. As we have seen so far in Hour 4, Achilles can cross over from the world of epic into the world of lyric. In terms of this crossover, as we will see in Hour 5, Achilles is pictured not only as a warrior but also as a bridegroom. And, like Hector, Achilles too is pictured as a bridegroom who is ‘equal to the gods’. Unlike Hector, however, Achilles will never get married, and that is why he is lamented in a special way. As we will see in Hour 5, Achilles is lamented as an eternal bridegroom because his fulfillment as a married adult is eternally deferred. For the moment, I will simply show a preview of this idea of Achilles as a bridegroom by highlighting an important piece of information about the poetic tradition of Sappho:

Hour 4 Text E Himerius (Orations 1.16) says: ‘Sappho compared the girl to an apple […] she compared the bridegroom to Achilles, and likened the young man’s deeds to the hero’s.’16 Sappho Fragment 105b

15 16

HQ 57. More on the testimony of Himerius in Dale 2011, especially pp. 54, 62-64, 67.

Achilles as a focus of lament 4§22. This idea of Achilles as a bridegroom is relevant to the fact that Achilles is a focus of lament in lyric as well as in epic traditions. In lyric, as we will see in Hour 5, the idea of Achilles as a bridegroom is connected with his sorrowful fate of dying young, cut down in the bloom of his youth like a tender seedling that is thus doomed to wilt. This connection is implied in the wording of a fragment from one of the songs of Sappho:

Hour 4 Text F To what shall I liken you, dear bridegroom, to make the likeness beautiful? | To a tender seedling, I liken you to that most of all. Sappho Song 11517 4§23. As I will argue in Hour 5, the words of this lyric song are implicitly comparing the bridegroom to Achilles. Leading up to that argument, I will show here in Hour 4 that Achilles himself is compared to a tender seedling in his own right, and that this comparison is a fundamental theme in the lyric traditions of lament. A prime example can be found in the lament of Thetis in Iliad XVIII, where the goddess makes such a comparison while expressing her sorrow over the sad fate of her son Achilles:

Hour 4 Text G = Hour 0 Text D |54 Ah me, the pitiful one! Ah me, the mother, so sad it is, of the very best. |55 I gave birth to a faultless and strong son, |56 the very best of heroes. And he shot up [anedramen] equal [īsos] to a seedling [ernos]. |57 I nurtured him like a shoot in the choicest spot of the orchard, |58 only to send him off on curved ships to fight at Troy. |59 And I will never be welcoming him |60 back home as returning warrior, back to the House of Peleus. |61 And as long as he lives and sees the light of the sun, |62 he will have sorrow [akh-nutai], and though I go to him I cannot help him. |63 Nevertheless I will go, that I may see my dear son and learn |64 what sorrow [penthos] has befallen him though he is still holding aloof from battle. Iliad XVIII 54-6418 4§24. The goddess Thetis, in performing her lament, sings to her son Achilles as if he were already dead. She feels the sorrow that he feels over the death of Patroklos, and that sorrow translates into the sorrow that she feels by foreseeing, goddess that she is, the death of 17

τίωι σ’, ὦ φίλε γάμβρε, κάλως ἐικάσδω; | ὄρπακι βραδίνωι σε μάλιστ’ ἐικάσδω. |54 ὤ μοι ἐγὼ δειλή, ὤ μοι δυσαριστοτόκεια, |55 ἥ τ’ ἐπεὶ ἂρ τέκον υἱὸν ἀμύμονά τε κρατερόν τε |56 ἔξοχον ἡρώων· ὃ δ’ ἀνέδραμεν ἔρνεϊ ἶσος· |57 τὸν μὲν ἐγὼ θρέψασα φυτὸν ὣς γουνῷ ἀλωῆς |58 νηυσὶν ἐπιπροέηκα κορωνίσιν Ἴλιον εἴσω |59 Τρωσὶ μαχησόμενον· τὸν δ’ οὐχ ὑποδέξομαι αὖτις |60 οἴκαδε νοστήσαντα δόμον Πηλήϊον εἴσω. |61 ὄφρα δέ μοι ζώει καὶ ὁρᾷ φάος ἠελίοιο |62 ἄχνυται, οὐδέ τί οἱ δύναμαι χραισμῆσαι ἰοῦσα. |63 ἀλλ’ εἶμ’, ὄφρα ἴδωμι φίλον τέκος, ἠδ’ ἐπακούσω |64 ὅττί μιν ἵκετο πένθος ἀπὸ πτολέμοιο μένοντα. 18

95 Achilles himself. We see here a perfect expression of the theme of the man of constant sorrow, and the two most telling words that are used in this passage are (1) the noun penthos ‘sorrow’ at verse 64 and (2) the verb akh-nutai ‘he will have sorrow’ at verse 62 corresponding to the noun akhos, meaning ‘sorrow’, which, as I have argued in Hour 3, is the central theme connected with Achilles in the Iliad. And, as we will see in Hour 5, the idea of Achilles as an ideal bridegroom is a central theme in traditions of singing songs of lament for this hero. 4§25. In the Odyssey, we find a retrospective description of the lament sung by Thetis and her fellow Nereids at the actual funeral of Achilles, followed and augmented by the lament of the Muses themselves:

Hour 4 Text H |58 Standing around you were the daughters of the Old One of the sea [= Nereus], |59 weeping piteously, and they [= the Nereids] clothed you [= the corpse of Achilles] in immortalizing clothes. |60 The nine Muses also came, all of them, and sang antiphonally with a beautiful voice, |61 singing their song of lament [thrēneîn]; you could not spot a single person who was not sheeding tears, of all the Argives [= Achaeans], so loudly did the piercing sound of lament rise up. |63 Days and nights seven and ten |64 we mourned you, mortals and immortals alike. Odyssey xxiv 58-6419 4§26. This picturing of Achilles as the focus of lament sung by Thetis and her sister Nereids and then by the Muses is attested in the epic Cycle as well, as we see from a most compressed retelling in the plot-summary:

Hour 4 Text I |12 … Thetis |13 comes with the Muses and her sisters and makes a lament [thrēnos] for her son. |14 After that, Thetis snatches him off the funeral pyre and carries her |15 son over to the White Island [Leukē]. Meanwhile the Achaeans |16 make [for Achilles] a tomb [taphos] and hold funeral games. plot-summary by Proclus of the Aithiopis by Arctinus of Miletus p. 106 lines 12-1620

|58 ἀμφὶ δέ σ’ ἔστησαν κοῦραι ἁλίοιο γέροντος |59 οἴκτρ’ ὀλοφυρόμεναι, περὶ δ’ ἄμβροτα εἵματα ἕσσαν. |60 Μοῦσαι δ’ ἐννέα πᾶσαι ἀμειβόμεναι ὀπὶ καλῇ |61 θρήνεον· ἔνθα κεν οὔ τιν’ ἀδάκρυτόν γ’ ἐνόησας |62 Ἀργείων· τοῖον γὰρ ὑπώρορε Μοῦσα λίγεια. |63 ἑπτὰ δὲ καὶ δέκα μέν σε ὁμῶς νύκτας τε καὶ ἦμαρ |64 κλαίομεν ἀθάνατοί τε θεοὶ θνητοί τ’ ἄνθρωποι. 20 |12 … καὶ Θέτις |13 ἀφικομένη σὺν Μούσαις καὶ ταῖς ἀδελφαῖς θρηνεῖ τὸν παῖδα· |14 καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα ἐκ τῆς πυρᾶς ἡ Θέτις ἀναρπάσασα τὸν |15 παῖδα εἰς τὴν Λευκὴν νῆσον διακομίζει. οἱ δὲ Ἀχαιοὶ τὸν |16 τάφον χώσαντες ἀγῶνα τιθέασι.

96 4§27. As we have seen in Text A, taken from a song of Pindar (Isthmian 8.56-62), the lamentation of Achilles by the Muses is what propels the imperishable glory of Achilles, as sung in both epic and lyric. In the words of Pindar, this hero who is glorified by song will die and will thus stop flourishing, that is, he will ‘perish’, phthi-n-ein, but he will have as his eternal consolation the prospect that at least his song will never perish: rather, the song of Achilles will be eternally sung by the Muses as they lament the death of the hero. And that eternal song of the Muses translates into an eternity of ongoing epic and lyric singing by mortals inspired by the Muses.

The unfailing glory of Achilles 4§28. As we have seen from the wording of the lament of Thetis in Iliad XVIII 54-64, Text G, Achilles in death is pictured as a beautiful plant that has been cut down in its prime. That is how Achilles himself can be lamented forever. Here I find it relevant to return to the word used to describe this dead Achilles as the Muses start to sing their own song of lament for him. In Pindar’s Isthmian 8.56-62, Text A, Achilles is described as phthi-menos (60), which I have so far translated simply as ‘perished in death’. But the verb phthi-n-ein has a deeper meaning than ‘perish’, and we see that deeper meaning in the contexts of the derivative adjective aphthi-to-, which describes the kleos ‘glory’ of Achilles in Iliad IX 413 - and which I have been translating so far simply as ‘imperishable’. As we will now see, a more accurate translation of kleos aphthiton would be ‘unfailing glory’. 4§29. The expression kleos aphthiton is of great antiquity. There is a related expression in the oldest attested body of Indic poetry: in the Rig-Veda (1.9.7), we see an attestation of the words śráva(s) ákşitam ‘imperishable glory’. The Indic word śrávas ‘glory’ is cognate with Greek kleos ‘glory’, while the Indic word ákşitam ‘imperishable’ is cognate with Greek aphthiton ‘imperishable’. Further, the Greek expression kleos aphthiton and the Indic expression śráva(s) ákşitam are attested in cognate syntactical and metrical contexts. 4§30. When I say cognate here, I mean that the Indic combination śrávas + ákşitam and the Greek combination kleos + aphthiton can be traced back to a common linguistic origin, as we can see if we apply methods of analysis developed within the discipline of Indo-European linguistics.21 My ongoing work in analyzing such an origin has been summarized in detail elsewhere, and I will be drawing on that summary in the argumentation that follows.22

GM 122-127, PH 244-245 = 8§46n126. PH 3 = 0§5n10, 147 = 6§3n9; 204 = 9§6n23; 223 = 8§11n42; 278 = 10§9n21. Also, in PH 244-245 = 8§46n126, I counter various objections to my interpretation of the expression kleos aphthiton. Such objections, as readers will (I hope) see if they read through the arguments as I develop them in PH, can be refuted on the basis of a thorough examination of all the metrical and syntactical contexts of the expression kleos aphthiton in its lyric as well as epic attestations. 22

97 4§31. On the basis of the Indic comparative evidence, the meaning of aphthito- / ákṣitacan be interpreted not only as ‘imperishable’ but even as ‘unfailing’, since other attestations in Indic traditions evoke the metaphor of an unfailing flow of vitality.23 4§32. For the first time in this book, I have used here the term metaphor. It comes from the Greek word metaphorā, which means literally a ‘transferring’ of a meaning. I offer right away a working definition: metaphor is an expression of meaning by way of substituting something for something else - as distinct from metonymy, which is an expression of meaning by way of connecting something to something else that is next to it or at least near to it, thereby establishing contact.24 If we were to reformulate these working definitions in terms of Prague School linguistics, we would say that the mental process of referring to anything involves, simultaneously, a horizontal axis of combination and a vertical axis of selection.25 4§33. The basic idea behind the application of the metaphorical world of kleos aphthiton to a hero like Achilles is this: like anything that is natural, Achilles will ‘perish’ because he will lose the flow of vitality when he is killed, but his kleos ‘glory’ will never perish because it will never lose its own flow of vitality. And that is because this kleos ‘glory’ is not a thing of nature: it is a thing of art, a song.

Contrasting the artificial and the natural 4§34. In ancient Greek song culture, as I noted in Hour 1, the distinction between art and nature, between the artificial and the natural, is not the same as in our modern cultures. When we say that something is artificial, we imply that this something is “unreal,” while natural means “real.” In a song culture, by contrast, the artificial can be just as real as the natural, since the words of an “artificial” song can be just as real as the words of “natural” speech in a real-life experience. In a song culture, the song can be just as real as life itself. 4§35. For Achilles, as I also noted in Hour 1, the song of kleos is just as real as his very own life is real to him. The infinite time of the artificial song, the kleos aphthiton or ‘imperishable glory’ (IX 413), is just as real to him as the finite time of his natural life. 4§36. Similarly, the infinite time of the immortal gods is just as real to Homeric heroes as is the finite time they have as mortals. And the gods too are “artificial” but real, just as kleos ‘glory’ is “artificial” but real. In the Homeric view of the world, even the sky can be seen as artificial, since it belongs to the realm of the immortal gods. By contrast, the earth is natural, since it belongs to the realm of mortal humans. But the point remains that the immortal and

PH 147 = 6§3n9, 278 = 10§9n21. HTL xi. 25 Ducrot and Todorov 1979:111, with further references. 24

98 the artificial are just as real as the mortal and the natural. And the contrast between the mortal and the immortal is parallel to a contrast between the natural and the artificial.26 4§37. The idea that immortality is artificial is conveyed by a metaphor that we see at work in the Greek expression kleos aphthiton and in the cognate Indic expression śráva(s) ákşitam. This metaphor refers to a poetic ‘glory’ that is ‘imperishable’ or even ‘unfailing’ in the sense that its vitality, which is imagined as something that flows, will never stop flowing.27

The unwilting glory of Achilles 4§38. In the case of Achilles, as we have seen from the lament of Thetis in Iliad XVIII 5464, Text G, this hero’s death is conventionally imagined as the cutting down of a tender young plant that is animated by the flow of vitality. Naturally, the cutting down of the plant will stop the flow. But the kleos or poetic ‘glory’ of Achilles will prolong forever its own flow of vitality, and this immunity from death is conveyed by describing the kleos as aphthiton. In such contexts, the adjective aphthito- can be interpreted as not only ‘imperishable’ or ‘unfailing’ but even as ‘unwilting’. 4§39. Verbs and nouns derived from the verb phthi-n-ein, which I have translated so far as ‘perish’, convey the idea of wilting in contexts referring to the vitality of plants.28 Unlike natural plants, which go through a cycle of flourishing and then wilting, the kleos of Achilles can be imagined as an unnatural or artificial plant that will never wilt, never losing its vitality and beauty, its color and aroma.29 This plant has become an immortal mutant. So the kleos aphthiton of Achilles at Iliad IX 413 is a ‘glory’ that is not only ‘imperishable’, not only ‘unfailing’, but even ‘unwilting’. And this kleos aphthiton ‘unwilting glory’ results from a choice that Achilles himself ultimately makes, which is, never to to return to his homeland of Phthia or Phthīē. That form Phthīē, as we see in Iliad XIX 328-330 and elswhere, is directly connected in Homeric poetry with the idea of phthi-n-ein ‘wilting’.30

I offer further observations about patterns of contrast between the natural and the artificial in my article “As the World Runs Out of Breath: Metaphorical Perspectives on the Heavens and the Atmosphere in the Ancient World” (Nagy 1999), published in a book that has a specially evocative title: Earth, Air, Fire, Water: Humanistic Studies of the Environment. 27 For an overall survey of the range of meanings inherited by this adjective aphthito-, see BA 174-189 = 10§§1-19 28 For example, in Pindar Paean 9.14, the expression καρποῦ φθίσιν refers to ‘the wilting of the crops’; see BA 174 = 10§3. In Theophrastus Historia plantarum 7.13.6, the expression αὐτὸ τὸ ἄνθος ἅμα τῷ καυλῷ καταφθίνει means ‘the blossom [anthos] itself wilts [kata-phthinei], along with the stem’ (with reference to the narcissus). See also BA 178, 179-180, 180 = 10§6; 8; 9, with reference respectively to Iliad VI 145-149; I 233-237; Odyssey ix 133. 29 This formulation is backed up by detailed argumentation in BA 174-189 = 10§§1-19. 30 The details are presented in BA 184-185 = 10§14.

99 4§40. By now we have seen that the kleos aphthiton or ‘unwilting glory’ of Achilles stems from a metaphorical world of lament for a hero who wilts like a beautiful plant in the prime of his youth - and whose death is compensated by a song of glory that will never wilt.

Achilles as a model for singing lyric songs of glory 4§41. Achilles himself becomes a model for singing such songs of glory in the Homeric Iliad. It happens at the moment when he is pictured as singing to the tune of a lyre that he is playing, as we saw in Text D of Hour 2 (Iliad IX 186-189). This lyre, I repeat, once belonged to Eëtion, king of the Aeolic city of Thebe, whom Achilles killed when he captured that city (IX 186-189) - and who was the father of that greatest singer of lamentations in the Iliad, Andromache (VI 414-416). What Achilles in the Iliad sings to the tune of this Aeolic lyre evokes feelings of love and bittersweet sorrow as heard in lyric song and poetry.31 4§42. An example of such lyric in historical times is Song 44 of Sappho, about the wedding of Hector and Andromache. The lyric kleos aphthiton ‘unwilting glory’ of this Aeolic song (line 4) converges with the epic kleos aphthiton ‘unwilting glory’ that Achilles is promised in the Iliad (IX 413), and this convergence of lyric and epic is signaled by the klea andrōn ‘glories of men’ that Achilles is singing on the Aeolic lyre (IX 189).

Models of lament 4§43. The lyric virtuosity of Achilles qualifies him as a specialist in the singing of lament. In Iliad XIX 315-337, Achilles himself sings a song of lament for Patroklos, who as we have seen is the single person who means more to Achilles than anyone else in that hero’s world. This lament is a model for the laments that will be song for Achilles himself when he is dead. 4§44. And there are other models as well. As I come to the end of Hour 4, I close with a preview of the lament that Achilles himself will sing in the Iliad. I have in mind the lament performed by Briseis, the young woman whom Achilles in Iliad IX (342-343) professes to love as if she were his own wife. This lament, which I will analyze in detail when we reach Hour 5, is an expression of sorrow over the death of Patroklos. And the lament of Briseis for Patroklos will become the model for the lament of Achilles himself for his best friend. Here, then, is the lament of Briseis for Patroklos:

Hour 4 Text J |282 Then Briseis, looking like golden Aphrodite, |283 saw Patroklos all cut apart by the sharp bronze, and, when she saw him, |284 she poured herself all over him in tears and wailed with a voice most shrill, and with her hands she tore at |285 her breasts and her tender neck and her beautiful face. |286 And then she spoke, weeping, this woman who looked like the 31

HPC 239-240 = II§297.

100 goddesses: |287 “O Patroklos, you have been most gracious to me in my terrible state and most gratifying to my heart. |288 You were alive when I last saw you on my way out from the shelter |289 - and now I come back to find you dead, you, the protector of your people |290 that is what I come back to find. Oh, how I have one misfortune after the next to welcome me. |291 The man to whom I was given away by my father and by my mother the queen |292 - I saw that man lying there in front of the city, all cut apart by the sharp bronze, |293 and lying near him were my three brothers - all of us were born of one mother - |294 they are all a cause for my sorrow, since they have all met up with their time of destruction. |295 No, you did not let me - back when my husband was killed by swift-footed Achilles, |296 killed by him, and when the city of my godlike Mynes [= my husband] was destroyed by him |297 - you did not let me weep, back then, but you told me that godlike Achilles |298 would have me as a properly courted wife, that you would make that happen, and that you would take me on board the ships, |299 taking me all the way to Phthia, and that you would arrange for a wedding feast among the Myrmidons. |300 So now I cannot stop crying for you, now that you are dead, you who were always so sweet and gentle.” |301 So she [= Briseis] spoke, weeping, and the women kept on mourning in response. |302 They mourned for Patroklos, that was their pretext, but they were all mourning, each and every one of them, for what they really cared for in their sorrow. Iliad XIX 282-30232 4§45. In the logic of the epic narrative here, Briseis is not just weeping, not just speaking words of sorrow: she is represented as singing a lament.33 And the words of her lament are quoted inside the epic narrative. Following this quotation in Iliad XIX (287-300) is the quotation of another lament for Patroklos, this one performed by the hero Achilles himself (315-337); Achilles here is represented as actually singing a lament, just as Briseis actually sings a lament.34

|282 Βρισηῒς δ’ ἄρ’ ἔπειτ’ ἰκέλη χρυσέῃ Ἀφροδίτῃ |283 ὡς ἴδε Πάτροκλον δεδαϊγμένον ὀξέϊ χαλκῷ, |284 ἀμφ’ αὐτῷ χυμένη λίγ’ ἐκώκυε, χερσὶ δ’ ἄμυσσε |285 στήθεά τ’ ἠδ’ ἁπαλὴν δειρὴν ἰδὲ καλὰ πρόσωπα. |286 εἶπε δ’ ἄρα κλαίουσα γυνὴ ἐϊκυῖα θεῇσι· |287 Πάτροκλέ μοι δειλῇ πλεῖστον κεχαρισμένε θυμῷ |288 ζωὸν μέν σε ἔλειπον ἐγὼ κλισίηθεν ἰοῦσα, |289 νῦν δέ σε τεθνηῶτα κιχάνομαι ὄρχαμε λαῶν |290 ἂψ ἀνιοῦσ’· ὥς μοι δέχεται κακὸν ἐκ κακοῦ αἰεί. |291 ἄνδρα μὲν ᾧ ἔδοσάν με πατὴρ καὶ πότνια μήτηρ |292 εἶδον πρὸ πτόλιος δεδαϊγμένον ὀξέϊ χαλκῷ, |293 τρεῖς τε κασιγνήτους, τούς μοι μία γείνατο μήτηρ, |294 κηδείους, οἳ πάντες ὀλέθριον ἦμαρ ἐπέσπον. |295 οὐδὲ μὲν οὐδέ μ’ ἔασκες, ὅτ’ ἄνδρ’ ἐμὸν ὠκὺς Ἀχιλλεὺς |296 ἔκτεινεν, πέρσεν δὲ πόλιν θείοιο Μύνητος, |297 κλαίειν, ἀλλά μ’ ἔφασκες Ἀχιλλῆος θείοιο |298 κουριδίην ἄλοχον θήσειν, ἄξειν τ’ ἐνὶ νηυσὶν |299 ἐς Φθίην, δαίσειν δὲ γάμον μετὰ Μυρμιδόνεσσι. |300 τώ σ’ ἄμοτον κλαίω τεθνηότα μείλιχον αἰεί. |301 Ὣς ἔφατο κλαίουσ’, ἐπὶ δὲ στενάχοντο γυναῖκες |302 Πάτροκλον πρόφασιν, σφῶν δ’ αὐτῶν κήδε’ ἑκάστη. 33 Nagy 2010 (“Ancient Greek Elegy”) 23. See also Dué 2002:70-71, 81; 2006:43-44. 34 Tsagalis 2004:86, 139-140

101 4§46. We see in this passage that quotes the lament of Briseis a most remarkable feature of Homeric poetry: if a performer of epic quotes a woman who is singing a lament or love song, then he is singing a lament or love song. The word “quote” here and elsewhere in such contexts is of course anachronistic. From the standpoint of song culture, it would be better for us to say perform. [[We saw a comparable principle at work when we viewed the clip from the film Ch’unhyang.]] 4§47. When a character like Briseis – or like Achilles himself - is quoted, that character’s words become a “super-star” performance. Conversely, when a “super-star” performer like the master Narrator of the Iliad quotes the words of a hero like Achilles, the performer himself becomes the hero in the moment of performance. Hero and performer develop a reciprocal relationship. The hero becomes a super-star performer in his own right, while the performer becomes heroic, larger-than-life, even godlike in sacred moments (just as the hero becomes godlike in sacred moments). Achilles is pictured as a super-star performer in his own right when he sings the klea andrōn at Iliad IX 189, as we saw in Hour 2 Text D. 4§48. I bring this analysis to a close by pondering further the implications of the lament of Briseis as quoted in Iliad XIX. In her lament, Briseis sings her bittersweet sorrow not only over the death of Patroklos but also over the death of her own fondest hope: when he was alive, Patroklos had promised to arrange for her a marriage to Achilles, but, now that Patroklos is dead, the hope of that promise is gone forever (XIX 295-300). As we will see further in Hour 5, the Iliad pictures Patroklos as a stand-in for Achilles, his another self, in courtship as well as in war.35

Nagy 2010 (“Ancient Greek Elegy”) 23.

102

Hour 5. When mortals become ‘equal’ to immortals: death of a hero, death of a bridegroom The meaning of daimōn 5§1. The key word for this hour is daimōn (plural daimones), which I translate for the moment simply as ‘superhuman force’. This word is used to refer to an unspecified god or hero intervening in human life. The word daimōn is to be contrasted with theos ‘god’, which is used to refer to a specified god. 5§2. In this connection, we may compare the words polytheism and monotheism. Also henotheism. The term henotheism refers to the worshipping of one divinity at a time. I think of the one-at-a-time mentality of henotheism as serial monotheism. 5§3. On the ritual occasion of a wedding in ancient Greek society, what happens at the climactic moment of the wedding is the equating of mortal humans with the immortal gods. That is what we saw in Hour 4 when we were reading Song 44 of Sappho, about the Wedding of Hector and Andromache. In that song, the bridegroom and the bride are said to be theoeikeloi ‘looking just like the gods [theoi]’ (line 34). Now, as we will see here in Hour 5, the climactic moment of the ritual occasion of fighting in war is likewise signaled by the equating of mortal humans with immortal gods.

The expression ‘equal to a daimōn’ 5§4. The ritual of war collapses the distinction between human and divine - but only at the precise moment when the warrior comes face-to-face with his own martial death. I should add that the warrior may not necessarily die when he faces death. Still, the warrior’s identity is defined by the ritual need for him to face death in war. As we will also see, the medium of epic records the actual moment when the hero faces death in war by applying to the hero the epithet daimoni īsos ‘equal [īsos] to a superhuman force [daimōn]’. 5§5. I concentrate here on the expression daimoni īsos ‘equal [īsos] to a superhuman force [daimōn]’. In the Iliad, such wording focuses on the climax of god-hero antagonism. At the moment of such a climax, the hero can be equated with a daimōn. 5§6. In the first passage we will examine, the hero Patroklos comes face-to-face with death as he confronts the god Apollo. At this climactic moment of god-hero antagonism, Patroklos is described as ‘equal [īsos] to a superhuman force [daimōn]’:

Hour 5 Text A |698 The sons of the Achaeans could now have taken Troy |699 by the hands of Patroklos, for he was raging in all directions with his spear, |700 if Phoebus Apollo had not made his stand at the wall, |701 standing there and thinking destructive thoughts against him [= Patroklos],

103 since he [= Apollo] was supporting the Trojans. |702 Three times did he [= Patroklos] reach the base of the high wall, |703 that is what Patroklos did, and three times was he beaten back by Apollo, |704 who struck with his own immortal hands the luminous shield [of Patroklos]. |705 But when he [= Patroklos] was coming on for yet a fourth time, equal [īsos] to a superhuman force [daimōn], |706 he [= Apollo] shouted to him with a terrifying voice and spoke winged words: |707 “Draw back, Patroklos, you who are descended from the gods in the sky. It is not your destiny [aisa] |708 to destroy with your spear the city of the Trojan chieftains, |709 nor will it be the destiny of Achilles, who is a far better man than you are.” |710 That is what he [= Apollo] said. On hearing this, Patroklos drew back quite a way back, |711 thus avoiding the anger [mēnis] of Apollo who shoots from afar. Iliad XVI 698-7111

5§7. Here, then, is a moment of “fatal attraction,” signaled by the expression daimoni īsos ‘equal [īsos] to a superhuman force [daimōn]’. But who is the daimōn in this expression? It must be a god. And, although the word daimōn itself partially conceals the identity of the god, the context here gives the answer away: the daimōn with whom Patroklos is equated here is the god Apollo himself. And this god is about to kill Patroklos. 5§8. But so far we have seen only a “dress rehearsal.” The real moment of identification between hero and god comes the next time, when Patroklos does not back away from Apollo after three attempts but faces him at the fourth attempt. In the next passage, we finally see that climactic moment of god-hero antagonism, “the real thing”:

Hour 5 Text B |783 Then Patroklos rushed ahead toward the Trojans, with the worst intentions. |784 Three times he rushed at them, and he was equal [atalantos] to Arēs. |785 He [= Patroklos] was making a terrifying shout, and he killed three times nine men. |786 But when he [= Patroklos] was coming on for yet a fourth time, equal [īsos] to a superhuman force [daimōn], |787 then, O Patroklos, the end of your life made its appearance to you. |788 Facing you now was Phoebus [Apollo], ready to fight you in grim battle. |789 He [= Apollo] was terrifying. But he [= Patroklos] did not notice him as he [= Apollo] was coming at him in the heat of battle. |790 1

|698 Ἔνθά κεν ὑψίπυλον Τροίην ἕλον υἷες Ἀχαιῶν |699 Πατρόκλου ὑπὸ χερσί, περὶ πρὸ γὰρ ἔγχεϊ θῦεν, |700 εἰ μὴ Ἀπόλλων Φοῖβος ἐϋδμήτου ἐπὶ πύργου |701 ἔστη τῷ ὀλοὰ φρονέων, Τρώεσσι δ’ ἀρήγων. |702 τρὶς μὲν ἐπ’ ἀγκῶνος βῆ τείχεος ὑψηλοῖο |703 Πάτροκλος, τρὶς δ’ αὐτὸν ἀπεστυφέλιξεν Ἀπόλλων |704 χείρεσσ’ ἀθανάτῃσι φαεινὴν ἀσπίδα νύσσων. |705 ἀλλ’ ὅτε δὴ τὸ τέταρτον ἐπέσσυτο δαίμονι ἶσος, |706 δεινὰ δ’ ὁμοκλήσας ἔπεα πτερόεντα προσηύδα· |707 χάζεο διογενὲς Πατρόκλεες· οὔ νύ τοι αἶσα |708 σῷ ὑπὸ δουρὶ πόλιν πέρθαι Τρώων ἀγερώχων, |709 οὐδ’ ὑπ’ Ἀχιλλῆος, ὅς περ σέο πολλὸν ἀμείνων. |710 Ὣς φάτο, Πάτροκλος δ’ ἀνεχάζετο πολλὸν ὀπίσσω |711 μῆνιν ἀλευάμενος ἑκατηβόλου Ἀπόλλωνος.

104 For he [= Apollo] was enshrouded in a great cloud of mist as he made contact with him. |791 He [= Apollo] stood behind him and he struck him on his back and his broad shoulders |792 with the downturned flat of his hand, making his eyes spin. |793 His helmet was knocked off his head by Phoebus Apollo, |794 and it rolled rattling off under the horses’ hooves. |795 That is what happened to this helmet, and its horse-tail plumes were all begrimed |796 with blood and dust. Before this time, it was not sanctioned |797 that this horse-hair helmet should ever get begrimed in the dust, |798 while it was protecting the head and comely forehead of that godlike man, |799 protecting the head of Achilles. But now Zeus gave it to Hector |800 for him to wear on his head. And his [= Hector’s] doom was near. |801 Broken completely in his [= Patroklos’] hands was his own long spear, |802 a huge and heavy and massive piece of weaponry, and from his shoulders |803 his shield, strap and all, fell to the ground, with its beautiful edgework. |804 Taken away from him was his breastplate, removed by Apollo son of Zeus. |805 And his [= Patroklos’] mind was seized by derangement [atē]; his limbs failed him, |806 and he just stood there in a daze. Iliad XVI 783-8062 5§9. At this climactic moment of god-hero antagonism, when Patroklos becomes equal [īsos] to a superhuman force [daimōn], we can see that the partially concealed superhuman force or daimōn here is the god Apollo himself. And, at this moment, Patroklos is struck down by the divine hand of Apollo, who is the direct cause of the hero’s death. After this blow is delivered by the god himself, Patroklos finds himself dazed and without armor, and now he receives a second blow from the spear of the hero Euphorbos (XVI 806-815); then comes the third and final blow, from the spear of the hero Hector (XVI 816-854). After these three blows, Patroklos finally dies (XVI 855-857). 5§10. The narrative of the Iliad makes it clear that Hector succeeded in killing Patroklos only because that hero had first been struck down by the divine hand of the god Apollo himself and had thus been deprived of the protective armor of Achilles. So, if any Achaean now wants |783 Πάτροκλος δὲ Τρωσὶ κακὰ φρονέων ἐνόρουσε. |784 τρὶς μὲν ἔπειτ’ ἐπόρουσε θοῷ ἀτάλαντος Ἄρηϊ |785 σμερδαλέα ἰάχων, τρὶς δ’ ἐννέα φῶτας ἔπεφνεν. |786 ἀλλ’ ὅτε δὴ τὸ τέταρτον ἐπέσσυτο δαίμονι ἶσος, |787 ἔνθ’ ἄρα τοι Πάτροκλε φάνη βιότοιο τελευτή· |788 ἤντετο γάρ τοι Φοῖβος ἐνὶ κρατερῇ ὑσμίνῃ |789 δεινός· ὃ μὲν τὸν ἰόντα κατὰ κλόνον οὐκ ἐνόησεν, |790 ἠέρι γὰρ πολλῇ κεκαλυμμένος ἀντεβόλησε· |791 στῆ δ’ ὄπιθεν, πλῆξεν δὲ μετάφρενον εὐρέε τ’ ὤμω |792 χειρὶ καταπρηνεῖ, στρεφεδίνηθεν δέ οἱ ὄσσε. |793 τοῦ δ’ ἀπὸ μὲν κρατὸς κυνέην βάλε Φοῖβος Ἀπόλλων· |794 ἣ δὲ κυλινδομένη καναχὴν ἔχε ποσσὶν ὑφ’ ἵππων |795 αὐλῶπις τρυφάλεια, μιάνθησαν δὲ ἔθειραι |796 αἵματι καὶ κονίῃσι· πάρος γε μὲν οὐ θέμις ἦεν |797 ἱππόκομον πήληκα μιαίνεσθαι κονίῃσιν, |798 ἀλλ’ ἀνδρὸς θείοιο κάρη χαρίεν τε μέτωπον |799 ῥύετ’ Ἀχιλλῆος· τότε δὲ Ζεὺς Ἕκτορι δῶκεν |800 ᾗ κεφαλῇ φορέειν, σχεδόθεν δέ οἱ ἦεν ὄλεθρος. |801 πᾶν δέ οἱ ἐν χείρεσσιν ἄγη δολιχόσκιον ἔγχος |802 βριθὺ μέγα στιβαρὸν κεκορυθμένον· αὐτὰρ ἀπ’ ὤμων |803 ἀσπὶς σὺν τελαμῶνι χαμαὶ πέσε τερμιόεσσα. |804 λῦσε δέ οἱ θώρηκα ἄναξ Διὸς υἱὸς Ἀπόλλων. |805 τὸν δ’ ἄτη φρένας εἷλε, λύθεν δ’ ὑπὸ φαίδιμα γυῖα, |806 στῆ δὲ ταφών.

105 to rescue the corpse of Patroklos from the field of battle, he will be fighting not only Hector but also the god Apollo himself. Just as Patroklos was killed because he fought Apollo, so also any other Achaean hero will surely be killed if he now stands up to Hector, since the Achaean will first have to face the god Apollo himself. Such is the thinking of the Achaean hero Menelaos, who says to himself that he would not dare to stand up alone to Hector by attempting to rescue the corpse of Patroklos:

Hour 5 Text C |98 When a man is willing, face-to-face with a daimōn, to fight another man |99 whom the god honors, then it becomes a sure thing that a big pain [pēma] will roll down [kulindesthai] upon him.3 Iliad XVII 98-994 5§11. The expression pros daimona ‘face-to-face’ with a daimōn’ here at verse 98 of Iliad XVII recurs at verse 104, where Menelaos is thinking further, asking himself whether he would dare to make the attempt even if he is backed up by Ajax, arguably the greatest of all Achaean warriors next to Achilles.5 5§12. In this context, the use of the word daimōn is mystical in not naming the god - but it is ostentatiously mystical. By that I mean that the identity of the daimōn is obvious. That daimōn is Apollo. 5§13. We see another “dress-rehearsal” at an earlier point in the Iliad: the Achaean hero Diomedes is described as daimoni īsos ‘equal [īsos] to a superhuman force [daimōn]’ at Iliad V 438 and 459 when he makes his own four-stage attempt at facing Apollo in battle. In fact, Diomedes makes two successive four-stage attempts, but he ultimately backs down both times.6 5§14. So the god Apollo causes the death of the hero Patroklos in the Iliad, and the death is signaled by the marking of Patroklos as daimoni īsos ‘equal [īsos] to a superhuman force [daimōn]’. By way of this marking, the killer daimōn is identified as the god Apollo himself. In

The metaphor here evokes the menacing image of a boulder that breaks off from a cliff overhead and starts rolling downward from the heights above, ever increasing in speed as it nears ground zero. In Iliad XIII 136-142, Hector himself is compared to such a breakaway boulder as he rushes toward his enemies. In Iliad XVII 685-690, when the death of Patroklos is formally announced, the fact of his death is described at verse 688 as a ‘pain’ (pēma) inflicted by ‘a god’ (theos) who literally ‘rolled it down’ (kulindein) upon the Achaeans. 4 |98 ὁππότ’ ἀνὴρ ἐθέλῃ πρὸς δαίμονα φωτὶ μάχεσθαι |99 ὅν κε θεὸς τιμᾷ, τάχα οἱ μέγα πῆμα κυλίσθη. Commentary in BA 63 = 4§6n1. 5 On Ajax as a rival of Achilles for the status of ‘best of the Achaeans, see BA 31-32 = 2§6. 6 On Diomedes as a rival of Achilles for the status of ‘best of the Achaeans’, see BA 30-31 = 2§5.

106 fact, Patroklos is the only hero in the Iliad who gets struck down directly by the hand of Apollo - or by the hand of any other god. 5§15. Why Patroklos? It is because Patroklos is a stand-in for Achilles. As we will see later on, in Hour 6, Patroklos at the moment of his death becomes the ritual substitute of Achilles.

Apollo as divine antagonist of Achilles 5§16. The god Apollo causes the death of not only Patroklos but also Achilles. Just as Apollo initiates the killing of Patroklos, which is completed by Hector, so also the same god initiates the killing of Achilles himself, which is completed by Paris. But this greatest of all killings happens not in the Iliad. It happens instead in the epic Cycle, specifically, in the Aithiopis ‘Song of the Ethiopians’:

Hour 5 Text D |7 Achilles, while routing the Trojans and |8 rushing into the citadel, is killed by Paris and Apollo. |9 When a heated battle starts over the corpse, |10 Ajax picks it up and carries it off to the ships while |11 Odysseus fights off the Trojans. plot-summary by Proclus of the Aithiopis by Arctinus of Miletus p. 106 lines 7-117 So the death of Achilles happens not in the Iliad but beyond the Iliad. In the Iliad, however, the best friend of Achilles, Patroklos, will stand in for Achilles as the victim of Apollo. 5§17. In the Iliad, after Patroklos is killed in battle, Achilles himself takes the place of his best friend in challenging Apollo by rushing at Hector four times, and Achilles too is given the epithet daimoni īsos ‘equal [īsos] to a superhuman force [daimōn]’ at the precise moment of his fourth try (XX 447), just as Patroklos had been given that same epithet at the moment of his own fourth try, which as we have seen happens not once but twice in two separate four-try sequences (XVI 705, 786). As we have also seen, the fourth try of Patroklos in the second of these two sequences proves to be fatal. By contrast, the fourth try of Achilles is not fatal here in the Iliad, because the god Apollo intervenes and hides Hector in a huge cloud of mist (XX 443-444). There are three further moments when Achilles will be given the epithet daimoni īsos ‘equal [īsos] to a superhuman force [daimōn]’ in the Iliad (XX 493; XXI 18, 227), but, in each one of these three moments, the epithet fails to activate the death of Achilles. That death is postponed for a moment that will take place outside the Iliad as we know it.

|7 τρεψάμενος δ’ Ἀχιλλεὺς τοὺς Τρῶας καὶ |8 εἰς τὴν πόλιν συνεισπεσὼν ὑπὸ Πάριδος ἀναιρεῖται καὶ |9 Ἀπόλλωνος· καὶ περὶ τοῦ πτώματος γενομένης ἰσχυρᾶς |10 μάχης Αἴας ἀνελόμενος ἐπὶ τὰς ναῦς κομίζει, Ὀδυσσέως |10 ἀπομαχομένου τοῖς Τρωσίν.

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Arēs as divine antagonist of Achilles 5§18. The death of Achilles, prefigured by the death of Patroklos, is an epic theme so all-encompassing that it transcends even the divine antagonism of the god Apollo toward these two heroes. As we will now see, Achilles has not only one divine antagonist but two. His other divine antagonist is Arēs. 5§19. Here we need to confront a major complication. In the second of the two passages centering on the death scene of Patroklos in the Iliad, Text B (XVI 783-806), we notice that the hero is being compared not only to an unnamed god, a daimōn ‘superhuman force’ (XVI 786) who turns out to be Apollo, but also to a named god, Arēs (XVI 784). As a warrior, Patroklos is ‘equal’ (īsos 786) not only to the god Apollo in his climactic moment of god-hero antagonism. He is ‘equal’ (atalantos 784) also to the god Arēs.8 As we will see in more detail in Hour 6, Arēs is the god of war or, more specifically, the god of martial fury.

Achilles as ideal warrior and ideal bridegroom 5§20. We have just seen that Patroklos has as his divine antagonist not only not only Apollo but also Arēs. And we will now see that Patroklos is a stand-in for Achilles in his antagonism with both these gods. But why is Achilles himself linked to both Arēs and Apollo as divine antagonists? The answer to this question divides into two halves. The first half has to do with Achilles as a warrior and the second, with Achilles as a bridegroom. 5§21. We have already seen that Patroklos in the Iliad is a stand-in for Achilles as a warrior. So, when Patroklos at the moment of his death is ‘equal’ to both Arēs and Apollo, it is because Achilles in his own right is ‘equal’ to these two gods as an ideal warrior. But now we will see that Achilles is also ‘equal’ to these same two gods as an ideal bridegroom.9 5§22. We have already started to explore in Hour 4 the ritualized equation of bridegrooms with gods: as we saw in Song 44 of Sappho, for example, the generic bridegroom is equated to a god at the moment when he gets married. Now we will see that the identity of the god who is being compared to the bridegroom is manifested in the ritual convention of imagining the bridegroom not only as a god but also as a hero, especially as Achilles. And there are two divine models for Achilles as an ideal bridegroom: Arēs and Apollo. As we now proceed through the rest of Hour 5, we will see the active presence of both Arēs and Apollo in the songs of Sappho. Before we turn to studying the relevant songs, however, I need to give an overview of the historical background.10 8

BA 293 = 17§5. What follows is an epitomized version of parts of Nagy 2007a (“Lyric and Greek Myth”) and 2007b (“Homer and Greek Myth”). 10 The eleven paragraphs that follow are based on a longer survey of the historical background of Sappho’s songs in Nagy 2007a (“Lyric and Greek Myth”). 9

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The historical background of Sappho’s songs 5§23. Sappho was a woman credited with the composition of some of the most beautiful songs in world literature. This formulation is relevant to what I already noted in Hour 3, that the performance of songs by women is a most important matter in ancient Greek song culture. And it is a most important matter for us to consider the songs of women as we study the Homeric Iliad, since the traditions of such songs pervade the Iliad. 5§24. It makes sense, therefore, for you to take the time to read in the online Sourcebook, already at this early stage of your overall reading, all the fragments of surviving poetry and song attributed to Sappho – as also of Alcman. Reading these fragments will take you less than half an hour. Especially important are the fragments of Sappho. The earlier you acquaint yourselves with the traditions of song represented by Sappho, the better you will understand the entirety of ancient Greek song culture. 5§25. Sappho was a Lesbian, by which I mean simply that she originated from an island named Lesbos, situated off the northern coast of Asia Minor. The people of Lesbos spoke a local version of the Greek dialect known as Aeolic, and they were considered to be Asiatic Greeks, as distinct from the European Greeks of, say, Thessaly, who spoke their own local version of Aeolic. I have already mentioned these Aeolic-speaking Greeks in Hours 2 and 4, where we saw that Achilles has a special affinity with these Aeolians. As we will see in more detail later, Achilles himself hails from Aeolic Thessaly. 5§26. In the song culture of the island of Lesbos, the woman Sappho was considered the primary representative of women’s songs, while a man called Alcaeus was considered the primary representative of men’s songs. According to the traditions of Lesbos, both Sappho and Alcaeus lived in the late seventh and early sixth centuries BCE. That rough date matches a reference in a song of Alcaeus (Fragment 49.12) to a contemporary event that can be dated independently, namely, the destruction of Ascalon by Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, in 604 BCE (Alcaeus Source 1). 5§27. The songs of Sappho and Alcaeus, taken together, represent the repertoire of the myths and the rituals of the people of Lesbos as expressed in lyric song. 5§28. I insert here a quick working definition of myth and ritual together, repeated from the Introduction. Ritual is doing things and saying things in a way that is considered sacred. Myth is saying things in a way that is also considered sacred. So ritual frames myth. 5§29. The songs of Sappho and Alceaus date back to a period when the city-states of the island of Lesbos were confederated into a single state. This federal state, the political term for which was sunoikisis (Thucydides 3.3.1), was dominated by the city of Mytilene, known as the

109 home of Sappho and Alcaeus. There was a single communal place reserved for the festivals of this island federation, and that place was named Messon, the ‘middle space’. 5§30. In the words of Alcaeus, this federal space was called the temenos theōn ‘sacred precinct of the gods’ (Fragment 130B.13). It was the designated place for celebrating a seasonally recurring festival, described in the words of Alcaeus as the occasion for the seasonally recurring assemblies or ‘comings together’ of the people of Lesbos (Fragment 130B). This festival featured as its main spectacle the singing and dancing of choruses of Lesbiades ‘women of Lesbos’, described as ‘exceptional in their beauty’ (krinnomenai phuan 130B.17). When I say choruses, I mean singing and dancing ensembles. The Greek word khoros refers to dancing as well as singing. 5§31. The reality of such a festival in Lesbos featuring the choral performances of women is independently verified by a scholion (this word is a technical term referring to a learned note found in a manuscript) attached to a passage in the Homeric Iliad (IX 130): from this scholion we learn that the name of the festival was the Kallisteia, which can be translated as ‘pageant of beauty’. In the relevant Iliadic passage as well as elsewhere in the Iliad, there are references to women from Lesbos, described as exceptional in their beauty, who were captured by Achilles in the years that preceded the final destruction of Troy (IX 128-131, 270-273). These direct references in the Iliad can be analyzed as indirect references to the festival of the Kallisteia in Lesbos.11 Another reference to the Kallisteia is attested in a poem from the Greek Anthology (9.189), which says that this festival takes place within the temenos ‘sacred precinct’ of the goddess Hērā: this festival, as we learn from the same poem, was the occasion for choral singing and dancing by the women of Lesbos, with Sappho herself pictured as the leader of their khoros ‘chorus’. As I already said, an ancient Greek chorus was an ensemble of singing and dancing performers. 5§32. Sappho in her songs is conventionally pictured as the lead singer of a chorus that consisted of the women of Lesbos, and she speaks as their main choral personality.12 As we see in the Greek Anthology, she is figured as the lead singer of this chorus of women who sing and dance in the federal space of the people of Lesbos. Sappho’s songs are pictured as taking place within this sacred place, marked by the deictic adverb tuide ‘here’ (as in Sappho Song 17 line 7). 5§33. Elsewhere too, this same federal space of the people of Lesbos is marked by the deictic adverb tuide ‘here’ (Sappho Song 96 line 2) as the sacred place of choral performance, and the noun molpa (line 5) makes it explicit that the performance takes the form of choral singing and dancing. In archaic poetry, the verb for ‘sing and dance in a chorus’ is melpesthai.13 11

HPC 236, 242 = II§§289-290, 302. PH 370 = 12§60. 13 PH 350-351 =12§29n62 and n64. 12

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Transition to Sappho’s songs 5§34. With this overview in place, I am ready to show some of Sappho’s most celebrated songs. Two of them in particular, Songs 1 and 31, will have much to tell us about the central question of this hour: how are mortals compared to immortals? I will start with Song 31, which will be a key to understanding how and why the gods Arēs and Apollo are figured as divine models for Achilles as an ideal bridegroom. 5§35. And I will start with Arēs. One thing I need to highlight right away, even before we start reading Song 31 of Sappho, is that we cannot consider this god without considering also the symmetrical goddess Aphrodite.

Arēs and Aphrodite as models for the bridegroom and the bride 5§36. In the wedding songs of Sappho, the god Arēs is a model for the generic gambros ‘bridegroom’, who is explicitly described as īsos Areui ‘equal [īsos] to Arēs’ in Sappho Song 111.5. Correspondingly, there are many instances of implicit equations of the generic bride with the goddess Aphrodite: in Sappho Song 112, for example, the bridegroom is said to be infused with the divine charisma of Aphrodite, evidently by way of his direct contact with the bride. 5§37. At a wedding, which is a ritual of initiation in terms of ancient Greek song culture, the likening of the bridegroom and the bride to a god and a goddess leads to death. But this death is only figurative. And that is because death in rituals of initiation is not physical but psychic. From cross-cultural surveys of rituals of initiation as practiced in traditional societies around the world, it becomes evident that initiands who are identified with divinities at the moment of initiation are imagined as dying to their old selves as members of a given age-class and being reborn into their new selves as members of the next age-class.14 A prime example of such psychic death at a wedding is Song 31 of Sappho, to which I now turn.

Song 31 of Sappho Hour 5 Text E |1 He appears [phainetai] to me, that one, equal to the gods [īsos theoisin], |2 that man who, facing you |3 is seated and, up close, that sweet voice of yours |4 he listens to, |5 and how you laugh a laugh that brings desire. Why, it just |6 makes my heart flutter within my breast. |7 You see, the moment I look at you, right then, for me |8 to make any sound at all won’t work any more. |9 My tongue has a breakdown and a delicate |10 - all of a sudden - fire rushes under my skin. |11 With my eyes I see not a thing, and there is a roar |12 my ears make. |13 Sweat pours down me and a trembling |14 seizes all of me; paler than grass |15 am I, and a little short of death |16 do I appear [phainomai] to myself. 14

Nagy Poetry as Performance (1996) 101-103.

111 Song 31 of Sappho15 5§38. The form phainetai ‘he appears’ at line 1 of this song and the form phainomai ‘I appear’ at line 16 are the third and the first persons of a verb related to the noun phantasia, a derivative form that means ‘fantasy’ in later Greek prose. Or, to put it more accurately, phantasia means ‘imagined vision’ or ‘imagination’. The English word fantasy, derived from phantasia, is actually misleading as a translation, since this word implies a vision that is unreal. In ancient Greek song culture, however, there is no ‘fantasy’ about the kind of vision that is seen here in Song 31 of Sappho. This kind of vision is an epiphany, and I am now using here another word that actually derives from the same verb phainetai ‘he appears’ / phainomai ‘I appear’ as we have just seen it at lines 1 / 16. An epiphany is a vision that is felt to be real, not unreal. It is the appearance of something divine, something that is understood to be absolutely real. 5§39. The ‘he’ in line 1 of this song refers to a bridegroom, and he is figured as a god at the moment of singing this song. It is as if a god has appeared at a wedding. In the words of line 1 of the song, the bridegroom phainetai ‘appears’ to be īsos theoisin ‘equal [īsos] to the gods’. Appearances become realities here. I say this because phainetai means not only ‘appears’ but also ‘is manifested in an epiphany’, and this epiphany is felt as real.16 Literally, the bridegroom ‘appears in an epiphany’, phainetai, in line 1. In ritual terms, the word phainetai ‘he appears’ here signals a real epiphany. And the word kēnos (ekeinos) ‘that one’, as we will see in Hour 15§45 when we read Philostratus, also signals the epiphany. 5§40. As for the ‘you’ who is being addressed by the speaker, this ‘you’ is a she. She is the bride. And, just as the bridegroom phainetai ‘appears’ to be īsos theoisin ‘equal [īsos] to the gods’ at line 1 of the song, the bride is figured as a goddess at the same moment in the song. The ritual occasion of a wedding, as formalized in a wedding song, collapses the distinction between ‘bride’ and ‘goddess’. Here I recall what I noted already in Hour 4, where we saw that the word numphē means both ‘bride’ (as in Iliad XVIII 492) and ‘goddess’, that is, ‘nymph’ (as in Iliad XXIV 616). 5§41. And the ‘I’ who is speaking is also a she. She is the lead singer who sings the song, and she is ‘Sappho’. This woman who speaks in the first person here is vicariously speaking for the whole group that is notionally participating in the ritual of the wedding. Such a female 15

112 lead singer is a prima donna, to borrow an Italian term used in the world of opera. And this lead singer, this female speaker, experiences an attraction to both the bridegroom and the bride. Or, we might say that she experiences an attraction to the attraction between the two. The attraction is both esthetic and erotic. It is a totalizing attraction, creating feelings of total connectedness. And this totalizing connectedness activates all the senses of the speaker, who experiences an “erotic meltdown.” 5§42. The feelings come to a climax described as just one moment away from death. Here is the way it is expressed in line 16 of the song: tethnakēn d’oligō ’pideuēs | phainom’ emautāi ‘and a little short of death | do I appear [phainomai] to myself’. The wording here matches what is expressed in line 1 of the song: phainetai moi kēnos īsos theoisin ‘that man appears [phainetai] to me (to be) equal to the gods’. In both line 1 and line 16, what is ‘appearing’ or ‘seeming’ on one level is an epiphany on a deeper level. To translate phainom’ emautāi at line 16 on such a deeper level proves to be difficult: ‘I am manifested to myself in an epiphany’. 5§43. The wording in line 16 of Song 31 of Sappho, however we translate it, expresses the idea that the speaker is personally experiencing an epiphany. She undergoes a fusion with divinity, and this fusion is not only esthetic but also erotic. But I think it would be too simple to say that such an experience is auto-erotic. Rather, as I will argue, it is an experiencing of auto-epiphany. And such an experience is not only erotic. It is also mortally dangerous. 5§44. The epiphany in line 16 of Song 31 induces a near-death experience for the speaker: tethnakēn d’oligō ’pideuēs | phainom’ emautāi ‘and a little short of death | do I appear [phainomai] to myself’. We will now see that this figurative personal death, in the ritualized context of a wedding, is modeled on a realized mythical death. As I will argue, death in myth is a prototype for the vicarious experience of the first-person speaker in her interaction with the second-person bride and with the third-person bridegroom. And such an experience of death can be described as an initiation. As I explained a few minutes ago, the likening of a bridegroom and a bride to a god and a goddess leads to a figurative death in rituals of initiation such as weddings. 5§45. Here I return to Text A and Text B, two passages I showed at the beginning of this hour. Both passages were taken from Iliad XVI, where we saw the logic of myth at work in the words that tell about the death of Patroklos. In Text A, Patroklos is likened indirectly to Apollo (XVI 705); in Text B, he is likened directly to Arēs (XVI 784) and again indirectly to Apollo (XVI 786). This logic is relevant to Text E, Song 31 of Sappho, where the bridegroom and the bride are likened indirectly to Arēs and Aphrodite. In the logic of myth, as we saw in the Iliad, a hero’s identity at the moment of death merges with a god’s identity, and, at that moment, the hero can be likened to a god. In the logic of ritual, as we have just seen Song 31 of Sappho, such

113 a merger of identity leads only to a figurative death, a near-death, as expressed in the words that tell about the near-death experience of the woman who is speaking in the first person.17 5§46. Such a moment, when the bridegroom is the god and the bride is the goddess, is signaled by the epithet īsos theoisin ‘equal [īsos] to the gods’, which is applied to the bridegroom in line 1 of the Song 31. 5§47. We have already seen a similar epithet in Hour 4 when we were reading Song 44 of Sappho. There we saw Andromache and Hector as bride and bridegroom, and the two of them were described as theoeikeloi ‘looking just like the gods’ (line 34). As we saw from the context, the two of them were looking like gods at their wedding, that is, at the ritual moment when they got married to each other. 5§48. In the songs of Sappho, we see also other variations in the merging of human and divine identities. In Song 165, for example, we find the wording phainetai woi kēnos īsos theoisin ‘he appears [phainetai] to her, that one, equal [īsos] to the gods’. In that song, the third-person woi ‘to her’ seems to be referring to the bride, in contrast with the wording we find in line of 1 of Song 31, phainetai moi kēnos īsos theoisin ‘he appears [phainetai] to me, that one, (to be) equal [īsos] to the gods’, where the first-person moi ‘to me’ refers to the speaker, who is ‘Sappho’. In Song 31, the subjectivity is linked to the first-person speaker, who is the vicarious participant; in Song 165, on the other hand, the subjectivity is linked to the third person, who is the immediate participant. There is a shifting of referents that accompanies the shifting of pronouns from ‘I’ to ‘she’.

Song 1 of Sappho 5§49. We are now about to see another shifting of referents, in Song 1 of Sappho. Here the shift is from ‘you’ to ‘I’. In this case, the shift in the ownership of pronouns involves the second-person ‘you’ of the goddess Aphrodite herself and the first-person ‘I’ of Sappho. During an epiphany of Aphrodite, Sappho exchanges identities with the goddess. It is a moment of personal fusion with Aphrodite:

PP 87-97.

114 is it once again this time [dēute] that has happened to me and for what reason |16 once again this time [dēute] do I invoke you, |17 and what is it that I want more than anything to happen |18 to my frenzied heart? “Whom am I once again this time [dēute] to persuade, |19 setting out to bring her to your love? Who is doing you, |20 Sappho, wrong? |21 For if she is fleeing now, soon she will give chase. |22 If she is not taking gifts, soon she will be giving them. |23 If she does not love, soon she will love |24 even against her will.” |25 Come to me even now, and free me from harsh |26 anxieties, and however many things |27 my heart yearns to get done, you do for me. You |28 become my ally in war. Song 1 of Sappho = Prayer to Aphrodite 5§50. As the female speaker of Song 1, the ‘I’ of Sappho is being pictured here as the lead singer of a choral lyric performance. She leads off by praying to Aphrodite to be present, that is, to manifest herself in an epiphany. The goddess is invoked from far away in the sky, which is separated from the earth by the immeasurably vast space of ‘aether’. Aphrodite is implored to fill the aching need caused by the sorrows of love. And, now that she is invoked, despite the overwhelming sense of separation between the divine and the human, Aphrodite makes her presence felt in a sudden flash, in one single divine moment. So the goddess appears, that is, she is now present in the sacred space of performance, and her presence becomes an epiphany for all those who are present. Then, once Aphrodite is present, she exchanges roles with the prima donna who figures as the leader of choral performance. In the part of Song 1 that we see enclosed within quotation marks in the visual formatting of modern editions (lines 18-24), the first-person ‘I’ of Sappho is now replaced by Aphrodite herself, who has been a second-person ‘you’ up to this point. We see here an exchange of roles between the first-person ‘I’ and the second-person ‘you’. The first-person ‘I’ now becomes Aphrodite, who proceeds to speak in the performing voice of Sappho to Sappho herself, who has now become the second-person ‘you’. During Aphrodite’s epiphany inside the sacred space of the people of Lesbos, a fusion of identities takes place between the goddess and the prima donna who leads the choral performance tuide ‘here’ (line 5), that is, in this sacred space.18 5§51. The exchange between the ‘I’ and the ‘you’ of Sappho and Aphrodite in Song 1 of Sappho is reflected also in the wording of Song 159 of Sappho, where Aphrodite is imagined once again as speaking to Sappho and addressing her by name. Moreover, in Song 134 of Sappho, the speaker says she is dreaming she has a dialogue (dialegesthai) with Aphrodite. 5§52. Back in Song 1, Sappho prayed to Aphrodite to give her the power that the goddess has, the power to make love happen. She prayed that she may ‘get done’ whatever it is that Aphrodite ‘gets done’ in the active voice of the verb meaning ‘to get something done’, telessai (line 26), which is to be contrasted with the passive voice telesthēn applying to a passive lover who simply lets love happen (as in Sappho Song 5 line 4, not cited here). To be granted 18

PP 97-103.

115 that power is to be the lead singer of the song that has the power to make love happen. Such is the power of song in the songs of Sappho. Such is the power of the prayer that is powered by Song 1 of Sappho. 5§53. Earlier in this hour, I took time out to study the historical context of the myths and rituals of the people of Lesbos in the era of Sappho. I concentrated on the sacred space of their federal precinct, where the festival of the Kallisteia was celebrated in choral performances by the women of Lesbos. In Song 1, of Sappho, we can now see a reference to this sacred space, which had been called Messon to indicate a political ‘middle ground’. The reference is indicated simply by the deictic adverb tuide ‘here’ (line 5). 5§54. Song 1 of Sappho can be seen as a prayer in the sense of a totalizing formula for authorizing choral performances of women at the festival of the Kallisteia. The seasonal recurrences of the festival are signaled by the triple deployment of the adverb dē’ute ‘once again this time’ in Sappho’s prayer (lines 15, 16, 18). Every time in the past when Sappho has invoked Aphrodite by offering to her this prayer that we now hear, the goddess has heeded the prayer and has manifested herself in an ever-new epiphany. And now, once again this time, the goddess appears to Sappho, who will once again this time speak for the whole chorus as she speaks first for herself and then for Aphrodite and then once again this time for herself. 5§55. In the postclassical era of literary critics like Menander the Rhetorician (3.333334; Sappho Source 47), the description of compositions like Song 1 of Sappho as prayers fails to capture the meaning of an act of prayer in the context of a choral performance. The modern mind, seizing on current understandings of the word prayer, is quick to infer that the “prayers” of Sappho must be mere literary conceits. This is to ignore the dimension of performance, which complements the dimension of composition in the lyric singing that we see in this early period of ancient Greek song culture. It is also to ignore the ritual background of such performance, which complements the mythological background of the composition.19 5§56. What appears to be a private “prayer” uttered by Sappho is at the same time a public act of worship that is notionally sung and danced by the people of Lesbos as represented by a chorus of their women, legendary as they are for their beauty, and as led by the figure of Sappho as their prima donna. What appears to be the most deeply personal experience of Sappho is at the same time the most widely shared communal experience of the people of Lesbos. [[For those who may enjoy seeing coincidental parallels in American popular culture, here is an example. I cite here the lyrics of Madonna’s 1989 song, “Like a Prayer”:

See Yatromanolakis 2003.

The ritual background of Song 1 of Sappho 5§57. I now propose to go into more detail about the identification of the speaker with the goddess Aphrodite in Song 1 of Sappho. This identification happens, as we saw, within a lapse of time that we moderns indicate by way of quotation marks, starting with ‘Whom am I once again this time…’ and ending with ‘… soon she will love | even against her will’. Within this lapse of time, the ‘I’ of Sappho becomes the ‘I’ of Aphrodite, while the ‘you’ of Aphrodite becomes the ‘you’ of Sappho. So the lead singer of Song 1, who is the prima donna of the song, becomes a goddess during this lapse of time. And the lead singer here is not only a prima donna. She is a diva, to borrow another Italian term used in the world of opera. To say it in English, the lead singer is now a goddess. 5§58. And what exactly is the moment when the lead singer becomes a goddess? This moment recurs every time the song is sung once again, as at a ritual that marks either a girl’s coming of age or her wedding. Essential for understanding this concept of recurrence in Song 1 of Sappho is the concept of repetition in ritual, as expressed by the adverb d’ēute ‘once again’ (lines 15, 16, 18). I signal here the formulation of Kierkegaard (Repetition, 1843): “The dialectic of repetition is easy, for that which is repeated has been - otherwise it could not be repeated but the very fact that it has been makes the repetition into something new.”21 Similarly for us modern readers, every time we look back at this passage, there will be something new for us to see.

The Maiden Song of Alcman 5§59. Here is another ancient Greek example of a song performed at a seasonally recurring festival. Once more we will see the ritual practice of equating the prima donna - or we can also say prima ballerina - with a goddess. This time, the equation happens at a “coming out” ritual that marks a coming of age from girlhood to womanhood:

20 21

I note especially the “choral” context of the word choir here. Kierkegaard 1983 [1843]149. See PP 101-103; also 52.

117

Hour 5 Text G And I sing the radiance of Agido, as I look upon her like the sun, which Agido summons to shine as witness. But for me to praise her or blame her is not possible, as the illustrious khorēgos [Hagesikhora] does not allow me. For that one [Hagesikhora] appears radiantly outstanding, as when someone sets among grazing beasts a horse, well-built, a prizewinner, with thundering hooves, from out of those dreams underneath the rock. From the Partheneion ‘Maiden Song’ of Alcman, lines 39-49 5§60. Here is a thesis paragraph that is meant to encapsulate the argumentation in the exegesis that follows: The words in this passage indicate a ritual of female initiation in the public space of Sparta, where the entire male and female population is experiencing contact with the divine. The climactic moment in this ritual is marked by an epiphany, as marked by the words that I translate ‘appears radiantly’. Now I proceed to the exegesis. 5§61. This song, conventionally known as the Partheneion, the ‘Maiden Song’, was reputedly composed by a legendary poet named Alcman for performance at a seasonally recurring grand public festival in Sparta.22 Year after year, local maidens were specially selected for the occasion of singing and dancing this song in the public space of Sparta, and we have already seen that the word for such singing and dancing was khoros ‘chorus, song-anddance ensemble’. As the girls sang and danced the song, they took on the roles of the names featured in the song. Two names stand out, referring to the two premier roles in the singing and dancing. These names are Hagesikhora and Agido, referring in the song to two competing chorus leaders of what I infer must be two competing choruses.23 5§62. I note the use of the word khorēgos ‘chorus-leader’ in the song, referring to the girl called Hagesikhora, one of the two chorus leaders. The name Hagesikhora means the same thing as khorēgos. As for the other girl, called Agido, the words of the song identify her with the sun itself, but then, right after this declaration, the girl called Hagesikhora is said to match Agido in her own solar radiance. In modern terms, such descriptions as prima donna or prima ballerina surely apply to both girls. 5§63. So the girls who figure as the center of attention in the choral performance of this Song of Maidens by Alcman are being identified with the divine force of the sun itself, just as

PP 53-54. PP 57, 89, 92. I also infer that these two competing choruses are representatives of the two royal houses of Sparta. 23

118 the girl who is getting married in Song 31 of Sappho is identified with the divinity of love and sexuality, Aphrodite. 5§64. So far, as I have been talking about Song 31 of Sappho, I have not yet said that the goddess who are identified with the bride must be Aphrodite herself. But now, on the basis of the comparisons we can make with the Maiden Song of Alcman, the identification of the bride with the goddess Aphrodite in Song 31 of Sappho has become evident. And it follows that the bridegroom in this same song is identified with the god Arēs.

A typological comparison of initiation rituals 5§65. Such identification with divinities, as I noted earlier, is well attested in the initiation rituals of a wide variety of societies around the world. In my research, I have studied as a point of typological comparison the Navajo and Apache rituals of girls’ initiation into puberty.24 Such initiation rituals are customarily performed by and in honor of a young female member of the community at a point in her life when she begins to menstruate. The medium for performance is singing as well as dancing. 5§66. The focal point of these Navajo and Apache rituals of female initiation is the goddess “Changing Woman.” More literally, her name means “the woman who is transformed time and again.” In the here and now of the Changing Woman ritual, the songs are thought to have the power of re-enacting the prototypical event. [[In “live” meetings, I show at this point a clip from a video recording the climax of an Apache Changing Woman ritual.]] 5§67. In the case of the Navajo rituals, the localization of the family building known as the hogan becomes sacred space, where the distinctions between the details of myth and the details of ritual can merge in the minds of those who participate in the ritual.25 Within the sacred space, the young girl to be initiated becomes identified with the goddess Changing Woman. We may also say: the girl identifies with the goddess. [[Here I point to a relevant detail in the clip from the video showing the Changing Woman ritual of the Apache. I notice that the father of the girl being initiated says in the voiceover he made for the video that his daughter is “portraying” a goddess while she dances and notionally sings at the same time. In other words, the girl “seems” like a goddess. The father says this in the English-speaking part of his voiceover. But then he follows up by saying something different in the Apache language: now he says that his daughter at that moment is in fact the goddess. In the world of non-ritual, by contrast, it is simply a matter of seeming like a goddess.]] 24 25

PP ch. 4. In Hour 2, I gave a working definition of the term typological comparison. PP 88.

119 5§68. After a pronouncement of blessings in the Navajo ritual that I have been analyzing, the girl initiand goes out of the hogan and runs a race with other young people who are participants in her initiation, and it is ritually prescribed that she must take the lead in the race. We can find a comparable detail in the ancient Greek ritual as enacted in the Maiden Song of Alcman. In this ritual as well, there was some sort of ritualized race, as we see from the words of the song referring to the running of the two girls Hagesikhora and Agido in competition the other girls and with each other (lines 58-59). 5§69. In the Navajo ritual, the prescribed course of the race to be run by the girl initiand is symbolic of the course of the sun. It has been observed that “the race is, in effect, her pursuit of the sun.”26 In the myth of Changing Woman, which is correlated with the ritualized race of the girl initiand, the goddess actually mates with the Sun, who is envisioned as a male divinity; at the moment of intercourse, the Sun takes on the form of a handsome young man.27 As we will see later, there is a comparable theme in Song 58 of Sappho (lines 2526), where the female speaker declares her powerful attraction to the divine power of the shining sun. 5§70. In the Talking God type of hogan songs in Navajo ritual, the goddess is conventionally described as moving towards the ritually decorated family hogan and then signaling her arrival. As she arrives, the references that are made to the goddess in the song shift from the third to the first person, so that the goddess herself, represented in the words of the singer, now speaks as an “I.” It seems that the “I” stands for a composite of the girl initiand and of Changing Woman herself, though the actual performer is the chief singer, not the girl. A phrase continually repeated in Talking God Hogan Song 25 goes like this: “With my sacred power, I am traveling.” 5§71. This ritual picturing of a traveling goddess whose climactic epiphany in the here and now signals a shift from speaking about her in the third person to speaking for her in the first person is comparable to the ritual picturing of the goddess Aphrodite as she travels from her celestial realm on high all the way down to the sacred space where Song 1 of Sappho is being performed. In this ancient Greek song, as we have already seen, we see a shift that is comparable to the shift we just saw in the Navajo ritual: in the Greek song, the main performer or prima donna shifts from speaking to Aphrodite in the second person to speaking for her in the first person, so that Sappho as Aphrodite may now speak directly to Sappho as Sappho herself (starting at line 18 and lasting through line 24). 5§72. Here I conclude my comparative analysis of the ritual practice of equating a prima donna or prima ballerina with the divine in the Maiden Song of Alcman, where a 26 27

The sources are documented in PP 89-90. PP 90.

120 beautiful girl named Agido, who is a prima donna of the choral performance, ‘summons’ the sun to shine. By now we can see what is meant: the girl literally makes the sun shine. The song identifies the girl Agido with the sun.

Song 16 of Sappho 5§73. In this song as well, we see an identification of the prima donna or prima ballerina with the sun:

Hour 5 Text H |1 Some say a massing of chariots and their drivers, some say of footsoldiers, |2 some say of ships, if you think of everything that exists on the surface of this black earth, |3 is the most beautiful thing of them all. But I say it is that one thing |4 that anyone passionately loves [erātai].28 |5 It’s really quite easy to make this understandable |6 to everyone, this thing. You see, that woman who was by far supreme |7 in beauty among all humans, Helen, |8 she […] her best of all husbands, |9 him she left behind and sailed to Troy, |10 caring not about her daughter and her dear parents, |11 not caring at all. She was swept along […] |15 [All this] reminds me right now of Anaktoria. |16 She is [not] here.29 |17 Oh, how I would far rather wish to see her taking a dancing step that arouses passionate love [= eraton], |18 and to see the luminous radiance from the look of her face |19 than to see those chariots of the Lydians and the footsoldiers in their armor |20 as they fight in battle […]. Song 16 of Sappho30 5§74. This song captures what could be described as Sappho’s own personal ascending scale of affection. In the first stanza, consisting of four lines, there are three things to compare with ‘that most beautiful thing’ that anyone ‘passionately loves’, erātai. But each one of these three things pales in comparison to whatever ‘that one most beautiful thing’ may be. And what is ‘that thing’? It is elusive. From the start, the speaker has been speaking about ‘that thing’.

121 But then, the next thing you know, she starts saying ‘this thing’ instead of ‘that thing’ and, as she goes on to say, it is quite easy, really, to explain ‘this thing’. 5§75. The three things that pale in comparison to that one thing that is so passionately desired are three radiant visions of beauty. The first of these visions is the dazzling sight of magnificent chariot-fighters in their luminous war-chariots as they are massing for frontal assault against their terrified enemy; the second vision is an army of footsoldiers fighting on the battlefield; and the third vision is a fleet of battleships proudly sailing at sea. But none of these three radiant visions of beauty can match that ultimate brightness radiating from the speaker’s love object, that unique thing of passionate love, who is a beautiful diva called Anaktoria. The song now shows Anaktoria in an exquisite moment of singing and dancing in a chorus, and the words of the song point to her lovely step as she dances, a step that is eraton or ‘arousing passionate love’. 5§76. And then there is ‘the luminous radiance from the look of her face’ (k’amarukhma lampron idēn prosōpō line 18). This luminous vision of Anaktoria, the song is saying, cannot be surpassed by anything in the whole wide world. And the radiance of Anaktoria is now directly compared with the radiance of the luminous chariots and the two other luminous foils in the first stanza (lines 1-2). 5§77. The first stanza of this song is a striking example of a priamel, which is a rhetorical device where “A” is highlighted by saying that “B” and “C” and “D” and so on cannot match it. The sequence has to be ... D C B and finally A. Here is a typological example we can find in American popular music... Some say love, it is a river, that drowns the tender weed, Some say love, it is a razor, that leaves the soul to bleed, Some say love, it is a hunger - an endless aching need, I say love, it is a flower - and you, its only seed. [[In “live” meetings, I show at this point a clip featuring a song “The Rose” sung by Bette Midler in the film by the same name, The Rose (1979).]]

Another song of Sappho 5§78. In an article I published about another song of Sappho (I refer to the relevant fragment as Π2), I offer this translation of the last line of the song:31

Hour 5 Text I Passionate love [erōs] for the Sun has won for me its radiance and beauty.32 31

Nagy 2010a:189.

122 Sappho Π2 26 In terms of an alternative interpretation, the translation could be ... Passionate love [erōs] has won for me the radiance and beauty of the Sun. I prefer the first of these two interpretations, which makes the Sun the objective genitive of erōs ‘passionate love’.

Back to Song 16 of Sappho 5§79. Such a genitive construction, if my interpretation holds, is parallel to the phrase ot|tō tis erātai ‘whatever one loves passionately’ in the first stanza of Song 16 of Sappho. This ‘whatever’ (lines 3-4) is described as kalliston ‘the most beautiful thing’ in the whole wide world (line 3). 5§80. In Song 16, no vision of beauty can match that ultimate brightness radiating from the speaker’s love-object, who is a beautiful diva called Anaktoria. The song focuses on the divine moment when Anaktoria sings and dances in the chorus, and the wording creates a sublime vision of her beauty. In this vision, the beautiful Anaktoria who is imagined in the wording can now come to life, and I have already highlighted the wording that shows ‘her dancing step that arouses passionate love and the luminous radiance from the look of her face’ (eraton te bāma | k’amarukhma lampron idēn prosōpō lines 17-18). This vision cannot be surpassed by anything else in the whole wide world. 5§81. In the logic of Sappho’s poetic cosmos, nothing can surpass the radiance of the sun. So the all-surpassing radiance of ‘whatever’ it is that the speaker says she loves more than anything else on this earth - which is the vision of the singing and dancing Anaktoria - must be the same thing as the sun.

Back to Song 31 of Sappho 5§82. By now we have surveyed a wide variety of songs that feature divine models in ritual contexts like weddings. Applying what we have learned from these songs about the phenomenon that I have been calling epiphany, I will now re-examine Song 31 of Sappho. But first I will summarize in the next two paragraphs what I have already argued: In Song 31, the erotic experience shared by the ‘he’ who is the bridegroom and by the ‘you’ who is the bride is communalized in the reaction of the ‘I’ who figures as the vicarious participant in the experience. And this reaction is an epiphany in and of itself. The subjective feelings in this moment of epiphany are linked to the first-person speaker who is Sappho. When we hear phainetai moi kēnos īsos theoisin ‘he appears [phainetai] to me, 32

See also GM 261-262; PH 285 = 10§18; PP 90, 102-103.

123 that one, (to be) equal [īsos] to the gods’ at line 1, it is the first-person speaker who is feeling the erotic sensations experienced by the bride in the second-person and by the bridegroom in the third person. At the climax of the erotic experience as spoken by the first-person speaker, she says about her feelings: tethnakēn d’oligō ’pideuēs | phainom’ emautāi ‘and a little short of death | do I appear [phainomai] to myself’, at line 16. The verb phainomai ‘I appear’ here signals again an epiphany - an epiphany that manifests itself to the self, to the speaking ‘I’. 5§83. This appearance of the self to the self, as an epiphany, signals the divine presence of Aphrodite. I waited till now to say this about Song 31, after having compared other songs that signal the presence of Aphrodite. 5§84. In one sense, what is shown in Song 31 is the epiphany of Aphrodite, since she is a most appropriate goddess for the occasion of a wedding. In another sense, however, what is shown in Song 31 is the epiphany of the bride, whose identity fuses with that of Aphrodite at the moment of her wedding. And, in still another sense, what is shown in Song 31 is the epiphany of the speaking ‘I’ who identifies with Aphrodite by virtue of vicariously identifying with the ‘you’ of the bride who is Aphrodite at this very moment. For Sappho, then, as I have been arguing, what is seen is an auto-epiphany. 5§85. Just as the vicariousness of Sappho in Song 31 fuses the ‘I’ who is the singer with the ‘you’ who is the bride, so also the ‘I’ of Sappho in Song 1 fuses the ‘I’ who is the singer with the ‘you’ who is Aphrodite. 5§86. In Song 31 of Sappho, the projection of identity that we see going on in this song makes it possible for the singer of the song to become the bride herself and even Aphrodite herself, at least for a moment, just as the singer of Song 1 of Sappho becomes Aphrodite herself for the brief moment when Aphrodite is being quoted by the singer. In the logic of Song 31, seeing Sappho as Aphrodite for a moment is just as real as seeing the bride as Aphrodite and just as real as seeing the bridegroom as Arēs. 5§87. Then, when the song come to an end, everyone can revert to their human selves though they may have been upgraded in human status because they had been part of the song. I find it relevant to compare the words of T. S. Eliot (The Dry Salvages, 1941), “you are the music | While the music lasts.”33

Epiphany and death 5§88. As we have seen, the epiphany in Song 31 of Sappho induces a near-death experience for the first-person speaker: tethnakēn d’oligō ’pideuēs | phainom’ emautāi ‘and a little short of death | do I appear [phainomai] to myself’, at line 16. And such a figurative personal 33

Eliot 1941 [1963]:199.

124 death is modeled on a realized mythical death. As I have argued, death in myth is a prototype for the vicarious ritual experience of the first-person speaker in her interaction with the second-person bride and with the third-person bridegroom, who are respectively the vision of Aphrodite and the corresponding vision of Arēs.34 5§89. Here I note again the fact that the generic bridegroom is visualized as īsos Areui ‘equal to Arēs’ in another song of Sappho (Song 111 line 5). And the bridegroom who gets married in lyric is comparable to the warrior who gets killed in epic. As we have seen from the climactic passage I quoted in Text B from Iliad XVI, where the warrior hero Patroklos is killed in battle, that hero is visualized at that moment as atalantos Arēi ‘equal to Arēs’ (line 784). And Patroklos in such a context is a stand-in for Achilles. So, just as Patroklos as a stand-in for Achilles qualifies as ‘equal to Arēs’, we can expect Achilles himself to qualify for epithets meaning ‘equal to Arēs’. What is vital here for my argument is the fact that a bridegroom can be visualized not only as īsos Arēi ‘equal to Arēs’ but even as Achilles himself in the songs of Sappho. 5§90. The figure of Patroklos as a ritual stand-in for Achilles in the Iliad helps us understand what has been up to now a missing link in the picturing of the bridegroom in Song 31 of Sappho. Patroklos as the stand-in for Achilles in epic prefigures Achilles at the moment of his own death in epic, when he, too, like the model bridegroom in lyric, is destined to be ‘equal to Arēs’. 5§91. As we saw in Hour 4 Text E, the generic bridegroom was conventionally visualized as Achilles himself in the songs of Sappho (Himerius Orations 1.16). Such a lyric convention in the songs of Sappho can be explained as an organic correlation of myth and ritual. In the logic of myth, Achilles never becomes a model husband because War personified, Arēs, cuts him down like a beautiful plant in full bloom. In the logic of ritual, on the other hand, Achilles is the perfect model for a bridegroom precisely because he is cut down in war and thus cannot ever became a husband. For love to find its self-expression in the ritual of a wedding, it needs someone to die for love.35 5§92. Such a ritual need is expressed in the relationship of Erōs, personified as the god of erotic love, with Aphrodite, the goddess of erotic love. In another song of Sappho, we find an imagined dialogue between Sappho and Aphrodite where the goddess says in her own words that Erōs is her therapōn (Sappho Song 159). As we will see in Hour 6, this word means not only ‘attendant’ but also ‘ritual substitute’, that is, someone who ritually dies for the sake of the one he attends. Pictured as a pubescent (not prepubescent) boy, Erōs is doomed to die for the sake of Aphrodite. In the poetics of Sappho, as later ancient sources tell us (Sappho Fragment 172), 34

A longer version of what I argue here is presented in Nagy 2007a (“Lyric and Greek Myth”) 31-36. 35 Nagy 2007a (“Lyric and Greek Myth”) 31-32.

125 the death of erotic Love personified is a most persistent theme. That is only natural, since Erōs is a non-Olympian god. Whereas Olympian gods are exempt from death, death comes naturally for divine non-Olympians. The consolation, at least, for the death of Erōs is that he is easily resurrected. It could be said that the resurrection of Erōs is as easy as the revival of lust.

Erōs and Arēs 5§93. The death of Erōs could be pictured as a martial death resulting from the warfare of love. We see clearly the language of love as war in Song 1 of Sappho, where the goddess Aphrodite is invoked in prayer to become a summakhos ‘ally in war’ (line 28) for Sappho in speaking the words of lyric love song. Conversely, Sappho as the speaker of a lyric love song is offering herself as an ‘ally in war’ for Aphrodite, thus crossing over into the themes of epic. So we see here that love and war can be estheticized and eroticized together. Similarly in the Iliad, Aphrodite crosses over into the themes of epic by intervening in the epic action - and she gets wounded in doing so, as if she were a mortal (V 327-354).36 Such a pairing of love and war, as we will now see, is reflected in the parallels we find between Aphrodite and Arēs. So we next turn to Arēs, god of war and lover of Aphrodite. 5§94. Parallel to the wounding of the goddess Aphrodite are the two woundings of the god Arēs in the Iliad: he too gets wounded as if he were a mortal (V 855-863, XXI 401-408). More than that, the woundings of Arēs are in both cases described as mortal woundings, and the Iliad actually shows Arēs in the act of going through the motions of a figurative martial death. Such an epic experience is for Arēs a mock death.37 It must be a mock death and not a real death, because Arēs is an Olympian god, and Olympian gods do not die. Such ritualized mockery is typical of “divine burlesque,” which represents one of the oldest features of Greek myth. There are striking parallels to be found in Near Eastern sources dating back to the second millennium BCE.38

Arēs as a model for Achilles 5§95. The figurative death of the god Arēs in the Iliad is an extreme case of divine mirroring: the immortal god of war gets involved not only in the martial actions of heroes but even in their martial deaths. And he gets so involved because god and hero mirror each other at the moment of a hero’s death, which is the climax of the inherent antagonism between them.39 At the moment when he dies a warrior’s death in place of Achilles, Patroklos is

Nagy 2007a (“Lyric and Greek Myth”) 32. The paragraphs that follow are taken from this same essay. 37 EH §76. 38 Burkert 1960:132. 39 EH §§105, 108, 110, 115.

126 vicariously experiencing such a moment of mirroring between Achilles as warrior and Arēs as god of warriors: that is why Patroklos looks just like Arēs at that moment (Iliad XVI 784).40 5§96. As mutual antagonists, the hero Achilles and the god Arēs match each other in life as well as in death. In the case of Achilles, as we see from surviving traces in the epic Cycle, this hero was pictured as an irresistible lover in the imaginations of lovelorn girls hoping to make him their husband.41 In the case of Arēs, as we see when we read the second song of Demodokos in the Homeric Odyssey, this god is imagined as an irresistible lover for the goddess of love and sexuality herself, Aphrodite (viii 266-366). 5§97. Among other related characteristics shared by the hero Achilles and the god Arēs is their superhuman speed, as expressed by words like theein ‘run’.42 Also, in the case of Achilles, his success in war is closely connected with the use of epithets like podas ōkus ‘swift of foot’, as at Iliad I 58. In the case of Arēs, his own swiftness of foot is pictured as ideal for success in courtship as well as in warfare: in the second of three songs that the singer Demodokos sings in Odyssey viii, which is about the love affair of Arēs and Aphrodite, we find that one of the war god’s most irresistible attributes is his nimbleness of foot in choral lyric dancing.43 And yet, despite his irresistible attractiveness in courting Aphrodite, the dashing young Arēs will never marry. Like the dashing young Achilles, Arēs is eternally the bridegroom and never the husband.

Achilles the eternal bridegroom 5§98. I return once again to Hour 4 Text E, where we learned that the generic bridegroom is visualized as Achilles himself in the songmaking of Sappho (Fragment 105b, as reported by Himerius Orations 1.16). This visualization is relevant to what we saw in Hour 4 Text F, where the generic bridegroom is pictured as a tender seedling in a song of Sappho (Song 115). And it is relevant also to Hour 4 Text G, where the goddess Thetis in lamenting her son Achilles pictures him as a tender seedling that is doomed to be cut down in war (Iliad XVIII 56-59).44 5§99. Just as the generic bridegroom in the songs of Sappho can be visualized as the hero Achilles, so also the generic bride can be visualized as a heroine.45 In Aeolic traditions, such heroines figured in myths about the conquests of Achilles - not only martial but also amorous conquests - in the years that preceded the destruction of Troy. These myths told of 40

Nagy The Best of the Achaeans (1999) 2§8, 17§5 EH §56. 42 I have collected some striking examples in BA 326-328 = 20§§9-10. 43 HPC 90 = I§214. 44 I disagree with the formulation of Dale 2011:53n22: “She is hardly comparing the best of the Achaeans to a twig.” 45 In what follows, I recapitulate what I argue in Nagy 2007a (“Lyric and Greek Myth”). 41

127 beautiful Aeolic girls of Asia Minor and the outlying island of Lesbos who had once been immune to love and thus unreachable to their frustrated suitors. But then they fall helplessly in love with Achilles - that dashing young Aeolic hero who had sailed across the sea from his home in European Thessaly to attack the Aeolic people of Asia Minor and Lesbos.46 5§100. Comparable to these once-unreachable Aeolic girls is a prize apple, unreachable to the apple-pickers, which ‘blushes’ enticingly from the heights of a “shooter-branch” in a song of Sappho:

Hour 5 Text J Just like the sweet apple that blushes on top of a branch, | the topmost apple on the topmost branch. It has eluded the notice of the apple pickers. | Oh, but no. It’s not that they haven’t noticed it. They just couldn’t reach it.47 Sappho Fragment 105a48 [[In “live” meetings for Hour 5, I show a photograph of apples ripening on a tree. The apples pictured in this photograph (taken by William M. Todd) are a local variety that is native to the island of Lesbos and to the mainland across the strait. They are yellow when they ripen, showing only a ‘blush’ of red.49]] 5§101. And the brides of Sappho’s songs are conventionally compared to apples:

Hour 5 Text K = Hour 4 Text E Himerius (Orations 1.16) reports: ‘Sappho compared the girl to an apple […] she compared the bridegroom to Achilles, and likened the young man’s deeds to the hero’s.’ Sappho Fragment 105b 5§102. Like Sappho’s prize apple, these contemporary brides are imagined as unreachable. But they are unreachable only up to the moment when they take the place of Aeolic heroines who had once upon a time fallen in love with Achilles, that model bridegroom. These Aeolic girls of the heroic past are imagined as throwing themselves at Achilles. That is, they throw a metonymic extension of themselves at Achilles by throwing an apple at him: such a theme is attested in the bittersweet story of a lovelorn girl from the Aeolic city of Pedasos (Hesiod Fragment 214).50 In the logic of myth, the love felt by such heroines is doomed from 46

HPC = 149, 250-251 = II§§49, 321. On the ancient textual source where we find the quotation of this fragment, see Dale 2011:64. 48 οἶον τὸ γλυκύμαλον ἐρεύθεται ἄκρωι ἐπ’ ὔσδωι, | ἄκρον ἐπ’ ἀκροτάτωι, λελάθοντο δὲ μαλοδρόπηες, | οὐ μὰν ἐκλελάθοντ’, ἀλλ’ οὐκ ἐδύναντ’ ἐπίκεσθαι. 49 On the cultivation of apples in ancient and modern Lesbos, see Mason 2004. 50 BA 141 = 7§29n6 47

128 the start, and, in the end, they die for their love. In the logic of ritual, however, that same love promises to be requited. Such is the love expressed by girls pictured in the act of throwing apples at their prospective lovers in the songs of Sappho (Song 214A). A moment ago, I described such a ritual throwing of apples as a metonymic extension of the female self, using the term metonymic in line with the working definition I offered in Hour 4§32: metonymy is an expression of meaning by way of connecting something to something else that is next to that something or at least near to it, thereby establishing contact.

Briseis as a stand-in for Aphrodite 5§103. As I have argued, Achilles in his role as the model bridegroom was imagined as a stand-in for the god Arēs in the songs of Sappho.51 And, just as the Aeolic hero Achilles can stand in for the god Arēs at moments that center on the ritual of a wedding, so also various Aeolic heroines can stand in for a goddess, who is none other than Aphrodite, goddess of love and sexuality. A case in point is the captive woman Briseis in the Iliad. As I noted already in Hour 4, Briseis is overtly associated with the Aeolic women of Lesbos whom Achilles captured as beauty-prizes in the years that preceded the destruction of Troy (Iliad IX 128-131, 270-273; XIX 245-246). And the point is, Briseis is likened to Aphrodite in a most telling context:

Hour 5 Text L = Hour 4 Text J |282 Then Briseis, looking like golden Aphrodite, |283 saw Patroklos all cut apart by the sharp bronze, and, when she saw him, |284 she poured herself all over him in tears and wailed with a voice most shrill, and with her hands she tore at |285 her breasts and her tender neck and her beautiful face. |286 And then she spoke, weeping, this woman who looked like the goddesses: |287 “O Patroklos, you have been most gracious to me in my terrible state and most gratifying to my heart. |288 You were alive when I last saw you on my way out from the shelter |289 - and now I come back to find you dead, you, the protector of your people |290 that is what I come back to find. Oh, how I have one misfortune after the next to welcome me. |291 The man to whom I was given away by my father and by my mother the queen |292 - I saw that man lying there in front of the city, all cut apart by the sharp bronze, |293 and lying near him were my three brothers - all of us were born of one mother - |294 they are all a cause for my sorrow, since they have all met up with their time of destruction. |295 No, you did not let me - back when my husband was killed by swift-footed Achilles, |296 killed by him, and when the city of my godlike Mynes [= my husband] was destroyed by him |297 - you did not let me weep, back then, but you told me that godlike Achilles |298 would have me as a properly courted wife, that you would make that happen, and that you would take me on board the ships, |299 taking me all the way to Phthia, and that you would arrange for a wedding feast among the Myrmidons. |300 So now I cannot stop crying for you, now that you are dead, you who were always so sweet and gentle.” |301 So she [= Briseis] spoke, weeping, 51

More detailed argumentation in Nagy 2007a (“Lyric and Greek Myth”) 28-37.

129 and the women kept on mourning in response. |302 They mourned for Patroklos, that was their pretext, but they were all mourning, each and every one of them, for what they really cared for in their sorrow. Iliad XIX 282-302 5§104. Most remarkably, Briseis is likened to the goddess Aphrodite here in Iliad XIX 282 in the context of her beginning to lament for Patroklos, who had been likened to the god Arēs at the moment of his death in Iliad XVI 784. 5§105. The epic has quoted, as it were, Briseis in the act of singing a choral lyric song of lament for the death of Patroklos (XIX 287-300), and this quotation of Briseis, along with the framing narrative concerning the antiphonal response of the women attending Briseis (XIX 301-302), re-enacts most accurately the morphology of a genuine choral lyric lament.52 5§106. In her lament, Briseis sings her bittersweet sorrow not only over the death of Patroklos but also over the death of her own fondest hope: when he was alive, Patroklos had promised to arrange for her a marriage to Achilles, but, now that Patroklos is dead, the hope of that promise is gone forever (XIX 295-300). So the Iliad pictures Patroklos as a stand-in for Achilles in courtship as well as in war.53 Just as Achilles is featured as an eternal bridegroom who never gets married, so also Patroklos himself becomes such an eternal bridegroom by virtue of being a stand-in for Achilles. I will have much more to say in Hour 6 about Patroklos as a ritual stand-in for Achilles.

The merging of identity in myth and ritual 5§107. In the ritual of a wedding as celebrated by the songs of Sappho, there is the prospect of a happy ending as the identity of the bride shifts from girl to goddess to woman. In the process of becoming a goddess for a moment, the bride dies to her old self as a girl and is reborn to her new self as a woman. In the corresponding myth, by contrast, there is the prospect of a sad but compellingly erotic ending to the story. The bride-to-be will never get married to the ideal bridegroom, imagined as Achilles. And that is because this most eligible bridegroom will die in war and will never be married. 5§108. The death of Achilles in war is the climax of his erotic charisma. In general, the martial death of heroes is eroticized as the beautiful death, la belle mort. Even the body of the dead hero is eroticized - as the beautiful corpse, le beau mort (a most striking example is Poem 10 of Tyrtaeus).54 Achilles himself is pictured as such a beau mort in Homeric poetry. A case in point is the moment when the goddess Thetis and her fellow Nereids lament the future death 52

Dué 2002:70-71; HPC 242-350 = II§§303-320. Nagy 2007a (“Lyric and Greek Myth”) 32-34. 54 HC 578-587 = 4§§259-270; HPC 296 = II§425. 53

130 of her beloved son in war: at that moment, as we have seen in Iliad XVIII 54-60, quoted in Hour 4 Text G, the hero Achilles is compared to a beautiful seedling that dies prematurely while it is still in full bloom.55 And in Song 105c of Sappho, as we have already noted, we can see a comparable image of a beautiful plant at the moment of death; also comparable is the image of a bridegroom as a beautiful plant in Sappho’s Song 115. 5§109. Such themes of eroticized death are relevant to the near-death experience of the speaking ‘I’ in Song 31 of Sappho. The woman who speaks in the first person here is vicariously speaking for the whole group that attends the wedding. The whole group is notionally participating in the stylized deaths of the male and the female initiands - in this case, of the bridegroom and the bride.

Distinctions between real death and figurative death in lyric 5§110. The stylized death of the bridegroom in a wedding as described by Sappho matches the realized death of Achilles in war. Premarital death in ritual marks the transition from bridegroom to husband, while martial death in myth marks an eternal deferral of such a transition. By dying in war, Achilles becomes the very picture of the ultimate bridegroom in eternally suspended animation, forever on the verge of marrying. In the logic of ritual, what is needed for female initiands, especially for brides, is such an eternal bridegroom.56 5§111. As we will see in Hour 20 Text A, a comparable model of unfulfilled desire and unrequited love is the hero Hippolytus in the Hippolytus of Euripides: at the end of that drama (1423-1430), we will read an anthropologically accurate description of a ritual of female initiation featuring a chorus of girls performing a lament for the death of Hippolytus as their local cult hero.57 As the drama of Euripides will illustrate, the identity of the female initiand depends on the program, as it were, of the ritual of initiation. The nuptial goddess Aphrodite and the prenuptial as well as postnuptial goddess Artemis reveal, as a pair, different phases of erotic engagement in the life cycle of a woman, determining when she is attainable - and when she is unattainable.58 5§112. So far, then, we have seen this symmetry: (1) figurative death in the ritual of a wedding (2) real death in the ritual of warfare. And this symmetry is parallel to the symmetry of kleos aphthiton ‘unwilting glory’ in epic and lyric, since this expression applies not only to the epic theme of a hero’s death in war, as in the 55

BA 182-184 = 10§11. Dué 2006:82-83. 57 PP 94-96. 58 Nagy “Lyric and Greek Myth” (2007) 34-36. 56

131 case of Achilles in Iliad IX 413, quoted in Hour 1 Text A, but also to the lyric theme of a wedding, as in the case of Hector as bridegroom and Andromache as bride in Song 44 of Sappho (line 4). The expression kleos aphthiton links the doomed warrior in epic with the wedded couple in lyric. 5§113. Parallel to the linking effected by this expression kleos aphthiton is the linking effected by the god Apollo himself: he too links Achilles in epic with Hector and Andromache in lyric. The celebrants at the wedding in Song 44 of Sappho sing Apollo as the subject of their song by invoking the god’s epithet Paean - who is Pāōn in the local dialect of Lesbos - when they celebrate Hector and Andromache as bridegroom and bride (line 33). Apollo as Paean is the embodiment of a song called the paean (paiēōn in Homeric Greek, paiān in the dialect of Athens). To sing a paean is to sing a song from Lesbos, as we see from the wording of Archilochus (Poem 121). To sing a paean in the Iliad is to sing Apollo as Paean, though Paean is a god in his own right in more archaizing contexts of the Iliad (as at V 401 and V 899-901). Elsewhere in the Iliad, Achilles calls on the Achaeans to sing a paean, that is, to sing Apollo as Paean when they celebrate the death of Hector in war (XXII 391).59 5§114. As we have already seen, there are also other linkings of the doomed warrior in epic with the wedded couple in lyric. Achilles is theoeikelos ‘looking just like the gods’ as a warrior in the Iliad (I 131, XXIII 155), and so too Hector and Andromache as bridegroom and bride are theoeikeloi ‘looking just like the gods’ at the moment of their wedding in Song 44 of Sappho (at line 34; also [i]keloi theoi[s] ‘looking just like the gods’ at line 21). And Achilles is in fact the only recipient of the epithet theoeikelos ‘looking just like the gods’ in the Homeric Iliad. So the warrior who kills Hector attracts the same epithet in epic that Hector attracts in lyric.

Apollo as model for Achilles 5§115. It remains to ask about the god with whom Achilles is identified in epic and with whom Hector and Andromache are identified in lyric. For this god, epic and lyric are undifferentiated, just as the kleos aphthiton of Achilles as warrior in epic is undifferentiated from the kleos aphthiton of Hector and Andromache as bridegroom and bride in lyric. This god is Apollo. 5§116. So now, at long last, we turn from Arēs to Apollo as the other divine antagonist of Achilles - and as his other divine model. 5§117. At the moment of his death, the hero Achilles is destined to confront not only the god Arēs as the generic divine antagonist of warriors but also the god Apollo as his own personal divine antagonist. This personalized destiny of Achilles, as the victim of Apollo, is made explicit in the epic Cycle (plot-summary by Proclus of the Aithiopis by Arctinus of Miletus 59

Nagy “Lyric and Greek Myth” (2007) 36-37.

132 p. 106 lines 7-11), but it is only implicit in the Iliad, where Patroklos substitutes for Achilles in his antagonism with Apollo just as he substitutes for him in his antagonism with Arēs. 5§118. What makes this destiny of Achilles so personalized is his special connection with song, a medium signaled as kleos aphthiton ‘unwilting glory’. The god of this medium is Apollo, who is the god of poetry and song. And such poetry and song are conceived as lyric. To put it another way, such poetry and song can be conceived as a form of epic that is not yet differentiated from lyric.60 Apollo is the god of an older form of epic that is still sung to the accompaniment of the lyre, unlike the newer form of epic, which is unaccompanied by the lyre. Typical of the newer form of epic is Homeric poetry as we know it. 5§119. Correspondingly, Achilles is the hero of such an older form of epic. In this role, he is imagined as looking exactly like Apollo - beardless and wearing long hair. Like Apollo, Achilles is the essence of a beautiful promise in the making, of a telos or ‘fulfillment’ realized only in performance, only when the song is fully performed.61 5§120. And there is a visual signature of this shared role of god and hero in the Iliad. I start with the fact that Achilles is pictured in this epic as singing to the tune of a lyre that he himself is playing (IX 186-189). As we have seen in Hour 4, Achilles had plundered this lyre from the Aeolic city of Thebe, ruled by the king Eëtion (IX 186-189), whom he killed when he captured that city - and who was the father of that greatest singer of lamentations in the Iliad, Andromache (VI 414-416). As I argued in Hour 4, what Achilles sings to the tune of this Aeolic lyre is an echo of the loves and bittersweet sorrows heard in lyric song.62 5§121. Such a lyrical image of Achilles evokes a correspondingly lyrical image of Apollo. Even in epic, this god is conventionally pictured as a lyric personality. In fact, Apollo controls the medium of lyric, of choral lyric. A prime example is the conventional description of Apollo as the Mous(h)ēgētēs, that is, as the choral leader of the Muses.63 Such a description is attested in lyric (an example is Song 208 of Sappho) and even in epic (Iliad I 603-604). Apollo accompanies himself on the lyre as he sings and dances, while the Muses are the chorus who also sing and dance (Homeric Hymn to Hermes 475-476). 5§122. The god Apollo controls not only lyric. He controls all song and poetry, and he is ultimately in control of all occasions for the performance of song and poetry. In this overarching role, he embodies the authority of poets, that is, of craftsmen who compose song and poetry. This authority transcends such categories as epic and lyric. And it transcends the

PH 360-361 = 12§§44-45. HTL 138-143. 62 HPC 239-240 = II§297. 63 PH 350-351 = 12§29. 61

133 genres that figure as subcategories of epic and lyric, as well as the occasions that shape those genres. This authority is linked to the authorship of song and poetry. 5§123. It could even be said that the fatal attraction of Achilles for Apollo in the context of their ritual antagonism centers on the fact that the god controls the medium that gives kleos aphthiton ‘unwilting glory’. 5§124. I find it relevant to evoke again the words of T. S. Eliot: (The Dry Salvages, 1941): “you are the music / While the music lasts.” And, now that I have evoked these words, I take the opportunity to go even further: in the long run, these words apply as well to the premier hero of ancient Greek song culture, Achilles. He too is the music, while the music lasts – but this music is destined to last forever. That is the message of the kleos aphthiton ‘unwilting fame’ of Achilles in Iliad IX 413, quoted in Hour 1 Text A.

Fatal attraction 5§125. A question remains: what is it, then, that attracts the hero to the god who will cause his death? I find no direct answer to this question in the passages that we have been reading during this hour, but I will attempt at least to offer this distillation of an indirect answer: whatever it is in us that makes us human makes us irresistibly attracted to the divine, even at the risk of mortal danger. 5§126. I find it relevant to quote here a formulation devised by Dio of Prusa (“Dio Chrysostom”), a Greek thinker who lived in a period straddling the first and the second centuries CE. In what I am about to quote, taken from his Olympic Discourse (Oration 12), Dio is representing a hypothetical speech delivered by none other than the great sculptor Pheidias of Athens, who is speaking about his masterpiece, the colossal statue of Zeus that he sculpted for the temple of Zeus at Olympia in Elis. In the passage I will be quoting, Pheidias explains his idealizing of the human form in creating the spectacular statue of Olympian Zeus. To justify the idealized human form that he creates for Zeus, the sculptor speaks about a universal need felt by humans not only to imagine gods as existing in the sky or in the cosmos in general but also to have a feeling of divine immediacy by being physically near them, close to them - a feeling achieved by way of mental or even physical contact with statues and with paintings and with other images of the gods:

Hour 5 Text M Because of their attraction to the divine unknown [daimonion],64 all humans have a powerful erotic desire [erōs] to worship [timân] and to take care of [therapeuein]65 the 64

This word daimonion is derived from daimōn, which refers to an unspecified god, whereas theos refers to a specific god: see Hour 5§1. That is why I interpret daimonion here as the ‘divine unknown’.

134 divinity [theion]66 that they do know, by being up close to it and near to it, as they approach it and try to touch it in an act of persuasion, and they sacrifice to it and offer it garlands. Quite simply, they are like disconnected [nēpioi]67 children who have been torn away from their father or mother and who, feeling a terrific urge [himeros] and longing [pothos], often reach out their hands while they are dreaming, in the direction of their parents who are not there, so also are humans in their relationship with the gods, loving them as they do, and justifiably so, because the gods do good things for them and have an affinity with them. And, in their love for the gods, humans strive in all possible ways to be with them and in their company. Dio of Prusa 12.60-6168 5§127. In the epic narrative of the Iliad, we find a sinister twist to this kind of attraction: whatever it is that attracts a hero like Patroklos to a god like Apollo on the battlefield makes that hero want to kill the god. In trying to kill the god, of course, the hero only brings about his own death. In other words, the fatal attraction experienced by the hero is not even recognized as fatal until it is too late.

For the meaning of this word, see Hour 6§54. This word theion is derived from theos, which refers to a specific god. That is why I interpret theion here as ‘divinity that is known’. 67 On the meaning of nēpios as ‘disconnected’, see the Glossary. 68 διὰ δὲ τὴν πρὸς τὸ δαιμόνιον ὁρμὴν ἰσχυρὸς ἔρως πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις ἐγγύθεν τιμᾶν καὶ θεραπεύειν τὸ θεῖον, προσιόντας καὶ ἁπτομένους μετὰ πειθοῦς, θύοντας καὶ στεφανοῦντας. ἀτεχνῶς γὰρ ὥσπερ νήπιοι παῖδες πατρὸς ἢ μητρὸς ἀπεσπασμένοι δεινὸν ἵμερον ἔχοντες καὶ πόθον ὀρέγουσι χεῖρας οὐ παροῦσι πολλάκις ὀνειρώττοντες, οὕτω καὶ θεοῖς ἄνθρωποι ἀγαπῶντες δικαίως διά τε εὐεργεσίαν καὶ συγγένειαν, προθυμούμενοι πάντα τρόπον συνεῖναί τε καὶ ὁμιλεῖν. 66

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Hour 6. Patroklos as the other self of Achilles The meaning of therapōn 6§1. The key word for this hour is therapōn ‘attendant; ritual substitute’. And the key passage comes from a climactic moment in the Iliad when Achilles, while praying that Zeus should preserve Patroklos from harm, uses the word therapōn in referring to his nearest and dearest friend:

Hour 6 Text A |233 “King Zeus,” he [= Achilles] cried out, “lord of Dodona, god of the Pelasgoi, who dwells afar, |234 you who hold stormy Dodona in your sway, where the Selloi, |235 your seers, dwell around you with their feet unwashed and their beds made upon the ground - |236 just as you heard me when I prayed to you before, |237 and did me honor by sending disaster on the Achaeans, |238 so also now grant me the fulfillment of yet a further prayer, and it is this: |239 I shall stay here at my assembly [agōn] of ships, |240 but I shall send my companion [hetairos] into battle at the head of many Myrmidons, |241 sending him to fight. Grant, O all-seeing Zeus, that victory may go with him; |242 put boldness into his heart so that Hector |243 may find out whether he [Patroklos] knows how to fight alone, |244 [Patroklos,] my attendant [therapōn], or whether his hands can only then be so invincible |245 with their fury when I myself enter the war struggle of Arēs. |246 Afterwards when he [= Patroklos] has chased away from the ships the attack and the cry of battle, |247 grant that he may return unharmed to the ships, |248 with his armor and his companions, fighters in close combat.” |249 Thus did he [Achilles] pray, and Zeus the Planner heard his prayer. |250 Part of it he did indeed grant him - but the other part he refused. |251 He granted that Patroklos should thrust back war and battle from the ships, |252 yes, he granted that. But he refused to let him come safely [ex-apo-ne-e-sthai] out of the fight. Iliad XVI 233-2521

|233 Ζεῦ ἄνα Δωδωναῖε Πελασγικὲ τηλόθι ναίων |234 Δωδώνης μεδέων δυσχειμέρου, ἀμφὶ δὲ Σελλοὶ |235 σοὶ ναίουσ’ ὑποφῆται ἀνιπτόποδες χαμαιεῦναι, |236 ἠμὲν δή ποτ’ ἐμὸν ἔπος ἔκλυες εὐξαμένοιο, |237 τίμησας μὲν ἐμέ, μέγα δ’ ἴψαο λαὸν Ἀχαιῶν, |238 ἠδ’ ἔτι καὶ νῦν μοι τόδ’ ἐπικρήηνον ἐέλδωρ· |239 αὐτὸς μὲν γὰρ ἐγὼ μενέω νηῶν ἐν ἀγῶνι, |240 ἀλλ’ ἕταρον πέμπω πολέσιν μετὰ Μυρμιδόνεσσι |241 μάρνασθαι· τῷ κῦδος ἅμα πρόες εὐρύοπα Ζεῦ, |242 θάρσυνον δέ οἱ ἦτορ ἐνὶ φρεσίν, ὄφρα καὶ Ἕκτωρ |243 εἴσεται ἤ ῥα καὶ οἶος ἐπίστηται πολεμίζειν |244 ἡμέτερος θεράπων, ἦ οἱ τότε χεῖρες ἄαπτοι |245 μαίνονθ’, ὁππότ’ ἐγώ περ ἴω μετὰ μῶλον Ἄρηος. |246 αὐτὰρ ἐπεί κ’ ἀπὸ ναῦφι μάχην ἐνοπήν τε δίηται, |247 ἀσκηθής μοι ἔπειτα θοὰς ἐπὶ νῆας ἵκοιτο |248 τεύχεσί τε ξὺν πᾶσι καὶ ἀγχεμάχοις ἑτάροισιν. |249 Ὣς ἔφατ’ εὐχόμενος, τοῦ δ’ ἔκλυε μητίετα Ζεύς. |250 τῷ δ’ ἕτερον μὲν ἔδωκε πατήρ, ἕτερον δ’ ἀνένευσε· |251 νηῶν μέν οἱ ἀπώσασθαι πόλεμόν τε μάχην τε |252 δῶκε, σόον δ’ ἀνένευσε μάχης ἐξαπονέεσθαι.

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Patroklos as therapōn 6§2. As we read here at verse 244 of Iliad XVI, Achilles refers to Patroklos as his own personal therapōn. I will argue that we see in this context the oldest recoverable meaning of the word therapōn, and that the future events of the narrative will prove this meaning to be true. 6§3. As the master Narrator affirms in this context, the wording of Achilles is mistaken when he expresses his own fond hopes for Patroklos. The future events of the epic will show that Patroklos cannot fight alone, cannot defeat Hector alone, and can succeed only if he fights together with Achilles. Once Patroklos fights alone, he will die. And it is in this telling context, at Iliad XVI 244, that the wording of Achilles refers to Patroklos as his personal therapōn. So what does it mean, for Patroklos to be the personal therapōn of Achilles? As we will now see, it means that Patroklos is doomed to die as the other self of Achilles. 6§4. As we notice in other contexts as well, Patroklos is the personal therapōn of Achilles (for example, at Iliad XVI 165, 653; XVII 164, 388; XVIII 152). And, in each one of these contexts, therapōn is conventionally translated as ‘attendant’. So what does it mean in particular, that the hero Patroklos serves as the ‘attendant’ the hero Achilles? As we have seen already from a variety of additional contexts where the relationship of these two heroes is described, Patroklos is the nearest and dearest comrade of Achilles. Also, Patroklos is subservient to Achilles and to no one else. For example, Achilles orders Patroklos to mix and to pour wine (IX 202-204), and Patroklos complies (IX 205 ἐπεπείθετο); also, Patroklos serves the hero Achilles by preparing a meal for the hero and his guests, performing most of the tasks required for the preparation, especially the task of cooking the meat that will be served (IX 206-215). Helping Patroklos perform these tasks is another companion of Achilles, named Automedon (IX 209). This Automedon, as we will see, is an understudy of Patroklos: at a later point in the narrative, after Patroklos is already dead, Automedon will be described as a therapōn of Achilles (XXIV 573). 6§5. More needs to be said about the occasion when Patroklos helps prepare a meal for Achilles and his guests. As the host on this occasion, Achilles assumes a primary role by actually slicing the meat before it is cooked (Iliad IX 209) and then distributing for his guests the sliced portions after they are cooked (IX 217), while Patroklos is left with the secondary role of distributing portions of bread that he places into baskets (IX 216-217). After Patroklos is dead, Automedon takes his place in the secondary role of distributing bread in baskets on another occasion when Achilles acts as host (XXIV 625-626), while Achilles retains his primary role of distributing the meat (XXIV 626). As we will see later, this role of Automedon is relevant to his service as a therapōn of Achilles (XXIV 573). 6§6. From what we have seen so far, then, Patroklos as therapōn of Achilles is the nearest and dearest companion of that primary hero in the Iliad. As the personal therapōn of Achilles, Patroklos is a secondary hero, and he attends Achilles just as other therapontes who

137 are secondary heroes will attend Achilles after Patroklos dies. A simpler way of saying it, as we will soon see, is that Patroklos cares for Achilles. For the moment, though, I continue to use the conventional translation for therapōn as ‘attendant’. But there is more to it, much more. 6§7. The main question comes down to this: how does the conventional definition of therapōn as ‘attendant’ square with that other definition that I gave at the start, ‘ritual substitute’? (Both these definitions of therapōn are given in the Glossary.) My answer is that both meanings apply. Patroklos is the ‘attendant’ of Achilles on the surface, but he is his ‘ritual substitute’ in the deeper meaning of the master Narrative.

Anatolian origins of the word therapōn 6§8. I now turn to the prehistory of the word therapōn, seeking to show that it had once meant ‘ritual substitute’ and that it had been borrowed into the Greek language from Anatolian languages of Indo-European origin. The borrowing must have happened sometime in the later part of the second century BCE, during which period the two major Indo-European languages of Anatolia were Hittite and Luvian. The major political power in Anatolia at that time was the Hittite Empire. Accordingly, I will use the term “Hittite” as a shorthand way of referring to the relevant linguistic evidence. 6§9. In Hittite ritual texts dating from roughly 1350 to 1250 BCE, we find these two relevant words: tarpanalli- (or tarpalli-) and tarpasšša-.2 As Nadia van Brock has shown, these words were used as synonyms, and both meant ‘ritual substitute’.3 6§10. Such a meaning, ‘ritual substitute’, must be understood in the context of an Anatolian ritual of purification that expels pollution from the person to be purified and transfers it into a person or an animal or an object that serves as a ritual substitute; the act of transferring pollution into the victim serving as ritual substitute may be accomplished either by destroying or by banishing the victim, who or which is identified as another self, un autre soi-même.4 According to the logic of this Hittite ritual of substitution, the identification of the

For more on the dating of these Hittite ritual texts, see Kümmel 1967:188. For a survey of attestations, see Tischler 1993:207-212. 3 Van Brock 1959:117, with special reference to the Hittite ritual text Keilschrifttexte aus Boghazköi IV 6 (tarpasšša- at Recto line 11, tarpalli- at Recto line 28; see also Verso line 14); Nagy 2008a:55. 4 Van Brock 1959:119; Nagy 2008a:55. In the myth of Ullikummi, this megalithic monster is described as a tarpanalli- of the weather-god Teshub, who ultimately destroys him: Keilschrifturkunden aus Boghazköi XXXIII 96 + I 8 (also XXXIII 95 + IV 14; also XXXIII 106 + III 35). In such contexts, the word is conventionally translated as ‘rival’: see Tischler 1993:209-210.

138 self with the victim serving as the other self can take on a wide variety of forms: the victims range from humans to animals to figurines to ceramic vessels.5 6§11. The mentality of identifying with your victim operates on hom*ological principles. In the case of animal victims designated by the word tarpalli-, for example, one ritual text specifies that bulls are to be killed as ritual substitutes for men, while cows are to be killed as substitutes for women.6 There are other examples of hom*ologies based primarily on gender. In another ritual text involving the word tarpalli-, bulls and rams and other male animals are killed as ritual substitutes for the king, while corresponding female animals are killed for the queen.7 And there are cases of tighter hom*ologies. In yet another ritual text involving the word tarpalli-, for example, it is specified that the victims who are designated as ritual substitutes for the king include men as well as bulls and rams.8 Further, there are other cases as well where humans are being designated as ritual substitutes.9 6§12. The range of victims that are designated as ritual substitutes, extending all the way to humans, indicates that the victim of the ritual substitution, as the other self, can be identified as closely as possible with the human self - even if the ritual substitute and the human self may not be all that close to each other when they are viewed from outside the world of ritual.10 What makes the substitute in ritual seem so intimately close to you is that he or she or it must die for you. Here I find it relevant to quote, from a Hittite text about royal ritual substitution, a most explicit formulation expressed in dialogic format:

Hour 6 Text B. From a Hittite tablet. And for you [= the divinity], here are these ritual substitutes [tarpalliuš] | … And may they die, but I will not die. Keilschrifturkunden aus Boghazköi XXIV 5 I lines 15-1611 5

Kümmel 1967:131, 150. Van Brock 1959:121, with reference to Keilschrifttexte aus Boghazköi IX 129 I lines 5-9. For the principle of analogical substitution in general, see Kümmel 1967:22. 7 Van Brock 1959:120-121, with reference to Keilschrifturkunden aus Boghazköi VII 10. 8 Van Brock 1959:123-125, with reference to Keilschrifturkunden aus Boghazköi XXIV 5 + IX 13. 9 Van Brock 1959:123; see also especially Kümmel 1967:20 and 121-122, with reference to the mention of a female tarpašša- in Keilschrifttexte aus Boghazköi IV 6 I line 11. 10 For a variety of further examples taken from Hittite ritual texts, see Lowenstam 1981:127130. 11 nu-wa-at-ta ku-u-uš [tar-pa]-al-li-uš [ | ] … nu-wa ku-u-uš ak-kán-du am-mu-uk-ma-w[a le]-e ak-mi. Commentary by van Brock 1959:123; also Kümmel 1967:25. At lines 10-16 of this same ritual text, Keilschrifturkunden aus Boghazköi XXIV 5 I, we see that a bull is to be driven to a place where it is killed and its body is burned, while the moon god is invoked to witness with his own divine eyes the smoke that rises up to the heavens from the burning body; see also Kümmel p. 37. 6

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6§13. I draw special attention to these and other cases of ritual substitution where the person to be purified is a king. In such cases, as van Brock argues, the ritual of substitution is “périodique,” ideally annual; and it is a common idea, as we can see from a survey of myths and rituals around the world, that the king is an incarnation of the body politic, of society itself, which needs to be renewed periodically by being purified of pollution.12 6§14. As we consider the relevant evidence from the Near East, a well-known model of periodic renewal is the festival of the Babylonian New Year, centering on the sacrificial killing of a goat, and it is nowadays generally agreed that the Hittite rituals of substitution derive at least in part from the Babylonian rituals that marked this festival;13 a related practice, attested in texts stemming from the neo-Assyrian empire of the first millennium BCE, is the periodic appointing and subsequent killing of substitute kings. Especially relevant are the correspondences of the kings Asarhaddon (680-669 BCE) and Assurbanipal (668-627 BCE).14 Still another related practice is the ritual of the scapegoat described in the Hebrew Bible, Leviticus 16:8, where a designated goat (who is the tragos pempomenos of the Greek Septuagint and the caper emissarius of the Latin Vulgate) is not killed but expelled into the wasteland - hence the word scapegoat; this periodic expulsion, as is well known, figures as a climactic moment in the rituals and sacred narratives of the Jewish Day of Atonement. 6§15. Since Hittite is an Indo-European language, no matter how deeply it is influenced by Near Eastern civilizations, we may also compare the relevant evidence of Hittite ritual formulations that are cognate with wording found in other Indo-European languages. A case in point is the Latin adjective sōns / sontis, meaning ‘guilty’, which is cognate with [1] the Greek participle ōn / ontos (ὤν / ὄντος) of the verb meaning ‘to be’ as in esti (ἐστι) ‘is’ and with [2] the corresponding Hittite participle ašān that likewise means ‘to be’, as in ešzi ‘is’.

Van Brock 1959:125. Kümmel 1967:194-195 cautions against anachronistic formulations, but there is no doubt that the ritual purification of the Hittite king extends to a hom*ologous purification of his royal subjects. In the ritual text Keilschrifttexte aus Boghazköi XV 1 I lines 1920 and 39, for example, it is made clear that the removal of pollution extends from the king to the whole army and to the whole land of Ḫatti; commentary by Kümmel p. 120. 13 Kümmel 1967:189, 193-194, 196-197. 14 Kümmel 1967:169-187. He emphasizes how little textual evidence has been preserved, considering the pervasiveness of the custom of ritual substitution in Near Eastern civilizations ( p. 191). The period of the substitute king’s tenure can be measured in units of time, such as one hundred days (pp. 176-177, 179). See also Parpola 1983 Excursus pp. xxii-xxxii.

140 6§16. In the Plague Prayers of King Muršilis II, dating from the second half of the fourteenth century BCE, it is prescribed that the king is to utter a “confessional” formula, ašānat, iyanun-at ‘it is true, I did it’ (Keilschrifturkunden aus Boghazköi XIV 8, in the second prayer); this formula is cognate with the formula implicit in Latin sōns, where the meaning ‘guilty’ is to be understood in the legal sense of ‘declared guilty’ or, to say it even more legalistically, ‘found guilty’.15 So also in the “confessional” formula of the Hittite king, the guilty party must declare that he really ‘is’ the guilty one, that he really is ‘it’.16 Similarly in the children’s game of tag, the formula ‘you’re it’ indicates by way of the verb ‘to be’ the identity of who will be ‘it’. 6§17. A moment ago, I said that the ritual substitute can seem intimately close to you because he or she or it must die for you, and I gave the example of the formula used by the Hittite king for saying that the tarpalli- or ritual substitute will die for him so that he may live. But there are two sides to this formula. The intimate closeness is matched by an alienating distance, marked by pollution, separating the king from his substitute. I draw attention here to a most telling example. In one particular ritual text (Keilschrifturkunden aus Boghazköi XXIV 5 + IX 13 I lines 19-26), where the word tarpalli- ‘ritual substitute’ applies to a prisoner, this ritual substitute is anointed with royal oil, crowned with a diadem, and dressed in the regalia of the king; then this tarpalli- is expelled from the king’s territory and sent back home to his own territory, so that he takes home with him the pollution that had been intimately associated with the king.17 I stress here the intimacy of the actual transfer of pollution, even if the pollution itself is alienating. In another ritual text (Keilschrifttexte aus Boghazköi XVI 1 I line 10), it is specified that the king is to take off the royal clothing that he wears so that the prisoner who serves as his ritual substitute may now put on this same clothing.18 6§18. In the two examples we have just seen, the ritual substitute is expelled and does not die for the king, but the basic fact remains: the king and the body politic get rid of the pollution by getting rid of the ritual substitute. Let me restate the fact by using the English word eliminate, derived from a most telling Latin word, ē-līmin-āre ‘take outside the boundary [līmen]’. So the king and the body politic eliminate the pollution by eliminating the ritual substitute. A remarkable parallel is the case of the goat that gets expelled into the wasteland on the Jewish Day of Atonement, instead of getting killed like the sacrificial goat of the Babylonian New Year. 6§19. Rituals of elimination, that is, of expelling a polluted person or animal or thing, are in fact hom*ologous with rituals of killing. For example, when an animal is designated as a ritual substitute for the king in Hittite texts, we may expect two alternative outcomes: in some 15

Watkins 1995:167-168. Watkins 1967. 17 Text and commentary by Van Brock 1959:123; see also Kümmel 1967:27-32. 18 Commentary by Kümmel 1967:118. 16

141 rituals, the animal victim is killed and its body is burned,19 but in other rituals the victim is instead expelled.20 And I think that there existed a parallel set of two alternative outcomes when a human was designated as a ritual substitute. That is, I think we may expect that human substitutes could be not only expelled but also killed in rituals dating from the Hittite era, just as substitute kings could be killed in rituals dating from a later era represented by neoAssyrian texts. Granted, the testimony of the existing Hittite ritual texts is opaque concerning the actual killing of humans in contexts of ritual substitution, but the fact remains that there are clear examples of killings of humans in other Hittite ritual contexts.21 6§20. Throughout this analysis I have refrained from using the term “human sacrifice,” since some readers will view the word “sacrifice” too narrowly by thinking only of the killing and subsequent dismembering and cooking and eating of animal victims. If we allowed, however, for a broadening of this word “sacrifice” to include the killing and subsequent burning of animal victims, which as we have seen is an option in the case of animal victims of ritual substitution, then the term “human sacrifice” could still apply in the case of human victims of ritual substitution. 6§21. That said, I bring to a close my analysis of the relevant Hittite evidence by offering this summary, following the earlier formulation by van Brock: the mentality of substitution rituals requires that someone who is notionally close to the king must die or be in some other way eliminated so as to preserve the king.22

Early Greek uses of the words therapōn, theraps, therapeuein 6§22. I now turn to the corresponding evidence in Greek. The Hittite words tarpanalli-/ tarpalli- and tarpasšša-, as van Brock has argued, were borrowed by the Greek language sometime in the second millennium BCE, and the corresponding Greek words were therapōn (θεράπων) and theraps (θέραψ), both of which can be translated as ‘attendant’.23 Like the two Hittite words tarpanalli- / tarpalli- and tarpasšša-, the two Greek words therapōn and theraps were once synonyms, as is evident from the fact that the verb therapeuein is attested as a functional derivative of the noun therapōn in Homeric diction. We can see this functional derivation at work when we look at the context of Odyssey xiii 265, where this verb therapeuein means ‘be a therapōn’ even though it is formally derived not from the noun therapōn but from the noun theraps, which is absent from Homeric diction.24 We find attestations of theraps only 19

Keilschrifturkunden aus Boghazköi VII 10 II; see Kümmel 1967:131. Keilschrifttexte aus Boghazköi XV 1 I; see Kümmel 1967:115. 21 Kümmel 1967:150-168; at p. 147 he leaves the door ajar for the possibility that a human tarpanalli- could in fact be ritually killed. 22 Van Brock 1959:125-126. 23 Van Brock 1959:125-126. 24 Van Brock 1961:118n1, 120n3. We would have expected the denominative verb of therapōn to be *theraponeuein, just as the denominative verb of, say hēgemōn is hēgemoneuein. So the fact 20

142 rarely, as in Ion of Chios F 27 ed. West; Euripides Ion 94, Suppliants 762. In the fragment from Ion of Chios, the plural form therapes refers to attendants who serve wine at a symposium; in the Ion of Euripides, the same plural form refers to the priests of Apollo at Delphi who serve as attendants of the god as they approach the streams of the spring Kastalia; and, in the Suppliants of Euripides, therapes again refers to attendants - in this case, the hero Adrastos is asking the Messenger whether therapes have removed the corpses of the fallen dead. 6§23. So how do we explain the meaning of the Hittite words tarpanalli- and tarpasšša- as ‘ritual substitute’ when we compare the meaning of the borrowed Greek words therapōn (θεράπων) and theraps (θέραψ) as ‘attendant’? Here I return to my formulation summarizing the role of Patroklos as the personal attendant of Achilles: Patroklos as therapōn of Achilles is the nearest and dearest companion of that primary hero in the Iliad. As the personal therapōn of Achilles, Patroklos is a secondary hero, and he attends Achilles just as other therapontes who are secondary heroes will attend Achilles after Patroklos dies.

The therapōn as charioteer 6§24. Building on this formulation, I will now explore another aspect of the service of Patroklos as the personal therapōn of Achilles in the Iliad: Patroklos serves as the personal charioteer or hēniokhos of Achilles (ἡνίοχος XXIII 280). The role of Patroklos as the charioteer of Achilles is specially highlighted in Iliad XVII (475-478), where Automedon describes Patroklos as the best of all charioteers by virtue of driving the chariot of Achilles. Automedon, as we have already noted, is described as the therapōn of Achilles (XXIV 573; also XVI 865). And, as we will now see, Automedon is also a charioteer, just as Patroklos is a charioteer. 6§25. The wording used by Automedon in Iliad XVII (475-478) in describing Patroklos as the best of all charioteers is most relevant to his own role as a charioteer. At the moment of this description in Iliad XVII, Patroklos is of course already dead. He died in Iliad XVI, getting killed in place of Achilles. And, back then in Iliad XVI, it was Automedon who had served as the charioteer of Patroklos. To appreciate this role of Automedon as charioteer of Patroklos, I now review what happened in Iliad XVI when Patroklos had died fighting Hector. 6§26. The setting for the death of Patroklos in Iliad XVI is a classic chariot fight. The fight starts when Patroklos leaps out of his chariot:

that therapeuein in the sense of ‘be a therapōn’ functions as the denominative verb of therapōn proves that this noun therapōn was once a synonym of theraps. Tischler 1993:210 explains theraps as a back-formation from therapeuein, but I find such an explanation counterintuitive.

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Hour 6 Text C Then Patroklos, from one side, leapt from his chariot, hitting the ground. Iliad XVI 73325 In a moment, Hector will leap out from his own chariot. Before that happens, however, Patroklos picks up a rock and throws it at Kebriones, the charioteer of Hector, hitting Kebriones on the forehead and smashing his skull (Iliad XVI 734-754). And then, just as Patroklos had leapt out of his chariot, Hector too leaps out of his own chariot:

Hour 6 Text D Then Hector, from the other side, leapt from his chariot, hitting the ground. Iliad XVI 75526 Patroklos and Hector proceed to fight one-on-one in mortal combat on the ground – a combat that is ultimately won by Hector (XVI 756-863). 6§27. In this chariot fight that happened back in Iliad XVI, I highlight the fact that it is Automedon who serves as chariot driver for Patroklos. And, at this moment, it is Patroklos and not Achilles who is the chariot fighter, since it is Automedon and not Patroklos who is the chariot driver. In preparation for this chariot fight between Patroklos and Hector, it is Automedon, serving as chariot driver for Patroklos, who yokes the horses of Achilles to the chariot (XVI 145-154). 6§28. Like Patroklos, as we have already noted, Automedon is described in the Iliad as a therapōn of Achilles (XVI 865, XXIV 573). Also, in another Iliadic passage, Automedon and a companion named Alkimos are described as therapontes of Achilles (XXIV 573). That passage goes on to say that Achilles honors these two companions, Automedon and Alkimos, more than anyone else - now that Patroklos is dead (XXIV 575). And, in still further Iliadic passages, we see that one of the functions of these two honored therapontes of Achilles is the unyoking of horses or mules (at XXIV 576) as well as the yoking of horses (at XIX 392-393, where Automedon and Alkimos are yoking for Achilles his horses). So also, as we have just seen, Automedon yokes for Patroklos the horses of Achilles (at XVI 145-154). 6§29. After the death of Patroklos, when Achilles finally rejoins the Achaeans in battle, his chariot is now driven by Automedon (XIX 395-399). As we have seen, however, Automedon had at an earlier point served as chariot driver for the hero Patroklos when that hero took the place of Achilles in war (XVI 145-154). And here I note a most telling detail about that earlier point in the narrative of the Iliad: after Patroklos is killed by Hector, the chariot driver 25 26

Πάτροκλος δ’ ἑτέρωθεν ἀφ’ ἵππων ἆλτο χαμᾶζε Ἕκτωρ δ’ αὖθ’ ἑτέρωθεν ἀφ’ ἵππων ἆλτο χαμᾶζε.

144 Automedon says that he now wants to become a chariot fighter, but he cannot fight the Trojans while he is still driving the chariot (XVII 463-465). So he asks another companion, Alkimedon, to take his place as a chariot driver in order that he, Automedon, may now become a chariot fighter:

Hour 6 Text E But you [= Alkimedon], take this whip and these splendid reins, | take them, while I [= Automedon] step off [apobainein] from the chariot, so that I may fight. Iliad XVII 479-48027 And, sure enough, Alkimedon quickly leaps into the chariot, landing on the chariot platform (XVII 481 ἐπορούσας) and taking hold of the whip and the reins (XVII 482), while Automedon leaps out of the chariot, that is, he leaps off the chariot platform (XVII 483 ἀπόρουσε) and lands on the ground, where he can then start fighting.28 So we see here a functioning dyadic relationship between Automedon as a chariot fighter and Alkimedon as a chariot driver, both of whom are secondary substitutes for the primary substitute Patroklos, the premier chariot driver who became a chariot fighter for Achilles and who thus died for him as his therapōn, as his personal ritual substitute.29 6§30. I conclude, then, that the relationship of the chariot fighter to the chariot driver who substitutes for him is parallel to the relationship of a hero like Achilles to a hero like Patroklos, who is his therapōn. So now we see, on the basis of evidence from the narrative traditions of Homeric poetry, that Patroklos as the therapōn of Achilles does in fact serve as his substitute. In the end, the chariot driver in this case dies in place of the chariot fighter: that is, the chariot driver takes the hit, as it were, for the chariot fighter. But now that we see how Patroklos is a substitute of Achilles, the question remains: how is he not only a substitute but a ritual substitute? We must now examine more closely how the actual concept of a ritual substitute, as attested in Anatolian ritual texts, was translated into the ancient Greek song culture.

ἀλλὰ σὺ μὲν μάστιγα καὶ ἡνία σιγαλόεντα | δέξαι, ἐγὼ δ’ ἵππων ἀποβήσομαι, ὄφρα μάχωμαι. The wording that expresses here the complementary of the chariot fighter and the chariot driver can be found elsewhere as well in the Iliad, as at V 218-238. Here we see Aeneas urging Pandaros to leap into the chariot of Aeneas (V 221) so that Pandaros may act as the chariot driver while Aeneas acts as the chariot fighter by leaping out of his chariot and fighting on the ground (226-227). Pandaros refuses, saying that he prefers to fight on the ground (V 238) and telling Aeneas to continue driving his own horses, since they would not get used to a new charioteer (V 230-237). As the narrative proceeds, it becomes clear that the choice made by Pandaros proves to be fatal. 29 For more on the multiformity of the figures Alkimedon (/Alkimos) and Automedon as therapontes, see Sinos 1980:38n6. 27 28

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The therapōn as a ritual substitute 6§31. For analyzing the concept of ritual substitute as attested in the Greek evidence, an ideal starting point is a climactic passage I already quoted as Text B in Hour 4. This passage, taken from Iliad XVI, marks the moment when the warrior hero Patroklos is killed in battle: at this moment, the hero is visualized as atalantos Arēi ‘equal [atalantos] to Arēs’ (verse 784). Here in Hour 6 we will see how and why this description marks Patroklos as a ritual substitute for Achilles as the main hero of the Iliad. 6§32. To begin, I find it most relevant to consider some basic facts about the use of the word therapōn in the plural. The plural form is therapontes. In the Iliad, warriors are conventionally called the therapontes of Arēs as the god of war (II 110, VI 67, XV 733, XIX 78).30 The first example we saw was in Hour 1 Text C (Iliad XIX 78). With this fact in mind, I will now make an argument that I epitomize in the following formulation: When a warrior is killed in war, he becomes a therapōn or ‘ritual substitute’ who dies for Arēs by becoming identical to the war god at the moment of death; then, after death, the warrior is eligible to become a cult hero who serves as a sacralized ‘attendant’ of the war god.31 6§33. We may expect that Achilles, as an epic warrior, is a therapōn or ‘ritual substitute’ of Arēs by virtue of becoming identical to the war god at the moment of death. But there is a complication: in the Iliad, such a relationship between Achilles and Arēs is expressed only by way of an intermediary, who is Patroklos. But there is a further complication: Patroklos as an epic warrior is described not as the therapōn of Arēs but rather as the therapōn of Achilles, and, as such, Patroklos is not only that hero’s ‘attendant’ but also his ‘ritual substitute’, since he actually dies for Achilles. In view of these two complications, I will argue that Achilles in the Iliad dies only indirectly as the therapōn of Arēs through the intermediacy of Patroklos, who dies in this epic as the therapōn of Achilles. 6§34. Here I come back to Iliad XVI 233-248, which was Text A in this hour: there we saw that Patroklos qualifies as therapōn of Achilles only so long as he stays within his limits as the recessive equivalent of the dominant hero. Now I will take this formulation one step further: once Patroklos is on his own, he becomes a therapōn of Arēs and dies in place of Achilles.32

BA 295 = 17§5. A longer version of this formulation is presented in BA 293-295 = 17§§5-6. I have already noted that the charioteer Alkimos is described as a therapōn of Achilles (Iliad XXIV 573); now I add that Alkimos is also described as an ozos Arēos ‘attendant of Arēs’ (XXIV 474 ὄζος ῎Αρηος); see BA 295 = 17§5n8 on ozos as a synonym of therapōn. 32 Sinos 1980:46-54; BA 292-293 = 17§4. 31

146 6§35. We may expect that Achilles, as an epic warrior, qualifies as īsos Arēi ‘equal [īsos] to Arēs’, just like Patroklos. This description suits Achilles in the Iliad - but it applies to him only vicariously by way of Patroklos, who takes upon himself the role of a ritual substitute for Achilles. As we saw in Text B of Hour 5, Iliad XVI 784, Patroklos is called atalantos Arēi ‘equal to Arēs’ at the moment when he is killed in war. And, as we will now see, Patroklos is actually called īsos Arēi ‘equal to Arēs’ at the moment when the story of his fatal impersonation of Achilles begins:

Hour 6 Text F |599 He [Nestor] was seen and noted by swift-footed radiant Achilles, |600 who was standing on the spacious stern of his ship, |601 watching the hard stress [ponos] and tearful struggle of the fight. |602 He called to his companion Patroklos, |603 calling from the ship, and he [Patroklos] from inside the tent heard him [Achilles], |604 and he [Patroklos] came out, equal [īsos] to Arēs, and here indeed was the beginning of the doom that presently befell him. |605 He [Patroklos], powerful son of Menoitios, was the first to speak, and he said [to Achilles]: |606 “Why, Achilles, do you call me? what need do you have for me?” Iliad XI 599-60633 Here Homeric poetry declares explicitly that the application of the epithet ‘equal [īsos] to Arēs’ will doom Patroklos to death.34 6§36. Besides being equated with Arēs, however, we saw that Patroklos is also being equated with Apollo. It happens in both Texts A and B of Hour 5, when Patroklos is called daimoni īsos ‘equal to a daimōn’ (XVI 705 and 786). As we saw from the contexts of those passages, the daimōn or ‘superhuman force’ there is the god Apollo himself.35 So, in those contexts, Patroklos is ‘equal’ to Apollo, though his identification with that god is not fully spelled out, since the word daimōn partly masks the identity of the god. 6§37. As one who is equal to Apollo at the moment of his death, Patroklos participates in a specialized god-hero relationship. By being equal to Arēs at the moment of his death, on the other hand, Patroklos participates in a generic god-hero relationship that is typical of

|599 τὸν δὲ ἰδὼν ἐνόησε ποδάρκης δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς· |600 ἑστήκει γὰρ ἐπὶ πρυμνῇ μεγακήτεϊ νηῒ |601 εἰσορόων πόνον αἰπὺν ἰῶκά τε δακρυόεσσαν. |602 αἶψα δ’ ἑταῖρον ἑὸν Πατροκλῆα προσέειπε |603 φθεγξάμενος παρὰ νηός· ὃ δὲ κλισίηθεν ἀκούσας |604 ἔκμολεν ἶσος Ἄρηϊ, κακοῦ δ’ ἄρα οἱ πέλεν ἀρχή. |605 τὸν πρότερος προσέειπε Μενοιτίου ἄλκιμος υἱός· |606 τίπτέ με κικλήσκεις Ἀχιλεῦ; τί δέ σε χρεὼ ἐμεῖο; 34 BA 32-34 = 2§8; 293-295 = 17§5. 35 BA 293 = 17§5. 33

147 heroes who are warriors.36 In identifying with both Arēs and Apollo, Patroklos is experiencing something that will later be experienced by Achilles himself, who will also be identifying with both Arēs and Apollo at the moment of his own heroic death, though his death scene is not directly pictured in the Iliad. Rather, the death scene of Achilles is pictured directly in the epic Cycle. In Hour 5 Text D, I already quoted a plot-summary of this death scene, and I now quote it here again:

Hour 6 Text G = Hour 5 Text D |7 Achilles, while routing the Trojans and |8 rushing into the citadel, is killed by Paris and Apollo. |9 When a heated battle starts over the corpse, |10 Ajax picks it up and carries it off to the ships while |11 Odysseus fights off the Trojans. plot-summary by Proclus of the Aithiopis by Arctinus of Miletus p. 106 lines 7-11 6§38. This plot-summary does not indicate whether Arēs is understood to be the generalized ritual antagonist of Achilles. All it indicates is that Apollo is the specialized ritual antagonist of that hero. But there is no reason for us to expect an explicit role of Ares in the death scene of Achilles. After all, there is no explicit role of this war god in the death scene of Patroklos as narrated in the Iliad. 6§39. A generic warrior, as we have noted, is called a therapōn of Arēs. Generically, then, heroes as warriors die for Arēs. More specifically, however, a special hero will die for his special divine antagonist. 6§40. Generically, Achilles would qualify as a therapōn of Arēs; specifically, however, he is a therapōn of Apollo, because it is Apollo who will kill him by way of Paris, just as Apollo kills Patroklos by way of Hector. And, while the therapōn of Apollo must be Achilles, the therapōn of Achilles must be, as we have seen, Patroklos. 6§41. Patroklos must die for Achilles, who must die for Apollo. The death of Patroklos is caused by Arēs generically but it is brought to fulfillment by Apollo personally. 6§42. I return here to the moment when Patroklos dies. At that moment, as we saw in Texts A and B of Hour 5, he is called daimoni īsos ‘equal to a daimōn’ (XVI 705 and 786). In this context, it is clear that the daimōn is Apollo, as we can see from the related context of Text C, featuring the expression pros daimona ‘face-to-face with the daimōn’ (XVII 98, also 104).37

36 37

BA 307 = 18§9. BA 63 = 4§6n1.

148

Arēs as divine antagonist of Patroklos and Achilles 6§43. So, there is no doubt about it, the god Apollo is the direct and specific cause of the deaths of both Patroklos and Achilles. Nevertheless, it is essential to keep in mind that the god Arēs is the indirect and generic cause of these deaths. And we see a trace of this indirect and generic causality when we read that Patroklos is atalantos Arēi ‘equal to Ares’ at the moment of his death in the Iliad (XVI 784). So also Achilles himself, in his climactic moments of rage, is described as īsos Arēi ‘equal to Arēs’ in the Iliad (XX 46). Thus Achilles as well as Patroklos is programmed, as it were, to die a martial death that is caused at least generically by Arēs. 6§44. In this light, we need to consider more closely the identity of the god Arēs. Yes, he is the god of war, but he is also, more specifically, the god of martial fury.38 In war, a warrior who is possessed by the god Arēs experiences this kind of martial fury, which is typically bestial. The Greek word for martial fury is lussa, meaning ‘wolfish rage’.39 Comparable is the Old Norse concept berserkr and the Old Irish concept of ríastrad ‘warp spasm’ or ‘distortion’.40 To experience such a martial rage or warp spasm or distortion is be beside oneself, and to be beside oneself is to be possessed - possessed by Arēs. 6§45. In the Iliad, as we will now see, such a state of possession is expressed by way of the word lussa ‘wolfish rage’. From here on, I will transliterate this word in its latinized form lyssa, since some readers will be more familiar with the spelling lykos for the Greek word meaning ‘wolf’ (the more consistent spelling would be lukos).41 In the Iliad, a prime example of lyssa is the description of Hector, when he gets into a state of martial fury, as a ‘rabid dog’, a lyssētēr kuōn (κύνα λυσσητῆρα VIII 299).42 When Hector experiences such a state, lyssa literally enters his body and pervades it completely (IX 239). After Hector kills Patroklos and puts on the armor of Achilles that Patroklos had been wearing, Zeus seals Hector into the armor and then Arēs himself literally enters him (δῦ δέ μιν Ἄρης XVII 210), thus possessing him completely. So, when Achilles finally kills Hector in Iliad XXII, he is in effect killing the embodiment of Arēs the war god. Conversely, Achilles himself is possessed by lyssa in his most intense moments of martial rage in the Iliad (XXI 542). Hector in his own right is described as

EH §110. Lincoln 1975. 40 For a comparison of the Old Norse and Old Irish concepts, see Sjoestedt 1940:86. See also Henry 1982. For the translation of Old Irish ríastrad as ‘warp spasm’, see Kinsella 1969. For a lively description of ‘warp spasm’, see Rees and Rees 1961:248-249. 41 Starting at line 815 of the drama Herakles by Euripides, the personification of madness, Lyssa, enters the dramatic space, now that the evil hero Lykos is has been killed by Hēraklēs. Now Lyssa will possess Hēraklēs and bring about his madness. At line 865 Lyssa refers to her own wolfish rage, lyssa (see also lines 865, 879, 888, 1024). 42 At line 934 in the Herakles of Euripides, Hēraklēs is rabidly foaming at the mouth while he is possessed by the “wolfish rage,” lyssa, of Lyssa. 39

149 both atalantos Arēi ‘equal to Arēs’ (VIII 215, XVII 72) and as īsos Arēi ‘equal to Arēs’ (XI 295, XIII 802). 6§46. In the case of Achilles, these examples of martial fury are relevant to the second of the three characteristics of the hero that we considered in Hour 1, namely, that the hero is “extreme” both positively and, on special occasions, negatively. Achilles is extreme mostly in a positive sense, since he is ‘best’ in many categories and since he is even the ‘best of the Achaeans’ in the Homeric Iliad. Occasionally, however, he is extreme in a negative sense, as in his moments of martial fury.43

The therapeutic function of the therapōn 6§47. I return here to the ritual background of the word therapōn. So far, we have seen that it was borrowed into the Greek language from Anatolian languages, sometime in the 2nd millennium BCE. The corresponding word in those Anatolian languages meant ‘ritual substitute’. Someone who is notionally close to the king, as we have also seen, may have to die in place of the king. But there is more to it. Such a death, I argue, has the effect of healing society by way of healing the king, who is viewed as the embodiment of society, of the body politic. (On the king as the embodiment of the body politic, I refer back to §13 in this hour.) 6§48. What I describe here for the first time as a healing is an act of purifying the king and his people from impurities, from pollution. If the king is polluted, then society is polluted. That is why the pollution of the king has to be transferred to a ritual substitute who will be eliminated in place of the king and will thus remove the royal pollution while also removing the pollution of society. This principle of purification has been described by van Brock as the transfer of evil, “le transfert du mal.”44 Evil must be passed on, to a sacrificial victim. 6§49. In Greek visual art, I must now add, the dead hero Patroklos can be represented as a sacrificial ram, who is shown with his throat slit open and with blood streaming from the gaping wound: such a picture is painted on an Attic vase executed by the “Triptolemos Painter,” dated around 480 BCE.45 Similarly in Hittite rituals of substitution, as we have seen, rams can be sacrificed in place of kings. 6§50. The meaning of the Greek word therapōn as ritual substitute and the function of such a therapōn as a healer helps explain why the related Greek word therapeuein means not only ‘be a therapōn’, as we have seen at Odyssey xiii 265, but also ‘heal, cure’; we still see such a meaning embedded in the English-language borrowings therapy and therapeutic. But before I cite some contexts where the ancient Greek word therapeuein means ‘heal, cure’, I must return

BA 321 = 20§5. Van Brock 1959:129. 45 This painting, along with another related painting, is analyzed by Tarenzi 2005. 44

150 once again to that passage at Odyssey xiii 265 where therapeuein means ‘be a therapōn’, since I have yet to explain the context. 6§51. There are three passages where the word therapeuein seems at first sight to have nothing to do with a meaning such as ‘heal, cure’. I start with Odyssey xiii 265, the passage we are considering right now. Here the first-person narrator of a “Cretan tale” says that he was unwilling to ‘be a therapōn’, therapeuein, for the over-king of Crete, Idomeneus, preferring instead to be the leader of his own companions. The next passage is at Homeric Hymn to Apollo 390, where the god Apollo selects a group of Cretans to serve as his attendants, therapeuein, at his shrine in Delphi. Finally, the third passage is at Hesiod Works and Days 135, where the prototypical humans who represent the second generation of humankind are said to be unwilling to serve as attendants, therapeuein, to the gods; and, as we read in the next verse, these sacrilegious early humans are likewise unwilling to perform sacrifices to the gods at their altars (Works and Days 136).46 6§52. As we consider these three passages showing early attestations of the word therapeuein, the first one of the three is not decisive in establishing the overall meaning of this word, since the story of the upstart Cretan who refused to serve as therapōn to the over-king of Crete has no attested parallels. Still, it is safe to say that the social position of the therapōn in this story cannot be too different from the social position of Patroklos himself, who is subservient to Achilles by virtue of serving as that hero’s therapōn.47 But the second and the third attestations are in fact decisive: in these two cases, therapeuein refers to the service that needs to be rendered to gods by humans who are designated as the gods’ attendants. As we are about to see, the contexts of therapeuein in these two cases can help explain later attestations of the verb therapeuein in the sense of ‘heal, cure’. 6§53. In speaking of later attestations, I have in mind evidence dating from the fifth century and thereafter. In this later era, therapeuein in the sense of ‘heal, cure’ can refer specifically to the procedure of healing a body by removing some form of sickness or, more basically, to the procedure of maintaining the well-being of the body. To maintain the wellbeing of the body is to keep it healthy - that is, keeping it sound and immune from any sickness.48 More generally, therapeuein can refer simply to ‘taking care of’ or ‘caring for’ another person (an example is Lysias 24.6, with reference to a situation where the elderly are being cared for by their children). Such a general meaning ‘take care of, care for’ helps explain the specific meaning of ‘heal, cure’: we may compare the use in English of the expressions ‘take care of’ or ‘care for’ with reference to the care that patients receive from their physicians. It is 46

Commentary in BA 151-152 = 9§§2-3. Lowenstam 1981:136-140 has argued persuasively that the upstart Cretan in the story told by the disguised Odysseus in Odyssey xiii is a narrative stand-in for the Cretan hero Meriones, who refuses to “take the hit,” as it were, for the over-king of the Cretans, Idomeneus. 48 Van Brock 1961:123-127 collects examples. 47

151 also relevant here to mention the derivation of the English word cure from the Latin cūra, meaning ‘care’. 6§54. So how are such contexts relevant to the sacral meaning of therapōn as a ritual substitute? Here I turn to the sacral contexts of therapeuein in the sense of ‘take care of, care for’. In these contexts, I argue, the body that is being cared for and kept sound by those who are attending it is either (1) the notional body of a god or (2) the actual body of a cult hero. This sacred body, I further argue, can lend its sacredness to anything that makes contact with it, such as a temple or shrine or any other kind of sacred enclosure. In the case of gods, the sacred power of the sacred body can extend to a sacred simulacrum of the body, such as a sacred statue or picture or any other object that stands for the body of the god. There are many different attestations of therapeuein where the object of the verb is whatever sacred thing or place is attended by the attendants who care for it. Here are three shining examples: [1] An Attic inscription dating from the fifth century BCE (Inscriptiones Graecae I3 1-2 138.17) speaks of the need for therapeuein ‘taking care of’ the temenos ‘sacred precinct’ of the god Apollo ‘in the most beautiful way possible’ ([το̄ τε]μένο̄ς το̄ Ἀπόλλο̄νο[ς ἐπιμελέσθο̄ν, ὅπος ἂν κάλλισ]τα θεραπεύε̄ται). [2] A Cretan inscription dating from the second century BCE (Inscriptiones Creticae III:2 1.5) speaks of the need for therapeuein ‘taking care of’ archaic statues of divinities (τὰ ἀρχαῖα [ἀ]γάλματα θαραπεύσαντες).49 [3] In the Ion of Euripides (110-111), dating from the late fifth century BCE, the young hero Ion speaks of his service of therapeuein ‘taking care of’ the temple of Apollo at Delphi (τοὺς θρέψαντας | Φοίβου ναοὺς θεραπεύω). 6§55. It is in the light of such attestations of the verb therapeuein that we can understand the earlier attestations of the noun therapōn in combination with the genitive case of names of gods like Apollo, the Muses, Arēs, and so on.50 6§56. By now we can see that therapeuein in the sense of ‘maintain the well-being of, take care of, care for’ and in the special sense of ‘heal, cure’ is in fact related to the idea of a ritual substitute who maintains the well-being of someone superior whom he serves by standing ready to die for that special someone. That is the therapeutic function, as it were, of the therapōn. Earlier on, I noted the English-language borrowings therapy and therapeutic. Now I note a semantic parallel in the use of the Greek word pharmakon, which means ‘drug used for 49

This example and the previous one are cited by van Brock 1961:122-123. BA 295 = 17§6; van Brock 1961:115-117 surveys the various attested combinations of therapōn with the name of a god in the genitive case. I note with interest the attestation of the dual form theraponte with reference to the twin sons of Poseidon, who are Pelias and Neleus, described as attendants of the god Zeus himself (θεράποντε Odyssey xi 255). 50

152 healing’ or, more generally, ‘drug used for medication or for poisoning’, and we see the more specific meaning ‘drug used for healing’ embedded in the English-language borrowings pharmacy and pharmaceutical. The meaning of this word pharmakon as ‘drug used for healing’ helps explain the related meaning of a related Greek word. That word is pharmakos (as attested in Hipponax F 9.1 and F 10.2 ed. West), which can be translated as ‘scapegoat’, that is, someone who takes the blame for a pollution that afflicts a whole society.51 Here again we see at work the principle of a transfer of evil, comparable to what we saw in the case of the Hittite ritual substitutes.

Patroklos as the other self of Achilles 6§57. Having said this much about the word therapōn, I turn to the another word that is closely linked to the idea of Patroklos as the ritual substitute of Achilles. This other word is philos, meaning ‘friend’ as a noun and ‘near and dear’ or ‘belonging to the self’ as an adjective. By contrast with my lengthy investigation of the relevance of the word therapōn to Patroklos, I can confine myself here to the shortest of formulations about the parallel relevance of the word philos, since I have already analyzed this word at some length in Hour 2.52 Here, then, is my formulation, compressed into a single nested paragraph: Patroklos as the personal therapōn of Achilles is thereby also the nearest and dearest of all the companions of Achilles. This closeness is measured in terms of the word philos in the sense of being ‘near and dear’ to someone. Achilles considers Patroklos to be the most philos ‘near and dear’ of them all. Or, if we were to express this idea in terms of the noun philos, meaning ‘friend’, instead of using the adjective philos, meaning ‘near and dear’, we would say that Patroklos is the very best friend of Achilles. This word philos defines identity by way of measuring how much you can identify with someone else: the more you love someone, the more you identify with this special someone - and the closer you get to your own self. 6§58. This is why Patroklos is truly the other self or alter ego of Achilles. In the Life of Pythagoras tradition, the wise man is asked the question ‘what is a friend [philos]?’ and answers that a philos is allos egō ‘another I’ (scholia for Iliad XVIII 82). This terminology helps explain the use of the pseudo-scientific Latin term alter ego in translations of the works of Freud into English.

Ramifications of the idea of another self 6§59. Such an idea of Patroklos as the other self of Achilles is parallel to the idea of twinning. As I show in a separate essay, this parallelism helps explain other features of Achilles 51

I refer here again to the analysis of Kümmel 1967:193. I repeat here the references to my earlier work: BA 82-83 = 5§27; 102-111 = 6§§12-22; see also the work of Sinos 1980. 52

153 and Patroklos that they share, such as the power to heal.53 The therapeutic powers of Achilles and Patroklos can be analyzed in this light.54 6§60. The therapeutic function of caring for someone as a patient in mythical contexts of healing can be linked with the emotional function of caring for someone who is philos in these same contexts. That is because therapeuein in the emotional sense of ‘care for’ is linked with philos in the sense of ‘near and dear’;55 and, further, therapōn in the sense of ‘ritual substitute’ is linked with philos in the sense of ‘belonging to the self’.56 6§61. As the other self who is ready to die for the self that is Achilles, Patroklos achieves an unsurpassed level of intimacy with the greatest hero of the Homeric Iliad. This intimacy is sacral, thus transcending even sexual intimacy. But this sacred intimacy has an uncanny other side to it, which is a kind of sacred alienation. As we saw in the case of the Hittite prisoner, about to be expelled into an alien realm, he must wear the clothing of the king, thus becoming ritually intimate with the body of the king. So too Patroklos wears the armor of Achilles when he dies, and he wears something else that is even more intimately connected with his best friend. Patroklos wears also the epic identity of Achilles, as expressed by the epithets they share. These heroic epithets, such as the ones that makes them both ‘equal to Arēs’, will predestine both of them to live the same way and to die the same way.57

Comment 6. Simone Weil on sacrificial substitution 6§62. Simone Weil (1909-1943) thought that evil happens when the suffering of one person is passed on to another person. The mentality is this: I want you to suffer exactly the way I have suffered. The problem is, everyone suffers differently. So the transfer of suffering does not make things better. It makes things worse. And that is evil. So, evil itself is the transfer of suffering. In French, it is “le transfert du mal,” as we saw at §48 in this hour. To stop this chain of evil, an existential hero must refuse to transfer the suffering to the next person. And so the hero must absorb the suffering. For that to happen, however, the hero will have to die for the next person in line and for everyone else who is in line. Such a death can be described as an act of sacrificial substitution. 53

Here I refer to a forthcoming essay of mine on twins, which will appear in a book edited by Kimberley Patton. I argue there that Achilles and Patroklos are figured as a dyadic pair that resembles in some ways the dyadic pair represented by the “Divine Twins,” the Dioskouroi. 54 In the essay I just mentioned in the previous note, I connect my arguments with those of Douglas Frame in an essay that is forthcoming in the same book edited by Kimberley Patton. 55 On the meaning of philos as ‘near and dear’, derived from phi in the sense of ‘near’, see GM 203n7, with further references. 56 BA 103-106 = 6§§13-16. 57 These last words of Hour 6 are taken from my essay on twins, to which I referred earlier. In that essay, I added one more sentence: And the sameness of their shared life and death can be seen as an uncanny mix of intimacy and alienation that only twins will ever truly understand.

154 6§63. In her essay “Human Personality” (1943), Weil says: “When harm is done to a man, real evil enters into him; not merely pain and suffering, but the actual horror of evil. Just as men have the power of transmitting good to one another, so they have the power to transmit evil.” In “Void and Compensation” (published 1947), Weil says: “The wish to see others suffer exactly what we are suffering. It is because of this that, except in periods of social instability, the spite of those in misfortune is directed against their fellows. That is a factor making for social stability.” We read in the same work: “The tendency to spread the suffering beyond ourselves. If through excessive weakness we can neither call forth pity nor do harm to others, we attack what the universe itself represents for us. Then every good or beautiful thing is like an insult.” 6§64. If we apply here the thinking of Weil, we may think of Patroklos as a hero who refuses to pass on the suffering to the next person. He absorbs the suffering and dies in the act of doing so. He short-circuits evil. 6§65. Such a way of thinking about Patroklos may lead us to a rethinking of this hero’s status as the one person who is highest in the ascending scale of affection felt by the hero Achilles.

155

Hour 7. The sign of the hero in visual and verbal art The meaning of sēma 7§1. The key word for this hour is sēma (plural sēmata), meaning ‘sign, signal, symbol; tomb, tomb of a hero’. An important word that derives from this noun sēma is the verb sēmainein ‘mean [something], indicate [something] by way of a sēma’. Modern words that derive from sēma include semantic and semiotic. 7§2. As we saw in Hour 6, Achilles and Patroklos live and die the same way. As we will see in Hour 7, this pattern of identification is not terminated by death. Once these two heroes are both dead, those who are still living will remember them the same way. That is, both Achilles and Patroklos will be remembered as cult heroes. And that remembrance is indicated by the word sēma, which is the ultimate sign of the hero.

The sign of the hero at a chariot race 7§3. I concentrate here on the use of this word sēma in two verses, Iliad XXIII 326 and 331, concerning the sēma or ‘sign’ given by the hero Nestor to his son, the hero Antilokhos, about the sēma or ‘tomb’ of an unnamed hero. The two verses come from a passage where Nestor gives instructions to Antilokhos about the driving skills required for a charioteer to make a left turn around a landmark. As we will now learn from the context, this landmark is meant to be used as a turning post in the course of a chariot race that is being planned as the culminating athletic event of the Funeral Games for Patroklos in Iliad XXIII. In the words of Nestor, this landmark is either a sēma ‘tomb’ of an unnamed hero of the distant past (XXIII 331) or it was once upon a time a turning post, a nussa (332), used for chariot races that must have taken place in such a distant past. As I will argue, the master narrative of the Iliad shows that this sēma or ‘tomb’ is to be understood as the tomb of Patroklos himself, which he will share with Achilles once Achilles too is dead. To understand this is to understand the sēma or ‘sign’ given by the hero Nestor:

Hour 7 Text A |326 I [= Nestor] will tell you [= Antilokhos] a sign [sēma], a very clear one, which will not get lost in your thinking. |327 Standing over there is a stump of deadwood, a good reach above ground level. |328 It had been either an oak or a pine. And it hasn’t rotted away from the rains. |329 There are two white rocks propped against either side of it. |330 There it is, standing at a point where two roadways meet, and it has a smooth track on both sides of it for driving a chariot. |331 It is either the tomb [sēma] of some mortal who died a long time ago |332 or was a turning post [nussa] in the times of earlier men. |333 Now swift-footed radiant Achilles has set it up as a turning post [terma plural]. |334 Get as close to it as you can when you drive your chariot horses toward it, |335 and keep leaning toward one side as you stand on the platform of your well-built chariot, |336 leaning to the left as you drive your

156 horses. Your right-side horse |337 you must goad, calling out to it, and give that horse some slack as you hold its reins, |338 while you make your left-side horse get as close as possible [to the turning post], |339 so that the hub will seem to be almost grazing the post |340 - the hub of your well-made chariot wheel. But be careful not to touch the stone [of the turning post], |341 or else you will get your horses hurt badly and break your chariot in pieces. |342 That would make other people happy, but for you it would be a shame, |343 yes it would. So, near and dear [philos] as you are to me, you must be sound in your thinking and be careful. Iliad XXIII 326-3431 7§4. The sēma that is the ‘tomb’ of the unnamed hero at verse 331 here is also a ‘sign’ of that hero’s cult, as signaled by the sēma or ‘sign’ that is conveyed at verse 326 by the speaker. That is what I once argued in an essay entitled “Sēma and Noēsis: The Hero’s Tomb and the ‘Reading’ of Symbols in Homer and Hesiod.”2 As I pointed out in that essay, we know from evidence external to Homeric poetry that the tomb of a cult hero could be used as the actual turning post of a chariot race: in the historical period, starting with the adoption of chariot racing in the athletic program of the Olympics (this adoption has been dated at around 680 BCE), the turning-point of chariot-races could be conceptualized as the tomb of a hero, whose restless spirit was capable of “spooking” the horses at the most dangerous moment of the chariot-race, the left turn around the turning post.3 7§5. According to the wording of Nestor in the passage I just quoted, however, there seem at first to be two different interpretations of the landmark that he is showing to Antilokhos: what is being visualized is either a tomb of a cult hero from the distant past or it is a turning post for chariot races that must have taken place in such a distant past. The landmark is an ambivalent sign. At least, it seems ambivalent, short range, on the basis of Nestor’s wording in this passage. Long range, however, on the basis of the overall plot of the 1

|326 σῆμα δέ τοι ἐρέω μάλ’ ἀριφραδές, οὐδέ σε λήσει. |327 ἕστηκε ξύλον αὖον ὅσον τ’ ὄργυι’ ὑπὲρ αἴης |328 ἢ δρυὸς ἢ πεύκης· τὸ μὲν οὐ καταπύθεται ὄμβρῳ, |329 λᾶε δὲ τοῦ ἑκάτερθεν ἐρηρέδαται δύο λευκὼ |330 ἐν ξυνοχῇσιν ὁδοῦ, λεῖος δ’ ἱππόδρομος ἀμφὶς |331 ἤ τευ σῆμα βροτοῖο πάλαι κατατεθνηῶτος, |332 ἢ τό γε νύσσα τέτυκτο ἐπὶ προτέρων ἀνθρώπων, |333 καὶ νῦν τέρματ’ ἔθηκε ποδάρκης δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς. |334 τῷ σὺ μάλ’ ἐγχρίμψας ἐλάαν σχεδὸν ἅρμα καὶ ἵππους, |335 αὐτὸς δὲ κλινθῆναι ἐϋπλέκτῳ ἐνὶ δίφρῳ |336 ἦκ’ ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ τοῖιν· ἀτὰρ τὸν δεξιὸν ἵππον |337 κένσαι ὁμοκλήσας, εἶξαί τέ οἱ ἡνία χερσίν. |338 ἐν νύσσῃ δέ τοι ἵππος ἀριστερὸς ἐγχριμφθήτω. |339 ὡς ἄν τοι πλήμνη γε δοάσσεται ἄκρον ἱκέσθαι |340 κύκλου ποιητοῖο· λίθου δ’ ἀλέασθαι ἐπαυρεῖν, |341 μή πως ἵππους τε τρώσῃς κατά θ’ ἅρματα ἄξῃς· |342 χάρμα δὲ τοῖς ἄλλοισιν, ἐλεγχείη δὲ σοὶ αὐτῷ |343 ἔσσεται· ἀλλὰ φίλος φρονέων πεφυλαγμένος εἶναι. 2 Nagy 1983a, as recast in GM 202-222. 3 GM 215-216, with reference to Pausanias 6.20.15-19 and with further comments. See also Sinos 1980:48-49. For still further comments, see now also Frame 2009:134 (with n31) and 163 (with n54). Race-car drivers who race in the “Indianapolis 500” have a saying about how to win: “turn left and drive like hell.” Also, we may in general compare the metaphor of “sudden death” in modern athletic events.

157 Iliad, this wording will lead to a fusion of interpretations. And the sign that seemed at first to be ambivalent will become clear. Long range, the tomb of the unnamed hero from the distant past becomes the same landmark as the turning post of a chariot race from the distant past.4 That is because the unnamed hero from the distant past becomes a named hero from the immediate present of the Iliad. That hero is Patroklos, and he died just now, as it were, in Iliad XVI. 7§6. But Patroklos dies not only in the present time of the Iliad. He also did die a long time ago, from the standpoint of later generations who are listening to the story of the Iliad. So the storytelling of the Iliad makes it possible for the athletic event of a chariot race from the distant past to become the same thing as the athletic event of a chariot race that is being held right now, in the same immediate present time of the story, in Iliad XXIII. And, as we will see, this race is intended to honor Patroklos as a once and future cult hero. 7§7. The ambivalent wording of Nestor that leads to such a fusion of interpretations qualifies as an ainos. In Hour 2, I offered this working definition of the word ainos: it is a performance of ambivalent wording that becomes clarified once it is correctly understood and then applied in moments of making moral decisions affecting those who are near and dear. That definition, which I first applied to the words of Phoenix as spoken primarily to Achilles, applies also here to the words of Nestor as spoken to his son Antilokhos. We can see this application more clearly by reviewing the three qualifications that the ainos requires of its listeners: 1. The listeners must be sophoi ‘skilled’ in understanding the message encoded in the poetry. That is, they must be mentally qualified. 2. They must be agathoi ‘noble’. That is, they must be morally qualified. 3. They must be philoi ‘near and dear’ to each other and to the one who is telling them the ainos. That is, they must be emotionally qualified. Communication is achieved through a special sense of community, that is, through recognizing “the ties that bind.” 7§8. As we will now see, the hero Antilokhos proves by way of his epic actions that he fits all three qualifications: 1. The mental qualification of Antilokhos is shown by his understanding of the sign given by his father. When Nestor says to his son, ‘I will give you this certain sign [sēma] which will not get lost in your thinking’ (XXIII 326), the idea that this sign ‘will not get lost in your thinking’ (οὐδέ σε λήσει) is expressed by way of the verb-root lēth-, which means

GM 215-222; PH 208-212 = 7§§11-16.

158 ‘mentally disconnect’.5 The idea that you must not be mentally disconnected from the sēma ‘sign’ shows that this word sēma has to do with a state of mind, a mentality. Antilokhos is visually cued by his father about a landmark that may have been a nussa ‘turning post’ (XXIII 332) in chariot races of the past. And it will definitely be the terma ‘turning post’ (plural τέρματ’, XXIII 333) in the present, during the chariot race in honor of Patroklos.6 According to Nestor, when Antilokhos takes a left turn around this nussa ‘turning post’ (XXIII 338) during the counterclockwise chariot race in which he is about to compete, he will need to be more impulsive on his right side and more restrained on his left side by goading or whipping the horse on the right with his right hand while reining in the horse on the left with his left hand. This way, he will be making the most successful left turn possible. On the elaborate poetics of describing the left turn around a turning post in chariot racing, which requires a perfect combination of impulse and restraint for the successful execution of such a left turn, I am guided by the detailed analysis of Douglas Frame.7 But there is a twist here in Iliad XXIII, as Frame points out: after the chariot race is underway and the time finally comes for Antilokhos to make his move, he does not interpret literally the visual cue or sēma ‘sign’ that had been given him by his father. Antilokhos makes his move not at the turning post but at a narrow pass, where he impulsively decides to overtake the chariot of Menelaos that is racing ahead him: at this point, seeing the visual cue of the narrow pass, Antilokhos even says to himself that his cue ‘will not get lost in my thinking’ (οὐδέ με λήσει XXIII 416), as expressed by way of the verbroot lēth-, which as we saw means ‘mentally disconnect’. And now he impulsively drives past the chariot of Menelaos, nearly “fishtailing” it and thus almost causing both chariots to collide and crash - if Menelaos had not slowed down to avoid a collision (XXIII 417-437).8 Antilokhos here is more impulsive than he is restrained. His action is a balancing of impulsiveness and restraint that favors in this case the impulsive side, which is the right, more than the restraining side, which is the left. That same kind of balancing would have been needed to make a left turn as well, but Antilokhos had redirected his strategy. 2. The moral qualification of Antilokhos is shown by his understanding of the same sign after the chariot race is over. This time, he shows his understanding by way of his behavior toward Menelaos. The impulsiveness of Antilokhos during the chariot race is now counterbalanced by his restraint in the way he speaks and acts after his prize is challenged by an angry Menelaos (XXIII 586-597). And this restraint of Antilokhos gets rewarded: in 5

This root is found in the mythological name Lethe, which is the river of forgetfulness. More precisely, Lethe is the name of a river in the underworld that separates the living from the dead, those awake from those asleep, those conscious from those unconscious. 6 The plural termata of terma ‘turning post’ here in Iliad XXIII 333 expresses the idea that the charioteers of the chariot race held in honor of Patroklos will make their turns around the turning post more than once in the counterclockwise course of the chariot race. 7 Frame 2009:133, 144-149, 153-156, 162-166, 331. 8 Frame 2009:166-168 gives a detailed analysis of the action.

159 response, Menelaos is flattered into voluntarily ceding the prize to Antilokhos (XXIII 598613).9 This behavior of Antilokhos may be interpreted as a show of mental agility,10 but it is also in keeping with moral proprieties.11 Although the original sēma ‘sign’ (XXIII 326) given by Nestor to Antilokhos was specific to the chariot race to be held in honor of Patroklos, the actual interpretation of this sign about the best way to make a left turn around a turning post was not specific but general, even metaphorical. (For my usage of the term metaphorical here, I refer back to Hour 4§32.) For Antilokhos, as the narrative of the actual chariot race in Iliad XXIII elaborates in detail, the sign of Nestor was not only a lesson in chariot driving. It was also a lesson in sound thinking about the management of any crisis in life and about the moral need to balance impulse and restraint.12 And, at this particular moment in the life of Antilokhos, the balance of impulsiveness and restraint now favors restraint. In terms of this balance, the restraint is now dominant and the impulsiveness is recessive. 3. The emotional qualification of Antilokhos is shown by his ultimate understanding of the original sēma ‘sign’ (XXIII 326) given to him by Nestor as an indicator of a ‘tomb’ belonging to a hero from the distant past: as we have seen, the word for this ‘tomb’ is likewise sēma (XXIII 331). And, as I have argued, the hero from the distant past to whom the tomb belongs can be seen as Patroklos, since this hero did in fact die a long time ago, from the standpoint of later generations who are listening to the story of the Iliad. But the ultimate meaning of the original sēma ‘sign’ (XXIII 326) given by Nestor to Antilokhos can go even deeper here: this sign can refer not only to the tomb of an unnamed hero who turns out to be Patroklos but also to the tomb of another unnamed hero who will at a later point turn out to be Antilokhos himself. The cue for this extended identification can be seen in the wording used by Nestor in instructing Antilokhos how to be sound in his thinking and how to be careful in his actions: in this context, Nestor addresses his son as ‘near and dear’, philos (XXIII 343). There is a lesson to be learned here about being philos, and the traditional poetics of this lesson will reach far beyond the narrative of the Iliad itself. I say what I just said because the sēma ‘sign’ given by Nestor to Antilokhos (XXIII 326) points not only to the immediate epic narrative about the chariot race in honor of Patroklos but also to an ulterior epic narrative mentioned in the epic Cycle (plot-summary by Proclus of the Aithiopis by Arctinus of Miletus p. 106 lines 4-6 ; there is also a mention in Odyssey iv 186-188): in this narrative, best attested in a retelling by Pindar (Pythian 6.28-42), Antilokhos himself dies in a chariot fight, giving up his own life while saving the life of his father Nestor, whose chariot had been immobilized.13 Once again we see the mentality of 9

GM 217. GM 217n39. 11 PH 209 = 7§11. 12 GM 216-219; Frame 2009:133, 144-149, 153-156, 162-166, 331. 13 PH 207-214 = 7§§10-18. 10

160 choosing to die for someone else: I will die for you. For Antilokhos, then, the highest point in his ascending scale of affection proves to be his immediate ancestor, that is, his father. And, in the master Narrative of the Iliad, such a ranking is relevant to Patroklos himself, since, as we have seen, the name Patrokleēs means ‘the one who has the glory [kleos] of the ancestors [pateres]’. 7§9. By now we have seen that there is a visual cue, as expressed by the word sēma, for each one of the three qualifications that Antilokhos must have in order to understand the meaning of the ainos addressed to him by Nestor: 1. When Antilokhos sees the turning post of the chariot race to be held in honor of Patroklos, what he sees will become the same thing as the sēma or ‘sign’ that he hears spoken to him by Nestor, which is the code that will enable him to win a prize in the race. That is how Antilokhos will become mentally qualified. 2. This sēma or ‘sign’ that Antilokhos sees is not only a code for driving his chariot successfully. It is also a moral code that teaches him to balance his impulsiveness with a sense of restraint. That is how Antilokhos will become morally qualified. 3. This sēma or ‘sign’ that Antilokhos sees by looking at the turning post will become the same thing as the ‘tomb’ of a hero. By understanding this equation, Antilokhos will live up to the instructions embedded in the ainos that he hears from his father Nestor, who addresses his son as philos ‘near and dear’ in instructing Antilokhos how to be sound in his thinking and how to be careful in his actions. That is how Antilokhos will become emotionally qualified. 7§10. So, unlike the other example of ainos that we considered in Hour 2, where Phoenix was speaking to Achilles, our new example of ainos conveys its meaning not only verbally but also visually. That is to say, the ainos spoken by Nestor to Antilokhos conveys its meaning not only by way of its wording but also by way of a visual cue that we find embedded in that wording, and the word for this visual cue is sēma.

The sign in the visual arts 7§11. As we have seen so far, then, sēma can mean picturing by way of words. Poetry can do that kind of picturing, as in the words spoken by Nestor to Antilokhos in Iliad XXIII. And I invoke here a relevant saying attributed to the poet Simonides (whose life overlaps the sixth and fifth centuries BCE), as mediated by Plutarch (On the glory of the Athenians 346f): as the saying goes, painting is silent poetry, but poetry is talking pictures.14 Of course the concept of “talking pictures” is most familiar to us from that moment in the history of filmmaking when the “audio” of recorded speech gets to be finally integrated with the “video” of film. So we may

HC 129 = 1§127. Nagy 1974:21. See also Lessing 1766 [1984] 4.

161 say that Simonides anticipated such a concept, even though the required technology was invented only two and a half millennia later. 7§12. But the sēma in ancient Greek song culture works not only as video embedded in audio. It can work also as video pure and simple, in the form of images produced by way of visual arts. I am about to show and to analyze copies of twenty such images, all of which were originally produced as paintings on vases (the one exception is a bronze plaque featuring in relief a scene that is parallel to a scene painted in one of the vase paintings). The copies that I show here are line drawings of the original images. Every one of these twenty images, as we will see, qualifies as a sēma in the sense of a ‘sign’. Further, any picture that is embedded inside a painted picture may qualify as a sēma, once again in the sense of a ‘sign’. In Image D of the inventory, for example, we will see a picture of a lion that is painted as a device on a shield, and we know from the evidence of poetry that any device displayed on the surface of a warrior’s shield is known as a sēma; a celebrated example is the array of devices displayed on the shields of the Seven against Thebes in the drama by Aeschylus that is named after these seven heroes.15 So, when we see a picture of such a sēma or device that is painted on the picture of a shield that we see painted on a vase, what we are seeing is a sēma inside a sēma.

Selected examples of signs in the visual arts 7§13. In the images that we are about to see, we will find one particular figure that qualifies as a sēma in a double sense, both as a ‘tomb’ and as a special ‘sign’ in its own right. Already in Image A1, to which I now turn, we will see this figure. By way of this figure, we will see that the video of the image corresponds to the audio of the ainos told in Iliad XXIII by Nestor the father to Antilokhos the son. 7§14. As we have seen before, Antilokhos succeeds in understanding that the ‘tomb’ of a hero is being signaled for him by a ‘sign’ that is made, verbally, by his father. So also in Image A1 and in other images that we are about to see, the ‘tomb’ of a hero is being signaled for the viewer by a ‘sign’ that is made, visually, by the painter. This visual ‘sign’, as we will see, is not only the tomb of a hero: it is also the turning post of a chariot race. And the meaning of this visual ‘sign’ is to be understood, as we will also see, as an ultimate form of meaning, in and of itself. 7§15. We will start with a line drawing of a picture painted on a kind of vase known as a hydria. This hydria was produced in Athens at some point during the last few decades of the 16

Nagy 2000. Note the spelling: hydria, not to be confused with “hydra.” The second of these two words, “hydra,” comes from a Greek word for a venomous dragon. 16

162 sixth century BCE and is now housed in the museum of the university in Münster.17 From here on, I will refer to this vase as the Münster Hydria. 7§16. The original painting of the Münster Hydria was done in a style and technique that art historians describe as Black Figure. In fact, all the paintings we are about to see are Black Figure. The pictures painted on the Münster Hydria have been analyzed in a monograph by Klaus Stähler, whose perceptive observations have strongly influenced my own analysis.18 Let us begin, then, by looking at a line drawing of the picture that was painted on the body of this vase:

Image A1

Hydria; Münster, Wilhelms-Universität, 565; painting on the body of the vase; I will hereafter refer to this painting as Image A1 on the Münster Hydria. 7§17. The two-dimensional limitations of the line drawing here create the optical effect of flattening the curvature of the round surface on which the vase painter has painted his picture. But we can see some things more clearly from such a flattened perspective. In particular, I draw attention to the fact that the left and the right edges of the painting have suffered considerable fragmentation. Whereas the dark gray background of the line drawing represents the burnished red color of the fired clay that serves as the background for the black 17 18

At the end of Hour 7, I will attempt a more precise dating of this vase. Stähler 1967.

163 and white colors of the figures that are painted on the red surface of the vase, the light gray background at the left and at the right edges of the line drawing represents the areas of the burnished red background where the paint used for painting the black and white figures is eroded. As for the body of the other half of the vase, it has broken off for the most part. 7§18. The picture is framed by vertical margins painted on both the left and the right, corresponding roughly to the vertical margins that frame the line drawing that we see. The vertical margins are coordinated with the horizontal margins at the bottom and at the top of the picture. The line drawing as we see it shows the horizontal margin at the bottom, under which it shows decorative patterns of leaves repeated in a series; as for the margin at the top, it corresponds to a horizontal zone where we can see the body of the vase modulating into the shoulder; later on in my analysis, I will show a line drawing of the picture painted on the shoulder of this vase, Image A2. 7§19. So the vertical and the horizontal margins framing the picture we see in Image A1 create a window effect. It is as if the viewer were viewing a scene by looking through a window. In a short while, I will show another clear example of such a window effect. 7§20. Although the paint at both the left and the right edges of the picture we see in Image 1 has chipped off, we can still make out the essentials of what is missing: At the left edge of the picture, in the area next to the margin, a missing part is the figure of a charioteer standing on the platform of a chariot. Because most of the paint has eroded in this area, all we see of the chariot is a trace of a chariot wheel. The chariot is being drawn by four horses, fully visible, running at full speed. Another missing part at the left edge is the head of a figure that is shown running on the ground at full speed alongside the speeding chariot; also missing is the left side of his body (here and elsewhere, in referring to the left and the right sides of human figures, I follow the left-right orientation of the viewer who is facing the picture). It is a male figure, as we can see from his coloring. In Black Figure painting, male skin is ordinarily painted black, while female skin is painted white. As for the area at the right edge of the picture where the paint has eroded, the missing parts are the head and most of the body of a female figure that is standing in the way of the speeding horses. We know that the figure is female because we see a trace of one of her hands, painted white, near the snout of the horse that is furthest away from the viewer. 7§21. The horses driven by the charioteer are shown making a left turn around a tomb, which is pictured as a shining white egg-shaped mass rising out of the earth. We can see that the heads of the horses on the right side of the yoke are positioned further downward while the heads of the horses on the left side are positioned further upward. These positions correspond to what we can visualize in the Nestor’s words of advice in Iliad XXIII about the

164 most successful left turn in a chariot race: driving two horses yoked to the chariot, the competing charioteer has to impel the horse on the right side of the yoke, forcing it to go faster by whipping or goading it, while he has to restrain the horse on the left side, forcing it to go slower by reining it in (XXIII 334-338). Unlike what we see in the chariot race depicted in Iliad XXIII, however, there are four rather than two horses that draw the racing chariot here in Image A1. I will return at a later point to this discrepancy. 7§22. The tomb is being guarded by the figure of a fierce lion, the black color of which is foregrounded by the shining white background of the tomb. The appearance of this tomb corresponds to what archaeologists describe as a tumulus covered with white stucco.19 In Black Figure vase paintings, the tumulus of the generic cult hero is conventionally painted shining white, foregrounded against the burnished red background of the fired clay.20 As we will see, this shining white tumulus as pictured here in the visual art of the Münster Hydria corresponds to the turning post for the athletic event of a chariot race as described by Nestor in the verbal art of the Iliad (XXIII 331-332). 7§23. Levitating over the shining white tumulus in the dead center of this picture is the miniature figure of a fully armed warrior who is shown running at full speed in thin air. The movement of this miniature male figure - from now on I will refer to him as a homunculus mirrors the movement of the male figure who is shown running at full speed on the ground, alongside the speeding chariot. 7§24. Even the appearance of the homunculus running in thin air mirrors the appearance of the male figure running at ground zero. The homunculus is fully armed, equipped with helmet, shield, spear, sword, breastplate, and shinguards.21 So also the male figure running alongside the chariot is fully armed: although the image of this runner is fragmentary, we can see clearly his shield and the hilt of his sword. We can also see clearly one of his legs; and the wide space separating this leg from the other leg, occluded by the legs of the horses, shows that this runner too is running at full speed, mirroring the momentum of the running homunculus.22 As Stähler demonstrates, and as we will see for ourselves in what follows, this figure who is running at ground zero here is Achilles himself.23 7§25. As we will see, the image of the homunculus represents the spirit of a cult hero whose tomb is marked by the shining white tumulus. Positioned directly above the tumulus and to the right of the homunculus is a painted sequence of five consecutive letters ΦΣΥΧΕ 19

HPC 170 = II§90. Stähler 1967:19, with citations. 21 Close examination by Stähler 1967:13 verifies that the painting actually shows the shin guards, even though this aspect of the armor is not clearly visible. 22 Stähler 1967:12. 23 Stähler 1967:15, 32-33, 44. 20

165 running from left to right and signaling the identity of the cult hero: these letters spell out the word psūkhē, which I will translate for the moment simply as ‘spirit’. As Stähler argues, this word here refers to the spirit of a cult hero, and the cult hero here turns out to be none other than the dead Patroklos.24 7§26. In making his argument, Stähler compares the picture we have just seen, as painted on the Münster Hydria, with other pictures featuring remarkable parallels. Foremost among these other pictures is one that is painted on the body of another hydria, housed in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston; from here on, I will refer to this other vase as the Boston Hydria. This vase was produced in Athens around the same time as the Münster Hydria, that is, at some point during the last few decades of the sixth century BCE.25 Here is a line drawing of the picture painted on the body of this vase:

Image B1

Hydria: Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, 63.473; painting on the body of the vase; Stähler no. 15; I will hereafter refer to this painting as Image B1 on the Boston Hydria.

24 25

Stähler 1967:13-14. At the end of Hour 7, I will have more to say about the dating of this vase.

166 7§27. The picture we see here in the line drawing, Image B1 on the Boston Hydria, has been analyzed by Emily Vermeule, whose observations I will follow closely in my analysis.26 Here too in Image B1, as in Image A1 on the Münster Hydria, we see a tomb in the form of a shining white tumulus highlighted against the burnished red background of the fired clay. As in the case of Image A1, the appearance of this tomb in Image B1 corresponds to what archaeologists describe as a tumulus covered with white stucco. I note here in passing an interesting variation on a theme: whereas the tomb in Image A1 was being guarded by a fierce lion, the guardian of the tomb in Image B1 is a snake, and its black color is foregrounded by the shining white background of the tumulus. 7§28. Variations aside, an essential fact remains: here too in Image B1, as in Image A1, we see the figure of a homunculus hovering over a tomb shaped like a tumulus. And the homunculus of Image B1 is wearing a full set of armor, just like the homunculus of Image A1. Unlike that other homunculus who levitates above his tomb in Image A1, however, this levitating homunculus in Image B1 is endowed with a pair of wings. So, with the addition of these wings, the theme of levitation in thin air above a tomb can be made even more explicit. And, unlike that other homunculus in Image A1, who is labeled as ΦΣΥΧΕ, that is, as a psūkhē or ‘spirit’, this homunculus in Image B1 is actually identified by way of the lettering painted on the picture of the tomb: we see here a sequence of eight consecutive letters ΠΑΤΡΟΚΛΩ. These letters, running from left to right, spell out Patroklō, signaling the name Patroklos (in the dative case: so, ‘for Patroklos’). 7§29. As Stähler argues, the homunculus labeled as psūkhē or ‘spirit’ on the Münster Hydria (Image A1) has the same identity as the corresponding homunculus labeled as Patroklos on the Boston Hydria (Image B1).27 That is, both of these homunculi represent the spirit of Patroklos as a cult hero who is hovering over the tomb that contains his corpse. It is this same tomb, as Stähler argues further, that will in a future time contain the corpse of Achilles as well; the argument here is based on the fact that Homeric poetry makes explicit references to a tomb that contains the corpses of Patroklos and Achilles together (Iliad XXIII 83-84, 91-92, 125126, 245-248; Odyssey xxiv 80-84).28 7§30. By contrast with such a future time when Achilles, once he is dead, will share the tomb of Patroklos, Achilles is not dead but still very much alive in the present time of the narrative encapsulated in the picture painted on the Boston Hydria. Image B1 shows Achilles near the center of the left side of the painting, at a moment when he is either stepping on or stepping off the platform of a speeding chariot that is taking a left turn around the tomb that

Vermeule 1965. Stähler 1967:14. 28 Stähler 1967:14n7. 27

167 contains the corpse of Patroklos. At this point in my argumentation, I cannot yet say for sure whether the figure of Achilles is stepping into or out of the chariot here. 7§31. I focus here on a most telling detail we see in the picture: it is the naked corpse of Hector being dragged behind the speeding chariot. We know it is Hector because the consecutive letters painted over the corpse spell out ΕΚΤΡΩΡ, that is Hektōr (the superfluous -Ρ- in the sequence is simply a mistake in the spelling of the name). We know from two passages in the Homeric Iliad (XXII 395-405, XXIV 14-22) that Achilles, infuriated over the killing of his dearest friend Patroklos by Hector, tries to avenge this death by fastening the ankles of his slain enemy behind the wheels of his chariot and then dragging Hector’s corpse behind his speeding vehicle; in both Iliadic passages, Achilles himself is shown driving the chariot. In Image B1, by contrast, the chariot is driven by a driver wearing the generic fulllength gown of a charioteer. 7§32. In the second of the two passages in the Iliad where Achilles is pictured in the act of dragging the corpse of Hector behind his speeding chariot, we see that he drives this chariot three times around the tomb of Patroklos (XXIV 14-18), and the word referring to the tomb here is sēma (XXIV 16). At an earlier point in the narrative of the Iliad, this tomb is described as incomplete: it will not be complete until Achilles himself is buried there together with his best friend Patroklos (XXIII 245-248).29 7§33. Keeping in mind this Iliadic detail showing Achilles in the act of driving around the tomb of Patroklos three times, I turn to corresponding details in Image A1 of the Münster Hydria as also in Image B1 of the Boston Hydria: in both images, the four horses driven by the charioteer are shown making a left turn around the tomb of Patroklos. Applying the verbal narrative of the Iliad to the visual narrative of Image B1, Vermeule has made this observation about the technique used in the visual narrative: “The technique gives the impression that the myth is circling around in another world, outside the window frame through which the spectator views it, in endless motion which is somehow always arrested at the same place whenever we return to the window.”30 I have already noted the same kind of visual technique when I was analyzing the painted scene we saw in Image A1: there too, as in Image B1, the vertical and the horizontal margins framing the picture create a window effect. It is as if the viewer were viewing a scene by looking through a window. Every time we look through the painted window that frames the painted scene that we see, we return to precisely this same moment. 7§34. Such a moment interrupts a circular motion that could otherwise go on forever. As we have just seen from Vermeule’s description of the scene in Image B1 of the Boston 29 30

HPC 173 = II§93. Vermeule 1965:45.

168 Hydria, the chariot of Achilles seems to be circling the tomb of Patroklos endlessly, but its circular motion is arrested at whatever moment the viewer returns to the picture by looking through the window. 7§35. This arresting of motion by way of a stop-motion picture can be compared to what happens in the epic narrative about the dragging of the corpse of Hector behind the speeding chariot of Achilles. As we know from the narrative of the Iliad, the speeding chariot of Achilles will ultimately stop, since it is a moral imperative in this epic that the dragging of the corpse of Hector simply must stop. Such a moral imperative is in fact signaled in the Iliad immediately after the description of the dragging of the corpse of Hector three times around the tomb of Patroklos (XXIV 14-18). While the god Apollo uses his healing power to keep on preserving the corpse of Hector from the disfigurement intended by Achilles (XXIV 18-21), the other gods too are feeling pity for Hector (XXIV 23), and a proposal is made that Hermes the divine messenger should hide Hector’s body (XXIV 24), thus preventing for good the attempt of Achilles to disfigure it by dragging it behind his chariot (XXIV 22). All the gods are in favor of this proposal (XXIV 25) except for Hērā, Athena, and Poseidon, who are opposed (XXIV 2530), and their opposition leads to further deliberation in what is clearly understood to be a council of the gods (XXIV 31-76). 7§36. At this final council of the gods in the Iliad, the decision is made to send the goddess Iris, messenger of the Olympians, on a double mission: first she goes off to summon Thetis (74-75), who will be asked by Zeus to persuade her son to return the corpse of Hector to Priam (75-76); then Iris is sent off to Priam, who will receive from the goddess a divine plan designed to make it possible for him to persuade Achilles to return the corpse of his son (143158). The ultimate outcome of this double mission is that Achilles will finally take pity on Priam and release to him the body of Hector; the elaborate narrative that culminates in this outcome takes up over 500 verses (XXIV 189-694).31 Once the double mission of Iris is accomplished, Achilles will never again drag the body of Hector. 7§37. By contrast with the Iliad, however, where we see an elaborate and lengthy narrative about the double mission of Iris, the corresponding narrative in Image B1 of the Boston Hydria is simple and brief, practically instantaneous, and this narrative is about a single mission accomplished by Iris. This goddess, the female counterpart of Hermes as divine messenger of the Olympians, can be seen here in Image B1 at the precise moment when she descends from the Olympian heights and signals, even before her delicate feet have touched the ground, that the dragging of the corpse of Hector must stop. And so the chariot, which is still speeding ahead, must ultimately stop.

Friis Johansen 1967:143.

169 7§38. In Image B1 of the Boston Hydria, the signal for ultimately stopping the chariot is a gesture of lament: the goddess Iris is shown raising her arms, indicating the need for pity. And, as we remember from the narrative in the Iliad, the emotion of pity was in fact the first reaction of the Olympian gods as they contemplated the dragging of the corpse of Hector by Achilles (XXIV 23). It was this emotion that led to the decision, at the final council of the gods in the Iliad, to stop the dragging of the corpse of Hector by Achilles. And it is now this same emotion of pity that Iris is signaling in Image B1 of the Boston Hydria. Further, this signal of pity is picked up by the parents of Hector, Priam and Hecuba, who are seen standing in a portico at the far left of the picture of Image B1: they too make gestures of lament, corresponding to the gesture of Iris.32 And this signal of pity emanating from Priam and Hecuba is then finally picked up by Achilles himself, who now turns his head toward Priam and Hecuba as he proceeds to step off the chariot.33 7§39. In terms of my interpretation, then, Achilles here in Image B1 of the Boston Hydria is stepping off his speeding chariot. According to an alternative interpretation, however, Achilles is at this very moment stepping into the chariot, not out of it.34 In what follows, I will defend my interpretation by surveying other pictures that show details comparable to what we see here in Image B1 of the Boston Hydria. And, as we will see from these pictures, the turning of the head of Achilles in Image B1 is not directly related to the act of stepping on or stepping off a racing chariot. 7§40. I offer already now a hint of things to come. The fact is, the turned head of Achilles is a detail that relates directly to the perspective of the narration in Image B1 of the Boston Hydria. I highlight here an unrealistic detail there: it looks as if Achilles were holding his shield with his right hand. But in “real life” a warrior holds his shield consistently with his left hand. To represent that, however, the painter would need to show the outside of the shield pointing away from the viewer. So, instead, the painter paints the upper part of Achilles’ body, not only his turned head, as pointing toward the left, shield and all, while the lower part of his body, visible below the shield, is pointing to the right. 7§41. But I start with the picture painted on the shoulder of the Münster Hydria:

Image A2

The scene is described by Friis Johansen 1967:150, who points out that Priam, shown with a white beard, is “leaning on a stick and raising his right hand,” while Hecuba is “beating her forehead in lamentation.” 33 HPC 172-173 = II§91. 34 Vermeule 1965:44; Friis Johansen 1967:150.

170

Hydria: Münster, Wilhelms-Universität, 565; painting on the shoulder of the vase; I will hereafter refer to this painting as Image A2 on the Münster Hydria. The scene that we see here is a council of the gods, parallel to the final council of the gods in the Iliad, where we saw that the Olympians took pity on Hector as they were contemplating from on high the dragging of his corpse by Achilles (XXIV 23). Attending the council of the gods in Image A2 of the Münster Hydria are Zeus and Hermes at center left and center right; the chief of the gods is shown wielding his thunderbolt, while the messenger of the gods holds his heraldic staff or kerykeion. Further to the right of Hermes is the goddess Athena, armed with shield and aegis. As for the divine figure situated to the right of Athena, we cannot see who it is because of a break in the painting. At the extreme left is Dionysus, wearing a garland of ivy and holding a grapevine.35 7§42. Between Dionysus and Zeus is a goddess, and she is making a gesture: one hand is uplifted, while she holds a rod with the other hand. I conjecture that this goddess is the goddess Iris, female messenger of the Olympians and counterpart of the god Hermes as their male messenger; and I conjecture also that the rod she holds is a kerykeion corresponding to the one held by Hermes. In the case of Iris, however, the kerykeion is turned downward, and we cannot see the tip because of a break in the painting. In another picture that we will see later on, however, the downturned kerykeion of Iris is clearly visible in a comparable context. 7§43. These details in Image A2, as painted on the shoulder of the Münster Hydria, are compatible with the details we already saw in Image B1 as painted on the body of the Boston 35

Stähler 1967:16.

171 Hydria. In Image B1, the goddess Iris is at the point of accomplishing a mission that was ordained at a council of the gods as pictured in Image A2. And the mission of Iris, as we see it pictured in Image B1, is to stop the dragging of the corpse of Hector by Achilles. 7§44. Here I must stop for a moment to make a clarification. It has to do with a remarkable omission in the picture painted on the body of the Münster Hydria. As we can see in Image A1 of this vase, the corpse of Hector is not pictured. So the council of the gods, pictured in Image A2 as painted on the shoulder of the Münster Hydria, is less well understood if we connect it with the picture of the speeding chariot team in Image A1 and better understood if we connect it with the corresponding picture of the speeding chariot team in Image B1 of the Boston Hydria, where we can actually see the dragging of the corpse of Hector behind the chariot of Achilles. 7§45. This kind of omission will be more understandable when we view the evidence of other relevant pictures. As we will see, vase paintings of such scenes from Greek myths are selective in what they include and exclude. And here I can offer a general observation: there is no such thing as a complete picture of any single myth in any single vase painting. 7§46. That said, I am ready to move on to the next picture, which is painted on the shoulder of the Boston Hydria:

Image B2

Hydria: Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, 63.473; painting on the shoulder of the vase; I will hereafter refer to this painting as Image B2 on the Boston Hydria. This picture painted on the shoulder of the Boston Hydria, Image B2, is relevant to the picture painted on the body of the same vase, Image B1. Here in Image B2, we see on our right the figure of a chariot driver wearing the generic full-length white gown of a charioteer and

172 driving a four-horse chariot at full speed, while a figure in full armor is running toward the center of the picture, brandishing his spear. On our left in this same picture, racing after the chariot we see on our right, we see another speeding four-horse chariot, and this one is driven by none other than the goddess Athena herself; meanwhile, another figure in full armor is running toward the center of the picture, and he too is brandishing a spear. This fully armed running figure on our left, as we can tell from the lionskin he wears, is none other than the hero Hēraklēs, son of the god Zeus; as for the fully armed running figure on our right, he is the hero Kyknos, son of the god Arēs. The story of the mortal combat in chariot fighting between Hēraklēs and Kyknos is recounted in the Hesiodic Shield of Herakles, where we see that both Hēraklēs and Kyknos leap to the ground from their chariots and then run at full speed toward each other (verses 370-371). I highlight here a detail: both combatants leap from their speeding chariots (verse 370 θόρον, from the verb thrōiskein ‘leap, jump’). Meanwhile, the charioteers driving the chariots of the combatants drive on, keeping as close as possible to the combatants running on the ground (verse 372 ἔμπλην ‘closely’). 7§47. Similarly in Image B2 of the Boston Hydria, the drivers are keeping their speeding chariots close to the running combatants. Though it seems at first as if Kyknos were running in the opposite direction of his chariot team, this optical effect is deceptive, since the charioteer of Kyknos is making a left turn here, thus starting to circle back along the curvature of the vase’s round surface - and thus resuming the direction in which Kyknos is running. In fact, both charioteers here are making left turns and circling back counterclockwise toward their runners. We will soon see comparable pictures of speeding chariots making left turns in the course of their counterclockwise trajectories. Meanwhile, at the center of the picture here in Image B2, we see a figure who seems to be intervening exactly at the point where the two running warriors will come to blows, that is, at the dead center of the painting; on the basis of other paintings that picture the mortal combat of Hēraklēs and Kyknos, we may infer that the figure in the center here is the god Zeus himself.36 And while this intervention is taking place in the picture painted on the shoulder of the Boston Hydria, Image B2, the figure of Iris is intervening at the center of the action in the corresponding picture painted below on the body of this same vase, Image B1.37 7§48. The picturing of fully armed figures running at full speed alongside their speeding chariots in Image B2 of the Boston Hydria brings us back to what we saw earlier in Image A1 of the Münster Hydria: there too, a fully armed figure is running at full speed alongside his speeding chariot, which is making a left turn around a shining white tumulus. As 36

Shapiro 1984:525 surveys the evidence of comparable vase paintings. The parallelism that we see here between two scenes of divine intervention, one in the picture painted on the shoulder of the Boston Hydria and the other on the body of this vase was noticed by Aliya Williams, who was working on a research project at the Center for Hellenic Studies in the spring of 2012. 37

173 Stähler has demonstrated, this fully armed running figure is Achilles himself, who is mirrored by the fully armed running figure of a wingless homunculus levitating over the tumulus, who in turn is the spirit of Patroklos; and the tumulus over which this spirit of Patroklos levitates is the tomb that he will one day share with Achilles himself.38 7§49. This same tomb, as we have seen, is pictured in Image B1 of the Boston Hydria, and the winged homunculus who levitates above the shining white tumulus in that picture is actually labeled as Patroklos. And, there too, the speeding four-horse chariot team of Achilles is making a left turn around the tumulus. 7§50. But the focal points are different in Images A1 and B1. Whereas the shining white tumulus is the center of attention in Image A1, it is off-center in Image B1; similarly, whereas the wingless homunculus and the team of speeding horses are situated at the center of Image A1, the winged homunculus and the speeding team of horses are off-center in Image B1. In the case of the horses, they are not only off to the side: we can only see their hind-quarters as they make their left turn around the tomb of Patroklos. Conversely, what occupies the center of attention in Image B1 is the figure of Iris, who commands the attention of Achilles indirectly by making a gesture of lament directed at Priam and Hecuba, who in turn make corresponding gestures of lament directed at Achilles. So Achilles now turns his head around and looks back toward the lamenting parents of Hector, thus looking away from the tomb of Patroklos and away from the spirit of Patroklos who levitates over that tomb. And I have already argued that the entire upper half of Achilles’ body, shield and all, is pointed to the left, toward the lamenting parents of Hector, while the lower half of his body is pointed to the right. 7§51. In Image A1, by contrast, the head of Achilles is unturned: although the head itself is missing, Stähler has noticed traces of the hero’s beard in this badly fragmented part of the painting, and the beard is pointing to the right.39 So Achilles in Image A1 is looking straight ahead, in the direction of three details in the picture: (1) the shining white tumulus, (2) the spirit of Patroklos who levitates above the tumulus, and (3) a female figure who is situated at the extreme right of the picture. As I have pointed out already, the fragmentary picture of this female figure in Image A1 shows traces of one of her hands. I now add that this hand is lifted in a gesture that parallels the uplifted hands of the goddess Iris in Image B1. Here too in Image A1, I argue, the female figure who is making such a gesture of lament must be Iris. 7§52. As we will now see, comparable pictures show a wide variety of focal points that preoccupy the attention of the viewer. And, as we will also see, these focal points will even preoccupy the attention of Achilles himself. In other words, the visual art of vase painting can represent Achilles as a viewer from inside the picture; this way, Achilles as a viewer from the 38 39

Stähler 1967:14-15. Stähler 1967:12.

174 inside can become a participant in the outside viewer’s act of viewing the picture. And, in most cases, the head of Achilles is turned in the direction of the focal point that most attracts him. Here is an example:

Image C

Amphora (neck-amphora): London, British Museum, B239; Beazley ABV 371, Leagros Group no. 147; Stähler no. 1. 7§53. Here in Image C, as in Image A1, we see a fully armed Achilles running alongside a speeding chariot. The hero is bearded, equipped with helmet, breastplate, shinguards, two spears, and a shield featuring the picture of a tripod as its device. The speeding chariot, driven by a figure wearing the full-length white gown of a charioteer, is making a left turn around the shining white tumulus of Patroklos, which is guarded in this case by a snake, not by a lion as in the case of the tumulus pictured in Image A1 of the Münster Hydria. 7§54. In the logic of the left turn that is being made by the charioteer here in Image C, the speeding chariot will be circling counterclockwise around the tumulus. And the fully armed Achilles who is running alongside the chariot is likewise circling counterclockwise around this same tumulus. Such a circular trajectory is reflected here in the visual effect of showing the extended leg of Achilles running in the foreground while the tumulus is in the background, but the upper part of his body is in the background while the tumulus is in the foreground, as if he were already on the other side of the tumulus, having run half-way around it. While Achilles is running on the viewer’s side of the tumulus, he is heading toward our

175 right; while he is running on the other side, however, he is heading toward our left. And in fact the head of Achilles is facing toward our left. 7§55. From what we have see so far, the shining white tumulus is clearly the center of attention for the outside viewer. But what about the viewpoint of Achilles as an inside viewer? For an answer, we need to look at the sum total of the details we can see here in Image C. 7§56. In Image C as elsewhere, the picturing of the myth is not the complete picture. Parts of the myth are excluded. For example, the spirit of Patroklos is not pictured here. And we can see no Iris. What is very much of a presence, however, is the corpse of Hector, which is being dragged behind the speeding chariot. Remarkably, the painting of Hector’s corpse extends outward to our left, well beyond the left margin of the picture, so that this gruesome sight is actually painted outside the frame of the picture. This exclusion from the frame is comparable to what we saw in Image A1 of the Münster Hydria, where the dragging of Hector’s corpse behind the chariot was excluded altogether from the picture, not only from the frame of the picture. The significant absence from the frame of Image C corresponds to the significant absence from the entire painting of Image A1. Either way, then, the dragging of the corpse of Hector by Achilles is evidently an absent signifier in these paintings. And, in the case of Image C, the exclusion of Hector’s corpse from the frame has the effect of ostentatiously drawing attention to the act of dragging the corpse. In making this argument, I highlight the fact that the head of the running Achilles in Image C is turned toward the excluded picture of the dragging of the corpse of Hector. 7§57. The details that we have found in Image C are most readily comparable with what we see in the next image to be examined:

Image D

176

Amphora (neck-amphora): Berlin, Staatliche Museen F 1867; Beazley ABV 371, Leagros Group no. 148; Stähler no. 2. Here in Image D we see once again the fully armed figure of Achilles in the act of running alongside a racing chariot team that is making a left turn around the tumulus of Patroklos. In the logic of the left turn that is being made by the charioteer here in Image D, the speeding chariot is once again circling counterclockwise around the tumulus, as in Image C. And the fully armed Achilles who is running alongside the chariot is likewise circling counterclockwise around this same tumulus. But Image D shows this circular trajectory in a way that differs from what we saw in Image C. This time, the figure of Achilles is running from our right toward our left, as if he had already made the left turn that the speeding chariot is only now about to make. Also, the extended leg of Achilles is in the foreground while the running horses and the tumulus are the background, but his extended arm is in the background while the running horses are in the foreground, as if he were already on the other side of the tumulus. And Achilles is running in the same direction as the winged homunculus who levitates over the tumulus. This homunculus, fully armed, is once again the spirit of Patroklos in his role as a miniature body-double of the fully armed Achilles who is running on the ground. 7§58. Besides the points of comparison with details we have seen in Image C, I must also compare further details that we saw earlier in Image A1 of the Münster Hydria, where the spirit of Patroklos is a fully armed but wingless homunculus who is pictured as a miniature body-double of the fully armed Achilles who is running on the ground alongside his speeding chariot. In Image A1, the levitating figure of Patroklos is running in thin air, heading from our right toward our left, whereas the figure of Achilles is running on the ground, heading from

177 our left toward our right, since he has not yet made the left turn that the speeding chariot is about to make. 7§59. So, as I analyze further the picture we saw in Image A1, I am now ready to say that the fully armed figure of Patroklos running in the air is a model for the fully armed figure of Achilles running on the ground, since the running Patroklos would already have run half-way around the tumulus if he had been running on the ground. In the case of Image C, by contrast, Achilles himself has already run half-way around the tumulus. As for Image D, as I have been arguing, Achilles has at least already made the left turn, even if he has not yet circled half-way around the tumulus.40 7§60. Finally, in Image D as well as in Image C, the tumulus is guarded by a snake, not a lion. We do still see a lion in Image D, but only as a picture within the picture. That is, we see a lion featured as the device on the shield of Achilles. Later on, when we consider Image K, we will see that snakes too can be featured as devices painted on shields. 7§61. And here I must recall what I noted earlier about the embedding of a picture inside a painted picture: such an embedded picture may qualify as a sēma in the sense of a ‘sign’. And, as I also noted, we know from the evidence of poetry that any device displayed on the surface of a warrior’s shield is known as a sēma; so, when we see a picture of such a sēma or device that is painted on the picture of a shield that we see painted on a vase, what we are seeing is a sēma inside a sēma. And what we are also seeing is the interchangeability of sēmata or ‘signs’ in these pictures. Just as a lion or a snake can be the guardian of a sēma in the sense of a ‘tomb’ that signals a dead hero in a given picture, so also the picture of a lion or of a snake can be a sēma in the sense of a ‘sign’ that serves as a device for signaling the identity of such that hero, who can be either Patroklos or Achilles in the set of pictures we are now considering. 7§62. Similarly, the device of a running leg painted on the shield of the winged spirit of Patroklos here in Image D is a sēma or ‘sign’ for identifying Achilles, not Patroklos, as the hero who is best known for his swiftness in running (a distinctive epithet of Achilles in the verbal art of epic is podas ōkus ‘swift of foot’ as at Iliad I 58). In Image B1 of the Boston Hydria, there is a corresponding picture painted on the shield of Achilles himself: we see there a device that features three running legs stemming from a center and seemingly spinning clockwise around 40

Friis Johansen 1967:147 is unhappy with the fact that the runner in Image D is running “in the opposite direction of the chariot,” and he thinks that the painter’s represention of the scene in this image is “totally degenerate.” In making this assessment, however, he does not take into account the circular trajectory of the chariots as they make their left turns. It should be noted, moreover, that Friis Johansen at the time of his writing did not know about the Münster Hydria or about the book of Stähler 1967. My analysis of Image D differs, however, from that of Stähler 1967:50, 63.

178 that center. This triple-leg device conveys a semantic intensification of the quality of swiftfootedness already conveyed by the single-leg device. 7§63. Next I show a set of six pictures in a row, each one of which is painted on the smaller surface of a smaller kind of vase, the lekythos:

Image E

Lekythos: Borden Wood; now at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; Beazley ABV 378, Leagros Group no. 259; Stähler no. 3.

Image F

Lekythos; Louvre CA 601; Stähler no. 7.

179

Image G

Lekythos: New York, Metropolitan Museum 25.70.2; Stähler no. 5.

Image H

Lekythos: Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale 11078; Stähler no. 6.

Image I

180

Lekythos: Naples, Museo Nazionale H 2746; Beazley ABV 378, Leagros Group no. 258; Stähler no. 4.

Image J

Lekythos: Krakow, Czartoryski Museum 1245; Beazley ABV 380, the Leagros Group no. 291; Stähler no. 9. 7§64. In Image E we see once again the corpse of Hector being dragged behind the speeding chariot team, which is once again making a left turn around the tumulus of Patroklos, whose winged spirit levitates above it. Once again the fully armed Achilles is running alongside the chariot. And I note here a detail that we have not seen in the other pictures: a fully armed

181 warrior is being trampled by the galloping horses that draw the onrushing chariot. This detail will be relevant to Image H. Another detail to be noted here in Image E is the picturing of grapes growing on vines to our right; in Image A2, as we saw earlier, the figure of Dionysus is holding a grapevine.41 7§65. In Image F, we see another heretofore unseen detail: it is a second fully armed warrior who is running alongside the speeding chariot. The first warrior, whose head is turned back, corresponds to the figure of Achilles in the other pictures being compared here. 7§66. In Image G, I note a detail that we have by now seen several times already: the fully armed figure who is running alongside the speeding chariot is shown with his head turned backward, to our left. So the runner is facing the act of dragging the corpse of Hector behind the chariot - an act that we already saw being excluded from the frame of another picture, Image C - and excluded altogether from the picture in Images A1 and D. The vision of this act of dragging is fully included, on the other hand, in Images B1 E F, as also here in Image G. 7§67. In Image H, the action is moving exceptionally clockwise, not counterclockwise as in the other pictures being compared here. The speeding chariot team is taking a right turn rather than a left turn around the tumulus of Patroklos, which is situated to our right in this picture. The fully armed figure who is running alongside the speeding chariot has already completed his right turn, but the galloping horses that draw the chariot are only now starting to make the right turn. The fully armed figure standing to our left seems on the verge of being trampled by the onrushing horses. In Image E, we have already seen a moment where a fully armed figure is being trampled by the galloping horses that draw the onrushing chariot team. 7§68. In Image I, the action is moving from left to right again. In this picture, the painter has painted no tumulus. So in this picture the chariot team is making a left turn not around a tumulus but only around the round surface of the vase itself. The fully armed figure of Achilles is running at full speed from left to right alongside the speeding chariot, but his head is turned around and facing toward our left. And, at the extreme left, we as viewers from the outside can see three details that are also to be seen by Achilles as the viewer of the picture from the inside. These three details are arranged along a vertical axis of vision. At the upper third of this vertical axis is the figure of Patroklos as a homunculus running in full armor and levitating in thin air. At the middle third, where we might have expected the placement of a tumulus, we find instead the figure of a snake that seems to be levitating in thin air. In other pictures we have seen, this snake would have been positioned as a guardian in front of the tumulus of Patroklos; in this picture, however, as we have already noted, the painter has painted no tumulus. Finally, at the lower third of this vertical axis of vision, we see the naked 41

Stähler 1967:16.

182 body of Hector dragged behind the speeding chariot. So the view of Achilles is directed at three vertically interchangeable visions in this picture. (Relevant is the term vertical axis of selection, as I use it Hour 4§32.) 7§69. Image J is like Image I in omitting an important detail, the tumulus of Patroklos. Otherwise, Image J is most rich in details.42 And some of these details are most relevant to what we saw in Image B1 on the Boston Hydria. As in Image B1, we see once again here in Image J the figure of the winged goddess Iris descending from on high and about to make a landing in the midst of the action, thus blocking the momentum of the onrushing four-horse team drawing the chariot that is dragging behind it the corpse of Hector. A fully armed Achilles is running at full speed alongside the speeding chariot. He is looking straight ahead, with Iris in full view. The goddess here has been described as “hastening towards Achilles with the kerykeion [or ‘heraldic staff’] in her left hand and her right hand raised, admonishing him, as it were.”43 7§70. But now I need to ask: does Achilles comply or not comply with the admonition of the goddess Iris? This question can be linked with another question: is Achilles stepping out of or into the speeding chariot? We can see that his one foot is virtually on the platform of the chariot while his other foot is running on the ground. Either way, whether he is stepping off or stepping on, Achilles is doing so at a run. If he is stepping off the speeding chariot, he has to “hit the ground running”; if he is stepping on, he has to be running at full speed after the speeding chariot in order to leap into it. 7§71. The same two questions apply to the moment that is captured at the center of Image B1 of the Boston Hydria. Here too we see that one foot of Achilles is on the platform of his speeding chariot while the other foot is running on the ground. So, once again, I need to ask this question: is Achilles stepping out of or into the speeding chariot? And I ask once again the other question as well: does Achilles comply or not comply with the admonition of the goddess Iris? 7§72. Before I can answer these two questions concerning this most critical moment in the visual narratives of Images J and B1, I first have to adjust the formulation I quoted about the “admonishing” of Achilles by the goddess Iris. As I have shown already, the gesture of raising the hand is a signal for pity. So Iris, following the instructions she received at the council of the gods, is admonishing Achilles to show pity by stopping the mistreatment of his enemy’s corpse. In Image J, we see a detail that enhances the sense of pity elicited by the gesture of Iris: in a moment of pathos, the painting shows the long hair of Hector trailing behind him as his corpse is being dragged behind the speeding chariot of Achilles. There is a 42

One detail of no importance is the nonce lettering that is painted on this vase: see Friis Johansen 1967: 147. 43 Friis Johansen 1967:150.

183 comparable moment of pathos in the verbal art of the Iliad, where we see once again a highlighting of the long hair of Hector as it gets disheveled during the dragging of his corpse behind the speeding chariot of Achilles (XXII 401-402).44 That said, I am ready to answer the two questions. 7§73. My answer to the first question is that Achilles will in fact comply with the admonition of Iris: he will show pity by stopping his cruel mistreatment of Hector’s corpse. And my answer to the second question is an extension of my answer to the first: such compliance, as I will argue, can only come about if Achilles is stepping out of his speeding chariot instead of stepping into it. 7§74. To make this argument I will use the evidence of four images, which I will now show in a row. In each one of these images, we see moments where the chariot of Achilles has stopped and his horses are standing still:

Image K

This detail is noticed by Friis Johansen 1967:150n228. I disagree, however, with his assumption that the painter was directly inspired by the text of the Iliad as we have it.

184 Hydria: Hermitage ST165; Beazley ABV 362, the Leagros Group no. 31; Stähler no. 12.

Image L

Lekythos: Delos, B 6137.546; Stähler no. 13.

Image M

Amphora: London, British Museum 1899.7-21.3; Beazley ABV 330, Priam Painter no. 2; Stähler no. 10.

185

Image N

Hydria, painting on shoulder: Munich, Museum antiker Kleinkunst 1719; Beazley ABV 361, Leagros Group no. 257; Stähler no. 11. 7§75. Image K shows the goddess Iris, raising her hand in a lamenting gesture of pity. She has stopped the chariot of Achilles. That is my interpretation, which as we will see can be reconciled with the overall myth. When I say overall myth here, I include all the variations of the myth as represented in the visual narratives of the four pictures I am showing. 7§76. On the shoulder of the vase featuring Image K, I should add, we see a picture of a chariot in motion, and the charioteer is shown in the act of either stepping on or stepping off the platform of this chariot. 7§77. I note here two other details about Image K: - There is nonce lettering painted between the figures.45 - We see here Achilles, fully armed and wearing a helmet, as he leans over the naked corpse of Hector. He is holding a shield over the corpse. Over on the side, to our left, we see a helmet and a shield, without anyone to wear it. My conjecture is that this levitating helmet and this levitating shield stand for the armor that had been stripped from the corpse of Hector when Achilles had killed him. And the levitating shield features as its device two pictures of snakes, one at the top and one at the bottom. Meanwhile, Achilles is shown looking downward, directly at Hector. My further conjecture is that Achilles here, in an act of pity, is now covering with his own shield the naked body of Hector. 45

Friis Johansen 1967:143.

186 7§78. In Image L, we see again that the goddess Iris, shown here with wings, has stopped the chariot with her lamenting gesture; and again it looks as if Achilles is now attending to the corpse of Hector. There is nonce lettering painted over corpse. Achilles here is facing not only the corpse of Hector but also the tumulus of Patroklos. Levitating over the tumulus is a winged homunculus who stands for the spirit of Patroklos. There are in fact two winged homunculi painted here at two opposite sides of the vase, who are levitating to the left and to the right of the tumulus. Conforming to the curvature of the picture painted on the round surface of the vase, the two winged homunculi provide a single vision of the spirit of Patroklos as seen from the two opposite sides of this vase. 7§79. In Image M, as well, we see that the winged goddess Iris has stopped the chariot, though the fragmentary condition of this part of the picture prevents our seeing her actual gesture of lament; and once again it looks as if Achilles is now attending to the corpse of Hector. He is looking directly at him. The figures here in Image M are identified by the lettering painted next to them. As we start looking from our right, near the top, the painted letters identify the figure of Patroklos (ΠΤΡΟΚΛΟΣ) as the wingless but fully armed homunculus levitating over the tumulus, which features the picture of a guardian snake on its surface, as if this picture were a device on a shield. Further below, painted letters identify Achilles (ΑΧΙΛ[Ε]Υ[Σ]) and then Hector (HΕΚΤΟΡ); further to our left, the charioteer is identified as Konisalos (ΚΟΝΙ[ΣΑΛ]ΟΣ). Secondary figures are also identified: the hero standing in front of the horses is Odysseus (ΟΛΥΤΕΥ[Σ]), and there is even a hunting dog named Phaidros (ΦΑ[ΙΔ]ΡΟΣ). Only Iris is not identified here by way of painted letters: evidently, she needs no identification. 7§80. Finally, in Image N, we see once again the winged goddess Iris; here she is holding the heraldic staff or kerykeion, which is shown pointing downward. Iris is standing in front of the chariot team, which is at a dead stop. Once again, Iris has stopped the chariot. Behind the chariot stands the fully armed Achilles; he has turned away from the chariot and has turned toward the tumulus of Patroklos, which shows again the picture of a snake on its surface, as if this picture were a device on a shield. Levitating over the tumulus of Patroklos is the running figure of a fully armed homunculus representing the spirit of Patroklos. Achilles is facing three visions. They are, from top to bottom: (1) the homunculus, (2) the tumulus showing the picture of the snake, and (3) the corpse of Hector. In Image I, we have seen Achilles facing the same set of visions in the same order, except that the tumulus was not pictured in that image; still, the snake was positioned in exactly the same space where it would be protecting the tumulus - if the tumulus had been painted in that space. 7§81. Having offered my interpretation of Images K L M N, I need to mention an alternative interpretation, according to which the chariot shown in all four of these images

187 has not yet started to move.46 In terms of this interpretation, we would have to say that Achilles has not yet mounted the chariot in order to drag the corpse of Hector behind it.47 7§82. In terms of this alternative interpretation, the four pictures we see in Images K L M N are based on “departure scenes,” where a warrior is about to mount a chariot with one foot still on the ground while the other foot is already planted on the platform of the vehicle.48 In Images O and P, I show two beautiful examples of such “departure scenes.” 7§83. In Image O, we see the hero Amphiaraos leaving his family to fight in the war of the Seven against Thebes:

Image O

Scene from the “Amphiaraos Vase,” found at Cerveteri: once Berlin F 1655, now lost The family left behind by Amphiaraos (labeled ΑΦΙΑΡΕΟΣ) includes, from left to right: the wife Eriphyle (ΕΡΙΦΥΛΑ), who is shown holding a tell-tale necklace given to her as a bribe by Polyneikes in return for her persuading her husband to go to war; a nurse (ΑΙΝΙΠΠΑ) carrying an infant (Amphilokhos); two daughters (labeled ΔΑΜΟFΑΝΑΣΑ and ΕΥΡΥΔΙΚΑ), and a son (Alkmaion). The charioteer (labeled as ΒΑΤΟΝ) is about to start driving the chariot; standing in his way on the ground and facing him is a figure (labeled ΛΕΟΝΤΙΣ) who is 46

Friis Johansen 1967:139-144. His interpretation is based on a presupposition: that the painters of what I am calling Images K L M N are modeling their work on the text of Iliad XXIV 14-18. 47 Friis Johansen 1967:141: “Achilles is just about to begin his daily, macabre drive round the grave of Patroklos, dragging the body of Hector behind his chariot.” 48 Friis Johansen 1967:143.

188 gesturing toward the departing driver and rider. Standing in front of the chariot team is a male figure (labeled ΗΙΠΠΟΤΙΟΝ), and, seated on the ground behind him is another male figure (ΗΑΛΙΜΕΔΕΣ). The scene also features various animals signaling various omens: from left to right, we see two lizards, a hedgehog, a hare, an owl, a scorpion, a snake, and a bird flying from right to left.49 7§84. In Image P as well, a hero is leaving his family to fight in war. In this case, we cannot be certain about the identity of the departing hero, but he may well be Hector, making gestures of farewell to his wife Andromache and to their infant son Astyanax:

Image P

The overall scene is strikingly similar to a scene represented on the Chest of Kypselos, no longer extant but seen and described by Pausanias 5.17.7-8: ‘The next thing produced [in the representation] is the house of Amphiaraos, and the infant Amphilokhos is being carried by some old woman or other. In front of the house stands Eriphyle holding the necklace, and near her are her daughters Eurydike and Demonassa, and the boy Alkmaion, naked. [5.17.8] … Baton is driving the chariot of Amphiaraos, holding the reins in one hand and a spear in the other. Amphiaraos already has one foot on the chariot, and his sword is unsheathed; he is turned towards Eriphyle and is so carried away in his passion that he can scarcely refrain from her’ (ἑξῆς δὲ Ἀμφιαράου τε ἡ οἰκία πεποίηται καὶ Ἀμφίλοχον φέρει νήπιον πρεσβῦτις ἥτις δή· πρὸ δὲ τῆς οἰκίας Ἐριφύλη τὸν ὅρμον ἔχουσα ἕστηκε, παρὰ δὲ αὐτὴν αἱ θυγατέρες Εὐρυδίκη καὶ Δημώνασσα, καὶ Ἀλκμαίων παῖς γυμνός. {5.17.8} … Βάτων δέ, ὃς ἡνιοχεῖ τῷ Ἀμφιαράῳ, τάς τε ἡνίας τῶν ἵππων καὶ τῇ χειρὶ ἔχει τῇ ἑτέρᾳ λόγχην. Ἀμφιαράῳ δὲ ὁ μὲν τῶν ποδῶν ἐπιβέβηκεν ἤδη τοῦ ἅρματος, τὸ ξίφος δὲ ἔχει γυμνὸν καὶ ἐς τὴν Ἐριφύλην ἐστὶν ἐπεστραμμένος ἐξαγόμενός τε ὑπὸ τοῦ θυμοῦ, ἐκείνης ἂν ἀποσχέσθαι).

189

Bronze sheet no. M78, Olympia Archaeological Museum 7§85. Although Images O and P are parallel in some details to Images K L M N, the parallelism breaks down when we consider one essential detail. Whereas the hero is mounting his chariot in Images O and P, there is no indication of any such action in Images K L M N. Here I return to my interpretation of Images K L M N, each of which shows the chariot of Achilles at a dead stop. In terms of my interpretation, Achilles is not about to mount the chariot in any one of these four pictures. In three of the pictures, Images L M N, he is in fact turned away from the chariot, and he is evidently preoccupied in one way or another with the corpse of Hector. Likewise in the fourth picture, Image K, Achilles is preoccupied with the corpse of Hector. 7§86. And what about Images B1 and J? Are they parallel to Images O and P? In one detail, they are. In Images B1 and J, as we have seen, Achilles is shown with one foot on the platform of the chariot and one foot on the ground. To that extent, Images B1 and J are parallel to Images O and P. But once again the parallelism breaks down when we consider another essential detail. The chariot in Images B1 and J is speeding ahead, whereas the chariot in Images O and P is standing still. And it makes good sense, that the chariot in Images O and P is not moving. We would expect a departing hero to mount his chariot while it is still standing

190 and before it speeds off. By contrast, the chariot is speeding ahead in Images B1 and J. And why would Achilles be stepping into a speeding chariot at the same moment when Iris makes her appearance in order to stop the dragging of the corpse of Hector? If Achilles were only now stepping into the speeding chariot, he would not yet have started to drag the corpse of Hector. 7§87. So, in terms of the narrative about the dragging of Hector’s corpse, it makes sense for Achilles to be stepping out of his speeding chariot, not stepping into it, at the moment of reacting to the arrival of the goddess Iris. By contrast, in terms of narratives about departing heroes, it makes sense for the hero to be stepping into a chariot that is still standing and not yet rushing ahead at full speed. So the same pose that shows one foot on the chariot platform and one foot on the ground means two different things in two different narratives: in narratives about the dragging of Hector’s corpse, Achilles at the moment of this pose is stepping out of his chariot, while in narratives about the departures, the departing hero is stepping into his chariot. 7§88. The use of the same pose for freezing a moment in two or more different narratives is a common occurrence in the visual art of vase painting. My favorite example is another vase painting that shows a scene that is by now becoming quite familiar for us. In this painting, we are about to see once again the frozen motion picture of a homunculus running in full armor while he is levitating over a shining white tumulus, which is his tomb. In Images A1 B1 D E F G H I L M N we had seen the spirit of Patroklos pictured in such a pose. But that same pose, used in the narrative about the dragging of Hector’s corpse by Achilles, can be used in an altogether different narrative. I have in mind the scene that is narrated in the picture that I will now show:

Image Q

191

Hydria: Berlin, Antikensammlung F1902; painting on the body of the vase. 7§89. On the shoulder of this hydria, we see the image of two racing chariot teams taking a left turn. But I focus here on the image painted on the body of this vase, where we see a picture highlighting a famous scene in myth: it is the moment when the Trojan princess Polyxena is about to be slaughtered after the capture of Troy by the Achaeans. An epic version of this myth, where the human sacrifice of Polyxena takes place at the tomb of Achilles, is attested in the epic Cycle (plot-summary by Proclus of the Iliou Persis by Arctinus of Miletus p. 108 lines 5-8).50 We find a comparable version of this myth here in Image Q, where we see the figure of Polyxena being led by her executioners toward the tomb of Achilles; also, we see here the figure of a homunculus in full armor running at full speed in thin air while levitating over this tomb, which is pictured as a shining white tumulus. The homunculus is the angry spirit of the dead hero. And the dead hero here is not Patroklos. He is Achilles himself.

An English-language translation of the entire ancient plot-summary of the Iliou Persis in available in the online Sourcebook (chs.harvard.edu).

192 7§90. So the pose of such a running homunculus as it levitates in full armor over a shining white tumulus can signal different narratives in different pictures. In Image Q, this pose signals a narrative about the slaughtering of Polyxena as an act meant to assuage the angry spirit of Achilles, who is already dead but still very angry about his own death. In Images A1 B1 D E F G H I L M N, by contrast, this same pose signals the dragging of Hector’s corpse by Achilles, who is still very much alive here and already very angry about the death of his other self, Patroklos. In Image Q, the pose of the homunculus signals a story that has a negative outcome, since the cruel act of executing the princess will not be stopped: in the end, the executioners of Polyxena will not obey the moral imperative of showing pity. In Images A1 B1 D E F G H I L M N, by contrast, the same pose signals a story that does have a positive outcome, since the cruel act of dragging Hector’s corpse will in fact be stopped: in the end, Achilles will obey the moral imperative of showing pity. 7§91. Similarly, the pose of a hero with one foot on the platform of a chariot and one foot on the ground can signal different narratives in different pictures. When we see the chariot standing still, as in Image Q, the hero is stepping into his vehicle as he departs for war while he bids farewell to those who are near and dear to him. When the chariot is speeding along, however, as in Images B1 and J, I argue that the hero is stepping out of his vehicle. 7§92. In terms of my argument, what happens after Achilles steps out of his speeding chariot in Images B1 and J is obvious: he runs alongside his vehicle. That is what we see is happening in Images A1 C E F G H I. And Achilles keeps on running until his momentum is spent and he finally stops. That is what we see has happened in Images K L M N. By this time, now that his momentum is spent, Achilles can finally bring himself to show pity for the hero whose corpse he has been dragging around the tumulus of Patroklos. 7§93. conclude, then, that the pictures we have seen in Images A1 B1 C D E F G H I J K L M N are telling a consistent story about the furious retaliation of the hero Achilles in response to the killing of Patroklos by Hector. And this story is comparable with the corresponding story about the retaliation as told in the Iliad. What is most similar about these two stories is the ultimate outcome: the fury of Achilles will be assuaged, and he will ultimately show pity. But there are significant differences in detail, and I have focused on one difference in particular: When Achilles is dragging the corpse of Hector in the Iliad, he is driving his own chariot. In the pictures we have seen, by contrast, Achilles leaps out of his speeding chariot and then runs alongside it while his charioteer drives on, continuing to drag the corpse. The question remains, why is Achilles doing this, and how does his action lead to his ultimate change of heart?

193

Comment 7a. Myth and ritual in pictures of chariot scenes involving Achilles 7a§1. According to an alternative interpretation of Images B1 and J, as I already noted in Hour 7, Achilles is stepping into his speeding chariot, not stepping out of it. But how, then, could we imagine the dragging of Hector’s corpse? We would be forced to say that Achilles, after getting into his chariot, will be riding along with his charioteer as the dragging of the corpse gets underway. But the images we have seen show that Achilles is never left standing on the platform of his chariot during the dragging of Hector’s corpse. Rather, as we have seen in Images A1 C E F G H I, Achilles is consistently running alongside the speeding chariot. And, as I will show, the act of dragging the corpse and the act of running alongside the speeding chariot are two details that are integrally related to each other in the visual narrative. As we are about to see, one detail belongs to the world of myth, while the other detail belongs to the world of ritual. 7a§2. Only in the Iliad is Achilles seen standing on the platform of his chariot during the dragging of Hector’s corpse. And that is because this epic pictures Achilles himself as the chariot driver, not as a chariot rider. It happens in Iliad XXIV (14-18), where we see Achilles in the act of dragging the corpse of Hector behind his speeding chariot: he is said to be driving his chariot three times around the tomb of Patroklos, and the word referring to the tomb here is sēma (XXIV 16). 7a§3. As we have already noted, the dragging of the corpse of Hector is treated as an act of utter cruelty in the narrative of the Homeric Iliad, and this cruelty will lead to a call for pity from the Olympian gods themselves as they deliberate in the course of their divine council at the beginning of Iliad XXIV. What we have not yet noted, however, is that the actual driving of the chariot around the sēma of Patroklos is a vital aspect of a recognizable athletic event. That athletic event is chariot racing. 7a§4. I have already noted a climactic moment in such an athletic event: it is the making of a left turn around a turning post. We have seen this moment described in the narrative about the Funeral Games for Patroklos in Iliad XXIII. And we have also seen that the turning post in this narrative becomes equated ultimately with the tomb of Patroklos: the key to this ultimate equation is the sēma or ‘sign’ given by Nestor (XXIII 326) about a turning post that may or may not be the same thing as the sēma or ‘tomb’ of an unknown hero (XXIII 331). At the time of Nestor’s speaking, the equation of the turning post with the tomb is still an uncertainty - and the identity of the hero is still an unknown. By the time the chariot race is over, however, this equation has become a reality. That is why, by the time Achilles himself is driving his chariot around the sēma of Patroklos (XXIV 16), the equation of this word sēma with the tomb of Patroklos is already taken for granted.

194 7a§5. In Images A1 B1 C D E F G H as well, we see an equation of the tomb of Patroklos with a turning post for the speeding chariot of Achilles. As we have seen in most of these images, the horses drawing the chariot of Achilles are just now at the point of making a left turn around the tomb of Patroklos; and this tomb, painted shining white, is shown as a turning post for the counterclockwise course of the speeding chariot team (only in Image H is there is a clockwise right turn instead of a counterclockwise left turn). 7a§6. To be contrasted is the implicit equation we see in the two verses of Iliad XXIII (326 and 331) concerning the sēma or ‘sign’ (XXIII 326) given by the hero Nestor to his son, the hero Antilokhos, about a landmark that may or may not have been the sēma or ‘tomb’ (XXIII 326) of an unnamed cult hero. This landmark was to be used as a turning post in the course of the chariot race that became the culminating athletic event of the Funeral Games for Patroklos in Iliad XXIII. But this landmark was ambivalent. In the words of Nestor, it was either a sēma ‘tomb’ (XXIII 331) of an unnamed hero of the ancestral past or it was once upon a time a turning post, a nussa (XXIII 332), used for chariot races that must have taken place in that ancestral past. So the equation of a hero’s tomb with a turning post for a chariot was only implicit here in Homeric poetry, whereas it is explicit in Images A1 B1 C D E F G H. 7a§7. The implicitness of such an equation in Homeric poetry extends even further. In the actual narrative about the chariot race held in honor of Patroklos in Iliad XXIII, the moment when the competitors in the race have to make their turns around the turning post is never even shown. After the initial mention of the turning post by Nestor in his words of instruction to his son, there is no further mention of it ever again in Iliad XXIII. And there is no need for any further mention, since, as we have already seen, Antilokhos will not interpret literally the visual cue or sēma ‘sign’ (XXIII 326) that had been given to him by his father about the most successful way to turn left around a turning post. As we also saw, Antilokhos will make his move not at the turning post but at a narrow pass, where he impulsively decides to overtake the chariot of Menelaos that he sees racing ahead him (XXIII 417-437). 7a§8. That said, I can now highlight a major difference between the narrative about the dragging of Hector’s corpse in the verbal art of the Homeric Iliad and the corresponding narratives in the visual art of Images A1 B1 C E F G H I J K L M N. The difference is this: whereas the chariot that is dragging Hector’s corpse is driven by Achilles himself in the verbal narrative of the Iliad (XXII 395-405, XXIV 14-22), the corresponding chariot in the visual narratives of Images A1 B1 C E F G H I J K L M N is being driven by a figure wearing the generic full-length gown of a charioteer. 7a§9. On the François Vase, produced by the painter Kleitias and the potter Ergotimos around 570 BCE (Beazley ABV 76 no. 1), we see a picture of the chariot race held at the Funeral Games for Patroklos. The narrative in this picture shows significant differences from the corresponding narrative in Iliad XXIII:

195 - The five competing heroes in the visual narrative of the François Vase are driving fourhorse chariots, while the five competing heroes in the verbal narrative of Iliad XXIII are driving two-horse chariots. - The lettering painted over the competing chariot teams in the visual narrative of the François Vase labels the chariot drivers as the heroes Hippothoon, Damasippos, Diomedes, Automedon, and Odysseus (spelled ΟΛΥΤΕΥΣ). The ascending order in which I list these heroes here corresponds to the order in which their chariot teams are pictured from left to right as they race toward the finish line that is situated at the extreme right, which is where Achilles in his capacity as the marshal presiding over the race is waiting for the finish.1 As for the chariot race in the verbal narrative of Iliad XXIII, the competing heroes are Eumelos, Meriones, Menelaos, Antilokhos, and Diomedes. Again, the ascending order in which I list these heroes here corresponds to the order in which their chariot teams cross the finish line, with Meriones in last place and with Diomedes in first place.2 7a§10. What the two different narratives of the François Vase and of Iliad XXIII have in common, however, is more important for now: in both the visual and the verbal narratives of the chariot race held in honor of Patroklos, the heroes are driving their own chariots. Moreover, the picture of the chariot race as painted on the François Vase shows clearly that the competing heroes are wearing the generic full-length gown of a charioteer, not the armor of a warrior. 7a§11. So the full-length gown of the charioteer in the visual narrative of the François Vase is a clear sign that the event being narrated, the chariot race in honor of Patroklos, is an athletic event. So also in the visual narratives of the pictures we have just surveyed, we see the charioteer wearing the same kind of full-length gown, most prominently in Images C D G I J K L M N; in Image B2 as well, the two drivers of the speeding chariots are wearing the generic fulllength gown of a charioteer. So, though it is true that in other pictures, including B1, the charioteer simply wears the armor of a warrior, the fact remains that the charioteers we see in pictures that tell about the dragging of the corpse of Hector do not necessarily wear the armor of a warrior. This fact squares with what I am arguing, that the event we see being represented in all the pictures showing the dragging of the corpse of Hector is really an athletic event. 7a§12. In pursuing this argument, I now highlight an essential detail that we see in Images B1 C E F G H I J showing the dragging of the corpse of Hector: the speeding chariot that drags the corpse is circling around the tomb of Patroklos in these images, just as the chariot of Achilles is circling around the same tomb in Iliad XXIV (13-18). This detail, as we find it in the 1

On the significance of the order in which the competing chariot teams in the picture painted on the François Vase are reaching the finish line, see Lowenstam 2008:24. 2 On the significance of the order in which the competing chariot teams in Iliad XXIII reach the finish line, see the in-depth analysis of Frame 2009:131-172.

196 visual narratives and also in the verbal narrative, indicates that an athletic event is being represented. 7a§13. Granted, in the case of the verbal narrative in Iliad XXIV (13-18), our first impression is that there is nothing athletic about the cruel act of dragging the corpse of Hector behind the speeding chariot that circles around the tomb of Patroklos. But, as I have just argued, the circling of this tomb by the speeding chariot is in fact a primary characteristic of a chariot race. When Nestor gives his advice in Iliad XXIII (326-343) about the best way to circle around a turning post in a chariot race, we have seen that this turning point is ultimately to be understood as the tomb of the hero Patroklos. Also, as I noted in Hour 7, we know from historical evidence that the tomb of a hero could in fact be used as the turning post of a chariot race: in the athletic program of the Olympics, for example, the point where the racing chariot teams took their left turns in chariot races could be conceptualized as the tomb of a hero.3 7a§14. In the course of my arguing that the act of driving a chariot team around the tomb of Patroklos in Iliad XXIV (13-18) as also in Images B1 C E F G H I J is an athletic event, I have to emphasize that such an event is in both cases being polluted by the cruel behavior of Achilles, who drags behind his racing chariot the corpse of Hector. Such a pollution, as caused here by the hero Achilles, is typical of aetiologies linked with athletic events. 7a§15. When I say aetiology here, I mean a myth that motivates an institutional reality, especially a ritual.4 In the logic of aetiologies, a ritual practice can be polluted by a hero in myth, and then this pollution will need to be eternally purified by succeeding generations of ordinary humans who participate in that same seasonally recurring ritual practice.5 Typical of such ritual practices are athletic events held at seasonally recurring festivals such as the Olympics. I cite as my prime example a myth about the victory of the hero Pelops in a fourhorse chariot race held at the prototypical site of the Olympics. This myth is an aetiology for the athletic event of four-horse chariot racing at the Olympics, as we see from the artful retelling in Pindar’s Olympian 1.6 7a§16. From another retelling of this aetiological myth, we learn that the basic motivation for the athletic event of the four-horse chariot race at the Olympics was the need to purify the pollution caused by the death of the hero Oinomaos while he was competing in his prototypical four-horse chariot race with the hero Pelops (Phlegon of Tralles FGH 257 F 1 lines 8-9).

See again GM 215-216, with reference to Pausanias 6.20.15-19 and with further comments. BA 279 = 16§22. 5 PH 117-135 = 4§§2-26. 6 PH 127-128 = 4§§15-16. 4

197 7a§17. In this case, the myth shows that the athletic event of four-horse chariot racing, viewed as a seasonally recurring ritual practice that was destined last forever, was needed as an eternal compensation in order to purify a prototypical pollution: as we learn from yet another retelling of the myth, the hero Pelops himself had caused, wittingly or unwittingly, the death of Oinomaos in the course of their chariot race with each other (Apollodorus Epitome 2.7).7 7a§18. So far, I have argued that the circling of the tomb of Patroklos by the chariot team in Images A1 C E F G H I is an athletic event, just as the circling of this tomb by Achilles driving his chariot in Iliad XXIV (13-18) is an athletic event. And I have also argued that both of these athletic events are polluted by the cruel behavior of Achilles in dragging the corpse of Hector behind his chariot. But now I must emphasize that these two athletic events are not the same: whereas Achilles himself is driving his chariot in the verbal narrative of Iliad XXIV, he is definitely not driving it in the visual narrative of Images A1 C E F G H I. As we have seen in these images, Achilles here is running alongside his chariot, having stepped out of his speeding vehicle, and it is a charioteer who is driving it.

Comment 7b. Apobatic chariot racing 7b§1. I have reached the point where I can now describe a different kind of chariot race, featuring not one but two athletes. Just as chariot drivers competed with each other in the kind of chariot race that is narrated in Iliad XXIII, so also chariot riders competed with each other in a different kind of chariot race, aspects of which are pictured in Images A1 C E F G H I. As we know from ancient sources, the climactic event in this different kind of chariot race is the critical moment when the chariot rider, wearing a helmet and carrying a shield, suddenly leaps out of his speeding chariot and “hits the ground running” in competition with other chariot riders. Such competing chariot riders were known in the ancient world as apobatai, meaning ‘those who step off’.8 In Athens, the word apobatai referred to athletes who competed in this special kind of chariot race, and the competition of these apobatai was an integral part of the ritualized athletic program of a seasonally recurring Athenian festival known as the Panathenaia, celebrated every year in the late summer.9 After 566 BCE, a large-scale version of this festival started operating in the late summer of every fourth year, matching the four-year cycle of the older festival of the Olympics, but the smaller-scale version of the Panathenaia continued to be celebrated in the late summer of the other three years. Whereas the large7

PH 199 = 4§6n15. Photius Lexicon α 2449, 2450; Suda α 3250; Harpocration s.v. ἀποβάτης, with reference to Theophrastus Laws F 15 (ed. Szegedy-Maszák 1981); [Eratosthenes] Katasterismoi 1.13; Dionysius of Halicarnassus Roman Antiquities 7.73.2-3. For an inventory of inscriptions commemorating the victories of apobatai in competitions at the Panathenaia, see Shear 2001:305n341. 9 Stähler 1967:15. Also GM 94n50 and 220n54; further details in Nagy 2009b; still further details in HPC 170-177 = II§§90-111. 8

198 scale version of the Panathenaia is known as the Great Panathenaia, which became a rival of the Olympics in the sixth century BCE, the smaller-scale and far older version of the festival is known as Lesser Panathenaia. As we will see later, the competition of the apobatai took place at both the Great and the Lesser Panathenaia. From here on, I will refer to the athletic event of the apobatai at the Panathenaia simply in terms of apobatic chariot racing. 7b§2. As we know from evidence that I will now examine, the act of ‘stepping off’ in apobatic chariot racing at the Panathenaia was a spectacular sudden-death feat of athletic bravura, and here is the way I once described it: We can imagine all eyes focused on the action that leads up to that moment when the competing athlete, riding on the platform of a four-horse chariot driven at full gallop by his charioteer, suddenly leaps to the ground from the speeding chariot.10 Another aspect of this chariot racing, I should add, is that the apobatai could leap into as well as out of their speeding chariots.11 The timing of a leap back into the chariot is not made clear by the ancient sources. 7b§3. Highlights of apobatic chariot racing are depicted in the relief sculptures of the Panathenaic Frieze of the Parthenon, created in the 440s BCE, where we see twenty-one apobatic chariot teams on display, with eleven chariots featured on the north side (North XIXXIX) and ten on the south side (South XXV-XXXV); in each case, the chariot is shown with four horses, a driver, and an apobatēs, who is wearing a helmet and a shield.12 The apobatai are shown in a variety of poses: stepping into the chariot, riding in the chariot, stepping out of the chariot, and running alongside the chariot; in two cases, the apobatai are evidently wearing a full set of armor.13 7b§4. What makes the feat of leaping into or out of a speeding chariot so commandingly distinctive is that the apobatēs executes his leap in the mode of an epic warrior. While the fellow athlete who drives the chariot is standing on the right side of the vehicle and wearing the full-length gown of a charioteer, the apobatēs standing on the left side wears a helmet and carries a shield. I focus here on the critical moment when the apobatic athlete, holding on to

HPC 172 = II§91. Etymologicum magnum p. 124 lines 31-34 and Photius Lexicon α 2450. 12 Shear 2001:304-305. In another project, I will analyze further the apobatic scenes represented on the Panathenaic Frieze. There I will criticize the conventional use of the term “Panathenaic Procession” with reference to the sum total of events being represented on the Panathenaic Frieze. In the case of the sections that show apobatic chariot teams, I will argue that the stopmotion pictures capture not only moments when these teams are participating in the Panathenaic Procession but also moments of actual engagement in apobatic chariot racing. 13 Shear 2001:746. 11

199 the shield with his left hand, starts loosening the grip of his right hand on the rail of the speeding chariot and then suddenly leaps to the ground: Weighted down by all this armor, the apobatēs must hit the ground running as he lands on his feet in his high-speed leap from the platform of his chariot. If his run is not broken in a fall, he continues to run down the length of the racecourse in competition with the other running apobatai, who have made their own leaps from their own chariots.14 7b§5. I have already noted the fact that the apobatai could leap on as well as off the platform of their speeding chariots. Given this fact, I must now ask again the question I had asked in Hour 7 about Images B1 and J: is Achilles leaping into or out of the speeding chariot in these two pictures? On the basis of further evidence that I am now about to present, I can reaffirm the answer I gave in Hour 7: Achilles is leaping out of his chariot. 7b§6. I start this part of my argumentation by returning to Images C E F G H I in Hour 7, where we saw what happens after Achilles leaps out of his speeding chariot: now he runs alongside this vehicle, drawn by a team of four galloping horses driven by the charioteer around the tomb of Patroklos (counterclockwise in Images C E F G I, clockwise in Image H). And, while Achilles is running alongside the speeding chariot, the corpse of Hector is being dragged behind it. Achilles here is running like an athlete in the athletic event of the apobatai. And, except for the fact that he is polluting this athletic event by dragging the corpse of Hector, the hero is going through the motions of performing the athletic feat of an apobatēs. Similarly, except for the fact that Achilles is dragging the corpse of Hector in Iliad XXIV (1318), he is going through the motions of performing the athletic feat of a charioteer. 7b§7. Such a pollution, as I argued in Comment 7a, is in both these cases an aspect of an aetiological myth that is linked with the rituals of athletics. In the logic of aetiologies concerning athletics, as I also argued in Comment 7a, the ritual practice of a given athletic event can be polluted by a hero in myth, and then this pollution will need to be eternally purified by succeeding generations of ordinary humans who participate in that same seasonally recurring athletic event. 7b§8. Next I focus on the sheer spectacle of seeing an apobatēs step off and then run alongside his speeding chariot at the seasonally recurring festival of the Panathenaia in Athens. We find an eyewitness description of this spectacle in a work that may or may not have been composed by Demosthenes; in any case, the work is contemporaneous with Demosthenes, dated to the fourth century BCE (“pseudo-” Demosthenes 61.22-29). The speaker in this passage refers to the athletic event of the apobatai as an agōn ‘competition’ that is highlighted by the act of apobainein ‘stepping down’ (τοῦ δ’ ἀποβαίνειν … ἐπὶ τοῦτον τὸν 14

HPC 172 = II§91. On images showing the apobatēs holding on to the chariot rail with his right hand: Shear 2001:303, 305.

200 ἀγῶν[α] 61.23). This athletic event of ‘stepping down’ from a speeding chariot is singled out as the most similar, among all agōnismata ‘forms of competition’, to the experiences of warriors in the life-and-death struggles of combat warfare (61.24). As a spectacle, the event of the apobatai is described as matching most closely the grandeur of the gods themselves (61.24-25), and thus it is deserving of the greatest of all āthla ‘prizes won in contests’ (μεγίστων δ’ ἄθλων ἠξιωμένον 61.25). The speaker views this kind of competition as the closest thing not only to combat warfare in general but also, in particular, to the scenes of heroic combat as narrated in Homeric poetry: as the speaker says explicitly, ‘one could adduce, as the greatest proof, the poetry of Homer’ (τεκμήριον δὲ μέγιστον ἄν τις ποιήσαιτο τὴν Ὁμήρου ποίησιν 61.25). That is why, the speaker goes on to say, only the greatest cities of the Hellenic world, such as Athens, preserve the tradition of such agōnes ‘competitions’ (61.25-26). 7b§9. Then the speaker goes on to tell about a spectacular feat once performed by the athlete he is praising (“pseudo-” Demosthenes 61.27-29). Though it is difficult to reconstruct the details of this compressed narration, it appears that our athlete, having leapt from his speeding chariot and running with all his might, was almost run over from behind and trampled to death by horses drawing the chariot of a rival team that was heading full speed toward him. We are reminded of the scene in Image E where an armed figure is getting trampled; and Image H shows a similar scene in the making. 7b§10. I now highlight the critical moment in the narration of the speaker where he in turn highlights the critical moment in the apobatic competition that he is narrating. Instead of losing his nerve, our athlete somehow managed to surpass the momentum of the oncoming chariot team that almost ran over him. That is what we are about to read at the critical moment of the speaker’s narration about the apobatic chariot race held at the festival of the Panathenaia in Athens. I now quote the original Greek text of that climactic moment. In this quotation, we hear the speaker directly addressing as ‘you’ the young athlete whose glorious athletic feat is now being brought back to life in the present time of the narration:

Comment 7b Text A When the [chariot] teams had started and some had rushed ahead while some were being reined in, you, prevailing over both [the faster and the slower chariot teams], first one and then the other, [surpassing each chariot team] in a way that was most suited [for each situation], seized the victory, winning that envied garland in such a way that, even though it was glorious enough to win, it seemed even more glorious and dazzling that you came out of it safely. For when the chariot of your opponents was speeding toward [enantion] you and everyone thought that the momentum of their horses could not be resisted, you, aware that some [runners], even when no danger threatens, become overanxious for their own safety, not only did not lose your head or your nerve, but by your courage overcame the

201 impetus of their [chariot] team and by your speed [as a runner] passed even those contenders [= the other runners] whose luck had not yet had any setbacks.15 “pseudo-” Demosthenes 61.2816 7b§11. This athletic event of the apobatai as held at the festival of the Panathenaia in Athens was in one way more conservative than the athletic event of the chariot race as held at the Funeral Games for Patroklos in Iliad XXIII. In that chariot race, there were only chariot drivers, without chariot riders accompanying them. By contrast, as we have seen, there was a chariot rider standing to the right of each chariot driver on the platform of the speeding fourhorse chariot in the Panathenaic chariot race of the apobatai, and this chariot rider or apobatēs would then leap out of the speeding chariot and back into it in death-defying maneuvers. As we will now see, such maneuvers re-enacted the leaps executed by chariot fighters who were fighting in chariot warfare.

Comment 7c. Apobatic chariot fighting 7c§1. The ritualized moments of apobatic leaps executed by athletes riding on speeding chariots in chariot races held at the festival of the Panathenaia in Athens correspond to the mythologized moment of a corresponding leap executed by Athena herself as goddess of Athens. As we read in ancient sources reporting on the relevant local Athenian myth, Athena was the patroness and founder of the Panathenaia along with her prototypical male protégé, the hero Erikhthonios.17 These sources indicate that the goddess and the hero were not only the founders of the Panathenaia: they were also the founders of the seasonally recurring apobatic chariot races that took place at this festival of the Panathenaia. Moreover, the goddess and the hero were even the first participants in the first apobatic chariot race ever

As my translation shows, I disagree with those like Crowther 1992 who think that the athlete is the driver, not the runner. 16 τῶν γὰρ ζευγῶν ἀφεθέντων, καὶ τῶν μὲν προορμησάντων, τῶν δ’ ὑφηνιοχουμένων, ἀμφοτέρων περιγενόμενος ὡς ἑκατέρων προσῆκε, τὴν νίκην ἔλαβες, τοιούτου στεφάνου τυχὼν ἐφ’ ᾧ, καίπερ καλοῦ τοῦ νικᾶν ὄντος, κάλλιον ἐδόκει καὶ παραλογώτερον εἶναι τὸ σωθῆναι. φερομένου γὰρ ἐναντίου μέν σοι τοῦ τῶν ἀντιπάλων ἅρματος, ἁπάντων δ’ ἀνυπόστατον οἰομένων εἶναι τὴν τῶν ἵππων δύναμιν, ὁρῶν αὐτῶν ἐνίους καὶ μηδενὸς δεινοῦ παρόντος ὑπερηγωνιακότας, οὐχ ὅπως ἐξεπλάγης ἢ κατεδειλίασας, ἀλλὰ τῇ μὲν ἀνδρείᾳ καὶ τῆς τοῦ ζεύγους ὁρμῆς κρείττων ἐγένου, τῷ δὲ τάχει καὶ τοὺς διηυτυχηκότας τῶν ἀνταγωνιστῶν παρῆλθες. 17 See especially lines 1-3 of the Parian Marble (inscribed 264/3 BCE), IG XII 5 444 = FGH 239A, where the foundation of the Panathenaia is dated at 1505/4 BCE. See also Harpocration s.v. Παναθήναια, drawing on Hellanicus FGH 323a F 2 and Androtion FGH 324 F 2; scholia for Aelius Aristides 1.362; [Eratosthenes] Katasterismoi 1.13; Apollodorus Library 3.14.6; scholia for Plato Parmenides 127a.

202 held at the Panathenaia. At that chariot race, Erikhthonios drove the chariot while Athena made the first apobatic leap ever made.18 7c§2. And this first leap of Athena was not only the leap of an apobatic athlete. It was also the leap of an apobatic fighter. According to local Athenian mythmaking, the goddess Athena was the prototypical apobatic fighter: it happened on the day of her birth, when she emerged fully formed and fully armed from the head of Zeus and immediately joined the other Olympians in their primordial battle with the Giants.19 This battle, envisioned as a primal scene of apobatic chariot warfare, was spearheaded by the goddess herself as the ultimate apobatic chariot fighter.20 In terms of Athenian mythmaking, the apobatic leap of the goddess in the Battle of the Olympians and Giants was the same leap that she made as the founder of the apobatic chariot race at the Panathenaia. Her action as a prototypical apobatic fighter thus became a model for all apobatic athletes. 7c§3. The Athenian myth about Athena as an apobatic model brings into sharper focus the wording of the speaker in the speech I analyzed a moment ago concerning the athlete who won first prize in an apobatic race held at the Panathenaia (“pseudo-” Demosthenes 61). The speaker, as we saw, described the athletic competition of the apobatai as an event that matched most closely the grandeur of the gods themselves (61.24-25); and he went on to say that victory at this event was deserving of the greatest of all āthla ‘prizes won in contests’ (μεγίστων δ’ ἄθλων ἠξιωμένον 61.25). In that same speech, moreover, the speaker described the athletic competition of apobatai as the closest thing not only to combat warfare in general but also, in particular, to the scenes of heroic combat as narrated in Homeric poetry. I repeat here his wording: ‘one could adduce, as the greatest proof, the poetry of Homer’ (τεκμήριον δὲ μέγιστον ἄν τις ποιήσαιτο τὴν Ὁμήρου ποίησιν 61.25). 7c§4. I have already noted how the ritualized moments of such apobatic leaps executed by athletes riding on speeding chariots in chariot races held at the festival of the Panathenaia 18

Of particular interest is a picture painted on a vase produced in Athens around 510 BCE (oinokhoe: Painter of Oxford 224; National Museum, Copenhagen; Chr. VIII, 340; Beazley ABV 435, no. 1): it shows Athena as an apobatic athlete riding on a chariot driven by a male figure who is evidently Erikhthonios. See Shear 2001:305, 529; at pp. 46-48 she analyzes [Eratosthenes] Katasterismoi 1.13 lines 19-22, showing that the apobatic figure described as wearing a helmet with three plumes must be Athena. 19 The basic narrative about the “Gigantomachy” and the centralized role of Athena in this cosmic battle can be found in the Hesiodic Theogony (verses 886-900, 924-926) and in the Homeric Hymn (28) to Athena (verses 4-6). More on Athena and the Gigantomachy in HC 559 = 4§217. 20 Shear 2001:50-52 analyzes vase paintings that show a conflation of [1] scenes featuring Athena as an apobatic fighter in the Gigantomachy and [2] scenes featuring her as an apobatic athlete. In one painting (British Museum, London, B676, = Beazley ABV 555 no. 425), a turning post for chariot racing is positioned in the middle of the cosmic battle scene.

203 in Athens correspond to the mythologized moment of a prototypical apobatic leap made by the goddess Athena. But these ritualized moments correspond also to mythologized moments of apobatic leaps made by heroes fighting in chariot warfare as narrated in Homeric poetry. As we will see from the passages I am about to quote from this poetry, such heroic leaps happen at climactic moments in the epic narrative. 7c§5. Before I show the relevant Homeric examples, I start with two other examples I found in forms of poetry that are not Homeric and not even epic. The first of these two examples is a particularly revealing passage I found in the songs of the fifth-century lyric poet Pindar. In this passage, we are about to see the hero Achilles himself in the act of leaping out of his chariot and running furiously toward his mortal enemy, the hero Memnon:

Comment 7c Text A And it [= the name of the lineage of the Aiakidai, especially the name of Achilles] leapt at the Ethiopians, now that Memnon would not be coming back safely [to his troops]. Heavy combat fell upon them [= the Ethiopians] in the person of Achilles hitting the ground as he stepped down [kata-bainein] from his chariot. That was when he killed [Memnon] the son of the luminous dawn-goddess, with the tip of his raging spear. Pindar Nemean 6.48-5321 7c§6. The second example comes from a passage we have already considered in another context in Hour 7. This passage is about the mortal combat in chariot fighting between the heroes Hēraklēs and Kyknos as recounted in the Hesiodic Shield of Herakles, where we see that both these heroes leap to the ground from their chariots and then run at full speed toward each other (verses 370-371). I highlight again a detail: both combatants leap from their speeding chariots (θόρον, from the verb thrōiskein ‘leap, jump’, verse 370). Meanwhile, the charioteers driving the chariots of the combatants drive on, keeping as close as possible to the combatants running on the ground (ἔμπλην ‘closely’, verse 372). 7c§7. Now I proceed to the Homeric examples. I start with this climatic moment of chariot warfare:

Comment 7c Text B Hector leapt out of his chariot, armor and all, hitting the ground.

204 Iliad XI 21122 In other climactic moments as well, Hector is described as leaping out of his chariot:

Comment 7c Text C Straightaway he [= Hector] leapt out of his chariot, armor and all, hitting the ground. Iliad V 494, VI 103, XII 81, XIII 74923 7c§8. In comparable wording, Homeric narrative describes four other warriors at moments when they too leap out of their chariots: Menelaos (Iliad III 29), Diomedes (IV 419), Sarpedon (XVI 426), and Patroklos (XVI 427). In the case of Menelaos (III 29), he leaps out of his chariot and hits the ground running as he rushes toward Paris to fight him in mortal combat on foot. Paris does not meet him head on but keeps backing up until he melts into a crowd of footsoldiers who are massed behind him (III 30-37). In the case of Diomedes (IV 419), he leaps off his chariot as he hits the ground running, while his bronze breastplate makes a huge clanging sound upon impact as he rushes toward the enemy, who all shrink back to avoid encountering him in mortal combat on foot (IV 420-421). Similarly, in a scene I cited a moment ago (XII 81), Hector leaps out of his chariot and hits the ground running as he rushes to fight the enemy on foot, and, in this case, his fellow chariot fighters follow his lead and dismount from their chariots, since they too are now ready to fight on foot (XII 82-87). In the case of Sarpedon and Patroklos, we see these two heroes simultaneously leaping out of their chariots and hitting the ground running as they rush toward each other to fight one-on-one in mortal combat on foot – a combat that is won here by Patroklos (XVI 428-507). Later on, when Patroklos is about to engage in mortal combat with Hector, he once again leaps out of his chariot:

Comment 7c Text D = Hour 6 Text C Then Patroklos, from one side, leapt from his chariot, hitting the ground. Iliad XVI 73324 What happens next, as we saw already in Hour 6, is that Patroklos picks up a rock and throws it at Kebriones, the charioteer of Hector, hitting Kebriones on the forehead and smashing his skull (Iliad XVI 734-754). And then, just as Patroklos had leapt out of his chariot, Hector too leaps out of his own chariot:

Comment 7c Text E = Hour 6 Text D Then Hector, from the other side, leapt from his chariot, hitting the ground. Iliad XVI 75525 22

Ἕκτωρ δ’ ἐξ ὀχέων σὺν τεύχεσιν ἆλτο χαμᾶζε. αὐτίκα δ’ ἐξ ὀχέων σὺν τεύχεσιν ἆλτο χαμᾶζε. 24 Πάτροκλος δ’ ἑτέρωθεν ἀφ’ ἵππων ἆλτο χαμᾶζε. 23

205 Patroklos and Hector proceed to fight one-on-one in mortal combat on foot – a combat that is won here by Hector (XVI 756-863). 7c§9. Having reached the end of this collection of apobatic scenes in the Iliad, I highlight the fact that Hector is featured far more often than any other Homeric hero in the act of leaping out of his chariot to fight in mortal combat on foot.

Comment 7d. Distinctions between chariot fighting and chariot racing 7d§1. The moments of apobatic chariot fighting that we have just surveyed in the Homeric Iliad differ in one significant detail from corresponding moments of apobatic chariot racing at the festival of the Panathenaia in Athens. Whereas the chariots are drawn by two horses in epic scenes of apobatic chariot fighting, we know for a fact that the athletic event of apobatic chariot racing at the Panathenaia involved four-horse chariot teams.26 I have already noted the evidence of the Panathenaic Frieze of the Parthenon, where we see twenty-one apobatic chariot teams on display, with eleven chariots featured on the north side (North XIXXIX) and ten on the south side (South XXV-XXXV); in each case, the chariot is shown with four horses, a driver, and an apobatēs.27 7d§2. Now a two-horse chariot team, known in Latin as the biga, was more suitable for chariot fighting in warfare than a four-horse chariot team, known as the quadriga, which was more suitable for chariot racing. There is evidence for the active use of the biga in warfare already in the second millennium BCE.28 As for the quadriga, visual representations of its use in racing are poorly attested before the seventh century BCE, but there are clear traces in the seventh; later on, by the time we reach the early sixth century, the visual evidence is ample.29 According to Pausanias (5.8.7), the athletic event of racing in the quadriga at the festival of the Olympics was introduced already in the 25th Olympiad, that is, in the year 680 BCE.30 7d§3. In the text of Homeric poetry as we have it, there are two references to the concept of a racing chariot drawn by a team of four horses. The first such reference is in Odyssey xiii 81-83, where the speeding ship of the Phaeacians is being compared to a chariot team of four galloping horses. The second reference is in Iliad XI 699-672: this passage is about the disputed possession of a chariot team of four prize-winning horses. Since the action in this second passage takes place in the region of Elis, I subscribe to the argument that the Homeric

Ἕκτωρ δ’ αὖθ’ ἑτέρωθεν ἀφ’ ἵππων ἆλτο χαμᾶζε. Shear 2001:48, 55, 301, 303, 309. 27 Shear 2001:304-305. 28 Scanlon 2004:67. 29 Scanlon 2004:67-69. 30 Scanlon 2004:67 finds this dating plausible. 26

206 narrative here is making a veiled reference to the competition in chariot racing at the seasonally recurring festival of the Olympics in Elis.31 7d§4. In sum, even though the older model of two-horse chariot racing is the dominant pattern in the narrative about the chariot race in Iliad XXIII, we have now seen that Homeric poetry also contains two direct references to the newer model of four-horse chariot racing. 7d§5. Moreover, Homeric poetry contains an indirect reference to four-horse apobatic chariot racing. It happens in Iliad VIII 185, where it is said that Hector has a four-horse chariot team. This detail can be linked with a fact I have already noted, that Hector is prominently featured as an apobatic chariot fighter in the Iliad. So I am ready to argue that the narrative in Iliad VIII 185 is making a veiled reference to the competition in apobatic chariot racing at the festival of the Panathenaia in Athens, just as the narrative in Iliad XI 699-672 makes a veiled reference to the competition in non-apobatic chariot racing at the festival of the Olympics in Elis.

Comment 7e. Homeric poetry at the festival of the Panathenaia in Athens 7e§1. In arguing that Homeric poetry can refer, however indirectly, to apobatic chariot racing at the festival of the Panathenaia in Athens, I find it essential to keep in mind a basic fact: this same festival was the primary setting for the performance of Homeric poetry itself in the sixth century BCE and thereafter. Just as there were seasonally recurring competitions in apobatic chariot racing at the Panathenaia, there were also seasonally recurring competitions in performing the poetry of the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey at the same festival, the Panathenaia. By contrast with the yearly apobatic competition at the Panathenaia, however, the grand Homeric competition was held only at the Great Panathenaia, which was celebrated only every four years. 7e§2. After its founding in 566 BCE, the quadrennial festival of the Great Panathenaia in Athens rivaled in scale even the Olympics, the official founding date of which was 776 BCE. A centerpiece of the Great Panathenaia was a grand agōn ‘competition’ in mousikē tekhnē, ‘the art of the Muses’, the importance of which is signaled by Aristotle in the Constitution of the Athenians (60.1). Within the overall framework of this grand competition at the Great Panathenaia, there were separate categories of competitions in performing separate categories of mousikē. These categories included (1) singing lyric songs to the accompaniment of a kithara ‘lyre’ (2) singing lyric songs to the accompaniment of an aulos ‘reed’

Scanlon 2004:63-89.

207 (3) playing the kithara in the format of an instrumental solo (4) playing the aulos in the format of an instrumental solo (5) reciting epic poetry without instrumental accompaniment. At the Great Panathenaia, the performers who competed with each other in reciting epic poetry were called rhapsōidoi ‘rhapsodes’, and, as we read in ancient sources concerning Athens in the fifth and the fourth centuries BCE, the epic repertoire of these rhapsodes featured the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey (Plato Ion 530a-b, 533b-c; Isocrates Panegyricus 159; and Plutarch Life of Pericles 13.9-11). 7e§3. This rhapsodic tradition of performing Homeric poetry at the festival of the Great Panathenaia in Athens stemmed ultimately from an earlier Homeric tradition. As Douglas Frame has shown, this Homeric tradition evolved at the festival of the Panionia as celebrated in the eighth and seventh centuries BCE at a centralized sacred space called the Panionion, which was shared by twelve states belonging to a federation known as the Ionian Dodecapolis.32 7e§4. The Homeric tradition became the dominant epic repertoire of the festival of the Great Panathenaia in Athens during the last few decades of the sixth century BCE. The critical moment arrived when the government of Athens, at the initiative of Hipparkhos, son of Peisistratos, instituted a major reform of the performance traditions of epic poetry. This reform, known as the Panathenaic Regulation, resulted in the privileging of the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey over all other epics that had ever been performed before at the Panathenaia. On the basis of references in ancient sources (especially in “Plato” Hipparkhos 228b-c), it has been argued, plausibly, that the Panathenaic Regulation was started in the year 522 BCE, when Hipparkhos arranged for the first complete performance of the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey by rhapsōidoi ‘rhapsodes’ competing at the festival of the Great Panathenaia in Athens.33 7e§5. But here we run into a problem. Given the fact that the performance of Homeric poetry became a main event at the quadrennial festival of the Great Panathenaia, and given the parallel fact that apobatic chariot racing was another main event at both the quadrennial Great Panathenaia and the annual Lesser Panathenaia, we might have expected to see direct references to apobatic chariot racing in Homeric poetry. But instead, we have seen in Iliad XXIII the narration of a non-apobatic chariot race that resembles most closely the chariot race held at the seasonally recurring festival of the Olympics. So why was this non-apobatic kind of 32

HPC 22 = I§38, following Frame 2009:551-620. The twelve states of the Ionian Dodecapolis, located on the mainland of Asia Minor and on outlying islands, were Miletus, Myous, Priene, Ephesus, Colophon, Lebedos, Teos, Klazomenai, Phocaea, Samos, Chios, and Erythrai (Herodotus 1.142.3). 33 West 1999:382.

208 chariot racing highlighted in Homeric poetry, and why was apobatic chariot racing correspondingly shaded over? 7e§6. Here is my explanation. The fact is, apobatic chariot racing at the festival of the Panathenaia in Athens was a competition restricted to Athenian citizens. This fact is indicated not only by ancient sources34 but also by a mass of circ*mstantial evidence concerning the competition of the apobatai.35 By contrast, non-apobatic chariot racing at the festival of the Olympics in Elis was a decidedly interpolitical athletic competition. By interpolitical I mean that the competitions at the Olympics were open to citizens of all Hellenic city-states or poleis. Accordingly, the prestige of the non-apobatic chariot race at the Olympics was likewise interpolitical, whereas the prestige of the apobatic chariot race at the Panathenaia was political, by which I mean simply that the prestige of this athletic event was the function of a single city-state or polis, Athens. 7e§7. As we saw in Comment 7c above, the ritual of apobatic competition was linked with a charter myth about the genesis of the city of Athens itself at the moment when Athena as the goddess of the city took the first apobatic leap ever taken, in the primal battle of the Olympians and Giants. Here I must add what is said in another part of the charter myth: after leaping in full armor from her war chariot, Athena performed a weapon dance, likewise in full armor: this dance was known as the purrhikhē.36 The meaning of this dance in full armor is something like ‘act of fire’: in the case of the myth that links this weapon dance with Athena specifically, this meaning conveys the cosmic energy released by the goddess in performing her primordial weapon dance, which literally ignites the field of battle.37 I highlight here this additional part of the relevant charter myth because there was a competition of dancing the weapon dance of the purrhikhē at the Panathenaia, and, like the event of the apobatic chariot race, this competition was likewise restricted to native Athenians.38 So both these events - not only the apobatic chariot race but also the competitive dancing of the purrhikhē - were markedly political and even politicized expressions of local pride at the festival of the Panathenaia in Athens.39

Harpocration s.v. ἀποβάτης reporting the testimony of Theophrastus Laws F 15 (ed. SzegedyMaszák 1981). 35 Shear 2001:49, 53, 63, 67, 69, 231-232, 298, 300, 318, 323, 349, 515, 526, 562, 758. 36 Plato Laws 7.796bc, Cratylus 406d-407a. 37 Among the ancient sources that refer to the moment of ignition is Aeschylus Eumenides 292296. 38 Shear 2001:42, 49, 67, 69, 231-232, 235, 515; like the apobatic chariot race, the purrhikhē was a yearly event at the Panathenaia: that is, the competitions were held at both the Great and the Lesser Panathenaia: see Shear p. 40. 39 Shear 2001:49 remarks: “to be an Athenian citizen meant not only dancing in the [purrhikhē] but also racing in the apobatic contest, while individuals from other cities watched them

209 7e§8. Another sign of the distinctly civic nature of the apobatic chariot race is the place where it was held: unlike the competition in non-apobatic chariot racing, which was held at the hippodrome,40 the apobatic competition was held along the Panathenaic Way extending from the Dipylon Gate at the Kerameikos to the Eleusinion at the foot of the acropolis.41 7e§9. Standing in sharp contrast with the political (in the sense of politicized) orientation of the apobatic chariot race at the Panathenaia was the interpolitical or Panhellenic orientation of the non-apobatic chariot race at the Olympics. Even the elites of Athens recognized the Panhellenic prestige of chariot racing at the festival of the Olympics. As I noted earlier, the traditional founding date for that festival was 776 BCE, in comparison to the festival of the Great Panathenaia, the traditional founding date for which was 566 BCE. During most of the sixth century, which was the same era that marked the foundation of the Great Panathenaia, elite Athenian men were preoccupied with entering and winning the seasonally recurring competition in four-horse chariot racing at the Olympics. As we see from the formulation that I am about to quote, this athletic event outshone in prestige all other athletic events at all other festivals, including the apobatic chariot races at the Panathenaia. Here, then, is the formulation: [T]he Athenian elite had […] enjoyed great success in the four-horse chariot event at Olympia, extending to a run of nine known quadriga victories in the twenty six Olympiads between 592 and 492. Among these were the victory of the tyrant Peisistrat[o]s in 532, and Miltiades’ victory in 560 with his dedication, the first by a chariot victor at Olympia […]. Athens’ achievement is exceptional, amounting to about 53% of the total of seventeen known quadriga victors, or about 35% of the absolute total of twenty-six at Olympia in a period spanning virtually the entire sixth century.42 7e§10. Even if the athletic event of the chariot race held at the Olympics in Elis was more prestigious during the sixth century BCE than the corresponding athletic event of the apobatic chariot race held at the Panathenaia in Athens, there was another event at the Panathenaia that eventually outshone in Panhellenic prestige even the chariot race at the Olympics. I highlight here once again the non-athletic event of rhapsodic competitions in the performance of the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey at the Great Panathenaia. In the last few decades of the sixth century, especially after 522 BCE, these two epics became the dominant poetic repertoire of rhapsodes competing at the Great Panathenaia, and, in the course of time, they eventually crowded out the other epics. Such other epics were more epichoric, that is, they compete.” Shear p. 515 suggests that competitions of apobatich chariot racing and dancing the purrhikhē were integrated into the Panathenaia as early as 566/5 BCE. 40 Shear 2001:289, 314, 315-322, 612, 614. On the location of the hippodrome in the deme Xypete, see Shear p. 671. 41 Shear 2001:670, 679; also pp. 313, 314, 319, 610. 42 Scanlon 2004:83.

210 were more localized, more Athenian, in their orientation. And, as I will now argue, the vase paintings that we were studying in Hour 7 reflect the more localized traditions of such other epics. Conversely, the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey reflect epic traditions that were more Panhellenic and less likely to match the localized traditions of Athens.

Comment 7f. Signs of alternative epic traditions as reflected in Athenian vase paintings 7f§1. I start by reviewing the pictures we see painted on vases like the Münster Hydria (A1) and the Boston Hydria (B1). As I will argue, these pictures are interacting with localized epic traditions that were current in Athens during the sixth century BCE. Some of the details we find in these localized epic traditions tend to be excluded from the less localized and more “Panionian” epic traditions of Homeric poetry, which as I have been arguing became dominant in Athens only during the era that followed 522 BCE. For example, we will see that details having to do with the athletic tradition of apobatic chariot racing are excluded in Homeric poetry, even though other details having to do with the heroic tradition of apobatic chariot fighting remain included. 7f§2. In the main pictures painted on the Münster Hydria and the Boston Hydria, the representations of apobatic chariot racing feature Achilles himself as the prime apobatic athlete. In Image A1 he is shown in the act of running in full armor alongside his speeding chariot, while in Image B1 we see him in the act of leaping off his speeding chariot and “hitting the ground running.” 7f§3. In these pictures we see also another apobatic figure: he is the homunculus in full armor who is running at full speed in thin air and levitating over a shining white tumulus, which is his tomb. He is Patroklos, and the frozen motion pictures that show him running in the air match the pictures of the apobatic figure of Achilles running on the ground. 7f§4. Finally, we see yet another apobatic figure in Image B1: this third figure is Hector himself, who as we have seen is prominently featured as an apobatic chariot fighter in the Iliad. The irony is, this hero’s glory days of performing apobatic feats have already been terminated by Achilles, who can now take over as the ultimate apobatic model in this picture. 7f§5. Though we have seen several pictures showing Achilles as an apobatēs, I have all along been concentrating on only two of them, Image A1 of the Münster Hydria and on Image B1 of the Boston Hydria. Until now, however, I have not yet specified the dating of these two vases - beyond saying that both of them were produced in Athens within the last few decades of the sixth century BCE. In keeping the dating so unspecific, I have been following the lead of art historians. About the Münster Hydria, Stähler says that it must have been produced toward

211 the end of the sixth century BCE;43 about the Boston Hydria, Vermeule estimates that the date of production was around 510 BCE.44 This dating may be valid from a technical point of view, but the details that we find in the narratives of these paintings must stem from an earlier date. In terms of my argument, the pictures that we see painted on these vases are interacting with an epic tradition that predates the establishment of the Panathenaic Regulation, which as we have seen can be dated at 522 BCE. 7f§6. Such an epic tradition that predates the Panathenaic Regulation cannot be described as older than the Homeric tradition that became dominant after the establishment of the Regulation in 522 BCE. It is simply more local, more in tune with local Athenian traditions. Conversely, the Homeric tradition of epic that became dominant after 522 BCE cannot be described as newer than the more localized Athenian tradition. It is simply less localized and more “Panionian.” As I said before, I agree with Frame that the Homeric tradition as we have it stems from Panionian epic traditions that evolved in the Ionian Dodecapolis during the eighth and seventh centuries BCE.45 7f§7. In pursuing my argument, I return to a basic fact about the vase paintings we have studied in Hour 7: in Images A1 and B1 as also in Images C E F G H I J, the narrative about the dragging of Hector’s corpse behind the speeding chariot of Achilles is evidently different from the corresponding narrative of the Homeric Iliad in the version that has come down to us. But the dating for this version of the Iliad, as we have just seen, cannot be pushed forward in time any later than 522 BCE. That is why I think that the narratives of the pictures painted on the Münster Hydria and the Boston Hydria date back to a time that is at least slightly earlier than 522 BCE. 7f§8. And here I must express my disagreement with those art historians who assume that the narratives we see being pictured on these vases were simply derived from the text of Homeric poetry, and that whatever divergences we find between pictures and text can be explained as haphazard improvisations made by the painters.46 I disagree, arguing that the narratives of the pictures are just as systematic as the narratives of Homeric poetry. Where the narratives converge, the convergences are due not to some kind of direct borrowing from the verbal medium of Homeric poetry into the visual medium of the paintings; rather, what we are seeing is an interaction between the visual medium of painting with the verbal medium of epic poetry in general. Each one of these two media is drawing on its own system of expression. Also, where the narratives diverge, the diverging patterns in the two media turn out to be just as systematic as the converging patterns. In terms of my approach, then, the patterns that we 43

Stähler 1967:8. Vermeule 1965:35. 45 HPC 22 = I§38, following Frame 2009:551-620. 46 An example of this point of view is the discussion by Friis Johansen 1967:138-153. 44

212 see in the visual art of the pictures need to be analyzed as related to rather than simply derived from the patterns we see at work in the verbal art of Homeric poetry. 7f§9. That said, I now proceed to reassess the main convergences and divergences between the narratives of the vase paintings we have studied and the corresponding narratives in the Homeric Iliad: 1a. The narratives of the vase paintings visualize athletic moments that could actually be seen in apobatic four-horse chariot races as organized in historical times at the festival of the Panathenaia in Athens. The hero Achilles himself is shown participating in these moments as a would-be athlete in his own right: just like an apobatēs competing in an apobatic chariot race at the Panathenaia, he leaps out of his speeding chariot and runs alongside while his charioteer drives the vehicle around a turning post, which in this case is the tomb of Patroklos. At the same time, however, this athletic moment is polluted by the dragging of the corpse of Hector behind the speeding chariot. Some of the vase paintings, such as Image B2, show this polluting act explicitly, while others, such as Image A1, refer to it only implicitly by showing only the council of the gods, an epic event that leads to the termination of the cruelty being committed by Achilles; another vase painting, Image C, ostentatiously marginalizes this cruelty by situating the polluting act outside the margins that frame its narrative. 1b. The narrative of Iliad XXIII visualizes athletic moments in the non-apobatic two-horse chariot race as organized in heroic times by Achilles at the Funeral Games for Patroklos, and such athletic moments could actually be seen in non-apobatic four-horse chariot races as organized in historical times at non-Athenian festivals like the Olympics. The hero Achilles himself participates in the moments narrated in Iliad XXIII not as an athlete but as a marshal who presides over all the athletic events at the Funeral Games for Patroklos. Then, in the narration of Iliad XXIV, after the Funeral Games are already over, Achilles goes on to participate in an athletic moment as a would-be athlete in his own right: just like a charioteer in a non-apobatic chariot race, he drives his speeding chariot around a turning post, which in this case is once again the tomb of Patroklos, and he circles around the tomb three times. At the same time, however, this athletic moment is polluted by the dragging of the corpse of Hector behind the speeding chariot. 2a. The narratives of the vase paintings visualize the consequences of a decision ordained by a council of the gods (the council is actually shown in Image A2): the divine messenger Iris being sent off on a single mission, to confront Achilles directly and to persuade him to stop the pollution by releasing the corpse of Hector to Priam. 2b. The narrative of Iliad XXIV likewise visualizes the consequences of a decision ordained by a council of the gods (the proceedings of the council are indicated in verses 31-76): Iris is sent on a double mission, first to Thetis and then to Priam, so that [1] Thetis may follow the

213 Will of Zeus and persuade Achilles to stop the pollution by releasing the corpse of Hector to Priam (verses 75-76, 116) and [2] Priam may then successfully engage in a direct meeting with Achilles in order to bring about the release (verses 117-119). 7f§10. As I have argued in previous work, the divergent narratives that we see in the visual art of the paintings we find on vases like the Münster Hydria and the Boston Hydria are not at all incompatible with the verbal art of epic: they are incompatible only with the version of epic that we see in the Homeric Iliad as it has come down to us; and I argue that a different and even non-Homeric version of the Iliad was interacting with the art of the painters who painted the relevant scenes that we have been studying.47 This different version, in terms of my argument, would have matched more closely the narratives we see in the vase paintings.48

Comment 7g. The apobatic moment 7g§1. In the painting on the Boston Hydria, as I have argued, we see Achilles at the precise moment when he cuts himself off from the act of dragging the corpse of Hector. This cut-off is synchronized with the precise moment when he leaps off, in the mode of an apobatēs, from the platform of the chariot that is dragging the corpse. The leap of Achilles here is the leap of the apobatēs. This leap, captured in the painting we see on the Boston Hydria, is what I call the apobatic moment.49 As I will now argue, this moment can be understood only in the context of the poetic as well as athletic program of the Panathenaia. 7g§2. A preliminary version of this argument has already been presented in my book Homer the Preclassic. I will now epitomize the relevant paragraphs, inviting the reader to review at the same time Images A1 and B1 as painted on the two vases that I have been calling the Münster Hydria and the Boston Hydria. This time, we will see these pictures not in the form of line drawings but rather as color facsimiles. I show these pictures back-to-back on the last page of Comment 7g in an inverted sequence of Image B1 followed by Image A1. 7g§3. As we are about to view these two pictures once again, this time back-to-back, I recall the formulation of Emily Vermeule concerning the “window effect” created by the picture frame in both pictures. She had made her original formulation with reference to Image B1 only, but it applies to Image A1 as well. I repeat here how she said it: “The technique gives the impression that the myth is circling around in another world, outside the window frame through which the spectator views it, in endless motion which is somehow always arrested at the same place whenever we return to the window.”50

HPC 170-177 = II§§90-111. HPC 176 = II§107. 49 HPC 173 = II§91. 50 Vermeule 1965:45. 48

214 7g§4. I have this question to ask the viewer before the viewing begins again: as you are looking through the window, are you looking in from the outside or are you looking out from the inside? My own answer is that the viewer is on the inside looking out and seeing a panorama of a heroic world out there, which is a world so immense that it will never ever be fully visible in the interiority of one’s own small world of everyday experience. That heroic world is signaled, in both these pictures, by a sēma, which is not only a tomb for a hero but also a marker for the meaning of the hero. It is a point of concentration that directs the viewer into the world of heroes. We may take to heart what Nestor had told Antilokhos in Iliad XXIII: concentrate on the sēma. The medium of the tomb or sēma of the hero is the message of the sign or sēma of the hero. 7g§5. That said, I invite the reader to begin now the viewing of the back-to-back pictures on the last page of this Comment 7e. This viewing can be coordinated with the following five paragraphs that precede the back-to-back pictures that are situated on the last page: 1. By contrast with the narration of the Iliad, the divine course of action narrated by the painting on the Boston Hydria [Image B1] is explicitly direct: the goddess sent from on high will personally stop the dragging of the corpse of Hector by Achilles. The painting shows the goddess in flight, just as she reaches the moment of her landing on earth: her feet, gracefully poised as if in a dance, are about to touch ground at the center of the picture, and her delicate hands make a gesture of lament evoking pity as she looks toward the lamenting Priam and Hecuba, whose own hands make a parallel gesture of lament evoking pity as they look toward Achilles. The fierce gaze of the furious hero is at this precise moment redirected at Priam and Hecuba, who take their cue, as it were, from the gesture of lament shown by the goddess. The gaze of Achilles is thus directed away from the figure of Patroklos, who is shown hovering over a tomb that for now belongs only to him but will soon belong to Achilles as well. The charioteer of Achilles, seemingly oblivious to the intervention of the goddess, continues to drive the speeding chariot around the tomb, but, at the very same time, we find Achilles in the act of stepping off the platform. And he steps off at the precise moment when he redirects his fierce gaze from his own past and future agony to the present agony of Hector’s lamenting father and mother. Here is the hero’s apobatic moment.51 2. The pity of Achilles for the parents of Hector in the painting of the Boston Hydria is achieved by way of a direct divine intervention that takes place while the dragging of the corpse is in progress. I had written in my earlier work: “Once Achilles steps off his furiously

HPC 174 = II§97.

215 speeding chariot, the fury that fueled that speed must be left behind as he hits the ground running and keeps on running until that fury is spent.”52 3. In the case of the main picture we see painted on the Boston Hydria [Image B1], the medium of the painting is evidently referring to a specific context, that is, to the festival of the Panathenaia in Athens, featuring the athletic event of the apobatic contest. The same can be said about the main picture we see painted on the Münster Hydria [Image A1]. Here too Achilles is represented as an apobatic athlete. He is seen running alongside the speeding chariot, having already leapt off its platform.53 By contrast with what we see in these paintings on the Münster Hydria [Image A1] and on the Boston Hydria [Image B1], our Homeric Iliad never shows Achilles as an apobatic athlete. 4. In the painting on the Münster Hydria [Image A1], as also in the painting on the Boston Hydria [Image B1], a goddess directly intervenes. Though the figure of this goddess is just barely visible on the fragmentary right side of the picture painted on the Münster Hydria, we can see that she is standing in the way of the onrushing chariot.54 As for the picture painted on the Boston Hydria, it shows that the goddess has just descended from the heights above in order to make her intervention. 5. It has been argued that the main picture on the Münster Hydria [Image A1] represents the notional beginnings of a hero cult for Patroklos.55 I will reformulate this argument in Hour 8, arguing further that this hero cult was shared by Patroklos with Achilles, and that these two heroes presided as cult heroes over the athletic event of the apobatai at the festival of the Panathenaia.

HPC 174 = II§98. HPC 175 = II§103. 54 HPC 175 = II§104. 55 Stähler 1967, especially p. 32. 53

216

Image B1

217

Image A1

218

Hour 8. The psychology of the hero’s sign in the Homeric Iliad The meaning of psūkhē 8§1. The key word for this hour is psūkhē, as used in the context of the key word for the previous hour, sēma. This word psūkhē can refer either to the life of someone who is alive or to the disembodied conveyor of someone’s identity after that someone dies. 8§2. As we saw in Hour 7, the word psūkhē is written out as ΦΣΥΧΕ in a picture painted on an art object that I have been calling the Münster Hydria. I now add here that the word hydria comes from the Greek word hudria, which designates a vessel used for ritual pourings of water to honor ancestors and cult heroes. The technical term of such ritual pourings is libation. As we will see, the fact that the hydria was used for libations is relevant to the meaning of the word psūkhē, since this word was used in contexts referring to the honoring of ancestors and cult heroes. 8§3. The lettering that spells out psūkhē, as we saw in the picture painted on the Münster Hydria, is situated next to the figure of Patroklos hovering over the sēma or ‘tomb’ that is destined to be occupied not only by the body of Patroklos but also by the body of Achilles after he too, like Patroklos, is killed by Apollo. In Hour 7, I already indicated the relevant passages where Homeric poetry makes explicit references to a single tomb that is destined to contain the two bodies together: Iliad XXIII 83-84, 91-92, 125-126, 245-248; Odyssey xxiv 80-84. 8§4. In Hour 7, I used the word ‘spirit’ in translating the word psūkhē as painted next to the painted figure of Patroklos in the picture of the Münster Hydria. But there is a deeper meaning of psūkhē in the context of this picture as a whole. After all, this picture could be called in Greek a sēma, just as the tomb of a hero could be called a sēma. And the same word sēma could refer not only to the tomb of a hero or to a picture of the hero but also to any sign of the hero, such as the lettering that identifies the picture painted on the Münster Hydria. That is what I mean when I say “a psychology of signs.” The word psūkhē is a marker of such psychology. 8§5. There is “a psychology of signs” not only in the picture we see painted on the body of the Münster Hydria but also in the overall narrative of the Homeric Iliad. The use of the word psūkhē in the painting, with specific reference to the ‘spirit’ of the dead Patroklos, is comparable to the use of this same word in the epic.

The psūkhē of Patroklos in the Iliad 8§6. I start with a scene where the psūkhē of Patroklos appears in Achilles in his sleep:

219

Hour 8 Text A |58 Τhe others went to their rest each to his own tent, |59 but only the son of Peleus, by the shore of the resounding sea, |60 only he amidst all his many Myrmidons lay grieving with heavy groans |61 in an open place on the beach where the waves came surging in, one after another. |62 Here sleep took hold of him, releasing him from the cares in his heart. |63 It was a sweet sleep that poured all over him, since his shining limbs had been worn down |64 with chasing Hector round windy Ilion. |65 Then came to him the spirit [psūkhē] of unhappy Patroklos, |66 resembling in every way the man himself in size and good looks |67 and voice. It [= the psūkhē] even wore the same clothes he used to wear over his skin. |68 It [= the psūkhē] stood over his head and addressed to him these words: |69 “You sleep, Achilles, and have forgotten me; |70 you used to be not at all uncaring about me when I was alive, but now that I am dead you care for me no further. |71 Bury me with all speed that I may pass through the gates of Hādēs. |72 Keeping me away from there are the spirits [psūkhai], who are images [eidōla] of men that have ended their struggles; |73 they [= the spirits] are not yet permitting me to join them beyond the river. |74 So that is how it is, and that is how I am, directionless, at the entrance to the wide gates of the house of Hādēs. |75 Give me now your hand while I weep, and I do weep because never again |76 will I return from the house of Hādēs once you all do what you have to do, which is, to let me have the ritual of fire. |77 And never again will you [= Achilles] and I be alive together as we sit around only in each other’s company, separating ourselves from our dear comrades, while we keep on sharing, just the two of us, |78 our thoughts with each other. My fate [kēr] has its hold on me, |79 that hateful thing. Now it has opened its gaping jaws and swallowed me. It really always had its hold on me, ever since I was born. |80 But you, Achilles, you who look just like the gods [theoeikelos], you too have a fate [moira] that has its hold on you. |81 You too are fated to die beneath the walls of the noble Trojans. |82 I will tell you one more thing, and I call on you to comply. |83 Do not let my bones be laid to rest apart from your bones, Achilles, |84 but together with them - the same way we were brought up together in your own home, |85 back when I, still a boy, was brought from Opous by [my father] Menoitios. |86 He brought me to your place because of a catastrophic [lugrē] homicide. |87 It happened on the day when I killed the son of Amphidamas. |88 It was involuntary. I was feeling disconnected [nēpios].1 I got angry during a game of dice. |89 But then [your father] the charioteer Peleus received me in his home, |90 and he raised me in a ritually correct way, naming me to be your attendant [therapōn]. |91 So now let the same container enclose our bones for both of us. |92 I mean, the two-handled golden vase given to you by that lady, your mother.” Iliad XXIII 58-922

On the meaning of nēpios as ‘disconnected’, see the Glossary. |58 οἳ μὲν κακκείοντες ἔβαν κλισίην δὲ ἕκαστος, |59 Πηλεΐδης δ’ ἐπὶ θινὶ πολυφλοίσβοιο θαλάσσης |60 κεῖτο βαρὺ στενάχων πολέσιν μετὰ Μυρμιδόνεσσιν |61 ἐν καθαρῷ, ὅθι κύματ’ ἐπ’ 2

220 8§7. Here in Text A the sharing of one single tomb by Patroklos and Achilles in death is explicitly connected with something that they had shared in life: and that something is the experience of life itself. Here I highlight two of the verses spoken by Patroklos: ‘Do not let my bones be laid to rest apart from your bones, Achilles, | but together with them - the same way we were brought up together in your own home’ (XXIII 83-84). In these two verses that I have just quoted again from Text A, the shared upbringing of these two heroes is being equated with a shared life that becomes a model for their shared death. This shared life makes Patroklos the body-double of Achilles, that is, his other self, and such an identity is indicated here by the word therapōn (XXIII 90). As we saw in Hour 6, this word is the key to understanding the very idea of the body double in Homeric poetry. 8§8. But Patroklos is not only the body-double of Achilles: as we will now see, he is also his spirit-double or “soulmate.” Patroklos and Achilles share not only the same sēma: they share also the same psūkhē. That is, they share not only the same meaning but even the same psychic energy that leads to the same meaning. That is what is said by the psūkhē of Patroklos himself when he tells Achilles that the two of them must share the same tomb in death (XXIII 83-84) precisely because the two of them had been nurtured to go through life together on their own (XXIII 84), separating themselves from the rest of their companions (XXIII 77) and sharing their thoughts only with each other (XXIII 77-78). 8§9. The idea of sharing the same thoughts is expressed here in Text A by the idiom boulas bouleuein ‘to plan plans’ (βουλὰς ἑζόμενοι βουλεύσομεν XXIII 78). This idiom is appropriate for expressing the communication of thoughts between cult heroes and their worshippers, as we see in an Iliadic passage where Hector and his advisors consult the thinking

ἠϊόνος κλύζεσκον· |62 εὖτε τὸν ὕπνος ἔμαρπτε λύων μελεδήματα θυμοῦ |63 νήδυμος ἀμφιχυθείς· μάλα γὰρ κάμε φαίδιμα γυῖα |64 Ἕκτορ’ ἐπαΐσσων προτὶ Ἴλιον ἠνεμόεσσαν· |65 ἦλθε δ’ ἐπὶ ψυχὴ Πατροκλῆος δειλοῖο |66 πάντ’ αὐτῷ μέγεθός τε καὶ ὄμματα κάλ’ ἐϊκυῖα |67 καὶ φωνήν, καὶ τοῖα περὶ χροῒ εἵματα ἕστο· |68 στῆ δ’ ἄρ’ ὑπὲρ κεφαλῆς καί μιν πρὸς μῦθον ἔειπεν· |69 εὕδεις, αὐτὰρ ἐμεῖο λελασμένος ἔπλευ Ἀχιλλεῦ. |70 οὐ μέν μευ ζώοντος ἀκήδεις, ἀλλὰ θανόντος· |71 θάπτέ με ὅττι τάχιστα πύλας Ἀΐδαο περήσω. |72 τῆλέ με εἴργουσι ψυχαὶ εἴδωλα καμόντων, |73 οὐδέ μέ πω μίσγεσθαι ὑπὲρ ποταμοῖο ἐῶσιν, |74 ἀλλ’ αὔτως ἀλάλημαι ἀν’ εὐρυπυλὲς Ἄϊδος δῶ. |75 καί μοι δὸς τὴν χεῖρ’· ὀλοφύρομαι, οὐ γὰρ ἔτ’ αὖτις |76 νίσομαι ἐξ Ἀΐδαο, ἐπήν με πυρὸς λελάχητε. |77 οὐ μὲν γὰρ ζωοί γε φίλων ἀπάνευθεν ἑταίρων |78 βουλὰς ἑζόμενοι βουλεύσομεν, ἀλλ’ ἐμὲ μὲν κὴρ |79 ἀμφέχανε στυγερή, ἥ περ λάχε γιγνόμενόν περ· |80 καὶ δὲ σοὶ αὐτῷ μοῖρα, θεοῖς ἐπιείκελ’ Ἀχιλλεῦ, |81 τείχει ὕπο Τρώων εὐηφενέων ἀπολέσθαι. |82 ἄλλο δέ τοι ἐρέω καὶ ἐφήσομαι αἴ κε πίθηαι· |83 μὴ ἐμὰ σῶν ἀπάνευθε τιθήμεναι ὀστέ’ Ἀχιλλεῦ, |84 ἀλλ’ ὁμοῦ ὡς ἐτράφημεν ἐν ὑμετέροισι δόμοισιν, |85 εὖτέ με τυτθὸν ἐόντα Μενοίτιος ἐξ Ὀπόεντος |86 ἤγαγεν ὑμέτερον δ’ ἀνδροκτασίης ὕπο λυγρῆς, |87 ἤματι τῷ ὅτε παῖδα κατέκτανον Ἀμφιδάμαντος |88 νήπιος οὐκ ἐθέλων ἀμφ’ ἀστραγάλοισι χολωθείς· |89 ἔνθά με δεξάμενος ἐν δώμασιν ἱππότα Πηλεὺς |90 ἔτραφέ τ’ ἐνδυκέως καὶ σὸν θεράποντ’ ὀνόμηνεν· |91 ὣς δὲ καὶ ὀστέα νῶϊν ὁμὴ σορὸς ἀμφικαλύπτοι |92 — χρύσεος ἀμφιφορεύς, τόν τοι πόρε πότνια μήτηρ.

221 of Ilos, who is cult hero of the city of Ilion, that is, of Troy. The consultation happens at the sēma or tomb of this cult hero:

Hour 8 Text B Hector, accompanied by all his advisors, | is planning plans [boulas bouleuei] at the tomb [sēma] of godlike Ilos.3 Iliad X 414-4154 8§10. The use of the word sēma here is most suggestive: as we have seen in Hour 7, with reference to the instructions given by Nestor to Antilokhos, this word sēma in Homeric diction signals not only the tomb of a cult hero (as in XXIII 331) but also a sign (as in XXIII 326) that signals the transcendent meaning of that tomb to those who are qualified to understand the mystical language of hero cult. I will have more to say about this mystical language in Hour 15§10. 8§11. I argue, then, that the reference made in Text A to the psychic powers of Patroklos and Achilles as they share each other’s thoughts in life (XXIII 77-78) extends to their psychic powers in death: once they are dead, they become cult heroes who will now share their thoughts not only with each other but also with those in the here and now who seek to make mental contact with these two heroes by concentrating on the sēma that is shared by them. This shared tomb, as a sēma, is the primary visual marker that communicates the shared meaning of Patroklos and Achilles as cult heroes.

The psūkhē of Patroklos in the picture painted on the Münster Hydria 8§12. So far, I have been arguing that Patroklos and Achilles share not only the same sēma but also the same psūkhē in the verbal art of Homeric poetry. Now I extend the argument further: these two heroes share the same sēma and the same psūkhē also in the visual art of the Münster Hydria. On this vase, the painting of the letters ΦΣΥΧΕ that spell psūkhē next to the miniature figure of Patroklos as he levitates over the sēma he will share with Achilles applies not only to Patroklos but also to Achilles, whose pose of running at ground zero alongside his speeding chariot mirrors the pose of Patroklos running in thin air above the sēma that he will share with his “soulmate.”

Achilles and Patroklos as cult heroes of apobatic chariot racing 8§13. As I argue in Hour 7 Comment 7b and following, the picture painted on the Münster Hydria represents the heroes Achilles and Patroklos in the act of engaging in the ritual athletic event of the apobatai ‘those who step off’ as it took place at the Athenian festival 3 4

Commentary in BA 145 = 8§8n2 and PH 293 = 10§22. Ἕκτωρ μὲν μετὰ τοῖσιν, ὅσοι βουληφόροι εἰσί, | βουλὰς βουλεύει θείου παρὰ σήματι Ἴλου.

222 of the Panathenaia in the latter part of the sixth century BCE. And here I return to the relevant argument made by Klaus Stähler concerning the apobatic poses of both Achilles and Patroklos as depicted on the Münster Hydria: according to Stähler, what is being pictured here is the beginning of the hero cult of Patroklos.5 Now, in the light of evidence I have assembled from the verbal art of the Iliad, I propose to modify his argument: what is being pictured is the beginning of the joint hero cult of Patroklos and Achilles. And the ritualized actions of Achilles, as we see from the painting on the Münster Hydria and from other comparable paintings, show the way for the future observance of rituals of hero cult in honor of not only Patroklos but also Achilles himself.6 8§14. So, how are we to imagine these rituals of hero cult as shared by Achilles with Patroklos? I will now argue that these rituals can actually be equated with the athletic event of the apobatai as celebrated at the festival of the Panathenaia in Athens. In terms of my argument, the two heroes Achilles and Patroklos presided as cult heroes over this athletic event, which is a ritual of hero cult. And the death of Patroklos, which is the prototype for the death of Achilles himself, is part of the aetiology of this athletic event, of this ritual of hero cult. I repeat here my working definition of aetiology as I formulated it in Hour 7 Comment 7a above: an aetiology is a myth that motivates an institutional reality, especially a ritual.7 8§15. So the death of Patroklos is one part of the myth that becomes the aetiology for the apobatic chariot race at the Panathenaia. But there is another part of this myth that we need to keep in mind. This is the dragging of the corpse of Hector behind the speeding chariot of Achilles. In the logic of aetiologies, as I argued in Hour 7 Comment 7a, a ritual practice can be polluted by a hero in myth, and then this pollution will need to be eternally purified by succeeding generations of ordinary humans who participate in that same seasonally recurring ritual practice.8 Here, in the case of the apobatic chariot race at the festival of the Panathenaia, the pollution in myth was the dragging of the corpse of Hector behind the speeding chariot of Achilles. A comparable example is the case of the non-apobatic chariot race at the festival of the Olympics, where the pollution in myth was the killing of Oinomaos in the course of his fatal chariot race with Pelops, who was the cause of this death (Apollodorus Epitome 2.7).9 8§16. I must stress once again, however, that Achilles is performing as an athlete even while he is polluting the prototypical athletic event in which he is participating. We saw this most clearly in the vase paintings where he is shown running furiously alongside a speeding chariot that is dragging the corpse of Hector. In these pictures, Achilles is polluting the athletic event of apobatic chariot racing, but he is still performing as an apobatic athlete. So, when an 5

Stähler 1967:32. GM 94n50 and 220n54, building on the argumentation of Stähler as cited in the previous note. 7 BA 279 = 16§22. 8 PH 117-135 = 4§§2-26. 9 PH 199 = 4§6n15. 6

223 athlete is making his own run alongside his own speeding chariot at the apobatic event of the Panathenaia, he is re-enacting the prototypical run of Achilles. That prototypical run in myth is an expression of the hero’s fury, which can now translate into the competitive “killer instinct” of the athlete when he makes his own apobatic run. 8§17. I had said in my earlier work: “Once Achilles steps off his furiously speeding chariot, the fury that fueled that speed must be left behind as he hits the ground running and keeps on running until that fury is spent.”10 Just as the fury of Achilles fuels his run until that fury is spent, so also the athletic energy or “killer instinct” of the apobatēs keeps him running and running until his energy is finally spent just as he crosses the finish line.

An athletic event at Eleusis 8§18. In earlier work, I have studied other comparable examples of aetiologies for athletic events.11 In Comment 8a below, I survey many of those aetiologies. For the moment, however, I focus on just one example, which is an aetiology for a seasonally recurring athletic event celebrated at Eleusis. 8§19. This event, known as the Ballētus, was a mock battle that was evidently the ritual kernel of a whole complex of events known as the Eleusinian Games.12 Here is how the athletic event is defined in an ancient dictionary attributed to Hesychius (this name is a figurehead for a vast lexicographical tradition stemming from the Library of Alexandria): ‘Ballētus is a festival in Athens, celebrated in honor of Dēmophōn son of Keleos’.13 I have translated the preposition epi (ἐπί) here in combination with the name of Dēmophōn in the dative case as ‘in honor of Dēmophōn’. But this translation is inadequate and needs to be revised. As I will show later in Comment 8a below, it would be more accurate to word it this way: ‘in compensation for [the death of] Dēmophōn’. As we will now see, this revised wording is compatible with the myth that serves as the aetiology for the athletic event of the Ballētus. 8§20. In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, the athletic competition of the Ballētus is overtly described as an act of compensation, recurring at the right season into all eternity, and this competition is understood to be an eternal compensation for a primal pollution caused by human error. That pollution was the unintended death of an infant hero named Dēmophōn. The queen of Eleusis, mother of this infant hero, had unintentionally ruined the plan of the goddess Demeter to make Dēmophōn exempt from death. That moment happens when the queen interrupts Demeter in the sacred act of dipping the infant Dēmophōn into the fire of the household fireplace in order to galvanize this infant into a state of immortality (Homeric Hymn 10

HPC 174 = II§98. PH chapters 4 and 5. 12 PH 121 = 4§7n26. See also Nilsson 1906:414n4 and Pache 2004:76-77. 13 Βαλλητύς· ἑορτὴ Ἀθήνησιν, ἐπὶ Δημοφῶντι τῷ Κελεοῦ ἀγομένη. 11

224 to Demeter 239-250). Here I quote the passage that tells about the immediate aftermath, where the goddess angrily condemns the error of the queen and announces that the infant hero Dēmophōn will now be subject to death, like all other mortals. As we are about to see, however, the dooming of the infant to death comes with a compensation:

Hour 8 Text C |259 I [= Demeter] swear by the implacable water of the Styx, the witness of oaths that gods make, as I say this: |260 immortal and ageless for all days |261 would I have made your dear [philos] little boy, and I would have given him honor [tīmē] that is unwilting [a-phthi-tos]. |262 But now there is no way for him to avoid death and doom. |263 Still, he will have an honor [tīmē] that is unwilting [a-phthi-tos], for all time, because on my knees |264 he had once sat and slept in my arms. |265 At the right season [hōrā], every year, |266 the sons of the Eleusinians will have a war, a terrible battle among each other. |267 They will do so for all days to come. Homeric Hymn to Demeter 259-26714 I highlight here at verse 265 the noun hōrā (plural hōrai) ‘season, seasonality, the right time, the perfect time’, as I defined it in Hour 1§§26-29 and analyzed it in Hour 1§49. As we see from the context that I just quoted here in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, this noun hōrā marks the seasonal recurrence of rituals honoring cult heroes. 8§21. The death of the infant hero, as we learn from the text I just quoted, will be compensated by seasonally recurring rituals of athletic re-enactment, as expressed by the word tīmē ‘honor’ (verse 263), which refers here to the honor conferred upon cult heroes in the rituals of hero cult. In this case, the rituals take the form of an athletic competition that overtly simulates warfare. And these rituals will have to recur seasonally, year after year, for a notional eternity. Such a seasonal recurrence is indicated, as we have just seen, by the word hōrā at verse 265 of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. And now we see why the tīmē ‘honor’ that the prototypical hero receives in compensation for his death is described as a-phthi-tos ‘unwilting’ (verse 263), that is, lasting forever. Another example of such a seasonally recurring ritual is a mock battle of boys competing within a sacralized space known as the Platanistās ‘Grove of the Plane Trees’ in Sparta: this ritual is described by Pausanias (3.11.2, 3.14.8-9), who notes that the boys made sacrifice to the hero Achilles before they started their mock battle (3.20.8).

|259 ἴστω γὰρ θεῶν ὅρκος ἀμείλικτον Στυγὸς ὕδωρ |260 ἀθάνατόν κέν τοι καὶ ἀγήραον ἤματα πάντα |261 παῖδα φίλον ποίησα καὶ ἄφθιτον ὤπασα τιμήν· |262 νῦν δ’ οὐκ ἔσθ’ ὥς κεν θάνατον καὶ κῆρας ἀλύξαι. |263 τιμὴ δ’ ἄφθιτος αἰὲν ἐπέσσεται οὕνεκα γούνων |264 ἡμετέρων ἐπέβη καὶ ἐν ἀγκοίνῃσιν ἴαυσεν. |265 ὥρῃσιν δ’ ἄρα τῷ γε περιπλομένων ἐνιαυτῶν |266 παῖδες Ἐλευσινίων πόλεμον καὶ φύλοπιν αἰνὴν |267 αἰὲν ἐν ἀλλήλοισι συνάξουσ’ ἤματα πάντα.

225

Achilles and Dēmophōn as cult heroes of festivals 8§22. As we have just seen in Text C taken from the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, the goddess Demeter foretells the tīmē aphthitos ‘unwilting honor’ (verses 261, 263) of a seasonallyrecurring athletic event that the hero Dēmophōn will receive as a compensation for his death (verses 265-267). Similarly in the Iliad, the goddess Thetis foretells the kleos aphthiton ‘unwilting glory’ (IX 413) that the hero Achilles will receive as a compensation for his own death:

Hour 8 Text D = Hour 1 Text A = Hour 0 Text F |410 My mother Thetis, goddess of the silver feet, tells me that |411 I carry the burden of two different fated ways [kēres] leading to the final moment [telos] of death. |412 If I stay here and fight at the walls of the city of the Trojans, then my safe homecoming [nostos] will be destroyed for me, but I will have a glory [kleos] that is unwilting [aphthiton]. |414 Whereas if I go back home, returning to the dear land of my forefathers, |415 then it is my glory [kleos], genuine [esthlon] as it is, that will be destroyed for me, but my life force [aiōn] will then |416 last me a long time, and the final moment [telos] of death will not be swift in catching up with me. Iliad IX 410-416 8§23. The parallelisms in the wording that we see in these two passages highlight the parallelisms between Dēmophōn and Achilles as heroes who are linked with festivals. Just as the tīmē ‘honor’ of the hero Dēmophōn takes the form of a seasonally recurring athletic event that is aphthitos ‘unwilting’ (Hymn to Demeter 261, 263) because it will last forever, eternally recycled at the festival of the Eleusinian Games, so also the kleos ‘glory’ of the hero Achilles takes the form of a seasonally recurring poetic event that is aphthiton ‘unwilting’ (Iliad IX 413) because it too will last forever, eternally recycled in the context of a festival like the Panathenaia. 8§24. In the case of Dēmophōn, his link to the festival of the Eleusinian Games is expressed directly in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. In the case of Achilles, however, his link to the festival of the Panathenaia is expressed only indirectly in the Homeric Iliad as we know it. Only in the visual medium of the vase paintings we saw in Hour 7 is the linking of Achilles with the Panathenaia expressed directly, but even in those vase paintings he is linked not with the poetic events that took place at this festival: rather, Achilles is linked with the athletic event of the apobatai as it took shape at the Panathenaia.

Achilles as a model of rhapsodic performance 8§25. I have found, however, an indirect linking of the kleos or epic ‘glory’ of Achilles with the festival of the Panathenaia: at happens at the moment when the ambassadors sent by Agamemnon to Achilles find him in his shelter, where he is singing the klea andrōn ‘glories of men (heroes)’:

226

Hour 8 Text E = Hour 2 Text D |185 The two of them reached the shelters and the ships of the Myrmidons, |186 and they found Achilles diverting his heart [phrēn] as he was playing on a lyre [phorminx], |187 a beautiful one, of exquisite workmanship, and its cross-bar was of silver. |188 It was part of the spoils that he had taken when he destroyed the city of Eëtion, |189 and he was now diverting his heart [thūmos] with it as he was singing [aeidein] the glories of men [klea andrōn]. |190 Patroklos was the only other person there. He [= Patroklos] sat in silence, facing him [= Achilles], |191 and waiting for the Aeacid [= Achilles] to leave off singing [aeidein]. |192 Meanwhile the two of them came in - Odysseus leading the way - |193 and stood before him. Achilles sprang from his seat |194 with the lyre [phorminx] still in his hand, |195 and Patroklos, when he saw the guests, rose also. Iliad IX 185-195 8§26. As I indicated in Hour 2, Achilles is shown here as a model of epic performance. We may compare the evidence of the vase paintings we saw in Hour 7, where Achilles is shown as a model of athletic performance. 8§27. Here in the Iliad, Achilles is not only the model subject of songs that are the klea andrōn ‘glories of men (heroes)’. He is also the model performer of such songs. And the same goes for Patroklos or Patrokleēs. As we have seen, the meaning of his name, ‘he who has the kleos of the ancestors’, encapsulates the very idea of klea andrōn. In the Iliadic passage I have just quoted, Patroklos is not just waiting for Achilles to stop performing the song. Rather, he is waiting for his own turn to perform the song, which must continue: So long as Achilles alone sings the klea andrōn ‘glories of men’, these heroic glories cannot be heard by anyone but Patroklos alone. Once Achilles leaves off and Patroklos starts singing, however, the continuum that is the klea andrōn - the Homeric tradition itself - can at long last become activated. This is the moment awaited by Patrokleēs ‘he who has the klea [glories] of the ancestors’. In this Homeric image of Patroklos waiting for his turn to sing, then, we have in capsule form the esthetics of rhapsodic sequencing.15 8§28. As I outlined in Comment 7e above, Homeric poetry was performed at the Panathenaia by rhapsōidoi ‘rhapsodes’ (Plato Ion 530a-b, 533b-c; Isocrates Panegyricus 159; and Plutarch Life of Pericles 13.9-11). The rhapsodes narrated the Iliad and Odyssey in relay, following traditions of rhapsodic sequencing: each rhapsode waited for his turn to pick up the narrative where the previous rhapsode left off (“Plato” Hipparkhos 228b-c; Dieuchidas of Megara FGH 485 F 6 via Diogenes Laertius 1.57; Lycurgus Against Leokrates 102). And the competition of rhapsodes in performing by relay and in sequence the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer at the festival

PP 72–73; see also HC 366 = 3§33.

227 of the Panathenaia was a ritual in and of itself.16 Moreover, the principle of equity that was built into this ritual event of rhapsodic competition at the Panathenaia corresponded to the need for equity in ritual events of athletic competition. As Richard Martin observes, “The superb management of athletic games to assure equity could easily have been extended by the promoters of the Panathenaic games in this way.”17 8§29. In Comment 7e, I used the term Panathenaic Regulation in referring to this tradition of rhapsodic sequencing as adopted in Athens. In the sources I have just cited (“Plato” Hipparkhos 228b-c; Dieuchidas of Megara FGH 485 F 6 via Diogenes Laertius 1.57; Lycurgus Against Leokrates 102), we see different versions of stories about initiatives undertaken in the sixth century BCE by the Athenian state to institute such rhapsodic performance in relay at the Panathenaia.18 8§30. This is not to make a specific argument about the dating of Text E, the Iliadic passage showing Achilles and Patroklos performing in relay: it would be a mistake, I think, to date the wording of this passage to such a relatively late era, the sixth century BCE. After all, the tradition of rhapsodic relay was already at work in the Homeric tradition as it was evolving in the eighth and seventh centuries BCE at the festival of the Panionia.19 My general argument, rather, is that this tradition of rhapsodic relay, where rhapsodes collaborate as well as compete in the process of performing successive parts of integral compositions like the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey, can be used to explain the unity of these epics as they evolved over time.20 8§31. So the passage in Text E where we see Achilles and Patroklos performing in relay the klea andrōn ‘glories of men (heroes)’ is most likely to reflect a relatively early feature of the Homeric tradition. Still, the point remains that the Iliadic reference to such a relay performance of the klea andrōn ‘glories of men (heroes)’ can be seen as an indirect link to the recycled performances of epic at festivals, including the festival of the Panathenaia. 8§32. So I maintain that the kleos of Homeric poetry is in its own right a seasonally recurring ritual event, since both the Iliad and the Odyssey were performed at the festival of the Panathenaia in Athens. And, as we have seen, the poetic event of a competition in performing the Iliad and the Odyssey at the Panathenaia was parallel to the athletic event of a competition of apobatai at the same festival. This athletic event, as we have also seen, is comparable to the mock battle of the Ballētus, which was the primary athletic event of the Eleusinian Games and 16

HPC 22 = I§38, with reference to PR 42-47. For a comparative perspective on the concept of competition-in-collaboration, see PP 18. 17 Martin 2000:422. 18 PR 36-69. 19 HPC 22 = I§38, following Frame 2009:551-620. 20 PR 42-47; HC 325, 327, 335 = 2§§297, 304, 325; also 354-355, 366-367 = 3§§4, 6, 33.

228 which qualifies as tīmē aphthitos ‘unwilting honor’ in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (261, 263), while the primary poetic event of performing epic at the Panathenaia qualifies as kleos aphthiton ‘unwilting glory’ in the Homeric Iliad (IX 413).

Achilles and Patroklos as cult heroes of a poetic event 8§33. I have argued so far that Dēmophōn as cult hero of the athletic event of the Ballētus at the festival of the Eleusinian games can be seen as a parallel to Achilles and Patroklos as joint cult heroes of the athletic event of the apobatai at the festival of the Panathenaia. But now I will argue that the status of Dēmophōn as cult hero of an athletic event can also be seen as a parallel to the status of Achilles and Patroklos as joint cult heroes of the poetic event of performing Homeric poetry at festivals. The parallelism is evident in the words of the goddess Thetis, when she describes Achilles as an infant hero:

Hour 8 Text F = Hour 4 Text G = Hour 0 Text D |54 Ah me, the pitiful one! Ah me, the mother, so sad it is, of the very best. |55 I gave birth to a faultless and strong son, |56 the very best of heroes. And he shot up [anedramen] equal [īsos] to a seedling [ernos]. |57 I nurtured him like a shoot in the choicest spot of the orchard, |58 only to send him off on curved ships to Troy, to fight Trojan men. |59 And I will never be welcoming him |60 back home as returning warrior, back to the House of Peleus. |61 And as long as he lives and sees the light of the sun, |62 he will have sorrow [akh-nutai], and though I go to him I cannot help him. Iliad XVIII 54-62 8§34. Similarly in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, we see this description of Dēmophōn as an infant hero:

Hour 8 Text G |233 And so it came to pass that the splendid son of bright-minded Keleos, |234 Dēmophōn, who was born to the one with the beautiful waist, Metaneira, |235 was nourished in the palace, and he shot up [anedrame] up equal [īsos] to a superhuman force [daimōn], |236 not eating grain, not sucking from the breast. But Demeter21 |237 used to anoint him with ambrosia, as if he had been born of the goddess, |238 and she would breathe down her sweet breath on him as she held him to her bosom. |239 At nights she would conceal him within the power source [menos] of fire, as if he were a smoldering log, |240 and his dear [philoi] parents were kept unaware. But they marveled |241 at how full in bloom he came to be, and to look at him was like looking at the gods.

At this point there may be a lacuna in the textual transmission.

229 Homeric Hymn to Demeter 233-24122 8§35. I highlight the wording that describes the hero Dēmophōn as he is being nurtured by the goddess Demeter in Text G: ‘he shot up [an-e-drame] up equal [īsos] to a superhuman force [daimōn]’ (verse 235); and I highlight the parallel wording that describes the hero Achilles as he in turn is being nurtured by the goddess Thetis in Text F: ‘he shot up [an-e-dramen] equal [īsos] to a seedling [ernos] (verse 56).23 These descriptions, replete with vivid imagery centering on the wilting of plants, are typical of cult heroes who are destined to die and then receive as compensation some form of immortalization after death.24 8§36. I will have more to say about such descriptions in Hour 14, where I study further parallels in Hesiodic poetry, but for now I need to concentrate on the actual form of immortalization that Dēmophōn and Achilles will be granted by the divine order. In the case of Dēmophōn, as we saw in Text C (Homeric Hymn to Demeter 261, 263), he will be granted tīmē aphthitos ‘unwilting honor’ by virtue of becoming the cult hero who presides over the prime athletic event of the Eleusinian Games; and, in the case of Achilles in Text D (Iliad IX 413), he will be granted kleos aphthiton ‘unwilting glory’ by virtue of becoming the cult hero who presides over the prime poetic event of the Panathenaia. 8§37. But this glory of Achilles will be shared in death by Patroklos, who as we have seen in both Texts A and B of Hour 5 receives the epithet ‘equal [īsos] to a superhuman force [daimōn]’ when he dies in place of Achilles in the Iliad (XVI 705 and 786). So it is more accurate to say that Patroklos as well as Achilles becomes the cult hero of the primary poetic event of the Panathenaia. 8§38. A most revealing reference in the Homeric Iliad to the general idea of Achilles and Patroklos as joint cult heroes can be found in Iliad XXIII 91-92, two verses that we have already read at the end of Text A as I quoted it earlier in its entirety. In these two verses, the psūkhē of Patroklos speaks about a golden vase that will contain his own bones mixed together with the bones of Achilles. The reference here to this golden vase, to be placed inside the sēma that will be shared by the two heroes, is an implicit sign of the immortalization that awaits both Achilles and Patroklos after their bones are regenerated by the power of the god Dionysus,

|233 ὣς ἡ μὲν Κελεοῖο δαΐφρονος ἀγλαὸν υἱὸν |234 Δημοφόωνθ, ὃν ἔτικτεν ἐΰζωνος Μετάνειρα, |235 ἔτρεφεν ἐν μεγάροις· ὁ δ ἀέξετο δαίμονι ἶσος |236 οὔτ οὖν σῖτον ἔδων, οὐ θησάμενος. Δημήτηρ |237 χρίεσκ’ ἀμβροσίῃ ὡς εἰ θεοῦ ἐκγεγαῶτα, |238 ἡδὺ καταπνείουσα καὶ ἐν κόλποισιν ἔχουσα· |239 νύκτας δὲ κρύπτεσκε πυρὸς μένει ἠΰτε δαλὸν |240 λάθρα φίλων γονέων· τοῖς δὲ μέγα θαῦμ ἐτέτυκτο |241 ὡς προθαλὴς τελέθεσκε, θεοῖσι δὲ ἄντα ἐῴκει. 23 Sinos 1980:28-36. 24 Full argumentation in BA 181-192 = 10§§10-22.

230 who had originally given the vase to Thetis the mother of Achilles (there is a reference to this myth in Stesichorus PMG 234).25 8§39. This reference in Iliad XXIII 91-92 to the prospect of heroic immortalization after death is an indication, as we will now see, that the ideology of hero cult is actively in play here in Homeric poetry. It can be said in general that localized myths about the immortalization of heroes after death are linked with localized rituals as practiced in cults of heroes.26 8§40. In the case of the hero Achilles, a myth about his immortalization after death is made explicit in the epic Cycle, where Achilles is immortalized after death (plot-summary by Proclus of the Aithiopis by Arctinus of Miletus p. 106 lines 11-15 ). In the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey, on the other hand, the theme of heroic immortalization is nowhere made explicit for Achilles.27 But we do see in the Iliad at least two implicit references to the future immortalization of Achilles, and the passage we have just considered is one of them. There is another implicit reference in Iliad XIX 418, where Xanthos the immortal horse of Achilles is about to foretell the hero’s immortalization, but the prophecy is silenced by an Erinus ‘Fury’.28

The prefiguring of Achilles by Patroklos 8§41. In Homeric poetry, Patroklos as cult hero is more clearly defined than even Achilles himself. That is because Patroklos is not only a body-double but even a story-double of Achilles in the Iliad, where things happen to Patroklos that could otherwise have happened only to Achilles.29 The most central of these happenings is the ritual death of Patroklos at the hands of the god Apollo in the Iliad: as we saw when we were reading Text A (XVI 698-711) and Text B (XVI 783-806) in Hour 6, this happening in the Iliad prefigures the death of Achilles beyond the Iliad.30 And there are also other such happenings in the Iliad where the role of Patroklos as a cult hero functions as a substitute for the corresponding role of Achilles. A case in point is the story we see in Iliad XVII about the fighting between the Achaeans and the Trojans over the possession of the corpse of Patroklos after he is killed in Iliad XVI. Directly comparable is the fighting over the corpse of Achilles as we see it described in Odyssey xxiv (3739). As we will see in Hour 11(§9), the possession of the corpse of a cult hero is essential for the fertility and prosperity of the community that worships that hero.

Commentary in BA 209 = 10§50. EH §§98-99, 107, 113. 27 EH §57. 28 Commentary in BA 209-210 = 10§50n2. 29 For a general overview of the role of Patroklos as the narrative surrogate as well as ritual substitute of Achilles in the Iliad, see Nagy 2007b (“Homer and Greek Myth”) 64-69. 30 On the death of Patrokos as a prefiguration of the death of Achilles, I find the book of Lowenstam 1981 to be of lasting value. 26

231 8§42. In view of this centrality of Patroklos as the surrogate cult hero of the Homeric Iliad, it is vital to highlight again here in Hour 8 the centrality of this same figure in the picture of Patroklos as painted on the Münster Hydria. The hero, imagined there as a miniature bodydouble of Achilles, hovers mid-air over the tomb that he will share with Achilles. And, in this painting, Patroklos is labeled as psūkhē (ΦΣΥΧΕ). In Hour 7, I used a neutral translation of this word’s meaning, as ‘spirit’, but the more basic meaning of psūkhē is ‘breath of life’, which in the context of hero cults signals the vital force that departs from the body of the hero at the moment of death - only to be reunited with that body after a transition, through Hādēs, into a paradisiacal setting that transcends the temporal and the spatial constraints of mortality.31 Such a mystical reunion of the body with the psūkhē is the vision that drives the idea of heroic immortalization, which is a basic feature of hero cult.32 In terms of this idea, as I noted a moment ago, there is transition of the psūkhē through Hādēs: so this realm of Hādēs is transitional, not eschatological. 8§43. Eschatology has to do with thinking about afterlife - where you “end up.” From the standpoint of basic Christian eschatology, for example, the stark alternatives are heaven and hell. Homeric eschatology is different. For example, the realm of Hādēs is not “hell.” 8§44. Here I offer an overall formulation of the contrast between Hādēs and heroic immortalization in the context of hero cults: The cult hero was considered dead - from the standpoint of the place where the hero’s sōma or ‘body’ was situated; at the same time, the hero was considered simultaneously immortalized - from the standpoint of the paradisiacal place that awaited all heroes after death. Such a paradisiacal place, which was considered eschatological, must be contrasted with Hādēs, which was considered transitional. The name and even the visualization of this otherworldly place varied from hero cult to hero cult. Some of these names are: Elysium (Ēlusion), the Islands of the Blessed (Nēsoi Makarōn), the White Island (Leukē), and, exceptionally, even Mount Olympus in the case of Hēraklēs. Many of these names were applied also to the actual site or sacred precinct of the hero cult.33 8§45. I will return in Hour 11 to the distinction I am making here between transitional and eschatological phases in an afterlife.

Heroic immortalization and the psūkhē 8§46. The theme of heroic immortalization is implicit in the overall use of the word psūkhē in Homeric poetry. I emphasize that this theme is implicit, not explicit, and that the 31

GM 88-93, 115-116. GM 126n30, 142. 33 This formulation is derived from EH §98. For an extended discussion, see BA ch. 10 (“Poetic Visions of Immortality for the Hero”). See also Bershadsky 2011:17. 32

232 formulaic system of Homeric diction shows the implicitness by actually avoiding the use of psūkhē in certain situations while substituting alternative words like thūmos and menos in these situations.34 8§47. One such situation is a set of Homeric scenes where a hero swoons, that is, where he loses consciousness but does not die: in such scenes, it can be said that a hero loses his psūkhē when he swoons (as in the case of Sarpedon when he swoons in Iliad V 696), but it cannot be said that he wins back his psūkhē when he comes to.35 If the hero were dead, then he would not come to. But if he is not dead, then he will come to, that is, he will revive. The point is, in Homeric scenes where we see a hero reviving after swooning, that is, where the hero regains consciousness after having passed out temporarily, the ‘breath of life’ that he regains cannot be expressed by way of the word psūkhē, which can be used to express only the loss of consciousness at the moment of swooning or dying but not the regaining of consciousness at the moment of reviving. From the standpoint of Homeric diction, to say that the psūkhē as the ‘breath of life’ is regained after reviving from swooning is evidently too close to saying that the hero will revive not only after swooning but even after dying.36 8§48. This pattern of consistently avoiding references to the return of the psūkhē to the body shows a pervasive recognition of the theme of immortalization within the entire system of Homeric poetry. The operation of this system in Homeric poetry, I have argued, indicates that this poetry recognizes and even accepts the idea of heroic immortalization, though this idea is expressed only implicitly.37 8§49. Just as the idea of heroic immortalization is expressed only implicitly in Homeric poetry, it is implicit also in the picture painted on the Münster Hydria. As I have argued in Hour 7, the painting on this vase signals such a theme not only by picturing the psūkhē of Patroklos as it hovers over the tomb that he will be sharing with Achilles but also by even labeling the picture, that is, by painting the consecutive letters ΦΣΥΧΕ to spell psūkhē, where the act of painting these letters that spell out psūkhē becomes a sēma or ‘sign’ in its own right.38 And, in the timelessness of the narrative created in this picture, as I have argued here in Hour 8, Patroklos and Achilles share not only the same sēma or ‘tomb’ but even the same psūkhē, as indicated by the sēma or ‘sign’ for the word psūkhē.

The psūkhē as both messenger and message 8§50. This shared meaning of Patroklos and Achilles as cult heroes is signaled in the Iliad not only by the tomb that they share. It is signaled even by the psūkhē or ‘spirit’ of 34

GM 87-88, with references. GM 90, with references. 36 GM 89-92. 37 Nagy 2012. 38 See also GM 220. 35

233 Patroklos himself, who is sending a message to Achilles. As we have seen in Iliad XXIII (83-84, 91-92), the psūkhē of Patroklos directly communicates his message to Achilles, telling him to undertake the construction of their shared tomb. And as I noted, there is a further reference to this tomb in Iliad XXIII (125-126). Then, even further on in XXIII (245-248), it is indicated that the tomb to be shared by Achilles and Patroklos will be incomplete so long as only Patroklos occupies it, and that the final act of making the tomb complete must wait till the death of Achilles. That final act is what we see described in Odyssey xxiv (80-84). The reference there in the Odyssey to the shared tomb of Achilles and Patroklos also complements a set of stylized references to what is understood to be the same tomb in the Iliad (especially XIX 368-379).39 In Hour 11, I will have more to say about this tomb and about its physical setting. 8§51. Just as the word psūkhē signals the message of one tomb to be shared by Achilles and Patroklos as cult heroes in the Iliad, the same word signals the same message in the picture painted on the Münster Hydria. In the logic of that picture, the self of Patroklos as a psūkhē will become the self of Achilles, whose corpse will be placed inside the same tomb that is already occupied by the corpse of his other self, Patroklos. So the psūkhē is both the messenger and the message of the messenger. And the visual cue for this psūkhē is the tomb over which the miniature vision of Patroklos levitates, which is not only a sēma in the sense of a ‘tomb’ but also a sēma in the sense of a ‘sign’ of a meaning - or even as a ‘sign’ of meaning itself. 8§52. It is essential for my overall argument to repeat here the simple fact that sēma is a Homeric word that means not only ‘sign’ but also ‘tomb’. That is what we saw in Hour 7 when I first showed the verse in Iliad XXIII 331 where sēma refers to the ‘tomb’ of the unnamed cult hero. And we saw the same word five verses earlier in Iliad XXIII 326, where it refers to the ‘sign’ given by Nestor to Antilokhos. When Nestor says the word for ‘sign’, he is already saying the word for ‘tomb’. Just as the act of painting an image that shows the tomb shared by Patroklos and Achilles becomes a sēma or ‘sign’ of the tomb, so also the act of saying the word sēma as a ‘sign’ becomes a ‘sign’ of the tomb in the verbal art of the Iliad. And the unspecified tomb of the unnamed hero turns out to be the specific tomb of the hero named Patroklos, who will be sharing this tomb with the hero named Achilles. Thus the sign given by Nestor is not just an unspecified sign that tells a chariot driver how to drive his chariot around a turning post that turns out to be tomb of Patroklos. It is also a specific sign that tells the chariot driver that he is participating in an athletic ritual performed in honor of Patroklos and Achilles as cult heroes.

A fusion of heroic myth and athletic ritual 8§53. I must stress once again that the idea of using the tomb of a hero as the turning post in a chariot race stems from the fact that the activity of athletics, like the activity of warfare, was considered to be a ritual. Moreover, the ritual activities of athletics and warfare 39

Detailed analysis in HPC 149-170 = II§§50-89.

234 were conceived as parallel to the mythical deeds of heroes. As I noted already in Hour 1, and as I will elaborate in Comment 8b, the same wording was used to refer to the ordeals of athletes and warriors in the rituals of athletics and war as was used to refer to the ordeals of heroes in myth. In the ritual ordeals of athletics and warfare, real people re-enacted the mythical ordeals of heroes. Already in Hour 1, when I looked at the Labors of Hēraklēs, I had highlighted the fusion of heroic and athletic actions. 8§54. We are seeing, then, a fusion of heroic myth and athletic ritual in the story about the chariot race in Iliad XXIII and about all the other athletic events that are narrated there. The athletic events in which the heroes participate there are a matter of ritual, but they are also a matter of myth, because it is the heroes of the heroic age who participate in the athletic events of Iliad XXIII, not the real people in the post-heroic age who re-enact the mythical ordeals of heroes. 8§55. What makes the athletic events of Iliad XXIII appear to be different from the “real” athletic events of the historical period is this: whatever is happening in Iliad XXIII appears to happen only once, whereas “real” athletic events are seasonally recurrent. We can see most clearly this concept of seasonally recurring re-enactment when we read the relevant passage in Text C above, taken from the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (259-267). 8§56. But appearances are deceiving. Even the athletic events narrated in the Iliad are not really one-time events, since they were narrated again and again at the seasonally recurring festival of the Panathenaia in Athens. In Comment 7e above, I have already given a brief overview of some relevant historical facts that we can piece together about the use of this festival as a venue for the seasonally recurring performances of Homeric poetry during the sixth century BCE and later. On the basis of these facts, I maintain that the athletic events of Iliad XXIII are understood to be performed again and again in the recycled performances of Homeric poetry at the festival of the Panathenaia. 8§57. There is a comparable recycling of athletic performance in the picture we see painted on the Münster Hydria. In this picture, Achilles is represented as engaging in a personalized apobatic race with himself.40 He is seen running alongside the speeding chariot, having already leapt off its platform. Meanwhile, the psūkhē of Patroklos - which can double for the psūkhē of Achilles - is shown hovering over the hero’s tomb or sēma occupying the dead center of the picture. This psūkhē of Patroklos, labeled as ΦΣΥΧΕ in the painting, is running in the air - a miniature version of the running Achilles who is racing at ground zero in a reenactment of the race being run by the other self who is running in the air. 8§58. In the narrative of the Homeric Iliad as we have it, by contrast, Achilles is never shown as an apobatic athlete - or as any other kind of athlete. Even at the Funeral Games for 40

HPC 175 = II§103.

235 Patroklos as retold in the Iliad, Achilles delegates the role of the athlete to his fellow heroes. Instead of engaging in any athletic event, Achilles in the Funeral Games reserves for himself the role of the one who presides over all the athletic events. And, in this role of presider, he is substituting for the one hero in Iliad XXIII whose death must be compensated by way of athletic competitions. That one hero is Patroklos. Thus Achilles becomes the ritual representative of Patroklos, his other self, by presiding over the athletic competitions at the Funeral Games for his dead friend. His chosen role as presider here is a substitute for the role that he chooses in the vase painting of the Münster Hydria and in other such paintings, where he engages directly in the athletic competition of the apobatai.41 8§59. No matter which hero is shown as engaging in athletic events, whether it be Achilles or only his fellow heroes, the fact remains that heroes who engage in these events become models for athletes who compete in these same kinds of events. And they are models because they are shown as competing in athletic ordeals that are instituted explicitly in compensation for the death of one of their own kind, a hero. 8§60. This is not to say that the modeling is consistently positive. We have already seen that the actions of heroes may be negative models - even when they serve as aetiologies for existing institutions like athletic festivals, as in the case of the brutal dragging of Hector’s corpse behind the speeding chariot of Achilles. Moreover, the models for heroes who compete in athletics may be their very own selves in other phases of their own lives as narrated in epic. For example, the heroes who compete in athletic events at the Funeral Games for Patroklos in the Iliad can unwittingly re-enact corresponding heroic events, either positive or negative, that they will experience at some point in their actual lives as characters in the heroic narration.42 8§61. I conclude, then that the painting on the Münster Hydria shows Achilles as a prototypical participant in his own hero cult by way of participating in the athletic event of the apobatai. Through his prototypical participation, Achilles shows the way for future athletes to participate in this athletic event of the apobatai at the seasonally recurring festival of the Panathenaia for all time to come.43 8§62. And I offer a parallel conclusion about the Funeral Games for Patroklos in Iliad XXIII. Here too Achilles is shown as a prototypical participant in his own hero cult by way of participating in the hero cult of his other self, Patroklos. Here too he shows the way for future athletes to participate in his own hero cult by way of participating in the kinds of athletic events we see described in Iliad XXIII, especially in the chariot race. In this case, however, 44

HPC 175-176 = II§106. Whitman 1959:169, Nagy 1990:193, Frame 2009:170-172, 205-216. 43 HPC 175-176 = II§105. 44 HPC 176 = II§106. See also GM 88, 94, 217, 220 and PH pp. 207-214 = 7§§10-19. 42

236 Achilles does not himself participate in the athletic events of the Funeral Games for Patroklos: rather, it is the other surviving Achaean heroes of the Iliad who serve as prototypical participants in the athletic events, while Achilles himself simply presides over these events as if he were already dead, having already achieved the status of the cult hero who will be buried in the tumulus to be shared with his other self, Patroklos.

Back to the glory of the ancestors 8§63. In the visual art of the picture painted on the Münster Hydria, we saw a complex sign that combines the painting of the word psūkhē with the painting of a shining white tomb foregrounded against a background of burnished red, and this complex sign signals the hero Patroklos himself, whose psūkhē will become one with the psūkhē of Achilles when the two heroes are joined in death, inside the tomb they will share forever. Similarly in the verbal art of Homeric poetry, we see a complex sign that combines two meanings of the word sēma as used by Nestor in Iliad XXIII before the commencement of the chariot race in honor of Patroklos: it is a ‘sign’ (XXIII 326) that signals a hero’s ‘tomb’ (XXIII 331), but it signals not only the tomb that Patroklos will share with Achilles but also the very meaning of the hero Patroklos himself. That meaning, as I showed in Hour 2, is recapitulated in the meaning of his name Patrokleēs, ‘the one who has the glory [kleos] of the ancestors [pateres]’. 8§64. This name Patrokleēs has a special meaning for Antilokhos, the hero to whom Nestor addresses his sēma or ‘sign’ (XXIII 326) by speaking as an immediate ancestor, that is, as a father. For the hero Antilokhos, as I showed in Hour 7, the highest point in his ascending scale of affection proves to be his immediate ancestor, that is, his father. As we know indirectly from a plot-summary of the epic Cycle (plot-summary by Proclus of the Aithiopis by Arctinus of Miletus p. 106 lines 4-6 ) and directly from the words of the lyric master Pindar (Pythian 6.2842), Antilokhos himself dies in a chariot fight, giving up his own life while saving the life of his father Nestor, whose chariot had been immobilized.45 Once again we see the mentality of choosing to die for someone else: I will die for you. 8§65. This same name Patrokleēs, ‘the one who has the glory [kleos] of the ancestors [pateres]’, also has a special meaning for Achilles himself. Not only is Patroklos the one person who is ‘nearest and dearest’ to Achilles (philtatos XVII 411, 655). Even the meaning of the name of Patroklos, as ‘the one who has the glory [kleos] of the ancestors [pateres]’, ranks highest in the ascending scale of affection that defines the hero Achilles. As I showed in Hour 2, this name Patrokleēs amounts to a periphrasis of the expression tōn prosthen … klea andrōn | hērōōn ‘the glories [kleos plural] of men of an earlier time who were heroes’ (IX 524-525), which is used in Homeric poetry to refer to epic narrative. And what must mean more than anything else to Achilles is not only Patroklos himself but also the actual meaning of his name Patrokleēs, which conveys the idea of the ‘the glories [kleos plural] of men of an earlier time, who were heroes’. 45

PH 207-214 = 7§§10-18.

237 For Achilles, as I argued in Hour 2, the meaning of the name of Patroklos represents the epic of the Iliad itself. And Achilles will ultimately die for that epic as conveyed by the name of Patroklos, just as Patroklos had died for Achilles. 8§66. The significance of the name of Patrokleēs as a sign of the ‘fathers’ or ‘ancestors’ in general is relevant to the scene near the end of the Iliad where Priam, as a father, appeals to Achilles to take pity and accept ransom for the body of Hector:

Hour 8 Text H |486 “Remember your father, O Achilles, you who look just like the gods. |487 He [= Peleus, the father of Achilles] is just like me, on the sad threshold of old age. |488 It may be that those who dwell near him |489 are wearing him down, and there is no one to keep damage and calamity away from him. |490 Yet when he hears of you being still alive, |491 he is glad in his heart [thūmos], and every day he is full of hope |492 that he will see his dear [philos] son come home to him from Troy; |493 but I am the most luckless of all men, since I fathered the best sons |494 in the city of Troy, which has power far and wide, and I can now say that there is not one of them left. |495 I had fifty sons when the sons of the Achaeans came here; |496 nineteen of them were from a single womb, |497 and the others were born to me by the women of my household. |498 Many of them have been hamstrung by swift Arēs, |499 but he who was the only one left, who was the guardian of the city and ourselves, |500 he has been killed by you just now, while he was protecting his fatherland. |501 I mean Hector. And it is because of him that I now come to the ships of the Achaeans |502 intending to ransom his body from you. And I bring with me great ransom - too great to describe. |503 Have respect [aideîsthai], O Achilles, for the gods; and have pity on me. |504 Remember your own father. But I am far more pitiable, |505 for I have steeled myself as no man yet has ever steeled himself before me. |506 I have raised to my lips the hand of the one who killed my son.” |507 Thus he [= Priam] spoke, and he stirred up in him [= Achilles] a longing to cry in lament [goos] for his own father. |508 He took the old man’s hand and moved him gently away. |509 And they both remembered. One of them remembered Hector the man-killer |510 and cried for him, shedding tears thick and fast as he lay near the feet of Achilles. |511 As for Achilles, he was crying for own father at one moment, and then, at the very next moment, |512 he would be crying for Patroklos. And the sounds of lament had spread all over the abode. Iliad XXIV 486-51246

|486 μνῆσαι πατρὸς σοῖο θεοῖς ἐπιείκελ’ Ἀχιλλεῦ, |487 τηλίκου ὥς περ ἐγών, ὀλοῷ ἐπὶ γήραος οὐδῷ· |488 καὶ μέν που κεῖνον περιναιέται ἀμφὶς ἐόντες |489 τείρουσ’, οὐδέ τίς ἐστιν ἀρὴν καὶ λοιγὸν ἀμῦναι. |490 ἀλλ’ ἤτοι κεῖνός γε σέθεν ζώοντος ἀκούων |491 χαίρει τ’ ἐν θυμῷ, ἐπί τ’ ἔλπεται ἤματα πάντα |492 ὄψεσθαι φίλον υἱὸν ἀπὸ Τροίηθεν ἰόντα· |493 αὐτὰρ ἐγὼ πανάποτμος, ἐπεὶ τέκον υἷας ἀρίστους |494 Τροίῃ ἐν εὐρείῃ, τῶν δ’ οὔ τινά φημι λελεῖφθαι. |495 πεντήκοντά μοι ἦσαν ὅτ’ ἤλυθον υἷες Ἀχαιῶν· |496 ἐννεακαίδεκα μέν μοι ἰῆς ἐκ νηδύος ἦσαν, |497 τοὺς δ’ ἄλλους

238 8§67. We see here Achilles weeping alternately for his own father Peleus and for Patroklos, whose name reflects the glory of the ‘fathers’ or ‘ancestors’. The prompt that activates the hero’s emotion of sorrow here is the very act of thinking about fathers or ancestors. Achilles thinks of his own father when he sees the sorrow of another father, Priam, over the death of another son, Hector. 8§68. Here at the end of the Homeric Iliad, Achilles will now finally emerge from the depths of brutality and ascend to new heights of humanity by way of identifying with his deadliest enemy. A father’s tears are what finally moves him. He thinks of his own father and, that way, he can think more clearly about the meaning of Patroklos. He will now finally give back to Priam the body of Hector.

Back to the meaning of Patroklos 8§69. Here I return to the ascending scale of affection in the compressed story about Meleager and Kleopatra, a story described as tōn prosthen … klea andrōn | hērōōn ‘the glories of men of an earlier time, who were heroes’ in the Iliad (IX 524-525). This story, as told by Phoenix to Achilles and Patroklos and the other heroes assembled in the shelter of Achilles, was a story that was meant to be understood by ‘friends’, philoi (IX 528). Or, to put it more accurately, it was a story that was meant for an audience who are presumed to be friends, philoi:

Hour 8 Text I |524 This is the way [houtōs] that we [= I, Phoenix] learned it, the glories [klea] of men [andrōn] of an earlier time [prosthen], |525 who were heroes [hērōes], whenever one of them was overcome by tempestuous anger. |526 They could be persuaded by way of gifts and could be swayed by words. |527 I totally recall [me-mnē-mai] how this was done - it happened a long time ago, it is not something new - |528 recalling exactly how it was. I will tell it in your company - since you are all near and dear [philoi]. Iliad IX 524-52847 μοι ἔτικτον ἐνὶ μεγάροισι γυναῖκες. |498 τῶν μὲν πολλῶν θοῦρος Ἄρης ὑπὸ γούνατ’ ἔλυσεν· |499 ὃς δέ μοι οἶος ἔην, εἴρυτο δὲ ἄστυ καὶ αὐτούς, |500 τὸν σὺ πρῴην κτεῖνας ἀμυνόμενον περὶ πάτρης |501 Ἕκτορα· τοῦ νῦν εἵνεχ’ ἱκάνω νῆας Ἀχαιῶν |502 λυσόμενος παρὰ σεῖο, φέρω δ’ ἀπερείσι’ ἄποινα. |503 ἀλλ’ αἰδεῖο θεοὺς Ἀχιλεῦ, αὐτόν τ’ ἐλέησον |504 μνησάμενος σοῦ πατρός· ἐγὼ δ’ ἐλεεινότερός περ, |505 ἔτλην δ’ οἷ’ οὔ πώ τις ἐπιχθόνιος βροτὸς ἄλλος, |506 ἀνδρὸς παιδοφόνοιο ποτὶ στόμα χεῖρ’ ὀρέγεσθαι. |507 Ὣς φάτο, τῷ δ’ ἄρα πατρὸς ὑφ’ ἵμερον ὦρσε γόοιο· |508 ἁψάμενος δ’ ἄρα χειρὸς ἀπώσατο ἦκα γέροντα. |509 τὼ δὲ μνησαμένω ὃ μὲν Ἕκτορος ἀνδροφόνοιο |510 κλαῖ’ ἁδινὰ προπάροιθε ποδῶν Ἀχιλῆος ἐλυσθείς, |511 αὐτὰρ Ἀχιλλεὺς κλαῖεν ἑὸν πατέρ’, ἄλλοτε δ’ αὖτε |512 Πάτροκλον· τῶν δὲ στοναχὴ κατὰ δώματ’ ὀρώρει. 47 |524 οὕτω καὶ τῶν πρόσθεν ἐπευθόμεθα κλέα ἀνδρῶν |525 ἡρώων, ὅτε κέν τιν’ ἐπιζάφελος χόλος ἵκοι. |526 δωρητοί τε πέλοντο παράρρητοί τ’ ἐπέεσσι. |527 μέμνημαι τόδε ἔργον ἐγὼ πάλαι οὔ τι νέον γε |528 ὡς ἦν· ἐν δ’ ὑμῖν ἐρέω πάντεσσι φίλοισι.

239 8§70. As we saw in Hour 2, the Greek word houtōs ‘this way’ that introduces this story about the meaning of friendship is a marker of a form of speech known as the ainos. And the “moral of the story” as encoded inside this ainos, as we also saw in Hour 2, is that Kleopatra as the wife of Meleager is highest on her husband’s ascending scale of affection just as Patroklos as philos or ‘friend’ is correspondingly the highest for Achilles. And these characters in the epic are highest in the ascending scales of Meleager and Achilles not only because they are wife and friend respectively but also because their names Kleopatra and Patrokleēs mean the same thing as tōn prosthen … klea andrōn | hērōōn ‘the glories of men of an earlier time, who were heroes’ in the Iliad (IX 524-525). That is, the name of this wife and the name of this friend mean the same thing as the medium of the epic we know as the Homeric Iliad. 8§71. So the question is, who or what is really highest for Achilles in his ascending scale of affection? The answer is, it must be the epic itself, to which Achilles refers as his own kleos aphthiton, his ‘unwilting glory’ (IX 413), quoting the prophecy of his divine mother Thetis. But Achilles does not yet know the answer to the question I just asked, about the highest of all values, at the moment when he quotes his mother’s prophecy about his kleos aphthiton. Full knowledge of what he must love more than anything else in the world can be achieved only when the epic is fully told. 8§72. As the plot of the Iliad evolves, we can see along the way some indications of the hero’s incomplete knowledge of his own epic glory or kleos. By the time we reach Iliad IX, we can already see at least two other possible priorities for Achilles. 8§73. In terms of the first of these two other priorities, what matters most for Achilles is his love for a woman, Briseis. He says it in the form of a sarcastic question:

Hour 8 Text J |340 Are the only mortal men in the world who love their wives |341 the sons of Atreus? I ask this question because any man who is noble and sensible |342 loves [phileîn] and cherishes her who is his own, just as I, with regard to her [= Briseis] |343 with my whole heart did I love [phileîn] her, though she was only the prize of my spear. Iliad IX 340-34348 8§74. Here in Iliad IX, we have already come a long way from Iliad I, where Briseis was simply the property of Achilles and thus a mere extension of his honor. Now Briseis is to be a wife for him, just as Kleopatra is a wife for Meleager.

|340 ἦ μοῦνοι φιλέουσ’ ἀλόχους μερόπων ἀνθρώπων |341 Ἀτρεΐδαι; ἐπεὶ ὅς τις ἀνὴρ ἀγαθὸς καὶ ἐχέφρων |342 τὴν αὐτοῦ φιλέει καὶ κήδεται, ὡς καὶ ἐγὼ τὴν |343 ἐκ θυμοῦ φίλεον δουρικτητήν περ ἐοῦσαν.

240 8§75. In terms of the second of the two other priorities we are now considering, what about the love of Achilles for his comrades? The words of Ajax, who is one of these comrades, show that this rival hero misunderstands the priorities of Achilles:

Hour 8 Text K Ajax son of Telamon then said, “Odysseus, noble son of Laertes, let us be gone, for I see that our journey is vain. We must now take our answer, unwelcome though it be, to the Danaans who are waiting to receive it. Achilles is savage and remorseless; he is cruel, and cares nothing for the love his comrades lavished upon him more than on all the others. He is implacable—and yet if a man’s brother or son has been slain he will accept a fine [poinē] by way of amends from him that killed him, and the wrong-doer having paid in full remains in peace in his own locale [dēmos]; but as for you, Achilles, the gods have put a wicked unforgiving spirit in your heart, and this, all over one single girl.” Iliad IX 622-638 8§76. Ajax here is thinking that the main hero of the Iliad has already made up his mind, preferring Briseis over his companions. In the long run, however, Achilles will have as his main priority neither Briseis nor his companions as represented by Ajax. No, his priority will be a concept as encapsulated in the expression tōn prosthen … klea andrōn | hērōōn ‘the glories of men of an earlier time, who were heroes’. And this concept will be represented by Patroklos, who is even more than a comrade, more than a wife. For Achilles, Patroklos is his other self. And the life that Achilles shares with this other self is to be valued above everything else. Even more than that, the value of that life is beyond measure. So it becomes impossible to put a price on the value of that life, and this impossibility is summed up in a timeless scene pictured on the Shield of Achilles:

Hour 8 Text L |497 Meanwhile the people were gathered in assembly, and there a quarrel [neikos] |498 had arisen, and two men were quarreling [neikeîn] about the blood-price [poinē] |499 for a man who had died. One of the two claimed that he had the right to pay off the damages in full, |500 declaring this publicly to the population of the district [dēmos], and the other of the two was refusing to accept anything. Iliad XVIII 497-50049 8§77. Here the narrative has zoomed in on a litigation between an anonymous plaintiff and an anonymous defendant. The litigation is all about the need to find the right blood-price 49

|497 λαοὶ δ’ εἰν ἀγορῇ ἔσαν ἀθρόοι· ἔνθα δὲ νεῖκος |498 ὠρώρει, δύο δ’ ἄνδρες ἐνείκεον εἵνεκα ποινῆς |499 ἀνδρὸς ἀποφθιμένου· ὃ μὲν εὔχετο πάντ’ ἀποδοῦναι |500 δήμῳ πιφαύσκων, ὃ δ’ ἀναίνετο μηδὲν ἑλέσθαι.

241 to be paid for the loss of a life. The victim whose life has been lost is also anonymous. The anonymous plaintiff, who can be seen as a stand-in for Achilles, refuses to accept compensation offered by the anonymous defendant, who can be seen as a stand-in for Agamemon. The defendant seeks to compensate for the loss of a human life, but whose life is it? If the defendant stands for Agamemnon, and if the plaintiff stands for Achilles, then maybe the life that cannot be paid for is the life of Achilles. After all, what matters more for Achilles than all the wealth he could possibly imagine is his own life. All the riches of Troy and Delphi put together would be inadequate as payment for this life. Here is how Achilles expresses his love for his own life:

Hour 8 Text M My life [psūkhē] is more to me than all the wealth of Ilion while it was yet at peace before the Achaeans went there, or than all the treasure that lies on the stone floor of Apollo’s temple beneath the cliffs of Pytho [= Delphi]. Cattle and sheep are to be had by raiding, and a man can buy both tripods and horses if he wants them, but when his life [psūkhē] has once left him it can neither be bought nor raided back again. Iliad IX 401-408 8§78. But this one life, this one psūkhē, belongs not only to Achilles. As we have seen here in Hour 8, this life belongs to Patroklos and Achilles together. The two heroes share one psūkhē. That is the psychology of the sign that signals their shared sēma, which is not only their shared tomb but also their shared meaning as cult heroes. 8§79. From the standpoint of this timeless picture on the Shield of Achilles, we can now reconsider the three alternative priorities we have been considering for Achilles as the main hero of the Iliad, (1) love for a would-be wife or (2) love for his comrades or (3) love for his own life. All three of these alternative priorities are merely foils for the ultimate priority for this hero, which is his love for tōn prosthen … klea andrōn | hērōōn ‘the glories of men of an earlier time, who were heroes’, which includes and transcends all the other priorities. And this love is embodied in the figure of Patroklos, ritual substitute of Achilles in the Iliad. That is the meaning of Patroklos.

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Comment 8a. About the ritual origins of athletics 8a§1. The athletic event of the mock battle or Ballētus, as featured in the Eleusinian Games, was understood to be a form of eternal compensation for the primal death of the cult hero Dēmophōn, as we saw from the wording I quoted from the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (259267) in Hour 8 Text C. And there are historical parallels, including the Nemean and the Isthmian Games, which were seasonally recurring festivals featuring athletic competitions intended as eternal compensation for the prototypical deaths of two other infant heroes, Arkhemoros and Melikertes respectively.1 I will have more to say presently about those two heroes. 8a§2. Here I invoke, as I have invoked in my earlier research on the ritual origins of Greek athletics,2 the relevant evidence assembled by Walter Burkert in his handbook on Greek religion.3 This evidence indicates that the traditions of ancient Greek athletics evolved out of practices originating from (1) rituals of initiation into adulthood and (2) rituals of compensation for death. 8a§3. These two kinds of rituals are actually related, since the ritual process of initiation, in and of itself, can be seen as a compensation for death. From an anthropological point of view, a common characteristic of initiation rituals is the figuring of death as a prerequisite for a rebirth from one given age class to another, as in the case of initiations from pre-adult into adult status; according to the mentality underlying rituals of initiation, as I have already noted, you must die to your old self in order to be reborn to your new self.4 8a§4. Here is a salient example: in the case of athletic competitions held at the festival of the Lykaia in Arcadia, these competitions were organically connected with rituals that reenacted the separations of pre-adult and adult age classes, and these rituals were in turn organically connected with a myth that tells about the death and regeneration of an infant hero named Arkas.5 8a§5. There is a comparable myth that tells about the death and regeneration of the infant hero Pelops, which was an aetiology for an athletic competition held at the festival of the Olympics in Olympia. This competition was a single-lap footrace known as the stadion.6 The

Pache 2004:95-180. PH 118 = 4§4. 3 Burkert 1985:105-107. 4 PH 118-119, 121-122 = 4§§5, 8, with examples and references 5 PH 126 = 4§13, following Burkert 1983:86-87. 6 Burkert 1983:100; PH 125 = 4§12. In terms of myth and ritual, the single-lap and the double-lap footraces known respectively as the stadion and the diaulos at the Olympics were viewed together as an organic unity (Philostratus On athletics 5 and 6 respectively). 2

243 myth about the death and regeneration of Pelops is retold in Pindar’s Olympian 1, where it is artfully juxtaposed with other myths about the origins of the Olympics.7 8a§6. Such myths can be understood in terms of initiation from boyhood into manhood, for the purpose of preparing men for warfare. Such a ritualized purpose is evident also in such institutions as the seasonally recurring mock battle known as the Ballētus at the Eleusinian Games, which we considered in Hour 8 Text C (Homeric Hymn to Demeter 259-267). We have also considered in passing a more famous example, and that is the mock battle of Spartan boys in a sacralized space known as the Platanistās ‘Grove of the Plane Trees’ (Pausanias 3.11.2, 3.14.8-9, at 3.20.8). On the basis of such rituals, we may infer that the institutionalized practices of athletics and warfare were originally viewed as parts of one single ritual continuum. 8a§7. Such an inference, I must emphasize, is not an attempt to essentialize warfare. Given the exponentially increasing horrors of war in modern times, most observers today (including myself) would be repelled by any such attempt. Still, there is no denying that warfare was a fact of life in premodern times – and that it was ritualized in different ways in different societies. 8a§8. Besides the narrative about the death and regeneration of the infant hero Pelops, there is also another narrative that serves as another aetiological myth for yet another athletic event at the Olympics. In this case, the narrative is about the victory of Pelops as an adolescent hero in a four-horse chariot race. In fact, this narrative serves as the aetiological myth for the athletic event of four-horse chariot racing at the Olympics, as we see from the artful retelling in Pindar’s Olympian 1.8 8a§9. From other retellings of this aetiological myth, we learn that the basic motivation for the athletic event of the four-horse chariot race at the Olympics was the death of the hero Oinomaos while he was competing in a prototypical four-horse chariot race with Pelops. We learn what the Delphic Oracle is reputed to have said about the consequences of this prototypical death when we read the reportage of the antiquarian Phlegon of Tralles (FGH 257 F 1 lines 8-9): θῆκε δ’ ἔπειτα ἔροτιν καὶ ἔπαθλα θανόντι | Οἰνομάῳ ‘then he [Pelops] established a festival and contests for prizes [ep-āthla] in honor of the dead Oinomaos’. In terms of this extended narrative, not only the chariot race but the entire festival of the Olympics was founded by Pelops. Moreover, in the words of the Delphic Oracle as reported by Phlegon (lines 6-7), Pelops was in fact only the second founder of the Olympics: the Oracle says that the first founder was Pisos, the eponymous hero of Pisa, a place closely associated with the Olympics. As for the third founder, it was Hēraklēs, as we read further in the words of the Oracle as quoted by Phlegon (lines 9-11): τρίτατος δ’ ἐπὶ τοῖς πάϊς ᾿Αμφιτρύωνος | ῾Ηρακλέης ἐτέλεσσ’ 7 8

PH 121-135 = 4§§8-26; Pache 2004:84-94. PH 199-200 = 7§1.

244 ἔροτιν καὶ ἀγῶνα ἐπὶ μήτρῳ | Τανταλίδῃ Πέλοπι φθιμένῳ ‘after them [= the first two founders of the Olympics] the third was Hēraklēs son of Amphitryon: he established the festival and the competition [agōn] in honor of [epi] his maternal relative, the dead Pelops, son of Tantalos’. 8a§10. Here we see the same syntactical construction that we saw in the compressed retelling of the aetiological myth that motivated the foundation of the athletic competition ‘in honor of’ the infant hero Dēmophōn. I repeat here from Hour 8 the wording as we found it in Hesychius: Βαλλητύς· ἑορτὴ Ἀθήνησιν, ἐπὶ Δημοφῶντι τῷ Κελεοῦ ἀγομένη ‘Ballētus is a festival in Athens, celebrated in honor of [epi] Dēmophōn son of Keleos’. Once again, I have translated the preposition epi (ἐπί) here in combination with the name of Dēmophōn in the dative case as ‘in honor of Dēmophōn’. But this translation, as I have noted already in Hour 8, is inadequate, and it would be more accurate to word it this way: ‘in compensation for [the death of] Dēmophōn’. After all, as we saw in Hour 8 Text C taken from the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (259267), the athletic competition of the Ballētus is overtly described as an act of compensation, recurring at the right season into all eternity, and this competition is understood to be an eternal compensation for one single all-important fact: that the hero Dēmophōn must die. 8a§11. The necessity of this death, of this primal ordeal of the hero in myth, is what motivates in aetiological terms the corresponding necessity of the seasonally recurring ordeals of participants in the ritual athletic competition of the Ballētus. And we have just seen a corresponding expression in the words of the Delphic Oracle as quoted by Phlegon (lines 1011): ῾Ηρακλέης ἐτέλεσσ’ ἔροτιν καὶ ἀγῶνα ἐπὶ μήτρῳ | Τανταλίδῃ Πέλοπι φθιμένῳ ‘Hēraklēs established the festival and the competition [agōn] in honor of [epi] his maternal relative, the dead Pelops, son of Tantalos’. Again, it would be more accurate to reword the translation: ‘in compensation for the death of his maternal relative, Pelops, son of Tantalos’. A parallel translation is needed for the wording attributed to the Delphic Oracle’s description of the competitions in honor of Oinomaos as instituted by Pelops. I repeat here the wording as quoted by Phlegon (lines 8-9): θῆκε δ’ ἔπειτα ἔροτιν καὶ ἔπαθλα θανόντι | Οἰνομάῳ ‘then he [Pelops] established a festival and contests for prizes [ep-āthla] in honor of the dead Oinomaos’. I now retranslate this way: ‘then he [Pelops] established a festival and contests for prizes [-āthla] in compensation for the death of [ep-] Oinomaos’. In this case, as I noted earlier, the myth makes it clear that the compensation was needed because Pelops himself had caused, wittingly or unwittingly, the death of Oinomaos in the course of their chariot race with each other (Apollodorus Epitome 2.7). 8a§12. This kind of aetiology is typical of athletic contests. Another example is the Tlēpolemeia, a seasonally recurring festival of athletic contests held on the island of Rhodes and named after Tlepolemos, son of Hēraklēs and founder of Rhodes.9 In the words of Pindar, this athletic festival was founded by the hero Tlepolemos as a lutron ‘compensation’ for a ‘pitiful 9

Nilsson 1906:462-463.

245 misfortune’ (λύτρον συμφορᾶς οἰκτρᾶς Olympian 7.77). The ‘misfortune’ or catastrophe to which Pindar’s wording refers is the hero’s deranged slaying of a maternal relative (7.27-32).10 8a§13. It can be said in general that athletic festivals were aetiologically motivated by myths that told of the pollution resulting from a hero’s catastrophic death.11 In the case of the three other most prestigious athletic festivals besides the Olympic Games in the Peloponnesus, which was the region recognized by all Hellenes as the cradle of their ancient Hellenic civilization, the relevant foundation myths are as follows:12 - Pythian Games, founded by the Amphiktyones in compensation for the killing of the Python by Apollo : ἐπὶ τῷ Πύθωνος φόνῳ ‘in compensation for the killing of the Python [by Apollo]’ (Aristotle F 637.16). - Isthmian Games, founded by the hero Sisyphus in compensation for the death of the infant hero Melikertes, who was also known as Palaimon: τὸν ἀγῶνα ἐπ’ αὐτῷ ‘the competition [agōn] in compensation for [epi] him’ (Pausanias 2.1.3). - Nemean Games, founded by the heroes known as the Seven against Thebes in compensation for the death, by snakebite, of the infant hero Arkhemoros, who was also known as Opheltes: ἄθλησαν ἐπ’ ᾿Αρχεμόρῳ ‘they [= the Seven] endured ordeals [āthloi] in compensation for Arkhemoros’ (Bacchylides 9.12). In poetic terms, the antidote for the prototypical snakebite is the singing of ep-aoidai ‘incantations’ (Pindar Nemean 8.49), and such songs (aoidai means ‘songs’) counteract the deadly venom by celebrating athletic victories that are won at the Nemean Games in compensation for the prototypical death (Nemean 49-53). 8a§14. As we have seen, then, the idea of athletics as a ritual activity that compensates for the pollution caused by the death of a hero in myth can be expressed by combining the prefix / preposition / preverb epi- (ἐπι-) with the dative case referring to that hero. And we have seen this usage in the context of athletic competitions that are aetiologically motivated by the pollution caused by the death of a hero in myth, as in the case of the Eleusinian Games as well as the Olympic, Pythian, Isthmian, and Nemean Games.

Commentary on Pindar Olympian 7.27-32, 77 in PH 140 = 5§§6-7. Roller 1981a:107n4; an extensive set of examples is collected by Pfister 1912:496-497; see also Brelich 1958:94-95. 12 PH 120 = 4§6; Roller 1981a:107n5. 11

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Comment 8b. The meaning of aethlos / āthlos 8b§1. In the aetiologies we have been examining so far, the Greek word referring to the ritual ordeal of the athlete in the post-heroic age who re-enacts the mythical ordeal of the hero in the heroic age is āthlos, or aethlos in epic diction. As we saw already in Hour 1, Text C, Homeric poetry refers to the Labors of Hēraklēs himself as aethloi (Iliad XIX 133). Someone who participates in such an ordeal is an āthlētēs. As we also saw already in Hour 1, this word is borrowed into English as athlete. 8b§2. The rituals of athletic ordeals, as I just noted in Comment 8a, were understood to be a compensation for the myths of heroic ordeals. I recall here the observation of Simone Weil, as we considered it in Hour 6, about the way humans feel about suffering. She observed that suffering needs compensation: I want you to suffer exactly the way I suffered. The hero, whose sufferings were imagined to be immeasurably larger-than-life, would thus have a boundless need for compensation. But how can you suffer exactly the way a hero suffered? 8b§3. To endure such suffering, as an athlete, is to re-enact a prototypical ordeal of a hero. A more accurate way of understanding athletic contests in their archaic Greek historical contexts is to keep in mind the meanings of the ancient Greek words āthlos (epic aethlos) ‘ordeal, contest’ and āthlon (epic aethlon) ‘prize won in the course of participating in an āthlos’ and āthlētēs ‘athlete, one who participates in an āthlos’. To restate the concept of athletics in ancient Greek terms: an āthlos was the ritual ‘ordeal’ or ‘contest’ of an athlete engaging in athletic contests that were taking place in the historical present, but it was also the mythological ‘ordeal’ or ‘contest’ of a hero engaging in life-and-death contests that took place once upon a time in the heroic past; moreover, the ritual ‘ordeals’ or ‘contests’ of the historical present were viewed as re-enactments of the mythical ‘ordeals’ or ‘contests’ of the heroic past.1 As we have seen, the myths about the life-and-death ‘ordeals’ of heroes functioned as aetiologies for the rituals of athletic competition. Here I repeat my working definition of aetiology as a myth that motivates an institutional reality, especially a ritual. 8b§4. Besides āthlos and its derivatives, another ancient Greek word that proves to be essential for understanding the nature of athletic contests in archaic contexts is agōn, derived from the root ag- of the verb agō as it is used in the compound formation sun-agein, which means ‘bring together, assemble, gather’. Basically, an agōn is a ‘bringing together’ of people; and the occasion of such a ‘bringing together’ is a ‘competition’. This meaning, ‘competition’, is still evident in the English borrowing of a compound formation involving the word agōn, that is, antagonism. We can see a comparable idea embedded in the meaning of the Latin word that gives us the English borrowing competition: basically, the meaning of Latin com-petere is ‘to come together’, and to come together is to compete.2 In the case of the Greek word agōn, the 1 2

PH 137 = 5§3. PH 136-137 = 5§2.

247 activity of competition to which it refers was understood to be a ritual ordeal, just as the Greek word āthlos meant ‘ordeal’ as well as ‘contest’, that is, competition. The concept of ordeal as embedded in the Greek word agōn is still evident in the English borrowing agony. 8b§5. These words āthlos and agōn refer to the experience of a ritual ordeal not only in athletics but also in warfare. For example, the expression arēios agōn ‘the agōn of Arēs’ as used by Herodotus (9.33.3) refers to the ritual experience of combat in war. Similarly in the case of āthlos (epic aethlos), this word refers to the experience of warriors (Herodotus 1.67.1) as well as athletes (Herodotus 5.22.2). In epic, we find aethlos applying to the martial efforts, all considered together, of Achaeans and Trojans alike in the Trojan War (Iliad III 126), or, considered separately, to the efforts of the Achaeans in general (Odyssey iii 262) or of Odysseus in particular (iv 170). 8b§6. When it comes to re-enacting the primal ordeals of heroes, there is a seemingly limitless variety of individual experiences to be matched with the individual experiences of heroes. Every individual has his or her own way of going through an ordeal, as we see in the staggering varieties of violent death in the Iliad. 8b§7. Still, as we have just seen by observing the uses of the words āthlos and agōn, the ritual ordeals of humans fighting in war and the mythical ordeals of heroes fighting in war were not distinguished from each other. In our own terms of thinking, by contrast, when someone undergoes the real experience of war in the historical context of his own life and times, this experience is seen as distinct from the mythical experiences of heroes who fought in wars in mythical times. But the thinking is different in terms of ritual and myth, reflecting the mentality of the ancient Greeks in their own historical context: from their standpoint, a human who fights in war is undergoing a ritual ordeal that re-enacts the mythical ordeals of heroes. This way, the distinction between that human’s ritual ordeal and the heroes’ mythical ordeals is neutralized. And such a mentality of not distinguishing between human experience and heroic experience in the context of ritual and myth applies not only to the ordeals of war but also to the ordeals of athletics. 8b§8. It can be said in general that different aspects of athletics re-enact different aspects of warfare as experienced by heroes. Besides such obvious examples as the throwing of spears or javelins, however, there are other examples where it is not at all obvious how a given kind of athletic event is related to a given kind of event in warfare, even if these two kinds of events are defined by the same instrument of war. One such example is the athletic event of chariot racing. The question here is this: how exactly is chariot racing as an athletic event related to chariot fighting as an event in warfare? In Comments 7a 7b 7c 7d, I have tried to answer this question by examining two different kinds of chariot racing as attested at two different festivals: the apobatic races at the Panathenaia and the non-apobatic races at the Olympics. In the case of non-apobatic chariot racing, the relatedness of such racing with

248 chariot fighting is not obvious. But it is in fact quite obvious, as we have seen, in the case of apobatic chariot racing. 8b§9. I conclude by summarizing what we have observed about the uses of words like āthlos and agōn: just as the ritual ordeal of a human who fights in a real war and the mythical ordeals of heroes fighting in mythical wars are not distinguished from each other in the thinking we see reflected in the ancient Greek texts, so also the ritual ordeal of a human who competes in a real athletic contest is not distinguished from the corresponding mythical ordeals of heroes.

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Comment 8c. Back to the Panathenaia 8c§1. I return to the Panathenaic Games held at the festival of the Panathenaia in Athens. In this case, I have argued that the athletic event of the apobatai as celebrated at this seasonally recurring festival is understood as a ritual that is aetiologically motivated to compensate for a primal event of pollution in myth. That pollution, as I have also argued, is the death of the hero Patroklos, which leads to the revenge taken by Achilles in the form of dragging the corpse of Hector behind his speeding chariot. 8c§2. The athletic event of the apobatai at the Panathenaia shows the ritual dimension of the cult hero as a complement to the mythical dimension that we see played out in narratives conveyed by painting as well as by poetry. As we saw in Hour 8, the main painting on the Münster Hydria shows Achilles himself competing in this athletic event, thus becoming a prototypical participant in the hero cult that he shares with his other self, Patroklos. Through his prototypical competition, Achilles shows the way for future athletes to compete in this athletic event of the apobatai at the seasonally recurring festival of the Panathenaia for all time to come.1 8c§3. The vase paintings that we saw in Hour 7 consistently show both Achilles and Patroklos in apobatic poses, which fits their aetiological status as cult heroes presiding over the athletic event of the apobatai as held at the festival of the Panathenaia. By contrast with the vase paintings, however, as I showed in Comment 7e, the Homeric Iliad as we know it tends to shade over any details that are typical of apobatic chariot racing and to highlight only those details that are typical of non-apobatic chariot racing as we see it attested primarily at the festival of the Olympics. As I showed in Comment 7f, this tendency as we find it in the Homeric Iliad indicates a less Athenian and more “Panionian” version of epic poetry concerning Achilles, Patroklos, and the Trojan War. 8c§4. Even though the text of the Homeric Iliad as we have it has shaded over the specific idea of Achilles and Patroklos as cult heroes connected with the aetiology of apobatic chariot racing at the Panathenia in Athens, it still highlights the general idea of Achilles and Patroklos as cult heroes. Even after these two Homeric figures got disconnected from any aetiology concerning any specific event of athletic ritual, they still remained connected, as cult heroes, with non-apobatic chariot racing as a general event of athletic ritual. In Hour 7, I examined the relevant passages in Iliad XXIII where the focus for such chariot racing is a turning post that turns out to be the tomb of Patroklos. Then, in Hour 8, I examined other relevant passages in the Iliad showing that this tomb of Patroklos turns out to be the same sēma as the tomb of Achilles himself.

HPC 175-176 = II§105.

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Comment 8d. Patroklos as a model for Achilles 8d§1. In the painting of the Münster Hydria, as I argued in Hour 7, Patroklos shows the way for Achilles to undertake the ritualized actions of the apobatēs. The homunculus is running the run of the apobatēs. He is the model. His message is this: do as I do. So the apobatic run of Achilles at ground zero mirrors the apobatic run of Patroklos in thin air. By way of this mirroring, Achilles himself can in his own turn become a model. And the ritualized actions of Achilles as apobatēs will show the way for the future observance of rituals of hero cult not only for Patroklos but even for Achilles himself.2 That is why, as we saw in Hour 7, the self of Patroklos as a psūkhē will become the self of Achilles, whose corpse will be placed inside the same tomb that is already occupied by the corpse of his other self, Patroklos. 8d§2. The painting on the Münster Hydria signals such a meaning not only by picturing the psūkhē of Patroklos as it levitates over the tomb that he will be sharing with Achilles but also by even labeling the picture, that is, by painting the consecutive letters ΦΣΥΧΕ to spell psūkhē or ‘spirit’, where the act of painting these letters that spell out psūkhē becomes a sēma or ‘sign’ in its own right.3 In the timelessness of the narrative created in this picture, Patroklos and Achilles share not only the same sēma or ‘tomb’ but even the same psūkhē, as indicated by the sēma or ‘sign’ for the word psūkhē.

Comment 8e. The mentality of re-enactment at festivals 8e§1. We have seen that the paintings on both the Münster Hydria and the Boston Hydria depict an athletic event that was part of the ritual program of the greatest festival of the Athenians, the Panathenaia. Both depictions show that the ritual of an athlete’s ordeal reenacts the myth of a hero’s ordeal. Here I will explore further the mentality of such reenactment. 8e§2. I start with a review of my working definitions of ritual and myth: Ritual is doing things and saying things in a way that is considered sacred. Myth is saying things in a way that is also considered sacred. So ritual frames myth. And now I add this to the working definition: The epic of Homeric poetry is a kind of myth. Like all myths, epic is framed by ritual - the ritual of performance. And performance is re-enactment. You can re-enact not just by acting out a ritual but even by telling or retelling a myth that is framed by ritual. And what I just said about the verbal art of epic applies also the visual art of painting, as we saw in in action when we viewed the pictures painted on the Münster Hydria and the Boston 2 3

GM 94n50 and 220n54. GM 220.

251 Hydria. These pictures show ritual and myth together, just as poetry shows ritual and myth together in the chariot race described at Iliad XXIII. 8e§3. A Greek word for the re-enactment of myth in ritual is mīmēsis. And the ritual process of mīmēsis as the re-enacting of an ordeal leads to a ritual process of purification or katharsis of emotions. Here I turn to a celebrated formulation of Aristotle, who links mīmēsis and katharsis in his definition of tragedy. Here is how he says it: Tragedy is the mīmēsis of a serious and complete action that has magnitude, with seasoned speech, … by performers [drōntes] instead of through narrative, bringing about through pity [eleos] and fear [phobos] the purification [katharsis] of such emotions [pathēmata]. Aristotle Poetics 1449b24-284 8e§4. I sum up, then, what we have learned so far about mīmēsis: it is the process of reenactment in sacred space. What you re-enact is myth, and how you re-enact it is ritual, which brings about a purification of emotions, especially the emotions of pity and fear. 8e§5. This formulation is relevant to the following two points I have already made: - Aristotle thought that the Iliad was a prototype of tragedy (Hour 2§54). - In tragedy, the emotion of pity is a force of attraction while the emotion of fear is a force of repulsion (Hour 2§55). 8e§6. And the same formulation is also relevant to the following two points that I will be making in the hours to come: - The hero’s occasional moments of brutality were as shocking to the ancients as they are to us. - The witnessing of brutality activates the emotions of fear and pity.

ἔστιν οὖν τραγῳδία μίμησις πράξεως σπουδαίας καὶ τελείας μέγεθος ἐχούσης, ἡδυσμένῳ λόγῳ χωρὶς ἑκάστῳ τῶν εἰδῶν ἐν τοῖς μορίοις, δρώντων καὶ οὐ δι’ ἀπαγγελίας, δι’ ἐλέου καὶ φόβου περαίνουσα τὴν τῶν τοιούτων παθημάτων κάθαρσιν.

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Hour 9. The return of Odysseus in the Homeric Odyssey The meaning of nostos 9§1. The key word for this hour is nostos ‘return, homecoming; song about homecoming; return to light and life’. The last of these meanings is mystical, having to do with ideas about immortalization after death. Our first impression is that such ideas are foreign to Homeric poetry. When we take a second look, however, we will see that immortalization is a subtext, as it were, even in Homeric poetry. Immortalization is a matter of eschatology. 9§2. As I argued already in Hour 8, Hādēs is transitional rather than eschatological: only paradisiacal places like Elysium (Ēlusion), the Islands of the Blessed (Nēsoi Makarōn), the White Island (Leukē), and, exceptionally, even Mount Olympus in the case of Hēraklēs are eschatological. I will have more to say in Hour 11 about such paradisiacal places. 9§3. For now, however, I concentrate on the concept of nostos, and how it can express the idea of immortalization after death. As we will see, this idea is embedded in the plot of the Odyssey, but only indirectly, as a metaphor. (For my usage of the term metaphor here, I refer back to Hour 4§32.) 9§4. Let us begin with the very first occurrences of the word nostos in the Odyssey, in verses 5 and 9 and 13 at the very beginning of the epic:

Hour 9 Text A (see also Hour 0 Text B) |1 That man, tell me O Muse the song of that man, that versatile [polu-tropos] man, who in very many ways |2 veered from his path and wandered off far and wide, after he had destroyed the sacred city of Troy. |3 Many different cities of many different people did he see, getting to know different ways of thinking [noos]. |4 Many were the pains [algea] he suffered in his heart [thūmos] while crossing the sea |5 struggling to merit [arnusthai] the saving of his own life [psūkhē ] and his own homecoming [nostos] as well as the homecoming of his companions. |6 But do what he might he could not save his companions, even though he very much wanted to. |7 For they perished through their own deeds of sheer recklessness, |8 disconnected [nēpioi]1 as they were, because of what they did to the cattle of the sun-god Helios. |9 They ate them. So the god [Helios] deprived them of their day of homecoming [nostimon]. |10 Starting from any single point of departure, O goddess, daughter of Zeus, tell me, as you have told those who came before me. |11 So now all those who escaped precipitous death |12 were safely home, having survived the war and the sea voyage. |13 But he [= Odysseus], apart from the others, though he was longing for his

On the meaning of nēpios as ‘disconnected’, see the Glossary.

253 homecoming [nostos] and for his wife, |14 was detained by the queenly nymph [numphē] Calypso, who has her own luminous place among all the goddesses ... Odyssey i 1-142 9§5. As we see from this commencement of the story, the nostos ‘return’ of the epic hero from Troy to his home in Ithaca is still in progress, and the return is stalled from the start. The story will have to recommence, and such a recommencement is about to happen. But even before the recommencement, the story already refers to the many different adventures of the hero in the course of his upcoming story. The plot of this story and its main character, once the Odyssey is fully told, will be a fusion of many different sub-plots and even of many different sub-characters. Of course there is only one Odysseus in the macro-Narrative of the Homeric Odyssey, but there are many different kinds of Odysseus and many different kinds of odysseys in the micro-narratives that add up to the macro-Narrative. These different kinds of character and plot fit perfectly the hero who is called polu-tropos in the first verse of the Odyssey. Initially, I translated this word as ‘versatile’, but its more literal meaning is this: ‘one who could change in many different ways who he was’.

The roles of Odysseus 9§6. There are many different roles that fit the versatile character of Odysseus in the Homeric Odyssey, and here I list these roles in the format of five headlines:3 1. The soldier of fortune comes back home to Ithaca after the adventures he experiences both during the Trojan War and afterwards during his many travels, and then he reclaims his wife, whose faithfulness in his absence determines his true identity. 2. The returning king reclaims his kingdom by becoming reintegrated with his society. The king, as king, is the embodiment of this society, of this “body politic”; thus the society, as re-embodied by the king, is correspondingly reintegrated. (On the king as the embodiment of the body politic, see Hour 6§13 and §47.) 3. The pilot lost at sea finally finds his bearings and reaches home. The pilot or kubernētēs, a Greek word that was eventually borrowed into Latin as gubernātor, is the helmsman who 2

|1 ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, Μοῦσα, πολύτροπον, ὃς μάλα πολλὰ |2 πλάγχθη, ἐπεὶ Τροίης ἱερὸν πτολίεθρον ἔπερσε· |3 πολλῶν δ’ ἀνθρώπων ἴδεν ἄστεα καὶ νόον ἔγνω, |4 πολλὰ δ’ ὅ γ’ ἐν πόντῳ πάθεν ἄλγεα ὃν κατὰ θυμόν, |5 ἀρνύμενος ἥν τε ψυχὴν καὶ νόστον ἑταίρων. |6 ἀλλ’ οὐδ’ ὧς ἑτάρους ἐρρύσατο, ἱέμενός περ· |7 αὐτῶν γὰρ σφετέρῃσιν ἀτασθαλίῃσιν ὄλοντο, |8 νήπιοι, οἳ κατὰ βοῦς Ὑπερίονος Ἠελίοιο |9 ἤσθιον· αὐτὰρ ὁ τοῖσιν ἀφείλετο νόστιμον ἦμαρ. |10 τῶν ἁμόθεν γε, θεά, θύγατερ Διός, εἰπὲ καὶ ἡμῖν. |11 ἔνθ’ ἄλλοι μὲν πάντες, ὅσοι φύγον αἰπὺν ὄλεθρον, |12 οἴκοι ἔσαν, πόλεμόν τε πεφευγότες ἠδὲ θάλασσαν· |13 τὸν δ’ οἶον, νόστου κεχρημένον ἠδὲ γυναικός, |14 νύμφη πότνι’ ἔρυκε Καλυψώ, δῖα θεάων, |15 ἐν σπέεσι γλαφυροῖσι, λιλαιομένη πόσιν εἶναι. 3 These headlines are based on an earlier formulation in EH §52.

254 directs the metaphorical ‘ship of state’. The metaphor is latent in English words derived from Latin gubernātor, such as ‘govern’, ‘governor’ and ‘government’. 4. The seer or shaman returns home from his vision quest. 5. The trickster retraces his misleading steps, returning all the way back home, back where he had started, and thus showing the correct steps that need to be taken in order to live one’s own life successfully. 9§7. The five roles of Odysseus as I list them in these five headlines are extrapolated from Albert Lord’s far-ranging survey of world-wide parallels to the theme of the epic hero’s return in the Homeric Odyssey.4 As we can see from Lord’s survey, the idea of nostos is deeply ritualistic. In fact, as I noted at the beginning of this hour, the nostos of Odysseus in the Odyssey means not only a ‘return’ or a ‘song about a return’ but even a ‘return to light and life’.5 This ritualistic meaning, as we will see in Hour 10, has to do with the epic “hidden agenda” of returning from Hādēs and the heroic theme of immortalization after death.

The complementarity of the Iliad and Odyssey 9§8. The polytropic character of Odysseus, central epic hero of the Odyssey, stands in sharp contrast to the monolithic character of Achilles, the commensurately central epic hero of the Iliad. Whereas Achilles achieves his epic centrality by way of his role as a warrior, Odysseus achieves his own kind of epic centrality in an alternative way - as a master of crafty stratagems and cunning intelligence.6 9§9. There are of course many other heroes in Homeric poetry, but Achilles and Odysseus have become the two central points of reference. Just as the central heroes of the Iliad and Odyssey are complementary, so too are the epics that centralize them. The complementarity extends even further: between the two of them, these two epics give the impression of incorporating most of whatever was worth retelling about the world of heroes. 9§10. In the case of the Iliad, as I already noted at the beginning of the whole book, this epic not only tells the story that it says it will tell, about Achilles’ anger and how it led to countless woes as the Greeks went on fighting it out with the Trojans and striving to ward off the fiery onslaught of Hector. It also manages to retell the entire Tale of Troy. 9§11. The Homeric Odyssey is equally comprehensive by way of telling the story of the hero’s nostos ‘return, homecoming’. This word, as I noted at the beginning of this hour, means not only ‘homecoming’ but also ‘song about homecoming’.7 As such, the Odyssey is not only a 4

Lord 1960:158-185. GM 218-219, following Frame 1978. 6 This paragraph and the paragraphs that follow are based on the argumentation in EH §§47-50. 7 BA (1999) xii = Preface §16, with reference to BA 97 = 6§6n2. 5

255 nostos: it is a nostos to end all other nostoi.8 In other words, the Odyssey is the final and definitive statement about the theme of a heroic homecoming: in the process of retelling the return of the epic hero Odysseus, the narrative of the Odyssey achieves a sense of closure in the retelling of all feats stemming from the heroic age.9 The Odyssey, as we will see, provides a retrospective even on those epic moments that are missing in the Iliad, such as the story of the Wooden Horse (viii 487-520). 9§12. A central theme unites the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey: as we see from the pervasive use of the title aristos Akhaiōn ‘best of the Achaeans’ in both epics, Achilles emerges as the rightful owner of this title in the Iliad while Odysseus earns the same title in the Odyssey.10 But the poetry of epic awards this title not by way of measuring the successes achieved by these heroes by virtue of their predominant heroic qualities, namely, strength in the case of Achilles and intelligence in the case of Odysseus. After all, Achilles failed to capture Troy with his heroic strength. As for Odysseus, although he used his heroic intelligence in inventing the Wooden Horse, which was the key to the capture of Troy by the Achaeans, this success did not win for him the title of the ‘best of the Achaeans’ in the Iliad. Rather, Odysseus earned that title by becoming the main hero of the Odyssey, just as Achilles earned the same title by becoming the main hero of the Iliad.11 9§13. Underlying the complementarity of the Iliad and Odyssey and of the main heroes of these two epics is an element of competition. The kleos or epic glory of Achilles in the Iliad is competitively contrasted with the kleos of Odysseus in the Odyssey.12 As we are about to see, the key to understanding such a competition is the Homeric use of the word nostos in the sense of a ‘song about a homecoming’, not just a ‘homecoming’. Ironically, as I argue, Odysseus achieves the kleos or epic glory of the Odyssey not because he destroyed Troy, a feat heralded at the very start of his epic, at verse 2 of the Odyssey (as we saw in Text A of this hour), but because he also achieves a nostos in both senses of the word: he comes home and thereby becomes the premier hero of a song about homecoming. 9§14. There are further related ironies. As we saw in Text A of Hour 1, Achilles has to choose between kleos and nostos, forfeiting nostos in order to achieve his kleos as the central hero of the Iliad (IX 413). But Odysseus must have both kleos and nostos in order to merit his own heroic status in the Odyssey.13 The narrative of the kleos that Odysseus earns in the Odyssey 8

BA (1999) xii-xiii = Preface §§16-18. On the narrative of the Odyssey as an act of closure, closing the doors on the heroic age, see Martin 1993. 10 BA ch 2. 11 BA 35-41 = 2§§10-18. 12 In the rest of this paragraph and in the next two paragraphs I recapitulate the formulation in BA (1999) xii-xiii = Preface §§16-18. 13 BA 36-40 = 2§§12-16. 9

256 cannot be the Iliad, which means ‘tale of Troy’ (Ilion is the other name for Troy).14 The Iliad establishes Achilles as the central hero of the story of Troy, even though he failed to destroy the city. Because of the Iliad tradition, “the kleos of Odysseus at Troy was preempted by the kleos of Achilles.”15 So, the kleos that Odysseus should get for his success in destroying Troy is elusive, by contrast with the kleos that Achilles gets in the Iliad, which is permanent. So Odysseus cannot afford to dwell on his success at Troy, because the kleos he may get for that success will become permanent only if it extends into the kleos that he gets for achieving a successful homecoming. As we see from the wording of the Song of the Sirens in the Odyssey (xii 189-191), which I will quote in Hour 10, the sheer pleasure of listening to a song about the destruction of Troy will be in vain if there is no nostos, no safe return home from the faraway world of epic heroes; and, by extension, the Iliad itself will become a Song of the Sirens without a successful narration of the Odyssey.16 9§15. There is a final irony, developed in the narrative of the Odyssey (xi 489-491): Achilles in Hādēs seems tempted to trade epics with Odysseus.17 This he will never do, of course, in his own epic. As Achilles himself predicts in the Iliad (IX 413), the kleos of his own song will be aphthiton ‘unwilting’.

The heroic mentality of achieving nostos 9§16. As the plot of the Odyssey gets underway, the nostos of Odysseus is defined by the quest of the hero’s son Telemachus to learn the identity of his father - and thus to learn his own identity. I will explain in a minute why I say ‘learn’ and not ‘learn about’. The quest of Telemachus is initiated by the goddess Athena, a goddess who specializes in mental power. She is in fact the goddess of intelligence, daughter of the god Zeus and of a goddess named Mētis (Hesiod Theogony 886-900); this name Mētis comes from the noun mētis, which means ‘intelligence’, and Athena herself declares that her kleos ‘glory’ is due to her own mētis ‘intelligence’ (Odyssey xiii 299).18 As we can see from a primary epithet of Odysseus, polumētis ‘intelligent in many ways’ (Iliad I 311, etc.; Odyssey ii 173, etc.), the goddess Athena must have a special relationship with this hero; in fact, this same epithet applies to Athena herself (Homeric Hymn to Athena 2). We will return later on, in Hour 10, to the word mētis. For now, however, the point is simply this: the status of Athena as the goddess of intelligence is relevant to Athena’s initial role in the Odyssey, where she takes on the role of activating the mental power of Telemachus, son of Odysseus. At a council of the gods, the goddess declares her intention to go to Ithaca and to become a mentor to the young epic hero:

EH §49. BA 41 = 2§17. 16 BA (1999) xii = Preface §17n; EH §50; Nagy 2007b:70. 17 BA 35 = 2§11; see also Dova 2000. 18 BA 145 = 8§8. 15

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Hour 9 Text B |88 As for me, I will go travel to Ithaca, going to his [= Odysseus’] son |89 in order to give him [= Telemachus] more encouragement and to put power [menos] into his heart [phrenes].19 |90 He is to summon the long-haired Achaeans for a meeting in assembly, |91 and he is to speak out to all the suitors [of his mother Penelope], who persist in |92 slaughtering any number of his sheep and oxen. |93 And I will conduct him to Sparta and to sandy Pylos, |94 and thus he will learn the return [nostos] of his dear [philos] father, if by chance he [= Telemachus] hears it, |95 and thus may genuine glory [kleos] possess him throughout humankind. Odyssey i 88-9520 9§17. In assuming the role of mentor to Telemachus, the goddess Athena will change her divine shape and will take on the human shape of the fatherly epic hero Mentēs in Odyssey i and then, in Odyssey ii and thereafter, of another fatherly epic hero, Mentōr. These two names are both related to the noun menos. This word, as we can see in the first verse of Text B here, i 88, refers to the heroic ‘power’ that the goddess Athena says she will put into the heart of Telemachus. The noun menos, usually translated as ‘power’ or ‘strength’, is derived from the verb-root mnē-, meaning ‘mentally connect’.21 Likewise derived from this verb-root are the agent nouns Men-tēs and Men-tōr, which both mean ‘he who connects mentally’. When a divinity connects a hero to his heroic mentality, the hero will have menos, that is, ‘power’ or ‘strength’. To have heroic power or strength, you have to have a heroic mentality. 9§18. This idea of heroic mentality is elegantly recapitulated in the Odyssey at the dramatic moment when the goddess Athena has just finished the first phase of her role as mentor to Telemachus, during which phase she had assumed the human shape of the fatherly Mentēs. Having finished with the role of Mentēs, which as we have seen is a name that means literally ‘he who connects mentally’, the goddess now transforms herself into a bird and flies out of the palace through a lightwell on the roof, and here is the wording that describes what she had accomplished so far in connecting the mind of Telemachus with the mind of his father:

The word phrenes, which I translate here as ‘heart’, expresses in Homeric diction the human capacity to feel and to think, taken together. 20 |88 αὐτὰρ ἐγὼν Ἰθάκηνδε ἐλεύσομαι, ὄφρα οἱ υἱὸν |89 μᾶλλον ἐποτρύνω καί οἱ μένος ἐν φρεσὶ θείω, |90 εἰς ἀγορὴν καλέσαντα κάρη κομόωντας Ἀχαιοὺς |91 πᾶσι μνηστήρεσσιν ἀπειπέμεν, οἵ τέ οἱ αἰεὶ |92 μῆλ’ ἁδινὰ σφάζουσι καὶ εἰλίποδας ἕλικας βοῦς. |93 πέμψω δ’ ἐς Σπάρτην τε καὶ ἐς Πύλον ἠμαθόεντα |94 νόστον πευσόμενον πατρὸς φίλου, ἤν που ἀκούσῃ, |95 ἠδ’ ἵνα μιν κλέος ἐσθλὸν ἐν ἀνθρώποισιν ἔχῃσιν. 21 GM 113.

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Hour 9 Text C |320 … Into his heart [thūmos]22 |321 she [= Athena] had placed power [menos] and daring, and she had mentally connected [hupo-mnē-] him with his father |322 even more than before. Odyssey i 320-32223 9§19. So, in her role as Mentēs, which means literally ‘he who mentally connects’, the goddess has given to the hero Telemachus the menos or mental ‘power’ of connecting with the heroic identity of his father. That act of doing this is expressed here by a verb hupo-mnē-, which means literally ‘mentally connect’.24 9§20. And what results from such a mental connection? We find an answer in Text B, as I quoted it a few minutes ago. What the goddess says in the next-to-last verse there, in Odyssey i 94, is not that Telemachus will learn about the nostos of Odysseus if he is fortunate enough to hear about it. In the original Greek text, the noun nostos is the direct object of the verb punthanesthai ‘to learn’ in verse 94 of Text B here, and that is why I chose to translate the verse this way: ‘and thus he will learn [punthanesthai] the return [nostos] of his dear [philos] father, if by chance he [= Telemachus] hears it’.25 It is not a question of learning about a homecoming, of hearing about a homecoming. Rather, Telemachus will learn the actual song of the homecoming, the song of nostos. He will actually hear the song from the hero Nestor in Odyssey iii and from the hero Menelaos along with his divine consort Helen in Odyssey iv. 9§21. As I have been arguing from the start, the nostos of Odysseus is not only a ‘homecoming’ but also a ‘song about homecoming’. And now we will see that this song is equivalent to the kleos of Odysseus, to his ‘glory’. 9§22. This equivalence of nostos and kleos for Odysseus is evident throughout the story of Telemachus. As we track further the wording used for telling this story, we see that the quest of the son for his father is described as a quest for either the father’s nostos (as at Odyssey 22

The word thūmos, which I translate here as ‘heart’, expresses in Homeric diction the human capacity to feel and to think, taken together. In some Homeric contexts, thūmos is used as a synonym of phrenes, which can also be translated as ‘heart’, as in Odyssey i 89, which was the first verse in Text B above. In other Homeric contexts, on the other hand, thūmos is pictured as the vital force that is contained by the phrenes: see GM 113n111. Even in such contexs, both words can be approximated as ‘heart’, 23 |320 … τῷ δ’ ἐνὶ θυμῷ |321 θῆκε μένος καὶ θάρσος, ὑπέμνησέν τέ ἑ πατρὸς |322 μᾶλλον ἔτ’ ἢ τὸ πάροιθεν. 24 GM 113. 25 Elsewhere too in the Odyssey, we see nostos as the direct object of punthanesthai ‘learn’ (ii 215, 264, 360; iv 714) - as also of akouein ‘hear’ (i 287, ii 218). In BA 40 = 2§16, I had translated punthanesthai (at ii 360) as ‘find out about’, but my point remains that nostos is the direct object of this verb. That is why I now prefer the translation ‘learn’, not ‘learn about’.

259 ii 360) or the father’s kleos (as at iii 83).26 So these two goals in the son’s quest are treated as equivalent. This equivalence extends further. Odysseus must achieve his kleos or epic ‘glory’ by way of successfully achieving the nostos or ‘song about homecoming’ that is the Odyssey. Whereas Achilles has to choose between nostos ‘homecoming’ and the kleos ‘glory’ that he gets from his own epic tradition (Iliad IX 413), Odysseus must have both kleos and nostos, because for him his nostos in the Odyssey is the same thing as his kleos.27 If Odysseus fails to achieve a successful nostos in the Odyssey, he will also fail to achieve kleos. But Odysseus ultimately prevails, and a key to his successful nostos is the steadfast faithfulness of his wife Penelope, who in her own right ultimately shares with Odysseus the kleos that marks the hero by the time we reach the end of the Odyssey (xxiv 196).28 9§23. In this connection, I find it pertinent to come back to the wording of the goddess Athena in the last verse of Text B, Odyssey i 95: it is made explicit there that kleos or epic ‘glory’ will result from the nostos of Odysseus. And I now highlight a striking fact about the use of the word kleos in that verse. The wording there does not say that the hero will possess kleos: rather, it says that kleos will possess the hero. Although it is not spelled out in that verse whether the hero is Telemachus or Odysseus himself, the point of reference is obvious: as we can see from reading the Odyssey in its entirety, the ultimate subject of kleos must be Odysseus himself: when kleos possesses this hero, the kleos will include all those who have a share in his glory.29 9§24. So far, then, we have seen that Athena is preparing Telemachus to connect mentally with the nostos of his father, which is an epic in the making, and that this epic of Odysseus, this Odyssey, is a fusion of nostos and kleos.

A nostos in the making 9§25. The meaning of nostos as a ‘song about homecoming’ is most evident in the following description of an epic performance where the performer, Phemios by name, is said to be performing a nostos:

Hour 9 Text D |325 The famed singer was singing for them [= the suitors], and they in silence |326 sat and listened. He [= Phemios the singer] was singing the homecoming [nostos] of the Achaeans, 26

BA 40 = 2§16. BA (1999) xii = Preface §§15-16. 28 More needs to be said about this verse at Odyssey xxiv 196, where the kleos of Odysseus is shared by Penelope. Some interpreters believe that the kleos mentioned in this verse belongs to Penelope only, not to Odysseus, whereas I argue that it belongs primarily to Odysseus; for more on these two different interpretations, see BA (1999) xii = Preface §16n2. 29 In Odyssey xix 108, as I analyze it in Hour 12§4, the disguised Odysseys says to Penelope that she possesses the kind of kleos or ‘glory’ that a righteous king possesses; the image of the unnamed king here is a placeholder for Odysseus. 27

260 |327 a catastrophic [lugros]30 homecoming from Troy, and Pallas Athena was the one who brought it all to fulfillment [epi-tellesthai]. |327 From her room upstairs, this divinely inspired song of his was understood in her mind by |329 the daughter of Ikarios, the exceptionally intelligent Penelope, |330 and she came down the lofty staircase of her palace. |331 She came not alone, but attended by two of her handmaidens. |332 When she reached the suitors, this most radiant of women, |333 she stood by one of the posts that supported the roof of the halls, |334 holding in front of her cheeks a luxuriant veil, |335 and a trusted handmaiden stood on either side of her. |336 Then, shedding tears, she addressed the divinely inspired singer: |337 “Phemios, you know many another thing that charms mortals, |338 all about the deeds of men and gods, to which singers give glory [kleeîn]. |339 Sing for them [= the suitors] some one of those songs of glory, and let them in silence |340 drink their wine. But you stop this sad song, |341 this catastrophic [lugrē]31 song, which again and again affects my heart in my breast, |342 wearing it down, since an unforgettable grief [penthos alaston] comes over me, more than ever. |343 I feel this way because that is the kind of person I long for, recalling his memory again and again, |344 the memory of a man whose glory [kleos] extends far and wide throughout Hellas and midmost Argos. Odyssey i 325-34432 9§26. We see here once again that the word nostos as a ‘song about homecoming’ is connected to the kleos of Odysseus, which is the ‘glory’ of his epic. But in this case we see also that kleos can make the listener feel penthos or ‘grief’ - such as the penthos alaston ‘unforgettable grief’ (i 341) felt by Penelope in hearing the epic performed by Phemios. 9§27. At this point in the Odyssey, Telemachus does not yet understand the grief experienced by his mother Penelope when she hears the nostos sung by Phemios, and so the son makes excuses for the singer by claiming that audiences of epic will ‘give glory’ (epi-kleeîn i 251) most readily to the kind of song that is neōtatē, the ‘newest’ (i 252). Of course such a claim 30

This epithet lugros ‘catastrophic’ is carried over from one verse to the next. The technical term for such carrying over is enjambment, and we will see the significance of this device in the analysis that follows. 31 Here again, the epithet lugrē ‘catastrophic’ is enjambed from one verse to the next. 32 |325 τοῖσι δ’ ἀοιδὸς ἄειδε περικλυτός, οἱ δὲ σιωπῇ |326 εἵατ’ ἀκούοντες· ὁ δ’ Ἀχαιῶν νόστον ἄειδε |327 λυγρόν, ὃν ἐκ Τροίης ἐπετείλατο Παλλὰς Ἀθήνη. |328 τοῦ δ’ ὑπερωϊόθεν φρεσὶ σύνθετο θέσπιν ἀοιδὴν |329 κούρη Ἰκαρίοιο, περίφρων Πηνελόπεια· |330 κλίμακα δ’ ὑψηλὴν κατεβήσετο οἷο δόμοιο, |331 οὐκ οἴη, ἅμα τῇ γε καὶ ἀμφίπολοι δύ’ ἕποντο. |332 ἡ δ’ ὅτε δὴ μνηστῆρας ἀφίκετο δῖα γυναικῶν, |333 στῆ ῥα παρὰ σταθμὸν τέγεος πύκα ποιητοῖο, |334 ἄντα παρειάων σχομένη λιπαρὰ κρήδεμνα· |335 ἀμφίπολος δ’ ἄρα οἱ κεδνὴ ἑκάτερθε παρέστη. |336 δακρύσασα δ’ ἔπειτα προσηύδα θεῖον ἀοιδόν· |337 “Φήμιε, πολλὰ γὰρ ἄλλα βροτῶν θελκτήρια οἶδας |338 ἔργ’ ἀνδρῶν τε θεῶν τε, τά τε κλείουσιν ἀοιδοί· |339 τῶν ἕν γέ σφιν ἄειδε παρήμενος, οἱ δὲ σιωπῇ |340 οἶνον πινόντων· ταύτης δ’ ἀποπαύε’ ἀοιδῆς |341 λυγρῆς, ἥ τέ μοι αἰὲν ἐνὶ στήθεσσι φίλον κῆρ |342 τείρει, ἐπεί με μάλιστα καθίκετο πένθος ἄλαστον. |343 τοίην γὰρ κεφαλὴν ποθέω μεμνημένη αἰεὶ |344 ἀνδρός, τοῦ κλέος εὐρὺ καθ’ Ἑλλάδα καὶ μέσον Ἄργος.

261 about the attractions of a new song cannot be denied, but the newness of the song in this situation has a deeper meaning. The word neo- ‘new’ here refers to the appropriateness of the story to the situation in the here and now of performing the story: in this case Odysseus is not yet a character in the story of the nostos of the Achaeans as Phemios is singing it, since this story is still in progress, and the audience has not yet heard the end of it, but Odysseus is soon to become the primary character of the story of the nostos in the here and now that is being narrated by the epic of the Odyssey.33 And that is because his own nostos is literally in the making, since nostos means not only ‘homecoming’ but also ‘song about a homecoming’.

Echoes of lament in a song about homecoming 9§28. We saw just a minute ago that kleos can make the listener feel penthos or ‘grief’ such as the grief felt by Penelope in hearing the epic of Phemios. And, as we saw in Hour 3, this word penthos means not only ‘grief’ but also a ‘song of grief’ as performed in lamentation. Now we will see that there are many things to lament in the song about the homecoming of the Achaeans as reported in the Odyssey. In the next paragraph, I offer a summary of the lamentable subtexts, as it were, of the nostos song by Phemios. 9§29. The nostos or ‘song of homecoming’ that Phemios sings in Odyssey i 326 is described as lugros ‘catastrophic’ at the beginning of the next verse, i 327, just as the mēnis or ‘anger’ of Achilles that ‘Homer’ sings in Iliad I 1 is described as oulomenē ‘catastrophic’ at the beginning of the next verse, I 2.34 The catastrophic anger of Achilles had led to immeasurable suffering, caused by Zeus, and the causation is expressed in terms of telos ‘fulfillment’: ‘and the Will of Zeus was being brought to fulfillment [teleîsthai]’35 (Ι 5). And so also the goddess Athena made the Achaeans suffer, since she ‘brought to fulfillment’ a nostos that was catastrophic for them: ‘he [= Phemios] sang the homecoming [nostos] of the Achaeans, | a catastrophic [lugros] homecoming from Troy, and Pallas Athena was the one who brought it all to fulfillment [epitellesthai]’36 (i 326-327).37 9§30. From the retrospective standpoint of the Odyssey, the suffering of the Achaeans in the course of their homecoming from Troy was caused by Athena because she was angry at them for their immoral behavior in the course of their destroying the city of Troy. The story of Athena’s catastrophic anger, in its most basic form, is told by Nestor to Telemachus:

PH 69 = 2§33. The parallelism here is accentuated by the fact that the enjambment of the epithet oulomenē ‘catastrophic’ in Iliad I 2 is matched by the enjambment of the epithet lugros ‘catastrophic’ in Odyssey i 327. 35 Διὸς δ’ ἐτελείετο βουλή. 36 ὁ δ’ Ἀχαιῶν νόστον ἄειδε | λυγρὸν ὃν ἐκ Τροίης ἐπετείλατο Παλλὰς Ἀθήνη. 37 BA 97 = 6§6n2. 34

262

Hour 9 Text E |130 After we [= the Achaeans] had destroyed the lofty city of Priam |131 and we went into our ships, the god dispersed us. |132 And then it was that Zeus devised in his thinking a plan to make a catastrophic [lugros] homecoming [nostos]38 |133 for the Argives [= Achaeans]; for they had not at all been either mindful [= having noos] or just [dikaioi], |134 not all of them, and so many of them met up with a bad destiny|135 because of the anger [mēnis] of the daughter of the mighty father - of the goddess with the looks of an owl. Odyssey iii 130-13539 9§31. In this micro-narrative, we see the outlines of the whole story, but we see no details about the Achaean heroes involved. But a detailed narrative about the immoral behavior of the Achaeans at the end of the Trojan War can be found elsewhere in epic. The most telling example comes from the epic Cycle - in this case, from the Iliou Persis or ‘Destruction of Troy’, attributed to Arctinus of Miletus. I will now quote the text of the relevant plot summary, where we will see a series of atrocities committed by the Achaeans warriors while they are putting an end to the city of Troy. I will concentrate on two parts of the story: first, the anger of Athena, which is highlighted at the end of the narrative, and, second, the actions of Odysseus himself, which precede the highlighting of Athena’s anger:

Hour 9 Text F |16 After the preceding [= four scrolls of the Little Iliad, by Lesches of Lesbos], there follow two scrolls of the Iliou Persis, by Arctinus |17 of Miletus, containing the following. With regard to the things concerning the Horse, the |18 Trojans, suspicious about the horse, stand around wondering what they should |19 do. Some think it should be pushed off a cliff, while others |20 think it should be burned down, and still others say that it should be dedicated as sacred [hieros] to Athena. |21 In the end, the opinion of the third group wins out. They turn |22 to merriment, feasting as if they had been freed from the war. |23 At this point two serpents appear and |24 destroy Laocoön and one of his sons. At the sight of |25 this marvel, Aeneas and his followers get upset and withdraw |26 to Mount Ida. Sinon lights signal fires for the Achaeans. |27 He had previously entered the city, using a pretext. And they [= the Achaeans], some of them sailing from Tenedos |28 [toward Troy] and others of them emerging from the Wooden Horse, fall upon |29 their enemies. They kill many, and the city 38

The use of the epithet lugros ‘catastrophic’ in describing the nostos ‘homecoming’ of the Achaeans here in iii 132 is reminiscent of the way in which the song of Phemios started in i 326: there too we saw the word nostos in the sense of a ‘song of homecoming’, which is then described by the same epithet lugros ‘catastrophic’ at the beginning of the next verse, i 327. 39 |130 αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ Πριάμοιο πόλιν διεπέρσαμεν αἰπήν, |131 βῆμεν δ’ ἐν νήεσσι, θεὸς δ’ ἐκέδασσεν Ἀχαιούς, |132 καὶ τότε δὴ Ζεὺς λυγρὸν ἐνὶ φρεσὶ μήδετο νόστον |133 Ἀργείοισ’, ἐπεὶ οὔ τι νοήμονες οὐδὲ δίκαιοι |134 πάντες ἔσαν· τῶ σφεων πολέες κακὸν οἶτον ἐπέσπον |135 μήνιος ἐξ ὀλοῆς γλαυκώπιδος ὀβριμοπάτρης.

263 |30 is taken by force. Neoptolemos kills |31 Priam, who has taken refuge at the altar of Zeus Herkeios. [p. 108] |1 Menelaos finds Helen and takes her back down to the ships, after |2 slaughtering Deiphobos. Ajax son of Oileus takes Kassandra by |3 force, dragging her away from the wooden statue [xoanon] of Athena. At the sight |4 of this, the Achaeans get angry and decide to stone |5 Ajax to death, but he takes refuge at the altar of Athena, and so |6 is preserved from his impending destruction. Then |7 the Achaeans put the city to the torch. They slaughter Polyxena on the |8 tomb [taphos] of Achilles. Odysseus kills Astyanax, |9 and Neoptolemos takes Andromache as his prize. The rest |10 of the spoils are distributed. Demophon and Akamas find Aithra |11 and take her with them. Then the Greeks sail off [from Troy], |12 and Athena begins to plan destruction for them at sea. plot-summary by Proclus of the Iliou Persis of Arctinus of Miletus pp. 107-10840 9§32. This narrative about the Trojan War as transmitted in the epic Cycle corresponds closely to a narrative we see in Odyssey viii. The performer of that narrative is the blind singer Demodokos, who is performing an epic in the court of Alkinoos, king of the Phaeacians. In fact, that epic is the third of three songs that he performs in Odyssey viii. The audience attending the performance of Demodokos includes Odysseus himself, who has not yet revealed his identity to the Phaeacians:

Hour 9 Text G |499 … And he [= Demodokos], setting his point of departure [hormētheis], started [arkhesthai] from the god. And he made visible the song, |500 taking it from the point where they [= the Achaeans], boarding their ships with the strong benches, |501 sailed away, setting their tents 40

|16 Ἕπεται δὲ τούτοις Ἰλίου πέρσιδος βιβλία δύο Ἀρκτίνου |17 Μιλησίου περιέχοντα τάδε. ὡς τὰ περὶ τὸν ἵππον οἱ |18 Τρῶες ὑπόπτως ἔχοντες περιστάντες βουλεύονται ὅ τι χρὴ |19 ποιεῖν· καὶ τοῖς μὲν δοκεῖ κατακρημνίσαι αὐτόν, τοῖς δὲ |20 καταφλέγειν, οἱ δὲ ἱερὸν αὐτὸν ἔφασαν δεῖν τῇ Ἀθηνᾷ |21 ἀνατεθῆναι· καὶ τέλος νικᾷ ἡ τούτων γνώμη. τραπέντες |22 δὲ εἰς εὐφροσύνην εὐωχοῦνται ὡς ἀπηλλαγμένοι τοῦ πολέ-|23μου. ἐν αὐτῷ δὲ τούτῳ δύο δράκοντες ἐπιφανέντες τόν τε |24 Λαοκόωντα καὶ τὸν ἕτερον τῶν παίδων διαφθείρουσιν. ἐπὶ |25 δὲ τῷ τέρατι δυσφορήσαντες οἱ περὶ τὸν Αἰνείαν ὑπεξῆλθον |26 εἰς τὴν Ἴδην. καὶ Σίνων τοὺς πυρσοὺς ἀνίσχει τοῖς Ἀχαιοῖς, |27 πρότερον εἰσεληλυθὼς προσποίητος. οἱ δὲ ἐκ Τενέδου |28 προσπλεύσαντες καὶ οἱ ἐκ τοῦ δουρείου ἵππου ἐπιπίπτουσι |29 τοῖς πολεμίοις καὶ πολλοὺς ἀνελόντες τὴν πόλιν κατὰ |30 κράτος λαμβάνουσι. καὶ Νεοπτόλεμος μὲν ἀποκτείνει |31 Πρίαμον ἐπὶ τὸν τοῦ Διὸς τοῦ ἑρκείου βωμὸν καταφυγόντα. [p. 108]|1 Μενέλαος δὲ ἀνευρὼν Ἑλένην ἐπὶ τὰς ναῦς κατάγει, Δηΐ|2φοβον φονεύσας. Κασσάνδραν δὲ Αἴας ὁ Ἰλέως πρὸς |3 βίαν ἀποσπῶν συνεφέλκεται τὸ τῆς Ἀθηνᾶς ξόανον. ἐφ’ |4 ᾧ παροξυνθέντες οἱ Ἕλληνες καταλεῦσαι βουλεύονται τὸν |5 Αἴαντα. ὁ δὲ ἐπὶ τὸν τῆς Ἀθηνᾶς βωμὸν καταφεύγει καὶ |6 διασῴζεται ἐκ τοῦ ἐπικειμένου κινδύνου. ἔπειτα ἐμπρή-|7σαντες τὴν πόλιν Πολυξένην σφαγιάζουσιν ἐπὶ τὸν τοῦ |8 Ἀχιλλέως τάφον. καὶ Ὀδυσσέως Ἀστυάνακτα ἀνελόντος, |9 Νεοπτόλεμος Ἀνδρομάχην γέρας λαμβάνει. καὶ τὰ λοιπὰ|10 λάφυρα διανέμονται. Δημοφῶν δὲ καὶ Ἀκάμας Αἴθραν |11 εὑρόντες ἄγουσι μεθ’ ἑαυτῶν. ἔπειτα ἀποπλέουσιν οἱ |12 Ἕλληνες, καὶ φθορὰν αὐτοῖς ἡ Ἀθηνᾶ κατὰ τὸ πέλαγος |13 μηχανᾶται.

264 on fire. |502 That is what some of the Argives [= Achaeans] were doing. But others of them were in the company of Odysseus most famed, and they were already |503 sitting hidden inside the Horse, which was now in the meeting place of the Trojans. |504 The Trojans themselves had pulled the Horse into the acropolis. |505 So there it was, standing there, and they talked a great deal about it, in doubt about what to do, |506 sitting around it. There were three different plans: |507 to split the hollow wood with pitiless bronze, |508 or to drag it to the heights and push it down from the rocks, |509 or to leave it, great artifact that it was, a charm [thelktērion] of the gods |510 - which, I now see it, was exactly the way it was going to end [teleutân], |511 because it was fate [aisa] that the place would be destroyed, once the city had enfolded in itself |512 the great Wooden Horse, when all the best men were sitting inside it, |513 the Argives [= Achaeans], that is, bringing slaughter and destruction upon the Trojans. |514 He sang how the sons of the Achaeans destroyed the city, |515 pouring out of the Horse, leaving behind the hollow place of ambush. |516 He sang how the steep citadel was destroyed by different men in different places. |517 - how Odysseus went to the palace of Deiphobos, |518 how he was looking like Ares, and godlike Menelaos went with him, |519 and how in that place, I now see it, he [= Demodokos] said that he [= Odysseus] dared to go through the worst part of the war, |520 and how he emerged victorious after that, with the help of Athena, the one with the mighty spirit. |521 So these were the things that the singer [aoidos] most famed was singing. As for Odysseus, |522 he dissolved [tēkesthai] into tears. He made wet his cheeks with the tears flowing from his eyelids, |523 just as a woman cries, falling down and embracing her dear husband, |524 who fell in front of the city and people he was defending, |525 trying to ward off the pitiless day of doom that is hanging over the city and its children. |526 She sees him dying, gasping for his last breath, |527 and she pours herself all over him as she wails with a piercing cry. But there are men behind her, |528 prodding her with their spears, hurting her back and shoulders, |529 and they bring for her a life of bondage, which will give her pain and sorrow. |530 Her cheeks are wasting away with a sorrow [akhos] that is most pitiful [eleeinon]. |531 So also did Odysseus pour out a piteous tear [dakruon] from beneath his brows; |532 there he was, escaping the notice of all while he kept pouring out his tears [dakrua]. |533 But Alkinoos was the only one of all of them who was aware, and he took note [noeîn]. Odyssey viii 499-53341

|499 … ὁ δ’ ὁρμηθεὶς θεοῦ ἤρχετο, φαῖνε δ’ ἀοιδήν, |500 ἔνθεν ἑλών, ὡς οἱ μὲν ἐϋσσέλμων ἐπὶ νηῶν |501 βάντες ἀπέπλειον, πῦρ ἐν κλισίῃσι βαλόντες, |502 Ἀργεῖοι, τοὶ δ’ ἤδη ἀγακλυτὸν ἀμφ’ ᾿Οδυσῆα |503 εἵατ’ ἐνὶ Τρώων ἀγορῇ κεκαλυμμένοι ἵππῳ· |504 αὐτοὶ γάρ μιν Τρῶες ἐς ἀκρόπολιν ἐρύσαντο. |505 ὣς ὁ μὲν ἑστήκει, τοὶ δ’ ἄκριτα πόλλ’ ἀγόρευον |506 ἥμενοι ἀμφ’ αὐτόν· τρίχα δέ σφισιν ἥνδανε βουλή, |507 ἠὲ διατμῆξαι κοῖλον δόρυ νηλέϊ χαλκῷ, |508 ἢ κατὰ πετράων βαλέειν ἐρύσαντας ἐπ’ ἄκρης, |509 ἢ ἐάαν μέγ’ ἄγαλμα θεῶν θελκτήριον εἶναι, |510 τῇ περ δὴ καὶ ἔπειτα τελευτήσεσθαι ἔμελλεν· |511 αἶσα γὰρ ἦν ἀπολέσθαι, ἐπὴν πόλις ἀμφικαλύψῃ |512 δουράτεον μέγαν ἵππον, ὅθ’ εἵατο πάντες ἄριστοι |513 Ἀργεῖοι Τρώεσσι φόνον καὶ κῆρα φέροντες. |514 ἤειδεν

265 9§33. As Odysseus weeps, he is compared here to an unnamed captive woman who is weeping (klaiein, Odyssey viii 523) over the dead body of her warrior husband. This woman, within the framework of the plot outline of the Iliou Persis that I quoted earlier, would be Andromache.42 Within the overall framework of the Odyssey, however, this woman is not to be identified. As the unidentified captive woman weeps, she is ‘poured all around’ her dead husband (amphi … khumenē 527): in effect, she dissolves into tears. Directly comparable is the primary listener in the audience, Odysseus, who reacts by ‘dissolving’ (tēkesthai 522) into tears.43 9§34. When the scene that shows the double horror of Andromache’s capture by the Achaeans and the killing of Astyanax by Odysseus himself is about to be retold in this epic narrative of Demodokos, something happens in the overall narrative of the Homeric Odyssey. At the point where the retelling is about to happen, it is blocked. Unlike the Iliou Persis of Arctinus, where a climactic moment of the narrative of Troy’s destruction is the capture of Andromache and the killing of Astyanax by Odysseus, that moment is missing in the Odyssey: instead, the narrator’s act of identifying Andromache as a captive woman is screened by a simile about an unidentified captive woman.44 9§35. This sequence of narration in the Odyssey achieves an effect of screen memory: An essential phase in the sequence is being screened out by the memory of that narrative. The audience, as foregrounded by Odysseus, is expected to know the sequence, and the sequence is already a reality because the audience already knows where the singer had started. … So the audience and the singer, in a combined effort, can now all project the image together, projecting it as a flashback on the screen of the mind’s eye. But the climax of the action, that is, the capturing of the woman who is yet to be identified as

δ’ ὡς ἄστυ διέπραθον υἷες Ἀχαιῶν |515 ἱππόθεν ἐκχύμενοι, κοῖλον λόχον ἐκπρολιπόντες. |516 ἄλλον δ’ ἄλλῃ ἄειδε πόλιν κεραϊζέμεν αἰπήν, |517 αὐτὰρ Ὀδυσσῆα προτὶ δώματα Δηϊφόβοιο |518 βήμεναι, ἠΰτ’ Ἄρηα, σὺν ἀντιθέῳ Μενελάῳ. |519 κεῖθι δὴ αἰνότατον πόλεμον φάτο τολμήσαντα |520 νικῆσαι καὶ ἔπειτα διὰ μεγάθυμον Ἀθήνην. |521 ταῦτ’ ἄρ’ ἀοιδὸς ἄειδε περικλυτός· αὐτὰρ Ὀδυσσεὺς |522 τήκετο, δάκρυ δ’ ἔδευεν ὑπὸ βλεφάροισι παρειάς. |523 ὡς δὲ γυνὴ κλαίῃσι φίλον πόσιν ἀμφιπεσοῦσα, |524 ὅς τε ἑῆς πρόσθεν πόλιος λαῶν τε πέσῃσιν, |525 ἄστεϊ καὶ τεκέεσσιν ἀμύνων νηλεὲς ἦμαρ· |526 ἡ μὲν τὸν θνῄσκοντα καὶ ἀσπαίροντα ἰδοῦσα |527 ἀμφ’ αὐτῷ χυμένη λίγα κωκύει· οἱ δέ τ’ ὄπισθε |528 κόπτοντες δούρεσσι μετάφρενον ἠδὲ καὶ ὤμους |529 εἴρερον εἰσανάγουσι, πόνον τ’ ἐχέμεν καὶ ὀϊζύν· |530 τῆς δ’ ἐλεεινοτάτῳ ἄχεϊ φθινύθουσι παρειαί· |531 ὣς Ὀδυσεὺς ἐλεεινὸν ὑπ’ ὀφρύσι δάκρυον εἶβεν. |532 ἔνθ’ ἄλλους μὲν πάντας ἐλάνθανε δάκρυα λείβων, |533 Ἀλκίνοος δέ μιν οἶος ἐπεφράσατ’ ἠδ’ ἐνόησεν 42 BA 101 = 6§9. 43 HC 348-349 = 2§344. 44 HC 346 = 2§337.

266 Andromache, has been screened out by a simile about the capturing of a woman who will never be identified.45 I have used here two distinct metaphors involving the concept of screen. The first is the screening or projecting of an image on the screen that is the mind’s eye. The second is the screening-out of that image in the overall narrative of the Odyssey. It is pertinent that Odysseus is not only the foregrounded audience of the third song of Demodokos: he is also an agent of the plot that is being narrated by the song, since he is the direct cause of Andromache’s sorrows.46 9§36. The sorrowful scene of Andromache’s capture, which is highlighted in the Iliou Persis but screened out in the Odyssey, is actually foreshadowed in the Iliad. I quote here the most telling verses, where Hector reveals to Andromache his forebodings about his own violent death and about its dire consequences for his wife and child:

Hour 9 Text H |447 For I know well in my thinking, in my heart, that |448 there will come a day when, once it comes, the sacred city of Ilios [= Ilion = Troy] will be destroyed |449 – and Priam, too, and along with him [will be destroyed] the people of that man with the fine ash spear, that Priam. |450 But the pain I have on my mind is not as great for the Trojans and for what will happen to them in the future, |451 or for Hecuba or for Priam the king, |452 or for my brothers if, many in number and noble as they are, |453 they will fall in the dust at the hands of men who are their enemies |454 – no, [the pain I have on my mind is not as great for them] as it is for you when I think of the moment when some Achaean man, one of those men who wear khitons of bronze, |455 takes hold of you as you weep and leads you away as his prize, depriving you of your days of freedom from slavery. |456 And you would be going to Argos, where you would be weaving [huphainein] at the loom of some other woman [and no longer at your own loom at home] |457 – and you would be carrying water for her, drawing from the spring called Messēís or the one called Hypereia. |458 Again and again you will be forced to do things against your will, and the bondage holding you down will be harsh. |459 And someone some day will look at you as you pour out your tears and will say: |460 “Hector is the man whose wife this woman used to be. He used to be the best in battle |461 – the best of all the Trojans, those horse-tamers, back in those days when they fought to defend Ilion [= Troy].” |462 That is what someone some day will say. And just hearing it will give you a new sorrow |463 as the widow of this kind of man, the kind that is able to prevent those days of slavery. |464 But, once I am dead, may earth be scattered over me and cover me.

45 46

HC 347 = 2§338 HC = 2§339, with reference to BA 101 = 6§9.

267 Iliad VI 447-46447 9§37. With these sad images in mind, I return to the last verse of Text G, Odyssey viii 533: we saw there that Alkinoos, the perceptive king of the Phaeacians, is the only one to notice that Odysseus is weeping when he hears the story about the destruction of Troy and about all the sorrows inflicted on those who were part of that pitiful event. In his perceptiveness, Alkinoos infers that his weeping guest, who is at this point still unidentified, must have participated in the Trojan War; and he infers also that the guest must have been on the winning side, not the losing side. So why is Odysseus weeping, then? Alkinoos thinks that it must be because Odysseus had lost someone near and dear who had been fighting on the Achaean side:

Hour 9 Text I |577 Tell us why you are weeping and lamenting in your heart [thūmos] |578 when you hear the fate of the Argive Danaans [= Achaeans] or the fate of Troy. |579 The gods arranged all this, and they wove the fate of doom |580 for humans, so that future generations might have something to sing about. |581 Did you lose some kinsman of your wife’s when you were at Troy? |582 Some such noble person? Or a son-in-law or father-in-law? Such people are most certainly |583 the nearest relations a man has outside his own flesh and blood. |584 Or was it perhaps a comrade who was well aware of the things that were most pleasing to both of you? |585 Some such noble person? For not any less prized than your own brother |586 is a comrade who is well aware of things you both think about. Odyssey viii 577-58648 9§38. By now we know that there is more to it. Yes, everyone who participated in the Trojan War, whether they were on the losing side or even on the winning side, had reason to 47

|447 εὖ γὰρ ἐγὼ τόδε οἶδα κατὰ φρένα καὶ κατὰ θυμόν· |448 ἔσσεται ἦμαρ ὅτ’ ἄν ποτ’ ὀλώλῃ Ἴλιος ἱρὴ |449 καὶ Πρίαμος καὶ λαὸς ἐϋμμελίω Πριάμοιο.|450 ἀλλ’ οὔ μοι Τρώων τόσσον μέλει ἄλγος ὀπίσσω, |451 οὔτ’ αὐτῆς Ἑκάβης οὔτε Πριάμοιο ἄνακτος |452 οὔτε κασιγνήτων, οἵ κεν πολέες τε καὶ ἐσθλοὶ |453 ἐν κονίῃσι πέσοιεν ὑπ’ ἀνδράσι δυσμενέεσσιν, |454 ὅσσον σεῦ, ὅτε κέν τις Ἀχαιῶν χαλκοχιτώνων |455 δακρυόεσσαν ἄγηται ἐλεύθερον ἦμαρ ἀπούρας·|456 καί κεν ἐν Ἄργει ἐοῦσα πρὸς ἄλλης ἱστὸν ὑφαίνοις, |457 καί κεν ὕδωρ φορέοις Μεσσηΐδος ἢ Ὑπερείης |458 πόλλ’ ἀεκαζομένη, κρατερὴ δ’ ἐπικείσετ’ ἀνάγκη· |459 καί ποτέ τις εἴπῃσιν ἰδὼν κατὰ δάκρυ χέουσαν· |460 Ἕκτορος ἥδε γυνὴ ὃς ἀριστεύεσκε μάχεσθαι |461 Τρώων ἱπποδάμων ὅτε Ἴλιον ἀμφεμάχοντο. |462 ὥς ποτέ τις ἐρέει· σοὶ δ’ αὖ νέον ἔσσεται ἄλγος |463 χήτεϊ τοιοῦδ’ ἀνδρὸς ἀμύνειν δούλιον ἦμαρ. |464 ἀλλά με τεθνηῶτα χυτὴ κατὰ γαῖα καλύπτοι. 48 |577 εἰπὲ δ’ ὅ τι κλαίεις καὶ ὀδύρεαι ἔνδοθι θυμῷ |578 Ἀργείων Δαναῶν ἠδ’ Ἰλίου οἶτον ἀκούων. |579 τὸν δὲ θεοὶ μὲν τεῦξαν, ἐπεκλώσαντο δ’ ὄλεθρον |580 ἀνθρώποισ’, ἵνα ᾖσι καὶ ἐσσομένοισιν ἀοιδή. |581 ἦ τίς τοι καὶ πηὸς ἀπέφθιτο Ἰλιόθι πρό, |582 ἐσθλὸς ἐών, γαμβρὸς ἢ πενθερός; οἵ τε μάλιστα |583 κήδιστοι τελέθουσι μεθ’ αἷμά τε καὶ γένος αὐτῶν. |584 ἦ τίς που καὶ ἑταῖρος ἀνὴρ κεχαρισμένα εἰδώς, |585 ἐσθλός; ἐπεὶ οὐ μέν τι κασιγνήτοιο χερείων |586 γίνεται, ὅς κεν ἑταῖρος ἐὼν πεπνυμένα εἰδῇ.

268 feel sorrow, but the fact is that none of the sorrows described by Alkinoos fits the experiences of Odysseus himself. This hero has lost neither a relative nor a best friend at Troy. No, the tears of Odysseus in hearing the sorrows of the Trojan War are more generalized, even universalized. The sorrow of Odysseus must take part even in the sufferings endured by the other side in the war. 9§39. Such universalizing of sorrow in the tears of Odysseus is a masterstroke of epic empathy, comparable to the words spoken by a weeping Aeneas in Virgil’s Aeneid (1.462): sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt ‘there are tears that connect with the universe, and things that happen to mortals touch the mind’.49 9§40. So Penelope was right: the kleos of the epic nostos sung by Phemios, as signaled in Odyssey i 325, conveys a message of sorrow for anyone who feels any personal involvement in the actions that took place in the Trojan War and in its aftermath, as narrated in the epic nostos. And the expression of that sorrow, as Penelope says in Odyssey i 342, quoted in Text D, is the penthos alaston or ‘unforgettable grief’ of lamentation. Any epic that fails to convey such a sense of sorrow in narrating the actions of war is not a true epic. That is why the narration of Helen in Odyssey iv 235-264 about the Trojan War is a false epic, from the standpoint of Homeric poetry.50 And the epic narrated by Helen is made false by the fact that any sorrow that could possibly be felt by her listeners is being counteracted by artificial means. Before she narrates her epic, Helen puts into the drinks of her listeners a drug that counteracts all sorrow, all anger, all sense of personal involvement. This drug that goes into the wine of her listeners is described as nēpenthes, that is, a substance that negates penthos:

Hour 9 Text J |220 She [= Helen] put a drug into the wine from which they drank. |221 It [= the drug] was against penthos [nē-penthes] and against anger [a-kholon]. It made one forget all bad things. |222 Whoever swallowed it, once it was mixed with the wine into the mixing bowl, |223 could not shed a tear from his cheeks for that day, |224 even if his mother and father died |225 or if he had earlier lost a brother or his own dear son, |226 killed by bronze weapons - even if he saw it all happen with his own eyes. Odyssey iv 220-22651 49

I offer a detailed interpretation of this verse in HC 168-169 = 1§183. I hasten to add that such an epic is not at all false from the standpoint of epic traditions other than Homeric poetry: the epic adventure of Odysseus as narrated by Helen in Odyssey iv 235-264 matches closely an episode in the epic Cycle, as we see from the plot-summary by Proclus of the Little Iliad by Lesches of Lesbos p. 107 lines 4-7. 51 |220 αὐτίκ’ ἄρ’ εἰς οἶνον βάλε φάρμακον, ἔνθεν ἔπινον, |221 νηπενθές τ’ ἄχολόν τε, κακῶν ἐπίληθον ἁπάντων. |222 ὃς τὸ καταβρόξειεν, ἐπὴν κρητῆρι μιγείη, |223 οὔ κεν ἐφημέριός γε βάλοι κατὰ δάκρυ παρειῶν, |224 οὐδ’ εἴ οἱ κατατεθναίη μήτηρ τε πατήρ τε, |225 οὐδ’ εἴ οἱ προπάροιθεν ἀδελφεὸν ἢ φίλον υἱὸν |226 χαλκῷ δηϊόῳεν, ὁ δ’ ὀφθαλμοῖσιν ὁρῷτο. 50

269 9§41. The only way that a listener like Telemachus could hear the narrative of Helen about the Trojan War without weeping is to be anesthetized to the sorrows that he too can now understand - now that he has gone after the nostos of his father Odysseus.52 Telemachus has started to hear the story of Odysseus, and, in fact, when Menelaos says that he experiences akhos … alaston ‘unforgettable grief’ (iv 508) every time he thinks about the uncertain fate of Odysseus, saying, Telemachus breaks down and weeps (iv 113-116). Directly comparable is the penthos alaston ‘unforgettable grief’ felt by Penelope (i 342) over the uncertain fate of Odysseus as she hears the nostos or ‘song of homecoming’ (i 326) sung by the singer Phemios.53 And yet, Helen says that the false epic she narrates, focusing on the adventures of Odysseus at Troy, will bring pleasure to her listeners (iv 239 ‘be pleased with my words’).54 9§42. Such is the nature of Homeric poetry: it is a form of epic that taps into the traditions of lament, as we saw already in Hour 3. Yes, the expressions of sorrow in lament can be anesthetized by the sheer delight experienced in listening to the story for its own sake, but such delight is interwoven with the moral gravity that comes with epic empathy. That is what happens in the Homeric Odyssey, in this nostos to end all nostoi.

BA 99-100 = 6§7. In this connection, I note with interest the name of the bastard son of Menelaos, mentioned in passing at Odyssey iv 11: he is Megapenthēs. For more on such “speaking names,” see BA 146 = 8§9n2. 54 μύθοις τέρπεσθε. 53

270

Hour 10. The mind of Odysseus in the Homeric Odyssey The meaning of noos 10§1. The key word for this hour is noos. A simple translation could be ‘mind’ or ‘thinking’, though these words are too broad in meaning to fit many of the Homeric contexts of noos; other translations could be ‘perception’ or even ‘intuition’, but these words are in many ways too narrow. In any case, the meaning of noos centers on the realm of rational as opposed to emotional functions. Yet another translation is ‘consciousness’. As we will see, this particular translation conveys the mystical meaning of noos. 10§2. A most revealing context for this word noos occurs in verse 3 of the same text that I had quoted to lead off the discussion in Hour 9. Here again is the text:

Hour 10 Text A = Hour 9 Text A |1 That man, tell me O Muse the song of that man, who could change in many different ways who he was, that man who in very many ways |2 veered from his path and wandered off far and wide, after he had destroyed the sacred city of Troy. |3 Many different cities of many different people did he see, getting to know different ways of thinking [noos]. |4 Many were the pains [algea] he suffered in his heart [thūmos] while crossing the sea |5 struggling to merit [arnusthai] the saving of his own life [psūkhē ] and his own homecoming [nostos] as well as the homecoming of his companions. |6 But do what he might he could not save his companions, even though he very much wanted to. |7 For they perished through their own deeds of sheer recklessness, |8 disconnected [nēpioi]1 as they were, because of what they did to the cattle of the sun-god Helios. |9 The ate them. So the god [Helios] deprived them of their day of homecoming [nostimon]. |10 Starting from any single point of departure, O goddess, daughter of Zeus, tell me, as you have told those who came before me. |11 So now all those who escaped precipitous death |12 were safely home, having survived the war and the sea voyage. |13 But he [= Odysseus], apart from the others, though he was longing for his homecoming [nostos] and for his wife, |14 was detained by the queenly nymph [numphē] Calypso, who has her own luminous place among all the goddesses ... Odyssey i 1-14 10§3. I focus this time on the contents of verse 3 together with the contents of verse 5: In verse 3, we learn that Odysseus saw the cities of many mortals and that he came to know their ways of ‘thinking’, noos. In the original Greek, it is not excluded that Odysseus came to know better his own way of ‘thinking’, his own noos, in the process of getting to know the thinking of others.

On the meaning of nēpios as ‘disconnected’, see the Glossary.

271 In verse 5, we learn that Odysseus was seeking to ‘win as a prize’ two things: his own life, the word for which is psūkhē here, and the homecoming or nostos of his companions - along with his own homecoming. 10§4. The key word for this hour, noos as we see it at verse 3, is actually related to the key word for the previous hour, nostos, as we see it at verse 5. As we saw in Hour 9, nostos can be interpreted as ‘return, homecoming; song about homecoming’. And, as we also saw in that hour, the word nostos can also be interpreted as ‘return to light and life’. Here in Hour 10, I plan to show how this mystical sense of nostos, ‘return to light and life’, can be explained in terms of the related word noos in the mystical sense of ‘consciousness’. And we will see a further level of meaning for noos: it can be interpreted as ‘coming to’ in the mystical sense of ‘returning to consciousness’ after being unconscious - whether in sleep or even in death. 10§5. Before we proceed, I also draw special attention to verse 4 of Text A. This verse, bracketed by verses 3 and 5 containing respectively the words noos and nostos, contains the word algea ‘pains’, which refers to the many sufferings of the hero Odysseus in the course of his heroic quest to achieve a safe homecoming. This word has been borrowed into English: analgesic means ‘negating pain’. Another modern borrowing is the second element of the coined word nostalgia, referring to bittersweet yearnings for home.2 This word is built from a combination of two elements, algea ‘pains (as in Odyssey i 4) and nostos ‘homecoming’ (as in Odyssey i 5). 10§6. I also draw attention to a living derivative of the ancient Greek noun nostos: it is the Modern Greek adjective nostimos, meaning ‘tasty’. This meaning could be described fancifully as reflecting a nostalgia for home cooking. Another fanciful association comes to mind: the “episode of the madeleine” in Marcel Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu (specifically, at the end of the chapter “Combray 1,” in Du côté de chez Swann, 1919).

The interaction of noos and nostos 10§7. Both words, noos and nostos, are derived from an Indo-European root *nes-, the basic meaning of which can be interpreted as ‘return to light and life’; when we survey the traditions of Indo-European languages - and Greek is one of these languages - we see that this root *nes- occurs in myths having to do with the rising of the sun at dawn or with the rising of the morning star.3 These myths, as we will now see, are relevant to the meanings of noos and nostos as these words interact with each other in the overall plot of the Homeric Odyssey. 10§8. Such interaction is already signaled at the very beginning of the plot of the Odyssey. The hero’s nostos ‘return’ at verse 5 of Odyssey i connects with his noos ‘thinking’ at

2 3

For more on this modern term nostalgia, see Boym 2001. GM 258-259, following Frame 1978; Nagy 2010c:336.

272 verse 3 not only in the explicit sense of thinking about saving his own life but also in the implicit sense of being conscious of returning home. 10§9. This implicit sense is encoded in the telling of the myth about the Land of the Lotus-Eaters in Odyssey ix 82–104. When Odysseus visits that land, those of his comrades who eat the lotus lose their consciousness of home and therefore cannot return home. The verb lēth- ‘forget’, combined with nostos ‘return’ as its object, conveys the idea of such unconsciousness (ix 97, 102). By contrast, the noun noos ‘thinking’ conveys the idea of being conscious of nostos.4 So here is the basic teaching to be learned from the myth about the Land of the Lotus-Eaters: if you lose the “implant” of homecoming in your mind, you cannot go home because you no longer know what home is. 10§10. Similar teachings are built into the names of some of the main characters of the Odyssey. Two prominent examples are Antinoos, leader of the evil suitors, who tries to sabotage the nostos of Odysseus, and Alkinoos, the perceptive king of the Phaeacians, who promotes the nostos of the hero: their names mean, respectively, ‘the one who is opposed to bringing back to light and life’ and ‘the one who has the power to bring back to light and life’.5 10§11. The very idea of consciousness as conveyed by noos is derived from the metaphor of returning to light from darkness, as encapsulated in the moment of waking up from sleep, or of regaining consciousness after losing consciousness, that is, of “coming to.” This metaphor of coming to is at work not only in the meaning of noos in the sense of consciousness but also in the meaning of nostos in the sense of returning from darkness and death to light and life. Remarkably, these two meanings converge at one single point in the master myth of the Odyssey. It happens when Odysseus finally reaches his homeland of Ithaca:

Hour 10 Text B |78 When they [= the Phaeacian seafarers] began rowing out to sea, |79 he [= Odysseus] felt a sweet sleep falling upon his eyelids. |79 It was a deep sleep, the sweetest, and most similar to death. |81 Meanwhile, the ship was speeding ahead, just as a team of four stallions drawing a chariot over a plain |82 speeds ahead in unison as they all feel the stroke of the whip, |83 gallopping along smoothly as they make their way forward, |84 so also the prow of the ship kept curving upward as if it were the neck of a stallion, and, behind the ship, waves that were |85 huge and seething raged in the waters of the roaring sea. |86 The ship held steadily on its course, and not even a falcon, |87 raptor that he is, swiftest of all winged creatures, could have kept pace with it. |88 So did the ship cut its way smoothly through the waves, |89 carrying a man who was like the gods in his knowledge of clever ways, |90 who had beforehand suffered very many pains [algea] in his heart [thūmos], |91 taking part in wars 4 5

This paragraph is derived from Nagy 2007b:76. On the name of Alkinoos especially, see Frame 2009:54, 245, 266.

273 among men and plowing through so many waves that cause pain, |92 but now he was sleeping peacefully, forgetful of all he had suffered. |93 And when the brightest of all stars began to show, the one that, more than any other star, comes to announce the light of the Dawn born in her earliness, |95 that is when the ship, famed for its travels over the seas, drew near to the island. Odyssey xiii 78-956 10§12. Odysseus has been sailing home on a ship provided by the Phaeacians, against the will of the god Poseidon, and the hero falls into a deep sleep that most resembles death itself (xiii 79–80). This sleep makes him momentarily unconscious: he ‘forgets’, as expressed by the verb lēth- (xiii 92), all the algea ‘pains’ of his past journeys through so many different cities of so many different people (xiii 90-91). Then, at the very moment when the ship reaches the shore of Ithaca, the hero’s homeland, the morning star appears, heralding the coming of dawn (xiii 93–95). The Phaeacians hurriedly leave Odysseus on the beach where they placed him, still asleep, when they landed (xiii 119), and, once they sail away, he wakes up there (xiii 187). So the moment of the hero’s homecoming, which is synchronized with the moment of sunrise, is now further synchronized with a moment of awakening from a sleep that most resembles death.7

The hero’s return to his former social status 10§13. From this moment on, now that Odysseus has succeeded in making his return from his travels, he must succeed also in making another kind of return. That is, he must now return to his former social status as king at home in Ithaca. In the course of the twenty years that elapsed since his departure for Troy, however, the hero’s social status at home has been reduced to nothing. So now, most fittingly, Athena disguises Odysseus as a beggar. Now the hero must work his way up from the bottom of the social scale, starting from nothing. He starts by being a nobody - that is, by being a somebody who has nothing and is therefore a nobody. As a beggar, he hides his social and moral nobility as king. This way, his interaction with the suitors of his wife exposes them as lacking in interior moral nobility despite their

|78 εὖθ’ οἳ ἀνακλινθέντες ἀνερρίπτουν ἅλα πηδῷ, |79 καὶ τῷ νήδυμος ὕπνος ἐπὶ βλεφάροισιν ἔπιπτε, |80 νήγρετος ἥδιστος, θανάτῳ ἄγχιστα ἐοικώς. |81 ἡ δ’, ὥς τ’ ἐν πεδίῳ τετράοροι ἄρσενες ἵπποι, |82 πάντες ἅμ’ ὁρμηθέντες ὑπὸ πληγῇσιν ἱμάσθλης |83 ὑψόσ’ ἀειρόμενοι ῥίμφα πρήσσουσι κέλευθον, |84 ὣς ἄρα τῆς πρύμνη μὲν ἀείρετο, κῦμα δ’ ὄπισθεν |85 πορφύρεον μέγα θῦε πολυφλοίσβοιο θαλάσσης. |86 ἡ δὲ μάλ’ ἀσφαλέως θέεν ἔμπεδον· οὐδέ κεν ἴρηξ |87 κίρκος ὁμαρτήσειεν, ἐλαφρότατος πετεηνῶν· |88 ὣς ἡ ῥίμφα θέουσα θαλάσσης κύματ’ ἔταμνεν, |89 ἄνδρα φέρουσα θεοῖσ’ ἐναλίγκια μήδε’ ἔχοντα, |90 ὃς πρὶν μὲν μάλα πολλὰ πάθ’ ἄλγεα ὃν κατὰ θυμόν, |91 ἀνδρῶν τε πτολέμους ἀλεγεινά τε κύματα πείρων· |92 δὴ τότε γ’ ἀτρέμας εὗδε, λελασμένος ὅσσ’ ἐπεπόνθει. |93 εὖτ’ ἀστὴρ ὑπερέσχε φαάντατος, ὅς τε μάλιστα |94 ἔρχεται ἀγγέλλων φάος Ἠοῦς ἠριγενείης, |95 τῆμος δὴ νήσῳ προσεπίλνατο ποντοπόρος νηῦς. 7 Nagy 2007b:76-77; see also Frame 2009:54.

274 exterior social nobility.8 In the end, of course, the actions of Odysseus reveal him as the true king. (On the king as the embodiment of the body politic, see Hour 9§6 and Hour 6§13 and §47.) 10§14. The societal return of Odysseus from the status of beggar to the status of king by way of killing the suitors is mythologically parallel to the physical return of the warrior from the dangerous fighting at Troy, and also to the physical return of the seafarer from the dangerous voyaging at sea. But this societal return, along with the two physical returns, is parallel also to the psychic return of Odysseus from the realm of darkness and death, which is Hādēs, to the realm of light and life. This parallelism of the societal and the physical and the psychic returns of Odysseus is made explicit in a poem attributed to Theognis of Megara.9 Here is the poem:

Hour 10 Text C |1123 Do not remind me of my misfortunes! The kinds of things that happened to Odysseus have happened to me too. |1124 He came back, emerging from the great palace of Hādēs, |1125 and then killed the suitors with a pitiless heart [thūmos], |1126 while thinking good thoughts about his duly wedded wife Penelope, |1127 who all along waited for him and stood by their dear son |1128 while he [= Odysseus] was experiencing dangers on land and in the gaping chasms of the sea. Theognis 1123-112810

The hero’s return from the cave 10§15. Odysseus is reduced to nothing not only when he first returns to his homeland of Ithaca and gets transformed into a beggar through the agency of his patroness, the goddess Athena. The hero’s social nothingness is preceded by a psychic nothingness that he brings upon himself in the cave of Polyphemus the Cyclops. And that psychic nothingness endangers the noos or ‘mind’ of Odysseus, as we will now see. 10§16. It happens when Odysseus devises the stratagem of calling himself Outis ‘no one’ (Odyssey ix 366) in order to deceive and then blind Polyphemus the Cyclops. The pronoun ou tis ‘no one’ used by the hero for the crafting of his false name deceives not only the Cyclops but 8

Nagy 2007b:77. For more on the contrast between the suitors, who are noble on the outside and base on the inside, and the hero Odysseus when he is disguised as a beggar, who is base on the outside but noble on the inside, see Nagy 1985:74-76 = §§68–70; PH 426-427 = 14§26. 9 There is no fixed date for Theognis: he is credited with the creation of poems that can be dated as far apart as the late seventh and the early fifth centuries BCE. 10 |1123 μή με κακῶν μίμνησκε· πέπονθά τοι οἷά τ’ Ὀδυσσεύς, |1124 ὅστ’ Ἀίδεω μέγα δῶμ’ ἤλυθεν ἐξαναδύς, |1125 ὃς δὴ καὶ μνηστῆρας ἀνείλατο νηλέι θυμῷ, |1126 Πηνελόπης εὔφρων κουριδίης ἀλόχου, |1127 ἥ μιν δήθ’ ὑπέμεινε φίλῳ παρὰ παιδὶ μένουσα, |1128 ὄφρα τε γῆς ἐπέβη δείλ’ ἁλίους τε μυχούς.

275 also the monster’s fellow Cyclopes when they use the same pronoun to ask the blinded Polyphemus this question: perhaps someone has wronged you? (ix 405, 406). The syntax of the question, expressing the uncertainty of the questioners, requires the changing of the pronoun ou tis ‘no one’ into its modal byform mē tis ‘perhaps someone’, which sounds like the noun mētis, which means ‘craft’. The modal byform mē tis is signaling here, by design, the verbal craft used by Odysseus in devising this stratagem.11 And this act of signaling by design is made explicit later on when the narrating hero actually refers to his stratagem as a mētis (ix 414). The same can be said about the hero’s previous stratagem of blinding the Cyclops with a sharpened stake, an act of craftiness compared to the craft of blacksmiths (ix 390-394). These and all other stratagems used by the hero against the Cyclops qualify as mētis ‘craft’ (ix 422).12 10§17. This word mētis ‘craft’ is essential for understanding the epic identity of Odysseus. The rivalry of Odysseus and Achilles in the story of Troy is formalized in a dispute between the two heroes: was the city to be destroyed by biē ‘force’, as represented by the hero Achilles, or by mētis ‘craft’, as represented by Odysseus? There are indirect references to this dispute in both the Iliad and the Odyssey, and some of these references are relevant to the master myths of the two epics (as in Iliad IX 423–426 and in Odyssey viii 72–82 respectively).13 Ultimately, the craft or craftiness of Odysseus in devising the stratagem of the Wooden Horse leads to the destruction of Troy, as narrated by the disguised hero himself in the Odyssey (viii 492–520). This validation of craft at the expense of force does not translate, however, into a validation of Odysseus at the expense of Achilles in the overall story of Troy. As we saw in Hour 9, the story of Troy is the kleos of Achilles in the Iliad, not the kleos of Odysseus in the Odyssey. 10§18. Although Odysseus is credited with the epic feat of destroying the city of Troy, as the Odyssey proclaims at the very beginning (i 2), his kleos in that epic does not and cannot depend on the story of Troy. It depends instead on the story of his homecoming to Ithaca. By contrast, although Achilles is never credited with the destruction of Troy, since he is killed well before that event takes place, his kleos nonetheless depends on the story of Troy. More than that, his kleos is in fact the story of Troy, as we have already seen in Hour 9. The name of the Iliad, which equates itself with the kleos of Achilles, means literally ‘the tale of Ilion’, that is, the story of Troy.14 So, for Odysseus to get his own kleos, which is the story of his homecoming to Ithaca in the Odyssey, he must get over the kleos of Achilles, which is the story of Troy in the Iliad. He must get over the Iliad and get on with the Odyssey. In other words, he must get on with his nostos, which is not only his homecoming to Ithaca but also the song about this

BA 321 = 20§4n7. Nagy 2007b:71. 13 BA 45-46, 47-48 = 3§§5, 7. 14 EH §49. 12

276 homecoming. And to get on with his nostos, his song about homecoming, the hero needs his noos, his special way of ‘thinking’. That is the essence of the master myth of the Odyssey.15 10§19. For Odysseus to get over the Iliad, he must sail past it. His ongoing story, which is the Odyssey, must be about the seafarer who is making his way back home, not about the warrior who once fought at Troy. The kleos of Odysseus at Troy cannot be the master myth of the Odyssey, since the kleos of Achilles at Troy has already become the master myth of the Iliad. As I argued in Hour 9, the kleos of Achilles in the Iliad has preempted a kleos for Odysseus that centers on this rival hero’s glorious exploits at Troy. For the hero of the Odyssey, the ongoing kleos of his adventures in the course of his nostos is actually threatened by any past kleos of his adventures back at Troy. Such a kleos of the past in the Odyssey could not rival the kleos of the more distant past in the Iliad. It would be a false Iliad. That is why Odysseus must sail past the Island of the Sirens. The Sirens, as false Muses, tempt the hero by offering to sing for him an endless variety of songs about Troy in particular and about everything else in general:

Hour 10 Text D |184 Come here, Odysseus, famed for your many riddling words [ainoi], you great glory to the Achaean name, |185 stop your ship so that you may hear our two voices. |186 No man has ever yet sailed past us with his dark ship |187 without staying to hear the sweet sound of the voices that come from our mouths, |188 and he who listens will not only experience great pleasure before he goes back home [neesthai]16 but will also be far more knowledgeable than before, |189 for we know everything that happened at Troy, that expansive place, |190 - all the sufferings caused by the gods for the Argives [= Achaeans] and Trojans |191 and we know everything on earth, that nurturer of all mortals, everything that happens. Odyssey xii 184-19117 10§20. The sheer pleasure of listening to the songs of the Sirens threatens not only the nostos ‘homecoming’ of Odysseus, who is tempted to linger and never stop listening to the endless stories about Troy, but also the soundness of his thinking, his noos. And it even threatens the ongoing song about the hero’s homecoming, that is, the Odyssey itself.18 10§21. Even in situations where the mētis ‘craft’ of Odysseus helps advance the nostos or ‘homecoming’ of the hero in the Odyssey, as also his sound ‘thinking’, his noos, it does nothing 15

BA (1999) xii-xiii = Preface §§16–18, with reference to BA 35-41= 2§§10-18; Nagy 2007b:70. This verb is cognate with the nouns nostos and noos, both of them. 17 |184 δεῦρ’ ἄγ’ ἰών, πολύαιν’ Ὀδυσεῦ, μέγα κῦδος Ἀχαιῶν, |185 νῆα κατάστησον, ἵνα νωϊτέρην ὄπ’ ἀκούσῃς. |186 οὐ γάρ πώ τις τῇδε παρήλασε νηῒ μελαίνῃ, |187 πρίν γ’ ἡμέων μελίγηρυν ἀπὸ στομάτων ὄπ’ ἀκοῦσαι, |188 ἀλλ’ ὅ γε τερψάμενος νεῖται καὶ πλείονα εἰδώς. |189 ἴδμεν γάρ τοι πάνθ’, ὅσ’ ἐνὶ Τροίῃ εὐρείῃ |190 Ἀργεῖοι Τρῶές τε θεῶν ἰότητι μόγησαν, |191 ἴδμεν δ’ ὅσσα γένηται ἐπὶ χθονὶ πουλυβοτείρῃ. 18 BA (1999) xii = Preface §17n; EH §50; Nagy 2007b:70. 16

277 to advance the kleos or poetic ‘glory’ of his past epic exploits at Troy. A case in point is the decisive moment in the Odyssey when Odysseus devises the stratagem of calling himself Outis ‘no one’ (ix 366) in order to deceive and then blind Polyphemus the Cyclops. 10§22. Granted, the stratagem of crafting the false name Outis succeeds in saving the life of Odysseus: when the blinded Cyclops answers the question of his fellow Cyclopes, perhaps someone has wronged you? (ix 405, 406), he uses the non-modal form of the pronoun, saying ou tis ‘no one’ has wronged me (ix 408). Still, though this stratagem succeeds in rescuing Odysseus (and, for the moment, some of his comrades), it fails to rescue the hero’s past kleos in Troy. In fact, the stratagem of Odysseus in calling himself Outis ‘no one’ produces just the opposite effect: it erases any previous claim to any kleos that the hero would have had before he entered the cave of the Cyclops. Such erasure is signaled by the epithet outidanos ‘good-fornothing’, derivative of the pronoun ou tis ‘no one’: whenever this epithet is applied to a hero in the Iliad, it is intended to revile the name of that hero by erasing his epic identity (as in Iliad XI 390). Such erasure means that someone who used to have a name will now no longer have a name and has therefore become a nobody, a no one, ou tis. In the Odyssey, the Cyclops reviles the name of the man who blinded him by applying this same epithet outidanos ‘good-fornothing’ to the false name Outis (ix 460). The effect of applying this epithet completes the erasure of the hero’s past identity that was started by Odysseus when he renamed himself as ou tis ‘no one’. So, Odysseus has suffered a mental erasure. The name that the hero had heretofore achieved for himself has been reduced to nothing and must hereafter be rebuilt from nothing.19 10§23. It is relevant that the annihilation of the hero’s identity happens in the darkness of an otherworldly cave, in the context of extinguishing the light of the single eye of the Cyclops, thereby darkening forever the monster’s power to perceive the truth - unless he hears it. In the poetics of Greek myth, the identity or non-identity of a hero matches the presence or absence of light: in the words of Pindar (Pythian 8.95–97), the difference between being tis ‘someone’ and being ou tis ‘no one’ becomes visible when a burst of light and life coming from Zeus himself illuminates the void of darkness and death.20 10§24. It is just as relevant that the master Narrative of the Odyssey situates Odysseus in the darkness of another otherworldly cave at the very beginning of that narrative. At the point chosen for the beginning of the actual storytelling (entha ‘there’ at Odyssey i 11), the first detail to be narrated is that Odysseus is at this moment being deprived of his nostos (i 13) by a goddess called Calypso (i 14) who is keeping him concealed in her cave (i 15). The feelings of attraction associated with the beautiful nymph Calypso are matched by feelings of repulsion evoked by her terrifying name Kalupsō, derived from the verb kaluptein ‘conceal’: this verb is 19 20

Nagy 2007b:72. Nagy 2000:110-111.

278 traditionally used in ritual formulas of burial, and it conveys the idea of consigning the dead to concealment in the realm of darkness and death (as in Iliad VI 464, XXIII 91).21 10§25. Of all the tales of homecomings experienced by the Achaean heroes after Troy, whether these homecomings succeed or fail, only the tale of Odysseus is still untold at the beginning of the Odyssey. His homecoming is the only homecoming still in doubt. This is the point being made at the very start of the tale: that the narrative is being kept in a state of suspension, and the cause of this suspension is said to be the goddess Calypso, who is preventing Odysseus from his nostos (i 13) by keeping him concealed in her cave (i 15). For the narrative to start, the nostos of Odysseus has to be activated, and so the Olympian gods intervene to ensure the eventual homecoming of Odysseus to Ithaca (i 16–17).22 10§26. In Odyssey v, the Olympians send the god Hermes as their messenger to Calypso, and he tells her that she must allow Odysseus to make his way back home. So she must stop preventing Odysseus from getting started with the master myth of the Odyssey. That master myth is the nostos of Odysseus, which must be not only the hero’s homecoming but also the song about his homecoming. 10§27. The role of the goddess Calypso in threatening to prevent the nostos of the hero Odysseus is reflected in the tales that she herself tells the god Hermes about other heroes who became lovers of other goddesses: the outcome of these tales is death (Odyssey v 118–129). For example, the hero Orion is killed off by Artemis because he became the lover of Eos, the goddess of the dawn (v 121–124). And the narrative of the Odyssey actually foretells a similar death for Odysseus - if he had continued to be the lover of Calypso (v 271–275).23 10§28. The relationship of Odysseus and Calypso shows that the nostos of the hero is not only a ‘homecoming’ but also, more basically, a ‘return’. That is, the nostos of the hero is not only a return to Ithaca but also, in a mystical sense, a return to light and life.24 To return from the cave of Calypso at the end of Odyssey xii is to return from the darkness and death of that cave. The same can be said about the return of Odysseus from the cave of the Cyclops Polyphemus at the end of Odyssey ix. Even more basically, the same can also be said about the return of Odysseus from Hādēs at the beginning of Odyssey xii. Here too we see the theme of returning to light and life.25

Nagy 2007b:72-73. See also GM 254n108; Crane 1988. Nagy 2007b:73. 23 BA 202-203 = 10§39. 24 Frame 1978. 25 Nagy 2007b:73. 22

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The return to light and life 10§29. This grand theme of returning to light and life takes shape at the beginning of Odyssey xi, when Odysseus starts to make his descent into Hādēs after a series of wanderings that take him farther and farther westward toward the outer limits of the world. The island of the goddess Circe, situated at these outer limits in the Far West, becomes the point of departure for the hero’s planned entry into Hādēs (xi 1–12), but the actual point of entry is situated even farther west than that mystical island, since Odysseus has to cross the river Okeanos before he can cross over into Hādēs (xi 13, 21). The Okeanos must be even farther west than the island of Circe. That is because the Okeanos is the absolute marker of the Far West.26 10§30. The Okeanos is situated at the outermost limits of the world, which is encircled by its stream. The circular stream of the Okeanos flows eternally around the world and eternally recycles the infinite supply of fresh water that feeds upon itself (Iliad XIV 246–246a, XVIII 399, XX 65).27 This mystical river Okeanos, surrounding not only the earth but even the seas surrounding the earth, defines the limits of the known world. Every evening, as the sun sets at sunset, it literally plunges into the fresh waters of this eternally self-recycling cosmic stream (Iliad VIII 485), and it is from these same fresh waters that the sun rises again every morning at sunrise (Iliad VII 421–423; Odyssey xix 433–434).28 10§31. After his sojourn in Hādēs, which is narrated in Odyssey xi, Odysseus finally emerges from this realm of darkness and death at the beginning of Odyssey xii. But the island of Circe is no longer in the Far West. When Odysseus returns from Hādēs, crossing again the circular cosmic stream of Okeanos (xii 1–2) and coming back to his point of departure, that is, to the island of the goddess Circe (xii 3), we find that this island is no longer in the Far West: instead, it is now in the Far East, where Helios the god of the sun has his ‘sunrises’, an(a)tolai (xii 4) and where Eos the goddess of the dawn has her own palace, featuring a special space for her ‘choral dancing and singing’, khoroi (xii 3–4). Before the hero’s descent into the realm of darkness and death, we saw the Okeanos as the absolute marker of the Far West; after his ascent into the realm of light and life, we see it as the absolute marker of the Far East.29 In returning to the island of Circe by crossing the circular cosmic river Okeanos for the second time, the hero has come full circle, experiencing sunrise after having experienced sunset.30 Even the name of Circe may be relevant, since the form Kirkē may be cognate with the form

Nagy 2007b:73-74. HC 248-276, 282-294, 2§§123-178, 191-227. 28 Nagy 2007b:74. 29 See also GM 237. 30 Nagy 2007b:74. 27

280 kirkos, a variant of the noun krikos, meaning ‘circle, ring’.31 As we will now see, this experience of coming full circle is a mental experience - or, to put it another way, it is a psychic experience.

The journey of a soul 10§32. This return of the hero from the realm of darkness and death into the realm of light and life is a journey of a soul. The word that I translate for the moment as ‘soul’ is psūkhē . As we have seen in Hour 8, this word psūkhē is used in Homeric poetry to refer to the spirit of the dead - or to the life of the living.32 10§33. In Hour 7, I used a neutral translation of this word’s meaning, as ‘spirit’, but then, in Hour 8, I concentrated on the more basic meaning of psūkhē is ‘breath of life’, which in the context of hero cults signals the vital force that departs from the body of the hero at the moment of death - only to be reunited with that body after a transition, through Hādēs, into a paradisiacal setting that transcends the temporal and the spatial constraints of mortality.33 Such a mystical reunion of the body with the psūkhē is the essence of heroic immortalization.34 In terms of this formulation, as I noted in Hour 8, there is transition of the psūkhē through Hādēs: so this realm of Hādēs is transitional, not eschatological. Here in Hour 10, I return to the distinction I was making in Hour 8 between transitional and eschatological phases in an afterlife. 10§34. As we saw in Hour 8§§40-48, the use of the word psūkhē in Homeric poetry indicates that this poetry recognizes and even accepts the idea of heroic immortalization, though this idea is expressed only implicitly.35 Here in Hour 10, I use the translation ‘soul’ for psūkhē, with the understanding that the idea of an immortalized ‘soul’ is only implicit in Homeric poetry. 10§35. The journey of the soul after death replicates the journey of the sun after sunset, as we see from the wording of a death wish expressed by Penelope in the Odyssey: after dying, she pictures herself as journeying to the Far West and, once there, plunging into the waters of the Okeanos (xx 61–65).36 As we saw earlier, the sun is imagined as plunging into these waters

Chantraine DELG s.v. κρίκος. The variant form kirkos (κίρκος) is attested already in the diction of Aeschylus (Prometheus 74 κιρκηλάτου, from the denominative verb kirkoûn). 32 See also GM 87–93. 33 GM 88-93, 115-116. 34 GM 126n30, 142. 35 Detailed arguments in Nagy 2012. 36 GM 99n61.

281 at sunset and then emerging from these same waters at sunrise. So also the soul of the hero can be imagined as replicating that same cycle.37 10§36. But the return of the hero’s psūkhē to light and life at sunrise is not made explicit in Homeric poetry. Instead, Odysseus himself personally experiences such a return when he returns from Hādēs at the beginning of Odyssey xii. This experience of Odysseus, by way of replicating the mystical journey of the sun, is a substitute for the mystical journey of a soul. This way, the nostos of Odysseus, as an epic narrative, becomes interwoven with a mystical subnarrative. While the epic narrative tells about the hero’s return to Ithaca after all the fighting at Troy and all the travels at sea, the mystical subnarrative tells about the soul’s return from darkness and death to light and life.38 10§37. In some poetic traditions, the mystical subnarrative of the hero’s nostos can even be foregrounded, as we saw in Text C, which I repeat here: |1123 Do not remind me of my misfortunes! The kinds of things that happened to Odysseus have happened to me too. |1124 He came back, emerging from the great palace of Hādēs, |1125 and then killed the suitors with a pitiless heart [thūmos], |1126 while thinking good thoughts about his duly wedded wife Penelope, |1127 who all along waited for him and stood by their dear son |1128 while he [= Odysseus] was experiencing dangers on land and in the gaping chasms of the sea. Theognis 1123-1128 10§38. The return of Odysseus from Hādēs leads to a rebuilding of his heroic identity. Earlier in the Odyssey, the status of Odysseus as a hero of epic had already been reduced to nothing. As we saw in the tale of his encounter with the Cyclops, the return of Odysseus from the monster’s cave deprives him of his past identity at Troy. His epic fame can no longer depend on his power of mētis ‘craft’, which had led to the invention of the Wooden Horse, which in turn had led to the destruction of Troy. After his encounter with the Cyclops, Odysseus must achieve a new epic identity as the hero of his own epic about homecoming, about his own nostos, but, for the moment, his confidence in his power to bring about this nostos is reduced to nothing. He has lost his confidence in the power of his own mētis ‘craftiness’ to devise a stratagem for achieving a nostos. When he reaches the island of Circe and learns that this place, though it first seems familiar and reminiscent of his own island, is in fact strange and alien and antithetical to home, he despairs (x 190-202).39 10§39. The Homeric passage where Odysseus expresses his desperation shows why he despairs. He thinks he has lost his mētis: 37

Nagy 2007b:74-75, with reference to GM 90-91. Nagy 2007b:75. 39 Nagy 2007b:77. 38

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Hour 10 Text E |190 My friends, I am speaking this way because I do not know which place is west and which place is east |191 - which is the place where the sun, bringing light for mortals, goes underneath the earth |192 and which is the place where it rises. Still, let us start thinking it through, as quickly as we can, |193 whether there is still any craft [mētis] left. I must tell you, though, I think there is none. Odyssey x 190-19340 10§40. The hero feels he has no mētis or ‘craft’ left in him to devise a stratagem for a successful homecoming, and his despair is expressed as a feeling of disorientation. He is no longer able to distinguish between orient and occident. To restate in terms of two words used elsewhere in the Odyssey, the hero is experiencing a loss of orientation in his noos or ‘thinking’, and this loss is presently blocking his nostos ‘homecoming’.41 10§41. The hero’s despair makes his comrades despair as well: as soon as they hear the news of their leader’s disorientation, they break down and cry (x 198–202) as they recall Antiphates the Laestrygonian and Polyphemus the Cyclops (x 199–200). Strangely, when the comrades of Odysseus recall Polyphemus, the monster is described by way of the epithet megalētōr ‘great-hearted’ (x 200), and this same description applies also to Antiphates in an alternative version of a verse attested in the Odyssey (x 106). Beyond these two attestations, this epithet occurs nowhere else in the Odyssey, whereas it occurs regularly as a conventional description of generic warriors in the Iliad.42 Why, then, are both Antiphates and Polyphemus described by way of an Iliadic epithet? It is relevant that Antiphates, like Polyphemus, is an eater of raw human flesh in the Odyssey (x 116). In the Iliad, the urge to eat raw human flesh is experienced by heroes in their darkest moments of bestial fury, as when Achilles says he is sorely tempted to cut up and eat raw his deadliest enemy, Hector (XXII 346–347). So the recalling of the monsters Antiphates and Polyphemus at a moment of disorientation in the Odyssey is like a nightmare that conjures up the worst moments of epic heroes. Those moments include not only the cannibalistic feasts of these two monsters, as experienced by Odysseus and his comrades since they left Troy. It evokes also some of the worst moments experienced by all the Achaeans when they were still at Troy. In other words, the heroic disorientation of Odysseus in the Odyssey evokes nightmarish memories of heroic dehumanization in the Iliad.43

|190 ὦ φίλοι, οὐ γὰρ ἴδμεν ὅπῃ ζόφος οὐδ’ ὅπῃ ἠώς, |191 οὐδ’ ὅπῃ ἠέλιος φαεσίμβροτος εἶσ’ ὑπὸ γαῖαν |192 οὐδ’ ὅπῃ ἀννεῖται· ἀλλὰ φραζώμεθα θᾶσσον, |193 εἴ τις ἔτ’ ἔσται μῆτις· ἐγὼ δ’ οὐκ οἴομαι εἶναι. 41 Nagy 2007b:78. The next paragraph is also derived from this source. 42 BA 321 = 20§4n8. 43 BA 319-321 = 20§4

283 10§42. Despite such moments of disorientation for Odysseus, his noos ‘thinking’ ultimately reorients him, steering him away from his Iliadic past and toward his ultimate Odyssean future. That is, the hero’s noos makes it possible for him to achieve a nostos, which is not only his ‘homecoming’ but also the ‘song about a homecoming’ that is the Odyssey. For this song to succeed, Odysseus must keep adapting his identity by making his noos fit the noos of the many different characters he encounters in the course of his nostos in progress. In order to adapt, he must master many different forms of discourse, many different kinds of ainos. That is why he is addressed as poluainos ‘having many different kinds of ainos’ by the Sirens when he sails past their island (xii 184).44 10§43. Even the transparent meaning of Polyphemus (Poluphēmos), the name of the Cyclops blinded by Odysseus, foretells the hero’s mastery of the ainos. As an adjective, poluphēmos means ‘having many different kinds of prophetic utterance’, derived from the noun phēmē ‘prophetic utterance’ (as in xx 100, 105);45 this adjective is applied as an epithet to the singer Phēmios (xxii 376), portrayed in the Odyssey as a master of the phēmē ‘prophetic utterance’.46 In the case of Polyphemus, the very meaning of his name, which conveys the opposite of the meaning conveyed by the false name of Odysseus, Outis ‘no one’, foretells the verbal mastery of the hero who blinded the monster.47 10§44. After the return of Odysseus from Hādēs, he finds his way to the island of the Phaeacians, where he starts the process of rebuilding his epic identity from nothing by retelling for them all his experiences since he left Troy. This retelling, which extends from the beginning of Odyssey ix to the end of Odyssey xii, is coterminous with the telling of the Odyssey up to the point where Odysseus leaves the cave of Calypso. Then, after Odysseus finishes his narration, he leaves the island of the Phaeacians and finally comes back home to Ithaca, where his narration is taken over by the master Narrator of the Odyssey. The process of rebuilding the hero’s epic identity continues in the master Narration, but now the direct mode of speaking used by Odysseus in telling the Phaeacians about his ongoing nostos gives way to an indirect mode, analogous to the indirect mode of speaking that he had used earlier before he made contact with the Phaeacians. Now, after his encounter with the Phaeacians, Odysseus becomes once again the master of the ainos.48 10§45. From here on, the tales Odysseus tells are masterpieces of mythmaking as embedded in the master myth of the Odyssey. One such tale is a “Cretan lie” told by the disguised Odysseus to the swineherd Eumaios about the Trojan War (xiv 192–359).49 At a later 44

BA 240 = 12§19n1; PH 236-237 = 8§30. HR 55–59. 46 BA 17 = 1§4n1. 47 Nagy 2007b:78-79. 48 Nagy 2007b:79. The next paragraph is also derived from this source. 49 BA 138-139, 234-235 = 7§26, 12§14. 45

284 point in their verbal exchanges, Eumaios refers to another tale told by Odysseus about the Trojan War (xiv 462–506) by describing it as a faultless ainos (xiv 508).50 As a master of the ainos, Odysseus keeps on adapting his identity by making his noos fit the noos of the many different characters he encounters. And the multiple ainoi of Odysseus can thus be adapted to the master myth of the Odyssey. 10§46. By the time all is said and done in the master myth of the Odyssey, the character of Odysseus has become fully adapted to his ultimate role as the multiform central hero of this epic, a fitting counterpoint to the monolithic central hero of the Iliad, Achilles. This ultimate adaptation of Odysseus demonstrates his prodigious adaptability as a character in myth. He is the ultimate multiform. That is why he is called polutropos at the very beginning of the Odyssey, that is, ‘the one who could change in many different ways who he was’ (i 1).51 10§47. Odysseus can be all things to all people. His character undergoes the most fantastic imaginable adventures of the mind during his journeys - and the most realistic personal experiences when he finally reaches his home in Ithaca. The psychological realism of this hero’s character when we see him at home with himself tempts us to forget about the fantastic journeys of his psūkhē in alien realms. Our sense of the familiar blocks our sense of the unfamiliar. Our mentality as modern readers invites us to see Odysseus at home as “reality” and Odysseus abroad as “myth,” as if the myth of the hero contradicted the reality of the hero.52 10§48. Such a split vision is a false dichotomy. The reality of Odysseus is in fact the myth of Odysseus, since that myth derives from the historical reality of Homeric poetry as a medium of myth. The reality of the myth is the reality of the medium that conveys the myth to its listeners over time. 10§49. At the beginning of the Odyssey, as we saw at the start of this hour, both the epic narrative about the hero’s return to his home and the mystical subnarrative about the soul’s return to light and life are recapitulated in the double meaning of psūkhē as either ‘life’ or ‘soul’. I repeat here the first five verses of Text A: |1 That man, tell me O Muse the song of that man, that versatile [polu-tropos] man, who in very many ways |2 veered from his path and wandered off far and wide, after he had destroyed the sacred city of Troy. |3 Many different cities of many different people did he see, getting to know different ways of thinking [noos]. |4 Many were the pains [algea] he suffered in his heart [thūmos] while crossing the sea |5 struggling to merit [arnusthai] the

BA 234-237 = 12§§14–16. Nagy 2007b:79-80. 52 Nagy 2007b:80. The next paragraph is also derived from this source. 51

285 saving of his own life [psūkhē ] and his own homecoming [nostos] as well as the homecoming of his companions. Odyssey i 1-5 10§50. Initially, I had translated psūkhē simply as ‘life’ in this context, where we see Odysseus struggling to save his own life But by now we see that Odysseus is at the same time struggling to save his ‘soul’. That struggle is the journey of his soul, undertaken by the noos ‘mind’ of Odysseus.

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Hour 11. Blessed are the heroes: the cult hero in Homeric poetry and beyond The meaning of olbios 11§1. They key word for this hour is olbios, which as we will see means ‘blessed’ or even ‘blissful’ for those who are initiated into the mysteries of hero cult but simply ‘prosperous, happy’ for the uninitiated. As we will also see, the cult hero is olbios ‘blessed’ after he or she dies, and the worshipper of a cult hero can become olbios ‘blessed’ by making mental contact with the hero - which can be achieved by way of physical contact with the earth that contains the corpse of the hero or even with a relic or simulacrum of the hero. 11§2. In the first text to be considered, we find the word olbios used with reference to Achilles as a cult hero. The reference is stylized, since Homeric poetry tends to avoid explicit references to hero cult, but the language used in the reference is consistent with the traditional understanding about cult heroes: that they were mortals made immortal after death, and that this immortalization led to the establishment of hero cults in the context of the tombs where the heroes’ bodies were buried after a proper funeral.1 Later on, in Text G, we will see the same word olbios used with reference to Odysseus as a would-be cult hero. 11§3. Here, then, is the text featuring the word olbios as applied to Achilles:

Hour 11 Text A |36 O you blessed [olbios] son of Peleus, godlike Achilles, |37 you who died at Troy far from Argos. And others, those all around you [= your corpse], |38 were being slaughtered, sons of both Trojans and Achaeans, the best, |39 as they were fighting over you [= your corpse]. There you were, lying in a swirl of dust. |40 You lay there so huge in all your hugeness, no longer thinking about your feats of charioteering. … |43 Then, when we had taken you [= your corpse] to the ships, out of the fray, |44 we laid you on your bed and cleansed your beautiful skin |45 with warm water and with oil. And, crying over you, many tears |46 did the Danaans [= Achaeans] shed, hot tears, and they cut their hair. |47 Your mother came, with her immortal sea nymphs, from out of the sea, |48 as soon as she heard, and the sound of a great wailing went forth over the sea, |49 a sound too wondrous for words, and all the Achaeans were overcome with trembling. … |58 Standing around you were the daughters of the Old One of the sea [= Nereus], |59 weeping piteously, and they [= the Nereids] clothed you [= the corpse of Achilles] in immortalizing clothes. |60 The nine Muses also came, all of them, and sang antiphonally with a beautiful voice, |61 singing their song of lament [thrēneîn]; you could not spot a single person who was not sheeding tears, of all the Argives 1

In Nagy 2012, I survey the most striking examples of Homeric references to (1) hero cults and (2) the idea of immortalization in the contexts of these cults.

287 [= Achaeans], so loudly did the piercing sound of lament rise up. |63 Days and nights seven and ten |64 we mourned you, mortals and immortals alike, |65 but on the eighteenth day we gave you to the flames, and, over the fire, many |65 fat sheep and many horned oxen did we slay in sacrifice. |67 You were burning while clothed in the clothes of the gods, and with plenty of olive oil, |68 also sweet honey. And a multitude of Achaean heroes |69 were dancing in their armor around the pyre as you were burning. |70 There were footsoldiers and charioteers, and a great din arose. |71 But when the flames of Hephaistos had consumed you, |72 we gathered your white bones at dawn, O Achilles, and laid them |73 in unmixed wine and in oil. Your mother gave |74 a golden amphora to hold them - she had received it as a gift from Dionysos, |75 she said, and it was the work of the famed Hephaistos himself; |76 in this [amphora] were placed your white bones, O luminous Achilles, |77 mixed together with the bones of Patroklos who had died before you, |78 and separately from the bones of Antilokhos, whom you honored most of all |79 your other comrades after Patroklos had died. |80 Over these bones a huge and faultless tomb [tumbos] |81 was built; it was a tumulus that we the sacred army of spear-fighting Argives [= Achaeans] heaped up, |82 at a headland jutting out over the open Hellespont, |83 so that it might be visible, shining forth from afar, for men at sea [pontos] |84 now living and for those that will be born hereafter. |85 Your mother [Thetis] asked for and received from the gods very beautiful prizes [aethla], |86 and she placed them in the middle of the place for competition [agōn] among the noblest of the Achaeans. |87 You must have been present at funerals of many men |88 who were heroes, and so you know how, at the death of some great king, the young men gird themselves and make ready to contend for prizes [aethla], |90 but even you would have been most amazed in your heart [thūmos] to see those things, |91 I mean, those beautiful prizes that were set up by the goddess in your honor [epi soi], |92 by silver-footed Thetis. For you were so very dear to the gods. |93 Thus, even in death, your glorious name, Achilles, has not been lost, and you will have for all eternity, |94 among all humankind, a glory [kleos] that is genuine, Achilles. |95 As for me, what solace had I in this, that the days of my fighting were over? |96 For, in the course of my homecoming [nostos], Zeus willed a catastrophic [lugros] destruction for me, |97 at the hands of Aegisthus and of my catastrophic [oulomenē] wife. Odyssey xxiv 36-972 2

|36 ὄλβιε Πηλέος υἱέ, θεοῖσ’ ἐπιείκελ’ Ἀχιλλεῦ, |37 ὃς θάνες ἐν Τροίῃ ἑκὰς Ἄργεος· ἀμφὶ δέ σ’ ἄλλοι |38 κτείνοντο Τρώων καὶ Ἀχαιῶν υἷες ἄριστοι, |39 μαρνάμενοι περὶ σεῖο· σὺ δ’ ἐν στροφάλιγγι κονίης |40 κεῖσο μέγας μεγαλωστί, λελασμένος ἱπποσυνάων. … |43 αὐτὰρ ἐπεί σ’ ἐπὶ νῆας ἐνείκαμεν ἐκ πολέμοιο, |44 κάτθεμεν ἐν λεχέεσσι, καθήραντες χρόα καλὸν |45 ὕδατί τε λιαρῷ καὶ ἀλείφατι· πολλὰ δέ σ’ ἀμφὶ |46 δάκρυα θερμὰ χέον Δαναοὶ κείροντό τε χαίτας. |47 μήτηρ δ’ ἐξ ἁλὸς ἦλθε σὺν ἀθανάτῃσ’ ἁλίῃσιν |48 ἀγγελίης ἀΐουσα· βοὴ δ’ ἐπὶ πόντον ὀρώρει |49 θεσπεσίη, ὑπὸ δὲ τρόμος ἤλυθε πάντας Ἀχαιούς. … |58 ἀμφὶ δέ σ’ ἔστησαν κοῦραι ἁλίοιο γέροντος |59 οἴκτρ’ ὀλοφυρόμεναι, περὶ δ’ ἄμβροτα εἵματα ἕσσαν. |60 Μοῦσαι δ’ ἐννέα πᾶσαι ἀμειβόμεναι ὀπὶ καλῇ |61 θρήνεον· ἔνθα κεν οὔ τιν’ ἀδάκρυτόν γ’ ἐνόησας |62 Ἀργείων· τοῖον γὰρ ὑπώρορε Μοῦσα λίγεια. |63 ἑπτὰ δὲ καὶ δέκα μέν σε ὁμῶς νύκτας τε καὶ ἦμαρ |64 κλαίομεν

288 11§4. The speaker here is the ghost or, more accurately, the psūkhē ‘spirit’ of Agamemnon (xxiv 35), who is addressing Achilles, likewise described as a psūkhē (xxiv 24). At this moment, both psūkhai are in Hādēs. As I argued in Hour 8, Hādēs is a point of transition that can lead from death to immortalization - provided that the ritual prerequisites of hero cult are followed correctly. These prerequisites are in fact being met in the case of Achilles, as we know from the words spoken by Agamemnon in describing the funeral of Achilles and the making of his tomb. As we will see, the funeral and the tomb of a hero are two main prerequisites for hero cult. And, as we will also see, the status of the cult hero as olbios or ‘blessed’ is a third main prerequisite. So, it is significant that the psūkhē of Agamemnon addresses the psūkhē of Achilles by calling him olbios at the beginning of the text I just quoted. Later on, I will argue that both these words, olbios and psūkhē, convey the promise of heroic immortalization after death.3 But first, I propose to delve into other salient details in Text A.

Signs of hero cult 11§5. Text A, as I just quoted it, contains some of the clearest references to hero cult in Homeric poetry. In what follows, I will analyze a few of these references. 11§6. I start with the tumulus that will become the tomb shared by Achilles and Patroklos (xxiv 80-84). The reference here in the Odyssey to the shared tomb of Achilles and Patroklos complements a set of stylized references to what is understood to be the same tomb

ἀθάνατοί τε θεοὶ θνητοί τ’ ἄνθρωποι· |65 ὀκτωκαιδεκάτῃ δ’ ἔδομεν πυρί· πολλὰ δ’ ἐπ’ αὐτῷ |66 μῆλα κατεκτάνομεν μάλα πίονα καὶ ἕλικας βοῦς. |67 καίεο δ’ ἔν τ’ ἐσθῆτι θεῶν καὶ ἀλείφατι πολλῷ |68 καὶ μέλιτι γλυκερῷ· πολλοὶ δ’ ἥρωες Ἀχαιοὶ |69 τεύχεσιν ἐρρώσαντο πυρὴν πέρι καιομένοιο, |70 πεζοί θ’ ἱππῆές τε· πολὺς δ’ ὀρυμαγδὸς ὀρώρει. |71 αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ δή σε φλὸξ ἤνυσεν Ἡφαίστοιο, |72 ἠῶθεν δή τοι λέγομεν λεύκ’ ὀστέ’, Ἀχιλλεῦ, |73 οἴνῳ ἐν ἀκρήτῳ καὶ ἀλείφατι. δῶκε δὲ μήτηρ |74 χρύσεον ἀμφιφορῆα· Διωνύσοιο δὲ δῶρον |75 φάσκ’ ἔμεναι, ἔργον δὲ περικλυτοῦ Ἡφαίστοιο. |76 ἐν τῷ τοι κεῖται λεύκ’ ὀστέα, φαίδιμ’ Ἀχιλλεῦ, |77 μίγδα δὲ Πατρόκλοιο Μενοιτιάδαο θανόντος, |78 χωρὶς δ’ Ἀντιλόχοιο, τὸν ἔξοχα τῖες ἁπάντων |79 τῶν ἄλλων ἑτάρων μετὰ Πάτροκλόν γε θανόντα. |80 ἀμφ’ αὐτοῖσι δ’ ἔπειτα μέγαν καὶ ἀμύμονα τύμβον |81 χεύαμεν Ἀργείων ἱερὸς στρατὸς αἰχμητάων |82 ἀκτῇ ἔπι προὐχούσῃ, ἐπὶ πλατεῖ Ἑλλησπόντῳ, |83 ὥς κεν τηλεφανὴς ἐκ ποντόφιν ἀνδράσιν εἴη |84 τοῖσ’, οἳ νῦν γεγάασι καὶ οἳ μετόπισθεν ἔσονται. |85 μήτηρ δ’ αἰτήσασα θεοὺς περικαλλέ’ ἄεθλα |86 θῆκε μέσῳ ἐν ἀγῶνι ἀριστήεσσιν Ἀχαιῶν. |87 ἤδη μὲν πολέων τάφῳ ἀνδρῶν ἀντεβόλησας |88 ἡρώων, ὅτε κέν ποτ’ ἀποφθιμένου βασιλῆος |89 ζώννυνταί τε νέοι καὶ ἐπεντύνωνται ἄεθλα· |90 ἀλλά κε κεῖνα μάλιστα ἰδὼν θηήσαο θυμῷ, |91 οἷ’ ἐπὶ σοὶ κατέθηκε θεὰ περικαλλέ’ ἄεθλα, |92 ἀργυρόπεζα Θέτις· μάλα γὰρ φίλος ἦσθα θεοῖσιν. |93 ὣς σὺ μὲν οὐδὲ θανὼν ὄνομ’ ὤλεσας, ἀλλά τοι αἰεὶ |94 πάντας ἐπ’ ἀνθρώπους κλέος ἔσσεται ἐσθλόν, Ἀχιλλεῦ· |95 αὐτὰρ ἐμοὶ τί τόδ’ ἦδος, ἐπεὶ πόλεμον τολύπευσα; |96 ἐν νόστῳ γάρ μοι Ζεὺς μήσατο λυγρὸν ὄλεθρον |97 Αἰγίσθου ὑπὸ χερσὶ καὶ οὐλομένης ἀλόχοιο. 3 See also Nagy 2012:49-50.

289 in the Iliad (especially XIX 368-380; XXIII 125-126, 245-248).4 And the Homeric description of the tomb shared by these two heroes matches what we know about the tombs of cult heroes from sources external to Homeric poetry.5 11§7. After building the tomb, the Achaeans hold funeral games in honor of Achilles (xxiv 85-86). The details that we find in the narrative about these games match closely the details we can gather from historical evidence about athletic contests held in honor of cult heroes.6 11§8. The contests at the funeral games of Achilles and the prizes to be won in these contests are instituted for the purpose of compensating for his death, and such an act of compensation is expressed by way of the prepositional phrase epi soi (ἐπὶ σοί) at xxiv 91, which can be translated roughly as ‘in your honor’. As we can see clearly from a variety of other sources, which I examined already in Comment 8a above, the syntactical construct combining the preposition epi with the dative case of any given hero’s name refers to the cult of that hero.7 11§9. I find it relevant here to focus on a detail at xxiv 37-39, where we see that the Achaeans and the Trojans are battling over the possession of the corpse of Achilles.8 The mentality of needing to possess the body of the dead hero, whether he was a friend or an enemy in life, is typical of hero cults, in that the corpse of the cult hero was viewed as a talisman of fertility and prosperity for the community that gained possession of the hero’s body.9 4

Detailed analysis in HPC 149-170 = II §§50-89. As I point out in that analysis, it is made clear in XXIII 245-248 that the tomb to be shared by Achilles and Patroklos should be incomplete while only Patroklos occupies it, and that the final act of making the complete tomb must wait till the death of Achilles. That final act is what we see described in Odyssey xxiv 80-84. I should add that the setting of the tomb of Achilles and Patroklos, as primarily indicated by the word aktē ‘promontory’ in Odyssey xxiv 82, is consistent with the setting for the funeral of Patroklos as described in the Iliad: here too the primary indicator is the same word aktē, as we see in the contexts of XVIII 68, XXIII 125-126, XXIV 97. 5 GM 220; in n52, there is an analysis of the relevant testimony of Pausanias 2.12.5. 6 BA 116-117 = 6§30. 7 See also PH 121 = 4§7. Perhaps the most striking example is this entry in the dictionary attributed to Hesychius: Βαλλητύς· ἑορτὴ Ἀθήνησιν, ἐπὶ Δημοφῶντι τῷ Κελεοῦ ἀγομένη ‘balletus: a festival event at Athens, held in honor of Demophon son of Keleos’ (further references to this athletic event of simulated warfare in PH 121 = 4§7n26). 8 Narratives about this kind of battle are attested also in the visual arts. To cite just one example here, there is a Rhodian Black Figure plate, dated to the second half of the seventh century BCE (London, British Museum 1860,0404.1 A 749), showing the figures of Menelaos and Hector battling over the corpse of Euphorbos (see Bravo 2009:17). 9 PH 32, 178 = 1§29, 6§59; EH §97.

290 11§10. There is a related detail at xxiv 39-40: the corpse of Achilles is described here as larger than life.10 As we see from lore preserved in the historical period about cult heroes, they were conventionally pictured as far larger in death than they had been in life.11 11§11. The future immortalization of the dead hero in the context of hero cult is indicated by the epithet for the clothes that cover the hero’s body: as we see at xxiv 59, the divine mother of Achilles and her sister Nereids clothe the hero’s corpse in ‘immortalizing’ clothes.12 So there is a special meaning built into the description of the cremation at xxiv 67: ‘you were burning while clothed in the clothes of the gods’. 11§12. We see at xxiv 73-77 another indication of the dead hero’s future immortalization: after the cremation of the corpse of Achilles, his bones and those of the already cremated corpse of Patroklos are placed into a golden amphora that had been given by the god Dionysus to the goddess Thetis. This amphora, as we know from the comparative evidence of other poetic references (especially Stesichorus PMG 234), will mystically bring the hero back to life.13 11§13. We have already seen a variation on the theme of this hero’s immortalization in the epic Cycle:

Hour 11 Text B = Hour 4 Text I |12 … Thetis |13 comes with the Muses and her sisters and makes a lament [thrēnos] for her son. |14 After that, Thetis snatches him off the funeral pyre and carries her |15 son over to the White Island [Leukē ]. Meanwhile the Achaeans |16 make [for Achilles] a tomb [taphos] and hold funeral games. plot-summary by Proclus of the Aithiopis by Arctinus of Miletus p. 106 lines 12-16 11§14. The question arises: how can a cult hero be visualized as existing in two places at the same time? In the case of Achilles, for example, we see him immortalized in a paradisiacal 10

I draw special attention to the wording at xxiv 39-40: σὺ δ’ ἐν στροφάλιγγι κονίης | κεῖσο μέγας μεγαλωστί ‘There you were, lying in a swirl of dust. | You lay there so huge in all your hugeness’. This same wording applies to Achilles also in Iliad XVIII 26-27, where he stages himself as a corpse in mourning the death of Patroklos and where he is mourned by Thetis as if he were already a corpse (BA 113 = 6§24, especially with reference to XVIII 71). At XVI 775-776, cognate wording applies to the corpse of the hero Kebriones. The corpse of Achilles is described as nine cubits long in the Alexandra of Lycophron (860). 11 Survey by Brelich 1958:233-234. Among the striking examples in this survey is the corpse of Orestes as cult hero, described in Herodotus 1.68. 12 On the vital importance of understanding ambrotos as ‘immortalizing’ as well as ‘immortal’, I refer to my argumentation in GM 141, with reference especially to Iliad XVI 670 and 680. 13 Nagy 2012:50-51, following BA 209 = 10§50; see also Dué 2001.

291 setting, the White Island (Leukē), but we also envision him as the occupant of a tomb that contains his corpse. The answer is, such a bifocal view of the immortalized hero is typical of the mentality of hero cults. Here I review the formulation I gave about this mentality in Hour 8: The cult hero was considered dead - from the standpoint of the place where the hero’s sōma or ‘body’ was situated; at the same time, the hero was considered simultaneously immortalized - from the standpoint of the paradisiacal place that awaited all heroes after death. Such a paradisiacal place, which was considered eschatological, must be contrasted with Hādēs, which was considered transitional. The name and even the visualization of this otherworldly place varied from hero cult to hero cult. Some of these names are: Elysium (Ēlusion), the Islands of the Blessed (Nēsoi Makarōn), the White Island (Leukē), and, exceptionally, even Mount Olympus in the case of Hēraklēs. Many of these names were applied also to the actual site or sacred precinct of the hero cult.14 11§15. Of all these paradisiacal locations that are reserved for immortalized heroes, I highlight here the Islands of the Blessed, since we know a detail about the inhabitants of this mythical place that helps explain why Achilles is addressed as olbios ‘blessed’ at the beginning of Text A, Odyssey xxiv 36. In the Hesiodic Works and Days, this same word olbios is used to describe cult heroes who are immortalized after death and who enjoy a state of bliss in the Islands of the Blessed, which is a paradisiacal setting that transcends the temporal and the spatial constraints of mortality:15

Hour 11 Text C |170 And they live with a carefree heart [thūmos] |171 on the Islands of the Blessed [Nēsoi Markarōn] on the banks of the deep-swirling river Okeanos, |172 blessed [olbioi] heroes [hērōes] that they are, and for them there is a honey-sweet fruit [karpos] |173 that comes to fruition three times each year, produced by the life-giving land. Hesiod Works and Days 170-17316 11§16. As we can see from this text, heroes who are pictured as inhabitants of such paradisiacal settings qualify as olbioi ‘blessed’ (verse 172). So Achilles, as the once and future inhabitant of the White Ilsand, which is another such paradisacal setting, likewise qualifies as olbios ‘blessed’. That is why, I argue, he is addressed as olbios ‘blessed’ at the beginning of Text A, in Odyssey xxiv 36. 14

This formulation is derived from EH §98. For an extended discussion, see BA ch. 10 (“Poetic Visions of Immortality for the Hero”). 15 GM 126, with further references. 16 |170 καὶ τοὶ μὲν ναίουσιν ἀκηδέα θυμὸν ἔχοντες |171 ἐν μακάρων νήσοισι παρ’ Ὠκεανὸν βαθυδίνην, |172 ὄλβιοι ἥρωες, τοῖσιν μελιηδέα καρπὸν |173 τρὶς ἔτεος θάλλοντα φέρει ζείδωρος ἄρουρα.

292

Different meanings of the word olbios for the initiated and for the uninitiated 11§17. Whereas the word olbios can be understood as ‘blessed’ in the sacral context of hero cults, in non-sacral contexts it can be understood neutrally as ‘fortunate’. We see both meanings of olbios being used in a story of Herodotus (1.29-33) about an encounter of Croesus the king of Lydia with Solon the Athenian lawgiver. Testing Solon, Croesus asks him to name the most olbios person on earth (1.30.2), expecting that Solon will name Croesus himself (1.30.3). To his great disappointment, Croesus is told by Solon that an Athenian named Tellos is the most olbios of all humans (1.30.3-5), and that the second-most olbioi are the brothers Kleobis and Biton of Argos (1.31.1-5). As the story progresses, it becomes clear that Croesus understands the word olbios only in the non-sacral sense of ‘fortunate’, while Solon understands it also in the deeper sacral sense of ‘blessed’, referring to the blissful state of afterlife that is granted by the gods to Tellos of Athens and to the brothers Kleobis and Biton of Argos, since both the Athenian and the two Argive brothers turn out to be cult heroes.17 I will have more to say in Hour 13 about these cult heroes, but I need to highlight, already now, the mentality of mysticism that we see at work in the bifocal meaning of olbios in this story of Herodotus. As the story implies, only those who are initiated into the mysteries of hero cult can understand the sacral meaning of olbios.18 This sacral meaning, I argue, centers on the idea of heroic immortalization after death, which was a traditional teaching to be learned by worshippers of cult heroes in the context of initiation into the mysteries of hero cult. The actual procedures involved in such initiation will be explored in Hour 15, and for now I highlight simply the existence of these mysteries. The evidence comes from traditional wording that refers to initiation. 11§18. The idea of a deeper level of understanding, made available only to initiates, is most evident in contexts where the word olbios refers to the bliss of initiation into mysteries of immortalization in general, as we see from the use of this word with reference to the Eleusinian Mysteries:19

Hour 11 Text D olbios is he among earthbound humans who has seen these things Homeric Hymn to Demeter 48020 Here is another example, found in a song of lament (thrēnos) composed by Pindar:21

Nagy 2012:58-59, following PH 243-247 = 8§§45-48. Nagy 2012:59. 19 PH 245 = 8§46n128. 20 ὄλβιος ὃς τάδ’ ὄπωπεν ἐπιχθονίων ἀνθρώπων. 21 PH 245-246 = 8§46. 18

293

Hour 11 Text E olbios is he who has already seen those things when he goes below the earth Pindar Fragment 13722 11§19. Such contexts show that any initiate is olbios in the sense of ‘blessed’ only to the extent of knowing that you cannot achieve true blessedness before you experience death, which brings immortalization after death. To illustrate this point, I quote here from an inscription written on a gold lamella from Thourioi. This inscribed lamella, dated to the fourth century BCE, was found in a tomb, where it had been buried together with a dead man who is addressed with the following words: olbie kai makariste ‘O blessed one, you who are called blessed’ (IG XIV 641 = Orphicorum Fragmenta 488, line 9).23 As we can see from the wording in this inscription, only the immortalized dead can truly be addressed as olbioi.24 And there are many other attestations of such inscriptions, which can be seen as initiatory texts that were meant to guide the dead toward some kind of an immortalized existence.25 11§20. By now we can understand more clearly the point of the story of Herodotus about Croesus and Solon: only the initiated can understand the deeper meaning of the word olbios. And, it is important to add, only the initiated can understand the aphorism uttered by Solon, when he says that you should call no man olbios until he is dead. First, Solon lists some examples of good fortune (1.32.5-6) and then, after he finishes these examples, Solon adds:

Hour 11 Text F If, in addition to all these things [= the examples of good fortune that I have listed], someone reaches the end [teleutân] of one’s life in a good way, then this someone is the person that you [= Croesus] are looking for, that is, the person who deserves to be called olbios; but before someone reaches the end [teleutân], you should hold off from calling him olbios. Rather, just call him fortunate [eutukhēs]. Herodotus 1.32.726

How a Homeric hero can become truly olbios 11§21. By now we have seen that you cannot achieve a state of immortalization until after you are dead: until that time comes, you may be eutukhēs ‘fortunate’ from one moment to 22

ὄλβιος ὅστις ἰδὼν κεῖν’ εἶσ’ ὑπὸ χθόν’… . ὄλβιε καὶ μακαριστέ: we see here the vocatives of olbios and makaristos, both meaning ‘blessed’. The numbering of lines in this fragment from Thourioi follows the edition of Bernabé 2005. 24 Nagy 2012:59. 25 For a useful collection of such inscriptions, I cite the work of Tzifopoulos 2010. 26 εἰ δὲ πρὸς τούτοισι ἔτι τελευτήσει τὸν βίον εὖ, οὗτος ἐκεῖνος τὸν σὺ ζητέεις, ὁ ὄλβιος κεκλῆσθαι ἄξιός ἐστι· πρὶν δ’ ἂν τελευτήσῃ, ἐπισχεῖν μηδὲ καλέειν κω ὄλβιον, ἀλλ’ εὐτυχέα. 23

294 the next, but you cannot be truly olbios. This formula holds not only for figures like Croesus, who had fancied himself to be the most olbios of all humans in his time, but also for the Homeric heroes themselves: even such figures as Achilles and Odysseus cannot be cult heroes until they are dead, and so they cannot be truly olbioi until they reach a blissful state of immortalization after death. 11§22. In testing this formulation, I start with a passage that seems at first to contradict what I just said. When the psūkhē of Agamemnon, speaking from Hādēs, apostrophizes the still living Odysseus, here is what he says:

Hour 11 Text G |192 O blessed [olbios] son of Laertes, Odysseus of many wiles, |193 it is truly with great merit [aretē] that you got to have your wife.27 |194 For the thinking [phrenes] of faultless Penelope was sound: |195 she, daughter of Ikarios, kept Odysseus, well in mind, |196 that lawfullywedded husband of hers. Thus the glory [kleos] will never perish for him, |197 the glory that comes from his merit [aretē],28 and a song will be created for humans |198 by the immortals a song that brings beautiful and pleasurable recompense29 for sensible Penelope |199 - unlike the daughter of Tyndareos [= Clytemnestra], who devised evil deeds, |200 killing her lawful husband, and a hateful subject of song |201 she will be throughout all humankind, and she will give a harsh reputation |202 to women, female [thēluterai]30 that they are - even for the kind of woman who does noble things.31 Odyssey xxiv 192-20232

In the original Greek wording, the prepositional phrase meaning ‘with great merit’ cannot “modify” a noun, and so we cannot translate this wording as ‘you got to have a wife with great merit’, in the sense of ‘you got to have a wife who has great merit’; rather, the phrase modifies the verb ‘you got’. 28 I translate ‘his merit’, not ‘her merit’, interpreting this instance of aretē at verse 197 as referring to the previous instance, at verse 193. 29 The epithet for aoidē ‘song’ here is khariessa ‘having kharis’, and I interpret the concept of kharis as ‘beautiful and pleasurable recompense’ in this context. On kharis as a word that conveys both beauty and pleasure, see HC 203-204 = 2§33.. 30 In the original Greek, thēluterai does not mean ‘more female’ but rather ‘female - as opposed to male’. 31 I offer an extensive commentary on this text in BA 36-38 = 2§13. 32 |192 ὄλβιε Λαέρταο πάϊ, πολυμήχαν’ Ὀδυσσεῦ, |193 ἦ ἄρα σὺν μεγάλῃ ἀρετῇ ἐκτήσω ἄκοιτιν· |194 ὡς ἀγαθαὶ φρένες ἦσαν ἀμύμονι Πηνελοπείῃ, |195 κούρῃ Ἰκαρίου, ὡς εὖ μέμνητ’ Ὀδυσῆος, |196 ἀνδρὸς κουριδίου. τῶ οἱ κλέος οὔ ποτ’ ὀλεῖται |197 ἧς ἀρετῆς, τεύξουσι δ’ ἐπιχθονίοισιν ἀοιδὴν |198 ἀθάνατοι χαρίεσσαν ἐχέφρονι Πηνελοπείῃ, |199 οὐχ ὡς Τυνδαρέου κούρη κακὰ μήσατο ἔργα, |200 κουρίδιον κτείνασα πόσιν, στυγερὴ δέ τ’ ἀοιδὴ |201 ἔσσετ’ ἐπ’ ἀνθρώπους, χαλεπὴν δέ τε φῆμιν ὀπάσσει |202 θηλυτέρῃσι γυναιξί, καὶ ἥ κ’ εὐεργὸς ἔῃσιν.

295 11§23. The word olbios that we see being used here in the first verse is as yet ambivalent: we cannot be sure whether it means ‘fortunate’ or ‘blessed’. While a hero like Odysseus is still alive, it is dangerous for him to be described as olbios in the sense of ‘blessed’. A negative example of what can happen is the case of the hero Priam. Most telling are the words that Achilles addresses to him toward the end of the Iliad: ‘I hear that you, old man, were once upon a time olbios’ (Iliad XXIV 543).33 When Achilles is saying this to Priam, the old man is experiencing the worst moments of his life. During those moments, he is neither fortunate nor blessed. Only after death could Priam ever become truly olbios.34 As we will see in the case of Odysseus, however, the Odyssey shows that this Homeric hero is ultimately not only fortunate but also blessed, and so the epithet olbios will in fact ultimately apply to him. 11§24. Most telling here is a related context of the same word olbios, which I have already quoted in Text A: in the first verse there, we read ‘O you olbios son of Peleus, godlike Achilles’ (xxiv 36).35 There in Text A, as also here in Text G, the speaker is the psukhē of Agamemnon (xxiv 35), and he is speaking there to the psukhē of Achilles (xxiv 24). In that case, Achilles is by now already dead, already housed in his tomb, already a cult hero. In such a sacral context, the word olbios can safely be rendered as ‘blessed’ or ‘blissful’.36 11§25. There is a supreme irony in the fact that the speaker who is calling Achilles olbios or ‘blessed’ in Text A (xxiv 36) is the psūkhē of Agamemnon. Since the quarrel of that hero with Achilles was so central to the Trojan War at the beginning of the Iliad, it is striking to see what Agamemnon is now saying to Achilles in Text A, which is located at the end of the Odyssey and which is showing a retrospective on the entire Trojan War. By now Agamemnon is accepting the status of Achilles as the ultimate winner in the story of the Trojan War. In fact, Agamemnon is even accepting his own status as the ultimate loser. 11§26. Further, in admitting that he is the loser, Agamemnon becomes a foil not only for Achilles but also for Odysseus. And, like Achilles, Odysseus is another ultimate winner though this hero wins only in the Odyssey, not in the Iliad. As we saw in Text G, Odysseus owes his own successful homecoming to the faithfulness of his wife Penelope, who deserves only praise (xxiv 193-198). And it is in this context of success that Agamemnon addresses Odysseus as olbios ‘blessed’ (xxiv 192). By contrast, as we saw in Text A, Agamemnon blames his own wife Clytemnestra for sabotaging his own ‘homecoming’ or nostos (xxiv 96). 11§27. We saw in Text A that Agamemnon contrasts his loss of ‘homecoming’ or nostos (xxiv 96) with the poetic ‘glory’ or kleos (xxiv 94) that Achilles will keep forever. But now, in Text G, we see that Agamemnon makes another basic contrast - between himself and Odysseus. 33

καὶ σὲ γέρον τὸ πρὶν μὲν ἀκούομεν ὄλβιον εἶναι. Nagy 2012:59-60. 35 ὄλβιε Πηλέος υἱέ, θεοῖσ’ ἐπιείκελ’ Ἀχιλλεῦ. 36 Nagy 2012:60. 34

296 What caused Agamemnon to lose his own kleos - and his own nostos - was the fact that his wife was Clytemnestra, who was unfaithful to him and who contrived his murder (xxiv 199-202). By contrast, the faithfulness of Penelope to Odysseus helped that hero secure his own kleos (xxiv 196, in the context of 196-198). To add to the irony, Agamemnon’s words in Text A describe his violent death as lugros ‘catastrophic’ (xxiv 96) and his wife Clytemnestra as oulomenē ‘catastrophic’ (xxiv 97). Both of these epithets, as we saw earlier, are words that evoke the poetry of epic: lugros ‘catastrophic’ is the epithet of both the nostos or ‘song about homecoming’ that Phemios sings in Odyssey i 327 (Hour 9 Text D) and of the nostos that Nestor narrates in Odyssey iv 132 (Hour 9 Text E), while oulomenē ‘catastrophic’ is the epithet of the anger of Achilles in Iliad I 2 (Hour 9§29).

The death of Odysseus 11§28. As we have already seen in Text A, Achilles is called olbios ‘blessed’ in Odyssey xxiv 36 precisely because his corpse is already housed in a tomb, as described in xxiv 80-84. So now the question arises: if Odysseus is rightfully to be called olbios ‘blessed’ in Odyssey xxiv 192, where is his tomb? And we have to ask another question even before that: how did Odysseus die? 11§29. We can find an answer to both questions by considering the use of the word sēma in both the Iliad and the Odyssey. In Odyssey xxiv 80-84, the tomb that Achilles shares with Patroklos is called a tumbos (xxiv 80), but we can see from references in the Iliad that the word sēma does in fact apply to this tomb. In Iliad XXIV 16, the tomb of Patroklos is explicitly called a sēma, and, at an earlier point in the narrative of the Iliad, this tomb is described as incomplete: it will not be complete until Achilles himself is buried there together with his best friend Patroklos (XXIII 245-248). 11§30. As I argued at length in Hour 7, quoting Text A there, the word sēma is used in Iliad XXIII 331 with reference to the same tomb; and, in that same quoted text, we see the same word sēma five verses earlier in Iliad XXIII 326, where it refers to the riddling ‘sign’ given by Nestor to Antilokhos - a sign from the father that will instruct the son about how to make a successful left turn around the tomb, used as the turning point of the chariot race in honor of the dead Patroklos. I now concentrate on the riddling use of this word sēma as the ‘sign’ of a cult hero in that text. I quote again from Hour 7 Text A the relevant verse:

Hour 11 Text H And I [= Nestor] will tell you [= Antilokhos] a sign [sēma], a very clear one, which will not get lost in your thinking. Iliad XXIII 32637 37

σῆμα δέ τοι ἐρέω μάλ’ ἀριφραδές, οὐδέ σε λήσει.

297 11§31. From what we have seen so far in Hours 7 and 8, Nestor’s sēma for Antilokhos is a ‘sign’ of death as marked by the ‘tomb’ of a cult hero who has not yet been identified as Patroklos. But now we will see that this sēma is also a ‘sign’ of life after death, as marked by the same ‘tomb’.38 11§32. The words spoken by Nestor to Antilokhos in the verse I just quoted again from Iliad XXIII 326 are matched exactly in the Odyssey, in a riddling context that refers to the death of Odysseus and, as we will see later, to the tomb that will be built for him:

Hour 11 Text I I [= Teiresias] will tell you [= Odysseus] a sign [sēma], a very clear one, which will not get lost in your thinking. Odyssey xi 12639 11§33. This verse in Odyssey xi 126 (rephrased later in xxiii 273) comes toward the end of a prophecy spoken by the psukhē of the seer Teiresias (xi 90, 150; xxiii 251), who appears to Odysseus during that hero’s mystical sojourn in Hādēs. Now I quote here the entire text of that prophecy:

Hour 11 Text J |90 Then came also the ghost [psūkhē] of Theban Teiresias, |91 with his golden scepter in his hand. He recognized me and said, |92 “Odysseus, you who are descended from the gods, noble son of Laertes, |93 why, wretched man, have you left the light of day |94 and come down to see the dead in this place without any delights? |95 Stand back from the trench and withdraw your sharp sword |96 so that I may drink of the blood and tell you unmistakably true things.” |97 So he spoke, and I [= Odysseus] drew back, and sheathed my silver-studded sword, |98 putting it back into the scabbard, and then he [= Teiresias], after he had drunk the black blood, |99 began to address me with his words, faultless seer [mantis] that he was: |100 “It’s your homecoming [nostos] that you seek, a homecoming sweet as honey, O radiant Odysseus. |101 But the god will make this hard for you. I say that because I do not think |102 that the earth-shaking god [= Poseidon] will not take notice, who has lodged in his heart [thūmos] an anger [kotos] against you, |103 being angry that you blinded his dear son [= Polyphemus]. |104 Still, even so, after much suffering you all may get home |105 if you are willing to restrain your own heart [thūmos] and the heart of your companions |106 when you pilot your well-built ship to |107 the island of Thrinacia, seeking refuge from the violetcolored sea, and when you find the grazing cattle and the sturdy sheep |109 that belong to the god of the sun, Helios, who sees everything and hears everything. |110 If you leave these 38 39

Nagy 2012:57, following GM 219. σῆμα δέ τοι ἐρέω μάλ’ ἀριφραδές, οὐδέ σε λήσει.

298 herds unharmed and think only about homecoming [nostos], |111 then you could still make it to Ithaca, arriving there after having suffered many bad experiences. |112 But if you harm the herds, then I forewarn you of destruction |113 both for your ship and for your companions, and, even if you may yourself escape, |114 you will return [neîsthai] in a bad way, losing all your companions, |115 in someone else’s ship, not your own, and you will find painful things happening in your house, |116 I mean, you will find high-handed men there who are devouring your livelihood while they are courting your godlike wife and and offering wedding-presents to her. |118 But you will avenge the outrages committed by those men when you get home. |119 After you kill the suitors in your own house, |120 killing them either by trickery or openly, by way of sharp bronze, |121 you must go on a journey then, taking with you a well-made oar, |122 until you come to a place where men do not know what the sea is |123 and do not even eat any food that is mixed with sea salt, |124 nor do they know anything about ships, which are painted purple on each side, |125 and well-made oars that are like wings for ships. |126 And I will tell you a sign [sēma], a very clear one, which will not get lost in your thinking. |127 Whenever someone on the road encounters you |128 and says that it must be a winnowing shovel that you have on your radiant shoulder, |129 at that point you must stick into the ground the well-made oar |130 and sacrifice beautiful sacrifices to lord Poseidon |131 a ram, a bull, and a boar that mounts sows. |132 And then go home and offer sacred hecatombs |133 to the immortal gods who possess the vast expanses of the skies. |134 Sacrifice to them in proper order, one after the other. As for yourself, death shall come to you from the sea, |135 a gentle death, that is how it will come, and this death will kill you |136 as you lose your strength in a prosperous old age. And the people all around [your corpse] |137 will be blessed [olbioi]. All the things I say are unmistakably true.” Odyssey xi 90-13740 40

|90 ἦλθε δ’ ἐπὶ ψυχὴ Θηβαίου Τειρεσίαο, |91 χρύσεον σκῆπτρον ἔχων, ἐμὲ δ’ ἔγνω καὶ προσέειπε· |92 “διογενὲς Λαερτιάδη, πολυμήχαν’ Ὀδυσσεῦ, |93 τίπτ’ αὖτ’, ὦ δύστηνε, λιπὼν φάος ἠελίοιο |94 ἤλυθες, ὄφρα ἴδῃ νέκυας καὶ ἀτερπέα χῶρον; |95 ἀλλ’ ἀποχάζεο βόθρου, ἄπισχε δὲ φάσγανον ὀξύ, |96 αἵματος ὄφρα πίω καί τοι νημερτέα εἴπω.” |97 ὣς φάτ’, ἐγὼ δ’ ἀναχασσάμενος ξίφος ἀργυρόηλον |98 κουλεῷ ἐγκατέπηξ’. ὁ δ’ ἐπεὶ πίεν αἷμα κελαινόν, |99 καὶ τότε δή μ’ ἐπέεσσι προσηύδα μάντις ἀμύμων· |100 “νόστον δίζηαι μελιηδέα, φαίδιμ’ Ὀδυσσεῦ· |101 τὸν δέ τοι ἀργαλέον θήσει θεός. οὐ γὰρ ὀΐω |102 λήσειν ἐννοσίγαιον, ὅ τοι κότον ἔνθετο θυμῷ, |103 χωόμενος ὅτι οἱ υἱὸν φίλον ἐξαλάωσας. |104 ἀλλ’ ἔτι μέν κε καὶ ὧς, κακά περ πάσχοντες, ἵκοισθε, |105 αἴ κ’ ἐθέλῃς σὸν θυμὸν ἐρυκακέειν καὶ ἑταίρων, |106 ὁππότε κεν πρῶτον πελάσῃς εὐεργέα νῆα |107 Θρινακίῃ νήσῳ, προφυγὼν ἰοειδέα πόντον, |108 βοσκομένας δ’ εὕρητε βόας καὶ ἴφια μῆλα |109 Ἠελίου, ὃς πάντ’ ἐφορᾷ καὶ πάντ’ ἐπακούει. |110 τὰς εἰ μέν κ’ ἀσινέας ἐάᾳς νόστου τε μέδηαι, |111 καί κεν ἔτ’ εἰς Ἰθάκην, κακά περ πάσχοντες, ἵκοισθε· |112 εἰ δέ κε σίνηαι, τότε τοι τεκμαίρομ’ ὄλεθρον |113 νηΐ τε καὶ ἑτάροισ’. αὐτὸς δ’ εἴ πέρ κεν ἀλύξῃς, |114 ὀψὲ κακῶς νεῖαι, ὀλέσας ἄπο πάντας ἑταίρους, |115 νηὸς ἐπ’ ἀλλοτρίης· δήεις δ’ ἐν πήματα οἴκῳ, |116 ἄνδρας ὑπερφιάλους, οἵ τοι βίοτον κατέδουσι |117 μνώμενοι ἀντιθέην ἄλοχον καὶ ἕδνα διδόντες. |118 ἀλλ’ ἦ τοι κείνων γε βίας ἀποτείσεαι ἐλθών· |119 αὐτὰρ ἐπὴν μνηστῆρας ἐνὶ μεγάροισι τεοῖσι |120 κτείνῃς ἠὲ δόλῳ ἢ ἀμφαδὸν ὀξέϊ χαλκῷ, |121 ἔρχεσθαι δὴ ἔπειτα, λαβὼν εὐῆρες ἐρετμόν, |122 εἰς ὅ κε τοὺς ἀφίκηαι,

299 11§34. The mysticism of this passage is highlighted by a fact that we can see only when we read the original Greek wording of Text J here: the very first word uttered by the psūkhē (xi 90) of Teiresias as a mantis or ‘seer’ (xi 99) after he has drunk the blood of freshly-sacrificed sheep (xi 98) is the word nostos (xi 100). Here is the Greek wording: noston dizēai meliēdea …, which I translated as ‘It’s your homecoming [nostos] that you seek, a homecoming sweet as honey ….’.41 The use of this word here is connected with the fact that, earlier in the narrative, the seer Teiresias is described as exceptionally possessing consciousness even in Hādēs, where other psūkhai are merely skiai ‘shadows’ that flit about without any consciousness, and the word used here for the idea of consciousness is noos:

Hour 11 Text K |490 But first you [= Odysseus] must complete [teleîn] another journey and travel until enter |491 the palace of Hādēs and of the dreaded Peresephone, |493 and there you all will consult [khrē-] the psūkhē of Teiresias of Thebes, |493 the blind seer [mantis], whose thinking [phrenes] is grounded: |494 to him, even though he was dead, Persephone gave consciousness [noos], |495 so as to be the only one there who has the power to think [pepnusthai]. But the others [in Hādēs] just flit about, like shadows [skiai]. Odyssey x 490-49542 11§35. The speaker here is the goddess Circe, and the words of her own prophecy here in Odyssey x about the later prophecy made by the psūkhē of the seer Teiresias in Odyssey xi can be viewed as a re-enactment of the etymological link, which I explored already in Hour 10, between noos as a mystical form of ‘consciousness’ and nostos as a mystical form of ‘homecoming’ or ‘coming to’ from a state of darkness and death to a state of life and light. And it is relevant that the noos or ‘consciousness’ of the psūkhē of the seer Teiresias becomes activated, as it were, only after he drinks the blood of a sacrificial animal that Odysseus has slaughtered in order to make mental contact with the cult hero (xi 96, 98). That animal, as we learn from the explicit instructions of Circe, is a black ram intended only for Teiresias (x 524οἳ οὐκ ἴσασι θάλασσαν |123 ἀνέρες οὐδέ θ’ ἅλεσσι μεμιγμένον εἶδαρ ἔδουσιν· |124 οὐδ’ ἄρα τοὶ ἴσασι νέας φοινικοπαρῄους, |125 οὐδ’ εὐήρε’ ἐρετμά, τά τε πτερὰ νηυσὶ πέλονται. |126 σῆμα δέ τοι ἐρέω μάλ’ ἀριφραδές, οὐδέ σε λήσει· |127 ὁππότε κεν δή τοι ξυμβλήμενος ἄλλος ὁδίτης |128 φήῃ ἀθηρηλοιγὸν ἔχειν ἀνὰ φαιδίμῳ ὤμῳ, |129 καὶ τότε δὴ γαίῃ πήξας εὐῆρες ἐρετμόν, |130 ἕρξας ἱερὰ καλὰ Ποσειδάωνι ἄνακτι, |131 ἀρνειὸν ταῦρόν τε συῶν τ’ ἐπιβήτορα κάπρον, |132 οἴκαδ’ ἀποστείχειν ἕρδειν θ’ ἱερὰς ἑκατόμβας |133 ἀθανάτοισι θεοῖσι, τοὶ οὐρανὸν εὐρὺν ἔχουσι, |134 πᾶσι μάλ’ ἑξείης. θάνατος δέ τοι ἐξ ἁλὸς αὐτῷ |135 ἀβληχρὸς μάλα τοῖος ἐλεύσεται, ὅς κέ σε πέφνῃ |136 γήρᾳ ὕπο λιπαρῷ ἀρημένον· ἀμφὶ δὲ λαοὶ |137 ὄλβιοι ἔσσονται. τὰ δέ τοι νημερτέα εἴρω.” 41 νόστον δίζηαι μελιηδέα… . 42 |490 ἀλλ’ ἄλλην χρὴ πρῶτον ὁδὸν τελέσαι καὶ ἱκέσθαι |491 εἰς Ἀΐδαο δόμους καὶ ἐπαινῆς Περσεφονείης |492 ψυχῇ χρησομένους Θηβαίου Τειρεσίαο, |493 μάντιος ἀλαοῦ, τοῦ τε φρένες ἔμπεδοί εἰσι· |494 τῷ καὶ τεθνηῶτι νόον πόρε Περσεφόνεια |495 οἴῳ πεπνῦσθαι· τοὶ δὲ σκιαὶ ἀΐσσουσιν.

300 525). And, as we have seen already in the Introduction to Homeric poetry (0§11), a black ram is the preferred sacrifical animal to slaughter for the purpose of making mental contact with a male cult hero. 11§36. In an essay entitled “Sēma and Noēsis: The Hero’s Tomb and the ‘Reading’ of Symbols in Homer and Hesiod,” I analyzed at some length the mystical prophecy spoken by the psūkhē of the seer Teiresias as I have just quoted it in Text J.43 As I argued in that essay, the verses of the prophecy point to the future death of Odysseus and to the mystical vision of his own tomb, where he will be worshipped as a cult hero.44 11§37. Most revealing is the description of what will happen to people who live in the proximity of the corpse of Odysseus as a cult hero: ‘And the people all around [your corpse] |136 will be blessed [olbioi]’45 (xi 136-137; retold at xxiii 283-284). Here I return to an analogous set of verses, already quoted in Text A, which describe the corpse of Achilles: ‘And others, those all around you [= your corpse], |38 were being slaughtered, sons of both Trojans and Achaeans, the best, |39 as they were fighting over you [= your corpse]’46 (xxiv 37-39).47 11§38. Having noted this analogy, which touches on the idea of possessing the corpse of the cult hero (I analyzed this idea earlier in this hour, in §9), I can now turn to the meaning of the word olbioi describing those who find themselves in the proximity of Odysseus as cult hero (xi 137, xxiii 284). In the Hesiodic Works and Days (172), already quoted in Text C, this same word olbioi describes cult heroes who are immortalized after death and who enjoy a state of bliss in a paradisiacal setting that transcends the temporal and the spatial constraints of mortality.48 11§39. In such a sacral context, as we have already noted, the word olbioi means ‘blessed’ or ‘blissful’, and I argue that this same meaning applies also to ordinary humans who come into mental and even physical proximity with cult heroes by way of worshipping them. We will see in Hours 13 and 14 some historical examples of hero cults that express the idea of such mental and physical contact. In the sacral context of such contact, as we will also see, the worshippers can be at least momentarily blessed. By contrast, the immortalized cult heroes whom they worship are permanently blessed. The distribution of blessings may be inequitable, but at least the worshippers experience a momentary transfer of bliss from the cult heroes. And there is another side to the picture: whereas the word olbioi can be rendered as ‘blessed’ or ‘blissful’ in such sacral contexts, in non-sacral contexts it can be rendered neutrally as 43

Nagy 1983a, as recast in GM 202-222. GM 212-214. 45 ἀμφὶ δὲ λαοὶ |136 ὄλβιοι ἔσσονται. 46 ἀμφὶ δέ σ’ ἄλλοι |38 κτείνοντο Τρώων καὶ Ἀχαιῶν υἷες ἄριστοι |39 μαρνάμενοι περὶ σεῖο. 47 Nagy 2012:58. 48 Nagy 1990b:126, with further references. 44

301 ‘fortunate’. A perfect example is the saying of Solon in the narrative of Herodotus, as quoted already in Text F. 11§40. As I bring this part of my argumentation to a close, I need to emphasize again what I had emphasized already in the Introduction to Homeric poetry (0§13): references to hero cults tend to be implicit, not explicit, in this poetry. And that is because the religious practice of hero cults is fundamentally a local phenomenon (0§14, 8§39), while the Homeric tradition is non-local or Panhellenic, as I emphasized already in the Introduction to the whole book (00§§10-14). We need to keep in mind the non-local orientation of Homeric poetry as we consider the reference in Odyssey xi 136-137, as quoted in Text J, to people who are olbioi ‘blessed’ in the context of the death of Odysseus. Homeric poetry says only implicitly, not explicitly, that these people are made ‘blessed’ because they worship Odysseus as a cult hero whose corpse is buried in the earth that they cultivate, and that this ‘blessing’ is realized by way of physical contact with the earth containing the corpse of the hero. This poetry refers only implicitly to existing practices of hero cult, without explicitly revealing the mysteries of the hero cult. As I promised earlier, we will explore some details about these practices when we reach Hour 15.

A mystical vision of the tomb of Odysseus 11§41. I turn to an example of the mysteries of hero cult as implied in Homeric poetry. I have in mind the passage from the Odyssey that I have quoted in Text J, xi 90-136, where the psūkhē of Teiresias, during his moments of consciousness after drinking the sacrificial ram’s blood that is poured for him by Odysseus (xi 95-96, 98), foretells the story of Odysseus beyond the Odyssey as we know it. In this meta-narrative, we see that Odysseus confronts his death in a mystical moment where he experiences a coincidence of opposites. And what is this mystical moment? It is a point where the sea and the negation of the sea coincide. That is, Odysseus goes as far away as possible from the sea, only to experience death from the sea: ‘death shall come to you from the sea, |135 a gentle death’49 (xi 134-135). And it is at this same point where the oar that he carries on his shoulder, which is an instrument linked exclusively with the sea, is mistaken for a winnowing shovel, which is an instrument linked exclusively with the earth, that is, with the cultivation of the land: ‘Whenever someone on the road encounters you |128 and says that it must be a winnowing shovel that you have on your radiant shoulder’50 (xi 127128). And here is another coincidence of opposites: Odysseus at this point must sacrifice to Poseidon, god of the sea (xi 130-131) - even though this point is as far away from the sea as possible. And now we come to a mystical vision: in sacrificing to Poseidon, Odysseus must mark the place of sacrifice by sticking into the ground the oar that he was carrying on his

θάνατος δέ τοι ἐξ ἁλὸς αὐτῷ |135 ἀβληχρὸς μάλα τοῖος ἐλεύσεται. |127 ὁππότε κεν δή τοι ξυμβλήμενος ἄλλος ὁδίτης |128 φήῃ ἀθηρηλοιγὸν ἔχειν ἀνὰ φαιδίμῳ ὤμῳ. 50

302 shoulder: ‘at that point you must stick into the ground the well-made oar’51 (xi 129). As I will now argue, what we are seeing here is a mystical vision of the tomb of Odysseus himself. 11§42. The key to my argument is what the psūkhē of Teiresias says in introducing his prophecy: ‘And I [= Teiresias] will tell you [= Odysseus] a sign [sēma], a very clear one, which will not get lost in your thinking’ (xi 126).52 As I noted earlier, the wording here matches exactly the wording of Nestor addressed to Antilokhos in the Iliad: ‘And I [= Nestor] will tell you [= Antilokhos] a sign [sēma], a very clear one, which will not get lost in your thinking’53 (XXIII 326). And, to repeat what we have seen in Hours 7 and 8, the sēma of Nestor for Antilokhos is a ‘sign’ as marked by the ‘tomb’ of a cult hero who has not yet been identified as Patroklos. In the Odyssey as well, I argue, the sēma of Teiresisas for Odysseus is a ‘sign’ as marked by the ‘tomb’ of a cult hero who has not yet been identified as Odysseus himself. 11§43. There is archaeological evidence for the existence of a hero cult of Odysseus on the island of Ithaca, dating back to an early period when the Odyssey as we know it was still taking shape.54 And, in the version of the story as we see it in the Odyssey, Odysseus dies finally in Ithaca, which figures here as his homeland (xi 132-138). In terms of this version of the story, then, it must be the inhabitants of Ithaca who will be olbioi ‘blessed’ as a result of the hero’s death (xi 136-137; retold at xxiii 283-284). And so we may infer that Ithaca is recognized in the Odyssey as a prime location for the hero cult of Odysseus. 11§44. This is not to say, however, that Ithaca was the only place where Odysseus was worshipped as a cult hero. From the testimony of Pausanias, for example, we see traces of a hero cult of Odysseus in landlocked Arcadia, which is located in the Peloponnesus and which is as far away from the sea as you can possibly be in the Peloponnesus:

Hour 11 Text L There is a path leading uphill from Asea [in Arcadia] to the mountain called the North Mountain [Boreion], and on top of that mountain there are traces of a sacred space; it is said that Odysseus had made this sacred space in honor of Athena the Savior [Sōteira] and in honor of Poseidon, in return for his having arrived back home safely from Ilion [= Troy]. Pausanias 8.44.455

καὶ τότε δὴ γαίῃ πήξας εὐῆρες ἐρετμόν. σῆμα δέ τοι ἐρέω μάλ’ ἀριφραδές, οὐδέ σε λήσει· 53 σῆμα δέ τοι ἐρέω μάλ’ ἀριφραδές, οὐδέ σε λήσει. 54 Currie 2005:57, with reference to Odyssey xiii 96-112, 345-371. 55 ἔστι δὲ ἄνοδος ἐξ Ἀσέας ἐς τὸ ὄρος τὸ Βόρειον καλούμενον, καὶ ἐπὶ τῇ ἄκρᾳ τοῦ ὄρους σημεῖά ἐστιν ἱεροῦ· ποιῆσαι δὲ τὸ ἱερὸν Ἀθηνᾷ τε Σωτείρᾳ καὶ Ποσειδῶνι Ὀδυσσέα ἐλέγετο ἀνακομισθέντα ἐξ Ἰλίου. 52

303 11§45. Here we see once again the same coincidence of opposites that we saw in Text J, Odyssey xi 127-131, where Odysseus must make a sacrifice to Poseidon, god of the sea, at a place that is removed as far away as possible from the sea. Both Text J and Text L, where we have just read the report of Pausanias (8.44.4) about a sacred space in Arcadia that Odysseus established in honor of Poseidon, point to the existence of hero cults for Odysseus. What both texts have in common is the idea that Odysseus will put an end to the antagonism that exists between him and Poseidon by performing sacred act in a place that is made sacred by the act itself. And this idea of a sacred space that is somehow shared by a god and a hero whose relationship is mutually antagonistic, as in the case of Poseidon and Odysseus, is typical of hero cults where the body of the hero is venerated within a space that is sacred to the god who is antagonistic to that hero. In the context of hero cults, god-hero antagonism in myth including the myths mediated by epic - corresponds to god-hero symbiosis in ritual.56 A classic example is the location of the body of the hero Pyrrhos, son of Achilles, in the sacred precinct of Apollo at Delphi (Pindar Nemean 7.44-47; Pausanias 10.24.6); in the myth about the death of this hero Pyrrhos, it is the god Apollo who causes this death (as we see in Pindar’s Nemean 7 and Paean 6).57 Similarly, I argue that the god Poseidon ultimately causes the death of the hero Odysseus: death from the sea, in whatever form death may come, would be initiated primarily by Poseidon himself as god of the sea. And I will also argue that the most logical place for Odysseus to have a tomb and a hero cult is precisely at the spot where his oar was mistaken for a winnowing shovel, and that spot would be Arcadia from the standpoint of Arcadian myth. 11§46. In terms of an Arcadian version of the Odysseus myth, as tied to the ritual site of the sacred space described by Pausanias (8.44.4) in Text L, the elemental shape of the hero’s tomb could be visualized as an oar stuck into the ground. Such a visualization corresponds to the ritual act of Odysseus in response to the coincidence of opposites that he experienced when his oar was mistaken for a winnowing shovel: as we saw in Text J, he had to make sacrifice to Poseidon at the very point where the coincidence of opposites took place (xi 130131), and he had to mark the place of sacrifice by sticking into the ground the oar that he was carrying on his shoulder (xi 129). And such an elemental shape - an oar stuck into the ground is actually pictured as the tomb of a seafarer in the description of the funeral of Elpenor in the Odyssey (xii 208-215). Elpenor was the companion of Odysseus who died of an accidental fall from a roof during the sojourn of Odysseus and his men on the island of Circe, and the funeral of Elpenor is described in detail: Odysseus and his men make for him a tomb by heaping a tumulus of earth over the seafarer’s corpse and then, instead of erecting a stēlē or vertical ‘column’ on top, they stick his oar into the heap of earth:

56 57

EH §105, Nagy 2011c §§35-44, 55. BA 118-141 = 7§§1-30.

304

Hour 11 Text M |14 We heaped up a tomb [tumbos] for him, and then, erecting as a column on top, |15 we stuck his well-made oar into the very top of the tomb [tumbos]. Odyssey xii 14-1558 11§47. The ritual procedure for making the tomb of Elpenor follows the instructions given to Odysseus during his sojourn in Hādēs (xi 51-80); these instructions were given by Elpenor himself or, more accurately, by his psūkhē (xi 51), and the wording makes it explicit that the tomb to be made is a sēma:

Hour 11 Text N |75 Heap up a tomb [sēma] for me [= Elpenor] at the shore of the gray sea, |76 wretched man that I am, so that even those who live in the future will learn about it. |77 Make this ritual act [teleîn] for me, and stick the oar on top of the tomb [tumbos] |78 - the oar that I used when I was rowing with my companions. Odyssey xi 75-7859 11§48. In the light of this description, we can see that the ritual act of Odysseus when he sticks his own well-made oar into the ground (xi 129) and sacrifices to Poseidon (xi 130-131) points to the making of his own sēma or ‘tomb’, corresponding to the sēma or ‘sign’ given to him by Teiresias (xi 126).

Two meanings of a sēma 11§49. There are two meanings to be found in this ritual act of Odysseus, since he sticks his oar into the ground at the precise moment when the oar is no longer recognized as an oar (xi 129). In this coincidence of opposites, as I have been calling it since §40 in this hour, the oar is now a winnowing shovel (xi 128) - an agricultural implement that is used for separating the grain from the chaff after the harvesting of wheat. You toss the harvested wheat up in the air, and even the slightest breeze will blow the chaff further to the side while the grain falls more or less straight down into a heap in front of you. The winnowing shovel looks exactly like an oar, but it is not an oar for agriculturists. Conversely, the oar looks exactly like the winnowing shovel, but it is not a winnowing shovel for seafarers. For Odysseus, however, this implement could be both an oar and a winnowing shovel, since he could see that the same sēma or ‘sign’ has two distinct meanings in two distinct places: what is an oar for the seafarers is a winnowing shovel for the inlanders. And, in order to recognize that one sēma or ‘sign’ could 58

|14 τύμβον χεύαντες καὶ ἐπὶ στήλην ἐρύσαντες |15 πήξαμεν ἀκροτάτῳ τύμβῳ εὐῆρες ἐρετμόν. |75 σῆμά τέ μοι χεῦαι πολιῆς ἐπὶ θινὶ θαλάσσης, |76 ἀνδρὸς δυστήνοιο, καὶ ἐσσομένοισι πυθέσθαι· |77 ταῦτά τέ μοι τελέσαι πῆξαί τ’ ἐπὶ τύμβῳ ἐρετμόν, |78 τῷ καὶ ζωὸς ἔρεσσον ἐὼν μετ’ ἐμοῖσ’ ἑτάροισιν. 59

305 have two meanings, Odysseus must travel, as we see from the key wording he learned from the instructions of Teiresias. Odysseus himself uses this key wording when he retells to Penelope a retrospective story of his travels:

Hour 11 Text O |266 Your [= Penelope’s] heart will not be pleased, nor am I [= Odysseus] |267 pleased [by the telling of these adventures], since he [= Teiresisas] instructed me to go to very many cities of mortals, |268 and I went while holding my well-made oar in my hands … Odysey xxiii 266-26860 As we have seen in Text A of Hour 10 (and in Text A of Hour 9), these travels of Odysseus throughout ‘the many cities of mortals’ were the key to his achieving his special kind of heroic consciousness, or noos:

Hour 11 Text P |3 Many different cities of many different people did he see, getting to know different ways of thinking [noos]. Odyssey i 361 11§50. Just as the implement carried by Odysseus is one sign with two meanings, so also the picture of this implement that we see stuck into the ground is one sign with two meanings. We have already noted the first of these meanings, namely, that the sēma or ‘sign’ given by Teiresias to Odysseus in Odyssey xi 126, Text I, is in fact the tomb of Odysseus, imagined as a heap of earth with an oar stuck into it on top, just as the tomb of the seafarer Elpenor is a heap of earth with his own oar stuck into it on top, as we saw in Text M and Text N (xii 14-15 and xi 75-78 respectively); in fact, as we saw in Text N, this heap of earth is actually called the sēma of Elpenor (xi 75), and the word here clearly means ‘tomb’. Accordingly, I paraphrase the first of the two meanings as a headline, “the seafarer is dead.” As for the second of the two meanings, I propose to paraphrase it as another headline, “the harvest is complete.” Here is why: the act of sticking the shaft of a winnowing shovel, with the blade pointing upward, into a heap of harvested wheat after having winnowed away the chaff from the grain is a ritual gesture indicating that the winnower’s work is complete (as we see from the wording of Theocritus 7.155-156).62 And the act of sticking the shaft of an oar into the ground, again with the blade facing upward, is a ritual gesture indicating that the oarsman’s work is likewise complete - as in the case of Odysseus’ dead companion Elpenor, whose tomb is to be a heap of earth with the 60

|266 οὐ μέν τοι θυμὸς κεχαρήσεται· οὐδὲ γὰρ αὐτὸς |267 χαίρω, ἐπεὶ μάλα πολλὰ βροτῶν ἐπὶ ἄστε’ ἄνωγεν |268 ἐλθεῖν, ἐν χείρεσσιν ἔχοντ’ εὐῆρες ἐρετμόν, … . 61 πολλῶν δ’ ἀνθρώπων ἴδεν ἄστεα καὶ νόον ἔγνω. 62 Hansen 1977:38-39; GM 214.

306 shaft of his oar stuck into the top (xi 75-78 and xii 13-15, Text N and Text M respectively). So also with Odysseus: he too will never again have to sail the seas.63

An antagonism between Athena and Odysseus 11§51. The two meanings of the sēma ‘sign’ (xi 126) communicated by Teiresias to Odysseus can be linked with the concepts of nostos ‘homecoming’ and noos ‘way of thinking’, as I have reconstructed them so far. The meaning that I paraphrased as “the seafarer is dead” can be linked with the god-hero antagonism of Poseidon and Odysseus, as also with the nostos or ‘homecoming’ of the hero; as for the meaning that I paraphrased as “the harvest is complete,” it can be linked with a more complex god-hero antagonism between Athena and Odysseus, as also with both the nostos or ‘homecoming’ of the hero and his noos or ‘way of thinking’. We already saw a hint of Athena’s involvement in Text L, where Pausanias (8.44.4) says that it was not only Poseidon but also Athena Sōteira, the ‘Savior’, who presided over the sacred space established by Odysseus in Arcadia. So not only Poseidon but also Athena participates in a symbiotic relationship with Odysseus as a cult hero. In making this statement, I rely on the formulation I presented a few minutes ago, at §44, where I noted that god-hero antagonism in myth - including the myths mediated by epic - corresponds to god-hero symbiosis in ritual. 11§52. Before we consider the negative aspects of the god-hero antagonism of Athena and Odysseus in myth, let us consider the positive aspects of god-hero symbiosis in the ritual context of the sacred space that was founded by Odysseus in honor of Athena as well as Poseidon according to Arcadian myth. In terms of this myth, it was here that Odysseus experienced the coincidence of opposites that signaled his hero cult. So, in terms of the meanings that I have reconstructed for noos ‘homecoming’ and noos ‘way of thinking, it would be in this Arcadian sacred space that Athena, as the Sōteira or ‘Savior’, could made it possible for Odysseus to make a mental connection between his nostos or ‘homecoming’ and his future hero cult, and this mental connection would be made possible by the hero’s noos or ‘way of thinking’. There is comparative evidence for such a reconstruction: in some local traditions, Athena is venerated as a goddess who rescues seafarers from mortal dangers at sea by giving their pilot a sense of direction, so that his ways of thinking may focus on a safe homecoming; in this role, Athena has the epithet aithuia, which is the name of a seabird (Pausanias 1.5.4, 1.41.6; Hesychius s.v. ἐν δ’ Αἴθυια).64 11§53. There is an indirect reference to this role of Athena in Odyssey v, where Ino the White Goddess saves Odysseus from drowning. While saving the hero, the goddess actually assumes the form of the bird called aithuia (v 337, 353). And the actions of Ino in saving

PH 232 = 8n25n82. Also GM 214; the analysis there shapes the wording of the next paragraph here. 64 I refer to these traditions in Nagy 1985:80 = §77.

307 Odysseus from the mortal dangers of the sea are parallel to the actions of the goddess Athena herself: In the Odyssey, Ino as aithuia has a parallel in ensuring the salvation of Odysseus from the sea: Athena herself redirects the storm sent against the hero by Poseidon (v 382–387), and then she saves him from immediate drowning by giving him a timely idea for swimming to safety (v 435–439). … The submergence and emergence of the hero from the wave that would surely have drowned him had it not been for Athena (v 435, 438) corresponds closely to the preceding emergence and submergence of Ino herself (v 337, 352–353). Such a correspondence suggests that the former ‘mortal’ [Ino] who is now a ‘goddess’ (v 334, 335) is indeed a model for a transition from death to life anew - a transition that may be conveyed by the convergence of themes in the words noos and nostos.65 11§54. The god-hero antagonism between Athena and Odysseus, as I just said a minute ago, is a complex relationship. Unlike the primal god-hero antagonism between Poseidon as god of the sea and Odysseus as the seafaring hero, the negative side of the relationship between Athena and Odysseus is only implied in the Homeric Odyssey. By contrast, the positive side is made explicit, as we have seen from the story in Odyssey v that tells how Athena together with the Ino the White Goddess saved Odysseus from drowning. And the help of Athena becomes even more pronounced toward the end of the epic, starting with Odyssey xiii 299-310, where the goddess formally declares to Odysseus her support the hero, which leads ultimately to his success in his final confrontation with the suitors. As I indicated already at the beginning of this book, however, such a positive aspect in a relationship between a divinity and a hero is actually part of the overall scheme of god-hero antagonism. I quote the wording of my formulation in Hour 1§50: The hero is antagonistic toward the god who seems to be most like the hero; antagonism does not rule out an element of attraction - often a “fatal attraction” - which is played out in a variety of ways. We have already seen in Hour 5 a set of texts in the Iliad illustrating the “fatal attraction” between the god Apollo and the hero Patroklos as a surrogate of Achilles himself. In the case of the relationship between Athena and Odysseus, the attraction is far less obvious, but we have already seen hints of it in Hour 9§16, where I referred to the moment when Athena herself declares to Odysseus that her kleos ‘glory’ is due to her own mētis ‘intelligence’ (Odyssey xiii 299).66 I also mentioned in Hour 9§16 a primary epithet of Odysseus, polumētis ‘intelligent in many ways’ (Iliad I 311, etc.; Odyssey ii 173, and so on), which indicates that the goddess Athena must have a special relationship with this hero; in fact, this same epithet applies to Athena

65 66

Nagy 1985:80-81 = §78. BA 145 = 8§8.

308 herself (Homeric Hymn to Athena 2). We also saw in that same context, in Hour 9§16, that Athena is deeply involved in the nostos or ‘homecoming’ of Odysseus. 11§55. But here is where the negative side of the relationship between Athena and Odysseus becomes more explicit. As we learned from the narrative of Nestor in Odyssey iii 130135 as quoted in Hour 9 Text E, the nostos or ‘homecoming’ of the Achaeans was lugros ‘catastrophic’ (iii 132) because the returning Achaeans had a major lapse in noos, that is, in ‘being mindful’ (iii 133), and this lapse provoked the mēnis ‘anger’ of the goddess Athena herself (iii 135). Some of the Achaeans, the narrative continues, were dikaioi ‘just’ (iii 133), but ‘not all of them’ (iii 134). Unfortunately for Odysseus, he was one of those Achaeans who had a major lapse in being ‘just’ and ‘mindful’. But that lapse is only implied in the Odyssey as we have it. The atrocities committed by Odysseus against the enemy during the capture of Troy are shaded over in the Odyssey, as we have already seen, but another atrocity that he committed is not even mentioned in that epic: Odysseus desecrated the temple of Athena at Troy by taking away the statue of the goddess. That impious act of taking the statue, known as the Palladium, is mentioned not at all in the Odyssey but only in the epic Cycle:

Hour 11 Text Q And after this [= after Odysseus infiltrates Troy in a previous adventure] he [= Odysseus] along with | Diomedes takes out [ek-komizein] the Palladium from Ilion. plot-summary by Proclus of the Little Iliad by Lesches of Lesbos p. 107 lines 7-867 11§56. Having explored the negative side of the relationship between Athena and Odysseus, I now return to the positive side. Despite the antagonism that Athena would have felt toward Odysseus because of his serious lapses in noos, in his ‘way of thinking’ - lapses that resulted in serious threats to the completion of his ongoing nostos ‘homecoming’ in the Odyssey - this antagonism is in the end resolved in the symbiosis that is achieved in the hero cult of Odysseus, which is a context where Odysseus can finally coexist with both his overt divine antagonist Poseidon and with his latent divine antagonist Athena.

Conclusion: the seafarer is dead and the harvest is complete 11§57. As I have argued, the picturing of Odysseus’ own oar stuck into the ground is a stylized image of his own tomb. And, from at least the viewpoint of the Arcadian version of the Odysseus story, such a tomb would be situated as far away from the sea as possible, whereas the hero’s death is to come ex halós ‘out of the sea’, as we can see in Odyssey xi 134, quoted in Text J. There is no need to argue on this basis that the phrase ex halós somehow means ‘away from the sea’.68 Rather, the double meaning of the sēma or ‘sign’ for Odysseus in Odyssey xi 126, as also quoted in Text J, is formalized in the coincidence of opposites that shapes the whole 67 68

καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα σὺν | Διομήδει τὸ παλλάδιον ἐκκομίζει ἐκ τῆς Ἰλίου. Here I disagree with Hansen 1977:42-48. See again GM 214.

309 myth: Odysseus finds the sign for his death from the sea precisely when he is farthest away from the sea. Such a place, where Odysseus is farthest away from the sea and where he sticks his oar into the ground, would be of course an agricultural place, not a maritine place. So, from the standpoint of an Arcadian version of the Odysseus myth, the place for the hero cult of Odysseus is oriented toward agriculture, not seafaring. Such an orientation is fundamental for hero cult, when we think of the corpse of the cult hero who is buried in the local earth and who is worshipped there. I recall here the formulation that I gave earlier on, in §9 during this hour: the corpse of the cult hero was viewed as a talisman of fertility and prosperity for the community that gained possession of the hero’s body.69 In this light, the two headlines that I formulated as the two meanings of the sēma ‘sign’ of Teiresias for Odysseus in Odyssey xi 126, as quoted in Text J, can be fused into single headline: “the seafarer is dead and the harvest is complete.” Nature and culture are fused in this setting of agriculture. 11§58. In other words, the harvest can now become complete because the seafarer has completed his life and died, so that he has now become a cult hero whose corpse gives fertility and prosperity to the people who cultivate the earth that contains that corpse. That is why the prophecy of Teiresisas in Text J concludes with these words: ‘And the people all around [your corpse] |137 will be blessed [olbioi]’70 (Odyssey xi 136-137; retold at xxiii 283-284). As I have argued from the start of this hour, the cult hero is olbios ‘blessed’ after he or she dies, and the worshipper of a cult hero can become olbios ‘blessed’ by making mental and even physical contact with the hero. 11§59. So I come back to the invocation of Odysseus as olbios at the end of the Odyssey, at xxiv 192 as quoted in Text G. By now we have seen that Odysseus becomes eligible for this invocation only after he dies and becomes a cult hero. And we have also seen that the application of this word olbios to a cult hero indicates that the hero is immortalized after death. 11§60. But where do we learn of any kind of immortalization in store for Odysseus? The answer is, everywhere in the Odyssey - but only in the metaphorical word of nostos in the sense of ‘return to light and life’. A most striking example is a coincidence of opposites that we observed in Hour 10 (§§29-31): when Odysseus enters Hādēs traveling from the island of Circe, he is in the Far West, but when he emerges from Hādēs and travels back to the island of Circe, he is in the Far East. That is why Circe, after Odysseus and his men arrive back on her island, addresses the whole group as dis-thanees, that is, ‘those who experience death twice’:

Hour 11 Text R |21 Wretched men! You went down to the House of Hādēs while you were still alive. |22 You are dis-thanees [= you experience death twice], whereas other mortals die only once. 69 70

Again, PH 32, 178 = 1§29, 6§59; EH §97. ἀμφὶ δὲ λαοὶ |137 ὄλβιοι ἔσσονται.

310 Odyssey xii 21-2271 11§61. So Odysseus dies metaphorically when he goes to Hādēs in Odyssey xi and then returns to light and life in Odyssey xii. But he will die for real in a future that is beyond the limits of the story told in the Odyssey as we have it: just as the seer Teiresias had predicted it when he gave to Odysseus a sēma or ‘sign’ in Odyssey xi 126 as quoted in Text J, Odysseus will die after he experiences another coincidence of opposites - while carrying the oar that becomes a winnowing shovel. 11§62. The tradition about this coincidence of opposites as experienced by Odysseus when his oar becomes a winnowing shovel has survived in Modern Greek stories about the Prophet Elias, who figures as a christianized version of the Prophet Elijah in the Hebrew Bible. It is a historical fact that the shrines of Prophet Elias are conventionally situated on tops of hills and mountains in accordance with Greek Orthodox Christian traditions. In Modern Greek folklore, there are stories that account for this convention of situating the shrines of Elias on summits - and thus far away from the sea. According to folktales about Elias, as analyzed by William Hansen, Elias had lived the life of a seafarer, but he eventually tired of seafaring and proceeded to travel inland and upland as far as he could, carrying an oar on his shoulder.72 Shrines sacred to the Prophet are built on tops of hills and mountains because, the story goes, it was on top of a mountain that his oar was finally not recognized - and mistaken for ‘a stick’ or the like. Here are two variants of the story, as paraphrased by Hansen:73 Variant 1[a]: Saint Elias was a seaman who lived a dissolute life, but he repented of what he had done and thereby detested the sea. (Variant 1[b]: because he had suffered much at sea and had often nearly drowned, he became disgusted with voyaging.) He resolved to go to a place where people know neither what the sea was nor what ships were. Putting his oar on his shoulder he set out on land, asking everyone he met what he was carrying. So long as they answered that it was an oar, he proceeded to higher and higher ground. Finally, at the top of a mountain he asked his question, and the people answered, 'a stick'. Understanding then that they had never seen an oar, he remained there with them. Variant 2: The Prophet Elias was a fisherman who, because of terrible weather and terrific storms, became afraid of the sea. So he put an oar on his shoulder and took to the hills. When he met a man, he asked him what it was he was carrying; the man answered that it was an oar, and Elias went on. The same happened when he met a second man. But at the top of a mountain, he asked a third man, who replied, ‘why, that's a stick’. Saint Elias

|21 σχέτλιοι, οἳ ζώοντες ὑπήλθετε δῶμ’ Ἀΐδαο, |22 δισθανέες, ὅτε τ’ ἄλλοι ἅπαξ θνῄσκουσ’ ἄνθρωποι. 72 Hansen 1977:27-41. 73 Hansen 1977:29.

311 resolved to stay there. He planted his oar in the ground, and that is why his chapels are all built on hilltops. 11§63. In yet another version of the Modern Greek story of the sailor who went inland, his oar is actually mistaken for a phtyari tou phournou, which refers to a baker’s peel but which literally means a ‘winnowing shovel of the oven’.74 As Hansen has shown, winnowing shovels and baker’s peels can in fact be virtually isomorphic.75 So the Modern Greek stories about the sailor who went inland show clear indications of an agricultural contex for an aetiological myth that accounts for an institutional reality, which is, that the shrines of the Prophet Elias are traditionally built on the tops of hills and mountains. And there is a related institutional reality here: the feast day of the Prophet Elias is traditionally celebrated by Greek Orthodox Christians on July 20, which coincides with the season for harvesting and winnowing wheat.76 11§64. I conclude, then, by observing that the agricultural context of the aetiological myth about the Prophet Elias corresponds to the agricultural context of the myth encoded in the sēma or ‘sign’ given by Teiresias to Odysseus in Odyssey xi 126, as also quoted in Text J. Odysseus must stick his oar into the ground in a place where people can only think of agriculture, mistaking his oar for a winnowing shovel. It is in an agricultural world that the cult of the hero must be situated, not in the world of seafarers. And it is in this agricultural world that the hero can become olbios or ‘blessed’, so that the people who cultivate the earth containing his corpse will become olbioi or ‘blessed’ as well - if they worship the hero by maintaining mental and even physical contact with him.

Hansen 1977:30. Hansen 1977:40. 76 Hansen 1977:35. 75

312

Hour 12. The cult hero as an exponent of justice in Homeric poetry and beyond The meaning of dikē 12§1. The key word for this hour is dikē, which means ‘justice’ long-term and ‘judgment’ short-term. In ancient Greek poetics, a primary metaphor for dikē is a flourishing field or garden or orchard or grove or vineyard or any other such place where vegetation is cultivated. As I will argue, the typical cult hero is an exponent of dikē. And the worshippers of the cult hero can view the presence of his or her corpse in the local earth as the cause of vegetal flourishing or thriving or blooming. 12§2. As we have seen in Hour 11§9 and §57, the corpse of the cult hero, as hidden below in the local earth, is envisioned as a talisman of fertility and prosperity for the worshippers who cultivate that earth. Now we will see that such a vision is a sign of dikē in the long-term sense of ‘justice’.

An occurrence of dikē as ‘justice’ in the Odyssey 12§3. We see an example of this vision in a passage quoting the words of the disguised Odysseus, addressed to his wife Penelope:

Hour 12 Text A |107 My lady, who among mortals throughout the limitless stretches of earth |108 would dare to quarrel [neikeîn] against you with words? For truly your glory [kleos] reaches the wide firmament of the sky itself |109 - like the glory of some faultless king [basileus], who, godlike as he is, |110 and ruling over a population that is multitudinous and vigorous, |111 upholds acts of good dikē [= eu-dikiai], while the dark earth produces |112 wheat and barley, the trees are loaded with fruit, |113 the ewes steadily bring forth lambs, and the sea abounds with fish, |114 by reason of the good directions he gives, and his people are meritorious [aretân] under his rule. Odyssey xix 107-1141 12§4. The wording of this passage shows the only place in the Odyssey where Penelope is said to have kleos or ‘glory’ herself, but even here the glory emanates more broadly from the poetic tradition that features primarily Odysseus and only secondarily those who are close to him, especially Penelope, as we saw in Hour 9§22 and §23. Moreover, the kleos of Penelope 1

|107 ὦ γύναι, οὐκ ἄν τίς σε βροτῶν ἐπ’ ἀπείρονα γαῖαν |108 νεικέοι· ἦ γάρ σευ κλέος οὐρανὸν εὐρὺν ἱκάνει, |109 ὥς τέ τευ ἦ βασιλῆος ἀμύμονος, ὅς τε θεουδὴς |110 ἀνδράσιν ἐν πολλοῖσι καὶ ἰφθίμοισιν ἀνάσσων |111 εὐδικίας ἀνέχῃσι, φέρῃσι δὲ γαῖα μέλαινα |112 πυροὺς καὶ κριθάς, βρίθῃσι δὲ δένδρεα καρπῷ, |113 τίκτῃ δ’ ἔμπεδα μῆλα, θάλασσα δὲ παρέχῃ ἰχθῦς |114 ἐξ εὐηγεσίης, ἀρετῶσι δὲ λαοὶ ὑπ’ αὐτοῦ.

313 depends on the validity of comparing it with the kleos of the unnamed king whose ‘acts of good dikē’ energize the fertility and prosperity of the land he rules. Since the words about this just king are spoken by the disguised Odysseus, it is evident that he himself will take the role of that just king when the time comes. But when exactly will that time come? Will it be after he kills the suitors? Or will it be after he dies? I ask the second question because the wording that refers to the inhabitants of the fertile and prosperous land of the just king is remarkably parallel to the wording that referred to the inhabitants of the kingdom of Odysseus after he is dead:

Hour 12 Text B As for yourself [= Odysseus], death shall come to you from the sea, |135 a gentle death, that is how it will come, and this death will kill you |136 as you lose your strength in a prosperous old age. And the people all around [your corpse] |137 will be blessed [olbioi]. Odyssey xi 134-1372 12§5. This wording is taken from the prophecy of Teiresias to Odysseus in Odyssey xi 90137, which I quoted in its entirely in Hour 11 Text J. I draw attention once again to the word olbioi here, which I continue to translate as ‘blessed’, and which describes here the inhabitants of the kingdom of Odysseus. As I argued in Hour 11§§38-39 and §44, this word olbioi ‘blessed’ refers to the blessings of fertility and prosperity that the inhabitants of Ithaca receive as a result of the hero’s death (xi 136-137; retold at xxiii 283-284). This death, as I argued in Hour 11§59, leads to the transformation of Odysseus into a cult hero, who is invoked as olbios ‘blessed’ at the end of Odyssey, at xxiv 192 as quoted in Hour 11 Text G. 12§6. In the Hesiodic Works and Days, as we saw in Hour 11§15, this same word olbioi ‘blessed’ is used to describe cult heroes who are immortalized after death and who enjoy a state of bliss in the Islands of the Blessed, which as we have seen is a paradisiacal setting that transcends the temporal and the spatial constraints of mortality:

Hour 12 Text C = 11 Text C |170 And they live with a carefree heart [thūmos] |171 on the Islands of the Blessed [Nēsoi Markarōn] on the banks of the deep-swirling river Okeanos, |172 blessed [olbioi] heroes [hērōes] that they are, and for them there is a honey-sweet harvest |173 that comes to fruition three times each year, produced by the life-giving land. Hesiod Works and Days 170-173

θάνατος δέ τοι ἐξ ἁλὸς αὐτῷ |135 ἀβληχρὸς μάλα τοῖος ἐλεύσεται, ὅς κέ σε πέφνῃ |136 γήρᾳ ὕπο λιπαρῷ ἀρημένον· ἀμφὶ δὲ λαοὶ |137 ὄλβιοι ἔσσονται.

314 12§7. On the basis of these parallel texts, then, I argue that the picture of a just king who rules over a fertile and prosperous land in Text A, Odyssey xix 107-114, refers to the future status of Odysseus as a cult hero. But I still need to confront a possible objection: why would a cult hero be described as a basileus ‘king’ at xix 109? And besides, would not the title of ‘king’ fit Odysseus when he is alive, right after he kills the suitors and recovers his kingdom - and before he is dead? True, the title would fit then as well, but I maintain that the context of the words spoken by the disguised Odysseus to Penelope are more transcendent. The fact is, the title of ‘king’ fits the cult hero as well. There is evidence to show that the generic cult hero is conventionally described as a basileus ‘king’.3 In a stylized thrēnos or ‘lament’ composed by Pindar (F 133), for example, hēroes hagnoi ‘holy heroes’ are equated with basilēes ‘kings’.4

The Golden Generation of humankind We find another example attestation of the idea of cult heroes as basilēes ‘kings’ in the Hesiodic Works and Days, which tells the story of the Golden Generation, a mythological category of humankind that corresponds to the positive aspects of cult heroes:

Hour 12 Text D |122 And they [= the Golden Generation of humankind] are the daimones. They exist because of the Will of Zeus. |123 They are the good, the earthbound [epikhthonioi], the guardians of mortal humans. |124 They guard acts of justice [dikē] and they guard against wretched acts of evil. |125 Enveloped in mist, they roam everywhere throughout the earth. |126 They are givers of prosperity. And they had this as a privilege [geras], a kingly one [basilēion].5 Hesiod Works and Days 122-1266 12§8. Elsewhere in the Hesiodic Works and Days (248-262), these cult heroes are described as agents of the goddess of justice personified, Dikē, who is daughter of Zeus: all these forces of justice are shown as uniting in their mission to punish men who are adikoi

BA 170-172 = 9§31. βασιλῆες ἀγαυοὶ … ἥροες ἁγνοί in Pindar F 133, quoted by Plato Meno 81b; see BA 170-171 = 9§31. Also, in an inscription grounded in rituals honoring the dead, in a context of promising a blissful life after death, the dead person is told: καὶ τότ’ ἔπειτ’ ἄ[λλοισι μεθ’] ἡρώεσσιν ἀνάξει[ς] ‘and then you will be king [anassein] among the other heroes [hērōes]’ (IG XIV 638 = SEG 40:824[2]); see BA 171 = 9§31n3 (where the citation needs to be corrected). 5 Commentary in BA 152-154 = 9§4. 6 |122 τοὶ μὲν δαίμονές εἰσι Διὸς μεγάλου διὰ βουλὰς |123 ἐσθλοί, ἐπιχθόνιοι, φύλακες θνητῶν ἀνθρώπων, |124 οἵ ῥα φυλάσσουσίν τε δίκας καὶ σχέτλια ἔργα |125 ἠέρα ἑσσάμενοι πάντη φοιτῶντες ἐπ’ αἶαν, |126 πλουτοδόται· καὶ τοῦτο γέρας βασιλήιον ἔσχον. Variant readings in the first two of these verses: |122 τοὶ μὲν δαίμονες ἁγνοὶ ἐπιχθόνιοι τελέθουσιν |123 ἐσθλοί, ἀλεξίκακοι, φύλακες θνητῶν ἀνθρώπων. 4

315 ‘unjust’ (260), especially basilēes ‘kings’ (261) who make dikai ‘judgments’ unjustly, that is, ‘in a crooked way’, skoliōs (262).7

Hesiod as an exponent of justice 12§9. By contrast with such unjust men, the persona of Hesiod speaks as an exponent of justice when he admonishes the unnamed kings to speak their words in a way that ‘makes them straight’, ithunein (263). Hesiod has good reason to make this admonition, since he is accusing these unnamed kings of having taken bribes (264) and rendering ‘crooked judgments, that is, skoliai dikai (264). 12§10. The persona of Hesiod is not only the speaker of the entire Works and Days: he is also the main character of the action, from the very start. He and his brother, named Perses, are engaged in a neikos ‘quarrel’ (35) over inheritance, and the unnamed kings are supporting the brother against Hesiod, having been bribed (as implied in 264). Whenever Hesiod speaks to Perses or to the kings in the poem, he presents himself as the representative of dikē ‘justice’ (213, 217, 220, 225, 239, 254, 256, 272, 275, 278, 279, 283) and of whatever is dikaio- ‘just’ (217, 226, 270, 271, 280), whereas the other side represent the opposite of justice, which is hubris ‘outrage’ (213, 214, 217, 238) and whatever is adiko- ‘unjust’ (260, 272). Besides the instances of the word dikē in the long-range sense of ‘justice’ I note the instances of the same word in the short-range sense of ‘judgment’: in these instances, Hesiod consistently accuses Perses and the unjust kings of making or upholding dikai ‘judgments’ that are perverted, and a choice adjective for such bad judgments is skoliai ‘crooked’ (219, 221, 250, 264; adverb skoliōs ‘crookedly’ at 262), whereas the good judgments of the just are itheiai ‘straight’ (36, 224, 226).

Metaphors for dikē and hubris 12§11. We see at work here a metaphor that pervades the Hesiodic Works and Days: dikē or ‘justice’ is straight and direct or unidirectional, whereas hubris as the opposite of justice is crooked and indirect or multidirectional. The etymology of the noun dikē, derived from the verb deik-nunai, which means ‘to point’ or ‘to indicate’, shows the built-in idea of direction, directness, directedness.8 12§12. As for the opposite of dikē, which is hubris, I have already noted that this word is conventionally translated as ‘outrage’. But this translation does not capture adequately the metaphorical world of hubris as the opposite of dikē in the sense of ‘justice’. To understand in more depth the meaning of hubris as the opposite of dikē, I propose to outline the contexts in which we find the word hubris, and I divide these contexts into the realms of (1) humans (2) animals (3) plants. In the human realm, hubris refers to acts that provoke a sense of moral outrage, which calls for a response by humans and gods alike, and the response can take the 7 8

GM 68. PH 260 = 9§15n60.

316 form of social and cosmic sanctions respectively; in the Odyssey, for example, hubris refers frequently to the behavior of the suitors of Penelope (i 368 and so on). I will have more to say toward the end of this hour about such a human realm of hubris. As for the realm of animals, hubris refers more simply to any behavior that is violent (Herodotus 1.189) or sexual (as in Pindar Pythian 10.36) - though such behavior extends of course from animals to humans. As for the realm of plants, hubris refers to excessive productivity in one aspect of the plant, to the detriment of other aspects: for example, in the case of fruit-bearing trees and shrubs, hubris would result in the excessive production of wood or of leaves at the expense of the fruit itself.9 I turn to a case described by the botanist Theophrastus (fourth / third century BCE). In the passage I am about to quote, Theophrastus is analyzing the behavior of the white lupin plant (Lupinus albus), a kind of shrub that bears a fruit (a kind of “bean”) that is even today commonly eaten as a snack in many parts of the Mediterranean world:

Hour 12 Text E The white lupin [shrub] becomes a-karpos [= stops bearing karpos ‘fruit’] when it gets woodcrazy, as it were, and behaves with hubris. Theophrastus About the aetiologies of plants (3.1.5)10 Or again, in the case of almond trees, a soil that is poor in nutrients is better than rich soil for cultivating these trees if you want them to produce plenty of almonds: For almond trees, poor soil [is preferable], for if the soil is deep and rich, the trees experience an exuberance [hubris] because of all the good nutrition, and they stop bearing fruit [a-karpeîn]. Theophrastus About the aetiologies of plants 2.16.811 12§13. To counteract the undergrowth of fruit in plants, the cultivator must prevent the overgrowth of wood or leaves in order to restore equilibrium in growth. So the cultivator must regulate the plant. Theophrastus, in his treatise Research about plants (2.7.7), mentions a wide variety of ways to regulate, including the process of pruning (for example, the pruning of grape vines at 3.15.4); and he notes a traditional way for referring to such a process: you can 9

Michelini 1978. She gives a variety of examples, many of which will be cited here as well. ὁ δὲ θέρμος ἄκαρπος γίνεται καθάπερ ὑλομανῶν καὶ ἐξυβρίζων. The combination of hulomaneîn ‘be wood-crazy’ and ex-hubrizein ‘behave with hubris’ is also attested in a metaphorical context where it refers to human exuberance: Plutarch How a youth should hear poetry 15f. In the usage of Theophrastus, we find another form that shows a close parallelism with hulo-maneîn ‘be wood-crazy’: it is phullo-maneîn ‘be leaf-crazy’, as attested in Research about plants 8.7.4 (twice). 11 οἷον ταῖς ἀμυγδαλαῖς ἡ λεπτή· βαθείας γὰρ οὔσης καὶ πιείρας ἐξυβρίσασαι διὰ τὴν εὐτροφίαν ἀκαρποῦσι. See also Theophrastus About the aetiologies of plants 3.6.8, again about the almond tree. 10

317 say that the cultivator is ‘punishes the plant that is committing hubris’ (kolazein hōs hubrizon to dendron).12 And, giving another example, Theophrastus notes that the native expression in Arcadia for pruning the sorbapple tree is euthunein, which means literally ‘straighten’. Here is how Theophrastus says it:

Hour 12 Text F In Arcadia they have an expression ‘straightening [euthunein] the sorbapple tree [oa]’. There are many such trees in their region. And they say that, when this [‘straightening’] happens to the trees, those that have not been bearing fruit will now start to bear fruit, and those that bear fruit that will not ripen [on the tree] will now have fruit that ripens, and ripens beautifully. Theophrastus Research about plants 2.7.713 12§14. As we saw at the beginning of this hour, a primary metaphor for dikē in the sense of ‘justice’ is a flourishing field or garden or orchard or grove or vineyard or any other such place where vegetation is cultivated. And now we see that hubris, which is the opposite of dikē, is a negative force that counteracts the flourishing of vegetation: hubris results in vegetal overgrowth and undergrowth. From a mythological point of view, the extreme landscapes of hubris are a wildland or a desert. 12§15. In the examples of hubris as surveyed so far, an excessive production of wood or of leaves prevents a plant from producing fruit. Conversely, as we will now see, excessive production of seed will prevent garden-herbs like lettuce from producing leaves, and such herbs will then “go to seed” or “bolt,” as we say. That is why, as Theophrastus notes (About the aetiologies of plants 3.9.2), the way to cultivate such herbs is to prevent ‘the generating of fruit’ (karpogoneîn) by promoting ‘the production of leaves’ (phullophoreîn). 12§16. So what are the mythological consequences of going to seed? A prime example is a myth that links the thridax or ‘lettuce’ with the hero Adonis, a beautiful mortal boy who became the lover of the goddess Aphrodite herself. References made by ancient authors to this myth have been collected by an author dated to the early third century CE, Athenaeus of Naucratis (2.69b-d), and from these references we can see a central event of the myth: Aphrodite hid Adonis inside a head of lettuce. Since Aphrodite is the goddess of reproduction as well as sex, this action of hers is most counterproductive, since lettuce must be kept from going to seed if it is going to be good little lettuce. Accordingly, the hiding of Adonis inside a head of lettuce results in sterility for Adonis. And the hero Adonis is in fact associated with sterility. The boy may be a great lover, most appreciated by the goddess of sexuality herself, 12

κολάζειν ὡς ὑβρίζον τὸ δένδρον. ἐν Ἀρκαδίᾳ δὲ καὶ εὐθύνειν καλοῦσι τὴν ὄαν· πολὺ γὰρ τὸ δένδρον τοῦτο παρ’ αὐτοῖς ἐστι. καί φασιν, ὅταν πάθῃ τοῦτο, τὰς μὲν μὴ φερούσας φέρειν τὰς δὲ μὴ πεττούσας ἐκπέττειν καλῶς. 13

318 Aphrodite, but he is still sterile. And there is an ancient traditional proverb that stems from this myth:

Hour 12 Text G more barren [a-karpos] than the Gardens of Adonis CPG I p. 19.6–1114 12§17. The rituals surrounding the Gardens of Adonis, as Marcel Detienne has shown, are a negative dramatization of fertility.15 The so-called Gardens of Adonis (kēpoi Adōnidos) are potted herbs that are planted in the most unseasonal of times, the Dog Days of summer: the plants grow with excessive speed and vigor, only to be scorched to death by the sun’s excessive heat, and this death is then followed by stylized mourning and lamentations for Adonis, protégé of Aphrodite. In opposition to the normal cycle of seasonal agriculture, which lasts for eight months, the abnormal cycle of the unseasonal Gardens of Adonis lasts but eight days (as we see from Plato Phaedrus 276b). Like his suddenly and violently growing plants, Adonis himself dies prohēbēs ‘before reaching maturity [hēbē]’ (CPG I p. 183.3–8, II p. 3.10–13; compare also II p. 93.13).16

The Silver Generation of humankind 12§18. The beautiful boy hero Adonis is parallel to the heroes featured in the stylized narrative of the Hesiodic Works and Days about a debased second generation of humankind, the Silver Generation, who were created after the first humans, the Golden Generation. Here is the narrative about the Silver Generation:

Hour 12 Text H |127 Then a second Generation, a much worse one, a later one, |128 the Silver one, was made by the gods who abide in their Olympian homes. |129 They were like the Golden one neither in their nature nor in their power of perception [noēma]. |130 As a boy, each one was raised for a hundred years by dear mother; each one was sporting about, quite inept [nēpios], at home. |132 But when the time of maturing [hēbân] and the full measure of maturity [hēbē] arrived, |133 they lived only for a very short time, suffering pains [algea] |134 for their acts of heedlessness [aphradiai], for they could not keep overweening hubris |135 away from each other, and they were not willing to care for [therapeuein] the immortal gods, |136 not willing at all, nor were they willing to make sacrifice on the sacred altars of the blessed [makares] gods, |137 the way humans are required by cosmic law to behave, each group according to its own customs. Anyway, they too, when the time came, |138 were hidden away by Zeus son of 14

ἀκαρπότερος ᾿Αδώνιδος κήπων. Detienne 1972.187–226. 16 Nagy 1985:62 = §50. 15

319 Kronos. He was angry at them because they did not give honors [tīmai], |139 no they did not, to the blessed [makares] gods who possess Olympus. |140 But when the earth covered over this generation [genos] as well |141 (and they are called the blessed [makares], abiding below the earth [hupokhthonioi],17 mortals that they are, |142 the Second Ones, though they too [like the First Ones, who are the Golden Generation] get their share of honor [tīmē]) … Hesiod Works and Days 127–14218 12§19. Like the boy hero Adonis, the heroes of the Silver Generation are unable to achieve a stable maturity or hēbē. They are immature and unseasonal. As we saw in Text G, by contrast, in Works and Days 115–120 the unspoiled heroes of the Golden Generation live in a Golden Age of stable fertility, as expressed directly by the word karpos ‘fruit’ (117). They are mature and seasonal. The Golden Age presents an idealized picture of wealth that is won by way of dikē: true and lasting, it is antithetical to the sudden and violent wealth that is won by way of hubris and that is destined not to last (320–326). 12§20. So, just as the Golden Generation is a positive image of a cult hero, the corresponding Silver Generation is a negative image, as we see from the narrative here in Text H. In this narrative about the Silver Generation, the Hesiodic Works and Days shows the dark side of cult heroes: the heroes of the Silver Generation refuse to ‘care for’ the gods, therapeuein (135), as we have just noted here and have already noted in Hour 6§51, and they likewise refuse to perform sacrifices to the gods (136). But, despite such impious behavior, which is equated with the withholding of tīmē ‘honor’ from the gods (138), these heroes of the Silver Generation are said to receive tīmē ‘honor’ from humans after they die, just as the heroes of the Golden Generation receive honor (142). And, as we have seen in Hour 8§21 with reference to Text C there, taken from the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (259-267), this word tīmē can refer to the ‘honor’ 17

This adjective hupo-khthonioi ‘abiding below the earth’, which is applied to the Silver Generation here at verse 141, seems at first to be perfectly symmentrical with the adjective epikhthonioi, which I translate simply as ‘earthbound’ and which is applied to the Gold Generation at verse 123. Although the Silver Generation abides below the earth by virtue of being hupokhthonioi, this formation does not imply that the Golden Generation abides above the earth by virtue of being epi-khthonioi. True, at verse 125 in Text D, we saw this description: ‘enveloped in mist, they roam everywhere throughout the earth’. But at other times they too abide below the earth: see BA 153-154 = 9§5. 18 |127 Δεύτερον αὖτε γένος πολὺ χειρότερον μετόπισθεν |128 ἀργύρεον ποίησαν Ὀλύμπια δώματ’ ἔχοντες, |129 χρυσέῳ οὔτε φυὴν ἐναλίγκιον οὔτε νόημα· |130 ἀλλ’ ἑκατὸν μὲν παῖς ἔτεα παρὰ μητέρι κεδνῇ |131 ἐτρέφετ’ ἀτάλλων, μέγα νήπιος, ᾧ ἐνὶ οἴκῳ·|132 ἀλλ᾽ ὅτ᾽ ἄρ᾽ ἡβήσαι τε καὶ ἥβης μέτρον ἵκοιτο, |133 παυρίδιον ζώεσκον ἐπὶ χρόνον, ἄλγε’ ἔχοντες |134 ἀφραδίῃς· ὕβριν γὰρ ἀτάσθαλον οὐκ ἐδύναντο |135 ἀλλήλων ἀπέχειν οὐδ’ ἀθανάτους θεραπεύειν |136 ἤθελον οὐδ’ ἔρδειν μακάρων ἱεροῖς ἐπὶ βωμοῖς, |137 ᾗ θέμις ἀνθρώποις κατὰ ἤθεα. τοὺς μὲν ἔπειτα |138 Ζεὺς Κρονίδης ἔκρυψε χολούμενος, οὕνεκα τιμὰς |139 οὐκ ἔδιδον μακάρεσσι θεοῖς οἳ Ὄλυμπον ἔχουσιν. |140 αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ καὶ τοῦτο γένος κατὰ γαῖα κάλυψε, |141 τοὶ μὲν ὑποχθόνιοι μάκαρες θνητοὶ καλέονται, |142 δεύτεροι, ἀλλ’ ἔμπης τιμὴ καὶ τοῖσιν ὀπηδεῖ.

320 that cult heroes receive in the rituals of hero cult after they die, as in the case of the tīmē received by the cult hero Demophon after he dies (261, 263). As we can see in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (268), where the goddess refers to herself as tīmāokhos ‘receiver of honor’ [tīmē], the gods receive tīmē just as cult heroes receive tīmē, but of course they do not have to die to receive it as heroes have to die. And the heroes of the Silver Generation do have to die, as we have just seen in the text I quoted. So, once again, I apply the formula that I applied in Hour 11§45 and §51: god-hero antagonism in myth corresponds to god-hero symbiosis in ritual.

Two further generations of humankind 12§21. In the Hesiodic Works and Days, the contrast between dikē and hubris is re-enacted not only in the contrast between the Golden and the Silver Generations but also in an overall myth of five successive generations of humankind (106–201). As we are about to see, the contrast between the Golden and Silver Generations is part of an overall system of contrasts between dikē and hubris, framed within the myth of five generations. This system has been cogently analyzed by Jean-Pierre Vernant, who has shown that the superiority and inferiority of Generations 1 and 2 respectively are marked by their dikē and hubris, while, inversely, the inferiority and superiority of Generations 3 and 4 respectively are marked by their hubris and dikē.19 So we turn next to these Generations 3 and 4. 12§22. I start with Generation 3. Just as the narrative about Generation 2, the Silver Generation, shows the dark side of cult heroes, so also the narrative about Generation 3, the Bronze Generation, shows the dark side of epic heroes. Here is the narrative:

Hour 12 Text I |143 And Zeus the father made another Generation of mortal men, the Third. |144 And he made it Bronze, not at all like the Silver. |145 A Generation born from ash trees, violent and terrible. Their minds were set on the woeful deeds of Ares |146 and on acts of hubris. |147 Grain |147 they did not eat, but their hard-dispositioned heart [thūmos] was made of hard rock. |148 They were forbidding: they had great force [biē] and overpowering hands |149 growing out of their shoulders, with firm foundations for limbs. |150 Their implements were bronze, their houses were bronze, |151 and they did their work with bronze. There was no black iron. |152 And they were wiped out when they killed each other with their own hands, |153 and went nameless to the dank house of chill Hades, |154 nameless [nōnumnoi]! Death still took them, terrifying as they were, |155 black Death took them, and they left behind the bright light of the Sun. Hesiod Works and Days 143-15520 19

Vernant 1985:100-106. |143 Ζεὺς δὲ πατὴρ τρίτον ἄλλο γένος μερόπων ἀνθρώπων |144 χάλκειον ποίησ’, οὐκ ἀργυρέῳ οὐδὲν ὁμοῖον, |145 ἐκ μελιᾶν, δεινόν τε καὶ ὄβριμον· οἷσιν Ἄρηος |146 ἔργ’ ἔμελε στονόεντα καὶ 20

321 12§23. So, this negative picture, with its emphasis on hubris (146), suits the dark and latent side of the epic hero as we see him in action in Homeric poetry.21 The negativity extends to the afterlife for such a hero, which is described in a way that seems at first to offer no hope for immortalization after death. The narrative simply says that the dead heroes went to Hādēs. So, if Hādēs were a permanent rather than a transitional place of existence for heroes after death, then these heroes of Generation 3 would be forever nōnumnoi ‘nameless’ (154). 12§24. By contrast, the narrative in the Works and Days about Generation 4 features a positive picture of the epic hero, with an emphasis on heroic behavior that is dikaion ‘just’ (verse 158), and with a promise of immortalization after death:

Hour 12 Text J |156 But when this Generation too was covered over by the earth, |157 Zeus made yet another Generation on earth, which nurtures many, a fourth one. |158 This one, by contrast [with the third], was just [dikaion].22 It was better. |159 It was the godlike generation of men who were heroes [hērōes], who are called |160 demigods [hēmitheoi]; they are the previous [to ours] generation who lived throughout the boundless earth. |161 These [demigods] were overcome by evil war and the terrible din of battle. |162 Some died at the walls of seven-gated Thebes, the land of Kadmos, |163 as they fought over the sheep of Oedipus. |164 Others were taken away by war over the great yawning stretches of sea |165 to Troy, all on account of Helen with the beautiful hair. |166 Then they [this Generation]23 were covered over by the finality of death. |167 But they received, apart from other humans, a life and a place to live |168 from Zeus the son of Kronos, who translated them to the edges of the earth, |169 far away from the immortal gods. And Kronos is king over them. |170 And they live with a carefree heart [thūmos] |171 on the Islands of the Blessed [Nēsoi Markarōn] on the banks of the deep-swirling ὕβριες, οὐδέ τι σῖτον |147 ἤσθιον, ἀλλ’ ἀδάμαντος ἔχον κρατερόφρονα θυμόν. |148 ἄπλαστοι· μεγάλη δὲ βίη καὶ χεῖρες ἄαπτοι |149 ἐξ ὤμων ἐπέφυκον ἐπὶ στιβαροῖσι μέλεσσι. |150 τῶν δ’ ἦν χάλκεα μὲν τεύχεα, χάλκεοι δέ τε οἶκοι, |151 χαλκῷ δ’ εἰργάζοντο· μέλας δ’ οὐκ ἔσκε σίδηρος. |152 καὶ τοὶ μὲν χείρεσσιν ὑπὸ σφετέρῃσι δαμέντες |153 βῆσαν ἐς εὐρώεντα δόμον κρυεροῦ Ἀίδαο, |154 νώνυμνοι· θάνατος δὲ καὶ ἐκπάγλους περ ἐόντας |155 εἷλε μέλας, λαμπρὸν δ’ ἔλιπον φάος ἠελίοιο. 21 BA 158 = 9§11. 22 In the original Greek here, the word dikaioteron describing the fourth generation means not ‘more just’ but ‘just - as opposed to unjust’, where the ‘unjust’ are the third generation. See also Hour 11§22 for the note on thēluterai at Odyssey xxiv 202 as meaning not ‘more female’ but ‘female - as opposed to male’. 23 In the original Greek, the particle men here in Works and Days 166 is parallel to the men as used at verses 122, 137, 141, 161, not to he men as used at verse 162. I argue for this interpretation in GM 126n17 and PH 10§7n16; also in BA (1999) xiii = 0§19n2, with bibliography. In terms of this interpretation, the heroes who fought in the Theban War and in the Trojan War were all eligible for immortalization.

322 river Okeanos, |172 blessed [olbioi] heroes [hērōes] that they are, and for them there is a honey-sweet fruit [karpos] |173 that comes to fruition three times each year, produced by the life-giving land. Hesiod Works and Days 155-17324 12§25. I have already quoted the last part of this text, the four verses 170-173, in Hour 11 Text C, where I analyzed the use of the word olbioi ‘blessed’ (172). This word, as we have seen, occurs typically in contexts where heroes are pictured as inhabitants of paradisiacal settings in an afterlife. And I quoted these same four verses 170-173 again in Text C of this hour, where I compared the context of the word olbioi in Text C with the context of the same word in Text B of this hour, at Odyssey xi 137, referring to the blessings brought upon the people of Odysseus after his death as prophesied by Teiresias. 12§26. So in this Hesiodic narrative about Generation 4 we see an alternative visualization of the heroes whom we know from Homeric poetry and from other poetry (especially the Seven against Thebes tradition, which has not survived in any integral text from the ancient world). First of all, the Hesiodic narrative shows the heroes of Generation 4 only in a positive light, and the negative side of the epic hero is reserved for Generation 3; by contrast, Homeric poetry views both the positive and negative sides of its heroes. Secondly, the Hesiodic narrative speaks explicitly about the immortalization of the heroes belonging to Generation 4; by contrast, the immortalization of heroes after death is only implied in Homeric poetry, as we have seen in Hour 8§§40-48. 12§27. Another difference that we see here between Homeric and Hesiodic poetry is signaled by the Hesiodic use of the word hēmitheoi ‘demigods’ in the Works and Days (160) with reference to the epic heroes of Generation 4 who were obliterated in the time of the Theban and the Trojan Wars (161-165) - but who were preserved after death and immortalized by being transported to the Islands of the Blessed (167-173). By contrast, the word hēmitheoi is never used in Homeric poetry - except for one occurrence in Iliad XII (23). Matching this exceptional Homeric occurrence of hēmitheoi is an exceptional shift in the Homeric narrative perspective here: instead of viewing heroes through the lens of the heroic age, seeing them as 24

|156 αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ καὶ τοῦτο γένος κατὰ γαῖα κάλυψεν, |157 αὖτις ἔτ’ ἄλλο τέταρτον ἐπὶ χθονὶ πουλυβοτείρῃ |158 Ζεὺς Κρονίδης ποίησε, δικαιότερον καὶ ἄρειον, |159 ἀνδρῶν ἡρώων θεῖον γένος, οἳ καλέονται |160 ἡμίθεοι, προτέρη γενεὴ κατ’ ἀπείρονα γαῖαν. |161 καὶ τοὺς μὲν πόλεμός τε κακὸς καὶ φύλοπις αἰνὴ |162 τοὺς μὲν ὑφ’ ἑπταπύλῳ Θήβῃ, Καδμηίδι γαίῃ, |163 ὤλεσε μαρναμένους μήλων ἕνεκ’ Οἰδιπόδαο, |164 τοὺς δὲ καὶ ἐν νήεσσιν ὑπὲρ μέγα λαῖτμα θαλάσσης |165 ἐς Τροίην ἀγαγὼν Ἑλένης ἕνεκ’ ἠυκόμοιο. |166 ἔνθ’ ἦ τοι τοὺς μὲν θανάτου τέλος ἀμφεκάλυψε |167 τοῖς δὲ δίχ’ ἀνθρώπων βίοτον καὶ ἤθε’ ὀπάσσας |168 Ζεὺς Κρονίδης κατένασσε πατὴρ ἐς πείρατα γαίης. |169 [[see BA 169= 9§29n]]|170 καὶ τοὶ μὲν ναίουσιν ἀκηδέα θυμὸν ἔχοντες |171 ἐν μακάρων νήσοισι παρ’ Ὠκεανὸν βαθυδίνην, |172 ὄλβιοι ἥρωες, τοῖσιν μελιηδέα καρπὸν |173 τρὶς ἔτεος θάλλοντα φέρει ζείδωρος ἄρουρα.

323 they were back then, alive and hoping to be remembered, the poetry now views them through the lens of a post-heroic age, seeing them as already dead and about to be forgotten (XII 1733).25 So the scenario of obliteration followed by immortalization for the hēmitheoi in the Hesiodic Works and Days (obliteration in 161-165, immortalization in 167-173) must be contrasted with a scenario of obliteration followed by no mention of immortalization for the hēmitheoi mentioned in the Homeric Iliad (XII 17-33).26

Hesiod in the Iron Age 12§28. Unlike Homeric poetry, Hesiodic poetry consistently views heroes through the lens of a post-heroic age, as we can see most clearly when Hesiod finally turns to Generation 5 of humankind, which is his own generation:

Hour 12 Text K |174 If only I did not have to be in the company of the Fifth Generation |175 of men, and if only I had died before it [= the Fifth Generation] or been born after it, |176 since now is the time of the Iron Geneation. Hesiod Works and Days 174-17627 12§29. In this grim Iron Age, which is the here and now for Hesiod, the neat division between dikē and hubris breaks down. You cannot say that this is a time of either dikē or hubris, because these two forces are presently engaged in an ongoing struggle, and Hesiod expresses his pessimism in the light of his present neikos ‘quarrel’ (mentioned in verse 35) with his unjust brother Perses, who is being supported by the unjust kings. Earlier in this hour, at §10, I have already explored the details of such an ongoing stuggle of dikē and hubris as viewed through the situation of Hesiod as he describes it. And Hesiod’s wording about the Iron Age, as I just quoted it in Text K, reflects his pessimism about the outcome of the struggle. In his anguish, he expresses a riddling wish, as we see it quoted in Works and Days 175-176, which is part of Text K: if only he had died, he says, in the previous generation or had been born in the next generation! Well, if Hesiod had died in the previous generation, which is one of his two alterative wishes, he would have found himself in Generation 4, and we have already seen what happened to the epic heroes who died in Generation 4: they became cult heroes by way of becoming immortalized after death in a paradisiacal setting that matches the Golden Age. And if he had been born in the next generation, which is the other one of his two alternative wishes, he would have found himself in the paradisiacal setting of the Golden Age of Generation 1, who are cult heroes to start with, just as the Generation 4 are cult heroes to end

EH §67, following BA 159-162 = 9§§13-17. Koenen 1994:5n12 calls this Iliadic scenario “the flip side of the same story.” 27 |174 Μηκέτ’ ἔπειτ’ ὤφελλον ἐγὼ πέμπτοισι μετεῖναι |175 ἀνδράσιν, ἀλλ’ ἢ πρόσθε θανεῖν ἢ ἔπειτα γενέσθαι. |176 νῦν γὰρ δὴ γένος ἐστὶ σιδήρεον. 26

324 with, though they had started off as epic heroes. So the two alteratives in the riddling wish of Hesiod are really one and the same thing, which is, to be in the Golden Age.28 12§30. Not only are the end of Generation 4 and the beginning of Generation 1 the same thing. We can also say that Generations 1 and 2 are the same thing, which is, the positive and the negative sides of cult heroes; and that Generations 3 and 4 are the same thing as well, which is, the negative and the positive sides of epic heroes. We can even say that Generations 1 and 2 are the same thing as Generations 3 and 4, since epic heroes do become cult heroes at the end of 4 in the cyclical logic of 1 to 2 to 3 to 4 back to 1 and so on. And this cycle is the same as the present, which is the quintessential here-and-now.29 We see this kind of thinking in the mythmaking traditions of other Indo-European languages as well: in Celtic and Indic traditions, for example, the number 5 following the sequence 1 2 3 4 is a symbol of integration and centrality. 30 12§31. Even though Hesiod wishes he did not live in the Iron Age, he still faces the struggle between dikē and hubris, which he proceeds to split into two separate worlds, just as he had split the world of heroes into two worlds, occupied by the cult figures on one hand and the epic heroes on the other hand - and just as he had split those two worlds further into two sub-worlds each, occupied by heroes who are just and heroes who are unjust. 12§32. In a new split between dikē and hubris, as foreseen by Hesiod in the context of his Iron Age, there is a polis ‘city’ of dikē, and this city abounds in fertility (225–237). By contrast, there is a polis ‘city’ of hubris, and this city is afflicted by sterility (238–247): Zeus punishes the people of such a city with famine (243), with the barrenness of their women (244), and with the diminution of their household possessions (244). Moreover, the stylized city of hubris is afflicted with shipwrecks in seastorms brought on by Zeus himself (247), whereas the fortunate inhabitants of the stylized city of dikē do not have to sail at all (236–237), since the earth bears for them plentiful karpos ‘fruit’ (237).31 12§33. Hesiod’s city of dikē is of course very much like the Golden Age of the Golden Generation, and at first sight it fits the heroic world. But the very opposition of dikē and hubris in this tale of two cities reflects a post-heroic world. By contrast, Homeric poetry, which is mostly situated in the world of heroes, by and large avoids any foregrounding of an opposition of dikē and hubris in the sense of ‘justice’ and its opposite. In fact, there are only three attested cases of such a formal opposition in Homeric poetry. In each of these three cases, we see 28

BA 168-169 = 9§29. BA 169 = 9§30. 30 Rees and Rees 1961:118-204. I highlight these two examples: the ‘Five Peoples’ in Indic traditions (together with the related idea of five directions - north / south / east / west / ‘here’) and the notion of Five ‘Provinces’ in Ireland. 31 Nagy 1985:62-63 = §51. 29

325 parallel contexts: Odysseus does not yet know where he has just arrived in the course of his travels, and he is asking himself whether the new place he has just reached is populated by people who are dikaioi ‘just’ or by hubristai, that is, by people who commit hubris (vi 120, ix 175, xiii 201). In the first case (vi 120), the place is the land of the Phaeacians; in the second, it is the land of the Cyclops (ix 175); and in the third, it is his own homeland, Ithaca. In the course of events, the Phaeacians turn out to be dikaioi, while the Cyclops is the ultimate hubristēs. But the situation is ambigous in the case of Ithaca, since the suitors of Penelope fit the desciption hubristai while only those who are near and dear to Odysseus would qualify as dikaioi. So the political situation in Ithaca at the time of Odysseus’ homecoming is the closest Homeric parallel to the political situation in the world of Hesiod. And such a political situation in Homeric poetry is the closest thing to a post-heroic context. 12§34. A related point can be made about the word dikē in the absolute sense of ‘justice’ and about derivative words conveying the same sense. That fact is, Homeric poetry avoids such words. We have already seen two of the most notable exceptions: in Text A of this hour, Odyssey xix 107-114, we saw the disguised Odysseus comparing Penelope to a basileus ‘king’ who ‘upholds acts of good dikē [eu-dikiai]’ (111), and in Text E of Hour 9, Odyssey iii 130-135, we saw that Athena punished some of the Achaeans in the course of their travels back home after the capture of Troy, and that the reason for this punishment was their failure to be dikaioi ‘just’ (133). We can say about both these cases that the exception proves the rule. In each case, Odysseus is stepping out of his role as epic hero. In the first case, as I argued in §7 near the beginning of this hour, the picture of a just king who rules over a fertile and prosperous land refers to the future status of Odysseus as a cult hero. And, in the second case, as I argued in Hour 11§55, Odysseus himself had been one of those offending Achaeans who had failed to be dikaioi, but the story of his moral offenses at Troy is screened out by the Odyssey. So, technically, neither one of these two examples shows Odysseus as a Homeric hero of the Trojan War.

Back to Hesiod as an exponent of dikē 12§35. By contrast with Homeric poetry, Hesiodic poetry explicitly depends on dikē. Even the identity of Hesiod as an authoritative poetic voice depends on the justification of dikē. Especially in the Hesiodic Works and Days, the embedded master narrative starts with the disequilibrium of injustice and moves towards the equilibrium of justice. I offer here an overall summary. In response to the injustices committed by the unjust brother Perses and by the crooked kings who support Perses, the just brother Hesiod literally speaks the Works and Days, and his initial poetic speech is composed of four parts:

326 - First, he retells the myth of Prometheus and Pandora (verses 42-105), which is all about a work ethic - an ethic that has to be understood in terms of agriculture, which in turn has to be understood as a sacred activity that stays in rhythm with the natural life cycle. - Second, he tells the myth of the Five Generations of Humankind (verses 106-201). As we have seen, the symbolism of the number 5 in this myth centers on the idea of a totality that becomes visible only by way of understanding how the four parts that lead up to it will in the end fit into that totality. And such a totality is the natural life cycle of the generic hero as the ultimate representative of humanity. Essentially, Generations 1 and 2 stand for the positive and negative images of the cult hero; Generations 3 and 4 stand for the negative and positive images of the epic hero; Generation 5 is the composite of the generic hero - as seen in the here-and-now. And the myth of the Five Generations of Humankind is also a vision of humanity - and how humanity has degenerated from the Golden Age to the Iron Age. The metaphor of metals correlated with the sequence of Five Generations of Humankind - Gold / Silver / Bronze / ___ / Iron - is symbolic of this human degeneration. The decreasing of value in this sequence of metals is made possible in the poetics of the Works and Days by way of leaving blank the fourth space in the sequence of spaces occupied by Gold / Silver / Bronze / ___ / Iron. The same blank fourth space makes it possible for the poetry to set up the dichotomies of better and worse, worse and better, for Generations 1 and 2, 3 and 4; otherwise, Generation 4 could not be viewed as the ‘better’ Generation that it is. This is why no metal can occupy the blank fourth space, since the idea of degeneration would have required such a metal to be worse, not better, than Bronze. And this is also why the least valuable metal must come last, and that metal is Iron. - Third, he tells a fable, about the Hawk and the Nightingale (202-212), and he calls this fable an ainos (202). The moral of the story is implied by what comes after the telling of the fable (275-278), at which point the listeners are told that beasts, unlike humans, habitually devour other beasts. By implication then, the unjust acquisition of wealth through power is like cannibalism. As we have already seen Hour 10§41, the image of humans devouring other humans is like a nightmarish vision that conjures up the worst moments of epic heroes. - Fourth comes an apocalyptic split vision of absolute dikē on one side and absolute hubris on the other side. They are seen as a city of dikē (225-237) and a city of hubris (238-247). 12§36. After these four narratives, the integrating logic of the master narrative takes hold. In the Hesiodic Works and Days, the man of dikē will in the end regain the wealth of the earth that he has justly earned (280-281), while the man of hubris will in the end lose all the wealth that he gained unjustly (325-326). And, in fact, the unjust brother Perses does in the end lose all his wealth (396).

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A reconnection of generations in an orchard 12§37. By contrast with the myth of the Five Generations of Humankind in the Hesiodic Works and Days, where the generic hero is refracted into four different generations, showing split images of cult heroes and epic heroes, of good heroes and bad heroes, the narrative of the Homeric Odyssey comes to an end with an integrated vision of heroic generations. This integration is achieved by way of a reconnection that happens between ancestor and descendant, as focused in the relationship of father and son. And this reconnection happens at the moment when Odysseus finds his father Laertes in an ‘orchard’, an alōē (Odyssey xxiv 226). The son finds the father in the act of cultivating that orchard, which looks just like the paradisiacal garden of a Golden Age. Here is what Odysseus says to Laertes, even before their mutual recognition is complete:

Hour 12 Text L |244 Old sir, it is clear that you are most knowledgeable in tending |245 an orchard [orkhatos]. It is well tended, with care [komidē], and there is nothing, |246 no plant at all - no fig tree no grapevine no olive tree |247 no pear tree no bed for herbs - no, there is nothing in this whole garden [kēpos] that lacks for care [komidē]. Odyssey xxiv 244-24732 12§38. Once the father and the son are reconnected, Laertes may start looking like a cult hero from the Golden Age. In the text that we have just seen, however, where Odysseus is addressing Laertes for the first time, the father is not yet ready to connect with the son because he has not yet recognized him. The interior sorrow of Laertes about being disconnected from Odysseus is still reflected in his exterior appearance, and, as the stillunrecognized Odysseus says bluntly but lovingly to his father, Laertes has not taken good ‘care’ (komidē xxiv 249) of himself, even though he has taken very good ‘care’ of the orchard, as we saw in the wording of Text L (xxiv 245, 247). But beneath the exterior degradation of the father, as Odysseus goes on to note, it is clear that Laertes still has the looks of a basileus ‘king’ (xxiv 253). So, once the son takes proper care of his father, Laertes will once again look like his true self (xxiv 254-255); and, later on in the narrative, this is exactly what happens, with the help of the goddess Athena (xxiv 365-371). But now, so that Laertes may finally recognize Odysseus, the son shows that he knows everything about the orchard that Laertes is tending. Odysseus reveals that his father had actually given that garden to him as a gift when Odysseus was still a boy (xxiv 336-337), and Odysseus shows that he remembers every detail that he learned from his father already then, when he was a growing boy, about this ‘orchard’ (alōē xxiv 336) or ‘garden’ (kēpos xxiv 338). Odysseus now narrates, in proper order, every beautiful 32

|244 ὦ γέρον, οὐκ ἀδαημονίη σ’ ἔχει ἀμφιπολεύειν |245 ὄρχατον, ἀλλ’ εὖ τοι κομιδὴ ἔχει, οὐδέ τι πάμπαν, |246 οὐ φυτόν, οὐ συκῆ, οὐκ ἄμπελος, οὐ μὲν ἐλαίη, |247 οὐκ ὄγχνη, οὐ πρασιή τοι ἄνευ κομιδῆς κατὰ κῆπον.

328 detail that he had learned from his father about this paradisiacal place where they used to take long walks together, and the father would answer every single question asked by the son (xxiv xxiv 337-344). 12§39. So, once Laertes reclaims his appearance as a king, he can be like a cult hero as he welcomes back to his paradisiacal garden a returning epic hero who has finally achieved a successful homecoming - and who can now reclaim a garden that he has owned all along. Now Odysseus, appearing as a king in his own right, can ultimately become a cult hero in his own right. So the divide between epic hero and cult hero is ultimately repaired, and so too is the divide that separates generations from each other. Now an integrated vision of the generic hero can finally be achieved.

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- Part II. Heroes as reflected in prose media

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Hour 13. A crisis in reading the world of heroes The meaning of krinein 13§1. The key word for this hour is krinein, the “middle voice” for of which is krinesthai, and the meaning of which is ‘judge, distinguish, make distinctions’. Here are words that derive from it: krisis ‘judgment, crisis’ kritērion ‘criterion’ for judging, distinguishing, making distinctions kritikos ‘critical’ in both senses: ‘crisis-related’ or ‘criticism-related’. 13§2. Such words are used in prose, not in poetry. And, in fact the first attestation of krinein that we will examine is also in prose. But, as we will see later, this word krinein can also be found in poetry. 13§3. A derivative of krinein that we will examine later on is hupo-krinesthai ‘respond’ in the sense that a seer ‘responds’ to a question about a vision seen by someone else. 13§4. Another derivative of krinein that we will examine still later on is dia-krinein, in the sense of ‘settling’ a dispute. 13§5. But let me start with my choice attestation of krinein, which is found in a work of prose. This attestation exemplifies most clearly what I want to show in this hour, that krinein can be used to distinguish a way to understand the world of heroes from the inside, which is separate from the way this world is understood from the outside.

A story about the meaning of olbios in the Histories of Herodotus 13§6. The story that is told in the passage I am about to quote is about a cult hero. I have already referred to this story in Hour 11§§17-20, where we saw that both meanings of the word olbios, ‘blessed’ and ‘fortunate’, are being used by Herodotus (1.29-33) in his overall narrative about an encounter of Croesus the king of Lydia with Solon the Athenian lawgiver. The story I am about to quote comes from the first part of that overall narrative. Testing Solon, Croesus asks him to name the most olbios person on earth (1.30.2), expecting that Solon will name Croesus himself (1.30.3). To his great disappointment, Croesus is told by Solon that an Athenian named Tellos is the most olbios of all humans:

Hour 13 Text A |1.30.2 “Athenian guest [xenos], we have heard much about your intelligence [sophia] and your wanderings, and that you have gone all over the world saying intelligent things

331 [philosopheîn], so now I desire to ask you who is the most olbios man you have seen.” |1.30.3 Croesus asked this question expecting the answer to be himself, but Solon, instead of flattering him, told it as it was and said, “O King, it is Tellos the Athenian.” |1.30.4 Croesus marveled at what he had said and replied sharply, “In what way do you judge [krinein] Tellos to be the most olbios?” Solon said, “Tellos was from a prosperous city [polis] and his children were good and noble [agathoi]. He saw them all have children of their own, and all of these survived. His life was well off by our standards, and his death was most distinguished: |1.30.5 when the Athenians were fighting their neighbors in Eleusis, he came to help, routed the enemy, and died most beautifully. The Athenians buried him at public expense on the spot where he fell and honored [tīmazein] him greatly.” Herodotus 1.30.2-51 13§7. So we see here that krinein refers to the act of ‘deciding’ or ‘judging’ whether you say one thing or another thing. And, in this case, as we will see, it also refers to the act of saying something on one level of meaning or saying it on another level. First, Solon has to decide whether he will say the truth or not. For him the truth is that the most olbios person is Tellos, not Croesus. Second, Solon uses the word olbios in one way, to mean ‘blessed’ like a cult hero, while Croesus uses the same word in another way, to mean ‘fortunate’ - that is, to be endowed with wealth, power, and prestige. One meaning belongs to the sacred world of cult heroes, while the other meaning belongs to the non-sacred world of ephemeral mortals. As we saw in Hour 11§17, the first meaning applies to Tellos the Athenian, who is honored as a cult hero, while the second meaning applies to Croesus - however temporarily. As the story implies, only those who are initiated into the mysteries of hero cult can understand the sacral meaning of olbios. And, as we saw in Hour 11§18, this implication about a deeper level of understanding, made avaiable only to initiates, is most evident in contexts where the word olbios refers to the bliss of initiation into mysteries of immortalization in general. I cite once again the use of this word with reference to the Eleusinian Mysteries:2

|1.30.2 “Ξεῖνε Ἀθηναῖε, παρ’ ἡμέας γὰρ περὶ σέο λόγος ἀπῖκται πολλὸς καὶ σοφίης [εἵνεκεν] τῆς σῆς καὶ πλάνης, ὡς φιλοσοφέων γῆν πολλὴν θεωρίης εἵνεκεν ἐπελήλυθας· νῦν ὦν ἐπειρέσθαι σε ἵμερος ἐπῆλθέ μοι εἴ τινα ἤδη πάντων εἶδες ὀλβιώτατον.” |1.30.3 Ὁ μὲν ἐλπίζων εἶναι ἀνθρώπων ὀλβιώτατος ταῦτα ἐπειρώτα, Σόλων δὲ οὐδὲν ὑποθωπεύσας, ἀλλὰ τῷ ἐόντι χρησάμενος, λέγει· “Ὦ βασιλεῦ, Τέλλον Ἀθηναῖον.” |1.30.4 Ἀποθωμάσας δὲ Κροῖσος τὸ λεχθὲν εἴρετο ἐπιστρεφέως· “Κοίῃ δὴ κρίνεις Τέλλον εἶναι ὀλβιώτατον;” Ὁ δὲ εἶπε· “Τέλλῳ τοῦτο μὲν τῆς πόλιος εὖ ἡκούσης παῖδες ἦσαν καλοί τε κἀγαθοί, καί σφι εἶδε ἅπασι τέκνα ἐκγενόμενα καὶ πάντα παραμείναντα, τοῦτο δὲ τοῦ βίου εὖ ἥκοντι, ὡς τὰ παρ’ ἡμῖν, τελευτὴ τοῦ βίου λαμπροτάτη ἐπεγένετο· |1.30.5 γενομένης γὰρ Ἀθηναίοισι μάχης πρὸς τοὺς ἀστυγείτονας ἐν Ἐλευσῖνι βοηθήσας καὶ τροπὴν ποιήσας τῶν πολεμίων ἀπέθανε κάλλιστα, καί μιν Ἀθηναῖοι δημοσίῃ τε ἔθαψαν αὐτοῦ τῇ περ ἔπεσε καὶ ἐτίμησαν μεγάλως.” 2 Again, PH 245 = 8§46n128.

332

Hour 13 Text B = Hour 11 Text D olbios is he among earthbound humans who has seen these things Homeric Hymn to Demeter 480 I find it significant that the figure of Tellos in the same story as I quoted it in Text A is connected with the prehistory of the Eleusis (Herodotus 1.30.5), the site of the Eleusinian Mysteries. 13§8. And there is another revealing word in the same story about Tellos, Text A, that has two levels of meaning: it is the verb tīmazein ‘honor’ (Herodotus 1.30.5), derived from the noun tīmē ‘honor’, referring the honor that Tellos receives after death in Eleusis. As we have already seen, tīmē can refer to the honor of hero cult that a cult hero receives after death. I cite again the example of the cult hero Demophon of Eleusis, who receives the honor of seasonally recurring athletic contests that are held at Eleusis and that re-enact a ‘war’:

Hour 13 Text C = Hour 8 Text C |259 I [= Demeter] swear by the implacable water of the Styx, the witness of oaths that gods make, as I say this: |260 immortal and ageless for all days |261 would I have made your dear [philos] little boy, and I would have given him honor [tīmē] that is unwilting [a-phthi-tos]. |262 But now there is no way for him to avoid death and doom. |263 Still, he will have an honor [tīmē] that is unwilting [a-phthi-tos], for all time, because on my knees |264 he had once sat and slept in my arms. |265 At the right season [hōrā], every year, |266 the sons of the Eleusinians will have a war, a terrible battle among each other. |267 They will do so for all days to come. Homeric Hymn to Demeter 259-267 13§9. Once again, as I had done already in Hour 8§20, I highlight here at verse 265 the noun hōrā (plural hōrai) ‘season, seasonality, the right time, the perfect time’, as I defined it in Hour 1§§26-29 and analyzed it in Hour 1§49 and then again in Hour 8§§20-21. As we see from the context that I just quoted here in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, this noun hōrā marks the seasonal recurrence of rituals honoring cult heroes. And the Eleusinian Games, which are the rituals in this case, may be related to the prehistory of the ‘war’ that had led to the death of Tellos in Text A (Herodotus 1.30.5). 13§10. Yet another revealing word in the same story about Tellos that has two levels of meaning is the name Tellos itself. It is derived from the word telos.3 As we will now see, this word telos can refer to ‘initiation’ into the mysteries of hero cult. So far, I have been consistently tranlating this word as either ‘final moment’ or ‘fulfillment’. In the Glossary, telos 3

The linguistic arguments are presented in PH 245 = 8§46n128.

333 is defined as ‘end, ending, final moment; goal, completion, fulfillment; coming full circle, rounding out; successfully passing through an ordeal; initiation; ritual, rite’. In terms of these definitions, telos has basically two levels of meaning: 1. the end of the line, as in death or 2. a coming full circle, as in immortalization after death - or as in an initiation from one state of existence into another state of existence.4 As I have argued in Hour 11, the idea of heroic immortalization after death was a traditional teaching that the worshippers of cult heroes learned in the context of initiation into the mysteries of hero cult. And, as I noted already there, the actual procedures involved in such initiation will be explored in Hour 15. For now, however, I continue to highlight simply the existence of these mysteries. The evidence, I repeat, comes from traditional wording that refers to intitiation into mysteries concerning the immortalization of heroes.

Another story about the meaning of olbios in the Histories of Herodotus 13§11. There is a story that expresses both these levels of meaning of telos, and it is linked directly with the story about Tellos in Text A, Herodotus 1.30.2-5. In fact, this story immediately follows the story about Tellos:

Hour 13 Text D |1.31.1 When Solon had provoked him by referring to the things that happened to Tellos, saying that these things were many and blessed [olbia], Croesus asked him [= Solon] what person he saw as the next one after him [= Tellos], since he [= Croesus] quite expected to win second prize. Solon answered, “Kleobis and Biton. |1.31.2 They were Argive by birth [genos], and they made a living that was quite sufficient. And, and on top of this, they had such great physical strength! Both were prize-winning athletes [āthlophoroi]. Here is the story that is told about them. There was a festival [heortē] of Hērā in Argos, and it was absolutely necessary for their mother [= the priestess of Hērā] to be conveyed to the sacred precinct [hieron] [of Hērā] by a team of oxen. But their oxen had not come back from the fields in time [hōrā], so the youths themselves took the yoke upon their shoulders under constraint of time [hōrā] and started pulling the wagon, with their mother riding on top of it, transporting her [their mother] forty-five stadium-lengths until they arrived at the 4

HC 95 =1§49, where I also note that form from which Greek telos and related forms derive cannot be reduced to a single Indo-European root. As the discussion proceeds, we will see that there are two roots involved in the formation of telos and related forms: *kwel- and *tel-. The first of these two roots conveys the idea of ‘come full circle’.

334 sacred precinct [hieron] [of Hērā ]. |1.31.3 After they [= Kleobis and Biton] had done these things and had been seen [op-] doing these things by everyone participating in the festival [panēguris],5 the very best fulfillment [teleutē] of life now happened for them. And in all this the god showed that it is better for a man to be in a state of death than in a state of life [zōein].6 For the men of Argos, standing around the two youths, declared them blessed [makares] for having such physical strength, while the women of Argos declared the mother of the youths blessed for having such children as these two. |1.31.4 And the mother, overjoyed [perikharēs] about what had been accomplished and about what had been said about the things that had been accomplished, stood before the statue [= of Hērā] and prayed on behalf of Kleobis and Biton, her two children, who had so greatly honored [tīmazein] her. She prayed that the goddess [= Hērā] should give them [= the two youths] the very best thing that can happen to a human. |1.31.5 After this prayer, the people sacrificed [thuein] and feasted [euōkheîn], and the youths went to sleep [katakoimâsthai] right then and there in the sacred precinct [of Hērā]. And they [= the two youths] never got up [an-histasthai] again, but were held still [ekhesthai] in this fulfillment [telos]. And the people of Argos made likenesses [eikōn plural] of them and dedicated these at Delphi, saying that these were images of men who had become the very best of men.” Herodotus 1.31.1-57 13§12. We just saw two key expressions in this text, which both apply not only to the meaning of the story of Kleobis and Biton but also to the meaning of the name Tellos in the preceding story. The first expression was this (1.31.3): ‘the very best fulfillment [teleutē] of life 5

The visualizing of this scene, as indicated here by op- ‘see’, is essential to the narrative. Relevant is the insightful analysis by Danielle Arnold Freedman (1998:11-13). 6 On the mystical subtext of this formulation, see PH 243-247 = 8§§45-48. 7 |1.31.1 Ὡς δὲ τὰ κατὰ τὸν Τέλλον προετρέψατο ὁ Σόλων τὸν Κροῖσον εἴπας πολλά τε καὶ ὄλβια, ἐπειρώτα τίνα δεύτερον μετ' ἐκεῖνον ἴδοι, δοκέων πάγχυ δευτερεῖα γῶν οἴσεσθαι. Ὁ δὲ εἶπε· “Κλέοβίν τε καὶ Βίτωνα. |1.31.2 Τούτοισι γὰρ ἐοῦσι γένος Ἀργείοισι βίος τε ἀρκέων ὑπῆν καὶ πρὸς τούτῳ ῥώμη σώματος τοιήδε· ἀεθλοφόροι τε ἀμφότεροι ὁμοίως ἦσαν, καὶ δὴ καὶ λέγεται ὅδε [ὁ] λόγος· ἐούσης ὁρτῆς τῇ Ἥρῃ τοῖσι Ἀργείοισι ἔδεε πάντως τὴν μητέρα αὐτῶν ζεύγεϊ κομισθῆναι ἐς τὸ ἱρόν, οἱ δέ σφι βόες ἐκ τοῦ ἀγροῦ οὐ παρεγίνοντο ἐν ὥρῃ· ἐκκληιόμενοι δὲ τῇ ὥρῃ οἱ νεηνίαι ὑποδύντες αὐτοὶ ὑπὸ τὴν ζεύγλην εἷλκον τὴν ἅμαξαν, ἐπὶ τῆς ἁμάξης δέ σφι ὠχέετο ἡ μήτηρ, σταδίους δὲ πέντε καὶ τεσσεράκοντα διακομίσαντες ἀπίκοντο ἐς τὸ ἱρόν. |1.31.3 Ταῦτα δέ σφι ποιήσασι καὶ ὀφθεῖσι ὑπὸ τῆς πανηγύριος τελευτὴ τοῦ βίου ἀρίστη ἐπεγένετο, διέδεξέ τε ἐν τούτοισι ὁ θεὸς ὡς ἄμεινον εἴη ἀνθρώπῳ τεθνάναι μᾶλλον ἢ ζώειν. Ἀργεῖοι μὲν γὰρ περιστάντες ἐμακάριζον τῶν νεηνιέων τὴν ῥώμην, αἱ δὲ Ἀργεῖαι τὴν μητέρα αὐτῶν, οἵων τέκνων ἐκύρησε. |1.31.4 Ἡ δὲ μήτηρ περιχαρὴς ἐοῦσα τῷ τε ἔργῳ καὶ τῇ φήμῃ, στᾶσα ἀντίον τοῦ ἀγάλματος εὔχετο Κλεόβι τε καὶ Βίτωνι τοῖσι ἑωυτῆς τέκνοισι, οἵ μιν ἐτίμησαν μεγάλως, τὴν θεὸν δοῦναι τὸ ἀνθρώπῳ τυχεῖν ἄριστόν ἐστι. |1.31.5 Μετὰ ταύτην δὲ τὴν εὐχὴν ὡς ἔθυσάν τε καὶ εὐωχήθησαν, κατακοιμηθέντες ἐν αὐτῷ τῷ ἱρῷ οἱ νεηνίαι οὐκέτι ἀνέστησαν, ἀλλ’ ἐν τέλεϊ τούτῳ ἔσχοντο. Ἀργεῖοι δέ σφεων εἰκόνας ποιησάμενοι ἀνέθεσαν ἐς Δελφοὺς ὡς ἀνδρῶν ἀρίστων γενομένων.

335 now happened for them’.8 I could have translated teleutē as ‘final moment’, but this word is related to telos and shows parallel patterns of double meaning: like telos, teleutē can be a ‘fulfillment’ as well as a ‘final moment’. And the second expression was this (1.31.5): ‘they [= the two youths] … were held still [ekhesthai] in this fulfillment [telos]’. The moment is like a snapshot, and the person who is taking your picture is saying to you: “hold still!” In order to explore the double meanings of teleutē and telos as ‘final moment’ and ‘fulfillment’ here in Text D, I now offer further analysis of the story itself. 13§13. While all the sacrificing and the feasting is going on, the two youths fall asleep inside the sacred precinct of the goddess, and the euphemistic wording that describes this sleep highlights a sacred idea. Here is the idea: these two youths will now be permanently encapsulated in the perfect moment that they had just reached at this climactic point in the story of their lives. As the story says, ‘they never got up again’9 (1.31.5). That is, the two youths never got up again in this world of mortals. Now they will ‘hold still’ forever in another world, in exactly the perfect moment that they had just achieved. Let us look back one more time at the expression (1.31.5): ‘they [= the two youths] … were held still [ekhesthai] in this fulfillment [telos]’.10 The verb ekhein ‘hold’ in the middle voice, ekhesthai, is used here in the sense of capturing a snapshot moment, as I said a minute ago. Another way to say it is this: “hold it right there!”11 In other words, the two youths die at the perfect moment in a perfect pose. 13§14. My choice of the word pose here is based on the meaning of the noun derived from the verb ekhesthai ‘hold still’, that is, skhēma, which can mean the ‘pose’ of a dancer or even the ‘pose’ of a statue.12 So we see the two youths settling into a perfect and eternal pose, which becomes a visible sign of their telos. And this telos in the sense of ‘fulfillment’ really is the very best teleutē - again in the sense of ‘fulfillment’. That is what is predicted earlier in the story, as we saw in the expression of Herodotus: ‘the very best fulfillment [teleutē] of life now happened for them’13 (1.31.3). 13§15. So now I am ready to go beyond the translations of telos and teleutē as either ‘final moment’ or ‘fulfillment’. To these translations I add another: ‘coming full circle’. In terms of a straight line, telos is the ‘end’ of that line; in terms of a circle, however, telos is a ‘coming full circle’.14 In this light, I come back to a formulation I introduced in Hour 1§49, where I said that the unseasonality of the hērōs in mortal life leads to the telos or ‘fulfillment’ of hōrā 8

τελευτὴ τοῦ βίου ἀρίστη ἐπεγένετο. οὐκέτι ἀνέστησαν. 10 ἐν τέλεϊ τούτῳ ἔσχοντο. 11 HC 94-95 = 1§47, with reference also to PH 38 = 1§39n111. Freedman (1998:13) describes this moment as “photographic.” 12 HC 95 = 1§47. 13 τελευτὴ τοῦ βίου ἀρίστη ἐπεγένετο. 14 Again, HC 95 =1§49. 9

336 ‘seasonality’ in immortal life, which is achieved in the setting of hero cult. Now we have finally seen such a model of achievement in the two parallel stories of Herodotus about cult heroes, and in both stories a key to the meaning is the word telos in the sense of ‘fulfillment’, even ‘coming full circle’. In the first story, as quoted in Text A, Tellos achieves the telos of a cult hero even by way of his name, which is derived from telos. And, in the second story, as quoted in Text D, Kleobis and Biton achieve the best teleutē by ‘holding still’ forever in the telos of a perfect moment, which is the telos of the cult hero. 13§16. Here I come back to another most telling part of the story of Kleobis and Biton in Text D (Herodotus 1.32.2): ‘their oxen had not come back from the fields in time [hōrā], so the youths themselves took the yoke upon their shoulders under constraint of time [hōrā] and started pulling the wagon’.15 In other words, the oxen who were destined to pull the wagon that took the priestess of Hērā all the way to the precinct of Hērā, which was forty-five stadium-lengths away from the city center of Argos, were simply not on time. They were untimely, and the timing or hōrā was off. But the youths who took their place were perfectly timely: they were on time, since they were constrained by the timing or hōrā of the festival. If the oxen had been on time, they would have been slaughtered as the prime sacrifical victims of the sacrifice to the goddess Hērā in her precinct. But they were not on time, and so the youths had to be on time. And the youths died their deaths in place of the prime sacrificial victims. 13§17. This crisis of hōrā in the story of Kleobis and Biton is relevant to the goddess who presided over the whole chain of events in the story. That goddess is Hērā. And, as we saw in Hour 1§27, Hērā was the goddess of hōrā (plural hōrai). And, as we also saw, the two forms Hērā and hōrā are linguistically related to each other. Hērā was the goddess of seasons, in charge of making everything happen on time, happen in season, and happen in a timely way. But then there is the hero. As we saw in Hour 1§28, the word hērōs (plural hērōes) meaning ‘hero’ is related to the words hōrā and Hērā. But heroes, unlike the goddess Hērā, are not timely. They become timely only when they die. The precise moment when everything comes together for the hero is the moment of death. The hero is ‘on time’ at the hōrā or ‘time’ of death. Before death and in fact during their whole lifetime, however, heroes are not on time: rather, they are unseasonal, as we saw first and foremost in the case of Hēraklēs in Hour 1§39. 13§18. Being on time for death is precisely what happens to Kleobis and Biton, sons of the priestess of Hērā in the story I quoted in Text D. Their timely death marks them as cult heroes, and the word that expresses this timely death, which will lead to timeless immortalization, is telos. And it is most appropriate that Hērā, the goddess of timeliness, presides over the telos of heroes: as I noted in Hour 1§49, the connection of Hērā with the idea of telos is evident in the adjective teleia, derived from telos, which is a cult epithet of the 15

οἱ δέ σφι βόες ἐκ τοῦ ἀγροῦ οὐ παρεγίνοντο ἐν ὥρῃ· ἐκκληιόμενοι δὲ τῇ ὥρῃ οἱ νεηνίαι ὑποδύντες αὐτοὶ ὑπὸ τὴν ζεύγλην εἷλκον τὴν ἅμαξαν.

337 goddess Hērā.16 Combined with the name of this goddess, teleia can mean not only ‘bringing fulfillment’ but even ‘bringing perfection’. If striving to achieve a telos is a process, then the achievement itself can be seen as the perfecting of that process.17 Such an idea of perfection is built into the word hōrā: in Hour 1§§26-29, I analyzed the meaning of this word (plural hōrai) as ‘season, seasonality, the right time, the perfect time’. 13§19. In the case of Herodotus’ framing story about Solon’s story about Kleobis and Biton, Text D, the framing story reaches its own telos or ‘fulfillment’ in an aetiology (1.31.5). By aetiology here, as I repeat from Hour 7a§15, I mean a myth that motivates an institutional reality, especially a ritual. In this case the aetiology has to do with the rituals and the ritual objects connected with the hero cult of Kleobis and Biton at Argos. The ritual objects are the statues of the two young men, and their status as cult heroes is evidently visualized in the form of these statues: ‘And the people of Argos made likenesses [eikōn plural] of them and dedicated these at Delphi, saying that these were images of men who had become the very best of men’18 (1.31.5). As we learn from Herodotus, the outcome of the story of these two young men is formalized in these statues. The perfect pose of their perfect moment, rigid to the point of rigor mortis, is captured by the creation of their statues. And the two statues have actually survived: you can see them today in the Museum at Delphi:19

Again I cite the example in Aristophanes Women at the Thesmophoria 973. HC 95 = 1§49. 18 Ἀργεῖοι δέ σφεων εἰκόνας ποιησάμενοι ἀνέθεσαν ἐς Δελφοὺς ὡς ἀνδρῶν ἀρίστων γενομένων. 19 HC 95 = 1§50. I add there that it does not affect my argument whether or not Kleobis and Biton were the original referents at the time when these statues were made. What matters is that they were truly the referents as far as the Argives were concerned, with reference to the time of Herodotus’ own narration. 17

338

[Poly]medes of Argos, “Kleobis and Biton.” Marble, free standing, height approx. 2.2 m. Archaic, ca. 580 BCE. Delphi, Archaeological Museum, 467 and 1524.

339 13§20. In the context of the Herodotean narrative, a perfect moment of happiness was experienced by all who took part in the festival of Hērā, and this moment became concretized in the form of the statues of Kleobis and Biton.20 The stylized death of these two youths is a dramatization of the perfect heroic moment - especially since they are sons of the priestess of Hērā herself, who is the goddess of that perfect moment. 13§21. Back when we started this hour, I noted the differences in the meaning of olbios for those who were initiated into the mysteries of hero cult and for those who were not. These differences are relevant to this riddling statement in Text B: ‘and in all this the god showed that it is better for a man to be in a state of death than in a state of life [zōein]’21 (1.31.3). For the uninitiated, this wording means that you are better off dead - that you might as well choose to be put out of your misery instead going on with life. For the initiated, this same wording means that a life after death will be better for you than the life you are living now. 13§22. From my study of such words as olbios and tīmē and telos during this hour, I conclude that the cult hero is literally defined in terms of one’s ability to krinein ‘judge, distinguish’, which as we have seen is the power of discerning the true from the untrue.

Variations in discriminating between the real and the unreal 13§23. Now we turn to a derivative of krinein, which is hupo-krinesthai. I focus on an attestation in the Homeric Odyssey, where Penelope is speaking to the disguised Odysseus. She is testing the hero by challenging him to interpret a dream:

Hour 13 Text E Come, respond [hupo-krinesthai] to my dream, and hear my telling of it. Odyssey xix 53522 13§24. Here Penelope challenges Odysseus to respond to the omen of her dream about the killing of the geese in her courtyard by an eagle that swoops down on them: the verb hupokrinesthai is used here in the imperative, with the word for ‘dream’ in the accusative.23 Within the dream itself, the eagle says to Penelope that he is Odysseus and that the geese are the suitors, who are to be punished for their unjust behavior.The disguised Odysseus responds to the convoluted words of Penelope by saying that her dream has already interpreted itself and that no response is needed from him - except to say what he has said, that the dream has already interpreted itself (xix 55-558). This way, Odysseus postpones identifying himself to Penelope, but at the same time he shows his good judgment in discriminating between what is 20

HC 96 = 1§51. διέδεξέ τε ἐν τούτοισι ὁ θεὸς ὡς ἄμεινον εἴη ἀνθρώπῳ τεθνάναι μᾶλλον ἢ ζώειν. 22 ἀλλ’ ἄγε μοι τὸν ὄνειρον ὑπόκριναι καὶ ἄκουσον. 23 HR 23. 21

340 false and what is true about his own heroic identity as defined by his sense of justice, which is being challenged by the injustices inflicted on him by the suitors. 13§25. In this light, we can see further dimensions in the meaning of krinein, from which the compound form hupo-krinesthai is derived. This verb krinein, in the active voice, can be translated as ‘interpret’ when combined with the noun opsis ‘vision’ as its object (Herodotus 7.19.1-2) or with enupnion ‘dream’ as its object (Herodotus 1.120.1).24 It is a question of interpreting-in-performance. In the middle voice, hupokrinesthai suggests that the performer is interpreting for himself as well as for others.25 The basic idea of hupokrinesthai, then, is to see the real meaning of what others see and to quote back, as it were, what this vision is really telling them.26

Variations in discriminating between justice and injustice 13§26. In discriminating between what is heroic and unheroic, derivatives forms of krinein can refer to moral questions that shape the very foundations of poetry. There is a shining example in the Hesiodic Theogony, describing legal actions taken by an ideal king:

Hour 13 Text F |81 Whosoever among sky-nourished kings is honored [timân] by these daughters of great Zeus [= the Muses]27 |82 and is beheld by them when he is born, |83 for such a man they pour sweet dew upon his tongue, |84 and from his mouth flow sweet words. The people, |85 all of them, look towards him as he sorts out [dia-krinein] the divine laws [themis plural] |86 by way of straight judgments [dikai]. And he, speaking without stumbling |87 and with his powers of understanding, can even put an end to a great quarrel [neikos].28 |88 It is for this reason that there are kings, kings with good thinking [phrenes], namely, because when people |89 are wronged in the assembly [agorā], they [= the kings] can turn things right around for them, |90 quite easily, speaking in a deflecting way by using soft words. |91 And when he [= the just king] goes to a gathering [agōn], the people turn to him as if he were a god, |92 because of his gentle command of respect [aidōs], and he stands out among the assembled. |93 Such is the sacred gift of the Muses for humankind. |94 For it is because of the Muses and far-shooting Apollo |95 that there are singers [aoidoi] and players of the lyre [kitharis] on this earth. |96 And it is because of Zeus that there are kings. Blessed [olbios] is he whom the Muses |97 love. And a sweet voice [audē] flows from his mouth.

Koller 1957:101. Koller 1957:102. 26 HC 152 = 1§158, following HR 37-38. 27 Earlier in the Hesiodic Theogony (80), one Muse in particular, Kalliope, is described as the patroness of kings. 28 Compare the context of neikos at Works and Days 35. 25

341 Hesiod Theogony 81-9729 13§27. As we have just seen at verse 85 here, the ideal king diakrinei ‘sorts out’ what is themis ‘divine law’ and what is not. And the king can do this, as we read at verse 86, by way of his dikai ‘judgments’. This way, as we will now see in the Hesiodic Works and Days, the ideal king is the representative of Zeus on earth, since it is Zeus himself who ithunei ‘makes straight’ the themistes ‘divine laws’:

Hour 13 Text G |1 Muses of Pieria, you who make glory [kleos] with your songs, |2 come and tell of Zeus, making a song about your father, |3 on account of whom there are mortals both unworthy of talk and worthy, |4 both worth speaking of and not—all on account of great Zeus. |5 Easily he gives power, and just as easily he ruins the powerful. |6 Easily he diminishes the distinguished, and magnifies the undistinguished. |7 Easily he makes straight the crooked and withers the overweening |8 - Zeus, the one who thunders on high, who lives in the highest abode. |9 Heed me, seeing and hearing as you do, and with justice [dikē] make straight [ithunein] the divine laws [themis plural]. |10 While you do that, I am ready to tell genuine [etētuma] things to Perses. Hesiod Works and Days 1-1030 13§28. At verse 9 here, we see also that Zeus is straightening the themistes ‘divine laws’ by way of his own dikē. In this absolutizing context, both the short-term meaning of dikē as ‘judgment’ and its long-term meaning as ‘judgment’ are fused in the absolute figure of Zeus. Only for Zeus is a ‘judgment’ the same thing as ‘justice’. And this absolute model can now absolutely validate the figure of Hesiod himself. As we have just read in Works and Days verses 9-10, the dikē of Zeus is in action while Hesiod talks to Perses. So the action of Zeus is the same thing as the speech of Hesiod. That is how Hesiod becomes the ultimate master of the speech act. For background on this term speech act, I refer back to Hour 2§§41-43. 29

|81 ὅντινα τιμήσουσι Διὸς κοῦραι μεγάλοιο |82 γεινόμενόν τε ἴδωσι διοτρεφέων βασιλήων, |83 τῷ μὲν ἐπὶ γλώσσῃ γλυκερὴν χείουσιν ἐέρσην, |84 τοῦ δ’ ἔπε’ ἐκ στόματος ῥεῖ μείλιχα· οἱ δέ νυ λαοὶ |85 πάντες ἐς αὐτὸν ὁρῶσι διακρίνοντα θέμιστας |86 ἰθείῃσι δίκῃσιν· ὁ δ’ ἀσφαλέως ἀγορεύων |87 αἶψά τι καὶ μέγα νεῖκος ἐπισταμένως κατέπαυσε· |88 τούνεκα γὰρ βασιλῆες ἐχέφρονες, οὕνεκα λαοῖς |89 βλαπτομένοις ἀγορῆφι μετάτροπα ἔργα τελεῦσι |90 ῥηιδίως, μαλακοῖσι παραιφάμενοι ἐπέεσσιν· |91 ἐρχόμενον δ’ ἀν’ ἀγῶνα θεὸν ὣς ἱλάσκονται |92 αἰδοῖ μειλιχίῃ, μετὰ δὲ πρέπει ἀγρομένοισι. |93 τοίη Μουσάων ἱερὴ δόσις ἀνθρώποισιν. |94 ἐκ γάρ τοι Μουσέων καὶ ἑκηβόλου Ἀπόλλωνος |95 ἄνδρες ἀοιδοὶ ἔασιν ἐπὶ χθόνα καὶ κιθαρισταί, |96 ἐκ δὲ Διὸς βασιλῆες· ὁ δ’ ὄλβιος, ὅντινα Μοῦσαι |97 φίλωνται· γλυκερή οἱ ἀπὸ στόματος ῥέει αὐδή. 30 |1 Μοῦσαι Πιερίηθεν ἀοιδῇσι κλείουσαι, |2 δεῦτε Δί’ ἐννέπετε, σφέτερον πατέρ’ ὑμνείουσαι. |3 ὅν τε διὰ βροτοὶ ἄνδρες ὁμῶς ἄφατοί τε φατοί τε, |4 ῥητοί τ’ ἄρρητοί τε Διὸς μεγάλοιο ἕκητι. |5 ῥέα μὲν γὰρ βριάει, ῥέα δὲ βριάοντα χαλέπτει, |6 ῥεῖα δ’ ἀρίζηλον μινύθει καὶ ἄδηλον ἀέξει, |7 ῥεῖα δέ τ’ ἰθύνει σκολιὸν καὶ ἀγήνορα κάρφει |8 Ζεὺς ὑψιβρεμέτης, ὃς ὑπέρτατα δώματα ναίει. |9 κλῦθι ἰδὼν ἀίων τε, δίκῃ δ’ ἴθυνε θέμιστας |10 τύνη· ἐγὼ δέ κε Πέρσῃ ἐτήτυμα μυθησαίμην.

342 13§29. In the Works and Days, it is actually Hesiod who becomes the hero of the speech act, since the blessing that the Muses give to the ideal juridical speaker suits him more than any other mortal, even more than any king: as he have just read in the Hesiodic Theogony (9697), ‘blessed [olbios] is he whom the Muses |97 love’31. And that blessing, marked by the word olbios, signals the making of a cult hero. 13§30. The validation of Hesiod as the ideal juridical speaker is indicated another way as well. We can see it when we consider what is missing in the picture of an ideal king. And this thing that is missing can be described as a significant absence. The one thing that is missing is a skēptron ‘scepter’, which is traditionally a primary marker of kings who have the authority of making judgments at councils of kings (as in Iliad I 279, II 86); when the Achaean kings make dikai ‘judgments’ at a council of kings, the protocol is for each king to hold the skēptron ‘scepter’ when it is his turn to speak.32 In the Theogony, however, someone else already has the scepter. That is, Hesiod himself receives a scepter from the Muses. Here is how the persona of Hesiod describes the moment when he receives this gift from the Muses, who offer to teach him how to say the absolute truth:

Hour 13 Text H |22 [It was the Muses] who taught me, Hesiod, their beautiful song. |23 It happened when I was tending flocks of sheep in a valley of Helikon, that holy mountain. |24 And the very first thing that the goddesses said to me, |25 those Muses of Mount Olympus, those daughters of Zeus who holds the aegis, was this wording [mūthos]:33 |26 “Shepherds camping in the fields, base objects of reproach, mere bellies!34 |27 We know how to say many deceptive things looking like genuine things,35 |28 but we also know how, whenever we wish it, to proclaim things that are true [alēthea].”36 |29 That is how they spoke, those daughters of great Zeus, who have words [epea] that fit perfectly together, |30 and they gave me a scepter [skēptron],37 a branch of flourishing laurel, |31 having plucked it. And it was a wonder to behold. Then they breathed into me a voice [audē], |32 a godlike one, so that I may make glory [kleos] for things that will be and things that have been, |33 and then they told me to sing how the

ὁ δ’ ὄλβιος, ὅντινα Μοῦσαι |97 φίλωνται. GM 52-53. 33 For commentary on muthos here in the sense of ‘wording meant to be remembered for the record’, see HQ 119-133, following Martin 1989. 34 For commenary on these riddling words of insult uttered by the Muses here as a test for Hesiod, see GM 44-45 274-275. 35 For commentary on hom*oia ‘looking like’ in this context, see Nagy 2010c. 36 For commentary on alēthea ‘true things’ here in the sense of absolute truth, see PH 64-68 = 2§§26-32; also Nagy 2009a:275-277. 37 More on this skēptron ‘scepter’ in GM 49. 32

343 blessed ones [makares = the gods] were generated, the ones that are forever, |34 and that I should sing them [= the Muses] first and last. Hesiod Theogony 22-3438 13§31. This skēptron given to Hesiod by the Muses is a symbol of the authorization inherent in the poetic form of the Theogony. From an anthropological point of view, a theogony is a speech-act of authorization. But Hesiod’s theogony authorizes not kings. Rather, it authorizes Hesiod himself as an overarching representative of authority. Hesiod is a master of truth, absolute truth: that is the essence of the word alēthea ‘true things’ at Theogony 28.39 13§32. So, both in the Theogony and in the Works and Days, Hesiod figures as the absolute master of the speech act, as the master of the absolute truth. His status as cult hero is based on this mastery. Hesiod is programmed by the Theogony and by the Works and Days to become such a cult hero. 13§33. There is historical evidence for the worship of Hesiod as a cult hero, and there is even an allusion to it in the History of Thucydides (3.96.1).40 In this connection, I should also note that there is historical evidence to show that Homer too was worshipped as a cult hero.41 Limitations of time and space prevent me, however, from exploring here such external evidence about Homer as well as Hesiod, and I confine myself to highlighting the built-in references that we find in Hesiodic poetry about the status of this poet as a cult hero.42 13§34. I return to the verb dia-krinein, as we saw it attested in the description of the ideal king in Theogony 85-87. At verses 85-86, we read how an ideal king dia-krinei ‘sorts out’ what is themis ‘divine law’ and what is not, and how he accomplishes this ‘sorting out’ by way of his dikē ‘judgment’. By doing so, the ideal king can bring to an end a great neikos ‘quarrel’, as we read at verse 87.

|22 αἵ νύ ποθ’ Ἡσίοδον καλὴν ἐδίδαξαν ἀοιδήν, |23 ἄρνας ποιμαίνονθ’ Ἑλικῶνος ὕπο ζαθέοιο. |24 τόνδε δέ με πρώτιστα θεαὶ πρὸς μῦθον ἔειπον, |25 Μοῦσαι Ὀλυμπιάδες, κοῦραι Διὸς αἰγιόχοιο· |26 “ποιμένες ἄγραυλοι, κάκ’ ἐλέγχεα, γαστέρες οἶον, |27 ἴδμεν ψεύδεα πολλὰ λέγειν ἐτύμοισιν ὁμοῖα, |28 ἴδμεν δ’ εὖτ’ ἐθέλωμεν ἀληθέα γηρύσασθαι.” |29 ὣς ἔφασαν κοῦραι μεγάλου Διὸς ἀρτιέπειαι, |30 καί μοι σκῆπτρον ἔδον δάφνης ἐριθηλέος ὄζον |31 δρέψασαι, θηητόν· ἐνέπνευσαν δέ μοι αὐδὴν |32 θέσπιν, ἵνα κλείοιμι τά τ’ ἐσσόμενα πρό τ’ ἐόντα, |33 καί μ’ ἐκέλονθ’ ὑμνεῖν μακάρων γένος αἰὲν ἐόντων, |34 σφᾶς δ’ αὐτὰς πρῶτόν τε καὶ ὕστατον αἰὲν ἀείδειν. 39 PH 59-61, 68 =2 §§22-23, §31. 40 For a survey of the evidence, see Nagy 2009a:304-308. For more on Hesiod as a cult hero, see Bershadsky 2011, especially pp. 19 and 22. 41 PP 113n33; see also PP 113n33 about the Homēridai ‘sons of Homer’ as continuators of a hero cult of Homer, with further analysis in HPC = 57-69 = 1§§138-167. 42 For more on such built-in references, see again Bershadsky 2011.

344 13§35. In Works and Days 9-10, we saw that Zeus straightens themis ‘divine law’ by way of his dikē ‘judgment’ - while Hesiod speaks to Perses. The speaking of Hesiod, as a speech act, takes place in the context of a neikos ‘quarrel’, as we read at verse 35, between Hesiod as the just brother and Perses as the unjust brother. And here we come to a most striking attestation of dia-krinein - this time, in the middle voice. Hesiod calls on his brother to sort out with him, as expressed by way of dia-krinesthai, in the middle voice, a resolution of the quarrel:

Hour 13 Text I |35 … But come, let us now sort out for ourselves the quarrel [neikos], with straight judgments [dikai], which are the best when they come from Zeus. Hesiod Works and Days 35-3643 And such a sorting out actually happens in the course of the Works and Days, as I analyzed it in Hour 12, especially in §10 and §36.44 13§36. This kind of sorting out does not happen in Homeric poetry. As we saw in Hour 12§33, Homeric poetry does not address the problem of justice, that is, it does not judge what is right and what is wrong. The one place where an opportunity arises, this opportunity is not taken. It is a litigation scene portrayed as a central picture worked into the cosmic artifact known as the Shield of Achilles:

Hour 13 Text J (including Hour 8 Text L) |497 Meanwhile the people were gathered in assembly, and there a quarrel [neikos] |498 had arisen, and two men were quarreling [neikeîn] about the blood-price [poinē] |499 for a man who had died. One of the two claimed that he had the right to pay off the damages in full, |500 declaring this publicly to the population of the district [dēmos], and the other of the two was refusing to accept anything. |501 Both of them were seeking a limit [peirar], in the presence of an arbitrator [histōr], |502 and the people took sides, each man shouting for the side he was on; |503 but the heralds kept them back, and the elders |504 sat on benches of polished stone in a sacred [hieros] circle, |505 taking hold of scepters [skēptra] that the heralds, who lift their voices, put into their hands. |506 Holding these [scepters] they rose and each in his turn gave judgment [dikazein],45 |507 and in their midst there were placed on

|35 … ἀλλ’ αὖθι διακρινώμεθα νεῖκος |36 ἰθείῃσι δίκῃς, αἵ τ’ ἐκ Διός εἰσιν ἄρισται. Further analysis in Bershadsky 2011:24. 45 When the Achaean kings make dikai ‘judgments’ at a council of kings, as I noted earlier, the protocol is for each king to hold the skēptron ‘scepter’ when it is his turn to speak: see §30. 43 44

345 the ground two measures of gold, |508 to be given to that one among them who spoke a judgment [dikē] in the most straight way [ithuntata].46 Iliad XVIII 497-50847 13§37. We see here an unresolved tension between dikē as ‘justice’ in the long term and ‘judgment’ in the short term. At XVIII 508, we see a contest or debate that centers on the question of the ‘straightest’ possible formulation of dikē - in the context of a neikos ‘quarrel’, as mentioned in XVIII 497. And we see that the people who have to make up their mind about the big question of justice in the Iliad are described as a crowd standing around the central scene of the litigation. That crowd, as I have argued, can be imagined as the timeless audience of Homeric poetry.48 13§38. By contrast, the narrative of Hesiod is the narrative of a crooked line becoming a straight line. By the time we reach verse 275 of the Hesiodic Works and Days, dikē has shifted from a relativized concept of ‘judgment’ to become an absolutized concept of ‘justice’.

Heroes as exponents of justice in poetry after Homer and Hesiod 13§39. I bring this hour to a close, but not without leaving open a window into the historical age, that is, into a post-heroic age that we associate with the historical period of Greek civilization, starting around the seventh century BCE. 13§40. By the time we reach the historical period, of course, we find no ultimate city of dikē, no ultimate city of hubris. Such cities exist only in poetry, as in the apocalyptic vision of the Hesiodic Works and Days. But we do find exponents of justice who become cult heroes by way of their poetry. By now this comes as no surprise, since we have already seen in §32 of this hour that Homer and Hesiod are both worshipped as cult heroes. And and who are worshipped as cult heroes in individual city-states. Some of these heroes are viewed as lawgivers or quasilawgivers. 46

I have produced an extensive commentary on this passage in an essay, the latest version of which can be found in Nagy 2003:72-87. 47 |497 λαοὶ δ’ εἰν ἀγορῇ ἔσαν ἀθρόοι· ἔνθα δὲ νεῖκος |498 ὠρώρει, δύο δ’ ἄνδρες ἐνείκεον εἵνεκα ποινῆς |499 ἀνδρὸς ἀποφθιμένου· ὃ μὲν εὔχετο πάντ’ ἀποδοῦναι |500 δήμῳ πιφαύσκων, ὃ δ’ ἀναίνετο μηδὲν ἑλέσθαι· |501 ἄμφω δ’ ἱέσθην ἐπὶ ἴστορι πεῖραρ ἑλέσθαι. |502 λαοὶ δ’ ἀμφοτέροισιν ἐπήπυον ἀμφὶς ἀρωγοί· |503 κήρυκες δ’ ἄρα λαὸν ἐρήτυον· οἳ δὲ γέροντες |504 εἵατ’ ἐπὶ ξεστοῖσι λίθοις ἱερῷ ἐνὶ κύκλῳ, |505 σκῆπτρα δὲ κηρύκων ἐν χέρσ’ ἔχον ἠεροφώνων· |506 τοῖσιν ἔπειτ’ ἤϊσσον, ἀμοιβηδὶς δὲ δίκαζον. |507 κεῖτο δ’ ἄρ’ ἐν μέσσοισι δύω χρυσοῖο τάλαντα, |508 τῷ δόμεν ὃς μετὰ τοῖσι δίκην ἰθύντατα εἴποι. 48 HR 86-87. This argument is designed as the closure for my essay “The Shield of Achilles: Ends of the Iliad and Beginnings of the Polis.” The most updated version of this essay is embedded in HR (2003) 72-87.

346 13§41. When a hero is viewed by a city-state as its lawmaker, he can also be viewed as the author of that given city’s customary laws. In myths about lawmakers, such authorship is traditionally correlated with some kind of fundamental crisis that afflicts the given city. 13§42. Here are three examples of such heroes: Lycurgus of Sparta Solon of Athens Theognis of Megara. 13§43. I choose as the final texts for this hour two pieces of poetry attributed to Theognis.49 In these two poems, we see variations on ideas that will recur - and recur often - in the remaining hours.

Hour 13 Text K |39 Kyrnos, this city [polis] is pregnant, and I fear that it will give birth to a man |40 who will be a straightener [euthuntēr] of our base hubris. |41 The citizens [astoi] here [in the city] are still moderate [sōphrones], but the leaders [hēgemones] |42 have veered so far as to fall into debasem*nt [kakotēs]. |43 Men who are noble [agathoi], Kyrnos, have never yet ruined any city [polis], |44 but when people who are base [kakoi] decide to behave with hubris, |45 and when they ruin the community [dēmos] and render judgments [dikai] in favor of the unjust [= persons or things without dikē], |46 for the sake of private gain [kerdos plural], and for the sake of absolute power [kratos], |47 do not expect that city [polis] to be peaceful for long, |48 not even if it is now in a state of great serenity [hēsukhiā], |49 once the base [kakoi] decide on these things, |50 namely, private gains [kerdos plural] entailing public damage. |51 From these things result acts of discord [stasis plural], killings [phonoi] within local groups of men, |52 and one-man rulers [mounarkhoi]. May this city [polis] never decide to accept these things!50 Theognis 39–5251

As I noted already in Hour 10§14, there is no fixed date for Theognis: he is credited with the creation of poems that can be dated as far apart as the late seventh and the early fifth centuries BCE. 50 Commentary in Nagy 1985:42-45 = §§27-30. 51 |39 Κύρνε, κύει πόλις ἥδε, δέδοικα δὲ μὴ τέκῃ ἄνδρα |40 εὐθυντῆρα κακῆς ὕβριος ἡμετέρης. |41 ἀστοὶ μὲν γὰρ ἔθ᾽ οἵδε σαόφρονες, ἡγεμόνες δὲ |42 τετράφαται πολλὴν εἰς κακότητα πεσεῖν. |43 οὐδεμίαν πω Κύρν᾽ ἀγαθοὶ πόλιν ὤλεσαν ἄνδρες· |44 ἀλλ᾽ ὅταν ὑβρίζειν τοῖσι κακοῖσι ἅδῃ |45 δῆμόν τε φθείρωσι δίκας τ᾽ ἀδίκοισι διδῶσιν |46 οἰκείων κερδέων εἵνεκα καὶ κράτεος, |47 ἔλπεο μὴ δηρὸν κείνην πόλιν ἀτρεμίεσθαι, |48 μηδ᾽ εἰ νῦν κεῖται πολλῇ ἐν ἡσυχίῃ, |49 εὖτ᾽ ἂν τοῖσι κακοῖσι φίλ᾽ ἀνδράσι ταῦτα γένηται, |50 κέρδεα δημοσίῳ σὺν κακῷ ἐρχόμενα. |51 ἐκ τῶν γὰρ στάσιές τε καὶ ἔμφυλοι φόνοι ἀνδρῶν |52 μούναρχοί τε· πόλει μήποτε τῇδε ἅδοι.

347

Hour 13 Text L |1081 Kyrnos, this city [polis] is pregnant, and I fear that it will give birth to a man |1082 who will be a hubristēs [= perpetrator of hubris], a leader [hēgemōn] of dire discord [stasis]. |1082a The citizens [astoi] here [in the city] are moderate [sōphrones], but the leaders [hēgemones] |1082b have veered so far as to fall into debasem*nt [kakotēs].52 Theognis 1081–1082b53 13§44. Although the poetry attributed to Theognis can be traced back primarily to one specific social context, which was the metropolis or ‘mother city’ of Megara and its daughter cities, most of this poetry is composed in such a generalized way that it can apply to a wide variety of other social contexts in other cities. An example is the set of two poem I just quoted. Both poems apply to historical situations and events that can be localized not only in Megara but elsewhere as well, including the city of Athens in the age of Solon the lawgiver, who was active in the early sixth century BCE. For the moment, though, I will concentrate on those features of the quoted poems where we can see parallelisms with features we found in the Hesiodic Works and Days. 13§45. The speaker in Text K as quoted from Theognis (39–52) is expressing his pessimism about an ongoing struggle between men of dikē and men of hubris within his city, and he is railing against the elites of that city, accusing them of becoming morally debased by hubris. This debasem*nt is pictured as a physical degeneration from a higher status of humanity to a lower one. It is as if hubris had degraded the genes of the elites from nobility to baseness. Such degeneration corresponds to the successive downgrading of humanity from gold to silver to bronze to iron in the Hesiodic Works and Days, as we saw in Hour 12. In Text K, this metaphor of genetic debasem*nt is applied to the moral degeneration of the elite. So, those who used to be socially agathoi ‘noble’ have how become morally kakoi ‘base’. And even if they are still socially noble, the elite of the city have nevertheless lost their moral claim to be hēgemones ‘leaders’. 13§46. Meanwhile, hubris brings sterility, as we saw in Hour 12 when we were reading selections from the Hesiodic Works and Days - and from the works of prose writers who specialize in botany. So, if the city is to flourish like some fruit tree, it will have to be pruned. And now the city is pregnant, as we see in Text K (39), and it is about to produce a leader who will become the euthuntēr or ‘straightener’ of the hubris (40). As we saw from the testimony of botanical experts, a traditional metaphor for pruning is euthunein ‘straightening’. So the future euthuntēr or ‘straightener’ will prune the vegetal overgrowth that is hubris. Not only that: this euthuntēr or ‘straightener’ will give the city a sense of direction, directness, directedness. He 52

Commentary in Nagy 1985:45-46 = §32. |1081 Κύρνε, κύει πόλις ἥδε, δέδοικα δὲ μὴ τέκῃ ἄνδρα |1082 ὑβριστήν, χαλεπῆς ἡγεμόνα στάσιος· |1082a ἀστοὶ μὲν γὰρ ἔασι σαόφρονες, ἡγεμόνες δὲ |1082b τετράφαται πολλὴν εἰς κακότητα πεσεῖν. 53

348 will become the ultimate Director. He will be the exponent of dikē, which is seen metaphorically both as a straight line and as a flourishing field or garden or orchard or grove or vineyard or any other such place where vegetation is cultivated. But why is the speaker afraid of the coming of this Director? It is because he himself is a member of the elite. Although he rails against the elite for becoming moral degenerates, he is still one of them, and so he fears that the future Director will prune ‘our’ base hubris. 13§47. The situation has radically changed for the speaker in Text L as quoted from Theognis (1081–1082b). Here the future Director will be no exponent of dikē. Rather, he will be a hubristēs, a perpetrator of hubris. He will be a dictator, that is, a tyrant. So now the pregnancy of the city becomes a monstrous exercise in sterility. There will be no flourishing at all for this city, since the only thing that sterility can produce is sterility itself, as we will see all too clearly when we read the Oedipus Tyrannus of Sophocles in Hour 18.

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Hour 14. Longing for a hero: a retrospective The meaning of pothos 14§1. The key words for this hour are the noun pothos and its variant pothē, which both mean ‘longing’ or ‘yearning’ or ‘desire’, and the verb derived from this noun, which means ‘long for’ or ‘yearn for’ or ‘desire’. As we will see, such longing can be directed toward the sacred. In fact, as we have already seen in Hour 5 Text M, the longing can be directed toward the gods, with whom worshippers feel a need to establish a physical closeness (Dio of Prusa 12.60-61). And now we will see that this same kind of longing can be directed toward the cult hero.

Testimony from the Hērōikos of Philostratus 14§2. The first relevant text that I will quote in this hour comes from a work composed in prose, known as the Hērōikos (sometimes translated as ‘On Heroes’). The author is Philostratus, who is dated to the early 3rd century CE. For historical background on the author and on his work, I cite the introduction by Jennifer Berenson McLean and Ellen Aitken to their edition and translation of the Hērōikos.1 To understand the application of this background to my book about heroes, I cite my “Prologue” to the text of Berenson and McLean.2 Here I simply give the bare essentials. 14§3. This work by Philostratus, the Hērōikos, is staged as a dialogue between a Phoenician traveler and the groundskeeper of a garden that is sacred to the cult hero Protesilaos, who is mentioned briefly in Iliad II - in a part of the epic that is commonly known as the Catalogue of Ships. We will turn to that mention in a few minutes. But first, I concentrate on the relevance of the work of Philostratus. 14§4. As we learn from the dialogue between the Phoenician and the groundskeeper, these two characters meet outside the garden of Protesilaos. The Phoenician has been sailing from Egypt and Phoenicia toward a destination that he cannot reach, since unfavorable winds have prevented him from sailing on. So he is delayed at the harbor of a city by the sea. This city, by the name of Elaious, which means ‘the land of olive trees’, is on the coastline of a narrow stretch of sea known as the Hellespont, which separates Europe from Asia. At Elaious, which is situated on the European side of the Hellespont - the side known as the Chersonesus is the sacred garden of the cult hero Protesilaos, and there is a tumulus in that garden, overlooking the seascape of the Hellespont. This tumulus is the tomb that contains the body of Protesilaos, and, as we will see later, this tumulus containing the body of Protesilaos faces the tumulus containing the body of Achilles - a matching tomb that is situated on the Asiatic side 1 2

Berenson and McLean 2001. Available on line at chs.harvard.edu. Nagy 2001a. Also available on line at chs.harvard.edu.

350 of the Hellespont. The tumulus of Protesilaos, framed in the setting of a fertile garden, is a marvel to behold, and the visiting Phoenician is charmed by the sacred beauty of it all. He had found out about this beautiful place after he had disembarked from his ship - and the first person he encountered was the groundskeeper of the garden of Protesilaos (6.5-6). They start talking, and we can track their dialogue from the start at Hērōikos 1.1 and following. From the start, they are talking about Protesilaos and his sacred garden. As they keep talking, they are approaching the garden and, the next thing you know, the groundskeeper suggests to the Phoenician that he should come along and enter the garden together with the groundskeeper, so that they may continue the dialogue there. The Phoenican happily accepts. The wording of the offer and the acceptance (Hērōikos 3.3) will be quoted later in the larger context of Text D. 14§5. The Phoenician, who is portrayed as a fluent speaker of Greek, is never given a name in the dialogue, nor is the groundskeeper, who is consistently addressed by the Phoenician simply as the ampelourgos or ‘vineyard-worker’. From here on, I too will refer to this Greek groundskeeper simply as the Ampelourgos. 14§6. In an early phase of their dialogue (Hērōikos 6.3), the Phoenician tells the Ampelourgos about a dream he had after he arrived at the seaport of Elaious but before he disembarked: he dreamed that he was reading (anagignōskein) a part of the Iliad that he describes as ‘the Catalogue of the Achaeans’ - which is what we know as the Catalogue of Ships, Iliad II 484-760. The dream is significant, since it is in this part of the Iliad that the story of Protesilaos is told, however briefly, by Homeric poetry. We will get to that story in a few minutes. In his dream, as the Phoenician is reading (anagignōskein) the Homeric Catalogue, he is visited by apparitions: the spirits of the Achaeans come to him, and he invites them all to join him on his ship (again Hērōikos 6.3). This dream of apparitions temporarily frightens the Phoenician as he wakes up and proceeds to disembark from the ship. 14§7. It turns out that this dream is relevant to story that is built into the dialogue. The Phoenician is passionately interested in Greek heroes - not only as epic heroes whose stories are told in Homeric poetry but also as cult heroes who mystically communicate further stories to those who worship them in places that contain their bodies. And the hero Protesilaos, as the Phoenician will learn from the Ampelourgos, fits both these categories of hero: Protesilaos is an epic hero, as we see him in the Homeric Iliad, but he is also a cult hero who is worshipped in the setting of the garden that is sacred to him - a garden marked by a tumulus that contains his body. As an epic hero who was the first Achaean to die in the Trojan War, as we will soon see, he is a significant character in the story of that war; and, as a cult hero who communicates with his worshippers, as we will also soon see, he is an independent teller of the story, possessing psychic powers that enable him to know things that ‘Homer’ could never know because, well, Homer had never heard these things. So, when the Phoenician expresses his passionate interest in heroes, he is interested not only in the story about Protesilaos but also in the story by Protesilaos, that is, he is interested in the story as told by Protesilaos himself. And

351 the one person who can tell the Phoenician that second kind of story is the Ampelourgos, as a true worshipper of the cult hero. 14§8. In the text I am about to quote, the Ampelourgos comments on the dream of the Phoenician, which I have already summarized (Hērōikos 6.3). This dream must have been sent by the gods, says the Ampelourgos, and the Phoenician must have interpreted it correctly (6.7). According to this intepretation, the Phoenician’s dream about inviting all the Achaeans who had fought in the Trojan War to board his ship is linked with this man’s direct engagement with the story of Protesilaos. And his engagement with that story, just like his engagement with the Catalogue of Achaeans in the Iliad, shows a passionate interest in heroes. I will now quote the wording that expresses the Phoenician’s passionate interest in learning the story as told by Protesilaos himself to the Ampelourgos. In this wording, I highlight the fact that the Phoenican uses the word potheîn, showing how he ‘longs’ or ‘yearns’ or ‘desires’ to hear the full story:

Hour 14 Text A |6.7 {Ampelourgos:} “My guest [xenos],3 you have arrived here truly by the will of a god, and you are interpreting your dream in a sound way. So let us go ahead with the story [logos], so that you will not say that I am morally careless by distracting you from it.” |7.1 {Phoenician:} “So now I see that you understand the things that I am longing [potheîn] to learn. For I do need to hear what this relationship [sunousiā] is that you have with Protesilaos, and what he is like when he comes to you, and whether he knows anything similar to what the poets know about the events at Troy - or whether he knows anything about them that the poets don’t know. |7.2 When I say ‘about the events at Troy’ I mean: about the assembly of the [Achaean] army in Aulis - and about the heroes themselves. I want to know something about each one of them, one by one. Were they beautiful, as they are said to be in song? Were they manly and intelligent? I am talking like this because I’m wondering how he [= Protesilaos] could narrate the story about the war that happened at Troy when he never had a chance to fight in the war to the finish, having been the first of all the Greek forces to die at Troy, as they say, right at the beginning, as soon as he stepped off [his ship].” Philostratus Hērōikos 6.7-7.24

Now that the Phoenician has entered the sacred garden of Protesilaos, he is no longer a stranger to the Ampelourgos, who has become his host. That is why, in contexts that come after Hērōikos 3.3, quoted in Text E, where the Phoenician first enters the garden, I translate xenos no longer as ‘stranger’ but as ‘my guest’; here I follow the principle articuated by Berenson and Aitken 2001:17n19. 4 |6.7 {Ἀ.} Κατὰ θεὸν ἥκεις ἀληθῶς, ξένε, καὶ ὑγιῶς ἐξηγῇ τὴν ὄψιν. περαίνωμεν οὖν τὸν λόγον, μὴ καὶ θρύπτεσθαι με φῇς διάγοντά σε ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ. |7.1 {Φ.} Ἃ ποθῶ μαθεῖν, ξυνίης δή γε· αὐτὴν γὰρ τὴν ξυνουσίαν, ἥτις ἐστί σοι πρὸς τὸν Πρωτεσίλεων, καὶ ὁποῖος ἥκει καὶ εἴ τι παραπλήσιον

352 14§9. The momentary doubt that the Phoenician expresses here about the ability of the cult hero Protesilaos to know things that go well beyond what this hero had experienced in life is instantly corrected by the Ampelourgos, who says that Protesilaos, once he was dead, acquired a consciousness that made connections not only with his own experiences in life but also with the experiences of all the other heroes of his time (Hērōikos 7.3). Then the Ampelourgos goes on to explain about this mystical kind of consciousness:

Hour 14 Text B |7.4 At any rate, among those who critically examine Homer’s poems, who will you say has read [anagignōskein] them in such a way as Protesilaos has read them and sees all the way through [di-horân] them? |7.5 Besides, my guest [xenos], before Priam and Troy there wasn’t even any epic recitation [rhapsōidiā], nor was there any singing about events that had not yet taken place. I say this because the art of composing poetry back then about oracular utterances [manteîa] and about, say, Hēraklēs, son of Alkmēnē, was only starting to take shape and had not yet reached a stage of maturity, and there was no Homer yet, so there was no Homer to do any singing. Some say that it was only when Troy was captured, while others say it was a eight generations later, that he [= Homer] applied himself to practicing the art of poetry. |7.6 But, in spite of all that, Protesilaos knows all the things of Homer and he sings of many Trojan events that took place after the hero’s own lifetime, as also of many events that have to do with Greeks and Persians. Philostratus Hērōikos 7.4-65 14§10. So, metaphorically, the consciousness of the cult hero Protesilaos can anagignōskein ‘read’ all the events of the heroic age, or even events that happened after that age. And, for this hero, the medium for telling stories does not depend on the medium of poetry, which supposedly had not even developed into a full-fledged form of art until later, that is, during the time of the Trojan War, or until even later. This medium of the cult hero can tell these stories because the cult hero is himself the medium.

τοῖς ποιηταῖς ἢ διηγνοημένον αὐτοῖς περὶ τῶν Τρωικῶν οἶδεν, ἀκοῦσαι δέομαι. |7.2 Τρωικὰ δὲ λέγω τὰ τοιαῦτα· τήν τε ἐν Αὐλίδι ξυλλογὴν τοῦ στρατοῦ καὶ καθ’ ἕνα τοὺς ἥρως εἰ καλοί τε, ὡς ᾄδονται, καὶ ἀνδρεῖοι καὶ σοφοὶ ἦσαν. τὸν γὰρ πόλεμον, ὃς περὶ τῇ Τροίᾳ ἐγένετο, πῶς ἂν διηγοῖτο μήτε διαπολεμήσας αὐτὸν ἀποθανών τε πρῶτος τοῦ Ἑλληνικοῦ παντὸς ἐν αὐτῇ, φασί, τῇ ἀποβάσει; 5 |7.4 τὰ γοῦν Ὁμήρου ποιήματα τίνα φήσεις οὕτως ἀνεγνωκέναι τῶν σφόδρα βασανιζόντων Ὅμηρον, ὡς ἀνέγνωκέ τε ὁ Πρωτεσίλεως καὶ διορᾷ αὐτά; |7.5 καίτοι, ξένε, πρὸ Πριάμου καὶ Τροίας οὐδὲ ῥαψωδία τις ἦν, οὐδὲ ᾔδετο τὰ μήπω πραχθέντα, ποιητικὴ μὲν γὰρ ἦν περί τε τὰ μαντεῖα περί τε τὸν Ἀλκμήνης Ἡρακλέα, καθισταμένη τε ἄρτι καὶ οὔπω ἡβάσκουσα, Ὅμηρος δὲ οὔπω ᾖδεν, ἀλλ’ οἱ μὲν Τροίας ἁλούσης, οἱ δὲ ὀλίγαις, οἱ δ’ ὀκτὼ γενεαῖς ὕστερον ἐπιθέσθαι αὐτὸν τῇ ποιήσει λέγουσιν. |7.6 ἀλλ’ ὅμως οἶδεν ὁ Πρωτεσίλεως τὰ Ὁμήρου πάντα, καὶ πολλὰ μὲν ᾄδει Τρωικὰ μεθ’ ἑαυτὸν γενόμενα, πολλὰ δὲ Ἑλληνικά τε καὶ Μηδικά.

353 14§11. The passionate interest of the Phoenician in the cult hero Protesilaos is symmetrical with another passionate interest of his, and, once again, this interest is expressed by way of the same word potheîn: once again, the Phoenician ‘longs’ or ‘yearns’ or ‘desires’ to hear the full story. And, in this other case, the object of his passionate interest is Achilles himself. When the Ampelourgos starts to recount for the Phoenician the stories about Achilles, he says that he will at first confine himself to those stories that are linked to the Trojan War and to the environs of Troy in general (Hērōikos 22.1). In this same context, the Ampelourgos also says that he will tell only later those other stories about Achilles that are linked to the cult place called Leuke, the White Island, and in fact those other stories are duly narrated at a later point (54.2-57.17). For the moment, I too will confine myself to the stories that are linked to Troy. In the passage that I am about to quote, the Ampelourgos is about to tell the story of a contest that took place between Protesilaos and Achilles himself over a shield that both heroes claimed as a war prize (23.1, with reference to 13.3-14.1, 14.3-4, 23.24-25). I am about to quote the part of the dialogue where the Ampelourgos is beginning to tell the Phoenician the story about this shield - a story that involves both Achilles and Protesilaos. This story, as originally communicated by the conscious spirit of Protesilaos to the Ampelourgos, is eagerly awaited by the Phoenician:

Hour 14 Text C |23.1 {Ampelourgos:} “So now let us take up, my guest [xenos], the story of the shield - about which, as Protesilaos says, Homer and all the other poets knew nothing.” |23.2 {Phoenician:} “I am longing [potheîn] for the story you are about to recount about it [= the shield], Ampelourgos! I think it will be a rare occasion when I will ever hear it again.” Philostratus Hērōikos 23.1-26 14§12. So, the Phoenician is longing to hear about both heroes, Achilles as well as Protesilaos. Both of these heroes are for him objects of longing and desire. And as we will now see, such longing translates into a desire for worshipping a cult hero.

Longing for Protesilaos in the Homeric Iliad 14§13. In the Homeric Iliad, as we read in the Catalogue of Ships, Protesilaos died an unseasonal death and is sorely missed by his community in his native Thessaly. The natives of this land ‘long’ for the hero, and this ‘longing’ is expressed by way of the verb potheîn:

|23.1 {Ἀ.} Ἄγε δή, ὦ ξένε, τὴν ἀσπίδα ἤδη ἀναλάβωμεν, ἣν ὁ Πρωτεσίλεως Ὁμήρῳ τε ἠγνοῆσθαί φησι καὶ ποιηταῖς πᾶσιν. |23.2 {Φ.} Ποθοῦντι ἀποδίδως, ἀμπελουργέ, τὸν περὶ αὐτῆς λόγον, σπάνιον δὲ οἶμαι ἀκούσεσθαι.

354

Hour 14 Text D |695 And then there were those that held Phylake and Pyrasos, with its flowery meadows, |696 precinct of Demeter; and Iton, the mother of sheep; |697 Antron upon the sea, and Pteleon that lies upon the grass lands. |698 Of these men the Ares-like Protesilaos had been leader |699 while he was still alive, but now he was held down by the black earth that covered him. |700 He had left a wife behind him in Phylake to tear both her cheeks in sorrow, |701 and his house was only half completed [hēmi-telēs]. He was killed by a Dardanian warrior |702 while he was leaping out from his ship [on Trojan soil], and he was the very first of the Achaeans to make the leap. |703 Still, his people were not without a leader, though they longed [potheîn] for their leader. |704 But now his people were organized [kosmeîn] by Podarkes, attendant [ozos] of Ares. |705 He [= Podarkes] was son of Iphiklos, rich in sheep, who was the son of Phylakos, |706 and he [= Podarkes] was the blood brother of Protesilaos, the one with the great heart [thūmos]. |707 But he [= Podarkes] was younger, Protesilaos being both older and more Ares-like, |708 yes, that hero [hērōs] Protesilaos, the Ares-like. Still, his people were not |709 without a leader, though they longed [potheîn] for him [= Protesilaos], noble [esthlos] man that he was. Iliad II 695-7097 14§14. As we see from this passage, the people of Protesilaos are said to feel a pothos or ‘longing’ for him (Iliad II 703, 709). What we see here, I argue, is an indirect reference by Homeric poetry to the hero cult of Protesilaos.

The sacred eroticism of heroic beauty 14§15. Why is Protesilaos so dearly missed by his people? As we will now see from Philostratus, this longing is associated with the beauty of the cult hero, who is not only estheticized but also eroticized. And this eroticism, as we will also see, is felt to be sacred. Here is the way this sacred eroticism is introduced at a very early point in the Hērōikos of Philostratus:

Hour 14 Text E |2.6 {Phoenician:} “So, Ampelourgos, do you live a reflective way of life?” Ampelourgos: “Yes, together with the beautiful Protesilaos.” |2.7 {Phoenician:} “What do you have in common 7

|695 Οἳ δ’ εἶχον Φυλάκην καὶ Πύρασον ἀνθεμόεντα |696 Δήμητρος τέμενος, Ἴτωνά τε μητέρα μήλων, |697 ἀγχίαλόν τ’ Ἀντρῶνα ἰδὲ Πτελεὸν λεχεποίην, |698 τῶν αὖ Πρωτεσίλαος ἀρήϊος ἡγεμόνευε |699 ζωὸς ἐών· τότε δ’ ἤδη ἔχεν κάτα γαῖα μέλαινα. |700 τοῦ δὲ καὶ ἀμφιδρυφὴς ἄλοχος Φυλάκῃ ἐλέλειπτο |701 καὶ δόμος ἡμιτελής· τὸν δ’ ἔκτανε Δάρδανος ἀνὴρ |702 νηὸς ἀποθρῴσκοντα πολὺ πρώτιστον Ἀχαιῶν. |703 οὐδὲ μὲν οὐδ’ οἳ ἄναρχοι ἔσαν, πόθεόν γε μὲν ἀρχόν· |704 ἀλλά σφεας κόσμησε Ποδάρκης ὄζος Ἄρηος |705 Ἰφίκλου υἱὸς πολυμήλου Φυλακίδαο |706 αὐτοκασίγνητος μεγαθύμου Πρωτεσιλάου |707 ὁπλότερος γενεῇ· ὁ δ’ ἅμα πρότερος καὶ ἀρείων |708 ἥρως Πρωτεσίλαος ἀρήϊος· οὐδέ τι λαοὶ |709 δεύονθ’ ἡγεμόνος, πόθεόν γε μὲν ἐσθλὸν ἐόντα.

355 with Protesilaos, if you mean the man from Thessaly?” {Ampelourgos:} “I do mean that man, the husband of Laodameia. And I say it that way because he delights in hearing himself described this way.” |2.8 {Phoenician:} “So, then, what is he doing here?”{Ampelourgos:} “He lives [zēi] here, and we work the land [geōrgoumen] together.” |2.9 {Phoenician:} “Has he come back to life [anabiōnai], or what?” {Ampelourgos:} “He himself does not speak about his own experiences [pathos plural], stranger [xenos],8 except, of course, that he died at Troy because of Helen, but then came to life [anabiōnai] in Phthia because he loved Laodameia.” |2.10 {Phoenician:} “And yet it is said that he died after he came to life [anabiōnai] and persuaded his wife to follow him.” |2.11 {Ampelourgos:} “He himself also says these things. But how he returned after this too, he does not tell me even though I’ve wanted to find out for a long time. He is hiding, he says, some secret [aporrhēton] of the Fates [Moirai]. And his warrior companions also, who were there in Troy, still appear [phainontai] on the plain, holding the pose [skhēma] of fighting men and shaking the crests of their helmets.” |3.1 {Phoenician:} “By Athena, Ampelourgos, I don’t believe [pisteuein] it, although I wish these things were so. But if you are not attending to the plants, nor irrigating them, tell me now about these things and all that you know about Protesilaos. After all, you would please the heroes if I would go away believing [pisteuein].” |3.2 {Ampelourgos:} “Stranger [xenos],9 the plants no longer need watering at midday, since it is already late autumn and the season [hōrā] itself waters them. So I have leisure to relate everything in detail. Since these matters are sacred to the gods and so important, may they not escape the notice of those humans who are cultivated [kharientes]! It is also better for us to sit down in the beauty of this place.” {Phoenician:} “Lead the way; I will follow even beyond the interior of Thrace.” |3.3 {Ampelourgos:} “Let us enter the vineyard, Phoenician.10 For you may even discover in it something to give cheer [euphrosunē] to you.” {Phoenician:} “Yes, let us enter. I think a sweet scent is being breathed out [ana-pneîn] from the plants.” |3.4 {Ampelourgos:} “What are you saying, ‘sweet’? It is something godlike [theion]! The blossoms of the uncultivated trees are fragrant, as are the fruits of those that are cultivated. If you ever come upon a cultivated plant with fragrant blossoms, pluck rather the leaves, since the sweet scent comes from them.” |3.5 {Phoenician:} “How diverse [poikilē] 8

Before the Phoenician actually enters the sacred garden of Protesilaos, he is still a ‘stranger’ to the Ampelourgos; only after he enters, which happens at Hērōikos 3.3, quoted in Text E, does the Phoenician become a ‘guest’ to the Ampelourgos, who then becomes his host. That is why, in contexts that come after Hērōikos 3.3, where the Phoenician first enters the garden, I translate xenos no longer as ‘stranger’ but as ‘my guest’; here I follow the principle articuated by Berenson and Aitken 2001:17n19. 9 On my translation ‘stranger’ here, see the next note. 10 Here is where the Phoenician finally enters the sacred garden of Protesilaos From now on, he is no longer a stranger to the Ampelourgos, who has become his host. That is why, in contexts that come after Hērōikos 3.3, as quoted here in Text E, where the Phoenician first enters the garden, I translate xenos no longer as ‘stranger’ but as ‘my guest’; here I follow the principle articuated by Berenson and Aitken 2001:17n19.

356 is the beauty [hōra] of this place you have here, and how lush have the clusters of grapes grown! How well-arranged are all the trees, and how ambrosial [ambrosiā] is the fragrance of the place! And, I think that the walkways [dromoi] that you have left untilled are pleasing, but, Ampelourgos, I think you live luxuriantly [truphân], since you use so much uncultivated land.” |3.6 {Ampelourgos:} “The walkways [dromoi] are sacred, stranger [xenos], for the hero strips down and exercises [gumnazetai] there.” Philostratus Hērōikos 2.6-3.611 14§16. There are many details here that will be relevant to the discussions ahead, and I offer a brief inventory that can be used for the analysis that follows: - The cult hero Protesilaos is beautiful (2.6). - Phthia in Thessaly is where he was born, but he is buried in Elaious, the city overlooking the Hellespont (2.7). - The cult hero helps the worshipper geōrgeîn ‘work the land’, and that land is sacred to him (2.8). Working the land or geōrgiā, ‘agriculture’, was considered a sacred activity, as we saw

|2.6 {Φ.} Ἀλλ’ ἦ φιλοσοφεῖς, ἀμπελουργέ; {Ἀ.} Καὶ σύν γε τῷ καλῷ Πρωτεσίλεῳ. |2.7 {Φ.} Σοὶ δὲ τί καὶ τῷ Πρωτεσίλεῳ κοινόν, εἰ τὸν ἐκ Θετταλίας λέγεις; {Ἀ.} Ἐκεῖνον λέγω τὸν τῆς Λαοδαμείας, τουτὶ γὰρ χαίρει ἀκούων. |2.8 {Φ.} Τί δὲ δὴ δεῦρο πράττει; {Ἀ.} Ζῇ καὶ γεωργοῦμεν. |2.9 {Φ.} Ἀναβεβιωκὼς ἢ τί; {Ἀ.} Οὐδὲ αὐτὸς λέγει, ὦ ξένε, τὰ ἑαυτοῦ πάθη, πλήν γε δὴ ὅτι ἀποθάνοι μὲν δι’ Ἑλένην ἐν Τροίᾳ, ἀναβιῴη δὲ ἐν Φθίᾳ Λαοδαμείας ἐρῶν. |2.10 {Φ.} Καὶ μὴν ἀποθανεῖν γε μετὰ τὸ ἀναβιῶναι λέγεται, ἀναπεῖσαί τε τὴν γυναῖκα ἐπισπέσθαι οἱ. |2.11 {Ἀ.} Λέγει καὶ αὐτὸς ταῦτα, ἀλλ’ ὅπως καὶ μετὰ τοῦτο ἀνῆλθε πάλαι μοι βουλομένῳ μαθεῖν οὐ λέγει, Μοιρῶν τι ἀπόρρητον, ὥς φησι, κρύπτων. καὶ οἱ συστρατιῶται δὲ αὐτοῦ οἱ ἐν τῇδε τῇ Τροίᾳ ἔτι ἐν τῷ πεδίῳ φαίνονται μάχιμοι τὸ σχῆμα καὶ σείοντες τοὺς λόφους. |3.1 {Φ.} Ἀπιστῶ, νὴ τὴν Ἀθηνᾶν, ἀμπελουργέ, καίτοι οὕτω βουλόμενος ταῦτα ἔχειν. εἰ δὲ μὴ πρὸς τοῖς φυτοῖς εἶ, μηδὲ ὀχετηγεῖς, ἤδη δίελθέ μοι ταῦτά τε καὶ ὅσα τοῦ Πρωτεσίλεω γιγνώσκεις· καὶ γὰρ ἂν χαρίζοιο τοῖς ἥρωσιν, εἰ πιστεύων ἀπέλθοιμι. |3.2 {Ἀ.} Οὐκέτ’, ὦ ξένε, κατὰ μεσημβρίαν τὰ φυτὰ πίνει, μετόπωρον γὰρ ἤδη καὶ ἄρδει αὐτὰ ἡ ὥρα· σχολὴ οὖν μοι διελθεῖν πάντα. μηδὲ γὰρ λανθάνοι τοὺς χαρίεντας τῶν ἀνθρώπων θεῖα οὕτω καὶ μεγάλα ὄντα. βέλτιον δὲ καὶ ἐν καλῷ τοῦ χωρίου ἱζῆσαι. {Φ.} Ἡγοῦ δή, ὡς ἑψομένου καὶ ὑπὲρ τὰ μέσα τῆς Θρᾴκης. |3.3 {Ἀ.} Παρέλθωμεν ἐς τὸν ἀμπελῶνα, ὦ Φοῖνιξ, καὶ γὰρ ἂν καὶ εὐφροσύνης τι ἐν αὐτῷ εὕροις. {Φ.} Παρέλθωμεν, ἡδὺ γάρ που ἀναπνεῖ τῶν φυτῶν. |3.4 {Ἀ.} Τί λέγεις ἡδύ; θεῖον· τῶν μὲν γὰρ ἀγρίων δένδρων αἱ ἄνθαι εὔοσμοι, τῶν δὲ ἡμέρων οἱ καρποί. εἰ δὲ ἐντύχοις ποτὲ φυτῷ ἡμέρῳ παρὰ τὴν ἄνθην εὐώδει, δρέπου τῶν φύλλων μᾶλλον, ἐκείνων γὰρ τὸ ὀδωδέναι. |3.5 {Φ.} Ὡς ποικίλη σοι ἡ ὥρα τοῦ χωρίου, καὶ ὡς ἐκδεδώκασιν ἱλαροὶ οἱ βότρυς, τὰ δένδρα τε ὡς διάκειται πάντα καὶ ὡς ἀμβροσία ἡ ὀσμὴ τοῦ χωρίου. τοὺς δρόμους δέ, οὓς ἀνῆκας, χαρίεντας μὲν ἡγοῦμαι, τρυφᾶν δέ μοι δοκεῖς, ἀμπελουργέ, τοσαύτῃ γῇ ἀργῷ χρώμενος. |3.6 {Ἀ.} Ἱεροί, ξένε, οἱ δρόμοι, γυμνάζεται γὰρ ἐν αὐτοῖς ὁ ἥρως.

357 in Hour 12§35.12 We may compare the title of Virgil’s classic poem on working the land, the Georgics. - Protesilaos experienced a resurrection after death (2.9). Such myths about coming back to life are central to the mysteries of hero cult. - More than that, Protesilaos experienced two resurrections, though the worshipper has not been initiated into the mysteries of the second of the two experiences of the cult hero (2.10). There can be gradations of initiation into the mysteries. It is implied here that the degree of the initiation of the Ampelourgos is not as high as that of other devotees. - The cult hero manifests himself in epiphanies, signaled by the word phainesthai ‘appear’ (2.11). I offered a working definition of epiphany in Hour 5§38. When heroes from the heroic past appear in the world of the present, what they are doing is making epiphanies. As we can see from the behavior of Protesilaos, an epiphany is like a temporary resurrection. - The garden of the cult hero is a model of seasonality, the word for which here is hōrā (3.2). - The breeze carrying the aroma of flowering plants is the breath of the hero (3.3).13 I note the metonymy here. I use the term metonymy here in line with my working definition in Hour 4§32: metonymy is an expression of meaning by way of connecting something to something else that is next to that something or at least near to it, thereby establishing contact. - The beauty of the garden in general and of the vineyard in particular is pictured as hōrā ‘seasonality’. We may say that the hōrā is the beauty. And such beauty is poikilē ‘varied’ (3.5): that is, the beauty of nature is never the same, always changing from one delightful vision to the next.14 So, hōrā ‘seasonality’ is a kind of dynamic perfection. 14§17. I focus on the use of the word hōrā in this text (3.2, 3.5). It is the ‘perfect time’ for the epiphany of Protesilaos (3.5). The beauty of the garden is linked to the presence of the cult hero, who delights in the natural beauty by manifesting himself in epiphanies, showing off his own beauty as an exercising athlete (3.6). I return to my working definition of this word hōrā: ‘season, seasonality, the right time, the perfect time’. As we saw in Hour 1§§26-29, hōrā is a basic concept related to the concept of the goddess Hērā, the immortal exponent of seasonality, and to the concept of the human hērōs ‘hero’ (plural hērōes), the mortal exponent of seasonality. 12

See also Bershadsky 2011:23. On the breath of the hero as a breeze carrying the aroma of the blossoms that flourish in this garden, see also Bershadsky 2011:16. 14 On the sense of poikilos ‘varied’ as ‘never the same’, see HC 306-307 = II§453, with special reference to Plato Republic 8.568d. 13

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The beauty of seasonality in a Modern Greek poem 14§18. In Modern Greek, the word oréos / oréa means ‘beautiful’, directly descended from the ancient Greek hõraîos / hõraíā, an adjective derived from the noun hōrā. This inherited link in meaning between the beauty and the seasonality of hōrā is captured in a poem of Giorgos Seferis, where the sensuous experience of marveling at natural beauty is expressed by way of the Modern Greek adverb oréa, corresponding to the neuter plural of the ancient Greek adjective, hōraîa (ὡραῖα):

Hour 14 Text Fa Στὸ περιγιάλι τὸ κρυφὸ | κι’ ἄσπρο σὰν περιστέρι | διψάσαμε τὸ μεσημέρι· μὰ τὸ νερὸ γλυφό. || Πάνω στὴν ἄμμο τὴν ξανθὴ | γράψαμε τ’ ὄνομά της· | ὡραῖα που φύσηξεν ὁ μπάτης | καὶ σβήστηκε ἡ γραφή. || Mὲ τί καρδιά, μὲ τί πνοή, | τί πόθους καὶ τί πάθος, | πήραμε τὴ ζωή μας· λάθος! | κι’ ἀλλάξαμε ζωή.15 Giorgos Seferis, ´Arnisi (῎Αρνηση, from the collection Στροφή, 1931) This poem Arnisi, which means ‘denial’, was made famous in Modern Greek popular culture after it was set to music by Mikis Theodorakis. His song, known by the same name ´Arnisi, was composed in Paris in 1961; it is part of a set of songs known as Epiphánia (᾿Επιφάνεια), and it has remained enormously popular up to the present moment as I am saying this.16 Here is my translation:

Hour 14 Text Fb At the shoreline the secret one | and white like a dove | we thirsted at noon. | But the water was salty. || On the sand, golden-blond, | we wrote down her name. | Beautiful, the way the sea breeze exhaled, | and the writing was wiped out. || With what heart, with what breath, | what longings and what passion, | we seized our life - no, wrong! | - and we changed life. Here is my translation again, but this time I have inserted some of the original Modern Greek words, along with their ancient Greek counterparts (each ancient Greek word is transliterated,

There is an accurate transliteration (via International Phonetic Alphabet) for the Modern Greek pronunciation of the original text, which had been written down in polytonic format by Seferis, at a site that also contains a wealth of further information about the poem: http://www.webtopos.gr/eng/literature/writers/s/seferis/seferis_denial.htm. The creator of the site is Katerina Sarri (katerina sarri webtopos: www.webtopos.gr - 2000, latest additions in 2010). http://www.webtopos.gr/eng/literature/writers/s/seferis/seferis_denial.htm 16 There have been many celebrated recordings of this song, and references can be found at the site of Katerina Sarri (see the previous note).

359 and preceded by the sign “