The Scepter and the Spear: Studies on Forms of Repetition in the Homeric Poems 9780847677726, 0847677729

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The Scepter and the Spear

GreekStudies:lnterdlsclpllnaryApproaches GeneralEditor: GregoryNagy, Harvard University Time, Religion, and Social Experience in Rural Greece byLaurie Kain Harl, Haveiford College The Scepter and the Spear: Studies on Forms of Repetition in the Homeric Poems bySteven Lowenstam, Universityof Oregon Hegemony and Greek Historians byJohn Wickersham,Ursinus CoUege Solon the Singer: Politics and Poetics byEmily Katz Anhalt Excursions in Epichoric History: Aiginetan Essays by ThomasJ Figueira,Rutgers University The Transformation of Hera: A Study of Ritual, Hero, and the Goddess in the Iliad byJoan V. 0 'Brien, SouthernIllinois University

On the front cover: A calendar frieze representing the Athenian months, reused in the Byzantine Church of the Little Metropolis in Athens. The cross is superimposed, obliterating Taurus of the Zodiac. The choice of this frieze for books in Greek Studies: Interdisciplinary Approaches reflects this series' emphasis on the blending of the diverse heritages-Near Eastern, Classical, and Christian-in the Greek tradition. Drawing by Laurie Kain Hart, based on a photograph.

The Scepter and the Spear Studies on Forms of Repetition in the Homeric Poems

Steven Lowenstam

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

ROWMAN 8c lJTfLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.

Published in the United States of America by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 4720 Boston Way, Lanham, Maryland 20706 Copyright

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1995 by Rowman8c Uttlefield Publishers, Inc.

AU rightsreserved.No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted

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library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lowenstam, Steven. The scepter and the spear : studies on forms of repetition in the Homeric poems / Steven Lowenstam. p. cm. - (Greek studies) Includes bibliographical references and indexes. 1. Homer-Technique. 2. Repetition (Rhetoric). 3. Greek language-Metrics and rhythmics. 4. Epic poetry-Technique. 5. Rhetoric, Ancient. I. Title. II. Series. PA4206.R47L68 1993 883'.0l---dc20 93-19243 CIP ISBN 0-847fr7772-9 ISBN 0-847fr7790-7

(cloth : alk. paper) (paper : alk. paper)

Printed in the United States of America

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'CJ

TM

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences--Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI 239.48-1984.

For My Family and for C.D.W.: love, appreciation, admiration

ii y a moins de force dans une innovation artificielle que dans une repetition destinee a suggerer une verite neuve.

Marcel Proust, A l'ombredesjeunes jilles enjleurs

Contents

Foreword Preface Abbreviations Introduction 1 Iros' Mother and the Hand of Penelope: Homeric Diction

XI

Xlll

xv

1

13

1. History of the Problem 13 2. Iros' Mother 17 3. Penelope's Hand 26 4. Poetic Sensitivity to Problematic Epithets 32 5. The "Irrational" Use of Epithets 38 6. The Flexibility of Homeric Language 53

2 The Riad: Variations on a Theme by Homer 1. The Quarrel in Book 1 60 2. Divine Variations 69 3. The Thersites Variation 77 4. Agamemnon 80 5. The Paris Variation 85 6. Achilleus: Refusal of Compensation 89 7. Variations on Refusing Compensation 98 8. Achilleus as a Freak of Nature 103 9. The Herakles and Chryses Variations 109

59

10. Achilleus Agonistes 113 11. The Funeral Game Variations 120 12. The Urns of Zeus 131 13. Nature and Authority 136 Appendix: Later Archiaic Epic 140

3 The Odyssey 1. The Phaiakians in Book 8 149 2. Other Phaiakian Perspectives 173 3. Menelaos 179 4. Hermes and the Adventures 188 5. lthaka 201 6. The Connection between lthaka and Scheria 7. Penelope 229

145

207

References

247

General Index

259

Index Locorum.

269

About the Author

287

Greek Studies: Interdisciplinary Approaches

Foreword by Gregory Nagy, GeneralEditor

Building on the foundation of scholarship within the disciplines of philology, philosophy, history, and archaeology, this series spans the continuum of Greek traditions extending from the second millennium B.C. to the present, not just the Archaic and Classical periods. The aim is to enhance perspectives by applying various different disciplines to problems that have in the past been treated as the exclusive concern of a single given discipline. Besides the crossing-over of the older disciplines, as in the application of histo;:y to literature, the series encourages the application of such newer disciplines as linguistics, sociology, anthropology, and comparative literature. It also encourages encounters with current trends in methodology, especially in the realm of literary theory. The Scepterand the spear, by Steven Lowenstam, is a wide-ranging reassessment of the study of Homer as literaturein the wake of the discoveries made by Milman Parry and Albert Lord about the nature of oral poetry. Unlike many contemporary Classicists who treat the work of Parry and Lord implicitly or even explicitly as an obstacle, the author shows how a practical understanding of oral poetics in fact enhances a true literary appreciation of Homer. Lowenstam's insights into such problems as the functional reality of formulae in general and epithets in particular will be of value not only to Classicists but also to all scholars and students interested in oral poetry.

XI

Preface The premise of G. E. R. Lloyd's Polarity and Analogy. Two Types of Argumentation is that antithesis and parallelism are important-and distinct-methods of argumentation and explanation. Nevertheless, there are often links between polarity and analogy. For example, similes sometimes present revelations more by antithesis than by analogy. The thesis of the present book is that the Homeric poems investigate and elucidate important social questions by making analogies between contrasting situations and by revealing the differences between analogous material. I examine the mechanics of repetition in Chapter 1 in order to argue in Chapters 2 and 3 that the Iliad and the Odysseyare based on repeated antitheses. If at times I have pursued social issues and organizational matters beyond my stated aim of studying repetition, my intention has been to present more comprehensive interpretations of the Iliad and Odyssey. This book has occupied much of my scholarly attention for the last decade. The first version of Chapter 1 was written in 1980, Chapter 2 in 1983-84, and Chapter 3 in 1986-88, and the Introduction in 1988. As the book has evolved, each chapter has been rewritten many times and the bibliography updated through 1989. The major theses of the work have been presented in papers at the annual meetings of the American Philological Association, Classical Association of the Pacific Northwest, and Philological Association of the Pacific Coast, and I am grateful to the audiences at those sessions for fruitful discussion and support. I have benefited from the advice of many people. I am especially grateful to two colleagues. C. Bennett Pascal is the only person stoic enough to have read every major draft of every chapter. His ability to spot complaisance and bombast always made his comments useful and entertaining. Frederick Combellack saved me from some grave errors, which is all the more appreciated because his different approach to Homer sometimes made him wonder if we were reading the same poems. These two scholars showed me the true meaning of collegiality. I also wish to thank the other faculty at my university who read parts of this work. The staff of the University of Oregon Library has been an immense help to me in various ways. I am especially grateful to Joanne Halgren and Aimee Yogi of Interlibrary Loan for often magically attaining the impossible. In another act of wizardry Hervey Allen of the University Computing Center twice recovered chapters that had disappeared from my disk. Agnes Curland and Helen Chalker typed parts of xiii

xiv

Preface

the work in pre-computer days. Sandra Mikhailova checked the statistics in Chapter 1 and all the Homeric references. Finally, I want to thank both the University of Oregon for the sabbatical leave that allowed me the time to write the second chapter and the American Academy in Rome, which offered me library facilities to do so. I owe much to Gregory Nagy, the editor of this series, not only for his very careful reading of my manuscript but also for his tolerance of views sometimes antithetical to his own. His willingness to consider any point as the first step in a dialogue often induced me to rethink my views and express them better. I am also most grateful to Leonard Muellner for his comments on the second chapter. His sense of poetics has been inspirational to me for twenty years. A.T. Edwards read two versions of the second chapter and provided most useful critiques. It is especially true in my case that the shortcomings of this book and the views expressed in it are not to be attributed to those whom I have consulted. It may seem to the reader that I argue more in my text with those I credit here than with other scholars, but the explanation is that this book sometimes embodies my position in rewarding and fruitful debates. I also wish to thank two friends who helped me to make my work more readable. With his usual editorial finesse Stefan Schuber read through the manuscript and suggested many improvements. I apologize to him for not more often changing "since" to "because." Carol Watt also read the whole work, made many good suggestions, and was inspirational in the writing of three important paragraphs. Ilse Lieberman gave me good general advice on how to approach one of the problems in the book, and I thank Patricia Marshall for suggestions. I also want to take this opportunity to acknowledge, thank, get down on my marrowbones, and express my appreciation to Peter Mark Roget for occasional help and jocularity. Finally, I thank all the students over the past eighteen years who have responded to the interpretations embodied in this book. Eugene July 1990 This book was completed in 1989, with the final version submitted in 1990. The publishing delays have been beyond my control. For the publication I am grateful to Gregory Nagy again, G. L. Shomo, and to a very understanding editor, Lynn Gemmell. Eugene July 1993

Abbreviations AJP AnnalesESC AnnPisa BICS

g CP CQ CSCA

cw GRBS HSCP

JHS UgrE PCPhS QUCC

RE REG RM

TAPA UCPCP

YCS

American Journal of Philology Annales Economies Societes Civilisations Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, University of London ClassicalJournal Classical Philology Classical Quarterly California Studies in Classical Antiquity Classical World Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies Harvard Studies in Classical Philology Journal of Hellenic Studies Lexicon des friihgriechischen Epos Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica Real-Encyclopadie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft Revue des Etudes Grecques Rheinisches Museum Transactions of the American Philological Association University of California Publications in Classical Philology Yale Classical Studies

xv

Introduction --Ce que je voudrais faire, comprenez-moi, c' est quelque chose qui serait comme l' An de la fugue. Et je ne vois pas pourquoi ce qui fut possible en musique, serait impossible en litterature ... Aquoi Sophroniska ripostait que la musique est un art mathematique, et qu'au surplus, an' en considerer exceptionnellemen t plus que le chiffre, aen bannir le pathos et l'humanite, Bach avait reussi le chef-d'ceuvre abstrait de )'ennui, une sorte de temple astronomique, oii ne pouvaient penetrer que de rares inities. Edouard protestait aussitot qu'il trouvait ce temple admirable, qu'il y voyait l'aboutissement et le sommet de toute la carriere de Bach. -Apres quoi, ajouta Laura, on a ete gueri de la fugue pour longtemps. L'emotion humaine, ne trouvant plus a s'y loger, a cherche d'autres domiciles. Andre Gide, Lesfaux-monnayeurs

The most common feature in the Homeric poems is repetition. Not only are essential ideas often expressed by identical words or phrases, but similar scenes are usually depicted with the same details and patterns. Although the singers' penchant for ornamentation and the very flexibility of epic diction reduce to some degree this tendency to repeat, few would deny the great frequency of its occurrence. Nevertheless, despite the salience of the feature, the interpretation of repetition elicits so many different responses that few agree on how to interpret the phenomenon of two different passages sharing common material. As a result of the formulaic nature of the Homeric poems, it is clear, as Hainsworth has written, that "no occurrence of a line or phrase is in any sense a quotation or a reminiscence of another occurrence. "1 1. Hainsworth 1969: 30. This assumption is basic to the works of Parry; also Calhoun 1933: 22. Fenik (1968: 45) expands the point as follows: "Repetition, by itself, is not sufficient proof of consciously planned effect, or of maintaining

1

2

/ntroductiun

Hence, one passage with the formula 1tOA.UcpA.Oiaf3oto 8Ac;, rosy-fingered (or rosy-toed?). No one dreams of rendering these adjectives by 'noble' or 'goodly' because their derivation makes their meaning clear, but they are every bit as generic, conventional, formulaic, and divorced from the immediate context as other epithets in Homer."

1-ros 'Mother and the Hand of Penelope

45

would say, only appear in this passage by chance (their metrical utility); but the reason that such epithets so often seem fitting or striking is that great artistry was placed into their creation. As a result, specific passages are enriched by their effective use and suggestiveness, even though that was not the primary meaning for their placement there. As mentioned above, the discrepancy between the meaning of a truly generic epithet and its use in a particular context rarely attracts attention in modern criticism. Those eager to demonstrate the irrational use of fixed epithets rely on other sorts of examples, which Parry places into two categories: the use of a formula in a context in which the fixed epithet seems inappropriate, and the improper assignment of individual epithets. 82 Two of the three instances which Parry provided as examples for the first type of offense have been discussed above: xetpl 1taxdn and 1t6'tVtaµft'tT\P·These instances differ from those of truly generic epithets because, whereas in the one case the moon is sometimes bright but cannot be full when the stars appear bright, critics assert that Iros' mother could never be characterized as 1tO'tVta and Penelope's hand could not be described as "fat." These arguments have been challenged above, but Parry placed a third instance into this category: the application of opxaµo~av6prov("leader of men") to Philoitios ( Od. 20.185, 254). Since Philoitios is a cowherd, the argument is that it would be inappropriate to apply to him the same formula that is assigned to Achilleus. Of course, the essential question is whether Philoitios is a leader of men. He is the cowherd, Eumaios is the swineherd, and Melanthios is the goatherd. Both Philoitios and Eumaios ( Od. 14.22) are called "leader of men." Eumaios is seen to be in charge of at least four men ( Od. 14.24-26), and Melanthios appears to have at least two underlings ( Od. 20.175). Although Philoitios is not explicitly shown with subordinates, the fact that each of the three men is the only named herdsman of a specific type of animal suggests that all three were in charge of other men. 83 Certainly, the expression "leader of men" would play a far different role in a war poem than in a rural, peacetime poem, 84 but this distinction is not cause for believing one more genuine than the other. 82. MHV151. 83. Cf. van Leeuwen (1917: 328) on Eumaios and Philoitios receiving the ap&v~pii>v· "quippe ... aliis ministris praepositi sunt ipsi." pellation PXaµoc; 84. Similarly, the Iliadic word for greave is employed in what may appear to be a debased meaning in the Odyssey,namely to denote leggings for weeding. Segal's statement (1983: 46) pertaining to thematic material might be

46

ChapterOne

The final offense to be considered is the improper assignment of individual epithets. Parry lists eight instances: 6ia applied to Anteia and Klytaimestra, 6iotyovaµuvat, 1.67, where a common metaphor is used literally and figuratively) . 111 After Briseis is taken, Achilleus warns that a time will come when he will be needed to ward off destruction (aetlCE(lM>tyovaµuvat, 1.341). Phoinix uses the same formula when he asserts that Achilleus must protect him (9.495), and he goes on to speak of the healing power of the Prayers (e~aiceovtat, 9.507). As the quarrel continues, Poseidon will urge the Achaians to heal the breach with Achilleus (13.115):

n

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