The Stories of Similes in Greek and Roman Epic 1108481795, 9781108481793
Just as the story of an epic poem is woven from characters and plot, so too the individual similes within an epic create
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THE STORIES OF SIMILES IN GREEK AND ROMAN EPIC
Just as the story of an epic poem is woven from characters and plot, so too the individual similes within an epic create a unique simile world. Like any other story, the epic poem is peopled by individual characters, happenings, and experiences, such as the shepherd and his flocks, a storm at sea, or predators hunting prey. The simile world that complements the epic mythological story is reimagined afresh in relation to the themes of each epic poem. As Deborah Beck argues in this stimulating book, over time, a simile world takes shape across many poems composed over many centuries. This evolving landscape resembles the epic story world of battles, voyages, and heroes that comes into being through relationships among different epic poems. Epic narrative is woven from a warp of the mythological story world and a weft of the simile world. They are partners in creating the fabric of epic poetry. is Professor in the Department of Classics at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of Homeric Conversation () and Speech Presentation in Homeric Epic (). She is also the producer of “Musings in Greek Literature,” a podcast featuring the work of advanced students reading ancient Greek poetry at the University of Texas at Austin.
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THE STORIES OF SIMILES IN GREEK AND ROMAN EPIC DEBORAH BECK The University of Texas at Austin
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Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB EA, United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, th Floor, New York, NY , USA Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC , Australia –, rd Floor, Plot , Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi – , India Penang Road, #–/, Visioncrest Commercial, Singapore Cambridge University Press is part of Cambridge University Press & Assessment, a department of the University of Cambridge. We share the University’s mission to contribute to society through the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/ DOI: ./ © Deborah Beck This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press & Assessment. First published A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data : Beck, Deborah, author. : The stories of similes in Greek and Roman epic / Deborah Beck, University of Texas, Austin. : Cambridge ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, [] | Includes bibliographical references and index. : (print) | (ebook) | (hardback) | (paperback) | (epub) : : Epic poetry, Classical–History and criticism. | Simile in literature. | : Literary criticism. : PA.E B (print) | PA.E (ebook) | /.–dc/eng/ LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/ LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/ ---- Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
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In memory of James Morwood, –
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Contents
Acknowledgments Note on Translations List of Abbreviations
page viii xi xii
Introduction Homer Odyssey: Heroism, Home, and Family
Homer Iliad: Leadership and Loss
Apollonius Argonautica: Gender, Emotion, and the Limits of Human Skill
Vergil Aeneid: Rage and Isolation
Ovid Metamorphoses: Stories of Eros and Epic
Conclusion
Bibliography Index of Names and Subjects Index of Passages Cited
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Acknowledgments
It is a great pleasure to thank the organizations and individuals that have enabled me to complete this project. It has been financially supported by a summer stipend from the National Endowment from the Humanities; the Center for Hellenic Studies, Harvard University, Washington, DC; two Plumer Visiting Research Fellowships at St Anne’s College, University of Oxford; and a Humanities Research Award and two College Research Fellowships from the College of Liberal Arts, University of Texas at Austin. Stephen White and Lesley Jones, chairs of the Department of Classics during the years that I was writing the book, facilitated my access to financial resources and favorable teaching schedules. The department staff, Vanessa Noya and Khoa Tran, did so many things that it would take several pages to enumerate them. My colleagues in the Department of Psychology, Zenzi Griffin and Jennifer Beer, helped me get my bearings in various aspects of cognitive psychology. The UT Classics subject librarian, Shiela Winchester, chased down innumerable references with unfailing good cheer, and Colleen Lyon helped me understand the intricacies of fair use. Pauline Strong and the Fall cohort of the University of Texas at Austin Humanities Institute seminar “Narrative across the Disciplines” offered a congenial environment for wrestling some of the most challenging material into shape. Jason De Leon’s guest seminar opened exciting new vistas on engaging storytelling in academic writing. Rebecca van der Horst, my coauthor on the open-access database that accompanies this book, transformed it from an idiosyncratic tool that only I could use or understand into a well-designed and genuinely accessible resource. She also proofread most of the quotations and the data analysis in the book, and she created the indices. Her enthusiasm for the project, her grasp of the big picture, and her attention to detail saved me from a truly epic quantity of mistakes. Sections of the manuscript were read by Bill Beck, Joel Christensen, Stephen Harrison, Julia Hejduk, Talitha Kearey, Elizabeth Minchin, Sarah viii
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Acknowledgments
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Nooter, William Race, Deborah Roberts, Richard Rutherford, and Richard Tarrant. Justin Arft, Robert Kaster, and Celia Schultz answered important questions along the way. I benefited from comments offered by audiences in Albuquerque, Ann Arbor, Cuma, Iowa City, Knoxville, New Orleans, Oxford, Waco, Waltham, and Winston-Salem. At Cambridge University Press, I am grateful to Michael Sharp and Katie Idle for effectively shepherding the manuscript through the publication process. I am solely responsible for the shortcomings that have eluded the best efforts of my friends and colleagues. Special thanks go to Matthew Leigh, Sheila Murnaghan, and Andrew Riggsby, who read the entire manuscript in draft and generously offered their thoughts about various issues that came up during the final revision process. Matthew Leigh also worked hard to make my stays at St Anne’s College as enjoyable and productive as they could be. Rabun Taylor suggested the terms “pattern” and “weave” for the content and structure of similes, and he sent me entertaining videos every day for three weeks to help me get through a particularly desperate period. The last round of revising this project coincided with the COVID pandemic. Juggling my research with the overwhelming demands of pandemic teaching and mentoring would have been impossible without the unfailing kindness, understanding, and love of my husband, Alan Greenberg. When I emailed Stephen Harrison in at the urging of a mutual friend, his suggestion that I visit Oxford led to the first of four research trips there. He also introduced me to Alice Oswald’s Memorial. It is a simple statement of fact that my book would not exist without the time I have spent in Oxford and the inspiration provided by Oswald’s approach to Homer. Both the library collections of the University of Oxford and the stimulating conversations that unfolded in the dining rooms of various colleges made the book bigger and better than it could otherwise have been. In addition to audiences at my talks in Oxford, the Oxford colleagues who read drafts, and the hospitality of St Anne’s College, this book was improved by conversations with Angus Bowie, Peta Fowler, Stephen Heyworth, Gregory Hutchinson, Adrian Kelly, Christopher Pelling, and Lucy VanEssen-Fishman, among others. The book is dedicated to the late James Morwood of Wadham College. James invited me to dinner at high table, sight unseen, the day after I arrived for my first visit in Oxford. His kind and thoughtful hospitality helped to make my first encounter with this recondite ceremony less intimidating. A highlight on each of my visits was James’ infectious enthusiasm, his broad and deep knowledge of Greek and Latin literature,
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and his razor-sharp understanding of the issues I discussed with him. The last time we saw each other, he poured himself a glass of wine, leaned forward with an eager twinkle in his eye, and said, “Tell me all about your book! I’ve been so looking forward to it.” And he meant it. I offer this book to his memory as a heartfelt if inadequate token of gratitude for his kindness and his learning.
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Note on Translations
Translations of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey are quoted from the editions of Robert Fagles (New York: Penguin, and , respectively). Translations of Apollonius’ Argonautica are from W. H. Race, ed. Apollonius Rhodius Argonautica (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, ). Translations of Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura are based on Rouse, W. H. D., ed., revised by M. F. Smith. Lucretius On the Nature of Things (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, ). Translations of Vergil’s Aeneid (Aeneid, : www.poetryintranslation.com/klineasaeneid.php) and Ovid’s Metamorphoses (www.poetryintranslation.com/klineasovid.php) are quoted from the works of A. S. Kline ( and , respectively) with permission.
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Abbreviations
LfgrE = Snell, B., and H. Erbse, eds. –. Lexikon des fru¨hgriechischen Epos. Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht. LSJ = Liddell, H. G., R. Scott, H. S. Jones, and R. Mackenzie. (th ed., , supplement added ). Greek-English Lexicon with a Revised Supplement. Oxford: Clarendon Press. OLD = Glare, P. W. G. . Oxford Latin Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press TLL = Thesaurus linguae Latinae. –. Berlin (formerly Leipzig): De Gruyter (formerly Teubner).
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Introduction
A simile in an ancient Greek or Roman epic poem uses the simile form “A is like B” to frame a brief tale about something outwardly unrelated to the poem’s main story. The simile structure asserts a kinship between two things that come from different conceptual domains: a warrior is like a wild beast, an ocean wave, or a dead flower. But each of us must flesh out these relationships for ourselves: How are the two things alike? How are they different? How does one simile mesh with others to create a simile world that shapes an epic poem as a whole? An epic simile typically starts with an “as” phrase and ends with a “so” expression; this recapping “so,” in particular, defines the extended narrative simile that characterizes epic poetry as a literary genre. The “as/so” ring identifies likeness between superficially different phenomena as an explicit subject of the narrative. It fashions a border around a simile that both sets it apart and weaves it into the main story of an epic poem. These deceptively simple framing expressions of likeness invite each of us to reweave those connections afresh, a process that is simultaneously intellectual, emotional, and immersive. Most readers equate the story of an epic poem with its mythological characters and events. Homer’s Iliad is a tale of Achilles, Hector, and the sack of Troy. Vergil’s Aeneid tells the story of Aeneas founding Rome in part by drawing on the stories told in the Iliad and the Odyssey about the experiences of comparable characters. Because an epic poem presents the mythological story in a more connected and linear fashion than the stories of the individual similes, we have not tended to regard similes themselves as elements of a cohesive epic “story.” But just as the story of any epic poem is woven from characters and plot, so too do the individual similes within an epic create a unified and unique simile world. A poem’s similes band together to create an internally consistent world like any other story, peopled by individual characters, happenings, and experiences. The simile world that complements the epic mythological story is not an unchanging
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Introduction
transcultural baseline. Rather, it is re-imagined afresh in relation to the themes of each epic poem. Indeed, the story and simile worlds are reshaped in tandem from epic to epic. As each epic poem becomes part of the fabric of epic poetry over time, an ongoing simile world takes shape across many poems composed over many centuries. This evolving landscape resembles the epic story world of battles and heroes and voyages that comes into being through relationships among different epic poems. As the simile worlds evolve over the course of the epic tradition, so does the relationship between the simile and story worlds, with less and less separation between them. Epic narrative is woven from a warp of the mythological story world and a weft of the simile world. They are partners in creating the fabric of epic poetry. Like Alice Oswald’s Memorial, a poem fashioned from the similes and obituaries of the Iliad, my book is an answer to the question “What kind of stories emerge from ancient epic if we put similes front and center?” What do we see if we approach similes with the same assumptions of narrative significance that we grant automatically to the characters and events of the Trojan War or the Voyage of the Argonauts? First and foremost, similes are highly concentrated nuggets of immersive storytelling, which “invite the reader to construct a mental representation of the described situation that is grounded in perception, action, and emotion” (Allan b: ). This feature of similes was familiar to ancient scholars, the scholiasts, who associated them with enargeia (“vividness”). Individual similes include spatial environments for the events they depict, bodily experiences of heat and rain and hunger and injury, emotional ties of love or loss, and social relationships powered by conflict, awe, or cooperation. Similes, in fact, are the most intensely embodied, immersive part of epic poetry. Moreover, like the individual scenes and characters of the mythological story, individual similes give rise to a coherent and cohesive simile world that is distinctive to an individual poem. Indeed, the themes and outlook of an epic poem reach the audience at least as much through its simile world as through the mythological story. In the context of an epic poem, a simile is not an analytical tool for dissecting experience. It is itself an experience that places us within a world that is just as important to the epic narrative as the mythological story. Modern scholars working on embodied cognition have come to see mental processes not as fundamentally different or separate from the physical body but as closely dependent on and related to it: psychological and linguistic research has shown how someone reading words that refer to visual and spatial ideas activates areas of the brain associated with seeing
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Introduction
and moving. This view can shed light on virtually any kind of cognitive processing ranging from how we understand figurative language to the vividness of Homeric narrative. From this perspective, similes provide a fruitful way not simply to study the immersive aspects of narrative but to “embody” it. Too often, scholarship on embodied cognition is far from embodied itself. In highly abstract language, such analyses present the phenomenon they seek to explain, but readers seeking a taste of what an embodied experience of literature would feel like are unlikely to find it in scholarly writing. As I will explain in more detail later in this Introduction, many of my choices of language, style, and presentation are intended to maximize the reader’s experience of personal, affective engagement with the subject just as similes do in epic poetry. For example, I use the firstperson plural when I refer to the experiences arising from a given simile to embody the emotional bonds created by the reading process between us and the poem as well as among different readers. Similes about relationships offer the fullest variety of immersive features, showing the characters as they experience the world in which they live, the sensations of their own bodies during those experiences, and the feelings that bind them to other characters. Shepherding similes embody several relationships that bring out a range of themes fundamental not simply to all the poems in this book but to any exploration of the human experience. The shepherd needs skill, strength, and mutual trust to fulfill his responsibilities to his flock. The shepherd’s domestic animals have feelings for one another and for their shepherd. Their behavior as a group brings forward the bonds of community and how communities respond to internal conflict or external threats. The predators, storms, and other dangers endured by both shepherds and flocks evoke the hazards that threaten a safe, stable, and orderly way of life for animals and human beings alike. Because shepherding similes explore several of the most basic themes in epic poetry by immersing us in the experiences and feelings of different kinds of creatures, this one type of simile scene offers the best view of both the simile world of a given poem and the epic narrative in which that world is found. Moreover, herding and animal scenes form part of the simile worlds of all five poems in my book. Therefore, shepherding scenes offer both a wide-ranging perspective on a particular poem and a standard by which to compare poems to one another. Such scenes define the shape and the aims of one poem, and they give a sense of the qualities unique to each poem in comparison to the others. In the landscape of the epic similes, this book strives to be both a guidebook that describes the sights and sounds that the traveler encounters
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Introduction
and a safari in which we experience the feelings, emotions, and sensations of the simile world for ourselves. As we set off to explore the simile worlds of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, Apollonius’ Argonautica, Vergil’s Aeneid, and Ovid’s Metamorphoses, we begin our journey in this Introduction with a simile that includes many features typical of the simile world. One of the most typical features of similes is the way they create meaning, not by stating it explicitly but by the accumulation of details that invite us to forge relationships among them. It is in these relationships, and the interpretive and affective process of experiencing them, that the significance of similes lies. So too, my analysis of this simile – and of the “typical simile” that opens each chapter of the book – begins with the simile itself rather than with an overview of the main conclusions the analysis will reach. My points will emerge over the course of exploring the simile, and they are summarized at the end of the section.
I. Simile Shepherds and Their Flocks: Apollonius Argonautica .– The opening of Book of Apollonius’ Argonautica finds Jason and the Argonauts in quest of the Golden Fleece, sailing from Greece to the city of Colchis on the eastern end of the Black Sea. On their way to Colchis, they beach their ship Argo in the kingdom of the Bebrycians, located just to the east of present-day Istanbul. Here, the Argonauts encounter a warlike people living under the rule of the hostile and inhospitable king Amycus. Instead of welcoming his visitors politely, as a civilized host would be expected to do, Amycus greets the new arrivals by telling them that anyone who wants to return home must box with him first. Several punches later, the Argonaut Polydeuces lands a deadly blow to Amycus’ head. The Bebrycians then try to kill Polydeuces to avenge the death of their king, but instead, several of them are hurt or killed by Greek fighters. As Jason and several other Argonauts advance on the Bebrycians, a simile compares them to a pack of wolves menacing a flock of domestic sheep.
Apollonius Argonautica 2.121–29 And with him charged Aeacus’ sons, and with them rushed warlike Jason. And as when countless sheep in their pens are attacked and terrified by gray wolves on a winter day, having eluded the keen-scented dogs and the shepherds themselves, ð125Þ and they seek out which animal to assail first and carry off,
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I. Simile Shepherds and Their Flocks
as they survey many at once, while the sheep from all sides merely huddle together as they fall over one another – thus did they grievously terrify the arrogant Bebrycians. (after Race trans.) ὁμοῦ δέ οἱ ἐσσεύοντο Αἰακίδαι, σὺν δέ σφιν ἀρήιος ὤρνυτ’ Ἰήσων. ὡς δ’ ὅτ’ ἐνὶ σταθμοῖσιν ἀπείρονα μῆλ’ ἐφόβησαν ἤματι χειμερίῳ πολιοὶ λύκοι ὁρμηθέντες λάθρῃ ἐυρρίνων τε κυνῶν αὐτῶν τε νομήων, ð125Þ μαίονται δ’ ὅ τι πρῶτον ἐπαΐξαντες ἕλωσιν, πόλλ’ ἐπιπαμφαλόωντες ὁμοῦ, τὰ δὲ πάντοθεν αὔτως στείνονται πίπτοντα περὶ σφίσιν· ὣς ἄρα τοί γε λευγαλέως Βέβρυκας ὑπερφιάλους ἐφόβησαν.
As we readers leap to our mental “feet” along with the Greek fighters rushing at the Bebrycians (.–), a simile comes along to interrupt our forward motion. The simile announces itself with “as when” (ὡς δ’ ὅτ’, .), a common simile introductory expression that indicates that the narrative is about to change direction. Instead of attacking the Bebrycians, we now find ourselves literally reversing course along with a large herd of fleeing animals in a sheepfold (ἐνὶ σταθμοῖσιν ἀπείρονα μῆλ’ ἐφόβησαν, .). The antagonists of the sheep, a pack of gray wolves that rush at the sheep on a winter’s day, arrive in .. Now we are off and running once again, but this time as the predators who are attacking the sheep. The reader in effect has walked the paths of both antagonists, the sheep and the wolves (and thus also, the Bebrycians and the Argonauts). The bulk of the detail in the simile describes the wolves (.–). First, they evade the notice of both dogs and shepherds (λάθρῃ ἐυρρίνων τε κυνῶν αὐτῶν τε νομήων, .). The aptness of these additional characters is self-evident in the simile – well-tended sheep require both animal and human supervision – but unclear in the adjacent story where no characters are mentioned besides the sheep and wolf analogues. So, this verse would arouse extra attention, as we both inhabit the experiences of the sly wolves and the keen-nosed dogs and wonder how the dogs and their human masters might be related to the adjacent story. Having eluded the caretakers, the wolves now reconnoiter the herd to decide which animal to attack first (μαίονται δ’ ὅ τι πρῶτον ἐπαΐξαντες ἕλωσιν, / πόλλ’ ἐπιπαμφαλόωντες ὁμοῦ, .–). The wolves, in fact, never progress beyond spying out possible victims. The end of the simile returns to the sheep, who are piled on top of each other – and us – in a compressed heap of words (πάντοθεν αὔτως / στείνονται πίπτοντα περὶ σφίσιν, .–). We finish the simile underneath a crush of frightened
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Introduction
bodies whose connection to the story once again becomes unclear as it links penned-in, passive, terrified herd animals to the “arrogant” Bebrycians (ὣς ἄρα τοί γε / λευγαλέως Βέβρυκας ὑπερφιάλους ἐφόβησαν, .–). We come away from this simile with vivid experiences of both the sheep-Bebrycians (who begin and end the comparison, the most emphatic positions not only in poetic composition but also in psychological understandings of how human beings process and remember sequences, Smith ) and the wolf-Argonauts (whose behavior is described at the greatest length). Moreover, the simile is full of sensory details, many of which would linger in part because they have no clear relevance to the story: the weather is cold (ἤματι χειμερίῳ, .), the wolves are gray (πολιοὶ λύκοι, .), the dogs have a keen sense of smell (ἐυρρίνων τε κυνῶν, .). As a group, these individual details create a lively scene in which we inhabit the experiences of both sheep and wolves and so of both Argonauts and Bebrycians, even while the Bebrycians are some of the most violent and uncivilized of the peoples encountered by the Argonauts along their journey. While the lush detail in the simile creates an engaging sensory experience for us, it also raises unanswered (and unanswerable) questions about the relationships between the simile and the story. Our experience of epic similes arises in large part from grappling with such questions, even – or especially – when we cannot fix on specific answers. What does it imply for the human fighters in the mythological story that the simile takes place in the winter? Is there a story analogue to the behavior of the wolves who “survey” their prey before deciding which one to kill first? In what way does the frontal assault of the Greek fighters (.–) relate to the wolves sneaking into (λάθρῃ, .) the sheep’s pen? We cannot know for sure, in part because the story never describes the Greek attack that precedes the simile. Instead, the Greek soldiers’ assault on the Bebrycians is narrated by the simile itself. When the simile begins, the Greeks are rushing at the Bebrycians; when it ends, the defeated Bebrycians are fleeing in all directions. The intervening step unfolds between the wolves and the sheep, not between the human combatants. Similes regularly fill such silences, telling parts of the epic tale that are not included in the main story. These gaps themselves are carriers of meaning through both the interpretations that we create in order to fill them and the subjective experience of these gaps as places where meaning comes not from words and content but from empty space. When the edges of a mythological story on either side of a simile do not join up smoothly with each other, it falls to us to weave together the simile and the story to create the poem’s narrative. The meaning of a simile, in fact, is fashioned from
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I. Shepherds and the Simile World: “Pattern”
both the connections that it forges (“wolves are like Greek fighters”) and the gaps that it opens up (“who in the story corresponds to the dogs and shepherds in the simile?”). Regardless of how we respond to those gaps, our immersion in the landscape of the simile world creates a subjective, embodied experience of an epic poem that arouses a bodily rather than a lexical response from us. Describing and analyzing this experience inevitably offers a pale shadow of the experience itself both for your author and for you, the reader. But for travelers in the world of epic poetry, as for travelers anywhere, knowing what to expect and how to make the most of our experience can lead to a more satisfying trip. Following the simile shepherd through the different relationships in which he participates will show us a road map that – like similes – makes a broad narrative terrain more approachable and engaging. Shepherding similes, a motif common to all five poems in this book in which the main characters have a wide range of embodied and emotional experiences, offer a good overview of the simile worlds of epic narrative.
I. Shepherds and the Simile World: “Pattern” Relationships among the typical shepherding characters in Argonautica .– – both within the simile and between the simile and the adjacent story – help to establish the tone and themes of the Argonautica as a whole. Although dangerous wild animals menace a shepherd’s charges in several similes besides this one, no domestic animals in similes in the Argonautica come to any real harm. This simile is one of several in which the predator frightens or threatens the flock without hurting any of them. In fact, just as the simile of wolves and sheep narrates the otherwise missing clash between Greek and Bebrycian fighters, so too the fleeing Bebrycians who follow the simile (.–) may supply the end of this simile by implying that the sheep, like the Bebrycians, escaped unharmed. In a scenario that is unique to the simile world of the Argonautica, various shepherds take strategic actions that put their animals out of harm’s way, preventing a predator from threatening them in the first place. One group of herders in the simile world of the Argonautica, for example, shut their flocks into their pens before a wild animal can get to them, and their careful advance planning is one of the main subjects of the simile: “for beforehand the shepherds themselves have shut them in their pens” (πρὸ γὰρ αὐτοὶ ἐνὶ σταθμοῖσι νομῆες / ἔλσαν, .–). “For beforehand” (πρὸ γάρ) draws us into the shepherds’ thought process as they make a plan to protect their sheep, and the intensifier “the shepherds
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Introduction
themselves” (αὐτοὶ . . . νομῆες) highlights both the actions of the shepherds and their bond with the flocks. In this simile – in contrast to the wily wolves in .– – the hungry predator cannot figure out how to get past the shepherds’ defenses. Through simile vignettes of shepherds who make and carry out plans to keep their animals safe, the Argonautica establishes the positive force of human expertise as a key theme of the poem. While the shepherds in the Argonautica differ from the shepherds in other poems, the Argonautica similes about human relationships – also a feature of the simile worlds of all five of our poems – depict feelings as even stronger and more powerful than the human intellect. The mythological story of the Argonautica is, of course, the sum of all its individual scenes and happenings and characters. In the same way, the individual scenes and characters of the various similes in the Argonautica create a simile world with consistent features that define this particular poem. By and large, the shepherds in the simile world of the Argonautica are watching over their animals and keeping them safe from harm. But shepherds in other epics do not fare as well. For instance, Iliad shepherds often fall short in their responsibilities, both because they are defeated by enemies who are stronger than they are and because they make mistakes – or fail to show up at all – when danger threatens their animals. The Iliad explores themes of bad or ineffective leadership in no small part through the experiences of its simile shepherds. Aeneid shepherds, meanwhile, almost never appear in the same simile as domestic animals; when shepherds and their flocks do interact, they relate to each other with fear and conflict rather than trust and harmony. Like Aeneas, Dido, and Turnus, these shepherds and their flocks inhabit a world where meaningful emotional connections are the exception rather than the rule, and relationships may be even more painful and destructive than loneliness. In each poem, herding motifs in the simile world help to depict key themes about leadership, authority, and bonds between people. By contrast, there are no herders at all in the simile world of the Metamorphoses, a poem that takes delight in placing the central characters of earlier epics on the sidelines and focusing on previously marginal figures instead. Such sidelined heroes of earlier epics characterize both the story world – the mere four verses devoted to the tragedy of Dido is a famous example (Metamorphoses .–) – and the simile world. Within the Argonautica, capable shepherds form one thread of a narrative that is keenly interested in the power of human knowledge, strategy, and expertise to shape the world. But in the larger simile world found across multiple epics, the successful shepherds in the Argonautica are
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I. Shepherds and the Simile World: “Pattern”
outliers whose success becomes even more striking in contrast to their more feckless and less attentive colleagues. A simile world is part of the narrative not simply within an individual poem but across multiple epics. In many cases, individual similes in post-Homeric epics allude to specific passages in earlier literature, and meanings are created in their new contexts in part through precise relationships with these earlier contexts. Indeed, similes resemble allusions because they juxtapose two superficially unrelated things from which we are invited to create connections and meaning about both the narrative itself and the narrative process. But even without an allusion to specific passages from earlier epic, the simile world of the Argonautica takes on its unique coloring in part alongside the simile worlds found in other poems. For various reasons, we have not explored these simile worlds before, in large part because the ways that similes tell their individual stories do not invite us to put them together to fashion larger tales. For one thing, the structures that weave a simile into the narrative connect it to the adjacent story rather than to other similes. And because most similes feature nameless, timeless, self-contained scenes, they do not foster the chronological and causal links that we naturally create when we build longer stories out of individual incidents. The absence of such ties fosters the illusion that similes across the centuries exist in an unchanging natural or precultural landscape shared by all epic poems, which in fact is far from true. While we can reframe the mythological story component of an epic poem as a series of individual events that happen to specific people – as something that we can summarize, however superficially and simplistically, one step at a time – similes barely exist as individual discrete stories that can be summarized. Their meaning cannot be understood apart from the fabric of connections that they weave with multiple storytelling contexts and the experiences that they create for us. The stories of the simile world of an epic poem are, quite simply, less congenial to conventional interpretive tools than the mythological story. For many of the same reasons, the challenges of analyzing similes extend to scholarly interpretations as well. Because similes are defined by webs of relationships, they mean several things at once, depending on the specific vantage point from which we approach them. Yet academic studies of similes almost without exception are organized around a single main idea, and whichever features of similes are most relevant to that idea. This approach unavoidably produces a partial view of the rich variety of roles that similes play in shaping epic narrative. Even foundational analyses that argue for the “multiplicity” of similes (such as Fränkel and West
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Introduction
) use “multiple” in one particular sense: both of these influential studies strive to correct the idea – stretching back to ancient literary critics – that a given simile has only one point of contact with the adjacent story, and our job is to identify what that point of contact might be. While it is both important and useful, this sense of “multiple” is also limited. It leaves out most of the multiplicities that similes create. Books on similes within a single epic poem effectively bring together the various threads that weave similes into one particular epic narrative, at the cost of seeing individual poems within a larger epic story told by multiple poems over the course of several centuries. The largest proportion of such studies focus on Homeric epic, both because Homeric poetry has more similes than later epics and because it sets the baseline for those later poems. Conversely, wide-ranging studies of “the simile” can show us sweeping vistas of the simile as a narrative or rhetorical technique but limited views of how the object of study functions within its poetic habitats. All of these approaches are useful; none of them is adequate to the engaging and elusive power of the same-yet-different paradox that is a simile. How, then, can a single approach embrace the different kinds of multiplicities found in epic similes without becoming so broad or diffuse as to be unworkable? To do justice to epic similes, they should be studied both within the immediate narrative contexts in which they appear and within the many webs of meaning that they create. Some of these are found within a single poem while others emerge across multiple poems over time. To some extent, this approach is a contradiction in terms because a bodily sensation or a multifaceted relationship cannot easily be captured in a single verbal description. But even though key aspects of similes in some fundamental sense lie beyond conventional verbal forms of analysis, we can learn a great deal by openly admitting these challenges and forging ahead as best we can. Similes use words to convey several forms of meaning and experience at the same time. This book will strive to do the same by drawing on the variety of approaches to similes in Greek and Roman epic, complemented by ways of thinking about how people engage with similes that focus more than literary criticism has done on the nonverbal and the experiential.
I. Similes and the Mythological Story At the story level, whether and how individuals and groups interact in fighting scenes resembles the various relationships that unfold in shepherding scenes of the simile world across multiple epic poems. Indeed, battle is
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I. Similes and the Mythological Story
the most common story context for shepherding similes. How important is individual prowess? How do individuals and groups relate to each other in a well-functioning society? What does effective leadership look like? These themes emerge with equal force from battle stories and shepherding similes. The scene of conflict between the Argonauts and the Bebrycians at the beginning of Argonautica makes one link in the plot of the poem, the chain of events that brings the Argonauts from Greece to Colchis and back. The opening of Book emphasizes that the conflict between the Argonauts and the Bebrycians happens because King Amycus makes the “disgraceful and uncivilized” choice to force his visitors to box with him (ὑπεροπληέστατον ἀνδρῶν· / ὅς τ’ ἐπὶ καὶ ξείνοισιν ἀεικέα θεσμὸν ἔθηκεν, . . . .–). But when they cannot avoid violence, both Polydeuces in individual combat with Amycus and the Argonauts as a group handily defeat their attackers in order to continue their travels. This encounter maps out one strand of the characters of Jason and the Argonauts. With two dire exceptions – in emphatic positions at the beginning and end of the voyage – the Argonauts are generally reluctant to fight unless they are forced into it by the actions of others. As one might expect in a tale about an epic journey, fighting tends to be closely related to the theme of guests and hospitality (e.g. “guest-friends” [ξείνοισιν ., rendered “strangers” in Race ]), which defines civilized behavior for Greeks and non-Greeks alike. Similes accompany battle scenes more often than any other kind of story element, and partly for that reason, similes that appear with battle scenes have been closely studied in a way that the associations between similes and other story contexts have not. But it is also true that battle and simile have a natural kinship as modes of storytelling. A battle scene, like a simile, revolves around powerful physical and emotional experiences of injury, hatred, fear, sorrow, and death. Embodiment also characterizes story scenes about intense feelings, which are the second most common story motif after battle scenes to have simile descriptions. Accordingly, each chapter touches at least briefly on story scenes about both emotion and battle for the same reasons that shepherding similes offer a particularly fertile field for understanding epic similes: both battle and emotion story motifs are defined by multiple relationships that arouse a variety of strong feelings in the participants, and both subjects are common to all five poems. Different poems use the basic tools of epic storytelling – similes and mythological tales – in different ways to fashion different kinds of narratives, but the epic poetry toolbox contents themselves remain largely stable
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Introduction
over time. Both within one poem and across centuries of epic storytelling, the same elements – such as shepherds and flocks – tell a progressively longer simile story across a broader and broader canvas. And the pieces of the mythological narratives in epic poetry build up larger stories in just the same way. Most readers, by contrast, take the mythological tale as the main story, the normative story, of an epic poem and the similes as a different, lesser, and auxiliary form of narrative. But taking similes on their own terms rather than approaching them according to the standards of a different kind of storytelling shows that this is not in fact the case. An individual simile has a different texture from an individual episode of a mythological story because the characters do not have names and because simile incidents generally take place in a timeless and generalized space. But aside from this difference, both individual similes and individual units of the mythological story join to build up larger tales created out of a stable yet evolving set of characters and scenes. Individual similes and the simile world they create are partners with the mythological story in creating the narratives of epic poetry.
I. Simile Constructions: “Weave” The previous section offers various answers to the question “What are simile stories about?” or – to use the weaving metaphor for poetic composition that goes back to proto-Indo-European – the simile “patterns.” This section explores how similes are put together, the “weave” that frames both the simile world and the texture of the relationship between the simile and story worlds. As in any form of communication, both form and content shape meaning in similes. But readers of a typical simile, including scholarly critics, spend more time thinking about the actions of a shepherd and his animals than about the “as/so” frames that liken them to a battle in the mythological story, even though such frames allow us to recognize a simile in the first place. In fact, the framing structure is itself a carrier of meaning. It establishes a cognitively rich kind of likeness that “asserts similarity but presupposes dissimilarity,” inviting the addressee to consider both terms of the comparison at once rather than to see one as subordinate to the other. The form of a simile establishes explicit and precise terms for a comparison between two things, but this explicit form by no means entails an explicit meaning. In Homeric epic, virtually all similes include both an introductory “as” and a concluding “so” expression. But where part of a simile frame is missing, the interpreter’s task becomes even more demanding. Concluding expressions become less common over time, so
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I. Simile Constructions: “Weave”
that the majority of similes in both the Aeneid and the Metamorphoses return directly to the story after a simile with no “so” expression to mark the transition. The lexical boundaries between the simile and story worlds grow weaker over time, changing the contours of epic narrative. Various kinds of simile frames may appear alongside the most common “as/so” structures, creating different kinds of relationships and adding distinctive tones and themes to the narratives in which they appear. In a cluster of multiple similes, for example, one simile may make a frame for another simile. In such passages, we are immersed not simply in the likenesses between a shepherd and a human battle but also in the relationships between them and the insects, or ocean wave, or snowfall that appear in the other similes in the cluster. Both likeness and dissimilarity become multidirectional relationships among several different scenes, not just among several different features of one simile and the adjacent story. For instance, immediately after the shepherding simile about the Argonauts and the Bebrycians, a second simile likens the fleeing Bebrycians to bees smoked out of their hive. . . . thus did they grievously terrify the arrogant Bebrycians. And as shepherds or beekeepers smoke a great swarm of bees ð130Þ within a rock, and for a while the flustered bees stay together and buzz in their hive, but when suffocated by the sooty smoke they dart forth far from the rock, likewise the men did not stand firm for much longer, but scattered . . . (, after Race trans.)
Argonautica 2.128–35 ὣς ἄρα τοί γε λευγαλέως Βέβρυκας ὑπερφιάλους ἐφόβησαν. ὡς δὲ μελισσάων σμῆνος μέγα μηλοβοτῆρες ð130Þ ἠὲ μελισσοκόμοι πέτρῃ ἔνι καπνιόωσιν, αἱ δ’ ἤτοι τείως μὲν ἀολλέες ᾧ ἐνὶ σίμβλῳ βομβηδὸν κλονέονται, ἐπιπρὸ δὲ λιγνυόεντι καπνῷ τυφόμεναι πέτρης ἑκὰς ἀίσσουσιν· ὣς οἵ γ’ οὐκέτι δὴν μένον ἔμπεδον, ἀλλὰ κέδασθεν. . . ð135Þ
Whereas the shepherd simile (.–) engages us with the sheep and the wolves in comparably vivid and detailed terms, this second comparison focuses mainly on the animals being threatened. Once human beings put smoke into the bees’ hive (.–), the rest of the simile follows the buzzing swarm as they try and then fail to withstand the noxious fumes
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Introduction
that gradually fill their home. As the scene progresses, the escalating sounds and smells billowing through the rocky hive swirl around us. Simile clusters often present different perspectives on the same occurrence or describe different stages of an unfolding series of events. This pair of similes does both. The shepherding simile immerses us in the experiences of both the sheep/Bebrycians and the wolves/Argonauts in the thick of their fight as does the story on either side of it; the bee simile focuses primarily on the bees, and after the simile ends, the story follows the defeated and fleeing Bebrycians. Just as the form of an individual simile establishes a likeness between two equally important things without offering an interpretation of it, so also a series of similes offers multiple views of the same thing without explaining how they relate to each other. Such questions are left up to us. Not only the framing language, but also the framer – who narrates – shapes our experience of a simile. Some poems include no similes at all that are spoken by characters while in others, characters often use similes when they tell stories. Most characters describe someone else with their similes, but a few use similes to embody their own past experiences. Both direct speech and similes weave together feelings, subjectivity, and interpretation, but in different ways. The contents and structures of a direct quotation are rooted in the subjectivity of one character. Similes, too, create immersive experience through both content and structure, but instead of centering the feelings of one speaker, they immerse us in several different perspectives, often in indirect and implicit ways. Moreover, similes and speech have different relationships to the story events as they are experienced by the characters. Speech exists within the world that the characters inhabit, but similes ordinarily do not. That is to say, a character interacts with other characters’ speeches, but not with a simile that a narrator uses to describe them. When two narrative techniques with such different relationships to the story occur together, they create complementary layers of feelings and relationships. A simile within a story told by a character embodies the feelings and experiences of the characters within that story. It also conveys the character-narrator’s feelings about the story they are telling, which the character may or may not consciously intend to communicate. At the same time, it forges connections between the external narrator and the different levels of the narrative spread across the nested story told by the character, the main story in which the character-narrator is telling a story, and the external addressees of the poem. When a character is telling a story that happened to them in the past, similes show that character in the act of
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I. Simile Constructions: “Weave”
distinguishing between their past experience of the events in the story, and their (often quite different) present experience as the narrator of that story. By the same token, the audiences at different narrative levels have different, but interrelated, responses to a nested narrative in which a character tells a story. As with a cluster of similes, a character narrating a simile creates multidirectional relationships and overlapping forms of embodiment. But whereas a simile cluster creates a larger number of the same types of relationships that arise from a single simile, a simile narrated by a character creates new kinds of relationships that engage us not only with the stories being told but also in the layers of narrators, addressees, and narrative that make up an epic poem. By drawing our attention to the processes of narrative, complex simile constructions like these remind us of the separation between narrative and the real world in which we encounter it. Proper names or culturally specific details in similes – rare in Greek epic but a significant feature of the Aeneid and the Metamorphoses – have a similar effect, but for the opposite reason: they place elements of the real world within the simile world, weakening the separation between the two. For instance, proper names in similes in the Aeneid and the Metamorphoses refer to different kinds of things than they do in Homeric epic and Apollonius. In Greek epic, a proper name in a simile almost always indicates either a god and his most widely known sanctuaries, or – more unusual – a mythological character. Neither one evokes lived experience specific to a particular time or place. In fact, the gods show their power and their difference from mortals in part because they and their major cult sites exist in a universal reality that is not bound by time or place. But in the Metamorphoses, and especially in the Aeneid, similes are full of geographical references to specific locations that nudge similes away from the timeless generalized landscape of the Greek simile world into a contemporary Roman world that encompasses not only Italian mountains and streams but also the poet and his audiences. Readers may literally have walked the paths of a simile in the Aeneid, whereas the world of a Homeric simile is simultaneously recognizable to and beyond the reach of any individual person. This makes the simile world more familiar, more accessible, and more similar to the “real” world. The boundaries between the worlds of simile, story, and reader are no longer so sharp. Anachronisms bring the temporal rather than the geographical world of poet and reader into the simile world. For instance, some forms of craft, such as weaving and shipbuilding, serve in similes as universals that define civilized human society rather than the practices of any particular time or
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Introduction
place. Epic warriors in both the simile and the story worlds fight with spears, swords, and shields, weapons that might be used on any battlefield at any time. By contrast, the slingshots that regularly appear in similes in the Metamorphoses place the simile world in a specific temporal context. Building and construction, too, create products of a recognizable culture in the Metamorphoses and the Aeneid rather than a more generalized and abstract marker of civilization, a shelter from the elements or a demonstration of human ingenuity. Like specific places, products of a specific culture bring the world of the reader into the simile world, changing its contours and its relations with the worlds of both the story and the reader. Whereas similes in Homeric poetry are peopled by characters and objects from so-called basic categories – those easily observed in nature and acquired earliest by young children, such as “sheep” or “tree” – the worlds of Roman similes have become more like the worlds of both the mythological story and the poet and his readers.
I. Chapter Road Map Each chapter of this book focuses on a single epic because one of its main goals is to map out the individual topographies of the simile worlds in the Odyssey, the Iliad, the Argonautica, the Aeneid, and the Metamorphoses. In each poem, we experience the simile world alongside shepherds, craftsmen, sailors, herd animals, and human beings in relationships with other creatures. What unites each of these characters is not simply that they appear throughout the simile worlds of various epic poems, but also that they consistently immerse us in a wide range of bodily experiences: cold, hunger, pain, and fear; love, delight, and sorrow; the expanse of an empty field, the looming dread of an ocean wave, the cramped impatience of sharing a small space; the tug of connection with other creatures. Each simile world is built from the same assortment of subjects and constructions, but those elements are assembled in a unique way in each poem. Each simile world, interwoven with the story world, shapes the epic narrative. The simile world brings forward key themes, creates a place for the poem in the ongoing tale of the genre of epic poetry, and helps us to shape our own relationship to this story. Each world is fully realized and complete on its own terms, but it also derives richer meanings from its relationships with the simile worlds of other poems. Accordingly, the poems are treated more or less in chronological order – leaving aside the vexed and unanswerable question of the relationship between the Iliad and
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I. Chapter Road Map
the Odyssey – because an earlier poem provides material for the simile world of a later one. Each chapter of this book sets the scene with a detailed exploration of a single simile that is in some way typical for that poem. As with Argonautica .–, which began this introduction, the meanings and typical features of these similes emerge gradually from the process of delving into them, with a final summary of key points making the transition to the next section. This approach reflects the process through which we create meaning from similes when we encounter them in an epic poem by inviting readers to take an active role in forging the simile’s meaning for themselves. At the same time, this is a work of analysis, not of poetry, and so each introductory section ends with a recapitulation of conclusions that link a particular simile to themes that are significant for both the poem in which it appears and the ongoing arguments of the book. Later sections explore the landscape of the simile world through various typical or distinctive scenes, the interaction of the simile and story worlds, and (in post-Homeric epics) the structural features characteristic of that poem. A final section of each chapter explores one or two simile “case studies” that show these narrative strands woven together. In post-Homeric poetry where position conveys emphasis for the poem as a whole (discussed further in Chapter ), these case studies tend to be poems in programmatic positions where part of the simile’s purpose is to establish or explore expectations for the entire poem. This book begins with the Odyssey in Chapter , in part to allow the Odyssey’s approach to similes to emerge on its own terms without being overshadowed by the more numerous similes in the Iliad. Human beings are especially common in the simile world of the Odyssey, facilitating our engagement with the experiences of the simile characters. For this reason, the introductory simile in the Odyssey depicts a scene of human relations rather than – as in every other chapter – a shepherding or animal scene. Even parts of the simile world where characters in other epic poems rarely connect with other beings – such as craft – are teeming with human connections. This distinctive aspect of the simile world of the Odyssey helps to make it a tale of human relationships, the burden of sorrow when they are disrupted, and the heroic task of keeping relationships alive through danger, separation, and loss. Chapter on the Iliad shows that the dangers, sorrows, and failures of the shepherds in the simile world parallel and reinforce the poem’s concern with the costs of poor leadership. Similes do as much as the mythological story to embody the emotional ties between the characters. Emotions begin and end the mythological story
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Introduction
with the anger of Achilles in the first verse and the funeral of Hector in the last, but they emerge just as fully from the similes as from the plot of the Iliad. In Chapter , similes in the Argonautica tell two contrasting tales. On the one hand, humans with skilled expertise can exert an exhilarating amount of control over the world around them. But those skills are largely useless for women, and they fail completely in the face of human passions, which attract some of the longest and most gripping similes in the poem. With the Aeneid in Chapter , human beings become more scarce than before in the simile world, contributing to a tale about the loneliness and sorrow of human beings who struggle to connect with each other or to affect what happens in the world around them. Chapter , on the Metamorphoses, is organized differently from the others, mainly because Ovid’s simile world has a different relationship to the story world than those of his predecessors. It is a more fragmented and less cohesive place where simile characters from the past may appear rarely or not at all, similes are so short that they often do not achieve the immersive effects typical of the simile worlds of earlier epic, and they do not work hand in hand with the story to bring forward key themes. Yet similes retain many of their familiar qualities, and some of the poem’s most memorable moments are achieved in part with heart-pounding scenes familiar from earlier epics of predators chasing their prey, raging fires, battle scenes, and sailing. The Conclusion brings together the main characters of the simile worlds of each chapter, giving an overview of what we have experienced along with these characters throughout the book.
I. Embodiment and Academic Writing This book was written to be not simply accessible but also enjoyable to readers who bring a wide range of experiences and interests to its subject matter. The book, as the title says, is conceived of as a “story of similes.” Accordingly, the endnotes contain the various features of scholarly discourse that specialist readers expect to find in support of a complex, wide-ranging analysis, most importantly the references that connect the argument to existing scholarly debates and the data analysis that underlies many of my conclusions (available in an open-access database located at https://epicsimiles-beck.la.utexas.edu/). But anyone – specialist and nonspecialist alike – can approach the book as its title suggests, as a “story” of similes, by skipping the endnotes altogether. Professional scholars are so accustomed to toggling between the narrative of an argument and footnotes containing catalogues of supporting evidence that we do not notice the costs of this
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Notes
approach. Footnotes dictate a discontinuous, disembodied style of reading that can impede our engagement with both the argument and the primary source material itself. By supporting my points with relatively few references chosen to be the most relevant and informative and placing my supporting evidence in endnotes rather than footnotes, I hope to focus our attention on the landscapes of the epic similes themselves rather than on the construction of the scholarly vehicle from which we explore them. For similar reasons of accessibility, I have placed the English translations first and the Greek or Latin text after it except when a Greek or Latin word is the focus of my analysis. Rather than writing my own translations, I have used published translations selected from among the many available options for a combination of felicity, accuracy, and availability to a general audience. I have often lightly modified these translations to more clearly bring out specific features of the Greek or Latin in which I am interested, but these translations are more engaging and enjoyable than my workmanlike renderings have ever managed to be. In a nod to the nature of my subject, as well as the embodied experiences of my readers, I have striven to make my writing more embodied and emotionally appealing than scholarly writing tends to be. When writing about Homer, Vergil, and Ovid, any writer is fighting a losing battle to do justice to the immersive experiences created by their subject. But we scholars can and should do more to foster embodiment in our own writing, as well as in the subjects of our academic analyses. This book grows in part out of my own delight in reading, teaching, and discussing epic poetry. I hope that my readers can partake at least somewhat in those experiences too.
Notes A simile differs from a metaphor because it uses an explicit “like” expression to join the two comparanda and from a literal comparison because the two comparanda come from different conceptual domains (Tartakovsky and Shen : –). The precise nature of the relationship between metaphor and simile has generated a bibliography of epic proportions, such that “just about every conceivable relationship between metaphors and corresponding similes has been held at some time” ((Carston and Wearing : ), which goes on to question the extent to which metaphors really have “corresponding” similes at all). Haught () gives an informative and manageable survey of the ways that simile and metaphor have been compared to one another. Latacz and Bierl (: n). The survey of ancient words for “simile” in Nu¨nlist (: –) shows that παραβολή is the ancient term for a long
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Introduction simile, whereas εἰκών refers to a number of different rhetorical figures that include but are not limited to long similes. On simile as a “marked feature of heroic epic,” see Feeney (, especially –). Addison () offers a rare but welcome study of postclassical extended narrative similes, calling them “whole fictions in their own right” (). There are no consistently used transdisciplinary terms for what I am calling “simile” and “story.” Literary scholars use “vehicle” and “tenor,” respectively, introduced nearly years ago, with some surprise that such terms were not already in existence: “[O]ne of the oddest of the many odd things about the whole topic [of metaphor] is that we have no agreed distinguishing terms for these two halves of a metaphor . . .” (Richards : ). In fact, Richards names rather than defines or explains his terms. He then uses them repeatedly (–) so that the reader gradually comes to understand what he means. Meanwhile, psychological and linguistic researchers call the simile subject the “target” or “topic” while the story is the “source” or “vehicle” (whose potential for confusion with Richards’ terms is obvious). For a clear and concise presentation of this terminological morass, see Cuenca (: ). Allan (b) explains “immersion” as a concept in relation to classical literature in general. See also Allan (a) for an application of immersion to Homeric poetry in particular. Snipes (: –) offers an overview of scholiastic views of similes, including citations of specific scholia. Allan, de Jong, and de Jonge () link enargeia with the modern concept of “immersion.” The introduction to Grethlein, Huitink, and Tagliabue (: –) gives an accessible and informative introduction to the fields of embodied cognition and narrative studies. Gibbs, Lima, and Francozo () and Dancygier and Sweetser () offer excellent discussions of figurative language from the perspective of embodiment. Broader systems of thought for integrating the body with the mind appear in Distributed Cognition in Classical Antiquity, which comprises “an intertwined group of theories, which include enactivism and embodied, embedded and extended cognition” (Anderson, Cairns, and Sprevak : Series Preface, p. ). The “aptness” of the two items being juxtaposed, or “relative difficulty of comprehension” (Haught : ), is related to the novelty of a comparison and to the degree of “fit” between the two things being compared. As Haught notes, difficulty of comprehension often correlates with longer comprehension times. However, that does not mean that a more apt simile is necessarily preferable. Giora et al. () show that the most appealing simile – the best subjective experience – is one that entails both familiarity and novelty, a conclusion they call the “optimal innovation hypothesis.” As they point out, this view “transcends the boundaries of nonliteral, literary, or poetic mode[s] of communication” (). Lyne (: –, Chapter IV, “Narrative Through Imagery”) offers a perceptive analysis of similes that covers epic poetry in general, not just the book’s primary subject of Vergil’s Aeneid. Lyne suggests that “we should
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Notes
reckon simile as adding [emphasis in original] to the narrative as well as, perhaps rather than, illustrating things that are, in another form, already there” (). The subsection “Substitution” (–) focuses on similes like this one, which cover narrative “gap[s]” () in the mythological story. Knight (: ) points out that this simile and the bee simile immediately afterward largely take the place of the battle that they describe. Homeric similes supply events or details missing from the story as well, as in the similes for Odysseus and Telemachus in Odyssey . Haubold () shows how the shepherd motif in the Iliad illuminates various themes related to leadership and community, primarily with reference to the main mythological story rather than similes. Lonsdale (, especially – and ) recognizes the close links between animal relationships in the simile world and human relations in the story world. Fraser (), an early contributor to the steadily increasing interest in Hellenistic literature and culture over the last several decades, provides detailed surveys of many areas of literature and intellectual inquiry that came to new prominence in Hellenistic Alexandria. Many of these – etiology, geography, ethnography, medical and scientific knowledge, and even scholarly commentary – appear in some form in the Argonautica. Even the organization of knowledge and learning within a library shows the importance of intellectual endeavor in Alexandrian culture: “[kings] established permanent foundations of learning. This development, which implies a new conception both of the physical world and of the creations of the past as due objects of study, is itself a matter of considerable interest” (). The description of allusion in Conte (: ) can also describe similes: “the poetic dimension is created by the simultaneous presence of two different realities whose competition with one another produces a single more complex reality.” Knight (: ) explicitly links simile and allusion as methods for creating relationships: “allusions generally could be seen as a kind of simile, likening events in the Argonautica to situations in Homer.” Perhaps for this reason, allusion features prominently in studies of similes, ranging from notes in a typical scholarly commentary that begin by listing the antecedents of a particular simile (e.g. Cuypers : , on the Homeric antecedents of Argonautica .–) through Reitz (), which uses similes as the basis for a book-length study of the many different literary and intellectual sources that Apollonius drew on in composing the Argonautica. Christiansë () explores the fundamental importance of both chronology and causality for narrative. This idea of the “story” as taking place in some hypothetical world, separate and distinct from a specific version or telling of that story, called the “text,” is one of the basic principles of narratology (Rimmon-Kenan offers an accessible overview of these terms [e.g. –] and of narratology in general). A summary of the relevant events, and the Iliad, are two different “texts,” each of which retells the “story” of a certain period during the Trojan War. I use the term “story” slightly differently – in contrast to “simile” rather than
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Introduction “text” – to refer to the strand of a particular epic narrative that retells the events that befall the mythological heroes. The most common main idea in modern book-length studies has been “how do similes function as part of the narrative in Poet or (or Poem) X?” often in connection with a specific thesis about that poem or poet. Important examples of such approaches to Homeric epic include Fränkel () (similes have more than one point of contact with the narrative), Scott () (a typology of similes with special attention to oral composition), Moulton () (similes and Homeric artistry), Edwards (: –) (a widely cited overview of Homeric similes), Ready () (similes in the Iliad are a locus of competition), Nannini () (differences in similes in the Iliad and the Odyssey reflect differences in the world views of the two poems), Ready () (a study on Homeric similes in relation to group and community dynamics compared with several modern poetic traditions that also use similes). Apollonius Argonautica: Reitz () (similes participate in and are formed by ongoing Hellenistic scholarly debates); Vergil Aeneid: Hornsby () (groups of similes that have the same subject, with an explicit and counterproductive lack of interest in Homeric antecedents), Rieks () (a survey of the similes in the Aeneid); Ovid Metamorphoses: von Glinski () (how similes relate to themes of identity and change). In addition to the works mentioned in note , important shorter studies of Homeric similes have focused on issues of cognition (Minchin b and Minchin a: –), linguistics (Bakker ), oral poetics (Muellner ; Danek ), and performance (Martin ) to name only a very small selection of a vast bibliography. An example is Silk (), a study of “interaction” in early Greek poetry that includes but is not limited to simile and metaphor (the review essay of Mueller [: especially –] offers a precise and thoughtful critique of how difficult it is to figure out what “interaction” means in the book); Nimis () (using similes as the basis of a study of semiotics in epic poetry from Homer to Milton). The comparative approach in Ready () represents a hybrid between a study focused on a specific author – the title is The Homeric Simile in Comparative Perspectives [emphasis added] – and a broader overview of similes across multiple cultural traditions. The most useful such studies for my purposes are psycholinguistic analyses of figurative language processing, such as Gibbs et al. (), Gibbs and Colston (), and Dancygier and Sweetser (), and corpus linguistics studies of how people use and respond to similes in real-world contexts (e.g. Partington ; Cuenca ). Both disciplines see similes, emotions, and nonverbal forms of expression and processing as a single package. More generally, reading itself is an emotionally engaging act (Iser ; Fowler [on ecphrasis], Innes ), as are communication strategies – such as similes – that require the addressee to actively interpret what is being said (e.g. Tannen ). The exceptions are the battle with the Doliones, friends and hosts who are killed by accident at night in the Argonauts’ first human battle encounter in the poem
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Notes
(.–) and the Colchians, the final human opponents whom the Argonauts attack in ways that the narrative repeatedly criticizes (.–). Battle was an important subject for early studies of the aesthetics of oral composition in Homeric poetry. Fenik () and Krischer (), two foundational studies of battle narrative, discuss the simile in detail as one element of traditional narrative patterns in battle. There are similes about battle, and about emotions. As Nagy (: –) points out, this metaphor continues to the present day in the close kinship between “text” and “textile.” I am grateful to Rabun Taylor for suggesting “pattern” and “weave” as terms for simile content and structure. The scholarly neglect of connecting language in similes takes various forms. Most scholarly treatments of “as/so” expressions simply count up different framing expressions rather than treating them as carriers of meaning in their own right (e.g. Lee : –). Despite the general agreement that the resumptive “so” phrase is what defines the extended narrative similes of classical epic, Lee lists only introductory words, not concluding expressions. Some otherwise outstanding work on similes omits the “so” verse in quoting similes (e.g. Minchin a: –). The quotation is from Cuenca (: ). Israel, Harding, and Tobin (: ) point out the equality of the two comparanda as a key difference between forms of comparison – including similes – and metaphor. A detailed discussion of the cognitive experience of simile processing in relation to its structure can be found in Dancygier and Sweetser (: –). O’Donoghue (: –) points out that similes are easy to identify but difficult to interpret and that people commonly assume (wrongly) that the more explicit form of a simile as compared to a metaphor means that similes are easier to understand. As Gibbs and Colston (: ) note, these relationships may resist not simply a clear-cut interpretation, but even any articulation in language: “different types of figurative language may communicate complex social and pragmatic meanings, which are often difficult to paraphrase and resist propositional meaning.” A cluster is a series of similes where the end of one simile comes no more than verses before the beginning of the next. The existence of simile clusters is well known, but readers hoping to learn how they work will largely be disappointed by existing studies. Moulton (: –) is both too general (by focusing his discussion of simile clusters on “the organization of imagery,” ) and too specific (because the section on similes that appear one after another [–] analyzes just one simile cluster in Iliad ). The basic point of the survey of simile clusters in various modern poetic traditions and in Homeric epic in Ready (: –) is their prevalence rather than their narrative functions: “to a greater or lesser degree, one simile demands another” (). Several analyses of this particular simile note the interaction between the shepherd and beekeeping similes with varying degrees of interest in considering what the cluster adds to the passage or how Apollonius’ use of simile clusters compares to Homeric practice (Levin : –; Knight :
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Introduction – [with bibliography on various aspects of Homeric simile clusters at nn–]; Cuypers : –). Danek () notes that the pair of similes at Iliad .– juxtaposes Greek and Trojan perspectives on what is happening in the story (–). There are no character-narrated similes in the Argonautica, but nearly onethird of the similes in the Metamorphoses is presented by characters ( of ). Beck (: –) surveys various ways of defining direct speech. de Jong (: ) in the larger context of studying focalization (“Who sees?”) in Homeric similes. A small sampling of the vast bibliography on the subjectivity of first-person narrators in epic poetry includes Suerbaum () and de Jong ( )(both on Odysseus), Bowie () (on Aeneas), and Wheeler (: – (on Ovid). Solodow () gives anachronism as one example of a technique that creates “space which can be opened between the narrator and the material, a space in which the narrator’s treatment of the material arises as a theme” (), even though he goes on to make the surprising claim that this sort of space “is perhaps special to mythology.” Aside from this debatable idea, Solodow talks in clear and perceptive terms about what anachronism brings to a narrative: “an object or person or institution or name is projected back into a time when it had not yet come into existence. Thus the past [or, in the case of the simile world, the timeless and generalized] takes on the coloring of the present” (). The slingshot is a weapon of siege warfare from the Hellenistic and Roman periods (Reed : ). All of the Roman epic similes about construction and building include specific, anachronistic detail, but none of the Greek ones does. Aeneid: coffered ceiling, ., concrete piers at Baiae, .–; Metamorphoses: concrete making, .–; water pipe, .–. Contrast the more general style of building in Iliad .– and .– or Argonautica .– and .–. Lakoff (, e.g. –) connects the physically concrete and accessible nature of these categories with an embodied perspective on the cognitive processes that are associated with categories and other forms of abstract thinking. Not only have I drawn on the Race translation of the Argonautica but also I have quoted from his Greek text rather than the standard scholarly editions of Vian. Race’s text is “a fairly conservative one, which does not differ substantially from Vian’s edition” (vii), and Vian’s editions can be difficult to find outside of research libraries.
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Homer Odyssey Heroism, Home, and Family
. Embarkation The Odyssey is the story of Odysseus’ “homecoming journey” (nostos) after the Greeks sack the city of Troy. Yet we do not meet the main character in person until Book , and half of the poem (Books –) takes place after he has already reached his home on the island of Ithaca. Through the homecoming tales that other characters tell at various points along the way both to Odysseus’ son Telemachus as he leaves Ithaca on a journey in search of news about his father (Books –) and to Odysseus when he visits the underworld (Book ), the poem becomes an epic about homecoming more generally. The Odyssey is not simply about one character’s homecoming, but about homecoming itself. How do we know when we are truly “home”? What if we reach our home, but we cannot return there? What are the costs of a long absence, both for the person who returns and for those who remain at home? What traits enable different kinds of characters not simply to survive a hard journey back from war, but to survive and thrive once the traveler has returned home? In what way can homecoming be considered a form of heroism? What complex mixture of feelings accompanies a long-awaited return home? The intertwined gladness and sorrow that define the Odyssey’s tale of homecoming arise from the characters and incidents of the simile world at least as much as from the story, and they arise from the process of integrating the two more than from either sort of narrative individually. The first simile in the Odyssey to focus exclusively on Odysseus captures the moment when he finally has a real prospect of returning to human civilization after years-long captivity on the island of the nymph Calypso. With Calypso’s grudging permission, Odysseus has built a raft and set out for Ithaca. After he sails for weeks across the ocean, he is nearly drowned in a storm stirred up by the wrathful Poseidon. Then he drifts for two days on a single beam that escapes the wreckage. At last, at dawn on the third day,
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Homer Odyssey: Heroism, Home, and Family
Odysseus catches a glimpse of dry land. A simile about his response plunges us into the sights, sounds, and feelings of the moment when we begin to hope in earnest that we may at last escape a danger that has been looming over us for a long time. The characters in this simile, a close family group, are emblematic of one of the defining features of the simile world of the Odyssey as a whole: it is full of human characters interacting with one another, mainly in harmonious and productive ways.
Odyssey 5.392–99 . . . and Odysseus, scanning sharply, raised high by a groundswell, looked up and saw it – landfall, just ahead. Joy . . . warm as the joy that children feel when they see their father’s life dawn again, one who is lying on a sickbed racked with torment, ð395Þ wasting away, slowly, under some dreadful power’s onslaught – then what joy when the gods deliver him from his pains! So warm, Odysseus’ joy when he saw that shore, those trees, as he swam on, anxious to plant his feet on solid ground again. (after Fagles trans.)
ὁ δ’ [Odysseus] ἄρα σχεδὸν εἴσιδε γαῖαν ὀξὺ μάλα προϊδών, μεγάλου ὑπὸ κύματος ἀρθείς. ὡς δ’ ὅτ’ ἂν ἀσπάσιος βίοτος παίδεσσι φανήῃ πατρός, ὃς ἐν νούσῳ κεῖται κρατέρ’ ἄλγεα πάσχων, ð395Þ δηρὸν τηκόμενος, στυγερὸς δέ οἱ ἔχραε δαίμων, ἀσπάσιον δ’ ἄρα τόν γε θεοὶ κακότητος ἔλυσαν, ὣς Ὀδυσῆ’ ἀσπαστὸν ἐείσατο γαῖα καὶ ὕλη, νῆχε δ’ ἐπειγόμενος ποσὶν ἠπείρου ἐπιβῆναι.
Immediately before the simile, the story dives into Odysseus’ physical experiences and perceptions. We gaze with interest (ἄρα) on the land that is coming into view, “scanning sharply” (ὀξὺ μάλα προϊδών) to make it out in the faint light of dawn even though it is close by. Even as Odysseus’ effortful and dangerous journey is drawing to a close, he must exert conscious effort to carry out one of our most basic and instinctive physical processes, seeing the world around us. Then we rise into the air on the back of a giant wave, the new height perhaps giving us a better view of the shore. The language makes this a scene of tangible physicality in which we are not simply witnesses but also participants. Almost every Greek word in .– highlights some physical or perceptual aspect of the scene. ἄρα, for example, is a marker of involvement: “A speaker using ἄρα is an interpreter [emphasis original] of the situation in which he or she finds
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. Embarkation
himself or herself; he or she not only witnesses something but is also participating in it” (Bakker : ). In ., ἄρα highlights Odysseus himself, who is immediately placed in a physical landscape (σχεδόν) within which he spies out the landscape coming into view. Moreover, the process of seeing is itself embodied at the beginning of . with ὀξὺ μάλα προϊδών. Yet Odysseus’ feelings about what he sees remain – for the moment – submerged. The simile, by contrast, describes a welcome sight not in terms of what is seen so much as how the characters feel about what they are seeing: children overjoyed at returning signs of life in their father who has been lying stricken with a serious illness. Both the scenario itself and the specific language that creates it are drenched in intense emotions that characterize the experience of “homecoming” throughout the Odyssey. The first word in the simile, ἀσπάσιος, refers to a mixture of joy, gratitude, and relief that has no precise English translation (Fagles renders it as a combination of “joy” and “warm”). After ἀσπάσιος sets the tone for the scene, the rest of the first verse of the simile sets out all the main characters except for the person whose dangerous illness creates the entire situation. A sequential, literal translation would read “happy/relieved sign of life to children appears.” Like the Odyssey itself, in which at this point Odysseus has only recently appeared as a speaking character, the simile begins by seeing the emotional effects of a missing or damaged father figure from the point of view of his dependents. The rest of the simile, too, follows the path of the Odyssey, turning from the children to their father (the first word of .) as he lies in wretched suffering through a long wasting sickness. Nearly every word in .– embodies the grinding physical limitations and uncertainties of being seriously ill. The relative clause describing the father begins with “in a sickbed” (ἐν νούσῳ, .), placing us within a very specific physical frame of reference. Illness is defined by bodily weakness – lying down (κεῖται) instead of going about one’s normal activities – and by suffering (κρατέρ’ ἄλγεα πάσχων). Illness also upends the normal experience of time passing and of control over one’s own actions: the sick person lies wasting away for a long time (δηρὸν τηκόμενος, .) because of the actions of a dreadful god (στυγερὸς . . . δαίμων). And it is the gods, too, who are responsible for the happy release from illness (.). The expressive word “dreadful” cannot be separated from individual subjective experience: it conveys the bad feelings that are created by whatever is described as στυγερός, not some objective or inherent property. Such a word places us within the perspective of the specific character reacting to the god and
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Homer Odyssey: Heroism, Home, and Family
the illness as “dreadful.” But who is that? The simile does not specify. Certainly the children, whose perspective frames the whole simile, and quite possibly the father as well. Perhaps there are additional unnamed members of the household for whom the father’s illness is a similarly unwelcome and frightening event. The simile draws to a close with the father feeling the same joyful relief as his children when the gods release him from his suffering (ἀσπάσιον δ’ ἄρα, .). As when Odysseus first caught sight of land (.), ἄρα here adds a jolt of personal interest and excitement to the father’s long-awaited recovery. When the story resumes, Odysseus, too, shares the joy (ἀσπάσιος) of the recovering father and his watchful children as the shore comes close enough for him to see not simply land but also trees (ὕλη, .). He then strikes out for shore with actions whose relentless physicality mirrors the father’s illness – every word in verse . describes an action, a body part, or a physical place – even as Odysseus’ power and agency as he swims for shore is the opposite of the sick father’s debility. Making their way through physically difficult and drawn-out sufferings, both Odysseus and the father have reached a safe harbor that they (and their children) feared would never come. The correspondence between Odysseus in the story and the sick father in the simile is obvious, arising from both their family relationships and their deliverance from long physical and emotional suffering. But there are also glaring differences. As Odysseus clings to a single spar of his raft after weeks alone at sea, he is completely isolated from other people. In fact, he is more alone during this harrowing sea voyage than at any other stage of his -year journey from Troy to Ithaca. His solitude sharpens the contrast between his condition and the human ties foregrounded by the joyful children at the beginning of the simile. These children stand out in the simile world of epic, where this is one of a very few scenes of parents and children told from the perspective of the children as well as the parent. Whom do the children represent? They clearly have no analogue in the immediate story context. In part, this difference between the characters in the simile and the story simply calls further attention to how isolated Odysseus is. At the same time, it is impossible to juxtapose Odysseus to a simile scene of a father and children without thinking of his son Telemachus whose suffering arising from the prolonged absence of Odysseus forms the main subject of Odyssey –. In both the mythological story and the simile, the sorrow and fear of children who miss their father have a unique emotional force because anyone can relate to it. Everyone has experienced either the fear or the reality of a missing parent. And
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. The Simile World of the Odyssey
nothing is more basic to the human emotional makeup than the bonds of parents and children. Probing the fear and sadness of returning home in terms of the toll it takes on the children left behind shows us how deeply that pain scars everyone concerned. The word choices in this simile depict feelings about homecoming that arise throughout the Odyssey, in addition to creating an embodied and involving experience of both the physical and emotional toll of a long illness. For instance, the particular kind of happiness that is described by ἀσπάσιος (., ., . [ἀσπαστός]) is regularly associated with homecoming and reunion in the Odyssey (Taaffe ), especially but not exclusively for Odysseus himself. In the Odyssey, these warm feelings arise at the end of a period of uncertainty, danger, and looming bereavement. They cannot exist without the dread of sorrow and loss. ἀσπάσιος represents a paradoxical combination of happiness and sorrow that embodies not only the experience of homecoming in the Odyssey but also the mixture of sameness and difference that defines a simile. τηκόμενος, by contrast, has a superficially straightforward meaning, “melt, dissolve, waste away,” in which a solid object becomes either literally or metaphorically liquid. The meaning in this simile is relatively concrete: the verb τήκω is used in medical literature to refer to the effects of a wasting sickness. But the focus of the simile and of the narrative here is on the emotional effects of this wasting process. And this is the force that τήκω and its compounds have in the Odyssey: “melt” refers to a sudden release of the sorrow that has accumulated in both Odysseus and Penelope during his long absence, giving those feelings a gut-wrenching physical form that affects not only the two spouses but us as well. Similes throughout the Odyssey explore the powerful feelings related to homecoming and Odysseus that are one of the key themes of the poem, often through scenes of human relationships.
.
The Simile World of the Odyssey
The simile world is interwoven with the story to make the Odyssey a tale about people and relationships, dramatizing Odysseus and the network of feelings and family bonds that define his epic quest for homecoming with similes that are themselves unusually full of people. The key events and themes of the poem are clear without the simile world. But the similes consistently provide the detail and nuance that gives the central themes the distinctive tone that they have in the Odyssey. The similes, not the story, take the lead in depicting homecoming as a heroic exploit that melds
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Homer Odyssey: Heroism, Home, and Family
together great joy with deep sorrow and loss, both for the hero and for his entire family. Some of these simile relationships, like this father and his children, can be found in all five of the epics in this book, but they appear more often in the simile world of the Odyssey than in other poems. In addition to multiple scenes featuring the ties of love between parents and children (.–, .–, .–), similes in the Odyssey depict various close and largely positive and collaborative interpersonal bonds: among neighbors or social groups (.–, .–), craftspeople working together to build a ship (.–), a judge and a group of litigants (.–), a king governing his people (.–), a singer and his audience (.–). In the aggregate, these scenes weave a strong and varied social fabric inhabited by people who can and do collaborate in order to achieve a mutually desirable result. Social structures bring people together for both pleasurable festive celebrations and resolving disagreements. These similes feature human relationships that appear regularly in the simile worlds of many epic poems over time. But human relationships are so important to the simile world of the Odyssey in part because they make their way into places where interpersonal bonds would be rare or absent in the simile worlds of other poems. Craftsmanship entails a human presence, but many forms of craft – such as weaving and metalwork – are generally solitary activities. By contrast, many craft similes in the Odyssey highlight the skilled knowledge that enables craftspeople to successfully shape their environment and the processes by which that knowledge is acquired. Craftspeople succeed because of this knowledge, not through luck or divine assistance. Gods, for instance, are regularly mentioned in craft similes as teachers rather than as givers or helpers. And, as in the poem as a whole, human beings are simply more present in the craft similes in the Odyssey than they are in other epics. The consistent prominence and success of the artisans in these similes and the precise details of how they succeed help to put the power of both human relationships and human cleverness at the center of the Odyssey narrative. For example, a repeated metalworking simile that likens Athena to an artisan as she beautifies Odysseus at key stages of his return to Ithaca spends more time describing the characters and the human experience involved in craft than it does in drawing a picture of the artifact itself. In a part of the simile world where we might expect to see the artifact and immerse ourselves in the experience of what has been created, what we focus on instead is the interpersonal connections that bring the artifact into being.
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. The Simile World of the Odyssey
Odyssey 6.232–35 ~ 23.159–62 As a craftsman washes gold over beaten silver – a master whom Hephaeustus and Pallas Athena taught every fine technique – and finishes off his latest effort, delightful work, so she lavished splendor over his head and shoulders now. (; after Fagles trans.)
ὡς δ’ ὅτε τις χρυσὸν περιχεύεται ἀργύρῳ ἀνὴρ ἴδρις, ὃν Ἥφαιστος δέδαεν καὶ Παλλὰς Ἀθήνη τέχνην παντοίην, χαρίεντα δὲ ἔργα τελείει, ὣς ἄρα τῷ κατέχευε χάριν κεφαλῇ τε καὶ ὤμοις. ð235Þ
Just three words in the whole simile refer to a concrete object (χρυσὸν περιχεύεται ἀργύρῳ, ) while the remainder of the comparison depicts its creator (τις . . . ἀνὴρ / ἴδρις, .–), his divine teachers and the skills they taught him (Ἥφαιστος δέδαεν καὶ Παλλὰς Ἀθήνη, .; τέχνην παντοίην, .), and finally a viewer’s emotional reaction to the finished artifact (χαρίεντα, .). The apparently solitary activity of metalwork is enmeshed in human connections of various kinds, first between the artisan and the gods who taught him his craft and then between the work of art that he creates and the people who look at it. χαρίεις (“delightful”) is not a description of any objective or external quality of the inlay but of its subjective effect of bringing pleasure or enjoyment to those who see it (s. v. LfgrE). No visual imagery that would allow us to envision the artifact for ourselves describes the physical characteristics of the work of art. Instead, its artistic quality can be seen in the human emotional reactions it arouses. Relationships in the Odyssey also loom unusually large in parts of the simile world that usually have nothing to do with human beings. Animals are some of the most important characters in the similes of any epic, but animal families appear more often in the Odyssey than in any of our other poems. Similes of animal interactions with the natural world (such as weather, topography, or predators) and with human caretakers or hunters tell an implicit story about how human beings fit into the world around them. The focus in such similes is generally on how the main characters respond to some kind of external threat or violence, including harm to their young. Many of the animal parents in the Odyssey are shown feeling the same grief that the story often depicts between Odysseus and members of his immediate family and household. These similes extend such feelings beyond the mythological story into the basic fiber of the narrative. Even though several of these similes depict the animal family bereavement that in other epics explores the feelings connected with battle scenes, they never
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Homer Odyssey: Heroism, Home, and Family
appear in story scenes of actual violence, where they would draw our attention to the ways that human beings meet uncontrollable, unexpected, or unavoidable attacks of various kinds. Instead, the close emotional ties between animal parents and children explore the challenges, losses, and uncertainties of Odysseus’ return home. The scenarios in similes featuring animal parents highlight their family feelings toward their young as often as any defensive actions on their behalf. Such scenes regularly dramatize tears of grief, worry, and sorrow that are shed in the story by Odysseus’ nearest and dearest. For instance, when Odysseus tells the Phaeacians how he rejoined his weeping men after an extended visit with the dangerous and alarming Circe (.–), he describes their delight in his safe return with a simile of heifers as they greet mother cows returning to the farmyard after grazing their fill.
Odyssey 10.408–15 And there on the decks I found my loyal crew consumed with grief and weeping live warm tears. But now, as calves in stalls when cows come home, ð410Þ droves of them herded back from field to farmyard once they’ve grazed their fill – as all their young calves come frisking out to meet them, bucking out of their pens, lowing nonstop, jostling, rushing round their mothers – so my shipmates there at the sight of my return came pressing round me now, streaming tears. (Fagles trans.) “εὗρον ἔπειτ’ ἐπὶ νηῒ θοῇ ἐρίηρας ἑταίρους οἴκτρ’ ὀλοφυρομένους, θαλερὸν κατὰ δάκρυ χέοντας. ὡς δ’ ὅτ’ ἂν ἄγραυλοι πόριες περὶ βοῦς ἀγελαίας, ð410Þ ἐλθούσας ἐς κόπρον, ἐπὴν βοτάνης κορέσωνται, πᾶσαι ἅμα σκαίρουσιν ἐναντίαι· οὐδ’ ἔτι σηκοὶ ἴσχουσ’, ἀλλ’ ἁδινὸν μυκώμεναι ἀμφιθέουσι μητέρας· ὣς ἐμὲ κεῖνοι, ἐπεὶ ἴδον ὀφθαλμοῖσι, δακρυόεντες ἔχυντο·”
The comrades in the story grieve and sob their way into the simile (.) in which happy young cows welcome their returning mothers with lively physical responses to the mothers’ presence (σκαίρουσιν ἐναντίαι . . . ἀμφιθέουσι / μητέρας) and loud cries (ἁδινὸν μυκώμεναι). The mooing of the young heifers evokes the weeping of Odysseus’ waiting companions, especially because “nonstop” (ἁδινόν, .) regularly describes the thick gut-wrenching spasms characteristic of intense grief. A reunion with Odysseus arouses sad-seeming tears in both the story and the Greek phrasing in the simile, which juxtaposes the sorrow of death
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. Similes and the Odyssey Story
with the infectious bodily excitement of frisky young animals greeting their mothers. Not simply the intensity but also the complexity of feelings about homecoming emerge from this simile of reunited animal families. The story, on its own, gives us a visceral experience of the men’s feelings, but a limited sense of what those feelings are about. As we respond along with both the men and cows, expressing their emotions through physical actions that engage various parts of the body, we weave together those two stories into a single experience of the inexpressible physical and emotional force of reunion with the people we love. This simile stands out in the wider epic simile world not only because it focuses on family relationships among the animals, but also because the human caretakers who are surely responsible for animals living in a farmyard (κόπρον, .) play no role in the scene. The types of animal groups that are represented in the Odyssey both reflect and depict its interests in how human beings relate to each other. For example, although the simile world of the Odyssey features many groups of domesticated herd animals, there are no examples of the common epic simile scene featuring a shepherd caring for his flocks. Despite the absence of human caretakers, these animal groups – like the heifers in their farmyard – live in unmistakably human environments. The absence of human characters from herding similes in the Odyssey is particularly striking because human beings so often figure in the similes in the Odyssey and because most of the herding similes elsewhere in our corpus mention a human caretaker for the animals. These absent Odyssey shepherds suggest that the poem is not particularly interested in the vertical power relations between an individual and a friendly but subordinate group of people that shepherding similes often explore, especially but not exclusively in battle contexts. This is not because there are no such relationships in the poem. The tie between Odysseus and his comrades is the closest the Odyssey comes to the kind of mutually supportive hierarchical relationship described by shepherding similes in battle scenes in other epics, yet their bond is expressed in the simile world with animal families rather than a human who has the responsibility of caring for animals. In both the story and simile worlds, the most important emotional bonds in the Odyssey are found within the family, not among biologically unrelated comrades or social groups.
. Similes and the Odyssey Story The mythological story as well as the simile world of the Odyssey focuses more on emotions, especially feelings related to Odysseus, than other epic
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Homer Odyssey: Heroism, Home, and Family
poems do. More than any other epic poem in our corpus, the Odyssey is the story of one man, and its similes help to make this so. More than onequarter of the similes in the Odyssey describe the emotions of Odysseus or members of his immediate family, usually about homecoming but also about tales of homecoming. The gravely ill father (.–) explores how Odysseus feels when he first sees the shores of the island of Scheria; these joyful heifers dramatize the joy of Odysseus’ men when he returns from a fraught absence with Circe, even though the companions’ feelings manifest themselves in the story as sorrowful tears rather than happy delight (.–). In both cases, the relationships in the simile bring out telling details about the causes and the bodily experiences of feelings that the story mentions but does not explain. Because the interactions of different characters offer the most precise vehicle for exploring the rich cross-currents of joy and sadness that various characters feel about Odysseus’ absence and return home, most similes that highlight story emotions focus on human beings or family relationships. The story feelings described with similes always relate either directly or indirectly to Odysseus himself. While in many respects the Odyssey is a story of the Greeks’ homecomings from the Trojan War – for instance, the return of Agamemnon appears throughout the poem as a combination of context and cautionary tale for Odysseus and his family – the similes shine a bright emotional spotlight on Odysseus in particular. Over the course of the poem, Odysseus has no single adversary who acts as both a foil and a defining force for his character. Instead, his character emerges from interactions with a variety of characters and situations, none of whom takes the stage for long beside Odysseus. Odysseus is a hero because he excels in endurance, not in publicly recognized and adjudicated forms of competition that quantify a hero’s status in relation to others. Accordingly, the similes about Odysseus most often measure his biggest feat of endurance, his return home, by exploring the kinds of feelings that it arouses in himself and other people. Additional similes explore various stages on his journey home, such as his battle with the suitors for control of his household and kingdom. This strong tie between Odysseus and similes explains not only the rich simile storytelling about him but also the distinctive simile textures of Books –, where Odysseus has not yet made his appearance in the mythological story, and Books –, in which Odysseus himself uses similes to narrate his experiences in a somewhat different way from the main narrator’s approach in the rest of the epic. The absence of Odysseus from the beginning of the Odyssey leaves gaps in the fabric of epic narrative itself. There are no story similes at all in the
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. Similes and the Odyssey Story
first three books of the poem (, verses in total), the longest simile-free section of narrative found in any of the epic poems in our corpus. The lack of similes is one of the ways that the narrative of the Odyssey brings home to its audience what Odysseus’ absence means. The Odyssey opens with views of the missing Odysseus from the perspectives of several different characters within his household. When Odysseus appears at last in Book , a lavish array of epic similes arrives alongside him. Book ’s seven similes are more than double the number of any other book of the Odyssey except Book , in which the battle narrative features four similes. Five of the similes in Book cluster together in the last verses, giving a heroic coloring to the final stage of Odysseus’ long struggle to reach land and so to rejoin human society. Indeed, in Book when Odysseus is at his most solitary and isolated, more than half of the similes lack any human presence at all. In Book , similes and Odysseus enter the narrative together, and the content of both the story and the similes highlight Odysseus’ solitude as he struggles to bring his long isolation from human society to an end. Character narrators in the Odyssey use similes differently from the main narrator, creating a distinctive narrative texture for character narratives. They include very few similes in their tales, with the exception of the long tale that Odysseus tells about his wanderings to the Phaeacians in Books through (the apologoi). Odysseus himself does not include similes in any of the extended tales he relates to other characters in other parts of the poem. He is the only character in the Odyssey who uses similes as part of his homecoming narrative, and he uses similes only when he has acknowledged his identity as opposed to the stories he tells while in disguise. Alongside the plentiful similes in Books through , it is striking that there is not a single simile in Books and , which consist largely of extended first-person narratives from the disguised Odysseus (Book ) and Eumaeus’ tale of his early life and arrival as a slave on Ithaca (Book ). Nor do similes regularly appear in the homecoming narratives of either Nestor (Book ) or Menelaus (Book ). Menelaus uses one simile at .–, but it refers to Odysseus and it appears early in the speech before Menelaus begins to tell the story of his own adventures. When Agamemnon tells Odysseus the tale of his death when they meet in the underworld, he uses two animal similes to explore the slaughter of himself and his men at the hands of his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus (. and –). These comparisons lend an “emotional and pathetic tone” (de Jong : ) to the anomalous narrative situation of a character describing his own death, which no one else in Book does.
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Homer Odyssey: Heroism, Home, and Family
In addition to these comparatively few instances in the Odyssey, similes rarely appear in characters’ speeches before Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The regular presence of similes in Books through implicitly casts this tale – but no other first-person narrative or homecoming story in the Odyssey – as itself a kind of epic narrative. Yet the nature of the links between similes and story helps to make the apologoi a somewhat different kind of epic narrative than the rest of the Odyssey. In particular, the similes in Odysseus’ tale generally do not explore different perspectives on the same experience in the way that similes typically do elsewhere. For instance, Odysseus often mentions feelings, both his own and those of various other characters, but in his telling, emotions are comparatively straightforward. Everyone in a given situation has the same feelings, such that plural expressions for “we felt X” appear repeatedly throughout Odysseus’ tale. Or a single character has a straightforward emotional response to a particular situation that is easy to understand: grief in the apologoi is usually just grief without feelings of joy or relief mixed in. And the same feelings – namely, fear and grief – tend to recur throughout the apologoi. Unlike similes in the rest of the Odyssey, those in Odysseus’ narrative do not tend to describe either Odysseus himself or emotions. For instance, the simile comparing the delight of Odysseus’ men at his safe return after he talks to Circe with happy heifers welcoming their mothers back from the fields (.–) is the only simile about feelings in Odysseus’ narrative. And both the simile and the story focus exclusively on the feelings of the dependent beings who welcome back the returning caretaker authority figure. The narrative dwells on the lively response of Odysseus’ men and of the calves as their leader returns (θαλερὸν κατὰ δάκρυ χέοντας [.]; ἁδινὸν μυκώμεναι [.]) with a silent gap where the feelings of the leader character might be. Most Homeric similes that focus on animal parents and offspring highlight either the feelings or the protective actions of the parent, or both. This one simply mentions the returning adult cows without saying anything that evokes the bond with their offspring from the parents’ perspective. The same unusual absence of a key perspective colors the depiction of Odysseus himself in this meeting with his men. Odysseus is keenly attuned to the feelings that people, including himself, have, but neither the stories he tells nor the similes he uses in his narrative bring out the varied shades of meaning and differences in perspective that distinguish the homecoming narrative of the Odyssey as a whole. In the reunion of Odysseus and his men on Circe’s island, both Odysseus himself and his men refer to home and nostos to explain the men’s feelings when they
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see him returning safely from his conversation with Circe (respectively ὡς εἰ πατρίδ’ ἱκοίατο καὶ πόλιν αὐτὴν / τρηχείης ᾽Ιθάκης, .–; and σοὶ μὲν νοστήσαντι . . . ὡς εἴ τ᾽ εἰς Ἰθάκην ἀφικοίμεθα πατρίδα γαῖαν, .–). This is the only such reunion where Odysseus’ own feelings and response are simply not mentioned. That silence draws an implicit contrast between the affection that Odysseus’ comrades have for him and his own lack of emotion. Given the well-known tendency of first-person narrators to tell their tales from their own perspective, the silence in Odysseus’ similes about himself and his own feelings is remarkable, particularly when the similes in the rest of the story so often draw out the emotional subtleties of Odysseus’ experiences.
. Returns The homecomings and reunions in the first half of the Odyssey – starting with Odysseus’ return to human civilization at the end of Book – are woven from the same language and themes that color Odysseus’ reunions with his home and household after he returns to Ithaca in Book . These recurring themes cast the emotional and physical sensations of returning home after a long absence as a heroic exploit just as deserving of an epic narrative as the fighting at Troy or the long voyage of Jason and the Argonauts. The strength of characters’ feelings about homecoming is measured in part by showing that even military valor is powerless to overcome them. The bravest and most successful fighters still grieve over being separated from their families, and they still lament the struggles of their defenseless relatives while they are absent from home. The similes that accompany the meetings of Odysseus with his son Telemachus and his wife Penelope convey the characters’ emotions not by describing them but by placing us within the experiences and bodily sensations that those feelings create. Together, our experiences in the simile world and the process of weaving those experiences together with the story world forge the Odyssey’s epic narrative about homecoming. The lavish attention to various kinds of details that create suspense in the reunion scenes between Odysseus and members of his family has generally been understood as a narrative device that regularly draws out such scenes. In fact, the wary reluctance of every member of Odysseus’ household to accept his identity after a long absence when there has been no reliable news of his whereabouts – or even whether he is still alive – is consistent with the way people behave under such circumstances in a phenomenon known as “ambiguous loss.” Ambiguous loss occurs when a member of a family is
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Homer Odyssey: Heroism, Home, and Family
present only physically or only psychologically, but not both. Ambiguous loss leads to difficulties in understanding one’s own family roles and responsibilities and ambivalent emotions related to the missing person, among other symptoms: “people experiencing ambiguous loss are immobilized both socially and psychologically” (Boss : ). These reactions are just what we observe in the people closest to Odysseus. Is this person really who he claims to be? How can I recognize this changed person as the loved one who has been gone so long? How do I feel right now? Expansive reunion scenes between Odysseus and members of his family – beginning with Telemachus in Book – simultaneously serve a key thematic function in the narrative and offer a realistic picture of the conflicted feelings of hope, doubt, and fear that afflict the families of missing soldiers or kidnap victims who return home after long periods of time. Similes draw out the experience of these narratives so that we endure something like the skeptical hesitation that the characters undergo, and they allow us to experience – not merely to recognize or to understand – the feelings that cause those reactions. ..
Telemachus and Odysseus: Book
As the disguised Odysseus and the swineherd Eumaeus fix breakfast in Eumaeus’ hut (.–), they are interrupted by Telemachus returning from his travels in search of news of his absent father. The dogs recognize Telemachus, even though his own father does not: they wag their tails but do not bark at his approach, prompting Odysseus to comment that the footfalls he hears must belong to a companion whom the dogs know (ἑταῖρος / ἢ καὶ γνώριμος ἄλλος, .–). When Odysseus’ son appears on the threshold of the hut, Eumaeus springs up to embrace him with tearful joy while the disguised father sits silently by. The simile describing the weeping Eumaeus as a father resembles the story especially closely: a weeping father (figure) greets a long-lost son returning from a dangerous or extended absence. But because this is the only simile in the Odyssey that juxtaposes a simile and a story that appear to come from the same conceptual domain, the apparent kinship between the two has the paradoxical effect of plunging us into the deep gulf between the feelings and relationships that Odysseus can acknowledge to Eumaeus and Telemachus on the one hand and the ones that he actually has on the other. Both the feelings themselves and the strength needed to control them mark Odysseus’ reunions with all the members of his household. These experiences shape the homecoming narrative throughout the Odyssey and its conception of heroic valor.
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Odyssey 16.14–23 Straight to the prince he rushed and kissed his face and his shining eyes, ð15Þ both hands, as the tears rolled down his cheeks. As a father, brimming with love, welcomes home, returning in the tenth year from a far distant land, his darling only son in a warm embrace – how many griefs he’s borne for him! – so the loyal swineherd hugged the beaming Telemachus, ð20Þ he clung for dear life, covering him with kisses, yes, like one escaped from death. Eumaeus wept and sobbed, his words flew from the heart: “You’re home, Telemachus, sweet light of my eyes! . . .” (after Fagles trans.) ὁ δ’ ἀντίος ἦλθεν ἄνακτος, κύσσε δέ μιν κεφαλήν τε καὶ ἄμφω φάεα καλὰ ð15Þ χεῖράς τ’ ἀμφοτέρας· θαλερὸν δέ οἱ ἔκπεσε δάκρυ. ὡς δὲ πατὴρ ὃν παῖδα φίλα φρονέων ἀγαπάζῃ ἐλθόντ’ ἐξ ἀπίης γαίης δεκάτῳ ἐνιαυτῷ, μοῦνον τηλύγετον, τῷ ἔπ’ ἄλγεα πολλὰ μογήσῃ, ὣς τότε Τηλέμαχον θεοειδέα δῖος ὑφορβὸς ð20Þ πάντα κύσεν περιφύς, ὡς ἐκ θανάτοιο φυγόντα· καί ῥ’ ὀλοφυρόμενος ἔπεα πτερόεντα προσηύδα· “ἦλθες, Τηλέμαχε, γλυκερὸν φάος . . .”
As we sit with Odysseus on the sidelines watching someone else greet his son with the same feelings and physical gestures that he presumably yearns for himself, we experience both the strength of his emotions and by implication the self-control that allows him to master his feelings in order to maintain his disguise. Together, the story and the simile narrate different strands of the experience of reunion. Eumaeus acts on his feelings physically, kissing Telemachus repeatedly (κύσ[σ]ε, . ~ .) and weeping (θαλερὸν δέ οἱ ἔκπεσε δάκρυ, .). The simile, on the other hand, focuses on the emotions of both the father (φίλα φρονέων ἀγαπάζῃ, .) and the son (ἄλγεα πολλά μογήσῃ, .). It strengthens the feelings of their reunion with details that in themselves are simply descriptive but that arouse our feelings about both simile characters, their emotions, and their father–son bond. For instance, the simile begins by juxtaposing “father” and “his son” (πατὴρ ὃν παῖδα, .), highlighting the relationship between the two before we know anything about what the father or son is doing. Whereas the story focuses only on Eumaeus, the simile brings out the feelings of other participants in the scene. It hardly needs to be said that the simile of the father greeting a beloved son depicts the warmth and depth of Eumaeus’ feelings for Telemachus.
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Homer Odyssey: Heroism, Home, and Family
It is almost as clear to an attentive audience that the simile draws a parallel between Telemachus, whom the simile casts in the role of a son long absent from home, and his father Odysseus, who in the story plays the same role. This “reversal” in the simile highlights the similarities between father and son because the suffering experienced by the simile father has also afflicted Telemachus as a son (de Jong : ). The simile not only implies that father and son have similar experiences of their separation but also shows the reciprocity of their feelings for one another (Danek : ). In another reversal, the simile role of long-absent son is played in the story by Odysseus, the long-absent person who will be welcomed home by his family with tears of joy. These points of similarity call attention to the irony of Odysseus’ peripheral role in the story here. As the father of Telemachus, he is a silent bystander while someone else acts like a father welcoming his son home. Yet the content of the simile, with its sorrowful father who suffers from being separated from his son, indirectly suggests the emotions that Odysseus must be feeling, emotions that the story itself never describes. These reversals and gaps involve us in all the varied feelings and relationships that Odysseus has in both the story and the simile. His different roles – as father, husband, son, and ruler – underlie his heroism during the part of his return home that takes place on Ithaca, which consists in large part of juggling his various ties in such a way that he can return successfully to his former positions within both his family and the society of Ithaca. In the simile as in the mythological story, Odysseus can be seen as both the father and the son, and he has multiple and sometimes conflicting desires and needs that arise from each relationship. Like the son, he is returning home after an absence of many years; like the father, he suffers “many griefs” (ἄλγεα ἄλγεα πολλὰ, .) on account of this long absence. These griefs bring to mind the web of father–son relationships that have been torn by Odysseus’ absence because Odysseus feels and causes pain both as a father to Telemachus and as a son to Laertes. In fact, the multiple parallels between the simile and the story suggest that absence – whether of father or son, and Odysseus is both – brings grief and suffering to both father and son. This simile prevents us from pinning down Odysseus as only, or mainly, a father, or a son, or for that matter a husband. Indeed, it tells us that we should not try to do so. The engaging interpretive challenge presented by this multiplicity, as well as the feelings associated with each individual role and the relations between different narrative levels, create the rich emotional texture of the first meeting between Telemachus and the disguised Odysseus. His identity on Ithaca comprises all of these
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relationships, and both his successful homecoming and his heroic stature are inseparable from this web of emotional ties. Even while many specific details of the simile immerse us in Odysseus’ family roles and the feelings they arouse, the lack of direct connections between him and the simile places him, unusually, on the edges of an Odyssey simile about an emotion related to homecoming. The explicit link between this simile and the story is the emotion of the father figure: the kisses of Eumaeus in the story (κύσσε, .; κύσεν, .) correspond to the father’s greeting in the simile (ἀγαπάζῃ, .). The suffering of the father in this simile indirectly explores the emotional state of Odysseus as he watches another man greet his son. At the same time, the various ways in which the simile seems to go out of its way not to focus on Odysseus put him prominently on the sidelines, just when we might expect his feelings to take center stage. Not only does this simile place another man in the role of Telemachus’ father, but also it is the first simile about emotion in the Odyssey that does not directly relate to Odysseus. Both the details of this simile and the shape of the broader simile world in the Odyssey position Odysseus as simultaneously present and absent from this reunion with Telemachus. The simile sharpens the ironies of an encounter in which a household slave is behaving like Telemachus’ father while his actual father sits quiet and unnoticed on the sidelines. The gaps between the simile and the story create feelings not simply about the experiences of the characters but also about the progress of the narrative: this reunion scene in which everyone is playing slightly the wrong role whets our eagerness for the reunion between Telemachus and his actual father later on. The irony and suspense cloaking the father–son relationships in this scene, which are placed front and center by the simile, gain further strength as the scene continues. Each character has a different understanding of who is playing the roles of “father,” “son,” and “guest,” and we experience the story from all these perspectives in turn. Eumaeus and Telemachus see Odysseus as the unremarkable beggar he appears to be, and they treat him accordingly. Odysseus, on the other hand, maintains his disguise by playing the role of Telemachus’ guest, even as the story continually identifies both father and son with the expressive kinship terms that in fact bind them together. When Telemachus sees his father Odysseus for the first time, the story calls Odysseus “father” (πατήρ, .) while Telemachus addresses him simply as “guest” (ξεῖν’, . and .). Then Telemachus is called “dear son of Odysseus” (Ὀδυσσῆος φίλος υἱός, .) as he welcomes the visitor politely by placing a chair for him. Meanwhile, Odysseus looks on as Telemachus uses a fatherlike intimate form of address for Eumaeus
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(ἄττα, . and .). Similarly, Eumaeus addresses Telemachus as “child” (τέκνον, .) when he tells him what he has learned about their visitor, who is the actual parent of this τέκνον. This contrast between the way the story identifies the different characters in Eumaeus’ hut and their behavior toward one another requires us to juggle different understandings of who is who and what social and emotional ties bind them together. The expressive kinship terms in the story enfold us in the heroic self-control of Odysseus, who goes through the rituals of hospitality with his beloved son with no outward sign that he is anything other than the stranger that Telemachus and Eumaeus imagine him to be. When Odysseus reveals himself to his son after Athena removes his disguise, we experience this unsettling development from the perspective of the astonished Telemachus. As he beholds the newly transformed figure of his visitor, a wave of fear, shock, and amazement washes over him (Odyssey .–). His beloved son gazed at him, wonderstruck, terrified too, turning his eyes away, suddenly – this must be some god – and he let fly with a burst of exclamations: ð180Þ “Friend, you’re a new man – not what I saw before! . . .” (after Fagles trans.) θάμβησε δέ μιν φίλος υἱός, ταρβήσας δ’ ἑτέρωσε βάλ’ ὄμματα μὴ θεὸς εἴη, καί μιν φωνήσας ἔπεα πτερόεντα προσηύδα· ð180Þ “ἀλλοῖός μοι, ξεῖνε, φάνης νέον ἠὲ πάροιθεν . . .”
The kinship designation “beloved son” (φίλος υἱός), a formula with powerful thematic and expressive force here and throughout this scene (de Jong : –), is both preceded and followed by language that emphasizes Telemachus’ confusion and fear (θάμβησε, ταρβήσας) lest this startlingly transformed stranger prove to be a god. Earlier, we experience the strains of Odysseus’ self-control through the contrast between the characters’ use of social relationship language and the true kinships between the characters. Here, we simultaneously share Telemachus’ confusion and shock at the sight of Odysseus, and we pity the “beloved son” whose fear now stands in the way of his reunion with his father. Telemachus continues to address the newly “strange” stranger as “friend” (ξεῖνε, .), but Odysseus now claims his true identity by using the correct kinship terms for himself. He tells his son, “I am your father” (πατὴρ τεός εἰμι, .). Not, “I am Odysseus,” which would be a true statement to make to any character whom he might be addressing, but “I am your father,” a unique way of identifying himself that is specific
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to Telemachus as Odysseus’ only child. Moreover, he reminds Telemachus how much the youth has suffered because of the absence of his father, using language that recalls the plight of the simile father at .– (τοῦ εἵνεκα σὺ στεναχίζων / πάσχεις ἄλγεα πολλά [.–] ~ τῷ ἔπ’ ἄλγεα πολλὰ μογήσῃ, .). When Odysseus at last relaxes his unwavering self-control (πάρος δ’ ἔχε νωλεμὲς αἰεί, .) and greets Telemachus with an outpouring of kisses and tears – as the father figure Eumaeus had done upon the first arrival of Telemachus earlier in Book – Odysseus receives only skepticism in response. Despite Telemachus’ passionate wish for his father’s homecoming shortly before this (πρῶτόν κεν τοῦ πατρὸς ἑλοίμεθα νόστιμον ἦμαρ, .), he remains suspiciously aloof from his weeping father. And no simile describes the unreciprocated feelings of reunion that Odysseus expresses in the presence of his disbelieving son. After Odysseus continues to insist that he is Telemachus’ father (.–), Telemachus at last offers the tearful embrace that he withheld earlier, and father and son weep together (.–). At that Odysseus sat down again, and Telemachus threw his arms around his great father, sobbing uncontrollably as the deep desire for mourning welled up in both. ð215Þ They cried out, shrilling cries, pulsing sharper than birds of prey . . . (after Fagles trans.)
ὣς ἄρα φωνήσας κατ’ ἄρ’ ἕξετο, Τηλέμαχος δὲ ἀμφιχυθεὶς πατέρ’ ἐσθλὸν ὀδύρετο, δάκρυα λείβων. ἀμφοτέροισι δὲ τοῖσιν ὑφ’ ἵμερος ὦρτο γόοιο· ð215Þ κλαῖον δὲ λιγέως, ἁδινώτερον ἤ τ’ οἰωνοί . . .
In various ways, these shared tears close the gap that has kept Telemachus and Odysseus apart not simply in Book but for most of Telemachus’ life. While “deep desire for mourning” (ἵμερος . . . γόοιο, .) often leads to tears at emotional high points in Homeric epic, that desire brings two people together as a pair (ἀμφοτέροισι) only here. Earlier, Odysseus wept while Telemachus stood suspiciously aloof from him (.–), and then Telemachus wept and embraced his father in turn (.–); ἀμφοτέροισι brings forward with great subtlety and precision the force of their united grief. Indeed, until Telemachus resumes their conversation by asking where Odysseus has come from (.), both the simile and the adjacent story lack any expressions with a singular grammatical form that would distinguish the father from the son. The grammatical structure of the passage dwells not just on the feelings of the two but also the fact that those feelings at long last are shared by both at the same time.
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Homer Odyssey: Heroism, Home, and Family
The unique expression that introduces the simile also creates a unity out of separate entities. Although we may not realize that a simile has begun until ., the introductory expression “pulsing sharper than birds of prey” fills the second half of . (ἁδινώτερον ἤ τ’ οἰωνοί). In contrast to most similes that begin and end at verse beginning and end with common “as/so” expressions that essentially function as opening and closing quotation marks, the introductory expression for this simile carries a key part of its meaning. ἁδινός can have a wide range of meanings, including “close packed,” “pitiable,” “in the manner of formal lament,” and even “firm.” Dimakopoulou (: –) links together a closepacked herd of animals and the tears of a weeping person through their common loss of individuality. Whether ἁδινός modifies a sheep or a sob, it describes a group sufficiently large that individuality and even clarity have been lost in the magnitude of a group of things. When a group of individual sheep coalesce into a herd or the emotions of sorrow become γόος (mourning), that process of becoming a collective rather than a group of individuals is represented by ἁδινός. So at an emotional level, the transition point to the simile represents the emotions of Telemachus and Odysseus as reaching a kind of unity out of multiple parts, just as the two of them form a unity through the absence of singular forms or individual references to one of them without the other. The second simile in Book develops the experience of mutual recognition and reunion between father and son, bringing to a climax the complex feelings about absence, reunion, and parents and children that have been building between these two characters since they first came into each other’s presence at the beginning of Book . Like the earlier comparison in Book , this one also features a scene of parents and children, but now the simile characters cast Odysseus’ long struggle for reunion with home and family as an epic feat in which sorrow and joy, success and loss, are inextricably entwined.
Odyssey 16.215–22 . . . the deep desire for mourning welled up in both. ð215Þ They cried out, shrilling cries, pulsing sharper than birds of prey – eagles, vultures with hooked claws – when farmers plunder their nest of young too young to fly. Both men so filled with compassion, eyes streaming tears, that now the sunlight would have set upon their cries ð220Þ if Telemachus had not asked his father, all at once, “What sort of ship, dear father, [brought] you here? . . .” (after Fagles trans.)
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ἀμφοτέροισι δὲ τοῖσιν ὑφ’ ἵμερος ὦρτο γόοιο· ð215Þ κλαῖον δὲ λιγέως, ἁδινώτερον ἤ τ’ οἰωνοί, φῆναι ἢ αἰγυπιοὶ γαμψώνυχες, οἷσί τε τέκνα ἀγρόται ἐξείλοντο πάρος πετεηνὰ γενέσθαι· ὣς ἄρα τοί γ’ ἐλεεινὸν ὑπ’ ὀφρύσι δάκρυον εἶβον. καί νύ κ’ ὀδυρομένοισιν ἔδυ φάος ἠελίοιο, ð220Þ εἰ μὴ Τηλέμαχος προσεφώνεεν ὃν πατέρ’ αἶψα· “ποίῃ γὰρ νῦν δεῦρο, πάτερ φίλε, νηΐ σε . . .”
For many readers, this simile raises more questions about Odysseus and Telemachus than it answers. Clearly, the scene mixes sadness and joy, but then what? How do their tears of reunion relate to vultures whose chicks have been stolen by hunters? What irrevocable loss have the reunited Odysseus and Telemachus experienced that resembles that of the vulture family, and why emphasize it at precisely the moment when they have been restored to one another at last? What emotional coloring does casting a mighty bird of prey in the role of bereaved parent add? The story never explains why Telemachus and Odysseus are crying tears of sorrow (ἵμερος ὦρτο γόοιο· / κλαῖον δὲ λιγέως, .–). And the simile’s only explicit link to the story is the shrill cry shared by the human father and son and the bereaved vulture parents. Even so, the plight of these birds, and the larger simile world of the Odyssey in which they live, do answer the questions posed by the combination of this story moment with this simile. The simile features one of the animal families that appear throughout the poem, and to that degree, it follows a pattern that is both typical of and distinctive to the Odyssey. But this is the only animal family in the poem that belongs to a predator species. The other animal families in the Odyssey are either domesticated species whose families remain intact (reunited heifers and cows, .–; a bitch defends her puppies, .–), or they play the conventional simile roles for animals in which weaker prey animals are threatened or attacked by a predator (fawns are killed by a lion, .– = .–). Here, instead, the predators lose their offspring to a human predator. Despite their strength and valor – qualities that come to the fore in battlefield similes about attacking vultures that emphasize the might of individual warriors – the adult birds are no match for the hunter who despoils their nestlings. The unique appearance of vultures as victims rather than attackers fills in the details of this emotional picture. Indeed, the vultures make an essential point about the nature of heroism in the Odyssey that would otherwise be missing from this scene. Odysseus, like vultures in the Homeric simile world, is a mighty warrior who has caused many deaths
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Homer Odyssey: Heroism, Home, and Family
and bereavements for those weaker than himself. Yet as impressive as his strengths are, they could not prevent the “death” of his relationship to his son as a child or the harm that came to Telemachus in the years when he lacked a father’s protection and care. This scenario gives their feelings a heroic dimension. Predators like these vultures are most often found in similes related to battle, but here, their fighting ability focuses attention on a kind of universal loss that cannot be averted even by a powerful warrior. Indeed, the appearance of these mighty birds at a point in the story that has no violence in it at all casts the complex feelings arising from family separation and reunion as a kind of heroic exploit on a par with the battle scenes in which vulture similes are more usually found. Such imagery also implies that being a war hero does not necessarily help someone achieve a successful homecoming and may even contribute to the problem by keeping a father, son, and husband away from his responsibilities at home. Odysseus faces heroic challenges in the Odyssey not primarily in battle against his enemies – although he does have to fight the suitors in order to regain his political and social position – but in making his way home to his family and reestablishing his relations with them. Just as on the field of battle, triumph in being reunited with home and family is linked inextricably with loss and sorrow. For their part, the young chicks are just as defenseless as the offspring of a prey animal would be. The immature vultures are simply young creatures who cannot yet fend for themselves, even though they would have become fearsome hunters if they had been able to grow up. Moreover, the simile identifies them as “young” (τέκνα, .). This may seem to be an objective description, but in fact, references to τέκνα usually have an expressive force. When τέκνα refers to human beings, it tends to appear in one of three contexts: as a vocative address, an inherently expressive mode of speech because of the relationship it embodies between the speaker and the addressee; in the formula “immature children” (νήπια τέκνα), which emphasizes that, like these baby birds, the children are not yet able to interact with their surroundings in a fully adult and competent way; or as a group with “wives” (ἄλοχοι), making a collective of the defenseless members of the community whom warriors are emotionally and culturally bound to protect. When τέκνα denotes immature animals rather than humans, it wraps us in the uniquely powerful emotional bond between parent and child. The parent animals in scenes that feature τέκνα are either defending their young or grieving for offspring that have been killed or otherwise come to grief. Our simile, too, refers to animal young as τέκνα, thereby drawing us into the sorrow of a bereaved animal parent.
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Although several other similes of animal families appear in the Odyssey and although animal young are regularly called τέκνα in similes in the Iliad, these chicks are the only animal τέκνα in the Odyssey. Furthermore, our simile notes that when the hunters took the baby birds, they did not yet have wings, which would have allowed them to flee even if they were still too young to fight back. The phrase πάρος πετεηνὰ γενέσθαι (“too young to fly,” .) creates sympathy for the plight of the defenseless chicks without using expressive vocabulary like νήπια. For both father and son, the reunion itself brings home the full extent of their losses (Eisenberger : ). Telemachus’ childhood is over just as irrevocably as the vulture chicks are gone from the nest. Their cries arise from a familial loss of such magnitude and irrevocability that it can reasonably be compared to losing one’s offspring entirely. Odysseus has his son back, but he is now an adult. They can never return to the lost years of companionship, protection, and mentoring during Telemachus’ boyhood. Despite claims that the narrative style of the Odyssey values thematic relevance and power more than verisimilitude, especially in scenes of reunion (Fenik : ), anyone who has reached the end of a long and trying separation from a loved one only to find that sorrow overwhelms their joy can recognize this gush of tears, tears that could not be shed while the absent loved one was still missing. Only the joy and relief that end such a separation allow us to experience the feelings about the separation that we have suppressed in order to meet the uncertainty and anxiety of the separation itself. ..
Penelope and Odysseus: Books and
The two similes that bring out the emotional details of the reunion of Telemachus and Odysseus use parent–child vignettes whose details map closely onto the story events. The strong resemblance between the simile and the story scenarios allows the similes to explore the feelings of the father and son in precise but implicit ways. Rather than having the complex mixture of joy, sorrow, and relief described – in either the simile or the story – we are invited to experience it ourselves, partly through the simile and the story scenes and partly by interweaving these two scenes to create a single homecoming narrative for Odysseus and Telemachus. Even though many details in these scenes are implicit and the feelings themselves are complex, the emotions themselves are the focus of both the story and the simile. An attentive audience is left with little doubt about how Odysseus and Telemachus are feeling. Likewise, several similes describe
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Homer Odyssey: Heroism, Home, and Family
Penelope during her various meetings with Odysseus after he returns to Ithaca, but all of these comparisons have unusual or perplexing features that complicate the interpretive process of understanding how the similes shed light on Penelope’s feelings. The unique interpretive challenges posed by similes that describe Penelope as she gradually draws closer to Odysseus play a key role in depicting her feelings as both strong and opaque. These similes open the possibility that Penelope experiences the loss of Odysseus in part as an inability to understand her own feelings about his absence and possible return. The first simile about Penelope’s feelings toward her husband follows a speech by the disguised Odysseus in which he tells Penelope that he had entertained “Odysseus” in Crete (.–). She weeps, but the story does not give any details about her feelings beyond saying that she “weep [s] for him, her husband” (κλαιούσης ἑὸν ἄνδρα, .). This is already obvious from the sequence of events, but both the phrasing and the word order underline the poignant irony that Penelope is right next to the husband she weeps for as though he were still missing. Her tears are brought home to us in a scene of winter snow melting with the advent of warmer weather. This is the only simile in the Odyssey that describes emotions with a scene that lacks any human characters or presence.
Odyssey 19.204–9 As she listened on, her tears flowed and soaked her cheeks as the heavy snow melts down from the high mountain ridges, ð205Þ snow the West Wind piles there and the warm East Wind thaws and the snow, melting, swells the rivers to overflow their banks – so she dissolved in tears, streaming down her lovely cheeks, weeping for him, her husband . . . (Fagles trans.) τῆς δ’ ἄρ’ ἀκουούσης ῥέε δάκρυα, τήκετο δὲ χρώς. ὡς δὲ χιὼν κατατήκετ’ ἐν ἀκροπόλοισιν ὄρεσσιν, ð205Þ ἥν τ’ Εὖρος κατέτηξεν, ἐπὴν Ζέφυρος καταχεύῃ· τηκομένης δ’ ἄρα τῆς ποταμοὶ πλήθουσι ῥέοντες· ὣς τῆς τήκετο καλὰ παρήϊα δάκρυ χεούσης, κλαιούσης ἑὸν ἄνδρα . . .
While the story presents only the physical, visible manifestations of Penelope’s emotions, the simile goes into great detail about the warming conditions that have led to melting snow and rushing rivers. What exactly would an emotional “melting” like that experienced by the mountain snow mean for Penelope here? She suspects that the stranger might be her husband, and she is warming to him? She thinks it may be time to marry
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another husband, and she is warming to the idea of another partner? She remembers a time when her own life was “warmer” because Odysseus was present? There is no way to tell, because neither the story nor the simile explains. Both the absence of human beings in the simile and the lack of information in the story leave us in the dark, not only by preventing us from sharing the characters’ feelings as we did in the similes for Telemachus and Odysseus but also because there is no human presence in this scene to place us within a specific lived experience of the simile. The warm wind and melting snow create a vivid sensory reality, but unlike the embraces of the father welcoming his returning child (.–) or the grief of the bereaved vultures (.–), the touch of the wind on a (hypothetical, unmentioned) human cheek or the noise and speed of rivers swollen with snow melt offer no direct route to a richer understanding of Penelope’s feelings. Instead, the narrative indirectly evokes her emotions by repeating the expressive verb τήκω five times in successive verses of both the story and the simile. No other simile repeats the same word as often as this one does. Moreover, the two instances of τήκω in the Odyssey outside of Book appear with expressive similes that describe Odysseus at some of his most emotional moments in the poem, including his first sight of land from the wreckage of his raft (.) and his tearful response to Demodocus’ song about his exploits during the Trojan War (.). Within this simile, τήκω appears to simply describe a regular springtime event in the natural world, but the fivefold repetition and the consistent ways it is used in Homeric epic show that it is in fact a highly expressive word for the wrenching tears that are shed when characters contemplate their separation from what they care about most in the world. For Penelope alone, whose unclear motivations are one of the themes of the poem, a simile describing these emotions lacks human characters whose behavior would help us to understand nuances of her feelings that the story leaves unexplained. This engaging opacity arises in part from the differences between this simile and the larger simile world of the Odyssey, depicting Penelope’s feelings in a way that is both gripping and unclear. We are left guessing about what motivates Penelope because her actions are not clear, either to herself or to anyone else concerned, not because we have failed to understand what the poem is telling us about her. A comparison that Penelope uses to describe her difficulties later in her conversation with Odysseus is similarly elusive. When Penelope links the grief of Philomela about her dead son Itylus to her own sorrow and indecision during Odysseus’ absence (.–), her matter-of-fact
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Homer Odyssey: Heroism, Home, and Family
statement that Philomela killed her own child through some unspecified folly (ὅν ποτε χαλκῷ / κτεῖνε δι’ ἀφραδίας, .–) is unsettling, to say the least. Moreover, although this story uses the same framing language as a simile would (ὡς δ’ ὅτε [.] . . . ὥς [.]), Rutherford (: –) makes a compelling argument that it differs enough from several simile conventions in the Odyssey that it should be considered a “mythological paradigm” () instead. While both the narrative status of this inset story and its “precise analogy with [Penelope’s] situation has long baffled adequate interpretation” (Alden : ), this strange story gives us a rare direct view into the famously opaque thought processes of Penelope in this section of the poem. Her own explanations of her thoughts and feelings cannot be fully understood, and the interpretive framework within which we can best understand her comparison itself is a matter of debate. This pervasive lack of clarity about how Penelope sees her own predicament lends credence to the argument that her feelings are confused and unclear even to herself, rather than merely being concealed from the audience. The narrative embodies a sense of confusion as much or more than it creates any specific feeling that Penelope has about her predicament. That confusion is a typical reaction for someone experiencing ambiguous loss. Thus, Penelope’s reaction makes a positive contribution to her characterization and to the depiction of homecoming as a heroic endeavor for both the hero himself and those who remain behind at home. A major goal of Odysseus’ homecoming journey comes to fruition in Book when Penelope says that she accepts him as her husband (.–). As husband and wife weep and embrace, a simile compares them to sailors who have reached dry land after a shipwreck. Like both Odysseus (.–) and Penelope (.–) – but unlike other sailors of the simile world who never die at sea outside of this comparison – these sailors do not escape their dangerous plight unscathed. Ultimately, their own persistence allows some of them to survive. Both the simile and the poem entwine great loss with ultimate success, highlighting this typically Odyssean view of homecoming at the climactic moment in the poem when Odysseus and Penelope have at last returned to each other.
Odyssey 23.232–41 He wept as he held the wife he loved, the soul of loyalty. Joy, warm as the joy at the sight of land for shipwrecked sailors – Poseidon has struck their well-rigged ship on the open sea with gale winds and crushing walls of waves, ð235Þ
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and only a few escape, swimming, struggling out of the frothing surf to reach the shore, their bodies crusted with salt but buoyed up with joy as they plant their feet on solid ground again, spared a deadly fate. So joyous now to her the sight of her husband, vivid in her gaze, that her white arms, embracing his neck would never for a moment let him go . . . ð240Þ Dawn with her rose-red fingers might have shone upon their tears . . . (after Fagles trans.)
κλαῖε δ’ ἔχων ἄλοχον θυμαρέα, κεδνὰ ἰδυῖαν. ὡς δ’ ὅτ’ ἂν ἀσπάσιος γῆ νηχομένοισι φανήῃ, ὧν τε Ποσειδάων εὐεργέα νῆ’ ἐνὶ πόντῳ ῥαίσῃ, ἐπειγομένην ἀνέμῳ καὶ κύματι πηγῷ· ð235Þ παῦροι δ’ ἐξέφυγον πολιῆς ἁλὸς ἤπειρόνδε νηχόμενοι, πολλὴ δὲ περὶ χροῒ τέτροφεν ἅλμη, ἀσπάσιοι δ’ ἐπέβαν γαίης, κακότητα φυγόντες· ὣς ἄρα τῇ ἀσπαστὸς ἔην πόσις εἰσοροώσῃ, δειρῆς δ’ οὔ πω πάμπαν ἀφίετο πήχεε λευκώ. ð240Þ καί νύ κ’ ὀδυρομένοισι φάνη ῥοδοδάκτυλος Ἠώς . . .
Odysseus’ journey at sea ended in Book , but this seafaring simile reminds us that his journey home has continued. The image of land that appears welcome to someone swimming, which here begins the simile (.), closely resembles the first verse of the simile in Book that likens Odysseus’ first glimpse of the island of Scheria to the welcome appearance of a recuperating father to his children (ὡς δ’ ὅτ’ ἂν ἀσπάσιος βίοτος παίδεσσι φανήῃ, .). This simile with which Chapter began marks the beginning of the end of Odysseus’ homecoming in that he is poised to return to human civilization after years of being marooned on Calypso’s island. Now, as Odysseus is coming to the end of his journey at last, the delight of reunited family members appears in the story while the shipwrecked mariner joyfully returning to dry land appears in the simile. The lengthy, detailed picture of the physical challenges of the shipwreck immerse us in the life-threatening difficulties of the journey, which have been both physical and emotional for Odysseus and largely emotional and psychological for Penelope. The simile takes us from the broken ship buffeted by wind and waves (.) to the doom of most of the sailors, poignantly signaled by the emphatic first position of “only a few” (παῦροι, .) in the clause describing their efforts to swim to safety. But despite the wind and waves, some sailors do survive, becoming coated with salt as they swim to dry land and, at the end of the simile, they escape their suffering (κακότητα φυγόντες, . ~ κακότητος ἔλυσαν, .). While only Odysseus has literally endangered his life on his way home, this simile conveys to us that
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Homer Odyssey: Heroism, Home, and Family
Penelope has experienced her isolation at home without him as similarly exhausting and hazardous. This simile includes various striking techniques that bring forward the experiences of Odysseus and Penelope together, just when they accept and recognize each other. Both the structure and the content of the simile unify the superficially distinct experiences of Odysseus and Penelope during Odysseus’ long absence. Structurally, the simile makes a bold and engaging move by beginning with the weeping Odysseus (.) and ending, unexpectedly, with Penelope tearfully embracing her husband (.–). This is a particularly surprising switch because the wrecked sailors in the simile naturally bring Odysseus rather than Penelope to mind. What unites Odysseus and Penelope is not the physical challenge of sailors who swim for land buffeted by wind and waves. It is the more metaphorical struggle to reach safety despite constant danger from one’s surroundings that, for both husband and wife, ends with the defining homecoming emotion of ἀσπάσιος (., ., .). The obvious differences between their respective journeys toward Odysseus’ homecoming and the unusual simile structure unite husband and wife not in spite of but directly through their different routes to this safe harbor. The meaning of this simile in this context arises in part from the relationship between the simile and the adjacent story, but the unusual nature of the experiences of these sailors in comparison to what generally happens to seafarers in the simile worlds of other epics makes their survival seem both more fraught and more impressive than if it is interpreted only within the narrative of the Odyssey itself. As many critics have pointed out (summarized by de Jong : , with bibliography), the plight of the sailors in the simile closely reflects Odysseus’ experiences on his way home to Ithaca. Yet their shipwreck on the open sea followed by safety for a few hardy survivors who manage to swim to land differs from the experiences of any other sailors in epic similes. Our sailors are able to survive the destruction of their well-built ship (εὐεργέα νῆ[α], .) by means of their own efforts, but they reach land through the physical exertions of swimming for dry land rather than through their expertise or skill as sailors. The only simile about sailors in the Odyssey, which appears when Odysseus’ homecoming journey is over at last, describes a unique scenario in which the sailors experience the worst that the sea has to offer, yet their own determination enables some of them to survive. If we interpret this simile alongside the consistently positive depictions of human skill in other craft similes in the Odyssey, we may ask ourselves why more sailors did not survive. At the same time, these sailors can act more assertively to foster their own survival than most other mariners in the simile
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worlds of epic poetry in general. The conflicting messages that emerge from the simile, which shift depending on the larger context in which it is understood, embody the mixture of success and loss that characterizes homecoming throughout the Odyssey. This message gains compelling force and clarity because this is the only seafaring simile in the poem, and its unique structure dramatizes the end of Odysseus’ homecoming for Odysseus and Penelope simultaneously.
. Conclusions The simile world of the Odyssey has a large and lively human population in comparison to the simile worlds of other epic poems. Most Odyssey similes include human beings, and the human characters are enmeshed in a wide range of relationships with one another that together weave a cohesive social fabric of families, civic and legal processes, and shared enjoyment of art and craft. Relationships are so fundamental to the narrative of the Odyssey that they find their way into parts of the simile world where relationships do not ordinarily play an important role, such as craftsmanship and animal scenes. In the story, similes are concentrated around Odysseus, more specifically around the feelings related to his homecoming. These feelings can be difficult to understand and to explain because they are simultaneously strong and complicated in a way that defies verbal description. In fact, the contradictions that many characters experience in their feelings – hanging doubtfully back from Odysseus when he reveals his true identity; being both happy and sad to be reunited with him – also affect real people’s struggles when they experience an “ambiguous loss“ of someone close to them in which the person has vanished for unexplained reasons but remains psychologically vivid to the family the person left behind. For both Telemachus and Penelope, these feelings come to a head when Odysseus returns to them. Similes about the reunions of Odysseus with Telemachus and with Penelope bring out the subtleties of the feelings as experienced by the different characters not by describing the feelings head-on but by placing us inside the lived reality of those emotions. Words can only capture the overmastering physical and spiritual sensations of emotion in indirect ways. Through the plight of birds, sailors, and even a lonely father, we feel the wracking sobs of joyful sorrow and hesitant relief alongside Telemachus, Penelope, and Odysseus. And just as these shared emotions knit this grieving family back together again, so too we interweave the simile and the story worlds of the Odyssey to create a narrative about homecoming as a heroic exploit that can succeed only through the emotional and psychological valor of everyone concerned.
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Homer Odyssey: Heroism, Home, and Family
Notes Barker and Christensen () offer an excellent recent overview of nostos in the Odyssey, showing how the relationships among the various homecoming tales in the Odyssey – both as homecomings and as tales – shape Odysseus’ own homecoming and the tales told about it by Odysseus and by the Odyssey itself. Nearly percent of the similes lacks any signs of human activity ( of ), while nearly two-thirds feature human characters ( of ). The proportion of similes in the Odyssey that shows some indication of human beings rises to percent ( of ) if we include both those with human actors and those that entail human activity without referring to human beings (such as domestic or herd animals whose farmyard is mentioned but whose caretakers are not, for example, .–). In other epics, the percentage of similes with no human presence ranges from about percent (Iliad, of similes; Argonautica, of ; and Metamorphoses, of ), to nearly one-half in the Aeneid ( of similes make no reference to human activities). Garvie (: ) notes that this formulation of suffering “characterises the homeward voyage of Odysseus.” Cook () distinguishes this “passive” mode of heroism from “active” exploits in battle. Finkelberg () focuses on similar qualities of Odysseus to argue that the Odyssey has a different view of heroism than the Iliad. ἀσπάσιος refers to feelings about homecoming both in those who are returning and those who greet the person coming home. LSJ: “welcome; [def. II] glad”; LfgrE “to the delight of, welcome, relieved.” Forms of τήκω and the basically synonymous compound κατατήκω appear nine times in the Odyssey, all but two of which occur in the first meeting between the disguised Odysseus and Penelope in Book (., ., ., ., ., ., ., ., .). In other texts, τήκω does regularly refer to concrete physical processes of liquefaction as for metal (e.g. Herod. .), snow (e.g. Xen. Anab. ..), or a decomposing corpse (e.g. Soph. Ant. , ). In medical contexts, τήκω can refer to the disappearance of superfluous flesh (Galen San. Tu. VI.. K) and the digestion of food (Bon. Mal. Suc. VI.. K). Craft similes in the Odyssey: .– (solitary shipwright), .– ~ .– (fine inlay worker), .– (description of a ship with no human beings mentioned), .– (a group of shipwrights), .– (metalsmith), .– (singer and his audience), .– (poet stringing a lyre), .– (sailors). The knowledge or skill of the craftsperson is mentioned for the solitary shipwright, the inlay worker, the singer and his audience, and the poet stringing his lyre. Both the inlay worker and the singer have been taught their craft by the gods. Only one of these similes lacks any human characters. In contrast, one-third of the craft similes in the other four
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Notes
poems in this book has an implied rather than an explicit human presence ( of ). Important scholarly studies of Homeric animals have interpreted these differences as a lack of animals in the similes in the Odyssey (Schnapp-Gourbeillon : –; Lonsdale : ), which is not in fact the case. The Odyssey has similes about animal families: .– = .– (Menelaus compares suitors in the palace to fawns left in a lion’s den by their mother), .– (Odysseus compares his comrades delighted by his return from Circe’s palace to heifers gamboling around their mothers returning to the farmyard after a day of grazing), .– (the weeping Odysseus and Telemachus are compared to vultures whose unfledged chicks were stolen by hunters), .– (indecisive Odysseus compared to a dog who wants to fight a man she does not know about her puppies). This list does not include the mythological paradigm, exemplum, and/or “para-narrative in miniature” (Alden : ) of Itylus and the nightingale told by Penelope at .–. This constitutes more than percent of the animal similes in the poem. By comparison, similes featuring animal parents and offspring appear in the Iliad, but these represent less than percent of its animal similes; so also in the Aeneid ( families of animal similes). The Metamorphoses includes about percent families in its animal similes ( of ). The Argonautica simile world features just animal family (.–). Lonsdale (: ) is particularly excellent on how animal similes reflect on the nature of the human experience. Immature chicks that venture out of their nests – either successfully or fatally – dramatize risk and loss (Argonautica .– [the near death of the Argonauts in the Libyan desert], Metamorphoses .– [Daedalus and Icarus set off on their ill-fated flight]). Fierce animals defending their young may depict a defensive military maneuver or a mustering of troops (e.g. wasps at Iliad .– and .–; a lion at Iliad .–); animals who feed their offspring suggest altruistic labor (Achilles compares his own efforts on behalf of the Greeks to a mother bird who feeds her chicks to her own detriment, .–); a famous simile for the Carthaginians building their city compares them to bees whose community responsibilities include looking after the young bees (Aeneid .–). ἁδινός in this sense appears in the formula ἁδινοῦ ἐξῆρχε γόοιο (“led them in a thronging chant of sorrow,” Iliad ., ., ., .; cf. Odyssey ., ἁδινὸν γοοώσα) and regularly with forms of κλαίω (weep), στεναχίζω (groan), and δάκρυ (tear). A particularly striking instance of this use of ἁδινός introduces a simile in which Telemachus and Odysseus weeping tears of joy at their reunion are likened to vultures whose unfledged chicks have been stolen by hunters (.–; see further Section ...). οἰκτρός (.: times Iliad, times Odyssey) is associated with either literal death or a level of suffering and misery that resembles death.
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Homer Odyssey: Heroism, Home, and Family
There are four similes with groups of domestic animals, all describing cows unless otherwise specified: Odyssey: .– (cows or sheep), .– (dogs, whose master is also mentioned), .–, and .–. For example, Fränkel (: –) and Lonsdale (: ). This generalization also applies to post-Homeric epic with the exception of Apollonius, whose herding similes do not have any consistent points in common with their story contexts. In addition to .– (Odysseus first comes to shore likened to recuperating father) and .– (Odysseus returns to his weeping men compared to happy heifers), the emotion similes in the Odyssey are .– (Penelope considering her situation is compared to a lion surrounded by men), .– (Odysseus weeps at Demodocus’ song of Troy resembling weeping woman widowed in war), .– (Odysseus being eager to set out for home is like a farmer eager for sunset and dinnertime), .– (Eumaeus welcoming Telemachus compared to a father welcoming a long-absent son home), .– (Telemachus and Odysseus weeping together like vultures who lose their chicks), .– (Penelope weeping when listening to Odysseus’ false tales like winter snows melting), .– (Penelope describing her pain and confusion with the story of Philomela), .– (Odysseus debating his course of action compared to a barking dog that wants to fight on behalf of her puppies), .– (Odysseus tossing and turning while thinking about what to do is like cooking a pudding), .– (suitors fleeing in fear from Athena’s aegis likened to gadfly attacks), .– (Penelope and Odysseus weeping together like shipwrecked sailors returning to land). For a systematic discussion of the relationship between Agamemnon’s story and the Odyssey, see, for example, Olson (). Ready (: –) clearly delineates these parameters of Odysseus’ heroism and distinguishes them from what appears in the Iliad, noting in particular that “Odysseus does not face any competition from mortal males when it comes to acting and talking” (). Finkelberg (, especially page ) discusses Odysseus as a hero of endurance through his distinctive association with ἄεθλος (“struggles, trials of endurance, hardship”). For status-oriented and competitive forms of warrior status measured in what people say about someone (κλέος), see, for example, Nagy (: –). Nearly two-thirds of the similes in the Odyssey ( of ) refer to Odysseus. different similes describe the suitors (.– = .–; .–, .–, and .–; .–); describe Penelope (.–; .– and .–; .– [also describes Odysseus]), plus the mythological exemplum at .–; and describe Telemachus (.– and .– [also describes Odysseus], and .–). A few additional characters (Athena, Hermes, and Aegisthus) are described by similes. Saïd (: –). At the same time, the Telemachy presents the absence of Odysseus as not just a problem for his household but also an opportunity and impetus for Telemachus to mature in ways that parallel Odysseus’ own
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Notes
homecoming (e.g. Murnaghan : –). Murnaghan () explores various possible messages of the Telemachy in Odyssey – by imagining different possible audiences at whom the Telemachy might be aimed. Friedrich (: –). I disagree with the claim of Scott (: ) that there are so many similes in Book because “they are tightly focused on the theme of the book, the hero’s choice.” Similes in the Odyssey are usually focused on key themes (e.g. Moulton : –), but the clarity or strength of this focus does not correlate with the number of similes. Odyssey .– (flight of Hermes compared to a sea bird), .– (raft at sea likened to wind blowing a thorn bush across a plain), .– (wave breaks up raft like wind scattering chaff ), .– (Odysseus’ grasping a rock is like that of an octopus). These four similes constitute nearly half of all comparisons in the Odyssey that lack a human presence. Given Odysseus’ propensity to tell false stories about himself, there is a longrunning debate about whether his tale to the Phaeacians is to be believed. The general consensus is “probably ‘yes,’” both because the mythological story regularly refers to events that Odysseus narrates in his nostos and because lies tend to be explicitly identified as such in Homeric narrative (Saïd : , with additional bibliography). There are similes in speech in the Iliad and in the Argonautica. The Aeneid follows the Odyssey model with similes in Aeneas’ first-person tale in Books – and just in speeches that appear elsewhere in the poem. I do not take this to mean that Odysseus is to be equated with an epic narrator on a par with the Homeric narrator or Demodocus. While the Odyssey narrative singles out Odysseus’ tale about his journeying in part by means of explicit and implicit comparisons between him and a singer, such comparisons assume that Odysseus is not, in fact, an epic poet himself. I have argued elsewhere that his narrative in most respects is that of a nonprofessional first-person narrator (Beck b). That said, many would disagree with this claim, for instance Kelly (), which begins by describing Odysseus’ retelling of his adventures to Penelope at .– as an indicator of “Homer’s conception of his craft, and his attitude toward other (competing) aoidoi” (). For example, “Then we sailed on, grief-stricken” (ἔνθεν δὲ προτέρω πλέομεν ἀκαχήμενοι ἦτορ), five times in Books –. Further details on such similes can be found in notes and . There is an enormous bibliography on this topic. In addition to Suerbaum (), other informative studies that focus on the Odyssey include those by de Jong () and Mackie (). de Jong (: and n) cites several examples of the “‘delayed recognition’ story-pattern,” with extensive bibliography. The narrative structure of reunions in the Odyssey certainly plays a key role in creating engaging and thematically meaningful suspense, but the slow and tentative process of reunion is not simply a manifestation of “a fascination with certain generic types of ironies and emotions on the one side, and on the other side a relative
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Homer Odyssey: Heroism, Home, and Family indifference to prosaically efficient, uninterrupted action development or impregnably logical motivation” (Fenik : ). Similarly, “the criterion of functionalism has almost no value in interpreting scenes of identification in the Odyssey” (). I first learned of this phenomenon from Weiberg (). Boss () offers an engaging explanation of what ambiguous loss is and how the theory developed. Circumstances in which someone is psychologically but not physically present include being kidnapped, absent on military duty, in jail, lost at sea, and so on. The opposite – physical presence and psychological absence – characterizes altered mental states such as coma, dementia, addiction, or mental illness. While many reunion scenes include kisses, the three kisses in this scene outnumber those in any of the other major reunions. The detailed, repetitive language follows each step on the joyful path of Eumaeus’ lips as he kisses first Telemachus’ head, then “both eyes” (ἄμφω φάεα καλά, .) and “both hands” (χεῖράς τ’ ἀμφοτέρας, .). Eumaeus and Philoetius kiss Odysseus’ head and shoulders (.–); Penelope kisses his head (.–). Laertes is so overcome when he learns who Odysseus is that he is unable to do anything except embrace him; the narrative suggests that he may need the physical support in order not to collapse (.–). The endearment γλυκερὸν φάος helps to depict Eumaeus as a father figure: it appears elsewhere in Homeric epic only when Penelope greets Telemachus after he arrives at the palace to tell her about his recently concluded voyage in search of information about Odysseus (.). In addition, the simile mentions the child’s long absence from home (ἐλθόντ’ ἐξ ἀπίης γαίης δεκάτῳ ἐνιαυτῷ, .) and his lack of siblings, but the meaning of τηλύγετον (.) has been debated since antiquity. Heubeck, West, and Hainsworth : (commenting on Odyssey .) cites its occurrences in Homeric epic, surveys the interpretations that have been proposed, and cites the major scholarly discussions. Foley (: ) cites this simile in the introduction to her argument that “‘reverse similes’ . . . suggest both a sense of identity between people in different social and sexual roles [in the Odyssey] and a loss of stability” (). Moulton (: –), Podlecki (: ), and Nannini (: ) also see the simile as an example of reversal. Danek (: ) makes the important point that the kind of simile role reversal Foley is talking about does not apply only to gender-based roles. One of the functions that de Jong () attributes to the simile is “narrative through imagery” (, citing Lyne : ) in which a simile adds an element to the narrative that would otherwise remain unmentioned. The same point could be made about many more similes in the Odyssey. Indeed, Danek (: ) notes that the circumstances in the simile fit Laertes better than any of the characters who are actually present. He posits that Eumaeus may have taken over a function that belonged to Laertes in
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Notes
other versions, in which case the scene might evoke a greeting scene between Laertes and Odysseus. Moulton( : –) and Scott ( : ) mention this simile under the heading of “emphasis on anticipated meetings” but do not discuss in any detail how the simile relates to its context. This analysis overlaps with Beck (a: –) in many respects, but it has a different emphasis and goes into more detail than my earlier discussion. I have argued elsewhere that the formula καί μιν φωνήσας ἔπεα πτερόεντα προσηύδα is associated with emotional speeches (Beck a: –). By contrast, the more common ways of describing a desire for sorrow refer either to the feelings of one individual (τῷ δ’ ἄρα πατρὸς ὑφ’ ἵμερον ὦρσε γόοιο, Odyssey . ~ Iliad .; τῇ δ’ [Penelope] ἔτι μᾶλλον ὑφ’ ἵμερον ὦρσε γόοιο, Odyssey . ~ .) or a larger group (τοῖσι δὲ πᾶσιν ὑφ’ ἵμερον ὦρσε γόοιο, Odyssey . ~ Iliad . and .; cf. Iliad ., μετὰ δέ σφι [the Myrmidons] Θέτις γόου ἵμερον ὦρσε), each member of which may have their own reasons for grieving. These definitions are taken from a series of scholia on Odyssey ., a speech introduction for Penelope that describes her as ἁδινὸν γοόωσα. They list without comment several quite different definitions for ἁδινόν, including ἀθρόως (MaNVy); οἰκτρῶς, θρηνητικῶς (EMaY); ἀσφαλῶς (Y); and a longer note linking ἁδινός etymologically with ἅδην (B). While most sources show a serene lack of concern with harmonizing these different meanings, a notable exception is a D scholion on Iliad . (ἁδινοῦ ἐξῆρχε γόοιο), which comments Νῦν πυκνοῦ, συνεχοῦς (“Now [it means] thick and fast, continuous”). νῦν shows the awareness of the scholiast that ἁδινός has a wide variety of meanings in addition to the one that it has in this particular passage. This is also the sense of a bT scholion on the “heap” (κέχυνται) of sheep corpses in a simile at Iliad .. The scholion says that this word portrays the number of corpses (τὸ πλῆθος δηλοῖ), and it cites as parallels several passages that describe groups of animals as ἁδινός (Iliad ., Odyssey .). This mixture of feelings is noted by Eisenberger (: ), Moulton (: –, ), and Nannini (: –) among others. Virtually every aspect of the simile has been the subject of disagreement. Nannini (: ) offers a maddening combination of insightful and misguided ideas, noting that the simile explains the psychological realism of the oxymoronic formula γόοιο τέρπεσθαι while characterizing it as “imperfetto.” Other analyses offer implied criticisms of the sorrowful tone of the simile as inconsistent with the joy of the characters in the story (Podlecki : , Foley : ). Several scholars have explained the incongruity by connecting this simile with vengeance (e.g. Eisenberger : –; Rood ). The idea of vengeance is certainly one strand of the scene, but it does not help us to understand the prevailing mood of sorrow and bereavement. Others have said that the birds suggest fear (Moulton : –; Minchin a: –). Suggestions for the specific link between the simile and the story include sound (de Jong : –), the feelings of Odysseus and Telemachus (Moulton :
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Homer Odyssey: Heroism, Home, and Family ); “helpless[ness]” (Podlecki : ), and the destruction of home (Scott : ). Most famously at Iliad .–, where Sarpedon and Patroclus are compared to a pair of fighting αἰγυπιοὶ γαμψώνυχες (); see also Odyssey .–. Or, in the Iliad, by gods. This sense of νήπιος is discussed further by Griffin (: ) and Ingalls (: – and –). Fierce creatures defending their young from attacks by humans include wasps (Iliad .–, .–) and lions (Iliad .–). The omen of the snakes and the swallow retold by Odysseus in Iliad repeatedly uses τέκνα for the chicks of the swallow, sometimes with expressive epithets that are also used to evoke the ties that adults feel toward human children (. [νήπια], ., . [φίλα], ., ., .). The only simile that calls animal offspring νήπια τέκνα refers to fawns (Iliad .). This striking comparison goes into great detail about both the strength of lion who invades the deer’s lair to kill the fawns (.–) and the grief and fear of the mother who flees rather than making a fruitless attempt to protect her young (.–). Griffin () applies this kind of analysis to the narrative style of the death scenes in the Iliad, to excellent effect: “the dispassionate manner in which these [long lists of] slayings are recorded . . . are important and striking because they do in fact convey emotion” (). Citing this point with approval, de Jong (: ) specifies that “father and son presumably deplore the years of separation, during which Telemachus grew up virtually an orphan, and Odysseus was deprived of the joy of seeing his child grow up.” The same analysis also asserts that “no explanation is given” for how the weeping natural to the bereaved birds in the simile might apply to Odysseus and Telemachus, and that an audience might fill in the emotional blanks by referring to Penelope’s speech when she and Odysseus are reunited (.–). In fact, this scene contains all the clues necessary to understand the relevance of the simile to Odysseus and Telemachus. Many people had this experience when they were reunited with loved ones after extended separations caused by the COVID- pandemic. As Murnaghan () notes (see especially page ), the overwhelming scholarly interest in figuring out whether or not Penelope recognizes Odysseus before she acknowledges his identity in Book is not shared by the poem itself, which “acknowledges that it is a question [emphasis original], but ultimately treats it as a matter of indifference.” In addition to the works cited in Murnaghan’s paper, foundational contributions to this debate include Amory () (who favors an early recognition) and Emlyn-Jones () (who thinks the recognition takes place in Book ; see n for a list of works that favor an earlier recognition). For Murnaghan, Penelope’s suffering and uncertainty is most important insofar as it “gives us an insight into the crippling effects of [the Odyssey’s] own definition of female excellence, by showing how much Penelope
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Notes
suffers for her incarnation of that ideal” (); her suffering may, at the same time, capture the psychological state of ambiguous loss. τήκω and κατατήκω are used times in Homeric epic, of which occur in the Odyssey; of those are found in Book and in as many lines in this passage. The only instance in the Iliad is used by Helen to describe to Priam her sadness about leaving her home and family (κλαίουσα τέτηκα, .). Alden (: n) mentions three possible understandings for ἀφραδίας here, covering a spectrum from “erroneous” to “inattentive.” Murnaghan (: and ); Katz (: –) (“a persistence of uncertainty,” ) and passim. Desderi ( (especially , “il poeta le ha attribuito almeno una certa ambiguità”) sees ambiguity as an intentional part of Penelope’s characterization. Russo, Fernández-Galiano, and Heubeck (: –) comment on these points of contact between the two scenes but appear to find them perplexing rather than understanding them – as I do – as a return to a thematically central complex of ideas at two critical moments in Odysseus’ homecoming journey. Schadewaldt (: ) attributes to the simile “a surprising and extremely significant reversal of roles” belonging to husband and wife (jenes Gleichnis, in dem, mit einer u¨berraschenden und doch höchst sinngemäßen Vertauschung der Rollen, die Frau nun als die Schiffbru¨chige erscheint . . .). Fränkel (: –) writes eloquently of the striking unity of feeling that the structure of this simile creates between Penelope and Odysseus. Fränkel evidently finds this aspect of the simile so compelling that – in contrast to his normal practice – the simile is discussed under the subheading suitable to the story (Frau, Kind und Familie bei Mensch und Tier), not to the simile itself. de Jong (: –) offers a perceptive analysis of both the unusual features of the simile and how it forges a compelling unity between Odysseus and Penelope. Although simile mariners die only here in the simile world, they are most commonly depicted as they struggle against the force of wind and waves (Iliad .–, .–, .–; Argonautica .–, Aeneid .–, Metamorphoses .–, .–). Sometimes this explicitly frightens the sailors (Iliad .–, Argonautica .–, Metamorphoses .–). Sailors are shown surviving a storm or taking active pleasure in being at sea only in the Argonautica (.– and .–, respectively), discussed further in Chapter .
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Homer Iliad Leadership and Loss
. The Overmastered Shepherd The Iliad is a tale of sorrow and admiration for warriors and their loved ones, Greeks and Trojans alike. Its similes come particularly thick and fast in battle, where these themes are both particularly important and particularly easy to lose sight of amid hundreds of fighters, wounds, and actions. The large number of similes in the Iliad, and in its battle scenes in particular helps to create this universalizing tone despite the specificity of the story, which takes place in one place within a short period of time. Battle scenes in the Iliad use similes to show the likenesses between Greek and Trojan warriors, creating a unity of “fighting men” even as each warrior burns with the desire to kill his enemies. No matter how heated the fighting becomes, the similes remind us of the commonalities that both sides share. Similes often show us one event from several different vantage points so that the experiences of two (or more) enemies get equal attention and respect. Indeed, similes are instrumental in sketching the Iliad’s view of the Trojans as just as sympathetic as the Greeks when they suffer sorrow or defeat, just as noble, and just as worthy of respect. Many of the losses in the Iliad stem from doomed encounters with a stronger force, but some are caused by human shortcomings. Common scenes in the simile world, such as the shepherd with his flock or seafaring scenes, show human characters enmeshed in close relationships beset by loss and doom, often caused by the absence or incompetence of a leader figure. The simile world in the Iliad – and thus the whole poem – is a place of universal sympathy for anyone harmed by violence, especially when a leader fails in his duties. In the simile world of epic poetry over the centuries, however, this “universalizing” tone is distinctive to Homeric epic. Later writers of epic poetry will modify, undermine, and reverse the timeless, generalized quality of the Homeric simile world.
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. The Overmastered Shepherd
Book opens the most battle-intensive section of the Iliad with a series of individual encounters on the battlefield involving several Greek heroes including Agamemnon, Menelaus, and Idomeneus (.–). As Diomedes wreaks havoc among the Trojans at large, Pandarus shoots an arrow into Diomedes’ shoulder. But despite Pandarus’ hope that Diomedes has been fatally wounded (.–), Diomedes has his comrade Sthenelus remove the arrow, and he prays to Athena for success in avenging himself on Pandarus (.–). In response, Athena grants him not only renewed physical vigor but also the ability to distinguish between gods and mortals whom he meets on the battlefield. After she leaves, Diomedes reenters the fray with fresh strength. A simile comparing him to a lion attacking domestic sheep takes on the perspectives of the lion, the sheep, and their shepherd in turn, exploring each of these very different experiences of a single act of violence. But the simile lavishes most attention on the shepherd as he tries and fails to protect his flock from a predator.
Iliad 5.136–43 Now [. . .] three times as much fury seized him – as a lion some shepherd tending woolly flocks in the field has just grazed, a lion leaping into the fold, but he hasn’t killed him, only spurred his strength and helpless to beat him off the man scurries for shelter, ð140Þ leaving his flocks abandoned, piled in heaps one on another and in one furious bound the beast clears the high fence – so raging Diomedes mauled the Trojans. (after Fagles trans.) δὴ τότε μιν τρὶς τόσσον ἕλεν μένος, ὥς τε λέοντα, ὅν ῥά τε ποιμὴν ἀγρῷ ἐπ’ εἰροπόκοις ὀΐεσσι χραύσῃ μέν τ’ αὐλῆς ὑπεράλμενον οὐδὲ δαμάσσῃ· τοῦ μέν τε σθένος ὦρσεν, ἔπειτα δέ τ’ οὐ προσαμύνει, ἀλλὰ κατὰ σταθμοὺς δύεται, τὰ δ’ ἐρῆμα φοβεῖται· ð140Þ αἱ μέν τ’ ἀγχιστῖναι ἐπ’ ἀλλήλῃσι κέχυνται, αὐτὰρ ὁ ἐμμεμαὼς βαθέης ἐξάλλεται αὐλῆς· ὣς μεμαὼς Τρώεσσι μίγη κρατερὸς Διομήδης.
On the spot (δὴ τότε), the strength that Athena instills in Diomedes bursts through him (“three times as much fury,” τρὶς τόσσον . . . μένος), likening him to a lion. The expression “three times as much” is used elsewhere in Homeric epic when characters talk about quantities of physical items that measure value for – and sometimes, the value of – the speaker or addressee. Here, perhaps, this phrasing aligns us with Diomedes’ own
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Homer Iliad: Leadership and Loss
experience of his surging power and his delight in feeling that power within him. The other characters and the setting follow closely on the heels of the lion: a shepherd in a pasture area who is responsible for a flock of woolly sheep. But after the first full verse of the simile (.), nothing has happened yet. Instead, the characters and their connections with each other – rather than specific details of those connections – set the stage for the rest of the simile. Once the scene gets under way (.), each character does something forceful that threatens or violates the spaces of the others, beginning with the shepherd. Twice the shepherd engages with the lion (χραύσῃ, .; ὦρσεν, .) only to fail both times to subdue it (οὐδὲ δαμάσσῃ, .; οὐ προσαμύνει, .). When he cannot get the lion under control, he goes into the sheep’s pens. We rush about with the shepherd as he tries to ward off the intruder – he is the subject of five verbs in the span of less than three verses – but in the end, he is unable to protect his flock. The sheep, too, are portrayed in intensely physical terms. They are introduced in . with their defining quality, their fleece (εἰροπόκοις ὀΐεσσι). This rare adjective brings the sheep onto the scene with a whiff of the distinctive feel, smell, and visual appearance of their wool. After the shepherd disappears into the animal pens, we rejoin the sheep. Left alone without protection from either their shepherd or their pens, they flee from the lion in terror, causing a disorderly pileup of frightened animals packed tightly against one another. The plight of the abandoned sheep is literally embodied by the press of their bodies, in which the reciprocal pronoun ἀλλήλῃσι gives a paradoxical cooperative or collaborative coloring to a scene where the animals are endangering themselves in the absence of their shepherd. As they are tumbling over each other, the lion jumps out of the pen (.), a physically demanding feat because the pen – which was simply a “pen” when the lion entered it in . – has a high fence around it (βαθέης). The lion on its way out of the sheepfold and Diomedes entering the fray are linked by their eagerness for action (ἐμμεμαώς . ~ μεμαώς .). The simile places us within the experiences of each character in turn, beginning and ending with the lion but devoting the bulk of its attention in between to the shepherd and his sheep. It describes the actions of each character in detail – attacking, leaping, entering, fleeing, heaping up – but does not offer explicit judgments or interpretations of what happens. Nonetheless, the sequence of events, contextualized by our expectations about how each of these simile characters customarily behaves, implicitly comments on the scene. The actions of the shepherd, for example, have an
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. The Overmastered Shepherd
effect opposite not only to what he intends but also to his responsibilities to his flock. His sally against the attacking lion stirs it up instead of driving it off, and the creature who takes refuge inside a defensive enclosure from the undeterred lion is the shepherd himself rather than the sheep that he and the enclosure are supposed to protect. Although the simile goes into less detail about the sheep than about their shepherd, every word buries us under the physical reality of their fear in the absence of their shepherd. The simile sympathizes with the plight of the sheep – the scholia comment at various points on how it brings out their terror – but neither the simile nor the scholia criticize the lion as bad or problematic on their account. Even the ineffectual shepherd comes in for implicit rather than explicit criticism. The simile leaves some loose ends about the fate of various characters. After dwelling on the peril menacing the sheep, it does not say whether any of them were killed by the lion whose only actions in the simile are jumping in and out of the sheep’s pen. A pile of anxious animals would describe live or dead sheep equally aptly (bT scholion, .). The adjective “in heaps” (ἀγχιστῖναι, .) not only gives a vivid physical shape to the sheep’s plight, but it also poses unanswerable questions about their fate. If sheep have been killed, why does the simile not say so? But if they are unharmed, why is the lion in high spirits when it leaves their pen? There is no way to know. Just as the simile itself leaves key questions unanswered, so too the connections between the simile and the story open gaps that are as important as the contents to understanding this passage. Chief among them is the story analogue to the shepherd who is the main character in the simile. He is the subject of the largest number of verbs, and the longest stretch of the simile focuses on him. The story equivalents of Diomedes and the sheep are evidently the lion and the sheep, respectively, each of whom plays a key role in the story immediately before and after the simile. By process of elimination, the shepherd can only refer to Pandarus, in that he is responsible for wounding Diomedes, but the differences between the two are as compelling as the similarities, raising questions about the role of “leader” that resonate beyond this passage. Pandarus, far from being a Trojan leader, takes no initiative in this scene beyond giving Diomedes a nonfatal arrow wound. His vaunt to his fellow Trojans after hitting Diomedes receives no response (.–), and then he disappears from the story until Aeneas enlists his help to stop Diomedes (.–). While the shepherd in the simile is a flawed leader who tries his best and fails, Pandarus is not a leader at all. Moreover, it is very unusual for a key simile character to correspond to a story character as distant from the simile as Pandarus is. The loose and unsatisfactory
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Homer Iliad: Leadership and Loss
connection between Pandarus and the simile shepherd reveals something new not about Pandarus (as Kirk : suggests) but about the Iliad. Many of its similes highlight the theme of a missing or flawed leader with a leader character who falls short of his responsibilities, a vague or nonexistent story analogue for the simile leader character or both. The similes, no less than the story, make flawed leaders and their suffering people into one of the poem’s main themes. This simile invites us inside the experiences of each character, including the predator, who is bursting with the same high-spirited persistence we admire in Diomedes even as the lion endangers both the shepherd and his flock. Such even-handed engagement with the different kinds of harm suffered by each participant in a violent encounter lies at the heart of both the story and simile worlds of the Iliad. Even when several characters experience harm and loss in the same situation, they often have contradictory motivations and desires. All are depicted with the same clear-eyed and sympathetic detail. Simile animals, with or without a shepherd, by definition bring forward several different perspectives on the same incident. Regardless of its species, an animal is “same yet different” in comparison to a human being, just as a simile is “same yet different” alongside the mythological story. And a scene of two (or more) species of animal involves various characters who are “same yet different” from one another.
. The Simile World of the Iliad Animals are a part of the natural world, which menaces human beings with bad weather, fierce predators, and raging rivers and oceans. At the same time, animals have a lot in common with humans through both shared characteristics and shared relationships. In the simile world, animals are attached to their fellow creatures, both members of their own kind – especially their offspring – and their human caretakers. Yet the instincts that drive animals of different species to attack and kill one another portray human fighters who attack one another as bestial (Létoublon : –). The varied experiences and perspectives within animal similes featuring more than one species – and especially in similes that include a shepherd alongside different kinds of animals – are particularly well suited to “exploring the motives and reactions of victor and victim, predator and prey” (Lonsdale : ). Both the lust to kill and the capacity to sympathize with enemies who are harmed by violence are basic features of human nature that deserve our sympathy, understanding, and respect. The different experiences that coexist within animal similes – including
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. The Simile World of the Iliad
but not limited to herding scenes – help to make the Iliad a story of the universal grandeur and sorrow of war rather than one of Greek triumphalism or antiwar despair. The themes of “failed leadership” and “varied perspectives” converge in the Iliad’s conception of leadership, which is defined by the social bonds between a leader and his people. The leader is inseparable from the experiences of those he leads, just as the fate of a group rests on the conduct of their leader. Neither can be understood without the other. The travails of the shepherd as he labors, often in vain, to protect his flocks from predators, bad weather, and his own shortcomings evoke the group dynamics between leaders and their men among both the Greek and the Trojan forces. Shepherding similes invite us to reflect on the qualities that define a successful leader and on what happens when an effective leader is absent. The simile and story worlds meet in the common Homeric metaphor “shepherd of the people” (ποιμένι/α λαῶν, Haubold : –). The experiences of the shepherd lay bare the challenges facing human beings who try to protect weaker creatures under their care and invite us to think about how capable they are of combatting threats to themselves and their flocks. The simile world of shepherding has as much force as the mythological story in telling the Iliad’s tale of human valor overmatched by stronger forces arrayed against it. Shepherds in Iliad similes, much more than those in other epic poems, regularly fail in their responsibilities because of their own shortcomings, just as the story returns again and again to problems of leadership for both Greeks and Trojans. The shepherd in Book , for instance, is not explicitly criticized for taking refuge in the steading rather than coming to the aid of his sheep, but at the same time, the sequence of events contrasts his relative safety with the exposed position of his flock. Other Iliad shepherds who fail to protect their animals are foolish (ποιμένος ἀφραδίῃσι, .), absent (.–, .–), afraid (μάλα γὰρ χλωρὸν δέος αἱρεῖ, .), or are simply unable to ward off a predator (.–). Even situations that contain no explicit judgment, as when the shepherd is absent, take on a negative coloring alongside shepherding similes in other epic poems, none of which includes shepherding scenes where animals are harmed because their shepherd was not there. In this larger simile world of “shepherds in epic similes over time,” simply mentioning the fact that the shepherd is not there suggests that he should have been present to come to the aid of his animals. In the last quarter of the Iliad after Patroclus has been killed, Achilles himself grapples with the loss and sorrow that results when a leader does
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Homer Iliad: Leadership and Loss
not do his job. In the first flush of his grief, he tells Thetis that instead of defending his dead comrade (ἑταίρῳ κτεινομένῳ ἐπαμῦναι, .–), he sat uselessly beside the Greek ships (ἧμαι παρὰ νηυσὶν ἐτώσιον ἄχθος ἀρούρης, .). This statement casts Achilles’ anguish over the deadly results of his absence from the battlefield in essentially the same terms as the distinctive Iliad similes in which animals die because their shepherd was not there. Thus, what might appear at first glance to be trifling details of the Iliad simile world are in fact unique to the Iliad. These details help to narrate one of the poem’s most important themes. Several herding similes in addition to .– lack a clear story analogue to the figure of the shepherd, prompting us to ask ourselves where the leader figure in the story might be. The audience, like the inhabitants of the simile world or the soldiers in battle, looks around and asks “who is in charge here?” The slippage that arises between the leader figure depicted in these similes and the lack of a clear analogue in the adjacent story points to leadership failings among both the Greeks and the Trojans. Such gaps offer implied criticism of both sides, including similes at the height of Hector’s aristeia – a warrior’s “best moment” when he “sweeps all before him” (Allan : ) – that allude to the leadership of Achilles (.–, .–) and Hector (.–, .–). This renders the idea of “absent or deficient leader” not just a central theme of the Iliad but also one of the qualities that unites both Greeks and Trojan fighters. Similes clearly identify who commits a violent act, but in the absence of effective leadership, it may be less obvious which character is responsible for repairing or containing the damage. In a comparison of Hector to a lion as he drives the frightened Greek soldiers away from their beleaguered ships, the lion attacks and kills a cow by outwitting an inexpert shepherd, a herding character with no obvious equivalent in the story. The shepherd in this simile prompts two critiques of leadership that operate on different narrative levels. Within the simile, his actions contribute to the harm that befalls his flock, and he does not have a clear analogy in the story. This gap between the simile leader and the story is itself one of the ways that leaders go missing from the mythological story. Although the analogy between the beleaguered animals in this simile and the Greeks points to Achilles as the “shepherd,” he is anything but inexperienced. If the shepherd in this simile does indeed bring Achilles to mind, the difference between the failings of the shepherd and those of Achilles raises question not only about the effects of Achilles’ absence from the fighting but also more fundamentally about the nature of effective leadership.
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. The Simile World of the Iliad
Iliad 15.629–37 So the Achaeans’ courage quaked. And Hector lunged again like a lion mad for kills, charging cattle ð630Þ grazing across the flats of a broad marshy pasture, flocks by the hundred led by an inexperienced herdsman helpless to keep the marauder off a longhorn heifer – no fighting that bloody slaughter – all he can do is keep pace with the lead or straggling cattle, ð635Þ leaving the center free for the big cat’s pounce and it eats a heifer as the rest stampede away. And so the Achaeans stampeded now, unearthly terror, routed now by Father Zeus and Hector – (after Fagles trans.) ὣς ἐδαΐζετο θυμὸς ἐνὶ στήθεσσιν Ἀχαιῶν. αὐτὰρ ὅ γ’ [Hector] ὥς τε λέων ὀλοόφρων βουσὶν ἐπελθών, ð630Þ αἵ ῥά τ’ ἐν εἱαμενῇ ἕλεος μεγάλοιο νέμονται μυρίαι, ἐν δέ τε τῇσι νομεὺς οὔ πω σάφα εἰδὼς θηρὶ μαχέσσασθαι ἕλικος βοὸς ἀμφὶ φονῇσιν· ἤτοι ὁ μὲν πρώτῃσι καὶ ὑστατίῃσι βόεσσιν αἰὲν ὁμοστιχάει, ὁ δέ τ’ ἐν μέσσῃσιν ὀρούσας ð635Þ βοῦν ἔδει, αἱ δέ τε πᾶσαι ὑπέτρεσαν· ὣς τότ’ Ἀχαιοὶ θεσπεσίως ἐφόβηθεν ὑφ’ Ἕκτορι καὶ Διὶ πατρὶ . . ..
Whereas .– introduces the three main characters in the simile one after the other – the lion, the animal group, and their herder – this simile starts with the lion nipping at the heels of the herd while the shepherd is nowhere in sight. His inadequacy for his work begins in the first words of the simile where he is not even mentioned. The cattle are besieged from all sides in the Greek word order as well as in the story, because the word “cattle” falls right between “lion” and “charging” (λέων ὀλοόφρων βουσὶν ἐπελθών, .). From there, we wander off with the herd into a broad pasture (ἐν εἱαμενῇ ἕλεος μεγάλοιο, .) where the herd is grazing when the lion attacks. Rather than leading his animals, the herder – in both the events of the simile story and the sequence of its language – comes belatedly onto the scene as a sort of sidekick to his herd, milling around in a relative clause about the cows that ominously focuses on his lack of prior experience in precisely the kind of dangerous situation that the simile has already told us is about to happen. Although the lion is the first character mentioned in the simile, it does not actually arrive until the simile is nearly over. Instead, it looms over the peaceful and oblivious cattle (.–) and their herdsman (.–) whose coming encounter with the lion is clearly if implicitly heralded by the correlative ὁ μέν (.) that refers to him as he keeps pace with the animals at the edges
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Homer Iliad: Leadership and Loss
of his herd. In less than one line, the lion (ὁ δέ, .) leaps into the unguarded middle of the group and eats a cow, scattering the rest of the animals in terror. The scholia rightly single out the shepherd’s inexperience as key to this simile. A bT scholion on .– characterizes this simile with approval (εἰκότως) as “something novel” (τι καινόν) among scenes of this type. The same scholion goes on to describe the shepherd as a “novice . . . lacking know-how” (πρωτόπειρος . . . ἀνεπιστήμων). Another bT comment (on .–) says that a more experienced herder would bring dogs or torches to fight a wild beast: ὁ γὰρ ἔμπειρος τῆς πρὸς τὸ θηρίον μάχης ἢ κύνας προσαφῆκεν ἢ λαμπάδας προσάγει. Because this shepherd does not yet (πω) know how to do his job, the killing of one of his cattle is his fault. It happens because he does not have the right skills for his work. At the same time, inexperience happens to everyone, and “not yet” suggests that if a similar situation were to arise again in the future, the shepherd might do a better job. His mistake here arises from a temporary shortcoming rather than an insuperable limitation or a personality flaw. The simile does not blame or criticize the shepherd for being unequal to the threat against his animals, but neither does it shy away from the cost of his inadequacy. Since this simile focuses on the terror that Hector and Zeus visit on the Greek forces, it is the Greek leadership whose performance is questioned. Elsewhere, shepherding similes raise the same kinds of questions about the Trojan leadership. When various Greek fighters kill individual Trojan opponents, a simile comparing them to a pack of wolves opens a comparable gap where the Trojan leadership should be. Here, the shepherd is peripheral and ineffective when his animals are attacked by a predator.
Iliad 16.351–59 So in a rush each Argive captain killed his man. As wolves come swooping down on lambs or kids ravenous to snatch them away from right amidst their flock – scattered in the hills by their shepherd’s heedlessness, and quickly spotting a chance the wolf pack picks them off, ð355Þ no heart for the fight – so the Achaeans mauled the Trojans. Shrieking flight the one thing on the Trojans’ minds, they forgot their fighting-fury . . . Great Ajax now – forever aiming at Hector. trying to strike his helmet flashing bronze . . . (after Fagles trans.)
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. The Simile World of the Iliad
οὗτοι ἄρ’ ἡγεμόνες Δαναῶν ἕλον ἄνδρα ἕκαστος. ὡς δὲ λύκοι ἄρνεσσιν ἐπέχραον ἢ ἐρίφοισι σίνται, ὑπὲκ μήλων αἱρεύμενοι, αἵ τ’ ἐν ὄρεσσι ποιμένος ἀφραδίῃσι διέτμαγεν· οἱ δὲ ἰδόντες αἶψα διαρπάζουσιν ἀνάλκιδα θυμὸν ἐχούσας· ð355Þ ὣς Δαναοὶ Τρώεσσιν ἐπέχραον· οἱ δὲ φόβοιο δυσκελάδου μνήσαντο, λάθοντο δὲ θούριδος ἀλκῆς. Αἴας δ’ ὁ μέγας αἰὲν ἐφ’ Ἕκτορι χαλκοκορυστῇ ἵετ’ ἀκοντίσσαι . . ..
Once again, the scene opens with the predator, in this case a group of wolves, attacking weaker animals that are either lambs or kids. From there, each sentence brings all the animals together. All four verses of the simile (.–) mention the wolves (in bold), the young prey animals (in italics), and some action of attack or threat (underlined). The experience of the wolves and of the group of young victims gradually emerges from these repeated descriptions of their encounter, each of which adds a fresh detail or two to the scene. Many of these details create sympathy for the prey (T scholion). At first, they are young creatures (.); later, we are told that they are female – and thus implicitly mothers (., ) – and timid (.). The shepherd, meanwhile, is solitary and ineffectual. We barely notice him, all alone in a parenthetical aside explaining that the prey animals are scattered in the mountains because of the “shepherd’s heedlessness” (αἵ τ’ ἐν ὄρεσσι / ποιμένος ἀφραδίῃσι διέτμαγεν, .–). Isolated from both other humans and his own flock, he is the only solitary character in a scene where all the other creatures appear in groups. And just as he seems detached from the simile action in which he appears, so too the lack of an obvious story analogue for him creates a blank where we might expect to find a Trojan military leader. All characters in this simile behave similarly to the characters in shepherding similes where the attacker corresponds to a Trojan rather than a Greek fighter. And all of them invite our participation and sympathy throughout. We leap, chase, and grab along with a lion or wolf, often but not always motivated by the universal instinct of hunger; we cower or run when prey tries to escape, a gripping experience whether the result is to scatter the flock or to pile it up in terrified disorder; and we suffer difficulty, fear, and loss as herders fail to keep their animals safe. Like the mythological story, similes build up their narratives in different ways. Some create detailed portraits of each of the characters in turn before the scene comes to a head when they clash with one another. Others intertwine predator and prey throughout. But on all sides, we experience
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Homer Iliad: Leadership and Loss
sympathy for every character, and we encounter shepherds who fall short of their responsibilities. Flawed leaders are most common among shepherds, but craft scenes in the simile world of the Iliad contain missing guides and mentors as well. In seafaring, one of the most common forms of craft in the Iliad, a group of sailors work together to sail their ship. Such scenes provide glimpses of how people relate to each other and to their environment on board a sailing ship. Here, too, individual leaders are missing from the simile world of the Iliad. Whereas seafaring similes in post-Homeric epic may focus either on a group of sailors or an individual helmsman, in the Iliad, sailors and rowers appear only in groups. For instance, during the fighting in Book , a simile conflict blows up between a blast of stormy weather at sea and a ship of sailors. This scene shows the sailors at the mercy of the elements not only because the elements are so powerful and frightening but also because the two main combatants are the ship and the weather while the human beings play a less active role.
Iliad 15.624–28 . . . as a wave bursts down on a fast ship, down from under the clouds it batters, bred by gale-winds – ð625Þ showers of foam overwhelm the hull, blot it all from sight, the hurricane’s fearsome blast thundering into the sails and scudding clear of death by the skin of their teeth the sailors quake, their hearts race on with terror. (after Fagles trans.) ὡς ὅτε κῦμα θοῇ ἐν νηῒ πέσῃσι λάβρον ὑπαὶ νεφέων ἀνεμοτρεφές· ἡ δέ τε πᾶσα ð625Þ ἄχνῃ ὑπεκρύφθη, ἀνέμοιο δὲ δεινὸς ἀήτης ἱστίῳ ἐμβρέμεται, τρομέουσι δέ τε φρένα ναῦται δειδιότες· τυτθὸν γὰρ ὑπὲκ θανάτοιο φέρονται·
The central characters in this scene are the wave and the ship. Just as a simile about an animal attack begins by naming each of the characters, here, too, the first few words juxtapose the attacking wave (κῦμα, .) and the threatened ship (θοῇ ἐν νηΐ). As details pile up, the wave, the ship, and a booming gust of wind engulf us in turn. Streams of wind, water, and sound roar through the simile. The power of the wind is conveyed not simply through the noise it makes in the sail but with the subjective experience it arouses, even though no human characters have yet appeared in the simile. “Fearsome” (δεινός, .) refers to the emotional response created by the blast of wind. This response might evoke the sailors – who have not yet been mentioned – as passive and all-but-absent participants in
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. Similes and the Iliad Story World
the scene, or it might pull us inside the terrifying experience of a storm at sea, or both. When the sailors finally make their entrance, they are buffeted by fear just as their ship has been buffeted by waves and wind (τρομέουσι . . . δεδιότες, .–). Even though the sailors go on to survive this encounter (τυτθὸν γὰρ ὑπὲκ θανάτοιο φέρονται, .), they seem to survive almost as a matter of chance. They appear at the end of the simile after several nonsentient forces battle one another; they do nothing to control their ship; and the helmsman – who would be responsible for plotting a course out of the storm – is never mentioned. At sea as well as on land, human leadership that might keep the violence and destruction of the natural world at bay is often nowhere to be found.
. Similes and the Iliad Story World ..
Battle: Stalemate
More than half of the similes in the Iliad describe individual named fighters on the battlefield. But similes also enrich scenes that have often been treated as boring, unimportant, or atypical, such as battlefield stalemates or the emotions of key characters. For instance, many battlefield similes depict groups of Greeks and Trojans as a single fighting force. These “unifying” similes appear often during deadlocks in the fight over the Greek ships that drags on throughout Books –, especially in Book as the Trojans begin attacking the wall protecting the ships. The Iliad has often been seen as defined by the sympathy and respect it has for both the individual heroes on each side and the sufferings of their bereaved families (e.g. Rutherford : –). The books-long stalemate at the Greek ships paints the same kind of unifying and sympathetic portrait of the Greek and Trojan fighters as groups, a broader view of battle that complements the plentiful scenes of individual combat. To be sure, this section of the story and these similes are not among the most widely admired parts of the Iliad. The Preface of Clay begins by with memorable panache: “When the definitive work on the tedium of great art is written . . . a shoe-in for a substantial entry would be the Iliad’s Catalogue of Ships and especially the so-called Battle Books, by which I mainly mean Books –” (ix). But what so many readers have seen as repetitive, tedious, and dull in fact establishes a key theme of both battle narrative and the Iliad as a whole, not to mention the entire years of the Trojan War: the parity and at times even the indistinguishability of Greeks and Trojans. Similes play a central role in creating this picture.
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Homer Iliad: Leadership and Loss
The Trojans open their attack on the Greek ships drawn up on the beach before the city of Troy with repeated assaults on the defensive wall that protects the fleet. Rocks hurled from the Greek fortifications (.–) compared to a whirling cloud of snow that falls to earth in a blast of wind (.–) become a pile of missiles from the hands of both Greeks and Trojans that strike the armor of both sides indiscriminately (.–). After the two Ajaxes exhort the Greeks (.–), the conclusion to their speech is immediately followed by one of the longest similes in the Iliad describing the many things that are covered up by a fall of snow (.–). Although the specific point of comparison in the story is not stated until after the simile ends – it begins (in an ungracefully literal translation of the Greek) “And they, as storms of snow descend to the ground incessant on a winter day . . .” ([μάχην ὤτρυνον Ἀχαιῶν.] / τῶν δ’, ὥς τε νιφάδες χιόνος πίπτωσι θαμειαὶ / ἤματι χειμερίῳ, .–) – the sequence of ideas suggests that the simile refers to some assault that the Greek fighters have launched, perhaps throwing or shooting, in response to the Ajaxes’ speech. But the story after the simile says something quite different.
Iliad 12.287–89 . . . now so thick-and-fast they volleyed rocks from both sides, some at the Trojans, some from Trojans against Argives, salvos landing . . . (Fagles trans.) ὣς τῶν ἀμφοτέρωσε λίθοι πωτῶντο θαμειαί, αἱ μὲν ἄρ’ ἐς Τρῶας, αἱ δ’ ἐκ Τρώων ἐς Ἀχαιούς, βαλλομένων·
Instead of glorifying a valiant Greek attack that responds to the stirring words of the Ajaxes, the simile’s picture of snow that covers up everything under a single, featureless blanket turns out to introduce a cloud of airborne objects that comes from both sides and that afflicts both sides equally, just as the snow covers up everything it falls on. Both the reciprocal ἀμφοτέρωσε and the parallelism of “some at the Trojans, some from Trojans against Argives” (αἱ μὲν ἄρ’ ἐς Τρῶας, αἱ δ’ ἐκ Τρώων ἐς Ἀχαιούς) bring out the common experience of these boulders on both sides. These similes convey that even when we think we know which side is which, or who is in the ascendant, we may be wrong, or the situation may change quickly and unexpectedly. Such a fluid and unpredictable course of events implies two evenly matched opponents.
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. Similes and the Iliad Story World
In a different kind of stalemate narrative in which the points of contact between the simile and the story remain more or less constant both before and after the simile, the main theme that emerges is the fundamental sameness of Greek and Trojan fighters. A cluster of similes near the end of Book deepens the impasse between the two sides by emphasizing how alike they are. The narrative alternates between story about the military deadlock between the two sides and similes of human activities that involve either a standoff or a more literal, concrete kind of balancing. Each element of this section of the narrative is expansive, unusual, or both, drawing out the narrative as a way of immersing us in the lack of movement in the battle. First, two parallel pairs of verses describe the inability of either side to accomplish its military objectives.
Iliad 12.417–20 Stalwart Lycians could not force the Achaeans back, breach their wall and burst through to the ships, nor could Achaean spearmen hurl the Lycians back, clear of the rampart, once they’d made their stand. (, after Fagles trans.) οὔτε γὰρ ἴφθιμοι Λύκιοι Δαναῶν ἐδύναντο τεῖχος ῥηξάμενοι θέσθαι παρὰ νηυσὶ κέλευθον, οὔτε ποτ’ αἰχμηταὶ Δαναοὶ Λυκίους ἐδύναντο τείχεος ἂψ ὤσασθαι, ἐπεὶ τὰ πρῶτα πέλασθεν. ð420Þ
The repeated sentence structure “neither [modifier praising some battlerelated attribute] [subject] [direct object] could [infinitive of physical action] the wall” places the Lycians and the Greeks right beside each other twice in the two descriptions of how each side is falling short at the wall. One verse says, “the Xs were powerless against the Ys” (. ~ .), and the next verse explains the physical action that the Xs were unsuccessfully trying to carry out against their enemies the Ys (. ~ .) with the first word in both . and . being the allimportant wall (τεῖχος) that is the focus of both of their efforts. The close parallelism of this structure calls attention to itself and to the shared experience of the Greek and Lycian fighters, acting out in the sequence of words its point that the two sides are the same even as they are trying to defeat each other. The simile that describes the stalemate, a unique image of two men quarreling over the boundaries of a field, offers the same paradoxical combination of sameness and conflict.
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Homer Iliad: Leadership and Loss
Iliad 12.421–24 As two farmers wrangle hard over boundary-stones, measuring rods in hand, locked in a common field, and fight it out on the cramped contested strip for equal shares of turf – so now the rocky bastion split the troops apart . . . (Fagles trans.) ἀλλ’ ὥς τ’ ἀμφ’ οὔροισι δύ’ ἀνέρε δηριάασθον, μέτρ’ ἐν χερσὶν ἔχοντες, ἐπιξύνῳ ἐν ἀρούρῃ, ὥ τ’ ὀλίγῳ ἐνὶ χώρῳ ἐρίζητον περὶ ἴσης, ὣς ἄρα τοὺς διέεργον ἐπάλξιες·
The scene opens with boundary stones, which both literally and figuratively place us inside the field that the two men are fighting about. The meaning of the words that first introduce the two quarreling characters, “two farmers wrangle hard” (δύ’ ἀνέρε δηριάασθον, .), is contradicted by their grammatical form: both the subject and the verb are in the dual, a grammatical number that sometimes simply means “two” but that is often used for identical things that always come in pairs, such as eyes, hands, or feet. The verb embodies the paradox that this simile describes: the dual form implies unity and sameness while its semantic meaning “struggled, contended” is difference. This beginning, a clearly demarcated space within which a pair of people get into a fight, sets the stage for the rest of the simile. The disagreement between the two neighbors unfolds in a tangible physical landscape shaped not just by the boundary stones but also by the measuring instruments the men are carrying, the common field in which their disagreement takes place, and the cramped size of the area that they are disputing over. The two wrangling disputants and the vivid landscape in which they are arguing create a world in which we can easily imagine ourselves. The end of the simile restates the opening contradiction between grammar and meaning with another verb in the dual that means “fight it out” (ἐρίζητον, .). Just as two individual warriors or two groups of soldiers can have a single experience together with their enemies, so too these countrymen are a unity even as they disagree. And, like two enemies who both want to win a war, the two neighbors agree that they want their fair share (περὶ ἴσης, .) even though they struggle to reach a consensus about what that might be. The fighting after this simile makes no reference to a specific side (.–). Instead, “many were wounded” (πολλοὶ δ’ οὐτάζοντο, .), Greeks and Trojans alike. When an ethnic designation is included,
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. Similes and the Iliad Story World
it is enmeshed in reciprocal language and parallelism that combine the experiences of both sides in one river of blood (πύργοι καὶ ἐπάλξιες αἵματι φωτῶν / ἐρράδατ’ ἀμφοτέρωθεν ἀπὸ Τρώων καὶ Ἀχαιῶν, .–). At this point, the beginning of a further simile refers to the Greeks, but – as with the previous simile about wrangling countrymen – the story resumes after the simile with general “fighting” rather than highlighting one side over the other.
Iliad 12.432–38 But still the Trojans could not rout the Argives. They held tight as a working widow holds the scales, painstakingly grips the beam and lifts the weight and the wool together, balancing both sides even, struggling to win a grim subsistence for her children. ð435Þ So powerful armies drew their battle line dead even till, at last, Zeus gave Hector the son of Priam the greater glory . . . (Fagles trans.) . . . οὐδ’ ὧς ἐδύναντο φόβον ποιῆσαι Ἀχαιῶν, ἀλλ’ ἔχον ὥς τε τάλαντα γυνὴ χερνῆτις ἀληθής, ἥ τε σταθμὸν ἔχουσα καὶ εἴριον ἀμφὶς ἀνέλκει ἰσάζουσ’, ἵνα παισὶν ἀεικέα μισθὸν ἄρηται ð435Þ ὣς μὲν τῶν ἐπὶ ἶσα μάχη τέτατο πτόλεμός τε, πρίν γ’ ὅτε δὴ Ζεὺς κῦδος ὑπέρτερον Ἕκτορι δῶκε Πριαμίδῃ . . ..
Here the ideas that unite the story and the simile – holding steady (ἔχον, .; ἔχουσα, .) at a balanced point of equilibrium and equality (ἰσάζουσ’, .; ἐπὶ ἶσα, .; cf. περὶ ἴσης, .) – bring together the Greeks and the Trojans into a single “battle” (πόλεμος) until Zeus tips the balance for the Trojans by granting “glory” (κῦδος) to Hector. At the same time, the mother’s care for her children’s livelihood, which takes up the last third of the simile (.), has no analogue in the story. Once again, a leader figure in a simile opens a gap in the story world where no leader is to be found, prompting us to wonder whether any story character feels the kind of watchful concern for either the Greeks or the Trojans that this mother devotes to her children. The narrative in this passage goes to great lengths to make the Greeks and the Trojans the same. Some of this equivalence takes place in the story. As we have seen, the story includes both extensive parallelisms that act out the meaning of the words and detailed descriptions of the fighting that depict battle as a single experience befalling an undifferentiated group
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Homer Iliad: Leadership and Loss
of people. Some of the equivalence arises from similes that show human beings engaged in activities that turn on balance or sameness, even (or especially) where the story context is a conflict. These similes emphasize that conflict and difference are not the same thing. And some of the equivalence between the two sides happens in the transition points between the similes and the adjacent story, which sometimes emphasize the sameness of the two sides throughout and sometimes subsume the experience of one side into the broader context of “dead even battle line” (ἐπὶ ἶσα μάχη . . . πτόλεμός τε, .). The quantity and variety of simile features that draw our attention to the similarities between the two sides fighting in the Trojan War make this sameness into a key theme of the battle narrative of the Iliad. Stalemate similes first arrive in the poem with the beginning of sustained fighting between the two sides (.–), but the idea of a single fighting community that comprises both Greeks and Trojans essentially disappears after the two Ajaxes rescue the corpse of Patroclus from the Trojans in Book . To be sure, the focus on battle in Books – is on individuals more than on groups, but at the same time, groups are a real presence in the fighting prior to the death of Patroclus. Indeed, the killings of key Greek and Trojan heroes in the climactic fighting in Book are woven into a fabric of their comrades on both sides, which leads to fierce battles to defend their corpses after they have died. Both Patroclus and Hector, the two most prominent warriors during the period when Achilles is refusing to fight, regularly exhort their troops and fight alongside them. Achilles is a different kind of character than either Hector or Patroclus and a different warrior. After he returns to battle in Book to avenge his beloved Patroclus, we do not see him among other Greeks on the battlefield. Instead, his aristeia in Books – consists of a series of individual encounters between him and various Trojans, culminating in the death of Hector in Book . By preference, Achilles goes out alone against Hector: he actively forbids the other Greeks from participating as he chases Hector around the city (.–). Neither here nor anywhere else in the Iliad does Achilles fight as part of a group of people as both Hector and Patroclus repeatedly do. Indeed, Achilles talks to his Myrmidons only when he sends them off to fight under the leadership of Patroclus instead of himself (.–). The warm and varied ties that bind Hector and Patroclus to other people represent one of the defining emotional features of the Iliad. These bonds emerge in part through battle similes that depict a single community of war raging around Hector and Patroclus. These two heroes
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. Similes and the Iliad Story World
often play key roles in the battle at points when such similes appear. For instance, Hector smashes the gate in the Greek wall after a long stalemate (.–) or the two sides battle over the corpse of Patroclus (e.g. .–). The prickly and unique solitude of Achilles throughout the Iliad can be seen in part by the absence of comrades, or vignettes of group unity in battle scenes in which he participates. This solitary manner of fighting helps to isolate Achilles and to distinguish him from the other characters in the poem without the group scenes or stalemates that similes have highlighted in the middle section of the Iliad. .. Clusters While simile clusters are a regular feature of many classical epic poems, the Iliad stands out because so many of its similes appear in clusters and because virtually all of its clustered similes are found in battle-related contexts. These groups of similes add various nuances to battle narrative, giving it expressive force and a larger thematic significance even at moments that seem to be trivial. The clusters at .– and .– emphasize a stalemate that does not budge, casting a lack of action as a kind of notable event. Many simile clusters present an encounter from the perspectives of both a small number of named fighters and the mass of warriors on one or both sides who are fighting around them, creating a sort of split screen equivalent viewing of individual and group. Some clusters track the progress of a single encounter, such as different stages in the wounding of a particular fighter or a series of assaults carried out by one character. Such sequences tend to highlight key exploits of central characters, including the wounding of Menelaus (.– and .–), the aristeia of Hector (.–, .–, and .–), the death of Sarpedon (.– and .–), and the struggle to claim the corpse of Patroclus (a series of five similes, .–). Still others depict an encounter between two enemies from the perspective of each participant in turn, thus giving each character a claim on our attention and interest. A cluster like this brings forward both combatants in a given encounter, giving each one the same prominence and attention. A cluster may also offer different vantage points on the same event that are not centered on a specific character. When Achilles is on the rampage after Patroclus’ death, he is described first by means of a fire simile (.–) and then by the grim detail that his horses are stepping on corpses and shields like oxen threshing grain (.–).
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In different ways, these clusters remind us that the same event looks different depending on the perspective from which we approach it. In the greatest Trojan military achievement in the Iliad, Hector closes in on the Greek fleet and ultimately sets one of its ships on fire. His advance and the Greek inability to stop it move forward in large part by means of a remarkable group of eight similes at the end of Book (.–). As the tide of Hector’s attacks rises against the Greeks and the fortunes of each side look good or bad, the similes bring forward many different perspectives ranging from Hector himself to individual Greek heroes and the Greeks as a group. Through the similes, a range of different experiences in the battle comes before us and then recedes into the background as another perspective takes center stage. Who is winning? Who feels threatened? Who is frightened, or exultant, or misguided? In a common thread running through both the similes and the story, the attacking force – whether it be Hector, an ocean wave, or a lion – causes fear and consternation but little physical harm. The similes both magnify Hector’s aristeia and show the limits of his power. Simply because of its size, this cluster brings a unique richness and intensity to Hector’s exploit. At the beginning of the series of eight comparisons, a pair of similes brings Hector to the fore as the Greek fighter Antilochus flees from him after killing Melanippus (.–); a series of four similes alternates between Hector’s repeated attacks and the response of the Greek forces, which repel Hector for a time before scattering in fear (.–); and finally, a pair of similes describes Ajax leaping onto the Greek ships to defend them against Hector as he gets close enough to take hold of the ship of Protesilaus (.–) and set it on fire early in Book . No other aristeia in the Iliad includes such a dense concentration of similes. Patroclus’ aristeia in Iliad contains more similes than Hector’s assault on the Greek ships, and they include a number of clusters, but the Patroclus similes in Book are more evenly spread across a longer stretch of narrative. Achilles’ aristeia, spanning Books –, includes similes – more than that of any other warrior – but as his aristeia is so spread out, it also becomes more diffuse because fewer of these similes appear as part of a cluster. For Hector, this dense concentration of similes raises his exploits to a poignant height from which he will fall, since the favor that Zeus now extends toward him and the Trojans will last only until one Greek ship has been burned (.–). Both the story and the first two similes dash to and fro as first Antilochus and then Hector gain the upper hand in the fighting. After fatally shooting Melanippus, Antilochus rushes at the corpse (ἐπόρουσε, .; θόρ’,
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. Similes and the Iliad Story World
.) like a dog leaping (ἀΐξῃ, .) on a fawn that a hunter has killed as it was bounding (θορόντα, .) out of its den. This simile consists almost entirely of actions. Both the hunter and the hunted move briskly, and none of the characters – even the deer, a simile character that is often timid or fleeing – tries to run away. But Antilochus’ triumph soon evaporates. In the second simile, as in the story, the rushing, leaping, and springing give way to flight as soon as a fresh attacker arrives. Forward motion now belongs to Hector (ἦλθε θέων, .) while Antilochus – and the wild animal to which he is compared at .– – retreats. All of the main verbs in .–, in fact, mean some version of “ran away” (οὐ μεῖνε, .; ἔτρεσε, .; φεύγει, .; τρέσε, .). While both simile and story show a key character fleeing, they differ in how the character presents the circumstances that drive him off. In the story, Antilochus runs away because Hector pursues him (ἀντίος ἦλθε θέων, .), but in the simile, the predator tries to escape from avengers who have not yet appeared (φεύγει πρίν περ ὅμιλον ἀολλισθήμεναι ἀνδρῶν, .). This mismatch between the avengers in the story versus the simile draws attention to the figure of “the avenger,” to the power of Hector as he breaks a stalemate and overpowers the Greeks. At the same time, the avenger is depicted at this point mainly through his effect on those whom he punishes, so that all the characters have a strong claim to our attention and sympathy. At the start of Hector’s successful drive to chase the Greeks away from their ships, his rage for battle is described at some length (.–), in part through a simile comparing it to Ares or a fire (.–). At first, he cannot break through the Greek line, which stands firm against him like a seaside cliff against the blasts of the wind and crashing waves (.–). Indeed, several similes describing Hector’s leadership in battle show him as an inanimate force rather than a sentient creature with ties to those whom he leads, a way of implying his limitations as a leader. However strong Hector the steadfast rock may be, he is not bound to those under his care with the ties that connect living creatures elsewhere in the simile world. Undaunted, Hector continues to attack the Greeks. The simile that describes his second attempt continues the ocean imagery of the previous simile, but now the fearsome wind and waves of Hector’s assault crash over a boatful of terrified sailors who barely escape with their lives (.–). When Hector redoubles his attack on the wavering Greeks (ὣς ἐδαΐζετο θυμὸς ἐνὶ στήθεσσιν Ἀχαιῶν, .), he is compared to a lion who attacks a herd of cows whose inexperienced herder fails to defend them (.–). After this second attack, the Greeks flee in terror (θεσπεσίως ἐφόβηθεν, .), but even so, Hector kills only one of them, Periphetes (). Nor is he able
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Homer Iliad: Leadership and Loss
to drive off all the Greek fighters. The last pair of similes describes Ajax as he stands his ground to defend the Greek ships (.–) and then Hector’s partially successful drive to push Ajax back (.–). Ajax does retreat, but only a short distance (.), and from his new position, he is still able to kill several Trojans who try to burn the ships (.–). These similes depict an escalating series of harmful incidents, but in each case, the simile characters as a group sustain little or no physical damage. For all their power, neither ocean wave does material injury to the object it encounters. The cliff in the first ocean simile is entirely unmoved (.–) as are the Greek forces, and the sailors in the second comparison are terrified, but they survive (.–). By contrast, the Greeks do not become frightened until after Hector attacks again. Like the lion in the adjacent simile (.–), Hector causes the whole group to flee but kills just one member of it. Indeed, the same thing might be said of Hector’s fighting more generally. He gets close enough to the Greek ships to set fire to them, but he burns only one; after burning Protesilaus’ ship (.–), he kills just two Greeks during the intense fighting in Book while Patroclus kills dozens. But the death of Hector’s final Greek victim, Achilles’ beloved companion Patroclus, drives the story for the last third of the poem. Indeed, it seals the dooms of both Hector and Achilles. These similes add meaning to one another and to the narrative at this point in the poem because they are physically close to each other. The power of the ocean is limited because there are two different similes that describe an ocean wave that causes no real damage (.– and .–). The death of the cow in the lion simile (.–) becomes more fearsome at the end of a crescendo of escalating scenes of harm than a single lion simile in which an animal is injured or killed. This kind of simile relationship complements what we learn from exploring individual similes in this cluster alongside other comparisons in the Iliad with the same subject. Reading these similes alongside others with the same subject produces one kind of “web” of meaning; reading them in a narrative sequence produces a different one; and reading them as part of the ongoing story of similes across multiple epic poems yields yet a third. The narrative of the Iliad is composed of all three. ..
Similes Outside of Battle
The battle scenes in the Iliad include more similes than battle narratives in the Argonautica, the Aeneid, or the Metamorphoses. In fact, what distinguishes the Iliad narrative from other epic poems is not its number of
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. Similes and the Iliad Story World
similes per se or even the association of similes with battle narrative, which can be seen in the Aeneid as well. It is the extremely high density of similes in the most intense battle sections of the poem, especially Books –. It would appear not only that the density of similes in Iliad battle narrative is unique to the Iliad but also that later poets understood the similes in the Iliad this way. That is, if the Iliad had set simile norms that later epic poets applied to themselves, we should see poems whose battle narratives feature the same concentration of similes as the Iliad does. Instead, different epics use similes in their battle sections in very different ways, and the evolution of the relationships between battle narrative and similes is one of the ongoing stories about how epic similes change and develop over time. While a high concentration of similes distinguishes the battle narrative in the Iliad from battle in other epic poems, the Iliad similes that appear outside battle scenes resemble those of other epics in both their subjects and the kinds of story features that they describe. Besides battle, the most common story subjects described by similes are emotions, injury and death, the gods, sound, and assorted human activities such as athletic competitions. The broad outlines of these nonbattle simile contexts are consistent from the Iliad through the Metamorphoses, but it is difficult to notice this when similes in the Iliad are treated largely as a function of battle narrative. Two complementary groups of similes shape the narrative of the Iliad: those related to battle that characterize the Iliad in particular and those that describe other features of the story, a coherent and cohesive group of similes in both the Iliad and later epics that have been hiding in plain sight. The largest group of nonbattle similes in the Iliad describes the feelings of mortal characters. Without exception, these similes describe Greek rather than Trojan heroes, and most of them explore feelings of anger, fear, sorrow, and loss that center on Achilles in particular. The evenhandedness of the Iliad in bringing forward the experience of the Trojan War for both sides does not extend to whose emotions are depicted by similes. The losses of both Greeks and Trojans are central to the Iliad, but in this key respect, those losses are depicted differently. The key word here is “differently.” It would be absurd to claim that similes somehow elevate the feelings of Achilles and his comrades above those of the various relations of Hector whose speeches of formal lament close the Iliad at an emotional pitch of raw feeling that has aroused passionate responses since antiquity. While speech brings to life the emotional peaks in the relations among Trojan characters – and it is no coincidence that both Books and ,
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Homer Iliad: Leadership and Loss
which depict emotional climaxes in the story of Hector, have very few similes and a great deal of direct speech – the tears and laments of Greek characters are regularly presented through similes alongside or sometimes instead of sorrowful speeches. These different narrative strategies give different textures but not different importance to the losses of the two sides in the Trojan War. When Achilles bewails his dead comrade Patroclus, a memorable simile compares him to a bereaved lion searching for its stolen cubs (.–). Yet none of the various Trojan laments for Hector includes a simile to describe the grief of the speakers. In many ways, Achilles’ grief for Patroclus here follows the conventions of formal lament. A wailing group of people (.–) provides a context, backdrop, and audience for a speech that a bereaved person addresses to the corpse of their dead loved one (.–). The formulaic expression “led a throbbing chant of sorrow” (ἁδινοῦ ἐξῆρχε γόοιο, .) regularly introduces laments, most often followed directly by the mourner’s speech. But this is the only lament in the Iliad that includes both a further description of the mourner touching the corpse of their loved one (.) and a simile (.–). The unique features of this simile dwell on the anger and grief of Achilles’ bereavement, bringing them to life for us in both their universality and their uniqueness.
Iliad 18.314–24 But all night long the Argives raised Patroclus’ dirge. ð315Þ And Achilles led them now in a throbbing chant of sorrow, laying his man-killing hands on his great friend’s chest, choked with bursts of grief. Like a bearded lion whose pride of cubs a deer-hunter has snatched away, out of some thick woods, and back he comes, too late, ð320Þ and his heart breaks but he goes after the hunter, hot on his tracks down glen on twisting glen – where can he find him? – gripped by piercing rage . . . so Achilles groaned, deeply, crying out to his Myrmidons, “Oh no! How empty the promise I let fall that day . . .” (after Fagles trans.) αὐτὰρ Ἀχαιοὶ παννύχιοι Πάτροκλον ἀνεστενάχοντο γοῶντες. ð315Þ τοῖσι δὲ Πηλεΐδης ἁδινοῦ ἐξῆρχε γόοιο, χεῖρας ἐπ’ ἀνδροφόνους θέμενος στήθεσσιν ἑταίρου, πυκνὰ μάλα στενάχων ὥς τε λὶς ἠϋγένειος, ᾧ ῥά θ’ ὑπὸ σκύμνους ἐλαφηβόλος ἁρπάσῃ ἀνὴρ
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ὕλης ἐκ πυκινῆς· ὁ δέ τ’ ἄχνυται ὕστερος ἐλθών, ð320Þ πολλὰ δέ τ’ ἄγκε’ ἐπῆλθε μετ’ ἀνέρος ἴχνι’ ἐρευνῶν, εἴ ποθεν ἐξεύροι· μάλα γὰρ δριμὺς χόλος αἱρεῖ· ὣς ὁ βαρὺ στενάχων μετεφώνεε Μυρμιδόνεσσιν· “ὢ πόποι, ἦ ῥ’ ἅλιον ἔπος ἔκβαλον ἤματι κείνῳ . . ..”
Most lion similes in battle inhabit the experiences of the lion, his prey, and perhaps a human character in turn to offer us different perspectives on a story incident. This vignette is all about the lion. As usual, the simile opens by introducing each of the characters (lion, cubs, hunter), but after the beginning, only the lion remains on the scene. The hunter is relevant only because he has taken the lion’s cubs. The simile shows no interest in his experience of being chased after he makes off with the youngsters or why he steals them in the first place. Unlike most lion similes in which the lion directly encounters prey animals, human characters, or both, this lion and the hunter never meet. The cubs, too, exist only in relation to the grief and anger they arouse in the parent lion. By contrast, the landscape where the lion ranges in search of the hunter is a vivid and engaging character in the scene. It is simultaneously full – of trees (ὕλης ἐκ πυκινῆς, .) and of space (πολλὰ δέ τ’ ἄγκε’ ἐπῆλθε, .) – but empty of any sentient beings other than the lion. This wild space has nothing in it except for the lion and his feelings. The landscape’s loneliness and that of the lion reinforce one another. The lion responds to losing his cubs with grief and anger and by chasing the thief to make good his loss. Grieved that he comes too late to protect the cubs (ὁ δέ τ’ ἄχνυται ὕστερος ἐλθών, .), the lion goes after (ἐπῆλθε, .) the man who took them. The repeated forms of ἔρχομαι (“come,” .; “go,” .) join cause and effect. The lion’s loss arises from how he “comes” – or, more precisely, does not come – and he responds to his loss by “coming” as well. The simile ends by exploring the lion’s motivations first from a strategic point of view and then an emotional one: he is tracking the thief in hopes of finding him because he is bitterly angry about the theft. Within a wide and lonely landscape, the simile depicts the physical and emotional experiences of a single character. Both the solitude and the feelings of the lion strike us even more forcefully if we place them within the wider simile and story worlds of the Iliad. Lions are at the top of the simile food chain, so to speak, in that they are the bravest and the most fearsome of all the animals in the simile world. All but one of the other lion similes in the Iliad appear in battle scenes where they bring out the strength and valor of fighters on both sides. While a lion’s attacks often fail and some lions are killed by men
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Homer Iliad: Leadership and Loss
and dogs defending domestic animals from assault, this is the only lion in the Iliad who suffers a bereavement rather than a defeat. The strongest animal in the simile world is unable to prevent the most basic and harmful attack possible on his own family. A lion simile describing the most powerful Greek warrior not on the battlefield but lamenting for a dead warrior links grief for a loved one with fighting as defining characteristics of battle in the Iliad. Animal similes depict characters interacting with one another, thus bringing out varied perspectives both within the simile and in the adjacent story. This is the only lion in the Iliad who never meets another creature. The variety in the simile comes not from different characters but from the lion’s emotions, which are thrown into high relief by the absence of the usual cast of characters who encounter lions elsewhere in the simile world. A loss for which we feel partially responsible, as when we fail to avoid a bad outcome that we could have prevented under different circumstances, makes us both sad (.) and angry (.). Some of our feelings are aimed at whoever wronged us and some at ourselves for allowing the wrong to happen. This lion, unlike most simile lions, is alone with his failure and his feelings. The events of the simile arouse our sympathy on their own, but if we approach this lion within the larger context of the simile world, we feel even more strongly his isolation from other creatures and the personal losses that no amount of power or strength can prevent.
. Emotional Ties between Leaders and Their Comrades Simile clusters can capture not only the different experiences of enemies in battle but also the feelings between leaders and those they lead. Several key moments of Greek sorrow and anxiety over their prospects in battle without Achilles are described with simile clusters. In one of these (.–.), Agamemnon and the Greeks are united by grief through two similes that describe their feelings with images of water (.–). Their feelings contrast not only with the delight of Hector described in the first of the three similes in the cluster (.–) but also with the disconnection between Hector and his troops that this simile implies. The same dark spring that describes the tears of Agamemnon (.–) also describes Patroclus weeping over the plight of his comrades (.–). In one of the rare instances where a character uses a simile, Achilles compares his beloved companion to a weeping girl in a much-discussed image whose interpretation remains a subject of lively debate (.–). This simile cluster immerses us in the gulf between the sorrowful Patroclus
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. Emotional Ties between Leaders and Their Comrades
and the irascible Achilles, using modes of expression more typically found on the battlefield to convey the fatal separation between these loving friends. The lack of agreement about how to interpret several of the similes in these clusters gives us a more powerful – and more true-to-life – experience of the feelings they represent than we would get from a more straightforward representation. .. Trojan and Greek Forces: .–. As night falls on the second day of battle, Hector and the Trojans prepare to rest overnight beyond the city walls while Agamemnon and the Greeks are anxious and grieved. A cluster of similes that spans the division between Books and describes each side in turn. The men’s feelings are the subject of each of the three similes, but in the various ways we have seen throughout the Iliad, they also shape the relations between each leader and his comrades. These similes strengthen our sense of the Greeks as a unit composed of several moving parts, but they leave us both confused and curious about how the Trojans function as a group. As the Trojans fetch supplies from the city, the first of three similes describes the number of Trojan campfires burning in front of the city with a scene of the night sky. The bulk of the simile blazes with stars, with a shepherd enjoying the view in the closing words.
Iliad 8.553–61 And so their spirits soared as they took positions down the passageways of battle all night long, and the watchfires blazed among them. Hundreds strong, as stars in the night sky glittering ð555Þ round the moon’s brilliance blaze in all their glory when the air falls to a sudden, windless calm . . . all the lookout peaks stand out and the jutting cliffs and the steep ravines and down from the high heavens bursts the boundless bright air and all the stars shine clear and the shepherd’s heart exults – so many fires burned ð560Þ between the ships and the Xanthus’ whirling rapids set by the men of Troy, bright against their walls. (Fagles trans.) οἱ δὲ μέγα φρονέοντες ἐπὶ πτολέμοιο γεφύρας ἥατο παννύχιοι, πυρὰ δέ σφισι καίετο πολλά. ὡς δ’ ὅτ’ ἐν οὐρανῷ ἄστρα φαεινὴν ἀμφὶ σελήνην ð555Þ φαίνετ’ ἀριπρεπέα, ὅτε τ’ ἔπλετο νήνεμος αἰθήρ· ἔκ τ’ ἔφανεν πᾶσαι σκοπιαὶ καὶ πρώονες ἄκροι
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Homer Iliad: Leadership and Loss καὶ νάπαι· οὐρανόθεν δ’ ἄρ’ ὑπερράγη ἄσπετος αἰθήρ, πάντα δὲ εἴδεται ἄστρα, γέγηθε δέ τε φρένα ποιμήν· τόσσα μεσηγὺ νεῶν ἠδὲ Ξάνθοιο ῥοάων ð560Þ Τρώων καιόντων πυρὰ φαίνετο Ἰλιόθι πρό.
The first verse of the simile gleams with stars and the shining moon: except for the setting “in the night sky” (ἐν οὐρανῷ, .), virtually every word in the first clause describes the brightness of heavenly bodies. The insistent “a” and “e” sounds create a high, soaring effect that complements the meaning of the words. This is an eye-catching simile in various respects. This story context is unique in that the size of a fighting force is tallied not by the people in it (cf. .–) but by their campfires. Although the simile begins with the most common “as” expression (ὡς δ’ ὅτ’, .), it ends with a quantitative adjective (τόσσα, .): this is one of just similes in the Iliad that measures some quantitative feature of the story, such as size, length, speed, or time. Unlike the simile, the story shows little interest in the feelings of the Trojans. Our only indication of how they feel is “their spirits soared” (μέγα φρονέοντες, .), a zest for battle shared by human fighters and simile animals. As de Jong (: –) explains, it is not clear who in the story should correspond to the shepherd. de Jong decides in favor of the Trojans (a position assumed rather than demonstrated by (Scott : ), and because a human simile character with an emotional response to the scene cries out for some sort of story analogue, this choice makes more sense than any of the alternatives. That said, the differences between Hector and the shepherd far outweigh the similarities. While the shepherd makes only a brief appearance at the end of the simile with no animals to care for and nothing to do except admire the view, Hector has just finished giving a lengthy and well-received speech to his troops (.–). What does it mean that Hector is compared to a leader figure who has no followers and no effect on his surroundings? Perhaps Hector is just as isolated from the Trojans, despite their apparent harmony after a successful day of fighting, as this shepherd is from his nonexistent herd. Not only does the shepherd have no clear analogue in the story but also the Trojans – as opposed to their campfires – have no analogue in the simile. These narrative gaps between both the leader character and the followers weaken both sides of the leader–follower relationship, not simply the leader figure. This simile distinguishes Hector not just from his own comrades but also from the Greek forces. The rest of the similes in the cluster heighten this contrast between the two sides. “The despair of the Greeks [at the beginning of
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. Emotional Ties between Leaders and Their Comrades
Book ] becomes all the more intense by contrast to the Trojans’ joy and the similes are for the most part responsible for conveying the feelings of each side” (Scott : ). A pair of similes at the beginning of Book creates the kind of group solidarity between Agamemnon and the Greeks that is so conspicuously absent between Hector and the Trojans. The leader of each side calls an assembly to discuss their situations, but the Greek gathering is united in its grief while the Trojans are isolated in their busy activity. After Hector gives a speech, his men wordlessly obey (.) whereas Greeks end their day with an assembly in which several speakers participate. Eventually, the group reaches a consensus about what they should do next. A pair of similes at the beginning of this assembly paints a picture of harmony encompassing the emotions of the Greeks as a group and Agamemnon individually (.–). Both similes describe emotions with scenes of water; both similes have entry and exit structures that emphasize the emotions of the individual(s) being described, creating a clear ring around each simile and highlighting the feelings that are the main point of this passage; and the story describes the emotions of all participants in similar language. Both the story and the first simile in Book emphasize the unity of the Greeks as they grapple with their difficulties. Their sorrow in the story is like a physical wound while the simile describes it with winds that stir up the ocean. Emotion is a “blow,” either metaphorically (in the story) or literally (in the simile).
Iliad 9.3–8 All their best were struck by grief too much to bear. As two crosswinds chop the sea where the fish swarm, the North Wind and the West Wind blasting out of Thrace ð5Þ in sudden, lightning attack, wave on blacker wave, cresting, heaving a tangled mass of seaweed out along the surf – so the Achaeans’ hearts were torn inside their chests. (after Fagles trans.) πένθεϊ δ’ ἀτλήτῳ βεβολήατο πάντες ἄριστοι. ὡς δ’ ἄνεμοι δύο πόντον ὀρίνετον ἰχθυόεντα, βορέης καὶ Ζέφυρος, τώ τε Θρῄκηθεν ἄητον, ð5Þ ἐλθόντ’ ἐξαπίνης· ἄμυδις δέ τε κῦμα κελαινὸν κορθύεται, πολλὸν δὲ παρὲξ ἅλα φῦκος ἔχευεν· ὣς ἐδαΐζετο θυμὸς ἐνὶ στήθεσσιν Ἀχαιῶν.
Before and after the simile, the Greeks are treated as a single entity (πάντες ἄριστοι, .; ἐνὶ στήθεσσιν Ἀχαιῶν, .) being physically attacked by its feelings (πένθεϊ δ’ ἀτλήτῳ βεβολήατο, .; ἐδαΐζετο θυμός, .). βάλλω
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Homer Iliad: Leadership and Loss
(“hit,” LSJ def. I) in the Iliad often refers to arrow or spear wounds while δαΐζω (“rend,” LSJ def. ) is used for both metaphorical “rending” when someone is grieved or confused, as here, and for battlefield injuries. The simile makes this metaphor literal with the image of two winds that stir up the ocean into dark billowing waves. Wind, like emotion, cannot be seen and has no physical shape. But both create powerful and often visible effects on the world around us. Now Agamemnon is singled out from the rest of the Greeks, but at the same time, he remains connected to his men – he is described with the same metaphor of sorrow as a physical blow that was just used for the whole group (Ἀτρεΐδης δ’ ἄχεϊ μεγάλῳ βεβολημένος ἦτορ, . ~ .). He orders the heralds to call an assembly (.–); the sorrowful Greeks are seated (.); and Agamemnon rises in tears to address them (.–). As his tears flow like a stream welling up from a rock, he begins to speak.
Iliad 9.14–17 Lord marshal Agamemnon rose up in their midst, streaming tears like a dark spring running down some desolate rock face, its shaded currents flowing. ð15Þ So, with a deep groan, the king addressed his armies: “Friends . . . lords of the Argives, all my captains!” (Fagles trans.) ἂν δ’ Ἀγαμέμνων ἵστατο δάκρυ χέων ὥς τε κρήνη μελάνυδρος, ἥ τε κατ’ αἰγίλιπος πέτρης δνοφερὸν χέει ὕδωρ· ð15Þ ὣς ὁ βαρὺ στενάχων ἔπε’ Ἀργείοισι μετηύδα· “ὦ φίλοι, Ἀργείων ἡγήτορες ἠδὲ μέδοντες . . ..”
Agamemnon, standing alone before his comrades with tears coursing down his face, physically resembles the simile spring – also alone in its scene – that pours water down a firm surface. Again, the simile uses a water image to bring out the physicality of grief for the Greeks. But beyond that, it is not clear what kind of coloring the spring adds to Agamemnon’s feelings, in large part because of various unusual features of the simile. About percent of the similes in the Iliad contains no living beings at all. Characters with agency – whether gods, humans, or animals – have feelings and make decisions about their behavior that map onto what named characters are doing in the story in a relatively straightforward way. When winds and weather are personified, they interact with the environment around them as sentient agents as do Boreas and Zephyr in the previous simile (.–). But inanimate natural forces, such as the
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. Emotional Ties between Leaders and Their Comrades
spring in this simile, act in a fundamentally different manner from sentient or living characters. This creates a challenge for an audience trying to understand the links between the simile and the adjacent story. Here the difficulty is increased by several unusual or obscure words. Does this simile mean that Agamemnon’s tears are natural? Unstoppable? What do heroes’ tears imply more generally? While we may not be able to fix on a clear interpretation of the simile itself, we can grasp Agamemnon’s feelings themselves because they are clearly stated both before and after the simile (δάκρυ χέων, .; βαρὺ στενάχων, .) and because the same feelings appear in both positions. The difficulty of mapping the details of this simile onto Agamemnon’s feelings draws more of our attention to them rather than creating ambiguity about how he feels. The commonalities between this pair of similes join the Greek troops and Agamemnon to one another in addition to linking each of them to a specific comparison. And this colors the scene as a whole. In the Trojan assembly, Hector gives the only speech and is immediately obeyed. So too, the Trojan forces play no role in the simile that describes Hector, which does not include any characters corresponding to the Trojan forces. By contrast, Agamemnon’s tearful address to the assembled Greeks is just the first step in an ongoing group effort to find a way forward in response to the Greeks’ shared concern for their prospects without Achilles. Agamemnon’s speech is greeted at first with anxious silence (.–). After more characters have their say, including some forthright critical remarks from Diomedes (who calls Agamemnon “foolish” [ἀφραδέοντι, .] in the first verse of his response), the assembly follows Nestor’s suggestion to break for the evening meal. Agamemnon discusses the situation further with the leaders who dine with him in his tent, again with Nestor rather than him taking the lead (.–). At the end of this lengthy series of conversations, the Greeks at last reach a consensus about how to approach Achilles and ask him to return to the fighting. This simile cluster likens the Greeks both to Agamemnon and to one another at the same time as it separates Hector from his own troops and distinguishes the Greeks as a group from the Trojans. But later in Book , Achilles will reject the consensus that is offered to him, leaving the Greeks just as bereft of strong bonds with their leaders as the Trojans are from Hector. .. Achilles and Patroclus: .– The simile of a spring flowing down a rock face is one of five repeated similes in the Iliad. At .–, it comes first in a pair of similes that describe the weeping Patroclus as he and Achilles discuss the Greeks’
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danger in the wake of Hector’s attacks on their ships. Although in both Book and Book the spring simile is paired with another comparison to describe Greeks weeping over the difficulties they face without Achilles on the battlefield, virtually everything else about both the structure and meaning of the spring simile changes in Book as compared to Book . Indeed, relationships are even more important than usual to interpreting the Book cluster because so many features of these two similes create meaning through close connections with something else. The repeated simile creates one kind of relationship context for understanding each of the two examples of this comparison. Other such contexts include the relations between the two similes in each cluster; the typical functions of simile clusters; similes that describe emotions in general as well as those that describe emotions related to Achilles and Patroclus in particular; and similes that appear in character speech. The first simile is presented by the main narrator, and the second is part of Achilles’ opening speech to Patroclus. Thus, this cluster not only presents two different perspectives on one feature of the narrative – Patroclus’ weeping – but unlike most other clusters, it also does so from two different narrative levels.
Iliad 16.2–11 Patroclus reached Achilles, the shepherd of the people, and wept warm tears like a dark spring running down some desolate rock face, its shaded currents flowing. And the brilliant runner Achilles saw him coming, ð5Þ filled with pity and spoke out winging words: “Why in tears, Patroclus? Like a girl, a baby running after her mother, begging to be picked up, and she tugs her skirts, holding her back as she tries to hurry off – all tears, gazing up at her, till she takes her in her arms . . . ð10Þ You look like that, Patroclus, streaming live tears.” (after Fagles trans.) Πάτροκλος δ’ Ἀχιλῆϊ παρίστατο, ποιμένι λαῶν, δάκρυα θερμὰ χέων ὥς τε κρήνη μελάνυδρος, ἥ τε κατ’ αἰγίλιπος πέτρης δνοφερὸν χέει ὕδωρ. τὸν δὲ ἰδὼν ᾤκτιρε ποδάρκης δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς, ð5Þ καί μιν φωνήσας ἔπεα πτερόεντα προσηύδα· “τίπτε δεδάκρυσαι, Πατρόκλεες, ἠΰτε κούρη νηπίη, ἥ θ’ ἅμα μητρὶ θέουσ’ ἀνελέσθαι ἀνώγει, εἱανοῦ ἁπτομένη, καί τ’ ἐσσυμένην κατερύκει, δακρυόεσσα δέ μιν ποτιδέρκεται, ὄφρ’ ἀνέληται· ð10Þ τῇ ἴκελος, Πάτροκλε, τέρεν κατὰ δάκρυον εἴβεις . . ..”
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. Emotional Ties between Leaders and Their Comrades
Each of these similes leads us into the feelings of Patroclus and Achilles, but without laying down a clear path to a particular understanding of what those feelings are. In the first simile, it is easy to understand the situation in the simile but difficult to map it precisely onto Patroclus’ tears in the story. For the second simile, by contrast, there are many possible ways to understand what is happening to the characters. The similes make Patroclus’ tears a defining moment in the poem. Even while similes allow us to experience his weeping along with the two characters, they do not offer a single unambiguous understanding of what his tears mean. And the lack of a clear relationship between the two similes that are separated in both subject matter and narrative level strengthens the idea that there is no one way to understand this all-important scene. A pair of individually challenging similes makes an ideal narrative strategy for conveying the paradoxical combination of vividness and indeterminacy that characterizes both Patroclus’ tears and Achilles’ reaction to them. In fact, this is often the way we feel about our own tears. The fact of the tears themselves could not be clearer to us, but we may have many explanations, or none, for why we are crying. In Book , the meaning of the spring simile is difficult to pin down only because of its content. The structures around it repeatedly describe the ties that bind Agamemnon both to the image in the simile and to his fellow Greeks. But in Book , structural features create a sense of isolation. They separate Patroclus from Achilles and cloud the relations between the simile and the story. The introduction at .– closely resembles .– in that one weeping character stands up in the company of others to attract their attention and begin a conversation. But while tears unite Agamemnon and his fellow Greeks, they separate Patroclus and Achilles. The “audience” that Patroclus seeks by coming to stand beside Achilles is not a group of equally sorrowful Greeks, as in Book , but the solitary and unrepentant Achilles sitting out the fighting in his tent. The isolation of Achilles comes into sharper relief here because he is called the “shepherd” of a people (ποιμένι λαῶν, ) that is not simply absent from this conversation but in great difficulty because of his decision not to fight with them. This people is a unit somewhere else without Achilles. And the unusual lack of a concluding “so” transition opens a gulf between these two loving companions. Where we might have expected an exit verse at . recapping the start of the comparison of Patroclus to a spring, we get Achilles’ response to Patroclus’ tears instead. We experience Patroclus’ feelings in various ways – first through the simile and then through the eyes of Achilles whose speech includes a second simile – before Patroclus speaks about them himself.
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Homer Iliad: Leadership and Loss
This is particularly noticeable because the scene opens with Patroclus taking the initiative by approaching Achilles (.–) as Agamemnon did in Book . But after the simile, the story focuses on Achilles and his “pity” (ᾤκτιρε, .) for his friend. By definition, pity is a different feeling than the one that brought Patroclus to Achilles’ side in tears. When we feel pity for someone, we experience their sorrow as something separate from us, not as a shared feeling like the grief of Agamemnon and the Greeks in Book . We do not return to Patroclus’ sorrow until after Achilles’ speech (.–) when Patroclus’ answer is introduced by a formulaic expression that brings forward the speaker’s emotions (τὸν δὲ βαρὺ στενάχων προσέφης, Πατρόκλεες ἱππεῦ, .). This simile opens many kinds of elusive and engaging gaps between the simile and the story, between Patroclus and Achilles, and between the force of the spring image in this scene and its role in Book . Regardless of what exactly the relationship between the two instances of this spring image might be, juxtaposing them brings out subtle textures in each scene that depict thematically meaningful aspects of the ways that different Greek heroes relate to their fellow Greeks. Patroclus’ tears distinguish him from Achilles while Agamemnon and the Greeks are united by their shared sorrow and anxiety. The structure of the spring simile – the way that it is woven into its story context in each case – helps to create those effects. Achilles, like the narrator, uses a simile to describe Patroclus’ tears, but the two similes differ in virtually every other way. The first simile draws a picture of a largely static natural scene that lacks not just sentient characters but also any kind of action: the only verb in the scene is χέει (“running down”), and virtually all other words are nouns or adjectives. Three unusual compound adjectives that describe the spring and the rock face it flows from – “dark,” “desolate,” “shaded” (μελάνυδρος, αἰγίλιπος, δνοφερόν) – give the scene its distinctive sensory impact. These adjectives involve sight, touch, and perhaps sound as well, and the interpretation of words whose meanings are disputed amplifies these effects by adding a conscious interpretive layer to them. This produces a vivid and engaging scene, but how do these features of the spring shape our response to a human being’s tears? There is no single correct answer to this question just as there is no clear explanation for why Patroclus is weeping. The second simile, on the other hand, describes a series of actions involving two human characters in which virtually every word is either a verb or a noun or pronoun that refers to one of the two protagonists. The first few words of the simile introduce the main characters, a young girl and her mother (“Like a girl, a baby running after her mother,” ἠΰτε κούρη / νηπίη, ἥ θ’ ἅμα μητρὶ θέουσα, .–). νηπίη, the only
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. Emotional Ties between Leaders and Their Comrades
adjective in the scene, could either describe the unavoidable inexperience that goes along with youth, or it could criticize the girl for being foolish. So even this explicitly subjective and interpretive word does not give us a clear picture of the girl. The pell-mell series of actions that join the daughter with her mother – running, grasping, gazing, weeping – pulls us inside the characters’ experiences and their close relationship, but it leaves us uncertain as to what happens at the end. ὄφρ’ ἀνέληται () could mean either “till she takes her in her arms” or “in order that she pick her up.” The girl might have gotten what she wanted, or – like so many other young and vulnerable simile characters – she might be neglected by her caretaker. We are swept along in a series of actions that we never fully understand, both because the simile does not explain them and because there is no comparable scene in the Homeric simile world to which these events can be compared. As in the first simile, understanding how the simile scene maps onto the story is difficult, but for very different reasons. Many features of the simile besides the subject are unusual or unique. The introductory expression “like a girl” (ἠΰτε κούρη, .) appears only here and at Iliad ., a short comparison consisting only of the first three words of our simile. “Like” (ἴκελος, .) ends just two Homeric similes, this one and a comparison at Odyssey .–. Similes within characters’ speeches are uncommon, although less so for Achilles than for other characters in the Iliad. And different readers have different ideas about the specific context in which this mother–daughter encounter takes place. But as with the spring simile, this multiplicity is part of what the simile brings to the narrative. The superb analysis in Porter explains that many interpretations and perspectives are woven into the simile: “even more than many of its Homeric counterparts, the simile at [Iliad] .– resists being pinned down to any one set of associations” (). Porter argues that the simile can be understood as both a scene of peace and war and that we are making a mistake if we feel obliged to choose one option over the other. This is not a flaw in our experience with this simile but a feature. A pair of elusive similes that admit of many different interpretations is well suited to evoke complex feelings that are not fully understood by the characters themselves, in part because we may experience those very feelings as we try to make sense of the scene. Both Achilles and the mother in his simile have strong and conflicting emotions about the demands placed on them by the less powerful person to whom they owe love and protection. But because the precise context for the simile events is unclear, the feelings of both Achilles and Patroclus
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Homer Iliad: Leadership and Loss
remain unclear as well. Not only are there no other similes in Homeric epic that feature this kind of parent–child interaction, but also the nature of the feelings – insofar as they can be identified – are unique in the simile world. Similes of parents and children often show the parent protecting the child, especially with animal parents, but these similes usually focus on the parent and the parent’s instinct to keep the offspring safe. Some parent–child similes show the parent successfully warding off danger or inconvenience from the child while others feature parents grieving after they fail to protect their offspring from harm. In the dozen or so similes in the Iliad that feature the emotional ties between parents and children, including both humans and animals, this is the only one that focuses on the child rather than the parent without making clear what exactly the feelings involved might be. The contrast between our simile and these larger patterns for parent–child similes heightens our uncertainty about – and our engagement with – the feelings represented in this simile and how they relate to the emotions in the story. Compared to most simile clusters in the Iliad, this pair of similes has a unique relationship to the adjacent story because it presents two distinct views of the same event from the vantage point of comrades rather than opponents. To some degree, the two similes at .– and .– resemble battlefield clusters because they depict the contrasting perspectives of two antagonists. But a battlefield cluster would link each simile to a different aspect of the story, either to enemy characters’ perspectives on the same event (e.g. .– and .–) or to different stages of an unfolding action (e.g. .– and .–). A rarer type of battlefield simile cluster might use two closely related simile scenes to describe something that affects both sides in a battle (as at .– and .–). This cluster, in contrast, uses two different images to describe a difference of viewpoints between two characters who are on the same side. Moreover, the simile develops three characterizations at the same time, an exciting feat of narrative dexterity that is possible only when similes are spoken by a character. It describes Patroclus’ feelings in the same way as any simile describing any character; it conveys Achilles’ response to those feelings and his understanding of his comrade’s behavior; and when Patroclus does not respond directly to the simile, his reaction contributes further to our sense of him as a character. The expectations arising from the Iliad – both about the close relationship of Achilles and Patroclus and about how simile clusters tend to function – accentuate the gulf that this remarkable cluster opens between a pair of loving companions.
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. Emotional Ties between Leaders and Their Comrades
Different narrative techniques bring out emotions related to Achilles as compared to feelings about Hector because of differences in both the feelings themselves and the social contexts in which they arise. The emotional experiences of Trojan characters emerge mainly from the characters’ speeches. In contrast, Greek feelings related to Achilles emerge in no small part from simile scenes of solitude, isolation, and failure. Trojan characters and emotions are depicted within rich networks of family and social relationships. Even in conflict or bereavement, Trojans enjoy the companionship and the physical closeness of other Trojans. These relationships come alive for us through the speeches of the characters and the social contexts in which they talk to each other, at home, in the assembly, and in the formal laments for Hector at the end of the poem. These rich social and emotional bonds between Trojans throw the different norms among the Greeks into relief. Achilles is defined by his estrangement from other people. For instance, he has only one conversation with his beloved comrade Patroclus (Mills : ) who in many ways has a more powerful presence in the poem after he dies than while he is still alive. Numerous similes express Achilles’ resentment of the burdens imposed on him by his responsibilities to others and the toll of his actions on his comrades. All of these similes simultaneously dramatize strong emotions and depict isolation or conflict that arises from them. Similes can depict both intense feeling and social or personal isolation at the same time, while speech inevitably brings social relationships along with it. The figured shield that Hephaestus creates for Achilles after the armor he loans to Patroclus is captured by Hector (.–) gives us another glimpse of his isolation after the death of Patroclus by showing his disconnection not only from his comrades but also from the human experiences and relationships that shape the world in which he lives. The shield is often understood as a kind of “immense simile” (Edwards : ) in which various human activities that appear in similes in the Iliad are literally encircled within a single artistic rendering of the world. Beginning from the triad of Earth, sky, and sea () and bounded at the end by a circle of Ocean (.–), the shield depicts many forms of social interaction familiar from the simile world – a wedding, legal dispute, battle, sacrifice, song and dance – as well as agriculture, sheep, and herders whose cows are attacked by lions. In several places, the miraculous shield even depicts movement (e.g. dancing youths compared to a potter’s wheel, .–) fostering a more embodied viewing experience than still images would have done. Achilles does not engage with this universal version of our world even when it is presented directly to him in the
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Homer Iliad: Leadership and Loss
physical form of this shield. As he makes the choice to return to battle where he knows that he will soon die a glorious death (e.g. .–), he shows little awareness or concern for the ordinary human experiences that he will be leaving behind and still less for the visual representations of them on his new shield. If these images do not engage even Achilles despite his unusual insight into his own fates and his unique access to the world of the divine through his conversations with his mother Thetis, they lie even further beyond the grasp of less privileged characters in the Iliad. This disconnect embodies both Achilles individually, who is defined in the Iliad by his estrangement from ordinary human relationships and experiences, and the separation between the story and simile worlds in Homeric epic.
. Conclusions Bad, missing, and incompetent leaders allow harm to befall their charges throughout the simile world of the Iliad. They range from straightforward leader figures like shepherds and helmsmen to parents – both human and animal – who fail to keep their children safe. Without effective leaders, both the simile characters and the story characters to whom they are compared are injured, killed, and bereaved. Some similes bring forward a “missing leader” with a scene where the leader character fails to do his work well. In addition, the “missing leader” theme arises from similes where the leader figure has no clear equivalent in the story regardless of how he performs within the simile itself. The similes weave a single narrative fabric from the sufferings that all leaderless characters endure whether they be a shepherd whose cattle are eaten by a lion, the grief of Patroclus over the sufferings of his fellow Greeks in the absence of Achilles, or Trojan forces dying on the field of battle. Even though the Greeks and Trojans are fighting against each other, the simile world treats them in very much the same way. In scenes of battlefield stalemate in particular, clusters of similes regularly bring together the perspectives of different participants and create unity between the warriors on both sides. We see that more unites Greek and Trojan warriors than separates them, including but not limited to the misery they endure because of their leaders’ shortcomings. No matter who we are, we suffer when our leaders are unable or unwilling to do their jobs, we grieve when our friends and family are taken from us, and we burn to avenge ourselves on those who have hurt the people we love. The simile world of the Iliad and its relationship with the story make the poem a tale about these universal human feelings. They affect Hector and Achilles, individual and group, Greek and Trojan alike.
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Notes
The Iliad and the Odyssey use similes in analogous ways to fashion their narratives. Each Homeric simile world offers a universalizing foil for the specific details that make up the story plot. The two poems tell different kinds of stories – the Iliad features a broad cast of characters who are fixed in time and place while the Odyssey focuses on a single character who ranges over a broad span of time and space – but in both cases, the simile world increases the range of the narrative and underlines its key themes. The Homeric simile world is peopled by a consistent cast of characters and situations. Those characters, such as shepherds or craftsmen or animals, appear more or less frequently in each poem, and they do different things in the two simile worlds. Animal families are unusual in the Iliad, but they regularly appear in the Odyssey; seafaring scenes are nearly absent from the Odyssey but help to depict human beings in the Iliad as adrift in a hostile world without the help of strong and effective leaders. The simile world of the Odyssey focuses on Odysseus’ family relationships and the emotions surrounding his homecoming while the Iliad dramatizes the pervasive failures of leadership on both sides and the kinship between the Greek and Trojan forces who suffer, in different ways, from absent or incompetent leaders. But in each poem, the small details that characterize a particular simile world also shape the broad themes of its story. Later epic poems weave a similar narrative tapestry from the story and simile worlds, but the generalized, universalizing features of the simile world become gradually more particularized. The simile and story worlds draw closer and closer together and even on occasion include the contemporary world of the reader and narrator.
Notes Iliad . (Athena discourages Achilles from killing Agamemnon by telling him that that he will get “three times as many gifts” [τρὶς τόσσα . . . ἀγλαὰ δῶρα] later on); . (Lycaon refers to the quantity of his earlier ransom in supplicating Achilles), . (Hermes urges Priam to leave the Greek camp by pointing out how much ransom he would command if he were captured there); Odyssey . (in Demodocus’ song, Hermes jokes that he would endure three times the chains that now entrap Ares if he were allowed to sleep with Aphrodite). Forte () shows how the Homeric “three times” motif creates embodiment. There is some disagreement about whether the subject of δύεται is the shepherd or the lion. Kirk (: –) surveys the options and the support for each position. He favors the shepherd as does a T scholion on . (ἐναργῶς τὸν δεδιότα ἐσήμανεν).
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Eustathius ..– notes that fleece (as opposed to hair, fur, or hide) distinguishes sheep from other domestic animals. He (the poet) used the weaker of the four-footed animals, the sheep, well (καλῶς τῶν μὲν τετραπόδων τὰ ἀσθενέστερα παρείληφε, τὰ πρόβατα, bT on .–); he signified the form of the fearful vividly (ἐναργῶς δὲ τὸ τῶν δεδιότων ἐσήμανε σχῆμα, b on .). Eustathius understands ἔρημος as “abandoned by their helper” (ἃ ἔρημα τοῦ βοηθήσοντος φεύγει, ..). His formulation brings out an implicit expressive force in this unique Homeric description of something other than a place as “abandoned.” Pandarus becomes irrelevant as soon as he finishes speaking (ὣς ἔφατ’ εὐχόμενος· τὸν δ’ οὐ βέλος ὠκὺ δάμασσεν, . ~ οὐδὲ δαμάσσῃ, .). Later in Book , Aeneas rather than Pandarus takes the initiative against Diomedes’ renewed assault, and Diomedes kills Pandarus when they encounter each other again (.–). For example, Duchemin (: ), Létoublon (: ), Briquel () argues that Greek lion similes differ from Indo-European versions because of the sympathy devoted to the attacking animal. The most important studies devoted to animals in Homeric epic are SchnappGourbeillon () (with an anthropological and structuralist outlook) and Lonsdale () (mainly a typological study making many insightful observations about specific animals and similes). A sensitive discussion of the resemblances between human warriors and simile animals can be found in Clarke (: –.) The compassion and interest for all of the characters in similes that depict attacking animals provide a corrective to more single-minded claims about what the violence in the animal world adds to the Iliad narrative. Mueller () suggests that the plentiful similes in the Iliad describing predators “underscore the austerity of the poem and intensify its obsession with force and violence” () while Porter (: ) sees these similes as a zero sum game where the audience sympathizes with either the predator or the prey but not both. This view of leadership is one of the main theses of Haubold (). The Iliad was widely read as a meditation on political leadership by ancient thinkers including not only the scholiasts (e.g. bT on Iliad .) but also Apollonius, Horace (Epistles ..– [I am indebted to Matthew Leigh for this reference]), and Vergil. Schmit-Neuerburg (: –) explores the ancient scholarly view of the similes in Iliad as the beginning of the poem’s focus on political organization. Elmer () sees political consensus as central not simply to the story of the Iliad but also to understanding “the diachronic shaping of the poem through an ongoing process of reception” (). For a recent study of the political dimension of the Iliad as expressed in the Trojan assemblies in Book in particular, see Christensen () with bibliography. One possible exception appears at Aeneid .–, which compares Etruscan Arruns beating a hasty retreat from possible retaliation after he fatally wounds the Italian fighter Camilla to a wolf that hides after killing
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Notes
either a shepherd (occiso pastore, ) or a bullock. While this dead shepherd perforce has failed to defend his flock, he can hardly be expected to do so after he himself has been killed. The Myrmidons yearn for their absent leader (ἀρχὸν ἀρηΐφιλον ποθέοντες) already at ., making the emotional effect of Achilles’ absence part of the poem almost from the beginning. I thank Bill Beck for pointing this out to me. Eight similes lack a clear analogue for the shepherd (more than one-quarter of herding similes that mention human protectors): .– (Trojan leadership), .– (Trojan leadership), .– (Aeneas is analogous to both a simile ram and a happy shepherd), .– (Trojan leadership), .– (Greek leadership), .– (Trojan leadership), .– (Greek leadership), and .– (Trojan leadership). Other simile shepherds have debatable story analogues, such as that of .–, discussed further in Section ... Achilles is often described as “shepherd of the people” (ποιμένι/α λαῶν, a repeated expression whose narrative and cultural implications are surveyed by Haubold [: –]), but he is never likened to a shepherd in a herding simile. Indeed, individual Greeks are compared to shepherds only at .–, as the gasping of Adamas after a fatal wound from Meriones is likened to a cow being led away by shepherds; .–, where the two Ajaxes defending the corpse of Patroclus are described as shepherds failing to drive a lion away from an unspecified body; and in a comparison that measures the length of Polypoetes’ throw in the athletic games in terms of a shepherd’s toss of his staff (.–). Janko (: –) suggests that the change of gender from neuter μήλων to feminine αἵ τ’ . . . () “may add pathos – they [the animals] are mothers [emphasis original], deprived of their children by the foolish shepherd who lets them scatter.” Hunger or eating the prey is mentioned in connection with predators at . (βοῦν ἔδει) and . (σίνται). Létoublon () offers an illuminating discussion of lion similes that focus on hunger, as well as a complete list of such similes. She argues that they focus the narrative on the feelings that drive warriors to attack on the battlefield (see especially ). Hutchinson (: –) includes the lions in the simile world of the Iliad as one of many features of Homeric narrative in which repetition coexists with variation to create meanings “different from other poems in which they [similes] come” (). There are seafaring similes in the Iliad out of craft similes (.–, .–, .–, .–, and .–). Shipbuilding also appears in similes. Post-Homeric similes that feature a helmsman include Argonautica .–, and Metamorphoses .– and .–. As we saw in Chapter , the only seafaring simile in the Odyssey also lacks a helmsman, but we cannot with confidence draw larger conclusions about the simile world of the Odyssey from a single simile.
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Homer Iliad: Leadership and Loss
Such similes include .–, .–, .–, .–, .–, and .–; see also .–. Krischer (: –) (the beginning of a section entitled “inconclusive fighting” [Unentschiedener Kampf]) points out that stalemates generally affect groups rather than individual fighters () and that similes describing such scenes highlight the similarity of the two sides (–). Krischer is interested in how such scenes shape the narrative arc of the battle action rather than how they embody the underlying themes of the poem. Fenik () calls the narrative of the standoff over the corpse of Patroclus in Book “simple and repetitive” (), a notable brush-off given Fenik’s perceptive and lively enthusiasm for the meanings implied by even the smallest details of Homeric battle narrative. The admiring interpretation of these two similes in Moulton (: –) summarizes them as examples of the narrative technique of “dynamic symmetry” (), apparently without seeing a thematic significance to this symmetry. Scholarly interest in this simile focuses on why the men are fighting and what kind of social context or land use practices the scene implies. The scholia think that only poor men would bother to quarrel about such details (discussed in Christensen [August ]), and the scene certainly implies very small growing areas (Leaf : ). For unclear reasons, Duchemin (: ) calls this “l’amusante déscription” that demonstrates the “amused contempt” (mépris amusé) of the poet for such quarreling. The similes in Books – include similes about soldiers. Of these, refer at least somewhat to named warriors while describe only a collective group. By contrast, of similes about fighters in Books –, only describe an unnamed group of fighters rather than individuals (.–, .–, .–), all of which feature just one of the two sides. In a related way, the peculiar and even terrifying things that Achilles says during this period of the fighting have attracted substantial attention as a measure of his social isolation after the death of Patroclus (e.g. Clarke : –; de Jong : –). Patroclus’ emotional significance for defining the character of Achilles can be traced back to the scholiasts, who note that he “brings people together in sorrow (συναχθόμενον, bT scholion on .). Parry () provides a sensitive modern presentation of this idea. Redfield () makes a comparable argument about the importance of Hector: “the poem would not move us if Achilles destroyed nothing of value to ourselves. Through Hector’s story we come to see the wrath of Achilles as an event which has consequences for people like ourselves . . .. Hector is a human creature, with wife and child, parents and brothers, friends and fellow citizens” (). Ready (: –) gives an overview of simile clusters in Homeric epic that contextualizes them alongside similar clusters in modern epic traditions. More than one-third of the similes in the Iliad are part of a cluster ( of ), and nearly all of those () are related to battle. Most of these appear in actual
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Notes
battles, but two battle-related clusters in Iliad and describe groups of Greeks or Trojans preparing for battle before they start fighting (the catalogue of ships, .–, .–, .–, .–, and .–; Trojan troops, .–, and .–). For instance, as a new day of fighting in the Iliad begins in Book , similes describe first Hector (compared to an evil star, .–) and then the evenly matched fighters on both sides (lines of reapers in a field, .–). In one such cluster, just before Hector’s death, he dashes at Achilles like an eagle after prey (.–) while the armor of the waiting Achilles gleams like the evening star (.–). By contrast, de Jong (: ) sees the star simile for Achilles as an “eclipse” of this image of Hector. The fact that “plot-summaries and similes, not battle-narrative” convey the progress of the military engagement (Janko : ) may suggest that the details of what happens in the fighting are not the most important feature of this scene. The first simile in this series, .–, is technically not part of a cluster since it precedes the cluster beginning at . by verses rather than , but in this instance, insisting too strongly on my definition would be pedantic and counterproductive. There are similes between . (the start of the first simile in Book that describes Patroclus in battle) and . (the end of the final simile comparing the dying Patroclus to a fatally injured boar). Three-quarters of these similes appear in clusters, but nonetheless they are distributed fairly evenly compared to Hector’s battle exploits at the end of Book – in any verses of the last half of Book , there are no more than similes. Of similes referring to Achilles in Books –, appear outside clusters. Fleeing: Iliad .–, .–, .–, and .–. Timid: .– and .–. similes in the Iliad lack not only any living character (animals, humans, plants) but also any animate presence (such as Zeus or Boreas) that causes storms, waves, and other natural effects. of these describe Hector (.– and .–, in addition to .–). In other similes that include some form of sentient action, Hector is compared to an inanimate object or force, such as an axe (.–) or a river (.–). Ready (: –) offers a reading of the “story” told by this cluster of similes that reaches a somewhat different conclusion (“This arrangement . . . amplifies the success of first the Achaians and then Hektor,” ). In n, the similes in .– are included as an example of another cluster where the dynamics of the cluster reflect and amplify those of the story. Besides Patroclus, Hector also kills Epeigeius (.–). More than one-quarter of the similes in the entire Iliad ( of ) occur in these three books. This feature of the narrative is well known – see, for instance, Bassett (: ), who points out, “In the later battles [in the Iliad] the similes are more frequent, run to greater length, and show a greater
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Homer Iliad: Leadership and Loss
tendency to be massed [i.e. clustered]” – but neither Bassett nor later scholars have agreed on why this happens or what it means for our understanding of the poem. Kelly (: –) says that antiquity associated battle poetry with “Homeric” epic rather than with the Iliad in particular. Kelly characterizes the narrative potential of battle in exceptionally clear and perceptive terms: “Battle for Homer, in sum, is an interesting process in itself, with tremendous possibilities for the generation of – and alternation between – triumph and tragedy, victory and sympathy, the appreciation of the humanity and quality of the enemy” (). For instance, Krischer’s classic treatment of the typology of similes in the aristeia pattern in the Iliad (–) creates an implied equivalence between “similes” and “battle scene.” In a different way, the focus of Ready () on the link between similes and competition fits not only the Iliad better than the Odyssey (as the Conclusion points out, –) but also some parts of the Iliad better than other parts. similes appear outside of battle contexts; of these, describe emotion; of the similes about war describe emotions like fear, anger, and sorrow that are connected with battle. A bT scholion on . comments “[the poet] brings the Iliad to an end with the greatest pathos” (ἐπὶ πλείστῳ δὲ ἐλέῳ καταστρέφει τὴν Ἰλιάδα; the translation of ἔλεος as “pathos” is taken from Richardson : ). Book is percent direct speech, and Book has percent speech. The average for the Iliad as a whole is percent direct speech (Beck a: –). Alexiou () remains fundamental for both setting out the conventions of formal lament and showing how durable and consistent they are over time. More recently, Tsagalis () focuses specifically on the parameters of lament in the Iliad, primarily that identified as γόος. This formula occurs at Iliad . (speaker is Thetis), . (Hecuba), . (Achilles, also at . = .), . (Hecuba), and . (Helen, τριτάτη ἐξῆρχε γόοιο). His reasons for taking the cubs remain opaque to critics. Alden () argues from Near Eastern parallels that the cubs were destined for a royal lion hunt while Rutherford (: ) suggests they were captured “probably to bring up as pets.” The grammatical form of the subordinate clause, εἴ ποθεν ἐξεύροι (), collapses the distinction between the perspective of the narrator and the perspective of the lion itself. Beck (: –) discusses the expressive effects of such syntax when it appears alongside speech, but “free indirect speech” – as such ambiguous presentations are known – often represents thought as well as speech. For surveys of free indirect speech in premodern narrative, see Fludernik (: –) and Laird (: –). Baltes () shows that Iliad draws on the conventional “ranking” of different predator animals to create a story arc across its various similes that parallels the arc of Patroclus’ changing fortunes on the battlefield as he reaches
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Notes
the heights of his aristeia only to be killed by Hector. In contrast, Scott (: –) sees lions as interchangeable with boars. The exception is Iliad .–, in which Apollo likens Achilles’ excessive stubbornness to the spirit of a hunting lion. The motif of “powerful predator in bereavement” also plays a key role in the vulture simile about the reunion of Odysseus and Telemachus at Odyssey .– (see Chapter , Section ..). Lions are driven away from an animal pen at .–, .–, and .–; they are killed by defenders at .–, .–, and .–. The only other bereaved lion simile in our corpus, which describes Hecuba in Metamorphoses , is clearly an allusion to this simile (see Chapter , Section .). Both ancient and modern commentators have struggled to decide whether – belong in the simile (Kirk : –), but the “resplendent” picture – in Kirk’s arresting phrase () – with which the simile begins is not materially affected by whether or not it includes mountain peaks and valleys. Human beings described as μέγα φρονέων: Iliad ., ., and .. Animals: ., ., and .. Wofford (: ), in contrast, says that “the shepherd whose heart rejoices at the bright sky has no analogue in the world of the war. The Trojans may initially seem to resemble him . . ..” Instead, Wofford connects the shepherd to the audience of the poem, in part because both play the role of “onlooker at a kind of spectacle” (). Elmer (: –) points out that the indications of group consensus in this scene, however vague and elusive, surpass those that appear in any other Trojan assembly. Elmer concludes that “there is a palpable ambivalence in this scene; it conveys the impression of an uneasy balance between the kind of heavy-handed autocracy that seems generally to characterize the Trojans’ political life and a more collective manner of decision making” (). So too Edwards (: –), who calls this an “especially powerful example” of a balancing pair of similes that illustrate each side in the fighting. For him, this pairing is “now obscured by the book division” (), but Danek (, e.g. n) makes the important and often overlooked point that simile clusters do not always observe book divisions. Hector himself calls the Trojan assembly (Τρώων αὖτ’ ἀγορὴν ποιήσατο φαίδιμος Ἕκτωρ, .), while Agamemnon has his heralds summon the Greek forces (Ἀτρεΐδης . . . κηρύκεσσι λιγυφθόγγοισι κελεύων / κλήδην εἰς ἀγορὴν κικλήσκειν ἄνδρα ἕκαστον, .–). “He spoke words to [appropriate ethnic designation]” introduces the speech addressed by each leader to his men: ἔπεα Τρώεσσι μετηύδα (Hector, .), ἔπε’ Ἀργείοισι μετηύδα (Agamemnon, .). Phrases that combine θυμός and δαΐζω also appear at . and . (= .). In battle scenes, the formula δεδαϊγμέν- ὀξέϊ χαλκῷ “wounded with sharp bronze,” appears six times in the Iliad with various endings on the participle. Regrettably for this discussion, the metaphors covered in Zanker () do not include grief. As Zanker explains, though, the “arrow” metaphor
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Homer Iliad: Leadership and Loss
associated with Homeric speech entails a comparable understanding of words as something that can be “thrown” (–, a section entitled “Words as Darts”). Further details can be found in note . These include αἰγίλιπος, δνοφερός (twice each in Iliad and Odyssey) and μελάνυδρος (five times in Iliad, always describing springs). The most helpful discussions of the meanings of the difficult vocabulary can be found in commentaries on .– (Janko : ; Bru¨gger : ). Most commentaries on this simile focus on how to understand the relationship between it and the recurrence of the same image at .– (e.g. Hainsworth : –). The ancient critics, like those today, were divided on the matter. While Zenodotus omits the simile on the grounds that it is inappropriate to Agamemnon and less at home here than in Book , an A scholion argues that the simile helps to amplify (αὔξησις) Agamemnon’s emotions. Snipes (: ) cites this simile in his illuminating discussion of the meaning of αὔξησις in scholiastic writings. In addition, .– = .–; .– = .–; .– = .–; .– = .–. There are two repeated similes in the Odyssey, .– = .–, and .– = .–. Some critics argue that one of these spring similes explicitly and intentionally comments on the other (e.g. Moulton : –; Beye : –) while others see this as a recurrence rather than an intentional repetition (Hainsworth : –; for this terminology, see Foley and Arft (: )). di Benedetto () offers a kind of third way: he claims that repetitions are significant even if they are unconscious, but at the same time, his language consistently assumes (or seeks to demonstrate) that repeated language in similes is the result of intentional choice by the poet (see, for instance, ). Although each of these similes has attracted a great deal of scholarly attention, critics have not generally considered the effect of the two similes together. Instead, they have simply pointed out that this pair of similes includes one from the narrator and one from a character (Bru¨gger : ) or that these two similes presented by such different narrators “result in two very different pictures” (de Jong : ). The failure of scholars to use the two similes to understand one another is particularly striking in Porter () since his point is the coexistence of many possible interpretations of the second simile. He does not mention the spring simile at .– even though two similes are better than one for simultaneously inviting and fending off attempts to reach a single understanding of the emotions in this scene. Just one other cluster juxtaposes narrator- and character-presented similes. In a series of three similes describing a Trojan onslaught on the Greek ships (.–, .–, and .–), the last one appears as part of a sorrowful speech by the Trojan fighter Asius lamenting the unexpected strength of the Greek resistance.
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Notes
Πάτροκλος δ’ Ἀχιλῆϊ παρίστατο, ποιμένι λαῶν, / δάκρυα θερμὰ χέων ὥς τε κρήνη, .–; cf. ἷζον δ’ εἰν ἀγορῇ τετιηότες· ἂν δ’ Ἀγαμέμνων / ἵστατο δάκρυ χέων ὥς τε κρήνη, .–. Haubold () argues that Achilles and the Greeks are at odds with one another for most of the Iliad in that Achilles “fed on their demise” () until the death of Patroclus places him “on the side of the abandoned group” (). Given that ποιμένι λαῶν rarely describes Achilles (), its appearance here emphasizes the turning point between his being at loggerheads with the Greeks and returning to their side, even though he remains a character apart even after he returns to battle. Because only of the similes in the Iliad lack a concluding transition word, the lack of an exit expression would call attention to itself. There is a shared sympathy when we feel pity, which led Aristarchus to emend the verb to θάμβησεν on the grounds that “Achilles would not have made fun of him in inquiring, if he pitied him” (οὐ γὰρ ἂν ἔπαιξεν ἐν τῷ πυνθάνεσθαι, εἴπερ ᾤκτειρεν, T). See note for lexical background and discussion of these words. Ingalls () includes an illuminating analysis of the different senses of νήπιος. Ready (: –) offers a detailed interpretation of this simile and of Homeric tears more generally. Bonnafé (), whose interests are primarily compositional, sees the repetition of the “traditional” spring simile as underlining the “originality” of the mother–daughter comparison (). I cannot agree with her argument that parent–child scenes are “déshonorante” insofar as women and children are unfamiliar with the world of battle. Clearly, this expression caught the attention of ancient readers, as Apollonius uses it to introduce the first simile in the Argonautica, a simile that has many points of contact with this one. Friedrich and Redfield (: ) connect this feature of Achilles’ speech to his distinctive ability to “depict hypothetical images.” Martin (: ) attributes it to the “emotive” quality of Achilles’ speech. Gaca () to which Porter’s paper responds, argues that this simile represents a flight from war and enslavement. This influential interpretation has met with disagreement from critics besides Porter; a particularly careful and persuasive instance of it can be found at Ready (: –). Rutherford (: ) offers a typically concise and precise formulation, “[Achilles’] mockery of Patroclus masks pity and affection.” Parent protects their child: e.g. Iliad .– (a mother brushes a fly away from her sleeping child). Bereaved animal parents include the lion discussed earlier in this chapter who tracks the hunter that stole its cubs (.–) and the lamenting birds of prey in Odyssey .– (Chapter , Section ..). Létoublon () offers perceptive remarks about the interest shown in the scholia about the emotional dimensions of animal parent similes. Elmer (: ) sees Achilles’ estrangement from others as “one of the abnormal circumstances that obtains during the time of the Iliad.”
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Homer Iliad: Leadership and Loss
Achilles’ feelings about his responsibilities to others (both spoken by himself ): .– and .–. The toll of his actions on his comrades (all presented by the narrator): .–, .–, and .–. Redfield (: ) calls the shield “a kind of master simile; the [physical] pattern of the Shield can instruct us in our reading of the similes.” Schein (: –) points out the thematic connections between Achilles and the shield although he does not suggest that Achilles himself is aware of these connections. Wofford (: –) draws an analogy between characters’ ignorance of the similes and their lack of interest in the images on their armor, noting that “the warriors’ lack of awareness of the meaning of the designs on their armor is particularly marked and more clearly illustrated in the case of Achilles” (). Wofford notes that other characters are afraid to look at his shield, and Achilles himself responds with pleasure to the armor (τέρπετο, .) but with no apparent interest in the images on the shield (.–). Edwards (: ) suggests that Achilles is unable to appreciate the shield’s scenes of ordinary human life until his reconciliation with Priam, but the poem does not say that any such appreciation ever in fact took place. Rutherford (: ) notes that “the threefold pattern” of this verse “gives a sense of the all-inclusiveness of the shield (and of the craftsman’s vision).” Both of these aspects of Achilles’ character and experiences emerge with particular clarity during the speech he makes to the Greek embassy (.–).
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Apollonius Argonautica Gender, Emotion, and the Limits of Human Skill
.
Shepherds Who Succeed
Apollonius was part of a vibrant culture that pursued – and often combined – new forms of literature, the scholarly study of earlier literature, and broadening the scope of knowledge to include new places, unfamiliar people, and fresh fields of intellectual endeavor. Throughout the Argonautica, his only complete surviving work, we share with both the mythological characters and the narrator the excitement of discovery, of finding new horizons and fresh relationships between the present and the past. Apollonius draws on the literary past, especially in the form of Homeric storytelling tools, to fashion a new kind of heroic epic for his own present that would shape the future of epic poetry. Apollonius’ similes have attracted lively interest from critics seeking to understand the place of the Argonautica in the literary fabric of epic poetry because similes offer a window onto the poet’s views of epic as a genre. For instance, most of his simile characters can be found in the Iliad and the Odyssey, but their relationships to one another and their experiences in the simile world can take us to unfamiliar places. In the simile world of the Argonautica, humans master complex skills and use them to create order, well-being, and a kind of safety that offers positive good cheer to them and their fellow creatures rather than simply an absence of danger. The details of these scenes shape our understanding of the considerable power that humans have for tackling the threats and responsibilities that we face in our relationships with other creatures. By contrast, similes about relationships between humans tell one consistent story of loss and powerlessness not only in the similes themselves but also in the story scenes they describe. Every simile with a cast of several human characters – as distinct from similes about only one person, or those that feature a group of people acting as a single unit – center on strong emotions of a girl or woman about her domestic ties, often involving a husband whose absence creates
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Apollonius Argonautica: Gender, Emotion, and Skill
unhappiness. And all of these similes appear in scenes that touch on the emotional cost of love for Jason, primarily but not exclusively as experienced by Medea. Not only the simile world but also the relations between similes and the story place the narrative of the Argonautica in a new yet Homer-inflected landscape. The Argonautica reshapes the content and narrative approaches of Homeric similes to cast the emotions of Jason and Medea as a kind of heroic exploit. Like Homeric battle, the power of emotion in the Argonautica can be described as “awesome” (δεινός) in both good and bad senses. It can ennoble and immortalize people, and it can also destroy them. In both the world of the similes and the story of Jason and the Argonauts, the human agency that can fend off a hostile ocean wave or a lion or protect a herd of animals is helpless to manage the emotions that rage within the walls of a household. These differing views of human agency are not the good and the bad, or more generally an “either/or” pairing, but two complementary perspectives that are both fundamental to how the poem understands the experience of being human. Toward the end of Book of Apollonius’ Argonautica, the Argonauts go ashore among the friendly Mysians at the southeastern edge of the Propontis where they replenish their supplies (.–). While other heroes are gathering wood, pouring wine, and working on various tasks for making a feast, Heracles goes in search of a tree large enough to build an oar to replace one he had recently broken (.–). His companion Hylas meanwhile searches for water for their upcoming meal. When Hylas is dragged into the pool of an amorous nymph who wants to kiss him, only the hero Polyphemus is close enough to hear his cries (.–). He looks for Hylas, calling and shouting, but to no avail. A simile likens Polyphemus to a hungry wild animal who hears the sounds of a flock of sheep but is unable to capture any of them because their herders have taken advance precautions against attacks. The characters in this simile are familiar from the Homeric simile world, but both their experiences within the simile and their relation to the story begin a fresh chapter in the ongoing story of epic similes.
Argonautica 1.1240–49 The only one of the comrades to hear the boy shout ð1240Þ was Eilatus’ son, the hero Polyphemus, who was heading down the path, for he was expecting massive Heracles to return. He rushed toward the cry and drew near to Pegae, like a wild beast to which comes the bleating of sheep from afar,
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. Shepherds Who Succeed
and, burning with hunger, it goes in pursuit but does not reach ð1245Þ the flocks, for beforehand their own shepherds have shut them in their pens, and so he groans and roars vehemently until he tires – so at that time did Eilatus’ son groan mightily and wander about the spot calling out, but his shouting was in vain. (after Race trans.) τοῦ δ’ ἥρως ἰάχοντος ἐπέκλυεν οἶος ἑταίρων ð1240Þ Εἰλατίδης Πολύφημος, ἰὼν προτέρωσε κελεύθου, δέκτο γὰρ Ἡρακλῆα πελώριον, ὁππόθ’ ἵκοιτο. βῆ δὲ μεταΐξας Πηγέων σχεδόν, ἠύτε τις θὴρ ἄγριος, ὅν ῥά τε γῆρυς ἀπόπροθεν ἵκετο μήλων, λιμῷ δ’ αἰθόμενος μετανίσσεται, οὐδ’ ἐπέκυρσεν ð1245Þ ποίμνῃσιν· πρὸ γὰρ αὐτοὶ ἐνὶ σταθμοῖσι νομῆες ἔλσαν· ὁ δὲ στενάχων βρέμει ἄσπετον, ὄφρακάμῃσιν· ὣς τότ’ ἄρ’ Εἰλατίδης μεγάλ’ ἔστενεν, ἀφμὶ δὲ χῶρον φοίτα κεκληγώς, μελέη δέ οἱ ἔπλετο φωνή.
The simile opens with the wild beast whose actions and feelings shape the whole scene. The sheep, who enter the simile shortly afterward, appear only as a voice heard from a distance. We never see them or encounter them as fully fledged characters. The word order in ., in fact, gradually brings the sheep into our consciousness from the perspective of the wild beast. Because it comes first in the clause (as the antecedent of the relative pronoun ὅν), the wild beast is the focus through which we become aware of the sheep. They appear as a voice, which comes from far away, that belongs to sheep. This is just how the wild beast might take in a distant and initially mysterious sound, but it has little to do with the sheep’s own experiences. Moreover, “from afar” (ἀπόπροθεν, .) places the sheep in a location that has meaning only in relation to the wild beast. It has no independent physical reality of its own, just as the sheep have no independent presence in the scene beyond their effect on the wild beast. In contrast to the sheep, who are simply a disembodied far-off voice, the wild beast is vividly and unremittingly physical, beginning with the burning hunger that drives it to seek the source of the bleating it hears. When the wild beast fails to capture any sheep, the simile explains why not (.): earlier, their shepherds have shut the flocks up in their pens. Unlike herders in the Iliad who at times succeed in preventing attacks against their flocks by standing guard against or fighting off the would-be predator, these herders take the safer and more effective route of planning ahead. The shepherds’ actions are presented as a logical (γάρ) explanation of how the wild beast was foiled just as they use strategy rather than
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Apollonius Argonautica: Gender, Emotion, and Skill
strength or force to turn aside dangers to their animals. In itself, driving flocks into their pens does not require any special effort beyond the daily expertise that shepherds need to do their jobs. Rather, this approach works because of good timing (πρό) implemented by a group of people with a shared interest in working together (αὐτοὶ . . . νομῆες). Stymied, the wild beast goes on with its rampage, groaning and roaring until it wears itself out and brings the simile to a close. Once again, the wild beast is a creature of action and physical sensations in contrast to both the disembodied sheep and the strategic shepherds. The kinds of words that depict the various actors in the scene, not just their meanings, shape our experiences of each character. The verses describing the wild beast consist largely of verbs (., .) – it pursues, (does not) find, groans, roars, and finally tires – whereas the verses about the sheep (.) and the shepherds (.) contain just a single verb each. To the wild beast, the sheep remain only a distant bleat; the shepherds succeed not so much because of what they do (shutting the sheep in their pen) but how they go about it (planning ahead as a group). This simile differs from herding scenes in Homeric epic not simply because only the predator is a fully realized character but also because it does not describe a battle scene. In fighting scenes in both the Iliad and the Argonautica, herding similes typically bring forward the experiences of the different participants in the battle, even – or, sometimes, especially – the enemies of the main character in the story. The simile of wolves and sheep that opened the Introduction (.–), for instance, brings the same subjectivity to the experience of the hostile Bebrycians as it does to the Argonauts, even after their king Amycus has been introduced as wicked and unsympathetic. Here, by contrast, a herding simile describes the doleful isolation of Polyphemus, and so it homes in on the experiences of just one animal who cannot connect with any of the creatures he hears in the world around him. The solitude of this wild beast becomes an even sadder failure within the larger simile world of epic poetry, where predators rarely spend an entire simile alone and herding similes often showcase several different characters by turns. The simile-story connections turn a new page as well. For instance, the predator-prey scenarios that Homeric epic would associate with battle scenes appear instead alongside a solitary hero whose “losses” spring from an amorous nymph rather than a martial enemy. Not coincidentally, the amorous nymph – whose role in the story departs further from Homeric patterns than that of either Polyphemus or Hylas – has the most puzzling relationship to her simile analogue as well. The wild beast clearly represents Polyphemus, and the sheep represent Hylas. Thus, the foresightful
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. Pattern: The Simile World of the Argonautica
shepherds must correspond to the nymph who dooms Polyphemus’ search for Hylas by pulling Hylas into her pool. But what are the similarities between the nymph and the shepherds? In what way is she looking out for Hylas’ well-being? The basis for this analogy apparently raised questions for the scholiasts as well: they make precise and insightful comments on the points of similarity between the wild beast and sheep and their respective story counterparts but become terse and vague when they turn to the links between the nymph and the shepherds. When we struggle to understand the relationship between the most amorous character in this story scene and her analogue in a simile that would likely have described a battle encounter if it had appeared in a Homeric poem, that very difficulty calls our attention to the intermingling of erotic and martial motifs. In the second half of the Argonautica, this narrative strategy casts Medea’s love for Jason as a form of heroic valor. While various characters in the simile world of the Argonautica – like the Argonauts themselves – use strategy and social organization to overcome danger in a way that is largely out of reach in the Homeric simile world, similes also highlight the intractable power of erotic desire, as powerful and deadly in its own way as the battlefield of the Iliad.
. Pattern: The Simile World of the Argonautica .. Men’s Skill and Expertise The simile world of Apollonius is bustling with skilled individuals and groups like these shepherds whose expertise wards off dangers that would have been much more threatening, or even fatal, in the simile world of the Iliad. In contrast to the Odyssey, where the focus in such scenes is often on the personal relationships that underlie or create expert knowledge, the Argonautica focuses on the power of expertise to shape the world to our liking. But alongside happy and successful male simile characters, most women in the simile world are victimized, sad, or alone. Some individual men use their professional expertise to protect and even to entertain themselves and their dependents. Others work together to devise strategies that shelter them and their comrades or herds from predators, bad weather, and other threats. These groups often do not seem to have leaders. Instead, their actions unfold organically without direction from someone in charge, complementing the interest in the story about new forms of heroism where the group rather than the individual takes the lead. Where men work harmoniously and effectively with other men, most women in the simile world are either alone or at odds with others. Weavers, the only kind of
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Apollonius Argonautica: Gender, Emotion, and Skill
female artisan, practice their craft by themselves, and similes about relationships uniformly focus on women who are separated either temporarily or permanently from their husbands, their children, or their parents. Many inhabitants of the simile world of the Argonautica have more positive and enjoyable experiences than their Homeric forebears. But women and families face the same sorrows as they do in the similes of the Iliad or the Odyssey. Knowledge and skill in the simile world of the Argonautica are wonderful things. But they have their limits. They do nothing to make women’s lives easier, safer, or happier, or to rein in the destructive power of human emotions. In one of the most striking improvements to the conditions of the residents of Apollonius’ simile world, no animals in the care of a herder are shown being killed, and some are positively thriving. Domestic animals in the simile world of the Argonautica are often threatened or frightened, but even in situations where flocks are attacked by predators, the simile does not narrate the deaths of any herd animals. In several similes, animal herders keep their flocks away from attackers or bad weather, and we never see anything like the grim scenes familiar from other epics in which predators lick their bloody jaws after making a kill. Indeed, the first herding simile in the Argonautica stakes out new territory for these familiar characters with a scene replete with safety, mutual contentment, and enjoyment of the natural world. As Orpheus plays his lyre on board the departing Argo and fish disport themselves in the ship’s wake, they are compared to a shepherd leading his sated flock homeward as he plays a rustic melody. Where herding similes in battle scenes typically highlight the danger and suffering of the herder and his charges, this simile dwells instead on their physical and emotional well-being. Indeed, these creatures are perhaps the happiest and most physically comfortable to be found in any herding simile in the simile worlds of this book. The herder brings this about through two kinds of expertise. He knows how to take care of his animals, and he knows how to make music. In fact, this is the only singing shepherd in the simile world of these five epic poems. As such, he would be at home in the bucolic poems of Apollonius’ contemporary Theocritus as much as he is in this epic simile.
Argonautica 1.572–79 And fish darted above the deep sea, great mixed with small, and followed along, leaping through the watery paths. And as when in the footsteps of a rustic shepherd, ð575Þ countless sheep follow to the fold after having had their fill of grass,
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. Pattern: The Simile World of the Argonautica
and he goes in front, beautifully playing a shepherd’s tune on his shrill pipes—thus then did the fish accompany the ship. (after Race trans.) τοὶ δὲ βαθείης ἰχθύες ἀίσσοντες ὕπερθ’ ἁλός, ἄμμιγα παύροις ἄπλετοι, ὑγρὰ κέλευθα διασκαίροντες ἕποντο. ὡς δ’ ὁπότ’ ἀγραύλοιο κατ’ ἴχνια σημαντῆρος ð575Þ μυρία μῆλ’ ἐφέπονται ἄδην κεκορημένα ποίης εἰς αὖλιν, ὁ δέ τ’ εἶσι πάρος σύριγγι λιγείῃ καλὰ μελιζόμενος νόμιον μέλος· ὣς ἄρα τοί γε ὡμάρτευν.
Both the fish following the Argo and the flocks following their shepherd move through their environments in ways that convey excitement and harmonious relations with one another: their motion and their emotion are the same. The description of the fish begins and ends with lively physical movements, first “darted above the deep sea” (βαθείης . . . ἀίσσοντες ὕπερθ’ ἁλός, .–) and later “followed along, leaping through the watery paths” (ὑγρὰ κέλευθα διασκαίροντες ἕποντο, .). The sheep, too, are following in a path laid down by someone else, their herder (κατ’ ἴχνια σημαντῆρος . . . ἐφέπονται, .–). Neither fish nor sheep are particularly known for their willingness to spontaneously form orderly groups that move in a line from place to place, making their behavior here especially striking and memorable. But here, the simile “lines up” the sheep and their shepherd by means of several prepositions that explain where they are in relation to one another, encouraging us to place ourselves within the same landscape. After the sheep enter the scene on the heels of their herder, the same spatial arrangement is restated from two different vantage points, first by orienting it toward the fold where the flock is headed (εἰς αὖλιν, .) and then by focusing on the shepherd’s position at the front (ὁ δέ τ’ εἶσι πάρος, .) rather than the sheep’s position at the back. We walk in the steps of the simile characters both physically and emotionally. In this orderly grouping, both the animals and the shepherd are comfortable and happy. No predators, bad weather, or other threats are mentioned. The animals are not simply “not hungry,” which is already a marked contrast with so many herding similes that are driven by the hunger of the predator, the animals, or both (such as the scene at Argonautica .–). These animals, instead, have “had their fill” (ἄδην κεκορημένα, ). Their contentment invites us to share the pleasure that follows a good meal. Without the usual pressures of protecting and caring for his animals, the shepherd, too, is enjoying himself. His position in front of the sheep not only helps us to
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Apollonius Argonautica: Gender, Emotion, and Skill
visualize the scene – and so to place ourselves within it – but also implies that the flock is calm and well behaved. Otherwise the shepherd would be likely to walk behind them in order to head off stragglers and keep the animals in order. And the longest description in the simile is devoted to the shepherd as he plays a beautiful rustic melody while walking home at the head of his flock. This unique moment in the fields of the epic simile world enfolds us not only in the beautiful sounds of the herder’s song but also in various interpretive questions raised by the presence and wording of this song. Both the narrative and the simile feature unusual word choices that emphasize both the key concepts in the passage and the striking differences between this scenario and the typical behavior of Homeric animals. διασκαίρω (“leap through,” .) is found only here in Greek literature before the fourth century CE, suggesting that this energetically companionable behavior is unusual. The poem does not specify whether the gamboling fish are attracted by the ship or by the music of Orpheus (Clare : –) so that the unusual verb and the ambiguous behavior work together to draw attention to the accompanying fish, perhaps the “audience” of the Argo as it departs on its heroic voyage. Similarly, σημαντήρ (“shepherd,” .) appears twice in Apollonius for human beings in similes interacting in an emotional way with the natural world, and nowhere else in Greek literature until Josephus in the first century CE. Both the fish in the story and the shepherd in the simile are introduced with rare vocabulary that highlights their harmonious and cheerful relations to other kinds of creatures. These relations, we are to understand, are just as rare and striking as the words used to describe them. In the shepherd’s song, too, un-Homeric vocabulary depicts unHomeric behavior: the verb μελίζω (“sing,” LSJ def. B) appears in several poetic genres, especially the bucolic poems of Theocritus, but it appears only here in nonbucolic hexameter poetry. Indeed, several aspects of this language parallel Theocritus (Ardizzoni : ) bringing a coloring not simply of bucolic behavior but of bucolic poetry to the heroic simile. Shepherds in the Iliad are doing hard and dangerous work to protect their animals, whereas shepherds in Theocritus are enjoying their leisure with song. This shepherd is not simply a character in this scene. He is also bringing a contemporary, non-epic literary genre into Apollonius’ poem, which achieves its epic “scope” in part by weaving into the fabric of his poem materials not only from Homeric epic but also from other literary forms. This simile exemplifies how Apollonius creates feelings with learned tools – in particular, non-Homeric or unique words to depict un-Homeric situations – to arouse in us both the engagement
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. Pattern: The Simile World of the Argonautica
produced by making sense of intertextual allusions and the bodily contentment experienced by the creatures in the simile. In part because both Orpheus and the shepherd are singing, the relationships between the simile and the adjacent story pose questions for us not simply about who the simile characters correspond to in the story but also about the meaning of “audience,” “comrade,” and “follower.” Is the “audience” for Orpheus’ song the Argonauts, the fish, or both? Are the fish following the song or the ship? If Orpheus corresponds to the shepherd, what kind of a “leader” does that make him? What are we to make of a simile of embarkation that includes no characters corresponding either to the notional leader of the expedition, Jason, or to the Argonauts other than Orpheus? The importance of song for both the story and the simile when the Argo sets out on its journey, especially since this is our only singing shepherd, draws our attention to the power of language and song to create ties among the members of a group and between a group and its leader. We ourselves are bound to the poem by the power of song, just as the fish are bound to the Argo, the Argonauts are bound to their voyage, and the sheep are bound to their shepherd. The shepherd’s song here provides a glimpse of another key area where humans appear in epic similes: art and craft focused not on animals but on inanimate aspects of the world. Individual practitioners of these forms of expertise in the Argonautica also succeed in using their skills to create order and safety in the world around them. In particular, the sailors in the similes of the Argonautica stand out in the broader epic simile world for their ability to avert or overcome the inevitable dangers that arise in plying their craft. These sailors face the same threats from the seas and weather that appear in the simile worlds of other poems, and they respond effectively. Two of the four sailing similes in the poem feature positive scenes at sea, one of which includes a helmsman whose know-how saves his ship from a billowing wave (.–, as Polydeuces reacts to an attack from Amycus). This scene highlights the power of individual expertise, placing at its literal and thematic center the helmsman’s skill as he saves his ship from a wave that is eager to attack. Not just the helmsman but also the wave itself are endowed with agency that throws into relief the steersman’s ability to rescue his craft.
Argonautica 2.70–75 Thereupon the king of the Bebrycians—as when a rough wave of the sea ð70Þ rears up against a swift ship, which barely escapes through the expertise of the wise helmsman as the billow strives to sweep over its sides—
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Apollonius Argonautica: Gender, Emotion, and Skill thus did he pursue the son of Tyndareus to frighten him and allowed him no respite. (after Race trans.) ἔνθα δὲ Βεβρύκων μὲν ἄναξ, ἅ τε κῦμα θαλάσσης ð70Þ τρηχὺ θοὴν ἐπὶ νῆα κορύσσεται, ἡ δ’ ὑπὸ τυτθὸν ἰδρείῃ πυκινοῖο κυβερνητῆρος ἀλύσκει ἱεμένου φορέεσθαι ἔσω τοίχοιο κλύδωνος· ὣς ὅ γε Τυνδαρίδην φοβέων ἕπετ’, οὐδέ μιν εἴα δηθύνειν. ð75Þ
The word order at the beginning of the simile embodies the relationship between its two main characters, with the ship hemmed in both fore and aft by words referring to the ocean wave that endangers it. The simile opens with the wave itself (κῦμα θαλάσσης τρηχύ, .–), followed by the ship that the wave is threatening (θοὴν ἐπὶ νῆα), and finally the billowing motion of the wave (κορύσσεται, .). Like the wave, the words press upon the ship – and on us, the readers – from all directions. But the helmsman and his expertise save the day (.) even as the wave eagerly strives to swamp the ship (ἱεμένου φορέεσθαι, .). The sequence of the simile, too, sandwiches the ship and her helmsman (.–) between two descriptions of the force of the wave (.–; .). The wave is larger and more powerful than the helmsman, yet even as it looms over him and his ship, his skill enables him to defeat it. The simile highlights both the agency of the helmsman and the almost sentient behavior of the wave. First, it uses unusual vocabulary that evokes Homeric parallels in which a ship facing a similar plight seems almost peripheral to the natural forces besetting it. ἰδρεία (“expertise,” .) appears only here in Apollonius and twice in the Iliad (. and .) where it refers to battlefield skills. Thus, this word underlines the importance of human skill in avoiding a nautical disaster, and it also elevates the helmsman’s abilities by casting them as a kind of military heroism. Moreover, the language for both the helmsman and the wave gives them a unique sort of agency. The helmsman is πυκινοῖο (“wise,” .) used regularly for the shrewd contrivances of human beings but only here for the human being himself. In the next verse, ἱεμένου φορέεσθαι (“strives to sweep over,” .) depicts the wave as enthusiastically battering the hull of the ship. Because the participle ἱέμενος (“eager, striving”) normally describes the desires of a sentient actor, the wave seems to behave like a conscious hostile adversary, further dramatizing the skill and valor of the helmsman in defeating it.
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. Pattern: The Simile World of the Argonautica
The closest Homeric parallel to our passage lacks any human actors at all, drawing our attention by contrast both to the presence in Apollonius’ simile of a human being who might control the situation and to the success of his professional expertise. In the only other instance in either Homeric epic or Apollonius where τοῖχος refers to the “sides” of a ship rather than the walls of a building or a town, the scene focuses on the power of the natural world. The ship itself constitutes the only human presence in the scene, and the wave gets its force not from its own eagerness to attack the ship but from being acted upon by the inanimate power of the winds.
Iliad 15.381–83 Like a giant breaker rearing up on the rangy seas, crashing over a ship’s sides, driven in by the winds and the blast builds the comber’s crushing impact. (Fagles trans.) . . . ὥς τε μέγα κῦμα θαλάσσης εὐρυπόροιο νηὸς ὑπὲρ τοίχων καταβήσεται, ὁππότ’ ἐπείγῃ ἲς ἀνέμου· ἡ γάρ τε μάλιστά γε κύματ’ ὀφέλλει·
This scene depicts the forces of sea and wind as part of the natural world. In this instance, they are dramatized by their impact on a human vessel that is barely mentioned and has no agency associated with it. The wind, in fact, is more powerful than either the sea or the human crew of the ship insofar as nearly half of the simile is devoted to presenting the wind as the driving force in the scene. The Apollonius simile, in contrast, features a duel between a skilled human and an ocean wave that acts as an individualized force without any impetus from the wind, in which human expertise emerges triumphant. Thus, the additional context provided by the Homeric parallel throws the helmsman’s know-how and his success against the wave into even sharper relief. Male experts, such as sailors and herders, wield their skills effectively both alone and in groups. In addition to the group of shepherds who protect their animals from a hungry wild beast at .–, a group of sailors enjoys a school of dolphins swimming around their ship in calm weather (.–) and builders make stout houses that shelter people from the weather singly (.–) and across a larger settlement (.–). But women craftspeople – that is to say, weavers – work alone, and the two Argonautica similes about weavers have little interest in the women’s technical skills. One weaver is building up a fire to create light at night (.–) while another is weeping over the fate of herself and her orphaned children (.–). Not coincidentally, both of these
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Apollonius Argonautica: Gender, Emotion, and Skill
weaving similes describe Medea’s feelings about Jason, and these are the only craft similes in the Argonautica to describe emotions in the story. The two women weavers in the simile world of the Iliad provide an instructive contrast. One is simply going about her business as a craftsperson (Iliad .–) holding the weaving rod as close to her chest while she draws out the thread as Odysseus is to Ajax in a foot race. The other weaver, like the woman at Argonautica .–, is concerned about her children (.–), but the Iliad simile describes both weighing out wool and the weaver’s desire to provide for her family. Moreover, she is simply eager to earn money to support them, not weeping in despair over their wretched situation. So, the weavers in the simile world of the Argonautica differ on the one hand from the male craftspeople in being solitary artisans and on the other hand from the female weavers in the Iliad who are shown working at their craft. These contrasts underline the solitude of these women. The focus on their feelings rather than their professional expertise suggests that even when women do have the knowledge and skill to shape the world around them, their feelings will be more powerful than their expertise. This is certainly the case for Medea, both the most prominent female character in the poem and – with her magical abilities – the possessor of the most powerful skills. ..
Women and Human Relationships
Like the scenes of weavers, all of the similes in the Argonautica that describe human relationships include women characters, and all of these women are either by themselves or somehow isolated or estranged from their families and social networks. Unlike other characters in the simile world, women in relationships are largely at the mercy of their circumstances, which include even the people with whom they share close ties. Moreover, this very limited cast of characters is unique to the Argonautica: relationship scenes with both male characters and nonfamily ties make regular appearances in the simile worlds of Homer, Vergil, and Ovid. The longest and most detailed of these relationship similes compares the lovestruck and tormented Medea to a young bride who keeps to herself after the early death of her husband (or, perhaps, her betrothed), avoiding both her maidservants and other married women out of concern for what they might say about her (.–). From the ancient commentators to contemporary readers, no one understands the exact situation in the simile. Is the young woman married to the “husband” mentioned in the first verse? Why does she fear the comments of other women? There is no way
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. Pattern: The Simile World of the Argonautica
to know. But answering such questions is beside the point. What matters here is not the specific details of the relationships but their emotional effect on the central character. This scene – elusive specifics and all – brings out the wrenching contrast between the rich web of ties that bind this maiden to family, household, and society, and her physical and emotional isolation after the death of her beloved. She is not comforted by her relationships. If anything, her sorrow is deepened by the behavior of those closest to her.
Argonautica 3.654–66 Three times she tried, three times she halted. The fourth time she whirled back around and fell face down on her bed. ð655Þ And as when a bride in her bedroom weeps for her youthful husband, to whom her brothers and parents have given her, and she does not yet associate with all the servants out of shame and discretion, but sits in a corner grieving – a husband some doom had slain before the two of them could enjoy ð660Þ each other’s counsels – and, although burning inside as she beholds her widowed bed, she wails in silence, lest the women criticize and scoff at her; like her did Medea lament. But suddenly in the midst of her weeping one of the servants approached and noticed her, ð665Þ a young girl who was her attendant. (after Race trans.) τρὶς μὲν ἐπειρήθη, τρὶς δ’ ἔσχετο· τέτρατον αὖτις λέκτροισιν πρηνὴς ἐνικάππεσεν εἱλιχθεῖσα. ð655Þ ὡς δ’ ὅτε τις νύμφη θαλερὸν πόσιν ἐν θαλάμοισιν μύρεται, ᾧ μιν ὄπασσαν ἀδελφεοὶ ἠδὲ τοκῆες, οὐδέ τί πω πάσαις ἐπιμίσγεται ἀμφιπόλοισιν αἰδοῖ ἐπιφροσύνῃ τε, μυχῷ δ’ ἀχέουσα θαάσσει, τὸν δέ τις ὤλεσε μοῖρα πάρος ταρπήμεναι ἄμφω ð660Þ δήνεσιν ἀλλήλων· ἡ δ’ ἔνδοθι δαιομένη περ σῖγα μάλα κλαίει χῆρον λέχος εἰσορόωσα, μή μιν κερτομέουσαι ἐπιστοβέωσι γυναῖκες· τῇ ἰκέλη Μήδεια κινύρετο. τὴν δέ τις ἄφνω μυρομένην μεσσηγὺς ἐπιπρομολοῦσ’ ἐνόησεν ð665Þ δμωάων, ἥ οἱ ἑπέτις πέλε κουρίζουσα·
The simile begins by placing the maiden (τις νύμφη, .) and her lusty husband (θαλερὸν πόσιν) together in a bedroom (ἐν θαλάμοισιν). At the start of the next verse, however, it turns out that the maiden is grieving (μύρεται, .) instead of doing what we might expect a young couple to do in their bridal chamber. She is enfolded in the closest and warmest relations to which a young woman can aspire, yet they bring her grief rather
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Apollonius Argonautica: Gender, Emotion, and Skill
than joy. The rest of the simile follows the path laid out in the first verse. Close relationships breed sorrow and distance instead of support, brought to life through both the feelings and the physical environment of the maiden. The feelings of the young bride isolate her not simply from her dead husband and the brothers and parents who gave her to him in marriage (.) but also from the female attendants in her household and the married women in the community (.–). At a literal, physical level, she separates herself from these groups because of her feelings. She sits grieving in the inner spaces of the house rather than mingling with the maidservants (.–), and she prefers weeping over her empty bed to associating with married women (.–). Her emotional isolation is physically acted out when she chooses to avoid the company of other people. The specific words that describe the maiden’s experiences in relation to both groups of women are simultaneously rich in expressive force and semantically elusive. The maiden refuses to mingle with the maidservants because of “shame and discretion” (αἰδοῖ ἐπιφροσύνῃ τε, .), but it is unclear why these feelings would arise between her and the maids simply because her spouse had died. Suggestions abound (summarized by Hunter : –), but none are convincing enough to eliminate the other possibilities. The most “fundamental and explicit” sanction associated with αἰδώς (“shame”) takes the form of “what people say” (Cairns : ), and it is that powerful feeling embedded within a social network that most strongly colors the maiden’s behavior. In fact, our confusion about why the maiden feels this way captures this moment in the story more effectively than a clearer scenario would have done, because it takes us inside the power of Medea’s own conflicted and elusive feelings about Jason and about her family and social responsibilities. The dreaded response of the married women is even more puzzling, and it, too, gives us a taste of what Medea’s emotions feel like by placing us inside the subjectivity of a simile character preoccupied by strong feelings that neither she nor we can fully identify. The mockery of married women is presented as a hypothetical possibility that the maiden hides in her room in order to avoid (.–): this is the maiden’s idea of what will happen, but the simile gives no indication of why she thinks that or whether her fears are well founded. The rest of the simile, in contrast, unfolds from the point of view of the maiden, but all of the incidents it describes are presented as actual occurrences (albeit occurrences that other characters in the scene might view differently than the maiden does). Not simply the hypothetical form of these reactions from the married women but also the words themselves create a cloud of uncertainty around their behavior.
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. Similes and the Argonautica Story
κερτομέω refers to a complex and elusive kind of speech with both a strong emotional force and a robust social context in which the speaker somehow criticizes or opposes the addressee with speech that means something different in its context of utterance than the propositional meaning of its words. ἐπιστοβέω is even more difficult because it is attested in Greek literature only in the Argonautica. But such interpretive challenges strengthen rather than blunt the force of the simile because these words communicate feelings, not precise lexical meanings. The relationships surrounding this young maiden create strong feelings of connectedness for her at a time of mourning for her husband. But these bonds with her family and household give rise to negative feelings that cannot be precisely described. Instead, they are shown by a simile exploring how they deepen the maiden’s sorrow and isolation. Our inability to pin down what those feelings are is not a failure of interpretation but a way for us to share with Medea the experience of strong emotions that somehow conflict with what we expect or understand about the situation in which we find ourselves.
. Similes and the Argonautica Story ..
Battle
While simile subjects that describe Homeric fighting scenes have begun migrating into other kinds of story contexts in the Argonautica, its battle storytelling looks largely familiar in comparison to the Iliad. As in the Iliad, similes appear most often alongside scenes of fighting, and the bulk of these fighting similes appears in clusters. For example, the simile depicting the victory of a knowledgeable helmsman over an attacking wave (.–) is the first of a series of three similes that describe – and to some extent narrate – three “rounds” in the boxing match between King Amycus and the Argonaut Polydeuces at the beginning of Book (Cuypers : –). After the wave simile describes Amycus at the beginning of the fight, Polydeuces evades his advancing foe long enough to understand his style of boxing (ἀνούτατος ἣν διὰ μῆτιν, .). Once Polydeuces figures out how best to confront Amycus, he stands fast and begins to return punch for punch (.–) . This second stage of the fight is described with a simile that emphasizes the reciprocal sameness of the blows that each opponent lands on his foe, portraying the two of them as builders shaping lumber into a ship with an unceasing racket of hammering (.–). After a short break to catch their breath, Amycus and Polydeuces resume their attacks. Round is introduced by a short simile
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Apollonius Argonautica: Gender, Emotion, and Skill
about two bulls who are fighting over a grazing cow (.–), and then the encounter ends with a series of individual blows in which Polydeuces kills Amycus (.–). Neither the subjects nor the narrative role of these similes stakes out new ground in comparison to Homeric epic, but familiar narrative techniques create somewhat different effects than they might have in the Iliad. Each of these simile subjects appears alongside battle scenes in most or all of our corpus. As in Homeric battle scenes, several of these similes depict adversaries acting in concert as a kind of unity. The shipbuilders create a single, sustained clamor of hammer blows as they work (ἐπ’ ἄλλῳ δ’ ἄλλος ἄηται δοῦπος, .–), just as the two combatants continuously strike each other in the face (παρήιά τ’ ἀμφοτέρωθεν καὶ γένυες κτύπεον, .–). Throughout Round , forms of “both” (ἀμφότεροι) and dual forms make a single fighting entity out of Amycus and Polydeuces as well. The third simile reinforces this picture, describing the two boxers as enraged fighting bulls, again using several dual forms (ταύρω . . . κεκοτηότε δηριάασθον, .–). But whereas this kind of unity in the similes of an Iliad battle scene would imply an analogous and thematically significant kinship between opposing Greek and Trojan fighters, in this boxing match, it simply reflects how each of the boxers is faring against the other at this stage in the fight. It does not evoke any deeper or broader ideas for the whole poem. This difference highlights the distinctive thematic coloring that such “unity” similes add to the Iliad. .. Emotions The relationships of similes to battle scenes in the Argonautica follow in the footsteps of the Iliad. But the poem also takes up the Odyssey’s focus on emotions, both in having a high proportion of similes that describe the feelings of story characters and in using those similes primarily for the emotions of the main characters. In fact, after war and attack, emotions are the most common story subject in the Argonautica to be described with similes. Just as the Odyssey uses similes to make homecoming into a kind of heroic endeavor, the Argonautica clothes the emotions of Medea – but rarely those of Jason – in the narrative fabric of epic heroism. Viewed alongside the emotion similes in the Odyssey, this feature of the Argonautica seems less like a bold innovation in epic narrative and more like another of Apollonius’ adaptions of what he saw in Homeric poetry. If we are guided by whose feelings are described with similes, it is Medea, not Jason, who stars in the Argonautica’s story
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. Similes and the Argonautica Story
about the power of emotion. Jason is at most a bystander – and often he is glaringly absent – from the maelstrom of largely negative feelings that engulfs Medea as soon as she is struck by the arrow of Eros (.–). The first simile to describe Medea compares the “burning shaft” of this arrow of love (βέλος δ’ ἐνεδαίετο, .) to the all-consuming fire that leaps up from a small pile of kindling lit by a spinner woman so that she can ply her trade at night (.–; see Section .. on weaving similes). This focus on the destructive power of love sets the tone for the majority of the similes about Medea’s feelings throughout Books and . These similes portray Medea as a “hero” whose heroic quality is her erotic attraction to Jason, not her magic powers. And her struggle with those feelings, as the broader simile world of the Argonatica makes clear, is even more challenging than the quest for the Golden Fleece. Both Jason and various characters in the simile world rely on expertise, planning, and collaboration to succeed in their endeavors, but similes show that Medea – like most women of the simile world of the Argonautica – finds herself helpless and largely alone in her struggle with the fearsome power of erotic love. Once Medea and Jason conduct a hasty wedding ceremony on Scheria to avoid having Medea sent back to her father by King Alcinous because she is still a virgin (.–), no further similes describe her feelings. Even though the marriage brings Medea’s erotic exploit of heroism to a successful end, the narrative gives it a kind of short shrift because no aspect of the wedding is described with a simile. Moreover, both Jason and Medea regret that circumstances have forced them to marry on the way back to Greece instead of in Jason’s home (.–). As the events of Euripides’ Medea and the many similes of bereaved and abandoned women that describe Medea from her first appearance in the poem suggest, this somewhat happy ending – like the happiness of the couple’s first encounter – will prove fleeting. By contrast, the simile that reunites Odysseus and Penelope (Odyssey .–) brings them safely into harbor together, both literally and figuratively (see further Chapter , Section ..). And in the final simile in the Iliad (.–), Achilles meets Priam for a wrenching exchange of ransom, loss, and memory that represents the climax of the poem’s theme of the universal grief of bereaved parents and sons lost too young. The similes of the Argonautica do not provide any such definitive or satisfying end point for the main emotional story line of the poem, which well-informed readers are aware will continue long after the Argonauts return to Greece.
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Apollonius Argonautica: Gender, Emotion, and Skill
.
Weave: Structures of Similes in the Argonautica
The Argonautica takes the epic genre in a new direction, where varieties of simile form shape our experience of the poem alongside variety of content. Most of the simile structures in the Argonautica can also be found in Homeric epic, but they play different roles in the Argonautica than they did in the Odyssey or the Iliad. Sometimes the difference is small: simile clusters in Argonautica – resemble those in the Homeric poems before they head into uncharted territory in Book . Sometimes it is stark: the “option” similes in the Argonautica, which contain two complete and independent likenesses in the form “A is like B, or like C,” superficially resemble Homeric similes that offer alternatives for one specific character or aspect of the scene (like Odyssey .–, which features “birds of prey – eagles or vultures with hooked claws”), but they have no exact analogue in the Homeric poems. And sometimes the Argonautica takes a minor or occasional building block of Homeric similes and turns it into a major landmark. Such features include short similes that lack an exit expression and similes whose likeness to the story is based on some form of quantitative measurement, such as “as many . . . so many” rather than the more general “as . . . so.” These structures bring occasional flourishes or variety to the narrative fabric of Homeric epic rather than the regular threads that they become for Apollonius. .. Simile Clusters The “Homeric” style of simile clusters reaches its climax in Jason’s aristeia. First, he sows the dragon’s teeth that will grow into the Earthborn Men, and then he causes the fighters to slay one another as they sprout from the ground. A key player in this narrative drama is the scene’s similes, which form more and longer simile clusters than comparable scenes in other epic poems. In large part because of these similes, the conventions of Homeric battle narrative become so concentrated in Jason’s aristeia that the narrative style almost turns into its own caricature. In fact, one-fifth of the similes in the entire Argonautica appears in the approximately verses that comprise this epic encounter. They are arranged in an escalating series of clusters, beginning with a comparatively restrained group of seven similes that fall into twos and threes (.–) followed by a staggering cluster of eight similes at the end (.–). But this huge cluster is a double-edged sword. It simultaneously magnifies Jason’s achievement and creates a skeptical or fictionalizing distance between the story and us.
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. Weave: Structures of Similes in the Argonautica
Through these unprecedented simile clusters, we are engulfed by the physical powers of Jason and his supernatural opponents, even as we stand away from the narrative to observe and question it. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the paradoxical force of these similes has given rise to different views of Jason himself. Some critics see him as a fairly straightforward epic fighter at the height of his admittedly somewhat unusual heroic powers (e.g. Beye : –) while others see the entire exploit as false, artificial, and even “antiHomeric” (e.g. Fusillo : ). Simile clusters heighten both the heroic and the fictional dimensions of Jason’s aristeia. But clusters go on a journey of their own over the course of the poem. While most of the Homeric clusters in Books and are found in battle contexts that reach a climax with Jason’s aristeia at the end of Book , clusters move into a different and more varied landscape in Book . Nearly all of the simile clusters in Books though describe battle or fighting. The clusters in Book flip this picture: a smaller proportion of similes forms part of a cluster, but simile clusters describe a wider range of story subjects. The only cluster in Book that describes a killing underlines the terrible perversion of Jason and Medea’s murder of her brother Apsyrtus (.– and .), in part by drawing a contrast with the simile clusters in Books though that without exception describe fights that are forced upon the Argonauts after they are attacked or threatened by hostile opponents. These final similes of fighting in the Argonautica form a ring with the first simile in the poem about fighting (.–), which also describes a fatal encounter between the Argonauts and an opponent bound to them by the closest ties. In Book , the Argonauts inadvertently kill their recent host Cyzicus unaware after landing a second time on his island home by night. When they discover their mistake, they are distraught (.–). By contrast, Jason and Medea kill her brother Apsyrtus not simply intentionally but also deceptively. Most clusters in Book magnify supernatural actors, including the snake that watches over the Golden Fleece, the Fleece itself, and the Nereids whose help allows the Argo to pass safely through the Wandering Rocks. In effect, simile clusters lend an epic coloring to the supernatural forces that distinguish Argonautica not simply from the earlier books of the poem but also from the Homeric poems. ..
“No Exit” and Quantitative Measurement Similes
Most short similes in the Argonautica return directly to the story without a transitional “so” expression to join the two together. This occasional
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Apollonius Argonautica: Gender, Emotion, and Skill
feature of Homeric epic becomes the rule rather than the exception for two- and (to a smaller extent) three-verse similes in Apollonius. On the one hand, this new approach to structuring an epic simile arises mainly from considerations of clarity. During a short simile, a reader of the Argonautica can easily stay oriented in the story where a Homeric listener might struggle, and so the concluding word may be omitted. But for longer similes during which it might be more difficult for both a reader and a listener to remember the particulars of the story, a concluding “thus” word continues to be used. At the same time, the lack of a clear boundary between story and simile creates a more fertile interpretive relationship between us and the narrative, both because we must supply our own interpretation of where the simile ends instead of recognizing a signal provided by the narrator, and because Homeric poetry handles the transition points at the beginning and end of a simile so differently. In this way, the absence of a concluding “thus” word in over one-quarter of the similes in the Argonautica helps to focus our attention on the relationship between simile and story, one of the main interests of Hellenistic scholarship on similes (on which see Nu¨nlist : –). Such “no-exit” similes will play an even larger role in the Aeneid and the Metamorphoses, as the relationships between simile and story continue to shift and the story and simile worlds draw closer and closer together. Other occasional Homeric simile structures find new uses and create fresh effects in the Argonautica, especially in Book . Similes that describe a quantitative dimension of the story appear regularly in both Homeric epics, but they are more common in Apollonius than in any other poem in our corpus and more common in Argonautica than in the earlier books of the poem. Such similes are framed not by one of the most common “as . . . so” expressions (such as ὡς δ’ ὅτε . . . ὥς) but by correlative structures that link the story and the simile through a likeness of time (ἦμος . . . τῆμος) or quantity (ὅσσον. . . τόσσον), which may include size, speed, or number. Quantitative similes use one of the most conventionally “epic” generic features of the Argonautica to link two superficially distinct ways of approaching the world: a traditional mythological epic on the one hand, and the contemporary scholarly interest in measuring, studying, and quantifying the world on the other. In this way, simile structures characteristic of the Argonautica create meaning by forging an innovative relationship between similarity (to existing conventions of the epic genre) and difference. Hunter (: , on .–) suggests that such comparisons “set heroic events against the background of the ‘real’ world.” For Apollonius, this “real world” consists not just of activities like plowing and
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. Weave: Structures of Similes in the Argonautica
the rising and setting of the sun, but also of scientific inquiry and quantitative measurement as a basis for describing the world around us. The newly varied and capacious epic narrative of Apollonius contains and combines modes of discourse that would have been incompatible in earlier epic poetry. Quantitative similes also draw out different kinds of measurements from those found in other epics: five similes highlight the time of day at which something occurs, a type of comparison that appears just twice in our corpus outside of Apollonius. Moreover, only humans regulate their behavior based on the time of day rather than their physical needs or the parameters of their environment, making the measurement of time a uniquely human, culturally based activity. A simile about the time that the Argonauts land in the territory of the Mysians late in Book offers an instructive contrast with Homeric antecedents from the Iliad and the Odyssey. This simile suggests that in the Argonautica, time has a different meaning – more about quantitative descriptions and less about giving shape to human experience – than it does in Homeric epic.
Argonautica 1.1165–66 and 1172–78 . . . they were passing within sight of the mouth of the Rhyndacus ð1165Þ and the great tomb of Aegaeon, a short distance beyond Phrygia . . . At the hour when a gardener or plowman gladly leaves the field for his hut, longing for dinner, and there on the doorstep, he bends his weary knees caked with dust, he stares at his worn-out hands ð1175Þ and heaps wretched curses on his belly, then it was that they reached the homesteads of the Cianian land near the Arganthonian mountain and the mouth of the Cius river. (after Race trans.)
Ῥυνδακίδας προχοὰς μέγα τ’ ἠρίον Αἰγαίωνος ð1165Þ τυτθὸν ὑπὲκ Φρυγίης παρεμέτρεον εἰσορόωντες ,. . . [while rowing, Heracles unexpectedly breaks his oar in two, –] ἦμος δ’ ἀγρόθεν εἶσι φυτοσκάφος ἤ τις ἀροτρεὺς ἀσπασίως εἰς αὖλιν ἑήν δόρποιο χατίζων, αὐτοῦ δ’ ἐν προμολῇ τετρυμένα γούνατ’ ἔκαμψεν αὐσταλέος κονίῃσι, περιτριβέας δέ τε χεῖρας ð1175Þ εἰσορόων κακὰ πολλὰ ἑῇ ἠρήσατο γαστρί· τῆμος ἄρ’ οἵ γ’ ἀφίκοντο Κιανίδος ἤθεα γαίης ἀμφ’ Ἀργανθώνειον ὄρος προχοάς τε Κίοιο.
This simile uses the physical and emotional state of a farmer at the end of a hard day’s work in the fields to fix the time when the Argonauts arrive in
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Apollonius Argonautica: Gender, Emotion, and Skill
the land of the Mysians. At Iliad .–, another simile about a day of hard outdoor work framed with the same “when . . . then” correlatives (ἦμος . . . τῆμος) draws out a long period of stalemate on the battlefield. The Iliad passage differs in two key respects from the Argonautica simile. First, time is central to the Iliad story as well as to the simile structure. Second, the story and the simile are primarily concerned with a subjective experience of time as an elapsed period that feels wearisome and excessive to the people involved rather than as a fixed point in the day. In the Iliad, both the farmer and the fighters have been at their work for a long time, and the simile marks the change in the story when that period finally comes to an end. But in the Argonautica, the time when the farmer returns home marks a specific time of day when the Argonauts arrive among the Mysians. The Argonauts, too, have become weary from rowing (τειρόμενοι καμάτῳ μετελώφεον, .), but the immediate story context of the simile focuses on the time of day that they reach land rather than their physical or emotional state upon arriving. In this Iliad scene, time is one way of embodying the subjective human experience of the world. In the Argonautica, it provides a measuring stick with which to describe and quantify those experiences. Odyssey .–, the other Homeric model for this comparison, describes a farmer who is delighted (ἀσπασίως, . = Argonautica .) to see his workday end. But this simile is introduced with the most common “as . . . so” framing words (ὡς δ’ ὅτε . . . ὥς), not the “when . . . then” time expression that Apollonius uses. The simile mentions time, but its focus is the feelings of the simile and story characters. The emotional weight of the farmer’s toil finds a close parallel in the Odyssey story, which highlights Odysseus’ eagerness to leave Scheria and embark on the last leg of his journey home. The Odyssey shows the magnitude of the journey to return home through the emotions and physical weariness experienced by both the traveler and his loved ones. As we have seen, this is one of the key themes of the poem in both the simile and the story worlds. In this Argonautica simile, on the other hand, time rather than physical or emotional experience provides the common link between a weary farmer and the traveler’s journey. This change in orientation helps to bring forward one of the main themes of the Argonautica, the power of human expertise over the world around us. Quantitative similes focus ongoing attention on the value of measurement, and they confer on it the expressive force that similes by their very nature lend to any aspect of the story. This emphasis distinguishes Apollonius from other epic poets, using a defining feature of the epic genre to place
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. Weave: Structures of Similes in the Argonautica
the Argonautica within the scientific framework of inquiry, documentation, and measurement that characterized Apollonius’ intellectual milieu. ..
A New Structure: Option Similes
The Argonautica contains the first examples of a new kind of simile, which takes the Homeric practice of offering several possible alternatives for some peripheral simile detail and applies it to an entire simile scene. As with other innovative features of Apollonius’ similes, “option” similes with the form “X is like A, or like B” are associated mainly with Book . In Homeric epic, similes often mention two or three different species of animal who might be attacked by a predator or various kinds of plants that might be harvested. Apollonius, too, fashions some similes like these, as when the lovestruck Jason and Medea are compared to two species of trees rustling in the wind (Argonautica . “like oaks or lofty pines,” ἢ δρυσὶν ἢ μακρῇσιν ἐειδόμενοι ἐλάτῃσιν). But the Argonautica also develops a new style of simile, in which two separate scenes are offered as independently and fully developed likenesses of a particular story moment. The first such simile includes two different scenes that describe the number of Colchians who gather to figure out what to do after Medea and Jason have fled with the Golden Fleece.
Argonautica 4.214–18 They thronged to the assembly in their armor, as numerous as waves of the sea that arise from a stormy wind, ð215Þ or as many as the leaves that fall to the ground from a forest thick with branches in the month when leaves are shed – who could count them? – thus, beyond number they poured along the banks of the river. . . (after Race trans.)
ἐς δ’ ἀγορὴν ἀγέροντ’ ἐνὶ τεύχεσιν, ὅσσα τε πόντου κύματα χειμερίοιο κορύσσεται ἐξ ἀνέμοιο, ð215Þ ἢ ὅσα φύλλα χαμᾶζε περικλαδέος πέσεν ὕλης φυλλοχόῳ ἐνὶ μηνί – τίς ἂν τάδε τεκμήραιτο; – ὣς οἱ ἀπειρέσιοι ποταμοῦ παρεμέτρεον ὄχθας . . .
The similes show the vast number of Colchians in part by likening them to features of the natural world that are almost proverbial for being endless and uncountable. The structure of the simile calls further attention both to the magnitude of the numbers and to the difficulty of counting the Colchians, and the rhetorical question “who could count them?” places us within the interpretive challenge posed by the number
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Apollonius Argonautica: Gender, Emotion, and Skill
of Colchians and this simile structure. In fact, an “option” simile might be seen as a concentrated version of a simile cluster: each simile in a series becomes part of a single structure instead of standing on its own. Carspecken (: , on .–) offers a perceptive analysis worth quoting at length because it explains with such grace how option similes intertwine structure and feeling: Although each part could, conceivably, stand by itself, it is in the combination of parts that the effect of the simile lies, in the relation of each part to that preceding and that following, in the accumulation of incident and detail according to a predetermined pattern of increasing emotional tension.
.. Apollonius as a Form of Simile Structure The constant references to “Apollonius” in this chapter point to perhaps the most striking feature that distinguishes the structure of the Homeric epics from the Argonautica: Apollonius himself as a character in the narrative of the Argonautica. Although the biography of the historical Apollonius is so brief and contested as to obscure as much as it explains, the existence of a man named Apollonius in third century BCE Alexandria who was both the head of the famous Library there and the author of the Argonautica (and other poems, now almost entirely lost) is widely accepted. Because the poem has been shaped by an individual poet’s choices, the results of those choices – for instance, the architecture of the poem as a unified whole with a beginning, middle, and end – are available to any reader of the poem. The first simile in the Argonautica was placed there by Apollonius, and so this placement is part of the interpretive context for the simile. By contrast, no one knows why similes are absent from the first books of both the Iliad and the Odyssey. Was this a choice whose details have been lost to literary history or an accidental result of the way the poems have been transmitted to us? To quote a truism of archaeological method, “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” There is no way to know whether similes have been intentionally omitted from the openings of the Homeric poems, or they do not appear there for some other reason that we can no longer recover. Although readers often treat individual episodes in the Homeric epics as narrative unities, many questions about the large-scale architecture of the Homeric epics are shrouded in the same kind of ignorance and uncertainty as the absence of similes in Iliad . But for the Argonautica, and indeed for all post-Homeric epics about whose authors and composition
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. Weave: Structures of Similes in the Argonautica
we have some firm knowledge, the structure of the poem can create meaning for any reader at any time in the poem’s history. The first simile in the Argonautica is not simply the first one. Both for Apollonius and for us, it sets the stage for all the similes that follow it. The stage of the Argonautica is set not only by the structure of the poem itself but also by the other texts and modes of intellectual inquiry to which the poem constantly alludes. Such allusions weave some of the most learned and intellectually challenging strands in the narrative; they also create its most intense emotional peaks. Many readers experience the erudition of the Argonautica as its most memorable feature, and erudition is certainly a defining quality of Hellenistic literature and culture in general. But Apollonius does not fill his poem with erudition for its own sake or to create a style of heroic epic that might find a home in the scholarly intellectual atmosphere of Ptolemaic Alexandria in the third century BCE. Largely because knowledge and scholarly inquiry play such a big role in the Argonautica and because it constitutes one of the most noticeable differences between Apollonius and Homer, Apollonius’ erudition has been the main focus of criticism that explores his relationship to his literary predecessors. Conversely, more recent studies that explore the ways in which the Argonautica is a product of the intellectual and political environment of Ptolemaic Egypt have generally had relatively little to say about the poem’s literary antecedents. Although no individual work of scholarship has put forward such an idea, we may nevertheless come away from a survey of important recent criticism of the Argonautica with the mistaken impression that we should not expect to find either emotional richness in Apollonius’ scholarship or contemporary cultural relevance in the intertextual allusions that consistently underlie both the similes and the Argonautica as a whole. Indeed, the demands of Apollonius’ erudition may seem like a barrier to our emotional engagement, but this view, too, is mistaken. At times, readers – both the highly learned and those less familiar with the scholarly background – may become fatigued with the demands that the poem makes on us or frustrated by our failure to grasp the many crosscurrents of Apollonius’ narrative. These feelings, in their own way, contribute to the emotional dimension of reading the Argonautica. The astute comments of Harder (: ) about the range of ways that readers might respond to the learned material in Callimachus’ Aetia could apply to any of the erudite poems of the Hellenistic period:
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Apollonius Argonautica: Gender, Emotion, and Skill While certain passages may appeal to readers who feel “included” as part of a literary elite, who understand all the difficult bits, others may attract a wider readership, which may enjoy a story which is accessible to the more average cultured Greeks. In this way the Aetia could reach a fairly large audience.
By the same token, a given passage might appeal in different ways to the more and the less learned. If we do not become so tired or frustrated that we abandon the Argonautica entirely, negative as well as positive feelings help to bind us to the story and excite our desire to make sense of it.
. Physical, Emotional, and (Inter)Textual Expressions of Grief: .– Grief is both a physical and an emotional experience. We enact our grief with weeping, and we feel the pain of loss as a physical ache. Indeed, the ancient Greeks had elaborate rituals that prescribed specific gestures and actions for the bereaved after a loved one died. The most effective portrayals of grief do not try to describe the indescribable. Instead, they involve us in the wrenching sensations of sadness so that we feel what the sorrowing characters feel. This is what the first simile in the Argonautica does. It narrates a thematically central kind of grief, Jason’s abandonment of a loving woman, in language that combines physical and emotional experiences of sorrow that are often woven out of memorable scenes of sorrow in earlier poetry. The simile not only describes one grieving woman. It also sets the tone for how such intense feelings and complex relationships will be narrated throughout the poem and how we will experience them. As Jason prepares to leave home in quest of the Golden Fleece, he parts with apparent calmness from a grief-stricken woman who loves him dearly. While his mother Alcimede laments in company with the women of Iolcus (.–), Jason seems unmoved, either by her sorrow or by the prospect of an uncertain and perhaps permanent separation from his parents. He responds kindly to her tears, but he does not share the sorrow or fear that causes them (.–). The sympathy that the narrative lavishes on the sobbing Alcimede, including the first extended simile in the poem (.–), throws Jason’s very different feelings into stark relief. This departure is the first of many episodes in the poem in which Jason leaves behind a woman who loves him. These women seem fonder of Jason than he is of them, and they suffer because of their attachment to him. The first simile establishes these women and their suffering at Jason’s hands as a key
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. Physical, Emotional, and (Inter)Textual Grief
theme in the poem. A web of relationships ties together the simile, its literary antecedents, and the story to create a tale about family drama, the broadening of the generic horizons of epic poetry, and – perhaps most of all – the fraught relationship between female emotion and agency. This simile presents in miniature the major story lines, themes, and literary approaches that characterize the entire poem. In every verse of this simile, individual words simultaneously capture a feeling, a physical action, and (more often than not) richly layered allusions to at least one earlier passage of Greek poetry. This tapestry of expressive motifs shows us the melding of cognition, emotion, and interpretation that lies at the heart of Apollonius’ poem and indeed of the epic simile as a narrative technique. In fact, the language is so evocative and so dense that this chapter’s case study section focuses on a single simile instead of a group of related similes like the other chapters.
Argonautica 1.268–77 But his mother, just as she had thrown her arms around her son from the start, so now she clung to him and wept more wrenchingly, as a girl in her solitude gratefully clutches her gray-haired nurse ð270Þ and sobs, a girl who no longer has other guardians but leads a wretched life under a stepmother who has just buffeted her with many rebukes, and, as she cries, the heart within her is bound fast with misery, and she cannot sob forth all the wailing that gushes up— ð275Þ so profusely did Alcimede weep, as she held her son in her arms. (after Race trans.)
μήτηρ δ’ ὡς τὰ πρῶτ’ ἐπεχεύατο πήχεε παιδί, ὣς ἔχετο κλαίουσ’ ἀδινώτερον, ἠύτε κούρη οἰόθεν ἀσπασίως πολιὴν τροφὸν ἀμφιπεσοῦσα ð270Þ μύρεται, ᾗ οὔκ εἰσιν ἔτ’ ἄλλοι κηδεμονῆες, ἀλλ’ ὑπὸ μητρυιῇ βίοτον βαρὺν ἡγηλάζει· καί ἑ νέον πολέεσσιν ὀνείδεσιν ἐστυφέλιξεν, τῇ δέ τ’ ὀδυρομένῃ δέδεται κέαρ ἔνδοθεν ἄτῃ, οὐδ’ ἔχει ἐκφλύξαι τόσσον γόον, ὅσσον ὀρεχθεῖ· ð275Þ ὣς ἀδινὸν κλαίεσκεν ἑὸν παῖδ’ ἀγκὰς ἔχουσα Ἀλκιμέδη·
In the verse before the simile begins, Alcimede bids farewell to Jason. As she wraps her arms around her son, her action is enfolded within the embrace of the verse-initial kinship word “mother” and the verse-final “son” (μήτηρ δ’ ὡς τὰ πρῶτ’ ἐπεχεύατο πήχεε παιδί, .). Neither character is referred to by the personal names that anyone might use for
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Apollonius Argonautica: Gender, Emotion, and Skill
them, but by expressive family kinship designations that identify them by the emotional bonds between a mother and child. Together, Alcimede’s physical actions and her role as Jason’s mother bring her feelings to life even though they are not explicitly mentioned. Throughout this simile, characters are identified in language that centers on their emotional connections to other people, building their feelings into who they are. The common ground between the story and the narrative is the rending sobs that overcome both Alcimede and the girl in the simile (κλαίουσ’ ἀδινώτερον [.] ~ ὣς ἀδινὸν κλαίεσκεν [.]). The act of weeping and the intensity captured by ἁδινός (“crowded; vehement” [LSJ def.’s and ]; “wrenching” [my translation]) show the power of these feelings through the physical experiences they cause. The simile depicts a young girl whose actions – like Alcimede’s – embody her feelings, but it also explains her feelings in more detail than the story gives us about Alcimede, leaving us to arrive at some of our understanding of Alcimede’s plight from the fuller picture we get of the young girl’s situation. Like Alcimede, this grief-stricken girl embraces a beloved protector for temporary relief from a pain that the protector cannot or does not prevent. [as a girl] in her solitude gratefully clutches her gray-haired nurse and sobs . . ., .– οἰόθεν ἀσπασίως πολιὴν τροφὸν ἀμφιπεσοῦσα / μύρεται . . .
Both verbs of embracing, ἐπεχεύατο in the story (.) and ἀμφιπεσοῦσα in the simile (.), give precise contours to the act of hugging someone. Moreover, the rarity of these words calls attention to their very concrete physicality. Both verbs appear only here in the Argonautica, and both are unusual and striking in the larger context of surviving Greek literature. The characters in the simile, like Alcimede and Jason, are identified with relational words that embody a close household or family tie, yet except for the maiden’s old nurse, all these characters mistreat the girl or fail her in some way. The girl’s isolation is emphasized, rather than relieved, by these expressively identified figures. . . . a girl who no longer has other guardians but leads a wretched life under a stepmother who has just buffeted her with many rebukes, .– . . . ᾗ οὔκ εἰσιν ἔτ’ ἄλλοι κηδεμονῆες, ἀλλ’ ὑπὸ μητρυιῇ βίοτον βαρὺν ἡγηλάζει· καί ἑ νέον πολέεσσιν ὀνείδεσιν ἐστυφέλιξεν,
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. Physical, Emotional, and (Inter)Textual Grief
The girl must rely on her nurse for comfort because she no longer has “other guardians” (ἄλλοι κηδεμονῆες, .). The Greek root that forms this rare word “guardian” involves a range of fundamental human ties including kinship, guardianship, protection, and ritual care for the dead. The unusual word catches our eye and ends a clause about the maiden’s new state of isolation (ᾗ οὔκ εἰσιν ἔτ’ ἄλλοι) by evoking the kind of supportive relationships that she can no longer count on. The family figure that is available instead, a stepmother (μητρυιά), is proverbial for unkindness (LSJ def. ). The girl’s suffering takes a robust physical form that blurs the difference between physical and emotional maltreatment. Her stepmother “buffets” her with many reproaches (πολέεσσιν ὀνείδεσιν ἐστυφέλιξεν, .), a metaphorical sense of this verb whose basic meaning is to physically “strike” someone with a weapon or object. Like the girl herself, and like Alcimede, the stepmother is described by words that treat feelings as though they were physical actions. In turn, the girl’s feelings about how her stepmother mistreats her also take a corporeal form. Her heart is “bound fast” by the misfortune she endures (τῇ δέ τ’ ὀδυρομένῃ δέδεται κέαρ ἔνδοθεν ἄτῃ, .) to such an extent that she cannot express her grief. Both ἐκφλύζω “sob forth” and ὀρεχθέω “gush up” (.) have a physical meaning at their core that gives a bodily shape to these feelings. While this physical dimension makes the feelings more accessible to us, the elusive definitions of these words help to convey the maiden’s inability to express herself. ἐκφλύζω is evidently derived from φλύ(ζ)ω “boil up,” but even so, its meaning is both striking and elusive because the word appears only here in surviving Greek. ὀρεχθέω appears more regularly but with such a wide range of meanings that scholarly debate over its definition is part of the “meaning” that Apollonius sees in the word. These unusual verbs capture the physical urge to express a feeling that is so strong and complex that we cannot even give it a name. Moreover, the feeling that the girl struggles to express, “wailing, personal lamentation” (γόος), is defined by a combination of sounds and gestures. This rich tapestry of physical detail places us more deeply inside – not simply beside – the subjective experiences of the characters, especially the grief-stricken maiden. The simile identifies its characters mainly through their emotional ties or family responsibilities. The central subject of the simile is the feelings of the bereft young girl with whom the other characters (nurse, absent guardians, and stepmother, any or all of whom might represent Jason) have intimate relationships. The verbs in the passage – of which there are many – combine physical and emotional
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meanings to bring home the sometimes indescribable bodily experience of these feelings. And the simile embeds these feelings and experiences within a complex network of intertextual allusions that deepens the feelings by means of likenesses to characters in earlier poems who endured comparable sorrows expressed in similar language. Whereas the individual word choices combine physical and emotional meanings, the intertextual allusions intertwine feelings with scholarly intellectual analysis. Thus, the simile offers us a feast of emotional, experiential, and intellectual engagement that sets the tone for the Argonautica as a whole. ..
Wrenching Sobs: Homeric Simile Allusions
The weeping that links the simile and the story is enriched by allusions to gripping scenes of tears in both the Odyssey and the Iliad. The two words that describe Alcimede at the beginning of the simile, κλαίω “weep” and ἁδινός “wrenching,” are found together just twice in Homeric epic (Odyssey ., Iliad .): at the beginning and end of our simile (κλαίουσ’ ἀδινώτερον, .; ἀδινὸν κλαίεσκεν, .) and nowhere else in surviving Greek literature except for later commentators discussing these passages. Jason and Alcimede thus stand alongside the newly reunited Telemachus and Odysseus (Odyssey .) and the bereaved Achilles and Priam, who come together at the end of the Iliad when Achilles returns Hector’s corpse for burial (Iliad .). All three of these passages turn on a broken parent–child bond. In both Homeric passages, the grief expressed by such passionate weeping brings a key theme of the poem to a head, because it is shared at least fleetingly by two characters who have endured a long separation or conflict. This is the opposite of what happens in the Argonautica. The differences between Apollonius’ simile and the Homeric parallels highlight the gulf between Alcimede’s sorrow and Jason’s serenity. They implicitly comment on Jason’s behavior as he begins his travels and establish his detached mode of responding to grief-stricken women as a feature of his personality throughout the poem. The Odyssey parallel overlaps most closely with the Argonautica, partly because it uses the comparative form of ἁδινός and partly because “wrenching sobs” introduces another simile. Here, too, weeping between a parent and child leads to a simile about a disrupted family tie. Although this simile has already been discussed as one of the case studies in Chapter , it is worth quoting again because several aspects of the passage shape the Argonautica simile.
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. Physical, Emotional, and (Inter)Textual Grief
Odyssey 16.213–19 Telemachus threw his arms around his great father, sobbing uncontrollably. The deep desire for mourning welled up in both. ð215Þ They cried out, shrilling cries, pulsing sharper than birds of prey – eagles, vultures with hooked claws – when farmers plunder their nest of young too young to fly. Both men so filled with compassion, eyes streaming tears . . . (after Fagles trans.)
Τηλέμαχος δὲ ἀμφιχυθεὶς πατέρ’ ἐσθλὸν ὀδύρετο, δάκρυα λείβων. ἀμφοτέροισι δὲ τοῖσιν ὑφ’ ἵμερος ὦρτο γόοιο· ð215Þ κλαῖον δὲ λιγέως, ἁδινώτερον ἤ τ’ οἰωνοί, φῆναι ἢ αἰγυπιοὶ γαμψώνυχες, οἷσί τε τέκνα ἀγρόται ἐξείλοντο πάρος πετεηνὰ γενέσθαι· ὣς ἄρα τοί γ’ ἐλεεινὸν ὑπ’ ὀφρύσι δάκρυον εἶβον.
This is the only Homeric instance of the comparative form ἁδινώτερος, forging a close lexical tie between the two similes. The Odyssey simile portrays the emotions of the story’s parent–child embrace by placing the characters’ rush of tears in a different context. As we saw in Chapter , the simile of the bereaved birds (Odyssey .–) carries the weight of the narrative in showing us what the story characters feel. It is from the simile rather than the story that we understand that father and son are grieving over the lost years together when Telemachus was a boy, time that is gone forever even though they are also overjoyed that they can embark for the first time on the relationship that until now has been denied to them. In the Argonautica, too, the simile fleshes out the story’s picture of what Alcimede feels when Jason leaves. From the story, we might suppose simply that she is unhappy about his departure. But the analogy between the simile maiden and Alcimede hints at more complicated feelings of abandonment and fear of future mistreatment alongside short-lived joy at the continued presence of her son. Unlike the Argonautica, in which only Alcimede is crying, the Odyssey unites father and son in a shared desire to weep (ἀμφοτέροισι δὲ τοῖσιν ὑφ’ ἵμερος ὦρτο γόοιο· κλαῖον, .–). After Odysseus first reveals his identity to his astonished son, Telemachus keeps aloof from the stranger, refusing to acknowledge Odysseus as his father or respond to his tearful overtures (.–). The simile marks the moment that restores their relationship, not simply because Odysseus has finally returned home but also because Telemachus has accepted that this newly arrived stranger is in
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Apollonius Argonautica: Gender, Emotion, and Skill
fact his father. When the father’s absence has ended, parent and child weep over what has been lost. But in the Argonautica, the same kind of weeping afflicts only the parent, not the child, and it marks the beginning rather than the end of a separation caused by a journey undertaken by the son rather than the parent. Thus, this allusion to the Odyssey brings out both similarities and differences related to key themes of journeys, parent–child bonds, and separation and loss. “Wrenching sobs” in the Iliad, too, create a moment of unity between a grieving father and son, an emotional climax not simply of the scene in which it appears but of the entire poem. After Priam journeys by night to the Greek camp where Achilles is holding and maltreating the corpse of his son Hector, he appeals to Achilles’ feelings for his own father Peleus in his supplication that the body of Hector be released to him for burial. Achilles is persuaded to relent, and the two men weep together.
Iliad 24.507–12 Those words stirred within Achilles a deep desire to grieve for his own father. Taking the old man’s hand he gently moved him back. And overpowered by memory both men gave way to grief. Priam wept wrenchingly for man-killing Hector, throbbing, crouching before Achilles’ feet as Achilles wept himself, ð510Þ now for his father, now for Patroclus once again, and their sobbing rose and fell throughout the house. (after Fagles trans.) ὣς φάτο, τῷ δ’ ἄρα πατρὸς ὑφ’ ἵμερον ὦρσε γόοιο· ἁψάμενος δ’ ἄρα χειρὸς ἀπώσατο ἦκα γέροντα. τὼ δὲ μνησαμένω, ὁ μὲν Ἕκτορος ἀνδροφόνοιο κλαῖ’ ἁδινὰ προπάροιθε ποδῶν Ἀχιλῆος ἐλυσθείς, ð510Þ αὐτὰρ Ἀχιλλεὺς κλαῖεν ἑὸν πατέρ’, ἄλλοτε δ’ αὖτε Πάτροκλον· τῶν δὲ στοναχὴ κατὰ δώματ’ ὀρώρει.
For these characters, too, weeping has a physical force that is inseparable from the emotions that give rise to it. Achilles takes hold of Priam’s hand not to embrace but to disengage the old man from his suppliant pose (.). The force of Priam’s sorrow takes physical shape not just from his “wrenching cries” but also from the fetal position he assumes at Achilles’ feet (.). In this scene, the father–son bond is strong enough to bring together, just for a moment, a bereaved father with the person who has killed his child. Our simile also draws on a second famous scene involving Achilles’ emotional ties to his nearest and dearest, his final conversation with
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. Physical, Emotional, and (Inter)Textual Grief
Patroclus about the plight of the Greeks in which Achilles compares Patroclus’ tearful concern for their comrades to a weeping girl (.–, discussed in Chapter , Section ..). Both Achilles’ comparison and the first simile in the Argonautica begin with the phrase “as a girl” (ἠύτε κούρη), which appears in the same position in the verse in both poems. The Iliad simile, too, describes a tearful young girl who does not get the comfort she craves from a mother figure. However, the girl in the Iliad is less isolated than her descendant in the Argonautica because her protector is her own mother, and the simile suggests that the mother may offer the sought-for reassurance in due course. The mother and daughter in the Iliad simile enjoy a loving relationship that is undergoing a moment of conflict, as do Achilles and Patroclus. The Argonautica stepmother, on the other hand, proverbially lacks a mother’s care, and she repeatedly offers active unkindness rather than failing to provide comfort. This contrast deepens the isolation and sorrow of the girl in Apollonius’ simile and thus of Alcimede, her story counterpart. The gulf between the emotions of Achilles and Patroclus also afflicts the relationship between Jason and Alcimede. As we saw in Chapter , Achilles distances himself from both Patroclus and his feelings when he compares Patroclus to a weeping child. Achilles’ young girl simile draws attention to the contrast between his own lack of emotion and the tearful sorrow of his close companion Patroclus, implying that Achilles is strangely and culpably unmoved about something that might be expected to cause him grief. Jason plays the Achilles role in both the simile , where he is represented by the maternal figures of the nurse and the stepmother, and in the story, where he remains unmoved by the tears of a beloved and less powerful interlocutor. We know that Achilles’ lack of sympathy for both the Greeks and for Patroclus will soon have catastrophic consequences for all concerned; our awareness of the events that follow this final meeting between Achilles and Patroclus adds a note of foreboding to Jason’s parting from his mother. Besides wrenching sobs, the characters in both our simile and the adjacent story express their feelings by embracing each other. The simile begins and ends with Alcimede embracing her son (., .) just as the maiden in the simile embraces her nurse (ἀσπασίως . . . ἀμφιπεσοῦσα, .). ἀσπασίως and ἀμφιπεσοῦσα (“gratefully,” “clutches”) act out the maiden’s feelings in words whose meanings are simultaneously emotional, physical, and inseparable from their Homeric uses. As we saw in Chapter , ἀσπάσιος is associated in the Odyssey with joyful relief at the end of a long period of suffering, worry, or danger, most notably the
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Apollonius Argonautica: Gender, Emotion, and Skill
feelings of various characters about Odysseus’ homecoming. Because it appears alongside a verb meaning “embrace,” we are reminded of the physical sense of the related verb ἀσπάζομαι, “kiss, embrace” (LSJ def. ). Thus, ἀσπάσιως combines a physical act, a learned etymological comment, and an intertextual allusion to a key theme of the Odyssey. And ἀμφιπεσοῦσα – a unique word in both Homeric epic and Apollonius derived from a verb found only a handful of times in Greek literature before the second century CE – alludes to a simile that de Jong () calls “surely one of the most impressive and fascinating in the Odyssey” ( on Odyssey .–, with bibliography). ἀσπάσιος embodies several paradoxes related to themes of domestic relationships, safety, and journeying. Because it appears in the first simile in the poem, ἀσπάσιος brings those themes to bear not only on this scene but also on the Argonautica as a whole. First, both the greatest comfort and the keenest suffering – for the girl in the simile and for Alcimede – arise from within the family, and sometimes from the very same person. Domestic relations are a central and a fraught issue in the poem, especially for women. Second, the contrast between the kind of danger or sorrow that Apollonius’ characters face and the typical uses of ἀσπάσιος in Homeric epic underlines how many dangers and how much travel lie ahead for Jason. For Homeric characters, ἀσπάσιος feelings arise when their danger is behind them, especially for Odysseus as he makes his way back home. But for both our simile maiden and Alcimede, ἀσπασίως evokes a happiness that holds certain future grief temporarily at bay as the character embraces a close family member. The simile rather than the story expresses Alcimede’s happiness, but nonetheless it is easy to imagine that a parent on the verge of being separated from a child would feel a mixture of grief at parting and happiness at the child’s continued presence. The danger or difficulty for Alcimede (and Jason) is just beginning rather than coming to an end. Alcimede is about to be separated from her child, Jason is about to leave his home, and a happy Odyssey reunion between them falls outside the parameters of the Argonautica. Jason and Alcimede’s leave taking overturns the thematic associations of ἀσπάσιος in the Odyssey even though her feelings combining sorrow, joy, and attachment are the same as the emotions of Odyssean ἀσπάσιος. The currents of language and themes from the Odyssey running through the Argonautica alert us to the ways in which Apollonius is taking us, and his hero, on a different kind of epic journey. The verb for the girl’s embrace of her nurse, ἀμφιπεσοῦσα (.), appears in a memorable simile that describes the weeping Odysseus as he
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. Physical, Emotional, and (Inter)Textual Grief
listens to Demodocus singing to the Phaeacian court about his own exploits in the Trojan war.
Odyssey 8.521–31 That was the song the famous harper sang but great Odysseus melted into tears, running down from his eyes to wet his cheeks . . . as a woman weeps, her arms flung round her darling husband, a man who fell in battle, fighting for town and townsmen, trying to beat the day of doom from home and children. ð525Þ Seeing the man go down, dying, gasping for breath, she clings for dear life, screams and shrills – but the victors, just behind her, digging spear-butts into her back and shoulders, drag her off in bondage, yoked to hard labor, pain, and the most heartbreaking torment wastes her cheeks. ð530Þ So from Odysseus’ eyes ran tears of heartbreak now. (after Fagles trans.) ταῦτ’ ἄρ’ ἀοιδὸς ἄειδε περικλυτός· αὐτὰρ Ὀδυσσεὺς τήκετο, δάκρυ δ’ ἔδευεν ὑπὸ βλεφάροισι παρειάς. ὡς δὲ γυνὴ κλαίῃσι φίλον πόσιν ἀμφιπεσοῦσα, ὅς τε ἑῆς πρόσθεν πόλιος λαῶν τε πέσῃσιν, ἄστεϊ καὶ τεκέεσσιν ἀμύνων νηλεὲς ἦμαρ· ð525Þ ἡ μὲν τὸν θνῄσκοντα καὶ ἀσπαίροντα ἰδοῦσα ἀμφ’ αὐτῷ χυμένη λίγα κωκύει· οἱ δέ τ’ ὄπισθε κόπτοντες δούρεσσι μετάφρενον ἠδὲ καὶ ὤμους εἴρερον εἰσανάγουσι, πόνον τ’ ἐχέμεν καὶ ὀϊζύν· τῆς δ’ ἐλεεινοτάτῳ ἄχεϊ φθινύθουσι παρειαί· ð530Þ ὣς Ὀδυσεὺς ἐλεεινὸν ὑπ’ ὀφρύσι δάκρυον εἶβεν.
In this comparison, too, a weeping woman expresses her grief about a broken family tie by embracing the person whose love is no longer enough to keep her safe. ἀμφιπεσοῦσα combines “surrounding” – a spatial relationship also found in the more common Homeric verb for “embrace” (ἀμφιβάλλω) – with the physical and spatial experience of falling, which is associated with death in Homeric epic. The literal meaning of ἀμφιβάλλω, “throw around,” implies that both people in an embrace are standing up or that they are in the same physical position. This widow, however, is standing after her husband has fallen dead at her feet. Because of his death, she, too, falls, both literally onto his corpse and figuratively into slavery. This is one of several emotion similes in the Odyssey that show the depth of Odysseus’ grief at key stages of his journey home by comparing it to family scenes (see further Chapter , Section .). Here, as in the
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Apollonius Argonautica: Gender, Emotion, and Skill
Argonautica simile, the male hero is likened to a female character in a simile. But Odysseus, unlike Jason, is compared to a weeping and powerless woman. While this war widow may at first appear to have little in common with Odysseus, the reverse turns out to be true. The simile begins at the point in Demodocus’ song when he would have retold the actual sack of the city. When we experience Odysseus’ grief at reliving his experiences at Troy through the bereavement of one of his victims, whose loss is presented in such visceral physical and emotional language, we share the feelings of victor and vanquished alike. What people have in common with one another, even in war, is more important than what divides them. The grief-stricken hero of the Odyssey, who acts in this scene as an avatar of human sorrow and bereavement, in the Argonautica becomes a bystander to someone else’s grief: the story character in Apollonius to whom ἀμφιπεσοῦσα refers is not Jason but his mother. If we place Jason alongside Odysseus, the subject of two Odyssey similes to which our comparison alludes, Jason cuts a shabby figure. As he sets out on his expedition, he is not described as feeling any emotion at all, even though his mother is weeping and his father is so upset that he is in bed inside the house, unable to offer the advice customary in Homeric poetry from fathers to sons departing on a heroic exploit. The similes from the Odyssey to which Apollonius alludes offer implicit criticisms of Jason because he so conspicuously differs from the tearful Odysseus whom these affecting Homeric similes describe. Insofar as an allusion is a kind of simile comparing the Argonautica to the source text (Knight : ), these allusions highlight difference at least as much as similarity. The associations of the weeping girl simile from Iliad , meanwhile, strengthen this portrait of a hero who is inappropriately or culpably detached from his weeping loved ones, but rather than presenting a contrast in the manner of the Odyssey allusions, the Iliad comparison parallels the Argonautica in both the simile and the story. At one level, this web of Homeric allusions that simultaneously complement and contradict each other is using relationships – both poetic allusions and emotional connections – to draw Jason’s character at a critical moment in the story. At the same time, the programmatic position of the first simile implies that such relationships will continue to play a central role throughout the Argonautica, especially its similes. The start of the simile foregrounds the expression of feelings in several ways. First, it involves us in the physical sensations of wracking sobs and embraces. And, in a more self-referential way, such an emotional beginning to the first simile in the poem reminds us that the simile itself is a narrative vehicle for the expression of feeling. As the simile comes to an
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. Physical, Emotional, and (Inter)Textual Grief
end, the girl finds herself captive to her feelings, which she is unable to express. The last two verses of the simile (.–) include echoes of Euripides and Sophocles (Vian : ) that feature heroines who are overcome with sorrow arising from family difficulties involving a stepparent. These allusions introduce female characters to the fabric of our simile who reflect on their own emotions and agency arising from family difficulties. Tragic allusions also create a metapoetic “ring” with the two verses packed with Homeric references that begin the simile (.–). The poem itself tells the same kind of story on a grander scale. The Argonautica opens with a group of heroes embarking on an epic journey, a key moment of which is dramatized by this simile. Yet at many stages along the journey of the Argonautica, we are reminded that what ultimately lies in store for the characters is not the joyful union of Penelope and Odysseus in Odyssey but Euripides’ Medea. ..
Captive to Emotion: Parallels with Tragic Heroines
Our young girl held fast in the grip of her feelings evokes the wretched Phaedra, whose incestuous love for her stepson Hippolytus is described in similar language in Euripides’ Hippolytus. The specific word that links the two passages, δέδεται “bind,” appears only once in both Apollonius and Euripides. Like the other language in our simile that encompasses both a physical and an emotional dimension, δέδεται has both a more common physical meaning, “tie, fetter,” and a rarer metaphorical meaning, “bind.” The history of the Hippolytus, of which Euripides wrote multiple versions, adds a further layer of intertextuality to the relationship between Apollonius’ maiden and her predecessor. This “binding,” like so many other expressive features of the simile, combines a physical, an emotional, and an intertextual meaning.
Argonautica 1.274 As she cries, the heart within her is bound fast with misery (Race trans.) τῇ δέ τ’ ὀδυρομένῃ δέδεται κέαρ ἔνδοθεν ἄτῃ
Hippolytus 159–60 Her spirit, languishing in bed, is bound by grief over her sufferings λύπᾳ δ’ ὑπὲρ παθέων / εὐναία δέδεται ψυχά
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Apollonius Argonautica: Gender, Emotion, and Skill
Both descriptions feature a family situation in which a stepmother is causing emotional turmoil in the form of the “binding” (δέδεται) of the spirit (κέαρ ἔνδοθεν; ψυχά) of a suffering female character (ὀδυρομένῃ; ὑπὲρ παθέων) by some kind of complex pain or misfortune (ἄτῃ; λύπᾳ). The physical meaning of δέω – which entails using devices such as chains or thongs to either force or prevent certain actions – throws its rarer metaphorical sense into high relief. The physical experiences that are usually evoked by forms of δέω place us within the constricted sensations of captivity to an overpowering emotion. For both our maiden and Phaedra, this word choice makes a strong tie between lack of agency that is made concrete by δέδεται and feelings of sorrow. In Apollonius’ simile, these parallels with Phaedra emphasize the maiden’s helpless captivity to her emotions. At the same time, the simile reverses a key element of the Hippolytus in that the stepmother figure in Euripides is herself a prisoner of suffering and grief rather than their cause. Phaedra, in fact, follows two different paths as a stepmother in different versions of the Hippolytus. The Hippolytus is itself intertextual, since Euripides wrote two different treatments of the same subject of which the surviving play is the second. Our sources suggest that the second Hippolytus differed from the first mainly in depicting Phaedra as a morally upright character who wages a doomed battle against her own illicit emotions rather than as the evil seductress she had been in the first version. This awareness of the first version brings the theme of Phaedra’s agency into sharper relief, and it makes the Hippolytus a more compelling and apposite parallel for Apollonius’ simile. Both the language of the surviving tragedy and the contrast with the earlier play fix our attention on Phaedra’s experience of her love for her stepson as an involuntary and unwelcome misfortune. Both Phaedra and the maiden in Apollonius’ simile are held captive by multidimensional forms of emotional suffering. ἄτη (“misery”), the binding agent for the simile maiden, refers to “a wide range of behaviors that turn out to go against the best interests of the author [of the behavior]” (Saïd : ). ἄτη represents a subjective or focalized viewpoint on a particular event because it emphasizes the consequences of someone’s behavior rather than what caused them to act that way (Saïd : ) or the specific act they commit. In Homeric poetry, characters say that a god – usually Zeus – has brought ἄτη upon the person who has behaved unwisely. In Euripides, on the other hand, ἄτη has a range of meanings that includes but is not limited to foolishness of divine origin. Sometimes
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. Physical, Emotional, and (Inter)Textual Grief
it simply means “ruin, disaster, misfortune” with no clear link to the gods or to any human failure of attention or good sense. In our passage, it is not clear precisely what sort of emotion or difficulty ἄτη might represent for the simile maiden. Moreover, ἄτη appears here for the first time in the Argonautica. Given that it has a specific and thematically central meaning in the Iliad in particular and a somewhat different array of meanings in Greek tragedy than in Homeric epic, we may expect that its first appearance in the Argonautica will somehow draw on all those meanings. The meaning of ἄτη aligns more closely with the tragic sense(s) than the epic meanings, but it does not closely resemble either. By using ἄτη in its first appearance in the Argonautica in an un-epic and even un-tragic way to describe a young girl’s domestic sufferings, Apollonius simultaneously displays his scholarly acumen and throws the emotions of this scene into relief. The emotion words in .– (ὀδυρομένῃ, γόον [“cries,” “wailing”]) indicate that the maiden is suffering from a feeling, not from the more diffuse kinds of madness, blindness, and calamity to which ἄτη often refers in tragedy. The choice of ἄτη to describe the agent of the simile maiden’s captivity invites us to experience her sensations from her subjective vantage point without allowing us to define or describe them. At the same time, it highlights her kinship – and dissimilarity – to both epic and tragic predecessors. In all these respects, Jason’s mother sets the tone for the feelings of loss that will afflict the rest of the loving women whom Jason meets and leaves during his travels. In the last verse of the simile (.), Apollonius achieves the paradoxical feat of using words to convey that the emotions felt by the girl are so strong that they cannot be described. It expresses the strength and the nature of the girl’s feelings not by trying to identify them but by dwelling on her inability to express them. It presents her emotions through unusual verbs implying that language itself fails to describe her feelings. These lexical choices are enriched by intertextual parallels to the title character of Sophocles’ Electra, who stands out even among tragic heroines for the intensity of her mourning (Finglass : –, discussing –). Both Phaedra and Electra are constrained by feelings arising from difficulties related to a hostile or problematic mother figure. But whereas Phaedra is the victim of unmixed pain and grief about her incestuous love for her stepson, Electra also feels the pleasure that in Greek poetry is regularly entwined with wracking sorrow. Both the first choral ode and Electra’s first long speech focus on her grief, making it simultaneously the jumping-off point and the centerpiece of the play. At Argonautica ., Apollonius evokes a line from the middle of Electra’s speech, linking subtle and precise
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Apollonius Argonautica: Gender, Emotion, and Skill
details of his maiden’s sufferings to what Electra experiences and how Sophocles describes those feelings. At almost the exact midpoint of Electra’s speech about her miserable life with her mother Clytemnestra and stepfather Aegisthus after their murder of her father Agamemnon, she says that she is so unhappy that she is unable to satisfy her own desire for weeping. In contrast to the miserable Phaedra, Electra characterizes this sensation as a kind of pleasure. In both sentiment and construction, these verses provide a model for the physical experience of the gut-wrenching misery that chokes Apollonius’ young girl.
Argonautica 1.275–76 And she cannot sob forth all the wailing that gushes up – so profusely did Alcimede weep . . . (Race trans.) οὐδ’ ἔχει ἐκφλύξαι τόσσον γόον, ὅσσον ὀρεχθεῖ· / ὣς ἀδινὸν κλαίεσκεν . . .
Electra 285–86 And it is not possible to weep / as much as my spirit pleases. οὐδὲ γὰρ κλαῦσαι πάρα / τοσόνδ’ ὅσον μοι θυμὸς ἡδονὴν φέρει.
In both passages, correlative expressions featuring a repeated “o” sound (τόσ[σ]ον . . . ὅσ[σ]ον) make the woman’s sobs audible, casting her weeping (κλαίειν) as a quantity so great that it cannot be filled. Apollonius strengthens the sound effects of his verse by adding several aspirated and palatal sounds. These mimic the choking or gasping of sobs caught in the throat, with the aspirated palatal χ that captures that sound placed at both the beginning and end of verse . Whereas Sophocles pairs this excess with a straightforward, common verb of feeling (weeping [κλαῦσαι], ), Apollonius’ verbs for “express emotion” (ἐκφλύξαι and ὀρεχθεῖ, .) are so rare that they create both physical and intellectual versions of the stymied feelings of the weeping maiden. The metaphor of fluid under pressure in the literal meaning of ἐκφλύξαι, “spurt out,” embodies the physical sensations of irrepressible sobs, while the uncertainty about what ὀρεχθεῖ means gives us an intellectual counterpoint to the feeling of being thwarted in expressing our emotions. The simile maiden’s emotions apparently burst the bounds not simply of her own expressive capacities but even of the resources of the Greek language. Electra’s words bring out the possibility that for the simile maiden, too, deep sorrow may be entwined with pleasure. Electra says that she is unable to cry to the extent that would please her spirit. She characterizes her
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. Physical, Emotional, and (Inter)Textual Grief
difficulty as a function of the pleasure (ἡδονήν, ) that she feels in weeping rather than the amount of grief per se that she feels about her situation. Apollonius, in contrast, does not specify what prevents the simile maiden from expressing the amount of “wailing” (γόος) within her, other than what we might glean from the image of physical captivity in Argonautica .. Alongside the rare verbs for the expression of feelings, γόος adds fresh emotional depth and interpretive challenges to the final verse of the simile because it carries several apparently contradictory meanings within its basic definition of “personal lamentation” (Tsagalis : ). As the simile draws to a close, γόος becomes the pivotal feature of its emotional landscape: it is framed at the center of the last verse by a chiastic structure that encloses it first by two rare and ambiguous verbs and then with the correlatives whose repeated “o” sounds join with the two “o”s in γόος to evoke the noise of sobbing. What does γόος mean here? Can we arrive at a more precise understanding than “intense personal grief”? Elsewhere in Apollonius, γόος refers either to formal laments for the dead or to sufferings arising from erotic desire. Neither of these senses would seem to apply here. But γόος once again evokes one of the Homeric similes that underlies the opening verses of Apollonius’ simile, in which – as with Sophocles’ Electra – grief carries a strong element of pleasure and desire. Immediately before the simile of the bereft parent birds that describes the reunited Telemachus and Odysseus weeping together, they share feelings of γόος that combine sorrow and joy.
Odyssey 16.215 The deep desire for mourning welled up in both (Fagles trans.) ἀμφοτέροισι δὲ τοῖσιν ὑφ’ ἵμερος ὦρτο γόοιο
Whereas γόος in the Iliad usually means formal lamentation for a deceased relative, in the Odyssey it regularly refers to grief for an absent parent, child, or spouse. As in this verse, such sorrow creates a longing in characters that feel it, and consequently, indulging in these emotions brings pleasure. In the Odyssey, forms of “delight” (τέρπω) often govern γόος, which is regularly modified in both Homeric epics by adjectives that emphasize the tears and unhappiness that it entails. In other words, the formulaic repertoire of Homeric epic foregrounds the paradoxical combination of pleasure and sadness that γόος embodies. Given that various points of contact between story and simile have already called to mind a comparison from the Odyssey that involves γόος, we could do worse than look to the Iliad and the Odyssey for pointers about what this young girl is
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Apollonius Argonautica: Gender, Emotion, and Skill
feeling. In fact, the simile’s lack of detail about how she has come under the care of this unkind stepmother means that she might be experiencing γόος in either the Iliadic sense – because her mother has recently died – or the Odyssean one, which revolves around less irrevocable kinds of family separation rather than physical death. Whichever is the case, the girl feels a kind of embodied grief that is thematically central in two different ways in the Iliad and Odyssey. Just as the apparently contradictory expressive adverbs “wrenchingly” (ἀδινώτερον, .) and “gratefully” (ἀσπασίως, .) set the emotional tone for the opening of the simile with words that combine physical, emotional, and intertextual significance, so too γόος at the end of the simile reprises a Homeric motif comprising a variety of physical and emotional sensations. The simile ends with a rich web of allusions, word choices, and verse constructions that bring out the unique power of the feelings and the lack of control over those feelings that dwell at the center of a family home.
. Conclusions In both the simile and story worlds of the Argonautica, men – both individually and in groups – use various forms of expertise to create safety and enjoyment for themselves and the world around them. Shepherds keep their animals away from predators; a clever sailor can outwit a storm at sea; and Jason and the Argonauts journey across the known world and beyond. The power and delight of knowledge within the poem reflect the contemporary culture of Hellenistic Alexandria in which new forms of knowledge were sprouting up everywhere. But for women, even simile craftswomen or Medea with her magical skills, expertise is not strong enough to control human feelings. Alongside male skill and agency, the Argonautica is suffused with female isolation and sorrow. For female characters, the loving ties of family may create unmatched misery. Both the simile and story worlds create this focus on the sufferings of women in their intimate relationships; unlike other epics, the human relationships of the simile world of the Argonautica are peopled only with women who are unhappy because of family difficulties. These similes describe the emotional effect that Jason has on the women he meets during his travels, especially Medea. The rich human society in the simile worlds of other epics throws a spotlight on the narrower scope of the Argonautica. The contrast makes this feature of the simile world a central strand in the narrative fabric of the poem.
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Notes
The Argonautica represents the first post-Homeric chapter in the story of epic similes. Simile structures take on a range and variety that previously was found only in the content of the similes. These new forms bring forward simile features that are peripheral in Homeric poetry to reshape the epic genre in ways that reflect the ideas of the Hellenistic period. Similes that describe measurements evoke the contemporary interest in understanding things by quantifying them. Option similes, a new simile form that is both more assertively fictional and more concentrated than a conventional simile, appear just a few times in Argonautica , but Vergil and Ovid take them up with enthusiasm. Moreover, in Hellenistic and Roman epic, the figure of the poet has clearer outlines than before. We can understand the Argonautica in part as the result of an individual poet’s choices about sequence, allusion, and so forth. This form of interpretation is not open to us for Homeric epic without an endless amount of scholarly wrangling about the “Homeric question” of the composition and transmission of the poems. At moments of powerful emotion in the Argonautica, we see again and again that similes weave “erudition” and “emotion” inextricably together. From individual words through long and detailed similes, Apollonius uses language that simultaneously expresses a physical sensation, a feeling, and a complex allusion to earlier literature, often to several poems and genres at once. Erudition carries with it the delight of new knowledge and new forms of human expertise. And for both the characters in the poem and us, feelings and actions expressing those feelings go hand in hand. Just as similes weave together two different stories to create a likeness that goes beyond those two vignettes, in the Argonautica, they also weave together the learned and the affective to create a kind of epic that will reshape the genre not just for Hellenistic Alexandria but also for centuries to come.
Notes An example is the formulation in Cusset (), who calls similes “places where the [Hellenistic] poet reveals something of his conception of poetry” []). Due to historical accident, Apollonius bears even more of the weight of the literary history of epic poetry than is rightfully his because the Argonautica is the only epic poem to survive between the Homeric epics and Vergil’s Aeneid and the only surviving complete epic in Greek until the later Roman Empire. Nonetheless, “it is clear that, if indeed large-scale imitation is a form of homage, subsequent Greek and Roman poetry was in no doubt as to the importance of the Argonautica and its place at the centre of Alexandrian poetry” (Fantuzzi and Hunter : ).
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Apollonius Argonautica: Gender, Emotion, and Skill
Similes centering on such groups include .– (young men dance for Apollo), .– and .– (woodcutters), .– and .– (shepherds), .– (shipbuilders), .– (troop formation), .– and .– (inhabitants of a town or city), .– (kinsmen hold athletic games for a dead king), .– (sailors at sea), .– (hunters), .– (young girls play ball on the beach). Effe (: ) with bibliography: “[I]t is a well-known fact that the treatment of erotic subject-matter incorporates some of Apollonius’ most substantial innovations vis-à-vis the Homeric epic.” Effe characterizes “eroticization of Homeric motifs” () as one of the functions of Apollonius’ similes. This is one of the main conclusions of Carspecken (), one of the first studies in a rising tide of interest in Apollonius that has steadily gathered speed since the mid-twentieth century. Carspecken concludes that “the study of love” () is one of Apollonius’ main contributions to the genre of epic poetry. That said, Hutchinson (: –, especially n) is right to point out that critics have sometimes overstated how new “love” is to epic poetry. Hutchinson is mainly concerned with the Iliad, but love is also central to the nostos storyline in the Odyssey. The conclusions in Carspecken () discuss these interrelated strands of the poem: “the physical perils are, for the most part, apparent rather than real . . . but the emotional conflicts are more serious and cause very great trouble . . . in this may be found a commentary on man’s nature and man’s life” (). “Burning hunger” is a metaphor common to English and this simile but is not found in Homeric epic. The scholia probe the specific force of the metaphor, noting that this expression is not used because “heat” is a poetic way to say “hunger,” but rather, “burning” is also used for “being eager or in haste” (τὸ δὲ τοιοῦτον οὐχ ὅτι ὁ λιμὸς θερμασίας ἐστὶ ποιητικός, ἀλλὰ τὸ αἴθεσθαι καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ σπεύδειν ἐστίν, .–b). Ardizzoni (: ) points out that this is a new use of αἰθόμενος in that Homeric epic applies it only to objects that are literally bright or on fire. The only metaphorical usage Ardizzoni cites is Xenophon Cyropaideia .., αἴσθεσθαι τῷ ἔρωτι. In such situations, herders must drive the predator away with weapons (Iliad .–) or even stay on guard all night (Iliad .–) in order to defend their animals. Cuypers () shows that in the Argonautica, “the particle usage of the narrator is much closer to that of his characters [than in Homeric epic] . . . he uses interactional particles to engage his narratees’ expectations [emphasis added]” (). Clare (: –) points out that Polyphemus is an abrupt and unexpected participant in the scene who vanishes after sending Heracles off on a fruitless search for Hylas that results in losing both heroes from the expedition. “By introducing the third actor [Polyphemus] Apollonius makes the whole episode revolve around the question of orientation” (). The simile, too, centers on the orientation of the central figure.
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Notes
The scholia describe the simile as a whole in approving terms as “entirely sound and powerful” (διόλου ὑγιὴς καὶ ἐρρωμένη ἡ εἰκών, .–d). But not all of it seems to deserve the same kind of praise. Both Hylas and Polyphemus share innate qualities with their comparanda that are described in some detail, but a kind of faut de mieux connection between the nymph and the shepherds – offered briefly at the end of the analysis – is based on what happens in each scene rather than on any shared qualities or attitudes. This idea appears repeatedly in Chapter (–) of Mori (), which focuses on the internal dynamics of the Argonauts and how it compares to contemporary Alexandrian practices: “the cooperative spirit of the group [of Argonauts] . . . is more in keeping with a third-century model of a wellbalanced community [than with the ‘Achaean feuds’ of Homeric epic]” (). Discussions of Jason as a hero regularly contrast him with earlier epic heroes because his “group” is at least as important to the story as he is; for an earlier presentation of this view, see Carspecken (): “nowhere is the art of Apollonius more apparent than in the skill with which he controls the group of Argonauts to produce this effect of the group as hero” (). Even female animals are the focus of conflict and loss: cows cause fights between lustful bulls (.–) and get stung by insects (.–) while a lion roaring for its mate frightens everyone in the immediate surroundings (.–). Domestic animals in difficulties include cattle afflicted by stinging insects (.– and .–, both of which describe overpowering and unrequited attachment to a beloved); two bulls fighting over a cow (.–); flocks attacked but quite possibly not killed by wolves (.–) or lions (.–); bees smoked out of their hives (.–); sheep for whom rising Sirius bodes ill (.–); a roaring lion that frightens but does not otherwise harm nearby animals and herders (.–). Examples are Iliad .– (wolves) and Aeneid .– (lion). Homeric and Hellenistic uses of ἄδην are collected at Rengakos (: –) to survey the range of meanings that the word comes to have. He calls our instance a “perfectly Homeric” (“vollkommen homerisch”) usage. I am grateful to Ruth Scodel for this suggestion. Also at .–, “deadly sorrow come[s] to the owner of the land who was growing them” (οὐλοὸν ἄλγος ἱκάνει / κλήρου σημαντῆρα φυτοτρόφον) where the simile features a farmer who is distraught because rain has spoiled his crops as an analogue for the grief of Aeetes after Jason kills the Earthborn men. The closest Homeric parallel for this simile (Iliad .–) features a ram, not a shepherd, as leader (κτίλος []), and the flock is thirsty. Moreover, the shepherd in Iliad is presented as a bystander: all he does is take pleasure in the flock’s obedience to the ram (γάνυται, ), making the simile as much about his lack of agency as about the leadership of the ram. Janko (: –) discusses the shift in the simile’s point of comparison to Aeneas.
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Apollonius Argonautica: Gender, Emotion, and Skill
Initially, he is likened to a ram in charge, and he becomes the pleased spectating shepherd. The generic capaciousness of the Argonautica has been pointed out by a number of critics. See, for example, Race (: xiii–xiv) (“The Argonautica is a compendium of literary forms,” xiii) and Nelis (: –) on the wide range of earlier literature whose influences can be seen in the Argonautica. Alongside earlier versions of this mythological story and earlier authors and genres, the Argonautica also incorporates individual motifs that had not previously appeared in epic poetry, such as the aition, an etiological origin story explaining how the mythological past gives rise to the present of the poet and his readers commonly found in other genres of Hellenistic literature but not Homeric epic. Both similes and aitia place readers in a time and place outside the world of the story. Indeed, the narrative kinship between similes and aitia (noted by Valverde Sánchez : ) helps to naturalize the newcomer aitia in the world of heroic epic. Goldhill (: –) surveys the wide range of views on how, exactly, etiologies relate the time and place of an origin story to that of the poem. Disaster strikes only on board the ship whose sailors are not mentioned (.–, where a ship loses its mast during a storm at sea in the same way as Heracles yanks a tree out of the ground to fashion himself a new oar). One group of sailors furl their sails in fear of noisy winds (.–), but a Homeric parallel at Iliad .– in which the fearful sailors do escape death implies that these sailors too will survive their terrifying experience. For the relationship between these two passages, see further Hunter : –. On a more positive note, .– likens the Nereids shepherding the Argo through the Wandering Rocks to sailors who take joy in the sight of dolphins swimming around their ship. Instances of πυκινός describing an individual rather than his wits or plans are few and generally appear in complex lyric passages (as in Pindar Olympian ., Sophocles Philoctetes , Aristophanes Birds ). Fränkel (: n) says, “The personification implied in ἱέμενον [sic] seems unexampled in Homeric similes.” Because this is an aside in a discussion focused mainly on justifying the accusative κλύδονα rather than the genitive as the proper reading of ἱεμένου . . . κλύδωνος in verse , Fränkel does not explore the significance of his observation. Cuypers (: ) sees the force of this “remarkable” use of ἵεμαι as “enhanc[ing] the similarity with Amycus.” Martin (: –) suggests that this unique Homeric use of τοῖχος to mean “ship’s hull” rather than “house wall” arises from an interlocking set of images, attested in other early Greek poets as well as Homeric epic, linking together the well-being of the ship of state and the inhabitants of a city. Cuypers (: ) reaches the same conclusion – “Ap.’s contribution, as compared to these examples [including Iliad .–, Theognis –, and Theocritus .- in addition to Iliad .–], is the active role of the steersman in saving the ship, which brings in the motif of τέχνη, so
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Notes
important in this episode, and, indeed, the poem as a whole.” Cuypers goes on to point out that the events in this simile will actually happen to the Argonauts later in Book . In addition to these craft similes that describe Medea’s feelings, of craft similes describe battle, describe forms of craft, and the remaining describe animals (.–), the size of the fleece (.), gods (.–), and the death of Talus (.–). This difficulty in understanding the basic situation in the simile may play a role in the number of otherwise insightful commentators who offer surprisingly inapposite interpretations of this simile. Carspecken (: –) cites this as an instance of Apollonius being “deeply indebted to Homer for the subjects of his similes” even though the parallel he cites – Odyssey .– – has a number of major differences from this scene. Hutchinson (: ) claims that this simile “falls short [of tragedy]” even though a comparable bereavement of young spouses motivates Haimon’s behavior at the end of the Antigone (to take just one example). Ardizzoni (: ) begins with a similar point about readings of this simile, calling them “partly arbitrary and aberrant interpretations” (interpretazioni in parte arbitrarie ed aberranti). Hunter (: ) notes that θαλερόν “emphasizes the man’s role as a sexual partner” as does the sound repetition of θαλ- in θαλάμοισιν. See also Cairns (: ), “A woman, then, receives aidōs for her observance of her social role”; distinguishes αἰδώς from σωφροσύνη – essentially a synonym of ἐπιφροσύνη – because σωφροσύνη is not an emotion: “it may promote or presuppose certain emotions, but it is not an emotion itself.” Knight (: –) connects Medea with Nausicaa in Odyssey in part because both of them feel αἰδώς after a dream that “put thoughts of marriage or elopement into the dreamer’s head” (), but this analysis focuses on Medea’s αἰδώς – which is comparatively easy to understand – rather than the more elusive reaction of the maiden in the simile. LSJ defines it as “taunt, sneer,” but this does not fully cover its range of meanings. Although I do not entirely agree with the conclusions of Lloyd (), his survey of the uses of κερτομ-words in Homeric epic (–) is informative, capturing more fully than LSJ the range and elusiveness of the word. The other example (.) describes a form of ritual jesting in an explicitly etiological context. The scholiasts were evidently puzzled by the word too, because they offer no fewer than three synonyms to define ἐπιστοβέωσι (χλευάζωσι, λοιδορήσωσι, μωμήσωνται, .–d) when the more usual approach is to offer one definition of difficult words. of similes are found in battle contexts, of which all but are part of a cluster. In addition to ἀμφοτέρωθεν (), these include ἀμφοτέρους (“both,” ) and two duals, στάντε (“standing,” ) and φυσιόωντε (“panting,” ). Of the similes in the Odyssey, percent ( of ) describes story emotions. The Argonautica has a higher number of similes about emotion than the
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Apollonius Argonautica: Gender, Emotion, and Skill
Odyssey does ( of ), but a lower percentage ( percent, slightly higher than the Iliad [ of , percent]). The Aeneid has more ( of , percent), and the Metamorphoses has the most of all ( of , percent). For references, see n. Pavlock (: –) sees Medea’s character as “a bizarre union of the erotic and the heroic” (). In all, nine similes relate to Medea’s feelings for Jason whereas only two amplify her magic powers (.–, charming the snake that guards the Fleece, and .–, comparing the giant Talus to a falling tree as he lies dying from her magical attacks). The similes about Medea in Book describe a wider variety of story subjects than those in Book , which are almost entirely about her emotions. Purves’ (: –) moving discussion of the relations between gesture and sorrow in this scene focuses on the gesture of reaching, but it contains many insightful comments about various gestures associated with grief and formal lament. These similes are discussed briefly by Edwards : , as “similes [that] make alternative comparisons.” Carspecken : rightly points out that in Homeric epic, “the subject for which alternatives are offered does not lie properly at the heart of the simile.” The Homeric epics include similes without an exit expression ( times Iliad, times Odyssey) and that describe measurement ( times Iliad, times Odyssey). On measurement similes in Homeric epic, see Scott (: –) (which assumes they are similes); Danek (: ) (on time similes in Odyssey –, which Danek distinguishes on formal grounds from other similes, calling them rather “Zeitangabe, die durch den Vergleich von zwei Situationen definiert wird [a statement of time which is defined by comparing two situations])”; Hainsworth (: ) (who calls such a comparison a “quasi-simile”). similes appear between .–, describing Aeetes arming for his journey to the field where Jason will attempt the task that Aeetes has set him, and .–, highlighting Aeetes’ grief for the Earthborn men killed by Jason. The only simile of the that does not appear within verses of another simile, .–, is the eighth of the . It provides a kind of halfway mark between the clusters of similes in the first half of the scene and the single enormous cluster of that brings the battle to its conclusion. Fusillo (: ) notes that the episode includes a stretch of verses in which are similes. Knight (: –) links many of the similes describing Jason to those of Achilles in Iliad and elsewhere, largely based on the content of the similes, but the structure of the simile clusters in Jason’s aristeia also evokes the series of clusters for Hector in his aristeia at the end of Iliad . Knight (: , citing Fusillo : –), “The density of similes . . . constructs Jason’s aristeia as a perverse kind of battle scene; the exaggeration of Homeric elements and their appearance in new contexts shows the contrast with Homer.” So too Hunter (: ), “Apollonius succeeds in writing
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Notes
quite unlike Homer precisely by imitating Homer with such intensity that he packs a whole Iliad into the last scene of the book .. . . At one level, such a technique [sequences of similes] suggests that what is being described is so remarkable that it can only be indicated through simile, i.e. the poet cannot in fact describe [emphasis original], only offer some kind of approximate verbal sketch; at another level, similes, which are so often proclaimed by modern critics to be tools of verisimilitude and enargeia, in fact call attention to the very fictionality, the literariness, of what is being described.” Book lacks any clusters at all, and it also lacks similes that describe an intentional battle against a mortal enemy. .– describes the dead Earthborn men, and .– and .– describe a mistaken battle with the Doliones. of similes in Books – are part of a cluster. Of those , describe battle or fighting, and others describe Aeetes or the Argonauts traveling to the plain of Ares where Jason’s battle against the Earthborn Men takes place at the end of Book . This represents two-thirds of the thirty-nine similes in Books –. In Book , on the other hand, of similes appear in clusters. Hunter (: –) draws out the parallel created by the language of with “the chain of killing in the House of Atreus” (), a complementary way of deepening the audience’s horror at what Jason and Medea have done by likening them to the mythological world’s most violent and intractable example of intra-family violence. Snake cluster: .– and –; the Fleece: .– and –; the Nereids: .– and . Beye (: ) describes the architecture of the poem as two voyages: “the first (in Books and ) in essence as realistic as any περίπλους known to the Greeks, but the second (in Book ) an adventure in a fairy-tale world of strange people and impossible geography [emphasis added].” Griffin (, especially –) points out that the supernatural characters and phenomena that make regular appearances in the Cycle are largely absent from Homeric epic. similes in the Argonautica lack a concluding “so” expression. similes with no exit are to verses long (of similes that are -to -verse similes), and are three verses long (of three-verse similes). The shorter the simile, the more likely it is to lack an exit expression. Only simile longer than verses (of ) lacks an exit expression (.–). Measurement similes in the Argonautica: .– (time), .– (time); .– (distance), .– (time); .– (time), .– (size), .– (quantity), .– (speed), .– (time). One-third of all the similes in our corpus that focus on a quantitative measurement – such as size, speed, or time – are found in the Argonautica ( of ). The Iliad has just quantitative similes, even though the Iliad has more than twice as many similes as the Argonautica ( versus ); no other epic poem in our corpus has more than such similes. The majority of these similes in the Iliad appear in contexts where the story dwells on some sort of quantity or extent, and so a
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Apollonius Argonautica: Gender, Emotion, and Skill
measurement simile arises organically out of the plot, such as athletic feats (.–, .–, .–, .–); the number of troops mustered in the Catalogue of Ships (.–); and the distance that Hera’s divine horses travel (.–). Iliad .–, Odyssey .–. Hunter (: ) notes that such “elaborate indications of time” are “much favoured in Hellenistic poetry,” but the passage at Iliad .– cited as a parallel is an exception rather than a rule in archaic epic. Elsewhere, Hunter attributes to such comparisons “some of the functions of a simile” (: , on .–); so too Fusillo (: ), who calls a simile about time “una perifrasi in forma di similitudine.” I see such expressions rather as similes that tell time. Across diverse cultures, time is described both in terms of its effects, as in expressions like “time heals all wounds” or “the ravages of time,” and by focusing on measuring or quantifying it (“keeping time,” “marking time,” etc.). Homeric epic takes the former approach, and Apollonius takes the latter. Alverson (: and –) discusses these two categories in more detail, as well as three additional ways of describing time that transcend individual cultures. Various animal options, for example, Iliad .–; Odyssey .–; different plant species, for example, Iliad .–. The only full-fledged Homeric option simile appears at Iliad .–. Carspecken (: ) not only points out that Apollonius creates a new version of the Homeric “alternative” simile but also that this new simile style appears for the first time in Book . He does not mention this comparison about the Colchians in his discussion, perhaps because it is introduced as a measurement rather than in the more conventional “as/so” form. Hunter (: –) provides a recent overview. For readers well-versed in literary criticism, I have just shirked a vast and hazardous scholarly mine field, largely by ignoring fundamental questions about the relationship between authorship and intentionality. My point here is not that the existence of Apollonius as a historical individual makes it possible (or useful) to try to recover his intentions in writing the poem the way that he did. Rather, we can feel confident that any reader of the Argonautica had basically the same poem in front of them that we do. “The Aetia as Alexandrian Poetry” (–) in Harder () gives a sense of the literary and cultural context that gave rise to Callimachus, Apollonius, and others. Important work of the s (such as Rengakos and Reitz ) advanced our understanding of how contemporary scholarship on Homeric epic, in addition to the Homeric epics themselves, contributed to the Argonautica. At the same time, this work bolstered the unfounded assumption – despite explicit rejections of this view by the scholars themselves (e.g. Reitz : ) – that Apollonius’ significance for both ancient and modern readers arises mainly from the intellectual, scholarly aspects of his work.
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Notes
Among these studies, I have benefited particularly from Stephens () (on Egyptian motifs) and Thalmann () (on conceptions and representations of space). By contrast, Clauss () believes that readers who were not as learned as Apollonius would “surely find Apollonius’ poem a rather dull adventure story embedded in an antiquarian’s travelogue, relieved only by a few interesting moments in Book when Medea falls in love” (). A study of recently bereaved spouses, for instance, found “considerable somatic symptoms” of grief in the newly widowed “such as fatigue, heart palpitations, and backaches” (Utz, Caserta, and Lund, : ). Indeed, the word “feel” itself encompasses both physical and emotional sensations. ἐπιχέω is used metaphorically (e.g. of sleep, LSJ def. ) as well as literally of fluids, but it rarely refers to a human embrace; ἀμφιπίπτω rarely appears in surviving Greek literature at all. This isolation resembles the plight of the simile girl mourning her lost husband (.–); see Section ... κηδεμονεύς is a rarely found synonym of κηδεμών. In Homeric epic, a κηδεμών is always responsible for attending to the dead, but in post-Homeric Greek, it means “one who cares for others, protector, guardian,” both in the legal and in the more general, nontechnical sense (LSJ def.’s , ). Rengakos (: ) summarizes, “this difficult unique Homeric word has been explained [by the scholia] in various ways” (Das schwierige Hapax [citing Iliad .–] . . . wurde verschieden erklärt). He notes that Apollonius’ two uses of ὀρεχθέω allude to different understandings of what the Homeric word means, with our passage meaning “strive for something” and the other occurrence (.–) more like “roar” (–). Angus Bowie suggests to me that perhaps it means ἡδονὴν φέρει, an idea that becomes very appealing if ὀρεχθέω – which Beekes describes as “of unclear [meaning]” and “etymologically unclear” – is related to ὄρεξις, a term for desire that Stephen White points out to me is regularly found in philosophical discourse. Achilles’ gesture to Priam includes both reaching out and withdrawal (., aptly described as “affective dissonance” by Purves : ). Lynn-George (: ) reconciles these conflicting impulses as “a suspended period of grief and inaction [in which] Achilles gently pushes Priam away, allowing a period in which to let things be while they submit to their cares and sorrows.” Otherwise found in Homeric epic only at Iliad ., also in a context of loss and grief between parents and children. The correspondences between the simile and the story characters have been the subject of some disagreement. The scholia make Pelias the stepmother figure because both are cruel (ὥσπερ ἄπηνής, .–b), but this seems unlikely when Pelias is not present in the scene. Thalmann (: ) identifies Jason with the nurse, but he does not assign a story counterpart to the stepmother. Since Jason is the source of both his mother’s tears and her solace, he may be linked to both the wicked stepmother and the comforting
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Apollonius Argonautica: Gender, Emotion, and Skill
nurse. Indeed, an argument can be made that every character mentioned in the simile, except the young girl, has connections to Jason. I am indebted to Matthew Leigh for this insight. In part because Fränkel () does not take the Homeric background into account, he is skeptical () that ἀσπασίως could suit Jason’s sorrowful mother when she has been described as being overcome with grief just a few words previously. Indeed, the last line of the poem shows that Apollonius was aware of the resonance of ἀσπάσιος in the Odyssey, since he uses it to begin the final verse of the poem in which the Argonauts return home at last: ἀσπασίως ἀτκὰς Παγασηίδας εἰσαπέβητε (you gladly set foot on the shores of Pagasae, .). Hunter (: ) explores the possibility that this verse refers specifically to Odyssey ., which also begins with ἀσπάσιοι (modifying Odysseus and Penelope as they reach their bed) and which the scholia tell us was identified as the πέρας or τέλος of the poem by Aristophanes of Byzantium and Aristarchus. Hunter concludes that “the possibility [that Apollonius ended his poem by alluding to a scholarly theory about a Homeric ‘ending’] intrigues, but no convincing case based on stylistic likeness has been made.” Purves (: –) shows that falling is associated in the Iliad with both death and mortality. At least in this simile, that pattern extends to the Odyssey as well. LSJ def.’s I. and I., with citations. The Homeric instances of ἀμφιβάλλω are often accompanied by tears, as at Odyssey . (the reunion of Odysseus with Philoetius and Eumaeus); . (Penelope embraces Odysseus); . (Laertes and Odysseus); Iliad . (Achilles and the Myrmidons lament over Patroclus). For this view, see, for example, Rutherford (: –). This simile has been interpreted in a number of different ways by different critics, of which a recent survey can be found at Grethlein (: – and n). Hutchinson (: ) points out the “diverging perspectives” among the different family members in this scene partly by means of Homeric antecedents, but his main parallel is Odysseus’ meeting with the soul of his mother Anticleia in the underworld in Odyssey . Thalmann (: ) notes that the rare word ἐντυπάς (tightly, closely [wrapped in bedclothes]) describes both the bedridden Aeson at Argonautica . and Priam at Iliad ., who is distraught at the death of his son Hector. This parallel sharpens the sense of parental grief in the scene. The rarity of such forms strengthens the connection between these two passages. Just two perfect middle-passive forms of δέω appear in Euripides out of over occurrences (in addition to this verse, δέδενται is found at Rhesus , referring to horses tied up); a perfect middle-passive form of δέω appears only here in the Argonautica (of occurrences). In surviving archaic and classical lyric and tragic poetry, perfect passive forms of δέω are unattested in Sophocles (among instances), perfect passive forms of δέω appear in the fragments of Aeschylus ( occurrences), and δέω is not found in Bacchylides or Alcman. Only Pindar uses perfect forms of δέω regularly in both the literal and
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Notes
metaphorical senses (out of instances of δέω, there are perfect forms, split between literal and metaphorical uses). LSJ δέω (Α) defs. -; def. (metaph. “bind”) cites Euripides Hippolytus but not Argonautica .. Translations of Euripides and Sophocles are my own. Barrett () discusses the two plays at length, summarizing his conclusions at – and giving a lengthy appendix surveying the evidence at –. In Homeric epic, ἄτη refers primarily to Agamemnon’s seizure of Briseis from Achilles in Iliad . Half of the instances in the Iliad refer to this action of Agamemnon. In connection with the illicit union of Helen and Paris, Paris’ conduct is attributed to ἄτη in the Iliad, as is Helen’s in the Odyssey. Paris: Iliad ., spoken by Helen about the kidnapping itself; and . (on Paris’ decision in the Judgment of Paris). Helen: Odyssey ., spoken by Helen; and ., spoken by Penelope. There are five occurrences of ἄτη in the Odyssey, all but one of which (.) attribute it to a god. In the Hippolytus, ἄτη can mean either “going out of one’s mind” (, where Phaedra attributes her madness to a δαίμων; ) or “calamity, ruin” associated with the gods but not explicitly attributed to them ( [a choral ode addressed in part to the gods], [spoken by Artemis]). Barrett (: ) surveys the various senses of ἄτη and analyzes the relationships – or lack thereof – among the different meanings. He suggests “humanly unaccountable and disastrous deterioration” as a common denominator uniting the individual meanings of ἄτη, regardless of whether the deterioration specifically affects the wits or the fortunes of the suffering mortal. In the Argonautica as a whole, ἄτη can refer to many kinds of unfortunate reverses that lie beyond the control of the affected individual. Race (), which in general is quite sparing with comments on what individual Greek words mean, notes in connection with ἄτη at .– that it “has a wide range of meanings: ‘madness, obsession, error, distress, disaster, demise’” (n). It appears half as often in the first half of the poem as it does in the second, where it regularly refers to Medea’s sufferings at “significant moments” (Hunter : ). of instances of ἄτη are found in Books and . A particularly striking example appears at . where ἄτη appears in the invocation of the Muse that opens the last book of the poem. Saïd () provides a detailed examination of both ἄτη and words like μαίνομαι or λύσσα in order to explore the representation of madness in Homeric epic and the Greek tragedians, especially Aeschylus. Laments for the dead: ., ., . (where the deaths are feared rather than having already happened), . and .. This is also its primary meaning in the Iliad. Sufferings from Ἔρως are connected to γόος in the invocation at .–, but also at .–, where Medea bursts into tears after Circe spurns her supplication. In this approach, I differ from Sistakou (), who characterizes γόος as an instance of “tragic terminology” ().
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Apollonius Argonautica: Gender, Emotion, and Skill
γόος appears alongside ἵμερος at Odyssey . and ; .; .; .. It is described with adjectives that emphasize its painful side at, for example, Iliad . and (ὀλοός) or Odyssey . and , . (πολυδάκρυτος). Currie (), a recent addition to this conversation, argues for an extremely complex and far-reaching form of intertextuality that the author expected – rightly – would be controversial. “‘[This] is bound to be a controversial book,’ writes Currie in his preface [Currie : vii]; he is bound to be right. Addressing the topic of intertextuality in an environment of oral poetry, he stakes out what many readers will regard as an extreme position: that Homer, and other archaic poets, operated with a technique of allusion that is in many ways as sophisticated as that of Hellenistic and Roman poets” (Fowler : ; other reviews begin similarly).
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Vergil Aeneid Rage and Isolation
. A Passionate Predator As Aeneas journeys across the Mediterranean to fulfill his destiny by founding the city of Rome, he is buffeted at least as much by “essential solitude” and “isolated anxiety” (Johnson : and n) as he is by storms at sea, doomed love affairs, and hostile Italians. Not only Aeneas but also the characters in the simile world – both humans and animals – are marked by their solitude and isolation. In comparison to the simile world of epic poetry more broadly, the simile world of the Aeneid is sparsely populated. Its human characters share few strong ties with other creatures, and they often fail to affect the world around them in ways that their fellows in Greek epic would take for granted. In the story world, similes bring to life moments of furor, the overpowering rage that underlies both love and war and threatens not simply Aeneas’ mission to found Rome, but even the existence of a rational world order. In earlier epics, erotic love and war have given rise to both great suffering and moments of heroic valor or exaltation. But however powerful those feelings may be, they do not affect the framework of society. Medea’s love for Jason leads to the murder of her brother Apsyrtus, but even though the killing strikes at the heart of the most basic human ties within Medea’s own family, it does not destabilize the world in which she lives. Furor, by contrast, whether in the passion of Dido, the madness of Amata at the hands of the fury Allecto, or the battle rage of Turnus, threatens the very foundations of the society that Aeneas is striving to create in Italy. Similes draw out isolation and overwhelming passion as two opposite poles of emotion in the poem, with little in between. As in the Argonautica, simile structures go hand in hand with content in shaping the narrative of the Aeneid. Its simile structures both strengthen the sense of isolation that surrounds the characters and, paradoxically, draw similes closer to both the story world of the mythological characters and the world of the poem’s audience. The Aeneid has fewer simile clusters than
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Vergil Aeneid: Rage and Isolation
either the Iliad or the Argonautica, and they appear only in scenes of competition, never to create the rich and nuanced emotional high points found in clusters in the Iliad or the Argonautica. Similes have fewer close connections to one another than they do in other epics, just as their characters are only loosely tied to other creatures within the simile world. At the same time, the contents and structure of the simile world draw closer to the story world. Mythological characters and real-world places form a regular part of the simile world for the first time. Moreover, the lack of exit expressions for the shorter similes in the Argonautica becomes the norm for similes in the Aeneid regardless of their length. The clear separation between similes and the heroic story in Greek epic is growing weaker as the ties between the inhabitants of the simile world grow weaker as well. The last third of the Aeneid tells the story of the battle between the Trojans and the Italians over whether and how the native inhabitants should welcome the new arrivals to Italy. The most bitter foe of Aeneas and his Trojan followers is the Rutulian prince Turnus, who leads the Italian troops in their first attack against the Trojans at the beginning of Book (–). Before Aeneas sets off to seek Italian allies for the coming war, he instructs the Trojans to retreat inside their fortifications if they should come under attack even if their feelings urge them to fight back (etsi conferre manum pudor iraque monstrat, / obiciunt portas tamen, .–). When Turnus and the Italians ride against the Trojans, they misinterpret this strategy as fecklessness (Teucrum mirantur inertia corda, .), but their astonishment at their idle opponents swiftly turns to frustration. As Turnus rides to and fro searching in vain for a chink in their defenses, he is compared to a hungry wolf who cannot get into a sheep pen. By the end of the simile, he seems like a vessel for anger who does not control his own actions. This simile marks the beginning of the fighting between the Italians and the Trojans as Turnus makes his first attack against the Trojan forces. The word furor itself does not appear in this simile, but the rush of blinding passion shared by the wolf and Turnus is unmistakably the same irrational destabilizing force that is identified elsewhere as furor. In this simile, as often in both the simile and story worlds of the Aeneid, rage takes on a life of its own, making human actors motivated by furor almost beside the point.
Aeneid 9.57–66 He rode to and fro wildly round the walls, seeking a way in where there was none. Like a wolf, lying in wait by a full sheepfold, that snarls by the pens at midnight, enduring the wind and rain, ð60Þ
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. A Passionate Predator
the lambs bleating safe beneath their mothers, and rages against the prey out of reach, fierce and immoderate in its anger, tormented by its dry, bloodless jaws, and the fierceness of its long-increasing hunger: so as Turnus scanned the wall and camp, the Rutulian’s anger ð65Þ was alight, and indignation burned in his harsh marrow. (Kline trans.) huc turbidus atque huc lustrat equo muros aditumque per auia quaerit. ac ueluti pleno lupus insidiatus ouili cum fremit ad caulas uentos perpessus et imbris ð60Þ nocte super media; tuti sub matribus agni balatum exercent, ille asper et improbus ira saeuit in absentis; collecta fatigat edendi ex longo rabies et siccae sanguine fauces: haud aliter Rutulo muros et castra tuenti ð65Þ ignescunt irae, duris dolor ossibus ardet.
Before the simile, Turnus’ perturbed state of mind (turbidus, .) is shaped by the physical landscape as he circles back and forth looking for a way into the Trojan fortifications. When we first encounter the simile wolf to which Turnus is compared, it, too, is stymied by an impenetrable barrier, the fence of a pen full of sheep. Rain and wind in the thick darkness of night buffet us along with the wolf, immersing us in its discomfort. As the wolf howls at the fence (.), the sheep families “bleat” from the safety of their enclosure (.–), but the simile does not specify whether any of the animals respond directly to the sounds of the others. The asyndetic structure of the simile, in which each clause follows the next without connective expressions that specify the relationship of one idea to another, gives linguistic form to the isolation of the wolf. Not only is it alone outside the sheep pen, but also neither of its clauses (.–, .–) has a grammatical connection to the clause containing the sheep. The wolf stalks alone through the beginning and end of the simile, unable to make contact with the sheep families clustered together at its center. The sheep mark a turning point in the wolf’s experiences. Before the sheep are mentioned, the wolf’s problems stem from its inhospitable physical surroundings (.–), but afterward (.–), it is in the grip of an overpowering hunger expressed in the language of furor. As the wolf returns to the scene, it “rages . . . fierce and immoderate in its anger” (improbus ira saeuit, .–). Both ira and the saeu- root express the same unreasoning, antisocial emotion as furor. Moreover, improbus
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Vergil Aeneid: Rage and Isolation
(“immoderate”) implies a negative judgment of the wolf: this word appears in the Aeneid almost entirely in direct speech and similes where it represents the feelings of a particular character about the blameworthy harm that someone or something has caused the character. Whereas many simile predators act out of the natural instincts of their kind that are simply part of the way the world is, this wolf is criticized and indeed defined through his lust for blood. Toward the end of the simile, the wolf is entirely swallowed up by its rage. It appears only as the implied object: “tormented by its dry, bloodless jaws, / and the fierceness of its longincreasing hunger” (collecta fatigat edendi / ex longo rabies et siccae sanguine fauces, .–). Nearly every word in the last two verses of the simile embodies the sensations of the hungry wolf as an overpowering and dangerous physical urge, so much so that the feelings rather than the character who experiences them become the focus of the scene. We begin the simile milling around a sheepfold in a fruitless search for a tasty meal; we end it in a storm of excessive and dangerous rage that takes on a fearsome life of its own. Several characters in this simile behave differently from their fellows in the simile worlds of earlier poems. Perhaps most noticeably, no shepherd defends the sheep against the wolf. Clearly, the sheep have a caretaker because someone built the “pens” (caulas, ) that protect them, but the human being responsible is nowhere to be seen. This is the rule rather than the exception in similes of domestic animals in the Aeneid. Some similes include animals; some include herders; but only two similes include both a group of domesticated animals and their human caretakers (.– and .–). Human beings and animals do not have the close, mutually supportive relationships that provide comfort to the inhabitants of the simile worlds of Homeric epic and Apollonius’ Argonautica. The absence of the shepherd comes into sharper relief in contrast to Argonautica .– (see Chapter , Section .), the closest antecedent to this simile. As we have seen, that simile highlights the strategic cooperation of a group of shepherds who work together to protect their flocks from a wild animal. In the absence of shepherds in this Aeneid simile, the sheep’s physical enclosure takes on the role of their main protector, removing the caretaking relationship and effective strategy motifs from Apollonius’ simile. Because the Aeneid simile closely resembles the Argonautica scene in many other ways, this key difference makes the absence of human defenders as important to the larger thematic meaning of the Aeneid simile as the behavior of the clever shepherds in the Argonautica. The absence of any human figures in Vergil’s
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. A Passionate Predator
simile can be understood in a general way as a variation on typical patterns that characterize the simile world of epic poetry as a whole; it also makes a pointed contrast with a particular simile on which this one is modeled, in which shepherds play a notably active and thematically significant role in protecting their charges from harm. The shepherd has no visible relationship with his animals because he is nowhere to be found, but the predator, too, has looser connections to other creatures than we are used to seeing in the simile worlds of earlier poems. While lions commonly hunt by themselves (as they do in the Homeric antecedents to this simile), wolves do not. The wolves of the Greek epic simile world always travel in packs, and they describe groups of Greek fighters with whom we are expected to sympathize. Wolves in the Iliad simile world refer to the Greeks, and the only wolf simile in Apollonius (.–) draws on this association when it juxtaposes a pack of wolves to the Argonauts as they fight the menacing and arrogant Bebrycians. The wolf similes in battle scenes in Aeneid –, on the other hand, never feature packs of wolves. Instead, three lone wolf scenes describe a solo fighter making an attack about which the details of the simile invite complicated or uncomfortable feelings from us. These innovative solitary wolves draw our attention to the isolation of the main characters – both the lone simile wolf and the story character – and to the difficulty of reaching straightforward conclusions about where our allegiance should lie. On the one hand, a simile wolf seems to cast the parallel story character as a sympathetic figure because wolves in Greek epic similes are likened to fighters with whom we are invited to sympathize, and this coloring is likely to be felt here as well. At the same time, the solitary wolf motif implicitly isolates Turnus from the Italians with whom the previous simile (.–) brought him together, an observation well phrased by Hornsby (: ), who says that he “is like the lone animal who relies on his own brute force to carry all before him.” While the similes about the Greek and Trojan forces in the Iliad depict these groups as meaningful “characters” in the narrative that engage our sympathy and interest, the solitary wolf motif in the Aeneid does the opposite. It isolates the individual fighter from his comrades, marking him off as a lonelier and perhaps a less effective warrior by himself than he would be alongside other fighters. The sheep, unlike either the solitary wolf or the absent shepherd, enjoy close ties with one another. While singular forms for the wolf emphasize its solitude, the sheep are depicted as a family group of lambs (tuti . . . agni, .) safely tucked away beneath their mothers (sub matribus . . . balatum
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Vergil Aeneid: Rage and Isolation
exercent, .–). Are the lambs bleating in fear of the wolf? Or just because “bleat” is what sheep do? Other uses of balatus in Vergil suggest an undercurrent of fear. Indeed, the contexts in which Vergil uses balatus give it a poignant expressive coloring that the lexical meaning alone does not capture. It does not simply offer an onomatopoeic way to say “sound made by sheep.” It means “sound made by endangered domestic animals, usually but not always sheep, which in the Aeneid are being menaced by a wolf that threatens or destroys the family tie between a ewe and her lamb.” These sheep families create a memorable impression that contrasts with both the lone wolf who is attacking them and the undifferentiated herds of frightened animals that generally appear in predator similes, such as the pile of sheep in Iliad .– (see Chapter , Section .). Because both of the wolves to which Turnus is likened (here and again at .–, where the wolf does capture the lamb) set out to attack a young animal in the presence of its mother, these wolf similes become scenes of the despoliation of a family home. The relationships among these sheep (.–) offer not simply a contrast to the solitary wolf unable to enter the sheep pen but also a harbinger of losses that befall sheep in a later simile (.–). The evolution of how the wolf is depicted over the course of the simile drives a similar shift in our experience of Turnus’ behavior. Before the simile (.–), he is galloping around the Trojans’ camp looking for a way in, an understandable if ineffective response to the military difficulty confronting him. Afterward, burning ira and dolor, not Turnus, become the grammatical subjects, acting upon Turnus, the grammatical object, as he continues to scan the walls of the fortifications. Verse is bracketed at each end by verbs of burning (ignescunt . . . ardet), enclosing feelings of anger and resentment that inflame Turnus’ very bones (irae, duris dolor ossibus). This language, building on the shift of emphasis over the course of the simile, engulfs Turnus in a burning rage that penetrates to the core of his being. Both before and after the simile, Turnus is looking for a way into the Trojan camp. But that action looks very different when Turnus is in control of his actions than it does when he is on fire with anger and sorrow. Because this is the first simile to describe an individual fighter in the battles of the last third of the poem, it sets the tone for similes and battle narrative throughout Books –. The simile describes Turnus, the focus of more similes than any other character in the half of the Aeneid in which he appears, making him in an important sense the true heir to the Homeric style of heroism. Critics disagree about whether this makes Turnus into the “true” hero of the poem or a symbol of the inadequacy of
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. Pattern: The Simile World of the Aeneid
the Homeric model of heroism in the world in which Aeneas lives. Whichever position we take, the focus on Turnus in the first similes in the battle between the Italians and the Trojans identifies his heroism as a key theme of both this fighting and the entire poem. The comparison describes battle, the subject of nearly all the similes in Books –. And it plunges us into the overpowering irrational lust that forms one of the main themes of the poem.
. Pattern: The Simile World of the Aeneid Human characters play a smaller and less powerful role throughout the simile world of the Aeneid than they do in other epics. Among the poems discussed in this book, the simile world of the Aeneid has the lowest proportion of human characters and activities. When human characters are present, they are often so strikingly ineffective or peripheral to the action that their presence highlights their irrelevance to the unfolding events more powerfully than their complete absence would have done. Such similes cast missing or ineffective human connections as a damaging failure rather than an unremarkable feature of the world around us. This gap in the simile world where human beings should be makes a major contribution to the sense of isolation and loneliness that pervades the narrative of the Aeneid. ..
Shepherds
The Aeneid does not feature any herding figures who have positive interactions with their animal charges. Most herding similes in the Aeneid do not mention a herder at all: the usual state of Vergil’s domestic animals is some misfortune in which their supposed protector is not even mentioned, as in the wolf simile at .–. Natural disasters that a shepherd could do nothing to prevent even if he were present occasionally strike, but often, flocks in their pens or steadings are attacked by a predator with no reference to the shepherd who might be expected to defend them. Sometimes the predator succeeds in capturing and eating an animal (e.g. .–, .–), and sometimes he fails (as at .–), but the outcomes of these attacks seem to be more or less a matter of chance. In fact, these unprotected flocks suffer the disadvantages of domestication – if they were not cooped up in a pen, at least they could try to hide or run away from a predator – without enjoying its benefits.
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Vergil Aeneid: Rage and Isolation
Conversely, the lone example of a happy and successful shepherd does not have any animals with him. Instead, after firing some fields, probably to prepare them for the growth of next year’s pasturage (Harrison : –), he is observing his handiwork with pleasure while in the story, Pallas kills a number of Italians and kindles the valor of his comrades. This scene brings together fire – normally a destructive force, both in similes and elsewhere – and the figure of the shepherd in an unexpected and disconcerting combination.
Aeneid 10.405–9 As in summer, when a hoped-for wind has risen, ð405Þ the shepherd sets scattered fires in the woods, the spaces between catch light, and Vulcan’s bristling ranks extend over the broad fields, while the shepherd sits and gazes down in triumph over the joyful flames: (Kline trans.) ac uelut optato uentis aestate coortis ð405Þ dispersa immittit siluis incendia pastor, correptis subito mediis extenditur una horrida per latos acies Volcania campos, ille sedens uictor flammas despectat ouantis:
The dominant physical experience in this simile is heat moving through a landscape: the heat of the summer, of the flames kindled in the woods by the shepherd, the “Vulcan’s ranks” (acies Volcania) that marches across the fields, the shepherd watching in triumph as flames conquer the vegetation in its path. The emotions in the scene – both for the shepherd and for us – arise from the destructive power of fire, not from bonds between living creatures. In perhaps the most striking instance of “transfusion of metaphor” from the story to the simile (West : , citing no fewer than seven words in the simile), the flames “triumph” over the fields they burn. This burnout may well be helpful to the shepherd’s flock in the long term, but the simile paints a disquieting picture of a shepherd who revels in his power to – temporarily – lay waste to the natural world rather than performing his customary task of watching over animals who might eat the products of these fields. The two Aeneid similes that feature both a shepherd and domestic animals depict scenes of conflict and fear, not between the flock and a predator but between the shepherd and a group of animals. While simile herders in other epic poems regularly suffer from predators or find themselves unable to control the behavior of their animals running amok, there are no other shepherds who have such fraught relations
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. Pattern: The Simile World of the Aeneid
with the animals in their own herds. This is the central idea in Aeneid .–, one of the longest similes in the poem and one with antecedents in both Greek epic and Vergil’s Georgics. As Aeneas and Turnus clash amid general fighting between the Trojans and Italians, they are likened to two bulls in the presence of a fearful herd and shepherds.
Aeneid 12.715–22 And as when two bulls charge head to head in mortal battle, ð715Þ on mighty Sila or on Taburnus’s heights, and in terror their keepers retreat, the whole herd stand silent with fear, and the heifers wait, mute, to see who will be lord of the forest, whom all the herds will follow, as they deal wounds to each other with immense force, ð720Þ gore with butting horns, and bathe neck and shoulders in streaming blood, while all the wood echoes to their bellowing. (Kline trans.)
ac uelut ingenti Sila summoue Taburno ð715Þ cum duo conuersis inimica in proelia tauri frontibus incurrunt, pauidi cessere magistri, stat pecus omne metu mutum, mussantque iuuencae quis nemori imperitet, quem tota armenta sequantur; illi inter sese multa ui uulnera miscent ð720Þ cornuaque obnixi infigunt et sanguine largo colla armosque lauant, gemitu nemus omne remugit.
The landscape itself has a new kind of physical reality because the simile takes place on the heights of named Italian peaks rather than a generalized “in the mountains.” The scene focuses on how the bulls wield their bodies as weapons against one another. After they rush together with their horns in attack position (.–), the smash of horns through flesh injures both bulls, bathing their necks and shoulders in a stream of blood (.–). Alongside the detail about how the bulls attack one another – almost every word about the bulls describes a physical action – we are never told why this fight is happening or how the bulls understand their behavior. In fact, throughout the simile, the language about the bulls’ actions uses plurals that apply equally to both animals. Thus, it is not even possible to figure out which animal is the aggressor. They are simply at war (inimica in proelia tauri . . . incurrunt, .–). We experience the meaning of the fight primarily from the perspectives of the fearful bystanders, first the shepherds who draw back from the antagonists (.) and then the herd that falls silent with fear in
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Vergil Aeneid: Rage and Isolation
.. Within the simile, it is the cows who express the stakes of the battle with their lowing anxiety about which combatant will lead the herd (.–). The herd, like the fighting bulls, is described in vivid physical terms, but their fear and anxiety take shape for us through their sounds rather than any actions in response to the fighting bulls. Indeed, the end of the simile resounds with the mournful din of cattle. The onomatopoeic words gemitu and remugit (.) make the grief of these bystanders audible, using the same sounds for the feelings of the human and the animal participants. Gemitus, used in the Aeneid mainly for human sorrow (especially when a warrior dies), is a near anagram for remugit, a compound of the simple verb mugio that includes the literal meaning “moo” – alongside the metaphorical sense “resound, reverberate” – only here in the Aeneid. The sounds coming from the grove, in other words, express both human and animal feelings. Both the inaction and the language that describe the shepherds call our attention to their failure to provide care or safety to these animals. In other Vergilian poems, magister (“keeper”) can refer to someone in charge of a flock (e.g. Eclogues ., Georgics ., .), but it is used in that sense in the Aeneid only here. In fact, the shepherds seem to be mentioned only so that they can be dismissed in three words as powerless nonparticipants (pauidi cessere magistri, .) in this epic battle between two would-be leaders of the herd (.). Their failure to intervene depicts the shepherds as more ineffectual and irrelevant than they would be if they did not appear at all. Moreover, the inaction of the shepherds makes the violence of this bovine “contest of strength” (proelia OLD def. ) more upsetting than it would be otherwise, since it has overpowered any human capacity to contain it rather than simply unfolding without reference to human agents or structures of order. Indeed, the scenes of fighting bulls from earlier poetry that this simile evokes (Argonautica .– [simile], Georgics .– [story]) do not include shepherds at all, focusing rather on the heifer that is the object of the fight but that has disappeared from our simile. In these earlier passages, two male animals fighting over a female is a routine part of animal life. The scene changes in the Aeneid simile with the disappearance of the heifer and the addition of frightened and unhappy bystanders, both animal and human. Indeed, the presence of these passive watchers who wonder apprehensively how the outcome of the combat will affect them – among whom stand authority figures who might have been expected to exert some control over the situation – transforms the scene into a kind of civil war in the herd. In this group of
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. Pattern: The Simile World of the Aeneid
bystanders, the grief-stricken shepherds who can do nothing but observe the unfolding events become figures for us readers who see and feel with the characters but cannot affect what happens to them. ..
Human Relationships
Human relationships with other humans are just as elusive in the simile world of the Aeneid as shepherds’ relations with their animals. The Aeneid lacks the range of human relationships that people the simile worlds of earlier poems as well as the variety of emotions that inspire them. Only two human relationship similes appear in the Aeneid, each of which focuses on a human bond anchored by a character who is discharging proper Roman responsibilities of prudent and careful oversight toward his or her dependents. The first simile in the poem, .–, juxtaposes Neptune calming a storm at sea to a man quieting a crowd that has been fomenting civil unrest (discussed further in Section . of this chapter). The leader in the simile, respected by the insurrectionist multitudes because of his pietate . . . ac meritis (.), subdues a type of irrational and hazardous disorder that is difficult for human actors to control in both the mythological story of the Aeneid and the political experiences of its readers. In the other simile that features human relationships (.–), a woman whose husband is absent for unspecified reasons (Coffey : ) gets up early in the morning to spin in order to maintain her children and the chastity of her marriage bed. She is likened to Vulcan preparing to forge the armor that Venus has requested for Aeneas. The simile vignette of proper Roman marital fidelity offers an ironic counterpoint to the story, in which Vulcan is helping a son of his wife who is no relation to him. Taken together, these two similes showcase the ideal male and female virtues that underpin Roman culture, but they also show how rare those virtues prove to be. People like this are difficult to find in the simile world, the mythological story, or the world of the poet and his audience, very much to the dismay of the characters in the Aeneid and probably of its readers as well. ..
Craft
Craft similes take the same dim view of human connection that characterizes the simile world as a whole. The first craft simile in the Aeneid, which compares Venus improving Aeneas’ appearance to pieces of ivory and metalwork, offers a constrained perspective on human agency both in the simile itself and in the story context. The simile almost entirely lacks
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Vergil Aeneid: Rage and Isolation
references to the creator of these beautiful artifacts, just as Aeneas himself does very little to affect his own prospects while Venus transforms his appearance. Differences between this simile and a similar comparison in the Odyssey draw our attention to these features of the scene.
Aeneid 1.589–94 since his mother had herself imparted to her son beauty to his hair, ð590Þ a glow of youth, and a joyful charm to his eyes: like the glory workmanship can give to ivory, or as when silver, or Parian marble, is surrounded by gold. Then he addressed the queen . . .. (Kline trans.) namque ipsa decoram caesariem nato genetrix lumenque iuuentae ð590Þ purpureum et laetos oculis adflarat honores: quale manus addunt ebori decus, aut ubi flauo argentum Pariusue lapis circumdatur auro. tum sic reginam adloquitur . . ..
The simile presents works of art that share the grace of the divinely enhanced Aeneas (decoram . ~ decus .), but the human artisan working the lovely ivory or metal inlay is present only as a pair of hands (.). No actor is mentioned who strives to create certain artistic effects or who might act as a focal point through which we can enter and experience the scene. Similarly, the Parian marble or silver that is bound with gold, not its craftsman, is the subject of the passive verb of creation in . (circumdatur “is surrounded”). The simile dwells on the effects themselves, referring to their maker in such brief and allusive terms as to call attention to his absence more effectively than simply omitting him could do. Right before the simile begins (.–), Venus enriches the considerable charms of her son as he is on the verge of his first meeting with Dido in language that is often both striking and difficult to pin down (Austin : – provides details). While other characters are speaking (Ilioneus and Dido) and acting (Venus), Aeneas is eagerly wishing to emerge from the concealing mist in which Venus has cloaked him so that he may speak face-to-face with Dido. Others in the scene take the initiative as Aeneas only desires to act. In contrast to the Odyssey simile that provides a close parallel for this one, distinctive features of both craft and human experience in the Aeneid spring into view. In the Odyssey, too, a goddess (Athena) beautifies
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. Pattern: The Simile World of the Aeneid
the main hero before he encounters a woman with whom he has – or might have – an erotic connection, an action that is illustrated by a simile about metalwork (Odyssey .–; see also Chapter , Section .). But the resemblance between the two similes ends there. In the Odyssey, Odysseus takes several actions to tidy himself before Athena gets involved. He washes off the salty scurf that accumulated during his raft voyage (.–), he rubs himself with oil (.), and he puts on the clothing that Nausicaa’s maids have provided (.); only then (.–) does Athena step in. Aeneas, in contrast, does nothing at all. He simply appears out of the scattered clouds that had concealed him from view (restitit Aeneas, .), and Venus heightens his appearance and allure. The absence of human agency is even more striking within the simile itself. Whereas Vergil’s glancing references to the human craftsman draw our attention to his absence, the simile in the Odyssey focuses more on the relationships that underlie the expertise of the craftsman and the effect of his creation on viewers than it does on the physical qualities of his handiwork. The relationships that color so many aspects of the simile world of the Odyssey also make their way into this craft simile, where art is a matter of interpersonal bonds at least as much as a technical skill or a manipulation of raw material; by contrast, the sparse human contact in the simile world of the Aeneid has banished the Odyssey simile’s craftsman almost entirely from the scene. As a group, the craft similes in the Aeneid consistently marginalize the artisan responsible for the object or activity that forms the main topic of the comparison. The majority of its craft similes do not mention a human character, focusing instead on artifacts that entail human creators. Such images create a human-oriented setting that lacks humans, drawing our attention to the absence of people. In Apollonius and the Homeric epics, in contrast, almost all craft similes include a human craftsperson. Moreover, those Aeneid similes that do include a human actor show craft skills having a problematic or destructive effect, with the notable exception of the spinner woman maintaining her children by rising early to ply her craft (.–). For instance, the ivory worker at .– commits a violent atrocity against the raw materials: “as when one / sullies Indian ivory with blood-red dye” (sanguineo ueluti uiolauerit ostro / si quis ebur). When farmers cut down an ancient oak at Aeneid .–, the simile does not explain why they are doing this, dwelling instead on the death of the noble old tree in expressive and sympathetic terms (e.g. uulneribus . . . euicta supremum congemuit,
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Vergil Aeneid: Rage and Isolation
.–). In contrast, woodcutting in the Iliad or the Argonautica would generally be carried out in aid of some constructive purpose, such as shipbuilding or chariot making (e.g. Iliad .– [chariot], Argonautica .– [ship]). In other epic poems, craft similes highlight the power of human beings to create order, beauty, and safety; in the Aeneid, craft similes as often as not create an empty space where human beings should be. Various typical scenes in the simile world of the Aeneid consistently cast human beings as absent, marginal, lonely, and ineffective characters in a story of separation and isolation. This outlook in the simile world shapes our experiences with the events that befall Aeneas and the other characters in the story world.
. Similes and the Aeneid Story .. Battle The Aeneid tells the story of Aeneas’ ongoing and only partially successful fight against furor in no small part because similes engulf us in the bodily sensations of overpowering rage in a range of situations throughout the poem. These situations encompass both the kinds of story features and the individual characters that similes most often describe. Similes in each book of the Aeneid accompany parts of the story that relate to the focus of that book. On the one hand, this seems self-evident: of course a battle book like Book is full of similes about fighting, or the tragic love story of Dido in Book brings out her feelings with some of the Aeneid’s most powerful similes. But similes create rather than simply reinforce the focus of the narrative. Book is a “battle book” not only because it tells a story about fighting but also because it is full of similes that describe warriors as fierce predators or liken the noise of battle to stormy weather. Moreover, similes shape the narrative in part by what they do not describe. For instance, similes in the Aeneid sometimes depict dead warriors in ways that arouse our sorrow when a young life is taken too soon. But they never focus on the grief of the friends and family left behind, whereas some of the most memorable and affecting similes in the Iliad describe Achilles’ grief after the death of Patroclus. This is not to say that the Aeneid shows no concern for loss in war. The narrator’s apostrophe to Nisus and Euryalus after their deaths is justly one of the most famous passages in the Aeneid (.–; Hardie : –), and the story lavishes attention on the wild sorrow of Euryalus’ bereaved mother (.–). But because similes in the Aeneid never describe
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. Similes and the Aeneid Story
the grief of the bereaved when soldiers are killed in war, their sorrow lacks the kind of epic stature and richness that similes lend to the mourning of Achilles for Patroclus, or the grief of Odysseus and his family about the sufferings they endure during his long homecoming. On and off the battlefield, nearly half the similes in the Aeneid plumb the depths of the destructive, antisocial rage of furor, not the community bonds of warriors fighting side by side or the bereaved coming together to lament for their dead. With one key exception, similes describe the same battlefield events in both the Aeneid and the Iliad even though the fighting itself is conducted differently in the two poems. Battle in the Aeneid primarily turns on a few major heroes rather than the large cast of relatively minor characters who fight in the Iliad (Horsfall ; Willcock ). Strategically, war is waged by trying to gain advantage over the enemy through surprise rather than in a “pitched battle” in which both sides follow certain rules (Rossi : –). Despite these changes in how battles are fought, similes in both poems describe the same events: the mustering of troops, arming, the attacks and kills of an individual fighter, the noise of battle, and so forth. Groups play a role in all these happenings. But whereas the Iliad regularly describes groups fighting each other without mentioning any individual leader or enemy, the Aeneid does not. The loneliness of the Aeneid casts its shadow even onto the battlefield, where similes almost never bring together the fighters of each side into the mass of humanity whose sufferings form one of the key themes of the Iliad. And because furor is in essence an antisocial focus on the self at the expense of the group (McDermott : and passim), the association between similes and furor leads to a greater focus on the individual fighter. Only three similes in the Aeneid focus exclusively on a group of fighters in the midst of a battle without reference to some individual who leads or attacks them, and in each case, the simile accompanies a brief glimpse of a group of warriors that falls between two more detailed scenes that focus on individuals. For example, the clamor of battle that surrounds Ascanius after Apollo has warned him not to continue fighting arises from an unnamed group, but the group does not hold our interest for its own sake.
Aeneid 9.661–62 and 9.666–72 So, given the god’s words and his divine will, the [Trojans] stopped Ascanius, eager for the fight . . . The whole earth was strewn with spears: shields and hollow ð666Þ
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Vergil Aeneid: Rage and Isolation helmets clanged as they clashed together, the battle grew fierce: vast as a rainstorm from the west, lashing the ground beneath watery Auriga, and dense as the hail the clouds hurl into the waves, when Jupiter, bristling with southerlies, ð670Þ twirls the watery tempest, and bursts the sky’s cavernous vapours. Pandarus and Bitias . . . (Kline trans.) ergo auidum pugnae dictis ac numine Phoebi Ascanium prohibent [sc. the Trojans, ] . . . sternitur omne solum telis, tum scuta cauaeque ð666Þ dant sonitum flictu galeae, pugna aspera surgit: quantus ab occasu ueniens pluuialibus Haedis uerberat imber humum, quam multa grandine nimbi in uada praecipitant, cum Iuppiter horridus Austris ð670Þ torquet aquosam hiemem et caelo caua nubila rumpit. Pandarus et Bitias . . ..
These Trojan soldiers are fighting to protect Ascanius, whose presence shapes the scene even though the simile does not refer to him directly. Moreover, the Trojans fight as a group for just a few verses. We may struggle to share their experiences, because both the story and the simile describe things that generate sounds rather than humans who perceive those sounds. Without an exit expression for the simile, we do not see this group again after the simile ends. Instead, we find ourselves suddenly in the company of Pandarus and Bitias. Here and elsewhere, “group of unnamed fighters” is not a significant character in the battles of the Aeneid. Their absence removes a key strand of the social fabric that holds together the battle narrative in the Iliad, shaping instead a world where furor weakens the bonds that create strong and effective groups. .. Emotions As with battle scenes, Aeneid similes about emotions shape the poem as much by what they leave out as by what they describe. The first simile in Book sets the tone not simply for the tale of the doomed love of Dido and Aeneas that will come to a climax with her suicide at the end of the book but also for the kinds of emotions that similes describe – or neglect – throughout the Aeneid.
Aeneid 4.68–74 Wretched Dido burns, and wanders frenzied through the city, like an unwary deer struck by an arrow, that a shepherd hunting
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. Similes and the Aeneid Story
with his bow has fired at from a distance, in the Cretan woods, ð70Þ leaving the winged steel in her, without knowing. She runs through the woods and glades of Dicte: the lethal shaft hangs in her side. Now she leads Aeneas with her round the walls . . . (Kline trans.) uritur infelix Dido totaque uagatur urbe furens, qualis coniecta cerua sagitta, quam procul incautam nemora inter Cresia fixit ð70Þ pastor agens telis liquitque uolatile ferrum nescius: illa fuga siluas saltusque peragrat Dictaeos; haeret lateri letalis harundo. nunc media Aenean secum per moenia ducit . . ..
Unlike most scenes where a prey animal is injured or killed, this simile keeps the prey and the killer apart. Neither ever learns of the other’s existence. Their experiences remain separate throughout the simile, with the fatal exception of the shepherd’s arrow that comes to rest in the side of the deer. Just as the arrow represents the only physical contact between the two characters, it provides the grammatical link between the first clause that describes the wounded deer (qualis . . . sagitta, .) and the relative clause about the distant shepherd who has caused the injury unawares (quam procul . . . .– with nescius in an emphatic position in ., both first in its verse and last in its clause). The pain and suffering caused by the fatal shaft (sagitta, .; uolatile ferrum, .; letalis harundo, .) is driven home not only by the shepherd’s ignorance of his actions but also by his role as a shepherd. The job of a pastor (.) is to care for animals, not to kill them by mistake. This first simile in the poem that focuses on a caretaker of animals shows the pastor not simply away from his own animals but even killing another animal unawares. A more harmful contrast to the shepherds of the rest of the epic simile world can scarcely be imagined. And this contrast, as well as the specific actions of this particular simile, introduce us to the idea that Aeneas is to blame for Dido’s unhappiness and death, even though he remains unaware of her misery for some time and he does not choose the actions that play the largest role in her suffering. Few readers would dispute the idea that the similes in Book help to elevate Dido’s tragic love for Aeneas into one of the most memorable parts of the poem. As Rieks (: –) points out, similes mark the unfurling of Dido’s doom as she descends from love (.–) to rage (.–, compared to a Maenad), and finally death (.–, her dreams resemble characters in various tragic dramas hounded by the
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Vergil Aeneid: Rage and Isolation
Furies). Before every simile, we are told that she is driven by furor (. and .; .; .). Moreover, a simile casts the grief of Dido’s subjects after her suicide as a catastrophe akin to the sack of the city (.–, where the flames that engulf the city are furentes [.]). Similes in the Aeneid about feelings either describe emotions like Dido’s that arise from or resemble furor, or – less often – they place us within the experience of someone who fails to react to an emotional appeal where a response is clearly expected or appropriate. At such moments, the simile places us alongside a character who is choosing isolation and solitude over human connections. In contrast with other poems, feelings that arise from strong family bonds or healthy community relationships are nowhere to be seen in the Aeneid. Similes in the Aeneid explore the powerful and disruptive feelings arising from furor, and they emphasize solitude. They see no emotions in between.
.
Weave: Building on Earlier Epics ..
Clusters
The solitude that pervades both the content and the story contexts of similes on the battlefields of the Aeneid also affects the structures that join similes to one another. Similes themselves are isolated, in comparison to the clusters found in battle narrative in the Iliad and the Argonautica or even the violence that Odysseus instigates in the course of his return home to Ithaca. In these earlier epics, clusters and battle narrative go hand in hand: battle scenes have many clusters, and clusters tend to appear in battle scenes. Although simile clusters outside of battle narrative are a comparative rarity, they help to bring to life powerful feelings, difficult decisions, and other narrative high points, as at the beginning of Iliad (see Chapter , Section .) or when Jason and Medea first meet in Argonautica (Beck a). But clusters are a weaker force in the narrative of the Aeneid than in its extant predecessors. It has fewer simile clusters; they describe a narrower range of story subjects; and a smaller proportion of battle similes form part of a cluster. Similes themselves, not simply the characters who inhabit them, become more solitary in the Aeneid. While Vergil uses various narrative strategies to show us different views of a particular battlefield event, he almost never uses a simile cluster for this purpose. In the only battlefield cluster that shows the
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. Weave: Building on Earlier Epics
same person or event from the perspective of each side, a pair of similes, each of which has Iliadic antecedents, introduces Aeneas as he returns from his search for local allies to fight alongside the Trojans. Moreover, each antecedent is itself part of a cluster in the Iliad, in which each of the two similes offers a different perspective on the same character or group. Thus, the “meanings” that these antecedents bring to Aeneas’ return include not just their content but also cluster structures that show us two opposing views of a central character in battle. The “multiple perspectives” function of battlefield simile clusters is reserved in the Aeneid for perhaps the most important change of perspective in the entire poem, the pivotal moment when the Trojans become the attackers instead of the besieged in their war with the native Italians, and Aeneas is portrayed more as an Achilles than a Hector figure. Rossi (: ) argues that Aeneas’ return marks a crucial shift in the fortunes of war: “when Aeneas reappears in book , it is not only the tide of the battle that turns; the Trojans and the Latins also experience a sudden reversal of roles” in which the Trojans become the besiegers instead of the besieged, and the native Italians find themselves in the same plight as the Iliadic Trojans, hemmed in by an attacking army from across the sea. If we can pinpoint this reversal to a specific narrative moment, it happens between the first and second simile in this simile cluster. The change of perspective in this simile cluster, driven in part by the relationships between the Aeneid cluster and its Iliadic antecedents, embodies the broader “reversal of roles” that Aeneas sets in motion when he returns to the fighting. In the first of the two Aeneid similes, the yells of the Trojans as they catch sight of Aeneas on board his returning ship are compared to a flock of cranes. This simile has many points in common with Iliad .–, another comparison in which a group of noisy Trojans are likened to a flock of cranes. While both passages juxtapose a group of Trojan fighters to a flock of cranes, the story contexts explain the noise differently, and the second simile in each cluster creates a different kind of additional perspective. In the Aeneid passage on the left below, the crane simile gives voice to the battle spirit that the sight of Aeneas rouses in his fellow Trojans. The second simile in the cluster shows us how Aeneas looks to the watching Rutulians. On the right, the Greeks and Trojans draw up for battle at the beginning of Iliad . The Trojans are shouting in contrast to the silent Greeks, with whom a second simile will soon unite them as a single fighting force.
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Vergil Aeneid: Rage and Isolation
Aeneid .–
Iliad .–
Now, he stood on the high stern, with the Trojans and his fort () in view, and at once lifted high the blazing shield, in his left hand. The Trojans on the walls raised a shout to the sky, new hope freshened their fury, they hurled their spears, just as Strymonian cranes under dark clouds, flying through the air, give noisy () cries, and fleeing the south wind, trail their clamour.
The Trojans came with cries and the din of war like wildfowl when the long hoarse cries of cranes sweep on against the sky and the great formations flee from winter’s grim ungodly storms, () flying in force, shrieking south to the Ocean gulfs, speeding blood and death to the Pygmy warriors, launching at daybreak savage battle down upon their heads. But Achaea’s armies came on strong in silence, breathing combat-fury . . . (Fagles trans.) Τρῶες μὲν κλαγγῇ τ’ ἐνοπῇ τ’ ἴσαν ὄρνιθες ὣς ἠΰτε περ κλαγγὴ γεράνων πέλει οὐρανόθι πρό· αἵ τ’ ἐπεὶ οὖν χειμῶνα φύγον καὶ ἀθέσφατον ὄμβρον κλαγγῇ ταί γε πέτονται ἐπ’ ὠκεανοῖο ῥοάων () ἀνδράσι Πυγμαίοισι φόνον καὶ κῆρα φέρουσαι· ἠέριαι δ’ ἄρα ταί γε κακὴν ἔριδα π ροφέρονται. οἳ δ’ ἄρ’ ἴσαν σιγῇ μένεα πνείοντες Ἀχαιοὶ . . .
(Kline trans.)
Iamque in conspectu Teucros habet et sua castra () stans celsa in puppi, clipeum cum deinde sinistra extulit ardentem. clamorem ad sidera tollunt Dardanidae e muris, spes addita suscitat iras, tela manu iaciunt, quales sub nubibus atris Strymoniae dant signa grues atque aethera tranant () cum sonitu, fugiuntque Notos clamore secundo.
The first simile in the Iliad cluster emphasizes the difference between the noisy Trojans and the silent Greeks. But even as the correlative μέν . . . δέ (. and .) contrasts the behavior of the Trojans with the Greeks, the second simile in the Iliad cluster unites the two forces in a single cloud of dust compared to a mountain mist brought on by storm winds. The second simile in this cluster brings together the fighting forces of both sides into a single body whose differences vanish in the unity of a collective.
Iliad 3.8–14 But Achaea’s armies came on strong in silence, breathing combat-fury, hearts ablaze to defend each other to the death. When the South Wind showers mist on the mountaintops, ð10Þ
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. Weave: Building on Earlier Epics
no friend to shepherds, better than night to thieves – you can see no farther than you can fling a stone – so dust came clouding, swirling up from the feet of armies marching at top speed, trampling through the plain. (Fagles trans.) οἱ δ’ ἄρ’ ἴσαν σιγῇ μένεα πνείοντες Ἀχαιοί, ἐν θυμῷ μεμαῶτες ἀλεξέμεν ἀλλήλοισιν. εὖτ’ ὄρεος κορυφῇσι Νότος κατέχευεν ὀμίχλην, ð10Þ ποιμέσιν οὔ τι φίλην, κλέπτῃ δέ τε νυκτὸς ἀμείνω, τόσσον τίς τ’ ἐπιλεύσσει ὅσον τ’ ἐπὶ λᾶαν ἵησιν· ὣς ἄρα τῶν ὑπὸ ποσσὶ κονίσαλος ὄρνυτ’ ἀελλὴς ἐρχομένων· μάλα δ’ ὦκα διέπρησσον πεδίοιο.
The group of Greek and Trojan forces is embodied in both the cloud of dust (.) and the plural nouns and verbs that apply without distinction to the movements of both sides (ποσσί, .; ἐρχομένων . . . διέπρησσον, .). As often in the Iliad, a simile cluster casts two groups of opposing fighters as a single entity. The second simile in the Aeneid simile cluster, however, highlights the difference, not kinship, between the Trojans and the Italians. As Aeneas catches sight of his encampment from the deck of his returning ship (.–), Turnus and the Rutulians gaze in amazement at his fleet and his armor shining with gleaming fire (.–). Aeneas’ armor is compared to a comet and then to Sirius in an option simile that draws on several Iliadic antecedents (.–). The proper name of Sirius makes an especially close connection between this simile and the second comparison in a cluster that describes Achilles at the beginning of Iliad . Each passage features a leading fighter wearing gleaming armor. As an individual on the other side sees his armed foe – the aged Priam in the Iliad and Turnus in the Aeneid – a simile compares the armor in the eyes of an enemy(ies) to the appearance of the Dog Star, which heralds seasonal illness for unfortunate mortals.
Aeneid .–
Iliad .–
This seemed strange to the Rutulian king and the Italian leaders, until looking behind them they saw the fleet turned towards shore, and the whole sea alive with ships. Aeneas’s crest blazed, and a dark flame streamed from the top, ()
And old King Priam was first to see him coming, () surging over the plain, blazing like the star that rears at harvest, flaming up in its brilliance, – far outshining the countless stars in the night sky,
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Vergil Aeneid: Rage and Isolation
and the shield’s gold boss spouted floods of fire: just as when comets glow, blood-red and ominous in the clear night, or when fiery Sirius, bringer of drought and plague to frail mortals, rises and saddens the sky with sinister light. () Still, brave Turnus did not lose hope of seizing the shore first. . . (Kline trans.)
that star they call Orion’s Dog – brightest of all but a fatal sign emblazoned on the heavens, () it brings such killing fever down on wretched men. So the bronze flared on his chest as on he raced (Fagles trans.)
τὸν δ’ ὁ γέρων Πρίαμος πρῶτος at Rutulo regi ducibusque ea mira uideri Ausoniis, donec uersas ad litora puppis ἴδεν ὀφθαλμοῖσι, () respiciunt totumque adlabi classibus aequor. παμφαίνονθ’ ὥς τ’ ἀστέρ’ ardet apex capiti cristisque a uertice flamma ἐπεσσύμενον πεδίοιο, () ὅς ῥά τ’ ὀπώρης εἶσιν, ἀρίζηλοι δέ funditur et uastos umbo uomit aureus οἱ αὐγαὶ ignis: φαίνονται πολλοῖσι μετ’ ἀστράσι non secus ac liquida si quando nocte νυκτὸς ἀμολγῷ· cometae ὅν τε κύν’ Ὠρίωνος ἐπίκλησιν sanguinei lugubre rubent, aut Sirius ardor καλέουσι. λαμπρότατος μὲν ὅ γ’ ἐστί, ille sitim morbosque ferens mortalibus κακὸν δέ τε σῆμα τέτυκται, () aegris καί τε φέρει πολλὸν πυρετὸν nascitur et laeuo contristat lumine caelum. () δειλοῖσι βροτοῖσιν· Haud tamen audaci Turno fiducia cessit. . .. ὣς τοῦ χαλκὸς ἔλαμπε περὶ στήθεσσι θέοντος.
In the Aeneid, Turnus and the Rutulians are amazed at the sight of Aeneas (ea mira uideri, .), but the details of the simile imply that Aeneas represents a threat, not simply a spectacle, to his watching enemies. In the Iliad, Priam “sees” Achilles (πρῶτος ἴδεν ὀφθαλμοῖσι, .), and again, it is the simile rather than the story that casts Achilles as dangerous and harmful. But “harm” or “danger” to Turnus and his fierce Rutulian warriors looks quite different than it does to the old and comparatively isolated (πρῶτος) Priam who must watch the fighting from afar because he is too elderly to participate himself. The link forged by this simile between Aeneas’ effect on the watching Trojans and the reaction of Priam to the sight of Achilles suggests that Aeneas will cause more powerful and lasting emotional harm to the Trojans than they, or we, might think. While the Iliad simile cluster turns from the Trojans as a group to the entire fighting force mustering at Troy, the Iliad cluster describes
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. Weave: Building on Earlier Epics
Achilles on the plain of Troy from two different points of view. The first simile in the cluster brings out his speed by likening him to a prizewinning racehorse (.–) where physical actions that create speed are primary for both Achilles and the horse (.–). The second simile explores subjective reactions to the sight of something threatening. These two sequences combine in the Aeneid cluster, which describes subjective responses to the sight of Aeneas, first from the Trojans as a group and then from the enemies of the Trojans, mentioning both their leader Turnus and his forces. The Iliad parallels to these similes draw our attention to the absence of any sense of unity between the two sides (as there is in Iliad ); to the experience of watching, which unites the Rutulian fighters preparing for battle with Aeneas rather than contrasting battle valor with the fear and isolation of an elderly parent watching an enemy from a distance; and to the shift from “Trojan” to “Greek” antecedents for Aeneas and his forces in the two similes of the Aeneid cluster. ..
Exit Expressions
Even as similes have grown distant from other similes in the Aeneid, they draw closer to other components of the narrative. In the Aeneid, the lack of a “so” expression at the end of a simile becomes a typical feature of an epic simile rather than a rare exception (as in Homeric epic) or a characteristic of a particular subset of similes (as in the Argonautica). Thus, the lexical boundaries between the simile and the story in the Aeneid are less pronounced than in earlier surviving epics. The absence of an exit expression reshapes the cognitive and interpretive experience of similes. Similes in the Aeneid follow the conventions of traditionally structured similes by using an introductory “as” expression to open a window onto a narrative plane separate from the mythological story, but the poem offers only a partial frame for that window. Without a concluding “so” expression, it remains open until we decide to shut it. The simile comparing Venus to an artisan (.–; see Section ..) starts conventionally enough at the beginning of . with the comparative word quale “such,” but it lacks a “so” expression at the end to join the simile back to the story. Instead, the story simply resumes (“then in this way he addresses the queen,” tum sic reginam adloquitur, .), and we must figure out that the simile has ended without the help of a concluding “so” expression. Once an “as” expression conveys that a simile in the Aeneid has gotten under way, we
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Vergil Aeneid: Rage and Isolation
can generally expect to supply not just the relationships between the content of the tales being told by the simile and by the story but also the transition point where the simile ends and the story resumes. In individual passages, the absence of a concluding word at the end of a simile allows Vergil to create interpretive challenges that involve us in key aspects of the unfolding story, thereby drawing us into both the story and the narrative as a whole. When a simile describing the Carthaginians as ants (.–) is immediately followed by an apostrophe to Dido (.–), we understand that the Carthaginians resemble ants not just to the narrator but also to Dido herself (Briggs : ). The end of the simile at .– that follows the fatal wounding of Euryalus (.–) creates an ambiguity as to whether the simile describes Nisus or Euryalus, thus uniting the two one last time even as death separates them forever (Beck c: –). Pandarus and Bitias first appear in the poem with even greater prominence than their extensive introduction would already have given them (.–) because they arrive right after a simile to which they have no apparent connection (.–). As we consider whether there is some transition or point of contact between simile and story that we might have missed, we focus on Pandarus and Bitias, whose short-lived valor (.–) and death (.–) are marked by further notable similes. In all of these passages, the absence of a concluding word or phrase engages us in forging connections between the simile and the story that exit expressions would have created in earlier epics. As a result, we become more aware of – and thus more likely to reflect on – the relationship between simile and story. Because similes lack the exit expressions typical of earlier epics, this relationship becomes a more explicit feature of the Aeneid narrative.
. Weave: Fresh Kinds of Simile Content ..
Mythological Characters
Similes in the Aeneid use new storytelling materials that appear either rarely or not at all in the similes of earlier epic poems. Alongside Vergil’s innovative approach to exit expressions, these features of Aeneid similes further weaken the conventional distinctions between similes and other components of epic narrative. Similes in the Aeneid regularly include mythological characters and specific geographical places – especially in Italy – where the action of a simile takes place. Moreover, the presence in similes of both story and simile passages from a range of earlier poetry,
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. Weave: Fresh Kinds of Simile Content
including Vergil’s own Georgics, mixes different genres and different narrative levels within the simile itself. Together, these features of similes expand the parameters of the simile world and increase its overlap with both the mythological story world and the “real” world of the poet and his readers. Whereas the frequent absence of concluding “so” expressions extends many similes into the story beyond the literal end point of the comparison, other features of similes in the Aeneid blur the lines between similes and other parts of epic narrative from the opposite direction: they bring the story world and the real world into the similes. For instance, a mythological hero and setting are defining features of story worlds in heroic epic before the Aeneid: the main story tells a mythological tale, the similes deal with nameless characters who inhabit a recognizable but unspecified time and place, and “never the twain shall meet” (Kipling, The Ballad of East and West). Either one or two Homeric references can arguably be described as mythological similes (Iliad .– describes Typhoeus; possibly Penelope’s strange story about Philomela [Odyssey .–], which should probably be considered an exemplum or analogy rather than a simile; Rutherford : –). One simile in the Argonautica (.–) refers to the gods as actors in a mythological tale rather than as recipients of human worship or personifications of natural phenomena like rain or thunder. But in the Aeneid, mythological characters appear not only in starring roles in the main story but also in seven similes. For the most part, these similes behave like other comparisons despite their unprecedented subject matter. One striking example juxtaposes the nightmares of the raging, grief-stricken Dido (.–; furentem, .; concepit furias euicta dolore, .) with stage scenes of Pentheus or Orestes and the Furies, thus extending the epic simile into the realms of both mythology and drama and casting Dido’s story as itself a tragedy. The only way in which mythological similes seem to differ from those with more conventional subjects is in the allusions they regularly contain to the existence of tellers of these stories about their mythological characters. For the Labyrinth (.–) and the giant Aegaeon (.–), the narrator simply notes, “they say” (fertur, .; dicunt, .) before launching into the details of the comparison. The much-debated theatrical dimension of the Furies simile for Dido’s nightmares about Aeneas abandoning her (scaenis agitatus Orestes, .), which has led some critics to emend the passage, can be seen as a more specific version of this tendency of mythological similes to explicitly refer to human tellers of mythological tales. In the case of the Furies, that storytelling would be well known to
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Vergil Aeneid: Rage and Isolation
readers from both the stage and the visual arts (Magnani : –). These brief comments from the narrator remind us that mythological events – unlike more conventional simile subjects, such as animals or buildings or weather phenomena – are familiar only through stories about them rather than through direct personal experience. Many such statements, in fact, invoke specific literary antecedents of a “traditional” story, constituting a kind of learned “footnote” citation (Horsfall ) woven into the fabric of an epic simile. Both the unusual subjects of mythological similes and the explicit reference to storytellers within several of these scenes point to the narrator, who is making choices about how to fashion the tale from many kinds of storytelling threads. ..
Specific Places
The timeless simile vignettes typical of extant pre-Aeneid mythological epic unfold in equally vague locations, such as “in the mountains” or “at sea,” unless a particular god is depicted interacting with human worshipers. In that case, he or she might be found in one or more of his or her usual haunts. In contrast, nearly one-quarter of the similes in the Aeneid includes a geographical location, most often in Italy itself (eight instances), but ranging as far as the Nile and the Ganges. These places differ from the occasional named locations in earlier similes because they have no mythological or cult significance within the simile. Italian localities move Vergil’s simile world out of an indeterminate space fixed only to the extent that the Olympian gods have sanctuaries located in specific places. Instead, the landscape of the simile world is framed by mountains and rivers where Vergil and his ancient readers might themselves have walked. Specific geographical references bring the lived daily world of the poet and his readers into the simile world of the Aeneid. The Italian landscape in the simile world of the Aeneid fundamentally changes the nature of a Vergilian simile and readers’ experience of it, since we can imagine ourselves as inhabitants of the simile world to a much greater extent than in earlier surviving epic poems that lack this kind of geographical detail. Cairns () rightly identifies these Italian places as a Vergilian innovation, given the absence of such geographical details in the Homeric antecedents of the similes with Italian references (–). But Italian localities are not just about Aeneas for whom Vergil “claim[s] Italian nationality” () through the geography of the simile world. The “Italianization” of the Trojans is not simply about Aeneas defeating Turnus (the context for three of the four similes about Aeneas that feature
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. Weave: Fresh Kinds of Simile Content
Italian places) or about Trojan success in battle. Italian places appear in similes when the Trojans are in difficulties as well as when Aeneas overcomes a challenge. Italian place names suggest that the Italy of Vergil’s own day had its mythological beginnings among both friends and enemies, from failure as well as success. For example, as the villainous Etruscan king Mezentius kills several Trojan fighters, a simile comparing him to a boar facing a pack of dogs features a peak in the Alps (Vesulus, .) and a marshy area near Rome (palus Laurentia, .). Two similes that depict the youthful valor and death of Bitias include Italian localities: Pandarus and Bitias are likened to trees beside various Italian rivers as they guard the camp gates (.–), and when Bitias dies, his collapse is compared to the plunge of a concrete pier into the sea at Baiae (.–). Hardie (: ) suggests that these Italian place names add poignancy to Bitias’ death by reminding us how far from home he has traveled, but they also imply that the Trojans cannot become true inhabitants of this Italian landscape without many such deaths of young men far from home. Monstrous Italians as well as noble Trojan heroes make up the heritage of the contemporary inhabitants of the Italian landscape, for whom such anachronistic Roman details as a concrete pier at Baiae might be a living reality. Indeed, anachronism in similes brings a similar kind of “real-world” detail into the simile world with similar effect. .. Intra-Vergilian Allusions Mythological similes bridge the distance between subjects that belong to the story world and the simile world, and geographical places bring the world of the poet and the reader into the simile world. Yet a third strand of material new to epic similes is provided by Vergil’s own poetry. Almost one-third of the extended similes in the Aeneid alludes to narrative from the Georgics (Briggs : ), such as the bulls in Georgics .– whose fight over a heifer shares various details with the similes of fighting bulls at Aeneid .– and .– (see Section ..). This dialogue between Vergil’s didactic and epic poems collapses the distinction between story and simile in several senses at once. Individual epic similes are tinted with a “non-epic” coloring because they are fashioned in part from material that has appeared in a different poetic genre. This intra-Vergil textuality draws our attention to the narrative categories of “simile” and “story” as well as to the poetic genres of “epic” and “didactic.” Such largescale allusions to one’s own earlier work are unattested before Vergil
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Vergil Aeneid: Rage and Isolation
(Briggs : ) so that the mere presence of this kind of intertextuality might have attracted contemporary readers’ notice, reminding them of the presence of the skilled and innovative poet who had written another poem of a different genre, and then wove together such different kinds of poetry to make the Aeneid. Because the narrative levels within the Georgics are themselves involved in a lively exchange with one another, allusions to the Georgics color the Aeneid with an interest in these relationships. The Georgics invites us to see the poem as both a story about farming and nature and an allegory about human beings in which “allegory” has the same relationship to “story” as “story” does to “simile.” The engagingly humanlike qualities of animals and the agricultural world throughout the Georgics lead us to understand the natural world on which the main story focuses as an allegory for human society. “The poem captures a double movement: particulars serve as allegories of human problems and values, while allegories are inhabited by things with their particular tasks, objects, and (sometimes colliding) perspectives” (Batstone : ). The “double”ness that the Georgics brings to the Aeneid connects story and simile; simile and story; didactic and epic; and it spotlights Vergil himself as the master of them all.
. Heroic Failure The first and last similes in the Aeneid set the tone not only for the simile world of the poem but also for the narrative as a whole. Aeneid .– likens Neptune to a Roman political leader as he dispels the storm at sea that has wrecked Aeneas’ fleet off the coast of Carthage. Both Neptune and the main character in the simile effectively control the world around them, but Aeneas – like most characters in the Aeneid – is largely at the mercy of stronger forces whether they be the storm in Book , the passion of Dido, or the wrath of Juno. As Turnus tries to flee from Aeneas in the final verses of the poem, he is compared to a dreamer who cannot outrun his pursuer (.–). Both similes are woven from a dense network of allusions to earlier literature that focus our attention on themes of human agency, solitude, and leadership as well as the emotions that underlie these experiences. In these similes, as throughout the world of the Aeneid, human connections and the capacity to exert our will on the world around us are fleeting. These similes frame the Aeneid narrative by fostering our attachment to Aeneas and to Turnus through immersive experiences of their isolation and failure.
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. Heroic Failure ..
Aeneid .–
The first extended simile in the Aeneid places us within the Roman political order that Aeneas is sailing across the Mediterranean in order to found. At every narrative level, this passage depicts a violent encounter between forces of chaos and rationality from which the powers of order emerge victorious. In the story, after Neptune calms a storm at sea that Aeolus has stirred up at the behest of Juno, he frees Aeneas’ ship from the rocks on which it has foundered (.–); the simile represents Neptune as a respected statesman calming an unruly mob (.–); and on an allegorical level, storms may be said to stand for various forces of disorder in human life. The first simile shows us what human relationships and ratio can accomplish against the forces of furor, named here for the first time, but we never again encounter that reality in either the story world or the simile world of the Aeneid.
Aeneid 1.145–54 Neptune himself raises them with his trident, ð145Þ parts the vast quicksand, tempers the flood, and glides on weightless wheels, over the tops of the waves. As often, when rebellion breaks out in a great nation, and the common rabble rage with passion, and soon stones and fiery torches fly (frenzy supplying weapons), ð150Þ if they then see a man of great virtue, and weighty service, they are silent, and stand there listening attentively: he sways their passions with his words and soothes their hearts: so all the uproar of the ocean died . . . (Kline trans.) leuat ipse tridenti ð145Þ et uastas aperit Syrtis et temperat aequor atque rotis summas leuibus perlabitur undas. ac ueluti magno in populo cum saepe coorta est seditio saeuitque animis ignobile uulgus iamque faces et saxa uolant, furor arma ministrat; ð150Þ tum, pietate grauem ac meritis si forte uirum quem conspexere, silent arrectisque auribus astant; ille regit dictis animos et pectora mulcet: sic cunctus pelagi cecidit fragor . . ..
The simile depicts an incident of civil unrest first from the point of view of the forces of violence and disorder (.–), and then as a respected leader calms the spirits of the people fomenting revolt in the first half (.–). The first half of the simile concentrates not on the people
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Vergil Aeneid: Rage and Isolation
who experience violent feelings of disorder but on the feelings themselves. The subject of the first clause is seditio (“rebellion”), a political manifestation of furor that inflames the spirits of the people (saeuitque animis, .) in language that regularly presents the antisocial rage associated with furor. Furor itself drives the events, not the people whose actions are motivated by it. Furor looks after the people’s weapons in the same way that sailors tend to the sails of their boat or mortal worshipers offer sacrifices to the gods. As the first half of the simile comes to a head in ., the most vivid physical details in the scene are embodied by weapons and emotions, not the people who wield the weapons or experience the feelings. Once the respected leader arrives, the focus shifts back to the human actors. Whereas . focuses primarily on an autonomous seditio that “breaks out in a great nation” rather than being created by it (in populo . . . coorta est), the respected leader himself is the focus of the second half of the scene beginning with a full-verse description of him and his merits in .. In overcoming the furor of the people, this leader makes physical contact with them as individuals. He restores their ability to act rather than being acted upon by emotional forces they do not control. Instead of describing disembodied rage and weapons wielded by no one, the simile now focuses on the physical effects that this leader creates. Feelings and human beings who experience them are linked as soon as the people interact with the leader. His effect on them begins when they see him (conspexere, the first word in .), and they respond to him – and put an end to their violence – by stopping the sound (silent) and motion (arrectisque auribus astant, .) that presumably accompany their seditio but that has not been mentioned before. In the final verse of the simile (regit dictis animos et pectora mulcet, .), words simultaneously bring the people under the control of the leader (regit) and soothe their violent and disorderly feelings (mulcet). At the end of the simile, the leader’s effect on the spirits of the people melds together language and feeling just as the Aeneid itself does. But it is not clear what part of the story corresponds to the pietas (“virtue”) that underlies the leader’s power, since the story character whose actions are described by the simile is a god for whom the very idea of pietas is something of a contradiction in terms (Henry : , wondering what pietate might mean for our understanding of Neptune’s actions). Moreover, Neptune exerts a forceful, unilateral authority over the winds and the sea (.–) with no sense of the mutual ties that characterize pietas in the simile. The lack of a straightforward story analogue for pietas
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invites us to wonder how well pietas will function in the story world more broadly. By contrast, the story forces that correspond to the simile furor require no interpretation, in part because Neptune recognizes the culprit in the storm and shipwreck as the wrath of Juno (nec latuere doli fratrem Iunonis et irae, .). Throughout the Aeneid, furor operates more powerfully and with more tangible physical effects than pietas. Moreover, a relationship built on this kind of mutual understanding and respect never appears in the Aeneid again. Rage is never contained satisfactorily, engulfing Aeneas himself as he kills Turnus in the closing verses of the poem (furiis accensus et ira terribilis, .–). The simile world contains just one other human interaction (see Section ..), showcasing Roman womanly virtues that – like these masculine leadership qualities – do not control events elsewhere in either the story or simile worlds of the Aeneid. The first simile in the poem sets up key themes of furor and of the power of human relationships and rationality to overcome the disorder it causes. Unfortunately for both Aeneas and the readers of the poem, while that power does exist outside of this simile, it does not prevail. In the end, “furor is only conquerable in theory” (Hershkowitz : ). This scene of furor and pietas sets our expectations for the rest of the Aeneid in the way it introduces key antagonists that will battle each other across the simile and the story worlds. At the same time, it offers a misleading picture of how successfully pietas – appearing here for the first time outside of the prologue – will be able to meet the challenges posed by furor. Indeed, beginning the Aeneid’s tale of furor with a glimpse of an alternative reality in which it can be contained through moral authority will cast all the later scenes that turn on furor as falling short of the ideal in the first simile, even though nothing resembling this ideal ever appears in the story world. This leads to a sense of loss, absence, and failure as we wait in vain for another situation in which a character can control disorder in a constructive, nonviolent way. The fictional “narrated” quality that colors any simile may be felt especially strongly in the very first simile in the poem, strengthening our sense of it as a fictional and indeed contrafactual creation. Thus, the simile establishes furor and the failure to contain it as equally important themes of the Aeneid as a whole. The victory of pietas over furor in the first simile as contrasted with the rest of the poem arouses reactions about irrational rage that span multiple narrative levels alongside the emotion of furor itself. In fact, the content and position of the first simile helps to depict the world of the Aeneid as a place in which such a victory remains perpetually out of reach.
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Vergil Aeneid: Rage and Isolation
The presence of this contrafactual world as a backdrop to the arduous and sorrowful journey of Aeneas and his men arouses a desire for this alternative reality that unites the characters in the story, the poet, and readers. Barchiesi (: ) beautifully captures the “might-have-been” that underlies Aeneas’ longing for a destiny in which he need not lose ever more comrades to war or use force against those he is predisposed to befriend: The war between Aeneas and Turnus subverts the plan of fate and is more a rupture of a prior unity than a clash of divergent opposites .. . . Instead of being an inevitable phase in the founding of a new equilibrium, the war seems like the desecration of a possible and longed-for concord.
No doubt the citizens of Rome in the period when the Aeneid was coming to fruition felt a similar grief about the decades of civil unrest that had wracked the late Republic, and they were desperately hoping that Augustus might at last have brought about such a “longed-for concord” among the warring factions. This yearning for a peace that appears to be out of reach in both the story world of the Aeneid and the contemporary world draws those two worlds closer together, simultaneously highlighting the existence of different narrative levels and calling into question just how different they really are. The first simile guides our expectations not only for the key themes of the poem but also for the ways that the narrative tells its story. By evoking various passages from Greek hexameter poetry, as well as ancient scholarship on the themes of the Iliad and contemporary Roman ideas, the simile creates a rich sense of intertextuality without identifying a single clear antecedent that seems to be “the model” for the passage. In this way, “clear yet elusive relationships with predecessors” rather than “a particular or specific predecessor” becomes a defining feature of the first simile. Readers beginning with Servius have identified as the closest Homeric parallel to this comparison a simile in which Agamemnon rousing the Greek forces is compared to a stormy sea.
Iliad 2.142–46 Testing his men but he only made the spirit race inside their chests, all the rank and file who’d never heard his plan. And the whole assembly surged like big waves at sea, the Icarian Sea when East and South Winds drive it on, ð145Þ blasting down in force from the clouds of Father Zeus . . . (Fagles trans.)
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. . . ὣς φάτο [Agamemnon], τοῖσι δὲ θυμὸν ἐνὶ στήθεσσιν ὄρινε πᾶσι μετὰ πληθύν, ὅσοι οὐ βουλῆς ἐπάκουσαν· κινήθη δ’ ἀγορὴ φὴ κύματα μακρὰ θαλάσσης, πόντου Ἰκαρίοιο, τὰ μέν τ’ Εὖρός τε Νότος τε ð145Þ ὤρορ’ ἐπαΐξας πατρὸς Διὸς ἐκ νεφελάων.
The two components of the narrative – a leader addressing his people and a stormy sea – are the same in both poems, but the leader speaking to his followers has moved from the story in the Iliad to the simile in the Aeneid and the storm from the simile to the story. Moreover, each leader is having an opposite effect on his listeners. Agamemnon rouses the Greek troops (ὄρινε, .) whereas the unnamed man in Vergil’s simile is calming the uulgus (“rabble,” .). The relatively rare word mulcet (“soothes”) at the end of the simile gives a different kind of emphasis to the calming actions of the man. The Aeneid simile inverts not simply the specific features of this comparison from the Iliad but also the more general tendency of epic similes to use natural phenomena to illustrate human behavior rather than the reverse. Commentators are divided on whether Vergil’s innovation here rouses our admiration for his poetic creativity (Papillon and Haigh : , Otis : –) or has cut the simile adrift from any Homeric antecedents (Pöschl : ; Williams : ). In either case, Vergil displays one aspect of his distinctive narrative style through this relationship between the first simile in the Aeneid and a Homeric simile that it resembles in some respects but not others. In addition to the Iliad itself, this simile also evokes ancient scholarship on Iliad .–, which saw the simile as key to understanding a fundamental political concern in the poem about the conflict between order and disorder. While this idea is only implied in the Iliad, it is brought to the fore by the inversion of the story and simile levels from the Iliad simile in such a way as to make the two levels essentially interchangeable in the Aeneid (Schmit-Neuerburg : –). Thus, Vergil’s “Homeric” context includes not only a simile from the Iliad, but also scholarly discussions that attributed to that simile the same kind of thematic importance that characterizes the first simile in the Aeneid. As in Apollonius, the “epic” predecessors on which the Aeneid builds its narrative includes both the poems themselves and scholarly studies of epic poetry. Identifiably Roman features of the comparison offer an analogous combination of clear similarities with earlier texts alongside a lavish assortment of conflicting opinions about which of these specific details – if any – shape our understanding of the simile. For instance, Cicero de Cluentio (cited as a relevant parallel by several commentators) claims that
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Vergil Aeneid: Rage and Isolation
storms were regularly used in contemporary Roman thought as an analogue for the actions and dispositions of a group of people. From this, what has often been said can be understood: as the sea, which is by nature calm, is disturbed and roiled by the power of the winds, so the Roman people are essentially peaceable, but are stirred up by the calls of factious men as by very violent storms. (my translation) Ex quo intellegi potuit, id quod saepe dictum est, ut mare quod sua natura tranquillum sit, uentorum ui agitari atque turbari, sic populum Romanum sua sponte esse placatum, hominum seditiosorum uocibus ut uiolentissimis tempestatibus concitari.
This quotation shows not simply that a Roman author roughly contemporary with Vergil also drew parallels between the sea and seditio but also that this author would have us believe that the analogy was a commonplace (quod saepe dictum est). This claim must have been at least plausible to Cicero’s audience, even if it is a rhetorical attempt to make the figure into a commonplace rather than a reference to a trope that was already in widespread use. The Greek and the Latin parallels for this Aeneid simile thus incorporate two contradictory views about whether the sea belongs in the story or the simile when comparing restive groups of people with the ocean, leaving us both more engaged with this question and more uncertain how to answer it. The range of scholarly opinions about who Vergil’s statesman uir represents – or whether he should be seen as any individual person – shows how effectively the simile invites us to think about our own choices for examples of the leadership that the simile depicts. However, the general agreement that the nature and identity of effective political leaders is an important question does not lead to any consensus about the answer. Suggestions for specific historical figures to whom the simile might refer include Augustus (Galinsky : –), Menenius Agrippa (Morwood ), Popilius Laena (Galinsky : ), and the younger Cato (Harrison : –). Moreover, the kings who play the central role in yet another parallel to our passage, Hesiod Theogony –, tint the “strongly Republican atmosphere” in the simile with a monarchical style of power: “is the statesman here walking in the footsteps of a Greek king or is he a Roman nobilis?” (Feeney : , with references). On a smaller scale, the questions and contrasts that the simile raises about leadership resemble the questions about the relationship between the specific and the general that arise from our efforts to make sense of the connections between simile, story, and allegory. The literary antecedents of this simile consistently raise compelling but unanswerable questions about the
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relationships between the Aeneid and earlier poems; between simile and story; and between the general and the particular (such as the concept of “effective leader” versus an individual leader who could be considered effective). These questions, just as much as the themes of furor and its containment, are central to the narrative of the Aeneid. The first simile sets our expectations both for what the poem is about and how it tells its tale. .. Aeneid .– The last simile in the poem depicts the human isolation and failure that has been a consistent theme of similes in the Aeneid with an immediacy that overturns some of the most basic conventions of epic similes. As Turnus struggles in vain to hurl a large rock at Aeneas in the closing verses of the Aeneid, a simile compares his flagging strength to the universal nightmare of trying and failing to run, move, or speak. The situation in both the simile and the story brings to mind the only dream simile in Homeric epic (Iliad .–), but the specific details in Vergil’s simile more closely reflect descriptions in Lucretius’ De rerum natura of the physical experiences of fear (.–) and dreams (.–). Both Vergil’s simile and the earlier epic passages from which it is woven are drenched in the language of the body, its parts, its movements, and its sensations. Moreover, this simile embodies a qualitatively different kind of human isolation from any that we have seen before. Even though the simile has a universalizing quality because of its unprecedented first-person plural subject, what it depicts is the experience of feeling alone and estranged not simply from other creatures but even from waking reality and from our own most basic physical capabilities.
Aeneid 12.905–13, 914–16 His knees gave way, his blood was frozen cold. The stone itself, whirled by the warrior through the empty air, failed to travel the whole distance, or drive home with force. As in dreams when languid sleep weighs down our eyes at night, we seem to try in vain to follow our eager path, and collapse helpless in the midst of our efforts, ð910Þ the tongue won’t work, the usual strength is lacking from our limbs, and neither word nor voice will come: so the dread goddess denied Turnus success . . . . . . Then shifting visions whirled through his brain: he gazed at the Rutulians, and at the city, faltered ð915Þ in fear, and shuddered at the death that neared . . .. (Kline trans.)
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Vergil Aeneid: Rage and Isolation genua labant, gelidus concreuit frigore sanguis. tum lapis ipse uiri uacuum per inane uolutus nec spatium euasit totum neque pertulit ictum. ac uelut in somnis, oculos ubi languida pressit nocte quies, nequiquam auidos extendere cursus uelle uidemur et in mediis conatibus aegri ð910Þ succidimus; non lingua ualet, non corpore notae sufficiunt uires nec uox aut uerba sequuntur: sic Turno. . .. . . . tum pectore sensus uertuntur uarii; Rutulos aspectat et urbem ð915Þ cuntaturque metu letumque instare tremescit . . ..
This dream state is experienced through physical sensations that hem in or undo the body’s ability to act freely. When nighttime quiet closes the eyes of the sleeper (.–), our other physical powers and senses fail us. We seem to desire in vain to run, to fall to the ground, to be unable to speak, and to lack our usual strength. The uniquely visceral experiences of this simile are matched by the richness of the intertextual allusions, bringing to one peak of intensity both our intellectual comprehension and our bodily experience of this moment in the poem. Turnus resembles Hector at both the high and low points of his fortunes in battle against the Greeks. A warrior lifting a rock too large for even a group of men of today to manage (Aeneid .–) resembles Hector’s feat at Iliad .–, when he is advancing upon the Greek ships carrying a huge stone at the start of the long stalemate that prevails as the Trojans try to burn the Greek ships. A spare but expressive dream simile at Iliad .– marks Hector’s fall, a fatal turning point in his last encounter with Achilles. While Hector and Achilles in Iliad participate in a single endeavor in which one will die and one will live, the words, thoughts, and actions of Turnus alone are depicted at Aeneid .–. The differences between this simile and its Homeric antecedent highlight Turnus’ solitude and isolation.
Iliad 22.199–201 As in a dream . . . when a man can’t catch another fleeing on ahead and he can never escape nor his rival overtake him – ð200Þ so the one could never run the other down in his speed nor the other spring away. (Fagles trans.)
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ὡς δ’ ἐν ὀνείρῳ οὐ δύναται φεύγοντα διώκειν· οὔτ’ ἄρ’ ὁ τὸν δύναται ὑποφεύγειν οὔθ’ ὁ διώκειν· ð200Þ ὣς ὁ τὸν οὐ δύνατο μάρψαι ποσίν, οὐδ’ ὃς ἀλύξαι.
The broad similarities between these two passages are unmistakable, particularly since this is the only simile in Homeric epic that describes a dream. The chief antagonist to the main hero of the poem strives without success to do something that would help him win a battlefield encounter with the main hero. This dream simile describes his inability to do so, and shortly afterward, the hero kills him. These parallels color Turnus’ plight with the same kind of poignant sympathy for Hector that drives the end of the Iliad. The differences between Hector and Turnus are even more striking than the similarities, although they are not as immediately obvious. Both the Iliad simile and the adjacent story depict Achilles and Hector as engaged in a common endeavor even while they are fighting a battle that only one of them can survive. The narrative repeatedly uses dual verb forms for the chase (., ., .), sometimes in language that closely resembles this simile: “Past these they raced, one escaping, one in pursuit” (τῇ ῥα παραδραμέτην, φεύγων, ὁ δ’ ὄπισθε διώκων, .). The story depicts the chase as a single action composed of one person fleeing and another chasing him, and the simile does the same thing. Besides repeating the φεύγω / διώκω opposition that appears in ., it uses notably concise syntax – especially in . – that does not make either character the explicit subject of the main verb δύναται (“can”). The simile suggests either that both Achilles and Hector are the subject or that neither is. The two characters share a common inability to accomplish their goals, and both the simile and the story present the two runners as integral parts of the same experience. This Iliad simile embodies the same debate about what it means to be “Homeric” that similes throughout the Aeneid have invited us to consider. The scholia report that Iliad .– were athetized for shabbiness of both construction and thought (καὶ τῇ κατασκευῇ καὶ τῷ νοήματι εὐτελεῖς, A) and feebleness (διὰ τὸ ἀσθενὲς τῆς φράσεως, T). At the same time, a bT scholion mentions the vividness with which the dream scenario captures how the unavailing chase feels for both of its participants. They value that it succeeds in embodying this universal human experience. So, ancient scholarly reactions to this simile varied, and Vergil’s allusion to it encompasses the disagreements about whether this simile is “Homeric” and what we mean by “Homeric.” Alongside the content of the simile and
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Vergil Aeneid: Rage and Isolation
its relationship to its story context within the Iliad, the post-Homeric scholarly life of the simile adds a further allusive layer to the Aeneid. The final simile in the Aeneid treats the “Homeric text as a . . . layering of historically diverse readings” (Barchiesi : ), all of which shape our response to the allusion here. The subjective experience of dreaming in Vergil’s simile happens to everyone (uidemur, ) rather than to any specific individual, and the simile owes both this universality and the details of what dreaming feels like to Lucretius’ De rerum natura (DRN). But whereas Lucretius separates his vivid portraits of the subjective experiences of fright (.–) and dreams (.–), for Vergil, they converge in a disquieting picture of solitude, fear, and powerlessness. While the physical details of Lucretius’ fear more closely resemble the physical experiences that Vergil describes, Lucretius’ dream seems like the more exact parallel because it has the same topic as Vergil’s simile. Many word choices create comparable feelings of embodiment in the two dream passages, but Lucretius’ dreamer is having much the more serene and pleasant night of the two.
DRN 4.453–57 Further, when sleep has bound fast our limbs with sweet slumber, and our whole body lies in profound repose, nonetheless we then seem to ourselves to be awake and to move our limbs ð455Þ and in the blind gloom of night we think that we see the sun and the light of day . . .. (after Rouse trans.) Denique cum suaui deuinxit membra sopore somnus et in summa corpus iacet omne quiete, tum uigilare tamen nobis et membra mouere ð455Þ nostra uidemur, et in noctis caligine caeca cernere censemus solem lumenque diurnum . . ..
In each passage, the state of dreaming acts in specific ways on our bodies. “Drowsiness” or sleep (somnus, DRN . ~ somnis, Aeneid .) binds or confines (deuinxit, DRN .; pressit, Aeneid .) the body of the sleeper (membra DRN ., corpus .; oculos, Aeneid .), but the repose of sleep (quiete, DRN . ~ quies, Aeneid .) contrasts with the dreamer’s sense of activity. Both passages depict these experiences as simultaneously universal and illusory with the first-person plural “we seem” (uidemur) in the same metrical position at DRN . and Aeneid .. Although the descriptions of sleep in Lucretius and Vergil have many points in common, each sleeper experiences different illusions while dreaming. These differences lend a sense of fear and desperation to
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Vergil’s simile, heightened by how much unique phrasing appears in the passage. Whereas Lucretius’ people seem to move around in their dreams (membra mouere, .), Vergil’s dreamers have the opposite experience. They fail to do any of the things they wish to do, starting with the physical motions that broadly correspond to the actions in Lucretius (nequiquam auidos extendere cursus, .) and going on to failures of strength and voice (.–). Indeed, Vergil makes small but telling changes to Lucretius’ wording that stress the dreamer’s inability to do what he wants: for example, “the substitution of uelle (“to wish,” Aeneid .) for nostra (“our,” DRN .) produces both alliteration and greater stress on frustrated desire” (Tarrant : ). The phrasing used at DRN . for the power of sleep to constrain the sleeper does not appear in the same form in Vergil, but the likeness is close enough and Lucretius’ phrasing is sufficiently unusual to suggest a connection between them. As various commentators have pointed out, a similar expression appears at Ennius Annales (Skutsch) where the narrator describes sleep in terms that resemble Lucretius’: “bound fast in calm and gentle sleep” (somno leni placidoque reuinctus). The ancient sources that preserve this fragment identify the subject as Ennius, from an episode conventionally placed in the proem of the Annales in which Ennius meets Homer in a dream and learns that Homer’s soul has passed into Ennius himself. It seems entirely plausible that Vergil would enrich the final simile of the Aeneid with an allusion not simply to his predecessor Ennius but to a passage where Ennius establishes his own authority by means of a conversation with Homer, the most important epic predecessor of them all. If this is the case, the Aeneid bids farewell to a central feature of the epic genre with a tour de force of allusion, a reference mediated by Lucretius to an intertextual dream narrated by Ennius, the earliest Latin hexameter epic poet, as a frame to his poem. Moreover, dreams as a mode of communication can be seen as both more vivid and more unreliable than more conventional forms of dialogue, a point discussed by ancient commentators on this passage of Ennius (on which see further Elliott : –). This adds another layer to our awareness of this simile as a mediated, inherently interactive narrative technique that seeks out our participation as both spectators of the action in the story and interpreters of the narrative that tells the story. Both the bodily failures and weakness that accompany a subjective experience and the specific words that describe them connect Vergil’s simile at least as closely with Lucretius’ rendering of fear as with his description of dreaming in Book .
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DRN 3.152–60 But when the intelligence is moved by more violent fear, we see the whole spirit through the frame share in the feeling: sweat and pallor thus arise over the whole body, the speech falters, the voice dies away, ð155Þ the eyes grow dark, the ears resound, the limbs give way under us; in short, often we see men fall to the ground from mental terror; so that everyone may easily understand from this that the spirit is united with the mind, and when it has been smitten by the mind’s power, straightaway it drives forward and strikes the body. (, after Rouse trans.) uerum ubi uementi magis est commota metu mens, consentire animam totam per membra uidemus sudoresque ita palloremque existere toto corpore et infringi linguam uocemque aboriri, ð155Þ caligare oculos, sonere auris, succidere artus, denique concidere ex animi terrore uidemus saepe homines; facile ut quiuis hinc noscere possit esse animam cum animo coniunctam, quae cum animi ui percussast, exim corpus propellit et icit. ð160Þ
Fear, as in Vergil’s dream simile, is defined in the first instance by how it affects the body (per membra; .; toto corpore, .–), and the dreamer in Vergil’s simile experiences some of the same sensations that Lucretius ascribes to fear: the voice falters (.) and the body gives way (succidere, . ~ Aeneid .). The verb succidere, in particular, is rarely attested before the Aeneid and not common afterward, forging a link between the two passages. In addition to the individual word choices, the first-person plural verb forms in Vergil’s simile evoke Lucretius (uidemur, .; succidimus, .). The first-person plural is characteristic of the narrative voice in didactic poetry, but in mythological epic, this form is so unexpected in the narrator’s voice as to seem illicit or taboo. A didactic narrator uses the firstperson plural to create a bond with his readers using common experiences – such as dreams, or fright – to make himself accessible to readers and to instruct them about the world around them. Indeed, both dreams and fear may lose their power to terrify us when we share them with someone else or when we stand outside them as an object of study rather than living through them. At the same time, a reader may wonder just how universal the “we” is whom the didactic narrator addresses in the DRN: does it refer to all human beings, or does it distinguish “us” Epicureans from the
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unenlightened “they” who are weak enough to remain subject to such fears? Can we decide who “we” is, and does it matter? All these considerations lie behind the first-person plural forms in Lucretius’ poetry. But Vergil turns this supportive partnership of narrator and reader on its head. Instead of defusing fear by studying it in the company of a didactic poet, “by brilliant contrast, we join with the victim in undergoing the same experiences” (Putnam : ). The grammar of these verbs draws our attention to our physical and subjective experiences of the Aeneid because we ourselves are embodied in the language of the simile. Putnam, Williams, and others have noted that first-person plural forms in this simile lead us to identify and sympathize with Turnus, and this is surely true. But this does not plumb the depths of the shock that this simile delivers, both to the reader and to the genre conventions of epic poetry. The “we” of these verbs brings together the reader and Turnus, but also the reader and the narrator (as in Lucretius) and the narrator and Turnus. Our main impression of the simile, in other words, is that its subject is not so much a character from the story – although Turnus is a subject of the simile – but rather the narrator and we, his readers. The readers and the narrator experience the emotions of fear, powerlessness, and solitude that pervade the simile world in which up to this point we have not ourselves been characters. Indeed, in its voice and in some of its antecedents, this epic simile has become didactic narrative. At the same time, the narrative situation of a doomed sympathetic warrior hero being compared to someone in a dream draws on one of the most memorable and typically “heroic” martial scenes from Homer’s Iliad. In this simile, the epic genre simultaneously grows straight out of its earliest roots and makes a complete break from those origins. It is hard to imagine a more fundamental collapse of narrative levels and epic genre conventions than this. The combination of innovative and Homeric components in this depiction of Turnus makes a fitting capstone to the evolving portrait of him during the last half of the Aeneid. He plays an increasingly central role as the poem proceeds over the course of the last third of the poem and especially in the last book, which starts with his name and ends with his death (Tarrant : ). In the similes as well, Turnus occupies the limelight in Aeneid in that there are more similes for him alone than there are for any other character, including Aeneas. While Turnus is in some important sense the star of Book – Putnam (: ) calls him “the primary locus of emotionality throughout book ” – readers have wildly divergent understandings of and feelings about his character, which
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Vergil Aeneid: Rage and Isolation
from start to finish has both positive and negative qualities and is portrayed in both positive and negative ways. In this final episode in the simile story of the Aeneid, a genre-defying comparison for Turnus arouses sympathy for him by forging a unique kinship between him and us. This sympathy then recasts the picture of him that we have been being building over the course of the whole poem. Rather than changing either the details or the substance of Turnus’ character, the simile forces us to reevaluate what those details might mean.
. Conclusions Together, the first and last similes of the Aeneid form a ring around the simile world that draws together key themes of both the simile world and the mythological story of the poem. Both similes bring to life the overpowering physical sensations created by a destructive or negative emotion. The first simile introduces us to furor, and the last depicts the weakness and fear of Turnus after furor has left him for good. These two similes are woven from a rich tapestry of allusions that focus on human connections to one another and to their environment in such a way that each simile simultaneously evokes a Homeric antecedent, distances itself from that antecedent, and encapsulates ancient Homeric scholarship that explores issues of key themes and poetic composition. The Vergilian similes are both very Homeric and strikingly un-Homeric at the same time, thus focusing our attention on Vergil’s close relationship to Homeric epic while preventing us from reaching a straightforward understanding of what the relationship actually is. In the story adjacent to each of these similes, a central character – Aeneas in Book , Turnus in Book – is overwhelmed by loneliness and fear in the face of his own ineffectual actions against a stronger hostile force. But for the reader of the narrative in which these stories unfold, that isolation is in some sense superseded by relationships and connections that lie outside the story world and so are unavailable to the characters. When Neptune steps in to subdue the storm at sea threatening Aeneas, it is not clear that Aeneas ever knows why or how the storm dissipated, and he certainly has no direct awareness of the public figure in the first simile in the poem whose pietas calms budding furor without recourse to yet more furor. Likewise, even though the reader and the narrator take their places alongside Turnus in the final simile in Book , Turnus the character does
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Notes
not know about this. He does not know that the end of the poem includes a scene that unites him with the reader and the narrator in experiencing the universal human feelings of isolation, powerlessness, and fear that have been one of the main themes of the Aeneid. The human isolation that pervades the simile and story worlds of the Aeneid reaches both its highest and lowest points in the poem’s final simile.
Notes The bibliography on furor in the Aeneid is immense. Hardie () (especially , –, , –) is a good starting point, wide-reaching without being overwhelming. Among more specialized treatments, I have benefited particularly from Otis () passim (focusing primarily on the relationships among furor, pietas, and fatum – roughly translated, “rage,” “duty,” and “fate” – that underlie the Aeneid); Korpanty () (furor represents a temporary loss of control rather than a fixed quality); and McDermott () (a meticulous analysis of what kind of emotional and physical experiences are represented by furor, united by seeing the various manifestations of furor as a fundamentally antisocial impulse). Clusters associated with emotion in the Iliad were discussed in Chapter , Section .. Clusters in the Argonautica describe a variety of story motifs other than conflict, such as emotions (when Medea and Jason first meet, .– and .–) and supernatural beings (the snake that guards the Golden Fleece, .– and .–). Simile clusters in the Odyssey always have to do with conflict or killing, but this includes emotional conflict within Odysseus as he tries to decide on a course of action (.– and .–). McDermott (: ) lists the frequency in the Aeneid of furor and related words, including rabies/rabidus ( times, including .). Korpanty (: –) notes the frequent associations between furor and dolor, ira, and saeua. Improbus appears twice in narrator text: at ., describing Arruns trying to attack Camilla, and in an omen at .. At ., improba modifies rabies (.) in a wolf simile spoken by Aeneas; in the previous verse, he says, “So their young spirits were roused to fury” (sic animis iuuenum furor additus, .). It appears in further similes that describe the destruction wreaked by Turnus (., .) and Mezentius (.), and times in speech (., spoken by Sinon; ., Dido; ., narrator apostrophe to Dido; ., Entellus; ., Turnus; and ., Tolumnius interprets the omen presented by the narrator at .). Judging by the order in which antecedents are presented, Heyne (: –) and Conington and Nettleship (: ) see Apollonius as the most important Greek model for our simile alongside Iliad .– ~
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Vergil Aeneid: Rage and Isolation
.– (men and dogs stay up all night to defend their animals from a marauding lion) while Hardie (: –) gives pride of place to the Odyssey (.–, a hungry lion out in bad weather looks for prey). Williams (: –) focuses mainly on enumerating the shortcomings he finds in Argonautica .– as compared to the Aeneid version, to which he finds “no close Homeric analogues” (). None of these commentators mentions that shepherds are absent from Vergil’s simile. Wolves times Iliad: .– (the Trojans threaten the Greek ships), .– (the Myrmidons going out to fight), and .– (many Greeks kill many Trojans in battle). Besides citing individual parallels, Cuypers (: ) discusses the relationships among various Homeric similes that may have influenced Apollonius here. These attackers include the Italian Turnus (.– and .–) as well as Arruns, an Etruscan ally of the Trojans (.–, after he fatally wounds Turnus’ ally Camilla). For a Roman audience, indeed, the wolf himself is an ambiguous symbol that evokes both deviousness and the founding of Rome. Raaflaub (: –) connects a negative reading of the wolf with Rome’s historical enemies, not with Romans themselves, but this does not do justice to the complexity of the wolf in similes in the Aeneid. As Saylor (: ) says, “the wolf is alone and its energy is spent in effort that is individual and thus wasted. It is not a good image for Turnus who should be gathering and consolidating his forces.” Saylor sees this impulse also behind Turnus’ failure at the end of Book to open the gates of the Trojan camp and let the Italians inside (). For Schenk (), who also notes the solitude of the wolf, the change from the more widely attested lion to a wolf as the solitary predator who fails to capture his prey highlights the destructive “battle lust” of Turnus (). Balatus appears four times in Vergil, the earliest author in which balatus is found (TLL s.v. balatus). In the Georgics, the fury Tisiphone frightens and kills bleating herd animals (.), and the sound of lambs rouses a wolf (auditisque lupos acuunt balatibus agni, .). In the Aeneid, balatus appears in two wolf similes for Turnus in Book , this one and a further comparison in which a bleating ewe seeks out her lamb after a wolf takes it from its pen (Aeneid .–). Later epic poets – for whom balatus is a rare word – follow Vergil’s lead in associating balatus with the threat of wolves (Silius Italicus ., a simile where a shepherd uses a bleating sheep as a lure to catch a dangerous wolf; Statius Thebaid ., a simile that closely resembles Aeneid .–). Ovid, unsurprisingly, also uses balatus for sheep in distress, but their difficulties arise from very un-Vergilian sources (Medea’s sorcery, .; a plague, .). Servius .., however, says that Turnus’ behavior indicates his uiolentia, because no one looks for a path where none exists (sane exprimitur Turni violentia; nam uiam per avia nullus requirit).
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Notes
Aeneas is described by a few more similes () than Turnus is (), but he also appears in the entire poem, whereas Turnus first appears in Book . In the second half of the Aeneid, Aeneas appears in similes. Tarrant (: –) surveys the wide variety of responses to Turnus: “no other character in the Aeneid has been as variously evaluated as T[urnus]” (). Whether or not one agrees with Stahl () that Aeneas is heir to a Homeric style of heroism (e.g. ), his summary of the different opinions on this question (–) remains relevant because the question itself remains open to debate. Most of the battle similes in the Aeneid appear in Books –, and almost all similes in Books – are about battle. Battle is the main referent of similes ( percent of similes in the Aeneid). Of those, (about percent) occur in Books –. Conversely, nearly percent of the similes in Books – describes battle. Almost one-half of the similes in the Aeneid lacks any human presence ( of ), and only one-third () features a human character rather than indirect evidence of human activity, such as a building, a sheepfold, or a bowl. By comparison, around percent of the similes in the Iliad, the Argonautica, and the Metamorphoses has no human presence, and in the Odyssey, less than percent of the similes lack humans or human activity. Such scenes include the mad rush of a stream (.–) or a falling boulder (.–) that carries away livestock in its path. A swarm of bees being smoked out of their rocky home at .– (cf. Argonautica .–, where the human beings are called μηλοβοτῆρες ἠὲ μελισσοκόμοι [herders or beekeepers], .–) and a herd of cattle at .–. The hostile situation in the bee simile offers a marked contrast to the harmonious bee societies at Aeneid .– and .–, both of which feature a group of bees in a meadow with no humans present. The lack of any clear motivation for the shepherd’s actions toward the bees in Book throws their distressed reaction into even clearer relief; see Anderson (: –) for the various explanations that have been suggested. As when an animal is stung by insects at Argonautica .–. The “extravagant alliteration” of m’s in (Tarrant : ) undercuts the meaning of the words by making a “moo” sound. Most instances of gemo/gemitus refer to humans who are either grieving (a particularly resonant example is Aeneas’ response to the images of Troy depicted on the temple of Dido at ., “heaves a deep sigh from the depths of his heart” [ingentem gemitum dat pectore ab imo]) or dying (e.g. gemitus morientum at .). Occasionally, gemo/gemitus depicts nonhuman sounds, like an eruption of Mount Etna (.), the roar of lions on Circe’s island (.), the blows of Vulcan’s tools (.), or the creaking of a laden wagon (.).
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Vergil Aeneid: Rage and Isolation
See .–: here, Turnus’ final defeat resounds with the cries of grieving Rutulians in an echo of this verse: “The Rutulians rose up, and groaned, and all the hills around / re-echoed . . .” consurgunt gemitu Rutuli totusque remugit / mons circum. The phrase cessere magistri (“their keepers retreat”) is also found in the plague in the Georgics (.), another moment where human agency fails in the face of an overwhelming natural force. Thomas (: ) compares this expression to Arcadii . . . magistri at Georgics ., a periphrastic reference to Aristaeus. He says that in these passages, magistri does not have its pastoral meaning of “shepherd, trainer” but instead has a “somewhat distinct sense” that he renders “experts.” Otherwise useful analyses that do not mention the addition of shepherds and thus fail to notice the significant effect they have on the emotional tone of our scene include Putnam (: –), Hornsby (: –), and Briggs (: –). Rossi (: ) groups both herd and shepherd together as “spectators,” a comparatively benign way of describing their situation that is more suitable to the herd than it is to the shepherds. Milnor (: –) offers a lucid presentation of the ironies this simile creates alongside the story’s complex marital relations of Venus and Vulcan. Her conclusion that the simile “underscores the inextricable connection between . . . the work of social reproduction and that of producing the imperial state” () is strengthened if this simile is placed alongside the Aeneid’s only other simile scene of human relationships. of Aeneid craft similes mention a human being; the other mention only the creation of an artisan. Besides inlay work (.–, .–), we also find the Labyrinth (.–) and buildings (.–, .–, .–). Like .–, .– (describing someone [quis, .] dyeing a piece of ivory) mentions the craftsperson in such brief and general terms that the worker is barely present. Just of craft similes in Greek epic lack a human craft worker. While Ovid, like Vergil, marginalizes human beings in his craft similes, this is part of a larger pattern of marginalizing what was central in earlier epic poetry rather than a comment on the efficacy of human expertise in particular. Although an even smaller proportion of craft similes features a human character in the Metamorphoses ( of ) than in the Aeneid, no consistent pattern characterizes those craft similes that do mention a human craftsperson. Elsewhere in the Aeneid, uiolo regularly refers in character speech to physical wounds that simultaneously injure and pollute the victim (., . ~ ., .). See further the sensitive reading of West (: –). Hornsby (: ) suggests that this simile evokes Aeneas’ recent description of the dead Priam as ingens truncus (.), a connection that strengthens both the simile’s anthropomorphism and its emotional force.
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Notes
Rood (: and passim) argues that such similes in the Iliad help to depict death in battle as “beautiful” and ultimately a positive good for the warrior, even though it is also sad. The Odyssey, which does not have any woodcutting similes, accordingly lacks this particular motif of individual sacrifice for a greater good. This is a key aspect of the arguments in Otis () and Pöschl () to name two influential presentations of the idea. Although focused mainly on the death of Turnus, Hardie (: –) provides a concise overview of furor in the poem. When Euryalus dies, he is compared to a flower nicked by a plow (.–). A simile about a flower picked by a maiden describes Pallas on his funeral bier (.–). Fowler (: –) explores the network of connections among these two similes, Catullus .– and imagery in Sappho. He argues that these comparisons depict the killings of these young men as a kind of “deflower[ing] in death” (), concluding that “the combination of horror and pathos that the defloration imagery adds to the killings . . . places the reader, male or female, on the side of the suffering” (). Iliad .–, .–. Such similes can also describe the sorrow of otherwise unsympathetic characters: the Argonautica brings out the grief of Aeetes when Jason kills the Earth-born men with a simile comparing him to a farmer whose young plants have been killed by harsh weather before they had grown to maturity (.–). About one-half of the similes in both the Iliad and the Aeneid that describe soldiers refers at least partly to a group of fighters ( of Iliad; of Aeneid). Some of these similes also refer to an individual warrior alongside or at the head of the unnamed group while others describe unnamed groups mustering for battle but not actually fighting. In the Iliad, nearly one-third of the battle similes that include an unnamed group describes them fighting without the participation or leadership of a named soldier ( of ). This constitutes more than percent of all the similes in the entire poem. But in the Aeneid, only similes describe groups of unnamed soldiers who fight independently of any named soldiers, or just about percent of the similes in the Aeneid. Besides .–, the other similes that describe a group fighting in this way appear at .– and .–. In the latter two cases, the group derives its identity and interest largely from its context rather than playing the main role in the scene. Anderson (: –) sees this unusual shepherd as an evocation of Aeneas’ own shepherding simile for his experiences during the fall of Troy at .–. He characterizes the image of a shepherd who kills as an intentionally “odd” choice intended to evoke the earlier simile () rather than as poignant. As we have seen, Anderson’s observation that the three similes that liken Aeneas to a shepherd all lack the normal trappings of shepherding life applies to simile shepherds in the Aeneid more generally. Many critics have explored this idea. Some of the most influential discussions include Otis (:– and passim, e.g. ) Dido “is thus [via similarities
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Vergil Aeneid: Rage and Isolation
to Aeneas] the great example of pietas worsted by the furor of passion”; and Pöschl (: –, especially –) (whose main interest is in similes as a form of symbolic imagery). There are similes about emotions in the Aeneid. appear in Book where they dramatize Dido’s increasing misery and rage (.–, .–, .–), the impassivity of Aeneas in the face of Dido’s suffering (.–), and the mourning of the Carthaginians for the death of their queen (.–). Another simile turns the tables on Aeneas as Dido refuses to speak to him when they meet again in the underworld (.). Feeney () focuses on the lack of connection conveyed by Aeneas’ speech, mainly to Dido in Book but more generally throughout the Aeneid. He makes the insightful point that “the Aeneid is rigidly undomestic. We hear no human conversation between husband and wife, father and son, mother and child” (). The only unambiguously positive human emotion that includes a simile is narrated by Anchises and takes place in the future, the rejoicing of Rome in her lineage of men (.–). It is not experienced directly by any of the characters in the poem and it applies not to an individual but to the personified city. In the Iliad, of battle similes are part of a cluster (nearly half of all battle similes), and the nonbattle cluster similes help to create some of the most indelible moments in the poem (see Chapter , Section .). The Odyssey has comparatively few clusters, but the majority appear in scenes of battle or attack ( of ). In the Argonautica, too, most battle similes appear in a cluster ( of ), but many similes that are part of a cluster describe other things ( similes). The characterization of the similes in Book as being “generally evenly distributed . . . with relatively little bunching” (Harrison : ) in fact applies to battle narrative throughout the Aeneid. Each of Books and has four similes that form part of a cluster while Books and have zero and one cluster, respectively. Harrison () points out that several individual similes in Book encompass different or even opposing views of the character or action being described. The “interesting exception” () of the four similes for Mezentius at the end of Book includes a pair of similes (.– and .–), but the effect of this group is a single point, not a variety of ideas: Mezentius’ “physical prowess is . . . swiftly established.” The last simile that describes Mezentius introduces multiple viewpoints on him (.–) but through “interesting issues of focalisation” () rather than relationships among several comparisons. Rossi (: –) makes a persuasive argument that Aeneas’ return is literally the pivotal moment in the fighting. In addition to the thematic and tactical shifts mentioned in this quotation, Rossi also notes that Aeneas returns on the third day, the chronological midpoint of the five days of battle in the second half of the Aeneid.
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Notes
Knauer (: ) lists .– and .– as the most important Iliadic parallels, but he also cites .–, .–, and .– (= .–). He cites ., ., and . as parallels to .. This cluster is mentioned briefly (–) in the broader context of comparing Aeneid to Iliad . Harrison (: –) offers a sensitive analysis of the focalizations of both the Italians and the Trojans embodied in this simile and its allusions and antecedents. de Jong (: with bibliography), explains how the simile “conveys something of Priam’s feelings of fear” at the sight of Achilles. de Jong (: ) makes a similar point but stresses more clearly that the simile is capturing the feelings aroused by the sight of Achilles for Priam in particular (the “secondary focalizer” of the simile). Of the similes in the Aeneid, lack an exit expression. The majority of those similes are verses or longer, which distinguishes the Aeneid from the Argonautica, where most - or -verse similes lack an exit expression but virtually all longer similes have one. For a more detailed treatment of the innovative structural features of similes in the Aeneid compared to Homeric poetry in particular, see Beck (c). Of the similes introduced by a form of qualis, include an exit word. Mythological similes most often depict soldiers in battle, including Aeneas (likened to the giant Aegaeon, .–) and three different Italian fighters at .– (Catillus and Coras mustering for battle compared to centaurs on Mount Ossa), .– (Mezentius compared to Orion), and .– (Camilla and her followers described as Amazons led by Hippolyta or Penthesileia). They may also depict physical qualities, such as appearance (Venus looks like Harpalyce, .–) or spatial configuration (intricate athletic maneuvers resemble the Labyrinth, .–). Hardie (: –) gives a summary of the tragic features of Dido’s story and the importance of tragedy not only for Book but also for the Aeneid as a whole. In addition to the many tragic parallels and allusions in this particular simile (discussed in detail by Servius [on .–]), Rieks (: ) sees the three similes for Dido as creating a Euripidean progression from the Hippolytus to the Bacchae and ending with the Medea. For instance, a bellowing bull is sacrificed in a simile at Iliad . to Ἑλικώνιον . . . ἄνακτα, an ethnic designation for Poseidon (ἐνοσίχθων, .) who had a temple at Helice (Edwards : ). Poseidon also appears at Argonautica .– where he travels by chariot to a number of his famous cult sites, primarily temples but also including the Isthmian games (.) and the Lernaean springs (.; Hunter : – provides further details on the various locations mentioned in this simile). Greek epic similes that name specific places outside of similes that feature a god include the exotic birds at Iliad .– (similarly, the swans at
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Vergil Aeneid: Rage and Isolation
Argonautica .– and the ethnic designation of a craftswoman at Iliad .–). On the other hand, Tarrant (: ) notes that Indus for the ivory in a simile at . corresponds to ethnic descriptions of the craftswoman in a parallel simile (Μῃονὶς ἠὲ Κάειρα, Iliad .). His more general comment that “V. (following Homer) regularly particularizes the action of a simile by a geographical setting” does not recognize Vergil’s practice as the innovation that it is because it does not take into account that this Homeric antecedent is one of just a handful of Homeric similes that include geographical or ethnographic details outside of similes about gods. Italian place names appear in similes for Aeneas at .–, .–, .–, and .–. Other anachronistic similes include .– (Roman politics) and the paneled ceiling off which light is reflected at .–. The simile at .– is not treated as the last one in the poem because it is “a sort of inverse simile; the device functions as a form of hyperbole” (Tarrant : ). In Beck (b), I offer a related analysis of the programmatic effects of this simile but with different emphases. Nimis () offers an acute allegorical reading of the first simile, although he does not identify it as such: “The implication of the first simile of the Aeneid . . . is that nature lacks a ratio of its own, and that it is culture which must provide one” (). Feeney (: –) notes that oratory is often seen as a cultural force that can conquer such disorder. This is the first occurrence of the noun furor. Furiae (.) and furo (., .) appear earlier in Book . The association between saeu- and furor is noted by Korpanty (: n). Most of the nine occurrences of ministro describe someone taking pains to foster a positive rather than a negative result. These include sailing (., .), preparing meals (., .), and a poignant expression in a simile that likens the recently dead Pallas to a newly picked flower no longer nourished by the earth (non iam mater alit tellus uirisque ministrat, .). Here I differ from a number of studies that suggest either explicitly or implicitly that the Aeneid tells the story of how a system for diffusing conflict without violence came into being, among which I have benefited particularly from Hardie () and Feeney (). Compare Feeney (: –), which sees a series of similes in Iliad as relevant antecedents for this scene. Forms of mulceo appear just seven times in the Aeneid and are used mainly for the soothing effect of words (., ., ., .; bird calls at . are a related soothing vocal phenomenon); other senses are found at . (Aeolus’ power to arouse and soothe the winds) and . (the wolf on the shield of Aeneas caressing the young Romulus and Remus).
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Notes
Feeney (: –) is also very useful on the political dimensions of the Homeric allusion. More skeptically, Pöschl (: –) ultimately decides that the thrust of the simile is not a specific individual but “the idea [emphasis original] that the individual personifies” (). Forms of βασιλεύς appear at Theogony , , and . My main interest here is the striking range of strongly held opinions on the antecedents of Aeneid .– rather than the specifics of the Hesiod passage. The rhetorical opening of James Henry’s note on the Aeneid simile is right at home in the constellation of decided yet contradictory views on the Greek antecedents of Aeneid .–: “Who can doubt that the original of this fine passage is that scarcely less fine passage of Hesiod, Theog. [–]?” (Henry : ). Steiner (: –) sees the significance of this simile as more straightforward than it is, both in arguing that Vergil simplifies (“vereinfachen” , italics original) the Homeric simile by focusing on one rather than both fighters in a battle encounter and in his claim that that reality and dreaming coincide in the simile (, followed by Rieks : –). This simile is not discussed in Schenk (), a surprising omission given how important it is to the depiction of Turnus in the Aeneid as a whole. Similarly, the stated indifference to Homeric antecedents in Hornsby () (see especially –) does this simile a serious disservice. Most commentaries either do not mention the Lucretius parallels or simply cite the relevant passages. I am indebted to the analyses in Tarrant (: ) of uelle uidemur () and succidimus (). For details on the many expressions in this simile that appear here for either the first time or the only time in Latin literature, see Putnam (: ). Skutsch (: ) characterizes reuincio, deuincio, and uincio as metrically convenient synonyms. Elliott (: ) questions this location for the fragment. The same kind of subtle and complex use of Ennius that Elliott () demonstrates in Vergil’s formulaic language can be seen in the allusions in this dream simile. Another sensitive analysis of the non-epic features of this simile can be found at Williams (: ). Six similes focus on Turnus, and four others depict encounters between him and Aeneas so that over half of the similes in Book include Turnus. Four similes in Book focus on Aeneas. Tarrant (: –) offers a summary of the wide-ranging views on these topics. The last simile that describes a story feature related to furor compares the battle rage (ira, .) of Turnus and Aeneas to raging fires or gushing rivers (.–), and Turnus parts company with furor after he tells Juturna,
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Vergil Aeneid: Rage and Isolation
“hunc [sc. Aeneas], oro, sine me furere ante furorem” (.). After this, furor is not mentioned on the battlefield again until Aeneas, overpowered by rage, kills the defeated Turnus (.) in a “prototypical, precedent-setting act of civil war” (Hershkowitz : and n). Hershkowitz (: ) notes that it is only when Turnus is in his right mind that he can recognize and name his own “irrationality.”
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Ovid Metamorphoses Stories of Eros and Epic
. Change Change is a central theme not just of the mythological tales in the Metamorphoses but also of how Ovid uses the storytelling materials of his predecessors. We catch occasional glimpses of the characters familiar to us from the simile worlds of earlier epics, but they no longer inhabit a cohesive, free-standing world of their own. Instead, they flit by just often enough to show us how much the simile world of the Metamorphoses has changed compared to earlier epics in which these characters would have played larger and more consistent roles. Ovid’s similes are populated largely by characters that would be tangential to similes in the poems of Homer or Vergil. Some conventional simile features take on different functions in the Metamorphoses, such as the chase similes that describe erotic pursuits instead of battle scenes. Main roles become cameo appearances while minor characters from earlier epics may find themselves at center stage. Human relationships barely exist; the trappings of human beings – such as buildings, weapons, and works of art – most often appear without the craftspeople who created them; and shepherds have vanished altogether, leaving behind domestic animals with no caretakers to keep them safe. Instead, the simile world of the Metamorphoses is inhabited by a kaleidoscope of creatures, artifacts, and events, just as the mythological story lacks the unifying hero typical of earlier heroic epics. The relations between story and simile have changed as well. Battle scenes rarely include similes, while simile clusters are more likely to describe scenes of passion or metamorphosis than fighting. The erotic or elegiac coloring of Ovid’s epic arises both from battle simile motifs that appear in scenes of sexual passion and because the fights that do include similes usually have erotic causes. In perhaps the most far-reaching change to epic similes in the Metamorphoses, they go out of their way to avoid creating the coherent, freestanding stories told by both the simile and story worlds in earlier epics.
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Ovid Metamorphoses: Stories of Eros and Epic
At a concrete level, similes have gotten shorter. And the anachronisms and options structures that loom larger in the Metamorphoses than in any earlier epic highlight the narrative process rather than the simile story. All of these features draw our attention to similes as a narrative technique as much or more than we experience them as free-standing stories in which we can immerse ourselves in concert with the mythological story. The content and structures of similes are partners with the mythological stories in forging a new kind of epic from the building blocks of Ovid’s predecessors. Similes help the Metamorphoses both to claim the epic genre for itself and to take that genre to new places it had never been before. The story and the similes tell a tale of constancy and change, of passion rather than battle as the most important arena for human conflict, and of storytelling itself. As in the Metamorphoses more generally, the changes that define Ovid’s innovative and edgy simile world can best be understood by piecing together a mosaic of examples and looking at the larger patterns that emerge. Accordingly, this chapter begins with a “case study” of all three similes in Book , which set the tone for the rest of the poem. Each simile introduces some of the key features of Ovid’s similes, including the landscape of the simile world of the Metamorphoses, the links between the simile world and the story, and the structures of similes. Two key scenes later in the poem provide further examples of the distinctive qualities of similes in the Metamorphoses, most but not all of which first appear in Book : the fight between Perseus and the sea monster, the first battle narrative in the poem (Book ), and Arethusa’s story about her own near-rape by Alpheus, a peak of narrative complexity and interest in the poem (Book ). The story of the shipwreck of Ceyx in Book tells a unique “story of similes” in which similes and the story come closer together than in any other episode, before the poem changes direction and similes ebb from the narrative. As Troy falls and the world of myth gives way to early Roman history, a Homeric simile shows us a last glimpse of the bereaved Hecuba (.–). The subject of the only lion simile in the Metamorphoses, the enslaved queen takes her place alongside the heroes of earlier literature whose bravery is defined by their likeness to the most powerful animal in the simile world.
. Metamorphoses : Setting the Stage In the first speech in the Metamorphoses, Jupiter tells a divine assembly that he has been attacked by “Lycaon, known for his savagery” (notus feritate Lycaon, .). As soon as the gods hear this, they grumble with angry eagerness to punish the miscreant (.–). A simile likens their
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. Metamorphoses : Setting the Stage
reaction to the dread inspired in the rest of the human race by the prospect of a wicked mob eager to assassinate an unspecified “Caesar.” The simile juxtaposes two groups of emotional people who neither come into contact with each other nor bring about the result that one group desires and the other dreads. The feelings of each group come to life in the simile, but the looming violence that inspires those feelings never comes to pass. In the story, too, emotions have come loose from the actions that cause them. The gods show their loyalty to Jupiter and their readiness to punish a threat to his power without knowing what Lycaon has done (Barchiesi : ). The first simile in the poem draws out an unmotivated emotional response to a story that as yet lacks any relevant details that might justify the gods’ behavior. Passionate emotions themselves thus become the story, rather than feelings as aroused by some particular event. Indeed, similes and emotions are more closely connected in the Metamorphoses than in any of Ovid’s surviving epic predecessors. But the building blocks of this first simile play an even greater role than the contents in setting the tone for the poem. The simile refers by name both to a contemporary individual and to the Roman people, bringing the simile world and the world of the reader together from the beginning. Readers familiar with Vergil’s Aeneid would feel this effect even more strongly because of the close resemblance between this simile and Aeneid .–, which describes a scene of political unrest whose Roman context is clear but implicit (see further Chapter , Section ..). What was unstated in Vergil’s first simile has become a main focus for Ovid.
Metamorphoses 1.199–205 All the gods murmured aloud and, zealously and eagerly, demanded punishment for such actions. As when the impious band of conspirators () burned to wipe out the name of Rome in Caesar’s blood, the human race was suddenly terrified by fear of just such a disaster, and the whole world shuddered with horror. Your subjects’ loyalty is no less pleasing to you, Augustus, than theirs was to Jupiter. (after Kline trans.) Confremuere omnes studiisque ardentibus ausum talia deposcunt: sic, cum manus inpia saeuit ð200Þ sanguine Caesareo Romanum exstinguere nomen, attonitum tanto subitae terrore ruinae humanum genus est totusque perhorruit orbis. nec tibi grata minus pietas, Auguste, tuorum est quam fuit illa Ioui.
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The fiery zeal of the gods (studiisque ardentibus, .) gives way to a simile in which a raging mob wants to assassinate a public figure. The first words of the simile oppose the mob to the accepted responsibilities of social and religious order (impia, .); cast their desires as excessive, violent, and antisocial (saeuit); and give a stark physical form to their intentions (sanguine, .). The verb exstinguere strengthens our sense of blood as a liquid mark of interpersonal violence, as this mob wants to “wipe out” the Roman people in the blood of their leader. The people, for their part, are terrified at the prospect, and the second half of the simile dwells on their fear (attonitum, terrore, .; perhorruit, .). But unlike the agitators in Vergil’s first simile, this would-be mob does not do anything violent. Vergil’s mob, also the subject of the verb saeuit (saeuitque . . . ignobile uulgus, Aeneid .), is throwing rocks and torches, but Ovid’s gang simply wants to rebel. And while their intentions could evidently cause significant harm because the entire world fears the results (humanum genus . . . totusque . . . orbis, .), those fears are not realized. The manus impia (“impious band,” .) who want to assassinate Caesar never come into direct contact with either Caesar himself or the rest of the world who are appalled at the prospect. They share only emotions about possible future violence that – in the simile at least – does not come to pass. The isolation of these people from each other and from any actual violence throws their emotions into high relief, but it also strengthens our sense of their emotions as a fictional construct. .. Pattern: Human Beings and Human Relationships This scenario is typical of the human interactions in the simile world of the Metamorphoses as a whole. In contrast to the rich tapestry of human relationships at the heart of the story, the poem’s simile world has almost no scenes of direct interactions between characters. Instead, the few similes featuring more than one individual describe either a single group of people engaged in a cooperative activity or (as here) several characters who coexist alongside one another. Scenes of direct contact between individuals simply do not exist in the simile world of the Metamorphoses, even while such scenes form the backbone of the mythological story. Like the first simile in the Aeneid, even the very modest level of human interaction in this simile fails to materialize in the rest of the poem, but the scenario in the first simile – as well as its affinities with the first simile in the Aeneid – makes the absence of human connection into a conscious omission. While the Aeneid simile world, too, includes very few relationships involving
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. Metamorphoses : Setting the Stage
individual actors, it does have some. Moreover, the simile and story worlds of the Aeneid tell two parallel tales of human isolation, creating a unified narrative about human isolation woven from two complementary strands that both depict human beings in the same way. The Metamorphoses, in contrast, does not have any similes in which an individual human being is described interacting with other mortals, while the main story is full of detailed, moving, and thematically significant tales of human relations. For the first time, the narrative’s portrait of human connection emerges in part through tension between the different ways that human beings relate to each other in the simile and story worlds. Not only relationships between human beings are missing from the simile world of the Metamorphoses. Human beings themselves are absent from several parts of the simile world where they usually reside in earlier epics. As in Homeric epic or the Argonautica, the majority of the similes in the Metamorphoses depict either human characters or traces of human activity. But more often than not, Ovid’s similes omit the human beings in such scenes, focusing instead on what they have made or done. Indeed, similes that imply but do not explicitly mention a human being outnumber those with a human actor only in the Metamorphoses. Many fields of human activity that depend on relationships – endeavors that in earlier epics would include some human actors – do not have any human beings. For instance, most craft scenes in surviving epics down to the time of Ovid feature the characters responsible for cutting down the tree or sailing the ship or forging the metal. In the Metamorphoses, by contrast, few craft similes mention a human being. Nor do any similes depict the relations between a shepherd and his flock, another rich field for the connections between human beings and other creatures with whom we share emotional ties. In the relatively infrequent instances when human beings do appear in similes, they lack individuality and detail. The simile tales about these characters lack nuance as well: the longest of the similes that feature a single scene with human beings is just four verses long, and most are three verses or fewer. This means that in most similes, there is simply not room to develop much of a story about human characters. Conversely, the rare similes that do approach a pre-Ovidian comparison in length and detail are about other things, such as the human-free animal chase scene in the Daphne and Apollo story (.–, see further Section ..). As in the Aeneid, human beings are peripheral to the simile world of the poem. But when human beings do appear, no larger themes of loss, sorrow, or failure cast a pall over their actions. Their fleeting appearances in the simile world are part of a larger pattern in which what is central to other epics has
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become peripheral in the Metamorphoses and vice versa, rather than offering a comment on the human experience. .. Weave: Anachronism The first simile places the contemporary world of Ovid’s readers front and center through the literally central figures of “Caesar’s blood . . . name of Rome” (sanguine Caesareo and Romanum . . . nomen), arranged in two concentric rings in the center of the simile. The adjective Caesareo – appearing here for the first time in extant Latin literature (Bömer : ) – evokes not just a specifically Roman context but also a specific Roman, even though we cannot confidently identify who this particular Caesar might be. This contemporary name flies in the face of simile conventions prior to Ovid, which did not refer to mortals with proper names, although names for gods, mythological characters, and geographical places are part of the epic simile world. The apostrophe to Augustus that connects Ovid’s simile back to the story (.) weaves the contemporary world into the narrative in an even more striking and innovative way. At this point in the poem, Augustus is not (yet) a character in the story – he appears here only in the simile world, without the knowledge of the characters themselves (Solodow : ); when he does appear in the story at the end of Book , Jupiter tells Venus that Augustus will himself become a god (.–), joining in truth the gods to whom this apostrophe compares him. These features tell us that the contemporary world will play a different role in the Metamorphoses than it did in earlier epic poetry, and the structures of similes will take some alluring and unexpected shapes to which we would be well advised to attend. Anachronism in similes existed before Ovid, but the fabric of his simile world seems so different from earlier epics in part because it has, comparatively speaking, more anachronisms. Anachronistic similes like this one add something “new” to the epic simile world, because the subjects of such similes are both literally “new” in the narrative time of either the story or the similes and generically “new” to the epic genre. Like many aspects of the simile world of the Metamorphoses, scholars have given substantial attention to anachronism when it occurs in the story (e.g. Wheeler , Chapter , “Discourse and Time”), but less so in the similes. Ancient commentators did not concern themselves with anachronisms in similes because they are spoken by the narrator directly to readers, and this approach has been largely accepted by modern scholars as well. But it ignores the existence of the simile world whose norms also frown upon
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. Metamorphoses : Setting the Stage
anachronism, albeit from a different perspective than the norms of the mythological story. Anachronisms are a “new” feature of Ovid’s simile world in both a very literal and a more abstract, generic sense. In the simile worlds of pre-Ovidian epic, the typical characters and situations are not simply “not-now” – as they are in the mythological story – but “not-named,” peopling timeless, generalized vignettes that we can imagine unfolding in any time or place. Ovid breaks with this aspect of the epic simile world, making a place for Roman siege warfare and theatrical staging alongside typical simile scenes like sailors at sea or animals in flight from attackers. Ovid locates the simile world in the here and now of the poem’s readers not just with the content of his first simile but also through its deep connections to the first simile in Vergil’s Aeneid, which also compares a god in the story to a simile scene of Roman unrest. In each poem, the setting of the first simile suggests that contemporary experience and politics will be explored through ancient mythological tales and the conventions of epic narrative, and these expectations are borne out in both cases. But while Vergil makes these connections in an implicit fashion, Ovid directly addresses the contemporary political figure who remains unnamed in Vergil’s comparison. Like Vergil’s comparison, the first scene in Ovid’s simile world depicts the relationship between a Roman leader and groups of Roman people, suggesting to audiences that we can expect to encounter relationships among human characters in the simile world. Whereas the leader in Vergil’s simile engages with his people and changes their course of action with both his current behavior and the reputation he has gained from his past actions, the leader in Ovid’s comparison appears not as a character but as a bone of contention between two groups of Romans. He represents a symbol of social order, but he does not take action to uphold that order. ..
Weave: Option Similes
The first simile in the poem introduces us to the close tie between similes and emotion when the gods show their unquestioning loyalty to Jupiter. The other similes in Book accompany the first story of erotic desire (primus amor, .), the most common emotion accompanied by similes in the Metamorphoses. Apollo, first introduced as the valiant slayer of the Python, one of the dreadful new creatures who emerge from the earth as it dries out after the flood that Jupiter sends as a punishment for Lycaon’s crimes (.–), now falls prey to desire for the nymph Daphne as soon as Cupid hits him with an arrow of love. After an increasingly desperate
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pursuit, Daphne escapes Apollo’s advances by turning into the laurel tree with the help of her father, the river god Inachus. This story contains two similes presented by the main narrator (.– and .–) and one brief simile in a speech by Apollo, which brings forward common simile tropes without developing them into a free-standing simile story (.–). At .–, Apollo’s passion is described in an “option” simile with three different scenarios involving fire, a common simile subject that migrates out of the battle scenes in which it primarily appeared in earlier epics into stories of passion, the main field of conflict in the Metamorphoses. The simile, like the story of Apollo’s lustful feelings, describes an accidental flare of uncontrollable power. But at the same time, the simile undercuts our experience of that power by narrating it in organized, orderly, and aesthetically appealing language. Throughout the Metamorphoses, similes about violence immerse us in the experience and effects of violence in ways that ask us to notice the effect of the teller’s own feelings on how violence is experienced and how it is narrated.
Metamorphoses 1.490–96 Phoebus loves her at first sight, and desires to wed her, ð490Þ and hopes for what he desires, but his own oracular powers fail him. As the light stubble of an empty cornfield blazes; as sparks fire a hedge when a traveler, by mischance, either lets them get too close, or forgets them in the morning; so the god was altered by the flames, and so all his heart burned, ð495Þ feeding his useless desire with hope. (Kline trans.) Phoebus amat uisaeque cupit conubia Daphnes, ð490Þ quodque cupit sperat suaque illum oracula fallunt. utque leues stipulae demptis adolentur aristis, ut facibus saepes ardent, quas forte uiator uel nimis admouit uel iam sub luce reliquit, sic deus in flammas abiit, sic pectore toto ð495Þ uritur et sterilem sperando nutrit amorem.
While fire drives the action (adolentur, .; ardent, .), the simile focuses on what is burned by the fire and how fires start. It has nothing to say about the physical qualities of the fire itself, such as heat or light. The fire-ready stubbly fields in . highlight what is destroyed by fire; the careless traveler setting fire to a hedge (.–) shows us how easily a minor oversight can cause major damage. Just as the story is at least as engaged with the effects of Apollo’s desire for Daphne as with his subjective experience of his passion, the simile shows us fire at work in the world. But
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. Metamorphoses : Setting the Stage
even though the immediate effects of fire are harmful in all of these scenarios, burning a field after it had been harvested was thought to improve its fertility (discussion and sources in Bömer : –). The simile opens the possibility that the immediate damage wrought by the fire may be beneficial in the longer term (Solodow : ). In a different way, the option structure calls attention to the variety of ways that fire can behave. Ovid’s option similes, of which this is the first, build on the Hellenistic practice of using options to obtrude the narrator’s presence upon the reader (Hunter : ). Such a structure prevents a simile from reaching a critical narrative mass independent of the story. Even while the structure of such an ostentatiously “narrated” simile forecloses some of the more immersive experiences that arise from other extended similes, a simile that contains two different comparanda enriches the dynamic tension that all similes embody between “same” and “different.” The structure of such a simile invites us to consider not only the relationship between the story and the simile subject – of which there are now several – but also between the various scenes appearing in the simile. Or, in a simile that has the form “A and B” rather than “A or B,” the individual options can work together to create a composite picture with different scenes taken from the same domain. For instance, the two prey animals to which Philomela is compared when Tereus assaults her suffer different kinds of injuries from different kinds of attackers (.–), but their uncertainty and terror at the harm they have endured from an animal stronger than themselves joins them together not only with one another but with Philomela as well. We may also respond this way to asyndetic option similes that juxtapose two scenes without specifying their relationship, as in the various fire tableaus in .–. In the first half of the simile, the successive utque . . . ut (“as . . . as”) clauses in . and . compare Apollo’s lust to two forms of plant life that catch on fire, either crops where no human agent is mentioned (.) or hedges kindled by a traveler (.). A subsidiary uel . . . uel (“either . . . or”) structure in the second half of the simile (.) offers further options for ways that a traveler might have accidentally set the hedge on fire. Although most “option” similes specify whether the two scenarios are alternatives (“A or B”) or coexist with each other (“A and B”), this one simply juxtaposes the field and the hedge without specifying their relationship to each other. Our uncertainty about their structural relationship leads us to pay closer attention to the relationship between the different parts of the simile, while the regular length of each clause and the graduated levels of grammatical subordination give a kind of symmetry
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and regularity to these scenes. Option A is one verse long (utque leues stipulae demptis adolentur aristis, .), and option B takes up the first half of . (ut facibus saepes ardent). A relative clause of one and one-half verses takes up the second half of the simile (quas . . . reliquit, .–). The relative clause, in turn, falls into three phrases of approximately equal length. In the second half of ., the subject and object of the clause come first (quas forte uiator) followed by a uel . . . uel correlative in . that introduces two alternative explanations for how the burning hedge caught fire. The main metrical break in . falls at the start of the second uel option, dividing the verse into two halves. While the main character in the simile is wreaking havoc on its surroundings, the structure of the simile fences in the damage with orderly parallelisms that offer a counterweight to the subject matter. When an option simile changes direction midstream, each of the images will be no longer than a couple of verses. As a result, the richness of detail that creates a compelling and autonomous simile vignette cannot accumulate. Moreover, the “and” or “or” in the middle of an option simile reminds us that a particular scene has been chosen by the narrator. The beginning and ending “as/so” expressions do this for any simile, but an option simile also interrupts a simile while it is in progress with a reminder that it is not a glimpse of an autonomous world but a fiction mediated by the teller of the tale. Both of these features of option similes erect roadblocks that make it harder to immerse ourselves in the story being told by a simile. This foreshortened, self-conscious fictionality plays a greater role in Ovid’s similes than in any of his extant predecessors, one of many ways in which simile structures draw our attention to the process of narration more than in earlier epics. And because option similes are common in Ovid’s elegiac poetry, this structure adds an elegiac coloring to the Metamorphoses. Ovid’s option similes combine his own elegiac practices with the evolving epic conventions for option similes. .. Pattern: Chase Of the three similes in Metamorphoses , the last most closely follows the simile conventions of earlier epic similes. As in the previous fire simile, a simile motif that in earlier epics was associated with battle is now used to describe an erotic pursuit (eros). In some respects, the characters in the simile behave as they might have done in a battle scene. But the identity and combination of animals is new. As Apollo gains on the frightened Daphne, a simile depicts a dog chasing a hare and just failing to capture it.
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. Metamorphoses : Setting the Stage
The repeated correlative words in the simile, the equal length devoted to describing the experience of each character, and the artistry of various parallelisms make this a scene of both chasing and being chased. Each character’s experiences get equal attention, and neither viewpoint takes precedence over the other. While Apollo tells Daphne that she need not fear him in the way that various weaker animals fear a predator (.–), this hunting simile shows the self-serving duplicity of his words.
Metamorphoses 1.533–39 Like a hound of Gaul seeing a hare in an empty field, that heads for its prey, she for safety: he, seeming about to clutch her, thinks now, or now, he has her fast, ð535Þ grazing her heels with his outstretched jaws, while she uncertain whether she is already caught, escaping his bite, leaves behind the muzzle touching her. So are the maiden and the god: he driven by desire, she by fear. (after Kline trans.)
ut canis in uacuo leporem cum Gallicus aruo uidit, et hic praedam pedibus petit, ille salutem, alter inhaesuro similis iam iamque tenere ð535Þ sperat et extento stringit uestigia rostro, alter in ambiguo est an sit comprensus et ipsis morsibus eripitur tangentiaque ora relinquit; sic deus et uirgo est, hic spe celer, illa timore.
As so often in similes, the first line tells us the identity of the key characters, their relationship, and the setting. The dog is not the unspecified “dog” that we would find in a pre-Ovidian simile but a canis Gallicus (“hound of Gaul”), a specific kind of dog that Romans used for hunting. This moves the simile from a timeless, typical world to one that shares specific practices with Ovid’s contemporary reader. The dog, the hare, and the empty field in which they meet are interwoven across ., but we do not fully understand the situation until the main verb arrives with the first word of .. Like the story, this simile portrays a scene of vision and desire in which two animals run (pedibus petit, .) for opposite reasons (hic praedam . . . ille salutem). The bulk of the simile presents the viewpoint of the pursuer and then of the pursued in two couplets introduced by the correlatives alter . . . alter (., .). Each couplet pinpoints the moment when the predator is on the verge of capturing its prey, yet it never quite does so, placing us within the experience of each creature in turn. For the dog, the chase is led by its alert snout (extento . . . rostro,
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Ovid Metamorphoses: Stories of Eros and Epic
.), the embodiment of its physical urge to track prey and of the happy expectation of having the desired object in its mouth (.–, with the emotion sperat at the center of the couplet). The hare, for its part, can only react to the dog (.–). It extricates itself from the dog’s very jaws (ipsis morsibus eripitur . . . relinquit, .–), which the hare experiences as a threat rather than as the physical desire that the dog enjoys. Because the hare escapes, it succeeds in its aim for the chase where the dog fails. But the hare – like Daphne – is still in some sense a powerless victim even though it escapes with its life, because it responds to the dog’s attack rather than choosing its own course. ..
Pattern: Conventional Simile Subjects Doing Unconventional Things
As compared to earlier poems, the Metamorphoses has more hares, they form a larger proportion of the prey animals in the simile world, and they have more central roles in the similes in which they appear. In the simile world in general, hares appear in chase scenes less often than many other prey animals (such as herd animals or deer), and the majority of the other hare similes differ from this one in both structure and content. First, most simile hares are presented as one prey alternative among several. Hares appear in similes in the Iliad in scenarios with “[predator] chases hare or [prey option B]” (.– and .–), but hare similes in later epics involve more complex multiple scenarios. For readers of Ovid who happen to know that all but one of the hares in extant pre-Ovidian epic appear in option similes, the hare in this simile might bring to mind the option form of the fire simile earlier in the Apollo and Daphne episode (.–), highlighting Ovid’s choice not to use an option structure for a kind of simile character who has been most at home elsewhere in an option simile. Moreover, in other similes where a hare is the only victim rather than one option among several, the predator is an eagle, not a land animal (Iliad .–, cf. Metamorphoses .–). The fundamental differences between an airborne predator and land-based prey cannot create the kind of evenhanded parallelism that characterizes this simile. So, this detailed scene of a dog chasing a hare is in fact unique in the simile world of animal chase similes. Its resemblance to battle chase similes is less than at first appears. And this is typical of Ovid’s epic style, in which even the most “epic” motifs turn out to have unprecedented features that color an epic tale with not-so-epic tones. Hares also have a new relationship to the story. They appear in the Metamorphoses not simply in scenes where women are pursued by
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. Metamorphoses : Setting the Stage
rapacious men, but in a small number of the most memorable and structurally prominent rape stories. The simile worlds of both the Metamorphoses and the Iliad have three scenes involving hares, even though the Iliad has more than twice as many similes and story scenes involving pursuit. In addition to the Daphne and Apollo story, whose programmatic and metapoetic implications have been well established (Nicoll ), hare similes appear in the mouth of Arethusa when she tells Ceres how she escaped from Alpheus (.– with a brief preview at .–), and in the Philomela story (.–), perhaps the apex of brutality and violence in the poem – if not the entire tapestry of classical mythology (Rosati : –) – whose violence is thrown into even greater relief because it is the first story in the poem in which the gods do not play a role. The ways that the hare “simile world” in the Metamorphoses both resembles and differs from the hare “worlds” of earlier epics are typical of Ovid’s narrative practices in the whole poem. .. An Epic of eros Not just the simile landscape but also the story setting of .– has changed in comparison to earlier epics. Ovid’s simile appears in an erotic chase whose participants are motivated by their conflicting feelings about each other, not on a battlefield. Different critics offer different interpretations of this martial motif transplanted into an erotic context. For some, the presence of a simile scenario also found in climactic chase episodes in Iliad and Aeneid in the first of the poem’s many erotic conflicts marks out the innovative terrain of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (e.g. von Glinski : –). Others take this as a joke either by or on Ovid. Critics who focus primarily on the simile’s content rather than its literary antecedents suggest that the metamorphosis of the “chase” motif from a military to an erotic context tells us that the “epic”-ness of the Metamorphoses will be found in erotic pursuits as much as in any other kind of tale. Indeed, “whether Ovid eroticizes the epic or epicizes the erotic then depends largely on the perspective one takes” (von Glinski : ). In fact, both are true simultaneously. This simile tells us that epic stakes – of life and death as well as of generic importance – arise in the Metamorphoses from elegiac themes. As we will see later, in no small part through the similes, the reverse is also true. There are often elegiac motivations and contexts behind apparently epic stories. In one crucial respect, this simile creates an expectation that remains largely unfulfilled in the rest of the poem. This is the only simile in the
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Ovid Metamorphoses: Stories of Eros and Epic
Metamorphoses that approaches a Homeric simile in its length and level of detail. The presence of such lavish detail in a simile in Metamorphoses tells us that a Homeric style of detail in a simile is within the realm of possibility in the poem, but then we never see it again. As a result, the shorter length and sparser detail in the subsequent similes in the Metamorphoses become a conscious narrative choice rather than an unmarked or unremarkable feature of simile structure. In this respect, our simile tells us that Ovid has decided to change a key aspect of the Homeric simile model even while many features of the simile world – and the poem’s inclusion of similes in the first place – will follow the norms of earlier epics. As a group, the three similes in Book establish consistent patterns for what similes in the Metamorphoses are about, how they are constructed, and what story features they describe. All of these similes relate to the feelings of the story characters, most of whom are gods, often when one character pursues another because of sexual desire. These story patterns recur for similes throughout the Metamorphoses, as do contemporary details in the simile world. But the regular presence of human actors in similes in Book sets up norms that fail to materialize in Books –, casting human characters in the simile world as intentionally and consciously marginalized. The structures of the similes in Metamorphoses highlight the option simile, which also plays an important role in the similes in the rest of the poem. But in other respects, the structures in the Book similes follow established norms more closely than the similes in the rest of the poem. For instance, the length and detail of the hare and dog comparison at .– will prove to be a kind of narrative black swan that does not recur. So too, the presence of exit words in all the similes in Book leaves us unprepared for the many similes in the Metamorphoses that return directly to the story without an exit expression as a narrative intermediary. This contrast between Book and the rest of the poem tells us that Ovid has intentionally changed a key aspect of conventional simile structure. Compared to earlier poems, his simile world has a different shape as well as a different cast of characters.
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Perseus and the Sea Monster: Fighting and Eros (.–)
Battle scenes in the Metamorphoses rarely contain similes. When battle scenes do include similes, they give the fighting an erotic, elegiac tone, just as similes in prominent erotic tales lend those stories an epic significance. Perseus’ battle in Book against Phineus and his supporters
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. Perseus and the Sea Monster: Fighting and Eros
represents “the first monumental war narrative of Ovid’s poem” (Keith : ). But the first battle narrative comes in Book when Perseus fights the sea monster that threatens Andromeda, with whom Perseus has fallen in love at first sight. The fight between Perseus and the sea monster is an aristeia in the grand epic manner, featuring all the flourishes of vocabulary, tone, and style (Barchiesi and Rosati : ). Perhaps its most striking epic feature is a cluster of four similes that describe the approach of the monster (.– and .–), Perseus stabbing it (.–), and its suffering and death (.–). These four similes, amplified by their appearance as part of the longest cluster in the poem, give Perseus’ fatal conflict with the sea monster more of an “epic” coloring than the later battle scene in the wedding hall, which has just two similes. The content of these four similes, as well as the story context in which they appear, foregrounds the idea of “newness,” sometimes in contradictory ways. This highlights the “newness” of the first fighting narrative in the Metamorphoses, which looks different than “epic” fighting in earlier extant poems. The first simile in this cluster compares the motion of the sea monster to a ship slicing a path through the sea with its prow, inverting the comparison of a ship to a sea monster that Accius and other early Latin poets had used to describe the Argo at the early period in mythological time when a ship was a strange and unfamiliar sight (Bömer : –; Barchiesi and Rosati : ). The ship is the main character in the simile, and the human beings who drive her motion appear almost as an afterthought.
Metamorphoses 4.706–8 Look, like a fast ship with pointed prow ploughing the water, driven by the sweat-covered muscles of her crew so the creature comes, parting the waves with surging breast. (after Kline trans.)
Ecce, uelut nauis praefixo concita rostro sulcat aquas iuuenum sudantibus acta lacertis, sic fera dimotis impulsu pectoris undis.
For most of the simile, the ship behaves like a sentient actor. It springs into the scene with the attention-grabbing particle ecce (“look”), which introduces a simile only here. Nauis (“ship”) is the first word of the simile as well as the subject of its main verb, and the ship behaves like a living creature. Concieo, “stir up, rouse,” from which concita (“swift,” .) is
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Ovid Metamorphoses: Stories of Eros and Epic
derived, refers to emotional as well as physical arousal (OLD def.’s b, ), portraying the ship as excitedly driving its beak through the water. Rostrum (“prow”), similarly, can refer to the snout of an animal (OLD def. ) or the military “beak” of a ship used for ramming enemy vessels (def. b). The rowers who power and presumably steer the ship are essentially part of the ship’s tackle. The agent of the passive participle acta (“driven”) might just as well be a bank of oars as the group of sweaty youths who drive the ship forward (iuuenum sudantibus . . . lacertis, .). In the immediate context, the simile focuses on the ship rather than the rowers because it describes a sea monster. At the same time, this presentation of the ship as the main character – even when human characters are present and are succeeding at what they are attempting to do – contributes to the pattern throughout the Metamorphoses in which change takes the form of peripheral elements that become central and vice versa. A different kind of “newness” arises from .–, which compares the distance of the monster from Andromeda bound to her rock with the range of the Balearic sling shot, an anachronistic and culturally specific technology that was a “striking weapon of the Roman army” (Anderson : ). Next, the swoop of Perseus and his sword is compared to an eagle that attacks a snake sunning itself in an empty field (.–). Each of these animals is found in attack similes before the Metamorphoses. But as with the dog/hare pairing in the chase simile for Apollo and Daphne (.–; see Section ..), this particular animal matchup is extremely rare. After three battle similes in a row with innovative, unexpected, or incongruous subjects, we are primed to expect more of the same. Instead, the final simile in this cluster likens the wounded monster to a boar encountering a pack of hounds, a familiar image for a mighty warrior at bay. But now, the familiar looks new, or at any rate surprising, by contrast with the preceding similes that have depicted either new subjects or conventional subjects from an unusual angle.
Metamorphoses 4.721–23 Hurt by the deep wound, now it reared high in the air, now it dived underwater, or turned now, like a fierce wild boar, when the dogs scare him, and the pack is baying around him. (Kline trans.) uulnere laesa graui modo se sublimis in auras attollit, modo subdit aquis, modo more ferocis uersat apri, quem turba canum circumsona terret.
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. Perseus and the Sea Monster: Fighting and Eros
Both the story leading up to the simile and the simile itself hurl us up, down, and around along with the fatally injured monster. In three different actions linked by the correlative modo . . . modo . . . modo (.–), the monster flings itself up into the air, dives down into the sea, and finally turns like a boar surrounded by a pack of noisy dogs. In the “up” and the “down” clauses, nearly every word describes the spatial position of the monster, lifting us up along with the bulk of the creature towering into the sky in . and then plunging us into the water in .. The third modo, the longest and most complex element in an emphatic technique known as “tricolon crescendo,” includes fresh spatial details (uersat and the first element in the apparent neologism circumsona, .). At the same time, the simile dwells on expressive features of the relationship between two mighty creatures. The simile is bracketed by line-final descriptions of the fear that each animal causes: the boar is “fierce” (ferocis), and the pack of dogs “scare” (terret) their prey. This simile embeds a conventional battlefield animal encounter within a unique structure – this is the only simile in our corpus introduced by more (literally, “in the manner of”) – to describe a surprising foe. The dying “warrior” is a fearsome monster who gains a kind of heroic stature from being likened to a boar attacked by hunting dogs. A monster is hardly a usual adversary in epic battles, and indeed, the similes that describe battle or fighting in the Metamorphoses almost never appear in a scene where one human warrior attacks or kills another in an unremarkable way. Moreover, insofar as no naval battles occur in either Homeric epic or Apollonius’ Argonautica, “the naval battle emerges as a distinct contribution to the tradition of ancient epic on the part of Roman poets” (Biggs : –). Even so, naval battles are surprisingly rare even in Roman epic. On the rare occasions when human beings are endangered by monsters at sea, they are in a group on board ship, not flying solo through the air on winged sandals. The conventional nature of this boar image casts the combat between Perseus and the sea monster as an epic battle, while also calling our attention to the many ways in which such an analogy is so inapt as to be almost egregious. In fact, this fight conquers battle itself, recasting it as a struggle over love and concerns more suited to elegiac poetry. This is particularly true if the subsequent battle between Perseus and Phineus in the wedding hall alludes to the battle between Odysseus and the suitors inside his palace (Odyssey .–, a connection mentioned in passing by Holzberg : ). The wedding context for the fighting in Book places battle inside the house so that it becomes a direct result of family relations run amok. This view of war is central to epic storytelling going back to the Iliad, where the Trojan
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Ovid Metamorphoses: Stories of Eros and Epic
War happens because Paris kidnapped Menelaus’ wife (cf. Herodotus Histories .). The Italian war in the Aeneid follows a marriage contract gone wrong. Yet both the Trojan War and the Italian War depict the family disruption as the proximate cause for a conflict with broader and deeper significance, and the battle inside Odysseus’ palace in Odyssey is a conflict over the fundamental societal values associated with the proper behavior of guests and hospitality. Perhaps Ovid is pointing out that even these paradigmatic epic wars are really about who gets to marry (or sleep with) whom. His narrative asks whether there is a meaningful difference between the strongly “elegiac” context for the fighting involving Perseus and the war at Troy, or even the founding of Rome itself.
. Arethusa: Fleeing from Eros Arethusa’s first-person narrative (.–) represents the high point of narrative complexity in the poem whose five layers of utterance have been memorably described as “something of a scandal in the ancient epic tradition” (Barchiesi : ). From Perseus, the Metamorphoses moves to his sibling and supporter Minerva, who meets the nine Muses when she visits the spring newly created by the hooves of Pegasus (.–). The Muses tell Minerva how they selected Calliope to sing the song with which they defeated some arrogant challengers to their singing ability, who were then turned into magpies when they lost (.–). The remainder of Book contains, in turn, a tale told by the muse Calliope, who tells a story about Ceres, who meets Arethusa. Several of these narrators tell stories about rape or attempted rape. Ceres is searching for her daughter Persephone who has been kidnapped by Pluto, and Arethusa tells Ceres about her narrow escape from Alpheus. Female narrators tell different kinds of stories of sexual assault than the main narrator does. When Arethusa relates to Ceres how she ran away from Alpheus (.–), she does not mention any of the wind-blown attractiveness brought on by flight that the main narrator often includes in such tales. Moreover, Arethusa’s tale is the only story of erotic pursuit that includes two chase similes, one of which has an unusual and engaging structure. Using two chase similes in the same story lends unique narrative brio to the only first-person narrative about the female experience of being pursued by a would-be rapist. After Arethusa has introduced herself to her audience(s) largely by dwelling on her aversion to fame or pursuits connected to her own beauty (.–), it comes as no surprise when she runs off as soon as Alpheus catches lustful sight of her swimming in his
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. Arethusa: Fleeing from Eros
stream. Both the story immediately before Arethusa’s first simile (.) and the simile itself describe the behavior of the pursuer and the pursued in closely parallel language (Rosati : –). While Arethusa’s firstperson narrative offers us multiple points of view, its most visceral language embodies her own experiences.
Metamorphoses 5.604–607 So I ran, and so he wildly followed, as a dove flies from a hawk on trembling wings, ð605Þ as a hawk is used to chasing frightened doves. Even beyond Orchomenus . . . (after Kline trans.) sic ego currebam, sic me ferus ille premebat, ut fugere accipitrem penna trepidante columbae, ð605Þ ut solet accipiter trepidas urgere columbas. usque sub Orchomenon . . .
Even though the narrator is retelling a story of her own terrified flight from assault, she uses the syntactic and poetic parallelism that gives evenhanded attention to both animals in a chase simile (cf. .–). But whereas the simile in the Daphne and Apollo story casts the fleeing hare as an essentially reactive creature whose subjective experiences are elusive, the “affective focus” of this simile is the dove to which Arethusa compares herself (Anderson : ). Both verses of the simile bring out the feelings of the dove alone (“trembling” [trepidante], .; “frightened” [trepidas], .) alongside the physical actions of each animal (fugere, .; urgere, .). Trepido, the verb that Arethusa uses for the dove’s feelings, goes right to the heart of the female subjective experience of sexual danger because it combines a physical (OLD def.’s and ) and an emotional reaction (def. ) to a threat of bodily harm. The hare simile with which Arethusa dramatizes her growing fear as Alpheus gains on her has greater length and narrative complexity than any other simile spoken by a character. As in the two chase-related similes in Book , highly wrought rhetorical sophistication contrasts with the raw terror of looming sexual violence. Here that clash of tonalities is even more gripping than it is in Book , because the narrator herself is using these rhetorical devices to shape her own experience.
Metamorphoses 5.625–31 And [he] twice called out ‘Arethusa, O Arethusa!’ ð625Þ What wretched feelings were mine, then? Perhaps what the lamb has
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Ovid Metamorphoses: Stories of Eros and Epic
when it hears the wolves, howling round the high fold, or the hare, that, hidden in the briars, sees the dogs’ hostile muzzles, and does not dare to make a movement of its body? ð630Þ He did not go far: he could see no signs of my tracks further on . . . (after Kline
trans.)
et bis “io Arethusa, io Arethusa!” uocauit. ð625Þ quid mihi tunc animi miserae fuit? anne quod agnae est, si qua lupos audit circum stabula alta frementes, aut lepori, qui uepre latens hostilia cernit ora canum nullosque audet dare corpore motus? non tamen abscedit (neque enim uestigia cernit ð630Þ longius ulla pedum) . . .
Each of the vignettes in this comparison introduces the prey animal with a rhetorical question, “what [feelings] the lamb has . . . or the hare” (quod [animi] agnae est, .; aut lepori, .). These terse questions make the prey the center of our attention, and the structure casts the predators as peripheral characters because they come onto the scene later as part of relative clauses. Arethusa’s descriptions of both the lamb (.–) and the hare (.–) make us see and feel what the prey animals see and feel. The lamb hears wolves growling around its pen (audit circum . . . frementes, .); the hare is stunned into immobility when it sees the muzzles of dogs (.–). Yet both the lamb and the hare are in the dative case within a syntactical structure where the pursued animal is “acted upon” by the other components of the sentence. These animals have no agency in the scenes in which they appear even while they have most of the power in the narrated version of their plight. While the experiencing Arethusa is paralyzed by fear, the narrating Arethusa uses rhetorical questions and an option structure to give shape and aesthetic interest to those emotions for her many layers of audiences, including herself. This contrast brings an additional dimension of samedifferent dynamism into the simile-story pairing. It highlights in a particularly gripping and effective way the power of narrative to recast terror and violence into grace and beauty. The narrating Arethusa can experience the assault after the fact differently than she did at the time. Indeed, someone who retells a tale of their own past trauma can make sense of the experience through the narrative process. Both the structure and the content of the story shape its meaning. For instance, a simile in the form of a rhetorical question with two different options whose grammatical structures are not entirely parallel (anne quod . . . si [.–] followed by aut . . . qui [.]) is almost unheard of. Rhetorical questions by definition mean
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. Arethusa: Fleeing from Eros
something different from what their linguistic form and propositional content appear to suggest, often placing the speaker in a dominant position over the addressee, whose response is shaped by the structure of the question. The purpose of the question format in such a statement is not to elicit information from the addressee but to arouse feelings about some information that is already known to the speaker and often to the addressee. Both the strong emotional appeal to the addressees that a rhetorical question creates and the extreme rarity of such questions in similes before the Metamorphoses give Arethusa’s narrative a powerful emotional force. Moreover, the power dynamics of rhetorical questions imply that the rhetorical question structure itself helps Arethusa to gain control over her experiences through her narrative. With her pair of similes, Arethusa does two contradictory things at once, as good narrative – especially good Ovidian narrative – is wont to do. On the one hand, the similes lend an immediacy and vividness both to Alpheus’ lust (.–) and to Arethusa’s flagging spirits (.–), now from her point of view rather than the “double perspective” (Rosati : ) of her first simile. Yet this is a highly self-conscious series of similes whose construction calls attention to its narrated fictionality with almost every word that comes out of Arethusa’s mouth. Arethusa’s richly crafted narrative, including her similes about sexual violence, embodies the difference between violence as experienced and violence as narrated. The story of Arethusa, who is spotlighted as a storyteller by the unprecedented number of narrative layers that surround her story, accomplishes the same feat of transforming her experiences into aesthetic enjoyment that lies at the heart of the Metamorphoses. The similes in Arethusa’s tale encapsulate that feature of narrative in a nutshell. .. Weave: Character-Narrated Similes Most similes in character-narratives appear in stories where narrative itself is a key theme. Unlike earlier epics in which either few or no characters use similes, Arethusa is one of many characters in the Metamorphoses who include similes in their stories. The tales of the three Minyeides (.–) are the first character stories to include similes, and each sister uses similes in a lavish yet individual style. The unnamed first sister decides to tell the tale of Pyramus and Thisbe, the first story in the poem that describes a human love affair between two willing mortals (Barchiesi and Rosati : ). She includes two similes in a tale of just over verses (.–). The third sister, Alcithoe, uses a startling five similes in her
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Ovid Metamorphoses: Stories of Eros and Epic
-verse tale of Salmacis and Hermaphroditus (.–), four of which make up one of the longest simile clusters in the Metamorphoses. By contrast, when the middle sister-narrator, Leuconoe, relates a story about the loves of the sun (.–), she neither begins with selfreferential dithering about her choice of subject matter as the first sister does (.–) nor includes any similes. These three different tales set the tone for the frequent and varied similes that character-narrators will use throughout the Metamorphoses. All three of the character-narrators whose extended tales mark off the three pentads of the Metamorphoses also use multiple similes in their tales. Arethusa’s two similes in Book occur in the densest layering of narrative in the poem, which brings the first pentad of the poem to an end. The sheer length and variety of the tales that Orpheus tells (.–) position him as an alter ego of Ovid, bringing the second pentad of the poem to an end in the mouth of the very first poet of them all. The structure as well as the content of his tales single him out as a unique kind of narrator: Orpheus is the only character-narrator to tell several stories that each include a single simile, giving him a combination of breadth and variety as a constructor of stories that no other character narrator has. And finally, Pythagoras’ long speech at the beginning of Book “highlights [Ovid’s] poem’s unique blending of the diverse subgenres of hexameter poetry” (Segal : ). As the poem draws to an end with a sweeping vision of generic richness, Pythagoras uses didactic analogies like those found in Lucretius to compare two similar phenomena, rather than epic similes that juxtapose things whose differences are more prominent than their commonalities. The similes in Pythagoras’ speech act out one of its main messages: one of the most easily recognizable markers of the epic genre turns into something else.
. Ceyx: A New Kind of Simile “Story” One simile cluster in Metamorphoses tells a new kind of story not found in earlier epics. A series of similes, comprising a single comparison (.–) closely followed by a cluster of two more, describes the successful siege of a city from the perspectives of both the attackers (.–) and the city inhabitants (.–). Together, these similes develop their own independent plot that parallels the story of the shipwreck of Ceyx and his crew. The content of the simile and the story worlds in this episode are commonly found in both similes and mythological stories. Storms at sea appear regularly in mythological epics in both
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. Ceyx: A New Kind of Simile “Story”
the story and simile worlds, while the fall of a besieged city would be a familiar subject from epic tales including the Trojan War poems that survive as well as the Theban epics that largely do not. Moreover, the richness of detail in these similes seems more suited to the main story than the briefer vignettes that are typical of similes in the Metamorphoses. The narratives of story and simile more closely resemble each other in this scene than anywhere else in our corpus. Together, the similes and the story tell a story of human powerlessness and isolation, of assault by a stronger foe, of defeat and death. But human experience, emotion, and perception remain the focus of the story even when human beings themselves are barely mentioned or are entirely absent. The hyperbolic quality of the storm in comparison to the similar episode that opens the Aeneid emphasizes the fictionality of Ceyx’s story as does the unique parallel tale told by the three similes. But as the Metamorphoses often reminds us, feelings that arise from an obviously fictional situation are still human feelings that stir our own emotions in response. This arresting group of similes helps to mark off Book as a major transition point in the poem. Most important, Book begins the section of the Metamorphoses that focuses on the Trojan War and historical rulers. The narrative framework for Book is provided by the Trojan War, which serves as a transition from the mythological age of heroes to the time of “today.” The story of Peleus and Thetis, where Trojan War stories often begin, soon yields the narrative limelight to the love story between Peleus’ host Ceyx and his wife Alcyone, whose story takes up nearly half of Book (.–). The notionally “epic” stories about the walls of Troy (.–) and the marriage of Peleus and Thetis (.–) that precede this tale unfold in a brief and terse style that is thrown into relief by the expansive narration of the love story that engulfs us along with Ceyx and Alcyone. The most expansive narrative style of tales that happen during the time frame of the Trojan War belongs not to the war itself but to the love stories within it. We first meet Ceyx, the king of Trachis, when he offers sanctuary to Peleus after he kills his brother Phocus (.–). After Ceyx relates the story of the metamorphosis of his brother Daedalion into a hawk (.–), a series of strange portents occur (.–), and he decides to consult the oracle of Delphi for further information (.–). As Ceyx sails off, the wind rises and the ship struggles with ever-increasing difficulty against the towering waves. The phrase that launches this section of the narrative, bella gerunt uenti (.), casts the storm as a siege from the start (Otis : ). The crash of waves
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striking the side of the ship evokes a battering ram or catapult smashing into a citadel (.–); after the rain grows heavier (.–), the waves leap inside the ship just as a lone soldier scales the walls of a besieged city ahead of his comrades (.–); as waves damage the interior of the ship, other waves loom over the foundering craft like the residents of a city under siege who fear both the enemies outside the walls and those already within (.–). After this third comparison, the ship is evidently doomed as the story turns to the different ways in which the individual sailors meet their deaths (.–). The “battle” between the storm and the ship is portrayed as a literal battle in the tale of the three similes that describe the storm. This episode tells two parallel stories at the same time, both of which end with the deaths of those under attack. Human characters are peripheral to both the story and the first simile, yet both dwell on sensations of space and sound that imply a human presence to perceive them. As the ship pitches about on the stormy sea – the subject of its sentence even while it exerts no control over its own course – it is given an ethnic designation as though it were a person (ipsa . . . Trachinia puppis, .). The ship seems to “look” down from the top of a high wave or up from the bottom of a trough (despicere . . . uidetur, .; suspicere, .). While the ship acts as a kind of sentient presence in the scene, no human characters are mentioned, either on board the ship or in the simile that compares the crash when a wave strikes the side of the ship to the sound of siege weaponry.
Metamorphoses 11.507–9 Again and again the force of the flood strikes the sides with a huge crash, sounding no lighter a blow than when, sometime, an iron ram, or a catapult, strikes a damaged fortress. (Kline trans.) saepe dat ingentem fluctu latus icta fragorem nec leuius pulsata sonat quam ferreus olim cum laceras aries ballistaue concutit arces;
Sound, like sight, implies an ear to perceive it, yet neither besiegers nor besieged are mentioned in the simile. Only their noisy weapons and their damaged fortifications are. The sensory vividness of the ship tossing on the waves and siege weapons thudding against a fortification involve us in these scenes, but they also draw our attention to the silence of both the story and the simile about the human characters who experience these events. We know who the story characters are even if they are not mentioned. But who might be wielding the battering ram or cowering
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. Ceyx: A New Kind of Simile “Story”
away from it? An assault on a besieged citadel evokes Troy, given that we first meet Ceyx as the host of Peleus, and we have now arrived in the story at the time of the Trojan War, yet the Greeks did not conquer Troy with physical force like a battering ram. As everyone knows, they resorted to deception instead. Moreover, the anachronistic weapons in the simile suggest a Hellenistic or Roman setting rather than a mythological one. As often, a gap between the simile and the story directs our attention to key themes, in this case both the story of the Trojan War and the anachronisms that often bring the contemporary world of Ovid’s readers into the simile world. As the storm worsens, the ship begins to fall apart. Now the sea is the main character, bounding inside the foundering vessel like a soldier scaling the wall of a besieged city in advance of his comrades. This simile is one of the most detailed in the poem (Bömer : ). Moreover, fight scenes elsewhere in the epic simile world rarely reach this level of specificity. Yet as in the first simile in the Metamorphoses (.–), this soldier has no direct contact with the other characters, either his comrades or the residents of the besieged city. His valor and his desire for glory affect only himself.
Metamorphoses 11.524–32 Now the sea pours into the ship’s hollow hull, as well. ð525Þ As a soldier, more outstanding than the rest, who has often tried to scale the battlement of a besieged city, succeeds at last, and fired with a love of glory, takes the wall, one man in a thousand; so when the waves have battered nine times against the steep sides, the tenth wave surging with greater impetus rushes on, ð530Þ does not cease to attack the beleaguered craft, until it breaches the conquered vessel’s defenses. (Kline trans.) dat quoque iam saltus intra caua texta carinae fluctus; et ut miles, numero praestantior omni, ð525Þ cum saepe adsiluit defensae moenibus urbis, spe potitur tandem laudisque accensus amore inter mille uiros murum tamen occupat unus, sic, ubi pulsarunt nouiens latera ardua fluctus, uastius insurgens decimae ruit impetus undae, ð530Þ nec prius absistit fessam oppugnare carinam quam uelut in captae descendat moenia nauis.
As the wave is compared to an attacking soldier (fluctus; et ut miles . . . .), the ship is likened to a city in that both are walled defensive
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Ovid Metamorphoses: Stories of Eros and Epic
structures (defensae moenibus urbis, .; latera ardua, .; uelut in captae descendat moenia nauis, .). But we do not meet the inhabitants of either the ship or the city. Instead, both the story and the simile immerse us in the physical and emotional experiences of the attacking force. The personified wave leaps into the ship (.–), an action mirrored in the spring of the soldier onto the walls of the city (.–). The passion that inflames the soldier (laudisque accensus amore, .) both enlivens our experience of his attack and casts the wave as a sentient opponent of the ship. Even though the soldier’s attack against a hostile city unfolds alongside his desire to outshine his comrades, the comrades play no role in the scene beyond offering a backdrop to his success. The sea continues to act as a conscious individual after the story resumes, battering the sides of the ship nine times until the tenth attacking wave finally overpowers it. The “nine times” motif characterizes particularly impressive battle assaults in Homeric epic, and oppugnare (“attack,” .) casts the wave’s defeat of the ship as a military action. The sentient qualities of the wave draw our attention by contrast to the comparative lack of human beings elsewhere in this narrative. Unlike the simile wave at Argonautica .– whose eager attack is averted by a skillful helmsman, these marauding waters encounter no meaningful opposition from the human beings on board, rampaging unchecked through the ship. Both the absence of human characters in the story and the lack of human interaction in the simile make this a tale of intensely felt isolation rather than a group endeavor by either the attackers or the besieged. As seawater spreads through the sinking ship, the human beings on board are mentioned at last. As the sailors fear imminent death, they are compared to the residents of a city whose walls have been breached by besiegers. When the bastion of protection falls to the enemy, the “story” in this series of similes switches its perspective from the besiegers to the defeated. Neither the sailors nor the inhabitants of the defeated city have control over what happens to them. They can only wait fearfully to die.
Metamorphoses 11.533–37 So one part of the sea is still trying to take the ship, and part is already inside. Everyone is afraid, as a city is frightened when some are undermining the wall from outside, ð535Þ while others hold the wall from within. Skill fails, and courage ebbs, and as many separate deaths as advancing waves seem to rush upon them and burst over them. (after Kline trans.)
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. Ceyx: A New Kind of Simile “Story”
pars igitur temptabat adhuc inuadere pinum, pars maris intus erat; trepidant haud setius omnes, quam solet urbs aliis murum fodientibus extra ð535Þ atque aliis murum trepidare tenentibus intus. Deficit ars animique cadunt totidemque uidentur, quot ueniunt fluctus, ruere atque inrumpere mortes.
When the storm first threatens the ship, a pars . . . pars (“part . . . part”) correlative construction describes various efforts made by some of the sailors to right their vessel (.). But now, the agency and coordination associated with such a correlative belong to the sea, not the sailors. In both the simile and the story, the attackers make the plans and take the initiative (temptabat, .; aliis murum fodientibus, .; aliis murum . . . tenentibus, .). Meanwhile, the besieged city is terrified by the attackers both within and outside its walls (trepidant, .; trepidare, .). As when the ship itself rather than its human crew is the focus of the first simile, the last simile attributes the terror of conquering warriors to the city (urbs, .), not to the humans who live there. The sailors have lost hope of surviving (animique cadunt, .), and they prepare for death rather than making any further attempt to save their ship (.–). Both strands of the narrative highlight the emotions of defeat and imminent death rather than the human beings who experience those feelings. The similes in Book as a group mark the end of the mythological section of the epic and the start of something different in which similes to a large extent recede from the narrative. Given the close generic association between similes and mythological epic (e.g. Feeney : ), the smaller role of similes in the narrative of Books – changes the generic coloring of this part of the poem, complementing the analogous change in what the stories are about. This unique series of similes that accompanies Ceyx’s shipwreck marks a high point in the role of similes in the narrative before they subside in the historical section of the poem. This tale includes the last simile cluster in the poem except for two similes in Pythagoras’ speech (.–, on the changeability of wax, and .–, on the constant flux of rivers). Pythagoras’ similes stand apart from others in the poem in the same way that his speech does: they act like the analogies frequent in didactic poetry rather than the story similes that go off on engaging human tangents in the middle of a mythological narrative. Thus, the story of Ceyx includes the last cluster that appears in a mythological story or a story told by the narrator rather than a character. Both the decrease in similes and the absence of clusters after the story of Ceyx and Alcyone mark a significant change in the construction of the narrative as it enters its historical phase.
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Ovid Metamorphoses: Stories of Eros and Epic
. Hecuba the Hero After the story of Ceyx and Alcyone ends with their metamorphosis into birds (.–), the Trojan War rages throughout Book , most of which consists of Nestor telling stories during a truce (.–). After the city falls, Ajax and Odysseus debate which one of them should be awarded the armor of the dead Achilles (.–) while mothers of Trojans or Trojan allies who died during the war lament for their children (Hecuba, .–; Aurora, .–). When Hecuba discovers the corpse of her son Polydorus washed up on the beach at Troy, treacherously slain by Polymestor, the Thracian king to whom Priam had sent Polydorus for safety, she is at first so shocked that her grief “devours” both voice and tears (.–). We follow every step of her response as she looks down at the ground, up to the sky, and finally, intently, at the wounds of her dead child (nunc positi spectat uultum, nunc uulnera nati, / uulnera praecipue, .–). We live with her through the first shocked moments when time stands still after a terrible blow. As Hecuba arms herself in her rage, a simile characterizes her as an epic hero by likening her to a lion, the simile character most strongly associated with heroism, power, and bravery.
Metamorphoses 13.544–49 [Hecuba] armed and arrayed herself in anger. Then it blazed out, and as if she were still a queen, ð545Þ she determined on vengeance, her whole mind filled with thoughts of punishment, like a lioness maddened by the theft of her unweaned cub, that, though she cannot see her enemy, follows the traces she finds of his footsteps, so Hecuba, after she mingled her grief with anger . . . (after Kline trans.) seque armat et instruit ira. qua simul exarsit, tamquam regina maneret, ð545Þ ulcisci statuit poenaeque in imagine tota est, utque furit catulo lactente orbata leaena signaque nacta pedum sequitur quem non uidet hostem, sic Hecabe, postquam cum luctu miscuit iram . . .
The emotions in this scene evoke the furor that rages through the Aeneid in particular but also in battle more generally. Hecuba is driven by burning anger (ira, . [also ., ., .]; exarsit, .), and the lioness in the simile feels furor (.) when she is deprived of her cub. Every word in . focuses on the powerful feelings that the parent feels
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. Hecuba the Hero
toward the child. “Unweaned cub” arouses our sympathy because of what it describes, not because of how it is phrased: we automatically assume that a nursing youngster needs the constant care of its mother and that the mother is invested in providing that care. A mother deprived of such a nursling has lost something precious. Orbo, the verb from which orbata is derived, means both “bereaved (usually of a child)” (OLD def. b) and “rob, deprive (of anything necessary or precious)” (OLD def. ). In response to her bereavement, the angry mother follows the person who took her cub. The simile follows her progress in finding the perpetrator: . begins with his tracks (signaque nacta pedum), and it ends by identifying him simply as “enemy” (hostem). Hostem is essentially an emotional deictic, identifying this person by his relationship to the lioness but giving us no sense of who he is or what his motivations might be. This attention to the lioness and her feelings springs into sharper relief by comparison with the Iliad simile on which this simile is based, a simile that likens Achilles lamenting the death of Patroclus to a bereaved lion whose gender has been the subject of ongoing disagreement. The Iliad simile is longer and more detailed, and it, too, concentrates mainly on the bereaved lion, but the person responsible for taking the cubs does have an independent (if somewhat mysterious) identity.
Iliad 18.317–23 [Achilles] laying his man-killing hands on his great friend’s chest, choked with bursts of grief. Like a bearded lion whose pride of cubs a deer-hunter has snatched away, out of some thick woods, and back he comes, too late, ð320Þ and his heart breaks but he goes after the hunter, hot on his tracks down glen on twisting glen – where can he find him? – gripped by piercing rage . . . so Achilles groaned, deeply. . . (after Fagles trans.) χεῖρας ἐπ’ ἀνδροφόνους θέμενος στήθεσσιν ἑταίρου, πυκνὰ μάλα στενάχων ὥς τε λὶς ἠϋγένειος, ᾧ ῥά θ’ ὑπὸ σκύμνους ἐλαφηβόλος ἁρπάσῃ ἀνὴρ ὕλης ἐκ πυκινῆς· ὁ δέ τ’ ἄχνυται ὕστερος ἐλθών, ð320Þ πολλὰ δέ τ’ ἄγκε’ ἐπῆλθε μετ᾽ ἀνέρος ἴχνι’ ἐρευνῶν, εἴ ποθεν ἐξεύροι· μάλα γὰρ δριμὺς χόλος αἱρεῖ· ὣς ὁ βαρὺ στενάχων . . .
Here, too, the lion is the main character, and we never learn why the cubs were taken, but the hunter and his action appear briefly as an independent character in the story and not simply through the eyes of the lion (.).
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Ovid Metamorphoses: Stories of Eros and Epic
In contrast to this simile and to the many similes in erotic contexts in the Metamorphoses that depict the experiences of both participants in a conflict, the absence of any perspective other than the bereaved lioness calls attention to itself. So, too, even though Ovid is telling a well-known story about Hecuba’s killing of Polymestor in retaliation for his treacherous murder of her son – a tale that arouses significant moral qualms about her behavior in some earlier versions of the tale – Ovid’s story smooths out those ethical issues. The episode ends by commenting that Hecuba’s actions are viewed sympathetically by both mortals and gods and that her metamorphosis into a dog after killing Polymestor is undeserved (.–). The single-minded focus of the simile on the feelings of the lioness helps to create a morally straightforward tale out of a more complex story. Both the Iliad and the Metamorphoses passages capture the volatile mixture of sorrow and rage that characterizes bereavement. The Iliad simile is linked to the story by the sorrow that Achilles feels as he grieves for his dead comrade (στενάχων, . and .), a feeling that he shares with the lion (ἄχνυται, .). The lion pursues the hunter out of “piercing rage” (δριμὺς χόλος, .), and Achilles describes himself in his lament as “venting my rage . . . for your [Patroclus’] destruction” (σέθεν κταμένοιο χολωθείς, .). Hecuba, too, is driven by both grief and anger, and the story resumes as she acts on both feelings together (.). The power of the emotions conveyed by this simile arises not simply from how it presents the feelings themselves but also from unique features of the simile that distinguish it from the rest of the simile world. In the Iliad, the grief and powerlessness of the lion whose strength normally protects it from the losses experienced by other creatures in the simile world has a shocking effect (see further Chapter , Section ..). There are no other lions in the Iliad who suffer in this way, alongside simile lions who threaten or harm other animals. Lions are sometimes defeated or killed, but outside of this simile, they are never bereaved. The uniqueness of this simile scene highlights the plight of the lion and the spectacle of the mighty Achilles powerless against the sorrow of bereavement, which affects everyone in the Iliad including the strongest warriors and the gods themselves. If this is in fact the only lion simile in the Metamorphoses, Ovid has reserved the simile character most closely associated with heroic valor not for a warrior, nor even for an erotic conflict, but for a mother responding to the murder of her child. Through the likeness that the simile creates between Hecuba and Achilles, she, too, becomes an epic hero. When Hecuba kills Polymestor, her action is not simply the only form of heroism available to a queen who has become a slave. In her rage, her
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sorrow, and her likeness to a lion, Hecuba accomplishes the same epic feats that distinguish Achilles, Odysseus, Medea, Dido, Turnus, and Aeneas. She reminds us that emotions motivate heroic actions for characters that range from an enslaved widow in the ruins of her home to the strongest and bravest heroes of epic.
. Conclusions The simile world of the Metamorphoses, like the story world, is a less cohesive place than we are accustomed to experience in epic poetry. Instead of a freestanding fictional world based on consistent, distinctive relations between human characters and their environment, the simile world of the Metamorphoses is defined by variety. Key characters play walk-on roles or never appear at all. The craftspeople, sailors, and hunters familiar to us from earlier epics encounter unfamiliar or anachronistic items, including the Roman people (.–), a mirror (.–), and rotten apples (.–). Even conventional characters such as predator and prey animals meet in new combinations. The simile world of the Metamorphoses, like the story world, is both the same as and different from the world of earlier epics. But these similes play their customary role in shaping the tale by accompanying the story moments that bring out the poem’s key themes, including human feelings and the conflict and violence that often accompany sexual desire. The same changes to the content and structure that weaken our sense of similes as cohesive, autonomous fictions also make them even more engaging and versatile as windows onto, or characters in, the narrative process. Character narrators, option similes, anachronisms, and the comparative brevity of Ovid’s similes highlight the narrative form of similes at least as much as the content of the simile world. These structural features engage us in the power of emotions just as compellingly as the simile stories in any other poem. In the Metamorphoses, similes unite two key themes of the poem: narrative and change. They give epic stature to erotic desire and to family bereavement, reminding us that love has been a heroic exploit since the Homeric epics. In the Metamorphoses, similes tell a tale of both sameness and difference in the ongoing story of epic similes.
Notes In a particularly well-known instance of how Vergil’s poetry influences Ovid, the “Aeneid” in Metamorphoses – uses Vergil’s poem as “a frame for largely unrelated tales” that appear pointless or inept to readers who take
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Vergil as the normative standard for epic poetry (Tissol : , see also n). Hinds (: –) explains how Ovid uses the framework of the Aeneid to bring forward the key players in his own story and to highlight how they differ from Vergil’s key players. Less than one-quarter of the similes in the Metamorphoses is longer than verses ( of ) compared to more than half of the similes in the Argonautica ( of ) and about two-thirds of those in the Aeneid ( of ). Wilkins () connects the shorter length of the similes in the Metamorphoses with Ovid’s poetic style – “Ovid’s similes differ from theirs [Homer, Vergil, and Apollonius] in that his similes are mainly lyric [which for Wilkins includes elegiac], rather than epic, in type” (). The similes in the Metamorphoses include anachronisms (twice as many as in the Aeneid) and option similes. These details would be known to the audience, however. Wheeler (: –, with bibliography) discusses in greater detail the knowledge gap between the gods and the external audience. More than one-third of the similes in the Metamorphoses depicts emotion ( of ). The Iliad has close to the same number of similes about feelings, but it has more than twice as many similes in total ( of , percent). In other poems, emotions range from to percent of the story subjects described by similes ( of , Argonautica; of , Aeneid; of , Odyssey). Commentators disagree about whether this represents a potential assassination attempt against Augustus (e.g. Bömer : –) or the murder of Julius Caesar in BCE; Barchiesi (: –) discusses the possibilities in detail. The rowers at .– are an example of collective activity (this simile is discussed in Section ..). In addition to this simile, a simile of besieging a city at .– features several individual characters who never come into direct contact; see further Section ... Approximately percent of similes ( of , Metamorphoses; of , Iliad; of , Odyssey; of , Argonautica). The relative lack of humans in the simile world of the Aeneid ( of ) was discussed in Chapter . For example, a slingshot (.–), a theater curtain (.–), a leaky pipe (.–), a ship (.–). Human beings must have created these artifacts, but the creators are nowhere to be seen. of similes that involve human beings. In other poems, “human-isimplied-but-not-mentioned” similes as a proportion of all similes that entail a human presence range from less than one-quarter ( of , Iliad; of , Odyssey; of , Argonautica) to percent ( of , Aeneid). Of craft similes in Homer, Apollonius, and Vergil, include human characters. The similes without a human character include from the Aeneid, from the Iliad, from the Odyssey, and from the Argonautica. The Metamorphoses has craft similes of which just mention a craftsman. A human character in a simile is identified most commonly simply as quis (“someone,” nine times, e.g. .), lacking even the specificity of a traveler (uiator, .), soldier (miles, e.g. .), or craftsman (faber, .).
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Notes
The longest simile in the Metamorphoses is seven verses long (.–), but it is made up of two different options. By contrast, it is quite possible that the ancient audience did know (Knox : ). The various instances of apostrophe at the conclusion of similes in earlier epics are addressed to the story character whom the simile describes (e.g. Iliad .–, Aeneid .–) providing a more expressive version of the conventional ring that encloses any epic simile. I am grateful to Talitha Kearey for this suggestion. At least similes (of ) contain an indisputable anachronism, but it is not always entirely clear whether a particular artifact is or is not linked to a specific time period. Anachronistic similes appear occasionally in the Aeneid (perhaps instances) but less often than in the Metamorphoses. von Glinski (: –; see especially n). While taking issue with some aspects of this idea, von Glinski concludes that “the formal distinction between anachronistic detail and anachronistic simile is valid since one places an object inside the fictional landscape while the other aims to convey an impression in the terms of Ovid’s contemporary audience, leaving the scene itself [emphasis added] undisturbed” (). Barchiesi () offers an illuminating discussion of the relationship between the two, widely recognized and discussed in studies of the Metamorphoses. Indeed, Barchiesi (: ) sees that connection as the reason for placing the first simile here. of similes about emotion describe some aspect of erotic passion, including the passion itself, an aversion to erotic desire (one’s own or someone else’s), or grief about separation from the beloved through death or rejection. Bömer (: ) and Barchiesi (: ) point out the contrast between the epic subject of the simile and the erotic context in which it appears; for Bömer, the effect of delay and surprise created by . explains the presence of this verse, but the option structure also contributes to the narrative. An important forerunner for using fire in an erotic context appears at Argonautica .– in which Medea’s love for Jason is compared to burning twigs. The comment of von Albrecht (: ) about this simile applies more broadly to similes about intense emotions. He says that this simile describes the experience of passion as “an outer quality belonging to one character [that] provokes a psychological reaction in another character and triggers the dramatic action.” This characterization aptly describes strong passions throughout the Metamorphoses. times Argonautica ( percent of similes), times Aeneid ( percent), times Metamorphoses ( percent). Hunter (: , with bibliography) discusses an example from Callimachus. Option similes comprise most of the comparisons in Ovid’s erotic poetry, usually giving one verse or less to each option. Typical examples include Ars Amatoria .–, which presents four options in less than three verses, and Amores ..–, containing three options).
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A number of commentaries point out the close resemblance between this simile and Aeneid .–; the most extensive list of parallels, also including Iliad .–, Argonautica .–, and Ennius Annales ff, can be found at Bömer (: ). All these similes appear in fighting scenes. von Glinski (: –) explores the complex relationship between Apollo’s hunting reference, the simile, and this scene as a whole. Both this discussion and the analysis of the Daphne episode at Richlin (: ) (which does not mention the simile) understate the extent to which the simile portrays Daphne’s experience of Apollo’s sexual violence as a central feature of the story. The main idea of Feichtinger () that the poem simultaneously objectifies women and thematizes their perspectives () is helpful here: as she notes, the hunting motif in the simile places Apollo in a position of greater power (), but the balanced structure of the simile undercuts that message. Anderson (: ) and Bömer (: –) collect Latin references to such dogs. Aeneid .– features two levels of multiples in which an eagle makes off with a hare or swan (.–) or a wolf captures a lamb (.–); at Metamorphoses .–, Arethusa uses an option simile to describe her own experience as erotic prey, comparing herself to a lamb that hears howling wolves or a hare hiding from dogs in brambles. von Glinski (: ) says that this encounter “reflects an artificial environment controlled by humans for their pleasure.” This view takes insufficient account of the fact that dogs in a simile always imply the presence of human hunters, even if the humans are not explicitly mentioned. Iliad .– depicts an analogous scene of dogs chasing a hare or a deer without mentioning a human hunter. Besides these six, the only other hare simile in our corpus is found at Aeneid .–. The jocular attitude of Hill () toward both Ovid in general and this episode in particular seems misplaced; in a comment on .–, he says that because similes are a “favourite device of high style from Homer on,” they are “deliciously inappropriate” for the “absurd episode” of Daphne and Apollo (). Nicoll () is closer to the mark when he ascribes programmatic force to the discomfiture of Apollo, the god of serious poetry, finding himself in the middle of a love story struggling for control of his own poetic medium (e.g. ). Solodow (: ) assigns a particular literary genre to the experiences of each character in part because of the simile. Apollo, “for whom the whole is a lark, a love adventure,” represents the elegiac side of the narrative. Daphne’s perspective is epic because “for her it is a matter of life or death.” Bömer (: ) mentions this feature of the simile briefly, but most critics pass over it entirely. This battle extends over approximately the first one-third of Book (–), and the similes appear at .– and .–. Apollonius places Perseus’ exploits before the voyage of the Argo – traditionally, the first ship – since bloody drops from the head of the Gorgon create the
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snake that fatally bites Mopsus in the Libyan desert near the end of the voyage of the Argonauts (Argonautica .–). This ship simile differs from Iliad .–, a rowing simile in which the rowers themselves are the main focus, and Argonautica .–, which foregrounds the response of the clever helmsman to conditions at sea. Conversely, other similes in which the ship is the main focus do not mention human beings at all (e.g. Iliad .–). Despite what Anderson () says (“the hostility between eagles and snakes provided a regular source of comparisons,” ), an eagle-snake pairing appears only once outside of Ovid (Aeneid .–) and twice in the Metamorphoses (also for the lustful Salmacis wrapping herself around the unwilling Hermaphroditus, .–). Both of Ovid’s snake similes describe a physical conflict with an erotic connection or origin. of similes in our corpus that describe a boar also include dogs. Many heroes are likened to boars, including Odysseus, Diomedes, Leontius and Polypoetes, Idomeneus, Patroclus, Ajax (Iliad, with boar similes); Jason (Argonautica .–); and Mezentius (Aeneid .–). In these encounters, sometimes the dogs win, and sometimes the boar does. The patterns for this matchup do not favor either animal as the victor. Katz (: –) gives a survey of how tricolon crescendo works and the development of scholarly opinions about it. Cyclops (Odyssey .– and .–) and Talus (Argonautica .–) are the only injured or dying monsters described with similes in surviving epics before the Metamorphoses. There are similes in the Metamorphoses that describe war or attack, of which only have a plausible claim to represent conventional battle scenes (the fighting at the wedding of Peleus and Andromeda, .– and .–). Like the similes about the encounter between Perseus and the sea monster, several “fighting” similes refer to attacks that are not part of a typical battle (as in the story Nestor tells in Book about the battle of the Lapiths and Centaurs, and another story where the fighting occurs in a dwelling after a dispute about women). In others, the attacker is not human (as with the Calydonian boar, .–) or not male (the Maenads kill Orpheus, .–). Conversely, the only simile in the Trojan War narrative likens the frustrated Achilles, as he fails again and again to injure Cycnus, to a bull in the arena rushing at a red cloth (.–). Because Brunner (: ) fails to distinguish between the different contexts in which characters attack each other, he erroneously claims that “scenes of intense physical activity, of battle and bloodshed [emphasis added], more often than not contain at least one long simile [more than two verses].” As Biggs () explains, this is due to a combination of naval scenes that we know existed but that do not survive (as in Naevius’ Bellum Poenicum) and the absence of battle scenes where we might expect to find them (as when the Colchians catch up to the Argonauts as they flee in the Argo with Medea and the Golden Fleece).
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Most famously, the hazards of Scylla and Charybdis are encountered by the ships of Odysseus and his men (Odyssey .–), the Argonauts (Argonautica .–), and Aeneas and the refugee Trojans (Aeneid .–). Battles at sea do occur in historical epics, such as the battle off Massilia in Lucan Bellum Ciuile .–, which features just one short simile (.–). Nagle () argues that the Metamorphoses distinguishes itself from earlier epics in part by the near absence of heroes who tell their own stories (e.g. , “this seeming reticence [to include autobiographical tales] extends to Ovidian heroes generally, and is especially striking in a work otherwise replete with tales by fictional characters”). This interpretation would be even stronger if it pointed out that the poem does include female narrators who tell stories about themselves. For instance, when Daphne runs away from Apollo, Ovid describes her bare limbs and fluttering garments, summing up her appearance with “her beauty enhanced by flight” (aucta fuga forma est, .). The fact that a female narrator does not include such details suggests that when information like this is included, it is focalized by the pursuer. My interpretation here differs in several respects from that of Richlin (). First, she ascribes the sentiment in . and similar passages to the narrator (e.g. ) and does not mention that Arethusa describes her experiences in a different way. The omission of lubricious personal details from Arethusa’s narrative is a point of crucial importance for understanding the subjective aspects of sexual assault in the Metamorphoses. Second, I disagree with her interpretation of sum uisa paratior (.). Richlin translates this phrase as “I looked readier” (), phrasing that implies that anyone looking at Arethusa would see her this way. The equally correct rendering “I seemed more available” would cast the statement instead as a self-serving interpretation by Alpheus. Odysseus is the first character in Greek and Latin literature who processes and refashions their own sufferings in this way. As Christensen (: ) points out, the storytelling process “allows Odysseus to exert control over his story, which is in itself of therapeutic significance. The way Odysseus presents his story may be a reflection of his own attempt to read or interpret his own experiences.” See further –, which discuss the theoretical basis for storytelling as a mode of psychological healing. Simile preceded by a rhetorical question, Argonautica .–. Simile followed by rhetorical question: Iliad .–, Aeneid .–. As Frank (: ) says, while rhetorical questions serve various purposes in conversation, “none of them is a request for information” (emphasis original). The category of “control-question” discussed by Minchin (: –) has some points in common with rhetorical questions, primarily the “control” that a rhetorical question can exert over the addressee. Just one-quarter of all the characters who tell a story includes a simile. Speech by characters (including but not limited to stories) represents more than one-half of the verses in the poem but includes just one-third of its similes.
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Notes
Of the character-narrators listed in Appendix A in Wheeler (), include a simile in at least one of their stories. Of those , include more than one simile. Nagle (: –) catalogues all the metamorphoses narrated by characters. The catalogue mentions any similes that the tales include. Fully one-quarter of all the similes narrated by characters in the Metamorphoses appears in these two stories. Rosati (: ) notes that the “two great narrative complexes of the fifth and tenth books [are] entrusted respectively to the voices of two ‘professional’ narrators: Calliope, the muse of epic, and her son Orpheus.” Nagle (: ) notes that “Orpheus’ cycle of songs is the second ‘miniature’ carmen perpetuum, functionally and structurally akin to the first one by his mother Calliope [in Book ].” For example, .–, which compares the flow of time to the flow of a river. This distinctive feature of didactic as opposed to epic similes is one of the main arguments in Schindler (; see also Gale : ). Writing about Lucretius in particular, Hardie (: ) says that his similes “express an underlying analogy or even identity in the nature of things” rather than “having a merely pedagogic or poetic function.” von Glinski (: ) identifies the tale specifically as an epyllion because of its “detail and length.” She sees the similes and the story as competitors in the Ceyx narrative (especially –), whereas I would describe them as partners. For reasons I will discuss more fully in the next section, I follow Reed (: –) in athetizing the lion simile at .–. Bömer (: ) points out the development of a single motif over the course of these three similes, but he does not mention that the same set of characters does not recur across a sequence of similes in this fashion in earlier epics. For analyses that focus on other kinds of relationships between a simile group and the adjacent story in the Iliad, see Baltes () (a group of similes on different subjects that parallel the story arc in Iliad ), Ready () (e.g. –, similes series in which characters’ similes respond to those presented by the narrator). Bömer (: –) notes that the storm at sea appears regularly in epic poetry going back to Odysseus in Odyssey . Reed (: ) describes this scene as “grandiosamente iperbolico” in comparison to Aeneid .–. He points out, too, that the many similarities throw into relief the absence of any gods from Ovid’s scene whereas Aeolus plays a key role in the events at the beginning of the Aeneid. Friedrich (, e.g. ) argues that many Latin epic poets, including Ovid and Vergil, are more interested in the literary effect than in the reality of their storm scenes. As Leigh (: ) poignantly remarks, “for those who have seen the cruel sea at first hand, the epic storm is more than just a stock trope of the poets.” Not every reader encounters a “stock trope” in the same way, and tropes do not lose their power to move us simply because they are commonly used.
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Ovid Metamorphoses: Stories of Eros and Epic
von Glinski (: ) (“a prelude to the ‘epic’ section . . . in which Ovid engages with the characters from Homer and Virgil”); Holzberg (: ) identifies the last third of the poem with “historical rulers.” Otis () makes the same point from the opposite perspective, identifying the Ceyx and Alcyone episode as the end of a central section of the poem (. through Book ) that tells stories about “the pathos of love” (). His structural divisions are similar to the more widely used triads that focus on gods (Books –), heroes (Books –), and historical rulers (Books –), each of which ends with a particularly complex and self-aware narrative (Rosati : and n, with references). Tarrant (: –, with references) offers an overview of the antecedents and alternative ancient versions of Ceyx’s story. Most battle similes offer a more general picture of fighting, such as a burning city (Iliad .–) or the clash of opposing battle lines (Argonautica .–). Aeneid .– depicts a scene that resembles this one, comparing Entellus’ attempts to avoid getting punched during a boxing match with a soldier looking in vain for a way into a besieged or inaccessible city. While the basic situations are similar, the desire for glory that motivates Ovid’s attacker does not appear in Vergil’s simile. Otis (: –, especially ). “[Ovid] literally animates the inanimate and reveals the malicious intention of the sea-storm.” So too von Glinski (: –) with warm praise for Otis’ analysis. cf. Iliad .–, which names nine Trojans killed by Patroclus. At ., Patroclus achieves an “unparalleled feat” (Janko : ) when he kills nine men three times. Reed (: ) notes that Ovid reverses the situation in this simile because the story subject is now in the simile and vice versa, but he does not point out the contrasting depictions of human agency in the two passages. Book includes similes whereas Books – – more than a quarter of the poem – have just . After the Trojan War ends, Books – have only similes in total, the same number as Book . Segal () offers a wide-ranging and informative analysis of how Pythagoras’ speech contributes to and indeed shapes the Metamorphoses as a whole. Note (this chapter) provides references on the distinctive characteristics of didactic similes. von Glinski (: ) associates this effect with tragedy and particularly with theatrical staging. This simile is not mentioned in Boyd (). Hopkinson (: ) considers the animal simile here a “temporary metamorphosis.” In his view, the lion comparison “restores to Hecuba the epic dignity which her menial tasks () threatened to remove.” Warwick () considers the arguments for and against seeing the Iliad lion as female and ultimately decides that “it seems unwise to assume that this lion is a mother rather than a father or vice versa” (–).
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Notes
Battezzato (: –) offers a number of illuminating comments on the ethical challenges of Hecuba’s story, how different versions of the story incorporate those ethically challenging elements (or omit them), and how the story was understood over time. Hopkinson (: –) discusses the relationship between Ovid’s telling of the Polydorus story and earlier versions, mainly Euripides Hecuba and Vergil Aeneid .–. Another lion simile appears in the Ceyx story, .–. Reed (: ) accepts the opinion of Merkel that the verses are interpolated: “sono propenso a credere che Merkel avesse ragione a ritenere i versi interpolati.” The verses are athetized in the OCT of Tarrant (), also citing Merkel; they are accepted by Otis (: ) and von Glinski (: ). Reed’s analysis turns on the many interpretive difficulties with both the Latin in these verses and with the relationship between the simile and the adjacent story; moreover, it strains credibility that Ovid includes two instances of one of the most powerful characters in the epic simile world, of which one is a masterpiece of emotional and allusive richness that relies in part on the idea of “uniqueness” while the other has been athetized by multiple editors. von Glinski (: ), “the great care that he [Ovid] takes in preserving the original allusion in its epic context seems to imply that Hecuba is on some level the equal of Achilles.”
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Conclusion
At the end of our journey through the simile worlds of five poems, what have we learned about the simile world of epic poetry more broadly? Which characters and situations can be found in each poem? How do the pain, love, hunger, fear, cold, danger, and so forth experienced by those characters differ across poems, and how do they stay the same? How do similes immerse us in those feelings and experiences? The shape of the simile world resembles that of the mythological tales that form the basis of most epic stories, in that both are defined by the tension between a stable core common to every telling and the details that individual narrators change, omit, or create to tell their own unique version of the tale. To a great extent, the narrative in a traditional medium like epic or about a traditional story like the Trojan War is created by these tensions. And similes, a key feature of the epic genre, are framed by expressions that identify sameness and difference as an explicit focus of our attention. Thus, similes are at the heart of the interaction of constancy and change that we see everywhere in epic storytelling, ranging from an individual simile to the broad canvas of motifs that appear throughout the epic simile world. A version of the lion that describes Hecuba, for example, can be found in every epic poem. Most often, a lion simile heightens the valor of heroes in battle with a scene of lions attacking weaker creatures as in the aristeia of Diomedes (Iliad .–, Chapter , Section .). Lions, like warriors, sometimes fail. Guardians of the lion’s intended prey may drive it off (e.g. Iliad .–) or kill it (e.g. Iliad .–). In similes of bloody predation, the lion’s power can be countered only by a stronger force. Even when a lion is driven off or killed, it is defeated rather than diminished. The rare simile lion who is bereaved shows us the limits of physical strength. Even the strongest hero can be overcome by the loss of a loved one, as Achilles is when Patroclus is killed (Iliad .–, Chapter , Section ..). Conversely, the lionlike sadness that the enslaved queen Hecuba shares with Achilles elevates her grief for her lost family and home
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Conclusion
into a heroic quality (Metamorphoses .–, Chapter , Section .). So too, the bereaved predator birds that bring out the sadness of the reunited Odysseus and Telemachus (Odyssey .–, Chapter , Section ..) help to make the Odyssey a story of heroic endurance and suffering in which even the most powerful hero grieves over the loss or separation from those he loves most. Lions usually prey on the herd animals who make up the most common nonhuman inhabitants of the epic simile world. These animals have relationships with their herds, especially their offspring, with their human caretakers, and with the predators who attack them. This variety of emotional bonds makes herd animals one of the richest parts of the simile world, especially reflective of the feelings and themes that are distinctive to each epic poem. Within the herd, animal families immerse us in the joy of the parent–child bond (as when heifers excitedly greet their returning mothers, Odyssey .–, Chapter , Sections . and .) and grief when we are unable to protect a weaker creature for whom we are responsible (such as a deer who fearfully runs away from a lion attacking her fawns, Iliad .–). Occasionally, fights break out within a herd (e.g. Aeneid .–, Chapter , Section ..), but only in post-Homeric similes. In the simile world of epic poetry over time, most violence that befalls herd animals is caused by predators. Human caretakers can bring comfort and safety to their herds to the benefit of both human and animal with either comparative ease (Argonautica .–, Chapter , Section ..) or great difficulty (Iliad .– in which dogs and men drive a lion away by staying up all night). And in the Iliad in particular, humans regularly fail in their responsibilities out of absence, ignorance, fear, or inexperience (e.g. .–, Chapter , Section .). In the Iliad, human beings have an uncertain chance at best of containing the threats and dangers of the world around them, and leaders are no more likely than anyone else to be able to find a safe way forward. But the happy and effective shepherds of Argonautica have a more positive experience of human agency. The limits of human control in the Argonautica arise from the power of emotion, which no amount of expertise or skill can contain. Shepherding scenes that include a shepherd show us human agency and skill in action. The Argonautica shepherds succeed more reliably than the Iliad shepherds do, but in both poems, human beings are usually present when threats occur, and they try to contain or surmount those threats. In contrast, shepherds have basically disappeared from the lives of herd animals in both the Aeneid and the Metamorphoses, but for different reasons that arise in each case from the central themes of the work. The
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Conclusion
isolation and ineffectiveness of human beings throughout the world of the Aeneid arise in part from the striking absence of human beings from the simile world, both individually and in their relationships with other creatures. The lack of humans is particularly noticeable in shepherding scenes because of the central role that the animal–human ties in these scenes have played in earlier epics. Within the larger simile world of epic poetry, human shepherds in the Aeneid are missing from the lives of their domestic animals, not simply absent. But simile shepherds in the Metamorphoses, who are equally scarce on the ground, contrast not only with the simile world of surviving Greek epic but also with the story world of the Metamorphoses, which is an engaging tapestry of a wide variety of feelings and relationships. Thus, Vergil’s missing shepherds shape the human experience in the poem while Ovid’s absent people help to establish the distinctive features of Ovid’s style of epic narrative. Like herding, craft similes appear in every poem, where they embody a distinctive landscape of human agency and learned expertise. Seafaring – the most common form of craft – shows human beings using their skills to harness the natural forces of wind and sea for their own benefit. In the Aeneid, where human beings largely fail to control their environment, there is only one brief seafaring simile that focuses more on wind than on the sailors who use it to venture across the seas (.–). The simile world of the Iliad, consistent with the poem’s view of humans as often overmatched by the dangers they face, features crafts filled with terrified sailors buffeted by forces they cannot control from which they barely escape with their lives (e.g. .–, Chapter , Section .). The sailors in the Odyssey, like its main characters, survive through sheer determination as much as their nautical expertise (.–, Chapter , Section ..). And, as in other parts of the Argonautica’s simile world, its sailors use their expertise to contain the power of a stormy sea (.–, Chapter , Section ..). Consistent with the more kaleidoscopic texture of the simile world of the Metamorphoses, its sailors reflect the specific story context in which they appear more than any overarching theme of the poem. Sometimes they seem at the mercy of the elements (e.g. .–, to describe Phaethon hurtling through the air as he loses control of his father Helius’ chariot) while at other times, they slice powerfully through the water (e.g. .–, Chapter , Section .). In each poem, at least one boat sails through the simile world carrying human beings. Whether those sailors guide their craft according to their own desires or find themselves at the mercy of the elements both depends on and brings forward key themes of the poem in which those sailors appear.
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Conclusion
The characters and experiences of this simile world dwell in a landscape that evolves over time. The regular simile framing structures and generalized, timeless characters of Homeric epic yield to an increasing variety of simile structures and contents. Over time, the separate and parallel simile world draws closer and closer to both the story worlds of epic poems and the real worlds of their authors and audiences. More and more similes do not have exit expressions so that they blend seamlessly into the story instead of being fenced off by a “so” transitional expression. In the Aeneid and the Metamorphoses, the majority of similes end without a marker identifying the point where the simile stops and the story resumes. Similes are woven from of a wide range of materials, too. The arrival of mythological stories in similes brings the simile world closer to the story world. Geographical places draw the lived world of poet and audience into the simile world. And anachronisms in similes bring the simile world closer to the world of the poet and audience not just in place but also in time. The narrative threads of simile and story worlds, parallel and complementary in Homeric epic, create a narrative fabric in later epic in which the two worlds become more and more interwoven. Across the simile world of epic poetry, familiar characters – lions, herders, flocks of animals, sailors, and so on – immerse us in their experiences of love, death, fear, hunger, cold, and sorrow. Through the intensely embodied narratives that make up the simile world, we feel in our own bodies what the epic story is about. The threads that the simile world adds to epic narrative are less eye-catching than those of the mythological story. Their connections to one another are not as apparent to us. But the embodied landscape and characters of the simile world create a fully realized, internally coherent world, one that we enter as an experience that is undergone rather than as an idea that we contemplate. How we feel when we read an epic poem and how we understand the poem’s narrative is inseparable from our experiences in the simile world.
Notes times, with most in the Iliad ( times); times each Odyssey and Aeneid, times Argonautica, once in the Metamorphoses. Domesticated animal similes: times Iliad, times Aeneid, times Argonautica, times Metamorphoses, times Odyssey. Aeneid .– alludes to both Argonautica .– and Georgics .–, and Metamorphoses .– depicts a similar scene. But Iliad .–, the only Homeric parallel for Aeneid .– cited by
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Conclusion
Knauer (: ), in fact depicts a battle between two different predator animals (a lion and a boar). Those opponents are quite different from a fight between two members of the same herd. craft similes of which are seafaring scenes: times Iliad and Metamorphoses, times Argonautica, and once each in the Odyssey and the Aeneid.
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Index of Names and Subjects
Achilles, –, –, , –, –, , –, –, , –, –, –, – Aeneas, , –, –, –, –, , , , Agamemnon, , , –, – Alcimede, – allegory, , allusion, technique of, , –, –, –, –, – Alpheus. See Arethusa ambiguous loss, –, , Amycus, , –, See also Bebrycians anachronism. See simile structure: anachronism Apollo, –, apostrophe, , , Apsyrtus, Arethusa, , – Argo, –, aristeia, n, , –, ἀσπάσιος, –, –, – ἄτη, – Athena, –, , – Augustus, , ,
Electra, – embodied cognition, embodiment, –, See also immersion enargeia, Ennius, Eumaeus, , – Euryalus, n,
Bebrycians, –, , –, , . See also Amycus Bitias, ,
immersion, –, , –, , intertextuality. See allusion, technique of
Ceyx, – character-narrators. See simile structure: character-narrated chase, –, –, – culture and literature, Hellenistic, n, n, –, – Daphne, n, –, didactic poetry, –, –, , Dido, –, , – Diomedes, –,
figurative language, , n, n first-person narration. See simile structure: character-narrated furor, , –, –, , –, , Georgics, Vergil, , – Golden Fleece, γόος, , –, See also lament Hector, –, –, –, , , – Hecuba, –, – heroism, nature of, –, –, n, , , –, –, – homecoming, – human relationship. See simile subject: human relationship
Jason, –, , –, , –, , Jupiter. See Zeus lament, , –, –, –, See also γόος leadership, conceptions of, –, , –, –, –, Medea, –, , , , Memorial. See Oswald, Alice Menelaus, , metaphor, , n, , –, , Minerva. See Athena
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108668071.009 Published online by Cambridge University Press
Index of Names and Subjects
Neptune. See Poseidon Nisus, Odysseus, –, , , –, , –, –, Orpheus, –, Oswald, Alice, Pandarus, –, , Patroclus, –, , , –, –, – Penelope, –, , Perseus, – Phaedra, – Philomela, –, , , pietas, – Polydeuces, , , – Polyphemus, – Poseidon, –, Priam, , , – Pythagoras, , rage, See furor reunion, See homecoming Scholia, on the Argonautica, n, n, n, on the Iliad, , , , n, n, n, n, , – on the Odyssey, n, n simile structure anachronism, –, , –, , character-narrated, –, –, –, – cluster, –, , –, –, , –, , –, –, frame, , –, –, – gap, –, , –, –, –, , –, mythology. See simile subject: mythology no-exit, –, , , n, –, option, –, –, –, , place, –, –, quantitative measurement, , –, n simile subject agriculture, farming, –, –, , –
bird, –, , n, –, , , bull. See simile subject: cow, cattle child, young, –, , –, –, –, , –, , –, –, –, –, –, , –, –, cow, cattle, –, , , –, , –, –, –, , – craft, –, –, –, , See also simile subject: metalworking; music, song; sailor, seafaring; shipbuilding; weaving; woodcutting dog, –, , , , , –, , –, – dream, – family, household, –, –, See also simile subject: child, young fire, , , , , , , – hare, –, , – human relationship, –, –, –, , –, –, , See also simile subject: child, young; family, household lion, –, –, –, n, –, – metalworking, –, – music, song, – mythology, –, – sailor, seafaring, –, –, , –, –, sea, , –, –, –, See also simile subject: sailor, seafaring sheep, –, –, –, –, –, – shepherd, –, , –, –, –, –, –, , – shipbuilding, siege, – spring, of water, – tree, , –, unrest, civil, , –, –, weaving, –, wolf, –, –, , –, – woodcutting, – simile world, concept of, –, –, –, –, –, –, , –, –, –, –, –, , – society, Roman, , –, –, –, , speech, direct, –, –, See also simile structure: character-narrated
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108668071.009 Published online by Cambridge University Press
Index of Names and Subjects stalemate, in battle, –, , , Telemachus, n, , –, , –, , Tereus. See Philomela Theocritus, – Troy, Trojan War, –, –, –, –
Turnus, –, –, , – Venus, – violence, sexual. See Arethusa; Daphne Zeus, –, , –
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108668071.009 Published online by Cambridge University Press
Index of Passages Cited
Apollonius Argonautica .–: – .–: – .–: – .–: – .–: –, – .–: .–: – .–: – .–: – .–: – .–: – Cicero de Cluentio : – Euripides Hippolytus –: – Homer Iliad .–: – .–: – .–: – .–: – .–: – .–: – .–: .–: .–: .–: – .–: –, .–: .–: – .–: –, .–: –, – .–: , – .–: –, – .–: – .–: – .–:
Homer Odyssey .–: –, , – .–: –, – .–: , – .–: –, – .–: – .–: –, .–: .–: – .–: –, –, – .–: – .–: – Lucretius de rerum natura .–: – .–: – Ovid Metamorphoses .–: –, .–: – .–: – .–: – .–: – .–: .–: – .–: – .–: – .–: – .–: – Sophocles Electra –: – Vergil Aeneid .–: , –, – .–: – .–: .–: – .–: –
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108668071.010 Published online by Cambridge University Press
Index of Passages Cited .–: – .–: – .–: – .–: –
.–: .–: .–: – .–: –
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108668071.010 Published online by Cambridge University Press
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108668071.010 Published online by Cambridge University Press