Diachronic Dialogues: Authority and Continuity in Homer and the Homeric Tradition 0739111345, 9780739111345

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Diachronic Dialogues Authority and Continuity in Homer and the Homeric Tradition

Ahuvia Kahane

LEXINGTON BOOKS A Division of ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC. Lanham• Boulder• New York• Toronto• Oxford

LEXINGTON BOOKS A division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200 Lanham, MD 20706 PO Box 317 Oxford OX29RU, UK Copyright © 2005 by Lexington Books All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

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Library of CongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Kahane, Ahuvia. Diachronic dialogues : authority and continuity in Homer and the Homeric tradition/ Ahuvia Kahane. p. cm.-(Greek studies) Includes bibliographical references and indexes. ISBN 0-7391-1133-7 (alk. paper}--ISBN 0-7391-1134-5 (pbk.: alk. paper) l. Horner-Criticism and interpretation. 2. Influence (Literary, artistic, etc.}-History-To 500. 3. Epic poetry, Greek-History and criticism. 4. Ethics, Ancient, in literature. 5. Authority in literature. 6. Horner-Influence. 7. Intertexuality. I. Title. II. Series. PA4037.K25 2005 883'.0l-dc22 2005011740 Printed in the United States of America

9""The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence Materials, ANSI/NISO 239.48-1992.

of Paper for Printed Library

For my father Reuven Kahane 1931-2003

CONTENTS Editor's Foreword

IX

Preface

xi

Abbreviations

xiii

Introduction: In Search of a Question

1

1 Homer and the Riddle of the Worm

3

2 Hidden Habits and the Trappings of Identity

29

3 Formal Fantasies

65

4 Homeric Signs

95

5 Intentions and Connections

133

6 The Forgetful Order of Things

163

An Envoi: Diachronic Dialogues

215

Bibliography

217

Index Locorum

245

General Index

251

About the Author

265

GREEK STUDIES: INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACHES

EDITOR'S FOREWORD BY GREGORY NAGY, GENERAL EDITOR Building on the foundations of scholarship within the disciplines of philology, philosophy, history, and archaeology, this series concerns not just the archaic and classical periods of Greek traditions but the whole continuum-along with all the discontinuities-from the second millennium BCE to the present. The aim is to enhance perspectives by applying various disciplines to problems that have in the past been treated as the exclusive concern of a single given discipline. Besides the crossing-over of the older disciplines, as in the case of historical and literary studies, the series encourages the application of such newer ones as linguistics, sociology, anthropology, and comparative literature. It also encourages encounters with current trends in methodology, especially in the realm of literary theory. Diachronic Dialogues: Authority and Continuity in Homer and the Homeric Tradition, by Ahuvia K.ahane, seeks answers to basic questions about identity, authority, and continuity in the Homeric tradition. The author understands this tradition as a dialectic. Such a dialectic, he argues, is basic to the very notion of tradition, and "Homer" is a prime example. The book examines some key aspects of this "Homer," such as the persona as reflected from our view of Homeric diction, that diction itself, and our notions of plot and emplotment in Homeric narrative. For each one of these aspects there are any number of historically contingent "stations," that is, points at which this or that aspect of Homer is conceptualized as one thing or another (for example, the persona of Homer as the object of the biographical narratives of the Life of Homer traditions). Highlighted in this book is a special kind of consistency in characterizing Homer, and in this sense a distinct "identity" of Homer. It is an identity achieved by way of speaking across time, that is, diachronically. Such speaking across time involves conversations where the interlocutors cannot hear each other but are, at the same time, paradoxically, in a meaningful dialogue. That is what the author means by the title "diachronic dialogues." And the plural suggests that there is more than one conversation going on. The ultimate reference in these dialogues is the name "Homer," with which the author begins, and ends. The referent is the most famous man of antiquity, who is at the same time equally unknown to all.

PREFACE This book has been in the making perhapssomewhat longei-than originally planned: various academic projects (for example. other booksand an oceancrossing).andnon-academicprojects (for example. children),have intervenedin the process of its making. Some of the many thanks due to friends, colleagues, and institutions for support-intellectual and material-for advice, helpful criticism, and various combinations thereof, are thus debts of longer standing, although neither they, nor recent debts, are forgotten. Versions of chapters of this book were presented in Washington DC, Atlanta. Amsterdam, St Petersburg (Russia), Birmingham, Oxford, Evanston, Cambridge, Madison, Jerusalem, Columbus, Iowa City, Pennsylvania. Pisa, Lille. Cincinnati. and elsewhere-always benefiting from comments by the audience. I want to mention GregoryNagy. Pietro Pucci, Andrew Laird, Egbert Balcker,John Foley. Kurt Raaflaub.Deborah Boedeker. Robert Wallace, Susanna Braund, Rosalind Thomas, Mark Buchan, Katherine Eldred, Glenn Most, Kate Gilhully, Joseph Russo, Sean Gurd, Don Fowler (t), Steven Lowenstam, Irene de Jong. Jasper Griffin, Barry Powell, The Master and Fellows of Balliol College, the Winberg College of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern University, and the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington DC. There are many other individuals and groupsto whom I am indebted for help during the writing of this book, who must remain unnamed in this very short acknowledgement.Yet I cannot but mention other debts I owe, to my family, and especiallyto my wife and children, for the love and happiness they give me, and to my father. who died just before the birth of my youngest son and while this book was nearing completion-for the gift of life, andlove, and many othei-things.

ABBREVIATIONS AG AnthologiaGraeca DK Die Fragmenteder Yorsoh-atiker FGH Die Fragmenteder GreichischerHistoriker.Berlin: Weidmann. JG JnscriptionesGraecae LfgrE Lexikon des FragreichischenEpos PGM Papyri GraecaeMagicae L/MC Lexicon lconographicumMythologiaeClassicae Ls.I A Greek-EnglishLexicon MHV Parry, M., The Making of Homeric Verse,Oxford: Oxford University Press. RE Paulys Rea/encylcloplidie P.Ory. QryrhynchusPapyri Mich. P. Papyrus Michigan Suppl.Hel.SupplementumHellenisticum TGF TragicorumGraecorumFragmenta OED Oxford English Dictionary

INTRODUCTION IN SEARCH OF A QUESTION In the course of this book, I consider some of the main aspects of some of the bigger themes that have preoccupied Homer scholars past and present. historical, linguistic. literacy and philosophical questions a concerning biography, cbaracteriz.ation, diction and formulae, plot, signs and signification, virtues and values, gender, and Homeric world-order. Yet in writing this book, I ultimately wanted to study, not quite these-nor, indeed. any other pointed aspects of Homer-as such, but rather something which, for lack of a better tenn (or perhaps quite appropriately, as we shall see by the end of this book), we might call the general "problem of Homer." But what do we mean by the general problem of Homer? Indeed, does it even exist? One part of this problem, to give an obvious example, is what is historically known as "the Homeric Question." Yet the Homeric Question is, as many have pointed out. not a universal question, not the general question, but rather a historical question, that is, just one historically situated aspect of the problem, which is a product of the nineteenth century and its particular type of interest in authorship and origins. 1 Needless to say, antiquity did ask questions about the Poet of the Iliad and Odyssey ("who is Homer?"), but did so from a different perspective. The nineteenth century's Homeric Question inevitably incorporates certain contemporary assumptions about scholarship and scholarly discourse, scientific method, historicism as it was conceive.cl in the period, rationalism, post-Cartesian philosophical and historical principles, and so on. Ancient approaches, by necessity, embody other principles and perspectives, ontological, epistemological, historiographic, and so on. For example, we often much stronger narrative and/or anecdotal components in ancient answers to the question "Who is Homer?" Even though the wording of this question may be identical with a modem "Who is Homer?'' interrogative, we are, arguably, deaJiog with two different questions. And, clearly, if we ran the gamut of the history of Homeric scholarship, we would come up with a number of different approaches to the questioo of Homer. What, then, do we mean by "the general problem" of Homer? It seems to me that this "second-level" problem, the problem of the problem, as it were, is one point at which we may usefully begin our enquiry. Let me rephrase:in "Homer" we have something-a person, a text, a tradition, a set of beliefs and assumptions. The question is, what, if indeed anything, holds these potentially very different Homers together? After all, in phenomenological terms, or at least in nomioal tenns, it is clear that the different Homers are adjacent. They are all "Homer." Asking the general question of Homer, then, is a way of problematizing the links between potentially disparate and yet 1

2

Introductioo

obviously linked detailed questions. If in the process 91\metbing new comes into being, so be it Homer may be more than just a deadpoet or an old poetic tradition. We must not. it seems to me, mask the elusive nature of the general problem. However, part of the issue may perhaps be phrased in simpler tenns, for example, as the question of Homer's lasting appeal, which, indeed, is how several scholars have recently addressed it For example, James Porter in a recent article considers the unique place which Homer has hdd, and perhaps still holds, in the "cultural imagination of the West" He considers what he calls "the very idea" of Homer and his poems: How can we account for their standing and their mduring attractions? Whatever the answer,appoaching the question will involve confronting the monumentalityof the two poems-less their quality as great works of literature than their role as cultural icons, as signifiers of value, and as landmarksin the evolving relationship between literature and culture. To look at Homerin this way is to consider his place----thevery idea of Homer-in the culture of antiquity and Modernity.A peaspectivesuch as this is an invitationto study the intellectualand cultural histocyof value.2

It may well be, as Porter suggests, that "Homer is, and probably always was from his baptismal naming,an idea of something that remains permanently lost to cultunr-whether this be a Heroic Age, an ideal of unattainable poetic excellence, or a vague sense of some irretrievably lost past." 3 Indeed, a similar notion will be one of the themes running through the various chapters of my own study. But, to the extent that we accept a view of this type, we must also ask, How is it that precisely this node or site of "permanent loss" has been with us, has been more visible, present, and "available," and has been so for seemingly longer than many, indeed almost all other authorial personae, texts, narratives, and literacy traditions? How is it that this ideal of loss (if that is what it is) functions so effectively as an emblem of permanence, authority, and continuity, precisely at those points which seem (and we shall consider this in great detail) most discontinuous? This is the question which, ultimately, this book seeks to address.

NOTES 1. See chapters I and 2. 2. Porter2002: 57. See also, e.g., Graziosi2000; Most 2003~Zeitline2001. 3. Porter 2002: 69. "Baptismal"here presumablyrefers to Kripcean notions of naming and referentialchains. See furtherbelow, Chapter 2, note 7.

CHAPTER ONE

HOMERANDTHERIDDLEOFTHEWORM Death is the sanctionof everythingthat the storytellercan tell (W. Benjamin."The Storyteller')

1

l. Homeros is the name of a person, perhaps the best-knownperson in antiquity. Yet, the poet of the Iliad andOdyssey (if that is what he is) cuts a strangely Jacking personal figure. Of course, some biographical detail about him is available in the ancient Lives, in the Certamen (The Contest of Homer and Hesiod), and elsewhere, but the value of this material is often challenged by modem scholars. Geoffrey Kirk, for example, says, "Much of this information is recogniz.ably fantastic and nearly all of it is probably worthless."2 More specifically, as one recent scholar put it in her comments on the pseudo-Herodotean Vita Homeri, the Homer that emerges seems "inadequately equipped for the magnitude of his achievements." It appears that neither the author of this Vita nor his sources were "interested in trying to understand the mechanics of Homer's art or to suggest how an itinerant poet could commit so much to memory and easily revise it, or how he was able to learn so much without the guidance of another poet or tradition."3 Similar difficulties mark the "rambling, encyclopedic" pseudoPlutarchean Essay on the Life and Poetry of Homer and many other ancient sources.4 We have here an apparent mismatch between biography (constructed or otherwise) and authorship, a mismatch which antiquity by and large does not address, that is, which antiquity does not problematiu. s One poignant example of this mismatch between Homer as a biogiaphical persona andHomer as the Poet of the Iliad and Odyssey can be found in an anecdote about his death, which is attested in Alcidamas, On Homer, in the Certamen, in all the extant Vitae, in Heracleitus (B 56 DK), andelsewhere. We should point out, by way of a general comment, that death, or, rather, narratives of death, are often used to mark an individual's life in some signifi6 cant way. This is especially true in ancient traditions, where vitae are closely linked to the category of encomium, and are commonly used as "a vehicle for ideas and for the embodiment of ideals."7 One might mention the obvious, paradigmatic example of Socrates. His death is the beginning of Western philosophy. It is also, arguably, a fundamental philosophical act, at least if we consider what Socrates himself says in the Phaedo: "The true disciple of philosophy ... is ever pursuing death and dying; and if this is true, why, having had the desire of death all his life long, should he repine at the arrival of that which he has been always pursuing and desiring?'' (Phaedo 64a).8 Likewise the ·narrative of Sappho's death (allegedly from Menander's The Woman of Leucas) may be re3

4

Chapter One

garded as emblematic of the overwhelming power of Eros. At Le11cas, they say, "Sappho first, hunting the haughty Pbaon, threw herself in her goading desire from the far seen cliff," (Strabo, Geography 10.2.9 ffest.23, Campbell]). And Petronius • death (facitus, Anna/es 18.16-19) marks the subversive manner of his life as a whole (indeed, especially in death, as a kind of mock- or anti-Socrates). Yet the death of "divine Homer," "the glorifier of heroes" who sang of undying k/eos, the most revered figure in the ancient literary canon, is markedby what at first seems to be a meaningless, "trifling" little hexameter riddle. On the road Homer meets two young urchins, who,

b 6t ol>6wiµevoc; ~iv 'tb ux,Otv fR"CO abtoot; 6 u liya.ev. et 6t *oav ~· t'W.ef.avclx,6µ£1101. aypeixn1. µevoo6tv, m9tJJ.£1101. 6t '9£4i,o0cx1.. 1mv6t ~v oOc;!).afx>vauta\) m'UXA.1.£1.V, otx; 6' oblC !).apov ev 'tcic; 'tpt.Jxootv eve·a~1.v. a11aµVl]08£lc; 6t 'tOOµavteiou, btt ti m'ted in the version of the story in Heracleitus, for example) cannot figure out the answer to the boys' riddle. which turns out to be "our lice."10 The strangeness of this tale is made all the more poignant by two further aspects of the narrative: First, although he fails

to crack the riddle, Homer does recognize it as the fulfillmentof a divine oracle, and accepts it as the sign of his death. He composes his own epitaph (a symbolic form of suicide, we might say) and promptly slips in the mud and dies. Second, precisely at this moment of death the narrative stresses the glory and importance of the Bard: "On this ... make our reputation ... admiration given to writers of history . . . Homer ... both in life and death has been honored by all men ... let us thank him ... with precise recollection hand down the story . . . to those Greeks who aspire to cultivate taste." Have we. then. thanked and honored our revered teacher with a foolish tale of how be was outwitted by two riddling urchins? Homer is not the only revered figure to die a silly death in antiquity (Aeschylus was said to have been hit on the head by a tortoise dropped from the sky by an eagle; Heracleitus died in dung; Valerius Maximus 9.12 is entitled De Mortibus Non Vulgaribus--in which the tradition of Homer's death is mentioned, too). But this does not solve the puzzle of Homer's passing away. What, then, have lice have to do with the Poet, and with death, and what is the meaning of a Life, i.e., a narrative of life and death.whose end seems to bear no relation to its subject's "life"? We shall consider the specific question of the riddle of the lice at the end of the chapter. But for the moment, let us phrase the problem in more general terms: if the lofty Homer is so strongly marlcedby a seemingly absurd end, then who or what exactly is the figure of Homer? We can, of course, dismiss such personal attention to Homer as accidental. After all. we. like the ancients, often say, that such-and-such things are described"in Homer." Thus we assign the name Homer to the Homeric poems themselves. But the notion of an author, whatever we make of it (see chapter 2) cannot simply be dismissed. For one thing, if Homer was simply a text, and if the idea of a personalized Homer were irrelevant to the poems, or if the idea of an authorial persona was undesirable, unnecessary, or in some way outside the scope of certain historical-conceptualframeworks, would we not have simply referred to the Iliad andOdyssey as "anonymous" poems? Many cultures have important and meaningful anonymous traditions. The Old Testament, for example, is "authorless" (given, of course, that absence of an author stands implicitly for the presence of a Divine Author). The Greeks themselves certainly bad anonymous traditions of proverbs, maxims, essays, and poems. Hundreds of poemsin theAntho/ogia Graeca are listed under the heading adespoton (without an author) or adllon (anonymous).11 Could not theIliad and Odyssey have been

6

CbaptaOne

similarly defined? Why have these poems always been known by the name of a person, indeed one person?' 2 Behind this question lie important problems of identity, authorship, and the cultural values embedded in them. The ancients were, of course, deeply interested in the biographies of famous men. But the specific problem of linking the work to the persona, what we might call the essential problem of authorial identity, fully came into its own only with the advent of modernity, and especially with the coming of the nineteenth century and its general concern with creation and subjectivity. Specifically, in the case of Homer, it is commonly argued that the problem, otherwise known as the Homeric Question,is "a distinctly nineteenth-century invention, created by the philological en~rise, the romantic concepts of composition, and the historicism of the age." 3 In the absence of biographical data which modem scholars thought could explain Homer's "genius" and his authorship of two long and elaborate poems, a different type of Homeric persona began to develop. This persona did not rely on anecdotal biographical nanative, nor, for that matter, on any overt "personal" biographical construct as such, but rather on anthropological and linguistic abstractions. It was fleshed out in several different versions. Most of these seem to share one basic premise: that authorship of the Homeric poems should not be ascnood to a single, individual poet, but, in one way or another, incorporated into an extended tradition of song and singing. Such views have proved to be an influential way of concephmlizingand explaining the malcing of Homeric verse. Yet note that here, too, the problem, or at least a trace of the problem, persists. We refer to a whole tradition whose most distinct feature is that it is not a single individual by the name of a single person 'Homer.• Using the name of one person to designate a group is a common way of expressing continuity andcoherence. It is a convenient metaphor, a way of focusing the identity of a collective and malcingit more concrete and manageable. We might consider, for example, the name "Hippocrates," or, closer to our own times, a name like "Uncle Sam." There may have been a historical individual "Samuel Wilson of Troy, Albany," but the red-white-and-blue clad, top-hat wearing figure pointing straight at us from the poster is above all a means of characterizing a collective body {"the American Government" or "the American Nation"), past, present, and future, and its claims on the individual, in this case American citizens {"Uncle Sam wants YOU!"). Yet as the examples of Hippocrates, Uncle Sam, and many others hint, such declarations of continuity and acts of focusing are not transparent gestures. Behind them lurk complex worlds, concepts, and relationships.14 The conflation of an individual Homer and a group 'Homer' is potentially important sign of something bigger. It requires careful interrogation. In this chapter, then, I shall consider the "identity" of Homer. It is not my purpose to provide a comprehensive survey different views of Homer or of the Homeric question, nor to discuss the general question of authorship. These are issues that have been pursued by others elsewhere.15 Rather, I want to try to provide a more general framework for understanding the thing we call Homer by arguing for the combined and integrated function of some of his contradictory attributes-for example, the fact that he is the best known name in antiquity, but

Homerand the Riddleof the Worm

7

an almost anonymousfigure; the way he is, on the one hand, repeatedly evoked as an individual, but, on the other hand, evades definition as a person; the way he both is, and is not, a personalized figure; bis marking as the most authoritative poetic persona in the literary tradition of the West, but also as a polytropic figure whom Aristotle (Poetics 1460319) and many other ancient admirers described as one who teaches how to lie; and, indeed, the way he is characterized by the riddle of the lice, as someone who cannot solve a simple riddle put to him by little boys, but equally as a great and venerated master. I want to argue that the "tension" which we find in the figure of Homer should be understood as a significant component of the Poet's traditionality and canonical status. Homer's is/is-not condition, I suggest, is almost "requisite" if Homeric epic is to project a strong image of continuity amidst vastly different contexts. We shall begin our investigation by looking at someof the characteristics of the disassembled persona, as it were, of Homer, and by considering its possible function and significance. We shall then consider some aspects of the reconstruction of the Homeric persona andtheir function and significance. At the end of the chapter we shall return to, and attempt to explain, the riddle of the lice as a means of characterizing Homer. I suggest that this riddle is not an unaitical anecdote. Quite the contrary, as we shall see, it can serve us as an emblem of the "essence" of Homeric identity. But before we proceed, let us emphasize the difficulties facing us: Homer is, of course, portrayed differently in different historical contexts-we ourselves have just noted briefly how different the Homer of formulaic theories and theories of oral composition is from the anecdotal legendary persona of the ancient vitae (we will treat some of them in detail in later chapters). These different images cannot, indeed must not, be reduced to a single coherent figure, let alone to a personal subject, at the synchronic level. The historical sequence we call 'Homer' is thus not a single object. Furthermore, it seems to me that this sequence cannot, and should not, even be described as some kind of a teleological development-there can hardly be a causal link between a narrative about riddling boys and lice and,e.g., Homer as a poet in an oral tradition. At the same time, it seems to me impossible to deny that Homer is among the most powerful emblems of something "handed over" from the past, of continuity, in this sense of"sameness," in the literary history of the West. Homer is a longstanding tradition. Something called Homer was regarded as the first wolk of Western European literature. Something served continuously as the backbone of poetry for over two and a half millennia, and, notwithstanding important changes in the way we understand literary canons and culture today, is still a key literary point of reference.16 The question, then, is what is it that keeps all of the different 'Homers' together, and,perhaps, why are they so? Or is Homer merely a nominal continuity? The core of my argument needs to be stressed: I shall try to show that, in addition to the name Homer (which is very important), what many obviously different figures of Homer share is the kind of contradictory, though often nonproblematized tension between personal and nonpersonal functions. I will argue

8

CbapterOne

that this tension between suchsimuJtancous but contradictory functions is itself prosopographically and poetically significant in the case of Homer, and that by problematizing this contradiction, we can better understand who or what Homer is. The figure of Homer, in short, will be defined as a pattern of dissonancebetween biographic and contrapersonal attributes. When we have laid out the argument in its full detail.we will have come round full circle. We will have defined Homer, it seems to me, as a traditional object and as a canonical icon, as something that belongs to everyone andto no one in particular, something which is capable of effecting continuity through change. Homer, in other words, is a particular kind of cultural optic, which in an important sense has no image of its own, but which can be handled by manydifferent people and used for "seeing" many different images, and in which a certain tradition of looking exists.

2. Asking "who or what is Homer?" draws us into the general problem of authors and authorship, of historicity, originality, writing, sources,ownership, authority, and many other issues which have been the focus of extended investigations for many years now.17 But we might begin by noting, along with Roland Barthes (originally published in 1968, a stmdard point of reference), that an author exists around a certain demand for meaning-an expectation of an intention which is associated with a text (in our case this might, for example, be the Odyssey), and which is embodied in an individual (e.g., Homer). It is, of course, this author that Barthes famouslyput (or tried to put) to death: No doubt it has always beenso: once a fact is recounted-forin1nmsi.tivepurposes, and no longer able to act directly upon reality, i.e., exclusive of any function except that exercise of the symbol itself-this gap [i.e. between the recounting and the original utterance] appears, the voice loses its origin, the author enters into his own death.writing begins. However, the affect of this phenomenon has been variable; in ethnographic societies, narrative is never or reciter. whose "performassumed by a person but by a mediator. shaman. ance" (i.e., his mastery of the narrative code} canbe admired, but never his "genius' [my emphasis]. The author is a modem character, no doubt produced by our society as it emergedfrom the Middle Ages, inflected by English empiricism, French rationalism, and the personal faith of the Reformation, thereby discovering the prestige of the individual, or, as we say Dl!Jrenobly, of the "hwnan person". Hence, it is logical that in literary matters it shouldbe positivism, crown and conclusion of capitalist ideology, which bas granted the greatest importanceto the author's "person...18

What concerns us here is not Barthes' argument in general, which needs no reiteration, but its possible implications for our understandingof Homer specifically. Barthes suggests that what is recounted "for intransitive purposes and no longer ca\>:bleof acting directly upon reality" effects a gap between a voice and its origin 9 He adds that "ethnographic societies" do not mark the presence of an author-he is thinking of societies that precede the use of writing and of oral or oral-derived performances, perhaps even of Homer, at this point Now, of course, in the Homeric tradition the songs which the narrators and performers of Homeric epic perform are indeed openly ascribed to some source other than the

Homerand the Riddleof 1beWorm

9

narrator or singer, such as the Muses. Clearly Homer is not an author in the modem sense, inasmuch as be displays the gap between a voice and its origin much more explicitly.20 Yet, it seems to me that Barthes (whose interest lies, of course, largely in the novel, in written texts, and in the condition of modernity) has overlooked some important points that relate to Homeric poetry and to the ancient world Both Barthes' insight andhis oversight have.I believe, something to tell us about Homeric epic. In "ethnographic societies," those that do not use writing, we never find, saysBarthes, "a person, but ... a mediator, shaman, or reciter." Such figures are often regarded by their audie11CCS as voices in the service of some other "mind" or master of truth (or auctor). The mediators' "mastery" extends only to "the nanative code," and it is for such mastery, rather than for their "genius" that they are admired. Now, it is true that when a shaman or a medium speaks, he or she claims to be possessed and thus to reenact words that comes from somewhere else.21 A shaman in a trance is not conventionally regarded as the origin of the words, or as the source of their power. The voice has indeed been separated from the shaman's person, who is therefore not an "author." But this is where a significant observation must be made: the discourse of mediators and shamans (let us put reciters aside for a moment) is not, as Barthes would have it, "recounted for intransitive purposes." Shamans do not simply tell stories of spirits, gods, and men of the past, they reactivatethem. Contrary to Banhes' notion, the shaman's voice is often assumed by the members of his or her communityto be capable of acting upon reality. Indeed, shamans are respectedand often feared, too, precisely because their narratives result in a type of "transitive" presence or epiphany. Whatever is brought about by their performances is believed by their audiences to be very real. It is not thought of as fiction or as a figment of the imagination. The shaman's words are presumed to act upon the world by bringing rain, by destroying an enemy, by providing a cure from illness.by revealing guilty parties, and so on. Thus, pace Bartbes, not all "ethnographic" narrative is "intransitive" discourse. Our concern in this book.of course, is not with mediators and shamans, but with reciters like Homer. Significantly, Barthes speaks of all three in the same breath. Like mediators and shamans, the reciter does not claim to be a speaking subject or the originator of his words.22 The reciter claims to be what we might describe as a purely instrumental voice, a resistance-free relay or conduit for the words of other speakers. Those other speakers may, of course, themselves be relays for other sources ultimately leading back to "reality itself' (i.e., things "as they happened" acconling to the true kosmos). 23 The discourse of reciters is in this sense authorless. Yet like the discourse of shamans, this discourse is not quite "intransitive." It is, rather, presumed to have the power to act on the world~ that is, epic poetry is not "narrative" in the same way that a modem novel is nanative, at least in Barthes' sense of the word. Epic claims to activate fame that is aphthiton,"undying." As one important recent scholar puts it, epic song "reanimates heroes, restoring them to action and speech, for the poet's voicing retains some magical power, even as it retains some of its magical taboos." 24 The reciter's voice, like the shaman's, belongs to the beyond and is meant to carry

Chapter One

10

with it some of the powers of the beyond, which, through the reciter's speech, enters "transitively" into living reality. The discourse thus produced may be authorless, but it is not powerless. We need to understandthis point better andmust therefore look a little more closely at the link between assumed powerto act upon the world and authorship. One of the most famous and often-quoted passage from Barthes' essay on the death of the author is the following: In his tale SarrwiM, Bal7.ac,speaking Qf a castrato disguised as a woman, writes this sentence:"She was Woman, with ha- sudden fears, ha- inexplicable whims, her imtinctive fears, her meaninglessbravado,herdefiance,and her delicious delicacy of feeling.,, Who speaks in this way? Is it the hero of the tale who would prefer not to recognize the castratohidden beneath the "woman"?Is it Bal7.acthe man, whose personalexperiencehas provided him with a philosophy of Woman?Is it Bal7.acthe author, pofessing certain ..literary" ideas about femininity? Is it universal wisdom? Romantic psychology? We can never know, for the good reason that writing is the destruction of every voice, every origin. Writing is that neuter, that composite,that obliquityinto which om subject flees, the black-and-whitewhereall identity is lost, beginningwith the very identityof the body that writes.25

It is this kind of text that is "intransitive," and which cannot therefore act upon reality, since its subject "flees"-we shall never know precisely "who speaksr 26 Barthes says that "to assign an Author to a text is to impose a brake on it. to furnish it with a final signified, to close writing."27 Yet, of course, "imposing a break" on the text is something we do all the time. We very often do answer the unanswerable question "who speaksr Barthes' essay would have had no point without such practice. And regardless of whether we are right or wrong to close off writing and the identity of authors, the act itself is always deeply significant It is here that we can see the link between authorship and action most clearly. More specifically for our purposes, it is also here that Homeric epic's paradoxical character comes into view. To explain this, let us look at two types of discourse, both of which have important affinities to Homeric epic: funerary inscriptions andmagical spells. Consider first the following early lapidary text (JG 12.1.737. 600-575 BC? Kamyros):

craµa

't6C' 'J&xµewix;mif)o:a

hll,l(l 1eli~ £\fl. Zeu;6£ VLV oouc; 1tflµalva.1£1611') 8£\.'fl. I, ldameneus,made this tomb (8dma),so that I might have fame (kleos). Whoeverharms , may Zeus make him utterly accursed.

This inscription is fraught with difficulties, but most critics think it is a funerary text. 28 In other words, they think of these words, not simply as a narrative uttered in some broad open-ended cultural context, but as an actual message sent out into the world at a particular moment in time by an actual person, whose name, according to the reading, was Idameneus and who is therefore its "author." This author is responsible for the inscription's contents. His intention is

Homerand the R.idd1e of the Wonn

11

embedded in the words.and he is the one who benefitsfrom their fon:e. Although Idameneus has since died, the written text is, in this case,still presumed to represent the living. talking person who wrote it.29 Furthermore, according to this interpretation, the words sdma toz ', "this tomb" (especially the deictic pronoun toz' [tode], "this") point to a fixed, concrete object: the material stone on which the text is inscribed. So far we have "closed oft" writing and meaning in a perfectly ordinary and practical manner.This closing off of meaning clearly gives the words concrete fon:e and hence some power to act upon reality: Every time someone reads these words on the stone, eventoday, the person called Idameneus"speaks" to us in the real world. Idameoeus' kleos, or "fame," is thus very real, indeed. of the inscription, and But imagine that we have revised our interpretation now believe it to be, not a literal funerary text by one ldameneus.but a poem, perhaps by some early Rhodian poet (I must stress that this suggestion is offered merely as the illustration of a generalprinciple, not as an actual interpretation). Meaning might now be "closed oft" again, though perhaps not quite as tightly as before. We must admit (knowing what we do of narratological convention) that there are now at least two possible speakers/voices in the text: an unnamed "Rhodian" poet, who composed the text, and Idameneus, who is the assumed nameof the speaker inside the text.30 In short, we have here a "voice" that may belong to more than one speaker.31 In this sense,the concreteness of the text and its power to act upon reality are now somewhat diminished. The words "tomb" (sdma) and "this" (toz 1 no longer refer so closely to the physical stone on which they are inscribed, or to any other concrete referent, andthe fame effected is no longer the kind of "real-life" fame that ordinary funerary monuments effect. But now, imagine yet another scenario: What if our "Rhodian" poet werea representative of the early Greek heroic epic tradition (which may, as various scholars have argued, incorporate components now traceable in lyric traditions), of which Homeric poetry is part (this, I must stress again, is merely a speculative illustration, not an attempt at an actual reading)? That is to say, imagine this Rhodian individual as a singer who will have drawn the components of his poetry from epic predecessors and sings from within or alongside a tradition of the 32 type described,for example, in the work of Albert Lord. How "closed" is meaning now? Certainly less so than before, since the absence of fixed authorial identity is more overtly marked in Homeric poetry than in most other traditions. The heroic epic Poet (e.g., the narrator of the Iliad and Oco,,ssey) and subsequent singers claim, for the most part, to be voices with no clear identifying marks to separate them from a tradition that comprises many individuals andextends over longer than a single lifetime,33 yet has the power of the text to act upon reality decreased? Do we now think of it as simply "intransitive"? We shall have to explore these matters carefully and in detail, but already we can note that if we regard these verses as heroic epic poetry, then, curiously, the word sdma (re)acquires a concrete reference: as many scholars have suggested, Homeric poetry represents its own words as a type of sema (sdma), a verbal monument that effects "undying fame" (see extended discussion in chapter 4). The words "this sdma" would thus be self-reflexive and absolutely concrete, even though

12

Chapter One

they no longer refer to the material substance on which they are inscn'bed.As epic poetry, the words "this s4ma" refer to nothing but themselves. Indeed, this self-referential link is even more literal than the link between the word soma and the material stone. It is perfectly immediate and perfectly "real." And as we have already noted, the words of Homeric poetry, just like the words of shamans and mediums, are not regarded as powerless, but as very powerful indeed, restoring their subjects to "action and speech." It thus becomes clear that epic poetry is somehow different, not only from manypractical fonns of discourse such as funerary texts (inasmuch as epic is authorless), but also from some "ordinary" poetry (inasmuch as epic claims special powers of eoactmeot). The link between authorship and the capacity for action (or between lack of authorship and the incapacity for action) has been broken. But if authorship is resisted, or even openly rejected, in epics like the Iliad and Odyssey, by what means do such poems nevertheless claim authority? In other words, in the absence of a personal author to take responsibility for the poems, what is the basis of their presumed, or claimed, power to act?34Let us here briefly consider one possible answer that emerges out of Barthes' comment: he regards shamans, mediums, and reciters as "masters," that is, highly skilled practitioners of a "code," i.e., a specialized language or set of rules for the narrative (on the "code" see also chapter 3~ on "masters" see chapter 4). Mastery of the code in this case means knowing and following a fixed set of instructions (let us note that thus definedthe term is highly paradoxical: should being master of the code not mean having control over the code? But Barthes' master reciters, or indeed the Homeric narrator, seem more like "slaves," inasmuch as they are presumed to have no individual control over the code). This code itself is, of course, sanctioned by the society within which performance takes place and from that sanctioning derives its authority. It seems, then, that by speaking of "mastery of the code" we have managed to displace authority from one site to another. It has been detachedfrom a personalizedsubject (the "author") and invested in a set of impersonal rules (the "narrative code") embodied in words. Let us look into this argument further: If words are to be independently authorized and are to have capacity for action without personal agents, they must somehow be thought to embody power regardless of any speaker. Mere utterance, i.e., mere performance, of the words has to suffice for action. Such performance requires no particular intention or cognition on the part of the performer, other than that he or she have a voice with which to utter the words. It is thus an "impersonal," instrumentalized form of discourse, a form, we might say, of precise repetition. This type of repetition seems to be assumed in the case of funerary inscriptions. The words are made "out there," inscribed in the stone, whose "indestructible" materiality seems to vouchsafe precise, independent iterability. Whoever reads the text. i.e., whoever reads and thus repeats the words "I, ldameneus," no matter what his thoughts or intentions, invokes a memory that is entirely unaffected by his or her identity, will, intentions, etc. This conception of repetition and the authority it entails is even more clearly evident in magical spells.35 Ancient spells (and spells in general) often

Homer andthe Riddle of the Worm

13

mark the persons who use them andthe persons whom they are meant to affect "I/me" or by by the use of indexicals or shifters, such as the deictic prollOWlS providing blank spaces "NN" (to be filled-in ad hoe by different users) in the text. Spells conspicuously lack fixed proper-name references to the persons who are their most immediate subjects. Here are two l'Cplesentativeexamples:36 1ttµv011 µa. 't[OII &:xtµoloa] XPl1Jla't1.tovr.a µo(t ,q:,oc;] ffd:vr.a,cinep

em[nA£Cx>]µat ai1ccpewt1tE[tv, Send ~ the daimon who will give responses~ about everythingwhich I order him to speak about (PGM Ill 230-232,tnmsl. Betz 1992)

fll]V &iv', ftv &iia, [elc;] 'tO\I ex' ~c.O't1. VTI, (Speech is a symbol of a person• s affectations of the mind and writing is a symbol of speech). But cf., to the contrary, the argwnents put forward by J. Svenbro (1993), esp. chapter 2, "I Write, Therefore I Efface Myself• (26-43), which are "Barthesian" in their basic sensibilities. 30. Some scholars have considered the possibility that the name Jdameneu in the Rhodian inscription is in the genitive, e.g., Jeffery and Johnson 1990: 348. This, however. is linguistically difficult, andit leaves the first person verb poiba oddly lacking a subject It is better to asswne along with Hansen(1983: 256. 459), Friedlander (1948: 36), Faraone (1996). and others, that Jdamenewis nominative. 31. Narratological taxonomies in the 1970s and 1980s tended to ascribe different parts of texts exclusively to discreet speaking voices. But more recent views, e.g., Ginzburg and Rimrnon-Kenan (1997) offer revised categories of authorship and narration. Ginzburg and Rimmon-Kenan speak of "authorial versions, .. a notion thatis, in fact, a step toward Foucault's notions of authorship (for which see above).

Homer and the Riddleof the Wonn

25

32. Lord 1960. Many details of diction of the Rhodian inacription are Homeric. However, the first verse breaks Hennann's mdge (... 1u - u u - x IDand the metrics of the "second verse" are quite difficult to make out For Hermann's bridge, see chapter 3. 33. This, as we shall see, is an important poetic principle. If we were somehow able to identify our "Rhodian Author" with precision-so much the better. But we could never alter the text of the Iliad and Odyssey so as to name the nanator and to give him a specific identity without significantlyaltering the character and functionof the poems. 34. For comments on the authority of writing see especially, Denida 1995a (his famousdebate with J. Searle), 1998. 35. The link between poetry and magic, echoed in Barthes. is very early, of course. See famouslyin Gorgias' Encomiumof Helen 8, etc. 36. In Preiseodaoz 1973-74(PGM'r,tmnslation in Betz 1992. Gena-al bibliography in Brashear 1995. For the secondexample and for love magic especially, cf. Faraone 1999. "In the magical formu37. Be1z(1992: xxxiii) rightly translates "NN," explaining: laries, this ablRviation stands for a name or namesto be insertedby the reader,the namesof the personsagainstor for whom the magic is to be carriedout." 38. Brashear (1995: 3434) speaks of ..bona tide voces magicae," i.e. powerfulmagical words that are ..not just letter games, permutations or palinchomes, but the either longer or shorter wordswhich for the most part defy all analysis and description." Consider, for example, the e,qression: besen berithen berio, found in a fourth century AD papyruscalled ..The Eighth Book of Moses" PGM XIIl (P.Lugd.Bat J 383: 11;Preisendaoz 1973-4: 477; Betz 1992: 185; bibliography in Brashear 1995: 3539-3544). Like abracadabra and many other magical words of the period, this expression smacks of Hebrew and Aramaic. Besen berithen berio may mean "in the name of the covenant," or "in God/in the Name (Hebrew: ha-ahem) is the bond." Most likely, however, the phrase should be interpretedloosely as "in the ~ of' (besen), followedby two words that are garbled versions of the first two Hebrew wordsof the book of Genesis. be-rei.Jhitbam (berithen berio). "in the beginning [God] created" (see Jacobson 1993: 3; Reiss 1940: 55; Alon 1977: 240). 39. See Kahane 1997a; 1999 for the general mechanism.Also Miller 1986 andespecially the magisterial Versnell2002. 40 Also, in a much more practical sense, Homeric verses were often used in ancient magical spells, and were often believed to have magical powers. For discussion and examples see Versnell2002: 124-125.Also Kabane 1997a. 41. Foley 1991: 7, cited in the context of ancient magic in Versnell 2002: 124. Foley also speaks of"tmditional referentiality,"which he defines as "the resonance between the singular momentand the traditional context" (1999: xiv. Cf. 18ff.). The term hasgained wide acceptancein Homer studies, but we should, however, note that all language is inherently traditional and fonnulaic (Kiparski 1976), and thus that all reference is, at least in a basic sense, "traditional." 42. Lord 1966:97. 43. See, e.g., Hainsworth 1976on "formulaicclustering." 44. E.g., Iliad I. l; 2.485-6; Odyssey 1.1, 10; also Iliad 5.302-4;Iliad 6.314, etc. Cf. De Jong 1987:44-45. 45. Prayers, commands, supplications,are all, in speech-act taminology, directives, i.e.,"utterances by which the speaker tries to get someone else to do something" (Searle and Vanderveken 1985: 52). However, each of these hasa specific set of"felicity conditions" (see, e.g., Searle and Vande:rveken1985: 179-216;the term is taken from the work

26

Chapter One

of H.P. Grice). For example, in most non-magical speedl acts, what Searle calls "nonnal input and output conditions" must obtain (Searle 1969: 57): "The terms 'input' and 'output' are used to cover the large and indefinite range of conditions under which any kind of serious and literal linguistic commllllicationis possible. 'Output' covers the conditioos for intelligible speaking and 'input' covers the conditions of understanding. Together they include such things as that the speakeiand heara- both know how to speak the language; both are conscious of what they are doing; they have no physical impediments to commllllication,such as deafuess, aphasia, or laryngitis; and they are not acting in a play or telling jokes, etc... Clearly many of these are not relevant in a magical spell, which, as we have noted, could presumablytake effect regardless of speaker aptitude and intention. For the importance of ''mixed" types of speedl acts in the construction of authorship, see Kahane 19%. 46. For prayers,see, e.g.,Burkert 1985; von Fritz 1945-46.Crotty (1994: 95) notes, ''The typical prayer begins with an elaboratenaming of the deity addressed ... After asking the god to 'hear,' the person who is praying reminds the deity of past services performed ... a future service may be promised" (the example of Iliad 1.37-42 is then given). Crotty ( 1994: %) later attempts to refine this view, arguing that "prayer is a sign of mortal vulnerability rather than of the mortars claim of entitlement to the benevolence of those in power." Vulnerability probably doesplay a part in the situation, but it cannot account for Cbryses' prominent mentioningof his past favors to Apollo. 47. An important (felicity) condition of the speech act command is that the speaker have power over the addressee (it would be absurd, for example, to stare at the sun and say, "I order you to set!"). Clearly the narrator here has.by his own admissing_no such power over the Muses. 48. Strictly ~ing, the invocations are situated in the discourse of the narrator of the lliad, not in Homer's discourse. Yet. if we pen:eive both HOOlefand the Homeric natTatoras personalized relays through which an authorized code passes without resistance, the question of ''who speaks" (''whose discourse is itT') is pushed aside. As we have already suggested,any attempt to explicitly name the speaker in the poems would immediately "personalize" these utterances and redefme them as forms of personal supplication or prayer,and destroy their special force. 49. The Muses are said to have been "everywhere," and have seen andknow "everything." (Iliad 2.485). Homeric poetry thus seduces us into believing that theMusesthemselves are thus nothing but conduits for "reality" and "truth," which are somehow complete and transparent, transmitted from the Muses' eyes to the ears of those who have not experiencedthem directly. Througha series of conduits "reality" thus becomes immanent in discourse. This, I would suggest, is a crucial component of epic's claim of conveying and the Muses "undying fame" (e.g., Iliad 9.413). Of course, both the Homeric D811lltor inevitably abridge reality. They may know "everything," but do not tell it all (the question of the size of epic songs will be discussed later). We also know from the Muses' own admissions (in Hesiod, Theogony 21, though, significantly, never openly stated in Homer) that they are capable oflying (cf. Nagy 1992a). 50. Graziosi (2002: 55-62) investigates why Homer's name is absent from the Homeric poems. She suggeststhat this is due to his wtiversaliud, non specific character, and that when Homer is nevertheless invoked by other authors, it is done in order to "reinforce the point that the author of the text is making" or to "express a less popular but supei-iorpoint of view." I agree, but hei-argument doesnot sufficiently stress or explain the importance, e.g., of the paradox and irreducible relationship between the empty persona andthe ftxedname. 51. Foucault 1977: 114-115.

Homer and the Riddle of the Wonn

27

52. Foucault 1977: 123-124. 53. Foucault 19'J7: 124. 54. Foucault thinks of author functionsas having anived on the sceneonly since the rise of modernity. But as Ginzburgand Rimmon-.Kenan (1999: 74), whose view of authorship and "author versions" partly follows Foucault. suggest, "Author versions, conceived as indispensable to the process of production and reception of meaning, are necessarily operative in all periods, in all texts, even anonymous ones." This, of course, does not mean that the precise way such versions function is identical in every period or text 55. In his essay, Foucault (1977: 132-33) also argues for the existence of "fundamental authors," authors starting from the nineteenthcentury(e.g., Marx and Freud), who have "produced not only their own work but the possibility and rules of fonnation of other texts" and have "cleared a space for the introduction of elements other than their own, which nevertheless remain within the field of discow-sethey initiated." Foucault sees these authors as embodying a planned "heterogeneity."He seems to deny this quality to earlier authors (in what may be a curiously Hegelian gestlll"e).It would be interesting to see if his notions could also be applicable to Homer, perhaps with regard to the main argwnent of this chapter about Homer's contradictory attributes, but this question lies beyond the scope of the present enquiry. 56. One other point needs to be stressed. Foucault notes that author functionsare "not a universal or constant in all discow-se."At various times certain texts such as stories, folk tales, epics, and others, were accepted without question of the identity of their author. "Their anonymity," says Foucault (1977: 125), "was ignored because their real or supposedage was a sufficient guarantee of their authenticity." If Foucault is here thinking of Homer, thenhe has perhaps too easily glossed over Homer's peculiar position. It is obviously true that the Iliad and Odyssey were considered to be works of great antiquity ( as, for example, Herodotus, notes). It is also true that their 1181l8tvb Xp(x,Tic; liyet ml 1retpd1attuuic; lYctµ.alinsertion is probably not difficult to make (given, e.g. the formulaic, "modular," fluid character of Homeric diction). Yet this temptation seems to have been universally resisted (or warded oft). Identifications of this type are important for our purposes, for the simple reason that they project, implicitly at least, some of the most obvious attributes of the Homeric narrator's self-presentation onto the figure of Homer and in this manner characteriu a specific historical image of Homer. Thus, the opening lines of the poemsand other statements made by the Homeric narrator characterize the Homer of Plato and Aristotle:

Mip,i.vUt 1XXt,ml 'ttq, up,reo8e µcU.tma; {)µeic;a·euµcU.a m:xoa1.bltotcp(KXo8'aµ+' ~v-rucl>AOof time aud place that define each actual guslar and his activities ,'Tnr,hn,·,~ •IO

What we must stress is that the figure Homer is a more historicized representation of the conduit for transcendental knowledge than, for example, the singers Phemios and Demodocus or, of course, the Homeric narrator. In the traditions of Homer's parentage, we can see, as before, that two-step motion necessary for reconciling the contradictory demands made of his persona. Homer must in some way be characterized within the boundaries of the mortal world; hence, the question of parentage. But again, if he is to function as a resistancefree conduit, he cannot be endowed with fixed, canonical origins and with the social, geographic, and historical closure of identity that such origins can imply. Before we move on to Homer's provenance, let us note that the question of naming Homer's parents has concerned modem scholars even less than, for example, his blindness. What is, however, of great concern to modem day scholars is Homer's poetic, rather than biographic, ancestry-the tradition of bardic song. The modem approach thus seems radically different from those of the ancients. And yet, as we shall see when we discuss this matter in detail, the fundamental principles of characterizing the conduit and the problems ensuing remain, paradoxically, very similar, indeed. Consider, then, briefly, Homer's provenance. Place, of course, is an important marker of identity precisely because it is often perceived as existing "out there" (i.e., outside of ourselves and our cultural habits), as being "indestructible," "fixed." The name of a place often survives even after death, after a place has been sacked and has changed hands and identities. Places, present and no less those "of the past," also have concrete immediacy. They can be visited, occupied, touched. This is one of the reasons why cultures often "localize" identity, and, indeed, biography and history by erecting funerary monuments or other commemorative objects on location (consider also the practice in London, Paris, and elsewhere, of putting up commemorative plaques: "So-and-So lived here

HiddenHabits and the Trappingsof Identity

41

between the years... "). Certainly antiquity often identifies "timeless" figures by makine place a part of their name. We have Sappho of Lesbos.Leonidas of Tarentum, Dionysiosof Halicarnassos, etc. 41 We might add that a reference to place often complements the historical identity embodied in parentage. Sources of Homeric biographical detail commonly mention parentage and provenance in the samebreath (e.g., Proclus, Chrestomathia99.4-10). The connection between the two is evident already in the Homeric poems themselves. Consider, for example, the following frequent fommlaic line (O~ey 1.170,etc.):

'tf.c;n6&11£le;awpoov,n68t

'ta.

7t611.c; ~ 'tOICl)Ec;;

Whoare you amongmen?Whereareyour city and parents (ancestors)? The speaker asks the hearer, not "who," but "where," or "in what part of the world" are his addressee's "city and parents." And, of course,the two are most obviously intermingled in the common idiom (often used to describe Homer) which speaks of so-and-so as the "son" of this or that city. It goes without saying that provenance can be an importam tool in giving

Homer functional substance.Thus, as Vico says, "Almost all the cities of Greece claimed to be [Homer's) birthplace, and there were not lacking those who asserted that he was an Italian Greek.,,..2 Vico is here, of course,echoing a prominent feature of Homer's ancient biographical tradition, as it is found, for example, in the Certamen (7-8): "0µ1J>OVat mxoat cbc;ebuiv al 1t6Ut~ ml et btouca. a01X0vn:ap' ea\Ytolc;yeyevijo8cnliyoocnv. As for Homer, you might almost say that every city with its inhabitantsclaims him as her son. The problem, as before, is that by fixing Homer's place of origin, we also risk losing his resistive identity and hence his authority and broad status. Graziosiis thus right to describe the tradition of Homer's provenance as a referential "balancing act". 43 We canhave an unnamed "blind man from Chios," as in the Hymn to Apollo. In contexts outside of the text, we can identify this man from Chios as "Homer," as Thucydides does. But, given the general function of Homer as a

canonical icon, it would be counter-productiveto fix his identity by an explicit denomination."Chian Homer" is unattested. For the same reason, the canonical tradition of Homer's provenance is one of multiple origins. The fifth Vita (2-10), for example, offers numerousconflictingviews on his place of origin: 1ea'td at l:tµrovt&]v Xt~ m'td 6' 'Avttµax,0111eal Nt1eavapov K~\11.~ 1ea'td at Bayx,UA.(6-qv ml 'Apl.motEA1111 'tOV♦tl.ooOll>v 'lfrtTI~m'td 6' ·E♦q:>ov 1eal 'toOc;lO'tq)lk'.ooc;Kqi.ai~ 1ea'td 6' 'Ap(.o-uxpx,ovml 'tb

at ytvcx;1ea'td µ21,1rnv&xpovIµq>\ICXt~

42

Cbapta'Two

dl.OVOOlOV 'tOII ~ICCX 'A9rt1Uio(;.'tl.~ lit ICClll'.aAaµf.VLOV a'btbv et1Uf.+cxmv. du.a. a··Apyeto11.du.a. a·Aly(,Jm.ova1t0erii:mv. With regan:l to his birth Pindar says be was from Smyrna. Simonides from Chios, Antimachos and Nicandros that he was from Kolophon. Bachylides and Aristotle the philosopher that he WBS from Ios. Ephoros and the historians that from Cumae, Aristarchos and Dionysios Thrax that he was an Athenian. Some also say that he was from Salamis. while otbcn that he was anArgive and still other that be was an Egyptian from Tbebes.44

The Plutarchean Vita ,epeats this, more or less, with slight variation. when it says (2.7-13): µ£1' ~

Xi:611 U ICCll Iµ~\UlOV yevtaOat. l:tµcolli&l]c; l5eXi:ov•• AVtf.-µax_oc; at ICCllNf.lCClwipoc; Ko~VLOV. •AptO'tO'ttl.11c;a· b ♦ll.6oo+oc; •11•rt1w. ·E+qxx; a· b lO'tq)l.1Coc; q&d ooui, avd.7ral.ol, tc; tv 61,qul Q7tOIC£1Cp{o8aL

Thebest evidence [teA1nlrioi de mali8ta]of this is givm by Homa; for, though his time was much 1atq even tlum,theTrojanwar[myemphasis], he nowhere uses this name of all, or indeed of any of them except the followers of Achilles of Phthiotis, who were in fact the first Hdleoes, but designatesthem in his poems as Dannansand Argives and Achaeans. And he bas not used 1heterm Barbarians, either, for thereason,as it seems to me, thatthe Hdlenes on their part had not yet been sepmatcdoff so as to acquire one commonnameby way of contrast.

What we have here is neither multiple versions of Homer's datings, nor. indeed, a single fixed date. Like Herodotus, Thucydides puts Homer's date squarely after the events at Troy, although the date remains otherwise unspecified and, here at least, has no effect on Homer's authority. Indeed, it is cleverly used to support Homer's testimony. Furthermore, Thucydides' dating does not ipso facto challenge Homer, since as in the case of Herodotus, it seems to conform to the self-presentationof the Homeric narrator. Proximity to the event is, of course, important to Thucydides, and, as many scholars have noted, he does on several occasions cast doubts on the Poet's authority. Which is merely to say that, at some point, Thucydidean history and Homeric tradition do not fully overlap. But we must remember, first, that proximity to the events is, in essence, also an important component of the Homeric model of knowledge, and, second, that Thucydides does something more complex than to dismiss Homer outright What is important for us, and what we have seen, is that, even as he characterizes Homer and constrains his date, Thucydides cleverly maintainsthe Poet's traditional image.57 It seems, then, that the Homer of antiquity is an authorial persona which is, paradoxically, held together but not mPff~. l)y the name of Homer and by fl ~ic act of lll>dicatingauthority. 'Ill~«_Qfflfrthat is the swn total of these features is not a person, of course, but he 1'$ llPt a fiction, nor merely a text or an impersonal idea. He is, to put it in other terms, 'collectionof authorizing "functions" with an important "negative" component that allows for the formation of what we might call a canonical continuity in flux.

a

3. The paradox of Homer's persona is a recipe, we might almost say, for future questions of identity in tradition. And, indeed, it was pursued no less in modem times than in antiquity, even though the questions posed by modem scholarship and the attributes assigned to the persona of Homer are very different from those of antiquity. For just as many ancient approaches to Homer were characteristically "ancient," so modem ones are the specific product of modernity. Furthermore, as we place different conceptions of Homer side by side, we should not, it seems to me, seek a purposeful trajectory of development The history of Homer's persona, perhaps like history itself, and like evolution in the natmal

HiddenHabitsand the Trappingsof Identity

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world, is much too complex, much too diverse, and much too precarious to be a teleological process.58 Yet as I shall try to show in the next few pages, despite truly radical changes in the style and character of the enquiry, the modem Homer does indeed retain the kind of contradictory resistance that is his trademark in antiquity, and which hence may be described as Homer's "essential" traditionality. As Frank Turner and others assert, the particular question of authorship known as the Homeric Question as we see it, for example, in the work of Aubignac, Wood, and Wolf, did indeed emerge relatively late in history, out of the age of enlightenment, with the onset of humanism and later capitalism, and (broadly speaking) positivist method.59 Inasmuch as the modem (Western) world regarded Homer's poetry as the beginning of its literary tradition, the personaliud subject responsible for the poems, i.e., their author, had to be seen afresh through the mirror of the times. Let us take a closer look. Consider, for example, F. A. Wolf's Prolegomena to Homer (179S), one of the cornerstones of modem views of Homer and Homeric authorship. Wolf thought that the early Homeric poems were composed circa 950 BC by a figure whom he calls Homer. However, Wolf argues,this Homer could not have used writing, certainly not when there is no evidence for the use of such technologyaround him: If as the only man of his time to have such equipment [i.e., writing], he [Homer) bad completed the Iliad and the Ody.uey in theirwtinterrupted segpence [i.e., as we have them today, in their "unified,, state; my emphasis], they would in their want of all other suitable contrivanceshave resembled an enormous ship, constructedsomewhere inland in the first begimings of navigation: its maker would have bad no access to winchesand woodenrollers to push it forward,and thereforeno access to the sea itself in which he could make some trial of his skill.60

Wolf could accept a Homer who was pre-eminent in wisdom and artistic skill, but he found "the planning out of a continuous story which is so long and so varied in its episodes" foreign to "the historical position and innate talent of Homer.n6t He could not accept that Homer was responsible for the Iliad and Odyssey at large nor that these two works of a single genius burst forth sndde:nlyfrom the darkness in all their lrilliance just as they are, withboththe splendor of theirparts andthe

many great virtuesof theconnectedwhole [myemphasis].62

In Wolf's opinion, the poemscomposed by Homer were subsequentlyrecited for about four hundred years. He suggested that during this period the poems were subject to considerable change, and were then written down and edited in accordance with various programs. It was over this later period that the vast, continuous story of the Iliad and Odyssey with its multiple episodes was set out

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The gist of this claim needs to be made explicit: Wolf believed that it was through the written transcnl>en and editors that the poems in their present monumental structure came about. Of course, if we brought together these transcribers. editors, etc. they would not likely share any onecoherent set of values, agendas. perspectives. etc. FrankTurnerrightlynotes that Wolf"seemed to have removed a guiding mind from Homeric composition just as the geologists and other scientific theorists would be accused of removing the mind of God from the development of nature...6 3 This view seems to support an "authorless" Homer, and indeed, Wolfs work gave rise to much analytical scholarship, which disassembled the text into separate "lays." As for Wolf himself, he was certainly not a unitarian, nor did he believe in the original genius of Homer or in a single "big-bang" creative event. 64 Yet he did believe in the "connectedness" of the monumeotal Homeric poems. Who, then. or what did Wolf think was responsible for these poems? The answeris evolutionary process. As Davison

says, It is scarcely too much to say that every serious attempt to grapple with the Homericproblemsince 1795has been forced to accept Wolfs essential conception of the Iliad and Od)uey as theproductsof evolution[my emphasis].

Davison stressesthat recognitionof this fundamentalfact [i.e., the "evolutionary"nature of the Iliad and ~.uey] has at times been hindered by the misleading classification of theories of the creationof the Homericpoems as either "unitarian" or "analytical.'.6s

The question to which Wolf offers an answer concerns the process by which a work is accrued and the "connected whole" is achieved. Crucially, however, he did not think that a single Homer, who did not use writing, could have achieved such connectedness. What allowed for the accrual of the monumental work was the technology ofwriting. 66 Wolf thus reascribed the responsibility for the Iliad and Odyssey, not to a bio~phical identity, to a person, or to a group of persons, but to a new technology. On the one hand,this technology was somehow imagined as capable of creating the monumental poems.On the other hand, the medium, or conduit, of writing was thought to transfer meaning "transparently," just as in earlier views Homer the person and the Homeric reciters were transparent. No single person could lay claims to this written text, since it was the cumulative product that accrued as a result of a technology that transcended persons. In short, what had previously been a paradox phrased in biographic terms, as the representationof a semidivine or divinely inspired person, was now translated into semitechnological,secular terms, as the representation of a text. Homeric poetry could not have remained at the center of the canon of Western poetry, as it clearly has, were it to stand outside of modernity's conceptual framework and its notions of authorship. Antiquity does not address many of the specifically modem questions associated with authorship, which, by and large, fall outside its frame of reference. The fact that the Homeric nanators openly

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disclaim authority over their poems presented no difficulty for antiquity. Indeed, as we have just seen,it wasconcomitant to a view of Homer as a resistana>-free conduit, marked by the elusive biography of the persona of 'Homer.' The advent of modernity with its narratives of secular rationalism andthe individual created the need for a new kind of relationship betweenpersons and texts, which \l-a! focused on the problem of authorship. Modernity sought its own solution in the reconfiguration of Homer as a special type of author, but it maintained inherent contradictions in Homer's persona. To the degree that Homer wasto continue to function as a traditional object. to the extent that be bad to belong to all yet to none, the contradiction bad to be there, adapted to a new set of historical premises and perspectives. Wolf's achievement was to reformat what wasonce a personal conduit of one sort or another (depending on the specific ancient petspective we adopt) in terms of secular, rational, and, above all, technologized, or, rather, evolutionary means of conduction appropriateto an emergent modernity. He rephrased Homeric authorship in terms of writing and, significantly, in teffllS of philological activity. He seemsto openly admit as much: (T]be unique forttmeof the monumentsof Homer and his contemporaries [was] that they in a sense forced mitological criticism into existqcc,. and bad done so even before the name of critic or grammarian badpassedinto commonuse [my emphasis).611

The image of Homer that emerges from Wolf's work is, as we keep stressin& 69 very different from the Homer of the ancient sources. Questions about inspiration, blindness, parentage and provenance, or even dating phrased in teffllSof anecdotal biographic narrative in antiquity were put asideas unimportant, unverifiable myth, or else were radically reconfigured. Different questions about another kind of nonbiograpbic, nonpersonali7.Cd"medium," those concerning writing, orality, and tradition become central (these latter questions are almost never raised in antiquity).7°The notion of epiphany is replaced by the power of the technology of writing, the notion of mixed provenance is replaced by the notion of an artificial multi-dialect, and so on. Even questions which seem to carry over from antiquity are, in fact, very different For example, Wolf, like the ancients, is much concerned with Homer's date, but only to the extent that such date is relevant in terms of the presence/absence of literacy. Yet what is common to both ancient and modern images is the notion of "conductive" discourse that transcends any individual and, at the same time, goes by the individual name of Homer. The loss of a single, personal authorial figure in a modern, post-Cartesian world wasacceptable to many, perhaps even useful, for example, in marking the progress of history (or "mind"). To have constructed Homer, the "first" and "earliest" poet, as a modem author per se, i.e., as a unitary, self-conscious, internaliud individual/mind who is independently responsible for his work, would have collapsed one aspect of the important distinction between"primitive" and

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"developed." between "ancient" and"modero,"which is of great importance to nanatives of modernity, progress, and historical time. 71 This, however, is not to suggest that all scholars were oomfortable with the loss of the Homeric authorial figure. Consider, for example, so-called Unitarian and Analyst approaches (mostly in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries).72 We must first note the intimate relation of the terms "Unitarian" and "Analyst" to the study of Homer. The work of other ancient authors waschecked for consis-

tency and authenticity, subjected to historical scrutiny and textual criticism; there may be doubts about the authenticity of certain plays by Aeschylus and Euripides, seriousquestionsaboutthe text of Sophocles, andquestionsabout the authenticity and/or provenance of certain parts within individual plays. However, there are no Unitarian or Analyst schools of criticism for these authors which are as distinctly marked as in the case of Homer. This.it seems to me, hints at the special prominence of the problem of authorial identity in the Homeric tradition. Scholars of a broadly Unitarian bend generally argue for an individual Homer, a single poet of genius who was respoDSlblefor the poems as a whole (cf. e.g., in the twentieth century, the work of Scott, Drerup, and Shepherd). This figure was, in effect, an "ordinary" nineteenth-century author, made up, in essence, of post-Cartesian notions of authorship and the self.73 His existence was based most often on (elaborate and sometimes contorted) claims of a unity of ideas in the poems. Of course, by assuming a Homer of this type, Unitarian views universalized Homer's genius and thus often collapsed, in a characteristically Romantic manner, some important historical boundaries between ancient and modem The identity of Homer was contained in a unity, but conceptually that unity embraced, or perhaps we should say erased, the history of the Homeric tradition. It's not surprising that someone like Drerup, for example, had to completely deny the historicity of any part of the Iliad and Odyssey. 14 Conceptually speaking, a Unitarian Homer is an entity that transcends fixed dates, spaces, and all other constraining, historicized individual characteristics, even if sometimes arguments as to his date were put forward within the Unitarian camp. The Unitarian Homer was, we might say, essentially a disembodied unity of ideas in the poems, and, as such, perhaps even more ethereal than the Wolfian authorial figure invested in the technology of writing. It is not my intention here (nor does space permit it) to engage with detailed Unitarian readings of Homer. My point is simply that this approach, even as it attempts to close off the figure of Homer, in fact presetves, on its own terms, the figure of Homer as a site of truth which is unbound by constraints of the actual person. A universal genius Homer of this type is, paradoxically perhaps, quite similar to the figure, for example, of the Homeric narrator, whose own experience (and lack of knowledge) are of little importance to the contents of his song. In opposition to Unitarian approaches, Analyst approaches attempted to openly mark the loss of a single figure by positing several distinct-and where distinct, incompatible-personal figures, each of which was held respoDS1ble for only a part of the text There is a strange point of similarity between Analysts and Unitarians here. For Analysts, separate segments or features of the text were

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regarded as conceptual unities authored by a single individualmind. Indeed, it is the assumptionof such unity as the work of an individualauthor that allowed for the identificationof smaller units and the division or ana-lysis of the whole. At the same time, Analysis relieved what we might call the Unitarian burden of genius and allowed for the preservation of historical difference between Homer and modem authors. There was now less of a need for elaborate arguments to smooth over the many thematic inconsistenciesof the Homeric text as Homeric poetry became a kind of "patchwork" (as Wilamowitz called it). In this sense, we are back to a fragmented authorial figure, which is nonethelessparadoxically held together as a single entity by the text of the Iliad and Odyssey-the most stable and canonical texts of antiquity. We should note that both Unitarian and Analyst positions are often charactem.ed as "subjective." As one critic puts it, each scholar in the debate has "revealed by his treatment of Homer onl:ythe proportions of his own standards of logic, aesthetics, ethics, and so forth." 75 This is without doubt true. But perhaps the point is simply that both Unitarian and Analyst readings of the Iliad andOdyssey (as indeed all other historical readings of the poems) are inherently a projection of the specific historical "subjectivity"of Unitarianand Analyst scholars. In the process, Homer's traditional role as a flexible medium is. it seems to me, yet again enacted. In the first quarter of the twentieth century, another, more scientificallyoriented interpretation of Homer came to light, offering yet another version of Homer. This was oral-formulaictheory, of course, which in its several different strands has dominatedHomeric scholarship for a long time now. It is a few important aspects of this theory that I here wish to consider in greater detail. Milman Parry revolutioniud the study of Homer, but he did not discover Homer's orality nor even Homeric repetition as such.76 Rather, his original contribution to the field is the idea of how to interpret such rq,etition and its centrality to understanding who, or, rather, what, Homer was. Parry gave us the formula and its underlying notions of utility and system in an oral-traditional context.77 The early Parry and many of his followers initially argued that Homeric epic was wholly or largely constructed of formal, systematic repetitions defined largely by metrical constraints. More dogmatic positions of this type, sometimes associated with the term "hard Parrysm," are largely discredited today, especially among English speaking scholars.78 But they are "scientific" and methodologically distinct, and therefore illustrative for our present purposes. After all, our objective in this chapter is not to pass judgment on the merits of different formulaic theories. nor to offer a complete survey of their history, but simply to use a few selected examples to illustrate our argument about the authorial figures of Homer. More rigid formulaic approaches generally assume that epic discourse is characteriz.edby formulaic systems. Such systemscan perhapsbestbe characterized as sets of essentially simple, deterministic, and reversible (these ideas will be developed in the next chapter). "Simple" in this context means possessing

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economyand extension:the discourse is subject to a limited set of constraints or means that rules that can generatea whole class of expressions."Detenninistic" the process leads to a largely predictable outcome. "Reversible" means that we can start with the fmal product (epic verse) and reduce it to its precise components (its constitutive formulae) by formal analysis. Thus, for example, if we wanted to express the idea of "Odysseus"andour purposewas to fill a particular metrical shape at the end of the verse, then, in theory, only such-and-sucha formula would be used. If such-and-sucha formula is used, it is because the appropriate slot in the verse was waiting to be filled.79 Repetitivesystems of this type were, of course, claimed to be the key characteristic of preliteratepoetics. They are the feature that allowed singers to transcend the boundariesof mortalityandproduce song without the use of writing.80 They are also assumed to have survived the transfer of the poems to writing more or less intact (regardlessof the process by which such transfer would have occurred). In other words, since it was impossibleto discard the "oral," systematic nature of the poems without discarding the poems themselves, writing is implicitly assumed not to have altered the essential character of the Homeric poems.81 11le force of these views lies in that they maintaina notion of continuity and cohesiveness(though not necessarilythematic unity), without howeverandthis must be very clearly stressed-positing a single personal subject/author. They re-problematizeand thus re-theorizethe gap betweenthe voices that speak the poems during individual performances and the origin, as it were, of the words. This is the same gap which alsoseparatesthe traditionof Homeric poetry as we have it and historical constructs of the persona "Homer." Theorizing the gap is also precisely the goal of other approachesto Homer we have seen. Antiquity constructedHomer as a semidivineperson, as a blind and thus transparent conduit inspired by divine forces. Wolf reinvented the ideaof conduit in the form of evolutionary process and the technology of writing which separates Homer from his discourse.Unitarianscreated a medium in the form of a universal, anachronisticauthor. Analystsposited multiple authorship-with each separate authorial figure residing in different material sections of the text. Hard Parrysts yet again reinventedthe conduit, this time in the form of a semi-scientific system of oral discourseand a metricaltechnologythat again, though in a different way, separatesthe discoursefrom an individual.Hard Panyist attitudes lead to a kind of uniform (and, in more extreme versions, perhaps almost "mechanical" or "industrial") genius which lies beyond any material segment of the text, but which puts forth the claim that every instance of Homeric poetry is an attestation of discourse from elsewhere. In other words, it allows for the absence of an author and for the kind of "transparency" which is openly stated by the Homeric epics (and noted by Barthes, for example), without, however, doing away with the notion of authorshipitself. More rigid formulaic approaches allowed what we previously described as epic conduits to be reinvented in specific science-orientedterms, but they also created a new problem. The transparencyof the conduit could only be achieved if the systemof formulae dominatedthe discourse,andif non-systemicelements were reduced to a minimum, or otherwise assumed to be inessentialto the die-

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tion. Emphasis on fonnal and metrical consttaints as the governing principle of formulaic systems required, for example, minimizing the role of contextsensitive semantics (since these did not follow a generalized rule). Hence claims about the semantic neutrality or "meaninglessness" of so-called generic epithets. This view produced strong reactions,especially as the humanities began to move away from formalist concerns. Some scholars, suchas Brian Hainsworth and Arie Hoekstra, attempted to refine the notion of formulaic system, and extend its flexibility.82 Conceptually, however, these were still attempts to describe Homeric discourse by means of a fonnal system-albeit one more complex and adaptable. Hainsworth, Hoekstra, and their followers sought to refine broad rules in terms of more detailed sub-rules. Other scholars, such as Anne Amoiy Parry, responded by attempting to show that particular regular metrical phrases, although used technically, were also semantically and contextually significant 83 But in doing so they often chipped away at the overall systematic character of oral-formulaic theoiy and its explanatory force, without offering a comprehensive substitute, that is, without offering a unifying component around which to construct a Homer figure. Yet other scholars, such as Jasper Griffin, who were, broadly speaking, of a humanist bend, respondedby expressing disappointment with the contnbutions of oral formulaic theory and the problem of Homeric composition to our understanding of Homeric litenuy values.84 Such critics usually made no explicit arguments with regard to authorship, but implicitly tend to fall either into the Unitarian camp, if they believed in coherent thematics, or the into the Analyst camp, if they detectedseveral thematic and conceptual strands in the text. These views are, of course, of great importance to the history of Homeric scholarship, and to our understanding of Homer and the history of formulaic midies, but since, in terms of their construction of Homeric authorship, they more or less follow earlier approaches, we shall have to put them aside for the purposesof our present discussion. In drawing this chapter to a close, I would, however, like to consider one more-recent response to the problem of authorship. It has been offered by a broad group of scholars whose research, generally speaking, looks back to the work of Albert Lord, and who attempt to reconstruct (as Lord put it) "an oral poetics" with renewed emphasis on the problem of performance. Consider, for example, Gregory Nagy's well-known opening to The Best of the Achaians: There is ... something troublesome ... about the insistenceon the poet's lack of freedom to say accuratelywhatever he means (Nagy is refening specificallyto formulaicclaims made by D. Page]. It is as if the factor of metrics were in control of what can or cannot be said In short, Parry's work on the mechanics of Homeric diction has caused a serious problem of esthetics for generations of

Hellenists ... How can compositionsthathave always seemed so delibemteand integral in their artistry result from a ~ of diction that is so mechanical-one might almost sayautomatic?For various Homeric experts the solution lies

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aemus

in objecting to various aspects of Party's findings: the of Homer must somehowbe rescuedfromtheworkings of a formulaic system. For me,however, it is easier to accept Pany's work and to proceed from thereby looking for a solution in the factor of the tradition itself[my empbasis].15

A deep underlying issue here is the perception of authorship, or perhaps, since Nagy is not in any way trying to resurrect the notionof a personal author, of somethingwe might call authorialprocess. Nagy began his investigationof tradition by redefining the fonnuJa. Instead of "a group of words regularly employed under the same metrical conditions to express a given essential idea" (Parry, The Making of Homeric Verse, 272) he suggests (as is well-known bt now) "a fixed phrase conditioned by the traditional themes of oral poetry". This definition offers a broad, "bottoms up" retort to formalist (metricalbased) arguments,and has importantconsequencesfor the notion of Homericauthorship.A key component in Nagy's view of Homeric theme-conditioneddiction is its evolutionarycharacter (but see below on evolution) in a manner that "defies syncbronicanalysis."This, Nagy adds, is not to advocate any abandonmentof the search for syncbroni~ let us say working-mechanisms.Rather, it is to emphasize that there are different levels of meaning that cannot be reducedto any single syncbrony.17

Before explaining the importanceof this view, it may be usefulto illustrate Nagy's views briefly by one of his examples. Nagy cites Denys Page, who argued long ago that the dual proper-namefonn Aiante originally referred to Telamonian Aias and his half brother Teukros.88 In Iliad 13.177:ff.,the Aiante (Telamonian Aias and Teukros) kill and despoil lmbrios. According to Page, later poets, readingAiante and understandingliterally"the two persons named Aias," found the absence of the "other" Ajax ("the Lesser", son of Oileus) from this scene unbearable. They therefore felt compelled to reintroduce Oilean Ajax in this scene (203) and elsewhere by means of a "jack-in-the-boxintrusion." The result, according to Page, is "confusion...s9 Nagy rejects this view. He argues that thereis no "confusion" [here], and that it is inaccurate to speak of "intrusions." Instead, ifwe adopt an evolutionarymodel for the making of Homeric poetry, there are simply different levels of recomposition-in-performance. which are tracesof anevolving fixity or textualiz.ation-and 90I use thistennwithout implying the presenceof written texts [my emphasis].

For Nagy, "textualization"is not synonymouswith written texts. Also, his conception of evolution is different from Wolf's writing-basedprocess. Wolf assumes that the product of evolution is a "connected"whole. This whole may not be thematicallyand poetically consistent, but where it lacks consistency,it can be analyzedand broken down into smaller sectionsof text that are, as such, consistent. By contrast, Nagy assumes that even small parts of the whole resist reduction to a single syncbronic analysis. This can occur even at the level of a

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single word. In Nagy's view, for example, the word Alante can reactivate two incompatible references or "themes," each of which exists at a particularlevel of "recomposition-in-perfonnance." The first theme comprises the Greater Aias and Teukros. The second comprises the Greater Aias and the Lesser Aias. It is clear that the two themes are mutually incompatible, andcannot be reduced to one. This type of mechanismmay be what Albert Lord had in mind when he wrote: We are dealingwith a fon;e or "tension"thatmight be tamed "submerged." The habit is hidden. butfelt It arises out of the depths of the traditionthrough 91 the workings of thetraditional processto inevitable expression.

What consequences, then, does this view of epic discourse have with regard to the figure of Homer? In the first place, it implies the disintegration of both a historical author and of a text as a single synchrony and, hence, as the 1epresentation of a single "mind." To this degree, Nagy may have some important affinity with B811hes'notions of the "death" of the author (see previous chapter). But we should note that Nagy takes his notions further. As he says, "The key to loss of identity as a composer is loss of control over performance. Once the factor of performance slips out of the poet's control ... the poet becomes a myth, he is, in other words, retrojected from the point of view of the present."92 "Authorship," Nagy suggests, "is determined by the authority [my emphasis) of perfonnance and textuality, by the degree of a composition's invariability from performance to perfonnance."93 Here we must stress what Nagy himself says, but relegates to a footnote: "It is ha7.ardousto retroject to the ancient world our contemporary notions of "author''-notably the individual author."94 Thus, moving from biographical person, through the technology of writing, to scientific systems and oral discourse, we now find ourselves investing authority in perfonnative aspects of the poetry. Inasmuch as the perfonnance, or the textuality, of the Homeric epic creates an image of invariability, authority and authorship may be established, although it is an action that "closes off the text" (as Barthes says) andcreates a mere semblance of fixity.9SIn other words, we always enact closure in one form or another, but cannot ever fully achieve it. Homeric epic al96 ways embodies a concrete identity as well as a deeper mouvance. In the tension between claims to textual closure and authorial fixity versus the diachronic openness and mouvance,in the tension between the immediately present performer of epic, who claims verbatim repetition, and the absent "mythical" Homer in the background. resides the tension which, I suggest. is Homer's traditional identity.97 Nagy's view of Homeric authorship is veiy different from those offered by Plato and Aristotle, by Thucydides, by Wolf, and the by "hard Parrysts." Read historically, each of these views can be interpreted as a reflection of its times. Antiquity by and large constructed a semidivine biographical persona, a transparent conduit inspired by divine forces. This conduit is, of course, not a mono-

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lithic figure in itself, and can be furtherbrokendown.We sawsomeexamples of how it was adapted to different historicalagendas. At the end of the eighteenth century, Wolf reinvented the idea of conduit in the form of the technology of writing, and, essentially, as a philological construct. Homer became a subject in the image, as it were, of philology. Hard Panyans reinvented the conduit in the form of an oral and metrical technology, as a semi-scientific or quasi-industrial construct: Homer was now the sign for an algorithmic machine. Scholars like Nagy,who are writing at the end of the twentiethcentUJy (or indeed in this century), speak of diachrony and of irreduaole levels of meaning. Homer has become a special kind of performance. Yet the Homer that emerges from these very different views (and perhaps other views, which space will not permit us to discuss) is remarkablycoherent in his characteristics. He remains both as a figure that invites closureand one that resists closed identities. We constantly reimagine him as a subject of one kind or another,even though he is not a fixed subject, but rather a protean relay, a conduit To describe Homer in this manner,though, is merely another way of saying that he is an open, fluid, and widely accepted tradition, which can have no one master if it is to be kept truly alive.98 The tradition must belong to all, and to none, sharing a discourse which is authorless but notJOWerless, a speech-act held together in its full diversity by the nameof Homer.

NOTES 1. See Pfeiffer 1976: 158. 2. Vico 1968 (1744): 324 (section 875. [cf. 788ff., 86lff.]). er.discussion in Simonsuni 1979: 90-97. 3. de Duve 1999:67. 4. Cf., e.g., Kitt 1965: 190: "Antiquity knew nothing definite about the life and pei-sonality of Homer. Even his namewas a strangeone, suqect to fantastic derivations. Yet this name, at least, was firmly andindisputablyattached to the lliad and 04),uey." 5. For a useful survey, see Rabel 1997:4-6. 6. De Jong 1987: 6-8. 7. Naming is a besicact which, for example,marks an infant's en1ryinto individuality. See, e.g., Kripke 1980. 8. Without a name, an individualis often incapable of action.Considea', forexample, Odysseus' anonymousand helpless situation in certain parts of theOdy8&ey. 9. Cf. Stephen J. Gould (1980: 108, cited above, chapter 1, note 48): "A structwe can change its function radically without altering its form as much." This principle, I would argue, is as importantin the historyof cultmal evolution as it is in theevolution of living species. I0. er.also Plato, Apology 22b, c~Paednu 245&;Meno 81b, 99c; Law&682a, 719c. 817a. 11. To the best of my knowledge, these suggestionshave not been put forward elsewhere. and space will not permit me to develop them here. But I hope that at least my basic premise is self-evident.namely that both Plato and Aristotlewould have been aware of the Homeric narrator's/Homer's ..abdication" of knowledge, and that this position must somehow have been fitted into their respective (and very different) philosophical perspectives.

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12. See Graziosi2002: 125-164.Also Clay 1989: 49, note 101; Burkert 1979; Lamberton 1997; Davison 1962 (''The Homeric Question"). 13. The Ody.uey does not openly state whether Pbemiosis blind or not Vico 1968, §870 assumesthat the Ithacan singer was blind (cf. Odyuey 1.153,where we are told that the kena puts a lyre in his hands, perhapsas one might do if the singer was blind). But Pbemios' behavior in Ody.uey 22.330-44 suggeststhat he can, in fact, see. Neither Thamyris (Iliad 12.595ff.), nor the bard placed to guard Klytemnesb'a(Odyssey 3.267) are blind, but both suffer a total loss of power, Thamyris is dqnved of his poetic and musical skills, the wmamed herd guardingKlytemnestrais exiled to a desert island. 14. Interestingly, such "contagious" poetic blindness seems similar, for example,to thep-ocess of inspiration. 15. The name may be Cnmaean for "blind" (Ps. Herodotean Vita Hmieri); Ephoros (Ps. Plutarch I. 2, FGH 70F I) relates the nameto Cumaean or Ionianfor "blind." Cf. RE VIII2 2199-2201. Modem scholars pefer othecetymologies. See also chapter 6. 16. SeeBarash 2001: 28-33. Images in Gigante 1996, appendix, 175-201. 17. SeeFoley 1998: 162: note 24 andMwko 195: 206-17 (cited therein). 18. Buxton 1980: 29. See also Barash 200 I: 28: "Blindness may also indicate a gift: the blind may have contact with another reality, different from the one in 'Mlich we live . . . Blindness may be the external appearance that conceals a mysterious, numinous interior." But Buxton's discussion is both more detailed andmore persuasive. 19. Buxton 1980: 29. C( Brisson 1976: 32; Dodds 1952: 81; Vemant 1974: 12. 20. Buxton 1980: 30-33; Loraux1995. 21. See discussion and further references (especially Frankel 1975 and Snell 1924) in Hussey 1990. This view is implicit in various other passages, e.g., Ody.uey 11.156 (Antikleia to Odysseus in the underworld): UKVOV iµbv, ~ ftA.8£c; UtO 1}ep6£vta Coo~ l?cov;X,CXA.£1t011 6£ 'ta& Crocimv qria8cn. (My child, how have you come beneath the mwky darkness, and you are still alive. It's difficult for those who are alive to see these things); Iliad 12.176-77 (Helen speaking in the Teichoalcopia): apyaliov at µ£ ixxuta Oeovd.')c;mivt' aycpeooa1. · (It is difficult for meto tell all this as ifl were a god). Bakker ( 1997a:58) suggeststhat ''the epic story ... is not so much the WlDlediated mimesis of which the Muses would be capable, as the mediated semiosis of speech." I agree that the mediated character of mortal speech is marked in Homer. But the whole point is that the narrator in the Iliad and Odyssey claims to transcend such mediation through acts of deferment (''we know nothing"). Notwithstanding such claims we should acknowledge that any semiosis, whether by the Museor by mortals, is by definition mediated, i.e., that the idea of unmediated reality, crucial as it is the to conceptual framework of epic, is a fantasy. 22. Formal patterns are, of course, key symbols of repetition and regularity in the Homeric poems. See Kahane 1997band also chapter 3 below. 23. This epistemic function does not, of course, exclude blindness' more immediate function in contexts of punishment,death, etc. 24. Regardless of any views in the literary sources, there is evidence for real persons called HomeTO.'I(Frazer and Matthews 1987: 49; 1994: 351; 1997: 341, also 341, s.~. • Oµ.apoc;). Such evidence postdates Homeric poetry,but offers 90Dle concrete indication that the ancients thought Homer was mortal. The Greeks did not call themselves by the names of divinities.

t6'ov

58

Chapter Two

We might note in paaing that Homer's "true" name is sometimes given as Melesigenes or Melesianax,or Me1esagoras(note the variations-all determininguncertainty). er., e.g., the Vitae: 4.28 ~ 8' aut011 Mel1}01."f£111'1 1J MeA.flcnaKXrccx x:erl:ip8cxt;6.636.7 tmuiw 8' tx: "f£\IE't'IK Mel1}01."f£111K 1JMelfl(J(lyl:pac;.

a~c; 8' "Oµ'IJ)O(; Wx,&rt m'f.d:fflVAecrpt.c.ov &dA.£1C'WV. 25. Cf. Graziosi 2002: 129: -ro my knowledge, none of the portraits on which Homer's name is inscribed depict a blind man." Sheherself, quite rightly in my view, argues against the notion that such named identification of the figme and depiction of the figure as blind might in some way be mutually exclusive. 26. Cf. Graziosi 2002: 64, ISO; Clay 1989: 49, note 101 and references ~ Burkert 1987: 55. 27. Griffith (1983: 45) suggeststhat this passage is wnque among hymnic prooemia in specifying a performative context. 28. See Rhodes 1994: 157 and note on p. 260; Burkert 1979: 61, following Wilamowitz. "anonymously" ("no need to say the blind man's name").Manuscript readings of the Hymn give the end of line 171 as~ flµtc.ov, "from us" or"about us,"(M.mx: a~ t]µto>V); as~ qitcov. "from you."or even as e~c; and attlµroc;. "gently," (Hornblower 1991: 530) or "silently," or "in a paising manner." The difficulty with the text may expose the deeper issue conccmingthenaming of an lll)1)8ll)ffl speaker. See also Carey 1980; Mmx 1907; Forden:r 1971 (esp. 104 and note 69); Dyer 1975; Graziosi 2002: 65-66. 29. There is no single "Homer" that emerges from the Hi810riu. However, being the "professional" historian, Thucydides often denies Homa, a figure from the distant past. the status of an authoritative source. Jn Historiu 1.9.4, for example, on the subject of Agamemnon's ships (see also 1.10.4). Thucydides says, "As Homer testifies, if he is sufficient witness for anyone" (~ "0µ11f)(X; 'tOO'CO &61))..rox:ev, rl 'tCp lm\lb; But see the discussionof Historiu 1.3.3 and Thucydides' views about 't£X:µf1Pl(i>crat). the name Hellenes,above, pp. 45-46. 30. Hornblower 1991: 530. 31. On the use of evidence in Thucydides, see Hornblower 1991: 6; 1987: 1OOtr. 32. Cf. Nagy 1990b: 170; Ford 1985: 33. 33. A lroader surveyof ancient views on theseaspects in Graziosi2002. 34. Cf., for example, Griffm 1980: 123-7. 35. Jn fact, the patronymic Kronidls on its own is the most common meansof making reference to Zeus, especially in repeated phrases which appeal to his power such as alvata't£ Kpov(.6TJ miov 'tOVµOOovteurec; (Iliad 1.552, etc.); & 1td't£Ptu.it't£p£ K.povt6fl {)n;a't£ 1Cp£tbvtcov (04,.>ssey1.45, etc.). 36. There is a much more general aspect to the problem of genealogical identities. We cannot refer to an ancestor from the distant past in the same way we can refer to a living person standingbeside us, or to a person whom we ourselves have known directly. Many genealogies in the Old Testament, for example, seem lilre mere lists of names. Jn the case of distant ancestors, we are forever cut off from any moment of "baptism" (as Kripke, for example, has called it), whereby a person in the real world is linked with a name. Genealogies rely heavily on «chains of communication" of unknown length (see Kripke 1980: 91-7. Cf. Said 1975:xiii and~ Strawson 1959: 182). They force upon us a difficult choice: either put our faith in matters that are by definition beyond our direct experience, or remain doubtful.

Hidden Habits and the Trappingsof Identity

59

37. Interestingly,in amatory, erotic, and magical contexts, fonnal identificationof the female oqectof desire often relies on the mother's name. 38. Compare,e.g., Hesiod in the Work, and Dap, a workwith closer aff'mityto the concrete world: the poet/naJ1'ator doesdescribehis own fatherat somelength (633ff.),but does not name him. 39. Mortal origins withmarkedcontention. e.g.,Herodotean Vita (12-13): O'U11£fnl 'tflV1tCXt&x [Krethei.s,Homer's mother] 1,uyei:oavawpl l.aOpatcoc; [secret copulation with unknown father] iv yaa,;pl ax,ei:v;Plutarchean Vita (1.2-4): 11£ptffOVµ£V dv \O(l}c;~it um ~wpayµoveiv ,repl •Oµ-tp,u, 1tO(oov 't£ ftv yovecov ical ~ev- l!3tel µ113' abtoc; i#(ooev ebrei:v 1t£pl a\Jtou, all' oote.t>'to6 l,l£1rl 1t0lliic; a.&tac; [effectively poetic license] iicao-t0c;clc;ipo(>Aeto ex,ap(.oato; Vita Quarta (4.1-4):"0µ1JX)(; b 1t01.1l'tflUO'£lcxooc; (Ody.uey9.265) such a city was that he sacked !Y.¥1 destroyed people ("\

eloiv· -!::1telµdl.a. 1tolla mi8ov 1eal a1W>UO'CX ol1eov(O~ssey4.95) are-for I have sufferedmuch, and destroyeda household ("\

be;u 1eal v (Ody.uey 17.415) give, dear friend. Youdo not seemto me the one whoisthe W'Ol'Stof the

Acbaians ("\

ald ta~v cruilc.ov'COIidplO'tOv a1tCivr.cov·(Ody.uey 14.19) always of the well-fattenedporke.rsthe one who isthebest of all

In all of these phrases and many others, our perceptionof the colon u u - u v - xiias a cohesive metrical unit obviously depends on semantic, lexical, and syntactic factors. But let us look at such factors a little closer. We might. for example, consider kai u - u u - xiiexpressions in terms of Panyan "essential ideas."32 The notion of a semantic essence requires that we put aside "inessential" verbal components, for example, the appositive kai, which is not an independent "full" word, and which, precisely for this reason, is appended to the following word. Looking at "essential ideas," then, we would focus our attention on the phrases an6gemenal/ous (urge the rest); apolese laous (destroyed peoples); and ameibeto muthoi (answered in speech). Similarly, in the case of PRONOUN u - u u - x IIphrases we might focus on expressions such as aristos Achait>n(the best of the Achaians) and kakistos Achaion (the worst of the Acbaians) as the essential components. Needless to say, the discourse of aristoslkakistos(best/worst) in these last two examples is an important component of Homeric epic, not some marginal ornament Being aristos is "a formal measure of a given hero's supremacyin his own epic tradition, as we can see from the deploymentof the expressionaristosAkhaitJn."33 Other phrases in this group may not embody ideas of quite such importance, but they, too, are significant thematicallyand semantically.Now, we have just pointed out the apparent role of semantics on our metrical perception of phrases. Indeed, as many scholars suggest. the bridge depends on it Yet it is equally our attention to semanticsthat will also cause us to focus on ant>gemen allous,apoleselaous, ameibetomutht>i, and aristosAchaitJnas the essence of certain epic ideas. And, of course, the metrical form of all these "essential" expressions is [7 ½] u - u u - x 11-In short, our attention to semantics as a metrically active principle generates precisely that metrical unit which is bannedby Hermann•s law.l-4

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We might try to make our way aroundsuch difficulties, for example, by adopting a slightly different, pragmatic/synchronicapproach. We could, for example, quite sensiblyconsider kai + [... ]II,and hos+[ . .. ]IIexpressions as functionally cohesive metrico-semanticunits. Yet doing so would give expressions like hos aristos Achaion ("the one who is the best of the Achaians," rather than simply aristos Achai"'1, "the best of the Achaians") the same internal cohesion as, for example, the expressionspo~lis Odysseus (many-wiledOdysseus) or podasokys Achilleus (swift-footedAchilleus), both of which are always verseterminal and have the shape u u - u u - x. But this-unless we are prepared to abandon attempts at more abstract grouping-leads to even greater problems. We would now have to reconsider the cohesive character of many common expressions that close the hexameter verse, such as kaJ dios Achil/eus II("and divine Achilleus" IDor kai dios Odysseus IIO- - u u - x II).If we are to rely on functional semantic cohesion in order to preserve Hermann's bridge, we must not break after the prepositive. Indeed, most colometric analyses will not allow for both the hephthemimeral(Cl, after position 7) and the bucolic (C2, after position 8) caesurae in the same hexameter.Yet of course, it is a basic (and quite reasonable) tenet of almost all formulaic theories that kai dios Achi//eus is an expansion, or at least a variant of dios Achilleus. Certainly the phrases dios Achilleus and dios Odysseus are often used without a prepositive in Homer. Now, we have just assumed that semantic units can determine the shape of metrical units. As we saw, Hermann's bridge depends on it. We must thus, against our will and against the vecy semantic character of appositives,acknowledge the effect of dios Achil/eus on the metrics of kai dios Achilleus. We must in short allow for a break both before and after kai. 35 By reintroducing such multiple breaks, we are taken back full circle to our earlier problem. If we allow for a break after the prepositive in examples of kai [7½] ... or hos [7½] ... , we once more face the threat of parsing u I u - u u - x II and infringing Hermann's bridge. Needless to say, few scholars would think of parsing kai [7½] ... or hos [7½] ... as u I u - u u - x 11-Thus it seems that, contral)' to other suggestions and perhaps even to our immediate sensibilities,the metrical unit u u - u v - x IIcannot depend on semantics, syntax, or on the appositive's status. We are, it seems, in the presence of irreducible dissonance.It must be stressed, though, and we shall see more examples of this later, that such dissonance is not destructive or disabling of a metrical or semantic reading of the text. But let us tl)' yet another approach, for example, by following Michael Nagler, who argues persuasively and at some length that the basic patterns of Homeric epic are "preverbal templates." In Nagler's view, groups of related examples (he looks at expressionscentered on the words pioni t:Mm6i) would be considered not a closed "system" classifiableas a subset of a larger system and susceptibleof sub-classificationswithin its own boundaries, but an open-ended "family." and each phrase in the group would be considered an allmorph;" a derivative not of any other phrase but of some prevc:rbal,mental, but quite real entityWlderlyingall such phrases at a more abstractlevel.36

Fonnal Fantasies

15

Since preverbal templates can never be equatedwith actual phrases. they cannot, we assume, have metrical properties: they do not effect metrical pauses, nor come into conflict with them. This approach resolves some of the dissonance generated by the hexameter's metrical scheme, but it clearly does so by positing a dialectic of that which is exposed and that which is not. Nagler's theory also presents an interesting question with regard to the history of the hexameter. How exactly do preverbal templates-being pre-verbal- account for the formation of actual, verbal allomorphs and metrical patterns? Unless we assume the preexistence of nonverbal metrical schemes before the formation of epic phrases, we must, it seems to me, postulate the existence of specific phrases in the early stages of hexameter poetry in order to account for the metrical scheme and actual words of the Iliad and Odyssey. There are, at this point, two possible scenarios. First, it may be that such early specific phrases, if they have survived in our current texts, are already subject to our observable dissonant tensions. As a second option, we can postulate an "original" set of phrases in which meter and phraseology are entirely in harmony. But if we do so, we must also assume that these original phrases were eventuallf; replaced by many new expressions that did not preserve the same harmony. 7 This means that "harmonious" phrases were replaced by "dissonant" phrases. We are back to the practice of entropy. The metrical constructs of Homeric epic as we know them emerge, I suggest, out of a two-step process of constraint and resistance, which is conceptually comparable to the two-step process which generates the authorial figure of Homer discussed in previous chapters. The process involves an unwieldy, formless mass which we constantly attempt to limit, to format, and thus to endow with specific meanings and functions. To compose epic, to sing, to perfonn, to interpret, is to enforce specific patterns and regulatory codes on the discourse. Hermann's law is one pointed example-a particular preference for certain cadences at the end of the verse. But Hermann's law, like all other regulatory codes of Homer, can be described as a historically specific "performance," reading, or "function" that gives meaning and form to hexameter poetry. It helps us characterize Homeric epic and thus "do things" with hexameter verse in particular historical contexts. For example, Hermann's bridge can be used to distinguish between canonical epic verse and certain forms of epigraphic hexameter "doggerel." It can thus function as a device for marking out cultural canons and distinguishing their core from their periphery. 38 Of course, no one can emerge out of history and perform or compose or interpret epic "once and for all." For precisely this reason, it is also not possible to deconstruct aspects of Homer once and for all, or to identify all of the tradition's acts of enforcement and suppression. Nor, it seems to me, would we want to do so. The fragile, temporal existence of cultural practice is what gives it its meaning, and perhaps also, like some delicate crystal, its significance and beauty. 39

S. Havingmade these preliminary observations, let us now approach what is perhapsthe formal problem par excellence of Homeric discourse: the question of formulae. As Joseph Russo writes in a recent survey,

76

Cbapk:r 'IbR:e

Invcstigatioos of the ftwJD11laic element tbat dunctai7.CSHomericstyle, have always embodied, at least implicitly, a search for the~ chemistry whereby gifted poets tnmsmutemac wordsinto ve:rhllart. Many oral-fonnulaic theories.esptdally earlier ones, have, as we have already noted in brief in the previous chapter, attempted to identify sets of relatively

simple, systematic principles which define the core (or, in more extreme ea~ even the whole) of Homeric discourse. Use of the tenn "fonnula," which bas strong overtones of the natural sciences and of chemistry in particular, is itself indicative of this.41 And, of course, as we have already noted, Parry famously defined the fonnula as "a group of words which is regularly e!!floyed under the same metrical conditions to express a given essential idea."4 He repeatedly spoke of Homeric discourse as a "system" that displays both "simplicity" and "extension.»4 3 Approaches of this type can be compared to certain types of scientific theory, indeed (if we pick up Russo's metaphor) pemaps even to classical chemistry, which seeks to reduce the vast complexity of the natural world to a set of more-or-less detenninistic formal relations. Of course, as Russo rightly stresses."there has been constmt revision of Parry's more extreme j~ e.g., that Homer's diction is essentially all fonnulaic and traditional. Even Parry himself realhed that a narrow systematic approach could not adequately describe, let alone prescribe, the whole of the discourse as we have it In his 1aterwriting he famously suggested, for example, that there are fonnulaic links between the expressions teuche kunessin (gave to the dogs) and ddke hetairt5i (gave over to his companion). Had he not died so young, he may well have developed these ideas, which were eventually given voice, for example, by Michael Nagler in his study Spontaneity and Tradition (1974). Nagler suggested that "one must be prepared to sacrifice some of the boundaries and apparent objectivity of the various definitions of the terms 'formula,' 'fonnulaic,' and 'fonnula system.,"4s As we have already noted, Nagler introduced the notion of an open-ended system of "allomo1phs" linked to each other by "family resemblances" (rather than by closed sets of features). Together, such allomorphs made up the resonant diction of Homeric epic. Nagler's views were influential, but perhaps more in their practical implications than for their full theoretical import, which could not at the time be easily reconciled with prevailing views of fonnulaic order. The diversity of Homeric diction, was, however, eventually acknowledged. Homer's diction, as Joseph Russo suggests, is "an amal~ of elements covering a spectrum from highly formulaic to nonfonnulaic." Russo sums up his surveyby pointing out that the word formula proved to be a poor thing, hopelesmyinadequate to cover the different kinds off onnulaic realities in Homeric diction. And it is reasonable to

assume that the talented traditional poet would always have been capable of 46 some non-formulaic,original language.

One can only agree with this description of Homeric discourse. But it may require a few qualifications. First, a general matter that may point to the kind of

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approach we plan to offer: Russo is right that the word "formula" is "hopelessly inadequate" for covering the different realities of Homeric diction. Yet the plain fact is that "formula" remains one of the most common terms in use in the study of Homeric diction. It's obviously not that inadequate. How can we explain its use, then? It seems to me that, somewhat like the authorial figure of Homer and like many other aspects of Homeric poetry, it might be useful to think of the formula as a flexible means of characteri.7.ationand cuification. Adapting Foucault's words (as cited in the previous chapter), we can say that the formula "establishes different forms of relationships among texts [or parts of texts]," and that it is used (Foucault again) in order "to characteriu the existence, circulation, and operation of certain discourses within a society." In other words, the formula is not strictly speaking a unit of Homeric discourse, certainly not any particular unit, but rather a complex unitizing function, a name used to describe different aspects of the text which reflect different inttnSts, approaches, and agendas. More significantly, we must pay careful attention to Russo's notion of a "spectrum" of formulaic realities ranging from the highly formulaic to the "nonformulaic and original." This may suggest that to understand Homeric diction, we should simply map each individual component to a point between the "highly formulaic" and the "non-formulaic." If that were the case, we would, of course, end up with a diverse image of Homeric diction, an "amalgam." However, such diversity need have little of the dynamic and contradictory characteristics which we have been at pains to describe earlier. Furthennore, defining one end of the spectrum as "non-formulaic, original" seems to imply that it is nontraditional, and is the opposite, perhaps, of "highly formulaic," traditional discourse. This again implies a view of tradition that is different from the one we have been developing so far. In what follows, then.I wish to reconsider andperhaps revise the notions of "highly-formulaic" and "non-formulaic." My first step will be to try to expose what we might call the radical complexity of Homeric diction. This takes matters beyond the notion of "an amalgam of elements" and various other views about diversity in Homeric diction. My view is that Homeric diction cannot be described simply as a mixture of fixed "formulaic" and free-floating "non-formulaic" elements. As I shall try to show, even rigorous examples of formulaic systems can, on closer inspection, be refracted, offering resistance to the very notions of simplicity and order which is their claimed defining characteristic. Offhand, our idea of radical complexity may seem to imply a rejection of formulae and formulaic systems. But, in fact, this is not the case. In the first place, if we allowed for nothing but the argument for indescribable complexity, bow would anyone ever describe Homeric poetry? How would we ever describe it? Indeed, how would anyone ever know Homeric language for what it is? Also, it seems to me counterproductive, if not impossible, to simply ignore many important and perceptive analyses of Homeric diction. Milman Parry noted that certain proper names such as Achi/leus and Odysseus are "regularly used under similar metrical conditions." Hainsworth, Hoekstra, Paraskevaides, and many others refined and redefined his views. Yet, upon close inspection, we shall find

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that systematic order ("regular usage") can be traced even to a greater extent in Homeric diction, indeed, even where supposedly non-formulaic "free" elements have previously been claimed. The point is this: as a corollary to the complexity argument, we will argue, not simply for systematic readings of Homeric diction, but also for the potential plurality, or "overabundance," of such systematicity. We shall, of course, have to explain how radical complexity and overabundant systematicity coexist. Yet out of the tension between these two components, I hope to produce an image of Homeric diction that is in agreement with our views of tradition and a corollary to the figure(s) of Homer described in earlier chapters. As a first step towards this goal, it's important to stress that Homeric diction is indeed connected by a web of (Wittgensteinian) "family resemblances" (as Michael Nagler and, less explicitly, Parry before him noted). We can, in principle at least, compare and group almost any word or phrase in Homer within larger or smaller sets of examples using semantic, lexical, metrical, syntactic, narrative, thematic and other criteria, including contextual criteria, separately or combined. Broadly speaking, the fewer our criteria, the larger our sets, and vice versa. Homeric discourse can be represented graphically as a kind of Venn-like diagram:

J3

Fig. I

Let each separate enclosed figure in our diagram (e.g., the circles ex.and (3, the ovals, and the irregular polygon, and others, which we have not drawn) represent a set of words or phrases that attest certain features, semantic, metrical, lexical, grammatical, etc. Areas where enclosed figures overlap indicate sets of examples with one or more shared features. In the group of proper names, for example, some words, but not all, may have a particular metrical shape, which may also be attested, of course, in other words which are not proper names, and so on and so forth. Let us now allow the large horizontal rectangles to represent whole texts (e.g., the Iliad and the Odyssey) or distinct parts thereof (separate books, the Catalogue of Ships, the Telemachy, etc.). Some enclosed areas (e.g., can be partially outside one, or both, of the reccertain parts of circles ex.and 13)

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79

tangles. of course. Let us also suggest that in principle. there may be other areas that are mostly or even wholly outside of the rectangle. This is to indicate the potential for further examples and groupings. some of which are only minimally attested in our extant texts. Parry himself, we must remember. arguedthat "the formula in Homer is not necessarily a repetition." i.e.• even if it is attested only once.47 Finally, let us note that this diagram may be incomplete. We can never enumerate all of the potential groupings and never draw "all" the enclosed shapes in the diagram. Thus. each word or phrase can.in principle, belong to any number of sets, only a few of which are represented in our diagram. In figure 1 all of the enclosed shapes (and notionally all those not drawn too) are transparent We can at any point see all overlaps. and if we had more criteria (i.e.• criteria that define enclosed shapes) we would see those as well. This is somewhat misleading. Obviously we do not always seeall possible criteria at the sametime, nordo we find those that we do equally usefulor important For example, the verse, 'tOVa•A.'I'}. (Iliad 1.5) andto all birds, andthe will of Zeus was fulfilled.

These examples incorporate even greater variation than the so-called structural formulae, which themselves have met with significant. and perhaps justified, scholarly resistance.49 If we consider our schematic representationagain, a better diagram might be something of this sort:

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Chapter Three

Fig. 2

Note that some of the enclosed shapes (i.e., our sets of examples) in figure 2 are not transparent. They overlap and sometimes obscure each other, representing a specific preference, i.e., a "closing off'' of epic repetition at certain levels. The circle a, for example, is partially obscured by another figure within the rectangles representing the Iliad and Odyssey, and indeed by one of those rectangles (i.e., it is not a set of examples or a shared-feature which is overtly and prominently associated with one of the poems). Furthermore, it's clear that different readers with different preferences and criteria (for example, proponents and opponents of structural formulae) may at different times bring different shapes to the forefront, relegating others to an unseen background. Such restricted perspectives represent more realistically the historical preferences of interpreting Homer and Homeric discourse.so However, as I shall try to show below, it may be misleading to assume that they represent the discourse "in itself." I am suggesting, then, that a proper graphic representation of epic diction requires a conflation of both diagrams (and perhaps still others). To understand this, we might consider, for example, the city of Rome, as it is described by Sigmund Freud in Civilization and Its Discontents (see the epigraph to this chapter): A city in the real world throughout history, but, for this reason, also many different cities. Rome in its "totality" is a fantasy, a diachronic place that compresses all pasts (and perhaps also pasts never realized and buildings that were never built, and also futures and buildings that have yet to be built) into a single space. Impossible as this image is, it is also true to form. There can be no one comprehensive description of the eternal city. The Homeric tradition, I suggest, follows the same principle. 51 Note, however, that even in Freud's diachronic city the onlooker does not see everything at once but must "change the direction of his glance or his position in order to call up the one view or the other." Even this fantastic Rome does not escape the contingency of an imaginary observer's gaze. Epic tradition, too, like Rome, must remain in some place that is both "positional" relative to the perspective of on-looking subjects, and yet profoundly beyond it.52 But what is the meaning of these ideas within the practical realities of Homeric diction? Let us take a close look at two recent and often cited contribu-

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tions to formulaic theory, both of which define highly regulated ("highly formulaic") segmentsof Homeric discourse. Consider first the work of Edz.ard Visser, who proposeda system of Homeric diction, closely Parryan, that relied on a distinction between "core" elements on the one band,and "filler' material on the other.s3 "Core" elements, according to this view are the most important, semantically, and their metrical position is fixed. "Filler' matttial, by contrast, is semantically less important, and its metrical placement is variable. It might be useful to note the general (though not literal) affinity between these tenns and the conception of "highly formulaic" versus "non-fonnular, original" elements which Russo mentions. Visser examined whole-verse structures of the type "A killed B." Here is one of his own examples:

'I8quvroc; 3' dpcx ,roicrt011tllfpx'W M~ ldomeneusthen slew Phaistos. son of Meion.s.

doll (Iliad 5.43)

The names of the killer and victim, as well as the action of killing, are, according to this view, the most important, or "core," semantic elements, which are positioned first, in accordance with fixed tendencies for the localization of their metrical word-shapes. Such locali7.ationwas claimed by early statistical studies to be highly regular.ss By contrast, Visser defines the expressionMeionos huion, "Son of Meion," as less important "filler' material that conveys no crucial sense, and which is slotted into the remaining spaces in the verse only after the "core" elements have been placed in their appropriate position. "Filler" material is thus used functionally, as a simple means of completing the verse. What we have here is a positive andbroadly speaking "detenninistic" argument about the making of Homeric verse. Visser's attempt to define "core" and "filler" materials in essential terms and to link them to particular expressions must be considered carefully. Already Joseph Russo in his survey of the formula pointed out that metrical locali7.ation patterns show greater flexibility than Visser allows. Furthermore, Russo convincingly demonstrates that various metrical and lexical alternatives were readily available to the poet.56 In other words, elements that Visser defines as fixed by formal (metrical) rules, i.e., as constants, have important variable qualities. We might tlws say that Visser's claims are "overdetermined."Allowing that the localization of what Visser describes as filJer material is variable, it now turns out that all the elements in this verse have variable potential. The notion of a fixed verse-makingmechanism is thus significantlyweakened. According to Visser, the proper names of heroes are core material, while the details of their background are filJers. These notions seem to rely on common sense. But consider again, for example, Phaistos, Idomeneus' victim in the verse above. How important are this particular victim and his particular name to the verse, to the immediate context of fighting in this book, or to the poem as a whole? Consequently,how important is this name's particular metrical shape to the overall function of the verse?

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We know almost nothingaboutPhaistos son of Meion from the context of book 5 or indeed from elsewhere. Eustathius (1.414.10) mentions a Phaistos from Tame. but this individual's father is Baros, not Meion. The name Pbaistos appears only once more elsewhere in the Iliad (6.648). There, however, it designates, not a person nor an enemy of Idomeneus, but one of the towns of Idomeneus' own Cretan contingent In the Odyssey, Phaistos is mentioned only once (3.296), again as the name of a place, not a person.s7 Likewise, in the fragments of Rhianos (Jacoby, FGH 3a 265, F 4.3), in the Suda (s.v. Maleos), and elsewhere, Phaistos is a place-name. In fact, the personal usage attested in Iliad 5.43 is unparalleled in literary fragments, or anywhere else in extant record.ss There is no evidence of a tradition of Phaistos as the name of a person, let alone a barbarian, or an enemy of the Greeks. At the same time, this name's personal function does not seem to have been unacceptable. Strabo the geographer, for example, would certainly have been sensitive to the misuse of a place name. He mentions the town of Phaistos (Geography 10.4.14.2), yet earlier be also cites Iliad 5.43 (Geography 9.2.35.10) without comment or complaint. In the absence of a tradition, it seems that Phaistos as used in Iliad 5.43 is little more than an empty signifier, a name which has no particular identity and no referent outside of its performative context. It can take on whatever characterigic oecessary at the moment of performance. Idomeneus needed a victim, that victim had to have a name, which was duly provided. But from a semantic or thematic point of view, any other name could have done just as well, if not better. Indeed, another name, bad it been chosen, might also have had a different metrical shape, thereby altering the metrical space which would be occupied by other elements in the verse. Earlier we mentioned Russo's reservations, i.e., that the metrical value of references to Phaistos has some variable properties. It now seems that the semantic/thematic element Phaistos itself is a variable, and, furthermore, that such variability indirectly suggests wide metrical flexibility. The whole structure of the verse now seems ad hoe, rather than predetermined. But if so, what exactly do we mean when we say that the victim's name in this verse is "core," or fixed, material? If the name is a "core" element, then the category "core" itself seems void of any essential content, and can resemble a "filler" unit We might similarly ask if the final part of Iliad 5.43, the phrase Meionos huion (Son of Meion), is indeed filler material in the sense given to the term by Visser. The "Son of' phrase is often used in place of a hero's proper name. It also commonly occupies a familiar colon at the end of the hexameter. Hexameter codas frequently contain the name-epithet formulae of the most important heroes (e.g., dios Odysseus, dios Achilleus), and most scholars would agree that such codas are among the most distinct and rigid parts of the verse. If we follow principles of semantic importance and formal rigidity, then the final colon often contains what are potentially the most important "core" elements of the verse. It is thus significant that in the Iliad we find dozens of expressions comprising a father's name+ huion (son) occupying the final adonean. In other words, this class of important expressions is locali7.Cdaccording to a fixed formaVmetrical pattern and is thus used systematically.59 The motif of father and son, and espe-

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cially of the bereft father, is, of course, at the very heart of the lliad's ethical worldview. Much of the tradition of heroic virtue in epic depends on it. Th.is would suggest that the phrase "son of Meion" evokes a "core" theme. By contrast, we saw that the name Phaistos itself calls up nothing in particular. In short, we can hanlly accept the simple claim that the "son of x" expression is "filler" material, while Phaistos is a "core" element But what about the name Idomeneus? If the boundary between core and filler seems questionable with regard to other elements in the verse, surely this nameat least, the name of a major hero in the Iliad, possibly attested already in Linear B tablets, is undisputed "core" material, not an empty signifier.ro It seems to me that upon closer inspection even this notion can be challenged.Jndood,as we shall shortly see, it has potentially even more troubling implications than before. VISSCl''stheory suggests that the name Idomeneus is placed according to locali:zationtendencies of the abstract metrical shape. This claim, as noted, requires some qualifications, which in tum lead to serious conceptual problems. Initial positioning accounts for only about two-fifths of choriamb-shaped words (- u u - as in 'Iooµeveix;) in the Iliad, and is only marginally more frequent than the next most common position, inside the verse. In fact, in the Odyssey it's the other way around-internal position is the most common.61 Given these facts, two basic principles must be accepted,if Visser's theory is to stand:

a) Even marginal differences in frequency patterns can determineusage. b) Usage patterns only emergewithin local contexts (in our case,the Iliad). However, principle b demands that we must closely scrutini7.C all of our local contexts. Yet, a glanceat the Iliad concordance and at the specific lexical entry Idomeneus reveals that usage of this name does not quite follow the pattern for the abstract metrical shape. In fact, internal position (ending at the masculine caesura) is by far the most common position for ldomeneus (nominative), while initial position is used in only about a third of the examples.62 According to our stated principles a and b, the dominant local pattern should have resulted in verse-internal, not verse-initial usage. But this is clearly not the case.Usage in Iliad 5. 43 follows the abstract metrical pattern, and thus subverts the localization pattern for the actual name Idomeneus. But if this is right, then most other examples of ldomeneus in the Iliad seem to subvert the very metrical system which we have been trying to assert. Our systematic principles lead us to two incompatible readingsof order and thus to a paradox that threatens to destroy our system. We might try to resolve the problem by deliberately privileging one pattern or rule. After all, not all rules are equally important But this can lead us to even greater predicaments. If, for example we privilege the lexical/semantic contexts specific to Idomeneus, and follow the rule of usage for this particular name, we should, by the same principle, have to treat other lexical/semantic units, such as the propernamesof other heroes, as fundamentally unique entities with potentially different patterns, even when these names have identical metrical values.

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datadescribing abstract This leads us to a strongrejectionof the locali7.8tion word-shape patterns on which VISSCl''stheory relies. What's more, if we adopt a principle of lexical/semantic uniqueness,andif we practice what we preach, we would have to consider more and more detailed contexts. We would have to treat each individual attestation of the nameas incomparably unique. This road leads us precisely to what we described as radical complexity-the kind that will not allow us to group even two examples together, nor to fonnuJate any type of general rule. Choosing the opposite road can produce equally startling effects. If, for example, we privilege metrics or other formalist criteria over lexical value and semantics, if our objective is simply to mechanically fill a slot in the verse with a unit of such-and-such metrical shape, why should we prefer the name Idomeneus to some other Homeric name with the same metrical value, such as E,uybatls, Aineias, Sarpedon, or perhaps,mutatis m1darvlis,Askalsphos, Archelochos, Askanios, Automedon, Amphimochos, Antilochos, Henneias, or Thersites, or even(!) female names, such as Astyochl, Eurynoml, etc.? From a technical point of view, each of these would (with minimal adjustments) have worked just as well in Iliad 5.43. Needless to say, in any other sense, this idea is absurd since it destroys any notion of identity, plot, and continuity in our text A character might be acting one moment, yet at the next moment, he (or she) would become someone else. Yet the chaotic potential of using metricsas an independentcriterion becomes all the more poignant precisely because, in formal verse-making terms, many alternatives do fit the pattern perfectly. Indeed, consider the two most important names in Greekepic tradition as we have it, Achilleus arvl Odysseus. In every metrical detail these names are identical; this applies to all grammatical cases and to all of their (single arvl double consonant,Achil-/Achi/1- and Odys-/Odyss-) variants. From a strictly fonnalist perspective, we could argue, it makes no difference which name is used. We could have composed an Achilleia about the return of Achilleus to his home on Ithaca and his reunion with Penelope, or an Iliad about the wrath of Odysseus, or even, absurdly, some mixed poem in which these two characters act interchangeably. Notwithstarvling many hints within both the Iliad arvl Odyssey about the subversive potential of the interchange of personae and of alternative epic plots (Achilleus and Patroklos exchanging armor and identities, Demodocus' song about "The Quarrel of Achilleus and Odysseus," Odysseus' lies anclaliases, etc.; see chapter 5), it is, of course, impossible to reconcile the interchangeablepotential of proper-name formulae with epic tradition as we actually know it. This tradition, whatever its "objective" status, cannot be ignored. Yet it seems equally impossible to ignore the formal principles that suggest the potential for what we might call "formulaic chaos." The fact is that the names Achilleus and Odysseus are, formally speaking, absolutely interchangeable. We are caught between a relatively closed tradition and a much more open potential. Furthermore, we find ourselves also caught between complexity that allows no two examples to be grouped together, and a bewildering potential for order, which allows systematic grouping and regrouping of elements of our texts in ways that challenge even the most basic tenets of the tradition.

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V1SSCr'swork served as the basis of a more nuanced formulaic theory put forward by Egbert Bakker, who rightly suggested that the metrical usefulnessof epithets, with its (Parryan) systematic extension and economy, is "not a formative principle of versification" but "the consequence[emphasis in the ori~ of a diachronic process that occursalso in the grammarof ordinary languages. This is a crucial change of perspective. It removes the bwden of detenninism from formulaic theory. However, on its own, it does not explain or resolve the paradoxes generated by the complexity and order of Homeric diction: As the consequenceof an otherwiseordinary diachronic process,we might expect order to be just that, orderly. But we have already seen the chaotic potential of Homeric diction, precisely at its most systematic points. Citing the work of Richard Bawnan, Bakker points to an important change in recent decades in our Wlderstandingof tradition. It is worthwhile to repeat that citation in full: Tradition, long considered a critical attriruteof folklore, is coming to be seen less as an inherentquality of old and persistent items or genrespassedon from generationto generation,and more as a symbolicconstructionby which people in the present establish connectionswith a mamingfnl past and endow partiClllar cultural fonns with value and authority. Thus the focus of attention is~ strategic process of traditionalizationratherthana quality of traditionalitythat is consideredto inhere in a cultural fonn conceived of as akin to a persistent natural object [my emphasis].64

1bere is, of course, no one strategy for traditionalizing cultural objects. We might, however, suggest that formuJaicanalysis is one such strategy.It outlines, as Albert Lord famously called it, "a grammarof oral poetry." Rephrasing this idea in Bauman's terms we could speak of a system of relationships"considered to inhere in a cultural form [in our case the Iliad and Odyssey] conceived of as akin to a persistent natural object." We must stress the words "consideredto inhere in a cultural form" andthe conception of this as "akin to a persistent natural object.,, Bakker points out that grammarsare not so much inherent in linguistic expressions as they are constantly subject to renegotiation. But he nevertheless argues for the process of ''use and re-use resulting in the fixation of the constitutive 'forms' of this poetic 'grammar'". 65 He speaks of"routiniud" use of formulae, of "paradigmatization" and "obligatorification." At this point the earlier terms of "core" and "filler" are picked up and redefinedas "nucleus" and "periphery" elements (citing Iliad 5. 43, among other examples): A peripieral elemmt specifies,in semanticterms,a property of the nucleusthat is inhqent, indeedso essential to be self-evident.On account of this, a peripieral element is optional semantically,for what is inherent in somethingcan be expressed without more ado, but it can also be left understood.And this OJr tional status in terms of meaning can be very useful in terms of metrics and versification[my empbasis].66

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Crucial to Bakker'sviews is the rcjcction of a rigid mechanicalsystem, the insistence that metricalutility doesnot imply that peripheral demeots are semantically meaningless, or that the exploitation of their metricalutility is a formative principle of versification in its own right Tiws.Bakkerconcludes. "Parry's account of Homeric diction as a system of formulas is the extrapolation of a relatively limited area of fixity and grammaticality in Homeric diction to the whole of that diction . . . but that rule, or any number of formulaic rules added to it, doesnot, andcannot, explain why the Iliad looks the way it looks.,,(i7 We have already seen an example of the intemction complexity and systematic order in Homeric discourse. They offer empirical support to the claim that, indeed, ttaditional qualities are not inherentto a cultural form or even to language. But this, in tum, leads us to two crucial shifts in our perspectiveon fixity, even as Bakker descn"besit. First, it now seemsthat that fixity, no matter how limited, can always be refracted and reformulated in terms of complexity, variability, or non-fixity. Second, since Homeric discourse bas an overabundant potential for systematicity, observations of fixity, again,no matter how limited, are only one reading or, in Bauman's terms, a "symbolic construction" of Homeric discourse, which in principle must always compete with other potential readings. We saw that the very principles that determined certain readings, be they semantic or formalist, can never fully take over the text, as it were, since, applied in full and on their own, they lead, paradoxically, to a dissolution of Bauman's order. Fixity and claims of inherent order are tlms always, to~ term yet again, "strategic processes," a kind of wishful thinking meant to endow certain objects with "value and authority" within particularhistorical, indeed, as many scholars wou,ldargue ideological, contexts. Such mategic processes require, of course, the occlusion of the complexity of Homeric discourse, for the obvious reason that complexity transgresses the rules of the construct. All the same, it must be stressed that such overdetermined constructs are not fictions. They are the substance of social andhistorical existence.61 Needless to say, it would require a separate study to outlinethe historical conceptions which scholars like Parry, Visser, Bakker, or Russo exercise within their versions of formulaic theory. It may, however, be useful to offer a few brief suggestions. These may, in any case, complement some of our earlier comments on the authorial figure in modem studies of Homer. Let consider, then, some views of what Joseph Russo (above) characterized as the "mysterious chemistry whereby gifted poets transmute mere words into verbal art" We have already suggested that more formal aspects of formulaic theory may reflect a more general "scientific" perspective. Such perspectives are, of course, not simply objective stances towards reality. They are at least partly contingent to their social contexts.• 'Thecase of Homeric studies seems to be no exception. As physicist Gregoire Nicolis and chemist (and Nobel Prize laureate in chemistry) Ilya Prigogine point out: At the beginning of this centmy. continuingthe traditionof the classical ~ search program,physicists were almost unanimousin agreeingthat the fundamentallaws of the universe were detaministicand reversible.Processesthat

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did not fit this sche,ne wm: taken to be exceptions, merely artifacts due to complexity, which itself had to be accountedfor by invoking our ignorance.or our lack of control of the variables involved. Now, at the cod of this century, more and more scientistshave cometo think, as we do ... that the deterministic and reversible laws describing elementary interactions may not be telling the whole story. This leads to a new vision of matter, one no longer passive, as describedin the mechanical\Wfld view, but associatedwith spontaneousactivity. This change is so deepthatwe believe we can truly speak of a new dialogueof man with nature..,.

It seems to me that the first part of this description comfortably fits at least some twentieth-centmy attempts to understand Homeric discourse in systematic terms. Pany, for example, working in the historical environment of the beginning of this century, constructed, in his early work, a broadly "detenninistic" and "reversible" system: analyzing the finished product, he claimed to be able to reproduce its components, origins, and the precise process itself, by which Homeric verse was "made." Later scholars such as Hainsworth, Hoekstra, Parskevaides, and others attempted to refine the system and make it work better, closer to the "facts" as it were, covering more aspects of the actual usage. Exceptions were by and large excluded from the system as less important phenomena, or, in any case, as features that did not invalidate the central systematic, deterministic reading of Homeric discourse. Visser's theories fit this model closely, too, even though his work was published much more recently. It's not so much anachronistic as, perhaps, of a different cultural provenance. Visser is writing within the scholarly context of German-language Homer scholarship, which over the last generation or so hastended to be more conseIVativein its approach to Panyan theories than, for example, English-language studies.71 Visser is no doubt familiar, like his critic Russo, with discrepancies in the locali:zationdata. Yet it seems to me that in ignoring them he hasfollowed the precise and appropriate procedures of scholars and scientists who seek to define deterministic rules. We might compare the example of Gregor Mendel and bis famous studies (1853-1879) of the genetic patterns of the sweet pea (Pisum). Important as his work is for our understanding of genetics, many scholars today would agree that "what Mendel published wasnot a 'real' description of bis peas, but bis perception of how peas could be categorized into 'ideal' discrete groups.''72 Remember that, as Nicolis and Prigogine point out, one of the fundamental characteristics of deterministic theories is that they classify data that do not fit the scheme as "exceptions, merely artifacts due to complexity," which itself is accounted for by "invoking our ignorance, or our lack of control of the variables involved." Visser, like many others, was acting, in part at least. in accordance with a particular historical ideology of scientific endeavor. He focused on regularity and order, rather than on its exceptions and on complexity. By contrast, Russo's criticism or the work of Bakker, or, indeed.the work of Michael Nagler mentioned earlier, are best understood as part of a more open (and JargelyEnglish-speaking) historical understanding, which allows a greater role for complexity and non-deterministic functions.

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Chapter 11m:c

By accepting the historicity of Homeric constructs, we can bridge the gap between closed readings-in this chapter of Homeric dicti~ the text's resistance to such readings and what we have called its overabundant systematic potential. To the degree that we choose to give Homeric discourse a place of importance within our cultural canon, we must give it "structure" and "meaning," stamp it with our interpretive marks, and claim authority, sometimes even exclusive authority for our interpretations. At the same time, discourse, by its very nature as a sign, perhaps, as the mark of something other than itself. resists our reductive efforts. And Homeric discourse, inasmuch as it is given a place of importance within the canon of more than one society, inasmuch as it is an icon of tradition, is one particularly clear site for the display of such resistance.73

NOTES I. Freud 1989: 70. 2. See,e.g., West 1967. 3. Homer's discourse is the subject of a vast bibliography. See,e.g., Edwards 1986, 1988. Much work has, of course, been carried out since see comments in Russo 1997 and below. For a broad range of basic data and statistics in Homer (and other works of early Greek hexameter), see Kahane and Mueller 2000. 4. Lord 1960; Nagler 1974; Zumthor 1990; Foley 1991; Nagy 1990a, 1990b, etc. S. Nagy 1997: 8. 6. See, e.g., Janko 1982; Sale 1989. For comments on the process of unitizing, see Kahane 1997c. For notions of science and scientific methodology, seealso below. 7. Horrocks 1997: 193. 8. Important qualifications in Bakker 1997a: 13-16, who offers compelling arguments linking Homeric discourse to "natural language." But, of course, Homeric language was never used in "ordinary" everyday contexts. We must therefore allow for some kind of a complex dialectic of Kunstspracheand natural language. 9. Vico 1968, §790. 10. Horrocks 1997: 193, 196, 203. However, the opposition between tradition and creativity (or "tradition" and "originally") is, broadly speaking, contingent to Romantic historico-philosophical perspectives. Different historical perspectives, especially those of the last generation or so, often do not view tradition and originality as polar opposites. 11. In a comment in the 1713 copy of Collins, Discourse on Free Thinking;later, in print, in quotations from Homer in the edition of Milton's Paradise Lost (1732). Cf. Pfeiffer 1976: 157; Sandys 1908:407. 12. Horrocks 1997: 204. See also Hoekstra 196S: 42. 13. See Parry, MHV222-34. 14. Parry, MHV224. IS. Horrocks 1997: 203. 16. Russo 1997: 240. Cf. West 1997. This scheme above represents a "maximumdetail" layout of possible breaks, but is not meant to suggest that all breaks are present simultaneously or that even when present, they are marked with equal emphasis. The symbols Al, A2, A3 are used here for convenience, but there are important controversies with regard to the internal structure of the hexameter. See below and also in Fantuzzi and Pretagostini 1995.

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17. Russo 1997:240, note6; Kahane 1994: 17-42. 18. Unlike the Aeneid, for example.where several incomplete verses are part of the tradition. The closest Homerictraditioncomes to ovemmning the hexameterboundary is perhaps in instances of verse--tenninal Zip, (Iliad 8.206; 14:265; 24:361). Aristarchus thought this was an elided form of Z'ij\lCl(WC!A.1966: 399-400; 1997:221, note 6). 19. See Renou 1952: 334; Nagy 1974: 143. 20. For enjambment, see Higbie 1990; Bakk« 1990. Clark 1997 is an important study that significantlylvoatJensthe debate(see cnmmeotsin Kabane2003b). 21. See Rossi 1965. 22. Nagy 1974: 145; cf. Nagy 1990a: 37. 23. Nagy 1998:498; 1996c. 24. West 1982:37: •'Thepoets developeda strong tendencyto place words ending in u - - I at the close [i.e., verse-end),those ending x - v I either there or before the caesura, those scanning I x - u v ( ... ) after the caesura, and th09e scanning I - ~ - I at the be[my emphasis, AK] to have ginning or before the caesua. Consequentlyit is abnormal either (I) words scanoing I ~ - v or I v - v followingthe [penthemimeralor the thud trochee] caesum--bence the forth biceps is normally undivided (Hennaoo's Bridge)." The practical point is that, for example, the best-known "words ending in u - - rare Odyuew, Achil/eu, Achailln, (polyph/ooboio)thaltu8'8,etc.; ·v ml ulioc; MtvtqXX;u6vtv8' Alq>IC\Wa &i(~ fl,a(vatoc; dov tcoov t1:' •AVtO..ox,ov µeya8qtoo Ntmqxx; uov, ta81ov ~ JUlX.11Tapo Piip' ltvat JJ.E't'aµ.qiova Iretperouov m'.x;µtv ~vilCflOaKl.ucoµ.1)6£a•Hvaroc; uov,

,u.cw

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24.S83

voo~vaetpciaac;.

, ()(;ci

1rep{IC£l't0 ~l~

etoµtVll at 1Ca't'aOOt,tu.a.er· tm yofuam ari'oo, ICA.~tlC 8' flpe£ 'tl)l;ov dlKXK"tO;. tt l>'t1t£l oov ~ 1ro)..,,&uqrot01.o y6a.o. ~ p' lµeva1 µtya.p6v& µe1X:t µVl}O'riixxA.0µ1'rt£o> • . . . and Zeus showing forth his signs [aimata) thundered mightily. Hearing this, long suffering great Odysseus was happy that the son of devious-devisingKronos bad sent him a portent.

2'.eusdisplays his thunderbolt slmata (413). The thunderbolts are here used as signs and not, for example. as literal weapons: 2'.eusdoes not physically smite the suitors. The god himself is absent from the scene, but his presence is enacted and affirmed by his signs, and it is clear that these signs have great capacity for action. In effect they produce an epiphany which has the ("transitive") power to act on reality and affect the future. 16 The power of thunderbolts in this scene seems to be basedon several factors or perfonnative "conditions." 17 First, the performer is presented as having total authority over the sign. 2'.eusis the "SOUICC"of the sign, andhe has exclusive control over its possession and display. He is also completely competent in its perfonnance. 18 Furthermore, although not openly stated, we take it for granted that thunderbolts instantly cross the physical distance between the heavens and the earth. In other words. physical constraints-in this case of distana>-which normally effect presence and absence and can weaken action or make it impossible, here become irrelevant. The sign is thus presented as an exclusive medium,unaffected by the ordinaly world. We might note one further important "condition": the recipient of the sign is portrayed as a competent interpreter. Odysseus seems to understand the ~ge (the contents of which, in fact. remain implicit, not openly stated) and shows happiness (414, gethesen).a conventional mark of understanding in epic. 19 Confirmation of the special force of Zeus• sign and hence also of how it is to be read seems to be provided by the narrative itself. Zeus' thunderbolts are called first semata (413), then a teras (415), i.e .• a "portent," a sign with specific power over the future. Immediately following the display, we are told of Odysseus' success (420-24). If we had any doubts about the power of 2'.eus' signs, they are now dispelled. We might thus agree with John Foley who suggests that Homeric slmata signal an emergentreality. As keys to what is to happen, each of them marks a prolepsis, a connectionfrom what is present and explicit to what is immanent and implied.20 And, clearly, the sign here has also effected the presence, as it were, of Zeus himself, who, although not physically present near Odysseus, hasachieved the necessary"personal convection."

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In the scene above.convection and proleptic force are closely associated with .l.eus' supreme powers (Odyssey 1.32-34 etc.) and his plot-guiding boule (Iliad 1.5). Mortals do not, of course,have the samepowers. Yet the display of slmata is not restricted to divine beings in Homer. The unique power of thesesigns to effect epiphany does not exclusively depend on the divine status of its performers. Consider three of the most obvious examples, the signs of the scar, the bed, and the orchard, i.e., those signs in the Odyssey that mark Odysseus' epipbanic "return to light and life."21 By the time Odysseus displays these signs, he has already completed his aussere Heimkehr (as Scbadewaldt called it). Nevertheless, he has not yet achieved his "inner" return.22 His absence is ultimately a more intimate attribute which no physical reality or external action, in fact, not even the killing of the suitors, can alter.23 Paradoxically, Odysseuscannot assert his presence by simply "being there," by pointing to himself and saying, "here I am." As many scenes in the Odyssey and, indeed, the very ambiguity of Homeric kleos as "fame"rnunor" show, speech is often regarded as highly unreliable by Homeric heroes.2◄ Even in the never-never land of Phaiacia, Odysseus only declares eim' Odyseus Laertiadls (I am Odysseus, son of Laertes, Odyssey 9.19) after his identity has been secured by more elaborate means.At home, too, Odysseusmust rely on more powerful signs of presence. The first of theseis the scar. The scar is openly flagged in the narrative as a slma on two occasions. The first is when Odysseus reveals himself to Eumaios and Philoitios (Odyssey 21.217-220): d.llo 'tl. &tgo, el 6' dye 61)Kal O'ijµa apt~~ ~ µ' eu'YVOO't0V ma,;ro8ift6v1:' evlOqJ4,, OOA.flV, 'tflV1tc; ml 'tbt£ µ.1.vl?pe£1.ve ml {rt££ oiiuxl&o8cx1. bnt

pad. yaµ.J3p(1o~ [lpct'tOI.O+ePa,'tO

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Chapter Four For nine days be [the king ofLycia] hosted [Belleropbon].and slaughtered bulls. but when rosy-fingeredDawn appeared for the tenth time then be asked him about it.andrequested to see the sign [.tima] that be [Belleropbon) brought frmnbis son-in-lawProitos.

Belleropbon is the carrier of Proitos' rnessa~ He bas held on to the tablets. away from Proitos, for at least ten days. The message contained in the signs is obviouslyof vital importance to Bellerophon. Yet he does not seem at all aware of its contents.31 The messageseems very well protected The recipient of the message is Proitos• father-in-law, the king of Lycia. The narrative makes it clear that he receives the message and interprets it correctly. As soon as the king has read the signs (178), he sends Bellerophon out on deadly missions, eventually laying an ambush with the explicit intention of killing him (187-190). Through the signs, then, Proitos can speak directly and exclusivelyto the king of Lycia. Needless to say, Bellerophon survives bis ordeal. We will return to this important matter later. Here we need merely point out that whatever accounts for Bellerophon•s survival, it is not the fault of the sema itself, which has succes.wlly performed its special function, reenacting the absent Proitos' immediate presence and will. As the Scholia (T 6.176) note, "The sign is the command" (OTJI.CX 't6 bn:ta:yµa). Finally, consider examples where the sema denotes a funerary monument Funerary signs seem to follow the same general patterns for signs of epiphany. Being inanimate objects, such monuments have the capacity to bridge, seemingly unchanged, temporal spans much longer than a human lifetime. In other words, like the thunderbolts and other sematawe have seen, they have the power to cross otherwise impassabl.ebarriers, and thus act effectively as signs of epiphany. As in the case of the Rhodian sema of Idamenenus, whoeverreads the inscription is, a little like the narrator of Homeric poetry, giving the deceaseda voice in the present. Funerary monuments are by definition the proper domain of the dead they represent. They are, in this sense, highly secure, exclusive signs. Yet, of course. only the living have the power to erect funerary monuments. A person can certainly set up a funerary sema in anticipation of her/his own death, and say, "this is my tomb.., But this is merely shorthand for "this will be my tomb when I am dead." By definition a tomb is not a tomb until it receives a corpse. No living person, qua being alive, can properly possess it 32 At the same time, a little unlike other semata which usually require special competence for their interpretation, and which are meant for restricted consumption, funerary monuments seem to be intended for many interpreters. The correct reading of Zeus' divine omens, of Odysseus'signs of recognition, and of Bellerophon's signs required special, highly restricted knowledge or skill. By contrast, the funerary sima requires only minimal abilities on the part of its interpreters. Indeed, Greek funerary inscriptions often openly addressthe "passelby,,.that is to say, they are directed at anyone and everyone.33 In Homer there is, of course,

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107

no evidence of written monuments (or writing. for that matter, except perhaps for the difficult example of Bellerophon's signs). But we do find mounds or a heap of stonesor an oar. These signs are easily interpreted. and they allow a mortal to declare his presence, after his death, to the world at large. Thus, for example, even the otherwise undistinguished Elpenor who dies an accidental death Sttks (and obtains) a sign for the future (Odyssey 11.75-76):

miJ1a'tt µo. x,rixx1. 1toA1:ijc; ~m. 81.vlOcxMa011c;, av8poc;&x:m)Kllo. mi ~aaoµtKllm

nutta8a1.

•

Heap up a mound(sima] for me near the shore of the grey sea, the mark of an unluckyman, so that men in the future too will know me.

So much for a brief survey of someHomeric slmata. Judging by the above, it may seem that the worlrings of semata are straightforward: slmata allow for the extended presence, as it were, of their sowces or agents. Yet closer examination reveals a more complex picture. Consider omens, for example. The ambiguity of omens and oracles is, of course,a key topos in Greek culture, as attested,for example, in Heracleitus (DK 93, Marcovitch 14):34

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The Lord [Apollo],whose is the oracle in Delphi, neither speaks out.nor conceals,

but givesa sign [simaine,1Similar views are embodiedin someof the best-knownnarratives of antiquity, such as the story of Oyges in Herodotus or of Oedipus in Sophocles. They are often characteriz.ed by an apparent confidence on the part of interpreters as to the meaning of the sign. Furthermore, this confidence is often a function of the interpreters' desires, agendas, etc. (wanting to conquer an empire~ wanting to avert death or disaster). Yet the unfolding of events ultimately proves, in hindsight, the fallibility of interpretation. The sign, in other words, is never fully accessible. As an index to the future, it remains inscrutable, and hence uncontrollable. Homeric omens function, it seems to me, in a similar manner. But they sometimes take matters a step further. The ambiguity of Homeric omens sometimes remains even past the unfolding of the foretold events. That is not to say that everything about such omens is moot. For example, the Homeric text is often perfectly clear as to the divine source, and hence to the authority, of omens and portents. But their interpretation, even by the most skilled, authoritative interpreters, is not equally clear. Consider once more the display of Zeus' thunder slmata. In terms of performance, this seems to be an open and shut case. We are told that Zeus showed his signs, and that Odysseus rejoiced

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when be perceived and presumably understood them. Eventually "Welearn of the favorable outcome of events (favorable for Odysseus, of course). This outcome seemsto correspond to Odysseus' happy reaction at the time of the display of the signs. It is, of course. perfectly sensible to associate the two. But the following point must be stressed: whatever the general relationship between a sign and its signified, an unambiguous link can usually be made. or at least claimed, within the conventions of narrative. Thus, for example, the Homeric narrator could have easily said, "Zeus thundered, and gave his sign that Odysseus would be victorious." Instead, we are only told that "'Zeus displayed his signs." We are not explicitly told what they are signs of. There is, we must hasten to add. nothing unusual about this. And, in practical terms, such ambiguity does not in the least inhibit the progression of the plot. But there remains the principle: we must ourselves supply the link. Furthermore. this act of filling in the blank. as it "Were,is, I suggest, not very different from.for example, the act of filling in the nameof an otherwise anonymousnarrator of the Iliad and Odyssey, of naming Homer. In both cases"the thing in itself' is not overtly specified. Supplying the missing link here.and elsewhere, is a matter of habit. and it is necessary. for example, for the plot of the Odyssey andthe narrative of "'the return of Odysseus.' This narrative is as conventional as the association of the name of Homer with the narrator of the Iliad and Odyssey, if not more so. Yet. of course, the name and the narrator are not quite one and the same, and as we have seen. the gap between them, even as "Webridge it, is of great importance. Associating the two, the giving of a name is an important type of perfonnative whose importance lies, fundamentally, in the act itself. 3s Likewise, supplying the link in the display of the omen is, as a matter of principle, a perfonnative action. Clear as the plots and the outcomes of the monumental poems are. there were always significant alternative epic "plots" in circulation (for example, notably, regarding Helen and her journey to Troy). And, as we shall see in the next chapter. plot structure and Homeric narrative, too, even in the Iliad and Odyssey as we have them, are less stable than we desire them to be and are, in this sense, partly perfonnative. Plot and narrative may thus eventually emerge not so much as inherent features of the text, ones that. for example, confirm the otherwise unspecified function of Homeric slmata and the success of their special communicative functions. Rather, as I shall try to show, plot functions as something of a mirror, as the consequence of partiatlar audiences, readers, and traditions. For the moment. however, let us stay with portents and consider them carefully. For it seemsto me that there is always important doubt cast on the meaning of their signs. In Iliad 2.303-32, for example, Odysseus tells of the mega sema, "great omen" (308), of the serpent and the sparrow, a sign that will have imperishable fame (houou kleos ou pot' oleitai, 325). He makes a strong claim for an omen that concerns the basic trajectory and success of the Trojan expedition. Odysseus relates how at Aulis, before setting out for Troy, the Greeks saw a serpent, sent by Zeus (309; cf. 318), devouring a sparrow and her

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eight younglings. Calcbas interprets the eight offspring andthe motheras nine years of fighting over Troy. In the tenth year, Calchas expounds (through Odysseus' narrative), "we shall take Priam's great city" (332). Odysseustells bis tale after the actual appearance of the sign and its interpretation, but before the omen's truth or falsity are known to the Achaians. In its position, it is thus not a backwards-looking narrative, but a proleptic abstract of the lliad's plot and hence a story of vital importance for the future. Calcbas' interpretation is accepted by all the Greeks. We ourselves accept it, too, and are in a better position to do so. We know from the narrative (partly of the Iliad, but mostly of the Odyssey), that indeed the city was taken. All of the components of a proper perfonnance seem to be in place: source, sign, recipient, and narrative confirmation. Zeus' will is thus enacted in this sign. Yet the omen embodies a crucial omission, underscoredby the numerical character of both sign and signified. Geoffrey Kilk, following in the footsteps of puzzled ancient commentators, is right in calling the prophet's interpretation "arl>itrary." 36 The omen specifies nine birds--aght younglings and a mother. Each of the birds is meant to correspond to a year. However, the most important number, ten, signifying the year of victory, is not in the omen. It has to be supplied "externally" as it were,by the omen's interpreters. The Scholia, for example (T) suggest that "we must add the serpent itself to the count, which 37 makes ten. " The omen certainly tempts both the Greeks and ourselves as bearers/readersof epic to accept the power of numbers and signs. But as a matter of principle, it actually does the opposite, undermining the objective status of divine messages. Zeus gave a sign; something happened. But have we any certainty that the Trojan expedition, and indeed the plot of the Iliad, are the intended result? Have we any certainty in the unerring power of Zeus' slmata and his designs?38 As practical readers of epic we are probably best advised not to pursue such questions too far, lest they undermine our proper sense of plot, divine design, and perhaps epic itself. Consider next Odysseus' signs of recognition. 39 Odysseusshows his scar to the cowherd Philoitios and the swineherd Eumaios (Odyssey 21.220-221), and speaks of it as a great slma (217). Yet we may have reasonto treat his words with caution. We are never given a description of the scar. Not surprisingly, Aristotle himself is said by Eustathius to have been suspicious of this sign and of the bath scene, saying that "according to the poet, by this reckoning everyone who has a scar is Odysseus. " 40 Furthermore, if the household servants-we know at least of a swineherd, a cowherd, and a nursemaid-can recognize the scar, is it really anything but common knowledge? Significantly, when it comes to recognitions and reunions with more important members of Odysseus' family, the scar plays only a minor role, and posst'bly a dubious one. Telemachos is neither shown the scar nor, we assume, would he have been able to recognize it, having been a small child when he last saw his father.41 Nor is

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the scar of great importance to Penelope's recognition of her humand. Towards the end of the poem, Eurykleia tells Penelope about the scarandcalls it "clear proof' (sema ariphrades, 23.73) of Odysseus' return. Yet Penelope dismisses her enthusiasm. saying, "Dear nurse, it is hard for you to comprehend the counsels of the gods that are forever, very wise though you are" (23.81-82). Penelope adds that she andOdysseuswill "know each other better than before. For we two [n61) have signs [semat1 which are hidden [kekrymena] from others, and which we know [idmen)" (108-110). Her trust in private, ..hidden" signs hints at the unreliability of the open sign of the scar. She clearly has a different sign in mind (see below). And, indeed, when Odysseus and Penelope 42 do finally meet (23.166ff.), the scar is not mentioned at all. Finally, the scar plays only a lesser role in Odysseus'recognition scene with Laertes. It appears briefly, and only as a kind of "primer" sign: "First take a 1~ with your eyes at this scar" says Odysseusto his father (24.331), outlining the events on Parnassus. But this display is iJ'llmediately followed by the more elaborate sign of the orchard. There thus seems to be a gap between the scar's claimed powers and its presentation in the narrative. It is described as a great sema, but, in fact, it is a somewhat more diffuse sign. and in any case, one that's mainly used to identify Odysseus to less important characters such as servants. not to the direct members of his family. We next look at the sign of the bed. This is the slma which Penelope claims is exclusive to herself and her husband. Yet, as we already noted briefly, knowledge of the bed's secret is patently not exclusive to the royal couple. After Penelope and also we ourselves have accepted the sign of the bed and have taken satisfaction in the return of Odysseus, Penelope says to her husband (Odyssey 23.225-30):

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I will give you a clear sign [sima ariphrades) and you cannot fail to notice it. There is a dry stwnp standing up from the growid about six feet, oak, it may be, or pine, and not rotted away by rain-water, and two white stones are leaned against it, one on either side, at thejoining place of the ways, and there is smoothdriving arowtd it. Either it is the grave-mark[~ma) of some mortal who died long ago, or was set as a racing goal by men who lived before our time. Now swift-footedAchilleus has made it the turning-post. You must drive your chariot and horses so as to hug this, and yourself, in the strong-fabricatedchariot, lean over a little to the left of the course, and as for your right horse, whip him and urge him along, slackeningyour hands do give him his full rein For if at the turning-postyou will drive past the rest as you hurry forward, there is no man that shall catch you by a burst of speed, nor pass you by not even ifhe were driving bright Arion in pursuit,

114

Cbapta'Fom the swift hone of Adrestos, thatwas of divine

stock.

or thoseof Laomcdoo. thesplendid hones bredhere.

The "clear sign" Nestor gives bis son may once have been someone's grave-mark. Yet even Nestor, who has seen much of the past (cf. Iliad 1.25052) and makes much of his own authority cannot resolve its ambiguities. The stump in question is clearly unaffected by time, it has "not rotted away by rainwater." Yet it is no longer possible to tell what kind of a tree it is. More significantly, Nestor is uncertain if the stump and the stones (or is it just the stump?) are an old turning post or a tomb. There is also no mention of the name of a deceased or of any kleos.49 Furthermore, the pamge suggests that Achilleus, simply by deciding that it should be so, has altered the function of this monumental object(333), and has made it into a totally different kind of sign, a race-marker. This sima, its relation to its source, its meaning, its interpretation, and its function in the narrative are thus anything but the "clear sign" Nestor claims it to be. Note that Nestor himself in bis instructions to Antilochos is altering the content of the grave-mark, turning it into a new kind of sima-this time a sign of victory. At first glanc:e this new sign seems to fulfill all the conditions required of semata. The wise Nestor possessesprivileged knowledge which he delivers to his son by meansof the sign (if this advice were generally available, its potential to give one man an advantage would be lost). Through the sign, Nestor can affect a kind of "presence" in the chariot, next to Antilochos at the crucial moment, and thus determine the outcome of the race.Antilochos, the interpreter, is meticulously instructed how to interpret the sign. This, in short, seemsto be a potent sign that allows Nestor to act upon reality from a distance. As it turns out (417-47), however, Antilochos relies, not on Nestor's sign, but on his own recklessness,the exact opposite of wise planning (cf. Menelaos in 426: Antiloch • afradele" readings. Consider, for example, the suitors' failure to decipher the sign of the bow as the sign of Odysseus. Antinoos arrogantly explains that beggars must remember their position or risk mutilation and death (21.288-310). From the suitors' perspective. the only appropriate performers of the sign are they themselves. This, we should stress, is an entirely reasonable assumption. For them the bow in the hands of the beggar cannot function as a sign of marriage. Yet precisely this processof appropriate reasoning leads the suitors into error. Having shot the arrow through the axes, Odysseusfalls upon the suitors. He declares that the contest bas ended (22.5), but does not yet provide any information for interpreting his actions. In fact, his immediate tactical goal is to kill Antinoos, the suitors' leader.57 This man, whose namemeans"hostilemind" (or rather "-reason," translating-nous). is the most clever and dangerous of the suitors. Yet, he is killed without any thought of death, let alone an understanding of the bow as a sign. The text is quite clear about this (22.1114): ~

at d oblCtvl 8q1Cp µeµ~AE'tO.-a.c; 1e'ola:to µtt' av8pcicn&xt't'ql.Mam. µofwovevl M£6veac:n, ml el µal.a 1Cap't£pOc; et11, d ~tv 8am't6v u m1eov ml ICfJpcx µilatmv; and in his heart there was no thought of death. For who would think that one [mmmon]man, alone in a company of many fp/eoneu,1men at their fewzting,though be werea very strong me, wouldever inflict death upon him and dark doom?

The irony of this description is set in the gnomic terms of a rhetorical question. Its argument is numeric (as in other examples we have seen) and seemingly ironclad. Antinoos' thoughts are shared not only by the Homeric narrator, but perhaps also by ourselves ("who would think ... 'r'). Furthermore, as I have argued elsewhere, when the word mounos is used to express the idea of being "one," it always marks the fragility and weakness of the individual, always contrasted with the power of "the many."ss Antinoos' reasoning thus reflects general "epic common sense." Yet it is precisely such common sense, Antinoos' and possibly ours, too, that is proved to be mistaken by Odysseus' lethal shot. From our own privileged perspective as readers/audiences, we may now have reason to question accepted common-sense assumptions with regard to the poem,the very notions which we have otherwise been tempted to accept. Let us look further at the scene. The other suitors reproach Odysseus for Antinoos' death, yet they, too, know nothing of the meaning of the sign (22.3133):

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119

dlqXX mta1C't£tll(lt· w at vtpna. 001C1?"'61pxv, c.b~&tJ a+iv ml mmv WOpoo n£ipa't' ~They said-each man imagined-that he had not intended to kill the man, poor fools. and they had not yet ffllli~ how over all of them the terms of death were now hanging Here again the suitors seem to behave with common sense, or at least with an understandable desire, to keep as much of the previous order of their world intact. Yet, as line 33 makes clear, in trying to keep the order of their world, they have clearly failed to understand their true circumstances, In the next verses Odysseus finally declares that he hasreturned (32-41).S9 All the disguises which were usedearlier have now, at the suitors' point of life and death, been dropped. Of course, words are often unreliable signs in Homeric epic (we shall have more to say on this important issue later). It's thus possible that Odysseus' declaration would be misunderstood. One of the functions of the bow as a sign is precisely to overcome such potential misunderstandings.Yet, even now, after all has been said, and after the bow has been used with lethal force, it is unclear if the suitors truly grasp the meaning of the sign or the nature of their circumstances.Eurymachostries to appeasethe shooter, saying (22.45-46):

el ~v

Mi·Oooad>c;•18cxK1)cnoc; ell:t'j~

taUT.a~v cx(mµ.aeln£~ lf[my emphasis]youreallyare Odysseusoflthaca, you are justified in what you say. His conditional plea suggests that even in the face of death he remains uncertain of his aSAAilant 's identity. Indeed, he urges his companions on. His final words are "let us all together rush upon him . . . so that that immediately now will be the last time this man uses the bow [myemphasis)" (htt 8' a.bt4> mivtec; tx,roµev... K'.£ 'ted as omnipresent and omniscient (Iliad 2.485, 1tap£lll.0011 cilda

,qx.Mtl,

166

CbaptaSix Out of these two reltationsbips (betwem manandwoman. ruler and subjeect], the first thing to arise is the family [bele oik:iabut later interchangeablyalso oikru].

and into yet larger bodies, right up to the po/is (1252bl5-53a3):

£IC W1.aKl>V ci1C1.COVICOl\Kllvla 1ijXlffl1 XPflvtat,~m Iii:£ ~ lfi:~CJ(l)vtal yqiv6v· a'teip 'ta. etµ.a't' ~vl JlE'Yapa.m1Ctovcat u1t'l'd u ml x_ap(.Evca ~ x_epaly,MXt1CCi>v. all' fl'ta.'td& mivux mta♦liqo ~ "1]licp oo6tv oa. y' !>+£).cc;. ml ol>K'. ~1C£toeat abtci~ all.a npoc; T~v 1CalTpooia&ov1Clioc;diat. But now by the beakedships, far from your parents, glistening wonns will wriggle through your flesh, once the dogs have had their fill of your nakedcorpso---though we have such stores of clothing laid up in the balls, fine things. a joy to the eye, the work of women's hands. Now, by god, I'll bum them all, blazing to the skies! No use to you now, they'll never shroud your bod,ybut they will be your glory [kleo.,]for theTrojan men andwomen(my emphasis].

Hector's body will, it seems,suffer the most temble and degrading fate a man's corpse can suffer in Homeric epic-it will be cast naked to the dogs (consider,. especially, the proem to the Iliad, 1.4). Andromache stresses that to the corpse of Hector, the many fine and pleasant gannents in the halls are of "no use'"'" (ouden ophelos). Yet she assumes that even without the body, the clothes which "the women have made" will preserve Rector's kleos. Clothes, it seems, do make the IIl3ll-50 much so that a man's body may not even be necessmy for such making ... 52 Earlier we mentioned Athenian myths of autochthony and fantasies of a world without women. Here we seem to have almost the opposite. It is as if men•s bodies, their fighting, their striving for glory their countless toils and even their ideology are all unnecessary. What is important is not men'"s work but, rather. the opposite, "women's work" (erga gynaila,n). What is perhaps particularly startling is that we have reached this thought, not by openly subverting men's perspectives or by arguing for some separate domain o:C feminine power. but apparently by listening to the words of a faithful and submissive woman, i.e.• by seemingly following the directives of a male order.

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179

We note that, at this point, since the male pamdigmand its subversion seem so closely linked, the differences between the Iliad and the Odyssey, the latter's subversive character and its greater emphasis on strong female characters, become less significant. In any case, it is not surprising that men who live by this code should feel anxious about the potential powers of women. Such men might, on the one hand, lly to control women anddefine their activities, and, on the other hand, as we shall see below, also engage in elaborate acts of "forgetfulness" in an attempt to control their own potentially destructive powers. Dealing with male "forgetfulness," we should consider more closely one of its important elements, the Greek dream of "a purely paternal heredity." Our first impression is that, indeed, Homer fits in with such dreams, controlling women's activities, not only their weaving, but also their sexuality and reproductive powers, attempting to reduce them to insbuments of pleasure, taking possession of their male offspring.53 As an example of the latter, consider the case of Hector, Andromache, and their son-an ideali:redrepresentation of domestic hannony, and the only mortal family descnl>edin detail in the Iliad The boy is called Scamandrios by Hector, '"but the rest [of the Trojans called him] Astyanax, for Hector alone protected the city" (Iliad 6.403-404). If Hector is the city's only protector, then why, as Socrates famously asks in the Cratylus (392b3ff.), do the Trojans call his infant son the "lord of the city"? Socrates, of course, suggests that the child is seen as the an extension of his father.54 Hector prays and hopes that the boy will one day be an even better fighter, i.e., a better version of himself (Iliad 6.479-481). The frightened child is saddled with an essential component of the identity of the Homeric male (he is a male child, after all). He is meant to be his father's clone, we might almost say. The mother seems to be excluded from this manly genealogy. She complains bitterly, yet her husband disregards her anguished complaints, knowing full well that after he dies, she will be taken forcibly to work the loom as a slave (6.456). Her concerns do not seem to matter. In fact, Hector's consolation here seems to lie, not in any hope of averting Andromache's fate, but, according to his words at least, in the fact that he, Hector, will not be there to hear her screams (6.~5). And of coursehe revels in his son's future glory. His final, comforting advice to Andromache is that she should not wear herself out with thoughts of his (note, his) death, and go back to her loom and accept her submissive womanly role (6.491).55 Hector is momned in this scene "while still alive" (eli z&Jn, Iliad 6.500). And indeed his perspective here is that of a walking corpse. His words seem to conform to and play out the ideology of "creative self-destruction." Yet despite Hector's hopes and the historical tradition that explains Astyanax's name, the boy turns out, on closer scrutiny, to be anything but his father's "clone." He will not be "lord of the city" nor a better fighter than his father. Rather, as tradition has it, he is killed at the sackine of Troy, by Neoptolemos in some versions, by Odysseus in others.56 The implicit message here seems to be that "paternal heredity" is a dead end, and perhapsalso that "creative self-destruction," which enacts or reenacts the male, is a fantasy. These are thoughts that threaten male ideology at its roots. It's not surprising that Hector never openly voices them: he

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himself foresees his own death with apparent heroic composure. Only Andrornachewill mentionmore dangerousideas, and only much later, at the end of the Iliad (24. 734-39). Yet, strangely, Hector's VClbalpracticeand the Iliad itself does seem to hint at this terrible potential. Note again that the Trojans call the boy Astyanax. Hector, however, calls him Scamaodrios, a name that bas no clear martial connotation. As G. S. Kirk notes, it is only here [ic., in 6.403) in the \WOle of the Iliad that this name [Scamaodrios) is applied to Hector's son, \WOis always Astuanax [sic) in the Cyclic and later tradition, and doubt remains whetha- it was not Skamandrios, rather, that was the informalname, especiallyremembm:d or invented for this tender passagebetween Hectorand bis babyson.,.,

When it comes to proper names.the most basic level of verbalusa~ Hector's male ideology seems to be forgotten, even thoughthat ideology requires, above all, that the son of a warrior be a warrior like his father. Indeed, we can see that "by nature"this boy does not like war: he recoils in terror when he sees his father clad in the crested helmet. Most important. perhaps, as Kirk points out, the name Scamandrios, and with it, perhaps,the boy's kleos, are lost within the Homeric and epic tradition: we have no songs about Scamandrios. Put otherwise, epic tradition seems to have saddled Hector's male offspring with a name and a reputation which it promptly "forgets." Both Hector and Scamandrios will die. But anothermemberof the family will, of course, survive. She is Andromache, whose proper activity, by Hector's standards at least, is weaving and the loom. Andromache's identity, by the tCDIIS of our basic model of gendered heroic ideology, is not to self-destruct (or rather to "not-self-destruct"). There is no value in her death as such. Although Andromache complains bitterly of her future, her lot will not change much in practical temlS once Troy is fallen and she is taken captive. She will continue to work at the loom and obey the commands of men. This scenario, painful as it is for Andromache, actually contains a significant threat for Hector, a threat of which he, understandably, perhaps, never openly speaks. If Andromacbe becomes another man's captive, she is likely to bear that man•s child and thus become the means by which another man will produce a male replica, as it were, of himself. Notwithstanding Hector's silence, the threat does, of co~ materialize in later epic traditions. In the Posthomerica of Quintus (14.21) and in Pausanias (1.11.1) and many other sources, we are told that after the fall of Troy, Andromache was given over as a prize to none other than Achilleus' son, Neoptolemos. According to tradition, Neoptolemus is the one who kills both Astyanax and Priam. This, it seems to me, is highly significant Andromache will be taken by the man who truncates the Trojan royal male line at both ends. Furthermore, some of the later sources suggest that Andromache bears Neoptolemus sons, Molossos, Pielos, and Pergamos. Andromache may grieve at the thought of this future, but she may also tum out to play a personalrole in the destruction of the royal male line of Troy.58 When closely inspected, the "ideal" lliadic family thus seems to hint at the masculine code which defines its

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members, andespeciallythe notion of paternal heredity. Indeed, not only is the male line terminated, but continuity is taken up by the female. We might briefly compare Andromache to Helen as she is portrayed in the Iliad. Helen, too, I suggest, is a deeply self-conuadictory male fantasy of ..using" women selectively to the advantage of men. Andromache is an idealized wife. Outwardly, at least, she is obedient, loving, andproductive, andas such, an emblem of men's attempt to control women's reproductive capacity and to channel it for their own needs. By contrast, it seems to me that Helen, "demonized" as she is as a wife, dangerous as she is as a companion, is also presented as an ideal, or at least as a very desirable lover, an emblem of what we might almost call "safe sex."59 In that capacity she, too, represents an attempt to control women's power. Let me elaborate: Helen is, of course, the most beautiful and sexually desired woman in the Homeric world.60 Yet she bears no children to Paris, her abductor. Helen does gives birth to a daughter (Hermione), but she never bears a son.61 She is, in other words, never represented as someone who takes part in any way in the process of continuity of the male line. Why, then, is sheso desirable? One of the reasons, I would suggest, is that sheis a special type of male fantasy, in which sexual pleasure and reproductivepotential are kept separate. Yet, strangely perhaps, Helen's role as an emblem of "safe sex' depends on her resistance to control by men and thus, de facto, on her infidelity. If any man were to possess her completely (neither Menelaos nor Paris do, of course) and sire a male offspring through her, she might become a "good wife," like Andromache, for example. She would cease to be an emblem of non-reproductive sexual pleasure. As the mother of a male child, she would now threaten the fantasy of pure male reproduction. It would then be necessary to play down her importance as a parent, to remove her from the picture, as it were, by some other means, such as those used in the case of Andromache.62 Clearly it is much simpler to construct the image of an idealized lover by other means. From this perspective, then, Helen's infidelity is not so much a character flaw as it is a strategic prerequisite of her role----osthis role is defined by men. She is-in some ways like Homeric poetry itself.-an obje.ct of desire that is accessible to many, but which has, which must have, real powers of resistance to possession by any individual. If we accept this view, it becomes easier, for example, to understand why an otherwise staunchly misogynistic and possessive male-dominated Greek culture is so often "forgetful" of Helen's shameless acts, and, at times, even positively forgiving sympathetic towards her.63 But the point about Helen is this: like Andromache, it is only possible to "use" her by giving up control over her and giving her significant powers, and, most significantly, by "forgetting" those powers. . Now, as we might expect, the characteri7.ationof women's power in the world of men is somewhat different in the Odyssey. For example, in the Odyssey Helen is portrayed as living in a world of perfect conjugal harmony with her hu&t>and.Yet here, too, the same paradoxical and subversive potential of her gender is never far from the surface. Indeed, the Odyssey takes matters a step furthe.r.It suggests that forgetfulness itself, that necessarygrace which preserves

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the male fantasy of control, is administered and controlled by Helen (Odyssey 4.220-28):

dp' El~ ciW11 JkU,E~LalCOII, !1.18£11!m.VOII, Vl}ffeli8t~ 't ti:x,o'>.bl U, ICuv' a&i:lq)Ut6v y' tv61}aat; •Apydcov· 'tOLOV yap ~ Moooa liyet.a. The daughtersof the old man of the sea stood round YOU. weepingbitterly, and laid uponyou the immortalgannents. Then the nine Muses, each responding in sweet tones, sang laments (t~neon ). None of theArgives remainedwithout tears, so werethey stirred by the shrill Muse.

twea

And, as a well-known passage from the Iliad attests, the activity of singing laments, threnein, is, in fact. an instance of song, aoide (Iliad 24.720-23):

mxixt6' e{acxvaOl.&roc;' 0pti1Kl)v ~apxcrut;, et -reO'tOV6£aaav aOLm)lf d µ.tv cip' eaptiveov,i1tl 6e o,;evax,ovt0yo1KXt1ret;. 't'fit1ftT)c; (i.e., nouns whose grammatical gender-regardless of form-is female or even open, and which denote a female whose proprietary activity is in the realm of song or poetry), and, arguably, no real feminine equivalents. · Aot&f) is not a female am&x;. The word 1t0tT)'tpta is late, rare, and marginal. Compound nouns fare only slightly better: n8cxpot~c; ruv'1is attested once in Alciphron. We find the rare µ.ooo01t0t6c;describing Sappho in Herodotus. M1lA,61tOwc; is applied occasionally to women such as Sappho or Corinna. These are the

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notable exceptions thatprovethe rule: female figures who have broken into the male canonof poetry. In any case, Sappho and Corinnabelong in the realm of lyric poetry, a "small," private and thus overtly "isolated" activity relative to the broad public and authoritative tradition of epic, or, indeed, even of epinician, tragic, or didactic. 103 In other words, the identity of singers is already gendered male by the semantics and verbal usage of ancient Greek. Furthermore, since this act seems to be embodied in the language as a whole, not in any named author's preference, it is almost impossible for any biographical tradition to escape such gendering. The very decision to write the bios of a poet already marlcshim strongly as male. All the same, it is quite clear that the figure of Homer qua poet, and as be emerges from the biographical traditions does not, for example, suit the paradigmatic Homeric cbaracteri7.ation of men who engage in "creative selfdestruction" which Homer's poetry is meant to uphold In literature (as we have seen) and no less in visual art, Homer is typically represented as a blind, feeble old man. Homeric poetry is thus the discourse of a persona who is most emphatically not a hero by the assumed standards of Homeric poetry. Indeed, like Demodokos and Phemios, like Achilleus and Odysseus when they sing or perform song-like activity, Homer's practice seems more characteristic of the feminine model of action, at least as it is imagined/ordered ftom a male Homeric perspective. At this point, in order to maintain an unambiguously masculine image of Homer, we would have to engage in a minor "for~" of Homeric gender roles, andin that sense, perhaps, a "forgetfulness" of one aspect of Homeric poetry itself. . It is tempting and convenient to compare Homer to some of his own characters, such as Demodokos and Phemios, but, of course, we are not bound to do so. Indeed, to the extent that there is a distinction in Homeric poetry between the men of the past and hoioi nun, "the men of today" (see discussions above), we may be positively discouraged from such comparisons and encouraged to That, of course, is view matters from our own (hoioi nun, again) perspective. precisely the point. Reading Homer by means of Homer-whether this means using Homeric gender characteriz.ations or accepting a Homeric division of past and present-leaves "Homer" as an open figure of tradition, ready to receive new values. Thus those modem perspectives that focus on the qualities of Homeric discourse and disregard overt questions of biography also seem to put aside the question of gender. Yet even such perspectives are not gender-free. To quote Alison Keith again, "Ancient and modem critics alike have . . . assumed that behind the name of Homer there lies either a single master poet or a succession of male singers" [I wish to emphasize "modem" and "succession of singers" here]. To this we need add two important observations: First, such critics are not mere interpreters of traditions that privileges men in the poetic process, but also, to the extent that these critics implicitly assume the mal~ of poetic practice, active participants in the generation of such traditions. Second, being active participants in the process, such critics change it, sometimes radically, even when its nominal attributes, for example, gender, remain the same. There is a complicated point here, which reaches to the very

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heart of our argument: gender as the attribute of an individual singer, and gender as the attribute of a group are not the same, for the simple reason that individuals and groups are very different things-a group of horses, for example, is not itself a horse. Yet in the case of singers, modem critics do somehow construct the group of singers as a kind of "singing voice." This is precisely the ambiguity, or tension, to which we pointed at the beginning of our discussion in chapter 1. In the context of this chapter we can say that critics do indeed assume that the succession of singers that makes up a bardic tradition is male; such maleness is not the same quality as the maleness of any individual in biographic traditions, even as it replicates the kind of dynamic tensions which we have argued are the essential component of Homeric ttadition. There is, perhaps, one more piece of evidence we should consider before we draw our argument about gender to a close: the literal name Honreros.At the beginning of this book we suggested, following Michel Foucault, that the name of an author can function as a means of classifying and characterizing a group of texts. Speaking as he does of authors like Rousseau or Marx, Foucault, of course, shows no interest in these names as such. He sees "Rousseau" and "Marx" as devices for bringing together those attributes we wish to ascribe to the tradition, and seems to assume, understandably, that these names in themselves are unimportant accidents of history (so that, e.g., the etymology of the name "Marx" is irrelevant for understanding Marx the author). Things are, however, a little different in the case of Homer and the Homeric tradition. As we know, already in the poems there are many examples of descriptive proper names: Kirke is "the sea hawk," Kalypso,"the bider," Acbilleus "the bringer of pain to the people," Helen "the destroyer of ships." The name of Odysseus himself is "etymologized" and explained in the Odyssey.104 As for Homeros,the name is attested in extant sources outside of the context of Homeric poetry-but 105 only very rarely. Most likely such usage indicates individuals named after the poet. Of course, in keeping with other aspects of Homer's identity, the lexical/semantic values of Homeros are uncertain. Some of the ancient sources give Homer's "true" name as Melesigenes or Melesianax, or Melesagoras.106 Yet obviously none of these have taken bold in the tradition like the name Homeros, which is nearly universal. We may never know the "true" meaning of this name. This, however, does not mean that we cannot attempt to uncover it. There have been repeated attempts to do so, and to use our explanations of the name as a means of characterizing the ttadition. The stakes are high. and very clear. As we have noted earlier, in antiquity the word homeros was thought by some to mean "blind" in Cwnaean. Blindness, we argued, was an important attribute in ancient constructions of Homer. In modem times, Bader, for example, links the name to the root meaning "to sew," an activity which, in its figurative sense, is important for our understanding of epic verse-making. More recently Gregory Nagy bas attempted to explain the etymology of Homeros in tenns of the craft of a master joiner and the linking together of the spokes of a wheel. 107 These, Nagy argues, are key concepts that help characterize the fluidity of the tradition and the process of composition-in-perfonnance.

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Such diverse explanations,as well as the methods aIKi assumptions surrounding them, are clearly an important part of the tradition of who or what Homer "is." Tilat essential diversity, we could suggest, is part of our argument in this book. Yet, as this book drawstowards a conclusion,I would like to try to develop one more reading of the name Homeros, one that has perhaps not been sufficientlyexploredso far, but which may offer us an interestingperspectiveon the identity of Homer, and which may also have particular significancefor our understandingof questions of gender and concomitantquestions of world order in Homer. Homeros may be a rare aIKi obscure proper name, but in post-Homeric Greek, the word homeros is often attested as a common noun denoting "a pledge" or "a hostage." 108 As many historical sources attest, a hostage of this kind is a high-born male handed over to an enemy party to be kept alive as a form of assurance in an elaborates system of exchange (cf., e.g., Herodotus. 6.99). It must be stressed that the word homeros, "pledge'hostage" is postHomeric. It is not attested in the Iliad and Odyssey. Furthermore,hostages, or figures similar to hostages, may be hinted at in the poems, but they are never actually depicted.109 Indeed, as far as I am aware, the word homDrosis used in no extant epic text Nevertheless,in the absenceof any other "obvious" meaning for the name Homeros, and given that ordinary audiences and readers in antiquity approached neither Homer nor language from a strict (indeed "modem") scholarly perspective,it is fair to assume that the name Homeros would have in some way, if only indirectly, resonated with the meaning "hostage." At least some important ancient biographic narratives do actually represent Homer as a hostage, or as the son of a hostage. Aristotle says (fr. 76, Rose),

wv

A'OOOOV ica1XXRCWCruµ£~v mb Alolicov ml icpudvtCJ>vm1XXlt1reiv 't'l)v Iµqwcxv. ICtJ)\)l;avtCJ>V WV meµblKOv 'toll ~vov aicOAOU)eiviQ.t\lCXt'rii~,tb)..em~ m vtrmoc;; d>v "Oµ,p:x; !+r! ml abto(; po(>Uo8at qt'fl)Etv Mev aV'tl Mel:qcnyevcroc; .,Oµ'fl)O(; 1tf)OO'll'Yq>E'OOT].

The Lydians were suffering on account of the Aioleans. and decided to leave Smyrna. The leaders announcedthat whoever wanted to join them should leave the city. Homer, being still quite yowig. said that be wanted to be a hostage. Therefore be became known as Homeros instead of Melesigenes.

In the Certamen, we find the suggestion that Homer's father was a hostage (along with the explanationthat Homerosis a word for "blind," 29-32): bvoµao&i]vat at a'O't6v~af. 'tt.VE1KlJlq> ml ').by~. ~u; µ1:v6t')uc; afml·

oco~

The grand, and that which tends to courage may be fairly called manly. but that which inclines to moderation and tempenmce • may be declared both in law and in oroinaryspeechto be the more womanlyqualify. This, then, will be the general order of them.

8. The move from concrete attn'bution to ideal fonn in the context of gender is clearly illustratedelsewhere, for example in the Sympo.rium,where Diotima says (208d7209a8),

ol µ1:vow~1C'q1011£~~. m'IXi '1Xiocbµa-r.abvteOEv, w ~ aCf>tn 'td tv&w· ml npoc;'tflVl:pycxaf.avw µtv 6ul.d1,12vov l?Spaiov ellQt, npoc; ~ ~ tl;roOevOqxxuUac;aoeevtc;.w ~ 7rpoc; µtv -cac;flv µtv yap w Ope'lfat,iri>v~ w mt&ooat tCJ'tlv.

n

For nature has made the one sex stronger. the other weaker. that the latter through fear may be the more cautious, while the former by its courage is better able to ward off attacks; and that the one may acquire possessions outside the house. the other preserve those within. In the performanceof work.she made one sex able to lead a sedentary life and not strong enough to endure exposure. the other less adapted for quiet pursuits but well constituted for outdoor activi~ and in relation to offspring she made both share in the p-ocreation of children. but each render its peculiar service towards them, the woman by nurturing. the man by educating them. 11. Jelilen 1995:268. Cf. Laquer 1990:26; Edwards 1993:75, etc. 12. As J. Butler (1993: x-xi) argues, there is "a certain kind of necessity that accompanies the pimary [bodily] experiencesof eating. sleeping, pain. pleasure which is irrefutable.••But such irrefutability "in no way implies what it might mean to atfum [these experiences) and through what discursive means." A similar view is acknowledged.e.g.• by Keith 2000: 7. note 23 citing Wittig 1986. 13. Adkins 1%0; Long 1970; Lloyd-Jones 1971; Rowe 1982; Williams 1993. Cf. Lyons 1997:7-8. 14. The rigidity with which some scholars viewed this frameworkis born out well. for example. by Finley. who suggests that "the Heroic code was complete and unambiguous ... the basic values of the society were given. predetermined and so were a man's place in the society and the privileges and duties that followed from his status. They were not subject to analysis or debate, and the other issues left only the narrowest margin for the exercise of what we should call judgement" (Finley 1972: 132-134,cited in Gill 1996:70 note 133. Cf. MacIntyre 1984: 122-30.

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IS. Cf. Worman2001: 19. 16. Helen speaksof henelf as being sung by future generatioos (lliad 6.358), but does not use the word Idem She curses the day she was born (345-347) and clearly regards her acts as shameful.In the Odyuey we are told that Klytemnestra's actions will be rememberedby all (11.433-34), but again, her notorietyis negative (aucho.,, "shame") and will reflecton future women. "even the goodones." 17. On heroes and the notion of ariskU, see Nagy 1999a. Agamemnon's exclamation,"You [Odysseus] acquired a wife [Penelope]with great excelleoce" (O'W µeyal.n ap£'t{l, Ot/yuey 24.193), is linguistically IDlusual (Shipp 1972: 360), and ambiguous (Nagy 1979: 36-38, 255-256; Bergren 1995: 207). "Excellence" is here atttibuted either to the wife or to the "acquiring" husband. Similar ambiguity appears a few lines later (Otzy.uey 24.196-98) when Agamemnon says of Odysseus/Penelope, "Therefore his/her (di.) fame (IClio(;) for his/ha (fio excellence (a,:>E't11~)will never perish. and the immortals will furnish for men m earth a song (aa.6,)v) full of grace for wise Penelope." The adjectiveariste, "best.""most excellent"directly qualifies a woman on mly two occasions,both within a p-edefined female group: among goddesses (Hera, Iliad 18.364) and maidservants (Odyuey 15.25). Cf. the Catalogue of Women (fr. 11 MW). Otherwise "best" is used of women mly in the phrase eidos amte, "the best looking" (Alcestis, Iliad 2.115; Laodice, lliad 3.124; 6.252; Kassandra, Iliad 13.365; A daughter of Agamemnon, Iliad 13.378; Penboa, Odyssey 1.51; etc.). Interestingly, the node "feminine excellenceJbeauty" indicates hearsay rather than observation: with the exceptionof Iris (disguised as Laodice,Iliad 3.124),the phrase eido.Jariste describes farnot claimed to have been seen by the speaker. Contrast kale, "beautiful" away women. (kalline, "most beautiful," not attested in Homer). indicatingobserved female cbaractas (Eos, Iliad 9.101; Charis.Iliad 18.383; Polykaste, Odyssey 3.463; Aphrodite, Ody.uey 8.320; Epikaste,OdyMey 11.271;Ariadne, Ody.J.Jey11.321;etc.). Otherwise the feminine adjective ariste qualifies passive animals such as a lion's victim (e.g., lliad 17.62); a sacrificial heifer (Ody8sey 10.522), or things that are represented as largely under the control of men.such as metis, "wisdom" (e.g., Iliad 17.712), boule, "plan" (lliad 14.161), or ships (Ody8sey 1.280). By contrast, the masculine ari.JIO.f(or the alternative masculine form ari.fleus) does not describe objects, and is most often used of men in a general, unqualifiedsense (e.g., lliad 4.260). 18. See, e.g., Roismann 1984. 19. Monsacre1984:98. not without difficulty. See Else 1963: 522-540, esp. 20. These terms are, of comse. 531 onPoet. l455b32-56a3. 21. Pucci 1987; repeatedlyin Pucci 1998; Segal 1994: 113-41,etc. 22. For "essential idea," see chapter 3, and also Kahane 1994a. 23. On metonymyas an important principlein Homeric tradition see Foley 1991. 24. The terms "rih1Slized,reiterative and citational discourse" could easily have been drawn from Homeric scholarship, but are, in fact, here cited from Butler's recent, influentialwork on the performativityof bodies: "Performativitymust be understoodnot as a singular or deliberate "act' [since otherwise we would be able to change our gender instantly and at will], but rather as the reiterative and citational practice by which discourse produces the effects that it names [myemphasis]" (Butler 1993:2-3). 25. E.g., Katz 1991;Felson-Rubin 1994;Mumaghan 1987a, 1987b;and other works (too numerousto list here, but see bibliography,e.g., in Cohen 1995).

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26. In what follows I use lcleo.,aphthiton as a convenient label for the (llrtcoole of epic, but the words may be taken either as a noun and its attribute or as "fame" [which bas been made] "imperishable." There is, of course, an extc:odeddebate (Nagy 1999a (1979], Finkelberg 1986, etc.) over the formulaic nature of the Jm18C and the JRCise grammatical function of aphthiton (Iliad 9.413). 27. "From Homer to Clandian, classical Greek and Latin epic poetry was composed by men, consumedlargely by men, and centrally conccmed with men. The ancientsknew of no female epic poets" (Keith 2000: I). In fact, Keith is most likely mistaken. There is 90lllC important epigraphic evidence to suggestthat there were indeed womenepic poets. and that they were very highly regarded. See, e.g., Dittmbelger 1982, no. 532 (vol. 2: n8), an inscription dated 21817 BCE from I.amiae (IG IX, 2: 62), according praise and civic privilege to Ariiuodama Qf Smyrna. She is called a 1ta.1J'tpl.cx ~1t[e]ro[v], the subject of whose epic is the Aitolians and their ancestors.Aristodarna is nevertheless chaperoned by her brother. Cf. mo JG 12.5.812, where Alcinoe, also a 1ta.1}tpl.cx, is mentioned. But neither Aristodama, nor Alkinoe, for example, have entries in RE. The point, then, is not that there were no female epic poets, or that the ancientsknewof no such female poets, as Keith suggests. but rather that the canonical tradition never acknowledged them. It's pimarily a matta of rqusa,tati~ 28. Monsacre1984: 98. 29. Tbersites is described as "the most shameful man \WO went to Troy" (2.216). Nevertheless, "Tbesites puts himself forward as spokesman of the Greeks. In fact, he speaks rather like a parody of Achilleus in the quarrel in BookI" (Willcock 1978: 200 on Iliad 2.228). 30. Schein 1984: 71. 31. Schein 1984: 71. 32. Devereux 1978-79: 8-9; Kirpatrick 1999: 159, note 65, 160, note 67. 33. Death is often the paradoxical site of fulfillmcnt "The aim of all life is death." says Freud (1920: 38). See also Plato, Phaedo (6484-9) on philosophy as the practice of death(commentsinRowe 1993: 135).

34. Skinner 1997: 8. 35. See recently,e.g., Lyons2003: 100. 36. In Iliad 24.606, six daughters of Niobe are killed by Artemis (along with Niobe's six sons, killed by Apollo) in revenge for Niobe's insolence and her claim to have bettered Leto in childbirth.The contextand function of this mythologicalexemplum are, however, obviously different 37. In other words, Menelaos' death is more strongly associated with "plain" destruction than with "'creative"self-destruction. 38. Likewise, in Greek tragic poetry, of comse, a woman does not die a "man's death." Cf. Loraux 1987. Consider, mutatis mutandis, the role of women, and the threat of death to women in contemporary American television series such as Xena, Wamor Princeu, Lara Croft in Tombraider (comic bookandfeature films), or Charlie '.r Angel., (television series and feature films), which, at least in part, portray women as the dominant, combative,and heroic. 39. Cf. also, e.g., Scbolia to Nicanda-'s 1neriaca 12a (Crugnola 1971: 40); Xenopboo, Constitution of the Lacedaemoniam 1.3-4: "The Greeks required a womanto devote herself to the sedentary tranquilityof woolwork." 40. See Scheid and Sventro 1996; Bergren 1983b; Pantclia 1993; Snyder 1981;

Papadopoulou-Belmebdi1994. 41. Plato'sPoliticiu 30Se.See Scheid and Svenbro 1996: 9-34.

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42. Scheid and S-vmbro 1996, chapter 3, 53-82. 43. Scheid and Svenlro 1996: 53-61 argue that the epithet chryaothroncu, typical of Hera, should be interpreted to refer to woven fabric, perhaps "stitched in gold" or a colored cloak. 44. Scheid and Svenbro 1996: 68. 45. Iliad 3.212. See Scheid and Svenbro 1996: 112-114. 46. Bergren 1983b. Scheid and Svcnbro 1996: 112-115 rightly point out, however, that Homer does not equate weaving with poetic speech (that association is introducedby the lyric poetsiSee below. 47. See DuBois 1988: 165-166; Pomeroy 1995: 119 oo the female as a "vehicle" for male ideology. For autochthony, see Saxonhouse1986: 258; l.eitlin 1996: 336; Arthur 1983; Vidal-Naquet1981: 267-288. 48. Shrouds made by womenfor male corpses:Cf. Iliad 18.352-55:

iv A£XU001.at 8tvt£c; 6t ♦U.1J1' apPcx,'(Mxv, straoo11.1.33.1s.20: liyE'tCX1. 6t 'rite; mtpac; -ra+oc; yey01Khc; btO TCi>v f!ixx0'1'li>v, ftv I.aft4,cbµtv ti TCi>v µ£A.rollxa.1'rtPl.a1CClA.£i M>pf.x_av, Scholia to Plato, Pha«lnu 23Scl: I.an♦ci> A~lCTI xa.~. l:~VOJI.Ol). M1.'NAfl\lctf.a; a rare reference to composition in hexameter, thoughnot heroic verse: Suda, Lexicon K 1719.3-5: ~tvttO 6t abtcp [sc. Kleoboulos] 8uyci'tlp IO.eofx,uli\lfl, t!l;aµt-qxoval111.yµd'tCl>v Jta.~ !ypa'lfev ~'ta ml ypi♦ooc; £le; bt11 'tplC,XiAl.a;Cf. Dittmberger1982, number S32, 218/7 BCEof Aristodatna of Smyrna (!). a much p:aised but otherwise unknown ~ IG 12.S.812of Ale~, otherwiseunknown. Other nouns:Alciphron 2.31.S: K1.8ap:o1.aoc; ywf); Herodotus, Him>riu 2.13S.3-S: am1Coµtl,lfl Z>£[Rodopis) m,:' tpyacn.flV £10011 XPllJICt'tCl>V µ£-y