Flesh and Spirit in the Songs of Homer: A Study of Words and Myths 0198152639, 9780198152637

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OXFORD

CLASSICAL

MONOGRAPHS

Published under the supervision of a Committee of the Faculty of Literae Humaniores in the University of Oxford

The aim of the Oxford Classical Monographs series (which replaces the Oxford Classical and Philosophical Monographs) is to publish books based on the best theses on Greek and Latin literature, ancient history, and ancient philosophy examined by the Faculty Board of Literae Humaniores.

Flesh and Spirit in the Songs of Homer A Study of Words and Myths

MICHAEL

CLARENDON

CLARKE

PRESS 1999

· OXFORD

OXFORD VNIVBUITY

PUU

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6op Oxford University Presa is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's aim of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogoti Buenos Aires Calcutta Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madras Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Paris Sio Paulo Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw and associated companies in Berlin lb11dan Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York (!; Michael Clarke 1~99

The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Preas (maker) First published 1999 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, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprogn1phics rights organizations. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same conditions on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Clarke, Michael (Michael J.) Flesh and spirit in the songs of Homer: a study of words and myths / Michael Clarke. p. cm.--{Oxford classical monographs) Includes bibliographical references and indexes. 1. Homer--Criticism and interpretation. 2. Epic poetry. GreekHistory and criticism. 3. Mythology, Greek, in literature. 4. Spiritual life in literature. s- Body and soul in literature. 6. Homer-Knowledge--Psychology. 7. Future life in literature. 8. Greek language--Etymology. 9. Psychology in literature. 10. Self in literature. I. Title. II. Series. PA-4037.C-49s 1999 88J'.01-dc21 99-3o884 ISBN 0-19-815263-9 I 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Typeset by Joshua A88ociatcs Ltd., Oxford Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Bookcraft (Bath) Ltd., Midsomer Norton

For my father and in memory of my mother Chuaigh me amach as an chathair go dti an Bit a mbionn an chuid is treine de na fir ag sn8mh, ag Cladach an Daichead Troigh. Ach bhi barraiocht daoine ansin agus chuaigh me bunll.s mile thart an chuan go cladach Dheilginse . . . Bhi an81 na farraige do mo neart\l go millteanach, go dti go raibh me do mo mhothacht8il fein fillin. Cuireann aer na farraige bri mhillteanach ionam, go h3irithe i m'intinn. Is iomai uair a smaoinigh me d8 dtigeadh an fonn orm agus mecois farraige go scriobhfainn leabhar a shiobfadh ball6g na claigne den mh6rchuid den chine daonna. Ach ni raibh fonn scribhneoireachta ar bith an 18 seo orm. S. Mac Grianna, Mo Bhealach Fiin

PREFACE

This book is based on work that I began in 1990 and continued intermittently during the eight years that I spent at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Manchester. I owe special thanks to James Clackson, Michael Crudden, Stephanie Dalley, John Dillon, Pat Easterling, Mark Edwards, Roy Gibson, Jasper Griffin, Richard Hunter, John Killen, Matthew Leigh, Torsten Meissner, Reviel Netz, Trevor Quinn, Keith Sidwell, Christiane Sourvinou-lnwood, Oliver Taplin, and the late J. F. Procope, who have been kind to me and have given me the benefit of their scholarship. Jasper Griffin in particular read countless drafts with great patience, and I would have done little without his acute learning and his relentless criticism. Torsten Meissner helped me without stint in my attempts to understand words, and Michael Crudden read the final draft and made many invaluable suggestions and corrections; while the meticulous work of Julian Ward and Georga Godwin was an unlooked-for boon during copy-editing and production. I am also very grateful to Judith Mossman and to my nephew, James Clarke, and his family, who lent me their homes to write in. Otherwise my chief debts are to all my family and friends, to the music of James Taylor, and to Regan's Tara Bar in Dublin, Clowns Cafe in Cambridge, and above all the New Excelsior Restaurant in Oxford, where they made the best coffee in England. As the book is founded on a doctoral thesis, the reader may be surprised to find that I have allowed little space to complicated disagreements with published scholarship. So much is written about Homer that the student will be hindered rather than helped if he lets other people's theories distract him from the job of grappling with the substance of the poems, which remain bitterly hard to understand from line to line. By trying to let Homer's words speak for themselves I have developed a habit of arguing through glossed quotations, which sometimes makes for exhausted reading: but I hope

Vlll

Preface

the argument will be clear if the reader is patient. Certainly the book would have become unmanageable if I had discussed all my tussles with the books and articles that I had to read as I went along. Many times when I read something, I would be greatly helped by one of its observations but would leave aside many of the others: this applies particularly to Bruno Snell's Discovery of the Mind, David Claus's Toward the Soul, Thomas Jahn's Zum Wortfeld 'Seele-Geist' in der Sprache Homers, Jan Bremmer's Early Greek Concept of the Soul, Arbogast Schmitt's Selbstiindigkeit und Abhiingigkeit menschlichen Handelns bei Homer, and Ruth Padel's In and Out of the Mind. A few recent books that seemed at first sight to belong in the same area, such as Hayden Pelliccia's Mind, Body and Speech in Homer and Pindar and Christopher Gill's Personality in Greek Epic, Tragedy, and Philosophy, turned out to be so remote from what I had already written that there was nothing to be gained by adding discussions of them to the final drafts; and although I have perhaps learnt more about Greek life and thought from Christiane Sourvinou-lnwood than from any other scholar alive today, I found myself at loggerheads with the Homeric chapter in her 'Reading' Greek Death, which I first saw in draft form in 1992. (Conversation reveals that the difference is less between our conclusions than in the objects of our enquiries: see Ch. 1, n. 64.) Of all the studies of Homeric psychology the only one that I found really compelling was R. B. Onians's Origins of European Thought, but even there I have had to disagree with many of its brilliant and eccentric insights. If it and the other monographs are referred to only very briefly, this is not because I have ignored them but because the ancient evidence must take precedence at all times. I can only apologise for the multiplication of errors and omissions that will have been caused by this policy. M.J.C. Da/key September 1998

CONTENTS

Texts, Abbreviations, and Commentaries

XU

Part I: Prologue I.

Homeric Words and Homeric Ideas Reading Homer in isolation Religion and world-picture Words and ideas Poetic language and poetic ideas The integrated study of Homer Semantic reconstruction

2.

4 9 13 22

26 31

The Categories of Body and Soul Asking the right questions Dualism of body and soul is insidious Dualistic words and categories constrain scholarship The quest ahead

37 39 42 47

Part II: The Language of Thought and Life 3- The Breath of Life and the Meaning of ,f,v)('/ The shape of Homeric man Does the living man have a

'Pvx~?

4- Mental Life and the Body Ovµ.6sand its family The idea of psychological identity The mental apparatus has many names but is undivided Mental agents and functions are one The sliding scale of agency and function in Iliad 1-vr Mental life is in the breast Mental life ebbs and flows as breath and fluids New emotions flow into the mental apparatus The flow of bile, x6Aos The stuff of thought alternately softens and coagulates In folly the stuff of thought is dispersed Homeric psychology is a seamless garment The defining factor can be in movement not substance

53 55 61 61 63 66 69 73 79 90 92 97 IOI

106 109

X

Contents The body and the self are one Body and not-body As i,Oosthought goes beyond the apparatus in the breast

II5 II5 119

Part III: Death and the Afterlife 5. The Dying Gasp and the Journey to Hades

Loss of 'PvxTJ is not departure of soul from body Loss of Ovµ.6sis loss of breath and life Loss of YJuxYJ is likewise loss of breath Loss of if,vxTJ can be its annihilation llvµ.6s can be lost temporarily by swooning if,vxYJ is gasped out, OuµOsis breathed back in i/,vxTJ, 'Pvxp6s, i/JVxw refer to coldness, breath and blowing if,vxTJ has two senses in two narrative contexts The image of the flying VJvxTJ yokes the two together The image of flight emerges from that of lost breath

129 130 133 137 139 140 144 147 148 151

6. The Corpse and the Afterlife The corpse has lost vitality but still holds identity 157 To die is to waste away enfeebled 160 When is the corpse distinguished from the dead man? 161 Mutilation of the corpse is mutilation of the man 165 Hades is beyond the darkness of death 166 Allusion to the descent in rhetorical and synoptic style 168 Mutilation is alluded to in the same way as Hades 170 The descent of 'PvxTJ emerges from the descent of K£c/>a>..TJ172 Hades is below the earth men stand on 178 The purpose of the funeral is social 180 viKv5/11£Kp6,; denotes both corpse and dweller in Hades 190 The dweller in Hades is corpse or shade 191 The shade is defined as remnant or as counterfeit 194 The shade's movement names it as i/JuxTJ 198 The identity of the shade is indeterminate 200 The shade is an image of the undivided bodily man 205 These articulations are irreconcilable: a problem 207 Patterns of the relation between shade and corpse 211 Appendix: I. The unity of the Nekuia 2. The authenticity of the Second Nekuia

2'5 225

Part IV: The Shaping of Myth 7, The Personalities of Death How does the visible world relate to the mythical?

231

Contents The divinities of death Sleep has a fluid personality The descent of darkness is the experience of death Death approaches and seizes the victim The planning of fate leads to death's fulfilment The same names can be used without mythical import Death comes from the arrows of Artemis and Apollo Mythical forms in stories of the gods and in works of art 'Everything is full of gods'

x1

231 235 239 243 251 253 257 259 26 I

8. Conclusion: The Dynamics of Mythical Image-making The suppleness of myth The divine society Ares and war Helios and Scamander The supple identity of ,f,vXT/ The double plane of causation The double plane of death

264 266 269 272 276 277 282

Epilogue: Flesh and Spirit in Language and Lore after Homer References

321

Index of Words

341

Index of Passages

347

General Index

369

TEXTS,

ABBREVIATIONS, COMMENTARIES

AND

References to books of Homer are indicated by Roman numerals, small capitals for Iliad and lower-case for Odyssey. Standard abbreviations are used for all other ancient authors and works: see the lists in Liddell, Scott, and Jones, Greek-English Lexicon (9th edn., 1940) and the Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd edn., 1996).

Principal texts Bacchylides, Carmina cum Fragmentis, post B. Snell ed. H. Maehler (Leipzig, 1992). Hesiodi Opera: Theogonia, Opera et Dies, Scutum, ed. F. Solmsen; Fragmenta Selecta, ed. R. Merkelbach and M. L. West, 3rd edn. (Oxford, 1990). Homeri Opera, ed. T. W. Allen and D. B. Monro, 3rd edn. (Oxford, 1920). Homeri llias, ed. T. W. Allen (Oxford, 1931). Homeri Odyssea, ed. P. von der Miihll, 3rd edn. (Leipzig, I 96 I). Pindar, Epinicia, post B. Snell ed. H. Maehler (Leip2ig, 1987). Scholia Graeca in Homeri Iliadem, ed. H. Erbse (Berlin, 196988).

Scholia in Homeri Odysseam, ed. G. Dindorf (Oxford, 1855).

Abbreviations Bernabe Boisacq

A. Bernabe (ed.), Poetae Epici Graeci, Testimonia et Fragmenta, i (Leipzig, 1987) E. Boisacq, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue grecque, 4th edn. (Heidelberg, 1950)

Texts, Abbreviations, and Commentaries Chantraine D D-K Frisk H KRS

LfgrE L-P LSJ M M-W

N OCD 2 OCD 3 P PEG

RE

S-M

x111

P. Chantraine, Dictionnaire titymologique de la langue grecque (Paris, 1968-80) E. Diehl (ed.), Anthologia Lyrica Graeca, 3rd edn. (Leipzig, 1949-5 1) H. Diels and W. Kranz (eds.), Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 6th edn. (Berlin, 1951-2) H. Frisk, Griechisches etymologisches Worterbuch (Heidelberg, 1954-72) P. A. Hansen (ed.), Carmina Epigraphica Graeca Saeculorum VIII-Va. Chr. n. (Berlin, 1983) G. S. Kirk, J.E. Raven, and M. Schofield, The Presocratic Philosophers, 2nd edn. (Cambridge, 1983) Lexicon des fruhgriechischen Epos, ed. B. Snell et al. (Gottingen, 1979- ) E. Lobel and D. L. Page (eds.), Poetarum Lesbiorum Fragmenta (Oxford, 1955) H. G. Liddell, R. Scott, and H. S. Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th edn. (Oxford, 1940) H. Maehler (ed.), Pindari Carmina cum Fragmentis, ii: Fragmenta (Leipzig, 1989) R. Merkelbach and M. L. West (eds.), Fragmenta Selecta, in Hesiodi Opera, 3rd edn. (Oxford, 1990) A. Nauck (ed.), Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, 2nd edn. (Leipzig, 1926) Oxford Classical Dictionary, 2nd edn. (Oxford, 1970) Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd edn. (Oxford, 1996) D. L. Page (ed.), Poetae Melici Graeci (Oxford, 1962) D. L. Page (ed.), Epigrammata Graeca (Oxford, 1975) Paulys Real-Encyc/opiidie der c/assischen Altertumswissenschaft, ed. G. Wissowa et al. (Stuttgart, 1893- ) Fragmenta, in Bacchylidis Carmina cum Fragmentis, post B. Snell ed. H. Maehler (Leipzig, 1992)

xiv

VentrisChadwick

w

Texts, Abbreviations, atui Commentaries

M. Ventris and J. Chadwick, Documents in Mycenaean Greek, 2nd edn. (Cambridge, 1973) M. L. West (ed.), Iambi et Elegi Graeci, 2nd edn. (Oxford, 198g-g2)

Commentaries (referred to by commentators' names)

Aeschylus, Agamemnon, by E. Fraenkel (Oxford, 1950). Aeschylus, Choephori, by A. F. Garvie (Oxford, 1986). Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound, by M. Griffith (Cambridge, 1983). Bacchylides, Die Lieder des Bacchylides, by H. Maehler (Leiden, 1982; Mnemosyne, Suppl. 62). Euripides, Alcestis, by A. M. Dale (Oxford, 1954). Euripides, Bacchae, by E. R. Dodds, 2nd edn. (Oxford, 1960). Euripides, Helen, by A. M. Dale (Oxford, 1967). Hesiod, Theogony, by M. L. West (Oxford, 1966). Hesiod, Works and Days, by M. L. West (Oxford, 1978). Hornet, Iliad, by W. Leaf, 2nd edn. (London, 1900-2). Homer, Iliad xx1v, by C. Macleod (Cambridge, 1982). The Iliad: A Commentary, general ed. G. S. Kirk (Cambridge): vols. 1-2, bks. 1-1v and v-v11i, by G. S. Kirk (1985--S· afo7Jt,

;gE,-rrapd. V1JVOL1.mµivEos A&cnovKf/p (II. 851). It desires to eat or drink, 1rdtav 0-rEOvµOs dvWyo, (IV. 263), similarly oV6£ n 8vµOs E6El1eTo8a,T0s- EtcrtJs (1. 468=1. 602=n. 431). It holds ideas or skills, 0vp.o, ivi a-rTJ8ECJ(]t rf:,O,o,a,I 1}1ria6TJvEaome (IV. 360-1); one imagines it as forgetting a thought or emotion, ef,a{71v KE4,pEv'd-rEp-rrov Or{lJos EKAEAa8Ea8m (v1. 285); it carries out organized thought, Ev lU ol ~-rop I a-r1]8Eaa,vAaalo,ai 8uiv8,xa µEpµ.1]pitEv(1. 188-9); it desires a particular course of action, 9vµOs E1rEaav-rm04,p• E1raµ.Vvw (vt. 361; sim. 1. 173) and a particular activity is dear to it, rf,{Aarf,pEa{(1. 107). By its own act it practises an emotion: it is eager or hasty, µ.alµ71aE8€ ol ef,{Aov~-rop (v. 670), and it floats or swells unrestrainedly in arrogance, 01rAo-rEpwvd.v8pWv ef,pEvEs

~•pi0ovTa, (III.

108).

At a slightly reduced level of independence, it is passively subjected to emotional experience: it is filled with anger, µ.EvEos 8£ µ.Eya tf,pEvEsd.µ..A&. TE '1Ji871 (II. 213). Similarly spirit or determination arises in or through the apparatus, µ,t:Td cf,' JEY0.5

'cf,',\,f, aµ, O(Q v

El,/.

(III. 442)

Similarly warlike bravery fills them in a warrior: "

"

a/\K7]S

Ka,

' a0'OEOS 'TT,\"7JTDpE1,1a5 4>,

• 4>· ,\awa5. , aµ, t f..l:E

(xvn. 499)

Grief strikes one deep in the ,f,p~v: •••

,, o ••axo> 05:V '''

TOI,/

'4>'

KaTapEva

',1,p0· Ea

TV

EtQl,I.

(XIX. I 25)

In an extended version of this image grief touches or feels its way into the fJvµ,O,;,£aeµ,O.aae-ro. .. fJvµ,Ov(xvn. 564; cf. xi. 591). On entering the ,f,p,ve, it swells them, makes them dense: 7b See further Padel (1992: 23-6),

who closely identifies µ.ivos and x6Aoswith the flow of blood into the chest. On µ.ivos-see also below, pp. I 10-11. 77 On this passage see esp. Combellack (1975), who emphasizes the anatomical reference.

Mental Life and the Body ·E K'TOpa O~· a,vov • ' axos" 1TVKUO'E I

..L ,

Y,PEVUS'

91

• •• ..L' at"t',

\

,

µ.E/\(1010,S,

(XVII. 83; sim. VIII. 124=vn1.

316)

Likewise when a man actively increases his grief he rouses it up in himself, I

• . . 0'

\

f',0'

Kpaot7J' ,-uya ~I

I

I

0

•

1TEV OS' OE

! E.

So far, all this answers very literally to the conception that deeper part of the mental apparatus ebbs and flows like stormy sea in the psychological similes discussed earlier in chapter. However, in a few instances Homer pushes

the the this this

phenomenon of covering, entering, and seizing by these fluids onto a more figured level of language. A man is said to have put on bravery in his rf,pivEslike a garment, 4,pealv elµ.ivos cL\K~v (XX. 381), similarly BoVpw J.,nuµ,lvoi &i\K~11 78 (vu. 164=v111. 262); in a different image grief gnaws inside, µ.Ev K«Ta~Cl11TET[ai] ... tf,[Aov~Top (xvi. 92), while strife eats at the mental apparatus: it is 8uµo/36popivEsOµf/,i, µi.\mva, I 7r{µ7r,\avTO(1. 103-4). 79 Compare MKE 6f f/>pivas"EKTop, µ,VBos(v. 493), and 8vµo8aK~S ... µ.VBos (viii. 185). In the same constellation is the idea that fire eats what it burns, 7rVp JaB{u (xxm. 182). As often, it is impossible to tell whether the range of meaning of each verb has been deliberately extended into a metaphorical sense of 'devouring': certainly the image is less extravagant than the tragic 7rvp0s yvO.Bos(PV 370), which probably looks directly to Homer's 7rVp EaBlEt. 80 This goes against the grain of modern common sense, but it is ... irresistible. In Homer the clearest proof is the expression 1T.A710&µ.Evos J7rmµ&os (1. 149, IX. 372). The same idea is suggested

92

The Language of Thought and Life

entry of wine into the body exactly parallels the entry of emotion in the form of breath and blood. Wine seeps into the ,f,piv« in an oozing, honey-like flow, it is /LJvEs wild, ,f,pivas ''YJKE 1ro.\Vf/,po11&. 1tEpxaAE1t1j11m, 1

OsT£ 1t0AllyAuK{wv µ,EA,Tos KaTaAo/30µ,Evo,o ' I:! '8 • 'e. • avapwv Ell CJTT}EOGill QEiua, 1JUTE KQ'ftl'OS"- XVIII. A

•

,I;

,

(

107-10

)

The new emotion surges in, and the breast is in turmoil. In their different ways, billowing smoke and flowing honey participate in the kind of flowing movement that Homer sees Bvµ.OvJ8.,,TVos~SE 1ron}Tos (xvii. 6o3), where food and drink go into the breathing apparatus; similarly the Homeric Hymn to Demeter describes grazing ,/,op/lq,(I. 175); and cattle as filling the f>p~vwith fodder, ,co,xaadµ.010,f>f'EJ1a when Alcaeus urges someone to drink he tells him to wet his lungs, Ti')"}'E 1r.\EVµ.ovas olvw, (fr. 347 P). For the connection between the two types of filling or concentration of the chest, by nutrition and by improved thought, see x. 45(>..;;5.

Mental Life and the Body

93

in the life of the psychic substances that are inside the breasts of men. 81 xOAoshere is an emotion and a psychological force, but by the same token it is a substance in the body, produced by the organs in the abdomen known as xoAtl8Es-,which are concrete enough to slide out when a man's torso is sliced open 82 (IV. 526 = XXI. 181). 'Bile' is probably the truest translation. Although Achilles' imagery is uniquely vivid, it is consistent with what is said of x6Ao, throughout Homer. 83 When a man grows angry xO.\os enters his breast, lµ:rrEaE 8vµWi (IX. 436, XIV. 207, 306), rKo, (XVII. 399); he puts it there, lv8,o 8vµw, (v1. 326); it is in his cf,pEvES (II. 241); he casts it around within, iv 8vµw, f)o.AAovTai . .. x6Aov(XIV. 50); it enters the cf,p.ov,,:fJp(1. 569),

Mental Life and the Body

97

to say that he has yielded to his 8vµ6, is to say that the liquids flowing into his breast are filling it unchecked.

The stuff of thought alternately softens and coagulates This deepening and compression of what is in the breast leads us to a further set of images referring to the hardening and softening of the mental apparatus. Here the bloody wetness of the anatomical heart and the neighbouring innards must be the basic anatomical phenomenon. Weakness or yielding, or simply joy, is softness or moistness in the breast. Penelope's surrender . to grief and misery is a melting of the 8vµ.6s: 1' , >