Homer: Critical Assessments [1] 0415145287, 9780415145282

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Routledge Critical Assessments o f Classical Authors

Forthcoming: Virgil Edited by P.R. Hardie Greek Tragedy Edited by Katerina Zacharia

HOMER

Critical Assessments

Edited by Irene J.F. de Jong

VOLUM E I The Creation o f the Poems

ROUTLEDGE

London and New York

First published 1999 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 © Selection and editorial material, 1999 Irene de Jong Typeset in Garamond by J&L Composition Ltd, Filey, North Yorkshire Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Homer: critical assessments/edited by Irene J.F. de Jong, p. cm. Essays in English, French, and German. Contents: v. 1. The creation of the poems - v. 2. The Homeric world — V. 3. Literary interpretation - v. 4. Homer’s art. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-415-14527-9 1. Homer - Criticism and interpretation. 2. Epic poetry, Greek - History and criticism. 3* Oral-formulaic analysis. 4. Oral tradition —Greece. 5. Civilization, Homeric. 6. Greece - In literature. I. Jong, Irene J.F. de PA4037.H7747 1998 883'.01-dc21 98-11375 CIP ISBN ISBN ISBN ISBN ISBN

0-415-14527-9 0-415-14528-7 0-415-14529-5 0-415-14530-9 0-415-14531-7

(set) (vol. (vol. (vol. (vol.

I) II) Ill) IV)

Contents

VOLUME I The Creation of the Poems Preface Acknowledgements Appendix: Chronological Table of Reprinted Articles

xi xiii xiv

A. The H om eric Question (Unitarians, Analysts, Neo-Analysts) Introduction: Homer

E.R. Dodds

3

1. An Essay on the Original Genius of Homer R.Wood 2. Prolegomena to Homer F.A. W olf 3. Die Verwundung der drei Achäerhelden Λ U< von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff 4. Tradition and Design C.M. Bowra 5. Book 11 of the Iliad as ‘Anticipation’ W.Scbadewaldt 6. The Beginning of the Odyssey D . Page 7. Kleiderdinge. Zur Analyse der Odyssee W\ Schadewaldt 8. Das Schweigen der Arete U. Hölscher 9. Oral Poetry Theory and Neoanalysis in Homeric Research W. Kullmann

17 23 35 47 6l 96 122 136 145

B. Oral Poetry Introduction: Homer and Oral Poetry Research (original contribution) 10.

E.J. Bakker

Über den Einfluß des Metrums auf den homerischen Ausdruck H. Düntzer

163 184

vi

Contents 11. Zur Entstehung homerischer Formeln K. Witte 12. The Epithet and the Formula I: The Usage o f the Fixed Epithet M. Parry 13. Homer’s Originality: Oral Dictated Texts A.B. Lord 14. Initial Digamma A. Hoekstra 15. The Circumstances of Monumental Composition G.S. Kirk 16. Modification o f Formulae B. Hainsworth 17. Typical Battle Scenes in Book 11 of the Iliad B. Fenik 18. The Traditional Phrase (I): Theory of Production M.N. Nagler 19* Convention and Individuality in Iliad 1 M.W. Edwards 20. Formulae or Single Words? Towards a New Theory on Homeric Verse-Making E. Visser 21. Peripheral and Nuclear Semantics in Homeric Diction: The Case o f Dative Expressions for 'Spear E. Bakker and F. Fabbricotti Select Bibliography

192 199 228 237 256 273 287 315 339 3 64

382 401

VOLUME II The Homeric World Introduction: Homer and Early Greece (original contribution)

HJ. van Wees

A. Historical and Archaeological Background 22. An Historical Homeric Society? A.M .Snodgrass 23. The Use and Abuse o f Homer L Morris 24. 'Reading the Texts’ : Archaeology and the Homeric Question E.S. Sherratt B. H om eric Society 25. The Homeric City G. Glotz 26. State Organization in Homer and in the Mycenaean Age M. Nilsson 27. Household, Kin, and Community M.L Finley 28. The Dynamics of the Homeric Society B. Qviller 29- La femme dans la société homérique C.Mossé 30. The Homeric Way o f War: The Iliad and the Hoplite Phalanx (I) HJ. van Wees

1 33 35 52 77 103 105 126 149 174 210 221

Contents C Ethics and Psychology 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36.

Homers View of Man B. Snell Agamemnon’s Apology E.R. Dodds Homer: Mistake and Moral Error A .W .H , Adkins Morals and Values in Homer A.A. Long La faute, l’erreur et le malheur S. Said Centres,of Agency B. Williams

D. Religion 37. 38. 39. 40. 4L

vii 239 241 260 279 305 332 339 357

The Gods and Fate E. Ehnmark Mycenaean and Homeric Religion Λί. Nilsson Motivation by Gods and Men A. Lesky Some Aspects of the Gods in the Iliad M,M. Willcock Land and sacrifice in the Odyssey: A Study o f Religious and Mythical Meanings P. Vidal-Naquet 42. The Divine Audience and the Religion of the Iliad J. Griffin

359 369 384 404

437

Select Bibliography

465

416

VOLUME III Literary Interpretation Acknowledgements Introduction: Homer and Literary Criticism LJ.F. de Jong (original contribution) A.

The Poems and Individual Scenes 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52.

Hektor und Andromache W. Schadewaldt Das Parisurteil K. Reinhardt The Iliad or The Poem o f Force S. Weil Odysseus’ Scar E. Auerbach The Proems of the Iliad and the Odyssey B.A. van Groningen Zur inneren Form der Ilias A. Heubeck Telemachus and the Telemacheia H .W . Clarke Zeus’ Speech: Odyssey 1.28—43 K. Riiter The M otif of the Godsent Mist in the Iliad J. Kakridis The Shield of Achilles within the Iliad 0. Taplin

vi 1 25 27 47 66 91 109 119 131 145 163 179

viii

Contents

B. Speeches 53. Die Monologe in den homerischen Epen C. Hentze 54. Being Silent - Concealing — Passing Over; the Presentation o f the Unexpressed in the Odyssey S. Beßlich 55. The ‘Inner Composition’ o f the Speeches in the Iliad D. Lohmann 56. The Voice of Anonymity: tis-Speeches in the Iliad I.J.F. de Jong 57. Heroes as Performers: Odysseus and Diomedes R.P. Martin 58. The Function and Context of Homeric Prayers: A Narrative Perspective J.V. Morrison C. Similes 59. The Interpretation o f Individual Similes: (A) Elemental Forces H. Frankel 60. The Function of the Homeric Simile M, Coffey 61. Violent Juxtaposition in the Similes of the Iliad D.H. Porter 62. Simile Sequences C. Moulton 63. On the Compositional Use o f Similes in the Odyssey R. Friedrich D. Inset Tales 64. 65. 66. 67.

Mythological Paradeigma in the Iliad M,M. Willcock The Function of Digressions in the Iliad J.N.H, Austin The Atreid Story in the Odyssey U. Hölscher Die Ich-Erzählungen des Odysseus. Überlegungen zur epischen Technik der Odyssee W. Suerbaum 68. Le miroir et la boucle F. Létoublon 69. Myth, Paradigm and ‘Spatial Form’ in the Iliad Oe. Andersen 70. The Structure and Function of Odysseus* Apologoi G .W ; Most Select Bibliography

201 203 218 239 258 274 284 299 301 322 338 351 368 383 385 403 419 431 460 472 486 504

Contents

ix

VOLUME IV Homer's Art A. T h e Singer and his Muse 71. 72. 73* 74.

Über naive und sentimentalische Dichtung F. Schiller The Singer in the Odyssey H. Maehler Poetic Inspiration in Early Greece P. Murray Homer on Poetry and the Poetry of Homer C M . Macleod 75. The Genre of Epic Poetry A. Ford B. Style and Structure 76. Préface de la traduction d'Homère A. Dacier 77. On Translating Homer M. Arnold 78. Parataxis in Homer: A New Approach to Homeric Literary Criticism J.A. Notopoulos 79- The Homeric Epithets are Significantly True to Individual Character W. Wballon 80. Homer Against his Tradition J .A . Russo 81. Die größeren Aristien der Ilias T. Krischer 82. Artistry and Craftsmanship in the Homeric Epics H. Patzer C. Characters 83. 84. 85. 86.

Preface to his Translation of the Iliad A. Pope The Untypical Hero W.B. Stanford Agamemnon in the Iliad A.M . van Erp Taalman Kip Die Begegnung zwischen Diomedes und Glaukos (Z ) Oe. Andersen 87. Speech as a Personality Symbol: The Casé of Achilles P. Friedrich andJ. Redfield 88. Elpenor H. Rohdich 89* The Philosophy of the Odyssey R.B. Rutherford D. Narrative Techniques 90. Laocoôn F. Lessing 91. The Treatment of Simultaneous Events in Ancient Epic T. Zielinski 92. The Forecasting of Events within the Epic and its Effect upon Suspense I: Events Forecast to the Reader, but not to the Characters G.Duckworth

1 3 6 21 42 57 79 81 85 94 113 125 142 155 185 187 190 206 218 231 262 271 299 301 317

328

X

Contents 9394. 9596.

The Poet and his Audience S.E. Bassett Primitive Narrative T. Todorov Homer’s Trojan Plain A. Thornton Explicit and Implicit Embedded Focalization LJ.F. de Jong 97. Reading Differences: The Odyssey and Juxtaposition S. Goldhill 98. Special Abilities S. Richardson 99. The Development of the Theme in the Iliad: The Plan of Action J. Latacz Select Bibliography

339 347 357 370 396 432 462 477

Preface

This collection aims to provide its readers with an overview o f two centuries of Homer studies. The birth of modern Homeric scholarship is usually set at the publication of Friedrich August W o lf s Prolegomena ad Homerum in 1795, This dividing line is used here also, exception being made for some famous, older pieces. The material is presented in four sections: the creation of the poems (Volume I), the Homeric world (Volume II), literary interpretation (Volume III), and Homer’s art (Volume IV). Two domains of Homeric scholarship have been left out of account: archaeology (since this would involve repro- · duction of illustrations) and linguistics (since this requires an intimate knowledge of the Greek). The criteria for selection were that the piece concerned should be good and/or influential and/or representative of a particular approach. O f course, many of the older pieces will hardly convince nowadays - though this is not always the case, just as, conversely, the most recent study is not necessarily the best — but they are included in order to show the development of Homeric scholarship. For the same reason, the pieces are not updated but reprinted exactly as they were published. Only obvious errors or omissions in the originals, in so far as my eye fell on them or authors drew my attention to them, have been repaired. Cross-references to pages other than the ones reprinted have been removed. Since the volumes are published by a British and American publisher, the selection has a decidedly Anglo-Saxon slant. In view of the vital role played by German scholarship in Homeric research, however, a considerable number of German pieces are included, eight of which (from such renowned scholars as Lesky, Schadewaldt, Hölscher, and Frankel) are translated for the first time, especially for this collection. Each volume contains a select bibliography and Volumes I to III start with introductory essays, which provide the necessary backdrop against

xii

Preface

which to savour the pieces reprinted afterwards. I am very grateful to Egbert Bakker and Hans van Wees for having accepted my invitation to write such an introductory essay. I also wish to thank S.R. van der Mije for correcting (some of) the translations, Maria van Erp Taalman Kip for providing a translation of part o f her (Dutch) dissertation on Agamemnon, H. Maehler for translating part o f his (German) book on the figure of the Homeric singer, J. Koopmans for correcting my transcription of Madame Dacier, D. Lohmann for ‘authorizing’ the translation of (part of) his book on Iliadic speeches, R. Blankenborg for assisting me in getting the 99(1) pieces selected ready for the press, and, finally, Richard Stoneman for promptly advising me at all stages of compiling these volumes.

Acknow ledgem ents

The editor gratefully acknowledges the following who have kindly given permission to reprint articles in this volume: Georg Olms Verlag AG, 1; Princeton University Press, 2; Oxford University Press, 4, 6, 12 and 16; Akademie Verlag GmbH, Berlin, 5; U. Hölscher, 8; Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 9; Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, 14; G.S. Kirk and Cambridge University Press, 15; University of California Press, 18; the Department of Classics, Harvard University and the President and Fellows of Harvard College, 19; Würzburger Jahrbücher, 20; E.J. Brill, Leiden, 21. While every effort has been made to contact copyright holders of material used in this volume, the editor and publisher would be grateful to hear from any they were unable to contact.

A. The Homeric Question (Unitarians, Analysts, Neo-Analysts)

Introduction: Homer*

E.R. Dodds * Source: M. Platnauer (ed.) Fifty Years (and Twelve) of Classical Scholarship, Barnes and Noble, New York,2 1968, pp. 1 -1 3 , 3 1 -4 .

i Homer and the Analysts In the second volume of his Geschichte des Altertums, published in 1893, the great historian Eduard Meyer summed up the results achieved by the intensive study of the Homeric poems during the nineteenth century. It could, he said, be considered as scientifically proved that they were neither the work o f an individual nor yet a conglomerate o f ‘lays’, but the outcome of an activity of minstrel-poets which had extended over centuries; and he added that the stratification within each poem could be determined with an adequate measure of confidence. This was the general opinion o f the time, in England as well as in Germany; the same verdict had been given, if in rather more cautious terms, by Sir Richard Jebb in his Homer: an Introduction (1887),1 and by Walter Leaf in his Companion to the Iliad (1892). Unitarianism was not indeed dead (despite frequent announcements of its demise), but it was a heretical minority view, at least among professional scholars;2 its chief public upholders were isolated figures like Andrew Lang3 in England - a brilliant scholar who enjoyed amateur status - and Carl Rothe4 in Germany. On the other hand, Lachmann’s fantastic ‘lay-theory’ had been abandoned for good, although it continues to figure in the popular imagi­ nation (and in the books of some Unitarians) as the typical outcome of Homeric analysis. W ith one possible exception, no serious analyst has maintained within living memory that the Iliad can be resolved into a conglomeration o f short independent poems which an ‘editor’ has joined together by placing them end to end, as Dr. Lönnrot produced the Finnish pseudo-epic known as the Kalevala? That both the Homeric poems have in their present form a carefully conceived design and a basic structural unity has long been recognized by analysts as well as Unitarians: e.g. Jebb wrote that ‘each of the poems forms an organic and artistic whole', while adding that certain parts ‘appear to disturb the plan or to betray inferior

4

The Creation of the Poems

workmanship’ .6 And on the whole the tendency of modern analysis has been to place increasing emphasis on the element of design at all stages in the assumed development of the poems; we hear much less o f the ‘bungling redactor’, that diabolus ex machina whom early analysts invoked to explain every blemish that seemed to mar the faultless perfection o f the genuine’ Homeric poetry. The view o f the Iliad which held the field at the turn o f the century, and is still today the most widely accepted alternative to unitarianism, main­ tains that its central subject was from the first the theme announced in the poem, the Wrath o f Achilles, but that the poem has been gradually enlarged by the accretion of other material round this central nucleus. Such a view was naturally suggested by the peculiar structure of the Uiad, which has been described as a drama with retardations’; it was a natural guess that the drama formed a nucleus to which more and more retardations had in the course of time been added. Originally propounded in 1832 by one of the greatest of all Greek scholars, Gottfried Hermann, it had been developed and popularized in England by George Grote in the second volume of his History of Greece (1846—56). In the two generations which followed Grote it was accepted, in one form or another, by most o f the leading German and English scholars —by Theodor Bergk, W ilhelm Christ, Eduard Meyer, Paul Cauer, Carl Robert, Erich Bethe, by Sir Richard Jebb, Walter Leaf, J.B. Bury, and Gilbert Murray, to name only a few. Later it was for a time eclipsed by the rival theory of Wilamowitz (see below) and by the sudden growth of unitarianism; but it has been revived in several recent analyses o f the Iliad - in the admirable Introduction à ITHade by Mazon, Chantraine, and others (the analysis is Mazon’s), and in two works by distinguished Swiss scholars, W . Theiler’s essay ‘Die Dichter der Ilias’, and the Kritisches Hypomnema zur Ilias lately published by the veteran Peter Von der Miihll. 7 By most o f these writers the author of the original Wrathpoem is identified, either firmly or tentatively, with the historical bearer o f the personal name ‘Homer’; the old view which saw in ‘Homer’ a mere personification of the genius o f epic poetry, or the mythical eponymous ancestor o f the Homeridae, has been generally (and rightly) abandoned.8 There is thus more agreement in principle among modern analysts than might be supposed by an unwary reader o f Unitarian polemics. But when it comes to defining the limits o f the Wrath-poem, or determining the successive stages of the later expansion, agreement seems more remote today than it did fifty years ago. The minimum content o f the Wrath-poem must have included at least the Quarrel of the Chiefs (Book I), the Greek defeat in Book XI, the Patrocleia (Book XVI, with the end o f XV), and the death o f Hector (Book XXII), together with connecting pieces which are no longer recoverable in their original form. But how much more it included remains, and seems likely to remain, a matter o f dispute. Did it, for example, end with the dragging o f Hector’s body (Leaf)? Or with Andromache’s lament at

The Homeric Question

5

the close of Book X XII (Von der Mühll)? Or did it go on to tell o f Achilles' own death, so often predicted in our Iliad (Robert, Wilamowitz)? Or did the tale of the Wrath always end as it does now, not with the death of Hector or of Achilles, but with the death of the Wrath itself and the ransoming of Hector’s body (Mazon)? To many readers the last will seem the most reasonable assumption, despite the many signs which appear to indicate that the final book of the Iliad is in its present form relatively late work.9 Again, is it certain that the original poem included no ‘retardations’ at all? The older analysts tended to assume this, apparently because they felt that ‘Homer’s’ work must have had the sort of strict organic unity that Aristotle expected of a tragedy. But Homer had not had the advantage of reading Aristotle, and it may be that, like Shakespeare, he cared less about organic unity than about pleasing his audience. May he not, to that end, have included in his poem further battle-pieces which gratified the pride o f Greek listeners by describing Achaean victories, and enabled traditional heroes like Diomede and Ajax to show their paces? Considerations of this kind account for the widely varying estimates of the length of the Wrathpoem, ranging between the extreme views of Bethe,10 who cut it down to some 1500 lines, and of Mazon, who is willing to attribute to the original poet fourteen books of the present Iliad (Books I, XI to XVIII, and X X to XXIV). Such differences indicate the limited ;usefulness of the nucleustheory, though they do not, of course, disprove its correctness. They were in fact foreseen by the founder of the German analytic school, F.A. W olf, who wrote in a moment of pessimistic foresight ‘forsitan ne probabiliter quidem demonstrari poterit, a quibus locis potissimum nova subtemina et limbi procedant’ .11 There is hardly less disagreement about the ‘stratification’ of the expan­ sions and the manner in which they were brought about. Leaf imagined a gradual process of growth, in which it was possible to distinguish two main strata: an earlier, consisting mainly o f ‘aristeiai’ of different heroes, which had the effect o f transforming the Wrath-poem into an Iliad, a general picture of the Trojan War; and a later, consisting of freely invented short poems, some o f them of the highest quality, which reflects the humanity and the psychological interest of a later age. Bethe, on the other hand, postulated a second great individual poet (situated, rather unconvincingly, at Athens in the sixth century) who transformed the Wrath-poem at a single stroke into our Iliad by incorporating in it a large number of short pieces which had grown up round it in the interval. Others again, like Theiler, assume a much more complicated process o f development, involving five or six different strata, but dispensing with the assumption of independent short poems. It is, however, untrue to suggest that no generally agreed conclusions have emerged. There are at least a few specific problems on which there is an approach to unanimity. For example, all analysts (and many Unitarians) are agreed that the Doloneia (Book X ) is a late addition to

6 The Creation of the Poems the poem.12 It is, again, agreed by most analysts (and some Unitarians) that the Embassy (Book IX), and the battle in Book VIII which was invented to lead up to it,13 formed no part of the original Wrath-poem; and that certain subordinate figures - Nestor, Glaucus and Sarpedon, Aeneas - owe their prominence in the Iliad to later poets who introduced them to gratify local interests. The nucleus-theory, in its traditional form, places its ‘Homer’ at the beginning of the long poetic development which produced our Iliad. To this it has been objected (a) that the language and style of the Iliad, even in its ‘oldest’ parts, is far from being primitive’, but has a technical perfection which presupposes a long tradition of epic poetry; (b) that the matter of many parts o f the Iliad seems to be saga-stuff, which presumably was current long before the tale o f the Wrath was invented. To meet these and other difficulties, Wilamowitz devised the novel view which he presented in Die Ilias und Homer (Berlin, Weidmann, 1916). Wilamowitz’s Homer comes in the middle of the development: living at Chios in the eighth century, he took over, combined, and in some cases remodelled, the work of various pre-Homeric poets; his own work was in turn enlarged, and in places remodelled, by a succession of post-Homeric poets. Homer’s Iliad, according to Wilamowitz, included the main substance o f Books I to VII, XI to XVII, and X X I to XXIII as far as the burial of Patroclus; the original ending is lost, and the connecting links between XVII and X X I largely obliterated by later work. But in most of this Homer was building on earlier compositions. Much of the detailed analysis fails to carry conviction: it is not easy to think that Hector’s visit to Troy in Book VI is lifted from a pre­ existent Hectoreis y and it is harder still to believe that an independent Patrocleia ever existed apart from the Wrath-poem. Nevertheless, Die Ilias und Homer is one o f the great books on Homer. It is inspired throughout by a deep and true feeling for Homeric poetry, and is full of fresh and delicate observations on the many variations of style to be found in the Iliad —styleanalysis being for Wilamowitz quite as important as structural analysis. It also marked an important advance in the understanding of the genesis of the poem. Its influence is apparent not only in the later analyses of Mazon and Von der Mühll, both o f whom recognize that our Iliad incorporates much pre-Homeric’ material, but in the recent work o f continental Unitarians on ‘Homer’s sources’ (see below, §ii). It is not the least of Wilamowitz’s services that he built in this way an undesigned bridge between the two warring schools. Wilamowitz’s date for Homer is also now widely accepted, by Unitarians as well as analysts. Fifty years ago a much earlier dating was fashionable: Leaf, Jebb, Bury, Ridgeway, all dated back the older parts of the Iliad to the eleventh century or thereabouts. This was due in part to a misunderstanding of Homer’s silence on such matters as the Dorian migration and the colonization of Asiatic Greece, in part to the discoveries of Schliemann

The Homeric Question

7

and the recognition of 'Mycenaean' elements in Homer (see below, §v). But the evidence of the similes points clearly to Ionian authorship;14 and it is n o w seen that both Homer’s silences and the survival in the poems of Mycenaean elements can be explained by the conservatism o f an epic tradition and, in particular, by the conservative influence of a formulaic diction. The archaeological evidence makes it difficult to maintain that anything resembling our Iliad existed much before the eighth century; and a terminus ante quern is furnished by Callinus’ reference to Homer (as the author of a Thebais'l), as well as by seventh-century allusions, imitations, and graphic representations (see below, §v) which seem to presuppose an Iliad (though not necessarily just the Iliad that we read today). But the dating of the various posthomerica and antehomerica incorporated in the Iliad still presents many unresolved problems.13 English writers since Leaf have contributed much less to the structural analysis of the Iliad than to the elucidation of its historical and cultural background. But this is perhaps the place to mention two well-known and justly admired books in English which approach the latter question, or group of questions, from the general standpoint of the analytical school — Gilbert Murray’s Rise of the Greek Epic (Ciar. Press, 1907, 4th ed., 1934), and Martin Nilsson’s Homer and Mycenae (London, Methuen, 1933). Murray’s book is nearing its half-century, and inevitably wears in places an oldfashioned air: certain of its hypotheses are outmoded and perhaps unlikely to return to favour, such as the theory which sees in a large number of Homeric heroes faded gods or 'year spirits’. 16 But it will, and should, continue to be read, not only for its characteristically vivid portrayal of the conditions of life in the Submycenaean Age, but more especially for its inquiry into the nature of ‘traditional books’ and its interpretation of the growth o f the Iliad in the light of that inquiry (we now have reason to believe that the Homeric poems are in fact oral compositions, but many of the illuminating things that Murray has to say about the traditional book are equally applicable to an oral tradition). Nilsson’s book is predominantly concerned with the historical and archaeological questions which are discussed below (§v); but it includes also sound and valuable chapters on the principles at issue between analysts and Unitarians, on Homeric language and style, on the origin and transmission of epic poetry, and on Homeric mythology (a subject on which its author is probably the greatest living expert). There is no book on Homer which the present writer would more willingly place in the hands of the intelligent inquirer, whether sixth-form boy, under­ graduate, or general reader, if only because its author has the rare virtue of not claiming that his arguments prove more than they do. The Odyssey is a very different kind of poem from the Iliad, 17 and is thought by most analysts (and some Unitarians) to have had a different authorship and a rather different history. Among other differences, it has a much closer structural unity and lends itself less easily to a theory o f gradual

8

The Creation of the Poems

accretion round a nucleus. Nevertheless it reveals some striking structural inconsistencies, and the range of variation in style is perhaps wider than in the Iliad. Many of the problems which it poses were already seen and stated by Kirchhoff (Die homerische Odyssee und ihre Entstehung, 1859); his observations were brilliantly exploited and developed, with much more feeling for the poetry and understanding of the historical background, in Wilamowitz s remarkable early book, Homerische Untersuchungen (1884; near the end of his long life he revised some of its conclusions in Die Heimkehr des Odysseus, 1927). In our own time, besides many minor critical contributions, important analyses of the Odyssey have been published by Be the, Schwartz, Bérard, Von der Mühli, and two scholars of a younger generation, Friedrich Focke and Reinhold Merkelbach.18 All these, save Bérard’s, are in German; the only book in English which covers this line of country is W.J. Woodhouse’s ingenious and charmingly written Composition of Homer’s Odyssey (Ciar. Press, 1930). Woodhouse’s standpoint was Unitarian: the author of our Odyssey was for him 'Homer’ . But he utilized many of the discoveries of the German analysts as a means of getting back to what he regarded as 'Homer’s sources’. His.main originality lay in his recognition of the numerous folklore themes which are among the ingredients of the Odyssey. 19 Limitations of space forbid any description of the results arrived at by individual analysts. While there is virtual unanimity on certain points, such as the lateness of Book X X IV 20 and of some parts of the Nekyia21 (both already recognized by Aristarchus), there is, as might be expected, more divergence of opinion about the growth of the poem than there is among //¿¿¿/-analysts, most of whom have at least the nucleus-theory in common. But certain general probabilities may be said to have emerged from the long debate, (i) Whereas the Iliad grew out of a Wrath-poem, 'the Odyssey\ as Von der Mühli has put it, 'was always an Odyssey \ from the first it told a connected tale of Odysseus’ homeward voyage and his vengeance on the suitors. But there were different versions of the story, which have been combined in our poem but not quite perfectly harmonized.22 There were longer and shorter accounts of the hero’s wanderings, which freely borrowed incidents and motifs from older tales of travel, including the Argonautstory.23 And there were rival versions of the Vengeance, whose imperfect harmonization is responsible for a number of obscurities, in particular the curious behaviour ascribed to Penelope in Books XVIII and X IX .24 (ii) The 'Telemachy’ (i.e. approximately Books I to IV, with X V, XVI, and the beginning of XVII) formed no part of the older Odyssey. But it is very doubtful if it ever existed as an independent poem. On this point Focke seems to the present writer to have reason on his side (against the opinion of most of the earlier analysts25). The simplest view seems to be that the whole Telemachus sub-plot was invented by the same poet who gáve the Odyssey its present shape by combining all the best features of the older versions and

The Homeric Question

9

adding some further expansions in his own characteristic manner (e.g. the extra day which Odysseus is allowed to spend with the Phaeacians26). It has often been remarked, even by analysts,27 that the Odyssey for all its dis­ crepancies bears, much more than the Iliad, the impress of a single mind; also that it makes as a whole an impression of relative modernity. This is perhaps best explained by the assumption that the poem was enlarged and reconstructed in the seventh century28 by a single poet, who allowed himself a much freer hand than any of those who made their contribution to the Iliad. In conclusion, it may be suggested that what is most needed now is not further analyses of either poem, which at the present time would, one fears, have even less prospect o f general acceptance than had their predecessors, but rather a careful review of the traditional analytic arguments and methods, in the light both of Unitarian criticisms and of Milman Parry’s proof that the poems are oral compositions.

ii Homer and the Unitarians It is now more than thirty years since the old logical game of discovering inconsistencies in Homer was replaced in public esteem by the new and equally enjoyable aesthetic game o f explaining them away. The exhilarating conviction that for several generations the best scholars in Europe had been playing the wrong game dawned on the public mind with surprising suddenness shortly after the First W orld War. It may be surmised that the reasons for so abrupt a change lay in part outside the field of Homeric scholarship. There is evidence29 that in some quarters resentments left behind by the war were not without influence; Homeric analysis was in the main a German achievement, and the arrogance of some of its exponents was felt to be typical o f the German mind. But the basic causes certainly lay deeper. Parallel changes occurred about the same time in New Testament criticism, where the confident claims of nineteenth-century analysts were similarly called in question; and in textual criticism proper, where the old arrogant disregard for manuscript tradition began to be replaced in many quarters by an almost superstitious reverence for it. And something not altogether dissimilar happened in philosophy, where the whole speculative structure reared by nineteenth-century idealism was swept away within a few years. All these developments can be regarded as necessary processes o f disinfection - a cutting out of unsound wood. And in the case o f Homer the reckless proliferation of hypotheses in the preceding half-century certainly called for a drastic pruning operation. But that was not all. The notion o f a monolithic Homer, a supreme poetic genius whose work it was sacrilege to analyse, undoubtedly corresponded to certain tendencies of the time — a distrust of cold logic, a yearning to follow ‘the dictates of the heart’, and,

10

The Creation of the Poems

more specifically, a widespread rejection of the intellectual approach to 30 poetry. The Unitarian reaction was thus to some extent a manifestation of the Zeitgeist. It was announced almost simultaneously by J.A. Scott in America, by Sheppard in England, and by Drerup in Germany. Drerup31 was the most learned and systematic of the three; in particular, he adduced much interesting evidence from other early literatures (which, however, has seemed to analysts to prove the opposite of what Drerup thought it proved). Sheppard32 represented the aesthetic wing: he contented himself with discovering ‘patterns' in the Iliad which seemed to him to establish its unity of design and therefore its unity o f authorship (but is not the inference from the former to the latter a question-begging non sequitur?). It was, however, Scott's book, The Unity of Homer (Berkeley, Univ. of California Press, 1921), which made the deepest impression, at least on the Englishspeaking public. A skilful if unscrupulous controversialist, he succeeded by a careful choice of examples in conveying the suggestion that the greatest scholars of Germany were not only pedants but fools. He devoted pages to minutiae such as the trivial oversight about Pylaemenes33 - killed in Iliad Book V, resurrected in Book XIII to attend his father's funeral —which no modern analyst thinks important, while saying nothing at all about the Embassy problem, about the Διάπείρα problem, or about the apparent doublets in the Odyssey. The reader was left with the impression that the analysts' case was founded on trivialities.34 The part o f Scott's work which has been most generally accepted as important by scholars is the series of painstaking statistical arguments by which he tried to show that there are no significant linguistic differences between the two poems. He certainly revealed the inaccuracy of some earlier statistics; but it may be questioned whether in matters of vocabulary and grammar a statistical approach is the right one. The most significant differences, being qualitative, often escape the net o f the statistician.35 A feature common to Scott, Drerup, and many later Unitarians is their passionate insistence on Homer's ‘originality'. This led Drerup into an extreme anti-historicism: everything in Homer was poetic invention, and most of it was his own invention. Certainly, the English historical school has been guilty at times o f fantastic exaggerations through treating Homer, in Wilamowitz's phrase, ‘as if he were a war-correspondent'. One o f its members has even professed to know the exact date o f Hector's death: it occurred on August 28th, 1185 B.c!36 In the present writer's opinion it is permissible to doubt whether the debate about the identity of the Phaeacians, or even the debate about the identity o f Homer’s Ithaca, is a discussion about anything real. But it is much more difficult to doubt, with Drerup and Carpenter,37 that the Trojan War took place (see below, §v). Scott did not go so far; but he put up a plausible case, which has recently been supported on different grounds by Schadewaldt and Wade-Gery,38 for

The Homeric Question

11

regarding Hector, and with him the whole Wrath-story, as a poetic inven­ tion. It must be said, however, that in the light of our present awareness of ‘antehomerica’ to equate poetic invention' with 'Homer s invention' is to beg a very large question. And in any case the Unitarian emphasis on originality appears somewhat misplaced. As Nilsson has reminded us, 'ancient poets, and epic poets especially, did not think that the greatest possible independence of previous writers increases a poet’s glory'.39 Nor, for that matter, did Shakespeare. The 'naive Unitarians’, of whom Scott, Drerup, and Sheppard are representative, held a fundamentalist faith in the integrity of the Homeric Scriptures; their religion forbade them to make any concession whatever to the infidel, although it compelled them at times to fall back on arguments as unconvincing as the worst efforts of the analysts. But the purity of the original faith soon declined. Old difficulties were rediscovered, heresies arose, and breaches appeared in the monolithic structure. In his Homer: the Origins and the Transmission (Ciar. Press, 1924) T.W . Allen, the most learned and formidable of English Unitarians, admitted in principle that the poems contain both 'posthomerica' and ‘antehomerica’. W ith the Alexandrine scholars, he recognized that the end of the Odyssey is an 'interpolation'; he also held that Homer worked on the basis o f a pre­ existent verse chronicle, and that the Catalogue of Ships, which was certainly not composed for our Iliads is the oldest piece of Greek verse we possess. On the last point his view appears to be substantially confirmed by recent research, and is accepted in principle by Bowra, Miss Lorimer and Wade-Gery.40 But there is much in his book which cannot be accepted, in particular his opinion that Homer 'sang the language he spoke’ (see p. 35, n. 19), and his extraordinary reliance on the Greco-Roman romances of Dictys and Dares as preserving an authentic tradition of the Trojan War. Further bits o f the monolith have been discarded by subsequent Unitarians. Schadewaldt, Miss Lorimer, Wade-Gery, and recently Bowra have rejected the Doloneia; Miss Lorimer rejects also Iliad VIII (though Iliad IX must be Homer’s, since its removal 'would lower the value of the poem’41), together with the Supplicatio in Book VI, the Shifting of the Arms in the Odyssey, and some other things. There has also been a revival of 'separatism': Unitarian scholars like Reinhardt,42 Miss Lorimer, and Wade-Gery have not concealed their opinion that there are two monoliths and not one. In short, 'naive’ unitarianism is slowly43 being replaced by a ‘critical’ unitarianism which does not despise analytical methods and is prepared to adopt some part of the analysts' conclusions. While the analysts have gradually advanced to a fuller appreciation of the over-all design, their opponents are moving from angry assertion of the design to a closer study of the sometimes jarring parts. One may even feel that between the more moderate spokesmen of the two schools the

12

The Creation of the Poems

difference is now largely one o f terminology: what the analysts call nuclei or prototypes, the Unitarians call sources; what the analysts call expan­ sions, the Unitarians call interpolations. Nevertheless, the schizophrenia which has so long afflicted Hom eric studies has not been completely overcome. Analysts and Unitarians are slow to learn from each other, and sometimes give the impression o f not having troubled to read each other’s works.

Apart from general studies of the economy and cultural background o f the poems, such as Bowra’s well-known and very useful book, Tradition and Design in the Iliad (Ciar. Press, 1930), or the more recent Homère of A. Severyns (3 small vols., Brussels, Office de Publicité, 1943-48), and from Wade-Gery’s interesting but highly speculative attempt to establish the personality and date of Homer (The Poet of the Iliad, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1952), the main positive work of the Unitarians in recent years has been directed towards the exploration of ‘Homer’s sources’. This is really the old analytic game in a new form, which is felt to be compatible with a proper recognition of the essential unity of each of the poems. One example, Woodhouse’s book on the Odyssey, has already been mentioned. Others are Reinhardt’s penetrating and original study of the sources of Odysseus’ travels;44 Kakridis’ convincing proof that the Meleager-story in Iliad IX is abbreviated from an older poem on the Wrath o f Meleager;45 and the thesis recently developed by Pestalozzi, Howald and Schadewaldt,46 according to which a whole series o f motifs in the Iliad were borrowed from an older poem, the ‘Cyclic’ Aethiopis (or its predecessor), which recounted the slaying of Memnon by Achilles and Achilles’ own death at the hands o f Paris. As to this last contention, certain of the motifs in question do look as if they had been invented for the Memnon story, but others, like the Funeral Games and the avenging of a friend, may well have been drawn by both poets from a dateless traditional stock; and in an oral tradition it is perfectly possible for two poems which belonged to the repertory of the same reciters to have influenced each other reciprocally, and to have continued to influence each other over a long period.47 It may be thought, finally, that the Unitarians, no less than their rivals, ought to re-examine the validity of some o f their own arguments. They have let a salutary breath of fresh air into the stale den of the Homeric specialist; but as a recent critic has said, there is a real danger of their movement developing ‘internal excesses rather distressingly like those which contributed so much to the collapse of the analysts’ .48 In particular, we should beware of importing modern psychological subtleties into Homer;49 and should also remember that in poems designed for piecemeal oral recitation there is a limit to the amount o f deliberate cross-reference (‘Fernverbindung’) which it is reasonable to postulate.50

The Homeric Question

13

N otes 1. Jebb's book includes a useful sketch o f the history o f the H om eric question down to his tim e. For the period

G.

Homer, third

1887-1923

there is a full critical bibliography in

1924. T he developm ents o f the Homer and Mycenae, and by D elatte and Severyns in VAnt. class. 2 (1933) 379ff; w hile A . Lesky’s Die Homerforschung in der Gegenwart (V ien n a, Sexl, 1952) gives an invaluable survey o f recent w ork. 2. By 1865 M ark Pattison could w rite ‘W e m ay safely say that no scholar w ill again find h im se lf able to embrace the Unitarian hypothesis1 (Essays, 1.382). B ut in Finsler’s

edition, L eipzig , T eubner,

next ten years are described by N ilsso n in

England, at least, a g o od m any m en o f classical education continued, like G ladstone :and M atth ew A rn o ld , to cherish Unitarian views.

3. Homer and the Epic (1893); Homer and his Age (1906); The World of Homer ( 1 9 1 0 ). Lang w rote w ith w it and elegance; bu t his interpretation o f the culture described b y H o m e r as b e lon g in g to a single ‘age o f transition1 can no longer be sustained.

4. Die Bedeutung der Wiederholungen für die hommsche Frage (1890); Die Bedeutung der Widersprüche für die homerische Frage (1894); Die Ilias als Dichtung (1910); Die Odyssee als Dichtung (1914). 5. Something not unlike the ‘lay-theory1 has recently been put forward by G. Jachmann (‘Homerische Einzellieder1, in the Festschrift for J. Kroll, Symbola Coloniensia, Köln, 1949), for whom the Iliad is a ‘Corpus1 or ‘conglutination5 without any real architecture; but such views are nowadays exceptional. On the genesis of the Kalevala are Comparetti’s edition, and his Traditional Poetry of the Finns (Eng. trans., London, 1898). 6. Homer: an Introduction, 104. Cf. Murray, C.Ri 36 (1922) 75: ‘we all believe in the unity of Homer: it is only when we try to explain what that unity is and how it has come about, that the Homeric Question begins1. 7. Introduction à FIliade, par Paul Mazon avec la collaboration de Pierre Chantraine, Paul Collart et René Langumier (Paris, ‘Les Belles Lettres’, 1 9 4 2 ); Theiler in Festschrift Tieche (Bern, Lang, 1947); P. Von der Mühll, Kritisches Hypomnema zur Ilias (Basel, Reinhardt, 1952). 8. But it remains possible that the name belongs to some much earlier poet, to whom all the best epics were indiscriminately ascribed in Callinus1day (and down to the fifth century). E. Bickel, in a book modestly entitled Homer: die Lösung der homerischen Frage (Bonn, Scheur, 1949), supposes Homer to be the man who invented the hexameter c. 1000 B.c. On the whole question of the name see Wilamowitz, Die Ilias und Homer, chap. 18, and E. Schwartz, ‘Der Name Homeros1, Hefines 1940. 9. For the evidence see now Von der Mühll, op. cit,, 369ff 10. Erich Bethe, Homer: Dichtung und Saga, vol. 1. (Leipzig, Teubner, 1914). 11. Praefatio ad Iliadem xxviü. 12. On the lateness of the Doloneia the observations of P. Chantraine (Melanges Desrousseaux, 1937, 59f0, H. Heusinger (Stilistische Untersuchungen zur Dolonie, diss. Leipzig, 1939), and F. Klingner (Hermes 1940) appear decisive against Shewans defence (The Lay of Dolon, London, Macmillan, 1911). 13. Wilamowitz, Die Ilias und Homer, chap. 2. Schadewaidt’s elaborate defence of Book VIII (Iliasstudien, Abh. Sachs. Akad. 1938, chap. 4) has not convinced the present writer that Wilamowitz was wrong. 14. That the similes are the work of Ionian, not ‘Achaean1, poets was proved by Arthur Platt in an article in the Journal of Philology, 24 (1896) 28ff, which is still worth consulting.

14

The Creation of the Poems

15. Sir Arthur Evans thought that the roots not only of Greek mythology but of the Greek epic went back to Mycenaean times (J.H.S. 32, 1912, 27Iff). This speculation, which has been revived by Severyns (Homère II), will gain greatly in probability if it is finally established that the language of the Mycenaeans was Greek. 16. For a criticism of the ‘faded gods’ hypothesis see Farnell, Greek Hero Cults and Ideas of Immortality (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1921), chap. xi. Among Homeric figures Helen seems to be the only really convincing instance. The fantastic speculations of Charles Autran (Homère et les origines sacerdotales de l'épopée grecque, 3 vols., Paris, Denoel, 1938-44) have done nothing to enhance the probability of this type of view. The present writer can only regret its reappearance in a book whose first chapter makes an original and important contribution to the under­ standing of Homeric religion, Fernand Robert’s Homère (Paris, Presses Universi­ taires de France, 1950). 17. I quote the characteristically incisive judgement of Wilamowitz: ‘any one who in regard to language or religion or manners throws Iliad and Odyssey into one pot can no longer claim to be seriously considered’ {Oie Heimkehr des Odysseus, 171). 18. E. Bethe, op. cit. nlO, vol. II (1922); E. Schwartz, Die Odyssee (München, Hueber, 1924); V. Bérard, Introduction à l'Odyssée (3 vols., Paris, Tes Belles Lettres’, 1924-25); P. Von der Mühll, art. Odyssee’ in R.E. (1939); F. Focke, Die Odyssee (Stuttgart, Kohlhammer, 1943); R. Merkeibach, Untersuchungen zur Odyssee (München, Beck, 1951). 19* On folklore in the Odyssey see also L. Radermacher, Sitzb. Wien 178 (1915) 1, and K. Reinhardt, ‘Die Abenteuer der Odyssee’, in his book Von Werken und Formen (Godesberg, Küpper, 1948). Rhys Carpenter’s attractive book, Folktale, Fiction and Saga in the Homeric Epics (Berkeley, Univ. of California Press, 1946), contains some valuable chapters, but suffers from an excessive preoccupation with bears. 20. On the date of Book XXIV, or rather of XXIII.297 to the end, the English reader may consult Allen’s Homer: the Origins and the Transmission, 218ff, and Mackail’s essay in Greek Poetry and Life, Essays presented to Gilbert Murray, Iff (1936). As the latter points out, the ‘Second Nekyia’ is strikingly different in style from the rest; and there is something to be said for Schwartz’s view that it was taken over by the Continuator from an older source. 21. Consultation of a spirit seems to have been an element in the original folktale of the Wanderer’s Return; but the abrupt changes in style, treatment, and scenery make it difficult to regard the present Nekyia as an imaginative unity. 22. Von der Mühll has tried in the interest of simplicity to dispense with this assumption; but it may be doubted whether his analysis does full justice to the complexity of the evidence. 23- See K. Meuli’s brilliant essay, Odyssee und Argonautika (diss. Basel, 1921). 24. Cf. Woodhouse, chaps. 8-16 (mainly from Wilamowitz). 25. That the ‘Telemachy’ must have been composed as an expansion of the Odyssey, not as an independent poem, was already seen by Niese in 1882; but the authority of Kirchhoff and Wilamowitz has led analysts generally to accept the other view. 26. See Schwartz, op. cit. (nl8), 22ff. 27. Cf. Leaf s judgement: ‘the Odyssey, whatever the original materials on which it was based, is in its present form at least a poem due to a single poet’, whereas ‘the Iliad is a growth from a single poem’. 28. Some of the reasons for attributing the present form of the Odyssey to the seventh century are stated by Carpenter, op. cit. (nl9), chap. 5. 29. See the introduction to Allen’s Homer: the Origins and the Transmission.

The Homeric Question

15

30. Thé classical statement of this point of view is the Abbé Bremond’s La poésie pure ( 19 2 5 ); but it was already widely held in France and England some years earlier. 3 1 . Engelbert Drerup, Das Homerproblem in der Gegenwart (Würzburg, Becker, I 9 2 I). He had already published in 1913 Das fünfte Buch der Ilias, Grundlagen einer homerischen Poetik. 3 2 . J.T. Sheppard (Sir John Sheppard), The Pattem of the Iliad (London, Methuen, 1922). Other Unitarian writers with a mainly aesthetic approach are S.E. Bassett (The Poetry of Homer, Berkeley, Univ. of California Press, 1938) and E.T. Owen (The Story of the Iliad, New York, O.U.P., 1947) both of whom have made good observations on Homeric technique. 33 . The oversight has been convincingly explained by A.B. Lord, T.A.P.A. 69 ( 1938 ) 445, as due to the influence of a conventional motif - the aged father mourning his warrior son. Pylaemenes continues to be the favourite Aunt Sally of Unitarians: both Bowra (Tradition and Design 97ff, Heroic Poetry 300f) and Fernand Robert (Homère 287) make great play with him, while passing in silence over more serious structural discrepancies. 34. Readers should also be warned that, whether from an imperfect knowledge of German or from the carelessness engendered by apostolic fervour, Scott (op. cit. 76 ) actually attributed to Wilamowitz the view which the latter set out to refute, that the Iliad is ‘a miserable piece of patchwork’ (Die Ilias und Homer 3 2 2 ). The libel is unfortunately repeated in Bowra’s Tradition and Design, p. 9. 35. Examples are the dropping in the Odyssey of old cult-epithets whose mean­ ing had long been forgotten, and of obsolete forms like the pronoun τύνη; and the outcropping of significantly new words like θεουδής, godfearing’. There is still need for a systematic and disinterested study of variations in vocabulary, grammar, and metre throughout the two poems, a study for which the new Lexicon to Homer, Hesiod and the Older Epic, now in preparation at Hamburg, ought to provide a secure foundation. Meanwhile, Leumann’s exploration of semantic shifts within the poems points to conclusions which support the analysts. 36. Sir Philip Macdonell, C.R. 55 (1941) .16. Hyperhistoricism of another sort pervades the singular book of Emile Mireaux, Les poèmes homériques et Phistoire grecque (2 vols., Paris, Michel, 1948-49)· While tracing back the Trojan Cycle not to the Trojan War but to ‘collective rites’, he holds that both poems ‘have well-defined political aims’ in relation to the commercial ambitions of rival Greek states in the eight and seventh centuries. 37. Drerup, Homerproblem 273ff; Carpenter, op. cit. (nl9)> chap. 3· Among analysts, Bethe was equally sceptical; but the theory of displacement (‘Sagenverschiebung5) by which he accounted for the origin of the Trojan Cycle was severely (and justly) criticised by Drerup. 38. W. Schadewaldt, Von Homers Welt und Werk, second (enlarged) edition, Stuttgart, Koehler, 1952, 177; H.T. Wade-Gery, The Poet of the Iliad, 7. WadeGery suggests that the invention is datable a parte ante, Homer’s Hector being named after an historical Hector who once ruled in Chios (he thinks c. 800 b.c.). But the reverse relationship, assumed by Wilamowitz and Schadewaldt, seems at least equally probable; and if Ventris proves to be right in deciphering the name Hector on a Mycenaean tablet, the foundation of the argument will vanish. 39. Nilsson, op. cit., 33. 40. Against the view of Leaf and Jacoby (Sitzb. Berl. 1933, 682£E) that the Catalogue is a late interpolátion, V. Burr (NE00N Κ ΑΤΑΛΟ ΓΟ Σ, Kilo Beiheft 39, 1944) thinks that Homer composed the Catalogue himself on the basis of a Mycenaean document; but it seems much likelier that it was transmitted in the

16

The Creation of the Poms

tradition of heroic poetry (and subjected to some working over). See Bowra, Tradition and Design 70ff, and Wade-Gery, op. cit., Appendix A. 4 1 . h .L. Lorimer, Homer and the Monuments 480. Both Miss Lorimer and Von der Mühll {op. cit. n7, 1590 think that the Embassy was composed by Homer as an afterthought and was worked into the Iliad by the later and inferior poet who concocted Book VIII. This curious theory seems to rest on little more than the assumption that whatever is best in the Iliad must be ‘Homer’s'. But if Athens could within half a century give birth to three poets of genius, may not Ionia have produced more than one? 42. ‘Tradition und Geist im homerischen Epos’, Studium Generale 4 (1951) 334ff. 43. There are still last ditches occupied by Old Believers. The latest editor of the Odyssey (2 vols., London, Macmillan, 1947-48), W.B. Stanford, rejects virtually nothing, not even the Continuation (which Homer may have composed when he was ‘aging or tired'). 44. See nl9. It is hoped that Reinhardt will publish a book on Homer in English. 45. J.T. Kakridis, Homeric Researches (Lund, Gleerup, 1949; written in English). The author s further speculations about the influence of the Meleager-poem on the Iliad may be thought less convincing. 46. H. Pestalozzi, Die Achilleis als Quelle der Ilias (Zürich, Rentsch, 1945); E. Howald, Der Dichter der Ilias {ibid., 1946); W. Schadewaldt, ‘Einblick in die Erfindung der Ilias’, op. cit. (n. 38), 155ff. 47. One may fairly contrast the effective use of an Aethiopis-motif at Iliad XXIL208ff with the clumsy adaptation of VIII.80ff. On the possibility of reciprocal borrowing see Murray, Rise of the Greek Epic, 177ff. 48. F.M. Combellack, A.J.P., 71 1950, 340. Milman Parry had uttered a similar warning, Harvard Studies, 1930, 75. 49. A recent example is the suggestion that Penelope behaves so oddly in Odyssey XIX because she has correctly divined the stranger’s identity, although by a ‘subtle artistry’ on the poet’s part her discovery is never mentioned (P.W. Harsh, A.J.P., 71, 1950, Iff). 50. For a criticism of the ‘Fernverbindungen’, of which Schadewaldt in parti­ cular has made a great deal, see Jachmann, op. cit. (n5).

An Essay on the Original Genius of Homer*

R. W o o d

*Source: An Essay On the Original Genius of Homer (1769 and 1775), Anglistica & Americana, a; series of reprints selected by B. Fabian, E. Mertner, K . Schneider and M . Spevack, 174, George Olms Verlag, H i Id esheim-N ew York, 1976, pp. 276-92.

From this short view of what I conceive to have been the compass o f Homer’s knowledge, I shall venture to offer my opinion, as matter of conjecture, (to more I do not pretend, without a further investigation of this subject) that the art of Writing, though probably known to Greece when the Poet lived, was very little practised there; that all knowledge at that time was preserved by memory, and with that view committed „to verse, till an alphabet introduced the use of prose in composition. < Nor do I propose this entirely without authority.1 Eustathius is of this opinion, as well as Didymus, or whoever was the author of the less Scholia. Add to these the testimony o f2 Josephus, who, though not without his national prejudices, was a most respectable judge of this question. He cannot fail of having great weight with those, who will be at the trouble to take a candid and dispassionate view of his answer to Apion. In this treatise he takes notice of the variety of calamities, which had destroyed the records o f the Grecians, and introduced great changes in life and society, upon which rival pretensions to antiquity were founded, each tribe and state claiming seniority. He proceeds to observe, in respect to their late and imperfect knowledge of letters, that they, who carried that claim highest, went no farther back than the Phenicians, and Cadmus, from whom they are supposed to have received the use of the Alphabet, At the same time he expressly declares, that they could not produce a single memorial in writing of so old a date, neither in their religious or civil records; and he adds, that the works o f Homer, the oldest known production of Greece, were not preserved in writing, but were sung, and retained by memory. If then, with Josephus, we suppose that Homer left no written copy of his works, the account we find of them in ancient writers becomes more probable. It is generally supposed that Lycurgus brought them from Ionia into Greece, where they were known before only by scraps and detached pieces. Diogenes Laertius attributes the merit of this performance to Solon:

18

The Creation of the Poms

Cicero gives it to Pisistratus; and Plato to Hipparchus: and they .may possibly have been all concerned in it. But there would have been no occasion for each o f these persons to have sought so diligently for the parts of these poems, and to have arranged them so carefully, if there had been a compleat copy. If therefore the Spartan Lawgiver, and the other personages committed to writing, and introduced into Greece, what had been before only sung by the Rhapsodists o f Ionia, just as some curious fragments of ancient poetry have been lately collected in the northern parts o f this island, their reduction to order in Greece was a work o f taste and judgment: and those great names which we have mentioned might claim the same merit in regard to Homer, that the ingenious Editor of Eingal is entitled to from Ossian. What we have offered on this head may seem injurious to the Poet, as it certainly robs him o f a respectable part o f his character, which has been long acknowledged, and contradicts that favourite opinion o f his learning, which his admirers, ancient and modern, have taken so much pains to propagate. But let us, on the other hand, inquire whether he might not derive some advantages from this illiterate state o f things, to compensate that loss. Perhaps one of the greatest was that of his having but one language to express all he knew. Nor was the particular period o f that language, which fell to his lot, less advantageous to him. For if we examine the rise and progress of language, with a view to its application and use, we shall find that the several stages of its advancement are not equally favourable to every display of genius; and that the useful Artist and the Philosopher will find their account in certain improvements, which rather impede than forward the Poet's views. His business is entirely with Nature; and the language, which belongs to imperfect arts, simple manners, and unlettered society, best suits his purpose. If then Homer found the Greek language considerably advanced, without the assistance of writing, its improvements (to which, no doubt, he con­ tributed largely) being entirely addressed to the ear, in a climate, where conception is quick, and the organs of speech capable of nice articulation, it was of course formed to music and poetry, then closely united. When the sense was catched from the sound, and not deliberately collected from paper, simplicity and clearness were more necessary. Involved periods and an embarrassed style were not introduced, till writing became more an art, and labour supplied the place o f genius. The frequent repeti­ tion of entire passages (for which Homer is censured) was not only more natural, but less observable, therefore less offensive; action, tone, and pronunciation, were more essentially concerned in every composition of genius, and all poetry was dramatic; and so far might be ranked among the mimetic arts. 3 But I do not see, why written poetry is to be ascribed to that class: or why Homer's account of the Curetes and Ætolians should be

The Homeric Question

19

:';4 imitation, while the war between the Grecians and Persians, by Herodotus, is to be called narration. The language which we bring into the world with us is not confined to the organs of speech; but it is made up of voice, countenance, and gesture. And had not our powers of articulation, that distinguishing mark of our social constitution, suggested a more convenient mode of conveying our ideas, the £ simple tones of Nature, with the varieties of modulation, which are now Jh assigned to the province of music, might have been applied to the purposes o f common life, as we are told they are in some degree among the Chinese, i Speaking and singing would differ little, as the original Greek words, which ΐ signify both, seem to imply; the human countenance would have not only i retained but improved its natural powers of expression, which it is now the great business o f education to suppress, and the dumb language o f gesticu­ lation would have made a very significant part of conversation. Such is the language of Nature, without which there could be no language of Compact, the first supplying that communication of ideas which was absolutely necessary to establish the latter; though afterwards falling into disuse, in proportion to the progress and improvement of what was gradually substituted in its stead. But, though banished in great measure from common use, it still retains its powers in the province of Poetry, where the most finished efforts of artificial language are but cold and languid circumlocution, compared with that passionate expression of Nature, which, incapable of misrepresentation, appeals directly to our feelings, and finds the shortest road to the heart. It was to be found in every production of Genius, and in all poetry; that is to say, all composition was dramatic. It was therefore an advantage to the Father of Poetry, that he lived before the language of Compact and Art had so much prevailed over that o f Nature and Truth. The same early stage of artificial language may perhaps help us to another4 reason for a circumstance not less extraordinary in itself, than fortunate to letters; viz. that Homer, though the oldest, is the clearest and most intelligible o f all ancient writers. The Greek Vocabulary, though copious in his time, was not yet equivocal; ambiguity of expression was little known before the birth of Science; when Philosophy, adopting the language o f common life, applied known terms to new meanings, and introduced that confusion and obscurity, which still continues to supply matter for polemical writings, and to be the chief support of metaphysical subtlety and refinement. Could Homer take a view o f the various fortunes and changes which his language has undergone in the service of Literature, he would be surprised to see so many volumes of controversy about the signification of words, which conveyed to him the most distinct images of things; and to find, that terms, which, in his time, were universally acknowledged as the signs of

20

The Creation of the Poems

certain external objects of sense, should have acquired an additional mean­ ing, which the philosophy and learning of so many ages have not yet been able to settle. If his language had not yet acquired the refinements of a learned age, it was for that reason not only more intelligible and clear, but also less open to pedantry and affectation. For as technical and scientific terms were unknown, before the separation of arts: and till science became the retired pursuit of a few, as there was no school but that of Life, and no philosophy but that of Common Sense; so we find in Homer nothing out of the reach of an ordinary capacity, and plain understanding: and those who look farther, seem to neglect his obvious beauties. It may perhaps be thought, that this early state of artificial language, to which we attribute so much of the Poet's clearness and unaffected simplicity, must have cramped him in the variety of his numbers: but the Greek tongue never had more distinct sounds5 in proportion to its clear ideas, than at this period; which was therefore precisely the time in this respect fittest for Poetical expression. It is true, that in its more enriched and polished state, it was the repository of much knowledge, to which Homer was a stranger; but its acquisition of new words was by no means in proportion to that o f new meanings, as we have already observed; and the business of literature in all its branches was carried on chiefly upon the original stock. But, besides that his language was sufficiently copious for his purposes, it had other advantages more favourable to harmonious versification, than ever fell to the lot of any other Poet. I shall first mention the Greek particles; and I cannot help assigning the priority of verse6 to prose in this language, as the reason why it abounds so much more with particles than any other; which are to hexameter verse, what small stones are to a piece of masonry, ready at hand to fill up the breaks and interstices, and connect those of a larger size, so exactly as to give a smooth compactness to the whole. And we accordingly find them occur more frequently in the old Poets, and in the early prose writers, who had no poetical models, and artificial helps, upon which they could form their style. I do not mean to say that Homer s particles were altogether condemned to this mere expletive duty. They contribute very much to the clearness of his meaning, as well as to the length of his verses. And though the great use made of them by the best prose writers may be in some degree owing to an imitation o f Homer, we must acknowledge that they have a great share in the connection, and perspicuity, which is remarkable in those early compo­ sitions. W e find them much used by the first prose writers o f the best Greek times, who found them necessary to connection and perspicuity: qualities in an author, which are strangely neglected since those inferior parts of speech have been so much discarded from the fashionable style of most modern languages. Another great poetical advantage of Homer s language is, that facility

The Homeric Question

21

with which two or more words connect and join together/ to the great improvement both of the sound and sense; for it is hard to say, whether the ear is more filled with the harmony, or the mind with the imagery, of those sonorous and descriptive compound epithets, which have an effect in this language, unknown to any other. What was of so much use to Poetry and Homer, has not been without its convenience to Philosophers, and Artists after him. Even at this day the expression in modern languages is enriched by a Greek compound, coined for the purpose of expressing much in a single word. While to all this we add, that very extensive Poetical licence, which shortens, lengthens, adds, suppresses, changes, and transposes letters and syllables, at the beginning, the middle, and the end of words, we must also consider, that those are not only advantages, which the Greek language possesses above all others; but which, in all probability, Homer enjoyed above all Greek Poets. For when Criticism took its rise as an Art, and Aristotle found in the Iliad and Odyssey those rules of composition, which the Poet drew from Nature, those bounds of Poetical licence were prescribed for others, which his unlimited fancy had freely suggested to himself; and the liberties he chose to take,8 became the laws which they were obliged to follow. Thus the simplicity, without meanness or- indelicacy, of the Poet s language rises out o f the state of his manners. There could be no mean or indelicate expression, where no mean or indelicate idea was to be conveyed. There could be no technical terms, before the separation of arts from life, and o f course no pedantry,: and few abstract ideas before the birth of Philosophy; consequently, though there was less knowledge, there was likewise less obscurity. As he could change the form without changing the meaning o f his words, and vary their sound without altering their sense, he was not tempted to sacrifice Truth and Nature to Harmony and Numbers. Such were the advantages of language, which contributed to make Homer as original in his Expression, as in his Conception; and (keeping to our idea of him as a Painter) as happy in his Colouring as his Outline; simple with Dignity; natural without Indelicacy; informed without Pedantry; the most clear and intelligible, as well as the most musical and harmonious, of all Poets.

Notes 1. See Iliad vi. 1 6 8 . and vii. 1 7 5 .

2. Contra Apion, lib. i. 3. We are by some informed, that according to Aristotle and the Greek critics, all Poetry is imitation. But if we consider this matter more attentively, we shall

22

The Creation of the Poems

find, that a great deal of just ancient criticism is founded in the distinction between what was mimetic, and what was not so in Poetry. Not to trouble the Reader with much quotation (which I wish to avoid, at least for the present) I will refer him to Plato. This Writer, in the third book of his Republic, is very explicit in distin­ guishing, what is pure narration; and what is mimetic, or dramatic. The first is, where the Poet speaks in his own person. The second, when an actor is introduced. He accordingly gives instances out of the Iliad and Odyssey, which poems consist of both. Eustathius, when he begins his Commentary upon the Catalogue, recites this distinction very fully, in order to introduce his observation upon the manner, in which Homer keeps up his spirit in that enumeration of the forces. For it was difficult to be here maintained, as the subject was not of the mimetic or dramatic kind. Aristotle, in his Poetics (C. 24.) compliments Homer particularly, as the only Poet, who knew, how little he should appear himself, and how much he should leave for imitation. Dionysius Halicarnassensis, or whoever was the author of the Treatise upon Homer's Poetry, takes notice of the Poet’s transition from the narrative to the mimetic, from the διηγηματίκον to the μιμητικόν. 4. See above, where his simplicity and clearness of style is supposed in some degree owing to writing’s not having been in use. 5. After his poems were introduced at Athens, we find that they were sung and recited, and that Rhapsodists were employed for this purpose. 6. See Aristotle of Sostrates and Mnesistheus. See Plato’s Ion. 7. When the Rapsodists recited Homer from written copies, the whole was in capitals, without punctuation, aspiration, or any marks or intervals to distinguish words. This has been the chief cause of the false readings in Homer. Our account of Greek composition beginning with verse affords a reason for the ignorance of the first critics in the etymology of their own language. Plato is so ridiculous upon that head, that it is scarce possible to believe him serious. I will venture to say, that the etymology of his language is better understood at this day than it was in his time. It also accounts for the great abundance of particles in this language beyond all other languages. The Poets introduced them for helps to measure; and their successors retained them, copying implicitly those, who had gone before them, as the best models for composition. 8. I do not mean that Homer extended his liberty so far, as to pay no regard to the quantity of words, which use had established. The absurdity of such a supposi­ tion is so obvious, that I wonder it should have been admitted for a moment. But he certainly indulged in liberties of this kind to a degree, which could not escape early animadversion. Euclid the elder used to say. It is easy to be a Poet, if you may lengthen words as you please (Aristot. Poet. C. 22).

2

Prolegomena to Homer*

F.A . W o lf *Source: Prolegomena to Homer (1795), translated with introduction and notes by A . Grafton, :G .W . Most and J.E.G. Zetzel, Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ, 1985, pp. 9 2 -1 0 4 .

Chapter XVIII Up to now we have tried to test how much progress we could make in this controversy by employing the testimonies of all of history, not the authority of Homer and o f his ancient commentators. Come now, let us turn our attention to what these provide, setting aside as,is proper those who, careless of antiquity, speak of the works o f Homer, Hesiod, and their contemporaries as though these were just any books in their library, or use the word “writing” through a vulgar stylistic error, not a mental judgment. Thus I myself— I who argue that those singers were not writers but singers— have allowed that verb to escape me now and then without resistance, lest the unusual repetition of another one several times prove offensive. This same explanation must cover a good many passages in the ancients, like those which contain a reference to writing in the laws of Lycurgus; no scholar has believed that these were first promulgated in writing in ancient times. I would assign to the same category the well-known passage in Apollodorus, in which he uses the noun επιστολή ['letter”] with regard to the murder­ ous commands of Proetus in ll. 6.168— especially since reference to an outworn custom would not have been appropriate there, and I would deny that Apollodorus' opinion about this matter should be sought in that passage, if the words themselves were not completely inconsistent with the meaning of a proper letter.1 To what, then, do those words apply? To what the most learned gram­ marians of Alexandria, as will at once be clear, more or less agreed on. What I am going to say will cause wonder; and I myself have often wondered at it, given the widespread lack of historical sense in antiquity. There was no learned Homeric commentator in Greece who thought that what is properly called the art-of writing was mentioned in these verses or anywhere else in Homer's poems. If someone finds this a rash statement, let him please

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The Creation of the Poems

disabuse me of this error by some authority other than that of a certain recent scholiast, which I shall set forth at length in its place. From Eustathius and the older sources he will not be able to do it. Therefore, if any of the ancients whose materials Eustathius compiled for his own commentary had anywhere produced a contrary argument, how could it be that a man more expert in ancient words than customs— and who, perhaps, did not even retain his own sermons by memory alone— nowhere babbled about it in his extremely long commentary, and nowhere assigned the use of writing to the poet’s heroes? For one cannot count the passage in which he feigns that the Pelasgi preserved the knowledge of letters from the flood— even though some antiquarians value it highly.2 This is an invention of historians making up old wives’ tales, a twin to the one about Noah— the sort of thing that that age freely embraced. But we seek in Eustathius not the opinions of Eustathius but those o f earlier grammarians, whose scholia he had before his eyes. And we will see a little later that he reports everything else from these scholia, both in general and above all on those verses where he treats a subject not in passing. But so far as I can determine, neither Eustathius nor any of the scholiasts tries to learn whether Homer himself knew the art that was unknown to his heroes; thus they neither affirm nor deny the matter categorically. And how much weight would we attach to their words, should they be convicted o f falsehood by events that not even the greatest antiquity concealed? No need o f long discussions. This question doubtless exercised the Alexandrian critics as well. And if there is any authority that we can set— given this great loss of ancient books— against the ambiguous silence of our scholia, it derives precisely from their disputations. This is how one must take the remarkable passage in Josephus, where he clearly says, “ It is said that Homer did not use writing in composing poems, and that they were first revealed to the public and spread by memory; afterward, being consigned to writing, they took on this form and tenor.” 3 This is the only clear, author­ itative testimony about the question. But it is weightier because it was written against the most learned Homeric commentator, and no ancient defender of a different or contrary opinion survives. Therefore, however the overall credibility o f Josephus may be assessed, that passage will have all the force that clear words have. Recently he was reinforced by a certain scholiast,4 a coadjutor unworthy of any mention had he not gathered his tale, one soon corrupted by the stories o f later grammarians, from the same Alexandrian remains. For it is clear that they did not draw it from Josephus. But each must work out for himself how much weight is to be attached to such a judgment of the ancients. Though I believe that it is very weighty, partly in itself, partly because they had in their possession more poems dose to the Homeric age, let it take the place o f an indictment, not a sentence, in this case. For since we have the very lines in which the poet is thought

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either to omit mention of or to bear witness to the art of writing, it is our part to decide which is true on the basis o f the fixed laws of interpretation.

Chapter XIX But some confront us, citing against us the fact that the meaning o f silence is ambiguous in this sort of history. In this they clearly have a point, but it is not so strong as they think it is. There is doubtless a sort of silence that has no decisive weight and is not to be drawn to either side. On the other hand, there is another sort that is eloquent and, so to speak, articulate, which has always had the greatest weight with all prudent men, unless it is overcome by the authority of those bearing witness to a different conclusion or by reason, which overcomes all authorities. If, perhaps, Homer’s silence is not of that kind, we will freely heed those who refer us to other poets, many of whom, we see, mention the art of writing nowhere, though they were clearly very practiced in it. Yet the condition of these and of the Hesiodic poems seems to be slightly different. For given the great length of the former, representations o f a great many customs and remarkable arts are woven into them, especially of those that then had some element of the remarkable on account of their novelty; and in those of Hesiod a great part of the domestic economy is described. Hence one may quite rightly find it surprising that neither mentioned so very useful a device. But this argument would not be sound enough by itself, nor worthy that scholars should plume themselves so greatly on it. For they confess that they think Homer knew no art which is not found in his work, and' this argument is rebutted by a variety of examples of arts to which he nowhere refers, but which are of such a nature that others which he often praises could not have existed without them. Let us pass on to something else that involves the problem in question to a greater extent. The doubt was raised of old 5 whether Homer knew of the use of boiled meats.6 For he does not have the verb εψειν [“ boil”], or another o f the same force; he sets only roast meats on his tables. But could he who sang, at //. 21.362, Od. 12.237 and the like, about the custom of placing cauldrons on the fire, have been totally ignorant of the devices of cooking? Nor, I believe, did the ancients who raised the question doubt that. Homer knew no art o f painting worthy of the name;7 he mentions many woven things and products of related arts, no painting. For who could fasten this name on the reddening of ships or the pigments of the Carian woman,8 even though those things were a sort o f rehearsal for painting? Both poems indicate that the heroes practiced riding for neither military nor domestic ends. For we must ignore the authority o f one particular passage, IL 10.513ffi, for several reasons; but the comparisons at //. 15.679ff. and Od. 5.371 seem to make it quite impossible that riding itself was unknown

26

The Creation of the Poems

to Homer. I have used these examples particularly because they reveal how great the difference is between things unknown and things commonly used, and how carefully and cautiously we must draw inferences about the development of the first inventions or customs. Imagine, then, that the bard somewhere spoke explicitly about the invention o f Cadmus or Palamedes, or bore witness that exchanges of letters (which many consider the first essays at writing) were common; surely that does not make it clear that it was also customary for volumes of poems to be written. But an accurate interpretation will easily prove that the two passages in Homer where something like writing occurs are no more to be taken as about writing than is the famous one in Cicero9 to be taken as about modern printing. And in the one passage, IL 7.175 ff., I think that all will soon agree that there is nothing that much helps either side. A method of drawing lots is described there, by a famous example to be sure, but in such a way that the entire tale cries out against any thought of letters entering one’s mind. For the fact that the lot which left the helmet was shown by the herald, passing around, to everyone, so that they might acknowledge it, shows that the σήματα ["signs”] that the heroes use are χαράγματα ["marks”], or arbitrary symbols imposed on wood or some other scrap material.10 Therefore the verb έπιγράφεΐν in line 187 must have the same meaning there as everywhere else: dig or engrave. The sense o f the other passage, 6.l68ff., was made more problematic by those who used not to learn Homeric customs from Homer but to import them into him, and to twist doubtful words to fit the customs of their own time. And certainly the matter of this passage persuades you, in a way, to expect a letter; so do the σήματα (who does not know the φοινικικά σήματα Κάδμου ["Phoenician signs of Cadmus” ]?) and the πίναξ πτυκτός (a folded tablet, or, to put it more elegantly, a sealed tablet)}1 But on that account the agreement of the ancient interpreters was extraordinary. Here too they wanted the verb γράφειν ["write”] to be χαράσσειν ["scratch”] or ξέειν ["carve”], the σήματα to be είδωλά τίνα ["certain images”], in accor­ dance with their original meaning; the πίναξ, finally, to be a σανίς ["wooden tablet”] or ξυλάριον ["bit of wood”].12 It is very striking, I say, that they who elsewhere besmear Homer so zealously with their modern wisdom, now suddenly appear so unlike themselves. For this is how we find the authors of the oldest scholia and Eustathius himself, from whom the long-standing agreement— if not o f all13 the interpreters, at least of most of the best ones— is apparent. Therefore, though much in this passage is ambiguous, it may nevertheless seem to contain something hidden which, though neglected by the learned until now, induced and forced the ancients to see there too some sort of marks or symbols, not true written characters. To this category belongs in particular the verb δ εΐξα ΐ ["show”], the force o f which is such as to drive even the fiercest opponent from his position. For if Homer was speaking o f a

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27

piece of writing that was conveyed and delivered, either I am completely ignorant o f his idiom, or I maintain that he would have used any verb other than that one. Not only do I maintain this, but I further deny that any poet, Greek or Latin, not even one completely enamored of violent phrasing, ever used a verb o f showing or displaying for delivering a letter. I would be less troubled by σήμα Ιδέσθαι [“ see the sign”] for the reading of a text at line 176, though I would not think that this was properly Homeric either; now it is clear that both fall into the same category. It is pointless to add anything more. I shall ask one question: will it be more correct to torture and twist Homer's speech than to accept an interpretation of the ancients that goes against the custom of both their times and ours? What sort o f custom that was— what sort of symbols from Proetus were shown to Iobates— must be investigated elsewhere. W e do not know what the ancient grammarians conjectured, except that a few of them, as more have done in modern times, seem to have reckoned them among the hieroglyphs.l4 But I may not find it hard to convince one who compares the passage in Apollodorus with our scholia that they considered the πίναξ πτοκτός a sort o f wooden die or token, which had the deadly marks carved on it with rough skill.15 The poet's habits hardly allow us to think o f a waxed tablet, for he would surely have adorned skillful work of that kind with some epithet or other addition.

Chapter X X

The explication of these passages, not fetched from extraneous opinions but carefully established on the precise meaning of Homer's language, shows, then, that no mention of writing is made in them. And, clearly, if the matter were different in the second passage, a suspicious man could not unreasonably think it interpolated or corrupted in some way. Since this suspicion would remove the very appearance o f a common use of letters (by appearance I mean the example of one epistle) and would leave no trace of them in the poet, no support at all would remain to the opposite opinion— except from the great length of the two poems, which makes it seem incredible that they could either have been completed or passed on to posterity with­ out the aid of that art. But learned and unlearned men know how weak that scrap of an argument is, and how it violates the first laws of history. But not only is there no such testimony or trace of the device in Homer, no evidence o f even the faintest beginnings of true writing or Cadmus' g ift,16 but, what is by far the most important point, everything contradicts it. The word book is nowhere, writing is nowhere, reading is nowhere, letters are nowhere;17 nothing in so many thousands o f verses is arranged for reading, everything for hearing; there are no pacts or treaties except face to face; there is no source o f report for old times except memory and rumor

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The Creation of the Poems

and monuments without writing;18 from that comes the diligent and, in the Iliad, strenuously repeated invocation of the Muses, the goddesses of memory; there is no inscription on the pillars and tombs that are sometimes mentioned; there is no other inscription of any kind; there is no coin or fabricated money; there is no use of writing in domestic matters or trade;19 there are no maps; finally there are no letter carriers and no letters. If these had been in normal use in Ulysses’ homeland, or if “ folding tablets” had been adequate to the inquiries of the suitors and Telemachus, we would doubtless have an Odyssey that was shorter by some books— or, as Rousseau concluded,20 none at all.

Chapter X X I When all these silences are gathered and assembled in a single array, does it seem possible that they can be accidental? Or is one who is silent in this fashion playing the part of one who speaks and bears clear witness? Though I am not very credulous, they would be enough in themselves to persuade me fully; and to defend the common opinion would seem the maddest obstinacy. But some, I think, will say that [those silences] can support the conclusion that letters were either very obscure or quite unknown in Trojan times, but not that the poet two centuries later was himself illiterate as well. If I wanted to block off this last retreat, I would have to embark on a long excursus about the whole method that Homer normally employs in describing the heroes’ life. Only rarely do I find in him the sort of learned artistry affected by the poets of more cultivated times, when they take great care, in bringing onstage the mythical deeds of their ancestors, not to corrupt pure antiquity with modern customs, so that they may more easily deceive readers or audiences who are skeptical because of their expert knowledge o f antiquity, and force them to join and to live, with their whole minds, as it were, with the things and people that they especially desire.21 From this are also derived certain rituals among the poets, which sprang at first from a belief held by the bards and now maintain themselves by sanctified custom. Thus even today the creators o f long poems feign the same inspiration from the Muses and Apollo in which the ancients believed, and pretend that, having been instructed by divinities in whose existence no one believes, they are bringing forth a song, not speaking or writing in the human way. Hence nowadays even those who cannot pronounce correctly also singy and hope that they will have hearers for verses which are sometimes written for the printer alone, and are read by him only syllable by syllable. But these and the many other ways in which the method and art of modern poetry differ from that antique purity must be learned from other masters. Those who cannot judge Homer except on the basis of our own minds may despise

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these subtleties o f ours, so long as they admit that we who favor other are not being led to arrive at our different conclusion by thoughtlessness. But neither would we ourselves find it credible that poets composed and handed down these poems with the aid of memory alone (for some of the things that history makes us believe are not credible), nor would I be surprised if someone imagined that Homer alone had a certain secret art of writing— if the custom of recitation, which was of old very widespread, and the whole history of the rhapsodes did not confirm our arguments and reasoning very solidly. But it contains a point that can wholly eradicate from the mind the doubts which hinder assent. For it teaches how it was possible that the singers either did not feel a need for the art of writing before it had been fitted to the Greek language, or left it with equanimity to wood and other intractable materials, when it had already begun to be refined. o p in io n s

Chapter X X I I At this point, let us quite forget the bookcases and libraries that nowadays preserve our studies, and be transported to other times and another world, where many o f the inventions which we thirtk necessary for the good life were unknown to both wise men and fools. In those days, not even immor­ tality for one’s own name was reason enough to make anyone seek out enduring monuments; and to believe thaf Homer sought them is wishful thinking rather than convincing argument. For where does he indicate that he is possessed by such an ambition? Where does he utter a declaration of this sort, so frequent among other poets, or cunningly conceal one? Indeed, he often proclaims that wicked and outstanding deeds are bequeathed to fame by means o f his song, but he also affirms that the most recent song is most popular among listeners.22 But, in general, that age, playing as it were under its nurse’s eyes23, 24 and following the impulse o f its divine genius, was content simply to experiment with very beautiful things and to offer them for the delectation of others: if it sought any reward, it was the applause and praise of the contemporary audience— the most splendid of prizes, if we may believe the poets, and one more welcome by far than an immortality preserved in papyrus.

Notes 1. 2.3-1: "Proetus gave him a letter [επιστολής] to convey to Iobates, in which it was written [ένεγέγραπτο] that he should kill Bellerophon. But Iobates, having recognized [επΐγνούς] it, ordered etc. . . . The two words in this passage that

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The Creation of the Poems

seem to pertain to the writing of letters are, I maintain, such that if they are taken as referring to notes or symbols, they are perfect, and have been used with care. For έγγράφειν is both of uncertain force in itself and is the very verb that one finds in the poet. Replace it with έγγλύφειν [carve], έγκολάπτειν [cut], έγχαράσσειν [engrave]; you will feel that the effort to change it is misguided. But he changed Homer’s πίναξ [tablet] to επιστολή [letter]. This too is fine, and so appropriate to a symbol of any kind that if he intended to describe the thing in general terms, not the manner of the thing and the obsolete custom, the Greek language had nothing more appropriate. For it is certain that the primary significance of επιστολή is εντολή, command. From this also come the λόγων έπιστολαί in Sophocles [Tr. 493]. Cfi the commentators on Hesychius, 1:1390 [ed. Alberti, (1746), s.v. έπιστολαί]. But more relevant to this is the point made by Eustathius, p. 632.9 on 6.169, which will be more clearly understood later, that Homer’s πίναξ is “what later men called επιστολή.” But the verb έπιγνώναι, recognize— not read, which is αναγνώναι, never the other— removes all doubt. Those who take it in a different sense will have to show us that the Greeks commonly used it in regard to a letter; and in order that they may show us quickly, we do not even exclude the times of Planudes and Eustathius. Otherwise they will have to concede to us that there was hardly any other, more expressive idiom for the mythographer to use if he wanted, as he normally does, to describe the thing itself briefly and in a prosaic style, not to play the antiquary in an inappropriate place. 2. On 11. 2.841, p. 358.6 Homer calls the Pelasgi ÔlOl because of this great service of theirs. Is it not astonishing that Eustathius ignores this remarkable fiction at 10.429 and Od. 19.177? Or was it perhaps not in his scholia? Certainly ours do not offer it; nor does Diodorus Siculus 5.57, where he makes up similar stories about the monuments with inscriptions that were destroyed in the Flood. I pass over another point of a similar kind in this passage in Eustathius. The learned, who are well acquainted with him, will notice it even if their attention is not drawn to it. The others would simply believe it or, if they are less credulous by nature, would ascribe it to my partiality. I do not wish to undergo either danger here. 3. Against Apion 1.2: “The Greeks learned the nature of letters late and with difficulty. For those who assign the earliest date for their use are proud of the fact that they learned them from the Phoenicians and Cadmus. It would not be possible to show any record that has been preserved from that time, either in temples or on public dedications.” (G.J. Vossius finds this astonishing because of the noble epigrams in Herodotus. Those who have accepted what I wrote above [ch. 14] will now feel differently. Doubtless Josephus did not consider it worthwhile to waste time on refuting those stories and the like. And many others had done this before him, as this very passage shows. Now pay close attention to what he adds:) “Seeing that it later was considered a very difficult and controversial question, whether those who fought for so many years at Troy used letters. And the true position prevails, which is rather that they were not acquainted with the present way of using letters. In general, no commonly recognized writing is found among the Greeks older than the poetry of Homer. But he too seems to have been later than the Trojan War, and they say that not even he left his poetry in writing, but it was preserved by memory and assembled later from the songs. And it is because of this that there are so many inconsistencies in it.” For the sake of beginners, I must point out, as Merian does, that the expression “they say” is used even for things that are quite certain, in a report that is by no means obscure, not for things that are reported by some or a few. The Greek expression for these latter is “some say.” The nature of the Latin verbs discunt, ferunt, perhibent, is just the same. Not that this is very helpful

The Homeric Question

31

in itself- For rumor asserts [perhibet] a great many things that reason and three witnesses show to be false! 4. On the Grammar of Dionysius Thrax, in Villoison, Anécdota Graeca 2.182 grammatici Graeci 3.179]: “For the works of Homer were lost, as they say. For in ;■chose days they were not transmitted by writing, but only by training so that they : might be preserved by memory, etc.” 5. A trace remains in Athenaeus 1.25D. 6. [The doubt was raised of old: Plato Republic 404B-C; Athenaeus Deipnosophistae 12B-C; Porphyry De abstinentia 1.13 (eds).] 7. So, rightly, Pliny 35.5.15L This passage is not, as some think, opposed to another one in the same work, 33.38.115f, though that is perhaps drawn from a different writer. The history of the arts among the Greeks confirms the fact. We refer the reader to those who have written of it. 8. //. 4.14HF “Black ships,” “ red-cheeked ships,” “ crimson-cheeked ships,” are well known from many verses. 9. De natura deorum 2.37.93. 10. Here I must record the explanation of a recent scholiast that I promised a little while ago [ch. 18], in Cod. Venetus B, on 185— a delightful fellow. We are finding it hard to seek out a single alphabet; he has as many different ones as there were peoples in Greece, and sees that as the reason why each of the heroes only knew his own handwriting. The shorter scholiast who has long been in print, informed by better sources at this passage, indicates more correctly that “not letters” but “certain lines” should be understood here. Best of all is the old scholiast of Cod. A on 187 [a conflation of Scholia Didymi on 175 and 187]: “Not with written words, but having engraved signs. For if they commonly knew letters, then the herald and the others to whom the lot was shown would necessarily have read it.” Similarly, Eustathius, 674.35 on 7.189: “One must necessarily think that such symbols were not letters, but certain images or simply figures on an inexpensive substance, such as a rock or a piece of wood or something of the sort.” 11. So, more or less, most of the best French translators, des lettres bien sçellêes; Pope, a sealed tablet\ others in similar ways; às if they had translated those Latin terms from Cicero in the text, or had taken the description of a folding tablet from Herodian Hist. 1.17. In him at 7.6, Poliziano rightly translates πτυκτοί πίνακες as litterae obsignatae [a sealed letter]. Will we also have to listen to Pollux 4.18, where he cites in a single series the Homeric πίναξ and the more recent triptychs and polyptychs? And the tragedians? In them there occur σανίδες, πτυχαί, διαπτυχαι γραμμάτων [folding leaves with writing]; so in Euripides, both else­ where and at Hippol. 856, Ale. 967 . Indeed, to say nothing of the tragedians' custom of transferring modern customs into the heroic age, tablets could at any time have been folded as we fold paper. But the only point in question is whether they were furnished with alphabetical characters and true writing. That neither Pollux, nor Herodian, nor the tragedians tell us. 12. Eustathius explains these things very accurately, 632.46ff. [on 6.l68f.]: “The use of letters is recent; similarly the imprinting of rough signs on skins is a late discovery; and the use of papyrus is a discovery of the later period. But the ancients, like the Egyptians, made as hieroglyphic representations certain small creatures and other marks, to serve as an indication of what they wished to say. And so they, like some of the Scythians later, signified what they wished by inscribing or carving certain images and many sorts of linear carvings on tablets— that is, panels— both of various other sorts and in some cases from boxwood [έκ πόξων], from which come the ones called πυξίδες. . . . He says that signs were cut in the folding tablet in accordance with the oldest custom. . . . The folding tablet is what

32

The Creation of the Poems

we call a w riting tablet or book or tablet. . . . Someone m ig h t consider this too as evidence that letters were at one tim e carved on boards, w hich was practiced especially on marble blocks, w ith w hich the onom atopoeia o f

γράφειν

is very

appropriate. B u t i f such a w riting tablet were assembled from pine in a triangular form , like the later A ttic axones, on w hich the laws were inscribed, then both the

πίναξ in H o m er and the δέλτος in later writers could be a literal description o f it. . . . Also useful for the present passage is the ancient custom according to which the ancients cut on trees as on tablets the names of those they loved, as if Loves or mountain nymphs were doing it— for example, 'such and such a fair woman/ 'suchand-such a fair man/ . . . But from these things a proverb was later derived: 'Bellerophon by his own letters/ etc.” Compare Eustathius on the Odyssey p. 1926.49 [22.277ÍL], p. I 959.57 [24.229]- Anyone who knows Eustathius can see at once to what authors all that must be ascribed; and he himself cites his “Ancients.” That is why the oldest scholiast remarks in Cod. A that the writing of syllables and words seems to be meant here, but that it is not so, the “symbols” are “images, not letters.” Apollonius preserved the same point in brief in his Lexicon, s.v. γραπτϋς [55.22 Bekker]. And the passage in Pliny 13.13.88 is relevant precisely to this; there, when he had written that the use of writing tablets was found in Homer even before Trojan times, he added that Bellerophon was given writing tablets (i.e. orders on tablets), not letters. Though this description based on Roman customs would be of little use to us without the remains of the Greek grammarians. 13. Eustathius, p. 633.9 [on 6.l68f.]: “Some say that 'signs' there could be a more philosophical term for letters. For letters are the signs of words and thoughts and things.” One of these “some” is the scholiast of Cod. B, who explains “signs” in the common way as “ letters” ; not to mention Plutarch and other writers, who babble sometimes about Bellerophon’s “letter,” sometimes about his “letters.” 14. See for example C.G. Bachet de Meziriac on Ovid Heroides [4.5—6] [Commentaire sur les Epistres d'Ovide (1716)], 1:328. But a certain trace of this explanation is found in the passage from Eustathius that I quoted. 15. The scholiast of Cod. A, on 169: “ Γράψαΐ means ξέσαι \scratch\. Because he cut images, through which the father-in-law of Proetus had to know.” This is a periphrasis of the verb that Apollodorus used, έπιγνούς [having recognized]; thus it is clear that both follow the same opinion. Eustathius, loc. cit.: “Euripides some­ where says, changing the Homeric 'signs' into 'tokens/ 'And to send tokens to foreigners, who will do you good’ ” (Medea 613). But it seems very likely to me, that already at that time relatives employed certain symbolic marks, by which they could share their views about certain very important matters, and particularly that this sort of deadly sign was perhaps invented in that age when killings and hostilities were usually avenged with terrible savagery. But these points must be dealt with more accurately in an investigation specifically devoted to the tokens of the ancients. In the meantime no one will be sorry for consulting the similar points in Merian [Mémoires de l’acadénie royale, Berlin, 1793], 523ff, including this very witty passage: “ If there were really a letter written in alphabetical characters there— it would be extremely odd that an invention so useful, and ever since then so well known, had disappeared two generations later, in circumstances when its use would have been important in quite a different way. Was it then only good for letters of recommendation that tended to get people eaten by the Chimera? ” 16. I have always found it particularly hard to understand how it was possible, if that story about Cadmus were so old as they claim, that so many Greek poets completely ignored it. The silence of the Latin poets and of Apollodorus, who collected everything notable from the mythic poets, shows us that all did this, not

The Homeric Question

33

only the ones whom we still possess. This is all the more remarkable in that the remainder of the story of Cadmus provided the occasion for very famous legends. Therefore we might infer with certainty from that fact this much: that the obscure rudiments of that art were unable through many centuries to inspire any of the mythic poets to praise its author. But a proper explanation of this will be easy if th e Greeks did not have those rudiments before the ninth century b .c 17. The verb γράφειν has been sufficiently discussed. In the older writers it never has the meaning which is normal from Aeschylus and Pindar on. The nouns derived from it, γραφή and γράμμα, are also later. The ancients observed this in the Homeric passage where the triple occurrence of σήμα struck them. They thought the poet would have engaged in variation if he had known those [nouns], Eustathius, loc. dt.: ‘The poet did not know γράμμα. If it had been in use in his day— just as if γραπτύς, which [occurs] in the Odyssey [24.229], had been— he would not have said σήμα three times, persisting in the word because it was the only appropriate one.” I find γράμμα first in Erinna [AP 6,352 = Gow-Page Hellenistic Epigrams 1797]. Nor do you find άναγνώναι, read, or anything like that, where you would most expect it, though σήματα άναγνώναι occurs in a different sense at Od. L9.250, 23.206, 24.346. Finally the word δέλτος is no older than Aeschylus and the author of the Batrachomyomachia, who was contemporary with Aeschylus, as even some of the ancients saw. 18. See the passages in E.I. Koch's article, Litterar. Magazin [für Buchhändler, Schriftsteller und Künstler, Berlin, 1792] 1:76. 19. You may look for such things in Hesiod’s Works and Days. But at Od. 8.163 someone φόρτον μνήμων [“mindful of his cargo”] is mentioned on a ship. Now let someone compare, if he can, the Romans who had the title a memoria [remem­ brancer]. We follow the old usage, as in Od. 2J..95. Nor do we care about the explanation found in Eustathius [1590.7], “thé secretary, or one who records in writing; or, also, to explain it differently, auditor, financial officer.” Though these too sufficiently reveal the opinions of the ancient commentators. But our hawkers and retailers would laugh if they read this. I myself once heard a woman of this order, who was quite illiterate and unintelligent in other respects, make so long a reckoning of the wares that she had stored in various towns, that she could perhaps vie with the μνήμων of the Phoenician ship. 20. This very clever man's opinion certainly deserves to be copied out in full here from his Essay on the Origin of Languages, Oeuvres posth. (ed. Geneva, 1782), 16: 240 [cap. vi]: “ Whatever we may be told about the invention of the Greek alphabet, I believe it to be much more modern than it is thought to be, and I base this opinion chiefly on the nature of the language. It has often occurred to me that it is doubtful not only that Homer knew how to write, but even that anyone used writing in his time. I greatly regret that this is so directly refuted by the story of Bellerophon in the Iliad. As I have the misfortune, like Father Hardouin, to be a little stubborn about my paradoxes, if I were less ignorant I would be tempted to make my doubts include this story, and to impeach it as having been— without much scrutiny— interpolated by those who compiled Homer. Not only does one see few traces of this art in the rest of the Iliad [It is not surprising that he says that there are few traces when there are none; this is the language of those who are uncertain of their opinion (Wolfs note).]; but I venture to suggest that the whole Odyssey is nothing but a tissue of stupidities and ineptitudes that a letter or two would have sent up in smoke. Yet one can make the poem reasonable and even decorous by assuming that its heroes did not know the art of writing. Had the Iliad been written, it would have been sung far less; the rhapsodes would have been less in demand and would have appeared in smaller numbers. No other poet has been

34

The Creation of the Poems

sung so much, except perhaps Tasso in Venice— and even that is done only by the gondoliers, who are not great readers. . . . The poems of Homer were for a long time written only in the memory of men; they were assembled in writing quite late and with much effort. It was when Greece began to abound in books and in written poetry that all the charm of Homer's poetry began to make itself felt by contrast. The other poets wrote, Homer alone had sung; and these divine songs did not cease to be heard with delight until Europe was covered with barbarians, who involved themselves in judging what they could not feel.” 21. This is why words deriving from this sort of social refinement are so rare in the best poets. This is why Virgil, even though he fails to attain the Homeric purity of nature in most respects and has beautified everything, never mentions writing and its appurtenances in the Aeneid. Yet in one passage he did not take care enough to avoid a trivial error, in the case of the Sibyl, carmina in foliis describente notis et nominibus [writing her songs on leaves with signs and words; a conflation of] 3.444— 45 and 6.74. Go then, and add to Gorgias, Ovid, and the tragedians Virgil. He is a most weighty witness; after all, he continually imitates Homer. 22. Od. 1.351-52. 23. Cf. the splendid verses, Horace Epist. 2.1.93fif; the place of a commentary on them is filled by the very acute C. Garve, “Betrachtung einiger Verschieden­ heiten in den Werken der ältesten und neuern Schriftsteller, besonders der Dichter,” in Sammlung einiger Abhandlungen. Aus der Neuen Bibliothek der schönen Wissenschaften und der freyen Künste, Stuttgart (1779)» 116—97. 24. [playing as it were under its nurse’s eyes: Wolfs image is drawn from a commonplace of eighteenth-century thought: nature as the mother or nurse of (especially primitive) man. (eds)]

3___________________________________________________________________________________ Die Verwundung der drei Achäerhelden Λ *

U . von W ilam ow itz-M oellendorff

^Source: Die Ilias und Homer, Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, Berlin, 1916, pp. 1 8 2 -9 7 .

In dem Buche A sind zwei Stücke vereinigt, die gar nichts miteinander zu tun haben, also gesondert behandelt werden müssen. Das erste habe ich in meiner Skizze der griechischen Literaturgeschichte als ein Prachtstück künstlerisch geschlossener Komposition bezeichnet. Es ist mir lieb, das durch die Interpretation zu bekräftigen; wenn das Gedicht in sich zusam­ menhält, brauchen die Hypothesen nicht widerlegt zu werden, die seine Zertrümmerung zur Voraussetzung haben. Allerdings sind hier ebenso wie in der Patroklie kleine Zusätze mehrfach abzüstoßen; sie erklären sich durch das hohe Alter und die Beliebtheit des Gedichtes. Der Morgen bricht an. Zeus sendet die Eris, die wir hier mit Bellona übersetzen können; sie hält ein πολέμοιο τέρας in den Händen, ein nicht genauer vorstellbares Ding, das Kampfzauber ausübt,1 wie ein Phobos oder eine Gorgo auf Schild oder Panzer, nur nicht den Kampfesmut lähmend, sondern anfeuernd. Im B 445—54 ist diese prachtvolle Einführung in eine entscheidende Schlacht kopiert.2 Zugleich erhebt Eris den Kampfruf: die Achäer folgen ihrer Mahnung. Agamemnon ruft zu den Waffen und wappnet sich selbst. Die Wappnung ist ein Locus communis der Rhapsoden; daß sie hier unentbehrlich wäre, läßt sich nicht behaupten, aber sie paßt vortrefflich, um den König zu heben, der gleich seine Aristie erhalten soll. Zwei Stücke, Panzer und Schild, erhalten besonderen Schmuck. Der Panzer stammt von Kinyras aus Kypros; die Verbindung mit dieser Insel und die Kenntnis ihrer Metallwaren kann nicht befremden, wenn sie auch im Epos vereinzelt ist. Sie gibt keine Altersbestimmung; der Panzer auch nicht, denn mochte ein so kostbares Stück nicht jedem erreichbar sein und unter dem alten Riesen­ schild zwecklos, so hat es Rundschilde längst gegeben, ehe es homerische Gedichte gab, und der König von Mykene war der erste, der sich den Luxus erlauben konnte. Nur aus der Dekoration mag der Achäologe eine Zeitbe­ stimmung entnehmen; Boehlau (Ion. Nekropolen 36) gibt das achte

36

The Creation of the Poems

Jahrhundert an. Der Philologe wird das gern annehmen, aber recht hoch hinaufgehen: eine Seltenheit, die aus der Fremde kam, gibt der Dichter seinem Helden. Hera und Athena begleiten den Auszug Agamemnons mit Donner: die Teilnahme der Götter fehlt nicht. Die Wagen halten in Schlachtreihe vor dem Graben; das Fußvolk strömt mit gewaltigem Geschrei vor. Es geht nicht so wohlgeordnet und ruhig zu wie im T. Keine Spur von Phalangitentaktik. Das hat ein Rhapsode späterer Zeit wieder wie im Π verbessern wollen und zugesetzt 51-55: ,,Die Infanterie war lange geordnet, eh die Wagen herankamen.“ Das wäre besser gewesen, und so wird man es in Kolophon gehalten haben; nur verträgt es sich mit dem vorigen nicht. Zusatz ist auch der κακός κυδοιμός, den Zeus erregt, und der blutige Regen, den er fallen läßt, weil er viele starke Häupter in den Hades senden wird. Weder als Dämon wie Σ 535 paßt Κΐδοιμός, noch als ταραχή, θόρυβος wie K 523: das Heer zieht ja mutig in das Gefecht. Der Regen stammt aus dem Π, der letzte Vers aus dem Proömium des A . Das genügt. Es folgt, wie es mußte, der Aufmarsch der Troer; aber die Stelle ist zerstört. Der erste Vers Τρώες $ αυθ* έτέρωθεν έπι θρωισμώι πεδίοιο hat sogar sein Verbum verloren. Darum wird er wenigstens vom echten übrig sein. Denn das Folgende ist nicht echt: es werden Helden aufgeführt, die im A gar keine Rolle spielen, Aineias, andere Antenoriden, als das Λ einführt, ein ganz unbekannter Polybos. Jene kommen von M ab vor. Warum ist hier das Echte verdrängt? Das erklärt sich dadurch, daß Θ eingeschoben ist, an Stelle des echten Ubergangsteiles am Schlüsse von H. Wissen läßt sich nicht mehr, was hier stand, noch weshalb es zu Θ nicht paßte. Wenn auf den θρωισμός πεδίοιο Verlaß ist und er so aufgefaßt werden darf wie K 160 und Y 3, so stehen die Troer den Achäern nahe, kommen nicht erst wie im Γ aus der Stadt. Ob die vorausgesetzte Gefechtslage so war, daß sie diese vorteilhafte Stellung einnahmen, wird sich aus dem Fortgang des Gedichtes ergeben. Wenn dem so war (und es ist so), mußte zwischen dem Siegesmahl im H und dem Λ ein Stück stehen, das der Verfasser des Θ eben darum strich, weil er es am Schlüsse des Θ selbst benutzt hatte: die Troer bezogen ein Biwak auf einem Hügel unweit des feindlichen Lagers. Hektor als Gegenspieler Agamemnons erhält ein prächtiges Gleichnis, ebenso die Kämpfer, die von beiden Seiten mit gleichem Mut und Erfolg fechten, so daß Eris ihre Freude daran hat: ihre Erwähnung sichert die Zugehörigkeit des Proömiums. So geht es bis Mittag. Der Dichter geht also ganz rasch vor. Wunderbar, daß die Zeitangabe unangetastet geblieben ist, denn in unserer Ilias sinkt die Sonne, sogar vorzeitig, erst im Σ 240. Wieder muß eine Interpolation aus dem W ege geräumt werden, 74—83.

The Homeric Question

37

•i: Der größere Teil, 78-8 3 , fällt von selbst weg, da Zenodot ihn nicht kannte, 7: die beiden andern nur als unecht mitführten. Aber auch die vier ersten Verse müssen desselben Weges gehen. „Eris freute sich; sie war nämlich allein gegenwärtig, die andern Götter saßen in ihren Häusern.“ Das ist mit Rücksicht auf Θ , das dortige Kampfverbot des Zeus, eingelegt, also wieder : von dem Verfasser des Θ. Man muß es fortdenken, damit die Kunst des originalen Dichters herauskommt. Er hat den längeren unentschiedenen ; Kampf und den endlichen Durchbruch in strengem Parallelismus geschil: dert, zweimal sieben Verse. Dem Gleichnis im ersten Teile entspricht die ; ähnlich ausgeschmückte Zeitbestimmung im zweiten. So wird denn auch die Aristie Agamemnons in überlegter Steigerung durch drei Kämpfe vorgeführt. Jedesmal erschlägt er die Insassen eines Wagens. Die ersten3 werden kurz abgetan. Die zweiten werden als Priamossöhne breiter vorgestellt und ihr Überwinder durch ein Gleichnis geschmückt.4 Mit dem dritten Paare kommt es zum Gespräche; sie bitten vergeblich um Gnade, weil sie die Söhne des Mannes sind, der sich am meisten der Auslieferung Helenes widersetzt hat.5 Das ist eine Beziehung auf ein älteres Gedicht. Durch diese Taten Agamemnons ist der Widerstand der Troer gebro­ chen. Er stürzt in die Masse der Fliehenden, und nun bricht das ganze Heer der Achäer ein. In dem Parallelismus, den dieser Dichter liebt, wird erst 150-54 das Verhalten der Sieger vorgeführt,^ dann, durch ein Gleichnis verbunden, das der Fliehenden 159-62. Ein grausig höhnendes Wort, γύπεσσιν πολύ φίλτεροι ή άλόχοισιν schließt ab; ganz so 395οιωνοί δε περί πλέες ήέ γυναίκες. Den Hektor rettet Zeus aus dem Getümmel; die Masse wird am Grabe des Ilos vorbei, am Feigenbäume vorbei bis an das skäische Tor und die Eiche7 gejagt, wo sie wieder zum Stehen kommt. Unter den Zurückgebliebenen, die noch über die Mitte des Feldes flohen, wütet der Verfolger Agamemnon.8 Er war so weit, daß er bis an die Stadt Vordringen wollte, da schritt Zeus ein. Es ist eine bis ins einzelne klare und überlegte Darstellung, was man gleich an den Ortsangaben erkennen kann. Der Dichter fixiert sich mitten auf dem Felde einen Punkt, das Grab des Ilos, weil er ihn später wieder verwenden will.9 Näher an der Stadt steht ein wilder Feigenbaum; eine Eiche dicht am skäischen Tore.10 Wen der Sieg Agamemnons erst auf die Mitte des Feldes führt, so hat die Schlacht dicht vor den Schiffen der Achäer begonnen, es bestätigt sich also, daß die Troer επί -θρωίσμόδΐ πεδίοιο stehen konnten und die Schiffe bedrohten. Daß Hektor auch flieht, wird im Vorbeigehen berichtet; wir mußten ja erfahren, was der so stolz eingefiihrte Held getan hatte. Damit sein Zurückgehen nicht als Feigheit erscheint, wird es von Zeus bewirkt. Daran nehmen Kritiker Anstoß, weil Zeus wenige Verse später erst persönlich eingreift. Das ist modern empfunden. Es gibt zwei Arten göttlicher Einwirkung. Die eine vollzieht sich sozusagen innerlich in den Ereignissen,

38

The Creation of the Poems

so wie auch der Moderne reden kann, daß Gott etwas fügt. Es erscheint dann dem Menschen eine Absicht hinter den Handlungen verborgen zu sein, und die schiebt er auf die Gottheit. So ist es hier. Zeus ist der ταμίας πολέμου überhaupt; was da Bedeutsames geschieht, ist sein Wille. Ganz etwas anderes ist es, wenn der Dichter die Person eines Gottes einführt; dann nimmt Zeus den Donnerkeil zur Hand, seine Neigung und Abnei­ gung greift direkt ein. So wird er es gleich tun. In diesem Falle schiebt der Dichter die Entschuldigung von Hektors Flucht freilich deshalb auf den Willen des Zeus, weil er schon im Kopfe hat daß der gleich die Iris schicken wird; aber daß die Schlacht darum vorher der Einwirkung des Zeus entrückt wäre, hat er deshalb nicht geglaubt und konnte er gar nicht glauben. Also in der dringendsten Not geht Zeus, bewehrt mit dem Blitz, auf den Ida; von da wird er jetzt die Schlacht persönlich leiten; er sendet die Iris an Hektor und gebietet ihm, zu warten, bis Agamemnon verwundet ist: das stellt er ihm damit in Aussicht. Dann soll er Vorgehen und für den ganzen Tag Erfolg haben und bis an die Schiffe kommen. Damit gibt uns der Dichter sein Programm. Er gibt es hier, damit noch nicht der Schatten der kommenden Niederlage auf die Aristie des Agamemnon falle, der über den großen Taten von Diomedes, Odysseus und Aias liegt, und um einen Strich zwischen den ersten Kämpfen und der Verwundung des Königs zu ziehen, den er besonders erheben will. Sein Agamemnon ist ein anderer als der im A und Ξ und T. Hektor kann zunächst dem Befehle gemäß nichts tun als die Troer sammeln. Wieder bricht Agamemnon in ihre Reihen ein. Da ruft der Dichter die Musen an, sie sollten ihm den nennen, Troer oder Bundesge­ nossen, der zuerst gewagt hätte, Agamemnon anzugreifen. Zuerst, denn wir haben ja gesehen, daß bisher immer Agamemnon der Angreifer gewesen ist. Des Dichters Schuld ist es nicht, wenn das mißverstanden wird. Er stellt es so dar, als müßte ihm erst die Inspiration kommen: damit hebt er nicht nur die Bedeutsamkeit des nächsten Kampfes, sondern auch die Antenoriden, die sich opfern. W ie sich gebührt, wird Iphidamas durch Erzählung seiner Herkunft und Heimat ausführlich vorgestellt. Wieder zeigt sich, daß die Familie, die Namen Theano und Kisses, den Hörern aus andern Gedichten bekannt sind.11 Der Kampf, in dem Agamemnon die Antenoridenbrüder bezwingt, aber selbst verwundet wird, ist ein Meisterstück anschaulicher und pathetischer Erzählung. Die Kämpfer sind zu Fuß; aber es werden durchgehends Paare eingeführt, die der Sieger überwindet: man denkt sich also, daß auch die Brüder vom gemeinsamen Wagen abgestiegen sind, wird sich auch Agamemnon bei έπιπωλεΐσ'θαι στίχας άνδρών 264 wieder auf seinem Wagen denken, von dem er nur hin und wieder abspringen mag, um einen Stein aufzugreifen oder mit dem Schwerte einen Streich zu führen. So halte ich die Verse 273, 274, die als 399, 400 wiederkehren und dort unentbehr-

The Homeric Question

39

lieh sind, hier für unursprünglich. Als Agamemnon, siegreich, aber verwundet, das Schlachtfeld verläßt, mahnt er die andern Fürsten, die Schiffe zu verteidigen: das stimmt wieder nur, wenn die Voraussetzung der Handlung das Übergewicht der Troer ist, denn noch ist die Lage des Gefechtes alles andere als bedrohlich. Sie wird es aber sogleich. Denn nun kann Helctor gemäß der Weisung des Zeus, auf die er sich auch beruft (288), vorbrechen und hat binnen kurzem den Erfolg, daß die Achäer beinahe in das Schiffslager zurückge­ trieben sind (311). Der Dichter hat den siegreichen Ansturm Hektors durch Gleichnisse anschaulich gemacht und eine Reihe Namen von Achäern gehäuft, die ihm erlagen, aber keinen einzigen Kampf beschrieben, und die Name sind leer. Das ändert sich, als wieder Achäerhelden auftreten. Bisher war der eine Agamemnon eingeführt; jetzt kommen Odysseus und Diomedes auf den Plan, wieder nur sie: so ist der Stil des Gedichtes. Sie haben wenig Zutrauen; Odysseus furchtet, daß Hektor die Schiffe nehmen könnte; Diomedes hat das Gefühl, daß Zeus den Troern Sieg gibt. Das erklärt sich auch erst vollkommen, wenn das Übergewicht im allgemeinen bei den Troern ist. Als die beiden Achäer zwei, oder drei,12 Paare von Gegnern, also Wagenkämpfer, bezwungen haben, läßt Zeus, vom Ida herabschauend, die Schlacht gleich stehen. Er hilft also den Troern jetzt nicht, und sofort verliert Hektor seine Überlegenheit: Diomedes wirft ihn so kräftig zurück, daß er von diesem Kampffelde weicht. Der Dichter hat also selbst gefühlt und entschuldigt, daß sein Zeus zunächst, den Hektor den versprochenen Siegeslauf noch nicht durchführen läßt. Der Dichter will offenbar zeigen, daß Diomedes an eigner Kraft überlegen ist. Ebenso sehr hebt ihn der grausame Hohn, mit dem er verwundet den Alexandras anfährt; dessen lautes Gelächter und sein Jauchzen, obwohl er weiß, daß er den Feind nur leicht verletzt hat, bilden dafür eine prächtige Folie, und wir nehmen dem Dichter nicht übel, notieren aber als charakteristisch für die archaische Behandlung der Reden, daß Paris sagen muß, die Troer fürchten den Diomedes λ έ ο ν θ ’ ώς μηκάδες αίγες. Alexandras hat vom Grabe des Ilos aus geschossen: das hat uns der Dichter in der Mitte des Feldes gezeigt, weiter sind also selbst die beiden erfolgreichen Achäerhelden nicht vorgedrungen; die Menge ist weit zurück, denn als Diomedes abfährt, ist Odysseus ganz allein. Der allgemeinen Flucht ist also nicht gesteuert. Auch Odysseus ist ein individueller Cha­ rakter, sogar mit der größten Liebe gezeichnet. Die Troer kennen ihn, reden ihn als πολύαινος an, δόλων άτ ήδέ πόνοιο. Er versteht sich also auf αίνοι (denn so hat Butt mann allein richtig das Epitheton gedeutet): das konnte er bei der Verhandlung über Helenes Auslieferung gezeigt haben. In der Ilias beweist er zwar häufig seine Klugheit, aber übt keine besonderen Listen. Δ 339 schilt ihn Agamemnon δόλοισι κεκασμένε κερδαλεόφρον.13 Es werden also Geschichten vorausgesetzt, schon von dem

40

The Creation of the Poems

alten A , die wir zu bestimmen außerstande sind, ταλασίφρων 466 deutet nicht auf den πολύτλας der Odyssee, sondern steht in voller Kraft wie Δ 421: wenn der Unerschrockene so um Hilfe schreit, muß es schlimm um ihn stehen. Odysseus entschließt sich, obwohl er nun allein der Menge gegenüber­ steht, standzuhalten. Sie umringen ihn wie Jäger und Meute einen Eber. Er sticht einige nieder,14 zuletzt den Bruder des Sokos,15 der, weil er bestimmt ist, den Odysseus zu verwunden, einige Worte sprechen darf. Sein Speer dringt in den Leib des Odysseus; das Äußerste wendet Athena ab. Ihre Tätigkeit ist so zu denken, wie Zeus oben den Hektor aus der Schlacht entführte. So hat sich Diomedes 363 gedacht, daß Apollon den Hektor vor dem Tode bewahrt hätte, nicht mit Unrecht; der Dichter erzählt vorher, 353, daß der schützende Helm ein Geschenk des Troergottes war. Odysseus erwidert dem Sokos einmal, als er von dessen Hand verwundet ist, dann als er ihn selbst erschlagen hat, noch ganz als Sieger. Aber als er sich den Speer aus der Seite gezogen hat, fühlt er sich kampfunfähig und ruft um Hilfe. Jetzt sind die Troer Schakale, die einen angeschossenen Hirsch umkreisen, der ihnen zur Beute werden muß. Aber da erscheint Aias, von Menelaos in Gang gebracht;16 vor dem fahren die Troer wie die Schakale vor dem Löwen auseinander. Unter der Deckung durch Aias und seinen Schild kann Menelaos den Odysseus zu seinem Wagen führen. Aias bricht vor, und wie bei Hektor oben werden eine Reihe bloßer Namen von Leuten, die er erschlägt, aufgezählt und dann ein Gleichnis für die allgemeine Wirkung angehängt. Der Bau ist genau wie 299ffi, und niemand sollte die Stimme desselben Dichters verkennen. Nun ist es an der Zeit, daß Hektor seinen Siegeslauf beginnt. W ir haben ihn aus den Augen verloren, als er vor Diomedes zurückwich. Er hat mittlerweile anderswo „auf dem linken Flügel“ gefochten, und muß nun dem Vordringen des Aias steuern. Dazu muß er herangeholt werden, was auf die geschickteste Weise geschieht. Aber erst muß die Einlage beseitigt werden, mit der das Nestorgedicht vorbereitet wird, das den zweiten Teil von Λ füllt und, wie jeder sofort sieht, ganz fremdartig ist. Die Aussonder­ ung macht hier gar keine Mühe ουδέ πω "Εκτωρ 498 πεύθετ, έπεί φα μάχης έπ3αριστερά μάρνατο πάσης. 521 Κεβριόνης δέ Τρώας ορινομένους ένόησεν Έκτορι παρβεβαώς καί μιν προς μύθον έειπεν. Die Einlage ist durchaus nicht schlecht, fällt aber gegen den hohen Ton von A ab. Dessen Dichter würde auch nicht gesagt haben (499), daß auf dem linken Flügel die meisten Häupter fielen, nachdem er eben die Opfer des Aias aufgezählt hat. Kebriones war offenbar von der Sage als Wagenlenker Hektors gegeben.

The Homeric Question

41

Auf seine Mahnung fahrt Hektor hinüber auf die andere Seite. Wundervoll kräftige Verse malen die Fahrt über die blutige Wahlstatt. Aber Hektor kommt gar nicht zum Schlagen, der Feind flieht, und „Zeus hatte den Aias zur Flucht bestimmt". Genau so, genau in derselben Weise der göttlichen Einwirkung wie oben bei Hektor wird hier das Verhalten eines Helden motiviert, das mit seiner eigenen Natur nicht im Einklang steht. Hat das etwa nicht derselbe Dichter so gemacht? 540-43 ist interpolation, längst als solche entlarvt, aber sehr merkwür­ dig. 543 haben die Alexandriner gar nicht aufgenommen, obwohl Aristoteles und, wie es scheint, Chrysippos17 den Vers anführen, für die Grundsätze ihrer Recensio beherzigenswert. Wenn er ein Zusatz ist, so war der Anstoß des Interpolators nicht unberechtigt, den kaum kann man sich dabei beruhigen „Hektor beschäftigte sich mit den Scharen der anderen, aber vermied den Kampf mit Aias". Die Motivierung, die Aias einfach als den Stärkeren, auch nach Hektors Ansicht, hinstellt, ist freilich auch seltsam genug. Sefs nun ein Interpolator, seien es zwei: Zusatz ist alles (540, 41 aus 264, 65 geborgt), und daß ein Zusammenstoß der beiden Helden nicht stattfindet, brauchte keine Erklärung, da Aias zurückgeht und das allerdings Befremdliche seiner Haltung durch die Einwirkung des Gottes begründet wird. Aias erhält zwei Gleichnisse oder drei, wenn man das kurze θηρί έοΐκώς 546 mitrechnet, das nur seinen Blick angeht. Das erste Gleichnis hat schon Zenodotos beanstandet,18 die Modernen bald dies, bald jenes; beide sind echt, denn das erste gilt seiner Stimmung,, das zweite malt sein Benehmen. Was könnte besser auf sein unwilliges Weichen passen, als die Haltung des Löwen, den die Überzahl von Geschossen und Feuerbränden von der Hürde scheucht, in der Rinder seinen Hunger reizen. Und der Schluß περί γάρ δίε νηυσίν "Αχαιών wird nach dem früher Beobachteten, zumal der Mahnung Agamemnons 277, nicht befremden. Gern aber entnehmen wir ihm, daß Hektor nun auf die Schiffe losgehen wird; das hatte ihm ja Zeus versprochen. Und das Eselgleichnis ist nicht minder schön; es ist nur wünschenswert, daß man südliche Esel kennt, die so ganz etwas anderes sind, als wenn sie unter einen Himmel verschlagen werden, der ihnen nicht bekommt. Wenn die Väter der ήμίονοί, die öfter Vorkommen, selbst bei Homer sonst nicht auftreten, so kann das gegen ihre Existenz in der homer­ ischen W elt nicht ins Feld geführt werden. In Mykene sind sie zudem durch die vorhellenische Malerei festgestellt. Also weder mit der den Alten noch fremden Zimperlichkeit, die einen Helden nicht mit einem Esel vergleichen will, ist es etwas, noch mit einem kümmerlichen Suchen nach dem Tertium comparationis in dem Löwengleichnis; diese stumpfe Rhetorik ist nirgend angebracht. Mit den schönen Gleichnissen schließt, was wir von dem Gedichte haben. Leider, denn die folgende zusammenfassende Schilderung von dem Verhal­ ten des Aias auf dem Rückzuge ist nicht für den Fortgang der Handlung

42

The Creation of the Poems

verfaßt, sondern für den Abbruch der Erzählung. Der Ordner der Ilias hat durch diese Verse und die nun einsetzende Nestoris geglaubt, hinreichend dafür gesorgt zu haben, daß der Hörer sich im M eine in Wahrheit ganz andere Situation als Fortsetzung gefallen lassen wird. 575_596 sind eine ganz späte und elende Interpolation, geradezu ein Cento, in dem kaum hier und da ein paar nicht entlehnte Wörter stehen. Es war auch für die Nestoris schlechterdings überflüssig, die Verwundung des Eurypylos zu erzählen. Das Versprechen des Zeus gibt uns die Gewißheit, daß der zweite Hauptteil des Gedichtes von dem Ordner der Bücher Λ -Ο abgeschnitten ist. Also war der Gedanke ganz richtig, nachzusehen, ob sich später noch etwas davon finden ließe. Nur durfte es keine παλίωξίς από τών νεών sein, die ja mit dem Versprechen des Zeus streitet, und dies deshalb zu verwerfen, ist wilde Vergewaltigung. W ir haben gesehen, daß der Dichter voraussetzt, daß die Troer schon auf dem Felde vor den Schiffen gelagert haben. Ein starker Angriff der Achäer hat zwar zunächst Erfolg, aber Aias muß selbst am Ende die Flucht ihres Heeres decken. Hektor, der siegen soll, hat noch wenig getan, hat sogar noch kein W ort gesprochen. W ir erwarten also, daß ihm beschieden ist, mindestens bis an die Schiffe vorzu­ dringen, also über den Graben (48). Wieweit er an den Schiffen Erfolg hatte, wie der Tag zu Ende ging, der längst über Mittag hinaus ist (84), läßt sich nicht raten. Nur hat weder die παλίωξίς des Ξ Ο noch die des Π hier gestanden, aber um die Schiffe ist gefochten. Der zweite Teil des Λ deckte sich also mit den zwei Darstellungen dieses Kampfes, im O und in dem Teile des O , der zur Patroklie gehört, mindestens so weit, daß sie neben­ einander nicht in dem Epos Platz hatten. Da hat Λ weichen müssen, was wir gewiß bedauern. Denn es ist hoffentlich deutlich geworden, wie einheitlich und wie vortrefflich das Gedicht ist. Scharfe Einzelbilder zeichnet der Dichter, immer von wenigen Personen, ohne doch den Hintergrund der Massenbe­ wegung zu vernachlässigen. Von dem Boden, auf dem er seine Handlung vor sich gehen läßt, hat er sich ein klares Bild gemacht; das wirkliche Lokal ist dabei ganz gleichgültig. In dem Aufbau seiner Szenen bemerken wir die Freude am Parallelismus ebenso wie an der Steigerung. W ie anders ist dieser Stil als die figurenreichen Szenen in A und B, die verwirrende und doch monotone Fülle von N , als E mit seinem alles beherrschenden Diomedes. Überwältigend ist die Fülle der Gleichnisse; es sind wohl zwanzig, viele breit ausgeführt, in 550 Versen. Kaum eines ist leerer Schmuck. Auch hier stehen mehrere in Beziehung aufeinander, was der aufmerksame Hörer merken soll, einbrechender W ind 297, Meeressturm 305 für Hektors Angriff, Diomedes und Odysseus als zwei Keiler 324, was sich dann für Odysseus fortsetzt, 416, 473. Treffend sind alle, aber ein eigentliches Stimmungsgleichnis, wie sie in der Patroklie so ergreifend sind, findet sich nicht. Der Dichter hat für die Stimmung der Masse kein Interesse,

The Homeric Question

43

und die der einzelnen Person läßt er sich direkt in Reden äußern. Nicht diese allein, aber doch diese besonders bewirken, daß die Hauptfiguren lebendige Individualität erhalten. Zwar Agamemnon wird nicht durch seine Reden zu der grandiosen Erscheinung, in denen er nur seine mitleidslose Konsequenz und seine Feldherrnverantwortlichkeit zeigt. Ihn hebt schon die Wappnung, die Teilnahme der Göttinnen und dann seine Taten. Hier ist er wirklich König; nur in den Gleichnissen am Schlüsse von B mag man ihn ähnlich gezeichnet finden, die doch in Wahrheit nur den Agamemnon der έπίπώλησίς, den obersten Heerführer vorfuhren wollen. Aias redet in dem erhaltenen Teile nicht; aber es ist schon bezeichnend, daß er nicht selbst den Hilferuf des Odysseus hört, sondern Menelaos ihn mahnen muß. Die Verbindung dieser Helden kehrt in der Patroklie wieder; dem Dichter von Λ war sie offenbar vertraut. A uf den W eg gebracht, ist Aias unwiderstehlich, und das ist er auch auf dem Rückzuge. Wer sieht ihn nicht, den Riesenschild auf dem Rücken, langsam zurückgehen; mögen die Troer sich die Speere auf dem Schilde zerschlagen, wie die Buben ihre Stöcke auf dem Eselsrücken. Aber in dem Mann des scheinbar passiven Widerstandes kocht der Ingrimm, daß er zurückweichen muß. Er wird dem Hektor noch seinen Mann stehen. Diomedes ist in seiner kurzen Szene hoch gehoben; wir spüren, daß ihm Hektor nicht gewachsen ist. In den höhnenden Worten, die er gegen diesen schleudert und in der Verachtung, mit der er :den Paris ab trumpft, steckt derselbe unbändige Sinn wie im E. Es ist der Sinn, den Tydeus aus der Thebais immer bewahrt hat: sie hat mittelbar auch die Eigur des Sohnes geschaffen. Aber mit der liebevollsten Charakteristik ist Odysseus bedacht. Er erhält sogar einen Monolog, damit wir sein Heldentum ganz würdigen. Er ver­ dient es, Schützling Athenas zu sein. Die ruhige Überlegung, daß ihm die Pflicht auszuharren gebietet, verdichtet sich bis zur Sentenz (409). Als er schwer verwundet ist, fährt er den Gegner an: ,,Du armseliger Geselle, nun ist's dein Tod. Mich hast du kampfunfähig gemacht: ich sage dir, für dich ist heute das Ende da. Mir gibst du Ruhm und dein Leben dem Hades.“ Der Gegner ist wirldich ein armseliger Geselle, er will fliehen, und Odysseus sticht ihn in den Rücken. Da bestätigt er sich’s zuerst, daß er das Kom­ mende richtig vorausgesagt hat; dann folgen Worte von latentem Pathos, wie es nur in der höchsten Poesie zu finden ist. „Armseliger Geselle, dir werden die Eltern nicht die Augen zudrücken, sondern die Geier werden an deiner Leiche zerren. Wenn ich fallen muß, so werden mich die Gefährten bestatten.“ In Wahrheit steht es so, daß Sokos aller Wahrscheinlichkeit nach ein ehrenvolles Begräbnis finden wird; dem Odysseus werden die Eltern auf keinen Fall den letzten Liebesdienst erweisen. Er ist schwer verwundet, von Feinden umgeben, die Freunde sind fern. Eigentlich droht ihm sehr dringend, was er dem Sokos in Aussicht stellt. Was hat der Dichter also gewollt? Den überlegenen starken Geist zeigen, der wohl

42

The Creation of the Poems

verfaßt, sondern für den Abbruch der Erzählung. Der Ordner der Ilias hat durch diese Verse und die nun einsetzende Nestoris geglaubt, hinreichend dafür gesorgt zu haben, daß der Hörer sich im M eine in Wahrheit ganz andere Situation als Fortsetzung gefallen lassen wird. 575-596 sind eine ganz späte und elende Interpolation, geradezu ein Cento, in dem kaum hier und da ein paar nicht entlehnte Wörter stehen. Es war auch für die Nestoris schlechterdings überflüssig, die Verwundung des Eurypylos zu erzählen. Das Versprechen des Zeus gibt uns die Gewißheit, daß der zweite Hauptteil des Gedichtes von dem Ordner der Bücher Λ —O abgeschnitten ist. Also war der Gedanke ganz richtig, nachzusehen, ob sich später noch etwas davon finden ließe. Nur durfte es keine παλίωξις άπό των νεών sein, die ja mit dem Versprechen des Zeus streitet, und dies deshalb zu verwerfen, ist wilde Vergewaltigung. W ir haben gesehen, daß der Dichter voraussetzt, daß die Troer schon auf dem Felde vor den Schiffen gelagert haben. Ein starker Angriff der Achäer hat zwar zunächst Erfolg, aber Aias muß selbst am Ende die Flucht ihres Heeres decken. Hektor, der siegen soll, hat noch wenig getan, hat sogar noch kein W ort gesprochen. W ir erwarten also, daß ihm beschieden ist, mindestens bis an die Schiffe vorzu­ dringen, also über den Graben (48). Wieweit er an den Schiffen Erfolg hatte, wie der Tag zu Ende ging, der längst über Mittag hinaus ist (84), läßt sich nicht raten. Nur hat weder die παλίωξις des S O noch die des Π. hier gestanden, aber um die Schiffe ist gefochten. Der zweite Teil des Λ deckte sich also mit den zwei Darstellungen dieses Kampfes, im O und in dem Teile des O, der zur Patroklie gehört, mindestens so weit, daß sie neben­ einander nicht in dem Epos Platz hatten. Da hat Λ weichen müssen, was wir gewiß bedauern. Denn es ist hoffentlich deutlich geworden, wie einheitlich und wie vortrefflich das Gedicht ist. Scharfe Einzelbilder zeichnet der Dichter, immer von wenigen Personen, ohne doch den Hintergrund der Massenbe­ wegung zu vernachlässigen. Von dem Boden, auf dem er seine Handlung vor sich gehen läßt, hat er sich ein klares Bild gemacht; das wirkliche Lokal ist dabei ganz gleichgültig. In dem Aufbau seiner Szenen bemerken wir die Freude am Parallelismus ebenso wie an der Steigerung. W ie anders ist dieser Stil als die figurenreichen Szenen in A und B, die verwirrende und doch monotone Fülle von N , als E mit seinem alles beherrschenden Diomedes. Überwältigend ist die Fülle der Gleichnisse; es sind wohl zwanzig, viele breit ausgeführt, in 550 Versen. Kaum eines ist leerer Schmuck. Auch hier stehen mehrere in Beziehung aufeinander, was der aufmerksame Hörer merken soll, einbrechender W ind 297, Meeressturm 305 für Hektors Angriff, Diomedes und Odysseus als zwei Keiler 324, was sich dann für Odysseus fortsetzt, 416, 473. Treffend sind alle, aber ein eigentliches Stimmungsgleichnis, wie sie in der Patroklie so ergreifend sind, findet sich nicht. Der Dichter hat für die Stimmung der Masse kein Interesse,

The Homeric Question

43

und die der einzelnen Person läßt er sich direkt in Reden äußern. Nicht diese allein, aber doch diese besonders bewirken, daß die Hauptfiguren lebendige Individualität erhalten. Zwar Agamemnon wird nicht durch seine Reden zu der grandiosen Erscheinung, in denen er nur seine mitleidslose Konsequenz und seine Feldherrnverantwortlichkeit zeigt. Ihn hebt schon die Wappnung, die Teilnahme der Göttinnen und dann seine Taten, Hier ist er wirklich König; nur in den Gleichnissen am Schlüsse von B mag man ihn ähnlich gezeichnet finden, die doch in Wahrheit nur den Agamemnon der έπιπώλησίς, den obersten Heerführer vorfuhren wollen. Aias redet in dem erhaltenen Teile nicht; aber es ist schon bezeichnend, daß er nicht selbst den Hilferuf des Odysseus hört, sondern Menelaos ihn mahnen muß. Die Verbindung dieser Helden kehrt in der Patroklie wieder; dem Dichter von Λ war sie offenbar vertraut. A uf den W eg gebracht, ist Aias unwiderstehlich, und das ist er auch auf dem Rückzuge. Wer sieht ihn nicht, den Riesenschild auf dem Rücken, langsam zurückgehen; mögen die Troer sich die Speere auf dem Schilde zerschlagen, wie die Buben ihre Stöcke auf dem Eselsrücken. Aber in dem Mann des scheinbar passiven Widerstandes kocht der Ingrimm, daß er zurückweichen muß. Er wird dem Hektor noch seinen Mann stehen. Diomedes ist in seiner kurzen Szene hoch gehoben; wir spüren, daß ihm Hektor nicht gewachsen ist. In den höhnenden Worten, die er gegen diesen schleudert und in der Verachtung, mit der er/den Paris abtrumpft, steckt derselbe unbändige Sinn wie im E. Es ist der Sinn, den Tydeus aus der Thebais immer bewahrt hat: sie hat mittelbar auch die Figur des Sohnes geschaffen. Aber mit der liebevollsten Charakteristik ist Odysseus bedacht. Er erhält sogar einen Monolog, damit wir sein Heldentum ganz würdigen. Er ver­ dient es, Schützling Athenas zu sein. Die ruhige Überlegung, daß ihm die Pflicht auszuharren gebietet, verdichtet sich bis zur Sentenz (409)· Als er schwer verwundet ist, fährt er den Gegner an: „Du armseliger Geselle, nun ist's dein Tod. Mich hast du kampfunfähig gemacht: ich sage dir, für dich ist heute das Ende da. Mir gibst du Ruhm und dein Leben dem Hades/' Der Gegner ist wirklich ein armseliger Geselle, er will fliehen, und Odysseus sticht ihn in den Rücken. Da bestätigt er sich's zuerst, daß er das Kom­ mende richtig vorausgesagt hat; dann folgen Worte von latentem Pathos, wie es nur in der höchsten Poesie zu finden ist. „Armseliger Geselle, dir werden die Eltern nicht die Augen zudrücken, sondern die Geier werden an deiner Leiche zerren. Wenn ich fallen muß, so werden mich die Gefährten bestatten.“ In Wahrheit steht es so, daß Sokos aller Wahrscheinlichkeit nach ein ehrenvolles Begräbnis finden wird; dem Odysseus werden die Eltern auf keinen Fall den letzten Liebesdienst erweisen. Er ist schwer verwundet, von Feinden umgeben, die Freunde sind fern. Eigentlich droht ihm sehr dringend, was er dem Sokos in Aussicht stellt. Was hat der Dichter also gewollt? Den überlegenen starken Geist zeigen, der wohl

44

The Creation of the Poems

weiß, welche Gefahr ihm droht, der sich aber jedes Furchtgefühl von der Seele schafft, indem er das Drohende auf den Feind abwälzt. Mit derselben sicheren Geistesgegenwart zieht er den Speer aus der Seite und dem Schilde und läßt, gefaßt auf alles, den Hilferuf erschallen. Wer solche Menschen hinstellen, so erzählen kann, ist ein ganzer Dichter, und ein so aufgebautes Gedicht von so festem Stile ist ein Ganzes, wie ein schön profilierter Geisonblock, dem nur ein Stück abgeschlagen ist. Den wollen sie zertrümmern, um die Brocken mit andern Brocken zusam­ menzustücken in ihrem Stile.

Anmerkungen 1. Ebenso halten 271 die Eileithyien die ώδινες, die sie als ein βέλος οξύ auf die kreißenden Frauen schießen. E 592 hält Enyo κυδοιμόν άναΐδέα δηιότητος, während Ares eine Lanze schwingt. Auch da ist das ein Attribut ihres Wesens, ein Symbol ihrer Tätigkeit; die sinnliche Vorstellung des Dichters läßt sich schwerlich fassen. Der Nachahmer im B hat der Athena zu demselben Zweck, den hier der Kampfzauber erreicht, die Agis gegeben, die Apollon im O mit dem Erfolge verwendet, den man der Gorgo zutraut. Daher später, als die Agis ein Panzer ist, das Gorgohaupt auf ihr. Ob sie für den Dichter des O noch ein Ziegenfell war, wie der Name sagt, bleibt fraglich. Die Attribute, welche die Götter in der ältesten Kunst führen, werden alle einmal ähnliche Bedeutung gehabt haben, selbst die Blumen und Früchte der Göttinnen, obwohl sie an sich in den weiblichen Händen ohne weiteres verständlich sind. 2. Die Nachahmung hat aus V .ll das echte ώρσε έκάστωι erhalten, das im A zu εμβαλ* έκάστωι geworden war. Wenn das im Texte belassen wird, so zeigt sich nur der Tiefstand der Recensio bei den Sklaven Aristarchs. Dieser hat 13, 14 als Zusatz aus B richtig beurteilt. In Wahrheit fallen sie einfach fort; Zenodot hat sie gar nicht gehabt. 3. Der eine heißt Όΐλεύς; offenbar wußte der Dichter, daß der Name mit Ilios zusammenhängt. Ich glaube, daß Aias der Sohn des Oileus einmal ein Überläufer gewesen ist oder sonst irgendwie von den Feinden stammte, eine wichtige Person, die sich dann in einen Lokrer und den Sohn der Asiatin Teukros gespalten hat; der kleine Aias mag also ein Bastardbruder des großen gewesen sein. 4. V. 100 läßt Agamemnon die Leichen liegen, „leuchtend m¿t ihrer Brust, nachdem er ihnen die Kleider ausgezogen hat“ , περιδύω muß das bedeuten, wenn's auch hart ist. Wenn sie keine anderen εναρα hatten, nahm man also den Erschlagenen die Kleider, natürlich: Eteokles (Aischyios Sieben 277) will ja auch δαΐων έσθήματα in den Tempeln aufhängen. Murray, Rise of the Greek epic 119, beurteilt diesen Vers richtig, in den andern Stellen hält seine Interpretation nicht Stich. Und hier ist keine besonders archaische Roheit. Der eine Priamossohn heißt "Ισος; ihn hat Maaß (Herrn. 24, 645) scharfsinnig als Eponymen νοη’Ίσσα auf Lesbos gedeutet. Aber dem Dichter kann das, wenn es zutrifft, nicht mehr bewußt gewesen sein, und ein Kurzname von ’Ίσανδρος, Z 197, oder ähnlichem befremdet nicht. V. 111,12 sind interpoliert; daß Agamemnon die Priamossöhne kannte, war nur dann erwähnenswert, wenn er jetzt irgendwie von seiner Kenntnis Gebrauch machte. Ich sehe aus Leaf, daß die Athetese, die mir seit vielen Jahren feststeht, von Platt bereits ausgesprochen ist.

The Homeric Question 45 5. Die Stelle ist von dem Verfasser des Füllstucks im Anfänge des Z ausgeschrie­ ben; dabei mußte der Vatersname in 132 εν ’Αντιμάχου πατρός weichen und ward Z 47 durch αφνεΐοϋ ersetzt. Dies ist wieder in das Δ zum Teil eingedrungen. Dagegen hat nur Zenodot das richtige πατρός erhalten, während die παράδοσίς den falschen kurzen Dativ δόμοίς eingesetzt hat. Zenodots Text war in diesem Buche mehrfach besser, 86 δόρπον gegen δεΐπνον, 101 βή Τ σον ohne das Füllsel 142 οδ gegen του. Das Wichtigste ist freilich, daß so viele Interpolationen fehlten. Die Gesandtschaft von Odysseus und Menelaos, Γ 205, geht auf die Szene, in der Antimachos für Paris sprach, die Antenoriden sich der Achäer annahmen, was die Eindichtung H 347 nachahmt. Die Antenoriden des Bakchylides werden die Kyprienform wiedergeben. Sie beweisen, daß Sophokles’ Αντηνορίδαι gleich Ελένης άπαίτησις ist; die von Nauck zu dem Drama gestellte Angabe Strabons über das Verhalten der Antenoriden bei der Persis kann in mehreren andern Dramen genau so gut untergebracht werden. 6. Anstöße, die man an Einzelheiten genommen hat, wiegen leicht. 151 ίππήες δ’ ίππήας υπό δέ σφισιν muß als Überlieferung, ίππής (-εις) als Versuch der Heilung gelten, die vielmehr in ύπό σφίσι S von Lehrs gefunden ist. Daß έρίγδουπος hier von den Hufen der Pferde, sonst nur von Zeus gesagt wird, ist doch nur ein Beweis, daß diesem Dichter der Wortsinn noch lebendig war. Daß zwischen ιππήες δ’ Ιππήας (ολεκον) und der Apposition χαλκώι δηχόωντες ein ausmalender Satz steht, ohne die Konstruktion zu sprengen, sollte man mit Freude als Zeichen lebendiger alter Rede begrüßen: die Parataxe ist die archaische Aus­ drucksform; für den Gedanken ist das Glied hypotaktisch. Interpolatoren reden konventionell; wer das Eigentümliche wegwirft oder, wegwischt, stellt sich selbst zu ihrer Sippe. 7. φηγός sollen wir uns gewöhnen mit Eiche zu übersetzen, nicht mit Buche, als ob es lateinisch wäre. Denn so viel ist sicher, daß φηγός nicht die Buche ist, aber eine Eichenart; welche von den vielen Arten dieses so recht griechischen Baumes, ist unsicher, denn mehrere konnten als „Baum, dessen Frucht man essen kann“ bezeichnet werden, δρυς ist seiner Natur nach und sehr häufig nur Laubbaum ohne nähere Angabe, so gleich 494, wo πεύκη das Nadelholz komplementär bezeichnet wie im Drama Öfter έλάτη. δρυμός δρυμών hat die Bedeutung immer behalten, άκρόδρυα auch. Als man dann, eben weil die Eiche der häufigste Waldbaum war, einen Eichenhain benennen wollte, hat man sprachwidrig δρύινων gebildet, Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum. I Suppl. S. 35 8. Fort muß aus dem Texte 165 = Π 372, durch Gedächtnisfehler achtlos eingeschwärzt. Er unterbricht den symmetrischen Bau der Gedanken, τόν μέν "Εκτορα ό Ζευς έξείλετο, οι δέ άλλοι έφευγον, και ο Αγαμέμνων . . . 179, 80 sind schon geächtet, weil Zenodot sie nicht hatte, Aristarch sie auch verwarf, während Aristophanes den ersten halten wollte, verkehrt, weil auch dann nur von dem Untergange der Wagen geredet würde, und wieviel kräftiger ist als Abschluß das kurze οι δέ φέβοντο. 9. Wie hier, wohl nach diesem Gedichte, erscheint das Grab K 415. 10. Der Vers mit der Eiche 170 ist von Z 237 (mit der Variante πύργον für φηγόν), I 354 übernommen. Φ 549 steht Apollon, der eben aus der Stadt gekommen ist, φηγώι κεκλιμένος: das ist dieselbe Eiche. Sie wird also durch ältere Dichtung schon dort festgestellt sein, wenn nicht durch Λ. Der Vers gehört der Achilleis an. H 22 stimmt dazu; es ist ein Verbindungsstück. Aber E 693 wird Sarpedon an einer schönen Eiche des Zeus gebettet; die denken wir uns nicht am Tore. Die Stelle ist unabhängig.

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The Creation of the Poems

11. Nach dem sonst unverständlichen T-Scholion zu T 55 hat Pherekydes den Κ όων Κύνων genannt. Das muß auf einen Fehler, sei es im Texte des Pherekydes, sei es in dem von diesem benutzten Homertext zurückgehen, denn Κ όων hat der Meister der korinthischen Kypsele gelesen, Pausanias V 19, 4. 12. 328 sehen wir das Unerhörte, daß zwei Söhne eines Merops aus Perkote fallen, ohne daß ihre Namen genannt werden. Der Dichter des Kataloges B 831 hat sie aber hier gelesen, denn er schreibt drei Verse ab und nennt Adrestos und Amphios. Diese Namen sind also hier ausgefallen. Warum? Weil Adrestos bereits Z 63 von Agamemnon erschlagen ist, wobei die Verse A 131—34 abgeschrieben sind. Da der Verfasser des Kataloges die Stelle des Λ noch unverstümmelt gelesen hat, ist der Verfertiger der Ilias (der Verfasser der Stelle des Z) an der Verstümm­ lung unschuldig; er hat an der zweimaligen Verwendung des Namens Adrestos nicht Anstoß genommen, obwohl Perkote und das Άδρήστου πεδίον beieinander liegen. Aber ein späterer Rhapsode ist aufmerksam geworden und hat geändert. Er dürfte noch mehr getan haben. Nach dem ersten Verse (έλέτην) haben Odysseus und Diomedes die beiden Meropssöhne getötet; das entspricht der Behandlung des vorigen Paares. 334 besorgt es aber Diomedes allein, und Odysseus bekommt 335 zwei andere Opfer, über die kein weiteres Wort verloren wird. Das verletzt den Stil in diesem so vollkommenen Gedichte. Wenn die Brüder je von einem der beiden Helden fielen, mußten ihre Namen genannt werden: das konnte der Umarbeiter nicht ertragen. Daher die Änderung und der Zusatz des kümmerlichen Verses für Odysseus. 13- Die Stelle ist allerdings nicht ganz zuverlässig, da sie mit der interpolierten Menestheusanrede verquickt ist. Von den Listen des Odysseus, von denen die spä­ teren Ante- und Posthomerika voll sind, denkt man am ehesten an die πτωχεία, weil sie Helene im δ erzählt, und ihre Stellung in der kleinen Ilias würde nicht hindern. Aber es fehlt jeder bestimmte Anhalt. 14. 422 ist wohl unecht, d. h. ein Rhapsode hat übertreibend zwei gewöhnliche Namen, Θόων undTüvvopoç mit dem gewöhnlichen έξενάριξεν zugefügt. In eigentlicher Bedeutung kann man das nicht nehmen, denn zum Entwaffnen hat Odysseus keine Zeit. Dann aber ist es wieder zu farblos neben ούτάζεΐν und νόσσεΐν. Der vereinzelte Kämpfer kann nur stechen, einmal anspringend von oben, einmal von unten: diesen Parallelismus mag man nicht gestört sehen. 15. Daß der Name dreisilbig ist, steht fest. Ebenso zeigt σωκεΐν, das vereinzelt in der Tragödie vorkommt, daß die antike Deutung ισχυρός einigermaßen zutrifft. Von σώ ω hat Homer auch noch keinen Eigennamen. War es etwa σόΡάκος .=· σόΡαξ, der Hurtige? 16. Dessen Rede ist jetzt durch den häßlichen Flicken 470, 71 verunziert. 471 ist ein vulgärer Vers, in 470 steht das unhomerische μονωθείς. So urteilt auch W. Leaf, The Iliad, London, 1886. 17. Aristoteles Rhet. II 9 und in dem pseudoplutarchischen Traktat π. Όμήρου 132. Plutarch de audiend. poet 24 c, wie es scheint Chrysippos. 40 c parallelisiert er Dichtersprüche mit philosophischen Sätzen, offenbar aus einer Sammlung; darunter steht Ζευς γάρ τοι νεμεσαι, οτ άμείνονι φωτι μάχοιο. Das darf mit dem Verse über Hektor gar nicht zusammengeworfen werden. Es ist ja eine sehr gute allgemeine Sentenz, ein Adespoton, vielleicht Sprichwort, und da erst paßt der Optativ. Es ist die Vorlage des pseudohomerischen Verses. 18. Daß das Gleichnis P 656—66 wiederkehrt, besagt nichts, denn dort ist es interpoliert.

4 Tradition and Design*

C.M. Bowra ^Source: Tradition and Design in the Uiad, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1930, pp. 1 -2 6 .

For more than a hundred years Homeric scholarship concentrated on a single, vital, and fascinating problem— W ho made the Iliad and the Odyssey? The struggle between Unitarians and Analysts created such an atmosphere o f controversy that hardly any conclusion met with common acceptance. But in recent years both sides have begun to agree on the opinion that, whatever the authorship of the Iliad may be, it is still in some sense a work of art and has undergone some formative influence from a single poet.1 This poet may have composed the whole poem or he may have transformed independent poems into a unity, but in either case the poem, may, and indeed must, be considered as a single work of art. This conclusion alters the conditions of Homeric criticism and shifts the burden of scholar­ ship from the special question of authorship to other general questions which the Iliad raises. It is now possible to take the Iliad as we have it and to consider it as poetry, and particularly we may try to distinguish in it those elements which belong to the traditional epic art and those which seem to betray the hand of the creative poet. Such an inquiry does not assume that the Iliad is the unaided work o f one man, but it does assume that its present form is the product of a single mind transforming tradi­ tional material into an artistic whole. On the one hand it excludes the view that the completed poem is largely the result of chance and caprice, and on the other hand the view that the poet was completely his own master and the Iliad is what it is simply because Homer chose so to compose it. It seems probable that there was a single poet called Homer, who gave the Iliad its final shape and artistic unity, but who worked in a traditional style on traditional matter. If this assumption can be accepted, we may try to differentiate between the traditional heritage and the uses to which the poet puts it. It must, however, be freely admitted that any such inquiry can only achieve general results. It may never be possible in the present state o f evidence to decide whether Homer was entirely responsible for this or that

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The Creation of the Poems

element in the poem or whether he took it over from some anonymous predecessor. But it may well be possible to consider some general features of the poem, and to distinguish in them the traditional and the later elements. The presence o f the different elements may often be detected by the uneasiness they cause us or by some awkwardnesses they create in the poem. Such difficulties exist, and the Higher Criticism has done well to detect them. But it has failed to find any satisfactory scheme o f authorship based on their consideration. For this it is not to be blamed. The tradition is so strong that individual authors obey it closely, and stylistic tests are foiled by a remark­ able unity of style. But, if we assume that any ultimate analysis o f the Iliad into the work of different authors is impossible, we may still use the evidence which the critics have found for quite a different purpose— the explanation of certain remarkable characteristics, on the hypothesis that they are due to a single poet working on given material in a manner dictated by a tradition of which he was the inheritor. The traditional character o f Homeric art must be clear to all but those who will not see. Some points will be considered in detail later, but here it is essential to see that the Iliad in its method of narration presumes an audience acquainted with the main outlines o f its story. The poet composed for listeners who knew o f his characters and their histories. His art assumes this acquaintance and makes use of it. On this depends his allusiveness and seeming disregard for much that is common in story telling. A good example may be found in the opening lines. After the few words which set forth the scope of the poem we are at once introduced to the protagonists of the quarrel, Achilles and Agamemnon. O f their previous history nothing is said. W e are told simply that they quarrelled and that Apollo was the cause. The details of the quarrel, being less well known, are given in full. The priest Chryses, evidently an unfamiliar figure, is given the definite article— τόν Χρύσην (A 11)— as an introduction among familiar figures.2 It is soon made clear that the quarrel is at Troy (A 19), and the audience of course knows that there was a quarrel at Troy. The story is unravelled, and mentions in an off-hand way characters who are to be important later. A casual reference tells us that Agamemnon has a wife who is called Clytaemnestra (A 113), and another mentions two heroes, Aias and Odysseus, who seem to be nearly as important as Achilles or Agamemnon (A 138), but for the present we are told no more of them. Achilles implies that his home is in Phthia, though his remarks would be obscure if we did not know it already (A 155), and we hear in passing that he rules over the Myrmidons (A 180). When he goes back to his tent, he goes with the son of Menoetius, o f whom no further mention is now made, but the audience know that he is Patroclus who is to play an important part in the story and is the bosom friend o f Achilles (A 307). When Achilles in his grief calls on his mother and she answers him, we are not at first told her name nor her

The Homeric Question

49

- divine origin (A 352 ff.). The audience know it, and there is no need to be ί verbose about it. In all this the poet assumes that his hearers know the general outline of the story, the names and antecedents of his main characters. His concern is to tell the old story again in a new way, and : therefore he concentrates on the details of the quarrel and on the new ■ characters, like Chryses, whom he makes important in it. But he does not I expect too much from his hearers. When the characters are less familiar, he adds a short note on their history. He tells us that Calchas was a seer and brought the Achaeans to Troy by his art (A 69), that Talthybius and ■Eurybates were Agamemnon’s heralds and servants (A 321). Even Nestor is introduced with a short note on his age, kingdom, and power o f speech (A 248 ff.). These characters may well have existed in earlier poems, but they were not entirely familiar and needed words of explanation. The assumption that the audience know the main outlines of the story persists through the poem. Characters, who are later to play an integral part and whose previous action is assumed to have been important, are mentioned casually as if we knew all about them. Hector is never formally introduced. W e first hear of him from Achilles, who says that his own abstention from battle will lead to many Achaeans being killed by Hector (A 242), and when he does appear on the scene it is assumed without more ado that he commands the Trojans (B 802). So too with Priam and his city o f Troy. The words Πριάμοίο πόλιν (A 19) show that the audience knew o f Troy and its king Priafh. Helen, who began all the trouble, is first named by Hera as the cause o f many deaths, but her early, history is taken for granted (B 161). Her lover, Paris, gets even less introduction. He appears on the battlefield and his armour is described (Γ 16 ff.), but his abduction of Helen' is only mentioned later when Hector wishes to cause him shame (Γ 53). So too the audience must have known that Hector’s mother was called Hecuba. When he meets her on the wall, her name is not given, and then a little later it slips out when she makes an offering to Athene, and we should be puzzled if we did not know it already (Z 293). This practice indeed is so obvious that no multiplication of examples is necessary. It implies a knowledge of the main events and characters, and such a knowledge can only have been based on earlier stories which told the same tale. Such a characteristic is common in literature based on tradition. In the Song of Roland we are plunged in the same way among characters and events which the poet assumes to be familiar. He takes it for granted that we know the characters and antecedents o f Charles and Oliver and Roland, even of Ganelon and Turpin and King Marsilies. Charles’s conquests are dismissed rapidly, for every one knew of them. And, as by Homer, the result of the story is foreshadowed, as if the audience had some idea o f it. The simple announcement Des ore cumencet le cunseill que mai prist, 3

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tells them what to expect— it is the old story of the betrayal and the fight at Roncesvalles. In poetry which is more sophisticated and breaks new ground, such an assumption of knowledge is impossible. Chaucer used much tradi­ tional art, but some o f his stories were new in England and their characters unfamiliar. So he introduced them with full details, giving the early history of Palamon and Arcite, the appearance and ways o f Alison and Absolon. It is only when literature becomes more sophisticated still that it can afford to assume that its readers will recognize a casual name or reference. Dante or Milton, writing for well-educated men, can throw out casual references to Caesar or Averroes, to Thammuz or Galileo. Superficially their method is like Homer’s. But fundamentally it is quite different. They assume a knowledge ranging over many fields and gathered from heterogeneous sources. Homer assumes only a knowledge o f poetry similar to his own, dealing with a tradition of great things done in a heroic age. He has a background and he demands a knowledge of it, but it is a background of tales, not o f learning. The contents of such tales, though limited in time and character, are much wider than the scope of the Iliad, and o f this Homer gives many hints. He assumes that his hearers know not merely of the siege o f Troy but also of many other events in the heroic history o f Greece. He makes passing mention of the famous heroes o f an older generation, of Perseus (Ξ 320), Daedalus (Σ 592), Theseus and Peirithous (A 263, 265), and, though he sometimes adds a picturesque detail, it is clear that his hearers know who they are. So too with the great events of heroic story. The war of the Seven against Thebes is assumed in the boasts of Sthenelus and Agamemnon’s account of Tydeus (Δ 372 ff.), the first siege of Troy by Heracles in a speech o f Zeus to Hera (O 25), the fall o f Cronus and the Titans in a passing reference to their existence below the earth (Ξ 274). Even more recondite episodes are rapidly recorded, such as Priam’s wars against the Amazons on the Sangarius (Γ 187) or the wars of Pylians and Arcadians by the river Celadon (H 133). These casual mentions show that a great body of saga was known popularly and taken for granted. The widespread existence of this saga can be seen in its diffusion through Greek literature. The fall of the Titans was fully dealt with by Hesiod and the poet, whoever he was, of the Τιτανομαχία. Heracles was the subject of many poems by the followers of Hesiod, and the Shield of Heracles survives to show what these short epics were like. The war of the Seven was the subject of epics attributed to Homer, the Θηβαΐς and the Επίγονοι. Chiron, the wise centaur, is a favourite hero of Pindar’s, who employed all manner of traditional litera­ ture. There is no reason to believe that Homer knew any of these poems, but he used the same sort of sources that they used, and in all probability these sources were epic poems, whether short or long. The song or poem is the usual method for spreading stories among an unlettered people, and no doubt Homer’s contemporaries heard such tales from their earliest child­

The Homeric Question 5 1 hood and knew their outline. But as the old story was always being retold, they expected new turns and details, and with these the poet presented them. Another traditional trait in the epic is its anonymity. The poet nowhere mentions his own name, and hardly passes an explicit judgement or gives a personal opinion.4 He uses the first person singular only to say that he is not a god to give a list of all the deaths caused at the Achaean trench (M 176). In this the Iliad differs from Hesiod and from some of the Homeric Hymns. Hesiod sets out to deliver a lecture to Perses and makes no attempt to hide his personality or his views. So too his imitator, the author of the Theogony, describes how the Muses appeared to him and told him to sing. The author of the Hymn to Apollo speaks of himself as a blind old man living in Chios (1. 172). But Homer gives us no such personal touches about his life or appearance. His anonymity indeed recalls Shakespeare’s. Shakespeare has the same gift for disappearing behind his characters and baffling us when we try to trace his spiritual history through his plays. W ith him there is always the suspicion that, when we think we have at last found his own opinion, we have only been deceived by a dramatic utterance of one of his creations. But in spite of the dramatic convention some of his personal predilections eventually come clear. He liked aristocrats and hated puritans, he had an extraordinary interest in the law, he made mistakes in geography. This may not be much, but it is more than the Iliad gives us of its author. Above all, Shakespeare’s style is his own, but Homer’s style is largely the style o f a school and cannot easily be distinguished from that of most of the Homeric Hymns. His language is as composite as Shakespeare’s, but its creation must have been done for him largely by his prèdecessors. His stories, as we have seen, he must have taken from a common pool. Even some of the traits of his characters, the anger of Achilles, the strength of Aias, the guile o f Odysseus, have the marks o f ancient tradition. O f his own life we have not even such information as we have of Shakespeare’s. The Lives are late, and derived entirely from the poems.5 His birth-place was claimed by many cities. No wonder that his name has been denied and he himself divided into a school of bards. Yet the Iliad postulates a final author, and, if he existed, his anonymity needs explaining. It might well be the case that the bard was not a man of sufficient importance to obtrude his own views or personality on his royal patrons. His business was to tell a story, and to go farther were bad manners. But such a view contradicts the high regard in which the poets whom the Odyssey describes were held. Demodocus and Phemius were men of some standing, and their views might well be listened to. The blind singer of Chios was not afraid of mentioning his circumstances, and Hesiod is full of advice and moral judgements. The explanation would seem rather to be in the traditional view that the poet was merely the mouthpiece of the Muse. He was an inspired agent of the gods, and it was they, not he, who spoke or sang. Such a view would be the more readily held when poets were

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The Creation of the Poems

a hereditary guild with secrets belonging to their craft. In their anxiety not to betray these secrets or to reveal their art, they naturally ascribed them to divine agency. But for this mystification the poet paid a price, and if he invoked the Muse he could not claim that the poem was his own. In this the Iliad differs even from the Song of Roland. Turoldus, whoever he was, has his name in the last line, and the author of the poem as we have it says that he found the story written in the cathedral at Loum by St. Giles who was present at the fight. The Norman poet was a Christian and could claim saintly authority, and all was well. But Homer could claim only the authority of the Muse and had to be careful not to betray his secrets. This anonymity is most obvious in the Homeric style, and though we have nothing older than the Iliad, it is probable that Homer’s immediate predecessors wrote much the same language that he did. His successors, the authors of the Hymns, wrote a language that is almost identical. A certain love of accumulated decoration in the Hymn to Hermes or the Hymn to Pan is the chief point of divergence. The fragments of the Cyclic poems are in good Homeric Greek. Even Hesiod, who wrote for a mainland audience and was no great master o f his technique, used a Homeric vocabulary. The poems of Corinna show how different his poetry might have been. This standardized style has few parallels in poetry. The French epic shows some resemblance to it, but there is far more difference between the Song of Roland and the later epics than there is between the Iliad and the Hymn to Apollo. The Iliad implies a long history before itself, and a long series of poems written in much the same style. Only a guild with strict rules and jealously held secrets could have maintained a style so homogeneous through so many years. The nearest parallel may perhaps be found in the history of the Church of England Prayer Book, where a homogeneous style has persisted through some four centuries and where great masterpieces, whose authors are known to be different, are written in the same manner. So far, then, the Iliad is the work o f a tradition, and so far the tradition is so strong that the personality o f the poet disappears and we are left with what is practically impersonal art, that is, art standardized by a succession of poets, and learned and mastered by its exponents. This tradition reaches far into the workmanship of the Iliad, and its influence in other directions will be considered in its place. But no living tradition is mere tradition. Each poet worthy of the name makes something new of it, even if he is bound by the closest rules and conventions. No matter how strict the form may be or how overmastering the rules, a poet of genius may still impose his person­ ality and create a new thing without contravening the inherited laws of artistry. Just as Villon created masterpieces in the time-worn forms o f the rondeau and ballade when they seemed dead in the hands of Deschamps, so too Homer preserved the proprieties and created a work of art on which he laid the impression of his own great, if elusive, personality. As a man he may elude us, but as a poet we know him and catch his individual utterance.

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Behind the style there is still the poet. So for the Greeks he was Ο ποιη τής par excellence; so even for W o lf there was urns color in the poems. Out of the traditional material a whole was made, and it can only have been the work of a single creating poet. His creative work can be seen most simply in the construction of the whole poem. Despite its many characters, despite its plot and counter-plot, it remains a whole. To call it a Tlickwerk’, as Wilamowitz does, is to miss this essential feature. In Aristotelian language the Iliad has a beginning, a middle, and an end, and it achieves its emotional effect as well as any great uoem ever written. It presents us with a world full of events and characters, but this medley is so shaped that it all leads to a great emotional climax in the results of the wrath of Achilles. It is easy to see why the Iliad has been thought chaotic and inartistic. It deals with a great mass of themes and it does not trouble to subordinate them to a common end. Threads are taken up only to be broken and thrown aside. Episodes are told which seem to have no real relation to the central theme. It is not surprising that critics have tried to disinter a fundamental Achilleid and to claim that all else is later addition. N o doubt there was once an Achilleid and Homer made use of it, but what we have to consider is the present Iliad and its artistic unity. This unity is o f a particular kind dictated by the necessities of recitation and the desire o f the poet to treat a wide subject. In this the Iliad differs from the Aeneid, which is concerned with a single man who holds the poem together, or from the Song of Roland, which deals with a single event, the treachery of Ganelon. It differs too from the Odyssey, where different strands of story ate united into the single event of the return of Odysseus. Its subject is announced by the poet himself in the opening lines, and it is frankly the wrath of Achilles and its results. This is eminently a composite theme, such as few poets have since attempted. If we must find parallels, we must look to such works as the history of Herodotus, which deals with the quarrels of Greeks and Barbarians, and has in its course to relate of many men and events which are connected only by the central theme. Or we might find a parallel in such a book as Wuthering Heights, whose concern is not with a person but with a family set in certain surroundings which affect their lives, or in Hardy’s The Return of the Native, where the chief character is no man or woman but the vast tract of Egdon Heath. The theme of the Iliad is set out so emphatically by the poet that it needs some consideration. The poet opens with a prayer to the Muse to tell the story of the wrath of Achilles, and the first seven lines of the poem are devoted to a rough summary o f what is to be told. The summary is, as might be expected, both incomplete and rather superfluous. As soon as it is finished, Homer plunges into the middle of his story and begins to unravel the plot. But the superfluity is -only apparent. A poem must being somehow, and a short summary is as good a way as any other. So at least thought Virgil and

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Mil toa, so, to a far less excusable extent, thought Euripides, and, at times, Shakespeare. The reason for this slight sketch of coming events was that the audience had to be told which of many stories was going to be recited. The poet took his story and characters from a traditional stock and gave them a new interpretation, but his hearers knew the main outlines of most stories and were entitled to know which they were going to hear. So the poet announces the story o f the Wrath of Achilles. The company then knew what was coming and could prepare itself to appreciate a new version o f an old tale. Such being its object, the prologue cannot justly be accused of being incomplete. No summary is ever complete, and there is certainly no obligation which binds a poet to tell us in advance all that he means to say later. In the prologue of Paradise Lost Milton says nothing of the books to be devoted to the science and theology of the Archangel Raphael which fill so large a portion of the poem, and in the opening lines o f the Aeneid there is no mention o f the name of Dido. So here there is no mention of Hector or Patroclus, no hint o f the events described in the last seven books. Yet in essence these seven lines give a fair account of the plot. The story is to be of the wrath o f Achilles and of its terrible results for the Achaeans, and that is just what the story is. The prologue anticipates not only those portions of the poem which tell of Achilles, but also those which tell o f the misfortunes of the Achaeans while he is absent from the battlefield. In other words, it implies a poem telling a great deal more than the mere story of Achilles which so many have tried to postulate as the original and authentic Iliad. The poet announces not merely the wrath of Achilles, to which he at once proceeds and to which he recurs throughout the poem, but also its dire consequences. These are sketched at great length in those books which describe the fighting when Achilles is away. In the words πολλας δ’ ιφθίμους ψυχας’Άϊδι προΐαψεν ηρώων, αύτούς δέ έλώρια τεϋχε κύνεσσιν οίωνοΐσί τε πασι6 is forecasted in general terms the great slaughter which takes place in the various άνδροκτασίαι and αριστεία!. All this is due to the wrath of Achilles, which emboldened the Trojans to attack the Achaean camp and allowed Hector to make such havoc. It is absurd to take these lines as referring to some quite different conclusion, in which Hector plays a far deadlier role than he does in the Iliad? The results of Achilles’ abstention are deadly enough, as any reader can see, and, in particular, they produced one death which is of cardinal importance to the plot. The main conse­ quence of this anger was the death of Patroclus, and when the poet speaks of strong souls sent to Hades, he hints at this. O f its details he says nothing, and the whole of the part played by Patroclus may be his own invention,

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which he wishes to keep as a surprise for his patrons. It is true that neither the body of Patroclus nor the body of any of the greater Achaeans is thrown to the birds or the dogs, and at first sight the poet might seem to be exaggerating. But he often recurs to this idea, and if the fate was too horrible for the greater heroes, it often fell to the less. Such is the fate foretold to the fallen by Glaucus (P 153), Aias (P 241), and others.8 Such must have been the fate of many killed in battle, whose funeral is never described. To be eaten by dogs or birds was the normal fate of the unburied dead, and it needed no elaboration. Its mention in the prologue helps to give a hint of the horrors which follow Achilles’ refusal to fight. So far then the prologue gives a correct account of the plot, even if it leaves many important episodes unannounced. No doubt the poet had surprises, which he wished to keep concealed and only vaguely fore­ shadowed, suggesting horror and disaster but giving no indication of what precise form they would take. He finishes his summary with the words Δίός δ5 έτελείετο βουλή. The scholars of Alexandria explained this by an account given in the Cypria, in which Zeus, wishing to reduce the number of human beings on the earth, caused the Trojan war.9 Such an explanation implies that both the poet and his audience knew this story well enough for it to be mentioned and dismissed in three words. This is certainly wrong. There is not the slightest trace o f any such divine plan anywhere else in the Iliad or the Odyssey, and a reference so obscure would be intolerable in a poem where the main motives are superbly clear. The author of the Cypria certainly described such a plan of Zeus, but it is far more likely that he chose to misinterpret these words than that Homer thought the story so well known that the merest hint of it was enough. The words must mean something else, and coming as they do at the end of this summary they must be important. They mean simply that the will of Zeus was fulfilled, that, as Wilamowitz says, events happened κατά βουλήν Δ ιό ς.10 Here, too, the poet anticipates in a general phrase much of what is to happen. He foretells those passages in which Zeus deter­ mines the course o f the action by giving the advantage to the one side or the other. And more than this. The poet announces that in all these events the will of Zeus was accomplished, and prepares his audience for the large part to be taken in the poem by Zeus and his subordinate gods. This view recurs in the poem, and the poet more than once puts on the lips of his heroes his own feeling of the responsibility of Zeus for the war. When Agamemnon tries to test his followers he says:

“ουτω που Διι μέλλει ύπερμενέϊ φίλον είναι, δς δή πολλάων πολίων κατέλυσε κάρηνα ήδ5ετι καί λύσει” .

(B 116-18)11

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The same idea in other words is expressed by Idomeneus: “μέλλει δή φίλον είναι ύπερμενέϊ Κρονίωνι νωνύμνους άπολέσθαι άπ Άργεος ενθάδ* Αχαιούς,” (N 2 2 6 -7 )12 and recurs again elsewhere.13 So in these first five lines we get a just account of what is going to happen. The audience know that the story is to be the old story of the wrath of Achilles and that they are going to hear o f the dire results which Zeus wills. More than this the poet does not say, partly because there is no sense in telling a story twice over, and partly because, though the main features of the story may be known, he is a poet and has new creations of his own with which he wants to surprise his patrons. The poem then has strictly speaking two themes, a special theme, the wrath of Achilles, and a general theme, the results of the wrath. The second depends on the first and is derived from it, but in the development o f it we are sometimes led far from Achilles. So composite a plot is rare in literature, but a similar form of construction was employed by one o f the most careful and conscientious writers who ever lived, Gustave Flaubert. The plot of Salammbô resembles that of the Iliad in having both a special and a general theme. The centre of the story is Salammbô and her personal history, but this at times disappears in the general story of the fate o f Carthage and the war conducted by Hamilcar against the revolting mercenaries. So too in the Iliad there is the special theme of the wrath o f Achilles and the general theme of the siege of Troy, or, more accurately, o f the siege of Troy in the tenth year. Hence the poem is not an Achilleid but an Iliad. Though we hear only a small part of the siege, we are deeply concerned with the fate of Troy, and when Hector dies there is no need to describe its capture. W ith him its hopes are gone, and though the first antagonist is always Achilles, the second is not so much Hector as Troy, of which he is the defender and heroic embodiment. One by one Troy’s defenders perish or desert her. Sarpedon is killed (Π 502), the river-god Scamander is defeated (Φ 382), Ares and Aphrodite are driven off the field (Φ 416 ff.), Artemis retires before Hera (Φ 479fT), and Apollo leaves Hector to fight his battle alone (X 213). Through the poem a note of impending doom is reiterated. The warlike goddess, Athene, refuses to hear the supplication of Hecuba and her women (Z 311), and Hector knows that there is no real hope of victory when he tells Andromache: έσσεται ήμαρ οτ αν ποτ όλώλη ’Ίλιος ίρή και Πρίαμος καί λαός έΰμμελίω Πριάμοιο.

(Ζ 4 4 8 - 9 )14

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When he dies the city bewails him as if it had already fallen and were weeping for its own doom (X 411). Because the poem is an Iliad^ Homer is able to surround the central character of Achilles with a great galaxy of portraits, both Achaean and Trojan. These diverse men and women are of great importance, for they are all affected by Achilles’ anger and refusal to fight. His absence gives the other Achaean heroes a chance to prove their mettle, and in turn we get to know Diomedes, Menelaus, and Odysseus. His absence brings out the kingly qualities o f Agamemnon, which have been overlaid by his masterful temper. Above all we get to know Patroclus, who is overshadowed by his friend when he is near and needs independence to show his heroic character. For the Trojans Achilles’ abstention means the rise to prominence o f Hector and, to a lesser degree, of Glaucus and Sarpedon. Achilles is too great a fighter for them to play such a role when he is near, but in his absence we learn to see them at their best and to know the stuff of which Trojans are made. In these books, when Achilles is off the scene, the poem is truly an Iliad. The two sides are sharply contrasted, and we see the battle fluctuating between them. When at last he returns, the plot is at once simplified and the contest between Achaeans and Trojans is reduced to a contest between Achilles and Hector, the champions and symbols of their races. The plot leads up to this simplification, but even when it comes, we are fully conscious of the camp life behind Achilles and the family life behind Hector. And when Hector is killed, Troy is doomed and the Achaeans have won the day. Such then is the theme, the wrath of Achilles and its consequences. But such a theme is not in itself enough to make a work of art. It must be put into shape and organized into a whole. And this Homer has done. The poem is built on a plan at once simple and majestic. The crescendo o f the opening is paralleled by the diminuendo of the closing books. In A we hear of the outburst o f Achilles’ anger and the prayer o f Thetis to Zeus that her son may win glory through the defeat of the Achaeans. In Ω we hear how Thetis at the request o f Zeus persuades her son to forgo his anger and to give back the body o f Hector for burial. The poem begins with an uncontrolled scene o f wrath and it ends with the appeasing of wrath in reconciliation. In the second book, B, one by one the Achaean heroes are shown us as they hold council of war: we see them in their martial temper, each with his own individuality and idiosyncrasies. In the penultimate book, Ψ, we see them clear o f war during a truce, when their more peaceful characteristics are revealed in the sports held at Patroclus’ funeral. In the third book, Γ, we have the duel between Paris and Menelaus and the home-life o f Troy with Priam and the old men, with Helen and Aphrodite. In the last book but two, X , we have the duel between Achilles and Hector which ends not in the bridal chamber as the first duel ended, but in death and the broken­ hearted lamentations of Andromache.15

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Inside this frame the story falls into three main sections, separated by the books in which Achilles first refuses, and later decides, to change his mind and fight. I and T, in which the discussions are described, not only provide interludes in the narrative of violent action, but also mark vital changes in the course of affairs. In the first section the terrible results of the quarrel are told. The Achaeans, deserted by Achilles, are driven back in the field and penned in their camp by the victorious Hector. Their defeat gives a great chance to the heroes to distinguish themselves, and they take it. But one by one they are vanquished, and Hector lights his fires near the Achaean ships. In despair they appeal to Achilles, and the section ends. The embassy fails,, and, after an interlude of night operations in K , the Achaeans start their efforts afresh. This second section begins with some short-lived triumphs. Agamemnon at first carries all before him, but then the trouble begins. The leading heroes are wounded, and the Trojans assail the Achaean wall. Idomeneus gives a temporary relief, but the Trojans are soon back. And then Patroclus persuades Achilles to let him go. He does well, but his victories are quite counterbalanced by his death, and, even if his body is saved, the section ends in disaster. The second turning point comes in T when Achilles, stung to remorse by grief at Patroclus’ death, makes up his quarrel with Agamemnon and prepares to go to battle. Then comes the swift series of battles which end in the death of Hector. The last two books are an epilogue to what has gone before, just as the first two were a prelude to what is to come after. Such is the shape and outline of the poem, and it is tmly an Iliad. But inside this frame, causing the different events and holding them together, is the story of Achilles’ wrath, and this has an essentially tragic character. On this the poet rightly laid special emphasis in his opening words, and it is the kernel o f the story. The other events derive from it and are full of poetry, but this makes the Iliad a great poem. Here, too, moreover, the poet’s own hand is most manifest. For the tragedy o f Achilles is essentially a moral tragedy, and implies a series o f values which must be largely the poet’s own. Certainly, only one great poet could have created a poem so profound in its moral sensibility and so skilful in adapting moral judgements to an artistic end. The theme is how Achilles’ temper leads him both to disaster and to moral degradation. The disaster is clear enough. If he had not preferred his injured pride to his duty as a soldier, he would not have sent his only friend to his doom. This he admits himself when he first hears of Patroclus’ death. In the shock of the terrible news he makes no attempt to conceal that he is to blame— TÔV άπώλεσα he tells his mother (Σ 82), and he knows that his own quarrelsomeness and anger are the cause. He found pleasure in them before, but now he wishes that they had never existed (Σ 107—10). But the loss o f his friend is not his only tragedy. He has fallen from heroic standards of virtue, and there is another tragedy, in his soul. It is hard to recapture the morality of the heroic age, but this particular tragedy is vital to the plot of

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the Iliads and we must try to judge Achilles by the same standards as those by which Homer's audience judged him. Only so can we see that the Iliady in spite of its many strands and patterns, is essentially a unity. The first lapse o f Achilles is in his quarrel with Agamemnon. The poet prepares us for something terrible when he announces that he will tell of the μήνιν ούλομένην. The adjective gives a hint of what will come. It is used by Homer of anything disastrous, but particularly of anything wrong. It leads us to expect that Achilles’ wrath is wicked as well as unfortunate, and this expectation is fulfilled. In the quarrel, Achilles is by no means so much in the wrong as his leader, but he is still in the wrong. When Agamemnon tells him that he loves quarrelling— αίεί γάρ τοι ερις τε φίλη πόλεμοί τε μάχαι τε (Α 177; — he makes a legitimate point. What is wrong is Achilles’ determination to dispute his commander’s decision, and it is simply to stop the dispute that Athene intervenes. The moral is pointed clearly by Nestor, who knows the rules of chivalry. Both are in the wrong, Agamemnon for taking Briseis and Achilles for quarrelling with his liege lord. Agamemnon’s power comes from Zeus, and he is a superior being with whom Achilles may not dispute (A 277). So far the wrath of Achilles is regarded as unfortunate because of its results, but not highly reprehensible. Nestor’s advice to both is to control their tempers and make up the quarrel; he does not add any word of reproach. In this scene Achilles is guilty o f a lack of αιδώς to his superior lord. In heroic morality a king was owed αιδώς by his vassals and subjects, and so Homer makes it plain. It is a feeling of respect for superiors.17 When Agamemnon chides Diomedes for shirking the fight, Diomedes makes no answer because of his αιδώς for the king (Δ 402), and reproves his comrade Sthenelus when he tries to reply in his stead. This case is precisely the antithesis of the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon. In both Agamemnon is in the wrong, but in the second case Diomedes is enough o f a perfect knight to know that he must make no answer— αιδώς forbids it. In the quarrel the poet wins our sympathy for Achilles by making Agamemnon far more in the wrong than he. Agamemnon also violates αιδώς, but in another aspect— the respect that should be shown to subordinates,18 but he violates it more brutally and with less justification than Achilles. His sin is υβρις (A 203), and he merits most of the abuse which Achilles throws at him. Even after Nestor’s intervention he refuses to reconsider his decision and remains unrepentant. So the poem begins with two good men in the wrong, though Achilles is less in the wrong than Agamemnon and therefore gets more of our sympathy. When Achilles next appears, the situation changes and his moral tragedy deepens. Because of his defection the Achaeans have been defeated in the field, and to secure his support Agamemnon offers handsome amends, proclaims his own guilt, and is prepared to end the quarrel. Achilles makes an unequivocal refusal. The heroic view o f this refusal is given by his old

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friend, Phoenix. Achilles has now become the victim of Άτη, the infatua­ tion that leads to disaster. By refusing the entreaties of the embassy he neglects the Λιταί— the Prayers who follow after Άτη and undo the harm she does. Achilles scorns them and perseveres in his wrath. Once again he lacks α ιδώ ς, but this time it is the gods and not man he neglects (I 508 ff.). This is a grave fault, the same fault as that o f the suitors in the Odyssey, who are punished for it (υ 169). And it is all the worse because the divine ordinance which Achilles now violates is one of the most sacred, the law that mercy must be shown to suppliants.19 The embassy comes with all the appearance of suppliants making a sacred request in the name of the gods. To such, mercy and consideration were due. When the request has failed, Aias makes a last attempt to move Achilles by pointing this our, he shows that the envoys are friends under his roof who demand and deserve respect (I 640 ff.), but the only answer to this is Achilles’ determination to continue in his wrath. The embassy leaves him and reports its failure. The best comment is that o f Diomedes: they should never have attempted to move him (I 698). In this scene Achilles definitely moves a step in the wrong direction. The recovery and repentance o f Agamemnon removes what excuse he had before, and now he alone is to blame for the dire position of the Achaeans. For Achilles himself the results of this action are as terrible as they are for the other Achaeans. As Phoenix has shown, he has set himself up against the divine law, and he must expect the consequences. They come soon enough. The Achaeans are again defeated, and their defeat makes the generous Patroclus want to help them. Achilles cannot restrain him; he goes and is killed. When the news comes, Achilles realizes that he himself is to blame. He allowed his comrade to fight, and never thought o f being at his side to protect him (Σ 98 ff.). His wrath is to blame, and now he knows it when it is too late. The άτη, against which Phoenix warned him, has indeed played its part and hurt him, when he might have listened to the prayers o f the embassy and prevented disaster. By the death of Patroclus, Achilles is punished for his lack of αιδώς, for the ϋβρίς which made him flout the laws of God and the prayers of men. But his tragedy does not end here. The saddest chapter is yet to come, and in it the poet shows his finest sensibility and sense of construction. Achilles has anger in his soul, and, though the death of Patroclus gives him a deep sense o f guilt, it does not cure him of his anger. It turns from the Achaeans to the Trojans, and especially to Hector. Now his main idea is revenge. Revenge was quite legitimate in heroic morality. When Odysseus kills the suitors, he would be thought entirely justified by the poet and his hearers. But when Achilles seeks revenge on Hector, his mood is different and its results are less laudable. In the first place, his fury extends to others who are quite innocent. He slays Lycaon and refuses him the rites of burial, though Lycaon has addressed him with all the language of a suppliant.

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“γουνοΰμαί cf, Άχιλεϋ- σύ δέ μ αϊδεο καί μ’ έλέησοναντί τοί είμ Ικέταο, διοτρεφές, αίδοίοιο.”

(Φ 74-5 )20 And in the second place, he is not content with killing Hector. He has to maltreat his body after death. He drags it after his chariot and intends to throw it to the dogs. Out of his own mouth the poet condemns him (X 395, ψ 24). These actions are άεΐκέα έργα— shameless deeds— and not to be pardoned. The phrase is one of severe condemnation. Elsewhere it is used only of the unjust burdens laid by Eurystheus on Heracles (T 133) and of the fate which awaits the fatherless Astyanax (Ω 733). The poet’s condem­ nation of Achilles in these acts accords well with the treatment given by his heroes to their dead. Both sides are ready for a truce that the dead may be buried. The true heroic note is sounded by Odysseus when he forbids any rejoicing over the dead suitors: ουχ οσίη κταμένοισιν έπ άνδράσιν εύχετάασθαι.

(χ 4ΐ2)21 Achilles’ behaviour is the opposite. He has had his revenge, and he is not content with it. There is still a burning wrath, in him, and it continues, although the gods prevent him from doing all that he wants to Hector’s body. When the burial is over and the ghost of Patroclus has disappeared, this anger begins to die. There is nothing for it to feed on, and Achilles is busy with the funeral games. But Homerus not content to leave Achilles and his story thus. His hero has sunk to degradation through a fault in his own character, and he can only be restored to honour and sympathy when this fault is healed. The healing comes in the last book, with the visit of Priam to ransom the body o f Hector. Achilles, who has lost his αιδώς, regains it before the old man, and so conforms to the will of the gods who expect the old to be honoured and pitied: αθάνατοι τιμώσι παλαιοτέρους ανθρώπους.

(Ψ 788)22 The recovery is worked out in detail. At the beginning o f the book Achilles drags the body o f Hector three times round the tomb o f Patroclus. The gods see it, and Apollo expresses the general feeling on Olympus, when he says that Achilles has lost his wits and raves like a lion, and finally: “ ελεον μέν απώλεσέν, ουδέ οι αιδώς γίγνεται”

(Ω 4 4 -5 )23

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The judgement is severe, but only Hera disputes it. Even Thetis knows that Achilles is not quite in his right mind and keeps Hectors body φρεσί μ α ινομ ένη σιν (Ω 135). The solution is that he must give the body back to Priam, and for this the gods combine with Thetis. It is the only hope for the recovery of Achilles. But the general impression is still that he has no reverence nor pity. So, at least, Hecuba thinks when she tries to dissuade Priam from going: “ώμηστής καί άπιστος άνήρ ο γε, ου σ ελεήσει, ουδέ τί σ' αίδέσεται”.

(Ω 207—8)24 And Priam himself is none too sure that his visit will not end in his death. But when he reaches Achilles, he makes an appeal to his αιδώς, asking him for pity in the name of his old father. The key of the appeal lies in the words:

“ αλΧ αίδεΐο θεούς, Άχιλεϋ, αυτόν τ έλέησον μνησάμενος σοϋ πατρός”.

(Ω 503—4)25 Achilles does not respond to the appeal at once, but he is touched to tears and weeps for Patroclus. This makes him pity Priam: οίκτίρων πολιόν τε κάρη πολιόν τε γένειον,

(Ω 516)26 and in his pity he cannot withstand the request which comes from the gods that he should release the body of Hector. In this act he recovers his true nature. His anger has passed away, and he is himself again. The story o f the wrath of Achilles, as the poet announces it, is thus the kernel of the Iliad. It is a tragic story in so far as it involves waste and loss or excites pity and fear. And the tragedy is essentially moral. It turns on the failure of Achilles to keep his αιδώς for gods and men, and it does not end till he has regained it. This failure is due to his imperious temper, and is thus derived from the same source as his heroic qualities in war and council. His great gifts have their tragic side and lead to the death of Patroclus and his own humiliation. His tragedy bears some likeness to that of Coriolanus. Both are the victims o f their imperious tempers, and both are splendid in their darkest hours. But the tragedy o f Achilles is perhaps more intimate and more moving, because it lies even deeper in his soul. Such is the kernel of the plot, so far as Achilles is concerned. But the main story too has its tragedy, and it is the tragedy o f Troy. W e have seen how the poem is truly an Iliad and deals with the fall of Troy. But like the

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disasters which befall Achilles, this disaster too has a moral significance which makes it the more painful. It is not Homer's way to underline his moral judgements or expressly to state his axioms, but here also, as with Achilles, he makes his meaning plain enough. The Trojans are guilty because of their support of Paris, and it is he who not only causes their sorrows but refuses to end them. That Paris is the cause of the war is clear enough to the Trojans. Hector makes it plain at his brother's first appearance on the battlefield, when he chides him with being mad after women, and says that it would have been better if he had never been born. His guilt is that he has carried off another man’s wife and brought shame on himself because of it (Γ 39 ff.)· A little later Hector is not afraid to tell both Achaeans and Trojans that Paris is the cause of the struggle (Γ 87). His view is clearly accepted by the other Trojans. In the nocturnal debate Antenor suggests that they should end the war by restoring Helen and her possessions to the Atreidae, and Priam, though he yields to Paris, still admits his responsibility (H 353 if.)· To the Achaeans, and especially to Menelaus, his guilt is even plainer. He has broken the ties o f hospitality, and it is right that he should be punished (Γ 350), if only as a warning to others not to abuse their hosts’ kindness. Paris cares little for their censure and enjoys himself while he can. But Helen, the partner in his guilt, though the old men excuse her and Hector is always kind, knows that she is to blame. Her guilt weighs heavily on her, and she wishes that Paris had been killed in the duel with Menelaus (Γ 428), and that the storms had carried hér off or the sea swallowed her before she could have committed her sin (Z 34 ff.). Yet, though both are thought guilty, it is plain that the poet does not condemn them overmuch. He has his excuse for them. It is not they who are to blame, but the gods, and especially Aphrodite. When Hector chides him, Paris answers that even if we do not want them, the gods' glorious gifts must not be thown away (Γ 65). And the same excuse holds for Helen in the great scene where she tries to maintain her will against Aphrodite, and then has to yield and sleep with the man whom she despises. In her struggle with the goddess Helen pours scorn upon her, telling her to stay with Paris and avoid the path o f the gods. She herself will not go to him— her words are clear and unequivocal— “νεμεσσητόν δέ κεν ειη” (Γ 410)— there will be righteous indignation against her if she does. But Aphrodite overrules her and threatens her with hatred. Then Helen goes with her to Paris, and though she blames his cowardice, she yields to him. He dismisses her taunts and tells her how he loves her, and then the poet ends the scene in a few poignant words: f| ρα, καί αρχε λέχοσδε κιών αμα δ3 εϊπετ άκοιτις. (Γ 4 4 7 )27 This touching scene shows, more clearly than does Paris’ careless denial, that Helen is not her own mistress. She is the victim of Aphrodite, who is

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relentless in breaking her to her will. No wonder that Paris was thought the victim of powers beyond his control. The poet lays the blame on Aphrodite, and this is important for the story. She has laid an ατη on Paris, and the Trojans suffer for it. Paris begins the war, and his obstinacy makes it continue. He offers to fight Menelaus, but his curse prevents a conclusion being reached. In the moment of victory Menelaus finds him snatched away by Aphrodite. This makes it easier for the solemn oaths of truce to be broken, and for the fighting to begin again with the Achaeans firmly convinced of the justice of their cause. Later, when the Trojan council meets at night, Antenor suggests that Paris should restore Helen and her property. Paris refuses, and the fight has to go on. Even at the very last when Hector's dead body is being maltreated by Achilles and most of the gods pity it, Hera and Poseidon are opposed to any attempt to save it— because of Paris, Αλεξάνδρου ενεκ άτης (Ω 28). A curse is on him, and Troy pays for it. The curse comes from Aphrodite, and is none the better for that. Her character is suspected, and she is the least honoured of the Olympian goddesses. The heroic world seems to have regarded her with a mixture of amusement and horror, and Homer, who at times makes her ridiculous, makes her terrible when she forces Helen to obedience. W e may laugh at her when she gets wounded in battle and cries to her mother for comfort, or when she helps Hera to trick Zeus with her magic girdle (Ξ 214 ffi). But her gift is μαχλοσύνη άλεγεινή (Ω 30), hateful wantonness, and the hard words are intended to be hard. In her treatment o f Helen there is no tenderness. If her will is thwarted, she sticks at nothing. Because of her, Achilles finds Helen ρίγεδανή, something that makes him shudder (T 325). As an ally in battle she is of little use, and she leaves the Trojans in their danger (Φ 416). Hera, when she no longer needs her for her own purposes (ib. 421), calls her ‘dogfly’, κυνάμυΐα. Yet it is she who, working through Paris and Helen, brings the destruction of Troy, she who prevents the solution afforded by the duel between Paris and Menelaus. Troy falls because the Trojans condone the guilt o f Paris. This is clear from the emphasis which Homer gives to that guilt. His crime passed all the limits allowed the heroic age; it violated not only wedlock but hospitality. His friends stood by him, and they were punished. The Trojans also, like Achilles, fall because o f their high qualities. The loyalty o f Hector to Troy makes him forgive Paris while he condemns him. Troy is under the protection of Aphrodite, or rather in her thrall, and for this it falls. 28 It may seem fanciful to attribute the fall o f Troy to the power of Aphrodite, but to the Greek mind sin was sooner or later followed by punishment, and by hinting at a cause for the fall Homer would appeal to deeply ingrained opinion. But he writes not as a moralist but as a poet. His scheme of sin and punishment is transformed into poetry by the pathos with which he invests its victims. There is no condemnation of Helen’s action in his wonderful picture o f her. She is the plaything of fate, and calls

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only for pity. Nor is there much in the picture of Paris. He is not indeed a man of heroic stature, but he still loves Helen and refuses to give her up. The fall of Troy comes from the fate which has sent her Paris and delivered her to Aphrodite. Prom this follow the other disasters, the perjury of the broken oath and the hostility of powerful gods. The Iliady then, both in its particular and general aspects, is a profoundly moral story. This scheme of sin and punishment runs through it and holds its parts together. Homer is not a teacher like Aeschylus, and he does not preach his views. He takes them largely for granted, and is content to let them be merged in his story. They are important because they make the Iliad tragic in character. In this it differs from the Odyssey, which is, as Longinus said, largely a comedy of manners.29 The suitors, like Achilles or Helen, are the victims of άτη, but they lack heroic or even lovable qualities, and their death stirs not our pity but our sense of justice. W e do not feel that there is waste in it. In the Iliad these great souls are caught in the grip of circumstances and made to suffer from the defects of their own high qualities. And that is the essence of tragedy.

Notes 1. Cf. E. Bethe, Homer; Dichtung und Saga, Leipzig, 1914-1927, i, pp. 57—68; C. Rothe, Die Ilias ah Dichtung, Paderborn, 1914; J.T. Sheppard, The Pattern of the Iliad, London, 1922; J. van Leeuwen, Commentationes Homericae, Leiden, 1911,· pp. 1—45; K. Goepel, Von homerischer Kunst.1 2. Cf. U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Die Ilias und Homer, Berlin, 1916, p. 246. 3. 1. 179· ‘The council then began which ended ill/ 4. Possible exceptions are when he praises good advice in Z 6 2 ,H l2 1 (αϊσιμα παρειπών) or condemns foolishness in B 3 8 ,M 113, 127,Π 46, 686, P 236, 497, Σ 311. On the question generally cf. J. Schmidt, Das subjektive Element bei Homer, Vienna, 1889* 5. G. Wiemer, Ilias und Odyssee als Quelle der Biographen Homers, Programm Ostern 1905 u. 1908. But cf. Wilamowitz, I. und H. , pp. 4l 3—396. ‘and many strong souls of men he sent on their way to Hades, and their bodies he made a prey for dogs and all birds’. 7. Maintained by D. Mülder, Homer und die altionische Elegie, p. 46. Criticized by C. Rothe, Die Ilias als Dichtung, p. 146. 8. Δ 237, Λ 452, 455, X 42. 9- Cypria, fr. i, ed. T.W. Allen: ήν οτε μύρια φύλα κατά χθόνα πλαζόμεν άνδρών ..................... βαθυστέρνου πλάτος αϊης. Ζεύς δέ ΐδών ελέησε και έν πυκιναΐς πραπίδεσσι σύνθετο κουφίσαι άνθρώπων παμβώχορα γαΐαν, ριπίσσας πολέμου μεγαλην εριν ΤλιακοΙο, οφρα κενώσειεν θανάτου βάρος* οί δ5 ένι Τροίη ήρωες κτείνοντο* Διάς δ3έτελείετο βουλή.

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10. L und H., p. 24511

'Such m ust, it seems, be dear to m ig h ty Z eu s, w ho has destroyed the crowns

o f m any cities and w ill yet destroy o th e r s/ 12 I t m u st be dear to the m ig h ty son o f Cronus that the Achaeans should perish here unknow n away from A r g o s /

13. e.g. T 270. 14. ‘There shall be a day when holy Ilium shall perish, and Priam, and the people of Priam of the good ashen spear/ 15. E. Bethe, Homer, i, p. 61. 16. Tor ever is strife dear to you and wars and battles/ 17. e.g. K 238, O 129, Ό 171. Hesiod, Theog. 91; Aesch. Pm. 699; Soph. Ajax, 1076. Cf. R. Schultz, ΑΙΔΩΣ, 1910; M. Hoffmann, Die ethische Terminologie bei Homer, Tübingen, 1914. 18. Hence Achilles’ taunt, “ώ μοι, άναιδείην έπιειμένε, κερδαλεόφρον” (Α 149). 19- Φ 74, ρ 577, χ 312. Cf. J. Engel, Zum Rechte der Schützflehenden bei Homer, Progr. Passau, 1899; T. Sorgenfrey, De vestigiis iuris gentium Homerici, Diss. Leipzig, 1871, p. 12 ff. 20. On my knees I beg you, Achilles. Do you show ruth and pity me: for, goddess-born, I am as a suppliant who deserves ruth/ 21. ‘It is unholiness to boast over slaughtered men/ 22. The immortals honour old men/ 23. fHe has lost pity, and he has no ruth/ 24. ‘Ravening and faithless man that he is, he will show no pity nor ruth to you/ 25. 'But reverence the gods, Achilles, and pity me, remembering your father/ 26. ‘Pitying his white head and white beard/ 27. 'So spake he and led the way to the bed, and his wife followed with him/ 28. That Homer was so understood in antiquity may be seen from Ibycus, Ox. Pap. 1790, 11. 8-9. γαμον δ’ άνέα ταλαπείριοτα σοέθειραν δα Κυπρίδα.2 9 29. Π ερ ί’Ύψους ix. 15 οίονει κωμωδία τις έστιν ήθολογουμένη.

5________________ Book 11 of the Iliad as ‘Anticipation’*

W . Schadewaldt, translated from the German by H .M . Harvey

^Source: lliasstudien> reprint of the third edition (1966) (first edition 1938), Akademie Y erlag G m bH , Berlin, 1987, pp. 1—28.

1 In the context of the whole work, Book 11 o f Homer’s Iliad is a towering landmark. It portrays the opening scenes o f the long day of battle which, with the action surging now one way, now the other, takes up the entire middle section o f the Iliad, as far as Book 18. This is the day on which the Achaians are decisively beaten, exactly as foretold at the very beginning in Book 1, when Achilleus, as a matter o f personal honour, had enveigled Zeus to promise that this would happen. Hektor storms the camp-wall and, delayed but not stopped by counter-attacks, carries the attack as far as the Greek ships (15). The direct result df these events is that Achilleus sends out Patroklos (16), Patroklos is killed, and this leads in turn to Achilleus’ sortie on the following day (19), Achilleus’ revenge on Hektor (22) and Achilleus’ own inevitable eventual death. Thus in the context of the Iliad that we read today, Book 11 occupies a key position. From here we have a view o f how it will all end. W e can also see how it started. This book sings the dawn o f a new day, the outbreak of new bloody battles. It prepares the ground for the great decisive moments of the whole poem. Book 11 itself consists o f two distinct parts. A good two-thirds is taken up with the military action, beginning with the aristeia of Agamemnon (1—217) - the Alexandrians who divided the work into books named the whole of Book 11 after this section - and then showing Hektor’s first advance and the unsuccessful resistance by the Achaians (218—595). The remainder takes place inside Nestor’s tent, where Patroklos enters, asking on Achilleus’ behalf about the wounded healer Machaon, and Nestor spins a long yarn o f memories from younger days (497-520, 596-848). Putting aside the Nestor-Patroklos episode for the time being, we will turn our attention to the battle described in the first part. This description of fighting is certainly one o f the finest examples of

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Homeric narrative skill. Only total mastery permits such broad brushstrokes, such free touches. There are no unnecessary details. No trace of so-called epic breadth’. Image follows upon image. And every image is a load-bearing and integral component of the structure. Multifaceted crowd scenes alternate with vivid close-ups. Parallelism and triadic scenes contribute to the wellordered structure of the action, to ever-increasing effect. Movement has been transferred to poetry, to taut drama, in a way that does not conform to certain theories about what epic poetry should be like. The opening (1-66) consists of a prelude. Two brief scenes, framing a longer central portion, portray the war-shout of the goddess Eris, the arming of Agamemnon and the battle array of the two armies. Then the structure develops in the form of an asymmetrical triangle, rising steeply on one side and falling gradually on the other. Hardly has the general mêlée broken out - this is portrayed by means o f similes —than Agamemnon bursts through to the forefront and kills three pairs of heroes from among his opponents. Then the individual action is swallowed up again in the general mêlée (l48ff.). Similes using marvellously strong images portray the defeat of the Trojan army from two perspectives: retreat of the Trojans and success­ ful pursuit by Agamemnon. He advances nearly to the walls of Troy. Then Zeus intervenes and sends the divine messenger Iris to Hektor (18Iff.): ‘As soon as he sees that Agamemnon retreats wounded he shall have the upper hand, until he reaches the ships and the sun goes down.’ It is at this point, almost in the centre of the whole book, that the caesura lies. An appeal to the Muses by the poet emphasizes the break (218). The aristeia of Agamemnon has rapidly led to a high point. Now the action falls away in three stages. Three leading heroes of the Achaians are wounded and forced to give way. First Agamemnon fights his last battle (221-83). Then Diomedes and Odysseus enter the fray (310—400), but an arrow shot by Paris puts Diomedes too out of action. Odysseus stands abandoned. The scene that the poet devotes to him (401—88) stands like a towering rock as the action ebbs away all around, the greatness o f the man’s soul dwarfing everything that has happened so far. Then the relentless decline continues. Only Ajax is still offering resis­ tance when the poet finally lets the fighting come to a standstill, and the scene changes (595). The fact that we are able to regard this first section of Book 11 as a unity is due to the interpretation by Wilamowitz. In his masterly book on the Iliad1 he dealt with all the quibbling doubts that had been directed at this piece o f Homeric poetry.2 And he illuminated the structure o f the poem so clearly and decisively that the earlier attempts to ‘crumble it into fragments’ will henceforth have value only as examples o f exceptionally clouded vision. E. Bethe’s view, that the battle in Book 11 falls into three originally separate parts,3 has equally been overtaken by Wilamowitz’ exposition.

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Wilamowitz was certain, however, that a piece o f such excellence with such a clearly defined beginning and ending could not be anything but a ‘lay’ , which has survived in an exceptionally intact state; and, as Lachmann had already believed about the ‘tenth lay’ which he had peeled out of Book 11, it must, in his opinion, be o f considerable age. He believed that the poem had originally been longer. The promise by Zeus to Hektor that ‘he would reach the ships in the evening’ would need to be fulfilled quite quickly in his opinion. But now our section ends in the early afternoon, and the Trojans have not even reached the wall of the camp. Therefore the poet of the Iliad, incorporating this ‘lay’ into his work, must have sliced some­ thing off the end of this ‘well-shaped cornice block’ .4 This was because he planned to insert a somewhat later ‘lay’ that had become available to him: the Nestoris, which now stands at the end of Book 11. To provide a link from the first poem to the second he quickly sketched a transition scene, in which the old Nestor rescues the wounded healer Machaon from the fighting by taking him into his hut (499—520). This completed the essentials of Book 11 as we have it: it unites two amazingly well-preserved older ‘independent poems’ which originally ‘had nothing at all to do with each other’.5 At first sight, Wilamowitz’ interpretation is attractive. Nestor’s rescue o f Machaon really is a transition scene, intended to lead us from the fighting of the heroes outside to the scene inside Nestor’s tent. G. Hermann perceived this a hundred years ago.6 There may be disagreements about a more detailed interpretation, but the main fact is obvious. It is also correct to say that the two separate sections in Book 11 leap to the eye, so clearly defined are they. Thus anyone who has reason to believe that the poet of the Iliad incorporated into his new creation older poems of such length virtually unchanged - and anyone who (consciously or unconsciously) equates ‘old’ with good’, and young’ with ‘bad’ —will agree with Wilamowitz here. The idea of the ‘immense age’ of the first section of Book 11 —Λ 1 - did indeed make a great impression. Ever since Lachmann, a choir of many voices has spoken in its favour.7 Since Wilamowitz gave it a firmer basis it has been regarded as an undoubted fact, and people draw further conclusions from this ‘fact’. I will be so bold as to suggest three possibilities that argue against this view. 1. 2.

3.

Λ 1, the battle description in Book 11, never existed as a separate poem. This section of the work is not ‘old’, it is young’ (both terms to be understood with reference to the date of composition of the great epic Iliad that we know). The master of this style is no intangible anonymous but Homer himself, poet of the Iliad.

If I succeed in demonstrating that these possibilities are true, then posing this one question creates wider ripples. W e are not talking about the origin of a single section of the Iliad. W e are talking about the origin of that

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particular sharp style with its stamp of individuality. If we succeed in finding a place o f origin for this style at a particular moment in the course of the development of the Homeric epic· we shall have established a firm foothold on the uncertain ground of the great Homeric Question, and this would prepare the way for a clearer view of the nature of the composition of the Iliad.

2 There are several possible routes that we could use to prove our thesis. At first it would seem a good idea to examine whether there are many passages in the battle-narrative o f Book 11 that refer unambiguously to other (preferably younger) parts of the Iliad. Half a dozen such passages have long been known, ones that link Book 11 with, for example, the 'young’ Book 1 and the ‘very young’ Book 8. But Wilamowitz, Bethe and others have been of the opinion that a light tap would dislodge this inferior slab, which they believed had been slotted in by an adaptor o f the poem. I have reason to disagree. But because this adaptor must not be thought of as totally unskilled, and we might well have to entertain the possibility o f later additions if we found that the present text did not clearly demonstrate our case, for the time being we will leave this option to one side. A second route leads more quickly to the heart of the matter. It takes as its starting point the phenomenon o f the repetition of lines that wraps the whole Iliad as if with a net. If Λ 1 is a ‘single poem’ of particularly great age, then lines and groups of lines which Λ 1 has in common with other parts of the Iliad should be used in Book 11 for the first time, or at least in an equally meaningful way. It would become very complicated if such repetitions of lines in Book 11 should prove beyond a doubt to be borrowed from other passages in the Iliad. Wilamowitz was being consistent when he sought to demonstrate that Book 11 was a generous donor to, not a borrower from, the rest of the Iliad. However, this theory does not stand up to examination. A few telling examples will show this. In the prelude (1—66) the poet has described the arming of Agamemnon. Now he has the army lining up. He visualizes it standing along the ditch of the camp facing the enemy. The heroes have dismounted (or not yet mounted) and form the phalanx at the front. The charioteers with the war-chariots are in formation at the rear, near the ditch. The poet sketches the scene like this, leaping straight in, with no introduction (47): Ήνιόχφ μέν έπειτα έφ έπέτελλεν έκαστος ίππους εΰ κατά κόσμον έρυκέμεν αΰθ5έπι τάφρφ, αύτοι δέ πρυλέες συν τεύχεσι θωρηχθέντες

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ρώοντ5· άσβεστος δέ βοή γένετ ήώθι προ. φθάν δέ μέγ’ ίππήων έπι τάφρφ κοσμηθέντες, ίππήες δ" ολίγον μετεκίαθον. Then each gave instructions to his charioteer to pull in the horses in proper order by the ditch. They themselves streamed out on foot, dressed in all their armour . . . They were in formation along the ditch well before the chariot drivers, who came some way behind. That doubtless answers the poet's purpose, to paint the battle array with a few rapid strokes. But if we look more closely, we see problems. W e are not sure whether the chariot teams remain inside the ditch and ‘come some way behind' because they first have to cross the ditch, or are they lined up outside, behind the dismounted heroes, with the ditch behind them? One could argue either way. In the next book, 12, we are on the Trojan side. Hektor and his men, in their chariots, have pushed their advance forward as far as the ditch. The horses begin to shy. Then Poulydamas gives the Trojans this advice (12. 76): ‘The horses should be held by our lieutenants at the ditch's edge, while we cross on foot, dressed in all our armour, massed behind Hektor.' ίππους μέν θεράποντες έρυκόντων έπι τάφρφ, αύρόι δέ πρυλέες συν τεύχεσι θωρηχθέντες ( = Λ 49)Έκτορι πάντες έπώμεθ άρλλέες. Hektor jumps down, and all the Trojan heroes do likewise. And (12.84f. = 11.47f.): ήνιόχφ μέν έπειτα έφ έπέτελλεν έκαστος ίππους εΰ κατά κόσμον έρυκέμεν αύθ’ επί τάφρφ. And they form into five columns to attack on foot. It is immediately clear that the hero’s command to the charioteers here fits seamlessly into the context of Book 12, when the Trojans, advancing steadily, find that the ditch is an obstacle to them in their chariots and they re-form on foot. The order to ‘pull in the horses in proper order’ did not give a clear picture when the Achaians marched out in Book 11, but here in 12 we can see it as clearly as if we were there. When lines are repeated, we cannot always tell where they originated. There must have been a huge mass of traditional material predating the Homeric epic, and the lines may have their roots somewhere far beyond our lliady in ancient epic traditions which we cannot know. In this particular case there can be no doubt. The lines originated from the situation of a

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Trojan attack on the ditch. The poet of A 1 borrowed them for his portrayal of the Achaian line-up, and this portrayal is an essential element which must not be excised.8 For our present purpose it is not necessary to discuss the relationship o f A 1 to Book 12: whether Λ 1 was composed later than 12 but by the same poet, or whether the Trojan attack on the Achaian ditch existed in older epic material and influenced the whole description in 12 while supplying only a few lines for 11. In any case, this much is clear: if Λ 1 was a particularly ancient ‘single poem’, then was Book 12 perhaps a yet more ancient one? And this more ancient one formed the continuation of the less ancient one, which Wilamowitz considered to be an independent ‘single poem’, which also itself originally included an attack on the Achaian camp? Any attempt to follow this line of thought soon becomes compli­ cated, with one improbable conjecture entailing another even less probable. Wilamowitz was clearly unable to explain this away. He generally mentioned the more important repetitions. He is silent about the one discussed here. A second example. Diomedes, shooting at Hektor, has hit his helmet, but this, a gift from Apollo, has deflected the shot. Hektor quickly recovers from a faint and escapes on his chariot. Diomedes calls after him (362ff,): έξ αδ νυν εφυγες θάνατον, κύον* ή τέ τοι αγχι ή λθε κακόν* νυν αυτέ σ έρύσατο Φοίβος Απόλλων, φ μέλλεις εΰχεσθαι Ιών ές δοΰπον άκόντων. ή θήν σ έξανύω γε καί ύστερον άντιβολήσας, ει πού τις καί εμοιγε θεώ ν έπιτάρροθός έστι. Dog, this time you have escaped death once more - but your end came very close. This time Phoebus Apollo rescued you once again . . . But I promise you I shall finish you next time we meet, if any god comes to my aid. In Diomedes’ mouth these words are pure threat and nothing more. For Diomedes will not meet Hektor again, and no god will come to his aid. Here too Apollo has ‘rescued’ Hektor only indirectly by the gift of the helmet, which is introduced ad hoc. It is different in Book 20.449, where Achilleus shouts the same words to Hektor. There Apollo had indeed removed Hektor by active intervention. Achilleus will meet Hektor again —in the last battle of Book 22. Then a god, Athena, will support Achilleus. And it will truly bring about the death of Hektor. Thus the lines were tailored precisely for Achilleus to use in 20, looking ahead to Hektor’s death in 22. From here, Book 11 has transferred the lines to Diomedes, together with the whole motif of an unsuccessful duel with Hektor; it is effective, but lacks the deeper significance of each reference. 9 In a general description of battle in Book 15 (314) there is this passage:

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. , . πολλά δέ δουρα θρασειάων από χειρών άλλα μέν έν χροΐ πήγνυτ άρηνθόων αιζηών, πολλά δέ και μεσσηγό, πάρος χρόα λευκόν έπαυρεΐν έν γαίη ϊσταντο λιλαιόμενα χροός άσαι. And many spears, thrown by brave hands, sank into the bodies of quick young warriors. Many, too, eager to taste flesh, stuck in the earth halfway, before they reached white skin. The spear is here — primitively - portrayed as having its own life as a bloodthirsty savage beast (cf. 4.131 where ‘arrow' is equated with ‘stinging insect') with the enemy's body as its prey. If some o f the spears do not reach their target, sticking into the ground halfway, the others must reach home, i.e. the bodies o f the enemy. This has to be so, in order to complete the antithesis, to be artistically ‘true’ .10 In Book 11 too, during Ajax' retreat, some of the spears fall into the ground. Here too the other spears ‘reach their target’, but even so they do not get to taste Ajax’ flesh since they hit his shield.11 One last example. In 11 Hektor is crossing the battlefield in his chariot (534ff.). His horses pull the chariot without difficulty: στείβοντες νέκυάς τε χαί ασπίδας* αΐμαΐι δ’ άξων νέρθεν άπας πεπάλακτο και άντυγες αϊ περί δίφρον, ας άρ άαύτφ πυκινώς ύποθήσομαι, αι κε πίθηαινή5άρσας έρέτησιν έείκοσιν, ή τις άρίστη, ερχεο πευσόμενος πατρός δήν οίχομένοιο, ήν τίς τοι ειπησι βροτών ή όσσαν άκούσης έκ Διός, ή τε μάλιστα φέρει κλέος άνθρώποισι. πρώτα μέν ές Πύλον έλθέ και ειρεο Νέστορα διον, κειθεν δέ Σπάρτηνδε παρά ξανθόν Μ ενέλαονος γάρ δεύτατος ήλθεν Αχαιών χαλκοχιτώνων. εί μέν κεν πατρός βίοτον καί νόστον άκούσης, ή τ’ άν τρυχόμενός περ ετι τλαίης ένιαυτόν, εί δέ κε τεθνηώτος άκούσης μηδ’ έτ’ έόντος, νοστήσας δή έπειτα φίλην ές πατρίδα γαΐαν

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295

σήμά τέ oí χεύαι καί επί κτέρεα κτερεΐξαι πολλά μάλ?, οσσα έ'οικε, και άνέρι μητέρα δούναι, αύταρ έπήν δή ταύτα τελευτήσης τε καί έρξης, φράζεσθαι δή έπειτα κατά φρένα καί κατά θυμόν, οππως κε μνηστήρας ένί μεγάροισι τεοΐσι κτείνης ήέ δόλφ ή αμφαδόν.

'Yourself Î bid take thought, how you shall drive the Suitors from your palace: come now, take notice and mark what l say. Tomorrow summon the Achaean lords to assembly, and declare your purpose to them all; and let the gods be your witnesses. The Suitors you shall bid disperse, each to his own. For your mother, i f her heart is eager for marriage, let her go back to the palace of her mighty father; and they shall make her marriage and prepare wedding-gifts, all that rightly attend a manys own daughter. Yourself shall l shrewdly counsel, i f you will but obey; equip with twenty oarsmen a vessel, the best you have, and go to inquire about your father, so long abroad, if any man may tell you, or you hear a heaven-sent rumour such as oftenest brings report to mankind. First go to Pylos and question god-like Nestor, thence to Sparta to fair-haired Menelaus, for he was the last of the bronze-clad Achaeans to return. I f you hear that your father is alive and coming home, then indeed though sorely oppressed endure yet a twelvemonth. But i f you hear that he is dead and gone, come back to your own native land and heap a mound for him and pay him funeral honours, all that are due, and give your mother to a husband. And when you have finished and done all this, take thought in your mind and heart how you may kill the Suitors in your palace, whether by stealth or openly. . . / In this passage Athene gives Telemachus the following instructions, which are to determine the action o f the Second, Third, and Fourth Books of the Odyssey. First (271-8): tell the suitors to go to their own homes; Penelope, if her heart is set on marrying, is to go to her father’s house, and her family shall make her marriage and equip her with a suitable dowry. Secondly (279-92): go abroad in search of your father; at the end of a year (or sooner, if you learn that he is dead) come home and give your mother to a husband. Thirdly (293-6): after you have given your mother in marriage, kill all the Suitors in your palace. Now whatever judgement we may later pass upon the facts, it would be trifling with the truth to deny that this is a wonderfully incoherent series o f events. The relatively inattentive reader or listener may not have time to notice much amiss: but the poet, whose story depends on what he promises here, must have some purpose and some plan in what he says. Telemachus, who is eager to know what he must do, might fairly reply as follows: Tiere is a great muddle. I need advice about my mother Penelope, and this is what you tell me. First, if she is willing, she is to go home, and her father shall bring about her marriage. That is a clear and simple instruction, however unexpected. But at once you add that nothing of the sort is to be

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done. She is not to begin her preparations for marriage, whether she wishes to or not, and her father is not (after ail) to arrange the wedding. Nothing is to be done until Ï return from abroad after an interval which may be as long as a year; then, and then only, is she to be given in marriage— by me, not by her father. Obviously it is this latter course which you wish me to adopt; what then was the point of giving me the first instruction, which seemed rather foolish at the time, and which I now infer is in no circumstances to be obeyed? You might at least have left it open to me to suppose that the latter course is an alternative, to be adopted when the former fails: //Penelope is unwilling to go home and marry at once, then I am to go abroad. But you were very careful to exclude that possibility, so arranging your sentences (μνηστήρας μέν, μητέρα δέ, σοι δ’ αύτφ) that they stand on exactly the same level: one who says “A is to do this, and B is to do that, and C is to do the other” , will not be understood in Greek or any other language to mean, “A is to do this, and B is to do that, and only i f they will not C is to do the other” . Moreover, if you had meant this, that Penelope's surrender is merely something which I am to suggest to the Suitors, you would not have gone out of your way to exclude this part from what I am to say to them: your words were αψ ϊτω, not άψ ίμεν; it is not something which I am to say, knowing that it will not be done, but something which she is actually to do, if she would like to. In any case it would not have been a real alternative, but mere talking for talking’s sake, since you, änd I and our audience all know that Penelope is not, as you put it, “ in a hurry to get married” . 'So much for your first instruction; but there is worse to come. For you go on to tell me that I must perform my fathers funeral rites, and give my mother in marriage, and when I have done all that, I am to kill all the Suitors in my house. Allow me to say that this is a remarkably foolish instruction: this story ends, as everybody knows, with the killing of the Suitors before the marriage of Penelope; if she should marry one of them, the Odyssey will have reached a premature end. I could understand and appreci“ ate a command to kill the Suitors before the marriage of Penelope: but what on earth would be the point of delaying that action until after one of them has married her? Apart from that, do you not see that after the marriage there would be no Suitors left in my palace?’ At this point, as Kirchhoff says, the writer has no idea whatever what he is talking about, or to what purpose. If we wish to see the difference between good and bad, let us contrast with this rigmarole the statement of Athene at the beginning of the poem (1. 88 ff.): Ί shall go to Ithaca, and more strongly excite Odysseus’ son, and put courage in his heart; that he shall summon the Achaeans to assembly, and speak his mind to all the Suitors who are slaughtering his sheep and cattle; and I shall send him to Sparta and Pylos to inquire o f his fathers return, and earn good repute among men.’ That is what she said she would tell Telemachus: and we notice that there was not a word about Penelope, or about killing the

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Suitors after her marriage; not a trace o f the incoherence which disfigures the later passage. Put the one beside the other, and unless all distinction between clear thought and muddle is to be denied, the conclusion is plain enough. Kirchhoff is justified in saying that there is nothing subjective about his argument: this, and nothing else, is in the text; and, unless the Greek Epic is to be exempt from the normal laws of speech and thought, that text is, as a matter of fact, both incoherent and self-contradictory; not so much in language as in thought, not in details of secondary importance, but in matters relating to the main structure of the poem, expressly introducing all that is to happen in the next three Books. If there were any adequate answer to these arguments, it would probably have been given in the last seventy-five years; but I have not succeeded in the search for a defence that is not much weaker than the prosecution; there is no doubt about the general verdict.1 If you ask how it can be that the world for long2 considered this passage to be a fit beginning to one of the greatest works in the history of literature, I reply in the words of Dr. Johnson that ‘one cannot always easily find the reason for which the world has sometimes conspired to squander praise'. I see no means o f avoiding the conclusion that something has gone wrong at this point; and that conclusion is strongly confirmed by the relation of what is forecast here to what actually happens later. Athene tells Telemachus what is to be done: and though the nature of her instructions is such that he cannot possibly obey them all, the least he can do is not to contradict them. W ho would believe, if he had any choice in the matter, that our poet would break the most elementary laws of his craft, making the Suitors repeat verbatim a proposal made by Athene to Telemachus, and then making Telemachus reject that proposal? But that is what happens. Next day in the Assembly Eurymachus, ringleader o f the Suitors, miraculously repeats word for word what Athene had said to Telemachus: ‘Tell your mother to go home, to her father s house, and they shall make her marriage and equip her with a proper dowry' (2. 194 ff.)— precisely what Athene had proposed; but Telemachus will have nothing to do with it. Already, earlier in the scene, he had missed his opportunity: Antinous said to him, ‘if only your mother would marry one of us, we would leave you in peace’ (2. 127 f.). This is the moment for Telemachus to repeat what Athene told him, ‘Yes, she shall go home, if she is willing, and her father shall make her marriage.5 Instead, as if Athene had never spoken, he abruptly rejects the proposal. Now we notice at once that what was so absurd in the speech of Athene is entirely natural in that of the Suitors: they may well propose that Penelope shall choose a husband at once; they are not to know that there is no prospect whatsoever of the proposal being accepted. Such a proposal is for them to make, for Telemachus to reject; and that is what happens in the Second Book. Transfer it to the speech of Athene, as an instruction to Telemachus,

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and it becomes and always will be a piece of nonsense in itself, wholly incompatible with the rest of her instructions and wholly at variance with what happens later. It is, in short, as clear as need be that this part of Athene's address has been composed later than its reappearance in the speech of the Suitors, which is indeed the mine from which it was quarried: the author went to work with full knowledge o f the description of the debate in the Second Book; he is not entirely at ease in handling the Epic dialect,3 and he has not noticed that the lines which he transfers backwards from the Second Book into the First do not sit comfortably in their new surroundings.4 W hy did he do it? Before we look for a reason, let us frankly admit two facts which seem to deepen the mystery: first, that Book I, taken as a whole, is a work of very careful construction, perfectly designed to introduce the whole story of the Odyssey\ secondly, that the course o f the action up to this point (1. 269 f f ) absolutely demands an address by Athene to Telemachus, telling him what to do; and the greater part of the instructions given here— the challenge to the Suitors in the Assembly and the journey to Sparta and Pylos— are completely in accord with what was promised earlier (1. 88 ff.) and with what is actually done hereafter. The action of the First Book is, in broad outline, simple and coherent. The gods assemble, and agree to befriend Odysseus (all except Poseidon, who is absent). Athene says that she will go to Ithaca and send Telemachus in search of his father. To Ithaca she goes, in the guise of Mentes, king of the Taphians. She is greeted and entertained. She observes the misconduct of the Suitors, and Telemachus explains the circumstances: the absence of Odysseus; the courting of his mother; the ruin of his property. Athene expresses the wish that Odysseus may return and avenge these wrongs. Whatever fault may be found with the detail,5 the main structure is clear and straightforward; there is no indication that it has been distorted by any later interference, except in the final address by Athene. Moreover, the First Book, as a whole, provides a remarkably good introduction to the Odyssey, as a whole, in its present form. W e learn, within the first hundred lines, that Odysseus is detained by Calypso; that Athene befriends him, Poseidon persecutes him; that Telemachus will go in search of his father; that the Suitors of Penelope are living riotously in Odysseus’ property; we even hear a summary of the forthcoming story of Polyphemus. In the sequel we meet Telemachus, and later Penelope herself, in a scene which the sternest critics have admitted to be of singular charm. Before the end of the Book the two ringleaders of the Suitors are introduced by name; so is the old nurse Eurycleia; and even Laertes, the father of Odysseus, is brought to mind. Thus the whole of the action and most o f the principal persons are intro­ duced in the course of a few hundred lines. But the First Book, taken as a whole, is much more than merely a coherent story and a suitable preface to the Odyssey’, it is also a work of great dramatic power, picturesque and most carefully planned. 6 The scene is

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set in the great hall o f Odysseus at Ithaca. Here the Suitors take their pleasure, as they have done these many months, feasting as if at home, with song and dancing. They are masters in this house; and the royal prince, Telemachus, must entertain his guest, Athene, wherever he can, withdrawn from the company; they must put their heads close together and hush their voices, for there is danger if they are overheard: άγχι σχών κεφαλήν ϊνα μή πευθοίαθ'οί άλλοι. So they talk low against a background of song; and imperceptibly the listener becomes aware of a third presence, haunting the scene, an image created by their thoughts and words centred on him alone— Odysseus. Whatever is said or done now, in our hearing, by wife or son or Suitors, is quickened and coloured by the invisible hand of the master who may yet return. Hence the sudden reversal of fortunes at the end of the scene. At the beginning the Suitors are masters in the royal palace, confident and secure in their pleasures, free from impediment or fear of reprisal. For Telemachus there is no comfort, and no hope; and if any danger impends, it is over him. This has been the situation for several years, and there is no apparent reason why it should not continue for several more. But by the time the scene ends, Athene has kindled a flame in the ashes of Telemachus' despair: what seemed unalterable is now suddenly in suspense, what was stagnant is now a stream in motion. For the Suitors, so long secure, the hour o f reckoning is now definitely fixed, however distantly: they themselves are suddenly uneasy; they ask Telemachus who this mysterious guest may be; is there perhaps, after all, some message from Odysseus? And now notice the most artistic touch of all. The conversation of Athene and Telemachus begins and ends with references to a song by the poet Phemius (1. 154 fi, 325 ff.), a song which continues throughout the scene, forming an accompaniment to all they say; even the Suitors are listening to it in silence (1. 325). And what was the subject of that song? The most apt and ominous that could be imagined— ο δ* Αχαιών νόστον άειδε, the Homecoming of the men who went to Troy. I see no escape from the following facts: 1.

2.

The whole course of the First Book, up to the point where Athene gives her instructions to Telemachus, demands that she must give him instructions; and the greater part o f what she advises is indeed per­ formed in the sequel. And yet the coherence of the passage in which she gives the instructions has been broken beyond repair by somebody who, having read what follows in the next Book, incorporated into Athene's speech certain things which are said in the next Book.

There is one simple explanation: that at an earlier stage of the tradition Athene's speech contained something which was flatly contradicted by what follows in the Assembly in the Second Book; Athene's speech has therefore to some extent been refashioned; the part which was contradicted by the

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sequel was omitted and replaced by verses which appeared to bring the speech into conformity with the sequel. This explanation would be the more acceptable if we could answer two further questions: first, what was there, in Athene’s original instructions, which was so flatly contradicted by the sequel that some attempt must be made to reconcile the two? Secondly, how could any such contradiction ever have arisen? A likely answer to the former question is suggested by the detail of the Second Book, iri which a conflict of two contrary versions is at once apparent. W e have only to ask this simple question: was the Journey of Telemachus prepared with the approval and assistance of the Suitors, or did they obstruct it? Both versions stand side by side in our text of the Odyssey. Telemachus openly asks the Suitors to give him a ship and crew to take him to Pylos and Sparta in search o f his father (2. 212 ff.). There is no direct reply to this request. Only one Suitor (one of the least prominent, Leiocritus) mentions the matter before the end of the Assembly. Now what he says is that Telemachus’ friends shall hasten on his journey, though he himself believes it will never take place. A t once Telemachus prays to Athene, saying that the Achaeans, especially the Suitors, keep putting off his journey! On the contrary, the only Suitor who has had a chance to mention the matter gave his permission, and that only half a dozen lines ago. This incoherence is exactly repeated later on (306 ff.): Antinous expressly says that the Achaeans shall provide a ship and crew for the voyage: at once Telemachus replies that he will travel as a merchant, since it is the Suitors’ policy to deny him a ship and crew of his own! It is perfectly clear that two different versions of the story are being combined without the least regard for harmony: one, in which the Suitors allow Telemachus to go, and put no obstacle in his path; another, in which they pretend to agree to the journey but frustrate it by delays and hindrances. This suggestion, that in some other version o f the story the Suitors were determined that Telemachus should stay at home, is proved beyond ques­ tion by later events. It was necessary for Athene herself to provide the ship and crew (382 ff.) and to put the Suitors to sleep before Telemachus might depart, secretly after nightfall (393 ff.); and when the Suitors discover that he is gone they are alarmed and astonished. ‘A proud deed insolently done’ , they say; 'we thought he would never accomplish it. Though all of us opposed him, this youngster has launched a ship and picked the best men in the place and is gone without a word' (4. 632 ff.). Nothing could be much more explicit than this: ‘he is gone against the will of all of us’, τοσσώνδ3άέκητί. But in the Assembly, and after the Assembly, no Suitor said a word to oppose the journey, and two of them expressly allowed it. The poem leaves us to infer from odds and ends in the narrative that what they said was the opposite of what they intended. W e are thus enabled to give a

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likely answer to our question, ‘What was there in Athene’s original instruc­ tions to Telemachus which had to be removed and replaced by something else based upon what actually happens?’ It is very probable that Athene originally forecast a meeting of the Assembly in which the Journey of Telemachus was to be kept secret— though in the sequel the Suitors heard of it and tried to obstruct it.7 All this may well have been forecast by Athene in some detail; if so, her speech would have to be altered in this respect if it were followed by a version in which Telemachus openly announced his journey, and in which the Suitors assented to it. And now the second question. There is not yet any reason to suppose that the Journey of Telemachus has ever been absent from the Epic poem about the Return of Odysseus; or that it has ever occupied any other place in the chronological sequence of events; or that the journey itself was ever narrated in a form essentially different from what we read in the Third and Fourth Books. But it is practically certain that our text offers a version of which the beginning has been radically altered from an earlier form. Now we have no particular reason to believe that, in the era when oral recitation was the normal mode of publishing, it was an invariable practice to recite the Odyssey from start to finish without interruption. W e must at least make allowance for the possibility that the professional reciter might choose (according to circumstances) either o f two courses: the recitation of a part of the poem in isolation; or the recitation of the whole poem over a period of days.8 If the former course was commonly adopted (and I do not know why anybody should doubt the likelihood of this), it is evident that the begin­ nings and ends of the parts selected would be specially exposed to altera­ tions designed to adapt them to the requirements of separate recitation. W e shall see presently what I take to be a very clear example of this general rule. In the present case our difficulties disappear so soon as we imagine a creative poet, entirely at home in the Epic tradition, giving new colour and substance to the story of Telemachus as a separate recitation, expanding the opening scene to a novel and brilliant episode, exposing the guilt of the Suitors, forecasting its punishment, and so bringing the isolated theme of the voyage to Pylos and Sparta into closest relation with the source from which it is derived— the story of the Odyssey as a whole. The reciter is under no obligation to take notice of anything forecast in the First Book, which lies outside the region of his part-recitation: but when in the fullness o f time a standard text of the whole Odyssey is made, in writing, there will have to be some adjustment made in Athene’s instructions if this, the best and most popular, version o f the beginning o f the Second Book is to be the one included. Notice finally that the beginning of the Second Book betrays its alien and later source in its utterly unhomeric conception of the preliminaries to betrothal and marriage. The Iliad and Odyssey are aware of one custom

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only: the suitor purchases the bride from herfather, the word εεδνα denoting the payment made by the suitor to the father. References to this practice are very common, and there is not a single exception to the rule, .except at the beginning of the Second Book: the author of this part of the Odyssey is familiar with the exactly opposite custom, according to which the father sells his daughter to the suitor, the word εεδνα now denoting the dowry which accompanies the bride. In an isolated lay, intended for separate recitation, nobody would notice that this contradicts the practice elsewhere uniform throughout the Odyssey, wherein Penelope is to be purchased by the Suitors: this introduction to the Journey of Telemachus was evidently composed in a society which itself practised the later custom and which felt itself under no obligation to exclude it from Heroic poetry.9 So much for the beginning o f the story of Telemachus. Let us now consider what happens when the thread is dropped, at the end of the Fourth Book, and when it is picked up again, at the beginning o f the Fifteenth. The Odyssey began with an assembly o f the gods in heaven. Athene proposed that Hermes should be sent to command Calypso to release Odysseus, and that she herself would send Telemachus in search of his father. This latter mission is described first; and the Journey of Telemachus extends to near the end o f the Fourth Book. Then we revert to the former mission, that of Hermes to Calypso, which was promised at the beginning of the poem, and which is in fact simultaneous with the mission of Athene to Telemachus. Let us look closely at this point, for the whole question of the organic unity of the Odyssey is at issue here.10 Events which occur simultaneously cannot be narrated simultaneously: they must be described one after the other, and the story-teller may or may not tell us that, although narrated in succession, they were really simulta­ neous; thus Virgil, at the beginning o f the Ninth Book o f the Aeneid: atque ea diurna penitus dum parte geruntur, ‘while these things were happening in a quite different place. . . .’ That is frank enough, however prosaic, and not at all inferior to the practice o f our embarrassed novelists. From TomJones (xvi. ix): ‘The reader may now, perhaps, be pleased to return with us to Mr. Jones’; from The Mysteries of JJdolpho (1. xxii): ‘Leaving the gay scenes of Paris, we return to those of the gloomy Apennine’; from The Heart of Midlothian (chap, xvi): Ί find myself under the necessity of connecting the branches o f my story, by taking up the adventures of another of the characters, and bringing them down to the point at which we have left those of Jeanie Deans’; from Martin Chuzzlewit (end of chap, xvii): ‘Be it the part o f this slight chronicle . , . rapidly to change the scene and cross the ocean to the English shore.’ Or consider the following passage of that novel: we wish to pass from Mr. Pecksniff’s house in England to Martin Chuzzlewit in a train in America; this is how it is done. Chapter xx ends: ‘At that moment a loud knocking was heard at the hall door’; chapter xxi begins: ‘The

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knocking at Mr. Pecksniff’s door . . . bore no resemblance whatever to the noise of an American railway-train at full speed. . . / As a rule the reader is left in doubt whether the two different episodes are simultaneous or not; and as a rule it does not matter much whether they are or not. Now the early Greek Epic observes a simple rule:11 it is the general practice not only to narrate simultaneous events successively, but also to represent them as i f they had actually occurred successively. It was not permissible to take a step backwards in time (or to leave any space of time unoccupied by events; though the poet might leave to the understanding an event or series o f events which must have occurred in one place while he was narrating what occurred in another). In the Fifteenth Book of the Iliad12 (154 ff.) Iris and Apollo stand in front of Zeus, who has a mission for both. These missions could and should be carried out simultaneously; but they cannot be described simultaneously; they are therefore described as if they had really taken place successively. First, Iris takes her message to Poseidon; not until her mission is completed (15. 222 f.) does Zeus turn to Apollo and tell him what message he must take to Hector. It is not correct to say that the poets took this particular path in order to avoid an obstacle: the truth is rather that they act as if they had no conception of an all-embracing Time to which different events might be related. They treat time simply as the measure of the duration o f particular events. The idea that the duration of two events might coincide or overlap presupposes the conception of a universal Time, common to many events in different places; and of that conception there is no trace in the lliad\ the Odyssey, as we shall see, is more sophisticated in this as in other matters; let us briefly examine its methods. When the scene and its subject change, the question whether the new is contemporaneous with the old does not very often arise. The action throughout may be clearly continuous, or possibly continuous, and neither the poet nor his audience feels any need for special measures. In the Odyssey, for example, at 13. 185, the poet leaves the Phaeacians at home and passes to Odysseus in Ithaca without the slightest attempt to bridge the gap or to define the time-relation: 'Thus the leaders and rulers of the Phaeacian people stood about the altar and prayed to their lord Poseidon, and Odysseus awoke from sleep in his native land . . .’— whether the Phaeacians’ prayer will be answered, whether we shall ever see them again, we do not know; in the middle of a line, with the utmost simplicity, we pass from one place and person to another place and person. But, now, what happens when the poet describes events which certainly must have occurred simultaneously? The law of the Epic tradition is perfectly clear: the Journey of Telemachus (1 -3 ) and the Wanderings of Odysseus (5—13) occurred simultaneously; but they must be (and are) narrated as if the action was continuous throughout. It was easy enough at the beginning: Athene starts Telemachus on his journey, and when that is over Hermes can start Odysseus on his; there is no need to refer openly to

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the times involved. It is not so easy at the other end, for after Odysseus has arrived home we must go back to Sparta and fetch Telemachus, pretending not to notice the long interval of time which must have elapsed since we last saw him. How is it actually done? The last lines of the Fourteenth Book finish the story of Odysseus’ return to Ithaca, and the first lines of the Fifteenth resume the story of Telemachus at Sparta. The one event will, according to the rule, follow immediately upon the other, as if the two were not simultaneous but successive. Now here the poet improves upon the simple methods of the past by delicately weaving the old scene and the new one together: he leaves Odysseus, asleep at nighty in Ithaca, and passes at once to Telemachus, asleep at night, in Sparta. He clearly intends his listeners to imagine that this is one and the same night: the narrative is to be continuous, as the law demands; but instead of putting the one scene simply beside the other, the poet has linked them under the cover of a single space of time. You are not allowed to comment that Telemachus must have spent an unconscionable time at Sparta. What has elapsed since we left him at Sparta is not an absolute time o f several weeks, for which he must be held to account, but a series of events— the Wanderings of Odysseus; and the duration of those wanderings is a quality o f them only, without any wider reference whatsoever. To the Epic poet the question, ‘How long is it since we last saw Telemachus?’, is nonsensical: there were no events concerning Telemachus in the interval; and time, with reference to Telemachus, exists only as a measure of the duration o f events in which Telemachus is engaged. Thus the poet has observed, but also improved upon, the rules of his craft. But there is still some way to go. Telemachus must now come home from Sparta while Odysseus spends the time in Ithaca: how are these two contemporary events to be described? Very simply, we should suppose: bring Telemachus back and let him meet Odysseus; we do not inquire what Odysseus was doing in the meantime, just as we did not ask what Telemachus was doing while Odysseus returned. It is particularly to be noticed that our poet avoids this, the simple plan, and gives us a double change o f scene, for which there is no apparent cause except the pleasure which he takes in its intricacy: from Odysseus we pass to Telemachus (14-15); back again from Telemachus to Odysseus (15. 300); and so back again from Odysseus to Telemachus (15. 494). And here is a further remarkable improvement in the poet’s technique: at 15. 296 we leave Telemachus already on his way home— but we leave him at a moment of doubt and danger; the question is expressly raised, will he escape death or not? The poet deliberately leaves us in suspense, arousing our interest in a point to which we shall return, we are confident, sooner or later. Moreover, the device employed between the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Books is repeated here. When we leave Telemachus, it is night: we pass to Odysseus at Ithaca— and there too it is night, obviously the same night, spread above

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the separated father and son, bringing them together. Then notice how the scene changes, for the last time, back from Odysseus to Telemachus: Odysseus is awake throughout the night— that same night which is bring­ ing his son home; he goes very late to bed, and almost at once the dawn was there, and they, the companions of Telemachus, put into harbour at Ithaca (15. 494 ff.).13 It is most delicately done: the night in which Telemachus begins his journey blends imperceptibly with the night of Odysseus at Ithaca; the coming o f dawn serves in one and the same phrase to end the sleep of Odysseus and to witness the arrival of Telemachus in harbour. If you now consult your calendar you will find that you have been hoodwinked. For in the interval between the beginning of the Fifteenth Book and the arrival of Telemachus at Ithaca you will see, if you look closely, that for Telemachus two days have passed, for Odysseus only one. Our poet has advanced greatly in technique: but it is now apparent that he has strained to breaking-point the convention that one series of events in time is not to be related to another within the same time.14 It will, I suppose, be generally agreed that the dove-tailing in the Fifteenth Book is exceptionally smooth and artful. There can be no question of Ordner or Bearbeiter, of patchwork or compilation here: the returns of Telemachus and Odysseus are woven together with uncommon skill; they cannot be disentangled. It follows inevitably that we are obliged to regard the two main themes of the poem up to this point— the Journey of Telemachus and the Wanderings of Odysseus— as being at least in sub­ stance an integral and indivisible whole. O f course there is no reason why a poet, finding before him a story of the Wanderings of Odysseus, should not amplify it in this way, and weave the old and new together with skill and success; I only say that we have not found in the points which we have been considering any indication that this is what was done. Finally, what about the earlier point, the transition in the Fourth Book from the Journey of Telemachus to the beginning of the Wanderings o f Odysseus? Here the first thing we notice is that our poet has again made his task more complicated than was necessary. W e are in Sparta with Telemachus: we must now pass to Odysseus on the island o f Calypso. But are there not now three contemporary scenes, instead of two, to be held in memory? Telemachus, at Sparta; Odysseus, with Calypso; and Penelope and the Suitors at Ithaca. There was no need to go back to them and so make a double change of scene; but made it is. From Sparta we go to Ithaca, from Ithaca to the island of Calypso. All three scenes are really simultaneous; all are described, according to convention, as being successive, continuous in time. But if we now compare the technique with that of the Fifteenth Book, we find a curious mixture of like and unlike. The transition from Sparta to Ithaca is as artless as it could well be (4. 620—5): the action is broken off sharply, incomplete; there is no moment o f suspense, nothing to suggest that we must certainly return to this point, and no spreading of the same

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day or night over the two scenes. It is, however, imprudent to pass any definite judgement on these facts, for there is reason to believe that our text is mutilated at the critical point. Between the last mention of Telemachus and Menelaus at Sparta and the first mention of the Suitors at Ithaca there intervene four comical lines, describing an έρανος, or bottle-party, to which the Spartan nobles come driving their own cattle and carrying their own wine, while bread is supplied by their fashionable wives.15 Very different is the artifice employed at the transition from Ithaca to the Wanderings o f Odysseus. Here the continuity of time is clearly marked, in the manner of the Fifteenth Book: we leave Penelope awakening from a dream by night, and the transition to Odysseus begins with the statement that night is over and a new day has broken. Moreover, the other device which we detected in the Fifteenth Book is revealed here too: both Penelope and the Suitors are left in a state of suspense; it is clearly indicated that questions are left unanswered at this point, and the listener has no doubt whatever that he will return to them later on. Penelope asks the phantom in her dream whether Odysseus is yet alive or dead, and is told that this cannot yet be known, she must wait and see: with the lightest possible touch the poet has turned us in the direction now to be followed; this question, whether Odysseus be alive or dead, we are at once to hear answered for ourselves; but we are quite sure that we shall return to Penelope, that the question may be answered for her too. And the Suitors? W e shall certainly return to them; for they are lying in arribush, intending to murder Telemachus when he returns— we know then that he will return, and we are confident that we shall come back to this point to hear the outcome of the Suitors' designs upon his life. Up to this point all is well and all in accord with the conventions of the poet’s craft: he has improved upon the older art by connecting the old scene with the new in time and by assuring the listener that he will return to the scene which is for the time being left in suspense. W e have done with Sparta and Ithaca for the moment; it only remains for the poet to continue, ‘And now Zeus sent Hermes to the island of Calypso’ . What actually happens is without parallel in the Greek Epic. The action is interrupted by a second Assembly of the gods in heaven, a pale and uninteresting image of the one which begins the Odyssey^ for no visible purpose but to go over much the same ground again and to set in motion a matter for which the first Assembly had made provision enough— the sending of Hermes to the island of Calypso. This tedious and abnormal procedure might be excused as being merely an innovation, an unsuccessful experiment; but if we turn from the structure to the contents, we may not judge so leniently. The gods assemble at dawn, and Athene begins to address them on behalf of Odysseus. At once a most disagreeable fact obtrudes itself:

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Athene's speech is not a free composition naturally designed for this place and purpose; it consists of three long sentences, each one of them a fragment of another person's conversation repeated from very different surroundings in the preceding story of Telemachus.17 Her first sentence, in five lines, was spoken by Mentor to the people of Ithaca in the Second Book; her second sentence, in four lines, was spoken by Proteus to Menelaus in the Fourth Book; and her third sentence, in three lines, was spoken by Medon to Penelope only a few minutes ago. In the Greek Epic parts of lines, whole lines, and groups of lines are commonly repeated from one point to another; indeed the greater part of the Iliad and Odyssey consists of formular lines and phrases repeated and adapted to new contexts;18 this is the technique of oral composition, essential to the making of such poems before the practice of writing revolutionized the art of poetry. But there were limits to what might properly be done; and it must be candidly confessed that so great an abuse of the poet's licence, so insensitive a treatment of his materials, as we find in this address by Athene, is (by good fortune) not to be found again in the Greek Epic. It is an abnormally artificial patchwork, whoever composed it. The poet desires to begin a new and very important episode with a speech by a goddess in heaven: invention and imagination fail him, as never before or again; the abundant springs of joy and resource run suddenly dry and silent; he recalls, word for word, portions of conversation recently assigned to three different persons in different circumstances, and sets them down side by side to form the opening address. They serve the purpose well enough, we admit; but I argue no further with those who think that the end justifies even these means. It is thus established (as fact, not opinion) that both the structure and the contents of this scene in heaven are out of harmony with normal practice;19 and it may well be thought that in both respects the poet’s devices here are much inferior to what is customary. Are we to believe that this is the same poet as he who made with such artistry the change of scene from Ithaca, and who will deal so delicately with the intricate fabric of the Fifteenth Book? Surely not, since a very simple explanation is at our disposal. This fresh assembly of the gods was never intended to stand in a continuous Odyssey; it is a new prologue, specially designed to introduce the Wanderings of Odysseus when that part o f the poem was selected for separate recitation. It may have been a normal practice, to recite the Odyssey in parts: and the Wanderings of Odysseus were the most attractive of all possible selections for part-recitation. But if this part is recited separately, it may well appear to need some introduction; and here, at the beginning of the Fifth Book, we find embedded in the Odyssey, as a whole, a prologue designed to introduce the recitation o f the Wanderings of Odysseus as a part.20 I conclude by summarizing briefly what I take to be certain or probable

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conclusions about the relation of the story of Telemachus to the Odyssey as a whole. First, the weaving o f the two threads into a single strand in the Fifteenth Book reveals an uncommonly skilful hand; the technique is delicate, and considerably in advance of earlier methods. It is certainly not possible to disentangle the two threads at this point; and we must conclude that the stories of Telemachus and Odysseus are organically connected in our Odyssey, though we cannot exclude the possibility that a poet who composed our Odyssey substantially as it exists today found before him a traditional version of the Wanderings of Odysseus, which he adopted as the nucleus of a much larger poem beginning with the story of Telemachus and ending with the killing of the Suitors of Penelope. That is to say, what is well enough known, that if our Odyssey is substantially the achievement of one poet, we cannot tell how much he took over more or less unchanged from earlier tradition. Secondly, the transition from Ithaca to Odysseus at the end of the Fourth Book reveals the same delicate and novel artifice as that which we found in the Fifteenth Book. But here the original continuity has been broken by the inclusion in the poem of a special prologue designed to introduce the Wanderings of Odysseus as a separate recitation. Thirdly, we have found no answer to the problems presented by Athene's instructions to Telemachus in the First Book; we were therefore obliged to conclude that the earlier part o f the Second Book— the begin­ ning of the story of Telemachus— is, in its present form, incompatible with what was originally ordered by Athene; and the detail of the Second Book revealed to us just what that point of incompatibility may have been. Here too the same explanation would be easy and sufficient: that the beginning o f the Second Book was specially composed to introduce, and to endow with more substance and colour, the story o f Telemachus as a 21 separate recitation. Fourthly, we notice that these conclusions imply that the Odyssey took its final form, that is to say, more or less its present form, as the result of some sort of deliberate editing. This implication is at harmony with all that we know about the transmission o f our poem from remote antiquity to the present day. There is little room for doubt that our Odyssey is ultimately derived from a standard edition, a deliberate fixation of the text, made in Athens in the sixth century b . c . If our conclusions are so far correct, it follows that the practice of reciting the Odyssey in parts, such parts having special prologues and prefaces, sometimes of considerable extent, materially affected the structure of the earliest standard text of the Odyssey as a continuous poem preserved in writing. It does not at all follow that the parts were composed by different authors; indeed we have already seen reason to believe that the parts are organically connected, though capable of being withdrawn from their contexts for separate recitation.

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Notes On the subjects discussed in this chapter there is still nothing to compare with A. Kirchhoff, Die Homerische Odyssee, Berlin 1879. Among earlier works I select for mention G. Hermann, De interpolationibus Homeri dissertatio, 1832 (= Opuscula v. 52 ff.); K.L. Kayser, Disputatio de diversa Homericorum carminum origine, Heidelberg 1835 (= K. L. Kaysers homerische Abhandlungen, edited by H. Usener (Leipzig 1881) 29 ff·); P D. Ch. Hennings, Üeber die Telemachie,Jb. f Klass. Phil., suppl. 3 (1858) 135 ff.; E. Kammer, Die Einheit der Odyssee, 1873. Among later works the most important are U. von Wilamowitz-Moeliendorff, Homerische Untersuchungen, Berlin 1884 (I should not include in this category Die Heimkehr von Odysseus, Berlin 1927); R. Dahms, Odyssee und Telemachie: Untersuchungen über die Composition der Odyssee, Berlin 1919; Ε· Bethe, Homer, ii, 1922, 2nd ed. 1929, 29 ff; E. Schwartz, Die Odyssee, München 1924; P. Von der Mühll, s.v. Odyssee’ in RE, 1939 (also Die Dichter der Odyssee, Jb. des Vereins Schweiz. Gymnasiallehrer, 1940); U. Hölscher, Untersuchungen zur. Form der Odyssee, Hermes, Einzelschriften, Heft 6, 1939; F. Focke, Die Odyssee, Tübinger Beiträge zur Altertumswissenschaft 37, Stuttgart 1943; F. Klingner, Ueber die. vier ersten Bücher der Odyssee, Ber. Sachs. Akad. d. Wiss. zu Leipzig, phil.-hist. Klasse 96 (1944) 1; R. Merkelbach, Untersuchungen zur Odyssee, Zetemata, Heft 2, München 1951. I take this opportunity of acknowledging a long-standing debt to one of the best of all works on the Odyssey, D. B. Monro’s Appendix to his edition of Od. xiii-xxiv, first published in 1901; and of expressing my gratitude to Professor Albin Lesky for sending me copies of his invaluable Homerforschung in der Gegenwart (Wien 1952) and Forschungsbericht: Homer, Anzeiger f d. Altertumswiss. vi (1953) 129 ff 1. The gift of pleasing and persuasive exposition’, says Kirchhoff, ‘has not been vouchsafed to me’: I doubt whether Homeric scholarship has much to show in which lucidity, intelligence, good judgement, and good manners are more perfectly combined than in this chapter of his Odyssey. The ablest of the opponents of Kirchhoff among the moderns is F. Klingner: but such are his honesty of mind and clarity of judgement that he makes no attempt to palliate the sins of this passage: op. cit. 39, 'So bleibt es dabei: in dem mit Rat und Weisung vorgreifenden Teil von Athenes Rede sind die Themen, sowie sie sich beim Zustandekommen der Fabel wohl schrittweise herausgebildet hatten, erstaunlich unbekümmert, ohne Ausgleich des sachlichen Inhalts, aneinandergesetzt. Und dabei ist die Bewegung der Rede, auf das Ganze gesehen, schön und leuchtet ein. Auch als Teil der Erweckungsszene bringt die Rede, wieder auf das ganze Gebilde gesehen, einen Gipfel und ein Ziel, wie man es sich besser schwer wird denken können, während die Ankündigung des Künftigen im einzelnen nur notdürftig, ja nachlässig abgetan, sagen wir ruhig: schwach und ohne volle Gegenwart des dichtenden Ingeniums weithin mit Versen bestritten ist, die &' (my italics). Well worth reading is the remarkable attack on Kirchhoff’s book, in the form of a Platonic dialogue, by F. Schultz, Konigl. Kaiserin Augusta-Gymnasium, Jahresbericht 1898, Progr. 69; the opposite pole is attained by an article in CR 11 (1897) 290 ffi, and (in my opinion) by F. Stürmer, Exegetische Beiträge zur Odyssee (Paderborn 1911) 64 ff. The older editors did what they could to cure the disease by more or less extensive surgery (see, for example, Kammer, Einheit der Odyssee, 251—89: he thinks that he can ‘remove all difficulties with the aid of excision [of 292] and the assumption of a lacuna [after 278]’). The facile assumption that the excision of v. 292 is a panacea has long been abandoned (apart from other objections, 2. 223 shows that this line is an indispensable climax to this passage as a whole). Deletion

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of 275-7 leaves a ridiculously meagre sequel (274) to an elaborate introduction (269-73)- Deletion on a scale large enough to dispose of the main difficulties (26978 and 293-302) would of course be a tacit admission that Kirchhoff has proved his case; but in fact such deletion is absolutely impossible except on the assumption that the deleted passages are not merely additions but substitutes for something else. See further Klingner, op. cit. 37 f f , and Ameis-Hentze, Anhang ad loc. On the other side, Blass, Die Interpolationen in der Odyssee (1904) 36 ff. 2. Some perception of the faults of 1. 269 ffi was first revealed by A. Jacob in 1856 (lieber die Entstehung der Odyssee 364 ff.), and the case was well stated two years later by L. Friedländer (Analecta Homerica, Jb. class. Phil., suppl. iii. 467 ff.) to whom Gottfried Hermann owed his awareness of the facts (478 f.). There is nothing to the point in Hennings’s long essay on the Telemachy published in 1858. Kirchhoff’s observations were made independently. 3- The threefold repetition of disten to what I tell you’ is unusual and disagree­ able (269 σέ δέ φράζεσθαι άνωγα: 271 εΐ δ’ άγε νυν ξυνίει και έμών έμπαζεο μύθων: 279 σοι δ=αϋτω πυκινώς υποθήσομαι). The older Epic dialect possessed no imperative form πέφραδε (273: elsewhere only Od. 8. 142, a line athetizéd by Zenodotus, Aristophanes, and Aristarchus), έμπάζομαι in the Epic dialect (and everywhere else) is one of those verbs which are used only with a negative; it is noticeable that it is used twice without a negative in this passage, 271 and 305. In 275-6 μητέρα . . . ϊτω is clumsy: either μητέρα . . . ϊμεν (sc. ανωχθι) or simply μήτηρ . . . ϊτω would have been a great improvement. 4. The ambiguity of OÍ in 277 is awkward: the sentence as a whole would refer it to the Suitors (who are its subjects in the place where it recurs, 2. 196); but the context proves that the subject is Penelope’s father and family (see further Kirchhoff, op. cit. 243 f.). 5. The most serious fault in the detail is to be found at 1. 372 ff.: Athene said to Telemachus, ‘summon the Suitors to Assembly tomorrow, and tell them to leave your palace’. Telemachus would improve upon this instruction: he goes to the Suitors at once and says, ‘Tomorrow morning let us all take our seats in the Assembly, that I may declare outright what I have to say to you. The last thing we expect him to do is to deliver, here and now, the speech which Athene told him to deliver tomorrow, and which he is now promising for tomorrow. But that is just what he does; he gives here, word for word, the speech which, in accordance with Athene’s instructions, he is to give again tomorrow: ‘Depart from my palace, give your minds to banqueting elsewhere, devour what belongs to you’, and so forth to the end. This sudden outburst is (as Kirchhoff said) neither poetically nor psycho­ logically prepared and justified. To use moderate terms: the notion that a great poet consciously planned the beginning of his poem in this way is not one which would readily suggest itself to an unprejudiced mind. It must be added that there is no possibility of merely omitting the offensive lines (374-80): μύθον in 373 requires some definition, such as that given in the sequel; and the reply of Antinous (384-5) presupposes some very bold statement, which is not to be found unless 374-5 are retained (Kirchhoff 257). Finally, it is to be noticed that there is a serious fault in the phraseology at the very point where Telemachus begins this surprising antici­ pation of tomorrow’s business: contrast 2. 139 εξιτέ μοι μεγάρων άλλας δ= άλεγύνετε δαϊτας with έξιέναι μεγάρων άλλας δ’ άλεγύνετε δαίτας here; the change from the infinitive έξιέναι (governed by μύθον άποείπω) to the imperative is very abrupt, and the imperative itself is out of place, since Telemachus is here offering what he will be saying tomorrow, not what he has to say today. The case could hardly be plainer, that 1. 374 ff. was composed after (and on the model of) 2. 139 ff; and since the offensive lines are not a mere

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addition (being irremovable from the context as it stands), it follows that they are substituted for something else, just as 272-8 must have been substituted for something else (see n. 21). The reason for the substitution was presumably the same in both places (see p. 111). Kirchhoff 256-7: it is a remarkable confirma­ tion of his position, that two passages of the Second Book should bear such obvious signs of transference backwards into the First (2. 196-7 - 1. 277-8; 2. 139 ff. ~ 1- 374 ff.). 6. For what follows I am much indebted to F. Klingner, op. cit. 27 ff. 7. Relics of this version survive in 2. 255-6, the sinister prediction of Leiocritus, and in 2. 301-2, the exceptional affability of Antinous, neither of which has any meaning or motive except within the framework of a plot by the Suitors to obstruct the journey. 8. It is very important to recognize that we are wholly ignorant of the manner in which the Homeric poems were recited before the sixth century b . c . Here are some of the questions to which we do not know (and presumably never shall know) the answers: (1) On what occasions, and before what audiences, were the Epics most com­ monly recited? (2) Was there ever a recitation of continuous Epics, of the length of the Iliad and Odyssey, at particular festivals, extending over several days, before the sixth century? There is no evidence either for or against; to Professor Wade-Gery (Poet of the Iliad 2 ff.) it is sufficient to reply that in none of the passages on which he depends (//. 2. 460 if., 20. 403 ff; Od. 6. 162 if.) is there any hint of poetry-recital— in the first two there is not even a suggestion of a general assembly of any sort. (3) When an early Epic poet composed (if anyone ever did) an Epic of the length of 11. or Od., knowing (as he must have done) that it would never be recited from start to finish without interruption, did he so design it that it would be specially suitable for interrupted recitation? The technique of composition might be very much affected even if 'interruption’ means no more than extension over a period of several days. (4) Which was the commoner practice: the recitation of episodes from II. and 0 d ? or the continuous recitation of the poems over a period of days? Or were both alike common? Observe that although it is true (as is commonly stated) that the Iliad does not fall easily apart into a succession of separate lays, it is still more obviously true that numerous episodes in the Iliad are exceedingly well suited to separate recitation. (5) If it was a common practice to recite poems of this length over a period of days, how long would each daily recitation last, and how would the poems be divided for the purpose? Or was there perhaps no common standard either for the length of time or for the division? (It is generally held that the present division into Books goes back no earlier than Zenodotus: I share Ma2on’s doubts about this; see Introd. à VIliade^ 139 ff.) The judicious reader may comment that if the answers to such fundamental questions are wholly unknown, it is very improbable that we shall ever arrive at a well-founded understanding of the development of the Homeric poems. I am inclined to agree; and I am sure that it is most important to refrain from making up the gap in our knowledge by firmly upholding one hypothesis where others would serve as well. In particular we must absolutely reject the idea that any useful purpose is served by the assumption that the Homeric poems were designed for recitation at general assemblies or festivals before the sixth century. The case is

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perfectly stated by Gilbert Murray (in The Rise of the Greek Epic 187) as follows: 'Every work of art that was ever created was intended in some way to be used. No picture was painted for blind men; no ship built where there was no water. What was to be the use of the Iliad? What audience would listen to the recitation of such a poem? It contains over fifteen thousand verses. It would occupy twenty to twentyfour hours of steady declamation. No audience could endure it, no bard could perform it, in one stretch. From Lachmann onward innumerable scholars have tried to break it up into separate recitations, and have all failed. It is all one— at least, as far as its composers could make it so. . . . The Iliad has been deliberately elaborated on a plan which puts it out of use for ordinary purposes of recitation. Yet recited it must certainly have been/ Now mark what follows (310): ‘The two facts given us are: first, that the Iliad is a poem originally meant for recitation; second, that it does not fall into separate lays and that the whole would take some twenty-four hours to recite. Conclusion: the poem must be intended for some extraordinary occasion, demanding even greater enthusiasm and powers of endurance than the annual celebrations of tragedy at the Dionysia/ How unexpected, and (I venture to say) how improbable, is this conclusion! The logical conclusion, on the facts as stated, is simply this: that the poem was intendedfor recitation spread over several days. I am quite unable to understand why we must take a further step and postulate an extra­ ordinary occasion. Why must we suppose the reciter incapable of doing at the court of a king or in the market-place of a city what he was capable of doing at an assembly at Delos or Mycale? Professor Wade-Gery (op. cit. 14) says that fThe Iliad is . . . no performance in the hall of a King or nobleman/ why not? He himself tells us (n. 39) that ‘Norwegian Kings listened to long sagas night after night, so that length and continuity were no bar to palace performance/ why then does he say that the Iliad \presupposes [my italics] an audience .gathered from many cities, a “panegyris” ’? I cannot discover how or why it should presuppose anything of the sort. Since we have no knowledge whatever of the circumstances, we have not the slightest justification for excluding the likelihood of recitation in the market-place at Chios (or anywhere else) or at the court of Penthilus (or anyone else). Moreover, does anyone seriously suggest that, if the poems were recited at festivals, those were the only, or even the normal, occasions for their recitation? Were the Iliad and Odyssey, for several generations, heard only by limited numbers of persons at a few places on rare occasions? Obviously not so: recitation at festivals (if it ever occurred) cannot have been the only or even the normal mode of publication of the Greek Epic. For the norm, we have no choice (at least, I can think of none) but to look to the court or the market-place or both: but what then is the use of dragging in the abnormal, a recitation at festivals for which there is no foundation in evidence earlier than the Panathenaea in the sixth century? 9. The passages were collected and discussed by Cobet, Mise. Grit. 239 ff.; see also Cauer, Grundfragen 333 ff., and Ameis-Hentze, ad loc. I take it as certain {a) that in Oí/. 2. 53 έεδνώσαΐτο θύγατρα means ‘(the father) may furnish his daughter with a dowry', and in 2. 196 (= 1. 277) ΟΙ δέ γάμον τεόξουσι και άρτυνέουσίν εεδνα means ‘(the parents) shall make her marriage and prepare a dowry/ {h) that these are the only places in the Homeric poems where the dowrycustom is referred to (in II. 13. 382 έεδνωταί means ‘those who receive the εεδνα/ Schol. A, ad loc., Cobet 244 f., Cauer 333 f.; in effect ‘matchmakers/ as Leaf said). 10. For what follows I am much indebted to U. Hölscher, op. cit.; I found this part of his work important and convincing, though there is much in the remainder that is exposed-to objection. 11. See H. Fraenkel, Die Zeitauffassung in der archaischen griechischen Literatur, 4.

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Kongress für Ästhetik, 97 ffi; Hölscher, op. citr. 2 ff.; and especially T. Zielinski, Die Behandlung gleichzeitiger Ereignisse im antiken Epos, Teil I, Philol suppl. viii (18991901) 407 ff My text here is very much simplified, but not (so far as Ï can tell) misleading on the essential point. That the study of the treatment of parallel or simultaneous events in the Epic is, in its detail, a very complex affair (especially in the Iliad) may be learnt from Zielinski's elaborate essay. The most important point for my present purpose is the one summarily stated in the text— that on those occasions when it is necessary to narrate the action of two (or more) events which really occurred simultaneously, the Epic invariably represents them as if they had really occurred successively. Among the complications of the topic I select for brief mention the following: (a) The general rule is not broken by the poet’s practice of allowing one of his speakers to narrate past events, unconnected with the present action (Nestor; IL 1. 365 ffi; 2. 303 ffi; 6. 152 ffi; 9. 447 ffi), or to recapitulate events within the poem (e.g. 2. 56 fifi). It is a remarkable extension of this practice, that a great part of the poem itself should take the form of a narrative of past events by a speaker therein (Odysseus in Od. v—xv). (h) As a rule, when two (or more) scenes are running parallel, and we move from scene A to scene B (as so often in the Iliad), we are left to assume that nothing in particular (or nothing more than we were led to believe at the moment when we left the scene) is happening in scene A while the events of scene B are being narrated (and vice versa); occasionally, however, the action in scene A (the one which is not being described) must be supposed to have progressed in the meantime while the action of scene B was being described (Zielinski's zweiter Fall, exemplified in the Iliad 4. 127-221, the Κόλος Μάχη, 8. 349-485, al.; not in the Odyssey). (c) Very complicated problems are set by the twelve-day intervals in the Iliad 1. 493 = 24. 31; Zielinski 437 ffi 12. See Zielinski, op. dt. 433 ffi 13. Hölscher (34) would have us believe that the suspense-motif occurs here too; all he can do is to allege that their going to sleep here prepares our minds for their getting up at the beginning of Book XVI! 14. My treatment of this matter (in many respects closely in agreement with Hölscher, op. cit.) represents an approach entirely different from that of Kirchhoff, whose treatment of the relation of XV init. to IV fin. is a very important part of his case for a separate Telemachy. He begins with the following observation: At the beginning of the Odyssey Athene demanded that Hermes should be sent as quickly as possible, τάχιστα, with an order for the release of Odysseus. But now the Journey of Telemachus intervenes: Odysseus must therefore wait a whole week for his release. Moreover, Telemachus expressly declared (4. 598) that he had no time to lose at Sparta, and must return home without delay: but since there now intervene the nine Books describing Odysseus’ Adventures and Return, Telemachus must in fact remain a whole month with Menelaus in Sparta, without any apparent reason, and without any attempt by the poet to give a motive for this delay. Das sind Monstrositäten, says Kirchhoff; those are monstrosities, which exclude the possibility that we may be reading a coherent narrative in its original form. I suggest that this judgement was passed without sufficient regard for the limitations necessarily imposed upon a poet who wished to narrate simultaneous events. It was, as I have said, the practice of the Epic poets to represent such events as if they actually occurred in succession. It may be thought that this technique is naive in itself and ill-adapted to the structure of such a poem as our Odyssey: here its first result is that Odysseus must wait a week for an order which was to be given with all speed. It is perhaps futile to argue about such matters: Athene said, with all

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jpeed\ the convention for handling simultaneous events does not allow the action to follow with all speed—Odysseus must wait for a few days; nor does it allow any explanation or excuse to be made. I am on the side of those who find this to be not a monstrosity but a triviality; and I add that the Epic convention for handling simultaneous events, denying as it does their simultaneity, and disregarding as it does the time-relation between different series of events, renders all such criticism unstable or even wholly irrelevant. The second result is that Telemachus must stay in Sparta for three or four weeks, although he has no reason for doing so and although he protests that he is in a great hurry. This is a more serious matter, principally because it puts a much greater strain on the technique of successive narration of simultaneous events. It is neces­ sary at once to consider the next stage in Kirchhoff's argument. He makes the remarkable suggestion that the narratives in the Fourth Book and the Fifteenth were once continuous; and that they have been separated and re­ arranged (with considerable modification) by an editor who wished to combine the Journey of Telemachus with the Adventures of Odysseus. The facts deserve close attention. In the Fourth Book Menelaus (in the early morning) invites Telemachus to stay at Sparta for a week or two, and promises gifts, a chariot with three horses, and a fine chalice. Telemachus declines the invitation to stay and refuses the horses because Ithaca has no plains or pasturage for them. (Focke (Odyssee 1—8) attempts to show that he does not decline the invitation. His argument seems to me to depend on too exact a scrutiny of the text, and too subtle an interpretation of it. Even with his observations freshly in mind I find it hard to read the passage in the sense which he desires.) So Menelaus promises another gift instead, a gold and silver mixing-bowl made by Hephaestus. There the narrative in the Fourth Book ends. In the Fifteenth Book, where the thread is resumed, Telemachus (also in the early morning) says that he must go home at once, and Menelaus continues the action at the point where he had left off a month or so before: .he orders food to be prepared, and goes to fetch the mixing-bowl and chalice which he had promised; Telemachus receives the gifts, Peisistratus packs them, there is eating and drinking and leavetaking, and the guests depart. The whole of this, says Kirchhoff, is the description of the events of a single day; there can be no question of a month's interval interrupting the sequence; the events of the Fourth Book clearly presuppose, as their immediate sequel, the events of the Fifteenth; the original unity of the narrative has been broken by an editor in order to frame within it the long story of Odysseus’ Adventures. It would, I think, be wrong to deny that Kirchhoff s observation here is shrewd and just; and equally wrong to suppose that the inference which he draws from it is the only one possible or even the likeliest one available. We have no reason to believe that the Greek Epic poets were, in general, much concerned with chrono­ logical exactitudes, especially in the narration of simultaneous events. But the present example is an extreme one: the story of Odysseus’ Adventures has filled a large space and a long time; if it is now desired to bring Telemachus home from Sparta at the end of this enormous digression, then it might well occur to the poet that, without any breach of custom, he should create in the mind of the listener the illusion that there had been no unnecessary delay at Sparta. And this might easily be achieved by starting the narrative in the Fifteenth Book at a point which makes it appear to be almost continuous with that of the Fourth Book. Granted that the delay was long: its length could not be more artfully concealed. The resumed narrative suggests (as Kirchhoff demonstrated) that a very short time has passed: that suggestion is deceptive; but the ancient listener was not likely to detect an artifice

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which escapes the notice of most modern readers. And yet the poet has strictly observed the rule that he must not take a step backwards in time, and must not make any apology for narrating simultaneous events as if they were successive. If this explanation is correct, there is no longer any reason to complain that Telemachus expressly said that he was in a hurry, and that no motive was given for his delay. The delay is imposed by the structure of the story: to draw attention to it, by stating and explaining it, is exactly the reverse of the poet’s intention; he wishes to create the illusion that Telemachus was in a hurry, and he admits nothing that might directly suggest that a lengthy interval occurred. It is thus open to us to interpret the detail of the resumption of the story in the Fifteenth Book as a deliberate and successful device to overcome a difficulty which arose out of the limitations necessarily imposed upon a story of this structure; we are not justified in continuing to use this evidence in favour of the general theory that the Journey of Telemachus has been artificially inserted into the Odyssey. Further argument against Kirchhoff on these points will be found in Hölscher, op. cit. 27 ff. There is, as usual, much subsidiary pleading, of which the following account gives only a selection, mainly from Kirchhoff 502 ff., and Wilamowitz, HU 98 f. (1) 13. 440: Athene leaves Ithaca for Sparta: Book XIV intervenes before her arrival is reported (15. 1 ff.): ‘It is improper’, says Kirchhoff, ‘to make the goddess require so long a time for her journey.’ This is another example of Kirchhoff’s misapprehension of the Epic rule for handling simultaneops events. (2) 16. 23 ff.: When Telemachus arrives in Ithaca, Eumaeus greets him in his hut with the following words: Ί thought I should never see you again when you sailed for Pylos. Come in, and let me enjoy the sight of you, now that you are just come from abroad. You do not often visit the countryside and herdsmen, hut stay in the town,’ According to Kirchhoff, the earlier story told that Telemachus came to Eumaeus from the palace in the city (see also Von der Mühll 740, Focke 282, Merkelbach 69), not on his way home from Sparta; the italic words are suitable to that story, but unnatural in an address to one who has just come, not from the town but from a journey overseas. The acuteness of Kirchhoff’s observation is (as usual) remarkable, but the inference here is drawn from a preconceived theory. If, as Eumaeus says, Telemachus was seldom seen in the country, it is all the more surprising that he should call there so soon after his return from abroad; his comment is not at all out of place. (3) 15. 155 f.: Telemachus promises to convey greetings from Menelaus to Nestor on his way home: but when he reaches Pylos (15. 195) he decides that he cannot afford the time, and continues his journey without a second visit to Nestor; his comrade, Nestor’s son Peisistratus, of course remains in Pylos. Kirchhoff, Wilamowitz, Bethe, and others are very much offended by this ‘broken promise’: I am not of their opinion, particularly since there need be no ‘broken promise’— Peisistratus is presumably capable of conveying the simple and formal message of greetings to his father (if we really must follow the narrative so consequentially into all its byways). (4) 15. 44-7: More than one charge is made here. First, it is thought very objectionable that Telemachus should wake up his comrade Peisistratus λάξ πόδι κίνήσας, with a kick. The ancient critics observed that the same action and expression recur in the Dolomía, where Nestor thus arouses Diomedes; and they pardoned Nestor on the comical ground that the old man could not

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be expected to stoop down and shake the sleeper with his hand. Secondly, the tale of Telemachus’ bad manners is continued: he proposes to depart without leave-taking, and does not even condescend to explain to his comrade why they must depart ‘thus out of season, threading dark-eyed night’. To the first point I reply that Telemachus has just as much right, perhaps more, to arouse his young friend with a kick as Nestor had to apply the same treatment to the magnificent Diomedes; in both cases, the kicker is portrayed as being specially impatient for action, and it is for us to observe what they do, not to dictate to them what they ought to do. The second is very weak; there might be something to complain about, if Telemachus did depart in the middle of the night without taking leave of his royal host; but in fact the proposal, having served its purpose of showing Telemachus to be impatient and anxious, is instantly rejected by his friend, and all proceeds according to strictest etiquette. (5) The speech of Athene, 15. 10-42, has been severely criticized. It is not to be denied that there are imperfections, but most of them may at least as plausibly be ascribed to the distortion of a basic text by rhapsodes over a long period of time. The end of 15. 23, ούδε μέταλλα, is weak. The repetition of 15. 38-39 from 13. 404-5 overlooks the fact that όμως, which made sense there, malees none here. There is something to be said for the opinion of the ancients that 15. 24-26 were a later (and unworthy) addition to the text. A few other points could be (and have been) made. More important is Kirchhoff’s comment (repeated by Wilamowitz) on 15. 15 ff.: Athene bids Telemachus make haste, or he may be too late, for her father and brothers are commanding Penelope to marry Eurymachus, and she may carry away from home some property against Telemachus’ will. These, says Kirchhoff, are things which she knows -hot to correspond to the truth; ‘aimless lies’, in the phraseology of Wilamowitz. ‘Aimless’ they are certainly not, for they serve to expedite Telemachus’ departure. And if they do hot correspond to the truth, they do correspond to what Telemachus expects and fears; and I do not know what further justification they need. It is not as if Athene were free to tell the truth— that Odysseus is waiting in Eumaeus’ hut, and that the story cannot progress until Telemachus arrives. The poet has (or may have) planned a different way of describing Telemachus’ first awareness of his father’s return. (6) I must not omit to mention the objection taken to 15- 7—9: Telemachus is awake, not dreaming, and it is very remarkable that Athene should appear to a waking mortal in her own shape. See Cauer,. Grundfragen 391 ■ (7) There have probably been a number of more or less isolated interpolations: 15. 78-85, athetized by Aristarchus, lines which many have thought (and I agree) rather silly in this context. 15. 113-19 = 4. 613 ff., omitted by P and other manuscript sources, probably rightly. See also Bethe 20, on 15. 160 ff. 15. On 4. 621-4 see Wolf, Prolegomena cxxxi fi; Spohn, De extrema parte Odysseae 9; Hennings, Ueber die Telemachie 212 f. Those who believe the ‘Telemachy’ to represent an independent poem must, and do, attribute the remainder of Book IV (from 625) to their ‘Bearbeiter’. Among its peculiar features are (i) 640: the casual reference to the συβώτης; presumably Eumaeus, though we have not yet heard of him. (ii) 735: the reference to Dolios as a friend of the family, though elsewhere (except in the last Book, which was added later) he is known only as the father of enemies of the family, (iii) 770: this is surely a silly inference from her όλολυγή. (iv) There are some obvious faults in the

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which escapes the notice of most modern readers. And yet the poet has strictly observed the rule that he must not take a step backwards in time, and must not make any apology for narrating simultaneous events as if they were successive. If this explanation is correct, there is no longer any reason to complain that Telemachus expressly said that he was in a hurry, and that no motive was given for his delay. The delay is imposed by the structure of the story: to draw attention to it, by stating and explaining it, is exactly the reverse of the poet’s intention; he wishes to create the illusion that Telemachus was in a hurry, and he admits nothing that might directly suggest that a lengthy interval occurred. It is thus open to us to interpret the detail of the resumption of the story in the Fifteenth Book as a deliberate and successful device to overcome a difficulty which arose out of the limitations necessarily imposed upon a story of this structure; we are not justified in continuing to use this evidence in favour of the general theory that the Journey of Telemachus has been artificially inserted into the Odyssey. Further argument against Kirchhoff on these points will be found in Hölscher, op. cit. 27 ff There is, as usual, much subsidiary pleading, of which the following account gives only a selection, mainly from Kirchhoff 502 ffi, and Wilamowitz, HU 98 f. (1) 13. 440: Athene leaves Ithaca for Sparta: Book XIV intervenes before her arrival is reported (15. 1 ff.): ‘It is improper’, says Kirchhoff, ‘to make the goddess require so long a time for her journey.’ This is another example of Kirchhoff’s misapprehension of the Epic rule for handling simultaneous events. (2) 16. 23 ff: When Telemachus arrives in Ithaca, Eumaeus greets him in his hut with the following words: Ί thought I should never see you again when you sailed for Pylos. Come in, and let me enjoy the sight of you, now that you are just come from abroad. You do not often visit the countryside and herdsmen, hut stay in the toiun.’ According to Kirchhoff, the earlier story told that Telemachus came to Eumaeus from the palace in the city (see also Von der Mühil 7 4 0, Focke 282, Merkelbach 69), not on his way home from Sparta; the italic words are suitable to that story, but unnatural in an address to one who has just come, not from the town but from a journey overseas. The acuteness of Kirchhoff’s observation is (as usual) remarkable, but the inference here is drawn from a preconceived theory. If, as Eumaeus says, Telemachus was seldom seen in the country, it is all the more surprising that he should call there so soon after his return from abroad; his comment is not at all out of place. (3) 15. 155 fi: Telemachus promises to convey greetings from Menelaus to Nestor on his way home: but when he reaches Pylos (15. 195) he decides that he cannot afford the time, and continues his journey without a second visit to Nestor; his comrade, Nestor’s son Peisistratus, of course remains in Pylos. Kirchhoff, Wilamowitz, Bethe, and others are very much offended by this ‘broken promise’: I am not of their opinion, particularly since there need be no ‘broken promise’— Peisistratus is presumably capable of conveying the simple and formal message of greetings to his father (if we really must follow the narrative so consequentially into all its byways). (4) 15. 44-7: More than one charge is made here. First, it is thought very objectionable that Telemachus should wake up his comrade Peisistratus λάξ πόδι κινήσας, with a kick. The ancient critics observed that the same action and expression recur in the Doloneia, where Nestor thus arouses Diomedes; and they pardoned Nestor on the comical ground that the old man could not

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be expected to stoop down and shake the sleeper with his hand. Secondly, the tale of Telemachus’ bad manners is continued: he proposes to depart without leave-taking, and does not even condescend to explain to his comrade why they must depart ‘thus out of season, threading dark-eyed night’. To the first point I reply that Telemachus has just as much right, perhaps more, to arouse his young friend with a kick as Nestor had to apply the same treatment to the magnificent Diomedes; in both cases, the kicker is portrayed as being specially impatient for action, and it is for us to observe what they do, not to dictate to them what they ought to do. The second is very weak: there might be something to complain about, if Telemachus did depart in the middle of the night without taking leave of his royal host; but in fact the proposal, having served its purpose of showing Telemachus to be impatient and anxious, is instantly rejected by his friend, and all proceeds according to strictest etiquette. (5) The speech of Athene, 15. 10-42, has been severely criticized. It is not to be denied that there are imperfections, but most of them may at least as plausibly be ascribed to the distortion of a basic text by rhapsodes over a long period of time. The end of 15. 23, ουδέ μέταλλά, is weak. The repetition of 15. 38-39 from 13. 404-5 overlooks the fact that όμως, which made sense there, makes none here. There is something to be said for the opinion of the ancients that 15. 24-26 were a later (and unworthy) addition to the text. A few other points could be (and have been) made. More important is Kirchhoff’s comment (repeated by Wiiamowitz) on 15. 15 ff: Athene bids Telemachus make haste, or he may be too late, for her father and brothers are commanding Penelope to marry Eurymachus, and she may carry away from home some property against, Telemachus’ will. These, says Kirchhoff, are things which she knows, hot to correspond to the truth; ‘aimless lies’, in the phraseology of Wilamowitz. ‘Aimless’ they are certainly not, for they serve to expedite Telemachus’ departure. And if they do not correspond to the truth, they do correspond to what Telemachus expects and fears; and I do not know what further justification they need. It is not as if Athene were free to tell the truth— that Odysseus is waiting in Eumaeus’ hut, and that the story cannot progress until Telemachus arrives. The poet has (or may have) planned a different way of describing Telemachus’ first awareness of his father’s return. (6) I must not omit to mention the objection taken to 15. 7-9: Telemachus is awake, not dreaming, and it is very remarkable that Athene should appear to a waking mortal in her own shape. See Cauer, Grundfragen 397. (7) There have probably been a number of more or less isolated interpolations: 15. 78-85, athetized by Aristarchus, lines which many have thought (and I agree) rather silly in this context. 15- 113-19 = 4. 613 ff., omitted by P and other manuscript sources, probably rightly. See also Bethe 20, on 15. 160 ff. 15. On 4. 621—4 see Wolf, Prolegomena cxxxi f.; Spohn, De extrema parte Odysseae 9; Hennings, Ueber die Telemachie 212 f. Those who believe the ‘Telemachy’ to represent an independent poem must, and do, attribute the remainder of Book IV (from 625) to their ‘Bearbeiter’. Among its peculiar features are (i) 640: the casual reference to the συβώτης; presumably Eumaeus, though we have not yet heard of him. (ii) 735: the reference to Dolios as a friend of the family, though elsewhere (except in the last Book, which was added later) he is known only as the father of enemies of the family, (iii) 770: this is surely a silly inference from her όλολυγή. (iv) There are some obvious faults in the

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expression, especially at 740, where OÏ is unintelligible; « 758, εϋνησε γόον στέθε δ’ όσσε γόοιο: at 831, where Οεοιο τε εκλυες αυοην is nonsense (should be βκλυον). (v) Linguistic peculiarities are perhaps a little more thickly congre­ gated than usual: the rare short dative in -Οίς within the line occurs at 683 and 753; the optative in -οίη (692) has only one parallel in the Homeric poems (9. 320; Wackernagel, Spr. Unters. 14); on άπαγγείλησι (775) see Wackernagel, ibid. 144; the gen. plur. πατρών (687) recurs in 8. 245. The word (φρένες) άμφφιμέλαιναι (661) does not recur in Od., nor does the phrase (841) νυκτός άμολγφ; the adj. αμαυρόν (824, 835) does not recur in ll. or Od. This sort of evidence proves nothing about authorship or time of composition; though of course it might be used in confirmation of a theory, if only that theory is first firmly based on evidence of a different kind. 16. She does so in very conventional verses: Od. 5. 1-2 = ll. 11. 1-2; Od. 5.3 = partly ll 4. 1, 7.443, partly ll 13. 689, 18. 494; Od 5 . 4 - 11. 14. 54, al., + 2. 118, al.; Od. 5. 7 = 8. 306, 12. 371, 377. But, granted that this scene was to be portrayed, the lines are apt to the context; there is therefore no fault to be found on this score. 17. Od 5. 8-12 - 2. 230-4; 5. 14-17 = 4. 557-60; 5- 18-20 - 4. 700-2. Reinhardt's interpretation of these repetitions as deliberate Rückverweisungen (Won Werken und Formen 38) seems to me to reach the extreme of special pleading. Od. 5. 13 = ll. 2. 721: as the Scholia say, κρατέρ’ αλγεα πάσχων is suitable there, but not here (νυν δε εδει τετιημένος ήτορ είναι). 18. See C. Ε. Schmidt, Parallel-Homer, ρ. viii: he reckons 1,804 lines wholly repeated, their occurrences amounting altogether to 4,730 lines, about one-sixth of ll. and 0d. \including repetitions slightly modified, his figures are 2,118 lines, with 5,612 occurrences. Adding lines repeated not as a whole but separately in both halves (or lesser divisions), the figures amount to 9,253 repetitions, about one-third of the whole of ll. and Od. 19. This second Divine Assembly has long been a thorn in the flesh of the strict Unitarian. Only Reinhardt, who finds no problem anywhere, finds none here; his comment (which reads as though frivolous, but may have been seriously intended) on the scene is gently and properly condemned by Lesky, Homerforschung in der Gegenwart 66. Zielinski, op. cit. 444, says that the technique in 5. 1 if. is ‘wholly analogous’ to that in ll. 15. 56 f. ~ 220 f. That it is wholly analogous' is patently untrue; that there is any resemblance at all is not evident to me. 20. It is disputable how far this new preface extends. I find no good reason to deny that we are in good company again from 5. 50 onwards. Of the intervening lines (21-49), 44-9 are much better adapted to the situation in ll. 24. 340-5, where they recur; and Kirchhoff's argument against 32—40 deserves consideration— the main point is that Zeus here foretells things which are soon to be represented as arising from causes for which Zeus makes, and perhaps could make, no allowance: things which are not within his will and purpose, being partly unpremeditated and fortuitous, partly caused by the intervention of Poseidon, of which Zeus here makes no reckoning. The observation is just, but may well be thought to fall short of proof that the lines in question were added later by a composer ignorant of the normal technique. 21. The primary source of trouble is 269-78. 279-92 are free from difficulty so long as they are not combined with the nonsense which precedes and follows; they may well be a relic of that address which must always have stood in this place within the framework of the First Book, and which must always have given the command to go to Pylos and Sparta. Of the second difficult passage, 293-302, no clear account has been given. Its addition here is not obviously related to the cause

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which led to the substitution of 272-8 for something else; and nothing connects the two passages except the very curious fact that both take the liberty (never repeated, so far as I know, in Greek literature) of using the verb έμπάζομαί without a negative.

7________ _________________________________________ Kleiderdinge.

Zur Analyse der Odyssee*

W. Schadewaldt *Source: Hermes, vol. 87, 1959, pp. 1 3 -2 6 .

1 Als Odysseus sich aus dem Seesturm an das Land der Phaiaken gerettet hat, als er am nächsten Tage, im sechsten Gesang der Odyssee, Nausikaa begegnet ist, die ihn gespeist und gekleidet hat, und er sich nun zum Haus des Alkinoos begeben will, um bei dem König ein Heimgeleit zu erbitten, wird er zweimal mit großem Nachdruck auf die Königin Arete verwiesen. »W enn du schätzest«, sagt Nausikaa zu ihm, als sie vom Fluß und den Waschgruben heimkehren wollen (ζ 297 ff.), »daß wir Mädchen bei den Häusern angelangt sind, dann gehe in die Stadt der Phaiaken und frage nach dem Haus meines Vaters Alkinoos. Leicht ist es zu erkennen; ein kleines Kind könnte dich führen . . . Aber wenn dich dann Haus und Vorhof aufgenommen haben, so gehe schnell durch die Halle, bis du zu meiner Mutter gelangst. Sie sitzt am Herd im Schein des Feuers und dreht meerpurpurne W olle auf der Spindel, an den Pfeiler gelehnt, und die Mägde sitzen hinter ihr. Dort an den Pfeiler ist auch der Sessel meines Vaters gelehnt . . . An ihm mußt du vorübergehen und unserer Mutter die Arme um die Knie werfen, damit du den Tag der Heimkehr siehst, freudig in Eile, und wenn du auch von sehr weit her bist . . . « , 1 Und im nächsten, siebenten Gesang (η 48 ff.) Athene, als sie in Gestalt eines jungen Mädchens den Odysseus durch die Phaiakenstadt zum Haus des Alkinoos geleitet hat: »Dies ist das Haus, das du mich zu zeigen heißest. Du wirst die gott­ genährten Könige finden, wie sie beim Mahle schmausen. Du aber geh hinein und furchte dich nicht in dem Gemüte . . . Zuerst wirst du die Herrin in den Hallen finden: Arete ist sie mit Namen genannt und stammt von den gleichen Ahnen, wie Alkinoos, der K önig«— und die Göttin führt den Stammbaum auf, nach dem Arete die Nichte des Alkinoos ist— : »sie

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hat Alkinoos zu seiner Gattin gemacht und hat sie geehrt, wie keine andere auf Erden geehrt wird, so viele Frauen heute unter dem Gebot der Männer haushalten. So hat jene über die Maßen Ehre empfangen und steht in Ehre bei ihren Söhnen und Alkinoos selber und den Männern des Volks, die auf sie wie auf einen Gott blicken und sie mit Worten begrüßen, wenn sie durch die Stadt geht. Denn es fehlt ihr nicht an edlem Verstand, und welchen sie wohlwill, denen schlichtet sie— sogar Männern— Streitigkeiten. Wenn diese dir freundlich gesonnen ist in dem Gemüt, dann ist für dich Hoffnung, daß du die Deinen siehst und in dein hochbedachtes Haus und dein väterliches Land gelangst.« W ie man ohne weiteres bemerkt, liegen diese beiden Erwähnungen der Königin Arete auf einer klar geführten Linie des Geschehens. Sie sind aufeinander bezogen, und zwar in der Weise, daß die zweite Erwähnung das in der ersten Gesagte weiter entfaltet. In den Worten der Nausikaa kam mit dem Bild der Königshalle zunächst auch das äußere Bild der Frau und Herrin des Hauses herauf, wie sie am Herd mit ihren Mägden bei der Arbeit sitzt; und die Anweisung der Nausikaa an Odysseus, an dem Vater und König vorbeizugehen und die Knie der Mutter zu umfassen, bezeichnet die Bedeutung, die diese Frau für die Gewährung des Heimgeleits für Odysseus haben wird.— In den Worten der Athene wird der Grund dieser Bedeutung sichtbar: Aretes edle Abkunft— darum der Stammbaum2— , die unter ‘heutigen Frauen' ungewöhnliche Ehre, die sie bei Söhnen, Mann und Volk genießt, die hohe Einsicht, die sie besitzt, jene Einsicht, die— schon bei Homer als Keim der ersten Kardinaltugend, der Gerechtigkeit— zumal den Schiedsmann auszeichnet, und schließlich das Ergebnis dieses ihres hohen Ansehens für das Anliegen des Odysseus: ihr gewonnenes W ohlwol­ len würde für ihn bedeuten, daß er das Heimgeleit erwarten darf. Wer auch nur ein wenig mit den Strukturen der epischen Erzählung Homers vertraut ist, muß zumal an der Weise, wie die zweite AreteErwähnung durch Athene die erste durch Nausikaa entfaltend weiterführt, erkennen, daß der Dichter hier nicht nur in episch beiläufiger Art— nach einer vermeintlichen Freude ‘des' Epos am Beiläufigen— das Bild einer bedeutenden Frau entwirft. Die beiden sich steigernd ergänzenden Erwäh­ nungen der Arete sind die Elemente einer übergreifenden Erzählstruktur und haben in dieser eine deutlich über sich selbst hinaus auf das Kommende weisende Funktion. Sie haben den Charakter der Vorbereitung und erwecken als ‘epische Vorbereitung'3 die Erwartung darauf, wie Odysseus, wenn er die Halle des Alkinoos betreten haben wird, das Wohlwollen der Arete und damit— als Hiketes— auch das Heimgeleit gewinnen wird. In der Durchführung nehmen die Dinge einen anderen W eg. Zwar überschreitet Odysseus (η 135), nach dem Rat der Nausikaa, eilig die Schwelle, geht durch das Haus, bis er zu Arete und Alkinoos gelangt, wirft die Arme um die Knie der Arete, während die anderen alle stumm sind und über den Anblick staunen, richtet dann flehend das Wort an die Königin:

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»Arete, Tochter des gottgleichen Rexenor! zu deinem Gatten und zu deinen Knien komme ich, nachdem ich vieles ausgestanden . . .« und setzt sich nach seiner Bitte um das Heimgeleit dann auf den Herd beim Feuer in die Asche, während alle anderen weiter schweigen. Doch entgegen jener durch die Vorbereitung so eindeutig erregten Erwartung gibt keine Arete ihm dann auch nur ein W ort zur Antwort. Daß sie es nicht tut, wird auch nicht irgendwie zum Bild, das heißt zu einer dichterischen Gestaltung, die jener Erwartung— wie es an sich in der Dichtung wohl möglich wäre— durch ein eben dichterisch gestaltetes ausdrückliches Nicht-Erfullen doch Rechnung trüge.4 Vielmehr, Arete ist im folgenden für an die achtzig Verse dichter­ isch überhaupt nicht da. Der alte Heros Echeneos mahnt den Alkinoos, daß es sich nicht gezieme, den Fremden auf dem Herd in der Asche sitzen zu lassen. Der König solle ihn aufheben und auf einen Lehnstuhl niedersitzen lassen, er solle den Herolden befehlen, daß sie neu Wein hinzumischen, damit man Zeus, dem Gott der Schutzflehenden, einen Weihguß bringe, und die Beschließerin solle dem Fremden zu essen geben. Man tut, wie der Alte gesagt hat, und Alkinoos weist sodann in einer programmatischen Rede die bei ihm versammelten Führer der Phaiaken an, nach Hause zu gehen, um sich niederzulegen. Am nächsten Tage in der Frühe wolle man den Fremden in größerem Kreise der Würdenträger bewirten und den Göttern opfern und dann über das Geleit beraten— falls in dem Fremden nicht etwa ein unsterblicher Gott bei ihnen eingekehrt sei, wie das ihnen öfter begegne. Worauf Odysseus es von sich weist, daß er ein Gott sei, und von seinem Kummer und zumal dem Kummer spricht, den ihm der böse Magen bereite, der immer zu essen und zu trinken verlange, und nochmals bittet, ihn, den Unglücklichen, in seine Heimat zu führen. Noch einmal Weihguß und Trunk, Aufbruch der Tischgenossen des Königs, wodurch eine neue, intime Situation entsteht: Alkinoos, Arete und Odysseus in der Halle zurückbleibend, während die Diener die Geräte des Mahls abräumen, und nun in dieser neuen, intimen Situation das Wort der Arete an Odysseus, die an dem Leib des Fremden die Kleider erkannt hat, die ihm Nausikaa gegeben hatte und die sie selbst mit ihren dienenden Frauen gefertigt hat (233 ff-). »Fremderl zuerst will ich dich selber dieses fragen: wer bist du und woher unter den Männern? Wer hat dir diese Kleider gegeben? Sagst du nicht, du seist als ein Umgetriebener über das Meer hierher gekommen?« Und Odysseus berichtet der Königin, wie er von Ogygia und Kalypso kommt und, von einem furchtbaren Seesturm in schwerste Not gebracht, sich nackt an das Gestade der Phaiaken gerettet hat und ihm Nausikaa diese Kleider g a b .5 Daß die Königin an dem Leib des Odysseus das ihr wohlbekannte selbstgefertigte Kleid bemerkt, daß sie den Fremden ‘zuerst einmal’ (πρώτον) nach der Herkunft dieses Kleids befragen will, ist in dem jetzt vorliegenden Erzählzusammenhang, wo der Fremde bereits auf den Rat des Echeneos vom Herde aufgehoben und durch einen Weihguß an Zeus

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feierlich im Kreis der Phaiaken aufgenommen ist, worauf auch bereits Verfügungen über die Versammlung am nächsten Tag getroffen sind, ein Nebenmotiv: ein hübscher, beiläufiger, folgenloser Lebenszug, der intimen Situation entsprechend, in der Odysseus nach dem Aufbruch der Phaiakenfürsten noch für eine Weile mit dem Könige und der Königin zusammen­ sitzt. Allein, ist dieses Motiv des an dem Leib des fremden Mannes wiedererkannten Kleides nicht an sich selber dichterisch viel gewichtiger? Es ist der Träger einer höchst prägnanten Situation', ein fremder Mann, Schutz und ein Heimgeleit erflehend, auf einmal vor den Füßen der Königin, alle verstummend, und die Königin, als sie auf den Menschen blickt, mit dem sicheren Blick der Frau und Hausfrau ein Tuch aus ihrer eigenen Truhe am Leib des Fremden gewahr werdend— das ist ein erstaunliches Aprosdoketon, eine Konstellation von schönstem Geist und Leben. Mit anderen Worten: wägt man das Motiv des Kleides recht, so führt es auf die Vermutung, jene Frage der Arere nach dem Kleid sei die so sorgsam vorbereitete, auf die Bitte des Odysseus erwartete erste Antwort der Königin. Das heißt, die Verse 233 ff., die zur Frage der Arere nach dem Kleid fuhren, standen ursprünglich einmal im nächsten Zusammenhang mit der Bitte des schutz­ flehenden Odysseus 146 ff., und die ganze Zwischenhandlung mit der Mahnung des Echeneos, der Aufnahme, Speisung des Odysseus, der Rede des Alkinoos und der Antwort des Odysseus bis;zum Aufbruch der Phaiakenfürsten ist ein späterer Einschub. Zwei Einzelheiten würden den Ansatz dieses Einschubs bestätigen: einmal jenes ‘zunächst einmal’ (π ρ ώ τον ) der Arete, sodann ihr W ort (239): »Sagst du nicht, du seiest als ein über das Mew Umgetriebener hierher gekommen?«— Von diesem Umgetriebensein über das Meer hat Odysseus in dem ganzen jetzigen Zusammenhang (148-225) kein W ort gesagt. Er muß aber nach der so eindeutigen Bemerkung der Arete davon gesprochen haben, und dann doch wohl in seiner Bitte um Hilfe an sie, bald nach V. 147. Der Einschub, auf den wir auf unserem Wege, beim Verfolgen der Erzählstrukturen, beim Wägen der Motive und dem Umreißen der Situa­ tionen hinauskommen, ist, mit etwas anderer Begrenzung, bereits von der Odyssee-Analyse, auf Grund vorwiegend negativer Kriterien, wie des ‘Unnatürlichen’, ‘Unbilligen’, ‘Unpassenden’, der ‘Inkonsequenz’, der ‘Mattheit’ des Stils usw., angenommen worden.6 Auch wir sind der Über­ zeugung, daß diese traditionellen Anstöße in dem vorliegenden Falle gewichtig sind und sich rein an sich selbst nicht wegharmonisieren lassen. Seltsam unvermittelt kommt die Bemerkung des Alkinoos herein, der Fremde könnte ein Gott sein, kurios und mehr als das in diesem Zusam­ menhang der Rekurs des Odysseus auf die ständigen Forderungen des hungrigen Magens, dazu die Betonung der Schicklichkeit und des Zeremoniells durch Echeneos, der Programmcharakter des Hauptteils der Rede des Alkitioos, die Hereinziehung der Schicksalsgöttinnen (196 ff. aus Ilias Y 127 ff.) und manches andere.7 Allein, zu oft haben sich in der

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Homer-Analyse solche lediglich negativen Kriterien als unadäquat und gar zu subjektiv erwiesen, als daß sie für die strengeren Forderungen einer Analyse von Dichtung mehr als den Verdacht begründen könnten. Ist aber eine Dichtung durch Einlagen erweitert worden, so muß diese Dichtung selbst, als Dichtung, mit ihren recht vernommenen Strukturen, ihrer Motiventfaltung auf positive Weise den Nachweis dafür bringen, daß sie durch jene Einlagen gestört ist. Dies ist in unserem Zusammenhang der Fall. Nachdem die Bedeutung der Königin Arete von langer Hand so vorbereitet wurde, daß ganz entschieden die Erwartung auf ihre Antwort, ihr zu erweckendes Wohlwollen gegen den Fremden gerichtet ist, kann die Erzählung sich nach Odysseus' Anrede an sie nicht so unter völliger Nicht­ beachtung der Arete in Fragen der Schicklichkeit, des Zeremoniells, des Programms für den nächsten Tag, des Meinungsaustauschs über die mögliche Göttlichkeit und Nicht-Göttlichkeit des Odysseus verlieren. Es ist, als ob an dieser Stelle ein bisher starker, seiner Richtung bewußter Strom stockt und sich ins Flache ausbreitet und in stehenden Wassern und Nebenrinnsalen verliert, bis er mit der Frage der Arete an Odysseus und seiner Antwort dann wieder zielklar weiterströmt. Wenn dieses aber allzu bildlich ist: die Anrede des Odysseus an die Königin verlangt nach der dichterischen Logik jener so nachdrücklich gegebenen Vorbereitung die Antwort der Königin. Und wenn wir nun sehen, daß diese Antwort, die jetzt durch das angenommene Zwischenstück gleichsam abgesprengt und dem bloß Intimen überliefert ist, auf dem Aprosdoketon beruht, daß die königliche Frau am Leib des fremden Mannes das Tuch aus ihrer eigenen Truhe wahrnimmt, so bildet dieses Aprosdoketon eine geschlossene dichterische Torrn' und wird als solche zum Träger jener ungemein wirksamen, gesam­ melten dichterischen Situation, die, in dem jetzigen Zusammenhang aus­ einandergesprengt, sich mit dem Herauserkennen des Einschubs (von ca. 148-232) erst wieder zu eigener fester Form zusammenschließt. 8— W ir kennen auch sonst Homer als den Gestalter solcher einfachen, geist- und lebensreichen Situationen.

2 Indessen, nicht nur die Gestalt der Königin Arete und ihre Bedeutung für die Aufnahme des Odysseus bei den Phaiaken ist von längerer Hand vorbe­ reitet, sondern auch der Träger jenes Aprosdoketon, das Kleid aus der Truhe der Königin am Leibe des Odysseus, und dieses in einer ganz umfassenden Weise. Und indem wir diesen Zusammenhang verfolgen, werden wir über Vorbereitung und engere Erzählstruktur hinaus auf die dichterische Gestal­ tung in einem ganz umfassenden Sinne verwiesen. Was wir beobachten, ist die große Kraft Homers, ein einfaches Lebensding, eine schlichte, aber bedeutungsvolle Lebenswirklichkeit in die Hand zu nehmen und sie sich

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nach allen Seiten so entfalten zu lassen, daß ein Gebilde entsteht, das nur Natur zu sein scheint und doch, eben als Natur, ein ‘GesetzmäßigLebendiges’9 ist. Hier geht es nicht darum, nachzurechnen und ein Früher oder Spater der Erfindung zu statuieren, es geht darum, dieses kunster­ zeugte Naturgebilde nach Möglichkeit in seiner lebendigen Ganzheit zu umfassen und dabei doch das innerliche Gesetzmäßige, das es durchdringt und regelt, zu vernehmen, um so die durch die Einlage verursachte Störung der dichterischen Gestaltung um so gewisser zu erkennen. Das Gebilde, von dem wir sprechen, ist die Gestalt der Königstochter und Wäscherin am Fluß: Nausikaa. Nausikaa, mit ihren geheimen Mädchenwünschen, ihrem ganzen mädchenhaften Tun und Treiben, vor allem ihrem Unternehmen, an der Flußmündung draußen, wo auch die Waschgruben sind, ihren Wasch­ tag zu halten, ist— in der von uns hier eingenommenen Sicht— die ‘Vorbereitung’ jenes von Arete wiedererkannten Kleides. Der Gedanke, in der Gestalt der Nausikaa eine ganze Mädchenwelt mit ihren liebenswürdigen Einzelheiten in das Epos von den Taten und Leiden des viel umgetriebenen Mannes hineinzuziehen, ist so ungewöhnlich, daß wir wohl sagen dürfen, diese Nausikaa ist von dem Dichter frei erschaffen worden. Ein junges Mädchen, in dem Alter, in welchem junge Mädchen vornehmlich eines im K opf haben, ob sie es sich zugestehen oder nicht: sie wollen heiraten. Man träumt davon, träumt davon in der unschuldigen Weise, daß dem Mädchen eine Gefährtin im Traum erscheint und es der Nachlässigkeit gegen die— Wäsche zeiht. Dehn kommt die Hochzeit, will man selber schön angezogen sein und muß. auch den Brautführern schöne Kleider reichen. Mit den jungmädchenhaften Heiratswünschen ist unwill­ kürlich auch der Gedanke an Kleider heraufgekommen, die Sorge für schönes sauberes Zeug für Vater und Brüder, die Entscheidung für den Waschtag, was unter der geheimen Führung der Göttin Athene nun bewirkt, daß man mit der Wäsche, die man waschen will, und allen guten Dingen ausge­ stattet zur Flußmündung nahe dem Meer hinausfährt, wo Odysseus nach seiner Rettung aus der Seenot im Busch verborgen in tiefem Schlafe liegt. Dem Odysseus kommt so mit Nausikaa und ihren Wäscherinnen fürsorg­ lich eine ganze W elt der Pflege, Gesittung, Feinheit, Anmut— Sappho würde es άβ ροσύνη nennen— , kommt eine ganze Kleiderwelt entgegen. Denn Odysseus ist nach dem W illen des Dichters am Ende seiner Irrfahrt und am Beginn seiner eigentlichen Heimkehr noch einmal in die Not hinabgestoßen worden. Er ist durch den Seesturm bis auf die Haut entblößt, zerschlagen, entkräftet, entstellt, ‘entmenscht’ . W ie ein Tier hat er sich zum Schlafen unter das Laub verkrochen, und wild und ungestalt wie ein bergernährter Löwe, regennaß und winddurchweht, tritt er den Mädchen nun ‘nackt’ (636) entgegen, sich nur notdürftig mit einem abgebrochenen Zweig die Scham bedeckend. A uf den Kontrast dieses ‘Unmenschen’ zu jener feinsten Menschlichkeit, die Frauenpflege und Frauenanmut in der Gestalt der Königstochter verkörpert, ist die erste Begegnung des Odysseus

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und Nausikaas gestellt, auch dieses eine jener homerischen 'Situationen’. Und als es dem wohlgesetzten, weltkundigen und bewegenden Wort, das, wunderbar genug, aus dem Mund dieses Unmenschen kommt, dann gelingt, die Königstochter zu gewinnen— auch das Motiv der Hochzeit ist hier fortgesponnen (158 ff. und 181-185)— , da schildert das Weitere dann die erste Aufnahme des Umhergetriebenen, Schutzflehenden wieder unter Menschen. Es geht darum, daß der von der Not Entblößte Pflege und Speise, vor allem aber ein Kleid empfängt. Um einen 'Fetzen’ also bittet Odysseus die Königstochter, »ihn sich umzuwerfen, wenn sie vielleicht ein Wickeltuch für Wäsche hatte, als sie herkam« (178). Ein Kleid vornehm­ lich sagt ihm Nausikaa zu (192); einen gutgewaschenen Mantel und Leibrock sollen die Mägde ihm geben und ihn im flusse baden (209a f.),10 und Mantel und Leibrock legen ihm die Mägde an der windgeschütz­ ten Stelle, wo er sich baden soll, am Flusse nieder. Und als Odysseus sich gebadet und das Salz des Meeres von Haupt und Schultern gerieben hat, legt er die Kleider an, die die unbezwungene Jungfrau ihm gereicht hat (228), und Athene gießt ihm Anmut um Haupt und Schultern, wie ein geschickter Goldschmied Gold um Silber gießt. Strahlend von Schönheit und Anmut sitzt er abseits am Ufer des Meeres nieder, zum Staunen des Mädchens, das meint, daß er jetzt den Göttern gleiche, und sich einen solchen Mann zum Gatten wünschen möchte. Man reicht dem Odysseus dann noch Speise und Trank, wie in wenigen Versen abschließend gesagt wird (247-250). Suchen wir uns der Wuchsform der ganzen Nausikaa-Dichtung des sechsten Gesanges zu vergewissern, so bemerken wir, wie dieses Stück Dichtung in drei Schwüngen, drei Kurvengängen, drei gleichsam musika­ lischen 'Sätzen’ entwickelt ist. Die erste Kurve umspannt das Geschehen vom Traum der Nausikaa, ihre dem Vater vorgetragene Bitte um den Wagen und die Gewährung dieser Bitte, der Fahrt zum Fluß, dem Waschen und Trocknen der Wäsche und dem Ballspiel, wo wir mit dem Vergleich der Nausikaa mit Artemis unter den Nymphen den Gipfel des ersten 'Satzes’ erreichen. Während dieses Geschehens ist Odysseus nur im Hinter­ grund zugegen: als der, für den Athene sorgt und der während der Arbeit und des Spiels der Mädchen in dem nahen Busch im Schlaf liegt (ζ 1—109). Die zweite Kurve beginnt mit dem Schrei der Mädchen, als der Ball in den Fluß fällt, und dem Erwachen des Odysseus und umspannt die Aufnahme des Odysseus durch Nausikaa. Sie hat deutlich zwei Höhepunkte: jenes Gegenüber des Entblößten und Entstellten und der feinen mutigen Königs­ tochter, und jene Verschönerung nach dem Bade und dem Anlegen des Kleides, der der Dichter durch das Gleichnis des um Silber gegossenen Goldes sowie das Staunen der Jungfrau und ihren Wunsch, einen solchen Mann zum Gatten zu haben, die volle dichterische Resonanz gibt (ζ 110250). Die dritte und letzte Kurve überspannt den Aufbruch der Mädchen vom Fluß, die Rede und Anweisung der Nausikaa an Odysseus, und gipfelt

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in dem Geber des in dem heiligen Hain der Athene wartenden Odysseus an die Göttin, daß sie ihn erhören und ihn bei den Phaiaken Freundlichkeit und Erbarmen finden lassen möge (ζ 251-331). Das Ganze ist von dem Odysseus her konzipiert, den der Dichter durch den Seesturm noch einmal in die tiefste Not und Entblößung hinabge­ stoßen hat. Und jeder spürt, wie schön und bewegend es gemacht ist, daß dem so mit dem Tode Ringenden, mit Mühe dem Tode Entgangenen das Leben in der Gestalt junger liebenswürdiger Frauen entgegen tritt. Blicken wir auf die Handlung, so ist diese Handlung eine Entfaltung des Grundmotivs der ‘Aufnahme des Schutzsuchenden \ Diese Aufnahme mag sich, wo sie sonst wohl von der Dichtung gestaltet wird, in einem einzigen Akt vollziehen. In unserem vorliegenden Fall hat der Dichter die Aufnahme des Odysseus bei den Phaiaken in mehreren Stufen entwickelt und gestaffelt und diese Staffelung zum Träger eines besonderen Sinnes gemacht. Die Aufnahme dieses Schutzflehenden ist die Aufnahme eines durch die Not Entmenschten zum Menschen unter Menschen. Und eben durch diesen ihren menschlichen Sinn wird sie zu einem jener geistigen Abenteuer, die der Dichter aus der alten überlieferten Abenteuer-Erzählung von den Irrfahrten des Odysseus entwickelt und die in fast ununterbrochener Reihe das eigentliche Geschehen seines neuen ‘homerischen’ Heimkehrgedichtes bilden. In diesem Abenteuer der Wiederaufnahme des Odysseus unter Menschen bildet die Begegnung mit Nausikaa die erste Stufe. Hier geht es um das Wieder-Menschwerden des' vom Meere Ausgeworfenen, Entblößten, Entkräfteten, Beschmutzten und Entstellten zunächst durch die Befriedigung der grundlegendsten und natürlichsten Ansprüche, durch die man wieder Mensch sein kann. Die Dreiheit: Reinigung und Pflege des Leibes, Speisung und Kräftigung, sowie als drittes Bekleidung bezeichnen diese. Doch ist die Bekleidung des Entblößten in diesem menschlichen Sinn die wichtigste. Das Kleid mag in seiner ständisch und gesellschaftlich gar zu festgelegten Form den Menschen gar zu sehr in eine nur teilhafte Weise des Menschseins hineinverengen und darum, zumal in der Gestalt der ‘Uniform’, bewirken, daß er als gesellschaftliches, behördliches, amtliches Wesen nicht mehr recht Mensch ist. In der primitiven Nacktheit jedoch ist der Mensch auch wieder ‘noch nicht’ Mensch. So haben die Griechen keineswegs die Nacktheit rein als solche kultiviert, sondern ihr nur unter wohlumgrenzten, letztlich kultischen Bedingungen Raum gegeben. Im allgemeinen ist es jedoch das Kleid, das auch bei ihnen den Menschen unter Menschen zum Menschen macht, das, wie im gesteigerten Sinn seine Waffen, gleichsam ein Teil von ihm selber ist. 11 Um dieses ‘menschlichen’ Sinnes des Kleides willen ist die erste Auf­ nahme des Odysseus durch Nausikaa beim Fluß und an der Meeresküste zumal auf jene Gewinnung eines Kleides durch Odysseus gestellt, nach der er so verschönt und so erstrebenswert als Mann für ein junges Mädchen schließlich still abseits an der Küste des Meeres sitzt.

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3 Es zeichnet den großen Dichter aus, daß er mit einem Griff vieles faßt und daß unter seiner Hand das in einem Sinne Ergriffene zugleich auch wieder in einem andern, neuen Sinne fruchtbar und bedeutend wird. Das Kleid, das Odysseus von Nausikaa empfängt und das ihn auf jener ersten Stufe seiner Aufnahme bei den Phaiaken wieder zum Menschen unter Menschen macht, stammt aus der Truhe der Königin Arete. Sollen wir meinen, daß nach all diesem die Wiedererkennung dieses Kleides durch die Frau, die es mit ihren eigenen Händen gefertigt hat, auf der zweiten Stufe der Aufnahme des Odysseus bei den Phaiaken nur abgesprengt und nebenbei hineinkommt? Ich spreche nicht von rationalem Planen, ich spreche von dem naiv weisen dichterischen Griff. Doch das Erkennen dieses dichterischen Griffs eben scheint darauf zu deuten, daß das Motiv des Kleides, nachdem es sich bereits auf der ersten Stufe der Aufnahme des Odysseus, durch Nausikaa, herrlich bewährt hat, gleichsam einen zweiten Sproß treibt und sich nun auch bei seiner Aufnahme in der Königshalle noch einmal aufs neue und aufs schönste bewährt. Dadurch, daß die Königin am Leib des fremden Mannes ein Stück ihres eigensten Eigentums gewahr wird und hört, daß er durch ihre Tochter dazu gelangt ist, ist dieser Fremde ihr gleichsam bereits zu eigen gegeben und damit auch schon unwillkürlich ihres so entschei­ denden Wohlwollens versichert.12 In diesem Sinne ist es, daß wir vorhin in einer etwas technisch reduzierten Weise sagten, daß Nausikaa und ihre W elt, ihre Sorge für sauberes Zeug, ihr Waschen, die ‘Vorbereitung’ des von der Königin Arete am Leib des Odysseus wiedererkannten Kleides sei. Das ganze Geschehen von der Entblößung und Entmenschung des Odysseus, von Nausikaas, ihr durch Athene eingegebenem, Vorhaben, am Fluß zu waschen, bewegt sich auf jenes Aprosdoketon hin, daß die Königin ihr Selbstgewirktes in dem Kleid am Leibe des Fremden erkennt. In dieser weit ausladenden und sich dann immer mehr verengenden Bewegung des Geschehens ist die spezielle Vorbereitung der Arete und ihrer Bedeutung für die zweite Stufe der Aufnahme des Odysseus in der Halle der Phaiaken nur ein einzelner Zug, der sinngemäß später einsetzt und jener ganzen weit ausladenden Gestaltung gegenüber einsträngiger und gradliniger auf die Königin hinführt. Die ganze Gestaltung dieses sich von erster Aufnahme durch Nausikaa zu zweiter Aufnahme durch Arete fortbewegenden Geschehens offenbart in aller ihrer freien Natur aber soviel MusikalischGesetzmäßiges, daß jene Absprengung der Arete-Antwort und ihre Über­ führung ins nur Beiläufig-Intime aus dem Begreifen dieses ganzen Dicht­ geschehens nun schließlich als innere. Unmöglichkeit erscheinen muß. Was jene traditionellen Anstöße längst nahelegten: jener Einschub im siebenten Buch von ca. 148-232 erweist sich damit als durchaus zurecht bestehend auf Grund der Gestaltung, die, unter der Bedingung der Beseitigung jenes Einschubs, erst recht eigentlich zum Vorschein kommt.

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4 Zur Abrundung des Vorgetragenen mag schließlich noch ein kurzer Blick auf das weiter kommende Geschehen dienen. Nach allem, was wir über die Vorbereitung der Arete und die Bedeutung des von ihr an Odysseus wiedererkannten Kleids gesagt haben, muß die Königin auch nach dem Bericht des Odysseus über seinen Schiffbruch auf dem Meer, seine Begegnung mit Nausikaa und die Erlangung des Kleids noch einmal zu Worte gekommen sein: sie ist es, die Odysseus auch am Ende seines Berichtes noch einmal anredet (290): » . . . deiner Tochter« (τεής -θυγατρός). Und richtig erweist sich bei näherem Hinsehen auch das seltsam kurzatmige Gespräch zwischen Alkinoos und Odysseus, das jetzt an dieser Stelle folgt— es betont wieder Fragen der Schicklichkeit und bringt das mehr als kuriose Angebot des Königs an den noch unbekannten Fremden, sein Eidam zu werden— , auch an sich selbst als eine weitere Einlage.13 In wenigen Worten mag anstelle dieses Gespräches vielmehr Arete (nach 297) zunächst die Aufnahme des Fremden ausgesprochen und ihn dem Gatten für das Heimgeleit empfohlen haben, das dann Alkinoos in einer Rede, von der noch die Verse 317—328 aus der ursprünglichen Dichtung stammen, aus eigener Machtvollkommenheit ‘auf morgen’ festsetzt.14 Mit dem Gebet des Odysseus an Zeus, in dem er alles Gute auf Alkinoos herabwünscht und für sich selbst die Heimkehr erbittet— das Gebet entspricht sowohl seinem O rt’ wie der Gestaltung nach dem Gebet des Odysseus an Athene am Ende des Nausikaa-Gesanges— endet die Aufnahme des Odysseus in der phaiakischeii Königshalle, die nach jener Aufnahme des Odysseus durch Nausikaa am Meeresstrande die zweite Stufe jenes Geschehens einer gestaffelten Aufnahme des Odysseus bei den Phaiaken ist. A uf diesen beiden ersten Stufen der Aufnahme ist Odysseus noch ein Fremder, Unbekannter. Die dritte Stufe wird die sein, wo er nach dem Lied des Sängers Demodokos in Tränen ausbricht und Alkinoos ihn nach Namen, Herkunft und seinen Leiden befragt und Odysseus sodann mit der Nennung seines Namens auch in Person und offenkundig im Kreise der Phaiaken eigentlich ‘da ist’ . Die Abenteuererzählung, die dann folgt— von dem Dichter so gestaltet, daß durchaus nicht nur ‘Abenteuer’ berichtet werden, sondern daß sich aus diesen, über das bloß Abenteuerliche hinaus, die Einheit eines ‘Schicksals erhebt15— steigert dies personale Dasein des Odysseus im Kreis der Phaiaken zu voller plastischer Gegenwart. Die Ehrung, die in der Form reicher Geschenke ihm nach seinem Schicksalsbe­ richt zuteil wird, vollendet auf der vierten Stufe seine ‘Aufnahme bei den 'Phaiaken , worauf der nächste Tag mit dem Zeremoniell, das nach der Sitte dem Heimgeleit vorangeht, und die Heimbringung selbst am Beginn des dreizehnten Gesanges nur in gedrängter Form erzählt wird. Das Ganze ist seit der Abfahrt des Odysseus von Kalypso und dem

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Seesturm der ihn noch einmal in die Not hinabstieß, mit jenem vierfach gestaffelten Geschehen seiner Aufnahme bei den Phaiaken der erste Teil der 'Heimkehr des Odysseus , sein äußerer W eg bis zur Landung auf Ithaka, dem dann alsbald mit der Verwandlung in die Bettlergestalt ein zweiter Abstieg in die Entstellung, Niedrigkeit und Dunkelheit und darauf mit neuem gestaffelten Aufstieg seiner Heimkehr zweiter Teil: die Wiedergewinnung seines Hauses bis zur Wiedergewinnung der Frau, folgen wird. Das Ganze ist ‘Heimkehr, in dem urmenschlichen Sinne eines eigent­ lichen Wieder-zu-sich-selber-Kommens, dargestellt in lebendigen Situati­ onen von viel Realistik, aber einer Bedeutung, die durchgehend mehr als realistisch ist. Die vierfach gestaffelte Aufnahme bei den Phaiaken durch­ läuft mit der Gewinnung des Kleids, der Hilfsbereitschaft guter Menschen, der Wiedergewinnung des Namens und der Person, der hohen Ehrung schon einmal den ganzen Kreis dieses Wieder-zu-sich-selber-Kommens. Soweit der umfassendste Zusammenhang, aus dem die dichterische Würde des Kleides, das Nausikaa dem Odysseus gibt, das Arete an ihm wahrnimmt, im weitesten Sinne bestätigt wird.

5 Verzichten müssen wir in diesem Aufsatz darauf, auch noch die von uns bezeichnete Einlage (η 148-232), wie es wohl billig wäre, in die Hand zu nehmen und— statt die hier freilich handgreiflich mangelnde Gestaltungs­ kraft lediglich herabzusetzen und auf sie zu schelten— vielmehr nach der Eigenart, der Absicht dieser Eindichtung zu fragen, die als etwas uns Gegebenes doch auch unserem Verstehen anvertraut ist. Die Einlage ist keine beliebige Interpolation. Neben ihr stehen in der Odyssee zahlreiche andere ähnliche Einlagen, die sich auf einem ähnlich positiven W ege der Strukturbetrachtung, wie wir ihn hier beschritten haben, herauserkennen lassen. Sie alle treten zu dem Werk einer Bearbeitung zusammen, 16 durch die ein jüngerer Dichter (B) die ältere Odyssee-Dichtung (A) nach neuen Ansprüchen und einem wohlerwogenen Plan etwa um ein Drittel erweitert hat. Zu der Erkenntnis der geistigen und dichterischen Physiognomie dieses Bearbeiters— mit seinen Vorlieben, Tendenzen, Anschauungen, Fragen, Forderungen— gelangen wir aufsteigend von einer vergleichenden Betrach­ tung aller dieser Zudichtungen des B; und wieder absteigend von diesem so erreichten Ganzen ließe sich sodann die Art und innere Absicht auch unserer Einlage überzeugend kenntlich machen. Dies ist für diesmal nicht mehr möglich, und so sei vorläufig nur das gesagt, daß die bereits erwähnten Eigentümlichkeiten unseres Einschubs: die Betonung des Schicklichen, des richtigen Zeremoniells, das Rechnen mit göttlichen Manifestationen in jeglicher Gestalt und bei häufiger Gele­ genheit, der Sinn für das Intime, Beiläufige, im besonderen aber auch etwa

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jenes Motiv des hungrigen Magens17 sämtlich, auch sonst in Einschüben nachweisbare, Charakteristika des B sind. Die Absicht, die überhaupt die Einlage hervorgerufen hat, liegt deutlich genug in jenem Programm zutage, mit dem Alkinoos in seiner Rede (η 188 ff.) die Fürsten der Phaiaken heimschickt und eine größere Versammlung der Würdenträger für den nächsten Tag beruft, wo man auch des Heimgeleits für den Fremden Erwähnung tun soll. Dieses Programm stellt die Klammer dar, mit der der zweite Tag des Odysseus bei den Phaiaken, der im nächsten, achten Gesänge erzählt wird, in die A-Dichtung eingebunden wird.— Daß dieser zweite Tag nach Erfindung und Gestaltung dem Bearbeiter gehört, hat schon A. Kirchhoff erkannt. Auch wir wurden in unserem Zusammenhang darauf geführt und glauben im übrigen auch in der ganzen dichterischen Physiognomie des größten Teils dieses achten Gesangs die Art des Bearbei­ ters B mit hinlänglicher Deutlichkeit zu erkennen.18 In der ursprünglichen A-Dichtung wurden die Phaiakenfürsten nicht, wie nur in der Einlage vorgesehen, weggeschickt— es ist noch nicht gar so spät am Abend— , sondern der Sänger Demodokos wurde herbeigeholt, er sang ein Lied, das den Odysseus erfreute und ihn nach dem Lied vom hölzernen Pferde fragen ließ.19 Worauf Odysseus, als er das Lied vernimmt, in Tränen ausbricht, Alkinoos ihn nach dem Namen fragt20 und Odysseus sich den Phaiaken zu erkennen gibt und seine Schicksale berichtet. Auch die letzten beiden Teile der Aufnahme des Odysseus bei den Phaiaken bis zu seiner Ehrung am Beginn des dreizehnten Gesangs ereigneten sich in der Dichtung A noch am selben Abend und in dem gleichen geschlossenen Erzählzusammenhang. Indessen, diese weitergehenden Dinge reichen über die Absicht dieses Aufsatzes hinaus, in dem es vor allem darum ging, in einer Forschungslage, in der befreundete und gelehrte Männer auch heute noch auf der einen Seite eine Vielheit von Händen an der Entstehung der Odyssee beteiligt denken, auf der anderen fest an die ursprüngliche dichterische Einheit des überlie­ ferten Gedichtes glauben, ein Beispiel für viele dafür zu geben, wie das Verfolgen der Strukturen des Dichterischen, der Erfindung und Entfaltung der Motive in der Odyssee, anders als in der Ilias, durchaus auf eine analytische Lösung drängt, und wie andererseits eine solche Betrachtung der Strukturen und der Motiventfaltung auch wieder geeignet ist, der bisher vorwiegend mit ‘Anstößen’ und anderen nur negativen Erkenntnis­ mitteln verfahrenden Analyse einen noch kaum beachteten Bereich positiv gestalthafter Kriterien zu eröffnen.

Anmerkungen 1. Da die Verse 313/15 in einem Teil der Handschriften fehlen, will ich von ihnen hier keinen Gebrauch machen. Was nicht heißen soll, daß ich sie mit von der Mühll u.a. streiche.

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2 Die Verse η 56—68 sind also keineswegs Zudichtung, wie gegen Kirchhoff, Die homerische Odyssee, 2. Aufl. Berlin 1879, 205 auch von der Mühll, RE. Odyssee’ Sp. 7X4 f. gesehen hat, der vor allem auch treffend auf die Gleichartigkeit mit der Exposition 6 , 3 ff verweist. 3 . Worüber ausführlich: Iliasstudien, Leipzig 1938, 15 f.; Von Homers Weit und Werk, 2. Aufl, Stuttgart 1951, 46 ff. 4. Auch ein von dem Dichter eigens gestalteter ‘Aufschub'— wie in der Fußwaschung τ 393-467 oder zu Beginn der Bogenprobe φ 13—41 würde eine andere Erzählweise verlangen. 5. In dem vortrefflichen Bericht des Odysseus streiche ich am Anfang nur, mit Aristarch, 251-258 als sekundäre erweiternde Rhapsoden-Variante. 6 . Grundlegend A. Kirchhoff, Die Homerische Odyssee, 2. Aufl. 1879, Berlin, 208 f., der auch das Entscheidende auf seine Weise richtig gesehen hat: » . . . und Arete muß sich bequemen, die Befriedigung ihrer natürlichen Neugierde hinaus­ zuschieben, und überhaupt in sehr unerwarteter und unbilliger Weise fürs erste zurückstehen. Alkinoos übernimmt die Leitung der Geschäfte und fördert Odysseus' Angelegenheiten allerdings bis zu einem Punkte, daß für Arete kaum noch eine Einwirkung übrig bleibt, trotzdem daß im Vorhergehenden gerade auf diese schon im Voraus ein so starkes Gewicht gelegt worden ist.« Man vergleiche ferner etwa von der Mühll a. O. 716; R. Merkelbach, Untersuchungen zur Odyssee, München 1951, l 6 l. In manchem anders Ed. Schwartz, Die Odyssee, München 1924, 18. 20. 23. 164. Gegen Schwartz Fr. Focke, Die Odyssee, Stuttgart-Berlin 1943, 126 ff.— Nach Kirchhoff umfaßt der Einschub nur die Verse 185-232, während wir ihn auf Grund von 239 sich bis ca. 148 zurückerstrecken lassen. Daß die bestimmte Frage 239 (s. o. S. 16) »implicite« auf 152 (έπει δή δηθά φίλων άπο πήματα πάσχω.) verweise (von der Mühll 7 1 6 ), ist ein nur schwacher Ausweg. Übrigens beachte man, wie die etwas nachklappende Erwähnung der Tischgenossen 148 in den nächsten zweieinhalb Versen das stärkste Gewicht erhält, und sodann 151 die eigentliche Bitte um das Heimgeleit nicht mehr an Arete, sondern an alle Angeredeten gerichtet ist: οτρύνετε. 7. Zum Beispiel sucht die Einlage, und nur sie, die Bedeutung des Adels gegenüber dem Herrscherpaar, offenbar nach dem Vorbild des in den ionischen Städten neben dem Königtum aufstrebenden Adels, zu betonen. Vgl. 2U dem ganzen Problem V. Bartoletti: Aristocrazia e monarchia nelF »Odissea«, Studi Italiani di Filología Classica 12, 1935, 213 f f — Im übrigen von der Mühll 715 ff 8 . Es sei bemerkt, daß der Anschluß von 233 an ca. 146/7 leider nicht bruchund fugenlos ist. Möglich, daß nach der Bitte des Odysseus mit noch einem oder zwei Versen gesagt war, daß Odysseus aufstand oder sich auf den Herd setzte, ehe dann die Frage der Arete 233 ff. folgte. Möglich auch, daß er— wie Priamos vor Achilleus Ilias Ω 477-515— länger vor Arete kniete (gegen Wilhelm Mattes: Odysseus bei den Phaiaken, Würzburg 1958, I 68). Ich stelle über solche Möglich­ keiten keine Betrachtungen an, spreche lediglich das aus, was positiv die Struktur erweist, und postuliere allerdings auf Grund von 239 die ausdrückliche Erwähnung des Umgetriebenseins auf dem Meer ‘bald’ nach 147. 9. Goethe, Campagne in Frankreich, Münster November 1792: Jub. Ausg. Band 28, 185. 10. Mit Kirchhoff a. O. 203 halte ich die in nur einer Handschrift überlieferte, von den Ausgaben als Vers 209a geführte Erwähnung der Kleider für unentbehr­ lich, setze also 209a an Stelle von 209 in den Text. Vgl. von der Mühll 714. 11. Zur Bedeutung des Kleides bei den Griechen R. Harder, Eigenart der Griechen, Freiburg 1949, 12 ff.

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1 2 . Ein Reflex dieser Auffassung mag es sein, daß Arete λ 338 den Odysseus 'ihren’ Gast nennt: ξεινος δ’ αΰτ’ έμός έστίν. 13. »Tadel und Entschuldigung der Nausikaa ist ausgezeichnet«: von der Mühll 716. Hier weiche ich einmal ins Negative ab und folge— wenn auch aus anderen Gründen— Kirchhoff 210. 14. Dieses ‘auf morgen’ ist zwar nicht »unachtsam« von dem Bearbeiter von der Mühlls stehen gelassen worden, denn im Intermezzo’ des elften Gesangs wird Odysseus korrigierend nachträglich zum Bleiben für einen weiteren Tag aufgefor­ dert (bes. 351 f). Dennoch gibt dieses auf morgen’ im Zusammenhang mit anderen Argumenten einen bedeutungsvollen Hinweis darauf, daß in der ursprüng­ lichen Dichtung Odysseus nur zwei Tage bei den Phaiaken war. Vgl. von der Mühll 716 , wogegen jetzt, im unitarischen Sinne, doch mich nicht überzeugend, W. Mattes a. O. 62 ff. 15. K. Reinhardt, Die Abenteuer der Odyssee, in: Von Werken und Formen, Godesberg 1948, 66 . 16. Uber diese ‘Bearbeitung’, wie ich sie, in mancher Hinsicht anders als P. von der Mühll, zu sehen glaube, vgl. meine Nacherzählung der Heimkehr des Odysseus: Taschenbuch für junge Menschen, Berlin u. Frankfurt, Suhrkamp 1946, 177 ff; Die Odyssee in deutsche Prosa übersetzt, Hamburg 1958, 327 ff; sowie Der Prolog der Odyssee, Festschrift für W. Jaeger, Harvard Studies 1958. 17. Z. B. Odyssee ρ 286 ff.; 473 ff; σ 53 f. 18. Die den größten Teil des achten Buchs ausmachenden B-Partien aufgeführt im Nachwort zu meiner Odyssee-Übersetzung a. O. 330. 19- Ich vermute, daß das erste Lied, das bei A Demodokos sang, der Schwank von der Liebe des Ares und der Aphrodite war (266—369), der durch seine dichterische Gestaltung entschieden aus der sonstigen B-Umgebung hervorsticht. Dieses Lied würde zu dem heiteren Wesen der Phaiaken passen. Mit der Auffor­ derung an den Sänger, den ‘Pfad zu wechseln’ (ϋ 452) lenkt Odysseus sodann zu dem ernsten, ihn selbst angehenden Liederstoff, dem Bau des hölzernen Pferdes und der Iliupersis, über.— Das Lied vom ‘Streit des Odysseus und Achilleus’ (θ 75) kann das erste Lied des Demodokos schon deswegen schlecht gewesen sein, weil in diesem Lied bereits Odysseus vorkam. 20. Über die B-Zutaten in der Rede des Alkinoos Φ 556—586 vortrefflich W. Nestle, Hermes 1942, 46 ff. In weitgehender Übereinstimmung mit Nestle weise ich dem B vor allem die Partie 556—576 zu.

8 Das Schweigen der Arete*

U . Hölscher

*Source: Hermes, vol. 8 8 , I 9 6 0 , pp. 2 5 7 -6 5 .

In zwei Aufsätzen hat jüngst W . Schadewaldt uns mit einigen seiner Gründe bekannt gemacht, die ihn seit langem bewogen haben, in der Odyssee zwei Schichten, 2wei nach. Qualität und Tendenz verschiedene Dichtungen zu unterscheiden. Der eine der beiden Aufsätze, über den »Prolog der Odyssee«,1 gibt mehr die allgemeinen Gesichtspunkte, nach denen die beiden Dichter als Typen zu charakterisieren wären. Die Rekon­ struktion des Ursprünglichen— in diesem Fall des Götterrats mit der Entsendung des Hermes zu Kalypso— muß durch ihre Struktur für sich selber sprechen. Für die Ankunft des Odysseus am Phäakenhof, eine auch hier sich abzeichnende Schichtenteilung, wird ein ausführlicherer Beweis in dem zweiten Aufsatz vorgelegt: »Kleiderdinge«.2 Da die Odyssee-Analyse, von der separativen wie von der unitarischen Seite her, mehr und mehr dieselben Erscheinungen ins Auge faßt, möchte ich das Folgende als fortgesetztes Gespräch an Schadewaldts Beobachtungen anknüpfen, denen es vieles verdankt. W ir lernen von ihm, wie in der Tat die ganze Erfindung der Nausikaa, ihres Waschtages draußen am Flusse, der Vorbereitung jenes Augenblickes dient, da Arete an Odysseus die Kleider erkennt, die er von ihrer Tochter bekommen hat.3 Die Motivierung beginnt noch früher: Voraussetzung der Nausikaaszene ist wiederum, daß Odysseus seine Kleider eingebüßt hat.4 Er hat sie in der Not des Seesturmes auf das Geheiß der InoLeukothea ausgezogen, weil sie ihn beschwerten, 8 321, 372. Beidemale sind es »die Kleider, die ihm die göttliche Kalypso gegeben«. Diese hatte ihm 264 die »duftenden Kleider« angezogen. So weit also reicht die Vorbereitung der Nausikaaszene und damit der Areteszene zurück. Die Begegnung mit der Königin wird dann eigens vorbereitet, indem Nausikaa den Fremdling anweist, im Palast drinnen sich zuerst an ihre Mutter zu wenden: wenn er ihr Wohlwollen gewänne, könne er auf Heimkehr hoffen (ζ 303 ff.). Die gleiche Anweisung, mit denselben Schlußworten, nach ausführlichem Bericht ihrer göttlichen Abkunft, ihrer

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»Ehre« und Klugheit, noch einmal von Athene (η 53 ff·)· Was zuerst, in der Rede der Nausikaa, noch überraschen mußte, hier wird es begründet, die überragende Bedeutung der königlichen Frau. Alles ist darauf angelegt, von ihr das W ort zu erwarten, das über Odysseus’ Schicksal entscheidet. Und Odysseus tut, wie ihm befohlen ist, schreitet durch den Saal zum Herde und wirft sich vor der Königin nieder: »Arete, Tochter Rexenors des göttergleichen! Zu deinem Gemahl und zu deinen Knien komme ich, nach vieler Mühsal, und zu den Schmausenden hier— es geben ihnen die Götter Segen ihr Leben lang, und seinen Kindern hinterlasse ein jeder den Besitz im Hause und den Ehrenteil, den ihm das Volk verliehen. Aber mir schenket bald ein Geleit, daß ich nur schnell ins Vaterland kehre, da lange schon fern von den Lieben ich Qualen dulde.« Nach dieser Rede setzt sich der Bittflehende neben dem Herdfeuer in den Staub. Alle im Saale schweigen. Das Erwartete bleibt aus. Arete antwortet nichts. Es antwortet auch nicht an ihrer Stelle Alkinoos, sondern nach langer Stille der greise Echeneos, er ist der älteste unter den Phäaken und der weiseste, wie Halitherses in der Versammlung der Ithakesier (V. 158 = ß 100). Ihm fällt die Rolle dessen zu, der das Schickliche weiß, der unbewußt oder ahnungsvoll den Guten mit Gutem empfängt, wie Eumaios ξ 37 ff., wie Menelaos δ 31 ff. A u f des Königä-— nicht der Königin— Wort warten alle (161). Mit der betonten Hinwendung des Alten akkordiert kontrapunktisch die Zurückhaltung des Königs, die in vergleichbaren Empfangssituationen bis zur erkältenden Nüchternheit variiert, siehe Eumaios ξ 56 ff., Penelope ψ 174 ff. So muß Alkinoos erst von dem Ältesten an das Geziemende erinnert werden, das man dem Fremdling schuldig ist,5 und nun nimmt er ihn bei der Hand und weist ihm den Ehrenplatz an seiner Seite an. Ein Tisch wird ihm gedeckt, und der König befiehlt dem Schenken, einen Krug fiir das Trankopfer zu mischen. Nach vollzogener Spende beginnt Alkinoos seine Rede, 186 ff. Aber noch immer redet er nicht den Fremden an, sondern, wie mit Absicht, an ihm vorbei die Phäakenfürsten— so wie Penelope, an Odysseus vorbei, den Telemach, ψ 105 ff. Alkinoos: Laßt uns jetzt, nach dem Mahle, schlafen gehen! Morgen früh wollen wir mehr der Geronten hierher laden zu festlicher Bewirtung des Fremden, und dann auch für sein Geleit sorgen,6 damit er sicher heimkehre, mag er noch so ferne wohnen. Hat er dann den Heimatboden betreten, so muß ihm widerfahren, was ihm die Göttinnen mit dem Tage seiner Geburt zugesponnen haben. Sollte er aber gar ein Gott sein . . . Zum ersten Mal wird das Rätsel um die Person des Fremden Thema.7 Odysseus scheint damit aufgefordert, seinen Namen zu nennen; aber statt dessen wehrt er nur ab, in ihm einen Gott zu vermuten, ihm, dem ärmsten

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der Sterblichen; er bittet, ihn jetzt essen zu lassen und nur morgen in aller Frühe— wie es der König vorgeschlagen hat— seine Heimkehr zu betreiben. Man hat getadelt, daß Odysseus, der eben draußen von Nausikaa verkös­ tigt worden ist, schon wieder mit solchem Heißhunger essen müsse. Daß auch Nausikaa nach ihrer Rückkehr genug Appetit hat, um wieder zu Abend zu speisen (η 13), scheint weniger anstößig: wie sollte nicht Odysseus, der drei Tage nichts gegessen und eben nur so viel zu sich genommen hatte, als vom Proviant der Mädchen übrig war, mit Hunger abermals essen dürfen? Zumal wenn es die Dichtung so braucht; denn der Hunger stellt sich nun vor die erwartete Nennung des Namens.8 Um dieses Ausweichen möglich zu machen, hatte Alkinoos schon, statt des Odysseus, die Phäaken anreden müssen. Die Fürsten, die die Rede des Fremden beifällig angehört haben, gehen für heute, gemäß dem Geheiß des Königs, auseinander. Zurück bleiben Odysseus, Arete und Alkinoos. Die Dienerinnen räumen das Geschirr ab. Da beginnt Arete . . . Es wird nicht leicht sein, in deisem Stück, von der ersten Bitte des Odysseus an Arete bis hierher, wo sie zu reden anhebt, etwas nachzuweisen, das nach Geist, Stil oder Qualität9 sich von den Hauptszenen der Odyssee so unterschiede, daß wir es tilgen müßten. Es sind auch nicht solche Stilunterschiede, womit Schadewaldt seine Tilgung der Verse 148—232 begründet— obschon in seiner Paraphrase das Stück nicht eben sinnvoll erscheint— , sondern zwei Argumente: das eine pragmatischer Art, das andere von der Konsequenz eines Motivs. Zunächst das Pragmatische. Aretes dem Fremden vorgehaltene Fragen lauten, 237: »W er und woher bist du unter den Menschen? Wer hat dir diese Kleider gegeben? Ού δή φής επί πόντον άλώμενος ένθάδ* ίκ έσ θα ι.«

Schon im Altertum stritt man darum, ob man unter φής das Jota setzen solle, ob es Präsens oder Aorist10 sei. Es scheint sich dabei zugleich um die Frage gehandelt zu haben, ob auf ού δή ein Nein oder ein Ja erwartet wird. Im letzteren Sinne, auch wenn sie sich fürs Präsens entscheiden, verstehen es die meisten Interpreten: »Sagst du nicht, du seiest als ein Umgetriebener über das Meer hierher gekommen?« So Lehrs, Ameis, Schwartz, so alle Übersetzer von Chapman bis Scheffer. So auch Schadewaldt. Nun hat Odysseus dergleichen nicht gesagt; es wird also der Schluß gezogen, daß in einem ursprünglichen Zustand der Dichtung Odysseus in seiner Bitte an Arete sich bereits als Schiffbrüchigen vorgestellt haben müsse; diese Rede habe der Bearbeiter durch seine Interpolation verstümmelt, aber die darauf bezügliche Frage der Arete stehengelassen.11 Unter den älteren Interpreten dieser Frage scheint mir nur Wilamowitz eine Ausnahme zu machen: er übersetzt H. U. S. 133: »Du willst doch nicht über das Meer irrend her gekommen sein?«,12 Er hat für sich den üblichen Sprachgebrauch: ού δή wenn eine Verneinung erwartet wird.13 Man könnte dagegen homerische Fragen anführen: ού γάρ δή »hast du

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nicht. . .«, ούκ αραδή »möchtest du nicht. . .« .14 Abet das einfache θύ δή kommt nur dies eine Mal hier vor, und es steht gewiß nichts im Wege, es nach der Regel zu übersetzen. Wenn nun von zwei möglichen Übersetzungen die eine etwas Sinnvolles, die andere etwas Falsches ergibt, so müßte es doch verhext zugehen, wenn das Falsche das Richtige wäre. Ist also dies eine Argument nicht zwingend, so bleibt das andere, das die Struktur der Erzählung betrifft. Wenn dem Odysseus zweimal empfohlen wird, sich an die Königin zu wenden, so ist das ein Motiv, das als solches eine Folge habeil m uß.15 Es erweckt, nach Schadewaldt (S. 14), »die Erwartung darauf, wie Odysseus . . . das Wohlwollen der Arete und damit auch das Heimgeleit gewinnen wird.« Nun folgt allerdings in unserer Odyssee dergleichen nicht. »Entgegen jener durch die Vorbereitung so eindeutig erregten Erwartung gibt keine Arete ihm dann auch nur ein Wort zur Antwort« (S. 15). Ihre Antwort folgt erst nach dem Zwischenstück, das Schadewaldt aus der ursprünglichen Dichtung tilgen will. Ursprünglich soll auf die Bitte des Odysseus— in ihrer vollständigen Form, in der er gleich sagte, daß er »übers Meer verschlagen hierher gekommen« sei— statt des alten Echeneos und des Königs zuerst die Königin geantwortet haben, und zwar gleich mit jenem: »Zuerst will ich dich dieses fragen: W er bist du und woher kommst du? Wer hat dir diese Kleider gegeben?« An dem »zuerst« könne man es noch jetzt erkennen. Aber auch in dieser konstruierten Dichtung kommt das nicht vor, was man erwartet. Nicht nur, daß das entscheidende W ort über Odysseus’ Schicksal, das man, nach jener Vorbereitung durch Nausikaa und Athene, aus ihrem Munde erwarten könnte, fehlt, es fehlt auch jede ausdrückliche Erwähnung, daß sie dem Fremden ihr Wohlwollen schenkt. Sie tritt ganz hinter Alkinoos zurück. Sie weist am Ende des Abends die Dienerinnen an, dem Fremdling das Bett zu richten, aber das geschieht, nachdem Alkinoos seine überraschend schnelle und geradezu heftige Zuneigung zu dem Unbe­ kannten bekundet hat. Daß es dabei vor allem, oder auch, auf Aretes Wohlwollen ankam— wir mögen es auf Grund jener Vorbereitung dazu­ denken, aber es wird nicht wieder thematisch. Aretes Rolle beschränkt sich auf die Fragen, mit denen sie— sei es sogleich, sei es nach einer Pause— auf die Bitte des Odysseus entgegnet.16 Was sollte also jene Vorbereitung in den Reden der Nausikaa und der Göttin? Worauf wurden wir vorbereitet? Oder worauf wurde Odysseus vorbereitet? Es steht ihm noch etwas bevor. Zwar den Leiden des Meeres ist er entronnen, seitdem er dem Mädchen begegnet ist, das ihm »das Leben zurückgab«; aber die Entscheidung, ob er sein Vaterland Wiedersehen wird, hängt noch einmal davon ab, ob er sich Gunst erwirbt. Und nun soll es die Gunst einer hohen Frau sein. Nach der Prinzessin die Königin, nach der Tochter die Mutter. A uf eine Charis anderer Art wird es jetzt ankommen. »W ie wenn mit Gold ein Künstler Silber überzieht«, so hatte Athene dort

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ihm Charis über Haupt und Schultern gegossen (ζ 235). »Wundersame Charis« wird am anderen Morgen Athene über ihn gießen (ff 19 ff.), damit er allen Phäaken »lieb und ehrwürdig« werde; daß er »lieb und erbar­ mungswürdig« zu den Phäaken komme, betet er, ζ 327, bevor er die Stadt betritt, und Athene erhört ihn.17 In der Stadt wird ihm von der göttlichen Wegweiserin noch einmal, eindringlicher, das Bild der königlichen Frau gezeichnet, von der für ihn alles abhänge. Er kommt an den Palast, »und vieles bewegte sein Herz«, während er stand und schaute: die Märchen­ pracht des Hauses, die Fülle des Besitzes und der Dienerschaft, die Üppig­ keit des Gartens— die Schilderung entschwebt aus der Erzählform in die der Wunderbeschreibung, aus dem Präteritum ins Präsens, wie der Dichter an anderer Steile vom Wunder des Olymps spricht (ζ 43 f f , mit wörtlichen Anklängen)— ein langer Hiat, ein letztes Ritardando, »bevor er die eherne Schwelle betrat« (η 83).18 Er findet die Phäaken im Königssaal, schreitet hindurch und schlingt die Arme um die Knie der Königin: »Arete, Tochter des göttergleichen Rexenor . . .« Und Arete schweigt. Sie schweigt beharrlich, während Alkinoos seine Anweisungen für die Bewirtung des Hiketes gibt und Odysseus seinen Hunger stillt. Hat er die Königin vergessen? Haben wir sie vergessen? Die Phäaken gehen nach Hause. Da endlich, als sie allein sind, beginnt Arete: »Fremdling, ich möchte dich zuerst einmal eines fragen . . .« Und nun die Frage nach den Kleidern. Wer hätte an die Kleider gedacht? Odysseus nicht, der Zuhörer schwerlich. Die Frage ist nicht unverfänglich, fast peinlich: Der Fremde in den Kleidern aus den königlichen Truhen, das wirft ein bedenkliches Licht auf die Person und die Aussagen des Fremden, auf das Verhalten der Tochter. Gerade die Kleider, die erste Gabe der Gunst und Menschlichkeit, sollten ihn jetzt um die Gunst der Königin bringen? Was er sagt, antwortet auf die Frage: Wie kommst du zu diesen Kleidern? Du sagst doch wohl nicht, daß du verschlagen übers Meer hierher gekom­ men bist?— die Frage, die, wie wir hinterher merken, seit dem anfänglichen Schweigen der Königin zwischen ihr und dem Fremden stand und Verwunderung, wenn nicht Mißtrauen in ihr aufkommen ließ. Odysseus* Rede erklärt das Verwunderliche: So traf ich deine Tochter, »und sie verfehlte nicht im geringsten den edel-verständigen Sinn . . . Sie speiste mich, sie tränkte mich, sie ließ mich baden im Fluß, sie schließlich gab mir diese Kleider. Das ist die ganze Wahrheit.« Schadewaldt hat die Möglichkeit, daß der Dichter mit Absicht Arete schweigen lasse, kurz erwogen und verworfen (S. 15). Er verlangt, daß unserer Erwartung— aber welcher Erwartung? Daß Arete Odysseus* Bitte gewährt? Aber das geschieht auch in seiner Rekonstruktion nicht! Oder daß Arete gleich nach den Kleidern fragt? Aber das erwarten wir durchaus nicht!— er verlangt also, daß unserer Erwartung wenigstens durch ein »ausdrückliches Nicht-Erfüllen« Rechnung getragen würde. Mari denke sich das etwa, wie der Erwartung der Thetis vor Zeus II. A 511 Rechnung

The Homeric Question

141

getragen wird: τήν 0’ οΰ τι π ροσέφ η . . . . Aber wo immer diese Formel der ausbleibenden Antwort vorkommt,19 wird das Schweigen entweder begründet oder ist in sich selber verständlich. Das Schweigen der Arete ist nicht in sich selber verständlich, der Dichter müßte hinzufugen: »Denn sie erkannte ihre Kleider . . .« (wie 234). Aber damit wäre das Über­ raschende, das plötzlich Verwirrende und Gefährdende der Kleiderfrage dahin. Sollen wir also wirklich verlangen, daß der Dichter die NichtErfüllung unserer Erwartung ausdrücklich macht? Daß etwas anders kommt, als man denkt, ist in Ilias und Odyssee nicht ohne Beispiel. Um von den Beispielen der Ilias hier abzusehen20— wie der Peira Agamemnons, oder Achills Entsendung des Freundes in den eigenen Waffen— , deren unerwarteter Ausgang, anders als in der Odyssee, einen ironischen W ider­ spruch enthält: so wird doch auch die Entfernung der Waffen vor dem Freiermord schließlich ganz anders thematisch, als man erwartet hat. Oder in der Phäakengeschichte: das Versprechen der Abfahrt »auf morgen« wird, gerade durch seine Wiederholung, ebenso zum Motiv wie die wiederholte Hervorhebung der Arete; und dennoch »nehmen«— mit Schadewaldt (S. 14) zu reden— »in der Durchführung die Dinge einen anderen W eg«. Aber wir können die Beispiele noch näher suchen: Die Frage der Arete nach dem Namen des Fremdlings läßt die Enthüllung erwarten, und dennoch verläuft es anders. Daß in sämtlichen angedeuteten Fällen die Analytik versucht hat, die Verläufe so zu rekonstruieren* daß keine Überraschungen eintreten, empfiehlt diese Versuche nicht; und wenigstens über das letzte Beispiel besteht heute Einmütigkeit, daß Kirchhoffs Versuch, auf Aretes Fragen das 9* Buch und die Namensnennung folgen zu lassen, ein Irrweg war.21 Aber weder die Verschiebung der Abfahrt des Odysseus im 8. Buch noch das Ausbleiben seiner Antwort auf Aretes Fragen im 7. wird »durch ein ausdrückliches Nicht-Erfüllen« des Erwarteten motiviert. Und doch werden wir nicht behaupten wollen, die Verschweigung des Namens, die Verschiebung der Antwort stehe in keiner Beziehung zu der gestellten Frage. Im Gegenteil, die Frage wird gestellt, damit sie nicht beantwortet wird. Ist es mit der Empfehlung der Arete in den Reden der Nausikaa und der Athene anders? Steht die ausbleibende, die verschobene, die auf sich warten lassende Antwort der Arete in keinerlei Verhältnis zu der Erwartung, die jene Empfehlungen erweckt haben? Weshalb soll denn Odysseus sich an die Königin wenden? Schadewaldts Antwort: »Das ganze Geschehen . . . bewegt sich auf jenes Aprosdoketon hin, daß die Königin ihr Selbstge­ wirktes in dem Kleid am Leibe des Fremden erkennt«, wodurch nun »dieser Fremde ihr gleichsam bereits zu eigen gegeben und damit auch schon unwillkürlich ihres so entscheidenden Wohlwollens versichert« sei. Mir scheint der Text eine andre Auffassung zwingend nahe zu legen. Die Kleider empfehlen ihn nicht, die Kleider belasten ihn! Ihn und womöglich die Tochter! Seine ganze Antwort ist eine Erklärung und Rechtfertigung,

l42

The Creation of the Poems

die darin gipfelt, daß es bezüglich der Kleider mit rechten Dingen zuge­ gangen ist. Und es gehört zu den eigentümlichen Reizen der OdysseeDialoge mit ihren unerwarteten Erwiderungen, daß dem nun nicht die Billigung der Königin folgt: statt der Königin entgegnet der König, die Billigung wird mehr als Billigung, wird zur Liebeserklärung, schlägt um in Vorwurf gegen die Tochter, die längst nicht genug getan zu haben scheint für den unbekannten Gast!— wogegen wieder Odysseus sie in Schutz „ 22 nimmt. Nur bei solcher Interpretation erscheint es auch sinnvoll, daß Arete zu ihrer Frage »diesen vertraulichen Moment benutzt«.23 Wogegen bei Schadewaldts Auffassung der Frage die veränderte Situation— zuerst das Öffentliche, jetzt das Intime— ihren Sinn einbüßt und denn auch mit der Tilgung des »Einschubs« unter den Tisch fällt. Schadewaldt, der in Aretes Frage nach den Kleidern bereits eine Bekundung ihres Wohlwollens erblickt, muß folgerecht auch die Erwiderung des Alkinoos tilgen und hier der Arete das entscheidende Wort geben (S. 23). A uf das »Aprosdoketon« und seine Vorbereitung kam es Schadewaldt an. Aber ist das Unerwartete der Arete-Frage überhaupt möglich ohne das Schweigen der Arete? Schadewaldts feine Bemerkungen über die Bedeutung des Kleides kommen überhaupt erst zur Geltung in einem Gedicht, in dem das Kleid des Odysseus, das rettende, ihn in Verlegenheit bringt. Um dieser Situation willen sind wir von langer Hand auf die Begegnung mit der Königin vorbereitet worden. Denn: warten wir wirklich nur darauf, wie Odysseus das Wohlwollen der Arete gewinnen wird? Nicht auch, daß es schwierig wird zu gewinnen sein? Daß es einen kritischen Moment geben wird? »Falls jene dir freundlich im Herzen gesonnen sein wird, dann besteht Hoffnung . . .« Das ist die Ankündigung seines letzten Abenteuers, das er nicht mehr mit Schlauheit, List und Duldekraft zu bestehen hat, sondern mit der Charis des Mannes, der »das Rechte weiß«. Man mag sich ausdenken, was man will: auf keine Weise wird die Frage der Arete das, was sie in unserem Texte ist, ein unerwartet auftauchendes Hindernis. So scheint es, daß der Dichter der Odyssee nicht schlecht beraten war, als er die Antwort der Arete durch jenes Zwischenstück hinausschob. War es aber ein Bearbeiter, der es eingefügt hat, so hätte erst er das Motiv auf seinen Sinn gebracht.

Anmerkungen 1. Festschr. Jaeger, Harvard Studies Bd. 63, 1958, 15 ff. 2. Festschr. Klingner, Hermes 87, 1959, 13 ff. 3. Das Motiv konnte von Ed. Schwartz soweit verkannt werden, daß er seinen Ursprung in dem Bedürfnis eines jüngeren Dichters (K) nach »Dezenz« suchte (Die Odyssee, 1924, 204). In seiner urtümlichen Urodyssee (O), in der Nausikaa im Winter ans Meer zum Tanzen ging, hatte es keine Kleider für Odysseus gegeben,

The Ho?nerïc Question

143

da hätte der nackte Mann die Knie der Königstochter umschlungen (γουνοϋμαι!), er wäre nackt, wie er war, an der Seite des Mädchens gegangen, die ihn »munter plaudernd« zu der Landvilla ihres Vaters führte, hätte nackt die im Palast Versammelten durchschritten, nackt sich in die Asche gesetzt . . . »K« hätte mit seiner dezenteren Version gegen »O« polemisiert (S. 14 und 16 2 ; vgl. dazu Focke, Die Odyssee, 1933, 99 ff.)- Wie und zu welchem dichterischen Zweck Odysseus in »O« seine Kleider verlor, bleibt bei Schwartz im Dunkeln. Fürs Methodische bezeichnend die Anmerkung auf S. 162: Schwartz bedauert, daß in Odysseus' Rede an Nausikaa (ζ 149—185) O und K nicht zu scheiden seien; nur der Anfang γουνοΌμαί