HOMERIC RESEARCHES (Ancient Greek Literature) [Subsequent ed.] 0824077571, 9780824077570

Citation preview

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

\

Digitized by

Goog

Original from

^NA UNIVERSITY

i

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

SKRIFTER UTGIVNA AV KUNGL. HUMANISTISKA VETENSKAPSSAMFUNDET I LUND ACTA REG. SOCIETATIS HUMANIORUM LITTERAnUM LUNDENSIS

XLV

JOHANNES TH. KAKRIDIS HOMERIC RESEARCHES

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

HOMERIC RESEARCHES BY

J OHANNES TH. KAKRIDIS

y LUND C. W. K. G L E E R U P

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

570495

“P A hovj

.Ki^>

LUND 1949 CARL BLOMS BORTRYCKERI A.-B.

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

I

P reface Certain chapters of this book were published years ago in learned periodicals both in Greece and abroad. But the book finally took shape during the last war. It was first published in 1944 in the Βιβλιοθήκη τοΰ Φιλολόγου, a series directed by me. The present book differs from the Greek original in that two chapters dealing with the Homeric Hymns to Aphrodite and Apollo have been omitted and replaced by one on the elements of popular style in Homeric poetry and by Appendix III on the motif of Intaphernes’ wife and the ascending scale of affection. It also differs to the extent that during my stay in Sweden in 1947 I was able to revise my book in the light of the most recent publication^ during and after the war. My manuscript was completed in September 1947, so that what­ ever was published thereafter could not be utilized by me. I especially regret not having been able to use volume III of ‘Ho­ mere’ by the Belgian scholar A. Severyns (1948), since it came into my hands only a few days ago. But a cursory glance over its pages was enough to convince me how much it might have helped me. I owe it to Professor Martin P. Nilsson that this book is now published in a language more widely known than modem Greek. I also feel particularly honoured by the fact that it is to be included in the Acta of the Kungliga Humanistiska Vetenskapssamfundet i Lund. Indeed, I am deeply grateful to Professor Nilsson, the highly esteemed Swedish scholar, not only for his suggestion that this book should be published in Sweden but also for his warm personal interest in my researches, and last but not least for his willingness to take on himself a great part of the tiring work of proof-reading. I also wish to express my hearty thanks to the Kungl. Vetenskapssamfundet, for accepting this piece of work for publication in their Acta.

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

I owe a further heavy debt to Mrs. Alexandra Placotari for translating my book into English and a still heavier debt to Mr. J. A. Davison of Manchester, for going over the translation and correcting the English style, as well as for his ready assistance in proof-reading. I am further grateful to him for some valuable suggestions with regard to certain points in my text. The list of persons who helped me to carry out my researches would not be complete had I not mentioned and thanked above all the Administrative Council of the Svenska Institutet for Utbyte med Utlandet wrhich granted me a one-year scholarship for studies in Sweden and thus enabled me to concentrate my efforts on my research work during my stay in that hospitable country, and also the Directors and Staff of the University Libraries of Lund and Uppsala, for invaluable services rendered to me. Finally, I have to thank my wife, Olga Kakridis, for having, as usual, assisted me in my work on this book. Thessalonike, June 1949. J. Th. K.

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

C ontents Pnge

Introduction ....................................................................................................... Ch. I. Meleagrea ............................................................................................. II. Hectorea ............................................................................................. III. Patroclca ............................................................................................. IV. The Myth of Niobe in 2 .................................................................. V. Elements ofpopularstyle in Homer’s Poetry ................................. App. I. The Meleager-story in modern Folk-tales ................................... II. Coresus andCallirhoe ........................................................................ III. The motif of Intaphernes’ wife and the ascending scale of affection .............................................................................................

1 11 43 65 96 106 127 149 152

Index ............................................................................................................................ 165

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

In tro d u c tio n 1 Whoever tries today to trace the immediate sources of Homer, or, in other words, to make an analysis of Homer, runs the risk of being classified as a belated adherent of the »Liederjäger» of the nineteenth century and as such his theories would hardly be worth noticing. It has been rightly pointed out that »das blosse Spiel des Witzes und Verstandes mit Homer hat längst begonnen, recht ermüdend zu werden».1 If in spite of this I venture to publish in this book the result of my researches, I do it because in the space of twenty years during which I have studied Homer I have tried to develop an analytical method which should be free from the defects of the old analytical method. On the other hand, I have gradually formed the conviction that in order to solve certain Homeric problems of material as well as of style one should make a systematic study of modern Greek popular culture in all its manifestations, which has not been attempted up to now by foreign Homeric scholars and is apparently not easy for them. I am not going to deal with the history of the Homeric question here. We all know the long discussions between the separatists and the Unitarians in times past. All recent books about Homer speak of the bankruptcy of the separatist theory. At the same time, however, they criticize the somewhat naive conceptions of the older Unitarians, who in reaction against the separatist school find everything straightforward and easy in Homer, thus remind­ ing us of the historically unfounded methods of the Alexandrian scholars.2 1 W. Schmid , Geschichte der Griechischen Literatur I, 1, 142. * \V. Schmid , see above p. 147, M. Nilsson , Homer and Mycenae p. 52, \V. Schadewaldt , Iliasstudien, Introduction p. III.

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

2

INTRODUCTION

It is also my opinion that the methods used up to now by the separatists cannot lead to any positive conclusions. Moreover I believe that the service rendered by the Unitarians is not so much a positive contribution to the understanding of Homeric art as an untiring and an absolutely justified criticism of the methods and the conclusions of the older separatist school. Of course there are still some separatists.3 But most Homeric scholars support the unity of the Homeric epics. Among the English I would mention Woodhouse 4 and Bowra,5 among the Americans S. E. Bassett,® among the Belgians A. Severyns,7 and among the Germans Schadewaldt.8 The disadvantages of the Unitarian school have, however, been to some extent overcome. It is characteristic that Schadewaldt prefers to consider himself a separatist, although his book aims at proving the unity of the Iliad. Woodhouse is considered by M. Nilsson 9 as an »analytical Unitarian». Some years ago I formulated for my researches the term »neo-analysis», although I am strongly convinced that both the Iliad and the Odyssey are integral poetic creations. To what extent these neo-analytic methods differ from those of the older analysis will soon become apparent in what follows. The criteria with the help of which the older separatists tried to dissect the Homeric poems are well known: inconsistencies and contradictions between different scenes in the poems, linguistic differences, the style and elements of civilisation both material and intellectual and finally the repeated verses. These criteria proved, both by the conclusions to which they led and also from the theoretical point of view, to have no demonstrative value. Yet, one must admit that logical inconsistencies and con­ tradictions still continue to exercise a great influence not only upon the amateur student of Homer, when one points out to him * Among the French P. Mazon, Introduction ä l’lliade (1942), and among the Swiss P. v. d. Muehll , R. E. Supplb. 7, s. v. Odyssee (1940). 4 The Composition of Homer’s Odyssey (1930). * Tradition and Design in the Iliad (1930). e The Poetry of Homer, Sather Class. Lectures 15 (1938). 7 Homere 1—2* (1946). 8 See above (1938). 9 Op. cit., p. 14.

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

3

THE CRITERIA OF THE OLDER ANALYSIS

the fact that, for instance, though in E 576 Pylaemenes is killed by Menelaus, in N 658 he appears alive again, following in tears the corpse of his murdered son, but even upon scholars who — partly consciously, partly unconsciously — still use the logical contradictions and particularly the fact that the Homeric expo­ sition is not natural, in other words, that it cannot correspond to the conditions of real life, as criteria of their analysis. How often have we been carried so far away by the naturalness of a poetic tale as to forget the distance which always separates a character of poetic creation from a real living person! How often have we confused the boundaries between life and art and demanded that created characters should not break the laws of natural life! How often have we detached a poetic creation from its surround­ ings and imagined it living the full life of a real human being! Had there not been such occasional misunderstandings we should have been spared a number of errors in Homeric and other researches. So good a scholar as Peter von der Mühll draws (R. E. Supplbd. 7, 702, s. v. Odyssee) analytical conclusions from the observation that in the first book of the Odyssey Telemachus places the spear of Athena, who is disguised as a mortal, in his δουροδόκη (128), whereas later the goddess is transformed into a bird and disappears (320), naturally leaving the spear behind her. V. d. Miihll’s remark, that we have a right to smile at the poet's want of technique, when >the miraculous spear of Athena is left in the δουροδόκη like a forgotten umbrella», shows that there is, as usual, a confusion of the boundaries which separate poetry from reality. Considering that the goddess appears to Telemachus in the guise of Mentes, the king of the Taphians, custom requires her to carry a spear, and when Telemachus welcomes her in his palace he naturally relieves her of her weapon. Later on, when Athena leaves in the form of a bird, who would remember this detail and smile — except the scholar, who is always on the watch with a magnifying glass in his hand? Why should we blame the poet for »inconsistency» when his artistic purpose compels him to make Athena leave in a miraculous way, in the shape of a bird, and it is therefore impossible for her to carry away her spear? A second example is still more striking: among other arguments which Renata von Scheliha, Patroklos, Gedanken über Homers Dichtung und Ge­ stalten (1943) assembles with the object of proving that the end of the Odyssey from ψ 297 onwards is spurious, she observes (p. 19) that it is very implausible for Agamemnon and Achilles in the second Nekyia to talk to one another as though they were seeing each other for the first time, since

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

4

INTRODUCTION

they have been together for ten years in the Underworld. Had Scheliha put the question in the right way and asked what chance the poet had to describe the burial of Achilles elsewhere, she would have realised not only that the later compiler, as she calls him, is not to blame for his alleged lack of tech­ nical skill, but that someone else should be criticised for obvious inability to understand the laws of poetic creation.

The Unitarians have often drawn the attention of scholars to logical contradictions which they meet in indisputably individual works of well-known recent writers. It is my belief, however, that none of these instances is so outstandingly characteristic a proof of the carelessness of poets (or novelists) about the natural likeli­ hood of the events described when inconsequence serves an aesthetic purpose, as an example to be found in a charming Aeginetan version of a well-known Greek popular song: Ποιός είδε τέτοια λύγερη, τέτοια πανώρια κόρη, νά ’χει ασημένιον αργαλειό τσάι φιλντιζένιο χτένι; Βαίνει φωτιά στον αργαλειό, τσατσίζει τσάι το χτένι· τη λεβεντιά λιμπίστηκε τσάι πάει με τους λεβέντες. Σαράντα χρόνους έκαμε στους κλέφτες καπετάνιος· μα μιά Λαμπρή, μιά Τσιουριατσή, μιά πίσημην ημέρα βγήκαν να παίξουν το σπαθί, να ρίξουν το λιθάρι, τσι’ έσπασε τ’ ασημόκουμπο τσάι φάνη το βυζί-της. Άλλοι το λένε μάλαμα, τσι’ άλλοι το λένε ασήμι, μα ένα μικρό κλεφτόπουλο τσι’ ένα μικρό κλεφτάτσι, τσείνο δέν εγελάστητσε, τσάι τσείνο σουντουχαίνει· Τσείνο δέν είναι μάλαμα, τσείνο δέν είναι ασήμι, μόν’ είναι κοπελιάς βυζί τσάι κορασίδας κόρφος 10. »Who has seen so graceful, so beautiful a maiden, / that has a silver loom, that has an ivory comb? / She sets fire to her loom and breaks her comb; / she yearns to do brave deeds and follows brave men. / For forty years she has been a leader of the Klephts. / But on an Easter Day, a Sunday, a holy day, / when they come out to fence and to cast the stone, / her silver button breaks and exposes her breast. / Some call it gold and others call it silver; / but a young ίο Λαογραφία 8,95.

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

5

REAL LIFE AND POETIC CREATION

Klepht’s son, a young Klepht, / is not to be deceived and says: / It’s neither gold nor is it silver, / but *tis a maiden’s breast, a young girl’s bosom.» One can imagine what would have happened if this song had fallen into the hands of the earlier separatists, since it contains a very obvious logical contradiction: a maiden, disguised as a man, decided to take to the mountains with the klephts; there she was for forty years their leader. If when she took the decision she was about fifteen years old — she could not well have been younger —, on the day when her sex was found out at the sports meeting she must have been at least fifty-five. But then how could the young klepht, who found her out, speak of her breast -as a young girl’s bosom? Here is, indoubtedly, a contradiction — but only if we compare the story with real life, and not if we keep within the sphere of poetic creation, where the characters live a life of their own, which, unnatural though it may seem, is nevertheless poetically true. The poet makes the maiden destroy the special symbols of her womanhood, her silver loom and her ivory comb — purposely laying stress on their costly materials —, because she is consumed by a longing for brave deeds; and in order to emphasize her indomitable spirit, he makes her impose herself on the men and become their chief and live with them for forty years without even for a moment succumbing to the weaknesses of her sex, which would betray her womanhood, in spite of her long sojourn in the mountains where she has to endure the hardships of war with them. On the other hand, when at the end she is found out to be a woman she must still be a young and beautiful maiden. If not, of what value or importance can the revelation of her sex be? Her body, which is momentarily disclosed, must shine in the sun like silver and gold to prove once again that her desire for brave achievements was so great as to make her renounce her woman­ hood to the very last. Now, if in a poem of thirteen lines such contradictions are allowed for aesthetic purposes, what right have we to wonder at or even to draw analytical conclusions from much slighter similar

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

6

INTRODUCTION

instances in a poetic composition of twelve or sixteen thousand lines? The bankruptcy of the separatist method naturally reinforced the Unitarians in their view that it is impossible for us today to trace the immediate sources of Homer. This doubt is also seemingly supported by the recent Homeric scholars Bowra, Nilsson and Schadewaldt. No one will, of course, deny the existence of preHomeric epic poetry, or even that Homer was influenced by it; still there is grave doubt whether we can find any means of deter­ mining this influence; it is claimed that we shall never know what exactly Homer owes to his forerunners. On the other hand M. Nilsson in Homer and Mycenae 53 f. criticizes the whole of early Homeric research on the ground that »in treating the Homeric problem both parties, the Unitarians and the separatists, almost forgot the epic problem, viz. the problem of the development of the epic poetry and its origins, which may reach much further back than the life of a man or a few generations*. The separatists in their effort to determine the immediate sources of the Iliad and the Odyssey confined themselves, willy-nilly, within a limited space of time, say a hundred years, up to the third generation, at most, of the minstrels who preceded Homer. On the other hand, the Unitarians, »obsessed with the magic formula of the creative genius of Homer, brushed aside somewhat impatiently the problem of the preparatory stages and materials which he utilized» in spite of the fact that they too acknowledged theoretically the existence of those preparatory stages and materials. That the origins of Greek epic poetry reach much further back, into the Mycenaean age, can be accepted as certain after the admirable researches of Nilsson. The importance of such a per­ spective as was opened to us by his work is priceless. Still I do not believe that I should be contradicting the spirit of the Swedish scholar’s work, if I asserted that for the student of literature the search for the immediate sources of Homer, or in other words, the Homeric problem proper, is of at least the same importance as the epic problem generally. The chief aim of the student of literature is to understand Homer himself more thoroughly, and in this task, he will be guided above all by his researches into

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

LITERARY ANALYSIS AND ARCHAELOGICAL RESEARCH

7

the immediate Homeric sources, provided, of course, that a method can be found which will lead him to reasonably safe conclusions. This is the only way in which we can isolate Homer from the other epic poets, in order to appreciate his personality. Only if we could see the secret immediately behind the Iliad and the Odyssey, if we could distinguish what belonged to the older epic tradition and what was invented by Homer, if we could learn how he re-created his material, stamping it with his own genius, only then would we be able to come into any contact with him. Otherwise, his personality is lost to our eyes and concealed in the multitude of anonymous Greek epic poets at the very moment when we begin once again to believe in the existence of Homer as a personality. Thus literary analysis will keep its place beside the archaeo­ logical and mythological research which supplement it: the latter teaches us that the first beginnings of Greek epic poetry are to be found in the Mycenaean age. But Homer was chiefly influenced by his immediate predecessors; we can attain to knowledge of these only by literary analysis of the Iliad and the Odyssey. 2

The question is, whether there is a method of research into the immediate sources of Homer which does not transgress the laws of poetic creation and which, moreover, can lead to con­ clusions which, if not absolutely certain, may at least be regarded as most probable. I believe that this method exists. We shall have to rely on the analysis of the Iliad and the Odyssey, since there is no other possibility of penetrating the darkness which envelops preHomeric epic poetry. However there is a great difference between our method and that of the old analytical school: we start from other premises, we pursue other aims and make use of different criteria. A neo-analytic starts from the conviction that the Iliad and the Odyssey, as they have been handed down to us, are single works of art; whether both are works of the same person is another matter. This conviction that the Homeric poems are a

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

8

INTRODUCTION

unity he acquires not only from the positive work of the Unitarian school, but also from the more general spiritual trends of the age, which have taught him to look at a poetic work with more respect and a clearer understanding of its laws of composition, and with a mind free from the rationalism of the older scholars. Thus the purpose of neo-analysis is not to disintegrate the Homeric epic into so many small pieces and then to rejoice in attacking the »bungler», the »incapable botcher», the »foolish compiler» and all the other names which have been applied to the poet of the Iliad and the Odyssey. The main purpose of neo­ analysis is, even when it tries to distinguish the sources and models of Homer, to understand Homer himself better, to appreciate the art and technique of our Iliad and our Odyssey as they are given to us. In this manner, the theory reconciles the two warring parties, the separatists and the Unitarians, bridging the chasm which separated them and created such violent disputes. As to the method, instead of logical contradiction we now have poetic contradiction as a criterion for our analysis. It is of no importance whatever, if a scene is natural or unnatural, or in other words, if it could possibly occur in real life or not, nor is it important if a scene contradicts an earlier or later scene in the poem. What is important is that the constituents of the scene shall fulfil its poetic purpose, that all its details converge to the same end, the end imposed by the part played by the scene in the poem as a whole. If in a research of this kind it is found that one or more of the motifs of a scene is unjustifiable, and moreover, if they seem, to clash, to some extent, with the poetic plan of the scene, then we may suspect that behind the Homeric composition is hidden an older creation, a prototype, the details of which Homer has not been able to assimilate to the new surrounding. But even then we should be very careful and look for further corroboration before we can claim to have arrived at a compara­ tively safe conclusion. Such a method, I believe, requires an absolute respect for the laws of poetic creation, since it is obvious that when a poet plans a scene for a certain aesthetic purpose he will contrive to serve this purpose by means of the details of the scene. If this scene is devised on a completely new plan by the poet, then its success

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

9

THE NEO-ANALYTICAL METHOD

is surer. If he has to remould an older composition, taken from another epic poem, he will try, of course, to adapt the scene to its new context and to subordinate it to his own poetic purpose. In these circumstances, however, it is much more difficult for him to succeed and he is liable to overlook, here and there, ele­ ments of the older tradition which cannot be matched with their new environment and therefore can only be roughly patched into place — *loci rudimentales*. The older separatists looked indefatigably for such unassimi­ lated elements in Homer. But so long as they used logical contra­ dictions as proofs that heterogeneous constituent elements were to be found in the Homeric epics, their attempts were destined to fail from the very outset. This new method has only one disadvantage, if one may call it so; it cannot be used where Homer succeeded in remoulding entirely the elements he borrowed from his predecessors without leaving anything unassimilated. It can help us only where the traces of remoulding have not been completely obliterated. Thus a general analysis of the Iliad and the Odyssey, which will distinguish whether every scene and every motif is a free Homeric creation or an adaptation of older material, is impossible. But even if the neo-analyst’s conclusions are not so abundant as those of the older separatists, who dared to analyse the two epics to their smallest details, I believe that they may be safer and will not crumble at the first stroke as the conclusions of the older separatists did. The new type of analysis, as it is handled in this book, has, I think, one more advantage over the older type: it allows us to retain our belief in the genius of the poet of the Iliad, a belief which is renewed every time we bend over his work. Whereas the older separatists rejoiced in discovering in the Homeric epics marks of poor skill and deficiencies — mostly non-existent — as a proof that old and shorter epics had been incorporated bodily after a superficial remoulding, and whereas on the other hand the Unitarians see only the imagination of a single man creating the Iliad and the Odyssey out of nothing, or think it absolutely out of the question that it is possible for us to reach Homer’s sources, our analysis reveals a poet, a truly great poet, who

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

10

INTRODUCTION

unhesitatingly borrows from his models rich material — motifs, actions, speeches, scenes etc. —, but does not incorporate it in his work as it is, as a compiler would do, but transfers it to other characters and other myths. He may even re-create or remould it and, which is far more important, he may try to deepen its moral background and exploit hidden and unused possibilities and give the material for the first time a more dramatic character. What if here and there unassimilated points escape his attention? We should be grateful to him for them, as otherwise it would be impossible for us to prove the extent, and above all, the nature of his dependence on his predecessors. I believe that the poet’s personality, as it emerges objectively from the study of his work, is just what we should expect from a Greek classic. He does not ignore the old tradition, nor does he imitate it blindly, but he uses the material bequeathed to him and assimilates it in order to create something new. His genius is thus presented to us as creating freely and at the same time tied to the age-old tradition of Greek epic poetry.

*/

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

I

M eleagrea 1 The death of Meleager is told in old Greek legends in two dif­ ferent versions, the first by Homer in the Presbeia of the Iliad (I 527—599), the second by more recent poets, Phrynichus (fr. 6 N.2), Aeschylus (Choeph. 602 f.), Bacchylides (5,94 f.) and Ovid (Metam. 8,267 f.). In the Iliad we are told the story of Meleager by Phoenix, who, speaking after Odysseus and Ajax, strives in his turn to persuade the angry Achilles to take once again part in the fighting. His tale does not follow the natural chronological order.1 I prefer, however, to tell of the deeds and the death of the Aetolian hero in the right order without deviating from the Homeric report. The additions printed in italics and in the footnotes are meant to cover those parts of the story which Homer supposes to be known or understood. In Calydon in Aetolia there reigned Oeneus with his wife Althaea. They had a son called Meleager, the strongest youth in all the land. One year in summer, the king, when offering the first-fruits to the gods, forgot to sacrifice to Artemis, the patroness of the land. The goddess was angry and to punish him she sent a wild boar, which devastated the royal lands. Meleager sent for help and many heroes gathered there, among others Althaea’s brother from the neighbouring town of Pleuron, where the Curetes lived. All together they now began hunting the boar and several of the 1 When a legend is used as an example it is characteristic that the dif­ ferent stages of the story are given not in their chronological order, but according to the importance they have for the narrator. See E. S achs, Philologus 88, 1933, 23, Schadewaldt , 83, A. H eubeck , Antike-Alte Sprachen und Neue Bildung 1943, 14.

570495 Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

12

I. MELEAGREA

heroes were killed, torn by its tusks — the famous chase of the Calydonian boar. In the end Meleager succeeded in killing him (533 f.). But Artemis’ anger was not appeased yet. Now* she makes the Calydonians and the Pleuronians quarrel about the head and • the hide of the slain beast (547 f.).2 In the new strife which breaks out the Aetolians with Meleager as their chief champion are vic­ torious and the Curetes do not dare remain near the walls of Calydon (550 f.). In the battle Meleager kills his uncle, whether by chance or purposely we are not told (567). When Althaea hears of her brother’s death, she falls on her knees and begins to beat the earth with her palms and to invoke Hades and Persephone to bring death upon Meleager (566 f.). When the news of the curse reaches Meleager’s ears, he becomes angry and shuts him­ self in his home, with Cleopatra his wife (553 f.). Now that the brave champion of the Aetolians is out of the war, the Curetes take heart and begin fighting outside the gates of Calydon (529 f.). The town is in danger of falling into their hands at any moment. There is no hope for the Calydonians unless Meleager returns to fight. Deputations of friends and kinsfolk hastily come to entreat him to put his wrath aside: reverend priests as ambassadors of the Aetolians promise a great gift, his father Oeneus, and even his mother in person and her daughters come. But Meleager's wrath becomes still more violent. Finally his dearest friends come and beg him. Wasted words! (573 f.). Only the last moment, when the Curetes assail the walls of Calydon, set the city on fire and begin to threaten his own home does his wife Cleopatra manage to change his mind telling him with tears in her eyes * The head and the skin of the boar were symbols of victory; whoever kept them was believed to have slain the beast. From Phoenix’ tale the reason for the quarrel is not evident at first. Apollodorus (1,72) tells us that the dispute about the giver of the fatal blow arose between Althaea’s brother and his nephew Meleager, since before Meleager inflicted the coup de grdce, his uncle had aimed at and hit the boar. Over this dispute between the two chiefs the two peoples are roused and begin fighting one another. In the epic which served as Homer's source for the legend of Meleager — see p. 23 f. below — we can imagine a scene immediately following the killing of the beast where the men of Calydon and Pleuron gather around it to look at it and admire its size (similar scene in X 369 f.). That moment a dispute arises, which ends in war.

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF MELEAGER’S STORY

13

about the calamities which usually befall a town conquered by the enemy. Then Meleager puts on his armour, goes out and drives the Curetes away. The Aetolians are saved but the hero does not live to receive the promised gift (588 f.): Althaea’s curse has been heard by the inexorable Erinys from the depths of the darkness of Hades (571 f.). In his opening words Phoenix appears to introduce the legend of Meleager as a worthy example for Achilles to follow: 524 ουτω καί των πρόσθ-ev έπβυ9*όμεθ·α κλέα άνδρών ήρώων, δτβ κέν τιν* έπιζάφβλος χόλος 1%ον δωρητοί τε πέλοντο παραρρητοί τ’ έπέβσσι. His tale, however, shows that Meleager proves to be to the end παραρρητός έπέεσσι, but not in the least δωρητές. That is why after finishing his narrative Phoenix asks Achilles not to imitate the Aetolian hero, but to accept Agamem­ non's offer and save the ships of the Achaeans as soon as possible: 600 αλλά συ μή μοι ταϋτα νόει φρεσί, μηδέ σε δαίμων ένταυθ·α τρέψβιβ. . . άλλ* έπί δώρων Ιρχεο. Had Meleager also listened to the embassies of the Aetolians, he would have received the promised gifts. There was no point in Phoenix' pointing out that he would not have lived to rejoice in them since his mother’s curse was upon him. — Meleager's example, which appears exhortative at first, turns out to be dissuasive in the end. What undoubtedly urges Phoenix to this hardly suitable introduction is his desire to influence Achilles strongly at the outset, while preparing him to listen to the story of another hero who was persuaded to abandon his wrath.

The other version tells of Meleager’s death in quite a different way: here it is not the curse that destroys the hero. Althaea holds in her hands a much more drastic weapon with which to revenge her brother’s or rather her brothers’ death — since two uncles are mentioned as having been killed by Meleager. The life of this youth is said to have been bound up ever since his birth with a half burnt stick, which up to that moment has been carefully kept in a chest. It is this stick which themother now burns, after she learns of her brother’s death, and Meleager, who is still in the fighting, falls dead at the very moment when it is burnt out. According to a third variant, the hero is killed by Apollo, who is an ally of the Curetes: . . . ύπ’ 'Απόλλωνος χερ[σίν , . . έδαμάσ3η ?] μαρνάμενος Κου[ρησι, γυναικί δέ πείθ·ετ?]ο κεδνή.

(Hes. Eoeae 135 Rz.s+Pap. Ox. 2075). Cf. Paus. 10, 31, 3: Απόλλωνα δή αυταί φασιν αΐ ποιήσεις (i.e. Eoeae and Minyas) άμυνα: Κούρησιν έπί τούς ΑΙτωλούς,

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

14

I. MELEAGREA

και άποθ·ανβΙν Μελέαγρον υπό ’Απόλλωνος. There is no doubt that this version is a later adaptation of the tale in the Iliad and of no particular importance. Later epic poetry extended the similarity between the fate of the Aetolian hero and that of Achilles (wrath, quick death after appeasement of wrath) to the manner of his death, by putting Apollo in the place of the Erinys.

That the version involving the stick is older than that involving the curse, although it is mentioned only by much more recent poets, is made almost certain by recent researches.3 But further investigation shows that behind the legend known to Bacchylides and Phrynichus an old Aetolian folk-tale is concealed, which contains all the primitive belief in the force of magic for the welfare or for the destruction of man. This tale must have had more or less the following form: Once upon a time there was a woman; when she gave birth to a baby she wanted to know if he would live, and what his fortune would be when he grew up. Therefore, she lay in wait for the Fates on the night when they came to offer their gifts. When they arrived, she heard one of them say ’this boy will be handsome’, and the second ’he will be brave too’. But the third cried ’look at this stick burning in the fireplace; the moment it is burnt out, the boy will die’.4 As soon as she said this the Fates left. Then the mother rushed out, seized the half-burnt stick, put it out and hid it in the bottom of a chest. The boy lived, grew up and became a strong, handsome youth. One day he went out hunting accompanied by his mother’s brother; but as they were coming back they quarrelled about sharing the game. Then he became so angry that he struck his uncle dead. As soon as his mother heard of it, she ran to the chest, took out the stick and threw it into the fire. The moment the piece of wood was burnt out, her son fell down dead. 1 surmised that the original story was a folk-tale, with the visit of the Fates, the magic tie between the stick and the youth and finally the death of the youth as its chief elements. When I ana­ lysed the version involving the stick, I put aside all the elements * See J. Kakridis, ’Apod, 107 f., van der Kolf , R. E. 478 s. v. Meleagros, Schadewaldt , 139, M. Noe , Phoenix, Ilias und Homer 50 f. 4 The third Fate seems for some reason to be angry with the mother as often happens in such tales, and that is why she foretells evil.

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

THE ANCIENT FOLK-TALE OF MELEAGER

15

which had quite obviously been added later, and were taken from the version in the Iliad: Artemis’ wrath, the chase of the boar, the fighting of the Curetes against the Aetoli^jns. What was left had the characteristic form of a folk-tale.^ Later this opinion was proved to be correct by the that the Meleager-story is preserved to this day as a folk-tale in many variations and in different parts of the world.® As to the results of the visit of the three Fates cf. Hyginus 171 (Clotho dixit eum generosum futurum, Lachesis fortem, Atropos titionem ardentem aspexit in foco et ait: tamdiu hie viuet, quamdiu hie titio consumptus non fuerit) and the modern tales (Appendix 1). The opinion of Wilamowitz, Sitzb. Berl. Ak. 17, 1925, 216 that the three Fates are a later addition, cannot be correct. No source mentions that the mother keeps secret the tie between her son and the magic stick. Still this detail is repeated not only in the Meleagertales of today, but also in all the stories which contain the motif of the 'external soul*: in the Egyptian tale of Bata, where the heart of the hero is in the top of an acacia tree, in the stories of dragons and snakes, whose life depends on an egg, a bird, an animal, etc.5*7 The sympathetic relation between a man’s or a beast's life and an external object must be kept secret, although an enemy may find it out and so destroy his rival. So in our old tale only the mother must know what keeps her son alive. The life of the youth is in her hands.8 — The old tradition does not mention that the mother lies in wait for the Fates and that it is not by chance that she hears them come. See however the Meleager-tales of today.

This folk-tale, which has been preserved in oral lore through so many ages down to the present day and was widely known in 5 Άραί 112. The fact that Bacchylides and Ovid confuse in their tales fairy elements (Fates, stick) and epic elements (wrath of a goddess, chase, war) should not surprise us. The motif, however, of the hero’s wrath with all its consequences (siege of Calydon, deputation, persuasion of the youth by his wife, etc.) could not have been used either by Bacchylides or by Ovid, because their taking of the stick from the folk-tale and the immediate death it causes exclude all possibility of a wrath. 8 See Appendix I. 7 J . G. F r a z e r , The Golden Bough8 VII 2,95 f., Λαογραφία 2, 1910, 396. 8 And so we can understand better the version of Phrynichus in the Pleuronians, that the Fates had given the stick to Althaea (Paus. 10,31,4). Pausanias* διδόναι is a rather careless expression; really the Fates entrusted the stick to the mother to save it from falling into a stranger’s hands.

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

16

I. MELEAGREA

ancient times,9 was adopted and adapted in Ionia by the epic poets, who did not use the motif of the stick, but replaced it with that of the curse, one of the commonest epic motifs.101Whether it was Homer himself who made this adaptation or some earlier epic poet from whom he drew his tale is a problem which has been an unsettled dispute among scholars these last hundred years. I shall deal with it in the next chapter. For the present we have to judge whether this alteration really harmed the original tale, as some Homeric scholars suggest, or not. It is true that the replacement of the stick by the curse deprives the legend of its dramatic element. Althaea’s recourse to the gods to avenge her brother’s blood makes her certainly a weaker character than the mother who holds in her grasp her son’s fate and throws the fatal stick into the fire with her own hands.11 But such a weakening is not without precedent in the ancient tradition. It is a fact that the epic poets try to establish an unvary­ ing order in the world and to remould the legend without utilizing fantastic elements.12 Likewise, the epic poets exclude magic and worship of the Earth, as they consider them incompatible with their faith in the bright Olympian gods, who now have full sway. The same thing happens with the Meleager-legend: with the introduction of the curse, the gods have to intervene, where previously the mortal himself with magic means had the power to enforce his will directly. We find the same thing in the legend of Bellerophontes (Plutarch, Mul. Virt. 248 a ): In order to punish Iobates, the disloyal king sets out from the sea drawing behind him a whole plain and destroys the works of man: μετεώρου τής Οαλάττης καί άποκρυπτούσης τό

of the Lycians, Bellerophontes huge wave, which floods the και θ-έαμα δεινόν ήν έπομένης πεδίον. Before this invincible

• Phrynichus speaks of the tale of the stick ές άπαν ήδη διαβεβοημένην τό Ελληνικόν (Paus. see above). Also the way in which Aeschylus mentions it (Choeph. 602 f.) shows that the poet supposes it to be well-known. 10 *Apa( 99.

11 This is B eth e ' s chief argum ent (Rhein. Mus. 74, 1925, 7): he puts the variant of the stick at the end, and not at the beginning of the development of the tale.

12 For changes in the epic version of the legend of Tithonus, for the same reasons, see my paper, Wien. Stud. 48, 1930, 25.

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

17

EPIC ADAPTATION OF ANCIENT TALES

enemy the men are powerless. Only when cel γυναίκες άνασυράμεναι τους χιτωνίσκους άπήντησαν αύτφ, is Bellerophontes forced to withdraw, not of course ύπ* αίσχύνης, as Plutarch believes, but because he is subdued by the magic force exercised upon him by the women’s apotropaic divesting. With him the wave too withdraws. How much weaker these marvellously powerful pictures of Bellerophontes, who advances wielding a flooding wave, and of the women, who stop him with a most drastic magical gesture, appear in the later version of Nymphes, which is full of rationalism and prudery: Bellerophontes curses the people of Iobates before Poseidon, and he sows salt on the land and this destroys the crops of the plain. But here the hero gives in to the women and prays to god to put his wrath aside, not because he is forced by some magic means, but because he takes pity on them when they come and beg him (Plut. o. c. 248d = FHG 3 p. 14). In the same legend powerful magic influences are twice replaced by the colourless motif of the άρά. It is characteristic that the Old Testament also insists on the position of Jehovah as Lord over all, brushing aside all demoniac forces or subordinat­ ing them to the one God. The old magic act is now accompanied by the prayer of the prophet and it is God’s listening to the prayer that makes the miracle possible. Elijah takes the sick child of a widow and »he . . . laid him upon his own bed . . . And he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried unto the LORD, and said, O LORD my God, I pray thee, let this child’s soul come into him again . . . And the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived» (1 Kings 17,17 f. Cf. also 2 Kings 4,33 f.). In other cases in the Old Testament the magic deed is presented as being carried out on God’s orders. An older tradition would of course give the initiative to a mortal, who by his power forces the supernatural forces to submit.13

All these variants present weaker heroes than the older stories. But the Greek epic poet at least has tried to restore the damage; if his Althaea is weaker than the heroine of the older tale, still the legend itself is richer. It is not only that the poet remoulds the very scene of the curse more dramatically and makes it more emotional; he also introduces new motifs, Artemis’ wrath, the hunting of the boar, the war, and still more the hero’s wrath, which he could not have used had he kept to the motif of the stick. Out of the youth in the folk-tale who is more acted upon than acting and who becomes really alive only when he kills his uncle, the epic poet now creates an integral character — Meleager, who is first in the ranks among the Aetolians, whom the enemy 11 See H. G u n k e l , Das Märchen im Allen Testament, p. 102 and 169.

2

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

18

I. MELEAGREA

does not dare to face, who afterwards gets angry and sends away all the friends and relatives who come to ask for his help, but who at the last moment is subdued by the entreaties of his wife and returns to the fighting. And how much richer the poem is in movement! In the folk-tale only three persons were involved, the son, the mother and the uncle, in a very simple plot. In the epic the mother has a husband, — and it is his original neglect which causes all the misfortunes —, the son has a wife — and it is she who in the end makes her husband change his mind —, he has sisters, he has a father. Here a multitude of heroes contend for the boar, and before a town two peoples fight. What a com­ motion in the hunting of the boar, and in the fight, where victory changes hands so many times between the Aetolians and the Curetes, how much ado with the deputations, which come and go in the ever increasing danger! Such scenes as that in which Althaea kneels and with tears in her eyes curses her son, beating the earth with her two hands, ώς olov θ·υροκρουστοΰσα τούς καταχθ-ονίους,u or as that where afterwards the father beats his breast outside his son’s door, begging him in vain to open, or even that between Cleopatra and Meleager while Calydon is in flames — we shall look in vain for such dramatic and exciting scenes in the old tale. How’ can we agree then with the accusation that the epic poet by his modifications weakened the original narrative? 2

One of the most important problems which the Meleager-legend presents is the relationship of the Homeric narrative to its sources: what were Homer’s authorities and what was the form of the pre-Homeric legend? Opinions are divided: there are scholars who believe that Homer draws from an epic,16 others that he draws from a ballad 10 and others again speak vaguely of an older u Eustathios p. 295 (I 568). 15 U. v. W ilamowitz , Sitzh. Berl. Ak. 1925, 214 f., E. H owald , Rhein. Mus. 73, 1920/4, 404 f.. Van d e r Kolf , R. E. s . v. Mcleagros, p. 448, E. S achs, Philologus 88, 1933, 16 f. 16 O. Schroeder , Sokrates 10, 1922, Jb. Phil. Ver. 44.

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

THE FORM OF THE PRE-HOMERIC LEGEND

19

legend without mentioning the kind of poetry that narrated it.17 Others are of the opinion that Homer summarizes the older narrative without changing it and that the motif of the wrath belongs from of old to the Aetolian legend; they even assert that the wrath of Meleager was the model on which Homer formulated the wrath of Achilles.18 On the other hand, others maintain that Homer remoulds his sources considerably and that it is he who for the first time introduces Meleager nursing his wrath and receiving deputations, in order to make the tale used by Phoenix as an example fit into the circumstances of the Iliad.19 A problem which has not yet been solved will open the way for us to escape from this confusion: how can we explain the presence of the mother among those who come to entreat Meleager, when only a short while before she was calling on the deities of the underworld to cause his death? How can Althaea beg her son to take arms and fight the Curetes, when they have come to avenge her brother, for whose death she herself sought to take revenge with her curses? The right answer will be given when we examine how the mother appears in her turn with the other persons who come to entreat the hero: first come priests sent by the Aetolian elders, then his father, then his sisters with Althaea, then his most beloved friends and last of all Cleopatra. In the order in which these persons appear it is easy to distinguish an order, which we find repeatedly elsewhere in the old tradition. In all the similar stories conjugal love is shown as standing in higher esteem than the love of friends and relatives. Here belongs the motif of Alcestis, which exalts conjugal love to such a point, that the wife sacrifices her life to save her husband.20 17 W. Schmid , Griech. Literaturgesch. I 1,72 note 4, P. Cauer, Grundfragen der Homerkritik3 264 f., Schadewaldt 139 f. 18 G. F insler * I 1,39, P. Girard , Rev. d. Ft. Gr. 15, 1902, 283 f., P. Cauer , o. c., E. S achs, o . c . 20, E. H owald , Der Dichter der Ilias 118 f. — M. Nilsson

is of a different opinion, Antike 14, 1938, 32. 18 E. Drerup , Homerische Poetik 1,66, E. B eth e , Rhein. Mus. 74, 1925, 1 f., Schadewaldt , see above, F. Dornseiff , Philologus 93, 1939, 407 note 3, A. H eubeck , o . c. 14. 38 See A. L esky, Sitzb. Wien. Ak. 1925, 2, G. Megas, ARW. 30, 1933, 1 f„ M. Gaster , BNgrJb. 15, 1939, 66.

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

20

I. MELEAGREA

Love between man and wife is extolled (i) by showing how the husband loves his wife: a) more than he loves his own friends (or compatriots), parents and brothers (or sisters): Meleager, Hector;21 b) more than she is loved by her own people, friends and parents: Coresus;22 (ii) by showing how the wife loves her husband more than he is loved by his own people, friends, parents and brothers: Alcestis,23 Andromache.24 There is only one instance which remains unexploited in the old tradition, viz. presenting the wife as loving her husband more than she loves her own people, friends, parents etc. We shall see a variant of this type too in Z 429, in the scene of Hector meeting Andromache. In all these stories the order in which the persons appear is typical: (i) a) friends (compatriots), b) parents, c) husband (or wife), or (ii) a) friends, b) mother, c) father, d) brothers and sisters, e) husband (or wife). The number also of the members in these cases is typical: three or — with addition of brothers (or sisters) and the separation of father and mother — five. I shall take up the matter of the origin and the nature of this subject in Appendix III. We must now return to Meleager: I believe, that since it has been shown above that the ascending scale of affection is a motif with a fixed gradation of friends and relatives, we can find the reason which imposes Althaea’s presence among the other deputations. In the typical list of the persons, whom Meleager evidently loves less than his wife, his mother has to be included, notwithstanding the fact that her presence cannot be easily reconciled with her curse. On the other hand, we should not forget that this contradiction appears very forcibly in the Iliad, since the summary which Phoenix gives mentions the arrival of the mother very briefly. In the epic which Homer* *' Z 447 f. See Chapter II § 2. If Paus. 7,21,1. See Appendix II. ** Eur. Ale. 15 f. — For the Pontic songs of today with the motif of Alcestis see D. C. H esseling , Euripidis Alcestis en de Volkspoezie, A. L esky, o. c. 26 and Appendix III. — For Rumanian songs and Hebrew stories with the same subject see M. Gaster, o. c. *4 Z 237 f. See further Chapter II § 2.

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

THE ASCENDING SCALE OF AFFECTION

21

must have followed 25 it should not have been difficult for the poet to justify Althaea's behaviour in some way, however extem­ poraneous, e.g. that her daughters persuaded her in those critical moments to give in. This fact also explains why Althaea comes to Meleager with her daughters and not with her husband or by herself, as the typical form would require. Thus the ascending scale of affection is not mutilated, as it would have been, were Althaea absent, nor would the coming of the mother strike us as something completely unjustifiable, as it appears to be in Phoenix' narrative. On the other hand, I think it improbable that the older epic poet dwelt extensively on Althaea's psychic struggle before she was persuaded to appeal to her brother's murderer. It is still more improbable that he spoke of a conflict between brotherly love and maternal love in the heart of the same woman from the moment when she heard of the result of the battle until she decided to resort to the gods and ask for the death of her son. Even in Bacchylides (5,139) the άτάρβακτος γονά does not hesitate even for a moment. On the contrary in Ovid (Metam. 8,463) we read: pugnant materque sororque et diversa trahunt unum duo nomina pectus. Saepe metu sceleris pallebant ora futuri, saepe suum fervens oculis dabat ira ruborem, et modo nescio quid similis crudele minanti vultus erat, modo quem misereri credere posses. Behind these verses, as we can see from Althaea's soliloquy, which follows, the great prototype of Euripides* Medea is unmistakably concealed. We shall see below (§ 4) how in the old tale the mother kills her son unhesitatingly, since she is bound by the laws of her clan and must take vengeance for the shedding of kindred blood.

Althaea’s appearance with her daughters as an embassy is not, however, the only deviation from the typical ascending scale of affection. There is a second, much more important. In the other related stories, those who do not belong to the family — friends, acquaintances, compatriots — naturally take the lowest position in the scale and are mentioned before all the kinsmen.26 In* “ The reason for which we are obliged to accept a pre-Homeric epic nar­ rative, which served as Homer’s source for the legend of Meleager will be seen below p. 23 f. ** Cf. Homer Z 450 f., Eur. Ale. 15 f., Paus. 7,21,3.

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

22

I. MELEAGREA

Phoenix’ narrative, however, the position usually assigned to the friends is held by the priests (575) and the κεδνότατοι καί φίλτατοι έταίροι come later (585 f.). In this manner, the first step in the scale is bisected and one member of it (the έταΐροι) is raised, quite out of the ordinary course, to the step before the last, above the parents and the sisters. But I believe it is not very difficult for us to find the reason for this divergence too: Phoenix, who tells of the exploits and experiences of Meleager, represents with Ajax and Odysseus, who accompany him, the κεδνδτατοι καί φίλτατοι έταΤροι of the wrathful Achilles, although as deputies of the Achaean elders (89) their position corresponds to that of the priests in the Meleager-tradition, who, as the deputies of the Aetolian elders (574), form the first embassy to Althaea’s son.27 Like them, the Achaean embassy also enumerates for Achil­ les the presents he will receive if he decides to take part in the fighting again (I 261 f.~576 f.). Achilles sees in Phoenix, Ajax and Odysseus his best friends. This is pointed out by Achilles all the time (197 ή φίλοι άνδρες ίκάνετον . . . ’Αχαιών φίλτατοί έστον, 204 φίλτατοι άνδρες), by Phoenix (521 f. ο? τε σοΐ αύτώ φίλτατοι Άργείων) and by Ajax (628 f. Άχιλλεύς . . . ούδέ μετατρέπεται φιλότητος έταίρων; 641 f. μέμαμεν δέ τοι Ιξοχον άλλων κήδιστοί τ’ Ιμεναι καί φίλτατοι, δσσοι ’Αχαιοί). That is why the friends cannot be left out of the legend of Meleager, when it is used as an example, and moreover, they must be given the highest possible position in the scale, so that their coming may carry the greatest weight, considering also that the place which originally belonged to them is now taken by the priests.28 Thus they take the place before the last — and why not the last? *7 Achilles quite reasonably calls the deputies γέροντες anyhow (422). 18 Prof. H. F rankel maintains that by the fcxatpoc of v. 585 we should understand what the word usually means, »members of the hero’s retinue, companions» and not »outsiders» like the embassy of the Achaeans in the Iliad (private information). Cf. also M. Nilsson , Homer and Mycenae 232. In spite of this, the embassy of Agamemnon is described by its members as composed of Achilles* έχαΐροι (630), although at least two of them do not belong to his retinue. That the epic poet does not expand the meaning of έταϊρος here only, in order to be able to draw a parallel between the com·

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

23

h o m e r ’s s o u r c e a n e p i c

There can be only one answer to this question: Phoenix must have been prevented by the tradition; it must have been a fixed element in the story that it was Meleager’s wife who appeased his wrath in the end, so that Homer could not modify it, however great his desire may have been to represent Meleager as finally persuaded by his friends; so he was obliged to put the friends only in the last place but one, above the parents and the sisters, so as to give them the greatest possible importance — even though in this way he disturbed the established and natural sequence of friends and kinsfolk. But if the interpolation of the friends is an innovation by Phoenix then we must accept another earlier version of the tra­ dition, in which the ascending scale of affection was presented without the disturbances it has undergone in the Iliad. This version cannot be identified with the original tale of Meleager, since in the old tale the youth’s death was, as we saw, provoked directly by the stick. No mention was made there of Meleager’s wrath, as his wrath would presuppose his mother’s curse, in other words the motif which replaced the magic stick. The curse and the stick could not co-exist in the same tale.29 But then the old Aetolian tale could not include the ascending scale of affection at all, since this presupposes the motif of the wrath and has no place whatever in the narrative of the hero’s sudden death. Whoever doubts this should read in this connexion Bacchylides’ version (5,96 f.); although he has taken very many epic elements, still, since he keeps the stick, he does not speak of wrath, or embassies, or curse. On the other hand, we can no longer accept, as many Homeric scholars have believed, that the motif of the wrath — and with it the embassies — is an innovation of Homer’s, for the purpose of adapting the narrative which he uses as an example to the events of the Iliad, the same purpose which made Phoenix mention*· panions of Meleager and the embassy of the Achaeans, is demonstrated by other Homeric passages with the same more general use of the word (Δ 266, T 305). *· About the mistaken opinion of Ε. KUhnert , Rhein. Mus. 49, 1894, 57 f. see J. Kakridis, Άραί HO f. M. No e , Phoenix, Ilias und Homer p. 66 does not add any new point.

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

24

I. MELEAGREA

Meleager’s story.30 In that case the most natural thing for Homer to do would be to make Meleager give in to the entreaties of his friends. It would not have been necessary for him to take the initiative and introduce such a complicated motif as the ascend­ ing scale of affection — indeed, it is not only complicated but also unsuitable since it exalts the wife, in whom Phoenix has no reason to be interested —, a motif which he could make appro­ priate to the purposes of the embassy of I only by adding ele­ ments which considerably disturbed its natural and established form; the ascending scale of affection is in no way connected with the events of the Iliad. Here nothing corresponds to the coming of the father, the mother, or the sisters. Even the fact that in the Meleager-story the first embassy consists, quite excep­ tionally, of priests is a proof that Homer bases himself on a tradition and that he does not create deliberately. Above all, there is no reason why he should himself have invented Meleager’s preference for Cleopatra. In Phoenix’ narrative we can easily follow the attempt to reconcile two contradicting purposes: firstly the elevation of the wife to the highest place in the scale of the persons who appeal to Meleager; secondly, the elevation of the friends to the highest possible place in the same scale. If the second aim belongs to Homer — and undoubtedly it does —, then the first must belong to a previous version of the story of the accursed and wrathful Meleager. It is from this version that the character of the wife enters the narrative in I as a fixed and unalterable element. We must consider it certain that the pre-Homeric version about Meleager, as it is revealed above, is the creation of an epic poet who remoulded the original Aetolian myth. The hunting of the boar, which concentrates in Calvdon the most famous heroes of Greece, the war between the Aetolians and the Curetes, the curse which replaces the magic stick, are essentially epic motifs. There­ fore the view that Homer took the Aetolian hero’s story from an older epic is correct, but with one reservation: we cannot know whether this narrative constituted substantially the main motif of 30 See p. 19 note 19. For Schadewaldt ' s and Nofc’s theories see below p. 27.

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

DEPARTURES FROM THE PROTOTYPE IN PHOENIX’ ACCOUNT

25

an independent, though short, epic. It might as well have been an incident in a more extensive epic poem. Still, for convenience I shall continue to call this narrative the »Meleagris». It is impor­ tant to note, however, that we can now for the first time define with accuracy the form which the legend took in Homer’s source.31 What, then, besides the addition of the friends, must we con­ sider as a fresh departure from the prototype in Phoenix’ account, which could enable Achilles’ tutor to exercise a greater influence upon him? Undoubtedly part of the words used by Cleopatra to persuade her husband (590 f.). What she is made to say about the men being killed and the town being burnt (593) would be more appropriate to the first embassy. It is the priests who represent the public and not Cleopatra. Still, Meleager is as little concerned about the burning of Calydon and the losses of the Aetolians as Achilles is about the losses of the Achaeans and the burning of their ships. The only thing which he cares about is his own home which is now in danger (588) and his own wife, exactly as Achilles cares only about his own ships and his own army.32 It is for his wife’s sake only that Meleager decides to return to the fighting, although he knows such a decision will enable the Erinys to fulfil his mother’s curse all the sooner. Moreover, while Cleopatra is talking to him Calydon is already on fire (589) and most of its defenders have certainly been killed. Therefore Cleopatra could not appeal to the feelings of the hero by presenting to him the destruction of Calydon and the Calydonians as an imminent danger. It is only about her own fate which is now threatened that she can speak; if Calydon finally falls into the hands of the Curetes, Cleopatra will be dragged to the enemy’s town to labour as a slave for some proud Pleuronian mistress. It is an error for us to be led by Phoenix’ tale into believing that in the old tradition it was his wife who sent Meleager back to fight in order to save his native town.33* ** Our notion about the Meleagris is completed by important evidence at a certain point from an indirect and quite unexpected source. See below p. 53 ff. ** I 650 f„ Π 61 f. Cf. also A 666 f. ** G. F insler *1 1,41, W ilamowitz , Reden und Vorträge 41,166. It is amusing to notice how the scholiast tries to save the hero from the suspicion

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

26

I. MELEAGREA

593 άνδρχς μέν κτείνουσι, πδλιν δε τε πΟρ άμαθ-ύνει. This enumeration of κακά έργα which is supposed to persuade the Aetolian hero (595) must change Achilles9 mind; it is Achilles whom Phoenix wants to move. If the Trojans storm the walls of the camp the Achaeans will be killed and their ships burnt. This is just what Hector threatens to do (Θ 182, Ξ 47), as Odys­ seus also mentions: I 241

στεϋχαι γάρ νηών άποκόψειν άκρα κόρυμβα, αότάς τ’ έμπρήσειν μαλερου πυρός, αύτάρ ’Αχαιούς δ^ώσειν παρά τ^σιν όρινομένους ύπό καπνού.

Phoenix too points out his fears about the fate of the Greek ships both at the beginning and at the end of his speech (435 f., 601 f.). There is therefore no doubt that in this part too Achilles’ tutor modifies the Meleagris in order the better to serve his purpose. I believe that the poet who wrote the Meleagris would never have made the various deputations appear before the angry hero and entreat him with the same arguments. The priests as representatives of the Calydonian public would point out the impending disaster to the town, the relatives — supposing that the poet made them speak, since Meleager kept them outside the door of his chamber — would try to move the hero most probably by telling him of their own danger, which he, as son and brother, would feel under an obligation to avert. As to Cleopatra, I have already given my views above. The friends, as we saw, did not appear in the Meleagris. It is true that Cleopatra’s coming coincides with the climax of the danger, the moment when the enemy sets fire to the town and begins attacking the hero's home. Led by this observation and taking into consideration the fact that no explicit reference is made in the narrative of I to Meleager’s great affection for his wife, one might perhaps believe that it was the fear of total destruction and not particularly Cleopatra’s threatened enslavement which moved the hero to take up arms again. But in that case we should disregard completely the significance of introducing the ascending scale of affection into the legend. We shall presently see why the Homeric narrative avoids mentioning the affection of the husband for his wife.3* On the other hand, it is quite natural that as the danger increases the importance of the that he is henpecked: και πώς oöx άιοπον γυναικΐ μόν·$ πβίί>εαθ*αι; ή ότι καιρός ήν ό πείρων, οόχ ό δρως* δτι γάρ ού γυναικοκρατειται, δήλον . . . 34 It is only in the repeated references to Meleager's sleeping beside Cleo­ patra (556 κεΐτο, 565 παρκατέλεκΐο, and also 590 παράκοιτις), not merely being near her, that we find, perhaps, in Homer the element of love taken from the old tradition.

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

DEPARTURES FROM THE PROTOTYPE IN PHOENIX’ ACCOUNT

27

embassies sent to Meleager should also increase. — Achilles also threatens not to return to the battle until the moment when he sees, after the destruc­ tion of the Argives and the burning of their ships, Hector nearing his tent and his ships ( I 650 f., Π 62 f.). Still, in the Iliad the personal motive which urges Achilles to control his wrath, namely, Patroclus’ death, does not coincide with the parallel aggravation of the danger, since such aggravation would require the ships of all the other Greeks to be found burning, and this, of course, could not be allowable considering the general plan of the Iliad.

It is only with difficulty that we can visualize the Meleagris ending without speaking of Cleopatra after the death of her husband. In the last scenes at least, the woman for whose love Meleager returned to the battle should reappear to mourn over his lifeless body, as Andromache mourns over Hector’s in the Iliad. In I, however, Phoenix forgets Cleopatra too soon. It is at something else that he is aiming now: 597 ώς ό μέν ΑίτωλοΤσιν άπήμυνεν κακόν ήμαρ είξας φ θ·υμω . . . On thinking it over, it becomes apparent to us that Meleager showed no concern about the safety of the Aetolians. By driving away the Curetes in order to defend his wife, he incidentally saved the remaining Calydonians. In the Iliad, likewise, Achilles’ decision to return to the fighting is also caused by a personal motive. The later poet, however, pictures a more civilized world, which imposes a reconciliation upon him. That is why in T Achilles is described as being reconciled to the rest of the Hellenes, a thing which was not obligatory on Meleager and which he could not have done at such a critical moment. Yet Phoenix points to the assistance offered by Meleager to the Aetolians in spite of himself, since he must urge Achilles to a similar decision — whereas Cleopatra’s lot is of no interest to them.3 3 In his recent book Iliasstudien (1938), while examining the legend of Meleager, Schadewaldt also accepts (p. 139 f.) that the variant of the stick gives the original form of the story of his death, but he does not accept that between this form and the version in I an epic narrative, with the form which I maintain

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

28

I. MELEAGREA

that it had, must have intervened. According to Schadewaldt, it is Homer himself who replaces the stick by Althaea’s curse. It is he who first shows Meleager as wrathful and he who introduces the ascending scale of affection. The original story (and he does not decide whether it was a folk-tale or an epic narrative) was more or less the same in form as that of Bacchylides: Artemis’ wrath, boar, chase, Meleager’s immediate death caused by the stick which Althaea burns.35 According to Schadewaldt it is not improbable that in the scale of suppliants the friends, the comrades-in-arms, were naturally placed above the kinsmen, considering that importance is attached to the amount of influence they can exercise upon the hero and not to the degree of kinship. But Schadewaldt’s chief argument is that the occurrence of Cleopatra in Phoenix* speech is by no means an irrelevant motif, a remnant from an older epic narrative, since Κλβο-πάτρα here corresponds to Πάτρο-κλος.33 He also attempts to support his view that such combinations of names are characteristically Homeric with the following examples: Άντιφος, Τππόλοχος Άντιμάχοιο (Λ 109, 122) Ίππόμαχος Άντιμάχοιο, Άντιφάτης (Μ 188 f., 191); Θαλυσιάδης Έχέπωλος (Δ 458)-* Άγχισιάδης Έχέπωλος (Ψ 296); Φαυσιάδης Άπισάων (Λ Λ78) ~ Ίππασίδης Άπισάων (Ρ 348) ~ Ίππασίδης Ύψήνωρ (Ν 411) ~ Ύψήνωρ, υίός Δολοπίονος (Ε 76), and above all, with the name of Nestor’s slave Έκαμήδη (A 624) which is formed after the pattern of Άγαμήδη, Augeas* daughter (A 740). Besides, Homer himself asserts that Cleopatra was also called Alcyone (I 562) and this was according to Schadewaldt the legendary name of Meleager’s wife. Therefore Cleopatra owes to Homer both her name and her position at the top of the scale: Meleager’s wife succeeds in changing the angry hero’s mind, while the town is already on fire, just as later in the Iliad at a corresponding phase of the fighting, Patroclus is to have, to a certain extent, a similar success.37 Schadewaldt also tries to explain Althaea’s strange appearance among the other suppliants of Meleager by the contention that the mother here ’represents* the Agamemnon of the Iliad, in other words: because in the Iliad Agamemnon who provokes Achilles’ anger later gives in and seeks to be reconciled with him again (I 115 f.), Homer makes Althaea forget her curse and appeal to her angry son. 35 On the contrary, l believe that Bacchylides mixes up the legendary and epic motifs (p. 15 note 5). 36 This parallelism was also made some years ago by E. H owald , Rhein. Mus. 73, 1924, 411, only he came to a quite contrary conclusion: that Cleo­ patra of the old Meleagris tradition was the model used by Homer for Patro­ clus. Sec also H owald , Der Dichter der Ilias ρ. 132. 37 T o a certain extent’ because Patroclus persuades Achilles to let him go out and fight.

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

REMARKS ON SCHADEWALDT’S THEORY

29

Although this new theory appears simpler than mine since it requires only two stages in the development of Meleager’s story, I cannot accept it for the following reasons:38 1) The ascending scale: priests, father, sisters and mother, f r i e n d s , wife, is in principle not impossible, but it is unnatural and contrary to all examples we have of this motif, both in the ancient tradition (see p. 20) and in modern Greek folk-lore (Appendix III). These examples show that we have to do with an established popular motif with a fixed order according to the degree of affection which the character is expected to feel for those who appeal to him. 2) The variations Hecamede-Agamede, Antiphus-Antiphates etc. do not help since they have absolutely no deeper meaning, as Schadewaldt himself admits (59, note 1). They are there merely because of the inability of the epic poet to keep devising new names for the endless lists of heroes who die, as well as for the other requirements of his poetic plan. There is no relation whatever between Hecamede, Nestor’s slave, and Agamede, Augeas’ daughter, still less between the Trojan Thalysiades Echepolus of Δ and the Greek Anchisiades Echepolus of T. Besides, in the present case the corres­ pondence Patroclus-Cleopatra should be full of meaning since in Cleopatra the public should see a symbolic representation of Patroclus. Such a super­ ficial relation of two persons by their names in order to render their common mission more obvious in the poem in which they appear would be unique in the Homeric epics and, if I am not mistaken, in all ancient Greek poetry. — On the other hand the relation between the names Patroclus-Cleopatra is not so obvious as to be immediately felt by the public which has no time while hearing the song to resolve the two names into the elements from which they are compounded and thus recognize their intricate relationship, the more so since Cleopatra has absolutely nothing in common with the Patroclus of I and it is necessary to let full seven books go by before Patroclus is brought in with a somewhat similar claim (Π 1 f.). The inversion of the compounds in Patroclus and Cleopatra requires a grammatical explanation completely incompatible with the psychology of a man who listens to and enjoys an epic narrative. Besides, if it were Homer who on his own initiative had given so much importance to the name of Meleager’s wife, he would have tried to impress this name strongly on the memory of his listeners, so that later, after 4160 verses, when they hear Patroclus trying in his turn to persuade Achilles, w My reserves about Schadewaldt ’s theory were already known to him before he put his book into circulation and we had agreed on my formulating them in an article to be published in »Hermes», edited by him. Later I was asked to review his excellent book as a whole for »Gnomon». But soon the war broke out and Germany’s attitude towards Greece made it impossible for a Greek scholar to work for a German periodical.

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

30

I. MELEAGREA

they might remember Cleopatra's similar attempt. But Cleopatra's name is mentioned only once, in the middle of a list of other attributes and names (556 χίΐτο παρά μνηστή άλόχψ, καλή Κλεοπάτρα, κούρ-fl Μαρπήσοης καλλεσςρύρου Εύηνίνης Ίδεώ τε . ..), and does not occur again, even in the crucial verses 590 f. Yet if ever a passage of Phoenix* narrative required her symbolic name to be repeated, that was in the verses where Cleopatra appears as persuading her husband. But there he speaks of Meleager's έύζωνος παράκοιτις (590) and not of Cleopatra. Besides, Cleopatra and Patroclus are quite different both as personalities and in their relation to the wrathful hero: woman-man, wife-ixatpoc; whereas Cleopatra's entreaties bring about the immediate death of her husband, the entreaties of Patroclus result in his own death. Had Homer in fact decided to remould the Meleager-legend in order to be able by using the deeds and fate of its heroes as symbols to prepare the audience in advance for the deeds and fate of his own heroes, I do not see why he should choose to symbolize a warrior who asks to be sent out to battle and who consequently dies an honourable death, by a »beautiful» woman (556 καλή, 590] έύζωνος) who, lying by her husband (556, 565, 590), asks him to fight in order that she may be saved.3· If it were Homer who introduced the ascending scale of suppliants into the Meleager-story, he would never have placed a woman at the top of the scale — the etymological similarity of their names must be incidental 40 —; rather he would have used a friend, either the most loyal έταΐρος or some other man, to symbolize Patroclus. 3) The evidence that when Meleager*s wife was still young she had besides her usual name also that of Alcyone, which had been given to her by her parents (562 ’Αλκυόνην καλέβ^κον έ π ών υ μ ο ν ) , is not at all an indirect confirmation that Alcyone was her traditional name. This is not proved by the fact that the later legend calls the heroine by the name of Cleopatra only, for as to that we might say that it was Homer’s influence which changed her name. Elsewhere in Homer we find people with two names, but in no case can we find an intentional attempt on Homer’s part to replace the accepted name by a new one. The instances of ΒριάρεωςΑίγαίων (A 403), 2κάμανδρος-Ξάνθ·ος (Γ 74), Τνώ-ΑβυκοΜα (β 333), Πάρις3· Schadewaldt , anticipating this contradiction, remarks (p. 140) that the

lack of perfect parallelism between the circumstances of Π and of the sym­ bolic narrative of I is characteristically Homeric. But as is obvious, here we have to do with substantial differences, and I do not see why Homer should have kept them if he were truly free to remould Meleager’s legend suitably. 40 Cleopatra is a common name. A daugther of Boreas (Apollod. 3,199) or his wife (Xonn. 2,689) had the same name; two of Danaus’ daughters (Apollod. 2.17 and 19), one of Tros’ (op. c. 3,140), one of the first virgins that the Locri sent as expiatory victims to Athena of Ilium (Apollod. Epit. 6,20), Idomeneus’ mother (Tzetz. Lyc. 431), a sister of Midas (op. c. 1397) etc.

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

31

REMARKS ON SCHADEWALDT’S THEORY

'Αλέξανδρος are of minor significance, but there is another case which we cannot but connect with the present, namely the two names of Hector’s son: Z 402 τόν {>' Έκτωρ καλέεσκε Ζκαμάνδριον, αύτάρ ot άλλοι Άστυάνακτ'* οϊος γάρ έρύετο 'Ίλιον Έκτωρ. Here too the child is given an additional name — for it is again a case of eponymie’ — derived from a quality peculiar to his father, as Cleopatra’s second name in our legend is derived from the sufferings of her mother.41*The epic poet varies slightly a popular motif, that of the child’s taking his name from the qualities or sufferings of its parents. Cf. Τηλέμαχος, ΑΙνείας (Horn. Hymn. Aphrod. 198), "Ανίος (Tzetz. Lyc. 570 p. 197, 26 Sch.), Νεοπτόλεμος (Cypr. 11 K., 13 B.), Ben-oni ( = the son of my sorrow, Gen. 35,18). In folk-tales: Αακρυγιάννης ( = tear-causing-Yannis), Δακρηλίας ( = tear-causing-Elias. See Λαογραφία 10, 1929, 395 and 399), Schmerzenreich (Grimm 31). Besides, the old legend with the motif of the stick does not describe Meleager as married. Bacchylides’ version, which according to Schadewaldt gives the original form of the story, does not speak of Cleopatra or Alcyone. What place could the wife take in the strife between uncle and nephew and later between mother and son? Should any one try to introduce her into Bacchylides’ version, where would he place her and how would he make her act? And there is still another point to notice: the name given to Cleopatra by her parents in order to recall her mother’s sufferings when Apollo seized her, is a proof of Marpessa’s love for her husband, as he also proved his love for her by daring to raise his weapon against the god (559 f.)· This tale originates in exactly the same conception as the ascending scale of affection, which shows another form of reverence for marital love. Were we to follow Schadewaldt’s theory, we should be forced to separate these two motifs. 4) Likewise I cannot accept that Althaea is intended as a symbol for Agamemnon. Undoubtedly there is something in common between the two characters. Both of them have to humble themselves and beg for the help of a hero whose anger they have themselves provoked. But I think it im­ possible that Homer expected his audience to remember Agamemnon when they heard of Althaea, since the differences between these two characters are very marked: Agamemnon has offended Achilles’ honour, whereas Althaea with a terrible curse has asked for the quick death of her son. Again, Agamemnon’s action is justified in his own eyes by his supreme position as head of the expedition and he had previously no reason to hate Achilles, whereas Althaea curses her son to revenge herself. It is άτη which incites Agamemnon to behave as he does (T 87 f.), whereas Althaea is driven by the moral exigencies of her clan-spirit which places the brother higher than any other kinsman.49 The opponent whom Agamemnon asks the wrathful 41 See E. R isch , Eumusia, Ernst Howald zum 60. Geburtstag p. 72. « See p. 37.

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

32

I. MELEAGREA

hero’s help in repelling is and was a common enemy, the Trojans, whereas Althaea is completely unjustifiable when she asks Meleager to rise and resist her compatriots who came to take vengeance for her brother's blood — that same brother on whose behalf she had herself cursed her son. Agamemnon sends other people to intervene, whereas Althaea, whose curse is to bring about the death of Meleager, appears before him in person. Furthermore, Althaea's presence is closely connected with the appearance of the other persons who entreat Meleager, especially his father and his sisters, for whom there are no parallels in the Iliad. Had Homer not found the ascending scale of affection, in which the mother has a firm place, in his source, why should he use it here, where only one deputation (or two, if we take Patroclus into consideration) appears? The way too in which the scenes of the successive embassies are given shows that Homer does not present us here with an original creation. In certain sections useless details, having no connection with the general plot of the Iliad, are mentioned. Why should Homer have invented them? Of what importance, for the events in I, is the figure of the father whom Meleager keeps waiting outside his chamber and whose knocking he will not answer? In other sections such brevity prevails that the reader is quite unreasonably left wondering about matters of importance: Phoenix, for instance, does not utter a word to justify the sudden change in Althaea. Besides, why should Homer place the priests in the first place on the scale, thus altering its typical form, if he were not following some earlier source? And why should he mention the sisters especially and not say ’brothers and sisters’ summarily? Why, again, should he make Althaea come to her son with her daughters and not alone, if it is true that he introduced her for the sole purpose of symbolizing Agamemnon? Whom do her daughters ’represent’? The arguments of Μ. Νοέ, who devoted a whole book to the problems of I (Phoenix, Ilias und Homer, 1940) can be refuted more easily: her theory that originally only Odysseus and Ajax came to Achilles, and that Phoenix* speech is a later addition to the completed body of the Iliad is neither new nor correct. How well 1 fits into the general plan of the Iliad in the form in which we have it and how Phoenix is connected with the other two ambassadors, has been shown by Schadewaldt (p. 127 f.). What is of special interest to us here is the analysis of the scene with the repeated embassies to Meleager which Νοέ attempts, and which brings her to conclusions dif­ ferent from mine. Following H. Hommel’s suggestion, Νοέ also finds (p. 77) a typical order which the persons entreating Meleager follow, an order which has no con­ nection with the ascending scale of affection as it is given to us in the other instances quoted on p. 20. This order reappears, in Νοέ’β opinion, the second time with a slight variation, further on, but still in Phoenix’ speech. According to this order we have: a) the city (elders, priests), b) the kinsfolk, c) the men (έταΐροι), d) the wife (574 f.), and further down in the enumeration of the evils that befall a town occupied by the enemy: c) the men, a) the city,

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

REMARKS ON NOE’S THEORY

33

b) the children, d) the wives (593 f.). — If this scale really occurs twice within a few verses, then all the conjectures drawn from my analysis at once collapse. Yet, on closer examination we shall easily find the weak points of Νοέ’β theory: The progress from the more distant to the nearer relation: city—kinsfolk, we can understand perfectly. But why do we afterwards proceed not to nearer relatives but to friends? If the friends are dearer than parents and brothers or sisters, why are they not dearer than the wife too, since, after all, it is friends who are trying to persuade Achilles? Since, as Νοέ believes, it was the poet of Phoenix’ speech who for the first time introduced the ascending scale into the Meleager-story, for what reason did he exalt the wife above all the other relations? Besides, Νοέ (p. 78) is herself aware that her theory leaves Althaea’s coming after she has cursed her son unexplained. In this order the joining of the two embassies — that of the father with that of the mother and daughters — into one is also arbitrary. In equally arbitrary fashion Νοέ, in dealing with the appeal of Cleopatra, separates the last group — the women and children — into two. The reason for this arbitrary procedure is obvious: the five members (priests, father, mother and sisters, friends, Cleopatra) of the scenes of entreaty must be diminished by one, while in Cleopatra’s enumeration of disasters the three members (£νδρες, πόλις, τέκνα τβ γυναΐκές τβ) must be increased by one so as to make these two motifs correspond. Even so, the result is not very plausible, for if we had actually to do with the repetition of the same typical progression, the order of the persons should necessarily remain the same, whereas in verses 593 f. the men are transferred from the third place to the first — why? The truth is this: Cleopatra in v. 593 f. mentions the disasters in the following order, firstly the men who are killed in trying to defend the city, secondly the town which is burnt after the fighting is over and thirdly the wives and children who are finally enslaved when the town has been taken. Thus the oalamities are given in their chronological order. Therefore the men here do not correspond to the έχαΐροι in the previous scale, nor the children to the kinsfolk; still less does the town as a group of buildings correspond to its priests and elders, the women to the wife.

4 The analysis of Phoenix’ tale about Meleager obliges us to acknowledge the existence of a pre-Homeric epic variant of the old story, and if we also take into account the version of I, we can prove the existence of three stages in the development of the Meleager-story before the 7th century B.C. One of the most characteristic differences between the first and second version is the replacement of the stick by the mother’s 3

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

34

I. MELEAGREA

curse. This change is characteristic of the tendency of the Ionian epic poets to avoid as far as possible magic elements which disturb the order of the world and its gods. It is also in the epic, as we saw, that the ascending scale of affection appears for the first time. Does this innovation too represent a higher conception of life which consciously stands apart from the culture represented in the old folk-tale? That Meleager’s death was provoked by his mother in one way or another is an unvarying element in the story of the Aetolian hero throughout the whole of the ancient tradition. The reason, too, which imposes upon the mother this cruel act always remains the same: the youth has killed his uncle, or in the later versions his two uncles. Thus Althaea, by sacrificing Meleager unhesitat­ ingly in order to avenge her brother’s death, exalts her brother above her son. How difficult it was in later years, wThen the conditions of life had changed, to explain why this preference for the brother should reach to the very point of killing the son, is shown by Ovid’s embarassment. In spite of his wordy description of Althaea’s mental agony before she decides to burn the stick, he can find no serious excuse to justify her act: An felix Oeneus nato victore fruetur, Thestius orbus erit? Melius lugebitis ambo! (Metam. 8,486). And yet the story of Meleager cannot possibly be a mere creation of fancy. The story must necessarily correspond to a social condition which really existed in the epoch which originated it.43 Should it ever be indisputably proved that the matriarchal system prevailed in Greece in pre-Hellenic times, then Meleager’s story will certainly be considered as the most important evidence for matriarchal justice. The high position of a woman and her clan in the family is one of the most characteristic elements of matriarchal civilization, even among contemporary primitive peoples. The house is ruled not by the man but by the woman 43 The first impulse to the research which follows cam e to me from a suggestion m ade by Prof. A. L esky in a letter.

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

MELEAGER’S STORY AND ITS CONNECTION WITH MATRIARCHY

35

and even more by her brother. The relation of the children to their mother’s brother is particularly close: it is he who rears them and protects them, and when he dies it is they and not his own children who inherit his property. The centre of a matriarchal family is the mother, her brother and her children, whereas in a patriarchal family it is the father, his brother and his children who form the centre.44* In the old story of Meleager too there are three principal characters: the mother, her brother and her son. As in a matri­ archal family the father has practically no importance, so also in our tale the father never appears — even in the later tradition the part played by Oeneus still remains unimportant. By accepting the matriarchal element in Meleager’s tale we can more conveniently explain the mother’s cruel act, since she is obliged to avenge her brother’s death because he is the head of the family.46*In this way Meleager’s crime too seems to acquire its full importance, just as parricide seems monstrous in a patriarchal society. The difficulty is that the problem of a matriarchal order invol­ ves perplexities which have not yet been cleared up. Anthropo­ logists have not yet been able to determine what elements of civilization we should consider as specifically matriarchal. Since the time of Bachofen, who was the first to speak of matriarchy, a confusion has been created which has still not been removed. A special problem is whether matriarchy really existed in Greece in pre-Hellenic times at all.48 Although there is evidence enough 44 E. Meyer , Geschichte des Altertums I (s1925) 21 f., T hurnwald , Real­ lexicon f. Vorgeschichte 8,361 s. v. Mutterrecht, Scurader -Nehring , Real­ lexikon d. Indogermanischen Altertumskunde 2,86 s. v. Mutterrecht and 110 s. v. Neffenrecht, Schmidt -Koppers , Völker und Kulturen (Der Mensch aller Zeiten III) 1,258. 44 Originally Meleager of course belonged to his mother’s and uncle's family. It was in the epic tradition that the one first became an Aetolian of Calydon and the other a Curete of Pleuron. The epic poet was thus enabled to organize a whole war, regardless of the fact by doing so he destroyed the tie between the two men, although it was so significant in the old tale. 44 E. Kornemann, Die Stellung der Frau in der vorgriechischen Mittelmeer­ kultur (1927), was the last to deal with this problem. But see the doubts of II. J. R ose , Gnomon 1929, 343.

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

36

I. MELEAGREA

to convince us that other peoples had a matriarchal society and especially about the power exercised by the mother’s brother over her children,47 our sources are silent about the pre-Hellenic inhabitants of Greece. It is true that the existence of a uniform prehistoric civilization around the Aegean, in Asia Minor — where the ’woman-ruled’ (γυναικοκρατούμενοι) Lycians and Carians lived — and in Greece, which is confirmed by other evidence, chiefly linguistic,48 have induced some scholars to look for traces of matriarchy in Greek tradition. But, at least as far as I can judge, the evidence produced is by no means sufficient to confirm this theory. It was believed that a marriage between brother and sister (Zeus-Hera, etc.) was a matriarchal element, and other evidence was found in the marriage of Oedipus with his mother, the tradition of the Amazons, the myth of Pandora as the first created human being, and the exclusive worship of a female divinity throughout the Aegean, as seen in the marble idols of the bronze age from the Cyclades.49 — Still, marriage between brother and sister is not a thing characteristic of matriarchy, and even less so is the union of son and mother. The right explanation of the Oedipus-rayth was given by M. Pohlenz (Die griechische Tragödie 1,81). The Amazons, again, have always been placed in Asia Minor, so that we cannot draw any positive conclusions from them about European Greece. — Pandora (Hes. Theog. 570 f., Works 59 f.) is the first woman whom the gods create, not the first man; yet, even if she were the first human being, that would not easily convince us that the pre-Hellenic people lived under a matriarchal society. — The discovery of female idols in the Cyclades is equally unimportant, since great female deities are to be found in patriarchal societies as well. P. Kretschmer’s observation, Glotta 2, 1910, 201, is also connected with this subject: he says that the word φράτηρ which originally meant brother, a meaning preserved among all other Indo-Germanic peoples, was kept in the Greek language in a figurative sense only, limited to political organization, the original meaning having been transferred to the words άδβλφός and (enho-) κασίγνητος. Of these two words, the first undoubtedly, and the second 47 For the Lycians, the Carians and the Egyptians, the Ethiopians and the Nubians, the ancient Italians, the Epizephyrian Locrians, the Etruscans, the Cantabrians and the Piets, see E. Meyer , E. Kornemann and Schrader Nehring as above. For the Germans, see Tacitus (Germ. 20). Cf. also Schra der -N ehring as above I, 384 s. v. Germanen. 48 See P. Kretschmer , Einleitung in die Geschichte der griech. Sprache 293, 401, E. Meyer as above, E. Schwyzer , Griech. Grammatik 1,59 f. 49 E. Kornemann, op. c. 37, H. B erve , Griech. Geschichte 1,20.

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

37

THE PROBLEM OF MATRIARCHY

probably, emphasizes (unlike the word φράτηρ) birth by the same mother,50 therefore stressing the dependence of the children on their mother and not on the father. But the difficulty is that there is no Greek social order corresponding to these Greek words. The Greeks, like all the other IndoEuropean peoples, were a patriarchal people. The complicated solution which Kretschmer offers for this contradiction merely shows the great embarassment with which we face the problem; it is said that the words αδελφός and κασίγνητος must have been created during the Hellenic period by descendants of the earlier inhabitants of Greece, who had been assimilated by the Greeks but had kept, at least in the beginning, some elements of their own matriarchal civilization which went so far as to find their expression in the new language. Later, when matriarchy altogether ceased to exist, these new expressions lost their specific sense and gradually spread among the genuine Greeks, until they finally replaced the word φράτηρ in its principal meaning.

Up to the present the problem of matriarchy in prehistoric Greece has remained unsolved, and so we should not hasten to consider the superiority of brotherly affection in Meleager’s tale as a remnant of a general matriarchal conception,61 especially as there is the possibility of a second explanation. Thurnwald, when writing about matriarchy (op. c. 364), em­ phasizes that the great importance which the mother’s brother has in the family among various peoples does not necessarily imply an orthodox matriarchal order. It may equally well be explained as an element of a society where the woman, even after her marriage, remains closely bound to her tribe. For such a woman the brother stands higher than the child since in his veins exactly the same blood flows as in hers, whereas in the child’s veins half the blood belongs to a stranger, the father. We may accept without difficulty that such a particular attachment of a woman to her tribe prevailed among the pre-Hellenic people of Greece, and has left its traces in the Meleager-legend. Moreover, the same exaltation of the brother above the children is shown in the story of Intaphernes’ wife (Herod. 3,119) and *° Anyhow, see the doubts of Boisacq , Dictionnaire £tymologique de la langue Grecque 419 (s. v. κασίγνητος) and also the different etymology given by F. Kuiper , Glotta 21, 1933, 287. *' It is characteristic of the uncertainty still prevailing in these matters that of the two most recent researchers into the Meleager-story, Schadewaldt 139 note 5, categorically denies the existence of matriarchal elements in it, while No6 tries (p. 56 f. 67 f.) to prove their existence.

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

38

I. MELEAGREA

the notorious syllogism of Sophocles’ Antigone (905 f.). In both these narratives a woman justifies her preference for her brother on the ground that he is irreplaceable, which is not the case with the husband and the children. As to the popular origin of this motif too, see Appendix III. How closely attached a woman can be to her brother even in a patriarchal society is shown by a modern lament from Mane (S. Kyriakides, At γυναίκες βΐς τήν Λαογραφίαν 62). In this lament, when the woman hears that her brother has been murdered by her husband and his brother, she unhesitatingly poisons both murderers: Έκαμα ό,τι εκάμασι, εχτέλεσα το χρέος-μου. (»I did what they did, 1 accomplished my duty»), as she herself afterwards avers. »That woman is as if hypnotized. She knows only one moral duty — the moral duty towards her clan. In her there is none of the bitter struggle of the free man, when he is called upon to act according to the moral principles determined by his existence. Her husband is a murderer, her brother a victim; nowhere in the song do we observe the slightest hesitation on her part. No inner struggle. No conflict of feelings. No weighing of the circumstances. Her status as a wife, which, had she been a free individual, would have opened a vast moral universe before her, remains unexpressed in this lament from Mane. There exists only the sister. And she will act according to the moral commandments of her clan.» (Photos Politis, Εκλογή από το έργο-του- Είκοσι χρόνια κριτικής 2,117.) The mother in the pre-Hellenic tale acts in exactly the same blind subjugation to the law of her clan. She too »accomplished her duty» without the least hesitation.

Be that as it may, the Meleager-legend certainly expresses a social belief of its times, a belief which places the brother above the child. The mother, who is described as murdering her son to avenge her own blood-kin, is the exponent of the moral creed of an entire epoch. Her action does not represent a personal moral conviction as opposed to that of all other men, nor does she act at the prompting of a blind passion, for which she sacrifices the most precious thing she has in the world, as Medea later does in the tragedy. It is equally certain that the epic poet had to remould this story completely when he set himself to retell it. This he did not only because he wanted to renew and enrich his material with fresh motifs, but also because he had to give the narrative a form better suited to the new culture of which he was a representative.

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

THE PROBLEM OF MATRIARCHY

39

It was not only the stick he had to do away with, nor was that the most significant variation. The old tale presented a woman who sacrificed her son in order to avenge the shedding of her brother’s blood. The epic narrative did not reject this motif — what would remain of the old story, had it done so? But the epic poet presented a second woman beside the mother, Cleopatra. Meleager is married now and remains with his wife all the while he keeps out of the fighting; and though he turned a deaf ear to the entreaties of the Aetolians, though he did not answer his father’s knock at the door of his house, though he drove away his mother and sisters, finally he decided, for the sake of his wife, to come out and fight even if that would mean his death. Here we have on the one side Althaea, the sister, and on the other Meleager, the husband. She stands for a primeval creed which in the eyes of the poet appears cruel and incomprehensible. Kneeling on the ground and beating the earth with her palms, she calls on the infernal deities, whom the epic poets systematically ignored,52 to destroy her child. Opposite her the poet intentionally sets Meleager, and using a new popular motif, the ascending scale of affection,53 he makes him exalt a strange woman, his wife, above his compatriots and his blood-relations. It is no longer blood which blindly governs his preference; it is affection which now binds human beings together even if they have no common blood.54 It is certainly not incidentally that the poet emphasizes con­ jugal love as binding Cleopatra’s parents too (I 557 f.). Idas dared st We can thus explain the archaic colour that the poet gives to Althaea’s curse and not with the notion that Phoenix* speech is a later addition with an Orphic tinge, as Νοέ, op. c. 66 f., returning to theories given up long ago, believes. M See Appendix III. M In Bacchylides Meleager maintains that he did not kill his uncles pur­ posely: τυφλά έκ χειρών βέλη ψυχαΐς έπι δυσμενέων φοιτφ θ-άνατόν τε φέρει τοΐσιν άν δαίμων θ-έλη (5,129 f.). One can see that the poet tries to diminish the youth’s guilt in order, by contrast, to heighten the cruel mother’s (μάτηρ αΐνά, κακομήχανος Phryn., άτάρβακτος γυνά Bacchyl.). On the other hand it is most probable that in the original story the youth killed his uncle in wrath (see p. 14).

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

40

I. MELEAGREA

to lift his weapon and strike a great god, Apollo, καλλισφύρου εΓνεκα νύμφης. This is the famous struggle of a mortal against the god for the possession of the beautiful maiden. In the case of this maiden we are not told in Homer, as in Apollodorus (1,61), that when Zeus gave her the privilege of choice she preferred the mortal lover, because she was afraid that the god would desert her when she grew old. Here we have a woman who loves her husband and who was made so unhappy when she was carried away by the god, that when she returned home she gave her daughter Cleopatra another name, that of Alcyone: 562

. . . οδνεκ’ άρ’ αυτής μήτηρ άλκυόνος πολυπενθέος οίτον Ιχουσα κλαΐεν, δ μιν έκάεργος άνήρπασε Φοίβος ’Απόλλων.

Another victory of conjugal love, included in the epic story about Meleager. It is on the model of Cleopatra and Marpessa, that Homer created his own women who loved and were loved profoundly, Andromache and Penelope. The affection between Hector and Andromache will be discussed in the next chapter. In the Odyssey, however, it is not only Penelope’s faithfulness which is extolled; Odysseus too remains true to her remembrance, in spite of the fact that he meets women who try to keep him near them and who hardly deserve his rejection of them: first by the two goddesses who offer him their love, Circe and Calypso, the latter in her blessed island, whose beauty Homer makes a point of emphasizing (t 63), with her great love and her promise to grant him immortality, should he decide to remain with her, and finally Nausicaa in the happy island of the Phaeacians, with all her virginal beauty and her charmingly innocent admiration for the stranger, whom she would have liked so much to have for a husband. Can it be that Odysseus did not read in her eyes the words which she spoke to her attendants when she caught sight of the hero sitting, after the gods had given him back his beauty and his youth? ζ 243 νυν δέ θβοΐσιν eoixe, τοί ουρανόν εΰρΰν βχουσιν. AI γάρ έμοί τοιόσδ· πόσις κεκλιμένος εΐη ένθ-άδε ναιετάων, καί οΐ &δοι αυτόθι, μίμνειν. And later when, leaning in the doorway, perfectly beautiful, she gazes at the traveller and greets him with a rapture whose power she alone is unaware of — can it be that πολύμητις Odysseus did not perceive her desire, or that he was not moved by her beauty?

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

41

NAUSICAA

θ' 457 . . . Ναυσικάα δέ θ-εών άπο κάλλος έχουσα στη £α παρά σταθμόν τέγεος πύκα ποιητοΐο, θ-αύμαζεν δ* Όδοσηα έν όφθ-αλμοΐσιν όρώσα, καί μιν φωνήσασ* έπεα πτερδεντα προσηύδα* Xatpe, ξεΐν\ tva καί ποτ’ έών έν πατρίδι γαίη μνήση έμεΐ\ δτι μος πρώτη ζωάγρι* όφέλλεις. Here again we have women arranged *in an ascending scale and again the wife stands in the highest place.

5 As we saw, the folk-tale of Meleager is representative of an early culture and probably it belonged to a non-Hellenic people inhabiting Greece before 2000 B.C. When the Greeks came down from the North and made Greece their own, they learned from the earlier, subjugated population their myths and tales, as well as other things. And when, later, in the colonies in Asia Minor, epic poetry began to take form and to use the inexhaustible traditions which the colonists had brought over from Greece, then some epic poet, before Homer, remembered the Aetolian tale of the mother who killed her son. Naturally he wanted to tell it in his own way. Then the tale became a traditional story and it was not only enriched with new elements but also adapted to suit new religious and social beliefs, though this transformation of the tale never affected mainland Greece completely: for, as we saw, the dramatic authors went on drawing from the folk-tale as before and using the motif of the stick. In the Iliad the legend is given in a new and somewhat altered form, but the transformation is due to other reasons: it was essential for Achilles to hear from Phoenix’ mouth the old Meleager-tale as a dissuasive example, and to take warning from it. Therefore Meleager’s case had to be made as closely parallel as possible to that of Achilles. For this reason Phoenix had to transform the narrative of the Meleagris. This is not the place to expatiate on the significance of mythical — and historical — examples in ancient poetry, historical writing, rhetoric and philosophy,55 but there is a special problem presented M See F. Dornseiff , Vorträge der Bibliothek Warburg 1924/5 206, H. F ränkel, Gnomon 1927, 570, W. J aeger , Paideia 1,59 ff. The whole of the

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

42

I. MELEAGREA

by the adaptation of the story which is to be used as an example to the main narrative, and research has shown how great the necessity for alteration may be in such cases.66 When a poet wishes to use a legend as an example he has at once to face two mutually contradictory necessities: a) the legend must not be altered, since its use as an example presupposes that it is widely known and in a fixed form; b) the legend may have to be altered in order to make it more appropriate to the main narrative and serve its purpose in the best way, since it seldom happens that the two stories are originally exactly parallel. This adaptation of one story to the other will normally have to be effected by changing not the main narrative but the one to be used as an example, since its significance lies merely in the ser­ vice which it renders to the main narrative. In this manner, the moral background which the legend gains when it is introduced as an example, as an ideal to be imitated or as a consequence to be avoided, is counterbalanced by its obligation to adapt itself to its purpose. A poet uses his example successfully when he manages to reconcile the two contrasting requirements by as harmless a remoulding as possible of the wrell-known story, which can some­ times be done by merely giving it a new interpretation, without in the least changing its contents. material has already been collected by R. Oehler , Mythologische Exempla in der älteren griechischen Dichtung (1925). M See also Chapter IV of this book about the use of the legend of Niobe.

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

II

H ectorea

1 In Z Hector leaves the fighting and enters the town; after having seen his mother and given to her Helenus’ instructions about the supplication to Athena, he goes to Paris’ house to take him back to the fighting, from which Paris has been absent since Γ. As soon as Hector meets Paris, he reprimands him for cherishing his wrath and refusing to take part in the battle, while the Trojans are fighting outside the town and are being killed in a war brought about by him: 326 Δαιμόνι’, ού μέν καλά χόλον τόνδ’ ένθ-εο θ·υμώ. Λαοί μέν φθ·ινύθ·ουσι περί πτόλιν αίπύ τε τείχος μαρνάμενοι· σέο δ’ εϊνεκ’ άυτή τε πτόλεμός τε άστυ τόδ’ άμφιδέδηε· σύ δ’ αν μαχέσαιο καί άλλω, δν τινά που μεθτέντα ίδοις στυγερού πολέμοιο. Άλλ’ άνα, μή τάχα άστυ πυρός δηίοιο θέρηται. To his brother’s words Paris makes answer: 333 Έκτορ, έπεί με κατ’ αίσαν ένείκεσας ούδ’ ύπέρ αίσαν, τοδνεκά τοι έρέω· σύ δέ σύνθ-εο καί μευ άκουσον* οδ τοι έγώ Τρώων τόσσον χόλφ ούδέ νεμέσσι ήμην έν 3·αλάμφ, Ιθελον δ’ άχεϊ προτραπέσθαι. Then he adds that Helen has just now persuaded him to take part in the fighting again (337). The general opinion which he expresses at the end: νίκη δ’ έπαμείβεται άνδρας (339) shows that the cause of his chagrin is the defeat in the duel with Menelaus. His words are only another way of expressing what he himself said to Helen at the end of the scene in Γ:

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

44

II. HECTOREA

439 νΰν μέν γάρ Μενέλαος ένίκησεν συν Ά κείνον δ" αδτις έγώ . . . Therefore Paris’ sorrow at least is justified, but we have not heard before that the hero is angry as well. While speaking, Hector mentions his brother’s anger as a known fact (326 χόλον τόνδε) needing no further explanation. But from Paris’ answer (335) we understand that he is angry with the Trojans. When was this anger roused and what was its motive? Most Homeric scholars have been led by this inconsistency to express the view that the poet — or rather the ’compiler’ — of the Iliad is using at this point an earlier short independent epic which had Hector’s visit to Ilium as its subject. That poem, they say, must have spoken at length of the cause which provoked Paris’ anger and its immediate consequences (the hero’s aban­ doning the fighting etc.). And, in order to appease Paris (some of them add), Hector finds himself compelled to leave his comradesin-arms at this critical point in the battle and come into the town. By oversight, the compiler of the Iliad who inserted this epic in his poem left the motif of Paris’ anger in the scene of the meeting of the two brothers without attempting to account for it.1 In Paris’ answer the separatists found other difficulties. It would be natural for Paris to admit his anger and then if he wished he might add that he was willing to control it, consider­ ing the critical state in which the Trojans were. Instead of that, he denies that he is angry and gives his sorrow as the chief reason for his absence from the fighting (335 f.). And for this foolishness, as it used to be called,12 the compiler of the Iliad was held responsible, since according to the separatists in the original poem Paris must have admitted his anger. On the other hand, C. Rothe, Die Ilias als Dichtung 209, attempted to give a psychological explanation of Paris’ anger: fickle men, such as Paris appears to be throughout the Iliad, always try to lay the responsibility for their failures on others. 1 G. F insler *, 2,60, C. R obert , Studien zur Ilias 196 f., E. B ethe I, 245 f., W ilamowitz 309 f., E. Schwartz , Zur Entstehung der Ilias 17 note 3. 1 C. R obert , op. c. 196: »Das ist mehr als abgeschmackt, das ist schon qualificierter Blödsinn».

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

PARIS’ ANGER AND GRIEF

45

That is why the hero now finds himself angry with the Trojans, though it is they who have every reason to be angry with him after his behaviour in Γ.3 H. Fischl and W. Schmid 4 observe that we must regard Paris’ anger and grief, as described in the Iliad, as a result of his defeat in Γ. Still, as Fischl points out, Rothe’s explanation cannot be correct because, if Homer had really intended to supplement the traditional characterization of Paris by ascribing to him an un­ reasonable tendency to anger, he would most certainly have emphasized this characteristic in a special scene explaining its cause, namely that it was supposedly roused by words which came to Paris’ hearing as having been uttered by the Trojans after his behaviour in the duel (Γ 454). Homer would not have let Paris’ anger appear incidentally in Hector’s words, nor would he have dumped it into a scene destined to serve another purpose and then expected the audience either to excuse the hero’s anger by reason of the nature of his character, or to supplement with their own imaginations the narrative of the Iliad, by recalling a scene which had already occurred. Another reason which makes it difficult to accept Paris’ wrath as a structural element of the narrative is that this motif, if carefully examined, appears contrary to the poetic schema of the scenes in Z. It is easy to understand that in this entire section the poet systematically works up the contrast of the two brothers.5 Beside Hector, who takes upon him the whole weight of the war and strives to keep high his own honour as well as that of his house (441 f.), the poet places a completely uninterested Paris with no feeling of honour or sense of responsibility. While Hector comes hurriedly from the battle, still holding his spear in his bloody hands, with very little time to spare, since he must soon return to the fighting, a heroic figure, never forgetting his duty, Paris is tarrying inside Helen’s περικαλλέα chamber, surrounded by women and toying with his weapons — not his spear, but his shield, his breastplate and his bow — while the town outside is * Cf. S. E. B assett , The poetry of Homer 137 f. 4 F ischl , Ergebnisse und Aussichten der Homeranalyse 72 f., \V. Schmid , Griech. Literaturgesch. 1, 1, 149, note 2. 8 E. B eth e 1,236 f., W. Schadewaldt , Antike 11, 1935, 155.

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

46

II. HECTOREA

in danger of being lost. He is not in the least concerned about the calamity threatening the town and brought about by himself.® In a scene working up this contrast there is no room for Paris’ wrath, for such a wrath, whether right or wrong, fully justifies his absence from the battle. Thus great heroes, Achilles, Meleager and even Aeneas (N 460 f.), retire from battle and nurse their wrath. Why should Homer wish to make us believe that Paris too, because of a similar offence on the part of the Trojans, cherishes wrath and keeps away from all activity? Sheer indif­ ference and lack of self-respect only can keep him confined in his own house at such a critical moment. Just because the motif of wrath is contrary to the deeper meaning of this scene, it plays no significant part in the development of the action. It emerges only for a moment and immediately afterwards it is put aside by the poet without being used: Paris himself denies his anger. Homer must have used the motif of anger merely as a handy explanation of Hector’s for Paris’ behaviour, since he wished to avoid offending him before Helen. Eustathius explains it rightly: σημείωσαι δπως τήν του άδελφοΟ δειλίαν συσκιάζων καί μή άνέδην έξονειδίζων χόλον αύτήν εύσχημονέστερον λέγει, ώς δήθ·εν χολουμένου τοΰ Πάριδος κατά τών Τρώων. Also the grief which Paris professes when answering his brother’s severe questioning must be an excuse improvised on the spot. One has but to recall how the poet presents his behaviour in Γ immediately after the duel. Therefore Paris can be neither truly angry nor deeply grieved. But we must ask: have we to do here with a free invention of Homer’s or did there exist an earlier poem from which the epic poet drew the motif of anger and probably other elements as well? Even after the explanation already given there still remains a feeling that something foreign is hidden behind the text of Z. As Hector enters Ilium, he finds his brother shut in his wife’s chamber with her. Outside the battle is raging and the besieged town is in danger of being burned (331). But Paris is angry and keeps away from the fighting, although he is the cause of it him-* * I also believe it possible that Paris-Alexander who carried away Helen, the most beautiful woman, and later killed Achilles, the bravest among his enemies, was once a great hero (E. B e t h e I, 248). But in Z, excepting for the last scene (503 f.) there is no trace left of his old gallantry.

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

47

THE PROTOTYPE OF THE PARIS’ SCENE

self (326, 328 f.). In the end, it seems that his wife persuades him with ’soft words’ to go back and fight (337). One has only to change the names and it will at once be seen that there is here an exact repetition of the circumstances of another epic narrative, the Meleagris.7 As we saw, the significance of the hero’s persuasion by his wife in the Meleagris was very great. But though there this motif appears essential for the plot, here in Z it strikes us as superficial and a mere improvisation. Paris’ assertion that his wife has persuaded him with ’soft words’ is incompatible with the preceding scenes between the couple as well as with the elements and purposes of the very scene we are now examining. In Γ 428 f., where we saw the Trojan pair for the last time before Z, Helen curses her husband. Later on in Z she speaks of him to Hector in an equally contemptuous manner: she would like to be the wife of a better man, 351 δς ^δη νέμεσίν τε καί αΐσχεα π 43 f. 9 Cf. also Quint. Smyrn. 3,582 f., even if he draws from indirect sources. 10 The body is now placed on the bed (τόν νεκρόν του Άχιλλέως προτίθ-ενται* καί Θέτις άφικομένη . . . , Procl., έπεί σ’ έπί νήας ένείκαμεν έκ πολέμοιο. κάτί>εμεν έν λεχέεσσι . . . Μήτηρ δ* ές άλός ήλί *ε. . . . Od. ω 43 f.) and so the gesture does not appear strange to us as it does in 2.

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

71

FUNERAL LAMENT OVER ACHILLES

while around her the Nereids would beat their breasts — πληγαΐς τών στέρνων Νηρηΐδες άποθανόντα Άχιλλέα έθ·ρήνησαν, says Philostratus (323,29 Κ.) describing this very scene. The presence of the Nereids is as essential and natural at Achilles’ funeral, as it is superfluous and forced in Σ. 11 But in order to form a clear idea about it we must first see how the laments for Hector and Patroclus are described in the Iliad: Hector is mourned bv his wife, his mother and his sister-in-law Helen (Ω 723 f.). Around them sit the chorus of minstrels, Trojan women (721 f.) and others (776) who respond to their lament each time with a general wailing. Hector who was endowed with such humane qualities is being buried by all those whom he wished to defend. But in the Greek camp there could not possibly be any kinswomen, and that is why Patroclus is mourned by Briseis, Achilles’ slave (T 282 f.). That is why all that she can speak of is his kindness and his promise to persuade Achilles to make her later his wedded wife — all this an improvisation of Homer’s. It is for the same reason that the chorus of women accompanying the lament of Briseis here consists of Trojan women slaves: 301

ως Ιφατο κλαίουσ’, έπί δέ στενάχοντο γυναίκες, Πάτροκλον πρόφασιν, σφών δ’ αυτών κήδε’ έκαστη.112

By creating a scene with such a moral background, the poet copes in a marvellously ingenious wray with the difficulty of not being able to bring in, for Patroclus’ prothesis, the necessary persons. Achilles could not be mourned as Patroclus was. The son of the goddess is mourned by the Muses who come down from Helicon, while the chorus is composed of the Nereids who arrive from the depths of the sea. Thus his bier is surrounded by god­ desses, as is proper to his semi-divine personality, his superiority over the other heroes and his descent. 11 Cf. P estalozzi, Die Achilleis als Quelle der Ilias 32. 12 Of course Patroclus is also often mourned by Achilles with the Myrmi­ dons and other Greeks. But custom exacts that he shall be mourned by women, and the place of his kinswomen is taken by Briseis and the other captive women, and not by Achilles and his friends. Cf. Schol. B to T 282.

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

72

III. A. THE SCENE OF THE NEREIDS IN Σ

After this analysis there should be no doubt that in Σ Homer used as a model an older epic description of the prothesis of Achilles and his funeral.13 I consider these conjectures significant because they also reveal to us how Homer works on the older epic material: he takes motifs belonging to the death of Achilles and transfers them to the living Achilles. Whether the Iliad draws from the Aethiopis specifically will be examined in the third part of this chapter. For the present I should prefer to reserve my position and to speak generally of an *Achilleis as the model for the scenes of Σ and not of the Aethiopis specifically. Wc cannot possibly prove that Homer sometimes borrowed integral passages from his source, but it is probable that he did: the verses describing the gathering of the Nereids 35 b—51,14 the beginning of Thetis’ lament 52—60,15 the setting out of the goddesses and their arrival on the Trojan coast 65—69 16 u P estalozzi, op. c. 26.

14 For the list of the Nereids see below, p. 75. u B etiie 89 f. maintains that vv. 56—62 are taken from Σ 437— 443, for according to him Thetis' words about Achilles: 59 . . . τόν δ’ ούχ υποδέξομαι αυτις οίκαδβ νοστήσαντα δόμον Πηλήιον βΐσω stand in contrast to the rest of the scene, which presupposes that the goddess is living with her father, since she is separated from her husband. On the other hand in the Όπλοπο:ία, which Bethe sets aside as an independent poem, he says that this presupposition does not exist as vv. 434 f. prove: 6 μέν ( = Peleus) δή γήραί λυγρφ xeltat ένι μβγάροις άρημένος, άλλα δέ μοι νδν. But neither vv. 59 f. nor vv. 434 f. of Σ afford such an explanation. The old tradition never imagined the goddess as staying long with her husband after her marriage. When the poet makes Thetis say that old age has overtaken Peleus in his palace, he does not mean that he does not know' of their separa­ tion; nor does he when he makes her complain that she will not receive her son δόμον Πηλήιον είσω. Where else could she receive him? Certainly not at the bottom of the sea! Besides, vv. 59 f. obviously correspond with vv. 89 f. so that they cannot possibly belong to two different poets: what the mother tells her sisters in the depths of the sea, as a consequence of which she immediately thinks of her son's sorrow, is repeated to her on land by Achilles: on his own part he thinks of Thetis' plight, she being a goddess, married to a mortal and doomed not to see her son return. Cf. Schadewaldt , op. c. 189. 16 Cf. Quint. Smyrn. 3,586 f.

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

THE PROTOTYPE OF THE SCENE OF THE NEREIDS

73

and the description of the mother's gesture when she first sees Achilles 71—72 would fit without any alteration into the Achilleis. Schadewaldt, Antike 12, 1936, 187, hesitates to admit that Homer used as a model an older epic description of the death of Achilles, and prefers to believe he had at hand a typical funeral lamentation which he used here in a 'figurative* sense. On this theory we can neither explain conveniently Thetis* gesture, nor give any reason for the coming of the Nereids to the camp of the Greeks. Here again, as in previous chapters, we observe a ten­ dency of the more recent Homeric scholars to deny all dependence of the Iliad on older epics when they come in contact with Homer's great art. This tendency, although natural, especially after the ill-treatment of Homer by the older separatists, is however not correct. We do not depreciate the poet by admitting that he was stimulated by older epic scenes into creating scenes of his own. I cannot consider the author of the Iliad as an incapable and foolish plagiarist and compiler. But what we have proved here in 2 as also in the previous chapter about Z is not plagiarism, it is a re-creation of the epic material. And such a re-creation is just what anyone would expect who has studied epic poetry in general.

Wilamowitz, 155 and 163 f., when analysing the scene of the Nereids, maintains that it is a free creation of the »poet of 23», devised for technical reasons, namely because it was necessary to unite here three older independent epics, the *Patroclea, the *Shield of Achilles, and the *Achilleis.17 According to Wilamo­ witz, Achilles' serenity when his mother appears is incompatible with the previous scene, where as soon as the hero hears of his friend’s death, he throws himself on the ground. That is why the scene with Antilochus must belong to one epic and Achilles’ meeting with Thetis to another. There is, he says, also the contra­ diction that at the beginning the hero is surrounded by Antilochus and the slave-women, while later, when Thetis arrives, he is found alone. Wilamowitz marvels at the art of the compiler who so skilfully manages to cover up this inconsistency. For this very reason, he says, the poet does not allow Thetis to come immediately to her son, but makes her wait till all her sisters are gathered. »The Nereids have nothing to do, but just that enumeration of 17

W ilamowitz ’ Achilleis should not be identified with the Achilleis which

I regard as having been Homer's source for certain motifs of the scenes in 2. What we know for the time being of our poem is that it narrated the pro­ thesis and funeral of Achilles, and nothing more. But W ilamowitz gives this title to a poem which he believes to have begun at latest with the night following Patroclus’ death and ended with Achilles* death.

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

74

III. A. THE SCENE OF THE NEREIDS IN Σ

their names, musical like the rustle of a calm sea, soothes our excitement . . . [and] prepares us for the quiet conversation be­ tween mother and son.» In my opinion this theory not only leaves Thetis' gesture unexplained but also fails to justify the coming of the Nereids to the Trojan land. The poet's aim to soothe the audience by enumerating their names — if indeed he had such an aim — is fulfilled before they start. After their gathering at the cave and Thetis’ lament, the mother alone should go to Achilles, as in Q 83 f. Besides, in the scene of the meeting inside the cave we hear not only the musical names of the Nereids, but also their lament, their wailing, their moaning: how can all this mourning soothe us? On the other hand, the fact that Antilochus and the slaves are standing by Achilles, although when his mother arrives the hero is alone, is not a sufficient reason for us to dissect the Iliad at this point. As has been rightly observed,18 it is a peculiarity of the Homeric technique that when during a scene the narrative undergoes a momentary break, the tale is taken up again not where the poet left it but at the point which it should have reached in the mean time. So Homer did not give a second thought to this ’contradiction’ and were he asked, he would perhaps have answered that the mortal Antilochus and the humble slaves had to withdraw silently as soon as they saw the goddesses appear. Or, even more, he would point out the inalienable right of every poet to obliterate his characters without any further explanation as soon as they have fulfilled their mission in the poem. Moreover, the attitude of Achilles in the -scene with Antilochus and the women slaves is not very different from that in the scene with Thetis. Note first of all that the hero during the whole scene with Thetis keeps rolling on the ground as in the scene before.10 Besides, as Schadewaldt op. cit. 185 pointed out, we have here not an abrupt and unjustifiable change, but a steady development of Achilles’ reactions from great emotion, where words fail him, to his self-controlled declaration to his mother of his unshaken 18 E. S achs, ’Atbjvä 42, 1930, 77 f„ \V. Schadewaldt , op. c. 182 f. Cf. also Mazon, Introduction ä l'lliade 29. 19 See above p. 07 note 4.

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

75

REMARKS ON WILAMOWITZ’ THEORY

determination to revenge his friend's loss: Achilles in the beginning sprinkles ashes on his head and throws himself down on the ground (23 f.) — a dumb gesture —, then στένει (33), οιμώζει (35) — inarticulate utterance —, and only after a while does he find his tongue to answer Thetis (78 f.). The list of the Nereids (39— 19) was regarded by the Greek grammarians as an interpolation, in the style of Hesiod. We have seen above how Wilamowitz defended it. The analysis of Schadewaldt, op. c. 185 f., is still more significant, since it shows the difference between the technique of Hesiod's lists and these verses.20 But we must also note something else: only thirtythree of the Nereids are mentioned; the last verse 49 άλλα» at κατά βένθ-ος άλός Νηρηίδβς ήααν shows that Homer had before him a complete list of all the fifty names, hut he did not wish to give it in full, perhaps to avoid tiring his audience. Without totally excluding the possibility that he drew from some other source, it is most probable that he found the list where he borrowed the other motifs, in the *Achilleis. Homer must at least have chosen the thirtythree names out of the fifty at his disposal, and put them in order. Who can tell whether he went further, and changed any of them?

B. The scene of the Winds in Ψ Patroclus’ dead body has been placed upon the pyre and all the other preparations have been completed. Then Achilles kills twelve captive Trojan youths, the revenge wrhich he had promised, and throws them too on the pyre, and then kindles it. But the fire will not burn: 192 ούδέ πυρή Πατρόκλου έκαίετο τεθ-νηώτος. This emphatic negative at the beginning of the verse shows that something unexpected has disturbed the natural course of the funeral. Achilles has to invoke the Winds, Boreas and Zephyrus, and promise them great sacrifices. The hero’s prayer is heard by Iris, who at once sets out for the home of the Winds in Thrace (229 f.) and finds them all gathered in Zephyrus’ palace, feasting. As soon as they see her they rise from their seats and invite her to sit, each offering her a place next to himself. But the goddess 50 Cf. also K. W ikssnkr, Bauformen der Ilias 94 f.

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

76

III. B. THE SCENE OF THE WINDS IN We must imagine the himeros as existing among them, almost like a living being, in the same way as κυδοιμός elsewhere*. — But the word ίμερος is accompanied by the genitive γόοo, and therefore the personification is very difficult. Besides, this construction violates the word order which naturally requires μετά σφ: to be taken with θέτις.

The only correct solution, in my opinion, is that proposed by Sachs: Homer look verse 14 — and with it v. 13 — bodily from an epic description of Achilles’ funeral where the presence of the goddess was both necessary and explicit,38 to use it for Patroclus. 2. In Σ 22 f. it is said of Achilles that at soon as he hears of his friend's death he throws ashes on his head, 26 αύτός δ’ έν κονί^-σι μέγας μεγαλωστί τκνυσθεις κ ε ΐ τ ο .. .39 39 See ρ. 70 for the connection between certain passages in ω and the summary of ttie Aelhiopis.

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

85

PATROCLEA AND ACHILLEIS

These words have already appeared in the Patroclea, in connec­ tion with Cebriones’ death, at the moment when the Achaeans and the Trojans are struggling around his body: Π 775

ό δ’ έν στροφάλιγγι κονιης κεΐτο μέγας μεγαλωστι, λελασμένος ίπποσυνάων.

That these verses, »among the oldest of the Iliad»,37 were especially devised for this second rate hero, no one can believe. But Agamemnon uses exactly the same words in ω when speaking of Achilles’ death: 37

άμφί δέ σ’ άλλοι κτείνοντο Τρώων καί ’Αχαιών υΐες άριστοι, μαρνάμενοι περί σεΓο· σύ δ’ έν στροφάλιγγι κονίης κεϊσο μέγας μεγαλωστί, λελασμένος ίπποσυνάων.

Thus the opinion of Sachs that this superb picture was com­ posed for the first time for the death of the great Aeacides, while the Achaeans were struggling to save his body, and that Homer afterwards took it from there to use it in his Patroclea, once for Cebriones and a second time — slightly altered — for Achilles again, but here a live Achilles, appears acceptable.38 Naturally we cannot be absolutely certain, for it is possible that the verses were originally composed by another poet for another hero, and that both the poet of the *Achilleis and Homer borrowed from him. How can we know today the epic material which was composed before the poems about Achilles? To these observations of E. Sachs and to those which I mention in my preceding chapters I would like to add one more: Before he receives the fatal wound from Hector, Patroclus is attacked by Apollo, who strikes him hard from behind and strips him of all his arms, and also by Euphorbus, who wounds him in the back. Patroclus himself while dying attempts to belittle Hector’s victory: JT P. Maas, Philol. Wochenschr. 1Kr. 1: — —, Eine neue schwarzfigurige Anthesterienvase. j 0. H olmberg , Das Motiv der Neugier im Paradiesmythus. Kr. 1: — Meddelanden frän Lunds universitets historiska museum; Resümees. Kr. 3: 15. 1. L indquist , Der Gott Lobbonus. Kr. 0:60.

1933— 1934 Kr. 10: — N. Valmin, Die Zeusstoa auf der Agora zu Athen. Kr. 0: 50.

—, Rapport präliminaire de l’expädition en Messänie 1933. Kr. 1: 15. T. Christoffersson , Bemerkungen zu Dion von Prusa. Kr. 1:30. A. W ifstrand , Εικότα, III. Kr. 1:25. O. H olmberg , David Hume in Carlyle's Sartor Resartus. Kr. 0: 85. A. W. P ersson , Eisen und Eisenbereitung in ältester Zeit. Kr. 0: 80.

Meddelanden frän Lunds universitets historiska museum; Resümees. Kr. 6: 30.

1934— 1935 Kr. 9: — N. Valmin , L’expädition en Messänie 1934. Kr. 1:90.

A. W ifstrand , Aus der Papyrussammlung der Univ.-Bibl. in Lund. Kr. 0: 70. N. T örnqvist, Zur Geschichte des Wortes Reim. Kr. 1:80. K. H anell , Die Inschriftensammlung des Konstantinos Laskaris. Kr. 0:60. Meddelanden frän Lunds universitets historiska museum; Resümees. Kr. 3:30. R. J osephson , Arkiv for svensk dekorativ konst. Kr. 1:25.

1935— 1936 Kr. 10: — S. Cavallin, Zum Bedeutungswandel von lat. unde und inde. |K r. 1: 15. —, Eine neue Handschrift der Vita Caesarii Arelatensis. B. Axelsok , Zum Alexanderroman des Iulius Valerius. Kr. 1:25. S. Agrell , Die pergamenische Zauberscheibe und das Tarockspiel. Kr. 2:40. K. H anell , Zur Diskussion über die Ara Pacis. Kr. 0: 85. Meddelanden frän Lunds universitets historiska museum; Resümees. Kr. 5: 25.

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

172 1936-1937

Kr. 10: —

Hj . H olmquist , En kyrklig oppositionsman, en kulturbild frän Gustav II Adolfs tid, mit deutschem Resümee. Kr. 1:15. N. Valmin, Poids prähistoriques grecs de Malthi. Kr. 1:75. B. Axelson , Der Codex Argentoratensis C IV 5. Kr. 1:35. —, Ein drittes Werk des Firmicus Maternus? Kr. 1: — N. VALMIN, Cäramique primitive Messänienne. Kr. 1:25. A. W ifstrand , Griechische Privatbriefe aus der Papyrussammlung in Lund. Kr. 0: 90. Meddelanden frän Lunds universitets historiska museum; Resümees. Kr. 4: 75.

1937—1938 Kr. 10: — O. S. Andersson , The Seafarer. Kr. 1:80. N. G. Gejvall , The Fauna of the different settlements of Troy. Kr. 0 :5 0 . A. W. P ersson und A. Akerström . Zwei mvkenische Hausaltäre aus Berbati. Kr. 0: 50. S. Agbell , Die Herkunft der Runenschrift. Kr. 2: — K. H anell , Religiöse Texte aus der Papyrussammlung in Lund. Kr. 1 :1 0 . Meddelanden frän Lunds universitets historiska museum; Resümees. Kr. 5: 75.

1938—1939 Kr. 5:50. N. G. Gejvall , The Fauna of the successive settlements of Troy. Kr. 0: 50. A. W ifstrand , ΕΙκότα, IV, mit Register zu allen vier Teilen. Kr. 1:25. Meddelanden frän Lunds universitets historiska museum; Resümees. Kr. 4: —

1939—1940 Kr. 10: — R. Bring, Wie ist nicht-metaphysische Philosophie möglich? Kr. 2:45. Meddelanden frän Lunds universitets historiska museum; Resümees. Kr. 5:45. A. Svensson, Die Wiener Handschrift zu Xenophons Anabasis. Kr. 2: 80.

1940—1941

Kr. 15:

S. B elfrage , Die Entstehung der freien Rhythmen. Kr. 1:55. S. H erner , Die Natur im Alten Testament. Kr. 6: 35. Meddelanden frän Lunds universitets historiska museum; Resümees. Kr. 9: 25.

1941—1942

Kr. 20: —

Gottfrid Carlsson, Biskop Thomas* säng om Sveriges frihet. Kr. 1: 75. Η. O deberg , Fragen von Metatron, Schekina und Memra. Kr. 1:05. S. H erner , Sühne und Vergebung in Israel. Kr. 6: 35.

Meddelanden frän Lunds universitets historiska museum; Resümees. Kr. 11: 30. A. W ifstrand , Die wahre Lehre des Kelsos. Kr. 2: 30.

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

173 1942— 1943

Kr. 20: —

E. Εκ wall, Studies on the Genitive of Groups in English. Kr. 5:45. G. B endz , Textkritische und interpretatorische Bemerkungen zu den frontinsehen Strategemata. Kr. 3: 25. Meddelanden frän Lunds universitets historiska museum; Resümees. Kr. 13:85.

1943—1944 Kr. 10: — A. Nygren, Det självklaras roll i historien. Kr. 1:45. —, Das Selbstverständliche in der Geschichte (deutsche Übersetzung). Meddelanden frän Lunds universitets historiska museum; Resümees. Kr. 8:35.

1944—1945 Kr. 18: — B. Axelson , Textkritisches zu Floras, Minucius Felix und Arnobius. Kr. 3:65. A. W ifstrand , ΕΙχότα, V. Kr. 2:35. J. L indblom , La composition du livre de Job. Kr. 5: — E. E kwall, Variation in Surnames in Medieval London. Kr. 3:05. Meddelanden frän Lunds universitets historiska museum; Resümees. Kr. 5:45.

1945—1946 Kr. 15: — J. Akerman, Banbrytare och fullföljare inom nationalekonomien. Kr. 1:50.

S. Εκ, Herodotismen in der jüdischen Archäologie des Josephos und ihre textkritische Bedeutung. Kr. 2: 10. E. J. Knudtzon, Aus der Papyrussammlung der Universitätsbibliotek in Lund. IV. Kr. 2:65. G. Gerleman , Contributions to the Old Testament Terminology of the Chase. Kr. 1:30. I. W. Sjögren , Arbetsuppgifter for nutida svensk rättshistorisk forskning. Kr. 0: 65.

Meddelanden frän Lunds universitets historiska museum. Kr. 5:95.

1946—1947

Kr. 14: —

C arl-H erman H jortsjö , T o the knowledge of the Prehistoric Craniology

of Cyprus. Kr. 5:65. E rik J. Knudtzon—O. Neugebauer , Zw*ei astronomische Texte. Kr. 1:25. E rik J. Knudtzon, Aus der Papyrussammlung der Universitätsbibliothek in Lund I—V. Titel, Register und Indices. Kr. 1:35. Meddelanden frän Lunds universitets historiska museum. Kr. 5: 75.

1947—1948 Kr. 15: — A. J. F estugiere , L’hermötisme. Kr. 3: 15. Μ. P. Nilsson , Die Religion in den griechischen Zauberpapyri. Kr. 2:05. Meddelanden frän Lunds universitets historiska museum. Kr. 14:25.

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

i

c

κη

Digitized by

Google

Original from

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

3 2000 000 128 811

»

/

r »

/ ✓

/ *

Digitized by

Google

✓ s

/

)riginal from

PT na university

i.

. i;

I ; ♦ « · ·

I

» I ■ « · * “·

j

i

· «

« ·

·

·

t » L

•1

t

t

I

t

0

l i » »

.I I

Digitized by '

o

. Original from ■

1

INDIANA UNIVERSITY