(Myth and Poetics) Richard P Martin-The Language of Heroes _ Speech and Performance in the Iliad-Cornell University Press (1989)

MYTH AND POETICS

The Language of Heroes: Speech and Performance in the Iliad by RICHARD P. MARTIN

Also in the series

Masks of Dionysus

A series edited by

GREGORY NAGY

edited by THOMAS W. CARPENTER and CHRISTOPHER A. FARAONE

The Ravenous Hyenas and the Wounded Sun: Myth and Ritual in Ancient India by STEPHANIE W. JAMISON

Poetry and Prophecy: The Beginnings of a Literary Tradition edited by JAMES KUGEL

The Traffic in Praise: Pindar and the Poetics of Social Economy by LESLIE KURKE

Epic Singers and Oral Tradition by ALBERT BATES LORD

Heroic Sagas and Ballads by STEPHEN A. MITCHELL

Greek Mythology and Poetics by GREGORY NAGY

Myth and the Polis edited by DORA C. POZZI and JOHN M. WICKERSHAM

Knowing Words: Wisdom and Cunning in the Classical Traditions of China and Greece by LISA RAPHALS

Homer and the Sacred City by STEPHEN SCULLY

Phrasikleia: An Athropology of Reading in Ancient Greece by JESPER SVENBRO

translated by JANET LLOYD

DEDALUS - Acervo - FFLCH-LE I

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THE LANGUAGE OF HEROES Speech and Performance in the Iliad

RICHARD P. MARTIN

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CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS

ITHACA AND LONDON

Copyright © 1989 by Cornell University ,

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, 124 Roberts Place, Ithaca, New York 14850.

First published 1989 by Cornell University Press. First printing, Cornell Paperbacks, 1992.

4-

International Standard Book Number 0-8014-2353-8 (cloth) International Standard Book Number 0-8014-8070-1 (paper) Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 89-42889 Printed in the United States of America Librarians: Library of Congress cataloging information appears on the last page of the book.

@l The paper in this book meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

For my parents

Nicholas R. Martin and Marie Daly Martin

Contents

Foreword by Gregory Nagy IX

Preface XIll

1 Performance, Speech-Act, and Utterance 1 2 Heroic Genres of Speaking 43

3 Heroes as Performers 89

4 The Language of Achilles 146

5 The Expansion Aesthetic 206

The Poet as Hero: A Conclusion 23 1

Bibliography 241 Index Locorum 257 General Index 261

vii

:1,

Foreword

GREGORY NAGY

The Language of Heroes: Speech and Performance in the "Iliad," by Richard P. Martin, inaugurates the "Myth and Poetics" series. My goal, as series editor, is to encourage work that will help integrate literary criticism with the approaches of anthropology and that will pay special attention to problems concerning the nexus of ritual and myth.

For such an undertaking, we may look to the comparative testimony of relatively complex societies, such as the Ndembu of Zambia, and also of the very smallest, such as the Yukuna of the Colombian Amazon. 1 Just as important, we must pursue the varied testimonies of the most stratified societies, including those which go under the general heading "Western civilization." It is precisely here that the meaning of myth is most misleading-and most challenging. In a small-scale society myth tends to be viewed as the encoding of that society's concept of truth; at the same time, from the viewpoint of Western civilization, myth has become the opposite of fact, the antithesis of truth. 2

Since the ancient Greek concept of politei8 serves as the foundation for the very word civilization and for our concept of Western civiliza-

ISee V. Turner, The Forest of Symbols: Aspects ofNdembu Ritual (Ithaca, N. Y., 1967), and P.-Y. Jacopin, "La parole generative: De la mythologie des Indiens Yukuna" (diss., University of Neuchatel, 1981).

2See especially M. Detienne, L'invention de la mythologie (Paris, 1981), and my review in Annales: Economies Societes Civilisations 37 (1982) 778-80.

lX

j

x Foreword

tion, more than one of the books in this series will deal primarily with ancient Greece. The testimony of the Greeks is particularly instructive with regard to our central concern, the relationship between ritual and myth. The very word myth, as derived from Greek muthos, is a case in point: the semantics of this word bring to life, in microcosm, the relationship between myth and ritual in ancient Greek society.

In order to grasp the special meaning of Greek muthos, let us consider the distinction between marked and unmarked speech (in the terminology of Prague School linguistics). We find that marked speech occurs as a rule in ritual contexts, as we can observe most clearly in th~-reast~~est-sc~e socie-ties. It iSIn such SOCletlesatSo that we ca~-oEs~~ve---mostaearly -ti;:~symbiosis of ritual and myth, and the ways in which the language of ritual and myth is marked whereas "everyday" language is unmarked. The Greek language gives us an exarhpleOftlieses-emantics:-miiifmeans "I have my eyes closed" or "I have my mouth closed" in everyday situations, but "I see in a special way" or "I say in a special way" in ritual. Hence mustes is "one who is initiated" and musterion "that into which one is initiated, mystery (Latin mysterium)." Hence also muthos, "myth": this word, it has been argued, is a derivative of muo and had at an earlier stage meant "special" as opposed to "everyday" speech.

A later classical example of such early patterns of thought occurs in Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus 1641-1644: the visualization and the verbalization of what happened to Oedipus in the precinct of the Eumenides at Colonus are restricted, in that the precise location of his corpse is a sacred secret (1545-1546, 1761-1763). Only Theseus, by virtue of being the proto-priest for the Athenians of the here-and-now, is to witness what happened, which is called the dromena (1644). This word is what Jane Harrison used to designate "ritual" in her formulation "myth is the plot of the dromenon." Thus the visualization and the verbalization of the myth, what happened to Oedipus, are restricted to the sa~red context of ritual, controlled by the heritage of priestly authority from Theseus, culture-hero of the Athenian democracy.

From an anthropological point of view, "myth" is indeed "special speech" in that it is a means by which society affirms its own reality. In the poetry of Homer, however, as Richard Martin's Language of Heroes demonstrates, muthos is not just "myth" in the sense Q( a narrative that affirms reality. It is any speech-actt~y. In making thiSargument, M-ar-t-in----appites-rheLheones of]. L. Austin

Foreword Xl

and J. R. Searle concerning the performative aspects oflanguage. A speech-act, according to Austin and Searle, entails a situation in which the word is the action; the antithesis of word and action is neutralized. Here we may invoke Barbara Johnson's application of Austin's notion of speech-act to poetry-an application that Austin himself resisted. Going one step further, Martin applies the notion of speech-act to the oral performance of oral poetry, the dynamics of which have been made known through the pathfinding works of Milman Parry and Albert Lord. As Martin argl:le--s,-tM-mu~ just any speech-act reported by poetry: it is also the.JP€lec-h~f poetry itself. Viewed in this light, myth implies ritual in the very

_~~r:(ormance of mYlh. And that performance is the essence of poetics. The speech-acts that constitute Homer's narrative match in their

distinctive style the represented speech-acts of Homer's greatest hero, the Achilles of the Iliad. Just as the speech of Achilles is unlike the speech of other heroes in the Iliad, Martin argues, so the speech of Homer is unlike the potential speech of other epic composers. Such is the power of Homeric myth-making and poetry.

The Language of Heroes boldly advances Parry's and Lord's discoveries about the oral heritage of Homeric poetry. Among classicists, one major excuse for resisting the findings of Parry and Lord has been the absence of a satisfying explanation for the sheer monumentality of Homer. Martin has developed a hermeneutic model that accounts for this monumental quality. What makes Martin's explanation even more compelling is that it simultaneously solves a major difficulty for Homeric criticism of the last few decades: the problem of explaining the stylistic and even grammatical uniqueness of the language of Achilles as dramatized in the Iliad.

Martin proves that the characteristics of Achilles' discourse, which make this hero sound superior to all other heroes, are parallel to the characteristics of Homeric discourse, which make "Homer" sound superior to the rest of archaic Greek epic poetry. In other words, an extraordinary hero requires an extraordinary poet. The beauty of this parallelism is to be found not in any simple formulation but rather in the detailed empirical demonstration that Martin executes with expertise and sensitivity. What we witness in this book is an extraordinary synthesis of oral poetics and literary perception.

il

Preface

The indication of tone of voice and varying speeds of utterance. In that, Homer is never excelled by Flaubert or James or any of 'em. But it needs the technique of one or more life times.

-Ezra Pound, letter to W. H. D. Rouse, 4 November 1937

To hear the voice which tells the Iliad-that was my simple and impractical aim as I began this book. The urge to do so came from my sense that the archaic Greek epic poem is inevitably polyphoniccreated by generations of traditional tellers, narrated in the voices of many individual characters-yet unique: it seems to have the persuasive force and coherence of a single, powerful performance, by one poet, whom we have come to call Homer. The interplay between traditional narrative material and the poet's spontaneous composition seemed to me particularly important in the Iliad's dramatic representation of the speech of humans and gods. In what sense can the words of any hero in the poem be "traditional" as are the repeated phrases used to narrate the poem, the epithets and type-scenes? Conversely, how spontaneous might such dramatic representation of speech become, if the poet of the Iliad composed rapidly, making verses in a difficult meter, as he performed? Must a poet (or a heroic speaker) "misuse" the medium in order to express an idea that was not traditionally expressed in the inherited diction of epic? Can the speeches in the Iliad be used to prove whether or not the poem was composed orally at all?

My attempt to answer these questions led me to rethink a number of my assumptions about language, verbal art, and the individual performer. With the help of work in ethnography and ethnolinguistics, folklore studies, linguistic philosophy, and literary theory, I have been able to formulate the answers I offer in this book.

XUl

XIV Preface

-My central conclusion is that the Iliad takes shape as a poetic composition in precisely the same "speaking culture" that we see foregrounded in the stylized words of the poem's heroic speakers, especially those speeches designated as muthos, a word I redefine as "authoritative speech-act." The poet and the hero are both "performers" in a traditional medium. The genre of muthos composing requires that its practitioners improve on previous performances and surpass them, by artfully manipulating traditional material in new combinations. In other words, within the speeches of the poem, we see that it is traditional to be spontaneous: no hero ever merely repeats; each recomposes the traditional text he performs, be it a boast, threat, command, or story, in order to project-his-in~nality in the most convincing manner. I suggest that the "voice" of the poet is the product of the same traditional performance technique. In Chapters 4 and 5, I show in detail how this technique might explain the vexing problem of the "language of Achilles," a problem first raised by Adam Parry and one that goes to the heart of the oralformulaic theory constructed largely by Adam Parry's father Milman Parry. In short, it seems to me that both father and son can be confirmed in their intuitions: the speeches of the Iliad are, on the one hand, perfectly consistent with the assumption of oral compositio~in-performance; on the other hand, the technique of individualizing variation within these speeches enables us to uncover the very motivation for the composition of a unique and monumental oral epic about the hero Achilles. -

The problems this book explores first attracted my attention when I began to teach a graduate seminar, The Poetics of the Iliad, in the spring ofI985 at Princeton University. My first thanks, therefore, go to all the students in that memorable course. I am particularly grateful to Sheila Colwell, Carol Dougherty-Glenn, Carolyn Higbie, Drew Keller, Leslie Kurke, Lisa Maurizio, Victor Ortiz, and David Rosenbloom for their continued interest and suggestions as this project grew.

Through the generosity of the alumni and faculty of Princeton University, I was enabled to devote the academic year I985-86 to research with a leave provided by the Class of I936 Bicentennial Preceptorship. For this award I am extremely grateful. My colleagues in the Department of Classics have lavished on me their encouragement and advice; without the environment they create, in which both critical practice and philological acumen are valued, I doubt that this

Preface xv

book could have been written. lowe all a great debt of thanks, especially three Hellenist colleagues, John Keaney, Froma Zeitlin, and Andrew Ford, who generously gave their time and expertise in discussing many aspects of this book with me.

To audiences at Cornell, Columbia, the University of Kansas, and Harvard I am grateful for appreciative comments and critiques, particularly on portions of Chapter I. I thank Alan Nussbaum, James Coulter, Stanley Lombardo, and Jeffrey Wills for invitations to speak on my work at these institutions. Homerists at several other universities provided advice and much needed reassurance, in person or by letter, while I was engaged in writing: I thank Mark Edwards of Stanford University; George Dimock of Smith College; J. B. Hainsworth of New College, Oxford; Michael Nagler of Berkeley; and Norman Austin of the University of Arizona for their kindness.

I have been blessed with good teachers, to whom lowe more than any book could repay. I regret that Cedric Whitman, in whose classes I first encountered the power of the Iliad, will not read my thanks. John Finley, Robert Fitzgerald, and Calvert Watkins showed me, each in his way, the beauty of Homeric poetry, and how to write of it. Lowell Edmunds, who has patiently endured my writing since 1975, taught me much about clarity of thought anc,l style and led me to explore other disciplines to illuminate Greek-poetry. Finally, Gregory Nagy has provided guidance and friendship, inspiration and motivation. My book would not have been possible without his pioneering studies in the' Greek poetic tradition. My scholarly debts to him show forth in each chapter. This work stands as a serna of my deep gratitude for his princely instruction.

It remains to offer thanks to my wife, Maureen, whose patience, understanding, and affection enabled me to write. Her endurance deserves Homeric commemoration. The dedication at the front of this volume records my debt to those whose love and sacrifice reared and educated me, teaching me from the start the language heroes speak.

RICHARD P. MARTIN

Princeton, New Jersey

d, '

THE LANGUAGE OF HEROES

Performance, Speech-Act,

and Utterance

CHAPTER I

Does it really matter whether or not Homer's Iliad is a piece of oral poetry? In the final analysis, no. Even if the 15,693 hexameters printed in T. W. Allen's Oxford Classical Text happen to represent the exact transcription of an actual performance by one "singer of tales" from the eighth century B.C., we still do not have an oral Iliad, because the poem has, somehow, become a text; and that has made all the difference. To put it another way, our Iliad is no longer an action, as it must have been if it was ever an oral composition-inperformance. Instead, it is an artifact. 1

To concede that our Iliad is a text, however, does not excuse us from making the effort of imaginative reconstruction to interpret the poem as closely as possible in its own context. Athenian drama, after all, was never intended to be read simply as isolated texts, and few scholars today would dare study it without some attempt at understanding the circumstances of dramatic performance. The fresh emphasis on a sociocultural reading of tragedy and comedy, in the work of such critics as Helene Foley, Simon Goldhill, Nicole Loraux, C. P. Segal, J.-P. Vernant, and Froma Zeitlin, stands in disconcerting contrast with the most recent tendencies among professional readers of Homer. Whereas tragedy has been cut loose from the bonds of New Criticism, and approached more cautiously in all its strangeness, Homer has become for some a haven safe from critical storms. A new

1"An oral poem is not composed for but in performance" (Lord [1960]4). "Dans Ie texte, Ie discours homerique se trouve en quelque sorte 'denature'" (Svenbro [1976] 14). All translations from the Iliad in this book are mine, unless otherwise noted.

I

ill

II

2 The Language of Heroes

reaction has set in against the work of Milman Parry and other exponents of an "oral" Homeric poetry-or, we should say, against a certain portion of this work, for many of Parry's insights are ignored by the new critique. The oralists' concern with technique has earned them the label "Formalists," and their emphasis on the traditional nature of Homeric craft has prompted the charge that they negleCt the individual genius of the poet.2 Of course, such criticisms were leveled at Parry from the outset, not surprisingly given the climate of AngloAmerican literary study at the time. More puzzling is the resurgence today of this reactionary criticism, half a century after Parry's seminal work. It is disturbing that young philologists such as David Shive find it necessary to attack the alleged flaws in Parry's first publications, and to defend the "creativity" of Homer, while failing to reexamine the very idea of what creativity in an oral tradition might mean. 3

This wave has been building; in 1978 David Bynum could note a "palpable ennui" among scholars first attracted to the Parry view, "as the practice of formula-counting has become more common, lost its first blush of novelty, and for the most part failed to deliver the innovations in the substantive understanding of oral traditions which were expected of it from the first. "4 The reaction has been aided to some extent by the honest appraisals of Homeric tradition produced by philologists who followed the Parry direction. One turning point came as it was gradually recognized that "oral poetry" and "formulaic poetry" were not convertible terms, and that the "orality" of our poems must remain an open question. In one of his last articles, Adam Parry subjected his father's work to a critical reappraisal. He concluded that although the style of Homer "shows many features of " a style originally created for oral composition," the oral composition of the two epics "probably cannot now be proved. "5 From another perspective, the apparent uniqueness of the Iliad, at least among the European epic traditions, has been noted by British scholars generally sympathetic to Parry's work. J. B. Hainsworth remarks that "the

2Lynn-George (I982) has a salutary critique of such reactionary criticism. 30n the controversy over Parry's demonstration, the best short summary can be

found in Latacz (I979) I-I7. Shive (I987) I39 intends "to help cure Homer of blindness and to put a pen in his hand." A bridge between the old criticisms of Parry and the new reactionary strain is provided by the work of Goold (I977).

4Bynum (I978) 5; see also pp. 3-I3. SA. Parry (I972) I.

Performance, Speech-Act, and Utterance 3

greater architecture of the poem appears to be unlike typical oral poetry. It is more like drama, and therefore more amenable to the canons of orthodox criticism."6

Yet should we practice orthodox criticism simply because the poetry will permi,t it? The temper of some contemporary Homeric study answers "yes." Thus, even Bernard Fenik, whose earlier studies of typical scenes did much to expand an oralist perspective, writes in his 1986 book that "the artistry of the Greek epics draws them back from that alien strangeness where formalist studies have isolated them. The Iliad and the Odyssey belong instead within literature's conventional ambit and they respond, with certain adjustments, to familiar and demanding criticism."7 He speaks of forcing attention "back to the poetry itself" and contends that side-by-side comparison with written poetry shows Homer excelling because the poet successfully employs traditional compositional devices, such as prolepsis and juxtaposition, which "belong to the art of good storytelling."8 I do not have time to trace the connections between such a view and the antique arguments as to whether Homer is as good as Vergil. 9 Ironically, the phrase "alien strangeness," which in Fenik's view denotes a critical wasteland, describes for some Hellenists an important facet of Greek poetry.

Another strategy for rescuing Homer from the oralists has a more contemporary ring: we are told by the critic Martin Mueller that "whether audiences read the Iliad or listen to it, they must construe and respond to the meaning of the words, and this act of making sense may justly be called 'reading. "'10 Again, the "literariness" of Homer is vindicated, for whatever reason. I do not claim that these "readers" of Homer obtain erroneous results from their method: both Mueller and Fenik have produced thoughtful, graceful essays, comparable to the acme of New Criticism (Whitman's 1958 book Homer and the Heroic Tradition). But I do regret the dismissal of the Parryan perspective because it opens the door for atomistic explications in the nineteenth-century Analyst mode, and because it does not do justice

6Hainsworth (I970) 40. On the "uniqueness" of Homer, see also Griffin (I977). There is some confusion, in these arguments, between uniqueness of style and of subject matter or treatment, and I am not convinced that the former has been proved.

7Fenik (I986) 17I. 8Ibid. 15I; xi-xiv. 9Clarke (I98I) I 16-21 gives a good introduction to this seventeenth-century debate

and its later manifestations. IOMueller (I984) 14.

«

! I" ~

1 i


at all to the wealth of insight gained from the post-Parry work in socalled oralliterature.1 1 Perhaps too narrow a focus on the definition and description of "oral literature" has produced ennui. The term itself perpetuates an unhelpful stance, as Michael Herzfeld notes: "Even the recognition of folk texts as 'oral literature' ... merely projected an elegant oxymoron: by defining textuality in terms of 'literature,' a purely verbocentric conception, it left arbitration in the control of 'high culture.' "12 Inevitably, the text-centered nature of academic study shifts the emphasis from "oral" to "literature," from performance to script. In what follows I intend to redress the balance.

Only within the past few decades have social anthropologists, folklorists, linguists, sociologists, and a few literary critics begun to detect the crucial importance of performance in the study of verbal behavior. One of the earliest and most influential books in the field was Erving Goffman's study of personal interaction routines, published in 1959, the year before Lord's Singer of Tales. Goffman borrowed the concepts of actor and role from dramaturgy and game theory in order to show how everyday communication, and the more stylized communication of art and "performances" in a strict sense, share essential features. To use Goffman's definition, both types of communicative "performance" represent "the activity of a given participant on a given occasion which serves to influence in any way any of the other participants. "13

This approach, which sees verbal art as part of a spectrum of human communicative performance, has led to significant research into discourse strategies. We have learned that orally produced "texts," artistic or not, establish cohesion by a number of means undeveloped in written texts: they involve the audience through direct quotation and increased use of deictic pronouns and present-tense verbs, or they ease comprehension by reduced sentence complexity. At the same time, written communication can be seen as often elaborating "strategies associated with speaking, in order to create involvement. "14

Such findings regarding everyday communication surely have relevance for the Homerist's judgments concerning "orality" in the

liOn Analyst criticism, see Latacz (1979) and Clarke (1981) 156-82. It is not a coincidence that reaction to Parry has paralleled the rise ofNeo-analysis, on which see now M. Clark (1986).

12Herzfeld (1985b) 202. 13Goffman (1959) IS. 14Tannen (1982) 18-19.


poems. With the notion of performance as their guide, a number of linguists, reacting against the abstract syntactic descriptions of No am Chomsky, have begun to investigate a grammar of context, which aims at defining the role of pragmatics in determining morphology, syntax, and semantics. 1s In this perspective, discourse analysis must precede grammatical study: the sociolinguist William Labov, who perfected the study of language use during "speech events," puts the case trenchantly: "The student of his own intuitions, producing both data and theory in a language abstracted from every social context, is the ultimate lame. "16 Nor has the artfulness of "ordinary" discourse remained solely of interest to sociolinguists; performance has become a key concept for philosophers of speech-act theory, whose insights will prove helpful when we come to examine "winged words" in Homer. 17

Along with a new appreciation for the precious individuality of each verbal performance, a second variable has gained attention in this research-the audience. Whether it determines the "success" of a speech-act, or affects a salesperson's pronunciation of the phrase "fourth floor," the presence of a particular audience in the speech situation is crucial. Oral communication must know and face its audience. Written texts, while not responsible to one specific audience, are nevertheless defined by their readers, as even the most textcentered literary critics will acknowledge. The recent attempts to "recontextualize" literature must adopt a view similar to the oralist's: "There is no universal listener. There are only individual listeners, real or fictional, but all time-bound. "18

Where we can observe the audience during performance, as in living oral poetic traditions, its large role contrasts enormously with that of the reader. In some African communities, as Daniel Biebuyck notes,

the performances of the epics are highly complex events which must be viewed as total social and artistic phenomena. Besides the actual bard and his aides (eventually including the apprentices), there is a diverse and sometimes large, actively participating audience. There is a con-

15The number of such studies is now quite large. For an introduction, see van Dijk (1976) 27·

16Cited by Pickering (1980) 5. On the development of his performance-centered fieldwork, see Labov (1972) 49-69.

17 On this issue, see Searle (1976). 180ng (1986) 148-49.

'I "I


stant interplay among these three categories of participants. The actual presentation of the epic narrative is enhanced with musical performance (one or more musical instruments, eventually of different type); appropriate costumes and adornments; singing, chanting, praising, dialoguing; dancing, gesticulation, handclapping; dramatic reenactments; and gift-exchanges. 19

At times, an audience can inspire the performing bard to digress and expand, as when some African poets fill their compositions with talk of themselves and their families, teachers, proverbial wisdom, and the audience itself.20 Audiences can force a poet into an agonistic stance either against other poets (as happened to the modern Cretan bard Barba-Pantzelyo) or against the audience itself, as in the case of a Romanian epic singer who accused his backup musician of falling asleep, in such a way that the audience knew its own attention was being criticized.21 A Philippine storyteller (who faces a wall, not his listeners) might be encouraged by his audience to keep on in one vein, or to get rid of characters that bore them, speed up narration, or tell another story with a specific set of protagonists. Yet the performer is still in control, guided by his audience. 22 A Lao audience, sitting close to a mohlam performance duo, will shout approval, and even imagine themselves individually as the "thou" addressed by one performer to the other, answering the poetic lines being traded on "stage." In turn, a performer might address certain sad verses in this genre of lyric drama to a member of the audience who she knows is leaving the region. 23 The reports about nineteenth-century performances of the Central Asian Manas epic, among the Kirghiz, stress the vital bardaudience bond: "He sought to discover a theme that would suit their mood, while they in turn incited him to feats of virtuosity with their applause. At such peaks of fervor, when the bard and his listeners were as one, the patron would rise, peel off a costly robe, and throw

19Biebuyck (1978) 351. Reichl (1985) 614-43 observes a similar context for Uzbek and Karakalpak epic performances. Okpewho (1979) 52 points out that only a fulllength color ftlm could accurately recreate a contemporary African epic performance. Recognizing this role of the audience, Renoir (1986) 105-10 stresses the need for readers of ancient and medieval texts to re-imagine the original milieu.

20Biebuyck (1978) 352. 210n the Cretan, see Notopoulos (1952) 239-40; Ghil (1986) 607-35 discusses the

relation of the Romanian bard to his audience. 22Wrigglesworth (1977) 104. 23Compton (1979) 13, 122-29.

Performance, Speech-Act, and -Utterance 7

it to the triumphant performer. "24 Nothing prevents us from attributing some or all such features of audience behavior to the context of Homeric performance. If rhapsodic performance, as described in Plato's Ion, is at all traditional, Homer might well have resembled the African scepter-carrying epic singer; the stories about Homer's life might preserve memories of a time when poems could be objects in gift-exchange. 25 Even the rhapsodic habit of "explaining" Homer appears to be more traditional when we examine other epic performance: Dennis Tedlock, in his studies of the Mayan epic Popol Vuh, as also of Zuiii Indian poetry, has shown how poet and audience interact during performance and thereby actually interpret the poem in tandem. The text becomes simply the flexible springboard from which the performer continually takes off and to which he or she returns-it has no rigid fixity, any more than any other actual oral poem, even though its content is allegedly sacred myth. 26

One of the most sustained and accessible studies arising from the new performance-centered approach to verbal art is by Elizabeth Fine, a folklorist. It surveys the work done since the I960s and contains her own elegant demonstration, using fieldwork with Southwestern storytellers, of how meaning emerges only through performance. Time and again the observer of performances can note that timing, gesture, voice inflection, tempo, proximity to the audience, the past relation of a particular performer with his or her audience, the setting, the season, the time of day-are factors that determine the meaning of the actual words spoken by a performer as much if not more so than the literal meaning of the words themselves. This is to say that it is the performance, not the text, which counts. 27

24Hatto (1980) 307, citing V. V. Radlov. 250n one such story, see Burkert (1972). Herington (1985) 13, discussing the links

between rhapsodic performance as in the Ion and Homeric composition, says: "Homeric poetry ... seems to have been designed from the first to be acted. "

26Tedlock (1980) shows that parts of the performance can indeed be "fixed," without benefit of written tradition, by stress, pitch, and pause. But this is not the same as saying that an entire text is immutably fixed and canonized as some one person's authoritative version. The latter approach has been tried by Homerists attempting to account for the gap between postulated oral composition and attested written transmission: see Mueller (1984) 160-61, who cites Kirk (1976; 1978).

27See Fine (1984). On performance as more important than text, see also Hrdlickova (1976) 171-90. An entire oral epic performance is recorded and analyzed by Slyomovics (1987), the fullest such examination to date. A book could be written on the roots of the performance-centered approach; I have been selective. Fine (1984) 32-37 recognizes the concept in the work of Kenneth Burke, Gregory Bateson, Victor Turner, Clifford Geertz, and Erving Goffman, as also in the work of folklorists since

i.,",


The publications of Milman Parry and Albert Lord record their respect for the individual performance, a knowledge gained from intensive fieldwork as yet unequaled by students of Homeric poetry. Richard Bauman, one of the leading exponents of the contemporary performance approach, recognizes that Lord's Singer oJ Tales "opens a range of productive questions ... the constitution of the individual repertoire, the acquisition of performance skills, the individua1' s performance career, differences across performances of what a singer considers 'the same song' and so on. "28 Yet, perhaps because many of their studies were read by scholars who knew only texts, and were

.less interested in the mode of performing these "texts," Parry and Lord's work was first mined by Homerists and medievalists primarily as evidence for certain verse-making techniques, notably the existence of the formula. 29 This circuitous route, however, leads us eventually back to the Homeric performance itself. To put it briefly, on the one hand, it is impossible not to believe that the Iliad comes from a long tradition of oral performance-to this date Parry's demonstration has remained, in its essentials, undisturbed. 30 On the other hand, given what we now know about actual oral verbal art, we can more fully appreciate the width of the chasm separating readers of Homer from watchers and hearers of an archaic performance. Readers of the poems possess only the husk of a performance, this collection of hexameters, the program, only, of the event. 31

There is an alternative strategy in contemporary Homeric criticism that welcomes comparative study of performances to recover the feel . of the Greek epic tradition. Although I am in favor of such an ap-

the 1960s. Bauman (1986b) 112-15 cites Walter Benjamin, Roman Jakobson, and Mikhail Bakhtin as models for criticism that "recontextualizes" literature. Pratt (1977) 68 nicely compares Labov's sociolinguistics with V. Shklovskij's poetics. Howell (1986) 79 traces a concern with performance to B. K. Malinowski in the 1920S.

28Bauman (1986b) 78. 290n this topic, a red herring, see Chapter 4. 30Shive in his recent attack (1987) 10-20 claims that the economy and extension

demonstrated by M. Parry for the noun-epithet system does not apply to the other formulaic phrases in the poems. Yet Parry never asserted that it did, and this restraint on his part has long been acknowledged, by Hainsworth, Hoekstra, and others. The more careful study by Paraskevaides (1984), not cited by Shive, demonstrates that even Homer's use of most synonyms shows clear marks of formulaic economy and extension. .

31 A few Homerists have recognized the import of comparative studies. Hainsworth (1970) 29 saw that "the oral poem, propedy speaking, is knowable only through its performances. "


proach, as I have shown thus far, it clearly involves scholars in the riskier enterprise of finding increasingly "exotic" analogues, which only deepens the resistance of the "literary" Homerists. Balinese shadow theater, for example, has recently been offered, by Agathe Thornton, as bearing some resemblance to Homer's work. Like the Homeric epics, it employs a Kunstsprache-the Balinese have in fact a separate language for the gods on stage. Shadow theater requires remarkable stamina on the part of its lone performer, the dalang, and I can imagine a really good Homer sweating profusely as he performed. Of course, the potential for imperfect understanding, accidental likeness, and misapplied comparison increases as one moves farther from traditional narrative verse into an exploration of other living oral genres. 32 Shadow theater really makes a better analogue for such Greek traditions as Old Comedy and Karagheozis performance than it does for the Iliad. But even were this not so, the value of any such analogues lies in their suggestive power; they never constitute proof concerning any points about the orality of Homer or the original mode of performance. As living oral genres die off, we need to be even more clinically scrupulous in our interpretations. It appears there are good living traditions that are generically akin to the Homeric-the Mongol and Kirghiz, largely neglected by non-Soviet scholars and demanding investigation. 33 Meanwhile, on home ground the first step for re-imaginingHomeric performance is the Alexandrian scholarly principle-to explain Homer out of Homer. Internal analysis must precede any external comparison.

Where can we turn, within Homer, to find performance? Not, I believe, to the poets. Most of what can be said about the significance of De mod ok os and Phemios, the so-called bards, and Odysseus, bard manque, has been said by now, some of it thoughtfully.34 This path has been a useful dead end; it has been worth it if only because we have learned to reread the Odyssey as a narratological labyrinth. I

320n the shadow theater, see Thornton (1984) II, 17, 25-)2. Boon (1984) 158 also notices the importance of the Balinese evidence. On perils of wider analogies, see Lord (1975) and Foley (1985) 67-70.

33Reichl (1985) 613 lists some. On the lasting value of Serbo-Croatian for comparison, see Auty (1980) 196-97.

34Schadewaldt (1965) is the best attempt. Maehler (1963) 9-34 does not press the evidence too far; see also Skafte-Jensen (1980) 116-20. Macleod (1983) 3 offers a useful reminder that we can learn not just from Phemios and Demodokos: "When Odysseus relates his adventures truly to the Phaeacians, or falsely to Eumaeus, when Helen, Menelaos, and Nestor recall their experiences at Troy or afterwards, they are to all intents and purposes poets."


cannot see that it has had any impact on Iliad studies. 35 Ultimately, the evidence is too thin for us to draw conclusions about Homer from his depictions of bards.

If we start with the idea that Homer was an oral poet, it seems to me essential that we should delve more deeply and concentrate not on poets in the texts. but on orality itself, to look at the very notion of speech within the poems to discover the parameters of this very basic sort of performance. Then we can extend the notion of performance, or rather, recapture what Greeks considered to be a "performance," and compare it with our own notions. The task is ethnographic; the society to be observed happens to be extant only in the remnants of its poetic production. Yet some reconstruction can be attempted. To my knowledge, this has not been done yet; I find the task all the more compelling precisely because workers in the other fields I have mentioned now seem agreed in stressing the importance of performance as the distinguishing feature of all speech events. We know what Homer says about the power of memory and of art: Odysseus is an emblem for their dual potency. But what does this poetry say about its very stuff, words themselves? And can this tell us something about the poetry?

Performance and Speech Taxonomy

We should begin with words for speech itself. Again, Lord provides valuable hints from field experience, when he relates that some modern singers claim to repeat a composition "word for word" like an earlier song, yet are shown to have made wide changes by the transcripts of their performances. In fact, as Lord and Parry found, the idea of a single "word" made no sense to their informants, who regularly used the same term to mean an utterance of any length. 36

We can press further this insight about terminology, for metalanguage-talk concerning talk-is highly language-specific. That is, the spectrum of speech, like the spectrum of colors, can be described in various ways by different languages. Irish, for example, denotes with one adjective-glas-the shades of color that English distinguishes as green, gray, and blue-green. As regards speech notions,

35See Todorov (1977) 53-65 on the Odyssey as a poet's self-reflexive epic. 36Lord (1960) 25 and in general 99-123.

Performance, Speech-Act, and Utterance II

English speakers have at their disposal an estimated 4,800 verbs and phrases describing the act of speaking (along with its enactment, motivation, and valuation), but they have only a relative handful of nouns and general terms for speech-acts. 37 By contrast, the villagers of Chamula, a Tzotzil-speaking Mayan community in southern Mexico, subdivide into dozens of categories the spectrum of speech. The Chamulas classify all speech into either ordinary talk; words that come from the heart (e.g. political talk, angry speech, courting language); or "pure words." The third category comprises so-called recent words and ancient words-and ancient words, in turn, encompass many kinds of talk, ranging from "ancient true narratives of the First Creation" to "prayers for evil people, Protestants, witches, murderers, and thieves." Gary Gossen has demonstrated that these native categories are implicit in the everyday life of the village, although it requires the skill of the ethnographer to uncover the total system through which the terms obtain their meanings by structural oppositions. 38 It is significant for our purposes that the Chamulas cannot even talk about speech without indicating the speech-genre to which a given piece of discourse belongs. This means that it would make no sense to investigate, for example, Chamula storytelling, without first finding out what kind of "speech" word the Chamulas use to describe it. Recent studies in the ethnography of speaking confirm that this is the norm for many cultures. 39 The western Apache, for instance, have a system of speaking/genre terms which is similarly highly specific: the ethnographer is able to define a term such as "wise words," goyaayo yaiti, as "a distinctive speech genre associated with adult men and women who have gained a reputation for balanced thinking, critical acumen, and extensive cultural knowledge. "40 The term is inexplicable without knowledge of the kind of performances it refers to and the status of the performers. In more abstract terms, the study of "oral literature," linguistics, and anthropology cannot operate as separate disciplines when it comes to understanding tradi-

37Ballmer and Brennenstuhl (1981) 5, 33-67. 38See Gossen (1974) vii, 78-83 and esp. 247-49; also Gossen (1978) 81-115 for a

summary of his holistic approach to speech taxonomy. 39The collection of essays edited by Bauman and Sherzer (1974) contains dozens of

examples for this point, some of which I shall refer to later in this chapter. 4OBasso (1976) 99. On the central role of American Indian descriptionist studies in

the development of the ethnography of speaking as a discipline, see Saville-Troike (1982) 5-11.

I,.,

,1 1.1

I2 The Language of Heroes

tional folk cultures such as these. The same must apply to study of archaic Greece.

The ethnographer of speaking who attempts to reconstruct Greek talk about words, then, will not be surprised to find a folk taxonomy of speech that is askew from the standpoint of our own notions. The difficulty lies in recapturing the semantics of words for speech when we have no native informants and only poetic texts. Homerists have a model for overcoming part of this problem: I refer to the brilliant work of Leonard Muellner, which explains the problematic semantics of the speech-act verb eukhomai-boast/pray-by analyzing its formulas iIi the text of Homer. 41 I find Muellner's method useful for analyzing the two terms that demand attention when we turn to words for "speech" in Homer-namely muthos and epos. In hopes of recapturing the intricacies of the oral poetic world behind Homeric verse, I have investigated these two words in their context and can now redefine the words as follows: muthos is, in Homer, a speech-act indicating authority, performed at length, usually in public, with a focus on full attention to every detail. I redefine epos, on the other hand, as an utterance, ideally short, accompanying a physical act, and focusing on message, as perceived by the addressee, rather than on performance as enacted by the speaker. In short, I believe the analysis of speech terms within Homer offers us an immediate entryway into notions of performance, through those speeches in the poems which are called muthoi.

In what follows, I shall explain how I arrive at this reconstruction of notions regarding speech in archaic Greek. The dichotomy of speech-performance and utter~e can be used, along the way, to answer such questions as what kind of speech-act the epic is, and whether "winged words" is just a convenient ftller or.a meaningful phrase. In Chapters 2 and 3, as I examine the poetics and rhetoric of the major types of Iliadic performances, it will be seen that the word muthos comprises a range of speech-genres similar to that of Chamula "words for heated hearts": political talk, angry speech, and affectionate recollection. Heroes can be distinguished as performers by their ability in these genres. Chapters 4 and 5 will focus on one heroic performer, Achilles, and my conclusion on another-the poet Homer.

Before beginning with the semantic distinctions between these two

41Muellner (1976).

Performance, Speech-Act, and Utterance I3

words, however, it is worth pointing out why these in particular should be selected for investigation in the first place, out of all the Homeric words for voice and speech. A major reason is that they are the two most important terms designating speech of some sort which, as it happens, also become names for genres-one poetic, one applicable to many narratives-in post-Homeric times. Determining the semantics of these two words can illuminate for us the meaning of "epic" and "myth." Furthermore, their semantics diverge so widely and rapidly after Homer that one must wonder whether signs of the difference in meaning can already be discovered in Homeric poetry. As Detienne has shown, the meanings "tale, fiction, lie" for the word muthos appear to be as ancient as Hesiodic poetry. On the other hand, it seems that the word epos develops the sense "poetic utterance" and "hexameter verse" equally early. It then becomes marginalized in Greek, to be replaced by logos in the sense of a "single word. "42 Oddly enough, this semantic divergence, attested not much later than Homer's time, is absent at first sight from Homer, in whose poetry both muthos and epos seem to function as synonyms meaning "speech, word." The synonymity has been widely accepted. Cunliffe's Homeric lexicon accords the two terms nearly identical definitions. Both words, the lexicon records, mean "something said, an utterance, a word; speech, discourse, words; speech as distinguished from action," and "the sense of the word colored by the context." The last category is a catchall lexicographic net whereby both words can be translated as command, counsel, injunction, and so forthwith no difference in meaning. 43 And yet, given what we now know from Milman Parry about the economy of Homeric diction, and about the specificity of Homeric vocabulary , from the work of Benveniste especially, such massive synonymity in the case of two words denoting an essential human act seems suspicious. 44

420n the semantics ofmuthos see Detienne (I986) 47-5I, and the review by Nagy (I982). For epos, see Koller (I972); but note Ford (I98I) I37-52 who argues that the "poetic" meaning of epos occurs not before the sixth century. Bynum (I976) 47-54 traces the use of epos meaning "epic" to Aristotle. On the later history of muthos, see Bompaire (I977). I suggest that Aristotle's use of the word to mean "plot" is directly in line with a Homeric meaning "detailed, authoritative speech-act."

43Cunliffe (I924) I52-53 and 274; Ebeling (I885) 464 defines epos as "verbum, perpetuitas verborum, atque res quae narrantur" and contrasts muthos as "sermo, Ansprache, quo quae sentimus aperimus." For a similar definition of epos, see now Beck (I987).

44For excellent illustrations of the specificity of Homeric vocabulary, see Benveniste (I969).


We must rewrite the dictionaries, by looking afresh at the exact contexts, associations, and disjunctions in which these words playa part. When we do pay attention to context, synonymity recedes. Or rather, it emerges that epos resembles muthos only in a small fraction of cases, where another overriding concern bleaches out the sharp contrast between these two terms that can be found in the majority of their occurrences. In the singular number, when they occur inside or out of formulas, epos and muthos occupy opposite ends of the speech spectrum. Their semantic opposition can be sketched out in terms of four pairings. I hesitate to call them polarities since, in some instances, the pairings approach complementarities; as we shall see, in one major group, formulas using epos and epea actually fill a lexical gap left by formulas employing the word muthos. All in all, however, it is most helpful to view the two words as each expressing a completely different focus on the phenomenon of speech.

Because this is a book about the Iliad, my examples will be drawn in the main from that poem. This is not to say that the system I am about to sketch does not apply in the Odyssey. I have verified it there as well. Yet a general working principle, which I borrow from Bolling, is that Homeric discourse grammar should consist of three segments: a description for each poem, and a third comparing the twO. 45

What follows then represents my contribution toward a grammar of the Iliad.

The Speaker and the Spoken Word

For the first pairing of contrasts, I must turn to the well-known model of the speech event as refined by Roman Jakobson. 46 Communication involves a speaker, an addressee, and a context; a message to be spoken; a code to carry the message; and contact between the parties. If we apply this system to the words for "speech" in Homer, muthos can be viewed as the kind of speech that focuses on the speaker. This connection between the viewpoint of the person talking and the talk labeled muthos is so close and consistent that those few scholars who have tried to trace differences between muthos and epos have invariably defined muthos as some form of thought. Thus Ebel-

45See Bolling (1946) 343. 46SeeJakobson (1960). On the roots of his model, see Fine (1984) 32 and on further

refinements to the model, Dirven (1982) 2.


ing glosses the word "sermo intimus"; Hofmann derives the senses of "fable" and "opinion" from an original meaning "cogitatum"; Fournier followed along similar lines, giving the definition "pensee qui s'exprime, Ie langage, l'avis, langage interieur"; and even Chantraine seems to feel this way about the term: "Suite de paroles qui ont un sens, propos, discours; associe a E:n:O~ qui designe Ie mot, la parole, la forme."47

It is certain that, in the language of the Iliad, muthos is associated with words for thinking. For example, Paris in the assembly of the Trojans alleges that Antenor knows how to think of another and better proposal than the muthos he has just made (that Helen should be returned):

"You know how to think of another muthos better than this one." (7.358)

Earlier in the poem, when Antenor recalls during the teikhoskopia the speech styles of the Achaean heroes who came to Troy, he associates the word muthos with well-made plans (medea):

"But when they wove speeches (muthoi) and plans for all, Then, you know, Menelaos discoursed in running fashion, Speaking little, but very clearly, since he is not much with words

(polumuthos) nor one to cast words about. And, indeed, he was younger. But when indeed Odysseus mqch with wiles (polumetis) arose he'd stand, he'd look down fixing his eyes on the ground .... "

(3. 212- 17)

The same passage shows a clear correspondence between the adjectives polumuthos and polumetis, "with much clever intelligence." We recall that metis, in turn, bears a close relation to medea in Greek. 48 Elsewhere, muthos is correlated with words for counsel (boule) and intellect (noema). Adjectives such as "painless" ·modify muthos but

47Ebeling (I885) II22-24; Hofmann (I922) 28-33; Fournier (I946) 2I5-I6; Chantraine (I968-80) 7I8. Frisk (I96o-70) 2:264 defmes muthos .as "Wort, Rede, Gesprach, Uberlegung, Erzahlung, Sage, Marchen, My thus, " in an unhelpful collection of attested meanings. Some would go so far as to connect muthos (which has no known etymology) with words meaning "thought" in other Indo-European languages. See Hofmann (I922) 47.

48See Detienne and Vemant (I974) 222, 23 I.


not epos, and denote speech that is meant to have an active role in resolving a crisis, as when Polydamas addresses the Trojans: "And the painless word pleased Hektor" (muthos apemon 12.80, 13.748).

Close as is the connection between muthos and "intent," however, the word always refers to actual speech accompanying a speaker's thought. Thus, one can never justify translating the word as "thought. "49 This problem, by contrast, never arises with the word epos. Unlike muthos, this word has a clear Indo-European derivation, which connects it with the root seen in Greek ossa and opa and in Latin vox. 50 The root refers to voice, and this original sense survives in epos. A muthos focuses on what the speaker says and how he or she says it, but epos consistently applies to what the addressee hears. We can see the root meaning in a number of places in the Iliad, as when Hektor does not "fail to recognize the epos" of the goddess Iris (2.807), and Andromakhe says she wants to be out of hearing of Hektor's death: "May the epos be away from my ear" (22.454).51

Given the etymology of epos, we can see that a consistent image underlies Aeneas' words to Achilles at 20.203-204:

"We know each other's genealogy, we know the parents, from hearing the famous epea of mortal men."

Literally, the adjective proklut' means "heard before." Only in the context of oral tradition can this word come to mean "famous," as happens also with the noun kleos, "glory." Gregory Nagy has explicated Aeneas' speech in Book 20 showing that epea here in fact refers to poetic utterances, in the form of traditional narratives about Aeneas. 52 I would underline in this passage the significant distinction between "telling" blameful things (oneidea, line 202)-an act described with the verb muthesasthai-and hearing utterances (epea). Once again, muthos is associated with the speaker's action in giving a message, whereas epos refers to the transmission of the message, the endproduct of the speech process.

The notion of product (as opposed to action) seems to be embed-

49The demonstration by Russo and Simon (1968) that thought is often dramatized as internal speech in Homer can explain the tendency to translate the word this way.

50And perhaps even in the word for "human," anthropos. See Pisani (1981). 51 Compare 22.451, describing how her thoughts are darkened by the sound of

Hektor's voice: (opos ekluon). The vocal quality of epos also underlies the phrase at 17.695: amphasie epeon.

52Nagy (1979) 265-75 and on the semantics of kleos, 16.


ded in the word epos. First, it is an inanimate neuter noun (as opposed to the animate noun muthos).53 In the few places where speech is described by means of both words, it appears that the term epos refers to the ~mallest elements of connected discourse, to single words or emergent sounds. Antenor's description of Odysseus' rhetoric mentions voice (opa) and words (epea) in the same breath, and vividly compares the latter with winter snowflakes (3.221-22). The image is that of a powerful, silent natural phenomenon itself composed of single powerless parts. The description of the speech style of Thersites (a foil for Odysseus) concentrates on his inability to organize the discrete small units of his talk, the epea:

"Thersites alone, of unmeasured speech, still brawled, he who knew many disordered epea in his mind, rashly, not according to good order." (2.212-14)

During one of the rare moments when fighters discuss speech for more than a few lines, we see again that muthoi are the large units, epea the small. Toward the end of the challenging speech to Achilles, in which Aeneas refers to "famous words" that have acquainted the warriors with one another's deeds, he calls for a fight, to put an end to childish talk. The contrasting mention of "speech" versus "deeds" is a frequent Homeric topos. Only at 20.246-250, however, is the first part of the contrast further subdivided.

"We both have insults to speak formally (muthesasthai), many of them, nor could a ship with a hundred benches bear the

load. The tongue of men is pliant, in it there are many muthoi of all types, of epea there is much share-land here and there. Whatever epos you say you hear in return."

"Insults" (oneidea) are, in this image, the weightier form of speech: like goods on a merchant vessel they are tangible, substantial. Note that the verb Aeneas uses for "speak (insults)" is derived from the word muthos. As we shall see later, the verb is markedly more restricted than "say" (eipein, from the root in epos): it always means

530n the determinate, material nature of epos, see Fournier (1946) 211-12 and Beck (1987). I cannot agree with the latter that the use of the two terms in one line is simply hendiadys.


"speak in detail and at length." Furthermore, the genre comprising threats and insults, (oneidea), is one of the few speech types introduced by the word muthos. 54 In short, the image of "heavy" speech that Aeneas applies to "insults" should be extended to muthoi as a whole. 55 Contrast this with the images of the "pasturage" of epea: unlike muthoi, which can be characterized individually (pantoioi, "of all types"), these travel about here and there in a wide field-the image accords with that describing Thersites' speech. 56 Moreover, epea are like small objects that can be batted to and fro, part of a general system of exchange. 57 Aeneas' gnomic statement, "whatever word you say, you hear," points once again to the notion of trans mission of speech, a notion that goes with epea (instead of muthoi).58 Finally, this line (250) embodies the idea that an epos is the least unit of speech: the smallest piece of praise or blame comes back to its speaker in turn. More evidence for this view comes from verses in which epos (and never muthos) is modified by the indefinite pronoun, as in Hera's reported address at 19.121:59

"Zeus father with the flashing bolt, I will place some word in your mind."

The physical quality of speech, (epos), as well as the function it fulfills in reciprocal social relations, is well expressed by two common groups of formulas: those describing hand movements coordinated with an epos; and those naming expressive social acts, such as chiding or weeping, accompanied by epea. The first class of formulas is employed by Homer mainly in type-scenes of welcoming or con-

54C£ the formula at 21.393 and 21.471, oneideion ... muthon. 55The Limba of Africa employ a similar metaphor of "heavy words" for important

performative speech: see Finnegan (1969) 550. For the image of the loaded ship, see Od. 3.312.

560n the word nomos and ancient interpretation, see Ebeling (1885) s.v.; Hofmann (1922) 5 wants the metaphor to refer to a flock of "winged words." I translate the word as "share-land" in order to capture the root meaning, relating to distribution (c£ the related verb nemo). If this meaning is overt in the noun, we could explain the image as connected with that of reciprocal movement in the next line.

57 As in Rotinese, in which the verb "talk" (fada), belongs to the same semantic sphere as words for "exchange, "barter": Fox (1974) 78.

58The same notion underlies Nestor's words to Agamemnon at 9.100: "You especially must say the epos and hear it back again."

59See further instances at 1. 108, 1.543, 3.83, 10.540, 24.767.


solation, but "hand and wor.d" descriptions can also occur whenever one speaker establishes contact with a listener for an emotional private conversation, as when Athena persuades Ares to leave battle (5.30): "Taking his hand she spoke to rushing Ares with words (epeessi). "60 The focus is on speech as a social bonding mechanism, the equivalent of a handshake, an affirmation, like that between helping divinities (Athena and Poseidon) and Achilles (21.286): "Taking hand in hand they pledged faith by means of words (epeessin)." The parallel between verbal and physical gesture is highlighted particularly in the following formulas:

She put her hand on him and spoke a word and called.

She stroked him with her hand and spoke a word and called.

These introduce motherly, comforting language-Thetis to Achilles (1.361,19.7,24.127), Dione to Aphrodite (5.372), Hekabe to Hektor (6.2S3)-or words between intimates, like Hektor and his wife (6.406, 485).61

The phrase "spoke a word and called" ends, literally, "called the name." It has long been a puzzle, since not everyone of the fortythree occurrences of this formula in Homer is followed by an explicit vocative. Couch saw a more general consistency in that this half-line forms a "prelude to the words of a god or mortal, who is the superior of the person addressed, whether through recognized rank, mistaken identity, or the moral force of circumstances at the time that the speech is introduced. "62 I cannot solve the problems concerning the meaning of onomaze, "called the name," but by putting this half-line formula in the larger context of the physical connotations which I observe in the word epos, I can suggest that the coordinated hand and speech gestures are what is important in the poetic employment of this half-line, rather than any usefulness for introducing vocatives.

60An expanded version of this formula occurs at 15.126-27. See also 14.137-38. 61See also 18.384, 423 (Thetis with Kharis and Hephaistos). 62Couch (1937) 140. D' Avina (1969) sums up earlier attempts and concludes that an

originally "durative" sense of "naming fully" is retained in some instances and transformed in others.


This becomes clear when one compares lines in which a mention of the "hand" appears before the phrase "spoke a word and named" with lines that have a different introductory phrase. The lines without "hand" phrases (quoted earlier) seem to be employed randomly. They can introduce a speech full of taunts and insult, such as Helen's retort to the disguised Aphrodite (3.398-99):

She was amazed, and spoke a word and called the name, "Strange one, why do you want to deceive me?"

Or, they introduce simple questions (14.297), a berating speech (15.552), a speech of concession (21.356), an invitation to pray (24.286). In short, the "hand-and-speech" lines represent a consistent poetic expression drawing the audience's attention to a genre of speech, consolation. Even though the lexical form of the "hand" phrase may vary, the underlying semantics of the line are preserved. Gesture and utterance, the latter imagined to be just as physical as the former, claim notice. The lines that share only the second segment seem to represent an innovation and a reuse of an original full-line formula without a sense of the line's original poetic purpose. 63

In the second class of formulas that draw attention to the physical nature of the word, epos appears in the dative case to indicate the means by which a communicative act occurs.64 The act itselfreviling, mourning, praying, urging, answering-is described by Homer with a verb-phrase. The dative phrase containing the term epea then describes the tone or mood of the words. Positive or ~egative overtones can be created by the choice of an adjective, and words can be "cutting" (4.6), "childish" (20.200, 211, 431), "angry" (4.241), and "insulting" (16.628, 2.277, 1.519), or, less often, they can be "pleasant" (12.267), "soft" (1.582, 6.337), and "mild" (2.164, 180). It is true that some of the speeches introduced by these epeessi formulas function to describe speech events, such as blaming, which can also be introduced as muthoi. But it should be pointed out that most often this class of formulas is employed only for a narrative description, not to introduce an actual "speech" in the poem. This may explain why

630n this phenomenon of full-formula segmentation, see Muellner (1976) 21-24. 640ne indication that this function-is most important for epos rather than muthos is

statistical: the former term appears most often in the dative in Homer; the latter rarely takes that case, occurring usually in just two formulas. See 1. 565 and 2.245 for the types.


the epos formulas so often occur with modifying adjectives (unlike lines containing muthos): the performance of a speech action is not the focus of the word epos. The elided, unnarrated words of the heroes are considered, in epos descriptions, only as verbal accompaniment to a more important act .. Since we do not "hear" the words, the poet must color the narrative by using a descriptive adjective for the kind of talk that his characters used.

We have noted that epea in the system of Homeric diction represent the means of conducting social life; they participate in an economy of exchange. Unlike muthoi, which are the full, exaggerated speech-acts of heroes, "utterances" simply receive passing notice by the poet, in their role as concomitants to physical gestures. It is not that these words are unimportant; they matter in a different way. One of the first occurrences of an epeessi formula in the poem can illustrate the phenomenon. Hephaistos attempts to patch up the quarrel between Zeus and Hera by code-switching, as it were. Instead of aggravating the confrontation between two powerful performers, in which Hera has just challenged the muthos of her husband (I. 565), Hephaistos advises Hera to use soft language (I. 582-83):

"But approach him with soft epea and right away, the Olympian one will be propitious to us."

As prayer and supplication work for mortals, so these soft words will supposedly help Hera, making the angry divinity propitious (hilaos). 65 Words alone do not complete the reconciliation, though. We do not hear Hera speak to Zeus. Instead, Hephaistos' advice to Hera is joined to his gesture of offering her a cup (585) and to his comic autobiographical story (586-94). The ensemble of word and action carries the scene to its harmonious end.

Much remains to be said about the role of this social-poetic metaphor in Homeric speech depictions. It can be shown, for example, that the "supplication" of the godlike Achilles by the embassy depends on this concept of speech as reciprocal exchange, as the realm of epea. Nestor instructs the Achaeans to propitiate Achilles with "mild words and pleasing gifts," significantly equating the two

65The propitiation of Apollo not long before this scene uses similar language (1. 100), as does the embassy to Achilles (9.639), the only mortal to whom this diction is applied.


(9.113): bWQOL<JLV 't' ayavoLOLv EJtE<J<JL 'tE I-tELALXLOLOL. But Achilles operates within a different system, it appears. Rejecting the exchange value of "pleasant words," the supreme hero constructs the most powerful muthos in the Iliad, as I shall show in Chapter 5.

The Authoritative Speech-Act

The second major distinction between muthos and epos pertains to the sorts of discourse labeled by these terms within the poem. I have found that all but I2 of the I67 occurrences of the stem muth- (noun and verb forms) in the Iliad can be categorized as marking proposals and commands or threats and boasts. As we shall see, these four types of discourse constitute, essentially, just two types of speech-act. More abstractly, muthos in the Iliad is always the speech of one in power, or of someone, for example a boasting warrior who is laying claim to power over his opponents. The word muthos implies authority and power; epos implies nothing about these values. Not surprisingly, Book I of the poem is permeated with muthoi. Agamemnon commands Khryses to depart and the heralds to fetch Briseis by using a "powerful speech" (krateron d' epi muthon etelle-1.25, I.326). Athena's warning to Achilles is referred to by the narrator as a muthos (1.22I). Achilles, in his colloquy with Thetis, views both of Agamemnon's acts, against Khryses and himself, as authoritative misuse of muthoi:

But he sent him off badly, and ordered a hard muthos." (1.379)

Then anger took hold of Atreus' son, and quickly standing, he threatened with a muthos which indeed has been fulftlled.

(1.3 87-88)

Here and throughout the poem the authority underlying muthoi is acknowledged in the audience's response to a given speech; the addressee is most often persuaded. At times the success of a muthos is evident only from the behavior of the person listening-submission (willing or not), indignation at being commanded, fear. Often, however, the result is instantaneous and explicit in formulaic language. The poet emphasizes the moment of persuasion thereby:66

66In addition to these examples, cf. I.273, I. 565, 2.I56-66, 20.295, 23.I57; Helenus' prophetic advice to Hektor (7.43-53) transmits a directive of Apollo, obeyed


Thus he spoke, and the old man feared and obeyed the muthos. (1.33, Khryses = 24.571, Priam)

Nor did he disobey the muthos of Athena. (1.220-21, Achilles)

Be quiet; obey my muthos. (4.412, Diomedes)

Those who are equals, socially or as "performers" of deeds, can challenge one another's muthoi. As we have seen, Paris does so with Antenor's proposal in the Trojan assembly (7.358). When the lines of power are clearly drawn, the speaker who uses a muthos prevails. Thus, Odysseus speaks to his social equals in the testing scene of Book 2 and uses epea. The poet says:

Whatever king and outstanding man he met, he stood beside and held back with mild words (epeessin). (2.188-89)

To Thersites, however, and to the men of the demos, he uses a muthos:

But whatever man of the people he saw or found shouting he would drive on with the scepter and berate with a muthos: "Strange one, sit still and listen to the word of others (aI/on muthon) who are stronger, while you are un warlike and strengthless."

(2.198- 201)

The Iliad is largely about situations in which power is in dispute, up for grabs. The anthropologist Michael Herzfeld has recently drawn attention to the role of expressive rhetoric, accomplished by verbal and nonverbal means, in a similar cultural context-the disputes of contemporary Cretan mountain villagers. 67 It is precisely this sort of expressive use of language in dispute settings that Homer characterizes as muthos. Like the "poetics of manhood" that Herzfeld explicates, this rhetorical skill at self-presentation can be learned by Homeric heroes; indeed, it must be acquired, and Homer shows how the education takes place. Diomedes, in the Iliad, becomes the model of the youqg Greek male initiated into forceful speaking, a learning of muthoi.! As we might expect, Nestor, the veteran performer and

L

by Athena (oud' apithese). The force of Helen us' muthos comes from its representation of divine voice-op' akousa theon.

67See Herzfeld (1985) and (1985b).

-- "


orator, whose authoritative speech was always obeyed by heroes of the past (e.g. 1.273), teaches the skill of words.

It might help to compare this sort of initiation in words with the experience of the young singer of epic songs, as Lord describes him. 68

Like the poetic performer, the young orator Diomedes starts out slowly, by listening to his elders and repeating their phrases. He throws back at Agamemnon some of the older man's harsh words from an earlier encounter, warning him that he will fight in the speaking-place "as is fit" (9.33, he themis estin-Agamemnon's phrase at 2.73), in a clear allusion to Agamemnon's remark that Diomedes is a better speaker than fighter (4.400). We get the impression that Diomedes, like the young singer, again, needs time to compose his reply to Agamemnon; for, when attacked in Book 4, he made no direct answer (4.4II-18), but at the start of Book 9 he has a ready supply of words. Yet the phrases he employs are a curious blend of rhetorical tacks taken by Thersites and Achilles (significantly, two other marginalized characters, one by status, one by choice). Agamemnon has only authority, not strength, Diomedes asserts; he can go home ifhe likes, while Diomedes and his companion win the war. Besides the upstart rhetoric of this speech, there is a lot of repetition, as if Homer were characterizing the inexperience of Diomedes through his style. 69 His line-initial repetition of aiken, "strength" (9.34, 39) might seem forcefully expressive; but the repetition of the longer phrase "unwarlike and strengthless, (9.35, 41) which, in turn, encloses a triple occurrence of "he gave" (doke-~7-39) strikes the listener as a clumsy attempt at sounding forceful. ~nd so it seems to affect Nestor, as well. Perhaps Nestor is promptea by the hyperbole of Diomedes' assertion (after all, nowhere in the testing scene did Agamemnon actually call Diomedes "unwarlike and strengthless"those were Odysseus' words to the low-status fighters in Book 2.201-6). Perhaps it is Homer's purpose to show us Nestor allied to Agamemnon. At any event, the old warrior is conspicuously not a part of the general acclamation of Diomedes' muthos:

So he spoke, and all the Achaeans' sons clamored assent, in awe at the muthos of horse-taming Diomedes. But standing up, the horseman Nestor spoke to them: "Son of Tydeus, you are especially strong in war,

68Lord (1960) 23-24. 690n the characterization of heroes by style, see Chapters 3 and 4.


counsel you" were best of all your peers, will fmd fault with your muthos, as many as are Achaeans,

against it. But you have not reached the utmost point of

muthoi."

the difference in their ages, saying he could be Difather, and approves the substance of his remarks (9·57-59). speaks his own mind, as explicit instruction for the younger

how one reaches the "perfection of speeches" (telos muthon,

come, I who claim to be more honored than you, say out all and go through it all, and no one can

my muthos, not even Agamemnon who rules." (9. 60- 62)

to deliver a simple proposal in elegant form, fuTI of asyndetic gnomic statements (line 63), and, most impor

praise for his audience-Agamemnon. As he predicted, all Nestor's muthon (9.79). The stage is set for the next contest

(9.74-75), in which Nestor again convinces his audience, causing the embassy to be sent (9.94-113).

witnessed such expert teaching, Diomedes grows in rhethrough the rest of the poem. By Book 14, we see that

~""u .. '''' ... how to construct an impregnable speech, by taki~g action against possible objections. As does Nestor, Di-

prefaces his speech with disarming recollection of the past, ancestry in this case, and thus rejects possible claims that he is

to speak well, while at the same time raising his status as a by blood. As a result, his muthos is assured of success:

-"Therefore, you cannot devalue my muthos by saying I am strengthless and have a bad ancestry, whatever I say."

(14. 126- 27)

that Diomedes' proposal is a convincing performance the "'VJ""'~UU''''O the speech with the same line that followed Nestor's

muthos in Book 9:

he spoke and then they listened and obeyed. (14. 133 = 9·79)


We shall return in Chapter 3 to trace the development ofDiomedes as heroic speaker within the Iliad. For now, we can note that the heroic imperative as crystallized in Phoinix's words to Achilles demands that a hero learn to "be a doer of deeds" and a speaker-not of words, but of muthoi, "authoritative speech-acts": !lu8wv 'tE QlJ'tfJQ' E!lEVm JtQlJx'tfJQu 'tE EQYWV (9.443). Both deeds and such words can be enacted; Diomedes shows us a Homeric hero striving for this ideal.

Synonymity and "Winged Words"

Thus far we have seen that epos can be distinguished from muthos through the former's close relation to voice and hearing and the latter's consistent association with powerful, status-related speech. Yet it could be objected at this point that epos also means "command" or "proposal" in more than a few contexts. Does this mean that the systematic distinctions shown thus far are a mirage caused by the formulaic language of the poem? A closer look at the employment of epos shows that this is not the case; the system of Homeric speech terms is instead even more complex (and yet economical) than at first suspected. This becomes clear if we examine contexts in which epos seems to be synonymous with muthos and compare the results with patterns of co-occurrence, either of the two words in the same description of a speech or of the two words in association with mutual modifiers.

At first it seems there is a striking difference in the use of the word epos to mean command: that it, 1,lnlike muthos, refers to the secondary transmission of an original command by someone else. The focus appears to be on the message itself (as we have seen with this word in other contexts). Thus, Achilles' demand that Thetis supplicate Zeus is referred to by his mother as an epos: Looking forward to the moment when she will transmit the message, she promises:70

"I will go back to snowy Olympus to tell Zeus, who delights in thunder,

this epos if he may obey." (1.419-20)

The same phenomenon seems to occur when Achilles tells Athena that he will "preserve" her command (epos eirussasthai) to fight Aga-

70Por similar uses of epos to refer to transmitted messages, see 1.652, II.652, 17· 701, 24.92.


memnon with words, instead of sword. Her directive, as the poet twice makes clear (I. 195, 208), comes from Hera, who sent her; therefore, we might say that the command is not Athena's self-willed act, and does not require extended performance to show her own authority. It is not a muthos, it would seem-and yet, a few lines later, it is called precisely that by the poet (1.221). Once more, we might want a similar interpretation at first to explain why Zeus' orders to Hera are epea when she transmits them (15.156); but this too becomes overingenious and simply does not work. In this example, the original command was designated epea (15.48). In short, it looks as though the two terms which we thought distinct, epea and muthos, can denote exactly the same sort of speech-acts. Although the word epos is used more often in actual speeches (47.2 percent) whereas muthos more often occurs in the narrator's framing of speech (38.2 percent in speeches), again there is no rigid demarcation when it comes to commands: this meaning can occur when either a character or the poet uses either word.

Two solutions can explain the overlap in meaning, I believe, without forcing us to abandon an otherwise systematic distinction between the two terms for speech. First, it will be seen that other factors, especially the speech situation in which the "command" occurs, can determine whether epos or muthos names the speech-act described. The latter is reserved for public performances. A second, more general explanation works by organizing these two words for speech in a hierarchy, in which muthos has restricted range but greater semantic weight. But before outlining these factors, I should point out the sort of pressure in the system of Homeric diction which leads to some leveling out of the observable distinction between muthos and epos in some contexts.

To this point, I have concentrated on the role of speaking and the ways in which it is described in the Iliad. Yet we must remember that the heroic ideal of speaking and fighting virtuosity is always being propounded in the poem. "Word and deed" becomes a merismus, expressing an ideal totality by reference to the extremes which shape it.71 This is the positive rhetorical strategy concerning "words." At the same time, however, the way in which one talks about speech can itself become part of the rhetorical repertoire of the warrior, as well as a poetic topos. Because the ideal is to speak and talk well, any hero (or the poet) can characterize another man as deficient in either, thus

71 A similar ideology has been traced in the Poema de Mio Cid: see Read (1983) 2-21.


using the rhetoric of speech description negatively. For our project, both strategies of description tend to reduce any difference between muthos and epos in favor of the overriding contrast with the larger category of "action."72

In an expression denoting instantaneous action, the poet can use muthos:

ain:i:x.' EnELe' (If,.La f,.LUeOC; ET]V, 'tE'tEAEO'to 6e EQYOV (19. 2 42 )

Then, as soon as the muthos, the deed was done.

The word epas however, will do just as well:

ou nO) nav ELQT]1:O Enoc; (),;' aQ' ijA'UeOV alJ'toL (10.540)

Not yet was the whole epos said when they themselves came.

Still, there are differences in the acts referred to by these two terms: reading context, we see that Odysseus at 19.216-37 makes an authoritative proposal, called by him muthoi (19.220). This the poet refers to at 19.242. But Nestor (10.533-39) merely voices his suspicion that the best of the Achaeans are returning from' their night mission: his speech is labeled epos-as one could predict, given the associations of this word with reported speech. A similar explanation will show the differences beneath the surface likenesses when the two different nouns share an adjective, giving the appearance that they are formulaically interchangeable words. When Hera tells Athena that_ they are dangerously close to reneging on their promise that Men-, elaos will take Troy, she refers to the original speech-act as muthos:

~ Q' (lALOV 1:()V f,.LueOv unE<JTI1f,.LEV MEVEAaq> (5.715)

"Vain, indeed, is the muthos we promised Menelaos."

Achilles also mentions a past speech-act when he uses the same adjec-· tive halian, "in vain," and we might expect him to label it muthos, but the line concludes:

"A vain epos I tossed forth that day."

72Barck (I976) examines the ramifications of this Homeric topos. An example of the contrast word versus deed (epos versus ergon) to mean "in all ways" is Thetis' supplication at I.504; similar expressions with epos: I.395. 5.879. II.703, I5.I06. I5·234·


But here the nature of the original speech-act gives us a clue to explain \ why it can be called epos in retrospect: as a boast, it is attracted into . the language of actual boast descriptions, which often contain the formula £UXOf.t£vO~ £:1tO~ rruOu. 73 Once again, then, external factors-formulaic pressure, poetic themes in the larger discourse, or accidents of the system-can mask the inherent semantic distinction / between muthos and epos. .

And yet, even after we exclude and explain such apparent synonymity, there remain passages in which the two different terms that we are studying co-occur. For example, we might look at Agamemnon's words during the troop-rousing episode (4.337-48). The poet introduces his speech to Menestheus and Odysseus as "winged words" (337), and Odysseus responds to the speech by labeling it with a formulaic line (350): 'AtQ£lo'Y], :1to'iov O£ £:1tO~- <j>uy£v £Q'Xo~ ooov'twv ("Atreus' son, what sort of word has escaped your teeth's fence?"). Yet at 357, in reference to Agamemnon's apology the poet says, "He took back the muthos." It seems either that the poet is simply manipulating formulas without regard for how they correspond (and so is not stopped by any semantic differences between the two terms, if they exist); or that the two terms simply are synonyms. 74

Rather than being a flaw in the system, this co-occurrence is the key to Homeric usage of speech terms, and can help us understand the seemingly aribitrary deployment of lines such as "she spoke winged words." For the origin of this usage, in which epos resembles muthos, can be explained if we return to Prague School linguistics for a moment, in particular to the notion of "marked" versus "unmarked" members of an opposition. The "marked" member of a pair carries greater semantic weight, but can be used across a narrower range of situations, whereas the unmarked member-the more colorless member of the opposition-can be used to denote a broader range, even that range covered by the marked member: it is the more general term. ----Turning to the words for speech, we can now say that muthos is

730n the formula, see Muellner (I976) I27. Note that similar phrasing occurs at I4.44-45 describing Hektor's boast/threat.

74The same might be concluded after we read Zeus' declaration at 8.8, "Let no male or female divinity cut through my word (epos)"-a speech referred to as muthos (29) by the poet. Here, however, it can be argued that the poet's label refers to the whole threatening performance of Zeus, while Zeus' term denotes just his (personal) command.

: I: ,I ! ~, ,

:, , ; I.

:',i 1,,1

!t' !


the marked member of the pair, and epos the unmarke~ This means that a muthos can always be referred to periphras~icilly as epea, "utterances," since the latter word, singular and plural, has primary reference to anything uttered or heard; to "words" in the most general, unmarked sense. One can never simply substitute the semantically restricted term muthos-~!!1.hor:itatiy~_.S.~_chact, or "performance"-for the ordinary term epos, however. Thus, .L---- --=-Odysseus can refer to Agamemnon's words, in the scene just men-tioned, as an epos-the formula stresses the physical reality of the single word or utterance-and the poet can use epea to introduce them, even though the speech also partakes in the more restricted term and can be tagged with it if the poet or speaker wants to emphasize the speech's power or importance. The reverse never happens: that is, in Homer, a speech explicitly said to be an epos, an'd not also represented as epea (the plural), is never called a muthos. The irreversibility of singular and plural is good evidence that the words are not synonyms: epea can co-occur to refer to a muthos, but muthoi in the plural is never correlated with the singular form epos, to describe a speech. Furthermore, the same distinction applies to the use of verbs formed from these two roots. There exists a formula "he spoke a muthos (muthon eeipe)" but there is never a collocation of the type "he authoritatively spoke an epos," even though we can imagine a metrically possible phrase (*epos muthesato).

With this distinction in mind, I can elucidate perhaps the most famous and least understood phrase in Homer, "he/she spoke winged words." Now we have seen that epea, on the one hand, can be a .'PITh~hra~tic_(!:l(p.r.~s.~i9,p.-Jor~1J!~!hos (but not vice versa). On the other hand, as we saw earlier,.··eposaiid'epea have a reference not shared by muthos, to speech as utt~tanc~, as-t~d-an.dJranSI!1itted, as an item of exchange that is ;rt the same time a physical object, like a weapon. Thus, the formula epea pteroenta can fit two functions. This is what makes it such a useful, economical poetic device. On a purely imagistic level, the phrase evokes the swiftness, irrevocability, directness, and reciprocal nature of speech-the adjective affirms the basic notion in the noun. On the narrative level, as a synonymous phrase for muthos, this formulaic line can be used to introduce highly "marked" speeches. That is, the possibility lies open that there is real

750n marked versus unmarked, see Ducrot and Todorov (1972) 148.


meaning to Homer's description of just sixty-one of the poem's approximately six hundred speeches as "winged words. "76

Milman Parry has been the most forceful advocate of the view that the line means nothing in relation to its context. His article on the phrase was meant to counter the view of Calhoun, who thought that the Homeric line introduced speeches of high emotion: "Pteroenta evidently does not mean 'winged' or 'swift' in the general sense that all words fly with the speed of sound, but is intended to say that the particular words which follow were spoken quickly, or with animation, or some symptom of emotion." Parry was certainly correct to challenge this rather vague formulation by Calhoun (after all, as one critic pointed out, all speeches in Homer are emotionally charged), but his analysis stopped short because he did not have a framework for describing common elements in the "winged words" speeches. 77

I now suggest that there are two common elements in these speeches. First, it has not been noted that they share a pragmatic speech situation: winged words are spoken by one person to one other (rarely to two), and the addressee is in close contact with the speaker, usually as a comrade-in-arms. Even more consistently, the deployment of these speeches by Homer enables us to to describe all examples of "winged words" in terms of one category of "speechact": in the terminology adopted by Searle and others, the sixty-one speeches thus introduced are all "directives." That is, every speech called "winged words" is meant to make the listener do somethingJ8 Certainly not all utterances in Homer function this way; yet the Iliad always pays attention to the motivation and effect of heroic speeches.

That the "winged words" all constitute one specific speech-act class has not been noticed, because typologists have previously used a haphazard mixture of descriptive criteria to analyze Homeric speeches, relying on such elements as scene, emotional content, or use of certain phrases. 79;' And, on the surface, the "winged word" speeches do

76See Vivante (I975) 2-8 on this image-evoking utterance in its purest form. To recognize the aptness of the metaphor, however, is not to specify the function of the speech introductions in which it occurs, and I do not agree with Vivante's impressionistic conclusion that the phrase refers to "sudden" words at points of reunion, recognition, danger, and perception.

77Calhoun (I935) 226. M. Parry (I97I) 4I4-I8. Combellack (I950), a good summary of the controversy, includes J. A. Scott's comment to Calhoun on emotionality; Combellack himself saw no particular quality shared by "winged word" speeches.

780n directives, see Searle (I976) I I. 79See Fingerle (I939) for the fullest description.


not offer immediate similarities. Some contain direct imperatives, some indirect (third person); others are only hints, statements of need, questions, or even straightforward narratives seeming not to demand response at all. It is only by abstracting, by analyzing function rather than form, that we discover the underlying similarity of "winged words." For, as speech-act theory can tell us, precisely such diverse surface structures characterize the class of" directives." In the appropriate context, diverse utterances-"Enter the battle"; "We are losing, I'm afraid"; "Could youjoin with us?"; and "I heard of a battle like this once" (see Phoinix's speech in Book 9)~these represent the .s_ame directive weech-a.!! 80 Once again, we must remember that ~ every "directive" in the Iliad is tagged epea pteroenta., But the converse is true.

There is a range of "directive" expression. For example, Achilles' winged words upon recognizing Athena in Book 1 (201-5) take the form of an interrogative: "Why have you come, child of aegis-bearing Zeus? Is it to see the hubris of Agamemnon, son of Atreus?" Here the question jUnctions as a directive: Athena should perceive things the way Achilles does. Her reply confirms that Athena fully realizes what Achilles commands her to acknowledge: "Sometime," she says, "there will be three times the glorious gifts because of this hubris." In other words, the goddess successfully reads the illocutionary force of Achilles' words, rather than replying to them as if they constituted an actual request for information. 8 ! Agamemnon's scornful speech to Odysseus and Menestheus in the troop-rousing scene (4.337-40) empl<;:>ys the interrogative form similarly: "Why do you stand off cower- , ing and wait for the rest?" The directive force is amplified by the next words: "It is fitting for you two to stand with the front-lines and confront burning battle" (341-42). This statement is just as "directive" in function although it, too, lacks the linguistic form of an imperative.

Because form and function can vary in the employment of "directives," there is opportunity for the individual speaker to "perform," to exercise expressive creativity. Later in this book, I shall draw out the analogy between this everyday linguistic phenomenon and Hom-

80See Ervin-Tripp (I976) I27-4I for an analysis of the types of directive. On "indirect" directives, see Searle (I979) 36-48. Voloshinov (I930) was one of the first to draw attention to the linguistic importance of contextual implications (as opposed to verbalization).

8lOn locutionary and illocutionary force, see Bach and Harnish (I979) 4-8.


er's own "formulaic" art. For now, we can observe that "character" in the poem (as in life) arises from our perception of a speaker's selectivity and sensitivity in matching linguistic expression to internal motivation. Some people always make their directives into imperatives. Some have more tact. Achilles, whose expressive repertoire we shall examine later, is good at hinting: to his mother, he speaks "winged words" (19.20-27) to say he will arm. These end with what is almost an afterthought: "But I fear terribly that flies, meanwhile, might breed worms down in the bronze-cut wounds, might defIle the corpse-his life being destroyed, the flesh might all go rotten" (19.23-27). The description is worthy of poetic narrative at its best. It convinces both audiences-:-that of the poem (persuaded of the height of Achilles' el;Ilotion) and that in the poem, Thetis, who replies to this extended hint/ directive by infusing Patroklos' corpse with nectar and ambrosia.

Four passages make clear the tone implied by the mention of epea pteroenta: the death ofPatroklos, the encounter ofHektor and Achilles in Book 20, the death of Lykaon, and the encounter of Priam and Achilles in Book 24. We have seen that, out of the hundreds of passages where speech appears, "winged words" in the Iliad highlight only "directive" speeches between those sharing a social bond. They are language appropriate to an "in-group." As the poem nears its end, enemies exchange "winged words." It must be noted that the four passages in which this occurs are not casual encounters, but rather highly charged events important to the outcome of the plot and, furthermore, that they are given lengthy, elaborate ornamentation by' the poet. Much of the powerful effect in these scenes comes from their inclusion in the conventional pattern of fighters addressing comrades-in-arms with "winged words." For here, the fighters are paradoxically bonded by their very determination to kill one another. What seems like a violation of formulaic conventions is actually a creative extension of the usual meaning of the phrase. 82 The speeches of Apollo and Hektor resemble one another as warnings to Patroklos that Troy will not be taken by him or Achilles. Apollo's speech, furthermore, is an explicit directive: "Fall back, god-born Patroklos!" What is the force ofHektor's words? They are introduced as a boast (EJtEUX6!lEVO~, 16.829). They actually contain an embedded directive,

820n the poet's formulaic artfulness in describing the death of Patroklos, see Lowenstam (r98r) r06-r8,

" ,

i ~ i' i

111 .. 1' ' ,


in the form of Hektor's rendition of what he imagined Achilles to have commanded: "Do not return ... until you pierce the bloody khiton of man-slaying Hektor." But their directive force, I believe, comes from Hektor's description a few lines before this "quotation": "Here the vultures will eat you." Although this is cast as a prediction, the sentence conveys what Hektor wants to happen to the corpse of his enemy. To say "the vultures will eat you" is to direct Patroklos to die. Confirmation of this reading comes in the other death scene in which the killer speaks "winged words," at 21. 121-35. Like Hektor, Achilles seeks to stun his victim and vent his rage with a vivid description of the enemy's defilement. But, whereas Hektor condenses this narration to a half-line (16.836), Achilles expands it to six (21. 122-27). Furthermore, Achilles begins this full version of the motif with an explicit directive in the form of an imperative: "There now, lie with the fishes." Only then does he revert to future verbs, in Hektor's manner predicting that Lykaon will be un mourned, his corpse whirled in the river, and his flesh eaten by fish. 83

The brief encounter between Achilles and Hektor in Book 20 resembles these two death scenes in tone. The directive force of Achilles' words at 20.449-54 is that of a warning: he will finish off Hektor on their next meeting (452). From the three scenes we can begin to appreciate the effect that Homer achieves by using the "winged words" formula in such encounters. It is not unlikely that the regular employment of the formula, usually introducing friendly, same-side directives between just two speakers, carried with it an implicit tone of voice and volume. Such speeches could properly be performed by a poet in a stage whisper, or with an intimate low modulation. If this same auditory effect was produced by Homer as he imitated Achilles' or Hektor's voice in the speeches we have just noted, the audience, recalling the more common employment, would hear the intimate voice of violence.

Finally, with both possibilities for the enactment of "winged words" now in mind-the intimate and the violent-we can recover something of the tone of Achilles' words to Priam as the poem ends (24.518-51). They are a mixture of reproach, pity, and encouragement. Priam is a "wretch" and foolish, with an "iron heart," to have dared approach the Achaean camp alone. Achilles directs him gently, however, to sit, mourn, and ultimately endure (line 549, anskheo

830n the thematic importance of these threats, see Segal (I97I).


forming a ring-composition with line 518, anskheo). The triumph of this conclusion is tonal: enemies can exchange "winged words" without a killing.

Now that I have traced the functional meaning of this speech de-. scription, what of the metaphor itself? Are words winged "because I they fly through the air rapidly, like birds," as the most recent commentary suggests? Or are they "feathered," "fledged," like arrows going to the mark?84 Perhaps there is a mixing of metaphors, as Gladstone imagined: "It is not the mere feather, but the wing which is described. It is not a random, but a carrying force. The word is a weapon, and bears its mission through the air. "85 There is no guarantee that the metaphor underlying epea pteroenta actually was perceived in one specific way by the audience; it could be a dead metaphor, completely unrelated to the jUnction of "winged words" as a speech~ introducing phrase. If we wish to attempt a consistent interpretation, however, Gladstone's solution might be reconsidered. For the phrase, as we have seen, cues the listener to a directive (thus the "arrow" is an apt image); at the same time, it focuses attention on the physical, enduring nature of words, as epea. These words are like birds, then, but not in their free flight. Rather, epea pteroenta resemble the insistent hovering motion of a bird beating its wings. This image fits the formulaic evidence, as well, since the adjective puknos and its by-form pukinos are the only words associated with both epos and pteroeis when these are examined separately. When applied to speech, the adjective carries the sense of language that is dense with meaning and filled with urgency. Priam's formal bid to call a truce (7.375), the advice Patroklos is to give Achilles (I I. 788), Zeus' directive for Thetis to transmit to Achilles (24.75), and the word which Andromakhe hoped to hear from her husband (24.744) are the four instances of a pukinon epos in the Iliad. The last-mentioned makes clear the special quality of this sort of speech:

"For you did not die on a bed and stretch out to me your hands, nor say to me any close-set word (pukinon epos), one I could recall, sheddirig a tear for days and nights."

84Birds: Kirk (1985) 74; arrows: Latacz (1968) 27-32, following Durante (1958) 5-8. These are the two commonest solutions: see D' A vino (1981) 89, who favors "wings, " but sees a reference to the divine origin of sacral speech, epea. Hainsworth (1960) 264n.1 doubts that either image applies.

85Gladstone (1874) 844. Vivante (1970) 5 seems to want a similar mixture.


The word she wanted from Hektor would have been enduring through time, unassailable in the way of well-constructed, solid, or dense-packed objects in the poem tha,t are called pukinon. The adjective and related forms modify arms and armor, beds, troop formations, house construction, branches, and clouds. But mental products can also be thus qualified: a tightly constructed plan (2.55), Odyssean wiles (3.202), an ambush (4.392), a trick (6. r87). 86 If epos generally .i~ speech as product, as I have argued, then this particularized fortnor speech is the paradigm for the best kind of epos, speech that has become a lasting possession for its hearer, the "last word" to remain with an intimate (Achilles, Andromakhe) or to put an end to strife (the truce in Book 7, the ransom in Book 24)·

The adjective obtains this sense of !'unassailable" from the basic reference to density; the same root meaning in the adjective emerges in adverbial use, but this time with reference to a series of rapid movements, a density in temporal terms which we might call in the language of physics "frequency." Homeric similes associate the temporal with the physical sense of "density," as when Hektor's rapid striking of his enemies' heads (pukna !eareath') is compared to the action of wind piling up wave and cloud (r1.305-9). I suggest that the same combination of "density" and "frequency" occurs in the phrase ptera pukna, so that it describes both the close-packed construction of the wing and the resultant rapid wing-beating of the bird: this is a prime example of "interaction" in poetic imagery. 87

It is the aural quality resulting from the flight of birds that is the primary association in the phrase "winged words. " This is to say that the one poetic phrase is built on the image of the other, of "thick-andfast wings" (ptera pukna). Such a close association between physical density or frequency and aural effect is found elsewhere in Homeric diction where emotional, forceful speech is being described. For the adverb pukna can also be applied to the sound of the lamenting voice:

't'OLOL 6£ n1JA€t61J~ MLVOU e1;fjgx€ YOOLO . • . 3tllXV<X I-tUAU O't'EVUXWV (I8.3I6~I8)

86Cf. Cunliffe (1924) s. v. On the phrase's associations, see also Lynn-George (1988) 232-33-

87For the Greek phrase, see 11.454, peri ptera pukna balpl1tes (of scavenger birds). A comparison with 9.588, thalamos puk' eballeto (of a chamber under frequent assault) shows that the word pukna in 11.454 can be either adjectival or adverbial. In 23.879 it is clearly the former. On "interaction," see Silk (1974),


son of Peleus began the resonant dirge . . . groaning

physical quality of the epos which we have found meaning "utterance" -the physical result of speech.

contexts-as for instance, that of intimate directivesthe speaker's purpose imparts to the otherwise ordi

~"l.J'''~'''''''' power, and movement that makes them whir . the motion of a wing. The powerful language thus

its inipression because it continuously reaches the , like a wave of sound. We could apply the

poetry itself, a medium of enduring motion.

of muthos with power, planning, and self'" goes naturally with the third set of oppositions between

epos. I have found that muthos always implies "public involves a performance before an audience. Such speech "pleasing" (headota) to all (9.173). Groups of hearers can

inesantes) or be astounded by it (agassamenoi) as is the refusal speech (2.335,9.710). It is significant that

audience-reaction phrases occurs with epea. Further-. might expect, muthoi are the object of dispute, which

public, as the poet implies when characterizing Thoas in with his excellence at the javelin, this hero excels in

of the Achaeans would beat him at speaking, whenever engage in strife concerning muthoi" (15.283-84). We can word for a style of speech connected with muthoi here is

Jjre:cl'Lsel for a place, the public arena of speech. ,good formulaic evidence as well for the association be

and agoreuein, "speaking in public." In the poet's lancan be said to begin speech-acts in an assemblymuthOn , 5.420), or to begin to speak, erkh' agoreuein (1.571;

Odyssey, I might add, similar phrases function as forImlPlem(~nts: erkh' agoreuein at line-end (2.15, 16.345) is inter

with erkheto muthon (1. 367, 15. 166). of the word epos shows a complete contrast: unlike

is associated with private and reciprocal speech, such as

> , >,


that between husbands and wives, companions, or kin. When Hera says that she is going to patch up marital difficulties between her relatives Okeanos and Tethys, she calls her speech epea:

"If persuading them with words in the dear heart (epeessi paraipepithousa)

I might manage to unite them in affection I would be called dear and respected always by them." (14.208-10)

To carry out Hera's project, Aphrodite grants her parphasis, the sort of speech characterized as "soft," "gentle," and "sweet. "88 It is personal appeal, not authoritative performance, that generates speech denoted as epea. The ideal "utterance," the enduring pukinon epos, is set in a context of intimate relationship: it is the language Andromakhe expected from her husband, and that which Patroklos is instructed to provide for Achilles: "But tell him well a pukinon epos and instruct and give him directions" (11.788-89; c[ 24.744). This kind of discourse is language one can personally "keep"-or fail to keep, as is the case when Patroklos forgets Achilles' personal warning (16.686-87): "If he had guarded the epos of the son of Peleus, he would have fled the evil fate of black death." In this function, it is worth noting, epea are often spoken by women, a convention that appears to be canonical in the deployment of the phrase epos t'ephat' ek t'onomaze, as we observed earlier.

The private nature of the epos explains the use of this word (rather than muthos) in those scenes where the poet privileges us with seeing the communication between heroes and divinities. Diomedes labels his talk with Athena in this way: "I recognize you, goddess, daughter of aegis-bearing Zeus. Therefore I will candidly say a word (epos) and will not conceal it" (5.816-17). Achilles refers to Athena's private advice (1.216) and his own prayer to Zeus (16.236) with the word epos. Prayer, which epitomizes private communication, is in fact never designated muthos in the Iliad. A further indication of the personal nature of epos comes from Homer's adjective usage: possessives frequently accompany the word epos: Achilles speaks of "your word" (1.216), as does Aphrodite to Hera (14.212); Achilles, praying to Zeus, and Hera, using a similar formula to Hypnos, say "You have

880n persuasion and malakos speech, see 6.337 (Paris describing Helen's words); for the association of pareipon and epos, see also 6.54-62 (Agamemnon to Menelaos).


heard my word before" (emon epos eklues, 14.234, 16.236). Zeus refers to his own command with this phrase (8.8). By contrast, muthos is rarely referred to by a speaker as his or her own or as that of his or her addressee: it is "impersonal" in the sense that it is public discourse (although it is certainly personal expressive performance).

To talk of one's own "speech" as opposed to "word" would be equally aberrant in normal American conversation. I have been working with a distinction between epos as "utterance" and muthos as "speech-act." Were we to attempt a definition in terms of familiar English vocabulary, "word" or "talk" might best translate epos, and muthos could be paralleled by "speech" in the sense of "making a speech." The marked character of the latter can be appreciated if we examine patterns of co-occurrence in English: one cannot "make a word" or even "make a talk." The distinction between the terms in English depends on a number of contrasting features including occasion, tone, audience, and length of discourse: "speech" implies an audience of more than one, a formal routine (for instance; speakers take turns, without engaging in cross-talk) and elaborated use of language occupying a significant amount of time. Precisely these features fit the deployment of the term muthos in the Iliad.

First, we see this in the simple fact of poetic mimesis: speeches called muthos are almost always quoted in full by the poet, whereas those designated epos or epea, if quoted at all, occupy only a few lines. When muthoi are not represented by the poet, we are still given to understand that the discourses were lengthy, as in the description of the stories exchanged between Makhaon and Nestor (II.642-43):

When those two drinking put off the parching thirst, with muthoi they found pleasure narrating to one another.

Not only does the imperfect tense here reinforce our perception of lengthy storytelling: the narrative itself shows us this pair of heroes still drinking as Book 14 opens. 89 Notice that a translation for muthos as "story" accords with our earlier definition of the term-an authoritative speech-act performed in detail. The only unusual feature distinguishing the "stories" in Nestor's tent is their nonpublic performance.

89The same implication can be seen in the nearly exact line describing Odysseus' storytelling session with Penelope, Od. 23.300-301.


The characteristics of muthos speaking emerge with particular clarity when we look at the poet's use of the denominative verb mutheomai, "to make a muthos." When this word for speech occurs, the accompanying discourse has a formal nature, often religious or legal; full detail is laid out for the audience, or is expected by the interlocutor in the poem; at times, a character comments on the formal qualities of the discourse labelled with this verb. Thus, when Ajax performs a muthos before Achilles during the embassy (9.623-42), Achilles approves the format of the carefully made speech, although he seems little swayed by its content:

"God-born Ajax, son of Telamon, commander of troops, You appear to have said formally (muthesasthai) all to me according

to your heart (thumos). (9.644:-45)

It is worth noting that Achilles believes that Ajax has made a full disclosure of his views.

Three times the verb appears in the infinitive at line-end, (muthesasthai), with another verb meaning "command." The passages share certain rhetorical features. Kalkhas (1.74-83) answers Achilles by interpreting the hero's previous speech as a specific kind of request: "You bid me to make a muthos about the divine wrath of Apollo" (muthesasthailmenin). Reassured by Achilles, Kalkhas proceeds to make a formal declaration of the god's will; Achilles' own precise formulation of the problem seems to have elicited this response (see 1.65-67, raising three possible religious delicts; and 1.85: a call for the theopropion which Kalkhas knows). The formality of Kalkhas' declaratory speech is enhanced by the priamel at lines 93-96, as also the double prin construction (97-98) and asyndetic legal phrasing (99). At 7.284-86 a different situation elicits this highly marked verb "to make a muthos. "The duel of Hektor and Ajax would have continued, if not for the intervention of the heralds, one of whom, the Trojan Idaios, "said a muthos" (eipe te muthon, 277). Ajax replies, "Bid Hektor to speak these things (muthesasthai). F?r he himself challenged all the best to battle. Let him take the lead" (284-86). Hektor then rephrases what had been suggested (290-93): "Let us cease from battle and strife."

Why does the poet give us such a roundabout description to end the duel which, itself, has struck critics as inessential? Because Homeric poetry so keenly attends to socially correct forms of speech. Hektor's


words are more than a simple directive; using the viewpoint of speech-act theory, we can state that lines 290-93 represent an actual "performative utterance" -language that brings about a desired end by virtue of the very pronouncement. As elsewhere, this language is formal: compare the standard examples of such speech, "I thee wed," or "I find the defendant guilty. "90 Furthermore, there are "felicity conditions" for performative utterances (only judges, for instance, can speak certain pronouncements); the poem respects just such parameters. Therefore, to be linguistically correct, Hektor, who beg~n the duel with the challenge, must "pronounce" its end. Ajax, with a good sense of propriety that marks the most successful Homeric warriors, defers to his opponent. Formulaic repetition here (e.g. 7.282 = 293 on obeying night) is not merely poetic fllling: it draws our attention to the sociolinguistic value of formulas; Idaios has an exact analogue in the religious or legal official who instructs the, groom to say "I thee wed. "91 The herald's religious role is involved with learning of ritual formulas; he too is necessarily a "poetic" performer, even apart from Homeric poetry's depiction of his role.

The third time we see the infinitive used to fill out a command is at 11.201. Zeus, intervening in the battl~, commands Iris to announce his order (muthon enispes, 186). An important detail here is the correlation of this phrase, "narrate/report the word," with the verb "to speak a muthos. "92 This confirms the association of the word with the act of telling in detail. In this instance, Zeus' command indeed is marked by a series of detailed instructions to guide Hektor's progress. 93

The set of oppositions we have been examining includes features that relate to the setting of performance and to the performance itself. If muthos is used of public speech, and this usually means detailed

900n these utterances, see Austin (I962). 91We should recall that the herald's primary role is religious in Homeric poetry, and

that the term and the institution are cognate with that of the Indic "ritual singer." On the religious function of Homeric heralds, see Mondi (I978).

92For these meanings in enispes see Risch (I985). 93See further on this speech the analysis of Zeus' style in Chapter 2. All other

examples of the verb mutheomai are in similar contexts of formal and detailed speech: 7.76 (Hektor's declaration of rules for duel); 2.488 and 3.235 (reference to exact naming and enumerating of heroes); 6.376 (request for exact directions); 8.40 and 22. I84 (reference to formal threats); 21.462 (of a formal declaration); 23.305 (ofNestor's detailed advice); I7.200 and I7.442 (Zeus' formal and detailed prophecies); 1.29I, 20.246, and 20.433 (reference to lengthy abuse speeches, on which see Chapter 2).


pronouncements, does the private nature of epos discourse spond with brevity? Hints of this have come from our analysis of utterance as "compact" or "close-set." I now suggest that the Greek use of the word epos to mean "poetic line" is in fact implicit the distribution of this term within the Iliad. 94 Let me point out many of the discourses labeled with this term in the poem not contrast with muthoi by being much briefer, but they often around a gnomic one- or two-line utterance. Iris tells Poseidon she will bring his declaration of status (muthos, 15.202) back to but asks whether he will not reconsider, the speech having truculent and harsh. "Pliable are the minds of fine people. You how the Erinyes always follow elders," she warns (15.203-4). don replies, "Iris, you have in proportion (kata moiran) spoken word (epos)." That he refers to the gnomic utterance, not to description of what Iris intends, becomes clear from his next which is a capping gnomic verse: "It is also fine (esthlon, cf. her use the word) when a messenger knows suitable things (aisima)."

With this mention of gnomic verse, I come to the final between muthos and epos. The latter word is unmarked, as I ha shown; this applies also to its use as a term designating types discourse: epos can refer to any sort of speech. On the other hand, shall show that the term muthos is the name that the poet gives to .• actual genres of discourse which are also poetic genres, and which find embedded in the speeches of the Iliad. The evidence of formula, once more gives us the clue to this usage. Line-final muthoi is ., ularly correlated with the word enipape (2.245, 3.427, 5.650, etc.), and associated with the verb erethize (5.419-20). The verbs men- r

tioned are regularly employed to signal the poetry of blame, appro-: priate to neikos scenes. 95 Although this points us only toward one.! embedded genre of discourse, a fuller examination can show that, muthos actually designates the conventional ways of speaking found <;

in two other types as well, and lets us view Homer's heroes as poet- i

ic performers in their own right, as stylists. To these larger issues turn now.

940n the later development of the term epos see Koller (1972) and Ford (1981). : 95Note here that the phrase kertomiois epeessi, "with cutting words," is also associ- '

ated with the act. This shows the plural epea in its function as a periphrasis for muthos, as in the "winged words" phrase discussed earlier. On this blame genre, see I:,

Nagy (1979) 222-42.

CHAPTER 2

Heroic Genres of Speaking

The notion of "genre" has been described as "the most powerful explanatory tool available to the literary critic."l It has usually been discussed within the confines ofliterary criticism. With the growth of Modernism and, concurrently, the recognition of non-Western literary traditions, critical assumptions about idealized genres of any sort have had to change. 2 In this critical climate, perhaps the most useful change for students of Homer is the increasing attention paid to nonstandard, or eyen nonliterary genres, such conventional yet variable forms as proverbs, street games, anecdotes, conversation, even sports announcing, military commands, and auctioneering. These "genres" of verbal behavior attract the attention, primarily, of folklorists and anthropologists. Yet the study of these seemingly trivial forms, un-, usual as it may be to classicists, should engage the literary critic. Through such genres we obtain the best view of the social nature of verbal art; we can perceive, by means of these forms, the link between conventionalized modes of speech and the institutions of a society. We can then approach the larger genres in their social settings, for, as Victor Turner reminds us, "the major genres of cultural

. performance (from ritual to theater and film) and narration (from myth to the novel) not only originate in the social drama but also continue to draw meaning and force from the social drama."3 One can go further, I believe, and assert that these "social" genres are in

IRosmarin (1985) 39. 2Fowler (1982) I-53 is a good summary of the issues involved. 3Turner (1979) 89. For another view, with reference to oral poetics, see Caraveli

Chaves (1980) 156. Bakhtin was able to demonstrate the links between literary and

43

I ,

'" I ~

'H ,i, '


fact primary, whereas literary genres can vary according to a given society's ideas of performance. Just as one must reconstruct the total system to understand individual terms for speech-acts, we can only hope to evaluate a truly foreign literature, such as archaic Greek poetry, by reference to the society's total performance system, including those conventional verbal activities which, perhaps, we might not think "literary" at all. A case in point: the Maori place great importance on ritual oratory and stylized greetings. The formulas of such verbal events are well known, but they are constantly undergoing change and recombination because this is a vital oral art form. One judges a leader by his ability to engage in this art, at the right time, in the most stylized yet topical way. Although the Maori do not have developed "drama" in the Western sense, these events, to some degree, take on the values and performance interest of plays. A student of the conventional "literature" would neglect them at great risk. 4 In the same way, prayer among the Navaho, verbal repartee among Antiguans, and joking, "tantalisin," and "'busin" in Guyana all represent socially grounded verbal genres to which attention and prestige are accorded, on a level with the prestige given poetry in the the European tradition. 5

Is Homer in the European tradition? In hindsight, surely, the poet is its progenitor. But it may be more effective for an investigation of the Iliad if we abandon the notion of "genre" as a literary term and train ourselves in the anthropologist's working methods. If we examine the speeches within this poem, it can be seen that there are "genres" -conventional verbal organizations-for certain ways of speaking. The major rhetorical genres available for the heroic performers are prayer, lament, supplication, commanding, insulting, and narrating from memory.6 We could, of course, argue that these

social genres, especially in his work on Rabelais. For a summary and bibliography see Bakhtin (I986) 60-IOO. Stewart (I986) 46, compares Bakhtin's insights with those of Searle and Austin on speech-acts. Todorov, working from the Formalists and Bakhtin, illustrates the relationship between the types of genres in Les genres du discours (I978). I have applied his insights to archaic Greek poetry in my work on the Theogony proem (Martin I984). A selection of essays on folklore genres can be found in BenAmos (I976).

4See Salmond (I974) I96-2I2. 5Navaho: Gill (I98I) esp. 9-34; Antigua: Reisman (I974); Guyana: W. Edwards

(I979). 6See Bassett (I938) 70-7I, who estimates that these occupy 90 percent of the Iliad's

speeches. Bauman (I978) 27 observes that the distinction between speech-acts and speech-genres is often not significant in oral cultures: I suggest this is the Homeric situation.

Heroic Genres of Speaking 45

conventional ways of speaking are the poet's convenient compositional shorthand. Fenik has well shown how Homer builds his narrative of battle in the same way that he builds the poetic line, by reuse in new combinations of traditional stock elements. 7 But.! prefer to turn the issue around slightly: Homer would not have "traditional scenes" if it were not traditional for actual Greek warriors to arm, fight, eat, sleep, and die. In the same way, the rhetorical repertoire available to each hero must be rooted in the actual range of speaking strategies available to any Greek speaker. Although the speeches in the Iliad are without question highly stylized poetic versions of reality, they are nevertheless meant to be mimetic, as are the battle descriptions. This is what heroes would say. As with descriptions of battle, there is room in Homeric speechmaking for both traditional elements and innovations. The poetry of Homer at times finds difficulty in handling traditional elements; the role of the chariot, for example, st;ems unclear to the composer, resulting in the unlikely depiction of warriors who dismount to fight. It is even more likely that the speech portions of the poem are more freely composed, made up more from the poet's knowledge of how his contemporaries argue and talk, since the poet presumably had no need to include archaic coloring in the speeches of his heroes. 8 In other words, although we see Mycenaean memories in the narrative of Iliadic fighting, there is no comparable body of material for the poet to recall when reporting what Agamemnon, Odysseus, or Achilles says. Composition is less subject to tradition here. Speech is qualitatively different; unlike diegesis, it is the arena for pure mimesis.

How different is this mimesis, the speeches of the Iliad? If its performance was actually of a different sort from that of the narrative portions, we get no indication in the text. Yet a performance distinction might well have existed: certainly: rhapsodic performance, as we see from Plato's Ion, indicates that the heroes' speeches were. acted out

7A summary is in Fenik (1986) 3. Thornton (1984) 73-92 discusses other narrative type-scenes and has a bibliography.

81 know of no evidence that the phonology, morphology, or syntax of speeches in Homer changes from narrative to nonnarrative portions; in my experience, the poetic language is consistent over both parts. The important preliminary study by Jasper Griffin (1986) of vocabulary differences between speech and narrative seems to indicate that certain categories, such as abstract nouns, are virtually restricted to speeches. Is this poetic stylization or Homeric mimesis of actual Ionian speech habits in the eighth or seventh centuries? Bauman (1986) 134 remarks on Icelandic sagas: "Oral tradition may have preserved some features of earlier verbal behavior patterns for extended periods, but the literary representation of ways of speaking ... more likely reflects the usage of the period in which the sagas were written."


in voice and character, like dramatic roles. Comparative from the Kirghiz epics is also in favor of such a distinction: reported in the nineteenth century that the Central Asian bards to a slow-paced, aria-like performance when they come to the parts in their compositions. 9

It has long been recognized that Homeric speeches represent unique area for research. Yet a suitable theoretical framework analyzing them has not come readily to hand. Part of the problem in the sheer number of speeches: it has been estimated that nearly of the Iliad is composed of direct speech, and slightly more of Odyssey. In the former poem, there are approximately six "speeches. " The term "speech" itself poses problems, since there is uniform Greek designation for these instances of direct discourse, the English equivalent carries associations with formal rhetoric may not lie behind the poetic intent of the original. The SCIlOlanm11Di

on Homeric direct discourse, influenced by the entire rhetorical tion of post-Homeric Greece, has neglected this fundamental U'"'''',l\..'''C tion; it has not occurred to investigators that perhaps not all speeches are at the same level of importance. Consequently, the thoroughgoing attempts by philologists to construct a typology Homeric speeches have bogged down in constructing categories every type of direct discourse found in the poem. At best-as in sadly neglected work ofFingerle-this ambition results in dense of pragmatic information about speeches in the poems, where they are spoken, when, and by whom, with little or no sis of the actual content or poetic intent of the speech itself. IV.''-''U''

Latacz has pointed out that this tendency vitiates even the most recent: attempt at a typology of lliadic discourse by Lohmann. 10

Starting from a semantic field examination, we have seen that in fact a means exists for distinguishing more and less important spc~ecn;. acts in the poetry of Homer. As I have shown in the previous chapter, the word muthos denotes an authoritative speech-act, as contrasted with the unmarked term epos, which designates any utterance. 11 I:

"Winged words," I contend, act as a periphrasis for a certain class ' speech-acts named "directives" in speech-act theory. In this chapter, .

9See the discussion at Ba~goz (1978) 317. IOLatacz (1975) 4t7-18. Kirk (1976) 108 criticizes the work on similar grounds. cC

llThis is not uncommon typologically: Bauman (1978) 27 notes that "a nartlc:ulalr" performance system may well be organized ... in terms of speech-acts that con tionally involve performance, others that mayor may not, and still others for which performance is not a relevant consideration." .


intend to use the "native" distinction thus outlined to construct a workable typology of Homeric speech-genres. The task is made easier than that faced by earlier philologists, because the number of speeches labeled muthoi is, at most, only one-sixth of the total number of direct discourses in the Iliad. When we consider this restricted number of significant speeches, with attention to the actual turns of phrase and rhet?rical strateg! involved in .eac~ discours~, the goal of reaching a poetlCs of Homenc speechmaking IS not so dIstant. I cannot claim to have completed this task here. But from my investigation so far, surprising new angles of vision on the poem as a whole emerge. Not least among these is the realization that the heroes and gods of the Iliad engage in only three types of muthos discourses: commands, boast-and-insult contests (which I term "flyting"); and the recitation of remembered events. All three types are essentially "performances" both in a speech-act sense-insasmuch as the discourse itself of commanding, insulting, and recalling "does" something-and in a wider, social-poetic sense. For the speakers of muthos commit themselves to a full enactment of their words before an audience that can criticize these acts; they thus accomplish "performances" of verbal art, in a manner· not different from that of poets and storytellers immersed in the performance situation. These "performances" embedded in the poem can in fact tell us more about the parameters of the Iliad's own performance, I believe, especially as it will be seen that the genres of "command" and "flyting" are ordered hierarchically beneath the third genre, that of the performance of memory: all important verbal art within the poem, as done by the poem's speakers, depends on the creative manipulation of this ultimate genre, which matches the poet's medium. 12

The Authoritative Word: Commands

It is best to start with the gods. A sociolinguist mapping the lines of authoritative speech by charting the movement of commands among the Olympian gods might well conclude that the gods in their interactions with humans and with one another function as an archaic Mediterranean family. The father is never commanded to do anything. A closer look shows that the distribution of the word muthos mirrors the power situation exactly. In the range and frequency of the muthoi

12See Notopoulos (1938) on the relation between memory and Homeric art.


attributed to him, Zeus emerges as the source of all authority in the poem: he directs such speeches to six different addressees, eight times in all, more than any other speaker divine or human. Thus the mimetic portion of the Iliad's narrative parallels the diegetic, which emphasizes Zeus' supreme control, from the fifth line of the poem: " . . . and the will of Zeus was being accomplished."13 Zeus takes orders from no one; we know this from the poem's plot. In accord with this, no speaker addresses a muthos of command to him. We have immediate confirmation that the word designates socially meaningful speech.

We discover by tracing the term that immediately below Zeus in authority rank Hera and Poseidon, his wife and his brother, both of whom are commanded by one other speaker (Hera by Zeus, Poseidon by Hera), but they also command several others, and furthermore, speak a muthos to the assembled gods, a privilege exclusive to them and Zeus. One step further down on the ladder of authority are Athena and Hermes, who play the role of children, not issuing muthos commands to other gods at all, although the daughter Athena (yet not the son Hermes) does receive such commands from her "parents" Zeus and Hera.

As if to compensate for their lack of speechmaking power among the gods, Hermes and Athena speak to men using muthoi of command. Now the frequent intervention of divinity in human affairs in this poem might lull us into thinking that they routinely give such commands to men; but, on closer inspection, this appears to be quite rare: the brothers Zeus and Poseidon are the only other gods to speak muthoi to men, and even then, Zeus does so indirectly, by means of Dream (to Agamemnon, 2.16) and through Iris (to Hektor, 11.186). Poseidon's social position as male "outside" the house seems to put him in a status resembling Athena's, with both taking orders from Hera. He appears, with Athena, in human guise, to encourage Achilles as he battles the river Skamandros (21.285-87). Their restricted sphere of influence in the muthoi contests of the immortals makes more ironic their words to the hero: "Son ofPeleus, do not too much shirk or fear. For we are such allies for you, we two of the gods, with the approval of Zeus, I and Pallas Athena." Even in claiming that he and Athena are powerful helpers, Poseidon must bow to Zeus' verbal precedence, embodied in his "approval" (epainesantos).

130n the plan of Zeus as imperfective but determined from the start, see LynnGeorge (1988) 38-41.


From this perspective, which we reach through tracing the distribution of the word muthos, Athena's command (labeled with the term) to Achilles in Book I appears to be less the unfettered directive of a beneficent goddess and more a bargain struck among equals. The phrase used by Poseidon to Achilles in 2I.293, "if you will obey," takes on a new resonance here (I.207). Is it possible that Achilles, himself an authoritative speaker, might not listen to such a low-status divinity? After all, as Athena herself makes clear, she is merely the messenger of Hera; her rhetorical strategy relies on this higher authority (r.207-9): "I came to stop your strength, if you will obey, from the sky. Hera, goddess widi. white arms, sent me forth, feeling kindly and caring for both in her thumos." Note that Athena's pronoun use slips into an authoritative plural at line 214, "obey us." This phrase, raising the issue of persuasion again after only six lines, characterizes Athena's lack of authority. The daughter of Zeus actually is portrayed through Homer's phrasing as more like messengers of her father. Notice the similarities between this theophany and the messenger-arrival motif: a reason for coming is stated; the authority of the sender is cited; motivation and new information is given. 14

Athena announces the motivation of Hera in the manner that Dream describes Zeus' motives in the next book (2.26-27): "I am the messenger of Zeus, who from afar cares gready for you and has pity. "15 If we regard Athena in this light, Achilles' reply to her muthos sounds more relevant to the situation. For, in commenting on the superior nature of obedience to the gods (I.217-18), he alludes obliquely to his bargain with Athena. He signals to her that he realizes her dilemma and will contribute to boosting her status by deigning to obey now, at the price of being listened to later. The brief scene proceeds as if Achilles were the one demanding submission.

At first sight, Hermes seems different. Unlike Athena, he is never commanded with an explicit muthos by any other god. But far from being a freely acting agent, the god of communication functions when enacting his sole muthos of command as another emissary from Zeus. Speaking to Priam in the Achaean camp after Hektor's ransom, he takes the pose that Dream assumed in an earlier message scene. Compare 24.682, "He stood over his head and spoke a muthos," with 2.20, "He stood over his head looking like Nestor." There are other

14M. Edwards (1980) 13-15 reads this as a divine visitation type-scene, with slightly different results.

15Compare also Iris to Priam, 24.173-75.

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ironies in the presentation of Hermes' command. It is introduced with the same "while others slept" motif as was Zeus' decision to send Dream (cf. 2.1-4 and 24.677-81); but whereas Zeus plots the generating device for the entire poem, Hermes merely plans the logistics of Priam's exit. Zeus' decision and its execution occupies thirtyfive lines, Hermes' a dozen; Zeus can order Dream to repeat his commands, while Hermes must do his own work. Finally, Priam's curtly described consent-"The old man feared and made the herald stand up" (24.689)-surely reminds an audience of the fuller formula, "the old man feared and obeyed the muthos," which has been significantly used twice before, once shortly before this scene (24.571 = 1.33). The conspicuous absence here draws attention to Hermes' lack of persuasive power; he is at the margin of powerful speech, as that is represented by Homer through the deployment of muthos commands.

What I have just described illustrates a basic principle of Homeric poetics; for performance time-the number of lines allotted to a given speech-is the single most important narrative "sign" in Homer's system for marking the status of a hero or god. (We might contrast thIs with Athenian drama, which provides equal and even greater space to speeches by low-status characters-nurses, messengers, watchmen.) The portrayal of Achilles offers us the greatest example of this principle. For the moment, however, let me observe that the narrator's granting of the "floor" to speakers in the poem is consistent with status: at a level of social status even lower than that of Athena and Hermes among the gods, the divinities Kharis and Iris, working on their own, give muthos commands that are the shortest of any such speeches (18.391-92, 23.204-II). The latter speech shows the features common to low-status behavior elsewhere. Iris, a metangelos, is careful to announce her sender's demands (Achilles' prayer for the winds to come); she uses an indirect directive, simply stating what Achilles wants and never using an imperative. The effect, like that of Athena's epiphany in Book I, is to increase the status of Achilles' own speech. We should note that both scenes in which the minor goddesses give muthos commands are significant transition points in the narrative, yet they are not therefore given more consideration. Status and speech style override narrative needs. Meanwhile, Zeus' words, even when they simply set up plot changes (e.g. 2.7-15) always merit fuller descriptive room.

In other ways, Zeus as characterized by muthos commands stands

Heroic Genres of Speaking 5 I

supreme. Only he gives orders through intermediaries and only he can justify his ultimate authority among the other Olympians, although the challenging of this role by the others forms an important subplot to the poem. Zeus is above all the perfect rhetorician. His muthoi are precisely adjusted to his audience and, more remarkable, tend to vary in length depending on the distance they must travel, as if to compensate with increased detail for the greater potential of faulty transmission inherent in mediated messages. Amplification of the message size is the poetic equivalent of amplified volume in sound: that this is a quality peculiar to Zeus is well expressed in his epithet euruopa, "wide-voiced. "16

The three mediated commands of Zeus called muthoi occur at crucial moments in the Iliad's first half. All relate directly to the promise Zeus made to Thetis. Early in Book 2, the counsel of Zeus for fulfilling the plan to honor Achilles takes the form of a message from "baleful Dream" telling Agamemnon to arm for battle. The nature of this message is marked by the formula "winged words," which, as we saw, introduces a directive, as also by the word Zeus uses to send the message "I order" (2.10). In clipped phrases, Zeus specifies a number of things: the exact destination (Agamemnon's tent), the speed with which the arming is to be done, and an explanation (note the triple gar of lines 2.12-14). Agamemnon, he says, can now take Troy, since the Olympians, influenced by Hera's entreaties, have reached accord. Is it not significant that, when Zeus speaks with what seems greatest accuracy, he is in fact contradicting what the audience knows? For we witnessed only one scene earlier complete discord. Zeus speaks ironically in saying that Hera "bent" all the gods to her will (epegnampsen hapantas, 2.14), for, in the earlier scene, this rare verb described Hera's fearful submission to the will of Zeus (epignampsasa philon ker 1.569). We shall see Diomedes and Glaukos use the same strategy of creative rearrangement later. Here, as if to mark Zeus' deception all the more, Dream becomes creative on his own and modifies the message so as to persuade his audience of his impersonation. Zeus' command does not include the line (2.24) "A counsel-bearing man must not sleep all night"; but this sort of gnomic utterance pefectly fits the character of Nestor, whose form the Dream has taken. Nestor himself is portrayed, in a small detail, as nearly calling Zeus' bluff when Agamemnon finally reports his

160n this meaning of the epithet (in preference to the alternative "wide-seeing") see Chantraine (I968-8o) 387.

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dream: "If anyone else had told us this dream, we would call it a lie and turn away instead. But now the one who claims to be best of the Achaeans saw it" (2.80-83). The logical conclusion is never stated, and indeed Nestor never asserts that Agamemnon is right, only that he has more authority. We may well imagine that Dream's persuasive disguise-as Nestor-restrains the self-regarding elder hero from dismissing the message entirely. Zeus' authority, higher than Agamemnon's, has been de constructed neatly within the first few lines of this book when Homer demonstrates that muthos speech does not require truth so much as an effective representation.

It is particularly characteristic of Zeus' commands that they combine several types of speech-act. In his commands, through Iris, to Hera and Athena (8.399-408) and Hektor (II. I86), directives blend with explicit promises or threats. He orders Iris to tell Hektor to retreat a short way (II.I89), then promises killing strength to the hero (II.I92). Athena and Hera are told to turn back; if they do not, Zeus will lame their horses, cast them out, and wreck the chariot (8.402-3). In the chief divinity Homer draws a character whose speech-acts are consistent. As Searle observes, in certain speechacts-statements, assertions, and explanations-the speaker makes his language describe his situation, producing a "word-to-world" fit. 17 Requests, commands, vows, and promises, on the other hand, involve the speaker in shaping the world to his own word: Zeus' muthoi fall in the latter group.

One problem appears to arise in the framing of Zeus' commands here. The words of Iris to Hera and Athena are described as a threat (epeilese, 8.4I5), but have been introduced by Zeus with a line appropriate to a prediction (40I, "Thus I will speak out and it will be completed"). Similarly, Zeus' promise to Hektor at II.I9I-94 contains elements of prediction: the strength will come "when struck by spear or hit by arrrow he leaps to his horse." Since in speech-act theory predictions are "constatives," and commands are directives, this correlation in Zeus' rhetoric appears puzzling at first. Is this a confusion of word to world and vice versa? Is Homer nodding?18

In human terms, yes, this is confusion. But Zeus' language of gods transcends human speech categories. Searle's remarks on the class of declaratives can help clarify the poetry here. Most declaratives-"I

17Searle (I976) 4. 180n the types of speech-act, see Bach and Harnish (I979) 39-59.

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find you guilty," "I thee wed," and so on-require that we assume the authority of an extralinguistic institution acting through the speaker. But a few escape this requirement. Individuals acting alone can declare the name for something, just as parents determine what a child is to be called in many cultures. Divinity exercises this right over everything in the world: as Searle notes: "When God says, 'Let there be light,' that is a declaration. "19 In other words, in the language of Zeus, commands, threats, and predictions comprise one and the same category. It is this very use of language that makes Zeus supreme. Although humans must prove in the field their boasts and threats, the mere speaking of a threat by Zeus is effective, the equivalent of action. Homeric poetry respects this mystery of divine speech, at the same time that it surrounds the speech of gods with a clamor of competing words. As we shall see shortly, the primacy of Zeus' divine speech is threatened by the speech-acts of heroes and by the rival demands of his "family." These touches of realism, showing that even divine speech is subject to human limits, find vivid correlates in the narrative, which seems at times to circumvent the language of Zeus. Hektor, for example, does not receive strength to reach the ships on the day that Zeus prornised. 20 His surge occurs later; the time-frame of divine speech thus differs radically from that of its divine addressees.

Because Zeus is set beyond the time and distance limits of humanity, his muthos speeches show an amount of verbal detail unparalleled in heroic discourse. The threat to Athena and Hera (8.399-408) lists the amount of damage Zeus intends; his promise at 1 I. 186-94 specifies exactly the point at which power will be granted. Furthermore, at the conclusions of both commands, Zeus sets exact limitations on the action of the threat and promise. Hera he will not berate as much as Athena, seeing that she is an inveterate adversary. Hektor he will allow to win, but only until he reaches the Achaean ships (II.193-94). Zeus' power to command, then, is matched by his power to create nuance and give verbal texture to his directives. This shows in the amplitude of his rhetoric, achieved by repetition and synonymity: "Turn back and do not allow them onward" (8.399); "I will throw them from the chariot box and break the chariot" (403); "I do not blame Hera so much nor am I angry" (407). It is the accumulation of

19Searle (1976) Isn.3. 20See Leaf (1900-1902) on 1 I. 194.

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such parallel expressions rather than the mere single occurrence of this admittedly common Homeric syntactic pattern, that causes Zeus' speech to stand out. Exaggeration is another form of the same urge for amplitude: Zeus' boasts that it takes ten years to heal the wounds from his bolt (8.405) depend on a rhetoric of space and distance that only the most important speakers in the Iliad are privileged to use. As we shall see, Nestor, Agamemnon, and Achilles all have stylistic habits that echo those of Zeus; no one hero manages his entire repertoire (although Achilles comes closest).

The declarations that Zeus addresses to all the Olympians at the beginning of Book 8 can best illustrate all the characteristics of his muthos speech in the poem. This speech represents the ideal of the genre of commands. It shares with all muthoi, of command or other genres, a concentration on the act to be performed by words. As with other muthoi, the speech thus labeled is subject to public scrutiny before an audience. It is a performance, thus, in a second sense as well as in a speech-act view. As do other muthoi we have seen, it reaches for length and elaboration as an emblem of authoritative, important communication; it asserts the status of the speaker.

As we have come to expect, Zeus' speech outdoes other muthoi by exaggeration. The rhetorical distancing accomplished by Zeus at 8.5-27 finds expression in a powerful image that he chooses to boast of his status. Threatening to hurl to Tartaros any who disobey, he backs up his words by picturing the massed Olympians tugging at him by a golden chain: though he might yank them up, together with earth and sea, the gods who hear him could not pull him down. In turning the horizontal line of the actual communication among presumed equals into a vertical chain by this symbolic rhetoric, Zeus enacts the gods' dependence on him and dramatizes his own rhetorical abilitythe power of making convincing images-at the same time that he solidifies his political position. He is a master at the poetics of power. The muthos of what "might" happen is actually a projection of the currrent power configuration on Olympus.21 It functions like "myth" in the wider sense that students of Greek society have come to recognize: a politically important act of symbolic discourse. 22 As I suggested in the previous chapter, the later extension of the word muthos to imaginative traditional narratives can be traced to an earlier

21Connor (I987) illustrates the usefulness of this new approach. 22Detienne (I986) 44-62 discusses politics in the "creation" of myth.


use in which it designated such authoritative speech-acts as that of Zeus in this passage. The best muthoi in this original sense would naturally involve the most powerful images, often resorting to genealogical recitation and claims about past status. It is only when such rhetoric is cut loose from its context of "political" antagonism that it takes on the appearance of harmless and pleasant fiction.

Before we turn to the anatomy of the struggle between Zeus and others over the right to speak with authority, one other feature of this important speech in Book 8 bears examining. It is characteristic of the greatest speakers in the poem that their muthoi often have a selfreferential focus on the very act of speaking. Zeus, in prohibiting the gods from supporting the fighters in either side of the plain at Troy, verbally frames the linguistic situation on Olympus as a struggle by two sides, one in which his rivals wish to "cut" his utterance (diakersai emon epos), as if it resembled the chain that he mentions later in the speech. Along with the legalistically full prohibition, "Let neither female divinity nor male attempt to cut my word," Zeus introduces a positive injunction: "But all together praise (aineit'), so that I complete these deeds as quickly as possible" (8.7-9). This command, too, dwells on a verbal notion. If taken as parallel to the later imperative, "Come and attempt" (18), the order to "praise" makes more sense: Zeus highlights the physical superiority that underlies his authority; although joined paratactically, the first imperative expresses a thought actually subordinate to the second. In the image of the chain, then, are contained two views of communication. To "cut" Zeus' word signifies an intolerable breakdown of relation, but to struggle with him is to provide a public acknowledgment of the "highest deviser's" craft (8.22). Even the loss by the other gods in this divine tug-of-war becomes a kind of praise. We are reminded of the way in which the Funeral Games of Book 23 defuse conflict by providing a public ranking of Achaean competitors to produce a greater solidarity. It is not accidental that Zeus oversees this "contest" in Book 8, while Achilles, speaking at least five muthos commands, oversees the Games.

The critical need for the approval of Zeus' Olympian audience, the "praise" alluded to at 8.9, shows most clearly how an oral culture's notions of performance structure the distribution of power. In effect, only an acceptable "performance" of a proposal can enable the speaker to accomplish his will; only a counterperformance, the actual voicing of "praise," certifies the audience's consent. It is explicitly during

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a muthos performance that the other gods on several occasions express dissent by withholding praise. The formulaic line" Act, but we other gods will not all approve" (epaineomen) occurs three times (4.29, 16.443, 22.181). In each case, it marks those moments in the Iliad when the speaker, Zeus, has just suggested that the lives be saved. On two of these occasions, Hera identifies the proposal made by Zeus as a muthos, prefacing her reply to him with another formulaic line, "0 most dread (ainotate) son of Kronos, what sort of muthos have you said?" (4.25 = 16.440). The third time, Zeus' speech is introduced as the initial muthos in an exchange, with yet another formula (22.167): "To them Zeus father of men and gods began the muthoi." In each case, the threat of implied public blame among the other gods seems to force Zeus to yield. We feel, however, that he is prepared for the outcome. For the three muthoi of Zeus which seek approval for his plan to intervene in the destinies of heroes are in complete contrast with the muthos he made in Book 8 when prohibiting the other gods from meddling. There, we saw him use the rhetoric of force. But when plotting something he knows to be contrary to the will of Athena and Hera, Zeus portrays himself as incapable of command, undecided as to which course to take. Such acting by Zeus can be taken as directive. It differs from more straightforward commands only in that the performer has already judged the outcome and adjusted his rhetoric accordingly. His proposal to stop the war in Book 4 is sheathed in neutral, unemphatic, and brief observations: Menelaos has two helpers, it seems; Aphrodite has saved one who thought he would die; victory belongs to Menelaos (4.7-12). Even when making an explicit proposal, Zeus phrases it in a gracious hortatory subjunctive (4.14, phrazometha). He offers alternatives as well: either to raise war or strike a peace. The audience is politely taken into consideration: " ... if this might somehow be dear and sweet to all" (4·17).

In Book 16, Zeus again poses alternatives, dramatizing his doubts about whether to whisk Sarpedon off to L ykia or let him die at Troy. Instead of commands, we hear from Zeus now the language of lament, reinforced by the sound pattern of the lines, .a repeated cry of grief (16.433-35):

& /laL EYOlV, 0 'tE /lOL ~uQn'l']Mvu, <ptA. 'tu'tOv (lv()QOlV, /lOL? uno I1mQoXA.OLO MEvomMuo ()U/lijVaL. ()LXSa M. /lOL XQuMrlj:tE/lOVE<PQEOLV oQ/lUtVOV'tL.


In the third passage where Zeus is deterred by the threat of blame from the gods, he reverts to a cooler rhetoric, calling Hektor merely "dear" (contrast Sarpedon as "most dear"). The possibility of saving Hektor is suggested in more rational language of exchange: Zeus' grief arises not from a familial bond with the hero but because Hektor was a good provider of sacrificial offerings (22.170-72). As in Zeus' muthos in Book 4, constative acts cushion the more emotionallan-:guage (cf. 168, "a dear man is pursued," and 172, "Achilles pursues him"). Even though Zeus uses imperatives this time (cf. 22.174 and 4.14), his suggestion is once more put as a choice, to save or crush Hektor.

In sum, Zeus represents the ideally powerful speaker of muthos commands, but even he cannot escape the demands of his audience of gods. Although the other gods do not range as far in their few examples of muthoi of command, their capacity to withhold praise inhibits Zeus' performance.

The function of Hera in the Iliad has largely to do with the affirmation (by contest) of Zeus' power to issue muthoi. As the divinity who speaks the next greatest number of such speeches, after Zeus, she seems a natural challenger to his status. 23 The divine couple engage in verbal agonistics from the row over Zeus' interview with Thetis in Book I to the quarrel over the ransoming of Hektor in Book 24. We should recognize that this is posed explicitly in terms of muthoi. To Hera's needling questions in Book I, Zeus retorts, "Do not expect to know all my muthoi" (1.545). In context, the term appears to be synonymous with decisions (cf. boulas, 540). But the verbal quality of these counsels is alluded to in Zeus' promise that Hera will hear whatever thing is appropriate for her. Zeus' command is in turn identified as a muthos itself by Hera as she yields (552). Her concession nevertheless insinuates that Zeus has been bested at rhetoric by

230ne sign of this challenge is the formulaic iine "What sort of muthos have you said," which is attributed to Hera, speaking to Zeus, six of the seven times it occurs (1. 552,4.25, 8.462, 14.330, 16.440, and 18.361). The seventh use of the phrase (8. 209) is by Poseidon to Hera-interestingly, in light of the slight edge she holds over him in number of muthoi spoken. The contrast in rhetorical strategies between Hera and Poseidon is a fascinating study in its own right. Suffice it to say that Homer flanks Zeus, as on a pediment, with portrayals of wife and brother enacting muthos commands that do not equal his. The order of portrayal is chiastic: Poseidon (7.445-53), Hera (8.201-7), Hera (20. II4-3 1), Poseidon (20.292). These speeches further show the poetry's capacity for characterization through style and sociolinguistic distinctions.

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Thetis (555): "Now I terribly fear in my mind that silver-footed Thetis, the daughter of the old man of the sea, may sway you (pareipei)." This prompts Zeus to reassert his verba'l powers, and he insists that Hera obey his muthos (565). The remaining verses enact the power of his word, as Hera sits silent, succumbing to suasive speech by her son Hephaistos (paraphemi, 577). Although the goddess does not completely follow her son's advice to use soft words to Zeus, the poet intervenes to drown out the verbal dueling with a higher language, in the responsive voices of the Muses led by Apollo (602-4)·

The matching scene at the end of the poem shows that Apollo's capacity as harmonizer is found lacking. Hera exposes Apollo's perfidy, by oblique reference to his earlier attendance and performance at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis (24.61-63), at which, the tradition says, he foretold a glorious future life for their son. Thus, his proposal to steal Hektor's corpse away from Achilles is undercut effectively. Apolline music being discredited, only the word of Zeus is able to solve the neikos besetting the gods (24.107). The initial cause that has led to this strife has been foregrounded by Homer at the beginning of Book 24 in such a way that we surely must be meant to see the juxtaposition. Human blame has tainted the gods: Paris "blamed" (neikesse, 29) goddesses (we are not told which) but "praised" (eines' aorist tense of dineo) the one goddess who gave him "lust" (makhlosune).24 Zeus resolves the present conflict by an affirmation of inequality: Achilles and Hektor will not be given the same honor rating (time, 66). As we shall see in the next chapter, the r~cognition of an inequality of styles goes along with heroic striving to speak well in the Iliad. Zeus' divine rhetoric shows itself fully in the next speech he makes, a muthos (24.104) to Thetis. The subservience of the other Olympians emerges in details that contrast with the scene in Book I. Hera serves Thetis now, instead of being a distant dissenter (contrast Hephaistos' service to her at 1.585-94). Zeus begins gently, recalling Thetis' anguish, something he himself knows (105)presumably from seeing Satpedon killed, although the poet does not state this. If we have been prepared by Homer to accept Zeus' sympathy as authentic, we have also been privileged to hear his earlier motives for summoning Thetis: he cannot let Hermes steal the corpse because the nymph is night and day beside her son (24.71-73), so he

240n the significance for the poem's theme of these concepts, see Nagy (1979) 130.

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must convince her to persuade Achilles. When Zeus faces Thetis, he explains his motives much differently: "They urge the keen-sighted slayer of Argos to steal, but I grant this glory to Achilles, keeping safe your respect and affection in later time" (24.109-10). We are left wondering which version is more like the truth. Who is being kept in the dark, Hera or Thetis? Given the theme of the contest for speech mastery between Hera and Zeus, I would like to think that he has led her on here. In any event, through the depiction of muthos speeches among the gods Homer illustrates for his audience the role of politic fiction in the poetics of power. This is a paradigm for heroic rhetoric, too.

Heroic Commands

On the battlefield, the performance of muthos commands follows the Olympian pattern in exhibiting a hierarchy of performers, and a frankly antagonistic relationship among peers, especially at the top echelon. Those with the highest status, like Zeus, direct and enact muthoi to the largest audiences, all Trojans or Achaeans. The praise of the group, an important mark of approval, is reserved for the leading speakers in the contest of command. Whereas "praise" arose as a topic among the Olympians most often when there was a threat to withhold it from Zeus, in Homer's depiction of the Achaean camp, this subject of group approbation is described positively. Three times the poet says that the Achaeans "approve" a speech: when Odysseus urges the troops to remain at Troy (2.284-332; cf. 335, muthon epainesantes); when Agamemnon declares that his brother won the duel with Paris (3.455-60; cf. 461, epi d'eneon alloi); and when Achilles awards a special prize to Eumelos, loser of the chariot race (23.539, epeineon). The audience ratification of their proposals defines the triad of the Iliad's most important speakers-with the exception of Nestor. While Agamemnon, Odysseus, and Achilles jockey for position, Nestor remans unchallenged as a commander. As with Zeus on Olympus, he directs the greatest number of muthoi to others, but is himself never the recipient of such commands. A further mark of his status appears when we consider the addressees of the muthoi. Whereas Agamemnon gives muthos commands to Menelaos, Khryses, and Teucer (three figures with lower status in the poem), Nestor in this hierarchy commands Agamemnon, and moreover, can enact a muth-

I

I I I


os before all the Achaeans. Agamemnon never does this. Achilles repeatedly does, at the Funeral Games. Odysseus only commands a segment of the Achaean audience one time with a muthos, the men of the demos (2.199), and once the entire group (2.282). This depiction in which status coincides with the number of persons able to be successfully addressed must reflect a social context in which political power is chiefly a product of oratorical power. We should also observe that the small group' of speakers who address muthoi to the aggregate can further be divided on the basis of the speaker's interaction with divinity. Achilles, among the Greeks, and Priam on the Trojan side are the only speakers who both make a muthos command to the group and receive such a command from a god or goddess. To express the significance of this deployment in another way: one who commands the group with muthoi need not be on speaking terms with the gods, but those who do have such encounters in the poem are also depicted as being able to address the group. Again, Homer or his tradition acknowledges indirectly the special character of deific speech. 25

-rom the distinctio~s just outlined, we might expect the commands of Nestor to be distinguished from those of the younger Achaeans. They are prominent in the flow of the narrative: five of his six muthoi of command occur between Books 9 and II, the poem's core, and all mark significant junctures. His first such speech in the poem stands out, though brief, because Agamemnon grants Nestor instant obedience (2.434-41). In light of our observation that muthos commanders have a channel to the divine, it is interesting that Nestor's explicit motivation for telling Agamemnon to advance the troops is that "a god grants" the present work (436). The audience should recall that the "god" is Zeus, whose messenger, Dream, took the form of Nestor in appearing to Agamemnon (2.21). The old hero, then, is both the distant and immediate catalyst for the assault, and his muthos (2.433) depends on the muthos of Zeus (2.16).

This function of Nestor to regulate the pace of the plot appears clearly in the other muthos speeches he makes. In his first speech in Book 9, he can control three segments of an audience at once: Diomedes, whom he instructs in the art of speech; the kouroi whom he orders to take guard duty; and finally Agamemnon. Again, there is

250n political power as a product of oratorical power, in classical Athens and a number of other traditional societies, see Bloch (1975). Later we shall see that the number or style of prayers by a hero does not qualify as important for characterizing any hero.


some irony. Nestor commands Agamemnon to give orders, "for you are most kingly" (9.69), a status clearly cast in doubt by the old hero's leading position. His elaborate praise of Agamemnon here (73-75) in a triplex polyptoton is, of course, self-serving, too, as Nestor is undoubtedly the nameless "one who plans the best counsel" whom Agamemnon is said to obey. Similar cueing of Agamemnon occurs in Nestor's second muthos in this book. After cautiously praising the proposed gifts for Achilles (164), Nestor pointedly proceeds to stagemanage the embassy details. Praise and control-the Nestorian strategy-continue through Book 10, in which Nestor regularly upstages the younger hero by directing the guards and proposing the night mission to spy on the Trojan camp (10.203-17). We should contrast the offer whereby Nestor attracts volunteers for this exploit. Unlike Agamemnon's faulty promise of gifts alone, in the preceding book, Nestor's proposition explicitly involves the winning of Jeleos~ Economic gain (dosis, 213) is just paFt of the bargain. .

Even in his' long reminiscence during his final muthos of command, Nestor depicts himself as an authority. Not only does he frame the speech to Patroklos on the basis of his own biography, but within the speech he alludes to a previous rhetorical success on his part-the original recruitment of Patroklos and Achilles for the war. There are signs of agonistic speaking in this remembrance. Although Odysseus was also present in Phthia that day, it was Nestor (so he says) who "began the muthos" (11.781). The formulaic variation here, to the rarer use of the singular of the word for speech, might imply that Nestor's performance did not face any counterspeeches. We are also reminded by this detail that Odysseus, who had begun the embassy speeches in Book 9, failed.[phoinix, who resembles Nestor, would have made the better opening speech, and may have been intended to do so (9.223-Ajax nods to him). The parallel is strengthened by the resemblance between the scene in Phthia that Nestor recalls and that which has just occurred in the tent of Achilles. J

We may well think that Nestor constructs these resemb!~ for persuasive purposes. It is only with effort that we remember that Homer in this scene mimes Nestor as making up a speech-not necessarily recounting "what happened." So we should place more emphasis on the differences between the words that he recalls Peleus saying to Achilles (to "excel and be best," 11.783-84) and Odysseus' recollection in a similar rhetorical gambit (Peleus tells Achilles to avoid strife with his peers, 9.254-58). Nestor selects the one detail


from the alleged "instructions" ofPeleus that will contrast most with his own recapitulation of another speech of advice, that made by Patroklos' father, suggesting the companion of Achilles should instruct and guide him (I I. 786-90). In brief, the older man uses his muthos to praise Patroklos, thereby constructing an image of the role he is supposed to play. As with Zeus' speeches to Hera and Thetis in Book 24, Homer here has supplied enough detail to make us appreciate the possibilities for fictional presentation within authoritative speechmaking.

It helps that Nestor's age makes him an appropriate stand-in for Menoitios, so that this speech is truly a "performance" by a seasoned· actor. His advice to Patroklos is described in the same terms as Menoitios' instructions (compare 11.783 and 785, epetelle with the same verb in 840, used by Patroklos). This fatherly instruction is meant to replicate itself when Patroklos next returns to Achilles. But Patroklos improvises his performance rather than copying Nestor's. Instead of reminding Achilles about Peleus, he denies the hero's parentage (16.33-35) and weeps ominously "like a black-watered stream." In the poet's image system, the performance ofPatroklos thus resembles that of the Iliad's weakest rhetorician, Agamemnon, the only other speaker who resorts to such an act (16·3-4 = 9.14-15).

So far we have seen that the distribution of muthos speeches among heroic speakers accurately predicts their success at persuasion within the poem. In what follows, I want to explore the distinctions in the power relations thus sketched. This is not a formal poetics, since it will be seen that the seemingly simple act of issuing a command becomes so variable as to resist reduction to a schema. Questions of individual style arise, which in turn are inseparable from notions of the proper convention for commanding or enacting other types of speech-act. If we keep in mind the example of Zeus-in which long, detailed, and self-assertive rhetoric represents the best command form-it soon appears that only one Iliadic speaker comes closest to this ideal, Achilles. Other commands bear a kind of family resemblance one to the other, and offer less noticeable similarities to divine speech.

We can gauge the distance between Nestor, Agamemnon, and the others in several ways. In terms of the narrative progression, Agamemnon drops out of sight as a source of muthos commands by Book 14. Odysseus appears in this role up to Book 19, at which point we see Agamemnon deferring to his judgment. As Agamemnon's speaking power wanes, Achilles' waxes: it is he who gives the muth-


os commands on the Achaean side all through the last two books of the Iliad. Thus, the control of authoritative speech passes like the Achaean scepter from the "owner," Agamemnon, to his young competitor.

A second gauge of difference comes in the rhetorical form and effectiveness of commands. Here, the same hierarchy is reaffirmed. Agamemnon is less powerful as a speaker than Odysseus, and he, in turn, must defer to Achilles. We shall see the differences on the level of individual stylistic choices in the next chapter. But some of the broader signs of these distinctions should be noted here. An important preliminary strike against Agamemnon comes in the detail that tells us he speaks against the wishes of his audience: "The other Achaeans all approved ... but it did not please Agamemnon" (I.23-24). His threat to Khryses, that the skeptron of the god will not do him any good should he return, turns out t() have ironic appropriateness for himself, when his authority sinks. In contrast to Zeus, whose similar threat silences Hera at the end of Book 1 (I. 566), Agamemnon's language works destruction, turning the priest to seek divine intervention with deadly effect. Like the fault of Paris in blaming the goddesses, Agamemnon's improper speech-act has disastrous consequences.

Another sign of Agamemnon's rhetorical ineffectiveness comes in his dialogue with Menelaos in Book 10. His brother has not even been commanded, yet comes (10.25) with as much sympathy as Agamemnon for the Argive sufferings, only to find that Agamemnon himself is ceding authority to Nestor over the guards, "for they might obey him most." In this context, the muthos that Agamemnon makes to Menelaos shrinks in consequence. In fact, Menelaos has to elicit the command on his own, since Agamemnon has given no clear directions in his rambling talk (10.43-59). "How do you instruct and order me with a muthos?" Menelaos asks. Agamemnon's reply is a weak warning to stay in place lest the brothers lose one another in camp (65-71), and a suggestion to "glorify" the other commanders on waking them up-a rather obvious rhetorical strategy.

Finally, there is Agamemnon's yielding to Odysseus' criticism. "You very much reached my heart with your tough rebuke, " he tells him, after Odysseus has demolished Agamemnon's graceless proposal to flee (14.105-5). Odysseus demands silence from him; Agamemnon's only defense is another weak rhetorical excuse, that he was only fulfilling what his audience wanted (14.90, 105). '

Odysseus, the speaker to whom control passes at this point, first


enters the spotlight as the enforcer of Agamemnon's proposals. The introductory scene characterizes him already: whereas Agamemnon's testing speech has stampeded the Achaeans, Odysseus' speech (and battering) turn them back. If we are in doubt at this point, an additional speech by Odysseus further solidifies his reputation as the more powerful speaker. Athena herself restrains the audience so that he may speak the elaborate muthos at 2.284-332. We shall return to this masterpiece of recollection and dramatization later; note for now that the speech is artfully juxtaposed so as to diminish even the words of Nestor's less ornate recounting that follows it (2.337-68).26

The other muthos commands by Odysseus in the poem feature significant variations on the injunctions of Agamemnon that they are supposedly supporting,· so we see Odysseus as superior at rhetoric every time. The well-known omission by Odysseus of Agamemnon's crass snub in the promise to Achilles (9. II5-19) isjust one sign of Odysseus' skill. Another in the same speech is in the prefatory remarks which he did not take from Agamemnon. Just as he had recalled the divine sema in his remembrance of Aulis in Book 2, to urge on the troops, he carefully points out the heavenly signs here (9.236-37-Zeus sends his bolt). The parallel between Achaean despair at Aulis and the present crisis also underlies, I suggest, the use of a unique phrase in line 232 of Odysseus' speech to Achilles, "the Trojans have made a bivouac" (aulin ethento Troes). His pun on the place-name can be read either as a message to Achilles by Odysseus or to the audience by Homer. In either case, the association of Aulis and the death of Iphigeneia (a tale suppressed in the Iliad) should be read into the scene as well: yet again, someone near to Achilles must be sacrificed to heal Achaean helplessness. 27

The final contest between the rivals Odysseus and Achilles takes place in Book 19. Agamemnon has yielded again, this time accepting Odysseus' procedural suggestions for recompensing Achilles (19.185-86). But Odysseus' subsequent elaborate speeches on the necessity of eating fail to move Achilles. Instead, he overcomes Odysseus by taking over his opponent's rhetorical strategy while refusing to acknowledge his presence. Odysseus had spoken of hunger (19.155-83); so does Achilles, in a reply directed to Agamemnon ostensibly, but he turns it into a metaphor for his desire to avenge Patroklos'

26Kirk (I985) I45 offers stylistic comments on Odysseus' words here. 270n this theme in the Iliad see Martin (I983) 59-65.


death. He rejects the simple twofold "food and drink" of Odysseus (161 versus 210) in favor of a more complex triad, "murder, blood, and the rough moan of men" (214).28 When Odysseus attempts to overcome Achilles once more, this time by sheer authority (217-20),

Achilles replies by rising into another level of performance. Instead of arguing, he refuses food outright, as if too much has yet to come out of his mouth-a poetic lament, in which even the texture of speech resembles song more than oratory, as can be seen from allit

erations:29

32 I, pothe... pathoimi 322, patros apophthimenoio puthoimen 323, hos pou nun Phthiephi 32 5, polemizo 327, Neoptolemos 329, phthisesthai 330, Phthiende 334, pelea ... pampan 337, apophthimenoio puthetai

Odysseus gives no more muthos orders after this performance by Achilles.

The Contested Word

We are led by the study of muthos as command to look at opposing speakers; this easily takes us into larger problems of characterization and theme in the poem. But I must stress another implication of the view of speech developed thus far in our analysis: the agonistic context still depends on a notion of speech as performance, and this, in turn, can be highly stylized. Rather than overemphasize the sociolinguistic realism of Homer, as a study of commands might tempt us to do, I suggest instead that we consider this genre to be a developed traditional form of social discourse. The two other genres of muthos speeches that I have uncovered are recognized poetic genres as well in both Greek and other traditions. This strengthens the suggestion that

280n this important Odyssean theme, see Pucci (r987) r65-72. 290n the puns involved here, see Macleod (r982) 52.


"commands" constitute an equally conventional genre. Modern politicaloratory, seemingly wide-ranging and unbound by formal constraints, might make the proposition seem counterintuitive. But a study of traditional oratory can show how the act of giving orders and proposing directives deserves recognition as a separate formal genre (albeit rarely In a versified form). The work of Raymond Firth on oratory of the Tikopia in the western Pacific, and Anne Salmond's studies of Maori oratory in New Zealand, demonstrate that the issuing of directives in public is a highly formalized verbal affair. 30 Learners of such traditional command discourse must memorize innumerable proverbs and genealogies to make their words effective. The formal nature of such directives is recognized in some cultures within the taxonomy of speech names. Rosaldo points out that the Ilongot consider tuydek, the command, to be "the exemplary act of speech," because it organizes social life, being used by men in authority to control and tame women and children. 31 I submit that the Greek equivalent for "important speech of social control" is muthos.

The political nature of rhetoric within the Iliad deserves more recognition. 32 Homerists have concentrated more, however, on speech and persuasion in the poem as they relate to later oratory. 33 It has been noticed that a speaker's success is measured in part by the degree of persuasion he or she elicits. I would add that this is not merely Homeric technique, but a social value to be seen in many cultures. "Among the Araucanians of Chile, the head of a band was its best orator and his power depended upon his ability to sway others through oratory," notes Hymes. 34

Although commands might seem less familiar as an institutional- . ized genre, the second category of muthos speeches, to which I turn now, should offer no such barrier. The work of Walter Ong, in particular Fighting Jor Life: Contest, Sexuality, and Consciousness, has drawn attention to the agonistic nature of discourse in oral-traditonal societies, and to the remnants of this outlook in our own.35 The formalized verbal contests of several contemporary cultures range from events enacted by adolescents on street corners, like the black

30See Bloch (I975) 29-63. 31Rosaldo (I982) 209. 32A start is made by political scientist J. B. White (I984) 34. 33Karp (I977) 24I recognizes the central place of persuasion in the movement of the

poem's plot, but his article is mostly an attempt to locate the forerunners of later notions about rhetoric.

34Hymes (I974) 34. 35See Ong (I98I) esp. 26, 29, I08-29.


American genres of the "dozens" and "sounding," to more organized events (Maltese, Sardinian, and Turkish verbal duels), to highly structured "bardic" duels, like those among Kirghiz and Kazakh poets. 36 Such dueling clearly has a number of social functions; for one, it is "the oral equivalent of ritual physical combat among males, formalized, serious, and bantering at the same time. "37 A voiding physical violence, the participants engage in gamelike moves, often running counter to the culture's norms-lying, for example, may be expected in such situations. 38 Such activity can be described in speech-act terms with reference to the "rules of conversation" developed by H. P. Grice; "noncooperation counts as cooperation for the duration of the ritual. "39 That is, telling more or less than one would in normal conversation, telling what one knows to be an untruth, and generally breaking the contract of social discourse are all permitted in such verbal contests.

The best performers in such contests, even if they never claim to be "poets," are in fact, masters of verbal art. Herzfeld notes from his fieldwork that "often a clever riposte serves to restrain physical violence. To respond with knife or fist would demean the assailant by suggesting that he was incapable of responding with some witty line of his own. "40 A similar high regard for subtlety is regularized within Haya speech terms: one phrase, "to hit inside," characterizes the type of allusive verbal strategies used by members of one in-group to challenge and rebuke each other; another term, ebijumi, denotes direct verbal abuse-the less prestigious type hurled at commoners and chilreno This distinction is relevant to the representation, within the Iliad, ofThersites and other practitioners of abuse. In a more general way, the existence of such socially grounded genre conventions requires us to exercise more caution in criticizing speech within the poem. As we shall see, some instances of direct speech may have no plot-advancing function whatsoever, but appear so that an audience familiar with everyday speech-genres can evaluate a character qua speaker, finding significance where those outside the system would not.41

Agonistic speech within the Iliad has attracted more notice than has

36For a survey, see Brenneis (1978). On Turkish rhyming duels, see Dundes et al. (1972). Cf Winner (1958) 30-34 on poetic competitions.

370ng (1981) 110. 380n lying in traditional tale-trading, see Bauman (1986b) 18-27. 39Pratt (1977) 217. 40Herzfeld (1985) 143. 41See Larson (1978) 58-66 for the distinction between direct speech which functions

to move a story along, and that which is meant to represent certain speech-acts.


"political" discourse of the type I examined in the last section. In terms of poetic diction, A. W. H. Adkins has observed that many types of agonistic talk in Homer-for example, threats, rebukes, insults, quarrels, and judicial proceedings-are categorized with the noun neikos and the verb neikeo. This classification, in Adkins's view, relates to the similar role that all such speech plays in a shame- or "results-culture. "42 More recently, Gregory Nagy has drawn attention to the thematic importance of the neikos within the Iliad; in his view this type of discourse can be understood asa reflex of the poetic traditions of praise and blame that we see attested so frequently elsewhere in Greek poetry, and which have a good claim to be inherited Indo-European poetic genres. 43 Building on his convincing demonstration of the traditional poetic nature of the neikos, I shall suggest here that this also carries with it a set of rhetorical conventions in its enactment, as it does dictional conventions for the description of the activity within epic. Following a more general comparatist trend that would equate the genre of neikos with the depictions of similar verbal contests in Germanic traditional poetry, I use the term "flyting" (native to the Germanic genre) to refer to this phenomenon within the Iliad. I hope thereby to indicate that it shares features with other traditional contest genres, but also to avoid any counterargument based on whether or not neikos and related words actually appear in the epic to describe the scenes I discuss. The central point is that an audience would not necessarily require dictional sign-posting for the occurrence of this genre at every turn: at times the dispute language might be called neikos or "cutting words," at other times it may be introduced, as I contend, simply as muthos, and again, it might even be unmarked completely, when the poet allows the dramatic setting of the speeches itself to cue the audience to the genre involved. 44

The agonistic nature of muthoi has been clear to us as we examined the commands heroes make. A few narrative phrases also allude to this quality: as we saw in the last chapter, Thoas is described as a good speaker "whenever young men engage in strife (erisseian) concerning speech-acts (muthoi)" (15.284-85). Not only are such muthoi the various proposals brought forward by potential commanders; they

42Adkins (1969) esp. 7-10, 20-21. 43Nagy (1979) 222-42, and see references therein to studies of cognate traditions. 440n the suggestion that Homeric disputes, as typical scenes, be compared with

Germanic flyting, and for bibliography on the latter, see now Parks (1986). F. Clark (1981) offers a broader typological view in oral-poetic terms.


are also the counterarguments that denigrate others' commands; and one can "engage in strife" about them not only in terms of content, but, as we shall see, in the matter of their style. The difference between a muthos command and a flyting speech may at times be minimal, since every instance of the former, as we saw, even those by Zeus, is open to challenge. The two genres, then, complement one another.

Book 4 of the poem is a good place to begin observing the poetics of flyting. The "game" nature of the genre is nowhere more evident than in Agamemnon's ritualized encouragement of the troops, called by later critics the epipolesis or "review." His technique consists of verbal assault. It is most often described with the language of "blaming" (see forms of the verb neikeo at 4.241, 336, 359, 368). The key lines for my interpretation that this activity is part of the authoritative speech of muthos are 4.356-57: "Smiling at him [Odysseus] Agamemnon addressed him, as he knew of his anger, and took back the muthos." The speech thus referred to on its retraction was labeled in line 336 with the verb neikessen. We can extrapolate from this cooccurrence that each speech Agamemnon makes in the episode is in fact an instantiation of muthos discourse. Another co-occurrence worth noting here: twice (337, 369) the introduction to Agamemnon's speech couples the verb neikeo with the formula "he spoke winged words." Since "winged words" are also a regular introduction to directives, this is further confirmation that flyting speeches represent a form of muthos.

Not only is the diction of the speech introductions standardized, but Agamemnon's rhetorical tacks also follow a pattern. He begins the three neikos speeches (but not the "gentle words" to Idomeneus, the two Ajaxes and Nestor-4.256, 285, 313) with questions.

"Argives ... disgraces, are you not ashamed?" (242)

"Why do you stand off shrinking in fear and wait for others?" (340)

"Why do you cower, why do you steal glances at the banks of war?" (371)

Next, Agamemnon compares his addressees to scared animals. His general rebuke to the Argives pictures them as fawns whose motion across the plain is halted by fear (243-45). To Odysseus and Di-


omedes, he uses the verb (kata)ptosso (340, 371) a verb related to the word for "rabbit" that still exhibits an active association with the anima1's behavior (cf. the image in 17.676 of an eagle capturing the cowering creature). The final strategy in these speeches relies on privileging another place, thereby implying that the addressee occupies a position of no importance. Thus, to the Argives, Agamemnon contrasts their stilled movement with the preferable alternative of engagement in battle. Waiting by the ships is equivalent, in his words, to the vague hope that Zeus will protect them at some future time (4.249). The "other place" hurled at Odysseus and Menestheus as an insult is the dais, which, says Agamemnon, they prefer instead of battle (343-46). Diomedes is provoked by Agamemnon with the mention of another place and time, the heroic exploits ofTydeus, his father, at Thebes.

It is not coincidental that Agamemnon finally selects Odysseus and Diomedes as targets for his abuse in Book 4. The investigation of the command genre of muthoi shows us that these two heroes pose the greatest threat, next to Achilles, in their verbal abilities. 45 Idomeneus and the two Ajaxes, whom he praises, are conspicuously absent from the rolls of active muthos speakers in the poem. Nestor, on the other hand, is too good a speaker for abuse. But even when he has chosen the right competitors, Agamemnon loses to them in the flyting that follows, bested by different but equally effective performances.

Odysseus feels himself to be the real target of Agamemnon's blame, and rightly, since only he (not Menestheus) is called names"pre-eminent in evil tricks, mind on gain" (4.339). Instead of denying these epithets, Odysseus deftly parries the accusation oflaxness with a rhetorical question: "What word has escaped the fence of teeth on you? How can you talk about neglecting war?" (350-52). Then he switches to speak of the future: "You will see ... the father of Telemakhos mixing in the front lines" (promakhoisi, 354). Finally, he criticizes Agamemnon's style of speech: "You are talking idly" (an~molia bazeis, 355). Odysseus gains forcefulness from his manipulation of poetic devices. Theparonomasia using his son's name allows Odysseus to allude subtly to his own status as an archer, or "far fighter." The pun furthermore becomes a subtle boast: not only will he fulfill his traditional epic function, but he will go beyond this, to fight even in the front lines: he can play any role you like. And this implicit

450n the clash with Diomedes, see Chapter 3.

Heroic Genres of Speaking 7 I

boast contrasts with the message behind his criticism of Agamemnon's style: we could paraphrase, "I know how to perform, but you cannot even talk appropriately."

Agamemnon's response certifies what the audience has already garnered by this time, that Odysseus defeated him verbally. He takes back the neikos speech just made by denying that he was even attempting to blame Odysseus (4.359). In an effort to save face, he associates himself with the victorious speaker, claiming to share his thoughts (360-61). The speech is an apology for "bad style" in all senses of the phrase; significantly, Agamemnon adopts Odysseus' own poetic formulation to waft away his previous speech: "May the gods make all these things like the winds" (metamonia-cf. anemolia earlier, both from the noun anemos, "wind").

If Odysseus resists Agamemnon by clever riposte, Diomedes' strategy is cunning silence. This response is indeed the only possibility, for Agamemnon has baited a trap in the final words of his neikos speech about Diomedes' father: "Such was Tydeus. But the son he begat is worse in war-better in speaking" (399-400). Under these terms, were Diomedes even to attempt an Odyssean reply, he would simply affirm Agamemnon's accusation that he is a better talker then fighter. The insult, of course, reflects back badly on Agamemnon himself, since branding one's opponent as a slick speaker is the last resort of bankrupt rhetoricians and demagogues. We are reminded of Thucydides' portrayal of Kleon in the Mytilene debate (3.38.2-7). In contrast, the "silent" answer works with complete effect here because it constitutes an ambiguous sign. The poet reads it for us at face value, as Agamemnon might: "Strong Diomedes did not address him at all, ashamed of the rebuke of the respected king." But the rules of the genre of flyting discourses allow of another interpretation. Walter Edwards, writing about insult duels in Guyana, notes: "The silence of the addressee can be interpreted ... as incompetence in 'busin' [the genre of insults] or as a strategic aloofness which asserts social superiority over the 'buser. "'46 Diomedes' ploy looks like defeat but it is actually such an assertion. And Diomedes knows the rules well enough to rebuke his companion Sthenelos, who has tried to counteract the insults of Agamemnon (4.404-IIO). The charioteer decries the knowing lies of the abuser (404) but Diomedes replies, in effect, that Agamemnon is simply playing his role correctly (413-14). The

46W. Edwards (I979) 24.


apparent gesture of support for the chief, by reference to the way the game is played, reinforces the agonistic intention of Diomedes' silence. By directing his reply to Sthenelos and then getting him to consent to a muthos of command (412), he acknowledges that he knows the ambiguous import of his silence in the duel. Then, singling out Agamemnon for responsibility in the success of the war, Diomedes has also posed the unspeakable possibility of defeat (417-18). This effectively silences the abuser. With a grand gesture, Diomedes leaps full-armed from his chariot, his armor crashing about him so that "fear would have seized even a stout-hearted one," as Homer says (421). The audience for this gesture is Agamemnon, however, and he is neatly put in his place by the poet with this phrase.

The ability to conduct a flyting match forms an essential part of the hero's strategic repertoire. We shall return in the next chapter to a consideration of various styles in flyting. For now, it will be useful to examine three varieties of such speeches-those between ,comrades, gods, and enemies-to sketch some salient aspects of the poetics of abuse.

A reference to other authoritative speech is a recurring feature of flyting speeches among companions. The powerful muthos performed by Achilles as he marshals the Myrmidons begins in this way, with an injunction to recall their previous threats (apeilai) against the Trojans: "Myrmidons, let no one forget on me the threats with which you threatened the Trojans at the ships all during the time of anger" (16.200-201). Adkins has described the conditions under which the semantic range of apeilai can include threats, boasts, vows, promises, and magniloquent speech.47 All can be classed together as efforts to make oneself felt in a hostile environment. I would add that Homeric diction once more proves attentive to the category of speech-act (as we noticed in the case of winged words). For all senses of apeilai can be subsumed under the head of assertives or commissives. And the latter can actually fit under the former category, because, in context, vows and promises are made in order to announce a social assertion of alliance or opposition. 48 Achilles' reference to this category of speech is at one remove from its original force. Although he mentions threats, he does so not to threaten anyone himself, but

47 Adkins (1969) 10-12 and 18-20. 480n assertives, see Searle (1976) and on social value in the performance of such acts

see Rosaldo (1982) 214.


to challenge the Myrmidons. The rhetorical strategy of recalling past speech-acts to shame the present hearers into action had been displayed by Nestor early in the poem, in a speech berating the Achaeans: "You speak in the assembly like infantile children, who are not affected by war works. To what end will come the agreements and oaths we have?" (sunthesiai te kai horkia, 2.349). Because the challenges that both heroes make are not defied, we see as it were only the first half of a neikos episode. But the intent of both Achilles' muthos and Nestor's challenge is unmistakably akin to Agamemnon's motives in the epipoiesis.

Achilles' challenge is the more effective because he not only recalls one speech-act (the threats) but uses a direct quotation to mimic another, one the Myrmidons had employed. Like Odysseus to Agamemnon in Book 4, Achilles dismisses these earlier grumbling speeches as mere talk (ebazete, 16.207). In familiar flyting fashion, he contrasts "then" with "now": the Myrmidons used to talk of going home because Achilles was angered, "but now has appeared the great work of strife, of which you were previously enamored" (16.207-8).

This flyting strategy is not limited to Achaean heroes. Sarpedon rebukes Hektor in Book 5 in a neikos speech that is later labeled a' muthos (see 5.471 and 5.493). The then/now contrast opens his attack, followed immediately by a reference to Hektor's earlier boasts: "Hektor, where has your strength gone, which you previously used to have? You used to say at some point that you would hold the city alone, without troops and allies, with your brothers and brothers-in -law. I cannot see any of them now or notice any, but they all cower like dogs around a lion" (5.471-76). Sarpedon's speech is noteworthy for its insistent criticism of Hektor's verbal behavior, charging him with failing to give orders (485) and advising him to supplicate the allied leaders (lissomenoi, 491) for help in order to deflect verbal abuse (krateren apothe'sthai enipen, 492).

The recalled-speech strategy recurs, finally, within Agamemnon's speech about Ate in Book 19. Here the framework is a speech designed to ratify the renewed solidarity among' the Achaeans; it is the opposite of a flyting speech. Appropriately, therefore, the speech-act which Agamemnon recalls to open his discourse was a neikos event, now over-the muthos which the Achaeans spoke to Agamemnon many times (19.85-86), apparently in voicing their dissatisfaction with his treatment of Achilles. From this brief reference to the past, Agamemnon shifts to the present: "But I am not responsible" (86).

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Such a denial of guilt would have been an appropriate response to' flyting speech in the past. Compare the exchange between the ' guised Poseidon and Idomeneus. To the god's challenge, "Where now the threats gone, with which the sons of the Achaeans Trojans?" (13.219-20), the Cretan chief replies, "No man is responsible, as much as I know. For we all know how to (13.222-23). The first speech fits the pattern we have already seen Achilles' speech, quoted earlier) and the reply attempts to answer implied contrast between former boasts and present immobility, as Idomeneus knows the full pattern of such flyting speeches, though it is not explicit here. In comparison, Agamemnon's answers a past rebuke (not simply a rebuke in the present that to the past). This variation on the conventional pattern shows that the' neikos words still rankle in Agamemnon's mind, as he even now finds" it necessary to shift responsibility. Once again, Homer draws attention to Agamemnon's inept use of patterns.

A second tactic evident in flyting muthoi again uses contrast as an operating principle, but depends on the juxtaposition of praiseworthy foil with blameworthy addressee. Glaukos applies this to Hektor, rebuking him with a harsh speech (krateroi enipape muthoi, 17.141);'. He first praises three different heroic alternatives: Sarpedon, whose corpse they must fight for, was a great benefit to all when alive (17.152); Achilles, whose companion is dead, is "best by far of the Argives by the ships" (165); but Hektor, he asserts, could not face '. even Ajax (implied to be weaker than Achilles), "since he is stronger than you." The rebuke is all the more stinging to an audience that has heard Sarpedon himself use the same foil technique to Hektor, pre-' viously, posing his own heroic career as the contrast to Hektor's. passivity (5.483-86). Hektor has not learned.

The foil strategy can be seen on a smaller scale in the less serious flyting speech by Antilokhos during the Funeral Games. After losing the foot race, the young hero generalizes that the gods honor the older generation. The specific hit at Odysseus' age is tempered slightly: "They say he is a raw old man" (23.791). But one can discern a more serious allusion, to the theme of enmity between Odysseus and Achilles, .in the next line: "But he is difficult for the Achaeans to compete with, except for Achilles. " The effect of Antilokhos' slightly denigratory remark is to praise Achilles (793, kudenen) , who responds, like a patron to a praise-poet, with a gift and muthoi to bestow it formally (793-96).


to a third aspect of flyting speeches: be;laual2ntIUS is often created at the expense of

and blame are inextricable in this genre. in mind helps to explicate several speeches rather than begins a neikos. One example

insults to his brother Paris (3.38-57). In of abuse, full of every flyting device,

of Hektor's performance, in a muthos. (We 3. 87.) Paris' proposal to stage a duel thus

tlal:m,onv within Trojan ranks, as it opens the , larger neikos of the war. Yet the muthos of

~:Clonlte}l:t of a fraternal dispute, still bears the It includes a strong prohibitive-"Do not

lovely gifts of Aphrodite" -which is the a denial of responsibility, since Paris could

. Another mark is the comparison of to a woodsman's unwearied axe (6I-64).

some traditions is one way to start a quarParis uses to describe the axe might be this the diction of Homer, ateires either describes

when it injures a warrior (5. 2 92 , 7. 2 47, rough encouragement mixed with rebuke the guise of Phoinix uses an ateirea phOnen

of the disgrace to come should Pa-l1U'JllC;U, and Hektor has used the same rare

his flyting speech to which Paris responds "your heart is like an 'unwearied' axe,"

,TPIJ"l<:'tpr your tone of voice; your remarks cut may also be encoded in Paris' de-

aid to man's strength (62), for this is to say language as compensation for lack of

showing an "incomplete apprehension of his manipulation of poetic simile is a dex

tt-nl~""'''''~ that proves to be an accurate predicdilemma. 50

Games shows us a muthos that silences between the quarreling Ajax and Ido-

of Paris is by Moulton (1977) 91.

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meneus (23.491-98). This dispute erupts over an informal contest to see who can name the winners of the chariot race, from a distance. Idomeneus' muthos is an attempt to gain authority by its suggestion that he alone has the ability to discern the race results before it is over (457-72); the speech also gives him an opportunity to single out one hero for praise, Diomedes (471-73). Ajax recognizes the move for what it is, an attempt to upstage the rightful judge of the race, and criticizes the older hero's style: "Why are 'you blustering beforehand? (474, labreueai).51 The disposition to begin a flyting match first becomes in the words of Ajax a cause for blame; then, a way of denigrating Idomeneus, through the implication that he is not very proficient even in this abased speech form: "But you are always blustering with muthoi. You musn't be a blustering speaker. There are better ones present" (23.479-80). This last insult gives Idomeneus the opportunity for a brilliant counterthrust. He implicitly concedes that he is not the best at insulting by awarding that honor to Ajax: "neikos ariste" (483). But prowess in flyting is accompanied by incompetence at all else, by this logic (483-84). Thus Idomeneus springs on Ajax the same rhetorical trap that we saw another older hero use (Agamemnon at 4.399-400). Unlike Agamemnon, Idomeneus leaves an apparent escape, in the form of a proposed wager (23.485-87); we might be suspicious when he names Agamemnon to be the judge. Given their similar methods, one expects that Agamemnon would take his Cretan friend's side. With a touch of psychological realism, then, Homer makes Achilles interrupt the escalating flyting match with a command to focus attention on nike rather than neikos (496). He deflects blame onto those who would use the genre: "Get angry at another, whoever would do such things" (494).

In the preceding chapter, I examined the rhetoric of "words and deeds," suggesting that this trope could be expressed either as conjunction (best at both) or disjunction (better in words than deeds). In the poetics of flyting which we have sketched by analyzing solely muthos speeches, both functions emerge. A hero's status as warrior requires him to value fighting over flyting; to speak, if at all, laconically. 52 Yet, to draw attention to his martial ability, the hero must

51The verb here relies on the same image of rushing wind that we saw in other speech criticisms: cf. 2.148, in which the related adjective labros describes the west wind and cf. anemolia used of talk at 4.355.

52See Letoublon (1983) 40-48 on the "rite du defi" as a conventional part of the fight description.


use language well, and be criticized on his performance. The paradox is embodied in Patroklos' words to Meriones. His companion has responded well to Hektor's flyting words by capping Hektor's lines. Compare Hektor's "My spear would have stopped you ... dancer though you are" (16.617) with Meriones' "It is hard for you to quench the strength of all ... strong though you are." The latter mimics Hektor's style exactly, down to the coincidence of metrical segment and subordinate clause at line-end (cf. 618 and 621). Meriones has performed a poetic coup. And although Patroklos halts this neikos by reference to the lesser importance of extended speech, we cannot help but notice that his own warning is itself a finished performance, with a polished gnomic chiasmus, "For in hands is the end of war, of words in the council" (650), and a juxtaposition marked by alliteration: "Therefore it is not necessary to increase the muthos, but to fight (makhesthai)" (631). We may conclude that flyting by its very nature leads to the enactment of a performance with a focus on style, even more so than in the genre of commands. This emphasis becomes even more marked in the formal representation of memories, to which I turn now. 53

Feats of Memory

"Great narrative artists are drawn to abuses of narrative. Homer is interested in lies and boasts, Virgil in lies and rumor, Shakespeare in slander, Milton in temptations, George Eliot and D. H. Lawrence in gossip. "54 But are "lies and boasts" really "abuses of narrative" to the archaic Greek poet? Or are we confusing "narrative" with "factual account"? I believe that in such things as lies and boasts-but most of all in three speech genres which are named muthoi-epic depicts the very essence of narrative. So far we have examined Homeric commands and flyting speeches; the third genre of discourse designated muthos within the Iliad cannot be readily identified with small, embedded genres such as these, but embraces a type underlying both of the others: performances of memory. Furthermore, this third genre

530n verbatim repetition as a valued element in contest poetry, see Herzfeld (1985) 142-43 on Cretan mandinadhes.

54Hardy (1975) 103.

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can be compared with the overarching medium of Homeric poetry itself. As the act of recall which elicits from the Muse the story of the Iliad carries with it the memory of commands and disputes, so the muthos of memory holds a place in the hierarchy of Homeric speeches higher than the others. Yet we shall see that even the acts of recalling and reminding are not isolated in the Iliad from something of speechmaking's agonistic clash. And as with the other genres we have seen, in "feats of memory," too, there are better and worse performers.

The vocabulary of memory in early Greek literature has attracted attention since Milman Parry's studies linking Homer with oral traditions. 55 Only one scholar has, to my knowledge, approached the problem of words for memory and remembering in the Iliad.W. S. Moran has shown that the verb mimneskomai covers a range of activities involving memory: in particular, Homeric diction often uses this term to denote the singing of epic tales within the poem, stories that we can find in other, non-Homeric attestations. 56 Moran's interest is chiefly in demonstrating that the method of Homeric composition is mirrored withi~ Homeric poetry, making the verb "to remember" into nearly a technical term for "singing."

With this relation between "memory" and poetic performance in mind, I wish to expand the investigation of memory by setting it in the context of other sorts of performance within the poem, especially the analogous acts of fighting and speaking. My reason for attempting this comes from our investigation of muthos, for that term leads us to look at speeches of certain types. One of these types is clearly centered on a speaker's recollection and re-presentation of past events. As with the analysis of flyting and commands, it will be most helpful if we examine the larger notion of memory behind such speeches, as well as look at the dozen or so performances that are based "mainly on this act.

The formulaic use of the verb mimneskomai ("recall, remember")" provides a good place to start. (Although the semantics of this verb

55Notopoulos (1938) 465 cites Mnemosyne, mother of the Muses, as "the personification of an important and vital force in oral composition." J.-P. Vemant (1965) and Marcel Detienne (1973) have investigated the interactions among Greek notions of memory, persuasion, truth, and time. For further bibliography, see Svenbro (1976) 3In.88.

56See Moran (1975) esp. 196, 199.


cover a range of meanings, from "call to mind" to "keep in mind," I shall argue that formulaic usage assimilates the several denotations.) We can observe three areas in which these formulas are deployed: to speak of battle; to recall a personality; and to remind divinities of past favors. The last class is the smallest, and we shall not spend time on it here, as the function of the reminding (hypomnesis) in early Greek prayers is generally well known. As I have noted before, prayer is one important genre never designated muthos by the Iliad. The diction surrounding the memory of persons will be examined later in this section; first we will consider the largest class, the use of this verb in formulas that involve battle.

Here, the tendency in Homer toward an economy of dictional elements is well attested. One half-line formula is standard for the narrator's observation that fighters "remembered" battle (mnesanto de kharmes). It occurs when Homer has just described a shift in the war's fortunes as a result of a retreat or a sign from Zeus. 57 Another formulaic full line occurs in the direct speech of the fighters on either side as they urge on their companions at the height of battle: "Be men, friends, remember rushing power" (aneres este, philoi, mnesasthe de thouridos alkes).58 Twice the narrative phrase is transformed into a hortatory subjunctive in direct speech, "Let us be mindful of the battle" (15.477, 19.148) and once into a potential optative (17.103, still in first-person plural). Only once does the reverse transformation occur, at 11.566: "Ajax at times remembered rushing power. "59

By means of these formulas the poet crystallizes two steps in the process of remembering battle. The act itself of "remembering" is rarely dramatized, although interior monologues and the speaker's own assertions can be used to enact this part of the process. More often, the act of reminding is depicted. At times, a speaker makes an explicit reference to memory without using the formulas we have

57See 4.222 and I4.44I (return of Achaeans after wounding of Menelaos, retreat of Hektor); 8.252 and I 5.380 (return to battle after sign of eagle, sign of thunder). Once, the formula is varied to make a negation (I3.722: the Trojans did not remember the fight).

58At 6.II2, 8.I74, II.287, I5.734, I5.487, I6.270, I7.I85. A variant of the direct speech formula, noteworthy for being in the speech of a god, is I3.48, alkes mnesamenii.

59At I6.357, the formula is broken up and merged with another: "They remembered flight and forgot rushing strength." The "forgetting strength" formula occurs elsewhere at 6.265, II.313, and so on.

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seen. Achilles in his speech upon return (19.146-53) uses both strategies, conventional and otherwise:

The gifts, if you wish, offer, as is fit, Agamemnon lord of men, most glorious son of Atreus, or keep them by you. But now let us remember the batde (mnesometha kharmes), right away. For it is necessary not to chatter nor waste time here, for a great deed is still undone. In this way, one may see Achilles again with the front-lines, killing rows of Trojans with a bronze spear. And in this way let anyone of you, remembering, fight a man (memnemenos andri makhesthO).

Glaukos, urging Hektor to fight over Sarpedon's corpse, begins his speech by saying that Hektor has "forg~tten the allies who die for your sake far from friends and fatherland" (16.538-40). In this rhetoric, memory is the mechanism for affirming social bonds and challenging the listener to uphold them. In addition, the topic of memory can be used with rhetorical effect over large stretches of discourse even when there is no overt lexical reference. Furthermore, the act of reminding blends into that of a third enactment, recalling. But even here, as in the scenes just reviewed, memory has a purpose: as a general rule, characters in the Iliad do not remember anything simply for the pleasure of memory. Recall has an exterior goal.

The master of this genre is of course Nestor. In his first intervention in the poem, the old hero uses the device of recalling the past in order to legitimate his claim on authority in the present (1.259-74): "But obey. You are both younger than I. Already I have been with men better than you and they never slighted me." The act of recalling here focuses precisely on Nestor's ability to command: "And they understoood my counsels and obeyed the muthos" (1.273). We can see that the ability to command-mastery of the first muthos genreis enhanced when the speaker has the ability to foreground his own directives by retrojecting the act of command through another rhetorical genre, recollection. This latter genre, apart from commands and flyting, is the only other one to be labeled muthos.

The Iliad seems to leave a gap. Having been shown the persuasive power of Nestor, based on his ability to remember and remind, the audience might well expect him to be the only hero capable of convincing Achilles to rejoin the battle. But this ideal confrontation of generations never occurs. Instead, Odysseus, the speaker whom we have already recognized to be in contention with Achilles for com-


mand of the muthos takes on the job, and fails. Nestor does succeed-but with what seems to us to be the wrong audience, Patroklos. I observed earlier that Odysseus and Nestor practice similar rhetorical tacks in their commanding muthoi to Achilles and Patroklos. Indeed, the central trope in these speeches is explicitly an act of memory. Odysseus had said (of Peleus' speech): "Thus the old man instructed, but you forget" (9.259). Compare Nestor's words to Patroklos, in which the same line recurs (I I. 790). Nor is the strategy of dramatic memory limited to these two speakers. Phoinix, who seems to stand in for Nestor in the embassy scene, uses a long discourse from memory as the centerpiece of his attempt to induce Achilles to come back. "I recall this deed from of old, nothing new indeed, how it was. I will tell it among you, friends all" (9.527).60 The epic tale he proceeds to recount does refer to a past event, but dearly has been shaped in peiformance to address the present audience for the composition, Achilles, with hints embedded in such things as the name of the older hero's wife, Kleo-patra (reminding Achilles of his companion's name, Patro-klos).61

Alongside the presentation of Nestor as ideal speaker in the Iliad is that of Odysseus as another effective performer from memory. It is not, then, inauthentic for Odysseus to be selected as one who tries to persuade Achilles. An earlier episode, however, shows us the differences between the rhetoric of Odysseus and Nestor and may provide more insight on why Odysseus' rhetoric is not quite as good. He performs a muthos to spur the Achaeans into battle in Book 2, just before a similar speech by Nestor. Again, command is combined with memory, and pointed up nearly to the sharpness of a flyting discourse. One could score the speech by noting the shifts in genres of muthos within it. Odysseus begins with flyting: "The Achaeans want to make you [Agamemnon] most shameful of mortal men," he says, comparing the troops to children or women anxious to get home. Now memory takes over: "It is the tenth year at Troy, so I do not blame the Achaeans for chafing." A command intrudes: "Bear up, friends, until we know ifKalkhas is prophesying truth" (2.299-300). This in turn triggers a long rendition by Odysseus of an earlier

600n this speech in its setting, see Rosner (1976) who has full bibliography of previous studies; and see Nagy (1979) III-IS on the semantics of the names, which embody the theme of ancestral poetic glory.

610n the introduction of non-Homeric epic with the verb memnemai see Moran (1975) 204·


prophecy by Kalkhas, at Aulis, when there appeared the sign of the snake who ate the swallows. Precise details-the altar and the springs near it, the snake's color, the number of birds and their cries-these are remembered in the service of dramatic rhetoric intended to convince the Achaeans of the authenticity of the event, but also to raise the status of the one who remembers it. For Odysseus, in recalling the words of Kalkhas, himself exhibits a seerlike ability to describe and interpret what is not present. Memory bestows a mantle on its practitioners. 62

The crucial difference between this type of performance and that of Nestor, as we see it in his long narrative in Book II (656-803) has to do with the self-presentation of the speaker. Although both talk for the same purpose, Odysseus foregrounds himself as performer, explicitly quoting another authority (Kalkhas), whom he then can be seen to overcome in the contest of speaking: Kalkhas, as we saw in Book I, does not even cite his own previous acts, whereas Odysseus remembers all, apparently. Nestor, on the other hand, presents himself not as a speaker, but as a heroic performer of both words and deeds. His narrative of personal experience is convincing because it calls for emulation, even challenge. It becomes the mainspring of memory that powers the entire second half of the poem's action.

_. -;:P" As with commands, memory speeches provoke challenge. They can easily lead to flyting duels. Another speech by Nestor illustrates this shift. We are familiar with his habit of self-citation, to authorize his present speech. His first speech in the Iliad revolves around this and, furthermore, begins with a particularly Nestorian tactic to indi- . cate his dismay: "A great sorrow has come to Akhaia; Priam and his· children might rejoice" (1.245-46). Nestor reuses this strategy in his speech at 7.124-60: "A great sorrow has come to Akhaia. Peleus, the honored horse-driver, would groan." As earlier, he shifts into the mode of recollection, but here, three separate items are recalled, and his memory is thickly layered. He recalls that Peleus once questioned him about Argive genealogy (I. 127-28); he wishes he were young as when he fought the Arkadians (I. 133-57); and embedded in the latter ring-composition is a third memory, the heritage of the armor of Ereuthalion, whom he defeated long ago. This last recollection sounds like antiquarian trivia, unless we realize the importance of

62At the same time, Odysseus resembles the poet that we see in the Odyssey. He uses a quotation formula, in the way that Homer frames speech (see 11.2.330, keinos tos agoreue).


armor as a signifier of heroism in the poem (consider, for example, Achilles' equipment), and further place this narrative sign in the context of genealogical lore, a topic I shall take up shortly. For now, the important point is that all three "memories" described are set in terms appropriate to flyting as the speech ends. "Thus did Nestor make a neikos" (7. I6I). It becomes clear that he has used himself as foil to shame the Achaeans into volunteering for the duel.

When we examine the role of memory in flyting, a cluster of varied rhetorical functions emerges. The technique of contrasting one's own career with the addressee's cowardice or immobility has been analyzed previously in our discussion. A mor:e generally used strategy is the one that Agamemnon tries in urging the defense of the ships: "Shame, Argives, evil disgraces, admirable in form only" (8.228). Abusive language is the lowest skill. But after this line, Agamemnon more skillfully shifts to a rhetorical question: "Where have the boasts gone, when we said we were best, the oaths you idly spoke on Lemnos?" (229-30). In elaborating this tack, Agamemnon dwells on the early scene of free-flowing wine and talk: this topic of food forms a bridge with his second act of recollection, as he remembers the cattle thighs he burnt in sacrifice when he piously honored Zeus at every altar en route to Troy (238-4I). The juxtaposition of these memories shames his hearers, but also serves Agamemnon's purposes for characterizing himself as a consistent personality. The Achaeans have stopped boasting, he implies, but Agamemnon, as the very form of his words show, has not stopped praying to Zeus even now (236, Zeu pater).

Three exchanges between gods can illustrate the versatile social function of remembering and reminding within the context of rebukes. Spoken in a tone of defiance, the words "Don't you remember" introduce a threat. Ares, in a flyting muthos (2I.393), asks Athena, "Don't you recall when you drove Diomedes, son of Tydeus, to wounding, and yourself thrust at me, grasping the spear all could see?" (396-98). Ares turns his earlier injury into a cause for action, in language resembling a legal formulation: "Therefore I now think you will repay me as much as you have done" (399).

A short while later, Poseidon rebukes Apollo with this phrase, in a gentler manner, for supporting the Trojans: "Don't you recall all the ills we suffered, we two alone of the gods, about Troy, we who slaved for Laomedon at a set pay for a year?" (2I.44I-4S). Instead of spurring him to fight, this leads Apollo, by the reminder of Laome-

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don's treachery, to offer an elegiac dismissal of the value of fighting for humankind. But Apollo's twin takes up the neikos (471) and in a third deployment of the discourse of memory says threateningly, "May I never hear you boasting-as you did before among immortal gods-that you fight face-to-face Poseidon." The success of Artemis' abuse becomes a moot point as Hera intervenes to box her ears, but, in view of the rhetorical tack she took, we can gather that having refused a fight would be considered a cause for blame in future boasting events. To deny that an addressee has been consistently heroic is to constrain his further fame.

A slightly different strategy for the flyting hero's use of memory comes in Achilles' words to Hektor not long before he kills him': In view of the genre rules elicted thus far, Hektor has already made a false step even before casting his weapon, because he recalls his own lack of courage. It is a performance foreign to the heroic ethic to say, "I will not flee you as I did before" (22.250-51). Moving aggressively into this rhetorical opening, Achilles brushes aside the proposed treaty to respect one another's corpses (which also goes against the conventional vow to defile another). He uses the rhetoric of repayment and recalls the injury that provokes him, the death of his friend (see 22.271-72 and compare 21.399). Before making this threat, Achilles orders Hektor to "remember every sort of excellence: now you must be spearman and intrepid fighter" (22.268-69). If this sounds like the formulaic "remember strength" formula, we must not overlook the radical change wrought here. For, as we observed, it is always the commander urging on his own troops who uses this turn of phrase. By throwing this familiar encouragement at Hektor, Achilles violates a linguistic constraint, with precisely the same tonal effect as when he uses "winged words" to an enemy.63 The ultimate rhetorical insult to a warrior is to be infantilized or feminized. If Achilles can "remind" Hektor how to fight, he has already negated Hektor's ability to win. 64 This is a strategy Hektor knows as well, since he used a direct "quotation" to Patroklos (the alleged "order" of Achilles, 16.838-41) in order to reduce his adversary to the status of an unthinking, obedient follower of directions.

630n this, see Chapter I. 64For yet another variation on the genre of memory in fiyting, see Achilles' words

to I:;ykaon. Instead of recalling past incidents of violence (for example, the way Zeus threatens Hera at 15.31), Achilles recalls earlier moments of pity, only to contrast them with his determination to kill his victim now (21.100-106).

Heroic Genres of Speaking 8S

Here the rhetoric of recollection comes full circle. A commander's persuasive power, as we saw, depends on an ability to construct memories; so does a warrior's attack on the enemy. The "truth" value of such memories is not an issue; epic "deconstructs," if you like, the very act of memory by showing us its pragmatic underpinnings in such situations. At the same time, there is in the poem an appreciation for the abilities of fictive creation that accords such imaginative use of recollection full quotation-a fascination with the source of narrative, it seems.

That the hero's ability to command or engage in dispute is "poetic" in the widest sense has been my contention throughout this chapter. But I have also tried to show that, from the viewpoint of comparative studies both in Greek and other traditions, giving commands and conducting verbal contests are in fact "poetic" talents even on the more narrowly defined basis, relating to stylized verbal art forms. Even if there is no overt genre label for two of the three genres (the exception being neikos), the rule-bound nature of the discourses within the poem, coupled with the comparative evidence for such poetic genres, should lead us to believe that the construction of the massive epic draws on actually existing social-poetic genres. Memory, for the poet, is not just diachronic but synchronic-the recollection of the way contemporary men and women speak. Or, put another way, the diction of such embedded genres is most likely inherited and traditional; the rhetoric, on the other hand, is the locus of spontaneous composition in performance. As we saw earlier and will find in the next chapter, the way in which heroes speak to one another foregrounds for us this phenomenon of performing to fit the audience.

The last and most crucial strategy in the warrior's repertoire can show us that the genre of memory, like the others, has a poetic congener. For the recitation of genealogy in poetic form is recognized throughout Africa as an essential social genre, and moreover it holds a good claim to be one of the oldest Indo-European genres, attested in Irish, Welsh, Avestan, Old English, Norse, and non-Homeric Greek poetry.65 Homer's own genealogical interests as narrator hardly need illustration: the system of patronymics enshrines this, as do the vignettes in the Catalogue of Ships and more extensive passages such as

650n the African examples, see Finnegan (1977) 189; on Indo-European, Campanile (1981).


the story of Agamemnon's scepter (2.101-9). The las;t-rne:ntlonec passage holds clues as to the relevance of such genealogical mance as a mechanism for creating social cohesion. The role of logical memories within Iliadic speeches is slightly different in tation: the hero uses it to mark his own deeds, as does Achilles killing Asteropaios (21.187-91) or to shame another to act (as Agamemnon and others with Diomedes: 4.375, 5.813). Aeneas' of the genre is ambiguous, since he is clearly characterized as a ter of poetic skills in the language of praise and blame," as his name asserts, yet seems to spend an inordinate amount of time counting his genealogy so as to face down Achilles before a (20.200-258), compared with Achilles, who can afford to wait after the victim is dead. 66 Diomedes' employment of ~C;,llC;'UU~u;ak. recitation is more obviously a device for accomplishing his entree the world of heroic speakers (14.110-27).

If this formal poetic genre within the discourse of memory earns its: performers a place in the world of men, another related genre eases them from that world and into fame: I refer to the poetry of Aided by the work of Margaret Alexiou, we are able to recognize remarkably unbroken poetic tradition in Greece perpetuating this cially important genre. 67 The theme and diction of lament appear have shaped the Iliad and can even be found embedded in the name Achilles, "grief of the fighting-men. "68 Typologically, such a hle:nrt· .. nll

ing of lament themes within epic would not be surprising, as genre of epic seems in some traditions to have arisen from of the type performed at aristocratic funerals. Certainly, many non- " Greek epics feature extended laments, sometimes in another poetic' meter and form, embedded in the narrative. 69 In terms of my empha.., sis on performance, it is significant that the best speaker in the course of the action of Iliad (not just in the ideology of the poem) is Achilles, who happens to be the one hero most practiced in the genre of la-

660n this important scene at 20.200-258, see Nagy (1979) 270-75, esp. 274, on his mastery and on the name of Aeneas. It is worth noting that Agamemnon explicitly refers to an oral tradition combining genealogy and epic treatment, in his speech to Diomedes, since he says that he has only heard ofTydeus, never seen his heroic deeds (4.374-75).

67 Alexiou (1974). 68See Nagy (1979) 69-71 for the theme and details of the etymology. 69See Chadwick and Zhirmunsky (1969) 72 on Central Asian examples, and, on

lament in Beowulf, the work of Opland (1980) 32-38 and Frank (1982). Bowra (1952) 8-10 surveys epic traditions that may have arisen from panegyric.


as we see in his speeches from Book 18 on. It is, as well, the of lament in the context of larger memories that finally unit.es

iru •• ~~-- in thought with Priam and effects the closure of the Iliad, men remembering their losses. 7o But I wish to conclude this

with a slight shift of focus, namely the speech of women, the traditional performers of formal lament in Greek tradition.

The poem's final scene presents a full-scale lamentation with performances by women close to Hektor. His wife Andromakhe mourns for. his early death, praises his protection of the city, and predicts the suffering she will face as a widow with a young child (24.725-45). Hekabe, his mother, dwells on the fine condition of his corpse, as sign of divine favor (748-59). Helen makes a dramatically fitting third mourner, as she has unwittingly caused Hektor's death. This implicit fact structures her lament: even though she may have expected abuse, Hektor never reviled her, and in fact protected her from the remarks of others (762-75).

With this scene in mind, as well as the genre classification of muthos that I have presented thus far, we can finally understand two seemingly anomalous passages in which women at Troy answer back to men by using a muthos. Given the male, heroic in-group orientation of the word muthos, and its association with powerful selfpresentation, it would seem to be a social taboo for women to employ this kind of speech. But it turns out that Helen and Hekabe, both of whom address Priam with a muthos at other points in the poem, are actually enacting laments in the speeches labeled with this word. That is to say, they fulfill an expected performance role, using a recognized genre of muthos as memory-but they are presented as doing so at unexpected times, to create dramatic effect.

The address that Hekabe makes to Priam as he leaves for Achilles' tent is explicitly presented in the language of lament ("she wailed [kokusen] , and answered with a muthos," 24.200). The speech starts with desperate rebukes of Priam's folly in going-we can compare the tone of Andromakhe's lament at 24.743-45, chiding Hektor for not consoling her. Even more explicit is the call for others to join in her mourning, a theme found still in Greek lament. 71 Hekabe concludes with a dramatization of her anger and grief: she could eat the

70The verb mimneskomai occurs with increasing urgency from the death ofPatroklos on; lament usually accompanies it: see 17.671; 19.314, 339; 24.4, 9, 129, 167,486, 504, 509, 602, 613, 475.

71Caraveli-Chaves (1980) 135.

1

;·1 i

J .1


liver of Achilles; only such violence would offer requital. In sum, speech laments both her son, now dead, and her husband; she does not expect to see again alive.

When we first hear Helen in Book 3 of the Iliad, she has come to her husband duel, having been persuaded by Iris and overcome "sweet desire" for Menelaos and her past (3.139). Priam on the overlooking the plain asks her for an exact declaration concerning name ofa hero below (3.166, exonomeneis). That this sort ofa requires a muthos on the part of Helen is confirmed by the she uses later (ounoma muthesaimen, 3.235) in making the Priam wants. But at this point, her naming of the hero is delayed the first speech. Instead, in this reply and only this one, she uses language of lament, recalling her former home and wishing that herself had died when she followed Paris to Troy (171-80). Alive, is wasted with grieving (klaiousa, 176, cf. this verb in Hekabe's ment, 24.208). And she refers to Menelaos as if he were no 10Ilge:r;1I alive (3.180). Rather than being a random variation on a sp,eec:h-. introductory formula, the poet's use here of the line Tovb' ~UeOLOLV a~E(~E'tO, bia yuvmxoov keys an audience by the use of word muthos to a graceful enactment of desire in the context lament. 72

These laIl1entations, by Helen and Hekabe, fulfill the co:nd:Ltlcms,lll for performance that we have seen elsewhere: they are acts of presentation with an emphasis on extension and detail, in a pu setting. The genius of the Iliad lies in having captured such acts within the medium of epic, and used them to humanize archaic figures myth. We turn next to these performers of muthoi. 73

72For himeros applied to a longing for lamentation, see 24.507 and compare with .. 3. 139.

73Two other speeches of Helen are prefaced with a formula featuring the word muthos. At 6.343 she begins a conversation with Hektor using "gentle muthoi." The speech fits the criteria of her performance at 3. 171 -So, containing as it does the same themes of lament and regret; it also foregrounds the very notion of performance, indicating that Helen appreciates the conventions of the epic tradition: 35S. At 3.427, she also begins the dialogue, but her speech is explicitly flyting toward Paris (enipape . muthoi), whose response is framed in similar terms (437). Again, the audience must: judge Helen to have a knowledge of genre, but she is seen to misuse the flyting conventions in a significant way, switching from abuse to a lament theme in midcourse (see 433-36 on her fears that Paris will be killed if he confronts Menelaos). Of course, the other possibility is that she is being sarcastic here, and so resembles more conventional warriors in her abuse.

CHAPTER 3

Heroes as Performers

"A work about death often modulates readily, if eerily, into a work about literature. For death inhabits texts."l In the terms of the Iliad, death generates texts; it is the boundary that one tries to surmount by action in this world. A reputation enshrined in poetry, "unwithering fame" (9.413), is the goal for every hero; but to reach this, each must perform, both by arms and by words. In the previous chapters, I have correlated the performance of deeds with that of a particular sort of important speech, the realm of muthoi. Furthermore, I explored the correlation between these speeches and three "genres of discourse" that play social roles: commanding, flyting, and recollection. I sketched a poetics of each genre.

If we take these speech-genres as the primary types of "performance" by which Homer depicts his speakers, the next step is to ask how the important figures of the Iliad make use of the genres that are available to them. This question can be put in two ways, depending on whether one thinks that epic reports speech events or stylizes them as poetry. But I hope to have shown by now that the distinction cannot always be clearly drawn: commanding, flyting, and acts of memory, when we examine them as separable "genres," already demand to be treated as "poetic" performances, in the sense that they require verbal artistry on the part of the speaker and a commitment to an audience, which in turn, judges the performance. When Homeric poetry portrays a neikos, therefore, it is modeling on the level of epic a

-......... ------------- ------

I


performance that already has been constructed-and must be judged on-an additional level, as a social act of self-presentation. The ern audience of the Iliad can thus ask, as a literary critic might: D Homer depict one hero as a better speaker? If so, how can we The answers would have to come from literary stylistics. Thus far, method has been found to support an answer. But a naive aUQu·; :nce. taking mimesis at face value, might ask: Is one hero a better speaker? i'i

suggest that a traditional oral-poetic audience is "naive" inasmuch it has internalized the conventions of the overarching genre (in case, epic) to the extent that it can focus more than we can on primary, sub generic level, on what a hero says and does, and, important, how he does it. I am adopting this "naive" view because I .. believe that the taxonomy of speech terms has given us a native, internal insight into what constitutes important heroic speech. And this view, I suggest, actually pays more attention to style than does a more "literary" analysis, as the "naive" listener of the Iliad assumes. that individual speakers-in poems or in the world at large-have an inherent "style"; it is not (as criticism has often treated it) something imposed by an "author." Heroes are their own authors, performers in every sense.

Three reasons impel me to this way of thinking about Homeric poetry: the findings of social anthropologists; the comparative material from other traditional literatures; and Homeric poetry itself. First, the work of Victor Turner can be cited for its interpretations of art and culture as coequal symbolic systems:

Each culture, each person within it, uses the entire sensory repertoire to convey messages: manual gesticulations, facial expressions, bodily postures, rapid, heavy, or light breathing, tears, at the individual level; stylized gestures, dance patterns, prescribed silences, synchronized movements such as marching, the moves and "plays" of games, sports, and rituals, at the cultural level. 2

Michael Herzfeld's fieldwork with modern Cretan hills men illustrates perfectly, in a cultural context familiar to Hellenists, the workings of the continuum that Turner describes. It is worth considering Herzfeld's remarks on the importance of style in "performance" before we examine the heroic performers of muthoi in the Iliad. The anthropologist finds that speech and action equally define a "man"

2Turner (1982) 9.

Heroes as Performers 91

among the inhabitants of "Glendi" (his pseudonym for the village in Rethymnon nome where he worked). In order to be "good at being a man" (kal' andras), one must know "how to wield a knife; dance the acrobatic steps of the leader of the line (brostaris); respond in elegant, assonant verse to a singer's mockery; eat meat conspicuously whenever he gets the chance; keep his word but get some profit from it at the same time; and stand up to anyone who dares to insult him."3 Not only are words and deeds both judged, but they are evaluated precisely for style. That is to say, the audience of villagers makes aesthetic judgments, on the basis of a set of conventions (rarely explicit)-a "poetics of manhood." And the "performers" act on the same basis. Glendiot men are in

a constant struggle to gain a precarious and transitory advantage over each other. Each performance is an incident in that struggle, and the success or failure of each performance marks its progress. Since eghoismos [self-awareness] is paradoxically a canon of being differentwhether as a person, or as a representative of kin group, village, or island-its projection is neccessarily poetic: it is the projection of difference for its own sake.4

This notion of "style" as a social dynamic enables us to look at Homeric speeches anew, as so many variations by the individual hero on essential (and therefore, conventional) topics, rather than as a literary technique of variatio on the part of Homer. If we stress the role of the performers within the poem, furthermore, and take seriously the speeches as actual moves in a social game, we can perceive that Homer makes implicit indications regarding heroic status with each new "performance" he depicts. This is not to give Homer the role of ethnographer; nor do I claim that the Achaeans are just like Glendiot men. But neither do I think that the emphasis on speech in the Iliad is simply a poetic choice. Anthropology can also show us that some cultures are in fact more concerned with speech-performance than others: the Anang of Nigeria prize the ability to speak wittily and yet meaningfully on all occasions, we are told; the Rundi value eloquence and bragging; traditional Irish communities put great em-

3Herzfeld (1985) 124. On the reciprocal nature of word and deed, see also p. 140 (an insignificant deed "dhe lei prama"-does not "say" anything).

4Ibid. 1 I. On the resultant rhetorical poses adopted by Glendiots, see p. 16.


phasis on verbal ability and "crack. "5 In a traditional culture, Burundi, the power of speaking is so prized that training in it comes an essential part of upbringing.

The ideal of good breeding and aristocracy, iin}Ura, includes "speaking well" as one of its principal elements. From about the tenth year, boys in the upper strata are given formal speech-training. The "curriculum" includes composition of impromptu speeches appropriate in relations with superiors in age or status; formulas for petitioning superiors for a gift; composition of amazina, praise-poems; quick-witted, selfdefensive rhetoric intended to deflect an accusation or the anger of a superior. Correct formulas for addressing social inferiors, for funeral orations, for rendering judgement in a dispute, or for serving as an intermediary between a petitioner and one's feudal superior are learned in the course of time as, with increasing age and maturity, each type of activity becomes appropriate. Training includes mastery of a suitable, elegant vocabulary, of tone of voice and its modulation, of graceful gestures with hand and spear, of general posture and appropriate bod-ily movements, of control of eye-contacts, especially with inferiors, and above all, of speedy summoning of appropriate and effective verbal response in the dynamics of interpersonal relations. 6

In the description of such a culture, much sounds familiar to the Homerist, who sees in it the Iliadic notion that a hero can and must be taught to be a "speaker of words (muthoi) and a "doer of deeds" (9:443).

We might also notice how the ethnographer is naturally drawn to describe such training in terms of "formulas." It is essential that we keep in mind this cultural bias toward "formulaic" expression as we read the "poetic" formulas of the Homeric poems: only a deracinated, print culture would view Homeric formulas as devices to aid the composition of poetry. Rather, they belong to the "composition," if you like, of personal identity in a traditional world. And just as it is obvious that different individuals "perform" their social roles in such cultures through various manners with different degrees of success,

San Anang, see Hymes (1974) 33-34; on Rundi, Saville-Troike (1982) 172. Both offer counterexamples of cultu~es that do not have these values, for example, the Navaho and Gbeya. I have experienced the Irish situation firsthand in Cois Fhairrge, Connemara.

6Albert (1972) 77. For a full-length study of such training in expressive speech in West Indian society, and its role in the community, see Abrahams (1983).


should assume that traditional poets have a corresponding freem of expression, no mat!er how "formulaic" the medium in which

they have been trained. Cor Huso, the Montenegran epic singer, impressed his stamp on tradition; other singers might consciously choose to remain anonymous "classicists" in the performance of their

. traditions. 7 Homer certainly belongs in the former group. But the point is that both "formulaic" speech culture and the poetry arising from it allow-indeed require-the individual to have a distinct style. 8 We can juxtapose the remarks of investigators working at the temporal extremes of the Greek tradition and deduce the same conclusion. Herzfeld tells us: "In Glendiot idiom, there is less focus on 'being a good man' than on 'being good at being a man' -a stance that stresses performative excellence, the ability to foreground manhood by means of deeds that strikingly 'speak for themselves. ,,, Actions, in such a context, undergo "stylistic transfiguration."9 Such a sense of agonistic style structures heroic behavior in Homer, where "the most important value-terms ... are agathos [good], esthlos [noble], arete [excellence], kakos, kakotes [base; baseness], aiskhron [ugly], and elenkheie [disgrace]. These commend successes or decry failures in the field of competitive excellences. "10 And such a sense guides the poet, who "composes with formulae, and it is by his choice apd combination of them that he is judged."l1

Comparative evidence from other literary traditions can also show us that it is worthwhile to regard heroes as style-conscious performers. Richard Bauman's study of thirteenth-century Icelandic sagas leads him to the conclusion that "artistic verbal performance and the performance of honor were mutually interdependent elements of a larger performance complex of central moral significance in Icelandic society." Insouciant heroism showed itself, for example, in the way a man acted at the moment of his death; in turn, saga records the "performance." The value system of shame, praise, and honor, called drengskapr, "was a performance domain par excellence, characterized by the display of signs of moral worth before an au-

7See Lord (1960) 5, 63, 93, and Vesterholt (1973) 32-37. 8In this context, compare Crowley (1983) 136 on the apparent paradox that the

folklorist encounters: "We find that to be a traditional Bahamian storyteller, one is required to create."

9Herzfeld (1985) 16. lOAdkins (1960) 23. llBowra (1972) 29.


dience with conscious attention to good form in the pursuit and reputation. "12 Good form in speaking is central in this quest reputation, Bauman notes. It is not just what a hero does, but what says, that catches the eye of the saga composer. 13

In other traditions, heroes double as nonprofessional poets: the eighteenth-century Swahili epic Katirifo, which features a of such heroic performers, engaged in songs of self-praise. A introduction for their compositions runs, "He declared a poem in the middle of the battle. "14 This skill is itself a subject for boasting;, the hero Ali responds to an insulting challenge to identifiy himself: "I ',. am the miraculous knight, I who do not fear wars. I can compose' poetry. "15 We have already seen in Chapter 2 that the hero requires:l memory for phrases and genealogies akin to that of the poet. Other epic traditions show that praise, blame, and lament songs within the narrative play a large role in the characterization of a hero. This is certainly true of Homeric poetry as well: we have only to consider the' depiction of Hektor that occurs in the laments of Book 24 by Helen, i

Andromakhe, and Hekabe.16 Now I would add that the very act of . composing boasts, commands, insults, and stories from memory characterizes the speaker within the poem as a particular type of ' performer, since these discourse types constitute poetic "genres" outside epic that are subject to audience evaluation in traditional societies.

The system of praise and blame that operates within Homeric society conceivably might have remained implicit in the Iliad. Yet this did not happen. Instead, we see from the start that Homer's Achaeans and Trojans refer to the system itself: they have a "metalanguage," a system of terms about speech. Odysseus warns Diomedes, "Son of Tydeus, neither praise nor blame me very much. For you are speaking these things among the Argives, who know" (10.249-50). In his remark, the "performance" of Diomedes-ainos or neikos-is placed against Odysseus' own understanding of his heroic worth with the

12Bauman (1986) 146, 143. 13Ibid. 143. The mutually reinforcing nature of poetic and heroic performances

is further shown by the existence of sagas about poets, detailing their employment of the art during adventures of a heroic type. This tradition bears a strong resemblance to the Lives of Homer and Contest of Homer and Hesiod narratives.

14Knappert (1983) 104-5. 15Ibid. 120. On boasts and wagers in epic, see Bowra (1952) 51. 160n eulogy especially, see Ba§g6z (1978) 31.


realization that an Achaean audience would be eager to notice discrepancies between the twO. 17 Put another way, Odysseus is here concerned with Diomedes' speech style. Not only are heroic performers their own "authors," then, but they fill the role of "critic" as well, since all speech in Homer takes place in an agonistic context. The poet's concern with ranking heroes emerges clearly in catalogues and invocations within the Iliad (see e.g. 2.577, 673, 760,). An elaborate system of judging heroic worth is explicitly foregrounded in the poem through such narrative devices; Irina Shtal' has shown that the entire system of epithets for heroes fits within the context of critical praise. 18 I want to point out that the speeches that Homer gives his characters further this narrative strategy, as can be seen splendidly in the teikhoskopia in Book 3, a device designed to turn the narrator's exposition of mundane fact into a dramatically persuasive scene. But at the same time, the speeches embody an assumption, often overlooked: that heroes themselves can evaluate one another's "style," particularly in the act of speaking. To return for a moment to the wall of Troy: we should notice that along with characterizing Agamemnon and the others in terms of physique and prowess, this scene serves to show us speech styles, through the reminiscences of Antenor. And the details he notices when recalling an earlier visit to Troy by Menelaos and Odysseus relate specifically to the "performance" of muthoi (3.212-23):

"But when they wove speeches (muthoi) and plans for all, Then, you know, Menelaos discoursed in running fashion, Speaking little, but very clearly (ligeos), since he is not much with

words (polrimuthos) nor one to cast words about (apharmatoepes). And indeed he was

younger. But when indeed Odysseus much with wiles (polumetis) got up, he'd stand, he'd look down fixing his eyes on the ground,

170n this passage, see Nagy (1979) 34-35. Nagy (1986) 89-102 examines the interrelation of the attested genre of praise-poetry, as in Pindar, with Homeric epic.

180n ranking, see especially Kotopoulos (1977). Shtal' (1983) 97-105 examines epithets; on the implications for characterization, see pp. 175-90. See also, on ranking, Letoublon (1983) 43-44. The gods are shown engaging in rating one another's worth (20.122-23). For an illustration of the rhetorical use of rating, see Idomeneus' speech at 13.310-27.


the scepter- he would not move it back or forth, but kept holding it still, looking like a witless man. You would say he was some stricken, simply unintelligent person. Yet when he let the great voice out of his chest, and the words (epea), like winter flakes of snow, that is when no other mortal could contend with Odysseus."

Antenor assumes that there is a code of behavior for speakers in such situations, a set of performance conventions: one should move the scepter to make a point, for instance. It is worth noting that the conventions resemble in many ways the traditional speaking behavior taught in contemporary oral cultures, as we have seen in the example of Burundi culture. As it turns out, Odysseus employs an unconventional strategy for capturing his audience, a style that plays off the shared knowledge of conventions, and thereby foregrounds Odysseus' rhetorical act. By creatively modifying traditional material (the way one holds the scepter), Odysseus brings about a memorable performance. He creates a contrast between his appearance and the reality of his oratorical power; he characterizes himself by a muthos, the perfect vehicle, as we have seen, for self-presentation. Precisely such regard for speech style has been taken by some as an indication of the sophistication and (by implication) the literary value of Homer. As Gotoff notes, "The distinction between the laconic style of Menelaos and the copiousness of Odysseus in Iliad 3, with the accompanying descriptions of their deliveries, bespeaks an author well aware both of stylistic variety and ethopoiia. The three embassy speeches to Achilles in Iliad 9 demonstrate a sophisticated knowledge of kinds of argumentation and various effects they have on the psychology of Achilles. "19 Given what we know about performance as a strategy of self-presentation, however, we must now recognize such stylistic awareness as a cultural, and not just a "sophisticated," poetic process. The former may actually enable the latter to occur. \

The heroes' concern with speech style springs, then, from the need to differentiate oneself and to establish status, an imperative that we have found in ethnographic descriptions of competitive cultures. This relation between status and speech is also explicit in the words of heroic performers. That the status of a person is rated before the hero's speech emerges from Diomedes' remark, after he has given his genealogy in full, that the Achaeans cannot now devalue his perfor-

19Gotoff (I982) 57.


mance (muthon atimesaite, 14.127) by calling him strengthless and ignoble. Similarly, Odysseus "pulls rank" on Achilles by explicitly contrasting their special strengths, then relying on his own status as elder to demand compliance to his own muthoi (19.216-20):

"Achilles, Peleus' son, most powerful Achaean, you are stronger than I am, and, not a little, more powerful at the spear. In thought, at least, though, I could surpass you by far, since I was born earlier and I know more. Therefore let your heart endure my commands (muthoisin emoisin). "

So speech style, status, and ranking must be taken as related manifestations of the workings of the all-important concept of time ("honor, value, worth, recompense").20

The notion of time depends on a basic sense of structured inequalities, as can be seen in the instructions of Nestor at 1.278-79: "Never does a scepter-bearing king, to whom Zeus gave glory, have as portion (emmore) an equal value (time)." "Portion" and "proportion" are inextricable, and it is not coincidental that heroes gauge each other's speech by calling it kata moiran, "according to proper portion. "21 The problem of the Iliad appears to be rooted in the clash of two systems: status-based time and performance-based judgments, the latter an almost economically pragmatic "market-value. "22 But, in a different view, this is really just one system, in which status must always be re-created anew by performance, while it is concurrently threatened by the perfnrmance of other heroes. (Thus, in Agamemnon's view, Achilles' offense is to wish to "speak as an equal" and "be likened openly" to the king: the first implies the second-1. 186-87.) Speech, in the creative use of it that heroes make, puts the system in motion; the abuse of speech brings the system to a halt. Agamemnon's gifts alone should not persuade Achilles, because he does not accompany them (despite Nestor's warning) with the proper style, of "gentle words" (9. 113), but allows Nestor to send a traditional enemy of Achilles in the place of the chief. Ironically, Odysseus is given his

200n the semantics of this concept, see Adkins (1960) and Nagy (1979) 149. 21 For a similar interpretation of this phrase with different application, set; Nagy

(1979) 134. Proportionality, rather than factual accuracy or detail, is uppermost in this view, pace Finkelberg (1987).

22Note the verb in description of a woman/prize, "She knew many works and they rated her at four-cow worth" (tion de he tessaraboion, 23.705).


charge with words that fit exactly Odysseus' own speech strategy status flaunting (9.160-61): "And let him submit to me inasmuch am kinglier and assert that I am more advanced in ancestry progenesteros). "23 The strategy is proportionate with Odysseus' uF. ... ~'illI

ing worth, so mere reference to status might carry some .... "'JL"U ... "l

weight. In the case of Agamemnon, such rhetoric is overcharged using it corrodes the heroic system.

To sum up at this point: ethnography, other literatures, and Iliad itself concur to convince us of the necessity and consciousness individual style in traditional society. The heroes of the Homeric. poems surely possess individual styles; furthermore, I suggest that "

•• 1

these are not mere literary constructs, but are based on a deeper social" reality. All this would perhaps seem too obvious to reiterate were it • not for two trends affecting recent Homeric study. First, the influential works of Bruno Snell have accustomed critics to believe that the "individual" did not exist as a category of Homeric thought; personal style we are told is only "discovered" in the "lyric age. "24 This trend has combined with a second, found in a too-general application of .: Milman Parry's work, which amounts to a type of behaviorism, a claim that neither Homer nor his creations could speak with individual style. 25 The first approach has begun to lose ground from one border thanks to careful studies showing the conventional nature of Greek lyric poetry. Rismag Gordesiani has challenged the second notion as it applies to Homeric characters, who are painstakingly depicted as individuals, however conventional the medium of Homeric poetry might be. 26 A full-scale critique of the second trend must await my analysis of formulaic poetry in the next chapters; for now, I point out that individual heroic "style" at some level has been recognized by readers of Homer from antiquity on. 27 Moreover, even !

23For the ambiguity of Agamemnon's last phrase, which can be translated either "older" or "of older stock," compare 9.58 and 23.789-90 (justifying the former) with I 1.786 (where genee refers to ancestry). Zeus makes a similar threat at 15.166-67, which seems to require the former meaning.

24See the critique of this view by Calame (1983) 253-58. I have elsewhere attempted to refute the "rise of the individual" school of thought: see Martin (1983).

250n this trend, see Cramer (1976) 300. 26Gordesiani (1978) 291-307 has a critique and bibliography. 27See in particular Dionysius Hal. Compo 24 and Eustathius, edit. van der Valk,

vol. 2, li-Ixx.


's ... «""---- who embrace oral-formulaic poetics in some form have rec"'OQ~Im~CU characteristic traits related to the speech behavior of certain

figures. Norman Austin notices how Kalkhas cites precedent in his speech to establish reliability; Adam Parry sees Menelaos as always being persuaded by speech; Owen Cramer writes that Odys

, seus "is made to tailor rhetoric to an audience and situation but occa-sionally, to burst out with a characteristic, eccentric speech on some

. I . "28 speCla toplC. The work of finding characteristic style among Homeric heroes has

not advanced beyond impressionistic asides, however, mainly because an acceptable method for working on the problem has not been devised. 29 In the study of style, more so than with any other feature, we require all that the original performance situation would give. An informed view about the style of the poet Homer is nearly impossible in the absence of other long epic productions from his time. Paradoxically, a determination of the style of individual speakers within the Iliad appears closer to attainment because we have a number of "performances" from each of the major heroes: 960 verses of Achilles' speech, about 500 each for Hektor and Agamemnon, slightly less for Odysseus, Nestor, and Diomedes. In sheer length, the number of verses attributed to these men riV'als some heroic poems in other verse traditions, such as the South Slavic.3o Even if we take into consideration the "copying" phenomenon noticed by Lohmann (in paired speeches, replies tend to follow the structure of the first), the surface of discourse would seem to vary so that individual style might be detected. 31 In a mouel study of individual variation in traditional storytelling, the folklorist Daniel Crowley has shown the ways in which tellers of "old-story" in Bahamian communities leave their mark: unique phrases and motifs, special gestures, postures, or favorite sound combinations occur with consistency in the performances of the best tellers.32 Although we cannot use the sociolinguists' recorders or the folklorists' fieldnotes, a few of these possible systems of

28Austin (1966) 304, A. Parry (1972) 17, Cramer (1976) 303. 29Griffin (1986) reviews the few works written, and offers some valuable

remarks regarding diction and morphology: 30For the figures, see Gordesiani (1986) 93-94. 31Lohmann (1970). 32Crowley (1983) 45-128. On isolating contextual styles, see Labov (1972) 70-

109; on the privileging of certain grammatical constructions in various narrative styles, see Pike (1981).

r-"""" 1: 0 __ ff U)

L:J ~ "- '


variation remain for us in the text of the Iliad and might be recover_ able through microscopic philological study, not yet done, on individual phrases or sound sequences. I attempt this with a portion Achilles' language in the next chapters.

Meanwhile, we can consider the results of a few investigations into characterizing style in Homer and other traditions, to suggest where we might look for "individuality." Because adjectives are emotive words, some stylistic contrasts might depend on their use. Gordesiani has demonstrated that Achilles, Agamemnon, and Hektor all use nearly the same percentage of adjectives (about 10 percent of the total number of words given each speaker). The specific adjectives used by these heroes tend to be quite individualized, however: 59 percent of Hektor's adjectives are not used by Achilles, who has 74.7 percent unlike Hektor's; Agamemnon's adjectives match Achilles' only in 40.8 percent of the occurrences, while Achilleshas 71.9 percent that he does not share with Agamemnon. The conclusion must be that the epic consciously seeks to differentiate heroes by their speech in at least one way.33 Glimmers of such characterization, at different levels of the discourse, come from other epic traditions. It is significant that the Cid in the Spanish epic "is the one most disposed to verbal play. "34 On the level of formulaic language, Cynewulf's Old English poems Juliana and Elene distinguish the direct speech of negative characters by making it noticeably less formulaic (in terms of repeated diction) than that of the protagonist. 35 And Bhima in Sanskrit epic tradition can be distinguished from other characters on the level of speech-act: he performs almost exclusively curses, vows, and the granting of boons. 36

Let us return once more to Homer's Iliad. At what level do the heroes explicitly judge another's discourse? This is not to exclude the possibility that Homer may be signaling heroic capacity at speaking through metrical, phonological, or morphological means. But do the speakers themselves ever refer to these means? No; heroic performance gains approval when it is persuasive, as we saw in the preceding chapter. And the sign of persuasion is that speech moves others to act in sympathy with the speaker. We have seen already that the

33Gordesiani (1986) 91-93. 34Read (1983) IS. 350lsen (1984) 88. 36Smith (1980) 70.


genres associated with the word muthos qualify as important speech types, designed specifically to persuade. The study of style should start with muthoi speeches and those discourses cognate to such speeches which happen to be introduced without the word. In brief, by analyzing these important speech-acts-the discourses of command, flyting, and memory-in the words of major Iliadic characters we will find material enough to make stylistic distinctions regarding the speech of individual heroes. Let us begin with two, the ideal speaker and the worst.

Nestor and Thersites

Nestor ofPylos enters the Iliad just when it seems all speech must fail: Achilles has attacked Agamemnon afresh with a stream of abuse (1.223-44) ending with a threat to the very notion of authority in the assembly, the symbolic casting down of the skeptron. But the arrival of the faintly preternatural Pylian, who has seen two previous generations perish (ephthiath', 251), renews the dialogue of the contending speakers long enough for them to reach a rough agreement (1.285-303). Several features of this entrance catch our attention. To begin with, the very first effort of Nestor at persuasion succeeds. In a system that judges style by results, Nestor holds a preeminent place; this characteristic will mark all his speech in the poem. The speech he makes on arrival is highly iny_e}ltiyejn_attemptiJ1K~~ __ <!ppeas~ separareaiiruences-;-the---f\.Vo flyting heroes and the Achaeans in cam-p..37JV1oyeover, the syntax and discourse st!}lcture of the speech enact, we might say~t1ienotionof m:utuarSuPport~~-~ woras:-:B~;ry-str-uciures ab()uild,~presentiiigarlletorical mOdel,

or icon, for two-sidedness. Consider the following only (1.254-84):

A great sorrow has come to Akhaia / There might rejoice Priam / and Priam's children Other Trojans might be glad / if they hear of these two fighting Who excel at counsel / and at fighting Both are younger than me / I once consorted with better than you I never saw such men / nor may I see As Peirithoos / and Dryas . . . They were boldest / and fought with boldest . . .

370n this speech as an example of good political rhetoric, see White (1984) 37.


And I fought on my own / But with them no one now might fight And they understood my counsels / and obeyed my muthos But you too obey / for obeying is better You, do not take the girl / but let go Nor should you, son ofPeleus want to strive with kings / since

never a king had an equivalent value If you are stronger / a goddess mother bore you But he is more powerful/since he rules over more.

Agamemnon's comment, that Nestor has spoken kata moiran, can be taken literally: the command to be reconciled is rigorously "proportionate" at the poetic level, down to the rhythm and structure of each verse, as it is at the rhetorical level, according praise and blame equally to Agamemnon and Achilles. In fact, Nestor resembles the perfect praise-poet in the ideology of the Indo-European tradition precisely because he enacts this egual distribution. It is worth noting in this connection that the epithet "having sweet words," heduepes, with which he is introduced in our Iliad (1.248), has a long heritage in this tradition, and furthermore, refers to divine speech within Greek archaic poetry. 38

The application of gnomic precedents and the employment of recollection present two more speech-act-related features characteristic of Nestor in this speech and in all his performances. Not only does Nestor say "obey" two times, to frame his reminiscences about his early fighting career (259, 274-same metrical position); the second mention of the theme prompts a proverbial statement, "since to obey i's better." This leads into a second generalizing statement, also proverbial in tone, about the privileges of a scepter-bearing king (278). The two strategies, -PLQverbs _and re.mllections, are related, in that both require the formal present'!!~y," one on the level of narrative, the othei1It;rtofthe phrase. Again, as with all speeches, we could view these devices as generally Homeric. Austin noted that "coherence, lucidity, prolixity, expansive reminiscences couched in a more elaborate, even Pindaric rhetoric of ring-composition, balance, antithesis ... can mark the moment of despair or consternation in the Iliad as effectively as those stark silences (as when Achilles hears news ofPatroklos's death), which strike us with such force." In other

380n the heritage, see Schmitt (1967) 255, who cites Rig Veda I.1l4.6 for the cognate phrase, and Hymn. Hom 32.2, Hesiod Theogony 965, 1021 (= Muses' phrase).


words, "Nestorian" speech characteristics are used by the poet with effect, no matter who the speaker might be: Phoinix, for example, uses such devices. I would agree, but argue further that the Iliad gives such speech style the highest value in the composition, associates it in its fullest form with Nestor, and depicts other heroes as striving to achieve a Nestorian fluency, length, and authority.39 Of equal significance, however, is our finding that the style of Nestor, which has struck many critics as a caricature of geriatric loquacity, in fact duplicates the most esteemed style in a number of oral cultures today. The Arab proverb, "Enough repetition will convince even a donkey," encapsulates the value attached in one rhetorical tradition to syntactic parallels, lexical couplets, figures of etymology, and paraphrases. Such devices are highly prized in a tradition where presentation and not "proof" (in the Western sense) is persuasive. 40 A good speaker among the Haya is expected to "spice up" speech with "savory bits," bilungo: proverbs, sayings, quotes, and tales. 41 And the Somali orator must possess "a good command of the seemingly endless store of Somali proverbs. "42 The binary structures and gnomic sayings of Nestor's orations, then, have a good chance of representing an actually preferred speech style among archaic Greeks-not just one Homer happened to use.

_ Nestor employs the gnomic statement in a variety of ways. He joins the present need for fighters with his own past heroic career, in Book 4, by contrasting in a binary pair the kouros he was with the geras that now oppresses him, generalizing: "The gods did not give all to men all at once" (4.320). The statement effectively plays against the tenor of the rest of the speech, by suggesting that Nestor is still most knowledgeable even though he cannot fight as he used to. Sometimes, it is true, the gnomic quality of his speech borders on thee obvious, as when he assures Agamemnon that "it is not possible for the wounded to battle." (14.63). In context, however, we see that

39Austin (1966) 301-3 sees all Nestor's "digressions" as essential hortatory paradigms_ For his remarks on the use of this style, see p_ 307. Quintilian 12_ 10_64 recognized Nestor's style as summa focundia. M. Edwards (1987) 5 observes that Nestor is "prolix not because he is old but because what he has to say is always important." Because style is a sign of importance, it becomes something of a prize object in the agonistic speeches of the poem.

40See Koch (1983) 48-56. 41Seitel (1974) 54. 42Lewis (1986) 139.


even here the gnomic device is meant to soften Nestor's "VJ'lUJl1<lllUS~~ in a manner to be contrasted with Agamemnon's directive strate:gi(~s,~ At times, an entire command by Nestor depends on proverbial ment, as when he directs Diomedes to leave battle, "For now grants glory to this one, today; later, to us, ifhe wants, he will give A man could never draw out the intent of Zeus, even ifhe were strong, since he is much more powerful" (8.141-44). Nestor obeyed, then, because he defers to a higher authority, one he seems know with intimate theological insight. No other hero reads the . as well as he does. This authoritative force, when integrated in a longer discourse, gives to Nestor's formulations not merely a stative but even performative force, in the terms of speech-act theory. When he says to the council before the embassy, "Withouti brotherhood, without tradition, without hearth is the one who de-I sires cruel war within the people (a<j>QtltwQ aeEf,tLOto~ aVEotL<)~ EO-I tLV EXELVO~ I o~ :rtoAEf,tou/EQUtm E:rtL~hlf,tLOU oXQu6cvto~, 9.63-64), the statement is the equivalent of a pronouncement: "Let such a one: be without any standing." The archaic asyndeton reinforces our feel-' ing that this is a traditional legal-religious phrase. 1

Twice Nestor's gnomic statements allude to the use of speech. We' have already seen the first saying, "To obey is better." The second plays a pivotal role in the speech urging Patroklos to beseech Achilles: "Good is the encouraging speech (paraiphasis) of a companion" (11.793). This gnomic saying turns out to be ironically appropriate in the case of Patroklos, working at the price of his own death. But it also draws our attention to a further characteristic of Nestor's words-the explicit concern with speech, speech style, and the effect of oratory . We see this in his rebukes, decrying the forgotten oaths, compacts, and counsels of the Achaeans when their morale is low (2.339-41). He frames his displeasure at the troops in terms of speech: not only are the Achaeans childlike, they "speak like infantile children" (2.337-38). He draws a contrast between battle and flyting words (epeess' eridainomen, 2.342). The underlying dichotomy between effective speech and mere words is one we might pose in terms of epos and muthos. Note that Nestor confidently asserts his own speaking power by denying the former, "mere word": ou tOL a:rt-6~A.l]tov E:rtO~ EOOetm, OttL xev d:rtw (2.361; "Not a toss-away word will I speak"). He affirms instead the weight of his own muthoi: "They obeyed my command" (muthOi, 1.273); "I will order with counsel and commands" (muthois, 4.323). In this connection, we must


remember that Nestor is depicted as actually instructing other heroes in the use of speech within the Iliad at least twice, in the scene we analyzed earlier when he performs for Diomedes' edification the proper way to enacUl muthQ.s (9.52-78), and later, when he instructs the embassy meu{bers on the technique to be used in persuading Achilles (9.179-81). The control of speech, furthermore, appears to rest with Nestor~~~ction as rep~~ of Ach~~!l:_g-~ons, the old !!gI1~R(!cifl~ally-rep-or.ts::-the....du.tie.s-.cl"JZings, and does so-interms~f ~~~h. 43 He reminds Agamemnon that the king ~lnpe-ak a word and listen, and give authority to another, whenever one's thumos impels him to s"peak for the good" (9.100-103).44 While thus preserving the ideology of~ reciprocal s eech situation? including both sides under the terms of his speech, he also exc u eS heroes from the arena of speech, by having pronounced "without themis" one who wars with the group: notice that the king has "scepter and traditions" (themistas, 9.99). The pairing implies that both are necessary for the authoritative enactment of speech.

Not only is he advisor to the king and instructor of heroes in speech; NestQr, in Homer's description (10.212-14) of the night foray, actually promises kleos':"-fame as enshrined in oral tradition-to whoever undertakes the" dangerous mission.

"Great would be his fame beneath "the heaven toward all men, and for him there would be fine gifting."

The power to guarantee fame in the tradition would seem to put Nestor on a level with such divine speakers as the Muses, with whom the epithet heduepes, "sweet-voiced," has already associated him. It is less surprising, in this context, to hear the old hero introduce remarks later in this book with "shall I tell a falsehood or shall I speak truly?" (10.534). Like the Muses ofHesiod, who assert that they can tell truth or lies (Theogony 27-28), Nestor's control of the medium is absolute. This adds a new dimension to his commands and rebukes in the Iliad.

It might be argued that we are veering away from the study of style and into "characterization" or narrative when we examine what Nes-

43For this role of the instructor of princes in the cognate traditions of Old Irish literature, see Martin (1984).

440n the last phrase, which is a characteristic of Nestor's idiom, compare II. 789, his quoting of Menoitios, and 23.305, the phrase introducing his instructions for Antilokhos.


tor says about speech, rather than how he makes his speeches. line between style and other aspects of the poetry is difficult to exactly because Homeric ideology would conflate the two: style is man. We can, however, be more specific about the level at stylization occurs. Now that we have looked at some distinctive vidual features, it is time to turn to Nestor's repertoire of a whole. We find that the totality of his performances marks as a unique orator, a speaker whose rhetoric rests on eulogy. makes thirty-two speeches in the poem, ranging in length from 2 147 lines. Eighteen different speech-introduction formulas pany these, so it is impossible to say that the poet characterizes at this level; of these, only five contain the word muthos (2 10.203, 81, 190; and 23.305). Yet, when analyzed in terms of genre discourse, all but three of the speeches Nestor makes fall under muthos categories we have previously identified. 45 .Most . the distribution among categories is unique: Nestor can make commands (e.g. 7.327, his instructions to build the wall); but rarely does. He can use the language of flyting; he does so with idiosyncratic use of the conventions. The discourse of what

To Nestor's range of speeches: the imperatives directed at Agamemnon and Achilles Nestor's first intervention are clear enough (1.259, 274, 282, indirect command at 283-84); but the medium in which these "~'-""U"'1. acts float is of a different nature, a long recollection of his fight a5CUl""~" the Centaurs. Again, a straightforward command to keep the together becomes, in Nestor's rendition, a reminiscence, and he O"i",piil.

the background motivations for his own commands, in a way other hero attempts, saying, "That is the way the men of old sacked cities and walls" (4.308). The command at 15.661-"be men is filled out by Nestor in a manner unparalleled in the other occur-', rences of this formula, as he calls for the Achaeans to remember, "raging strength," the usual phrase (e.g. 8.174), but "children wives and estate and parents" (15.663). In other words, his ment of recollection differs markedly, whether it be of other times " other places and persons. Of c~urse, the best illustration of memory' in the service of an order is Nestor's long and persuasive performance

45The exceptions are 10.128-30 (simple statement), 15.370-76 (prayer), and" 10.532-39 (prediction).


in Book II, in which the story of the Pylian and Epeian is recounted. I discussed this speech at some length in Chapter 2;

. recollection has

!i..EQ~:..p.!~2!!!~~~~~~~~~!E~~~: That is, narrator's control over battle description only

composition passes to Nestor: his "speech" is an Iliadic narraof a neikos (see 11.671).46

Agamemnon responds after one early speech by Nestor, "Again defeat the sons of Achaeans in speaking, old man" (2.370), an

lJLlI,UF,'" indication that Nestor is unmatched when it comes to the of words in which every hero is involved in the Iliad. AI

rrIlJu><.u he practices rebukes, his style in this genre is also characteristic for its tonal nuances. The strategy that we have seen Agamemnon and Odysseus use, of mentioning status to enforce orders, occurs in Nestor's speech but with a different orientation. In a gently instructive turn, he tells Diomedes: "You talk intelligently to the kings, since you spoke in proportion" (kata moiran, 9.59). "But come, I, who

.. claim I am more honored/ older than you (geraiteros) will speak out and narrate everything. " When he does begin a neikos with Diomedes (10.158, neikese), Nestor changes his tone after the younger hero calls him "hard to deal with" (amekhanos, 167). He pauses and recollects: yes, there are other, less elderly Achaeans who could rouse the camp, but the crisis requires him, says Nestor. The merest hint of flyting rhetoric comes just at the end of this speech, when he hurls back the topic of old age that Diomedes brought up and twists it into pointed reason for Diomedes to follow his own command: "for you are younger" (10.176). A similar deflection of criticism had already occurred earlier in the scene, when Nestor, speaking to Agamemnon, declares he will rebuke (neikeso, 10.114) Menelaos for not being awake, "even though he is close in affection and respectful" (philon ... aidoion). Both the indirect nature of this rebuke (which Agamemnon assures him is not needed) and the hesitant phrasing show Nestor's reluctance to practice this genre of discourse. Only a regard for fairness and for

46Compare for instance the turn of phrase at 11.750-51, "Now ... I would have taken ... had not ... " with Homer's narrative at 8.131-32. On Homer's technnique of appositional expansion as like Nestor's speech, see Thornton (1984) 106-7. Stories of raiding are an identifiable genre in the "poetics of manhood"; see Herzfeld (1985) 163-205, who notes the initiatory character of such raids and recountings.

i'


proportionate speech impels him to mention the subject (cf. not conceal" at line ro. IIS, a verb used in other formulas to ~ .• ""J"Hl"

full disclosures). As :with the category of command, so too in " ing" speeches, on,e long p.erformance that is explicitly in the turns out to be an exercise in creative recollection. The story single combat with Ereuthalion occupies the bulk of Nestor's before the duel in Book 7; yet the performance is summed up by poet with the words hos neikess' ho geron (7.161) and the effect clearly that of a speech of rebuke, as the chief Achaeans spring up compete for the event.

The style of Ne~r, then, as we define it with the help of "native" categories of genre, is a coherent system of styles: his

. utterance and the .. ,."u""u

~Q..!!!ll!~y_:.:.nter)1Qr1El!g~L~~~~~!lce, in a manner akin to the', poet's. This process enters many speeches by Nestor at their opening or close. A particularly striking example comes in his directions to his son before the chariot race in Book 23, which aim at reminding Antilokhos of the role of "cunning intelligence" in driving. 47 The speech begins with praise: "Zeus and' Poseidon have loved you and taught all types of horsemanship, so I do not have to teach you very much" (23.306-7). The ~isclailJler of speaking seriously is a well-known deVIce, a sign that this is to be an extended and important performance by Nestor. This is confirmed by the next lines, taken up by the longest block of gnomic utterances in any speech in the Iliad (3IS-2S). At the end, an allusion to loss of general praise ("there will be shame for you," 342) forms the transition between the exact instructions of Nestor and the closure, another warning by reference to famous examples (346-48). As we reread Nestor's speeches, the repetitions that may have seemed gratuitous, at best obvious instances of captatio benevolentiae, now make sense as reflexes of Nestor's consistent praise function in the poem. His confident assurance about Agamemnon's veracity arises from his traditional role as king's praiser (2.79-83). His role of instructor overlaps with this, so that praise accompanies his mild corrections of Diomedes (9.S3-S4-Diomedes is best in counsel-among his peers).

,,470 n the speech, see Detienne and Vernant (1974) 18-19.


. The stronger correction of Agamemnon requires fuller praise, so Nestor accords it seven verses before speaking his own mind (9.96-102). Nestor's praise after an exploit-as his words to Odysseus after the Doloneia-resembles a poetic eulogy of a heroic deed from the past. He uses phrasing reserved for his own distant career: compare 10.550, «AA' OU:1tW ,(OL01)£ L:1t:1t01)£ L()OV O'IJ()' EV0'l10a., with 1.262, OU yag :1tW ,(OL01)£ L()OV «VEga.£ OU()E L()Wf.\.a.L. So we see the speaker who promises kleos bestowing it as well. This function of Nestor sums up his style; it also brings us to his opposite in the realm ofIliadic speech, Thersites.

Both the ideal speaker Nestor and the pointy-headed, bandylegged "worst of the Achaeans," Thersites, are described with the same phrase, "clear speaker" (ligus ... agoretes, 1.248, 2.246). Our first instinct is to call sarcastic the application of the phrase to Thersites. 48 After all, it occurs in Odysseus' neikos speech (2.245-47):

And looking darkly he rebuked him with a harsh muthos, "Thersites akritomuthe, even though you are a clear speaker, restrain yourself, and do not strive against the kings on your own

(oios erizemenai)."

Yet there is some reason for taking the description seriously. As Kirk observes, Thersites is good at what he does, delivering "a polished piece of invective. "49 Moreover, the argumentsThersites makes have long been recognized as recapitulating the very points Achilles has made in Book 1. 50 Ahd his strategy at times appears simply to make use of arguments available in any aggrieved hero's traditional stock. For the tack of toting up one's opponents' goods, compare 2.226-27-"the huts are full of bronze, many select women are in the huts" with Antilokhos's sharp words to Achilles (23.549-50): "Much gold you have in the hut, much bronze and movable goods, women-slaves and single-hoofed horses." If we are meant to think of Thersites' speech as flawed in some way, at what level does it fail, and is it related to the style of the speech?

Thersites' speech is overdetermined to look bad by a number of criteria, at least two of which I would call stylistic. Perhaps less style-

48As Kirk (1985) does, 142. 49Kirk (1985) 140 points to the elaborate syntax and expansive style of his lines. sOThe fullest demonstration is by Freidenberg (1930} 243-44. Whitman (1958)

161 and Kirk (1985) 141 also notice parallels.

1 IO The Language of Heroes

bound is his role as a standard buffoon, which may have deeper or folkloric associations. 51 Also more immediately relevant to tradi~' tional theme than to style is Thersites' function as "blame" figure. As' Nagy has demonstrated, through the ignominious defeat of sites, "epos is here actually presenting itself as parallel to praise poetry' by being an institutional opposite of blame poetry. "52 This is an important point, because it explains also why Nestor is the ideal; speaker in the view of the Iliad. We have seen that Nestor always! gains consent and that he uses the style of praise to structure speech. In our earlier discussions, we did not connect these features; " now I suggest that it is exactly his role as praise-poet-therefore, as ' one who practices the craft of the epic itself-that gains Nestor the most explicitly favorable depiction of any speaker in the poem.

To return to Thersites: other indicators of his flawed performance may have to do with his class (perhaps nonaristocratic); his demagogic tendency to generalize and speak for the entire contingent, . whereas Achilles had spoken for himself alone; and his misrepresentation of the true tradition surrounding Achilles' anger. 53 But I should like to focus on the more stylistically determined traits, using the distinction I have found between epos and muthos. The first critical term to examine is the insult Odysseus throws at Thersites: akritomuthos (2.246). I have argued that the level of muthos, of significant self-presentational speech, is a relevant stylistic category for Homeric speakers. We should recall the admiring description of Menelaos' style, ou polumuthos (3.214). This was correlated, in the case of Menelaos, with a style that did not miss the mark by tossing words about aimlessly: oud' apharmatoepes (3.215). When we see Thersites for the first time, the poet draws attention to qualities in his speech that directly oppose the good style of Menelaos: he speaks a great deal and he does not put his words in good order (epea . . . akosma . . . polla, 2.213). The implication that Thersites misses the mark of proportionate speech comes in Homer's observation that the blamer says whatever he thinks will get a laugh (2.215). In other words, he is just an entertainer, not a "performer" in the heroic sense. In this connection, ,

51Freidenberg (1930) would associate him with wider patterns of ritual clowning. Chantraine (1963) examines the implication of his name, "bold, intrepid," which also occurs as, for example, an epithet of Ares in Laconian cult.

52Nagy (1979) 260. See in general his discussion at 253-64. 53See, in order, Kirk (1985) 138-39; Freidenberg (1930) 247; Nagy (1979) 263.

Heroes as Performers III

we should pay more attention to the nearly untranslatable epithet akritomuthos. Thersites' style deserves no respect because he does not have the heroic martial performance record needed to back up his words: again, style for the hero is a total notion, a proportion of words and deeds. We can contrast Nestor once again: because Thersites does not have a valid poetic memory for his own career, the audience (of Achaean heroes and epic hearers) cannot perform the critical judgment necessary to validate his muthos. It remains "indeterminate" or "undiscriminated." The verbal idea contained in the first part of the compound adjective is one of careful selection, what a commander must exercise to pick out the best troops (2.362, krin') , the opposite of massing things together (as in a common tomb: 7.337, akriton)-in a word, critical ability. The term, then, underscores a performance value, the capacity to judge one's own acts and be judged for them. In the other passage where muthoi are called "undiscriminated," we can see the lack of connection between verbal behavior and martial performance prominently foregrounded. Iris rebukes Priam (2.796-97):

"Old man, to you un judged words are always dear as once during peace. But war inescapable has arisen."

"Unjudged muthoi" is a contradiction in terms; such words would be a masquerade of martial speech in the context of peace. Real muthoi require action. 54 That Homer pictures the Trojan elders, including Priam, as spectators to this action, rather than participants, emerges later in the famous scene on the wall, where they are described as "stopped by old age from warring, but fine public speakers (agoretai), like cicadas" (3.150-51). Their style is not more harshly judged only because the Trojan elders are innocuous. By heroic standards, it is certainly as distasteful as Thersites' style. In contrast, those who perform earn the right to talk, because deeds enacted automatically offer a defense against blame: Nestor tells Diomedes as much in 8.152-56 (Trojan widows will not believe it if Hektor ever calls Diomedes a coward).

Commentators do not draw out the nuances of akritomuthos as a stylistic term, but treat it together with the other derogatory epithets

541 cannot agree with Kirk (1985) 245 who translates the epithet at 2.796 simply to mean "numberless."


applied to Thersites; we are told it means the same as arntprY'IlP."O,

literally, "having unmeasured utterance." My findings about the cision of Homeric speech words. make easy synonymity suspect, while I acknowledge that this second epithet comes out of the view ofThersites' speech (that it goes too far without a limit 11' TIJ;los,ec by proportionate heroic deeds), I believe that the word H'f,'U'/,;l.lt:

even more radically the surface features ofThersites' style. We that epos refers to the £!:Q9JJ.cLoLspeakjng. What does one hear ~----~ .

Thersltes speech? If performed aloud, the speech strikes us as taining massive correption, the reduction of long vowels and phthongs from their usual metrical value forming a "heavy" in the hexameter, to a "light," short value. In addition, synizesis ( combining of normally separate vowel sounds to produce one) duces the same auditory effect: Thersites slurs his words. Consider the underlined words:

"'AtQEt()T), 'tEO ()t] a~'t' btL[,tE[,tcj>WL n()£ xa'tL~EL~; nAdaL 'tOt XaAxoii xALoLm, nOAAal ()£ yuvalxE~ Ei,olv Evl XALOLn~ EsaLQE'tOt, a~ 'tOt 'AX mol nQo)'tLO'tq:l ()L()~[,tEV, E~'t' av n'tOALESQOV EAw[,tEV. ~ ihL xal XQuooii EnL()EUEm, OV XE 'tL~ OLOEL TQwwv tnnoM[,twv ES 'IALOU ulo~ anoLVa, oV XEV EYW ()tloa~ ayayw 1] aAAo~ 'Axmwv, 1]£ yuvalxa vET]v, 'tva [,tLayEm EV cj>LAO'tT)'tL, ilv 't' aiJ't(,>~ anovoocj>L xa'tLoXEm; ou [,tEv EOtXEV aQXov EOv'ta xaxwv EnL~aoxE[,tEv uLa~ 'Axmwv. d) nEnovE~, xax' EAEYXE', 'Axmt()E~, OUXE't' 'AxmoL, oLxaM nEQ aUv vT)uol vEw[,tESa, 'tOV()E ()' EW[,tEV au'toii Evl TQOLn YEQa nwoE[,tEv, ocj>Qa L()T)'tm ij Qa 'tL ot X1][,tEi~ nQooa[,tuvo[,tEV, ~E xm OUXL' o~ xal viiv 'AXLAija, EO [,tEY' a[,tELvova cj>wm, 1]'tL[,tT)OEV' EAwv yaQ EXEL YEQa~, au'to~ anouQa~. aAAa [,taA' oux 'AXLAij'L XOAO~ cj>QWLV, aAA.a [,tEStl[,twv' ~ yaQ av, 'A'tQEt()T), viiv uO'ta'ta AW~tlOmo."

A count of correptions per number of lines shows that Thersites' eighteen verses contain this feature ten times. We can contrast this 55 percent rate with a 30 percent occurrence rate in the speech of Nestor (nine times in thirty lines, 1.254-84): I choose this for comparison because the two are so explicitly juxtaposed as speakers by Homer in

Heroes as Performers I I 3

ways. Of course, these figures only make full sense with the of statistics for correption in the rest of the Iliad. Stephen

's work indicates that the average rate of correption for narrative in the poem is 20 percent; for speeches, it is 40 percent. I

conclude from this, therefore, that Nestor, "of sweet speech," sounds Homer as we first hear him. Thersites, on the other hand, is quite

m his performance, markedly more so than

Because the chief commander of the Achaeans is by definition not the ideal speaker, Nestor, we might expect Homer to characterize Agamemnon's style as somehow less fluent than Nestor's. Agamemnon himself acknowledges Nestor's superiority at speaking in the assembly, as we saw earlier (2.370, agorei nikas) but this tells us only that he regards Nestor as a successful persuader of heroes. Though we remain aware of the many levels of "style" on which Homer operates, including meter, I will continue in the rest of this chapter to dwell on only a few notable features, using the analysis of Nestor as a paradigm for the investigation. I find that Agamemnon's style is indeed different from other major heroic performance techniques: conscious of his lack of skill, and threatened by others' speech, he attempts to compensate by two· strategies: adding the themes and diction of the flyting genre to' as many discourses as he can, even those explicitly framed as commands; and indulging in a poetics of excess, as shown in hyperbolic expressive devices.

If we continue with the notion that heroic speeches, no matter what the context in the Iliad, exhibit a "dominant" genre, then the presence of such a genre in Agamemnon's speeches shows up, first, by a simple contrast with Nestor's speech. Agamemnon's forty-six speeches are introduced by thirty-one different formulaic phrases, and so they would seem to be somewhat more varied in nature, at first sight. But, whereas only one speech by Nestor is introduced as a neikos, no fewer than seven by Agamemnon are described on introduction with dic-

55Kelly (1974) 7. It may be that such slurring indicates another genre of speech; vowel elision, prefixation, and other linguistic markers can function in this way: see Sherzer (1978) 136-37.

II4 The Language of Heroes

tion appropriate to rebuke and dispute. 56 Furthermore, when"" categorize each speech according to its genre of discourse, it that only one of the forty-six originates primarily as a . memory. What is more, this speech remains a highly am recollection, not of personal heroism (unlike Nestor's) but of a about Ate's influence over Zeus during the time of Herakles' (I9.9I-I33), and it is told not to persuade his audience (again pare Nestor's recollections) but to excuse himself. Even then, story seems ironically to put Agamemnon in a bad light, as have noticed. Instead of the authority of memory, Agamemnon often than not employs the threat of violence to achieve his

As with Nestor, the poet characterizes Agamemnon deftly in very first speech. The "hard muthos" (I.25) falls under our heading "command," but the illocutionary force of the directive is here in the diction of a threat: "Do not let me meet you lingering the ships, old man ... lest the god's staff and fillet not do you good." Agamemnon, like any speaker, has the option of "UUUJLL~~. directives in a number of ways, as we saw in Chapter I; that chooses to give him this tonal range is a significant sign of style. other seemingly straightforward commands that Agamemnon UL<'~t::;'. strike us as distinctive, and even deficient, although on the they may not rely on rough language. This is the poet's doing: er shows us Agamemnon basing his orders on a false dream (2.5 75), or constructing a plausible command to retreat, but under pretenses (2. I09-4I), or even denying that he is giving a directive (as, when he tells the two Ajaxes, "I do not command you two-for it· " not fit to urge you on," 4.286), all the while using his limited ., ability to do precisely that. Homer calls Agamemnon's bluff; here,i the speech is introduced with the marked phrase "winged words," so " that the audience, at least, realizes it is a directive. And again, Agamemnon seems to give Diomedes a free hand in picking a com.., ," panion for the night foray, the command-to pick the best even ifhe is not the more kingly-does not mean what it says; Homer observes the real motivation after quoting this last line: "He feared for Menelaos" (IO.240).

A certain curtness of address and an abrupt style characterize these speeches of Agamemnon; we get the impression that any added

561.25 (harsh speech); 1. 105 (spoke looking evilly); 4.241, 336, 368 (form of the verb neikeo used); 6.54 (rebuke); 11.137 (ungentle voice).


would only be threats or abuse. The declaration that Menelaos . won the duel, for example (3.455-60), reduces what the audience

was a case of divine intervention to the level of a simple breach contract, justifying a legal payment. The simplification of facts,

'.'Y'.AU'U"~'~ with the poet's rich interpretation of the action, works to Agamemnon as a distorting abuser, closer in his speech

to Thersites than to Nestor. 57

lt could be argued that the preceding effects are functions of the y betweeen speech and narrative, not "stylistic" traits so much

tricks of narrative. I still wish to argue that such poetic strategies on part of Homer are coordinated with the representation of

Agarrlernnon in speech alone; if we examine only the direct discourse the hero, it becomes clear that the tactics of neikos speech permeate language. We have already seen the workings of Agamemnon's

• extended neikos in the scenes from Book 4 analyzed in Chapter 2 .

. Now we might turn to those speeches that pose themselves primarily as another sort of discourse, commands, in order to get a closer look at Agamemnon's style. Our sense of Agamemnon's character is shaped by tw:o related characteristics in these: the intrusive gibe and the insulting blunder. It is the unexpected change of voice in the first that puts one off balance, creating the impression that Agamemnon is a dangerously unstable character. His first address to Achilles in the poem begins with a mild warning against trying to trick him verbally, and the tone of "good though you are" at this point need not be sarcastic (1. 13 I-J2). But a few lines later, Agamemnon envisions the possibility that the Achaeans will not obey him, and he resorts to threats (137-39): "If they do not give, I myself will go and take your prize or that of Ajax or Odysseus." This said, he shifts tack again rapidly: "But we will think these things over later" (140); instructions for returning Khryseis follow. Just when the audience thinks that the explosive Agamemnon has calmed down, the instructions turn from a distant third-person imperative to a direct address, and the gibe sputters out: "Let there be one leading counsel-bearing man, Ajax or Idomeneus or glorious Odysseus ... or you, son of Peleus, most amazing of all men, so you can propititate the far-worker for us, by sacrifice" (1. 144-47). That the epithet (again ambiguous) is here

57 As an example of this curt style, Bassett (1934) 143 cites the juxtaposition of 1.322, Agamemnon's address to the heralds, without any vocative, and 1.334, Achilles' reception of the same heralds, with full titles of praise.


meant maliciously we can be sure, since the final words of An-.... ~',u non must be taken as an allusion to Achilles' role thus far-his vinely prompted undertaking to discover the reason for wrath (1.53-67), which Agamemnon must interpret as a grab power by one pretending piety. 58 The gibe at the end of a comes also in Agamemnon's most noticeable rhetorical .... ·."..,'u..,'cua;

tion, his instructions to the embassy: "Let him be SUOQ1ue<1--.t you know is unappeasable and unconquerable-for which reason it '. most hateful of gods to men. And let him be subservient to inasmuch as I am more kingly and claim to be more advanced ancestry" (9.158-61).

Because such intrusive swipes are hardly creditable, we might to excuse them as thoughtless blunders. Indeed in some passages, appears that Agamemnon uses the tactics of neikos to the "\XTTnn,n-;_

audience. In a speech meant to save the life of Menelaos (we '''''''UU~o;;). he reminds his brother that "even Achilles feared to meet this [Hektor] in glorifying battle, and he is far better than you" (7. II3 14). The flyting rhetoric here cuts two victims at once, the ab Achilles and Menelaos, called second-rate to his face. In another address, where we assume that Agamemnon is friendly toward cer, the words of encouragement and promise of gifts do not hide the underlying insult: Teucer is to shoot well in order to glorify his father "Telamon, who raised you when small, and even though you illegitimate took you into his household" (8.283-84). This is the. strategy of shaming the hearer, a well-known device from neikos but· disconcerting in this context. We should note'that the context itself is typical of Agamemnon's speech. Instead of promising kleos (compare Nestor's offer before the Doloneia; earlier), the faulty speaker must hold out material reward only. Teucer is not even to get "glory" in this scenario; instead, he will give it to his father (eukleies epibeson, 285). To sum up: an audience is never quite sure what the illocutionary force of Agamemnon's speech is meant to be. 59 He walks the line between praise and blame, never handing out either effectively. The same motif-attendance at the dais, the communal heroic meal-

580n the semantics of ekpaglotat' see Kirk (1985) 68. 59Lynn-George (1988) 83 points to the shift in mood even when Agamemnon

says the same things, as at 2.110-41 and 9.17-28: "What was a feint in II is now a strong recommendation of flight and return."


;nel_U>J"'"'~ in his mouth a way to praise Idomeneus (4.257-64) but a of insulting Odysseus (4.343-46), and when we hear the latter

application, we must rethink the former: Agamemnon could easily have transformed that, too, into an insult. Agamemnon's audience, . aware of the flyting conventions and his trigger-happy employment of them, does not dare step out of line.

The general resort to the language of neikos by Agamemnon betrays an uncertainty about his power at speech which, in circular fashion, only makes his rhetoric more nervous and deficient. The poet explicitly refers to Agamemnon's failure of nerve in terms meant to contrast him with Nestor once again. Compare, for instance, the confident old man: "No one will plan a plan better than the one I have in mind, either of the men of old or now" (9.104-5) with the doubting commander: "Now there may be one to tell a better cunning plan (metin) than this [his own] either a young man or one from of old. I would welcome it" (14. i<17-8). In this connection; it is even more ironic that the story Agamemnon recounts in Book 19 begins with Hera's determination to frustrate the public performance of Zeus: "You will speak falsely nor will you bring completion to the muthos" (19.107). Agamemnon has the same problem with bringing his muthoi to fruition. A further reference to this topic, in Achilles' ostensibly commendatory speech during the funeral, may then be a concealed insult: he calls on Agamemnon to give the simple order for dispersal, "For the troop of Achaeans will most obey you and your muthoi" (23. 156-57)-an assertion thus far not proven in the Iliad.

A good indication of Agamemnon's lack of confidence in speech comes from Homer's deployment of the epithet "clear speaker," ligus agoretes. The poet used it of Nestor; Thersites earns it in Odysseus' portrayal of him; but Agamemnon seems to say this as a way of explaining his own lack of forcefulness after hearing Achilles: "In a great crowd of men, how could anyone hear or speak? Even a clear speaker is hindered" (19.81-82). It is clear from context that Agamemnon is not even as effective as Thersites in being a ligus agoretes. Perhaps it is this mistrust of his own power that brings Agamemnon to be more explicit about just what speech-act he claims to be performing, as if the audience might not be able to read his language, or to clear the channel of communication. He says, "I will threaten you like this" (1.181); he states outright, "I am not beseeching you" (1.174); he identifies the quarrel involving him as-~Zeus-


given neikos (2.375); and he later recalls both his destructive the resentful speech it caused as examples of muthos (19.84-8 the same time, he fears what other people will say and even tions their right to speak.60 "If the gods have made him a man ... for that do they allow him to speak formal rf"r,rn"rl,~ (oneidea muthesasthai, 1.291-92), Agamemnon asks rhetorically;. poetics of heroic performance would require an affirmative Agamemnon, however, seems untutored in these poetics.

The final characteristic of his negative self-projection comes to performance shows in Agamemnon's repeated about receiving a bad reputation. So vivid is this threat that he imagine the future vaunts of Trojans (4.178-81) over tomb. The topic intrudes in an otherwise conventional rrc,nr'-l1rO-l",'

speech, when he gnomically says that fleeing men get no (5.532). Before sending the embassy, he reiterates his horror of turning home "with bad reputation" (dusklea, 9.22), and in the of attack he declares that Zeus wants his troops to perish name" (14.70). It is significant that the only positive fame we Agamemnon imagining is that related to the punitive damages he extract from Troy, the repayment "which will exist even among to come" (3.459-60).

With this attitude toward speech and performance in mind, we now understand better the motives for what I have called non's "poetics of excess." For, while it is true that he may be "illiterate because of his insensitivity to speech, thought, and relation to action," he still attempts to speak.61 One cannot bow of the arena of speech. The speeches offer us more, in terms of and emotive expression, because Agamemnon knows he has less I

give. Thus the vehemence of his words to Kalkhas, making . denials in as many lines, all to the effect that the seer has nothing good to say (1. 106-8). Here, too, we might recall his complicated com- • putations of the relative strengths of Trojan against Achaean forces (2.123-3 I); again, the technique is used to construct an excuse. This is not Nestorian "full" style, but a less intelligent heaping up of detail> for the sake of sounding knowledgeable. At the level of the phrase,

60A good example is 14.44-51, his fear that Hektor will complete a boast and the Achaeans will lose confidence in him.

61Pattison (1982) 16 makes the quoted observation in the course of examining Agamemnon's blunders.


shows itself in needless parallelism and repetition. Line for example, is echoed in the same speech by 2.386:

TQo)OLV ava.~""'I1aL~ XClXQU EOOE'taL, oM' fJ~aL6v. ou YUQ nCluoO)""tl yE IlE'tEOOE'taL, oM' fJ~aL6v.

is no point to the repeating of the final phrase, though. This encloses four imperatives, each phrase starting with eu. The ex

character of the performance turns nearly comical, however, the martial advice-to hold the shield well and guide the char

alongside an injunction to "give well the swift horses din. (2.383). Agamemnon's attempt at a Nestorian balanced phrasing equally trivial in this speech: "One's sword belt will make for sweat

the chest ... one's horse will sweat straining at the polished " he says (388, 390). Such overwrought surface effects are not

His self-presentation occurs in these terms as well, as :-llg,Ul1\;;JLU1JlVU describes his tr·avails (to Nestor, it should be noted) with detail hovering between the clinical and the poetic: he wanders ~round with insomnia, sleep does not "sit on the eyes," his heart i'leaps out of my chest," and his limbs are atremble (10.91-95). No other hero describes himself in this way.

The rhetoric of excess is, of course, the underlying strategy of Agamemnon's endless offer of gifts to Achilles in Book 9; Agamemnon acts as if merely listing things without thinking about the effects of his earlier speech is a sufficient performance of goodwilL Given this consistently overblown style, an audience might well begin to ignore the speaker's actual words or suspect his intent. As Pindar later put it, there is satiety even in praise. Agamemnon, to sum up, is a deficient rhetorician because he violates proportions. He tells his brother,

I never saw or heard someone mention one man having devised so many destructive deeds in a day as Hektor, the one dear to gods, has done to the Achaeans, on his own, neither a god's son nor a goddess's. Deeds he has done so many as will upset the Argives, I say, long and for a long time (detha te kai dolikhon). For he devised so many evils for the Achaeans (10.47-52)

Contrast with this hysterical accumulation the laconic style that begins Nestor's battle description: "I never saw such men nor may I see" (1.262-65).


Odysseus and Diomedes

The best emblem for Odysseus' speaking style is the U""''''L'IJL'VI.N

his ship, drawn up on the beach at Troy halfway between those Ajax and Achilles, with both extremes within earshot (8.223). For .. key to Odyssean rhetoric is positioning, the stance the hero toward his audience and his aptitude at varying this alignment.· Nestor succeeds as a speaker because he has authority and knows to praise, and Agamemnon fails because he doubts his own Odysseus gets along and survives through a Hermes-like He has no brilliant moment, but neither does he lose face The shifting stance he assumes expresses itself primarily in two acteristics of style: a fluency resembling that of Nestor; and a La~''''U'4-tion with the act of communication itself, which shapes his LU'-LUJlV"

genres of commanding, flyting, and recalling, and foregrounds act of speech rather than the performance of an action by the hero.' The latter feature allows Odysseus to put himself in the position the audience, as he understands that communication is a two-way· process. This in turn lets him succeed where Agamemnon's style has failed.

As Adam Parry once pointed out, Odysseus manages to overcome the divide between word and deed that proves daunting to others.62

Our first glimpse of this comes in Book I: Agamemnon may have made good on his word, to take Briseis, but'the audience sees this act in juxtaposition with a disjunction (he has refused the entreating speech of Khryses) and a more compelling example of threats in action (Zeus to the gods). In addition, the excessive style of Agamemnon fails to persuade us that he can undertake action to equal his language. Nestor's speech has some effect, but it remains unsupported by any action on his part. Achilles has rejected both speech and action by the time Book 1 ends. But Odysseus, in a simple speech, accomplishes the healing restitution of Khryseis with an utterance that matches exactly the act he is performing at the moment: placing the girl in her father's hands, he says, "Khryses, the lord of men Agamemnon has sent me to bring you the child and sacrifice a holy hecatomb to Phoibos for the Danaans" (1.442-44). The narrative confirms the efficacy of this speech, as sacrifice is made and the mission departs.

62A. Parry (1981) 24.


Even in such a small introductory performance, the fluency of ysseus is hinted at. He extends the description of his task slightly,

a graceful but strictly unnecessary clause: "Phoibos, who now set much-lamented griefs on the Achaeans. "63 Homer as narrator

did not need to have Odysseus append this relative clause to accomplish the speech-act of the directive in these lines; besides, the speechact alone would tell us something about Odysseus-that he is trusted with command by Agamemnon, that he has a significant social role, and so on. After all, it is by the assignment of illocutions that novelists and poets alike create a character, as theorists tell US. 64 Yet it is precisely this space between the bare minimum required to accomplish an act, and the actual performance, in which style inheres. The seemingly insignificant relative clause is then a sign that Odysseus gives his audience more than it needs, for its own sake. This is not the same as Agamemnon's cumulative style, which adds detail only to shore up his own sagging rhetoric or to sting his audience with taunts, as when he pictures to Khryses the future ofKhryseis, "In our house, in Argos, far from the fatherland, going about the 100m and coming to my bed." Beneath the similar citations of seemingly gratuitous detail lie opposed visions of the audience's need.

The style of giving more information by adding clauses can best be seen in longer stretches of Odysseus' speech. His reply to Agamemnon's proposal in Book 14 features at least one such clause in nearly every sentence: "Nor should you rule us, to whom Zeus granted ... the raveling of wars" (14.85); "You wish to abandon Troy ... Jor which we suffer many evils" (89); "Silence, lest another Achaean hear the muthos which a man, at least, might not draw all through the mouth, a man who knew to speak close-fitting things" (91, 92). Compare these eight lines, containing four relative clauses, with the immediately preceding speech of Agamemnon, in which only two occur over a space of seventeen lines (67, 81). The difference in their preferred syntactic strategies explains a good deal of the tone of each hero's speech, curt and hard-bitten for Agamemnon, fluid and accommodating for Odysseus.

In style, then,Odysseus resembles the ideal of Nestor. It is worth pointing out some characteristic differences, however, since the two

63The line before is also grammatically superfluous, and so was athetized by Aristarchus: see Kirk (1985) 100.

640hmann (1973) 98-99.


famous "survivors" of heroic tradition are represented in the distinct personalities, even if we might imagine the Ithacan hero younger version of the old warrior. In self-presentation this ence may be a function of the narrative: Nestor's exploits are --moved in time, and so he can expatiate, using the past epic ~~-"~''''L;'''''_~ paradigms for his audience; Odysseus, on the other hand, is in-process of making a reputation. It does not seem accidental that -tor is the audience for his most extended exploit in the poem,Doloneia escapade, for the old man can appreciate style, and the deed well. Yet Odysseus narrates his adventure in a low key. The gods could give better horses than the ones he Diomedes took, Odysseus says.65 The horses are Thracian; medes killed their master and twelve companions. A thirteenth both took, the spy (10.555-64). Nowhere does Odysseus assert individual role, unlike Nestor in his reminiscences. Another rn-ntT",,,fi

must be meant here, given the positioning of Odysseus' speech at end of this episode, because we recall the very opening of the with Agamemnon on the way to tell his story to Nestor, in the exaggerated manner.

Further contrasts with_ Nestor's style come in Odysseus' Cl"".Ul-_14~1

tion with divine speech and his use of repetition. The former us in Book 2, when Hera dispatches Athena to calm the troops your mild words" (sois aganois epeessin, 164) and Athena transmits message to Odysseus (2.180), in effect equating her language his. Elsewhere, Homer can change personal and possessive " .. ,-.",,,u,CiI to match the new situation of a repeated speech; that he does not do here is telling. Nestor, as we saw, merits an epithet given the M elsewhere in the hexameter tradition, but we never see such a direct link between his speech and the language of gods. When we turn repetition, the difference in styles is subtle. We saw that Nestor (e.g~ I in 1.254-84) repeats words quite close to one another to emphasize I the binary structure of his speech. Odysseus, however, repeats at] measured intervals; his pace is slower: consider the repetition at lineJ, end ofneesthai (2.88,290,291,296) and tekna (2.3II, 313, 315) within! one speech. 66 Irony, like Odysseus' use of the honorific "leader of,

65Note that this apparent modesty (ro.555-59) makes it seem that he had no: divine help, when in fact Athena figured prominently in the raid-a fact he omitsi

~~. i

66Again, contrast a neighboring speech: Nestor only repeats once a word at line-end that is not an epithet: 2.354, 357.


" to address Agamemnon after he has shown up the leader's inability at speech (14. 102), is not in Nestor's repertoire, nor is punning, something Odysseus does at least twice (at 4·354, Telemakhoio ... promakhoisi, and at 11.450, Hippasou ... hippodamoio). Perhaps we can define Odysseus' "double vision" as synchronic, seeing linguistic possibilities coexisting, whereas Nestor utilizes a diachronic rhetoric of tradition versus contemporary situation.

The realization that speech can be good or bad prompts Odysseus' remark that Diomedes should neither praise nor blame too much among a knowing audience (iO.249). The urge for proportionate speech explains his criticism of Agamemnon's style, also, since he contrasts the commander's muthos with that of a man who knows "how to talk fitting things" (artia bazein, 14.92), and Agamemnon's call to retreat is out of all proportion with the heroic ethos. This is why it is, to Odysseus, a muthos that one can hardly pronounce, the opposite of an act of speech: the heroic ideal calls for sustained and unrelenting performance at war, "until we each perish" (14.87) and speech-performance should abet this, not prevent it.

The tension between Agamemnon's style and that of Odysseus becomes evident in the hybrid plea during the embassy, embedding Agamemnon's massive list within Odysseus' subtler reasoning. Although there are many reasons why this speech should not persuade Achilles, one feature related to Odysseus' grasp of speech notions deserves mention here. That is, Odysseus assumes the stance of a distant narrator in focusing his introduction on several significant speech-acts: Zeus is showing signs (9.236), Hektor prays (240) for dawn to come and boasts (241) that he will burn the ships, while Odysseus fears that the threats (244) will come true. Once again, we must remember that the description need not have been this way, as a look at Agamemnon's narration of the same crisis reveals (10.46-52, discussed earlier).67 We already saw the strategy of memory involved in Odysseus' quotation of direct speech allegedly from Peleus (9.254-58), and now we can add that this fits his style in its regard for the actual fact of communication.

How does this respect for speech show itself in Odysseus' employment of the genres of discourse called muthos? In commands, it means he is inclusive, using a first-person plural-"What has happened to us that we forget raging strength, Diomedes?" (11.313)-

670n this technique of "diegetic summary," naming speech-acts to make a narrative, see Rimmon-Kenan (1983) 109:


where others use an imperative, "remember strength." The allies him with his audience: "Did we not all hear what he said in council?" (2. I94). It ralso acts to praise and create solidarity with high-status men he addresses. And the same strategy forms a mon ground even between Odysseus and the common men he mands: "We Achaeans cannot all act as king here" (2.203).68

In flyting speeches, this concern with communication and means he can face down Thersites, by exposing the disjunction tween that speaker's deeds and words. It is Odysseus who produces.· the damning epithet akritomuthe (2.246).69

The style ofDiomedes might best be discussed in conjunction with " that of Odysseus because the two heroes are closely associated in the . Iliad as also in the rest of Greek tradition about the Trojan War. Yet the association only reinforces our sense of their stylistic individuality, which can be seen on the level of heroic performance and in speech. Fenik remarks about Odysseus' combat with Sokos (II.44I-45): "No other exchange between enemies in the entire Iliad carries this high tone. Odysseus is free of the excess and frenzy that disfigure the accomplishment of Agamemnon and Diomedes. "70 I have already suggested that the "excess" in Agamemnon's rhetoric is related to a lack of confidence in his speaking ability. Does the same hold for Diomedes? The analysis of several features in his speeches tends to confirm this: he is unsure of his language, but his lack of confidence is explicitly associated with his youth, so Diomedes can be excused for stylistic faults. In fact, within the Iliad we are given a picture of Diomedes' education in heroic style and, as we shall see, he emulates Odysseus in at least one important encounter.

Statistics can help clarify the difference in style between Diomedes and other heroes. When we calculate the number of speeches at-

680n the etiquette of inclusive pronominal usage, see Wackernagel (1926) 43. 69In this connection, his threat to strip Thersites bare and beat him, later, is

more a description of what he actually is doing verbally, and physically with the scepter. It bears noting that Odysseus in the Odyssey defines himself as a rhetorician par excellence: see Martin (1984), Walsh (1984) 7, II3, and Austin (1975) 198-99. To contrast with Odysseus' unique audience-adjusted style: the two Ajaxes accost men in battle, some with sweet words, some with harsh (12.267-68); but it takes two men speaking as one to do this. Agamemnon's epipolesis in Book 4 is a dramatization of this strategy, but, as we saw in Chapter 2, Odysseus thwarts him at it (4.350-55).

70Fenik (1986) 18.

Heroes as Performers I25

to each character which cannot be categorized as one of the genres called muthos (even those speeches not labeled as such),

. emerges that Nestor, Agamemnon, Odysseus, Hektor, and Achilles are on an equal footing, each having at most a few speeches that are

. not "performances" of this type. Odysseus, for instance, speaks only three, all prayers (IO.277, 46I; 23.769), out of a total of twentysix speeches. By contrast, Diomedes, who is given direct quotation twenty-six times in the poem, speaks nine times in a nonmuthos genre, much more than any other major hero. Twice he prays to Athena (5· II4 and IO.283), one time he volunteers (IO.2I9), another time he makes a simple declaration of intent (5.286), and five times he offers what amount to gestures of solidarity, speech-acts concentrated not so much on message as on the channel of communication between speaker and addressee. He tells Athena that he remembers her commands (5.8I5-24); agrees with Nestor to leave battle, despite his fears of getting a bad reputation (8. I45-50); praises Odysseus upon selecting him as companion (IO.242-47); and affirms to Odysseus his determination to stand fast in battle (I I. 3 I6-I9). Even the most famous episode involving Diomedes shows him engaged in this establishment of communication, when he declares formally that Glaukos and he are "ancestral guest-friends" (xeinoi patroioi, 6.2I5-3I). In brief, Diomedes is the exception that proves our interpretation of the meaning of muthos for Homeric heroes. Demonstrably inexperienced, needing tutorials by Nestor to make a proper self-presentation in the assembly (9.3I-49), he is represented even on the level of discourse genres as one who has not yet mastered the repertoire of commanding, flyting, and feats of memory. Two of his commands consist of just two verses (5. I09, I I. 346) and one of only four (IO. I62), a negative feature in a poem where magniloquence counts. His assembly speeches are introduced as "late" interjections (7· 399, 9.3I, 9.696), a trait never noted with older heroes. And he seems to bungle his first such speech by using the tactics of neikos speeches when he really just wants to dissent from what Agamemnon is saying: "Son of Atreus, I will fight first with you, mindless as you are, as tradition has it (he them is estin) , in the speaking assembly" (a gore, 9.3 I-33).

There are hints that he is learning the tradition-note the rather clumsy gnomic utterance, for example, which he enthusiastically trots out to impress Nestor when he volunteers, and which rather conspicuously highlights a theme we know is dear to Nestor: "Two


going together, the one notes before the other how there may gain. One alone may notice, but his attention is shorter and his ning intelligence thin" (ro.224-26).71 Or consider the again to Nestor, when he rescues the old warrior with his chariot briefly boasts how he took the horses from Aeneas (8. I02-rr). artful silence, too, in the face of Agamemnon's flyting insult (4. can be viewed as a stylistic victory over a king with whom he has.· ... traditional enmity.72 These attempts at developing a style must seen, first of all, as complementing the Iliad's portrayal of developing fighting skill, especially in Book 5. In turn, the roots Homer's concern with Diomedes probably lead back to traditions that surface later and independently in the -Cyclic epics. Yet these traditional associations of the hero, particularly with the· role of Nestor's son Antilokhos, support my contention that the; speech style of Diomedes, as well as his characterization, is consciously shaped.

The encounter between Glaukos and Diomedes in Book 6 must be considered in this light. It is the turning point in Diomedes' education in performance, as that affects his speech to enemies. After this, the hero delivers several quite good flyting attacks, against Dolon (ro.369 and 446), Hektor (r1.36r), and Paris(r1.384). The last is particularly inventive, with its consistent feminizing: Paris is called a "girlwatcher" (parthenopipa, 385); his spear cast is like a woman's or a child's, but the women and children ofDiomedes' opponents end up lamenting (393); and there are more scavenger birds than women around the foe's rotting corpse. Before his encounter with Glaukos, however, Diomedes manages to assault with words only his charioteer Sthenelos (5.25r-73) and the unwarlike Aphrodite (5.347), despite the opportunity to confront Aeneas, to whom he addresses only a curt "you missed" and a short threat (5.287-89). If the exchange with his enemy is such an empowering experience for Diomedes, can we say that the dialogue itself represents a mastery of a genre of muthos, the usual mark of such authority?

I am inclined to affirm this by the prominence within Diomedes'

710n Nestor and "cunning intelligence" (metis) , see 23.315-18. Nestor's son uses the same half-line at 23.590.

72See Brillante (1980) on ancient traditions that feature competing claims to rule Argos by Diomedes and Agamemnon.

73For a summary and bibliography on this problem in Neo-analytic studies, see Fenik (1986) 15 and Whitman (1958) 166-67.


speech of genealogical talk. In Chapter 2, I pointed out the prevalence of this topic both in recollections and flyting speeches. It is worth recalling that Homer in Iliad Book 5, not long before this episode, shows us how the topic can be used for assault: Tlepolemos says to Sarpedon, "They tell lies saying you are the offspring of Zeus." He compares the Lykian hero unfavorably with his own father, Herakles, also a son of Zeus, who sacked Troy previously (5.632-54). That encounter led to Sarpedon's wounding and Tlepolemos' death; the physical outcome fits the verbal, since Sarpedon cunningly managed to imply that Herakles won by default, aided by the "mindlessness" (aphradie) of Laomedon (649); thus his words undercut Tlepolemos' boast. Similarly, we can work backward from the "physical" outcome of the encounter with Glaukos in order to confirm that Diomedes engages in and wins a verbal contest. Zeus "took away the wits of Glaukos, who exchanged golden armor for bronze, 100-

cows'-worth for that of nine" (6.234-36). Glaukos, then, resembles Laomedon, involved as he is in a shamefully bad exchange; Diomedes is analogous to Sarpedon, since he induced his enemy to switch armor.

One school of ancient Homeric criticism held that Diomedes tricks Glaukos to get the golden armor for himself. 74 Although moderns, following Eustathius, reject the idea, I want to suggest that this best fits the context of a flyting exchange. If there is any doubt that Diomedes intends everything he addresses to Glaukos in his first speech as insult, a closer examination should reveal the maliciousness of his words. The demand to know Glaukos' genealogy makes sense in the context of flyting, since it gives the speaker a hold with which to throw his opponent. The implication ofDiomedes' remark that Glaukos has not appeared before in "man-glorifying" battle is that Glaukos has no ability to be glorified; and the reference to the "boldness" of Glaukos has to be read with an eye to the negative connotations of "boldness" when a speaker's deeds do not authorize this-as in the case of Thersites, the "bold." In sum, Diomedes is obliquely challenging Glaukos to prove himself in word and in deed. The apparent digression into the story of Dionysos furthers this strategy in an essential way. Diomedes admittedly introduces the tale as an exemplum that constrains his habit of attacking all: he will not fight the gods. But the real focus of the story is not on Lykourgos, who was blinded for challenging the divinity, but rather on the scene of Dionysos' flight. Scared women (the nurses); a comforting mother-

74See Maftei (1976) 52-53.


figure (Thetis); a threatening male who engages in rough language (Lykourgos-cf 6.137, homokle, a synonym for flyting words)these figures in Diomedes' miniature dramatization of "myth" are in fact projections of the participants in the very muthos of flyting in which he is engaged. For Dionysos and the nurses, read Glaukos; for Lykourgos, Diomedes; and for Thetis, compare the women of Troy, so deftly portrayed as consoling figures later in this very book of the Iliad. Diomedes' myth, then, is a version of his victory, a wish fulfillment, if you like, of the threatening physical encounter.

The sarcastic veneer falls away when he addresses Glaukos directly at the end of the story: "If you are a mortal ... come closer, to reach destruction's bounds the quicker." The tale thus functions not only as self-presentation but as mockery, to remind Glaukos that he is, of course, not an immortal, something Diomedes knows all along.

We should not assume that Glaukos is naive. Indeed, the long genealogical defense he gives confirms that he knows precisely what conventions Diomedes is using in this verbal assault. His first strategy-to question the value of genealogy-contains the often-quoted image of the "generations of leaves." But Glaukos is using the language of elegy for darker purposes: this is also a coded threat; in the language of Homer, falling to the ground connotes the end of human as well as vegetal life (cf. the images of warriors as trees). Even the invitation to learn Glaukos' genealogy from him contains a veiled insult: the reply, "Many men know it" (6.151), implies that Diomedes, who professes not to, is unpracticed in feats of memory, an essential genre for the performing hero to perfect. Again, compare Sarpedon in Book 5, who knew the story ofHerakles' involvement at Troy and was able to use it as an effective counteroffensive device. Now Glaukos moves into the past. He did not need to select the details he includes here, when a simple list of ancestors would suffice. In his "myth," the hero Bellerophon defeats two types of monstrous females (Khimaira and Amazons) and resists the inducements of a third (Anteia). This narrative segment counters the attack by Diomedes, who implied (as he later states explicitly to Paris) that his opponent resembled a woman; Glaukos instead presents himself as Bellerophon. Furthermore, Bellerophon is able to overcome an ambush (lokhos, 189). I have read Diomedes' first speech as just such a covert strategy, usually associated with his role-model Odysseus. 75 It

75See A. Edwards (1985) 15-38 on Odysseus as master of ambush in speech and martial style.


appears Glaukos has read him the same way, and calls his bluff. The fate of Bellerophon, wandering apart from men as he "devours his own thumos" (200-202), remains puzzling, but perhaps its role in this narrative is the conventional function of establishing the claim to be better than one's ancestors (cf. Sthenelos' speech at 4.405). Glaukos' portrayal of the collateral branches of his house as failures (6.203-5) accomplishes the same status-raising function, as he can thereby focus attention on himself, product of the surviving line.

Glaukos' tale of ancestry, then, may have factual information, but, like any tale in an oral tradition, it makes sense only in performance. The spontaneous details here gain an air of authority because one assumes that the speaker has privileged information about his own "local" tradition. But they are symbols instead in a game of dueling narratives, important moves of muthos in the new sense I have proposed, an act of self-presentation that attempts to wrest authority.

If this were a conventional scene of flyting before fighting, the exchange of speeches would have ended in a mutual casting of spears. 76

This "duel" remains on the verbal plane; moreover, Diomedes gets an extra shot. If we think of his reply to Glaukos as another attempt at lethal speech, we can now reinterpret the story that he tells in this second performance, how Oineus, his grandfather, played host to Bellerophon and the two became guest-friends (6.215-31). As Julia Gaisser notes, this tale is shaped to fit the situation, as are most Homeric paradigmatic stories: "Bellerophon and Oineusmust exchange gifts because Diomedes and Glaukos are to exchange armor. "77 Her view, taking the Homeric narrator's design as its starting point, could be sharpened somewhat if we consider the internal dynamics of Diomedes' rhetorical ploy. This is the only passage in which such a "myth" of Oineus' meeting with Bellerophon is ever mentioned because Diomedes has just invented the "tradition" in order to force Glaukos into the socially correct ritual exchange. He speaks to win, and does. There are enough hints in the text to make an· audience attuned to the conventions suspect his veracity and admire his cunning. It is not accidental, first, that Glaukos had brought up the them~ of xenia in mentioning the nine-day hosting ofBellerophon (6.174); Diomedes retorts with a tale of a twenty-day hosting, putting Bellerophon into his grandfather's debt (and so Glaukos in his). We can see his creative expansion of "tradition" at work; the mention of

76See Fingerle (1939) 133 on the unconventional nature of the exchange here. 77Gaisser (1969) 175.


the theme by Glaukos opens a narrative chink at which .L.nVLJ'H:;I.lC~im~ thrust successfully. Aside from this, we should suspect anyway, given that he claims to avoid gods in battle (6.129), the privileged audience of the poem has just heard of his fights " Aphrodite and Ares in Book 5. Rather than being a Analysts to seize on and Unitarians to explain away, this is a cated piece of characterization, on the part of Homer, of a growing style. 78

Hektor and Achilles

The Iliad offers us, in the character of Diomedes, a depiction of' very process oflearning a tradition and the growth of creative at performance. Had we little other evidence; this depiction would encourage us to imagine that the poet in such a medium posed as he performed, moved by the exigencies and inspirations', i an audience. As it happens, of course, we have additional evidence, the form of Homeric morphology and phraseology, that leads us believe a traditional performance situation produced the Iliad. more than this, we have evidence in Homer's characterization Hektor and Achilles that creativity within traditional forms and use of memory are the highest values in speechmaking. These heroes are unquestionably, to an audience, the most sympathetic ures in the poem. At the same time, they are the closest to the poet,'] and it shows in their style of speaking. Both Hektor and Achilles usel

l language well. Once again, to appreciate the meaning of this tech..: nique, we must remember that it was possible for the narrator to havd produced sympathy in any number of ways, as any study of fictional'! technique can show: a composer might have intruded more direct I,

narratorial comment, surrounded the heroes with positive symbols:

78Gaisser (1969) 166 takes seriously Diomedes' exemplum about Lykourgos, and so tries to explain his declaration at 6.129 as the result of changed circumstances. Yet she acknowledges that Glaukos suppresses lurid details of his family past that the audience might have known (p. 172). I contend that in both speeches the selection of detail is meant to characterize the internal narrators.

Heroes as Performers 13 I

d images, characterized them by another system of signs, such as a~ire (as the poet of the Nibelungenlied does). Instead, two comple~entary systems, fighting and speaking, delineate his heroes. Both are stages for performance of individual style, the latter the more important. That the two leading characters are given a particular sort of style tells us something about the poet's own art.

That there are two "creative" heroes at the pinnacle of the Iliad's stylistic hierarchy lends unusual resonance to the poem, giving it the complexity of musical counterpoint. In social terms, it also foregrounds once more the agonistic nature of performance in this tradition, which in turn highlights the symbiotic roles of enemies. Hektor dead, Achilles cannot live on, because the heroes only exist as a pair, shaping and defining one another through performance, much as Diornedes and Glaukos determine each other's heroic worth, in consort, by exchange. Like detective and homicide, the opposed heroes corne to resemble one another more than the rest of the world. The poet expresses this in the transfer of Achilles' armor (17.213-14), a trope praised for its psychological insight, but one with unnoticed stylistic reference as well. For we can expect Hektor and Achilles to "look" alike. The' problem for a stylistician becomes how to differentiate the pair. I suggest that this can be done, if we return to the performative genres discovered through the study of muthos. 79

Both Hektor and Achilles give commands, but Hektor's are unusually ingrown while Achilles' negate themselves. Both heroes engage in flyting with riveting inventiveness. And (unlike Agamemnon), both have control of the genre of memories-and here they differ widely. Hektor's recollections are of human speech. More than any hero, he quotes others. Achilles, on the other hand, calls to mind grief. If Hektor's memory-genre is praise, Achilles' is lament.

Oddly enough, the poetic ability of Hektor may occlude his capacity for command. I refer to Hektor's inwardness. This quality emerges from his own words in a remarkable testimony by the hero himself about his ability as a performer. When Ajax challenges him to

790f interest but less important for overall contrast are Hektor's use of picturesque language (Bassett [1938] 78-79); and his use of characteristic phrases, such as "Trojan women with trailing gowns" (Gordesiani [1986] 78-80). Similar traits have been observed in Achilles' speeches: see discussion later in this chapter and in Chapters 4 and 5.


fight the "best of the Achaeans" after Achilles, Hektor (7. 2 35-41):

"Do not try me like a simple child, or a woman, who does not know war-work. I know well fights and man-slayings, I know to the right, I know to the left how to move my ox-hide

shield that I own for warring. I know how to leap into the moil of swift horses, I know how to dance to hostile Ares in the close fighting."

The convergence of fighting and dancing in Hektor's words puts the two activities on the same level of stylized action. We recall the similar relation that these acts play in the poetic system of Glendiot men, as allied forms of self-presentation. It is worth noting here that the mention of the performance theme by Hektor is itself a wel1-crafted musical performance, "an old, pre-epic lyric sword-dance song," as one scholar heard it.8o The anaphora of "I know" (oida, lines 237, 238, 240, 241) marks off metrical cola that strongly resemble later-attested Greek lyric metrical segments. Consider the following:

oLb' btl be~L(x olb' En' clQLOLeQu

vw/-tijaaL Bwv (7.238)

Segmented this way, the "poem" of Hektor could be read as an "Aeolic" lyric, with an adonic closing. 81

But the concentration on his own performance is like that of the dancer so concerned with the criticism of the audience that he or she limits expressiveness by paying too much attention to footwork. 82

80Fingerle (1939) 148. 8lI use the traditional metrical terms only to suggest a relation to lyric, not to

imply anything about the chronological ordering of attested Greek meters. I am persuaded by Nagy's demonstration (1974) that the epic hexameter actually arises from earlier and shorter "lyric" meters in the tradition. For the fullest explanation of this thesis, and an examination of all it implies, see the forthcoming book by Nagy, Pindar's Homer: The Lyric Possession of an Epic Past. I wish to thank the author for allowing me to read this work in advance of its publication by Johns Hopkins University Press.

820n the pervasiveness of the theme of "knowing," especially knowing technique, in the speeches of Hektor, see Duban (1981) esp. 106-7.


We might relate Hektor's self-awareness as an "expert" warrior to his particular slant on the workings of speech in society: he is more constantly preoccupied with the winning of reputation than any other hero in the poem. When others mention kleos, it is to assume that one has lost it (as Agamemnon often does) or that one will gain it ultimately (Achilles' knowledge). Only Hektor must concentrate on the process of wresting "unwithering fame" from an audience always threatening to broadcast blame. His concern shows in the exchanges' he has with Paris, in which he tries to shame his brother by reference to his bad repute, the "disgrace" (3.51, katepheie), and "ugly things" (6.524, aiskhea) that attend him. It also provides the single answer that he can give to Andromakhe's urgent request for him to stay within Troy (6.441-46):

"Woman, all this affects me, but I terribly fear (aideomai) the Trojans, and Trojan women with trailing gown, if, like a bad man (kakos), I avoid war from afar. Nor does inner desire (thumos) impel me, since I have learned to be

excellent always, and fight with the Trojan front-lines, winning my father's good repute (kleos) and my own."

We might even see Hektor's determination to perform before his local audience as the reason for his much-noticed "secularization" of bird-signs and other prophetic speech. The performer on the stage of Troy knows that the gods cannot help him execute his moves, so he cares nothing about whether the birds "go rightwards to sun and dawn or to the left, to misty dusk" (12.239':"-40) as he says to Polydamas. His interest is in making the correct motions in the same directions on the ground of war (see 7.238).83

Polydamas voices the doubts about Hektor's mastery of command that we ourselves feel on examining his use of this genre. Using language similar to that Agamemnon employed toward Achilles (I.290-91), Polydamas says that Hektor neglects the principle of uneven distribution of gifts by the gods in his wish to excel in counsel to match his preeminence in war-work (13.726-28). Agamemnon misinterprets the stylistic code, as we saw: Achilles' prowess in fact does

830n Hektor's reinterpretation of bird-signs, and general status as "reader" in the text, see Bushnell (1982) 6-8, and note his reply to Patroklos (16.859): "Why do you prophesy death to me?"


entitle him to practice flyting. But Polydamas is right: '-v.uuua.uu.ur

and killing are modes of action more distantly connected. And tor, when he commands, seems to order primarily himself. No speaker makes explicit so consistently the next moves he intends make. Hektor's return to Troy shows him always talking about rections. His trip to city from plain is framed this way (6. II3); must instruct the Trojan women. In his meeting with Hekabe, he lets the sense of direction block out unwarlike emotion; he her the directions to make dedications to Athena, then tells her intends to visit the house of Paris. There, his reply to Helen's tifully elegiac lines (6.344-58) is a dry description of where should meet him, where he intends to go now, and an that he might not return (6.360-68). Then, he asks the maid his whereabouts with an inappropriate formal command to "make a mu-, thos unerringly" (nemertea muthesasthe, 6.376). He specifies the three! spots where she might be. We could explain away these speeches by saying Homer needed such scaffolding to guide his own construction of the episode in Book 6. But, in fact, Hektor's speech elsewhere shows the same concern; and the absence of this style from other heroes' speech shows that Homer could have omitted it here, if he wished. That it remains makes it an indicator of characterization. 84

The character thus shaped is that of a hero concerned with the,moves one must make in battle, one whose style is so rigidified by public opinion that he moves only along a series of inexpressive, ultimately exhausting tracks. The race around Troy is a fitting image for Hek-tor's death. .

Ifhis commands are cramped in style by his sense of an ineluctable direction guiding himself and Troy, Hektor's flyting speeches are wider in scope, a creative release from his anxiety. After his death, we learn from Helen that he was far from malicious in speech, restraining the mean abuse from her female relations by his own gentle words and disposition (24.767-72). This sense of when blame is proper, and when not, marks its best practitioners; even Paris, who takes the brunt of his attack, acknowledges Hektor's sense of proportion, twice (3·59 = 6.333, 'Xa,;' alaav EVE('Xwa~ auf>' U:rtEQ alaav).

Once again, Hektor's ability would seem to be related to his extreme self-consciousness when it comes to reputation. This enables him to rebuke his brother so effectively after Paris has avoided con-

84The other occurrences are at 7.296-98; 13.751-53; 17.186-87.


fronting Menelaos. Like Odysseus rebuking Thersites, Hektor takes his cue from the appearance of his addressee, but varies the attack in an interesting way. Unlike Thersites, whose looks matched his ugly speech, Paris' fine app~arance ?oes not carry with it gra~efullinguistic ability. Just the OpposIte: he himself generates blame, lobe (3.42), and

. laughter (kagkhaloosi ... Akhaioi, 3.43), just as Thersites had for the Achaeans (2.27°,275).85 Hektor himself provides the "ugly" speech that ironically fits Paris, when he deforms his brother's name (Duspari, "evil-Paris," 39); alliterates with k-sounds to imitate Achaean laughter (43) and p-sounds (patri te soi mega pema poW te panti te demoi, 50) as if to spit out the object of his abuse; and distorts meaning in cruel wordplay. The shame of "mingling" with foreigners (48) is transferred into the image of Paris "mingling" with the dust (55), and Hektor mocks him for not awaiting (meineias, 52) the attack of Menelaos. In brief, Hektor's first rebuke shows him to be an accomplished poetic performer. 86 Other signs of his good flyting abilities come later. His insults to Diomedes (8.161-66), finely tuned to confront a novice warrior with the threatening themes of being like a woman and unable to get women, show that Hektor knows his audience. And the speech to his horses (8.185) features a sustained elaboration of the theme found in Agamemnon's flyting in Book 4, which we might call the motif of sustenance earned. The heroic template for this motif explains why Andromakhe is said to feed the horses wine (see 8.189 and compare 4.259, 346). But we should not read this unlikely diet as a compositional blunder on Homer's part. Instead, it fits perfectly Hektor's mood at the moment, an exultant confidence that expresses itself poetically in a playful reuse of a traditional war-rior's speaking strategy. -

An observance of the role of speech in combat marks the later flyting speeches ofHektor. He vows that Achilles will not complete his words (muthois, 20.365), and later attempts to insult his opponent with the conventional "words not deeds" tactic: "You were somewhat glib with words (artiepes) and thieving about speeches (epiklopos muthon) , " he says when Achilles has missed him with the spear (22.281). The insult makes a global stylistic comment because it implies that Achilles' form was good, at the level of utterance (epos), but

850n Paris as a traditional figure of blame-poetry, see Suter (1984). 86Anot~er flyting speech shows similar acuity at the sound-shape oflanguage:

see 15.557-58: kataktamen ... kat' akresl . .. ktasthai.


his authority to speak, based on warring skill, was lacking-he stole others' muthoi. Yet Hektor is upstaged as a critic of language by Aeneas at this point in the poem. We have already at the long discourse on insults delivered to Achilles by this (20.200-58). It is enough to note here that Hektor can only ....... ~,f'."! fraction of this analysis, and it strikes us as a borrowing from cousin, at that (20.431-33 = 20.200-202).87 As he nears his then, Hektor begins to lose confidence not only as a fighter but as who creatively manipulates the language of war.

It is in the discourse of recollection that Hektor shows the differences with other heroic speakers. As in commands and re so here we might trace his distinctive style to a basic anxiety exactitude in executing performances. This results in a rernalrka trait of his style, the use of direct quotation by Hektor to UL<UU,'HU~t:' for his audience what he imagines will happen. More than this, quotations are actually representations 'of what already has place. In other words, Hektor displaces memory onto an anonymous voice that speaks the language of praise or blame. This is to say that his discourse of recollection is ordered in the hierarchy of three genres beneath flyting; his rhetoric is still constrained by the imagined speech-acts of others.

Two clear examples occur in his meeting with his wife. The first passage quotes an unnamed speaker's comment on seeing Andromakhe as a prize of war after the fall of Troy: "And sometime someone may say, 'Here is the wife ofHektor, he who excelled at fighting, of the horse-taming Trojans, when they fought about Ilion'" (6.459-61). The dramatic realism increases our sympathy for Andromakhe as it convinces us of Hektor's affection. But the actual content of the quote constitutes a snatch of praise-poetry concerning Hektor himself; in an oblique manner, Hektor is creating the exact format of his own reputation, like a poet writing his own epitaph.88 The second quotation in the scene works in the same way. Dandling his son, Hektor prays that Astyanax be outstanding so that "sometime someone might say 'This one is much better than his father'" (6.479). Although the quotation is even briefer, an audience can recognize in it a motif already encountered in Agamemnon's flyting speech to Di-

87Duban (1981) 116-17 sees it as independent use of the same words by the two heroes, ,:without any diminishing effect.

880n this line, see Gentili and Giannini (1977) 22-25.


the comparison of heroic son with father (4.400). As we ,1.;l~,>r,,~nin the preceding chapter, the scene in Book 4 implies an oral [au.'.'~" concerning the father, Tydeus (4.374-75), whom Agamem

never met. In Book 6, Hektorimplies that oral traditions concerhis own exploits in the battle at Troy will be in the public

':aO,m.lIn, but that his son will be the object of praise-speeches, not "lH'~"'~. Again, Hektor shows a close familiarity with the repertoire of

community. " Two more times we hear Hektor practicing this brand of eulogistic dramatization, when he sets the terms for his single combat with an Achaean and when he calls a formal halt to the duel. Again, he uses the figure of his addressee as the starting point for a quotation that ultimately returns praise to himself: if he kills his enemy, in future time someone sailing past the man's burial mound at the Hellespont will say, "This is the marker of a man who died long ago, whom once

, shining Hektor slew as he was excelling" (7.89-90). In this imagined eulogy, which echoes the diction of attested epitaphs, the dead hero remains nameless, obliterated by Hektor's reputation. As it happens, the duel with Ajax grants neither hero a decisive edge. Hektor's quotation strategy as it ends should be contrasted with the strategy of Diomedes in the Book 6 scene examined earlier. If Diomedes has fabricated a past, Hektor fictionalizes a future, and then, just as Diomedes had, makes the fiction affect the present. Hektor suggests an exchange of gifts "in order that someone of both Achaeans and Trojans may say 'They fought over spirit-devouring strife, then in amity joined they parted'" (7.301-2). The effect in characterization presents us not with a portrait of the developing hero, this time, but with a man already living in the poetic tradition that is to overtake him.

The two remaining examples of Hektor's habit of quoting are not imagined praises. Instead, at the death ofPatroklos, he re-creates the immediate past. We have seen Odysseus recall events from years back, in Aulis (2.323) and Phthia (9.254-58); Nestor, too, embellishes his speech to Patroklos through quotation of this sort. But no other character is shown "quoting" what he believes was said to anotherHektor's poetic imagination outreaches the truth here. Because the narrator has taken care to cite Achilles' wish, in the prayer to Zeus at 16.233-48 as also his speech to Patroklos (16.80-96), Hektor's "recollection" is demonstrated to be wrong and our view of his style changes accordingly. By the final quotation he makes, just before his death, even Hektor can see that he has prematurely placed himself


within the wrong poetic tradition: he now imagines a MllLPL.et,',~

blame-discourse that will make him infamous: "Hektor trusting strength destroyed the fighting-troop (laon)" (22. I07). In an touch, soon after this Homer quotes, in the style of Hektor, aU'J~"!ISI mous Achaeans as they take turns-stabbing his corpse: "Much to handle, really, is Hektor, indeed, than when he burnt the with fire" (22.374).

I have tried to show that Hektor's performance in all psychologically consistent. It remains to suggest that his ,",VJU,""OlU,[;iSll

tion on form surfaces even at the level of the flow of words in speech. As he nears death, Hektor twice uses the rare figure ' epanastrophe, as he does in his last long monologue (22.126-28): I

ou f.tEV nwt; vuv EO'tW uno 6g'Uot; oM' uno nE'tgT]t; 't<P ougL~Ef.tEVm, a 'tE nug8Evot; tlt8EOt; 'tE nug8EvOt; tlt8Eot; 't'OUgL~E'tOV UAAtlAOLLV.

The immediate repetition of a phrase sounds either like hesitancy , the speaker or an attempt to test out the appropriateness of his formulation, to get it right. In Hektor's case, these amount to same thing: his concern with style is ultimately too involuted to him the universal fame-among Greeks and Trojans-that he sioned (7.300). He is bested by a hero capable of the most PV"'\'lM,,,,,,'pJ

expression. 89

The most obvious difference between the speeches of Hektor those of Achilles lies in the space afforded them. Achilles, with speeches, introduced by 40 different phrases, overshadows 49 speeches in the poem, and Achilles has nearly 400 more lines verse. Nor is this a minor consideration: size and importance correlated in the ethos of the Iliad in many scenes (consider, for example, Achilles' shield); length is a positive speech value. The assignment of length in speech by the narrator Homer produces our impressions about the importance of a given episode and also of a I speaker. In this regard, it is worth noting that Homer leaves out· direct quotation of Hektor's words at many places where it would seem appropriate in terms of narrative convention elsewhere, as at! 6.104-5, when we learn only that the hero urged on his men, but not I what he said. 90 As we have seen, this narrative handling of speech I

89The other example is at 20.371-72. 90For similar instances of bare summary or minimal direct quotation of Hek

tor, see 5.689,7.54, 11.288, 12.80, 12·407, 15.346.


accords well with the inner structure of Hektor's speech repertoire: his style is epigrammatic, as if pressure from having less "space" in either the poem or the epic tradition has condensed his very means of expression, forcing him to produce his own tradition in the form of quotation. With Achilles, the opposite style emerges; we shall study it in detail in Chapter 5. At this point, I wish to place the phenomenon of Achilles' style in the perspective of the genres that I have been delineating. From this angle, it appears his style is itself epic in ambition and scope. Moreover, it is unique within the Iliad for its formality and range, as we can see from a comparison of his speeches of command, flyting, and memory.91

Our introduction to Achilles in the poem pinpoints the central quality of his commanding style. Achilles directs the Achaeans to ask a seer, priest, or dream-interpreter the cause of Apollo's anger (1.62-67). He authorizes speech by his command, and defends the speaker, Kalkhas. The plot unfolds, we recall, because Achilles has taken the initiative to call an assembly, another indication of his respect for speech. In the course of Book I we see him rely on words rather than the sword to face down Agamemnon; cast down the scepter, a gesture of impatience with the degraded state of discourse; narrate his own story to Thetis; and even coach her in techniques of argumentation to win him honor from Zeus.92 His style is open, communicative, adaptable. This bears saying because we may tend to think of Achilles as somehow sullen. But the withdrawal to his quarters by the hero only opens up the possibility for the embassy, which is, in turn, the occasion for the most sustained piece of rhetoric in the poem. It is more important to recognize that the very act of removing himself from the action depends on the characteristic of Achilles' style generally-sympathetic imagination. Achilles can forecast, not the words, but the feeling for him that the Achaeans will experience after he is gone: "Sometime longing for Achilles will come on the Achaeans' sons, all of them" (1.240). We can contrast Hektor's imagination of future discourse; Hektor, too, can say that his companions have longing, pothe, for him, but he refers to the immediate situation

91 A dozen of Achilles' speeches do not fall under one of these categories. Two are prayers (1.351, 16.231); two promises (1.121, 24.668); three simple declarations (23.102, 617, 734); two questions (18.181, 187); two expressions of solidarity (1.215,9.196); and one simple threat (21.222).

920n the scepter and sword scenes, see Lynn-George (1988) esp. 48-50; on the meeting with Thetis, de Jong (1985) 11.

'I


that he has just left on the plain (6.362). Again, Achilles' npT'<:h"I'~; larger. 93

How does sympathetic imagination prove itself in then? One technique, as we saw with Odysseus, consists in the first-person pronouns. Although Achilles makes use of this start (1.59, 62), he makes deeper changes in the structure speeches in order to accommodate the addressee in the act. It unusual for him to explain to his audience why they should when he urges the Achaeans to fight, he adds that "it is UU.J.H.Ult!

me, though powerful,· to follow up on so many and battle (20.356-57). A simple order to the Myrmidons carefully' Achilles himself-"Let us not loose the horses yet ... but let.' weep over Patroklos"-and cites, as explanation, "for this is the ditional honor (geras) of the dead" (23.6-9). Another mark Achilles' consideration for the persons he commands is his use' indirect directives, a strategy we examined in Chapter 1 (e.g. 19.20 Thetis and 1.201 to Athena), and one unexplored by other heroes the poem. The device of directing another to speak, "so that we both know" (16.19), also gives us the impression that Achilles about what his listener thinks.

Nor is this approach simply the Odyssean attitude, a way of ing his audience by adjusting his speech to fit the hearers. Achilles' commands are remarkable in that they seem to "negate" notion of the speaker's authority to order. Achilles uses command pass on that authority to others, as when he validates Kalkhas' s in Book 1. In speech-act terms, it would appear that one "t-"111'1:~u"d condition for a directive-that the speaker be in a position to issue . order-is actually jeopardized by the directives themselves. The de-' nial of authority comes out clearly in the command to Phoinix, "Be king equally with me and share half the honor" (9.616); in the granting of power to Patroklos to "rule the Myrmidons in battle" (16.65); in Achilles' later commitment to obey all commands of Patroklos (23.95-96); and in his directive-really an entreaty-that his companion's spirit "not be angered with me" (24.592) for having released Hektor's corpse. There is a slightly odd sound to these at first, as if I Achilles were telling his audience not to regard him as worth listening 1

to. But this self-deprecating strategy fits with Achilles' preference for two-way communication between speaker and addressee. And of

930n this quality in his use of place-names, see Griffin (I986) 54-55.


the denial of command only increases respect for the hero risk such apparent undercutting: it is a sign of higher author

gives substance to Achilles' assertion that he does not need the by Agamemnon, since Zeus (the symbol of effortless au

honors him (9.607-8). not surprising, then, that Achilles' style in commanding should more formal as the poem ends. His role in the narrative, as the

of his companion's funeral, demands this, but Achilles' did not have to be dramatized; that it is formalized reinforces

earliest idea of Achilles' style, gained from seeing him follow in proposing the various traditional causes for the plague

67) and calling for an official interpretation. The authoritative of Achilles' speech strikes us as a refrain in Book 23. Five

the poet introduces Achilles' speech with the line "He stood up spoke a muthos among the Argives" (23.657,706,752, 801, 830). performances thus prefaced are official proclamations of contest

prize, often no more than a line or two. Through these speeches, seem generic enough to be spoken by anyone, we finally hear a

voice that accords with Achilles' status. For the fact remains that no. one else does say such things in the Iliad. Only Achilles rates high enough to be able to evaluate and reward the competitive style of his peers. What I have attempted to do thus far in this chapter is effectively carried out, explicitly, by Achilles himself in the Games.

It is possible to discuss the remaining tWQ genres of discourse as one, when we speak of Achilles' style, because his flyting speeches are distinctive through their use of recollection, and his memory feats are uniquely antagonistic. What remain separable modes of speaking for other heroes are for him two sides of the same experience. We hear Achilles recalling past events or distant places more than any other hero in the poem, Nestor included. Yet recollection for him always has a sharp edge. His speech to Thetis in Book 1 provides a good example. 94 The speech recaps in a miniature narrative the first episode in the poem with Achilles' slight reshaping. Noteworthy here is the neutral tone, the diction at times converging with Homer's actual words from the first narration. Only at two points does Achilles intrude as narrator: when he sums up Agamemnon's muthos as a "threat" (epeilesen, 1. 3 88); and when he concludes with the wish that Agamemnon may realize "his own destructive act, that he did not

94For a narratologist's analysis of this speech, see de Jong (1985).


honor the best of the Achaeans" (I.411-I2). At this point we the narrative is indirectly blaming Agamemnon; its framework discourse of flyting. But it is an even more convincing L~LJLL<~I:-'l cisely becuse Achilles restrains himself from indulging in calling throughout the narrative. Given the characterization of memnon, it is difficult to imagine him delivering such an in free account. We cannot but feel that Achilles has better style.

The same technique is used by Achilles in his third reply embassy. Although Ajax has spoken "according to your heart" thumon, 9. 645-pointedly, not "in proportion," kata moiran, would also fit the meter but not Achilles' view), Achilles' heart, swells with anger. He expresses this in terms of memory: I recall how the son of Atreus degraded me among the Argives, some worthless itinerant" (9.646-47).95 This special strategy' Achilles, rebuking by recollection,' also might explain a problem has long puzzled readers of Homer and delighted Analyst critics: the words of Achilles at 16.72-73, describing the Trojans' should "Agamemnon act mildly towards me" (epia eideie), the entire embassy ,scene. To cite only one recent evaluation, non-Analyst critic at that,

The silence of Achilles about the offer of Agamemnon does not yield.to any interpretation that is compatible with the conventions of Iliadic ' . narrative, and we may conclude that his silence is not an intentional and interpretable aspect of the narrative but a by-product of the cumu- ,J

lative process of composition. 96

I suggest instead that, just as Achilles rebukes Agamemnon u· 'U"~""Y by recollection, he does so even more markedly by refosing to ollect. Achilles' audience, Patroklos, knows what occurred during embassy; Homer's audience is meant to compare this scene with And Achilles, whose entire style relies on recollection, who is recalling the exact words of his own men's complaints in this book (16.203-6)-surely he remembers. By refusing to acknowledge i

the existence of Agamemnon's malicious buy-out, Achilles engages:

95For other rebukes in the course of recollection by Achilles, see 21.276 and, 24.649-54. In the latter, the indirect hit at the Achaeans has been raised, in the ,; introductory phrase (649) to characterize the whole speech, although Achilles' talks mildly, in fact, to Priam.

96Mueller (I984) I72.


recognizable Iliadic convention, if not of narrative then of rhetoric: recall the effective silent reply of Diomedes to Aga

when the commander tried to lower that hero's status . Ethnographers point out that we cannot understand the role

PC;il.lUU5 in any society until we know what silence signifies. We what it means for the world of the Iliad. Achilles has played the equivalent of damnatio memoriae. Thus, in the terms of heroic

he has effectively outdone the rhetoric of Agamemnon, whose ve style could only cause competitors to enter an escalating if they choose to speak against him. Achilles' great speech in 9 is as effective a reply as he could give, verbally. This "forget-

silence in Book 16, however, is an even more damning stateIt deserves notice, inasmuch as "a successful act of revenge is

that so appropriately caps the original injury that it draws attento its own significance" in a society that values heroic style. 97

(.Silence proves an effective weapon elsewhere as Achilles performs the battlefield. In the light of the speech conventions we have been

, Achilles' flyting remarks are often characterized by brevity, which we can now view as itself an insult, conveying to the victim Achilles' sense that his addressee is not worth a waste of words. To Aeneas he accords a reasonably full and damaging recollection, citing his successful rout of that hero in an earlier encounter (20.188-95); Iphition, however, rates only a perfunctory four verses on being killed, yet in these Achilles states exactly where his victim's ancestral home lay and who his father was (20.389-92). The brevity may strike us as epigrammatic, but compared to other examples of this genre it means that Achilles knows all that is worth knowing about the dead hero and finds nothing notable. At times, this refusal to speak at length produces the impression that Achilles simply wants to be done with the inevitable killing. Unlike Diomedes, who could spend twenty lines on the topic (6.123-43), Achilles employs just two conventional verses asking where his next victim came from (21. 150-51) and saves his breath for a lengthier boast, a feat of genealogical memory, after the killing of Asteropaios (21. 184-99). He convinces the audience that he needs no softening up of his enemies with verbal thrusts, unlike other warriors.

The final characteristic that deserves mention in the analysis of

97Herzfe1d (198-5) 205, speaking of the poetics of Cretan revenge. On silence in a society's speech economy, see Bauman (1974) 145.


Achilles' genre mixing has to do with a specific form of discourse, the lament. Even before hearing of Patroklos' Achilles recalls his mother's words in language that comes from poetry of grief: "She said that the best of the Myrmidons, while I live, would leave the sunlight at Trojan hands" (18.10-1 I). As saw in Hektor's imagined discourses, praise and lament are twined. One difference between Homer's representation of and of Achilles is that the former' imagines himself praised in future, while the latter expends his rhetoric on a companion, once again a sympathetic imagination. Patroklos' death grieving recollection that turns to self-rebuke for Achilles (as in words to Thetis at 18.80-84), but it also opens gates of ... , ..... "".v to other stories-his parents' wedding (18.84-87), Herakles' (18.IIS-19), the conversation he had with Patroklos' (18.32s)-and to memories of other persons, especially Achilles' ther and son (19.31S-37). The act of imagination that enabled him act out his anger also haunts Achilles with these distant figures, now that the Achaeans' "longing" for him (pothe, 1.240) has turned into. his longing for his companion (19.321). But the sharp overtone to' Achilles' voice does not get muffled amid his memories. Most con ... vincing about his performance even to the end of the poem is the manner in which Achilles manages to combine lamentation with consciousness of speaking in competition. When he recalls Peleus' vow to the river Sperkheios for a safe return, Achilles uses the language with which others have tried and failed to shame him into . action. "Thus prayed the old man," says Achilles, "but you did not fulfill the intention" (23.149). The words indirectly blame the local god of Phthia as Achilles cuts the hair originally intended for him. Compare the line with Odysseus' pointed recollection of Peleus' words (9.2S9): "Thus the old man enjoined, but you forget."

Achilles never forgets, though. It has often been observed that memory plays the pivotal role in the final scene of the poem, as Achilles recalls Peleus on seeing Priam, and joins the old man in weeping (24. SI8-S1). The jars of Zeus and Niobe's grief arise in his recollection as transparent myths, nor do we feel (as with Diomedes) that these are stories meant to sway Priam. Memory bonds them, rather-except in one disturbing moment. Priam, hurrying Achilles to bring the corpse of Hektor, mentions the many gifts brought as ransom. If we need another piece of evidence to convince us that Achilles had ever heard Agamemnon's offer in Book 9, it is here. For


words of Priam spark a dangerous shift in Achilles' mood; they do _¥pr1c:t>IY because Agamemnon had made the same mistake, as if

goods could persuade Achilles. Adding insult, Priam has menAchilles' return home, a detail offensive to Achilles' sense of

epic tradition he is destined to enter. Achilles responds in lanironically echoing Agamemnon's original refusal to honor anold man's request (compare 24.560 and 1.32, meketi m'ereth

m'erethize). Unlike Agamemnon, he relents. But this final of characterization by discourse style goes far to tell an audience

Achilles has full mastery of the genre of recollections, whether of ury or grief. The further subtleties in the construction of this em

style will concern us in the two remaining chapters. 98

980n the similarities between 24.559 and Book I, see Minchin (1986) 15-17.

CHAPTER 4

The Language of Achilles

Language, Formula, and Style

Every hero is a performer. That is the essence of the dictum Peleus entrusts- to Phoinix, who in turn reminds Achilles to be a speaker of words and a doer of deeds. 1 Between the two concepts no distinction is drawn. Both are performances. The poetry anticipates Austin and Searle in treating speech as act, part of an economy in which talk about one's action is as important as deeds themselves, and in which no feat can survive without its afterword. Nor is recounting alone sufficient; style, in words as in fighting, marks the man: Senecan self-consciousness thrives in the world of the Iliad. 2

I have sketched the contours of this world's speech behavior-the poet's traditional division of talk into epos and muthos, the former -referring to utterance as such, the latter to the complete act of speaking, with its concomitants: tone, occasion, appropriateness to the audience, result-in other words, to performance. Thersites, ametroepes, does not produce pleasing discourse, not only because the substance of his speech in Book 2 is repugnant to the elite, but also because his words are deficient as utterance. By Iliadic standards, they

IHomeric epic associates two roles not commonly conjoined: see Bauman (1978) 29 on roles of performers in other societies. For a contrasting approach to mine, see Barck (1976), an examination of pervasive opposition between "word" and "deed" in Homer.

2For the history of the traditional formulation "style is the man," from Plato on, see Muller (1981) esp. 9-21. -

The Language of Achilles 147

are unmetrical, as we saw, lines with no clear breaks, full of slurring correptions, more so than ordinary speech in the poem. Transitions that would define the flow of speech are harsh or nonexistent.

But while the poet on occasion dwells on epea to draw attention to their unusual form or content, the main interest always appears to be the play of performances. The speech-acts of the speaker-heroes occupy the foreground. The epic itself is constructed around one vital speech-act, supplication. 3 The poem opens with pleas-both poet's and priest's-and rises through threat and refusal to prediction, assurance, threat, counterthreat, and grand refusal, until, with the assurance of Thetis that she will beseech Zeus for her son's sake we reach the end of one ring-composition, on the human level, and proceed to the gods' rendition of the same cycle. In the prelude of the poem it is not the utterances so much as the moods in which they emerge that hold us, and the poet labels these by delineating a series of muthoi-Agamemnon's scorning of Khryses, for example, Athena's commands to Achilles, even the words of Zeus to Hera in Book I are introduced with this word.

Yet these two systems for talking about speech in the Iliad are not parallel lines. At times, speaking well is the best revenge; For Achilles, whose words have exiled him from the arena of speech, creating fine epea remains his only option for enacting a muthos. It is a crucial performance.

The power of Achilles' representation, particularly his appearance in Book 9, has persuaded readers since Plato that the words of the hero are somehow different from ordinary discourse. The ancient critics explained the difference as a matter of style, without, however, advancing beyond impressionistic descriptions of each character's way with words: Achilles' plain and passionate style was contrasted with the elaborate rhetoric of Odysseus, the fullness of Nestor, the laconic speech of Menelaos. 4 The only extended commentary on Achilles'

3The most detailed treatment of this theme in the poem is Thornton (I984) II3-42. 4For the Platonic discussion, in which speech style equals ethical stance, see Hp. Mi.

364e, 365b, 37oa. Perhaps as early as the fourth century, Odysseus, Nestor, and Menelaos were taken as models of the three rhetorical styles: see Russell (I98I) I37-38. Achilles, in this tradition, is not a model to be imitated. The issue of individual speaking styles in Homer is tied to the larger ancient debate over whether the art of rhetoric existed in Homeric times, on which see Kennedy (I957) 23-35 and (I963) 35-39. Karp (I977) argues for the existence of a kind of rhetorical art in Homer but unduly enlarges the term to include any persuasive use oflanguage: see his comments on Achilles' speech, pp. 256-57. Gladstone (I874) had well compared Homeric rhetoric


speech, as on the Iliad as a whole, before the Renaissance comes in scholia found on the great early manuscripts of the poem and in copious exegesis ofEustathius, the twelfth-century bishop of lonica. The latter's remarks we might expect to be particularly able, as we know that Eustathius served as the imperial maistor oron, writing everything from eulogies to pleas for improvements public water supplies, and thus was attuned to the spoken word. in Eustathius' view, as in the scholia, style is seen as only an """L"J.J"JUll

of personality: both are haplos, or semnos, "simple" and "serious," the portrayal of Achilles. 5 It is not until the twentieth century, Milman Parry's discovery of how systematically formulaic diction can be, that the notion of a Homeric character possessing individual way of speaking has been questioned. If the great poet. himself did not lay claim to his own "style," but rather inherited his' art wholesale from generations before him, how could any figure he created come to express anything but what had been said before? Had. not Parry shown that all Homeric speech was traditional? Where did this leave the hero who had made the great refusal-Achilles? Was he' required to mouth the usual formulas in order to make clear hjs own dissenting view on the war at Troy?

The first to ask these essential questions was Milman Parry's son, Adam. In an influential article published when he was twenty-'eight, the younger Parry argued that Achilles, bound by the formulaic nature of his diction, "has no language with which to express his disillusionment" and yet succeeds in expressing it "by misusing the language he disposes of."6

with the less formal art of parliamentary debate: see also Myres (1958) 94-122 on this viewpoint. Instead of discussing rhetoric as a science in early Greek poetry, it is better to speak of it as one feature of universal verbal art, poetry and prose. It is this "protorhetoric" that needs investigation, as Horner (1983) notes, 29.

sOn the tradition underlying scholiastic comments about rhetoric, see Schmidt (1976) 43-45. Kazhdan (1984) 183-94 has a good study of Eustathius' rhetorical teaching; Lindberg (1977) provides the context for Eustathius' remarks on rhetoric in the commentary. See also Kennedy (1983) 316. Roemer (1914) 5 points out that Eustathius held all of Book 9 to be a rhetorical contest: see Eust. 751. I (ad 9.309) and 751.33 (ad 312) for his remarks, and also the scholia (bT) to lines 307 and 309 for similar observations.

6A. Parry (1956) 5-6. Similar remarks can be found in his 1957 Harvard dissertation on Thucydides, which begins with an examination of the logoslergon distinction in early Greek. For discussion of the way in which this distinction clouded Parry's thinking concerning formulaic language, see Claus (1975) 14.

The Language of Achilles 1.49

Adam Parry had posed his essay as an attempt "to explore some of implications of the formulaic theory of Greek epic verse. "7 On the

that the epic formula represents for the poet the single best • ..,,,r ..... ''''''lL for a given idea, Parry asserts that "the style of Homer eJll.l-'lLa.,..~~~ constantly the accepted attitude toward each thing in the

and this makes for a great unity of experience."8 The argu.rnent continues with reference to Sarpedon's famous defense of the heroic code (II. 12.310-28), the main point of which (honor equals tangible goods) Parry finds to be agreed on by all Iliadic heroes. This universal agreement is next compared to Homer's own formulaic style. The crucial step in the reasoning of the essay comes with Parry's assertion that "the economy of the formulaic style confines speech to accepted patterns which all men assume to be true"speech, thought, and reality are an undivided whole. Yet Achilles, who seems to perceive "the awful distance between appearance and reality," who distrusts the false front of Odysseus, is unable to fit into this perfect Nominalist world. He is "the one Homeric hero who does not accept the common language, and feels that it does not correspond to reality," writes Parry. At the same time "neither Homer in his own person as narrator, nor the characters he dramatizes, can speak any language other than the one which reflects the assumptions of heroic society," those precepts uttered by Sarpedon. 9 Therefore, Achilles' "misuse" oflanguage is needed to break out of the formulaic system: it consists of his asking questions without answers and making demands that cannot be met; the former, when he questions the need for the fight with Troy, the latter, his request that Agamemnon pay back his disgrace. Adam Parry declines to discuss in detail the great speech in which Achilles allegedly misuses his language, but describes it as "passionate, confused, continually turning back on itself," and takes this as another sign of Achilles' inability to fit the heroic world. 10

The description might rather have been applied to the state of scholarly discussion on Homeric style once Milman Parry's important work began to become widely known, especially through the

7 A. Parry (1956) 1.

8Ibid. 3. 9Ibid. 6. lOIbid. 5-6.

ISO The Language of Heroes

writings of his collaborator Albert Lord. 11 It is helpful to recall . thing of this controversy in order to place Adam Parry's challeng.:,' ing article in perspective; then we can examine the ensuing debates on the "language of Achilles," and take new steps to solve the prob:lem. The first critical responses sought to save Homer's own "origi.., . nality," the question of idiosyncratic speech on the part of epic characters being left aside for the moment. Milman Parry's discoveries had raised four interrelated questions: How much of Homer is for.., mulaic? What exactly is a "formula"? Does a proof of Homer's for., mulaic style mean necessarily that the epics were oral poems? And if, so, how should one interpret repetitions within the poetry?

Of course, the question of whether Homer wrote had been asked and answered in various ways since antiquity.12 Perhaps because it was such an old question, Parry's answer received the most attention. His suggestion that Homer was an oral poet gained ground because his fieldwork in Yugoslavia far surpassed in accuracy and scope the casual observations of earlier travelers acquainted with actual oral poetry and, in addition, focused on a specific poetic technique-the deployment of formulas within Serbo-Croatian heroic songs. The analogy with Homer seemed compelling. Subsequent studies have shown that the Serbo-Croatian material, while different in many ways from Homeric verse, still has a claim to being one of the best comparanda. 13 Parry apparently solved the historical problem, through the demonstration that systematic formularity underlay Homer's art, and the suggestion that this could only result from a long tradition of oral performance and composition. The solution for a time overshadowed the continuing and perhaps more important literary problem of the "meaning" of the Homeric poems, as it did the more technical unsolved questions about the definition of the formula and the overall "formularity" of the epics. Acceptance of Milman Parry's conclusions seemed to carry with it a denial that one could find "meaning" at the level of the individual Homeric word, phrase, or line. Scholarship echoed contemporary politics: one was called "hard" or "soft" on "Parryism. "14 Yet the contention of the "hard" Parryists,

llSee Foley (1981) 22-26 for a bibliography of Lord's work, and Foley (1985) for a listing of some 1,000 articles inspired by Parry-Lord theory.

12For a summary, see Lloyd-Jones (1981); Myres (1958); and Davison (1962). 13See Kirk (1962) 87-88; Vesterholt (1973); Lord (1975) 12-13. 14The terms are those of Rosenmeyer (1965). Holoka (1973) traces the debates over

the Parry~Lord theory in the 1950S and 1960s, a contentious series of misunderstand-


that an oral poet could never express himself as subtly as a writing poet, never .w~n a large f?llowin~. Lord himself, alt~lOugh anxious to quash certam mterpretatlons which he thought relled on unrealistic subtleties of formulaic repetition, had pointed out that oral poets used other means to distinguish themselves; rather than by recondite vocabulary or allusiveness, they ornamented and expanded their performances of traditional material by adding lines, motifs, and themes. 15

In the years following publication of The Singer oj Tales (1960) a number of studies located Homeric innovation and creativity precisely within his tradition, in the variation, juxtaposition, and expansion of preexisting motifs and diction. 16 The poet's capability for artful composition has been reasserted with new awareness of the levels at which "subtlety" occurs.

In short, the work of Milman Parry proved liberating. Austin has pointed out that, "far from eliminating literary criticism from Homeric studies, Parry ... opened up possibilities that Analytic studies had made seem highly suspect. A grammar of Homeric poetics can be written, but not if we suppose that Homer is, either wholly or substantially, a victim of his metrical formulas."17 Although it is to this day unclear to what extent "oral," "traditional," and "form~laic" overlap as descriptions of Homeric poetry, at least it is recognized

ings and inaccuracies. For a representative selection of the work from this period, see Latacz (1979) 297-571.

15See the debate with Adam Parry and Anne Amory Parry in Lord (1968) and the response of A. A. Parry (1971). Lord (1960) 25-27, 68-98 discusses and illustrates the art of expansion. Milman Parry had called attention to the creativity of certain singers who knew the tradition thoroughly enough to improve it: see M. Parry (1971) 335, 406-7 (hereafter abbreviated MHV).

16This work took several tacks: some, like Whallon (1969) and Anne Parry (1973) found "meaning" in the so-called ornamental epithets: others, like Edwards (1980), Fenik (1968 and 1978 especially) and Beye (1964) concentrated on variatio technique within type-scenes; Austin (1975) and Vivante (1970 and 1982) showed that the poet's decision to use a formula, when the noun itself suffices, is meaningful; Nagy (1974 and 1979) starts from Parry's insight that all Greek epic is traditional in his own explorations of the interplay among meter, diction, and theme. Hainsworth (1970) 37-38 has good examples of Homeric innovation. For further developments, see Foley (1985) 35-41. Recent studies in other poetic traditions show how artistic talent is revealed through the individual performer's exploitation of traditional material: see Vesterholt (1973) 75-85 and Beaton (1980) 18. On the richness of Homeric style as resulting from such free variation, see Bowra (1962) 32-34, Peradotto (1979) 5, and Russo (1968) 294. Again, Parry was not unaware of the possibilities inherent in the recombination of fixed formulas: see MHV 220, 270, 307.

17 Austin (1975) 79-80.


that these labels do not limit the expressive power of the poet; pressiveness" is simply posited at a different level. The ground been cut from under Adam Parry's contentions about Achilles' guage." In retrospect, it can be seen that the younger Parry three unquestioned assumptions in applying his father's theory. he used "language" to mean two very different things: as a expression for" cultural code" or "value system," but also in the of "diction." In Saussurean terms, when Adam Parry speaks Achilles' inability to accept the "common language," he refers to "signified," that is, the heroic code. When he says Achilles has language" to express his disillusionment, Parry really means "no sig"" nifiers." Of course, his concurrent work on the logos/ ergon distinction tempted Parry to make this semantic slide in discussing Achilles.· Thus, he was led to make a second assumption-that all Homeric language is formulaic. Milman Parry, indeed, seemed to believe that this was so (according to a remark by Antoine Meillet), but he never specified in what way such a statement might be true, other than by pointing out the existence of "formulaic systems" in Homer. 1S Nor did he indicate the essential differences between such regular syntactic . patterning and the noun-epithet "formulas." This brings us to Adam Parry's third premise: his claim that the "economy of the formulaic style" is what predetermines how Homer's figures speak. Even if all . of Homer's works were "formulaic" in some sense, I believe it is still the highly developed noun-epithet systems examined by Milman Parry that exhibit "economy and extension," in a strict sense. There may be only one way to say "Odysseus" at a certain point in the hexameter line; there are a half-dozen ways of saying "Achilles was angry," however. 19 If formulaic "thrift" is an illusion, if characters can vary their expression at will-why should Achilles "misuse" his language?

Adam Parry's ideas on the "language" of Achilles were not contested until 1973, when M. D. Reeve briefly and persuasively pointed out that "neither an unanswerable question nor an impossible demand

18MHV 275-79. On the later transformations of this notion, see Hainsworth (1964) 155·

19The notion of "economy," which Milman Parry derived from earlier work on Homeric Kunstsprache, proved to be the strongest point in the demonstration of the traditional nature of the noun-epithet system. See MHV 6-16. As Adam Parry points out, the principle is open to criticism if extended to all Homeric repetitions: MHV xxxi-ii. See further Russo (1971) 32-33.

i

l


is by its nature a misuse of language. . . that is; of traditional vocabulary," as Parry had argued it was in Achilles' speech at 9·337-38 and 9.3 87. 20 Illogical as the demand to "pay back heart-rending injury" might be, all-embracing and despairing as the question "Why must the Achaeans fight the Trojans?" may sound-these speech-acts are on a plane wholly different from that of the diction used to express them. Although they may be prompted by Achilles' perception that there exist constraints in a highly "formulaic" system of correct behavior in war, it is a mistake to equate that system with the system of formulaic language at work in the poem.

The debate over the "language of Achilles" has continued on two levels, although most articles bearing the phrase in their titles perpetuate the original ambiguity as to whether "language" should be taken as "diction" or "thought." Most work, like that of Reeve, has concentrated on investigating Achilles' words to show that he makes traditional or nontraditional statements with them. David Claus's "AIDOS in the Language of Achilles" falls into this category. Claus leaves unexamined Adam Parry's premise that a system of ideas is analogous to a system of poetic formulas. Instead, he observes the tensions and contradictions in the heroic code even within the Iliadas when a hero must decide between two traditional modes of acting (e.g. the decision of Odysseus at 11.404 whether to retreat or be defeated). Given such explicit choices at the level of behavior, Claus notes, we might expect similar possibilities for multiple choice and meaning in the linguistic structure of the text. His commonsense argument takes Adam Parry's reductionist theory to its logical end: if the idea of a complete unanimity of logos and ergon is pressed, notes Claus, "every statement made in the poem ... must be one that supports entirely what are taken as the fixed ideas of the society, or it cannot be spoken. "21 This sort of poetry would hardly lend itself to characterization. Yet Claus shows that characters are distinguished in the Iliad exactly on the basis of the way they speak about the heroic code. Sarpedon (12.310-28) expresses a vision of heroism akin to Achilles' own view, in its assumption that the hero battles not just for his own glory and gain, but for the honor of having benefited his companions without "pay." Achilles and Sarpedon can speak very

20Reeve (1973) 194. Kirk (1976) 74, while expressing reservations about A. Parry's exaggeration of the rigidity of the system, nevertheless appears to accept his conclusion (at p. 207).

21Claus (1975) 16-17 ..


different formulas and use various rhetorical devices,and still eX'Ore~l:~ the same point of view: so much for the determinism of the and for Achilles' alleged "isolation" from it.

It should be noted that Claus circumvents Parry's argument cerning formulaic economy by moving to a more abstract level. points out that changing contexts automatically ensure that speaker uses the same formulas in different ways, and conversely, able to use different formulas to mean the same thing. While observation is no doubt true, one could make the same staLteJme~nt; about everyday language, which, because it is constructed from speaker's standpoint, contains built-in flexibility in the form of guistic "shifters" to accommodate changing contexts. 22 It is a . fact of any temporal art that one can never step into its flow in the I same way twice. The problem remains with Homer's formulaic po::, etry of determining the amount of difference in meaning at each repetition of phrase or line.

A more recent examination of the "language" -meaning "thought" of Achilles resorts to similar abstraction. Steven Nimis also argues that formulaic language takes on different meanings according to. context. He attempts to reconcile the views of Claus and Adam Parry by posing the "language of Achilles" problem in Chomskyan terms,',' regarding rule-governed creativity. Achilles, in this way, is a "sign.;. , producer who wishes to change the' code, ' to articulate a meaning for whose communication and accurate reception no adequate conventions exist as yet. "23 How Achilles does this remains unclear in Nimis's exposition: the changes that the hero makes in the "code" appear to include the use of hyperbole, catachresis, and oxymoron, as. well as his refusal to share a communal meal after Patroklos' death. But surely these are no more than examples of Achilles' ability to call upon alternatives that are equally conventional; and the "changes" themselves have nothing to do with "language" unless we persist in using that word to denote "behavior." Hyperbole and the other rhetorical devices are operations applied to language, but in no real sense do they constitute it.24

22Jakobson (1981) contains the classic definition of such forms, which include the personal and deictic pronouns, as well as other grammatical markers.

23Nimis (1986) 219. 24Ibid. 220-21. Nimis here follows Friedrich and Redfield (1978) in equating rhet

oric and language: see my later discussion. Cramer (1976) 301 rightly traces the differences which A. Parry picked out in Achilles' speeches to the unique rhetorical


Concurrent with these probes into the world of the "signified" as it appears in Achilles' speeches, there have been attempts, also inspired by Adam Parry's work, to find idiosyncratic usage of "signifiers" either on the part of Achilles or by Homer in describing him: the distinction is sometimes blurred. Hogan discovers that the distribution of prin, "before/until," is unusual in the speeches of Achilles, who doubles the conjunction. Although this quirk is neither consistently nor even frequently Achillean, Hogan nevertheless maintains that "Zeus uses the double prin when speaking of him, that Hektor attributes this emphatic form of command to him, that Homer, in the second half of the poem, at least, uses this figure almost exclusively in reference to Achilles," and concludes that "all these elements contribute in a small but significant manner to the characterization. "25 Scully points out that the formulas of deliberation which employ okhthesas differ significantly when they occur in speeches by Achilles: in Achilles' rhetorical usage, such phrases preface reflections about mortality, rather than monologues concerning the tension between personal need and social expectations (as they do in the speeches of other heroes). Thus, Achilles "uses stereotypic patterns which outline choice in a manner that differs from other heroes. "26 The phenomena that these scholars describe, however, could best be ascribed to conscious repetition of formulaic language on the poet's part; it is misleading to connect this with the "language" of Achilles in Adam Parry's sense. 27

These n:ports are like suggestive sketch-marks. Taken together, they delineate a very distinctive figure, although no one characteristic stands out. Such studies, however, are vitiated by the lack of a general agreement on the background for Homeric characterization: are we to think that an audience would compile a mental dossier of such traits, noting at each turn Achilles' deviation from a supposed "normal"

stance of the hero, "free-wheeling but rhetorically calculating"; he cites the changes made from one speech to another in Achilles' mode of referring to Briseis (9.340 versus 19.59) and the sea (1.157 versus 9.360).

25Hogan (1976) 309. 26Scully (1984) 24. 27Ibid. 25. Despite the title of his article, Scully seems to recognize the distinction:

he explains Achilles' idiosyncratic use as Homer's playing against an established "pattern of expectation" at the formular level. For an analogous use of characterization by the variation of one formula, see now Olsen (1984) 134-35, who observes that the andswarode formula in the Old English Andreas is restricted to Christ's messages, whereas other characters' speeches conclude with ageaf andsware.


behavior? Or are these small signs only detectable by philologists' devices, without "meaning" in the performance of the poem, perhaps accidents? What do such intriguing facts of "language" add up to? We need a real portrait, not a sketch.

James Redfield and Paul Friedrich attempted to supply a total assessment of Achilles' language through the application of a type of linguistic sty lis tics developed originally for the analysis of natural speech. They found that "Achilles in the jliad is characterized by individual speech patterns." For several reasons, their claim demands serious attention. First, the Chicago scholars recognize (as had Claus and Reeve) that Parry's "language of Achilles" referred to value system, not diction. They rightly label Parry's equating formulaic language with formulaic thought "a kind ofWhorfianism run wild." Second, they appear to acknowledge the difficulty of tracing individ...; ual speech patterns behind the scrim of a seemingly uniform poeticized speech: as they note, "all the characters in Homer 'speak Homeric.'" But here their method falls short of the goal; for, instead of beginning with the assumption that the poet forms his characters' speeches, Redfield and Friedrich at least seem to proceed as though the individual speakers in epic expressed themselves independently of their creator. 28

What is more, as it turns out, the nine "distinctive features" which the two analysts find in Achilles' speech are in fact text-linguistic aspects; they are of a different type from either the facts examined by Parry, Reeve, and Claus, or the features noted by Scully, Hogan, and Cramer. When Redfield and Friedrich include in their analysis such extrasentential structures as accumulation of detail; expanded series of statements (e.g. 9.378-86); use of hypothetical expression and similes; poetic directness in word choice, and so on, they begin to use the term "language" in yet another sense-that is, to stand for "rhetoric. "29 All these features of Achilles' speech, particularly of his great reply to Odysseus in Book 9, had been noticed even in antiquity, when attention to rhetoric formed the core of the study of poetic

28Friedrich and Redfield (1978) 265, 267, 266. A further methodological problem, not noticed by later critiques: Redfield's and Friedrich's "counter-samples" of speeches made within the hearing of Achilles, while the first effort by any scholars to provide a control on Achilles' language, are less representative of non-Achillean speech since it has been shown recently that Iliadic replies copy, to a large extent, the diction and the structure of the speeches they answer: see Lohmann (1970) 131-82.

29Redfield and Friedrich (1978) 271-75.


style. Indeed, Redfield and Friedrich must concede that several other speakers in the Iliad command the same linguistic resources: Paris is "direct" in his choice of words; Aeneas uses similes; Hektor can build up a rhetorically elaborate series in his speech to Andromakhe in Book 6. In this light, Achilles stands out because he consistently uses certain devices, not because he monopolizes them. In addition, Redfield and Friedrich point out that Achilles can be contrasted with other speakers in his avoidance of certain strategies: unlike Nestor, Odysseus, or other characters, Achilles does not concede points, make distinctions, anticipate his interlocutors' objections in argument, or offer multiple reasons for his behavior. But this is to say that Achilles is simply a different character in the poem; it so happens that literary "character" is constructed out of language; yet it would be tautologous and misleading to assert that each character thereby has a different "language. "30

When the analysis turns to those features that are actually "linguistic" at the level of sentence and clause, rather than at the level of discourse, it becomes less assured and more speculative. Achilles' speeches are found to contain more asyndetic expressions; more subjunctives-perhaps he is more emotional; more elaborate and combined vocatives, more titles of address, terms of affection and abuse, emotive particles e and de-clear signs to the investigators of his passionate nature and dominant relation with his peers.

Redfield and Friedrich do not analyze Achilles' speeches from the point of view of the formula, other than to note that his words do not differ from those of other Iliadic speakers in the number of formulas per line. 31 They conclude, however, with a glance at the theory that first gave rise to the "language of Achilles" debate. Apparently, they proceed from Milman Parry's work without reference to later modifications in formula theory, when they assert that "if the choice of adjective is less meaningful than in non-traditional verse sources of meaningful variation are to be sought elsewhere-in the general shape of utterances, in the use of rhetorical devices and in the choice of particles, or particular highly-marked lexemes, or of marked syn-

30Ibid. 277-83. On the problems of analyzing "character" in modem poetics, see Rimmon-Kenan (r983) 29, and on the problem of attributed direct speech in fiction, Martinez-Bonati (r98r) 30-)2.

31This was one of nearly thirty criteria, ranging from phonology to metrics to clause-structure, which they checked and found to be nonidiosyncratic in Achilles' case. See Redfield and Friedrich (r978) 283·

!I il I'


tactic constructions." But their search for "meaningful takes them too high and too low. On the one hand, the instinct examine discourse as a whole is admirable. It is a method I have to illustrate earlier in this book, one that finds its roots in the itself: after all, the characters of the Iliad do not examine one lexical choices, but are highly critical of one another's mances," that "shape of the utterance" which we have seen nated as epos. Redfield's and Friedrich's attempt is actually a toward articulating a poetics of performance. Nevertheless, it victim to a determination, on the other hand, to be perfectly "~~~U'.~llL' about verbal art: there remains in their study too much confidence the lowest level of verbal behavior, a belief that counting particles and verb moods can give us insight into an overall characterization by style. Stanley Fish's memorable critique of this method should to discourage stylisticians at large from leaping into the complexities:' of psychological portrayal from the wobbly ledge of statistics. 32

Within a few years of its publication in Language, the brave attempt by Redfield and Friedrich to pin down Achilles' language once and for all encountered strong criticism, in the same journal. Gordon Messing, while likewise dismissing Adam Parry's seminal article for its method, questions several of Redfield's and Friedrich's procedures: the use of a rather small sample (even ifit did represent all of Achilles' words); the lack of attention to manuscript variations, even though the Homeric text is far from fixed; and most of all, the ultimate goal of finding "individualization" in the figure of Achilles, rather than "characterization" according to ethos, the latter being the universally recognized technique of ancient writers. Messing draws on recent work in stylistics to point out the "serious error" of confusing rhetoric with speech style. Achilles' rhetoric, of course, is a function of Homer's own poetic craft: it may have been molded to fit the hero's individual ethos. But speech style-if defined as the product of such things as particle use and frequency, preference for certain syntactic constructions, choice of conjunctions, sentence length, and so forthis unlikely to be found, since the options "might be supposed parts of over-all Homeric style rather than components in the speeches of

32Ibid. 284. Fish (1973). See also Pearce (1977) 1-36. Plett (1985) argues for a renewed study of rhetorical stylistics to remedy the faults of statistical and structural analysis.


. individual Homeric heroes. "33 The analysis of unconscious choices among grammatical means has -been quite useful when applied to dating and attributing texts, but the choices themselves cannot have

. been a vehicle for communicating, to a listening audience, differences in fictional characters, concludes Messing. Thus, he shows, misapprehensions about ancient poetic convention and modern stylistics damage the most concerted effort to grant Achilles his own "language."

Because it mirrors the problems of contemporary Homeric studies, it is instructive to review the shifting debate over the "language of Achilles." How does one interpret formulaic language? Do we need an "oral poetics"? Does linguistics, semiotics, or old-fashioned New Criticism best illuminate Greek poetry? The questions thus raised have critical ramifications for classical studies in general. But, aside from providing some insights on recent intellectual history, reviewing the work thus far shows that the essential steps have still not been taken to prepare us for any sustained study of Homer's style, let alone such complex issues as characterization by style. Briefly, we need to know where to look for "style." I suggest that we continue to take account of full stretches of discourse, speeches or narration, not just individual lines; Messing has shown the error oflooking at the microscopic linguistic level. Furthermore, I propose that we go back to examining Homer's formulaic art. As I have tried to show, every critic of Achilles' language since Adam Parry has neglected to perform the close line-oy-line reading that would tell us whether or not Achilles differs, in his use of formulas, from other characters. Yet it seems to me to make sense that, if a poet indeed wanted to characterize his chief hero, he would have done so by using the one feature of his art which (we now know) he could vary, expand, and shape endlessly, and which his audience would be most likely to notice and appreciate-his inherited poetic diction. The number of finely focused, formulaic analyses of Homeric poetry is absurdly small.

33Messing (1981) 890-94, 897. On ethopoiia, see Kennedy (1963) 90-93. An example not cited by Messing is in Eust. 752.61, where the commentator links amphiboly in Achilles' speech with the ethos of "an angry person." In defense of Friedrich's and Redfield's intuitions, it should be noted that some oral literature does in fact use grammatical and phonetic means to distinguish the talk of distinct characters: for example, the "buzzard talk" in Nomatsiguenga (Peruvian) myths, on which see Pickering (1980) 21.


Since Milman Parry, only four scholars (to my knowledge) ha attempted such work, resulting in examination of approximately 2

lines from a corpus one hundred times as large; no one has thought to analyze Homeric speeches at this level of specificity. 34 One can no longer avoid the task by the assertion that all of Homer is uniformly formulaic: even ifit is we are obliged to examine the play offormulas: Ten years after his "Language of Achilles" paper, Adam Parry had come to see this: "The analysis of formulary diction shows us that' there can be no or very little individual vocabulary and individual combination of single words. Therefore, the individuality which is so obviously there, and so much a part of the poem's greatness, must lie in the juxtaposition of formulae. Achilles and Odysseus must use the same phrases: but they combine them into speech in separate ways. "35 Yet neither he nor other scholars devised a way to show how this happens, or what it implies. This I propose to do now.

First, however, we need both a clearly defined notion of style, grounded in current stylistic theory, and a working definition of the formula. The lack of consensus regarding the latter has been the greatest hindrance to formulaic analysis, whether for "proving" that a text is oral or for interpreting the individual Homeric passage. My method relies on defining the formula in such a way that it can be used as an interpretive tool. In other words, I am not now interested in whether or not the Iliad is an "oral" text, by any criterion of formulaic density.36 In fact, what I propose is a method for detecting "formulas" that does not start with a priori definitions; it is more a technique than a science, a distinction that I believe could be applied to formulaic art itself. I have linked this method to a specific view of stylistics, so it is best to mention here my working principles concerning that field.

The notion of style for me is intimately connected with performance; I have indicated earlier that "performance" is a more inclusive term for the "speeches," so-called, made by Iliadic heroes. It has the

34See Cantilena (I982) 23n.9 for the list of analyses. Segal (I97I) comes closest to the goal of combining literary appreciation with formula analysis. For exemplary close formulaic analysis of other oral poetic traditions, see Davidson (I983 and 1985) on the Iranian Shah nama and Barnett (I978) 534-60 on Indic epic.

35A. Parry (I966) 12. See his further remarks on the illusion of formulaic inflexibility at A. Parry (I972) IO.

360n the history of attempts to prove orality by formula quantity, see Miller (I982) 28-38.

The Language of Achilles r61

also of being a recognizable feature of behavior in every so that the interpreter of poetic style as it occurs in traditional

. ~an benefit from a growing body of work in folklore, an, and the ethnography of speaking, regarding actual per-

n;H'''''''~' whether poetic, social, or somewhere in between. Again, of Herzfeld on the "poetics" of men's behavior in a Cretan village, that of Bauman on performances in I~elandic literain native American cultures, and Abrahams's studies on

contain relevant and illuminating comparative mate-fits with the actual picture of the role of speaking given us by 37 I am encouraged by one recurrent theme in their findings:

in each traditional culture studied of a creativity that is entirely on the reuse and recombination of traditional themes,

, and "ways of speaking. " :Jc; .......... " ... the style of all traditional performances is recognizably one

variations on old, audience-accepted performances, the stylworking with Homeric poetry can best employ a method

on a foreground/background distinction: I have attempted in follows to trace deviation from a norm with the understanding

"deviant" language (in this case, formula use) by itself tells us about a performer or performance. It gains meaning only

compared at each turn with the apparent norm. The approach its roots in Russian Formalist practice, and has been concisely

... ~ .. u" ... u by Geoffrey Leech. 38 He distinguishes three types of varia, that could be investigated: first, the abnormal irregularities (such

yperbaton; unique lexical items) or abnormal regularities (e.g. '~"J."""">JL' to a high degree) in a text, which stand out by virtue of

different from naturally occurring speech; second, deviations can be -found when texts are compared with the patterns of an

canon, either that of a genre or of an author; and finally, what "tertiary deviations" -those variations detectable when parts

composition are compared against the background of the work I have chosen to investigate Achilles' language at this third comparing every expression in his great reply to Odysseus 429) with similar expressions elsewhere in the Iliad. 39

(1985); Bauman (1978 and 1986); Abrahams (1983). (1985) 45-56. be objected that this comparison leaves out many formulas that can be

, in the Odyssey. (For lists of such repetitions and suggestions as to borrowing either direction, see Van Thiel [1982] 312-14 and Ramersdorfer [1981] 108-13.) I

r62 The Language of Heroes

My method, then, for finding the formulas in this Achilles is designed to pick out features that would make his uncharacteristic in terms of the composition in which it theory, Achilles' speech could contain no formulas, or only of a certain type; or it could be filled with traditional phrases· nevertheless, were unusual either by their meaning in context or positioning in the hexameter, when compared with the rest poem. If we find any of these features, we would be entitled to of characterization by style-that is, there would be, in one "language of Achilles." The only way to discover this is to lln,n",.+.

a thorough analysis based on a technique of indicating what is mulaic." Not only must we display the "deviations" from phrasing and placement of diction; the analysis also involves preting repetition at every level by checking the content of the mulas" against the rest of the poem.

My method of circumscribing the formula creates a unified' theory based on the two diverging trends in defining the t ...... , ...... ,.l')

since Parry first explained it as "a group of words w\lich is employed under the same metrical conditions to express a given sential idea. "40 His definition was later pulled and tugged in directions in the interests of quite different projects: the <O,,<<1UJU"lllH<OUL

of the "orality" of the Homeric texts, on the one hand, and, on

believe that the uncertainty regarding the relation of the two monumental especially in the light of such recent work as A. Edwards (1985), esp. II-13, ing the competitive stance of the Odyssey-poet and the echoic nature of certain and characters in the Odyssey-compels one to restrict the background, in order to' avoid calling "formulaic" many lines and expressions that occur only in this speech and in a restricted number in the Odyssey. To my way of thinking, such iterata are more likely intentional reworkings of language familiar from Achilles' speech, and composed with the assumption that an audience will recognize them as coming from a particular character and context. This is not to say that one must be an Analyst in considering the two poems: both could be oral compositions, and yet show such responsions, especially if they are indeed by the same poet, or by two poets in an agonistic performance situation. Contemporary Nigerian oral poetry affords the best example, to my knowledge, of the way in which certain themes and ways of narrating them can come to be associated with one particular poet, even though the performer in question has never set them down in writing under his name: some virtuoso oral poets among the Hausa are credited with creating a bakandamiya, "poetic masterpiece," which they consider their favorite song and which they have reworked, expanded, and polished for years. Their reputations are based on these large-scale compositions. See Muhammed (1981).

40MHV 272. This does not include echoed phrases, anaphora, or polyptoton, he notes.

The Language of Achilles r63

the investigation of how an oral poet might have thought as he HJ"'J~'-' The consequent modification of Parry's original definioccurred particularly when critics examined the requirement of

metrical conditions, and the grouping of words. In effect, first trend in defining the formula came to ignore the "group of

" and the "given essential idea" as boundaries,and instead con.c_,·~,,'rp(1 on the recurrence of metrical patterns fitted to certain gram

and syntactical units. This method had its roots in Parry's observations on the "analogical" formula, which he called "fortypes"-such systems as liAYw nuaxwv and liAye' Ebwxe. The of Notopoulos, Lord, and Russo stretched this idea until it

became possible to call "formulaic" even a phrase that was never repeated, yet was built on an often-attested pattern. Although the 'fallacy of the "structural formula" was soon pointed out, and it be-came clear that the phenomenon is mostly due to word-localization and colon structure in the hexameter and partly due to inherited word-order rules in Greek, the consensus has been that such structural templates are an important element in the poet's repertoire. Nagler fruitfully extended the notion in yet another direction to point out the important role of seemingly irrational phonological-metrical

. patterning in the poet's employment of certain motifs. Hainsworth has included such patterns in his listing of the ten types of repetitions that have, at one time or another, been called "formulas" in Homer. The question remains open when it comes to explaining how one should interpret such structural formulas and analogical formulas in the text of the poem. Thus far, the occurrence of the type has been used mainly for arguing the high formula content of Homer. I shall deal with this problem later, when I come to speak of repetition in general. 41

While this expansion of the meaning of "formula" was under way, a concurrent countermove to restrict the term to definable wordgroups was led by Hainsworth. His valuable work proved that the metrical conditioning of the formula was not a necessary assumption:

41Ingalls (1976) puts the structural formula controversy in context. Hainsworth (1964) had foreseen the objections of Minton (1965), who, in turn, was responding to Russo (1963). Nagler (1974) 1-22 while offering some brilliant intepretations related to the formula's associative nature ended up by seeming to deny that it was possible to invent a usable definition of the formula, as Russo (1976) pointed out. On the other definitions of "formula," see Hainsworth (1969) 19-20. The seed of the extended definition is in Parry's work, MHV 301-9.


instead, he suggested, we should define the formulas as a pair group of words connected by mutual expectancy. The formula's ments can thus occur next to on~ another, but they can also be rated over the space of one line or several, inflected, and expanded, the addition of other formulas. Hainsworth's demonstration has advantage of stressing the importance of a formula's persistent ing rather than its grammatical shape. In turn, identifiable U_".al,LLU

similarities can be exploited when one comes to interpret, passages containing similar formulas within the Iliad. notion also gains support from the work of Nagy in Indo-European poetics, which illustrates how formula, defined as expression of a theme, precedes the metrical realization of the historically. 42

We can take account of these two trends in defining the formula . , we simply construct a model using the structural linguistic notions syntagmatic and paradigmatic. 43 Just as any speaker selects lexical, elements from a paradigmatic axis of possible sounds and words, then combines these elements on the syntagmatic axis, so we can imagin~ how the poet who composes in formulas must at each point in the line face paradigmatic choices to fill out the syntagmatic structure of the hexameter line. In time, poetic traditions would develop long patterns, built on a group of words which could be repeated at certain points in the line-for instance, the epithets of gods and heroes-and which would enable the composer to make verse quickly in performance conditions. These I call syntagmatic formulas. A rough definition might be "regularly repeated phrases"; they are of the type which Parry first defined and investigated. I assume that they have all the "flexible" properties which Hainsworth attributes to them. The question of the historical evolution of such formulas appears to me moot. It could be that the contiguous co-occurrence of two elements, such as epithet and noun (the "regular occurrence" in the "same metrical conditions"), precedes their separation and mobility, or instead, the co-occurrence itself may be simply an ossification of one type of

42Hainsworth (I968) esp. 39-45 outlines the various ways in which flexibility is achieved in the formula. Nagy (I974) showed that correspondence between kleos aphthiton and Vedic srtivas tik~itam extends to their metrical environments, and that these, in turn, suggest that the hexameter originated as an expanded lyric line. On the choice between the metrical and the semantic explanations of formula, see Cantilena (I982) 45-62.

43See Ducrot and Todorov (I972) I39-42 for a concise discussion of these concepts.


mutual appearance (as can be paralleled at the linguistic level in the case of preverbs becoming compounded with verbs). In any event, poets could rely on such mutual expectancies to create meaning, and on audiences to gauge the extent of a performer's talent at the play of formulas. My method for finding mutual expectancies in Achilles' speech has been to check on all other mutual occurrences of any two words within three lines, by using a machine-readable text of the poem.

At the same time, a formulaic poet can be imagined as relying on certain patterns-the "structural" formulas, words and sounds with metrical association-at those points in the verse where he did not choose to use longer pre-made elements, or where such phrases did not yet exist. These "structural" patterns are no less traditional; the essential difference between them and the "syntagmatic formulas" is that the mere repetition of a certain phrase structure, without the repetition of exact words, could not carry intentional semantic meaning to an audience. Violating the structural patterns, however, would most likely signal something to an audience, although it may be no more than the "message" one gets when music is played at the wrong tempo, or when grammatical English is pronounced with a foreign accent. I call "paradigmatic'~ such things as the repeated occurrence of a word in the same-metrical position, with "word" being as small an element as a particle, pronoun, or conjunction. My method for finding these paradigmatic elements in the speech of Achilles has been to check each word's distribution in the text of the Iliad, to determine whether it usually occupies a given metrical slot. This procedure is actually another way of detecting structural formulas; it has the advantage of pinning down the attestation of the exact words used in the test passage, rather than simply showing that noun plus adjective or noun plus participle patterns exist similar to those used in Achilles' reply.

We can assume that the evolution of the paradigmatic formulas sprang from a combination of several factors. On the one hand, the breakdown of old syntagmatic formulas would have left traces in the frequent positioning of a single word in a single metrical slot; on the other hand, discourse factors, such as the strong tendency to put anaphoric pronouns and demonstratives at the beginning of sentences, or rhetorical factors, such as the tendency to enjamb certain elements for poetic effect (e.g. patronymics, sentence adverbs, emphatic pronouns), would inevitably lead to regular use of single


words in one or two metrical slots. 44 Again, I am not so concerned with the historical development of the "paradigmatic" mulas here; I only wish to note their usefulness for composition,:' not for the interpretation of the poem. I neither claim to have . ered what is actually a formula in the tradition, nor do I believe this step is possible in most cases (with the exception of certain thets, perhaps). I merely wish to show what is "traditional" '".~ _,> __ n" the Iliad in Achilles' speech and what is "innovative" so that we get a sense of what an audience would attend to as within the course of the performance of the poem.

Chart 1 shows all the "paradigmatic" formulas in Achilles' with broken underlinings. 45 The syntagmatic formulas are prmted with solid underlinings. At a glance, my main conclusion emerges, almost all of Achilles' great speech consists of formulas, either para":": digmatic or syntagmatic. That is, the speech is traditional, in terms the Iliad itself. 46 But, more important, the number of paradigmatic: formulas far outweighs the number of syntagmatic; Achilles as a speaker (which is to say Homer when imagining how he speaks) chooses to use very small, unconnected bricks for his edifice: only occasionally can he rely on the ready-made longer phrase. Each' choice of word in a given place in the line is one that can be paralleled elsewhere, but the effect of this method of composing in discrete units is one of tone: we seem to hear a man searching laboriously for the right word at every turn. I believe this is the effect that John Finley referred to when he observed: "Homer carries both heroes, Achilles chiefly, to the other side of brilliant action. The steps are hard and gradual, seemingly for two main reasons: that the poetic tradition described actions, and that the heroes, like the tradition, reached isolation painfully. It is as if neither was fully prepared for it. " In a way, I have simply quantified Finley's telling intuition. In addi-

44I believe that the first factor explains the almost universal occurrence of the noun makhe after the trochaic caesura. It has this position in the most common formulas, but keeps it also when the poet does not "expand" the line by using the full formulas. See Martin (I983) 67-69.

45Note that this is a shift from the usual practice (e.g. Lord [I960] I43) of using broken underlining for diction that resembles other formula types: my broken underlinings indicate that the word in question, or a form of the word,. itself recurs in the slot in question.

46In using as background the single poem, I am taking Lord's dictum that the formula has meaning only in performance (see Lord [I960] 33) to its logical end: the formula has significance as "formula" only in the space of a performance.


I suggest that the underlinings, and even more so, the frequent marks that separate "paradigmatic" formulas in the speech of

n." •. ~--' give us graphic proof of the primary tenet held by field~C __ ~Ir."r" in oral literature, Lord in particular, that every song is both

traditional and completely new. Having seen the for-mulaic poet working this way, we cannot help being reminded of an archaic metaphor: that poetry is carpentry, literally a tekhne in which the poet consciously fits and rejoins small pieces to make a crafted whole. 47

The Reply of Achilles to the Embassy (Iliad 9.307-429)

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47Finley (1979) 33. On the roots of the poet-as-carpenter metaphor in IndoEuropean poetics see Schmitt (1967) 14, 297-98.


CHART 1. (continued)

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CHART 1. (continued)

0'(xa6' cut03tA.ELELV, E3tEL OUXE'tL 6t)E'tE 'tEXf.l.WQ '!A.LO'll at3tELvij~· f.l.aA.a yaQ E8Ev EUQu03ta ZEiJ~ x,ELQa Ei)v U3tEQEOX,E, 'tE8aQm]xaOL 6£ A.aoL oJ.!..' U~EL~ ~Ev / _t§~!~~-' UQLO'ttJEOOLV ' Ax,mwv UYYEA.L!)V u3to<j>ao8E· / 'to yaQ yEQa~ EO'tL YEQOV'tWV· §pg~!.ft}".?-.!l~jj~!?~~~~~~~ / EVL <j>QEOL / !rij'tLV Uf.l.ELVW, ii / XE / OCj>LV / vfja~ 'tE omp / xaL A.aov ' Ax,mwv Vijii(j[v ~3tLyA.a<j>'llQfi~, / bEL ou / ~P~<!l:..v-'_ ~~~~)'~ !.~!~~1l. ~~.! _,:~v_ ~ ~p~{tgg~~!~.! E~EU U3tOf.l.!)VLoaV'to~· p_o~~~;_~~/ aML / l1:5~.{[L~~~L-' f.l.EvWV / ~~~~~~~~lJ.!!it.~~, o<j>Qa ftoL / tv VtJEOOL / <j>LA.!)V E~ 3ta'tQL6' / ~!I!~~ ~~!?~~~ / ijv E8EA.DOLV· uvayxD 6' / ou 'tL / ~~~ {!l5~.

420

425

To have shown that Achilles'. composition is like that of poets in living oral traditions is a powerful confirmati(;m of the argument put forward earlier in this book, that all speakers in the poem are "performers" in traditional genres of discourse. There still remains the possibility that Achilles' mode of performing, his employment of repeated diction, in some way is idiosyncratic: words, after all, are not mosaic pieces; the sounds refer to something. Does Achilles use formulas in the way they are usually deployed? To answer this, we need to face yet another hard issue, that of the meaning of repetition within a formulaic art. Let me say, first, that I believe neither that every repetition in Achilles' speech is significant, nor that the mere fact of being repeated deprives an expression in the speech of ascertainable meaning. To anticipate my conclusion slightly, I would say that Achilles' use of syntagmatic formulas (the sole cases open to interpretation) is idiosyncratic only in that he uses expressions elsewhere used exclusively by gods in speeches, or by the narrator in diegesis. Thus there is a cohesiveness to the "deviations" in Achilles' formula use. 48

Achilles generally employs familiar formulas in new ways; at the same time, what seem like new and innovative uses can in fact be explained as reworkings of familiar expressions paralleled elsewhere within the poem. In the remaining pages of this chapter, I will point out as many of these reshapings as possible. But my main goals will be to delineate another phenomenon in Achilles' use of formulaic

480n the need in stylistic studies for investigating whether coherence exists among deviations, see Leech (1985) 50-52.


art-his expansion aesthetic-and to locate the impulses that give rise to it. We shall see in this chapter and the next that it is the working of this aesthetic principle alone which creates the illusion of an independently existing "language of Achilles" in the Iliad.

Types of Repetition

My method of determining the "new" and "old" uses of formulas in Achilles' speech depends on two assumptions: that there is a range of repetitions 'in Homeric poetry, and that repeated expressions do not occur in a vacuum. We will review the potential for creating meaning at each level of repetition shortly. Here I am most concerned with the level that is most amenable to stylistic analysis, and most tied to a higher tier of formulaic art. Just as formulas in the narrative are organized according to theme, as Lord showed, and themselves imply given themes whenever they recur, so formulaic expressions in speeches are organized according to "genres of discourse." These small "genres," which I have examined at length in Chapters 2 and 3, comprising threats, boasts, praise and blame, prayers, prophecies, and several other categories based ultimately on individual speechacts, will be the primary tool for my analysis.

If we examine the formulas in Achilles' speech in terms of their appropriateness to one or another genre of discourse, attested elsewhere in the poem, we can establish the larger background which is a prerequisite for making statements about the foregrounded "language of Achilles." This technique is especially useful in those cases where Achilles mixes genres, for we can be led by a few formulas to trace the genres involved, and thus to see what Achilles leaves out in reshaping the conventional ways of speaking about certain topics. The method can help us to open up the Iliad, so as to study its construction as a monumental epic. 49 When working at this level of discourse, although I approach Achilles' speech from the point of view of oral traditional poetics, I find myself in agreement with the insights of workers in ,another area of Homeric studies, the Neo-analysts, on the fundamental premise that certain portions of Homeric epic allude with intention to other specific contexts. But whereas Neo-analysts,

491 have explained the notion of "genres of discourse" more fully in applying it to a problem in Book 8 of the Odyssey: see Martin (1984) 30-32,


such as Kullmann and J. Kakridis, discuss vanatIOn of narrative motifs from poem to poem, while extrapolating backward in time from c such sources as the Cyclic epics, I concentrate on "speech motifs, " if one can call them that. I believe that their repetition within the Iliad itself gives us enough material to construct a "norm" of use, against which to play Achilles' variations. Instead of specific context as the focus of allusion, I prefer to think of specific conventional ways of talking in a given speech-genre. 50

An example can clarify how one discovers the speech-genres that organize certain formulas. When we look for parallels to line 366 in Achilles' speech in Book 9, the occurrence of this same whole line at 23.261 first catches the eye. It occurs in the poet's listing of goods that Achilles brings from his tent for dis~ribution at the Funeral Games. It seems to have no significance other than as confirmation-later in the poem we learn that Achilles does indeed have'the women and iron to which he alludes in Book 9. Three of the five. categories of other goods mentioned at 23.259-60 are also mentioned by Achilles in his great refusal, but separately from his reference to women and iron, and in a more emphatic manner, when he claims that "cows and stout sheep are for the taking, tripods and the tawny heads of horses can be gotten" (9.406-7). Of course, the references to these goods in Achilles' reply are prompted by Agamemnon's offer of tripods and gold, cauldrons, horses, and women (9.122-30). Notice that none of the three passages just cited contains the exact repetition of a list; Agamemnon, Achilles, and the poet name the goods in different order, with shifting emphasis: Agamemnon expatiates, taking three lines (9.128-30) to describe the women, five for the horses (123-27); Achilles mentions cows, without describing them, and sheep, with the epithet iphia. The poet speaks of "stout heads of cattle" (a variant of the formula Achilles uses for horses) and adds to the list mules (not referred to by Achilles). Yet below this surface multiformity and ornamentation of description there is a common ground for the very mention oflists, in the speech-act of formal declaration. And this act, in turn, can be considered conventional within a genre of discourse that is prominent in the Iliad: raiding boasts. The genre features several topics: who took what from whom; what were the precise gains; what division of spoils was made later. We can see these topics clearly

SOOn Neo-analyst methods, see Kullmann (1981) and (1984). Fenik (1974) 139 discusses possible non-Analyst readings of Homeric repetitions.


addressed in Nestor's recollection of his initiatory raid (11. 677-8 3, 696-705). A few of the details in that story are worth comparing with facets of Achilles' speech. Nestor recounts the circumstances of his people's raid on Elis, justifying the raid by citing the abuses suffered by the Pylians whose numbers had been reduced: (hemeas hubrizontes, II.695). Nestor's father took part of the spoils from the raid to recompense himself (heileto, exelet', 697, 704), and gave out the rest for equal distribution (705-6). Achilles mentions all these details, but in his view a raid has been carried out against himself. Agamemnon has taken advantage (ephubrizon, 9.368), like the men of Elis he has selected certain things (335-36) and has distributed the rest, but not equally (333-34). In sum, Achilles uses the conventions normal for speaking about one's relations with outsiders when he talks about his own commander. We can see this as a creative reshaping at two levels: a familiar speech-genre is redeployed for new effect; and thus, Achilles appears as a skillful manipulator of the conventional, a rhetorician. 51

This type of repetition-formulas attached to specific "genres of discourse" -should be distinguished ,from another type, which is meaningful at a different level, namely, the occasional repetition at intervals within the Iliad of especially marked phrases. Whereas the first "type can be detected only by looking at a number of passages in a "genre," the second calls attention to itself. We might hesitate between calling the second type "formulaic" or meJ;"ely "memorable"as Milman Parry acknowledged, not all repetitions are formulas. I have found that such meaningful repeated phrases usually occur at prominent points in the speech and occupy a half-line. A good example comes in Book 9 at line 372: ULEV avmbef:rlV E3tLELf..tEVO£ certainly must remind one of the same phrase that Achilles used to describe Agamemnon early in the poem (1. 149). This repetition creates meaning by providing a sense of the consistency of Achilles' own view of the world; it characterizes the hero inasmuch as it tells us his hatred of Agamemnon remains ever fresh. The same effect can also come from

51The formal listing of goods within a raiding context has a long history: see Watkins (1979) 285-87, who views the list at 23.259-61 as a partial expression of the full Indo-European folk taxonomy of wealth as found in Hittite texts; note also the close resemblance between the expressions in Nestor's list at 11.678-80 and the to-so lists contained in several Linear B texts: Chadwick (1973) 587, s. v. On formal declaration as the essential feature of boasts and prayers see Muellner (1976) 98-99; the discourse of raiding is also connected to the particular theme of quarrel at a division of spoils: see Nagy (1979) 127-30.


XUVE6~ :TtEQ EWv Et~ d'ma tMa8m (9.373), which recalls a expression from the same speech in" Book I, xuvoort(l (I. 159).-have stronger grounds for considering these phrases as rp',ph, .. ;

with "contextual surplus" (rather than random formulas) ensemble of phrases points back to another passage in which expressions occur together. 52 And indeed, .in the next line of speech pouA-a~ au!.t<pQaaaoflm takes us back "yet again to where the phrase is used both by the narrator and Hera to des Thetis' parley with Zeus (I. 5 3 7, 540). Because the phrase is not elsewhere, we can label it a highly marked repetition on part. Moreover it is significant that the phrase is uttered only Achilles, two goddesses, and the narrator, for this patterning speakers accords with Achilles' new use of-other, more repetitive expressions. Reminders of the quarrel scene in Book occur later in the speech also: Achilles uses av'ta~LOv (9.401), a not employed elsewhere in the context of recompense except I. 136. There is a point to the repetition: whereas Agamemnon demanded a gift "fitting in return," Achilles asserts that there is ing to exchange for his 'ljJuxiJ. And Achilles' final words, ou 'tL a.~OO (9.429), surely are to be contrasted with Agamemnon's threat take Briseis by force (I. 139); Achilles refuses to use compulsion to' detain Phoinix. -

A special case of the type of repetition just mentioned occurs when characters reuse phrases later that Achilles has employed in this speech: these are only "repetitions" in retrospect: they gain their full meaning only after we hear them here. One example is the phrase' fA-E'tO xQdoov 'AyaflEflvoov (9.368), which will be repeated wheri Achilles recounts the same incident to 'Patroklos (16.58) and Thetis tells the story to Hephaistos (18.445). Achilles' version thus becomes canonical: the repetition produces a sense of the innate truth of his view, as well as emphasizing the urgency of his case. Similarly, we can view the partial repetition of 9.342 ('ti)v at'nou <j>LAEEL) in 9.450 ('ti)v atho~ <j>LAEWXEV), and of 9.343 (Ex 8UflOU <j>tA-EOV) in 9.486 (Ex 8UflOU <j>LAEOOV), as a touch of realism on the poet's part: he makes Achilles' friend and interlocutor Phoinix pick up uncommon

52See, on repetitions that are not formulaic, MHV 273. Mueller (I984) ISO-5 8 borrows the notion of "contextual surplus" from Paul Ricoeur to describe the type of repetition under discussion.


from Achilles' own speech in answering it-such responsion '''-ULN''- in natural conversation. Yet another subclass of this sort of ne'l1U.U&.L~' repetition outside of formulas per se occurs when Achilles

his speech picks up the language of those who have addressed him. Thus, line 347 in Book 9, <pQCl.tEo8w vf]WOLV UA,E;EIlEVCI.L 6i!"(ov 3tuQ, is modeled on Odysseus' words at 9.251, <PQCt.tE'U 03tW~ LlCl.VCl.OLOtV aA.E;TjOEt~ XCl.XOV ~IlCl.Q. Even though the lines themselves can be segmented into smaller, recurring phrases, the overriding significance comes from the recurrence of the larger structure, within a short interval. This line (347) also illustrates a common type of repetition, which mayor may not have poetic meaning: the report of one character's speech by another. Agamemnon asks the returning embassy whether Achilles intends "to ward off savage fire from the ships" (9.674), using the closest previous formulation, which happens to be Achilles' words (presumably not heard by him). Such repetition usually arises from the poet's needs in composition, rather than from desire to characterize anyone figure. 53 But at times-for instance, when a character repeats the poet's own previous narration-we might detect some greater meaning in this technique. Given Achilles' other associations with the figure of poet, it becomes significant that he repeats whole lines uttered only by the narrator earlier (see 9.350 = 7.441; 9.356 is a transformation of 7. 169).

This brings us to two types of repetition on levels different from either the "genre of discourse" formulas or the intentional recall of half-lines or words: namely, the repetition of whole lines and that of patterns (metrical, phonological, or syntactic). As I have already indicated, in speaking of the paradigmatic formulas, the repetition of a word or syllable in a particular metrical slot is usually without any meaning that we can trace. Although unconscious analogies of sound and meter may have had a great influence on the poet's choice of expression as he composed a line, to find such analogies is generally unhelpful if we are looking at Homeric characterization. It is interesting, then, that the unique noun 1lCt.O'tCl.X' (9.324) is positioned in the slot at which similar forms of the unrelated word "whip" (e.g. IlCt.Ott;') occur, and that Ell EA,3tEtCI.L (371) occupies the slot which E3tL t' EA,3tEtCI.L fills later (24.491), but it would be absurd to argue that any

530n the phenomenon of such formula runs, see Janko (1981) and Hainsworth (1976).


poetic meaning inhered in such repetitions: they are accidents of system. 54

Of more importance is the repetition of seemingly unex1cet)tl()tl combinations that hover between paradigmatic and syntagmatic tus. One such juxtaposition of words comes at line 355: olov "He awaited me when I was alone. "55 The phrase occurs P'''P''7'''0,_'

only at 8.80: Neo'twQ olo~ E!lL!lVE, in the narration of Nestor's escape from the Trojan onslaught. Yet in that passage, the words alone was remaining" denote a narrative "kernel" for the entire ing fifty-line episode. 56 The motif of "one man remaining" can found at other points in the Iliad as well, in other contexts: Nestor the last of Neleus' twelve sons surviving to fight the men of (1 1.693, olo~ AL:rt6!l'Y)v) as Hektor is the last of Priam's sons by Hecuba (24.499, olo~ E'Y)V). The motif has further affinities with the " narrative of Odysseus's lone survival, which, in turn, is a universal', folklore theme. 57

In sum, Achilles' reference to a single combat with Hektor represents the embedding, in kernel form, of a narrative theme that we can recognize from its various repeated uses. What does this tell us about Achilles' speech? It illustrates one important constraint on Achilles' ' "expansion" style: Homer does not make Achilles to speak, as Nestor, ornamenting every possible statement. The narrative possibilities for a recounting of his single fight with Hektor remain unexploited, while the hint of the motif, in the two words olov E!lL!lVE, is still a form of expanding the speech, and effectively points an audience steeped in the traditional motifs toward another vista of experience. In this way the depiction of a chief character is shaded to give us a sense of depth.

When whole-line repetition occurs only once it is best seen as a case

54Sometimes we get a glimmer of Homer's reshaping of formulas from an examination of such paradigmatic occurrences, it should be noted. For example, we can guess that oux' t8eAWxE ~X'l1v (9.353), with the noun ending at the penthemimeral caesura, a slot used for it only two of twenty-seven times in the Iliad, is a transformation of, for example, oU()' t8eAoUOL lluxw8m (14.51, cf. ot ll'EeeAOV"t<lIlUxw8m at 15.722, and the same verb and infmitive at 3.241,4.224,6.141 in different metrical slots). This still tells us nothing about the meaning of9.353.

55For this reading see Leaf (1900-1902) at 9.355. 561 borrow the term from the work of structuralist narratologists, on which see

Chatman (1978) 53-56 and Greimas and Courtes (1982) 167, 362-64. It is no accident that recent theories of narrative stem in large part from Propp's work in a traditional narrative genre, Russian wondertales: see Liberman's introduction to Propp (1984).

57See Fenik (1968) 232 for the use of the motif in typical battle scenes.

The Language of Achilles i77

intentional recall. When a line recurs more often, and shows afwith other formulaic lines, we are obliged to examine the of each occurrence for variations. Near the start of Achilles'

we get one such line (9.314) which occurs two other times in the (9.103, 13.735) as the introduction to speeches of mild rebuke

advice. When Nestor and Polydamas begin in this way, there is a implication that the listeners (Agamemnon and Hektor, re

have erred. Nestor discreetly places this line after his elabcaptatio benevolentiae which explains the advantage Agamemnon

wi1l gain from hearing him out (9.96..,...102). Polydamas, the younger . man, is less discreet as he rebukes Hektor right from the start (13.726, <'ExtoQ, <l!-tllXav6; EOOL 3taQaQQ'l1'tOLOL 3tL8to8m) and goes on to imply that Hektor does not have his own gift of v60;. In both speeches, the autuQ EYWV line leads into brief analyses of the status quo. Nestor notes that no better plan has been found (9.104, v60;-cf. 13.732) and thus by indirection refers to Agamemnon's faux pas; Polydamas mentions the dangerous extended position of the Trojans. Both speakers sum up their advice with exhortations to take counsel: 9. 112, <j>Qa~w!-tE08' -cf. 13.741 E3tL<j>QaooaL!-tE8a ~01JAiJV. Compared to this norm, Achilles' speaking strategy is deviant: instead of stating the status quo, he leaps into the future, asserting that Agamemnon will not persuade him (9.315). The triad of denials in lines 315-16 takes us into a past-continuous tense; finally, we are shifted to a general statement of the status quo by means of another triadic structure (3 18-20). While these lines perform the function of the corresponding statements of grievances by Nestor and Polydamas, they take the form of general statements about types-the "good man," the "one who stays," and so on-the referents for which remain in doubt. The more informative ouM 'tL !-tOL 3tEQLxELtm (321) likewise drifts into general statement (witness the repeated aLEL of317 and atEv of 322).

In fact, Achilles never states a single grievance, but floods us with a multitude. The systematic reshaping of the norm extends even to the "offer of advice" feature of the rebuke speeches. Instead of a firstperson plural hortatory, Achilles uses a third-person <j>Qa~to80) (347). This deviation fits with a larger one: unlike Nestor and Polydamas, Achilles is advising Agamemnon in absentia. The distance perhaps encourages him to heap blame on his advisee: the command to "let him take counsel" forms the summit of yet another triad, the minatory imperatives ("let him take pleasure," 337; "let him not try me," 345). Furthermore, I have called Agamemnon the "advisee"-


but Homer at this point has placed four men in Achilles' pn~se:nCf~:i.i each of whom could be the true advisor to the hero. We might ... this is another deviation, from sociolinguistic patterns, in that Achill.es' even presumes to use the <llJ"tuQ EYWV line in such company. .'

The full analysis of such repeated formulaic lines requires that we . look also at what could have been said but was not. This is dearlya. vast project once we begin to study. anything more than a few lines.;' Yet the insight gained into Homer's construction of character is sometimes worth the effort. Our perception of a speaker's tone de"pends precisely on such cues as can be created through the poet's selection of one variant. The line we have been investigating reminds one of a different but related formulaic line, displaying the same structure: aJ.Jloo bE "tOL EQEW, aU 6'EVI. <j>Q?OI. ~aAAEO ofjm. Although Achilles at 9.314 uses the "advising" formula, he does so with the more aggressive tone usually encountered when a speaker employs this second formulaic line. Achilles himself had used the line to threaten Agamemnon with bloodshed (1.297). With a similar hint of anger, Zeus warns Hera that she will not always get her way (4.39). The fixed value which the line seems to have in the rhetoric of the poem appears again when Hera concedes to Zeus the right to save his own son, Sarpedon (16.443):58

"Do so-but all we other gods do not approve. Yet I shall tell you something else. . . ."

In Book 4, Hera takes advantage of the permission she is granted; Zeus, in Book 1 6, is forced by the threat of public blame to let his son die. The discourse strategy of relenting with a warning, which accompanies this formulaic line, occurs also in the death speech of Patroklos. He yields to fate and the god (16.849), then foretells the death of his own killer at the hands of Achilles (851-54). It is noteworthy that the death speech of Lykaon breaks this pattern: although he relents, conceding that a daimon has driven him to face Achilles (21.92-93), instead of a threat, all Lykaon can muster is an entreaty: "Do not kill me, I am not full brother of Hektor, who slew your companion" (21.95-96). Achilles, enraged rather than placated by this, is the one to utter the conveRtional threat; yet this too is slightly different, being a prediction of his own death, though in words that

58Compare with this 4.37-49, which begins similarly: EQSOV,OJtO)~ EeEA.EL~.


echo Patroklos' threat to Hektor (compare 16.852-53 with 21.110).59 Two passages seem to contain the aA.A.O-~aA.A.EO formula without overt threats on the part of the speaker. Diomedes introduces instructions on horse stealing in this way (5.259), and Achilles' instructions for Phoinix's behavior (9.611) are similar. In both passages, the formulaic line is preceded by mild rebukes and by assertions that the speaker will not be persuaded to the course of action his interlocutor recommended. The speakers' strategy-resist and instruct-is the reverse of the relent-and-warn tactic. Looking back to Achilles' speech at 9.307-15 with these two patterns in mind, we can see that Homer has blended the tones and sequences of thought connected with each, in order to build up the introduction to Achilles' finest moment. As in the first pattern, threats follow the speaker's assertion about his own speech: Achilles uses the pattern in his threat to leave (356). Unlike the first pattern offormulaic use, Achilles' strategy does not include an initial yielding to his audience. In its place, Homer has put the initial rebuke, which we found in the second pattern: Achilles tells the embassy not to attempt persuasion. (Compare 9.315, olh' E!-te ... JtELoe!-tEv o'l:w, with 5.252: ouM OE JtELoe!-tEV o'(w.) In short, from the analysis of such repeated whole lines we can learn much about the Homeric technique of creating new expressions out of traditional usages through recombination. We can also now see the stylistic mechanism which accounts for Adam Parry's intuition about the tone of Achilles' speech: it sounds "passionate" and "confused" because it is the result of the fusion of less complex speech patterns, each implying a separate and different dominant-and passlonatetone.

The Reshaping of Tradition

One might think that the easiest way to detect innovations in Achilles' speech would be to examine hapax legomena, forms or lexical items that appear unique when set against the background of Homeric Greek or Greek in general. Yet this is a more difficult operation than it first appears, and, in the end, is not of much value if we want to find characterization by style in Achilles' language. First, there has to be a distinction drawn between lexical items that occur nowhere

59Thetis (24. I3 I-32) uses precisely Patroklos' words to foretell Achilles' death.

180 The Language of l;Ieroes

else, and which therefore might be thought characteristic in a person' speech, and uniquely occurring forms of otherwise commonly occur-ring items. The former are actually useful in characterizing .. style only if they occur in greater number in his speeches than in those of other figures in the poem. As it turns out, a count of the hapax legomena in the speeches of various characters reveals that uniquely occurring lexical items and forms are evenly distributed among the major characters in the poem. I conclud~ that they are not a characteristic of Achilles' "language. "60 In analyzing hapax legomena, another boundary should be kept in mind-that only Achilles would have occasion to mention certain objects and places, given the plot of the poem as we have it. Once again, single unique words are valueless as a stylistic criterion.

As for the latter type, unique forms of common words, these are more valuable because they might show us stress points in the poet's composition process, places where he needed to resort to analogizing or to the use of rarer forms in order to say something new. For example, polizemenai (9.337) occurs nowhere else in Homer, but the verb in the infinitive polizemen can be found frequently, and in the same slot as in this line. Moreover, the infinitive ending -emenai is also frequent at the point in the line where we find it in 337 (cf. line 356); it just happens that the ending is never attached to the stem polizelsewhere. Thus, the epic has produced the unique polizemenai by combining two familiar positional options. From considering this sort of explicable form, we are led to a more interesting question: why did a poet have to manufacture an expression at this point? The answer lies in the same line, 337, with the phrase ti de dei. This is a rare expression in several ways, first because questions beginning ti de are almost never voiced, and second, because it contains a word not elsewhere attested in Homer, in any form, dei. This sort of unique form is harder to explain, but we might guess that dei is used because the common khre was ruled out either for metrical, euphonic, or discourse considerations (e.g. to avoid repeating the word with which Achilles began, in yet another emphatic position). And the conditioning behind such a choice is further related to the structure of thought and verse which the poet has devised as he constructed the rhetoric of Achilles up to this point in the speech. The postponement of the question "Why should the Argives fight the Trojans?" is the

601 used for this analysis Kumpf (1984).


necessary consequence of two rhetorical choices on Homer/ Achilles' part, namely the enjambement of terpestho and Argeious. Both choices serve to produce emphasis in the total performance of the speaker. These choices, in turn, are outgrowths of the more inclusive strategy of having Achilles even ask a series of questions; and, more important, of making him ask precisely such questions, which juxtapose old ideas in new ways, as we can see from the unique collocation here of the dative Troessi and the verb polizo in the sense "fight with" (rather than "for") the Trojans. That is to say, the disruptions in traditional forms and placements in this line relate directly to the poet's conception of Achilles in terms of his motivations (Achilles as one who rejects the very basis for the war against Troy) and also in terms of his character as an orator (one who constructs elaborate sets of questions). We could perform similar explications for each of the striking "deviations" represented by hapax legomena. A number of such cases will be examined in the course of my analysis of Achilles' formulaic art. But it should be kept in mind that the importance of the expressions that are unique in this way lies in what they can tell us about the poet's larger rhetorical aims in constructing Achilles' speeches; they have little or no value as independent items of "style" in language.

More useful for finding what is new about Achilles' language is the analysis of unexpected juxtapositions. These emerge only in a plotting of syntagmatic and paradigmatic formulas such as I have offered here. Unless one has an exceptional verbal -memory, only this groundwork can indicate that certain phrases, which sound conventional because they exhibit the pervasive epithet-noun structure, are in fact unattested combinations when seen against the background of the poem as a whole. They are "new" in terms of the Iliad. They demand attention for this reason alone, even if they happen to be "formulas" in other poetic compositions, extant or lost. I have found the following collocations of two elements (usually nbun and adjective, sometimes object and verb), which appear to be traditional in their placement, but untraditional in their juxtaposition:

aergos aner aupnous nuktas emata haimatoenta oaron spheteraon empeda keitai


alokhon thumarea phileous' alokhous aner agathos kai ekhephron Hellesponton ep' ikhthuoenta eressemenai memaotas esti moi khalkon eruthron karos aise psamathos te koilis te thumalgea loben gunaika massetai (or gunaika gamessetai) kourai aristeon eikuian akoitin ptoliethra ruontai psukhes antaxion Ilion ektesthai lainos oudos xantha karena ameipsetai herkos odonton kleos aphthiton

The last item on this list brings us once more to the paradox that diction which can be described as innovative, when compared on the synchronic level with the rest of the Iliad is highly traditional when considered from a diachronic perspective: a phrase can be quite "new" and yet very old. For kleos aphthiton, "unwithering fame," represents a combination of words which dates to the Indo-European period, as Adalbert Kuhn demonstrated in 1853, comparing the phrase with the identical Vedic srava(s) ak~itam. The work of Gregory Nagy has now shown that the metrical shape of the phrase, as well, presupposes a common Indo-European prototype and represents within Greek "a fragment of Indo-European versification. "61 Despite this heritage, the phrase has been labeled by other scholars a chance innovation, because it occurs only here in Homeric poetry and employs the adjective as a predicate, with estai. In this view, it was invented because the poet sought an alternative to the more common kleos ou pot' oleitai to avoid repetition of the verb in that formula. 62 Yet the flexibility of the

61Nagy (I974) I4I. See also Risch (I987). For collection and analysis of other IndoEuropean poetic phrases, see Schmitt (I967).

62For this interpretation, see Finkelberg (I986). Nagy replies to this argument in a forthcoming work, Pindar's Homer: The Lyric Possession of an Epic Past.


formula, often apparent in this speech (discussed later), should make us wary of arguing that any phrase using the adjective as a predicate represents an innovation by the poet. And the single attestation of the phrase, in this case, can actually be the best proof that kleos aphthiton is not an accident of composition. Instead, the phrase is used just once, at the most important moment in the most important speech of the Iliad and I believe it is used knowingly, as an heirloom from the poet's word-hoard. 63

We can detect similar thematic importance in the other combinations which are foregrounded in the speech of Achilles by virtue of their unique occurrence in the Iliad. First, Achilles' speech contains an explicitly new ethical bent: it enshrines the only attestation in the Iliad of the theme of the "good man." Line 341 gives us an opportunity to see how such new combinations spring from older, more usual phrases. Agathos frequently appears in the slot following the hephthemimeral caesura, from its use in the formulas agathos Diomedes and boen agathos. Similarly, aner appears frequently in its slot, yet is never qualified by an adjective defining "goodness." In this case, the new juxtaposition of two ordinary words implies an equally unparalleled way of looking at human behavior: Achilles breaks through to the abstract language of philosophical ethics. 64

Another fresh formula in the Iliad takes on additional meaning from the surrounding narrative. The adjective in the phrase thumalgea loben (9.387) is regularly used with another noun, kholos, and in a formula that has primary reference in the poem to Achilles' own anger. Apollo urges on the Trojans by reminding them that Achilles idly "stews his soul-paining anger" (4.5 13-,-with adjective in the

63The notion of phraseology as heirloom, explicit in the Old English poetic conceit, is also inherent in Greek tradition: witness Pindar's image of the "treasure-house" of song (Pyth. 6.8; cf. 01. 6.65); for full explication of this image within archaic poetics, I refer the reader to the forthcoming work in this series of Leslie Kurke on Pindaric oikonomia. In this regard, it is significant that Achilles at 9.413 is actually quoting Thetis, for the phrase kleos aphthiton is thus given the authority of the speech of the immortals, an appropriate emblem for its age-old heritage. On Homer's use of this phrase as intentional, significant archaism, see A. Edwards (1985) 75-78 and also Nagy (1981).

641 would argue that the phrase aner agathos owes something to a genre of moraldidactic poetry, which eventually produces such poems as that by Simonides on the man who is "four-square and good" (Poetae Me/ici Graeci 542. I, 17; c£ 531.6). In other words, we do not have to consider the new phrase an entirely new creation; its novelty may lie in its being imported from an old genre for use in a new one: on this phenomenon, see Martin (1984).


same slot as 9.387). The other two occurrences are placed, cantly, on either side of Achilles' speech in Book 9. Odysseus minds the hero of Peleus' admonition to put aside kholon UI"l~mlIlO~ (9.260) and Phoinix includes in his paraenetic tale the detail Meleager, too, withdrew from battle nursing this kind of (9.565)-this is equivalent to calling Achilles' own anger paining" since Meleager in the tale is so clearly modeled on A In short, when Achilles uses the adjective thumalgea with loben, grace," the poet is characterizing him as rhetorician, once Achilles' displacement of the adjective is an implicit answer to elders, which asserts that his anger is not without an equally motivation in the treatment accorded him. We should note, that the adjective in this combination is given prominence within. the speech of Achilles by being opposed to another thum- compound;.· also in a unique combination: thumarea (336).

Along with these touches of innovation, it is interesting that at six of the new juxtapositions deal with the theme of women. Perhaps this reflects a lack of traditional language regarding women in the Iliad, or in heroic poetry in general. The frequency of the ne~ . phrases, however, is significant: Achilles seems obsessed by the theme. Furthermore, we have a striking bit of characterization in that these phrases attach, to the common words for women and wives, adjectives expressing tenderness and compatability: Achilles is the only hero to call a bed-mate "soul-fitting," a woman "proper," or to use the verb "to treat as near and dear" (phileous') with the object alokhous. 65

The last-mentioned collocation actually involves more than the juxtaposition of two previously unconnected ideas, because there is a phrase alokhous te philas which occurs often enough to be called a syntagmatic formula (4.238, 5.480, etc.). In Achilles' speech, the traditional phrase is verbalized: whereas wives commonly· are called "dear," only Achilles reactivates the meaning inherent in the adjective, by transforming the formula into a predicate. The same technique occurs at least twice more in this speech: in line 328, for example, a predicate poleis alapax' anthropon introduces action into a noun-phrase attested elsewhere, polis meropon anthropon (20.217). The formula Helenes posis eukomoio occurs six times in the Iliad always as an equivalent for the name Paris; Achilles has made this static epithet

650n this meaning of phi/os and its derivatives, see Benveniste (1969) 1:338-53.


work, fusing the genitive into the syntax of his sentence in line 339, rather than leaving it as a noun modifier. A third instance is at 9.400: geron ektesato Peleus substitutes a verb in pl~~e of the usual epithet hippelata (e.g. 11.772, 9.438, 18.331). In addltIOn, we have seen that the ancient formula kleos aphthiton is also remade by the addition of the verb estai. 66

Thus, the close analysis of noun-phrases automatically leads us to consider how verbs are employed in the speech of Achilles, to discover whether, in general, their use is idiosyncratic (even if their placement is not). I will sketch out two ways in which Achilles' verbal expressions in this speech differ from other such phrases in the Iliad. First, his language differs at the level of semantics and pragmaticsthat is, his verbs relate to objects and events in the world of the poem in unparalleled fashion. Moreover, through his use of verbs, Achilles can often be classed with a small group of speakers, usually gods or the poet himself, who are the only other users of certain expressions. 67 Second, Achilles' use of verbs quite often represents a deviation from patterns visible elsewhere in the poem, either of the placement of the verb within a particular speech or of the associations that the verb has with other verbal expressions. (The latter aspect is in turn related to the different rhetorical strategies that the poet chooses to give Achilles.)

The first set of deviations begins to confront us right from the start of Achilles' reply. After a conventional greeting (9.308), he informs Odysseus that he will refuse Agamemnon's offer completely (apelegeos apoeipein). The verb has two meanings in the Iliad. When not directly connected with the story of Achilles' anger and reconciliation, it means "report" (as in 23.361, 7.416, both line-end). The other seven occurrences cluster around Books 1, 9, and 19, where there are

66Sakhamyj (1976) 76 observes that a similar reshaping occurs in line 9.409: instead of the usual subject ("word") in the phrase "passes the barrier of the teeth" we have here "spirit." On the unusual placement and reference of lainos oudos (404), see Ramersdorfer (1981) 193.

67This also occurs with a few noun phrases in the speech: for instance, Achilles uses aise (9.378) in what appears to be the older sense, "measure, estimate" (c£ Leaf[1900-1902] 1.418), as opposed to the derived meaning "fate" (c£ 22.477, 24.428-in this slot), and he is consistent in this: at 9.608 he uses it in the same way to speak of being honored "in the estimation of Zeus" (c£ 378 tio and 608 tetimesthai). The only other time the noun means "estimate" is in the frozen expressions kata aisan and huper aisan. An example of phraseology shared by only Achilles and the poet: thea Thetis arguropeza (410), which occurs six other times, but only in the narrator's voice.


The Language of Achilles I87

wish to think equal thoughts" (5.440-4I , [.t'Y)o£ 8COLOLV / 10' E8EAE cj>QOVEElV). Instead of thinking like the gods, th.e hero must depend on divine "thought toward" himself, as Diomedes prays at the start of his aristeia (5. I I 6):

d JtOTE ~OL xal, JtaTQI, cpiAa CPQovEouoa JtaQEOL'Y)C; bl]tqJ EV JtoAE~qJ, vuv afrr:' E~E CPLAaL, 'A8i]v'Y)

"If ever you stood by my father in dread war, thinking kindly, now in turn be dear to me, Athena."

The poet describes Cheiron's relations with Asclepius in this way (4.2I9, JtaLQl <plAu <PQOVEWV), just as Iris speaks of her friendly intentions toward Priam (agatha phroneousa, 24. I72.)69 The good intentions of speakers who address the assembly is often described with a compound form of the verb (e.g. 1.73, 1.253,2.78,2.283).

The emphasis on the social context of thought appears frequently, as well, in an expression used to explain the motivations of various characters: ta plus phron-. The phrase can be used by either narrator or speaker in the poem. With the anticipatory pronoun ta, Homer describes Ares rousing the menos of Menelaos, "thinking this, that he be subdued at the hands of Aeneas" (5.564), and Odysseus planning how to steal the horses of Rhesus most efficiently (10.491-92). With the same neuter pronoun used anaphorically, he explains, for example, Zeus' intent to let Hektor fire the ships (15.603). Speakers in the poem also use the phrase for both prospective and retrospective comments: Athena agrees in this way with Apollo (7.34, 'ta yaQ <PQoVEO'lJOU xUl uu'tfJ / ~A80v) and Hektor tells the allies why he called them to Troy (17.225, 'ta <PQOVEWV OWQOlOL X.U'tU'tQUXW X.ul EOWOfj / t..aout;).

The two instances of the prospective pattern both concern Achilles.

69 A similar expression is used to describe divine disfavor toward mortals: kaka phroneon at 7.70, 12.67 and oloa phroneon at 16.70I. I suggest that the use of the phrase to describe the anger of Patroklos and Achilles, in the later portions of the poem (16.373, 16.783, 22.264, 22.320) is a significant extension of its use earlier in the composition. A transformation of the expression for friendly relations can be seen at 23.343: <jJ[AO£, <jJQOVEWV JtE<jJUAuyf-tEVO£ Elvm. On patterns of this verb's use iri other phrases, see Lockhart (1966) 99-IOI.

i Ii


In 23.544-46, just as Achilles is about to award the prize for cn;anIDt~~ racing to Diomedes, Antilokhos speaks out:

!!EAAELI; yag (upmgijoE08m {U':8AOV TO. <pgOVEWV OTL 01. ~M~EV agf,LaTa xal Tax.£' L:7t:7tW aUTO£ T' Eo8A.O£ EWV

"For you are about to take away the prize, thinking this-that his chariot and swift horses were harmed, though he himself is excellent."

Only here does a speaker use the phrase to refer to what is in another's mind, as if Antilokhos has shifted into the role of narrator, explaining, to the audience what Achilles is thinking.70 Compare with this the, similar formulas in which Homer foretells the dashed hopes of Agamemnon, at the beginning of the poem, and of Achilles near the, end: (2.36, Dream leaves Agamemnon) "to. <j>QOVEOV"t' avO. 8uf.tov, a-i {?' ou "tEAEw8m Ef.tEAAOV and (18.4, Antilokhos comes to Achilles to report Patroklos' death and finds him) "to. <j>QOVEOV"t' avO. 8uf.tov a. ()~: "tE"tEAE<Jf.tEV(l ~EV. Agamemnon's ignorance and Achilles' premonitions frame the narrative but also provide vivid capsule characteriza-., tions, at two points of particular emotional intensity in the poem;: The disjunction between thought (phroneont') and outcome (teleesthai, . tetelesmena) produces pathetic irony when the concepts are juxtaposed in a single line: by contrast, Antilokhos' reading of Achilles' thought process (23.544-54) is dramatized with comic irony, as a piece of negotiation in which the outcome is not what has been thought. Antilokhos plays the role of an angry young man disappointed by the division of spoils-that is, the role that Achilles has just aban~ doned at this point in the poem. Antilokhos swears, "I will indeed be angered if you complete this utterance" (note telesseis at 23· 543). He goes on to reject the alleged basis of Achilles' decision, and calls for another gift, painting Achilles as that hero had portrayed Agamemnon: rich in possessions but unwise in their distribution (23.549-52).71 The contrast between this scene in Book 23 and the

700n Antilokhos as clever rhetorician, see Nagy (1983). 71 As often in the Iliad, we get the impression that a character has heard the previous

poetic narration: Antilokhos here seems to be throwing back at Achilles the latter's unique way of speaking about his possessions: compare 23.549, Eon tOL ... with 9.364-67, EOLL be !lOL !lUAU 11:0AAU. Note also that Antilokhos' impetuous argument


earlier scenes in which "thought" is opposed to outcome is all the sharper because now Achilles can be persuaded to change an outcome, himself:

"Antilokhos, if you indeed bid me to give Eumelos something else from my own, I for my part will bring this about."

Thus, while thought and outcome at the narrative level are predetermined to diverge, at the level of speakers' discourse within the poem the one can influence the other-a fine narrator's trick for creating the illusion of fictive freedom.

The other· passage in which the ta plus phroneon phrase is used prospectively appears to have been constructed with equal attention to the characterization of Achilles. Phoinix uses the expression to explain his personal motivations for caring for the young Achilles. Thinking that a curse was preventing the gods from "bringing offspring to fulfillment" for him, Phoinix attempted to treat Achilles as his own son (9.493-95: note the disjunction between phroneon and exeteleion, thought and outcome). The rhetorical technique here is that used by Hektor in his brief reminiscence at I7. 225, cited earlier: a speaker analyzes his own state of mind at some important point in the past, in order to influence his present audience. Again, the poetic technique behind the display of this strategy aims at creating a sense oflayering, by showing us characters with a permanence of memory and purpose. That the same two-word expression (ta phroneon) is employed so consistently to introduce such rhetorical strategies gives us more reason to think each small expression in Achilles' speech can be fruitfully compared with its congeners.

Thus far, the comparison with other occurrences of the verb phroneo has shown us that it appears in patterns that are significant for moving the narrative forward by focusing on motivations. At times

by anticipation recalls the characterization of Achilles, who had guessed what Kalkhas had to say (I.90-91). Further touches reminiscent of Book 1 in this scene are Antilokhos' use of u<j>mQTjoE06m (cf. I.230, u3tomQ£i06m) and his echo of Agamemnon's refusal to hand over Khryseis (cf. I.29: "tTiv 0' eyoo ou Mo<.O; 23.553: "tTiv 0' eyoo ou 0000<.0.), as also the assertion that he will fight for the mare (23.554)-a contrast with Achilles' yielding up ofBriseis (I.298: X£Qot !lEv OU""coL Ey<.Oy£ !lUXTJoo!lm). The recognition of a kindred young heroic spirit prompts Achilles' famous smile here (23.555).


the "thought" thus described is itself ambiguous: witness mulaic use of this verb in scenes of decision making, as when phobos must decide either to join his companions or go it (13.458), and the poet marks the end of his hesitation with words:

cD()E M. ot <j>QOVEOVtL ()OUooa'tO XEQ()LOV ElvaL

Thus did it seem better to him as he thought.

At other times, if the speakers are gods, the pattern built on the seems to function as a linguistic politeness gesture, revealing llUUlJ.Il2"

of the speaker's thought, but inviting further discourse: (18.426-27) and Aphrodite (14.195-96) perform this way, their visitors to candor by saying:

aMa 0 'tL <j>QOVEELC;. 'tEAEOaL M. f.LE 8'Uf.Lo£ avwYEv EL Mvaf.LaL 'tEAEOaL yE xal. d 'tE'tEAEOf.LEVOV EO'tLV

"Speak whatever you are thinking. My spirit moves me to fulfill it, if I am able, and if it is to be fulfilled."

As in previous patterns, the mention of "thought" prompts a ment about outcome, but unlike Achilles and Agamemnon, whom these notions remain tragically unrelated, the gods easily plete one another's will. Only Zeus, lured by Thetis to participate the mortal world, cannot be divinely candid, as his spouse "UJLlll-"~d~ll:S'" aiEL 'tOL <j>LAOV EO"tLV EI-tEU <l3tOV6a<j>Lv E6vta / xQ'U3tt<lc)La mnn~""n~''TN ()LXa~EI-tEV (1.541-42). His covert thought is a guarantee that justice of Zeus is free from interference: the two notions are cated again when Athena and Hera discuss the will of Zeus: XELVO~ , La. &. <j>QOVEOOV EVL 8'U1-t<r / TQwaL tE xaL L\ava6wL ()LXa~EtOO, E3tLELXE~ (8.430-31). If we do discover the will of Zeus, it is through the poem itself, and then, in a drawn-out fashion, for plan is always in process, as the proem of the Iliad makes clear, its imperfect tense, L\LO~ ()' EtEAdEtO ~O'UAi] (1. 5).

What do we learn, finally, from investigating the deployment the fairly common verb featured in Achilles' preliminary remarks 9· 3 IO? I suggest that Achilles implicitly adopts the tone of Zeus self; at least, the poet composes with the idea that the hero and


god speak alike. For Achilles, first, uses phroneo to mean "I think," without any hint of the meaning "I am disposed toward someone in thinking. " The depiction of Achilles even before Book 9 has prepared us for this sort of absolute isolation; I point out simply that this can be documented by formulaic analysis as well. Second, Achilles like Zeus does not reveal his thought, even when he most explicitly claims to value candor. This is an important piece of evidence for the complex characterization of Achilles as a master speaker. He appears to speak his mind, after asserting that he must deny the previous offer. But the topic he then brings up immediately is, instead, the necessity for others to speak what they think. The poet has constructed a variant of the politeness gesture used elsewhere in the type-scene of "visit": the host invites discourse from his guest, but, in Achilles' case, the host also maintains a tight control on the conversation, is self-assertive rather than receptive. He employs the same notions, but, instead of saying "speak what you think" and "I shall fulfill it," Achilles reflects back on himself: "I must deny the offer ... in the way that I think and the way it will be fulfilled." As we shall see shortly, the final phrase of 9.310 is also deviant when considered against the usual patterns and it is this that creates the arrogant tone we recognize in Achilles' opening gambit. 72

The principle invoked earlier-that coherent patternings of deviation from a norm make for "style" -can be successfully applied to this speech. Several other uses of first-person verbs in this speech relate Achilles to the figures of gods. Only Zeus, for example, uses the pattern of 9.397: 'tawv flv x' Efh~AWf,tL, <j>LA'Y]V :n:OL~OOf,t' UXOL'tLv. He does so in a similar context, expressing his ability to choose whatever he wishes (in this case, whatever speech-act): DV 6E x' EyWV ... E8EAWf,tL vofiom (1.549).73 And only Zeus says "tell all as I command": compare 2.10, :n:av'ta. f,taA' &.'tQEXEW~ &'YOQEUEf,tEV w~ EJtL'tEAAW, with Achilles' words (9.369): 't<j) :n:av't' &'YOQEUEf,tEV w~ EJtL'tEAAW. In both cases, the ultimate recipient of the message is Agamemnon. 74 The god Poseidon is the only other speaker to mention

720n this line, Ameis and Hentze compare 8.415: lptELAl]OE KgovolJ :11:(':iL';, ~ 'tEAEEL :n:Eg in which the adverbial Ti modifies "he will complete" (said of Zeus' threat): Note that, in Achilles' version, the adverbial phrase seems to go with both verbphrases: he makes thought and action one process, just as a god who threatens.

73The more immediate model is in the previous speech, 9.288. 74Furthermore, the idea of "telling all" is itself rare in the poem; it is mentioned as a

task possible only for a god, not for a poet (12.176), and treated as an unusual request from his divine mother by Achilles (1.365).


getting something by lot (IS. I90) as Achilles does at 9.367. finally, is the only other speaker to utter a version of 9.4I7. 75

concludes her great oath, affirming that she did not induce to aid the Achaeans, with these words: alJ"t<lQ 'toL x.at. X.ELVro ltaQa!t'U8'l10aL!t'l1V / 'tfj '(!tEV n X.EV Otl au, X.EAaLVE<I>E~, 0

(15.45-46). Hera's strong suggestion to Poseidon, in these words,. just like that by Achilles' to his listeners: both advise someone follow the will of Zeus (cf.9.4I9-2o).

The usual meaning or pragmatic application of verbs is changed . a number of other points in Achilles' speech, with the result that he characterized in certain ways, or through his word use a~~'V"'<1L';;l. with a few other important heroes. This reshaping of diction seems occur particularly at the beginning and end of the speech; Achilles launches into the grand rhetoric of the midsection, depends more on a variation from traditional patterns to Achilles' speech unique.

The gnomic utterance ofline 9. ]20: "They die alike, both the man without works and he who has done much," is meant by Achilles to refer to his own situation: this is a continuation of the self-reflective rhetoric ~hat we saw in the introduction to his speech. Here again, one can see that Achilles has twisted a traditional phrase so as to point it inward. For elsewhere in the poem, the full phrase x.at. Otl x.ax.a ltOAAa EOQYE-which underlies Achilles' words here (0 'tE ltOAAa EOQyw~)-always describes an enemy's deeds: Aeneas speaks of Diomedes (5.175), Hera of Hektor (8.356), and Sarpedon ofPatroklos (16.424) in this way. In the logic of battle, the man who does many things to his enemies is necessarily a boon to his friends, to be rewarded; only Achilles uses the poem's formulas to make the argument explicit, however.

In another shift toward an interior language, only Achilles speaks of the "soul" and of his "self" in the same breath within the Iliad, both at 9.322 and 401 (E!ttlV 'ljJ'UXtlV, E!tOt. 'ljJ'Uxfj~ aV't<lSLOV). Once again, we can find a more formulaic precedent for conjoining the concepts, in the speechmaking of enemies: a thrice-repeated boast, uttered just before spear-casts, runs: d;xo~ E!tOt. OOL'l1~, 'ljJ'UXtlv 0' 'AtOL X.A'U'tOltWAq>. In this line, the elliptical and ironic rhetoric of the warrior vividly contrasts gain and loss: the victim who receives the blow loses

75Excluding the repetition of Achilles' exact words in Odysseus' report to Agamemnon (9.684).


his life, and at the same time furnishes his killer with words for the future (in which the victim ultimately gains some memorial). The man who is addressed by this line gives twice, to the living (eukhos) and the dead (Aidi). At the same time, this utterance collapses distinctions, by reducing "boast" and "soul" to counters in a game of warexchange. The equivalence of the boast and the life which paid for it is represented iconically by the careful balance of sound and meter in the line, with eukhos initially and psukhen-another two-syllable word with medial kh-at the other emphatic position, after the penthemimeral caesura. The repeated line, then, is itself a memorable piece of verbal art.76 For a poet who had used it often, only a slight extension of the metaphor "giving life to Hades" could produce the more arresting image that Achilles uses, "gaming with my life in fighting." And we might detect an echo of the more traditional expression in Achilles' reference to the gates of Hades (3 I2).

The emotive quality of Achilles' discourse has led others to compare him to a poet. 77 I shall explore later the way in which the hero fits the role. For now, we can note that as well as using similes more often than any other figure in the Iliad Achilles also mimics the poet's own voice in his use of smaller phrase units and single words. 78 The expression in the second half of 9. 324, for example (xux&~ 0' uQu 0'1,

3tEAH ulrtfi) is paralleled only by phrasings of the narrator, two in particular: when Patroklos answers Achilles, to be sent on the mission that eventually ends his life, the poet comments xuxoii 0' uQu 0'1,

3tEAEvaQxi] (II.604). This technique offoreshadowing creates a momentary distance between audience and actors of the tragedy. In the same way, pathos results from the narrator's interjection of a brief biography at the death of Phereklos, son of the carpenter Harmonides, who "had made the ships for Alexandros, the ill-beginners (arkhekakous) that were an evil for the Trojans and himself." Achilles uses this poetic sort of expression in the same way, to increase the emotional response to his own fictional world of the simile. Within the same group of lines, another instance of Achilles' poetic voice comes in his use of diepresson. The word occurs at 326 in the first-

760n the antiquity of the formula ending this line, see Ivanov (1980) 74-76. 77See, for example, Friedrich and Redfield (1978) 277; also King (1978) 21, Maehler

(1963) 9-16, Whitman (1958) 195. The fullest comparison is by Gerlach (1870) 35-37· 78Moulton (1977) IOO-IOI lists eight Achillean similes. He compares the bird simile

in this speech with other images, in the narrative, of mothers and children. See also on the image Randall (1978) 74-78.


person singular imperfect, yet in the same metrical position as more common third-person plural imperfect, which is found narrative formula describing the movement of troops to battle (2. 3.14) and horses in a race (23.364). Through this "deviation" in ent, Achilles metaphorically depicts his lone actions as equal to of powerful, directed entities.

Achilles' assertion at line 9.329, introduced by phemi, is unusual several reasons. First, only here in the poem does this verb head elliptical statement. Next, of the thirty-six times that a speaker phemi in the poem, only six times does the statement thus refer to the past: Achilles speaks this way twice (9.329 and 20.187) Priam twice (a repeated line, 24.256 = 24.494), and Nestor and memnon once each (2.350, 8.238, respectively). Only Achilles and Agamemnon assert something about their own actions in the past. is completely characteristic of them that Achilles speaks both here and· at 20.187 of his personal prowess, whereas Agamemnon recalls his fulfillment of expected public social and religious functions: at 8.238, his phemi introduces the hypomnesis of a prayer. Occurring so closely together in the poem, in Books 8 and 9, these assertions of Agamemnon and Achilles must be intentionally contrasted, to sum up the basis of conflict between Achilles and his commander. 79

Both Achilles and Agamemnon utter phemi in tones that recall the normative usage of the verb within threats and boasts. Compare the tone of Sarpedon's words to Tlepolemos (5.652-53):

(JOL 6' EYro heME <j>rU.tL <j>6vov XUL xftQu [.lEAaLVUV E1; E[.lEeEV 'tEv1;weaL

"I assert that you will have from me murder and black death."

Threats that begin withphemi, as in this example, usually employ the future tense, and boasts, the present or future. 8o The unexpected

79Further similarities in diction occur between 8.238-44 and 9.329-64. Agamemnon and Achilles alike view Troy as an infernal destination (see enthade erron at 9.364 and 8.239). Both focus as well on their role in sacking cities (9.328, 8.24I).

80See the threats at 7.II8, IO.370, I3.8I7, I7.27, 23.668, 23.579, and the boasts at 5. I03, IO·548, I3·4I4, I3.785, I4.220. The noteworthy use of past tense with assertion occurs in Achilles' boastlthreat to Aeneas, 20. I87. Observations of a general sort employ the present tense after the verb "I assert"; 2.248, 6.98 (two examples resembling threats and boasts); 6.488, I8.I32.


. disjunctions of tense and tone, therefore, mark out Agamemnon and Achilles: only they have the authority to back up their strong assertions (labeled by phemi) with examples of their past actions. It is not accidental that the only other speakers to make any assertions at all about the past are the elders Nestor and Priam. Achilles' statement that he sacked eleven cities, on foot, is midway between the boast of a warrior and the exempla of the old advisors in the poem, a character-

. istic position for a hero who, in the retreat of Book 9, takes a contemplative stance toward his own active calling. 81

Some other expressions show the same technique of restricting a particular mode of speaking to one or two characters other than Achilles. Only Hektor, for instance, uses ethelo as Achilles does, to speak about not wishing to do something. Hektor boasts to Ajax that his skill in war-craft prevents him from attempting an ambush (7. 242-43):

a"A./,: ou yag 0' e8E"A.w Ba"A.EELv 'tOLoii'tov EOv'ta M8gn 6mJtEuoa~,&."A."A.' &'!1<1>aMv, aL 'XE 'tUXW!1L

"{ do not wish to strike you as you are peeking secretly, but outright, ifI might succeed."

Achilles, too, says ouk ethelo (9.356) because he believes only in honorable fighting (unlike the brand Agamemnon prefers). Of the other eight occurrences of ethelo, four times it refers to a wish to restore something (I. II6, Khryseis; 7.364, Menelaos' goods; 9.120 = 19.138, recompense to Achilles) and three times to a desire to put things aright (8.40 = 22.184, Zeus wishes to be "mild," epios, to Athena; 19.187, Agamemnon says he will swear he has not slept with Briseis, and will thus be mild-cf. 19.178, hilaos-to Achilles, as Odysseus suggested). The conciliatory use of the verb extends even to Zeus' desire to sack cities (4.40-42) since the wish he utters remains only an abstract possibility and is voiced only for the purpose

81Apart from Agamemnon and Achilles, only a few characters use phemi to introduce statements about themselves. Among men, Nestor (10.548) and Meriones (13.269) use the verb to assert their lasting power in the fray; among gods, Zeus (15.165) and Hera (18.364) claim superiority using similar expression with phemi. All these make their boasts in the present tense: Achilles thus has doubly marked deviant usage: he states his claims self-referentially, and he uses the past tense.


of reaching agreement with Hera: she may harry Troy now, says·. Zeus; his turn will come.

Achilles, thus, shares with Hektor a pattern of speaking about his·. wishes. With Agamemnon (and no one else) he shares the distinction of saying "I honor" within the Iliad. At 4.257, Agamemnon claims to· honor Idomeneus above all the Achaeans-the motivation for his feeling is not given, only the spheres to which it applies (war and wine in particular). It is Agamemnon, again, who provides the model for Achilles' words at 9.378, 't(oo ()€ flLV EV 'XaQo~ a'LOn (line-end), when he promises in his offer of marriage to honor Achilles as a son (9.142): 'tELooo bE flLV loov 'OQEo'tn (line-end). Achilles' refo~mulation of Agamemnon's words is an expressive expansion of the type we shall investigate shortly. Achilles combines the patterns, whereas other mentions of time refer either to a generous granting of respect (4.257,5.325-26,6.173,16.146,17.576), in which case the degree of respect is explicit (e.g. malista, peri pases, prophroneos), or to a withholding of respect (9.238, 13.461), in which case the fact is simply noted. Achilles denies that he feels respect toward Agamemnon, but rather than simply stating the fact, he specifies, hyperbolically, the extent of his disregard: "I honor him not a whit. "

Even the handful of examples reviewed so far has sufficed to show, first, that the poet reshapes traditional phrases to give them individualized reference, thus creating the illusion of an interiorized, Achillean language; and second, that we-the uninitiated audience-must search out such reshaping at the level of formulaic usage patterns. In other words, to read Achilles' speech properly, we are obliged to reread every scene in the Iliad in which any phrase of that speech appears. Just as the analysis of noun formulas led us to investigate verbal expressions more closely, so this step takes us into a study of larger units of discourse. Now that we have seen Achilles' deviation from the normative usage of certain individual verb expressions, I shall present the most important instances of his variation from these larger patterns. Whereas the study of the former showed that Achilles' "voice" is unique, resembling as it does that of the gods and the poet, the latter set of variations will demonstrate that Achilles' overall performance in Book 9 depends on a quite rare strategy of verbal ornamentation, which I call the "expansion aesthetic." Achilles "speaks" like the poet, it turns out, because, in Achilles' words, epic poetry reveals its own precise mode of composition.


Achilles as Formulaic Artist

Beginnings and endings carry a significance far disproportionate to that of the midportion of any temporal artistic composition. In every archaic Greek poetic genre, the start of the work is marked, either by conventional topics, grammatical devices (e.g. the vocatives at the beginning of epics), or syntactical devices (the convention of a relative clause of description, which occurs in hymns, epinikia, and epic). In the early chapters of this book I demonstrated the usefulness of considering every speech within the poem a composition in its own right, a poem within epic, subject to· conventions of discourse. If this strategy is taken to its logical end, we should concentrate in particular on the beginning and end of speeches such as Achilles' in Book 9.

With this in mind, we can turn to the other uses of khre men, the words with which Achilles launches into his discourse (9.309). We should notice first that the Greek word is a strong expression of necessity. It demands the attention of the listener. This in itself characterizes Achilles' explicit statement of his rhetorical strategy in the speech, to speak out plainly.82 Furthermore, it sets off Achilles as a speaker distinct from the narrator, who never uses the word khre in the Iliad. Achilles is concerned with the exigencies oflife in a way that the omniscient Homer need not be. But besides being distinguished from the poet by his use of the word, Achilles alone among other speakers in the poem uses the combination of words, khre men, and places the word khre at the beginning of his discourse. Both are important facts. The particle men is key to establishing the tone of Achilles' statement at 9.309. A rough paraphrase-"yes it is necessary, but"-shows that the combination transmits two messages at once. Something is crucial; at the same time, the speaker has other concerns: the anxious, serious tone thus created affects all the following words of the speaker. It is significant that this combination of words occurs only one other time in the Iliad, at an important juncture in the narrative. Just as Achilles meditates slaying Agamemnon, Athena intervenes: instead of stopping him, she asks, twice, for him to be persuaded (1.207, 214).83 Her small speech moves from the

82Cramer (1976) 302 criticizes this as an insufficient theory of rhetoric, but, as I show later, the statement of candor cannot be taken at face value since Achilles proceeds to contradict it in practice.

83See Chapter I for more on the primacy of persuasion within the Iliad, and Chapter 2 for a reading of this scene.


tentative aL XE J"tLe'Y)m to the more urgent au 6' '(OXEO, J"tEL8EO 6' lJf.tLV Achilles makes the choice of words instead of deeds; he will go on . defeat Agamemnon, symbolically, by being the best performer the verbal level. In his reply to the goddess at 1.216-18, he affirms theological correctness of his choice with a gnomic statement: the who "is persuaded/obeys" the gods gets favor in turn:

Xgi) !-lEv o<j>wL1:Eg6v yE, SEa, EJtO~ dguooaoSm xat !-laAa JtEg SV!-lcj'> XEXOAW!-lEVOV. d)~ yag a!-lELVOV . o~ XE SEOL~ EJtLJtELerl1;m, !-laAa 't' EXAVOV (lV'tOV

"It is necessary, goddess, to keep your word, even for one angered in spirit, since it is betterthe gods pay heed to the one who obeys them."

The particle men is never complemented explicitly by the expected de but the string kai mala per in line 217 might substitute for this. In effect, Achilles says, "I will obey (on the one hand) but I am still angry (on the other)." His immediate cessation of speech puts these words into action. .

In Book 9, the topic of persuasion, of which Achilles has already shown him.self to be aware, becomes the leading theme of his reply to the embassy. When, at 9.309, he begins with khre men, just as he did at 1.216 (and as no one else does), we should notice that the two speeches form a diptych: in Book I, Achilles grants divine speech a privileged position; in Book 9, he draws attention to his own speech, which is, paradoxically, a denial of the possibility of persuasion. As in Book I, the context is explicitly a battle of rhetoric, Achilles' word against that of Agamemnon. Once we have realized that khre men is a rare turn of phrase, characteristically Achillean, we are led to examine how other speakers make mention of necessity with this word, in order to place Achilles' use in context. It occurs twenty-six times elsewhere in the poem: half of these occurrences can be called formulaic in the strict sense of having repeated diction. I class them as follows:

1. The line-end expression oude ti se khre (7.109,9.496,9.613, 10.479, 16.721, 19.420,20.133,23.478)

2. The line-end expression nun se mala khre (13.463, 16.492, 22.268) 3. Line-initial to se khre (7.331,9.100)


Achilles uses formula I when telling Phoinix not to curry favor with Agamemnon (9· 6I3-14):

OUbE 1:( OE XQlJ n)v q>LAEELV tva !-t'rl !-tOL a:n:Ex8T]aL <!>LAEOV1:L.

The expression is in responsion with Phoinix's own use of the phrase in the speech preceding:

aAA' 'AXLAEii M!-taoov 8u!-tov !-tEyav· OME 1:( OE XQlJ VT]AEE£ ~1:oQ EXELV. (9.496-97)

In a similar way he reproaches his horse Xanthos for making predictions of doom (I9.420). With a slightly different formula (formula 2), which echoes Sarpedon's instructions to Glaukos (I6.492-93), he threatens Hektor before killing him (22.268-69):

viiv OE !-tuAa X QlJ aLX!-tT]1:'rlV 1:' E!-tEVaL xaL 8aQoaAEov :n:oAE!-tLO"t'rlv.

These passages show Achilles using the common formulas normally, but his speech also contains the only instance of variation for formula I, at I9.67-68:

viiv b' ll1:OL !-tEV EYW :n:auw x6Aov, OME 1:( !-tE XQlJ aoxEAEw£ atEL !-tEVEaL VE!-tEV.

This shift disturbed ancient critics: Apollonius Sophistes in his lexicon wanted to bring the passage into line by reading se instead of me. 84 Yet the line is surely referring to Achilles' wish to give up his anger, and the variation is doubly significant because it occurs in an important speech which completes the refusal announced in line 9.307. Achilles thus differs from other users of this phrase in that he makes it refer to himself, whereas other contexts show it referring to the necessity for others to do something. Furthermore, in the other instances, the genre of discourse in which the phrase appears is either

84See also the remarks of Ameis and Hentze (1905) on 19.67.


battle advice or metalinguistic comment on another's talk. For first category, we can look to the speech of Apollo (16. 721 which begins: "£'x:toQ, 'tLJ-t'tE fLuX'I1; <'mo:rtuuEm; ouM 'tL OE Similarly, Phoinix uses the phrase (9.496) in a speech designed instruct Achilles on the need for fighting. 85 Transformations of paraenetic function of the phrase occur at 10.479 (Odysseus urges Diomedes to act) and 7.109 (Agamemnon urges Menelaos not fight). The same role is played by the phrase nun se mala khre, men~ tioned earlier. And nine of the thirteen occurrences of khre outsid~ . formulaic lines also appear in the context of battle advising. 86

The second category of discourse which makes use of the notion of necessity in khre is "talk about talk," what linguists call a metacommunicative act. 87 We have seen this type of metacomment in the formula poion se epos phugen herkos odonton (4.350), which Odysseus uses in replying to Agamemnon's testing insults in the epipolesis. 88

The expressions using khre also occur in the speeches exchanged in battle, and thus the metalinguistic use overlaps the category of paraenetic expressions to some extent. Unlike the poion epos line, which. usually introduces a speech of self-defense, the khre expressions direct attention to the need for silence. Achilles speaking to Agamemnon uses the same tone as Patroklos had taken with Meriones: compare 19.149-50, au YUQ XQY] XAO'tO:rtEUELV Ev8uo' EOV'ta;, with 16.63 I: 'tOO au 'tL XQY] fLu80v 6<j>EAAELV, aAAu fLuxw8m. In these lines, the necessity for stopping talk is equated with the need to start fighting. Similarly, Idomeneus reassures Meriones that he need not speak of his own battle prowess, since Idomeneus already knows how good a warrior he is (13.275) and Poseidon warns Hera not to make things difficult, after she has made a strife-rousing speech aimed at helping Achilles against Aeneas (20.133): "HQ'I1, fLY] xuM:rtmVE :rtUQEX voov.

850n this important speech see Rosner (1976). 862. 24 = 2.61 (Dream urges Agamemnon to arm), 5.490 (Sarpedon tells Hektor to

consider defense), 12.315 (Sarpedon tells Glaukos they must stand and fight), 13.235 (Poseidon warns Idomeneus to hurry to the fight), 16.631 (Patroklos tells Meriones to fight instead of making threats), 19.149 (Achilles tells Agamemnon to fight rather than chatter), 19.228 (Odysseus advises Achilles to rest so he can fight again-cE 231-33; the same motifis at 7.331).

870n the concept of meta communication, see Jakobson (1960), Bauman (1978) 16, and Stubbs (1983) 46-50.

88For the conventions in this performance-genre of flyting, which Greek labels neikos, see Chapter 2.


oMe ·d Of XQlJ. And the lesser Ajax quiets Idomeneus by talking about the other hero's speaking ability (23.478-79):

o.A')....' ai.d !lUeOL~ AaPQEUEaL. OVOE 1:L OE XQT] AaPQayoQ'Ilv E!lEVaL . 3t<lQa yaQ 'Kat o.!lEL VOVE~ &AAOL.

Two final examples in this genre of discourse mention the need for speech: significantly, both occur in Book 9. At the end of the episode, Ajax admits to Odysseus, within the hearing of Achilles, that the muthos of the withdrawn hero must be reported (9.627). At the beginning of the book, Nestor speaks as advisor to Agamemnon. After a rounded introduction, the structure of which recalls a hymn to a god (cf. 9.97), Nestor brings up the topic of rhetoric: Agamemnon has the power to speak, to listen, and (like Zeus) to validate another's authority to offer advice. 89 Nestor implies that Agamemnon is thus empowered to approve his own attempt to persuade Achilles. His speech is an affirmation of speech, a call for gifts and soothing words. In the foreground of his remarks, as in those of Achilles at 9.307-1 7, is the power of Peitho, that effective speech which makes Iliadic society cohere.

Keeping in mind the conventional deployment of khre phrases elsewhere in the poem, we can return with fresh insight to the first words of Achilles. It now appears that his words are distinctive not only in the'positioning of the "need" phrase, at the head of his statement, and in the joining of khre with men, but, more important, in relation to larger patterning. One usually says khre to speak about fighting, or about speaking: Achilles explicitly denies both topics in his opening statement. He will not fight, nor do his interlocutors need to speak to him about the decision. Achilles' denial of the effectiveness of speech goes beyond the usual expression, which heroes use to silence one another for the moment. It becomes an abstract principle. If Achilles resembles any other hero in this use of an idiosyncratic pattern, it is Nestor; there is a strong hint that the young warrior deserves to be ranked with the oldest as both speaker and instructor of the niceties of speech. 90

89For the notion of divine authority contained in the verb kraiaino, see Benveniste (1969) 2:35-42 .

900n speaking as an important aspect of the Indo-European tradition of prince instruction, see Martin (1984).


The opening section of Achilles' speech offers another example variation from the expected pattern of phrase use in context, one that is related to the idea of rhetoric. The phrase oude me peiseis occurs six other times in the poem, always in a reply, and, with one exception, always within the following pattern:

I. A person is told not to do something 2. The phrase "you will not persuade me" 3. The reason for saying the phrase is given 4. The intended course of action on the part of the speaker is men-

tioned '

At 1. 13 1-39, for example, Agamemnon tells Achilles not to deceive (I); says the phrase (2); asks whether he is to be without reward (3); and states his intention of taking a new geras (4). The same sequence occurs at 6.360-64 and 11.648-54 (two refusals of food and drink, spoken by Hektor and Patroklos, respectively), at 24.218-27 (Priam refuses to be persuaded to stay at home), and at 24.433-39 (the young man/Hermes will not be persuaded to accept gifts for guiding Priam). The only speaker in the Iliad who uses a different pattern is Achilles. At 18.126, he concludes his speech to Thetis with the phrase "nor will you persuade me. " In this speech, element I does occur (" do not restrain me"-I24) but Achilles' statement of intention (to reenter battle) and explanation (because he must die) occur in a reverse of the normal pattern, preceding elements I and 2 (lines II4-18). Furthermore, it is this "deviant" pattern that Achilles uses at 9.345. Elements I and 2 are in place, but now the "reasoning" element-why Odysseus will fail to persuade him-occupies all of the first part of Achilles' speech (315-45); it is linked to Achilles' position (315) that he will not be persuaded by Agamemnon. (Indeed, the change in the person of the verb to make a less common formula with the thirdperson singular shows that Achilles is really refusing Agamemnon, not Odysseus.) Moreover, element 4, the statement of intent, is delayed until 356 (cf. 24.223, where the statement is heralded by nun also). Meanwhile, Achilles inserts instructions to Odysseus about what action the latter should take. In sum, the usual pattern is ex-panded so as to be almost unrecognizable. .

At times, Achilles uses phrases that are common in a narrative pattern, but rare in speeches. The word estin, "there exists," used at the beginning of a line and sentence, most often describes the location


of topographic features: cities (6.152, 1I.7II), a hill (2.8II), a river (11.722), a cave (13.32). Only Aeneas and Antilokhos use the word, in its existential sense, with a dative to indicate possession, and do so in expressions similar to Achilles' at 9.364. We have seen that Antilokhos' statement is addressed to Achilles, in such a way that we can call it an intentional recall of this scene. Aeneas speaks also of multi

. tude, of reproaches rather than wealth, in another speech addressed to

. Achilles. In the entire Iliad only Achilles says "I have" in this particu-larly marked way, with the full force of the verb "to be. "91

The mention of great wealth at home (364-65), and the specific mention of gold and bronze may strike us as unexceptional. But this is because the collocation of these objects is common within the poem, according to the conventions of another genre of performance: battlefield supplications. When the sons of Antimakhos plead before Agamemnon for mercy (II. 130-35), their promise of ransom begins with these:

"Many possessions lie in the house of Antimakhos, bronze and gold and much-enduring iron."

Adrestos, again appealing to Agamemnon, had cited the identical objects (6.47-48). Dolon, in his plea, omits mention of keimelia but refers to the precious metals with which his father will buy his freedom (10.378-79). And Hektor leaves "iron" out of the conventional list, but adds a new feature: both his father and his mother will give gifts over and above the metals, should Achilles return his corpse to Troy (22.340-41).

The reference to a rich father, a store of goods at home, gold, bronze, and iron-all these are features of Achilles' words at 9.364-400. But there is a change in the context with this pattern. Instead of begging for his life, Achilles is rejecting the supplication being made by the Achaeans. We have already seen that a portion of this section (line 366) seems to have been imported from the discourse associated with raiding. Now we can add that a second genre of discourse has been called on to fill out Achilles' words. The hero uses the routine (no doubt one actually known to archaic warriors) for a new purpose, just as he had reshaped a raiding boast into the accusation of having

910n the distinction between the "existential" esti and the verb used as a copula, which is common in the poem, see Benveniste (r966) r87-207·


been raided. Of course, one could argue that Achilles is indeed ging for life since by going home he avoids death at Troy. Yet effect of his speaking these words is different from that evoked an Adrestus or Dolon uses the convention. Achilles can have it ways: isolated from the fray, he yet speaks as though in the battle: his private life has taken on the tone of the public conflict; language of the field becomes his in the tent. These dualities overt as well in the other innovation Achilles makes at this point. only is he using the public speech-genre for a private audience, but also adds a reciprocal movement to the usual statement, in saying he will take much from Troy, to add to all the keimelia which him in Phthia.

The simile in which Achilles compares himself to a bird (9.323) always been singled out as a unique feature of Achilles' "language, an indication that he is more like a poet than any other character in Iliad. 92 I believe the simile does characterize Achilles as a skilled bal performer, but I wish to point out that the image itself is another •.. example of a common motif, found in patterns elsewhere in the· poem, which has been changed in the words of Achilles. The other bird similes, uttered by the poet, compare flocks of birds with troops on the move (2.459-65, 3.2, 15.690) or equate horses with swift birds (2.764). There is, however, a precedent, in discourse associated with augury, for the mention of birds by individual characters within the poem, and this more closely resembles Achilles' creation of the bird simile. In Odysseus' speech encouraging the Achaeans (2.308-29), the sema made by Zeus during the layover at Aulis is described vividly. At a plane tree near the altar, a blood-red snake devoured eight sparrows while their mother, soon to be eaten herself, hovered nearby. Odysseus calls the nestlings of this bird phila tekna-an example of the pathetic fallacy consistently applied by Homeric augurs-and says the mother was grieved. 93 Kalkhas, meanwhile, had interpreted the sign on purely numerical grounds, predicting that nine years (nine birds) would elapse before Troy fell. The Trojan, Polydamas, combines sentiment with advice, as well, in his allegorical reading of another snake-and-bird sign from Zeus (I2.209). In full view of the Trojans, an eagle, bitten by the snake he carries, drops it and "did not

92Moulton (r977) ror points out that Achilles is not the only figure to use similes: for example, see Asius' comparison of Achaeans to wasps and bees, r2. r67-72.

930n the conventions of augury talk, and the delineation of heroes by their skill at ' it, see Bushnell (r982).

· The Language of Achilles 205

succeed in carrying it to his children, to give to them" (12.222). He predicts on this basis that the Trojans will not return from a sortie against the s!,Iips. Polydamas had pref~ced his prediction with the words viiv Ul)'t' EI;EQEOO w~ f.l.OL bO'XEL dvm aQLO't'u (12.215). Notice that Achilles, before comparing hinself to a bird and drawing conclusions from the equation, uses the similar phrase (314): Ul)'tUQ Eywv eQeoo w~ f.l.0L bO'XEL dvm aQLO'tu. Like Odysseus, Achilles fills out his description, of the parent bird who fares ill while nourishing the young, in the pathetic manner. Like the augurs, Kalkhas and Polydamas, he draws a moral from the depiction of the bird. His individual shaping of this piece of description from the discourse of augury consists in pointing the moral toward himself, and toward the past. "So, too, I slept sleepless nights, " says Achilles: the fall of Troy, and the outcome of battle are not his concern, as they are in the other, similar bird auguries.

Finally, the investigation of related patterns of diction can help us to answer Adam Parry's dilemma. He adduced lines 337-41 as uniquely Achillean in content. Reeve and Claus have replied that neither the mode of asking such rhetorical questions, nor the urge to question the reason for heroism is unique in the Iliad. In a well-known passage, Sarpedon poses a similar question to Glaukos (12.310-14). Yet there is an innovation in Achilles' words, and it is worth noting. Only Achilles asks essentially the same question three times in succession (9.337-39). Achilles can be seen as uttering a conventional rhetorical strategy, in order to foreground his own answer to the question "Why fight?" What is not conventional, however, is the expanded form he gives to the strategy. Nor is this a minor factor. As I shall show now, it is this one innovation-an ability to ornament by expansion-that characterizes Achilles' speech in contrast to the rhetoric of all other Iliadic heroes. It is this which explains the dozens of fine deviations from the norm that we have examined. Ultimately, it is this expansion aesthetic that shows us the motivations for Homer's own poetry.

"il

CHAPTER 5

The Expansion Aesthetic

The changes made in formulaic patterns by the addition of words, or by melding with other patterns, can be seen at a number points in Achilles' longest speech. I shall concentrate on a few groups' of lines that offer the best examples of the technique. Then, the expansions can be related to the rhetoric of the speech as a whole and, finally, to Homer's overall purposes in the poem.

As we have seen already, the topic of persuasion recurs oftert in Achilles' reply to Odysseus. The phrase oude me peisei (9.345) emerged in my analysis as one instance of a significantly altered pattern. Not only was it shown to be "deviant" by virtue of the person. used (third versus second person); the sequence of elements that accompanies the formula when used by other speakers was shown to be varied in Achilles" speech, and the sheer distance between the ele.:. ments was seen to be an innovation. We can now put alongside this change in pattern another expansion, also related to the topic of rhet~ oric in this speech. Achilles' entire discourse at 9.308-429 is actually divided into four sections by the recurrent references to persuasion: lines 308-15 work up to the topic; 316-45 then form a ringcomposition within the speech, with Achilles asserting that he will not be persuaded, explaining his reasons, and then repeating his position. The section from line 346 to 386 represents a new stage in his argument, in which he directs his attention toward the future, rather . than the past, and makes the threat to sail next morning. A break comes at 386-87 when Achilles switches the topic, from the refusal of , Agamenmon's gifts to the turning away of the marriage proposal:

206

The Expansion Aesthetic 207

these are highly marked lines, as well, since they finally cap the long list of impossibilities with a seemingly concrete condition on which Agamemnon might persuade him-one that turns out to be an impossible demand. This memorable couplet attracted Adam Parry's attention for good reason: 1 would only point out that a good part of its power comes from the repetition, for the third time, of the topic of persuasIOn.

"Not even thus might Agamemnon yet persuade my spirit."

The section following line 387 comprises the climax of Achilles' threefold denial, ending significantly with the promise that Achilles will not use force to keep Phoinix in his tent. Once more, the implicit contrast is between Agamemnon and Achilles, as 1 have already indicated: the latter, we know, will use persuasion, and, as he has shown by this very speech, will inevitably use it to good effect.

When "persuasion" is referred to for the first time in the speech, Achilles' phrasing, 01h;' EI-tEY' 'AtQEtOr]V 'AYUI-tEI-tVOVU :rtELOEI-tEV oLm (3 15), has a particular resonance within the Iliad. He uses a variant of a formula containing the middle-passive, :rtEC8w8m atm. (The latter may be an older formula, considering the absence of contraction in atm.) It is this latter formula that Agamemnon used to describe Achilles, at 1.287-89:

"But this man wishes to be beyond all the rest, to rule all he wishes, to order all, to give all signals-which I think will not be obeyed."

Although Agamemnon ostensibly addressed these words to Nestor, Achilles takes the speech as a challenge, when he tosses back the same phrase at 1.295-96:

"Order these things to others, not to me should you give signals. For I do not think to obey you further."

Whereas Agamemnon had foreseen a general lack of confidence in Achilles' commands, Achilles specifies another sort of revolt, emphasizing his words with strategically placed personal pronouns: "I do


not expect to obey/be persuaded by you egoge/soi)." When the mula occurs a third time in Book 1, we must hear it with the nr'>u,,~. exchange in mind. This time, persuasion will work (though unforeseen consequences) as Thetis concludes at the end of her solation to Achilles (1.426-27):

"And then for you I will go to Zeus' bronze-floored house, and supplicate him, and I think he will obey."

Returning to Achilles' phrase at 9.315 with this earlier run of formulas in mind, we see at once that Achilles' words subtly vary the emphasis of this phrase while retaining its meaning. Instead of focusing on himself as actor, he puts the burden of persuasion on Agamemnon: "Me he will not sway I expect" (with the Greek wordorder retained to reproduce the effect). Furthermore, the next lines allow us to see that the formula is switched so that the poet can make Achilles deny all forms of persuasion on the part of Agamemnon: neither he nor the troops will trust their leader. The technique of expansion in this line has added another object to the verb, a variation not found elsewhere. Such small expansions as this can help create the impression that Achilles feels more deeply, sees over a vaster range, and articulates in a manner different from that of his companions. The exact words peisemen oio occur also in Diomedes' speech to Sthenelos at 5.252, in a discourse that resembles Achilles' great refusal in several ways. There is a declaration that the hero is going, despite objections (5.256; cf. 9.356-61) a reference to future attainment of a goal, deo volente (5.260; cf. 9.362); and a verse drawing attention to the discourse itself (5.259; cf. 9.314). But notice that the effect we get from the expansion of the "persuade" phrase in Achilles' speech is not to be found here. Instead, the usage is much closer to that in the exchange of Book 1, a direct denial that the interlocutor's attempt at persuasion will work. Achilles, distant from his audience (Agamemnon), can expand the denial of persuasion into an insult of greater proportions, suggesting that Agamemnon is impotent to command.

We might term this technique of filling out a formula "internal expansion." As we saw, one recurrent expression is involved; added to it is a further modifying phrase. The introductory section of Achilles' speech also exhibits two other kinds of expansion worth examining: th.at in which two expressions normally united are split so that other sentences can be inserted; and that in which some elements


of several formulaic lines are retained, while others are replaced by different, fuller expressions. For convenience, I will refer to these as splitting and replacement.

Between lines 310 and 314 in Book 9, a splitting expansion has made room for the intrusion of Achilles' reference to his hatred for concealment. How can we tell? The apparatus criticus acts as a monitor, warning, by its heightened activity, that these lines are somehow deviant-perhaps from the standpoint of an Alexandrian text which had the less tractable lines ironed out. Along with the variant reading, in line 310, for the initial conjunction hOsper versus heper), there are alternates in the text tradition as early as Plato's time for phroneo (a deviation in usage discussed earlier) and tetelesmenon estai.

A comparison with the other six passages in which this latter phrase occurs uncovers the roots of uneasiness over the received text: every other occurrence is in a context of explicit threat or promise, and, furthermore, is coupled with a form of the verb ereo. Athena promises Achilles booty if he obeys (I.212): d:JbE YUQ ESEQEW, 'to bE XUl, 'tE'tEAEOf.tEVOV EO'taL. Odysseus makes a vow to Thersites using similar language (2.257): aAA' EX 'tOL EQEW, 'to bE XUl, 'tE'tEAEOf.tEVOV EO'taL. Again, a promise of booty is made by Agamemnon, to Teucer (8.286): OOl, b' EYW ESEQEW 00£ XUL 'tE'tEAEOf.tEVOV EO'taL. 1 The line that Athena used to introduce her promise (I.212) prefaces threats when Zeus (8.401) and Epeios (23.672) use it. The threat of Antilokhos to his horses (like Odysseus' oath about losing his head, another bizarre vow of violence) is couched in the same terms (23.410).2 All these speakers are persons in power; their hearers shrink in fear, give up their plans, fall silent, or obey. This does not occur at 9.310, where there is no immediate threat. As I pointed out earlier, however, the line further on, ulJ'tuQ EYWV EQEW w£ f.tOL boxh ~LVaL aQLO'tu, is itself unusual in context (9.314); we sense the tone of the threat-introduction line which begins in the same way, but ends with crU b' EVl, <\>QEOl, ~aAAEO ofjm. And there is no doubt that the words XUl, 00£ 'tE'tEAEOf.tEVOV EO'taL are equally odd at line 310, where they fill out the first verbal expression (phroneo) in an awkward and unparalleled way. N ow it appears both deviations can be explained by a split: in other

lThis line shows the far more common word order hils kai introducing the final phrase. The reverse order, entailing epic correption, is found in 9.3 10, but almost nowhere else in the Iliad as far as these two words are involved.

2Also, with different verb tense, see 1.388: t]3tEtATJOEV llii8ov, 0 bi) 'tE'tEAEOIlEvO; EO'ttV.


words, the second half ofline 310 "belongs with" the first half ofline 314 (ajoin that can be made with no change for the sake of meter).3 I am far from suggesting that interpolation is the cause for this "split," unless we understand the word to mean the poet's own introjection of different material into the middle of a formulaic line or lines, for artistic reasons.

The inserted sentences in this split expansion constitute another form of expansion, which I have termed replacement. We can discover this expansion at work in lines 3 I 1-13 by examining one word in particular-keuthei, which was underlined, on our formulaic analysis, because it occurs here in the same slot as the same verb in a formula: exauda me keuthe nooi. The formula occurs three times in the poem. The pattern is significant. At 1.363, Thetis consoles the weeping Achilles by asking him to speak his mind: E~a:uba, !-til 'XEu8E vo<p, '(va E'Lbo!-tEV u!-tcj>w. Achilles' reply is the direct cause of the subsequent destruction of Achaeans; when the havoc has reached a crisis, Patroklos, in tears, entreats his companion, and Achilles replies using the formula that Thetis had used at a similar juncture (16.19). Achilles listens; Patroklos soon dies; to Achilles once more comes Thetis. This time, as if she already knows his grief, she omits the second part of the formulaic line (18.74-75): E~auba, !-til 'XEu8E. 't<l !-tEv bi) 'tOL 'tE'tEAEO'taL / E'X L\LO; ... The three occurrences of the phrase thus mark three main stages of the narrative. The poet seems to use it as a refrain. In context, the phrase has two other purposes: it characterizes the tender relations between Achilles and Thetis, and Achilles and his companion; and it introduces speech, in such a way that we assume the following words are the candid outpourings of the speaker who is addressed. Achilles appears to employ the same rhetorical strategy, but, once again, with a difference. His opening sally against the "man who hides one thing in his thought and says another" is, after all, a request for full disclosure, but Achilles directs this call to himself, and then fulfills it by speaking his mind at length. He reshapes and redirects the expected pattern by expanding the idea in me keuthe to a hyperbolic, two-line expression of hatred for the concealer. He switches the second-person address (still present in 9.311, truzete) to a third-person description of an ambiguous foil-figure, keinos. 4 The·

3T~is· is in fact the reading of the vulgate at 9.314. 4The technique can be found in Pindar, the poet with whom Friedrich and Redfield

cpmpare Achilles: (1978) 278. Cf. Pindar, Parth. 2.16.


single word nooi found in the formulaic line is expanded at 9.313 to eni phresin (not found elsewhere with the notion of concealment). In another expansion, Achilles comments on the degree of hatred he feels for the foil-figure (312): his comparison of such a man to the gates of Hell is perhaps motivated by an underlying similarity of comparanda, one concealed and one concealing. 5

Two more pieces of dictional evidence allow tis to imagine the process of composition at work in the opening of Achilles' speech. First, we must recognize that the formula E~au(')a, !lit xE'U8E v6cp is itself related to another expression that is used in the same communication situation to invite speech. Aphrodite employs the related formula when addressing her visitor Hera at 14.195-96:

aMa 0 'tL <l>QOVEEL~· 'tEAEOa.L OE f,lE e'Uf,lO~ avwYEv EL MJvaf,la.L 'tEAEOa.L yE xal. Et'tE'tEAEOf,lEVOV EO'tLV.

Hephaistos addresses the same couplet to Thetis at the start of another visit type-scene (18.426-27). In this formulaic opening, the negative element ("do not conceal") is omitted, perhaps because gods are assumed to speak truthfully to each other. In addition, there is a different focus, on the speaker's willingness to complete the action which the addressee has in mind. Whereas we explained the shape of 9.3 i 3 as an expansion of the me keuthe formula, this related formula, auda ho ti phroneeis, enables us now to see a model for another line in Achilles' speech. Compare with th~ lines just cited (14.195-96 = 18.426-27) Achilles' words at 9.310: il nEQ (')it <j>QOVEW 'tE xa" w£ 'tE'tEAEO!lEVOV

EOLaL. It will be seen that the verb phroneo occurs in the same slot as phroneeis in the formulaic lines, and that the second half of line 310 reproduces, with slight changes, the second half of the second line in the formulaic couplet used by the hosts (Aphrodite and Hephaistos) to invite speech.

As I noted earlier, Achilles' use of the verb "I think" is deviant, implying an absolute self-reference not found elsewhere. We can trace the reason behind the poet's word choice, which gives us such an Achillean "misuse": in brief, Homer must have found himself at a crossroads in performance as he came to Achilles' reply. On one

STwice in the poem hiding is associated with Hades by a speaker: 22.482 ( 'At<lao Mf.lo'U~ lmc> XSUSSOL yaLrl~) and 23.244 (Achilles speaking: eywv 'At<lL xsuSWf.laL). A similar notion underlies English "hell" (from Indo-European *cel-: cf. Latin ceiare, "hide").


hand, he has taken care to depict Achilles as more humane then guests: his lyre playing, his courteous greetings to the embassy, the hospitality scene that follows all attest to this. On the other hand even if Achilles himself does not threaten the listening Achaeans, ' very fact that he will refuse to be persuaded by the embassy is . threat to the existence of the Greek side at this crisis point in the narrative. We can imagine that this pressure, in addition to the pressure exerted by a tradition of rivalry between Odysseus and Achilles; . leads the poet (who knows where his plot is going) to sharpen the tone of many expressions: Achilles' words are always verging on the language of threat and abuse. 6 Achilles' depiction as a perfect host requires that he utter something like the host's formula "speak what is on your mind and I will fulfill it"; his role as the last hope of the Achaeans in this crisis similarly prepares Achilles to say something like the consolation formula "speak out and do not conceal anything in your thought." At the same time, the narrative requires that Achilles speak his refusal at this point, and do so vehemently; his opening must be directed toward himself. It is this conglomeration of motives, inherent in the conception of Achilles as a hero in the Iliad, that produces the expanded, seemingly incoherent opening to Achilles' great reply.

The second bit of evidence confirms that Achilles' tone in 3 11-14 is the result of a mixing of polite discourse, appropriate for the situation, with threatening language, generated by the poet's anticipating the content of Achilles' remarks. For words remarkably similar to Achilles' statement at 9.3II-12 occur in Zeus' reply to the wounded Ares (5.889-90) as part of a strongly worded rebuke:

!ltl ·tt !lOt, aAAon:Qooaf,,')· .. E, n:aQE~O!lEVO~ !lLVUQL~E. EX8Lo'to~ ()E !l01. EOOL 8EWV ot "OAlJIlrtOV EXOlJOLV.

The rebuke ends with a change of tone, as Zeus acknowledges that Ares is his son and orders his wound healed. If we compare Achilles' words, the technique of expansion by replacement shows up clearly. It is possible to match fA.l] fA.0L "tQUt'Y]"tE with fA.l] "t( fA.OL ... fA.LVUQLtE, JtaQl]fA.EVOL with 3ta.QEt0fA.EVO<,;, EX8QO<'; YUQ fA.0L 'XELVO<,; with EX8LOLO<,; bE fA.0( EOOL, and the vocative, UAA03tQOOa.AAE, with an expression of different meaning but identical metrical and similar phonological

60n the rivalry, see Nagy (I979) 42-58.


shape: aAA08Ev aAAor;.7 Whereas Zeus' direct and blunt style in this speech is emphasized by end-stopped lines, Achilles' tone sounds more rational because his syntax is more complex: he uses hos and gar to connect what in Zeus' speech are three separate elements. The effect of the conjunction and particle is fluidity: we seem to get a rational explanation of his behavior from Achilles. Furthermore, rather than calling his interlocutor "most hateful" (although the thought underlies his words), Achilles mutes his expression to the simpler "hateful is that man." The couplet 9.312-13 is grammatically subordinated to 3 II, itself subordinate to line 309. In both the speech of Zeus and of Achilles, the lines form a separable introduction, directed to an interlocutor who has made a complaint: note that both speakers shift the topic abruptly after the rebuke (5.895, all' ou man; 9.314, autar egon).

We have seen how the expansion technique affects the tone, and ultimately the characterization, within the space of several lines. Because expansions, particularly those of the splitting and replacement varieties, obscure the formulaic models on which they are. built, Achilles' "language" comes to sound unique. This can be observed in greater detail, first, in two passages of the speech that deal with the central topics of reward and love; and, second, in a number of lines_ that exhibit "telescoping" of formulas which is caused by expansion of other formulas.

The idea presented in the second half of line 316 recurs twice in terms that help illuminate the passage in Book 9. When the poet describes the death of Iphidamas at Agamemnon's hands, the tone is that of the most haunting of Homeric obituaries: resigned, factual, yet tense with restrained emotion. The victim "fell and slept the bronze-hard sleep, pitiable man, away from young wedded wife, fighting for his townsmen-the wife, from whom he had no joy, though he had given much (for her)": XO'UQL<>L'Y]r;, ~r; ou 'tL X<lQLV 'L()E,

JtOAAa. ()' MWXE (II.243). Here, as often, kharis signifies both pleasure and reciprocal giving, reciprocity itself being a "pleasure" in the world of Homeric epic, and a sign that the cosmos is operating prop-

7Note that the word, applied to Ares at 5.83 I also, appears to 'mean in context "one who switches sides. " By contrast, the phrase, at 9.3 I I is less well grounded in context. Homer, expanding in Achilles' speech with the previous passage in mind, may thereby have been led to improvise a scenario in which three speakers assail Achilles' resolve, "one from one side, one from another." The expansion technique tends to ramify in this way, as we have seen.


erly. Iphidamas is cut off from ever getting return on investment, much as he is cut off from the sweetness of a young wife, and the grieves for both losses. It is with this dual meaning of the word we should approach the ending of line 316, OUX uQa 'tL~ xaQL~ Achilles' words echo the poet's voice, then. Through his use of abstract noun, the personal gripe about lack of payment grows an elegiac statement of universal human lack, not far removed in from the Eddic verses: "Cattle die, kinsmen die, one day you yourself; but words of praise will not perish when a man wins fame."8

Not only does Homer himself use the "lack of kharis" motif, in a tone similar to that at 9.316; another important, and young, speaker· in the poem applies the exact phrase of 9.316 within a similar context; Glaukos' words to Hektor (17.142-68) cast light on the expansion technique. When he upbraids Hektor for deserting Sarpedon's corpse, Glaukos threatens to withdraw from the fight, then gives reasons (144, phrazeo; 146, au gar). At 154 he repeats his threat of desertion, but leaves open the possibility of united Lycian and Trojan action (156-59). By comparison, Achilles performs the same function when he mentions a lack of kharis, but he uses the word, in context, to cover material reward, a meaning not so apparent in the words of Glaukos; the latter seems to say that one saves another's friends, and so expects the same honorable behavior. Achilles elaborates his statement of grievance. in the same way as Glaukos: his threat of desertion comes at 9.356-61, forty lines further into the speech, however, and his suggestion that the Achaeans find another way to defend themselves is thirty-one lines from the initial phrase "there is no kharis" (9.347, phrazesthO, and 17.144, phrazeo). We cannot say with certainty that Glaukos' words are a pale copy of Achilles' rhetoric, or that, conversely, Achilles' speech is built with Glaukos' specific formulation as its model. 9 But we can note that Achilles elaborates, in twenty lines, that which Glaukos merely alludes to in two. The essential point is that Homer could have made Achilles use a shorter form of discourse, but chose not to. We can speculate that the respective speeches vary because the performance situations of each are differ-

8Havamal76, in Terry (1969) 24. On this motif as shared by Norse and Old English elegy, see Frank (1982) 5-6.

9Moulton (1981) 5-8 calls the later speech an intentional reminiscence designed to

foreshadow Achilles' return.


ent. Glaukos, in the heat of battle, uses the rhetoric of desertion in order to spur on Hektor; Achilles, meanwhile, uses it to play for time; his speech, moreover, is for a third party, not for an immediate audience that could control, either through its receptiveness or inattention, the flow of words.

The triple mention of "love" in lines 340-43 affords another glimpse at the formulaic creativity of Achilles, achieved by expansion of dictional elements. Two patterns are combined to produce this extraordinary statement of affection. First, there is that attested at 7.204: Et bE XUL "ExtoQu JtEQ <j>LAEEL£ xul xljbEm UUtou, in which the verb describes the feelings of a divinity for a hero.10 The second pattern (3.388) refers to affection among mortals and is found with the iterative: fA.UALotU bE fA.LV <j>LAEWXE (6.15) JtuvtU£ YUQ <j>LAEWXEV (9.450) tijv UUtO£ <j>LAEWXEV. When Achilles says tijv UUtOU <j>LAEEL xu!. xljbEtm, he is mixing the patterns by employing the positioning of the verb common in the second type alongside the conjunction of verbs (<j>LAEEL xu!. xljbEtm) that appears in the first. Furthermore, he deviates from each pattern in using the "divine affection" formula to refer to his own feelings for a wife, and the "human interaction" formula without the iterative form.

Such a reshaping of formulas arises from a desire for expansive expression, I submit. The overt sign of the urge for pleonasm, of course, is the progression phileous', phileei, phileon, in these lines. I shall examine the link between formula expansion, on the one hand, and internal repetition, on the other, shortly. But now we must turn to another aspect of Homeric style in 9. 307-429-telescoping-in order to show, at last, how the tendency to expansion permeates and shapes Achilles' speech. 11

The technique of telescoping formulas appears following the lines we have just examined, once we compare these with two other simi-

IOSee also 1.196, of Hera; 2.197,7.280 = IO.552, 16.94,20.122. \I Expansion has been noted as a device used by Achilles, but it never has been

identified as the distinctive characteristic of his speech, to my knowledge. See Race (1982) 28-29, 37-39 on the priamels oflines 379-87 and 406-9; Lohmann (1970) 244 mentions the Steigerungstechnik employed in Achilles' refusals. The use of expansion as a technique has analogues in the poetry of the Near East: Watson (1984) 329-31 notes that Hebrew and Akkadian verse expands formulas in order to produce parallelism; Tigay (1982) 59-63 shows that expansion goes hand in hand with telescoping of formulas as the Old Babylonian version of the Gilgamesh epic is remade in later versions.

2r6 The Language of Heroes

lar passages in the poem; the two later passages are not ''''''''''1:1

identical, in that the second omits two lines which add -.... ~ •. 'v~ color to the first. Contrast Achilles' narrative (r6.56-59):

XOUQ'I']V ilv aQu f,LOL YEQU£ ESEAOV uIE£ 'AXmwv, bouQI. b' Ef,Lcj> X'tEU'tLOOU, :rtOALV EU'tELXEa :rtEQOU£, 'tl]V &'\jJ EX XELQWV EAE'tO xQELOJv 'AYUf,LEf,LVOJV 'A'tQEtb'l']£ 00£ EL 'tLV' (hLf,L'I']'tOV f,LE'taVU<J't'l']V

"The girl whom the sons of Achaeans chose for me as prize, whom I acquired by my spear, sacking a well-walled city, that one the ruler Agamemnon has taken back, the son of Atreus, from my hands, as if I were some unvalued itinerant"

with the story told by his mother a short time later (r8.444-45):

f

XOUQ'I']V ilv aQu ot YEQU£ ESEAOV uIE£ ' Axmwv 'tl]V &'\jJ EX XELQWV EAE'tO xQELOJv 'AYUf,LEf,LVOJV

"The girl whom the sons of Achaeans chose for him, that one the ruler Agamemnon has taken back from his hands."

Now, compared to these two later retellings, Achilles' expression at' 9.343-44 can be seen as selectively composed of the most important elements in the story of his misfortune: EX XELQOOV (cf. r6.58 = r8.445) and YEQUr;, plus the verb "to take" (a phrase in the same slot, though with a different form of the verb, in r6.56 = r8.444). The. unique ()o'UQLx't'Yj'tilv (9.343) fits into Achilles' speech as another telescoping of the fuller clause, ()O'UQL ()' E!l<P X'tE(l'tLOOU (r6. 57). Again, I do not claim that lines 343-44 are a cut-and-paste reworking of a preexisting longer passage. Instead, this exercise shows us how context varies expression within Homer's realistic mimesis of speechmaking. Careful and leisurely explanation of motives, between friends, allows the poet/speaker to expand -his expression; by contrast, Achilles' refusal speech, made to his competitor, Odysseus, demands that certain phrases be hewn to a smaller proportion in order for the hero to give more reasons for not fighting, and to say them more emphatically. Thus, at 343-45, Achilles has reduced the description of Agamemnon's wrong, in order to touch on the topic of deception, and to expatiate on the theme of injustice. Notice that the


reduction is later compensated for, when Achilles returns to the topic of Agamemnon's behavior (368), this time using the full line-end phrase which he seemingly omits at 344, Ef..E'tO xQELWV 'AYUf.lEf.lVWV (cf. 16.58, 18.445).

The next line (345) offers a good example of the same phenomenon-the flexible length of the "given essential idea" in a phrase depends on the performance situation in which a speaker finds himself. Compare with f.ltl f.lEU J'tELQ<l'tW Eil hbo'to(; the rebuke ofHektor to Ajax (7.235-37, "expansions" in parentheses):12

f.ltl 't( f.lEV (tiihE TtmM~ &<j>avQou) TtELQtl'tL~E (tiE yvvm%6~, 11 OU% oLbEv TtOA.Ef.,Ltl·ia EQya) (au'tuQ EYWV) di oLba (f.,Laxa~ 't' &vbQo%'tao(a~'tE)

"Do not try me (like a senseless child or a woman, who does not know the works of war), (But) I well know (battles and man-slayings)."

Several times descriptive elements are telescoped for the sake of expanded expression on the level of conative, persuasive utterance. Thus, Achilles' summary description of the building of the walls reduces the narrative depiction at 7.435-41 to two lines, 9.349-50, of which one is an exact repetition (350 = 7.441) and the other a joining of phrases found in 7.436 ('tELXO(; EbELf.luv), 7.440 ( bt' Utl'tC9 'tu<j>QOV) , and 7.449-50 ('tu<j>Qov/iif..uouv). Another example: his threat to sail the next day is ornamented with a number of phrases which retard the main verb (O'\jJWL, 359) while specifying time, reason, manner, and preparations for departure (356-61). But this elaboration, clearly intended to frighten the listeners with its clarity, is constructed by a telescoping of possible fuller phrasings. Compare with line 357 (UUQLOV LQU ~Ll, QEI;U(; xul. m'ioL eEOLOLV) the expression in Nestor's tale (11.727): Eveu ~Ll. QEI;UV'tE(; UJ'tEQf.lEVEL LEQU XUf..u. Because Achilles is creating an unparalleled expression, in which both the time of sacrifice and two recipients in the dative are named, the poet here must, first, use the short form hira with a form of the verb

12The meaning of "well knowing" in 9.345 is closer to that of the verb in the lineend phrase ophr' eu eideis (I. 185 etc.), although it occurs here in the slot associated with the formula eu eidiis, which refers to knowledge of a skill rather than of facts. For a discussion of stylization in Hektor's speech at 7.234-43, see Duban (1981) 106-7·

2I 8 The Language of Heroes

rezo, next, place the phrase in an unaccustomed metrical slot, and. finally, displace the name Zeus from its usual position when it is in' the dative case. 13

The phrase aAubE JtQoEQuaaw (9.358) can be explained as a telescoping of a fuller type-scene, the casting-off of boats , as at L308-1I. The longer passage, which is begun with the line-final phrase we find at 358, goes on to describe the choice of rowers; so does Achilles' description, but here they are mentioned only as one object of the verb opseai whereas in the type-scene the action of selection occupies a full clause (1.309). At the same time, the reduction in terms of syntactical status is compensated by an expansion. Rather than referring simply to eretas, Achilles calls them "men eager to row" (361)-an expressive new combination of words formed on the model of other -menai memao- constructions at line-end (12.200, 1.590).

At times, what seems to be a telescoping of formulaic language turns out to be an internal expansion that means much more in its. new reshaping. Line 369, 'to Jtav't' UYOQEUEI1EV w£ EJtL'tEnW, provides an example. The expression seems to be a curtailed form of, for example, 2.10: Jtav'tu l1aA' U'tQEXEW£ UYOQEUEI1EV W£ EJtL'tEAAW (Zeus' instructions to Dream), in which the adverbial phrase marks ' the importance of the speech-act. On closer examination, however, this line is only half as long as Achilles' entire expression in 9.369-72. He postpones the adverb that modifies the way in which a report of his own speech is to be made; the word amphadon is enjambed in 370, where it is followed by a further expansion, giving Achilles' reasons for making the request. 14 Here, as in the cases mentioned earlier, the reduction has in effect made Achilles' speech much more fluid, allowing his style to become more periodic and less paratactic.

Finally, it should be pointed out that the act of telescoping phrases can itself be political. Once, Achilles telescopes in order to defeat, when he downplays Agamemnon's expansive expression (9.121-24):

13The only other time this placement of Dii occurs is at 10.16. The contracted form hira occurs also at I 1.707, coupled with a form of the verb rezo and with a dative indicating a single set of recipients.

14We might speculate that the second half ofline 370 is built on the model of such lines as I. 17, 23.272, and so on, in which Atreides and "other Achaeans" are named; the enjambed word Atreides in 369, occurring in the slot it occupies in the formula, would then have prompted the poet to end the next line as he did.

The Expansion Aesthetic 21 9

v~i:v 6' EV nuvLwoL n£QLxAUL<X 6wQ' OVO~tlVW Em' anuQous LQLn06us, 6{;xu 6£ XQUOOlO LUAUVLU u'WwvuS 6E M~ytms EdxoaL, 66J6£xu 6' 'Lnnous nytyous a8Ao<j:>oQOUS, 01: a{;8ALu nooolv aQovLO

"Among you all I name the famous gifts: seven unfired tripods, ten talents of gold, twenty shining cauldrons, twelve horses, prize-winners, who earn prizes by their feet."

Achilles shows his contempt for this proposed wealth of recompense by collapsing the four categories of gifts, so carefully detailed by Agamemnon, into two-tripods and horses with ruddy manes (407). He also subverts Agamemnon's claim that whoever has such horses as he promised will be hugely successful (9.125-27):

"Not without booty (aleios) would a man be who had such things, nor without possessions (aktemon) of precious gold, so many prizes have the single-hooved horses brought me. "

Achilles uses two adjectives unparalleled elsewhere in the Iliad but constructed precisely on the words Agamemnon had used, to make the contrast with Agamemnon's statement about the horses. And, having reduced Agamemnon's claim, he expands his own expression so that it fills two lines (406-7):

"Cows and stout sheep can be won for booty (liiistoi) , tripods and the tawny heads of horses can be possessed (ktetoi)."

As if this sharply pointed recasting of inferior text (Agamemnon's) were not enough, Achilles then goes on to underscore his positive statement by a powerful negative predication, in the next two lines: 15

"But the spirit of a man cannot be got or taken so as to come back (oute leiste outh' helete)

once it passes the barrier of teeth. "

15The foregoing examples do not exhaust the list of expansions in this speech. Internal expansions occur in lines 325-26 (compare with 18.340, 23.186, where "nights and days" is a unified phrase); in 338 (compare with laon ... ageiras the unexpanded phrase in 2.664, 11.716, 11.770, etc.); in 390-91 (compare with 13·432:


The Rhetoric of Achilles

Speaking to win out-this is the goal of every Iliadic performer. its best, in the matching of skilled performers, the verbal contest· duel of rhetoric: the better performer, while employing the words of his adversary, can incorporate them into a new at once traditional (it has its vocabulary supplied by the ..... ~."V"ULl and yet so novel as to be memorable, and therefore destructive anything which has been said before. 16 We have seen this dynamic work in the verbal performances of Achilles in Book I, Odysseus Book 2, and Glaukos in Book 6, among others. It remains to that the Achilles whom Homer 'depicts is the expert at such U"'· ...... 'L;:)UU

rhetoric. It must be demonstrated that the frequent expansions Achilles' reply are related to a particular rhetorical strategy, a for auxesis, "magnification," at every point, usually accomplished doubling and tripling of expressions within the discourse itself. the strategy is unique in the rhetorical repertoires of Iliadic heroesthus characterizing once and for all Achilles' "language"-it is a nique shared by one other performer: the narrator of the poem.

Within the speech we have been reading, rhetorical fullness hand in hand with formulaic expansion. Some phrases, indeed, can be called formulaic only because they are repeated within the space this one reply; they are perhaps better viewed as significant repeti..; tions, as discussed earlier. Such recurrent phrases include ou yUf,tEW (9.388, split in 391, but ending in same slot); EsUnat~aELV (line-end at 371, line-initial, in tmesis, at 375 cf. 344); OOAEtO, line-initial at both] 413 and 414; <j>LA'I1V E£ nutQLbu (in same slot at 414 and 428); 00£ xutl

i

Hippodameia surpasses all in beauty and works; no comparisons made to divinities); I This expansion entails a further deviation, since the word isophariz- is always used I elsewhere to say someone does not equal another in battle prowess (see, e.g., 6. IOI,' 21. 194, 21.4II). A larger internal expansion is 401-5, which can be seen in smaller! scope in such lines as 18. 5 12 = 22. 121. An important example of replacement expan-! sion comes in the triple denial: compare 9.318-20 with Hektor's less elaborate words~ of wisdom to Andromakhe, also in a context of refusal to be persuaded (6.488- 89): i

!J.OLgClv fl' ou nvu <PTJ!lL ltE<pUY!lEVOV £!l!lEVClL <xvflgoov ou xClx6v, oME !lEv foSMv, fnilV 'ta ltgOO'tCl yEVTJ'tClL. Into this gnomic statement, Achilles has inserted movement and conflict through the mention of honor and fighting strength.

16This is not simply the working of the alleged erasure phenomenon in oral cultures, on which see Vansina (I985) 120-23 and Abrahams's (I985) critique ofOng. As, I pointed out earlier, audiences evaluate performance within the Homeric poems: the speech-act must be rhetorically effective as well as new.

t j f

I f

f

1

I


EYW (325, 342); and obtaO' lXWflaL (393; with different desinence, 414). That the phrases are repeated for the sake of rhetorically full and emphatic discourse can be corroborated from other internal repetitions. Consider the following on the phonetic level:

aJt'Y]AEYEW£ aJtoELJtEiv (309-initial assonance) [.t0iga [.tEVOVLl ... [.tuAa ... JtOAE[.ti~OL (3 18-alliteration) Jtaga~aAA.6f-tEVO£ JtoAEf-tL~ELV (p2-alliteration) ll[.tata aL[.tatoEvta (p6-assonance) bESU[.tEVO£ bla Jtauga baouoxEto (333-alliteration) E[.tJtEba xEitm ... E[.tEU b' aJto [.tOUVOll 'Axmwv

(335-assonance) [.tEll JtELgutW ... f-tE JtdOEL (345-double alliteration) [.tOYl£ bE [.tEll EXCPllYEV ogf-tY)V (355-alliteration and assonance) v'Y]Y)oa£ Eii vfja£ (35 8-assonance) f-tuAa JtOAAU ta XUAAlJtOV (364-consonance) yE YEga£ (367-unparalleled repetition of particle and noun) EgL~OL / loocpagL~OL (389-90-assonance)

The climax of the repetition of sounds comes at line 388: xouQ'I1v 0' OVYUflEW 'AYUflEflVOVO~, which makes a pun on the name of Achilles' adversary by equating it with the preceding verb phrase: "The daughter I will not marry of No-marriage. "17

Repetition of forms of the same word occur throughout. The recurrent words act as refrain devices, foregrounding the five central concerns of the hero: note the forms in phil- (340, 342, 343); polemiz(318, 322, 326, 35 2); kour- (388, 396); akoitin (397, 399); Atreid- (332, 339, 341). Repetition is subservient to more extended parallelism of syntax which in turn represents either analogy or polarity in thought. For example, the line-initial expressions at 331 and 336, exelomen, heilet', while parallel in position and derivation, are vivid contrasts in meaning. 18 Occasionally, it seems as if the argument is being carried on solely by means of such associations of sound. Thus, an elaborate chiasmus based on contrast of verb forms in 368-77 seems to equate Agamemnon's robbing of Achilles with Zeus' robbing of Agamem-

17David Packard noted this paronomasia during a lecture at Princeton, 20 November, 1984. Claus (1975) 18 detects another wordplay in line 318: moira can mean both "death" and "portion."

18C£ parallelism for the sake of contrast in 313; 323-24; 325-26; 328-29; 33 1-32; 406-9; 412- 15; 429.


non's wits: autis ... heleto (368); elpetai exapatesein (37I); ek gar; apatese (375); autis ... exapaphoit' (375-76); ek gar . .. heileto The most memorable portions of Achilles' speech depend for power on this sort of parallelism: his assertion concerning the coverability of man's life (406-9) not only abolishes formulation, but takes on authority by being cast in terms of morphologically related adjectives. And the syntax of his concerning his own choice of fates mirrors, in its paired "v.uU'U'JU:;~ the content: syntax here is iconic (4I2-I5). Just as powerful, but a triplex rather than binary structure, are the denials at 3I5-I7 out', ouk . .. ) and at 3 I8-20 (with progressive contrasts of six all of whom have the same fate). Over a wider expanse, such structures are themselves made into a trinity of denials: first, oud' . tosa doie (379), oud' hosa (twice, 38I), oud' ei ... tosa qoie (385), ... peisei' (386); next, ou gameo (388), oud' ei (389), oudt-min hos (39I); and finally, ou ... antaxion oud' hosa phasin (40I), oud' hosa . oudos ... eergei (404-note the paronomasia of negative with noun meaning "threshold"), oute leiste / outh' helete (408-9). i

The ultimate result of repetition, then, is the construction of a cohesive and forceful speech. The narrative attests to the power oj Achilles' discourse, so that its success, on the level of style, is explicit his audience is silent in amazement at the muthos (9.43I). By speak~ ing so well about his resistance to persuasion, Achilles, paradoxically, persuades. We have seen the devices by which Achilles/the poet produces such victorious discourse, and I have shown that deviations a1 the level of formula are to be explained by reference to the scope oj this particular speech, which demands that traditional expressions be expanded themselves, or telescoped for the sake of expansion at another point in the text. Now it is time to draw conclusions; I offel two, in brief: first, that the "language of Achilles" is none other that: that of the monumental composer; and second, that the poetic rhetoric of the narrator, in turn, is that of a heroic performer in the role 01 an Achilles.

The first perhaps seems tautologous; it has already been said that aI Iliadic heroes, not just Achilles, "speak Homeric." Yet, while that i~ true if we are discussing morphology and phonology, the evidence 0 formulaic diction tells us otherwise-Achilles, as Adam Parry intuited, does not speak quite like the others_ In seeking to find reason: for his deviations, at the level of diction, we have been led to the


higher linguistic structures, beyond the phrase and into the realm of rhetoric. And at this level, Achilles can be seen to use a rhetoric-the art of disposing and arranging words-similar only to the poet's own. In other words, we assume that Homer could have expanded formulaic diction in the speeches of any other hero so as to produce dicourse as complex, inward-looking, and pleonastic as Achilles'. But he did not; he fully reveals all the possibilities of his own poetic craft only in the extended speech of Achilles. The effect is to make Achilles sound like a poet, as critics have remarked so often. We can now say, however, that the reasons Achilles sounds like a performer lie deeper than such techniques as the use of similes. The similarity arises because Homer, when he constructs Achilles by means of language, employs all his poetic resources and stretches the limits of his formulaic art to make the hero as large a figure as possible. In short, the monumental poem demands a monumental hero; the language of epic, pressed to provide speech for such a man, becomes the "language of Achilles."19

There is one further piece of evidence in Achilles' words in Book 9 to suggest that in Achilles we hear the speech of Homer, the heroic narrator. Only Homer and Achilles refer, in speaking, to the possibility of endless expansion. Achilles says "not even if Agamemnon gives ten and twenty times as much will he persuade me" (379). We have just seen that this denial is expressed within a tripartite structure, each section of which is also triplex. Form contrasts with context in the expression: although the limits of wealth are considered, and refused, the expression of refusal itself is hyperbolic, verbally full, "excessive." I have suggested that this rhetorical auxesis adds weight to Achilles' verbal defeat of his adversary, as he simply outtalks Agamemnon; I shall trace the consequences of this view shortly. For now, we must put this speaking strategy-referring to a wealth of possibilities and then dismissing them-in context. It turns out to be on a par with the poetic technique which later comes to be called recusatio, and which Homer himself uses in the proem to the Catalogue of Ships. Just as he is about to begin the most elaborate listing

19Several studies mention the stylistic consequences of monumental composition, without mentioning the effect on direct speech in the poem. See Kirk (1962) 159-60,178 and Kirk (1976) 19, 36, I09, 203-4; also, Hainsworth (1970) 37-38 and Miller (1982) 44-45·


of wealth in the Iliad, Homer simultaneously denies the possibility of ever expressing a large portion of his narrative (2.488-92):20

nA'Y]8uv 6' oux av tyro f.tu8tloof.taL oM' OV0f.ttlVW, oM' E'L f.tOL bExu f.tEV YAWOOaL, 6£xu 6E mof.ta't' dEY, <j>WVtl 6'aQQ'Y]x'to~, XclAXEOV bE f.tOL ~'tOQ tVEL'Y], d f.ttl 'OAUf.tJtLME~ MoiioaL, ~LO~ UiYLOXOLO 8uYU't£QE~, f.tv'Y]ouLu8' OOOL uno ~IALOv ~A8ov

"I could not make a muthos or name the entirety, not even if 1 had ten tongues, ten mouths, an unbreakable voice, and my heart bronze within me, unless the Olympian Muses daughters of aegis-bearing Zeus, should recall how many came up to Troy."

Although their topics appear to be different, both Achilles and the narrator Homer speak in the same manner: both specify a condition, using hyperbolic numbering, then deny the condition by adding a further one: Homer requires the Muses, not ten tongues and mouths, a bronze heart, and unbreakable voice. Achilles demands that Agamemnon pay back his insult; no other payments will satisfy him. Finally, both Homer and Achilles use this trope to continue their speech-acts: Homer, by listing the Panhellenic forces, Achilles by listing his own assets in Phthia. As with the occurrence of the unique formula "unwithering fame" in Achilles' speech, so here a particularly marked trope is restricted within the rhetoric of the Iliad and given to only one hero to speak, the performer who is most like Homer.

In Achilles' speech, then, we find the working out of the premises upon which the monumental art of Homer rests. First, bigger is better: Homeric art, as many have said, differs from most other epic poetry in terms of actual size of composition. Less often is it realized that this principle extends to the conception of character within the poem; to the manner in which allusion is made to past generationsalso bigger and better-and to the description of its objects and persons. The number of men before Troy, for example, and the shield of Achilles are both huge, not merely because the "heroic age" conventionally demands the theme but also because the huge poem requires all to be magnified. The breadth of the Iliad is not achieved simply by

20Note that the number of troops can be compared with sand (2.800, Iris speaking) just as Achilles can use the image to speak of numbers of gifts (9.385).


padding, however. As cnUcs such as Fenik have shown in detail, Homer's technique at the level of narrative is to expand or contract individual motifs and type-scenes, with all the nuances of variation possible. 21 That is to say, Homer's narrative technique is the same as his speechmaking, but only in the case of Achilles' discourse.

The interaction of oral poet and hero of his poem is not unknown in oral literature. Some performers regularly adopt the voice of their central fictional creations. 22 Although I believe we can gain from asking ourselves whether Homer performed in this manner, let me now turn to my second conclusion: that Achilles' performance situation is itself an image for the way in which the poem was composed. I can return to my earlier observation concerning the destructive function of Achillean rhetoric. In line with the performances I have analyzed in Chapter 2, Achilles' speech shows us "rhetoric" being used to put the speaker in the foreground; it persuades an audience of the heroism of the speaker, vis-a-vis other heroes. As I have shown, to treat such a mode of performance (the kernel of which is flyting) as a purely literary invention disregards all the evidence which anthropology and the ethnography of speaking can give us regarding the social use of verbal art. We should be prepared to reverse the picture: the literary use of rhetoric arises from a social institution seen within ancient, medieval, and modern nonliterate cultures, which we can call "personal performance," or to use Herzfeld's phrase, the "poetics of selfhood. "23 I have suggested earlier that Homeric speeches are in fact stylized versions of pre-existing, already stylized verbal art forms such as lamenting, rebuking, boasting. Achilles' speech is by no means a simple "genre of discourse" but rather a mix of various speechgenres-the talk of raiding, of prophecy, and ofboasdng. In the same way, the Iliad itself consists of various "genres" within epic. 24

Once we grant that Achilles and the other Homeric figures represent performers of personal identity, we can begin to learn from their

21See Fenik (1968) and (1978); also M. Edwards (1980) for an analysis of this technique in the space of one book of the Iliad. Lohmann (1970) provides a useful demonstration of the way in which the structure of speeches can be expanded or contracted through use of typical elements but he does not examine speeches at the level of diction as I have done: see the critique by Latacz (1975) 414-18.

22See, on Swahili epic, Knappert (1983) 72 and on the same phenomenon in Ainu and Arabic poetry, Bowra (1952) 35.

23Herzfeld (1985) ro. 24For an analogy to the use of smaller genres see Tigay (1982) 163 on the Gilgamesh

tradition.


performance technique as if we had before us the transcription of several dozen oral singers within a regional tradition. The heroes' . "region" is the poem, and their "song" is themselves. Why, in this "tradition" does one perform at length, as we have seen Achilles doing in Book 9, and what might this tell us about the lengthy performance represented by the poem itself? Comparative evidence from oral cultures is of some help here in letting us see the positive aesthetic value attached to prolixity of a cetain type. As Sherzer observes regarding the Cuna people of South America, "length is a marker of verbal art andofa performer's ability." The Cuna speakerpoet, orator, or layperson-achieves this length through such linguistic means as protracting words through non contraction of vowels, addition of morphological and syntactic material, and slow delivery, and increased parallelism of expression. 25 All these devices are certainly in Achilles' repertoire. Austin has explained the function of prolixity within Homeric digressions in terms that also help us to view fullness of expression in a new light:

Homer may not have commanded a system of rhetoric as refined and ordered as that of the Sophists, but in this respect [i.e. length] his practice is unequivocal. For it is a surprising fact in Homer that where the drama is most intense the digressions are the longest and the details the fullest. In paradigmatic digressions the length of the anecdote is in direct proportion to the necessity for persuasion at the moment.

On these grounds, the story of Meleager in Phoinix's speech and the tale of Nestor's youth in Book II are fine examples of how one should speak effectively. Yet Nestorand Phoinix are not the same as Achilles: their leisurely rhetoric is appropriate to old men; their style is not that of Homer to the degree that Achilles' is. The length of their speeches comes mainly from inserted narratives, and if we discount this factor, the speech of Achilles which we have analyzed here is the longest in the Iliad. 26

Given that length can be a mark of persuasive rhetoric as well as fine performance, what is there in the specific situation of Achilles' speech in Book 9 to prompt a persuasive performance? We have seen

25Sherzer (1978) 139-42. On varying attitudes toward the value oflength in discourses, see Hymes (1974) 35-40, who cites the contrast between Athenian and Spartan performances (cf. Plato, Laws 641e423).

26Austin (1966) 79. See Redfield (1975) 226.


that Achilles' strategy within the speech consists of inflating each expression except those belonging to his adversary Agamemnon. His consequent lengthy performance blocks Agamemnon's act, by offering the audience a new version. But can this model be applied to Achilles' alter ego, the poet Homer? We do not have to go far to see how. The anxiety of influence and the burden of the past are not confined to modern poetry. Indeed, we might think that these aspects of the poet's work are more crucial to a poet in an oral culture such as that of archaic Greece. As Walter Ong has observed, poetry in the oral setting is inseparable from agonistics:

If the poet deals with the common store of awareness accessible to all, his warrant for saying or singing again what everybody is already familiar with can only be that he can say it better than others. The invocation of the Muse can be paraphrased, "Let me win, outdo all the other singers. " In preromantic rhetorical culture, the poet is essentially a contestant. 27

Thus, I would combine what we know about the positive value of discourse length within the Homeric poems with what we can observe in the setting of oral poetry and performance today. I submit that Homer's composition of the monumental Iliad starts from the need to outdistance previous epics. That this agonistic scenario was the setting for the composition of hexameter verse generally in archaic Greece is suggested by the traditions regarding the contest of Homer and Hesiod. 28 While we can extrapolate such an agonistic setting for the composition of the Iliad, from other sources, I believe the poem itself, in the rhetoric of Achilles, provides the best support for the assertion. Moreover, I now suggest that we can use this speech to pinpoint more exactly the epic tradition which the Iliad is meant to supersede.

270ng (1977) 224. 28Although the sources about such "contests" are admittedly later than the period in

which epic flourished, the tradition itself is surely not simple invention. See Heldmann (1982) 9- I 1. On contest as setting for epic com position in Turkic and Kirghiz tradition, see Miller (1982) 96. The contest setting offers a better explanatory model for the growth of monumental epic than either an unmotivated desire for exploration of character (see Thornton [19841104-10) on the part of the poet, or a putative wealth of leisure time (see Notopoulos [19641 15-18). Lord (1960) 25 mentions a possible ritual basis for the elaboration found in some epics: this can fit with the contest explanation, since poetic agiines originally were connected with cult: see Herington (1985) 6.


Although, as we have seen, much of Achilles' speech in Book directed specifically toward putting Agamemnon's performance.·· the shade, there are portions in which Achilles talks about his exploits with no apparent ulterior purpose other than to support claim of being wronged. When we analyze these portions in terms formulas, however, interesting parallels in diction emerge, gesting that Achilles once again is remodeling a pattern for his self-expression. Achilles boasts of having sacked twelve cities using ships, and another eleven while on foot (9.328-29):

6wbExa bi] oUV vlJuol JtOA.EL£ aMJta~' av8QwJtwv, JtE~O£ b' EvbEXU <PlJ/lL XaLa TQol.lJv EQI.~WAOV.

The only other passage in the poem to mention sacking a city, ships, and a specific number (in this case, of ships) is 5.638-42, part of the battle-boast Tlepolemos makes to Sarpedon:

aAA' oLDv nvu <pam ~l.lJV 'HQaXAlJELlJV ElvaL, E/lOV JtaLEQa 8QaOU/lE/lVOVa 8U/lOAEov'ta o£ JtO'tE 6EiiQ' EA8wv EVEX' LJtJtWV AaO/lEbov'tO£ E~ OLn£ oUV vlJuol xaL avbQum JtauQo'tEQOLOLV 'IAl.ou E~aMJta~E JtDALV, X~QWOE b' aymu£.

Clearly, the mention of Troy's sack in these lines performs the same function as the reference to Achilles' raids: it is part of the warrior's rhetoric of egoism, the verbal performance that authenticates his martial acts. But there are telling differences between the two passages. Tlepolemos boosts his own status by referring to his father, Herakles, who sacked Troy in the previous generation, with six ships and a few men. Achilles boasts of his own sacking, not of one city, but of twenty-three towns around Troy. 29 His act is bigger; the expanded two-line expression of his deeds fits the exploits.

If we consider only quantity, Achilles, although not destined to take Troy, has already surpassed the most important hero of his father's generation. The difference in size between the two heroes' achievements is explicit in the doubling of the number at the beginning of 9. 328-twelve (cities) versus Herakles' six (ships); the formula is expanded semantically, as it were, as well as spatially. We should not think that this similarity of expression between 9.328-29

29La Roche (r878) 24 observes that the Iliad actually names only six of these.


and 5. 638-42 is accidental, for it is well known that the shadow of Herakl~s follows Achil~es th~oughout the Iliad, most clearly in the, digressIOn of Book 19 m whlch Agamemnon (perhaps unwittingly) draws an implicit comparison between the two figures. 3o In at least one instance, as well, Herakles is alluded to as a negative exemplum (5.392-404). I now suggest that this attitude on the part of Homer arises from his own situation as performer when he attempts to compose an Achilles' epic against a widespread and predominant earlier tradition that privileges the role ofHerakles.31 What can be viewed as generational conflict within the story of the Iliad-the claims about Diomedes, for example, that he surpasses his father-is also a poetic contest as well. One piece of evidence that shows the contest is specifically with Herakles comes in the story of Thamyris (2.594-600), on whom the Muses once took vengeance for claiming he could outdo them in song. The passage is the primary basis for a belief that early Greek poetry was composed under agonistic conditions. 32 We may take this as a simple expansion in the Catalogue of Ships for its own sake, a fairly gratuitous diversion. 33 But to do so would be to forget what we have learned about the role of expansion in the inner performances of the Iliad. Remembering, instead, the importance of placelore in Greek traditional literature, we might focus on the detail that Thamyris is returning from Oikhalia when he loses his poetic craft at the hands of the Muses. This place, the city ofEurytus, has important connections in myth and poetry, for it is the city which Herakles sacked in anger after being refused the king's daughter, Iole. The exploit was commemorated in an epic, the Oikhalias Halosis, ascribed by some ancient sources to Homer. Walter Burkert has shown that this lost poem is alone among archaic Greek epics in sharing certain traits with the Iliad.

Both poems focus on a tragic episode in the hero's life, involving a woman, and leading soon to the hero's death; both omit description

300n this passage, see the analysis of o. M. Davidson (1980); her demonstration of Herakles' relation to the heroes of cognate epic traditions makes it more plausible that Achilles, who does not share these ties, is modeled on the older hero.

310n this tradition, see Galinsky (1972) 9-10. 32See A. Edwards (1985) 12 and Maehler (1963) 16-17. Schadewaldt (1965) 64 was

first to point out that Thamyris' boast in the story refers to his success in singing against other performers. No contest with the Muses is said to have taken place.

33S0 Kirk (1985) 216. His observation that the story, as digression, most resembles the story attached to Tlepolemus (2.658) gains significance in light of my finding: both will be seen to relate to Herakles.


of the hero's immortality (which we know about from other and dwell instead on the tragic quality of the impending deaths. treatment of plot in both is in sharp contrast with the Cyclic epics', urge to narrate everything. 34 When Homer says that a poet returning from Oikhalia was deprived of his art, he can hardly be more explicit: this is a claim that the Herakles' tradition is faulty, that it suffered a break in historical transmission from the event itself By contrast, Homer in Book 2 makes it clear that his narrative has a continuity with the past which is guaranteed by Homer's own contact with the Muses (2.484-86). In other words, although the story ofThamyris is on the surface about an agon between singers, and, ultimately, about antagonism between artist and divinities, it is also a statement about the agon between Homer and previous singers. Just as Achilles is drawn in such a way that he obliterates Herakles, so the poem itself is composed under pressure from the Herakles epics and in response to

. them. 35

The resulting poem must be monumental, and therefore expanded out of smaller parts, precisely in order to overcome the Panhellenic traditions about Herakles. If the language of Achilles is actually the undisguised voice and the rhetoric of Homer himself, as I have tried to show, then the converse is also true: the rhetoric of Achilles-his heroic self-performance in an adversary relationship with the past and the present-is at the root of Homer's own composition-inperformance.

34Burkert (I972) 82-85. He also notes that the suffix -eus, forming the place-name adjective at 2.596, is indicative of a non-Homeric epic tradition regarding Herakles. On the contrast between the tragic Iliad and the Cyclic poems, see Griffin (1977).

35Welcker (1865) 2I6 had proposed that Homer alluded, through Thamyris' route, to a contemporary epic, the Herakleia, but he did not view the reference in terms of poetic antagonism.

The Poet as Hero:

A Conclusion

Contact and distance. In these terms, I have approached Homer's Iliad, in an attempt to overcome the long years in which the poem has been a text, to regain some sense of the poem as performance. I have claimed that the poet had a word for "performance" in the sense of authoritative self-presentation to an audience. I used this wordmuthos-to gain access to the genres on which heroic style relies: commanding, flyting, and acts of memory. And I investigated the style of the most expressive hero, Achilles, concluding that his "language" -and not any other hero's-was none other than the foregrounding of Homer's own aesthetic. But if we have established thereby some contact with the performance of the epic, what are we to gain, as readers of the poem, at this distance? Two practical results, in the first place, I believe arise from hearing Homer's voice in Achilles. A third result, less practical but perhaps more important for our understanding of archaic Greek life, comes from seeing the heroic assumptions that produce the monumental epic: from proposing, in other words, that Homer composes like his heroes.

For the first result to make sense, we must return for a moment to the notion of contact and distance. In the light of comparative research into epic, the Iliad as we have it appears two-dimensional because we have little sense of an audience hearing the poem. This goes against the grain of the Iliad's own representation of the act of important speech, sinc~ all but a handful of its hundreds of quoted speeches take place before a critical listener or group of listeners. It


also contradicts all the evidence that points to a participating as a key element in the performance of oral epic.

If we look at reports of such performances from Asia and we glimpse the contractual nature of the epic event and the _. __ ._&&~ •• of contact thus produced. In Central Asia, the Burjat audience of actually begins the performance, singing an invocatory song to singer, "Let us search in our chests and draw therefrom ten arrows Let us begin, then, our tale of the eldest of the thirteen khans." Not only does it thereby set the program, as it were; continued poetic intervention during the course of the performance, the audience guides the shaping of the narration. At times, it sings interruption (seg daralga), consisting of a one- or two-stanza ''journey verse" as a hero moves from one place to another: "We wish him happy arrival at the place he rushes to." Or the audience asks, in a stylized poetic form, for information from the narrator: "On the shore of the yellow sea fell yellow snow. Which enemies have the glorious and mighty khans overcome?" Notice that the Iliad contains tropes strongly resembling the latter, only they are in the voice of the narrator (at least in our texts). Compare the type: "Then whom first, whom last did they slay, Hektor s~m of Priam and brazen Ares?" (S.703-4).1 In Swahili traditions, the royal epic of the Bushong people has refrains of dialogue with the audience which similarly interrupt the recital of the narrative. A more stylized variety of this "interruption" that makes up a vital part of the epic occurs in the Lianja tradition of the Nkundo in the Congo basin. The epic narrative consists of prose, and is recited by one performer, while a chorus of audience members sings the many songs interspersed in the narrative. 2 Weare reminded ofIndic and Irish epic narrative texts that have a similar mix of prose and verse segments, and which may represent the format of the earliest Indo-European epic tradition. 3 The poet, meanwhile, also maintains contact with the audience through such devices as addressing it directly ("intelligent people") or filling in with admonitions ("listen, pay attention"; "I tell you"; "hear me"),

IOn the Burjat epic, see Shoolbraid (I97S) 22-23. 2Knappert (I983) I3, 20. 30n this, see Kelly (I974) 62-73. On the basis of the strong differentiation between

narrrative and speech sections, in terms of correption, Kelly argues that Homeric epic shows signs of having been at one time completely made up of dramatized speech, with connecting narrative added later.

The Poet as Hero 233

some of which occupy entire verses. 4 In one East Asian tradition from the Philippines, this interaction of poet with the audience of the tale becomes a kind of competition. As the story is told, the audience regularly adds comment; characters who are not introduced formally by the narrator are identified, with much show, by the members of the audience. 5

We see, then, a range of possibilities, from informal to highly stylized, by which the audience is included in performance. This is not to say that the event is any less an artistic event, however. Inherent in such performances are linguistic markers that distinguish the speech event from everyday examples of language in contact. The intermixture of verse and prose, for instance, is one of a class of devices that are implicitly "metanarrational" and foreground the event as being different. 6 The text of the Iliad contains such markers of narration, as well, devices that have been seen as breaking the illusion of the narrative's immediacy-deictic pronouns, rhetorical questions, tense shifts are some. 7 Of course, this does not "prove" that the Iliad is an oral poem in any sense. It does, however, force us to rethink the relationship of contact and distance in the epic. Rather than being opposed, these features coexist. We have seen that Homer can actually use the distancing mode to characterize a hero: Hektor, whose speech is often reduced or merely summarized by the poet, recedes from view, while Achilles comes closer to us because the poet chooses him as the channel to contact his audience.

The technique I have just described can be paralleled in living oral epic tradition. In a number of performance traditions, the bard and the hero he sings about nearly become one. In an African example, "bards strongly identify with the principal hero of the epic; they may suggest his physical presence by means of some of the objects and accoutrements. The scepter carried by the Nyanga bard, Rureke, suggests the magical conga-scepter of the hero, Mwindo," reports Biebuyck, adding that a warrior's spear and knife, the mark of a bard

4Knappert (1983) 129. This continues in the written tradition in the form of an address by the scribe to his readers.

SWrigglesworth (1977) 106. 60n these devices, including naming, quoting, onomatopoeia, and style, pronoun,

and media shifts, see Babcock (1978) 73. 7Bassett (1938) 86. The device offorecasting action comes under this category-see

2.724, 12.8-33, 17.197, 24. 85.


also, must be present at performances. 8 In the Turkic Kiirogh epic, the teller "becomes" the hero in the song-portions, and the hero himself then is characterized as an impromptu composer. The bard introduces his direct speech with the words "Let us see what soy lama he sang here," then shifts from prose to a rudimentary verse form, to repeat the hero's praises of his horse, himself, or his musical instrument. 9

An implicit and even unconscious identification of hero and bard can affect the narrative. One African performer in the third night of his epic recital has the hero, Ozidi, placed under a spell. The bard's tiredness "finds articulation in the plight of the cramped and powerless hero" and the lines the hero recites at this point could be the bard's comment on his own condition. 10

In some cases, the bard keeps himself distinct from the hero, but the hero is thought to be present at pe~formance, ensuring that the human singer keeps to the accuracy of the tradition about him, and punishing errors. A bard of the Burjats singing the Geser epic saw a magic horse descending from the sky as a reward for his performance, but at the last moment it was snatched away and a voice-the hero's presumably-was heard: "The tale is well told but the whip is missing." The bard had neglected to add to his narration the detail that the hero lost his whip.11 Some Filipino audiences of epic believe that the hero, while distinct from the bard, communciates information to the narrator through their "familiar spirits" and the performer is then said to be a favorite of the hero.12 Is Homer the "favorite" of Achilles, then, as much as Achilles is the poet's?13 Does Achilles' voice fade away because the Iliad is over in Book 24, or is it vice versa?

Despite the evidence for interaction of heroic cult and epic tradition, I do not want to propose that Homer communicates with the spirit of his hero. I suggest, instead, that Homer uses an attested epic

8Biebuyck (1978) 351. 9Ba~goz (1978) 314-17. Shoolbraid (1975) 25 observes that such praise-songs in the

eastern Burjat tradition are sung by the bard, then chorused by the audience. lOOkpewho (1979) 186-87. l1Shoolbraid (1975) 2, 24. Another example of a spirit competing with the bard at

actual narration comes from Yakut epic: Hatto (1985) 516-17. 12A belief in the close contact between the hero's presence and the narration may

underly the performance of the epic ofHusein's death for liturgical purpose in Swahili tradition: Knappert (1983) 59. Shamanistic ideas of spirit contact affect the Ob-Ugrian epic tradition, which associates songs in which the hero demands 300 reindeer with the performance of sacrifices to the hero: Cushing in Hatto (1980) 224-30.

13As Eustathius said: 745.52, on the scene describing Achilles' lyre playing (9.189).


convention for both establishing contact and at the same time keeping distance between himself and the audience of the Iliad. By assuming the voice of Achilles, making the hero's performance as monumental as his own, and using turns of phrase in Achilles' voice that only Homer as narrator uses elsewhere, he turns the figure of Achilles into the "focalizer" of narration. The "authorial knowledge" possessed by Achilles-his ability in Book I to say why Khryses came, or how Agamemnon thought-is not then an accident of composition, but a poetic strategy. 14 In a way, this is to validate the notions one sees in both Hesiod and Plato regarding the relation between a narrator and narrated speech. Both assume that, to a large extent, the poet takes on the role of the speaker in his poem. To the eighth-century poet, the overlap is a status-raising device, in that his Theogony shares in the authority of divine speech. By the fourth century, such shape-shifting mimesis is thought dangerous to the soul by the philosopher. 15 Whatever the reception of this strategy, I believe its consistent deployment by Homer with regard to Achilles can help explain two long-standing critical problems in the Iliad: the use of apostrophe and the dual verbs in Book 9.

Adam Parry first made the fullest argument for the view that the poet's rare use of direct address to certain figures in the Iliad and Odyssey is only partially determined by metrical necessities in a rigid system of name formulas. Heroes thus addressed-Menelaos and Patroklos in this poem-are "all in other ways treated with particular concern by the poet" and are "represented as unusually sensitive and worthy of the audience's sympathy. "16 More recently, critics have located the motivation for apostrophizing less in a regard for character and more in the creation of emotional effect, to increase the poignancy ofPatroklos' death or highlight the themes of protection and responsibility for which they are the focus. These are certainly the intended effects of apostrophe in other narrative and lyric traditions. 17 If we ask, however, why Patroklos alone is given prime attention, apostrophized eight times in the course of a single book,

140n this feature, see de Jong (1985), esp. 15. On focalizers, see Rimmon-Kenan (1983) 71-85.

150n Plato, see Detienne (1986) 22. On the Muses, Walsh (1984) 27-33. 16A. Parry (1972) 9. 170n the emotional effect, see M. Edwards (1987) 37; on theme, Block (1986) 160.

The apostrophe is often used in the Malay oral performances viewed by Wrigglesworth (1977) 106. For its use in Central Asian epic, see Hatto (1980) 305-6 and Chadwick and Zhirmunsky (1969) 45-46. In general, see Culler (1981).


the explanation seems to lie in a more specific association between the narrator and Achilles, focalizer of the narration. Mueller notices this general effect, but does not tie it in with the use of apostrophe: "The peculiar horror and pathos ofPatroklos' death are in good measure a result of the manipulation of the reader's response so that he stands in for Achilles and becomes the witness of the friend's death. "18 I would say that Homer himself sees the death through the eyes of Achilles, his alter ego. In this regard, apostrophe is natural: Achilles, after all, is the one hero who most often addresses Patroklos in the course of the poem. If Homer puts on the role of his hero, this speech habit comes with it.

The vexed problem of the dual-number verbs in the embassy scene of Book 9 admits of a similar solution. Rather than rehearse the many attempts to explain why verb forms referring to two persons should be applied to an embassy comprising three-Phoinix, Odysseus, and Aias-Iet me cite the most recent summary to put the problem in perspective: "The problematic aspect of the duals is not an isolated and contained philological difficulty but a determining feature of the narrative and dramatic structure of Book 9-that narrative drama which tells without telling. "19 It is essential to place our solutions in this larger context of the poem. Gregory Nagy's suggestion that Odysseus, the traditional nemesis of Achilles, is the intrusive element in the embassy has the advantage of being grounded in attested themes of Greek epic. If we prefer a solution from larger patterns of narrative voice, then the close contact between Homer and Achilles, his voice, would lead us to consider Phoinix the odd man out, because the relationship between Achilles and Phoinix is such that the young hero, speaking, could assume the presence of the older man as natural and address dual verb forms to Odysseus and Aias, neither of whom belongs in his quarters. 20 It is one of the more pragmatically interesting features of literary semantics that a speaker may assume the presence of a nonintroduced hearer who shares his own knowledge. 21 Achilles is such a speaker; Homer, as narrator, takes the

18Mueller (1984) 52. 19Lynn-George (1988) 54. A thorough summary of earlier opinions appears in M.

Edwards (1987) 219-23. 20M. Edwards (1987) 228 seems to lean this way: "The oddity of his not being with

Achilles, as Patroklos is, remains and may well be related" to the duals. For the explanation from theme, see Nagy (1979) 49-55.

21Van Dijk (1976) 54.


stance of Achilles and uses the speech habit again (duals) associated with this stance.

Thus far, I have offered practical explanations based on my finding that Homer as narrator carries over into the poem certain habits that properly belong to Achilles as focalizer. My third proposal does not attempt to answer an old critical dilemma. Instead, encouraged by the evidence that Homer throughout the Iliad pays exact attention to the style and effect of heroic speech, I wish to ask how Homer himself conceived of poetic speech. What speech-act does the poem make? This particular question has not been asked before, yet the general theoretical question of the status of fictional communication has aroused much interest. 22 Homeric poetry may have something to add to the debate.

Nor do we necessarily face a dead end on encountering, in the invocation to the Iliad, the line "Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus' son Achilles" (I. I). In Chapter I, I argued that the taxonomy of speech terms is culture-specific. The same applies to notions of singing. Among the Maori of New Zealand, instrumental music is classified as a part of "song," and both, ultimately, are regarded as part of "speech. "23 If performances of epic in other traditions are of comparative value, it seems that the word, rather than musical accompaniment, is primary; "sing" does not imply melodic performance. 24 And surely Homeric poetry struck later critics, especially the Romans, as akin to oratory rather than song. 25 The reader finds it today to be rhetorical, "conceived as a massive utterance, inspired by the Muse, following its thread independently of an author's will," in one critic's view. 26

Homeric diction does not pose the poem as an utterance, neverthe-

22Critics such as van Dijk (I976) 45-50 argue that the literary text does not represent an actual speech-act, but an imitation of one. Searle (I979) 58-75 points out that no strictly textual property enables us to distinguish between "real" and fictionalized speech-acts, however; at most, we can say that the illocutionary act behind the latter is one of pretending. Levin (I 976) I 48-5 5 believes that the opening of a poem contains an implicit performative, to the effect "I imagine myself in a world and invite you into one in which .... " For a survey of work on literary speech-acts, see Ihwe and Rieser (I979)·

23Hymes (I974) 31. See also Bauman (I978) I2-I3· 24Bowra (I952) 39. I choose not to rely, as Austin does (I975) 65-66, on the term

"epic" for evidence that the Greeks recognized a continuing association between the poetic genre and the meaningful "word," since Koller has shown that the genre term derives from the use of epos (utterance) to mean "line of verse."

25Cf. Cicero, Brutus 40, Quintilian IO.47-51. 26Vivante (I970) 5.


less. Rather, it is an authoritative speech-act, initiated by a request for information, which is then recounted at length. The key word for this interpretation is the verb ennepe, "tell," which opens the Odyssey but. occurs as well in the Iliad, to introduce Homer's request to know the best of the Achaeans (2.761): "Who, then, was by far best-Muse, narrate to me (su moi ennepe Mousa). " The semantics of this verb have been described by Ernst Risch as referring to formal and artful reporting. 27 This places the verb within the sphere of meanings that we have discovered associated with muthos and the verb mutheomai in Chapter I. The formulaic evidence confirms this: whenever a word describing. speech is made the explicit object of ennepo, that word is muthos. Consider the expressions muthon enispes (II.186), ennepe muthon (8.412); muthon enispo (11.839), all naming commands, and muthoisin terponto pros allelous enepontes (11. 643), referring to the stories that Nestor and Makhaon exchange. 28

To sum up, then: Homeric poetry is a muthos, specifically an act that we can classify as a feat of memory, the third heroic genre of discourse, Achilles' specialty. Because the diction of Homer frames the poems in this way, I suggest that we can view the Iliad as we do the speech-acts of the tellers within the tale: this is poetry meant to persuade, enacted in public, created by authority, in a context where authority is always up for grabs and to be won by the speaker with the best style. Most important, in my view, is the further implication of this view: that Homeric muthos is inherently antagonistic and that the poet (like Diomedes in his contest with Glaukos) invents incident to overpower opposing versions. The poet of the Iliad, as an enacter of a muthos, must by this implication be a poet against others, out to obliterate their performances by speaking in more detail, about more topics-in short, in a more monumental fashion than any other epic performer. Achilles is the poet's voice and his emblem, a heroic speaker who outdoes others in style. I submit that the Iliad, a poem about contest, was created for a contest, of the type we see described in a number of texts, both in other traditions, and in Greek from Hesiod to Corinna. 29 It is only fit that Homer has been com memo-

27Risch (I985) esp. 9. On the cognates describing narrative genres (Irish sce/; Latin insece-used by Livius Andronicus to translate ennepe) see Fournier (1946) 3-4.

2JJA similar phrase to describe recollections by Odysseus and Penelope is at Gd. 23.30 1.

29Peabody (1975) 270-72 has a good collection of the relevant material.


rated within a tradition of tales about his exploits. As with the traditional singers of the massive Kirghiz poems about the hero Manas, the sheer effort of performing the Iliad would have earned him a place in popular tradition as a hero. We can still appreciate his overpower.:. ing art in the Iliad's recording of the language of heroes. 30

300n the Kirghiz epic poets as legendary heroes, see Ba~gi:iz (1978) 318f. Wrigglesworth (1977) 105 describes a performance that resembled a test of physical endurance.

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Press. Van Thiel, Helmut. 1982. Iliaden und Ilias. Basel: Schwabe. Vernant, J.-P. 1965. My the et pensee. VoL 1. Paris: Maspero. Vesterholt, O. 1973. Tradition and Individuality: A Study in Slavonic Oral Epic

Poetry. Trans. J. KendaL Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger. Vivante, Paolo. 1970. The Homeric Imagination. Bloomington: Indiana University

Press. __ . 1975. "On Ho~er's Winged Words." CQ 25, 1-12. __ . 1982. The Epithets in Homer: A Study in Poetic Values. New Haven: Yale

University Press.

256 Bibliography

Voloshinov, V. N. 1930. Marksizm i filosofija jazyka. 2d ed. Leningrad. Repr. 1972, The Hague: Mouton.

Wace, A. J.B., and F. H. Stubbings, eds. 1962. A Companion to Homer. New York: Macmillan.

Wackernagel, J. 1926. Vorlesungen iiber Syntax. 2d ed. Repr. 1981, Basel: Birkhauser.

Walsh, George. 1984. The Varieties of Enchantment: Early Greek Views of the Nature and Function of Poetry. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Watkins, Calvert. 1979. "Nam.RA GUD UDU in Hittite: Indo-European Poetic Language and the Folk Taxonomy of Wealth. " In Hethitisch und Indogermanisch. Ed. W. Meid and E. Neu, pp. 269-87. Innsbruck: Innsbrucker Beitrage zur Sprachwissenschaft.

Watson, W. G. 1984. Classical Hebrew Poetry: A Guide to Its Techniques. Supplement vol. 26. Sheffield: Journal for the Study of the Old Testament.

Welcker, F. G. 1865. Der Epische Cyclus. Vol. 1. 2d ed. Bonn: Weber. Whallon, U. 1969. Formula, Character, and Context. Washington, D.C.: Center

for Hellenic Studies. White, J. 1984. When Words Lose Their Meaning. Chicago: University of Chicago

Press. Whitman, C. 1958. Homer and the Heroic Tradition. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard

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Asia. Durham: Duke University Press. Wrigglesworth, H. 1977. "Sociolinguistic Features of Narrative Discourse in

Ilianen Manobo." Lingua 41, 101-24. Wright, John, ed. 1978. Essays on the Iliad: Selected Modern Criticism. Bloom

ington: Indiana University Press.

Index Locorum

Iliad Book 2 Book I IO I9 I

25 22 and I14 26-27 49 33 23 IOI-9 86 65-67 40 I88-89 23 74-83 40 I98-20I 23 93-96 40 2I2- I4 I7 I3 I-47 II5 225-42 II2 20I-5 32 245-47 I09 207-9 49 335 37 2I6-I8 I98 36I I04 220-2I 23 386 II9 245-46 82 433 37 254-84 IOI 488-92 224 259-74 80 796-97 III 273 I04 278-79 97 Book 3 287-89 207 38-62 75 29I-92 II8 39-55 I35 295-96 207 I50-5I III 326 22 I66-80 88 363 2IO 2I2-I7 IS 379 22 2I2-23 95 387-88 22 2I4-I5 IIO 388-4I2 I4I-42 22I-22 I7 4I9-2O 26 398-99 20 426- 27 208 459-60 II8 545 57 549 I9 In73 Book 4 555 58 40-42 I95 57 I 37 286 II4 582-83 2I 320 I03

257

323 337-42 350

350-55 356-57 412

Book 5 30

II6 420 471-76 632-54 63 8-42

652-53 7 1 5 816-17 889-90

Book 6 54-63 215-3 1 337 376 441-46 459-61 479

Book 7 89-90 161 235-41 242-43 277 284-86 358

Book 8 7-9 8 141-44 228-30 283-84 4 1 5

Book 9

) 31-33 34-41

J

50-62

!

II3 121-27 158-61 160-61 173

I 232

104 32 29 70

69 23

19 187 37 73 127 228 194 28 38 212

38n88 129 38n88 134 133 130 136

137 83 and 108 132 and 217 195 40

40 15 and 23

55 29n74 and 39 104 83 II6 52

12 5 24 25 22

219 II6 98 37 64

30 7-42 9 310- 14 3 1 5 316 323 328- 2 9 340-43 358 369-72 387 40 6-9 493-95 496-97 588 608 6 13-14 644-45 645-47 7IO

Book IO

47-52 212-14 249-50 540

Book II 130-35 186 243 30 5-9 441-45 454 604 642-43 671 788- 89 793

Book 12 80

Book 13 219-23 45 8 726 726- 28 748

Book 14 63 85-92 107-8 126-27 195-96

Index Locorum

170-96 209 208 214 204 228 21 5 218 218 207 219 189 199 36n87 186 199 40

142 37

II9 105 94 28

203 41 21 3 36 124 36n87 193 39 lo7n46 38 104

16

74 190

177 133 16

103 121 II7 25 190 and 2II

Index Locorum 259

208-10 38 285-87 48 212 38 286 19 234 39 441-45 83

Book 15 Book 22 45-46 192 107 138 202-4 42 126-28 138 283-85 37 and 68 250-5 1 84 557-58 135n86 268-69 199

281 135 Book 16 45 1 16n51

33-35 62 454 16 56-59 216 482 211n5 200-201 72 203-6 142 Book 23 236 39 6-9 140 433-35 56 and 178 244 2IIn5 538-40 80 306-7 108 63 I 200 471-84 76 829 33 478-79 201 859 133n83 544-46 188

549-52 188nII Book 17 791-96 74

142- 68 214 695 16n51 Book 24

107 58 Book 18 109-10 59

74 210 200 87 316- 18 36 518-5 1 34 324 28 571 23 426- 27 190 744 35 and 38 444-45 216 762-75 87

Book 19 Odyssey 23-27 33 Book I 67-68 199 367 37 81-82 II7 107 II7 Book 2 121 18 15 37 146-53 80 188-89 23 149-50 200 216-20 97 Book 15 242 28 166 37

Book 20 Book 16 203-4 16 345 37 246-50 17 356-57 140 Book 23 449-54 34 300-301 39n89

Book 21 Hesiod: 92-96 178 Theogony 182-91 86 27-28 105

General Index

Abrahams, Roger, 161 Achilles, 16-19, 21-24, 32-33, 49, 54, 65,

138 and commands, 139-41 and different language, 147-49, 171,

185 and flyting, 141, 143 and imagination, 139 language similar to Homer's, 223 and memory, 144-45 as performer, 12

Adkins, A. W. H., 68, 72 Aeneas, 16-18, 86 Africa, poetry in, 5-7, 85 Agamemnon, 22, 24, 32, 54, 70, 73, 123

and commands, II 5 and directive, 114 language of, 63, 69, 70, 74, 83, 98, II3,

II9 and neikos, II6

Agonistic speech, 61, 66-67, 72, 78, 95, 144, 219-20, 227

Agoreuein, 37 Ainu poetry, 225n22 Akritomuthos, IIO-II, 124 Alexiou, Margaret, 86 Alliterations, 65, 135, 221 Ametroepes, I 12 Analyst critics, 3, 130, 142, 162n39 Andromakhe, 16, 136 Antenor, IS Antilokhos, 188 Apeilai, 72 Apoeipein, 186

Apollo, 58 Apostrophe, 235-36 Arabic poetry, 225n22 Ares, 19, IIOn5 I Arete, 93 Aristarchus, 12In63 Artiepes, 135 Assertives, 72 Ateires, 75 Athena, 19, 22, 26, 32, 48-49 Audience,s, 88-89, 94, 121, 23 I

participates in performance, 232-33 within poem, 60, '63, 135, 222

Augury, 205 Austin, Norman, 99, 151, 226

Bahamas, storytelling in, 99 Bakhtin, M. M., 43n3 Balinese shadow theater, 9 Bauman, Richard, 8, 93, 161 Bellerophon, 128 Benveniste, Emile, 13 Biebuyck, Daniel P., 233 Blame, 56-58, 75, IIO Boasts, 29, 172, 192-.93, 228 Bolling, G. M., 14 Burkert, Walter, 229 Burundi, speaking culture in, 92, 96 Bynum, David, 2, 2n4

Calhoun, George, 3 I Central Asian epic, 6, 9, 46, 67, 227n28,

232, 234, 239 and apostrophe, 235nI7

261

Chamula, II-12 Chantraine, Pierre, 15 Chomsky, Noam, 5, 154 Claus, David, 153-54 Commands, 44, 47, 59, 62-63, 66 Commissives, 72 Composition in performance, I, 81, 85,

129-30, 164, 230 Constatives, 52 Contest of Hesiod and Homer, 94nI3 Cor Huso, 93 Correption, II2, 232n3 Couch, H. N., 19 Cramer, Owen, 99 Crete:

ethnography of, 23, 67, 90, 143 poetry of, 6, 6n2 I

Crowley, Daniel, 99 Cuna,226 Cynewulf, 100

Dais, 116 Dalang, 9 Davidson, O. M., 229n30 Demodokos, 9 Detienne, M., 13 Diomedes, 23-25, 70-72, 86, 143, 229,

238 language of, 125

Direct discourse, scholarship on, 46 Directives, 32-34, 114 Dual verbs, 235-37

Ebeling, H., 14 Edwards, Walter, 71 EnnBpe, 238 Epanastrophe, 138 Epea, 17

synonymous with muthos, 30 Epea pteroenta, 30. See also Winged-words Epic:

African, 6nI9, 234 definition of, 13 Filipino, 234 Indic, 100, 160n34, 232 Karakalpak, 6nI9 Mayan, 7 Serbo-Croatian, 99, 150 Swahili, 94, 225n22, 232 Turkic,234 Uzbek,6nI9

Epos, 14, 16, 28 in dative case, 20 definition of, 12, 13n43 as epic, 13n42

General Index

formulas, 21 as gnomic utterance, 42 later development, 42n94 unlike muthos, 16, 22, 29 as physical act, 18 as private speech, 37 rate of occurrence, 20n64 similarity to muthos, 14, 26, 29

Esti, 202, 203n91 Ethelo, 195

Ethnography of speaking, 225 Ethopoiia, 96, 158, 159n33 Eukhomai, 12

Eustathuis, 127, 148 Expansion:

internal, 208, 218-20 of patterns, 2 I 5 by replacement, 210-13, 220nl5 by splitting, 209-13 of tradition, 129

Expansion aesthetic, 196, 205

Fenik, Bernard, 3, 45, 124 Fine, Elizabeth, 7 Fingerle, Anton, 46 Finley, John, 166 Firth, Raymond, 66 Fish, Stanley, 158 Flyting, 47, 68-75, 107, 124 Focalizer of narration, 235-37 Formula, 8, 79, 93, 150, 152, 159

in Achilles speech, 166 analysis of, 160 definition of, 163 economy of, 8n30, 79 and ethnographic tradition, 92 flexibility of, 164 and genre of discourse, 171 new technique for detection, 160 structural, 165 telescoping of, 213, 215nII, 216-17

Fournier, H., 15 Friedrich, Paul, 156-57

Gaisser, Julia, 129 Genealogies, 127 Genre, 66

of discourse, 42 within Iliad, 225

as social institution, 43-44, 85 Gladstone, W. E., 35 Glaukos, 126-28, 131, 205, 214-15, 220,

238 Gnomic utterance, 51, 102, 104, 125, 192,

198

r General Index

Goffman, Erving, 4 Goold, G. P., 2n3 Gordesiani, Rismag, 98, 100 Gossen, Gary, II Grice, H. P., 67 Griffin, Jasper, 3n6, 45n8

Hainsworth, J. B., 2, 3n6, 163-64 Hapax Legomena, 179-81 Haya, 67, 103 Heduepes, 102, 105 Hektor, 16, 19, 33, 75

and blame, I3 8 and fame, 133 and flyting, 134-35 language of, 77, 131, 217nl2 and memory, 136-37 as performer, 84

Helen, 20 Hephaistos, 21 Hera, 21, 28, 48, 57 HerakIes, 228-30 Herald, 4In91 Hermes, 48-49 Herzfeld, Michael, 4, 23, 67, 90, 93, 161 Hesiod,235 Hofmann, Eric, 15 Hogan, James, 155 Homer:

creativity of, 2, 150-5 I fixed text of, 7n26 as hero, 239

Homokle, 128 Hymes, Dell, 66

Icelandic saga, 45n8 , 93 Idomeneus, 76 IlIocutions, 32, 121 Indo-European poetry, 68, 85, 102, 164,

167n47, 232 Insults, 44, 71 Iris, 50 Irish poetry, 85, 91, 105n43, 232

Jakobson, Roman, 14

Kakridis, J., 172

Karagheozis, 9 Kata moiran, 97, 102, 142 Kelly, Stephen, 1I3 Kharis, 213-14 Khre, 197-98, 200-201 Khryses, 22 Kleos, 61, 105, 109, 1I6, 1I8, 133

aphthiton, I 64n42, 182-85, 224

Kullmann, Wolfgang, 172 Kurke, Leslie, 183n63

Labov, William, 5 Lament, 44, 86-88, 144 Lao poetry, 6 Latacz, Joachim, 2n3, 46 Leech, Geoffrey, 161 Legal language, 55, 104, 1I5 Length, 138 Ligus agoretes, II 7 Lives of Homer, 94nI 3 Logos, 13 Lohmann, Dieter, 46, 99 Lord, Albert, Inl, 4, 8, 10, 24, 150-51 Lykaon, 33 Lynn-George M., 2n2 Lyric poetry, 98, 132

Meillet, Antoine, 152 Memory, 44, 78, 80

as genre, 47 performances of, 77, 82, 85

Messing, 158-59 Metalanguage, 94, 200 Metis, 15, 108, 1I7 Mimneskomai, 78, 87n70 Moira, 221nl7 Monumental composition, 222-24, 227,

230-31, 238 Moran, W. S., 78 Mueller, Martin, 3 Muellner, Leonard, 12 Muses, 224, 229-30, 237-38 Mutheomai, 17, 40, 41n93, 224, 23 8 Muthos, 12, 14, 16-18

as authoritative speech, 66 definition, of 13 n43, I 5n47 distribution of speeches called, 62 as marked term, 27, 29 as performance, 54, 23 I as plot, 13n42 and power, 22-23 as public speech, 37 as story, 39 synonymous with epos, 28 as term for poetry, 238

Myth, 54 arising from speech act, 128 definition of, 13

Nagler, Michael N., 163 Nagy, Gregory, 16, 68, 1I0, 132n81 ,

182n62, 236 Narratology, 176, 233-37

Near Eastern poetry, 215 Neikos, 42, 68-69, 71-76, 83, 94, II3 Neo-analyst criticism, 4nII, 171 Nestor, 21, 23-25, 52, 54, 59-61, 70, 80,

""}QI",J06=9_"_ language of, 82 nd use of genre, 106

Nibelungen Ie , 13 I Nigeria:

oral poetry, I 62n3 9 speaking culture, 9 I

Nimis, Steven, 154 Notopoulos, J. A., 163

Odysseus, 9, 29, 61, 63-64, 70 and Achilles, 212 and Agamemnon, 123 contrast with Nestor, 81-82, 121 language of, 99, 120

Odyssey, 9, Ion35, I62n39 Oikhalias Halosis, 229

Oineus, 129 Old Comedy, 9 Old English poetry, I55n27 Old Norse poetry, 214 Oneidea, 16- I 7 Ong, Walter, 66, 227 Onomaze, 19 Oral culture, 226 Oral poetry, 1-2. See also Composition in

performance; Formula; Performative: of oral literature

Oratory: as genre, 44, 66 and political power, 60

Packard, David, 22InI7 Parallelism, 222 Paris, 15 Paronomasia, 70 Parry, Adam, 2, 99, 120, 148-50, 152,

179, 205, 235 Parry, Milman, 2, 8, 10, 13, 31, 78, 98,

148 Patroklos, 33, 62, 77, 235

name of, 81 Peleus, 144 Performance, 8, 47, 62

of oral literature, 4 personal, 225 as self presentation, 88

Performance-centered approach to verbal art, 5nI6, 7n27

Performance utterance, 41, 104 Persuasion, 49, 198, 201, 206-8, 222

General Index

Phemi, 194-95 Phem~io~~---------------~

roneo, , Pindar, 95nI7, 102, I83n63, 21On4 Plato, 7 Poema de Mio Cid, 27n7I, 100 Poet, assimilation with hero, 94, 233-34 Poetic contests, 229, 23 8 Polydamas, 16, 133 Popol Vuh, 7 Poseidon, 19, 48, 57n23 Praise, 55, 58-59, 75, 108 Prayer, 38, 44 Priam, 33, 145 Prin, 155 Prince instruction, 20 In90 Puknos, 35 Puns, 123

Recusatio, 223 Redfield, James, 156-57 Reeve, M. D., 152 Repetition:

and contextual surplus, 174 and formulaic art, 170 whole line, 176

Rhapsode, 7n25, 45 Ricoeur, Paul, I74n52 Risch, Ernst, 238 Russian formalism, 161 Russo, Joseph, 163

Salmond, Anne, 66 Sarpedon, 153 Scully, Steven, 155 Searle, J. R., 31, 52-53 Shahnama, I60n34 Shamanism, 234nI2 Shive, David, 2 Shtal', Irina, 95 Silence, 143 Similes, I93n78, 204

and language of Achilles, 193 Snell, Bruno, 98 Somali oratory, 103 Song, as part of speech, 237 Speech:

length of, 226-27 model of s. event, 14 styles, 95-96 terms for, 10-12 types of, 18 typology of s. in Homer, 47

Speech act, 12, 21-22, 31-32, 52

General Index

Speech act (cant.) in Homer, 72 theory, 5

Status, 50; 96, 129 Style:

characterization by, 100 as deviation from norm, 191 levels of, 159

Stylistics, 90, 99, 101, 156, 158 and analysis of Homer, 161

Supplication, 44, 147, 203 Svenbro, J., In!

Tedlock, Dennis, 7 Teikhoskopia, 95 Tekhne, 167 Thamyris, 229-30

Time, 97, 196 Turner, Victor, 43, 90 Tydeus, 137 Typical scenes, 3, 18, 45, 191, 211

expansion of, 225 telescoping of, 2 I 8

Vergil,3

Whitman, Cedric, 3 Winged-words, 5, 30-35, 84 Women, speech of, 38, 87

and traditional language, 184 Word:

and deed, 27, 76, 91n3, III, 120, 146nl not equal to deed, 17

Thersites, 17, 23-24, 67, 109-10, 117, 135 Zeus, 48, 50-51 language of, 53, 56 similar to Achilles, 2 I 3 will of, 190

language of, 112 Thetis, 19, 22, 26, 139 Thornton, Agathe, 9 Threats, 209, 212 Thucydides, 148n6

Zufii Indian poetry, 7

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Martin, Richard P. The language of heroes ; speech and performance in the Iliad / Richard P. Martin.

p. cm -(Myth and poetics) Bibliography; p. Includes index. ISBN 0-8014-2353-8 (alk. paper) 1. Homer. Iliad. 2. Homer-Language. 3. Heroes in literature. 4.

Speech in literature. 5. Performance in literature. 6. Achilles (Greek mythology) in literature. I. Title. II. Series. PA4037.M335 1989 883'.ol-dc20 89-42889

[ I'

SPEECH AND .. PERfORMANCE IN

TME ILIAD'