the beginning of the iliad: the ‘contradictions’ of the proem and the burial of hektor

Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2011 DOI: 10.1163/156852511X504980

Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 1-20 brill.nl/mnem

The Beginning of the Iliad: The Contradictions of the Proem and the Burial of Hektor

Brian SatterfieldJack C. Miller Post-Doctoral Fellow, Ryan Center and Villanova Center for

Liberal Education, Villanova University, Villanova, PA 19085, USA [email protected]

Received: November 2008; accepted: June 2009

AbstractThe Beginning and End of the Iliad: The Contradictions of the Proem and the Burial of Hektor treats three discrepancies between the story apparently prom-ised in the proem of the Iliad and the story that the poem goes on to tell. Dis-cussed extensively by the Analysts of the past century, these discrepancies were construed as evidence of the Iliads origins in multiple sources. More recently, oral theorists have seen them as signs of a singer composing rapidly and relatively unreflectively in performance, indifferent to self-contradiction. The present article argues instead that we can approach the proem as a prayer, addressed by Homer to the Museand the main story of the poem as her answer. On such a reading, we can construe the contradictions as evidence for the view that while Homer has asked for one story, the Muse has given him another slightly different story. While this suggestion has had advocates in the literature, none has attempted to work it out with reference to the discrepancies between the Iliads proem and main story. The article argues that once we examine the discrepancies, we find that they point us toward a new interpretation of the significance of Hektors burial.

KeywordsIliad, proem, discrepancies, burial, Muse

We must keep in mind that the poet attributes all of his poem except the prologue . . . to the Muse.1) So writes J.S. Clay in the introduction to her

1) Clay 1997, 9.

2 B. Satterfield / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 1-20

The Wrath of Athenaand she is not alone. For generations of Homeric scholars the assertion of the Muses narratorship has been an important one.2) But what actual impact ought it to have on how we read the poems? Writing in 1938, Samuel Bassett made the case that the effect should be little if any:

It seems very questionable whether commentators are justified in basing argu-ments on the consciousness of the hearer that the Muse is telling the story. Once convinced that the tale was of a real past, the audience could forget its source and feel only that the story told itself.3)

There is, he writes, no evidence in either poem for the rather common statement that in Homer the poet is the spokesman of the Muse, that is, possessed and inspired by her, as the Pythian prophetess was by Apollo.4) A similar case is made by W.W. Minton in 1960:

Invocations of the Muses in the Homeric poems must be considered as tradi-tional elements in the oral poets equipment. They are building blocks of his language and art along with other units of formulaic composition, from indi-vidual formula to repeated motif or stock theme. As such they cannot safely be approached as genuine appeals, but only as the ossified remains of such appeals, their vitality dulled through long continued use by generations of epic singers.5)

Mere ossified remains, the proems offer little evidence to such scholars that Homer is the spokesman of the Muse.

Not all have agreed, of course. In her narratological study of the Iliad, I.J.F. de Jong has argued that the presentation of the story is to be analyzed

2) The view is repeated frequently in German scholarship especially, as in, e.g., Falter 1934, Lenz 1980, but also in more recent works such as Ford 1992. See also S. Richardson 1990, Ahl and Roisman 1996, Rabel 1997, 1-31. For S. Richardson (1990, 2; cf. also 178-82), indeed, the narrator of the Iliad is a fictional character of sorts, a metacharacter, who plays his role not on the level of story, but on the level of the discourse, the telling of the story. According to Rabel (1997, 1-31), there is support for the view even in the Poetics 1460a9-11. In support of this, see also Ridgeway 1912, 238. 3) Bassett 1938, 31.4) Ibid. 30.5) Minton 1960, 292.

B. Satterfield / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 1-20 3

in terms of double motivation: the narrator and the Muse together tell the story, without a sharp division of labor.6) More provocative still is the view, upheld explicitly by only a handful of scholars,7) that the Muse is not only the narrator of the story requested by Homer, but actually alters the story asked for. For as J.S. Clay observes, an invocation is a species of prayer; the poem proper, the Muses answer.8) Might it not be the case, thenas V. Pedrick puts itthat the Muse not only answers Homers initial request, but in fact corrects it?9)

The question would be academicif it were not for the fact that there are a number of discrepancies between the story seemingly promised in the proem, and the story that the main poem actually tells.10) For older Ana-lytic scholarship, these discrepancies were a key whereby to break up the poem into its component strata. More recent scholarship has been less interested in such discrepancies, often viewing them as an inevitable byproduct of oral composition in performance.11) In the present article, I would like to look at three such discrepancies between the proem and the poem of the Iliad, arguing that we can indeed read them as the Muses cor-rections of Homer.

1. The First Discrepancy: The Wrath-Tale and its Appendix

The first of the discrepancies was described by Friedrich Wolf in 1795 in his groundbreaking Prolegomena:

. . . even if the exordium has the widest possible sense (I suppose that descrip-tions of a couple of battles that took place in Achilles absence would have

6) De Jong [1987] 2004, 45-53. 7) In addition to Clay 1997, see Pedrick 1992, Rabel 1997, and Benardete 1997. 8) Clay 1997, 9. 9) Pedrick 1992.10) Although awareness of these has faded from more recent scholarship, B.A. van Gronin-gen (1946, 283) could write in 1946 that it was a well-known fact that the indications of the contents [of the proems of the Iliad and Odyssey] do not tally with the contents them-selves. Indeed, few Analysts of the past century disagreed with the pronouncement of Robert (1901, 213): Dass das Prooemium nicht zur Urilias gehrt, betrachte ich als selbst verstndlich und keines Beweises bedrftig . . .. 11) Cf., e.g., Notopoulos 1964, 48.


sufficed for these lines), nevertheless it will never be irrefutably proven that those seven verses promise anything more than eighteen books. The remain-der do not contain the wrath of Achilles against Agamemnon and the Greeks, but a new wrath, quite different from the earlier one and not in the least harmful to the latter: that is, an appendix to that first wrath which is the only one sketched by those verses.12)

The proem seems to promise a story about wrath, Wolf writes; but that wrath could only be the anger of Achilles against Agamemnon.13) About his subsequent anger with Hektor, Wolf concluded, the proem (1.1-7) shows no awareness. That the poem went beyond the original limits pro-posed for it, Wolf suggested, was good evidence that it was comprised of different original source stories that had later been joined by a redactor.14)

12) Wolf [1795] 1985, 119-20; cf. also 132 ff.13) At least one linguistic point strengthens Wolf s view: (anger), the first word of the poem and the theme which Homer asks the Muse to sing, is only ever used (of the angers of Achilles) in reference to the first anger that Achilles experienceshis anger toward Agamemnon. It therefore cannot refer to Achilles super- and sub-human rage over the death of Patroklos. 14) Wolf was not alone. For nearly all of the Analysts this discrepancy constituted a major internal contradiction, most concluding that the discrepancies showed the quarrel of Agamemnon and Achilles to be the oldest layer of the epic. Thus, Grote (1853) considers the original tale to consists of 1, 8, 11-22; Fick (1886) similarly, considers the main stratum to extend (with excisions) from 1-22 (ending with 393); Jebb (1887) of 1, 11, 16-22; Wilamowitz (1887), of 1-7.321; 11-23.256; Leaf (1892 and 1895) holds that that tale consists of Iliad 1; 2.1-53, 443-83; 11.56-665, 762-805; 15.592-746; 16; 19.356-424; 20.252-503; 21.34-138; 540-611; 22.1-404. Bechtel (in Robert 1901), simi-larly, (with excisions) that it extends up to 22.212. For Croiset (quoted in van Groningen 1946, 283), thus, the proems failure of precision regarding the events that followed Book 1 showed it to be an early composition by the author of the quarrel, unaware of subse-quent additions. For Bethe (1914, 311 n. 1; cf. also 23 ff., 171 ff.), similarly, the events narrated in the proem only covered the Menisgedicht, showing it to the oldest vein of the poem. And for Grote (1853, 176) as well, the primitive frontispiece, inscribed with the anger of Achilles, and its direct consequences, yet remains after it has ceased to be coexten-sive with the poem. Wilamowitz (1916, 258), however, regards it as a later addition. Whatever the differences, however, the reasoning was in all cases essentially the same as that spelled out by Bethe (1914, 311 n. 1; cf. also 23 ff., 171 ff.): A 1-7 passen zum Menisge-dicht durchaus. Es gab wirklich nur die Menis und ihre Folgen, die Achaierniederlage, Patroklos Tod und Achills Rache; wirklich vollendete sich in ihr Zeus Ratschlu . . .. (See also Bowra 1930, 10, who argues against Bethe regarding the question of whether the


Is the discrepancy a real one? It has been observed that misdirection is common feature of epic.15) And yet the proem of the Odyssey furnishes a striking parallel that may induce us to accept that discrepancies between proem and poem are one especially lively form of misdirection; for in it Homer asks the Muse to tell the story of the man of many wiles, who sacked the sacred city of Troy, etc., starting from somewhere or other: ( , , , , Od. 1.10). As suggests, where the story is to start is up, not to Homer, but the Muse.16) The line which stresses the Muses divinity, her knowledge, and her capacity to communicate it to us too ), also stresses her abil-ity to begin where she wills; it seems at least reasonable, thus, to wonder whether she can end where she wills; and if so, whether the narrative fram-ing of the epic as a whole is in fact being represented as under her control rather than the singers.

But why would she alter the story in this way? One way to pursue this question would be to imagine the Iliad we would have if it terminated where Wolf (and at least some others) supposed it wouldwith the end of Achilles in Book 19 (61 ff.). In important respects, it would resem-ble the one we know: it would still tell the story of Achilles anger with Agamemnon; it would still contain many stories of battle and heroes deaths, indeed the full measure of suffering promised in Iliad 1.1-7. (It mightor might notcontain the embassy and Achilles refusal; and it might or might not tell the death of Patroklos.) But, insofar as it would be a story about Achilles only, it would necessarily end with the end of his , i.e., with the end of his anger against Agamemnon. It would be a story about how Achilles and Agamemnon quarreled, what devastation and destruction came about as a result, and how, finally, the quarrel was patched up and brought to an end.

proem is integral to the poem.) Or again Leaf 1892, 32, for whom, similarly, the first eigh-teen books were the real nucleus of the wrath tale. Note, incidentally, that Wolf may have been anticipated on this particular point by his sometime teacher C.G. Heyne, who pub-lished his own monumental and long-prepared commentary on the poem seven years after Wolf. See Heyne 1802, 5. 15) Morrison 1992. 16) On the reading of some scholars, it is the vagueness of which requires vss. 11-19, still considered a part of the Odysseys proem. See Bassett 1923, 343.


Coincidentally or not, this Achillean wrath-tale resembles the Melea-gris told by Phoinix in Book 9. And Homerists have taken this story to be typical of a withdrawal-devastation-return pattern said to be traditional among Indo-European peoples,17) a typological analysis whereby the Iliad can be broken up into three large-scale story-patterns of which Iliad 1 through the beginning of 19 (or so) constitutes a wrath-devastation-re-turn tale, followed by 19-22, a revenge tale, followed by 24, a consola-tion tale. Thus, as Mark Edwards breaks down the Iliads major themes: The withdrawal-devastation-return structure is the obvious foundation of the Iliad plot, too, with revenge and consolation tales added at the end.18)

Were our Iliad like the more traditional story apparently proposed in the proem,19) however, it would be a fundamentally different story. It would end before Achilles reenters the battle to kill Hektor; it would never show Achilles rage in which he refuses suppliants, sacrifices twelve Trojan youths over Patroklos pyre, and fights with the god of the river; it would end before he defiles the corpse of Hektor and drags it relentlessly around the city of Troy; we would never see the funeral games in which Achilles seems to preside vicariously over his own funeral. And finally, we would never see the face-to-face meeting of Achilles and Priam in which Achilles sees in Priam a human being like his father and at last agrees to return Hektors corpse for burial (24.507 ff.). One major consequence of the Muses corrections thus stands out: by shifting the focus from Achilles anger to the funeral games and his meeting with Priam, the epic human-izes and pities its Trojan enemy, ultimately replacing rage and enmityfirst toward the Greeks and then toward a foreign otherwith empathy toward an other who turns out to be more like Achilles than he imag-

17) See here in particular M.L. Lord 1967, 241-48; Nagy 1979, 72 ff., 317 ff.; Edwards 1987, 61 ff.; Nagler 1974, 131 ff.; Eliade 1971. 18) Edwards 1987, 63. It is, thus, not surprising to find that the case has even been made by some scholars that it is in his handling and joining of such traditional material that one sees Homers original contribution to the epics, and again, the epics increase in complexity and sophistication over its source material. See here Stanley 1993, 28 and the bibliography cited on 319 n. 79, especially notable being Sale 1963.19) Pedrick 1992 also considers the story outlined in the Odysseys proem a more traditional version, which the poet has amplified with a considerable increase in subtlety.


ined.20) For quite a few scholars, this focus of epic on the humanity of the Trojans represents a distinctive innovation;21) but if we are correct, the singer himself attributes it to the Muse.22)

2. The Second Discrepancy: The Birds, Dogs, and Heroes Selves

A second difficulty is more concrete: if we look to lines 1.4 ff. of Rich-mond Lattimores translation of the Iliad, we read the following: Achilles anger, as Lattimore renders, gave the bodies of heroes to be the delicate feasting of dogs, and of all birds. And yet the translation covers over a seri-ous difficulty in line 3: / ; for what does mean here? Translated in accordance with conventional understandings of the words semantic range in epic, ought to mean something like selves so that we would render: Achilles anger gave the heroes selves to be the delicate feasting . . .. The resulting translation is so jarring, however, that it is not surprising that Homerists have allowed their natural sense of what the lines ought to mean (together with the manifest contrast with [souls] in line 3), to override their sense of lexical strictness, in some cases even suggesting that is Homeric for bodies.23) Tempting as this solution may be, however, it has no real support, either in linguistic analysis of the meaning of ,24) or in epic usage, or again, in later Greek. Given that the word is extraordi-narily common both within epic and without, further, to place upon it

20) That the Iliad had to humanize its enemy, in this manner is by no means a given. Cf. e.g. Stanley 1993, 293; N. Richardson 1993, 16. For additional bibliography on the Trojans see de Jong 1987, 250, and Stoevesandt 2004. 21) See e.g., Gomme 1954, 30, Sale (1963, 86-100) and Scott 1921, 226, who even goes so far as to argue that Hektor himself was Homers invention.22) There is one further, admittedly slight, yet suggestive piece of textual evidence that we might also consider in this connection: in Homers second invocation to the Muses (2.484 ff.), Homer asks that the Muse tell him who were the leaders of the Danaeans, and again later in the same catalogue (760 ff.) who was best, both of the men and the horsesbut he never asks about the Trojans, and seems indifferent. It is the Muse who supplies their names, apparently on her own and unsolicited. 23) Cf. e.g. Nagy 1979, 208: In Homeric diction, auts designates the heros body after death. Nagy cites in support Bchner 1937, 116. 24) Cf. Pagliaro 1963, 10 n. 7 and also Redfield 2001 for discussion.


singular or exotic uses in such a context appears untenable. And there is an even worse problem: while, on any rendering of the proem seems to be promising that heroes bodies (or selves) will be fed to the birds and dogs, scholars have long noted that no corpse, Achaean or Tro-jan, is ever fed to the birds and dogs in the course of the poem.25) Why, then, does the proem seem to promise that heroes corpses (or selves) will be devoured by birds and dogs and then not deliver?26)

One possibility, of course, is that Homers omission is due to delicacy, a reluctance to depict directly what epic regards as the non plus ultra of human degradation (more on this momentarily). But since the Iliad does not scruple to show Asteropaios nibbled by eels and fishes snatching at the fat and tearing at the upper liver ( , 21.203-4), or the Odyssey Telemakhos cutting off of Melan-thios nose and ears, and pulling off of his genitals to feed to the dogs (Od. 22.474-7), squeamishness seems a poor explanation. Had the Iliad wished to do so, its dramatic and linguistic resources were fully adequate to the most gruesome depictions of corpses being mutilated and eaten by birds and dogs.

As James Redfield suggests in his discussion of the proem, on the other hand, something more interesting may be going on; some sort of state-ment, he suggests, is being made about epics understanding of the body-soul relation.27) In characterizing the bodies as , and speaking of being hurled into Hades, the proem, as Redfield interprets the sig-nificance of their juxtaposition, is suggesting that it is the corpses that are the heroes themselves, the psuchai . . . mere accessories.28) As Redfield notes (but does not attempt to explain how or why), further, this notion is peculiar to the proem. But this only reframes our question at another level: even if it is correct that the proem evinces one understanding of the body-soul relationship, and the body of the poem another, why would it do so?

25) Many scholars have observed the oddity, but see, exempli causa, Pagliaro 1963, 31. Cf. also Bethe 1914, 311 n. 1.26) According to the scholiast, it was the combination of these difficulties that led Zenodo-tus to athetize 1.4-5. See Bolling 1929, 43-4. 27) For extensive discussion, suggesting that the body-soul relation is a thematic concern of epic, see Clarke 1999.28) Redfield 2001, 466.


We may do well to approach this question within the context of what Charles Segal has called the theme of the mutilation of the corpse.29) For as Segal argues, the theme is not only recurrent, but a major structuring motif of the epic; the rising stakes of its battles are measured, he suggests, not only by the increasing savagery of its , but by the increas-ing frequency of its heroes threats to defile their enemies bodies. Thus, even as it is true that the epic never actually depicts any hero being fed to the birds and dogs, there is one place where it seems all but certain to happenwhere, indeed, the epic seems to be driving toward such corpse-feeding as a grisly climaxand that is when Achilles kills Hektor. Indeed, they have a stunning exchange as Hektor lies dying and Achilles tells him point-blank that he means to feed his corpse to the birds and dogs:

. . . , . (22.335-6)

. . . the dogs and birdswill tear you foully; but him the Achaeans will bury with rites.

Not quite dead, Hektor entreats Achilles by his parents to ransom his body in order that the Trojan wives may give him his due of fire in death ( , 22.342-3). But Achilles reply is unyielding:

, , (22.345-8)

Dog! Do not entreat me by my knees and parents!Would that my fury and anger would set me onto flay and eat your flesh raw seeing what youve done,as surely as there is none to ward the dogs from your head!

Not only will he feed Hektors body to the birds and dogs, he says, but he wishes that his fury would drive him to literal cannibalism!

Why, given the epics initial promise, its subsequent investment into building the theme, and seemingly carefully prepared climax, does it never

29) Segal 1971, 18.


make good? Why does Achilles not feed Hektors corpse to the birds and dogs? Two experiences of Achilles, I suggest, ultimately dissuade him; and as I want to argue in what follows, they are connected with the funny use of in the proem, helping to shed light, too, on the apparent dis-crepancy between proem and poem.

The first experience is Achilles dream in Book 23. For as he sleeps, the soul () of Patroklos comes to him, complains that Achilles has for-gotten him ( , ): though Achilles did not fail to care (, a word connected with the regular term for giving burial tendence) for him when he was alive, Patroklos says, he does not tend him now that he is dead (23.69-70). For his part, Achilles, promises that he will do what Patroklos asks but when he stretches out his arms to embrace him, cannot get ahold of him. Instead, Homer tells us, Patroklos soul like smoke went beneath the earth, gibbering (23.101-2). Waking, Achilles then crystallizes the experience he has just had with an extraordi-nary pronouncement:

, , . (23.103-4)30)

Ah me! so the soul and image are after all something even in Hades house,but there is no mind within it at all.

What, then, is the news here? Foremost, there is, it seems, Achilles revela-tory discoveryas Achilles use of () in line 103 suggests31)that the soul is, after all, something () even in Hades house. At the first level, thus, Achilles pronouncement reflects his drawing the natural conclusion that after all there is some kind of existence after death and that the and an image () of the person does survive.32) In effect, it is an expression of surprise that something of the person persists after deatha point given emphasis in Homers description of the as in all respects,

30) Many of the MSS read here instead of , though it does not affect the meaning. For discussion, see N. Richardson 1993, 178, who observes that Propertius 4.7.1 sunt aliquid manes appears to be an echo. Republic 386b4-b6 suggests that was also Platos reading. On either reading, however, Achilles pronouncement is an affirmation that there is some sort of existence after death. 31) For this use, see Denniston 1954, 35 under II. See also Schnaufer 1970, 77-9. 32) N. Richardson 1993, 177.


in height and beautiful face, and voice like himself (23.66-7). Even the dead, Homer is at pains to emphasize, on some level retain their individu-ality and personhood. Equally surprising to Achilles, on the other hand, is that Patroklos ghost does not care about or desire the elaborate and grue-some vengeance that Achilles has in mind;33) he only wants, as he tells Achilles, burial, and as soon as may be:

. , , . (23.71-4)

Bury me soon as may be that I may cross the gates of Hades.Far off they keep me, the souls, images of those done with toil,nor do they allow me yet to mingle with them beyond the river,but at random I wander throughout the wide-gated house of Hades.

When Patroklos comes to Achilles, complaining that it has not been buried yet, thus, it is effectively telling him to abandon his vow not to bury the body before having brought Hektors severed head and armor to him (18.333-42). As long as he is unburied, Patroklos makes clear, the souls of the dead keep him away, and do not permit him to cross the river. Appar-ently indifferent to Achilles promised spectacular vengeance on Hektor, Patroklos cares only about the burial of his body, urging Achilles to see to it as soon as possible.

To connect this with line 4 of the proem: where Homer in his prayer had appeared to believe that the bodies of the heroes were in some sense their selves while their arein Redfields wordsmere accesso-ries, the Muse has instead told a story which culminates with Achilles recognition that the soul and image are after all something even in Hades

33) This may be the meaning of Achilles otherwise puzzling pronouncement that there are no in it. For as scholars have pointed out, if has here its frequent sense of wits or intelligence, it is puzzling that Patroklos seems to have made a reasonable and intelligent speech. See N. Richardson 1993, 178 as well as van der Valk 1963, 540-2. Cf. alternatively, the view of Bhme (discussed in Schnaufer 1970, 68-9): Die Bedeutung von hat BHME untersucht. Nach seinem Ergebnis sind sie der Sitz von Affekten, Willensregungen und intellektuellen Vorgngen. Wenn Achill der des toten Patroklos die abspricht, so heit das also, da sie keiner Gefhls-, Willens- oder Verstandsre-gung fhig ist.


housebut, at least as important, that this something does not care about vengeance; it cares only about joining the other dead across the river, which is, in turn, shown to be dependent on what happens to its corpse. Achilles discovery thus has consequences on a number of levels. On the one hand, it undercuts the urgency of Achilles vow of vengeance; while not sufficient to dissuade him from abusing Hektors corpse, Patroklos statement of his indifference to vengeance seems to be a necessary precon-dition of his ultimately agreeing to ransom the body to Priam.

Some confirmation that Homer was thinking along these lines is found in the speech of Apollo in Book 24. For at the heart of Apollos appeal to Zeus to bury Hektor is a kind rhetorical of double-vision. On the one hand, he attempts to arouse pity by stressing the corpses personhood; it is somehow Hektor himself, and the gods are cruel ( , 32) and destroyers (, 32) for forgetting the many thighs of bulls and goats that Hektor burnt to them. On the other, Apollo stresses that it is now only a thing, and their failure to save it that much more unaccount-able, since you do not bring yourself to save him, even though he is a corpse ( , 35).34) Similarly, Apollo instances Achilles rage as an example of gross irrationality and sav-agery, a rhetorical paradeigma of a kind of behavior that the gods should avoid. For in continuing to abuse what is, after all, no more than a corpse ( ) his thoughts are not in their proper sphere ( , 24.40):

(24.54)

Look! Achilles in his fury defiles the senseless clay!35)

34) Note the similar in in line 20.35) In translations, is sometimes taken to refer to the earth, on the understanding that Achilles abuses or defiles the earth in dragging a corpse over it. There is, however, good authority for suspecting that in antiquity would have been read as the earth which, together with water, was held to comprise the body. (Cf. 7.99 , and again Hesiod, Th. 571, Op. 61, Xenophanes fr. 33). Thus, e.g., Sophocles may well have had the lines in mind at El. 244 ; and again Euripides in fr. 522: .


The point of calling Hektor clay (or earth) can only be to say that Hektor cannot feel, or be aware of, any of Achilles degradations; he is dead, his departed; his body ought therefore, to be insensate (), imper-vious to the worst that Achilles can do.36) It is mere clay, and Achilles anger at itand so by implication the continued anger of Hera, Athena, and Poseidona kind of senseless vindictiveness inflicted on one who can no longer feel it.

Paradoxically, on the other, the fact that the body is not the self also ends up providing at the same time a critical rationale for the tendence of the corpse. For it is the fact that there is a in Hades whose fate depends on proper burial that makes that burial important.37) The burial is thus not, as we are often told today, for the living, but really and truly for the soul of the dead man. Only where the continues in Hades, in effect, does the tendence given the body assume importance for the dead man himself. The revelation that Patroklos continues in Hades, and that it retains something of his selfhood, thus places a premium on his receiving burial at Achilles hands, and as soon as possible.

And yet, if we reflect on the internal logic of the account being offered, we realize that there is an astonishing corollary; for if how one treats the body is determinative for the souls fate in the afterlife, then possibilities of revenge too are amplified. For if it is true that where burial is denied, the soul is condemned to wander restlessly forever, then it follows that an enemy who inflicts such loss of burial upon his foe has secured eternal tor-ment for him. Thus, even while Patroklos in his vision no longer cares for revenge, it is clear that this vision is not sufficient to guarantee respect for the corpse of Hektor. Indeed, if the logic of Patroklos revelation is fol-lowed through, it suggests that if Achilles wishes, he has it within his power to deny Hektor burialand so to cause his soul to wander restless eternally, just as Patroklos did before receiving burial. Achilles vision of Patroklos, thus, is not enough to stop him from continuing to abuse Hek-tors corpse, or from continuing to plan feeding it to the birds and dogs;

36) too is problematic. Though employed once in Herodotus to denote dumbness and deafness, its three occurrences in Homer, here, of a missile (11.390) and of the wave that swells without breaking (14.16) suggests to Cunliffe (Lex. Hom. sub ) that its original sense may be blunt. 37) This view is consistent with the argument of Vernant (1985, 330) that the mani-fests an inherent tension between identity and non-identity.


for even after Book 23 he continues to outrage Hektors corpse into Book 24, until finally ordered by Zeus to stop. Achilles dream has thus shed light on the epics conception of why one owes it to a friend or to provide burial; but the rationale that it provides offers, to say the least, very little reason to bury an enemy. There is, thus, every need for the sec-ond of Achilles two experiences: his being ordered by Zeus to return the corpse of Hektor lest he himself become an object of divine (24.114, 135; cf. 22.358), an order which anticipates the fifth-century law of burialthe teaching, apparently unique to the Greeks, that an enemy must to be allowed burial; and which, on their own view, distin-guished them from barbarians as making them uniquely civilized or humane.38)

3. The Third Discrepancy:

The last discrepancy is the most frequently noted, for in contrast to the previous discrepancies, there is no question that there exists here a genuine textual contradiction (discussed since the time of Aristarchus) that must either be accepted as a blemish within the text, or, alternatively, resolved through interpretation. The difficulty, simply, is this. In lines 5 and 6 we read:

(1.5-6)

But to what antecedent time does refer? For many readers, including Aristarchus,39) the natural way of taking it was as referring to the origins of the quarrel itself, so that we might translate: Sing, Muse, the wrath of Achilles . . . and the plan of Zeus was being brought to fulfillment from the

38) The number of relevant passages from classical literature is vast, but among the more important are Sophocles Ant. 450-5, 511, 745, 1070; OC 1606.; Aj. 1129-30, 1154, 1343 ff.; Euripides Supp. 301-15, 524-7, 671; Hec. 136; Ph. 1663; Alc. 1060; HF 708; Thucy-dides 4.98.8; Demosthenes 24.107; Xenophon Mem. 2.2.13; Isocrates Panegyricus 55, Panathenaicus 169. For scholarly overviews, see in particular Bremmer 1983, 89-94; Parker 1983, 43-8; Garland 1985, 101-3.39) Aristarchus: schol. Arn/A ad loc.


time when Agamemnon and Achilles first stood apart in strife. Or in other words, the natural way of taking it, for many readers, is as a request to the Muse to explain how the . . . (will or plan of Zeus) was being accomplished from the time Agamemnon and Achilles first quarreled.

If adopted, however, this reading involves us immediately in a fairly seri-ous discrepancy;40) for as commentators point out, the plan of Zeus is not shown as either originated, or in progress, from the time when the two heroes first quarreled. The quarrel is initiated by Apollo, not Zeus; and it is only some time after it is in progress that Zeus begins to be involved. There is, on this reading, thus, a serious contradiction, described by James Redfield:

. . . if we take (from that time when) with (was coming to completion), the statement will, by this interpretation, be untrue: the inter-vention of Zeus does not immediately follow the quarrel but occurs only after a lapse of many days (cf. Iliad I.423-7). Zeus does not finally take charge of the battle until the beginning of Book 8.41)

Indeed, arguably, the contradiction is more striking than even Redfield describes it; for it is not only that Zeus does not intervene for twelve days after the Muse has been asked to be shown how his plan or will was being fulfilled from the time when Achilles and Agamemnon first quarreled. On the surface, rather, as Pierre Carlier observes, it seems as though the request is to be shown how the quarrel itself is a consequence of this will or plan:

Ds le dbut de lIliade, un problme surgit: quel est ce dessein de Zeus? Sagit-il de laccomplissement de la promesse que le dieu a faite Thtis de tuer beaucoup dAchens pour venger loutrage subi par Achille? Cette expli-cation ne suffit sans doute pas, car la formulation du texte suggre que la colre dAchille elle-mme est un effet du dessein de Zeus.42)

And so, apparently, Wilamowitz reads it as well, similarly describing the Groll of Achilles as stemming from the plan of Zeus:

40) Serious enough, e.g., to motivate efforts to excise the lines. See Dntzer 1872, 170 (quoted in Pagliaro 1963, 11). 41) Redfield 2001, 471. 42) Carlier 1999, 119.


Den Groll des Achilles gibt der Dichter als Gegenstand seines Vortrages an, den verderblichen, der nach dem Ratschlusse des Zeus unzhligen Achern den Tod brachte. Gleich mit dem nchsten Verse, seitdem Agamemnon und Achilleus sich nach einem Streite voneinder trennten, beginnt die Erzhlung, die ohne Exposition mitten in einer Handlung einsetzt.43)

And so, many others.44) If this reading is correct, however, it only heightens the contradiction: how are we to understand the proems apparent claim that the quarrel was a result of Zeus plan, when compared with the story of the poem itself, which appears to show Zeus actions as a response to these events which are not originally set in motion by him?

A number of solutions have been urged. The most popular involves tak-ing with the initial imperative in 1.1, so that we would trans-late: Sing, goddess, [the story of ] Achilles anger . . ., [beginning your song] from the point when he and Agamemnon first stood apart in strife.45) This interpretation has been contested vigorously by Pagliaro, however, who argues, Questinterpretazione inaccettabile; for elsewhereand he offers a learned discussion of instances (q.v.)Invece ha sempre nelluso omerico valore specificamente temporale, introducendo unazione che precede o condiziona temporalmente lazione espressa nella prin-cipale.46) Further observing that the particle directly joined to in line 6, serve a determinare la nozione temporale, dando latto come com-piuto, Pagliaro concludes: Dato ci, palese che non pu ricolle-garsi ad , poich il valore di sequenza temporale del complesso male si adatta a indicare la nozione piuttosto locale (, , . . .) che si richiederebbe.47)

Pagliaros claim that will not bear a local sense is vigorously argued and his examination of occurrences a necessary philological step. But given parallels such as . . . from Od. 1.10, it cannot be decisive. For Pagliaros parallels notwithstanding, the genitive in is a

43) Wilamowitz 1920, 257.44) See among more recent commentators Lynn-George 1988, 39, Edwards 1987, 175. 45) As Pagliaro (1963, 12)whose whole discussion here seesums up the scholarly view to that time: . . . i traduttori moderni intendono: canta . . . cominciando da quando (Festa), pars du jour o (Mazon), take up the song from the point when (Leaf ).46) Ibid. 47) Ibid., 13.


simple partitive, and to see it as spatial would be perfectly in accord with its basic grammatical meaning.48) Even so, Pagliaros opposition to constru-ing with seems well taken, if for no other reason than the great distance that separates them, and the proximity of . If, in effect, we reject taking it with , it will be by adopting a less natural and even strained construction primarily out of concern to avoid the contra-diction that we can see will result.

To continue with our own line of argument, however: what if this should again be understood as part of Homers request? Rather than try to resolve the discrepancy through grammatical contortions, we could then accept it as narratively significant. For we might then understand the dis-crepancy as arising from Homers request that the Muse do one thing in her storyshow that everything that happened was due to Zeus agencyand the Muses showing that in fact only some of the events that occurred were in Zeus power.49) Where Homer thus seems to be asking the Muse to show how the events that inflicted horrible devastation on the Greeks were in fact the result of some larger plan by Zeus, and so that divine justice and providence were behind everything that transpired, the Muse shows that Zeus does exercise a kind of providencebut that that providence is lim-ited, conditioned by necessities outside of his control. Far from being the unconditional ruler of all, Zeus has to cope with other gods, and their competing agendas and necessities. The difference between the story that Homer asks for and the story that the Muse tells, thus, would be that the Muses draw our attention to the political nature of the pantheon. For in marked contrast to a monotheistic conception in which there is no

48) See, however, Pagliaros counterargument (ibid., 13): La differenza stata avvertita dal Von der Mhll [1952, 15] (Das ist klrlich etwas anderes als das des Demodokos 500 und das . . . des Odysseedichters B 10); ma le conclusioni che egli ne trae (Zwar whlt der Dichter aus einem grossen . . . Zusammen-hang eine Episode aus, aber diese selber verspricht er von Anfang zu erzhlen) non sono conformi a tale premessa.49) Interestingly, Redfield (2001, 471) notes that such a possibility seems immanent within the words and the theme that they concernand yet also acknowledges that he does not see a motivation for it: . . . the language of the proem seems to imply the initiative of Zeus himself; the . . . is mentioned as a primary fact about the poem to follow, whereas within the poem it is a secondary result of other events. Such misrepresentation of the poem by the proem is (as we have seen) far from impossible, but it should be motivated and I see no clear reason for it here.


essential obstacle to the divine will, Zeus rule consists not in uncondi-tioned fiat, but in the harmonization or even tempering of competing necessities. If Apollo, Achilles, and Agamemnon were, at least in their ini-tial actions, free agents, acting on their own, then Zeus actions were, at best, a superlative response to the requirements of circumstances beyond his control and already in motion by the time he began to act. The provi-dence that the epic reveals thus emerges as complex, problematic, and at times horrifyingly at odds with human aims or demands.

If this suggestion is even roughly correct, there may be a closer connec-tion between the end of the Iliad and Zeus plan than scholars have gener-ally appreciated. For while the path to Troys fall is cleared through Zeus actions in the Iliad as a whole, granting burial to Hektor plays an impor-tant role in bringing the war among the gods to an end. As Iliad 24 opens, the gods remain dividedand yet, curiously, the seeds of a new concord are present as well. For watching Achilles defile bright Hektor in his fury ( , 22), Homer tells us, theymeaning apparently all of the gods without differentiationpitied him: (24.23; and as the blessed gods looked on they pitied him). Even in their pity, however, Homer reminds us that the divisions among them still obtain; for while the rest were ready to have Hermes steal him away, Hera, Poseidon, and Athena were unwill-ing because of Paris folly (, 28) in having given preference to Helen in the judgment of Paris. Following Apollos appeal, however, Hera effec-tively acquiesces to Hektors burial, thus opening the door to Zeus subse-quent accommodation, insisting only on the caveatwhich Zeus picks up (24.66)that Achilles and Hektor are not to be held in equal honor because the one is a mere mortal, the other the offspring of a goddess. The consequences of Heras assent and the accommodation that Zeus devises are thus momentous, even epochal. For in thisthe last divine scene of the epicsomething extraordinary has happened: from divisions that are initially as deep and refractory as the causes of the war itself, the gods have been brought to agreement around the basic proposition that Hektor is to be buried.

Do these three discrepancies and my own efforts to see narrative signifi-cance in them comprise evidence of the Muses inspiration? Certainly not evidence that skeptics would regard as dispositive. And yet those who dis-miss the proems as hollow conventions offer an unappealing alternative.


Faced with a choice between viewing the proem as a mere ossified for-malism, or a deliberate narrative strategy of evoking interest through the lively interplay between an internal narratorthe Museand an equally internal Homer, it seems preferable to regard the subtlety as intentional. Equally, faced with discrepancies between proem and poem, it seems bet-ter to embrace a path of interpretation that sees them as the poems way of drawing attention to the Muses corrections of Homer; and, if the interpre-tation offered here is correct, thereby highlighting the new humanism of epic revealed in Hektors right to receive burial.

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the beginning of the iliad: the ‘contradictions’ of the proem and the burial of hektor

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