Homer Iliad 10.168

ed. George Chapman

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Iliad. Homer. ed. George Chapman. London. 1887.

Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.

Current edition Experimental

English (George Chapman, 1611, ed. Hooper 1857) (OCR draft) (English) (English (George Chapman, 1611, ed. Hooper 1857))

Provisional text from uncorrected OCR; expect errors.

Editions (1)
Ἰλιάς Perseus (Homer. Homeri Opera, Volumes 1-2. Monro, D. B. (David Binning), editor; Allen, Thomas W. (Thomas William), editor. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1908-1920.) — 10.168 focus
Translations (8)
Iliad Perseus (Homer. The Iliad, Volume 1-2. Murray, A. T. (Augustus Taber), translator. London: William Heinmann; New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1924-1925.) — 10.168 focus
Iliad Perseus (Homer. The Iliad of Homer, rendered into English prose for the use of those who cannot read the original. Butler, Samuel, 1835-1902, translator. London: Longmans, Green, and Co, 1898.) — 10.177 focus
English (Butler, rev. Nagy et al., 2020) (OCR draft) Experimental (English (Butler, rev. Nagy et al., 2020)) — 10.168 focus
And Nestor, charioteer of Gerenia, made answer, “My son, all that you have said is true. [170] I have good sons, and also much people who might call the chieftains, but the Achaeans are in the gravest danger; life and death are balanced as it were on the edge of a razor. [175] Go then, for you are younger than I, and of your courtesy rouse swift Ajax and the fleet son of Phyleus.”
English (William Cullen Bryant, 1870) (OCR draft) Experimental (English (William Cullen Bryant, 1870)) — 10.168 focus
He spake; and Diomed around him flung
A tawny lion's ample hide, that reached
Down to his feet, and took his spear and went
And summoned the two kings, and brought them forth.
Now when they came among the assembled guard,
210
Its leaders were not slumbering; every man
Sat watchful and in arms. As dogs that guard
Flocks in a sheepfold hear some savage beast
That comes through thickets down the mountain-side;
Loud is the clamor of the dogs and men,
215
And sleep is frightened thence, - so gentle sleep
Fled from the eyes of those who watched, that night,
Sadly, with eyes turned ever toward the plain,
Intently listening for the foe's approach.
The aged Nestor saw them, and rejoiced,
220
And thus encouraged them with winged words:-
"Watch thus, dear youths, let no one yield to sleep,
Lest we become the mockery of the foe."
He spake, and crossed the trench; and with him went
The Grecian leaders, they who had been called
225
To council. With them went Meriones
And Nestor's eminent son, for they had both
Been summoned. Crossing to the other side
Of that deep trench, they found an open space
Clear of the dead, in which they sat them down, -
230
Just where the fiery Hector, having slain
Many Achaians, turned him back when night
Came o'er him. There they sat to hold debate;
And thus spake Nestor the Gerenian knight: -
"Friends! is there none among you who so far
235
Trusts his own valor that he will to-night
Venture among the Trojans? He perchance
Might capture on the borders of the camp
Some foeman wandering, or might bring report
Of what they meditate, and whether still
240
They mean to keep their station far from Troy
And near our ships, or, since their late success,
Return to Ilium. Could he safely bring
This knowledge back to us, his meed were great,
Glory among all men beneath the sky,
245
And liberal recompense. As many chiefs
As now command our galleys, each would give
A black ewe with a suckling lamb, -such gifts
No one hath yet received, - and he should sit
A guest at all our banquets and our feasts."
250
English (Alexander Pope, 1720, ed. Watson, 1857) (OCR draft) Experimental (English (Alexander Pope, 1720, ed. Watson, 1857)) — 10.168 focus
'My friend,' (he answer'd,) 'generous is thy care,
190
'These toils, my subjects and my sons might bear,
'Their loyal thoughts and pious loves conspire
'To ease a sovereign, and relieve a sire.
'But now the last despair surrounds our host;
'No hour must pass, no moment must be lost;
195
'Each single Greek, in this conclusive strife,
'Stands on the sharpest edge of death or life:
'Yet if my years thy kind regard engage,
'Employ thy youth as I employ my age;
'Succeed to these my cares, and rouse the rest;
200
'He serves me most, who serves his country best.'
English (Thomas Hobbes, 1667, ed. Molesworth 1843) (OCR draft) Experimental (English (Thomas Hobbes, 1667, ed. Molesworth 1843)) — 10.168 focus
English (William Cowper, 1791, ed. Southey) (OCR draft) Experimental (English (William Cowper, 1791, ed. Southey)) — 10.168 focus
English (F. W. Newman, 1856) (OCR draft) Experimental (English (F. W. Newman, 1856)) — 10 focus

Notes on the current edition

Iliad

1. And there are, &c.—The second folio reads, " As there are;" and so Dr. Taylor.
2. " ᾿Ἐπὶ ξυροῦ ἵσταται ἀκμῆς. This went into a proverb, used by Theocritus, in Dioscuris, out of Homer." -CHAPMAN.
3. Dr. Taylor, with the second folio, reads " give ear."
4. Expiscating—inquiring into, fishing out.

New Alexandria Commentaries

Casey Dué

διογενὲς Λαερτιάδη πολυμήχαν’ Ὀδυσσεῦ

Nestor, who is the most diplomatic of the heroes in the Iliad, addresses Odysseus in connection with both his lineage and with two of his traditional epithets, thereby using an entire hexameter to address him. He does the same with Agamemnon in 10.103 (Ἀτρεΐδη κύδιστε ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν Ἀγάμεμνον), in precisely the way that Agamemnon instructs Menelaos to wake up the heroes in 10.68–69. And as with Agamemnon, Nestor chooses what is perhaps the most honorific of Odysseus’ traditional epithets. In the Iliad, the epithet διογενὲς ‘descended from Zeus’ is applied to several heroes, including Patroklos (1.337), Achilles (1.489), Ajax (4.489), and Menelaos (23.294), but in the Odyssey it is restricted to Odysseus. πολυμήχανος, on the other hand, is Odysseus’ distinctive epithet. It is used of him and him alone, and, with one exception, always in the vocative. That one exception is the signature description of Odysseus by Athena, who in the guise of Mentes tells Telemakhos that his father is on his way home, “since he is a man of many devices (πολυμήχανος, Odyssey 1.205).”

It is a testament to the economy of Homeric diction that other than the full verse phrase that appears here (and six other places in the Iliad, as well as fifteen times in the Odyssey) there are only three ways to address Odysseus in the vocative in our Iliad, each with a different metrical configuration: ὦ πολύαιν’ Ὀδυσεῦ μέγα κῦδος Ἀχαιῶν (9.673, 10.544), ὦ Ὀδυσεῦ πολύαινε (11.430), and [ὦ] Ὀδυσεῦ (9.346, 14.104). This does not mean, however, that the epithets are without semantic weight (see especially the formulation of Lord 1960/2000:66, quoted on 10.3 above). The full verse formula is particularly flexible and can be used or not at a composer’s discretion. Its contexts suggest that it conveys formality and respect. In the Iliad, the goddess Athena and the heroes Agamemnon, Diomedes, Achilles, and Ajax address Odysseus this way. In the Odyssey, Athena, Calypso, and Circe do, as do the shades of Teiresias, Agamemnon, and Achilles.

Diomedes, by contrast, does not get quite the same respect as Agamemnon and Odysseus. In 10.159, Diomedes is addressed as simply “the son of Tydeus.” In Iliad 9.32–49, Diomedes is the first to speak after Agamemnon’s address to the assembled warriors and is sharply critical of him. Nestor praises Diomedes for his abilities as a warrior and for his speaking ability but qualifies the latter: he is the best in counsel for his age group (Iliad 9.54). It seems that Diomedes is still too junior in relation to Nestor to get the full honorific address. Three times, however, he is addressed by others with the affectionate full-line formula Τυδεΐδη Διόμηδες ἐμῷ κεχαρισμένε θυμῷ (Iliad 5.242, by Sthenelos; Iliad 5.826, by Athena; Iliad 10.234, by Agamemnon).

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τοῖον γὰρ ἄχος βεβίηκεν Ἀχαιούς

See also above on 10.85. The sorrow (akhos) that Nestor cites here is of course ultimately the result of the withdrawal of Achilles and its disastrous consequences, and Nestor uses an equivalent phrase when the strife between Agamemnon and Achilles begins (see Iliad 1.254; see Nagy 1979:69–72, 94–95 for the equivalence of ἄχος and πένθος in Homeric diction). The Trojans have had a great deal of success in Achilles’ absence and are now encamped on the plain. This sorrow is what keeps Agamemnon and Menelaos awake at the opening of this book. Likewise, in Iliad 9.9, Agamemnon is “struck in his heart by great sorrow” (ἄχεϊ μεγάλῳ βεβολημένος ἦτορ). Achilles had predicted that Agamemnon would feel sorrow (ἀχνύμένος, Iliad 1.241) when the Greeks fell dying. The akhos that Achilles experiences when Agamemnon threatens to take and then in fact takes Briseis in Iliad 1 initiates his wrath, which in turn leads to the sorrow of the Achaeans. Nagy has argued that there is a “pervasive nexus between ἄχος and Ἀχιλ(λ)εύς” in Homeric diction that is “integrated in the inherited formulaic system and hence deeply rooted in the epic tradition” (Nagy 1979:79). This akhos seems to be the root of Achilles’ name, which Nagy etymologizes as *Akhí-lāṷos ‘whose host of men is sorrowful [= grieving]’. (See Nagy 1979:69–93 and Nagy 2004:131–137, as well as Palmer 1963:78–79 and Holland 1993.)

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πολύμητις Ὀδυσσεὺς

On Odysseus’ associations with mētis, see on 10.5–9 and on 10.137 above. Polumētis ‘who is crafty in many ways’ is one of Odysseus’ most commonly used epithets. Other than Odysseus it is only used of Hephaistos (πολυμήτιος, Iliad 21.355), who is the god of a different sort of craft. (The English word ‘craft’, like the Greek mētis, encompasses both meanings.) Milman Parry says of this particular epithet: “δῖος and πολύμητις, for the audience, describe the Odysseus of all the epic poems which sang his deeds” (MHV 171). πολύμητις is one of the distinctive epithets of Odysseus, while δῖος is a generic epithet of heroes (see Parry MHV 145 for πολύμητις as a distinctive epithet, and MHV 84 for δῖος as generic). Parry writes:

Epic lines without epithets would have seemed to them like a heroic character without his traditional attributes. But even now, who among those of us who have any knowledge of the legend has asked why Odysseus should be crafty in this or that particular episode? Just so, Homer’s listeners demanded epithets and paid them no attention, showing thereby the same lack of exact observation that becomes a habit with the modern reader. And it is this lack of exact observation that explains uses of the epithet which appear to us unmotivated, because we look for their motivations in the lines where they occur, rather than in all the poetry Homer’s audience had already heard before they ever heard him sing.

Parry MHV 137–138

As we discussed on 10.3 in connection with the phrase ποιμένα λαῶν, the phrase πολύμητις Ὀδυσσεὺς can be used of Odysseus even in situations in which he is not being particularly crafty; the distinctive noun-epithet combination is, to quote the formulation of Nagy once again, “like a small theme song that conjures up a thought-association with the traditional essence of an epic figure” (Nagy 1990b:23). The phrase is not without significance in an ambush context, however, because Odysseus is a pre-eminent ambusher within the tradition as a whole. Odysseus is called πολύμητις just as he leaves his tent, which marks the beginning of what will become a spying mission/ambush episode that will prominently feature Odysseus’ mētis. Once that episode is well underway, Odysseus will be again called πολύμητις when he interrogates Dolon (10.382; see also 10.488, where he handles the horses so they are not spooked).

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ποικίλον ἀμφ᾽ ὤμοισι σάκος θέτο

Agamemnon and Diomedes each wear a lion skin, Menelaos wears a leopard skin, Nestor wears a khiton and khlaina, and all take a weapon (egkhos or doru), but Odysseus takes only a shield and leaves without putting on any outerwear of any kind. This seemingly mundane detail actually serves two significant narrative functions. First and foremost, it sets up the extended arming scene that takes place at the assembly, just before the raid itself (see below on 10.254–272). Odysseus’ lack of appropriate gear here means that he will have to borrow armor at the assembly. Second, Odysseus’ lack of an animal skin has an intriguing corollary the Odyssey, where, in one of his Cretan lies to Eumaios in Odyssey 14, Odysseus comes close to revealing his true identity, at least from the perspective of a traditional audience of epic. Odysseus describes how once on a cold night at Troy he went out on an ambush. All the other heroes were dressed for the weather, but he himself had no cloak, and had to come up with a clever scheme to get one from one of his companions on the lokhos. Odysseus’ Cretan lie may well be playfully alluding to a Doloneia tradition, in which case the story is a coded verbal message (ainos) directed at both the internal audience (Eumaios) and the external audience, who will “get” the inside reference. Such a reference is possible if we understand the Iliad (including the Doloneia) and Odyssey to be co-existing oral traditions, evolving in conjunction with one another. (On the ainos as a coded verbal message in Odyssey 14, see both Muellner 1976:97 and Nagy 1979:234–237, with further reference ad loc.) On the multiple significances of the shield being “intricately patterned” (poikilos), see above on 10.30.

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ἐκτὸς ἀπὸ κλισίης σὺν τεύχεσιν

Diomedes and his comrades are so ready for battle that they are not even inside their tent. Agamemnon had earlier stated his concern that the Trojans might be planning a night attack (10.100–101), and the preparedness seen here may also reflect the same “state of emergency” that is also prompting the night meeting and spying mission.

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ἔγχεα δέ σφιν/ ὀρθ᾽ ἐπὶ σαυρωτῆρος ἐλήλατο, τῆλε δὲ χαλκὸς / λάμφ᾽ ὥς τε στεροπὴ πατρὸς Διὸς

Their spears are planted in a kind of palisade, perhaps as a defense while they sleep on this dangerous night, or perhaps so that they are easy to reach in case of attack. The shining of the bronze like lightning is a frequent image in Homeric poetry (see Iliad 11.66, which is also an explicit simile, and the metaphorical uses of στεροπή with bronze at Iliad 11.83 and 19.363, and Odyssey 4.72 and 14.268 = 17.437). In most of those cases, just as here, the gleam of the bronze has a threatening or awe-inspiring quality to it. That the bronze shines this way at night is suggestive in terms of what is visible in the dark.

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ὄρσεο

The manuscripts are divided between this reading and ἔγρεο. The scholia indicate that Aristarchus had both readings: ὄρσεο· διχῶς ὁ Ἀρίσταρχος, ἔγρεο καὶ ὄρσεο [A intermarginal scholia]; ἔγρεο· γράφεται καὶ ὄρσεο. διχῶς αἱ Ἀριστάρχου [T interlinear scholia]. This is possible because two separate editions or ekdoseis of the text of Homer were attributed to Aristarchus (= αἱ Ἀριστάρχου in the scholia), both of which were known to his student Didymus. From Didymus’ scholarly work many of the scholia derive. (On the ekdoseis of Aristarchus, see Montanari 1998 and Nagy 2004:85–86. On the sources for the Homeric scholia, see Nagy 2004:3–24 and Blackwell and Dué 2009.)

The sources, both ancient and medieval, are perhaps divided here because both verbs are well attested in the formulaic diction. ἔγρεο occurs here and in two places in the Odyssey; ὄρσεο is attested four times in the Iliad and once in the Odyssey. Clearly, both verbs could be generated by a poet composing in performance. Here is a perfect illustration of the difficulty a modern editor of Homer faces when trying to choose between two or more equally Homeric (= formulaic) variations. We, as the editors of this volume, have for this very reason rejected a traditional text critical approach, and instead have advocated a multitextual approach that accounts for the multiformity of the Homeric poems at different historical points in their transmission. (See above, “Iliad 10: A Multitextual Approach.”)

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Τυδέος υἱέ

See on 10.144 above. See also Schnapp-Gourbeillon 1981:96–100 for more on Diomedes’ patronymic and his youth.

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The third-century CE scholar and poet Diogenes Laertius relates an anecdote (6.53) that features the hexameter line μή τίς τοι εὔδοντι μεταφρένῳ ἐν δόρυ πήξῃ. This verse is probably a literary play on Iliad 8.95: μή τίς τοι φεύγοντι μεταφρένῳ ἐν δόρυ πήξῃ. The twelfth-century scholar Eustathius may be in fact thinking of Diogenes and not Homer when he writes (in 519.32) ὁ Νέστωρ τῷ Διομήδῃ κειμένῳ πού φησιν· ἔγρεο, μή τις τοι καθεύδοντι μεταφρένῳ ἐν δόρυ πήξῃ (“Somewhere Nestor says to the sleeping Diomedes, ‘Wake up, lest someone pierce you in the back with a spear while you sleep’”; cf. Diogenes Laertius’ ἐπέγειραι, ἔφη … ). It is possible that Eustathius had a text of the Iliad with this line following 10.159, but the verse is attested nowhere else in our manuscripts.

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ἑέσσατο δέρμα λέοντος / αἴθωνος μεγάλοιο ποδηνεκὲς, εἵλετο δ᾽ ἔγχος

Verse 177, after the caesura, and 178 are also used to describe what Agamemnon wears in 10.23–24, which is indicative of their formulaic nature and also suggestive of their use in night raid contexts generally.

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βῆ δ᾽ ἰέναι

See on 10.32.

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As we discuss in the introductory essay “The Poetics of Ambush,” this simile emphasizes the sounds that are made in the dark, as well as describing a scenario of being on the defensive against a nocturnal attack (see above, pp. 63–64).

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δυσωρήσωνται is another hapax legomenon, appearing only in Iliad 10, but we can understand why it might only appear once in our extant Homeric epics from the simile’s interaction with its context. Although in other parts of the poem there are similes describing predatory animals attacking domestic flocks at night, and the retaliation of men and dogs (see e.g. Iliad 11.546–557), here the simile is for a particularly “painful” night watch. It is painful both because the young men on guard duty have had an extremely hard day of fighting and because the Trojans are camped out for the first time, closer than ever, during this night. (See also the commentary on 10.331 for more on words that appear only in Iliad 10.)

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τάφροιο διέσσυτο

The act of crossing the ditch for the meeting conveys a spatial significance to the need the Achaeans feel and the plan they will construct to meet it. In Iliad 7, the Achaeans created a new boundary on the landscape by building their wall and ditch. The wall was built in the dark, before the dawn (Iliad 7.433). In the subsequent daytime battles, the boundary created by these two elements is of the utmost importance. M. L. West notes that “once they have been built they are frequently mentioned again, in every book from the eighth to the eighteenth, as well as in the twentieth and twenty-fourth” (1969:255). The boundary is mentioned either in order to indicate who is winning at that point or whenever the tide of battle turns. In the battle that takes place on the day before the night of Iliad 10, for example, Hektor pens in the Achaeans behind the wall so that the entire space is filled with men and horses (Iliad 8.213–216). The Achaeans rally after some inspiration from the gods and cross the ditch on the offensive (Iliad 8.253–265), but Hektor forces them back over the ditch as he once again takes the upper hand (Iliad 8.340–343). And, of course, the boundary will become even more significant the day after the night of Iliad 10, as the Trojans themselves cross it and threaten the ships with fire (the Trojans pass over the ditch and wall at the end of Iliad 12). Since the wall and ditch act as a threshold between the camp and the battlefield, one way of understanding the leaders crossing the ditch to hold their meeting is as a shift toward being on the offensive. Only the ditch is mentioned here: Petegorsky (1982:238n13) suggests that the “absence” of the wall presages its breach the next day. (For more on the poetic possibilities and traditional associations offered by the Achaean wall, see Boyd 1995.)

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ἐν καθαρῷ, ὅθι δὴ νεκύων διεφαίνετο χῶρος

Another significant feature of the landscape on this night is the number of corpses left on the battlefield. No truce has been allowed this time for the gathering of the dead (compare the truce agreed to at Iliad 7.407–411). The Trojan camp is also in a space specifically said to be free of corpses (this same line is also used at Iliad 8.491), and a picture of the landscape covered with corpses is repeatedly evoked (10.298, 10.343 = 10.387, 10.469). Such a detail is a reminder of the intense battle of the day before, which is the reason both for the embassy to Achilles and for this meeting, which will result in the spying mission and ambush. It is also a harbinger of the even greater battle that will happen on the next day, adding to the eerie atmosphere of the nighttime landscape.

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θυμῷ τολμήεντι

For the importance of a “daring (or enduring) heart” for spying missions or ambush, see below on 10.231, 10.244, and 10.248, as well as “The Poetics of Ambush.”

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Fenik (1964:41) excoriates these lines, calling the idea that the Trojans might retreat into the city “wholly fatuous,” and he uses them to inquire “whether some special grounds, other than general incompetence, were responsible for the K poet’s extraordinary failure here.” But the assumption that a different, individual author composed these lines leads to the kind of evaluation that Fenik makes. Instead, using approaches based in oral poetics, we can see how these lines do not ignore the situation that the Iliad has presented, but rather resonate with what is to come. Diomedes and Odysseus will indeed capture (and kill, ἕλοι can mean both) someone at the edge of the enemy (ἐσχατόωντα): in fact, this can allude to both Dolon, from whom they will get information, and Rhesos, whose army is described as encamped at the edge: ἔσχατοι ἄλλων (10.434). Just so, the Trojans will not consider retreating on this night, though they will the next night (see Iliad 18.243–313). Petegorsky (1982:225–230) argues that Nestor’s proposal anticipates the later Trojan council scenes, during the next day’s fighting, particularly that in Iliad 18, in anticipation of Achilles’ return.

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καὶ ἂψ εἰς ἡμέας ἔλθοι / ἀσκηθὴς

When he proposes the spying mission, Nestor includes the crucial completion of the mission: namely, that the spy return to report what he has found out. The return of the spy ‘unscathed’ connects to the greater theme, and it shares concepts with the theme of the journey. One concern with any of these nighttime or secret operations, such as spying missions or ambushes, is that, if those who undertake them do not return, their comrades may never know what happened to them. Whether, how, and by whom a spy has been killed cannot be verified, and it is such knowledge that allows a warrior to be buried and honored after death. This lack of knowledge provides a strong contrast to daytime battle, in which one comrade will see another fall, and will subsequently go to protect his corpse or to attack his killer in retaliation. That sequence in battle is a pattern we see again and again in the Iliad. The same contrast between a death in open battle (bringing honor) and a death that occurs on a journey (resulting in an inability to bury and honor the person lost because of a lack of knowledge as well as the lack of the corpse) is expressed by loved ones of Odysseus in the Odyssey. The sentiment is first expressed by Telemakhos:

νῦν δ’ ἑτέρως ἐβόλοντο θεοὶ κακὰ μητιόωντες,

235 οἳ κεῖνον μὲν ἄϊστον ἐποίησαν περὶ πάντων

ἀνθρώπων, ἐπεὶ οὔ κε θανόντι περ ὧδ’ ἀκαχοίμην,

εἰ μετὰ οἷσ’ ἑτάροισι δάμη Τρώων ἐνὶ δήμῳ,

ἠὲ φίλων ἐν χερσίν, ἐπεὶ πόλεμον τολύπευσε.

τῶ κέν οἱ τύμβον μὲν ἐποίησαν Παναχαιοί,

240 ἠδέ κε καὶ ᾧ παιδὶ μέγα κλέος ἤρατ’ ὀπίσσω.

νῦν δέ μιν ἀκλειῶς Ἅρπυιαι ἀνηρέψαντο·

οἴχετ’ ἄϊστος ἄπυστος, ἐμοὶ δ’ ὀδύνας τε γόους τε

κάλλιπεν·

Odyssey 1.234–243

But now the gods have willed it otherwise, devising evils,

235 who have made that man [Odysseus] unseen beyond all

mortals, since I would not grieve this way at his death

if among his comrades he was subdued in the district of the Trojans

or in the hands of his friends, when he had finished war.

All the Achaeans would have made a burial mound for him,

240 and he would have won great fame [kleos] even for his child in the future.

But now the Arpuiai whirlwinds have snatched him up without fame [kleos].

He is gone, unseen, unheard of. And for me pain and laments

he left behind.

Later (Odyssey 14.365–372), Eumaios says something very similar in response to the disguised Odysseus’ story about the fate of Odysseus. He, too, contrasts the unknown circumstances of Odysseus’ presumed death at sea with a death in battle, after which a man’s comrades can bury him. A known death in battle brings kleos, which, having as its root meaning ‘something heard’ (see Nagy 1979:16, §2n3), is contrasted in Telemakhos’ words not only with an “unglorious” death (Odyssey 1.241) but also with Odysseus himself, who is “unseen” and “unheard of” (Odyssey 1.242). In Iliad 10, in the same line as ἀσκηθής (10.212), Nestor promises kleos to the man who undertakes this mission, but the return is necessary for that kleos to come about. For if a man were to go out on a nighttime spying mission, or an ambush, and not come back, he, too, would be unseen, unheard of, and could not be buried or honored properly.

So the need to complete the mission, the need for a return, is one way that a spying mission resembles a journey in epic diction. Coming back unscathed, ἀσκηθής, is used elsewhere in Homeric epic of a return home or of some other completion of a journey. It is used prominently in Odyssey 5 of the need to have both Telemakhos (Odyssey 5.26) and Odysseus (Odyssey 5.144, 5.168) return to their fatherland (πατρίδα γαῖαν). At the very beginning of the story of his wanderings, Odysseus says that he would have returned home unscathed if the sea currents had not prevented him from making his way to Ithaka (Odyssey 9.79–81). Thus arriving unscathed seems especially associated with sailing journeys, as Odysseus also uses it in one of his Cretan lies, in this case for an easy sailing from Crete to Egypt (Odyssey 14.255; cf. Solon fr. 19 [West], who says that Kypris sent him home unscathed [askēthēs] in a fast ship for a good homecoming [nostos] to his own land). In one additional case in the Odyssey, Odysseus tells Achilles that Neoptolemos was very successful in battle and ambush (see pp. 47–48), and later adds that he was never hurt in the fighting—he was ἀσκηθής, never touched by a weapon. Although the context has referred to both battle and ambush, the word actually describes Neoptolemos as he boards his ship for the journey home, again displaying the connection between sailing journeys and nostos. The “Odyssean” language that many scholars have noted in Book 10, and have even cited as proof of its non-Iliadic nature, may be a thematic result, not only of the greater prominence of ambush in the Odyssey, but also of this thematic overlap between spying missions or ambushes and journeys, especially journeys home and those over the sea.

In the Iliad, ἀσκηθής is used in one other context, and that is, in fact, daytime battle. As Achilles prays to Zeus that Patroklos will be successful in saving the Achaeans and their ships from the Trojan onslaught, he asks as well that Patroklos then return unscathed to him at the swift ships: ἀσκηθής μοι ἔπειτα θοὰς ἐπὶ νῆας ἵκοιτο (Iliad 16.247). Patroklos is not going on an ambush here, and there is no concern that what happens to him will be unknown. Instead, the fact that he is going as Achilles’ substitute must also be a special kind of departure for battle, and the desire for the substitute to come back unscathed evokes this same word (see Nagy 1979:292–295 for Patroklos as a ritual substitute for Achilles in this battle). Zeus’ reaction is to grant the first part of Achilles’ prayer, but not the safe return: σόον δ’ ἀνένευσε μάχης ἐξαπονέεσθαι (Iliad 16.252). Petegorsky (1982:220–221) argues that these two uses of ἀσκηθής in the Iliad highlight the isolation of Patroklos going into battle without Achilles, in contrast to the pairing of Diomedes and Odysseus.

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κλέος ‘glory in song’ and δόσις ‘gift’ are not incompatible rewards in Homeric epic. Throughout the Iliad material prizes are a physical manifestation of a warrior’s place in the song tradition and are a major sources of contention among heroes. In Iliad 1, when Agamemnon threatens to take Achilles’ prize (γέρας), the woman Briseis, Achilles says that he does not intend to continue fighting ἄτιμος (‘without honor’, Iliad 1.171). As Casey Dué has noted, the dispute over prize women in Iliad 1 is actually about τιμή (Iliad 1.161, 1.174, 1.412, 1.503–510). This word is generally translated as ‘honor’, but it conveys specifically the honor heroes receive after death in cult and song as immortalized heroes (Dué 2002:45; see also Nagy 1979:118). In Iliad 9, Achilles, struggling with his mortality, rejects the gifts of Agamemnon and at the same time rejects the glorious death he will have in battle (Iliad 9.410–416). So too do the competitions for the prizes at the funeral games for Patroklos in Iliad 23 have far greater significance than their material value. In Iliad 23.700–737, Ajax and Odysseus compete in wrestling, foreshadowing their competition for the arms of Achilles after his death and for the title of “best of the Achaeans.” In Iliad 23, neither can decisively defeat the other, and eventually Achilles calls the contest a draw, pronouncing that the victory (along with two equal prizes) belongs to both. (The individual contests have been analyzed by various scholars. See e.g. Douglas Frame’s analysis of the chariot race in Frame 2009:131–172 and further bibliography ad loc.) In Iliad 24, Achilles accepts a ransom for Hektor’s body, even though he knows that he too will soon be dead. He asks Patroklos not to be angry with him for accepting it, and says that they will share it equally (Iliad 24.589–595).

When we understand that prizes are inextricably linked with kleos in this tradition, we can better understand episodes in which heroes act in ways that we might call “selfish,” episodes which are often incompatible with modern notions of heroism (see e.g. Stanford 1965 ad Odyssey 9.229). The Little Iliad, according to Proklos, narrated the theft of the Palladion, a story that survives in several variant versions in which Diomedes or Odysseus or both try to get sole possession of it, betraying the other (see Gantz 1993:643–644). Likewise, Rick Newton (2008 and 2009) has discussed the way that Odysseus seeks gifts at the expense of his comrades throughout his adventures. Newton suggests that, in the Odyssey, guest-gifts function like a geras does in the
Iliad: guest-gifts, whatever their intrinsic material value, are tokens of honor and prestige for their recipient (cf. Odyssey 5.29–42 and 11.355–361). Odysseus’ heroic pursuit of guest-gifts generates delays in his homecoming and is instrumental in causing the death of his comrades along the way. See also Newton 2005, especially p. 141: “[In] Odyssean hospitality … the acquisition of property … enhances the honor and status of the hero … But that heroic hospitality, like successful warfare in the Iliad, comes at a price, and a high one … Odysseus will reach Ithaca late and alone.” An analogy can be made between the Iliadic deaths of countless Achaeans due to Achilles’ wrath over his stripped geras and the loss of Odysseus’ entire fleet and crew during his Odyssey nostos.

Note also that Nestor says there is kleos for undertaking a spying mission, making it parallel to fighting in battle. Nestor promises the sheep and a share at a banquet (see Nagy 1979:118–141 for connections between hero cult and portions at feasts), but the horses of Rhesos also become the reward and a visible sign of the success Diomedes and Odysseus achieve.

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Gregory Nagy

There is a pronounced shift in mood in Rhapsody 10. Unlike the narratives in the rest of the Iliad, this narrative focuses on how heroes behave at nighttime, as distinct from daytime. What dominates now is a poetics of ambush, which is a different kind of warfare. And a prime exponent of such poetics is the wolfish figure of Dolon. My comments here on Rhapsody 10 are mere supplements to the extensive commentary of Dué and Ebbott 2010.

draft js image errorDolon. Detail from an Attic red-figure lekythos (460 BCE). Image via Wikimedia Commons.

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Nestor is speaking to the assembled Achaean chieftains about a spying mission to be undertaken by a volunteer Achaean: whoever succeeds in accomplishing such a mission will have kleos ‘glory’ because he will be remembered and named in a song of praise that will be sung about him, I.10.212, and such a song will be sung ep’ anthrōpous ‘throughout humankind’, I.10.21.

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Homeric occurrences of ep’ anthrōpous ‘throughout humankind’: I.10.213 (with kléos [κλέος] at I.10.212); I.24.202 (with kleesthai [ἔκλε(ο)] at the same verse); I.24.535 (with kekasthai [ἐκέκαστο] at the same verse); O.01.299 (with kleos [κλέος] at O.01.298); O.03.252 (in this context, the question is where Menelaos was wandering when Agamemnon was killed by Aigisthos: the question is about that story, but the word for ‘story’ or ‘song’ here is not made explicit); O.14.403 (with eükleiē [ἐϋκλείη] at O.14.402); O.19.334 (with kleos [κλέος] at O.19.333); O.23.125 (there is a reference here to the storied fame of the mētis ‘intelligence, mind’ of Odysseus, but the word for ‘fame’ here is not made explicit); O.26.094 (with kleos [κλέος] at the same verse); O.24.201 (with aoidē [ἀοιδή] ‘song’: here the song about Klytaimestra is not glorious but inglorious); Homeric Hymn to Apollo 82 with poluōnumos [πολυώνυμος] at the same verse: the temple of Apollo will have great fame and thus it will be ‘having many names’]

The syntax of this expression ep’ anthrōpous, meaning ‘throughout humankind’, is unusual in Homeric diction, since there are no obvious parallels to be found for the combination of the preposition epi, ordinarily meaning ‘on’, with the accusative of anthrōpoi ‘humans’. Here and in other occurrences of this expression, what holds the syntax together, it appears, is the idea of a song that spreads the remembrance or even the fame and glory of a story throughout all of humanity. The anchor comment here at I.10.213 accounts for all the occurrences of this expression in Homeric diction.

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Leonard Muellner

comment on Odysseus’ lack of a cloak, but only carrying a shield (this verse) in the Doloneia in contrast to the other heroes’ elaborately described cloaks, in the context of analyzing O.14.463-466, where the disguised Odysseus tells Eumaios a story of when he tricked Thoas out of his cloak during an ambush

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comment on Odysseus’ lack of a cloak in the Doloneia in contrast to the other heroes’ elaborately described cloaks, in the context of analyzing O.14.463-466, where the disguised Odysseus tells Eumaios a story of when he tricked Thoas out of his cloak during an ambush

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analysis of the meaning and uses of piphauskesthai (in the context of analyzing the semantic and formal confusion of piphaskein and piphauskesthai)

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Commentary

Commentary (Casey Dué and Mary Ebbott, 2010) (OCR draft) (Commentary (Casey Dué and Mary Ebbott, 2010)) focus

144. mvp-comment-49-1 10.144 διογενὲς Λαερτιάδη πολυμήχαν’ Ὀδυσσεῦ Nestor, who is the most diplomatic of the heroes in the Iliad, addresses Odysseus in connection with both his lineage and with two of his traditional epithets, thereby using an entire hexameter to address him. He does the same with Agamemnon in 10.103 ( Ἀτρεΐδη κύδιστε ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν Ἀγάμεμνον), in precisely the way that Agamemnon instructs Menelaos to wake up the heroes in 10.68–69. And as with Agamemnon, Nestor chooses what is perhaps the most honorific of Odysseus’ traditional epithets. In the Iliad, the epithet διογενὲς ‘descended from Zeus’ is applied to several heroes, including Patroklos (1.337), Achilles (1.489), Ajax (4.489), and Menelaos (23.294), but in the Odyssey it is restricted to Odysseus. πολυμήχανος, on the other hand, is Odysseus’ distinctive epithet. It is used of him and him alone, and, with one exception, always in the vocative. That one exception is the signature description of Odysseus by Athena, who in the guise of Mentes tells Telemakhos that his father is on his way home, “since he is a man of many devices ( πολυμήχανος, Odyssey 1.205).”

144. mvp-comment-49-2 It is a testament to the economy of Homeric diction that other than the full verse phrase that appears here (and six other places in the Iliad, as well as fifteen times in the Odyssey) there are only three ways to address Odysseus in the vocative in our Iliad, each with a different metrical configuration: ὦ πολύαιν’ Ὀδυσεῦ μέγα κῦδος Ἀχαιῶν (9.673, 10.544), ὦ Ὀδυσεῦ πολύαινε (11.430), and [ ὦ] Ὀδυσεῦ (9.346, 14.104). This does not mean, however, that the epithets are without semantic weight (see especially the formulation of Lord 1960/2000:66, quoted on 10.3 above). The full verse formula is particularly flexible and can be used or not at a composer’s discretion. Its contexts suggest that it conveys formality and respect. In the Iliad, the goddess Athena and the heroes Agamemnon, Diomedes, Achilles, and Ajax address Odysseus this way. In the Odyssey, Athena, Calypso, and Circe do, as do the shades of Teiresias, Agamemnon, and Achilles.

144. mvp-comment-49-3 Diomedes, by contrast, does not get quite the same respect as Agamemnon and Odysseus. In 10.159, Diomedes is addressed as simply “the son of Tydeus.” In Iliad 9.32–49, Diomedes is the first to speak after Agamemnon’s address to the assembled warriors and is sharply critical of him. Nestor praises Diomedes for his abilities as a warrior and for his speaking ability but qualifies the latter: he is the best in counsel for his age group ( Iliad 9.54). It seems that Diomedes is still too junior in relation to Nestor to get the full honorific address. Three times, however, he is addressed by others with the affectionate full-line formula Τυδεΐδη Διόμηδες ἐμῷ κεχαρισμένε θυμῷ ( Iliad 5.242, by Sthenelos; Iliad 5.826, by Athena; Iliad 10.234, by Agamemnon).

145. mvp-comment-50-1 10.145 τοῖον γὰρ ἄχος βεβίηκεν Ἀχαιούς See also above on 10.85. The sorrow ( akhos) that Nestor cites here is of course ultimately the result of the withdrawal of Achilles and its disastrous consequences, and Nestor uses an equivalent phrase when the strife between Agamemnon and Achilles begins (see Iliad 1.254; see Nagy 1979:69–72, 94–95 for the equivalence of ἄχος and πένθος in Homeric diction). The Trojans have had a great deal of success in Achilles’ absence and are now encamped on the plain. This sorrow is what keeps Agamemnon and Menelaos awake at the opening of this book. Likewise, in Iliad 9.9, Agamemnon is “struck in his heart by great sorrow” ( ἄχεϊ μεγάλῳ βεβολημένος ἦτορ). Achilles had predicted that Agamemnon would feel sorrow ( ἀχνύμένος, Iliad 1.241) when the Greeks fell dying. The akhos that Achilles experiences when Agamemnon threatens to take and then in fact takes Briseis in Iliad 1 initiates his wrath, which in turn leads to the sorrow of the Achaeans. Nagy has argued that there is a “pervasive nexus between ἄχος and Ἀχιλ( λ) εύς” in Homeric diction that is “integrated in the inherited formulaic system and hence deeply rooted in the epic tradition” (Nagy 1979:79). This akhos seems to be the root of Achilles’ name, which Nagy etymologizes as * Akhí- lāṷos ‘whose host of men is sorrowful [= grieving]’. (See Nagy 1979:69–93 and Nagy 2004:131–137, as well as Palmer 1963:78–79 and Holland 1993.)

148. mvp-comment-51-1 10.148 πολύμητις Ὀδυσσεὺς On Odysseus’ associations with mētis, see on 10.5–9 and on 10.137 above. Polumētis ‘who is crafty in many ways’ is one of Odysseus’ most commonly used epithets. Other than Odysseus it is only used of Hephaistos ( πολυμήτιος, Iliad 21.355), who is the god of a different sort of craft. (The English word ‘craft’, like the Greek mētis, encompasses both meanings.) Milman Parry says of this particular epithet: “ δῖος and πολύμητις, for the audience, describe the Odysseus of all the epic poems which sang his deeds” (MHV 171). πολύμητις is one of the distinctive epithets of Odysseus, while δῖος is a generic epithet of heroes (see Parry MHV 145 for πολύμητις as a distinctive epithet, and MHV 84 for δῖος as generic). Parry writes:

Epic lines without epithets would have seemed to them like a heroic character without his traditional attributes. But even now, who among those of us who have any knowledge of the legend has asked why Odysseus should be crafty in this or that particular episode? Just so, Homer’s listeners demanded epithets and paid them no attention, showing thereby the same lack of exact observation that becomes a habit with the modern reader. And it is this lack of exact observation that explains uses of the epithet which appear to us unmotivated, because we look for their motivations in the lines where they occur, rather than in all the poetry Homer’s audience had already heard before they ever heard him sing.
Parry MHV 137–138 As we discussed on 10.3 in connection with the phrase ποιμένα λαῶν, the phrase πολύμητις Ὀδυσσεὺς can be used of Odysseus even in situations in which he is not being particularly crafty; the distinctive noun-epithet combination is, to quote the formulation of Nagy once again, “like a small theme song that conjures up a thought-association with the traditional essence of an epic figure” (Nagy 1990b:23). The phrase is not without significance in an ambush context, however, because Odysseus is a pre-eminent ambusher within the tradition as a whole. Odysseus is called πολύμητις just as he leaves his tent, which marks the beginning of what will become a spying mission/ambush episode that will prominently feature Odysseus’ mētis. Once that episode is well underway, Odysseus will be again called πολύμητις when he interrogates Dolon (10.382; see also 10.488, where he handles the horses so they are not spooked).

149. mvp-comment-52-1 10.149 ποικίλον ἀμφ᾽ ὤμοισι σάκος θέτο Agamemnon and Diomedes each wear a lion skin, Menelaos wears a leopard skin, Nestor wears a khiton and khlaina, and all take a weapon ( egkhos or doru), but Odysseus takes only a shield and leaves without putting on any outerwear of any kind. This seemingly mundane detail actually serves two significant narrative functions. First and foremost, it sets up the extended arming scene that takes place at the assembly, just before the raid itself (see below on 10.254–272). Odysseus’ lack of appropriate gear here means that he will have to borrow armor at the assembly. Second, Odysseus’ lack of an animal skin has an intriguing corollary the Odyssey, where, in one of his Cretan lies to Eumaios in Odyssey 14, Odysseus comes close to revealing his true identity, at least from the perspective of a traditional audience of epic. Odysseus describes how once on a cold night at Troy he went out on an ambush. All the other heroes were dressed for the weather, but he himself had no cloak, and had to come up with a clever scheme to get one from one of his companions on the lokhos. Odysseus’ Cretan lie may well be playfully alluding to a Doloneia tradition, in which case the story is a coded verbal message ( ainos) directed at both the internal audience (Eumaios) and the external audience, who will “get” the inside reference. Such a reference is possible if we understand the Iliad (including the Doloneia) and Odyssey to be co-existing oral traditions, evolving in conjunction with one another. (On the ainos as a coded verbal message in Odyssey 14, see both Muellner 1976:97 and Nagy 1979:234–237, with further reference ad loc.) On the multiple significances of the shield being “intricately patterned” ( poikilos), see above on 10.30.

151. mvp-comment-53-1 10.151 ἐκτὸς ἀπὸ κλισίης σὺν τεύχεσιν Diomedes and his comrades are so ready for battle that they are not even inside their tent. Agamemnon had earlier stated his concern that the Trojans might be planning a night attack (10.100–101), and the preparedness seen here may also reflect the same “state of emergency” that is also prompting the night meeting and spying mission.

152-154. mvp-comment-54-1 10.152–154 ἔγχεα δέ σφιν/ ὀρθ᾽ ἐπὶ σαυρωτῆρος ἐλήλατο, τῆλε δὲ χαλκὸς / λάμφ᾽ ὥς τε στεροπὴ πατρὸς Διὸς Their spears are planted in a kind of palisade, perhaps as a defense while they sleep on this dangerous night, or perhaps so that they are easy to reach in case of attack. The shining of the bronze like lightning is a frequent image in Homeric poetry (see Iliad 11.66, which is also an explicit simile, and the metaphorical uses of στεροπή with bronze at Iliad 11.83 and 19.363, and Odyssey 4.72 and 14.268 = 17.437). In most of those cases, just as here, the gleam of the bronze has a threatening or awe-inspiring quality to it. That the bronze shines this way at night is suggestive in terms of what is visible in the dark.

159. mvp-comment-55-1 10.159 ὄρσεο The manuscripts are divided between this reading and ἔγρεο. The scholia indicate that Aristarchus had both readings: ὄρσεο· διχῶς ὁ Ἀρίσταρχος, ἔγρεο καὶ ὄρσεο [A intermarginal scholia]; ἔγρεο· γράφεται καὶ ὄρσεο. διχῶς αἱ Ἀριστάρχου [T interlinear scholia]. This is possible because two separate editions or ekdoseis of the text of Homer were attributed to Aristarchus (= αἱ Ἀριστάρχου in the scholia), both of which were known to his student Didymus. From Didymus’ scholarly work many of the scholia derive. (On the ekdoseis of Aristarchus, see Montanari 1998 and Nagy 2004:85–86. On the sources for the Homeric scholia, see Nagy 2004:3–24 and Blackwell and Dué 2009.)

159. mvp-comment-55-2 The sources, both ancient and medieval, are perhaps divided here because both verbs are well attested in the formulaic diction. ἔγρεο occurs here and in two places in the Odyssey; ὄρσεο is attested four times in the Iliad and once in the Odyssey. Clearly, both verbs could be generated by a poet composing in performance. Here is a perfect illustration of the difficulty a modern editor of Homer faces when trying to choose between two or more equally Homeric (= formulaic) variations. We, as the editors of this volume, have for this very reason rejected a traditional text critical approach, and instead have advocated a multitextual approach that accounts for the multiformity of the Homeric poems at different historical points in their transmission. (See above, “ Iliad 10: A Multitextual Approach.”)

159. mvp-comment-55-3 10.159 Τυδέος υἱέ See on 10.144 above. See also Schnapp-Gourbeillon 1981:96–100 for more on Diomedes’ patronymic and his youth.

159a. mvp-comment-56-1 10.159a The third-century CE scholar and poet Diogenes Laertius relates an anecdote (6.53) that features the hexameter line μή τίς τοι εὔδοντι μεταφρένῳ ἐν δόρυ πήξῃ. This verse is probably a literary play on Iliad 8.95: μή τίς τοι φεύγοντι μεταφρένῳ ἐν δόρυ πήξῃ. The twelfth-century scholar Eustathius may be in fact thinking of Diogenes and not Homer when he writes (in 519.32 ) ὁ Νέστωρ τῷ Διομήδῃ κειμένῳ πού φησιν· ἔγρεο, μή τις τοι καθεύδοντι μεταφρένῳ ἐν δόρυ πήξῃ (“Somewhere Nestor says to the sleeping Diomedes, ‘Wake up, lest someone pierce you in the back with a spear while you sleep’”; cf. Diogenes Laertius’ ἐπέγειραι, ἔφη … ). It is possible that Eustathius had a text of the Iliad with this line following 10.159, but the verse is attested nowhere else in our manuscripts.

177-178. mvp-comment-57-1 10.177–178 ἑέσσατο δέρμα λέοντος / αἴθωνος μεγάλοιο ποδηνεκὲς, εἵλετο δ᾽ ἔγχος Verse 177, after the caesura, and 178 are also used to describe what Agamemnon wears in 10.23–24, which is indicative of their formulaic nature and also suggestive of their use in night raid contexts generally.

179. mvp-comment-58-1 10.179 βῆ δ᾽ ἰέναι See on 10.32.

180-189. mvp-comment-59-1 10.180–189 As we discuss in the introductory essay “The Poetics of Ambush,” this simile emphasizes the sounds that are made in the dark, as well as describing a scenario of being on the defensive against a nocturnal attack (see above, pp. 63–64).

183. mvp-comment-60-1 10.183 δυσωρήσωνται is another hapax legomenon, appearing only in Iliad 10, but we can understand why it might only appear once in our extant Homeric epics from the simile’s interaction with its context. Although in other parts of the poem there are similes describing predatory animals attacking domestic flocks at night, and the retaliation of men and dogs (see e.g. Iliad 11.546–557), here the simile is for a particularly “painful” night watch. It is painful both because the young men on guard duty have had an extremely hard day of fighting and because the Trojans are camped out for the first time, closer than ever, during this night. (See also the commentary on 10.331 for more on words that appear only in Iliad 10.)

194. mvp-comment-61-1 10.194 τάφροιο διέσσυτο The act of crossing the ditch for the meeting conveys a spatial significance to the need the Achaeans feel and the plan they will construct to meet it. In Iliad 7, the Achaeans created a new boundary on the landscape by building their wall and ditch. The wall was built in the dark, before the dawn ( Iliad 7.433). In the subsequent daytime battles, the boundary created by these two elements is of the utmost importance. M. L. West notes that “once they have been built they are frequently mentioned again, in every book from the eighth to the eighteenth, as well as in the twentieth and twenty-fourth” (1969:255). The boundary is mentioned either in order to indicate who is winning at that point or whenever the tide of battle turns. In the battle that takes place on the day before the night of Iliad 10, for example, Hektor pens in the Achaeans behind the wall so that the entire space is filled with men and horses ( Iliad 8.213–216). The Achaeans rally after some inspiration from the gods and cross the ditch on the offensive ( Iliad 8.253–265), but Hektor forces them back over the ditch as he once again takes the upper hand ( Iliad 8.340–343). And, of course, the boundary will become even more significant the day after the night of Iliad 10, as the Trojans themselves cross it and threaten the ships with fire (the Trojans pass over the ditch and wall at the end of Iliad 12). Since the wall and ditch act as a threshold between the camp and the battlefield, one way of understanding the leaders crossing the ditch to hold their meeting is as a shift toward being on the offensive. Only the ditch is mentioned here: Petegorsky (1982:238n13) suggests that the “absence” of the wall presages its breach the next day. (For more on the poetic possibilities and traditional associations offered by the Achaean wall, see Boyd 1995.)

199. mvp-comment-62-1 10.199 ἐν καθαρῷ, ὅθι δὴ νεκύων διεφαίνετο χῶρος Another significant feature of the landscape on this night is the number of corpses left on the battlefield. No truce has been allowed this time for the gathering of the dead (compare the truce agreed to at Iliad 7.407–411). The Trojan camp is also in a space specifically said to be free of corpses (this same line is also used at Iliad 8.491), and a picture of the landscape covered with corpses is repeatedly evoked (10.298, 10.343 = 10.387, 10.469). Such a detail is a reminder of the intense battle of the day before, which is the reason both for the embassy to Achilles and for this meeting, which will result in the spying mission and ambush. It is also a harbinger of the even greater battle that will happen on the next day, adding to the eerie atmosphere of the nighttime landscape.

205. mvp-comment-63-1 10.205 θυμῷ τολμήεντι For the importance of a “daring (or enduring) heart” for spying missions or ambush, see below on 10.231, 10.244, and 10.248, as well as “The Poetics of Ambush.”

206-210. mvp-comment-64-1 10.206–210 Fenik (1964:41) excoriates these lines, calling the idea that the Trojans might retreat into the city “wholly fatuous,” and he uses them to inquire “whether some special grounds, other than general incompetence, were responsible for the K poet’s extraordinary failure here.” But the assumption that a different, individual author composed these lines leads to the kind of evaluation that Fenik makes. Instead, using approaches based in oral poetics, we can see how these lines do not ignore the situation that the Iliad has presented, but rather resonate with what is to come. Diomedes and Odysseus will indeed capture (and kill, ἕλοι can mean both) someone at the edge of the enemy ( ἐσχατόωντα): in fact, this can allude to both Dolon, from whom they will get information, and Rhesos, whose army is described as encamped at the edge: ἔσχατοι ἄλλων (10.434). Just so, the Trojans will not consider retreating on this night, though they will the next night (see Iliad 18.243–313). Petegorsky (1982:225–230) argues that Nestor’s proposal anticipates the later Trojan council scenes, during the next day’s fighting, particularly that in Iliad 18, in anticipation of Achilles’ return.

211-212. mvp-comment-65-1 10.211–212 καὶ ἂψ εἰς ἡμέας ἔλθοι / ἀσκηθὴς When he proposes the spying mission, Nestor includes the crucial completion of the mission: namely, that the spy return to report what he has found out. The return of the spy ‘unscathed’ connects to the greater theme, and it shares concepts with the theme of the journey. One concern with any of these nighttime or secret operations, such as spying missions or ambushes, is that, if those who undertake them do not return, their comrades may never know what happened to them. Whether, how, and by whom a spy has been killed cannot be verified, and it is such knowledge that allows a warrior to be buried and honored after death. This lack of knowledge provides a strong contrast to daytime battle, in which one comrade will see another fall, and will subsequently go to protect his corpse or to attack his killer in retaliation. That sequence in battle is a pattern we see again and again in the Iliad. The same contrast between a death in open battle (bringing honor) and a death that occurs on a journey (resulting in an inability to bury and honor the person lost because of a lack of knowledge as well as the lack of the corpse) is expressed by loved ones of Odysseus in the Odyssey. The sentiment is first expressed by Telemakhos:

νῦν δ’ ἑτέρως ἐβόλοντο θεοὶ κακὰ μητιόωντες,
235 οἳ κεῖνον μὲν ἄϊστον ἐποίησαν περὶ πάντων
ἀνθρώπων, ἐπεὶ οὔ κε θανόντι περ ὧδ’ ἀκαχοίμην,
εἰ μετὰ οἷσ’ ἑτάροισι δάμη Τρώων ἐνὶ δήμῳ,
ἠὲ φίλων ἐν χερσίν, ἐπεὶ πόλεμον τολύπευσε.
τῶ κέν οἱ τύμβον μὲν ἐποίησαν Παναχαιοί,
240 ἠδέ κε καὶ ᾧ παιδὶ μέγα κλέος ἤρατ’ ὀπίσσω.
νῦν δέ μιν ἀκλειῶς
ρπυιαι ἀνηρέψαντο·
οἴχετ’ ἄϊστος ἄπυστος, ἐμοὶ δ’ ὀδύνας τε γόους τε
κάλλιπεν·
Odyssey 1.234–243
But now the gods have willed it otherwise, devising evils,
235 who have made that man [Odysseus] unseen beyond all
mortals, since I would not grieve this way at his death
if among his comrades he was subdued in the district of the Trojans
or in the hands of his friends, when he had finished war.
All the Achaeans would have made a burial mound for him,
240 and he would have won great fame [ kleos] even for his child in the future.
But now the Arpuiai whirlwinds have snatched him up without fame [ kleos].
He is gone, unseen, unheard of. And for me pain and laments
he left behind.
Later ( Odyssey 14.365–372), Eumaios says something very similar in response to the disguised Odysseus’ story about the fate of Odysseus. He, too, contrasts the unknown circumstances of Odysseus’ presumed death at sea with a death in battle, after which a man’s comrades can bury him. A known death in battle brings kleos, which, having as its root meaning ‘something heard’ (see Nagy 1979:16, §2n3), is contrasted in Telemakhos’ words not only with an “unglorious” death ( Odyssey 1.241) but also with Odysseus himself, who is “unseen” and “unheard of” ( Odyssey 1.242). In Iliad 10, in the same line as ἀσκηθής (10.212), Nestor promises kleos to the man who undertakes this mission, but the return is necessary for that kleos to come about. For if a man were to go out on a nighttime spying mission, or an ambush, and not come back, he, too, would be unseen, unheard of, and could not be buried or honored properly.

211-212. mvp-comment-65-2 So the need to complete the mission, the need for a return, is one way that a spying mission resembles a journey in epic diction. Coming back unscathed, ἀσκηθής, is used elsewhere in Homeric epic of a return home or of some other completion of a journey. It is used prominently in Odyssey 5 of the need to have both Telemakhos ( Odyssey 5.26) and Odysseus ( Odyssey 5.144, 5.168) return to their fatherland ( πατρίδα γαῖαν). At the very beginning of the story of his wanderings, Odysseus says that he would have returned home unscathed if the sea currents had not prevented him from making his way to Ithaka ( Odyssey 9.79–81). Thus arriving unscathed seems especially associated with sailing journeys, as Odysseus also uses it in one of his Cretan lies, in this case for an easy sailing from Crete to Egypt ( Odyssey 14.255; cf. Solon fr. 19 [West], who says that Kypris sent him home unscathed [ askēthēs] in a fast ship for a good homecoming [ nostos] to his own land). In one additional case in the Odyssey, Odysseus tells Achilles that Neoptolemos was very successful in battle and ambush (see pp. 47–48), and later adds that he was never hurt in the fighting—he was ἀσκηθής, never touched by a weapon. Although the context has referred to both battle and ambush, the word actually describes Neoptolemos as he boards his ship for the journey home, again displaying the connection between sailing journeys and nostos. The “Odyssean” language that many scholars have noted in Book 10, and have even cited as proof of its non-Iliadic nature, may be a thematic result, not only of the greater prominence of ambush in the Odyssey, but also of this thematic overlap between spying missions or ambushes and journeys, especially journeys home and those over the sea.

211-212. mvp-comment-65-3 In the Iliad, ἀσκηθής is used in one other context, and that is, in fact, daytime battle. As Achilles prays to Zeus that Patroklos will be successful in saving the Achaeans and their ships from the Trojan onslaught, he asks as well that Patroklos then return unscathed to him at the swift ships: ἀσκηθής μοι ἔπειτα θοὰς ἐπὶ νῆας ἵκοιτο ( Iliad 16.247). Patroklos is not going on an ambush here, and there is no concern that what happens to him will be unknown. Instead, the fact that he is going as Achilles’ substitute must also be a special kind of departure for battle, and the desire for the substitute to come back unscathed evokes this same word (see Nagy 1979:292–295 for Patroklos as a ritual substitute for Achilles in this battle). Zeus’ reaction is to grant the first part of Achilles’ prayer, but not the safe return: σόον δ’ ἀνένευσε μάχης ἐξαπονέεσθαι ( Iliad 16.252). Petegorsky (1982:220–221) argues that these two uses of ἀσκηθής in the Iliad highlight the isolation of Patroklos going into battle without Achilles, in contrast to the pairing of Diomedes and Odysseus.

212-213. mvp-comment-66-1 10.212–213 κλέος ‘glory in song’ and δόσις ‘gift’ are not incompatible rewards in Homeric epic. Throughout the Iliad material prizes are a physical manifestation of a warrior’s place in the song tradition and are a major sources of contention among heroes. In Iliad 1, when Agamemnon threatens to take Achilles’ prize ( γέρας), the woman Briseis, Achilles says that he does not intend to continue fighting ἄτιμος (‘without honor’, Iliad 1.171). As Casey Dué has noted, the dispute over prize women in Iliad 1 is actually about τιμή ( Iliad 1.161, 1.174, 1.412, 1.503–510). This word is generally translated as ‘honor’, but it conveys specifically the honor heroes receive after death in cult and song as immortalized heroes (Dué 2002:45; see also Nagy 1979:118). In Iliad 9, Achilles, struggling with his mortality, rejects the gifts of Agamemnon and at the same time rejects the glorious death he will have in battle ( Iliad 9.410–416). So too do the competitions for the prizes at the funeral games for Patroklos in Iliad 23 have far greater significance than their material value. In Iliad 23.700–737, Ajax and Odysseus compete in wrestling, foreshadowing their competition for the arms of Achilles after his death and for the title of “best of the Achaeans.” In Iliad 23, neither can decisively defeat the other, and eventually Achilles calls the contest a draw, pronouncing that the victory (along with two equal prizes) belongs to both. (The individual contests have been analyzed by various scholars. See e.g. Douglas Frame’s analysis of the chariot race in Frame 2009:131–172 and further bibliography ad loc.) In Iliad 24, Achilles accepts a ransom for Hektor’s body, even though he knows that he too will soon be dead. He asks Patroklos not to be angry with him for accepting it, and says that they will share it equally ( Iliad 24.589–595).

212-213. mvp-comment-66-2 When we understand that prizes are inextricably linked with kleos in this tradition, we can better understand episodes in which heroes act in ways that we might call “selfish,” episodes which are often incompatible with modern notions of heroism (see e.g. Stanford 1965 ad Odyssey 9.229). The Little Iliad, according to Proklos, narrated the theft of the Palladion, a story that survives in several variant versions in which Diomedes or Odysseus or both try to get sole possession of it, betraying the other (see Gantz 1993:643–644). Likewise, Rick Newton (2008 and 2009) has discussed the way that Odysseus seeks gifts at the expense of his comrades throughout his adventures. Newton suggests that, in the Odyssey, guest-gifts function like a geras does in the Iliad: guest-gifts, whatever their intrinsic material value, are tokens of honor and prestige for their recipient (cf. Odyssey 5.29–42 and 11.355–361). Odysseus’ heroic pursuit of guest-gifts generates delays in his homecoming and is instrumental in causing the death of his comrades along the way. See also Newton 2005, especially p. 141: “[In] Odyssean hospitality … the acquisition of property … enhances the honor and status of the hero … But that heroic hospitality, like successful warfare in the Iliad, comes at a price, and a high one … Odysseus will reach Ithaca late and alone.” An analogy can be made between the Iliadic deaths of countless Achaeans due to Achilles’ wrath over his stripped geras and the loss of Odysseus’ entire fleet and crew during his Odyssey nostos.

212-213. mvp-comment-66-3 Note also that Nestor says there is kleos for undertaking a spying mission, making it parallel to fighting in battle. Nestor promises the sheep and a share at a banquet (see Nagy 1979:118–141 for connections between hero cult and portions at feasts), but the horses of Rhesos also become the reward and a visible sign of the success Diomedes and Odysseus achieve.