analysis of the Greek words for “doubt” and “fear” as connected to “two,” with this passage as offering a striking collocation

The Master Narrator now approaches what can surely be seen as the highest point so far in the narrative arc of the Homeric Iliad. Achilles has not spoken since Rhapsody 1. Now, in Rhapsody 9, he will speak again. And what he says will define what can and cannot happen in the rest of the Iliad.

The embassy to Achilles, featuring Phoenix and Odysseus in front of Achilles. Attic red-figure hydra, circa 480 BCE. Public domain image via Wikimedia Commons.

As the three ambassadors and the two heralds proceed toward the shelter of Achilles, a series of dual forms is activated in the narrative, starting already with the very first verse and continuing from there: 182, 183, 185, 192, 196, 197, 198. The intervening plurals as at 186 are negligible, since plurals can normally substitute for duals in Homeric diction. But duals cannot substitute for plurals. So, the problem is, who are the referents in these contexts where the dual form is used? One way to approach the problem is to follow through on the formulation of Nestor, who had said that Phoenix must lead the embassy, I.09.168, followed by Ajax and then by Odysseus, I.09.169. See the comment on I.09.167–170. But then, when the group reaches the shelter of Achilles, it is said explicitly that Odysseus now takes the lead, I.09.192. Further, when Ajax signals to Phoenix at I.09.223, it is Odysseus who picks up the signal instead, as indicated by the verb noeîn ‘take note (of), notice’ (see further the comment on I.09.223), and now it will be Odysseus and not Phoenix who delivers the first of the three speeches. At I.09.224, Odysseus fills a goblet with wine and toasts Achilles—a gesture that may have seemed more appropriate for Achilles to perform as the host, not for Odysseus as the guest. For Odysseus to violate the etiquette is not to violate the traditions of myth, however, in that it is traditional for the figure of Odysseus to violate rules of etiquette. At O.08.475–476, to cite another example, Odysseus seems to be behaving like a host in a situation where he is really the guest. For more on this point, see HQ 142. In any case, right after pouring the wine and toasting Achilles, Odysseus starts at I.09.225 to deliver the first of the three speeches addressed by the three ambassadors to Achilles. Only after this speech of Odysseus, I.09.225–306, and after the reply of Achilles to that speech, I.09.308–429, will Phoenix get a chance to give his own speech, I.09.434–605—even though Nestor had intended for Phoenix to be the first speaker. So, returning to I.09.192, where Odysseus already takes the lead away from Phoenix, we can view this point in the narrative as the marker of a transition: before this point, the dual forms could refer to Ajax and Odysseus, as led by Phoenix, but then, after this point, the dual forms could refer to Phoenix and Ajax, as led by Odysseus. Alternatively the dual forms in these verses could have an elliptic function, where a singular X is paired with a group Y. This way, the dual still refers to a pair, even though the second part of the pair is a group.

Achilles greets the ambassadors in the dual, I.09.197–198, and not in the plural. And he refers to them first as philoi ‘near and dear’, I.09.197, and then as the philtatoi ‘most near and dear’ among the Achaeans, I.09.198; again at I.09.204, he refers to them as philtatoi ‘most near and dear’. But are the ambassadors really at the very top of this hero’s ascending scale of affection? The dual construction of the verb in the syntax of I.09.197 might indicate that one of the three ambassadors is being left out of the hero’s reference to his nearest and dearest friends among all the Achaeans. The ambassador who might be left out is Odysseus. At I.09.312–313, Achilles says to Odysseus: whoever says one thing but means another thing is as ekhthros ‘hateful’ to me as the Gates of Hādēs, I.09.313.

Here again the verb noeîn ‘take note (of), notice’ applies to the actions of Odysseus, who is specially linked with the meaning of this verb.

In these first four verses of the speech spoken by Odysseus to Achilles, there is an evocative reference to the dais as a ‘feast’ where portions of meat are being divided in an equitable way, I.09.225. The wording seems to evoke an epic scene where Odysseus and Achilles attended a dais ‘feast’ and quarreled. Such an epic scene is narrated at O.08.072–083.

Here is the speech of Odysseus to Achilles. It is the first of the three speeches to be delivered by the three ambassadors, and it is now being delivered out of sequence, in contradiction of the plan formulated by Nestor, who had wanted Phoenix to deliver the first speech: see the comment on I.09.182–198. See also BA 51. The speech of Odysseus starts abruptly at I.09.225, since the Master Narrator does not use formal wording to introduce the speech: instead, at I.09.224, Odysseus simply fills a cup with wine and, gesturing at Achilles, he just starts speaking directly to him, toasting him at I.09.225.

The wording of this verse, I.11.347, like the wording of the four previous verses, seems to evoke an epic scene as narrated at O.08.072–083. The future pēma ‘pain’ that is feared by the Achaeans here at I.09.229 is comparable to the future pēma ‘pain’ of the Trojan War as described at O.08.081.

The thunder and lightning of Zeus are interpreted here as a sēma ‘sign, signal’ of the Will of Zeus.

The fear of the Achaeans is that Hector’s fire will reach their ships beached at the Hellespont, and such a disaster would surely destroy them.

As Odysseus warns, I.09.249, Achilles will suffer akhos ‘grief’ in some unforeseeable way if he does not help the Achaeans right now. And there will be no akos ‘remedy’ for the pain of this grief, I.09.250. The warning will come true, since the future death of Patroklos will turn Achilles into a man of constant sorrow. See especially the comment on I.18.015–073; also the comment on I.23.046–047. Of special interest here at I.09.249–250 is the morphological parallelism of akhos ‘grief’ at I.09.249 with akos ‘remedy’ at I.09.250. Another morphological parallel for akos ‘remedy’ is the synonym althos ‘remedy’. Whereas akos and althos are synonyms, they are both antonyms of akhos, and the morphological parallelism of all three words serves to highlight the semantic contrast of akhos on one side with akos and althos on the other side. The morphological parallelism extends to names derived from the antonyms althos and akhos, since althos ‘remedy’ is to Althaiā as akhos ‘grief’ is to Akhaiā (see BA 88).

The wording of Odysseus refers here to the kholos ‘anger’ of Achilles. But this word is only a partial synonym of mēnis ‘anger’, which is a more specialized word that suits more accurately the relevant emotion of Achilles.

Embedded here within the speech of Odysseus is his restatement of Agamemnon’s terms for compensating Achilles. For a significant omission, see the comment on I.09.120–161.

The story that is being told here at I.09.128–131 and retold at I.09.270–272 centers on one single stunning event: Achilles captured the entire island of Lesbos. By implication, this island became Aeolian precisely because it was captured by the principal hero of the Aeolians. The vastness of this story is even broader in scope, since we can see in the Iliad occasional references to other such conquests accomplished by Achilles. Most prominent are the Iliadic references to his capturing of two cities located on the Aeolian mainland of Asia Minor: they are Lyrnessos and Thēbē. In the Iliad, the conquest of Lyrnessos by Achilles and his capturing of Briseis are mentioned for the first time at I.02.690–691. What then follows at I.02.691 is a mention of his conquering the walled city of Thēbē as well. Thēbē is mentioned already at I.01.366: it was there that Achilles captured another woman, Chryseis, when he conquered that city, I.01.366–369. For background on Briseis and on Chryseis, I again strongly recommend the work of Dué 2002 and 2006, listed in the Bibliography. Another native of Thēbē was Andromache, who had been married off to Hector at Troy before the beginning of the Trojan War: she was taken captive only later, after Troy was captured, and she was then allotted as a war-prize to the son of Achilles, Neoptolemos: the story was told in an epic that was part of the epic Cycle and was known as the Iliou Persis ‘Destruction of Ilion’, attributed to Arctinus of Miletus, plot summary by Proclus p. 108 line 9 (ed. Allen 1912). That said, I now elaborate further on the argument initiated in the anchor comment at I.02.689–694: the conquests of these territories by Achilles, especially his capture of Lesbos, can be interpreted as a charter myth that aetiologizes a prehistoric or even non-historical “colonization” of east Aeolis, as it were, by west Aeolian migrants from Thessaly, situated in the European mainland, which was the reputed birthplace of Achilles. See Nagy 2011b:171–173. In using the term “east Aeolis” here, I am referring to the islands of Lesbos and Tenedos, together with the facing mainland of northern Asia Minor. The “colonization” of this area has conventionally been described as the “Aeolian Migration,” and the term ‘migration’ here matches neatly the appropriate Greek word, apoikiā as used in Strabo 9.2.3 C401 and elsewhere (see Nagy 2011b:161). The reference at I.09.129 to the captive women from Lesbos can be correlated with the poetic traditions of Lesbos as later attested in the songs of Sappho and Alcaeus, both dated around 600 BCE. These poetic traditions, which are decidedly Aeolian, derive not only from the island of Lesbos but also from the island of Tenedos and from the mainland of northern Asia Minor facing these two islands. See HPC 184–185. Traces of these Aeolian poetic traditions can be seen in the Iliadic references to such figures as Briseis, Chryseis, Andromache, and the seven unnamed captive women from Lesbos. All these figures derive from Aeolian poetic traditions, and the same can be said about the figure of Achilles himself: in terms of his poetic heritage, he is Achilles the Aeolian. See Nagy 2011b:171–172. But there is an important difference to be highlighted here: Achilles is an Aeolian from European Thessaly, while the captive women are Aeolians from Asia Minor and from the offshore islands of Lesbos and Tenedos (on the captive woman Hekamede from Tenedos, see the anchor comment at I.11.624–627). In the Ionian poetic traditions of epic as exemplified by Homeric poetry, we can track the early influence of corresponding Aeolian poetic traditions as exemplified at a later period, around 600 BCE, by the songmaking of Sappho and Alcaeus. See also anchor comment at I.02.689–694 on: Aeolian women in the Iliad, part 1 and anchor comment at I.11.624–627 on: Aeolian women in the Iliad, part 3.

In the speech of Odysseus, he reports here at I.09.270–272 what Agamemnon said at I.09.128–131, but now the action of Achilles is narrated in the second person.

Among the prizes that Agamemnon at I.09.128–131 offers as compensation to Achilles are seven captive Aeolian women who were captured by Achilles when he conquered the Aeolian island of Lesbos. The story about these women as it is told here is then retold at I.09.270–272. The significance of the Aeolian identification of these women will be analyzed in the anchor comment that follows. The focus in the present comment, by contrast, is on the moral problems that are raised in the story about the actual capture of these women—and of other women in the Iliad who suffer the same fate of captivity. Two prominent examples are Briseis and Chryseis, captured by Achilles when he conquered the cities of Lyrnessos and Thēbē respectively, as noted in the anchor comment at I.02.689–694. All these women—the seven unnamed ones and the two named ones—evidently became the common property of the Achaeans after being captured by Achilles, and it appears that Agamemnon as the Achaean over-king originally had a say, ostensibly by way of public deliberation with the rest of the Achaeans, in deciding which woman was allotted as a war-prize to which Achaean man. Even though all these women were captured by Achilles alone, they were thereafter to be distributed as war-prizes among the Achaean men as a group. In terms of this reconstruction of the story as outlined here, the role of Agamemnon in having a say about the awarding of these captive women as war-prizes is morally problematic. Likewise problematic is this over-king’s role in the original awarding of the captive woman Briseis, with the approval of the Achaeans, as a war-prize to Achilles—and in the parallel awarding of the captive woman Chryseis to himself. Moreover, the seizing of Briseis by Agamemnon after his loss of Chryseis is even more problematic. Here, then, is the overriding question to be asked about the treatment of all these women as war-prizes: is Agamemnon entitled to have a say in deciding which Achaean man will have sex with which woman? And the question can be broadened: are the Achaeans as a group entitled to make such decisions? Such a broader question extends also to Achilles.

analysis of Achilles’ response to Odysseus’ speech, and the place of those who are philoi to him in his mēnis’ turning into philotēs

analysis of the place of Achilles’ singing klea andrōn in his mēnis’ turning into philotēs

analysis of the place of Achilles’ singing klea andrōn in his mēnis’ turning into philotēs

analysis of the place of Achilles’ singing klea andrōn in his mēnis’ turning into philotēs

analysis of the significance of the sacrificial meal Patroklos is cooking being salted

analysis of Odysseus’ speech to Achilles (esp. regarding philophrosunē) and Odysseus’ separation of the interests of Agamemnon and the rest of the Achaeans, contrary to the way Achilles views the situation

The vexed problem of the dual-number verb forms in the embassy scene of Book 9—where verbs referring to two persons are applied to an embassy comprising three, Phoinix, Odysseus, and Aias—admits of a solution based on the close contact between Homer and Achilles. Gregory Nagy's suggestion that Odysseus, the traditional nemesis of Achilles, is the intrusive element in the embassy has the advantage of being grounded in attested themes of Greek epic. If one prefers a solution from larger patterns of narrative voice, the close contact between Homer and Achilles, his voice, would lead one to consider Phoinix the odd man out, because the relationship between Achilles and Phoinix is such that the young hero, speaking, could assume the presence of the older man as natural and address dual verb forms to Odysseus and Aias, neither of whom belongs in his quarters. It is one of the more pragmatically interesting features of literary semantics that a speaker may assume the presence of a non-introduced hearer who shares his own knowledge. Achilles is such a speaker; Homer, as narrator, takes the stance of Achilles and uses the speech habit again—the duals—associated with this stance (Martin 1993:236-37).

For the apostrophe to Patroklos as a related consequence of Achilles' role as focalizer, see the comment on Iliad 16.19. For the broader argument regarding the identification of Homer's narrative voice with Achilles, see the comment on Iliad 2.488-492.

References

Martin, R. P. 1993. The Language of Heroes: Speech and Performance in the Iliad. Ithaca.