analysis of Hector and Polydamas in terms of the twin myth (inverted)

analysis of Hector and Polydamas in terms of the twin myth (inverted)

analysis of Hector and Polydamas in terms of the twin myth (inverted)

comment on the identification of Enualios with Ares, in the context of analyzing the identity of the war goddess in “Tsountas’s House”

analysis of Hector and Polydamas in terms of the twin myth (inverted)

analysis of Achilles reference to nóēma, which consists in his own nóstos, and which will remain unaccomplished precisely because he will not “return”

The centerpiece of Iliad 18 is the shield of Achilles, envisioned as a work of art that defines the universe. The divine artisan Hephaistos makes this shield by way of metalwork, but Homeric poetry reconfigures the artistry of this metalwork by way of verbal art. And the artistry of Homeric poetry will now create or re-create a cosmos that is designed to contain the Iliad itself.

“The Shield of Achilles.” Illustration originally published in The Penny Magazine of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, September 22, 1832.

As Achilles gets ready to rejoin his companions in the war against the Trojans, his head catches on fire, lit up by the power of the goddess Athena. This fire is described at I.18.206 as a phlox ‘burst of flame’.

The word here for the fire bursting from the head of Achilles is selas ‘flash of light’. On this word, which signals the Will of Zeus, see especially the note on I.19.003.017.

The word here for the fire emanating from the head of Achilles is simply pūr ‘fire’, I.18.225.

I note here only in passing the association of this adjective kratero-, in the sense of ‘having the power to win’, with the noun kratos ‘winning-power’. For more about this noun, see the comments on I.01.509 and I.11.317–319.

At this assembly, Polydamas advocates a defensive strategy now that Achilles has re-entered the war. But Hector insists on a strategy of maintaining the offensive, and his opinion prevails. The Master Narrator comments: this was a bad decision by the assembly, to approve the strategy of Hector, since the goddess Athena had taken away from them their senses, that is, their phrenes ‘thinking’, I.18.311. If the assembly had been sensible, they would have recognized that Hector’s mētis ‘mind, intelligence’ had failed him, I.18.312. As noted in the comments on I.06.286–311, I.07.017–061, I.08.538–541, I.10.043–052, I.11.200, and I.13.825–829, there is a pattern of personal hostility felt by the goddess Athena toward Hector as a hero who aspires to some of the same qualities that Athena herself exemplifies. Like the goddess, Hector can be seen as an exponent of (1) defensive tactics in the warfare of protecting a citadel from sieges and (2) mētis ‘mind, intelligence’—two qualities that are now tragically taken away from him when he most needs to have them in the macro-narrative of the Iliad.

The particle de (δέ) of I.18.356 is syntactically correlated with the particle men (μέν) in a preceding verse, I.18.354. But a rhapsode (rhapsōidos) could begin his performance with the de-clause, thus “stranding,” as it were, the preceding men-clause. Here is an example, with reference to the performance of a rhapsode in the Ptolemaic era of Alexandria:

καὶ ὁ μὲν ῥαψῳδὸς εὐθὺς ἦν διὰ στόματος πᾶσιν, ἐν τοῖς Πτολεμαίου γάμοις ἀγομένου τὴν ἀδελφὴν καὶ πρᾶγμα δρᾶν ἀλλόκοτον <νομιζ>ομένου καὶ ἄθεσμον ἀρξάμενος ἀπὸ τῶν ἐπῶν ἐκείνων·

Ζεὺς δ᾿ Ἥρην ἐκάλεσσε κασιγνήτην ἄλοχόν τε [I.18.356]

The rhapsode [rhapsōidos] was the talk of everybody—the one who, at the wedding of Ptolemy who, in marrying his own sister was considered to be committing a deed unnatural and unholy, began with the following words: ‘And [de] Zeus summoned Hērā his sister, his wife’ [I.18.356]

Plutarch Table Talk 736e

The historical occasion is the wedding, in the first quarter of the third century before our era, of Ptolemy II Philadelphus to his sister, Arsinoe, in accordance with the practice of Egyptian pharaohs—and in violation of Hellenic practices. Evidently, then, the particle de could be used to begin a rhapsodic performance, even in contexts were such a use was dependent on a preceding men-clause. For an example of such a de at the beginning of a Homeric rhapsody, see the comment on O.03.001.

The domos ‘abode’ of Hephaistos, I.18.369, is described as aphthitos ‘imperishable’, I.18.370, and khalkeos ‘made of bronze’, Ι.18.371. More in a later comment about the implications.

The cosmic river Ōkeanos is described here at I.18.399 as apsorrhoos ‘backward-flowing’ (ἀψορρόου Ὠκεανοῖο). Since this river is visualized as flowing around the world in a circle, its flow always comes back to where it started. Since the flow comes back full circle, the Ōkeanos is ‘backward-flowing’.

acc. loigon as occurring exclusively in combination with the verb amun-, in the context of analyzing the parallel diction used of the dire military situation resulting from Achilles’ mēnis and the plague resulting from Apollo’s mēnis, and the change from Achilles to Patroklos as the subject of the verb

Here is what the divine artisan wishes as he proceeds to make a new set of armor for Achilles: ‘|464 If only I could have the power to hide him from sorrowful death, |465 when his dreadful fate comes upon him |466 —as surely as there will be fine armor for him!’ (|464 αἲ γάρ μιν θανάτοιο δυσηχέος ὧδε δυναίμην |465 νόσφιν ἀποκρύψαι, ὅτε μιν μόρος αἰνὸς ἱκάνοι, |466 ὥς οἱ τεύχεα καλὰ παρέσσεται’). What follows is an epitome from GMP 296. Hephaistos is here wishing for something that is uncertain, and the wish is linked by the adverb hōde (ὧδε) ‘so’ with the conjunction hōs (ὡς) ‘as’ introducing an absolute certainty, that Achilles will have fine armor. In other words, the uncertainty of the wish, that Achilles be saved from death, is correlated with the certainty of the premise, that Achilles will have fine armor. I highlight the wording ai gar (αἲ γάρ + optative) ‘if only’, which expresses the wish, and the wording hōde… hōs (ὧδε…ὡς) ‘as surely as’, which connects this wish to the premise. We see here a parallelism with the wording ei gar (εἰ γάρ + optative) ‘if only’ when Hector expresses his wish to become an immortal, I.08.538 and I.13.825, and with the wording hōs/houtō…hōs (ὣς/οὕτω…ὡς) ‘as surely as’, which connects his wish to his premise as expressed at I.08.538-541 and I.13.825–828-that disaster will surely befall the Achaeans. In some cases, as in the three I have just highlighted, it sounds as if the speaker of the wish were expressing an obvious impossibility. But there are many cases where the wish being expressed is not at all meant to sound impossible: for an example, see I.04.313–314 and the comment there. Other such examples include O.03.218–220, O.14.440–441, O.15.341–342, O.17.494, O.17.496, O.18.235–240. For a more complicated example, see I.16.722–723 and the comment there. I save for a later comment some further examples.

The god Hephaistos makes a new set of metallic armor for Achilles to wear, replacing the older set that is now worn by Hector. The divine metalworker commences the work at I.18.468 and completes it at I.18.613. Then at I.18.614 the narrative announces that the overall work on the armor has now been completed. The metalwork itself is described as primarily bronzework, I.18.474, since bronze is the very first kind of metal that the god ‘was casting in the fire’ (ἐν πυρὶ βάλλεν), and then there are three secondary metals that are mentioned in succession at I.18.474–475: tin, gold, and silver. But bronze dominates the narrative. And the very first piece of armor to be made by the divine metalworker, as announced at I.18.478–479, is the sakos or ‘shield’, I.18.478, which is the centerpiece of the entire process of manufacturing the new set of armor for Achilles. The narrative that describes the making of the shield, which is already a description of the shield in the making, lasts from I.18.478 all the way to I.18.608. Then at I.18.609 the narrative announces that the work on the shield has now been completed. Just as the beginning of the narrative about the making of the shield announces the word sakos ‘shield’ at I.18.478, so also the ending that announces the completion of the work also announces again the same word sakos ‘shield’ at I.18.609, and thus the narrative has come full circle in a spectacular display of ring-composition. This ring-composition expresses here the circularity of the shield, but that circularity is also expressed by way of the adornment that encircles the shield. This adornment is the rim of the shield, presumably imagined as blue, and its encirclement of the shield is said to represent the cosmic river Ōkeanos, I.18.607–608. Such an encirclement of the shield by a representation of the Ōkeanos corresponds to the encirclement of the cosmos by the ever-circular flow of the Ōkeanos itself. See the comment on I.18.399. So, the correspondence shows that the shield in the making is in fact the cosmos in the making. As soon as the shield, as a narration in the making, is finally complete, the shield as an object in the making can finally be seen as a made object. What then follows at I.18.610–613 is the making of other parts of the armor: breastplate, helmet, greaves. And then comes the announcement at I.18.614, as already noted, that the work is now complete. Thus the beginning and the completion of the work on the shield, signaled in the ring-composition that starts at I.18.478 and comes full circle at I.18.608, is enveloped by a wider ring-composition that starts at I.18.468 and comes full circle at I.18.614.

As noted in the previous comment, which analyzes the wider narrative, the narrower narrative about the making of the shield begins at I.18.478 and comes full circle at I.18.608, followed by an announcement of the completion at I.18.609. For the wider narrative, see again the comment on I.18.468–613. As for the narrower narrative here, the analysis will require a different perspective. As the camera zooms in, as it were, on the world of images that are being worked into the surface of the shield by the divine metalworker Hephaistos, the artistic microcosm that we now see being pictured here represents a physical macrocosm that turns out to be the Homeric cosmos itself, defined by the world-encircling river Ōkeanos as its outer limit. The cosmic essence of this Ōkeanos, signaled at I.18.607–608, has already been analyzed in the earlier comment on I.18.468–613. Also, as noted in the still earlier comment on I.14.245–246–246a, the Homeric traditions about Ōkeanos coexisted with older traditions attributed to Orpheus, and, already in the ancient world, various interpreters developed various influential theories about the cosmos by viewing such Orphic traditions about the Ōkeanos together with the corresponding Homeric traditions. One such interpreter was Crates of Mallos, for whom the Ōkeanos was an essential part of an allegory about the cosmos: see the comment on I.14.245–246–246a. For Crates, his interpretation of the verses about the Ōkeanos at I.14.245–246–246a as a cosmic allegory was evidently coextensive with his interpretation of the verses about the shield being made for Achilles here at I.18.478–609. And there is a further extension: for Crates, the verses at I.11.032–040 about the images worked into the shield of Agamemnon were likewise a cosmic allegory: see the comment on I.11.032–040.

The antux ‘rim’ that is being made for the shield of Achilles, mentioned here at I.18.479 and again at I.18.608, is triplax ‘threefold’, I.18.480, and the outermost fold or circle of this antux is the Ōkeanos, I.18.608. For Crates, as noted in the comment on I.18.478–609, this design representing the Ōkeanos is part of an overall cosmic allegory. In Eustathius Commentary on the Iliad vol. 4 p. 218 lines 14–17, the commentator draws attention to the morphological parallelism of triplax ‘threefold’ with diplax ‘twofold’, the second of which words refers at I.03.126 and at I.22.441 to a pattern-woven fabric. So, Eustathius recognizes here a crossover between the artistic worlds of metalwork and weaving. On the diplax, see already the comment on I.03.125–128. The epithet for antux ‘rim’ as marmareē ‘gleaming’ at I.18.480 is relevant, since the same word is attested as an epithet for the woven fabric that is called a diplax at both I.03.126 and I.22.441 in the medieval manuscript tradition. As we see from the attested medieval texts, the epithet marmareē ‘gleaming’ varies with porphureē ‘purple’ at both I.03.126 and I.22.441. For more on the interchangeable worlds of metalworking and weaving, see I.18.590 and the relevant comment on I.18.590–606.

analysis of the fire Athena makes blaze from Achilles’ head as the fire of mēnis converted into a symbolic instrument of the hero’s philotēs

analysis of the fire Athena makes blaze from Achilles’ head as the fire of mēnis converted into a symbolic instrument of the hero’s philotēs

analysis of the fire Athena makes blaze from Achilles’ head as the fire of mēnis converted into a symbolic instrument of the hero’s philotēs

The word ἀριζήλη (arizēlē 'perspicuous'), whose repetition bridges tenor and vehicle in this simile, is an intensive form of the adjective δῆλος (dēlos), a word that is usually translated 'clear'. As the standard dictionaries and the etymological dictionaries say (see LSJ9 and Chantraine DEG s.vv.  δῆλος and ἀρίζηλος), it means 'clear' in a visual sense or in a logical sense, and in that respect, it is unlike the English word 'clear', which is also and unexceptionally used of sounds. In this passage, where the word arizēlē applies to a sound, phōnē, that issues from the mouth of Achilles and is echoed by the goddess Athena, we have a rare example of synesthesia in epic diction, a metaphor of visibility applied to a sound that is elaborated by a compressed simile that then goes ahead and visualizes a trumpet sounding when a city is besieged by its enemies.

analysis of the fire Athena makes blaze from Achilles’ head as the fire of mēnis converted into a symbolic instrument of the hero’s philotēs, and here specifically of the description of the perspicuous shriek from Achilles and Athena as analogous to thunder

analysis of the fire Athena makes blaze from Achilles’ head as the fire of mēnis converted into a symbolic instrument of the hero’s philotēs

in a list of passages exemplifying the complementary metrical distribution of eukhos and kudos

analysis of kēdea as a social phenomenon that creates a bond of solidarity

analysis of the variant prologue to the Iliad connecting the mēnis of Achilles and of Apollo and the parallels in its diction to this line

analysis of kēdea as a social phenomenon that creates a bond of solidarity – philotēs – and its narrowness in Achilles’ case in this passage

analysis of kēdea as a social phenomenon that creates a bond of solidarity

in a list of instances where phanai substitutes for eukhesthai where it is combined with comparative/superlative

Hephaistos’ making objects that move by themselves, mētis and its associations with females (specifically the creation of children), and the Hesiodic account of his birth, in the context of analyzing his role in Iliad 1 in quelling the dispute between Zeus and Hera

comment on Thetis’ exceptionality as a goddess with kēdea, which normally distinguish men from gods

comment on the relationship between ‘coming home’ and ‘escaping death’

comment on Thetis’ description of Achilles here in the context of analyzing Achilles as the first victim of his mēnis

comment on the nature of cross-reference in a tradition of performance, here the similarity of Thetis’ recounting to Hephaistos of the embassy to Achilles, which contains an expression otherwise found only in Phoenix’s description of the embassy to Meleagros

analysis of these verses and the meaning of legal eukhesthai in comparison with the Linear B tablet PY Ep 704, and development of the legal and secular usages of eukhesthai (etymology of eukhesthai)

in a list of passages exemplifying the complementary metrical distribution of eukhos and kudos

When Achilles refers to his earlier boast at 18.324—"A vain epos I tossed forth that day"—the use of epos rather than muthos can be explained by the nature of the original speech-act: as a boast, it is attracted into the language of actual boast descriptions, which often contain the formula eukhomenos epos ēuda. External factors—formulaic pressure, poetic themes in the larger discourse—can mask the inherent semantic distinction between muthos and epos. See also the companion case at Iliad 5.715, where Hera uses muthos with the same qualifier halion ("in vain") for a similar kind of failed public commitment (Martin 1993:28).