in a list of passages where theōi hōs is used

in a list of passages where mortals are compared to gods (in the context of analyzing Arete’s comparison to a god/Athena Polias)

The time has come for Hector to die at the hands of Achilles, and his final moments of life are singularly grim. Achilles shows him no mercy, expressing the most brutal thoughts even before he vengefully finishes off the killer of Patroklos. Hector is forced to know in advance, before he loses consciousness to the death blow from Achilles, that his executioner intends to mutilate his corpse instead of allowing for a proper funeral. And the form of this mutilation is particularly horrific and morally shocking: attaching the body of Hector to the back of his chariot, Achilles will drag it around the walls of Troy for all to see the humiliation of his hated enemy. Is there any hope, then, for transcending such degradation? Only divine intervention, in the story yet to be told, could prevent the disfigurement of a heroic body’s beauty in death. But the story of transcendence must wait. For now, the focus is on the horror and the sorrow of a heroic death as seen through the eyes of Hector’s lamenting widow Andromache.

Copperplate etching (1795) by Tommaso Piroli, after a drawing (1793) by John Flaxman. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

In this speech, Hector finally understands that he has been delusional all along in thinking that he could possibly defeat Achilles. Athena has actively contributed to the hero’s tragic delusion, and now Hector sees clearly that his death at the hands of Achilles is near. Hector’s delusion is already signaled at I.18.243–314, where the assembly of the Trojans approves of Hector’s plan to stay on the offensive against the Achaeans—even after Achilles has already re-entered the Trojan War. The Master Narrator had commented at I.18.311: 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, phrenes. 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 comment on I.18.243–314 as also in the earlier 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 were tragically taken away from him when he most needed to have them.

Hector is now quite certain that he will in fact die at the hands of Achilles, but he wishes all the more to die in a way that will assure him of having the kleos ‘glory’ of poetry, and such ‘genuine’ glory is marked here by the negation of the adverb a-kleiōs ‘without the genuine glory [kleos] (of poetry)’. What he is saying, then, is that he wishes not to die without being assured of the kleos ‘glory’ of poetry. He has already been saying that at I.22.110. See also the comment on I.22.110, where it is already noted that the overarching ambition of Hector to achieve the genuine kleos ‘glory’ of poetry is recognized at the end of Andromache’s second lament, I.22.514. See the comment on I.22.514.

After wounding Hector mortally at I.22.326–330, Achilles now declares to his enemy his intention to expose Hector’s corpse as prey for dogs and birds to devour while Patroklos will be getting a proper funeral, I.22.335–336. In response, the dying Hector begs to be spared the horror of exposition to dogs and birds, offering ransom if his sōma ‘body’ is restored safely to his family, I.22.342, who can give him a proper funeral that features the all-important ritual of cremation, I.22.342–343. But Achilles rejects the offer, I.22.344–354, and he declares again his intention to deprive Hector of cremation and to subject his enemy’s corpse to the horrors of exposition, I.22.354.

Achilles declares to the dying Hector how certain he is about his ghastly intent to expose the corpse of his hated enemy for dogs and birds to devour, I.22.248 (also I.22.354). This certainly is linked to an even more ghastly uncertainty, expressed as a wish: if only the thūmos and the menos of Achilles, I.22.346, which can be translated here as his ‘heart’ and his ‘mind’ respectively, could bring him to do something that would otherwise be unthinkable, which is, to cut up the body of Hector and eat it raw, I.22.346–347. The use of the two words thūmos and menos here at I.22.346 is relevant to a comparison made earlier by Achilles at I.22.262: Hector is to Achilles as men are to lions. Elsewhere in Homeric diction, Achilles is in fact described as thūmoleōn ‘having the heart of a lion’, at I.07.228. As for the noun menos, which can be translated more literally as ‘mental power’ in contexts where it applies to heroes, it is used at I.20.174 in collocation with thūmos ‘heart’ in describing the impetus of Achilles as an elemental force of nature, comparable to the impetus of an attacking lion, I.20.171.

Achilles strips the armor from the corpse of Hector, I.22.368–369, who is lying there naked on the battleground while the companions of Achilles are jeering at him and taking turns at inflicting further wounds on his dead body, I.22.369–375. Such mistreatment of the corpse can be seen as a form of degradation that anticipates an even more horrific form of degradation that is still waiting to happen, which is, the dreaded exposition of Hector’s body to dogs and birds.

Further degradation awaits the naked corpse of Hector. Here at I.22.395–405, Achilles proceeds to subject the body of Hector to an act that is meant to disfigure it, and the Master Narrator hints at his own moral disapproval by referring to this act as aeikea . . . erga ‘things unseemly’, I.22.395. The generalized idea of ugliness as conveyed by aeikea ‘unseemly’ and other such words in Homeric diction is reciprocal: when you do something ugly to someone, making that someone look ugly, you are thereby making yourself look ugly as well. To be specific, I describe here in detail the ugly things that Achilles will now do to Hector. First, he pierces a hole between the ankle and the heel of Hector’s two feet, and then he threads through these two holes a leather strip that he attaches to the back of his chariot, I.22.396–398. Then he will drag the corpse through the dust and grime of the battleground as he mounts the chariot and drives off at top speed, with Hector in tow. At this horrific moment in the Homeric narrative, feelings of pity are prompted by the narrative itself at I.22.401–403. The Master Narrator prompts his listeners by focusing here on Hector’s hair, once so beautifully groomed but now all disheveled, and then on his head, with a face that was once so charming to look at—but now you expect this beautiful head to be mutilated beyond recognition, once it gets dragged over the harsh and scraping surface of the battleground. The Master Narrator concludes ruefully: the god Zeus himself is allowing all this to happen, I.22.403–404. But what is the god really allowing to happen? So far, there has been a mistreatment and even degradation of Hector’s body, yes. But, at least so far, there has been no disfigurement to be seen. As the Master Narrator takes one last look here at the corpse of Hector, the hero’s head is shrouded in a swirl of dust, I.22.405, and so his face is not visible. The next time the Master Narrator looks at the corpse of Hector, Achilles is displaying the body lying face down in the dust, I.23.024–026, near the stand where the dead body of Patroklos is lying in state, obviously face up. For a preview of this later moment, see the comment on 1.23.1–64. Even there at 1.23.1–64, though, it cannot be known whether the body that Achilles is intending to degrade has in fact already been disfigured. Once again, the face is not visible. At a later point, however, at I.23.184–191, it will become clear that the face and the head and in fact the whole body of Hector cannot be disfigured. The body is saved. In the anchor comment at I.23.184–191, there will be an analysis of this vision of salvation for Hector’s body.

Although Priam and Hecuba, the parents of Hector, have already seen with horror and sorrow what has happened to him at the hands of Achilles, Andromache does not yet know, I.22.437–439. She is in her private quarters, weaving, I.22.440–441, and she calls out to her handmaidens to prepare a bath for Hector’s expected arrival, I.22.442–444, not knowing what has already happened to him, I.22.445–446. Then and only then does she hear the sound of wailing, I.22.447, and now she starts to feel emotionally and physically undone, as her legs and arms start shaking and her weaving pin drops from her trembling hand, I.22.448. She calls out to her handmaidens, telling them to accompany her to the walls of Troy, so that she may see for herself what is happening, I.22.449–450, and then she starts to express her premonitions about the fate of Hector, which are already becoming a part of the lament that formally gets underway only at I.22.477, lasting all the way to I.22.515. While she expresses her premonitions, she is feeling more and more undone, I.22.450–459. Now her heart is in her throat, I.22.451–452. As she rushes up to the walls of Troy, where she will see what has happened, Andromache is compared to a mainás or ‘maenad’, that is, a frenzied woman possessed by Dionysus, I.22.460. Then, finally, she and her handmaidens get to see the grim scene, I.22.261–265: Hector is dead, and his corpse is being dragged behind the speeding chariot of Achilles. At the ghastly sight, Andromache faints, I.22.466–467, and her elaborate headdress comes undone, falling to the ground, I.22.468–472. The women of her immediate family surround her as she comes out of her swoon, I.22.473–475, and now she begins her lament in earnest, I.22.476–515.

Like Helen at I.03.125–128, Andromache is shown here at I.22.440–441 in the act of pattern-weaving. And, like Helen, she is not pictured as singing while weaving: rather, she weaves her song into the web that she pattern-weaves. The song that she weaves into her web is pictured as throna, which can mean ‘flower patterns’ or ‘love charms’. It can be argued that both meanings apply in the present context. A similar argument can be made in the case of the epithet poikilo-thronos applied to the goddess Aphrodite in Sappho Song 1.1: this word can mean either ‘with varied [poikilo-] flower patterns [that are pattern-woven on your robe]’ or ‘with varied [poikilo-] love charms’. I have more to say about these details in MoM 2§76 (also PasP 101n40). Further, at I.22.441, there exists a variant epithet for the web that Andromache weaves: this diplax ‘pattern-woven fabric that folds in two’ is described in some medieval manuscripts as porphureē ‘purple’ but in others as marmareē ‘gleaming’. And we find the same variation of epithets for the web that Helen weaves at I.03.126: this diplax too is described in some medieval manuscripts as porphureē ‘purple’ but in others as marmareē ‘gleaming’. Similarly, the antux ‘rim’ that is being made for the Shield of Achilles at I.18.479 is described as triplax ‘threefold’ and marmareē ‘gleaming’ at I.18.480. 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’. So, Eustathius recognizes here a crossover between the artistic worlds of metalwork and weaving. See the comment on I.18.479–480. See also the comment on I.09.130, where it is argued that the craft of pattern-weaving by Aeolian women is linked with the power of the craft of Homeric poetry to make contact with the Bronze Age. Finally, in the case of the two textual variants porphureē ‘purple’ and marmareē ‘gleaming’ as applied to the web of Helen at I.03.126 and to the web of Andromache at I.22.441, we learn from the scholia for I.03.126 that porphureē ‘purple’ happened to be the reading preferred by all three major Alexandrian editors of Homer—Zenodotus, Aristophanes, Aristarchus (see also HPC 274nn3, 4).

This word en-passein ‘sprinkle’ conveys a metaphor for the process of pattern-weaving. As we learn from the AT scholia for I.22.441, (en-)passein in the Cypriote dialect means poikillein ‘pattern-weave’. Metaphorically, Andromache is sprinkling flowers as love charms into her story by way of pattern-weaving floral patterns into a web that tells her story of love. By extension, the metaphorical world of pattern-weaving applies also to the process of making the kind of poetry that tells about the pattern-weaving of Andromache.

The wording here at I.22.444 is part of the lead-up to the lament of Andromache, which formally gets underway only at I.22.476. And the wording in this part of the lead-up, I.22.444, is prefigured by the wording of Zeus himself at I.17.207 in expressing the Will of Zeus regarding the sorrows of Andromache. To say it another way: the narrative arc represented by the Will of Zeus extends from the wording of the god’s plan all the way to the wording of the widow’s lament, I.22.476–515. See the comment on I.17.194–214.

At I.22.460, just as she is about to see with her own eyes the corpse of Hector, the distraught Andromache is already pictured as īsē ‘equal’ to a mainás ‘maenad’ (μαινάδι ἴση), that is, she is being compared to a woman possessed by Dionysus. Earlier, in an analogous context at I.06.389, Andromache is pictured as ‘looking like a woman possessed’ (μαινομένῃ ἐϊκυῖα) when she rushes toward the walls of Troy to see for herself the fate of the Trojans on the battlefield. In the case of the present context, I.22.460, the comparison of Andromache to a maenad is relevant to the undoing of her hair when her elaborate headdress falls from her head at the moment when she goes into a swoon, I.22.468–472. The undoing of a maenad’s hair is a traditional Dionysiac theme, as we see for example in a painting on a vase made in Athens sometime in the decade of 480–470 BCE (Munich, Antikensammlungen no. 2416): this painting shows a maenad transfixed by the gaze of Dionysus, who is looking directly into her eyes, and the maenad’s loose strands of flowing curls of hair are seen cascading down from behind her ears at either side of her head garlanded with the ivy of Dionysus. As we look at the maenad’s hair coming undone, we see a distinctive sign of her starting to lose control to Dionysus, of becoming possessed by Dionysus, of surrendering the self to Dionysus. See also Nagy 2007c:252–253, citing further examples from the visual arts. Andromache looks similarly maenadic when she falls into a swoon, I.22.466–467, while at the same time letting her elaborate headdress fall from her head to the ground, I.22.468–470. What follows is an epitome of further analysis in Nagy 2007c:249–251. In the dramatic context of Andromache’s swoon, I draw attention to the evocative word krēdemnon ‘headdress’, I.22.470. It refers to the overall ornamental hair-binding that holds together three separate kinds of ornamental hair-binding that serve to keep Andromache’s hair in place, under control, I.22.469: in this verse, the three separate terms for ornamental hair-bindings are ampux ‘frontlet’, kekruphalos ‘snood’, and anadesmē ‘headband’. The overall hair-binding or ‘headdress’ that keeps it all in place is the krēdemnon, I.22.470. Similarly, Varro (On the Latin language 5.130) speaks of three separate terms for ornamental hair-bindings traditionally used by Roman matrons: lanea ‘woolen ribbon’, reticulum ‘net-cap’ or ‘snood’, and capital ‘headband’. To these three words Varro (7.44) adds a fourth, tutulus (derived from the adjective tutus ‘providing safety’), which seems to be an overall term for the generic headdress worn by brides and Vestal Virgins as well as matrons. When Andromache lets drop from her head her elaborate krēdemnon ‘headdress’, I.22.470, thus causing her hair to come completely undone, she is ritually miming her complete loss of control over her own fate as linked with the fate of her husband: we see here a ritually eroticized gesture that expresses her extreme sexual vulnerability as linked with the violent death and degradation of her husband. For Andromache to do violence to her own krēdemnon is to express the anticipated violence of her future sexual humiliation at the hands of the enemy. Pointedly, the goddess Aphrodite herself had given this krēdemnon to Andromache on her wedding day, I.22.470–471 (further analysis by Dué 2006:4, 78). Another example of such ritual miming is the moment in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, verses 40–42, when Demeter tears off her krēdemnon in reacting to the violation of her daughter Persephone by Hādēs. The explicit association of the krēdemnon with Aphrodite reveals its erotic properties. The undoing of a woman’s hair, caused by the undoing of her krēdemnon, produces what I will call an Aphrodisiac effect. So long as a woman’s krēdemnon is in place, her sexuality is under control just as her hair is under control. When the krēdemnon is out of place, however, her sexuality threatens to get out of control. This ritual symbolism is part of a “cultural grammar of hair” (Levine 1995:95). Such a “grammar” helps explain why the virginal Nausikaa would not think of going out in public without first putting on her krēdemnon, O.06.100. She won’t leave home without wearing her headdress. Her gesture here is hardly a signal of being married. Clearly, she is unmarried. So, we see that unmarried women as well as married women like Andromache wear the krēdemnon in public. The gesture is simply a signal of propriety. Such a “grammar” is in fact typical of the Mediterranean world in general. A striking point of comparison is the figure of the sotah ‘errant woman’ in Hebrew Bible traditions, who is marked by the ritual dishevelment of her hair (Numbers 5:11–31). In this case, the ‘errant woman’ is a foil for the properly married woman.

in a list of examples of formulas for introducing a speech by an eukhomenos warrior, which Paris’ name-epithet formulas do not fit (in the context of analyzing I.11.379)

analysis of the equal power and danger accruing to the character who wields mēnis and to the one transgressing [MRBTP: 'ff']

in the list of offenses that (threaten to) incur mēnis

analysis of kēla theoio (as at I.01.053), here, through comparison with puri kēleōi

in the context of analyzing the only place in the Homeric corpus where a dative noun after eukhesthai is not a god/gods (but Hektor, and these verses among references to his ‘godhead’)

comparison of variant formulas with eukhetasthai for eukhomai in formulas with enjambed, present tense, sacral eukhesthai, in the context of analyzing Allen’s text of I.08.526

in a list of parallels to the opening of formula (A) hōs ephat’ eukhomenos… occurring in the last 9 books of the Iliad (with participles after phanai categorizing the speech, here as lament), in the context of analyzing formula (A) and the meaning of eukhesthai

in a list of parallels to the opening of formula (A) hōs ephat’ eukhomenos… occurring in the last 9 books of the Iliad (with participles after phanai categorizing the speech, here as lament), in the context of analyzing formula (A) and the meaning of eukhesthai

analysis of the development of Greek posis compared with Vedic pati-

The word epos consistently applies to what the addressee hears: Andromakhe says she wants to be out of hearing of Hektor's death—"May the epos be away from my ear" (22.454). The vocal quality of epos also underlies the phrase at 17.695: amphasiē epeō (Martin 1993:16).

Achilles' words to Hektor at 22.268-69, "order Hektor to 'remember every sort of excellence: now you must be spearman and intrepid fighter,'" deploy the formulaic "remember strength" phrase in a radically changed way. As the analysis of battle formulas shows, it is always the commander urging on his own troops who uses this turn of phrase. By throwing this familiar encouragement at Hektor, Achilles violates a linguistic constraint with precisely the same tonal effect as when he uses "winged words" to an enemy. The ultimate rhetorical insult to a warrior is to be infantilized or feminized: if Achilles can "remind" Hektor how to fight, he has already negated Hektor's ability to win. This is a strategy Hektor knows as well, since he used a direct "quotation" to Patroklos (the alleged "order" of Achilles, 16.838-41) in order to reduce his adversary to the status of an unthinking, obedient follower of directions. Here the rhetoric of recollection comes full circle: a commander's persuasive power depends on an ability to construct memories, and so does a warrior's attack on the enemy (Martin 1993:83-85).

For the broader analysis of memory as a muthos genre, see the comment on Iliad 1.259-274.

References

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

An observance of the role of speech in combat marks Hektor's later flyting speeches. He vows that Achilles will not complete his words (muthois, 20.365), and later attempts to insult his opponent with the conventional "words not deeds" tactic: "You were somewhat glib with words (artiepēs) and thieving about speeches (epiklopos muthōn)," he says when Achilles has missed him with the spear (22.281). The insult makes a global stylistic comment because it implies that Achilles' form was good at the level of utterance (epos), but his authority to speak, based on warring skill, was lacking—he only stole others' muthoi. Yet Hektor is upstaged as a critic of flyting language by Aeneas, whose long discourse on insults delivered to Achilles (20.200-58) is one Hektor can only manage a fraction of, and which strikes us as a borrowing from his cousin at that (20.431-33 = 20.200-202). As Hektor nears his death, he begins to lose confidence not only as a fighter but as one who creatively manipulates the language of war (Martin 1993:135-36).

For the broader analysis of Hektor's flyting style, see the comment on Iliad 4.336-421.

References

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