540. mvp-comment-217-1 10.540 ἄρ( α) Egbert Bakker’s work on this particle, as on many other aspects of Homeric diction, illuminates both what it means and how it is used in performance. Bakker explains that ἄρα is a marker “of visual evidence in the here and now of the speaker” and, more precisely, “the interpretation of such evidence” (Bakker 2005:97). Visual evidence had not yet been present during Nestor’s speech; he instead only heard the hoofbeats and tried to interpret them—as we have seen, in the poetics of night action, hearing precedes seeing. Although this ἄρα is not in a direct speech of a character, the action happens during Nestor’s speech: “He had not yet spoken every word when, look! they came.” ἄρ( α) marks the point at which Diomedes and Odysseus become visible, and thus their success in returning to the camp is confirmed. The particle happens to be omitted in three manuscripts, according to Allen’s edition, including the Townley.

542. mvp-comment-218-1 10.542 δεξιῇ ἠσπάζοντο ἔπεσσί τε μειλιχίοισι From the three uses of the verb ἀσπάζομαι in the Odyssey, we can see that it is used in contexts of welcoming someone who has just arrived after a journey. Nestor and the Pylians greet Telemakhos upon his arrival in Pylos ( Odyssey 3.39), Autolykos welcomes his grandson Odysseus after he arrives for a visit ( Odyssey 19.415: the whole line is very similar, χερσίν τ’ ἠσπάζοντο ἔπεσσί τε μειλιχίοισι), and the slave women welcome Odysseus home after Eurykleia has told them of his arrival ( Odyssey 22.498). Thus its use here is one more indication that spying missions and ambushes share the traditional thematic language also used for journeys in these epics, and we can understand such “Odyssean” language as related to the theme, rather than any indication of “lateness.”

542. mvp-comment-218-2 See above on 10.288 for more on the meaning of μειλίχιος. On that line, it is used to describe a muthos, and here it is used with epos. Although we may translate both words as ‘word’, Richard Martin has demonstrated that there are important distinctions between the terms in Homeric diction: epos is the unmarked term for “utterance,” while muthos is the marked term for a public speech-act, a “performance” of sorts that conveys authority and power (1989:22–30). When we compare the different contexts of the adjective μειλίχιος in these lines, then, we can observe that Tydeus’ muthos was indeed a public, performative speech in which he was at least trying to exert his authority, whereas these words of welcome carry none of those connotations. Martin also notes that “a muthos focuses on what the speaker says and how he or she says it, but epos consistently applies to what the addressee hears” (1989:16). Thus words of welcome are appropriately epea, since they are particularly heard as such by the addressee.

543-544. mvp-comment-219-1 10.543–544 These lines use the same formulas as Iliad 9.672–673, although there it is Agamemnon (instead of Nestor) asking Odysseus what Achilles’ answer was to the embassy’s request that he return to battle. As we discussed in our essay “Interpreting Iliad 10,” a singer could have composed these two episodes paratactically (with both episodes occurring during the course of the same night), as they appear in our Iliad, or they may have been performance alternatives of each other. The contrast between them is that while the embassy fails, Nestor treats this return as a resounding success, regardless of the insistence of some modern critics that Diomedes and Odysseus have not fulfilled their mission (see 10.406–411 for our discussion of whether Odysseus gets the information that Nestor suggested for the spying mission). Petegorsky (1982:175–254) argues that the Doloneia responds directly to the embassy’s failure, and especially to Achilles’ challenge that the Achaeans find some better mētis ( Iliad 9.423).

544-553. mvp-comment-220-1 10.544–553 Nestor’s greeting focuses on the horses with which Odysseus and Diomedes return. His statement that he has been active in battle but has never seen horses like these is particularly appropriate to the version of Rhesos’ story presented here, in which Rhesos and his Thracians arrive that night but have not yet entered battle. (See our essay “Tradition and Reception” for a full discussion of the Rhesos tradition.) Odysseus’ response describing the horses as “newly arrived” ( νεήλυδες, 10.558), which is the same adjective that Dolon uses to describe the Thracians at 10.434, similarly reinforces this version of events. Petegorsky (1982:205–206) has interpreted Nestor’s suggestion that the horses were given to them by a god (10.546, 551–553), along with Odysseus’ rejoinder that a god could give much better horses (10.556–557), as an allusion to the horses of Achilles, which were indeed a gift from the gods. This allusion, according to Petegorsky, shows how the success of the night raid as evidenced by the capture of the horses is “oddly concessive to Achilles” (Petegorsky 1982:206).

547. mvp-comment-221-1 10.547 ἀκτίνεσσιν ἐοικότες ἠελίοιο Nestor’s statement that the white horses “look like the rays of the sun” implies that they are particularly visible in the darkness, and it also has a temporal correlation in that dawn is now near. But on a deeper level, the important concept of nostos in the ambush theme (that is, the importance of the return of the ambushers) is also connected to sun imagery (see Frame 1978/2005 and 2009 for the connection between nostos and the rising, or return, of the sun). The conversation between Odysseus, the hero who achieves nostos (see also on 10.247), and Nestor, whose name, according to Frame, reflects an earlier function of “he who brings back to life and light” (Frame 1978/2005:96–115), thus connects the horses, which look like the sun that will soon rise, and the safe return of Odysseus and Diomedes, marking the success of their night mission. We may compare the moment at which Odysseus reaches Ithaca in Odyssey 13.93–95: at that moment, twenty years in the making, the sun rises just as the ship draws near to land.

560. mvp-comment-222-1 10.560 πὰρ δ’ ἑτάρους δυοκαίδεκα πάντας ἀρίστους We have seen in several places that, in the theme of ambush, it is the best, the aristoi, who are chosen for such missions. The thematic association of the best seems to be so strong that it applies to the victims of the ambush here as well. It would seem to apply to Rhesos in particular on the deeper mythic level, in which Rhesos is a grave threat to the Achaeans.

561. mvp-comment-223-1 10.561 τρισκαίδεκατον See above on 10.495 for more on the number thirteen within the tradition. There Rhesos is the thirteenth victim among the Thracians and the number caps the killing as last and most important. Dolon is sequentially their first victim, but in Odysseus’ narrative of the events, he is mentioned last and so caps off this list of victims as thirteenth. In other words, the thirteenth victim is once again the one singled out for a special focus. The A scholia note the discrepancy and say that some critics before Aristarchus made the number here ‘fourteenth’. Counting both Rhesos and Dolon as the thirteenth victim may also indicate something about the convergence of the Dolon story and the Rhesos tradition in this episode.

564. mvp-comment-224-1 10.564 τάφροιο διήλασε μώνυχας ἵππους Crossing the ditch is once again a spatial indication that Odysseus and Diomedes have truly arrived back safely—and successfully, since Odysseus leads the horses of Rhesos with them. As we saw at 10.194, the summoned Achaean leaders move across the ditch to hold the council. This movement indicates that they are then on the offensive and thus presages the night’s mission. Here, we notice that they all have remained there while Diomedes and Odysseus were on their mission. That solidarity among the whole group is made explicit in the next line as they cross back together, exulting in what Diomedes and Odysseus have accomplished. Compare 10.414–416, where Dolon assumes that Hektor is still at the place of the Trojan council while he is on his mission.

565. mvp-comment-225-1 10.565 καγχαλόων See above on 10.400, where Odysseus smiles, for our discussion of how to understand facial expressions within their cultural context as well as their formulaic and episodic contexts. Those same caveats apply to Odysseus’ laughter in this line, since laughter is another kind of nonverbal expression that has specific meaning within a culture. Some studies of laughter in Homer take their starting point from the suitors in the Odyssey, since their laughter is so memorable, but such an approach suggests the conclusion that laughter is negative in Homeric epic. Levine (1982) argues that laughter in the Homeric epics “generally implies a real or imagined physical or moral superiority over another person” (Levine 1982:97). As he strives to make that one idea fit every instance, the natural variety we would expect of different kinds of laughter in different situations is lost. He does not distinguish between the words καγχαλάω and γελάω or γελώς in his list of examples of laughter from the Iliad (Levine 1982:97). Colakis (1986) argues that laughter in the Odyssey “usually indicates some sort of weakness of character” (Colakis 1986:137). (The fact that Paris laughs on more than one occasion in the Iliad may contribute to this kind of interpretation.) Although she does not cite Levine 1982 on this argument, Colakis also asserts that smiles mean an actual superiority, a control of the situation, while those who laugh only think they are superior (Colakis 1986:139).

565. mvp-comment-225-2 Such interpretations of laughter do not get us too far in this case: certainly Odysseus could be expressing his superior position after he reports the victory that he and Diomedes have achieved. But he could also be expressing relief at having made it back and/or showing social solidarity with the other Achaeans who here, as earlier, exult ( χαίρω on this line and on 10.539). We need to be careful about how we interpret such culturally specific nonverbal communication, and not base our conclusions on the meanings of laughter in our own culture or on our personal feelings about the characters who laugh. For insightful approaches to and examinations of laughter in ancient Greek culture, including in the Homeric epics, see Halliwell 1991 and 2008. Halliwell recognizes the broad range of laughter in these epics, maintaining that “it would be misguided to claim a univocal significance for ‘Homeric’ laughter” (Halliwell 2008:97). Instead, he argues that “Homeric laughter spans a spectrum of feeling that includes both positive and negative emotions” (Halliwell 2008:53). So we must still pay close attetion to the uses of this particular verb in context in order to understand what its connotations for the ancient audience may have been.

565. mvp-comment-225-3 When we do look at other uses of this same verb, we find that it is used in situations of ridicule (such as when Hektor imagines that the Achaeans are laughing at the idea of Paris as the Trojans’ best fighter, Iliad 3.43) or perhaps excessive celebration in triumphing over an enemy (Eurykleia laughs this way in Odyssey 23.1 and is warned against such laughter by Penelope at Odyssey 23.59). Halliwell (2008:57n15) notes that the verb καγχαλάω is later associated with animal noises, inlcuding a horse’s neigh, so here we might wonder whether it emphasizes the particular sound Odysseus makes while perhaps evoking the horses he is leading.

565. mvp-comment-225-4 In terms of composition, though, the closest parallel comes from Iliad 6.514, which describes Paris returning to battle:

Just so the son of Priam, Paris, down from the height of Pergamon,

all shining in his armor like the sun, had gone,

laughing, and his swift feet were carrying him.

In this passage, too, we have the participle accompanying a verb of motion and enjambed as the first word of the following line. What is Paris feeling as he makes his way out of the city that makes him laugh? This passage follows the simile that compares Paris to a running horse that has broken free. (That simile is remarkable because it is repeated: compare Iliad 6.506–511 and Iliad 15.263–268, where it is used as a comparison for Hektor returning to battle.) The simile, as well as the laughter of Paris, conveys a sense of exhilaration as he moves. But the differences between the situations should caution us from making broad pronouncements about laughter and character.

565. mvp-comment-225-5 The parallel between these two passages has to do with the verbs of motion and the direction of the person who laughs. Paris laughs as he moves from the safety of home, the fortified citadel of Troy, back to the plain where the battle is raging. Odysseus laughs as he moves across the ditch, from the dangers of the night to the safety offered by the ditch and the wall the Achaeans have built. They are moving in opposite directions, yet the movement itself seems to provoke the same reaction. Thus within the traditional diction this kind of laughter may accompany such a transition between safety and danger.

566-579. mvp-comment-226-1 10.566–579 The end to the episode confirms what we have seen earlier: that the ambush theme is structurally similar to that of the journey, in that the return takes on a special importance. Now that Diomedes and Odysseus have been welcomed “home” to the camp, the end of their journey into the enemy camp and their successful return is marked by taking a bath and eating a meal, as we see so often in the Odyssey, an epic which is itself an extended version of a journey theme with many journeys and arrivals embedded within it.

572-575. mvp-comment-227-1 10.572–575 First, the two rinse off in the sea and “cool off” ( ἀνέψυχθεν); then, they take a bath in a bathtub. The latter is perhaps a hot bath, even though the language seen elsewhere in the epics about heating the water is not included here. See the next comment on 10.576 for more on bathing words.