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.

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.

Beginning at I.18.483 and ending at I.18.603 are the verses that actually narrate the images that are worked by the divine metalworker into the surface of the Shield of Achilles. So far in the comments on Iliad 18, I have not capitalized the first letter of the word referring to the Shield, since I have been viewing this object primarily as an object in the making. But now, as I begin to view this imagined object primarily as a narrative in the making, I write Shield, not shield. And I now apply the technical term ecphrasis to this core narrative, by which I mean the narration of visual—or at least visualized—art by way of verbal art. From the start, I find it most noteworthy to report what we learn from the testimony of the scholia A for I.18.483: that Zenodotus of Ephesus (see under Zenodotus in the inventory of Words and Ideas) athetized this entire ecphrasis, that is, all the verses that narrated, by way of verbal art, the visual or at least visualized narrative of the Shield, I.18.483–608. (On athetesis and athetizing, see the inventory of Words and Ideas.) But Zenodotus retained these verses in the base text of his edition. (On base text, see the inventory of Words and Ideas). We know this from the fact that Aristarchus, in his edition of Homer, reported a variant textual reading that had been attested by Zenodotus in the case of one of these athetized verses, I.18.499. See the comment below on I.18.499. By contrast with Zenodotus, an editor like Crates of Mallos considered the entire narrative of the Shield to be an all-important part of the Iliad writ large: see the comment on I.18.478–609.