¹ Griffin, J., Homer on Life and Death (Cambridge, 1980), 94Google Scholar. The assessment is repeated in Griffin's entry in Finkelberg, M. (ed.), The Homer Encyclopedia (Malden, MA and Oxford, 2011), 198–9Google Scholar s.v. ‘death’.

² Cf. e.g. van Wees, H., ‘Heroes, knights and nutters: warrior mentality in Homer’, in Lloyd, A.B. (ed.), Battle in Antiquity (Swansea, 1996), 1–86, at 38Google Scholar.

³ Cf. e.g. Gibbs, R.W. Jr., ‘Why many concepts are metaphorical’, Cognition 61 (1996), 309–19CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed. On emotions and their dependence on metaphors, cf. especially Kövecses, Z., Metaphors of Anger, Pride and Love: A Lexical Approach to the Structure of Concepts (Philadelphia and Amsterdam, 1986)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Kövecses, Z., Metaphor and Emotion (Cambridge, 2000)Google Scholar and Kövecses, Z., ‘Metaphor and emotion’, in Gibbs, R.W. Jr. (ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought (Cambridge, 2008), 380–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The similarities of some metaphors for emotions and metaphors for death in Ancient Greek have been pointed out by Cairns, D.L., ‘Vêtu d'impudeur et enveloppé de chagrin. Le rôle des métaphores de “l'habillement” dans les concepts d’émotion en Grèce ancienne’, in Gherchanoc, F., Huet, V. (edd.), Les vêtements antiques: s'habiller, se déshabiller dans les mondes anciens (Paris, 2012), 175–88, esp. 180–1Google Scholar.

⁴ The seminal publications of conceptual metaphor theory are Lakoff, G., Johnson, M., Metaphors We Live By (Amsterdam and Philadelphia, 1980)Google Scholar and Lakoff, G., Turner, M., More than Cool Reason. A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor (Chicago and London, 1989)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also Lakoff, G., ‘The contemporary theory of metaphor’, in Ortony, A. (ed.), Metaphor and Thought (Cambridge, 1993 ²), 202–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Steen, G.J., ‘The contemporary theory of metaphor—now new and improved!’, Review of Cognitive Linguistics 9 (2011), 26–64Google Scholar.

⁵ For the terminology of cognitive linguistic conceptual metaphor theory, cf. e.g. Evans, V., A Glossary of Cognitive Linguistics (Edinburgh, 2007), esp. 33–5Google Scholar or Kövecses, Z., Metaphor. A Practical Introduction (Oxford, 2010 ²), esp. 4–10Google Scholar.

⁶ Cf. Lakoff and Johnson (n. 4), 77–86, Johnson, M., The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason (Chicago and London, 1987)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Lakoff (n. 4), 239–41 or Rohrer, T., ‘Embodiment and experientalism’, in Geeraerts, D., Cuyckens, H. (edd.), The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics (Oxford, 2007), 25–47Google Scholar. On the physical basis of Homeric mental terminology, see also Harrison, E.L., ‘Notes on Homeric psychology’, Phoenix 14 (1960), 63–80, at 65–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁷ Cf. e.g. Lakoff and Johnson (n. 4), 3–6 or Lakoff (n. 4), 206–9. Note the convention in cognitive linguistics to print conceptual metaphors (as opposed to individual linguistic metaphors) in small capitals to indicate that they do not appear as such in texts, but are deduced from individual textual metaphors.

⁸ On this aspect, cf. the contributions collected in Gibbs (n. 3).

⁹ Cf. e.g. Lakoff and Johnson (n. 4), 36 and passim: ‘Metaphor is principally a way of conceiving of one thing in terms of another.’ Semino, Similarly E., Metaphor in Discourse (Cambridge, 2008), 1Google Scholar: ‘By “metaphor” I mean the phenomenon whereby we talk and, potentially, think about something in terms of something else.’ For metaphor as a natural and indispensable way of human thinking, see e.g. Lakoff and Johnson (n. 4), Gibbs, R.W Jr., The Poetics of Mind (Cambridge, 1994), esp. 120–264Google Scholar, or Gibbs (n. 3).

¹⁰ Cf. e.g. Lakoff and Johnson (n. 4), 3: ‘Metaphor is for most people a device of the poetic imagination and the rhetorical flourish—a matter of extraordinary rather than ordinary language. Moreover, metaphor is typically viewed as characteristic of language alone, a matter of words rather than thought or action. For this reason, most people think they can get along perfectly well without metaphor. We have found, on the contrary, that metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action. Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature.’ On this importance of metaphor, cf. also Cairns, D.L., ‘ψυχή, θυμός, and metaphor in Homer and Plato’, EPlaton 11 (2015), 2–8Google Scholar.

¹¹ In the wake of Milman Parry's influential and important assertion that Homeric language is formulaic and traditional, metaphors were dismissed as formulaic phrases serving as mere substitutions for more literal expressions and thus lacking in content and devoid of a deeper meaning; cf. Parry, M., ‘The Homeric metaphor as a traditional poetic device’, TAPhA 62 (1931), xxivGoogle Scholar (= The Making of Homeric Verse [Oxford, 1971], 419Google Scholar), and id., ‘The traditional metaphor in Homer’, CPh 28 (1933), 30–43Google Scholar (= The Making of Homeric Verse [Oxford, 1971], 365–75Google Scholar). Despite predating the work of Parry, this sentiment was already expressed by Keith, A.L., Simile and Metaphor in Greek Poetry from Homer to Aeschylus (Chicago, 1914), 33–7Google Scholar: ‘The most striking difference that the metaphors of the Iliad present as distinguished from the similes is the almost universal lack of deep feeling.’ Similarly, Stanford, W.B., Greek Metaphor: Studies in Theory and Practice (Oxford, 1936), 120Google Scholar: ‘But in quality, emphasis, vividness and imagination, the similes heavily outweigh the more frequent metaphors.’ Stanford disregards Homeric metaphor on the basis of his hypothesis that epic diction was not developed enough to allow imaginative figurative language for the sake of clarity (Stanford [this note], 122–7). Despite this claim, he cites a considerable wealth of metaphors in Homer (Stanford [this note], 129–39).

¹² Contrary to Homeric metaphors, which have received comparatively little attention, Homeric similes have been studied extensively: cf. among others Fränkel, H., Die homerischen Gleichnisse (Göttingen, 1924)Google Scholar, Coffey, M., ‘The function of the Homeric simile’, AJPh 78 (1957), 113–32Google Scholar, Moulton, C., ‘Similes in the Iliad’, Hermes 102 (1974), 381–97Google Scholar, Scott, W.C., The Oral Nature of the Homeric Simile (Leiden, 1974)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Moulton, C., Similes in the Homeric Poems (Göttingen, 1977)Google Scholar, Lonsdale, S.H., Creatures of Speech: Lion, Herding and Hunting Similes in the Iliad (Stuttgart, 1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Ben-Porat, Z., ‘Poetics of the Homeric simile and the theory of (poetic) simile’, Poetics Today 13 (1992), 737–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Minchin, E., ‘Similes in Homer: image, mind's eye, and memory’, in Watson, J. (ed.), Speaking Volumes: Orality and Literacy in the Greek and Roman World (Leiden, 2001), 25–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Scott, W.C., The Artistry of the Homeric Simile (Hanover and London, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar or Ready, J.L., Character, Narrator, and Simile in the Iliad (Cambridge, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹³ The term ‘mental infrastructure’ (German ‘mentale Infrastruktur’) was coined by the German ancient historian Christian Meier in several publications and in a broad sense denotes the knowledge which is essential to find one's way in the world; more precisely, in case of metaphors it denotes the cognitive structures which facilitate the coherent interpretation of experience and the construction of abstract meaning in language. Indeed, it has been argued that all thought and language about abstract concepts such as life or time always rely on metaphors.

¹⁴ Moulton, C., ‘Homeric metaphor’, CPh 74 (1979), 279–93Google Scholar acknowledged the lack of attention Homeric metaphors received so far before examining a few chosen examples in order to ‘illustrate the range and sophistication of figurative language in Homer’ (at 279) and concluding that ‘metaphor is a vital, significant part of the language of Homer’ (at 293). Cf. also the short section on Homeric metaphor in Edwards, M.E., The Iliad: A Commentary. Volume V: Books 17–20 (Cambridge, 1991), 48–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar and most recently Nieto, P. Hernández's contribution ‘metaphor’ in Finkelberg, M. (ed.), The Homer Encyclopedia (Malden, MA and Oxford, 2011), 516–17, at 517Google Scholar: ‘There is, then, considerable evidence for active metaphors in Homeric language, which is as rich, and even innovative, in this dimension as in so many others.’ This comparatively recent appreciation of metaphors is likely due to the developments in the field of metaphor theory in cognitive science (cf. n. 4).

¹⁵ Cf. Armstrong, C.B., ‘The casualty lists in the Trojan War’, G&R 16 (1969), 30–1Google Scholar.

¹⁶ For the structure of Homeric battle scenes, cf. e.g. B. Fenik, , Typical Battle Scenes in the Iliad: Studies in the Narrative Techniques of Homeric Battle Description (Wiesbaden, 1968)Google Scholar, Niens, C., Struktur und Dynamik in den Kampfszenen der Ilias (Heidelberg, 1987)Google Scholar, Kirk, G.S., The Iliad: A Commentary, Vol. II: Books 5–8 (Cambridge, 1990), 23–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar or Morrison, J.V., ‘Homeric darkness: patterns and manipulation of death scenes in the ›Iliad‹’, Hermes 127 (1999), 129–44, esp. 129–30, 135–6Google Scholar.

¹⁷ Cf. esp. Schein, S.L., ‘The death of Simoeisios: Iliad 4.473–489’, Eranos 74 (1976), 1–5Google Scholar.

¹⁸ When similes receive attention in cognitive linguistic metaphor theory, they are often treated as signalled metaphors, which does not do justice to the Homeric material; cf. the numerous literary studies cited in n. 12. A more detailed study of the relationship and conceptual differences between Homeric metaphor and similes is clearly a desideratum.

¹⁹ Morrison (n. 16), 131 (with n. 16) notes that this may be due to the metrical difficulties of fitting the four short syllables of ἀπέθανεν into a hexametric line. He lists θάνε (Il. 2.642; 21.106), κάτθανε (Il. 9.320), ἔθαν᾿ (Il. 21.610), θανέειν (Il. 15.289; 22.426) to demonstrate that certain forms of the verb fit the metre; however, considering the length and the subject-matter of the Iliad, θνῄσκω and its compounds occur only rarely.

²⁰ Note that κήρ, which is occasionally used synonymously with θάνατος (cf. Garland, R.S.J., ‘The causation of death in the Iliad: a theological and biological investigation’, BICS 28 [1981], 43–60, at 44–5Google Scholar), never occurs in descriptions of battle death.

²¹ On this conceptualization of emotions and other entities (such as σκότος, θάνατος and ἄτη), see Cairns (n. 3), 177–8.

²² This is a rather sweeping approach, and the question of whether treating some phrases as metaphors rather than as literal descriptions is justified will be addressed again in the course of this study. Note that ‘literal’ is employed in the sense of ‘nonmetaphorical literality’, as set out in Lakoff, G., ‘The meanings of literal’, Metaphor and Symbolic Activity 1 (1986), 291–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²³ On metonymy and conceptual metonymy in cognitive linguistics, see Lakoff and Johnson (n. 4), 35–40. Thus, the cognitive linguistic definition of metonymy, which is also conceived of as conceptual in nature, encompasses the stylistic devices of synecdoche (also called pars pro toto or totum pro parte respectively), antonomasia and metonymy proper. On metonymies and their frequent interactions with metaphors, see Lakoff and Turner (n. 4), 100–6.

²⁴ On orientational metaphors, cf. Lakoff and Johnson (n. 4), 14–21. On the coordinate conceptualizations up is good/down is bad, cf. also Meier, B.P., Robinson, M.D., ‘The metaphorical representation of affect’, Metaphor and Symbol 20 (2005), 239–57, esp. 244–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁵ Greek passages of Homer's Iliad are cited from the edition of Thiel, H. van, Homeri Ilias (Hildesheim, 2010 ²)Google Scholar, English translations are adapted from Verity, A., Homer, The Iliad (Oxford, 2011)Google Scholar.

²⁶ On the peculiar death of Mydon, cf. Saunders, K.B., ‘A note on the strange death of Mydon in Iliad 5’, SO 75 (2000), 24–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁷ Throwing down with a fatal blow was obviously the traditional application of this formula, but it occurs once more with Athena merely pulling Sthenelus from his chariot and taking his place in Il. 5.835; cf. Kirk (n. 16), 146 ad loc.

²⁸ Cf. Clarke, M., Flesh and Spirit in the Songs of Homer. A Study of Words and Myths (Oxford, 1999), 180Google Scholar: ‘[I]n battle, one's collapse on the ground carries an ominous significance of its own: the victor brings his victim down to the soil, πέλασε χθονὶ πουλυβοτείρῃ (VIII. 277 = XII. 194 = XVI. 418) and the slain descend towards and into the earth, γαῖαν ἐδύτην (VI. 19).’

²⁹ For the basic meanings, cf. the etymologies in H. Frisk, Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 2 vols. (Heidelberg, 1960–70), I.215–17 s.v. βάλλω, II.329 s.v. νύσσω, II.449–50 s.v. οὐτάω as well as Beekes, R.S.P., Etymological Dictionary of Greek (Leiden and Boston, 2010), 197–8Google Scholar s.v. βάλλω, 1028 s.v. νύσσω, 1131–2 s.v. οὐτάω.

³⁰ Cf. Frisk (n. 29), I.657–8 s.v. θείνω and II.33 s.v. κτείνω as well as Beekes (n. 29), 536–7 s.v. θείνω and 789–90 s.v. κτείνω. Both Frisk and Beekes denote the usage of θείνω and κτείνω in the sense of ‘(to) kill’ as originally euphemistic.

³¹ Garland (n. 20), 53 states that these verbs always ‘indicate a fatal wound except where there is an explicit statement to the contrary’, and Morrison (n. 16), 134 treats them as ‘abbreviated descriptions’ of death.

³² Cf. LfgrE II.570 s.v. ἐναίρω, 574–5 s.v. ἐναρίζω as well as Beekes (n. 29), 420 s.v. ἔναρα, who states that verbs originally meaning ‘(to) despoil’ are ‘euphemistic for kill’.

³³ Cf. the comprehensive entry s.v. αἱρέω in LfgrE I.339–71, which makes it clear that the basic meaning of the verb was ‘(to) take possession of something’ (German: ‘etwas in seine Gewalt bringen’, ‘sich einer Sache bemächtigen’).

³⁴ Cf. Moreux, B., ‘La nuit, l'ombre, et la mort chez Homère’, Phoenix 21 (1967), 237–72, at 238–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁵ On the distinction between ‘small fighters’ and ‘big heroes’, see Strasburger, G., Die kleinen Kämpfer der Ilias (Frankfurt a. M., 1954)Google Scholar. The glory of ‘big heroes’ is measured in both the quality and the quantity of slain opponents and in the case of the deaths which merely provide quantity only the act of killing is noted; cf. particularly the killing catalogues in Il. 5.677–9, 704–7; 8.273–7; 11.301–4; 16.415–18, 694–7; 21.209–10.

³⁶ On the analogy between fainting and death, cf. Clarke (n. 28), 139–43; however, it is commonly assumed that the poet applied formulae usually associated with death to fainting and not vice versa; cf. Morrison (n. 16), 138–44. Onians, R.B., The Origins of European Thought about the Body, the Mind, the Soul, the World, and Fate (Cambridge, 1953 ²), 182Google Scholar suggested that the image of death as darkness originated with the experience of fainting: ‘The “darkness” perhaps originated in the mist that darkens the eyes in faintness, (…)’.

³⁷ Cf. the argument of Moreux (n. 34), 242–4. On the common metaphorical use of light/darkness imagery to represent affect originating from the fundamental coordinate conceptualizations light is good/dark is bad, cf. Meier and Robinson (n. 24), esp. 242–4.

³⁸ The phrasing of ‘darkness taking hold of the dying warrior’ (Il. 5.47, 13.672, 16.607) might also be associated with metaphors for emotions which are also sometimes imagined as personified forces acting on humans from the outside; cf. Cairns (n. 3), 177 with n. 8.

³⁹ On darkness/night as substance, cf. also Dyer, R., ‘The coming of night in Homer’, Glotta 52 (1974), 31–6, at 32–3Google Scholar. On reification or personification as ontological metaphors, cf. Lakoff and Johnson (n. 4), 26–35.

⁴⁰ The construction is described by Dyer, R., ‘The use of καλύπτω in Homer’, Glotta 42 (1964), 29–38, at 29 and 33Google Scholar as construction ‘A: καλύπτει τινά (or τι), with impersonal subjects, = x covers, or lies over y.’ Only once, the metaphor occurs in active voice as a metaphor for killing, cf. Il. 13.425: ἐρεβεννῇ νυκτὶ καλύψαι.

⁴¹ Cf. Katz, J., ‘Evening dress: the metaphorical background of Latin uesper and Greek ἕσπερος’, in Jones-Bley, K., Huld, M.E., Volpe, A. Della (edd.), Proceedings of the Eleventh Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference, Los Angeles, June 4–5, 1999 (Washington, DC, 2000), 69–93Google Scholar. Katz proposes that Latin uesper and Greek ἕσπερος are derived from the root *ṷes- ‘be clothed’ and adduces evidence that Greeks, Romans and other ancient Indo-European peoples would have imagined Night as a personification wearing a shroud or a garment; however, in light of conceptual metaphor theory and the experiential basis of metaphors, I would suggest that the onset of night would have been conceptualized as putting a shroud-like garment over the land and that this notion is transferred to death through the conceptual metaphor death is darkness. Onians (n. 36), 95 notes that ‘darkness was thought to be vapour’, but while this accounts for the image of the cloud, the verbs used in the instantiations suggest that, as a substance, darkness was imagined as some kind of cloth rather than as vapour. This conceptualization accounts for the image of darkness being ‘poured’ over the eyes of the dying Acamas (Il. 16.344: κέχυτ’ ἀχλύς; cf. 13.544; 16.414, 580), since the metaphor of pouring is also used with real garments; cf. Cairns (n. 3), 178 n. 17.

⁴² I am grateful to Douglas Cairns for his suggestion that rituals of burial and mourning are likely non-verbal instantiations of the same conceptualizations death is darkness/darkness is a garment. Covering one's head to hide tears was a common Greek gesture of grief; cf. Cairns, D.L., ‘Weeping and veiling: grief, display, and concealment in Ancient Greek culture’, in Fögen, T. (ed.), Tears in the Graeco-Roman World (Berlin, 2009), 37–57, esp. 46–53Google Scholar and Cairns (n. 3), esp. 180 with n. 27, 181 n. 34, 185 n. 53.

⁴³ The explanation of Dyer (n. 40), 36 is not particularly helpful: ‘It is clear that death can be, like σκότος and νεφέλη, a substance which covers the eyes at death, for this is of the very nature of death in Homer.’ Rather, this usage of (ἀμφι-)καλύπτω presupposes the conceptualization of death as darkness and adapts similar expressions. Cf. also Moreux (n. 34), esp. 239–40, who argued that phrases describing death as dark/black are primary and older, while the formulae which explicitly mention the eyes are secondary and more recent developments stemming from the underlying conceptualization death is darkness.

⁴⁴ Cf. category A of the use of καλύπτω listed by Dyer (n. 40), 29, as use with an impersonal subject. Note that, even though death appears as the subject in this construction, it is not a case of personification: Θάνατος, the divine entity and brother of Sleep, occurs in Homer (Il. 16.672, 682; cf. Hes. Theog. 212, 758–66), but never takes active part in the processes of killing and dying on the battlefield. On the question of personifications in Homer, see also Clarke (n. 28), 231–63.

⁴⁵ The conceptualization of death as a garment is particularly salient in this unique metaphor which conflates two ideas: (1) death as darkness covering the eyes and taking the vision like a shroud, and (2) death as a cover which does not allow the dying warrior to breathe any more; cf. Janko, R., The Iliad: A Commentary, Volume IV: Books 13–16 (Cambridge, 1994), 381Google Scholar ad loc.: ‘The “end that is death” covers Sarpedon's eyes and nose, i.e. he ceases to see and breathe.’

⁴⁶ On associations of darkness metaphors with Homeric metaphors for emotions, which also employ garment metaphors, cf. Cairns (n. 3), 180–1.

⁴⁷ Kirk (n. 16), 62 on Il. 5.82–3: ‘The “purple death over the eyes” is associated with blood in all three contexts, here through αἱματόεσσα δὲ χείρ.’ The other two occurrences of the formulae are also preceded by mentions of blood (Il. 16.333; 20.476: πᾶν δ᾿ ὑμεθερμάνθη ξίφος αἵματι); blood is often described as ‘dark’ or ‘black’ in epic diction (cf. n. 50 below), but for πορφύρεος as the colour of blood cf. Il. 17.360–1: αἵματι δὲ χθὼν | δεύετο πορφυρέῳ. Cf. also the argument of Moreux (n. 34), 264–8 that πορφύρεος merely denotes ‘dark’ rather than a particular shade of purple or crimson.

⁴⁸ For πορφύρεος as the colour of textiles, cf. Il. 3.125–6, 8.221, 9.200, 22.440–1, 24.796. The passage Il. 24.786–801 from the burial of Hector is of particular relevance here, because it implies a close link between purple garments and death: Hector's body is cremated and his urn is wrapped in purple shrouds before placed in the tomb.

⁴⁹ For the suggestion of τέλος θανάτοιο as a kind of band or wrapping, cf. also Onians (n. 36), 426–32. The euphemistic metaphor for burial as ‘putting on (a garment of) earth’ is attested only in sources later than the Homeric poems (Alc. 128.17 L.-P.; Pind. Nem. 11.16; Aesch. Ag. 872; Xen. Cyr. 6.4.6; Ap. Rhod. Argon. 1.691; possibly also Thgn. 1.428); cf. Cairns (n. 3), 181 n. 33.

⁵⁰ Cf. C. Sourvinou-Inwood, ‘To die and enter the house of Hades: Homer, before and after’, in J. Whaley (ed.), Mirrors of Mortality: Studies in the Social History of Death (London, 1981), 15–39 and Morrison (n. 16), 136. See also Garland (n. 20), 45 with Table 3. Note also that in epic diction ‘dark’ or ‘black’ are also the epithets conventionally ascribed to blood (Il. 1.303; 7.329; 11.828, 844: κελαινὸν αἷμα; 4.149; 7.262; 10.298, 469; 11.812; 13.655; 16.529; 18.583; 20.470; 21.119; 23.806: μέλαν αἷμα; 4.140; 5.798; 14.437; 16.667; 21.167: κελαινεφὲς αἷμα); cf. also Moreux (n. 34), 250–1 with n. 72.

⁵¹ Cf. especially Morrison (n. 16), 136–8; Morrison notes the metaphorical character of death descriptions and the associations of the image of darkness, but does not analyse the underlying conceptualizations. Cf. also Sourvinou-Inwood (n. 50), 21 on the experiential basis of the conceptualization. Note also that an etymology of Hades as ἀ-ιδ- ‘un/not-see-’ has been suggested in Pl. Cra. 403a6–7; see also Moreux (n. 34), 241 and Beekes (n. 29), 34.

⁵² These metaphors are attributed by Nieto Hernández (n. 14), 517 to the ‘common conceptual metaphor HUMAN LIFE is a DAY’. This is a common conceptualization in modern languages, but Homeric metaphors do not employ the specific image of human life compressed into the span of a day (however, cf. the related ideas of human life as a season/humans are plants in Il. 6.146–9 and below) and only use the opposition of light/darkness to conceptualize life/death: thus, the conceptual metaphor death is darkness has a coordinate complementary conceptualization life is light, as is evident in the metaphorical conceptualization of living as ‘seeing the light of the sun’ (Il. 5.120; 18.61, 442; 24.558), and ‘being a light for someone’ (Il. 8.282; 11.796; 16.39; 17.615; 18.102–3; cf. 5.6; 16.95) is an image for saving one's comrades; cf. Tarrant, D., ‘Greek metaphors of light’, CQ 10 (1960), 181–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵³ Cf. Vermeule, E., Aspects of Death in Early Greek Art and Poetry (Berkeley, CA, and Los Angeles and London, 1979), 105Google Scholar. There is no mythological evidence to support this claim, i.e. stories that the dead in the underworld are imagined as feasting (like fallen warriors in Valhalla in Norse mythology); on the contrary, the dead are depicted as lacking sustenance and yearning to drink blood in Od. 11.

⁵⁴ Cf. Clarke (n. 28), 214–15 who distinguishes between a simple and a complex idea of departure to the underworld, depending on whether the whole body or its abstraction in the form of a ‘wraith’ is imagined as going to the underworld.

⁵⁵ Cf. Clarke (n. 28), 172–8, who argued that the original idea was the physical descent of the dead to Hades with the notion of the life-force departing being a secondary elaboration of this idea. Even though he is generally sceptical of metaphors, Clarke here seems to endorse the notion of an underlying metaphorical idea with different individual instantiations.

⁵⁶ Cf. J.N. Bremmer, The Early Greek Concept of the Soul (Princeton, NJ, 1983), 74–6 and the list compiled by Garland (n. 20), 47 with Tables 3, 6, 7, 8; however, Garland calls these expressions biological rather than metaphorical.

⁵⁷ Cf. Cairns (n. 10), 11.

⁵⁸ Cf. also Pelliccia, H., Mind, Body, and Speech in Homer and Pindar (Göttingen, 1995), 27–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar on metaphor and the personification of bodily organs.

⁵⁹ For a brief discussion of the interpretation and etymology of θυμός, see Garland (n. 20), 49–50, and Bremmer (n. 56), 64–6; for its usage in Homer, see Sullivan, S.M. Darcus, ‘How a person relates to θυμός in Homer’, IF 85 (1980), 138–50Google Scholar and Cairns (n. 10), 31–41.

⁶⁰ There has been an extensive discussion about the underlying belief of ψυχή in Homer, especially since the common translation ‘soul’ is based on post-Homeric usage; cf. e.g. Garland (n. 20), 48–9, Clarke (n. 28), 27–47, Cairns (n. 10), 11–22 and Cairns's, D.L. entry ‘psyche’ in Finkelberg, M. (ed.), The Homer Encyclopedia (Malden, MA and Oxford, 2011), 698–9Google Scholar. Bremmer (n. 56), 21–4 translates ψυχή as ‘breath soul’, but for the present study it is sufficient to state that in Homeric battle descriptions, ψυχή is the life-force or vitality of a warrior: cf. Warden, J., ‘ΨΥΧΗ in Homeric death-description’, Phoenix 25 (1971), 95–103CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Sullivan, S.M. Darcus, ‘A person's relation to ψυχή in Homer, Hesiod, and the Greek lyric poets’, Glotta 57 (1979), 30–9, at 30Google Scholar. Garland (n. 20), 48 notes that ‘of the 240 deaths in the Iliad, only four are actually described in terms of the departure of the psyche: Hyperenor (14,518f.), Sarpedon (16,505), Patroclus (16,856) and Hector (22,362). (…) There might, therefore, be a case for arguing that this expression is reserved only for the deaths of major heroes.’ This is unlikely, since Hyperenor is no major hero, and in his count Garland does not include Il. 5.296; 8.123, 315: τοῦ δ᾿ αὖθι λύθη ψυχή τε μένος τε; 11.334: θυμοῦ καὶ ψυχῆς κεκαδών.

⁶¹ Cf. also Onians (n. 36), 93–5 and Caswell, C.P., A Study of Thumos in Early Greek Epic (Leiden, 1990), 12Google Scholar: ‘θυμός functions as a synonym of μένος/ψυχή at the moment of loss of consciousness or death (…) in the subcontext of death, we see that at the moment of death it converges semantically with ψυχή, μένος, αἴων, and ἦτορ.’

⁶² Cf. also Garland (n. 20), 49 on ‘the number of methods of exit for the thymos’. In instances other than descriptions of battle death, θυμός is also located in the στῆθος ‘chest’ (e.g. Il. 4.289, 309; 7.216; 9.8 and passim) or in the φρένες (e.g. Il. 9.462, 21.386), whose own identification is uncertain, but which were located somewhere in the torso (probably the midriff, diaphragm or lungs); cf. Onians (n. 36), 23–4, Darcus Sullivan (n. 59), 149 and Clarke (n. 28), 73–9.

⁶³ On the etymological association of θυμός with breath or smoke, cf. Onians (n. 36), 44–6, Harrison (n. 6), 65–6, Bremmer (n. 56), 56, Clarke (n. 28), 79–81, 130–3, Frisk (n. 29), I.393–4 s.v. θυμός and Beekes (n. 29), 564 s.v. θυμός.

⁶⁴ Cf. Onians (n. 36), 95–6 (particularly about ψυχή); also cf. Andromache's faint in Il. 22.467: ἀπὸ δὲ ψυχὴν ἐκάπυσσε. However, cf. Garland (n. 20), 48: ‘Unlike the thymos, which is situated in the lungs (φρένες) or chest (στῆθος) of a living person, the psyche is never related to any specific body part.’ Sullivan, S.M. Darcus, ‘A multi-faceted term: psyche in Homer, the Homeric Hymns, and Hesiod’, SIFC 6(1988), 151–80Google Scholar, at 151 also claims that ψυχή ‘has no specific location in the body’.

⁶⁵ Cf. Frisk (n. 29), II.1141–2 and Beekes (n. 29), 1671–2 s.v. ψυχή. Cf. also Onians (n. 36), 93–4, Darcus Sullivan (n. 64), 152 and Clarke (n. 28), 53–60, 144–7. Thus, the leaving of the ψυχή might have originally denoted the last breath of the dying warrior and been a metonymical rather than a metaphorical way to refer to the moment of death: cf. the conventional modern phrase ‘(to) breathe one's last’. Clarke's attempt ([n. 28], 129–47) to read all phrases describing the departure of ψυχή and θυμός literally necessarily treats them as metonymies.

⁶⁶ Note, however, that already in antiquity there was a discussion about the meaning of ῥέθεα, which was interpreted as either ‘limbs’ or ‘face’; cf. e.g. Bremmer (n. 56), 17 n. 10 and Janko (n. 45), 420 on Il. 16.855–8. Schwyzer, E., ‘Deutungsversuche griechischer, insbesondere homerischer Wörter’, Glotta 12 (1922), 8–29, at 23–6Google Scholar and Clarke (n. 28), 133–4 argue for the interpretation of ῥέθεα as ‘face’, but it has become the communis opinio to translate ῥέθεα as ‘limbs’.

⁶⁷ Cf. Bremmer (n. 56), 17, who lists the different locations for ψυχή, but does not note any inconsistencies. Cf. also Harrison (n. 6), 76: ‘the breath-basis is clear from its departure via the mouth; and a secondary idea that it should simply leave through an opening leads to its departure via a wound.’ In assuming a primary and a secondary idea about ψυχή, Harrison (n. 6)—like Warden (n. 60), Darcus Sullivan (n. 64) and Clarke (n. 28), 129–30, 147–56 after him—adopt an evolutionary model to account for the inconsistencies in the usage of ψυχή.

⁶⁸ Cf. Bremmer (n. 56), Clarke (n. 28), 157–215 and Darcus Sullivan (n. 60), 31: ‘Only at the moment of death does ψυχή become prominent; once it has left the body it is active in its continued existence in the underworld. In life person and ψυχή are distinct; in death ψυχή is the only part of man that survives.’

⁶⁹ Cf. Warden (n. 60), 99 and Clarke (n. 28), 137. Other phrases which might suggest that ψυχή is destroyed in death are Il. 13.763; 24.168: χερσὶν ὑπ’ Ἀργείων κέατο ψυχὰς ὀλέσαντες; 22.325: ψυχῆς ὤκιστος ὄλεθρος; 16.453: τόν γε λίπῃ ψυχή τε καὶ αἰών; since it is plausible to assume that life is completely gone when it departs the body, the verse would indicate that ψυχή shares the same fate.

⁷⁰ On the knees as symbol of vitality, cf. Stenger, J., ‘Körper, Kognition, Kultur. Körperteilbezeichnungen im Griechischen’, in Müller, K., Wagner, A. (edd.), Synthetische Körperauffassung im Hebräischen und den Sprachen der Nachbarkulturen (Münster, 2014), 163–83, at 173–6Google Scholar. On the significance of the knees in Greek myth and thought, see also Onians (n. 36), 174–86.

⁷¹ Bremmer (n. 56) surmised that the metaphor of ‘loosening’ was taken from the unyoking or unharnessing of horses. However, the use of the simplex λύω, ‘(to) loosen’, might also be explained as standing in for the compound κατα-λύω, ‘(to) destroy’; cf. Warden (n. 60), 99.

⁷² Cf. Garland (n. 20), 50: ‘Two differences are, however, important: firstly, the thymos, unlike the psyche, has an established position in the body; and secondly, again unlike the psyche, it does not survive the death of the organism: whether it departs or falls apart, it has no value thereafter.’ Even though the ψυχή is never given a specific location, Garland's first assertion is doubtful, since the position of the θυμός also cannot be called established, since it does not appear to be fixed; the second claim—erroneously repeated by Caswell (n. 61), 49—is similarly false, since there is at least one instance where the θυμός is accorded a posthumous existence in the underworld (Il. 7.131).

⁷³ Cf. Onians (n. 36), 95. Note also Garland (n. 20), 50 on θυμοραϊστής and θυμοφθόρος: ‘Such epithets are, however, clearly formulaic, and their meaning should not be pressed too closely.’ Even though the adjectives θυμοραϊστής and θυμοφθόρος are formulaic (and thus, at times, not context-sensitive), this does not mean that they are generally devoid of meaning or that their meaning would have been nonsensical to the audience.

⁷⁴ On the incoherence of different ways of speaking about death in modern English, see Clarke (n. 28), 13–15.

⁷⁵ The translations adduced for this comparison are Lattimore, R., The Iliad of Homer (Chicago, 1951)Google Scholar; Murray, A.T., Wyatt, W.F., Homer, Iliad Vol. I: Books 1–12, Vol. 2: Books 13–24 (Cambridge, MA and London, 1999 ²)Google Scholar; Rieu, E.V., Jones, P., Homer, The Iliad (rev. ed., London, 2003)Google Scholar; Verity (n. 25); McCrorie, E., Homer, The Iliad (Baltimore, MD, 2012)Google Scholar; Powell, B.B., Homer, The Iliad (Oxford and New York, 2014)Google Scholar; and Green, P., Homer, The Iliad (Oakland, CA, 2015)Google Scholar. All translations were taken from death descriptions, and even though the collection is not exhaustive, it is sufficient to illustrate the flexibility and uncertainty of our own conceptual system regarding death and ideas of an afterlife.

⁷⁶ Metaphor has not been recognized as a valuable tool in explaining and reconciling inconsistencies and contradictions in the study of many Greek words, even though the difficulties have been noted: Darcus Sullivan (n. 64), 173 refers to Homer's and Hesiod's ‘imprecise and fluid notions about the psyche’. Morrison (n. 16), 130–2 treats images of night/darkness, loosening, covering, etc. as metaphorical, but phrases describing the departure of θυμός or ψυχή as a different category.

⁷⁷ Based on the possible etymological connection with ἀεί, αἰών might originally have denoted the time span of life and thus the more abstract concept of life as such. Dismissing the notion of metaphor and attempting a literal approach, Onians (n. 36), 200–6 interprets αἰών as tears, marrow and cerebro-spinal fluid, and Clarke (n. 28), 113 as a ‘substance tantamount to vitality’.

⁷⁸ Cf. Lakoff and Turner (n. 4), 12–14, where Il. 6.146–9 is even mentioned as an example. The formulaic expression ἄνθος ἥβης ‘flower of youth’ (Il. 13.484) and the epithet ὄζος Ἄρηος ‘scion of Ares’ (Il. 2.540, 663, 704, 745, 842; 3.147; 12.188; 20.238; 23.841; 24.474) are also based on this conceptualization. Cf. Clarke (n. 28), 34–5, 108 n. 121, who lists these and several other instantiations of this conceptual metaphor, but rejects the notion that they are metaphorical.

⁷⁹ The meaning and the interpretation of several aspects of this metaphor have been the subject of discussion since antiquity; cf. Moulton (n. 14), 285–6 and Combellack, F.M., ‘A Homeric metaphor’, AJPh 105 (1984), 247–57Google Scholar.

⁸⁰ Cf. Morrison (n. 16), 133–4. Contrary to Homeric metaphors, Homeric similes have been studied extensively: cf. the literature cited in n. 12 above. However, the question why similes from the source domain of flora and fauna are current rather than metaphors might require further study.

⁸¹ On images from the source domains plants or animals in reference to the target domain human beings, cf. the model of the ‘Great Chain of Being’ proposed by Lakoff and Turner (n. 4), 160–213, esp. 170–1; they state that in Western thought metaphors drawn from lesser forms of existence are routinely used to describe higher-order attributes and behaviour.

⁸² Cf. LfgrE II.212–16, Frisk (n. 29), I.346 and Beekes (n. 29), 301 s.v. δάμνημι.

⁸³ Vermeule (n. 53), 101 suggests that this use of δαμνάζω might have erotic overtones, since δαμνάζω and δάμνημι occur ‘in three related spheres of action: taming an animal, raping a woman, killing a man’. However, in light of cognitive metaphor theory, it seems more plausible to assume that the taming of an animal was the basic meaning, while the two other usages are metaphorical and based on the general conceptualization humans are animals. The conceptual metaphor appears to be very ancient and the special instantiation of conceptualizing marriage as a ‘yoking’ of a ‘bull’ and a ‘heifer’ can be traced back to Indo-European origins; cf. Campanile, E., ‘I.E. metaphors and non-I.E. metaphors’, JIES 2 (1974), 247–58, at 251–4Google Scholar.

⁸⁴ Garland (n. 20), 46 comments on the phrase: ‘A bolder use of language, perhaps not wholly metaphorical, is the expression “he slept the sleep of bronze”, which occurs only once (11,241).’ Unfortunately, he does not explain why the expression would not be ‘wholly metaphorical’.

⁸⁵ Cf. Moulton (n. 14), 283–4. For a more detailed interpretation of the metaphor, cf. Horn, F., ‘“Sleeping the brazen slumber”—a cognitive approach to Hom. Il. 11.241’, Philologus 159 (2015), 197–206CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁸⁶ Cf. Janko (n. 45), 220 on Il. 14.479–85 who calls this instantiation an ‘ironic metaphor’.

⁸⁷ Cf. also Sourvinou-Inwood (n. 50), 19: ‘Sleep may appear to us a natural metaphor for death, but Homer only uses it once (Iliad 11.241), while in Hesiod dying as though overcome by sleep is a blessing belonging to the utopian golden race of the past (Works and Days 116). So the event of death is perceived in terms of hostility, with almost no peaceful connotations.’

⁸⁸ For ancient notions of death in the poetry and the myth of Indo-European languages, cf. West, M.L., Indo-European Poetry and Myth (Oxford, 2007), 387–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar, whose collection also shows that some ancient ideas about death detectable in other languages do not occur in Homeric epic.

⁸⁹ In the course of their investigation of poetic metaphors for life, death and time, Lakoff and Turner (n. 4), 1–56 draw their examples mainly from English poetry, but also include metaphors from the Bible, the Homeric Iliad and a poem of Catullus; from a methodological point of view it is problematic to lump together metaphors from such diverse sources as instantiations of conceptual metaphors developed on the basis of a modern language. Currently, the most extensive theoretical discussion of the interdependence of metaphor and culture is Kövecses, Z., Metaphor in Culture: Universality and Variation (Cambridge, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; however, the scope of this study is predominantly synchronic, and the diachronic aspects of metaphor universality and variation are only touched upon.

⁹⁰ The question of (cross-)metaphorical coherence has been touched upon by Lakoff and Johnson (n. 4), 87–105, who—regarding their material—reached the conclusion that ‘complete consistency across metaphors is rare; coherence, on the other hand, is typical’ (at 96).

⁹¹ Cf. Cairns (n. 3), 182 n. 36.

⁹² Cf. Moreux (n. 34), 241 for the observation that, even though death is conceptualized as a loss of vision, the dead in the underworld are never imagined as blind. However, as one of the CQ readers suggested, in the Odyssey the dead are unknowing (cf. Od. 11.475–6), which might draw on the traditional association of seeing and knowing.

⁹³ Clarke (n. 28), 192 notes the ‘deeper ambiguity as to whether the inhabitant of Hades is the man himself or something we could call a wraith’. Even though usually death is the moment of departure to the underworld, burial can also be metaphorically described as ‘sending one's companion to Hades’ (Il. 23.137; cf. also 23.71 for burial as the moment of entry into Hades); cf. Clarke (n. 28), 181–2.

⁹⁴ Cf. e.g. Harrison (n. 6), 77, who notes that there is a ‘careless confusion’ of θυμός and ψυχή in Homer.

⁹⁵ On fantastic elements in Homeric battle descriptions, see Saunders (n. 26) and K.B. Saunders, ‘The wounds in Iliad 13–16’, CQ 49 (1999), 345–63.

⁹⁶ The problems and the inconsistencies of reconstructing a biological model from the Homeric death descriptions have been pointed out by Garland (n. 20), esp. 50–1. On the general lack of specificity and semantic difference of words denoting psychological or physiological functions in Homer, cf. also Jahn, T., Zum Wortfeld ‚Seele-Geist‘ in der Sprache Homers (Munich, 1987), esp. 182–211Google Scholar.

⁹⁷ Note that the inconsistencies arising from the attempt to draw conclusions about the ideas behind these phrases also show that in this case the metaphors cannot be explained away as the literal belief of language-users, as has been objected by Jackendoff, R. and Aaron, D. in their review of Lakoff and Turner (n. 4), Language 67 (1991), 320–38, at 327–8Google Scholar.

⁹⁸ I am grateful to Douglas Cairns for pointing out to me that it is not so much the concept of death as such that is difficult to describe but rather the subjective phenomenology of dying. For observations on metaphors and phenomenology, cf. also Cairns (n. 10), 48–9, 69, 82–3.

⁹⁹ Cf. also Garland (n. 20), 43: ‘[I]t is at least arguable that Homer's view of these matters [i.e. death and dying] never wholly rids itself of its dependency on poetic metaphor and formulae (…).’

¹⁰⁰ Cf. Stanford (n. 11), 130–1, who refers to metaphors of this kind as ‘euphemism or taboo metaphors’. However, considering the gory details of Homeric battle-descriptions, it is rather unlikely that the poet was held back from referring to death literally by such restraints.

¹⁰¹ Cf. e.g. Johnston, I.C., The Ironies of War. An Introduction to Homer's Iliad (Lanham, MD and London, 1988), 69Google Scholar: ‘The heroic code thus channels the vital energies of the heroes into the paradoxical search through killing and self-annihilation in war for something that will transcend time and fate. The warrior becomes most truly famous only when he has perished.’ On the ideal of heroic death in battle, cf. also Renehan, R., ‘The Heldentod in Homer: one heroic ideal’, CPh 82 (1987), 99–116, esp. 105–7Google Scholar and Vernant, J.-P., ‘A “beautiful death” and the disfigured corpse in Homeric epic’, in Zeitlin, F. (ed.), Jean-Pierre Vernant: Mortals and Immortals: Collected Essays (Princeton, NJ, 1991), 50–74Google Scholar.

¹⁰² The term ‘biotischer Realismus’ was coined by Friedrich, W.-H., Verwundung und Tod in der Ilias. Homerische Darstellungsweisen (Göttingen, 1956)Google Scholar: descriptions of wounds in the Iliad are vivid and lifelike, even if some of them are not realistic and medically implausible; cf. esp. Saunders (n. 26) and (n. 95), 361–2 ad loc.

¹⁰³ On the comparable function of obituaries as a means of endowing deaths of the battlefield with pathos, cf. esp. Schein (n. 17) and Griffin (n. 1), 103–43.