^{page 5 note 1} I am not suggesting that the Linear B script was used for this purpose; but its existence created possibilities not available to a non-literate society.

^{page 5 note 2} Hesiod, Theogony 53 ff.

^{page 5 note 3} So that the most heartfelt prayer to the Muses occurs not at the beginning of a deeply felt passage of poetry, but at the beginning of the ‘Catalogue’, Iliad 2. 484 ff., a list of names and numbers.

^{page 5 note 4} See most recently Detienne, M., Les Maîtres de vérité dans la Grèce archaïque, (Maspero, Paris, 1967)Google Scholar. I find some of this author's conclusions unacceptable; but pp. 11 ff. and 22 ff. furnish an illuminating evocation of the experience of living in a non-literate society.

^{page 6 note 1} Cf. also Odyssey 11. 505 ff., where Odysseus says anything Peleus, but will tell about Neoptolemus. The contrast, and the fact that ‘the whole truth’ seems a slightly odd phrase in the context, might lead us render by ‘all I remember’, ‘all I have not forgotten’.

^{page 6 note 2} Compare also Odysseus' threats in Odyssey 18. 342. A reluctance to speak ‘true threats’ might lead us to interpret the line in isolation as ‘threats he would not forget (to perform)’,

^{page 7 note 1} The anxiety which is felt is not that the character himself may forget a fact about the past, but that the other members of the society may not notice him adequately while he is alive, and may forget him when he is dead. See my and in Homer’, CQ NS xix (1969), 32 f., ‘Threatening, Abusing, and Feeling Angry in the Homeric Poems’, JHS lxxxix(1969),Google Scholar 18 ff.

^{page 9 note 1} One might of course contend that Sthenelus would have regarded Agamem-non's speech as even had he supposed that he did not but this is speculation, and I shall offer more evidence below in support of the view given in the text.

^{page 10 note 1} The Homeric Greek, like Annie Laurie, can ‘give a promise true'. Only in philo-sophical discourse do problems arise from this.

^{page 11 note 1} See my ‘Meaning, Using, Editing and Translating’ in Approaches to Classical Literature edited by C. Stray, Duckworth (which will be published in the near future).

^{page 12 note 1} See my Merit and Responsibility (Clarendon Press, 1960),Google Scholar chapter iii, pp. 48 f.

^{page 14 note 1} See below, pp. 16 f.

^{page 15 note 1} See my ‘Homeric Values and Homeric Society’, JHS xci (1971),Google Scholar 12 ff.

^{page 16 note 1} Professor John Gould has suggested to me ‘forwardness’ and ‘forward’ as ‘rough English equivalents’ for and These renderings seem to me express admirably the ‘feel’ and overtones of the words.

^{page 17 note 1} Cf. also Eumaeus' words, Odyssey 14. 361 ff., discussed above, pp. 13 f.

^{page 17 note 2} Members of the same or army contingent, and those with whom one is linked in guest—friend relationships. See my ‘ “Friendship” and “Self-sufficiency” in Homer and Aristotle’, CQ Ns xiii(1963),Google Scholar 30 ff.

^{page 18 note 1} This article is a product of my researches while at the Society for the Humanities of Cornell University during the academic year 1969/70. I should like to thank Cornell, the Director of the Society, Professor Max Black, and all at the Society for the out-standing facilities and manifold kindnesses which I enjoyed during my sojourn there.