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Achilles, Patroclus and Parental Care in Some Homeric Similes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

Sophie Mills
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Extract

None of these three passages from the Iliad would be classified as anything other than an extended simile, but the differences between them in subject matter and what is compared make clear how difficult it is to make any simple summary of the nature and functions of the extended simile in Homer that would gain general assent. As the immense quantity of scholarship on these similes would indicate, it is impossible either to argue convincingly that they can have only one or two main functions in the narrative, or categorically to prove or deny that a particular simile has a certain effect or significance for the narrative. To give one brief example, Stephen Nimis usefully distinguishes six major trends in interpretation among earlier scholars' views on the function of similes in Homer: (1) the presentation of the generic alongside the individual, (2) creation of atmosphere, (3) imagistic continuity, (4) characterization and foreshadowing, (5) incorporating the past into the present, and (6) allusion to antecedent literary traditions. Not all of the three similes quoted above perform all of these functions at once, but they certainly perform more than one of them. The only definition that would probably be generally accepted is the rather dry and unhelpful one that a simile functions by briefly interrupting the narrative in order to compare one element in the narrative with another, in order to illuminate something about the original element in the narrative. Moreover, an extended simile begins from an original main point of comparison, but it compares the likeness of two things that are actually not alike in many other respects.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 47 , Issue 1 , April 2000 , pp. 3 - 18
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2000

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References

1. All translations are from The Iliad of Homer, translated by Lattimore, R. (Chicago, 1951)Google Scholar.

2. Narrative Semiotics in the Iliadic Tradition (Indiana, 1987), 183 n. 1Google Scholar.

3. For some representative statements, se Fraenkel, H., ‘Essence and Nature of the Homeric Similes’ in Wright, G. M. and Jones, P. V., Homer: German Scholarship in Translation (Oxford, 1997), 113Google Scholar; Bowra, C. M., Tradition and Design in the Iliad (Oxford, 1950), 157Google Scholar; Coffey, M., “The Function of the Homeric Simile”, AJP 78 (1952), 113–52Google Scholar; Moulton, C., Similes in the Homeric Poems (Gottingen, 1977)Google Scholar; Edwards, M., Homer, Poet of the Iliad (Baltimore and London, 1987), 102–10Google Scholar.

4. As Beye, C. R. states in Ancient Epic Poetry: Homer, Apollonius, Virgil (Cornell, 1993), 109Google Scholar.

5. For some suggestions and explorations of the effects produced by similes, see Podlecki, A. J., ‘Some Odyssean Similes’, G&R 18 (1971), 81–90Google Scholar; Bassett, S. E., ‘The Function of the Homeric Simile’, TAPA 52 (1921), 132–47Google Scholar; Fraenkel, , op. cit., 104–5Google Scholar; Porter, D. H., ‘Violent Juxtaposition in the Similes of the Iliad’, CJ 1972, 11–21Google Scholar; Martin, R. P., ‘Simile and Performance’ in Written Voices, Spoken Signs: Tradition, Performance and the Epic Text, edited by Bakker, E. and Kahane, A. (Harvard, 1997), 138–66Google Scholar.

6. For a full discussion of this type of juxtaposition, see Porter, op. cit., who comments (19): ‘The grimness and bloodiness of the battlefield are inevitably rendered darker and more tragic by the constant brief glimpses we get in the similes of a world where … shepherds tend their flocks and small children play.’

7. Fraenkel, , Early Greek Poetry and Philosophy (New York and London, 1972), 54Google Scholar.

8. Similes are even sometimes described as the ‘lyric’ element in Homer: Beye, , op. cit., 109Google Scholar; Bassett, , op. cit., 134Google Scholar. Martin even argues that the poet might even have used a different form of delivery for them.

9. For scholars such as Whitman, C. H., Homer and the Heroic Tradition (Harvard, 1963), 113ff.Google Scholar and Moulton, connections between similes in widely-separated parts of the Iliad are an important element in their interpretation of the poem. Others such as Martin, , op. cit., 140–3 are more scepticalGoogle Scholar. Beye, , op. cit., 8–19Google Scholar has a judicious and sensible discussion of the problem.

10. See Bassett, , op. cit., 144–5Google Scholar; Fraenkel, , op. cit., 104–5, 108Google Scholar.

11. For a useful account of the range and sophistication of the similes of the Odyssey, see the article by Podlecki (n. 5), 82.

12. For some other convincing examples of foreshadowing, see Moulton, , op. cit., 24–6, 49, 74–5Google Scholar. Lonsdale, S., Creatures of Speech, Lion, Herding, and Hunting Similes in the Iliad (Stuttgart, 1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar makes some very interesting comparisons between the predictive quality and structural similarity of the similes and the omens in the Iliad.

13. Whitman, , op. cit., 153 f.Google ScholarBeye, , op. cit., 11–16Google Scholar offers some interesting speculations on the repeated similes and the possible thought processes and subconscious connections that may cause their repetition, often thousands of lines away from one another.

14. Zanker, G., The Heart of Achilles: Characterization and Personal Ethics in the Iliad (Ann Arbor, 1994), 147CrossRefGoogle Scholar notes that the women who are on the periphery of war are the ones who bring out its true meaning. One may also note how many of the parental similes involve females, so that there is a parallel between the function of women in the narrative and that of the similes: they too are peripheral to the narrative, yet they too, by the contrast between their subject matter and that of the main action, help to sharpen the meaning of the narrative.

15. Moulton, , op. cit., 101Google Scholar. The wasps of Il. 16.265 (cf. 12.167), and perhaps the birds of Il. 17.755 f., are also portrayed as parents, but the initial point of comparison in these similes is defensive fighting, not the parental love and care of peacetime.

16. For statistics, see Moulton, , op. cit., 100Google Scholar.

17. Menelaus is a particularly appropriate protector for Patroclus: both are characterized by their kindness, and they are the two Iliadic characters who are directly apostrophized by the poet. The choice of Menelaus here may therefore derive from Homer's subconscious connection between him and Patroclus: see Parry, A., ‘Language and Characterisation in Homer’ in The Language of Achilles and Other Papers (Oxford, 1989), 301–26Google Scholar.

18. For a discussion of the complex possibilities attendant on linked similes, see Moulton, op. cit., chapters 1 and 2, passim, and for more complex patterns of lion imagery in Iliad 17, cf. 73–4.

19. At Il. 20.164–73, his return to battle is marked by the longest lion simile in the Iliad; the lion imagery of Il. 24.572 hints that Achilles may still be dangerous to Priam.

20. Even the good-natured, and slightly second-rate, hero Menelaus moves in only 55 lines from being a care-giving mother cow (Il.. 17.4–5) to a lion who violently devours a cow (Il.. 17.61; cf. 665); cf. Moulton, , op. cit., 73–4Google Scholar.

21. Redfield, J., Nature and Culture in the Iliad (Durham and London, expanded edition 1994), 99–127Google Scholar.

22. Finlay, R. A., ‘Patroklos, Achilleus and Peleus: Fathers and Sons in the Iliad’, CW 73 (1980), 267–73Google Scholar.

23. Cf. also Il. 17.671, 23.252 and 281; even Achilles' immortal horses mourn their much-loved charioteer's death, 17.426 f.: see also Lynn-George, M., ‘Structures of Care in the Iliad,’ CQ 46 (1996), 1–26CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

24. Beye, , ‘Men and Women in the Homeric Poems’, Ramus 3 (1974), 87–101CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25. The feast given by Agamemnon to the Greek leaders at Il. 9.89 is not merely a generous gesture, but rather a means to reassert his damaged authority among them. For other examples of the connection between food and status, see Il. 12.31 Off.; Od. 7.474ff.

26. Beye (n. 24), 89.

27. On the connections between women and nurturing, see Beye (n. 24), 89 and Arthur, M. B., ‘The Origins of the Western Attitude toward Women’ in Women in the Ancient World: the Arethusa Papers, edited by Peradotto, J. and Sullivan, J. P. (Albany, N.Y., 1984), 7–58Google Scholar.

28. At Il. 16.84 and 90, Achilles regards Patroclus' offer to fight in his honour as his right, without argument.

29. For other appraisals of Patroclus' unusual character, see Moulton, , op. cit., 102Google Scholar; Finlay, , op. cit., 267Google Scholar; Zanker, , op. cit., 138–40Google Scholar; Crotty, K., The Poetics of Supplication, (Ithaca, 1994), 55Google Scholar; Parry, , op. cit., 312–14Google Scholar.

30. Crotty, , op. cit., 58Google Scholar comments on the ‘mixture of subservience and intimacy’ typical of husbands and wives that characterizes the two men's relationship; cf. also Taplin, O. P., Homeric Soundings (Oxford, 1993) 177Google Scholar; Beye, , op. cit., 89Google Scholar. I make no concrete suggestions concerning the question of eroticism in the relationship: what is at issue is the role of the caregiver in all its forms.

31. The two men also play the ‘Hector’ and ‘Andromache’ roles with one another alternately: Achilles' role parallels that of Andromache in urging the man who is fighting for him to exercise restraint in war (Il.. 16.87 ff.; cf. Il.. 6.431 f., although his motivation is obviously different from hers), but parallels that of Hector in destroying those closest to him. Patroclus is like Andromache in his devotion to his ‘lord’; he is like Hector in the death he meets (Il. 16.855–7; 22.361–3), and like Hector too in his ‘kindness’ (Il.. 24.772; cf. 17.204, 21.96, etc.). Structural parallels underline these analogies: at Il.. 22.437ff., Andromache is unsuspectingly going about her business until she suddenly hears the noise that portends Hector's death; at Il. 17.404, Achilles is similarly unsuspecting and remains so until Il. 18.6f.; cf. also n. 41 below.

32. Thus I disagree with Moulton, , op. cit., 101, 104Google Scholar, who claims that Achilles is consistently portrayed as the protector and Patroclus the protected one.

33. For example, her first question to Achilles, asking him why he is crying when Zeus has honoured him so greatly (Il. 18.73–5), seems strikingly heartless, because it emanates from a divine rather than a human view of events. From the divine perspective, both the distinction in worth between gods and humans and the necessity of receiving due honour are highly important (cf. Il. 24.56–62). The gods have made efforts to restore Achilles' honour to him, and thus in their eyes, and those of Thetis, Achilles has been treated generously by Zeus, whatever the human cost.

34. Compare the taunts of Thersites and others at alleged Greek cowardice: 'Aχαι⋯δεσ, οὐκετ’ 'AχαωῚ‘ ‘you women, not men, of Achaia’ (Il.. 2.235); at Il. 7.233 ff., Hector assures Ajax that his grasp of warfare far surpasses that of a woman or feeble boy; cf. Moulton, , op. cit., 103 n. 41Google Scholar.

35. So Finlay, , op. cit., 272Google Scholar.

36. In a similar vein Beye (n. 4), 64 suggests that the scenes between the two men in Iliad 9 and 16 may be Homer's way of ‘describing the utter psychic intimacy of the two men in order to prepare his audience for the depth of depression and the force of the anger by which Achilles is later gripped’.

37. Compare his tears for Peleus as well as Patroclus at Il. 24.480. Achilles' grief for Neoptolemus is even a muted echo of Andromache's for Astyanax: so Finlay, , op. cit., 270Google Scholar.

38. Finlay, , op. cit., 273Google Scholar.

39. Richardson, N. J., Commentary on the Iliad, vol. 6 (Cambridge, 1991), 323Google Scholar. In the Odyssey such ‘reverse similes’ are also used, though their effect is rather different, underlining the dangers of the loss of order that threatens to destroy Ifhacan society: Foley, H. P., ‘“Reverse Similes” and Sex Roles in the Odyssey’ in Peradotto and Sullivan (n. 27), 59–78Google Scholar.

40. Moulton, , op. cit., 115–16Google Scholar; Finlay, , op. cit., 269–70Google Scholar.

41. Patroclus' ‘reward’ for his kindness matches that of the gods to Hector in Iliad 24: to both men, a reward for services in life is only given after death, and it is hardly a just compensation, but it is at least some kind of acknowledgement for care taken: cf. Lynn-George (n. 23), 9.