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Critical Appreciations VI: Homer, Iliad 1.1–52
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2009
Extract
The following is the sixth of the series which began in G & R 20 (1973), 38 ff. and 155 ff. and was continued in volumes 21 (1974), 165 ff., 25 (1978), 70 ff. and 125 ff., and 27 (1980), 48 ff.
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- Copyright © The Classical Association 1982
References
Notes
1. Logue, C., War Music, (London, 1981)Google Scholar. I say they are ‘un-Homeric in feeling’; but they are well worth reading, all the same.
2. There is an interesting article on the first seven lines, at times perhaps rather overambitious, by Redfield, J. M. in CPh 74 (1979), 95–110Google Scholar; and since I wrote this piece Edwards, Mark W. has published an important paper on ‘Convention and Individuality in Iliad I’, in HSCPh 84 (1980), 1–28Google Scholar.
3. ‘Homer nowhere better justifies Horace's semper ad eventum festinat than in his proems and the few verses of additional exposition which follow them’ — Bassett, S. E., ‘The Proems of the Iliad and Odyssey’, AJPh 44 (1923), 339Google Scholar. See also Bethe, E., Homer I (1914), pp. 23–7Google Scholar.
4. ‘Ομηρικώτατος: cf. [Longinus, ] On the Sublime 13.3Google Scholar.
5. Frisk, H., ‘M⋯νις, zur Geschichte eines Begriffes,’ Eranos 44 (1946), 28–40Google Scholar; Watkins, C. in Bull. Soc. Ling, de Paris 72 (1977), 187–209Google Scholar.
6. These are ideas which I develop in Homer on Life and Death (Oxford, 1980)Google Scholar, especially chapters 3 and 6.
7. Parry, Adam in HSCPh 76 (1972), 2Google Scholar.
8. Pindar, E.g.Pyth. 4.70Google Scholar, of the Argonauts: τίς у⋯ρ ⋯ρχ⋯ δέξατο ναυτιλίας …, Sophocles, , Trach. 504Google Scholar, of Heracles' battle with the River Achelous for Deianeira: τίνες ⋯μφίуυοι κατέβαν πρ⋯ уάμων; Bacchylides 19.15, Pindar Ol. 10.60, etc.
9. When Plato criticized the opening of the Iliad as too dramatic, showing how it should have been told as pure narrative (Resp. 393), he might have pointed to this passage. Similar passages: II. 6.175 ff., Proems and Bellerophon; Od.15.225 ff., the story of Melampus. This latter, it is worth saying, is narrated by the poet himself, not by one of the characters; that is not the reason for this style.
10. Cf. Kakridis, J. T., Homer Revisited (Lund, 1971), pp. 125–37Google Scholar.
11. That is not the modern view of the etymology of έκηβόλος, but it is clear that already in the Iliad it was believed: cf. 1.48 ἕζετ' ἔπειτ' ἔπάνευθε νε⋯ν, μετ⋯ δ ' ἰ⋯ν ἕ ηκε.
12. The technique is like that of 1.185, Agamemnon to Achilles: I will take Briseis from you, αὐτ⋯ς ἰὼν κλισίηνδε, τ⋯ τ⋯ σ⋯ν уέρας, ὅφρ' ⋯ὺ εἰδῇς | ὅσσον φέρτερός εἰμι σέθεν… That passage in turn recalls the words of God to Abraham: 'Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest…’
13. πολλοἱ у⋯ρ εἰς ἕν συμπίτνουσιν ἵμεροι,| θεο⋯ τ' ⋯φετμα⋯ κα⋯ πατρ⋯ς πένθος μέуα, | κα⋯ πρ⋯ πιζει χρημάτων ⋯χηνιά…
14. M. Arnold, On Translating Homer.
15. The first chapter of his book Mimesis (English translation, Princeton, 1952). It is reprinted in Homer: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Steiner, G. and Fagles, R., (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1962)Google Scholar.
16. Cf. Denniston, J. D., Greek Prose Style2 (Oxford, 1960), p. 80Google Scholar, and Easterling, P. E., ‘Repetitions in Sophocles’, in Hermes 101 (1973), 14–34Google Scholar.
17. ‘Half-lines in Homer’ is a less obvious title than ‘Half-lines in Virgil’, but it might make an interesting study.
18. See Homer on Life and Death (n. 6), pp. 26–7, 158–9. Il. 1.5 Δι⋯ς ⋯τελείετο βουλή is in the same elevated style.
19. Mark Edwards (n. 2) well contrasts the full and explicit narration of the same events at 1.382–4.