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The past in Homer's Odyssey

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

P.V. Jones
P.V. Jones
Affiliation:
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
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Extract

The first section of this paper argues that Homer's description of the world of Ithaca as it existed before Odysseus ever left for Troy (henceforth ‘the pre-departure world’) is largely Homeric invention. The second section of the paper brings in the world of Ithaca during Odysseus' absence (henceforth ‘the intervening years’), which is also, for the most part, Homeric invention, and considers the literary function of this and the pre-departure world.

At Poetics 1451a, Aristotle argues that Homer is superior to all other epic poets in his method of constructing an epic. The reason he gives is that Homer does not tell everything there is to tell about his subject, but centres his epic round a single action (μία πρᾶξις) and for the purpose of the telling selects only those incidents which make the other incidents ‘necessary or probable’ (cf. 1459a-b, where Aristotle gives examples of what he means from the Iliad).

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 112 , November 1992 , pp. 74 - 90
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1992

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References

1 Janko, Tr. R. in Aristotle Poetics i (Indianapolis/Cambridge 1987)Google Scholarad loc. All references are to the Oxford Text of the Odyssey, unless otherwise indicated. I am grateful to the two anonymous JHS referees for helping me clear out a lot of the clinker from this article and for other valuable suggestions. For a highly abbreviated version of some of the conclusions of this paper, see Homer: The Odyssey, tr. Rieu, E.V., revised by Rieu, D. C. H. in consultation with P. Jones, V. (Harmondsworth 1991), xii–xxii.Google Scholar

2 R. Janko (op. cit., n. 1) on [14]59a30 says ‘Clearly none of the other early epics was at all like Homer's in the handling of the plot’. Reece, S. in ‘Homeric influence in Stesichorus’ Nostoi' (Bull. Amer. Soc. Pap. xxv (1988) 1–8)Google Scholar points out (8) that if PMG fr. 209 comes from the story of Odysseus' return, it does not suggest Stesichorus adopted Homer's temporal ordering. For Nestor's tales of the past in the Cyclic epics, see M. Davies, EGF. Procli Cypriorum enarrano, 11. 36–39 (n. 9).

3 A number of references are couched in the present, but refer to or have implications for the pre-departure world.

4 This could be placed on the B-list.

5 RE s.v. ‘Odysseus’.

6 This negative argument is not srong. The oral poet could elaborate or condense or omit a story at will. All one can say is that such stories do not appear elsewhere in the record.

7 Heracles and Hermes are possible exceptions, as is Theseus (his extensive ‘middle-aged’ exploits probably arise from his position as founder of Athens). Oedipus has a striking old age. Perhaps Cadmus makes an exception too. Popular contemporary heroes like James Bond tend to remain of fixed age. A referee points out that Diomedes is a veteran of the Theban wars, yet in the Iliad seems junior to Agamemnon, Menelaus and Ajax. All myth, of course, runs together famous people and places from quite different periods.

8 E.g. the story of Odysseus' embassy to the Messenians to demand compensation for a raid. Embassies and raids are both common in epic: any oral poet could elaborate one to fit any person. Odysseus' false tales show the technique clearly at work.

9 Davies, M., Epicorum Graecorum fragmenta (Göttingen 1988)Google Scholar, Prodi Cypriorum enarrano 11.40–43.

10 Hyginus Fab. 95, Apollodorus Epitome iii 6–9.

11 See Willcock, M. M., ‘Mythological paradeigma in the Iliad’, CQ xiv (1964), 141–154CrossRefGoogle Scholar for the general principle involved.

12 See generally West ad loc. (op. cit. n. 13) on i 257.

13 Eustathius 1416 on i 260; cf. West ad loc. in Heubeck, A., West, S., and Hainsworth, J. B. (eds.) A commentary on Homer's Odyssey, i (Oxford 1988).Google Scholar

14 There is also a Thesprotian connection: Ephyre is claimed to be in Thesprotia (other guesses are that Ephyre is in Elis or is Corinth). See further on note 16. West ad loc. (see n. 12) wonders whether this whole story is ad hoc invention.

15 Hoekstra's defence ad loc. in Heubeck, A. and Hoekstra, A. (eds.) A commentary on Homer's Odyssey, ii (Oxford 1989)Google Scholar is laboured.

16 Huxley, G. L., Greek epic poetry (London 1969)Google Scholar, discusses Pausanias 8.12. 5–6, where a Thesprotis is attested, with possible connections with the underworld in Odyssey xi and Eugam(m)on's Telegoneia. In fact there is a consistent Thesprotian connection with a king Pheidon in Odysseus' false tales: xiv315 ff., xix287 ff., cf. xvi65, xvii526.

17 See Clay, J. S., The wrath of Athena (Princeton 1983) 89–96.Google Scholar

18 West, M. L. reckons Odysseus is an ancient epic hero (‘The rise of the Greek Epic’, JHS cviii (1988) 151–172, 159)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, but Odysseus' lack of connections with other mythic cycles, and the sheer obscurity of Laertes and his father Arceisius, suggest he may be a young hero (see Kirk, G. S., The nature of Greek myths [Penguin 1974] 167–9).Google Scholar In his Songs of Homer (Cambridge 1962) 370, Kirk argues that the convoluted style of the Odysseus-Iphitus story hints at ‘a more extensive poetic model’. A referee points out that, by careful juggling with the ages, one could just about link Heracles to Odysseus.

19 The sheer number of irremovably entrenched references to the youth and growth of Telemachus argues strongly that this is a major theme of the Odyssey, not randomly tacked on by a post-Homeric Telemachy. See Jones, P. V.Homer's Odyssey: a companion (Bristol 1988) 18–19Google Scholar, and Jones, P.V. ‘The ΚΛΕΟΣ of Telemachus’, AJPh civ (1988), 496–506.Google Scholar

20 ‘Focalisers’ may find this a fruitful harvest to pick. See e.g. de Jong, I. J. F., Narrators and focalisers (Amsterdam 1987).Google Scholar

21 The term is Willcock's, M. M., in another important paper, ‘Ad hoc invention in the Iliad’, HSCP lxxxi (1977) 41–53.Google Scholar Willcock argues that local inconsistencies illustrate this sort of invention: I deploy this argument in part here.

22 See West op.cit. (n. 13) on 4.735 ff.

23 See Fenik, B., Studies in the Odyssey, Hermes Einzelschriften xxx (Wiesbaden 1974)Google Scholar, passim.

24 See Austin, Norman, ‘The function of digressions in the lliad’, GRBS vii (1966), 295–312Google Scholar for a discussion of lliadic paradigms.

25 See, for example, Austin, Norman, Archery at the dark of the moon (California 1975) 166–168Google Scholar for Eumaeus as a humble paradigm of order. A referee points out that while Nestor's exploits in the lliad are all taken from his ‘youth’, in the Odyssey they concentrate on Troy and its aftermath.

26 In ‘The making of the past in the lliad’ (HSCPh xciii [1990] 25–45), O. Andersen persuasively argues that, in referring to the past, Homer's characters in the lliad ‘make assertions which are neither inherently probable nor consistent with what we seem to know already … the characters say what is called for at the moment’ (25). The Odyssey shows similar sorts of awkwardness, and I agree that the poet probably does not have a ‘definitive version of the past’ (42). But Homer's handling of the past in the Odyssey seems to me to be considerably more coherent than in the lliad, and I would, as a result, want to modify (though not dramatically) Andersen's claim that ‘there cannot really be exploration nor even exposition of the past in an oral culture, only exploitation’ (42).

27 See Emlyn-Jones', C. fine article in G&R xxxi (1984)Google Scholar, ‘The re-union of Penelope and Odysseus’.