yActJTTa£, have frequently lost sight of this fundamental principle, and that this has impaired the value of their conclusions. 1 What is true of the
meaning of words is true likewise of certain abstract concepts. How much we must learn, for example, about the beliefs and prejudices which Homer shared with his audience on the subject of property and marriage, before we understand the unquestionable heinousness of the crime of the Suitors! And can we ever hope to understand exactly the role of the gods in the Iliad and the Odyssey? We can catch a glimpse of a small part of the ideas which Homer held in common with his contemporaries concerning the gods of legend; but most of these ideas, if we as much as suspect their existence, remain incomprehensible, because for us they are unmotivated. A true understanding of the nature of scholarship, therefore, will show us that there are problems in Homer so difficult that no given method will lead us to a sure conclusion; and that others are perhaps altogether insoluble; none the less, philological criticism of Homer is only of value to the extent that it succeeds in reconstructing that community of thought through which the poet made himself understood to those who heard him sing.
There is a natural sense of an author's style which only he and his contemporaries can share. Here we are not considering the linguistic problem of distinguishing between poetic style-1} TOrS' g€V£KOrS' K€XPTJ J.tEVTJ Mg£S'-and the style of everyday speech-1} EK TWV KvptWV OVO/LclTWV Mg£S'. It is rather a question of the relation which those who read or hear the work of a certain author establish between it and other works which are known to them, in particular with works treating a similar subject in more or less the same fashion. It is clear, for example, that someone today who judges an author's style to be good or bad
I
can only do so by making a comparison, perhaps an unconscious comparison, with styles that he knows, and in particular with styles of works which some point of resemblance leads him to associate with the work in question. We can recognize the beauty, the propriety, or the originality of a style only by comparing it with other styles which are like it or which make a contrast with it. Of this the author is aware, knowing that the success of his work depends on how well it stands up to this comparison; keeping in mind the literary education of those whom he hopes to have for an audience, he strives to make this comparison favourable to him. Consequently, when we judge the style of Homer,2 we must not over look those styles which were familiar to him, and which he knew were familiar to his contemporaries. More particularly, we must come toI er. Berard, Introduction a I'Odyssee (Paris 1924), i. 199 fr.
• Is there any need to state that the use of the term 'Homer' in these pages does not neces sarily imply that the Iliad and the Odyssey are the work of the same author? This term will sometimes denote the poet (or the poets) of the Iliad and the Odyssey, sometimes the text rifthe Iliad
4
The Traditional Epithet in Homer
know the style of the heroic poems with which the Iliad and the Odyssey were competing, whether these poems were the work of poets of earlier generations, or whether they were the work of those who, in Homer's own day, were the rivals of his renown. Only then will the modern reader have that sense of style which Homer knew, at the moment when he composed them, would be the criterion by which his own poems would be judged.
To see that we cannot acquire by direct means this sense of the style of heroic poetry in general, we have only to consider that, outside the Iliad and the Ot[yssey, we have no poem or fragment of a poem which we know with certainty to be of equal antiquity. Nor can we base our reasoning on a comparison between the Iliad and the Ot[yssey or between different parts of these poems: not only would the element of imitation then enter into the problem, but in addition any conclusion which we might thus formulate would be as fragile as the hypothesis on which it was based. To obtain any information about the style of the other heroic poems which were known to the literary public in Homer's day, we must have recourse to indirect modes of investigation. Use has been made hitherto of three sources of information, all of which point to the same solution: that the style of Homer is traditional and similar to the style universally adopted by poets of his time in composing heroic
I
song. The first source from which this conclusion can be drawn is the example of other heroic poetries.1 They give us valuable hints, but hints of too general a character. To know that Homeric style is traditional is not enough: we must know further which words, which expressions, which parts of the diction, give it this character, so that we can distinguish between what is traditional and what is Homer's own creation. The second source from which these conclusions can be drawn is a comparison between the style of Homer and the style that we see in the fragments of the Cycle, in the Shield rif Heracles, and even in Hesiod and the Homeric Hymns.2 Such a comparison gives us many indications of the character of epic style, but we cannot hope to obtain from it a truly satisfactory conclusion. The problem is complicated by the meagreness of the remains of the Cycle and by the brevity of the Shield, as well as by the fact that these poems and hymns belong to different periods and clearly do not all follow the tradition with equal fidelity. Moreover, it is probable that their diction is in large part inspired by the poems of Homer. The surest source and the one that tells us most about the style of the heroic poems which have been lost, is the text of the Iliad and the Ot[yssey themselves. We must study these poems if we are to reconstitute the notions that Homer's audience held of heroic style before they heard his verse.I Cf. E. Drerup, Homerische Poetik (Wurzburg 1921), 27 ff.
[4-6]
The Study of Homeric Style
5§ 2. THE STUDY OF HOMERIC LANGUAGE
This reconstitution has already been significantly advanced by critical study of elements of style common to the Iliad and the Odyssey and to other epic poems, although it would appear at first sight that such study has con centrated on the separate problem of the linguistic phenomena of our text of Homer. Philology has sought to show that certain dialectal forms have been conserved and certain artificial forms created under the influence of the hexameter. The scholars of antiquity, as we learn from some of their remarks preserved in Eustathius and in scholia, invoked the influence of metre, avaYK7J I -rov I-d-rpov, specifically of dactylic metre, to explain anomalous forms and irrational uses. In this way they explain pEpv7Twp.Eva (' 59), K'KOVEUU' (, 39), EVPVXOpw' (' 4). They give the same reason for the
use of the singular €u8ij-ra in E 38. That they went so far as to give this expla nation of the repetition of OlUE in X 48 I is very significant. 1 Modern scholars
have in their turn concerned themselves with this problem, particularly since Ellendt and Diintzer, who worked at the same time, but indepen dently of each other, and arrived at similar conclusions. These two scholars sought in the dactylic form of the metre the reason for lengthened and shortened syllables, for apocope, for the use of the plural for the singular, for the use of the epithet according to its metrical value, etc.2 A few years later, in 1875, G. Hinrichs advanced the theory that the words of Aeolic form in Homer were preserved from the time when the Ionians learned the style of epic poetry from the Aeolians.3 In this way the foundations were esta blished of that considerable work4 which finally demonstrated that 'the language of the Homeric poems is the creation of epic verse' :S epic bards, or aoidoi, preserved obsolete forms, introduced newer forms, and even created artificial forms under the constant pressure of their desire to have a lan guage adapted to the needs of hexameter versification. K. Witte, in parti cular, has provided us with a definition of this complex and varied problem, and with a treatment of it which is both precise and systematic.6 To his work there has been recently added
I
K. Meister's Die homerische Kunstsprache.7I These examples are cited by V. Berard, Introd., i. 174-6.
• H. Dilntzer, Homerische Abhandlungen, Leipzig 1872, S07--92. J.-E. Ellendt, Ueber den Einjluss des Metrums auf Wortbildung und Wortverbindung, Konigsberg 1861 (Drei homerischl Abhandlungen, Leipzig 1864).
3 G. Hinrichs, De Homericae elocutionis vestigiis Aeolicis, Diss. Bero!' 187S.
4 Mention should be made ofP. Thouvenin, Metrische Riicksichten in der Auswahl der Verbal forrnen bei Homer, Phi!., 1905, 321-40, and of F. Sommer, 'Zur griechischen Prosodie, die
Positionsbildung bei Homer', Glotta 1909, 14S. Cf. E. Drerup, Hom. Poetik, i. 120-7, and especially V. Berard, Introd., i. 167-78. The latter has a bibliography of the subject.
5 Kurt Witte, Pauly-Wissowa, viii. 2214.
6 K. Witte, Singular und Plural, Leipzig 1907; 'Zur homerischen Sprache', Glotta 1909-13;
'Wortrhythmus bei Homer', Rhein. Mus., 1913,217-38; 'Ueber die Kasusausgange 0'0 und
ov, o,a' und o,�, !la, und!l� im griechischen Epos; der Dativ des Plurals der dritten Deklina tion', Glotta 1914, 8 fr., 48 fr.; 'Homeros, B) Sprache', Pauly-Wissowa, Stuttgart 1913, viii.
The close relation between this study of what we may call a hexametric language, and the question of Homer's and his audience's literary educa tion, is obvious. To establish in the Iliad and the Odyssey the existence of an artificial language is to prove that Homeric style, in so far as it makes use of elements of this language, is traditional. For the character of this language reveals that it is a work beyond the powers of a single man, or even of a single generation of poets; consequently we know that we are in the presence of a stylistic element which is the product of a tradition and which every bard of Homer's time must have used.
It is important for the present investigation that we know exactly what constitutes this proof that Homeric language is wholly traditional; the method of analysis by which this conclusion has been reached is essentially the same as the method we shall employ in these pages to demonstrate the traditional character of the diction of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Before we define this method, however, let us clarifY this dis tinction between the language and the diction of Homer. By language we mean all the elements of phonetics, morphology, and vocabulary which characterize the speech of a given group of men at a given place and a given time. In the case of Homer, the problem of language consists in distinguishing, and in explaining the presence of forms, words, and constructions of archaic, Aeolic, Ionic, artificial, and possibly even 'Achaean' origin, which appear in the text of the Iliad and the Odyss�y. By diction we mean the same elements of phonetics, morphology, and vocabu lary considered under another aspect: as the means by which an author expresses his thought. It is this problem and this problem alone, to dis cover why Homer chose certain words, certain forms, certain construc tions to express his thought, that we shall deal with in this volume. But in our attempt to learn I which part of Homer's diction is traditional and which part original, we shall make use of the same method which has been used to prove that Homer's language is a traditional language.
This proof of the traditional character of the language does not lie in the fact that numerous forms are found in Homer which can be classed as Aeolic or archaic: the presence of a Doric form in Aeschylus does not prove that he had borrowed the form from an earlier poet. The proof is rather that the dialectal and artificial elements of the language of Homer constitute a system characterized at once by great extension and by great simplicity. Put, for example, Ionic endings next to corresponding non Ionic endings (-TJ�, -EW, -DV, -EWV, -Ut, etc., next to -a, -ao, -0£0, -&.wv, -EUU£, etc.), put Ionic words next to non-Ionic words (�JLEr�, (Ept)'YaOV'1TO�, av,
'lT6'\£�, 'lTO'\VIC'T�JLWV, etc., next to aJLJLE� (Ept)aOV'1TO�, ICE, 'IT'T6'\£�, 'lTo'\V'1TaJLWv,
etc.), and you will find in both cases that the corresponding forms or words are almost always of different metrical value. With very few excep tions-and these exceptions can themselves be explained by the tradition,
The Study of Homeric Style 7 cf. TE, p. 181, n. I below-there is no example of what we find so abundantly in the language of a Greek poet who uses an individual style: I mean elements borrowed by him from another dialect which are of like metrical value with the corresponding elements of his own dialect. Such an example is the Doric n, which the Athenian dramatists use in choral passages to replace the Attic ij: in Oedipus at Colonus (11. 525-6) we read
and again (1239-40)
KaKa., jk' E'Uva., 1T6,\,S' ouSev rspw yajkwv £V£S1)UE'V am,.
'Ev ciJ, 7''\ajkwv oS', OUK £yw fL6voS', mLV7'ofJE'V {J6pnoS' wS' 'TtS' dlM"a • • •
etc. Thus the simplicity rif the system of epic language consists in the fact that corresponding dialectal or artificial elements are of unique metrical value; and the extension rif the system lies in the great number of cases in which, to a given element of one dialect, one can oppose the correspond ing element of I another. It is evident that such a system can only be traditional: a poet who borrowed forms and words of a dialect other than his own, according to his personal taste, would inevitably, even if he made such borrowings infrequently, choose a certain number of equivalent metrical value.
To this proof provided by the system of the traditional character of Homeric language, there can be added explanations of factors which determine the creation and the preservation of this language; but these explanations, though they are essential to our understanding of the problem, are none the less not themselves proofs. We must know that this language was the creation of generations of bards who regularly kept those elements of the language of their predecessors which facilitated the composition of verse and could not be replaced by other, more recent, elements. We must know that on the analogy of existing forms the bards fashioned some which never existed in ordinary speech, for example
opow, opowaa, etc. We must understand that the -OLD ending of the masculine genitive singular is of special value in composing hexameter lines, because it can end a word before the feminine caesura or in the middle of the dactyl of the fifth foot, which the -ov ending cannot do; or at the end of the line, which the -DV ending can do only in the case of certain words. 1 The knowledge of all these facts is indispensable; for they alone show us conclusively that we are dealing with a traditional style, and not, as Fick supposed, with a translation from Aeolic into Ionic. I The figures are given by Boldt (Programm Tauberbisclwfsheim, 1880-1, 5). -0.0 occurs 7 times in the first foot, 26 times in the second, 520 times in the third, 17 times in the fourth, 352 times in the fifth, 716 times in the sixth.
Nevertheless, only the system can provide us with the proof that the language of Homer is itself traditional.
§ 3. GENERAL CHARACTER OF FORMULARY DICTION Scholarship has always admitted, although in rough and imprecise terms, that Homer's diction is made up to a greater or lesser extent of formulae; but no careful study was ever made of this matter until it I
became necessary to refute theories which found in these formulae a proof of imitation. As we know, every repeated expression, indeed every echo of another expression, was considered a sure sign of imitation; and we know too what harsh treatment the lines and passages containing such expressions received at the hands of Sittl, and of Gemoll, and many another scholar. I This was the origin of the works of Rothe, of Scott, and of Shewan, who set out to demonstrate that formulae are found every where in Homer, and that there must have been a common stock from which every epic poet could draw. 2 The method followed by these scholars consists simply in showing that one can, whenever one wants to, find reasons for considering the formulae in any one part of the Iliad and Of!yssry as imitated from those of any other part. In other words, the assumption that repetition is a proof of imitation will always allow us to analyse the poem according to any preconceived idea. But no one has gone beyond this purely negative conclusion; no one has done more than to show with certainty (a general certainty, however, and which does not extend to details) that Homeric formulae must derive from a traditional style. Consequently, Homeric scholarship has been forced to recognize a certain element of the formulary in the Iliad and the Of!yssry, but it remains divided on the question of capital interest: what portion of Homeric diction is to be attributed to the tradition and what portion to the poet? Schmidt's Parallel-Homer has not answered this question, since on the one hand it is perfectly possible that the poet has repeated an expression of his own making, while on the other hand he may well have had occasion to use a given formula only once in the two epic poems which we know. The situation can be measured by I the opposition aroused by M. Meillet when he expressed the opinion that Homeric style is completely formulary. He wrote (Les Origines indo-europeennes des metres I K. Sitd, Die Wiederholungen in der Odyssee, Munehen 1882; A. Gemoll, 'Die Beziehungen zwischen Ilias und Odyssee', Hermes 1883, 34.
2 c. Rothe, Die Bedeutungen tier Wiederholungen filr die homerische Frage. Berlin 1890; this author gives a bibliography of the subject. J. A. Seott, 'Repeated Verses in Homer',
AJPh 1911, 321. A. Shewan, 'Does the Odyssey Imitate the Iliad?' CQ 1913,234. Cr. Berard,
Introd., ii. 389 fT. Drerup, Horn. Poetik, i. 368 fT. The number of verses entirely repeated, or made up of repeated expressions, is given by C. E. Schmidt, Parallel-Homer, GOttingen 1885, p. viii, as 5,605 for the Iliad, 3,648 for the Oc[yssey.
[10-11] The Study of Homeric Style 9 grecs, Paris 1923, 6 1) : 'Homeric epic is entirely composed of formulae handed down from poet to poet. An examination of any passage will