Iliad 1:5 & 1:20

Greek Homeric Greek and Early Greek Poetry
1

This is from the beginning of the Iliad. On the fifth verse we have
οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι, Διὸς δ’ἐτελείετο βουλή
Or do we? Should it be instead
οἰωνοῖσί τε δαῖτα, Διὸς δ’ἐτελείετο βουλή?
In the Teubner (also in Loeb) West chooses πᾶσι, an opinion which must naturally not be taken lightly. However, a chiasmus is very enticing: ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν / οἰωνοῖσι τε δαῖτα. Besides ‘dinner’ sounds more forceful and graphic than ‘to all kinds of’. Can we tell which is (probably) the original one? Δαῖτα would appear to be by Zenodotus, who I believe divided the Iliad and the Odyssey into 24 songs.

Then on the twentieth verse we have either
παῖδα δ’ἐμοὶ λύσαιτε φίλην, τὰ δ’ἄποινα δέχεσθαι
or
παῖδα δ’ἐμοὶ λῦσαί τε φίλην, τὰ δ’ἄποινα δέχεσθαι
The former is again in the Teubner and the Loeb. Why the latter beguiles is that we have two aorist infinitives on the previous verse, viz. ἐκπέρσαι and ἱκέσθαι. This is Chryses’ speech, and the infinitives are due to the aorist optative δοῖεν ‘I wish that the gods would let you — —’. I suppose the question is whether we contrast it saying ‘let the gods let you destroy Priam’s city and return home safely, and that I get my dear child back’. Taken as λύσαιτε, we would have two aorist optatives, which would also be symmetrical. Again, can we say which one is more likely the original?

2

δαιτα/πασι. This must be the most contested pair of variants in Homer. Μost critics have come down in favor of δαιτα: so unhesitatingly e.g. Pasquali (Storia della tradizione) and Pfeiffer (Hist. of Class. Scholarship), and before them Nauck, who held (implausibly) that πασι was a conjecture by Aristarchus. δαιτα seems to have been the reading known in 5th-cent. Athens (not originating with Zenodotus, therefore), but we wouldn’t even know of it if weren’t for Athenaeus, for it appears nowhere in the tradition. πασι is the vulgate, and West somewhat uncharacteristically makes a case for favoring it as being more in keeping with Homeric norms.

I believe that the division into 24 “rhapsodies” (they’re never called “books,” as you know) must be pre-Alexandrian, though post-Homeric. It’s an alphabetical partitioning, alpha to omega, and must have been devised to symbolize Homer’s all-comprehensiveness. He’s the A-Z (as we would say) of ancient Greek culture.

λύσαιτε vs. λῦσαί τε is a matter of how to articulate the given text, and here decision is easy. (1) Chryses is asking the Greeks for the release of his daughter, and his plea adapts the “do ut des” prayer formula (I do something for you: you do something for me). He wishes them favors from the gods, υμιν μεν … (May the gods grant you to sack Troy and return safely home), then moves on to his actual request, παιδα δ’ εμοι λυσαιτε (and may you reciprocate this prayer on your behalf by releasing my child to me). The μεν and δε parts are correlative. The infinitive destroys this structure. (2) What is τε doing? It has no function. (3) λῦσαί τε has no authority. It was a perverse interpretation of ΛΥΣΑΙΤΕ by Apion, who specialized in perversity.

3

Thank you. You’re right, the text does contrast δοῖεν on the one, λύσαιτε on the other hand. Surely it’s right this way.

I see that West mentions Aeschylus’ Suppliants for δαῖτα in his “lower” apparatus. Aeschylus says (Loeb’s text):
800 κυσὶν δ’ἔπειθ’ἕλωρα κἀπιχωρίοις
801 ὁρνισι δεῖπνον οὐκ ἀναίνομαι πέλειν
((Referring to our dramatic metre thread[s], this begins an antistrophe, and is very easy to perceive as an iambic trimetre.))
“Then I don’t refuse to become prey for the dogs and meal for the native birds”
More support for δαῖτα? Really interesting. (But what’s the κρᾶσις in ὁρνισι? It’d look like ὁ or ὅ on the surface—although I would have expected a vowel-lengthening in κρᾶσις.)

I now noticed interestingly ἠτίμασεν on the verse 11. First I didn’t even realise, but we would expect ἠτίμησεν, would we not? The normal Dehnung for a uerbum uocale. I know there are plethora of forms in Homer (partly surely metri causa), but it does catch the eye (once one’s first noticed it!), and West duly notes it in the lower apparatus.

4

I discovered Walter Leaf recently, and had actually read his commentary on each of these points just last week, flying home from Boston. I enjoyed his introduction a great deal. It goes into some detail on what is possible in Homeric textual reconstruction and what is speculative. But here he is on the mentioned lines:

  1. δαῖτα is the reading of Zenod., fortunately preserved by Athenaeus (i. p. 12 f.): Ar. and all MSS., πᾶσι. The former is obviously the most vigorous and poetical expression, and seems to be alluded to by Aeschylos, Supp. 800, κυσὶν δ’ ἔπειθ’ ἔωρα κἀπιχωρίοις ὄρνισι δεῖπνον οὐκ ἀναινομαι πέλειν. Cf. Eur. Ion. 503, Hec. 1076. πᾶσι was preferred by Ar. in accordance with his dogma that δαίς could only be used of a human feast–which does not say much for his poetical feeling. But the fact that there is no trace of δαῖτα in the MSS. shows that he only adopted the vulgate of his own day; there is no reason to suppose, as some have done, that he foisted an arbitrary conjecture into the text; still less to imagine that Zenodotos did so. Ariston. only mentions that Zenod. athetized this line and the next, which is of course not inconsistent with his having given them with this variant. For βουλή there is an old variant βουλῇ.

  2. ἠτίμασεν is the reading of A and a few other MSS; vulg. ἠτίμησ’. Both verbs are found, but the aor. is elsewhere only ἠτίμησεν, and ἀτιμάζω is peculiar to the Odyssey. Rhythm, however, is a strong argument here in favour of the text. Nauck indeed wishes to expel ἀτιμάω from the text of Homer altogether; but v. Curtius, Vb. i. p. 341, n.

  3. λύσαιτε, so A and others; two give λῦσαί τε, the old vulg. is λύσατε (!). In such a matter MS. authority is worth nothing; but the opt. is perhaps more suitable to a suppliant, while the MS. reading is τὰ δ’, not τά τ’. See H. G. § 299 b, and for the article τά δ’ ἄποινα, “on the other hand accept ransom,” § 259, 1.

The contrast between the girl being released and going out and the ransom being accepted and coming in makes δε obvious, I would think.

Here he is on ταρ:

  1. For τ᾽ἄρ A reads ταρ, which, according to Herodianus (and perhaps Ar.), was a particle like γάρ, but enclitic: so also 65, 93, and elsewhere. But the point is not of such importance, nor is tradition so unanimous, as to render an alteration of the ordinary text advisable.
5

I don’t seem to have permission to set up polls on Textkit, but it would be fun to have a poll on πασι vs. δαιτα. For the record, I’ve always been in favor of δαιτα, but I don’t think I’ve seen an edition bold enough to adopt that choice (maybe Leaf?).

The choice raises issues about what editors are or should be aiming to accomplish in publishing a text of the Iliad–in fact, what is the Iliad after all?–but those issues have been argued here ad nauseam. Let’s just express our preference without having to justify it.

Joel?

6

Hylander, your idea sounds like lot of fun. I certainly was able to post a poll before I became mod. I could do it for you, but I guess it would be most enjoyable if you could make it just the way you see best.

To create a poll, you just start a new topic. Beneath the “submit” button select “poll creation”, and that should allow you to create your poll without any problems. Or didn’t that work?

7

I think what Aeschylus’ reference proves is that the variant δαῖτα is very old, but that’s all, it doesn’t show which one is original. Whichever is false (or “not original”), I think, is probably a rhapsodic variant, either from a pedant who thought πᾶσι is not quite exact (not all birds eat carrion), or from a more poetic soul who thought that δαῖτα is less bland – which it certainly is. If πᾶσι is the original reading (as most editors are agreed upon), it would mean that not all interpolations and tamperings with the text are for the worse.

If I remember correctly, West’s opinion was that Zenodotus’ text was simply a more-or-less typical example of a Ionian text, which he brought along with him when he moved to Alexandria. If that’s correct, δαῖτα would have been a reading current in Ionian texts.

Line 20 has been discussed here previously: http://discourse.textkit.com/t/question-about-book-1-line-20-of-the-iliad/11498/1

8

Just to correct what I said about Apion being responsible for λῦσαί τε. He probably wasn’t. References to “Apion and Herodorus” in Eustathius (12th cent., not 11th as stated in previous thread linked by Paul) are a composite entity, which it’s now known has nothing to do either with Apion or with Herodorus (rather Heliodorus).

The τε of course entails τε not δε in the second part of the line. It’s still a bad reading.

ὁρνισι at Aesch.Suppl.801 is surely just a misprint for ὄρνισι.

The idea of voting on text-critical questions is an amusing one. Purely frivolous, of course, like the idea of voting on whether Britain should leave the European Union, or on whether Donald Trump should be president of the US.

9

The two Euripides references seem to describe a very similar poetic idea. At least it’s clear what an Athenian would have written had he composed Homer.

Eur. Ion. 502-506

ἵνα τεκοῦσά τις Φοίβῳ
παρθένος, ὦ μελέα, βρέφος,
πτανοῖς ἐξόρισεν θοίναν
θηρσί τε φοινίαν δαῖτα, πικρῶν γάμων
ὕβριν·

Eur. Hec. 1076

ποῖ πᾷ φέρομαι τέκν’ ἔρημα λιπὼν
Βάκχαις Ἅιδου διαμοιρᾶσαι,
σφακτά, κυσίν τε φοινίαν δαῖτ’ ἀνή-
μερον τ’ οὐρείαν ἐκβολάν;

10

Thank you all very much. I wonder on what grounds the Ionian Iliad is postulated. As Joel says, however, this Ionian Iliad was certainly used in Attica, as well. Aeschylus’ Suppliants is dated between 470 and 459 (acc. to the Loeb intro; the New Pauly says 465—460), which would be probably 220—230 years after Homer (or Melesigenes [vid. West]) wrote the Iliad. We may surmise (by Aeschylus only, I’d argue, but obviously corroborated by Euripides) that δαῖτα was already quite current, and not a novelty reading from 460’s. If my reasoning is sound, we are able to push δαῖτα even closer to Homer, at least to 500’s. (Euripides’ Io is ca. 413, Hecuba from 420’s, acc. to the NP.)

Is there anything more to say upon ἠτίμασεν vs. ἠτίμησεν? Leaf cited by Joel speaks of rhythm, meaning probably a needed dactyl here. But I wonder if the line could be tampered so that ἠτίμησ(ε(ν)) would fit. Tampered only because ἠτίμασεν would seem suspect!

(Re ὁρνισι: it’s apparently still difficult for me to expect an error)

ταρ: I had already slightly forgotten this marvellous word! Paul and I took a Luwian course last autumn—this kind of construct is attested only in Greek and Luwian, says Watkins (Dragon p. 150—151)—but alas it was Hieroglyphic Luwian, so not tars there. Cuneiform Luwian has to be studied after or at best together with Hittite, so it’ll have to wait a while at least. I do find it a little weird that such a relic like ταρ, already antiquated in Homer, is supported by manuscript tradition, but maybe I’m underestimating the skill of mediaeval scribes.

Λύσαιτε vs. λῦσαί τε: should the latter be correct, I’m not sure I would interpret as a “infinitival imperative” (my emboldening), as suggested in the earlier thread linked by Paul, but as an infinitive depending on the optative δοῖεν a few verses before, like ἐκπέρσαι and ἱκέσθαι. But, as mwh noted, λύσαιτε-optative is much better when one analyses the passage closely. Happily we don’t write τε attached to the previous word like in Latin -que, but I suppose even then the accents would help us out.

There’s still (at least) one more oddity in these 20 first lines: the superfluous τὸν on verse 11, accordingly marked with crux desperationis by West. An example of burgeoning article (like there was somewhere in Hesiod’s Opera et dies I remember), or to be taken as demonstrative, or changed into τοῦ (Nauck) or οἱ (Wackernagel)?

11

When Khryses is requesting the Atreidai to release her daughter, wouldn’t it be quite strange if the wording of his request were “may the gods grant you to sack Troy and reach home and release my daughter and accept the ransom”? surely “sack Troy and reach home” are not parallel with “release my daughter and accept the ransom”? Certainly if we were to accept λῦσαι it should be (like δέχεσθαι in that case) as an infinitival imperative.

Btw, saying that I took a Luwian course is an overstatement, as I got bored and run out of time, and so dropped out after two times…

About τὸν in verse 11: My own theory, from the top of my hat. Homer must have worked the beginning of his magnum opus over and over again, must more than the rest of his poem (no wonder the first book of the Iliad, especially the beginning, is terribly good). Is it really so surprising that there are some linguistic oddities there? Maybe τόν is just an element of Homer’s vernacular that crept into the overworked beginning of his great poem. Just a casual thought.

If I remember correctly, West was playing with the idea that Melesigenes might have been the name of the Odyssey poet specifically (“Q”, as opposed to the Iliad poet “P”). I think he discusses this in his Making of the Odyssey book.

The idea of dogs and birds eating a dead person is one that recurs in many places in Greek poetry, first in the Iliad (not only in the beginning but in several places), and then in the Odyssey (e.g. γ 259, 271, ξ 133), and then in other places. So I think it’s hazardous to take anything but the closest verbal parallels (such as the passage in Aeschylus’ Suppliants) to be actually borrowed from the beginning of the Iliad.

12

I have to (for the time being at least!) stick to what I said: with λῦσαι it would to my eye be “normal” (non-imperatival) infinitive. Μέν - δέ supports this I’d say. “Let the gods on the one hand give you to destroy Troy and return home, and on the other hand release me my daughter”. But, as I said, I have already gladly accepted λύσαιτε, so this is a little theoretical pondering.

13

οὕνεκα τὸν would make sense as οὕνεκά τοι if it were in a speech. And this is still the invocation of the Muse. In fact, it’s even an answer to the direct question in line 8. Although see 10.316.

Google tells me that Wyttenbach suggested it in “Bibl. Crit. v1 part 2. pg. 32” – but I can’t find it.

14

I’d expect ἐμοὶ δέ, not παῖδα δ(έ), to answer ὑμῖν μέν, to make the contrast “for you on the one hand and for me on the other”, i.e. a different word order, at least. παῖδα δ(έ) puts the emphasis on the wrong word, if the idea “something for you and something for me” were intended.

15

Isn’t so that an article before a name meant that the person was famous or important? (read it somewhere)

16

Meter wouldn’t allow εμοι δε at the beginning, of course. But the fronting of παιδα is understandable in any case. The υμιν μεν … εμοι δε contrast is slightly displaced for the sake of giving prominence to the object of his prayer. It’s still εμοι not μοι, so there’s emphasis on both παιδα and εμοι (εμοι in correspondence with υμιν, the parallelism doesn’t need to be exact). Didn’t my first post satisfy you on this?

For what it’s worth, Timothée is right about the intended syntax of the impossible λῦσαί τε. Here’s Eustathius’ note that informs us of the proposed rearticulation:
Ὅτι τὸ «παῖδα
δέ μοι λύσατε φίλην, τὰ δ’ ἄποινα δέχεσθε, ἁζόμενοι Διὸς υἱόν» Ἀπίων καὶ
Ἡρόδωρος, ὧν βιβλίον εἰς τὰ τοῦ Ὁμήρου φέρεται, διδόασι καὶ ἀπαρεμφάτως
γράφεσθαι· «παῖδα δέ μοι λῦσαί τε φίλην, τὰ δ’ ἄποινα δέχεσθαι» λαμβανομένου,
φασίν, ἀπὸ κοινοῦ τοῦ δοῖεν, ἵνα λέγῃ, ὅτι δοῖεν θεοὶ τήν τε παῖδα λῦσαι καὶ τὰ
δῶρα λαβεῖν.
(No doubt Eustathius misarticulated δεμοι, and it looks as if in the ApH commentary τα δ’ was actually τα τ’.)

ταρ. As Paul will remember, there was an earlier thread on this. http://discourse.textkit.com/t/topic/13143/1

17

mwh: I was commenting on the version παῖδα δ᾽ ἐμοὶ λῦσαί τε φίλην, τὰ τ᾽ ἄποινα δέχεσθαι, which I reject, with τα δ’ instead of τα τ’. So according to you the infinitives in this (incorrect) version cannot be imperatival but must be dependent on δοιεν?

ioannis: according to M.L. West, the editor of the Teubner Iliad (and one of the greatest authorities on Greek Epic to have ever lived, beside that), proper names never have the article in epic verse (but patronymics sometimes do). He thinks τὸν here is a corruption and that Homer originally wrote something else. He discusses this passage in his Studies in the Text and Transmission of the Iliad, p. 173. My humble and probably stupid conjecture was that maybe Homer already used the article in his everyday speech (as opposed to the epic language, which was archaizing), and that for some reason the beginning of the Iliad, which he would have worked much more than the rest, might have been linguistically different from the rest.

Great work on reconstructed pronunciation, by the way, Ioannis!

18

mwh: I was commenting on the version παῖδα δ᾽ ἐμοὶ λῦσαί τε φίλην, τὰ τ᾽ ἄποινα δέχεσθαι, which I reject, with τα δ’ instead of τα τ’. So according to you the infinitives in this (incorrect) version cannot be imperatival but must be dependent on δοιεν?

Yes and no. I was simply showing that according to Eustathius, whom I see no reason to doubt, the ApH commentary (as it’s known) put forward λῦσαί τε as an alternative articulation of the traditional λύσαιτε and made out that the infinitive was dependent on δοιεν.
And I said that λῦσαί τε seems to me to entail τα τ’ instead of τα δ’ in the second limb (for otherwise the τε after λυσαι is left hanging).
I think (I certainly hope) everyone agrees λυσαι τε is untenable. [—Oh, not Pharr, didn’t you say?, who was presumably following someone else.]