Odyssey Reading Group: Book 7 Lines 184-206

Greek Homeric Greek and Early Greek Poetry
1

Welcome to the Odyssey Reading Group! Anyone is welcome to join in at any time, regardless of their Greek ability. If you’re itching to explore Homer’s epic tale of survival, adventure, love, lust, kinship, betrayal and spooky dead people, hop on in, you’ll be very welcome. People who have some Greek but have never tried reading Homer before are doubly welcome.

Please feel free to ask any question in this thread, no matter how basic you think it is, and we will try to help you with an answer.

Check the introductory thread for a description of how the group works.

We’re working from Geoffrey Steadman’s Odyssey Books 6-8, a freely-available pdf with vocabulary and notes

Resources for deeper study are available in the group dropbox folder

We started at Book 6. Here are all the threads so far:

Book 6
Lines 1-23
24-47
48-70
71-92
93-118
119-140
141-161
162-185
186-210
211-238
239-261
262-294
295-331 [end]

Book 7
1-26
27-47
48-77
78-102
103-132
133-157
158-183184 αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ σπεῖσάν τʼ ἔπιόν θʼ, ὅσον ἤθελε θυμός,
185 τοῖσιν δʼ Ἀλκίνοος ἀγορήσατο καὶ μετέειπε·

186 “κέκλυτε, Φαιήκων ἡγήτορες ἠδὲ μέδοντες
187 ὄφρʼ εἴπω τά με θυμὸς ἐνὶ στήθεσσι κελεύει.
188 νῦν μὲν δαισάμενοι κατακείετε οἴκαδʼ ἰόντες·
189 ἠῶθεν δὲ γέροντας ἐπὶ πλέονας καλέσαντες
190 ξεῖνον ἐνὶ μεγάροις ξεινίσσομεν ἠδὲ θεοῖσιν
191 ῥέξομεν ἱερὰ καλά, ἔπειτα δὲ καὶ περὶ πομπῆς
192 μνησόμεθʼ, ὥς χʼ ὁ ξεῖνος ἄνευθε πόνου καὶ ἀνίης
193 πομπῇ ὑφʼ ἡμετέρῃ ἣν πατρίδα γαῖαν ἵκηται
194 χαίρων καρπαλίμως, εἰ καὶ μάλα τηλόθεν ἐστί,
195 μηδέ τι μεσσηγύς γε κακὸν καὶ πῆμα πάθῃσι,
196 πρίν γε τὸν ἧς γαίης ἐπιβήμεναι· ἔνθα δʼ ἔπειτα
197 πείσεται, ἅσσα οἱ αἶσα κατὰ κλῶθές τε βαρεῖαι
198 γιγνομένῳ νήσαντο λίνῳ, ὅτε μιν τέκε μήτηρ.
199 εἰ δέ τις ἀθανάτων γε κατʼ οὐρανοῦ εἰλήλουθεν,
200 ἄλλο τι δὴ τόδʼ ἔπειτα θεοὶ περιμηχανόωνται.
201 αἰεὶ γὰρ τὸ πάρος γε θεοὶ φαίνονται ἐναργεῖς
202 ἡμῖν, εὖτʼ ἔρδωμεν ἀγακλειτὰς ἑκατόμβας,
203 δαίνυνταί τε παρʼ ἄμμι καθήμενοι ἔνθα περ ἡμεῖς.
204 εἰ δʼ ἄρα τις καὶ μοῦνος ἰὼν ξύμβληται ὁδίτης,
205 οὔ τι κατακρύπτουσιν, ἐπεί σφισιν ἐγγύθεν εἰμέν,
206 ὥς περ Κύκλωπές τε καὶ ἄγρια φῦλα Γιγάντων.”

2

Does anyone know of any articles comparing the various ‘μετέειπε’ speeches in Homer in terms of style? I haven’t read any Attic oratory, to my shame, but I would also be interested in exploring how Homeric speechmaking compares with later public speaking (aside from being more paratactic, which is plain to see).

3

Mark Edwards discusses speeches and soliloquies in chapter 10 of his book, Homer:Poet of the Iliad, and includes in his “Further Reading” section at the end of the chapter a mention of M.L. Lang’s book Herodotean Narrative and Discourse, Cambridge, MA. 1984, where Lang compares Homeric speeches with those of Herodotus. It’s available on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0674389859/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&condition=used

4

Maybe you should read some Lysias? The murder of Eratosthenes is not too hard and the opening provides a comprehensive revision of the optative!

I haven’t read this book

KNUDSEN (R.A.) Homeric Speech and the Origins of Rhetoric. Baltimore:
Hopkins University Press, 2014

but it got a favourable review (Guy Westwood) in “The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 135 (2015), pp. 182-183”.

Westwood says:

“This book contributes to two growth fields: the study of persuasive speech in the Homeric poems (for example S. Dentice di Accadia Ammone, Omero e i suoi oratori , Berlin 2012) and the investigation of possible origins for Greek rhetorical theory which goes beyond the traditional ones: the shadowy Sicilians, the earlier Sophists and so on (for example D. Sansone, Greek Drama and Invention of Rhetoric, Chichester 2012). Defining rhetoric as ‘a learned and deliberately practiced skill, involving the deployment of tropes and techniques according to a rule-based system, and aimed at winning an audience’s approval or assent’ (8, 94), Knudsen takes Aristotle’s Rhetoric as ‘a standard because it is as complete and systematic an explication as any from antiquity’ (40) and, focusing only on the Iliad (6), seeks to
show how Homeric persuasive speech can be seen to reflect aspects of Aristotle’s system. Knudsen 's contentions are (part 1) that Homeric speakers already evince an understanding of rhetoric as a systematic τέχνη; and (part 2) that Homeric rhetoric was a major influence on the tradition which Aristotle codified.”

Other studies seem to focus on the difference in for example the deployment of rhetorical tropes in speeches as opposed to narrative.

5

Alkinoos’ speech in this passage isn’t persuasive rhetoric: after all, he is the ruler and doesn’t need to persuade anyone. It’s mostly an order, but then Alkinoos veers off into speculation that Odysseus might be a god.. We’re reminded of the Phaeacians’ semi-magical existence – up until now, the gods have always frequented the Phaeacians undisguised.

6

I understand why you say this but “persuasive rhetoric” isn’t the only form of rhetoric and I disagree that A. “doesn’t need to persuade anyone”. There is an external as well as the internal audience for these speeches and we as readers need to be persuaded. But I also think that the internal audience needs to be persuaded too.

A. uses a rhetorical trope when he compares the Phaeacians to the gods and the Cyclopes to the Giants. This sets out part of the ideology governing his state. He emphasises the Phaeacians’ claim to be part of the civilised homeric world. Also by mentioning the links between the Gods and the Phaeacians he implicitly bolsters his right to rule. Odysseus is famous for his cunning and control of language. Speaking well and ruling are intertwined in the ideology of the Odyssey.

The Cyclops doesn’t need to persuade anyone but he is not part of the civilised world to which A. claims membership.

Edit: “I understand why you say this but “persuasive rhetoric” isn’t the only form of rhetoric”. What I meant by this is that for example Epideictic rhetoric is, unlike say forensic rhetoric, not primarily aimed at changing peoples’ opinions. But on reflection perhaps all rhetoric is “persuasive” so that the qualification doesn’t really add anything?

7

A. uses a rhetorical trope when he compares the Phaeacians to the gods and the Cyclopes to the Giants.

I think you’re misreading this passage. A. doesn’t compare the Phaeacians to the gods or the cyclopes to the giants. He merely says that the Phaeacians are close to the gods, presumably close in in parentage, like the cyclopes and the giants. This is a statement of fact on his part, not a rhetorical trope, and it grows out of his wondering whether Odysseus might be a god: the gods, he says, always appeared to us in propria persona, not in disguise, because the Phaeacians are close to the gods, just like the cyclopes and the giants, and if Odysseus is a god appearing in disguise, this is a new development. So I don’t see this as a rhetorical trope.

And there’s no suggestion that A.‘s statement somehow bolsters his own right to rule, because his statement seems to apply to all the Phaeacians, not just himself. Nor does A. make any attempt to contrast the civilized Phaeacians with the savage cyclopes and giants: to the contrary, he mentions the Phaeacians’ affinity with the cyclopes and the giants in being close to the gods.

But I come back to my original point: this is nothing like a public or private speech of Demosthenes or other Attic orators.

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I agree that A. wonders whether Odysseus is a god and that this is the context of the passage. Nevertheless A. claims to be on what I would describe as intimate terms with the Gods. “For always before, the gods appeared clearly/to us … and they dine beside us and sit right where we do”. They also claim to be close to the gods. The passage then concludes with a simile which claims the Phaeacians stand to the gods as the Cyclopes stand to the “savage tribes of Giants”.

Whilst the way you read the passage (similarities of close parentage) is interesting it is not the only way of reading it. The Gigantomachy is a trope which opposes the order and other virtues of the Gods and heroes with the lawlessness and hubris of the Giants. The juxtaposition of the Phaeacians and the Gods with the Cyclopes and Giants seems very clearly to me an opposition of this kind. The point you make of course exemplifies the idea that in every opposition is a similarity. So for example the decoration of the Athena in the Parthenon with its many oppositions (Gigantomachy, Amazonomachy, etc) both exemplifies an ideology and admits an anxiety.

I didn’t produce a clear argument about why I think A.'s speech bolsters his right to rule and your point about the good relations enjoyed by all Phaeacians is important. But when we consider that A. is a descendant of Poseidon I think there is a clear message in A.'s alignment of his people with the Gods. The Phaeacians enjoy those good relations in virtue of A.'s ancestry. His speech is a reminder of his lineage. (It is true that the Cyclops is also a descendant of Poseidon but the Cyclopes live outside of the civilised world. Such are the complexities of the homeric world.) My point in mentioning this at all was to show that as in later rhetoric one needs to read very carefully to decipher the implicit messages being delivered.

I dont want to make heavy weather of any of this. I wouldn’t have posted anything but Sean asked about rhetoric and I wanted to show how it was possible to relate the passage to later use of rhetorical tropes. Obviously I am only making suggestions here and I would need to do a lot of work to produce something convincing. (Probably someone already has).

9

The Gigantomachy is a trope which opposes the order and other virtues of the Gods and heroes with the lawlessness and hubris of the Giants. The juxtaposition of the Phaeacians and the Gods with the Cyclopes and Giants seems very clearly to me an opposition of this kind.



The passage then concludes with a simile which claims the Phaeacians stand to the gods as the Cyclopes stand to the “savage tribes of Giants”.

Is this a simile likens the relationship of the Phaeacians to the gods to the relationship of the cyclopes to the giants – or is it just a statement that the Phaeacians are close to the gods, perhaps in lineage, just like the cyclopes and the giants? If it were a comparison of the relationships, I would expect that either Κυκλοπες or αγρια φυλα Γιγαντων would be dative and that the two terms wouldn’t be linked by τε και. (In English, “and” might signal an analogy between the relationships, but I’m not sure about the Greek.) Perhaps it’s just a reference to the geographical position of the Phaeacians, cyclops and giants on the periphery of the world, in proximity to the gods, where the gods walk undisguised, if not a reference to lineage. I’m not sure we need to work out a consistent and coherent theory about the last line.

And, as I read it, A.'s claim of proximity to the gods applies not just to A. himself, but to all the Phaeacians – “even if one [of us] happens to meet a god on the road, the god doesn’t conceal himself, because we are close to the gods.” I think you’re reading more into the text than the text itself supports – which you claim you’re entitled to do as a reader, but still, there are limits. The whole nation of Phaeacians are described as αγχιθεοι in 5.35. But there’s nothing here that suggests the Phaeacian’s proximity to the gods is due to A.'s descent from Poseidon. After all nearly everyone of any significance in the Iliad and the Odyssey, including Odysseus himself if I remember correctly, boast a divine genealogy

I don’t want to make heavy weather of this, either, so let’s just let it be. I take your point about rhetoric.

10

All A.‘s talk of his and the Phaeacians’ closeness to the gods builds up to Odysseus’ response, which comes in the next segment.

11

I agree with what Hylander has said here. This passage is not a particularly pertinent example of Homeric rhetoric. μετέειπε is used whenever a crowd is addressed, but its use alone does not mean that the speech in question constitutes rhetoric.

The way I see it, this passage is more important from a narratological point of view, and its contents need to be interpreted from the context of the whole Odyssey. It’s really a variation on the frequent Odyssean theme of the “god/person in concealment” - compare e.g. Athena-Mentes/Mentor. There definitely some irony here: while Alcinous evokes the Phaeacians’ formidable proximity to the cyclopes and giants, and therefore, to Poseidon, the speech really serves to aggrandize Odysseus, who just arrived unseen to them, disguised in “mist”, although he isn’t even a god.

12

And in the next segment, which I think we should be ready for, Odysseus firmly asserts that he’s not a god.

13

I dont want to people to misunderstand my posts. I was simply answering Sean’s enquiry. In antiquity there were those (well at least one) who denied that there is any rhetoric to be found in Homer and those who claimed it was the source (after its invention by the Gods) see “The Ancient Dispute over Rhetoric in Homer” George A. Kennedy, The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 78, No. 1 (1957), pp. 23-35.

What rhetoric you find in Homer of course depends on how you choose to define rhetoric. Moreover, whether you look at something through a narratological lens or a rhetorical lens is very much a matter of taste and what one is interested in. If one thinks of rhetoric as simply the art of persuasion there are plenty of examples in Homer in this most literal sense. If you think that good speech making is one of the characteristics of a Homeric hero/leader every time a hero speaks he is carrying out a self justificatory act, a rhetorical performance. If you want to look at a more formal/technical definition of rhetoric you can find an ancient discussion in Ps. Plutarch de Homero

As it says in the Homer Encyclopaedia "

Homeric style is rich in rhetorical figures. Identification and study of rhetorical figures and tropes goes back at least to the 4th century bce, and the ancient Greek and Roman literary critics found no difficulty in applying their analysis to the Homeric poems (see Literary Criticism, Hellenistic and Roman). The most thorough surviving work is the Essay on the Life and Poetry of Homer, once attributed to Plutarch and probably from his period (1st and 2nd century ce; Keaney and Lamberton 1996; see Ps.-Plutarch De Homero), which devotes chap­ters 16-26 to Homer’s tropes (tropoi, modifica­tions of diction) and chapters 28-71 to his figures (skhêmata, modifications of syntax)."

Thanks Hylander for your observation about the “τε καὶ”. I think it probably completely undermines what I was arguing. The more I puzzle over 205-6 the more I dont really understand it. Hainsworth says on 205 “ἐγγύθεν, like ἀγχίθεοι v 35, expresses the special relationship of the Phaeacians with the gods, rather than the geographical proximity (they are ἔσχατοι), or kinship (a distinction of the royal house).” Dickinson translates “.. we are close friends,/ as are the Giants and Cyclopic peoples.” So are the Giants and Cyclopes friends to the gods? That doesn’t sound quite right. The Loeb has “for we are near of kin to them, as are the Cyclopes and the wild tribes of the Giants.” I may be too preoccupied with the conflict of the Giants and the gods so that I see an ambiguity where one doesn’t exist. I took Garvie’s commentary back to the library so I can’t see if he says anything interesting on this. Despite my desire not to make heavy weather of this that’s exactly what I am doing! Perhaps it wall look straightforward tomorrow morning. :smiley:

14

Thank you all for the interesting responses to my query at the top of the thread. Sorry to be so quiet - I’m visiting family at the moment. I don’t have time for a full response, but I just thought I’d point out that my original question wasn’t about rhetoric but style - I think all public speaking can be said to have a style even if it has no rhetorical figures or persuasive content. I was just curious whether there was a stylistic thread running through speeches in Homer.

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And I think all public speaking can be said to be rhetorical. But I think Knudsen (see seneca’s post) has it the wrong way round. When rhetoric became formalized (not before the 5th cent., and it wasn’t even named until Plato), knowledge of its various topoi and tropes was retrojected onto Homer, and his speeches were analyzed accordingly.

As to style, I’d say that Homer’s speeches, whether public or not, share the characteristics of Homeric style in general—parataxis among them. But they’re adjusted to suit what I think Marjorie Dale once called the rhetoric of the situation. There’s a degree of individual characterization (who but Ajax would pray to be killed in the light?), but that’s more a matter of what they say than of how they say it.

16

The more I puzzle over 205-6 the more I don’t really understand it.

You are certainly not alone. Do those lines refer to lineage, geography or some sort of “special relationship”? None of those alternatives seems completely compelling. Lumping together the Phaeacians, the giants and the cyclopes in relation to the gods, if that’s is what’s meant, is baffling. But so is the formula gods : Phaeacians :: cyclopes :giants.

But I wonder whether we should expect every last thing in the Odyssey, a poem of roughly 12,000 verses, to be completely coherent and consistent. Parts of the Odyssey do seem to wander aimlessly for a while (just like Odysseus, I guess), and you sometimes get the impression that the poet isn’t always in complete control of his material.

The problem here is really just 208: what is the point of similarity between or among the Phaeacians, the cyclopes and the giants in relation to the gods? Everything up to that point would seem to make sense, building on A.‘s suspicion that Odysseus might be a god in disguise, and leading up to Odysseus’ emphatic denial that he’s a god in the next segment. 208 could be cut from the text without missing a beat (though I’m not suggesting that there’s any reason to do so – nothing in the manuscripts as far as I can tell would warrant such an excision).

Maybe 208 is just a couple of common mythological references somewhat ineptly thrown in.

17

Following up on mwh’s response, I think perhaps a good example of how Homer tailors the speeches to the individual characters can be found in Book 9 of the Iliad, the embassy to Achilles, where you can compare the persuasiveness of Odysseus to the passion of Achilles or to the bluntness of Ajax. Phoenix’s story is interesting, but the real contrast is between Odysseus and Achilles.

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That’s a good line of approach that Aetos suggests. There’s also Antenor in the teichoskopia vividly contrasting the speaking styles of Menelaos and Odysseus:
τὴν δ᾽ αὖτ᾽ Ἀντήνωρ πεπνυμένος ἀντίον ηὔδα:
ὦ γύναι ἦ μάλα τοῦτο ἔπος νημερτὲς ἔειπες:
ἤδη γὰρ καὶ δεῦρό ποτ᾽ ἤλυθε δῖος Ὀδυσσεὺς
σεῦ ἕνεκ᾽ ἀγγελίης σὺν ἀρηϊφίλῳ Μενελάῳ:
τοὺς δ᾽ ἐγὼ ἐξείνισσα καὶ ἐν μεγάροισι φίλησα,
ἀμφοτέρων δὲ φυὴν ἐδάην καὶ μήδεα πυκνά.
ἀλλ᾽ ὅτε δὴ Τρώεσσιν ἐν ἀγρομένοισιν ἔμιχθεν
210
στάντων μὲν Μενέλαος ὑπείρεχεν εὐρέας ὤμους,
ἄμφω δ᾽ ἑζομένω γεραρώτερος ἦεν Ὀδυσσεύς:
ἀλλ᾽ ὅτε δὴ μύθους καὶ μήδεα πᾶσιν ὕφαινον
ἤτοι μὲν Μενέλαος ἐπιτροχάδην ἀγόρευε,
παῦρα μὲν ἀλλὰ μάλα λιγέως, ἐπεὶ οὐ πολύμυθος
215
οὐδ᾽ ἀφαμαρτοεπής: ἦ καὶ γένει ὕστερος ἦεν.
ἀλλ᾽ ὅτε δὴ πολύμητις ἀναΐξειεν Ὀδυσσεὺς
στάσκεν, ὑπαὶ δὲ ἴδεσκε κατὰ χθονὸς ὄμματα πήξας,
σκῆπτρον δ᾽ οὔτ᾽ ὀπίσω οὔτε προπρηνὲς ἐνώμα,
ἀλλ᾽ ἀστεμφὲς ἔχεσκεν ἀΐδρεϊ φωτὶ ἐοικώς:
220
φαίης κε ζάκοτόν τέ τιν᾽ ἔμμεναι ἄφρονά τ᾽ αὔτως.
ἀλλ᾽ ὅτε δὴ ὄπα τε μεγάλην ἐκ στήθεος εἵη
καὶ ἔπεα νιφάδεσσιν ἐοικότα χειμερίῃσιν,
οὐκ ἂν ἔπειτ᾽ Ὀδυσῆΐ γ᾽ ἐρίσσειε βροτὸς ἄλλος:
οὐ τότε γ᾽ ὧδ᾽ Ὀδυσῆος ἀγασσάμεθ᾽ εἶδος ἰδόντες.
An altogether fascinating comparison, and one that shows there’s more to speaking than words, something that Homer does not always indicate when introducing his speeches.

And of course there are different kinds of “public speech” in Homer, and different kinds of audience. The tripartite classification system of classical rhetoric (deliberative, judicial, epideictic) doesn’t map well onto Homer, but “persuasion” is often (arguably always) the goal in Homeric speeches whether public or private or somewhere inbetween. Sophocles’ Philoctetes expressly recognizes three means of getting someone to do what you want them to do: force, persuasion, or dolos (Odysseus’ specialty already in Iliad). Homer displays all three, and even force is accompanied by speech.

19

ἀλλ᾽ ὅτε δὴ ὄπα τε μεγάλην ἐκ στήθεος εἵη
καὶ ἔπεα νιφάδεσσιν ἐοικότα χειμερίῃσιν,

As I watch the snow come down outside my windows, I appreciate even more the beauty of this simile. In one of the commentaries I’ve read (I think it was Willcock), “words like winter’s snowflakes” have an inevitable and cumulative effect upon the listener. In those two lines, I can easily imagine what that voice would be like: strong, deep (but not too deep, more of a baritone, really), soothing, gentle, a voice whose very tone says “trust me”. Odysseus would have been right at home on Late Night FM Radio.