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ATHENA'S MENTION OF ORESTES IN HOM. OD. 1.298–302
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 March 2023
Abstract
This article focuses on the interrelationship between two events taking place simultaneously in Odysseus’ megaron: Phemius’ performance and the conversation between Telemachus and Athena. I argue that at Hom. Od. 1.298–302 Athena, in her mention of Orestes’ kleos, refers directly to Phemius’ song that Telemachus can hear from where he is sitting. This reading sheds new light on the characters’ receptions of Phemius’ song. Between the well-known contrasting responses of the nearest and the farthest audiences – the suitors’ silence and Penelope's over-reaction – stands Athena's cognitively constructive use of it, by which the goddess attempts to establish a shared understanding with Telemachus, whose kleos is one of the main concerns of her visit to Ithaca.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association
Footnotes
I would like to thank the G&R anonymous reader for his/her constructive criticisms. An earlier version of this article was presented in a MA thesis supervised by Jonas Grethlein (Heidelberg).
References
1 Thomas, O., ‘Phemius Suite’, JHS 134 (2014), 89–102CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The term ‘soundscape’ was first coined by Schafer, R. Murray, The Soundscape. Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World (Rochester, 1994)Google Scholar. As argued by Schafer, ‘[w]e can isolate an acoustic environment as a field of study just as we can study the characteristics of a given landscape’ (ibid., 7). However, there is an asymmetry in this analogy. As Schafer puts it, ‘it is less easy to formulate an exact impression of a soundscape than of a landscape’ due to the fact that ‘[t]here is nothing in sonography corresponding to the instantaneous impression which photography can create’ (ibid., 7).
2 Thomas (n. 1), 90.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid., 91.
5 Ibid., 98.
6 S. Pulleyn, Homer, Odyssey I (Oxford, 2019), 176.
7 See esp. K. Rüter, Odysseeinterpretationen. Untersuchungen zum 1. Buch und zur Phaiakis (Göttingen, 1969), 148–201; E. Siegmann, ‘Die Athene-Rede im ersten Buch der Odyssee’, WJA 2 (1976), 21–36.
8 S. D. Olson, Blood and Iron. Stories and Storytelling in Homer's Odyssey (Leiden, 1995), 71–4, which is based on the analysis of Teiresias’ prophecy in J. Peradotto, Man in the Middle Voice. Name and Narration in the Odyssey (Princeton, 1990), 63–75.
9 The text of the Odyssey is quoted from P. von der Mühll, Homeri Odyssea (Stuttgart, 1984) unless otherwise indicated. All translations of the Odyssey are adopted from A. Verity, The Odyssey (Oxford, 2016), with my modifications.
10 Similarly, R. Scodel, Listening to Homer. Tradition, Narrative, and Audience (Ann Arbor, 2002), 76–7: ‘Both Athena-Mentes and Nestor tell Telemachus that he must have heard about Orestes’ killing of Aegisthus (1.298–99, 3.193–94), because the paradigm is all the more effective that way. By taking vengeance, Orestes has won fame that has reached even faraway Ithaca.’ On Nestor as narrator of the Oresteia, cf. M. Alden, Para-Narratives in the Odyssey (Oxford, 2017), 82–5.
11 This interpretation can be further backed up by E. J. Bakker, ‘Bruits odysséens: le κλέος épique et la poétique d'Homère’, CÉA 35 (1999), 17–26, who argued that the Odyssey is interested in the spatial spread of the kleos of men.
12 See most recently J. Grethlein, Die Odyssee. Homer und die Kunst des Erzählens (München, 2017), 228–9.
13 Cf. Thomas (n. 1), 91: ‘There is therefore a strong narratological prompt to consider a question normally approached through content alone: how are the latter stages of Athena's discussion with Telemachus to be related to Phemius’ simultaneous Nostoi?’. Cf. also E. Krummen, ‘“Jenen sang seine Lieder der ruhmvolle Sänger…”: Moderne Erzähltheorie und die Funktion der Sängerszenen in der Odyssee’, A&A 54 (2008), 15–18.
14 However, ‘Zielinski's law’, which claims that Homer does not narrate simultaneous actions, has been challenged on more than one occasion. See esp. G. Seek, ‘Homerisches Erzählen und das Problem der Gleichzeitigkeit’, Hermes 126 (1988), 131–44; H. Patzer, ‘Gleichzeitige Ereignisse im homerischen Epos’, in H. Eisenberger (ed.), ERMENHEUMATA. Festschrift für Hadwig Hörner zum sechnigsten Geburtstag (Heidelberg, 1990), 153–72; A. Rengakos, ‘Zeit und Gleichzeitigkeit in den homerischen Epen’, A&A 41 (1995), 1–33; R. Nünlist, ‘Der Homersiche Erzähler und das sogenannte Sukzessionsgesetz’, MH 55 (1998), 1–8; O. Tsagarakis, ‘On Simultaneous Actions in Homer’, in M. Païsi-Apostolopoulou (ed.), Eranos. Proceedings of the 9th International Symposium on the Odyssey (Ithaca, 2001), 355–66; R. Scodel, ‘Zielinski's Law Reconsidered’, TAPA 138 (2008), 107–25.
15 Thomas (n. 1), 97.
16 See the discussion by Thomas (n. 1), 94–5, with quotations from the scholia. Cf. J. Svenbro, La Parole et le marbre (Lund, 1976), 18–21; G. Danek, Epos und Zitat (Wien, 2001), 59; R. Scodel (n. 10), 82–5. On ancient discussion of Phemius’ position in choosing the theme of his song, see Thomas (n. 1), 96.
17 On the Oresteia in the Odyssey, see E. F. d'Arms and K. K. Hulley, ‘The Oresteia-Story in the Odyssey’, TAPA 77 (1946), 207–13; H. Hommel, ‘Aigisthos und die Freier’, Studium Generale 8 (1955), 237–45; U. Hölscher, ‘Die Atridensage in der Odyssee’, in H. Singer and B. von Wiese (eds.), Festschrift für Richard Alewyn (Köln and Graz, 1967); S. D. Olson, ‘The Stories of Agamemnon in Homer's Odyssey’, TAPA 120 (1990), 57–71; M. Katz, Penelope's Renown. Meaning and Indeterminacy in the Odyssey (Princeton, 1991); I. J. F. de Jong, A Narratological Commentary on the Odyssey (Cambridge, 2001), 12–14; J. Marks, Zeus in the Odyssey (Washington, DC, 2008), 17–35; Alden (n. 10), 77–100.
18 ‘with the following relative clause said to a person who obviously perceived a (past) event, but has not truly “comprehended” its meaning for the present situation. Sensory perception recedes entirely into the background.’ On the historical linguistic analysis of the verb, see W. Schulze, ‘Zwei verkannte aoriste’, ZVS 29 (1888), 249–55; P. Chantraine, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque. Histoire des mots (Paris, 2009), 40.
19 Cf. Scodel (n. 10), 76–7; Thomas (n. 1), 98.
20 Cf. W. Schulze, Quaestiones epicae (Gühtersloh, 1892), 357.
21 Penelope's request to stop Phemius’ song is replied to by Telemachus at Hom. Od. 1.345–59, who turns up as ‘another “interpreter” of song’ (S. Halliwell, Between Ecstasy and Truth. Interpretations of Greek Poetics from Homer to Longinus [Oxford, 2011], 3). Cf. Scodel (n. 10), 53–4; de Jong (n. 17), 37–8.
22 The text of the Iliad is quoted from T. W. Allen, Ilias (Oxford, 1931). All translations of the Iliad are adopted from A. T. Murray and W. F. Wyatt, Iliad (Cambridge, MA, 1999).
23 R. Janko, The Iliad. A Commentary, Volume IV: Books 13–16 (Cambridge, 1994), 236.
24 R. Scodel, ‘ἦ and Theory of Mind in the Iliad’, in M. Meier-Brügger (ed.), Homer, gedeutet durch ein großes Lexikon (Berlin, 2012), 319–34. Cf. J. D. Denniston, The Greek Particles (Oxford 1978) 279–88; C. J. Ruijgh, Autour de τε épique: études sur la syntaxe grecque (Amsterdam, 1971), 194–5; R. M. Frazer, ‘Corrective ἤτοι in Homer and Hesiod’, Mnemosyne 34 (1981), 265–71.
25 Scodel (n. 24), 330.
26 Commenting upon Hom. Il. 8.139–40 (Τυδείδη, ἄγε δὴ αὖτε φόβονδ’ ἔχε μώνυχας ἵππους. / ἦ οὐ γινώσκεις ὅ τοι ἐκ Διὸς οὐχ ἕπετ’ ἀλκή), Scodel (n. 24), 330, argues: ‘Nestor, of course, knows that Diomedes can recognize Zeus’ hostility – thunderbolts have fallen directly in front of his chariot – but he needs to overcome Diomedes’ resistance to retracing.’
27 The convergence of the acoustic foreground and the acoustic background is also noticeable in Odysseus’ conversation with Eumaeus in front of the hero's palace, in which there is the sound of the lyre inside (Hom. Od. 17.269–71), and in the wedding song that accompanies the reunion of Odysseus and Penelope, by which the passers-by outside are said to be deceived into believing that a true marriage is taking place between Penelope and one of the suitors (Hom. Od. 23.148–52).
28 Halliwell (n. 21), 2.
29 Ibid..
30 See esp. S. Murnaghan, ‘The Plan of Athena’, in B. Cohen (ed.), The Distaff Side. Representing the Female in Homer's Odyssey (New York and Oxford, 1995), 61–80.
31 Heubeck, A., West, S. R., and Hainsworth, J. B., A Commentary on Homer's Odyssey, I (Oxford, 1988), 77Google Scholar. See now Xian, R., ‘Blameless Aegisthus Revisited’, Mnemosyne 74 (2021), 181–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
32 Cf. Olson (n. 8), 30–1. On the significance of Athena's visit to Ithaca at Od. 1 to Telemachus’ κλέος, see esp. Austin, N., ‘Telemachos Polymechanos’, CSCA 2 (1969) 45–63Google Scholar; Jones, P. V., ‘The ΚΛΕΟΣ of Telemachus: Odyssey 1.95’, AJP 109 (1988) 496–506Google Scholar; Wright, T., ‘Telemachus’ Recognition of Odysseus’, GRBS 58 (2018), 1–18Google Scholar. The question of Telemachus’ heroism in the Odyssey has been discussed afresh by Gottesman, A., ‘The Authority of Telemachus’, ClAnt 33 (2014), 31–60Google Scholar, with a detailed bibliography.