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Homer's Catalogue of Women

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2014

Mark D. Northrup
Mark D. Northrup*
Affiliation:
University of Washington
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Extract

‘Son of Laertes, sprung from Zeus, Odysseus of many devices, no longer now remain unwilling in my house. But first you must complete another journey and come to the halls of Hades and dread Persephone to consult the shade of Theban Teiresias, the blind seer whose mind abides steadfast … and he will tell you the way and the measures of your path and your return, how you may go over the fish-laden deep.’ (Od. 10.488-493, 539 f.)

With these words Circe prepares Odysseus for his voyage to the land of the dead. Following the enchantress' instructions, he soon completes his mission: Teiresias is duly summoned, provides his information, then — at 11.151 — departs forever. But what of the rest of the book? Circe's words at the close of Book 10 have led us to expect none of the encounters which are described in 11.152-635, yet these occupy the greatest part of Odysseus' time among the shades. Particularly problematic has been the catalogue of women which extends from 225 through 332. Denys Page thought this passage an awkward interpolation, since the women who appear in it ‘have nothing whatever to do with Odysseus; he has nothing to say to them, and they have no motive for reciting to him their pedigrees … the episode is wholly irrelevant to Odysseus and his story; it is loosely attached and carelessly adapted to its surroundings …’ Shortly after Page published his views, however, T. B. L. Webster bluntly denied ‘all Page's strictures on [the passage's] quality’, suggesting that the list was genuine because it contained information which would have been ‘of extreme interest to the Ionian descendants of the Mycenaeans’; and W. B. Stanford restated his belief that the episode was authentic, noting again that it seemed an appropriately clever device by which Odysseus could entertain — and by so doing secure the favor of — Arete, the queen of the Phaeacians.

Type
Research Article
Information
Ramus , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , 1980 , pp. 150 - 159
Copyright
Copyright © Aureal Publications 1980

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References

NOTES

1. Page, D., The Homeric Odyssey (Oxford, 1955), 36 and 38 (hereafter cited as ‘Page’Google Scholar).

2. Webster, T. B. L., From Mycenae to Homer (London, 1958), 246 and 247 Google Scholar. Webster is also impressed by the balanced structure of the entire episode (cf. below n.6).

3. Stanford, W. B., ed., The Odyssey of Homer (2nd ed., London, 1959) I, 381 (hereafter cited as ‘Stanford’Google Scholar).

4. Webster and Stanford were not, of course, the first scholars to support the catalogue's authenticity. For an earlier unitarian analysis of the nekyia, plus a review of older criticism, cf. van der Valk, M., Beiträge zur Nekyia (Kampen, 1935), 8ff. and 100ffGoogle Scholar. The most sensitive recent treatment is that of Finley, J., Homer's Odyssey (Cambridge, Mass., 1978), 118ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar. (hereafter cited as ‘Finley).

5. Although not the description of a material object, and therefore perhaps not an ekphrasis in the strictest sense of that term, the nekyia nevertheless does for the Odyssey what ancient literature's other great ekphraseis or excursuses do for the epics in which they appear. For the shield of Achilles, cf. Beye, C., The Iliad, the Odyssey and the Epic Tradition (New York, 1966) 144f.Google Scholar; for Hesiod's description of the underworld, cf. Northrup, M., ‘Tartarus Revisited: A Reconsideration of Theogony 711-819’, WS 92 (1979), 36 Google Scholar; for Jason's cloak, cf. Lawall, G., ‘Apollonhis' Argonautica: Jason as Anti-hero’, YCS 19 (1966) 154ff.Google Scholar; for the ekphraseis in the Aeneid, cf. below 154.

6. Reflecting the early Greek poet's acute sense of order, the symmetry of Od. 11.152-600 is typical of narrative units found elsewhere in Homer's epics. Compare these lines with, e.g., the contents of Il. 22 as schematized (and commented on) by Whitman, C., Homer and the Heroic Tradition (New York, 1958), 273f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar:

7. The characters' actions at 385ff. further reinforce these parallels. Agamemnon describes Penelope (441 ff.); Achilles expounds on the nature of death (488ff.); and Ajax refuses to come near Odysseus (561ff.) — just as Antikleia had earlier described Penelope (181ff.), expounded on the nature of death (218ff.) and eluded Odysseus' embrace (210ff.).

8. Cf. Simpson, R. and Lazenby, J., The Catalogue of the Ships in Homer's Iliad (Oxford, 1970), 168 and 175 n. 104Google Scholar; also Willcock, M., A Companion to the Iliad (Chicago, 1976), 24 Google Scholar. Any schoolchild who has been asked to identify, say, the fifty states that comprise the United States of America can testify to the usefulness of geography as a mnemonic device.

9. Like others before him, Page (36ff.) suggests that Od. 11.225-332 was originally composed in Boeotia, then inserted into the Odyssey by some unidentifiable rhapsode. There is, however, no point in making such a claim. Boeotia, it is true, was the home of catalogue poetry, or, more correctly, was the home of Hesiod, the catalogue poet par excellence who was traditionally held to have authored his own Catalogue of Women. But, notes Finley (118f.), ‘the difference of the Hesiodic from the Odyssean catalogue is striking. Even in its fragmentary state it shows an interest alien to Homer's in exotic myth, women's dress and beauty, and elaborated detail.’ Homer's catalogue begins, Page also reminds us, ‘with six Boeotian heroines’ (op. cit. 36). Of the fourteen women whose shades appear, however, only four have ties which are exclusively Boeotian and these appear near the beginning of the list — not because the passage was composed by a chauvinistic Boeotian, but because Homer's geographical scheme of presentation demanded it. Homer was no doubt familiar with catalogue poetry (whether Boeotian or other) and it is certainly possible that Od. 11.225-332 were inspired by such compositions. Yet even if this were the case, it would say nothing against the skill of the poet who so successfully adapted the genre to his own purposes.

10. According to, e.g., Diodorus Siculus (5.50), Iphimedeia was by birth a Thessalian but was carried off to Naxos where she married one of king Agassamenos' officers. In historical times, Otos and Ephialtes had a temenos on the island (C.I.G. II.2420).

11. Cf. Apollod., Bib. 3.15.1 (J. Frazer, ed. [Loeb]).

12. So the scholiast (W. Dindorf, ed.. [Oxford, 1855]), ad loc.

13. The scholiast (followed by virtually all modern commentators) identifies Klymene as the daughter of Minyas, wife of Phylakos and, by Helios, the mother of Phaethon. Such an identification, however, is unlikely to be correct. The Klymene of Od. 11.326 appears in a list of notorious women — women with whom she presumably has something in common; yet the scholiast's Klymene has led an apparently blameless life. But Odysseus might well have placed in this list Klymene, the wife of Nauplios. For it was their son, Palamedes, who exposed Odysseus' ruse of madness and so made it impossible for him to escape military service at Troy. Odysseus later retaliated by concealing gold in Palamedes' tent, then forging a letter from Priam which identified the sum as a bribe paid to Palamedes for his aid in helping betray the Greek camp. Nauplios — and, we may suspect, Klymene herself — sought to avenge the death of their son: first by encouraging the wives of the Greek leaders to be unfaithful to their husbands, then, when this proved unsuccessful, by showing false beacons to the ships returning from Troy and so luring them on to the rocks. Cf. Apollod., Bib. 3.2.1-2; Ep. 3.7-8, 6.7-11.

14. So the scholiast, ad loc; Apollod., Bib. 3.6.2; Diod. Sic, 4.65.5-6.

15. For the sins of these four figures, cf. e.g., Rose, H. J., A Handbook of Greek Mythology (New York, 1959), 116 Google Scholar (Orion tried to violate Artemis), 81 (Tityos attempted to rape Leto; Tantalos served the flesh of his son, Pelops, to the gods at a feast), 270 (Sisyphos attempted to outwit Death).

The presence of these sinners is essential to Homer's enhancement of the epic's theme of justice (cf. below n.30) and, as we have already seen (above n.6), to the structural symmetry of 152-600. Yet the authenticity of Od. 11.568ff. has been questioned even more vigorously than that of the catalogue of women. The chief difficulty is one of geography. Up to line 567 Odysseus has apparently been situated on the shore of the sea, beside the blood-filled trench which attracts the shades to him. Now, however, he seems to be in the underworld proper. The shift of scene is awkward but provides no reason to athetize what follows. Indeed, the location of 568ff. is no less problematic in its geography than the previous episode is in its setting. When Odysseus and Achilles conclude their conversation, we read that Achilles departed ‘through the meadow of asphodel’ (539). This is surely no place on the seashore but must be identical with that field of asphodel in which Orion hunts at 572ff. — a field located in the underworld itself. By line 539, in other words, Odysseus/Homer seems already to have altered the original setting of his narrative. Yet no one would suggest that the Achilles episode is a post-Homeric interpolation (cf. below n.29). Finley's (126) comment on the passage suggests the solution: ‘[Homer's] narrative moves from circumstances of vision to vision itself.’ Through Odysseus, Homer is recounting a vision or dream and in dreams there is no use for tapemeasures, compasses or strict geographical logic. For other defenses, cf. van der Valk, M., Textual Criticism of the Odyssey (Leiden, 1949), 229f.Google Scholar, plus the literature there cited.

16. Cf. Clarke, H., The Art of the Odyssey (Englewood Cliffs, 1967), 10ffGoogle Scholar. and 55 (hereafter cited as ‘Clarke’).

17. [Hes.], Shield 9f. Alkmene retained this reputation throughout antiquity; cf. e.g., Duckworth, G., The Nature of Roman Comedy (Princeton, 1952), 256fGoogle Scholar. (on her appearance in Plautus' Amphitruo).

18. In his comments on Prokris, the scholiast recounts a tale that is particularly suggestive — at least in some elements — of the Odyssey's plot: Kephalos, wishing to test his wife's fidelity, left her alone for eight years; he then returned in disguise, bribed her with a gift and so proved her false.

19. For a sensitive appreciation of the significance of these passages, cf. Segal, C., ‘The Phaeacians and the Symbolism of Odysseus' Return’, Ation 1.4 (1962), 46fGoogle Scholar.

20. This entire process may well have roots in the rituals which primitive societies attach to all significant transitions in life. Cf. Segal, C., ‘Transition and Ritual in Odysseus' Return’, PP 40 (1967), 321ffGoogle Scholar.

21. The line of descent runs: Tyro-Chloris-Nestor-Antilochos. For helpful genealogical stemmata of this and other families, cf. Stanford, 390; Whibley, L., A Companion to Greek Studies (Cambridge, 1916), 72fGoogle Scholar.

22. The line of descent passes from Asopos to Aigina to Aiakos, who begot Peleus and Telamon, the fathers, respectively, of Achilles and Ajax.

23. For the growth of Telemachos as one of the Odyssey's most important themes, cf. Clarke, 30ff.

24. Cf. Stanley, K., ‘Irony and Foreshadowing in Aeneid 1.462’, AJP 86 (1965), 274ffGoogle Scholar.

25. Homer does not know Orpheus, whose name first appears in Greek literature in frag. 17 of Ibykos (ed. Diehl).

26. Heracles' words are in this respect similar in function to the epic's numerous portents: the bird omens of 2.146ff., 15.160ff., 15.525ff., 19.535ff. and, in particular, the klēdōn of 20.98ff., where the old woman's mutterings, as Odysseus realizes, constitute a favorable sign from Zeus. (For other occasions on which Athena helped Heracles, cf. Il. 20.144ff.; Shield 124ff., 325ff.)

27. Cf. Page, 42.

28. It may well be ‘pointless’, as Clarke (60) suggests, to ask why Odysseus — or any other hero — was originally compelled to make his voyage to the land of the dead. For the event is an archetype, ‘grounded in enduring patterns of the imagination,’ and ‘Odysseus goes because all heroes go, because this is an appointed stage in a traditional journey, the roots of which are too deeply buried in primitive ritual to be explainable in terms of rational categories.’

29. Page, 42. Od. 23.321ff. help confirm the unity — and, by implication, the earliness — of these five meetings; for there, in recounting the Kimmerian adventure to Penelope, Odysseus presents them as a group.

30. For a good discussion of the epic's justice theme, cf. Clarke, 81 ff.; Bradley, Edward M., “The Greatness of his Nature”: Fire and Justice in the Odyssey', Ramus 5 (1976), 137–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31. Cf., e.g., above n.19.