Vernant fails to discuss the other Homeric instances of the formula χλωρὸν δέος (or, to be more precise, χλωρὸν δέος plus a part of the verb αἱρέω); he does not, then, offer a complete picture of the kinds of associations that audiences familiar with Homeric poetry would have read into these Odyssean passages. Nevertheless, when we survey other instances of the formula, we find that they do, in fact, support Vernant’s conclusions: the phrase χλωρὸν δέος is associated both with a fear of death and with a fear of what is radically other.

Our second passage from Odyssey 11 evokes similar concepts. Odysseus describes how the dead souls thronged around him (632) and goes on to speak of his “green fear” (633). The juxtaposition of this phrase with a description of the shades associates Odysseus’ fear with the concept of death. But again, the dead produce a “marvelous (or god-spoken) noise” (ἠχῇ θεσπεσίῃ, 633), which is mentioned immediately before the formula ἐμὲ δὲ χλωρὸν δέος ᾕρει. Once more, then, this passage supports Foley’s association of the phrase “green fear” with the concept of the supernatural. And that theme is echoed in lines 634–635, with the mention of the Gorgon’s head, which is the mask of a deity sent by another deity, Persephone. What is more, a monstrous divinity such as the Gorgon carries particularly strong associations with the supernatural: she is not merely a deity, something more-than-mortal, but also a monster. Audiences familiar with usages of the formula χλωρὸν δέος such as we have considered above would, then, have picked up on the allusions to death and to the supernatural in these passages. They would have concluded that Odysseus’ fear amounts to a fear of both these things. And these observations are consistent with Vernant’s description of the monstrous otherness of death. As Vernant would have it, Odysseus fears death when he encounters the shades and imagines the Gorgon’s mask; but at the same time he fears what is radically other, since death would dissolve all the order that undergirds his living identity.

The notion of the monstrous disorder of death helps to account for the details of the Homeric passages that we studied in Chapter 8 and that we shall consider below. A number of the Homeric floral images of death echo depictions of monsters in other archaic Greek poems. The relevant images either resemble portrayals of specific monsters or recall the wild fertility that the Hesiodic poets attribute to monsters. And in this way, they allude not only to monstrousness but also to the theme of disorder. As mentioned above, monsters are by definition disorderly beings; but the monsters of the Hesiodic tradition, like flowers in Homeric poetry, are also characterized by a disordered fertility that fails to respect regular means of reproduction. Moreover, the irregular fertility of Homeric flowers and of Hesiodic monsters is. in both cases, associated with challenges to established order. Such allusions to disorder are complemented in our Homeric images by descriptions of physical dissolution or of the loss of identity; and these details are likewise consistent with the concept of the monstrous disorder of death.

The simile that follows, moreover, bears a close resemblance to an image describing a monster in another archaic Greek poem. In the Iliadic passage, Gorgythion “threw his head to one side like a poppy” (μήκων δ’ ὡς ἑτέρωσε κάρη βάλεν, 306) when he was struck by Teucer’s arrow. Stesichorus associates the monstrous Geryon with similar imagery. When Heracles’ arrow strikes the first head of the three-headed monster, it leans to one side like a poppy:

Similarly, Salvador Castillo argues that the image of a poppy leaning its head to one side is a more obvious fit for descriptions of many-headed monsters, such as we find in Stesichorus’ poem. He concludes that the Homeric poets are alluding to such passages, so as to enrich their account of Gorgythion’s demise. In particular, he argues that allusions to monsters and monstrosity in the relevant lines are important to the portrayal of Gorgythion’s death.

We can arrive at a better explanation of the allusions to monsters in this passage if we bear in mind Vernant’s discussion of the monstrousness of death—after all, Gorgythion’s name recalls the Gorgon and hence the very monster that is the focus of Vernant’s studies. And indeed it makes more sense to view allusions to monstrousness in the image as providing a comparandum not for the warrior himself, but for the death that he undergoes: if a simile were to compare a warrior with a monster, we would expect him to be the most fearsome of combatants; but death is something that all, both weak and strong, must face.

At Hymn to Demeter 8–14, then, the Homeric poets described a flower associated with death in terms resembling Hesiodic depictions of monsters. We need not conclude that those poets were thereby alluding to our version of the Theogony: again, we may be dealing with two contemporaneous and fluid poetic traditions. Moreover, the Homeric poets may not have had in mind specifically the Hesiodic Typhoeus: the depiction of Typhoeus at Theogony 820–880 may reflect a Hesiodic template for describing monsters more generally. But even if this is the case, the Homeric description of the narcissus would have reminded early audiences of the sorts of monsters that they had encountered in performances of Hesiodic poetry. And at the same time, the Homeric poets alluded to a flower that was associated with death in wider Greek culture. If again we refer to Vernant’s findings we can posit a reason for these allusions both to death and to monstrousness: the many-headed narcissus suggests the monstrousness of death.

We notice more general similarities between Homeric flowers and Hesiodic monsters when we focus on the notion of fertility, which is given particular emphasis in the relevant passages of Homeric poetry. Both Homeric flowers and Hesiodic monsters possess a wild, disordered fertility whose operations contrast with the more regular reproductive processes associated, for instance, with human beings or with the Olympian gods. And such fertility is not merely disorderly in and of itself: it is associated in both genres with challenges to established order. Again, the combination of such themes with Homeric images of death is consistent with Vernant’s explorations of archaic Greek culture: according to him, the early Greeks conceived of death in terms of monstrous disorder.

Homeric flowers, then, possess an irregular fertility that contrasts with the regular successions of human generations or with more regular modes of reproduction; and Hesiodic monsters possess similar qualities. Such associations of flowers with irregular processes and the echoes thereby of monsters in the Hesiodic tradition are in keeping with the concepts that Vernant associates with death in Homeric poetry and elsewhere—both monstrousness and disorder.

Lastly, I would like to consider the implications of allusions to formlessness and the dissolution of form in Homeric floral imagery. These are likewise consistent with Vernant’s description of the monstrousness of death and would have supported associations of fertile flowers with such notions: they associate death with a breakdown of order in the body. Moreover, allusions to the loss of identity in those same lines suggest the consequences of this descent into disorder.

For a first example, we might return once more to the description of the death of Gorgythion. If Vernant’s findings are valid, we would expect that the allusions to the monstrousness in the poppy image and in the name of the warrior would suggest the dissolution of Gorgythion’s identity at the time of his death. And the details of the passage do, indeed, support such notions. Lines 302–305 describe the warrior’s living identity—in particular, through his relationship with his father Priam and mother Castianeira. But audiences familiar with Homeric descriptions of the Underworld would have found suggestions of the loss of identity in lines 306–308, with their focus on the heads of the flower and of the dead warrior. If they bore in mind Homeric descriptions of the dead, they would have been able to posit a reason for such a detail: it anticipates Gorgythion’s future among the “heads without vigor” (ἀμενηνὰ κάρηνα), which is the most common description of the dead in the Odyssean Nekyiai (10.521, 536, 11.29, 49). As we noted in Chapter 8, this formula suggests the insubstantiality of the shades and hence their lack of a definite physical form. And indeed this is the very fate that, according to Vernant, is symbolized by the head of the Gorgon, the monster recalled by Gorgythion’s name.

A second Iliadic poppy image, which we have yet to consider, couples references to a dying warrior’s head with more explicit allusions to physical dissolution. Near the end of Iliad 14, lines reminiscent of the Gorgythion episode describe Peneleos as he slays Ilioneus. They focus firstly on Ilioneus’ mother (as do lines 501–505, where Peneleos boasts that mother and son will have no joyful reunion); in this way, as at 8.302–305 these lines establish the identity that Ilioneus enjoyed while he was still alive. But the narrative goes on to place emphasis on the slain warrior’s head; and Ilioneus’ head is compared with that of a poppy (κώδεια), the only reference to that plant in our versions of the Homeric poems outside Iliad 8. Again, for audiences familiar with Homeric descriptions of the Underworld the focus on Ilioneus’ head would have suggested his future among the anonymous “heads” of the dead.

But while the Gorgythion simile anticipates the warrior’s loss of physical form in death, the Ilioneus episode describes the violation of the warrior’s physical integrity. Our passage from Iliad 14, with its grisly details, focuses insistently on Peneleos’ decapitation of Ilioneus. Peneleos drives his spear through his opponent’s eye, tears the eyeball away from its roots, pushes the weapon out through Ilioneus’ neck, lops off his head, and displays it to the dead man’s comrades with the spear-point still thrust through the eye:

Vernant’s notion of the monstrous disorder of death is, moreover, consistent with the themes of the Odyssean floral images that we studied in Chapter 8. As with the Gorgythion and Ilioneus episodes, Circe in her depiction of the Sirens’ victims focuses firstly on their identities as living men and then passes on to a description of their deaths. Allusions to the relationships of Gorgythion and Ilioneus with their mothers at Iliad 8.304–305 and 14.492 help to establish the identities of those warriors. The identities of the Sirens’ victims are likewise defined with reference to their familial ties: as Circe warns Odysseus, whoever is beguiled by the Sirens’ songs, his wife and children will not welcome him home (Odyssey 12.42–43). Circe goes on to place special emphasis on the dissolution of the individuality of those on the Sirens’ island. In place of living men, the Sirens’ meadow hosts a heap of rotting flesh and bones (45–46). Ilioneus’ body is dismembered by Peneleos; but in Odyssey 12 Circe offers a more thoroughgoing image of physical dissolution. It is no longer possible even to tell one body from the next, such is their state of decay.

The description of the asphodel meadow at Odyssey 24.13–14 also accords with the notions of the loss of individuality and the dissolution of form. At that point, the dead souls who inhabit the meadow are described as “images of the dead” (εἴδωλα καμόντων, 14). And the notion of the εἴδωλον is closely associated with that of insubstantiality. When Odysseus is unable to embrace the shade of his mother, he wonders if Persephone has sent him only an image (εἴδωλον, 11.213) of her. But Anticleia explains that such is the state of souls after death: their bodies dissolve and the soul flits away to the Underworld (219–222). And as noted in Chapter 8, the Homeric poets’ choice of a meadow of asphodel, which from a distance would possess a grayish hue, would have offered audiences another way to conceptualize the insubstantiality of the souls. Such a depiction of the souls accords with Vernant’s exploration of the monstrousness of death: their insubstantiality reflects the loss of the bodily form that was essential to their identities as living men and women. If Odysseus tarries in the Underworld, he risks losing his physical integrity to the sight of the Gorgon’s mask and thereby also his identity. He would become like the insubstantial souls of the asphodel meadow.

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