Chapter 10. Odysseus and the Boar The dialogue between Penelope and Odysseus is broken into two parts by Odysseus’ footbath and the recollection of his boar hunt on Mount Parnassus. The change of scene is dramatic: here we see Odysseus just reaching maturity (hebe), unmarried, and performing a hunting feat in the company of his relatives. Eurykleia’s recognition of Odysseus by his scar prompts the digression, but the explanation of… Read more
Chapter 11. The Conversation I focus initially on the second part of the dialogue, after Odysseus’ footbath. At this point, the conversation between Penelope and Odysseus changes in tone and substance: Penelope now takes the center stage, the beggar primarily expresses his agreement, and the fictional Odysseus in Thesprotia drops out of view. The focus shifts back to Penelope’s position and options, and now there is talk of… Read more
Chapter 12. Aedon Penelope begins in a striking way, with an extended comparison between herself and the nightingale – Aedon, the daughter of Pandareos. Although technically a simile, the comparison is so extensive as to amount to a mythological exemplum, and this is a noteworthy fact since Penelope’s previous narratives were all about herself and her present and her immediate past. This, by contrast, is a story about the events and people of the… Read more
Part II. Chapter 2. Les Amis Mortels [1] Battle in the Iliad is far from wordless carnage, resonating only with the sound of armor clashing. The general description of the poem’s first military encounter begins strikingly by contrasting the eerie silence of the Greek troops with the heteroglossia of the Trojans. But once the battle is joined: ἔνθα δ’ ἅμ’ οἰμωγή… Read more
Part II. Chapter 3. Composition by Theme and the Mêtis of the Odyssey Why is the narrative structure of the Odyssey so complicated? Although the plot of the poem is perfectly straightforward—Aristotle observed that it was the imitation of a single action—nevertheless the ordering of its narrative is elaborately nonlinear. The Iliad gets under way with a question from which ensues a linear, chronological account of the… Read more
Part II. Chapter 4. Genre and Generation in the Odyssey In recent years, much brilliant and invaluable work elucidating Greek myths has been done by Jean-Pierre Vernant and Marcel Detienne, [1] who have looked across texts and across historical periods in order to discern and retrieve a given myth’s dispersed but essential components, which, seen in their relation to each other, yield… Read more
Part II. Chapter 5. The Poetics of Exchange in the Iliad [1] ξένια γὰρ Ἄρεος τραύματα, φόνοι —scholia Sophocles Electra 96 Τhe far-reaching implications of Marcel Mauss’s Essai sur le Don, [2] much admired by ethnographers and anthropological theorists, have contributed greatly to our grasp of how thoroughly a code of reciprocity,… Read more
Part II. Chapter 6. Measuring Authority, Authoritative Measures: Hesiod’s Works and Days [1] Observe due measure: and best in all things is the right time and right amount. [2] Hesiod, Works and Days 694 Ἥλιος οὐχ ὑπερβήσεται μέτρα· εἰ δὲ μή, Ἐρινύες μιν Δίκης ἐπίκουροι ἐξευρήσουσιν… Heraclitus fr. 94D-K … Read more
Part II. Chapter 7. Remembering Nicole Loraux Remembering Athens [1] I wish this morning to offer a few remarks on method and memory, topics that this anthology asks us to recall and rethink. In the course of these remarks I wish as well to recall explicitly the work of our co-editor Nicole Loraux, whose astonishing series of books and essays—along with those of her colleagues J.-P. Read more
[In this on-line version, the page-numbers of the printed version are indicated within braces (“{” and “}”). For example, “{69|70}” indicates where p. 69 of the printed version ends and p. 70 begins. These indications will be useful to readers who need to look up references made elsewhere to the printed version of this book.] Foreword This book by Professor Petropoulos is a veritable… Read more
