The Authoritative Word: Commands

We discover by tracing the term that immediately below Zeus in authority rank Hera and Poseidon, his wife and his brother, both of whom are commanded by one other speaker (Hera by Zeus, Poseidon by Hera), but they also command several others, and furthermore, speak a muthos to the assembled gods, a privilege exclusive to them and Zeus. One step further down on the ladder of authority are Athena and Hermes, who play the role of children, not issuing muthos commands to other gods at all, although the daughter Athena (yet not the son Hermes) does receive such commands from her “parents” Zeus and Hera.

As if to compensate for their lack of speechmaking power among the gods, Hermes and Athena speak to men using muthoi of command. Now the frequent intervention of divinity in human affairs in this poem might lull us into thinking that they routinely give such commands to men; but, on closer inspection, this appears to be quite rare: the brothers Zeus and Poseidon are the only other gods to speak muthoi to men, and even then, Zeus does so indirectly, by means of Dream (to Agamemnon, 2.16) and through Iris (to Hektor, 11.186). Poseidon’s social position as male “outside” the house seems to put him in a status resembling Athena’s, with both taking orders from Hera. He appears, with Athena, in human guise, to encourage Achilles as he battles the river Skamandros (21.285-87). Their restricted sphere of influence in the muthoi contests of the immortals makes more ironic their words to the hero: “Son of Peleus, do not too much shirk or fear. For we are such allies for you, we two of the gods, with the approval of Zeus, I and Pallas Athena. ” Even in claiming that he and Athena are powerful helpers, Poseidon must bow to Zeus’ verbal precedence, embodied in his “approval” (epainēsantos). {48|49}

At first sight, Hermes seems different. Unlike Athena, he is never commanded with an explicit muthos by any other god. But far from being a freely acting agent, the god of communication functions when enacting his sole muthos of command as another emissary from Zeus. Speaking to Priam in the Achaean camp after Hektor’s ransom, he takes the pose that Dream assumed in an earlier message scene. Compare 24.682, “He stood over his head and spoke a muthos,” with 2.20, “He stood over his head looking like Nestor.” There are other {50} ironies in the presentation of Hermes’ command. It is introduced with the same “while others slept” motif as was Zeus’ decision to send Dream (cf. 2.1-4 and 24.677-81); but whereas Zeus plots the generating device for the entire poem, Hermes merely plans the logistics of Priam’s exit. Zeus’ decision and its execution occupies thirty-five lines, Hermes’ a dozen; Zeus can order Dream to repeat his commands, while Hermes must do his own work. Finally, Priam’s curtly described consent—”The old man feared and made the herald stand up” (24.689)—surely reminds an audience of the fuller formula, “the old man feared and obeyed the muthos,” which has been significantly used twice before, once shortly before this scene (24.571 = 1.33). The conspicuous absence here draws attention to Hermes’ lack of persuasive power; he is at the margin of powerful speech, as that is represented by Homer through the deployment of muthos commands.

What I have just described illustrates a basic principle of Homeric poetics; for performance time—the number of lines allotted to a given speech—is the single most important narrative “sign” in Homer’s system for marking the status of a hero or god. (We might contrast this with Athenian drama, which provides equal and even greater space to speeches by low-status characters—nurses, messengers, watchmen.) The portrayal of Achilles offers us the greatest example of this principle. For the moment, however, let me observe that the narrator’s granting of the “floor” to speakers in the poem is consistent with status: at a level of social status even lower than that of Athena and Hermes among the gods, the divinities Kharis and Iris, working on their own, give muthos commands that are the shortest of any such speeches (18.391-92, 23.204-11). The latter speech shows the features common to low-status behavior elsewhere. Iris, a metangelos, is careful to announce her sender’s demands (Achilles’ prayer for the winds to come); she uses an indirect directive, simply stating what Achilles wants and never using an imperative. The effect, like that of Athena’s epiphany in Book 1, is to increase the status of Achilles’ own speech. We should note that both scenes in which the minor goddesses give muthos commands are significant transition points in the narrative, yet they are not therefore given more consideration. Status and speech style override narrative needs. Meanwhile, Zeus’ words, even when they simply set up plot changes (e.g. 2.7-15) always merit fuller descriptive room.

The three mediated commands of Zeus called muthoi occur at crucial moments in the Iliad‘s first half. All relate directly to the promise Zeus made to Thetis. Early in Book 2, the counsel of Zeus for fulfilling the plan to honor Achilles takes the form of a message from “baleful Dream” telling Agamemnon to arm for battle. The nature of this message is marked by the formula “winged words,” which, as we saw, introduces a directive, as also by the word Zeus uses to send the message “I order” (2.10). In clipped phrases, Zeus specifies a number of things: the exact destination (Agamemnon’s tent), the speed with which the arming is to be done, and an explanation (note the triple gar of lines 2.12-14). Agamemnon, he says, can now take Troy, since the Olympians, influenced by Hera’s entreaties, have reached accord. Is it not significant that, when Zeus speaks with what seems greatest accuracy, he is in fact contradicting what the audience knows? For we witnessed only one scene earlier complete discord. Zeus speaks ironically in saying that Hera “bent” all the gods to her will (epegnampsen hapantas, 2.14), for, in the earlier scene, this rare verb described Hera’s fearful submission to the will of Zeus (epignampsasa philon kēr 1.569). We shall see Diomedes and Glaukos use the same strategy of creative rearrangement later. Here, as if to mark Zeus’ deception all the more, Dream becomes creative on his own and modifies the message so as to persuade his audience of his impersonation. Zeus’ command does not include the line (2.24) “A counsel-bearing man must not sleep all night”; but this sort of gnomic utterance perfectly fits the character of Nestor, whose form the Dream has taken. Nestor himself is portrayed, in a small detail, as nearly calling Zeus’ bluff when Agamemnon finally reports his {51|52} dream: “If anyone else had told us this dream, we would call it a lie and turn away instead. But now the one who claims to be best of the Achaeans saw it” (2.80-83). The logical conclusion is never stated, and indeed Nestor never asserts that Agamemnon is right, only that he has more authority. We may well imagine that Dream’s persuasive disguise—as Nestor—restrains the self-regarding elder hero from dismissing the message entirely. Zeus’ authority, higher than Agamemnon’s, has been deconstructed neatly within the first few lines of this book when Homer demonstrates that muthos speech does not require truth so much as an effective representation.

Because Zeus is set beyond the time and distance limits of humanity, his muthos speeches show an amount of verbal detail unparalleled in heroic discourse. The threat to Athena and Hera (8.399-408) lists the amount of damage Zeus intends; his promise at 11.186-94 specifies exactly the point at which power will be granted. Furthermore, at the conclusions of both commands, Zeus sets exact limitations on the action of the threat and promise. Hera he will not berate as much as Athena, seeing that she is an inveterate adversary. Hektor he will allow to win, but only until he reaches the Achaean ships (11.193-94). Zeus’ power to command, then, is matched by his power to create nuance and give verbal texture to his directives. This shows in the amplitude of his rhetoric, achieved by repetition and synonymity: “Turn back and do not allow them onward” (8.399); “I will throw them from the chariot box and break the chariot” (403); “I do not blame Hera so much nor am I angry” (407). It is the accumulation of {53|54} such parallel expressions rather than the mere single occurrence of this admittedly common Homeric syntactic pattern, that causes Zeus’ speech to stand out. Exaggeration is another form of the same urge for amplitude: Zeus’ boasts that it takes ten years to heal the wounds from his bolt (8.405) depend on a rhetoric of space and distance that only the most important speakers in the Iliad are privileged to use. As we shall see, Nestor, Agamemnon, and Achilles all have stylistic habits that echo those of Zeus; no one hero manages his entire repertoire (although Achilles comes closest).

The declarations that Zeus addresses to all the Olympians at the beginning of Book 8 can best illustrate all the characteristics of his muthos speech in the poem. This speech represents the ideal of the genre of commands. It shares with all muthoi, of command or other genres, a concentration on the act to be performed by words. As with other muthoi, the speech thus labeled is subject to public scrutiny before an audience. It is a performance, thus, in a second sense as well as in a speech-act view. As do other muthoi we have seen, it reaches for length and elaboration as an emblem of authoritative, important communication; it asserts the status of the speaker.

Before we turn to the anatomy of the struggle between Zeus and others over the right to speak with authority, one other feature of this important speech in Book 8 bears examining. It is characteristic of the greatest speakers in the poem that their muthoi often have a self-referential focus on the very act of speaking. Zeus, in prohibiting the gods from supporting the fighters in either side of the plain at Troy, verbally frames the linguistic situation on Olympus as a struggle by two sides, one in which his rivals wish to “cut” his utterance (diakersai emon epos), as if it resembled the chain that he mentions later in the speech. Along with the legalistically full prohibition, “Let neither female divinity nor male attempt to cut my word,” Zeus introduces a positive injunction: “But all together praise (aineit‘), so that I complete these deeds as quickly as possible” (8.7-9). This command, too, dwells on a verbal notion. If taken as parallel to the later imperative, “Come and attempt” (18), the order to “praise” makes more sense: Zeus highlights the physical superiority that underlies his authority; although joined paratactically, the first imperative expresses a thought actually subordinate to the second. In the image of the chain, then, are contained two views of communication. To “cut” Zeus’ word signifies an intolerable breakdown of relation, but to struggle with him is to provide a public acknowledgment of the “highest deviser’s” craft (8.22). Even the loss by the other gods in this divine tug-of-war becomes a kind of praise. We are reminded of the way in which the Funeral Games of Book 23 defuse conflict by providing a public ranking of Achaean competitors to produce a greater solidarity. It is not accidental that Zeus oversees this “contest” in Book 8, while Achilles, speaking at least five muthos commands, oversees the Games.

The critical need for the approval of Zeus’ Olympian audience, the “praise” alluded to at 8.9, shows most clearly how an oral culture’s notions of performance structure the distribution of power. In effect, only an acceptable “performance” of a proposal can enable the speaker to accomplish his will; only a counter performance, the actual voicing of “praise,” certifies the audience’s consent. It is explicitly during {55|56} a muthos performance that the other gods on several occasions express dissent by withholding praise. The formulaic line “Act, but we other gods will not all approve” (epaineomen) occurs three times (4.29, 16.443, 22.181). In each case, it marks those moments in the Iliad when the speaker, Zeus, has just suggested that the lives be saved. On two of these occasions, Hera identifies the proposal made by Zeus as a muthos, prefacing her reply to him with another formulaic line, “O most dread (ainotate) son of Kronos, what sort of muthos have you said?” (4.25 = 16.440). The third time, Zeus’ speech is introduced as the initial muthos in an exchange, with yet another formula (22.167): “To them Zeus father of men and gods began the muthoi.” In each case, the threat of implied public blame among the other gods seems to force Zeus to yield. We feel, however, that he is prepared for the outcome. For the three muthoi of Zeus which seek approval for his plan to intervene in the destinies of heroes are in complete contrast with the muthos he made in Book 8 when prohibiting the other gods from meddling. There, we saw him use the rhetoric of force. But when plotting something he knows to be contrary to the will of Athena and Hera, Zeus portrays himself as incapable of command, undecided as to which course to take. Such acting by Zeus can be taken as directive. It differs from more straightforward commands only in that the performer has already judged the outcome and adjusted his rhetoric accordingly. His proposal to stop the war in Book 4 is sheathed in neutral, unemphatic, and brief observations: Menelaos has two helpers, it seems; Aphrodite has saved one who thought he would die; victory belongs to Menelaos (4.7—12). Even when making an explicit proposal, Zeus phrases it in a gracious hortatory subjunctive (4.14, phrazōmetha). He offers alternatives as well: either to raise war or strike a peace. The audience is politely taken into consideration: “… if this might somehow be dear and sweet to all”(4.17).

In Book 16, Zeus again poses alternatives, dramatizing his doubts about whether to whisk Sarpedon off to Lykia or let him die at Troy. Instead of commands, we hear from Zeus now the language of lament, reinforced by the sound pattern of the lines, a repeated cry of grief (16.433-35):

In the third passage where Zeus is deterred by the threat of blame from the gods, he reverts to a cooler rhetoric, calling Hektor merely “dear” (contrast Sarpedon as “most dear”). The possibility of saving Hektor is suggested in more rational language of exchange: Zeus’ grief arises not from a familial bond with the hero but because Hektor was a good provider of sacrificial offerings (22.170-72). As in Zeus’ muthos in Book 4, constative acts cushion the more emotional language (cf. 168, “a dear man is pursued,” and 172, “Achilles pursues him”). Even though Zeus uses imperatives this time (cf. 22.174 and 4.14), his suggestion is once more put as a choice, to save or crush Hektor.

In sum, Zeus represents the ideally powerful speaker of muthos commands, but even he cannot escape the demands of his audience of gods. Although the other gods do not range as far in their few examples of muthoi of command, their capacity to withhold praise inhibits Zeus’ performance.

Heroic Commands

From the distinctions just outlined, we might expect the commands of Nestor to be distinguished from those of the younger Achaeans. They are prominent in the flow of the narrative: five of his six muthoi of command occur between Books 9 and 11, the poem’s core, and all mark significant junctures. His first such speech in the poem stands out, though brief, because Agamemnon grants Nestor instant obedience (2.434-41). In light of our observation that muthos commanders have a channel to the divine, it is interesting that Nestor’s explicit motivation for telling Agamemnon to advance the troops is that “a god grants” the present work (436). The audience should recall that the “god” is Zeus, whose messenger, Dream, took the form of Nestor in appearing to Agamemnon (2.21). The old hero, then, is both the distant and immediate catalyst for the assault, and his muthos (2.433) depends on the muthos of Zeus (2.16).

This function of Nestor to regulate the pace of the plot appears clearly in the other muthos speeches he makes. In his first speech in Book 9, he can control three segments of an audience at once: Diomedes, whom he instructs in the art of speech; the kouroi whom he orders to take guard duty; and finally Agamemnon. Again, there is {60|61} some irony. Nestor commands Agamemnon to give orders, “for you are most kingly” (9.69), a status clearly cast in doubt by the old hero’s leading position. His elaborate praise of Agamemnon here (73-75) in a triplex polyptoton is, of course, self-serving, too, as Nestor is undoubtedly the nameless “one who plans the best counsel” whom Agamemnon is said to obey. Similar cueing of Agamemnon occurs in Nestor’s second muthos in this book. After cautiously praising the proposed gifts for Achilles (164), Nestor pointedly proceeds to stage-manage the embassy details. Praise and control—the Nestorian strategy—continue through Book 10, in which Nestor regularly upstages the younger hero by directing the guards and proposing the night mission to spy on the Trojan camp (10.203-17). We should contrast the offer whereby Nestor attracts volunteers for this exploit. Unlike Agamemnon’s faulty promise of gifts alone, in the preceding book, Nestor’s proposition explicitly involves the winning of kleos. Economic gain (dosis, 213) is just part of the bargain.

Even in his long reminiscence during his final muthos of command, Nestor depicts himself as an authority. Not only does he frame the speech to Patroklos on the basis of his own biography, but within the speech he alludes to a previous rhetorical success on his part—the original recruitment of Patroklos and Achilles for the war. There are signs of agonistic speaking in this remembrance. Although Odysseus was also present in Phthia that day, it was Nestor (so he says) who “began the muthos” (11.781). The formulaic variation here, to the rarer use of the singular of the word for speech, might imply that Nestor’s performance did not face any counter speeches. We are also reminded by this detail that Odysseus, who had begun the embassy speeches in Book 9, failed. Phoinix, who resembles Nestor, would have made the better opening speech, and may have been intended to do so (9.223—Ajax nods to him). The parallel is strengthened by the resemblance between the scene in Phthia that Nestor recalls and that which has just occurred in the tent of Achilles.

We may well think that Nestor constructs these resemblances for persuasive purposes. It is only with effort that we remember that Homer in this scene mimes Nestor as making up a speech—not necessarily recounting “what happened. ” So we should place more emphasis on the differences between the words that he recalls Peleus saying to Achilles (to “excel and be best,” 11.783-84) and Odysseus’ recollection in a similar rhetorical gambit (Peleus tells Achilles to avoid strife with his peers, 9.254-58). Nestor selects the one detail {61|62} from the alleged “instructions” of Peleus that will contrast most with his own recapitulation of another speech of advice, that made by Patroklos’ father, suggesting the companion of Achilles should instruct and guide him (11.786-90). In brief, the older man uses his muthos to praise Patroklos, thereby constructing an image of the role he is supposed to play. As with Zeus’ speeches to Hera and Thetis in Book 24, Homer here has supplied enough detail to make us appreciate the possibilities for fictional presentation within authoritative speechmaking.

It helps that Nestor’s age makes him an appropriate stand-in for Menoitios, so that this speech is truly a “performance” by a seasoned actor. His advice to Patroklos is described in the same terms as Menoitios’ instructions (compare 11.783 and 785, epetelle with the same verb in 840, used by Patroklos). This fatherly instruction is meant to replicate itself when Patroklos next returns to Achilles. But Patroklos improvises his performance rather than copying Nestor’s. Instead of reminding Achilles about Peleus, he denies the hero’s parentage (16.33-35) and weeps ominously “like a black-watered stream.” In the poet’s image system, the performance of Patroklos thus resembles that of the Iliad‘s weakest rhetorician, Agamemnon, the only other speaker who resorts to such an act (16.3-4 = 9-14-15)·

So far we have seen that the distribution of muthos speeches among heroic speakers accurately predicts their success at persuasion within the poem. In what follows, I want to explore the distinctions in the power relations thus sketched. This is not a formal poetics, since it will be seen that the seemingly simple act of issuing a command becomes so variable as to resist reduction to a schema. Questions of individual style arise, which in turn are inseparable from notions of the proper convention for commanding or enacting other types of speech-act. If we keep in mind the example of Zeus—in which long, detailed, and self-assertive rhetoric represents the best command form—it soon appears that only one Iliadic speaker comes closest to this ideal, Achilles. Other commands bear a kind of family resemblance one to the other, and offer less noticeable similarities to divine speech.

We can gauge the distance between Nestor, Agamemnon, and the others in several ways. In terms of the narrative progression, Agamemnon drops out of sight as a source of muthos commands by Book 14. Odysseus appears in this role up to Book 19, at which point we see Agamemnon deferring to his judgment. As Agamemnon’s speaking power wanes, Achilles’ waxes: it is he who gives the muthos {61|63} commands on the Achaean side all through the last two books of the Iliad. Thus, the control of authoritative speech passes like the Achaean scepter from the “owner,” Agamemnon, to his young competitor.

A second gauge of difference comes in the rhetorical form and effectiveness of commands. Here, the same hierarchy is reaffirmed. Agamemnon is less powerful as a speaker than Odysseus, and he, in turn, must defer to Achilles. We shall see the differences on the level of individual stylistic choices in the next chapter. But some of the broader signs of these distinctions should be noted here. An important preliminary strike against Agamemnon comes in the detail that tells us he speaks against the wishes of his audience: “The other Achaeans all approved . . . but it did not please Agamemnon” (1.23-24). His threat to Khryses, that the skēptron of the god will not do him any good should he return, turns out to have ironic appropriateness for himself, when his authority sinks. In contrast to Zeus, whose similar threat silences Hera at the end of Book 1 (1.566), Agamemnon’s language works destruction, turning the priest to seek divine intervention with deadly effect. Like the fault of Paris in blaming the goddesses, Agamemnon’s improper speech-act has disastrous consequences.

Another sign of Agamemnon’s rhetorical ineffectiveness comes in his dialogue with Menelaos in Book 10. His brother has not even been commanded, yet comes (10.25) with as much sympathy as Agamemnon for the Argive sufferings, only to find that Agamemnon himself is ceding authority to Nestor over the guards, “for they might obey him most.” In this context, the muthos that Agamemnon makes to Menelaos shrinks in consequence. In fact, Menelaos has to elicit the command on his own, since Agamemnon has given no clear directions in his rambling talk (10.43-59). “How do you instruct and order me with a muthos?” Menelaos asks. Agamemnon’s reply is a weak warning to stay in place lest the brothers lose one another in camp (65-71), and a suggestion to “glorify” the other commanders on waking them up—a rather obvious rhetorical strategy.

Finally, there is Agamemnon’s yielding to Odysseus’ criticism. “You very much reached my heart with your tough rebuke,” he tells him, after Odysseus has demolished Agamemnon’s graceless proposal to flee (14.105—5). Odysseus demands silence from him; Agamemnon’s only defense is another weak rhetorical excuse, that he was only fulfilling what his audience wanted (14.90, 105).

321, pothē . . . pathoimi

322, patros apophthimenoio puthoimēn

323, hos pou nun Phthiēphi

325, polemizō

327, Neoptolemos

329, phthisesthai

330, Phthiënde

334, Pēlea . . . pampan

337, apophthimenoio puthētai

Odysseus gives no more muthos orders after this performance by Achilles.

The Contested Word

The agonistic nature of muthoi has been clear to us as we examined the commands heroes make. A few narrative phrases also allude to this quality: as we saw in the last chapter, Thoas is described as a good speaker “whenever young men engage in strife (erisseian) concerning speech-acts (muthoi)” (15.284-85). Not only are such muthoi the various proposals brought forward by potential commanders; they {68|69} are also the counterarguments that denigrate others’ commands; and one can “engage in strife” about them not only in terms of content, but, as we shall see, in the matter of their style. The difference between a muthos command and a flyting speech may at times be minimal, since every instance of the former, as we saw, even those by Zeus, is open to challenge. The two genres, then, complement one another.

Book 4 of the poem is a good place to begin observing the poetics of flyting. The “game” nature of the genre is nowhere more evident than in Agamemnon’s ritualized encouragement of the troops, called by later critics the epipōlēsis or “review.” His technique consists of verbal assault. It is most often described with the language of “blaming” (see forms of the verb neikeō at 4.241, 336, 359, 368). The key lines for my interpretation that this activity is part of the authoritative speech of muthos are 4.356-57: “Smiling at him {Odysseus} Agamemnon addressed him, as he knew of his anger, and took back the muthos.” The speech thus referred to on its retraction was labeled in line 336 with the verb neikessen. We can extrapolate from this co-occurrence that each speech Agamemnon makes in the episode is in fact an instantiation of muthos discourse. Another co-occurrence worth noting here: twice (337, 369) the introduction to Agamemnon’s speech couples the verb neikeō with the formula “he spoke winged words.” Since “winged words” are also a regular introduction to directives, this is further confirmation that flyting speeches represent a form of muthos.

Not only is the diction of the speech introductions standardized, but Agamemnon’s rhetorical tacks also follow a pattern. He begins the three neikos speeches (but not the “gentle words” to Idomeneus, the two Ajaxes and Nestor—4.256, 285, 313) with questions.

Next, Agamemnon compares his addressees to scared animals. His general rebuke to the Argives pictures them as fawns whose motion across the plain is halted by fear (243-45). To Odysseus and Diomedes {69|70}, he uses the verb (kata)ptōssō (340, 371) a verb related to the word for “rabbit” that still exhibits an active association with the animal’s behavior (cf. the image in 17.676 of an eagle capturing the cowering creature). The final strategy in these speeches relies on privileging another place, thereby implying that the addressee occupies a position of no importance. Thus, to the Argives, Agamemnon contrasts their stilled movement with the preferable alternative of engagement in battle. Waiting by the ships is equivalent, in his words, to the vague hope that Zeus will protect them at some future time (4.249). The “other place” hurled at Odysseus and Menestheus as an insult is the dais, which, says Agamemnon, they prefer instead of battle (343-46). Diomedes is provoked by Agamemnon with the mention of another place and time, the heroic exploits of Tydeus, his father, at Thebes.

Odysseus feels himself to be the real target of Agamemnon’s blame, and rightly, since only he (not Menestheus) is called names— “pre-eminent in evil tricks, mind on gain” (4.339). Instead of denying these epithets, Odysseus deftly parries the accusation of laxness with a rhetorical question: “What word has escaped the fence of teeth on you? How can you talk about neglecting war?” (350—52). Then he switches to speak of the future: “You will see … the father of Telemakhos mixing in the front lines” (promakhoisi, 354). Finally, he criticizes Agamemnon’s style of speech: “You are talking idly” (anemōlia bazeis, 355). Odysseus gains forcefulness from his manipulation of poetic devices. The paronomasia using his son’s name allows Odysseus to allude subtly to his own status as an archer, or “far fighter. ” The pun furthermore becomes a subtle boast: not only will he fulfill his traditional epic function, but he will go beyond this, to fight even in the front lines: he can play any role you like. And this implicit {70|71} boast contrasts with the message behind his criticism of Agamemnon’s style: we could paraphrase, “I know how to perform, but you cannot even talk appropriately.”

Agamemnon’s response certifies what the audience has already garnered by this time, that Odysseus defeated him verbally. He takes back the neikos speech just made by denying that he was even attempting to blame Odysseus (4.359). In an effort to save face, he associates himself with the victorious speaker, claiming to share his thoughts (360—61). The speech is an apology for “bad style” in all senses of the phrase; significantly, Agamemnon adopts Odysseus’ own poetic formulation to waft away his previous speech: “May the gods make all these things like the winds” (metamōnia—cf. anemōlia earlier, both from the noun anemos, “wind”).

The ability to conduct a fly ting match forms an essential part of the hero’s strategic repertoire. We shall return in the next chapter to a consideration of various styles in flyting. For now, it will be useful to examine three varieties of such speeches—those between comrades, gods, and enemies—to sketch some salient aspects of the poetics of abuse.

Achilles’ challenge is the more effective because he not only recalls one speech-act (the threats) but uses a direct quotation to mimic another, one the Myrmidons had employed. Like Odysseus to Agamemnon in Book 4, Achilles dismisses these earlier grumbling speeches as mere talk (ebazete, 16.207). In familiar flyting fashion, he contrasts “then” with “now”: the Myrmidons used to talk of going home because Achilles was angered, “but now has appeared the great work of strife, of which you were previously enamored” (16.207-8).

This flyting strategy is not limited to Achaean heroes. Sarpedon rebukes Hektor in Book 5 in a neikos speech that is later labeled a muthos (see 5.471 and 5.493). The then/now contrast opens his attack, followed immediately by a reference to Hektor’s earlier boasts: “Hektor, where has your strength gone, which you previously used to have? You used to say at some point that you would hold the city alone, without troops and allies, with your brothers and brothers-in -law. I cannot see any of them now or notice any, but they all cower like dogs around a lion” (5.471—76). Sarpedon’s speech is noteworthy for its insistent criticism of Hektor’s verbal behavior, charging him with failing to give orders (485) and advising him to supplicate the allied leaders (lissomenōi, 491) for help in order to deflect verbal abuse (kraterēn apothesthai enipēn, 492).

The recalled-speech strategy recurs, finally, within Agamemnon’s speech about Atē in Book 19. Here the framework is a speech designed to ratify the renewed solidarity among the Achaeans; it is the opposite of a flyting speech. Appropriately, therefore, the speech-act which Agamemnon recalls to open his discourse was a neikos event, now over—the muthos which the Achaeans spoke to Agamemnon many times (19.85-86), apparently in voicing their dissatisfaction with his treatment of Achilles. From this brief reference to the past, Agamemnon shifts to the present: “But I am not responsible” (86). {73|74}

Such a denial of guilt would have been an appropriate response to a flyting speech in the past. Compare the exchange between the disguised Poseidon and Idomeneus. To the god’s challenge, “Where are now the threats gone, with which the sons of the Achaeans threatened Trojans?” (13.219—20), the Cretan chief replies, “No man is now responsible, as much as I know. For we all know how to war” (13.222-23). The first speech fits the pattern we have already seen (cf. Achilles’ speech, quoted earlier) and the reply attempts to answer the implied contrast between former boasts and present immobility, as if Idomeneus knows the full pattern of such flyting speeches, even though it is not explicit here. In comparison, Agamemnon’s speech answers a past rebuke (not simply a rebuke in the present that refers to the past). This variation on the conventional pattern shows that the neikos words still rankle in Agamemnon’s mind, as he even now finds it necessary to shift responsibility. Once again, Homer draws our attention to Agamemnon’s inept use of patterns.

A second tactic evident in flyting muthoi again uses contrast as an operating principle, but depends on the juxtaposition of praiseworthy foil with blameworthy addressee. Glaukos applies this to Hektor, rebuking him with a harsh speech (kraterōi ēnipape muthōi, 17.141). He first praises three different heroic alternatives: Sarpedon, whose corpse they must fight for, was a great benefit to all when alive (17.152); Achilles, whose companion is dead, is “best by far of the Argives by the ships” (165); but Hektor, he asserts, could not face even Ajax (implied to be weaker than Achilles), “since he is stronger than you. ” The rebuke is all the more stinging to an audience that has heard Sarpedon himself use the same foil technique to Hektor, previously, posing his own heroic career as the contrast to Hektor’s passivity (5.483-86), Hektor has not learned.

The foil strategy can be seen on a smaller scale in the less serious flyting speech by Andlokhos during the Funeral Games. After losing the foot race, the young hero generalizes that the gods honor the older generation. The specific hit at Odysseus’ age is tempered slightly: “They say he is a raw old man” (23.791). But one can discern a more serious allusion, to the theme of enmity between Odysseus and Achilles, in the next line: “But he is difficult for the Achaeans to compete with, except for Achilles. ” The effect of Antilokhos’ slightly denigratory remark is to praise Achilles (793, kudēnen), who responds, like a patron to a praise-poet, with a gift and muthoi to bestow it formally (793-96). {74|75}

Feats of Memory

With this relation between “memory” and poetic performance in mind, I wish to expand the investigation of memory by setting it in the context of other sorts of performance within the poem, especially the analogous acts of fighting and speaking. My reason for attempting this comes from our investigation of muthos, for that term leads us to look at speeches of certain types. One of these types is clearly centered on a speaker’s recollection and re-presentation of past events. As with the analysis of flyting and commands, it will be most helpful if we examine the larger notion of memory behind such speeches, as well as look at the dozen or so performances that are based mainly on this act.

The formulaic use of the verb mimnēskomai (“recall, remember”) provides a good place to start. (Although the semantics of this verb {78|79} cover a range of meanings, from “call to mind” to “keep in mind,” I shall argue that formulaic usage assimilates the several denotations.) We can observe three areas in which these formulas are deployed: to speak of battle; to recall a personality; and to remind divinities of past favors. The last class is the smallest, and we shall not spend time on it here, as the function of the reminding (hypomnēsis) in early Greek prayers is generally well known. As I have noted before, prayer is one important genre never designated muthos by the Iliad. The diction surrounding the memory of persons will be examined later in this section; first we will consider the largest class, the use of this verb in formulas that involve battle.

By means of these formulas the poet crystallizes two steps in the process of remembering battle. The act itself of “remembering” is rarely dramatized, although interior monologues and the speaker’s own assertions can be used to enact this part of the process. More often, the act of reminding is depicted. At times, a speaker makes an explicit reference to memory without using the formulas we have {79|80} seen. Achilles in his speech upon return (19.146-53) uses both strategies, conventional and otherwise:

Glaukos, urging Hektor to fight over Sarpedon’s corpse, begins his speech by saying that Hektor has “forgotten the allies who die for your sake far from friends and fatherland” (16.538-40). In this rhetoric, memory is the mechanism for affirming social bonds and challenging the listener to uphold them. In addition, the topic of memory can be used with rhetorical effect over large stretches of discourse even when there is no overt lexical reference. Furthermore, the act of reminding blends into that of a third enactment, recalling. But even here, as in the scenes just reviewed, memory has a purpose: as a general rule, characters in the Iliad do not remember anything simply for the pleasure of memory. Recall has an exterior goal.

The master of this genre is of course Nestor. In his first intervention in the poem, the old hero uses the device of recalling the past in order to legitimate his claim on authority in the present (1.259—74): “But obey. You are both younger than I. Already I have been with men better than you and they never slighted me. ” The act of recalling here focuses precisely on Nestor’s ability to command: “And they understood my counsels and obeyed the muthos” (1.273). We can see that the ability to command—mastery of the first muthos genre— is enhanced when the speaker has the ability to foreground his own directives by retrojecting the act of command through another rhetorical genre, recollection. This latter genre, apart from commands and fly ting, is the only other one to be labeled muthos.

The crucial difference between this type of performance and that of Nestor, as we see it in his long narrative in Book 2 (656-803) has to do with the self-presentation of the speaker. Although both talk for the same purpose, Odysseus foregrounds himself as performer, explicitly quoting another authority (Kalkhas), whom he then can be seen to overcome in the contest of speaking: Kalkhas, as we saw in Book 1, does not even cite his own previous acts, whereas Odysseus remembers all, apparently. Nestor, on the other hand, presents himself not as a speaker, but as a heroic performer of both words and deeds. His narrative of personal experience is convincing because it calls for emulation, even challenge. It becomes the mainspring of memory that powers the entire second half of the poem’s action.

As with commands, memory speeches provoke challenge. They can easily lead to fly ting duels. Another speech by Nestor illustrates this shift. We are familiar with his habit of self-citation, to authorize his present speech. His first speech in the Iliad revolves around this and, furthermore, begins with a particularly Nestorian tactic to indicate his dismay: “A great sorrow has come to Akhaia; Priam and his children might rejoice” (1.245-46). Nestor reuses this strategy in his speech at 7.124-60: “A great sorrow has come to Akhaia. Peleus, the honored horse-driver, would groan.” As earlier, he shifts into the mode of recollection, but here, three separate items are recalled, and his memory is thickly layered. He recalls that Peleus once questioned him about Argive genealogy (1.127-28); he wishes he were young as when he fought the Arkadians (1.133-57); and embedded in the latter ring-composition is a third memory, the heritage of the armor of Ereuthalion, whom he defeated long ago. This last recollection sounds like antiquarian trivia, unless we realize the importance of {82|83} armor as a signifier of heroism in the poem (consider, for example, Achilles’ equipment), and further place this narrative sign in the context of genealogical lore, a topic I shall take up shortly. For now, the important point is that all three “memories” described are set in terms appropriate to flyting as the speech ends. “Thus did Nestor make a neikos” (7.161). It becomes clear that he has used himself as foil to shame the Achaeans into volunteering for the duel.

When we examine the role of memory in fly ting, a cluster of varied rhetorical functions emerges. The technique of contrasting one’s own career with the addressee’s cowardice or immobility has been analyzed previously in our discussion. A more generally used strategy is the one that Agamemnon tries in urging the defense of the ships: “Shame, Argives, evil disgraces, admirable in form only” (8.228). Abusive language is the lowest skill. But after this line, Agamemnon more skillfully shifts to a rhetorical question: “Where have the boasts gone, when we said we were best, the oaths you idly spoke on Lemnos?” (229—30). In elaborating this tack, Agamemnon dwells on the early scene of free-flowing wine and talk: this topic of food forms a bridge with his second act of recollection, as he remembers the cattle thighs he burnt in sacrifice when he piously honored Zeus at every altar en route to Troy (238-41). The juxtaposition of these memories shames his hearers, but also serves Agamemnon’s purposes for characterizing himself as a consistent personality. The Achaeans have stopped boasting, he implies, but Agamemnon, as the very form of his words show, has not stopped praying to Zeus even now (236, Zeu pater).

Three exchanges between gods can illustrate the versatile social function of remembering and reminding within the context of rebukes. Spoken in a tone of defiance, the words “Don’t you remember” introduce a threat. Ares, in a flyting muthos (21.393), asks Athena, “Don’t you recall when you drove Diomedes, son of Tydeus, to wounding, and yourself thrust at me, grasping the spear all could see?” (396-98). Ares turns his earlier injury into a cause for action, in language resembling a legal formulation: “Therefore I now think you will repay me as much as you have done” (399).

A short while later, Poseidon rebukes Apollo with this phrase, in a gentler manner, for supporting the Trojans: “Don’t you recall all the ills we suffered, we two alone of the gods, about Troy, we who slaved for Laomedon at a set pay for a year?” (21.441-45). Instead of spurring him to fight, this leads Apollo, by the reminder of Laomedon’s {84} treachery, to offer an elegiac dismissal of the value of fighting for humankind. But Apollo’s twin takes up the neikos (471) and in a third deployment of the discourse of memory says threateningly, “May I never hear you boasting—as you did before among immortal gods—that you fight face-to-face Poseidon.” The success of Artemis’ abuse becomes a moot point as Hera intervenes to box her ears, but, in view of the rhetorical tack she took, we can gather that having refused a fight would be considered a cause for blame in future boasting events. To deny that an addressee has been consistently heroic is to constrain his further fame.

Here the rhetoric of recollection comes full circle. A commander’s persuasive power, as we saw, depends on an ability to construct memories; so does a warrior’s attack on the enemy. The “truth” value of such memories is not an issue; epic “deconstructs,” if you like, the very act of memory by showing us its pragmatic underpinnings in such situations. At the same time, there is in the poem an appreciation for the abilities of fictive creation that accords such imaginative use of recollection full quotation—a fascination with the source of narrative, it seems.

That the hero’s ability to command or engage in dispute is “poetic” in the widest sense has been my contention throughout this chapter. But I have also tried to show that, from the viewpoint of comparative studies both in Greek and other traditions, giving commands and conducting verbal contests are in fact “poetic” talents even on the more narrowly defined basis, relating to stylized verbal art forms. Even if there is no overt genre label for two of the three genres (the exception being neikos), the rule-bound nature of the discourses within the poem, coupled with the comparative evidence for such poetic genres, should lead us to believe that the construction of the massive epic draws on actually existing social-poetic genres. Memory, for the poet, is not just diachronic but synchronic—the recollection of the way contemporary men and women speak. Or, put another way, the diction of such embedded genres is most likely inherited and traditional; the rhetoric, on the other hand, is the locus of spontaneous composition in performance. As we saw earlier and will find in the next chapter, the way in which heroes speak to one another foregrounds for us this phenomenon of performing to fit the audience.

The poem’s final scene presents a full-scale lamentation with performances by women close to Hektor. His wife Andrornakhe mourns for his early death, praises his protection of the city, and predicts the suffering she will face as a widow with a young child (24.725-45). Hekabe, his mother, dwells on the fine condition of his corpse, as sign of divine favor (748—59). Helen makes a dramatically fitting third mourner, as she has unwittingly caused Hektor’s death. This implicit fact structures her lament: even though she may have expected abuse, Hektor never reviled her, and in fact protected her from the remarks of others (762-75).

With this scene in mind, as well as the genre classification of muthos that I have presented thus far, we can finally understand two seemingly anomalous passages in which women at Troy answer back to men by using a muthos. Given the male, heroic in-group orientation of the word muthos, and its association with powerful self-presentation, it would seem to be a social taboo for women to employ this kind of speech. But it turns out that Helen and Hekabe, both of whom address Priam with a muthos at other points in the poem, are actually enacting laments in the speeches labeled with this word. That is to say, they fulfill an expected performance role, using a recognized genre of muthos as memory—but they are presented as doing so at unexpected times, to create dramatic effect.

Footnotes