Use the following persistent identifier: http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_Nagy.Homers_Text_and_Language.2004.
7. The Name of Apollo: Etymology and Essence*
ἠπείλησεν μῦθον, ὃ δὴ τετελεσμένος ἐστί
and boastfully promised [verb apeiléō] a mūthos, [19] which now has come to fulfillment [=verb teléō, from noun télos ‘fulfillment’].
In such contexts, the word apeiléō designates the actual performance of a speech-act, a mūthos, while the word teléō, derivative of télos ‘fulfillment’ guarantees that the speech-act is really a speech-act, in that the course of events, which amounts to actions emanating from the speech-act, bears out the speech-act. We may compare the Homeric instances where apeiléō can be translated as ‘vow’ in the context of prayers addressed to gods (Iliad XXIII 863, 892). [20] In such cases the course of events in the future is predicated on the value of the words spoken as a speech-act: if a god hears a prayer, then the words spoken as prayer are a speech-act, and then the actions promised by the one who prays can bear out the speech-act. Conversely, it is implicit that if a god does not hear a prayer, then the words spoken as prayer are not really a prayer: they turn out to have been not a speech-act after all, and the actions promised by the one who intended a prayer need not be carried out. I submit that the god who primarily presides over speech-acts, which are then ratified by the actual course of events, is Apollo. It is for this reason that he presides over oracles, including the great Oracle at Delphi. [21]
Footnotes