Eve of the Festival: Making Myth in Odyssey 19

  Levaniouk, Olga. 2011. Eve of the Festival: Making Myth in Odyssey 19. Hellenic Studies Series 46. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_Levaniouk.Eve_of_the_Festival.2011.


Chapter 8. The Pin

As remarkable as the cloak itself is the golden pin Odysseus uses to fasten it, another object Penelope herself gave to Odysseus on departure:

χλαῖναν πορφυρέην οὔλην ἔχε δῖος Ὀδυσσεύς,
διπλῆν· ἐν δ’ ἄρα οἱ περόνη χρυσοῖο τέτυκτο
αὐλοῖσιν διδύμοισι· πάροιθε δὲ δαίδαλον ἦεν·
ἐν προτέροισι πόδεσσι κύων ἔχε ποικίλον ἐλλόν,
ἀσπαίροντα λάων· τὸ δὲ θαυμάζεσκον ἅπαντες,
ὡς οἱ χρύσεοι ἐόντες ὁ μὲν λάε νεβρὸν ἀπάγχων,
αὐτὰρ ὁ ἐκφυγέειν μεμαὼς ἤσπαιρε πόδεσσι.

(Odyssey 19.225–232)

Odysseus wore a woolen purple cloak,
a two-fold one, and in it was a pin of gold,
with double grooves, and on the front was a marvelous design:
a dog held a dappled fawn in its front paws,
grasping it as it struggled. And everyone admired it,
how, though they were golden, the dog grasped the fawn, strangling it,
while the fawn thrashed with its feet, trying to escape. [1]


Like the cloak, the pin has an obvious role within the dialogue – it is a sign (semata, 19.250) for Penelope. As we feel wonder at the intricate object and the thrilling hunting scene it depicts we may also wonder, along with Penelope, at her guest’s very ability to describe it in such detail. The implication of this ecphrastic feat is surely not that the Cretan stranger has a photographic memory, but that he is none other than the former wearer of the pin. Beyond {136|137} this, however, the description of the pin sends a more complex message to its audiences, both external and internal. Like much else in this densely packed conversation, the pin fits into the mythic and ritual framework of the approaching festival, evoking yet another related nexus of ideas, and interacting with multiple elements both in the Odyssey itself and beyond.

The pin itself appears to combine several realistic features into an imaginary object and several brooches have been proposed as close parallels. The general consensus is that this type of a pin requires techniques belonging to the late eighth or seventh century, though attempts have been made to compare it with archaeological finds of all periods, from Minoan gems to Etruscan brooches. [2] The bigger problem, however, has to do not with the type of object, but with the language used to describe it. It has to be acknowledged that there is at least one lexical difficulty that has not been solved, namely the meaning of the verb λάω. Lexica list ‘grip’ as one of its meanings, but this is only a guess based on our passage alone. Worse still, the other meanings of the verb, ‘to see’ and ‘to cry’, are also badly attested, so that the status of λάω as a full-fledged verb is altogether doubtful. [3] In the sense ‘to cry’, the verb may be a poetic back-formation from λεληκώς (in reality from λάσκω), while the sense ‘to see’ may result from a reinterpretation of the expression ὀξὺ λάων (from ‘loudly crying’ to ‘sharply seeing’). This expression is used about an eagle in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes (360) in a context where sight is important, and this and other such instances could form the basis of a reinterpretation. On the other hand, Hesychius does attest a λάω meaning to see, and the possibility should be considered that it is simply another such verb, though one with unclear etymology.

But if the background and precise impact of this unusual diction is hard to discern, something can nevertheless be said about its resonance in the Odyssey. First and foremost, an analogy suggests itself between Odysseus and the dog, the suitors and the fawn. [9] In a repeated simile, the suitors are compared to suckling fawns in a lion’s lair, which seems to reflect the situation in the Odyssey:

ὡς δ’ ὁπότ’ ἐν ξυλόχῳ ἔλαφος κρατεροῖο λέοντος
νεβροὺς κοιμήσασα νεηγενέας γαλαθηνοὺς
κνημοὺς ἐξερέῃσι καὶ ἄγκεα ποιήεντα
βοσκομένη, ὁ δ’ ἔπειτα ἑὴν εἰσήλυθεν εὐνήν,
ἀμφοτέροισι δὲ τοῖσιν ἀεικέα πότμον ἐφῆκεν.

(Odyssey 4.334–338 = 17.126–130)

As when a doe puts her fawns, newly born and still suckling,
to sleep in a lion’s lair {138|139}
and goes to search though the hills and grassy glens,
grazing. And then the lion comes back to his sleeping place
and brings ugly destruction to both of them.


The biologically improbable fact that the doe beds her young in a lion’s den is a distinctive feature of these Odyssean similes, and it reflects specifically the fact that the suitors are in Odysseus’ house (Menelaos, who utters the simile in Book 4, makes this explicit). This seems, however, to be a variation on a traditional theme, since there is also a simile in the Iliad with a lion coming upon a doe’s hiding place and destroying the fawns:

ὡς δὲ λέων ἐλάφοιο ταχείης νήπια τέκνα
ῥηϊδίως συνέαξε λαβὼν κρατεροῖσιν ὀδοῦσιν
ἐλθὼν εἰς εὐνήν, ἁπαλόν τέ σφ’ ἦτορ ἀπηύρα·

(Iliad 11.113–115)

Just as a lion easily crushes the innocent young of a swift doe,
when he comes upon their lair, taking them in his powerful teeth
and ripping out their soft hearts.


In the Iliad, the deer is the quintessential hunted animal, ever fearful and swift, and prey to people with their dogs as much as to lions. When Achilles is chasing Hektor around the walls of Troy he is compared to a determined dog running down a fawn (Iliad 22.188–192). In the Odyssey, Odysseus has a special connection to hunting dogs and in Book 19 he will emerge as a hunter, accompanied by dogs, in the recollections of his youthful boar hunt on Mount Parnassus:

οἱ δ’ ἐς βῆσσαν ἵκανον ἐπακτῆρες· πρὸ δ’ ἄρ’ αὐτῶν
ἴχνι’ ἐρευνῶντες κύνες ἤϊσαν, αὐτὰρ ὄπισθεν
υἱέες Αὐτολύκου· μετὰ τοῖσι δὲ δῖος Ὀδυσσεὺς
ἤϊεν ἄγχι κυνῶν, κραδάων δολιχόσκιον ἔγχος.

(Odyssey 19.435–438)

The hunters came into the wood and the dogs ran ahead past them,
searching out the tracks, while behind were the sons of Autolykos.
And among them went godlike Odysseus,
close behind the dogs, brandishing his long spear. {139|140}


It is noteworthy that on two occasions in the Odyssey, one of them on the day of Apollo’s festival, Telemachus also appears with a spear and in the company of dogs, as if to indicate that he too is a hunter and therefore a man, not a child:

And then Telemachus went through the house,
holding his spear. And the swift-footed dogs went along with him.


Moreover, the opposition between the hunting dogs and the other kinds of dogs is active and operative in this part of the Odyssey, and it is articulated by Odysseus himself at the very moment when he enters his household for the first time in twenty years. The scene in question is the only instant and complete recognition of Odysseus on Ithaca – by his dog Argos. Looking at his old hunting companion lying on a pile of dung, Odysseus asks about his speed and in so doing makes a distinction between fast hunting dogs and the decorative dogs who fidget under their masters’ feet at dinner:

καλὸς μὲν δέμας ἐστίν, ἀτὰρ τόδε γ’ οὐ σάφα οἶδα,
ἢ δὴ καὶ ταχὺς ἔσκε θέειν ἐπὶ εἴδεϊ τῷδε,
ἦ αὔτως οἷοί τε τραπεζῆες κύνες ἀνδρῶν
γίνοντ’, ἀγλαΐης δ’ ἕνεκεν κομέουσιν ἄνακτες.

(Odyssey 17.307–310)

His body is excellent, but it is not clear to me
whether in addition to his appearance he is also swift at running,
or whether he is just one of those table dogs men have,
whose masters keep them for the sake of their beauty.


In his reply, Eumaeus stresses Argos’ former hunting qualities, especially his ability to run fast (Odyssey 17.312–317). The expression κύνες ἀργοί, ‘swift dogs’ (used in connection with Telemachus, once with a modification), has {140|141} roots of Indo-European antiquity, and the word used for ‘fast’ in this formula is also the source of the name Ἄργος, by the minimal means of accent shift. [
11]

The speed of hunting dogs goes hand in hand with the nimble feet of their hunting companions, the young men. In the Iliad, it is the youngest of the Achaeans, Antilokhos, who is compared to a hunting dog, and the point of comparison is again his speed. Menelaos asks Antilokhos whether he could run out and hit one of the Trojans, since he is the youngest and fastest of all the Achaeans:

Ἀντίλοχ’ οὔ τις σεῖο νεώτερος ἄλλος Ἀχαιῶν,

οὔτε ποσὶν θάσσων οὔτ’ ἄλκιμος ὡς σὺ μάχεσθαι.

(Iliad 15.569–570)

Antilokhos, there is no one younger than you among the Achaeans,
nor anyone quicker on his feet, nor as brave as you at fighting.


Antilokhos then rushes (ἔθορε, 15.573) out of the front ranks, kills a Trojan with a spear throw, and runs up to despoil him, like a hunting dog. The dog in the simile chases a fawn:

Ἀντίλοχος δ’ ἐπόρουσε κύων ὥς, ὅς τ’ ἐπὶ νεβρῷ
βλημένῳ ἀΐξῃ, τόν τ’ ἐξ εὐνῆφι θορόντα
θηρητὴρ ἐτύχησε βαλών, ὑπέλυσε δὲ γυῖα

(Iliad 15.579–581) {141|142}

Antilokhos rushed at him, as a dog leaps upon a wounded fawn,
whom a hunter has struck as he darted from his lair,
and has loosened the limbs under him.


The animals of this Iliadic simile are the same as those on Odysseus’ pin, confirming the intuition of the scholia that the pin points both to Odysseus’ youth and to his ‘education’ as a hunter: οὕτω γὰρ οἱ εὐγενεῖς τῶν νέων ἐπαιδεύοντο, ‘for this is how the noble young men used to be educated’. [
13]

The hunting scene on the pin seems to be a vivid reminder of what Odysseus used to be before leaving for Troy. But if the young Odysseus was a hunter, what about the beggar who is now sitting before Penelope? The remarkable thing is that as he describes the dog and the fawn on his old pin, Odysseus is himself dressed in a deerskin, since such is the begging costume created for him by Athena:

ἀμφὶ δέ μιν ῥάκος ἄλλο κακὸν βάλεν ἠδὲ χιτῶνα,
ῥωγαλέα ῥυπόωντα, κακῷ μεμορυγμένα καπνῷ·
ἀμφὶ δέ μιν μέγα δέρμα ταχείης ἕσσ’ ἐλάφοιο,
ψιλόν· δῶκε δέ οἱ σκῆπτρον καὶ ἀεικέα πήρην.

(Odyssey 13.434–437)

And she threw around him a horrible tattered cloth and a torn
squalid khiton, sullied with foul smoke,
and she clothed him in the large, smooth-worn skin of a swift deer.
And she gave him a staff, and an ugly sack.


Not only are Odysseus’ tattered rags in sharp contrast with the splendid cloak and khiton he recalls, but the deerskin seems to make him the very opposite of his former hunting self. The detail of the deerskin is curious because nobody else in Homer wears such a garment, and even outside of Homer it is extremely unusual for a male: only the bacchants regularly wear the spotted hide of the fawn, nebris. Putting on an animal hide is often a symbolic act equating, fully or partially, the human and the animal. Thus Paris wears a leopard skin and Menelaos a lion skin when they confront each other, and {142|143} the characteristics of the two animals mirror those of the two heroes. [
14] Even more clearly, Dolon wears a wolf’s skin in the Doloneia episode, uniquely in Homer, and he is depicted in this attire on vases, sometimes also standing on all fours and plainly playing the wolf. [15] The hide transforms its wearer, literally or metaphorically, into the animal, and the boundaries between literal and metaphorical can be very fluid.

Another example of a male in a deerskin is Aktaion, who, according to Stesichorus, is clothed in one by Artemis:

Στησίχορος δὲ ὁ Ἱμεραῖος ἔγραψεν ἐλάφου περιβαλεῖν 
δέρμα Ἀκταίωνι τὴν θεόν, παρασκευάζουσάν οἱ τὸν 
ἐκ τῶν κυνῶν θάνατον, ἵνα δὴ μὴ γυναῖκα Σεμέλην 
λάβοι.

(Pausanias 9.2.3 = Stesichorus PMG 236)

Stesichorus of Himera wrote that the goddess threw a skin of a deer around Aktaion, preparing for him death by his hounds, in order that he might not take Semele as wife.


As Nagy argues, this is a way of describing the transformation of Aktaion into a stag. [
16] The iconography of Aktaion is such that he is most often depicted not as a deer, but as his human self attacked by the dogs. [17] On some of these depictions he wears a deerskin, sometimes has horns, and on one vase he is depicted in a complete deer costume including a deer-head hat. [18] Rather than {143|144} proving that Artemis in Stesichorus merely dressed Aktaion in a deerskin instead of transforming him, such depictions seem to me to prove precisely the opposite, namely that wearing a deer skin is a way of expressing the notion of transformation. In the Odyssey too, a goddess, Athena, puts the deerskin around the hero’s body, though a different verb is used for the action (ἕννυμι rather than περιβάλλω, 13.436). Odysseus is not transformed into a deer, of course, but I suspect that Odysseus’ deerskin is still related to Aktaion’s and has some of the same meanings. [19]

The central fact of Aktaion’s myth in all its various versions is the young man’s dreadful death: transformed into a stag, he is torn apart by his own hounds. [20] The reasons for this unalterable event are, in contrast, variable. In the early sources, the earliest being the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, Aktaion desires marriage with Semele. Stesichorus’ treatment of the myth follows the same outline: Artemis transforms Aktaion into a deer and causes his gruesome death in order to prevent his marriage to Semele. [21] In both cases Aktaion’s transgression seems to have nothing to do directly with Artemis, and it is not clear whether she herself is angered (for whatever reason) by Aktaion’s marriage plans, or whether she fulfills the will of Zeus. Nothing is said about Semele’s own willingness or not, nor indeed is it clear why Aktaion’s desire for Semele should be so terribly punished: is it because Semele belongs to Zeus, or simply because it would be incestuous to marry an aunt? In any case, there is an intriguing parallel to this mysterious plot in the story of Orion as presented by Calypso in Odyssey 5:

ὣς μὲν ὅτ’ Ὠρίων’ ἕλετο ῥοδοδάκτυλος Ἠώς,
τόφρα οἱ ἠγάασθε θεοὶ ῥεῖα ζώοντες,
ἕως μιν ἐν Ὀρτυγίῃ χρυσόθρονος Ἄρτεμις ἁγνὴ
οἷσ’ ἀγανοῖσι βέλεσσιν ἐποιχομένη κατέπεφνεν.

(Odyssey 5.121–124)

Just as when rosy-fingered Dawn picked Orion,
you, the easy-living gods, begrudged her this, {144|145}
until pure, golden-throned Artemis came
and killed him on Ortygia with her gentle arrows.


Here another human, a youthful hunter like Aktaion, becomes the sexual partner of a goddess, (in this case apparently willingly), and is killed by Artemis. Again, there is no explanation as to why Artemis should object to a union between Orion and Eos. Perhaps there is a clue, however, in the fact that both Orion and Aktaion are hunters. One possibility is that Artemis is acting as a patron deity of the hunters, whose sexual behavior is subject to restriction, (an extreme example is Hippolytus in Euripides’ play, also a hunter, but the one who shuns Aphrodite and devotes himself fully to Artemis). [
22] What is unacceptable to Artemis in Orion’s and Aktaion’s behavior may be whom they want to marry, or it may be the fact that they want to marry at all. The version of the myth in which Aktaion’s transgression consists in chancing upon Artemis bathing is first attested in Callimachus’ Hymn 5, and is made famous by Ovid. [23] Apollodorus mentions it as the prevalent version, though he also knows the one with Semele. [24] In Euripides’ Bacchae there is yet another reason for this divine anger: Aktaion boasts that he is a better hunter than Artemis. In all three cases, Aktaion seems to fail to observe the correct etiquette of a hunter, whether by importing sexuality into the hunting sphere or by being arrogant towards the goddess of the hunt.

The cornerstone of Aktaion’s myth is reversal, the transformation of hunter into the hunted. If indeed it is linked, however vaguely, to an ancient ritual as envisaged by Burkert, then the ritual would presumably involve the familiar movement from dissolution to restoration, and Aktaion’s drama would fit squarely into the dissolution part. In the Odyssey too, the deerskin appears during the dark period of inversion on Ithaca, and it is surrounded by multiple references to the hunt. The logic of reversal seems to be behind Athena’s choice of attire for her protégé. Before he can triumph, Odysseus has to sink even deeper than before; before he can regain Penelope’s coveted bed he will not accept any bed at all, but sleep on the floor; before he regains his youth and sprouts hyacinth-like hair by Athena’s magic he has to lose his hair completely and shrivel into an old man; before he can kill the suitors he has to take their verbal and even physical abuse. By the same token he seems to temporarily masquerade as a deer before he can regain his place as a hunter.

Odysseus’ deer hide invites thoughts of Aktaion, and it is hard not to connect it to the beginning of the next episode, because the first thing that happens to Odysseus in his new attire is an attack by dogs:

ἐξαπίνης δ’ Ὀδυσῆα ἴδον κύνες ὑλακόμωροι.
οἱ μὲν κεκλήγοντες ἐπέδραμον· αὐτὰρ Ὀδυσσεὺς
ἕζετο κερδοσύνῃ, σκῆπτρον δέ οἱ ἔκπεσε χειρός.
ἔνθα κεν ᾧ πὰρ σταθμῷ ἀεικέλιον πάθεν ἄλγος·
ἀλλὰ συβώτης ὦκα ποσὶ κραιπνοῖσι μετασπὼν
ἔσσυτ’ ἀνὰ πρόθυρον, σκῦτος δέ οἱ ἔκπεσε χειρός.
τοὺς μὲν ὁμοκλήσας σεῦεν κύνας ἄλλυδις ἄλλον
πυκνῇσιν λιθάδεσσιν, ὁ δὲ προσέειπεν ἄνακτα·
”ὦ γέρον, ἦ ὀλίγου σε κύνες διεδηλήσαντο
ἐξαπίνης, καί κέν μοι ἐλεγχείην κατέχευας.

(Odyssey 14.29–38) {146|147}

Suddenly the barking dogs noticed Odysseus,
and ran at him baying. And Odysseus
cleverly sat down, and his staff fell out of his hand.
There, by his own farm house, he might have suffered an unseemly pain,
but the swineherd rushed through the gate,
quickly coming to Odysseus on his swift feet, and a piece of oxhide [he was holding] fell out of his hand.
He shouted at the dogs and scattered them in every direction
with a shower of stones, and then he addressed his master:
“Old man, a little more and the dogs would have torn you to pieces right there,
and you would have poured reproach over me.”


These are the dogs that guard Eumaeus’ property, not hunters, and Odysseus is in no immediate danger of losing his life. In comparison with Aktaion’s dismemberment, and indeed in comparison with Odysseus’ own grand adventures of the past, the whole scene seems almost comic: here is Odysseus, the king of Ithaca, coming home after many adventures, about to be badly mauled by some farm dogs. Humor, however, is by no means incompatible with mythic and ritual undercurrents, and Odysseus, dressed in a deerskin, and crouching helplessly as the dogs attack him strikes a curiously Aktaion-like pose. The episode, at any rate, does not seem likely to be simply decorative, since it is the very first thing that happens to Odysseus after he parts from Athena and ventures inland on his island. Moreover, Eumaeus’ dogs receive a lot of attention: we are told, for example, that there are four of them and that Eumaeus brought them up himself. They even deserve a heroic-sounding epithet, ὑλακόμωροι, which occurs in Homer only here and again at Odyssey16.4, when the same dogs greet Telemachus very differently from the way they greeted Odysseus, with tails wagging. [
28] For whatever reason, these dogs seem important. Their behavior with Odysseus forms a sharp contrast to that of Argos, who recognizes and greets his old master. The scene with Argos, like the earlier one near Eumaeus’ hut, may involve playing with the themes of Aktaion’s myth, since Argos’ ability to recognize Odysseus even in deerskin is in sharp contrast to the failure of Aktaion’s dogs to do the same. It is interesting, in this regard, that the dogs’ inability to {147|148} recognize Aktaion is commented upon in several sources, which attribute it not just to the fact of his transformation, but also to the madness (lussa) sent by Artemis, as if the deerskin itself were not sufficient. Pausanias opines that the dogs killed Aktaion in madness and without recognizing him (μανέντες δὲ καὶ οὐ 
διαγινώσκοντες, 9.2.4), under the influence of the ‘disease lussa’. Apollodorus also blames lussa and says that the dogs commit their ghastly mistake in ignorance, κατὰ 
ἄγνοιαν (3.31). [29]

The crouching Odysseus who is saved from the dogs by Eumaeus makes an emphatic contrast not only to the young boar-hunting Odysseus but also to the stag-hunting Odysseus of his own storytelling (Odyssey 10.156–184). Odysseus kills a stag on Circe’s island and it has even been suggested that the Odyssey alludes to Aktaion’s myth in that scene, both because any beast on Circe’s island could potentially be a metamorphosed human and because the stag is so unusually large that it is called a ‘monster’ (pelor, Odyssey 10.168). [30] I doubt that a human should be imagined under the skin of that stag, but it is indeed relevant to the Aktaion allusion in Books 13 and 14, yet in a different way. The size of the stag is an emblem of Odysseus’ hunting prowess and his ability to survive and sustain his men in the wilds. In contrast to that role, Odysseus on Ithaca himself becomes a deer, and not an impressive one at all. Moreover, just as Odysseus’ boar hunt on Mount Parnassus has an initiatory flavor to it, so does the killing of the stag on Circe’s island. In the latter case this impression is created not by the killing itself, but by the emphasis placed on the animal’s size and weight and the fact that Odysseus carries it to his companions, including the description of how Odysseus binds the stag, exactly how he lifts it up, and finally how he deposits it in front of the ship (Odyssey 10.164–172). These details, which have no immediate motivation in the Odyssey, are in fact strongly reminiscent of a well-attested motif (and perhaps practice) of lifting animals in connection with transition to adulthood. During the festival of Proerosia, for example, the Athenian ephebes lifted bulls on their shoulders before sacrifice. [31] This finds a mythic parallel in Theseus: according to Pausanias, upon his return from Crete the Athenian hero threw some oxen high in the air and thereby proved to bystanders that he was a man. [32] Crete {148|149} provides early archaeological evidence for similar practices or at least similar ideas. Multiple bronze plaques depicting beardless youths lifting animals on their shoulders were found at the sanctuary of Kato Syme, which originated in the Bronze Age and flourished in the early Archaic period, and where Hermes, it has been argued, was worshipped as a mediator in the transition of males from adolescence to adulthood. [33] On one of these plaques a beardless youth carrying a goat on his shoulders faces an older bearded male who carries a bow. Lebessi suggested that this scene depicts a homosexual lover and beloved, pointing out that homosexuality as part of male upbringing is attested on Crete by later authors. Following Lebessi, Marinatos points out that the older male touches the elbow of the younger one as if in approval, and suggests that he is the younger male’s tutor. It seems that the beardless youth here demonstrates his prowess by carrying the goat, while the older male approves. The bow indicates that he is a hunter. [34] On another plaque a youth carries a goat on his shoulders, supporting it with one hand while holding his bow in the other, making it clear that, unlike Theseus, he is lifting not a domesticated animal but prey from the hunt. [35] On most of the Kato Syme plaques the carried animal is tied up, but it can be carried in different ways. Sometimes the animal is relatively small and carried over the shoulders supported with one hand, but on at least one plaque a man is depicted in the process of trying to stand up with a large bound animal that obscures his entire head (as the smaller ones do not) and rests both on his shoulders and neck. The man is leaning on a spear. [36] This seems to be what is described in the Odyssey. Odysseus uses pliant twigs to bind up his deer and carries it on his neck, leaning on a spear. He specifically mentions that the stag has to be carried in this way because it is too large to be transported ‘on the shoulder holding with one hand’:

τῷ δ’ ἐγὼ ἐμβαίνων δόρυ χάλκεον ἐξ ὠτειλῆς
εἰρυσάμην· τὸ μὲν αὖθι κατακλίνας ἐπὶ γαίῃ
εἴασ’· αὐτὰρ ἐγὼ σπασάμην ῥῶπάς τε λύγους τε, 

πεῖσμα δ’ ὅσον τ’ ὄργυιαν ἐϋστρεφὲς ἀμφοτέρωθεν
πλεξάμενος συνέδησα πόδας δεινοῖο πελώρου, {149|150}
βῆν δὲ καταλλοφάδια φέρων ἐπὶ νῆα μέλαιναν,
ἔγχει ἐρειδόμενος, ἐπεὶ οὔ πως ἦεν ἐπ’ ὤμου
χειρὶ φέρειν ἑτέρῃ· μάλα γὰρ μέγα θηρίον ἦεν.

(Odyssey 10.164–171)

And stepping on him I drew my bronze spear out of his wound,
and left him right there, laying him down on the ground.
And in the meanwhile I broke off twigs and pliant branches and,
having plaited a rope, well-twisted from both ends, about a fathom in length,
I bound the legs of this great monster,
and went towards the black ship, carrying it on my neck
and leaning upon a spear, for it was impossible to carry him on my shoulder
holding him with one hand – it was a very large beast.


It seems that on Circe’s island Odysseus performs a feat typical of a successful young male and especially a hunter, namely killing and then lifting a large herbivore such as a deer or a goat. In this, as in so many other aspects, he seems to be going through the trials of a youth on his way to becoming a man. On the same island he also, of course, confronts dangerous female sexuality and withstands it, with Hermes’ help. [
37] Aktaion stumbles on the same path, whether through an error in timing or in choice of a woman.

Returning to Aktaion, there are no direct indications of his extra-literary life, but some general sense of direction can be gathered from a consideration of the myth alongside those about Aktaion’s cousins. All three daughters of Cadmus have sons, and their myths seem to be in some sense parallel. Aktaion is transformed into a deer and torn apart by his dogs. His cousin Pentheus is torn apart by the maenads, including his mother, who think they are hunting a wild beast. Their cousin Learchus is killed by his own father, and {150|151} this death is also pictured as a hunt: according to Apollodorus, Athamas hunts him down ‘like a deer’, (καὶ Ἀθάμας μὲν τὸν πρεσβύτερον παῖδα Λέαρχον 
ὡς ἔλαφον θηρεύσας ἀπέκτεινεν, ‘and Athamas killed his older son, Learchus, after hunting him down like a deer’ Apollodorus 3.4.3). In all cases, there is a chase and a terribly perverted hunt. There are references to sparagmos and to hunting deer, and they are combined in Aktaion’s case: Pentheus is torn apart, Learchus is killed like a deer, Aktaion is torn apart as a deer. Euripides’ dramatization of Pentheus’ myth in the Bacchae is full of references to the hunt, including a mention of Aktaion as a negative example for Pentheus (337–342). As Heath remarks, the cousins “are both portrayed here as hybristic hunters – one literal, one metaphorical – who eventually meet nearly identical sparagmatic fates as hunters-turned-hunted.” [38] The analogy between Pentheus and Aktaion is remarkably sustained in the Bacchae, and it would be out of place to discuss it here in all its multiple aspects. [39] Suffice it to say that Pentheus is pictured as a hunter, (he tracks and chases both Dionysus and the women who have escaped to the mountains), that he dies dressed in a traditional maenadic costume that includes ‘the dappled skin of a fawn’ (835), and that Agave calls her fellow female hunters ‘my running dogs’ as she incites them to the hunt (731). [40] In both cases the chasers are overtaken by madness and do not recognize their prey: the dogs do not suspect the deer is their master, and the maenads do not realize that their prey is human. This is also true for the third cousin, Learchus, since his father Athamas is struck with madness when he kills his son (μανείς, ‘maddened’, Apollodorus 1.9.2; ἀγανακτήσασα δὲ Ἥρα μανίαν αὐτοῖς ἐνέβαλε, ‘Hera, being vexed, put madness into them’, Apollodorus 3.4.3). In all these cases, moreover, the horror is magnified by the fact that the murderers and the murdered are in a nurturing relationship. Aktaion is killed by his own dogs, as every source remarks, and Cadmus in Euripides’ Bacchae emphasizes that Aktaion raised the dogs himself:

ὁρᾶις τὸν Ἀκταίωνος ἄθλιον μόρον,
ὃν ὠμόσιτοι σκύλακες ἃς ἐθρέψατο
διεσπάσαντο, κρείσσον’ ἐν κυναγίαις
Ἀρτέμιδος εἶναι κομπάσαντ’ ἐν ὀργάσιν.

(Bacchae 337–340) {151|152}

You see the miserable fate of Aktaion,
whom the raw-eating dogs tore to pieces, the dogs he reared himself,
because he boasted in the mountain meadows
to be better than Artemis at hunting.


Learchus and Pentheus are killed by their parents and Pentheus at least is also lamented by the murderers, just as Aktaion is sought and bewailed by his dogs. I wonder if an echo of this last element, the notion of proximity between the victims and the hunters, is not present in the Odyssey, where we are told that Eumaeus raised the dogs himself:

πὰρ δὲ κύνες θήρεσσιν ἐοικότες αἰὲν ἴαυον
τέσσαρες, οὓς ἔθρεψε συβώτης, ὄρχαμος ἀνδρῶν.

(Odyssey 14.21–22)

And by them [the swine] always lay four dogs
that were like wild beasts, whom the swineherd himself, a leader of men, reared.


There is no direct parallel here, but there is a somewhat chilling confluence of similar elements: Odysseus, unrecognizable in his deerskin, is threatened by the dogs raised by his most loyal servant. [
41] Eumaeus remarks on how narrowly he escaped the disgrace of having his dogs harm a guest, adding that he has enough grief already in missing Odysseus (Odyssey 14.37–44). Little does he realize what an outrage he has indeed avoided.

To come back to Odysseus’ golden pin, another layer can be added to its already impressive significance. The pin plays against the deerskin that Odysseus now wears to reveal the depth of the reversal and devastation that has taken place, to suggest a temporary transformation of the hunter into the hunted. At the same time, the recollection of the cloak and pin in the mouth of the squalid beggar is a veiled promise to Penelope, a prediction of the revival and restoration to come. This double contrast between the splendid past, the murky and anxiety-ridden present, and the uncertain but tempting promises of the future creates a much more potent message than a simple confirmation that Penelope’s guest has indeed entertained Odysseus. In contrast to Aktaion, Odysseus does not in fact turn into a hunted animal, but by wearing a deerskin he does create this potentiality, as if it has to be activated before it can be laid to rest. This way of evoking a myth while avoiding it is a pattern in the Odyssey: in the same way, Penelope mentions Aedon, the murderous mother of her own son, while doing all she can to avoid the same fate. In a sense, these ghastly stories, whether hinted at or explicitly mentioned, function in the Odyssey as a myth might function in the context of an actual festival. The murder and dismemberment that are present in myth were not, of course, part of any Greek festival, including those dramatizing dissolution and reversal. Rather, references are made to myths, and masks and play-acting may also be involved. In the same way, the festival of Apollo in the Odyssey seems to function as a context in which certain myths are told, implied, and even enacted. The difference is that the action of the Odyssey itself shares many features with the evoked myths: Odysseus really does face the possibility of being killed and Penelope really does face the possibility of causing her son’s death. Still, even as its characters live their own myth, the Odyssey activates many other relevant myths in the context of Apollo’s festival. {153|}

Footnotes

[ back ] 1. See below on the translation of λάω.

[ back ] 2. Nilsson 1933:123–125, Lorimer 1950:511–515, Roes 1951:216–222, Russo 1992:88 ad loc.

[ back ] 3. Leumann (1950:233–6) observes the similarity between the two poetic expressions, ὀξὺ λάων and ὀξὺ λεληκώς and explains λάω in the sense ‘to cry’ as an artificial poetic back-formation from the participle form λεληκώς. The verb λάω ‘to cry’ is also suspiciously similar to another verb, attested as a gloss in Hesychius, namely λαίω, meaning ‘to bark’, a meaning which would perhaps better suit the Odyssean dog. In contrast to λάω, λαίω has a good etymology: it is cognate with Vedic rajati, Lithuanian lóti and Slavic lajati, all meaning ‘to bark’, and appears in Avestan, probably meaning ‘to shout’, in the compound gathro.raiiant (Yt.13.105). Perhaps the existence of λαίω encouraged the poetic formation of metrically different λάω.

[ back ] 4. Russo 1992:89 ad loc.

[ back ] 5. Rutherford 1992:170.

[ back ] 6. Both the scholia and Eustathius record diverging opinions of Aristarchus and Crates on this matter: Aristarchus understood λάων as ἀντὶ τοῦ ἀπολαύων, while others, among them Crates, took it as ἀντὶ τοῦ βλέπων (Scholia on the Odyssey 19.229.1, Eustathius 2.200 on Odyssey 19.229). Hesychius s.v. λάων appears to clarify Aristarchus’s gloss ἀπολαυστικῶς ἔχων as ἐσθίων and adds a further twist to the matter by mentioning yet another interpretation: some take the verb to mean ‘to lap, lick with the tongue’ (οἱ δὲ λάπτων τῇ γλώττῃ).

[ back ] 7. Perhaps λάω, ‘to bark’, could refer here to the dog’s open mouth, with which it is strangling the fawn, thus ‘grasping with its teeth’.

[ back ] 8. Chantraine 1968 s.v. ἔλαφος.

[ back ] 9. Rutherford 1992:170 ad loc.

[ back ] 10. Cf. Odyssey 2.10–11: βῆ ῥ’ ἴμεν εἰς ἀγορήν, παλάμῃ δ’ ἔχε χάλκεον ἔγχος, | οὐκ οἶος, ἅμα τῷ γε δύω κύνες ἀργοὶ ἕποντο.

[ back ] 11. Schultze 1933:124 compared Vedic ṛjíśvan– ἀργίποδας κύνας (Iliad 24.211), κύνας ἀργούς (Iliad 1.50), κύνες πόδας ἀργοί (Iliad 18.578). For further comments, see Watkins 1995:172.

[ back ] 12. At Kalydon, there was a κυνὸς σῆμα, supposedly the grave of Atalanta’s dog Aura, who was killed by the boar: Pollux 5.45. Here too, perhaps, the death and burial of the dog mark the end of the hunt.

[ back ] 13. Scholia to the Odyssey 2.10. For a discussion of hunting as a pre-military training for young men, see Barringer 2001:10–69. See Isler-Kerényi 2001:135 on Dionysus as patron of young men engaged in hunting.

[ back ] 14. Naiden 1999.

[ back ] 15. Dolon on all fours: Attic lekythos ca.480–470 BCE in Paris (Louvre CA 1802, LIMC Dolon 2), a terracotta plaque from Curti, near Capua, probably third century BCE (Munich, Antikenslg., LIMC Dolon 3). Dolon wearing wolf pelt with the animal’s head covering his head, Herakles-style: Attic red figure cup, ca. 490–480 BCE (St. Petersburg, Hermitage Б 1542, LIMC Dolon 13). On identification between heroes and animals in similes and on the analogy between the simile and the mask, see Schnapp-Gourbeillon 1981. On Dolon as wolf, see Gernet 1981:125–140.

[ back ] 16. Nagy 1990:263–265.

[ back ] 17. Bowra 1961:99–100, 125–26, Richter 1950 fig. 411.

[ back ] 18. The depictions of Aktaion’s metamorphosis begin to appear on vases around the middle of the fifth century, while the earlier depictions represent him as wholly human. Examples of vases with Aktaion clothed in deerskin include an amphora attributed to the Eucharides Painter (Hamburg, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe 1966.3, ca. 490–480 BCE), and a pelike from Vulci by the Geras painter (Musée du Louvre G224, c.480 BCE). Aktaion appears in full-body deer costume on fragments of a volute crater attributed to the Pan Painter (Athens, National Museum, Acropolis 760). On the Hamburg pelike a doe’s head appears above Aktaion’s own. It has been suggested that this represents a theater costume and that the depiction as a whole is inspired by theatrical performances (Hoffman 1967:17). Aktaion appears with a pair of horns on an Attic red-figure krater by the Lykaon Painter (Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 00.346, ca. 440 BCE).

[ back ] 19. Frontisi-Ducroux (1997:442–443) observes the similarity between this passage in the Odyssey and Stesichorus’ language and suggests that the latter deliberately echoes Homer, and that the action of Artemis, like the action of Athena in the Odyssey, is deliberately ambiguous: both a metamorphosis and a disguise.

[ back ] 20. For an analysis of the myth and a detailed discussion of its pictorial representations see Barringer 2001:128–138.

[ back ] 21. The Catalogue of Women: P.Mich. inv. 1447 verso, published by Renner 1978:281–287 and P.Oxy. 2509 (there is disagreement as to whether the latter papyrus belongs to the Catalogue: see Heath 1992:8 and 20n13 with references); Stesichorus PMG 236.

[ back ] 22. Euripides Hippolytus 10–19, 58–113, Burkert 1983:60–61. See Barringer 2001:128–174 on hunting and transgression, invariably involving sexuality (apart from Aktaion, the examples include Kallisto and Meleager).

[ back ] 23. Callimachus Hymn 5.107–118, Ovid Metamorphoses 3.128–252.

[ back ] 24. Apollodorus 3.4.4.

[ back ] 25. Apollodorus 3.4.4. The grief of the dogs for Aktaion is also mentioned in P.Oxy. 2509, which is probably part of the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women (assigned by Lobel 1964, followed by Casanova 1969 and Gallavotti 1969; arguments in support in Janko 1984, rejected by West 1985:88. Translation and a brief discussion of the myth in Heath 1992:7–9).

[ back ] 26. Apollodorus 3.4.4, Aeschines fr. 423 Mette, Ovid Metamorphoses 3.206–224, Hyginus Fabulae 181.

[ back ] 27. Burkert 1983:112–113.

[ back ] 28. The meaning of the second part of the compound is unclear. It occurs also in ἰόμωρος, ἐγχεσίμωρος and probably goes back to *mêros, as in Germanic and Slavic names such as Volk-mar, Vladi-meru (Risch 1974:213).

[ back ] 29. Frontisi-Ducroux 1997 cites these sources and discusses in detail the role of vision and (non)recognition in Aktaion’s myth as well the myth’s other various inversions and oppositions.

[ back ] 30. See Roessel 1989 for the suggestion that this episode is an allusion to Aktaion’s myth.

[ back ] 31. Lebessi 1985:84, 125, Pelekidis 1962:224 ff., Durand and Schnapp 1989:59 fig.83, Marinatos 2003:133.

[ back ] 32. Pausanias 1.19.1. This is discussed as an initiatory scene by Graf 1979 and Waldner 2000:190. One typically “initiatory” detail of the scene is the fact that Theseus, because of his dress and hairstyle, is teased by the bystanders for being a ‘girl’. There are obvious initiatory elements in Theseus’ Cretan voyage as a whole.

[ back ] 33. Marinatos 2003:131–137 with references. Marinatos follows the assessment of the excavator, A. Lebessi, synthesized in Lebessi 1981, 1985, 2000. For illustrations of the plaque see Lebessi 1985 pl. 46 no. Γ8, pl. 40 no. Γ7, pl.41 no. Γ5, rendered as figures 7.2, 7.3, and 7.4 in Marinatos 2003.

[ back ] 34. Lebessi 1985 pl.41, no. Γ5, Marinatos 2003 figure 7.4. The plaques of Kato Syme represent hunting, wresting and carrying of animals, alive and dead: see Marinatos 2003.132–137 with references.

[ back ] 35. Lebessi 1985 pl.46, no.Γ8, Marinatos 2003 figure 7.2.

[ back ] 36. Lebessi 1985 pl.40, no.Γ7, Marinatos 2003 figure 7.3.

[ back ] 37. Cf. the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, where the goddess, in a wilderness setting, seduces a young hunter, Anchises. See Marinatos 2003:142–144 for an interpretation of the Hymn and a discussion of a plaque from Kato Syme that shows a female figure provocatively parting her skirts and revealing her genitalia. Following Lebessi, Marinatos argues that these plaques “reflect a male clientele at Kato Syme” and are “a declaration of the act of heterosexual initiation.” Note further that such an initiation does not equal marriage: see Marinatos 2003:145–146. On Aphrodite Skotia as connected to male maturation on Crete see Willets 1962:285–286, Leitao 1995, Waldner 2000:201–229.

[ back ] 38. Heath 1992:11.

[ back ] 39. For a fuller discussion see Heath 1992:10–18, to whom this account is indebted.

[ back ] 40. Heath 1992:10–18.

[ back ] 41. Eumaeus’ exceptional position as a person particularly close to Odysseus is indicated by the story of his upbringing together with Odysseus’ sister (15.362–370), his own mention of Antikleia’s feelings for him (φίλει δέ με κηρόθι μᾶλλον, 15.369), and by the fact that Odysseus, once on Ithaca, goes first of all to the swineherd’s hut. Eumaeus also has the distinction of being the only person in the Odyssey to be addressed through apostrophe (e.g. 14.55, 165).

[ back ] 42. Burkert 1983:178–179.