Introduction: Variations on Briseis [1]In his 1960 book The Singer of Tales, Albert Lord argues that Homeric poetry is defined by its traditionality: any given audience on any given occasion of performance knew the story and the characters already. There would have been nothing about the story, the language, the rhythm of the song, or the characters that was new. The poet of any given performance might… Read more
Chapter 1. Briseis and the Multiformity of the Iliad [21] In an oral traditional song culture such as that in which the Iliad and Odyssey were composed, each new performance is a new composition. In such a system, as Albert Lord demonstrated, there can technically be no original from which all others are copies. [1] In fact it is misleading to think of versions… Read more
Chapter 2. Prize [37] The Iliad, as its first word makes clear, is about wrath. This wrath is no ordinary wrath, but mênis, a cosmic wrath that causes human loss and suffering. [1] Achilles’ mênis causes the deaths of countless Achaeans, and fuels the killing spree that results in the deaths of countless Trojans, most notably Hektor’s. The cause of Achilles’ mênis is the taking of Briseis by Agamemnon… Read more
Chapter 3. Girl [49] In the account of the Trojan War by Dictys of Crete, Briseis is very much a young (or at least unmarried) girl, the daughter of King Brises of Pedasos, whom Achilles receives as a prize along with Diomedeia, the daughter of King Phorbas of Lesbos. [1] In this chapter I explore to what extent, if at all, the Iliad conceives… Read more
Chapter 4. Wife [67] We have seen that in one of the traditional patterns that Briseis fulfills she is the wife of a king who gets killed in battle. In Iliad 9.340-341, moreover, Achilles asks if only the sons of Atreus love their wives (alokhous), thereby likening Briseis to Helen and Clytemnestra and inviting us to think of her as Achilles’ “wife.” [1] In… Read more
Appendix 1. Testimonia on the Kreophuleioi of Samos In Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus 4.4 we read how Lycurgus the Lawgiver acquired the Homeric poems from the descendants of Kreophylos in Samos and brought the poems back to the Spartans: ἐκεῖ δὲ καὶ τοῖς Ὁμήρου ποιήμασιν ἐντυχὼν πρῶτον, ὡς ἔοικε, παρὰ τοῖς ἐκγόνοις τοῖς Κρεοφύλου διατηρουμένοις, καὶ … ἐγράψατο προθύμως καὶ συνήγαγεν ὡς δεῦρο κομιῶν. ἦν… Read more
Abbreviations BA – The Best of the Achaeans: Concepts of the Hero in Archaic Greek Poetry = N 1979a GM – Greek Mythology and Poetics = N 1990b HC – Homer the Classic = N 2008 HQ – Homeric Questions = N 1996b HP – Homer the Preclassic = N 2009 HR – Homeric Responses = N 2003a HTL – Homer’s Text and Language =… Read more
Acknowledgments I thank the Classics Department of Harvard University for the allocation of a subsidy that has helped make this book more affordable. At an early stage of the project, Lenore Savage, with her expertise at the keyboard, navigated through vast stretches of unwieldy text. The final printed version was achieved by Gary Bisbee, master compositor and scholar. I wish to record my deep gratitude… Read more
Foreword Greek Mythology and Poetics is the second book in the Myth and Poetics series. My goal, as series editor, is to encourage work that will help integrate literary criticism with the approaches of anthropology and that will pay special attention to problems concerning the nexus of ritual and myth. For such an undertaking, we may look to the comparative testimony of relatively complex societies,… Read more
Introduction [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.] This book concentrates on what ancient Greek society inherited… Read more
