Griffin Budde (Boston University)
This paper takes a literary perspective to the study of Homer’s use of epithets (Vivante, A.Parry, etc.), and adopts the term “contextual field” (Scully, Ch. 3) to describe the suitability of Hector’s epithet koruthaiolos to its regular narrative context. With his distinctive epithet, concentrating in Book 6, Hector consistently divides his attention between multiple people or objects — Troy, his family, his fellow-soldiers, the gods, the Greeks, to name some — requiring his head to turn in all directions. Sometimes, the text makes head movement explicit (e.g. “he shook the lots, great koruthaiolos Hector / looking away,” 3.324-25; 6.103-116, 506-520, 7.260-263), as Homer teaches his own conception of this noun-epithet phrase in real time to his audience. In Books 17 and 18, and only in these books, the epithet appears in direct speech more than in narrative, reflecting not so much Hector’s actions as the anxiety Trojans feel about his uncharacteristic behavior, as he succumbs to self-seeking desires around the body of Patroklus (cf. Menelaus’s response, 17.19; Aeneid, 10.501-505). At this time, Aeneas and Polydamas must fill the void in leadership, while Hector attracts epithets devoid of motion, where once we expected koruthaiolos (e.g. xalkokorustēn, 16.536; kekoruthmenos aithopi xalkō, 17.592). A physical, action-oriented understanding of Hector’s epithet might inform our reading of Book 22, when Achilles is described fully alert to his surroundings, complete with head movements, (laoisin d’ananeue karēati, 22.205), and Hector, explicitly not (92-96, 226-232). Homer signals the importance and attention he has invested in this epithet, when it appears, unparalleled, separated from its noun, when Andromache realizes his lifeless body (471).
Currently, translations of koruthaiolos specify the oddly-perennial gleam of his helmet: “of shining helm”, Lattimore; “of the shimmering helm”, Alexander; “whose helmet sparkled”, Powell, @6.264. To offer a new and more appropriate translation, this paper borrows terminology from professional sports, for, like any good defender, in managing his diverse responsibilities in Troy and on the battlefield, Hector must keep “his helmet on a swivel”.
Scholarship that aims to revise to our understanding of Homer’s use of formula has often made recourse to cognitive sciences (Nagler, Bakker, etc.). While these focus on the thought process of the poet to explain the presence of patterns and repetitions, this paper will introduce complementary evidence on human speech processing to describe reactions of the audience hearing them. I will present data showing that listening to songs in meter affects spontaneous predictions in the audience, and that these form most strongly at line-end, where meter is the most regular (Poeppel, Obleser, etc.). Listeners subconsciously predict an utterance before they hear it, and this leads to enhanced processing at this point in the verse; it is also the primary locus for proper-noun-epithet phrases. Since Parry, numerous articles have sought contextually relevant meaning in epithet phrases (Brillet-Dubois, Schein, Ward, etc.). This paper attempts to re-energize that field with a case study and research on speech comprehension.