Kenneth Michael Silverman (The College of Wooster)
Over the last sixty years, various studies have contended that the Homeric language was more flexible than the Parry-Lord model allowed. These discussions have frequently reopened the question of whether, and in what way, certain epithets relate to the narrative context in which they appear. Did the poet ever call Odysseus πολύμητις or πολυμήχανος to highlight a moment of intelligence, πόλυτλας or ταλασίφρων a moment of suffering, and πτολίπορθος a moment of dominance and triumph? Did he ever use these terms ironically or humorously? Or were these epithets purely “ornamental,” with stereotyped meanings independent of their narrative contexts?
My paper takes the view that the poet(s) of the Iliad and Odyssey sometimes used the so-called “ornamental” epithets for particularized narration as well as for their metrical utility. Furthermore, I argue that Homeric character sketching, and the situational comedy that occasionally arises from it, depends on the use of epithets and on the elbow room (albeit narrow) afforded by the noun-epithet system that Homer inherited and, to some extent, modified. I build on previous scholarship (e.g., Friedrich 2007, Minchin 2010, Halliwell 2008, Finkelberg 2013 and 1989, Beck 1986, Hainsworth 1968) to argue that the comic relief of Zeus’ and Hera’s interactions resides partly in the description of these two deities’ appearances. Hera is βοῶπις πότνια, rather than the metrically equivalent θεὰ λευκώλενος, in moments of anger or fear (Friedrich 2007: 78-80; Beck 1986), as reflected in the following paraphrased verse translations (Il. 1.551-2; 568-9; these translations are my own):
Τὸν δ’ ἠμείβετ’ ἔπειτα βοῶπις πότνια Ἥρη·
«Αἰνότατε Κρονίδη, ποῖον τὸν μῦθον ἔειπες;…»
Then Hera’s lovely cow-like eyes grew wide,
and she came back at him with this broadside:
“What kind of nonsense, Cronus’ son, was that?”
Ὣς ἔφατ’ ἔδεισεν δὲ βοῶπις πότνια Ἥρη,
καί ῥ’ ἀκέουσα καθῆστο ἐπιγνάμψασα φίλον κῆρ·
ὄχθησαν δ’ ἀνὰ δῶμα Διὸς θεοὶ Οὐρανίωνες·
Then Hera’s lovely cow-like eyes grew wide,
this time from fear at Zeus’ diatribe.
He had the final word, she took her seat:
a shock ran through her heart—she’d not repeat
herself, but felt her insides wilt from fright,
while all the Olympians lost their appetite.
Likewise, I submit that the recurrent epithet νεφεληγερέτα, depending on its context and its alternation with other phrases, helps to illustrate changes in Zeus’ mood. In Il. 1, this formula adds to an impression of gathering anger and frustration; in the “Deception of Zeus” scene of Il. 14, a bedroom comedy in the clouds, it has a different effect (cf. Janko 1992: 198; Friedrich 2007: 96). I also take on the case of the famous phrase Ὀδυσσῆα πτολιπόρθιον (Od. 9.504-5, cf. 530-1), from the moment when Odysseus is yelling shorewards to the defeated Polyphemus. Here I join others in arguing that the poet did not lack other options within his formular inventory (I explore alternative constructions; cf. Haft 1990: 48-9), and that the form πτολιπόρθιον, from πτολίπορθον, was possibly an ad hoc modification for this verse (see Hainsworth 1968: 30-1, fn. 3). In suggesting that there is humor and irony in its wording, I read this line alongside a comparable moment in Il. 2.278 (ἀνὰ δ’ ὃ πτολίπορθος Ὀδυσσεὺς) from an ostensibly comical passage about Odysseus’ drubbing of Thersites.