But let’s start it all out with the oldest textual reference to werewolves in the western tradition:
Herodotus, Histories4.105
“The Neuroi are Skythian culturally, but one generation before Darius’ invasion they were driven from their country by snakes. It happens that their land produces many snakes; and even more descended upon them from the deserted regions to the point that they were overwhelmed and left their own country to live with the Boudinoi.
These men may actually be wizards. For the Skythians and even the Greeks who have settled in Skythia report that once each year the Neurian men turn into wolves for a few days and then transform back into themselves again. People who say these things don’t persuade me, but they tell the tale still and swear to it when they do.”
λύκοςγίνεται. This earliest reference to the widespread superstition as to werewolves (cf. Tylor, P. C. i. 308 seq., and Frazer, Paus. iv. 189, for Greek parallels) is interesting, as the evidence is so emphatic. Others (e. g. Müllenhoff iii. 17) see in this story a reference to some festival like the Lupercalia.
This post is a basic introduction to reading Iliad 3. Here is a link to the overview of book 2 and another to the plan in general. As a reminder, these posts will remain free, but there is an option to be a financial supporter. All proceeds from the substack are donated to classics adjacent non-profits on a monthly basis.
Book 3 of the Iliad provides another great example of Homeric style: first, while the catalogue of Greeks and Trojans in book 2 set us up to expect the beginning of actual fighting, the book delays it further by introducing a duel between Menelaos and Paris. Second, the book introduces motifs or scenes that would not at all be appropriate in a logical sense to a war that has been ongoing for 10 years: it features an all-or-nothing duel between Menelaos and Paris (that fails), an introduction to some of the Greek leaders from the Trojan perspective, narrated by Helen (the so-called Teikhoskopia, or “viewing from the walls”), an introduction to Priam and Antenor, the elders of the Trojan people, a somewhat contentious exchange between Helen and Aphrodite about comforting Paris, and the subsequent, somewhat awkward sex-scene.
Joseph François Ducq (1762-1829) Vénus introduisant Pâris dans l’appartement d’Hélène à Sparte, 1806 Huile sur toile – 63 x 48 cm Bruges, Groeningemuseum
In my view on the reading and teachingand my general sense of the five major themes to follow in the Iliad book 3 emphasizes most epic’s dependence and divergence from narrative traditions, although politics and family & friends aren’t far behind. There’s a bit about the relationship of gods and humansin the exchange between Helen and Aphrodite (which could be taken psychoanalytically as an individual struggling with lust) that is crucial for larger questions about divine plan(s) and human agency.
But the dominant theme of the Iliad’s third book is the past. If the Iliad were prestige television like The Last of Us or, probably more appropriately, Band Of Brothers, book 3 would be a flashback episode. Epic narrative, however, seems to accommodate flashbacks primarily in micronarratives (cf. scenes like those of Philoktetes and Protesilaos in the Catalogue of Ships) and character speech, with the exception of a massive stylized flashback like that of the end of book 2. In a way, the Catalogue of book 2 sets us up for thinking about the beginning of the war and questions of how we got here and who is involved.
There have been scholars who have seen book 2 as a pastiche of scenes from different epics or poems edited cleverly together. I think that this is partly right: it brings together images and ideas from a different timeline in the war and makes them somehow make sense to be told in this particular tale. The ordering is clever, but I don’t think we need to imagine the major scenes cut whole from other poems and stitched together like this. Instead, I think we can imagine popular song traditions and melodies deftly integrated into a much larger symphony.
It is well known that the Iliad’s poet ingeniously constructed entire episodes in his composition by transferring them from portions of the Trojan War that precede his actual plot. Thus, the Catalogue of Ships, the Teichoscopia, the duel of Menelaus and Paris, the love-making of the latter with Helen, and the truce and building of the Achaeans’ defensive wall and trench, all owe their existence to this device, and have inspired various qualms as to the propriety of their featuring at so late a stage as the War’s ninth year”
But what does all this mean for our understanding of this poem? There’s a neat bit near the beginning of the poem where we get a bit of a metapoetic reflection of epic composition, centered on Helen in particular.
Homer, Il. 3.121-128
Iris then went as a messenger to white-armed Helen, Looking for all the world like the wife of Antênor’s son, sister-in-law, The wife of the lord of Helikaon, Antênor’s son, Laodikê, The most beautiful of Priam’s daughters, Who found her at home. She was weaving on her great loom, A double-folded garment, in which she was embroidering The many struggles of the horse-taming Trojans and the bronze-girded Achaeans, All the things they had suffered for her at Ares’ hands.”
Helen is creating an image here and it is poetic, although she does not sing her narrative as other female figures do (as noted by a scholion). (For more on women and weaving in Homer, see this post and the included bibliography).
Schol T ad. Il 3.125b ex: “She does not sing like Kirke and Kalypso, for they live without suffering and calmly.”
Fredric Leighton, “Helen on the Walls of Troy” 1865
Helen is, as we will see from her comments in book 6, almost uniquely concerned about her future reception. But here she is taken for standing in a position similar to the Homeric narrator.
Schol. bT ad Il. 3.126-127: “The poet has shaped here a worthy archetype for his own poetry. Perhaps on this [s?]he is trying to show to those who see it the violence of the Trojans and the just strength of the Greeks.”
This is, of course, not a new or unpopular view, as clarified by George A. Kennedy (1986, 5):
“both the web itself and the subjects it depicts are in process. Helen is somehow like the bard, whose poem an audience is hearing or reading, though she is working in a visual medium, rather than in oral verse. Critics have reasonably concluded that her action should be regarded as somehow reflective of the poetic process. This view was already adopted in medieval scholia on line 3.126-7 which comment “the poet has formed a worthy archetype of his own poiesis.”
What I think is important here, is that before venturing to retell tales that belong in a flashback, the Homeric narrator provides this metapoetic breadcrumb for us to consider. As José González shows, following the work of Greg Nagy, in The Epic Rhapsode and His Craft: Homeric Performance in a Diachronic Perspective, stitching or weaving poetry together is a functional metaphor for what ancient audiences conceived of Homeric poets as doing. Derek Collins provides a nice bit from the scholia to Pindar in his Master of the Game:
Some say that, since the poetry of Homer had not been brought together in one collection, and since it was otherwise scattered and separated into parts, whenever they would sing it rhapsodically they would do something similar to sequencing or sewing, producing it into one thing.
But, as Andrew Ford argues, ancient rhapsodes didn’t merely edit pre-existing material: there’s good evidence for the term applying to new compositions, “remixes” (my words), and genres other than epic. So, part of the trickiness of book 3, is weighing how Homer engages with ‘traditional material’, whether or not the Iliadic appropriation of scenes from earlier in the war is more homage or revision, and how the details help to set us up for what comes later.
Helen, in this scene, is presented as creating a synoptic visual narrative of everything everyone had suffered on her part. And this anticipates what she does later on: she selects details in response to her audience’s questions to set the scene for the action to come. She tells us about herself, and the heroes and also provides a vehicle for characterizing Priam, Antenor, and Paris too. By engaging in narrative thus just as the epic begins the violence again, the Iliad tips its own hand: it is fitting together the major motifs of the Trojan War and creating a synoptic account of all the suffering in a singular creation of its own. Helen is our guide, but Homer’s creation.
What are the characterizing functions of the teikhoskopia (the “viewing from the walls”)? Whom do we hear about? What do we learn?
Why do we have a duel between Menelaos and Paris in the 9th year of the war? How does the outcome drive the plot of the Iliad?
What is the characterization of Helen in this book and how does it relate to the Iliad and the larger Trojan War?
Brief Bibliography on Helen and the Teikhoskopia
n.b this is not an exhaustive bibliography. If you’d like anything else included, please let me know. There will be a second post this week on Helen.
BLONDELL, RUBY. “‘Bitch That I Am’: Self-Blame and Self-Assertion in the Iliad.” Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974-) 140, no. 1 (2010): 1–32. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40652048.
Blondell, Ruby. “REFRACTIONS OF HOMER’S HELEN IN ARCHAIC LYRIC.” The American Journal of Philology 131, no. 3 (2010): 349–91. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40983352.
Ebbot, Mary. 1999. “The Wrath of Helen: Self-Blame and Nemesis in the Iliad,” 3–20 in Nine Essays on Homer, ed. Carlisle and Levaniouk, Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999.
Jamison, Stephanie W. “Draupadí on the Walls of Troy: ‘Iliad’ 3 from an Indic Perspective.” Classical Antiquity 13, no. 1 (1994): 5–16. https://doi.org/10.2307/25011002.
Lesser, Rachel H. “Female Ethics and Epic Rivalry: Helen in the Iliad and Penelope in the Odyssey.” American Journal of Philology 140, no. 2 (2019): 189-226. https://doi.org/10.1353/ajp.2019.0013.
Roisman, Hanna M. “Helen in the ‘Iliad’ ‘Causa Belli’ and Victim of War: From Silent Weaver to Public Speaker.” The American Journal of Philology 127, no. 1 (2006): 1–36. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3804922.
Rynearson, Nicholas C. “Helen, Achilles and the Psuchê: Superlative Beauty and Value in the Iliad.” Intertexts 17 (2013): 3-21. https://doi.org/10.1353/itx.2013.0001.
Scodel, Ruth. “Pseudo-Intimacy and the Prior Knowledge of the Homeric Audience *.” Arethusa 30, no. 2 (1997): 201-219. https://doi.org/10.1353/are.1997.0010.
Warwick, Celsiana. “The Maternal Warrior: Gender and Kleos in the Iliad.” American Journal of Philology 140, no. 1 (2019): 1-28. https://doi.org/10.1353/ajp.2019.0001.
Worman, Nancy. “The Body as Argument: Helen in Four Greek Texts.” Classical Antiquity 16, no. 1 (1997): 151–203. https://doi.org/10.2307/25011057.
Description, Characterization, and Physiognomy in Iliad 2
This post examines the description and treatment of Thersites in book 2. Here is a link to the overview of book 2 and another to the plan in general. As a reminder, these posts will remain free, but there is an option to be a financial supporter. All proceeds from the substack are donated to classics adjacent non-profits on a monthly basis. Many of the ideas in this post are worked out at a greater length in an article published a few years ago; some additional passages are on this handout.
“The rest of them were sitting, and they had taken their seats. Only Thersites, a man of measureless speech, was still declaring– A man who knew many disordered things in his thoughts and who Strived pointlessly with kings out of order, –whatever he thought would be amusing to the Argives. And he was the most shameful man who came to Troy. He was cross-eyed and crippled in one foot. His shoulders Were curved, dragged in toward his chest. And on top His head was misshaped, and the hair on his head was sparse. He was most hateful to both Achilles and Odysseus For he was always reproaching them. Then he was shrilly cawing At lordly Agamemnon again, as he spoke reproaches. The Achaeans Were terribly angry at him and were finding fault in their heart. As he shouting greatly, he was reproaching Agamemnon.”
Thersites’ description also uses some language of disability in the ancient world: here, aiskhos (for “ugly” or “deformed”) and khlôlos (for “crippled” or lame”). The correlation between the disorderliness of his body and thoughts (ὃς ἔπεα φρεσὶν ᾗσιν ἄκοσμά) may not be causative, but it helps to establish a meaningful relationship between Thersites’ body, his behavior, and the hate his presence elicits.
Schol T. ad Il. 2.216a
“most shameful: this is also said of an ape.”
ex. αἴσχιστος: τοῦτο καὶ ἐπὶ πιθήκου.
Schol. BT [Aristonicus] ad Il. 2.217a
“pholkos: this is spoken once. Homeric pholkos means when the eyes are narrowed together, which means turned.”
Homer presents a overlap between ‘beautiful body’ and ‘beautiful mind’ (a topic I explore in this article.) This physiognomic category error pervades a great deal of classical Greek culture. In the Iliad, Thersites transgresses physical boundaries through his unheroic body and ethical boundaries by using the genre of rebuke upward in the social hierarchy. He is hateful to both Achilles and Odysseus because they exemplify in a complementary fashion the ‘center’ or ideal of the heroic person—Achilles is the beautiful body, Odysseus is a beautiful mind. But both of them stay within the boundaries of ‘normal’ in their own deviance (Achilles’ political straying, Odysseus’ aging, imperfect body).
Thersites, labelled by many as a comic scapegoat, functions as an inferior in order to define the center as non-transgressive. This is, in particular, why he is hateful to Achilles and Odysseus: without him, their persons might be monstrous or disabled. And this also helps explain why Odysseus must physically beat Thersites in public.
But there is a tradition to Thersites outside of the way he is used in Homer. Ancient scholars etymologize his name and report, ironically, that he became disabled because of punishment for cowardice (making his body a marker of the consequences of his character).
Schol. T ad Hom. Il. 212a1 ex
“Thersites: the name is made from the Aiolic [version of tharsos] audacity, thersos. ex. Θερσίτης δ’ ἔτι: ὠνοματοποίησε τὸ ὄνομα παρὰ τὸ θέρσος Αἰολικόν
Schol. D ad Hom. Il. 2.212 [= Euphorion fr. 82]
“Because the goddess was enraged at Oineus’ lack of concern for sacrifices to Artemis, she sent a wild boar against the city. A band of the best of Greece when against it when it was ruining the country, as the poet says in the ninth book. Among them was also Thersites who, because he was coward, abandoned his assigned guard post and went instead hunting safety in some high position. He was being reproached and pursued by Meleager and fell from a cliff; [this is how] he became the sort of man Homer describes him as. Euphorion tells this story.”
“Pherecydes says that [Thersites] was one of those who gathered to hunt the Kalydonian boar but that he was avoiding the fight with the boar and was thrown from a cliff by Meleager. This is how his body was deformed. People say he is a child of Agrios and the daughter of Porthaon. But if he is Diomedes’ relative, there is no way Odysseus would beat him. For he would only hit common soldiers. Hence, [the poet] has deployed him not [because of] his father or his country but only because of his manner and form, the things which the current situation needs.”
Attributed to the Tyrrhenian Group (Holwerda) or to the Timiades Painter (Bothmer). c. 560 BCE; Altes Museum
In the broader tradition, Thersites’ boldness leads to his death at Achilles’ hands.
Proclus, Chrestomathia 178–184
“Then Achilles killed Thersites because he was mocked by him when he reproached him, claiming he loved Penthesileia. A conflict arose among the Achaeans over the murder of Thersites. After that Achilles went sailing to Lesbos where, after he made a sacrifice to Apollo, Artemis and Leto, he was cleansed of the murder by Odysseus.”
“A bit farther along among the final souls, he saw that of the ridiculous Thersites taking on the form of a monkey. By chance, he came upon the soul of Odysseus last of all as it made its choice still remembering its previous sufferings and, having decided to rest from the pursuit of honor, was spending an excessive among of time seeking the life of an untroubled private citizen. He found it barely situated somewhere and ignored by the rest of the souls. When he saw it, he said that he would have made the same choice even had he drawn the first lot and was happen to make this choice.”
“Accordingly, then, they differ from one another in magnitude of more or less, just as the whiteness in show compares to the whiteness of milk: it is white for each it is not different in this, but it contrasts in being more or less white. In the same manner, if you will allow me to say, the health of Achilles does not differ from that of Thersites: inasmuch as it is health, it is the same, but it differs in another thing.”
It is the right time of the year for raising the dead. A student paper on the Elpenor Pelike at the MFA in Boston drew my attention to the following passage.
Servius ad Aen. 6.107
“For this reason the place is named without joy since, as people claim, it would not have been there but for necromancy or spell-craft. For, Aeneas completed these sacred rites when Misenus was killed and Ulysses did it with the death of Elpenor.
This very scene Homer himself presented falsely from the detail of its location which he specifies along with the length of time of the journey. For he claims that Ulysses sailed for one night and came to the place where he completed these sacrifices. For this reason it is abundantly clear that he doesn’t mean the ocean but Campania.”
sine gaudio autem ideo ille dicitur locus, quod necromantia vel sciomantia, ut dicunt, non nisi ibi poterat fieri: quae sine hominis occisione non fiebant; nam et Aeneas illic occiso Miseno sacra ista conplevit et Vlixes occiso Elpenore. quamquam fingatur in extrema Oceani parte Vlixes fuisse: quod et ipse Homerus falsum esse ostendit ex qualitate locorum, quae commemorat, et ex tempore navigationis; dicit enim eum a Circe unam noctem navigasse et ad locum venisse, in quo haec sacra perfecit: quod de Oceano non procedit, de Campania manifestissimum est.
The relevant passages from the Odyssey don’t give any hint that Elpenor was intentionally killed for black magic. When Odysseus actually does summon the dead, now that gets a little dark.
Odyssey, 10.552–560
“I could not even lead my companions unharmed from there.
The youngest of my companions was a certain Elpênor,
He was neither especially brave in battle or composed in his thoughts.
He separated himself from the companions in Kirkê’s holy home
Because he needed some air; then he fell asleep because he was drunk.
When he heard the noise and trouble of our companions moving out,
He got up immediately and it completely escaped his thoughts
To climb down again by the long ladder—
So he fell straight from the roof and his neck
Shattered along his spine; then his spirit flew down to Hades.”
Nekuomanteia, glossed by Hesychius as nekromanteia (i.e. “necromancy”) is an alternate name for the Nekyuia, the parade of the dead in book 11 of the Odyssey. From the Greek Anthology: ᾿Εν τῷ Η ἡ τοῦ ᾿Οδυσσέως νεκυομαντεία· (3.8); Scholia to the Odyssey, Hypotheses: Λ. Νεκυομαντεία, ἢ, Νεκυία. Cf. Eustathius, Comm. Ad Od. 1.396.10
“If you look again to the higher part of the painting, you will see Ajax from Salamis right next to Actaeon and near to him, Palamedes and Thersites playing a game with dice, something Palamedes invented. The other Ajax is watching as they play. This Ajax’s skin is the color of a shipwrecked sailor with salt still raised on his skin.
Polygnotos has put together all of the enemies of Odysseus into one place. Ajax, son of Oileus, started to hate Odysseus because he encouraged the Greeks to stone Ajax for the rape of Kassandra. I learned from the epic verses of the Kypria that Palamedes was drowned when he went after a catch of fish—Diomedes and Odysseus killed him.”
This post is a basic introduction to reading Iliad 2. Here is a link to the overview of book 1 and another to the plan in general. As a reminder, these posts will remain free, but there is an option to be a financial supporter. All proceeds from the substack are donated to classics adjacent non-profits on a monthly basis.
The second book of the Iliad can be split into three basic sections: the so-called diapeira (Agamemnon’s testing of the troops); the assembly speeches following the rush to the ships in response to the ‘test’ (the protest of Thersites, followed by the speeches of Odysseus and Nestor); and the Catalogue of Ships). Each of these scenes contributes critically to the some of the major themes I have noted to follow in reading the Iliad: (1) Politics, (2) Heroism; (3) Gods and Humans; (4) Family & Friends; (5) Narrative Traditions.. But the central themes I emphasize in reading and teaching book 2 are politicsand narrative traditions.
Antalya Archaeological Museum. Ancient Roman sarcophagus of Aurelia Botania Demetria ( 2nd century AD ): Achilles striking Thersites.
The first half of book 2 essentially addresses the political problems set into play in book 1: Agamemnon tests his men to see if they are still dedicated to the mission and they run away. Thersites appears to channel some of Achilles’ dissent from book 1 and to act as a scapegoat for that political fracture. When he is literally beaten out of the assembly by Odysseus, it opens up space for Odysseus and Nestor in turn to refocus their efforts, reemphasize their collective goals, and reconstruct Agamemnon’s authority. (Disclosure, I have written on Agamemnon’s test and the debates around it and have some opinions.) I have included a bibliography on Thersites below. I will provide a later post about Agamemnon’s so-called test.
The result of this series of events is clear if you trace the similes of in book 2: the Achaeans start compared to images of clashing and conflict and end up compared to unified forces of nature directed against a common goal. This resolves in part some of the political tension in book 1, but does not address Achilles’ absence fully. The actions of the Achaean assembly are sufficient to return the coalition to war with a unified front, but insufficient to winning there. As part of the larger political theme, this helps to illustrate that the political resilience of the Achaeans, despite their bloody internecine conflict, resides in the multiple leaders who work together.
The unity at the end of the assemblies translates in part to a throwback to the beginning of the war in the performance of the Catalogue of Ships. Strictly speaking, a catalogue of all the participants in the war begins in a very different narrative, not recited nine years after its beginning. I suspect that the Catalogue was a popular motif in antiquity and was integrated into our Iliad both as a recognition of this and as a reflection of its audiences geographical knowledge and political realities. I think this interactive map of the catalogue is really fascinating and worth playing around with. Here’s a list of all the contingents with some links
In addition to being a fascinating reflection on the interaction between mythical space and the lived geography of antiquity, the catalogue is also evidence of how our Homeric epic engages with other versions of its own story and the larger Trojan War narrative in general. The catalogue clearly predates the action of the epic–figures like Philoktetes are listed as being elsewhere or dead (Protesilaos)–and the contents help us to understand the political dynamics: as Nestor puts it in book 1, Agamemnon is powerful politically because he rules over more people.
But the catalogue is also a lesson in how epic narrative works. Every figure is a potential story, a genealogy or a tragedy waiting to be unveiled. At the same time, the catalogue is an opportunity to silence other traditions by leaving them unmentioned, something Elton Barker and I examine in Homer’s Thebes.
Previous generations of scholars might have bracketed the catalogue as being imported from another poem or tradition. I think its position in this book following the reconstitution of the experimental Achaean polity is a brilliant ‘literary’ response to the particular challenge of creating an authoritative Trojan War poem. It makes sense to have a retrospective overview of the war at this point: The test itself raises the question of the stakes of the war; Odysseus and Nestor remind us of its beginning and the anticipated length; and the catalogue itself returns us from the theme of Achaean politics to the war in general. The inclusion of ‘traditional’ material both appropriates other narratives and instrumentalizes them. In effect, the larger mythical storyscape becomes a footnote to the story being told. And the catalogue is re-tunes the audience for the confrontation with the Trojans in book 3. In addition, this use of narrative material extraneous to the timeline of this particular plot also sets the audience up for even more surprising ‘flashbacks’: a duel between Paris and Menelaos (after 9 years!) and Helen’s description of the Greek heroes from the walls of Troy (the so-called Teikhoskopia).
Often left out of discussions of the Catalogue are the Trojans, who get their own list at 2.816-877. As Eunice Kim has recently argued, there is an art and message to this section that helps us to understand Hektor and the Trojans in general. So, make sure you read it to the end! Hilary Mackie’s book Talking Trojan, also has a nice treatment of this section and Benjamin Sammons’ The Art and Rhetoric of the Homeric Catalogue provides a great overview and fine bibliography on this type of poetry in general.
Book 2 touches upon other themes as well. Zeus’ intervention to send Agamemnon a false dream at the beginning of book 2 engages with questions about his “plan” as well as notions of human will and divine fate (so, Gods & Humans) and the inset heroic narratives of the catalogue provide many different ways to think about local heroes and larger traditions (Heroism).
What does the Diapeira do and how does it respond to the conflict of Iliad 1?
How do we understand Thersites’ dissent and its treatment?
How would you characterize Nestor and Odysseus in this book?
What are the impact(s) of the catalogue of ships?
Bibliography on Thersites
n.b this is not an exhaustive bibliography. If you’d like anything else included, please let me know.
BARKER, ELTON. “ACHILLES’ LAST STAND: INSTITUTIONALISING DISSENT IN HOMER’S ‘ILIAD.’” Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society, no. 50 (2004): 92–120. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44696692.
Brockliss, W. 2019. “Out of the Mix: (Dis)ability, Intimacy, and the Homeric Poems.” Classical World 113: 1–27.
Christensen, J. (2021). Beautiful Bodies, Beautiful Minds: Some Applications of Disability Studies to Homer. Classical World114(4), 365-393. https://doi.org/10.1353/clw.2021.0020.
Robert Kimbrough. “The Problem of Thersites.” The Modern Language Review 59, no. 2 (1964): 173–76.
Lowry, E. R. 1991 Thersites: A Study in Comic Shame.
Marks, Jim. 2005. “The Ongoing Neikos: Thersites, Odysseus, and Achilleus.” AJP 126:1–31.
Postlethwaite, N. “Thersites in the Iliad.” Greece & Rome 35: 83-95.
Rose, M. L. 2003. The Staff of Oedipus: transforming disability in ancient Greece. Ann Arbor.
ROSE, PETER W. “THERSITES AND THE PLURAL VOICES OF HOMER.” Arethusa 21, no. 1 (1988): 5–25.
Rosen, R. M. 2003. “The Death of Thersites and the Sympotic Performance of Iambic Mock-ery.” Pallas 61:21–136.
Stuurman, Siep. “The Voice of Thersites: Reflections on the Origins of the Idea of Equality.” Journal of the History of Ideas 65, no. 2 (2004): 171–89. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3654205.
Thalmann, W. G. 1988. “Thersites: comedy, scapegoats and heroic ideology in the Iliad.” TAPA 118:1-28.
Thomson, R. G.. 1997. Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature. New York.
Williams, B. 1993. Shame and Necessity. Berkeley and Los Angeles
“Our fated nature is identified by Empedocles as the force behind this remaking, “wrapping [us] in a tunic of strange flesh” and transferring souls to a new place. Homer has called this circular revolution and the return of rebirth by the name Kirke, a child of Helios, the one who unites every destruction with birth and destruction again, binding it endlessly.
The Island Aiaia is that place which revives the person who dies, a place where the souls first step when they are wandering and feel like strangers to themselves as they mourn and cannot figure out which direction is west nor where the “sun which brings life to people over the land / descends again into the earth.”
These souls long for their habits of pleasure and their life in the flesh and the way they lived with their flesh and they fall again into that mixture where birth swirls together and truly stirs into one the immortal and moral, the material of thought and experience, elements of heaven and earth. The souls are enchanted but also weakened by the pleasures that pull them to birth again. At that time, souls require a great amount of good luck and much wisdom to find some way to resist and depart from their worst characters and become bound to their most base parts or passions and take up a terrible and beastly life.”
“[in this case] the soul and the body would experience things together, but they would not have the same reactions as one another. But, now, it is entirely clear that one follows another. This is especially obvious from the following. For madness seems to be a matter of the mind; doctors, however, respond to it by cleansing the body with medicines and also by telling them to pursue certain habits in life which may relieve the mind of madness.
So, the form of the body is relieved by treatments to the body at the very same time that the soul is freed from madness. Since they are both relieved together, it is clear that their reactions are in synchrony. It is also clear from this that the forms special to the body are similar to the capabilities of the mind, with the result that all similarities in living things are clear signs of some kind of sameness.”
“The things that Homer says about Kirkê contain a wonderful theory about the soul. The interpretation runs as follows:
Some have the heads, voice, head and skin of swine, but the mind remains constant as it was before. This myth is similar to the riddle about the soul presented by Pythagoras and Plato, that it is indestructible in nature and unseen but that it is not safe from harm or unchangeable. In what is called its destruction or death, it undergoes a change and then a transference into different kinds of bodies pursuing an appearance and fit according to pleasure, by similarity and practice to how it lived life. In this, each person draws a great advantage from education and philosophy, since the soul has a memory of noble things, judges the shameful harshly, and is able to overcome the unnatural pleasures. This soul can pay attention to itself, and guard that it might not accidentally become a beast because it has grown attracted to an hideously shaped, unclean body regarding virtue, a body that excites and nourishes uncultured and unreasoning nature rather than increasing and nourishing thought.
“Once the soul is translated, that which is fated and nature, which Empedocles named the divine force that “wraps us in a foreign robe of flesh”, also re-fits the soul. Homer has named this circular journey and return of rebirth Kirkê, the child of the sun because the sun binds every destruction to birth and every birth in turn to destruction, always weaving them together. The Island Aiaia is also that place allotted to receive one who dies—where the souls first arrive as they wander, and suffer alienation as they mourn and they do not know which way is west nor “where the sun which brings mortals light comes upon the earth”.
As they long for their habits of pleasure—their shared life in the flesh and their way of life with the flesh—they provide the draught with its character again: it is the drink where birth is mixed and stirs together what is truly immortal and mortal, the thoughts and sufferings, the ethereal and the earthbound. The souls are enchanted and weakened by the pleasures that will lead them back to birth again. At this time, souls require great luck and great wisdom in order to avoid pursuing their worst aspects or passions and dedicate themselves to a cursed and beastly life”.
For it is right that it is called and considered a crossroad in the underworld around which the parts of the soul split: the rational, the emotional, and the desirous. Each of these produces a force or an inducement to the life appropriate to itself. This is no longer myth or poetry but truth and a story of nature. In this transformation and rebirth, when the aspect of desire overpowers and takes control, [Homer] is claiming that because of the dominance of pleasure and gluttony, they transform into the bodies of donkeys and pigs and receive unclean lives on the ground. The interpretation runs as follows.
Whenever a soul has an emotional component that has grown completely savage because of harsh rivalries or murderous savagery developing from some disagreement or vendetta, that soul finds a second birth which is full of bitterness and angry thoughts and falls into the shape of a wolf or a lion, embracing this body as if it were a tool of vengeance for his controlling passion. For this reason, one must keep clean when near death as if for a religious rite and restrain from every kind of base pleasure, put every harsh emotion to bed, and to withdraw from the body by suppressing envies, enmities, and rages down deep. This “Hermes of the golden-staff” happens to be that very reasoning which indicates clearly the good and either wholly restrains or saves it from the deadly draught should it drink—it preserves the soul in a human life and character for as long a time as is possible.”
Phaedo to Echecrates regarding the death of Socrates:
“It was strange to be at his side. A dear friend was dying, and I felt no pity. Instead, Echecrates, he appeared blessed. Judging from his manner and his words, he was coming to the end of his life without fear and with nobility.
It seemed to me he was inspired–he was not going to Hades without a divine appointment. He arrived there happy, if in fact anyone of any stripe ever has. This is actually why I felt no pity, though the present circumstance would appear to warrant pity.
It was an uncanny experience. There was a mixture of pleasure and pain, simultaneously, when I reflected that he was to die shortly. Everyone on hand was similarly disposed, laughing from time to time, and every so often crying . . .”
“Prometheus: Know that during the period of the Judean Judges, Prometheus was known among the Greeks as the one who invented academic philosophy. People say that he crafted human beings because he rendered those who were idiots capable of understanding philosophy.
And there was also Epimetheus, who invented the art of music and, in addition, Atlas, who first interpreted astronomy which is why they claim he “holds up the sky”. There is also Argos of many eyes because he was seen by many people, when he was really the one who first established technical knowledge. Then there was also a prophetess named the Sibyl.
When Pharaoh, who is also called Parakhô, was king in Egypt, then Kekrops was king in Athens among the Greeks. He was called Diphyes [“double-formed”] due to the size or because he established a law that women who were still virgins should be given in marriage to a single man, after he named them brides. Previously women of the land had sex like animals. For a woman was no man’s, but gave herself like a prostitute to anyone. No one knew whose son or daughter a child was—instead the mother used to claim and give the child to which ever man it seemed best to her to claim.
Kekrops did this because he came from Egypt and was ignorant of the law which Hephaestus had made when he ruled there before. For he claimed that it was because of this sinful intercourse that Athens was destroyed by the flood. After that point, the people who lived in Greece lived more prudently. Kekrops ruled for 40 years.”
“Zeus made himself look like a swan and joined Nemesis near the river Ocean. From this union, she laid an egg which Leda received, warmed, and then bore Helen and the Dioscouri”
“Ramnos is a deme in Attica where Zeus slept with Nemesis who then produced an egg which Leda found, warmed and which produced in turn the Dioscuri and Helen.”
The fragmentary poem from the epic cycle dubbed the Cypria was attributed to lesser known poets like Stasinus and Hegesias by ancient authors. Its name, however, comes from the fact that it was largely believed to be composed in Cyprus (or by a Cypriot poet traveling abroad).
The first fragment of the poem tends to be its most well-known since it places the Trojan War in a context of global discussion and echoes the Iliad in making this all part of Zeus’ plan. But the ninth fragment has some frightening details. First, it alleges that Helen is not the daughter of Zeus and Leda (of the swan scene) but instead is the offspring of Zeus and the unwilling goddess Nemesis. Second, it shows Zeus pursuing her all over the earth no matter what form she took.
Cypria, Fr. 9 Benarbé [fr 10. West 2013]
“After them [he?] bore a wonder to mortals, a third child Helen—
Fine-haired Nemesis gave birth to her after having sex
With Zeus, the king of the gods, under forceful compulsion.
For she was not willing to have sex with Kronos’ son
Father Zeus, since her mind rushed with shame and opposition [nemesis].
She fled over the earth and the dark, barren sea,
But Zeus pursued her—and he longed to catch her in his heart.
At one time along the waves of the much-resounding sea,
He broke through the water as she took the form of a fish—
At another he followed her through the river Ocean to the ends of the earth.
Again, across the much-nourishing land. She became all the terrible
Beasts, the many the land raises up, in trying to escape him.”
As West (2013, 81-83) points out, there is some motif transference going on here in the fragment. For one, in many testimonia Thetis is said to change shapes to elude Peleus. In addition, we know the popular account of Zeus changing into a swan [or goose] to seduce Leda. Finally, Nemesis—as a concept and less as a character—is often associated with Helen’s behavior. She receives “nemesis and shame” for her actions. Much of this may linger in the mythopoetic background when the leaders of the Trojans declare upon seeing her again in the Iliad “there’s no nemesis for the Trojans and Achaeans, that they suffered pain for so long for this kind of woman….” (οὐ νέμεσις Τρῶας καὶ ἐϋκνήμιδας ᾿Αχαιοὺς τοιῇδ’ ἀμφὶ γυναικὶ πολὺν χρόνον ἄλγεα πάσχειν).
But other accounts have Zeus changing to match Nemesis as well. Apollodorus (3.10.7) attempts to harmonize the two accounts:
“Some allege that Helen is the daughter of Nemesis and Zeus and that when she was fleeing Zeus’ sexual advance she changed her shape into a goose and that Zeus matched her and approached her as a swan. She produced an egg from this intercourse—people say that some shepherd found this egg in a thicket, fetched it and gave it to Leda who placed it in a box where she guarded it. When, after some time, it hatched and produced Helen, Leda raised her as her own daughter.”
