“You grumble that my letters to you are not very polished. Well, who speaks with polish unless they want to talk ostentatiously? I want my letters to have the quality of the kind of conversation we’d have while sitting next to each other or walking: easy and unlabored, since there is nothing forced or false about them.
If I could, I would prefer to show rather than tell you what I am feeling. Even if I were debating with you, I wouldn’t stomp my foot, or wave my hands around, or raise my voice–I’d abandon those tricks to the orators because I am happy to have shared my experiences with you without elaborating them or cheapening them.
I wish I could make this single thing clear to you: whatever I say, I don’t just feel it, I mean it. Men kiss their girlfriends one way and their children another, but enough emotion is clear in the parental embrace too, since it is sacred and restrained.”
Minus tibi accuratas a me epistulas mitti quereris. Quis enim accurate loquitur, nisi qui vult putide loqui? Qualis sermo meus esset, si una sederemus aut ambularemus, inlaboratus et facilis, tales esse epistulas meas volo, quae nihil habent accersitum nec fictum. Si fieri posset, quid sentiam, ostendere quam loqui mallem. Etiam si disputarem, nec supploderem pedem nec manum iactarem nec attollerem vocem, sed ista oratoribus reliquissem, contentus sensus meos ad te pertulisse, quos nec exornassem nec abiecissem. Hoc unum plane tibi adprobare vellem: omnia me illa sentire, quae dicerem, nec tantum sentire, sed amare. Aliter homines amicam, aliter liberos osculantur; tamen in hoc quoque amplexu tam sancto et moderato satis apparet adfectus.
“Homer said that speech pours forth from Nestor’s lips sweeter than honey—no greater pleasure can be formed than this. But when he is about to demonstrate the greatest ability and power in Ulysses, he grants him a voice, the strength of speech “like a winter blizzard” in its force and abundance of words.
Because of this, no mortal will compete with him and men gaze at him as a god. This is the force and speed Eupolis admioes in Pericles, this force Aristophanes compares to thunderbotls. This is truly the power of speaking.”
et ex ore Nestoris dixit dulciorem melle profluere sermonem, qua certe delectatione nihil fingi maius potest: sed summam expressurus in Ulixe facundiam et magnitudinem illi vocis et vim orationis nivibus 〈hibernis〉 copia [verborum] atque impetu parem tribuit. Cum hoc igitur nemo mortalium contendet, hunc ut deum homines intuebuntur. Hanc vim et celeritatem in Pericle miratur Eupolis, hanc fulminibus Aristophanes comparat, haec est vere dicendi facultas.
Thucydides 4.103
“It was winter and it was snowing”
χειμὼν δὲ ἦν καὶ ὑπένειφεν…
Hermippus 37 (Athenaeus 650e)
“Have you ever seen a pomegranate seed in drifts of snow?”
ἤδη τεθέασαι κόκκον ἐν χιόνι ῥόας;
Pindar, Pythian 1. 20
“Snowy Aetna, perennial nurse of bitter snow”
νιφόεσσ᾿ Αἴτνα, πάνετες χιόνος ὀξείας τιθήνα
Plutarch, Moralia 340e
“Nations covered in depths of snow”
καὶ βάθεσι χιόνων κατακεχωσμένα ἔθνη
Herodotus, Histories 4.31
“Above this land, snow always falls…
τὰ κατύπερθε ταύτης τῆς χώρης αἰεὶ νίφεται
Diodorus Siculus, 14.28
“Because of the mass of snow that was constantly falling, all their weapons were covered and their bodies froze in the chill in the air. Thanks to the extremity of their troubles, they were sleepless through the whole night”
“The god authorizes every outcome on his own expectations–
the god who races the winged eagle,
Outdoes the sea-dwelling dolphin and
Brings the arrogant mortals to their knees,
And then grants unaging glory to other people.
I need to escape the gnawing bite of bad gossip–
I have watched from afar while Archilochus,
That shit-talker, is pressed to helplessness
Thanks to hateful words.
Getting rich with luck
Is the best allotment of wisdom.”
Does your pure eye not see wrong? Can’t it see suffering? Why do you look on the deceitful and stay silent while the ungodly devour the righteous?
You’ve made humans like the fish of the sea, and like beasts without a master.
He [the enemy] pulls up the lot of them with his fish-hook, hauls them out with his net, and collects them in his seine. This makes him glad; his heart rejoices.
And so he makes offerings to his seine, and he burns incense to his net. For after all, thanks to them he has bettered his portion and his victuals are excellent.
Philo. On the Creation. XXI. 65-66.
Of the forms of life, the most undeveloped and least formed is the race of fish, and the most complete and the best in all respects is the race of humans . . .
Of living things, God created fish first. Their essence, however, is more that of a body than a living thing. In a way they are alive and not alive. They are capable of movement yet lacking in life. The principle of life is scattered in them as if by chance and solely for the preservation of their bodies–just as they say salt is put on meat to prevent it easily spoiling.
Tell me now, Olympus-dwelling Muses,
who first confronted Agamemnon,
an actual Trojan or famed ally?
Iphidamas, Antinor’s son, bold and burly
and reared in rich-soiled Thrace, mother of flocks.
Cisses raised him as a child in his halls,
the father of his mother, sweet-cheeked Theano.
When the splendid youth reached maturity,
to keep him there Cisses offered him his daughter.
He wed, but quit his bridal chamber when news came
of the Achaeans. Twelve ships went with him.
He left the balanced ships at Percote
and made his way on foot to Ilium.
This is who confronted Atreus’s son, Agamemnon.
11.227: . . . μετὰ κλέος ἵκετʼ Ἀχαιῶν (“when news came of the Achaeans”)
Is the preposition μετὰ temporal (“after,” “when”), as I have translated it, or is it purposive (“in pursuit of”)?
How you interpret μετὰ dictates how you interpret κλέος:
Temporal μετὰ should mean that κλέος is “news” (“he left when news came . . .”).
But purposive μετὰ should mean that κλέος is “glory” (“he went in pursuit of glory”).
The temptation to translate μετὰ κλέος as “in pursuit of glory” is understandable: preoccupation with glory is, after all, central to the epic, and men die in their quest for it.
In this particular passage, however, I believe the understandable temptation leads to error.
[2] What have the translators said?
There are those who interpret μετὰ in this passage as temporal: for example, Robert Fitzgerald, Robert Fagles, Edward McCorie, and more recently Caroline Alexander.
There are those who interpret it as purposive: for example, E.V. Rieu, Richard Lattimore, Peter Green, and more recently Stephen Mitchell and Barry Powell.
Then there’s Stanley Lombardo who manages to treat μετὰ as both temporal and purposive: “[he] went chasing after glory when he heard/The Achaeans were coming.”
This might be the place to point out that Iliad.13.363-366 (and perhaps others too) show the sketch of Iphidamas to be essentially formular. And for our purposes, what matters most is the reappearance of μετὰ κλέος in this later passage:
For he killed Orthryoneus who was there from Cabesus.
He’d recently come, after news [μετὰ κλέος] of the war.
He had begged Priam for his finest daughter,
Cassandra, and without a bride-price.
Are the translators consistent in their handling of μετὰ κλέος across the two passages? Some are, some aren’t.
I’ll only point out that Powell who treats the prepositional phrase as temporal in Iliad 11 treats it as purposive in Iliad 13. And Lombardo who would have it both ways in Iliad 11 interprets the phrase as unambiguously purposive in Iliad 13.
Judging from the split among translators, just what μετὰ κλέος means in 11.227 is controversial.
[3] The Scholia: Modest support for purposive μετὰ?
A single scholiast glosses μετὰ κλέος ἵκετʼ Ἀχαιῶν in a way which implies a stance on whether μετὰ is here temporal or purposive. The scholion reads:
“For this man’s undoing, there came the glory of the Greeks”
The word I’m rendering as “glory” is δόξα (“glory,” “splendor,” “repute”). The word I’m rendering as “there came” is “έγίνετο” (“it came into being,” “there was,” etc).
I find it plausible that the scholiast is treating δόξα and κλέος as synonyms, and έγίνετο and ἵκετʼ (“it came,” 3rd person aorist of ἱκέσθαι) as synonyms too.
As such, I take the phrase “there came the glory of the Greeks” (δόξα τών ‘Ελλήνων έγίνετο) to mean something like “an opportunity came to win glory from the Greeks” (τών ‘Ελλήνων as an objective genitive). There’s the purposive preposition at work.
Let me admit that this interpretation of the scholion might be strained, and this scholiast, like the others who commented on the line, does not help us.
[4] A hint from the Hexameter: μετὰ is temporal.
I’m going to suggest that Iliad.11.21-22, which tells why Cinyras gifted Agamemnon an elaborate corslet, supports interpreting μετὰ κλέος in 11.227 temporally.
The Cinyras passage (11.21-22) reads:
For he heard, from far-off Cyprus, the big news [μέγα κλέος]:
Achaeans were about to sail to Troy in their ships.
Cinyras acted when he heard “μέγα κλέος,” “the big news,” just as Iphidamas acted “μετὰ κλέος,” “after the news.” That’s the common theme.
Now the prosody. μέγα κλέος and μετὰ κλέος are structurally identical: In both passages, the phrases come directly after the caesura (the word break in the third dactylic foot). The first syllable of both μέγα and μετὰ contributes the final syllable of the third foot (short); and their second syllable contributes the long syllable which combines with the long first syllable of κλέος to form the fourth foot.
Simply put: Verses 11.21 and 11.227 have a common theme which is reinforced by common prosody. And the common theme is that of men acting on news.
“May you fall into Hades’ asshole”: [a curse]: may you die.
῞Αιδου πρωκτῷ περιπέσῃς: ἤγουν τελευτήσῃς.
Note: Even though Ancient Greek prôktos can merely mean “rear end” (as in butt), it most often means ‘anus’ in comedy and insults. Also, I wanted to use something profane and given the British/American divide on arse/ass, I decided just to go with “asshole” because it is funnier.
Diogenianus (v.1 e cod. Marz. 2.42)
“I wish you’d fall into Hades’ asshole”: this is clear
῞Αιδου πρωκτῷ περιπέσοις: δῆλον.
Diogenianus (v.2 e cod. Vindob. 133, 1.97 )
“I wish you’d fall into Hades’ asshole”: Used for cursing someone
“The asshole survives the bath” [or, “Ass surpasses the bath”]. Whenever someone is not able to wash himself, but his bowels still assail him. This is a proverb used for things done uselessly.
“The asshole survives the bath”: This proverb is used for things done uselessly and done for show. For people with thick asses and potbellies are not able to wash themselves off easily.”
“It was cured by Akesias”: this is a proverb for when things are healed for the worse. Aristotle provides the proverb in tetrameters: “Akesias healed his asshole.”
Apopatêma: this is the same as ‘dung’ Eupolis has in his Golden Age: “What is that man? Shit of a fox.” And Kratinus has in Runaway Slaves: I knocked Kerkyon out at dawn when I found him shitting in the vegetables.” We also find the participle apopatêsomenoi (“they are about to shit”) which means they are going to evacuate the feces from their bodies. But patos also means path.
Aristophanes writes “No one sacrifices the old way any more or even enters the temple except for the more than ten thousand who want to shit. So, apopatos is really the voiding of the bowels. Aristophanes also says about Kleonymous: “He went off to shit after he got he army and shat for ten months in the golden mountains? For how long was he closing his asshole? A whole turn of the moon?”
“To be a sykophant: to falsely accuse someone. They the Athenians called it this at the time when a fig-plant was first discovered and they were stopping the export of figs for this reason. Those people who reported that figs were being exported were called “sykophants” [lit. “fig speakers”]. Over time, anyone who accused people in a super annoying manner were named in this way.
Aristophanes writes “these things are small and indigenous” since being a sykophant is a native characteristic of Athenians. Aelian adds “he alleged [sukophantei] that he god was negligent. For these reasons plagues and famine over came the Himerians’ city.”
“Sykophant: When there was a famine in Attica, some people were gathering figs in secrete which had been promised to the gods. After this, when times were good again. Some people were prosecuting these men. This is where the term developed. Look at the term “fig squeezer” too.
“Sykophant: The devil. For he made a false accusation of god, claimed that he prevented [humans] from having a share of the tree [of knowledge]. He also spoke slanderously against Job: “Does Job worship god with no return?”
Consider also sykophantia, which means false prosecution.
For the story of Solon and the sycophants, see Plutarch’s Life of Solon on the Scaife Viewer. The sense of flatterer or parasite is somewhat present in the ancient Greek but becomes more prominent in English usage. The negative use can be seen in the fragment from Alexis’ The Poet (fr. 187) preserved in Athenaeus:
The name of sykophant is not rightly
Given to corrupted men.
For it should have been right for any man
Who was good and sweet to have figs
Attached to him to reveal his character.
But it fills us with confusion on why something sweet
Has been attached to someone bad.
“You grumble that my letters to you are not very polished. Well, who speaks with polish unless they want to talk ostentatiously? I want my letters to have the quality of the kind of conversation we’d have while sitting next to each other or walking: easy and unlabored, since there is nothing forced or false about them.
If I could, I would prefer to show rather than tell you what I am feeling. Even if I were debating with you, I wouldn’t stomp my foot, or wave my hands around, or raise my voice–I’d abandon those tricks to the orators because I am happy to have shared my experiences with you without elaborating them or cheapening them.
I wish I could make this single thing clear to you: whatever I say, I don’t just feel it, I mean it. Men kiss their girlfriends one way and their children another, but enough emotion is clear in the parental embrace too, since it is sacred and restrained.”
Minus tibi accuratas a me epistulas mitti quereris. Quis enim accurate loquitur, nisi qui vult putide loqui? Qualis sermo meus esset, si una sederemus aut ambularemus, inlaboratus et facilis, tales esse epistulas meas volo, quae nihil habent accersitum nec fictum. Si fieri posset, quid sentiam, ostendere quam loqui mallem. Etiam si disputarem, nec supploderem pedem nec manum iactarem nec attollerem vocem, sed ista oratoribus reliquissem, contentus sensus meos ad te pertulisse, quos nec exornassem nec abiecissem. Hoc unum plane tibi adprobare vellem: omnia me illa sentire, quae dicerem, nec tantum sentire, sed amare. Aliter homines amicam, aliter liberos osculantur; tamen in hoc quoque amplexu tam sancto et moderato satis apparet adfectus.
“You rightly urge that we increase the frequency of our letters. Conversation, however, is the most helpful because it seeps into the mind bit by bit. Prepared lectures delivered while a crowd listens provide more opportunity for noise than familiarity.
Philosophy is good counsel, yet no one gives counsel by shouting. We need to use these verbal assaults, as I call them, at times, when someone who doubts needs to be pushed. But to make someone learn,–not just to want to learn, that’s when we shouldn’t lecture but turn to quieter conversation instead. Such words enter people more easily and stick with them. You don’t need a lot of words, just the right ones.
Words ought to be spread around like seeds–however small a seed might be, once it finds a fertile place, it expands its own strength and grows to its full power from the smallest size. Reason works the same way: it does not look large from the outside, but it grows in application.
There may be few words uttered, but if a mind receives them well, they grow stronger and surge to the surface. Advice and seeds, I think, have the same characteristics: they create much, though they start small. Provided, as I said, a fertile mind accepts them and welcomes them into itself. Then, the mind itself will create much in turn and return in kind more than it received. Goodbye.”
Merito exigis, ut hoc inter nos epistularum commercium frequentemus. Plurimum proficit sermo, quia minutatim inrepit animo. Disputationes praeparatae et effusae audiente populo plus habent strepitus, minus familiaritatis. Philosophia bonum consilium est; consilium nemo clare dat. Aliquando utendum est et illis, ut ita dicam, contionibus, ubi qui dubitat, impellendus est; ubi vero non hoc agendum est, ut velit discere, sed ut discat, ad haec submissiora verba veniendum est. Facilius intrant et haerent; nec enim multis opus est, sed efficacibus.
Seminis modo spargenda sunt, quod quamvis sit exiguum, cum occupavit idoneum locum, vires suas explicat et ex minimo in maximos auctus diffunditur. Idem facit ratio; non late patet, si aspicias; in opere crescit. Pauca sunt, quae dicuntur, sed si illa animus bene excepit, convalescunt et exurgunt. Eadem est, inquam, praeceptorum condicio quae seminum; multum efficiunt, et angusta sunt. Tantum, ut dixi, idonea mens capiat illa et in se trahat. Multa invicem et ipsa generabit et plus reddet quam acceperit. Vale.
John Denver, The Garden Song
Inch by inch, row by row Gonna make this garden grow All it takes is a rake and a hoe And a piece of fertile ground
Inch by inch, row by row Someone bless these seeds I sow Someone warm them from below Till the rain comes tumblin’ down
Pullin’ weeds and pickin’ stones Man is made of dreams and bones Feel the need to grow my own ‘Cause the time is close at hand
Rainful rain, sun and rain Find my way in nature’s chain Tune my body and my brain To the music from the land
Plant your rows straight and long Temper them with prayer and song Mother Earth will make you strong
If you give her love and care
Old crow watchin’ hungrily From his perch in yonder tree In my garden I’m as free As that feathered thief up there
Inch by inch, row by row Gonna make this garden grow All it takes is a rake and a hoe And a piece of fertile ground
An inch by inch, row by row Someone bless these seeds I sow Someone warm them from below Till the rain comes tumblin’ down
Let Phoinix, dear to Zeus, lead first of all
And then great Ajax and shining Odysseus.
And the heralds Odios and Eurubates should follow together.
Wash your hands and have everyone pray
So we can be pleasing to Zeus, if he takes pity on us.
So he spoke and this speech was satisfactory to everyone.
The heralds immediately poured water over their hands
And the servants filled their cups with wine.
And then they distributed the cups to everyone
And then they made a libation and drank to their fill. They left from Agamemnon’s, son of Atreus’ dwelling.
Gerenian Nestor, the horseman, was giving them advice,
Stopping to prepare each one, but Odysseus especially,
How to try to persuade the blameless son of Peleus.
The two of them went along the strand of the much-resounding sea, Both praying much to the earth-shaker Poseidon
That they might easily persuade the great thoughts of Aiakos’ grandson.
When the two of them arrived at the ships and the dwellings of the Myrmidons They found himthere delighting his heart with a clear-voiced lyre,
A well-made, beautiful one, set on a silver bridge.
Achilles stole it when he sacked and destroyed the city of Eetion.
He was pleasing his heart with it, and was singing the famous tales of men.
Patroklos was sitting there in silence across from him,
Waiting for Aiakos’ grandson to stop singing.
The two of them were walking first, but shining Odysseus was leading.
And they stood in frontof him. When Achilles saw them, he rose
With the lyre in his hand, leaving the place where he had been sitting.
Patroklos rose at the same time, when he saw the men.
As he welcomed those two, swift-footed Achilles addressed them.
“Welcome [you too]–really, dear friends two have come–the need must be great,
When these two [come] who are dearest of the Achaeans to me, even when I am angry.”
Early Greek at some point in its history had a full system of nominal and verbal endings for what we call the dual number. To add to the number distinction between singular and plural, both Greek and Sanskrit have a dual form to describe pairs of things acting together: eyes, twins, people, etc. In most cases the sound marking the dual is quite distinct: the combination wo in two and the long vowel in both are good examples of the vestigial dual persisting in English.
Classical Greek retained a limited use of the dual and Homeric Greek preserves it here and there. The most striking place where it shows up in the Iliad is in describing the movement of two heralds from one place to another. So, when Agamemnon sends heralds to retrieve the captive woman Briseis from Achilles in book 1 of the Iliad, we find dual forms for their pronouns and their verbal endings.
The embassy includes three speakers, Odysseus, Achilles’ older ‘tutor’ Phoenix, and his cousin, the powerful warrior, Ajax the son of Telamon. The two heralds accompany them as well. Yet the pronouns and verbal forms that describe them move between dual and plural forms. The grammarian responds that this is incorrect because there are at least five entities involved here. Modern responses over the past century have been:
The text needs to be fixed, the duals have come from an older/different version of the poem that had a smaller embassy (with several variations)
The traditional use is imperfect, the dual is being used for groups. Some scholiasts suggest that audiences would have just used the dual for the plural
The dual herald scene is merely formulaic and has been left in without regard for changes in the evolution of the narrative
The text is focalized in some way, showing Achilles (e.g.) refusing to acknowledge the presence of someone he dislikes (Odysseus, see Nagy 1979) or focusing on two people he does like (Phoenix and Ajax, Martin 1989)
The text is jarring on purpose, highlighting that something is wrong with this scene
Ancient commenters seem less bothered by the forms: an ancient scholiast suggests that the first dual form refers to Ajax and Odysseus because Phoinix hung back to get more instruction from Nestor (Schol ad. Il. 9.182). Of course, this interpretation doesn’t even try to explain what happened to the actual heralds who were sent along with the embassy. Yet the interaction of forms seems to give some support to a complex reading. The number and entanglement of the forms makes interpolation seem unlikely (if not ludicrous) as an explanation.
I have presented the responses in a sequence that I see as both historical (in terms of traditions of literary criticism) and evolutionary. The first response–that the text is wrong–assumes infidelity in the transmission from the past and entrusts modern interpreters with the competence to identify errors and interpolations and to ‘correct’ them. The second response moves from morphological to functional, positing that ancient performers might have ‘misused’ the dual for present during a period of linguistic change. Neither of these suggestions are supported by the textual traditions which preserve the duals without significant exception and which show only a very marked and appropriate use of the dual throughout Homeric epic.
The final three answers depend upon the sense of error explored in the first two: first, a greater understanding of oral-formulaic poetry extends the Parryan suggestion that some forms are merely functional and do not express context specific meaning (#3) while the second option models a complex style of reading/reception that suggests the audience understands the misuse of the dual to evoke the internal thoughts/emotions of the character Achilles in one way or another.
The third explanation is harder to defend based on how integrated the dual forms are in the passage: the dual is used to describe travel to Achilles’ tent, then the scene shifts to Achilles playing a lyre and Patroklos waiting for him to stop followed again by dual forms with what seems like and enigmatic line “and so they both were walking forth, and shining Odysseus was leading” (tō de batēn proterō, hēgeito de dios Odusseus). Ancient commentary remains nonplussed: Odysseus is first of two, the line makes that clear, and Phoinix is following somewhere behind.
Nagy’s and Martin’s explanations are attractive and they respond well to the awkward movement between dual and plural forms as well as Achilles specific use of the dual in hailing the embassy with a bittersweet observation. I think I like taking these two together, leaving it up to audiences to decode Achilles’ enigmatic greeting.
The final option builds on the local context of the Iliad and sees the type scene as functioning within that narrative but with some expectation that audiences know the forms and the conventions. As others have argued, the use of the duals to signal the movement of heralds is traditional and functional in a compositional sense because it moves the action of the narrative from one place to another. In the Iliad, the herald scene marks a movement from one camp to another, building on what I believe is its larger conventional use apart from composition which is to mark the movement from one political space, or one sphere of authority to another. When Agamemnon sends the heralds in book 1 to retrieve Briseis, the action as well as the language further marks Achilles’ separation from the Achaean coalition. In book 9, the situation remains the same–Achilles is essentially operating in a different power-structure–but the embassy is an attempt to address the difference. The trio sent along with the heralds as ambassadors are simultaneously friends and foreign agents. Appropriately, the conventional language of epic reflects this tension by interposing the duals and reflecting the confused situation.
I would suggest that in this situation most of the responses except for the first two are valid. The first two responses–that the text is wrong or the usage is wrong–selectively accept the validity of some of the text but not that they find challenging for interpretive reasons or assume a simplicity on the part of ancient audiences (and many generations in between). My primary qualm with the subsequent responses is the tendency to wholly credit a creative intention rather than the collaborative ecosystem of meaning available to Homeric performance. In the telling of epic tales, it may well have been customary to manipulate conventional language through creative misuse; and yet, if audiences are not experienced enough of the forms or attentive enough to the patterns, such usage would not likely be sustained. Audiences (like the ancient scholar) imagine Phoinix lagging behind, or Achilles focusing just on one character, or sense the pattern of alienation and separation that makes it necessary to treat Achilles as a foreign entity and not an ally.
So, while the text relies on audience competency with epic conventions, this specific articulation also allows for depth of characterization in this moment: The final three interpretive options cannot be fully disambiguated, although we can argue for greater weight to the typological argument.
Here are some recent texts with good bibliographies on the issue. I strongly encourage everyone to run out and read Lesser’s brand new Desire in the Iliad
Jasper Griffin. Commentary on Iliad 9. Oxford. 1995
Rachel H. Lesser. Desire in the Iliad. Oxford. 2023.
Bruce Louden. The Iliad: Structure, Myth, and Meaning Oxford 2006.
Richard Martin. The Language of Heroes. 1989.
Gregory Nagy. Best of the Achaeans. Baltimore: 1979
