Untitled - Get a Free Blog

Book Nine
ignores it; what is needful is to secure the camp for the night (66-8) and
some hard thinking about the situation (68-78).
52 On the form i-rrTTOTa see i62n.
54 U6T& + accusative in the sense 'among' (which must be the sense
here) usually occurs with a collective noun or follows a verb of motion.
57-8 f) U6V KOCI veos eacri: it is difficult to translate these words without
making Nestor seem patronizing ('How young you are ...', Fagles). fj UEV
emphasizes the following assertion, 'You are a young man - there's no
denying it - but you talk sense.' — Nestor is about seventy years of age, cf.
1.250-2 and n. — 6TTA6TO(TOS is an epic word = VECOTOTOS: a connexion with
'bearing arms' (otrXa) is generally accepted, though the use of the word in
the feminine (2 x //., 4X Od.) suggests that the connexion was no longer felt.
The superlative formation is also probably secondary, see 14.267-7on.
OTTAOC = 'arms' is a rare word in the epic (4X //., not in Od.), which uses
ivTea or T€ux«x- — TT6TTVU|i6va |3a£eis, also at Od. 4.206, is probably formular.
As an epithet TreTrvuuevos is applied to subordinate or youthful characters
who know their place. Nestor's point is that Diomedes has spoken to the
Lord of Men frankly but as a young man should, not in the insolent and
provocative manner favoured by Akhilleus in book 1. Nestor himself adopts
the same diplomatic tone at 69 and o,6ff. Agamemnon, in a neat touch of
characterization, is mollified into generosity by this respect for protocol.
59 For the sense of (3aaiAeus see 1146n.
63-4 'Banished from tribe and home without the law ...' The proverbial
ring of the verses is unmistakable, hence TTOA^UOV in 64 where Ipi6os would
be more appropriate in this context. Phratries, hearth and GiuidTes are the
hallmarks of a community to which the spirit of the contentious man is alien.
Nestor's strong language recalls the curse of the Furies TTCOS ... iv "Apysi
BCOUCCT' O!KI*|(7€I irocTpos; I TToioicri pcouois xP^uevos T °iS 8rmiois; | iroia 8e
X^pviy 9porr£pcov TrpoaSe^STOu; Aesch. Eum. 655-6, and the sentence passed
by Draco on the criminal outcast (cf. Dem. 20.158). The verses are cited at
Ar. Pax 1097, and elaborated with Ciceronian copia at Phil. 13.1. The key
word in 64 is imSrmiov; Nestor is cunningly forestalling (as Akhilleus did
not in book 1) a violent reaction to his reasonable proposals, cf. his opening
remarks below 96-103, and Diomedes' more perfunctory exordium 32-3.
The gnome suits Nestor's age (cf. Arist. Rhet. 1395a for the appropriateness
of proverbs to the elderly) and is a characteristic part of his rhetorical
armament; he is, so to speak, the keeper of the Achaeans' conscience.
63 &9pf|TCop: a deprivation that comes from a world in which free men
normally belonged to a phratry: 'an intrusion from [the poet's] own time',
as A. Andrewes points out, Hermes 89 (1961) 132. See also 2.362-3^
The cumulation of negative words