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Book Nine
is uncharacteristically rapid; speech is mentioned at three points (prayers
to Zeus and Poseidon, Nestor's advice) but without oratio recta. — KTjpuKSS
are the 'personal assistants' of the heroic world; they assist at the sacrifice
and feast, summon to the assembly and act as envoys. The Koupoi are
free-born youths who are regularly pressed into this service, cf. 20.234 and
T ad loc. This is a public occasion and waitresses (cf. Nestor's Hekamede
11.624 an d the 8ucooci at Od. 1.147 etc.) are out of place. — 1-TTecrTeyocvTO
is evidently 'fill to the brim', cf. i.47on. and bT ad loc. Crnip TO X 6 ^°S
6TrAf)pcoaav, 60s SOKETV lor&pOai TCO Oypco. The metaphor was borrowed, or
taken literally, by Virgil; see Georg. 2.528, Aen. 1.724, 3.525.
179-80 Why does the poet not relate Nestor's admonitions at length?
A faintly cynical rehearsal of the kind of argument to which Akhilleus
might respond would not be out of character, cf. Nestor's advice to his
son Antilokhos at 23.306-48, but would be out of keeping with the scene
in Akhilleus' hut, where it is important that the arguments seem seriously
put and seriously rejected. Any anticipation of the scene would be fatal to
its dramatic impact. Moreover Nestor is well aware of the influence that
Patroklos can bring to bear, see 11.765-803, but if he were here to make it
explicit, the issues (which for Akhilleus will be restricted in what follows to
his personal dispute with Agamemnon) would be clouded. Patroklos is
therefore kept in the background. None of the subsequent speakers is permitted
so much as to allude to him, nor does the poet allow him to utter a
word. Odysseus, it will be noted, is now cited as the principal emissary, a
preparation for (or anticipation of) his intervention at 223. — 66v6iAAcov,
'glancing', is a hapax legomenon in Homer, taken up, like so many rare epic
words, by Apollonius (3.281).
182-225 Accompanied by Phoinix and the heralds the ambassadors make their way
along the shore to Akhilleus' quarters {on the right wing of the army), praying to
Poseidon as they go. They enter Akhilleus' hut and are made welcome
Night, or at least dusk, had fallen at the end of book 8, so that the martial
exercises of the Myrmidons (2.773-5) have ceased and the ambassadors can
arrive unannounced. Conveniently they find Akhilleus within (see i86~7n.),
for by the nature of their business they must make their appeal to him
privately. The course of the narrative is complicated by the intersection of
three types of visit-scene: delivery of a message, reception of a guest, and
supplication. A messenger, having received instructions, proceeds directly
to the recipient and repeats the message as far as possible verbatim. Only
three other times in the epics does a messenger deliver a message to a
residence: 1.327-44, 11.644-54, an d Od. 5-43ff. These point to an initial
coincidence between the messenger and hospitality scenes (see Arend, Scenen
84