Untitled - Get a Free Blog

Book Nine
(NrjAeus) ... | E£EAET' dauETa iroAAd. xd 6' dAA* Is 6*niiov I8COKE | SarrpEUEiv,
and at Od. 14.232-3, TCOV E^ocipEuurjV UEVOEIKECC, TTOAACX 5' o-maaco |
Adyxocvov. The latter practices would fit Agamemnon's alleged behaviour
here, yet at 1.368 it is expressly stated that the UTES 'AXOUGOV assigned
Khruseis to him, cf. Od. 7.10, where the Phaeacians assigned Eurumedousa
to their king Alkinoos, and Od. 9.160, 9.550, where his companions assigned
special prizes to Odysseus.
334 &pio"Tf)EC7(Ti ... KCCI pao-iAsC/cri: Homeric designations of rank are not
precise and technical but express a vague contrast between 'leaders' with
their OEpdirovTES and the rest. Akhilleus means men like himself, and completes
the verse with a virtually synonymous word.
335-43 Akhilleus throws out a series of emphatic assertions and rhetorical
questions that together make up a telling argument. 'Agamemnon has
carried off my wife. But when Paris carried off Menelaos' wife he raised an
army to recover her. He and his brother are not the only men to love their
wives; I loved Briseis.' The train of thought is obscured partly by the
staccato style in which Akhilleus gives vent to his anger, and partly by the
intrusion of other thoughts into the argument: his present feelings towards
Briseis, the reason why he is at Troy, and the idea of sexual continence.
Akhilleus is saying, coherently but with some heat, that Agamemnon cannot
have it both ways, or, as it is spelled out by AbT: Agamemnon was either
wrong or silly; if seizing a woman was a trivial matter, he was silly to make
war for Helen; if it was serious, he was wrong to seize Briseis (TTPCCKTIKOS 6
Aoyos, 6EIKVUS TOV 'AyauEuvova f^ dauvETov f\ d6iKov. E! UEV ydp uiKpov
fjyEiTai TO dSiicnO'nvai TTEpl yuvaiKa, TTOAEUETV OUK E6EI TTEpi
dauvETos ouv EOTI TTEpi uiKpds aiTias TTOAEUEIV. EI 6E ypiksirov Kai UEya,
dtTEp TTOcOcbv UTT' dAAocpuAcov dyavaKTEi, TOCC/TOC EIS TOUS quAous TTOICOV OUK
d8iK£lv vojiiEi;)
336 dAoxov OuiaapEoc is formular (Od. 232, [Hesiod] fr. 43a.2O M-W),
but sounds a suitably pathetic (or self-pitying) note. As a description of
Briseis dAoxos surprises, since the term normally denotes a wife (Koupi6ios
is its regular epithet) and is contrasted with 6ouAr|, 'concubine', at 3.409.
Unfortunately, the argumentative point of dAoxos, to equate the emotional
commitment of Akhilleus to that of Menelaos, is only too clear, cf. 343
and n. Never up to this point, nor afterwards, does anyone suggest that
Agamemnon had wounded Akhilleus in his family honour. Adultery was
beyond compensation - Penelope's suitors died for less. The specific term
for a woman in Briseis' position is probably 5ouAr| (see. Od. 4.12 for
Menelaos' son EK 6ouAr|s), but in spite of her significance in the story the
status of this unhappy woman is undefined; she is never called a 8ucof|.
The Iliad also knows the term TraAAoKis (9.449, 9.452). — TTJ Trapiaucov |
TEpTTEaOco is psychologically effective: what Akhilleus had loved he spurns
106