Untitled - Get a Free Blog

Book Nine
is unknown. It could have figured in the Cypria in the first year of the war,
before Achaeans and Trojans had taken each other's measure.
356-63 Akhilleus' announcement of his departure is a threat (and so
described at 682). It should be taken as a hyperbolical sign of the speaker's
fury, like his baffled attempt to name his price at 379-85. The threat
is quickly modified in response to Phoinix at 618-19, and further modified
in reply to Aias at 650-3. Akhilleus had climaxed his quarrel with
Agamemnon with the same threat (1.169).
356 Why, if the paradosis can be relied on, should the poet sing £8EAOV
TTOAEUI^EIV "EKTopi 8icp at 7.169 and £0EACO TTOAEUI^EUEV "EKTopi 6ico here (as
read by many MSS)? Probably TTOAEUI^EUEVOCI at 337 induced TTOAEUI££UEV,
or preserved it. w EK*ropi 8ico: bT (on 9.651) suggest the epithet was used to
annoy the emissaries. That is unlikely; the formula occurs 26x in the
accusative and 12 x in the dative.
357-9 The participles (b^ocs and vr\r\oa.s, 'heap with', are in anacoluthon
with ovyeai (TTAeuaouai or eTui would be expected); a dash at the end of 358
would be the better punctuation. The broken syntax is consonant with the
hyperbole of Akhilleus' language. Verse 359 = 4.353, however, where the
context is quite different and the syntax in order.
360 The expression 'EAAfjcJTTOVTov ITT' !x^ u ° HVTa 1S obviously derived
from the regular TTOVTOV ETT' IXOUOEVTCC, see 94n. Formular usage is indifferent
to the punning effect of such recombinations.
363—4 'quern KE TpiT&Tco: the distance is about 220 miles. For other
navigational data for the Homeric Aegean see Od. 3.168-83. — §V0&8E
Eppcov is formular, cf. 8.239 and n.
365 ycxhKbv IpuOpov (only here), whether specifically bronze or copper,
evidently denotes the unworked material. The metrical duplicate vcbpoira
XOCAKOV refers to bronze armour.
366 = 23.261, there with reference to the prizes that Akhilleus put up for
the games of Patroklos. That Briseis turns out to be such a small proportion
of Akhilleus' spoils of war underlines the fact that for him she is not a
valuable property but a symbol of his honour. The verse is unbalanced in
rhythm and not a true threefolder. Words of the metrics of ywaiKas (u — u)
are as handy at the verse-end as they are awkward in the rest of the verse,
unless a trochee (r\bi or the like) can be contrived to precede. !0£covos and
its virtual synonym |3a6u£covos (see 594n.) are loosely formular in the Iliad
with yvvf|, semantically related words, and feminine personal names: 1