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Book Nine
so do attitudes, cf. 16.49-100. What Akhilleus does want at this moment (if
he is represented as wanting anything - all that is required for the purposes
of the Iliad is that he should have a plausible reason for being obstinate) is
concealed in 387 &TTO Trdcrav iuoi Souevoa OuuaAysa Aco(3r|v, 'pay me back
my shame'. If that means 'undo what he has done', Akhilleus is demanding
what is, of course, impossible and account must be taken of the view (see
3O7n.) that the traditional diction did not permit the clear expression of
Akhilleus' thought, as if he were straitjacketed by traditional modes of
thought and could not easily express a demand for a compensation that was
not material. This is possible (cf. E. A. Havelock, Thoughtful Hesiod', TCS
20 (1966) 59—72, for another example, and 307^). Subsequent comments
in the Iliad (11.6o9ff. and 16.72-3, see nn.), if they presuppose the Embassy,
may be taken to imply that in Akhilleus' view Agamemnon had not yet
suffered a Aco(3r| equal to that which he had inflicted (see 387^). For the
principle 5p&aocvTa TTOOEIV see 2.354-6.
378-87 No material compensation, however vast, can appease Akhilleus'
injured soul. Akhilleus' words are an emphatic repudiation of Agamemnon's
gifts, underlined by his repudiation of Agamemnon's daughter and the
recognition of status implicit in that offer. But not only Akhilleus' words
must be read, but also their tone and context. Akhilleus has a point to make
about his OvuaAysa Aco(3r|V (387) and does so with grandiose hyperbole.
There is no contradiction on the emotional level with Akhilleus' satisfaction
at 16.85-6 that the Achaeans would now 01 TTEpiKaAAea Koupr|v | ay
dcTTOvdcracoaiv, TTOTI 8' ayAaa 8copa Tiopcoaiv, for in his present indignation
Akhilleus must be allowed to say more than he intends. Schadewaldt's point
(Iliasstudien 130, which also discounts the rhetoric of the situation), that the
present passage does not explicitly renounce a claim to Briseis, is sufficiently
answered by Agamemnon's omission of her in his apology (i9.i4off.),
'though the sequel shows that she was to be included' (so Page, HHI331).
378 Kocpos: hapax legomenon and gen. sing, of an unknown noun, cf.
Kocpiuoipous* TOUS ev |iT)8e|Jia laoipa Hsch. Now usually associated with KEipco
in the sense of'chip', 'shaving', oacrrj: 'a portion', literally.
379-80 Akhilleus used the same asseveration in refusing Hektor ransom:
0O8' E! KEV SEKOCKIS TE KCCI EiKoaivfjpiT' diroiva | orfiacoa' EvOdS' dyovTES,
UTToaxcovTai 8E KCU dAAa ... (22.349-50), another hyperbolical resolution
that he did not keep.
381-4 For Orkhomenos see 2.51m. Its grandeur, at its height in the
thirteenth century B.C., is reflected in the fine ruined tholos-tomb, the
'Treasury of Minyas' ('one of the greatest wonders of Greece and the world',
Paus. 9.38.2) with a side chamber like that of the 'Treasury of Atreus' at
Mycenae. In conjunction with Orkhomenos 'Thebes' would naturally be
taken as the well-known Boeotian Thebes (at this point of time, however,
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