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Book Nine
passage, is clearly brooding on his wrongs and allowing them to fester in his
mind (to use different metaphors). For the psychology cf. 1.81-2 ei nep ydp
Te xoAov ye KOCI auTf)uap KOCToareyrj | dAAd TE Kai ueTOTnaOev lyz\ KOTOV, 69pa
TsAsaar), where, however, KaTaTreaaeiv means 'stomach', i.e. 'choke back'.
567 This verse shows the 'abbreviated-reference style' (Kirk, Songs 164-
9) at its most laconic with no mention of the occasion of the killing or the
name of Meleagros' victim. Phoinix' point is that a hard heart is an imprudent
heart: even so it seems odd to those familiar with the folktale version
of the story that he does not mention at this point that the religious offence
and its punishment led, as they did in book 1, to a dispute over spoils and
its disastrous consequences. Homer would, of course, suppress the Amazonlike
figure of Atalante to whom Meleagros wished to award the spoils of the
boar to the vexation of his uncles.
568-9 Althaie beats the ground to attract the attention of the underworld
gods, here called by their usual designations, Hades (= Zeus
KOCTOCXOOVIOS, 457) and Persephone, cf. Here's similar action in a similar
mood at HyAp 333. The Erinus answers Althaie's call because she is the
agent of those gods (and of uolpa, 454-7n.). Persephone (it is usually she
rather than Hades) and the Erinues are virtually identified in this context.
So at 454-7 (an oddly similar incident) Amuntor called on the Erinues, and
the underworld gods are said to have taken up his curse. In the symbolism
of Hesiod (Theog. 183-5) tne Erinues arose from the shed blood of Ouranos,
the first victim of filial misconduct. For a mother's Erinues cf. 21.412, Od.
2.134-6, 11.279-80. Homer hints darkly at the Erinues' power to punish
the dead as well as the living (19.259-60, cf. 3.278-9, an obscure passage,
see n. ad loc); at HyDem. 367-9 Hades predicts the chastisement of those
who fail to appease Persephone. There is a natural reluctance on part of
both poet and heroes to speak of Hades the god, except in the formula
'house of Hades', itself a euphemism: 20.61 6cva£ evepcov s Ai6coveus is the only
reference in the narrative. The gods themselves are less inhibited, see 5.395,
8.367-8, 15.188. - dAoia: literally 'threshed' (cf. dAcofj, 'threshing floor'),
cf. luocae HyAp 340 of Here performing a similar ritual act. The blows are
repeated as the curse is intoned.
570 TTpoxvu Ka8e£ouevr|: i.e. kneeling. There is no single Homeric word
for 'kneeling', since youvd£ouou means 'entreat', so that the posture is
expressed by e£ouai and lorauoa with adverbs yvu£ (cf. 11.355), Trpoxvu, or
hrl youvoc. TTpoxvu is clearly 'forward onto the knees', though the »x~ is
unexplained. With (&Tr)dAecj0ai (21.460, Od. 14.69), the sense is 'utterly'.
571 f|epo