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Book Ten
been, would hardly have been more difficult than to expand an aristeia with
an additional duel; but such an expansion would be between, not within,
the episodes. This is what made the task of the adaptor of the Rhesos-story
so difficult. In conception the Iliad corresponds to one of the major episodes
of the Cypria, not to the whole poem, as Aristotle saw long ago (Poetics 23).
Expansion therefore has to be within the framework of the overall unity.
The interpolated episode must begin from the situation reached at some
point, and must necessarily then diverge from the main storyline. The
trouble comes at the end; if a new situation has been created, there will be
a hiatus; the original story, when resumed, will not presuppose the interpolation
but what preceded it. That difficulty can be surmounted by making
the expansion return to the same situation as obtained at its beginning, but
that may not be easy either and if achieved may undercut whatever point
the expansion ever had.
The opening lines of book 1 o recall the way in which book 2 is joined to
book 1; 'all retired to bed' (end of preceding Book), 'but X could not sleep'
(opening lines of following Book). The junction with book 9 is smooth at
the formal level, but not so smooth at the level of content. At the end of
book 9 Diomedes recommended that they all have a good night's sleep
(TO yap UEVOS ecjTi KOCI OCAKT), 706) and fight again, and all approved. At the
beginning of book 10 we return to a state of mind that duplicates the
situation at the beginning of book 9 and presupposes the Achaean disaster
of book 8, Hektor's exploits in that Book, the Trojans and their allies
encamped outside the city, and the danger to the ships. A mention of the
ditch (194) presupposes its construction in book 7. Some minor details, e.g.
the inspection of the watch, allude to arrangements made at the beginning
of book 9 (79-84). All in all this is more allusion to preceding Books than
the poet of the //^normally provides. There is no allusion, however, to the
embassy to Akhilleus and its failure, not even where such an allusion would
be natural and easy, e.g. at 18-20 and 43-5. But some attention is paid to
time; the night was two-thirds gone when Odysseus and Diomedes set out
(253), and that seems to take into account all that happened in book 9 as
well as in the first 250 lines of book 10 since night fell at 8.485.
The new situation into which the story was introduced supplied a new
motivation for the main action of the Book. Oracle and aristeia were impossible
or beside the point, and were therefore dropped. Whether the poet
invented, retained, or imported Dolon from another episode (Dictys of
Crete 2.4.5 ~ for what it is worth - separated Dolon and Rhesos) seems to
be an open question, but without an oracle or an aristeia Dolon is essential.
How else were the Achaeans to know about Rhesos? And having learned
of his arrival why should they kill him? Without the aristeia or the oracle
there was no urgency. So the heroes were motivated by the prospect of K08OS