Untitled - Get a Free Blog

Book Ten
Akhilleus) to fight with the resolution of determined men 'with their backs
to the wall and trusting in the justice of their cause' (cf. 9.49): book 10 in
comparison is crudely simplistic; the Achaeans are given a cheap victory
over unarmed and sleeping men.
In language and diction book 10 sends contradictory signals. Danek's
careful examination {Dolonie 20-47) has established that the poet's handling
of traditional language does not differ fundamentally from that of
the Iliad proper. (Danek counts repeated phraseology at about 56% of
the whole, which is about the Iliadic level.) Stylometric studies based on
sentence-length and use of particles confirm that at this level book 10 is not
distinguishable from the rest of the poem, see A. Q. Morton, Literary Detection
(Edinburgh 1978) 158-64. At the surface, however, the differences are
marked, pointing to an evolved form of the Kunstsprache more deeply penetrated
by the contemporary vernacular, e.g. K-perfects |3epir|Ka, TrapcpXT|Ka,
aorist dfjKOCTo; T-stem XP^OTOS; 6 f) TO as article; OU5EV as adjective; and
construction 8EI8CO \xr\ ou. Being exempted from the normalizing pressure of
ordinary speech the Kunstsprache was always capable of creating anomalous
formations, cf. 12.43m., but book 10 excels itself in this regard:
d(3poT&£o|jev 65, &f)6g(jc7ov 493, eypriyopOaai 419, eypriyopTi 182, eidaev
299, Kp&Teacpi 156, TrapcttpOarncri 346, aireTo 285, oxpiaiv = uiaiv 398 (see
nn. ad locc). There is also much diction shared with the Odyssey, a feature
book 10 shares with book 24: e.g. Socris, 9T||Jirj, 66£a, 5ahr|, eTa6a, aco-reco,
Toia5eaai, aSrjKOTes, acrauivOos. 'Odyssean' verses and formulas are noted
in the commentary as they occur. Before the use of traditional diction in
heroic poetry was fully appreciated 'Odyssean' elements were taken as
proof of the dependence of book 10 on the Odyssey rather than as evidence
of a shared tradition. The Book has an exotic taste in vocabulary:
dAaAuK-rnuai, fopaAos, OCAA090S, SEEAOS, 6paivco, 6io7TTf|p -EUGO, SucrcopEco,
6KTa6ir|, £Tri8i9pids, KorraTTU^, KTISET), AT|TTIS, AUKETI, OTrAa = 'arms', TTTAOS,
aaupcoTTjp, 9u£is, which is only partly attributable to special subject matter.
There is also a liking for unusual dress and equipment. Taken separately,
as Shewan and Danek show, these points are of little weight; taken together
they make up a body of evidence that the majority of critics have found
persuasive, if not conclusive.
Special force was attached by Lohmann (Reden 143, cf. Danek, Dolonie
177-203) to the fact that the characteristic ring-forms and parallelisms of
Homeric speeches were not typical of those in book 1 o, where a less formal
style with short utterances is favoured - conversation mediated through the
Kunstsprache. Likewise, though the themes employed by the poet of book 10
before the spies set out for the Trojan camp are Iliadic - the despair of
Agamemnon, council of chiefs, Nestor having an idea, arming - the execution
is idiosyncratic.
154