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Book Eleven
accouchement - but like a woman none the less. At a deeper level the poet
understands the zest for battle (in a way that Virgil, for example, did not),
but is not so carried away by admiration for it that he cannot equate the
self-sought sufferings of the dpioroi, about which they make so much fuss
(9.315-31, Od. 4.240-8, 8.489-90), with the pains of others' everyday
existence. Note, however, that Agamemnon (and still less those gallant
men, Diomedes and Odysseus, later) does not cry out or groan, unlike the
Trojan Deiphobos in similar circumstances (13.538).
270-2 Pap. 432 here provides striking testimony to the deterioration
of the Homeric text in the hands of Hellenistic booksellers: Trpoi&cn, an
Atticism, for TrpoiEKTi; x^e'n'ocs for mKpas, a random slip; and 6£sT' 66uvr|
for 6^T(ai) 65uvai, to avoid the unusual elision.
270 uoyooTOKOi EIAEIOUIOU is formular, cf. 16.187. The first syllable of the
divine name is modified by metrical lengthening. The Myc. (e-re-u-ti-ja KN
Gg 705 etc.) and Doric dialects have -eu- in the second syllable, suggesting a
connexion with eAsuaouoa, f^AuOov, as if the woman awaited the onset of
her pains, or cried to her 'that comes in need' (LSJ). But these goddesses
are probably pre-Greek. Frisk, GEW s.v. cites an extensive bibliography.
They are the daughters of Here (271) because she presides over marriage.
lioyooroKOS means 'causing birth-pangs' by some ill-defined process whereby
the literal force of TOKOS colours the sense of |ioyos. lioyos (e.g. 4.27) does
not normally mean 'labour' in the obstetric sense and other compounds of
-TOKOS do not lose their connexion with the literal force of TIKTCO. In HyAp
9iff., where a distinction had to be made, Eileithuia brought on the birth
not the pains, cf. 16.187-8, 19.119.
272 Ring-composition, the usual mode for inserting a simile into the
narrative, requires the repetition of 6£ETCCI 66uvai (268), which in its turn
has entailed the unique elision of nom. plur., -oci. After 272 Pap. 432,
in order to amplify Agamemnon's agonies, has a plus-verse [TTOAAJCCS EK
KE9aA < qs [TTPOOEAUUVOUS EAKETO x a * Ta S, cf. 10.15, though the restoration
TToAAJds is short for the space.
2 73"4 = 399~4 OO > possibly formular. Woundings, to which the couplet
is appropriate, are not typical of the fighting in other Books of the Iliad.
Evacuation by chariot forms a sort of refrain in this Book cf. 399-400,
487-8, 519-20, rounding off each episode, and Reinhardt, IuD 254.
275-6 = 586-7 = 17.247-8. The first verse is strongly formular (6x ).
Sioorpuaiov, 'with penetrating voice', is clearly a derivative of the common
epic preposition 5ionTpo, but the precise connexion is uncertain. The -u- has
been considered an Aeolism.
277 Pap. 432 and a few MSS read nsp vOv ('you at least'), for UEV VUV.
vr|uaiv dcuuvETE: the battle has moved close to the walls of Troy (181), so
that Agamemnon's orders are premature; they anticipate the debacle that
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