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Book Eleven
571-4 =15.314-17 but with aAAa UEV EV xpoT TrfjyvuT' dpr|i06cov ai£ncov
for 572. There is a variant XP° a KaAov - the regular formula (14X including
a variant XP° a K&AAIUOV) - in both places but the direction of corruption is
obvious and Xp6 Q AEUKOV (not found outside this repeated couplet ) must
be retained. One is surprised to read that the skin of the quintessentially
masculine Aias was white after so many battle-weary days under the Trojan
sun; when Odysseus was beautified by Athene he became ueAccyxpoifjs
(Od. 16.175). Mycenaean fresco-painters and archaic and classical vasepainters
maintained a convention that female flesh was white (cf. the epithet
AEUKCOAEVOS of Here and mortal women and the TTTIXEE AEUKGO of
Aphrodite at 5.314) but male flesh was brown. Presumably here the flesh
is light in contrast to something perceived as dark, perhaps the 'black' blood
for which the missiles thirsted (AiAououevoc). See further Russo on Od. 18.196.
572 Tr&yev: a leather shield, such as is often envisaged where the poet is
not describing a de luxe article faced with bronze, would indeed be prone
to catch and hold javelins that struck it. Note the absence of glancing blows
to the Homeric shield; the pathos of an 'accidental death', like that of
Kebriones at 16.7336°., results from a spear missing its target.
574 = ^^b-Z 1 !'^ tne singular has yarn EVEorfjpiKTo for Iv yairj IOTCCVTO at
21.168, with a variant at 21.70. AiAoaouevoc XP°°S daai is a formular but
effective personification, cf. I2.i8n., 13.444m W. B. Stanford, Greek Metaphor
138-9, lists similar personifications, see also vol. v 51. Aristotle liked
the figure as being a major aspect of poetical genius, see Poet. I459a4, Rhet.
141 ib3i. It is a question, however, whether the personification is a rhetorical
fancy of the poet or an animistic aspect of popular speech; in a world
where wind (5.524), rivers (12.18), fire (23.177, etc.), the sun {Od. 10.160),
are said to have uevos, weapons may easily share the UEVOS of the hands that
hurl them. The personification of weapons in Homer, however, if it is such,
does not extend to their being given names, as the sword Durandel in
Roland, presumably because the principal weapon, the spear, is thrown and
easily lost: significantly the nearest thing to a named weapon in the Iliad, the
TTnAias \x€K\r\ of Akhilleus, is a thrusting spear.
575-95 Paris' third victim. Eurupulos, leader of a Thessalian contingent
(2.734-7), rushes forward to help Aias but is immediately wounded and
forced to withdraw. With this scene, which balances that of Makhaon,
5046°., the long sequence of battle scenes is completed. When it is resumed
in book 12 the Achaeans are back where they started, behind their wall and
ditch. The final stages of the retreat as the army crowds into the camp are
not described. The poet can imagine such a scene, even down to pathetic
detail ('Is X safe? Has Y been slain?'), cf. 21.606-11, 22.46-8, but in spite
of its evident possibilities nowhere gives it full treatment. This is surprising,
for Greek heroic warfare is waged for the most part about a besieged town
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