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Formulas
However, the scenes are by no means typical and further restrict their
application by naming Nestor.
Runs occur as follows in the first hundred verses of book n: 1-2 =
Od. 5.1-2; 5-9 = 8.222-6; 11 —14 = 2.451-4 (where c&paev for lu^aA');
^-^ = 3-330-2 = 16.131-3 = 19.369-7 1 ; 4 J ~3 = 3-33^-8 = 16.137-9
(with variants); 47-9 = 12.77 + 84—5; 84-5 = 8.66-7; 97-8 = 12.185-
6 = 20.399-400 (with variants in the first verse).
The variations found in typical scenes, even in those as regular as the
sacrifice-meal and the arming, suggest that the cohesion of a run of verses
is fragile. This observation is important, though disturbing, for the question
of the stability of a poem and its constituent episodes in a truly oral milieu
even in the mouth of the same &0160S.
(xi) Ornamental epithets
Epithets are typical of most narrative styles. 20 What distinguishes their use
in Homer is that their advantages to the story-teller are put to the service
of the versifier. Inevitably it is the 'ornamental' epithet that makes the most
conspicuous contribution both to amplitude and utility. Amplitude has its
aesthetic advantages, but so has stark simplicity, especially at moments
when words are inadequate, cf. bT at 22.61 'It is marvellous how he
briefly brings this scene into view, using his words without superfluity. He
doesn't say uyopocpous or 8ai8aA6Ous OaAauous or OuyaTpas KOCAAIKOUOUS or
KCcAAiacpOpous, but strips the disasters of epithets', a perceptive comment.
An 'ornamental' epithet is appropriate to the noun considered in isolation
and to the themes to which the noun belongs. It completes and sharpens
the idea expressed by the noun, just as similes sharpen a scene in the
narrative. So much is evident; what it adds to the noun, however, in a
particular verse is still controversial. Parry dared to affirm that it was no
more than a touch of heroic colour; Vivante maintains that valuable meaning
is always present. 21 Rather it is the case that relevance and redundancy
are the ends of a spectrum: the epithet in a whole-verse formula with a
highly predictable use will be semantically superfluous in a particular
context, e.g. TOV 8* O0T£ TrpoaesniEv ava£ v 'Ayaueuvcov (9.114 etc.),
but significant in a less formalized context, e.g. 'ATpei8r|s TE ava£ dvSpcov
Kori 8Tos 'AxiAAeus (1.7); an epithet that is neutral in most contexts acquires
force when sense and context chime together: TTETTWUEVOS is the epithet of
20
Bowra, Heroic Poetry 225-6; even when the medium is prose, K. O'Nolan, CQ, 19 (1969)
1-19.
21
Parry, MHV118-72, P. Vivante, The Epithet in Homer: a Study in Poetic Values (New Haven
1982). Neither position gives enough weight to the historical factor (§xvii).
21