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Formulas
a few general categories: crops are 'honey-sweet' usAir|66Oc KCcpTrov/oTvov/
TTupov, metallic objects are bright; otherwise different nouns are expanded
in different ways. The epithets pick out some characteristic aspect of the
denoted object, and that is not likely to be widely shared. All weapons are
sharp, almost anything can be beautiful, but it is coincidental that ships and
night are black, bones and barley white.
(xiii) Extension
Noun-epithet expressions are easily grouped into sets characterized by extension
and economy. The number of expressions in a set constitutes its
extension. In the accusative case (common nouns are most frequent in the
accusative) the following expressions with juxtaposed ornamental epithet
occur for 'wine': usOv f|80 (8x Od.), (p)oTvov epuOpov (3X Od.), aidoira
oTvov (9X //., 11 x Od.), aiOoira oTvov spuGpov (1 x Od.), ueAir|5ea olvov (2X
//., 4X Od.), eufjvopa oTvov (ix Od.), \xs\ir\bsa oTvov epuOpov (ix Od.),
ueAfypova oTvov (2X //., 3X Od.), ueMppova oTvov epuOpov (ix), oTvov
8U9pova (ix //.), and oTvov epioracpuAov (2X Od.). The shape of each
expression is related to the sentences and sentence patterns in which it
occurs, and it is these, rather than the set itself, which are important for
versification. Similar sets may be extracted from the text for many common
nouns, 22 but it is also the case that many frequently used nouns have no such
set of epithets, but enter the verse by other phrase and sentence patterns:
CTTTOS takes no ornamental epithets except yAuxepos in a whole-verse formula,
OTKOS has none in the second half but a solitary TTIOVOC OTKOV; bronze
and iron have epithets, gold only a doubtfully formular Tiufjeis and silver
no epithets at all.
Parry's investigation of extension focused on name-epithet formulas.
Common nouns have a relatively restricted number of verbs with which
they construe whether as subject or object, and the verbs may not readily
construe with different nouns. Kings and horses have few interests in common,
and though their formulas are formed and used according to the same
rules of poetical grammar it does not make much sense to group them
together. However, the epic names kings but does not make a habit of
naming horses. So on the one hand we have ucbvvxes/&K6ES TTTTTOI, on the
other Ku6i|ios f|pcos and an open-ended set of personal names, usually called a
formula-type. The formula-type itself is a scholar's concept, an abstraction,
but it had also some kind of reality for the singer: the larger formulas into
which its members enter and the formular complements with which they
22 The most complete collection is that of Paraskevaides (see n. 15), but see also Page, HHI
266-80.
23