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Iliad 24.649 and the semantics of KEPTOMEΩ

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Jenny Strauss Clay
Jenny Strauss Clay
Affiliation:
University of Virginia, jsc2t@virginia.edu
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Extract

The meaning of κερτομω and its congeners in Homer has been the subject of debate in this journal. Jones has argued that ‘to κερτομ⋯ω someone is to speak in such a way as to provoke (whether intentionally or not) a powerful emotional reaction’, whether of anger or fear, and thus means ‘“to utter stinging words at [someone]”, “pierce to the heart”, “cut to the quick”, rather than merely “provoke” This definition seems to work well enough for some cases, but certainly not for all, and especially not for the passage from which the whole controversy began: Iliad 24.649, where Achilles speaks to Priam ༐πικερτομέωυ. As Richardson says in his Iliad commentary, ‘there is no sign that Akhilleus’ speech has this direct effect [i.e. arouses fear] on Priam’. Jones's article was responding to an earlier one by J. T. Hooker, who attempted to ascertain the sense of Achilles’ ༐πικερτομέυ by surveying the usage of kertom- words throughout Homeric epic. He concluded that the basic meaning is ‘to taunt’ or, more abstractly, it ‘indicates the provocation of another person into behaving in a certain way, whether that is the behaviour desired by the speaker… or is not desired by the speaker’. The problem was that this definition did not seem to fit the very line from which his inquiry began, the words of Achilles to Priam. Hooker then hypothesized that the verse betrayed signs of an ‘imperfect adaptation’ of a different version of the poem in which Achilles taunted a defeated enemy or perhaps preserved his grudge against Agamemnon to its end. This explanation is unpersuasive.

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 49 , Issue 2 , December 1999 , pp. 618 - 621
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1999

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References

1 The etymology is uncertain. See Chantraine, and Frisk, S.V.; and Perpillou, J.-L., Recherches lexicales en grec ancien (Louvain, 1996), 118–21.Google Scholar

2 Jones, P. V., ‘Iliad 24.649: another solution', CQ 39 (1989), 247–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar; cf. Heubeck, A., ‘Zwei homerische πεîραι’, Živa Antika 31 (1981)Google Scholar, 79. Heubeck 78 lists some of the varied definitions put forth: ‘joking', ‘harmless teasing', ‘teasing', ‘bantering', ‘taunting', and ‘mocking’. He also cites Bergold, W., ‘Der Zweikampf des Paris und Menelaos’ (diss. Erlangen, 1977), 136Google Scholar, n. 1: ‘Die Bedeutungspanne von κερτμια ἒπεα ist groB: vom fast gutmütigen Sticheln (so etwa Ω 649) über Schadenfreude (E 419) und gehässige Verhöhnung (B 256, II 744) bis zur gekränkten Invektive (A 539)’. Heubeck himself (79) defines κερτóμια ༐πεα as ‘wohlüberlegt auf eine bestimmte Wirkung berechnete und dies Wirkung geradezu herausfordernde Worte', hence intentional, but he limits the anticipated reaction to a purely emotional effect. See also Adkins, A. W. H., ‘Threatening, abusing and feeling angry in Homeric poems’, JHS 89 (1969), 21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 E.g. Iliad 20.202 = 433; Odyssey 7.17, 16.87, 18.350, 20.263, 22.194, and 24.240. Yet even in these cases, the reaction anticipated is often something more precise than fear or anger: to provoke a fight, whether verbal or physical, or to goad someone into a self-revealing emotional reaction.

4 Richardson, N. J., The Iliad: A Commentary 6 (Cambridge, 1993)Google Scholar, on 24.649.

5 ‘A residual problem in Iliad 24’, CQ 36 (1986), 32–7, at 35. In turn Hooker is responding to McLeod, C. W., Homer Iliad Book 24 (Cambridge, 1982), 142.Google Scholar

6 Cf. Austin, J. L., How To Do Things With Words (Cambridge, MA, 1975), 101–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar; also Davis, S., ‘Perlocutions’, Linguistics and Philosophy 3 (1979), 225–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Searle, J. R. and Vanderveken, D., Foundations of Illocutionary Logic (Cambridge, 1985), 10–12.Google Scholar

7 Such would seem the case at Iliad 16.744, where Patroclus speaks ༐πικερτομέωυ over the body of Cebriones, whom he has just killed. Similarly, in Odyssey 2.323ff. the suitors mock ༐πελώβευου Telemachus and κερτομέου ༐πέεσσιυ apparently, however, Telemachus does not hear them.

8 Note that even Hermes does not say the obvious: that Priam will be killed if found in the Greek camp.

9 On the gamesmanship of the entire scene, see Clay, J. S., The Wrath of Athena (Princeton, 1983), 194–204.Google Scholar

10 Cf. Hooker (n. 5), 33; and Kirk, G. S., The Iliad: A Commentary, vol. 1 (Cambridge, 1985), 332.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 Cf. H. Hermes 55–6, where Hermes tries out his newly invented lyre and improvises a song, just as young men at feasts παραιβóλα κερτομέουσιυ. The youths’ oblique provocations elicit improvised counter-provocations to produce a flyting contest.