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Structures of care in the Iliad

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

M. Lynn-George
M. Lynn-George
Affiliation:
University of Alberta
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Extract

When Andromache emerges from the inner chamber in Book 22, ascends the walls of Troy and looks out over the plain, she beholds a spectacle of ruthless brutality. She who has not been aware of the final combat, nor of the slaying of her husband, is suddenly confronted by the receding trail of utter defeat. Swift horses drag her husband's corpse into the distance, the cherished head disfigured as it is dragged, raking the dust of what was once their homeland. The violence of the scene is forcefully conveyed by one word in particular. The swift horses drag Hektor ⋯κηδ⋯στως (22.465)—without κ⋯δος without care, ‘sans soucier de, brutalement’. In itself the word ⋯κηδ⋯στως provides a definition of violence, one captured in Shakespeare's phrase ‘careless force’. Violence is, in its harsh brutality, specifically heedlessness, an absence of any form of care. When Achilles hurls the slain suppliant Lykaon into the river he utters the taunt, ‘the fish, ⋯κηδ⋯ες, will lick clean your wound's blood’ (21.122–3). The discarded corpse is denied funeral rites: in place of the care that the relations of the dead traditionally bestow in tending, washing, enshrouding, lamenting, and burying the dead, here the heedless creatures of nature, fleeting visitors, will attend to the corpse, ‘clean’ it, but utterly without care, completely oblivious to the oblivion they create by destroying. In Book 24 Achilles will describe the gods themselves as ⋯κηδ⋯ες (526).

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 46 , Issue 1 , May 1996 , pp. 1 - 26
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1996

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References

1 P. Chantraine, s.v., in Lexikon des frähgriechischen Epos (hereafter LfrgE), comp. Bruno Snell et al. (Göttingen, 1955-). Chantraine also suggests the possible additional sense, ‘without burial rites’ F. Mawet, Recherches sur les oppositions fonctionnelles dans le vocabulaire home'rique de la douleur (autour de Πήμa-aλγoς) (Brussels, 1979), on the other hand, argues well that more specialized senses (including ‘honneurs rendus aux defunts’) are later developments from an initial general sense of‘souci, préoccupation’ (see pp. 32, 394). For the development of the sense of Kήδoς = ‘Bestattung(sritus)’, see E. Reiner, Die rituelle Totenklage der Griechen (Stuttgart, 1938), pp. 2–3. Unless otherwise stated, all citations of Greek texts are from the OCT series, and any emphasis in quotations from secondary literature is mine.

2 For an earlier consideration of care and Kήδεa in Book 24 see Lynn-George, M., Epos: Word, Narrative and the Iliad (London, 1988), pp. 244ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Hainsworth, Pace J. B., The Iliad: A Commentary, vol. 3(Cambridge, 1992), Leaf makes a good case for the meaning of (433) as ‘ not forgetting, i.e. careful …’ cf. LfrgE schol.s.v.Google Scholar

4 To adopt F. Hölderlin's particularly apt lines from ‘To the Madonna’ here.

5 , 293; cf. the earlier occurrence at 231, and 11.389–90, The negated verb repeated at the height of the quarrel, is a related form of ‘to care, be concerned’, ‘regard or heed’ and ‘count among’. is in turn related to ‘to count among, consider as one of; heed, esteem, value’. These meanings of the word recapitulate the sense of injury, exclusion and dishonour (closely related to value) that Achilles articulates both in Book 1 and insistently elsewhere. But the verb in its meanings ‘to gather, choose, select; to tell over, recount, relate’, also suggests the close relation between narrative and value, the epic tale that cares for and confers worth upon those things which it chooses to gather, to narrate and to give attention to.

6 West's, M. L. interpretation of charts as ‘fun’ here, in his comment on Hesiod, Works and Days v. 190 (Oxford, 1978), would seem to be a trivialization of a dominant concern.Google Scholar

7 Cf., e.g. the instance in Book 15 where Apollo assumes that it is some that keeps Hektor from participating in the action (245).

8 See Briseis' lament, 19.300.

9 Cf. A. J. Voelke, 'Aux origines de la philosophie grecque: La cosmogonie d'Alcman', pp. 13–24 in Metaphysique. Histoire de la philosophie. Festschrift F. Brunner (Neuchatel, 1981), here 13–14.

9 Iris delivers the message (170), speaking ‘ in a low soft tone, gently’. This tone is important for Book 24 and it does not seem to be adequately registered in Macleod's, C. explanation, ‘so as not to be heard by the children and daughters-in-law’, with its focus on practicalities by which the gods are not constrained (Homer: Iliad XXIV [Cambridge, 1982] ad loc.).Google Scholar

10 , the first word of Book 24, recurs insistently with the sense of ‘release’, ‘ransom’, throughout the book.

11 Hamlet, I.ii.98; for reason ‘still hath cried, / From the first corse till he that died today, / “This must be so”’.

12 Richardson, N., in The Iliad: A Commentary, vol. 6 (Cambridge, 1993), defines as one of his major aims to give particular attention to ‘the unusual’, the ‘individuality of Homer's language, as an antidote to excessive concern for its formular quality’ (p. xii). And yet, when it conies to this passage, he argues against the possibility of the generally accepted reading on the grounds that used in this way ‘is, however, unusual in Homer’ (p. 290).Google Scholar

13 It is perhaps also possible that the details of the Niobe story, where the people are turned to stone and hence are unable to take any action, reflect something of the same situation of immobilization through stunned grief. Niobe remains a rock, isolated, apart, a completely 1 inactive figure of stone brooding upon her cares ( 617). Priam relates this image i to his former inactivity in grief, when, immobilized, he remained within the courtyard close: (639).

14 Schopenhauer, A., Parerga and Paralipomena: Short Philosophical Essays, Payne, E. F. J.: (trans.) (Oxford, 1974), vol. 2, p. 439.Google Scholar

15 Contrast Nietzsche, F., The Birth of Tragedy, in Basic Writings of Nietzsche, Kaufmann, W. (ed, trans.) (New York, 1968), 15–144, p. 43, ‘Thus do the gods justify the life of man: they themselves live it—the only satisfactory theodicy’ In relation to Achilles' speech one might compare Aeschylus, Agamemnon 369–70, which W. Burkert somewhat oddly locates as the ‘first’ occurrence of a problem articulated as follows: ‘And yet the reciprocity of charts was missing. Who could still say that the divine cares for man, for the individual man? Here a wound was opened in practical religion which would never close again’Google Scholar (Greek Religion, Raffan, J. [trans.] [Cambridge, MA, 1985], p. 311 [cf. n. 40]).Google Scholar

16 Dodds, E. R., The Greeks and the Irrational (Berkeley, 1951), pp. 29, 30.Google Scholar

17 Hegel, G. W. F., Lectures on the Philosophy of World History: Introduction—Reason in History, J., Hoffmeister (ed.), H. B. Nisbet (trans.) (Cambridge, 1975), p. 66, cf. p. 260; A.Pope, ‘An Essay on Man’, line 294.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 In Greek Religion and Society, Easterling, P. E. and Muir, J. V. (eds.) (Cambridge, 1985), 1–33. His citing of Chryses' prayer in Book 1 of the Iliad as the paradigm of pure prayer overlooks the element of indissociability of prayer and sacrifice, since Chryses recalls in prayer past sacrifice.Google Scholar

19 Bowker, J., The Sense of God (Oxford, 1973), pp. 114, 115.Google Scholar

20 Burkert (n. 15 above), p. 189.

21 Burkert (n. 15 above), p. 188.

22 Troilus and Cressida V.5.40.

23 Burkert (n. 15 above), p. 188.

24 Notable in this relation is Hera's speech in Book 16 (440–58) as Zeus ponders the I impending death of Sarpedon, particularly at 451, leave it as it is, let him die; leave him; to his mortal fate, but ensure proper burial.

25 Cf. 24.20, 35,423,428, 750. Macleod (n. 9 above) interprets such phrases with a somewhat idifferent emphasis: ‘if only after his death’(comment on 425–31).

26 The sacrifices and gifts are acknowledged by Zeus at 66–70.

27 Boisacq, E., Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque, étudiée dans ses rapports avec les autres langues indo-européennes, 3rd edn. (Heidelberg, 1938), p. 618.Google Scholar

28 See, e.g. Whitman, C. H., Homer and the Heroic Tradition (Cambridge, MA, 1958), p. 217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29 Leaf notes, with regard to the meaning of at 24.347, ‘one who is mindful of justice’

30 For âpa and the sense of wonder, cf. Hermes' reply to Priam, (24.418–19); the description of the dead Hektor might also be compared with Hecuba's words at 757ff.

31 Hölderlin, ‘Homecoming’.

32 On the see, e.g. M. O. Knox, ‘Megarons and Megara: Homer and Archaeology’ CQ 23 (1973), 1–21, ‘it is a place regarded as “outside the house”rsquo;(p. 9), and LfrgE s.v., .

33 For an example of such an existence within the text see, e.g. the story of Bellerophon, especially 6.200–202; see also Nestor's words at 9.63–4, The suppliants throughout the poems reinforce the sense of the reality of this plight. Achilles, who feels that he himself has been cast out, treated (9.648), uses terms related to in his references to the treatment he has received from Agamemnon, e.g. (9.387) and (1.232).

34 (Sch. ) fürsorglich' (LfrgE, s.v.).

35 Haar, M., Heidegger and the Essence of Man, McNeill, W. (trans.) (Albany, NY, 1993), p. 178. For the construction of a home as a protective shelter, two similes are pertinent, 16.212–13 and 23.712–13, while the simile at 19.375–8 reinforces the value of the hearth in even the most isolated shelter. The commentaries still have difficulty in accommodating this transformed aspect of the shelter of Achilles and its potentially fundamental significance; Richardson's (n. 12 above) recent suggestion of a rendering ‘quarters’(accompanied by ‘squires’) would seem to fall short of the significance required.Google Scholar

36 Taylor, E. B., Anthropology (Ann Arbor, 1960), p. 249,Google Scholar cited by Sahlins, M. D., Tribesmen (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1968), p. 10; hence, ‘A little more than kin, and less than kind’in Hamlet (I.ii.65).Google Scholar

37 Gould, ‘Hiketeia’ JHS 93 (1973), 74–103, p. 93 n. 98, ‘since the paradigm case of a relationship involving bonds of mutual obligation is that of kinship’ cf. I. Anastassiou, Zum Wortfeld ‘Trauer’ in der Sprache Homers (Diss., Universitat Hamburg, 1973), pp. 89ff.

38 Cf. in this respect Achilles' initial response to Priam's supplication, which at first looks like a rejection; he pushes him away—but gently (508).

39 One might also note that in this recognition Achilles is specifically named, while throughout the encounter the two have tended to avoid specifically naming each other.

40 For the sense of the term, cf. also Latacz, J., Zum Wortfeld ‘Freude’in der Sprache Homers (Heidelberg, 1966), pp. 117, 121: Google Scholar

41 Contrary to the view cited by Redfield, J. M. in his final note in Nature and Culture in the Iliad: The Tragedy of Hector (Chicago, 1975): ‘ Yet the two men a re one only through their shared relation to a doomed and nihilistic world. All else divides them and breeds hatred, envy, and fear. There is compassion, then, but there is nothing to do’(p. 262, Redfield's emphasis).Google Scholar

42 For the argument from comparative philology for the sense ‘Sorge für den Fremdling hegend’ see Thieme, P., Der Fremdling im Rgveda: eine Studie uber die Bedeutung der Worte ari, arya, aryaman und ārya (Leipzig, 1938), p. 158.Google Scholar

43 A fuller discussion of the significance of these words will be given in n. 63 below.

44 Cf. also 602, 613 in the same speech.

45 For a specific instance of such associations articulated in Book 24 itself, see 427–8.

46 In its interrelating of these two worlds, the heroic and the everyday, the epic significantly stands apart from the general tendency characterized by Nietzsche: ‘The excessive and incredible pathos with which we have valorized the most exceptional acts has as its counterpart the absurd indifference and disdain with which we devalue inconspicuous and everyday actions.; We are the fools of rarity and have thus depreciated even our daily bread’(Nachgelassene i Fragmente, 1880–81, in Nietzsche Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe, G. Colli and M. Montinari [eds.], vol. 5, part 1 [Berlin, 1971], p. 400 [my trans.]). One might note that Achilles invites Priam to partake of (619; cf. 602, 613).

47 On the proposed athetesis of these lines see Lynn-George (n. 2 above), p. 250.

48 Macleod (n. 9 above) on (542). In this respect the reflection is similar to that of Achilles in Book 18, (104). The Odyssey interestingly also concludes with the theme of care for the father when Odysseus finds Laertes in his orchard, caring for his plants and not caring for himself; cf., e.g., (24.245–7), (24.249).

49 One might also note that the form can mean not only ‘ to draw off’but also ‘ to protect, tend, save’

50 ‘Leben ist Sorgen’ Phänomenologische Interpretationen zu Aristoteles, in Gesamtausgabe (Frankfurt am Main, 1985), vol. 61, p. 109. For Heidegger the term Sorge [‘care’ ‘is used in a purely ontologico-existential manner’Google Scholar (Being and Time, Macquarrie, J. and Robinson, E. [trans.] [Oxford, 1962], p. 237), which excludes some of the more familiar senses considered here. On the other hand, a more complete treatment of ‘care’ in the Iliad and its relation to other major aspects of the epic (which is in preparation) would have to include consideration of Heidegger's argument that it is an awareness of the finitude of death that constitutes the fundamental and singular care of life. ‘Es geht um mein Leben’ mea res agitur:‘Dasein is an entity for which, in its Being, that Being is an issue’Google Scholar (Being and Time, p. 236; cf. Heidegger, , History of the Concept of Time: Prolegomena, Kisiel, T. [trans.] [Bloomington, 1985], p. 292). Many have maintained that the hero knows neither fear nor care, andGoogle ScholarSpeier, H. in particular, in Social Order and the Risks of War (New York, 1952), argues that Heidegger's concept of Sorge (which he interprets as anxiety) ‘is a poignant description of man insofar as he is not heroic’(p. 122). For Speier, ‘heroes are secure’and ‘the most accurate description of the character of the hero is rather the opposite of Sorge: Sorglosigkeit’ This final remark is a reworking in German of the etymology of the Latin securus: se + cura, ‘without care’ But ‘care’has many aspects, and Angst is not a necessary component in its structure. As Speier himself at once concedes, his Sorglosigkeit (‘freedom from care’) does not include, for example, ‘carelessness’and ‘indifference’ Rilke celebrates the venture to a point ‘outside all caring’ as the highest reach of human endeavour: ‘Except that we…go with this venture, will it, adventurous, more sometimes than Life itself is, more daring by a breath… There, outside all caring, this creates for us a safety… In the end, it is our unshieldedness on which we depend’(untitled lines in Gesammelte Gedichte [Leipzig, 19307–3], vol. 4, p. 118). But, with respect to the hero's burden of care and responsibility, we might recall the heavy freight of care in the opening words of Hektor's reply to Andromache in their famous scene in Book 6: (441, and note the division of concerns [, 490, , 492] in the solicitous preparation for parting in the farewell at 490–93). In response to the view articulated by Rilke, one might add that there are those who dare, who hazard their lives, out of care for others, to protect and to ‘shield’ Throughout the epic, however, Hektor tests the limits of daring and caring, and particularly the line that divides them (cf. in this relation 12.237ff). It is interesting that Speier cites Hektor as an example of the hero who knows I fear (‘we sometimes fall short of what is required of us’), and suggests,‘ I believe it can be shown that Homer did not want to have Achilles regarded as the greatest man in the Iliad’ a suggestion i which was to find an advocate in Redfield's study of The Tragedy of Hector.Google Scholar

51 Grimm, J., ‘In’and ‘Inund bei’ Kleinere Schriften, vol. 7 (Berlin, 1884), 247–9 and 49–50 respectively; Heidegger, Being and Time (n. 50 above), p. 80Google Scholar

52 Cf. Kahn's, C. H. argument in The Verb ‘Be’in Ancient Greek (Dordrecht, 1973) that ‘the static copula represents the fixed point around which the predicative system of the language revolves’(pp. 206–7).Google Scholar

53 The cycle of the

54 Walde, A., Vergleichendes Worterbuch der indogermanischen Sprachen, J., Pokorny (ed.) (Berlin, 1930), vol. 1, pp. 514–516;Google Scholar cf. Curtius, G., Principles of Greek Etymology, Wilkins, A. S. and England, E. B. (trans.) (London, 1886), vol. 1, pp. 77–8; on this ‘vieille famille’of words see alsoGoogle ScholarChantraine, P., Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque (Paris, 1968–80), s.v. Google Scholar

55 Sophocles memorably explores these associations to create a prolonged and powerful ‘figura etymologica (Kamerbeek, J. C., in his commentary on The Antigone [Leiden, 1978], p. 82) in the first stasimon of the Antigone, with (333) echoed at the strophe's end by the cognate (341).Google Scholar

56 Cf. LfrgE s.v., ‘umsorgend 1. von der liebevollen Sorge fur das Dasein eines anderen’

57 Cf. , 1.63, 5.149, and 13.4, 14.22.

58 17.54, already mentioned above.

59 There may be a further point in the term , which is derived from the verb used for ‘to wheel, turn, guide one's horses’a faint reminiscence of the lost art of horsemanship.

60 Parry, A., Introduction to The Making of Homeric Verse: The Collected Papers ofMilman Parry(Oxford, 1971), p. liii.Google Scholar

61 Cf. LfrgE s.v., 2aa ‘nicht mehr denken an; ausser acht lassen.

62 Hence, for example, Patroklos' words in Book 23, (69–70); cf. Achilles' assertion that he will never forget his companion, even among the ‘mindless’dead (22.387–90).

63 OED s.v. ‘meditate’ see, e.g. Boisacq (n. 27 above), s.v. E. Benveniste, Indo- European Language and Society, E. Palmer (trans.) (London, 1973), ‘med- and the concept of measure’(pp. 399–406). One might well be critical of Benveniste's reconstruction of the ‘original meaning’of the root (which reads finally very much like an endorsement of his own etymological procedures); his insistence on a divorce between the senses of ruler and protector is refuted by, e.g. the Greek See M. Lynn-George, ‘Aspects of the Epic Vocabulary of Vulnerability’ Colby Quarterly 29.3 (special issue entitled Essays on Homeric Epic, H. Roisman and J. Roisman [eds.]) (1993), 197–221, p. 199.

64 Reading this in a wider sense, rather than simply determined by So (19).

65 Auerbach, E., Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, Trask, W. (trans.) (Princeton, 1953), p. 15.Google Scholar

66 Euripides, Hippolytos 1428–9; cf. Bacchylides, 19.11 and Theognis, 245, On the other hand, Hesiod's conception of the Muses is paradoxical: they are daughters of Memory and yet they provide (Theog. 55); they are'without care' and yet song is their concern, (Theog. 60–61)

67 Lévi-Strauss, C., The Origin of Table Manners, J. and D. Weightman (trans.) (London, 1978), p. 507Google Scholar

68 In the sense of the comment on Mycenaean practice by Kurtz, D. C. and Boardman, J., ‘Despite the care with which the Myceneans furnished their dead, it is clear that they were not troubled by them’(Greek Burial Customs [Ithaca, NY, 1971], p. 21).Google Scholar

69 See, e.g. Huntington, R. and Metcalf, P., Celebrations of Death: The Anthropology of Mortuary Ritual (Cambridge, 1979), pp. 46ff. While studies of death and funeral rites have proliferated in recent years, they often contribute little more than additional empirical detail rather than significant thought on the general question of death. C. Geertz's criticisms of anthropological work on religion (The Interpretation of Cultures [New York, 1973], pp. 87–9) remain pertinent in this regard.Google Scholar

70 Cf. also the description of the funeral of Achilles at Od. 24.70, In the description of the funeral at the end of the Iliad there is no percussion, but there is the continuing beat of hexameter poetry: the rhythm of both life and death.

71 One might compare 7.426–9,

72 In spite of Andromache's sense of hopelessness and despair at the end of Book 22 (510–14), Book 24 is a world of soft fabrics, where the delicate work of women (particularly in relation to the funeral) has a central place. Fabrics figure predominantly in the ransom Priam brings to Achilles and thereby play an important part in the care of the corpse (580–81, 587) as well as in the care for the guest in bedding.

73 I am not sure that one finds, in the Iliad's final construction of a a for Hektor, the poet's triumphant note of exegi monumentum aere perennius that others have recently claimed for the passage.

74 Thus with attention to the aspect of tending: ‘to attend to’ used in the preparation of the meal, 24.622. LSJ, s.v., II 'to be busy about, look after; tend or heal the sick; esp. guard, protect; simply, frequent [cob]; cherish; abs., in part., with good heed, carefully'. Cf. Chantraine (n. 54 above), s.v. ‘s’ occuper de, soigner'.

75 As Macleod (n. 9 above), suggests here.

76 W. H. Auden, ‘Song for Hedli Anderson’ The sense of irrevocability in Auden's lines is a bitter response to the incongruity which Dodds outlines succinctly in the comment in his introduction to Euripides, Bacchae, 2nd edn. (Oxford, 1960): 'To our “Ought” [Nature's] sufficient reply is the simple “Must” (p. xlv).

77 Geertz (n. 69 above), p. 112.

78 White, J. B., When Words Lose their Meanings (Chicago, 1984), p. 54;CrossRefGoogle Scholar cf. Adkins, A. W. H., ‘The Greek Concept of Justice from Homer to Plato’ CPh 75 (1980), 256–268, p. 262, and ‘Values, Goals, and Emotions in the Iliad’CPh 11 (1982), 292–326.Google Scholar

79 After a descent into ‘the pit of impurity’(p. 202) in the action of the poem.

80 For a recent consideration of this position see Nagel, T., The View from Nowhere (New York, 1986).Google Scholar

81 Heidegger, M., An Introduction to Metaphysics, Manheim, R. (trans.) (New Haven, 1959), p. 197, apparently echoing Hegel, ‘all the other impalpable unrealities designed in the interest of an everlasting “ought to be”which never is’Google Scholar (The Phenomenology of Mind, Baillie, J. B. [trans.], 2nd edn. [London, 1949], p. 289).Google Scholar

82 In relation to the same questions, we might remember that Kant once stated, ‘But though I cannot know, I can yet think freedom’(Preface to 2nd edition of Critique of Pure Reason, Kemp, N. [trans.] [London, 1933], p. 28). The statement can be read, outside the specific context of Kant's argument, with poignant force.Google ScholarWilliams, B. (Shame and Necessity [Berkeley, 1993], p. 152), has recently asserted, ‘But metaphysical freedom is nothing—at any rate, very little’ One; might note the added qualification. It is not difficult to imagine that, depending upon the degree;and the duration of incarceration, that ‘very little’ ‘almost nothing’might even sustain life.Google Scholar

83 Phenomenology of Mind (n. 81 above), ‘The Ethical World’ p. 470

84 Hegel (n. 81 above), p. 545.

85 Auden, ‘Invocation to Ariel’.

86 Holderlin, F., ‘In Lovely Blue…’ Sieburth, R. (trans.), in Hymns and Fragments (Princeton, 1984). It should be noted that ‘kindness’(Freundlichkeit) is, in his translations of Sophocles, Hölderlin's word for Greek charis.CrossRefGoogle Scholar