Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 1-20

brill.nl/mnem

The Beginning of the Iliad: The Contradictions of

the Proem and the Burial of Hektor
Brian Satterfield
Jack C. Miller Post-Doctoral Fellow, Ryan Center and Villanova Center for
Liberal Education, Villanova University, Villanova, PA 19085, USA
brian.satterfield@villanova.edu
Received: November 2008; accepted: June 2009

Abstract
The Beginning and End of the Iliad: The Contradictions of the Proem and the
Burial of Hektor treats three discrepancies between the story apparently promised in the proem of the Iliad and the story that the poem goes on to tell. Discussed extensively by the Analysts of the past century, these discrepancies were
construed as evidence of the Iliads origins in multiple sources. More recently, oral
theorists have seen them as signs of a singer composing rapidly and relatively
unreflectively in performance, indifferent to self-contradiction. The present article
argues instead that we can approach the proem as a prayer, addressed by Homer
to the Museand the main story of the poem as her answer. On such a reading,
we can construe the contradictions as evidence for the view that while Homer has
asked for one story, the Muse has given him another slightly different story. While
this suggestion has had advocates in the literature, none has attempted to work it
out with reference to the discrepancies between the Iliads proem and main story.
The article argues that once we examine the discrepancies, we find that they point
us toward a new interpretation of the significance of Hektors burial.
Keywords
Iliad, proem, discrepancies, burial, Muse

We must keep in mind that the poet attributes all of his poem except the
prologue . . . to the Muse.1) So writes J.S. Clay in the introduction to her
1)

Clay 1997, 9.

Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2011

DOI: 10.1163/156852511X504980

B. Satterfield / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 1-20

The Wrath of Athenaand she is not alone. For generations of Homeric

scholars the assertion of the Muses narratorship has been an important
one.2) But what actual impact ought it to have on how we read the poems?
Writing in 1938, Samuel Bassett made the case that the effect should be
little if any:
It seems very questionable whether commentators are justified in basing arguments on the consciousness of the hearer that the Muse is telling the story.
Once convinced that the tale was of a real past, the audience could forget its
source and feel only that the story told itself.3)

There is, he writes, no evidence in either poem for the rather common
statement that in Homer the poet is the spokesman of the Muse, that is,
possessed and inspired by her, as the Pythian prophetess was by Apollo.4)
A similar case is made by W.W. Minton in 1960:
Invocations of the Muses in the Homeric poems must be considered as traditional elements in the oral poets equipment. They are building blocks of his
language and art along with other units of formulaic composition, from individual formula to repeated motif or stock theme. As such they cannot safely
be approached as genuine appeals, but only as the ossified remains of such
appeals, their vitality dulled through long continued use by generations of
epic singers.5)

Mere ossified remains, the proems offer little evidence to such scholars
that Homer is the spokesman of the Muse.
Not all have agreed, of course. In her narratological study of the Iliad,
I.J.F. de Jong has argued that the presentation of the story is to be analyzed
2)

The view is repeated frequently in German scholarship especially, as in, e.g., Falter 1934,
Lenz 1980, but also in more recent works such as Ford 1992. See also S. Richardson 1990,
Ahl and Roisman 1996, Rabel 1997, 1-31. For S. Richardson (1990, 2; cf. also 178-82),
indeed, the narrator of the Iliad is a fictional character of sorts, a metacharacter, who
plays his role not on the level of story, but on the level of the discourse, the telling of the
story. According to Rabel (1997, 1-31), there is support for the view even in the Poetics
1460a9-11. In support of this, see also Ridgeway 1912, 238.
3)
Bassett 1938, 31.
4)
Ibid. 30.
5)
Minton 1960, 292.

B. Satterfield / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 1-20

in terms of double motivation: the narrator and the Muse together tell the
story, without a sharp division of labor.6) More provocative still is the view,
upheld explicitly by only a handful of scholars,7) that the Muse is not only
the narrator of the story requested by Homer, but actually alters the story
asked for. For as J.S. Clay observes, an invocation is a species of prayer;
the poem proper, the Muses answer.8) Might it not be the case, thenas
V. Pedrick puts itthat the Muse not only answers Homers initial
request, but in fact corrects it?9)
The question would be academicif it were not for the fact that there
are a number of discrepancies between the story seemingly promised in the
proem, and the story that the main poem actually tells.10) For older Analytic scholarship, these discrepancies were a key whereby to break up the
poem into its component strata. More recent scholarship has been less
interested in such discrepancies, often viewing them as an inevitable
byproduct of oral composition in performance.11) In the present article, I
would like to look at three such discrepancies between the proem and the
poem of the Iliad, arguing that we can indeed read them as the Muses corrections of Homer.

1. The First Discrepancy: The Wrath-Tale and its Appendix

The first of the discrepancies was described by Friedrich Wolf in 1795 in
his groundbreaking Prolegomena:
. . . even if the exordium has the widest possible sense (I suppose that descriptions of a couple of battles that took place in Achilles absence would have
6)

De Jong [1987] 2004, 45-53.

In addition to Clay 1997, see Pedrick 1992, Rabel 1997, and Benardete 1997.
8)
Clay 1997, 9.
9)
Pedrick 1992.
10)
Although awareness of these has faded from more recent scholarship, B.A. van Groningen (1946, 283) could write in 1946 that it was a well-known fact that the indications of
the contents [of the proems of the Iliad and Odyssey] do not tally with the contents themselves. Indeed, few Analysts of the past century disagreed with the pronouncement of
Robert (1901, 213): Dass das Prooemium nicht zur Urilias gehrt, betrachte ich als
selbstverstndlich und keines Beweises bedrftig . . ..
11)
Cf., e.g., Notopoulos 1964, 48.
7)

B. Satterfield / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 1-20

sufficed for these lines), nevertheless it will never be irrefutably proven that
those seven verses promise anything more than eighteen books. The remainder do not contain the wrath of Achilles against Agamemnon and the Greeks,
but a new wrath, quite different from the earlier one and not in the least
harmful to the latter: that is, an appendix to that first wrath which is the only
one sketched by those verses.12)

The proem seems to promise a story about wrath, Wolf writes; but that
wrath could only be the anger of Achilles against Agamemnon.13) About
his subsequent anger with Hektor, Wolf concluded, the proem (1.1-7)
shows no awareness. That the poem went beyond the original limits proposed for it, Wolf suggested, was good evidence that it was comprised of
different original source stories that had later been joined by a redactor.14)
12)

Wolf [1795] 1985, 119-20; cf. also 132 ff.

At least one linguistic point strengthens Wolf s view: (anger), the first word of
the poem and the theme which Homer asks the Muse to sing, is only ever used (of the
angers of Achilles) in reference to the first anger that Achilles experienceshis anger toward
Agamemnon. It therefore cannot refer to Achilles super- and sub-human rage over the
death of Patroklos.
14)
Wolf was not alone. For nearly all of the Analysts this discrepancy constituted a major
internal contradiction, most concluding that the discrepancies showed the quarrel of
Agamemnon and Achilles to be the oldest layer of the epic. Thus, Grote (1853) considers
the original tale to consists of 1, 8, 11-22; Fick (1886) similarly, considers the main
stratum to extend (with excisions) from 1-22 (ending with 393); Jebb (1887) of 1, 11,
16-22; Wilamowitz (1887), of 1-7.321; 11-23.256; Leaf (1892 and 1895) holds that that
tale consists of Iliad 1; 2.1-53, 443-83; 11.56-665, 762-805; 15.592-746; 16;
19.356-424; 20.252-503; 21.34-138; 540-611; 22.1-404. Bechtel (in Robert 1901), similarly, (with excisions) that it extends up to 22.212. For Croiset (quoted in van Groningen
1946, 283), thus, the proems failure of precision regarding the events that followed Book
1 showed it to be an early composition by the author of the quarrel, unaware of subsequent additions. For Bethe (1914, 311 n. 1; cf. also 23 ff., 171 ff.), similarly, the events
narrated in the proem only covered the Menisgedicht, showing it to the oldest vein of the
poem. And for Grote (1853, 176) as well, the primitive frontispiece, inscribed with the
anger of Achilles, and its direct consequences, yet remains after it has ceased to be coextensive with the poem. Wilamowitz (1916, 258), however, regards it as a later addition.
Whatever the differences, however, the reasoning was in all cases essentially the same as that
spelled out by Bethe (1914, 311 n. 1; cf. also 23 ff., 171 ff.): A 1-7 passen zum Menisgedicht durchaus. Es gab wirklich nur die Menis und ihre Folgen, die Achaierniederlage,
Patroklos Tod und Achills Rache; wirklich vollendete sich in ihr Zeus Ratschlu . . .. (See
also Bowra 1930, 10, who argues against Bethe regarding the question of whether the
13)

B. Satterfield / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 1-20

Is the discrepancy a real one? It has been observed that misdirection is

common feature of epic.15) And yet the proem of the Odyssey furnishes a
striking parallel that may induce us to accept that discrepancies between
proem and poem are one especially lively form of misdirection; for in it
Homer asks the Muse to tell the story of the man of many wiles, who
sacked the sacred city of Troy, etc., starting from somewhere or other:
( , , , , Od. 1.10). As
suggests, where the story is to start is up, not to Homer, but the
Muse.16) The line which stresses the Muses divinity, her knowledge, and
her capacity to communicate it to us too ), also stresses her ability to begin where she wills; it seems at least reasonable, thus, to wonder
whether she can end where she wills; and if so, whether the narrative framing of the epic as a whole is in fact being represented as under her control
rather than the singers.
But why would she alter the story in this way? One way to pursue this
question would be to imagine the Iliad we would have if it terminated
where Wolf (and at least some others) supposed it wouldwith the end of
Achilles in Book 19 (61 ff.). In important respects, it would resemble the one we know: it would still tell the story of Achilles anger with
Agamemnon; it would still contain many stories of battle and heroes
deaths, indeed the full measure of suffering promised in Iliad 1.1-7. (It
mightor might notcontain the embassy and Achilles refusal; and it
might or might not tell the death of Patroklos.) But, insofar as it would be
a story about Achilles only, it would necessarily end with the end of
his , i.e., with the end of his anger against Agamemnon. It would be
a story about how Achilles and Agamemnon quarreled, what devastation
and destruction came about as a result, and how, finally, the quarrel was
patched up and brought to an end.

proem is integral to the poem.) Or again Leaf 1892, 32, for whom, similarly, the first eighteen books were the real nucleus of the wrath tale. Note, incidentally, that Wolf may have
been anticipated on this particular point by his sometime teacher C.G. Heyne, who published his own monumental and long-prepared commentary on the poem seven years after
Wolf. See Heyne 1802, 5.
15)
Morrison 1992.
16)
On the reading of some scholars, it is the vagueness of which requires vss.
11-19, still considered a part of the Odysseys proem. See Bassett 1923, 343.

B. Satterfield / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 1-20

Coincidentally or not, this Achillean wrath-tale resembles the Meleagris told by Phoinix in Book 9. And Homerists have taken this story to be
typical of a withdrawal-devastation-return pattern said to be traditional
among Indo-European peoples,17) a typological analysis whereby the Iliad
can be broken up into three large-scale story-patterns of which Iliad 1
through the beginning of 19 (or so) constitutes a wrath-devastation-return tale, followed by 19-22, a revenge tale, followed by 24, a consolation tale. Thus, as Mark Edwards breaks down the Iliads major themes:
The withdrawal-devastation-return structure is the obvious foundation
of the Iliad plot, too, with revenge and consolation tales added at the
end.18)
Were our Iliad like the more traditional story apparently proposed in
the proem,19) however, it would be a fundamentally different story. It
would end before Achilles reenters the battle to kill Hektor; it would never
show Achilles rage in which he refuses suppliants, sacrifices twelve Trojan
youths over Patroklos pyre, and fights with the god of the river; it would
end before he defiles the corpse of Hektor and drags it relentlessly around
the city of Troy; we would never see the funeral games in which Achilles
seems to preside vicariously over his own funeral. And finally, we would
never see the face-to-face meeting of Achilles and Priam in which Achilles
sees in Priam a human being like his father and at last agrees to return
Hektors corpse for burial (24.507 ff.). One major consequence of the
Muses corrections thus stands out: by shifting the focus from Achilles
anger to the funeral games and his meeting with Priam, the epic humanizes and pities its Trojan enemy, ultimately replacing rage and enmity
first toward the Greeks and then toward a foreign otherwith empathy
toward an other who turns out to be more like Achilles than he imag-

17)

See here in particular M.L. Lord 1967, 241-48; Nagy 1979, 72 ff., 317 ff.; Edwards
1987, 61 ff.; Nagler 1974, 131 ff.; Eliade 1971.
18)
Edwards 1987, 63. It is, thus, not surprising to find that the case has even been made
by some scholars that it is in his handling and joining of such traditional material that one
sees Homers original contribution to the epics, and again, the epics increase in complexity
and sophistication over its source material. See here Stanley 1993, 28 and the bibliography
cited on 319 n. 79, especially notable being Sale 1963.
19)
Pedrick 1992 also considers the story outlined in the Odysseys proem a more traditional
version, which the poet has amplified with a considerable increase in subtlety.

B. Satterfield / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 1-20

ined.20) For quite a few scholars, this focus of epic on the humanity of the
Trojans represents a distinctive innovation;21) but if we are correct, the
singer himself attributes it to the Muse.22)

2. The Second Discrepancy: The Birds, Dogs, and Heroes Selves

A second difficulty is more concrete: if we look to lines 1.4 ff. of Richmond Lattimores translation of the Iliad, we read the following: Achilles
anger, as Lattimore renders, gave the bodies of heroes to be the delicate
feasting of dogs, and of all birds. And yet the translation covers over a serious difficulty in line 3: /
; for what does mean here? Translated in accordance with
conventional understandings of the words semantic range in epic,
ought to mean something like selves so that we would render: Achilles
anger gave the heroes selves to be the delicate feasting . . .. The resulting
translation is so jarring, however, that it is not surprising that Homerists
have allowed their natural sense of what the lines ought to mean (together
with the manifest contrast with [souls] in line 3), to override their
sense of lexical strictness, in some cases even suggesting that is
Homeric for bodies.23) Tempting as this solution may be, however, it has
no real support, either in linguistic analysis of the meaning of ,24) or
in epic usage, or again, in later Greek. Given that the word is extraordinarily common both within epic and without, further, to place upon it
20)
That the Iliad had to humanize its enemy, in this manner is by no means a given.
Cf. e.g. Stanley 1993, 293; N. Richardson 1993, 16. For additional bibliography on the
Trojans see de Jong 1987, 250, and Stoevesandt 2004.
21)
See e.g., Gomme 1954, 30, Sale (1963, 86-100) and Scott 1921, 226, who even goes so
far as to argue that Hektor himself was Homers invention.
22)
There is one further, admittedly slight, yet suggestive piece of textual evidence that we
might also consider in this connection: in Homers second invocation to the Muses (2.484
ff.), Homer asks that the Muse tell him who were the leaders of the Danaeans, and again
later in the same catalogue (760 ff.) who was best, both of the men and the horsesbut he
never asks about the Trojans, and seems indifferent. It is the Muse who supplies their
names, apparently on her own and unsolicited.
23)
Cf. e.g. Nagy 1979, 208: In Homeric diction, auts designates the heros body after
death. Nagy cites in support Bchner 1937, 116.
24)
Cf. Pagliaro 1963, 10 n. 7 and also Redfield 2001 for discussion.

B. Satterfield / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 1-20

singular or exotic uses in such a context appears untenable. And there is

an even worse problem: while, on any rendering of the proem
seems to be promising that heroes bodies (or selves) will be fed to the
birds and dogs, scholars have long noted that no corpse, Achaean or Trojan, is ever fed to the birds and dogs in the course of the poem.25) Why,
then, does the proem seem to promise that heroes corpses (or selves) will
be devoured by birds and dogs and then not deliver?26)
One possibility, of course, is that Homers omission is due to delicacy, a
reluctance to depict directly what epic regards as the non plus ultra of
human degradation (more on this momentarily). But since the Iliad does
not scruple to show Asteropaios nibbled by eels and fishes snatching at the
fat and tearing at the upper liver (
, 21.203-4), or the Odyssey Telemakhos cutting off of Melanthios nose and ears, and pulling off of his genitals to feed to the dogs (Od.
22.474-7), squeamishness seems a poor explanation. Had the Iliad wished
to do so, its dramatic and linguistic resources were fully adequate to the
most gruesome depictions of corpses being mutilated and eaten by birds
and dogs.
As James Redfield suggests in his discussion of the proem, on the other
hand, something more interesting may be going on; some sort of statement, he suggests, is being made about epics understanding of the bodysoul relation.27) In characterizing the bodies as , and speaking of
being hurled into Hades, the proem, as Redfield interprets the significance of their juxtaposition, is suggesting that it is the corpses that are
the heroes themselves, the psuchai . . . mere accessories.28) As Redfield
notes (but does not attempt to explain how or why), further, this notion is
peculiar to the proem. But this only reframes our question at another
level: even if it is correct that the proem evinces one understanding of the
body-soul relationship, and the body of the poem another, why would it
do so?

25)
Many scholars have observed the oddity, but see, exempli causa, Pagliaro 1963, 31. Cf.
also Bethe 1914, 311 n. 1.
26)
According to the scholiast, it was the combination of these difficulties that led Zenodotus to athetize 1.4-5. See Bolling 1929, 43-4.
27)
For extensive discussion, suggesting that the body-soul relation is a thematic concern of
epic, see Clarke 1999.
28)
Redfield 2001, 466.

B. Satterfield / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 1-20

We may do well to approach this question within the context of what

Charles Segal has called the theme of the mutilation of the corpse.29) For
as Segal argues, the theme is not only recurrent, but a major structuring
motif of the epic; the rising stakes of its battles are measured, he suggests,
not only by the increasing savagery of its , but by the increasing frequency of its heroes threats to defile their enemies bodies. Thus,
even as it is true that the epic never actually depicts any hero being fed to
the birds and dogs, there is one place where it seems all but certain to
happenwhere, indeed, the epic seems to be driving toward such corpsefeeding as a grisly climaxand that is when Achilles kills Hektor. Indeed,
they have a stunning exchange as Hektor lies dying and Achilles tells him
point-blank that he means to feed his corpse to the birds and dogs:
. . .
, . (22.335-6)
. . . the dogs and birds
will tear you foully; but him the Achaeans will bury with rites.

Not quite dead, Hektor entreats Achilles by his parents to ransom his
body in order that the Trojan wives may give him his due of fire in death
( , 22.342-3).
But Achilles reply is unyielding:


, ,
(22.345-8)

Dog! Do not entreat me by my knees and parents!

Would that my fury and anger would set me on
to flay and eat your flesh raw seeing what youve done,
as surely as there is none to ward the dogs from your head!

Not only will he feed Hektors body to the birds and dogs, he says, but he
wishes that his fury would drive him to literal cannibalism!
Why, given the epics initial promise, its subsequent investment into
building the theme, and seemingly carefully prepared climax, does it never
29)

Segal 1971, 18.

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B. Satterfield / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 1-20

make good? Why does Achilles not feed Hektors corpse to the birds and
dogs? Two experiences of Achilles, I suggest, ultimately dissuade him; and
as I want to argue in what follows, they are connected with the funny use
of in the proem, helping to shed light, too, on the apparent discrepancy between proem and poem.
The first experience is Achilles dream in Book 23. For as he sleeps, the
soul () of Patroklos comes to him, complains that Achilles has forgotten him ( , ): though Achilles did not
fail to care (, a word connected with the regular term for giving
burial tendence) for him when he was alive, Patroklos says, he does not
tend him now that he is dead (23.69-70). For his part, Achilles, promises
that he will do what Patroklos asks but when he stretches out his arms to
embrace him, cannot get ahold of him. Instead, Homer tells us, Patroklos
soul like smoke went beneath the earth, gibbering (23.101-2). Waking,
Achilles then crystallizes the experience he has just had with an extraordinary pronouncement:
,
, . (23.103-4)30)

Ah me! so the soul and image are after all something even in Hades house,
but there is no mind within it at all.

What, then, is the news here? Foremost, there is, it seems, Achilles revelatory discoveryas Achilles use of () in line 103 suggests31)that
the soul is, after all, something () even in Hades house. At the first level,
thus, Achilles pronouncement reflects his drawing the natural conclusion
that after all there is some kind of existence after death and that the
and an image () of the person does survive.32) In effect, it is an
expression of surprise that something of the person persists after deatha
point given emphasis in Homers description of the as in all respects,
30)

Many of the MSS read here instead of , though it does not affect the meaning. For
discussion, see N. Richardson 1993, 178, who observes that Propertius 4.7.1 sunt aliquid
manes appears to be an echo. Republic 386b4-b6 suggests that was also Platos reading.
On either reading, however, Achilles pronouncement is an affirmation that there is some
sort of existence after death.
31)
For this use, see Denniston 1954, 35 under II. See also Schnaufer 1970, 77-9.
32)
N. Richardson 1993, 177.

B. Satterfield / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 1-20

11

in height and beautiful face, and voice like himself (23.66-7). Even the
dead, Homer is at pains to emphasize, on some level retain their individuality and personhood. Equally surprising to Achilles, on the other hand, is
that Patroklos ghost does not care about or desire the elaborate and gruesome vengeance that Achilles has in mind;33) he only wants, as he tells
Achilles, burial, and as soon as may be:
.
,
,
. (23.71-4)

Bury me soon as may be that I may cross the gates of Hades.

Far off they keep me, the souls, images of those done with toil,
nor do they allow me yet to mingle with them beyond the river,
but at random I wander throughout the wide-gated house of Hades.

When Patroklos comes to Achilles, complaining that it has not been

buried yet, thus, it is effectively telling him to abandon his vow not to bury
the body before having brought Hektors severed head and armor to him
(18.333-42). As long as he is unburied, Patroklos makes clear, the souls of
the dead keep him away, and do not permit him to cross the river. Apparently indifferent to Achilles promised spectacular vengeance on Hektor,
Patroklos cares only about the burial of his body, urging Achilles to
see to it as soon as possible.
To connect this with line 4 of the proem: where Homer in his prayer
had appeared to believe that the bodies of the heroes were in some sense
their selves while their arein Redfields wordsmere accessories, the Muse has instead told a story which culminates with Achilles
recognition that the soul and image are after all something even in Hades
33)
This may be the meaning of Achilles otherwise puzzling pronouncement that there are
no in it. For as scholars have pointed out, if has here its frequent sense of
wits or intelligence, it is puzzling that Patroklos seems to have made a reasonable and
intelligent speech. See N. Richardson 1993, 178 as well as van der Valk 1963, 540-2. Cf.
alternatively, the view of Bhme (discussed in Schnaufer 1970, 68-9): Die Bedeutung von
hat BHME untersucht. Nach seinem Ergebnis sind sie der Sitz von Affekten,
Willensregungen und intellektuellen Vorgngen. Wenn Achill der des toten Patroklos
die abspricht, so heit das also, da sie keiner Gefhls-, Willens- oder Verstandsregung fhig ist.

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B. Satterfield / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 1-20

housebut, at least as important, that this something does not care about
vengeance; it cares only about joining the other dead across the river,
which is, in turn, shown to be dependent on what happens to its corpse.
Achilles discovery thus has consequences on a number of levels. On the
one hand, it undercuts the urgency of Achilles vow of vengeance; while
not sufficient to dissuade him from abusing Hektors corpse, Patroklos
statement of his indifference to vengeance seems to be a necessary precondition of his ultimately agreeing to ransom the body to Priam.
Some confirmation that Homer was thinking along these lines is found
in the speech of Apollo in Book 24. For at the heart of Apollos appeal to
Zeus to bury Hektor is a kind rhetorical of double-vision. On the one
hand, he attempts to arouse pity by stressing the corpses personhood; it is
somehow Hektor himself, and the gods are cruel ( , 32) and
destroyers (, 32) for forgetting the many thighs of bulls and
goats that Hektor burnt to them. On the other, Apollo stresses that it is
now only a thing, and their failure to save it that much more unaccountable, since you do not bring yourself to save him, even though he is a
corpse ( , 35).34) Similarly,
Apollo instances Achilles rage as an example of gross irrationality and savagery, a rhetorical paradeigma of a kind of behavior that the gods should
avoid. For in continuing to abuse what is, after all, no more than a corpse
( ) his thoughts are not in their proper sphere (
, 24.40):
(24.54)

Look! Achilles in his fury defiles the senseless clay!35)

34)

Note the similar in in line 20.

In translations, is sometimes taken to refer to the earth, on the understanding
that Achilles abuses or defiles the earth in dragging a corpse over it. There is, however, good
authority for suspecting that in antiquity would have been read as the earth which,
together with water, was held to comprise the body. (Cf. 7.99
, and again Hesiod, Th. 571, Op. 61, Xenophanes fr. 33). Thus, e.g.,
Sophocles may well have had the lines in mind at El. 244
; and again Euripides in fr. 522:
.
35)

B. Satterfield / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 1-20

13

The point of calling Hektor clay (or earth) can only be to say that Hektor
cannot feel, or be aware of, any of Achilles degradations; he is dead, his
departed; his body ought therefore, to be insensate (), impervious to the worst that Achilles can do.36) It is mere clay, and Achilles anger
at itand so by implication the continued anger of Hera, Athena, and
Poseidona kind of senseless vindictiveness inflicted on one who can no
longer feel it.
Paradoxically, on the other, the fact that the body is not the self also
ends up providing at the same time a critical rationale for the tendence of
the corpse. For it is the fact that there is a in Hades whose fate
depends on proper burial that makes that burial important.37) The burial is
thus not, as we are often told today, for the living, but really and truly for
the soul of the dead man. Only where the continues in Hades, in
effect, does the tendence given the body assume importance for the dead
man himself. The revelation that Patroklos continues in Hades, and
that it retains something of his selfhood, thus places a premium on his
receiving burial at Achilles hands, and as soon as possible.
And yet, if we reflect on the internal logic of the account being offered,
we realize that there is an astonishing corollary; for if how one treats the
body is determinative for the souls fate in the afterlife, then possibilities
of revenge too are amplified. For if it is true that where burial is denied,
the soul is condemned to wander restlessly forever, then it follows that an
enemy who inflicts such loss of burial upon his foe has secured eternal torment for him. Thus, even while Patroklos in his vision no longer cares for
revenge, it is clear that this vision is not sufficient to guarantee respect for
the corpse of Hektor. Indeed, if the logic of Patroklos revelation is followed through, it suggests that if Achilles wishes, he has it within his
power to deny Hektor burialand so to cause his soul to wander restless
eternally, just as Patroklos did before receiving burial. Achilles vision of
Patroklos, thus, is not enough to stop him from continuing to abuse Hektors corpse, or from continuing to plan feeding it to the birds and dogs;
36)
too is problematic. Though employed once in Herodotus to denote dumbness
and deafness, its three occurrences in Homer, here, of a missile (11.390) and of the wave
that swells without breaking (14.16) suggests to Cunliffe (Lex. Hom. sub ) that its
original sense may be blunt.
37)
This view is consistent with the argument of Vernant (1985, 330) that the manifests an inherent tension between identity and non-identity.

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B. Satterfield / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 1-20

for even after Book 23 he continues to outrage Hektors corpse into Book
24, until finally ordered by Zeus to stop. Achilles dream has thus shed
light on the epics conception of why one owes it to a friend or to
provide burial; but the rationale that it provides offers, to say the least,
very little reason to bury an enemy. There is, thus, every need for the second of Achilles two experiences: his being ordered by Zeus to return the
corpse of Hektor lest he himself become an object of divine
(24.114, 135; cf. 22.358), an order which anticipates the fifth-century
law of burialthe teaching, apparently unique to the Greeks, that an
enemy must to be allowed burial; and which, on their own view, distinguished them from barbarians as making them uniquely civilized or
humane.38)

3. The Third Discrepancy:

The last discrepancy is the most frequently noted, for in contrast to the
previous discrepancies, there is no question that there exists here a genuine
textual contradiction (discussed since the time of Aristarchus) that must
either be accepted as a blemish within the text, or, alternatively, resolved
through interpretation. The difficulty, simply, is this. In lines 5 and 6 we
read:

(1.5-6)

But to what antecedent time does refer? For many readers, including
Aristarchus,39) the natural way of taking it was as referring to the origins of
the quarrel itself, so that we might translate: Sing, Muse, the wrath of
Achilles . . . and the plan of Zeus was being brought to fulfillment from the
38)
The number of relevant passages from classical literature is vast, but among the more
important are Sophocles Ant. 450-5, 511, 745, 1070; OC 1606.; Aj. 1129-30, 1154, 1343
ff.; Euripides Supp. 301-15, 524-7, 671; Hec. 136; Ph. 1663; Alc. 1060; HF 708; Thucydides 4.98.8; Demosthenes 24.107; Xenophon Mem. 2.2.13; Isocrates Panegyricus 55,
Panathenaicus 169. For scholarly overviews, see in particular Bremmer 1983, 89-94; Parker
1983, 43-8; Garland 1985, 101-3.
39)
Aristarchus: schol. Arn/A ad loc.

B. Satterfield / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 1-20

15

time when Agamemnon and Achilles first stood apart in strife. Or in other
words, the natural way of taking it, for many readers, is as a request to the
Muse to explain how the . . . (will or plan of Zeus) was being
accomplished from the time Agamemnon and Achilles first quarreled.
If adopted, however, this reading involves us immediately in a fairly serious discrepancy;40) for as commentators point out, the plan of Zeus is not
shown as either originated, or in progress, from the time when the two
heroes first quarreled. The quarrel is initiated by Apollo, not Zeus; and it
is only some time after it is in progress that Zeus begins to be involved.
There is, on this reading, thus, a serious contradiction, described by James
Redfield:
. . . if we take (from that time when) with (was coming to
completion), the statement will, by this interpretation, be untrue: the intervention of Zeus does not immediately follow the quarrel but occurs only
after a lapse of many days (cf. Iliad I.423-7). Zeus does not finally take
charge of the battle until the beginning of Book 8.41)

Indeed, arguably, the contradiction is more striking than even Redfield

describes it; for it is not only that Zeus does not intervene for twelve days
after the Muse has been asked to be shown how his plan or will was being
fulfilled from the time when Achilles and Agamemnon first quarreled. On
the surface, rather, as Pierre Carlier observes, it seems as though the request
is to be shown how the quarrel itself is a consequence of this will or plan:
Ds le dbut de lIliade, un problme surgit: quel est ce dessein de Zeus?
Sagit-il de laccomplissement de la promesse que le dieu a faite Thtis de
tuer beaucoup dAchens pour venger loutrage subi par Achille? Cette explication ne suffit sans doute pas, car la formulation du texte suggre que la
colre dAchille elle-mme est un effet du dessein de Zeus.42)

And so, apparently, Wilamowitz reads it as well, similarly describing the

Groll of Achilles as stemming from the plan of Zeus:
40)

Serious enough, e.g., to motivate efforts to excise the lines. See Dntzer 1872, 170
(quoted in Pagliaro 1963, 11).
41)
Redfield 2001, 471.
42)
Carlier 1999, 119.

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B. Satterfield / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 1-20

Den Groll des Achilles gibt der Dichter als Gegenstand seines Vortrages an,
den verderblichen, der nach dem Ratschlusse des Zeus unzhligen Achern
den Tod brachte. Gleich mit dem nchsten Verse, seitdem Agamemnon und
Achilleus sich nach einem Streite voneinder trennten, beginnt die Erzhlung,
die ohne Exposition mitten in einer Handlung einsetzt.43)

And so, many others.44) If this reading is correct, however, it only heightens
the contradiction: how are we to understand the proems apparent claim
that the quarrel was a result of Zeus plan, when compared with the story
of the poem itself, which appears to show Zeus actions as a response to
these events which are not originally set in motion by him?
A number of solutions have been urged. The most popular involves taking with the initial imperative in 1.1, so that we would translate: Sing, goddess, [the story of ] Achilles anger . . ., [beginning your song]
from the point when he and Agamemnon first stood apart in strife.45) This
interpretation has been contested vigorously by Pagliaro, however, who
argues, Questinterpretazione inaccettabile; for elsewhereand he
offers a learned discussion of instances (q.v.)Invece ha sempre
nelluso omerico valore specificamente temporale, introducendo unazione
che precede o condiziona temporalmente lazione espressa nella principale.46) Further observing that the particle directly joined to in
line 6, serve a determinare la nozione temporale, dando latto come compiuto, Pagliaro concludes: Dato ci, palese che non pu ricollegarsi ad , poich il valore di sequenza temporale del complesso male
si adatta a indicare la nozione piuttosto locale (, , . . .)
che si richiederebbe.47)
Pagliaros claim that will not bear a local sense is vigorously
argued and his examination of occurrences a necessary philological step.
But given parallels such as . . . from Od. 1.10, it cannot be
decisive. For Pagliaros parallels notwithstanding, the genitive in is a
43)

Wilamowitz 1920, 257.

See among more recent commentators Lynn-George 1988, 39, Edwards 1987, 175.
45)
As Pagliaro (1963, 12)whose whole discussion here seesums up the scholarly view
to that time: . . . i traduttori moderni intendono: canta . . . cominciando da quando (Festa),
pars du jour o (Mazon), take up the song from the point when (Leaf ).
46)
Ibid.
47)
Ibid., 13.
44)

B. Satterfield / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 1-20

17

simple partitive, and to see it as spatial would be perfectly in accord with

its basic grammatical meaning.48) Even so, Pagliaros opposition to construing with seems well taken, if for no other reason than the great
distance that separates them, and the proximity of . If, in effect,
we reject taking it with , it will be by adopting a less natural and
even strained construction primarily out of concern to avoid the contradiction that we can see will result.
To continue with our own line of argument, however: what if this
should again be understood as part of Homers request? Rather than try to
resolve the discrepancy through grammatical contortions, we could then
accept it as narratively significant. For we might then understand the discrepancy as arising from Homers request that the Muse do one thing in
her storyshow that everything that happened was due to Zeus agency
and the Muses showing that in fact only some of the events that occurred
were in Zeus power.49) Where Homer thus seems to be asking the Muse to
show how the events that inflicted horrible devastation on the Greeks were
in fact the result of some larger plan by Zeus, and so that divine justice and
providence were behind everything that transpired, the Muse shows that
Zeus does exercise a kind of providencebut that that providence is limited, conditioned by necessities outside of his control. Far from being the
unconditional ruler of all, Zeus has to cope with other gods, and their
competing agendas and necessities. The difference between the story that
Homer asks for and the story that the Muse tells, thus, would be that the
Muses draw our attention to the political nature of the pantheon. For
in marked contrast to a monotheistic conception in which there is no
48)
See, however, Pagliaros counterargument (ibid., 13): La differenza stata avvertita dal
Von der Mhll [1952, 15] (Das ist klrlich etwas anderes als das
des Demodokos 500 und das . . . des Odysseedichters B 10); ma
le conclusioni che egli ne trae (Zwar whlt der Dichter aus einem grossen . . . Zusammenhang eine Episode aus, aber diese selber verspricht er von Anfang zu erzhlen) non sono
conformi a tale premessa.
49)
Interestingly, Redfield (2001, 471) notes that such a possibility seems immanent within
the words and the theme that they concernand yet also acknowledges that he does not
see a motivation for it: . . . the language of the proem seems to imply the initiative of Zeus
himself; the . . . is mentioned as a primary fact about the poem to follow,
whereas within the poem it is a secondary result of other events. Such misrepresentation of
the poem by the proem is (as we have seen) far from impossible, but it should be motivated
and I see no clear reason for it here.

18

B. Satterfield / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 1-20

essential obstacle to the divine will, Zeus rule consists not in unconditioned fiat, but in the harmonization or even tempering of competing
necessities. If Apollo, Achilles, and Agamemnon were, at least in their initial actions, free agents, acting on their own, then Zeus actions were, at
best, a superlative response to the requirements of circumstances beyond
his control and already in motion by the time he began to act. The providence that the epic reveals thus emerges as complex, problematic, and at
times horrifyingly at odds with human aims or demands.
If this suggestion is even roughly correct, there may be a closer connection between the end of the Iliad and Zeus plan than scholars have generally appreciated. For while the path to Troys fall is cleared through Zeus
actions in the Iliad as a whole, granting burial to Hektor plays an important role in bringing the war among the gods to an end. As Iliad 24 opens,
the gods remain dividedand yet, curiously, the seeds of a new concord
are present as well. For watching Achilles defile bright Hektor in his fury
( , 22), Homer tells us, theymeaning
apparently all of the gods without differentiationpitied him:
(24.23; and as the blessed gods
looked on they pitied him). Even in their pity, however, Homer reminds
us that the divisions among them still obtain; for while the rest were ready
to have Hermes steal him away, Hera, Poseidon, and Athena were unwilling because of Paris folly (, 28) in having given preference to Helen
in the judgment of Paris. Following Apollos appeal, however, Hera effectively acquiesces to Hektors burial, thus opening the door to Zeus subsequent accommodation, insisting only on the caveatwhich Zeus picks up
(24.66)that Achilles and Hektor are not to be held in equal honor
because the one is a mere mortal, the other the offspring of a goddess. The
consequences of Heras assent and the accommodation that Zeus devises
are thus momentous, even epochal. For in thisthe last divine scene of
the epicsomething extraordinary has happened: from divisions that are
initially as deep and refractory as the causes of the war itself, the gods have
been brought to agreement around the basic proposition that Hektor is to
be buried.
Do these three discrepancies and my own efforts to see narrative significance in them comprise evidence of the Muses inspiration? Certainly not
evidence that skeptics would regard as dispositive. And yet those who dismiss the proems as hollow conventions offer an unappealing alternative.

B. Satterfield / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 1-20

19

Faced with a choice between viewing the proem as a mere ossified formalism, or a deliberate narrative strategy of evoking interest through the
lively interplay between an internal narratorthe Museand an equally
internal Homer, it seems preferable to regard the subtlety as intentional.
Equally, faced with discrepancies between proem and poem, it seems better to embrace a path of interpretation that sees them as the poems way of
drawing attention to the Muses corrections of Homer; and, if the interpretation offered here is correct, thereby highlighting the new humanism of
epic revealed in Hektors right to receive burial.
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