Just
attended Casey Due, presentation on Aeneas in Book 20 in the Iliad. Much of the conversation following seemed to
be in defense of the Iliad multi-textuality.
On one hand I like her argument that every poet says his account is a
true on and all others are liars. (Was
it Hesiod who actually said that? That
argument might explain Achilles saying things in the Odyssey, that he never would
say in the Iliad) On the other hand she admits that Odysseus’ asking the poet
at the Phaeancian dinner part to sing the fall of Troy was a test of multi-textuality. Odysseus was at the Fall of Troy and he could
test whether the poet’s recital was true or a lie, just as we text modern and
alternative version of the myth against what we know as the “truth”
Casey’s
excellent presentation centered on Aeneas’ rescue by the gods in Book 20. They rescue him because his death at that
time would have been “beyond destiny”. He
had to survive to be the hero of the Aeneid and forefather of Romulus and
Remus. Astrid pointed out that a god (Poseidon)
pitying a mortal (the Trojan Aeneas) much a sworn enemy was pretty rare event
in Greek myth. In the chat bar I
suggested that maybe it foreshadowed Poseidon’s (Neptune’s) support for the
Trojans in the Aeneid.) Some followed up
with the comment that the whole scene was beginning to feel like an insertion
into the original story. All along I had
wondered about Apollo’s role in tempting Aeneas to foolishly take on Achilles. Apollo had already had to rescue Aeneas in
Book 5. What is the motivation of the
plague god here? It begins to feel like
a plot device. Homer has Apollo send
Aeneas into battle, just so the gods can discuss his destiny and predict the
future of the Trojans/Romans. So
insertion or Homer purposely acknowledging the pre-Virgil Aeneidic tradition?
Finally,
Sarah asked in the chat bar if “there are
dialectal differences in any of the passages that might suggest local
traditions before the text became Pan-Hellenic?” Maya and I were just talking about this. In “SOME
VESTIGIAL MYCENAEAN WORDS IN THE ILIAD” D. J. N. Lee Bulletin of
the Institute of Classical Studies No. 6 (1959), pp. 6-21, wrote “The occurrence of the some purely (Mycenaean)
words in Homer was pointed out even before the decipherment of Linear B. Since then further words common to Mycenaean
of the Tables and Homer have been noted…I follow Nilsson (Homer and Mycenae) in
the view that at least some old lays or part of old lays lie incorporated in
the Homeric text.”
Lee
has an example; a line Mycenaean text on one of the “tablets” and a line from
the Iliad. I can’t replicate the example
here but you can see it at the JSTOR link above. Later he notes a distinct lack of Mycenaean
words in the Odyssey. I have a book my
Nilsson at home, (Mycenaean Religion?) I
will to see if he mentions this in it.
What
I find interesting in Lee’s premise (and Nilsson’s) is that it implies that
Homer had written sources for some of his materials.
Bill,
ReplyDeleteI have read long ago that the Romans borrowed from the Etruscans, among other things, the legend about Aeneas. This was a remark in passing in a popular book that had no reference list. Have you read this elsewhere? Adding to the equation the Etruscans, a nation disliked by both Greeks and Romans, would complicate things further.
I used to think that the Etruscans were indigenous Italians, but recent genetic studies show that present-day residents of Tuscany are related to the Anatolians, so there is at least a grain of truth in the legend.