TFBT: Random Notes on Aeneid 5 & 6

 “The crescent waters of a tranquil bay break through the curving line of cliff on either hand. The spot is of Nature's giving: one single beach lies between sea and hill, ending towards the land in overhanging rocks . . . Here would the nimble choir [the Nereides] of Phorcus wish to bathe, and Cymodoce with dripping tresses and sea-green Galatea." Why Phorcys?  In Greek it would be Nereus.   I also found “the flood maiden Panopea heard him, with all Phorcus' choir of Nereids, and lord Portunus with his own mighty hand pushed him on his way.”(Statius, Silvae 2. 2. 14 ff  

“Achates, the companion of his breast, Goes grieving by his side, with equal cares oppress'd.”  “In the Aeneid, Achates (good, faithful Achates, as he was called) was a close friend of Aeneas; his name became a by-word for an intimate companion.”(Wikipedia). Therapon?

 “Two doves, descending from their airy flight, Secure upon the grassy plain alight.”  Aeneid 6

 “For, when the fatal horse, descending down, Pregnant with arms, o'erwhelm'd th' unhappy town” Virgil is maintaining the Greek pun of “animal litter” and “ambush”  “The horse that was the instrument of Fate, heavy with the brood of armed men in its belly.”  (Penguin translation.)  

Dark night had risen in her chariot to command the vault of heaven, when suddenly there appeared the form of his father..." but now farewell.  The dewy night is turning her chariot in mis-course.  The cruel sun is beginning to rise in the east and I have felt the brreath of his panting horses."  The ghost of Anchises departing from his dreaming son Aeneas.

“(At the entrance to the Isle of the Blest) Aeneas leapt on the threshold sprinkled his body with fresh water and fixed the (golden) bough full in the doorway.”   I have an image in my mind’s-eye, from Book 5 when Sleep “the god, shaking over his (Palinarus’) temples a bough dripping with Lethe’s dew and steeped in drowsy might of Styx.”,It also reminded me of the Vedic-god Indira who promised the demon Namuci not to kill him by day or by night, not with what was wet nor what was dry.  But he wretched off his head in the morning twilight by sprinkling over him the foam of the sea. (Bhagavatam 8:11) 

At Aeneid 6:630 when the Sibyl and Aeneas enter the land of the Blest, I recognized the landscape of every movie about Heaven or a Golden Age I have ever seen.  Is this the prototype of the Western concept of Heaven?  

In these words the Cumaean Sibyl chants from the shrine her dread enigmas and booms from the cavern, wrapping truth in darkness.” [6.98]   

Hecate, supreme both in Heaven and in Hell.  Aeneid 6

“Scarce had he said these words when under his very eyes twin doves, as it chanced, came flying from the sky and lit on the green grass.”  Aeneid 6  

Aeneid sacrifices “Proserpine, a barren heifer.”  In many traditions Prosepine and Hades never had children.

“Hither rushed all the throng, streaming to the banks; mothers and men and bodies of high-souled heroes, their life now done, boys and unwedded girls, and sons placed on the pyre before their fathers’ eyes; thick as the leaves of the forest that at autumn’s first frost drop and fall,”  (Aeneid 6)  Once more mankind compared to leaves. “thick as the birds that from the seething deep flock shoreward, when the chill of the year drives them overseas and sends them into sunny lands.”  A hint of better things to come for the souls of the dead as Anchises will explain. 

 Oh, it is such a greater world that waits them!  After Aeneas sees the mystic poetic Orpheus and his heroic ancestors, 
 

 "Others he sees, to right and left, feasting on the grassy field, and chanting in chorus a joyous hymn within a fragrant laurel grove, from where the full flood of the River Eridanus rolls upward through the forest.  Here is the band of those who suffered wounds, fighting for their country; those who in lifetime were priests and pure, good bards, whose songs were meet for Phoebus; or they who ennobled life by arts discovered and they who by service have won remembrance among men – the brows of all bound with headbands white as snow.” 

 Virgil is pointing out that people besides “heroes” make it into the Isle of Blessed, Elysium, Paradise, the Isle of Leuce, whatever you call it.  These are people were poets, priests, artists and people whose good works are still remembered.  

What the poet is not saying is the significance of the reference to Orpheus.  Orpheus represents the Orphic Mysteries.  In the same way that Christians know they will be resurrected; because Christ was, so the Romans and Greeks knew they could escape Hades because Orpheus did.  (Remember?  He was there and back trying to rescue his wife, but made the mistake of looking back instead of concentrating on gazing ahead at their bright new future.)  Likewise Persephone returned so those who attended the Eleusian Mysteries knew they could return. 

The truth that the “little guy”, the ordinary person, women and children will make it to a better world is hidden in most ancient poetry.  The Nordic Sagas sing the praises of the fallen Viking warriors partying it up in Valhalla anxiously awaiting the day when they and the gods take on the forces of evil and chaos.  But when the Universe Tree collapses in flames and sea boils over a new world arises; it is the estate of the god of all good things in Norse Mythology; Balder.  He and his family have lived hidden away all this time in a beautiful corner of Hel’s kingdom.  And when this new world arises there hidden in his forest are the “good people”   

TFBT: Footnotes from the Best of the Achaeans

In May participants at Hour 25 will be studying  “The Best of the Achaeans” and speaking with the author Dr. Gregory Nagy. As you probably know, Nagy is my hero and I have read the book several times.  The book rambles far beyond which was the greatest of the Greek heroes at Troy.  (Hint: Achilles!)  In hopes of adding something to the conversation that I haven’t offered before, I opened my cherished copy and began reviewing the footnotes and my personal notes in the margins.  (I remember hours of delight as a child, lost in the footnotes in the glossy pages of “Classic Myths” by Gayley!) 

So, below for you amusement are quotes and insights from the footnotes to “The Best of the Achaeans.”  Page numbers reflect the electronic version available at Hour 25. 

At preface footnote  2, the author is explaining the insertion of a new foreword in the 20^th anniversary addition.  “My present Foreword is a substitute for the original 1979 foreword written by James M. Redfield, which I will treasure forever. I have exchanged here the old gold for new bronze, which I need as armor for restating my own case.”  Isn’t that an incredibly gracefully explanation!  For those to don’t recognize the classical reference here, it is about Diomedes and Glaucas.  They met on the battlefield before Troy, Diomedes for the Achaeans, Glaucas ally to the Trojans.  In the usually bragging and macho displays prefacing a duel, they discovered that their fathers were friends.  In honor of the friendship, they switched armor and promised to avoid one another hence forth.  Homer and all his audience think Glaucus was crazing for giving away golden armor.  But, for the two warriors the relationship was more important concerns of  greed.

“ areas not included in the world of the Pythian Apollo correspond to the areas not included in the Homeric Catalogue of Ships in Iliad II"  “The Best of the Achaeans: Intro footnote 22.

Page 129 “2§11. In the First Nekuia of Odyssey xi, when Odysseus meets the shade of Achilles, he addresses Achilles as ‘best of the Achaeans’ . But the Odyssey then has Achilles saying that he would rather be alive and the lowliest of serfs than to be dead and the kingliest of shades ". Kevin McGarth  points out in class, (Section #7 at Harvard Extension School’s Open Learning Initiative, )   that seventy to eighty percent of the Odyssey is told by Odysseus.  Hence Homer is not reporting Achilles comment but rather that liar Odysseus.

If you are not familiar with the “duals” argument in the Embassy scene, here is a short explanation.  In English we have the word “you” it is used for the second person, singular and plural.  Sometimes for the plural, we say, “you all”.  In the Greek they had singular, dual and plural, as in “you two”.   When the two heralds and three emissaries enter the tent, he only speaks to “you two”.  On page 203 Nagy states, “Thus I am still bound to understand the dual constructions of Iliad IX 192 as referring to Ajax and Phoinix.”  I follow Nagy in this particularly in light of Achilles use of philo and presumed animosity with Odysseus. As to the heralds I would point out that in a "classed" society one does not include the "help".  For a better understanding of Achilles'/Homer's use of the dual form, try it! Talk to a group of people and by body language, eye contact and word choice  exclude someone from the conversation.
Page 283, footnote 17 “It is traditional for an archaic poem to begin with a word that names the main subject of the narrative in the manner of a title (in this case, mênis at Iliad I 1), followed by an epithet and a relative clause setting forth the relationship of the title word to the main subject (in this case, how the mênis of Achilles was baneful and caused devastation for the Achaeans, at Iliad I 2–5). Consider also the openings of the Odyssey, Theogony, Works and Days, Little Iliad, and nearly all the Homeric Hymns.” 

818 “15§2. In the heat of battle, the Trojan hero Deiphobos suddenly finds that he needs help from his ally Aeneas, and he goes to look for him: ""And he found him standing hindmost in the battle for he had mênis always against brilliant Priam, because he [Priam] did not honor him [Aeneas], worthy that he was among heroes." Iliad XIII 459–461 There is a striking thematic parallelism here between Aeneas and Achilles, who likewise had withdrawn from battle because he had mênis against Agamemnon . The king had not given the hero tīmḗ 'honor'—even though Achilles is not just "worthy among heroes" but actually the "best of the Achaeans" These themes of mênis/withdrawal/ tīmḗ/excellence are not only” “present in the Iliad; they are in fact central to it, permeating the composition in its monumental dimensions.”

Menis is generally translated as wrath.  Primarily, Homer’s usage is restricted to the gods and Achilles.   Page ??? footnote 18. The only exception is the mênis of Aeneas against King Priam  which must have been the central theme of another epic tradition—this one featuring Aeneas as its prime hero.”  Generally speaking menis is anger with cosmic consequences.  Of what possible consequence to priam could Aeneas' anger be ? Priam was destined to lose everything.  How could Aeneas sitting out a battle screw that up? On the other hand how could arguing with priam screw up Aeneas' destiny as ancestor of Rome?  I didn’t see the cosmic consequences here until I realized that Aeneas being angry at Priam kept him away from the front lines and therefore alive to fulfill his destiny later on.

Page 289 “. In other words, it is untraditional, since whatever runs counter to the traditional plot of the narrative is conventionally designated as ‘beyond destiny’:”.  Page 284 foot note 6, “Poseidon personally tells Aeneas that his death at this point in the narrative would have been hupèr moîran 'beyond destiny'. In effect, then, it would be untraditional for the narrative to let Achilles kill Aeneas in Iliad XX, since there is a poetic tradition that tells how Aeneas later became king of Troy; accordingly, Poseidon intervenes in the narrative and keeps Aeneas alive for further narratives about his future.”. I love how, over reaching; going beyond your destiny, not knowing your place is being a "hyper-moron".

 

Achilles about to duel with Aeneas points out (page 822) “Priam will not place the géras [honorific portion] in your hand on that account. He has children,"  Nagy calls this, "An ironic understatment"

Page 436. “Moreover, the melíē functions as the word for both ‘ash tree’ (e.g., Iliad XVI 767) and "ash spear”.  Hence Hesiod Theogony 180 “all the bloody drops that gushed forth Earth received, and as the seasons moved round she bare the strong Erinyes and the great Giants with gleaming (bronze?) armour, holding long spears in their hands and the Nymphs whom they call Meliae all over the boundless earth.”

Page 523 “The Bronze Men are nṓnumno i 'nameless' in that their deeds cannot be glorified by poetry;”. I have no Greek, but I wonder if in addition to "nameless" nonumno could mean "unsung"?   

Page 526 footnote 38.” Note in particular that the area by the Hellespont is explicitly smoothed over by the flooding rivers . I suspect that this volunteered detail is consciously offered as a variant of the tradition that tells how the Achaeans had made a funeral mound for the dead Achilles by the Hellespont ). There is then an ironic fulfillment of the dire threat made by the river Xanthos/Skamandros to bury Achilles under a mound of silt, as if the funeral mound of Achilles were to be in the end simply a natural formation adorning the landscape of the Troad. I draw attention to the irony that the River calls this mound the sêma 'tomb' of Achilles  from which the Achaeans will not even be able to recover the hero's bones I would argue that this not irony, but an example of a divine oath being non-revocable.  For example page 501 footnote 48 “Athena was about to confer immortality upon Tydeus, father of Diomedes, as he lay dying from wounds inflicted in his duel with the Theban hero Melanippos, who had also been mortally wounded. What stopped the goddess from fulfilling her initial design was her sheer disgust at what she saw: Tydeus was eating the brains of Melanippos. Here, then, is the grisly deed that deprived Tydeus of an immortality that could have been his—but was passed on to his son Diomedes. "

Page 542 “We recall the absence and presence of díkē in Generations II/III and I/IV respectively” 

Page 578 “that the waters of the Styx are an elixir of life. The lore about the cosmic stream Styx applies commensurately to the actual stream Styx in Arcadia, and in fact the belief prevails to this day that whoever drinks of that stream's waters under the right conditions may gain immortality. ” 

 

Page 581 footnote 60 “We are immediately reminded of the poetic tradition that tells how Semele became immortalized as a direct result of dying from the thunderbolt of Zeus ).”   Well more specifically Dionysius rescues  Semele from Hades and snuck his mom into Olympus under the name Thyone. But that doesn't negate the law of lightning and immortality.

Page 587 “immortal and unaging, just as the gods are. (Hymn to Aphrodite 214)”.  Page 649 footnote 70. “These words are the "correct" formula for immortalization; when the words are "incorrect," as in the myth of Eos and Tithonos, then the immortalization is ruined by the failure of preservation.”

Page 690 “Here is my tentative list, surely incomplete, of alternative ways for the hero to achieve immortality:
1.Being struck by the thunderbolt of Zeus
2.Plunging from a white rock into the deep”.

(I personally would add;
3. Descendant of Gorgophone or Telephassa
4. Married to Helen or Harmonia or Calypso
5.  Defeat death

Page 657 “We may note that heroes who have been immortalized attract the epithet xanthós 'blond': e.g., Rhadamanthys in Elysium and Ganymedes in Olympus . Menelaos is the hero who attracts this epithet by far the most frequently in the Iliad and the Odyssey —and he is the only Homeric hero”

Page 677 “1. Memnon's immortalization is actually unique, to the extent that the realm in which he lived before his death as a hero is also appropriate as the setting for his afterlife. For Memnon, the afterlife is by implication a homecoming.”