Study Leave: Occasional Posts on Research, Writing and Other Academic Matters

Monday, 14 May 2012

post-conference life reboots

Robarts Library, Toronto, Canada (Photo credit: Wikipedia) - and I have not set foot in it this trip...

Back from the CAC, and spent the day editing my notes, adding scans of the handouts to my notes, and generally allowing perfectionism to get in the way of productivity in every possible way. I'm surprised I didn't decide that collating and typing up all the bibliographies everyone handed out at their papers was a useful and sensible way to spend my time. Somehow I managed to draw the line. Looking forward to reading the paper on Cherrie Moraga's Medea, and wondering if I should try to go to a European conference or two; there is some very interesting research going on there lately and I feel quite cut off from it.

The idea was that I would spend a couple of days at Robarts Library before I head back to the coast, but in fact I'm not ready to do that yet; still tracking down the Homeric references in Oswald, which I plan to resume tomorrow. Then to revise the paper I actually gave into the Ideal Perfect Conference Paper that exists in pure form only in my mind, and which I naturally had no time to produce before the conference; and then to figure out who to send it to for comments. Ideally someone who can tell me whether I ought to pursue the project, or just accept that it was an interesting conference paper, now get back to my regularly-scheduled Euripides research.

Monday, 7 May 2012

secondary literature

The plasted model was exhibited at the 1802 Salon. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Still working my way through the Homer references. Oswald amplifies the scenes more later in the poem, going for greater poignancy and more vivid images. I don't yet know if she skips any more deaths; I'll check that tomorrow.

Her treatment of Iphidamas and Coön, especially Coön, is particularly poignant; struck down as he's trying to drag his wounded (well, actually dead, but he's not thinking) brother out of the battle, calling out desperately for help, and he loses his own head.

I've put together a page with an initial list of secondary literature I mean to read as I revise the paper (in the sidebar).

Related articles

Saturday, 5 May 2012

but their ghosts said nothing

Agamemnon (Photo credit: kameraadpjotr)

The death scenes are becoming more interesting as they get longer. Oswald describes the deaths of Peisander and Hippolochus during Agamemnon's aristeia; their horses run away from them, they stand in the chariot and offer a ransom, their father is a rich man. But Agamemnon says in case you hadn't noticed, kids, I'm having an aristeia, and kills them. Well, no, he doesn't; he says "your father tried to get my brother killed by treachery", and then he slaughters them. Homer is quite graphic about the method of their deaths; Oswald is not. Oswald ends (p. 37)

But Agamemnon remembered
Their father was that sly old man
Who tried to murder Menelaus
Antimachus assured them
He had acted in good faith
But their ghosts said nothing

Simile, of rocks standing against a wild sea, is used of the Greeks fending off Hector at the ships in book 15; here it seems to be Peisander and Hippolochus, standing against Agamemnon, or standing stunned as he rushes towards them to overwhelm them, more like.

Thursday, 3 May 2012

Rhesus, Isos, and Antiphos

Odysseus (wearing the pilos hat) and Diomedes stealing the horses of Thracian king Rhesus they have just killed. Apulian red-figure situla by the Lycurgus Painter, ca. 360 BC. Stored in the Museo Nazionale Archaeologico in Naples. Français : Ulysse (portant le pilos) et Diomède volant les chevaux du roi thrace Rhésos qu'ils viennent de tuer. Situle apulienne à figures rouges du Peintre de Lycurgue, vers 360 av. J.-C. Conservé au Musée national archéologique de Naples. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The improbable exploit of Diomedes and Odysseus against Rhesus is next. (I say improbable, because how likely is it that one man could kill thirteen men with an edged weapon, I don't care how tired they are, without the screams and thrashings of at least one of them waking up the rest? Also, Rhesus and his men were sleeping closest to the enemy ships; why on earth didn't they post a sentry? But I digress.)

Oswald's translations, as always, vivid and spot-on. Homer describes the Thracian weapons as κάλα and κέκλιτο εὖ κατὰ κόσμον, 10.472; she translates as ""cleaned and layed down like cutlery" (κέκλιτο εὖ κατὰ κόσμον, 10.472), quite wonderful, as is her description of Diomedes killing the Thracians, "red faced quietly like a butcher keeping up with his order/Got rid of them", instead of "As a lion springs furiously upon a flock of sheep or goats when he finds them without their shepherd" as Homer has it. (ὡς δὲ λέων μήλοισιν ἀσημάντοισιν ἐπελθὼν

αἴγεσιν ἢ ὀΐεσσι κακὰ φρονέων ἐνορούσῃ, 10.485-486),. However then Oswald goes on to use a sheep image involving wolves for Odysseus & Diomedes; ; this one from Patroclus' aristeia and the Greeks are chasing the Trojans all the way back to Troy and the Trojans are scattering terrified. Odysseus & Diomedes are presumably the wolves; the sheep are the Thracians, their shepherd is Rhesus; but they're all asleep. Perhaps "wolves" rather than lions in a gesture towards the wolf-skin poor craven Dolon was wearing.

Oswald skips the first two deaths in Agamemnon's aristeia in book 11, Bienor and Oileus his charioteer, and moves on to Isos and Antiphos, whom she doesn't mention are sons of Priam, one legitimate, one not. They're farmboys, who got taken on a great adventure once when Achilles captured them and took them to meet Agamemnon. They came home "proud as astronauts", joined the army, and were killed by Agamemnon.

The wave-simile she then uses is used in Homer of Hector at the ships in book 15, raging around the Greeks; in Oswald the focus isn't the wave, but the sailors engulfed in it, "star(ing) at mid-air"; poor Isos and Antiphos, never expecting this.

Wednesday, 2 May 2012

The death of the pathetic Dolon

Dolón atrapado por Odiseo y Diomedes. Museo Británico (Photo credit: elaios2008)

Oswald condenses 150 lines of Homer (the Doloneia) into 17, and includes pretty much everything essential. (since she isn't interested in Odysseus or Diomedes). She's skipped ahead 2 books, but nobody has died since Archeptolemos in Book 8: in the end of Book 8 the Greeks ran back to their ships, Book 9 is the embassy to Achilles, and Book 10 begins with the night councils. Finally two scouts sent out by Agamemnon, Diomedes & Odysseus, meet the scout sent out by Hector, Dolon, and Oswald picks up at the death scene.

I haven't been saying much about the death scenes, which are the whole point, or so I thought the first time I read Memorial. Here Oswald begins with the mourning of women ("What was that shrill sound/Five sisters at the grave/ Calling the ghost of Dolon"), tells remarkably compactly the story of Dolon, "ugly but quick", caught by Odysseus and Diomedes and desperately telling them everything he knows, where the Trojans are, where the allies are, where Rhesus and his beautiful chariot and armour and wonderful horses are, offering a ransom, offering anything, and then they kill him anyway ("And was still pleading for his head/ When his head rolled in the mud"). She doesn't mention Odysseus or Diomedes; here as frequently elsewhere, the identity of the killer is not what Memorial focusses on.

The simile, of the fly that keeps coming back to bite some more no matter how often it's warded off, is initially from the battle over the body of Patroclus (again); Menelaus is given the courage and persistence of an especially irritating fly by Athena. This simile is transferred to the persistent and irritating Dolon, who however gets squashed.

This is the first place where I've found Homer's use of a simile a little more interesting than Oswald's, only because giving Menelaus the courage and persistence of a fly - meant positively - is so counter-intuitive; where describing Dolon, who does keep trying, desperately, over and over, to save his own life by telling them absolutely everything, and in Homer as in Oswald is both pathetic and contemptible, an insect in his little ferret-skin cap, it's an obvious comparison. Perhaps I'm missing something.

Tuesday, 1 May 2012

Wanted short term: a charioteer for Hector

Menelaus Supporting the Body of Patroclus (Photo credit: rjhuttondfw)

Hector's lost two charioteers in 200 lines now, Eniopeus and Archeptolemos, both when someone took a shot at Hector and missed, and he will lose Cebriones in book 16 in the fight around Patroclus. Might as well just paint a target on their armour (the breastplate, just under the nipple; that's how the first two went, at least).

Oswald uses a "burning city" simile here, which she imports from the battle around Patroclus, which I couldn't place until I had a look at Bruce Louden's book, "The Iliad: Structure, Myth and Meaning" (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 2006). Thank you, Google Books. Must read the rest of it.

Oswald has already used the following simile from this scene, in which Menelaus & Meriones are compared to mules, dragging a heavy log from a mountain. But the Trojans and the battle they bring are fire engulfing them like a city; and of course like the fire that is going to engulf their city as a result of the death of Patroclus, because now Achilles is going to kill Hector, and after that, all falls. I must take a look at how many of the similes she uses are drawn from the fight around the body of Patroclus, the one whose death is the most greatly mourned of all, if you measure by "causing more deaths that are described in the Iliad". Beginning to wonder if where I started - that the whole Iliad can be read as a lament for Hector - was a misreading, and actually it can all be read as a lament for Patroclus, from which Hector's death (among others) results.

I am stunned as always by the brilliance of Oswald's retranslation. Here's a literal translation:

And the battle was stretched against them savage as fire
That rushing on a city of men rising up suddenly burns it up, and the houses diminish
in a great blaze; and the force of the wind makes it roar.

Now here's Oswald (p. 32):

Like fire with its loose hair flying rushes through the city
The look of unmasked light shocks everything to rubble
And flames howl through the gaps

So why this simile here? I think because she talks about Archeptolemos' absence, and then moves to the gaps in the walls caused by the fire, and the flame roars through the gaps; Archeptolemos' death is one of the gaps that's been created by the fire/war, and we can see the war through the gap in the defenses he's left behind. I think.

(Thinking about this next morning): The flame has fed on Archeptolemos, and can now burn even hotter and brighter, because it's been fed by his death, and because he is not there to help defend against it; so there's a gap in the wall for the fire to get in. But this is all in Homer too, whom I am daily appreciating more.

(After conversation with Lauren) Completely missed the coolest thing about this simile: the "loose hair flying" rushing through the city is an image of a woman in mourning; the "unmasked light" is the anakalupsis of the bride. The fire, like a woman in mourning, like a bride whose husband is lost, rushes through the city, howling. And so Oswald reintroduces women, and mourning women, into a part of Homer that only has men.

a simile was left in place!

Statue of Teucer by Sir William Hamo Thornycroft (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Oswald lists the 8 Trojans killed by Teucer in the same order Homer does, with rather less focus on Teucer and no mention of Ajax' name; then moves to Gorgythion, and this is the first place where she uses a simile that Homer uses of the same person Homer uses it for. But it is so perfect it's not surprising; and it is used of the sort of character that interests Oswald, that is, one who is never mentioned before or after. Teucer is aiming at Hector, misses, and hits Gorgythion, "someone's darling son", in the breast. Homer tells us his father was Priam and his mother Kastianeira, but Oswald doesn't follow her practice until now and record the mother's name. She moves on to the simile:

8.306-308 μήκων δ’ ὡς ἑτέρωσε κάρη βάλεν, ἥ τ’ ἐνὶ κήπῳ
καρπῷ βριθομένη νοτίῃσί τε εἰαρινῇσιν,
ὣς ἑτέρωσ’ ἤμυσε κάρη πήληκι βαρυνθέν

As a poppy in bloom in a garden drops its head to one side,

weighed down by the spring rain,

so his head sank down, weighed down by his helmet

(my translation: Oswald's is much better).

Really one thing reading Oswald so carefully is doing for me is renewing my appreciation of Homer. This passage can't be matched; it's perfect; and it's thrown away, in Homer, on a redshirt, on someone we will never hear of again. In Oswald, that's the whole point; the similes are not thrown away, but pointedly attached to the redshirts, the ones that otherwise went unmourned. But here she and Homer agree; Gorgythion should be remembered too.

The article I've linked below is thoughtful and interesting, and reminds me why I should stop reading only for historical and social context, as I tend to, because it's easy.