NEGLECTED WARNINGS IN THE ILIAD: A STUDY IN CHARACTERIZATION by W. Gerald Heverly B.A., Pennsylvania State University, 1984 M.A., University of Pittsburgh, 1998 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2013 1 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by W. Gerald Heverly It was defended on March 6, 2013 and approved by Dennis Looney, PhD, Professor, Department of French and Italian Andrew Miller, PhD, Professor Emeritus, Department of Classics Mae Smethurst, PhD, Professor, Department of Classics Dissertation Advisor: Edwin Floyd, PhD, Professor, Department of Classics ii Copyright © by W. Gerald Heverly 2013 iii NEGLECTED WARNINGS IN THE ILIAD: A STUDY IN CHARACTERIZATION W. Gerald Heverly, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2013 A neglected warning is a narrative sequence consisting of three moves: a credible warning is issued, the recipient disregards it, and he suffers some calamity as a result. Neglected warnings are common in folklore and literature. They have been studied closely in Herodotus, Thucydides, and Sophocles, but not in Homer. The little that has been said about neglected warnings in his poetry focuses on the recurring traits of warners and recipients and lacks consensus. Attempting to remedy the situation, this dissertation systematically investigates how the Iliad’s twelve neglected warnings help characterize members of both groups. Warners and recipients turn out to be distinct character types. All the examples feature a warner who is male, wise, old, actively benevolent, and sympathetic. Furthermore, warners are very often paternal or prophetic. Sometimes one or more attributes are insinuated by the poet rather than being literally true. Recipients, by contrast, are always young men who are selfishly ambitious, bold, and reckless. Thus, a strong contrast in characterization obtains across examples. In addition, Homer consistently pairs one warner with one recipient, and recipients frequently recover in some way from the disasters that they provoke. These conclusions augment or correct existing observations about the neglected warning pattern in Homer. The results also support a previously unsubstantiated claim that it derives from folklore. Specifically, the Iliad’s warners correspond to a stock character in folktales known as the Wise Old Man. For their part, neglectful recipients closely resemble the type of iv the disobedient hero, which occurs especially in cautionary tales. Some widely attested folktale plots are built around interaction between a Wise Old Man figure and a disobedient hero who experiences misfortune by disregarding the elder’s advice. The overall scenario may well have been incorporated into the Greek poetic tradition, serving as a basis for the standard features of neglected warnings in the Iliad. Directions for further research are suggested. v TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE ...................................................................................................................................VII I. INTRODUCTION ...........................................................................................................1 II. WARNINGS NEGLECTED BY AGAMEMNON .....................................................15 III. WARNINGS NEGLECTED BY ACHILLES …………………………………….....40 IV. WARNINGS NEGLECTED BY PATROCLUS…………………………………......63 V. WARNINGS NEGLECTED BY HECTOR ……………………………………..…..84 VI. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS ………………………………………..……....105 BIBLIOGRAPHY .......................................................................................................................121 vi PREFACE It is a pleasure to acknowledge the many people who helped make this dissertation possible. First, I wish to thank my supervisor, Professor Edwin Floyd, for his invaluable advice, kindness, and dedication to working with me remotely. I am grateful to the other members of my committee as well, Professors Dennis Looney, Andrew Miller, and Mae Smethurst. Their helpful suggestions and encouragement have meant much. Others at the University of Pittsburgh have also been generous with their time. They include Elizabeth Conforti, the Classics Department’s administrator; Professor D. Mark Possanza, chairman of the department during the final years of my studies; and Professors John Lyon and Bruce Venarde, each of whom discussed aspects of the project with me. In addition, I am indebted to a number of family members, friends, and colleagues. For their support I thank Walter, Myrtle, George, and Heather Heverly; my friends Fayçal Bouguir, Mary Catherine Johnsen, and Damien Scheuerman; and my colleagues Evelyn Ehrlich, Dawn Lawson, Andrew Lee, and Michael Stoller. Besides encouraging me, Susan Dudash, Diana Greene, Jeanne Krochalis, and John Tofanelli all served as valuable sounding boards from time to time. Most of the dissertation was researched and written during a year-long sabbatical. I am grateful to my employer, New York University, Division of Libraries, for that opportunity. vii I. INTRODUCTION A neglected warning is a narrative sequence consisting of three moves: a warning is issued, the recipient disregards it, and he suffers some sort of calamity as a result. Neglected warnings occur frequently in literature and folklore.1 A well-known example is the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. As Vergil relates it, Orpheus is instructed not to look back at Eurydice while they make their way from the underworld. Overcome by passion, he forgets the warning, looks, and loses her forever.2 The Iliad has a dozen disregarded warnings. The aim of this dissertation is to study how they contribute to characterization. What traits of advisors do neglected warnings illuminate? What traits of recipients? Are the characteristics of each group similar across examples, or do they vary? These and related matters will be addressed. Before the investigation can begin, though, it is necessary to review scholarship about warnings in Homer, account for the selection of examples to be examined, and briefly discuss the values of Homeric society in relation to giving and receiving advice. An overview of the dissertation’s remaining chapters will complete this introduction. 1 On neglected warnings in folklore, see Propp, Morphology of the Folktale, 26-28; Lüthi, European Folktale, 75-76; and Tatar, Off With Their Heads!, 22-42. On such episodes in drama, see Polti, Thirty- Six Dramatic Situations, 61-64. Although these writers use their own terms for the neglected warning sequence, all describe a narrative structure that amounts to the same thing. Given the overall familiarity of folklorists and literary scholars with disregarded warnings, it is surprising that nobody from either group has produced a general study of the topic. 2 Georgics 4.485-98. 1 Given the general frequency of neglected warnings, it is not surprising that they are well represented in Greek literature. Such warnings have, in fact, been the focus of investigation in several authors. Herodotus has attracted the most attention.3 The pattern has also been studied in Thucydides and Sophocles.4 When it comes to Homer, however, scholars have little to say about disregarded warnings, and they agree on even less. The most that the literature affords is brief remarks on selected warnings, in studies devoted to other matters. Nevertheless, the little that has been said is helpful background for the present study and will be now be summarized. Probably the first to comment explicitly on the neglected warning pattern in Homer is Bischoff. Although he is primarily concerned with the pattern’s manifestations in Herodotus, he devotes several pages to its Homeric antecedents. Bischoff recognizes that neglected warnings have their characteristic threefold structure in Homer. In addition, he generalizes that Homeric warners are wise elders, who are no longer able to fight, while those whom they caution are young, impulsive men.5 Unfortunately this account exaggerates. In the Iliad alone there are three counterexamples. Achilles, who is younger than Patroclus, warns his friend not to fight all the way to Troy. Patroclus does not heed the warning and is killed by Hector. Similarly, Poulydamas, who is the same age as Hector, warns the Trojan chief on two different occasions to retreat. Hector ignores the warning each time, and each time a massacre of the Trojans ensues. It is not always the case, then, that disregarded warners in Homer are literally older than those whom they caution, let alone elderly. 3 Highlights include Bischoff, Der Warner bei Herodot; Lattimore, “Wise Adviser in Herodotus”; and more recently Shapiro, Role of Advice in Herodotus’ “Histories.” 4 On neglected warnings in Thucydides, see Hunter, Thucydides the Artful Reporter, 123-48; Marinatos, “Nicias as a Wise Advisor”; and Pelling, “Thucydides' Archidamus and Herodotus' Artabanus.” Lardinois, “Traces of the Adviser Figure” discusses neglected warnings in Sophocles. 5 See Bischoff, Der Warner bei Herodot, 1-5. 2 Fenik is also aware of neglected warnings. In a chapter on divine anger in the Odyssey, he notes that Aegisthus, Odysseus’s crew, and the suitors all receive credible warnings that they neglect to their great detriment. For Fenik, the examples illustrate the “motif of wise advice disregarded.”6 What this expression designates, of course, is the neglected warning pattern. In addition to identifying its threefold structure, Fenik observes that