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The Ignorance of Antilochus
L. H. Allen
The Classical Review / Volume 34 / Issue 1-2 / February 1920, pp 6 - 10 DOI: 10.1017/S0009840X00013226, Published online: 27 October 2009
Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009840X00013226
How to cite this article: L. H. Allen (1920). The Ignorance of Antilochus. The Classical Review, 34, pp 6-10 doi:10.1017/S0009840X00013226
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Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR, IP address: 138.251.14.35 on 07 May 2015 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW removed for the non-imperative use of 91 "T/jufivaov et al. In the same line Sevre, Bavre, or Bij^re to mean ' hither '; KaxdvOrjv is accusative of Kcneavdr)?, like and so both here and in Theocr. n. 22. XpyaavBrp, iroXvavdqs, Trop THE IGNORANCE OF ANTILOCHUS. A STUDY IN INTERPOLATION. WE should be grateful indeed if some sciously started at the gibe. Result, beneficent fairy could unroll for us a explosions from the audience. mental cinematograph-film, showing us Of the two I confess I prefer the old- the different interpolators of Homer at fashioned style ; for the piece is a little work, and disclosing their thoughts and poem of itself, and I prefer to sacrifice motives in the process. We to-day have realism to poetry rather than poetry to studied the art of analysis to a nicety, realism. I believe that a Greek would and it often causes us to misunderstand have listened in this spirit of detachment the art of interpolation. Accustomed to such a piece as the weeping of to dissection, we are apt to expect that Achilles' horses. It might delay the the interpolator, before inserting his action of the battle; it might be a piece, went through the same rigid piece of sentiment out of place. But process as we do. This is not always it was moving in itself and subdued the case. A particular gem must have criticism. If a rhapsode had omitted it, sometimes demanded its way into the popular clamour would probably have whole by popular applause, and it would demanded its restoration. have been listened to uncritically for its There are, however, other interpola- intrinsic beauty. A good instance of tions which considerably affect the our change in habit of mind appears in action, which must have demanded the present stage-rendering of famous some acute analysis before insertion, Shakesperean passages and that of a and which evidence remarkable skill in. generation ago. An elderly acquaintance smoothing, if they fail to obliterate, of mine has told me that in his youth a inconsistencies. The presence of a speech like ' All the world's a stage ' contradiction by no means infers lack of would be spoken by the star, detached dexterity. Let any modern try to insert from the action of the play, and simply the story of Cain and Abel into reciting to the audience. On the other Paradise Lost. If he could deceive hand, when: I saw Mr. Oscar Asche in an acute man hunting for difficulties the character of Jaques, he took after his tenth reading of the poem he elaborate measures to assimilate this would be clever indeed. For we must speech to the action and atmosphere of remember that it is the acute manr the woodland scene. He spoke it hunting for difficulties, and not the sitting at a rustic table and eating an ordinary reader, who finds them. apple. At the reference to the 'lean The Patrokleia, or more properly and slippered pantaloon' he pointed speaking, the original fight and death meaningly to a Guy - Fawkes - like of Patroclus, is a centre-point in the character, obviously dressed, to make great contest, and was bound to receive this piece of business, who self-con- additions. Xi we are content to expect THE CLASSICAL REVIEW certain inconsistencies arising from Originally there was one dead man— their insertion, we shall be struck with Patroclus; and Euphorbus, though admiration at the skill in the inter- very useful to the self-esteem of the weaving. We shall be convinced that Greeks when alive, simply becomes a the authors of the main expansions had nuisance when dead, and is obliterated an adequate view of the general frame- in summary fashion. work and were able to justify their Little cracks and fissures thus appear, work by the choice of sufficient but the wonder is that there are so few. motives. More have been found in abundance, I One growing idea was behind the know, but many are existent only in main drift of certain interpolations—the hypercritical brains. Let any modern belittlement of Hector. In the ages poet, I say again, determine to insert a nearer to the Trojan war the Achaean lengthy Biblical episode into Paradise chiefs could give the dues of chivalry to Lost; let him do it under the spell of a greatly fallen foe. In the original inspiration, and he will find the rivetting Menis Hector alone slays Patroclus, work amazingly troublesome. stripping him of his arms. As the war For the bards of these particular receded into the dimness of time, the episodes certainly were under the spell Greek bards increased the glory of of inspiration. They had worked them- their national chieftains at the expense selves into the situations and were of the Trojans. Thus it is that Hector faithful to the characteristics of the becomes merely a third-hand slayer of heroes. Patroclus. This is evident enough in the main, It was this idea which introduced the but I take occasion here to defend a Euphorbus episode and the donning of passage in which this is questioned— Achilles* armour by Patroclus. where Hector dons the armour of If one reads the story with the Achilles (XVII. 140 ff.). ' It is some- excitement and hurry of battle in his what startling to find Hector, after his mind, the traces of these insertions will great promises, and his appeal to not be glaringly apparent. There is an Glaucus to stand by his side and amazing verve and continuity in the watch, suddenly leaving the field of narrative such as would carry a battle.1 Such is the verdict of Leaf. rhapsode clear through with an audience. But consider the circumstances, and Yet the traces are there. For instance, it is not startling. Glaucus is a thorough even in the Sarpedon-episode, which has grumbler; he does not seem to have very little to do with the belittling of his heart in the fight, or, in fact, Hector, somebody has made a slip. in the war. He is concerned to Zeus, as he gazes down at the fight over keep Hector alive to the kindness of the fallen Lycian, considers whether the Lycians in coming to Troy at all. he will allow Hector there and then to So, in XVI. 538, he chides Hector few slay Patroclus and strip him of his armour neglecting his allies, and seems to (XVI. 650). Here is a vestige of the regard him as responsible for Sarpedon's original story, but it has been forgotten death. Now, too, the old grudge is that Apollo is to do this for Hector. fresh, and he even threatens to withdraw Moreover, though we are told that his men. Hector is readily responsive Apollo did so in XVI. 804, yet at to an appeal to Ms chivalry, and Ms XVII. 125 we find that Hector did it. reply shows how deeply his senge of So, too,the introduction of Euphorbus honour is% stung. It consists of the leads to a confusion between his armour defence that Zeus is against him, add and that of Patroclus. When Hector ends with a curt command to Glaucus hears that Euphorbus is killed by to stand at his side and see what he wiH Menelaus, he sees the victor, as he da. searches the lines, stripping Euphorbus It is a good phrase, i8e epyov; it of his armour (XVII. 84-85). When he means that Hector is too moved and too hurries up to engage Menelaus, the proud to say more. A sudden idea has latter draws back, regretting that he seized him. Zeus may be against bint, must leave Patroclus and his armour (91). but he will thwart the Thunderer by 8 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW donning the magic armour. Glaucus clus' body, despatches* Menelaus to will not have long to wait; he will soon advise Antilochus of Patroclus' death, be back in double vigour. with the request that he convey the As he rallies back to the fight, he news to Achilles, in the hope of rousing shows what point in Glaucus' speech him to revenge (XVII. 652 ff.). This stung him. Rushing to his allies he seems to have aroused in our Cementer says, in effect, ' Into the fray with you! nothing beyond the academic question— Troy doesn't keep and feed her allies ' Why was Antilochus ignorant of for the pleasure of it!' The reply is Patroclus' death ?' not made to Glaucus in person; it is To be sure, one might reasonably simply hurled at the allies in general; conclude that so significant an event but it is not a natural retort to the taunt must have become quickly known still burning within him that he does not throughout all the army. Antilochus jip his duty by his allies ? The idea of was clearly ignorant of it, as is seen remissness in knightly duty is above all from the effect the news has on him things abhorrent to Hector; The retort (694 ff.). he makes is neither chivalrous nor just; Our bard set about explaining the but the chivalrous, when undeservedly matter. His respect for the traditional touched on a point of honour, often are Homer led him to conclude ^that if unjust. Homer said Antilochus was ig'norant, Now the writer of this part had to then he was, strange'though it appeared. provide a motive for Hector's donning- There must be a reason, and that reason of Achilles' armour. He might have he found in the miraculous cloud round made Hector do it through sheer Patroclus' body. cowardice, or through vain-glory,, the It was a stupendous piece of motive cynically given him by Shakes- machinery to invent for the solution of peare when he chases, in Troilus and this trivial point. He viewed it as a Cressida, that phantom pomp of logician, but he tried to answer it as a armour to his bane/ Or again, the poet. Alas, poetry born of logic has bard might have had a different taunt made Ossa like a wart! hurled at Hector. Some warrior might However, he was not so bold as to have told him that he could not work plume himself on actually correcting the havoc Patroclus caused because he Homer. He persuaded himself that was not man enough to wear Achilles' the- miracle was there ready to hand. armour. He does none of these weaker His task was merely to make explicit things. Instead, he produces a natural what Homer had implied. and convincing effect by studying his Had not Zeus shaken his aegis over characters. the field, causing darkness ? (XVII. . To the interpolators who were really 593). Does not Ajax plead to the poets weowe our gratitude and reverence. Thunderer to raise it ? (645)1 If' the They were, in fact, not interpolators darkness was sent by Zeus of set but co-builders. For an interpolator is purpose to confound the . Achaeans, properly an intruder, a botcher tricking must it not have been miraculous ? out a • noble fabric with tasteless orna- But it is not said that the darkness ment, or cementing fissures in the was confined to the fight round honest stone. The tedious simile in the Patroclus; and the bard now proceeds second of the so-called false starts to read it into the text. (XVII. 384-399) is an instance of the He notices that indistinctness of first process: the first false start, vision is mentioned by Menelaus and (XVII. 366-383) is an instance^ of the Ajax alone, ie., only by warriors fighting cement-work. round Patroclus. He fails to remark, or With this cement-work I shall deal. wishes to ignore, the fact that Menelaus Its author, the Cementer, must have does not allege the same cause for it as been a dull fellow, given to logic rather than poetry: and it was with a logical 1 It is impossible to agree with Leaf that the eye that he read the great passage where aqp complained of by Ajax is merely a cloud of Ajax, weary with fighting over Patro- dust THE CLASSICAL REVIEW Ajax does. Menelaus, urging on his crude, if genuine, feeling of awe. It is comrades, addresses them indiscrimin- merely to explain the sad case of ately, because 'hard is it for me to Antilochus because, as he proceeds, he distinguish each chief amid the press— adds new reasons for his ignorance. such blaze .is there of the strife of war' 'And they ceased fighting now and (XVII. 252). This the Cementer attri- again, avoiding each other's dolorous butes to the dimness caused by the cloud, darts and standing far apart. But they since he misreads the closely preceding who were in the midst endured affliction remark of Ajax to Menelaus that he because of the darkness and the battle, and fears for the lives of them both because all the best men of them were wearied by ' a cloud of war covers everything' the pitiless weight of their bronze arms. (243)1. Homer, of course, meant Yet two men, Thrasymedes and nothing more than a cloud of warriors, Antilochus, knew not yet that noble but the unimaginative one takes the Patroclus was dead, but deemed that he expression literally. _ was yet alive and fighting against the He argues, therefore, that complaint Trojans in the forefront of the press. ' of 'low visibility' arises only from the So they twain in watch against the space round Patroclus, because the death or flight of their comrades were cloud was there and nowhere else. doing battle apart from the rest, since This, then, was the cause of thus had Nestor charged when he roused Antilochus'ignorance. Being in another them forth to the battle from the black part of the field, he could not see what ships.' was going on round the fiercest point. Thus not only did the,cloud intervene, Fortified with these conclusions, he but Antilochus was on the outer edge launches at 366 into his account of the of a scattered and desultory combat—in confined darkness. fact, as far as possible from the scene How poor a poetic motive this was is round Patroclus. seen from the work of still another It is very bad. The underlined bard. This second man supplied at words are mere padding, unless they 268 a richer motive. Accepting the are meant to contrast the closeness of miracle, he adds that Zeus thus con- the central fight with the scattered cealed Patroclus in the cloud because nature of the rest of the field. Even he wished to protect him from Trojan thus, this go-as-you-please engagement desecration. ' But in the Cementer's is mere bathos. work it is plain that nothing but the His too curious logical faculty is low visibility was in his mind, because truly unfortunate for him, since it nothing but the ignorance of Antilochus preserves him neither from vagueness concerned him. nor carelessness. Antilochus' .com- Let us now look at the interpolation. panion was not Thrasymedes but * Then strove they as it had been fire, Laodocus (699), while Thrasymedes nor wouldst thou have thought that came up to take Antilochus' place after there was still sun or moon, for over he had left (705). Moreover,.for all all the battle where the chiefs stood his anxiety to repair Homer's omissions, around the slain son of Menoitios they he has not told ds where Antilochus were shrouded in darkness, while the was. As for Nestor's injunction, it is a other Trojans and well - greaved mere ineptitude. Achaeans fought at ease in the clear And the irony of the matter is that air, and piercing sunlight was spread the poetry born of logic is wrong, while over them, and on all the earth and the logic born of poetry is right. There hills there was no cloud seen.' was no fissure at all; the cement was The supernatural character of this not needed. Homer had in his eye a cloud is not exaggerated through any perfectly consistent picture of the darkness, the circumstances, and the battlefield. . * The line following—' Hector, and sheer doom stareth in our face '—is, as Leaf remarks, Cutting out the foreign body, simply a gloss to explain the expression,' cloud Homer's version runs thus: of war.' 'There has fallen over the whole 10 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW battlefield a dark cloud, such as often was very handy for a message to rises in that sultry latitude. It is super- Achilles, for besides being a swift natural only as coming from Zeus to runner, he was at the point of the battle- v accomplish a special design. It field nearest the ships. naturally obscures distant objects, and Under the circumstances pictured by Ajax' prayer for light infers nothing Homer, there is nothing remarkable in more. He cannot afford a messenger the ignorance of Antilochus. He has to Achilles from the press around him, no talk of lazy fighting straggling out since things go hard with the Greeks. to the fringes of the field. Menelaus He wishes he could descry Antilochus, finds Antilochus in the thick of it, but the murk forbids it. He asks urging on his men. Like a good leader Menelaus to find him, and Menelaus, he is fully occupied in holding his own, leaving the contest, searches acutely and as he gives a hurried glance down (the sharpness of his spying is empha- the field, and dimlysees under the cloudy sised) until he finds Antilochus. sky the bending line of the Greeks, he Where was he ? On the left of the hurls himself the more fiercely into hold- the whole fight, quite distant enough to ing the ford. Homer sees quite well offer difficulties to one who scanned the that Antilochus would have noticed that stormy gloom. Why was he there ? something was wrong, for Menelaus We are not directly told, but as Ajax speaks to him in exactly that strain— had come from there to assist Menelaus ' Antilochus, you must have seen of (XVII. 116 ff.), and as Thrasymedes yourself, as you cast your eye along, was sent to succeed Antilochus, it is that God rolls waves of woe upon the legitimate to infer that Antilochus Greeks,' he says, before he tells him supplied the place of Ajax. how dire a calamity has befallen. For the left of the battle was a key The whole picture is true and con- position. It was north of Troy, holding sistent just because Homer was con- the ford and securing the Achaean versant with every part of it. He has retreat. The Cementer may have not laboured every point because his meant to indicate that Thrasymedes and silences have such obvious replies. Antilochus were at this spot when he But our logical friend, just because he says that they were ' in watch against did not see the picture clearly, has the death or flight of their comrades' forced Homer's silence into the (i.e. were ready to secure the retreat). monstrous. But he is not half so clear as Homer, L. H. ALLEN. for the 'left of the whole battle' is at once intelligible. Coming from this Royal Military College, Duntroon, point himself, Ajax might have guessed Federal Territory, where Antilochus was. At any rate, he Australia. THE DEUS EX MACHINA IN EURIPIDES. IT has long ago been pointed out his Manuel des Etudes Grecques et Latines that the use of the deus ex machina by (II. 224), ' Apres des peripeties souvent Euripides has been the cause of a good fortuites le denoument se fait par un deal of misunderstanding,1 but in spite deus ex machinal In face of this it may of the more enlightened critics, the be well to attempt to clear up the misunderstanding is still glibly repeated, whole question, for there can be no as by Laurand as recently as 1914 in doubt that some ancient dramatists did misuse the contrivance, and it figures 1 E.g. by Haigh : 'The use of this contrivance more frequently in the extant plays of in Euripides has been much misrepresented by Euripides than anywhere else. the critics. It has generally been described as That it was commonly misused is the last resort of an unskilful dramatist, when he is unable to find any other solution for sufficiently attested by (1) Cicero, De the complexities of the plot.'—Tragic Drama Natura Deorum I. xx. 53, .' Quod quia of the Greeks, p. 245. quern ad modum natura efficere sine