CHAPTER FOUR

THE BATTLE IN THE RIVER

Iris' speech to Achilles in 18.175-7 and Achilles' brief remarks of 18.334-5 provide intimations of the violence of the mutilation theme in the coming books. Hector's death is the culmination of that violence, but it is preceded by the battle in the river in book 21. The mutilation theme is especially prominent here and forms an essential part of that progression into increasing savagery which we have seen in the narrative since book 16. Achilles gloats over the refusal of proper burial to his enemies. This motif occurs elsewhere too (cf. 11.452-5, 15.349-51); but in the later books, as it begins to focus on Hector, it gains in pathos and grimness. "Your mother will not put you upon the bier and lament over you," Achilles tells Lycaon, "but the whirling Scamander will bear you to the sea's broad bosom" (21.123-5). 1 He goes on to speak with grim relish of the fish devouring the "shiny fat" (&pye-rix ~1)µ6v) of Lycaon's body (21.126-7):

6pIliad, also in connection with mutilation: it is when Patroclus cries out in agonized compassion and concern for the Greek leaders in n.818.2 In both cases the phrase adds special intensity and vividness, but for very different purposes. Patroclus' gentleness and pity have become the gall of the raging Achilles. A little later Achilles kills Asteropaeus and leaves the body lying in the sand. "This the eels and fishes attended to, pulling and tearing off the fat about the kidneys" (21.203-4):

1 McFarland (above, p. 11, note 1) 191 calls the Lycaon scene "the most brutal act of violence performed by the poem's central figure, Achilles," See also Friedrich (above, p. II, note 2) 100-2; W. Marg, "KampfundTod in der Ilias," DieAntike 18 (1942) 175-6. 2 For some interesting speculation about the formula cipyhix 37lµ6v and its relation to the theme of sacrifice of the twelve Trojan youths see Nagler (above, p. 6, note I) p. 297, note 50. THE BATTLE IN THE RIVER 31

't'OV µev lip' ErJ}.Auec., Te: xoct tx8ue:c., ocµqie:1tevov-ro, 81jµov epe:1t-r6µe:voL emve:qipl8LOV xe:lpovnc.,. These lines take us deeper into violence than the death of Lycaon just before. This mutilation is no longer given as a threat in a speech: it is now a matter of factual reality. The feeders here are not merely fish, as in the Lycaon passage, but eels as well. They do not only "lick the blood from the wound" (21.123), but "bite" (epe:1t-r6µe:voL) and "tear" (xe:lpovnc.,) the fat over the kidneys (204). The grim anatomical detail of 81jµov ... emve:qipl8rnv (only here in Homer) replaces the formulaic "shining fat." The two participles, epe:1t-r6µe:voL and xe:(pov-re:c.,, reinforce one another. The absence of a connective and the skillful word order of 204 (noun-participle­ adjective-participle) emphasize the energy of the eager scavengers. The whole of the battle in the river constitutes, in fact, a massive enlargement of the mutilation theme. The bodies of Lycaon and Asteropaeus devoured by fish and eels are but specific instances of the fate which befalls all those nameless Trojans whose bodies choke the Scamander's "lovely streams" (cf. 21.218, 238). When the Scamander charges that Achilles "is doing evil to excess" (1te:pt 8' oc'lauAoc pe~e:Lc., 21.214), we may assume that he means not merely the killing of the men, but the outrage to their bodies as well. The formula ocfouAoc pe~e:Lv is used of especially violent acts which flout accepted limits and norms. In 5.403 it describes Heracles' shooting of the gods, and in the Odyssey it occurs in the indignant speeches of Mentor and Athena accusing the suitors of unrighteous behavior (Od. 2.232= 5.10). In Iliad 20.202 and 433 the word ocfouAoc is combined with xe:p-roµlocc., in the battle speeches of Aeneas and Hector. The battle in the river brings the corpse theme to a new pitch of horror in two ways. First, not just dogs and vultures devour the corpses, as is so often threatened in the Iliad, but eels and fish, and the mutilation is actually a fact, not just a remote threat. Second, the outrage of corpses reaches a scale hitherto unprecedented in the poem. It involves not just an isolated warrior or two, but numbers vast enough to impede the river's flow. Another detail of this theme in the book is indicative of the scale and intensity to which the corpse theme is expanded. Early in the book Achilles in pursuit of the Trojans is compared to a dolphin "eating up" (xoc-re:0"8le:L) whatever smaller fishes he can catch (21.22-4):