Gentle Reproach: Hektor's Hortatory and Goading

Home , Asteropaios, Automedon, Dolops, Iphitos, Meriones (mythology)

GENTLE REPROACH: HEKTOR’S HORTATORY AND GOADING REBUKES IN THE

ILIAD

DAVID F. DRISCOLL

(Under the Direction of Nancy Felson)

ABSTRACT

Hortatory and goading rebukes in the Iliad are distinct in terms of their speech situations and their conventional scripts. Each speech genre attempts to change its target’s behavior, but by different means. Effective hortatory rebukes use praise and intimacy to suggest an alternative mode of behavior, while effective goading rebukes draw upon other speech genres and aim to intimidate. The Iliadic poet shapes his figures’ rebukes to help sustain their characterization throughout the poem.

Hektor’s distinctive hortatory and goading rebukes particularly reflect his individual gentle nature. While the Trojan hero learns to harness this predilection to his advantage in his hortatory rebukes, his goading rebukes remain strikingly weakened by his attempts to bond with his opponents, especially the undefeatable Achilles.

INDEX WORDS: Rebukes, rebuking, criticism, speech genres, Iliad , Homer, Hektor, Hector, intimate speech, aganophrosune.

GENTLE REPROACH: HEKTOR’S HORTATORY AND GOADING REBUKES IN THE

ILIAD

DAVID F. DRISCOLL

B.A., Grinnell College, 2008

A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

MASTER OF ARTS

ATHENS, GEORGIA

2010

David F. Driscoll

GENTLE REPROACH: HEKTOR’S HORTATORY AND GOADING REBUKES IN THE

ILIAD

DAVID F. DRISCOLL

Major Professor: Nancy Felson

Committee: Charles Platter Nicholas Rynearson

Electronic Version Approved:

Maureen Grasso Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia August 2010

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Pride of place in these acknowledgments belongs to Dr. Nancy Felson, who has generously and wisely guided this thesis from its inception through drafts of prospectuses and chapters too numerous to count. I owe her a great debt. The other members of my committee, Dr.

Charles Platter and Dr. Nicholas Rynearson, have steered me right through murky waters and saved me from many embarrassing errors. At the beginning of my investigations, Dr. Jenny

Strauss Clay helped me to begin to ask the right questions and to bring the work within a manageable compass. Dr. Zoe Stamatopoulou, both in and out of her class on Homer, and Dr.

Jared Klein have also provided good counsel. Throughout my travels this past spring, others kindly provided their own advice about my developing thesis, including Dr. Egbert Bakker, Dr.

Richard Martin, Dr. Kathryn Morgan, and Dr. Alex Purves.

Jesse Sawyer, Lauren McGowan, and Matt Ely liberally provided me space for books in their office and opportunities to escape from the pressures of work for a few minutes. Many of my peers have charitably listened and responded to my developing views: Derek Bast, Diana

Brown, Ludi Chow, Amanda Gregory, Julia Hernandez, Natalie Fort, Alex Hansen, Kyle

Khellaf, Hermanus Lemmer, Karen Marks, Kyle McGimsey, Elizabeth Parker, Jane Rayburn,

Maria Roberts, Zach Rider, Sheetal Sheth, Matt Wineski, Tony Yates, and others. My parents – former students of Latin themselves – have never failed to be supportive. My two brothers, like

Menelaus, always αὐτόματοί μοι ἦλθον· ἴσαν γὰρ κατὰ θυμὸν ἀδελφεὸν ὡς ἐπονεῖτο .

A final word of thanks goes to my teachers at Grinnell College: Dr. Edward Phillips, who guided me toward ancient epic in our readings of Vergil; Dr. Dennis Hughes, with whom I first

read Homer; Dr. Joseph Cummins, who introduced me to the richness of the Iliad in its original language; and Dr. Monessa Cummins, an unfailing source of good counsel and sound opinion.

All remaining errors remain, of course, my own.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS...... iv

INTRODUCTION...... 1

CHAPTER

1. ILIADIC GOADING REBUKES ...... 10

2. ILIADIC HORTATORY REBUKES ...... 34

3. HEKTOR’S GOADING AND HORTATORY REBUKES...... 44

CONCLUSION ...... 70

WORKS CITED...... 73

INTRODUCTION

At the beginning of Iliad 22, Hektor, having ignored the fervent pleas of his parents to reenter the city of Troy, stands outside the city wall awaiting Achilles. He appears to be confident, indeed unflappable. The narrator compares him to a poisonous snake curling around its hole, suggesting that he is prepared to fight the Achaean warrior. Yet his soliloquy reveals that he is plagued by doubts:

ὤ μοι ἐγών, εἰ μέν κε πύλας καὶ τείχεα δύω, Πουλυδάμας μοι πρῶτος ἐλεγχείην ἀναθήσει, ὅς μ' ἐκέλευε Τρωσὶ ποτὶ πτόλιν ἡγήσασθαι νύχθ' ὕπο τήνδ' ὀλοὴν ὅτε τ' ὤρετο δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς...

Oh god, if I pass through the gates and walls, Poulydamas will be the first to set a reproach upon me. He was ordering me to lead the Trojans to the city in the course of this cursed night, when 1 shining Achilles stirred... (22.99102) 2

Rather than face his brother’s rebuke, Hektor chooses to risk his life in an encounter with

Achilles. Here, Hektor demonstrates a sensitivity to criticism unusual among the Trojans and

Achaeans. More unusually, he betrays this sensitivity not only in his reaction to criticism but also in his issuing of criticism. In an attempt to illuminate his distinctive ways of delivering disapproval, I will first examine how characters generally express blame in the Iliad and only then examine what makes Hektor’s speech behavior unique.

1 Though τε following a relative often denotes habitual action in Homer, it does occasionally occur in strictly particular statements (Denniston 1996: 5213): e.g. ἤματι τῷ ὅτε τ' ἦλθον Ἀμαζόνες ἀντιάνειραι (3.189: “on the day when the Amazons, a match for men, came”). 2 All translations are my own.

As Adkins first determined, a single idea underlies the apparently diverse Homeric usages of νεικέω , which according to LSJ may signify ‘quarrel, wrangle with’ or ‘chide, rail at, upbraid.’ 3 Following his mentor E.R. Dodds, Adkins concludes that Homeric society is a

“resultsculture” and does not distinguish between moral errors and mistakes, or character and behavior; only the outcome is important. Therefore, mockery, abuse, and rebuke are not differentiated; rather, νεικέω signals “all types of disapproving speech,” used in any situation when a man has fallen short of society’s expectations. 4 Nagy places Adkins’ findings in a broader IndoEuropean context, arguing that this unity of negative speech reflects an Indo

European heritage of praise and blame poetry, reflected in later authors including Archilochus, 5 and that epic can incorporate blame poetry by putting instances of this distinctive genre in the mouths of characters. 6 Nagy in particular points to Thersites’ reproach of Agamemnon (2.225

242) as the most conspicuous example of blame poetry in the Iliad , showing how the poet labels his speech as blame poetry with such terms as ἔρις, ὄνειδος, κερτομέω, ἔλεγχος, λωβητήρ,

αἴσχιστος, ἔχθιστος, and notably νεῖκος .7 Modern English cannot label an instance of disapproving speech or blame poetry with any single word: for the sake of convenience, this thesis revives an obsolete sense of “rebuke,” namely “a shame, a disgrace; (also) an insult” 8

Martin, drawing upon the philosophers of language J. L. Austin and John Searle, sees the

νεῖκος as a particular speech genre similar to Germanic flyting. He was not the first to highlight similarities between Homeric and Germanic exchanges of insults. Earlier, Parks had proposed that the Homeric quarrels were similar to flyting , which he defined as an exchange of

3 LSJ s.v. νεικέω. 4 Adkins 1969: 20; Adkins 1960: 59n17. 5 Nagy 1999: 221252, esp. 222. 6 Nagy 1999: 2267 7 Nagy 1999: 2604. 8 OED s.v. “rebuke” 1b.

conventional boasts and insults between enemies in a conventional situation. 9 For Parks, flyting is only one stage in a type scene common to Homer and Beowulf of “flytingtofighting,” comprised of engagement, flyting, martial combat or athletic competition, and ritual resolution. 10

Although he does not mention Parks’ flytingtofighting pattern, Martin expands Parks’ analysis, arguing that many instances of the Homeric genre of the νεῖκος have important similarities with flyting.11 He sees the νεῖκος as simply a “boastandinsult” contest, a trading of verbal abuses, recognizable not only by the poet’s explicit marking but also by rhetorical conventions. 12 On these grounds, Martin interprets Agamemnon’s encouragement of the troops in Iliad 4 as consisting of such flyting exchanges. 13

Minchin attempts to integrate Martin’s analysis of the νεῖκος with Fenik’s analysis of rebukes by using insights from cognitive theory. She too considers the rebuke a particular speech genre but expands the criteria for its identification: both the introductory language of the narrator and the structure itself of the speech make the genre recognizable. In everyday conversation, a speech genre consists of a predictable set of steps necessary to perform any task. 14 Minchin modifies Fenik’s earlier claim that most rebukes and paraineses partake of a set tripartite structure:

(1) a strong reproach (2) description of the bad situation (3) a call to action 15

Minchin inserts a new step at the beginning of the sequence, thus offering a fourpart structure:

(1) address/emotional reaction/words of reproach

9 Parks 1986: 293. 10 Parks 1986: 297300. 11 Martin 1989: 68. 12 Martin 1989: 47. 13 Martin 1989: 6972. 14 Minchin 2007: 447. 15 Fenik 1968: 120.

(2) an account of the problem (3) a generalization about appropriate action or a view of the undesirable action from a broader perspective (4) a proposal for amends: a call for new action on the part of the addressee 16

Minchin ascribes this scheme to five rebukes from the Iliad and two from the Odyssey.

As it turns out, the descriptions by Martin and Minchin suit some rebukes better than others. Homeric blame poetry does not always entail an agonistic contest between speakers played according to set rules. Sometimes a speaker hurls a vehement rebuke at another without expecting or receiving a reply, as in Andromache’s fearful vision of her orphaned son’s future mistreatment, when she imagines a more fortunate child beating Astyanax and commanding him to leave the feast:

τὸν δὲ καὶ ἀμφιθαλὴς ἐκ δαιτύος ἐστυφέλιξε χερσὶν πεπλήγων καὶ ὀνειδείοισιν ἐνίσσων· “ἔρρ' οὕτως· οὐ σός γε πατὴρ μεταδαίνυται ἡμῖν.” δακρυόεις δέ τ' ἄνεισι πάϊς ἐς μητέρα χήρην...

And a child with both parents drove him away from the feast, beating him with his hands and rebuking him with abuse: “Get away! Your father does not feast with us.” And in tears the child will go back to his widowed mother... (22.4969)

Astyanax’s rebuker does not engage his victim in a verbal contest: he does not expect him to deliver a reply. Instead, he disapproves of Astyanax’s behavior and successfully humiliates him, so that in Andromache’s vision Astyanax leaves weeping. Such a rebuke can hardly be understood as an example of flyting, despite the poet’s labels of ὀνειδείοισιν ἐνίσσων

(“rebuking him with abuse”).

Similarly, Priam’s rebuke to the Trojans cannot be analyzed according to Minchin’s pattern:

16 Minchin 2007: 28.

ὃ δὲ Τρῶας μὲν ἅπαντας αἰθούσης ἀπέεργεν ἔπεσσ' αἰσχροῖσιν ἐνίσσων· “ἔρρετε λωβητῆρες ἐλεγχέες· οὔ νυ καὶ ὑμῖν οἴκοι ἔνεστι γόος, ὅτι μ' ἤλθετε κηδήσοντες; ἦ ὀνόσασθ' ὅτι μοι Κρονίδης Ζεὺς ἄλγε' ἔδωκε παῖδ' ὀλέσαι τὸν ἄριστον; ἀτὰρ γνώσεσθε καὶ ὔμμες· ῥηΐτεροι γὰρ μᾶλλον Ἀχαιοῖσιν δὴ ἔσεσθε κείνου τεθνηῶτος ἐναιρέμεν. αὐτὰρ ἔγωγε πρὶν ἀλαπαζομένην τε πόλιν κεραϊζομένην τε ὀφθαλμοῖσιν ἰδεῖν βαίην δόμον Ἄϊδος εἴσω.”

And he [Priam] excluded all the Trojans from the courtyard, rebuking them with insulting words: “Go, you worthless fellows, deserving reproach. Don’t you have lamentation at home, [but you must not] since you have come in order to bring me pain? Have you made light of it, that the son of Kronos, Zeus, gave me cares, by killing my best son? But you too will know. For you will be much easier for the Achaeans to kill since that man is dead. But may I, before seeing the city both destroyed and laid waste with my eyes, go into the house of Hades.” (24.237246)

Though she labels this speech a rebuke, Minchin does not analyze it into its constituent parts. 17

Its first eight lines do indeed comprise a rebuke according to her scheme: Priam reproaches the

Trojans for mourning at his house and tells them to leave. The last six lines of the rebuke comprise the third element of Minchin’s scheme: they provide “a view of the undesirable action from a broader perspective,” as Priam tells the Trojans that they are inconsiderately bothering him with their cares while he is mourning his son 18 and implies that they too should mourn

Hektor. Minchin might analyze these lines as follows:

(4) a proposal for amends: new action on the part of the addressee ἔρρετε Go

17 Minchin 2007: 151. 18 Richardson 1993: 298 suggests that κηδήσοντες “in order to bring me pain” plays on κῆδος “grief:” in this interpretation, the Trojans are in the courtyard to grieve for Hektor, but their lament only troubles Priam. Such a position seems difficult to reconcile with Priam’s apparently separate complaint that the Trojans are making light of Hektor’s death.

(1) address/emotional reaction/words of reproach λωβητῆρες ἐλεγχέες you worthless fellows, deserving reproach.

(2) an account of the problem οὔ νυ καὶ ὑμῖν οἴκοι ἔνεστι γόος, ὅτι μ' ἤλθετε κηδήσοντες; Don’t you have lamentation at home, [but you must not] since you have come in order to bring me pain?

(3) a generalization about appropriate action or a view of the undesirable action from a broader perspective ἦ ὀνόσασθ' ὅτι μοι Κρονίδης Ζεὺς ἄλγε' ἔδωκε παῖδ' ὀλέσαι τὸν ἄριστον; ἀτὰρ γνώσεσθε καὶ ὔμμες· ῥηΐτεροι γὰρ μᾶλλον Ἀχαιοῖσιν δὴ ἔσεσθε κείνου τεθνηῶτος ἐναιρέμεν. Have you made light of it, that the son of Kronos, Zeus, gave me cares by killing my best son? But you too will know. For you will be much easier for the Achaeans to kill since that man is dead.

There is more to this example of a rebuke, as Minchin names it, than she allows. Even though her analysis accommodates some components of Priam’s rebuke, the king’s closing wish for his own death exceeds her scheme: rather than providing a reason for the Trojans not to bother him with their troubles, as in the third element of her scheme, it is simply a wish that he himself not witness the future that he prophesies. The limitation of Minchin’s scheme seen here suggests a broader problem with both her approach and that of Martin: their treatments of disapproving speech describe some rebukes well, but disapproving speech is too varied to yield to any single treatment.

This thesis, as it aims towards understanding Hektor’s character through an analysis of some of his critical language, proposes a more felicitous way of analyzing disapproving speech.

Rather than attempting to consider all rebukes, it undertakes an analysis of specific groups of rebukes. The rebukes that comprise each of these groups form a coherent set: in certain recurring

situations, characters deliver disapproving speeches that follow a pattern of set elements. These speeches belong to speech genres that possess some elements functionally motivated by their context and some that are arbitrary and conventional. 19

Two genres of disapproving speech are particularly relevant to the study of Hektor’s rebukes: those made to exhort a single ally who holds back from battle (“hortatory rebukes”), and those made on the battlefield as a challenge to a single opponent before or during an encounter (“goading rebukes”).20

In the first and second chapters of this thesis I show that examples of each of these genres are restricted to particular contexts, and that the effectiveness of each rebuke depends on its speaker’s knowledge of the genre’s conventions and ability to manipulate them. Examples of smaller speech genres in modern everyday life provide parallels. Since “no native speaker commands all the roles and knows all the scripts in a culture,” 21 speakers differ in their knowledge of and skill with speech genres. Effective speakers both demonstrate knowledge of the genre and find room for their imagination: the speech of supermarket cashiers, for example, is highly conventional, but cashiers succeed in drawing their customers into a brief conversation by showing “individuality, idiosyncrasy and even... a small measure of creativity.” 22 Like these real life speakers whom they are modeled after, Homeric characters vary in their knowledge and imaginative exploration of each speech genre, and so the speeches these different characters utter vary from one another but are members of a recognizable speech genre.

19 Kuiper 2009: 167. 20 These categories partially overlap with the “exhortations” and “challenge and vaunt” genres Beck analyzes (Beck 2005: 14991). Beck’s analysis complements the one undertaken in this thesis: while she largely examines the formulaic frames of the speeches and the patterns of speech sequences, this thesis analyzes how speakers manipulate the conventional pattern of each genre for efficacy. 21 Kuiper 2009: 24. 22 Kuiper 2009: 114.

In the first two chapters of this thesis, I explore characters’ individuality and creativity in their use of hortatory and goading rebukes. What makes speeches in each genre effective? How does the Homeric poet characterize his figures by displaying their skill with these genres? Do effective speakers abide by a script, or do they deviate from it? How do characters manage the irresolvable slight incompatibility between the formal model and the needs of the particular context? Who among the Iliad ’s characters are effective speakers, especially in terms of their hortatory and goading rebukes?

As I try to answer these questions, I make several simplifying assumptions. First, I pay more attention to what is said than who says it: that is to say, I assume that Homeric characters are persuaded more by the content and style of a speech than by the social position, appearance, or other external factors of the speaker. Such an assumption is partially supported by Antenor’s description of Odysseus’ speech at 3.216224: despite Antenor’s negative impression of

Odysseus’ appearance, Odysseus’ words are powerful enough on their own to daze Antenor and the other listeners. Moreover, to determine which speeches and strategies are effective, I often am forced to rely upon the poet’s infrequent and slight indicators, the target’s replies, and other indirect evidence. Reasonable critics might well think that there is a larger grey area between success and failure and that, in some cases, the poet does not provide enough evidence to judge a particular speech’s efficacy.

Drawing upon the conclusions reached in the first two chapters, in my third chapter I examine how Hektor’s goading and hortatory rebukes are shaped by his unique character. In his rebukes he borrows frequently and thoughtfully from intimate speech – a term that encompasses all speech between intimate friends, whether each instance belongs to a particular identifiable speech genre or not – and in so doing he illustrates his ἀγανοφροσύνη, his distinctly gentle

spirit. While he learns to use this trait to produce effective hortatory rebukes, his kindness undermines his goading rebukes throughout the epic.

CHAPTER 1

ILIADIC GOADING REBUKES

At Iliad 9.443, Phoinix reminds Achilles that he taught his ward “to be both a speaker of words and a performer of deeds” (μύθων τε ῥητῆρ' ἔμεναι πρηκτῆρά τε ἔργων ). With this collocation of two activities, Phoinix captures the two arenas of speech and action in which an

Iliadic hero should excel. These two heroic endeavors cannot be neatly divided into one skill for the assembly and one for war, as Phoinix’s earlier separation of the two realms at 9.4401 might suggest. Heroes are called upon to produce successful speech not only in the formal assemblies

Phoinix describes, but also in informal meetings among friends, appeals to comrades, and even addresses to their enemies on the battlefield.

Throughout the Iliad , warriors meeting one another on the battlefield hurl insults and boasts at one another before and during their encounters. The “goading rebukes” that make up these verbal skirmishes are a distinct speech genre, found in a particular context and made up of a conventional structure and formulae. These rebukes comprise an alternative sphere of competition to fighting, as heroes aim to defeat their opponents in speech just as much as in action. When a hero hurls a goading rebuke, his target responds in kind in order to preserve his own honor: all these rebukes, therefore, come in pairs.

How does a hero defeat his opponent with a goading rebuke? In his long reply to

Achilles’ goading rebuke in book 20, Aeneas articulates the two ways in which he fears Achilles may have defeated him. In one road to victory, a successful goading rebuke convinces its target

that he is facing a superior opponent: it intimidates him, making him afraid. Both Hektor and

Aeneas suggest as much when they claim, with the same words, that Achilles’ goading rebuke has had no effect on them:

Πηλεΐδη, μὴ δὴ ἐπέεσσί με νηπύτιον ὣς ἔλπεο δειδίξεσθαι, ἐπεὶ σάφα οἶδα καὶ αὐτὸς ἠμὲν κερτομίας ἠδ' αἴσυλα μυθήσασθαι.

Son of Peleus, do not hope to scare me with words like a childish fool, since I know well myself how to say both biting words and what is unjust. (20.2002 = 20.4313)

Both heroes acknowledge that Achilles intended to frighten ( δειδίξεσθαι ) them, though they claim that he was unsuccessful: with their knowledge of goading rebukes, they can counter the traps Achilles has set for them.

In the other path to triumph, disingenuous insults in a goading rebuke may so anger their target that his reply is purely defensive. While anger typically provokes heroic action, 23 an angry response to a goading rebuke betrays an unheroic loss of emotional control. Aeneas, worried that he has grown too angry, compares himself and Achilles to bickering women:

ἀλλὰ τίη ἔριδας καὶ νείκεα νῶϊν ἀνάγκη νεικεῖν ἀλλήλοισιν ἐναντίον, ὥς τε γυναῖκας, αἵ τε χολωσάμεναι ἔριδος πέρι θυμοβόροιο νεικεῦσ' ἀλλήλῃσι μέσην ἐς ἄγυιαν ἰοῦσαι πόλλ' ἐτεά τε καὶ οὐκί· χόλος δέ τε καὶ τὰ κελεύει. ἀλκῆς δ' οὔ μ' ἐπέεσσιν ἀποτρέψεις μεμαῶτα πρὶν χαλκῷ μαχέσασθαι ἐναντίον·

But why do the two of us have to argue in wrangles and quarrels with one another facetoface? We are like women, who angered over a heartdevouring wrangle go into the middle of the street and quarrel with one another,

23 For example, anger leads Odysseus to kill an opponent at 4.494f5; in response to anger, Oilean Ajax does the same at 13.203 and Paris at 13.6602. Zeus predicts Achilles will kill Hektor out of anger at 15.68, and he worries Achilles will take Troy at 20.29. Hektor leads the Trojans against the Achaeans out of anger for Sarpedon at 16.553. Achilles warns Priam against continuing to anger him at 24.560

saying both many true things and many not; their anger makes them say falsehoods also. But you will not deter me from fighting – for I am eager – before we fight facetoface with bronze. (20.2517)

The metaphor of a “heartdevouring wrangle” ( ἔριδος... θυμοβόροιο ) is striking: the women of the simile have given themselves over entirely to their quarrel with one another. Like them, a hero who in anger abandons his impulse to fight with arms and instead hurls insults at his opponent has lost the match: the hero whose clever rebuke spurred his opponent to lose his self control has triumphed.

How does the poet tell the audience that a rebuke has hit its mark? A warrior who has been intimidated by a goading rebuke may flee, like Sokos: “he spoke, and he [Sokos], having turned himself back to flight, was in motion” (11.446: Ἦ, καὶ ὃ μὲν φύγαδ' αὖτις

ὑποστρέψας ἐβεβήκει ). Other heroes, though scared, stand their ground, but their silence 24 or their verbal responses betray their fear, as when Aeneas responds to Achilles at 20.200258. The poet may also explicitly label a hero’s response, describing a hero whom the rebuke fails to intimidate as “unafraid” ( οὐ ταρβήσας ), like Hektor in response to Achilles at 20.430:

Τὸν δ' οὐ ταρβήσας προσέφη κορυθαίολος Ἕκτωρ·

And Hektor with the glancing helm spoke to him, unafraid: (20.430)

A hero’s physical or verbal response, as well as the poet’s own labeling of the hero’s reaction, informs the audience if a rebuke has been successful.

24 The poet never directly labels a character’s silence as the response of an intimidated loser to a goading rebuke, but in other agonistic speech genres silence is a sign of defeat: for example, at 4.4012, Diomedes is silent and appears to be intimidated ( αἰδεισθείς : “stood in awe”) by Agamemnon’s commanding rebuke, and at 8.2829, after Zeus commands all the gods not to participate in the Trojan war, they are quiet “marveling at the speech” (μῦθον ἀγασσάμενοι ).

Despite the rewards such a success offers, goading rebukes are rare. Verbal competition is less prestigious than its physical counterpart: to succeed in combat requires only martial victory. Patroklos even rebukes Meriones for participating in a verbal combat in lieu of fighting:

ἐν γὰρ χερσὶ τέλος πολέμου, ἐπέων δ' ἐνὶ βουλῇ· τὼ οὔ τι χρὴ μῦθον ὀφέλλειν, ἀλλὰ μάχεσθαι.

For the outcome of war rests in our hands, and the outcome of words in our counsel. So we must not make speech swell, but instead we must fight. (16.6301)

Though such an overt condemnation of goading rebukes is unusual, the rarity of such encounters suggests that they offer a warrior less prestige than battlefield combat. We find only five such encounters in the course of the epic, besides the interchanges in which the exceptional Hektor takes part:

• 5.2779/5.2879 (Pandaros & Diomedes) • 5.63346/5.64854 (Tlepolemos & Sarpedon) • 11.4303/11.4415 (Sokos & Odysseus) • 16.6178/16.6206 (Aeneas & Meriones) • 20.178198/20.200258 (Achilles & Aeneas)

The similarities between physical fighting and verbal fighting are not limited to a warrior’s desire for victory: just as heroes fight in the Iliad along conventional lines, so also do these warriors compete with one another verbally in a ritualized manner. Each warrior issues a single rebuke following a set schema:

1. Mock courteous address 2. Agonistic boasts and insults 3. Prediction of (or hope for) enemy’s death and/or one’s own victory

Effective rebukers use this pattern to intimidate or anger their opponent, at times incorporating elements of other speech genres. Less effective rebukers omit an element of the goading rebuke or make genuine concessions to their opponents. A rebuker attacks his opponent verbally with a rebuke formed according to this tripartite pattern, typically at the beginning of the encounter and

before the two come together in physical combat. The responder has the option of immediately issuing his own rebuke or waiting for a more opportune moment.

Each instance of this formulaic schema is unique. The poet gives each of his characters a unique style as he engages in this ritualized verbal combat, creating rebukes that belong to the genre but betray his unique character. With an eye towards ultimately understanding how

Hektor’s goading rebukes function, I will present readings of each of the five paired encounters.

Along the way, I will try to answer these questions: how do the characters manipulate the parallel venues of physical and verbal skirmish? What strategies does each rebuker and responder employ to defeat his opponent and with what success? Why does the initial speaker initiate verbal combat at all? And when does the target choose to respond with a counterrebuke?

The separation of the two venues of words and deeds is most clearly seen in the encounter of Aeneas and Meriones in book 16. The warriors engage in a verbal contest after

Aeneas has launched an ineffectual spear at the young Achaean warrior. Aeneas begins the contest:

Μηριόνη, τάχα κέν σε καὶ ὀρχηστήν περ ἐόντα ἔγχος ἐμὸν κατέπαυσε διαμπερές, εἴ σ' ἔβαλόν περ.

Meriones, even though you are a dancer my spear would have quickly stopped you for good, if I had hit you. (16.6178)

Aeneas resorts to verbal quarreling in an attempt to save face after failing to strike his opponent in battle: though unable to kill Meriones, he will demonstrate his superiority as a wordsmith.

Although his purpose suggests that a successful goading rebuke can restore some honor to its

speaker, his attempt backfires: Meriones’ cool, collected reply shows that Aeneas’ rebuke is as weak as his spear.25

When he calls Meriones a “dancer” ( ὀρχηστής), Aeneas is attempting to belittle his adversary’s nimbleness and imply that he is unheroic. Despite his own failure in their battlefield competition, Aeneas claims martial superiority over Meriones. In his retort, Meriones observes this flaw and uses it against Aeneas. He imitates Aeneas’ style, but he concludes by emphasizing the mortality Aeneas shares with all his opponents: “For you too were made mortal” ( θνητὸς δέ

νυ καὶ σὺ τέτυξαι ). Even more damningly, Aeneas altogether omits a prediction of the enemy’s death, presumably because in his view the encounter has ended: again, Meriones’ pointed inclusion of such a prediction shows that Aeneas erred in omitting it. We are left with the impression that neither with words nor with deeds does Aeneas’ skill justify his reputation as second of the Trojans. 26

Meriones’ reply effectively manipulates both Aeneas’ own rebuke and the conventional form of the goading rebuke:

Αἰνεία, χαλεπόν σε καὶ ἴφθιμόν περ ἐόντα πάντων ἀνθρώπων σβέσσαι μένος, ὅς κέ σευ ἄντα ἔλθῃ ἀμυνόμενος· θνητὸς δέ νυ καὶ σὺ τέτυξαι. εἰ καὶ ἐγώ σε βάλοιμι τυχὼν μέσον ὀξέϊ χαλκῷ, αἶψά κε καὶ κρατερός περ ἐὼν καὶ χερσὶ πεποιθὼς εὖχος ἐμοὶ δοίης, ψυχὴν δ' Ἄϊδι κλυτοπώλῳ.

25 Cf. Aeneas’ ineffectual response to Achilles at 20.20058, discussed on pp. 2931. 26 Aeneas is assigned this position by Helenos (6.7779), Ares (5.4678), and the narrator (17.7534). Nagy calls him a “master of poetic skills in the language of praise and blame” (Nagy 1999: 274). Following Meister, he derives his name from *Aināās, a derivative of αἴνη , itself a byform of αἶνος “story; praise.” He regards the etymology found at Hom. Hymn. Ven. 199 from αἰνός as a folk etymology. Nagy claims that αἶνος shows a “bivalence of praise and blame,” but his earlier discussion of αἶνος has only shown that it designates a special speech for exclusive listeners, particularly praise poetry (Nagy 1999: 235241). Aeneas, rather than being good at both praise and blame poetry, may be the speaker par excellence of praise poetry. It is then no surprise that he fails to deliver an effective goading rebuke.

Aeneas, even though you are strong, it is hard for you to quench the force of everyone who comes against you in selfdefense. You too are mortal. If I should hit you, getting my blow home in your middle with the sharp bronze, then you, though strong and relying upon your hands, would right then give me glory and give your soul to Hades, famous for his horses. (16.620625)

At 6202, Meriones not only points out the flaw in Aeneas’ argument but also turns the content and style of Aeneas’ rebuke against him as he tries to intimidate Aeneas by showing his skill with words. He accepts Aeneas’ boast, calling him “strong” ( ἴφθιμος ), but adds the qualification that he could not defeat “all people” ( πάντες ἄνθρωποι ), leaving room for his own triumph on this occasion. Far from admitting inferiority to Aeneas, he only concedes

Aeneas’ strength to claim an even higher position. Nor does he “oneup” Aeneas only in content: he rephrases Aeneas’ lineend καὶ ὀρχηστήν περ ἐόντα (16.617: “even though being a dancer”) into καὶ ἴφθιμόν περ ἐόντα (16.620: “even though being strong”), aping Aeneas’ own style but using the structural formula27 to acknowledge Aeneas’ inferior prowess. Meriones goes on to transform the typical form of the rebuke to his advantage. While Aeneas had simply omitted the final part, the prediction of his enemy’s defeat, Meriones adapts to his purposes a typical close of the goading rebuke: he imagines a hypothetical future encounter where he would kill Aeneas, marking with a future less vivid condition the distance between the present match and a forthcoming skirmish. He highlights his success where Aeneas had failed by rephrasing the latter’s εἴ σ' ἔβαλόν περ (16.618: “if I had hit you”) into his own εἰ καὶ ἐγώ σε βάλοιμι

27 Both Aeneas and Meriones are drawing upon a not uncommon structural formula, of the type [weak caesura] καὶ - - - (substantive) περ ἐόντα(ς) || , which occurs three times elsewhere in archaic hexameter poetry: καὶ ἀθάνατόν περ ἐόντα ||(Hymn. Hom. Merc. 131) καὶ ἐκπάγλους περ ἐόντας || (Hes. Op. 154) καὶ ἴφθιμόν περ ἐόντα || (Hes. Op. 704)

(16.623: “if I should hit you”). Verbally defeated, Aeneas does not respond but allows Meriones to leave the field unharassed. In this rebuke, Meriones convincingly defeats his enemy, as befits a hero called “astute” ( πεπνυμένος: 13.254, 13.266) and specially invited to the leaders’ conclave (10.196).

While Aeneas and Meriones use the exchange of rebukes as a selfcontained verbal contest, Pandaros and Diomedes use the same form to supplement their physical encounter.

Somewhat insecure because of the failure of his shot against Diomedes at in an earlier encounter at 5.95113, Pandaros now attacks him with a goading rebuke:

καρτερόθυμε, δαΐφρον, ἀγαυοῦ Τυδέος υἱὲ, ἦ μάλα σ' οὐ βέλος ὠκὺ δαμάσσατο, πικρὸς ὀϊστός· νῦν αὖτ' ἐγχείῃ πειρήσομαι, αἴ κε τύχωμι.

Stouthearted, skilled son of noble Tydeus it’s true that my swift shot did not tame you, though it is a piercing arrow. But now I will try with a spear, hoping to hit you. (5.2779)

Despite trying to inflict harm on Diomedes, Pandaros works against himself in his rebuke after a strong opening, beginning with “stouthearted” ( καρτερόθυμε ). While initial addresses are conventionally complimentary, their flatteries generally conceal a taunt: Pandaros’ is no exception. The Homeric narrator uses καρτερόθυμος only seemingly to praise heroes like

Achilles (13.350) and Heracles ( Od. 21.25). 28 The word’s restricted context is telling: in both those instances the heroes are quarreling, Achilles with the Achaeans, and Heracles with Iphitos, whom he kills despite being a guestfriend. The connection with strife is emphasized by Hes.

Theog. 225, where Ἔρις is called καρτερόθυμος . The word may suggest that the heroes’

28 FernándezGaliano 1992: 151 even highlights the gap between the “formal epithet of praise” and the “evil deed committed by the hero.”

θυμός is too strong, making its possessor prone to strife even when selfdestructive, as in the cases of Achilles and Heracles. By using this word, Pandaros suggests that Diomedes will lose selfcontrol in the battle and suffer defeat at his hands.

Despite this strong beginning, Pandaros begins to go astray in the second line of his rebuke. An admission of his earlier failure to “tame” Diomedes – an attempt to preempt

Diomedes from turning this failure against him – backfires in his use of δαμάσσατο and the two noun phrases. Pandaros reworks a conventional collocation for the prediction of victory: typically a hero at the end of his rebuke calls for his opponent to be “tamed by his spear” (5.653,

11.444: ἐμῷ δ' ὑπὸ δουρὶ δαμέντα ) or “tamed by me” (5.646: ὑπ' ἐμοὶ δμηθέντα ).

Pandaros sets the verb δαμάζω in the wrong part of the rebuke and uses it not to suggest his own excellence in battle but to acknowledge his weapon’s failure. Likewise, the phrases βέλος

ὠκὺ and πικρὸς ὀϊστός recur elsewhere only when the narrator is describing failed shots, including when he details Pandaros’ two past attempts at Menelaos and Diomedes. 29 Though

Pandaros tries to dismiss his past failure, he only ends up accentuating it.

Pandaros’ final tentative hope for his adversary’s defeat, wishing only that he may “hit”

(τύχωμι) him, is too mild to inflict any verbal damage on Diomedes. All other goading rebukes end with strong predictions of the enemy’s defeat; only Aeneas’ conclusion to his unsuccessful rebuke of Achilles (20.2578) similarly fails to suggest its target’s death. Pandaros’ goading rebuke, like Aeneas’ at 16.6178, inadvertently contains flaws that detract from its efficacy within the battle.

29 βέλος ὠκὺ recurs at 5.106, 5.112, 5.187, 5.278, 11.397, 14.407, and 22.292. πικρὸς ὀϊστός is found elsewhere at 4.134, 4.217, 5.99, 5.278, 13.587, 13.592, 23.867.

In response to Pandaros’ threeline rebuke, Diomedes is at first unexpectedly silent: not only do the conventions of the goading rebukes demand a reply, but also the narrator’s “first”

(276: πρότερος ) creates an expectation that Diomedes will immediately reply. 30 By refusing to respond, Diomedes seems to concede defeat to Pandaros; in reality, Diomedes, refusing to play along, practices the same “strategic aloofness” as in his response to Agamemnon’s inappropriate rebukes at 4.369400. 31

Instead of responding, Diomedes delays his counterrebuke until he can use Pandaros’ failure against him. The Trojan archer, after hurling his goading rebuke, fires a shot from his bow, which penetrates Diomedes’ armor but goes no farther. He ignorantly brags about his victory with a twoline boast:

βέβληαι κενεῶνα διαμπερές, οὐδέ σ' ὀΐω δηρὸν ἔτ' ἀνσχήσεσθαι· ἐμοὶ δὲ μέγ' εὖχος ἔδωκας.

You have been hit at the flank straight through, and I think that you will not long hereafter hold out. But to me you have given a great victory boast. (5.2845)

This boast proves unwarranted. Diomedes responds with a goading rebuke that tries to exploit

Pandaros’ failure in the parallel realm of martial combat. He begins by citing his opponent’s failure as a warrior and threatens both Pandaros and his companion Aeneas:

ἤμβροτες οὐδ' ἔτυχες· ἀτὰρ οὐ μὲν σφῶΐ γ' ὀΐω πρίν γ' ἀποπαύσεσθαι, πρίν γ' ἢ ἕτερόν γε πεσόντα αἵματος ἆσαι Ἄρηα, ταλαύρινον πολεμιστήν.

You missed and you did not hit me. But I think that before the two of you stop one of you two will fall and sate with your blood Ares, the shieldenduring warrior. (5.2879)

30 In every other instance where the word πρότερος is joined with a form of εῖπον, the addressee replies: 5.632, 6.122, 6.517, 7.23, 10.36, 11.605, 13.306, 20.177, 21.149, 22.249, 24.634. 31 Martin 1989: 71.

Diomedes’ ineffective rebuke fails to take full advantage of his opponent’s miss. His attempt to add forcefulness by joining the synonymous “and you did not hit” ( οὐδ' ἔτυχες ) to “you missed” ( ἤμβροτες ) falls flat: rather than simply noting Pandaros’ failure one more time, he might have used that failure to call Pandaros’ boast false. Furthermore, in his zeal to mark

Pandaros’ failure at the beginning of his rebuke, he unexpectedly and uniquely omits the opening address. 32 Diomedes’ final prediction of his enemy’s downfall, though vivid and welldeveloped, shows a striking lack of confidence when he claims that he will only kill one of his two adversaries. Hektor’s use of similar lines at 22.2667 is superior: he claims that either he or his opponent Achilles will die, highlighting his resolve to stay and fight and not undercutting his aura of an unstoppable hero. Diomedes’ unsuccessful rebuke befits a character whom the epic depicts as only slowly learning the arts of successful speech. 33

The encounter between Sokos and Odysseus, our third example, resembles the duel between Pandaros and Diomedes: Sokos, like Pandaros, attacks Odysseus both verbally and physically in a bid to save the corpse of his fallen brother, Kharops. Odysseus, like Diomedes, chooses to remain “strategically aloof” until Sokos rips the flesh from his ribs. Odysseus,

32 A comparison to the beginning of one of Hektor’s rebukes, though itself not perfect, reveals that these features of Diomedes’ rebuke are flaws:

ἤμβροτες, οὐδ' ἄρα πώ τι, θεοῖς ἐπιείκελ' Ἀχιλλεῦ ἐκ Διὸς ἠείδης τὸν ἐμὸν μόρον, ἦ τοι ἔφης γε·

You missed, and clearly, godlike Achilles, you never learned my fate from Zeus. Surely you thought [you would]. (22.27980)

Hektor, like Pandaros, opens his rebuke with an emphatic demarcation of his opponent’s failure to strike him: “you missed” ( ἤμβροτες ). Hektor, however, includes the obligatory address at the end of the line, and rather than simply mark his opponent’s failure he uses it to attack Achilles for his false confidence. 33 Martin 1989: 235.

angered, finally replies with a devastating goading rebuke before killing Sokos with his own speartoss:

ὦ Ὀδυσεῦ πολύαινε, δόλων ἆτ' ἠδὲ πόνοιο, σήμερον ἢ δοιοῖσιν ἐπεύξεαι Ἱππασίδῃσι, τοιώδ' ἄνδρε κατακτείνας καὶ τεύχε' ἀπούρας, ἤ κεν ἐμῷ ὑπὸ δουρὶ τυπεὶς ἀπὸ θυμὸν ὀλέσσῃς.

Odysseus, much praised, insatiate of stratagems and toil, today either you will boast over the two sons of Hippasos when you have killed two such men and have taken away our arms, or struck by my spear you will lose your soul. (11.430433)

Both these goading rebukes are much more effective than their counterparts in the exchange between Pandaros and Diomedes at 5.95113.

Sokos’ rebuke is well constructed except for one flaw. He cleverly hides a taunt in his opening compliments with his “insatiate of stratagems and toil” ( δόλων ἆτ' ἠδὲ πόνοιο). This unique phrase seems to praise Odysseus for his wellknown trickery and his endurance, but also suggests he may be an irresponsible warrior: at 13.6319 Menelaos condemns the Trojans as

“reckless” ( ἀτάσθαλος) because, like Odysseus, they are “unsated by battle” ( μάχης

ἀκόρητοι ). At 4289, after this coup, Sokos borrows the trope “either I will defeat my opponent or he will defeat me” from exhortations to a comrade before combat 34 in order to communicate his resolve to stay and fight. His imagined death, which he lingers over in the grammatically unnecessary 429 as he imagines his armor stripped from his corpse, is more at home in an exhortation. There a hero awakens fear in another when he exhorts him to avoid that fate; here, however, Sokos seems ineptly to be admitting fear instead of instilling fear in his opponent. For the rebuker to hint at his own fear is an error. Sokos’ skill with the goading rebuke matches his

34 Hainsworth 1993: 336.

skill with the spear: in both cases, a generally good strike does some damage but fails to inflict a mortal wound.

Odysseus’ rebuke, on the other hand, is devastatingly effective, suiting a hero who is possibly the best speaker in the epic 35 and is renowned for his μῆτις , his endurance, and his skill with the spear and citysacking: 36

ἆ δείλ’, ἦ μάλα δή σε κιχάνεται αἰπὺς ὄλεθρος. ἤτοι μέν ῥ’ ἔμ’ ἔπαυσας ἐπὶ Τρώεσσι μάχεσθαι· σοὶ δ’ ἐγὼ ἐνθάδε φημὶ φόνον καὶ κῆρα μέλαιναν ἤματι τῷδ’ ἔσσεσθαι, ἐμῷ δ’ ὑπὸ δουρὶ δαμέντα εὖχος ἐμοὶ δώσειν, ψυχὴν δ’ Ἄϊδι κλυτοπώλῳ.

Ah you poor man, truly sheer destruction is coming upon you. True, you stopped me from fighting against the Trojans. But I claim that murder and black death will be yours on this day, and I claim that you will be tamed by my spear and will give me glory and your soul to Hades, famous for his horses. (11.4415)

This speech, like an imposing physical advance, puts its adversary to flight: “he spoke, and he

[Sokos] having turned himself back to flight was in motion” (446: Ἦ, καὶ ὃ μὲν φύγαδ' αὖτις

ὑποστρέψας ἐβεβήκει ). The key to Odysseus’ success lies in his highly atypical opening line, with its “Ah you poor man” ( ἆ δείλ’) and its prediction of the opponent’s destruction. Odysseus borrows these elements from sympathetic laments over the inevitability of fate, which open with

35 Martin 1989: 63. The Trojan Antenor claims that no other mortal rivals Odysseus as a speaker at 3.2213. 36 His epithets in the Iliad encapsulate these three characteristics. Most praise him for his μῆτις : πολύμητις Ὀδυσσεύς (1.311, 1.440, 4.329, 4.349, 10.148, 10.382, 10.400, 10.423, 10.488, 10.554, 14.82, 19.154, 19.215), Ὀδυσεὺς πολύμητις (3.268, 23.709, 23.755), Ὀδυσῆα Διὶ μῆτιν ἀτάλαντον (2.169, 2.407, 10.137), Ὀδυσσεὺς ... Διὶ μῆτιν ἀτάλαντος (2.631), διογενὲς Λαερτιάδη πολυμήχαν' Ὀδυσσεῦ (2.169, 4.358, 8.92, 9.308, 9.624, 10.144, 23.723), Λαερτιάδης πολύμητις Ὀδυσσεύς (3.200), Ὀδυσῆα δαΐφρονα ποικιλομήτην (11.473). Others praise him for his endurance: πολύτλας δῖος Ὀδυσσεύς (8.97, 9.676, 10.248, 23.729, 23.778), ὁ τλήμων Ὀδυσεὺς (10.231, 10.498). Still others refer to his skill with the spear or his prowess in sacking cities: Ὀδυσεὺς δουρικλυτὸς (11.396, 11.401, 11.661, 16.26), πτολίπορθος Ὀδυσσεὺς (2.278, 10.363). The other remaining epithets simply call him muchpraised or suggest a positive relationship with the gods: πολύαιν' Ὀδυσεῦ (9.673, 10.544), Ὀδυσσῆος θείοιο (2.335, 9.218, 11.806), διογενὴς Ὀδυσεύς (10.340), Ὀδυσῆα Διῒ φίλον (11.419).

ἆ δείλ’ and describe a wretched fate, either past or future: examples include Patroklos’ lament for the fallen Achaean leaders at 11.8168 and Zeus’ sympathetic addresses compensating

Patroklos and Achilles’ horses for their fates at 17.201208 and 17.443455. By including these elements in his rebuke, Odysseus momentarily assumes the role of a sympathetic observer ruing

Sokos’ inevitable fall. This posture not only affirms that Sokos will die; it also intimidates him by suggesting that Odysseus has received news about Sokos’ fate. After such a parry, Odysseus can afford to concede that he will retire, but he competently yet conventionally predicts Sokos’ defeat. 37 With this rebuke, Odysseus lives up to his reputation as a speaker par excellence among the Achaeans. In fact, Odysseus’ goading rebuke is uniquely successful in turning its target to flight. It may be that Odysseus’ speeches generally are so skillful that they are qualitatively different from those of other speakers; Antenor suggests as much when he compares Odysseus’ words to “winter snowflakes” (3.222: νιφάδεσσιν... χειμερίῃσιν ) which blind and overwhelm the observer.

While Sokos and Odysseus alternate speech and physical combat, in book 5 Tlepolemos initiates a full verbal duel with Sarpedon before their martial encounter: he resorts to verbal skirmish to illustrate his verbal and physical superiority to his counterpart, despite his greater genealogical distance from Zeus. The narrator’s modification of the conventional formula of goading rebukes shows that this insecurity is the issue at hand: to the typical twoline phrase the narrator adds a line labeling the two warriors as the son and grandson of Zeus:

οἳ δ' ὅτε δὴ σχεδὸν ἦσαν ἐπ' ἀλλήλοισιν ἰόντες, υἱός θ' υἱωνός τε Διὸς νεφεληγερέταο, τὸν καὶ Τληπόλεμος πρότερος πρὸς μῦθον ἔειπε·

37 It repeats nearly verbatim 5.6524.

And when the son and the grandson of cloudgathering Zeus came close to one another, Tlepolemos spoke a speech to him first: (5.6302)

Tlepolemos’ insecurity proves justified: despite his love for the Rhodians (2.66970), Zeus defends Sarpedon, not Tlepolemos, in the martial encounter itself (5.662).

Tlepolemos aims to defeat Sarpedon by angering him through disingenuous insults:

Σαρπῆδον, Λυκίων βουληφόρε, τίς τοι ἀνάγκη πτώσσειν ἐνθάδ' ἐόντι μάχης ἀδαήμονι φωτί; ψευδόμενοι δέ σέ φασι Διὸς γόνον αἰγιόχοιο εἶναι, ἐπεὶ πολλὸν κείνων ἐπιδεύεαι ἀνδρῶν οἳ Διὸς ἐξεγένοντο ἐπὶ προτέρων ἀνθρώπων· ἀλλ' οἷόν τινά φασι βίην Ἡρακληείην εἶναι, ἐμὸν πατέρα θρασυμέμνονα θυμολέοντα· ὅς ποτε δεῦρ' ἐλθὼν ἕνεχ' ἵππων Λαομέδοντος ἓξ οἴῃς σὺν νηυσὶ καὶ ἀνδράσι παυροτέροισιν Ἰλίου ἐξαλάπαξε πόλιν, χήρωσε δ' ἀγυιάς· σοὶ δὲ κακὸς μὲν θυμός, ἀποφθινύθουσι δὲ λαοί. οὐδέ τί σε Τρώεσσιν ὀΐομαι ἄλκαρ ἔσεσθαι ἐλθόντ' ἐκ Λυκίης, οὐδ' εἰ μάλα καρτερός ἐσσι, ἀλλ' ὑπ' ἐμοὶ δμηθέντα πύλας Ἀΐδαο περήσειν.

Sarpedon, counselbearer of the Lycians, what must you cower here? You are a man unlearned in battle. They’re lying when they say that you are the offspring of aegisbearing Zeus, since you fall far short of those men who were born from Zeus in the times of earlier people. But what a man do they say the might of Heracles was! He was my father, stouthearted. He had the soul of a lion. When he came here for Laomedon’s horses with only six ships and few men, he sacked the city of Troy and widowed its streets. But your soul is cowardly, and the people perish. And I think that you will never be a bulwark for the Trojans, even though you came from Lycia, not even if you are very strong. No, I think that you will be tamed by me and will pass through Hades’ gates. (5.633646)

In his bid to anger Sarpedon, Tlepolemos issues two insincere insults. First, he claims that

Sarpedon is a good speaker, not a fighter. His opening address, “counselbearer of the Lycians”

(Λυκίων βουληφόρε ), appears at first entirely complimentary, but he goes on to criticize

Sarpedon for cowering and not knowing how to fight (6334). Tlepolemos invites us to read this insult back into the complimentary address: Sarpedon is only a good counselor. Secondly, he claims that Sarpedon, unlike Heracles, is not actually a son of Zeus: he compares their genealogies in his own favor (635642), implicitly drawing a parallel between Heracles’ achievements and those of Sarpedon.38 Tlepolemos cannot expect Sarpedon to believe these insults: Sarpedon is himself advancing to meet Tlepolemos, and his status as a son of Zeus is never in serious doubt during the course of the epic. Rather, these insults must be meant to anger him and spur him to make a weak response.

A comparison to Agamemnon’s rebuke of Diomedes at 4.370400 – which successfully angers Sthenelos – sheds some light on how Tlepolemos’ rebuke fails. Like Tlepolemos,

Agamemnon disingenuously claims that Diomedes is “cowering” (371: πτώσσεις ) and that he is a worse hero than his father Tydeus (372399). Both these claims, however, are plausible and so are more likely to elicit an angry response than those in Tlepolemos’ rebuke. Agamemnon criticizes Diomedes for cowering at the very moment when he is on the sidelines, not fighting:

Sarpedon, on the other hand, is moving forward to attack his enemy. Furthermore,

Agamemnon’s attack on Diomedes for not living up to his father’s reputation hits home for the hero, who was only an infant when his father died (6.2223) and is anxious to prove himself as his father’s son. Tlepolemos, on the other hand, more boldly claims not only that Sarpedon does not match Heracles, another son of Zeus, but also that he is not a son of Zeus: this more daring accusation hardly affects Sarpedon, who is secure in the knowledge that Zeus is his father.

38 In his account of Heracles’ sack of Troy, Tlepolemos may also be trying to exploit an epic tradition about Heracles to praise himself: Tlepolemos calls Heracles θρασυμέμνονα (“stouthearted”), a word that occurs in Greek only in connection with the famous hero ( Od . 11.267, Bacchylides 5.69).

Tlepolemos’ goading rebuke then fails to provoke Sarpedon. We might expect such a rebuke from Tlepolemus, who seems to handle criticism poorly, to judge from the fact that he fled his home rather than responding to his relatives’ threats and insults (2.6656: ἀπείλησαν ).

Sarpedon does not fall for the bait: instead of responding angrily or trying to disprove

Tlepolemos’ disingenuous claims, as Sthenelos at 4.404410 in a heated reply to Agamemnon,

Sarpedon subtly attacks Tlepolemos for lying in his rebuke:

Τληπόλεμ' ἤτοι κεῖνος ἀπώλεσεν Ἴλιον ἱρὴν ἀνέρος ἀφραδίῃσιν ἀγαυοῦ Λαομέδοντος, ὅς ῥά μιν εὖ ἕρξαντα κακῷ ἠνίπαπε μύθῳ, οὐδ' ἀπέδωχ' ἵππους, ὧν εἵνεκα τηλόθεν ἦλθε. σοὶ δ' ἐγὼ ἐνθάδε φημὶ φόνον καὶ κῆρα μέλαιναν ἐξ ἐμέθεν τεύξεσθαι, ἐμῷ δ' ὑπὸ δουρὶ δαμέντα εὖχος ἐμοὶ δώσειν, ψυχὴν δ' Ἄϊδι κλυτοπώλῳ.

Tlepolemos, it’s true, you know, that Heracles destroyed sacred Troy because of the senselessness of a noble man, Laomedon. He rebuked a man who had treated him well with a evil word, and did not hand over the horses, for which Heracles had come from far away. And I think that you will receive murder and black death because of me, and that you will be tamed by my spear and will give me glory and give your soul to Hades, famous for his horses. (5.64854)

Sarpedon criticizes Tlepolemos’ lies by reframing the story of Heracles and the sack of Troy.

Tlepolemos had presented the story as proof of Heracles’ divine parentage; in Sarpedon’s account, however, Laomedon’s inappropriate rebuke provoked justified revenge. Sarpedon develops an analogy between himself and Heracles: just as a bad rebuke led Heracles to destroy his opponent, so too will Sarpedon punish Tlepolemos for his inappropriate rebuke. 39 Sarpedon hints at this comparison most closely with his mention of the distance Heracles travelled:

39 While Mackie 1996: 778 agrees that Sarpedon is building a comparison between himself and Herakles, she sees Sarpedon as “developing in his own mind the comparison Tlepolemus initiated to ponder privately his own relationship with Hektor.” If this is the case, the comparison is not very apt: far from rebuking Sarpedon, Hektor was stirred into action at 5.493 by Sarpedon’s own rebuke.

οὐδ' ἀπέδωχ' ἵππους, ὧν εἵνεκα τηλόθεν ἦλθε. and [Laomedon] did not hand over the horses, for which Heracles had come from far away.

Earlier, Sarpedon had complained to Hektor that he and the other allies are carrying the brunt of the war, using similar phrasing at 5.478 to highlight how far he had come to fight for the Trojans:

καὶ γὰρ ἐγὼν ἐπίκουρος ἐὼν μάλα τηλόθεν ἥκω· For truly I, who am an ally, have come from very far away.

The position of τηλόθεν in the fifth foot is confined to these two examples in the Iliad ; this rare usage, together with the verb of motion in the final foot, suggests that here Sarpedon is alluding to his earlier speech. Sarpedon reinterprets the story of Heracles to assert the legitimacy of violence as a response to an inappropriate rebuke, such as Tlepolemos’ insincere one; furthermore, he strikes a blow against Tlepolemos by implying with this comparison that

Tlepolemos is not his father’s son: Heracles would not have issued such a rebuke. Sarpedon has wounded his opponent with his first four lines; he closes his rebuke with a conventional three lines predicting his enemy’s death, echoing Sokos’ words at 11.4435.

Like Tlepolemos and Sarpedon, Achilles and Aeneas exchange a set of goading rebukes before their indecisive duel. Achilles’ highly effective rebuke draws upon two strategies, one familiar, one new: to intimidate his opponent Achilles not only exploits other speech genres but also questions Aeneas’ reasons for fighting him:

Αἰνεία, τί σὺ τόσσον ὁμίλου πολλὸν ἐπελθὼν ἔστης; ἦ σέ γε θυμὸς ἐμοὶ μαχέσασθαι ἀνώγει ἐλπόμενον Τρώεσσιν ἀνάξειν ἱπποδάμοισι τιμῆς τῆς Πριάμου; ἀτὰρ εἴ κεν ἔμ' ἐξεναρίξῃς, οὔ τοι τοὔνεκά γε Πρίαμος γέρας ἐν χερὶ θήσει· εἰσὶν γάρ οἱ παῖδες, ὃ δ' ἔμπεδος οὐδ' ἀεσίφρων. ἦ νύ τί τοι Τρῶες τέμενος τάμον ἔξοχον ἄλλων

καλὸν φυταλιῆς καὶ ἀρούρης, ὄφρα νέμηαι, αἴ κεν ἐμὲ κτείνης; χαλεπῶς δέ σ' ἔολπα τὸ ῥέξειν. ἤδη μὲν σέ γέ φημι καὶ ἄλλοτε δουρὶ φοβῆσαι. ἦ οὐ μέμνῃ ὅτε πέρ σε βοῶν ἄπο μοῦνον ἐόντα σεῦα κατ' Ἰδαίων ὀρέων ταχέεσσι πόδεσσι καρπαλίμως; τότε δ' οὔ τι μετατροπαλίζεο φεύγων. ἔνθεν δ' ἐς Λυρνησσὸν ὑπέκφυγες· αὐτὰρ ἐγὼ τὴν πέρσα μεθορμηθεὶς σὺν Ἀθήνῃ καὶ Διὶ πατρί, ληϊάδας δὲ γυναῖκας ἐλεύθερον ἦμαρ ἀπούρας ἦγον· ἀτὰρ σὲ Ζεὺς ἐρρύσατο καὶ θεοὶ ἄλλοι. ἀλλ' οὐ νῦν ἐρύεσθαι ὀΐομαι, ὡς ἐνὶ θυμῷ βάλλεαι· ἀλλά σ' ἔγωγ' ἀναχωρήσαντα κελεύω ἐς πληθὺν ἰέναι, μηδ' ἀντίος ἵστασ' ἐμεῖο, πρίν τι κακὸν παθέειν· ῥεχθὲν δέ τε νήπιος ἔγνω.

Aeneas, why have you come forward so far from the throng and why do you stand your ground? Does your soul bid you to fight me, since you hope to rule the horsetaming Trojans and hold the office of Priam? But if you kill me, Priam will not set a prize in your hand. For he has sons, and he is unimpaired and not flighty. Have the Trojans marked off for you some exceptional private plot – beautiful, with an orchard and plowland – that you might hold if you kill me? But I expect that you will do that with difficulty. I think that you have already before fled my spear. Don’t you remember when I chased you, when you were alone, away from the cows down from the Idaean mountains with my swift feet? You were never then turning around in your flight. No, you fled from there to Lyrnessos. But I set out after it and sacked it, with the aid of Athena and father Zeus, and I took away the day of freedom from women taken as spoil and led them away. But Zeus and the other gods saved you. But I do not think that now you will be saved, though you in your soul think so. But I bid you to draw back and to go into the multitude. Do not stand against me, before you suffer some evil. For a fool knows a thing accomplished. (20.178198)

Achilles draws upon two speech genres in his bid to intimidate Aeneas. First, he embeds an example of a “performance of memory,” 40 when he recalls a previous encounter between the two heroes that ended in Aeneas’ flight. Aeneas is surely meant to grow afraid at this reminder of his

40 Martin 1989: 7788.

failure in a past encounter with his opponent, just as Hera shivers with fear (15.34: ῥίγησεν ) when Zeus recounts the time he bound her in a golden chain; Zeus even introduces the memory with the same phrase as Achilles: “don’t you remember when” (15.18: ἦ οὐ μέμνῃ ὅτε ).

Secondly, in his close at 1968 Achilles draws upon language evoking a familiar scene: the wife or mother begging her husband or son not to fight. Helen’s appeal to Paris at 3.4336, Hecuba’s to Hektor at 22.8489, and Andromache’s to Hektor at 6.431432 all share a common structure.

In all three, the woman commands her beloved man first to consider her and then to stay in the city and/or not to fight handtohand; she follows this series of commands with a fear for her beloved man’s death. For example, Helen’s appeal follows this structure:

ἀλλά σ' ἔγωγε παύεσθαι κέλομαι, μηδὲ ξανθῷ Μενελάῳ ἀντίβιον πόλεμον πολεμίζειν ἠδὲ μάχεσθαι ἀφραδέως, μή πως τάχ' ὑπ' αὐτοῦ δουρὶ δαμήῃς.

But I bid you to refrain from action, and not to make war or fight facetoface with blond Menelaos without thought, lest somehow soon you should be tamed by him with his spear. (3.4336)

Helen first orders Paris to pause; her ἔγωγε evokes the personal relationship between the two and implicitly asks him to consider her when making his decision. 41 She issues a second command that Paris not fight with Menelaos facetoface ( ἀντίβιον ), for fear that the Achaean hero kill him. Similarly, in Achilles’ plea, he introduces his command with the otherwise unique

ἀλλά σ' ἔγωγε and orders Aeneas with a verb from the κελ root to return to the crowd and not

41 The collocation of ἔγωγε and κέλομαι elsewhere occasionally suggests that the addressee consider his close relationship with the speaker. Phoinix, for example, claims that if Agamemnon had not offered gifts, “it would not be I who would bid you to cast aside your anger / and defend the Argives, even if they were in need” (9.5178: οὐκ ἂν ἔγωγέ σε μῆνιν ἀπορρίψαντα κελοίμην / Ἀργείοισιν ἀμυνέμεναι χατέουσί περ ἔμπης ). Phoinix contrasts himself with the hardpressed Argives to stress the strength of his bond with Achilles. Similar examples are found in Hecuba’s speech to Priam at 24.297, Polydamas’ to Hektor at 18.254, and strikingly Achilles’ to Agamemnon at 23.894.

stand against ( ἀντίος ) him, 42 lest he experience some harm. Achilles – rather than confidently predicting his opponent’s destruction – for an instant places himself in the position of a woman begging her beloved man not to fight. The comparison is, of course, inappropriate. Achilles is a warrior goading his enemy to leave the battlefield, not a woman pleading with her man to remain with her. Indeed, Achilles’ plea implies that Aeneas can be convinced by a woman’s arguments, that Aeneas is, in effect, a kind of woman, “the ultimate rhetorical insult.” 43 The blow is all the more striking because Iliadic warriors, as imperfect practitioners of the heroic code, are moved by the pleas of their beloveds. As Achilles himself says, “whichever man is good and sensible / loves and cares for his own woman” (9.3412: ὅς τις ἀνὴρ ἀγαθὸς καὶ ἐχέφρων / τὴν

αὐτοῦ φιλέει καὶ κήδεται ). By suggesting that Aeneas might be moved by a woman’s pleas,

Achilles implies that he would not be. In other words, he uses Aeneas as foil for himself, presenting himself as the intimidating hero par excellence , unmoved by any concerns outside of the battlefield.

Achilles also tries to discourage Aeneas from fighting him by questioning his motives for fighting. He argues, first, that even if Aeneas is successful, Priam will not grant him his own privileged royal status among the Trojans. Then he skeptically asks whether the Trojans have promised to give him a private plot of land, a privilege restricted to only the greatest warriors like Bellerophon (6.1945) and Meleager (9.57880). Compare how Sarpedon too adduces status and land as inducements to heroic behavior in his famous speech at 12.310328, including the same phrase to describe the plot of land: “beautiful, consisting of an orchard and plowland”

42 Hecuba’s speech more closely corresponds to Achilles’ in this element: “and do not stand as a champion against him [Achilles]” (22.85: μὴ δὲ πρόμος ἵστασο τούτῳ). 43 Martin 1989: 84.

(καλὸν φυταλιῆς καὶ ἀρούρης ). Achilles attacks Aeneas effectively by claiming not that

Aeneas is a bad hero, but that Aeneas should not be a hero.

The effect of Achilles’ attack can be seen in Aeneas’ stuttering response: he demonstrates the same clumsiness as he had in his rebuke of Meriones at 16.6178. There, he omitted the third element of the goading rebuke; here, he reaches the natural end of the rebuke but does not stop, presumably out of fear of his opponent. His speech could have been concluded at 20.2102:

τῶν δὴ νῦν ἕτεροί γε φίλον παῖδα κλαύσονται σήμερον· οὐ γάρ φημ' ἐπέεσσί γε νηπυτίοισιν ὧδε διακρινθέντε μάχης ἐξαπονέεσθαι.

Now others will lament [Peleus’ and Thetis’] dear son today. For I do not think that the two of us will separate and go back from battle with childish words. (20.2102)

To enact the third element of the goading rebuke, Aeneas imagines Achilles’ death and the lamentation over his corpse. While this close is not found in any of the other goading rebukes, it does aim to intimidate Achilles by reminding him of the effect his death will have on his parents: such a close might be particularly effective against Achilles, who has recently worried about his father learning of his death (19.3347).

Yet Aeneas goes on to give a full account of his ancestry, despite his prior claim that “we know one another’s line, and we know our parents” (203: ἴδμεν δ' ἀλλήλων γενεήν, ἴδμεν

δὲ τοκῆας ). Such a genealogical boast is a performance of memory; it is not at home in a goading rebuke, but is rather to be found in another related speech genre. When a warrior meets a stranger on the battlefield, he asks him who he is; the stranger replies with a description of his ancestry, beginning and ending with certain formulaic lines. This is not the same as an exchange of goading rebukes: the stranger does not explicitly contrast his ancestry with his opponent’s but

simply describes his patriline: he “makes his presence felt,” 44 with only an implicit sense of competition with his opponent. The distinction between the two genres is made clear by the poet’s labels for the speeches. Asteropaios is “boasting” (ἀπειλήσας ) when he replies to

Achilles at 21.161, not hurling “abusive words” (ὀνειδείοις ἐπέεσσι ), as Patroklos calls

Meriones’ goading rebuke at 16.628. Aeneas’ description of his genealogy properly belongs to that genre of speeches: like one of them, it is bounded by the lines “But if you want to learn even these things, in order that you know well / our race, then many men know it” (20.2134 = 6.150

1: εἰ δ' ἐθέλεις καὶ ταῦτα δαήμεναι, ὄφρ' ἐῢ εἰδῇς / ἡμετέρην γενεήν, πολλοὶ δέ μιν

ἄνδρες ἴσασι ) and “I boast to be both of that line and blood” (20.241 = 6.211: ταύτης τοι

γενεῆς τε καὶ αἵματος εὔχομαι εἶναι ).

Aeneas is not trying to compete with Achilles by including a genealogical account in his speech. While such a straightforward account might intimidate a hero without noble ancestry, against Achilles – descended from Zeus himself, as he boasts to Asteropaios (21.184199) – it can do little. 45 Rather, Aeneas seems to be motivated by fear: he is speaking only to delay his martial encounter with Achilles. This becomes particularly clear when the hero continues speaking after 241, the closing line of his genealogical account. Although throughout the rest of the speech Aeneas repeatedly calls for the two of them to fight and not to compete further with goading rebukes, these commands are insincere. He continues to talk only out of fear: not only does he not carry out these commands but he even repeats them. Aeneas demonstrates a lack of control over the formal structure of his rebuke, as he keeps speaking past two natural places to close his speech: such an inability to speak persuasively not only reflects the force of Achilles’

44 Adkins 1969: 18. 45 Aeneas’ inclusion of this inappropriate speech genre of selfpraise also supports the conjecture (footnote 25) that Aeneas is a master of praise poetry.

goading rebuke, but also confirms the impression given by Aeneas’ other rebuke that he is a poor speaker of rebukes.

Reading these five exchanges of paired rebukes as a single speech genre leads to some conclusions about the efficacy of goading rebukes and their use in characterization. The most successful rebukers try to intimidate their opponents, not anger them, and they carefully and skillfully adapt the rebuke script to each unique circumstance and draw upon other speech genres. Rebukers that omit elements of the goading rebuke or include elements from other genres that suggest fear fail to influence their opponent; unconvincing or unambitious boasts and taunts, as well as admissions of past failure, do little damage to their target. The effectiveness of a character as a rebuker tends to match his reputation for excellence in speech: only Aeneas is an exception, who does not live up to his standing as secondbest among the Trojans. 46

46 Mackie 1996:4384 sees the Trojans as resistant to casting blame; when forced to do so, as in these goading rebuke encounters, they “are less vivid and less emphatic than Achaeans in equivalent contexts” (Mackie 1996: 60). The limited amount of Trojan speech discussed in this chapter suggests another conclusion: while all these Trojans are trying to rebuke their opponents directly, they vary as much at casting blame as hurling spears. Certainly Sarpedon could not be accused of not addressing Tlepolemus forcefully.

CHAPTER 2

ILIADIC HORTATORY REBUKES

The definitive act of the Iliadic hero is to fight. In his famous speech, Sarpedon tells

Glaukos that to preserve their heroic status the two “being among the foremost Lycians” must

“stand our ground and encounter scorching fighting” (12.3156: Λυκίοισι μέτα πρώτοισιν

ἐόντας / ἑστάμεν ἠδὲ μάχης καυστείρης ἀντιβολῆσαι ). A hero’s retreat from the front lines jeopardizes his heroic status. Those who flee are “cowards” ( κακοί ), unworthy of respect, as Odysseus reflects when he contemplates falling back:

οἶδα γὰρ ὅττι κακοὶ μὲν ἀποίχονται πολέμοιο, ὃς δέ κ' ἀριστεύῃσι μάχῃ ἔνι, τὸν δὲ μάλα χρεὼ ἑστάμεναι κρατερῶς, ἤ τ' ἔβλητ' ἤ τ' ἔβαλ' ἄλλον.

For I know that cowards shrink from war, but whoever is best in battle must stand mightily, whether he is hit or he hits another. (11.40810)

When a hero retreats, his unheroic behavior gives his allies grounds for criticism. Sometimes one of them hurls a hortatory rebuke at him, trying to elicit a feeling of shame ( αἰδώς ) over the gap between his heroic status and his unheroic behavior. Hortatory rebukes do not encompass all exhortations: while exhortations are spoken to encourage any hero to go to battle, hortatory rebukes attack warriors for their withdrawal. These rebukes follow a standard schema:

1. Address (name or patronymic) 2. Criticism of the addressee as unheroic, introduced by a rhetorical question 3. Call to action: ἀλλά 47 and imperative

47 ἀλλά is commonly used as a “transition from arguments for action to a statement of the action required” (Denniston 1996: 14).

4. Further justification: fighting protects fellow warriors and homes

A successful hortatory rebuke draws the addressee back into battle, but a poor one only drives its target further from the war.

To reconstruct the genre of the hortatory rebuke in its totality would require more examples than are extant. We would like, for example, a representative sample of rebukes from many characters, in order to gauge both the overall variation of the genre and how individual practitioners make use of it. Unfortunately, excluding Hektor’s atypical rebukes, we find only four hortatory rebukes in the Iliad : 3.42836 (Helen to Paris), 5.1718 (Aeneas to Pandaros),

8.936 (Diomedes to Odysseus), and 11.3135 (Odysseus to Diomedes).

Despite the limitations of such a small sample, certain characteristics of the genre are visible. The typical structure of the hortatory rebuke seems possible to know, as well as some deviations that are limited to a single rebuke. Variation in content is harder to isolate, but the efficacy of these rebukes does seem to be related to the proportion of praise and abuse 48 and of intimacy and distance within them. I present readings of these four rebukes in an attempt to understand what determines their efficacy and how they contribute to characterization: how does the poet characterize his figures qua speakers by their control of this speech genre?

We expect a good rebuke from Odysseus, one of the best speakers in the epic, and we are not disappointed. When Odysseus and Diomedes have been stunned at the strength of Hektor’s onslaught in the middle of book 11, Odysseus delivers a highly effective rebuke that convinces

Diomedes to join him in responding to the Trojan hero:

48 This speech genre of hortatory rebukes, falling under the broader umbrella of disapproving speech or blame poetry, carries within it types of speech differentiated in English: things we might label mockery, abuse, and rebuke are all to be found within the νεῖκος (Adkins 1969: 20). Speech that hurts or humiliates its target – abuse or invective – far from comprising a separate speech genre can be drawn upon within others, including the hortatory rebuke.

Τυδεΐδη, τί παθόντε λελάσμεθα θούριδος ἀλκῆς; ἀλλ' ἄγε δεῦρο, πέπον, παρ' ἔμ' ἵσταο· δὴ γὰρ ἔλεγχος ἔσσεται εἴ κεν νῆας ἕλῃ κορυθαίολος Ἕκτωρ.

Son of Tydeus, what have the two of us suffered to forget our rushing courage? But come here, gentle sir, stand by me; for there will be shame if Hektor with the glancing helmet takes the ships. (11.3135)

Odysseus begins his rebuke with a criticism ( λελάσμεθα: “we have forgotten”)49 that also possesses understated praise: he suggests that both heroes have in the past possessed the characteristic ἀλκή of a hero. Moreover, Odysseus creates a feeling of intimacy with his comrade. His initial address with the patronymic Τυδεΐδη can be used by friends and enemies alike, 50 but he calls upon a bond with his interlocutor with his “gentle sir” ( πέπον ), a “term of familiarity or endearment” 51 with a “comradely or even avuncular tone,” 52 and he adopts a colloquial pitch with “what have the two of us suffered” ( τί παθόντε). 53 Furthermore, he generously includes himself within the criticism with the dual participle παθόντε, the first person plural verb λελάσμεθα , and the ambiguous recipient(s) of the “shame” ( ἔλεγχος): he identifies himself with Diomedes.

Hortatory rebukes try to elicit a feeling of αἰδώς in their target: Odysseus says that

“there will be shame” ( ἔλεγχος / ἔσσεται ). While he evokes the gap between the heroic ideal and unheroic behavior in way that is typical of the hortatory rebuke, with his use of the future more vivid condition he does not blame Diomedes now for his previous faults but rather leaves

49 While the narrator and characters often use λάνθανω in the third person to refer to heroes who have stopped fighting or to command them not to stop, and others use the verb in the first person to disavow having stopped (13.269, 22.282), Odysseus here uses it uniquely to refer to himself and another actually having stopped fighting. 50 E.g. Nestor uses the patronymic at 8.139 and 9.53, but Hektor too uses it at 8.161. The patronymic is slightly more courteous and distancing than the simple name (Brown 2003: 1656). 51 Kirk 1990: 161. 52 Hainsworth 1993: 97. 53 Hainsworth 1993: 261.

him the possibility of avoiding that shame. Odysseus’ highly effective rebuke befits his reputation as an excellent speaker and suggests that subtle praise and intimacy are related to an effective rebuke.

Diomedes’ own rebuke of the fleeing Odysseus, on the other hand, fails to stir its target to return to battle. In book 8, Zeus’ lightningbolt has driven the Achaeans to flee, but Nestor’s fallen horse traps him among the Trojan onslaught. Diomedes notices Nestor’s predicament and calls upon Odysseus to stand fast ( μέν'):

διογενὲς Λαερτιάδη, πολυμήχαν' Ὀδυσσεῦ, πῇ φεύγεις μετὰ νῶτα βαλὼν κακὸς ὣς ἐν ὁμίλῳ; μή τίς τοι φεύγοντι μεταφρένῳ ἐν δόρυ πήξῃ. ἀλλὰ μέν', ὄφρα γέροντος ἀπώσομεν ἄγριον ἄνδρα.

Descended from Zeus, son of Laertes, rich in cunning Odysseus, where are you fleeing to, having turned your back round like a coward in the crowd? Let no one fix a spear in your back as you flee. No, stay, so we can thrust a savage man away from the old man. (8.936)

Diomedes fills the second element of his rebuke – the criticism of the opponent for unheroic behavior – with blame. The rhetorical question (94: πῇ φεύγεις μετὰ νῶτα βαλὼν... , “where are you fleeing to, having turned your back round...”) implies that the deserter is unheroic.

Diomedes not only criticizes Odysseus for not living up to his heroic status, but also aims to humiliate him in two ways. First, he compares Odysseus to a coward in a crowd of warriors

(κακὸς ὣς ἐν ὁμίλῳ), implying that Odysseus’ behavior makes him undistinguished among the

Achaeans. Secondly, with a decided irony, he wishes Odysseus safety in his flight. This wish, purportedly for Odysseus’ wellbeing, conceals criticism: if Odysseus were not fleeing, the

enemy could not shame him by striking him in the back. 54 Both these tactics aim to humiliate

Odysseus by calling attention to the gap between his status as a hero and his behavior.

Only with this biting sarcasm does Diomedes actively try to wound his comrade, but throughout the rebuke, as here, he distances himself from Odysseus. Diomedes’ address to

Odysseus is unusually long, occupying a whole line (93): 55 such a lengthy address, with name, patronymic, and complimentary epithet, signals respect and distance but not intimacy. 56 Even with his first person plural verb ἀπώσομεν (“we can thrust away”), in which he diplomatically includes himself, Diomedes implies that he will try to save Nestor, with or without Odysseus: he implicitly contrasts himself with the Ithakan hero, inevitably distancing himself from his comrade.

Diomedes’ ineffective rebuke elicits no response from the Ithacan hero, who ignores it

(97: ούδ’ ἐσάκουσε , “nor did he give ear” 57 ) as he flees. It is no surprise that Diomedes,

54 Cf. 13.28891, where Idomeneus tells Meriones that a hero is struck in the chest or belly, not the neck or back. This type of sarcastic wish, introduced by a lineinitial μή τίς τοι , is found elsewhere in disapproving speech at Od. 18.334 and in its positive form as a genuine wish for another’s safety at Od. 8.444. 55 The line recurs in the Iliad at 2.173, 4.358, 9.308, 9.624, 10.144, and 23.723, where in each passage Odysseus is addressed by an ally. The tone is well captured by 4.358, where Agamemnon begins his retraction of his earlier criticism with this phrase. 56 Brown 2003: 1656. 57 Kirk 1990: 306 rejects this reading, arguing that Odysseus simply does not hear Diomedes’ words in the confusion of battle. He acknowledges that in postHomeric Greek ἐσακούω can mean either “hear” or “heed,” and for this passage he follows Platt in citing Thuc. 4.34.3 as a parallel, where the soldiers do miss their orders because of the enemy’s shouting. Yet a better parallel, closer in time and genre to the Iliad , is found at Hom. Hymn. Cer. 284:

βῆ δὲ διὲκ μεγάρων, τῆς δ' αὐτίκα γούνατ' ἔλυντο, δηρὸν δ' ἄφθογγος γένετο χρόνον, οὐδέ τι παιδὸς μνήσατο τηλυγέτοιο ἀπὸ δαπέδου ἀνελέσθαι. τοῦ δὲ κασίγνηται φωνὴν ἐσάκουσαν ἐλεεινήν, κὰδ δ' ἄρ' ἀπ' εὐστρώτων λεχέων θόρον·

And Demeter went right through the halls, and Metaneira’s knees gave way right then, and she was quiet for a long time, and she never remembered to pick up her big child from the floor. But Demophon’s sisters heeded his pitiful voice, and they jumped down from their wellmade beds... (Hom. Hymn. Cer. 2815)

depicted in the epic as a novice speaker slowly learning to speak well, delivers such an ineffective rebuke. 58 His criticism and distance from Odysseus – the opposite of that hero’s praise and intimacy – suggest that those features may typify an inefficacious hortatory rebuke.

While Diomedes’ and Odysseus’ rebukes establish the poles of efficacy, Aeneas’ rebuke of Pandaros in the midst of Diomedes’ aristeia of book 5 falls into a gray area between success and failure: Pandaros neither ignores nor heeds Aeneas’ speech, but requires further prompting from Aeneas before committing to battle against Diomedes:

Πάνδαρε, ποῦ τοι τόξον ἰδὲ πτερόεντες ὀϊστοὶ καὶ κλέος; ᾧ οὔ τίς τοι ἐρίζεται ἐνθάδε γ' ἀνήρ, οὐδέ τις ἐν Λυκίῃ σέο γ' εὔχεται εἶναι ἀμείνων. ἀλλ' ἄγε τῷδ' ἔφες ἀνδρὶ βέλος Διὶ χεῖρας ἀνασχὼν ὅς τις ὅδε κρατέει καὶ δὴ κακὰ πολλὰ ἔοργε Τρῶας, ἐπεὶ πολλῶν τε καὶ ἐσθλῶν γούνατ' ἔλυσεν· εἰ μή τις θεός ἐστι κοτεσσάμενος Τρώεσσιν ἱρῶν μηνίσας· χαλεπὴ δὲ θεοῦ ἔπι μῆνις.

Pandaros, where are your bow and winged arrows and fame? In that not any man here rivals you, you know, nor does anyone in Lycia boast that he is better than you. But come, hold your hands up to Zeus and let a shot fly at this man, whoever he is who shows prowess and truly has done many evils to the Trojans. He has loosened the knees of many good men. Shoot him, unless he is some god with a grudge against the Trojans, wrathful over sacrifices. For the hard wrath of a god follows as a consequence. (5.1718)

Aeneas begins his rebuke with the simple name and a rhetorical question that criticizes its addressee for not using his characteristic weapons but also praises him for his κλέος . He follows his initial criticism with outright flattery: in his κλέος for the bow and winged arrows Pandaros

Though the sound of Demophon’s crying must be audible to both Metaneira and Demophon’s sisters, only Demophon’s sisters listen to and react to his weeping. The distinction is a mental reaction to the sound. Likewise, Odysseus too must hear the sound but deliberately ignore it. 58 Martin 1989: 235.

is unrivaled among his fellow men, both here on the battlefield around Troy ( ἐνθάδε ) and back home in Lycia ( ἐν Λυκίῃ).

Where others typically stir their addressees to fight to protect their comrades and homes,

Aeneas distances himself from and implicitly criticizes Pandaros in the fourth element of his rebuke. In an attempt to magnify the damage that Diomedes has done to the Trojan lines and so increase the obligation for Pandaros to help his fellow warriors, Aeneas claims not to recognize

Diomedes and suggests that he may be a god. This disingenuous claim is unconvincing. A

16.4245, the same lines refer to Patroclus, who is wearing Achilles’ armor and is genuinely unrecognizable; here, Diomedes is wearing his own distinctive armor, as Pandaros points out

(5.1823). Aeneas’ obviously insincere speech only creates a gap between the interlocutors.

Moreover, here Aeneas’ justification for fighting differs from the justification in the two rebukes already analyzed, where the speaker indicates that fighting would avert a loss or disaster. Here,

Aeneas implicitly blames Pandaros for not already fighting, describing the damage that

Diomedes has already done to the Trojans; refusing to accept this criticism, Pandaros tells

Aeneas that he has already tried to launch a shot at Diomedes: “for I already fired a missile at him” (5.188: ἤδη γάρ οἱ ἐφῆκα βέλος ).

In his final two lines, Aeneas warns Pandaros against fighting the unknown figure if he is a god: this “at first hearing gratuitous addition” 59 disrupts the flow of the hortatory rebuke to no good effect, since it dissuades Pandaros from fighting Diomedes. In both his mixture of praise and criticism and his lack of control over the hortatory rebuke – resembling his lack of control over his goading rebuke at 20.20058 – Aeneas shows himself again as a mediocre speaker of rebukes.

59 Kirk 1990: 77.

Helen’s rebuke of Paris is the least effective of the four under consideration. Aphrodite has rescued her favorite from his unsuccessful duel with Menelaos in book 3 and has compelled

Helen to go to his chamber. Once there, the unhappy Helen rebukes Paris for leaving the fight, before she unexpectedly changes her mind, midspeech, and bids her lover to stay inside Troy:

ἤλυθες ἐκ πολέμου· ὡς ὤφελες αὐτόθ' ὀλέσθαι ἀνδρὶ δαμεὶς κρατερῷ, ὃς ἐμὸς πρότερος πόσις ἦεν. ἦ μὲν δὴ πρίν γ' εὔχε' ἀρηϊφίλου Μενελάου σῇ τε βίῃ καὶ χερσὶ καὶ ἔγχεϊ φέρτερος εἶναι· ἀλλ' ἴθι νῦν προκάλεσσαι ἀρηΐφιλον Μενέλαον ἐξαῦτις μαχέσασθαι ἐναντίον· ἀλλά σ' ἔγωγε παύεσθαι κέλομαι, μηδὲ ξανθῷ Μενελάῳ ἀντίβιον πόλεμον πολεμίζειν ἠδὲ μάχεσθαι ἀφραδέως, μή πως τάχ' ὑπ' αὐτοῦ δουρὶ δαμήῃς.

You have come from war; if only you had perished there tamed by a mighty man, who was my previous husband. Truly before you used to boast that you were stronger than Menelaos, dear to Ares, in your might, and your hands, and your spear. Come, go now, call forth Menelaos, dear to Ares, to fight again facetoface. But I bid you to stop, and not to make war or fight facetoface with blond Menelaos without thought, lest somehow soon you should be tamed by him with his spear. (3.42736)

The first part of the speech, which follows the pattern of a hortatory rebuke, is filled with abuse.

Helen’s omission of an address to Paris – the “vocative of courtesy” – establishes the tone of bitter invective. 60 She sustains this tone throughout the rest of the speech. She substitutes the statement “you have come from war” ( ἤλυθες ἐκ πολέμου ) for the gentler rhetorical question seen in the other three hortatory rebukes. She makes a past counterfactual wish that Paris had died at the hands of a mighty man: though Helen is prone to making past counterfactual wishes

60 Bassett 1934: 1467.

for death, including one in each of her three other appearances in the work, in each other case she wishes for her own death (3.1735, 6.3458, 24.764). By substituing Paris’ death for her own, she conveys a feeling of contempt akin to the one she normally bears for herself. Finally, she draws a contrast between Paris’ past boasts of superiority and his actual performance on the battlefield.

Paris’ reply demonstrates the ineffectiveness of Helen’s rebuke: though elsewhere willing to heed an effective rebuke, like Hektor’s at 3.3957, here Paris not only disregards Helen’s rebuke but also tells her not to rebuke him (3.438). As in Diomedes’ rebuke of Odysseus, the inefficacy of Helen’s rebuke may be related to the amount of abuse it contains.

If there is a relationship between a rebuke’s success and the absence of abuse within it, it seems difficult to believe that the perceptive Helen would abuse her husband with the real intention of changing his behavior. Rather, the sheer amount of abuse in Helen’s speech suggests not so much that she is a poor rebuker, but rather that she uses the rebuke as a vehicle for venting her own frustration and malaise. Even as she vents her anger at Paris for being no fighter and for averting conflict with Menelaus, the conflicted woman also loves her new husband, preferring him over Menelaus. She does not want him to perish. Helen is split in her loyalties: her responsible, dignified side longs for a husband “who knows nemesis and the many shames of people” (6.351), while the sensuous Helen, intimidated (and thus dominated) by Aphrodite, is easily led by Paris to bed (3.447). Here her rebuke demonstrates this conflict: its two irreconcilable halves enact a hortatory rebuke and a woman’s plea to her man to stay, 61 reflecting her desire for a genuinely good husband and her passion for Paris, respectively. This split in

Helen’s personality is to be found also in her immediately prior speech to Aphrodite at 3.399

61 This speech genre is discussed on pp. 289.

412. There, she abused the goddess for leading her heart astray (ἠπεροπεύειν ) but still suggests she only withholds herself from Paris’ bed out of shame before the Trojan women (3.4112).

This survey of Iliadic hortatory rebukes has given us some insights into what makes an efficacious rebuke and how rebukes contribute to the characterization of the one issuing the rebuke. Effective hortatory rebukes use praise and the language of intimacy to suggest an alternative mode of behavior to their target, while ineffective rebukes cast blame on their target, create distance between speaker and addressee, and betray a lack of mastery over the genre.

Moreover, effective speakers – labeled as effective by characters (e.g. Odysseus by Antenor) and/or by the narrator or who demonstrate skill with goading rebukes – manifest their ‘innate’ verbal skill when they issue efficacious hortatory rebukes, whereas the opposite is true of lesser speakers, like Aeneas and Diomedes, who seldom exhort their comrade to action.

CHAPTER 3

HEKTOR’S GOADING AND HORTATORY REBUKES

As the Iliad comes to its close, Andromache, Hecuba, and Helen mourn the fallen Hektor who has finally been returned to Troy for burial. Helen’s lament, the last of the three, recalls how

Hektor defended her from others’ rebukes:

ἀλλ' οὔ πω σεῦ ἄκουσα κακὸν ἔπος οὐδ' ἀσύφηλον· ἀλλ' εἴ τίς με καὶ ἄλλος ἐνὶ μεγάροισιν ἐνίπτοι δαέρων ἢ γαλόων ἢ εἰνατέρων εὐπέπλων, ἢ ἑκυρή, ἑκυρὸς δὲ πατὴρ ὣς ἤπιος αἰεί, ἀλλὰ σὺ τὸν ἐπέεσσι παραιφάμενος κατέρυκες σῇ τ' ἀγανοφροσύνῃ καὶ σοῖς ἀγανοῖς ἐπέεσσι. τὼ σέ θ' ἅμα κλαίω καὶ ἔμ' ἄμμορον ἀχνυμένη κῆρ· οὐ γάρ τίς μοι ἔτ' ἄλλος ἐνὶ Τροίῃ εὐρείῃ ἤπιος οὐδὲ φίλος, πάντες δέ με πεφρίκασιν.

But I have never yet heard a harsh or degrading word from you. No, if someone rebuked me in the halls, one of my brothersinlaw, my husband’s sisters, or the wellclothed wives of my husband’s brothers, or my motherinlaw (but my fatherinlaw was always kind, like a father), you persuaded them with words and restrained them with your gentle spirit and your gentle words. So, grieving in my heart, I mourn both you and cursed me. For no one else in broad Troy will be kind or friendly anymore. All shudder at my sight. (24.767772)

For Helen, Hektor was distinctively kind and friendly, in contrast with almost all the other inhabitants of Troy. She contrasts Hektor’s distinctively gentle spirit – his ἀγανοφροσύνη –

with the personalities of Paris’ family members who rebuke her. 62 For Helen at least,

ἀγανοφροσύνη precludes rebuking. The contrast is not surprising: disapproving speech, in aiming to hurt or humiliate its target, is nearly the opposite of ἀγανοφροσύνη, which seeks to protect one’s own (φίλοι ). Yet as the Trojan commander Hektor must issue rebukes throughout the course of the Iliad : how does he reconcile the difference between his gentle spirit and the need to speak disapprovingly? As we shall see, his rebukes are steeped in intimate speech, both in subject matter and in style. At the beginning of the epic, these habits of speech undermine the efficacy of both his hortatory and goading rebukes; over the epic’s course, he learns to use his predilection toward intimate speech to his advantage in hortatory rebukes, where intimacy can be an asset, but his goading rebukes remain ineffective.

1. Hektor’s Hortatory Rebukes

Over the course of the three hortatory rebukes that Hektor issues (#1 – #3 below), the

Trojan hero slowly learns to use his predilection toward intimacy to his advantage. In his first rebuke of Paris at 3.3957, he uses intimate words mockingly to convey distance and abuse, but by the time of his final hortatory rebuke of Melanippos at 15.5538, he has learned to use intimate speech to craft an effective rebuke.

62 The repetitions of σὺ, σῇ, and σοῖς and ἀγανοφροσύνῃ and ἀγανοῖς, and the framing of ἐπέεσσι and ἐπέεσσι emphasize the exceptionality of Hektor’s behavior (Richardson 1993: 3589).

(1)

We begin with Hektor’s first rebuke and his first speech of the poem at 3.3957, where he attacks his brother Paris for refusing to face Menelaus. Hektor’s condemnation exceeds what

Paris’ offence deserves. In the preceding lines, Paris has called attention to himself by advancing to the front of the Trojan lines. When Paris sees Menelaus, however, he turns away and returns to the assembly of Trojan warriors (3.36: ὅμιλος ). Such a retreat is far from unprecedented; the line that describes Paris’ retreat (3.32) is found six times elsewhere, yet it never incurs a rebuke like the one that Hektor issues here to Paris.63 At the end of book 6, Hektor reveals why he has been so harsh to Paris: his heart aches whenever he hears the Trojans speak badly of his brother

(6.5235). Hence, by rebuking him, Hektor tries to end this criticism: his abuse towards his brother arises from love and concern, yet it is only partially effective.

Paris, in his response to Hektor, implies that his brother’s rebuke achieves partial success at the price of creating a distance between them. Paris acknowledges that Hektor has rebuked him properly, saying that “you have rebuked me in due measure and not beyond the due amount”

(3.59: με κατ' αἶσαν ἐνείκεσας οὐδ' ὑπὲρ αἶσαν ). Indeed, Paris does go on to duel with

Menelaus at 3.340382. He takes issue with Hektor’s rebuke, however, when he calls Hektor’s heart “not to be worn away” (3.60: ἀτειρής) and compares it to an ax cutting out ( ἐκτάμνω ) a piece of shiptimber. Moreover, this simile carries additional connotations that magnify the force of Paris’ countercriticism of his brother. The verb ἐκτάμνω occurs in a related simile (13.389

91 = 16.4824), where a man falling in battle is compared to a tall pine cut down by a carpenter for shiptimber. The two similes refer to the same situation, where lumberjacks are acquiring wood for shipbuilding. Can we assume, then, that Paris’ simile also implies the felling of the

63 It appears at 11.585, 13.566, 13.596, 13.648, 14.408, and 16.817.

tree? If Hektor’s heart corresponds to the ax in Paris’ simile, it is plausible that the tree, the target of the ax’s strike, stands in for Paris, the target of Hektor’s rebuke. In this reading, Paris subtly implies that Hektor’s rebuke is so harsh that it “fells” him. Thus he aptly captures how Hektor wounds him and creates a distance between the two warriors.

Hektor makes use of two flawed strategies in his rebuke against Paris: he attacks Paris’ preference for lovemaking over battle throughout the rebuke, and he appropriates formulae of praise and intimacy in his verbal attack:

Δύσπαρι εἶδος ἄριστε γυναιμανὲς ἠπεροπευτὰ αἴθ' ὄφελες ἄγονός τ' ἔμεναι ἄγαμός τ' ἀπολέσθαι· καί κε τὸ βουλοίμην, καί κεν πολὺ κέρδιον ἦεν ἢ οὕτω λώβην τ' ἔμεναι καὶ ὑπόψιον ἄλλων. ἦ που καγχαλόωσι κάρη κομόωντες Ἀχαιοὶ φάντες ἀριστῆα πρόμον ἔμμεναι, οὕνεκα καλὸν εἶδος ἔπ', ἀλλ' οὐκ ἔστι βίη φρεσὶν οὐδέ τις ἀλκή. ἦ τοιόσδε ἐὼν ἐν ποντοπόροισι νέεσσι πόντον ἐπιπλώσας, ἑτάρους ἐρίηρας ἀγείρας, μιχθεὶς ἀλλοδαποῖσι γυναῖκ' εὐειδέ' ἀνῆγες ἐξ ἀπίης γαίης νυὸν ἀνδρῶν αἰχμητάων πατρί τε σῷ μέγα πῆμα πόληΐ τε παντί τε δήμῳ, δυσμενέσιν μὲν χάρμα, κατηφείην δὲ σοὶ αὐτῷ; οὐκ ἂν δὴ μείνειας ἀρηΐφιλον Μενέλαον; γνοίης χ' οἵου φωτὸς ἔχεις θαλερὴν παράκοιτιν· οὐκ ἄν τοι χραίσμῃ κίθαρις τά τε δῶρ' Ἀφροδίτης ἥ τε κόμη τό τε εἶδος ὅτ' ἐν κονίῃσι μιγείης. ἀλλὰ μάλα Τρῶες δειδήμονες· ἦ τέ κεν ἤδη λάϊνον ἕσσο χιτῶνα κακῶν ἕνεχ' ὅσσα ἔοργας.

Wicked Paris, best in form, womancrazy, beguiler, if only you were unborn and had perished unmarried. And I would wish this, and it would be much better than thus being both a laughingstock and scorned by others. The longhaired Achaeans must be 64 laughing at you, saying that you are a leading champion only because you have a beautiful appearance, but you do not have force in your heart nor any courage.

64 Denniston 1996: 286.

Were you such a man when you, in seafaring ships, sailed over the sea, gathered faithful comrades, mingled with foreigners, and then led a beautiful woman to sea from a distant land, though she was the daughterinlaw of spearmen, a great pain to your father, to the city and to the whole people, a joy to our enemies, but a reproach to you yourself? Can’t you face 65 Menelaus, who is dear to Ares? You would know the kind of man whose blooming wife you have. You would not be helped by your cithara or by Aphrodite’s gifts, your hair and your appearance, if and when you should mingle in the dust. 66 But the Trojans are very afraid: otherwise 67 you would already be wearing a stone tunic because of the number of misdeeds you have committed. (3.3957)

Hektor’s rebuke includes a straightforward attack on Paris’ preference for lovemaking and related activities. In his opening insults, when he addresses Paris as εἶδος ἄριστε γυναιμανὲς

ἠπεροπευτὰ (“best in form, womancrazy, beguiler”), Hektor calls attention disapprovingly to several aspects of Paris’ personality: his beauty, his desire for women, and his treacherous nature. Hektor develops this criticism further in an imagined speech of the Achaeans, in which they lambast Paris for thinking himself to be a champion because of his appearance even though he does not possess any actual martial strength. 68 Here, Hektor judges Paris by two criteria for excellence: according to the standard of beauty, Paris certainly is a leader, but according to the standard of battle, Paris falls short. 69 Paris values the former more than the latter and so opens himself up to ridicule. The point recurs in Hektor’s contrast between the “former” and current

65 οὐκ ἂν δὴ in Homer often introduces a polite request in the form of a question (Denniston 1996: 223). 66 The scholiast attempts to lesson the blow of Hektor’s abuse by claiming ἐν κονίῃσι μιγείης means “to enter battle” ( συνέλθῃς εἰς μάχην ; Erbse 1969: 370), but he is clearly disproven by parallels at 10.457 and Od. 22.329, where the expression denotes death. 67 Denniston 1996: 532. 68 The indicative ἔστι poses a problem. Does it represent Hektor’s own thought, focalized through Hektor’s consciousness, or a preservation of the original direct discourse of the Achaeans? Kirk expresses no opinion (Kirk 1985: 272); Leaf tentatively suggests the latter (Leaf 1886: 90). The indicative ἔπ’ earlier is illogically preserved for a mild anacoluthon. The indicative, in any case, emphasizes the criticism of Paris as a coward. 69 Such a distinction between good looks and other kinds of excellence is not uncommon in Homer. Cf. Od. 8.166 185, where Odysseus similarly criticizes Euryalos for being beautiful ( εἶδος... ἀριπρεπές ) but poor at planning (νόον... ἀποφώλιός ).

Paris, as well as in his vision of Paris mingling with the dust due to his attention to music and his beauty. Never in this rebuke does Hektor outright condemn Paris for his frivolous interests, even in the harsh 54; rather, he finds fault with Paris’ preference for “the cithara and Aphrodite’s gifts” over war.

Hektor’s rebuke is not entirely convincing, as Paris denies his brother’s attack on sex,

“the gifts of Aphrodite.” 70 Nowhere else in the Iliad is sex considered incompatible with warfare, but rather it is regarded as a fundamentally human activity warriors too enjoy. Thersites ironically asks whether Agamemnon refuses to fight because he does not have a woman to mingle in love with (2.2323), and when Achilles, out of grief for Patroclus, isolates himself from his comrades and refuses to eat and have sex, his mother Thetis reminds him that “it is good to mingle with a woman in love” (24.1301: ἀγαθὸν δὲ γυναικί περ ἐν φιλότητι /

μίσγεσθ' ). When Paris tells Hektor not to bring forth the “lovely gifts of golden Aphrodite”

(3.64: δῶρ' ἐρατὰ... χρυσέης Ἀφροδίτης ), he is insisting that Hektor’s criticism is inappropriate and hence ineffectual.

Hektor’s other major tactic – the use of mocking praise and intimacy to cast blame and create distance – is similarly problematic. Sarcastic use of the language of intimacy calls attention to the lack of intimacy between the two interlocutors and denies the possibility of intimacy, creating or widening the gap between them. Paris himself suggests as much with his simile at 3.603, when he implies that Hektor has driven a wedge between the two. Hektor draws upon this strategy throughout his rebuke, beginning with his unfulfilled wish for Paris’ non

70 The phrase “the gifts of Aphrodite” ( δῶρα Ἀφροδίτης ) seems to refer specifically to sex in each of its other occurrences in archaic hexameter verse. Automedon enjoys Aphrodite’s gifts throughout his first night with Alkemene at Hes. Scutum 47; Demeter assumes the appearance of an old woman who is shut out from childbirth and Aphrodite’s gifts at Hom. Hymn. Cer. 102; and lastly Atalanta refuses Aphrodite’s gifts at Hes. fr. 76.6 and 76.10 MW.

existence. Wishes like this one, that open with αἴθ' ὄφελες, are made elsewhere by a friend or family member and express a hope for a better situation for their subject, not a worse one. 71

Hektor uses the familiar form to communicate his wishes that Paris had died (3.40: αἴθ' ὄφελες

ἄγονός τ' ἔμεναι ἄγαμός τ' ἀπολέσθαι ; “if only you both were unborn and had perished unmarried”). Furthermore, he tells Paris that it would be κέρδιον (“more advantageous”) for him to be dead than to be a laughingstock. The word κέρδιον suggests that such a situation would be advantageous for Paris, not more proper.72 Hektor implies that he knows Paris’ needs better than the man himself: his claim of superiority is distancing.

Later in the same rebuke Hektor uses the language of lament when he recalls Paris’ seizure of Helen. Since a lament is a “performance of memory,” 73 phrases that begin or end other performances, like ὥς (ποτ') ἔον (“So (once) I was”), which ends two of Nestor’s reminiscences (23.643, 11.762). With his τοιόσδε ἐών (3.46: “being such a man”), Hektor reworks the phrase: he substitutes τοιόσδε for the anaphoric ὥς and the participle ἐών for the finite verb ἔον . Though he marks his speech as a performance of memory, Hektor waits until the end of that section to incorporate language specific to the lament:

πατρί τε σῷ μέγα πῆμα πόληΐ τε παντί τε δήμῳ, δυσμενέσιν μὲν χάρμα, κατηφείην δὲ σοὶ αὐτῷ;

a great pain to your father, to the city and to the whole people,

71 Three such wishes are found elsewhere in Homer. At 1.4156 Thetis wishes that Achilles were sitting beside the ships without tears or pains. At 18.867 Achilles wishes that Thetis were dwelling with the Nereids and that Peleus had married a mortal wife, so that she would avoid suffering for her son. Finally, at Od. 24.301, Achilles wishes that Agamemnon had perished at Troy at the height of his power. Despite the quarrel that pits the two against one another for most of the Iliad , in the Odyssey ’s underworld the two heroes are reconciled: Achilles courteously calls Agamemnon dearest of all the heroes at Troy to Zeus (24.247). 72 Cf. 5.201, and LfGrE s.v. κέρδιον , especially its claim that the word is “nie dir. moral. wertend, höchstens indir. durch Kontext” (“never directly morally judgmental, at most indirectly through its context”). 73 Martin 1989: 868.

a joy to our enemies, but a reproach to you yourself? (3.501)

Two elements of these two lines partake of lament. First, the phrase μέγα πῆμα πόληΐ τε

παντί τε δήμῳ evokes Priam’s later mourning for his fallen son: μέγα χάρμα πόλει τ' ἦν

παντί τε δήμῳ (24.706: “he was a great joy both to the city and to the whole people”).

Secondly, when χάρμα is used as a predicate noun with a dative of reference, it refers almost exclusively in the Iliad to the joy of killing an enemy or rescuing a friend from certain death. 74

Hektor draws upon the language of lament to sting Paris: the eulogistic language only accentuates the contrast between Paris’ behavior and the expectations of a hero often voiced in laments.

Hektor closes his speech with two examples of distancing mock courtesy. He phrases his actual criticism – that Paris refused to face Menelaus – as a polite question. Furthermore, in his strikingly vivid image of Paris’ demise, he imports a metaphor of clothing into the realm of execution. The incongruous juxtaposition of these two semantic fields sarcastically taunts Paris:

λάϊνον ἕσσο χιτῶνα (“you would have put on a stone tunic”). 75

(2)

In his first, only partially successful rebuke of Paris, Hektor drew upon intimate speech to cast abuse upon his brother. They meet again at 6.313369, when Paris has returned to the city and is sitting in his bedroom with Helen, perhaps preparing to return to battle. Here, Hektor issues a second rebuke where, rather than call Paris unheroic, he criticizes his brother for his lack

74 So used at 6.82, 10,193, 17.636. There are two exceptions: at 23.342 Nestor uses the word in his warning to Antilokhos against destroying his chariot, a catastrophic failure occupying the same position within the chariot race as death. Of course, Priam also uses it at 24.706 to describe the joy Hektor once gave Troy. 75 Hektor’s allusion to the fear of the Trojans makes it clear that he refers to stoning, not burial (Kirk 1985: 273).

of concern for the Trojans. Employing a strategy better reflecting his ἀγαφροσύνη , he no longer draws upon intimate speech for abuse but rather uses other types of disapproving speech to cast abuse upon his brother:

δαιμόνι', οὐ μὲν καλὰ χόλον τόνδ' ἔνθεο θυμῷ, λαοὶ μὲν φθινύθουσι περὶ πτόλιν αἰπύ τε τεῖχος μαρνάμενοι· σέο δ' εἵνεκ' ἀϋτή τε πτόλεμός τε ἄστυ τόδ' ἀμφιδέδηε· σὺ δ' ἂν μαχέσαιο καὶ ἄλλῳ, ὅν τινά που μεθιέντα ἴδοις στυγεροῦ πολέμοιο. ἀλλ' ἄνα, μὴ τάχα ἄστυ πυρὸς δηΐοιο θέρηται.

You strange man, not at all 76 well did you set this wrath in your heart. The hosts perish around the city and steep wall as they fight. And it is because of you that both the battleshout and war rage around this city. And you would fight against another man, whomever you saw somewhere holding back from hateful war. But get up, lest soon the city burn from consuming fire. (6.32631)

Hektor attacks his brother for valuing his wrath ( χόλος ) over his obligation to his fellow citizens. In more typical expressions of the hortatory rebuke, speakers criticize their targets for being unheroic, contrasting their present behavior to earlier boasts, accusing them of having lost their previous κλέος or ἀλκή , or envisioning them dying like a coward ( κακός ). In these criticisms the targets are heroes seeking to further their own κλέος , not warriors trying to defend their homelands. 77 Hektor, on the other hand, far from accusing Paris of being unheroic, implicitly acknowledges Paris’ actions as heroic in the first line of his second rebuke:

δαιμόνι', οὐ μὲν καλὰ χόλον τόνδ' ἔνθεο θυμῷ,

You strange man, not at all well did you set this wrath in your heart.

76 For μέν here, see Denniston 1996: 362. 77 Redfield 1994: 1034.

In fact, Hektor criticizes Paris for nursing anger in his heart; he implies that Paris is choosing to let harm come to the Trojans out of a personal desire for glory. In the Iliad , Achilles most conspicuously withdraws from battle out of wrath ( χόλος ) in order that the Achaeans in their pain realize their mistake and grant him honor (1.508510). Likewise, by telling Meleager’s paradigmatic story, shaped to match Achilles’ own situation, Phoenix lays forth for Achilles the divide between a hero’s commitment to his anger and his responsibilities to his family and city:

Meleager nurses his anger as the Aetolian elders, his father Oineus, his mother and sisters, and finally his wife beg him to return to battle. At 9.5934 he is finally won over by his wife’s catalog of the horrors a city undergoes when it is sacked. Phoinix’s elaborate and pathetic cataloguing of these pleas (9.574594) brings home the degree to which Meleager must ignore his ties to his family and fellow citizens to maintain his heroic anger. Hektor hurls just such an accusation at Paris at 6.326: Paris is being too heroic by nursing anger in his heart, hoping to receive honor instead of helping his comrades. 78 To support this criticism, Hektor reminds Paris of his responsibilities to his fellow citizens:

λαοὶ μὲν φθινύθουσι περὶ πτόλιν αἰπύ τε τεῖχος μαρνάμενοι· σέο δ' εἵνεκ' ἀϋτή τε πτόλεμός τε ἄστυ τόδ' ἀμφιδέδηε·

The hosts perish around the city and steep wall as they fight. And it is because of you that both the battleshout and war rage around this city.

Hektor holds him responsible for the war and accuses Paris of allowing his fellow citizens to perish, and he suggests that Paris would find fault with another acting that way. Both these earlier accusations have nothing to do with Paris’ stature as a hero per se : his κλέος does not depend on whether he fulfills his ethical obligations to his countrymen. Rather, Hektor appeals to

78 pace Kirk 1990: 203, who reads this line as “[seeming] anxious not to offend.”

Paris’ sense of responsibility to his fellow citizens, in an argument that reflects his

ἀγανοφροσύνη: Hektor’s characteristic concern for others surfaces as disapproval of Paris’ seeming indifference to his fellow countrymen.

In addition to this attack on Paris’ preference to nurse his anger over fighting for the

Trojans, Hektor employs sarcasm and borrowings from other hostile speech situations to create distance and illfeeling between his brother and himself. In the first line, his substitution of

δαιμόνιη for the name found in other hortatory rebukes distances the two characters. Likewise, his substitution of a statement of blame for a rhetorical question – as in Helen’s rebuke at 3.428

36 – casts abuse on its target, as does the phrase οὐ μὲν καλὰ, elsewhere only found in

Eumaios’ angry rebuke of Antinoos at Od. 17.381. Finally, Hektor’s sarcastic understatement in

θέρηται , literally “grow warm”79 – strongly reminiscent of his earlier λάϊνον ἕσσο χιτῶνα – separates him from his brother.

Paris’ response illustrates how Hektor’s rebuke has indeed distanced him from his brother. In his rebuke, Hektor abuses his brother for privileging his heroic anger over his obligations to his fellow citizens and creates distance between the two. Although Paris again admits that Hektor has rebuked him properly and not excessively (3.333), he counters Hektor’s attack by claiming that he was staying in his apartment not out of anger at ( χόλῳ) or a fear of rebuke ( νεμέσσι ) from the Trojans, but out of concern ( ἄχεϊ ) for them. 80 Paris even states that

79 LfGrE s.v. θέρομαι . 80 ἄχος occasionally takes a genitive describing whom is grieved for: σέθεν (4.169: “for you”), Γλαύκου ἀπιόντος (12.392: “for Glaukos as he was going away”), εὐξαμένοιο (13.417=14.458=14.486: “for him praying”), φθιμένου ἑτάροιο (16.581: “for his perished comrade”), μεγαλήτορος Αἰνείαο (20.293: “for great hearted Aeneas”), οὗ... Ἕκτορος (22.425: “Hektor, for whom...”).

Hektor’s rebuke was entirely misguided: Helen had already persuaded him to return to battle

(3.3378), he affirms.

(3)

While his rebukes of his brother become less abusive over time, thus exhibiting more selfcontrol, Hektor shows complete mastery of the speech genre only in his third rebuke of

Melanippos at 15.5538, where he uses his natural predilection toward intimacy and intimate speech to good effect, producing a hortatory rebuke as effective as that of Odysseus’ at 11.3135.

Hektor rebukes Melanippos for his inattention to his cousin, the Trojan Dolops, who has just fallen in the course of battle and whose armor Menelaus and Meges have begun to strip:

οὕτω δὴ, Μελάνιππε, μεθήσομεν; οὐδέ νυ σοί περ ἐντρέπεται φίλον ἦτορ ἀνεψιοῦ κταμένοιο; οὐχ ὁράᾳς οἷον Δόλοπος περὶ τεύχε' ἕπουσιν; ἀλλ' ἕπευ· οὐ γὰρ ἔτ' ἔστιν ἀποσταδὸν Ἀργείοισι μάρνασθαι, πρίν γ' ἠὲ κατακτάμεν ἠὲ κατ' ἄκρης Ἴλιον αἰπεινὴν ἑλέειν κτάσθαι τε πολίτας.

This ,81 Melanippos, is how we’ll give way? Isn’t your own heart, at least, concerned about your fallen cousin? Don’t you see how they handle Dolops’ arms? No, 82 follow me. For no longer is it possible to fight the Argives standing aloof, [but we must fight close] until we kill them or from the top down they take steep Troy and its citizens are killed. (15.5538)

Throughout his rebuke, Hektor is at pains to praise Melanippos subtly and create an intimacy with the Trojan. His opening address, Μελάνιππε – simply the name – is intimate and friendly, unlike his previous addresses. His surprised question, marked as such by δὴ, subtly denotes his high opinion of Melanippos: he is surprised at his uncustomary indifference. His incorporation of

81 “ δή often [is] in surprised or indignant questions” (Denniston 1996: 209). 82 Denniston 1996: 135.

himself into the criticism with the first person plural verb μεθήσομεν blunts the sting of his critique. The verb choice is significant, too, since unlike in his other hortatory rebukes, Hektor’s accusation that he and Melanippos have been slack (μεθήσομεν ) is ambiguous: the verb

μεθίημι can describe any occasion when a warrior is not fighting. At 10.1213, for example, when Agamemnon complains that Menelaus sometimes does not fight, he provides a number of possible explanations:

πολλάκι γὰρ μεθιεῖ τε καὶ οὐκ ἐθέλει πονέεσθαι οὔτ' ὄκνῳ εἴκων οὔτ' ἀφραδίῃσι νόοιο, ἀλλ' ἐμέ τ' εἰσορόων καὶ ἐμὴν ποτιδέγμενος ὁρμήν.

For often [Menelaus] is both slack and unwilling to toil, not because he is yielding to shrinking or because of senselessness of mind, but because he is both looking towards me and awaiting my charge.

This remark suggests that a warrior may refrain from fighting for a variety of reasons, some of which are more acceptable than others: Hektor chooses not to label Melanippos as unheroic or inattentive to his city. Furthermore, his command ἀλλ' ἕπευ (“but follow [me]”) invites

Melanippos to join him in fighting. His “kill or be killed” motif, borrowed from exhortations before battle, 83 reinforces their unity of action. When he says that “it is no longer possible to fight the Argives standing aloof” ( οὐ ... ἔτ' ἔστιν ἀποσταδὸν Ἀργείοισι / μάρνασθαι ),

Hektor softens the criticism by implying that earlier that was acceptable, before Menelaus and

Meges began to humiliate Dolops by stripping his armor.

As in his second rebuke of Paris (2), Hektor demonstrates his predilection for arguments that depend on personal connections. He does not urge Melanippos to fight to prove his past

83 Hainsworth 1993: 336.

boasts true, as we might have expected from other characters’ hortatory rebukes: rather, he calls upon Melanippos’ family ties:

οὐδέ νυ σοί περ ἐντρέπεται φίλον ἦτορ ἀνεψιοῦ κταμένοιο; οὐχ ὁράᾳς οἷον Δόλοπος περὶ τεύχε' ἕπουσιν;

Don’t you, at least, in your own heart care about our fallen cousin? Don’t you see how they handle Dolops’ arms?

By reminding Melanippos of his familial connection to Dolops ( ἀνεψιοῦ, “cousin”) and asking him to behold the outrage that cousin is experiencing at the hands of the Achaeans, Hektor tries to awaken grief and a desire for revenge in Melanippos. His rebuke is uniquely successful:

Melanippos follows him into battle without any protest or delay (15.559).

2. Hektor’s Goading Rebukes

As was established in ch. 1, a goading rebuke succeeds by intimidating or provoking its target.

Hektor’s four goading rebukes (1) (2) (3) (4) all fail to intimidate, in large part due to his

ἀγανοφροσύνη : in each case he either praises his addressee or draws upon intimate or laudatory speech. Hektor’s increasingly more conspicuous ἀγανοφροσύνη backfires, as his goading rebukes prove to be increasingly less effective.

(1)

Hektor delivers his first goading rebuke immediately before his duel with Ajax in book 7, in the presence of spectators. Thus the exchange occurs in a competitive martial context with the two warriors eager to intimidate one another. As in the epic’s other, earlier duel at 3.345, here

the two participants address one another before they fight. There, as Menelaus and Paris approach one another, giving a dreadful look (δεινὸν δερκόμενοι ), astonishment ( θάμβος ) takes hold of their observers. We expect the same from Hektor in his rebuke in book 7, but he pursues an unusual strategy: like Meriones at 16.6205, he acknowledges Ajax’s worth as a speaker and warrior while implying (though not forcefully defending) his own superiority. His genuine concessions undermine his rebuke:

Αἶαν διογενὲς Τελαμώνιε κοίρανε λαῶν μή τί μευ ἠΰτε παιδὸς ἀφαυροῦ πειρήτιζε ἠὲ γυναικός, ἣ οὐκ οἶδεν πολεμήϊα ἔργα. αὐτὰρ ἐγὼν εὖ οἶδα μάχας τ' ἀνδροκτασίας τε· οἶδ' ἐπὶ δεξιά, οἶδ' ἐπ' ἀριστερὰ νωμῆσαι βῶν ἀζαλέην, τό μοι ἔστι ταλαύρινον πολεμίζειν· οἶδα δ' ἐπαΐξαι μόθον ἵππων ὠκειάων· οἶδα δ' ἐνὶ σταδίῃ δηΐῳ μέλπεσθαι Ἄρηϊ. ἀλλ' οὐ γάρ σ' ἐθέλω βαλέειν τοιοῦτον ἐόντα λάθρῃ ὀπιπεύσας, ἀλλ' ἀμφαδόν, αἴ κε τύχωμι.

Ajax, son of Telamon, Zeussprung, leader of the people, don’t at all test me like a powerless boy or woman, who doesn’t know the deeds of war. Rather I know well both battles and mankilling. I know how to handle my shield on my left and on my right, made of dry cowhide, a feat which is for me fighting as a shieldbearer. And I know how to attack a mêlée of swift chariots, and I know how to dance for hostile Ares in standup fighting. But [I will throw my spear], 84 for I refuse to hit you, who are such a man, unawares, after looking you over, but rather openly, in the hope that I may hit you. (7.23443)

Hektor demonstrates his trait of intimacy when he praises Ajax as a fighter and as a speaker and expresses concern for his opponent. Though conventional goading rebukes begin with a mockingly complimentary address to the enemy, Hektor opens his speech with this highly complimentary address:

84 Denniston 1996: 99.

Αἶαν διογενὲς Τελαμώνιε κοίρανε λαῶν Ajax, son of Telamon, Zeussprung, leader of the people,

In speeches to Ajax, their ally, Achilles at 9.644 and Menelaus at 11.465 use this same form of address with genuine camaraderie between speaker and addressee. Such a genuinely admiring address in a goading rebuke is unparalleled. Hektor goes on to explicitly praise Ajax as a great man with his τοιοῦτον ἐόντα (“being such a man”). Hektor’s intimacy with Ajax goes beyond simple praise: he even expresses concern for his opponent in battle, when he refuses to hit Ajax secretly ( λάθρῃ). Other heroes are not concerned with granting enemies a respectful death: we find no similar instances in goading rebukes, some of which (like 5.289) rather revel in the grim physicality of the enemy’s death.

Hektor’s praise of and concern for his opponent could still be beneficial if he still placed himself above Ajax, as Meriones does at 16.6205; yet his attempts to assert his superiority fall flat. His catalog of his areas of prowess on the battlefield – bearing a shield, attacking chariots, and fighting handtohand – does imply his superiority. So does his comparison of fighting to dancing: both activities obey set rules and fulfill expected behavior. Hektor introduces each item of his catalog of selfpraise with οἶδα ; while a single parallel is hardly conclusive, the only other instance of an anaphora of οἶδα in archaic hexameter has a strikingly different context. 85 At

Hom. Hymn. Cer. 22930, Demeter, disguised as an old nurse, reassures Metaneira that no harm will come to her son while Demeter nurses him:

85 While the anaphora of οἶδα in the first person singular is otherwise unique, the corpus of archaic hexameter does contain instances of anaphora of the verb in the first person plural: the Sirens tell Odysseus that they know what happened at Troy and on land ( Od. 12.18991), and the Muses tell Hesiod that they know how to speak both things like the truth and the truth itself (Hes. Theog. 278). The similarities between these two instances suggest that they belong to a different kind of speech than Demeter’s address to Metaneira: in both of these instances, a group of female deities address a less powerful mortal man, calling attention to their own power and neither expecting nor receiving a response.

οἶδα γὰρ ἀντίτομον μέγα φέρτερον ὑλοτόμοιο, οἶδα δ' ἐπηλυσίης πολυπήμονος ἐσθλὸν ἐρυσμόν.

For I know a great antidote, stronger than a woodcutter, and I know a good safeguard against baneful bewitching.

Demeter’s anaphora of οἶδα with a kind and intimate speech is meant to soothe its targets’ state of mind by offering herself as a reliable nurse for Demophoon. Hektor’s anaphora may carry similar connotations: in the act of trying to prove himself as a hero, he shows a concern for his opponent that may undermine his selfpraise. Furthermore, Hektor’s closing prediction of his enemy’s defeat fails to communicate selfconfidence: he threatens Ajax tentatively, throwing his spear only “in the hope that I may hit you” ( αἴ κε τύχωμι ). This phrase hardly intimidates its target, since it expresses some doubt concerning the outcome of the encounter, as in Pandaros’ rebuke of Diomedes analyzed above, where Pandaros had previously failed to hit his opponent).

Though we receive no specific account of how Ajax receives Hektor’s rebuke, in no way does its tone prevent him from almost killing Hektor in the ensuing duel, stopped only by Apollo’s intervention (7.26872). Thus, although Hektor’s own ἀγανοφροσύνη undermines his goading rebuke of Ajax, he does obey the rules of the genre with his attempts to intimidate his opponent.

In his final three goading rebukes of Achilles, however, Hektor makes no such attempt.

All three rebukes show a Hektor utterly uninterested in producing a successful result, as well as a

Hektor who is remarkably honest and draws upon intimate speech. His first rebuke of Achilles in particular illustrates his deep apathy for conducting a successful rebuke:

(2) Πηλεΐδη , μὴ δὴ ἐπέεσσί με νηπύτιον ὣς ἔλπεο δειδίξεσθαι, ἐπεὶ σάφα οἶδα καὶ αὐτὸς ἠμὲν κερτομίας ἠδ' αἴσυλα μυθήσασθαι.

οἶδα δ' ὅτι σὺ μὲν ἐσθλός, ἐγὼ δὲ σέθεν πολὺ χείρων. ἀλλ' ἤτοι μὲν ταῦτα θεῶν ἐν γούνασι κεῖται, αἴ κέ σε χειρότερός περ ἐὼν ἀπὸ θυμὸν ἕλωμαι δουρὶ βαλών, ἐπεὶ ἦ καὶ ἐμὸν βέλος ὀξὺ πάροιθεν.

Son of Peleus, do not hope to scare me with words like a childish fool, since I know well myself how to say both biting words and unseemly things. I know that you are good, and that I am much worse than you. But surely these things lie on the gods’ knees, whether I, even though I am worse, might take your soul from you after hitting you with a spear, since surely my spear is sharp at its point. (20.4317)

Hektor begins his rebuke with the same three lines as Aeneas’ at 20.200258: he claims that

Achilles’ rebuke has had no effect because he too knows how to rebuke: Achilles should not hope to scare Hektor ( μὴ... με... ἔλπεο δειδίξεσθαι , “do not hope to scare me” ), since Hektor too is skilled in rebukes as well ( σάφα οἶδα καὶ αὐτὸς / ἠμὲν κερτομίας ἠδ' αἴσυλα

μυθήσασθαι , “I know well myself too / how to say both biting words and unseemly things.”).

We expect this rebuke, then, to attempt to intimidate its opponent, as Aeneas’ unsuccessfully did.

This expectation is not met by the remainder of the rebuke, where Hektor directly acknowledges his opponent’s superiority and fails to predict his opponent’s defeat. In his next line Hektor shockingly admits Achilles’ superiority:

οἶδα δ' ὅτι σὺ μὲν ἐσθλός, ἐγὼ δὲ σέθεν πολὺ χείρων.

I know that you are courageous, and that I am much worse than you. (20.433)

Instead of insulting Achilles in order to show his superiority, Hektor straightforwardly acknowledges his inferiority. Furthermore, Hektor continues with an appeal to chance:

ἀλλ' ἤτοι μὲν ταῦτα θεῶν ἐν γούνασι κεῖται

But surely these things lie on the gods’ knees... (20.435)

This line occurs once elsewhere in the corpus of archaic hexameter: at 17.514, Automedon urges the Aiantes and Menelaus to join him when he decides to try his luck against the superior Hektor.

In this line he justifies this attempt with an appeal to chance. We might expect a hero to be willing to display his fear of a superior opponent in front of his allies, as Automedon does, but

Hektor’s use of the same line surprisingly admits his lack of confidence concerning the ensuing encounter. Furthermore, even though Hektor closes his speech with the expected wish for the enemy’s death, this wish is somewhat atypical. Once again, Hektor does not assert his superiority by predicting his success in battle, but only hopes, using an αἴ κε + subjunctive construction, that he will be triumphant. For such humility, the only parallel among the conventional goading rebukes is Pandaros’ rebuke of Diomedes at 5.279:

νῦν αὖτ' ἐγχείῃ πειρήσομαι αἴ κε τύχωμι.

Now, in turn, I will try with my spear, in the hope that I may hit you.

The context, however, is different. The failure of Pandaros’ bowshot at Menelaus at 4.104147 to wound Menelaus fatally makes it difficult for Pandaros to claim that this new attempt at

Menelaus will be successful.

All the unexpected elements of Hektor’s rebuke – his acknowledgment of Achilles’ superiority, his wish for Achilles’ death, and his appeal to chance – fail to intimidate their opponent. The stark differences between Hektor’s goading rebuke and a typical goading rebuke suggest that he is not even attempting to intimidate his opponent; he chooses not to issue the effective goading rebuke that he claims to know. Rather, he issues a speech that in its honesty and its borrowing from exhortation speeches suggests an intimacy between the fighters; even as the two prepare to fight, Hektor marks a bond between them.

(3) and (4)

Hektor’s two goading rebukes before and during his final encounter with Achilles in book 22 likewise fail to intimidate his opponent, and both are marked by honesty and borrowings from intimate speech. Believing he has his beloved brother Deiphobos at his side, Hektor turns from his flight to face Achilles and says the following:

οὔ σ' ἔτι, Πηλέος υἱὲ, φοβήσομαι, ὡς τὸ πάρος περ τρὶς περὶ ἄστυ μέγα Πριάμου δίον, οὐδέ ποτ' ἔτλην μεῖναι ἐπερχόμενον· νῦν αὖτέ με θυμὸς ἀνῆκε στήμεναι ἀντία σεῖο· ἕλοιμί κεν ἤ κεν ἁλοίην. ἀλλ' ἄγε δεῦρο θεοὺς ἐπιδώμεθα· τοὶ γὰρ ἄριστοι μάρτυροι ἔσσονται καὶ ἐπίσκοποι ἁρμονιάων· οὐ γὰρ ἐγώ σ' ἔκπαγλον ἀεικιῶ, αἴ κεν ἐμοὶ Ζεὺς δώῃ καμμονίην, σὴν δὲ ψυχὴν ἀφέλωμαι· ἀλλ' ἐπεὶ ἄρ κέ σε συλήσω κλυτὰ τεύχε' Ἀχιλλεῦ νεκρὸν Ἀχαιοῖσιν δώσω πάλιν· ὣς δὲ σὺ ῥέζειν .

No longer will I fear you, son of Peleus, as earlier when I ran around Priam’s great city three times and never dared to wait for you coming at me. But now my soul has urged me to stand against you. I would kill you or be killed. But come now, let us bring in the gods as witnesses. For they will be the best witnesses and guardians of our agreements. For I will not mutilate you vehemently, if Zeus should grant me victory, and I should take your soul away. But when I strip you of your famous arms, Achilles, I will give your corpse back to the Achaeans. And you do the same. (22.2509)

From the beginning of this rebuke, when he directly admits his past fear of Achilles and recounts his flight around the city of Troy, Hektor missteps, in that his admission can hardly be intimidating. 86 As in his earlier rebuke of Achilles, here too he draws upon more intimate speech: he substitutes the “kill or be killed” motif, borrowed from exhortations to a comrade, 87 for a prediction of his enemy’s death, and at 253 he continues the rebuke beyond its conventional

86 Martin 1989: 84. 87 Hainsworth 1993: 336. Compare Soko’s unsuccessful use of this motif at 11.4303, discussed on pp. 1920.

ending with the phrase ἀλλ' ἄγε δεῦρο , elsewhere found only in rebukes of an ally. 88 That phrase introduces a new element, an attempt at a pact. Hektor uniquely calls for the two warriors to make a pledge to return each other’s corpse to their respective allies, even calling this agreement a ἁρμονία , the sole instance of this word in this sense in Homer. 89 Such an agreement like that one between two warriors on the battlefield is unprecedented and improbable. The unrealistic proposal of a pact accompanies Hektor’s failure to intimidate

Achilles in his bid to create intimacy with him. Achilles attacks him for it in his own goading rebuke, reminding Hektor to remember his martial virtue (22.2689) and lambasting him for thinking that the two heroes can “have a likeminded soul” (22.263: ὁμόφρονα θυμὸν

ἔχουσιν ), while in reality the two are as naturally at odds as men and lions or wolves and sheep

(22.2626). By using a phrase found elsewhere only at Hom. Hymn. Cer. 434, Achilles accuses

Hektor – with only slight exaggeration – of seeking a relationship like Demeter’s and

Persephone’s.

After his response, Achilles throws a spear that misses its target. Before replying with his own spear throw, Hektor issues another goading rebuke that continues the characteristics of its predecessors:

ἤμβροτες, οὐδ' ἄρα πώ τι, θεοῖς ἐπιείκελ' Ἀχιλλεῦ ἐκ Διὸς ἠείδης τὸν ἐμὸν μόρον, ἦ τοι ἔφης γε· ἀλλά τις ἀρτιεπὴς καὶ ἐπίκλοπος ἔπλεο μύθων, ὄφρά σ' ὑποδείσας μένεος ἀλκῆς τε λάθωμαι. οὐ μέν μοι φεύγοντι μεταφρένῳ ἐν δόρυ πήξεις, ἀλλ' ἰθὺς μεμαῶτι διὰ στήθεσφιν ἔλασσον εἴ τοι ἔδωκε θεός· νῦν αὖτ' ἐμὸν ἔγχος ἄλευαι χάλκεον· ὡς δή μιν σῷ ἐν χροῒ πᾶν κομίσαιο.

88 Odysseus of Diomedes (11.314); Hektor of Glaukos (17.179); Odysseus of Ajax ( Od. 11.561); and Athena in disguise as Mentor to Odysseus ( Od. 22.233). 89 Richardson 1993: 133.

καί κεν ἐλαφρότερος πόλεμος Τρώεσσι γένοιτο σεῖο καταφθιμένοιο· σὺ γάρ σφισι πῆμα μέγιστον.

You missed, and clearly, godlike Achilles, you never learned my fate from Zeus. Surely you thought [you would]. But you have proven to be someone articulate and cunning with words, in order that I might fear you and forget my spirit and courage. You will not fix a spear in my back as I flee, but drive it straight through my chest as I am eager, if god grants it to you. But now escape my bronze spear. If only you might tend all of it in your flesh! Indeed, the war would be lighter on the Trojans, if you were dead. For you are their greatest pain. (22.27988)

Hektor is relieved that Achilles’ spear has missed him, and he begins his rebuke with this observation, as though to use it as ammunition against Achilles as Diomedes does against

Pandaros at 5.2879. He missteps with the genuinely complimentary address of Achilles, however; as in his previous rebukes, Hektor does not to issue an effective goading rebuke.

Instead, he chooses intimate speech in the hope of creating a bond between him and his opponent, and he acknowledges his own inferiority as a warrior. He then contrasts the efficacy of

Achilles’ prior rebuke, which he admits made him afraid (282). Hektor even calls Achilles

ἀρτιεπὴς (“articulate”), a genuine compliment for a speaker. 90 In closing, Hektor communicates his respect for Achilles. He indicates his resolve to stay and fight Achilles with “You will not fix a spear in my back as I flee” (283), but this line also evokes the shame Hektor has just incurred, by fleeing: the line is more appropriate to the hortatory rebukes it seems to have been adapted from, as in its parallel use at 8.95. Thus it suggests that Hektor is forging a bond or pact between himself and Achilles. Furthermore, far from offering a prediction for Achilles’ downfall, Hektor challenges his opponent to attack him in the chest and to try to avoid his thrust; his only mention

90 pace Richardson 1993: 135, who takes the word as “glib,” for which there is no parallel. Though the word is a hapax , a related word – ἄρτιος – is always complimentary, both in and not in reference to speech (14.92, Od. 8.240)

of harming Achilles comes in a wish, not a prediction. Finally, his concern for others is most clearly seen in his final two lines, where he tells Achilles that if the Achaean hero were dead the war would be easier for the Trojans.

3. Hektor’s Character in the Iliad

There is a tension between Hektor’s need to issue disapproving speech and his gentle temper. Often he undermines his rebukes’ efficacy by including in them discourse drawn from intimate speech. His rebukes of Achilles, unlike conventional goading rebukes, do not even attempt to intimidate his opponent. What does this deviation from the normal pattern say about

Hektor as a character?

Despite Schadewaldt’s reading, Hektor is not the hero par excellence;91 as Redfield saw, there is a conflict in Hektor between an altruistic heroism that aims to protect his family and an egotistical heroism that aims to protect his reputation among the Trojans. 92 Yet the motivations behind Hektor’s heroism are even more complex: as Sarpedon tells Glaukos at 12.310328, heroes fight not only to preserve their status at home but also to garner fame among future generations. Hektor, perhaps uniquely, voices his commitment to all three motivations for heroism in his famous speech to Andromache at 6.441465: he fights because he has shame before the Trojans and Trojan women (6.4413), because he is trying to gain κλέος for himself and his father (6.446), and because he fears the day when Andromache will be led away in slavery (6.447465). While it may be true that Hektor is the Trojan most preoccupied with

91 Schadewaldt 1997: 133. 92 Redfield 1994: 154.

winning personal κλέος ,93 that trait of his cannot be considered the only reason he fights for the

Trojans.

The strength of these three motivations in Hektor’s personality oscillates throughout the epic. Hektor’s desire for personal glory is dominant in the battles between the Trojans and

Achaeans after the Achaeans’ embassy to Achilles but before his return to battle (Il. 1118) and leads the Trojan commander to reject Polydamas’ advice in book 18 to return to the city rather than face Achilles:

νῦν δ' ὅτε πέρ μοι ἔδωκε Κρόνου πάϊς ἀγκυλομήτεω κῦδος ἀρέσθ' ἐπὶ νηυσί, θαλάσσῃ τ' ἔλσαι Ἀχαιούς, νήπιε, μηκέτι ταῦτα νοήματα φαῖν' ἐνὶ δήμῳ·

But now, when the son of wily Kronos has given me the opportunity to gain glory beside the ships and drive the Achaeans to the sea, fool, no longer set these plans forth among the people. (18.2935)

Hektor’s desire for glory leads to disaster when Achilles’ aristeia proves unstoppable and the

Trojans are pushed back to their city. By the time he is left alone outside the city to face

Achilles, his desire to avoid rebukes from Polydamas and other Trojans drives him to continue fighting:

93 Martin 1989: 133, Mackie 1996: 9799. 94 Though τε following a relative often denotes habitual action in Homer, it does occasionally occur in strictly particular statements (Denniston 1996: 5213): e.g. ἤματι τῷ ὅτε τ' ἦλθον Ἀμαζόνες ἀντιάνειραι (3.189: “on the day when the Amazons, a match for men, came”).

Hektor’s sensitivity to reproaches leads him to face Achilles and ultimately perish. This in turn is the beginning of Troy’s downfall. While he only remains outside the walls because of this sensitivity, his desire for personal glory is not altogether gone. Even though Hektor has seen that his recklessness in pursuit of κλέος has killed many of the Trojans (22.104: νῦν δ' ἐπεὶ ὤλεσα

λαὸν ἀτασθαλίῃσιν ἐμῇσιν ; “but as it is, since I destroyed the people by my instances of recklessness”), he cannot altogether shake off his desire for personal glory, which shapes his conduct outside the walls and takes a new form in the last moments of his life. In the end, he cannot imagine defeating Achilles, only being killed by him “with good glory” (22.110:

ἐϋκλειῶς). 95

Hektor’s sensitivity to reproaches arises from his gentle nature, his ἀγανοφροσύνη: this is most clearly seen when he is wounded by reproaches of Paris (6.5235) and when Helen says he responded to rebukes against her with his gentle nature (24.767772). He cares about Paris and Helen and is hurt when others reproach them (as if, in the case of Paris, it is a reproach of him as well). At the same time, he cannot simply dismiss even an anonymous Trojan’s opinion ofhimself or a loved one: he cares about public opinion. Thus, when a rebuke is directed at him, even in the depths of his own imagination as at 22.99110, he cannot shrug it off. He attacked

Paris for not meeting the Trojans’ standards, and he demands the same high standards from himself. His own ἀγανοφροσύνη forces him to remain outside the city, despite the harm that his death will bring to his loved ones. He places honor about the safety of his city.

In sum, Hektor remains outside the Trojan walls out of regard for the opinions of the

Trojans, which his ἀγανοφροσύνη forces him to consider. Rather than attempt to intimidate

95 Likewise, in his final speech he chooses to die “after having done some great deed even for future generations to learn of” (22.305: μέγα ῥέξας τι καὶ ἐσσομένοισι πυθέσθαι ).

Achilles with goading rebukes as a prelude to a successful encounter, as he might if his desire for personal fame was driving his behavior, Hektor lets this same ἀγανοφροσύνη shape much of his rebukes; he aspires to create a bond with the man who will kill him gloriously and leave his city without a defender.

CONCLUSION

Goading rebukes, which all occur on the battlefield in pairs, are fundamentally agonistic: heroes from opposing sides compete to score verbal blows on their opponents, trying to triumph through provocation or intimidation. Both participants in such a “verbal duel” sabotage their own efficacy if they admit weaknesses or inadequacies. Winners, in general, such as Sarpedon in book 5 and Odysseus in book 11, use a variety of strategies to defeat their opponents. They carefully adapt their rebukes to the context and skillfully borrow from other speech genres, while avoiding both excessively bold or meek claims. Hortatory rebukes, on the other hand, are aimed at comrades who have withdrawn from the front lines; typically found in the throng of battle, they tend not to be agonistic. Instead, the practitioner of effective hortatory rebukes uses praise and words of intimacy in order to create rapport with his addressee; he wishes to persuade his target that they share a common goal.

The ideal hero in the Iliad has arete as both a fighter and a speaker (9.443), but few excel in both realms. Superb speakers, like Odysseus, tend not to be the “best of the Achaeans” in battle, while the best warriors, like Ajax, struggle to create highly effective speeches. While excellence in one realm tends to be matched by adequacy in the other, poor warriors – like Sokos

(11.4303) – tend also to be poor speakers.

In the case of Hektor, the poet crafts the hero’s hortatory and goading rebukes to reflect his gentle nature. His rebukes are full of arguments that reflect his concern for others and that draw on intimate speech. While the Trojan hero learns to harness this predilection to his

advantage in his hortatory rebukes – rebukes aimed at his philoi both on and exceptionally off the battlefield – he undermines his success at goading an enemy whenever he attempts to create an intimate bond between them. His gentleness in the goading context is a sign of weakness.

When Hektor finally addresses an Achilles utterly removed from human relationships, he accentuates his own characteristic ἀγανοφροσύνη. In their exchange of speeches, the two heroes enact opposing visions of heroism. By pitting these two against one another in a verbal exchange that precedes their physical engagement on the battlefield, the poet highlights not only the impasse between them but also the failure of their incompatible brands of heroism: Hektor’s gentleness with his enemy leads to the death of his community, while Achilles’ utter rejection of human bonds and his Pyrrhic victory over Hektor fails to relieve his grief for Patroklus.

Human intimacy between enemies seems impossible when Hektor dies, but with the meeting of Priam and Achilles in book 24 the poet transcends this impasse, at least for a time.

Helen links Priam with his son as unusually gentle (24.770: ἤπιος ); when the Trojan king, like his son, irrationally and with no real hope of success seeks to forge a bond with Achilles, he gives the Achaean warrior, in a sense, a chance to reenact his meeting with Hektor. The success of their encounter suggests that Hektor was right to hope for a real bond of understanding between enemies; but his request was premature, as Achilles could not then respond to his request that the winner, whoever it might be, honor the corpse of the vanquished. In the end,

Priam achieves the return of Hektor’s corpse for burial, and Achilles allows the corpse of his enemy to receive its due. Because of Achilles’ wrath Patroklos went forth into battle and fell at

Hektor’s hands; the story of Achilles’ wrath may only end when Achilles is given a second opportunity to face Hektor and accepts the offer of a human bond, finally acknowledging the consequences of his own anger and ending the cycle of destruction. The poet does not resolve the

tensions ἀγανοφροσύνη causes: while Hektor’s gentleness directly causes the death of his city, that same gentleness in his father allows Achilles to finally reenter the human community.

Hektor’s gentleness also reveals the character of his peaceloving city, for which he is the sole defender (6.403, 24.72930). Yet his characteristic ἀγανοφροσύνη prevents him from succeeding in this civic role: he does not create intimidating goading rebukes, and his failure to win his verbal duels corresponds to and has the same underlying cause as his failure to win his final duel with Achilles. Even in the face of his failure, the Trojans cannot see that their defender

– the only one who protected their city (22.507) – was far from ideal: in bestowing the nickname

Astyanax, the “lord of the city” (6.4023), upon their only defender’s son, the Trojans demonstrate the trust they place in Hektor. Even Andromache overlooks his gentleness, telling his son that he was “not mild” in war (24.739: οὐ μείλιχος ). Only the outsider Helen sees and accurately labels this trait (24.772: σῇ ... ἀγανοφροσύνῃ, “by your gentleness”). It may be that the Trojans’ blindness to Hektor’s gentleness, which leads them to support him unconditionally as their commander on the battlefield, reflects their comfort with nonheroic values: unlike the

Achaeans, the Trojans honor dancing, song, and wisdom – the pleasurable activities of peace – as much as martial excellence (13.7302). 96 In choosing Hektor as their representative, the Trojans betray their esteem for heroes who are gentle, but this desirable peacetime trait leaves them exposed to the more aggressive Achaeans. In Hektor, the poet shows both the strength and the vulnerability of a community accustomed to peace.

96 Sale 1963: 967.

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