GENTLE REPROACH: HEKTOR’S HORTATORY AND GOADING REBUKES IN THE ILIAD by 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 by 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 © 2010 David F. Driscoll All Rights Reserved GENTLE REPROACH: HEKTOR’S HORTATORY AND GOADING REBUKES IN THE ILIAD by 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 iv 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. v 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 vi 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... (22.99-102) 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: 521-3): 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. 1 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 “results-culture” 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 Indo-European 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: 221-252, esp. 222. 6 Nagy 1999: 226-7 7 Nagy 1999: 260-4. 8 OED s.v. “rebuke” 1b. 2 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 “flyting-to-fighting,” comprised of engagement, flyting, martial combat or athletic competition, and ritual resolution. 10 Although he does not mention Parks’ flyting-to-fighting 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 “boast-and-insult” 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