Homer's Savage Hera Author(S): Joan O'brien Source: the Classical Journal, Vol

Homer's Savage Hera Author(s): Joan O'Brien Source: The Classical Journal, Vol. 86, No. 2 (Dec., 1990 - Jan., 1991), pp. 105-125 Published by: The Classical Association of the Middle West and South, Inc. (CAMWS) Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3297720 Accessed: 23-05-2020 06:16 UTC

REFERENCES Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3297720?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contents You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms

The Classical Association of the Middle West and South, Inc. (CAMWS) is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Classical Journal

This content downloaded from 73.97.157.116 on Sat, 23 May 2020 06:16:18 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms HOMER'S SAVAGE HERA

Despite Hera's importance in storied Argos and, as I will show, her signifi- cance as a motivating force in the Iliad, scholars often dismiss her as a minor figure, her mood swings explained away as characteristic of the radical inconsis- tencies to be found in most Homeric deities. But Hera's role is far more complex and essential to the epic than such a view suggests. Her sexual manipulation of Zeus in the Atig 'A7td'uz, while providing comic relief, is also an integral part of the early battle books as Erbse has shown.' Moreover, I shall argue that her

1H. Erbse, "Zeus und dem Idagebirge," Antike und Abendland 16 (1970) 93-112. Studies particularly helpful for this article include: on Hera's savagery Malcolm Davies, "The Judgement of Paris and Iliad Book XXIV," JHS 101 (1981) 56-62 Jasper Griffin, Homer on Life and Death (Oxford 1980) Karl Reinhardt, Das Parisurteil (Frankfurt 1938) William G. Thalmann, Conventions of Form and Thought in Early Greek Epic Poetry (Baltimore 1984) on omophagia J. N. Redfield, Nature and Culture in the Iliad: The Tragedy of Hector (Chicago 1975), especially 192 ff. J.-P. Vernant, "Sacrificial and Alimentary Codes in Hesiod," 57-79 and Marcel Deti- enne, "Between Beasts and Gods," 215-28 in Myth, Religion and Society, ed., R. L. Gordon (New York 1981) Detienne, The Gardens of Adonis, trans. Janet Lloyd (Sussex 1977) 72-79 on Homeric words for "anger" A. W. K. Adkins, "Threatening, Abusing and Feeling Angry in Homeric Poems," JHS 89 (1960) 7-21 P. Considine, "Some Homeric Terms for Anger," Acta Classica 9 (1966) 15-25 Anne Giacomelli, "Aphrodite and After," Phoenix 34 (1980) 1-19 Gregory Nagy, The Best of the Achaeans (Baltimore 1979) Laura M. Slatkin, "The Wrath of Thetis," TAPA 116 (1986) 1-24 Calvert Watkins, "On gltvtq," Indo-European Studies 3 (1977) on Argive and Samian archaeology and cult J. N. Coldstream, Geometric Greece (London 1977) Helmut Kyrieleis, Fiihrer durch das Heraion von Samos, Deutsches Archdiologisches Institut Athen (Berlin 1981) Specialized studies in Athenische Mitteilungen, e.g., K. Vierneisel 76 (1961) 25-59 and Kyrieleis 95 (1980) 87-147 W. Pitscher, RhM 104 (1961) 302-55 and 108 (1965) 317-20 and his recent monograph, Hera (Darmstadt 1987) Erika Simon, Die Gotter der Griechen (Munich 1980) R. A. Tomlinson, Argos and the Argolid (Ithaca 1972) James Wright, "The Old Temple in the Argolid," JHS 102 (1982) 186-201. Other works I have used include: Richard E. Doyle, S.J., Ate, Its Use and Meaning (New York 1984) Mark W. Edwards, Homer, Poet of the Iliad (Baltimore 1987) G. S. Kirk, The Iliad: A Commentary (Cambridge 1984) Walter Leaf, ed., The Iliad, vol. 2 (Amsterdam 1971 [19022]) C. W. Macleod, ed., Homer, Iliad Book XXIV (Cambridge 1982) D. B. Munro, ed., Homer, Iliad, Books XIII-XXIV (Oxford 19034) M. N. Nagler, Spontaneity and Tradition (Berkeley 1974) continued on next page

This content downloaded from 73.97.157.116 on Sat, 23 May 2020 06:16:18 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 106 JOAN O'BRIEN

unremitting lust for vengeance provides the divine model for the inhuman excesses of the final battle books. On the basis of diction associated with her in the epic, I will show a hitherto little-recognized thematic association between Hera's relentless rage and demonic degeneracy. In the first and last theodicies (4.1-67 and 24.22-119), and in the final books (20-24) of the epic, Hera is prominent as a savage goddess who, in Zeus' words (4.34 ff.), lusts to "raw- eat" the flesh of Priam and of all Troy. This Hera is, finally, to triumph over the divine pity which Zeus comes to represent. The lust for raw-eating or omophagia, applied to her in Book 4, is the epic's primary image of moral degeneration, just as a meal roasted and shared with others is the primary metaphor for the best of human behavior. The theme of eating raw flesh occurs principally in two types of Iliadic settings: in similes involving carnivores and in scenes containing prayers and/ or prophecies.2 These similes occur in battle scenes and compare heroes to lions, dogs, and other wild beasts. In one of these (5.782-94), Hera functions as warrior-god arousing (6-cpuvv 5.792) her Achaians to furious warfare with "the voice of fifty men." In another, "Ares-like Achilles" plays a similar role with his Myrmidons (6tp6vwov, 16.166-67). In both cases, the exhortor is another Ares: Hera-Stentor's cry of fifty men is a prelude to Ares' bellow with a voice of nine or ten thousand (5.860); and Achilles is, uniquely for him, ipEtog. Both inspire followers to unleash their own bestiality (Redfield 196 ff.). It is the prayers and/or prophecies, however, which provide the primary evidence of Hera's omophagia. In these, the twin themes of raw-eating and endless vengeance, used first of Hera in the early theodicy (4.34 ff.), appear in recognizable patterns. The pattern of raw-eating is recognizable by its recur- rence in prophecies or wishes or both: Priam, Achilles, and Hekabe all lust to eat someone raw, using either btfrloTiqg, "raw-eating," or dL6qg, "raw," + an optative form of &6C[ivuat, "to eat." Achilles' lust to eat the raw flesh of

Carl A. Rubino and Cynthia W. Shelmerdine, Approaches to Homer (Austin 1983) Charles P. Segal, The Theme qf the Mutilation of the Corpse in the Iliad, Mnemosyne suppl. 17 (Leiden 1971). This article is part of a larger study of Hera in early ritual and myth. There I argue that Hera was not in origin the wife of Zeus despite an allusion to Zeus, Hera, and Drimios, son of Zeus, on a Linear B tablet; that she was a fertility goddess at early Heraia (both at Samos and at Argos, even though these cults must have been different in origin); that she became the sister-wife in the epic tradition; and that there are vestiges of her fertility in the Iliad. I am grateful to Professors Robert Griffin, Carolyn Higbie, and CJ's two anonymous readers for detailed, insightful criticism. 2The uses of raw-eating modifying carnivores include: five similes in battle scenes comparing heroes to various birds, wolves, lions, boars, jackals; one battle scene (not a simile, 11.453-54) in which Odysseus exults over a hero whom "raw-eating" (dlarttui) birds shall rend; and one unrelated, literal use of ravenous fish (24.82). Of the similes, two are brief: 7.256 Hektor and Ajax fighting like ravenous lions or boars; and 15.592 the Trojans rushing upon the ships like ravenous lions; and three are extended: 5.782-94 the Achaians around Diomedes like ravenous lions or wild boars, being urged on by Hera with the voice of Stentor; 11.473-84 the Trojans besetting Odysseus like ravenous jackals around a stag whom a lion scatters; and 16.155-67 the Myrmidons rushing forth like ravenous wolves that have slain a stag, their jaws red with gore, being urged on by Achilles. The examples of raw-eating in the prophecy-prayer group include: the Hera pattern 4.34 ff.; Priam's prayer 22.42-65 and his prophecy 22.66 f;. Achilles' prayer 22.347; his promise made to Patroklos' ghost that dogs will raw-eat Hektor's corpse 23.21; Hekabe's charge that Achilles is her

son's raw-eater" (6lUltilic, 24.207); and her prayer 24.212-14.

This content downloaded from 73.97.157.116 on Sat, 23 May 2020 06:16:18 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms HOMER'S SAVAGE HERA 107

Hektor (22.346 ff.) is ironically foreshadowed in the lamentations of Priam and Hekabe over their fates (22.42, 67, and 82-89) and is crudely aped by Hekabe's lust to raw-eat her son's raw-eater (cbrotycijg 24.207 and 213-14). The theme of vengeance is more difficult to chart since it involves a complex distinction between Hera-like y6%og and [gvog ("lust for vengeance" and "rage"), on the one hand, and Zeus-inspired glivtg "wrath," on the other. The sacral wrath of Achilles (1.1), identified with the plan of Zeus (1.5), is suspended in Book 19 (19.35, 75, Nagy 92); subsequently, the hero's fury

resembles the 6Xog and gtivog of Hera. The linkage between Hera in the first theodicy and Achilles at his most bestial is signaled by parallels in the use of these words and in actions described. In the denouement, however, Achilles retreats from the model of Hera in response to Zeus' new ethic of pity, while she remains committed to a demonic hatred which is not to be sated even in the conflagration of Troy. The divine councils of Books 4 and 24, supported by the contrasting effects of Zeus and Hera on Achilles in the final Books (20-24), show Homer grap- pling with two different views of divine justice. In the earlier council, Zeus is a partisan deity who makes no pretense of evenhandedness; even so, this "justice" is preferable to Hera's brutal caprice towards friend and foe alike. Her behavior towards the Argives is particularly remarkable since she was in Homer's time, and most probably earlier, the preeminent deity of the Argolid (Tomlinson 65). In this case, epic needs contravene cultic precedent: Hera is made to barter her own people's welfare to assure the destruction of Troy.3 By the council of Book 24, however, Zeus' divine pity offers a radical contrast to Hera's hatred of Troy. He has evolved into a creative power, releasing a mixture of good and evil into the world (24.527-33), whereas she remains fixed in her destructive obsession. Achilles' subsequent renunciation of omophagia, signaled at an authentically human meal with his archenemy Priam, is evidence of the new theodicy ordained by Zeus and "the blessed gods" and embodied in Thetis. In this article, I examine these two councils and the final books of the Iliad, arguing that Homer presents two profoundly different views of the divine economy and that Hera is his central symbol for demonic appetite.

Since Xdlog and tgivog are the pivotal words for demonic rage, I begin with several semantic distinctions. Though [tfvtg and ?lavog are etymologi- cally related (Watkins 711 ff.), Homer uses the former almost exclusively of the wrath of Achilles, the salient theme of the Iliad. On a "wholly different level from the other Homeric words for 'wrath'" (694), tflvtq implies reci- procity between Zeus and Achilles (688 f.) and leads to the hero's withdrawal, to devastation, and to his final maturation with his return to society (Nagler 131 ff.). X60og, however, ordinarily carries none of the sacral connotations of pflvtq nor does it suggest its regenerative power.4 The epic's most common word for "anger" (Considine 16, 22), it is used more of mortals than of gods.

3Hera has, however, moments of concern for her Argives (e.g., 1.56, 209, 18.167, 239-42); and the Zeus who pities Hektor's corpse is soon after one with the other careless (d~lKfrl6~ 24.526) gods indifferent to human woes. 4I exclude here 1.188 ff., 15.72, and 19.67, passages where either Zeus or Achilles speaks of 7X6ov rnatmv. Watkins argues that this formula was used in place of pfLvtv nrrctv because of tabu against using the latter "in the mouth of the one who says 'I.'"

This content downloaded from 73.97.157.116 on Sat, 23 May 2020 06:16:18 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 108 JOAN O'BRIEN

Its semantic field includes both a hero's lust to avenge wrongs in battle and a rabble's mindless fury in the marketplace. (Aeneas' diatribe against the "heart-devouring" venom of women Xd6og-driven at streetcorners [20.251- 55], for instance, sounds like a male commonplace about womanly rancour.)5 Watkins notes that the word usually designates a drive which impels a subject from without: it "comes on" (YKztv) or "seizes" (kapciv) one (708). But Chantraine suggests, on the evidence of 16.203, that "bile" was its fundamental meaning: aX'tz?s flqhog uitz, X6ko? pa o' iTptpp prtilncp ("Merciless Achilles, it was on bile that your mother reared you").6 Whether or not the word was originally understood as a bile imbibed with a mother's milk, this verse about Thetis and Achilles is part of an extended metaphor of the transmission of y6kog from goddess-mothers (i.e., Hera and Thetis) to their raging sons. The rage of these sons (i.e., Ares, Hephaistos, and Achilles) is called pIvog, which like O6Xog is sometimes regarded as a "vital fluid" (Giacomelli 14-15). But ptivog is usually both more positive in tone and more limited in application than the ubiquitous y6`og. Its semantic range is from "might, power" to "rage, anger" (Nagy 322 5n4), and it designates a force which possesses a hero and impels him towards some particular goal (Adkins 15-18). Rarely used of females except goddesses (Giacomelli 12), it is regarded as that necessary but limited "adrenalin" which provides the impetus for warfare and for sex. Its injury or absence was apparently thought to incapacitate a hero and bring on the impotence and dryness of old age (plants without [uZvog wither [Theophrastus, De Causis Plantarum 4.12.2] Giacomelli 16). "The starting and stopping of a hero's ?pvo; is in the control of the gods," Giacomelli observes. Interestingly, the only Iliadic instances of a deity's "staying someone's rage" (ntm'itv + zs6g p vog) is spoken by (23.340) or at the behest of (1.207) Hera (see note 14). Among divinities with a superfluity of pivog are Hera and Ares. The war-god apparently has the most, enough to "share" (6azcovtut 18.264) indiscriminately with both Achaian and Trojan armies. The source of his remarkable gIvog, as Zeus himself tells him, is his mother: "You have the unbearable, unyielding ?ptvog of your mother Hera" (nrltpd6 toot &vog oXyziv edUCTzov, or K hictt~tZ6v,/ 'Hprg. 5.892-93). Telle mere tel fils, Zeus is saying to one to whom "strife, wars, and battles are always dear" (5.891). As I shall show, Homer uses this metaphor about the transmission of Xdlog and .Ivog from goddess-mothers to sons from the first theodicy (4.24) until the last (24.56 ff.), where Hera clearly reveals herself as the

5This passage (20.251-55) which may be of non-Homeric origin, repetitiously piles up words for female wrangling (Eptq and Z6dog twice and vetuciv three times). Its emphatic conclusion ("it is x6og that drives women even to falsehoods!") sounds like a male commonplace, especially since Aeneas is contrasting woman's nonproductive friction with man's eagerness for heroic battle. 6Chantraine Dict. s.v. 6Xkog and Giacomelli 13-17. If 16.203 is part of the Iliad's consciously metaphoric group linking Achilles' savagery with the xdog; that Thetis received from Hera's breast, it seems less likely that X6?og originated as bile; and more likely that Homer is using this metaphor of biological determinism as symbolic of Hera's character. Yet the notion that human excess was transmitted through a mother's fluid appears to be transcultural (cf. the Psalmist's verse: "In sin did my mother conceive me"). See George Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind (Chicago 1986) 383 ff., for the persistence of the cultural metaphor that anger is a liquid.

This content downloaded from 73.97.157.116 on Sat, 23 May 2020 06:16:18 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms HOMER'S SAVAGE HERA 109

source of the demonic power which energizes Achilles at his most bestial. To begin at the beginning, then. The first council (4.1-67) occurs at a critical juncture. The duel between Menelaos and Paris has just occurred; according to the terms of the resulting truce, Helen should now be returned to Menelaos and the war should be over. Zeus, albeit with tongue in cheek (ntapctaXpirlv dyops6ov, "speaking de- viously," 4.6), asks the crucial theological question: Should grim warfare resume or should the gods impose friendship upon the two armies (4.14-16)? Both Athena and Hera react furiously to the thought of peace, as the double use of z6og shows: X6og 6 Vtv 6iyptog pst-/p"HHpl 86' o0K EXt68 cYfiOo;g 6ov, "cholos seized her [Athena];/ but Hera's breast did not contain her x6kog; (23-24 = 8.460-61). "'7 Athena's lust for vengeance, though savage (iypto;), is contained (she says nothing), and is external in origin ("pst). Zeus' (later in the scene 42) is directed only against a city dear to his spouse. Hera's, however, is internal in origin and uncontainable, as the unique metaphor, oIK CXacs fcyfOo;g d6ov, suggests. The rare use of the verb LXa6 (from uavidvetv, otherwise used of mixing bowls and other con- tainers) suggests Hera's breast is a receptacle inadequate to contain her bitter gall.8 Her rage is pictured as a bitter milk overflowing from her breast. This goddess of childbirth, at times identified with the bitter birthpangs of the Eileithyiai (goddesses of birth),9 becomes here a goddess of bitter bile in the psychological sense. The unlimited outreach of Hera's Z6%og; becomes evident in the ensuing dialogue: "How can you wish to vitiate all this effort, the sweat I have expended and that of my horses, in summoning the people for the destruction of Priam and his sons" (4.26-28)? Her hyperbole here (Athena, not Hera, usually enters into the din of battle) reveals her smoldering hatred of Troy (cf. 8.447-67). Zeus' retort emphasizes that hatred: Strange one, what great ills have Priam and the sons of Priam wrought against you, that you rage unceasingly (dtcrspxC;g ws- vctivelg 32) to devastate the well-built citadel of Ilion? If you could pass through its gates and high ramparts and could have devoured raw Priam, his sons, and all Trojans besides (sicyk Ooa c 6rtugt; KctI TsSty c tt1Kp( / dO6v p33p&o0otg Hfpitaov Hptdploto6 z 7caitS6ug/ 6ioug T Tpwug 4.34-36), then, then only might you heal completely your anger (r6z KEV X6kov ?uKocyulto 36).

7Martin Mueller, The Iliad (London 1984) 151, argues that the repeated verses 4.20-25 = 8.457-62 lead to the "inescapable conclusion" that one passage copies the other, whether the copyist was the same or a different poet, since the tradition hardly "possessed a six-line formula for the situation in which Hera and Athene are angry at a remark by Zeus, but Athene bites back her anger whereas Hera cannot control herself." My analysis suggests that Homer himself repeats the verses in order to emphasize the unique character of Hera's xo6og. 8Cf. 23.741-42, of a mixing bowl; 268, of a cauldron; 24.192, of a storeroom. Recall, too, that Ares' "tEvog (5.892-93) is called tdrgxszov, "uncontainable, unbearable." Although this adjective comes from XEstv, not xavudvitv, it recalls the container-metaphor used of Hera's xo6og in 4.24 and thus reinforces the mother-son link. 9Hera sometimes acts as an Eileithyia (19.113-17), sometimes is called the mother of the Eileithyiai (11.20), and sometimes exercises power over them (19.119 and H.Ap. 95-99).

This content downloaded from 73.97.157.116 on Sat, 23 May 2020 06:16:18 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 110 JOAN O'BRIEN

In eight verses, Zeus sounds the themes that identify Hera's rage. First, it is incessant. The formula &;epXg a;vsveaive g, "you rage ceaselessly," occurs only once again in the Iliad (of Achilles' rage against Hektor 22.10) and once in the Odyssey (of Poseidon's unremitting rage against Odysseus 1.20).10 The verb iVegevivrly, "to be in a rage," is formed from the noun lavog (Nagy 73); two of the three other uses of the rare depZxg, "ceaselessly," describe Achilles' persistent rage (16.61 and 22.188)." Also, the rage is bestial (she would raw-eat [bl6v Pp3pC60otg]), is all-devouring ("Priam, his sons, and all Trojans"), and is incurable: the verb SaKicOutct, to heal completely, used in the optative of an unreal condition, indicates that even after her triumphal entry into Troy (iGCEh0oOa u i)~Tg K ti "ct lcatptKpd) her disease will remain. A cure would demand that the goddess, who by nature eats no human food, eat the raw meat of Priam and sons. Then only (note the perfect optative of E"68vat [P33pp60ot] ?+ i6j6v), would her fury be contained. So whereas human tuvog usually designates the essence of a man's strength (Giacomelli 17), the divine ILvvog of Hera has as its persistent goal the omophagia of a whole race. Homer takes advantage of Hera's stature as the preeminent Argive deity to highlight her obsession. Her cultic power-evidently as a fertility goddess- must have been impressive at both Samos and Argos in Homer's day. Although there were Heraia at such sites as Perachora, Delos, and Kroton soon after Homer's time, Hera's power at Argos and Samos evidently antedated the eighth-century Iliad (Tomlinson 65 and Kyrieleis Fiihrer 20). She would have been protector of the life cycle of crops, herbivorous (not carnivorous) animals and mortals at both sites (Simon 40-44; Vierneisel 34); and, from the similar late-eighth-century votives left at both the Argive Heraion and Argive hero- tombs, we can surmise that she would also have been protector of Argive

'lThe Iliadic formula d&7rcEpXpg y s?vEctivt, used in the third person to describe Poseidon's relationship with Odysseus in Od. 1.20, is clearly modeled on Hera's rage against the Trojans. Od. 1 also contains references to Poseidon's X6kog towards the hero (69; 77-78). "See Nagy 73 n.2 on guivog as "a state of mind," or "as it turns out, 'anger"'"; and on Cpsveaivo "'be angry, furious, in a rage,' a verb formally derived from this noun givog." In addition to the formula dcnespg g lsvveaivset used exclusively of Hera and Achilles, the hero's rage in Book 21 is repeatedly expressed by gevesalvetv: 21.33; 140; 170. Cf. also 542-43, where his rage to win glory is a madness (k6Scyxa, the disease of dogs) and Hera's momentary question- ing of the purpose of further rage (evs(aivotev 15.104) against Zeus. In his detailed study of the semantics of Cnivtg, Watkins concludes that the word connotes something to be feared even by gods; and that it is associated with Zeus (5.34; 13.624; 15.122). See also Nagy 69-83, especially 72-73, where he notes that the anger Achilles felt over the killing of Patroklos is nowhere denoted by Iflvtq, and that its only application to heroes rather than to gods is the mutual anger between Achilles and Agamemnon. Macleod 21 notes Achilles' association in the concluding books (15.68; 18.337 = 23.23; 19.16) with 6Xkog instead of Piflvtq.

This content downloaded from 73.97.157.116 on Sat, 23 May 2020 06:16:18 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms HOMER'S SAVAGE HERA 111

heroes.12 But Homer's interest is not cultic. He means us to see how her fixation with Troy destroys her protective instincts. Zeus' use of her cult title "Hera Argeia" (4.8=5.908, which occurs only here), I read as Homeric irony:

Two among our goddesses are Menelaos' protectors (&prlyd6vg), Hera Argeia and Alalkomeneis Athena. Yet they sit apart enjoying the spectacle, whereas laughter-loving Aphrodite goes ever to her man and wards off fate. (7-11)

Athena's title, like Hera's, reflects a protective role ('A)akicoVlOvrlg from &dkkEtiv, to protect), but both goddesses are busy looking at rather than looking after (Griffin). In the subsequent debate over whether to continue the war or not, we see how malevolent Hera's indifference can be. Both Zeus and Hera need the war to resume: he in order to fulfill his promise to Thetis; she out of hunger for Trojan blood. Her savagery provides an excuse to break the truce. Zeus yields, but not without exacting a terrible vengeance of his own (cTv 6?dv 6%khov 42): he demands the right to sack an unspecified city which Hera favors in return for the fall of his beloved Troy (4.37-43). It is with a studied offhandedness that she accedes to his quid pro quo, even raising the ante. Kirk's translation (34) conveys her mood as she speaks "in a series of apparent afterthoughts" (Kirk 35).

Three towns are my favourites, -Argos and Sparte and Mukenae. You can destroy them when they offend you; -I do not try to defend them, or grudge you that. -For even if I tried to prevent you I could not succeed, since you are much stronger. But you should not bring my efforts to nothing -for I too am a god, of the same race as you, - senior daughter of Kronos, indeed, -both by birth and because I am your wife, and you are highest god. (4.51-61)

She is a protector who turns on her own cities as Priam's house-dogs will later eat him raw (21.67). But the passage also focusses attention on her epic claims to power. She cites her seniority (eldest daughter of Kronos) and relationships

12Hera's epithets nowhere include cbIlicflog. The prevalence of pomuSttg, however, links her to herbivorous animals rather than to carnivorous ones. This link is archaeologically confirmed at Samos, where large herbivorous animals like oxen and horses abound among her earliest votives (Vierneisel 34). The few lions in Samian art apparently do not antedate Homer. We may be correct in assuming, therefore, that Hera's associations with carnivorous animals came from Homer and the epic tradition, rather than from cult. Coldstream, "Hero-cults in the Age of Homer," JHS 96 (1976), collects evidence for wide- spread existence of hero-cults in the eighth century B.C., and James Wright concludes: "On the basis of the votives from the tombs and the sanctuary, it is impossible to tell which came first, hero cult or Hera cult, but it is apparent that the two were closely linked since types of votives from each are the same" (193). Although Wright dates the Heraion in the early seventh century, this was not the earliest Hera shrine at the site, and her cult in the Argolid appears to have existed in the Bronze Age (Tomlinson). Chantraine, Dict. II s.v. "Hprl, concludes that a pre-Hellenic origin is plausible for the names "Hpa and i~9pog.

This content downloaded from 73.97.157.116 on Sat, 23 May 2020 06:16:18 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 112 JOAN O'BRIEN

to Zeus (wife and sister). We know, of course, that Zeus never took these claims seriously; he easily cows his sister-wife when it serves his purposes (e.g., 1.544-50). But Homer so constructs the dialogue here that she surpasses Zeus not in seniority but in savagery. Zeus plays as decisive a role in the fall of Troy and the cities of the Argolid as she (42), yet only Hera appears bloodthirsty. He merely consents to evil through a seeming indulgence of his psychotic wife. A striking oxymoron captures Zeus' ambivalence: he yields ~Kav dvKOVri YTy OutCp, "of my own choice although with reluctance" (4.43). Kirk calls this passage a subtle piece of Homeric psychology because it strengthens Zeus' position against Hera's (334). Even more, the passage is a subtle piece of Homeric theology, allowing him to present Zeus as a king with a genuine dilemma and to identify Hera with the savage slaughter to come. The willingness of Hera to bargain away her Argive cities to assure Troy's destruction leaves the impression that it is she who was responsible for the disappearance of the palace civilization in the Argolid as well as in Troy. By associating Hera with a bile (z6)og) overflowing from her breast, with the limitless, indiscriminate ?Luvog of her war-god son, and with insatiable lust to raw-eat, Homer identifies her with an imbalance fundamentally different from the Zeus-inspired pflvtg through which Achilles journeys into full humanity. Achilles' wrath, arising from a slight to his heroic honor (tCtlwl, Nagy 72-73), ends in a meal shared with his mortal enemy. Hera's rage, arising, as we finally discover (24.25-30), from a trivial slight to her beauty, is a permanent, demonic imbalance with neither noble origin nor foreseeable end. A remark about how "the dread rage of Hera" (dpya7uog ;6)og 'Hprg 18.119) destroyed Herakles suggests that her y6)og was already an epic theme in the pre-Homeric tradition (M. Lang in Rubino Approaches 152). If so, Homer uses a traditional theme as antithesis to the pfivtv . . . 'AXthflog 1.1). Hera's fury, resembling Nature's at her most furious, is the model which inspires Achilles at his most vengeful, at times to vicarious cannibalism (in Book 21 and at 23.21), and once to a directly cannibalistic prayer (Book 22). The parallel with Achilles comes into focus in Book 21.1-382, where the hero, bent on revenge against Hektor, renounces his Zeus-inspired tfvitg (ptfvtv dtustndvrog 19.74) and adopts a Hera-like rage (ltaveaitvtv 21.33, 140, 170, 542-43). Like a consuming fire, he combats Trojan river gods and their offspring, exhibiting a new level of violence (Segal 30-32). Achilles' superhuman struggle against elemental waters and his support from elemental fires heighten the sense of his fall into a subhuman barbarism. Hurling the corpse of Hektor's half brother Lykaon into the river, Achilles mocks his enemy's faith in the river-god Xanthos (130-32) and exults in providing scavenger fish with a meal "from the shiny fat of Lykaon" (127). Next he van- quishes Asteropaios, son of a river-god. Standing above him, he boasts about his own superior lineage; as Zeus is mightier than rivers, so Zeus' seed surpasses that of a river (190 ff.). There is an increase in specific detail: not only fish but eels will pluck and tear the flesh around his kidneys (200-4). Achilles has moved a step closer to raw-eating his prey: he feeds them to scavenger fish. This predator-prey metaphor, usually limited to similes of wolves and lions and to mere threats of mutilation, appears here for the first time in the Iliad.

This content downloaded from 73.97.157.116 on Sat, 23 May 2020 06:16:18 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms HOMER'S SAVAGE HERA 113

Xanthos fights back with all his divine fury. Enraged alternatively by Achilles' taunts (136), by the killing of his worshippers (146), and by the clogging of his streams with corpses (218), the river-god seeks to bury the hero under mud to prevent proper burial (323). For the first time in the epic, Achilles is afraid. The turbulent, rising waves crest (300-26). The heaven-fed river, purple with bloody corpses, engulfs him. He prays bitterly to Zeus. But it is Hera who contrives a plan to rescue the hero. She gives directions to her son Hephaistos (rpoostpx)vysv 330) and promises to lead the way. She herself will rouse a whirlwind, "as I drive on the evil flame" (334-37).13 Hephaistos is not to stay his rage (upivog 340) without her expressed order.14 He burns the trees and parches the plain, eliciting cries of mercy from the River. Xanthos implores Hephaistos first, and then Hera. In desperation, the River makes her a strange promise: "never to ward off the day of evil from the Trojans, no, not when all Troy shall bum with consuming fire, and the warlike sons of the Achaians shall do the burning" (374-76). The oath thoroughly satisfies Hera. It should. It exactly repeats the oaths she, by her own account, reiterated among the immortals (20.315-17). By having the River quote Hera's oft- repeated promise, Homer emphasizes both her present victory and her continued obsession with burning Troy. Five words for fire pile up in two verses (20.316-17): grlS' 6r6tc' tv Tporl tCilg p4p tRupti r&cMa 86trlcat/ KUlOIVrl, Kacot 8' dplfot u8le 'Azat6v. The fact that it is Hera and her ?gvog-filled son who answer Achilles' call to Zeus is suggestive in light of my thesis that Homer is characterizing Hera with a savagery not to be associated with Zeus. There are several reasons why Hera and not Zeus helps the hero here: Achilles' mutilation of corpses is inconsistent with the restraint to which Zeus' example later draws him (24.110), suggesting that Zeus does not support Achilles in his demonic rages any more than Athena supports Odysseus in his delusions (Od. 9-12); secondly, although the hero boasts of his lineage from Zeus, his acts suggest the omophagia of Hera and the gIvog of her divine sons, Ares and Hephaistos; and thirdly, Homer had

13 See Jeffrey M. Duban, "The Whirlwind and the Fight at the River Iliad XXI," Eranos 78 (1980) 187-89. 14Watkins (702) cites 1.207 and 21.340 as examples of Homer's substitution of ratcitv + pivog for pflvtv + ranstv (see note 4 above). He is correct in the first case and, I believe, incorrect in the second. When Athena is sent by Hera to stay Achilles' Rivoq: "I have come down to stay your fury" (rcuoaouva z6 oa6v p vog 1.207), the wrath in question is surely the pfivt ... 'AXthflo of 1.1. But when Hera tells the elemental fire-god Hephaistos: "Do not stay your fury (Ri6i1& irpiv dr6noau zsrev Rivog) until I raise my voice and cry to you," Hera is displaying her own power over the Rgvog of her son Hephaistos. These passages reveal two peculiar ironies. First, the epic's goddess of ceaseless givog is the only deity in the epic to tell others, either directly in the case of Hephaistos or indirectly in the case of Achilles, to check their fury with the formula iracttv + TE6v W voq. Secondly, the Iliad never uses the formula rnaEtv + tfLvtv, which is the central subject of the poem (Watkins 704). These ironies raise a significant question: could there have been an earlier epic in which Hera was the tutelary goddess identified both with the hero's commencement of wrath (pRvog, not fiLvtv) and his eventual staying of the same? If Homer were borrowing formulae from such an epic, this would explain Athena's insistence that she is Hera's ambassador in 1.207-8: "I have come from heaven, and the goddess white-armed Hera sent me, for in her heart she loves you both alike and is concerned for you." The absence of the expression irafetv + pfivtv could mean that Homer was adapting an earlier epic whose

Zeus.theme, the tgvoq 'Axkfloq, would have been worked out under the inspiration of Hera, not

This content downloaded from 73.97.157.116 on Sat, 23 May 2020 06:16:18 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 114 JOAN O'BRIEN

prepared for her intervention by her earlier plea to Athena and Poseidon (20.121) to stand by Achilles in his terror, "when a god [i.e., Xanthos] pits his strength against him in the fighting" (20.129-30). Hera is clearly the deity for Achilles at this moment, a point Munro misses when he judges Hera's whole speech (20.112-55) spurious, calling it "out of place here, especially when Zeus had just proclaimed as his motive . . the fear that Achilles would . . . anticipate fate by the utter destruction of the Trojans" (366). What Munro fails to take into account is Hera's single-minded pursuit of Troy's destruction in Books 20-24. Like most critics, he mistakenly assumes a divine consensus behind Zeus' will at the end of the poem as in Aeneid 12. If we recognize that Hera never conforms, her encouragement of Achilles' bestial excesses is both consistent and necessary. There is, I believe, another, even more compelling, reason why Hera is Achilles' tutelary goddess here (1-382), a reason arising from the unique character of the episode. Achilles' fight against the River is a Flood Story like the Sumerian-Babylonian myths, as Nagler has perceptively shown (149). Therefore, we must understand Hera's role and that of her son Hephaistos in the light of a combat myth between elemental fires and elemental waters. The episode appropriately opens with Hera's mist enveloping the Achaians (6-7) and the fiery onrush of Achilles against the River. It culminates with the arrival of Hera's reinforcements: Hephaistos' fire and typhonic rages (her whirlwind never materializes). It ends with her accepting Xanthos' surrender and his promise to restrain his waters in the ultimate burning of Troy.15 Hera functions here as a veritable Tiamat or Inanna, inspiring the rages of both mortal Achilles and her fire-god son against the elemental river-gods. Far from being a kindly Mami, as Nagler has suggested (154 n,33), she tames elemental waters through her power over elemental fires.16 The impending death of Hektor in Book 22 produces four repetitions of the theme of Hera's omophagia: twice pathetically reiterated by Priam and Hekabe; and twice bestially by Hektor and Achilles. Priam vainly attempts to dissuade Hektor from facing Achilles in a speech that begins with a prayer and ends with

15Hera boasts of her superiority later in the book when she "triumphs" over Artemis during the theomachy. With mock heroic irony, the poet uses the same formula of her boxing Artemis' ears as of Achilles' triumph over his enemy: "You will know full well how much mightier I am than you when you match your strength against mine" (487-88). One wonders whether, in an earlier Flood Story, Hera's boast may not have been uttered after she triumphed over the River. Although G. S. Kirk, The Songs of Homer (Cambridge 1962) 222, argues that the theomachy is displaced, Nagler shows its proper purpose. 160n her ability to command winds and other forces of nature, see 14.254 and 18.239-41. On Inanna-Ishtar's powers, see Thorkild Jacobsen, Treasures of Darkness (New Haven 1976) 136-37. Inanna charges with a howling storm, and rages with evil winds. "Ishtar makes heaven tremble, the earth shake" (137), a verse that resembles II. 8.199: cYcfGuTo 6' civi Op6vcq, UXti8 6S ptcapov "Ohkptlov, when Hera makes great Olympus shake. The mock-heroic context of the Iliadic passage trivializes Hera's act, but its similarity to the majestic verse in which Zeus shakes Olympus (1.530 upyav 6' Wkithev "Okupnov) suggests that, in an earlier myth, Xpuo60povog "HprI shook Olympus with the authentic power of an earth goddess. Such similarities between Hera and the cosmogonic ANE goddesses help explain other vestiges of a cosmogonic Hera in the Iliad. In a subsequent article, I shall study vestiges of a cosmogonic Hera in the Iliad, especially her close relationship with Okeanos and other river gods in the At6; 'Antdtrl.

This content downloaded from 73.97.157.116 on Sat, 23 May 2020 06:16:18 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms HOMER'S SAVAGE HERA 115

a prophecy. In both, a victim is rent by dogs. His wish: "Speedily would dogs and vultures devour [Achilles] lying unburied" (dT&Zt K&v KucvSq Kti yfirCSq EGotsv/ KErigvov 42-43). His prophecy (66-71):

And me, last of all, dogs will rend raw (bglrazti pUouotv) in front of my doorway . . . dogs which I reared in my halls to be at my table and to guard my gates (zpaEfaq Oupaopouiq). Maddened from drinking my blood, they will lie in the gateway.

In the wish, Achilles is the unburied victim; in the prophecy, Priam himself is the victim of the house-dogs who shared his table. In the wish, the pattern of omophagia is almost complete. There is an optative form of 6jtgvatt in an unreal wish, as in Book 4. The enjambed KEtS"sVOv, "lying," implies the bestial desecration he wishes for Achilles, although the old man withholds the word gtrlnotca until prophesying his own fate (67). He, and not Achilles, will be a raw-eaten victim, he feels sure (note the futures Aptuoutnv and KEiGOvzat used of his own fate in contrast to the optative A6otsv used of Achilles). And he will be prey not to vultures but to his own pets and palace-protectors. This prayer-prophecy taken as a unit completes the pattern of Hera's raw-eating. The pathos mounts as Hekabe adds her plea to the "dear plant" which she herself bore (qpiov Odogq, OWv T Kov cufti 87). Like her husband, Hekabe too concludes with a prophecy of desecration by dogs, though the death she foretells is Hektor's: "Far away from us by the Argive ships shall swift dogs devour you" (KOSvS; tUiyS KcraTiovTat 89). Her vision is pathetic, but, at comethis point,till her devoid final speechof any (24.207 desire ff.). to raw-eat.For now, The she optativewants only of to68.tsvat change will not Hektor's mind. But neither she nor Priam can reach the son who has become a furious serpent fed on evil herbs (PEPi3pmoK( KLCKd pcdp[tcEK , Ui6u 6, zT tv d6ogq acv6q 94). Hektor's animalic X6 og, like Hera's in the opening theodicy, precludes a humane response. Two hundred verses later Achilles pronounces his most bestial wish (22.346 ff.) in verses that clearly recall Hera's omophagia. Hektor is a dog whose raw flesh he lusts to eat himself (auot6v), carving him up like a steak (a' ydp Coqg ca6k6v jtE Iu4voq Kti Oui6(q vSrl/ 'tA' dr7outzaCv6Stvov Kpia EtSgsvat). The long middle participle drozaCtv6osvov, "cutting up for himself" (LSJ) emphat- ically separates -pia from its adjective, A6i'. The actz6v emphasizes that the ultimate act of savagery has become the hero's dream. But the convoluted sentence in which Achilles contemplates the omophagia includes threats blocked by other deities. "There is no one who would ward off (6d0cudkKot) the dogs from your head" (22.346-48), Achilles promises, and yet Aphrodite does just that (ictOvaq . . ~iakKc. ... 'AqppoSizr 23.185). "Dogs and birds will utterly divide up your body" (Kacd& rdvta icdoovrat), Achilles confi- dently threatens (354). Yet a kindly Hermes later assures Priam that no such atrocity ever occurred (24.411). The effect is to distance the other gods from Achilles' savage threats, which appear to be countenanced only by Hera. Another sign that Achilles' rage here is modeled on Hera's in the first theodicy comes in the Book's opening verses, where Apollo applies to Achilles the same formula d&oirpXig ClagVivEt; (22.210) with which Zeus characterized Hera's rage (4.32). Both uses of this formula-the only ones in

This content downloaded from 73.97.157.116 on Sat, 23 May 2020 06:16:18 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 116 JOAN O'BRIEN

the epic--occur in questions from deities rebuking moral inferiors. To Hera Zeus asks with bewilderment why she defies him by her unremitting drive against Troy (4.32); to Achilles Apollo asks why a mere mortal rages unceasingly against a god (aot~6q Ovrlyc6q v O86v &3ippozov 22.9-11). The parallel in situation and formula clearly shows that Achilles' incessant rage (cf. also 22.288 and 24.48) is as unacceptable to Apollo as Hera's is to Zeus. In the final Book, Hekabe paradoxically both adopts and repudiates Hera's ferocity. Achilles has savaged her son, and she lusts to respond in kind. She calls Achilles 6driT-criS 24.207, "an eater of raw flesh," the word Priam applies to dogs turned savage and a word nowhere else in the epic applied to humans (see n.2). She apes Achilles' lust: "I wish I could cling to him and eat

the center of his liver!" (zoo Eyld aucYov lTrctp Xotptt/it ~a6Svactt Tpoc0cyoc 24.212-13). The anatomical specificity suggests the depths of her degeneration. THpompq0ct, "clinging to," literally "growing onto," suggests an abnor- mal implantation. If we compare 1.513, where Thetis clings to Zeus' knees in supplication, we find a similar participle (AtaCtpuuota , literally "growing into") expressing her intimate reliance on Zeus. But Hekabe would cling to her son's murderer not for human intimacy but for an omophagia more shocking even than that of Achilles, more shocking because Hekabe has been associated not with bestiality but with fecundity (e.g., lrpt6d&opoq 6.251) and tenderness (e.g., 22.87-88).17 But now that she knows the identity of the "raw-eater" of her son, she consciously lusts to make him victim of the same bestiality which he inflicted on her child. Still, by repeating a formula about her motherhood (czcov azri, "I myself bore him," 24.210) from her earlier prophecy of Hektor's death (cf. 24.210-12 with 22.86-89), she shows that love motivates her hate. Unlike Hera, Hekabe makes distinctions. Whereas Hera was willing to barter away even her own Argive worshippers (4.37 ff.), Hekabe, however unrealistically, combines bestiality towards another's son and tenderness towards her own. I have suggested that the theme and pattern associated with Hera's omophagia established in the theodicy of Book 4 resonate in the moral degeneration of both Achilles and Hekabe and in the pathetic degradation prophesied by Priam. In each case, there is a wish, prophecy, or both. In each case, there is a participle (lokOo60ac 4.34; rEtC1vov 22.43; tnocz?itv6u?tvov 22.347; and rpoc3y?pGat 24.213) emphasizing the image. Zeus prophesied the triumphal entry of the omnivorous queen into the defeated Troy, and both Achilles and Hekabe dream of similarly triumphant orgies. In each case, the meat is the flesh of the enemy. In the cases of Priam and Hekabe, the pattern takes an ironic twist. Although Priam wishes Achilles might be a prey of dogs,

17Euripides' Hekabe transforms the brief degeneracy of Hekabe depicted in 11. 24.21-213 into a permanent state similar to that of Homer's Hera's. See Martha Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness (Cambridge 1986) 397 ff., for a recent study of Euripidean Hekabe's malignancy. Nussbaum notes that we are to think of Euripides' transformation of Hekabe into a dog not "in vague, indefinite terms" but as an "absence of regard for community and relationship" (414). Hephaistos suggests the same absence in Hera when he calls her "dog-faced," KUVt7tItog; (II. 18.396), for evicting him from Olympus because of his bandylegs. He pointedly contrasts Thetis' maternal protection with Hera's inhumane indifference to relationships. My conclusion about Iliadic Hera resembles Nussbaum's conclusion about Euripides' Hekabe: "Revenge takes over the entire world of value, making its end the one end" (415).

This content downloaded from 73.97.157.116 on Sat, 23 May 2020 06:16:18 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms HOMER'S SAVAGE HERA 117

he foresees his own desecration. And although Hekabe retains her mother- love, she lusts, for a moment at least, to eat another's son. With Achilles, moreover, an additional theme, that of incessant rage, links him to Hera. His fury in the cosmogonic battle of Book 21 as well as his treatment of Hektor and tioned,his corpse but inon 22-24Hera's isendless modeled givog not and on Xyoog. Zeus' -tflvitg,She is his which tutelary is nowheregoddess men- throughout these books, as echoes in the action, diction, and the uniquely repeated formula dncrpgi g gavEaivEtg establish. I turn now to a new theology that emerges in the divine council of Book 24 and its aftermath, when Hera's inflexibility sharply differentiates her and her divine coterie from the forces of pity, divine and human. The council opens with yet another reference to Achilles' defilement of Hektor's corpse (24.22). The "blessed gods" (dWcKapeg Eoi 24.23) feel a pity for the corpse that is not shared by Hera and her partisans. The decision to steal the corpse of Hektor pleases all except Hera, Athena, and Poseidon. A distinction is drawn, though critics rarely note it, between the "blessed gods," who support the return of the corpse, and the trio who have supported the Achaian cause throughout.'18 A long sentence tells how they

persisted in (FXov) their hatred for sacred Ilion, for Priam and his people, as in the beginning (6q ... .tp6-rov), because of the infatuation (irl) of Paris, who disapproved of two of the goddesses who visited him in his courtyard and favored the one who gave him disastrous lust (?tayooyvrlv d&kvystvfrv). (25-30) With this allusion to the Judgment of Paris, Homer reminds us of the origin of the war and identifies the cause of Hera's bestial hunger, announced twenty books earlier. She hates Troy because Paris scorned her. This petty affront is finally revealed as the source for her devastating rage.19 Homer's allusion to the Judgment of Paris cites only those aspects that serve his purpose. The goddesses' hatred is persistent (emphasized by the imperfect tense of QXov); unchanging (6g . . tp np ov); and universal in its effect (i.e., upon Ilion, upon Priam, upon the whole people, cf. 4.35-36). Its origin is both relatively insignificant (because of one man's Utrl), and divinely insti- gated (by the scorned pair, Hera and Athena, by Poseidon, by 6trl, and by Aphrodite). Aristarchus athetized 6irl because it seemed to minimize Paris' responsibility. But the savagery of the penultimate books focusses on the terrible disparity between human guilt and demonic punishment. Whereas Book 3 stresses Paris' guilt, 24.28 contrasts in a single verse one man's dtrl with its dire effects upon Priam and a whole civilization. Although ftl does not preclude moral responsibility in the Iliad (Macleod 89), it suggests a

18Macleod notes that Hera, Athena, and Poseidon are excluded here. The same phrase ladKpafq 0eof occurs at 422-23, where it also excludes Hera (Hermes tells Priam the "blessed gods" care for [KrIovrat] Hektor's corpse "since he was dear to their hearts") and at 99, where the addition of the adjective 6iprlYepiSq to the phrase indicates Hera's inclusion. 19Leaf on 24.23-30 provides reasons why scholiasts and scholars athetized this late reference to the Judgment of Paris, but Macleod 88 defends the lines: "Homer heightens and extends his tragedy by taking us back to where it started."

This content downloaded from 73.97.157.116 on Sat, 23 May 2020 06:16:18 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 118 JOAN O'BRIEN

blinding from outside.20 The source of that blinding in the Homeric references to Paris and Helen is Aphrodite (Doyle 14).21 Paris is infatuated by the very power that rewards him with a fatal lust. Elsewhere (19.91-133), A'rl, virtually identified with Hera, deludes Zeus.22 So, as Zeus was once deluded by Hera and A'rl, Paris was deluded by Aphrodite and x'ri in the Judgment. But for Paris, ixcri is fatal. Here at the epic's close, his transgression is viewed from the perspective of eternity: inexorable demonic forces deluded Paris and now demand extravagant reparation. 'Atr is here but one part of the divine world that makes the fall of Troy inevitable. All of this suggests why Homer alludes to the mythical reason for the fall of Troy at this late moment in the epic and, I believe, answers the question implicit in Reinhardt's 1938 study of the Judgment of Paris. He argued, correctly, that Homer intended to suppress the tale earlier in the epic and to allude to it here. But he left partially unanswered the reason for the late allusion. Hera's pattern of savage hatred inspiring Achilles' ravenous appetite in the penultimate books suggests an explanation of the seeming contradic- tions of Book 24. Zeus and the "blessed gods" pity the corpse of Hektor and demand a new honor (x1C1il) from Achilles (24.110, Macleod 96), an honor that ultimately leads to his repudiation of Hera's savagery and his reconciliation with Priam at an authentically human meal. That Hera remains untouched by this new spirit is evident in her brief encounters with Apollo, Zeus, and Thetis. Speaking for "the blessed gods," Apollo establishes a moral tone rare in the rhetoric of Homeric gods. "He stands back from . . the human world and prescribes for it" (Redfield 213). Abhorring Achilles' continued maltreatment of Hektor's corpse (40-41), Apollo compares the hero to a mighty lion bent on capturing a dinner (6iat'a A3cintv 43). Autg, used properly of human meals, underlines the hero's bestial perversion of human behavior. For the first time in the epic a god passes divine judgment on Achilles' omophagia: Hektor's people must be allowed to perform funeral rites. The "antifuneral," to borrow Redfield's term, must cease. Otherwise Achilles should beware, lest "our just anger strike him" (v8pC[cmYio0p8ouv of flpEt; 24.53). As Redfield has noted (213), this is the sole instance in the epic where nemesis is used of the attitude of the gods toward one who has broken the moral code. At long last a god articulates a humane theodicy. Predictably, Hera fumes (Xokoacctpi8vrn 55), her argument unexpectedly returning to the theme of a mother's milk. She rails against giving the same honor (uCtpfi) to Hektor, who was suckled at a woman's breast, as to Achilles, child of Thetis, "whom I myself nourished (yd) aCtuTi#l Op~yut), raised and gave as bride to Peleus." Her reasoning, which has previously defied adequate

2?See Macleod's note on 24.27-28 for the aptness of the reading dpXfiq at 3.100 and of dTr&c here. On the meanings of irl, cf. Doyle 18 and 19, n. 4, his bibliography, and E. D. Francis 92-103 in Rubino Approaches. and 21Cf. the meaning 6.356 and is clearly3.100 in"infatuation," Zenodotos' thoughreading, without where precluding the phrase personal 'AXcidv6pou guilt. (Zenodotos' CZ'VCK i'6qT, recurs reading of drl; instead of &pXif is, however, probably incorrect. See previous note.) The other two uses of dirq in reference to Paris or Helen are Od. 4.261 and 23.223. 22In 19.91-97, Hera is virtually identified with Zeus' driT, i.e., the power able to outwit him by her 6olotppoo\vrl.

This content downloaded from 73.97.157.116 on Sat, 23 May 2020 06:16:18 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms HOMER'S SAVAGE HERA 119

explanation, is now clear: Hera argues that Achilles is superior to Hektor because her divine 76okog flows within him, giving him an innate superiority over one suckled by a human breast.23 Achilles owes his ntfrll, she contends, to a kind of physical transmission of X6%og: from her breast to the infant Thetis; from Thetis to her baby son Achilles (16.203). The connection she claims here is probably a fiction conveniently invented for the occasion, as Braswell has argued.24 Her intent, to prove the infinite gulf between Achilles and Hektor and thereby prevent Hektor's burial, leads her not only to ignore momentarily her long-standing hostility to Thetis, but also to lay claim to a wet-nurse's intimacy with her. The very idea of burial strikes her as "an offence to the superiority of heaven," as Griffin observed (187). Faced with Apollo's righteous demand for Hektor's burial, she counters with Achilles' divine right to ignore the human rights of a mere woman-suckled mortal.25

With this argument, Homer completes the metaphorical use of d,og as bile and tiEvog as demonic rage. Hera is arguing a biological determinism: the

transmissionAchilles. But for of Homer,,6og from the onemeaning goddess is clearly to another psychological: and hence Ares to hasthe the demigod ?itvog of his mother because he loves strife and war (5.891-92); Hephaistos has a ?Luvog subject to her control (21.372, 379) when he functions as a raging fire-god; and Achilles imitates Hera's demonic rage in bestial acts and carnivorous wishes (Books 21-24). Zeus' reply to Hera, though conciliatory, ignores her claims and defends Apollo's essential position: by summoning Thetis, Zeus sets in motion an action which reveals the common humanity of Achilles and Hektor.26 When Thetis arrives mourning Achilles' impending death, Hera acts un- characteristically: she put in Thetis' hand "a beautiful golden goblet/ and spoke to her to comfort her, and Thetis accepting drank from it" (Lattimore 24.101-2). Is this a sign that Hera is yielding to Zeus' will and renouncing her long hostility against her archrival? Such is the interpretation implicit in Lattimore's translation, and one can find support for it in the text. She has just reminded the gods of her intimate relationship with Thetis (59-60), and Zeus had just asked her to renounce her rage against her fellow gods (ndultnav dnoKu6CcLtvE Ooiotv 65). But such an eleventh-hour conversion (it is Hera's last appearance in the epic) would be out of character for the savage Hera. Moreover, the reversal of her long hostility, not only to Thetis but also to Zeus, would demand a fuller development. A mere two lines of cheer is, structurally speaking, poetically inadequate.

23Note that similar verse-endings in 57-58 (0?jaOt r1rtitv and 0roa-co ["suckled"] [ta&6v) emphasize Hera's point that a human suckling does not entitle Hektor to the Ictlti reserved for the goddess-suckled Achilles. 24See B. K. Braswell, CQ n.s. 21 (1971) 24. The other allusions to Thetis' rearing in the Iliad make no mention of Hera's involvement. For a different perspective on this scene, see Slatkin 19. 25Noting Priam's pathetic boast that Hektor seemed a god or child of a god (24.258), Griffin concludes (187): "That is the view on earth . . . but in heaven he is seen very differently." I would suggest the difference in viewpoint is not between heaven and earth, but between Hera and Zeus. To Zeus and "the other gods," Hektor deserves divine pity. Only Hera proposes a divine biology that separates Achilles from other mortals through her Z6Xoq. 26Redfield argues, erroneously I believe, that Zeus agrees with Hera against Apollo, and that Achilles must be drawn into the divine community (213). It is not a matter of Achilles' being drawn into the divine community but of his rejoining, at long last, the human community.

This content downloaded from 73.97.157.116 on Sat, 23 May 2020 06:16:18 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 120 JOAN O'BRIEN

Against the interpretation of a comforting Hera, I suggest that she is as sardonic as ever; that she is cheerful here, not because she would buoy the spirits of the mourning mother but because she finally has something to "cheer" about. She may have lost the battle against Hektor, but she will win the war against Priam's sons and all of Troy, as Zeus foretold. What is the evidence for this reading? First of all, nothing in the text suggests Hera's words were meant to be conciliatory. The clause (ei"pprlv' mn"sTot 102) which Lattimore renders: "spoke to her to comfort her" means, literally, "cheered with words." Everything about Hera's relationship with Zeus and his devoted Thetis (e.g., 1.498-530) argues against an about-face. Griffin wryly captures the spirit of the encounter: "Among these gods, even a mourner must drink and be of good cheer" (191). It is not, however, the gods who ignore Thetis' grief, but only Hera. Zeus sensitively expresses his own concern for her maternal grief (Kil6ouvl V ntsp,/ cFv0og % '"kzcov Xovout. . oi6. a Kai atzr6g 104-5). Hera's cheer is an insult to the distraught mother. Secondly, there is a consistent pattern to Hera's good cheer (what there is of it) in the epic overall. Her rare smiles are always linked to her battles of wit with Zeus and her machinations to effect Troy's fall. She smiles in 14.222-23 when she outwits Aphrodite as part of her scheme to seduce Zeus and swing the tide of battle against Troy. She laughs with her lips (yacuTTes/ ehotv 15.101-2) but was not cheered (idv6ri 103) in the aftermath of the Atlg 'And~icy when Zeus sends her off to Olympus with threats of dire conse- quences. She smiles in the theomachia when her fellow-conspirator Athena reminds her that Troy will fall (21.434). Finally, there is one other smile, in a passage in Book 1, which is a significant parallel to this passage in Book 24. In 1.595-96 Hephaistos cajoled her into smiling (ij6lCTE v ... EtSiccCa) as he handed her a goblet and reminded her how he fell all day the time he tried to defend her against Zeus. Hephaistos' intercession helped her to accept her subordinate place in the Olympian scheme of things. But submission was not easy. "Unwillingly she twisted (,ntyvdLyuyoa) her heart into obedience," Homer observes (1.569). rnttyvdainrstv, properly used of bending iron spears (21.178), is used in Book 2 of Hera's bending everyone to her will (2.14, cf. also 31 and 68). But Book 1 showed Hera in an uncharacteristic submission, not to be repeated in 24. The parallel greetings in these two books are surely significant. In Book 1 she smiles as she receives a goblet of cheer; in 24 she presents a goblet of cheer to another. The change of role from receiver to giver suggests a deeper reversal in the situation. In Book 1 Hera lost a battle of wits against Zeus and Thetis. Zeus' will (i.e., what Thetis asked of him), would be fulfilled, and nothing Hera does throughout the epic can change that. Hera's Achaians, instruments of her revenge against Troy, will be frustrated. In this later scene she can really celebrate because the Judgment of Paris, which the poet has just

This content downloaded from 73.97.157.116 on Sat, 23 May 2020 06:16:18 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms HOMER'S SAVAGE HERA 121

mentioned, is finally to be fulfilled. The Zeus-Thetis interlude is over.27 Hera will now "pass through the gates and the towering ramparts" and metaphor- ically eat "Priam and the children of Priam raw, and the other Trojans," as Zeus had foretold twenty books earlier (4.34-36). From the time of that first theodicy her goal has been to avenge Paris' slight by consuming all of Troy. In this, her final appearance, she offers a cup of cheer because, I submit, she finally knows her revenge is at hand. "Ohne Parisurteil keine Ilias," Reinhardt brilliantly demonstrated (21). But since Hera's revenge is to the whole saga as the Paris-Judgment is to the Iliad, I add: without Hera's hatred, no fall of Troy. She can afford to smile as she offers the goblet to her nemesis. Nevertheless, in the battle for the mind and heart of Achilles, Thetis is the victor, as the narrative after the theodicy demonstrates. Sent to relay Zeus' command (24.120), she finds her son refusing breakfast with friends and faces him with a mother's simple question: "My child, how long will you eat your heart out (cif~v " 6eat icp6ifrlv) in tearful sorrow with no thought of food or sleep" (128-30)? Eating your heart or, in our idiom, "eating your heart out" was evidently a common metaphor since it recurs several times in Homer.28 But its use here echoes Achilles' larger dilemma. By his continued desecration of Hektor's body he is consuming his very being. Thetis' pointed juxtaposition of real and metaphorical eating faces him with his self-destruction and provides credibility to his immediate acceptance of Zeus' command. A transformed Achilles welcomes the aged Priam. When the Zeus-inspired (24.148, 177) king kisses the murderous hands and speaks of his son, Achilles marvels at his courageous enemy, sees in him his own father, and shares a meal with him. This sharing is creative: he himself lifts the hated corpse onto the bier in response to Priam's compassion. But he is also following his mother's example. As Thetis listened to Achilles, grieved for him and acted on his behalf, so her son listens to Priam, grieves for him and returns his son's body. To her command for pity Achilles responds with a compassion (a "suffering with") that she alone among the gods exhibits. The Olympians, who never suffer, are incapable of the compassionate interchange between Achilles and Priam. But Thetis, the divine mother who has consistently suffered with her son, is the only divine intermediary fit for this last stage in Achilles' development. She has awakened in him a capacity beyond Zeus'; her words and example provide the divine impetus for a transformation not just to pity, as Zeus commands, but to compassion. Rejecting a "divine" right to rage like a son of Hera, he finally drinks the milk of human compassion.

27In his brilliant study of the Judgment of Paris, Reinhardt has shown how the Iliad must have been framed from two separate traditions, from the Paris-Helen story with its origin in the Judgment of Paris and from an Achilleid; that the earlier framework, i.e., the Paris-Helen story, became an incident in the more heroic epic (21 ff.); that the goddesses' wrath must have belonged to the earlier framework; that the wrath of the Hasserinnen, Hera and Athena, finally will be fulfilled after the Achilleid is complete in Iliad 24. 28Eating one's spirit out, Oug6v ~6ovT&g, occurs at Od. 9.75; 10.143 and 10.379. Circe's situation in Od. 10.379 resembles Thetis' in II. 24 since, like Thetis, she is alluding to both literal and metaphorical eating: "Why, Odysseus, do you sit . . eating your heart out, and touch neither food nor drink." These juxtapositions of the literal and metaphorical show that the metaphor was conscious.

This content downloaded from 73.97.157.116 on Sat, 23 May 2020 06:16:18 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 122 JOAN O'BRIEN

We have seen that the divine council of 24 and its aftermath differs from that of 4 in presenting two fundamentally different theodicies. Apollo's une- quivocal statement of divinely acceptable human justice and Thetis' transformation of divine pity into human compassion identify Zeus and "the blessed gods" of Book 24 with a moral rectitude lacking in the theodicy of Book 4. The unique use of the Hesiodic epithet for Zeus, p(OtvUa pluMa Cst6c6Sg, "whose counsels are everlasting" (24.88), suggests the emergence of a new, almost Aeschylean Zeus. But Hera's divine absolutism is unshaken. There is to be no pity for a man suckled by human breasts and no compassion for civilizations, whether her own or her enemies'. An Argive city sacred to Hera will suffer the same fate as Priam's dog-eaten carcass. Homer's separation of powers between Zeus and Hera puts the onus for divine destructiveness on the feminine side of divinity, mostly on the scorned Hera and Athena, who act apart from Zeus, and to a lesser degree on Aphrodite, whose lust led to disaster (24.25-30), and on Azrl, eldest daughter of Zeus (19.91). Poseidon alone among the male deities remains on their side, and his motive has nothing to do with their obsessional hatred, as the epic's structure suggests. Books 1 and 24 reveal an underlying struggle between Zeus and Thetis on the one hand, and Hera, Poseidon, and Athena on the other. In Book 1 the deadly conflict between Agamemnon and Achilles is balanced by a comic tug- of-war between Zeus and Hera on Olympus, in which Zeus bullies Hera as Agamemnon bullied Achilles. The glue between these two scenes is Thetis' visit to Zeus, a visit Achilles persuaded her to make by reminding her that Zeus owed his continued sovereignty to her role in squelching the Olympian revolt of Hera, Poseidon, and Athena. This "exhortatory paradigm" is a Homeric invention that explains the support of these three Olympians for the Achaian cause throughout the epic.29 When the deadly conflict shifts from earth to Olympus in Book 24, Homer maintains the same divine alliances while subtly reversing the balance of power on Olympus between Zeus and Hera. In the first book Zeus ratifies Thetis' wish for Achilles; in the last Thetis obediently moves her son by word and example to exceed Zeus' command. In the first book there is an allusion to a failed Olympian coup by Hera, Poseidon, and Athena; in the last there is an allusion to the hatred aroused by the Judgment of Paris, in which Poseidon is included only for structural symmetry. In Book I Zeus intimidates Hera, but his call in 24 for a new pity is not followed by threats. He does not threaten nor does she submit. Thus the human conflict is resolved, but the demonic fires of Hera will consume Troy. I conclude with a speculation on some reasons behind Homer's choice of Hera as his symbol of demonic rage and with a question his portrait raises for

29See M. M. Willcock, CQ n.s. 14 (1964) 143-44, and Norman Austin, "The Function of Digressions in the Iliad," 154-55 in Harold Bloom, ed., Modern Critical Views: Homer (New York 1986) for evidence that Homer invented the paradigm at 1.396-406. The association of Poseidon with Hera and Athena, the spurned duo, both in the attempted palace coup (1.396-406) and in the allusion to the Judgment of Paris (24.25-30) has always been an enigma. My argument in this paper, that Poseidon is included only for structural symmetry, is more convincing than the other reasons suggested: e.g., the anger of a younger brother against Zeus (Reinhardt 11); or Poseidon's anger against the Trojans for failing to pay for their wall (12.17 f., 21.441 f.). I am grateful to Professor Carolyn Higbie for suggesting the structural argument.

This content downloaded from 73.97.157.116 on Sat, 23 May 2020 06:16:18 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms HOMER'S SAVAGE HERA 123

our own view of divinity. We can understand readily enough why he would choose Zeus' wife rather than Zeus even though both exhibit destructive

Xdog and both are parents of the war-god Ares (5.896). In an epic in which the significant reconciliation occurs between a father and son, it is natural that the father of gods and males (dv6pd^v) should be the primary symbol for the paternal, patriarchal, and heroic bonds. Hence the reciprocal bond between the hero's gflvt? and Zeus' plan. It is equally natural, given the cultural tendency to see the female as a metaphor for the natural world, that Hera be depicted as the psychological source of the hero's )d)og. It is also no surprise that a goddess subordinate to Zeus (Thetis) should provide the model for the hero's growth and one opposing Zeus should thwart that growth.30 Hera's stature to be Zeus' countersymbol derives partially from her received myths and cult praxis and partially from Homer's characterization. As Hera Argeia, and p0o 0t r6vtva, she was the autonomous deity of the Argolid, its vegeta- tion, herbivorous flocks, and probably both protector and nemesis of Argive heroes (note 14); as "eldest daughter of Kronos," she has chronological superiority to Zeus; as "wife of Zeus," she has regal standing and an epithet of intimacy; and as deceiver of Zeus in both the Ati6 'AnCd'c and Ato6 Arl, she displays superior wit.31 Furthermore, Homer makes masterful use of her awesome, albeit hybrid, family. As mother of Hephaistos, the lame fire-god, of Ares, the bitter war-god, and of the Eileithyiai, goddesses of bitter birthpangs, and as stepmother of Herakles, the Argolid's most popular eighth-century hero, she has relationships linking her to elemental fire, to war, to birth, and to heroes. But Homer undercuts these relationships: the Argive heroes regularly invoke Zeus rather than their tutelary goddess; Zeus exercises power apart from her and finds intimacy with Thetis; Hephaistos finds refuge in Thetis' watery depths after his callous mother evicts him from Olympus (note 17); Ares, whose name is often a metonym for bloody war, closely resembles his omophagous mother though he usually champions her enemies' cause (5.832 ff.); the Eileithyiai share with their mother only the bitterness (6ptitu) "that the hard spirits of childbirth bring on" (11.270 Lattimore); and Herakles, "Glory of Hera," was evidently a bone of contention between Zeus and Hera before the Iliad (18.119). But none of this adequately explains the bestiality of Homer's Hera. If her zdXog was already legendary before Homer, we can understand the metaphor of her bile-filled breast infusing [Iuvog into her fiery sons, Ares, Hephaistos, and, ultimately, into Achilles. But whence the other pervasive metaphor, her omophagia? po(nrct rcdvi "Hpr, goddess of tame oxen at both Argos and Samos, had no cultic associations with raw-eating. The principal clue to her savagery, I am convinced, is Ares alias Dionysos alias Bronze Age Drimios.

30See Marilyn B. Arthur, "Early Greece: The Origins of the Western Attitude toward Women," Arethusa 6 (1973) 7-58, where she notes that the view persists from Hesiod on that progress in civilization is identified with the triumph of male forces over female. See also my "Nammu, Mami, Eve and Pandora: 'What's in a Name?'" CJ 79 (1983) 35-45 for demotions of mother goddesses. Slatkin, writing from the perspective of Thetis' mythology, suggests a very different conclusion, namely that there was earlier or at least outside of Homer a pilvi; of Thetis (see especially 21-24). 31See 14.153-354 and 19.91-129.

This content downloaded from 73.97.157.116 on Sat, 23 May 2020 06:16:18 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 124 JOAN O'BRIEN

The complex web of associations, which can only be outlined here, suggests how Homer transforms received myth and cult:

Dionysos, not Hera, had an epithet ctlytrnig (Alc. fr. 129 Page 60); his prehistoric cult, not Hera's, included eating raw flesh (Dodds Bacchae xiv). This suggests Homer must have transformed Diony- sos' cultic omophagia into Hera's psychological raw-eating.32 But what links Hera to Dionysos, whose votaries were proverbially hos- tile to Hera-worship? I offer three clues:

a. a Linear B Tablet records a sanctuary of Zeus where Hera and "Drimios (di-ri-mi-jo), son? of Zeus (di-wo i-je-we)" were also worshipped (Py Tn 316); this Drimios is believed to be an early name for Dionysos, Zeus' son by Semele (in late mythology, at least); the admittedly fragmentary Tablet makes no mention of Drimios' mother;33 b. at Lesbos, Hera (?), Zeus, and raw-eating Dionysos (Z6v- vuccov bdC(piotav) formed a "peculiar Lesbian trinity" (Page 60), in a cult attested by two fragments (Sappho fr. 17 [Page 58-62] and Alcaeus fr. 129 [Page 161-69]);

c. the name Drimios, like the Homeric adjective 6ptjtug, means "piercing, keen, bitter"; the rare Iliadic uses of 6pt~tgi describe birthpangs (11.270-71), battle (15.696), and a beast's X'X6og (18.322), all of which are associated with Iliadic Hera, goddess of bitter Z6Oog, and mother of both the Eileithyiai and Ares. Homer, therefore, associates Hera with every aspect of the Iliadic adjective 6ptuiOg: with the bitterness of birth, of war, and of X6Xog; and, as Pitscher has ably shown (1987 19-27), 34 he depicts Iliadic Ares in a manner befitting the name of his Bronze Age predecessor Drimios (i.e., "the bitter one"); simul- taneously, he distances Ares (the epic's Drimios) from his father Zeus, while making him very much his mother's son (5.889-95); and finally, he transforms the omophagia of the prehistoric son (Dionysos alias Drimios) into the mother's lust to raw-eat all Troy. The transfer of omophagia from Bronze Age son to Iliadic mother is psy- chologically believable because, as we have seen, Homer isolates Hera, de- picting her without any enduring personal relationships. Revenge, the only weapon available to the isolated and embittered, becomes Hera's only value. A

32Dionysiac ritual of raw-eating (dCtotpayfa) and rending of a victim (cyrapayp61q) at human sacrifices to Dionysos is believed to have been traceable on Lesbos "far into the past" (D. L. Page, Sappho and Alcaeus [Oxford 1975] 169 n.5); see also E. R. Dodds, Bacchae xiv-xx; and Farnell, Cults 5.312 n.104, 333 s.v. "Lesbos." 330n the Linear B Tablet Pylos Tn 316, see E. L. Bennett and J.-P. Olivier edd., The Pylos Tablets (Rome 1973); also, P6tscher 1987 19 ff. and Carlo Gallavotti, "La Triade Lesbia in un Testo Miceneo," Riv. Fil. Class. n.s. 34 (1956) 225 ff. According to the Tablet, parallel gifts were to be given at this Zeus-sanctuary to Zeus, and to Hera, and probably also to Drimios, son? of Zeus, although a gap in the text cuts out the supposed gifts for Drimios. 34Although Pitscher draws very different conclusions about Hera from mine in his fine phi- lological study of 6ptil?jg, his conclusion that Ares is a 6pijtltg 0&6g supports my thesis.

This content downloaded from 73.97.157.116 on Sat, 23 May 2020 06:16:18 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms HOMER'S SAVAGE HERA 125

revenge without end is her way of defeating Zeus and the pity / compassion he and Thetis come to represent. Therefore, Zeus' lt^vtq (and Achilles') come to an end, whereas Hera's 6X0oq and omophagia fuel war from the Judgment of Paris before the epic begins until the conflagration of Troy after it ends. Homer's portrait of this demonic deity leaves us with a fundamental question about the nature not just of Homeric gods but indeed of "the divinity that doth shape our ends." Zeus and "the blessed gods" both care for and are indifferent to human suffering, as scholars have long noted, but, if my analysis is sound, the savagery symbolized by Hera finally triumphs over the divine pity advocated by Zeus. Our modem perspective rejects Homer's dichotomiz- ing of divine symbols along gender lines, but his deeper theological question continues to haunt many today: Is human autonomy limited not by an ultimately caring Deity but by an endlessly raging Other?

JOAN O'BRIEN Southern Illinois University

This content downloaded from 73.97.157.116 on Sat, 23 May 2020 06:16:18 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms