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The Myth of the Nostoi

Hugh G. Evelyn-White

The Classical Review / Volume 24 / Issue 07 / November 1910, pp 201 - 205 DOI: 10.1017/S0009840X00045479, Published online: 27 October 2009

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009840X00045479

How to cite this article: Hugh G. Evelyn-White (1910). The Myth of the Nostoi. The Classical Review, 24, pp 201-205 doi:10.1017/S0009840X00045479

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Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR, IP address: 130.133.8.114 on 02 May 2015 The Classical Review

NOVEMBER 1910

ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTIONS

THE MYTH OF THE NOSTOI.

THERE is, perhaps, no problem whose invented from what had been received from solution would be more gratifying than that time immemorial. This paper is an attempt of the relation of Greek legend to historical to advance in this direction by dealing with fact. For modern discoveries since the a compact body of legend, that which tells days of Schliemann have increasingly of the home-coming of heroes from the shown that there are veins of metal in Trojan war. Two points, however, must this deposit—that there is an appreciable be premised. Firstly, the subject is not a quantity of fact buried in these strata of literary one. The Trojan story is older by fiction. But unfortunately this traditional far than its literary presentment, and we matter remains almost useless for historical propose to work behind the literary period, purposes. Archaeology draws off a certain whenever that may have been. Indeed, amount of material from the legend and any attempt to deal with the ' Homeric' stamps it as fact; but a large residuum is question in the present space would be the left, and, if we smelt out additional metal merest impertinence: its solution, more- from this, it is the metal of fancy—we over, is doubtless to be attained, as those cannot rely on it or trust in it as historical. best qualified to speak insist, by linguistic It may be that the future will see at least evidence. Our period, then, is the period a partial solution of the difficulty of dealing of tales and songs, not of finished epics. with this overlarge residuum.1 May not In the second place, the results at which this task be made to some extent easier by we shall arrive pretend to be no more than sifting the material which must be dealt hypothetical: nothing is put forward as with? proved, because our only touchstone is Greek tradition on ' Homeric' subjects probability sometimes more, sometimes certainly combines two distinct elements : less strong, but always probability. This, pure fiction and genuine tradition. The indeed, is implied in the nature of the case. latter of these may or may not have an The material to be treated is embedded ultimate basis in fact, and, in the first in two literary strata, the Cyclic Nosti and instance, decision of this point does not the Odyssey. matter. What is important is the separa- The subject of the former is the Return tion of genuine from the spurious tradition, of the Atreidae,2 though the suggestion of of what was (more or less) consciously generality conveyed by the unqualified

1 Murray, Rise of the Greek Epic, p. 180. 2 Athenaits, vii. 281&. NO. CCXIII. VOL. XXIV. 202 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW plural of the traditional title is perhaps elements, two of which are principal and justified by the introduction of subordinate two subordinate. The first two threads Returns accounting for a number of heroes are the fortunes of Menelaus and Agamem- beside the two brothers. The argument may non ; the progress of Neoptolemus and be briefly resumed.1 Calchas with their respective parties forms Athena stirs up a quarrel between Aga- the second pair. memnon and Menelaus concerning the (a) The fortunes of the Atreidae being voyage from Troy. Agamemnon then stays borrowed6 from the Odyssey must be re- to propitiate the goddess while Diomedes served for treatment along with the material and Nestor put out and reach their homes of that epic. (b) With the subsidiary safely. Menelaus, however, who started nostoi the case is far otherwise. The Cyclic at the same time, reaches Egypt with five poet found his narrative offered consider- ships, having lost the rest in a storm. able pauses which cried out for filling.6 Calchas, Leontes, and Polypoetes journey What incidents more relevant to this to Colophon [and Calchas having met purpose could be found than the stories Mopsus, the grandson of Triresias, dies of minor Returns ? Hence the outline and is buried there].2 As Agamemnon is preserved to us. But while the poet of about to set sail the ghost of Achilles the Odyssey has much to say of the Returns appears and warns him of his fate; then of Agamemnon and Menelaus, he says follows the storm and the fate of the nothing of the other heroes of the Cyclic Locrian Ajax. Neoptolemus, on the advice epic. Clearly he knew nothing of them. of Thetis, journeys overland, meeting For indeed they are decidedly post- Odysseus at Maroneia. After burying Odyssean. Homeric heroes do not travel Phoenix on the way, he reaches the down the coast of Asia Minor, nor do they Molossi, and is recognised by Peleus. attain to the Molossi or to Colophon, to Meanwhile Agamemnon has been mur- peoples and places of which they know dered by Aegisthus and Clytemnestra, but nothing. And since these anachronisms the deed is avenged by Orestes and are essential to the ' incidents ' of the Pylades. Menelaus then returns to Nosti, the incidents themselves must be Sparta. post-Homeric: they cannot claim one step There can be no doubt but the literary back to genuineness. Indeed their content Nosti is later than the literary Odyssey. shows clearly enough that they were the The treatment (five books to tv/o principal outcome of local striving after Homeric 7 8 and several subordinate heroes) is sum- origin, as was perhaps felt by Eustathius mary. It contains post-Odyssean features.3 when he spoke of the ' writer of the Nosti, It borrows the outline of parts of its narra- a Colophonian.' We may therefore reject tive from the Odyssey, as is shown by the fact the claim of the subsidiary nostoi to be that it adds details of which the Odyssey quasi-historical. knows nothing.4 Lastly, it mentions Odysseus himself only incidentally. These The Odyssey. facts are sufficient to warrant a double We are now free to deal with the conclusion : the Odyssey was not only Returns of Agamemnon, Menelaus, and tolerably complete, but even included much Odysseus, for which the Odyssey is our of its relatively late material at thac authority. time. The argument which follows holds good We now turn to the material of the whatever theory be adopted as to the Nosti. The epic may be analysed into four composition or unity of the Odyssey. If the literary unity of the Odyssey is main- 1 See abstract after Proclus, Kinkel, Ep. Graec. Fragm. p. 52-53. 5 Even should the contrary be proved, the " See Monro, Odyssey xiii-xxiv. p. 379, for true argument of this paper would still stand. sense of this passage. 6 Op. cit. 380. 3 Op. cit. p. 381. 7 Monro, op. cit. 381. 4 Ib. 8 Par. 1796, 53 (quoted by Monro). THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 203 tained, it is impossible to do the same for an obvious question would arise: Why did its subject-matter; if the literary Odyssey Menelaus take no notice of his brother's is composite, its subject-matter must neces- murder and the usurpation of Aegisthus, sarily be so. but let seven years go by (7. 306) till At the outset it is evident the age of Orestes was old enough to exact a tardy the Odyssey, or rather the later part of it,1 vengeance ?4 This question, no doubt, was was enthusiastically interested in nostoi. asked, and answered by inventing (after So much is this so that, at one point the model of the 'AXKIVOV cra-dAo-yos) a make- (S. 351-592), the Odyssey, itself a nostos, shift Return to employ Menelaus fully contains the Nostos of Menelaus, and this until the vengeance had taken place. The again the Nostos, or Doom, of Agamemnon. difficulty may have arisen when the Tale Phemius, again (a. 326-7), sings of the of the Unfaithful Wife, told possibly in Nocrros Ax«"3v,2 while Odysseus (K. 15- another connection, was absorbed into the 16) entertains Aeolus with the same sub- growing body of Trojan War stories. ject, about which, however, he can have Whatever the truth of this last (a mere known nothing.3 This interest probably detail), the nostos of Menelaus must also dated from the completion in its main be set aside as invented. outlines of the story of Odysseus. At any We now turn to the Nostos of Odysseus rate, in the latest parts of the Odyssey, lays himself. Is there here any genuine tradi- on this subject are regarded as of recent tion, any quasi-historical matter ? To origin (a. 352). We have, therefore, good answer this question in full we must follow reason to deal separately with the two Kirchoff, and admit a difference between layers of the Agamemnon—Menelaus nostoi the two halves of the Odyssey—a difference and the Odyssey itself. of scale. Perhaps too much stress has Now the two Returns of the more recent been laid on this fact, for, to a great layer contrast strongly with each other. extent, the change of scale in the second With the character of the Tale of Agamem- part is due to the different part it plays non we shall deal later. The Return of in the epic. The real subject of the Odyssey Menelaus, if regarded in isolation, is is not the Adventures but the Reappearance curious. It is uninteresting, it has no real of Odysseus :5 the wanderings of the first plot, it is a mere string of wanderings twelve books are really only introductory. (8. 83-85)—the Proteus incident is only an They convey a single impression: Odysseus incident—unredeemed by any connecting the crafty kept away from home. In the purpose. It has, however, one very signi- second half the real subject, the Reap- ficant feature—its geographical interest. pearance, is treated at length and in detail. While therefore, as we shall see, the story A recent writer has unjustly described of Agamemnon has every aspect of an- this second half as tedious. To watch the tiquity, the companion tale shows much thunder-cloud deepening and ever deepen- later features. It would be hard to see ing over the heads of insolent but uncon- why the Return was worth telling but for scious evildoers, who even mock at the one point which is of the utmost importance. man who is to be their bane ; to wait Menelaus being an essential figure in the through scene after scene while the atmo- story of the Iliad could not be ignored. sphere grows ever thicker with the sense Did the story of Agamemnon exist alone, of inevitable doom; to see, lastly, the long- delayed flash burst forth through this darkened air, and the wild conflagration 1 As Wilamowitz remarks (Horn, nntersuch. p. 12), ' der alte Nostos weiss nichts von anderm Nosten, er kennt keine andern irrenden helden. . . .' 4 This question is actually asked by Telemachus, 2 There is nothing to show that these ' general knowing nothing of the matter, of Nestor (7. 259). nostoi' include more than the Returns of the 5 The Cyclic poet seems to have made the same Atreidae (and, of course, of Nestor). mistake, and wasted his space on the wanderings 3 Similarly, the story is new to Telemachus at rather than the homecomings of the heroes. He Pylos (y. 248), though he has already heard the would seem to have treated the latter as simply the song of Phemius at Ithaca (a. 325-327). concluding incidents to the former. 204 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW that ensues—if all this is tedious, the Marchen,3 nobler indeed than the half- Oedipus Tyrannus is dull, Hamlet is intoler- savage tales of the first part, but none the ably wearisome. less a popular tale, a Heimkehrsagen. Thus But this digression has led us somewhat the last link to hold Odysseus to the quasi- from the subject. The difference in scale historical world has broken. His wander- is due to difference in function, and this in ings, his reappearance (and the dependent turn is due to difference in material, as we incidents), are alike absolute fable. But shall now see by examining the subject- the earlier part of the Odyssey compares matter itself. favourably with the nosti previously ex- If we take all that is essential in the first amined : it is not mere invention: it is half, the Calypso story (Tannhauser and the result of a natural tendency which the Venusberg), the Wandering Rocks, makes any well-known figure the hero of Phaeacia, the Lotophagi, Cyclopes, Aeolus, ' anonymous ' folk-tales and the like. The the Laestrygonians, Circe (Vidyadhari same process indeed is responsible for the story: the difference in origin should be early adventures of our own Hereward. enough to dispel theories of ' duplication ' It is now easy to see how the Odyssey in this case), the Nekyia, the Sirens, developed. Once the main outline has Scylla, the Oxen of Helios—all these are been fixed, other matter was added to 1 Marchen, as Monro has pointed out. round off angles and to fill gaps. Such is This cannot be disputed, and from it an the story of Telemachus, which contrives obvious conclusion may be drawn which is to pay a double debt. For (1) it was felt, all-essential to our present inquiry. There when the Odyssey began to take its present is no quasi-historical basis for a Nostos of or literary form, that we ought to be intro- 2 Odysseus, since these tales are incalculably duced early in the story to the suitors, and older than the Trojan story. Odysseus, as not to be confronted with a long descriptive Monro again has pointed out, was the wise explanation on the eve of the crisis, delay- man of the Iliad, the very figure to which ing and chilling it. But, as Wilamowitz this drifting wreath of cobweb would cling well says in another connection, ' der Dich- as it floated down through the ages. Here, ter konnte nicht mit der Tiir in's Haus then, is the original Nostos, a series of dis- fallen': we must be brought into the house connected tales, very simple in construction, of Odysseus on some plausible excuse. whose chief feature is some clever or re- Telemachus, urged by Heaven to seek his markable act on the part of the hero. Once father, gives us such excuse. Moreover, this vapour of folk-story had crystallised we might not wholly agree with the strong round a single person, the cry, whether of measures of Odysseus, had we not had children or of childlike men, would be: ample opportunity to see how deeply the What happened when he reached home ? suitors had offended. So they are revealed We are thus brought to the second part to us repeatedly. (2) In one case the pres- of the Odyssey, that part which seemed in ence of Telemachus or some similar person the literary period to be most important. is absolutely necessary. Odysseus as an Why ? Because the material was of a ordinary beggar, unsupported by some different order to that of the first part. It inmate of the house who had authority, is no longer a series of grotesque stories could never play the part he does in the which could not be developed. It is a Togov #«ris. It is easy enough to say in a story with human interest, with many side- mere tale, ' Then the beggar-man took the issues which could be worked out. It is a bow': it is impossible to be content with single story moreover, not a loosely com- this in so elaborate and circumstantial an pacted series ; but a story also from which account as our epic. The Telemacheia, ramified a number of incidents logically then, becomes essential when the Odyssey connected with it. What, then, is the passes from the province of mere tale into nature of this central story ? It is a that of developed and detailed poetry. We have now cast overboard all bur 1 Op. cit. 290. 2 As Monro seems to hint, p. 291. 3 Monro, op. cit. pp. 301-303. THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 205 original passengers, save Agamemnon him- the War about Ilium. In the whole mass self. His^story, as has already been sug- we can distinguish nothing as quasi-his- gested, may well be no nostos, but a tale torical except the legend of the Doom of fathered on him when the Trojan legend Agamemnon. But though we cannot began to exercise a strong attraction. How- accept the Returns as genuine tradition— ever this may be, the legend is of another material which has then to be further order to the rest of the nostoi: it does not tested to determine its objective value,— seem to be a folk-tale; rather it is a they illmstrate most vividly the stages of common enough matter of human life. If growth through which such legend may we add to this its simplicity, its elemental pass. The first step is almost instinctive; grimness, its essential place in early Greek tales told without guarantee of time and tradition, is it too much to claim that place are attached to a single well-known here if anywhere we reach quasi-historical name. Hence the original Odyssey. The matter, genuine tradition ? second is less ' natural.' Though not con- The argument of this paper may be sciously fictional, its object is to complete perhaps made more clear by the following a tale left half told. Thirdly, it was felt scheme of growth : the two columns re- that the resultant stories required explana- present parallel but not necessarily con- tory and contributing incidents to smooth temporaneous development: away certain difficulties, and as a result the Telemachia and Return of Menelaus 1. Murder of a King by ia. Anonymous folk- his wife and her tales of Greece. were added to the growing mass. Lastly, Paramour. the tales thus elaborated failed to satisfy; 2. This story connected ia. Odysseus assumed a series was demanded to embrace (in the with Agamemnon. as hero of these instance of the Trojan War Cycle) the sub- tales. sequent fortunes of persons already holding 3a. The' Reappearance' of Odysseus at a place in the main body of the legends. Ithaca. To this step we are indebted for the pe- Introduction of a Re- 4

THE FIFTH BOOK OF THUCYDIDES AND THREE PLAYS OF EURIPIDES. I BELIEVE that it has not been very book, for they reveal to us the temper of generally recognised that the fifth book of the poet at the time of the events later Thucydides has points of contact with at narrated by'the historian, This has been least three plays of Euripides. The Sup- brought out with reference to the Troades pliants, the Andromache, and the Troades by Mr. Cranford in his chapter on the are of great importance in studying this Melian dialogue in his recent book on