UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Beyond the Generation of Leaves: The Imagery of Trees and Human Life in Homer Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/14b784d7 Author Stein, Charles David Publication Date 2013 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Beyond the Generation of Leaves: The Imagery of Trees and Human Life in Homer A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Classics by Charles David Stein 2013 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Beyond the Generation of Leaves: The Imagery of Trees and Human Life in Homer by Charles David Stein Doctor of Philosophy in Classics University of California, Los Angeles, 2013 Professor Alex C. Purves, Chair Homer regularly connects the life cycle of trees with the life and death of human beings to bring vividly before his audience the strength and endurance of his characters and the fragility and transience of the human condition. My work builds on previous studies of tree imagery in Homeric similes but focuses specifically on the relationship between tree imagery in speech and narrative tree similes. I argue that Homeric characters use tree imagery in ways that mirror and manipulate common Homeric themes expressed by the narrator. In the introductory chapter, I discuss the provenance of the metaphor linking plants and humans and discuss the poet’s relationship to the narrator and characters. Each of the following chapters, then, presents the close reading of a speech that features a tree image, explicates the rhetorical impact of that image in its immediate context, and finally compares that reading with the way the narrator uses similar images. In Chapter 2, I read Achilles’ oath on the scepter (Il. ii 1.234-9) against the tree-similes of the Iliad’s battle narrative. Chapter 3 compares Glaucus’ simile of the leaves (Il. 6.146-9) with the other leaf imagery in the Homeric corpus. Chapter 4 connects Odysseus’ recollection of the sacred palm on Delos (Od. 6.160-9) with plant imagery in epithalamic poetry and with other mentions of shoots and saplings in Homer. Chapter 5 shows how Odysseus’ description of his rooted bedpost (Od. 23.183-204) draws on the narrator’s descriptions of rooted trees and of carpentry in the corpus to buttress his claims of his identity as husband of Penelope and rightful king of Ithaca. Each chapter, therefore, reveals how the characters subtly manipulate details of their plant descriptions, how each follows or departs from norms established by the narrator, and, ultimately, how trees, leaves, shoots, and roots each carry their own distinct symbolic meanings. What results, then, is a nuanced account of tree imagery in Homer that illustrates its considerable range and shows how it is capable of representing the full scope of heroic strength and vulnerability. iii The dissertation of Charles David Stein is approved. Kathryn Anne Morgan Mario Telo Joseph F. Nagy Alex C. Purves, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2013 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements vii Vita viii Chapter One: Introduction 1 THE FINEST THING THE CHIAN SAID 6 POET, NARRATOR, AND CHARACTERS 16 IMAGERY AS A MARKER OF ‘POETIC’ SPEECH 27 PARADEIGMATA AND SIMILES-IN-SPEECH 34 Chapter Two: The Life and Death of Agamemnon’s Scepter 39 EVERYTHING GOLD CAN STAY: METAL AND WOOD IN HOMER 43 THE SYMBOLIC RESONANCES OF THE HOMERIC SCEPTER 50 THE BOUNTY OF GOOD KINGSHIP 60 CONVENTIONAL IMAGERY FOR THE DEATH OF HEROES 67 1) DUELS FEATURING TREE SIMILES 69 2) SIMOESIUS 73 CONCLUSION 78 CHART 1 80 Chapter Three: Falling into Oblivion: Leaf Imagery in Homer 82 LEAF SIMILES IN HOMER 87 1) THE NARRATOR’S LEAF LIKENESSES CONVEY VIGOR 87 2) LEAF SIMILES SYMBOLIZE ANONYMITY 91 3) CHARACTER’S LEAF LIKENESSES IN HOMER 93 MEN, LEAVES, AND TREES 94 1) LEAVES AS A MARKER OF A TREE’S HEALTH 95 2) LEAVES AS A MARKER OF MORTAL VULNERABILITY 96 3) THE USELESSNESS OF TREES ONCE FALLEN 103 v GLAUCUS AND DIOMEDES 108 CONCLUSION 114 Chapter Four: Nausicaa and the Delian Palm: Odysseus’ Strategic Epithalamium 116 THE EPITHALAMIC BACKGROUND 125 1) THE FOLK-STORY 125 2) EPITHALAMIC IMAGERY 126 REVERENCE FOR ARTEMIS 135 SAPLING IMAGERY IN HOMER 142 CONCLUSION 148 Chapter Five: The Roots of Odysseus and Penelope’s Marriage: A Reconciliation of Nature and Culture 150 ODYSSEUS THE CRAFTSMAN 160 THE PECULIAR HARDINESS OF ROOTS 168 CONCLUSION: HEROICS OF DESTRUCTION AND CONSTRUCTION 179 Conclusion 183 Bibliography 186 vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I thank the members of my dissertation committee. Alex Purves and Kathryn Morgan have fostered this project from its inception, and my work has substantially benefitted from their generous support. Alex has been the best of mentors, and her ear for punchy academic prose has helped me find better ways to express my thoughts. Kathryn’s eye for structure has been no less instrumental to helping me define the contours of my inquiry. Mario Telò’s erudition and enthusiasm inspire me. It has been a pleasure to work with Joseph Nagy, and I thank him especially for suggesting that I look into Frazar’s Golden Bough. I want to acknowledge a debt to Cal Watkins, who, with two words of advice—“more Greek”—transformed my dissertation prospectus. I feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with him. Thanks to Sander Goldberg and Alex Lessie for reading early versions of Chapter 2. I am grateful to the UCLA Graduate Division for a Dissertation Year Fellowship which enabled me to complete this research. I wish, finally, to thank my mother, father, and brother for their love, support, and eoncouragement that propelled me, and continue to propel me, ever forward. vii VITA Education: M.A. 2007 University of California, Los Angeles (Classics) B.A. 2005 Reed College (Classics) Employment: 2006-2012: Teaching Assistant/Associate/Fellow, Department of Classics, University of California, Los Angeles Papers Presented: 2013: “The Life and Death of Agamemnon’s Scepter” Meeting of the American Philological Association 2009: “Tarnished Poetry for the Iron Age: Juvenal Answers M. Aper” Meeting of the Classical Association of the Pacific Northwest 2008: “Perception and Absorption: The Place of Metaphor in Empedocles’ Account of Learning” Meeting of the Classical Association of the Pacific Northwest Awards and Honors: 2012-2013: Dissertation Year Fellowship, University of California, Los Angeles 2009: Summer Graduate Research Mentorship, University of California, Los Angeles 2008-2009: Pauley Fellowship, University of California, Los Angeles Summer 2006: Quality of Graduate Education Award – Goethe Institut 2005-2006: Pauley Fellowship, University of California, Los Angeles 2005: Phi Beta Kappa, Reed College viii Chapter 1: Introduction The similes depicting trees and plants stick in the memory of even a first-time reader of the Iliad. The poplar to which the Trojan Simoesius is compared when he falls at the hands of Telemonian Ajax (Il. 4.473-489),1 the drooping poppy which the poet links to the prince Gorgythion (Il. 8.300-308), Glaucus’ statement that generations of men are like generations of leaves (Il. 6.146-9)—all are iconic signals of the poem’s central theme: how war compels mortal heroes to strive for immortal fame by dying themselves. The pathos bound up with this imagery is undeniably a major source of its compelling interest to the audiences of the poem, ancient and modern.2 Still, as emotionally gripping as we find the deaths of minor warriors to be, the poet 1 Schein (1984: 72-76) sees the death of Simoesius as emblematic of the cost of the Trojan War, particularly to the Trojans, noting specifically that the “botanical” language including Simoesius’ father’s name Anthemion and the victim’s epithet θαλερόν “blooming” (Il. 4.474) suggest the dead youth’s wasted potential: “We get an idea of a youth both blooming and potentially a husband, of warmth and energy that might have been directed toward a peaceful fruitful life but were instead turned to war, where death put an end to warmth, flowering, and potential” (74). 2 The leading study of pathos in Homer is Griffin (1980). The connection between trees and pathos, in Vergil, is sensitively explored by Thomas (1988). In Thomas’ view, scenes of tree- felling in the Aeneid express ambivalence about Aeneas’ colonization and subjugation of Italy by eliciting sympathy from the audience for conquered people. It is still an open question whether we can find definitive evidence that Homer condemns tree-felling in and of itself. While Thomas focuses on the destruction of sacred trees and groves in the Iliad to build his case, trees that fall in Homer are not sacred, and the Homeric similes of tree-felling usually include a sequel that the wood from the fallen tree will be used to fashion an object of lasting cultural value. Reckford (1974: 64) righly highlights this difference between Homer and Vergil. The pathos in Homer comes instead from his unflinching description of the grief of parents separated from their children. This motif is first sounded in the obituary passages. For example, at 5.155-158, after Xanthus and Thoon die at Troy, they cannot inherit their father Phaenops’ estate, leaving for him only γόον “lament” and κήδεα λυγρά “painful cares” (Il. 5.156). Homer weds the theme of parent/child separation to the destruction of trees, especially in the simile accompanying the death of Euphorbus (Il. 17.53-60) in which a sudden storm uproots an olive tree that had been scrupulously tended by its gardener (54), the way a father cares for his son. On the link in Homer between fathers and gardeners, see Henderson (1997) and Pucci (1996).