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X Williams College is granted permission to maintain and provide access to my thesis in hardcopy and via the Web both on and off campus. >.",'~~'w.c> this ntlow" rescardl,~r~ around the wodd to ,Icces;:, th,~ version of your work, Atasthalie in the Odyssey By Matthew Wellenbach Prof. Meredith Hoppin, Advisor A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honors in Classics WILLIAMS COLLEGE Williamstown, Massachusetts April 6, 2009 First, I would like to acknowledge the members of the Classics department at Williams. Over the past four years, in countless hours both inside and outside of class, I have discovered my deep fascination with this field. lowe particular thanks to Prof. Meredith Hoppin. My debt to her is much greater than the guidance and assistance she offered on this project. Thanks are also due my friends, and especially my housemates. While deriving seemingly endless amusement from my idea to write a thesis on a single word, they provided the diversions and respites from work needed to complete this project. Finally, I must mention my parents. Without the freedom they granted me to pursue my studies with passion, and the faith they had that I would find success, none of this would have been possible. Table of Contents Introduction ,, , 1 Chapter 1: Forewarning, Advice, and atasthalie 6 Chapter 2: Loss of Self Control and atasthalos 29 Chapter 3: Odysseus' atasthalie 47 Chapter 4: Odysseus' Restraint 66 Conclusion 78 Works Cited 82 Wellenbach 1 Introduction Writing in his Ethical Themes in the Plot ofthe Odyssey, D.M. Jones remarks that atasthaliel is "a characteristically epic word," a description I would qualify by highlighting the word's characteristically Homeric and even more precisely Odyssean nature.2 While atasthalie is found in the Iliad and in non-Homeric works, in the Odyssey it is marked from its first occurrences as a crucial concept for the poem, since it possesses a striking combination of rarity and selective care in its use. 3 The word occurs nine times in the Odyssey: on five occasions in relation to Penelope's suitors, the epic's villains; twice to characterize the crew's eating of Helios' cattle, an act for which the crew die; once to describe the reason that humans suffer excessively, an explanation that is subsequently expanded upon with the example of Aegisthus; and once to mark Odysseus' decision to remain in Polyphemos' cave, a choice of Odysseus' which results in the death of a number of his companions. Linking episodes that may not at first appear connected, the selective use of atasthalie poses troubling questions. Is the profligate degeneracy of the suitors equivalent to Odysseus' desire for guest-gifts, which prompts him to await Polyphemos' return? Likewise, is the crew's decision to eat Helios' cattle on par with Aegisthus' to marry Clytemnestra and murder Agamemnon? In an attempt to answer these questions, this study begins by examining closely the nine uses of atasthalie in the Odyssey. Paying particular attention to the immediate context in which atasthalie is found, as well as to the details of the larger I For this study I have elected to use the Homeric form of the word. 2 D.M. Jones, Ethical Themes in the Plot ofthe Odyssey, (London: 1954),3. 3 Discussion of the Iliadic and non-Homeric uses of atasthalie is reserved for the conclusion of this study. Wellenbach 2 episodes with which atasthalie is associated, the first chapter identifies two important valences of the word that point to an important consistency in its usage.4 First, use of atasthalie marks serious mistakes, often misdeeds related to issues of morality and ethics that result in enormously grave consequences. The word is used to describe, among other things, the impropriety of seizing another's household, the perversion of xenia, and the violation of the gods' sanctity by despoiling their possessions. In addition, for everyone except Odysseus, the demonstration of atasthalie is fatal, and even Odysseus' atasthalie results in the death of some of his crew members and places him in peril. Thus, more than merely denoting a general shortcoming or error, the use of atasthalie indicates a serious fault that transgresses accepted customs and norms of behavior.5 Second, atasthalie is used to characterize acts that are carried out despite forewarning and prior advice. Zeus' use of atasthalie first stresses this valence of the word. Commenting that humans suffer beyond what is fated (huper moron, 1.34), Zeus illustrates his point by presenting the example of Aegisthus. In the story about Aegisthus that Zeus narrates, the prominence accorded Hermes' warning envoy to Aegisthus reveals the strong connection between forewarning, advice and atasthalie. Subsequently, forewarning and advice are consistent components of events that are associated with atasthalie. Odysseus' men receive three successive warnings from their leader not to eat Helios' cattle; the suitors are repeatedly warned that usurping 4 The proposed etymology of atasthalie offers little guidance in this quest. Ancient suppositions that atasthalie is related to ate have proved faulty and modern theories have not converged on one accepted explanation. See P. Chantraine, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue grecque, (Paris: 1990), s.v. atasthalos. 5 See Charles Fuqua, "Proper Behavior in the Odyssey," Illinois Classical Studies 16 (1991), 49-58, for a broad, informative discussion about propriety in the Odyssey and the relation of atasthalie to the Homeric idea of proper and improper behavior. Wellenbach 3 Odysseus' household is wrong; and Odysseus is strongly encouraged by his men to abandon Polyphemos' cave before meeting the monster. In fact, while both valences of atasthalie are important for the significance the term and are evident in its various uses, the idea of forewarning and advice often receives greater stress than the egregiousness or impropriety of the misdeed. This preference for the role of forewarning and advice in atasthalie suggests that atasthalie is used in the Odyssey primarily to highlight how a character ignores both advice not to proceed with a certain action and also warning about the consequences should he do so. The second chapter examines the use throughout the Odyssey of the cognate adjective from which atasthalie is derived, atasthalos. Used slightly more often in the Odyssey than atasthalie, atasthalos is never linked to ideas of forewarning and advice; rather, the use of atasthalos is concerned solely with issues of impropriety and morals, the transgressions of accepted norms and customs that atasthalie also marked. Thus, there appears to be a close relationship between the meaning and significance of atasthalos and the dimension of atasthalie that causes the noun to characterize morally reprehensible acts. In the Odyssey, atasthalos is associated most frequently with the suitors, and through this assication it reassures the poem's external audience that their assessment of the suitors' position as clear and unquestioned villains is correct.