Blameless Aegisthus: A Study of ΑΜΥΜΩΝ [amymon] and Other Homeric Epithets

302 Pages·1973·5.2 MB·English

by  Anne Amory Parry

BLAMELESS AEGISTHUS
A STUDY OF AMYMON
AND OTHER HOMERIC EPITHETS
MNEMOSYNE
BIBLIOTHECA CLASSICA BATAVA
COLLEGERUNT
W. DEN BOER • W. J. VERDENIUS • R. E. H. WESTENDORF BOERMA
BIBLIOTHECAE FASCICULOS EDENDOS CURA VIT
W. J. VERDENIUS, HOMERUSLAAN 53, ZEIST
SUPPLEMENTUM VICESIMUM SEXTUM
ANNE AMORY PARRYt
BLAMELESS AEGISTHUS
A STUDY OF AMYMQN
AND OTHER HOMERIC EPITHETS
LUGDUNI BATAVORUM E. J. BRILL MCMLXXIII
BLAMELESS AEGISTHUS
A STUDY OF AMYMQN
AND OTHER HOMERIC EPITHETS
BY
ANNE AMORY PARRYt
LUGDUNI BATAVORUM E. J. BRILL MCMLXXIII
ISBN 90 04 03736 5
Copyright 1973 by E. J. Brill, Leiden, Netherlands
All rights reserved. No pa.rt of this book may be reproduced or
translated in any form, by print, photoP,int, microfilm, microfiche
o, an:, othe, means without wrillen permission from the publisher
PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS
"What is most needed is a thorough and accurate
knowledge of the poems, conjoined with the sort of
common sense that would be used in the study of
a modern author. This can be better attained by
reading Homer and consulting the literature of
criticism than by reading the literature of criticism
and consulting Homer."
George M. Calhoun, Polity and Society, p. 438

CONTENTS
PREFACE • . • IX
INTRODUCTION l
I. 'Aµuµwv of various characters in the Iliad . 9
II. Mwµoc;; cxµuµwv of Menelaos, Patroklos, Poulydamas 29
Ill. 'Aµuµwv of Achilleus in the Iliad . . . . . 62
IV. Etymology; cxµuµwv, &µwµoc;, cxµwµ"l)-roc; in Greek
authors beyond Homer . . . . . . . . . 71
V. 'Aµuµwv with various nouns in the Iliad and Odyssey. 94
VI. 'Aµuµwv in the Odyssey except of Odysseus and n7
family .................... .
VII. 'Aµuµwv of Telemachos and Penelope in the Odyssey;
'Aµuµwv with nouns denoting personal relationships in
the Iliad and Odyssey. . . . . . . 127
VIII. 'Aµuµwv of Odysseus in the Odyssey 144
CONCLUSION.
APPENDICES. 169
BIBLIOGRAPHY 289

PREFACE
Anne Amory Parry and her husband, Adam Parry, were killed in
a motor-cycle accident at Colmar, France, on June 6, 1971. At the
time of her death her manuscript of "Blameless Aegisthus" had
been accepted for publication by E. J. Brill, but she had not yet
completed the revisions which she had intended to incorporate into
the text. It has seemed better to let the manuscript stand as the
author left it, rather than to attempt any revision based on the
notes which she had left with the manuscript. Had the author lived
to make her own revisions, her arguments at certain points might
have gained something in persuasiveness, but I am confident that
in no case would revisions have materially affected the line of her
argument.
The sad task of editing a friend's posthumous work has been
made lighter for me by the kind cooperation of others. I should like
to thank the editorial staff of Brill's, and in particular Mr. T. A.
Edridge for his care in guiding the manuscript into print. Special
thanks, too, I owe to Mr. Neil Forsyth, who undertook to proofread
the manuscript with truly professional exactitude. Multiple cross
references and the large amount of Greek in the text made his a
formidable task, and I could hardly venture to guess how long a
delay there would have been in publication, had I not been able to
rely on Mr. Forsyth's help. I am grateful to him for his painstaking
attention to details of typography, and no less for his intelligent
comprehension of the substance of the text. To Professor C. J. Ruijgh
I would also express my gratitude. His communications with the
author, which were with the manuscript at the time of her death,
more than anything else gave me confidence that the manuscript
merited publication as a genuine contribution to classical philology.
Professor G. S. Kirk has written a memorial tribute to the Parrys
in Gnomon 43 (1972) 426-428. His gracious remarks encompass their
lives and their professional contributions far more ably than
anything I could say. On the occasion of this memorial volume,
however, a personal note may not be amiss. The Odyssey has long
been an important influence in my life, ever since, in fact, I began
to read Odysseus' Apologos in my first Greek course. I am grateful
to Anne Parry for the part she played, as a teacher in a graduate
X PREFACE
seminar, in opening up vistas into the poem through her perceptions,
and for the encouragement she gave as I tried to articulate may own
perceptions of the poem. What I respected, and responded to, most
in her, as also in Adam Parry, was their conviction that the Iliad and
the Odyssey were poems of the conflicts, pains and triumphs in the
lives of persons such as Earth nurtured in millenia past, and nurtures
still today.
Anne Parry in her scholarly work combined a passionate belief
in Homeric artistry with a scrupulous adherence to philological
proof. This monograph manifests these two qualities, aesthetic
perception and philological documentation, so interwoven that each
gains from the strength of the other. It is the scholarly texture of her
monograph which prompts me to proceed with its publication. Rare
it is to find a monograph treating a word in such exhaustive detail.
Rarer still to find that scholarly enterprise serving, through the
study of a single word, to vindicate the integrity of Homer's craft.
It is my hope that Blameless Aegisthus will endure, both as a model
of scholarly investigation, and as a rich source book for those whose
interest is in Homeric language, formula and style.
Blameless Aegisthus is, in the language of the Odyssey, the ciijµ.oc
of Anne Parry's creation, and is thus the fitting c;'ijµ.oc which her
friends leave to mark the place where a teacher, colleague, and
friend passed from this world to the other.
Los Angeles, Calif. 1973 NORMAN AUSTIN