Odysseus Polutropos: Intertextual Readings In The Odyssey And The Iliad

263 Pages·1987·14.039 MB·English

by  Pietro Pucci

CORNELL STUDIES IN CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
EDITED BY
*
FREDERICK M. AHL KEVIN C. CLINTON
*
JOHN E. COLEMAN JUDITH R. GINSBURG
*
G. M. KIRKWOOD CORDON R. ~1ESSING
*
ALAN NUSSBAUM PIETRO PUCCI
\VINTHROP WETHERBEE
VOLUME XLVI
Odysseus Polutropos:
Intertextual Readings in the Odyssey and the Iliad
by Pietro Pucci
From Myth to Icon:
Reflections of Greek Ethical Doctrine in Literature and Art
by H elen F. North
Lucan: An Introduction
b)' Frederick 1\1. Aid
The Violence of Pity in Euripides' 1\1edea
by Pietro Pucci
Epicurus' Scientific Method
by Ehwbeth Asmis
The Rhetoric of Imitation: Genre and Poetic Memory in Yirgil
and Other Latin Poets
by Gian Biagio Conte, edited by Charles Segal
THE TOW!\'SEND LECTURES
Artifices of Eternity: Horace's Fourth Book of Odes
by Michael C. J. Putnmn
ALSO BY PIETRO PUCCJ
li esiod and the Language of Poetry
The Violence of Pity in Euripides' "M edea"
Odysseus Polutropos
..
~~,~~- ~'""""'"'''''""'"'
INTERTEXTUAL READINGS IN
THE ODYSSEY AND ILIAD
1~HE
PIETRO PUCCI
CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS
ITHACA AND LONDON
THIS BOOK HAS BEEN PUBLISHED WITH THE AID OF A GRANT FROM
THE HULL MEMORIAL PUBLICATION FUND OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY.
Copyright © 1987 by Corn ell University
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts
thereof, nn1st not be reproduced in any forn1 without permission in writing
from the publisher. For information address Cornell University Press, 124
Roberts Place, Ithaca, New York 1485o.
First published 1987 by Corn ell University Press.
International Standard Book Number o-8o 14-1888-7
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 86-16798
Printed in the United States of An1erica
Librarians: Library of Congress cataloging information
appears on the last page of the book.
The paper in this book is acid-free and meets the guidelines
for permanence and durability of the Committee on Productwn
Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.
CONTENTS
Preface
7
Abbreviations
Introduction: Variations on Odyssean rrhen1CS
I. MULTIFACETF:D DISGUISES
I. Sexual and rrextual Jealousy 33
2. The Birth of a New Hero 44
3· Allusion and Misreading -o
:J
4· Suffering and rrrickery sG
5· Textual Disingenuousness in Portraying Od ysseus'
Suffering 63
6. Disguise 76
7. Disguise and Recognition 83
8. Disguising Truth: Fiction 98
g. More Light in the Epiphany, Less Light in the rext
I I 0
11. RETURN TO THE SA:'\1E: DRIFTING AWAY
Return: No Return 127
IO.
Il. Return, Death, and ln1n1ortality 139
Polemic Gestures between the Iliad and the Odyssey:
I 2.
, _,
Odysseus as a Chan1pion
I3. Return and Cheating Death
Ill. SYNONYMY
I4. The Heart (Thumos) of the Iliadic Lion and the Belly
(Gaster) of the Odyssean Lion 157
I5. Being Mindful of Food: Being Forgetful of c;riefs I65
5
Contents
16. Pirates and Beggars 173
17. Gaster: Eros and Thanatos 181
IV. READING: WRITING
18. Gaster and Thelgein
19. The Song of the Sirens
Odysseus, Reader of the Iliad
20.
Phemius and the Beginning of the Odyssey
2 1.
22. Arte Allusiva
Bibliography 247
Index 257
6
PREFACE
Readers of this book will undertake a voyage into the pages of the
Odyssey and the Iliad. 'The voyage n1etaphor is in keeping not only with
the theme of the Odysspy but with the polytropic and drifting nlove
ments of Odysseus in his travels and of Odyssean writing. During
these explorations, readers will be 1nade aware of the possibility of an
intertextual reading of the Odyssey. At the heart of this book lies the
recognition that an intertextual approach can create exciting "sense"
and reveal a powerful interaction between the two poen1s.
Of course intertextual confrontations occur everywhere in the
texts, wherever a fonnula, a n1otif, or a scene in one poen1 evokes
corresponding features in the other poen1. In principle, therefore, I
might have analyzed all the lines of the OdyssPy or of the Iliad. Short of
this, I had to choose passages; n1y choice has been detennined by the
epics' rnajor thernatic and rhetorical rnotifs. In part I, the then1e of
disguise develops sinn1ltaneously with the rhetoric of sinn1lation and
fiction. The then1e of return in part I I develops with the therne and
the rhetoric of re-cognition and the apres coup. rrhe third part analyzes
the troubling synonytnity of thumos and gaster; part IV illustrates the
reading that the Odyssey enacts of its con1petitive texts.
These diverse yet converging lines of reading inevitably produce, I
suggest, polytropic and rnultiple views. 'rherefore-by analogy with
two fan1ous novels-the book expands in the digressive, dissenlinat
ing style of Tristram Shandy rather than in the cohesive fashion of
Middlemarch. For this work emerges frorn the 1nodern awareness
due to McLuhan, Barthes, and Derrida-that the book in its tradi
tional fonn as an organic whole, a body fully hannonious and self
contained, is at an end, and writing is beginning. 'ro son1e extent this
must have been the Odyssey's own sense of itself as a self-contained
whole.
7
Preface
I quote Hotner from Homeri ojJera, edited by David B. Monro and
Thomas W. Alien (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1902-12). 'franslations
are mine unless I have indicated otherwise. I have transliterated all
Greek words into Latin characters. At the same time, since one of the
purposes of transliteration is to n1ake the text intelligible to non
Hellenists, I have used the Latinate forms of Greek personal names
with which English-language readers are familiar; accordingly,
"Achilles," not "Akhilleus"; "Telemach us," not "Telemakhos";
"Ch an.s , " not "Kl1 an.s " ; "Od ysseus, " not "Od usseus " ; an d so on. I
have not been fully consistent, however; to preserve puns, for in
stance, I have reverted to the transliterations "Odusseus," "Tele
makhos," and the like. other exceptions-son1e geographical
l~he
names-will be readily understandable to readers.
I owe assistance and help to tnany institutions and individuals. A
fellowship frotn the John Sin1on Guggenheitn Memorial Foundation
(in 1g8o-81) allowed tne to pursue research in the stin1ulating en
vironinent of the Centre de Recherches Con1parees sur les Societes
Anciennes in Paris.
Several grants fron1 the College of Arts and Sciences of Cornell
University and frotn the Fund of Corn ell University's De
l~ownsend
parttnent of Classics have helped with editing and typing.
The book would not have the fonn it has without this assistance and
without the skillful editorial contributions of lVfartha Linke.
I a1n grateful to the friends who have read this book at various
stages of its con1position and have given generously. of their titne,
advice, and insights. I mention here Robert Latnberton, Cordon
Kirkwood, Cordon Messing, Frederick Ahl, and especially Andrew
Ford, who in tny setninar on the Odyssf)' and in reading this text has
been a congenial and generous critic.
At the Centre in Paris, where I was invited to present son1e results
of n1y research, I benefited fro In the illtuninating responses of Mat-eel
Detienne, Nicole Loraux, Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Jean-Pierre Vernant,
and Heinz Wistnann.
Gregory N agy has supported this book with his powerful critical
insights and his unending loyalty.
Pucc1
PIETRO
lthaca, New York
8
ABBREVIATIONS
A. H. Karl Friedrich An1eis and Car! Hentze, eels. Homen 1/ias. \tVith
coinnlentary. 2 vols. Leipzig: Teubner, 1884-87.
A.H.C. Karl Friedrich Ameis and Car! Hentze, eels. Homen OdyssN'. Rev.
Paul Cauer. 4 vols. (2 vols., each in two parts). Leipzig: Teub
ner, 1920-28.
1
A1P American ournal of P hilolOf:,')'·
Alien Thon1as \V. Alien, eel. Odyssey. Vols. 3 and 4 of Homeri ojJem, eel.
David B. rvtonro and Thomas \V. Alien. 5 vols. Oxford: Claren
don Press, 1902-1 2.
BSL Bulletin de la Societe de Linguistique dr Paris.
Butcher and Lang S. H. Butcher and Andrew Lang, trans. Homer's Odyssey.
London: rvtacmillan, 879·
I
CP Classical Philology.
CQ Classical Quarterly.
cw Classical W or/d.
DE Pierre Chantraine. Dictionnaire flymologiqur> de la langue grl'cqw}. 4
vols. Paris: C. Klincksieck, 19G8-8o.
GH Pierre Chantraine. Gramnwire lwmrrique. 2 vols. Vol. Plwnfliqw'
I,
et morplwlogie. Vol. 2, Syntaxr. Paris: C. Klincksieck, 948-53.
I
Reprint, vol. only, Paris: C. Klincksieck, 973·
I I
GRBS Greek, Roman, and Byzantine 5)tudies.
HSCP Ha rvard Studies in Classical PhilolOf.,')'·
1
1HS ournal of H rllenic Studies.
Leaf Waiter Leaf, ed. Iliad. 2d ed. 2 vols. London: :rvtacmillan, 1900-
1902.
LfrgE Lexikon des friihf:rriechischen Epos. General eel., Bruno Snell. fas
11
cicles to date. G()ttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1955-.
LIMC Lexicon I conographicum Mytlwlogiae Classicae. Edited by Hans
Christoph Ackermann and Jean-Robert Gisler. 2 vols., each in
two parts. Zurich and Munich: Artemis, 1981-84.
Nitzsch Georg Wilheln1 Nitzsch. Erkliirendr Anmerlwngen zu Homn:s Odys
3 vols. Hannover: Hahn, 1826-40.
Sff.
9
Abbreviations
Odissea Omero, Odissea. The Italian translation of G. Aurelio Privitera.
General introduction by Alfred Heubeck and Stephanie West.
6 vols. Milan: Fondazione Lorenzo V alia, 1981-. Vol. 1, Libri I
IV (1981), ed. Stephanie West. Vol. 2, Libri V-VIII (1982), ed.J.
B. Hainsworth. Vol. 3, Libri IX-XII (1983), ed. Alfred Heu
beck. Vol. 4, Libri XIII -XVI ( 1984), ed. Arie Hoekstra. Vol. 5,
Libri XVII-XX (1985), ed. Joseph Russo. Vol. 6, Libri XXI-XXIV
(forthcoming), ed. Manuel Fernandez-Galiano. (Citations in
clude the editor and number of the relevant volume, e.g.,
Odissea-West, :25.)
1
Proclus Proculi, Chrestomatlzia. In Homeri opera, ed. David B. Monro and
Thomas W. Alien, vol. 5· Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1912.
Stanford W. B. Stanford, ed. The Odyssey of Homer. With comn1entary. 2
vols. London: MaCinillan, 1959.
TAPA Transactions of the American Philological Association.
van Leeuwen189o Jan van Leeuwen and M. B. Nlendes da Costa, eds. Odys
seae Cannina. Leiden, 1890.
van Leeuwen1917 Jan van Leeuwen, ed. Odysseia. Leiclen, 1917.
10