Afleveringen
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Odyssey 3.201-329
Why does Homer introduce a singer and poet into the story of Aegisthus and Clytemnestra? In Nestor’s telling, Agamemnon left behind a singer, like the ones Homer depicts. and perhaps is, with the order to “protect my wife”. How is it that an artist could do that? What sort of song would preserve her virtue—keep her on the straight and narrow? (What language is there any more to speak of this sort of mission?) We know that Nestor had his disagreements with Agamemnon, so that in the aftermath of the Trojan war, he led or joined a faction which fled home rather than try to appease Athena with sacrifice. The army was split fifty-fifty. Odysseus changed his mind and made Agamemnon’s contingent a democratic majority. Is Nestor perhaps mocking Agamemnon’s judgement over his provision for securing his marriage while he was away, busily deserting it? The poor singer meets a terrible fate at Aegisthus’ hands, abandoned to become food for vultures on a desert island. What might Homer himself be saying about the inefficacy of his own art to guide human behaviour and morality? Is there a criticism here of moralising poets? “He wants it—she wants it!” Erotic passion and lust for power conquer in real life, and even win a seven-year term.
[I shall be taking a brief hiatus for some emergency travel. Will be back soon!]
In Greek:
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Odyssey 3.1-200
Meeting Nestor is like watching a reunion special for a 20-year-old show. There is that same awkward sense that things will never be the same. Giants walked the earth back then. There is the slightly prurient interest in how old and overweight the cast have got.
Here we are, camped on the beach in companies like an invading army, leaving the WAGs down the road at home, as though we’d never left Troy. But it’s our own beach. There is an uneasy incompleteness about Nestor’s return, even now, after many years. There is consciousness of guilt: something needs to be expiated by sacrifice. It was apparently Athena whom the Achaeans offended in the sacking of Troy. Now it is Poseidon they are appeasing, perhaps in gratitude for their passage home? The wind never failed him, says Nestor. One wonders what the strange festival means for Peisistratus, his youngest son, for whom, like Telemachus, the whole Trojan expedition is a thing of story, full of glorified models of male conduct in war. ‘Dad, why are we all sitting around in groups in our armour, on beach towels, on the beach?’ I well remember from my own youth the looming shadow of World War II, still the source of our playground games (along with cowboys and Indians) and the subject of solemn movies with nary a deadpan. It was always an event for me to speak with veterans of that war, from teachers to students in Chicago. Nestor is quite honest about his own actions, as Athena foretells: it was a pirate raid, following Achilles around Troyland, looting stuff and women, before they finally got round to besetting the Trojan city of Ilium.
But there seems also a lot concealed. It seems he may have come home with less than a full share of the loot, for example. This may have been a price of breaking with Agamemnon, and possibly a reason why Odysseus began as an ally of his breakaway faction, but then changed his mind and went back to Agamemnon. There are hints that unlike Menelaus, whom we are yet to meet, Nestor is living under diminished circumstances. Telemachus avoids going back there on his way home. Neither Nestor nor Menelaus are a transparent window in their memories of Odysseus: he was a character who aroused the most mixed of mixed feelings.
They are honouring Poseidon, but Athena is actually present as Mentor, Homer’s (the performer’s) alter ego (I suggest). ‘Mentor’ joins in the prayer, that glory come to Nestor and his sons, but the performer cannot resist breaking his guise, to tell us that actually Athena fulfilled the whole prayer herself. These half-line asides are precious kinds of connections … But the suggestion is that this visit of Athena (and Telemachus) may result in a kind of healing for Nestor and his people, at least at the material level. But one reads the psyche from the material in Homer. Clearly there had been a real break with Odysseus, after which Nestor and he never met again. Perhaps there is some resolution in the next generation, with this visit.
There is genuine depth of feeling, an embodiment of real distance and loss, in Nestor’s litany of the comrades buried at Troy: There lies Ajax, Achilles, Patroclus … And his own beloved son Antilochus, who beat Menelaus (under dispute) in the chariot race at the funeral games set up by Achilles (Iliad XXIII—I mention this because it will figure when we meet Menelaus in the next book). It is marvellous how these lines conjure those men like so many waxworks. One is made conscious of distance and time precisely by our distance from that first encounter with the Iliad. One wonders if the poet himself joins in the affect of Nestor’s loss and evocation: the world of the Iliad, perhaps, with all the figures in whom he or she had invested all her art, belongs to this poet’s younger years and can never return.
The figure of Odysseus, however, yet remains, and Homer is not done with him. He is well remembered by Plato, the Odysseus of the Odyssey: Socrates seems to admire him. But the Athenian tragic stage remembers a different man, perhaps independently of Homer’s telling. There he is the original Machiavel, an unprincipled opportunist, spin doctor and henchman. Advisor to the Prince. Nestor knew this guy. He more than once emphasises Odysseus’ brilliance in the sense of his cunning, his skill with ‘all manner of deceits’ (παντοίοισι δόλοισι). Their final parting was clearly not amicable, and likely a prime example of Odysseus cheating expectations.
It is possible that Athena’s intention, an authorial intention in the highest sense, is some redemption for this shadowy and brutally efficient figure. Perhaps this possibility was always there in his youthful and fruitful love for Penelope, seemingly abandoned for the Trojan high life. But Athena had been his enemy, before the sudden change of heart at the council of the gods in Book 1. She had been the enemy of all the Achaeans attempting to return home after the desecration of Ilium. The opening of the Odyssey on Olympus is shown to be a moment of opportunity: Poseidon, Odysseus’ motivated persecutor, is absent. But nothing would have happened unless Athena had changed her mind. Why does she do this? What is it about him, or what is missing within or for Odysseus, that makes her move?
In Greek:
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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Odyssey 2.323-434 (end)
Since I started again after my illness, I’ve now spent two years without performing past Book 4 of the Odyssey. Now, I have translated the whole thing in that time, to be fair; and I am a self-confessed Homerist, so there is endless fascination for me in every part of every line. But this does mean that I have not yet encountered Odysseus himself. Homer does not make you wait two years, but he does make you wait four books, a pretty long time. An ongoing question, raised by modern critics—the ancients seem not to have complained—is does the Telemachy (Books 1-4) cut it? Does Telemachus sustain our interest? Why does Homer delay the introduction of his hero? Or does he in fact? Subscribers, do please respond in comments or over in Chat.
I shall admit it is hard to square the master fabulist of Books 5-12, and the Hollywood storyteller of 16-24—meant in a good way—a novelist who writes a real page-turner—with the relaxed buildup of Telemachus’ situation in Ithaca at the beginning of the Odyssey. There is also an apparent lull when Odysseus first arrives in Ithaca—Books 13-15—filled with conversations, and many lies, in the lowly dwelling of Eumaeus the swineherd. Coming up in Book 3, Nestor will literally talk until the sun goes down. How does one understand these two apparent lulls, one which sets in right at the beginning, and the other which interrupts sequences of (to us) intense mythic and dramatic interest? The Tale of Odysseus’ Wanderings and the Plot Against the Suitors and the Reunion with Penelope?
The oral theory of Homeric composition allows us to shunt all aesthetic questions to a mysterious primitive realm beyond our ken or ability to participate. Let us avoid this ungrounded laziness. Plato’s world was not infected with the fascination for orality. It was, however, keenly insightful into the qualities of poetry and aesthetic craft, and it does not seem to register a problem with any parts of the Odyssey on these grounds. Perhaps occasional doldrums are a part of the rhythm of sea journeys and traveller’s tales? But it may be our own predilections for mythic tales of (super)heroes, or for the dramatic dovetailing of storylines to a climax, which are distorting our sense for those parts of Homer’s art which do not aim to satisfy those kinds of arousal.
I do love the ship cleaving through the water. It is such a release, felt in the rhythms, when the journey finally gets underway. By itself that is a clue to how effectively Homer has conjured the feeling of adolescent inertia and its privileged frustrations, the invisible bonds that tie young men to their dice and tables, and leave the loyal, experienced men, and all the women, with a choice of service also to their appetites, or to a now distant memory of an ideal from their youth which may or may not be dead forever. Bring me a traveller’s wind!
In Greek:
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Odyssey 2.157-322
This episode marks the first—and I believe, only—in-person appearance of Mentor, Odysseus’ appointed estate manager, in the whole Odyssey. But he appears twice in this passage, the second time as Athena’s disguise. She then appears as Mentor on multiple occasions in the course of the telling. Indeed, the line,
Μέντορι ϝεἰδομένη ἠμὲν δέμας ἠδὲ καὶ αὐδήν
Seeming to be Mentor, not just in build but in her voice as well
which appears in this passage before Athena’s speech to Telemachus, is also the last line of the whole poem. Of course in this guise Athena is to be a ‘mentor’ to Telemachus in the first part of the Odyssey. But it almost seems as if the performer hits on an idea here that gives him some flexibility and comic potential. For one thing, the announcement about the voice means he doesn’t have to keep doing Athena’s voice, however that was handled, but the voice of a regular sort of male. And as we shall see, this figure of Mentor allows the performer to engage in some ‘fourth-wall’ comedy. Mentor in this way becomes a very thin mask for the performer himself, who, as a matter of course, has to imitate a variety of people ‘not just in build, but in their voice as well.’
It seems to me to be pointed that the Odyssey ends by pointing to this fourth wall, or rather to the performer himself. The Iliad performer seems rather to aim for transparency, to get out of the way of the simile or the scene. That poem’s last line is an evocation of Hector Horse-Tamer at his funeral, to which we are made witnesses or auditors. Such a name-and-epithet evocation raises the question what Hector has become, now that he has been burnt to ashes and bones. The scene is the thing, not the artist. But throughout the Odyssey, the teller seems to get involved in the telling, trying on his guises with a sense of fun, and participatory fun at that. Let me suggest this as an hypothesis, at any rate, which you are invited to test or try on as we proceed.
Also in Greek:
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Odyssey 2.1-156
Spread the word! We’re editing, translating, and performing Homer’s Odyssey, in English (on the podcast) and Greek (in Substack), all for free! Subscribers and sponsors welcome! We’re now on Book 2, catch up on previous episodes of the Odyssey on Singing Homer with ‘Homer in English’ in the title.
Antinous, the most villainous suitor, openly complains about Penelope’s wiles and duplicity, but wow! What a woman. Neither he nor his fellows had ever seen or heard of her equal:
ἔργα τ’ ἐπίστασθαι περικαλλέα καὶ φρένας ἐσθλάς
κέρδεά θ’, οἷ’ οὔ πώ τιν’ ἀκούομεν οὐδε παλαιῶν,
τάων αἳ πάρος ἦσαν ἐϋπλοκαμῖδες ’Αχαιαί,
Τυρώ τ’ Ἀλκμήνη τε ἐϋστέφανός τε Μυκήνη·.
τάων οὔ τις ὁμοῖα νοϝήματα Πηνελοπείηι
ϝἤιδη · 2.117-22
To know how to make gorgeous works, and excellent brains
To profit by them, the like of no other woman we hear about—
not even among the ancients,
Those women who once upon a time were the Fair-Tresses,
Achaean alumnae,
Tyro and Alcmene, and Mycene of the beautiful coronal:
None of these knew thoughts like those Penelope
Knows.
The accentuation of the sequence κέρδεά θ’, οἷ’ οὔ πώ τιν’, in the new technical parlance, follows a short oxytone released by an elided enclitic with a circumflex and two long oxytones. Never mind the jargon; if you inspect the Greek text, you will notice the phrase with bolded syllables contains consecutive pitch accent marks, unlike most of the rest of Homer’s phrases (or the stress patterns in English poetry). Most likely this sequence climaxed at a peak of pitch. As genuinely bitter as Antinous seems to be about Penelope’s behaviour, the thought of her bursts in on him and sends him into a reverie about the skilful intelligences of the past, to whom she seems, to him, superior—the women Antinous had heard about from story and song. That there is such evident transport in the feeling of Antinous, conveyed by the harmony and rhythm of his poetry, seems to me to do essential work for Homer, who by the mere letter of his poem could be thought to present a barely two-dimensional character in Antinous, and almost comic villains in the suitors generally. The musical breakout transforms a moment with a lasting effect outside the work done by words and dramatic premises: there is, it seems, a real longing in these villains, and with this apparent outburst of harmonic energy, which seemingly escapes the speaker’s mouth, through Antinous’ eyes Penelope is shown to be a real and worthy object for such longing. This is an instance where the prosodic transport cuts through any poses or rhetorical hypocrisy on the part of the speaker, to project an immediacy of awareness and feeling. Penelope is evidently far more a causal agent, an αἴτιον, in the speaker’s consciousness, than the object of blame Antinous is attempting to make of her.
In Greek (only on Substack):
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Odyssey 1.306-444 (end)
What are Telemachus’ redeeming qualities? Let me know in chat about the way he treats his mother.
We have already seen Telemachus daydreaming when he first appears in the Odyssey. He is seeing his absent father in his ‘mind’s eye’, as Shakespeare famously put it. Homer seems interested in what we think of as a psychological space, and one part of his depiction of the gods seems to be as an internal, psychological phenomenon. Telemachus’ experience in the aftermath of his encounter with Athena, in disguise as a mentor named Mentes, seems to speak to a kind of encounter that seems familiar in life, the way one remembers a conversation that somehow changed everything. Only in retrospect do we realise that something inexplicable has happened; the world doesn’t look the same any more, that particular conversation brought something home that forever changed us. That couldn’t have just been who it seemed to be, talking to us or playing that song: that was a god!
In Greek:
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Odyssey 1.136-305
One of the reasons I included Samuel Butler’s translation in earlier posts, is that he alone, I feel, has captured the comic tone of the Odyssey. There is something deadpan about his Victorian prose and sensibility that reveals something real about the Odyssey, cutting through all the trappings of the hexameter rhythm and epic expectations. I also have translated into prose but I’ve done it line for line, to be a helpful prompt to students of the Greek. I am painfully conscious that there is something about what Butler renders that is beyond the scope of my attempt. Sometimes translators can be revelatory; there is more to the business than decoding. Once in a while there is a translation of souls, so that you feel the Greek author is behind the English author’s eyes, anticipating his phrases. I could never manage the denser parts of Thucydides without the help of Thomas Hobbes’ English. There was a real meeting of souls. I feel something only slightly less extraordinary in the meeting of Samuel Butler with the composer of the Odyssey.
Try listening to the Odyssey as if it were playing as a comedy. I think you will find the experience transformative. Think of the performer, having to pretend to be Athena, having to pretend be some Mentes or other, a ‘king’ among Taphian pirates. It’s almost as if she’s making it up as she goes along. Wait a minute, what about my ship … oh let’s just say we parked it so far away that you can’t see it, off in the country. I’m a Lord!
In Greek:
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Odyssey 1.1-135
We begin the great tale of the Odyssey again, with articulated breath. All recordings will be free, but let me encourage subscribers to become paid members to support my work. I would like to offer paid subscribers the opportunity to participate in a chat about the passages I cover in each instalment. I shall begin the chat with a question, which will always be a question which is alive to me. I like leading seminars, and prefer that my own plentiful opinions earn their way into a conversation, rather than I privilege them by delivering them from a lecturer’s podium. I also only like real questions, not leading ones, so don’t expect in me a ready-made answer man for my own questions; I hope that subscribers will react and interact, and that I shall learn something on the way. Look for a chat notification at some point after each post. I also hope that participants will have helpful and critical things to say about the translation, my English impression in linear prose. I do hope to improve it as a result, and perhaps see if someone would like to publish it. The Greek text is my own, based on the edition by M. L. West. It has been published in six volumes on Amazon, complete with my translation on the facing page. They are available at these links, for $9.99 each:
https://a.co/d/gdd3Hm2
https://a.co/d/b1HL789
https://a.co/d/0cqP26l
https://a.co/d/dtveMin
https://a.co/d/j7cb0uf
https://a.co/d/j61s9Ug
Needless to say, purchasing any of these volumes would also be an excellent way to support my work. If you are interested in the Greek performance, they will give you a complete text to follow along. I shall send along the whole set by mail to founding members. If you are a student, e-mail me and I can arrange to ship them to you at cost.
I am disabled but recovering from a transplant, and am grateful that there’s still air enough in my lungs to sing Homer. Aside from my disability, my findings have proved too controversial for me to be licensed to teach in professional Classics. Hence any financial support for my efforts is deeply appreciated.
Below is my recording of the Greek for Homer’s Odyssey, 1.1-135:
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Ἄνδρά μοι ἔννεπε, Μοῦσα, πολύτροπον, ὃς μάλα πολλά
πλάγχθη, ’πεὶ Τροίης ἱερὸν πτολίεθρον ἔπερσεν ·
πολλῶν δ’ ἀνθρώπων ϝἴδεν ἄστεα καὶ νόϝον ἔγνω,
πολλὰ δ’ ὅ γ’ ἐν πόντωι πάθεν ἄλγεα ὃν κατὰ θυμόν
ἀρνύμενος ἥν τε ψυχὴν καὶ νόστον ἑταίρων.
ἀλλ’ οὐδ’ ὧς ἑτάρους ἐρρύσατο, ἱέμενός περ·
αὐτῶν γὰρ σφετέρηισιν ἀτασθαλίηισιν ὄλοντο,
νήπιοι, οἳ κατὰ βοῦς Ὑπερίονος Ἠϝελίοιο
ἤσθιον· αὐτὰρ ὃ τοῖσιν ἀφείλετο νόστιμον ἦμαρ.
τῶν ἁμόθεν γε, θεά, θύγατερ Διός, ϝεἰπὲ καὶ ἡμῖν.
I hereby present first fruits of my mission to sing Homer: it amounts to a reaffirmation of the single articulated breath of the Homeric epos. I shall explain what I mean. The Homeric hexameter has a rich prehistory. It was born in a circle dance, emulating the newly stable paths of the sun’s outer planets with their regular retrogressions at opposition. (The leftward steps in the dance occurred from steps 9 to 12 of the 17, corresponding to the syllables between the trochaic caesura and the bucolic diaeresis.) It lent its rhythm to the chanting of catalogues, memorialising by bringing to orchestic life the list of ancestors and events that were shared in common by a people and a place. As these catalogues expanded internally, like a concertina, into episodic narratives, the hexameter’s story ends as a choice vehicle for epic narrative and drama, like the English pentameter. It persisted in this guise, somewhat remarkably, in the Latin language and the Roman era.
When I began this project, I tended to pause at what I have demonstrated to be a mid-line accentual cadence in Homer’s hexameter. This accentual cadence generates the two kinds of caesura in the third foot of the six. There is often a pause in sense at this location, and when one attempts to sing the pitch changes indicated in the score, a pause here is often welcome to separate the pitched rhythms before and after. In its history as a medium, the hexameter may well have observed a pause at mid-line, for example, in citharodic and other styles of melodic performance, including when using Homer’s verses. But I have become convinced by the texts we have that the Iliad and the Odyssey were composed for performance by a thespian rhapsode bearing a wand; and that in the composer’s hands the hexameter line had become a unit of expression—a single articulated breath. It was of course rhythmic and syncopated, and tonally inflected, but it was a single breath of speech. The articulation or articulations were phrasal, shaped by the pitch accent, but not necessarily requiring pauses. The necessary pause for breath was generally at line end, but I believe the performer’s freedom was comparable to a Shakespearean’s: a pause anywhere was permissible if it counted, and was always welcome at mid-line or at the diaeresis, if that worked better than at line end.
Stephen Daitz argued that the hexameter should be recited without a pause. I have given evidence that some lines in Homer seem to be scripted with a pause (in my new book, Singing Homer’s Spell, now available on Amazon, and soon in an Apple ebook complete with audio demonstrations). Yet I agree with Daitz about the integrity of the Homeric line in performance. It seems somehow to live in the consciousness of the performer, who will not breathe only at the end of each line, but when the lines and phrases themselves instruct him to. The orchestration of the breath is not beyond Homer’s scripting. That is a discovery about Homer’s stature and nature awaiting every Homeric performer! If Shakespeare has had his way with you, you will know what I mean: real verse sprung from a poet knows how to articulate itself.
Here, for now, is the opening of the Odyssey.
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The shaping and self-organising of phrases in recitation is the ultimate proof in the pudding, that the law of tonal prominence has at last released the rhythmic tonal motion, the music, of ancient Greek prose and verse. Perhaps the greatest treasury of all to be tapped by the new law is that of ancient tragic and comic dialogue. Nowhere is the reward so immediately present as when Greek iambic verse comes to life. The words seem to answer their speaker and sing themselves, just like when you crack the reading of a line from Shakespeare. Here is the opening speech, or salvo, of Sophocles’ Antigone, spoken by the heroine:
ὦ κοινὸν αὐτάδελφον | Ἰσμήνης κάρα,
ἆρ᾽ οἶσθ᾽ ὅ τι Ζεὺς | τῶν ἀπ᾽ Οἰδίπου κακῶν
ὁποῖον οὐχὶ νῷν | ἔτι ζώσαιν τελεῖ;
οὐδὲν γὰρ οὔτ᾽ ἀλγεινὸν | οὔτ᾽ ἄτης ἄτερ
οὔτ᾽ αἰσχρὸν οὔτ᾽ ἄτιμόν (|) ἐσθ᾽, ὁποῖον οὐ
τῶν σῶν τε κἀμῶν | οὐκ ὄπωπ᾽ ἐγὼ κακῶν.
καὶ νῦν τί τοῦτ᾽ αὖ φασι | πανδήμῳ πόλει
κήρυγμα θεῖναι | τὸν στρατηγὸν ἀρτίως;
ἔχεις τι κεἰσήκουσας; | ἤ σε λανθάνει
πρὸς τοὺς φίλους στείχοντα | τῶν ἐχθρῶν κακά;
In Gilbert Murray’s translation:
My own, mine sister, O beloved face,
Tell me—of all the curses of our race,
What curse shall God not shelf off thee and me?
Surely in is no pain, no misery,
No vileness or dishonour, that we two
Have not already seen; and now this new
Edict, proclaimed by our new Prince's word
On whole our people . . . knowst thou? Hast thou heard?
Or is it hid from thee? There comes a fate
On one we love meet for the worst we hate.
Listen, and try it yourself! Such operatic iambs—ah Shakespeare’s soft English can only dream!
David
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The key to reading Greek aloud—that is, the first step in treating ancient texts in the way that they were intended to be used—is to know which syllables were weighted in the delivery. This is to pay attention to ancient Greek usage, which describes the pitch changes in Greek prosody with the words ‘sharp’ (ὀξύς) and ‘heavy’ (βαρύς). With respect to prosodic pitch these do not mean, as is often erroneously stated, ‘high’ and ‘low’, but ‘sharply rising’ and ‘heavily falling’. When one applies them to a voice, sharpness and heaviness intuitively connote different kinds of intensity, not only tonal shifts. It is therefore reasonable to suppose that these Greek prosodic qualities of sharp and heavy intonations were not unlike the sounds, including pitch changes, associated with the familiar English stress prosody. In particular, when one determines which Greek syllables bore the heavy Greek prosody, one knows which syllables ‘anchor’ the delivery, and which ones the speech lands on. The sharp syllables, on the other hand, propel and energise the line, including at the ends.
καὶ ὅσοι φθόγγοι ταχεῖς τε καὶ βραδεῖς φαίνονται, τοτὲ μὲν ἀνάρμοστοι φερόμενοι δι’ ἀνομοιότητα τῆς ἐν ἡμῖν ὑπ’ αὐτῶν κινήσεως, τοτὲ δὲ ξύμφωνοι δι’ ὁμοιότητα. τὰς γὰρ τῶν προτέρων καὶ θαττόνων οἱ βραδύτεροι κινήσεις, ἀποπαυομένας ἤδη τε εἰς ὅμοιον ἐληλυθυίας αἷς ὕστερον αὐτοὶ προσφερόμενοι κινοῦσιν ἐκείνας, καταλαμβάνουσι, καταλαμβάνοντες δὲ οὐκ ἄλλην ἐπεμβάλλοντες ἀνετάραξαν κίνησιν, ἀλλ’ ἀρχὴν βραδυτέρας φορᾶς κατὰ τὴν τῆς θάττονος ἀποληγούσης δὲ ὁμοιότητα προσάψαντες μίαν ἐξ ὀξείας καὶ βαρείας ξυνεκεράσαντο πάθην, ὅθεν ἡδονὴν μὲν τοῖς ἄφροσιν, εὐφροσύνην δὲ τοῖς ἔμφροσι διὰ τὴν τῆς θείας ἁρμονίας μίμησιν ἐν θνηταῖς γενομένην φοραῖς παρέσχον. (Timaeus 80a ff.)
[We must pursue] also those sounds which appear quick and slow, sharp [ὀξεῖς] and heavy [βαρεῖς], at one time borne in discord because of the disagreement of the motion [κίνησις] caused by them in us, but at another in concord because of agreement. For the slower sounds overtake the movements [κινήσεις] of those earlier and quicker ones, when these are already ceasing and have come into agreement with those motions with which afterwards, when they are brought to bear, the slow sounds themselves move [κινοῦσιν] them; and in overtaking they did not cause a disturbance, imposing another motion [κίνησις], but once they had attached the beginning of a slower passage, in accord with the agreement of the quicker one, which was fading, they mixed together a single experience out of sharp and heavy sound, whence they furnished pleasure to the mindless, but peace of mind to the thoughtful, because of the imitation of the divine harmony arisen in mortal orbits.
I demonstrate here how intuitive performance can become, when I apply the law of tonal prominence to Greek prose. The new law finally makes sense of Greek rhythm, in prose speech as well as poetry. The accent marks preserved in our texts had appeared to have a purely random relation to emphasis in lines and sentences. The breakthrough was to discover that whenever the syllable following the acute mark was long, it bore a down-glide in pitch which carried the prosodic weight. That is, in certain definite circumstances it was the syllable following, rather than the graphically accented syllable, which was prominent. Now, with the discovery of the new law, phrases and sentences seem to take sonic shape in a way that makes sense to those raised in Indo-European languages. Phrases seem to ‘self-organise’, rather than intone suddenly and randomly. An author’s voice emerges.
I have picked the most obscure passage in Plato I know. I shall not attempt to explain it here. I have merely recited it in the new way, and supplied my translation below. In speaking it out I wish to share the simple experience I have been blessed with: even if it occasionally seems that what Plato is saying is ‘all Greek to me,’ at least now one is not decoding symbols, but listening to someone talking, someone trying to describe something subtle.
It seems to me Plato is describing the musical motion of an Homeric hexameter, both objectively and subjectively as we like to say: at once both outside and inside. I say in my recent book, Singing Homer’s Spell: “[he] is trying to describe the phenomenology of a poetic or melodic line, the way it moves and cadences both internally and finally, and seems to be trying to describe the experience of the hexameter dance of the Muses in particular. Remember that Greek writers had no recourse to abstract terms derived from Greek or Latin, like even our ‘rhythm’ and ‘accent’, to help describe phenomena that are hard to get a perspective on at the best of times, so as to put them into words and sound scientific when doing so.”
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Recording and translation © A. P. David 2022.
Greek text hyperlinked to lexica via Perseus (perseus.tufts.edu):
αὐτὰρ ἐγὼν ἐπὶ νῆας ἅμ᾽ ἀντιθέοις ἑτάροισιν
ἤια, πολλὰ δέ μοι κραδίη πόρφυρε κιόντι.
αὐτὰρ ἐπεί ῥ᾽ ἐπὶ νῆα κατήλθομεν ἠδὲ θάλασσαν,
δόρπον θ᾽ ὁπλισάμεσθ᾽, ἐπί τ᾽ ἤλυθεν ἀμβροσίη νύξ,
δὴ τότε κοιμήθημεν ἐπὶ ῥηγμῖνι θαλάσσης.
ἦμος δ᾽ ἠριγένεια φάνη ῥοδοδάκτυλος Ἠώς,
νῆας μὲν πάμπρωτον ἐρύσσαμεν εἰς ἅλα δῖαν,
ἐν δ᾽ ἱστοὺς τιθέμεσθα καὶ ἱστία νηυσὶν ἐίσῃς,
ἂν δὲ καὶ αὐτοὶ βάντες ἐπὶ κληῖσι καθῖζον:
ἑξῆς δ᾽ ἑζόμενοι πολιὴν ἅλα τύπτον ἐρετμοῖς.
ἂψ δ᾽ εἰς Αἰγύπτοιο διιπετέος ποταμοῖο
στῆσα νέας, καὶ ἔρεξα τεληέσσας ἑκατόμβας.
αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ κατέπαυσα θεῶν χόλον αἰὲν ἐόντων,
χεῦ᾽ Ἀγαμέμνονι τύμβον, ἵν᾽ ἄσβεστον κλέος εἴη.
ταῦτα τελευτήσας νεόμην, ἔδοσαν δέ μοι οὖρον
ἀθάνατοι, τοί μ᾽ ὦκα φίλην ἐς πατρίδ᾽ ἔπεμψαν.
ἀλλ᾽ ἄγε νῦν ἐπίμεινον ἐνὶ μεγάροισιν ἐμοῖσιν,
ὄφρα κεν ἑνδεκάτη τε δυωδεκάτη τε γένηται:
καὶ τότε σ᾽ εὖ πέμψω, δώσω δέ τοι ἀγλαὰ δῶρα,
τρεῖς ἵππους καὶ δίφρον ἐύξοον: αὐτὰρ ἔπειτα
δώσω καλὸν ἄλεισον, ἵνα σπένδῃσθα θεοῖσιν
ἀθανάτοις ἐμέθεν μεμνημένος ἤματα πάντα.’
Samuel Butler’s translation with certain names Hellenised:
‘… whereon I turned back to the
ships with my companions, and my heart was clouded with care as I
went along. When we reached the ships we got supper ready, for night
was falling, and camped down upon the beach. When the child of morning,
rosy-fingered Dawn appeared, we drew our ships into the water, and
put our masts and sails within them; then we went on board ourselves,
took our seats on the benches, and smote the grey sea with our oars.
I again stationed my ships in the heaven-fed stream of Egypt, and
offered hecatombs that were full and sufficient. When I had thus appeased
heaven's anger, I raised a barrow to the memory of Agamemnon that
his name might live for ever, after which I had a quick passage home,
for the gods sent me a fair wind.
‘And now for yourself—stay here some ten or twelve days longer, and
I will then speed you on your way. I will make you a noble present
of a chariot and three horses. I will also give you a beautiful chalice
that so long as you live you may think of me whenever you make a drink-offering
to the immortal gods.’
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Recording and translation © A. P. David 2022.
Greek text hyperlinked to lexica via Perseus (perseus.tufts.edu):
ὣς ἐφάμην, ὁ δέ μ᾽ αὐτίκ᾽ ἀμειβόμενος προσέειπεν:
‘‘υἱὸς Λαέρτεω, Ἰθάκῃ ἔνι οἰκία ναίων:
τὸν δ᾽ ἴδον ἐν νήσῳ θαλερὸν κατὰ δάκρυ χέοντα,
νύμφης ἐν μεγάροισι Καλυψοῦς, ἥ μιν ἀνάγκῃ
ἴσχει: ὁ δ᾽ οὐ δύναται ἣν πατρίδα γαῖαν ἱκέσθαι:
οὐ γάρ οἱ πάρα νῆες ἐπήρετμοι καὶ ἑταῖροι,
οἵ κέν μιν πέμποιεν ἐπ᾽ εὐρέα νῶτα θαλάσσης.
σοι δ᾽ οὐ θέσφατόν ἐστι, διοτρεφὲς ὦ Μενέλαε,
Ἄργει ἐν ἱπποβότῳ θανέειν καὶ πότμον ἐπισπεῖν,
ἀλλά σ᾽ ἐς Ἠλύσιον πεδίον καὶ πείρατα γαίης
ἀθάνατοι πέμψουσιν, ὅθι ξανθὸς Ῥαδάμανθυς,
τῇ περ ῥηίστη βιοτὴ πέλει ἀνθρώποισιν:
οὐ νιφετός, οὔτ᾽ ἂρ χειμὼν πολὺς οὔτε ποτ᾽ ὄμβρος,
ἀλλ᾽ αἰεὶ Ζεφύροιο λιγὺ πνείοντος ἀήτας
Ὠκεανὸς ἀνίησιν ἀναψύχειν ἀνθρώπους:
οὕνεκ᾽ ἔχεις Ἑλένην καί σφιν γαμβρὸς Διός ἐσσι.’’
ὣς εἰπὼν ὑπὸ πόντον ἐδύσετο κυμαίνοντα.
Samuel Butler’s translation with certain names Hellenised:
“‘The third man,’ he answered, ‘is Odysseus who dwells in Ithaca. I can see him in an island sorrowing bitterly in the house of the nymph Calypso, who is keeping him prisoner, and he cannot reach his home for he has no ships nor sailors to take him over the sea. As for your own end, Menelaus, you shall not die in Argos, but the gods will take you to the Elysian plain, which is at the ends of the world. There fair haired Rhadamanthus reigns, and men lead an easier life than any where else in the world, for in Elysium there falls not rain, nor hail, nor snow, but Oceanus breathes ever with a West wind that sings softly from the sea, and gives fresh life to all men. This will happen to you because you have married Helen, and are Zeus’s son in law.’
“As he spoke he dived under the waves …
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Recording and translation © A. P. David 2022.
Greek text hyperlinked to lexica via Perseus (perseus.tufts.edu):
ὣς ἔφατ᾽, αὐτὰρ ἐμοί γε κατεκλάσθη φίλον ἦτορ,
κλαῖον δ᾽ ἐν ψαμάθοισι καθήμενος, οὐδέ νύ μοι κῆρ
ἤθελ᾽ ἔτι ζώειν καὶ ὁρᾶν φάος ἠελίοιο.
αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ κλαίων τε κυλινδόμενός τε κορέσθην,
δὴ τότε με προσέειπε γέρων ἅλιος νημερτής:
‘μηκέτι, Ἀτρέος υἱέ, πολὺν χρόνον ἀσκελὲς οὕτω
κλαῖ᾽, ἐπεὶ οὐκ ἄνυσίν τινα δήομεν: ἀλλὰ τάχιστα
πείρα ὅπως κεν δὴ σὴν πατρίδα γαῖαν ἵκηαι.
ἢ γάρ μιν ζωόν γε κιχήσεαι, ἤ κεν Ὀρέστης
κτεῖνεν ὑποφθάμενος, σὺ δέ κεν τάφου ἀντιβολήσαις.’
ὣς ἔφατ᾽, αὐτὰρ ἐμοὶ κραδίη καὶ θυμὸς ἀγήνωρ
αὖτις ἐνὶ στήθεσσι καὶ ἀχνυμένῳ περ ἰάνθη,
καί μιν φωνήσας ἔπεα πτερόεντα προσηύδων:
‘τούτους μὲν δὴ οἶδα: σὺ δὲ τρίτον ἄνδρ᾽ ὀνόμαζε,
ὅς τις ἔτι ζωὸς κατερύκεται εὐρέι πόντῳ
ἠὲ θανών: ἐθέλω δὲ καὶ ἀχνύμενός περ ἀκοῦσαι.’
Samuel Butler’s translation with certain names Hellenised:
“Thus spoke Proteus, and I was broken hearted as I heard him. I sat
down upon the sands and wept; I felt as though I could no longer bear
to live nor look upon the light of the sun. Presently, when I had
had my fill of weeping and writhing upon the ground, the old man of
the sea said, ‘Son of Atreus, do not waste any more time in crying
so bitterly; it can do no manner of good; find your way home as fast
as ever you can, for Aegisthus be still alive, and even though Orestes
has been beforehand with you in killing him, you may yet come in for his
funeral.’
“On this I took comfort in spite of all my sorrow, and said, ‘I know,
then, about these two; tell me, therefore, about the third man of
whom you spoke; is he still alive, but at sea, and unable to get home?
or is he dead? Tell me, no matter how much it may grieve me.’
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Recording and translation © A. P. David 2022.
Greek text hyperlinked to lexica via Perseus (perseus.tufts.edu):
‘σὸς δέ που ἔκφυγε κῆρας ἀδελφεὸς ἠδ᾽ ὑπάλυξεν
ἐν νηυσὶ γλαφυρῇσι: σάωσε δὲ πότνια Ἥρη.
ἀλλ᾽ ὅτε δὴ τάχ᾽ ἔμελλε Μαλειάων ὄρος αἰπὺ
ἵξεσθαι, τότε δή μιν ἀναρπάξασα θύελλα
πόντον ἐπ᾽ ἰχθυόεντα φέρεν βαρέα στενάχοντα,
ἀγροῦ ἐπ᾽ ἐσχατιήν, ὅθι δώματα ναῖε Θυέστης
τὸ πρίν, ἀτὰρ τότ᾽ ἔναιε Θυεστιάδης Αἴγισθος.
ἀλλ᾽ ὅτε δὴ καὶ κεῖθεν ἐφαίνετο νόστος ἀπήμων,
ἂψ δὲ θεοὶ οὖρον στρέψαν, καὶ οἴκαδ᾽ ἵκοντο,
ἦ τοι ὁ μὲν χαίρων ἐπεβήσετο πατρίδος αἴης
καὶ κύνει ἁπτόμενος ἣν πατρίδα: πολλὰ δ᾽ ἀπ᾽ αὐτοῦ
δάκρυα θερμὰ χέοντ᾽, ἐπεὶ ἀσπασίως ἴδε γαῖαν.
τὸν δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ ἀπὸ σκοπιῆς εἶδε σκοπός, ὅν ῥα καθεῖσεν
Αἴγισθος δολόμητις ἄγων, ὑπὸ δ᾽ ἔσχετο μισθὸν
χρυσοῦ δοιὰ τάλαντα: φύλασσε δ᾽ ὅ γ᾽ εἰς ἐνιαυτόν,
μή ἑ λάθοι παριών, μνήσαιτο δὲ θούριδος ἀλκῆς.
βῆ δ᾽ ἴμεν ἀγγελέων πρὸς δώματα ποιμένι λαῶν.
αὐτίκα δ᾽ Αἴγισθος δολίην ἐφράσσατο τέχνην:
κρινάμενος κατὰ δῆμον ἐείκοσι φῶτας ἀρίστους
εἷσε λόχον, ἑτέρωθι δ᾽ ἀνώγει δαῖτα πένεσθαι.
αὐτὰρ ὁ βῆ καλέων Ἀγαμέμνονα, ποιμένα λαῶν
ἵπποισιν καὶ ὄχεσφιν, ἀεικέα μερμηρίζων.
τὸν δ᾽ οὐκ εἰδότ᾽ ὄλεθρον ἀνήγαγε καὶ κατέπεφνεν
δειπνίσσας, ὥς τίς τε κατέκτανε βοῦν ἐπὶ φάτνῃ.
οὐδέ τις Ἀτρεΐδεω ἑτάρων λίπεθ᾽ οἵ οἱ ἕποντο,
οὐδέ τις Αἰγίσθου, ἀλλ᾽ ἔκταθεν ἐν μεγάροισιν.’
Samuel Butler’s translation with certain names Hellenised:
“‘Your brother and his ships escaped, for Hera protected him, but
when he was just about to reach the high promontory of Malea, he was
caught by a heavy gale which carried him out to sea again sorely against
his will, and drove him to the foreland where Thyestes used to dwell,
but where Aegisthus was then living. By and by, however, it seemed
as though he was to return safely after all, for the gods backed the
wind into its old quarter and they reached home; whereon Agamemnon
kissed his native soil, and shed tears of joy at finding himself in
his own country.
“‘Now there was a watchman whom Aegisthus kept always on the watch,
and to whom he had promised two talents of gold. This man had been
looking out for a whole year to make sure that Agamemnon did not give
him the slip and prepare war; when, therefore, this man saw Agamemnon
go by, he went and told Aegisthus who at once began to lay a plot
for him. He picked twenty of his bravest warriors and placed them
in ambuscade on one side the cloister, while on the opposite side
he prepared a banquet. Then he sent his chariots and horsemen to Agamemnon,
and invited him to the feast, but he meant foul play. He got him there,
all unsuspicious of the doom that was awaiting him, and killed him
when the banquet was over as though he were butchering an ox in the
shambles; not one of Agamemnon's followers was left alive, nor yet
one of Aegisthus', but they were all killed there in the cloisters.’
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Recording and translation ©A. P. David 2022.
Greek text hyperlinked to lexica via Perseus (perseus.tufts.edu):
ἀλλὰ καὶ ὣς μύθοισιν ἀμειβόμενος προσέειπον:
‘ταῦτα μὲν οὕτω δὴ τελέω, γέρον, ὡς σὺ κελεύεις.
ἀλλ᾽ ἄγε μοι τόδε εἰπὲ καὶ ἀτρεκέως κατάλεξον,
ἢ πάντες σὺν νηυσὶν ἀπήμονες ἦλθον Ἀχαιοί,
οὓς Νέστωρ καὶ ἐγὼ λίπομεν Τροίηθεν ἰόντες,
ἦέ τις ὤλετ᾽ ὀλέθρῳ ἀδευκέι ἧς ἐπὶ νηὸς
ἠὲ φίλων ἐν χερσίν, ἐπεὶ πόλεμον τολύπευσεν.’
ὣς ἐφάμην, ὁ δέ μ᾽ αὐτίκ᾽ ἀμειβόμενος προσέειπεν:
Ἀτρεΐδη, τί με ταῦτα διείρεαι; οὐδέ τί σε χρὴ
ἴδμεναι, οὐδὲ δαῆναι ἐμὸν νόον: οὐδέ σέ φημι
δὴν ἄκλαυτον ἔσεσθαι, ἐπὴν ἐὺ πάντα πύθηαι.
πολλοὶ μὲν γὰρ τῶν γε δάμεν, πολλοὶ δὲ λίποντο:
ἀρχοὶ δ᾽ αὖ δύο μοῦνοι Ἀχαιῶν χαλκοχιτώνων
ἐν νόστῳ ἀπόλοντο: μάχῃ δέ τε καὶ σὺ παρῆσθα.
εἷς δ᾽ ἔτι που ζωὸς κατερύκεται εὐρέι πόντῳ.
Αἴας μὲν μετὰ νηυσὶ δάμη δολιχηρέτμοισι.
Γυρῇσίν μιν πρῶτα Ποσειδάων ἐπέλασσεν
πέτρῃσιν μεγάλῃσι καὶ ἐξεσάωσε θαλάσσης:
καί νύ κεν ἔκφυγε κῆρα καὶ ἐχθόμενός περ Ἀθήνῃ,
εἰ μὴ ὑπερφίαλον ἔπος ἔκβαλε καὶ μέγ᾽ ἀάσθη:
φῆ ῥ᾽ ἀέκητι θεῶν φυγέειν μέγα λαῖτμα θαλάσσης.
τοῦ δὲ Ποσειδάων μεγάλ᾽ ἔκλυεν αὐδήσαντος:
αὐτίκ᾽ ἔπειτα τρίαιναν ἑλὼν χερσὶ στιβαρῇσιν
ἤλασε Γυραίην πέτρην, ἀπὸ δ᾽ ἔσχισεν αὐτήν:
καὶ τὸ μὲν αὐτόθι μεῖνε, τὸ δὲ τρύφος ἔμπεσε πόντῳ,
τῷ ῥ᾽ Αἴας τὸ πρῶτον ἐφεζόμενος μέγ᾽ ἀάσθη:
τὸν δ᾽ ἐφόρει κατὰ πόντον ἀπείρονα κυμαίνοντα.
ὣς ὁ μὲν ἔνθ᾽ ἀπόλωλεν, ἐπεὶ πίεν ἁλμυρὸν ὕδωρ.’
Samuel Butler’s translation with certain names Hellenised:
“ … nevertheless, I answered, ‘I will do
all, old man, that you have laid upon me; but now tell me, and tell
me true, whether all the Achaeans whom Nestor and I left behind us
when we set sail from Troy have got home safely, or whether any one
of them came to a bad end either on board his own ship or among his
friends when the days of his fighting were done.’
“‘Son of Atreus,’ he answered, ‘why ask me? You had better not know
what I can tell you, for your eyes will surely fill when you have
heard my story. Many of those about whom you ask are dead and gone,
but many still remain, and only two of the chief men among the Achaeans
perished during their return home. As for what happened on the field
of battle—you were there yourself. A third Achaean leader is still
at sea, alive, but hindered from returning. Ajax was wrecked, for
Poseidon drove him on to the great rocks of Gyrae; nevertheless, he
let him get safe out of the water, and in spite of all Athena’s hatred
he would have escaped death, if he had not ruined himself by boasting.
He said the gods could not drown him even though they had tried to
do so, and when Poseidon heard this large talk, he seized his trident
in his two brawny hands, and split the rock of Gyrae in two pieces.
The base remained where it was, but the part on which Ajax was sitting
fell headlong into the sea and carried Ajax with it; so he drank salt
water and was drowned …
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‘δαιμονίη μή μοί τι λίην ἀκαχίζεο θυμῷ:
οὐ γάρ τίς μ᾽ ὑπὲρ αἶσαν ἀνὴρ Ἄϝϊδι προϊάψει:
μοῖραν δ᾽ οὔ τινά φημι πεφυγμένον ἔμμεναι ἀνδρῶν,
οὐ κακὸν οὐδὲ μὲν ἐσθλόν, ἐπὴν τὰ πρῶτα γένηται.
ἀλλ᾽ εἰς ϝοἶκον ἰοῦσα τὰ σ᾽ αὐτῆς ϝἔργα κόμιζε
ἱστόν τ᾽ ἠλακάτην τε, καὶ ἀμφιπόλοισι κέλευε
ϝἔργον ἐποίχεσθαι: πόλεμος δ᾽ ἄνδρεσσι μελήσει
πᾶσι, μάλιστα δ᾽ ἐμοί, τοὶ Ἰλίῳ ἐγγεγάασιν.’ (VI.486-493)
‘Divinity, do not on my account grieve yourself too much at heart;
For there is no one, no man, who beyond my fate will throw me forth into Hades:
No one escapes his portion; I say, no such man exists,
Not a coward, not even a brave man, from the moment he was first born.
But go into the house, and manage the works that do belong to you—
The loom and the distaff—and instruct the assistants
Going back and forth at the work. War shall be the concern of men—
All of us, but me especially, of those who are native in Ilium.’
Recording and Lecture © A. P. David 2022.
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‘δᾶϝερ ἐμεῖο κυνὸς κακομηχάνου ὀκρυοέσσης,
ὥς μ᾽ ὄφελ᾽ ἤματι τῷ ὅτε με πρῶτον τέκε μήτηρ
οἴχεσθαι προφέρουσα κακὴ ἀνέμοιο θύελλα
εἰς ὄρος ἢ εἰς κῦμα πολυφλοίσβοιο θαλάσσης,
ἔνθά με κῦμ᾽ ἀπόϝερσε πάρος τάδε ϝἔργα γενέσθαι.
αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ τάδε γ᾽ ὧδε θεοὶ κακὰ τεκμήραντο,
ἀνδρὸς ἔπειτ᾽ ὤφελλον ἀμείνονος εἶναι ἄκοιτις,
ὃς ϝᾔδη νέμεσίν τε καὶ αἴσχεα πόλλ᾽ ἀνθρώπων.
τούτῳ δ᾽ οὔτ᾽ ἂρ νῦν φρένες ἔμπεδοι οὔτ᾽ ἄρ᾽ ὀπίσσω
ἔσσονται: τὼ καί μιν ἐπαυρήσεσθαι ὀΐω.
ἀλλ᾽ ἄγε νῦν εἴσελθε καὶ ἕζεο τῷδ᾽ ἐπὶ δίφρῳ
δᾶϝερ, ἐπεί σε μάλιστα πόνος φρένας ἀμφιβέβηκεν
εἵνεκ᾽ ἐμεῖο κυνὸς καὶ Ἀλεξάνδρου ἕνεκ᾽ ἄτης,
οἷσιν ἐπὶ Ζεὺς θῆκε κακὸν μόρον, ὡς καὶ ὀπίσσω
ἀνθρώποισι πελώμεθ᾽ ἀϝοίδιμοι ἐσσομένοισι.’ (Iliad VI.344-58)
‘Oh brother mine, of me the bitch-dog, the evil-contriver, a woman abhorrent,
If only on that day when first my mother bore me
There had come and carried me off an evil blast of storm wind
Into a mountain or a wave of the thunderous crashing sea
Where a wave had swept me away before these deeds came to pass.
But since the gods have thus ordained these things—
If only I had been a better man's wife,
A man who was sensible of the indignation and the many revilings of people.
But this man’s mind is not now stable, nor indeed will be
In future; so I suppose he shall reap the fruit of it.
But come now—enter in—and sit upon this chair,
Brother dear, since it is you most of all whose mind is beset with trouble,
Because of me, the bitch, and because of Alexander’s folly—
We upon whom Zeus has placed an evil fate, so that even in the hereafter
Of humanity we be sung about—songs for men yet to be.’
Recording and Lecture © A. P. David 2022
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ὣς οἵ γ᾽ ἀμφίεπον τάφον Ἕκτορος ἱπποδάμοιο.
This is the last line of the Iliad: ‘So did the men arrange the burial of Hector, tamer of horses.’
Recording and lecture © A. P. David 2022.
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Translation © A. P. David 2022
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