Iliad 24.

649 and the Semantics of Author(s): Jenny Strauss Clay Source: The Classical Quarterly, New Series, Vol. 49, No. 2 (1999), pp. 618-621 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/639883 . Accessed: 20/04/2011 05:39
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49.2 618-648(1999)Printed in Great Britain ClassicalQuarterly

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ILIAD 24.649 AND THE SEMANTICS OF KEPTOMEQD and its congeners in Homer has been the subject of The meaning of KEpTro0LEw debate in this journal.' Jones has argued that 'to KEpTroLE'W someone is to speak in such a way as to provoke (whether intentionally or not) a powerful emotional reaction', whether of anger or fear, and thus means '"to utter stinging words at [someone]", "pierce to the heart", "cut to the quick", rather than merely "provoke"'.2 This definition seems to work well enough for some cases,3 but certainly not for all, and especially not for the passage from which the whole controversy began: Iliad 24.649, where Achilles speaks to Priam E7TLKEpr70odwv. As Richardson says in his Iliad commentary, 'there is no sign that Akhilleus' speech has this direct effect [i.e. arouses fear] on Priam'.4 Jones's article was responding to an earlier one by J. T. Hooker, who attempted to ascertain the sense of Achilles' )7TLKEpTO0[E'WV by surveying the usage of kertom- words throughout Homeric epic. He concluded that the basic meaning is 'to taunt' or, more abstractly, it 'indicates the provocation of another person into behaving in a certain way, whether that is the behaviour desired by the speaker . . . or is not desired by the speaker'.5 The problem was that this definition did not seem to fit the very line from which his inquiry began, the words of Achilles to Priam. Hooker then hypothesized that the verse betrayed signs of an 'imperfect adaptation' of a different version of the poem in which Achilles taunted a defeated enemy or perhaps preserved his grudge against Agamemnon to its end. This explanation is unpersuasive. I believe, however, that Hooker was on the right track, but would modify his definition slightly but significantly: KEpTO/EIW involves a complex dynamic between a speaker and his addressee; in speech-act theory it signals an indirect but intentional perlocutionary act,6 and means 'to provoke or goad someone indirectly into doing
The etymology is uncertain. See Chantraineand Frisk s.v.; and J.-L. Perpillou, Recherches lexicales en grec ancien (Louvain,1996), 118-21. 2 P. V. Jones, 'Iliad 24.649: another solution', CQ 39 (1989), 247-50; cf. A. Heubeck, 'Zwei homerische TrrEpat', 2iva Antika 31 (1981), 79. Heubeck 78 lists some of the varied definitions put forth: 'joking', 'harmless teasing', 'teasing', 'bantering', 'taunting', and 'mocking'. He also cites W. Bergold, 'Der Zweikampf des Paris und Menelaos' (diss. Erlangen, 1977), 136, n. 1: 'Die Bedeutungspanne von KEpT7dOta E`7TEa ist gro3: vom fast gutmiitigen Sticheln (so etwa S2 649) iiber Schadenfreude (E 419) und gehdissige Verh6hnung (B 256, 17 744) bis zur gekrinkten Invektive (A 539)'. Heubeck himself (79) defines KEp7rtLta E7TEraas 'wohliiberlegt auf eine bestimmte Wirkung berechnete und dies Wirkung geradezu herausfordernde Worte', hence intentional, but he limits the anticipated reaction to a purely emotional effect. See also A. W. H. Adkins, 'Threatening, abusing and feeling angry in Homeric poems', JHS 89 (1969), 21. 3 E.g. Iliad 20.202 = 433; Odyssey 7.17, 16.87, 18.350, 20.263, 22.194, and 24.240. Yet even in these cases, the reaction anticipated is often something more precise than fear or anger: to provoke a fight, whether verbal or physical, or to goad someone into a self-revealing emotional reaction. 6 (Cambridge, 1993), on 24.649. 4 N. J. Richardson, The Iliad: A Commentary 'A residual problem in Iliad 24', CQ 36 (1986), 32-7, at 35. In turn Hooker is responding to C. W. McLeod, Homer Iliad Book 24 (Cambridge, 1982), 142. 6 Cf. J. L. Austin, How To Do Things With Words(Cambridge, MA, 1975), 101-32; also S. Davis, 'Perlocutions', Linguistics and Philosophy 3 (1979), 225-43; and J. R. Searle and D. Vanderveken,Foundationsof IllocutionaryLogic (Cambridge, 1985), 10-12.

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something', 'intentionally trying to elicit a response that one expects, anticipates, or desires'. Some simple examples: if I ask someone 'do you know where the post office is?', I want him to tell me the way to the post office; or if I say 'you'restanding on my foot', I intend my auditor to remove his foot from mine. The provocation signalled by kertom- words is intended to produce a certain behaviour;it may, of course, succeed or fail if the addressee fails to hear the provocative statement,7 does not rise to the bait, or simply does not 'get it'. Let us return first to the tent of Achilles. Hector's body has been put on Priam's wagon; the old king and the hero have shared a meal; sleep would seem to be the next item on the agenda, as Priam broadly hints to Achilles, who promptly orders a bed made up for his guest outside. At this point, Achilles makes his provocative speech, he tells Priam to sleep outside, which is perfectlygood Homeric E7TLKEpTOLEWYv; etiquette and not at all out of the ordinary. No provocation there. But Achilles adds that one of the Greeks who frequently come to seek his advice might catch sight of Priam and report it to Agamemnon. In that case, Achilles notes with delicate understatement, there might be some delay in the ransom of the corpse. Shortly thereafter,Hermes wakens the sleeping king and far more brutally instructs him of his perilous situation.8 Yet after Priam had bluntly asked to go to sleep and pleaded exhaustion, Achilles could not refuse the request of the exhausted old man. Such a refusal might indeed provoke the king's anger or perhaps fear, as Jones claims. But that is not what happens: well aware of Priam's danger in the present circumstances, Achilles attempts indirectly and gently to apprise him of it in order, surely, to get him to return to Troy under cover of darkness. Herein lies the provocation of
E7TLKEpTO7EWwv.

The old man,perhaps out of fatigueor excessive trust,does not grasp

Achilles' hints; the action Achilles intended to provoke with his speech does not take place until after Hermes intervenes. Other Homeric passages are likewise illuminated-as well as complicated-once are understood. In Book 16, the famous simile of the intricate semantics of KEp70roLE the boys who stir up a nest of wasps by the side of the road offers an example of non-verbal provocation (Iliad 16.259-65). Jones (247) claims that 'the point of the simile is that the wasps react with great ferocity to the KEpr70oLEOV-ES boys'. Yet the emphasis lies elsewhere in the boys' indirect, but intentional, provocationthe wasps, not simply to rouse their anger, but to goad them into KEpTrotLw-Of attacking an innocent passer-by. Despite the non-verbal character of the action, the same indirect intentionality signalled by KEpT-otdW also obtains in this instance. At Odyssey 8.153, a passage highlighted by Jones because it appears to support his view that KEpr70oEW need not involve intention, Odysseus accuses both Laodamas and KEAEVETE Indeed, while the young Euryalos: Aaocit4ca, t[E r -ra7a-r him to KEpT70oVTEs; have invited take part in the games, Odysseus has princes merely politely misinterpreted their words and taken offence where none was intended. His edginess becomes even more pronounced when Euryalos subsequently rudely challenges him. Odysseus' overreaction reveals that he is a man to be reckoned with. Again at Odyssey

speaksimTLKEpTOLECOV over the 7 Such would seem the case at Iliad 16.744,wherePatroclus in Odyssey 2.323ff.the suitorsmock body of Cebriones,whom he has just killed. Similarly,
Telemachus and KEpTO7LEOV apparently, however, Telemachus does not (ErrEAd)3fEvov) 47TEEaLtv; hear them. 8 Note that even Hermes does not say the obvious: that Priam will be killed if found in the Greek camp.

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when, while disguised as a 13.326, Odysseus accuses Athena of speaking KEp-TO/Lovaa youth, she earlier announced to him (13.237-49) that he had arrived in Ithaca. This time, he is quite correct: her lengthy speech in which she withheld the name of Ithaca until the penultimate line was meant to make Odysseus lose his sang froid and give himself away. Despite her efforts, however, she does not succeed in throwing the wily hero off his guard.9 In several other instances, where Jones detects only the speaker's wish to arouse indicates more anger or some other emotional reaction in the addressee, KEp-70oTW Of the motives. For Athena's ulterior instance, E)IEEU9L mockery KEpo70~loLS~ complex wounded Aphrodite to Zeus (Iliad 5.419) is not merely meant to anger the god, but to provoke him into becoming angry at Aphrodite's meddling on the battle field. The supreme god's smile indicates that he sees through Athena's ploy as he gently-and without anger-removes the love goddess from the field of battle. Likewise, in Book with which of the gods he has been hatching plans, 1.539, Hera asks Zeus KEpr70olOLUL although she knows perfectly well that he has been conversing with Thetis. What Hera hopes to accomplish is to provoke Zeus into revealing the contents of his conversation, which she already suspects. She does not succeed. Another significant occurrence of KEpT70oLEW comes at a critical juncture of the Odyssey (9.474), where, after escaping from the Cyclops' cave, Odysseus taunts Polyphemus. Odysseus intends, I believe, not merely to provoke the monster's ire; the hero's taunts KEpTO7lL'oLUL are specifically meant to goad the Cyclops into asking Odysseus' name as he broadly hints (cf. &vdAKL80s avipds, 475). When, however, the incurious Polyphemus, who swallowed the Outis ploy and earlier evinced no interest in the mention of Agamemnon (9.263-4), ignores the hint, Odysseus finally insists on revealing his name anyway without being asked (502-5)-with disastrous results. In Book 2.255-56 of the Iliad, Hooker claims (33) that when 'Odysseus harshly rebukes Thersites ... is in parallel to dvEL6'(wvin the previous line, and KEpTooEWV both words refer to the bitter taunts which Thersites has hurled at Agamemnon'. But when he accuses Thersites of yopE~LS, Odysseus refers more broadly to KEpT70oEWV the latter's provocative speech, which, as we have been told (2.215), usually aims at eliciting laughter from the Greeks; but in this particular case, Thersites' words appear to go beyond merely raising a laugh, but aim to precipitate a potentially far more serious consequence: the revolt of the Greek army against its leadership. For this provocation, Odysseus beats him. Perhaps the most illuminating demonstration of the dynamics of KEpT70LEW emerges from a passage from the fourth book of the Iliad. At the end of the preceding book, Agamemnon had declared Menelaos the victor in his duel with Paris. Everything seems to be settled: the terms set down prior to the duel concerning the restitution of Helen and her goods are about to be fulfilled. The Greeks will return home and leave the Trojans in peace. The war is over-and so, for that matter, is the Iliad. But if the truce between the warring parties is not violated, Zeus' plan, announced in the fifth line of the poem, will not be accomplished."0At that moment, Zeus proposes to the gods assembled on Olympus a reconciliation between Greeks and Trojans. But Homer tells us that Zeus speaks obliquely, E7TEEUGL
KEpTO7lOLS~

of the entirescene,see J. S. Clay,The Wrath of Athena(Princeton, 9 On the gamesmanship 1983),194-204. 332.

"0 Cf. Hooker (n. 5), 33; and G. S. Kirk, The Iliad: A Commentary,vol. 1 (Cambridge, 1985),

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(4.6),11with words intended to provoke Hera, who will predictably and 7rapaPflA84qv angrily reject her husband's proposal and bring about the violation of the truce and the continuation of the war. Zeus thus purposefully goads Hera into delivering her violent response. He can then appear to give in to his bloody-minded wife, all the thus means 'to provoke someone while getting his own way. To summarize: KEpT7OEdW into doing something', to elicit a response that one expects, anticipates, or desires, and sometimes to make someone give himself away. In fact, it is a subtle way of manipulating someone to do what you want him to do without explicitly saying so. Universityof Virginia JENNY STRAUSS CLAY jsc2t@virginia.edu

just as young men at feasts rrapatld/o'A KEp-rotE'OUvw. The youths' oblique provocations elicit

" Cf. H. Hermes triesout his newlyinvented a song, 55-6, whereHermes lyreand improvises

to produce a flytingcontest. counter-provocations improvised

SIMONIDES, PMG 542.1-3 XaAE7TOv av&p''ya8Ovt'v AcOE'wc yEVECOaL XpcLv-E KaL7TOCL KaL VOWL
U'yyov Er~rpdywvov avEv TErvytLEVOV

'It is hard to become a truly good man': so Plato's Protagoras purports to understand the first line (Prt. 339d), and modern interpreters of the poem have followed him without exception.' Now it may be conceded that the words could bear this sense in some contexts; but as Simonides explains dyaeOv ... as 'fashioned four-square in hands and feet and mind' (2-3),2 and as he can &aOE'wc hardly have conceived of a man's mind and limbs as being made on any occasion after his birth, it seems fairly clear that what I take to be anyway the more natural interpretation, 'it is hard for a truly good man to come to be', for which compare, besides line 21 r'u) olov av E'i70 KLAtcrTOC yEVEcCatL vva-rdv, P1. R. 5.472d oc av ypdiac 7rapa/EtLyTa WC .L77 KacL avlpwToc... dL7TO3Elatl 8varOV yEVECOat TroLOTOV Vvspa, 6.502c EXrLt a AEyO/LEV.. S yEvEcOat, 7.528b ., XaAETarrO. .v... aptcra Lv ELvatL r7Ttcrdrov... is to be preferred. It is and Laws 4.711d '- XaEarrv yEvCcuat, yEvCOatLXahETrr0v, hard for a perfect man to come to be,3 and misfortune may at any moment destroy such distinction as a man has been able to achieve; therefore the poet will not look for what is impossible, an entirely blameless man, but considers praiseworthy any man who behaves as well as can be expected. Merton College, Oxford W. B. HENRY

'
2

'selbstwennjemandan ArmenundBeinen undSinn... wohlgefiigt und ton, 1961),51, translates

ohne Tadel ist': but 'selbst wenn' is plainly not in the Greek. 3 v may indicate that Simonides went on to say 'but there is no lack of men of inferior quality' or the like: cf. 37-8 rc-v ydp -AthtO'wv I drEIt'pwv yEvEOAa.

36 (1994), 139-44. Bibliography (1928-94): D. E. Gerber, Lustrumr B. Snell, Dichtung und Gesellschaft (Hamburg, 1965), 116 = Poetry and Society (Blooming-