Dialogue 05 Handout

Key word for this dialogue: daimōn (plural daimones) 'otherworldly force (= unspecified god or hero) intervening in human life'; a related word is eudaimonia 'state of being blessed with a good daimōn'; the word daimōn is to be contrasted with theos 'god' ( a specified god). In this dialogue, we will concentrate on the epithet "equal to a daimōn" and on other epithets meaning "equal to the gods."

These epithets focus on the climax of god-hero antagonism in the Iliad. At the moment of this climax, the hero is equated to a daimōn. This word daimōn hides the identity of the god. Now let us see who the god is. He is Apollo, the god who kills Achilles. The death of Achilles, however, happens not in the Iliad but beyond the Iliad. In the Iliad, the best friend of Achilles, Patroklos, stands in for Achilles:

Passage (A)

A climactic moment of god-hero antagonism; "dress rehearsal"

Iliad XVI 698-711:

The sons of the Achaeans would now have taken Troy by the hands of Patroklos, for his spear flew in all directions, had not Phoebus Apollo taken his stand upon the wall to defeat his purpose and to aid the Trojans. Thrice did Patroklos charge at an angle of the high wall, and thrice did Apollo beat him back, striking his shield with his own immortal hands. When Patroklos was coming on like a daimōn for yet a fourth time, Apollo shouted to him with a terrifying voice and said, "Draw back, noble Patroklos, it is not your lot to destroy the city of the Trojan chieftains, nor yet will it be that of Achilles who is a far better man than you are." On hearing this, Patroklos withdrew to some distance and avoided the anger [mēnis] of Apollo.

In the passage we have just read, the context gives it away: the daimōn who is identified with Patroklos is Apollo himself. At the climax of god-hero antagonism, the hero becomes the god. But so far we have seen only a dress rehearsal. The real moment of identification between hero and god comes when Patroklos does not back away from Apollo but faces him at the fourth try:

Passage (B)

Here we see the climactic moment of god-hero antagonism, "the real thing."

Notice that Patroklos compared directly to both Ares and "a daimōn"!

Iliad XVI 783-806:

Then Patroklos sprang like Ares with fierce intent and a terrific shout upon the Trojans, and thrice did he kill nine men; but as he was coming on like a daimōn, for a fourth time, then, O Patroklos, was the hour of your end approaching, for Phoebus [Apollo] fought you in fell earnest. Patroklos did not see him as he moved about in the crush, for he was enshrouded in thick darkness, and the god struck him from behind on his back and his broad shoulders with the flat of his hand, so that his eyes turned dizzy. Phoebus Apollo beat the helmet from off his head, and it rolled rattling off under the horses' feet, where its horse-hair plumes were all begrimed with dust and blood. Never indeed had that helmet fared so before, for it had served to protect the head and comely forehead of the godlike hero Achilles. ... [805] At this his mind went into derangement [atē]; his limbs failed him, and he stood as one dazed.

Here we see the ultimate moment of "fatal attraction," signaled by the epithet 'equal to a daimōn'; this epithet, like others meaning 'equal to the gods', applies to men and women at climactic ritual moments.

In the next dialogue, we will see how and why Patroklos becomes the ritual substitute for Achilles in the god-hero antagonism between Apollo and Achilles.

But for now let us concentrate on the picturing of Achilles as an eternal bridegroom...

The question, which develops from what we saw in the last dialogue, is this: when a bridegroom is equated to a god, who is the god? A key to my argument is the convention of imagining the bridegroom as Achilles.

This argument is made in my essay "Lyric and Greek Myth," on the Heroes site, as well as in the supplementary essay, "Homer and Greek Myth."

Passage (C) = Passage A in the previous dialogue.

Thesis: female participation in male experiences is all-consuming in Sappho 31

Epiphany of the bridegroom / god: phainetai ... isos theoisin (line 1).

'Auto-epiphany': Notice the final phainomai 'I appear to myself.'

Sappho 31 (translation by Nagy; for a more poetic rendition, see the version of Julia Dubnoff in Sourcebook):

phainetai moi kēnos īsos theoisin	He appears to me, that one, equal to the gods,
emmen' ōnēr ottis enantios toi	the man who, facing you,
isdanei kai plāsion ādu phōnei-	is seated and, up close, that sweet voice of yours
sās upakouei	he listens to
kai gelaisās īmeroen to m' ē mān	and how you laugh your charming laugh. Why, it
kardian en stēthesin eptoaisen	makes my heart flutter within my breast,
ōs gar es s' idō brokhe' ōs me phōnai-	since, the moment I look at you, right then, for me
s' oud' en et' eikei	to make any sound at all won't work any more.
alla kam men glōssa eāge lepton	My tongue has broken down and a delicate
d' autika khrōi pūr upadedromāken	- all of a sudden - fire rushes under my skin.
oppatessi d' oud' en orēmm' epirrom-	With my eyes I see not a thing, and there is a roar
beisi d' akouai	that my ears make.
kad de m' idrōs kakkheetai tromos de	Sweat pours down me and a trembling
paīsan agrei khlōrotera de poias	seizes all of me; paler than grass
emmi tethnakēn d' oligō 'pideuēs	am I, and a little short of death
phainom' em' aut[āi	do I appear to me.

There are other things to compare with Song 31 of Sappho. In my (= Nagy's) research, I have compared the ancient Greek ritual of a wedding with Apache and Navajo rituals of girls' initiation into puberty, customarily performed by and in honor of a young female member of the community on the occasions of her first and second menstruation. The medium of performance is singing and dancing. The focal point of the Apache and Navajo myths and rituals is the goddess "Changing Woman." More literally, her name means "the woman who is transformed time and again." In the here and now of the Changing Woman ritual, the songs are thought to have the power of re-enacting the prototypical event. From Nagy, Poetry as Performance (Cambridge UPress 1996 [this book is not required for the course]) p. 88: "the localization of the Navajo family hogan becomes sacred space, where the distinctions between the details of myth and the details of ritual can merge in the minds of those who participate in the ritual." Within the sacred space, the young girl to be initiated becomes identified with the goddess Changing Woman.

See the clip about Changing Woman and my commentary there.

After the blessings in the Navajo ritual, the initiand leaves the hogan and runs a race with other young people who are participants in her initiation, and it is ritually prescribed that she must take the lead in the race.

Compare the authoritative status of the chorus-leader or khorēgos in Alcman's Partheneion (which apparently refers to some sort of ritualized race). More in a moment about Alcman's Partheneion.

In the Navajo ritual, the prescribed course of the race to be run by the girl initiand is symbolic of the course of the sun. It has been observed that "the race is, in effect, her pursuit of the sun" (sources in Nagy Poetry as Performance pp. 89-90 [not required reading]). In the myth of Changing Woman, which is correlated with the race of the girl initiand, the goddess actually mates with the Sun (p. 90). At the moment of intercourse, the Sun takes on the form of a handsome young man.

We may compare a theme that is prevalent in the poetics of Sappho, where the female speaker declares her erōs āeliō 'lust for the sun' (Sappho F 58.25-26). See also the quotation from Alcman, in what follows.

In the Talking God type of hogan songs in Navajo ritual, the goddess is conventionally described as moving towards the ritually decorated family hogan and then signaling her arrival. As she arrives, the references to the goddess shift from the third to the first person, so that the goddess herself, represented in the words of the singer, now speaks as an "I." It seems that the "I" stands for a composite of the girl initiand and Changing Woman herself, though the actual performer is the chief singer. A phrase continually repeated in Talking God Hogan Song 25 goes like this: "With my sacred power, I am traveling."

This image of a traveling goddess whose climactic epiphany in the here and now signals a shift from third to first person is comparable to what we have seen in Song 1 of Sappho.

In that song, Aphrodite shifts from second-person addressee to the first person speaker (in a stretch starting at line 18 and lasting through line 24).

T. S. Eliot (The Dry Salvages, 1941): "you are the music / While the music lasts."

Similarly, the premier hero of ancient Greek song culture, Achilles, is the music. Consider again his reference to his own kleos aphthiton 'unwilting fame' in Iliad IX 413.

Here we come back to the ritual practice of equating of the prima donna / prima ballerina with a goddess. In the previous dialogue, I previewed another example in the Partheneion 'Maidens' Song' of Alcman. The song was composed for performance at a grand public festival in Sparta, on a seasonally-recurring basis, by a khoros 'chorus, song-and-dance ensemble' of local maidens specially selected for the occasion, who took on the roles of the names featured in the song. The two premier roles are Hagesikhora and Agido, who are to be two competing choral leaders. Note the use of the word khorēgos 'chorus-leader' in the song, as it applies to Hagesikhora. The name Hagesikhora means the same thing as khorēgos. In what follows, note especially the image of a wondrous horse conjured up in the simile describing the beauty of the maiden Hagesikhora, center of attention in the song-and-dance ensemble.

Passage (D) [= Passage F of Dialogue 04 and Passage D of Dialogue 03]

Thesis: the setting for this maidens' song is the public space of Sparta, where the entire male and female population is experiencing contact with the divine.

The climactic moment in this women's ritual is marked by an epiphany: '... appears radiantly'.

From the Partheneion 'Maidens' Song' of Alcman:

And I sing the radiance of Agido, as I look upon her like the sun, which Agido summons to shine as witness. But for me to praise her or blame her is not possible, as the illustrious khorēgos [Hagesikhora] does not allow me. For that one [Hagesikhora] appears radiantly outstanding, as when someone sets among grazing beasts a horse, well-built, a prize-winner, with thundering hooves, from out of those dreams underneath the rock.

Note the equation of the prima donna / prima ballerina with the sun.

Here I point to a detail from the Changing Woman ritual of the Apache. Notice how the father of the girl being initiated in the clip of the Changing Woman ritual says in his voiceover in English that his daughter is "portraying" a goddess while she dances (and notionally sings at the same time). In other words, the girl "seems" like a goddess. But then the father says in his voice-over in the Apache language: she is the goddess. In the world of non-ritual, it is simply a matter of seeming like a goddess. In the world of ritual, it is a matter of being the goddess. Remember the words of T.S. Eliot: "you are the music, while the music lasts."

So also in Song 31 of Sappho: in the ritual world of a wedding, he (= the bridegroom) is a god at the moment of singing this song. In other words, a god has appeared at the wedding.

Such a moment, when the bridegroom is the god and the bride is the goddess, is signaled by the epithet (ornamental adjective) isos theoisin 'equal to the gods' in line 1 of the song.

In the previous dialogue, we have seen a similar epithet in Song 44 of Sappho, featuring Andromache and Hector as bride and bridegroom; they are described by the epithet theoeikeloi 'equal to the gods' at their wedding. This song, to repeat, is an example of "epic" as refracted in women's songmaking traditions: discussion by G. Nagy, Homeric Questions (UTexas Press 1996) p. 57 [not required reading for the course].

As we saw the last time, this same epithet applies to Achilles in the Iliad. The ideal bridegroom of Sappho's songs is parallel to the ideal warrior of the Homeric Iliad. As I argue, Achilles can be imagined as the ideal bridegroom / warrior in *both* traditions.

Passage (E) [= Passage D of Dialogue 04]

The perfect bride and the perfect bridegroom.

Further fragments from Sappho:

Sappho Fragment 105a:

Sappho Fragment 105b:

Sappho compared the girl to an apple....she compared the bridegroom to Achilles, and likened the young man's deeds to the hero's. – testimony of Himerius Orations 1.16.

Sappho Fragment 115: "To what shall I compare you, dear bridegroom? | To a slender shoot, I most liken you."

Let us return to the subject of the idealized bridegroom - or let us say male lover - and the idealized warrior. As we saw in Song 1 of Sappho, love and war can be estheticized - and eroticized - together. The female speaker of Song 1 of Sappho becomes identified with Aphrodite and becomes her 'ally in war'.

For those who are interested in coincidental parallels in American popular culture, I cite again this set of lyrics ...

Here is another example of estheticizing and eroticizing love and war together:

Passage (F) = Passage G in the previous dialogue.

Sappho 16 stanza 1:

oi men ippēōn stroton oi de pesdōn

oi de nāōn phais' epi gān melainan

emmenai kalliston egō de kēn' ot-

tō tis erātai

Some say an army of horsemen.

some of footsoldiers, some of ships,

is the fairest thing on earth, but I say it is what one loves.

This song is a good example of a priamel, which is a rhetorical device where "A" is highlighted by saying that "B" and "C" and "D" and so on cannot match it. The sequence has to be ... D C B and finally A. To cite an example in American popular music...

Some say love, it is a river, that drowns the tender weed,

Some say love, it is a razor, that leaves the soul to bleed,

Some say love, it is a hunger - an endless aching need,

I say love, it is a flower - and you, its only seed.

Bette Midler's song, "The Rose."

Compare Sappho Fragment 115 in Passage E: "To what shall I compare you, dear bridegroom? | To a slender shoot, I most liken you."

This metaphor of the bridegroom / warrior as a slender shoot centers on the idea of the hero in death. In this state, the hero is a "beautiful corpse." The French term is le beau mort. We see here a variation on the theme of a "beautiful death." The French term is la belle mort.

Passage (G)

We see here a "dress rehearsal" for the "pietˆ." I will explain what I mean by pietˆ. The mother of Achilles, whose name is Thetis, sings a song of lament over the "beautiful corpse" of the hero even before Achilles dies:

Iliad XVI 54-60 ("Thetis' lament"; translation by Nagy in BA 182-183):

Ah me, the wretch! Ah me, the mother, so sad it is, of the very best. I gave birth to a faultless and strong son, the very best of heroes. And he shot up like a seedling. I nurtured him like a shoot in the choicest spot of the orchard, only to send him off on curved ships to fight at Troy. And I will never be welcoming him back home as returning warrior, back to the House of Peleus.

Compare again Sappho Fragment 115 in Passage E: "To what shall I compare you, dear bridegroom? | To a slender shoot, I most liken you."

Passage (H)

Thesis: daimōn is the mystical way to refer to a given god or to a given human at the moment of his/her identification with the god

Hymn to Demeter 235-236, 237-241

She nurtured him in the palace, and he grew up like a daimōn, not eating food, not sucking from the breast ... She used to anoint him with ambrosia, as if he had been born of the goddess, and she would breathe down her sweet breath on him as she held him at her bosom. At nights she would conceal him in the menos of fire, as if he were a smoldering log, and her parents were kept unaware. But they marveled at how full in bloom he came to be, and to look at him was like looking at the god.