Key word for this dialogue: sēma, pl. sēmata 'sign, signal, symbol; tomb, tomb of a hero'; sēmainein (verb) 'indicate, use a sēma'.
This word is the "video" analogue of the word ainos.
Here I review the word ainos 'authoritative utterance for and by a social group; praise; fable'; ainigma 'riddle'
One of the clearest examples of ainos is the klea andrōn of IX 524: 'glories of heroes', referring to the narrative that is 'totally recalled' by Phoenix for Achilles and the other assembled philoi. The ainos here is signaled by what anthropologists call an "index" word (houtō 'thus' at IX 524). Here is an example of an "index" expression in English: "once upon a time..."
One who sees or hears a sēma ("video") or an ainos ("audio") has to be
1) sophos 'skilled' or 'wise' - indicates MENTAL qualification
2) agathos 'good' or 'noble' - indicates MORAL qualification
3) philos 'near-and-dear' - indicates EMOTIONAL or AFFECTIVE qualification
Review: ascending scale of affection in the Meleager micronarrative (which is a compressed parallel to the expanded Achilles macronarrative) = klea andrōn hērōōn 'glories [= kleos plural] of men, heroes [hērōes]' (IX 524-5), which is told in the midst of philoi (IX 528) {that is, the narrative is told to an audience who are presumed to be philoi}
Review: philos as an adjective means 'near and dear'; as a noun it means 'friend'
Review: philos and the ascending scale of affection for Meleager in Iliad IX:
elders, priests, father, sisters, mother, companions [hetairoi], {wife}
Meleager's wife is Cleopatra = Kleopatra; her name parallels in meaning the name of Patroklos (/ Patroklēs / Patrokleēs).
The narrative of the klea andrōn of IX 524-525 is a narrative that can be compressed into one word, one name, and that one word is the name of Patroklos (/ Patroklēs / Patrokleēs). The name of Patroklos is the story of Patroklos. That is the story that is being told by the klea andrōn. To putit another way, the deep meaning of the story *is* the name of Patroklos. The story means Patroklos.
The Kleopatra/Patroklos variation is itself an ainos.
For ancient Greek song culture, "reading" [= listening to song] can be an "initiation" or "ordeal," and these three qualifications are the requirements: sophoi/agathoi/philoi.
The Iliad does not explore the relationship of Achilles and Patroklos on a sexual level, any more than it explores the relationship of Meleager and Kleopatra on a sexual level.
Patroklos is not just the dearest hetairos 'companion' of Achilles: he is his "alter ego." The relationship between these hetairoi is represented by the Iliad as even more intimate than sexual: it operates on the mentality of "I will die for you."
The "message" of the "code" of the narrative of Patroklos: that he is for Achilles the most philos of them all (as in XVIII 80-82).
Having considered a case where Patroklos is the message of an ainos, let us now consider a case where Patroklos is the message of a sēma
Note what the poet Simonides (6th/5th c. BCE) said: a picture is silent poetry, poetry is talking pictures.
In the history of filmmaking, when audio was first successfully combined with the video of the film, the word for the audio/video combination was in fact "talking pictures." So Simonides anticipated the concept, even though the technology for the concept was invented only two and a half millennia later.
Passage A: Iliad XXIII 303-348
"Antilochos," said Nestor, "you are young, but Zeus and Poseidon have loved you well, and have made you an excellent charioteer. I need not therefore say much by way of instruction. You are skilful at wheeling your horses round the post [terma], but the horses themselves are very slow, and it is this that will, I fear, mar your chances. The other drivers know less than you do, but their horses are fleeter; therefore, my dear son, see if you cannot hit upon some artifice whereby you may insure that the prize shall not slip through your fingers. The woodsman does more by skill than by brute force; by skill the pilot guides his storm-tossed barque over the sea [pontos], and so by skill one driver can beat another. If a man go wide in rounding this way and that, whereas a man of craftiness [kerdos] may have worse horses, but he will keep them well in hand when he sees the turning-post [terma]; [324] he knows the precise moment at which to pull the rein, and keeps his eye well on the man in front of him. I will give you this certain sign [sēma], which cannot escape your notice.[1] There is a stump of a dead tree-oak or pine as it may be—some six feet above the ground, and not yet rotted away by rain; it stands at the fork of the road; it has two white stones set one on each side, and there is a clear course all round it. It may have been a tomb [sēma] of someone long since dead, or it may have been used as a turning-post in days gone by; now, however, it has been fixed on by Achilles as the mark [terma] round which the chariots shall turn; hug it as close as you can, but as you stand in your chariot lean over a little to the left; urge on your right-hand horse with voice and lash, and give him a loose rein, but let the left-hand horse keep so close in, that the nave of your wheel shall almost graze the post; but mind the stone, or you will wound your horses and break your chariot in pieces, which would be sport for others but confusion for yourself. Therefore, my dear son, mind well what you are about, for if you can be first to round the post there is no chance of any one giving you the go-by later, not even though you had Adrestus' horse Arion behind you horse which is of divine race—or those of Laomedon, which are the noblest in this country."
Chariot race of XXIII; athletics as ritual
Iliad XXIII 326 sēma 'sign'
Iliad XXIII 331 sēma 'tomb, grave-mark'
Same line, 331: terma 'turning point', English borrowing term.
XXIII 326 sēma: I will tell you a clear sēma, and there will be no lēthē for you.
A world of metaphors! Compare English "turning point."
Symbolism of left turn in chariot race: Right/Left balance, impetuousness/restraint
XXIII 331 sēma: "Either it was the grave-mark of someone who died long ago, or it was set as a turning-post [nussa] by men who lived before our time. Now swift-footed Achilles has made it the turning point [terma] round which the chariots shall turn."
Again, the turning point is terma, as in term.
If there was a name that meant 'the grave-mark of someone who died long ago', what would it be?
Note the take-it-or-leave-it attitude in Homeric narrative: either grave-mark or turning point.
Note that Antilochos does not interpret the sēma literally himself!!! Consider the narrative: how does he drive his chariot?
Antilochos is destined to die for his father: see the Aithiopis.
Note again the meaning of Patroklos' name.
Compare the metaphor of "sudden death" in athletics. Also the saying "keep to the left and drive like hell" (Indianapolis 500).
The athletics in Iliad XXIII are a "one-shot" event. But they are recycled by the reperformances of the Iliad.
In the "real life" of ancient Greek customs, they were seasonally recurring, like the Olympics.
Compensation for death of hero: athletic "ordeal" or "labor" = agōn or athlos
In this light, let us reconsider the semantics of athlētēs
Why is it so important to have athletics as a reaction to death, as a compensation for death?
A key is the way Simone Weil (Dialogue 06) uses the word exactly in describing this feeling: I want you to suffer exactly the way I suffered.
To go through this process, as an athlete, is to re-enact a prototypical ordeal.
To go through this process, as a warrior, is to re-enact a prototypical ordeal.
To go through this process, as an audience, is to re-enact a prototypical ordeal.
The Greek word I translate as 'reenactment' is mimesis.
Actually, every individual has his or her own way of going through an ordeal. This is reflected in the Iliad. Look at the staggering varieties of death in the Iliad.
The process of reenacting an ordeal is catharsis.
Aristotle puts mimesis and catharsis together:
"Tragedy is the mimesis of a serious and complete action that has magnitude, with seasoned speech,...by performers instead of through narrative, bringing about through pity and fear the purification [katharsis] of such emotions [pathos]."
Pity is attraction, fear is repulsion.
The hero as dynamic, not static.
The turn around the turning post is reenacted by Achilles, with his excessive force and restraint
Achilles' brutality is as shocking to the Greek audience as it is to us. Fear and pity.
Aristotle thought that the Iliad is a tragedy.
Note that Achilles finally gets out of the depths of brutality precisely by way of identifying with his deadliest enemy.
A father's tears are what finally moves him. He thinks of his own father.
Another important word for this time around: psukhē, pl. psukhai: essence of life while one is alive; conveyor of identity while one is dead
Review how we started the course: memnēmai 'I have total recall' (IX 527-528)
The opposite of 'total recall' is lēthē. "Lethe" is also the name of a river in the underworld that separates the living from the dead, those awake from those asleep, those conscious from those unconscious.
Passage B) Iliad XXIII 57-81: As soon as they had had enough to eat and drink, the others went to their rest each in his own tent, but the son of Peleus lay grieving among his Myrmidons by the shore of the sounding sea, in an open place where the waves came surging in one after another. Here a very deep slumber took hold upon him and eased the burden of his sorrows, for his limbs were weary with chasing Hektor round windy Ilion. Presently the sad spirit [psukhē] of Patroklos drew near him, like what he had been in stature, voice, and the light of his beaming eyes, clad, too, as he had been clad in life. The spirit hovered over his head and said— "You sleep, Achilles, and have forgotten me; you loved me living, but now that I am dead you think for me no further. Bury me with all speed that I may pass the gates of Hades; the ghosts [psukhē pl.], vain shadows of men that can labor no more, drive me away from them; they will not yet allow me to join those that are beyond the river, and I wander all desolate by the wide gates of the house of Hades. Give me now your hand I pray you, for when you have once given me my dues of fire, never shall I again come forth out of the house of Hades. Nevermore shall we sit apart and take sweet counsel among the living; the cruel fate which was my birth-right has yawned its wide jaws around me—no, you too Achilles, peer of gods, are doomed to die beneath the wall of the noble Trojans."
Here we see an important word that we will see again in the painting on the MŸnster Hydria: psukhē: essence of life while one is alive; conveyor of identity while one is dead.
Funerary ritual is a mode of remembering.
Passage C: Iliad XXIV 486-512: "Think of your father, O Achilles like unto the gods, who is such even as I am, on the sad threshold of old age. It may be that those who dwell near him harass him, and there is none to keep war and ruin from him. Yet when he hears of you being still alive, he is glad, and his days are full of hope that he shall see his dear son come home to him from Troy; but I, wretched man that I am, had the bravest in all Troy for my sons, and there is not one of them left. I had fifty sons when the Achaeans came here; nineteen of them were from a single womb, and the others were borne to me by the women of my household. The greater part of them has fierce Ares laid low, and Hektor, him who was alone left, him who was the guardian of the city and ourselves, him have you lately slain; therefore I am now come to the ships of the Achaeans to ransom his body from you with a great ransom. Fear, O Achilles, the wrath of heaven; think on your own father and have compassion upon me, who am the more pitiable, for I have steeled myself as no man yet has ever steeled himself before me, and have raised to my lips the hand of him who slew my son." [507] Thus spoke Priam, and the heart of Achilles yearned as he bethought him of his father. He took the old man's hand and moved him gently away. The two wept bitterly - Priam, as he lay at Achilles' feet, weeping for Hektor, and Achilles now for his father and now for Patroklos, till the house was filled with their lamentation.
Note the relationship to the father / ancestor.
Achilles weeps alternately for his father Peleus and for Patroklos (significance?).
Recall Nestor and Antilochos in Passage A.
Passage D: Homeric Hymn to Demeter 259-267: "I swear by the Styx, the witness of oaths that gods make, as I say this: immortal and ageless for all days would I have made your philos little boy, and I would have given him timē that is unwilting [a-phthi-tos]. But now there is no way for him to avoid death and doom. Still, he will have a t”mē that is unwilting [a-phthi-tos], for all time, because he had once sat on my knees and slept in my arms. At the right hōra, every year, the sons of the Eleusinians will have a war, a terrible battle among each other. They will do so for all days to come."
Death of the 'baby hero' compensated by seasonally recurring athletic re-enactment.
Note timē as 'honor,' specifically as conferred in hero cult rituals, esp. in athletic competitions.
We see here a reference to a ritual mock-battle at Eleusis, a quasi-athletic event known as the Ballētus, which was officially held on a seasonally-recurring basis to compensate for the death of the baby cult-hero Demophon. This mock-battle seems to have been the ritual kernel of a whole complex of events known as the Eleusinian Games. Parallels: the Nemean and the Isthmian Games, pan-Hellenic athletic events, were held on a seasonally-recurring basis to compensate for the deaths of the baby cult-heroes Arkhemoros and Melikertes respectively.
Passage E: Iliad IX 410-416: "My mother Thetis tells me that there are two ways in which I may meet my end [telos]. If I stay here and fight, I shall not have a return [nostos] alive but my glory [kleos] will be imperishable [aphthiton]: whereas if I go home my name [kleos] will perish, but it will be long before the end [telos] shall take me."
Why is Achilles' compensation compared to that of the infant Dēmophoōn?
[1] The idea of "escape-notice" is expressed by way of lēth- 'mentally disconnect' (as in Lethe, the river of forgetfulness.