Both the Iliad and the Odyssey can be seen in their entirety as variants of the traditional stories they narrate. The Odyssey is the easier to explain in these terms. Its story appears as a variant both within a specifically Greek perspective and also against a larger comparative background. As for the former, one of the poems of the Epic Cycle (on which see
Chapter 24, by Burgess, and West 1996) tells how Odysseus, having finally reached home after ten years’ wandering, leaves for further adventures, a new marriage, and eventually death at the hands of his son by Circe, a development unknown to the Odyssey (cf. Edmunds 1997: 423-4). In the prophecy of Teiresias, however, the Odyssey acknowledges this variant (Od. 11.119-37; cf. Hansen 1990).
Against a comparative background, the story of the Odyssey corresponds to the folktale called ‘‘The homecoming husband.’’ This folktale, defined in the Aarne-Thompson index of types by a single motif (‘‘Husband [lover] arrives home just as wife [mistress] is to marry another’’) has been found across avast area of the globe, from Iceland to Indonesia, and has received literary treatment many times (Aarne and Thompson 1981: Type 974; see also Holzapel 1990; Hansen 1997: 446-9, 2002: 201-11). A primary comparandum for classicists is the South Slavic version (cf. Foley 1990, 1999b; Lord 1991: 216-19, 1960: ch. 8).
As might be expected, the telling of the story tends to include more than one motif. In the following synopsis, cross-references to Thompson 1955-8 (capital letter plus number) and to the Odyssey are given in parentheses. (Note that not every motif is in the Motif-Index and not every motif is in the Odyssey.) The story begins with contests among suitors (H331), which may include archery (H331.4). The hero leaves home after his marriage (Odysseus goes to fight in the Trojan War). He sets a period for his wife to wait, after which she may remarry (18.259-70). He is imprisoned or tarries in a strange land (Odysseus is at Troy for ten years; then spends ten years in returning to Ithaca). Sometimes the hero goes to the Underworld (Book 11). There are false reports of the hero’s death (14.89-90). His wife is forced to remarry (15.16-17, 19.158-9). The hero learns that his wife is about to remarry (cf. 11.115-17). He then returns home; it is a magic journey (D2121; 13.81-95). Sometimes the hero is asleep during the journey (13.79-80). He presents himself in disguise (cf. K1816.0.3.1; Odysseus is dressed as a beggar). He is recognized by an animal - a dog, a horse, etc. - before he is recognized by his own relatives. He returns just as his wife is about to marry another (N681) - this is the motif that defines the type in Aarne and Thompson 1981. (Cf. the sham wedding at 23.129-52). The hero is identified by tokens (H80; 19.392-502 (scar), 21.217-21 (scar), 23.183-204 (bed)). Often the hero identifies himself by a ring or half of a ring (his wife has the other half) dropped in glass of wine (H94.4). In this way he is recognized by his wife. Either the new marriage is peacefully cancelled or the impostor is punished (Q262; 22 (the slaughter of the suitors)).
This type divides into two subtypes, which can be called compound and simple. The compound subtype has the suitor contests at the beginning: the hero must win the bride whom he soon leaves to go on the journey that will separate them for many years. The simple subtype, of which the story of the Odyssey is an example, lacks this motif and begins with the hero already absent or with the departure of the hero. And yet there is some ancient evidence that Odysseus had to compete for the hand of Penelope (Apollod. Bibl. 3.10.9; Paus. 3.12.2); thus the story may once have been compound. The story as told in the Odyssey might, then, be regarded as a choice among alternate traditions.
The simple subtype tends to be western or European and the compound tends to be eastern. The most notable representative of the compound subtype is the story of Alpa-mysh, which is found in the forms of folktale and epic song (dastan) over the whole territory of the Turkic peoples (the Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Karakalpaks, Kirghiz, and Turkmens), from the Altai Mountains and the Urals in the East to the Volga and down through the Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union to Turkey. It was still told as a folktale in the Altai as late as the 1960s. The best-known form of the story is the version (of about 14,000 lines) recorded from Fazil Yuldashev, an Uzbek singer (see Zhirmunsky 1967; Reichl 2001). Special attention is called to ‘‘Alpamysh’’ because it has been strangely neglected in the comparative study of the Odyssey.
The Iliad begins, ‘‘Sing, goddess [the Muse], the anger of Achilles son of Peleus.’’ The main story of the Iliad, which is the story of this anger, is an episode in the life of Achilles and as such seems to lack a folktale analogue. The life of Achilles as a whole, however, corresponds to the story of Meleager (Aarne and Thompson 1981: Type 1187), a version of which is recounted by Phoenix in his attempt to persuade Achilles to re-enter the fighting (9.524-605). Phoenix’ version, which is of course shaped by his immediate rhetorical purpose, ironically invites reflections on the tacit similarity between Achilles and Meleager: their inevitable death in battle (Edmunds 1997: 425-32). The Iliad also presents itself as a variant of the Trojan War myth as a whole. This variant concerns Helen. In the Iliad, Helen is at Troy; she is a character in the poem. According to another tradition, first attested in the poet Stesichorus (7th-6th c. bce; PMG: fr. 15), Helen and Paris went from Lacedaemon to Egypt, where Helen stayed, while her phantom went on with Paris to Troy (cf. [Hes.] fr. 358 M-W; Eur. Hel. 31-55, El. 1280-3; Pl. Rep. 586c). The Trojan War was thus fought over a phantom. The historian Herodotus (fifth century bce) has a rationalized version that omits the phantom: Helen was detained in Egypt as a runaway adulteress; Paris returned to Troy; when the Achaeans arrived at Troy, they refused to believe that Helen was not there. Thus, according to this version, the Trojan War was fought for nothing (Hdt. 2.113 ff.). In both versions, Menelaos eventually finds Helen in Egypt and returns to Lacedaemon with her. The Odyssey seems obliquely to recognize the variant with its references to Menelaos and Helen in Egypt (3.299-312, 4.81-9, etc.).
Both the Iliad and the Odyssey show variation in myths and legends subordinate to the main story of the epic as a whole. The most prominent example is the two versions of the throwing of Hephaestus in the Iliad. In Book 1, Zeus had seized him by the foot and thrown him from Olympus (586-94). It is likely, but not explicit, that the lameness of Hephaestus is the result of his fall. In Book 18, Hera, his mother, had thrown him from Olympus because she was ashamed of his lameness (394-7). Here Charis is his wife, whereas in Odyssey 8.266-369 it is Aphrodite. While there is no other contradiction of this magnitude within either the Iliad or the Odyssey, further examples of variation are hardly lacking. In Book 7 of the Iliad, Poseidon says that he and Apollo built a wall for Laomedon, the Trojan king (451-2), and in 12.13-33 the poet tells how Poseidon and Apollo will destroy the wall after Troy is captured. In 21.441-57, however, it is Poseidon alone who built the wall, while Apollo tended Laomedon’s cattle. Another wall, one built by Athena and the Trojans and not mentioned elsewhere, is referred to at 20.145-8 (cf. Apollod. Bibl. 2.5.9). The purpose of this wall was to afford protection for Herakles when he retired from fighting the sea monster that had been sent by Poseidon when Laomedon defrauded him and Apollo for payment for their services (which included the building of a wall!).
The Odyssey provides an example comparable with the variable wall. Neleus, king in Pylos, would give his daughter Pero in marriage only to the one who could drive the cattle of Iphiclus out of Phylace in Thessaly. A prophet, Melampus, volunteered, but was imprisoned for a year. He was released after he had given prophecies to Iphiclus. So ends the legend as summarized in 11.281-97. The legend is recapitulated again in 15.228-38: Melampus does not volunteer; his assets having been frozen by Neleus, he is coerced into seeking the cattle; he is imprisoned, as in the previous version; he then drives off the cattle; in this way he secures the marriage of his brother to Pero. In this second version, the Thessalian king, who was Iphiclus in the first, is Phylacus. Both versions are told in a highly allusive manner that presupposes the audience’s knowledge of the legend (Heubeck and Hoekstra 1989: 246-7).
Both the Iliad and the Odyssey, like the GUgamesh epic, adapt folktales, a point that has not been lost on classical scholars. From their literary-critical perspective, however, it appears that, once a folktale was transmuted into epic poetry, its oral existence ceased, or at least ceased to matter (cf. Page 1973). It can be shown, on the contrary, that the continued existence of the folktale is assumed by the epic poet and subtends its adaptation in epic poetry. In particular, the epic poet assumes his audience’s knowledge of his adaptation as a new variant. In this way, the folktales in epic again reflect epic’s dynamic relation to variant, synchronic tradition.
Besides the Meleager story, the Iliad contains only one other story, about Bellerophon and Anteia (6.152-70), that has an international folktale analogue (Thompson 1955-8: K2111, ‘‘Potiphar’s wife’’). The Odyssey, however, offers a richer trove with, besides ‘‘The homecoming husband,’’ nine others. The best-known of these is the ‘‘The ogre blinded’’ (Aarne and Thompson 1981: Type 1137), the basis of the Polyphemos story (9.105-542). This was in fact the story that, in Wilhelm Grimm’s study, launched the comparative folkloristic approach to Homer (Grimm 1857; see more recently Hansen 2002: 289-301).
The Polyphemos story is the most fully narrated of the adventures that Odysseus recounts to the Phaeacians in Books 9-12. (The following discussion of the Polyphemos episode is taken from Edmunds 1993, which is out of print.) Odysseus begins with a general description of the lawless Cyclopes (plural; the singular is ‘‘Cyclops’’) and of the beautiful island opposite their land, where Odysseus’ fleet puts in (9.105-41). Odysseus then crosses over from the island with his own ship and companions to the Cyclopes’ land; they see a cave and a pen for sheep and goats, which will prove to belong to a monster man who is now absent (142-92). Odysseus has come with a particular question: he wants to find out if the Cyclopes are savage or if they are hospitable to strangers (174-6). Odysseus and twelve of his men go to the cave, taking with them a goatskin of very strong wine (193-230). Inside, they find lambs, kids, and cheeses. Odysseus’ companions urge him to steal some of these things and return to the ship. But Odysseus wants to find out if the Cyclops will give him gifts of hospitality (229-30). The Cyclops, whose name is Polyphemos (403), returns, drives his flocks into the cave, and blocks the entrance with a huge boulder. Odysseus presents himself as a suppliant and a guest, asking for gifts (267-71). The Cyclops replies scornfully; he eats two of Odysseus’ men for supper and two more for breakfast (231-316). Odysseus would have killed him during the night while he was asleep but he and his men would not have been able to remove the boulder. When the Cyclops goes out to herd his flock in the morning, he replaces the boulder, imprisoning Odysseus and his remaining men in the cave.
Odysseus devises a plan: he and his men sharpen a stake (317-35). When Polyphemos returns, he eats two more of Odysseus’ men; he drinks the wine Odysseus offers him, and asks Odysseus’ name. Odysseus says: ‘‘No Man.’’ Polyphemos falls into a drunken sleep; Odysseus and his men heat the point of the stake in the fire and drive it into Polyphemos’ eye (336-94). (Homer never says that Polyphemos has only one eye, but the narrative presupposes it.) Polyphemos wakes up screaming and calls his fellow Cyclopes, who come to the rescue. From outside the cave, they ask: who is hurting you? He answers: ‘‘No Man,’’ and they go away (395-414). In the morning, Polyphemos has to let his sheep out, and Odysseus and his men escape by clinging to the bellies of the sheep. They take some sheep on board their ship and sail away. From what he thinks is a safe distance, Odysseus taunts Polyphemos. Polyphemos throws a rock that almost sinks the ship. Odysseus again taunts Polyphemos, this time declaring his real name. Polyphemos now recalls a prophecy he had once received: he would lose his sight at the hands of someone named Odysseus. Then Polyphemos calls upon his father, Poseidon, cursing Odysseus (415535). (Poseidon hears his son, and the anger of the sea-god against Odysseus determines the future difficulties of Odysseus’ return to Ithaca.) Polyphemos throws another rock, again nearly sinking the ship; the wave produced by the rock drives the ship back to the island whence Odysseus had started out on his visit to the land of the Cyclopes (536-42).
The Polyphemos story is widely attested in folklore. The earliest version after antiquity is in Dolopathos, a collection of tales written down ca.1184 ce by a monk named John of the Cistercian Abbey of Haute-Seille in Lorraine. Following up on Grimm 1857, in 1904 Oskar Hackman published a collection of 221 versions; more have come to light since then. They come from a geographical area stretching from England to Russia, down to Turkey and the Near East and also to northern Africa. In the Dolopathos version, the story is told by a retired robber. He and one hundred men tried to steal gold from a giant. They were captured by the giant and nine other giants and divided up among them. The robber and nine of his men fell to the lot of the giant who had been robbed. They were imprisoned in his cave, where the giant ate all the men but the robber. The robber offered to heal the giant’s eyes, which were ailing (this giant has two eyes). Instead, the robber blinded him. The robber escaped by clinging to the underside of a ram. He taunted the giant, who threw him a ring as a gift. The ring was magical. It kept saying, ‘‘Here I am,’’ so that the giant could pursue the robber. The robber could not remove the ring. Just as the giant was about to catch him, the robber cut his finger off, threw it away, and thus he escaped.
Fifty-two versions can be found in the second volume of the Loeb Library edition of the mythographer Apollodorus (Frazer 1921). The motifs that constitute the type are as follows (references are to Thompson 1955-8). It begins with the attempt by a thief or thieves to steal from a giant (G100: Giant ogre). Or the protagonist, who is not a thief, seeks shelter with the giant. The protagonist is caught and imprisoned. The door is immovable. The giant is cannibalistic and blear-eyed or one-eyed. The protagonist offers to cure the giant’s eyes (K1011: Eye-remedy). Under this pretense, the trickster blinds the giant, often with a glowing mass thrust into the eye. When the giant lets his sheep out of the cave (or other enclosure), the protagonist escapes dressed in the skin of one of the animals (K521.1: Escape by dressing in an animal (bird, human) skin) or by clinging to the underside of a ram (K603: Escape under ram’s belly). Often the giant addresses his favorite ram or buck goat, the one underneath which the protagonist is hidden. Having escaped, the protagonist taunts the giant, who gives the protagonist a magic ring. The ring has a voice, which enables the giant to pursue the protagonist. The ring cannot be removed. To avoid capture, the protagonist cuts off his finger.
The No Man ruse does not belong to this folktale type. In all the hundreds of folktale versions of‘‘The ogre blinded,’’ only two examples of the No Man ruse have been found. On the other hand, Hackman (1904) has 50 examples of the No Man ruse as a separate tale: the hero injures the devil or a fairy; then avoids retaliation by giving a false name, ‘‘Myself’’ or ‘‘Nobody.’’ The devil or fairy goes looking for the hero and says, ‘‘I’m looking for Myself’’ or ‘‘I’m looking for Nobody.’’ Thus he cannot catch the hero (cf. K602, 602.1). Hackman also has 47 examples of the No Man ruse and blinding motifs together but without the rest of the story of the Blinded Ogre.
The necessary conclusion is that Homer has combined two separate folktales. One is the No Man ruse, which often goes together with the blinding of an adversary. The other is Type 1137 (Aarne and Thompson 1981), which also has the blinding of the adversary and entails the other ruse, the escape from the giant’s den.
Homer follows Type 1137 rather closely. His main divergence is in (1) the incorporation of the No Man motif and (2) his omission of the magic ring and of the hero’s selfmutilation. These two variations on the type work together. An epic hero could not be presented as cutting off his own finger, and therefore there could not be any magic ring to guide the blind giant’s pursuit of the hero. How then could Polyphemos complete the requirements of the folktale type, pursue Odysseus, and nearly destroy him? (Note that Polyphemos tries in vain to lure Odysseus back with the offer of a gift: 517-19.) Odysseus himself orchestrates the pursuit. Having used the No Man ruse as part of the escape from the cave, Odysseus’ desire to taunt the giant finally causes him to reveal his own name and thus to locate himself as a target for the giant’s second missile. Further, having learned Odysseus’ name, Polyphemos can pray to his father, Poseidon, for vengeance. The anger of Poseidon against Odysseus replaces the punishment of the hero through self-mutilation.
As mentioned above, the adaptation of a folktale or folktale type in the Polyphemos episode has long since been recognized by classical scholars (but denied by Fehling 1984; cf. on this matter Edmunds 1990: 240-1 and Hansen 2002: 293-4). Generally, they understand this adaptation on a model such as the following: Homer took a folktale, rationalized it, leaving out fantastic elements like the magical ring, and transformed it into poetry; as for the original folktale, either it is assumed to have disappeared or its continued existence has no relevance. Homer’s narrative replaces the original story.
But an alternative model can be proposed. The folktale or folktales would have persisted in the larger oral culture in which the oral epic tradition developed and of which Homer’s epic was the culmination. Part of the experience of Homer’s audience was, then, the difference between the folktale(s) and Homer’s adaptation. But how did the audience perceive the difference, or what difference(s) did they perceive? Whereas the standard model presented above calls attention to Homer’s rationalizing away of the fantastic elements and to the poetic or artistic superiority of the transformation over the original, Homer’s audience might have been equally or more aware of the ways in which the Homeric version of the folktale projects both a past (the prophecy concerning Odysseus that Polyphemos recalls) and a future (the anger of Poseidon), so that Odysseus’ role as the protagonist of this story becomes continuous with the narrative of the Odyssey as a whole. Whereas the folktale was an independent story that could be told by itself and for itself, the Homeric adaptation works it into a larger whole. A second aspect of the alternative model, then, is the adaptation of the shorter story to the larger one. The adaptation shows the audience how the hero of the folktale can become Odysseus (or vice versa). Again, the audience experiences the difference between the independent folktale and the larger narrative.
World History
