come early to this explanation of certain Homeric forms, although it did recognize that certain forms and constructions could never have belonged to a spoken dialect of Greek. Only with K. Witte did scholars begin to have recourse to analogy in order to explain the use of the singular for the plural and vice versa, overlengthened forms, Eiuw with the genitive, etc. His demonstration, as our knowledge now stands, leaves no doubt of the general truth of his conclusions : animated by the desire to find forms that would fit the hexameter, the bards created new forms on the model of those already in existence.
It is quite obvious, so much so that there is no need to insist on it, that analogy, operating in the same way as with artificial forms, is responsible for the creation of the whole formulary element which has been pointed out in these pages. The simple perception of a resemblance between two expressions too close to be the work of chance is equivalent to an admis sion that one of these expressions is imitating the other or that both of them are, in the last analysis, imitating a single model. But we are not fully aware of the influence which the factor of
I
analogy must have exerted on the minds of epic poets until we observe that it is the cause of a great number of the anomalies of versification found in the Iliad and the Odyssey. The poet often allowed himself to be guided by his sense of the likeness of one expression to another, even though this forced him to leave final vowels in hiatus or to make position for short vowels €V OEUEL.K. Witte brought attention to the case in which Homer, on the model of fLEp67TWV avOpciJ7Twv, which we find 9 times in the text, created fLEP07TEC; avOpw7TOL, which we find in L: 288. The habit of bringing together two words in a certain place in the line led the poet to be careless of the fault in quantity incident to their use in the nominative. In the same way Homer, or another bard, made OJ�E HOVELPE after oJ�ov HOVELPOV ; acpOLTa aiEl after
' I I .,. f1 I H •
I I
aLEL ; 7JEV a ter EUTaL, etc., Just as le a so,
still deferring to habit, put certain formulae in certain places in the line, even when the following formula produced hiatus or did not make position. Examples of this kind are plentiful ; we can here cite only some of the most striking of those that involve noun-epithet formulae.
I . We discovered, in Chap. I (TE, pp. 1 0- 1 3) , substantial series of lines in which a predicate formula, ending at the feminine caesura with a vowel, is followed by a subject formula beginning with a consonant which completes the line. The habit of using this kind of line had such a hold over the poet's thought that he sometimes began with a predicate hemistich of the type described when he did not have the requisite, sub ject hemistich beginning with a single consonant. The only subject
[87-8] formula for Telemachus which can stand after the feminine caesura is ' OSVCTafjOS rptAos vias, correctly used in lines like
f3 2 OPVV'T' ap' £, £"v�q,w 'Oovu�oe; q,LAoe; vt6e;
Y 352 oiJ 8TJv o� 'Toilo' avopas 'Oovu�oe; q,LAos vt6e;.
But the poet was obliged to leave hiatus when, on the model of such lines as
'T 1 02
}
• 8 8 , .
{
1ToAv.rAas oioe; 'Oovuurus£v a Ka £ £7 £1T£L'Ta , ,
'T 59 1T£PLq,pwv IITJv£Ao1T£La,
he wanted to make an analogous line for the son of Odysseus : Again, on the model of
the poet made
Y 64 c:,s 0' aiJ'Tws �pii'TO 'Oovu�os q,LAOS vt6s. In composing
B 57 1 'Opvwis T' £V'I'OVTO ltpaL8vp'TJv T' £paT£LJ'ijv the poet was remembering lines such as
and so on.
B 496 O£ 8' 'YpLTJv £V'f£OVTO Ka£ A"Moa 1T£TpfJ£auav B 5 1 9 0' KV'lTlip'uuov €XOV IIv8wvo. T£ 1T£7pfJ£CTuav,
n. We have already observed the tendency of verb-forms in -ETO, -aTO, -EE, etc. to occur before the bucolic diaeresis. S'/1TTaTo (thrice), E1T/1TTaTo (thrice), and v1T/p1TTa'TO (4 times) occur always in this position. Now a very common way of completing a line after such verb-forms is to follow them by a subject formula beginning with a single consonant. Thus the line
o 83 is metrically correct :
c:,e; KpaL1Tvwe; I'£f£avia O" 1T'TarO 1T6'Tvc.a "HpTJ.
The existence of lines like this one and of this one in particular suggested to the poet further on, when he is speaking ofIris, an analogous line, even though he disposed of no formula beginning in the requisite way to designate this goddess :
o 1 72 c:,s KpaL1TVWS I'£I'avia O" 1TTa'TO wK'a 1'lpLs.
The expression iEpa KaAa is found with hiatus in tp 1 95 ; 4 times cor rectly elsewhere in the poems. We find before a caesura of the third foot
I) 473 p',ae; tEpa Ko.A' A 1 30 p',as tEpa Ka>.a
[88--90]
and at the line-end
1J' 209
A 727
The Epithet and the Formula,
I 71At the same time the form iJ7T€UXETO ( I O times) occurs always before the bucolic diaeresis. His sense of the expression iEpa KaM. at the end of the line, of iJ7T€UXETO before the diaeresis, and in addition of the whole line
'P 209 led the poet to make
Ill. A great many cases where the poet uses a short syllable EV B€UE' without making position are to be similarly explained. One of the clearest examples is
made on the model of e 35 1 = T 341
TT 7 = P 543
A more complex but equally certain case is
A 322 KOVp'T}V Mlvwos oAo6rppovos. ';;v TTOTE e'T}UEVS. o'Aooc/Jpovos is found in this position in two other lines :
a 52 K 1 37
7hAaVTOS OvyaTTJp oAo6rppovos. oS TE Oa,\auu'T}s aVToKaUtyv�T'T} oAo6rppovos Al�Tao.
At the same time the poet commonly refers to a woman by KOVpTJ fol lowed by the name of her father. At the beginning of the line we find KOVpTJ 'IKapto,o (5 times) , KOVpTJV Bp'afjos, KOVpTJV 8€ llpuip.oto. It is the combined example of this expression at the beginning of the line, of o'Aooc/Jpovos before the diaeresis, and of lines like the two quoted that determined the arrangement of words which we see in 'A 322.
These cases of hiatus and of short syllables EV B€un are of interest in the study of metrics, but they can only furnish hints of the influence exerted by analogy in epic versification. But the examination of cases in which the operation of analogy produced, not metrical irregularities, but the very ideas of heroic poetry will throw light on one of the most funda mental problems of formulary diction, a problem which no study of formulae can leave in darkness : I that of the relation between the influence of metre and the thought of epic poets. Possibly the greatest risk one runs in the study of traditional diction is that one may give the impression that the action of metre on diction is something mechanical.
Many critics, from the days of Ellendt and Diintzer to our own, have wanted to deny the sovereign influence of the hexametet because they thought that to admit it would be to attaint the personal genius of Homer.
The cause of this misunderstanding, on the part of those who have studied the influence of metre as well as on the part of those who would deny it, is an insufficiently clear conception of the actual circumstances under which this diction of formulae developed. If we do not take account of the processes by which the bards were led to create a formu lary diction, we shall fail to see, or shall see only imperfectly, that its creation was both natural and aesthetically unexceptionable. Analogy is a case in point. If we do not fully recognize the psychological value which it had for the poets of epic verse, we shall not know to what extent it operated together with their taste to contribute to the formation of the style of the Iliad and the Oqyssry.
One discovers in Homer not a few cases in which the sounds of one expression have suggested another quite different in meaning. One of the most striking examples of this is the resemblance between the two expres sions d/1-4>�>"vB€v �SV, dV7"/1-� (/1- 369) and d/1-4>�>"vB€ Bfj>"v, dV7"� (s 1 22), a resemblance too close to be the work of chance. It is impossible to know which of these two expressions is the older. But it is not necessary to know this in order to draw the following conclusions : whichever of the two formulae one chooses as the model of the other, these conclusions will be the same. Let us imagine a poet familiar with the formula d/1-4>�>"vB€v
�SV, dV7"/1-� who wishes to describe a scene in which one of his characters hears the shouting of women. It is a most likely assumption that the word dV7"� immediately occurred to him to describe this shouting. At the thought of this word, the poet, with that sense of metre which all poets working in a rigorously fixed form must possess, as he looked for words to express himself, will at once have thought of dV7"/1-�, and this I word will have evoked for him the expression used in the description of a sacrifice :
d/1-4>�>"vB€v �Sv> dV7"/1-�. d/1-4>�>"vB€, used to describe the odour of sacrifice as it spreads through the air, is also suitable for the description of a sound that seems to fill the air. And �SV, suggested Bfj>"v, because of the identity of the vowels and the final consonant in the two words ; the latter word itself could not have been far from the poet's mind, since 'the shouting of women' was the idea to be expressed. That the point of departure for this association of words and ideas was dV7"� and dV7"/1-� is of course not en tirely certain. It is equally possible that dl1-4>�>"vB€ first reminded the poet of the original expression. But in any case the mental process of the bard who created the expression is plain. The words for which he was looking in order to express his thought in the hexameter were suggested to him by the resemblance of the sound of words. d/1-4>�>"vB€v �Sv, dV7"/1-� was the
The Epithet and the Formula,
I 73 model for afLlP�Av8E 8fjAvS aV7"�, but before he imitated the model, the poet must have had the desire to express a particular idea. And even after the new expression had presented itself to him, he still had the right to reject it and look for other words. There must be a fairly large number of different ways to express in hexameter verse the essential idea 'he heard the shouting of women'. But the bard did not seek out those different ways, or else, after considering some of them, he came back to the expression which a pun had suggested to him and with which he was satisfied. The same is true in all cases where the influence of the hexa meter can be discerned. It must on the one hand be recognized that this influence was entirely subordinate to the taste of the poets ; but it is on the other hand just as certain that without this influence, the diction of epic poetry, that is its style, would have been something very different from what we know.In the case we have just been examining, and in all cases like it, we must be on our guard against a common error. It is highly improbable, even if it be assumed that the two poems we have are entirely the work of a single author, that one of the expressions in question was inspired by Homer's memory of another expression in the Iliad or Odyssey. The point is not so much that Homer must have composed a great deal of verse which we do not have, as that we can assign to the work of one poet only a fraction of the lines in which I this influence of sound in the formation of ideas can be discerned. In most of the following examples the two formu lae will have been handed down in their present form by the tradition.
We cannot ascertain which expression in each of the pairs cited below is the older. What is important is only the certain fact that either one or the other of them was inspired by a pun. I
"1 306 A 466 A 48 A 464 o 41 I a 242 K 306 a 29 Y 61 I 402 AalAam TU1TTWV iKE'T' ci.V'T�
£'ET' £1TE'tT' a1T(iVEu(].;: VEWV
" , � , - ' "
aVTap E1TE't KaTa p.T)P EKaT) XEAtSovt ElK€A." avS�v OiXET' atUTos a1TvuTos 80ijts J1T� vT)UU�v .l.txatwv KaTa 8UP.DV ap.up.ovos ava, JV€PWV .l.ttSWVEUS
" I)..£ov £KT7]a8a£, ftO va,op.EvoV 1TTO>..lE8pov
p. 400 AalAam 8uwv 8 1 74 iKE'T' aUTP.�
, 236 £'ET' E1TE'tT' a1Tavw8E KtWV I 2 I 2 aVTap J1TE� KaTa 1TVP JKa." X 240 XEAtSovt ElK€A." aVTTJv S 788 KEiT' ap' autTOS a1TauTos J) 259 80ijts J1T� V."VU�V laVwv K 50 KaTa 8UP.DV ap.up.ova
A 1 72 ava, avSpwv .l.tyap.€p.vwv, etc. B 133 "D.wv JK1T€pUat EO vatop.E'VOv
1TTOAlE8pov
I The first five examples are cited by Ellendt (Drei Iwmerische Abhandlungen, Leipzig 1864, 50-2 ) . In citing various lines to show the influence of metre, he confuses expressions of the kind we are discussing with others which are only examples of the device of interchanging formulae which we examined in the first part of this chapter. It must be observed that some of his examples are based on puns which are doubtful to say the least. It takes an adventurous mind to see a proof of analogy in such comparisons as os 1Tiia, ,..., l1T1T€Ua, or £1T€L ,..., £1T' �-•
1: 358 aVO'T�uau' )txtAija 7T()8as -raxvv· 1: 2 )tVT[,\0XOS 8' )tXtAij' 1To8as
7j pa vv UE to Ta XVS a: i'YE.\OS 7j.\8E
P 9 flav80v vias £vp.p.e.\LTjS &.p.E'\17uE P 59 flav80v viav £vP.P.EM17v Evt/Jop '1' 744
P 73 av£p, El£1T' �EpoE,8£a uap.evo7TOVTOV s, Kucovwv �y� TOP' MEVTTJ'
1Tlova 8ijp.ov
{3ov
p. 233 1Tpas �EpoE�£a 1T£TpTjV a 105 El8op.£V17 gELvw" Ta4>lwv �yr/
TOP' M£VT17,1
'I' 750 1TLova 817p.W,· I
Analogy, which was a factor of such importance in the formation of diction, tended always to lead it in the direction of a greater simplifica tion in the expression of essential ideas. By excluding the new or original expression which could be rendered by a traditional formula, it inclined the poets to express every new idea, wherever possible, by words re sembling the words used to express some similar idea. The series of noun-epithet formulae cited in the first part of this chapter show how analogy was able to establish a fixed manner of expressing certain actions of gods and heroes. The reasons why it was not possible to establish similar series for every type of noun-epithet formula will become clear once it has been shown that there were limits beyond which analogy could no longer introduce simplification. There were two obstacles : the variety of the metrical value of words, and the complexity of the essential ideas which the bards had to express in their verse. It is a consequence of these two factors that, although we sometimes find series of formulae which are amenable to detailed analysis, Homeric diction, even in the matter of noun-epithet formulae, remains something so complex as to put a complete analysis of its technique beyond our powers.
It was said earlier that some names in the nominative or the oblique cases cannot be used in noun-epithet formulae of certain lengths. It is true that in cases of this kind the poet can try to paraphrase the name of the hero. For JW/L�871S, Homeric diction offers Tv8EOS vias, which appears in the Iliad eight times after the bucolic diaeresis and is thus adapted to the many occasions which require a subject formula of a hero in this position. But the name of the father of Agamemnon and Menelaus does not begin with a single consonant, and the bards found no other expres sion which might replace 1hpEos vias. But this formula, because it begins with a vowel, is far less useful. Hence despite the great convenience in general of noun-epithet I formulae in the nominative case filling this
1 By an association of sounds such as this the bards at times introduced forms of one verb into the inflexion of another in which they could never have existed. Thus �.lafJ:ro, which properly belongs to the inflexion of .(8.'1"(1.1., is in X 8g and 0 .p 5 made part of the inflexion of .tp. •. Cf. K. Meister, Du homeriscM Kunstspru, 19-21.