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Some Homeric Names
Roderick Saxey NOTE: Report may require additional fonts on your system to be viewed correctly. In this short paper, I examine five names from the Iliad and consider how insight on the names can help us better understand (and appreciate) the characters and works of Homer. Agamemnon Agamemnon, "wide-ruling" and "lord of men", is, along with his brother Menelaus, leader of the Greek expedition against Troy. It is his arrogance and his hubris against Achilles that causes the latter (whom many of the gods, and most importantly Zeus, uphold) to leave camp and refuse to fight. Agamemon’s name is traditionally taken to be from agan "exceedingly" and menoV "spirit, courage, Mut" and its related words. Graves (vol. 2, p. 378) goes with this when he translates the name as "very resolute"and it is the reading of Saussure, though Kamptz (81) says it has "weniger Wahrscheinlichkeit" than that it comes from agan and the verb medomai "walten", and backs up this claim with evidence from Attic vases which have the forms Mesmwn and even Agamesmwn If this is right, then we can read his name as a synonym to his epithet euru kreiwn.On the other hand, Mühlestein supports the reading with menw "remain, stand fast" by pointing out that, "Hier ineressiert, dass [sic] dann die beiden Atriden fast synonyme Namen tragen: Mene-laoV ‘der dem (feindlichen) Kriegsvolk standhält’, *Aga-men-mwn ‘der hervorragend standzuhalten pflegt’..." and claims thereby a "zunächst auffallend[e] Namenharmonie innerhalb der Königsfamilie..."(54).Despite the nice pair of brothers’ names, I prefer the first reading. However, it may be that the name was ambiguous enough by Homer’s time that either or both could make sense, thus fitting his name both with his epithets and his family. In any case, he failed to keep either his walten or his Mut when, returning home from ten years of war, he was killed in the bath by his wife Clytæmnestra and her lover Ægisthus. Patroclus Another name-pair is that of PatrokloV and Kleopatra, the first a man’s and the second a woman’s. Patroclus is the great warrior Achilles’ best friend. Achilles, alone with his lyre and song by his ships during his "boycott" of the war, comes to see the worthlessness of war and refuses to fight even for the hardly-imagineable bounty that Agamemnon offers him (see Book IX), saying that all the riches of the world are not worth the life of man, yet when his friend Patroclus is killed near Troy’s walls, Achilles gives his life for the one thing worth more than his life, his friendship, and re-enters the war. PatrokloV is a shortened form of PatroklehV, taken to be from pathr "father" and kleoV "fame, glory". So, Graves (403) gives pretty much the traditional reading with "glory of the father". We can let this stand so, or, if we prefer, accept Kamptz’s modification: "möglich ist jedoch auch Beziehung auf hom patrh ‘Sippe’..."(215). Thus, Patroclus would be the pride, not only of his father, but of his whole fatherland and folk.Mühlestein on the other hand leaves the first element as "father", but takes issue with the second. He says we should not see it as kleoV, but the related word kluein "listen to" (48), yet again there seems to be some ambiguity. The idea is that of obedience, and Patroclus has his name "ähnlich wie den Namen der Eurukleia, die nicht ‘Weithin berühmt’ heisst, sondern ‘Der man weithin gehorcht’" (175). However, he doesn’t give any example of his father (or his patrh as far as that goes) obeying him. Kamptz proposes that the title Patroclus belongs not to the holder of that name, who is not noted for obeying his father (nor for either getting from him or giving to him honor), but to Achilles’ other friend Antilochus, who in Pindar and, presumably, in pre-Homeric (or extra-Homeric) epic is noted for his "Selbstaufopferung für seinen Vater, ohne alle Mitschuld Achills" (175). Homer, then, simply picked the name out of a hat: "Diesen Namen hat der Dichter eben nicht selber erst gebildet, sondern aus dem reichen schon bestehenden Namenschatz zu seinen poetischen Bedürfnissen passend ausgewählt und frei gedeutet" (175). This makes sense to me, simply because there is no particular reason for Patroclus to bear the name he does. Similarly, Shakespeare retells the ancient story of Amleth with such non-Danish names as Horatio, Claudius, Ophelia, and Polonius (and compare "Hector", below).Odysseus Odysseus, from Ithaca in the Ionian sea, is one of the kings who took part in the ten-year siege of Troy. He is most famous for his thinking up the Trojan Horse, and for his decade of wandering in search of home after the war, the latter of which is told in the Odyssey. Kamptz points out (122-123) that the ending -euV is that of a nomen agentis, yet gives no explanation as to why it might be attached to Odysseus’s name. Mühlestein claims that it is a pre-Greek name (43), and that the connection to the word odussomai "be angry, full of hate" is a folk-etymology. This seems either to extend back to, or be confirmed by, the name of his maternal grandfather Autolycus, whose name may have had something to do with leukoV "bright, white" (Mühlestein 68), but was thought to signify the werewolf (Mühlestein 43, 68). We read in Whalton (7): "Autolycus, a man known for his thievery and oaths, was allowed to name his new-born grandson, and replied: ‘I have come here angered against [odussamenoV] many men and women throughout the fruitful earth; so let his name be Odysseus’ (Od. 19.407-409)." Another name in Luk- is that of Lycurgus, son to Dryas, the latter meaning "oak-man". Again, Mühlestein: "DruaV heisst sein Vater, weil Werwölfe, die Gesetzlosen aller Zeiten, in Wald und Wildnis wohnen" (68).Graves, coming not from the Germans’ tradition of archetype and Jungian psychology, but from the English tradition of Sir James Frazer and Jane Harrison, sees Dryas (as he is wont to see most mythical figures) as a sacrificial king (vol. 1, 108,167). So also, he sees in the Homeric Odyssey the combination of two figures: Odysseus and "the allegorical adventures of another hero—let us call him Ulysses—who, like Odysseus’s grandfather Sisyphus...would not die when his term of sovereignty ended" (vol. 2, 365-366). Kamptz (355-7) shows from forms of the name from vases and literature that Odysseus and Ulysses are the same name: Ol(l)ut(t)euV, OluteV, OluseuV, Olisseidai, OduseuV, Lat. Olixes, Ulyxes, Ulixes, Etr. Utuse, UtuJe, and so forth. Kamptz does not propose an ultimate source for the name, but Graves offers:Odysseus, whose name, meaning "angry", stands for the red-faced sacred king (see 27.12), is called "Ulysses" or "Ulixes" in Latin—a word probably formed from oulos, "wound" and ischea, "thigh"—in reference to the boars-tusk wound which his old nurse recognized when he came back to Ithaca...It was a common form of royal death to have one’s thigh gored by a boar, yet Odysseus had somehow survived the wound (see 18.7 and 151.2) (369). So, Graves gives the only plausible explanation for the name, that Odysseus is a sacrificial king refusing to end his reign (see also vol. 2, 374 on his assisanation of his would-be successors, the suitors), though Graves warns us that, "though masquerading as an epic, the Odyssey is the first Greek novel; and therefore wholly irresponsible where myths are concerned" (376). Helen Helen’s is the face that launched a thousand ships. It is her abduction by Paris (admittedly, she put up little fight) which sparked the ten-year war, all the Greek kings being oath-bound to defend whoever should end up taking her for wife (Menelaus). Achilles complains to Odysseus: And why should we Achæans come to fight Against the Trojans? Why hath Atreus’ son Brought here the gather’d host to war, if not For fair-tress’d Helen’s sake, and no ground else. ( I’ 337-339, my translation)But she was certainly full of charm, whether with the royal Trojan family during the war, or back with King Menelaus in the Odyssey afterwards. We call her "Helen of Troy", but the Greeks themselves, even now, and the Germans as well, still refer to her by her beauty: h wraia Elenh, die schöne Helena.Her name seems to be appropriate to her beauty. According to Kamptz, it comes from the IE root " su9e- in a[lt]i[ndischem] svarati "glänzt, scheint", ags. swelan= nhd. schwelen..."(136) and is related to the Attic "eilh ‘Sonnenwärme’"(136) and so he translates it simply as Fackel "torch". Initial IE /s/ usually becomes aspiration in Greek, yet he also connects it to Homeric selaV "Glanz" (371) and hence, tentatively, to selhnh ["moon"] (371), the light to rule the night, and says even that the "Bedeutung wäre danach etwa ‘die Leuchtende, Glänzende’, was sich gut mit der vielfach ver-tretenen Auffassung von Helena als Lichtgöttin...vertrüge" (371, my emphasis).Graves, of course, who is always keen to see evidence of his triple-goddess, picks this up and declares, "‘Helen’ was the name of the Spartan Moon-goddess, marriage to whom, after a horse-sacrifice (see 81.4), made Menelaus king..."(276). Robert Graves’s explanations, as those of his predecessors, are very out of vogue currently, yet he brings to bear a wealth, not only of philological evidence, but of mythological and anthropological as well, and the glum classicists of today can offer no better explanation—and indeed, usually none at all—to support their snide and usually murmured poo-pooing. Hector Hector is the bulwark of the Trojans, and that is exactly what his name means. As the Greeks can make no head against the Trojans without Achilles, so they also cannot with Hector on the the field, Achilles’ only match. He is, along with Odysseus, Priam (and in my opinion Achilles), one of the most sympathetic figures in the work. Graves believes that the Iliad’s poet favored the Trojans and even goes so far as to propose that he was "clearly a secret worshipper of the Great Goddess of Asia (whom the Greeks had humiliated in this war); and...glints of his warm and honourable [sic] nature appear whenever he is describing family life in Priam’s palace"(312). The most famous instance is where Hector, who is later to be slain by Achilles, visits his wife Andromache and their son Astyanax ("City-lord") in book six: Thus said, great Hector reach’d out for his son But straightway shriek’d the babe and sank back to The bosom soft of his well-girdl’d nurse, Afrighted by his father’s bronze-clapp’d face, And his great horse-mane crest, which danc’d and wav’d Atop his helm, into the child’s eyes. His father and his queenly mother laugh’d, And Hector took the helmet from his head, Then laid it down upon the gleaming floor. Then when he’d kissed his son he rais’d his hands, And spake in pray’r to Zeus and th’ other gods... ( Z’ 466-475, my translation)He then prays for the welfare of his heir, though his prayer is never to be realized, and the baby is killed when the city finally falls. Kamptz reminds us that the -wr ending signals a nomen agentis (171); in the case of Hector from the verb ecw "have", though read here as "halte, schütze, beherrsche" (171)..."schirme" (261). So Hector, as Cratylus had reckoned long ago (Kamptz 261), is the protector: not only "der Standhafte", but "Beschützer der Stadt" (Mühlestein 84).Graves, sadly without citation, claims, "‘Hector’ was a title of the Theban sacred king before the Trojan War took place; and he suffered the same fate when his reign ended—which was to be dragged in the wreck of a circling chariot, like Glaucus... Hippolytus...Oenomaus...and Abderus.... Since ‘Achilles’ was also a title rather than a name, the combat may have been borrowed from the lost Theban saga of ‘Oedipus’s Sheep’, in which co-kings fought for the throne (see 106.2 )"(312). Graves’s assertion, though not proveable, is supported by philology. Firstly, the title "Hector" would be quite appropriate for a god’s representative, since, at least once, in Sappho (LS-J, " ektwr"), Zeus himself bears the name. Second, not only the verb, but the name also is not Microasiatic, but quite Greek, going at least as far back as Linear B, written as e-ko-to and attested with the genitive e-ko-to-ri-jo (Mühlestein 49 and LS-J, Supplement). Further, it may be (as per Mühlestein) that Homer chose the name "Hector" as equivalent, not only semantic but also vowel-wise, to "Memnon".
So, here are the names of a few of Homer’s great figures. Writers from Aeschylus and Plato, to Goethe and Nietsche, to Pope and Auden have felt the moving power of the Homeric tales, and his poems have enchanted millions. His language is sublime, his stories worthy of constant repetition and discussion. Should we then, as some would have us do with the Bible, just leave him "as is", accept all traditional readings, and leave this sort of investigation alone? I say no. Homer’s charm has survived Peisistratus, the Analysts, and Milman Parry. He will certainly survive our further pokes and probings. Though our lexicons (nor our philosophers for that matter) cannot answer every question Homer raises, they can often offer at least tentative answers, and, I believe, help us with what for Parry (and most non-academics) was the most important of all: the experience—the awe and admiration of encountering some of the most economical language and hugest characters ever recorded; the exhilerating feeling of communing with something at once so foreign and familiar; and the healing work of asking questions about mankind which we cannot but ask.
Works Cited
Graves, Robert. The Greek Myths. Mt. Kisco: Moyer Bell Limited, 1988. von Kamptz, Hans. Homerische Personennamen (Sprachwissenschaftliche und historische Klassifikation). Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1982. Liddell, Henry George and Robert Scott, Revised Sir Henry Stuart Jones. A Greek- English Lexicon [LS-J]. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996. Mühlestein, Hugo. Homerische Namenstudien. Frankfurt am Main: Athenäum, 1987. Whalton, William. Formula, Character, and Context (Studies in Homeric, Old English, and Old Testament Poetry). Cambridge: Center for Hellenic Studies, 1969. Wharton, E.R. Etymological Lexicon of Classical Greek (Etyma Graeca). London, 1882. Chicago: Ares Publishers Inc. (date of reprint not given). |