Tuesday, December 06, 2022

 

Godlike

Homer, Iliad 2.478-479 (sc. Agamemnon; tr. Peter Green):
in eyes and head like Zeus who delights in the thunderbolt,
like Arēs in girth, and with the chest of Poseidōn.

ὄμματα καὶ κεφαλὴν ἴκελος Διὶ τερπικεραύνῳ,
Ἄρεϊ δὲ ζώνην, στέρνον δὲ Ποσειδάωνι.
G.S. Kirk ad loc.:
477-8 Agamemnon stands out among the leaders, he is like a Zeus among them. It is a powerful and extravagant idea that he resembles the god in 'eyes and head', literally: a unique phrase, more likely to imply 'in his gaze and by his height' (cf. 3.193 and comment, where Odysseus is μείων μὲν κεφαλῇ than Agamemnon) than any specific facial resemblance.

479 No doubt is cast on this verse either in the ancient tradition (AbT admired it) or by modern editors, but it ought to raise an initial suspicion. It might be a simple oral cumulation, but is an anticlimax after the unusual comparison with Zeus. The king's waist is like Ares'; normally ζώνη applies to a woman's waist, and it needs a slight mistranslation like 'girth' to make it seem natural here. His chest is like Poseidon's — again the only parallel is Odysseus at 3.193f., where he is shorter than Agamemnon but broader in shoulders and chest. ἴσος Ἄρηϊ is a common general expression (5x Il.) of comparison with the war-god, and may be the model here; there is no other case of a specific comparison with Poseidon (see the useful conspectus in Anne Amory Parry, Blameless Aegisthus (Leiden 1973) 218-23).



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