Homer the Preclassic

10. Homer and the Poetics of Variation

10 Homer and the Poetics of Variation THE SORROWS OF ANDROMACHE REVISITED We have seen how the technique of narrating the story about the presentation of a peplos to Athena in her temple at Troy corresponds to the technique of weaving the Panathenaic Peplos for presentation to Athena in her temple at Athens. And the occasion for presenting the woven Peplos, the festival of the Panathenaia, is also the occasion for presenting the narration of this story and all other Homeric stories. Narrating the story requires variation, just as weaving the Peplos requires variation. As I argue in Homer the Classic, the word that best captures the idea of variation in the weaving of the Peplos is the adjective poikilos, the general meaning of which is ‘varied’, and the specialized meaning of which is ‘pattern-woven’.1 This adjective, as I also argue in Homer the Classic, is closely related to the verb poikillein, which actually means ‘pattern-weave’.2 Now I turn to a most telling example of this adjective poikilos, appearing in a passage that shows a glimpse of Andromache weaving her web at a climactic moment in the plot of the Iliad. It is the moment just before she finds out that her husband, Hector, has died on the battlefield. This passage, as we will see, captures the essence of pattern-weaving as an overall metaphor for Homeric narrative: Ὣς ἔφατο κλαίουσ’, ἄλοχος δ’ οὔ πώ τι πέπυστο Ἕκτορος· οὐ γάρ οἵ τις ἐτήτυμος ἄγγελος ἐλθὼν ἤγγειλ’ ὅττί ῥά οἱ πόσις ἔκτοθι μίμνε πυλάων, 273 1. HC ch. 4. 2. HC ch. 4. ἀλλ’ ἥ γ’ ἱστὸν ὕφαινε μυχῷ δόμου ὑψηλοῖο δίπλακα πορφυρέην,3 ἐν δὲ θρόνα ποικίλ’ ἔπασσε. So she [Hecuba] spoke, lamenting, but the wife [Andromache] had not yet heard, Hector’s wife: for no true messenger had come to her and told her the news, how her husband was standing his ground outside the gates. She [Andromache] was weaving [huphainein] a web in the inner room of the lofty palace, a purple [porphureē]4 fabric that folds in two [diplax], and she was inworking [en-passein]5 patterns of flowers [throna] that were varied [poikila]. Iliad XXII 437–41 Archaeological research has shown that the artistic technique being represented here is not embroidery, as is commonly assumed, but pattern-weaving.6 The narrative sequence woven into the web of Andromache is created by way of transverse threading, described in our Iliad passage as either porphureē ‘purple’ or, according to a variant reading also found in the medieval manuscript tradition, marmareē ‘gleaming’. This variation, as we will see later, is essential for understanding the relevance of this passage to the festival of the Panathenaia. The technique of weaving the fabric called diplax in this passage is analogous to the technique of weaving a peplos. A case in point is the peplos presented by the Trojan women to the statue of Athena in her temple on the acropolis of Troy. In the description of this peplos, we have already seen a direct reference to the special technique of pattern-weaving in the original making of this peplos: the fabric is the result of poikilmata (Iliad VI 294). This noun poikilma (plural poikilmata) is derived from the verb poikillein ‘pattern-weave’. I stress again that this noun refers here to fabric that is “woven . . . rather than embroidered.”7 Similarly, the story patterns narrating the Achaean and Trojan ‘struggles’ (athloi) that Helen ‘sprinkles into’ (en-passein) her web in Iliad III (126) are “woven into the cloth and not embroidered on afterwards.”8 The clearest example is the web of Andromache as described in the passage we have just examined (Iliad XXII 441). The word en-passein, referring to the weaving of Andromache, means that she is ‘inworking’—or, literally, ‘sprinkling’ various patterns into her web by way of pattern-weaving. These varied patterns are called throna (XXII 441), which I have translated as ‘patterns of flowers’. The word throna 274 Homer and the Poetics of Variation 3. There is a variant reading at verse 441 for πορφυρέην, which is μαρμαρέην. 4. There is a variant reading at verse 441 for porphureē ‘purple’, which is marmareē ‘gleaming’. 5. Metaphorically, en-passein is to ‘sprinkle’: PR 93. 6. PR 93, citing Wace 1948, followed by Kirk 1985:280 and 1990:199. 7. Kirk 1990:199, relying especially on Wace 1948. 8. Kirk 1985:280, again relying on Wace 1948. (singular thronon) can refer to floral patterns that are woven into the fabric.9 Further , as we know from Theocritus (2.59) and other sources, throna are love charms.10 Each flower in the sequence of flowers woven into the...