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Divine Disguisings
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 August 2011
Extract
When recently going through the second edition of Nilsson's Geschichte der griechischen Religion, Volume I, I came across a passing remark which seems to me to raise an interesting question not merely of Homeric criticism but concerning the attitude of the Greeks, at the time when their classical tradition regarding the gods was in process of formation, towards the question of the shapes assumed by those gods when they partly reveal themselves to mankind. Nilsson is speaking of Odysseus when disguised as a beggar, and says (ed. 2, p. 370, taken over unaltered from ed. 1, P. 346),
Kirke verwandelt Menschen in Bestien, und Athena den Odysseus in einen alten, armen Mann. Jenes ist echte Volkssage, dieses in Anlehnung daran geschaffen; denn in der älteren Form des Gedichts war Odysseus nicht verwandelt, nur verkleidet. So ist er noch bei der Fusswaschung, und der Freiermord und der Kampf mit Iros (σ 67 ff.) fordern dasselbe.
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References
1 Misprinted Iris in both edd., one of the few slips of pen or press in this admirable work.
2 Vol. II (FF Communications 107, Helsinki 1933), p. 8 ff.
3 See, e.g., S. Reinach, Répertoire de peintures grecques et romaines, p. 52; Roscher, Lexikon, art. AMPELOS.
4 Departure for Troy, Rose, Handbook of Greek Mythology, p. 251, n. 35; wooing of Helen, Hesiod, fgt. 94, 21 Rzach., cf. Rose, op. cit., p. 249, n. 7.
5 Γ 193–94.
6 ζ 230, ψ 157.
7 ν 430–33, cf. π 173–75, where the reverse change takes place.
8 σ 67–70.
9 τ 390 ff.
10 τ 358–60; ψ 93–95.
11 See n. 9.
12 Z 20 ff.
13 Rose, op. dt., pp. 169, 340.
14 No. 35 Perry, 60 Chambry.
15 λ 235 ff.
16 A 199–200.
17 N 45.
18 There are two outstanding cases of human disguising in the Homeric poems. The more elaborate is the entry of Odysseus into Troy in the guise of a deserter from the Achaians, δ 244 ff., when he deceived everyone but Helen, the only person who was well acquainted with his face, by dressing in rags and marking himself with weals. The simpler is in K 334, where Dolon puts on a wolfskin, for a reason perceived by the author of the Rhesus (208 ff.), though not by all commentators on Homer; he means to approach the Achaian lines on all fours and pass for a prowling beast.
19 B 280 ff.
20 Γ 122 ff.
21 Ω 347 ff., 460–61.
22 λ 252.
23 Γ 386 ff.
24 χ 212 ff., 239 ff.
25 P 322 ff.
26 P 333–34, where the words ἐκατηβόλον Ἀπόλωνα/ἔγνω ἐσάντα ίδών are not to be taken too literally; Aineias recognized that he was confronted by a god, but his own words make it clear (338) that he did not know which god.
27 N 62 ff.; it is to be noted that Poseidon goes ὥς τ᾽ ἴρηξ, not εὶδόμενς ἴρηκιor the like.
28 Verg., Aen., 1,314 ff.
29 His O dea certe etc., 328 ff., may be no more than an echo of Odysseus' compliment to Nausikaa, ζ 150–52, but in 372 he still calls her dea despite her disclaimer, 335 ff.
30 Aen. VII, 443–44; the second line is Hektor's rebuke to Andromache, Z 492–93, which seems to have become proverbial, cf. Ar., Lysist. 520.
31 Hera in Υ 131, surely a sufficient witness.
32 Ibid. 130.
33 II 702–04; 791 ff.
34 A 44 ff.
35 Exodus 33, 23.
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