12.234-276

As the captured sailors ascend toward death, we see only their hands and feet, slowly disappearing into the darkness of the cave. The perspective is striking, reducing the men to their helpless, writhing limbs, while recalling the earlier description of Skylla’s twelve feet waving in the air while she yips like a newborn puppy. The poet folds that disturbing tableau immediately into a gruesome analogue, comparing the dying sailors to fish on the hook. Two other versions of this simile appear in the Iliad:

                         ὃ δὲ Θέστορα Ἤνοπος υἱὸν 
δεύτερον ὁρμηθείς: ὃ μὲν εὐξέστῳ ἐνὶ δίφρῳ 
ἧστο ἀλείς: ἐκ γὰρ πλήγη φρένας, ἐκ δ᾽ ἄρα χειρῶν 
ἡνία ἠΐχθησαν: ὃ δ᾽ ἔγχεϊ νύξε παραστὰς 
γναθμὸν δεξιτερόν, διὰ δ᾽ αὐτοῦ πεῖρεν ὀδόντων, 
ἕλκε δὲ δουρὸς ἑλὼν ὑπὲρ ἄντυγος, ὡς ὅτε τις φὼς 
πέτρῃ ἔπι προβλῆτι καθήμενος ἱερὸν ἰχθὺν 
ἐκ πόντοιο θύραζε λίνῳ καὶ ἤνοπι χαλκῷ: 
ὣς ἕλκ᾽ ἐκ δίφροιο κεχηνότα δουρὶ φαεινῷ, 
κὰδ δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ ἐπὶ στόμ᾽ ἔωσε: πεσόντα δέ μιν λίπε θυμός.

                         He (Patroclus) next rushed 
Thestor, son of Enops, who sat in his polished chariot, 
cowering, stunned, and the reins slipped 
from his hands. Patroclus came close and with his sword 
stabbed through the right side of his jaw, driving through the teeth, 
then hooked and dragged him over the chariot rail, as a fisherman 
sitting on a jutting rock snags a fish 
out of the sea with his line and gleaming hook. 
So Patroclus dragged him gaping from the chariot with his shining spear 
and let him fall facedown; the soul left him when he fell.

Iliad 16. 401–10

ὣς ἔφατ᾽, ὦρτο δὲ Ἶρις ἀελλόπος ἀγγελέουσα, 
μεσσηγὺς δὲ Σάμου τε καὶ Ἴμβρου παιπαλοέσσης 
ἔνθορε μείλανι πόντῳ: ἐπεστονάχησε δὲ λίμνη. 
80ἣ δὲ μολυβδαίνῃ ἰκέλη ἐς βυσσὸν ὄρουσεν, 
ἥ τε κατ᾽ ἀγραύλοιο βοὸς κέρας ἐμβεβαυῖα 
ἔρχεται ὠμηστῇσιν ἐπ᾽ ἰχθύσι κῆρα φέρουσα.

So (Zeus) spoke, and storm-footed Iris sprang forth 
with the message; and in the black sea she plunged 
between Samos and sandy Imbros and the sea groaned about her. 
She dove into the deep like a lead sinker 
that rides the horn of a field-dwelling ox 
and comes bearing death for the flesh-eating fish.

Iliad 24.77–82

The arresting image of fishing in such disparate passages repays attention. Similes in the Iliad afford the poet a chance to expand the tightly focused lens of the battlefield, often conjuring the everyday activities of a world at peace, farmers ploughing, ants marching, shepherds watching their flocks. Lifted for the moment from the caldron of blood and death, we can take a breath and remember that there are other things in the world besides fear and adrenaline-fueled fury.

The two passages above take the technique one step further, inviting that relief then diving abruptly back toward death. Patroclus becomes a bloodthirsty angler, while Thestor is reduced to a helpless, gasping creature. The tone of the scene is especially grotesque, as the fisherman’s calm skill and practiced technique is laid over the brutal disposal of a warrior’s body. The description in Book 24, comparing Iris to a “sinker,” a lead weight that pulls the fisherman’s hook down to the fish, seems less dark at first, but a small detail is intriguing. The disguised hook brings death for the “flesh-eating” fish. The adjective ὠμηστής is striking here, as it usually describes animals or men, not fish, suggesting an unusual blurring of the boundaries between the two worlds of the simile. Iris’s mission will bring Thetis to Olympus, where she will be convinced to let go of the desire to keep Achilles from death, resulting in the release of Hector’s corpse and his subsequent burial, leading in turn to Achilles’ death outside the scope of the poem’s story (Il. 24.97–140). Iris, like the sinker, brings death.

All three similes might well be versions of a “type scene,” part of the poet’s repertoire of traditional material, though the small number of examples make generalizations risky. In any event, comparing the Iliadic similes to our passage affords some insight into how this version of the figure functions. The initial dissonance between the peaceful world of the fisherman and the horrors of the battlefield is not part of our passage, which offers not a contrast but a grim parallel, the gasping fish echoing the gasping sailors. The ox horn sheathing the hook, also mentioned in the simile from Iliad 24, has a special resonance here. Once again, as we have seen earlier, the poet seems to preview the cattle of the sun episode, where eating the καλαὶ βόες εὐρυμέτωποι (12.262) will bring death for the sailors.

The Greeks sail on, finally reaching Thrinakia, where the cattle and sheep of Helios, previously unmolested, live under the protection of their two female shepherds. As this final deadly adventure, previewed in the poem’s seventh verse, finally comes into view again, the poet brings several recurring motifs to a climax. First, we notice that Odysseus hears the animals before seeing them:

"δὴ τότ᾽ ἐγὼν ἔτι πόντῳ ἐὼν ἐν νηὶ μελαίνῃ 
μυκηθμοῦ τ᾽ ἤκουσα βοῶν αὐλιζομενάων 
οἰῶν τε βληχήν:"

"Then, while still on the water and in the dark ship, 
I heard the mooing of the cattle in their pens 
and the beating sheep."

Odyssey 12.264–66

Dangerous female voices beckon once again. Odysseus recalls the warnings of Teiresias and Circe, urging him to sail on by the island, and repeats them to the crew. The tension between centripetal and centrifugal impulses in Odysseus resurfaces, with the former holding sway. In contrast to the Cyclops and Circe episodes, Odysseus seems intent now on seeking home, not satisfying his curiosity and need to master the world through knowledge. This preference will hold from now until the suitors are dead, when the old yearning will reappear in the royal couple’s postcoital chat:

"ὦ γύναι, ἤδη μὲν πολέων κεκορήμεθ᾽ ἀέθλων 
ἀμφοτέρω, σὺ μὲν ἐνθάδ᾽ ἐμὸν πολυκηδέα νόστον 
κλαίουσ᾽. αὐτὰρ ἐμὲ Ζεὺς ἄλγεσι καὶ θεοὶ ἄλλοι 
ἱέμενον πεδάασκον ἐμῆς ἀπὸ πατρίδος αἴης: 
νῦν δ᾽ ἐπεὶ ἀμφοτέρω πολυήρατον ἱκόμεθ᾽ εὐνήν, 
κτήματα μὲν τά μοι ἔστι, κομιζέμεν ἐν μεγάροισι, 
μῆλα δ᾽ ἅ μοι μνηστῆρες ὑπερφίαλοι κατέκειραν, 
πολλὰ μὲν αὐτὸς ἐγὼ ληΐσσομαι, ἄλλα δ᾽ Ἀχαιοὶ 
δώσουσ᾽, εἰς ὅ κε πάντας ἐνιπλήσωσιν ἐπαύλους."

"My dear, already we both are sated with many trials, 
you weeping here over my homecoming, fraught with troubles, 
while Zeus and the other gods held me in pain 
as I longed for my fatherland. 
But now, since we both have returned to our beloved marriage bed, 
you take care of my possessions here in the palace; 
but as for my flocks, which the arrogant suitors have used up, 
many of them I will replace by raiding, and others 
the Achaeans will give me, until they fill all the pens."

Odyssey 23.350–58

The inner struggle, it seems, will never end.

Further Reading

Edwards, M.W. 1987. Homer: Poet of the Iliad, 71–77. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Reinhardt, K. (1942) 1996. “The Adventures in the Odyssey.” In Reading the Odyssey, edited by S. Schein, 102–104, Reprint Princeton: Princeton University Press.