Wonderful post! I agree that it is unnecessary to think about whether Homer has "mistakes" or not, and it is also pointless to think from our mind and written culture about a possible mistake in something that was an oral tradition. I also think that the fact that the Iliad gives us a mother for Aphrodite reinforces her position as daughter of Zeus just like Helen. They need mothers to reinforce their status as sisters of the same father. Scroll 3 is really interesting in this regard.
Thanks for another great post, I love reading you!
Late to the game here, but I wanted to share some thoughts about this excellent essay. First, the correspondence/coherence framework rings true to me. My study has been of the Hittites and we have a text of theirs that writes two variants of one myth on the same (collection of) tablet(s). This being the Illuyanka myth (which parallels closely with Hesiod’s Typhon). They seem to have had no issue with variants in this instance. Further, they often had a multiplicity with their major gods as they would be claimed by major cities. The Storm God of X was ostensibly the same as the Storm God of Y, but could be treated differently depending on which city, X or Y, was the focus of the text.
Secondly, and relatedly, as to Homer making things up, it makes sense to me that he did. But, in the instance of Aphrodite/Dione, he is clearly borrowing (though likely not directly) from Gilgamesh, Tablet 6. There, Ishtar (goddess of love and war - Aphrodite) is spurned by Gilgamesh (Diomedes) and flees to heaven to complains to her father and mother, the sky god Anu (Zeus) and Antu (feminine form of Anu, just like Zeus/Dione if you ignore the genitive case part). Martin West has gone so far as to argue Homer jammed Dione in just to make the parallel work better.
Final note, related again - Hesiod’s story of Aphrodite’s parentage parallels very closely to the Hittite Kumarbi myth. I’ve always wondered why Homer and Hesiod chose two separate Near Eastern myths to be represented in their stories. ‘Chose’ is a strong word here as each likely got it from someone else. But, back along that line a choice was made.
I was thinking about all this for a long time. You have to assume there was a Homer to begin with and I think there was. I believe that a lot of the Illiad and the Odyssey already existed by the time of Homer. I think Homer just put the pieces together and added passages to give the poem more cohesiveness. But if Ho wr did this, he was absolutely brilliant!!!
Wonderful post! I agree that it is unnecessary to think about whether Homer has "mistakes" or not, and it is also pointless to think from our mind and written culture about a possible mistake in something that was an oral tradition. I also think that the fact that the Iliad gives us a mother for Aphrodite reinforces her position as daughter of Zeus just like Helen. They need mothers to reinforce their status as sisters of the same father. Scroll 3 is really interesting in this regard.
Thanks for another great post, I love reading you!
Late to the game here, but I wanted to share some thoughts about this excellent essay. First, the correspondence/coherence framework rings true to me. My study has been of the Hittites and we have a text of theirs that writes two variants of one myth on the same (collection of) tablet(s). This being the Illuyanka myth (which parallels closely with Hesiod’s Typhon). They seem to have had no issue with variants in this instance. Further, they often had a multiplicity with their major gods as they would be claimed by major cities. The Storm God of X was ostensibly the same as the Storm God of Y, but could be treated differently depending on which city, X or Y, was the focus of the text.
Secondly, and relatedly, as to Homer making things up, it makes sense to me that he did. But, in the instance of Aphrodite/Dione, he is clearly borrowing (though likely not directly) from Gilgamesh, Tablet 6. There, Ishtar (goddess of love and war - Aphrodite) is spurned by Gilgamesh (Diomedes) and flees to heaven to complains to her father and mother, the sky god Anu (Zeus) and Antu (feminine form of Anu, just like Zeus/Dione if you ignore the genitive case part). Martin West has gone so far as to argue Homer jammed Dione in just to make the parallel work better.
Final note, related again - Hesiod’s story of Aphrodite’s parentage parallels very closely to the Hittite Kumarbi myth. I’ve always wondered why Homer and Hesiod chose two separate Near Eastern myths to be represented in their stories. ‘Chose’ is a strong word here as each likely got it from someone else. But, back along that line a choice was made.
I was thinking about all this for a long time. You have to assume there was a Homer to begin with and I think there was. I believe that a lot of the Illiad and the Odyssey already existed by the time of Homer. I think Homer just put the pieces together and added passages to give the poem more cohesiveness. But if Ho wr did this, he was absolutely brilliant!!!