Insidious Inception?

Nestor’s Speech to Patroklos in Iliad 11

This is one of a few posts dedicated to Iliad 11. As a reminder, these posts will remain free, but there is an option to be a financial supporter. All proceeds from the substack are donated to classics adjacent non-profits on a monthly basis. I’ll be taking the rest of the year off, so expect a return to Iliad 12 in January.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, one of the most important parts of book 11 is when Nestor tells a long story to Patroklos that seems result in Patroklos volunteering to take Achilles’ place in battle. As we learn from Zeus’ speeches, this is an essential part of re-targeting Achilles’ rage toward Hektor and completing the plot of the Iliad. Whether or not persuading Patroklos is Nestor’s goal has at times been a hot topic of Homeric scholarship. Karl Reinhardt would not be the first or the last scholar to sense something insidious in Nestor’s story.

Nestor’s speech in book 11 provides the longest persuasive story from myth (a paradeigmata) in the Iliad, longer still than Phoenix’s story of Meleager. Julia Haig Gaisser does a great job of laying out the structure of the speech (9-13) and emphasizes the difference in style between the somewhat confusing story he tells and the relatively direct advice he provides at the end.

But on what criteria to we base an evaluation of Nestor’s speech? I have posted before about persuasive examples in Homeric speeches—so-called paradeigmata—and have argued that they rarely result in what the speaker intends. This helps to demonstrate to external audiences that narrative often goes awry and that its effect on the world and listeners can be unpredictable because audiences bring experiences and knowledge to the story that the teller may not anticipate. As I discuss in post on Iliad 9, one cognitive approach to literature can be useful in helping to understand what is going on here.

A heroic blend: Original artwork by Brittany Beverung

In his book The Literary Mind, Mark Turner argues that when we hear (or read) a story, we cannot experience the narrative created by the teller of the tale. Instead, the story unfolds in a cognitive blend in a space between the world of the narrative and the reader’s mind. What this means, in effect, is that our actual mental picture of narrative blends our own experiences and memories with the sketches we receive from stories and generates a new thing, a tale wholly in our own minds.

My general approach to all of the stories told by Homeric speakers is to try to understand that tension between the story that is told and the reaction it elicits by imagining how other characters might mis-read or re-read the story they hear based on their own perspectives or desires. At the same time, however, if we are thinking about Homeric characters telling stories, we also have to think of the way they blend traditional elements with their current circumstances and their own desired outcomes. This tripling and then doubling again of perspectives in turn provides really useful lessons in how to read Homeric poetry which is a prolonged adaptation of received material in particular contexts for diverse and changing audiences.

Let’s get to Nestor: he is positioned by the Iliad as an effective if not an ideal speaker. He has previously used paradigmatic narratives to persuade his audiences to different outcomes. In book 1, he fails to reconcile Achilles and Agamemnon; in book 7 he shames Achaeans into standing up to face Hektor’s challenge. When Nestor speaks to Patroklos, he takes a personal approach: he dismisses Achilles’ concern and provides a catalogue of the wounded Greeks. His opening assertion—that Achilles has no concern for the Greeks—is then balance by a wish to be young again the way he was during some cattle wars. He tells a story of a cattle raid in his youth that led to the Epeians attacking Pylos following the seizure of herds to make up for some stolen horses. Neleus, Nestor’s father, would not allow him to go to war, but he did it any way and killed many men, earning glory for himself.

Nestor moves from his long story to  dismiss Achilles as someone whose bravery is only for himself—he “toils for his virtue alone” (αὐτὰρ ᾿Αχιλλεὺς / οἶος τῆς ἀρετῆς ἀπονήσεται, 11.763). Nestor then reminds Patroklos of his own father Menoitios who advised Patroklos to calm Achilles, to advise him. So Nestor asks him to try to persuade Achilles to return or, if Achilles is holding back for some secret reason, to go to war himself and provide some respite to the Greeks. The narrative lets us know that Nestor “raised the spirit in Patroklos’ chest” (     ῝Ως φάτο, τῷ δ' ἄρα θυμὸν ἐνὶ στήθεσσιν ὄρινε,) with this speech. Stanley Lombardo translates this line as “This speech put great notions in Patroclus’ head”.

According to some sources this cup shows Hecamede mixing kykeon for Nestor. Tondo of an Attic red-figure cup, c. 490 BC. From Vulci.

Before thinking about Patroklos, I think it is useful to focus first on how Nestor is adapting this story. The scholia have a few summaries of the events contextualizing Nestor’s tale:

Schol. D ad Hom. Il. 11.672

“Neleus was the son of Poseidon was the best equestrian of his time and he sent horses to Elis for the contest conducted by Augeas. When those horses were victorious, Augeas became envious and took them. He sent the charioteers off untouched. When Neleus learned of this, he maintained peace. But Nestor, his youngest child, gathered an army and attached Elis. He killed many people and regained the horses. They also took more than a little booty from the enemy. Pherecydes tells this story.”

᾿Αμφὶ βοηλασίης. Περὶ βοῶν ἀπελασίας.῞Οτ' ἐγὼ κτάνον ᾿Ιτυμονῆα. Νηλεὺς ὁΠοσειδῶνος, ἱππικώτατος τῶν καθ' αὑτὸν γενόμενος, ἔπεμψεν εἰς ῏Ηλιν ἵππους ἐς τὸν ὑπ' Αὐγέου συντελούμενον ἀγῶνα. Νικησάντων δὲ τούτων, φθονήσας Αὐγέας, ἀπέσπασε τούτους, καὶ τοὺς ἡνιόχους ἀφῆκεν ἀπράκτους. Νηλεὺς δὲ γνοὺς, ἡσυχίαν ἦγε. Νέστωρ δὲ, ὁ τῶν παίδων αὐτοῦ νεώτατος, στρατὸν ἀθροίσας, ἐπῆλθεν ῎Ηλιδι. καὶ πολλοὺς ἀποκτείνας, ἀπέλαβε τοὺς ἵππους. καὶ οὐκ ὀλίγην τῶν πολεμίων ἀπέσυραν λείαν. ῾Η ἱστορία παρὰ Φερεκύδῃ.

I am not sure how much this little narrative does for us! (and if you want much, much more on this, I think Doug Frame’s Hippota Nestor will never be surpassed) I do think we can see the opening and closing of Nestor’s speech as instructive. He focuses on responsibility, friendship, and community in framing his narrative: then, he tells a story about individual glory that seems to redound positively on the community. The most important detail that jumps out is his selection of a particular course of action against his father’s wishes. (Indeed, Patroklos as somehow a child to Achilles, despite his older age, is important to the opening scene in book 16 where Achilles compares him to a little girl tugging at her mother’s apron strings).

Nestor’s request/advice near the end is couched in the caveat: unless Achilles has special knowledge. I think if we remember book 9 correctly, we have no reason to believe that Nestor knows Achilles has sworn an oath not to return to battle. Patroklos, however, certainly knows this. Given his own experience of Achilles’ character and Nestor’s story plus the option of leading the Achaeans to battle, we have to imagine Patroklos as accepting that advice as the only option.

Victoria Pedrick usefully contextualizes this speech in the scholarship of paradeigmata and addresses the question of the ‘lesson’s’ target. According to pedtrick Nestor’s speech in book 11 differs from other persuasive speeches: She notes that “The absence of both command and direct comparison is not normal in paradigmatic speeches and it makes Nestor's exhortation in 11 unusually indirect” and suggests that “The implicit character of Nestor's exhortation can be explained by the fact that Nestor is talking not to Achilles, but to Patroklos. The observation is obvious, but it ought to be emphasized”(59). This interpretation, as she implies, is not fully in accord with the situation: Nestor’s long description of his own accomplishments in battle amount to an aristeia that may be scene as an example of heroic behavior for Achilles. The lesson, Pedrick concludes following Karl Reinhardt, is for Patroklos, or, at least he takes it as a model. One of the difficulties in this argument for me, is following the conclusion (67-68) that Achilles has “misread the situation” and expects an appeal from the Greeks. Achiles has perhaps correctly read the situation, he just does not expect Patroklos to appeal to him and make the request he does.

One of the bugbears stalking this debate is to what extent Nestor adapts or innovates in the telling of his tale and, to make it more complex, how much we can imagine the Homeric narrator adapting and innovating in positioning Nestor to do so. There was a time in Homeric scholarship when some argues that innovation or ‘ad hoc’ invention was difficult to imagine for traditional poetry. This is where cognitive approaches have been helpful in showing how narrative moves and changes based on the audience. Elizabeth Minchin’s article on this speech is especially good: she concludes that “his episode reflects the narrator's skill in turning traditional material to communicative advantage” (285). Nestor is shown here arguing for two possible outcomes: Achilles returns and receives glory through his aristeia (not through goods, as Phoinix argues), or, if he cannot return for some reason, Patroklos takes his place and wins glory too, providing a break to the Greeks.

Rather than being a trick or insidious, Nestor is hedging his bets. He is clear about the problem, offers potential solutions, and uses himself as an example of winning glory in messed-up situations. We, as the audience, think there is something off here, because we know (1) what Achilles asked of Zeus (to punish the Achaeans) and (2) that Patroklos’ death will bring Achilles back to war.

Some things to read on Nestor in book 11

Frame, Douglas. 2009. Hippota Nestor. Hellenic Studies Series 37. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_Frame.Hippota_Nestor.2009.

Gaisser, Julia Haig. “A Structural Analysis of the Digressions in the Iliad and the Odyssey.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 73 (1969): 1–43. https://doi.org/10.2307/311147.

Louden, D. Bruce. “Iliad 11 : healing, healers, Nestor, and Medea.” Yearbook of Ancient Greek Epic, vol. 2, 2018, pp. 151-164. Doi: 10.1163/24688487-00201005

Minchin, Elizabeth. “Speaker and listener, text and context : some notes on the encounter of Nestor and Patroklos in Iliad II.” Classical World, vol. LXXXIV, 1990-1991, pp. 273-285.

Pedrick, Victoria. “The paradigmatic nature of Nestor's speech in Iliad 11.” TAPA, vol. CXIII, 1983, pp. 55-68.

Karl Reinhardt, Die Iliad und ihr Dichter (Gottingen 1961) 258-64;

Roisman, Hanna M.. “Nestor the good counsellor.” Classical Quarterly, N. S., vol. 55, no. 1, 2005, pp. 17-38. Doi: 10.1093/cq/bmi002

Strauss Clay, Jenny. “Iliad 1.282-284 and Nestor’s rhetoric of compromise.” Mnemosyne, Ser. 4, vol. 67, no. 6, 2014, pp. 987-993. Doi: 10.1163/1568525X-12301444

Willcock, M. M. “Ad Hoc Invention in the Iliad.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 81 (1977): 41–53. https://doi.org/10.2307/311110.

Some things to read on paradeigmata

Andersen, Øivind. 1987. “Myth Paradigm and Spatial Form in the Iliad.” In Homer Beyond Oral Poetry: Recent Trends in Homeric Interpretation, edited by Jan Bermer and Irene J. F. De Jong. John Benjamins.’

Barker, Elton T. E. and Christensen, Joel P. 2011. “On Not Remembering Tydeus: Agamemnon, Diomedes and the Contest for Thebes.” MD: 9–44.

Brenk, F. 1984 “Dear Child: the Speech of Phoinix and the Tragedy of Achilles in the Ninth Book of the Iliad.” Eranos, 86: 77–86.

Braswell, B. K. 1971. “Mythological Innovation in the Iliad.” CQ, 21: 16-26.

Clark, Matthew. 1997. “Chryses’ Supplication: Speech Act and Mythological Allusion.” Classical Antiquity, 17: 5–24.

Combellack, F.M. 1976. “Homer the Innovator.” CP 71: 44-55.

Edmunds, L. 1997. Myth in Homer, in A New Companion to Homer, edited by I. Morris and B. Powell, 415–441. Leiden.

Held, G. 1987. “Phoinix, Agamemnon and Achilles. Problems and Paradeigmata.” CQ 36: 141-54.

Martin, Richard. 1989. The Language of Heroes: Speech and Performance in the Iliad. Ithaca.

Nagy, Gregory. 1996. Homeric Questions, Austin.

---,---. 2009. “Homer and Greek Myth.” Cambridge Companion to Greek Mythology, 52–82.

Toohey, Peter. 1994. “Epic and Rhetoric.” In Persuasion: Greek Rhetoric in Actions edited by Ian Worthington. London: Routledge: 153–75.

Willcock, M.M. 1967. “Mythological Paradeigmata in the Iliad.” Classical Quarterly, 14:141-151.

____,____. 1977, Ad hoc invention in the Iliad, HSCP 81:41–53.

Yamagata, Naoko. 1991. “Phoinix’s Speech: Is Achilles Punished?” Classical Quarterly, 41:1-15.