The Plan, And Imperfect Translations

On what to expect and Zeus' Plan in the Iliad

The Plan

When a substack representative approached me about moving my work from wordpress I was at first perplexed (why?) and then intrigued (what?) and then perplexed again (how?). Over a few days, though, a plan unfolded. I have spent the better part of 15 years blogging at sententiaeantiquae.com, using it with others as a digital commonplace work, and then a kind of classics commons, and always a kind of carnival space, a textual museum of the past. It was a workbook, a place for discussion, and a venue for building out ideas. But over the past few years, it has felt sluggish. I spent the last year doing thematic things: excerpting something from everything by Pindar; reading all of Seneca’s letters.

Substack wanted me to move it all over, but I used this opportunity as if I were moving from one home to another. I wanted to start from scratch, to leave the other things in storage, and to work on something that gave me what the other site used to: some structure, a sense of community/conversation, and a direction.

In the first few months of this project, then, I plan on focusing almost exclusively on the Iliad. I am going to publish more than once a week (no promises) three or four basic kinds of posts: (1) essays meant for people teaching or learning about the Iliad in translation; (2) book-by-book reading questions; (3) revised essays, thoughts on epic from other sources; (4) random posts on scholia, certain passages, the the bric-a-brac that Homer geeks thrive on. (Also, no promises I will stick just to those four categories).

In the spirit of trying to raise some money for worthy causes, I am going to make category 3 mainly for paid subscriptions and I will embargo parts of category 2. If you’re a student working on Homer or a high school teacher or adjunct professor teaching this material, send me an email and I will make it free for you. For anyone wild enough to take up a paid subscription, I will write a post based on a prompt you provide.

This series on the Iliad will start with 5 posts before focusing on a book by book treatment:

1. Polysymphonic: How to Listen to Homer

2. The Plan, and Imperfect Translations: What the substack is for and how it will proceed

3. 99 Homeric Problems: On the ‘Homeric Question’ and other similar issues

4. Reading and Teaching Homer: Some practical advice on encountering Homer alone or in the classroom

5. Major Themes for Reading and Teaching the Iliad: A summary of five themes emphasized in the substack: (1) Politics, (2) Heroism; (3) Gods and Humans); (4) Family & Friends; (5) Narrative Traditions.

The Plan, for real

Over the next few weeks I will try to establish a pattern of a post per book of the Iliad per week with reading questions. In addition I am going to work on short posts for people who are engaging with Homer at an early stage (or those who are guiding others) that will focus on three main categories (Origins, What is the Iliad; Reading and Teaching Homer; and Major Themes).

What category is this post?

This post doesn’t fit into any of the categories, but I will add somethingabout what I think of when I see the word “plan” associated with Homer. The fifth line of the Iliad ends with the line Διὸς δ’ ἐτελείετο βουλή. A scholion to the Iliad emphasizes the larger cosmic importance of the line.

A shot of the Venetus A for Iliad 1.2-5 with some of the scholia to the right. from the Homeric Multitext Project

D Schol. Ad Hom. Il. 1.5, Διὸς δ᾿ ἐτελείετο βουλή

“Some have claimed that Homer is riffing on another story. For people say that the earth was weighed down by an overpopulation of human beings, and since there was no sense of reverence among them, she asked Zeus to lighten her burden. First, Zeus arranged the Theban War right away. He used that to kill a lot of them, and then in turn he caused the Trojan War, because he listened to Momos’ advice. This is what Homer calls the plan of Zeus, since he was capable of destroying them all with lightning or floods (kataklysm). Momos prevented this, offering instead two plans: first, Thetis’ marriage to a mortal and then the birth of a beautiful girl. From these two events there would be a war between Greeks and barbarians which would result in unburdening the earth because so many were killed. 

This story is told in the Kypria composed by Stasinus who says as follows (Cypria fr. 1)

There was a time when the countless mortal clans

Constantly weighed down the broad chest of the trampled earth.

When Zeus noticed, he felt pity and in his complex thoughts

Devised to unburden the all nourishing land of human beings.

He sowed the seeds of the great conflict around Ilion

To lighten that weight through death. And so at Troy

The heroes were dying and Zeus’ plan was being fulfilled.

ἄλλοι δὲ ἀπὸ ἱστορίας τινὸς εἶπον εἰρηκέναι τὸν Ὅμηρον. φασὶ γὰρ τὴν Γῆν βαρουμένην ὑπὸ ἀνθρώπων πολυπληθίας, μηδεμιᾶς ἀνθρώπων οὔσης εὐσεβείας, αἰτῆσαι τὸν Δία κουφισθῆναι τοῦ ἄχθους· τὸν δὲ Δία πρῶτον μὲν εὐθὺς ποιῆσαι τὸν Θηβαϊκὸν πόλεμον, δι᾿ οὗ πολλοὺς πάνυ ἀπώλεσεν, ὕστερον δὲ πάλιν τὸν Ἰλιακόν, συμβούλωι τῶι Μώμωι χρησάμενος, ἣν Διὸς βουλὴν Ὅμηρός φησιν, ἐπειδὴ οἷός τε ἦν κεραυνοῖς ἢ κατακλυσμοῖς ἅπαντας διαφθείρειν· ὅπερ τοῦ Μώμου κωλύσαντος, ὑποθεμένου δὲ αὐτῶι γνώμας δύο, τὴν Θέτιδος θνητογαμίαν καὶ θυγατρὸς καλῆς γένναν, ἐξ ὧν ἀμφοτέρων πόλεμος Ἕλλησί τε καὶ βαρβάροις ἐγένετο, ἀφ᾿ οὗ συνέβη κουφισθῆναι τὴν γῆν πολλῶν ἀναιρεθέντων. ἡ δὲ ἱστορία παρὰ Στασίνωι τῶι τὰ Κύπρια πεποιηκότι, εἰπόντι οὕτως·

ἦν ὅτε μυρία φῦλα κατὰ χθόνα πλαζόμενα <αἰεί

ἀνθρώπων ἐ>βάρυ<νε βαθυ>στέρνου πλάτος αἴης.

Ζεὺς δὲ ἰδὼν ἐλέησε, καὶ ἐν πυκιναῖς πραπίδεσσιν

κουφίσαι ἀνθρώπων παμβώτορα σύνθετο γαῖαν,

ῥιπίσσας πολέμου μεγάλην ἔριν Ἰλιακοῖο,

ὄφρα κενώσειεν θανάτωι βάρος. οἳ δ᾿ ἐνὶ Τροίηι

ἥρωες κτείνοντο, Διὸς δ᾿ ἐτελείετο βουλή.

Here’s the Iliad again with my simple, artless translation.

Hom. Iliad 1.1-8

Μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω ᾿Αχιλῆος
οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί’ ᾿Αχαιοῖς ἄλγε’ ἔθηκε,
πολλὰς δ’ ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς ῎Αϊδι προΐαψεν
ἡρώων, αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν
οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι, Διὸς δ’ ἐτελείετο βουλή,
ἐξ οὗ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα διαστήτην ἐρίσαντε
᾿Ατρεΐδης τε ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν καὶ δῖος ᾿Αχιλλεύς.

“Goddess, sing the rage of Pelias’ son Achilles,
Destructive, how it gave the Achaeans endless pains
And sent many brave souls of heroes to Hades—
And it made them food for the dogs
And all the birds as Zeus plan was being fulfilled.
Start from when those two first diverged in strife,
The lord of men Atreus’ son and godly Achilles.”

Note the thematic words and how they echo each other, but imprecisely. (In a later post I will borrow from Donna Wilson’s 2002 book Ransom and Revenge to talk about how Homeric poetry ‘refracts’ rather reflects evenly.) Where the Kypria fragment has eris for the whole Trojan War, the Iliad turns the eris into the conflict between Agamemnon and Achilles. Both situate their conflicts in and amidst the race of heroes. But the world is somewhat limited when we move through the Iliad: the D Scholia channels Hesiod’s Works and Days by situating the Trojan War along with the Theban War as part of the end of the heroic age–something Elton and I talk about nearly ad nauseam in our book Homer’s Thebes. But the Iliad rarely mentions Thebes and Troy or the Trojans are absent altogether from its opening lines.

The plan of Zeus may be multiple things. It is clear from the scholion that ancient audiences may have taken this half line as referring to the larger cosmic turning. But it is also the particular plan of this particular epic to have the Trojans win for a while to honor Achilles.  At Iliad 15.71, when Zeus delivers his most detailed articulation of his plan yet, he ascribes it to “the plans of Athena” (Ἀθηναίης δὶα βουλάς). At Odyssey 8.82 Demodokos’ song about the Trojan War has the similar phrase Διὸς μεγάλου διὰ βουλάς, where the plotting is again assigned to Zeus. 

In the Iliad Zeus’ plan is explicitly connected to causing pain for the Achaeans (and Trojans) in the wake of Achilles’ absence from battle. So, the formulaic line “and the will of Zeus was being accomplished” means that Zeus’ plan also potentially encompasses the entire narrative of the Iliad, including the initial quarrel that provokes Achilles’ wrath in the first place. 

The form of the verb ἐτελείετο is imperfect, which means it implies ongoing, incomplete action. At the beginning of the epic, then, this makes it clear that the story about to be told is part of a cosmic narrative, of a larger story, that is not complete. This lack of completion is metonymic, indicating that everything going on is an extension of an affair in action. But I also think it is performative, that is, that it signals that the story can never be finished, that epic itself is ongoing and iterative for the audiences hearing the tale.

Both Stanley Lombardo (“as Zeus' will was done”) and Emily Wilson (“and so the plan of Zeus unfolded”) seem not to reflect this incompletion in their translations. Yet both are arguably doing some of the work with different phrasing. Lombardo’s use of the temporal clause (“as….”) makes the action of Achilles’ rage occur during the process of Zeus’ will while Wilson’s “unfolded” is perfective but has something of a revelatory character. The unfolding, paired with the “so” makes Achilles’ rage subordinate to and therefore part of a larger plan that is still in motion.

The one thing that neither translation can do, however, is reflect the echoic language of the dios boulê. No modern reader without experience of the larger mythic cosmos or a suitable footnote can have access to the resonance triggered by Διὸς δ᾿ ἐτελείετο βουλή. And while I and others who can read the Greek might recoil at this reflexively, neither Lombardo nor Wilson are composing in an oral-formulaic context. Few readers would sense the importance of an imperfect translation in English; and most of those who would, probably aren’t the audience for translations to begin with.

[For an analysis of the polysemy of Zeus’ will, see Clay 1999. For the imperfect tense as emphasizing the incompletion of the plan, see Lynn-George 1988:38. On the dios boulê in the wider tradition, in particular the proem of the Cypria and the annihilation of the race of Heroes: Mayer 1996 (esp. for Helen); Murnaghan 1997; Marks 2002; Barker 2008.]

Lyric Bonus:

While many would consider these themes and the key words evoking them to be a special province of epic, I think it is important to note that they exist all over early Greek poetry. Here is a good example from Lyric:

Ibykos, fr. 282 (=fr. 1a) Oxyrhynchus papyrus (c. 130 b.c.); lines 1-32

They also destroyed the famous,
blessed, large city of Priam
after leaving from Argos
thanks to the plans of Zeus,
taking on the much-sung strife
for the beauty of fair Helen
in that mournful war;
Destruction climbed the ruined city
because of golden-haired Aphrodite.

Now, I don’t long to sing
of host-deceiving Paris
or tender-ankled Kassandra,
or the rest of the children of Priam
and the nameless day
of the sacking of high-gated Troy,
Nor yet the overreaching virtue
of heroes whom the hollow,
many-banched ships brought
as the destruction of Troy.

Fine heroes and Agememnon was their leader,
a king from Pleisthenes,
a son of Atreus, a noble father.

The learned Muses of Helicon
might take up these tales well;
but no mortal man, unblessed,
could number each of the ships
Menelaos led across the Aegean sea from Aulos,
from Argos they came, the bronze-speared sons of the Achaeans…”

οἳ κ]αὶ Δαρδανίδα Πριάμοιο μέ-
γ’ ἄσ]τυ περικλεὲς ὄλβιον ἠνάρον
῎Αργ]οθεν ὀρνυμένοι
Ζη]νὸς μεγάλοιο βουλαῖς
ξα]νθᾶς ῾Ελένας περὶ εἴδει
δῆ]ριν πολύυμνον ἔχ[ο]ντες
πό]λεμον κατὰ δακρ[υό]εντα,
Πέρ]γαμον δ’ ἀνέ[β]α ταλαπείριο[ν ἄ]τα
χρυ]σοέθειραν δ[ι]ὰ Κύπριδα.
νῦ]ν δέ μοι οὔτε ξειναπάταν Π[άρι]ν
..] ἐπιθύμιον οὔτε τανί[σφ]υρ[ον
ὑμ]νῆν Κασσάνδραν
Πρι]άμοιό τε παίδας ἄλλου[ς
Τρο]ίας θ’ ὑψιπύλοιο ἁλώσι[μο]ν
ἆμ]αρ ἀνώνυμον· οὐδεπ̣[
ἡρ]ώων ἀρετὰν
ὑπ]εράφανον οὕς τε κοίλα[ι
νᾶες] πολυγόμφοι ἐλεύσα[ν
Τροί]αι κακόν, ἥρωας ἐσ̣θ̣[λούς·

τῶν] μὲν κρείων ᾿Αγαμέ[μνων
ἆ]ρχε Πλεισθ[ενί]δας βασιλ[εὺ]ς ἀγὸς ἀνδρῶν
᾿Ατρέος ἐσ[θλοῦ] πάις ἐκ π̣[ατρό]ς·
καὶ τὰ μὲ[ν ἂν] Μοίσαι σεσοφ[ισμ]έναι
εὖ ῾Ελικωνίδ[ες] ἐμβαίεν λογ̣[ ·
θνατὸς δ’ οὔ κ[ε]ν ἀνὴρ
διερὸ[ς] τὰ ἕκαστα εἴποι
ναῶν ὡ[ς Μεν]έλαος ἀπ’ Αὐλίδος
Αἰγαῖον δ[ιὰ πό]ντον ἀπ’ ῎Αργεος
ἠλύθο̣[ν …..]ν
ἱπποτρόφο[ν …]ε φώτες
χ]αλκάσπ[ιδες υἷ]ες ᾿Αχα[ι]ῶν

Some things to read

Allan, W. 2006. “Divine Justice and Cosmic Order in Early Greek Epic.” The Journal of Hellenic Studies 126:1–35.

Barker, Elton. ———. 2008. “ ‘Momos Advises Zeus’: The Changing Representations of Cypria Fragment One.” In Greece, Rome and the Near East, ed. E. Cingano and L. Milano, 33–73. Padova.

Clay, J. S. ———. 1999. “The Whip and the Will of Zeus.” In Literary Imagination, 1.1:40–60.

Lynn-George, M. 1988. Epos: Word, Narrative, and the Iliad. Atlantic Highlands.

Mayer, K. 1996. “Helen and the ΔΙΟΣ ΒΟΥΛΗ.” The American Journal of Philology 117:1–15.

Marks, J. R. 2002. “The Junction between the Cypria and the Iliad.” Phoenix 56:1–24.

Murnaghan, Sheila. ———. 1997. “Equal Honor and Future Glory: The Plan of Zeus in the Iliad.” In Classical Closure: Reading the End in Greek and Latin Literature, ed. F. M. Dunn, D. P. Fowler, and D. H. Roberts, 23–42. Princeton.

Wilson, D. F. 2002a. Ransom, Revenge and Heroic Identity in the Iliad. Cambridge.