Are Homer’s Epics Unfinished?

 

   Are Homer’s Epics Unfinished?

For many years scholars have looked at the fact that the Iliad does not cover the entire Trojan War, and that Book 24 of the Odyssey appears to be a clumsy add-on to explain the resolution of the blood feud on Ithaca, to make the case that both of Homer’s epics are unfinished works. However, when one views the two works within the framework of the entire body of epic poetry of ancient Greece by numerous authors covering the subjects in question, one will certainly reach the conclusion that both epics are full and complete as we read them today.

First we have to remember that our current versions of the Iliad and the Odyssey were written down in some distant past and were the transcriptions of a long-standing oral tradition of poetic song. They were both parts of a very much wider body of works which taken together, cover the parts that are considered by many to be missing in what we determine to be Homer’s epics. There were several other works like the Cypria, the Aethiopis and the Iliou Persis, which told the story of the events leading up to the war, the death of Achilles and the eventual fall of the city of Troy. The Iliad covers only a 52 day period in the 10^th year of the war and despite what readers might expect, events beyond that period were never meant to be included in the epic.

While the backdrop for the action in the Iliad is indeed the Trojan War, Homer makes it very clear from the opening lines what the story is about:

Let wrath be your song O Goddess! Sing of the accursed rage of Achilles, son of Peleus, which brought untold woes to the Achaeans and banished to Hades many stalwart souls of heroes, turning them into carrion for dogs and birds of prey, thereby bringing to final fulfillment the plan of Zeus.

So the Iliad is a story with a limited scope focusing on the anger of Achilles and not the entire war. For this reason it feels incomplete to modern readers who are used to Hollywood endings with their final wrap-up and the hero riding off into the sunset, or the lovers disappearing down the beach hand in hand, or under the sheets gland in gland, with the screen fading to darkness.

The story of the fateful wrath of Achilles is told in three main parts and the remainder of the epic provides an entertaining canvas upon which this picture of anger is painted. The inciting incident that caused the wrath in the first place was the confiscation, by the commander-in-chief Agamemnon, of the war-prize Briseis who had first been granted to Achilles. This was considered by Achilles as a great insult to his personal honour and the result was a provocation of his immense wrath. He called the king every name imaginable and was on the point of rushing at him with his sword when he was restrained. In a fit of pique, he retired to his tent and refused to take any further part in the fighting, no matter what the dire consequences might be to the Achaeans.

The second part of the anger story is seen as the climax to the whole affair. Patroclus, the beloved companion of Achilles, convinced the hero to allow him to wear his armour and enter the battle in order to fool the Trojans into thinking that Achilles had returned to the fighting. He disobeyed the hero’s instructions and strayed too close to the Trojan walls and was ultimately slain by Hector. The death of his friend inflamed the rage of Achilles and drove him back into the fray. In an act of supreme revenge he killed the Trojan hero and then, acting like a madman, proceeded to desecrate Hector’s fallen corpse.

The third part of the story was the resolution of the wrath of Achilles. Hector’s grieving father King Priam made his way under the cover of darkness to the tent of Achilles and begged the Achaean hero to release his son’s body for burial. In a touching scene his anger is dissolved and he treats the old man like his own father. As he says to Priam,

But come now and sit down and we will allow our sorrows and pain to subside in our hearts for no good comes from cold grieving.

Homer’s story is complete and he has finished what he set out to relate. The fact that a time-out from the war was declared for the funeral of Hector is just further evidence that the wrath of Achilles has fully dissipated.

Then the swift-footed godlike Achilles answered him. This will all happen as you so desire aged Priam and I will hold us back from battle for as long as you have outlined to me.

Some scholars believe the Odyssey to be incomplete for two reasons. The ending of the epic has been debated and some think that the original version ended at the close of Book 23 and that Book 24 was a later addition by a different author(s). The major reason for this point of view is that the killing of the 108 suitors by Odysseus, Telemachus and their companions would have created a blood feud among the families of those slain and that this would have been a major issue in ancient Greece that would have required formal resolution. The conflict would have been left unaddressed, had not Athena and Zeus intervened to set up peace and stave off a civil war in the region. This has been seen as a clumsy attempt to tie up loose ends and one would have expected the poet to have composed a human-based solution to a human-caused situation, rather than a deus ex machina resolution, where a seemingly unsolvable problem is suddenly and unexpectedly resolved by an unlikely occurrence or intervention. This type of divine intervention is seen as, abrupt, artificial or convenient and not a logical outcome to the story, and hardly Homeric.

The second reason why the Odyssey is seen by some as incomplete is that it does not tell the whole story of Odysseus. We learn nothing about his ongoing life as the king of Ithaca after his return, his subsequent travels, his additional children and finally his death. Now these subjects are covered in other works contained in the full epic cycle like the Telegony, but it begs the question as to whether it was ever Homer’s intent to include them in the Odyssey. Like the Iliad, we have to ask what the scope of the poem was intended to be. We know that the Iliad was a story about wrath and not war, and likewise with the Odyssey, it was not Homer’s intent to write a biography of Odysseus. The Odyssey also has a limited scope. It is the story of Nostos and Oikos, the journey home of a wanderer and the re-establishment of his household. Homer makes it very clear in the opening lines what the story is about.

Speak to me Muse of that man of many ins and outs who traveled far and wide after he had sacked the lofty citadel of Troy. He came to know many cities and the thoughts of many men and many were the evils he suffered at sea while trying to save himself and secure the safe return home of his comrades.

The final conclusion of Homer’s story is what happened at the end of the Nostos, the journey. Odysseus was reunited with his wife, son and father and those who were destroying his household were themselves destroyed. The Oikos was re-established and any subsequent attacks on the allies of the suitors served the purpose of making sure that the Oikos was secure for the future. The fact that the resolution of the blood feud was taken care of by divine intervention is immaterial. The story was finished and there was no reason for Homer to carry it any further. Tracking Odysseus into the future was not the bard’s intent and his failure to do so cannot result in the conclusion that the Odyssey was incomplete. It was left to others to pick up that part of the story.

So both the Iliad and the Odyssey were complete and self-contained epics that covered the specific scopes that were intended for them. Both should be considered finished works, although the ending of the Odyssey might be debatable. Events that some feel should have been included in the two poems are covered by other works in the epic cycle and were outside of the stated scope of Homer’s works. What we have today are two standalone works that are part of a larger saga, but unfortunately many parts of that saga are missing and all we have extant are fragments of the works and literary or historical references to their existence.