Homer, Virgil and Oral Tradition Author(s): Kevin O'Nolan Source: Baloideas, Iml. 37/38 (1969/1970), pp.

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HOMER, VIRGIL AND ORAL TRADITION

There Homer can be no doubt to later Greeks and Romans, that the epic tradition, transmitted from was built upon oral foundations. certain canons of style to subsequent epic

Thus Homer

has dictated all) literature. At the same time later writers did not of writing conform blindly to Homeric dicta; the medium imposed A simple example of the diverg its own laws, its own refinements. a long simile-often introduces ence is this: when Homer an and strik..ng digression-he uses a special attractive invariably (and indeed to haul us back to the narrative re-entry device proper.' The is that in an oral milieu continuity is basic to under explanation is broken, if the audience is diverted for standing and if continuity some purpose, it must be formally recalled to the main road, so to speak.2 For example, Homer compares the combat of Agamemnon and two sons of Priam with a lion invading the lair of a doe: 'As a

into the lair, easily crushes the young fawns of a swift doe seizing them with his mighty teeth, and deprives them of their even if she is near-by, cannot help them. gentle life; the mother, fear comes over her and she rushes swiftly through the Terrible growth and thicket sweating in her haste away from the onset of lion, going the mighty beast. So no one of the Trojans could help them: they for the moment, claims themselves were in rout.'3 The digression, a device of recall (So) is and in oral conditions all our attention a necessity. Virgil, on the other hand, frequently neglects such a of the love-lorn Dido is as device. For example, his description over the whole city follows: 'Luckless Dido burns and wanders in torment, like a doe pierced by an arrow when a shepherd from in Cretan a distance has transfixed her in an unguarded moment and has left in her the flying arrow woods as he shoots his missiles, it. She passes through the woods and glens of without knowing in her flight; the fatal reed sticks in her side.'4 Virgil does Dicte
Calif. Univ. Pr. 1938, p. 93. S. E., The Poetry Bassett, of Homer, 2 It are not simply such devices obsolete be remarked that features may of oral communication, or ancient of ancient epic, they are part of the nature a speech for example, but I digress, he is If a person making modern. says, a formal of a kind of recall, often necessary the same device signpost using in oral communication. 8 11, 113-121. Iliad, * IV, 68-73. Aeneid, 123 1 See

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I24

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0 NOLAN

not But

say

' So Dido

wandered,

pierced

simile or digression

ends abruptly

himself

to supply the link, to recall to the context. From a literary point of view, inviting the reader to reflect is not only an effective technique but, so to speak, to the written word. a new law conformable of the Irish Aeneid' may throw a little light on concept of epic. What we are dealing with is the transla for readers but derived from tion of the Aeneid, itself a work written oral techniques, into an oral milieu and influenced by Homeric a sort of cycle from A to B and back to A. The instincts of the the classical translator, A consideration

its very abruptness-haeret reader and causes him by reflection

or wounded by love.' The and is not linked into the context. lateri letalis harundo-stops the

different

what he does with the text canons of taste and style. readers will Aeneas,

before

him, will

indicate end of

Let us give an example: the Aeneid:

recall the powerful

cast in the heroic mould of Achilles, nevertheless which stirs within has a deep compassion him when his great lies helpless before him. But as he softens he antagonist, Turnus, catches sight of the belt of the youthful Pallas, previously killed by Tumus, about the enemy's middle The final lines (on Turnus) are: Ast Vitaque and a savage rage shuts out mercy.

illi solvunturfrigore indignata

membra, sub umbras.

cum gemitu fugit

This powerful ending, which leaves a taste in the mind, which leaves us to reflect on the irony of life and death and on the complexity of the human soul, by all our literary instincts must stand unaltered. Yet what does the Irish translator do ? His instinct is to complete the story by explicit details, not to end thus abruptly on a dramatic to the reflection of the reader. Much of note, not to leave matters But the final lines, the abrupt the final scene is closely translated. a ending is omitted and there follows appendix which non-Virgilian tells what happened afterwards in (something already adumbrated the course of the story by way of prophecy, divine promise and so to the kingship married Lavinia, Ascanius succeeded on-Aeneas and so forth ' till the Judgment come.' We are back to the folk-tale lived happily approach which assures us that those who survived
1 Imtheachta 1907. The Aeniasa?The was Irish Aeneid. Ed. made circa 1400. Calder, Irish Texts Society,

transcription

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HOMER,

VIRGIL

AND

ORAL

TRADITION

I25

afterwards.

We

may

consider

that

the Irish adapter Equally we may of style and taste

has made realize to which

a his

complete botch the translator has different

of an artistic work. canons

that

adaptation must conform.

A similar observation may be made about the beginning of the a long epic. Here the adapter prefaces to the Virgilian narrative to the departure preamble which purports to explain the background from Troy. Not only is this preamble not in Virgil, it is derived is non-Homeric, is and, as far as Aeneas from a tradition which account of that hero. to Virgil's (and Homer's) as traitor. He to depart by a is permitted Aeneas in the his of the who have benefited surrender by part the Greeks, to is never be a traitor trusted.2 I sing city but who conclude that concerned, hostile is here described manner abrupt and as yet obscure opening3 (in the of arms and theman-an not of Homer's Sing, goddess, the wrath of Achilles)-is to the Irish story-teller, who likes to begin at the begin acceptable ning in the manner of a folk-tale teller who says there was once a king and he had three sons. He likes to set the scene, introduce his characters and allow the plot to develop in an orderly and chronolo gical manner. there is a much from this foreign introductory matter Apart is worth examining. from Virgil which more significant departure 'in medias res . . . auditorem rapit '4 The literary dictum of Horace and the examples he gives in its context is related to epic writing, the are and the Odyssey. It can in this Iliad of good practice regard be said in a general way that both these epics start not at the res,' or into beginning but plunge the reader or listener 'in medias the middle of the action. For example the Iliad concerns the wrath of Achilles, not the ten-year siege nor the capture of Troy, which ' ' is a middle may be considered as the ' res ' of which the wrath incident. 'The Trojan egg' war,' (that from the double ' is not set forth to quote Horace, a remote not from beginning which is,

2 from also does not accord with the tale of his departure This opening The opening matter later tells Dido. Aeneas Aeneas thus makes Troy, which but a liar. not only a traitor ' ' ' 8 'Arms the theme of the Aeneid states and the man ; the wrath ' briefly ' stems. from Iliad the whole is the which of Achilles anger 4 Ars Po?tica, 148-149. Horace,

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I26

KEVIN

O'NOLAN

would

start

the tale from the birth of the Odyssey,

of Helen

by way

of an egg laid

by Leda).5 In respect

however, the 'medias res' principle has a much wider and deeper meaning, and whether Horace realized that a distinct new element was here involved is not clear from his remarks.6 The Odyssey, to the muse, following the usual apostrophe tells us that all the other Greeks who had escaped the war and the sea had reached home, but Odysseus alone was detained by Calypso on her island. Had we started from Troy to describe Odysseus's home-faring,

we would be in one sense immediately in medias res, into the middle of the action, as in the Iliad. But as things stand we are told Odysseus has reached Calypso's island and the order for his departure from it is given. Not only is the poet committed to telling us how he gets home, but also how he got as far as Ogygia, Calypso's island, in the first place. Furthermore, he is in no hurry there while he shows us the scene at in Ithaca, and stirs up interest in his eventual sending his son, Telemachus, on a fact-finding mission. Not until four books have passed do we return to him and effect his release from Calypso. Not until he has travelled further and been shipwrecked is he allowed to pause in a friendly country and tell-in an enormous flashback of four books-how he got from Troy to Calypso's island. This complex process might be better described as mediae res rerum mediarum. The complex narrative sequence of the Odyssey with its flashback technique, so fruitful for subsequent literature, may, perhaps, have been a Homeric a great and dramatic innovation, invention; but 'natural ' order it seems clear that it is contrary to the immemorial Odysseus's return by home of story-telling.7
5 6

to do either.

He

leaves him

Chronological

order is followed

invariably

in folk

Op. cit. 147. remark the hearer about into the middle of the action The is plunging in its context rather isolated and is not developed. Some lines earlier Horace ' the opening line of the Odyssey quotes approvingly (with its much-travelled man to suggest it enables to amplify later on by that the poet ') and seems tales of wonder and adventure. See Horace, Later critics, op. cit. 136-152. for example the principle of starting from the acknowledged Quintilian, more See middle Inst. x, 11. VII, specifically. Quintilian, ' ' 7 oral tales contain many some of which may refer to Long digressions, incidents For the of how the hero. previous concerning story example, a boar encounter with Odysseus got a scar in a youthful (Od. 19, 392-466), or the Boyhood of C? Chulainn in the T?in. Deeds Such digressions have continued on page I27

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HOMER,

VIRGIL

AND

ORAL

TRADITION

I27

tales. implicit

Irish

manuscripts)

tales (I mean here heroic tales recorded in follow the same pattern. Homeric narrative itself has in its techniques a principle of orderly step by step des in the Aeneid on one level uses

literary

cription.
For example, the Iliad as a pattern. like Achilles, has a divine mother who inter Aeneas, venes on his behalf with Jupiter (or Zeus), and the eventual conffict as far as the narrative method is concerned Virgil follows the Virgil

with Tumus and its resolutionmatches theAchilles-Hector struggle.

But

remarkable technique of the Odyssey. Aeneas is discovered for us

not in Troy but within reach of Italy. He is about to complete the last part of his voyage when a storm blows him off course and he lands in Africa. Here he is kindly received by Dido, and this is the occasion for him to tell us and Dido how he came to be within reach of Italy. The only thing we may be presumed to know-Dido knows it and all the world knows it-is that Aeneas is a Trojan who nobly and vainly defended Troy. It is Aeneas's task to tell of the sack of Troy and his subsequent adventures.8 Virgil's Aeneid, starts near the end of then, like the Odyssey,9 the story. A focal point is quickly reached at which the narrative looks back and covers all the part from the chronological beginning (and covers it chronologically). Only then are we au courant, so to speak, listening to the actual tale of the author (as distinct from a

8 It is to be noted last step that that the story of the storm, is, the very in these adventures, to Dido This is told briefly is not part of his task. by a leading In the same way the story of the storm which Ilioneus, Trojan. is told from Calypso's to Phaeacia island by Odysseus brought separately to Nausicaa and more first briefly fully to her Odysseus (Od. vi, 170-173) with of the hero's meeting Nausicaa the addition and mother father with reason in these adventures is The the final (Od. vii, why step 241-297). of necessity it has already, and at length, and briefly told is that separately within each been order told by the author. section, Chronological applies or a character) and the that is, the story of the storm by the author (whether account hero's of his earlier adventures. 9 are a separate at the affairs of Telemachus, The which complication of the Odyssey, in the Aene?d unlike have no counterpart ;Aeneas, beginning nor wife to return to. home has neither Odysseus,

continued from pbage126

a purpose, in the telling order but they are quite from transposed distinct of a tale. The Irish Literature, p. 3) by Dillon, suggestion (mentioned Early on Aeneid the ii and iii ignores could be modelled Deeds that the Boyhood was have would factor of transposition; what later, apparently, repugnant so earlier. been

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I28

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O'NOLAN

narration

of one of the characters

of the tale).

In the Aeneid,

the

first book describes

the storm and landing at Carthage,

and reaches

the focal point at which Aeneas Books two and three are devoted The story of the sack of Troy-the a logical element of Virgil's

can tell of his earlier adventures. to these adventures. narrative Troy's of Aeneid II-is not to the fall is anterior

subject.

is departure of Aeneas and his followers, which, one may presume, one can see compelling the true starting point of the epic. However, reasons for including this earlier element of Trojan affairs: it was not part challenge episode needed of Homer's capable narrative, fitted and represented in artistic narrative of being of Dido a dramatic and compression; in Virgil's eyes a it is in itself a unified

and stirring

into the Aeneid; Virgil particularly for tale to put in the hero's mouth as such a tale helps to establish

the entertainment him as a worthy

(especially

hero in her eyes). III-the tale of the wanderings following By contrast, Aeneid is not very effective as departure from Troy-also told to Dido, narrative. A seven-year (Aen. I, 755-6) of wandering is period in for book. the this single However, Irish cursorily covered story, the sack of Troy and translator the two elements in Aeneas's were convenient. He was enabled his own subsequent wandering, order by starting with to put the story into chronological the at the the from and Troy recounting wanderings which, departure last lap of the journey to Italy, are given a new turn by the storm So far all which blows the Trojans off course to Carthage and Dido. is in order. But when Aeneas it is necessary, has been kindly received, that he should have some tale to tell Dido, and the story of the capture of Troy (the matter of book II) is reserved by the Irish translator for this purpose.10 It is, in its context, an excursus into the past. As such it is an ' in-tale,' a form of digression which has place in folk-tales. Homer himself provides of such digressions,'1 which are quite at home, indeed a the telling, in the Irish of lengthening method characteristic a time-honoured examples

tradition.
10 Some of a time to give the is necessary tale lapse which impression some reality to have and Juno, enables the love-plot, by Venus engineered in human terms. 11 For Od. 8, 266-366; the tale of the love of Ares and Aphrodite, example, in the same book, 499-520. or the tale of the Wooden indicated Horse summarily

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HOMER,

VIRGIL

AND

ORAL

TRADITION

I29

As noticed,

the Irish translator,

unlike Virgil,

first narrates

the

to his audience, not to Dido. Accordingly he must, wanderings-and the narrative of the sack to Dido, very briefly for her following benefit tell again the story of the wanderings. The artistic flaw thus resulting from the putting into 'proper' order of what Virgil had deliberately possible covered To method invented Virgil by transposed the brevity edition for dramatic of this in eleven effect, of isminimized as much It as is the been by It is a repeat the wanderings. above, have imitated

in Calder's

lines of text-p. put forward ' of a tale may successfully

42, 658-668.

sum up, then, of 'beginning or developed in the Aeneid

the considerations in the middle by Homer.

It was

and his example made

it commonplace.

method which adapts well to a literary tradition, that is, to narratives by writers for readers: the elements of reflection and leisure, the notice of detail shared by both reader and writer invite a multilinear on the other narrative and a complex structure. Oral narrative, hand, tends to be although it appears tially an oral poem, unilinear and chronological. The Odyssey, in all the minutiae of its techniques to be essen seems to have successfully defied a natural law

to of oral narrative in not telling the tale in order from beginning end. Perhaps the plot of the Odyssey is such that only a fresh and novel method could succeed. Yet it would require the greatest such a tale. and care, even for a writer, to manage skill

In the case of the Irish Aeneid, the translator has attempted a structural re-casting of the story so as to relate the events in the order of their occurrence. This involved prior reading and close examination of at least the first four books. The only feasible explanation of the procedure adopted by the translator is that he out of found the 'in medias res ' method strange and unacceptable, accord with Irish narratives which, however departs found refuge in manuscripts, other ways: additions. changes
12For modern Hibernica,

are nonetheless mainly,

much they may have oral in character.'2

It is true that the Irish Aeneid by omissions These, however,

text in from the Virgilian and by some not very extensive

and the reasons

may be regarded as non-structural for them can be, for the most part, easily

some of consideration see my article, Irish Tales No. 8 (1968), p. 7-20.

the oral ' Homer

structure and the

and of medieval early Studia Irish Hero Tale,'

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I30

KEVIN

O'NOLAN

and

To notice all such discrepancies would require much space as much boredom. There are, however, a number of interesting points of comparison which, it is hoped, will be discussed in a further article. inferred. induce

KEVIN O'NOLAN.
University College, Dublin.

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