Draupadí on the Walls of Troy: "Iliad" 3 from an Indic Perspective

Author(s): Stephanie W. Jamison

Source: Classical Antiquity , Apr., 1994, Vol. 13, No. 1 (Apr., 1994), pp. 5-16
Published by: University of California Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25011002

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 STEPHANIE W. JAMISON

Draupadi on the Walls of Troy:

Iliad 3 from an Indic Perspective

THE THIRD BOOK of the Iliad contains some of the best-known scenes in this
epic-scenes that have also long been the subject of intense debate in Homeric
criticism. I refer particularly to the Teikhoskopia, "The Viewing from the Wall,"
in which Helen identifies certain Greek heroes for the benefit of Priam and other
Trojan elders (1. 3.161-244), and the subsequent single combat between
Menelaos and Paris (313-82), a duel that is supposed to settle the war: the victor
is to get Helen and her possessions, and the Greeks will go home, whoever wins.
This tidy solution to a messy war is thwarted by Aphrodite, who spirits Paris
away from the battlefield and returns him to an initially disgruntled Helen.
Commonsense Homeric criticism has identified certain features of these
scenes as anomalous, particularly their temporal position. How, in the tenth year
of a bloody war, fought within sight of the walls of Troy, could Priam not
recognize Greeks like Agamemnon and Odysseus? Why was the duel between
Helen's aggrieved husband and her abductor postponed for nine years and then
casually set up as a winner-take-all finale to a war that by now would seem to
have a life of its own? Why is Helen Priam's interlocutor, and what connection, if
any, do the viewing and the duel have with each other?'

1. Puzzlement over these questions dates back at least to the scholiasts, and W. Leaf seems to
have been an important inspiration for the modern debate on the issue. For a summary of the
difficulties, see in general G. S. Kirk, The Iliad: A Commentary, vol. 1, Books 1-4 (Cambridge,
1985) 286-88 and passim. The secondary literature is quite extensive; some works that deal with the
questions, in whole or in part, include C. M. Bowra, Tradition and Design in the Iliad (Oxford, 1930;
repr. Westport, 1977), 110-12; 0. Sch6nberger, "Zu Ilias 3, 146-180," Gymnasium 67 (1960) 197
201; K. J. Reckford, "Helen in the Iliad," GRBS 5 (1964) 8ff.; A. Parry, "Have We Homer's

? 1994 BY THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

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 6 CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY Volume 13/No. 1/April 1994

Commonsense answers to these objections have a rather desperate, patched

together air. That Priam did recognize the Greeks but asked Helen about them
anyway, "to help her out in a delicate situation,"2 is an explanation that owes
more to Miss Manners than to epic sensibilities. Similarly, that both sides agreed
to the duel because they were worn out3 is belied by the many weary battles that
lie ahead.
Rather than attempting to account for the puzzling features of the episodes
in such pragmatic but ad hoc ways, the expert consensus seems instead to be that
the anomalies result from the displacement of these scenes from another part of
the poem or indeed from a different poem, "that the episode [i.e., the
Teikhoskopia], in an altered form, originally belonged to an early stage of the
war and has been transposed to its present place for the purposes of the monu
mental Iliad."4 Estimates of these purposes vary-for example, to introduce us
to Helen and present her character or emotions,5 to praise the Greek heroes,6 or
to show Priam's character.7
Opinions about the source of the narrative motif also vary. Reckford sees "the
princess on the wall" as "a common figure in the complex tradition of Oriental
siege stories."8 Kakridis (1971), followed and developed by Postlethwaite (1985),
suggests that the Teikhoskopia and the duel are the reworking of a myth in which a
woman looks on while two men contend for her-a myth ultimately deriving from
a marriage contest. Edwards (1987) believes that the Teikhoskopia has been
assembled from a grab bag of independent motifs, the earlier part based on the
display of prizes to competitors before a contest, the latter on a traditional viewing
of the besiegers by defenders of a besieged city. Edwards has perhaps most clearly
expressed the commonly held opinion of the fragmentary nature of the sources of
this part of the epic: "So the whole Teichoscopia is composed of a number of set
piece ideas which occur separately and with a different purpose elsewhere."9

'Iliad'?" YCIS 20 (1966) 197ff.; O. Lendle, "Paris, Helena und Aphrodite: Zur Interpretation des 3.
Gesanges der Ilias," A&A 14 (1968) 68; J. T. Kakridis, Homer Revisited (Lund, 1971) 32ff.; L. L.
Clader, Helen: The Evolution from Divine to Heroic in Greek Epic Tradition, Mnemosyne Supp. 42
(Leiden, 1976) 9ff.; O. Tsagarakis, "The Teichoskopia Cannot Belong in the Beginning of the Trojan
War," QUCC 41 (1982) 61-72; N. Postlethwaite, "The Duel of Paris and Menelaos and the
Teichoskopia in Iliad 3," Antichthon 19 (1985) 1-6; M. W. Edwards, "Topos and Transformation in
Homer," in Homer: Beyond Oral Poetry; ed. J. M. Bremer, I. J. F. de Jong, and J. Kalff (Amster
dam, 1987), 56-57.
2. Tsagarakis 1982: 70. A similar suggestion was made by J. T. Sheppard a half-century previ
ously ("Helen with Priam," G&R 3 (1933) 35: "With a delicacy some modern parents well might
envy, Priam talks at random-no, as if at random-really to cover her distress.").
3. Tsagarakis 1982: 64.
4. Kirk 1985: 286.
5. Bowra 1930: 112; Parry 1966: 198; Lendle 1968: 68; Kakridis 1971: 32; Clader 1976: 9;
Edwards 1987: 56.
6. Bowra 1930: 112; Lendle 1968: 68; Kakridis 1971: 32; Kirk 1985: 286.
7. Kakridis 1971: 32.
8. Reckford 1964: 8.
9. Edwards 1987: 56.

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 JAMISON: Draupadi on the Walls of Troy 7

The common thread in the discussions of these episodes seems to be that

they fill some function or "are about" something other than what appears, and
that they consist of material originally different, even foreign in purpose, that
has been jury-rigged and pressed into service. The apparent incompetence of this
adaptation is ascribed, for example by Kirk, to the oral nature of the epic,10 or
even to Homer's doting fondness for an earlier work of his own.1
In all these discussions of provenance and function, one important compa
randum has been ignored-at least as far as I am aware-namely, the evidence
of the other great heroic epic from a cognate tradition, the Indian Mahabhdrata.
Examined from this Indic point of view, the Teikhoskopia and the duel both
appear to fill important structural roles in the larger narrative and to be crucially
connected to each other. That it is Indic material that sheds this light suggests
that this narrative complex may be an inherited one in both Greek and Sanskrit
epic-and that it has a place in an Indo-European typology of marriage, both
legal and illegal.
Let us begin in India. As is well known, the Sanskrit law codes regularly
classify marriage into eight categories, according to the circumstances under
which the bridegroom takes charge of the bride.12 These categories are hierarchi
cally ranked, by position on the list, and the legality (or not) of any particular
marriage depends on its position in the hierarchy and on the social class of the
participants. The seventh type, the RakSasa or "Demonic" marriage, is the
lowest type of legal union. This is marriage by capture or abduction, defined with
unblinking violence as

hatva chittva ca bhittva ca krosantim rudatim grhat

prasahya kanyaharanam raksaso vidhir ucyate.
(MDS 111.33)
The abduction by force of a maiden, weeping and wailing, from her
house, after smashing and cleaving and breaking [her relatives and
household], that is called the Rak$asa rite.

The texts usually agree, sometimes reluctantly, in considering this type of mar
riage legal for Ksatriyas, the warrior class, along with the more peacable
Gandharva type, marriage by mutual agreement.
This type of marriage not only has a secure position in the legal tradition; it is

10. Kirk 1985: 287: "A Homer who had been writing out his poem would probably have made
such adjustments; but somehow the oral tradition of a Teikhoskopia must have persuaded the actual
Homer, and his audience, that this was not necessary, that the apparent anomaly could be over
looked or tolerated in the name of tradition."
11. A. Severyns, Homere 3, 10 (cited by Kakridis 1971: 32 n. 19).
12. The best-known of the Indic law codes, though not the earliest, is that of Manu, the
Manava Dharma Sastra (MDS), in which the types of marriage are treated at III.20-42. The standard
translation of the MDS is that of G. Bihler, The Laws of Manu, Sacred Books of the East, vol. 25
(Oxford, 1886); see also the recent Penguin translation of W. Doniger and B. K. Smith, The Laws of
Manu (Harmondsworth, 1991).

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8 CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY Volume 13/No. 1/April 1994

also repeatedly exemplified in the narrative literature. The Mahdbhdrata con

tains several discursive narratives of RaikSasa abductions, the most famous of
which are BhiSma's abduction of Amba and her sisters (1.96, V.170) and
Arjuna's of Krna's sister Subhadra (1.211-13). Let us briefly examine some
features of "orthodox" Rakasa marriage that will be relevant in what follows.
Though the legal description of Raksasa marriage just quoted seems to
depict a scene of chaotic violence, close examination of Raksasa narratives shows
that, though the event was undeniably violent, it was only superficially chaotic.
In fact, RakSasa abduction mimics, almost slavishly, the orderly progress of an
ordinary marriage ceremony. The correctly performed Raksasa abduction is a
ritual, a ceremony, and the important steps in a tranquil wedding (as set forth in
the Grhya Sutras, the texts of the domestic rituals) all have their breathless and
violent analogues in the abduction narratives.13
The crucial steps are the following. In an ordinary marriage, the would-be
bridegroom sends a few wooers to the house of the girl. They ceremonially take a
position and announce several times the name and lineage of the bridegroom and
his intentions to the assembled household. In a Raksasa marriage the would-be
abductor comes on a single chariot, sometimes with a second (a sort of substitute
best man) but no additional companions, to the place where the maiden is, and
announces his name and lineage and his intention to abduct-as in the vivid
proclamation of Bhisma:14

avocam parthivan sarvan, aham tatra samagatan

bhismah sanmtanavah kanyd, haratfti punah punah.
(MBh V.170.13)
I proclaimed to all the kings assembled there,
"Bhisma giamtanava takes these maidens," again and again.

The analogue to the assembled household that hears this announcement

under ordinary circumstances is an armed host, often, as in the case of Bhisma
and Amba, an assemblage of kings attending the scheduled bridal self-choice
(svayarmvara) of the girl who gets snatched. The abductor's announcement is
accompanied by a challenge: he will fight them all. In fact, he must fight them
an act of heroism (vfrya) that substitutes for the bride price (?ulka) in some other
marriage types.
Now the point of all this is that Raksasa abduction has certain legal require
ments: it must be (1) announced, (2) witnessed, and (3) fought for. But if these
requirements are met, the abduction itself is legal, is a recognized marriage, and

13. The ceremonial aspects of Indic marriage by abduction are discussed in my forthcoming
book, Sacrificed Wife I Sacrificer's Wife: Women, Ritual, and Hospitality in Ancient India.
14. All quotations from the Mah/abhdrata (MBh) are taken from the Critical Edition (Poona,
1930-70), and all translations are my own. However, complete versions of the episodes in question
can be consulted in J. A. B. van Buitenen's excellent translation (Chicago, 1973-78) of the first five
books (of the eighteen).

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 JAMISON: Draupadf on the Walls of Troy 9

there is nothing that an annoyed family or disappointed former suitor or husband

can do about it. Let us now remember who the successful bridegroom in these
marriages is. As we noted above, the law texts allow this marriage type only for
Ksatriya, a member of the warrior class, and in fact Bhisma at one point in the
Mahabhdrata rather startlingly proclaims it as the best type of marriage for
warriors. Indeed, as Minoru Hara has discussed,15 abduction does fit Ksatra
dharma (Warrior Custom) better than other types in several important ways. It
requires an act of heroism appropriate to warrior behavior. Perhaps more impor
tant, it involves taking the girl by force, not accepting her. Most marriage type
explicitly involve the gift of the girl by her father, and it is contrary to the
warrior's code to accept gifts.
Now all this sets up an interesting countersituation. If a correctly performed
abduction is legal, then an incorrectly performed one-skimping on the ceremo
nial steps or on the heroic activity accompanying them-is illegal, and illegal in
interesting, nontrivial ways. The existence, at least in theory, of legal abduction
defines and sharpens the outrage of the illegal type. It is not merely lawless in
general, but it may involve the perpetrator not only in breaking society's rules
regarding marriage, but in transgressing in specific ways the code of his class.
This double illegality may account for its power as a narrative theme: two great
Indo-European epics, the Indian Rdmayana and the Greek Iliad, are essentially
stories about the repercussions of an illegal abduction.
And what are the repercussions? We saw above that the family of a girl cor
rectly abducted has no recourse. The marriage must be accepted. But an illegal ab
duction is quite different: there is a legal remedy, which I will call the reabduction
or counterabduction. The injured party or parties can assemble a posse and pursue
the abductor, with intent to fight and recapture the woman. Thus Rama can follow
Ravana and Sita to Lanka; Menelaos can follow Paris and Helen to Troy.
By now it should be no surprise that the counterabduction has its own rules
and ceremonial steps. Nor should it be too surprising that many of these steps are
mirror-image analogues of the expected steps in a correct abduction, especially
those steps that were left out or incorrectly performed in the illegal abduction.
Before we return to Greece, let us define the parameters of the coun
terabduction in India-not in the sprawling extravagance of the Rdmdyana, but
in a confined and consequently pointed narrative in the Mahdbharata: the Abduc
tion and Reabduction of Draupadi.
Draupadi is the wife simultaneously of the five Pandava brothers, the main
heroes of the Mahdbhdrata. Her abduction occurs in (coincidentally also) the
third book, the Aranyaka Parvan (Forest Book), during which the Pandavas
spend a tedious twelve-year mandated exile in the wilderness. Our episode be
gins when the Pandavas go off hunting, leaving Draupadi virtually alone, with
only a maidservant and a house priest as companions. A king called Jayadratha

15. M. Hara, "A Note on the Raksasa Form of Marriage," JAOS 94 (1974) 296-306, esp. 304-5.

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 10 CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY Volume 13/No. 1/April 1994

happens by, accompanied by a great retinue, and is quite taken by the beautiful
Draupadi. Coming to her hermitage with a group of companions, he first intro
duces himself properly but shortly thereafter urges her to mount his chariot and
become his wife. When she refuses, he violently forces her onto it and takes off.
The priest raises an objection to this behavior. It is a telling one for our
purposes. Rather than saying, as our modern sensibilities might expect, "You
cannot abduct this virtuous wife" or "Stop this outrageous violence against an
innocent woman," he says instead:

neyam sakya tvaya netum, avijitya mahdrathan

dharmam ksatrasya pauranam, aveksasva jayadratha.
(MBh 11.252.25)
This [woman] cannot be led[/married] by you, without [your] having
conquered great chariot [fighters].
Look to the ancient dharma of the warrior, 0 Jayadratha.

He does not condemn or forbid the abduction per se, but rather states that it
would be legal if Jayadratha engaged in combat. Jayadratha's abduction is in fact
illegal on every count. He has not announced his intentions; his actions have no
legal witnesses; he performs no feats of valor.
Draupadi has already warned Jayadratha that two of her husbands, Krsna and
Arjuna, will pursue him on a single chariot (III.252.14), the vehicle that a proper
abductor would choose. And indeed when the brothers return from hunting and
learn what has happened, they all set out in pursuit, in a frenzy that is measurably
increased when they see Draupadi standing on Jayadratha's chariot.
This scene is so far unremarkable. Of course they would pursue her; of
course they would be frenzied; and, equally, of course Jayadratha would attempt
to escape them and carry off his prize. But what follows is not predictable in a
universal script. As the Pandavas close in on the abductor's chariot, all action
seems to cease, freeze-framed, as it were, for nineteen temporally suspended
verses-Tristubh verses at that, each with four 11-syllable lines-a remarkably
lengthy interruption to this dramatic chase scene. It is important to note that
these verses are so-called irregular Tri.tubhs and, as such, belong to the oldest,
Ksatriya core of our surviving Mahabhdrata, as convincingly argued in the recent
book of Mary Carroll Smith.16 This is not recently introduced epic filler, of which
we have so much in the Mahdbharata, but belongs to the heart of the text.
And what happens in these verses? When Jayadratha espies the Pandavas
bearing down, he turns to Draupadi standing next to him on the chariot (which
presumably is still careering madly along) and says:

ayantime panca ratha mahanto

manye ca krne patayas tavaite

16. M. C. Smith, The Warrior Code of India's Sacred Song (New York, 1992), esp. 129.

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 JAMISON: Draupadf on the Walls of Troy 11

a janati khyapaya nah sukesi

param-param pandavanam rathastham.
(MBh III.254.3)
These five great chariot[-warrior]s are coming hither, and
I think they are your husbands, O Krsna [= Draupadi].
Recognizing [them], O fair-haired one, proclaim to us
in sequence each one of the Pandavas standing on the chariot.

At this request, Draupadi first crows over Jayadratha (vs. 4) but then agrees
to perform this identification. The phrasing of her acquiescence is critical:

akhyatavyam tv eva sarvam mumursor

maya tubhyam prstaya dharma esah.
(MBh 11I.254.5)
But all this must be proclaimed to one about to die,
[proclaimed] by me to you, since I was asked. That is the law
[dharma].

Draupadi's identification of her husbands is a legal requirement in this situation;

Jayadratha was not simply making idle chatter in his request. But why in this
panic- and pressure-filled moment must they take the time for a set of leisurely
introductions?
The answer comes from the ceremonies we have already discussed. The first
step in both the ordinary marriage and the legal abduction is the wooing, the
formal announcement by the bridegroom or his proxies of his name and lineage
to the bride's family or protectors, a step left out of the illegal abductions. What
we have in this scene is a mirror-image wooing, whose configuration is appropri
ate to the counterabduction. The woman ceremonially identifies, by name and
qualities, the reabductors, who can then legitimately claim her back as their
wife. She does so to the person who illegally has her in his power and who thus
fulfills, in a fractured way, the role of her guardian and protector.
Draupadi certainly takes the ceremonial aspects of her task very seriously.
She doesn't just point at five men in rapid succession and say, "Watch out for
that one!" Instead, each husband receives at least two verses (usually three), and
each is introduced by an archaic syntactic-cum-literary device: one or more
descriptive, even definitional relative clauses, followed by a minimal main clause
that reveals the personal name. This stylistic device is familiar from the earliest
Sanskrit, especially memorably in Rig Veda 11.12, a hymn with twelve successive
verses each beginning with a sequence of relative clauses and each ending with
the snappy main clause sd janasa indrah, "That, folks, is Indra."
We can sample Draupadi's version in her first identification, that of
Yudhisthira, noticing that his lineage is neatly included with his name at the end:

yasya dhvajagre nadato mrdangau

nandopanandau madhurau yuktarupau

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 12 CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY Volume 13/No. 1/April 1994

etam svadharmarthaviniscayajfiam
sada janah krtyavanto 'nuyanti
ya esa jambiunadasuddhagaurah
pracandaghonas tanur ayataksah
etam kurusresthatamam vadanti
yudhisthiram dharmasutam patim me.
(MBh III.254.6-7)
At the top of whose standard sound the two drums,
the sweet Nanda and Upananda suitably formed
Him who knows the decisions concerning his own law and purpose
do the busy people always follow.
Who is pure and bright as gold,
large-nosed, slender, long-eyed
Him they call the best of the best of the Kurus,
Yudhisthira, son of Dharma, my husband.

And so she continues, in similar vein, through the rest of her husbands, ending
with a formal summary: ity ete vai kathitdIh panduputrdh, "Thus have these sons
of Pandu been declared" (MBh 111.254.20).
And then all hell breaks loose. The five Pandavas alone attack and defeat in
spectacularly bloody fashion the great army accompanying Jayadratha (hundreds
of warriors, elephants, horses, and so on). Again this has its analogue in legal
abduction: the Pandavas, the reabductors, perform the act of valor that serves as
bride price (vfrya-sulka) in a RakSasa marriage and that was omitted by
Jayadratha. At this battle Jayadratha, the original abductor, again displays his
craven unworthiness. Rather than fight, he dismounts and attempts to flee.
When he is overtaken, the Pandavas do not even kill him (despite Draupadi's
urgings). He does not deserve to die in battle, as a proper Ksatriya would, but
instead is forced to agree to proclaim himself a slave of the Pandavas, whereupon
he is released:

daso 'smiti tvaya vacyam, samsatsu ca sabhasu ca

evam te jivitam dadyam, esa yuddhajito vidhih.
(MBh 111.256.11)

You must proclaim, in sessions and assemblies, "I am a slave."

Just thus would I give life to you. That is the rule [imposed]
by [me,] victorious in battle.

(Note the contemptuous dadyam, "I would give"-Jayadratha must humble

himself to accept a gift, his own life.) The sparing of Jayadratha's life is hardly an
act of compassion and forgiveness, but a calculated humiliation of a man who has
not only offended against Draupadi and her husbands but has violated the code
of his warrior class.
Thus the incident is closed. The counterabduction has been accomplished
with the appropriate ceremony-wooing and act of valor-lacking in the origi

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 JAMISON: Draupadi on the Walls of Troy 13

nal abduction; Draupadi is reunited with her husbands, and the abductor is
suitably punished.
With this Indic paradigm in mind, we may now return to Greece, and by now
it should be fairly clear what I want to say about the Homeric episodes with
which we began. If the Iliad in one sense begins as a vast reabduction narrative,
Book 3 concentrates the primary ceremonial steps of a counterabduction. The
Teikhoskopia and the duel are tightly linked parts of a single narrative complex;
neither is an orphaned story fragment jammed randomly into empty epic space.
Iliad 3 is the first point in the epic when we see the Greeks and Trojans
together; that it is supposedly the tenth year of the war is fairly unimportant from
a narrative point of view.17 It is entirely appropriate that the correct steps in a
counterabduction should be laid out at this first Greek-Trojan encounter, and
that is exactly what happens. Iliad 3 is parallel point by point to the coun
terabduction of Draupadi, but with a surprise ending. The Teikhoskopia corre
sponds to the counterwooing; the great oath sworn corresponds to the witnessing
required in both ordinary marriages and marriages by abduction, and the duel of
Menelaos and Paris to the Pandavas' combat with the army of Jayadratha. The
outcome for Paris is similar to the fate of Jayadratha, but has vastly different
effects on the story.
Let us take up each of these points in turn, beginning with the Teikhoskopia.
Helen's tranquil, almost elegiac musings on the wall certainly differ in mood
from Draupadi's defiant speech on a lurching chariot, but the two episodes serve
the same purpose: the counterwooing, the identification and announcement of
the pursuers intending to reabduct the woman. The only difference is that
Draupadi speaks directly to her original abductor, while Priam serves as surro
gate or proxy for his son Paris. Remember that proxies can be used in the
original wooing, too.
The seeming interruption of the action that commentators have noted, in
deed sometimes complained of-the arbitrary suspension of time between
Paris's challenge to Menelaos and the actual duel that has made some consider
the Teikhoskopia an awkwardly handled intrusion in the text-is the same effect
produced by Draupadi's freeze-framed monologue in the chariot. And I think
the same pointed artfulness is at work in both epics. Violent and decisive action
has been set in motion, is both inevitable and imminent, and then the motion
stops at its most dramatic, while the measured, tradition-bound voice of legality
and ceremony confers legitimacy on the violence to come. The duel cannot
proceed until Helen has spoken. She is not a casual onlooker, but the key to the
whole.18

17. A similar point was made by Kakridis 1971: 32.

18. In this regard I think Kakridis and Postlethwaite, on the one hand, and Reckford, on the
other, have come closer than others to understanding the crucial linkage of the episodes, though
clearly I do not follow them in their view of the exact nature of the linkage. According to the
Kakridis-Postlethwaite hypothesis, Helen on the walls is displayed like a prize in a marriage contest,

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 14 CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY Volume 13/No. 1/April 1994

Interpreting the Teikhoskopia as a counterwooing not only helps account for

the existence of this episode and its narrative placement, but also explains some
misunderstood details. Previous discussions of the scene, which treat it as a
truncated Catalogue of Heroes, following closely on the Catalogue of Ships,
have sometimes expressed puzzlement over the choice of heroes identified, since
some more distinguished fighters (e.g., Diomedes) are left out.19 But Priam
invites Helen not to identify heroes, but rather her former relatives:

jad@ot0'. . .'Eu iILEeAio

oQga t[a 7tQOTEQO6V TE j6ooiv nxo6S te 4)iXovs; e.
(I. 3.162-63)
Sit with me, so that you may see your previous husband and your
kinsmen by marriage and your dear ones.

In a counterwooing the people to be named would be those likely to form a part

of the original posse to recover the stolen woman, that is, her kinsmen and her
husband and his kinsmen and supporters. And such are the people Helen identi
fies. Though, interestingly enough, Menelaos is not formally part of the
question-and-answer sequence, his presence lurks there. He is referred to in the
passage just quoted and mentioned by name in lines 206, 210, 213, and 232. His
brother Agamemnon is the first on the list (166ff.), followed by Odysseus
(191ff.), who with Menelaos had attempted to recover Helen before. Aias is
mentioned briefly (225, 229), but followed by Idomeneus (230ff.), who had been
a frequent guest of Menelaos and Helen. Thus far, then, her husband (by implica
tion), his kinsman, and several close supporters. In the last part of the catalogue
Helen turns to her own kinsmen, remarking on the absence of her twin brothers,
Kastor and Polydeukes (234ff.). It is perhaps worth noting that the last two
people Draupadi identifies in her counterwooing are the twins Nakula and
Sahadeva-thought it is probably wiser not to make too much of this.
Like Draupadi, Helen emphasizes in her response to Priam that she has
been asked for the information: zxoIo be TOL eQco, 6 tC' aveIQEaL f6e [erXTaig,
"I will tell this to you, which you ask and inquire of me" (1. 3.177). The style
of her response is also similar to Draupadi's: an anonymous but elaborate
description, followed starkly by the name. But instead of distributing these
functions between relative clause and main clause of a single speaker, they are
split into a question-and-answer dialogue between Priam and Helen. Priam
describes and Helen names. Indeed, Priam's description has usually been ma
neuvered into a relative clause, despite its interrogative function, as though the

in which Paris and Menelaos play the suitors-even though the traditional theme of the marriage
contest does not fit the context. See esp. Postlethwaite 1985: 5-6. Reckford (1964: 8), who, as noted
above, considers the episode adapted from "Oriental siege stories," suggests that "the recognition of
her former kinsmen (friends, suitors) by the princess on the wall may customarily have preceded her
recovery."
19. See, e.g., Kirk 1985: 286f.

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 JAMISON: Draupadi on the Walls of Troy 15
relative clause / main clause structure had to be maintained at all costs. Con
sider Priam's first question:

(cg FOL xaL t6v6' lavb6a nekXQlov 'Q ovo iOVO g,

06 Tt50 686' olv 'AxatLo av' q 0ug Te gtYax Te.
(I1. 3.166-67)
So you should name that huge man, whoever is that Achaian man,
noble and great.

Line 192 is similar; only in 226 is the question direct.

Helen's reply is always shaped in the same way, conforming to the sd janasa
indrah style of Draupadi's response. For example, line 178, ovTog y' 'ATQ?t6rg
eiiQV xEgiwv 'Aya!tF?vcov, "That one is the son of Atreus, wide-ruling Agamem
non." Lines 200 and 209 are identical in structure.
The counterwooing of the Teikhoskopia is followed almost immediately by
the duel of Paris and Menelaos, just as Draupadi's speech immediately precedes
the Pandavas' attack. But interposed in the Iliad is an elaborate oath taking
ceremony, the most fully described such ritual in the text, which brings Priam
himself down from the wall to the Trojan plain. The purpose of the ceremony is
to affirm, before the gods and the mortals of both sides, the terms of the duel as
suggested by Paris:

axia&Q ai' Ev cEoop xai alQrl4)tiov MeveXaov

ovaiU3dXex' &~t(' 'EXEvV xai xT?LaoL nraol RaXXEo0at'
6TJzt6TQ@o; 86 Xe VLX1No XQEiooo0v E yE?VTqTaL,
XTtLa0O' EXWv eV WZavTa yvvaLxa TE olxa6' &yo0(o.
(II. 3.69-72; cf. 90-93)
But put me [= Paris] and warlike Menelaos in the middle
to fight about Helen and all [her] possessions.
Whichever shall win and turn out to be the stronger,
let him take all the possessions and lead the woman home.

The oath taking occupies nearly eighty lines and represents almost as long a
break in the action as the Teikhoskopia. In its climactic moment (275ff.), Aga
memnon calls upon the gods and powers, especially Zeus and Helios, in the
famous archaic inherited syntagm20 Zei, 7dte ... 'HCXkL6 TE (276-77), "O Fa
ther Zeus [voc.], and Helios [nom.]," to witness and guard the oaths: U?5Lg
tdPQtlUQOt ETIE, ()vadooeTe 6' oLgxa taoxda (280), "You be witnesses. Guard
these sworn oaths." Why is this lengthy ritual here? It seems to reflect in part the
crucial importance of witnessing in the marriage and legal abduction, as dis
cussed above. One of the differences between legal and illegal abductions is the
presence or absence of witnesses to the act, witnesses who have the power and

20. On this syntactic construction, see S. W. Jamison, "Vdyav indrag ca revisited," MSS 49
(1988) 13-59, with references to the earlier literature.

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 16 CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY Volume 13/No. 1/April 1994

authority to intervene. Paris presumably made off with Helen in the first place
without such witnesses, but now the denouement of the counterabduction will
take place under the proper circumstances.
The act of heroism is about to take place, the duel that will serve as Paris's
postponed bride price (vfrya-Sulka) and, after the fact, make his abduction legal,
or will, conversely, legitimize Menelaos's reabduction. And we all know what
happens. Menelaos, not surprisingly, is gaining the upper hand over Paris, when
Aphrodite intervenes, swathing him in mist and transporting him from battle
field to bedchamber, where Helen is persuaded to repair, and the two tumble
into bed.
In one way this is an ending very different from the Draupadi episode, in
which the abductor was vanquished and the woman successfully reabducted.
There everyone ultimately played by the rules, and the story ended. In the Iliad,
the dea ex machina intervenes, the rules are circumvented, and we-luckily
get the rest of the Iliad, which otherwise logically would have ended with Book
3.
But in another way this outcome is similar to that of Draupadi's abduction,
or at least driven by the same principles. The duel between Paris and Menelaos
could not have been allowed to proceed to a definitive conclusion-not, as
others have argued, because it is a displaced episode from a different epic en
tirely. Rather, it cannot go any farther because Paris cannot be allowed either to
win or to lose on the battlefield. His illegal abduction has offended against war
rior conduct, and from that point of view he is too contemptible to deserve a
warrior's death. Like Jayadratha he is humiliated instead, though the circum
stances of his humiliation are luxurious and pleasurable.
So the reabduction is unsuccessful, and the Iliad can continue, but the lesson
is the same as in the Draupadi episode. Both, I would suggest, belong to an
inherited Indo-European narrative pattern that has its roots in a particular soci
etal institution-the fine line between legal and illegal abduction in the typology
of Indo-European marriage.

Harvard University

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