The Greeks did not learn to write again until much later. This time, they took over an alphabet of fewer than twenty-five letters from the Phoenicians, a Semitic people whose merchant ships, sailing from their cities Tyre and Sidon on the Palestinian coast, reached every island and harbor of the Mediterranean Sea. The Phoenician alphabet consisted of signs for consonants only. The Greeks appropriated their symbols (alpha and beta are meaningless words in Greek, but their Phoenician equivalents, aleph and beth, mean “ox” and “house”), but by assigning some of the letters to the vowels, they created the first efficient alphabet, a letter system that provided one, and only one, sign for each sound in the language.

Epic narrative characteristically announces the point in the story at which it begins and then proceeds in chronological order to its end. The Iliad opens with the poet's request to the Muse: “Rage —Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus' son Achilles”; he then tells her where to start: “Begin, Muse, when the two first broke and clashed, / Agamemnon lord of men and brilliant Achilles” (1.1–8). She does, and the story is told in strict chronological order until its end: “And so the Trojans buried Hector breaker of horses” (24.944). In the Odyssey, when Odysseus asks the Phaeacian bard Demodocus to “Sing of the wooden horse / Epeus built with Athena's help,” the bard “launched out / in a fine blaze of song, starting at just the point / where the main Achaean force, setting their camps afire . . .” (ref), and carries the story on until Troy falls. But the prologue to the Odyssey abandons this traditional request to the Muse or the singer to begin at a certain point. It begins, like the Iliad, with a request to the Muse to sound a theme —the wrath of Achilles, the wanderings of Odysseus —but instead of telling her where to start —“Begin, Muse, when the two first broke and clashed” —it leaves the choice to her. “Launch out on his story, Muse, daughter of Zeus, / start from where you will” (ref). And she does. She begins, not with Odysseus' departure from Troy (which is where he begins when he tells his story to the Phaeacians), but in the twentieth year of his absence from home, as Athena starts Telemachus on his journey to Pylos and Sparta and arranges Odysseus' escape from his seven-year captivity on Calypso's island.

The nineteenth century was the age that saw the birth of the scientific historical spirit. And also of the history of language —the discipline of linguistics. All this had a bearing on the problem. If in fact some sections of the Odyssey were older than others, they should contain linguistic features characteristic of an earlier stage of the language than that to be found in the more recent additions. Similarly, the later parts of the poem should contain allusions to customs, laws, objects and ideas belonging to the later historical period, and vice versa. Toward the end of the century a fresh criterion emerged for gauging the antiquity of different sections of the poem —the archaeological criterion. For with Heinrich Schliemann's excavations at Troy and Mycenae, and those of Sir Arthur Evans at Cnossos, a previously unknown civilization was revealed. If there was any historicity to Homer's account of the Achaean world that organized the attack on Troy, it must be a reference to this world —a world of gold masks, bronze weapons, palaces and fortifications —not to the archaeologically poverty-stricken Greece of the Dark Age.

Parry pursued this insight of the German analytical scholars to its logical end and demonstrated that in fact there was an intricate system of metrical alternatives for the recurring names of heroes, gods and objects. It was a system that was economical —hardly any unnecessary alternatives were used —but had great scope: there was a way to fit the names into the line in any of the usual grammatical forms they would assume. Parry demonstrated that the system was more extensive and highly organized than anyone had dreamed, and he also realized what it meant. It meant that this system had been developed by and for the use of oral poets who improvised. In Paris he met scholars who had studied such improvising illiterate bards still performing in Yugoslavia. He went there to study their operations himself.

The oral bard who uses such formulaic language is not, as scholars in the nineteenth century who struggled with the problem of illiterate bards all assumed, a poet reciting from memory a fixed text. He is improvising, along known lines, relying on a huge stock of formulaic phrases, lines and even whole scenes; but he is improvising. And every time he sings the poem, he may do it differently. The outline remains the same, but the text, the oral text, is flexible. The poem is new every time it is performed.

If Homer's poetry is the culmination of a long tradition of such oral composition, many of the problems that bedeviled the Analysts are solved. Over the course of generations of trial and error, formulas are introduced and rejected or retained for their usefulness in improvisation, without regard to linguistic consistency or historical accuracy. The language of the poets becomes a repository of all the combinations that have proved useful. Small wonder that Aeolic and Ionic forms appear in the same line, that a Mycenaean boar-tusk helmet can turn up in a passage in the Iliad, full of late linguistic forms, that people in the Odyssey sometimes give dowries and sometimes demand payment for their daughter's hand, that cremation and inhumation are practiced side by side. As each new generation of singers re-creates the song, new formulas may be invented, new themes and scenes introduced; reflections of contemporary reality creep into descriptions of the fighting, especially into the similes. But the dedication of epic poetry to the past and the continuing usefulness of so much traditional phraseology will slow the process of modernization and produce the unhistorical amalgam of customs, objects and linguistic forms that we find in our Homeric text.

There is, however, one problem that Parry raised but did not solve: Homer may or may not have been as illiterate as his forerunners, but at some time the Iliad and the Odyssey were written down.

When the bards there learned to read and write, they were immediately exposed to the corrupting influence of newspapers, magazines and cheap fiction, but if Homer learned to write in the late eighth century, there was little or nothing for him to read. Lord's generalization about the incompatibility of the two techniques has been questioned by students of oral poetry; in other parts of the world (particularly in Africa), they find no such dichotomy. "The basic point . . . is the continuity of oral and written literature. There is no deep gulf between the two: they shade into each other both in the present and over many centuries of historical development, and there are innumerable cases of poetry which has both 'oral' and 'written' elements" (Finnegan, p. 24).

Only when the Odyssey turns Iliadic, as Odysseus and his son and two loyal servants face the suitors in the hall, are women offstage, and even there Athena is at hand, sustaining the morale of the hero and his party, diverting the suitors' spears from the target. Elsewhere in the poem women's voices are heard at frequent intervals and sometimes at length. Hostile critics might well be tempted to cite the defense of his tragedies Aristophanes put in the mouth of "Euripides" in the Frogs: "They all stepped up to speak their piece, the mistress spoke, the slave spoke too, / the master spoke, the daughter spoke, and grandma spoke." In the Iliad, scenes that present men in contact with women, though memorable, are rare —Helen and Paris, Hector and Andromache, Hecuba and Priam —but in the Odyssey, the rare exception is the scene from which women are excluded —the battle in the hall, the Cyclops in the cave.

Penelope's surprising move looks more like a counteroffensive than a surrender. She told Odysseus that after her work on Laertes' shroud was exposed as a fraud, she could not think of another “deft way out” (ref). The word so translated is mêtis; it is the word that characterizes Odysseus —he is polumêtis, a man of many twists and turns. Penelope is from the same mold as her husband, a worthy partner —and adversary.

Some modern scholars have taken the words literally and pronounced the remainder of Book 23 and all of Book 24 a later addition composed by a different, and inferior, poet. They cannot, however, claim Aristarchus as their authority, for we know that he excluded the Greek lines 310–43 of Book 23 (in which Odysseus tells Penelope the tale of his travels) and lines 1–204 of Book 24 (the arrival of the shades of the suitors in the lower world). There would have been no point in doing so if he had already decided that the original poem ended at the line which put Odysseus and Penelope to bed.

It is true that in the Iliad the ghost of Patroclus, appearing to Achilles in a dream, tells him he cannot cross the river until Achilles gives him burial. But in the Odyssey, Elpenor begs Odysseus to bury his body, which has been left behind on Circe's island, and he is in Hades and makes no mention of a river. The laws and the terrain of Hades are obviously not strictly defined; they remain somewhat vague even in Virgil —it was Dante who gave Hell strict logic and a fixed geography.

The long scene in which Odysseus reveals his identity to his father has been roundly condemned by many modern critics. The last of his autobiographical fictions, the skillfully crafted tale he tells Laertes has been described as a “bizarre plan," as “pointless cruelty” and as a product of Odysseus' “habit of distrust." There is of course no question of real distrust; he has nothing to fear from Laertes, as he might have suspected he had from Penelope. But all these judgments should be assessed in the light not only of the difficult psychological situation Odysseus is faced with but also of Homer's imperatives as a narrative poet.

This conventional Latinate spelling of the names has a traditional pronunciation system, one that corresponds with neither the Greek nor the Latin sounds. Perhaps “system” is not the best word for it, since it is full of inconsistencies. But it is the pronunciation English poets have used for centuries, the sounds they heard mentally as they composed and that they confidently expected their readers to hear in their turn. Since there seems to be no similar convention for the English pronunciation of modern transliterated Greek —is the h sounded in Akhilleus? is Diomedes pronounced dee-oh-may’-days or dee-oh-mee’-deez? —we have thought it best to work with pronunciation that Keats and Shelley would have recognized.

So by day she'd weave at her great and growing web — by night, by the light of torches set beside her, she would unravel all she'd done. Three whole years she deceived us blind, seduced us with this scheme . . . … So long as she persists in tormenting us, quick to exploit the gifts Athena gave her — a skilled hand for elegant work, a fine mind 130 and subtle wiles too —we've never heard the like, not even in old stories sung of all Achaea's well-coifed queens who graced the years gone by: 133 Mycenae crowned with garlands, Tyro and Alcmena . . .

And there, standing in close ranks against the wall, were jars of seasoned, mellow wine, holding the drink unmixed inside them, fit for a god, waiting the day Odysseus, worn by hardship, might come home again.

Ah how fine it is, when a man is brought down, to leave a son behind! Orestes took revenge, he killed that cunning, murderous Aegisthus, who'd killed his famous father.

Walls plated in bronze, crowned with a circling frieze glazed as blue as lapis, ran to left and right from outer gates to the deepest court recess, and solid golden doors enclosed the palace.

There is an island, Ogygia, lying far at sea, where the daughter of Atlas, Calypso, has her home, the seductive nymph with lovely braids —a danger too, and no one, god or mortal, dares approach her there. But I, cursed as I am, some power brought me to her hearth, alone, when Zeus with a white-hot bolt had crushed my racing warship down the wine-dark sea.

That is the gods' work, spinning threads of death 650 through the lives of mortal men, and all to make a song for those to come . . .

But he boomed back at me from his ruthless heart, 'Nobody? I'll eat Nobody last of all his friends — I'll eat the others first! That's my gift to you!'

Where shepherd calls to shepherd as one drives in his flocks and the other drives his out and he calls back in answer, where a man who never sleeps could rake in double wages, one for herding cattle, one for pasturing fleecy sheep, the nightfall and the sunrise march so close together.

As for your father, he keeps to his own farm —he never goes to town — with no bed for him there, no blankets, glossy throws; all winter long he sleeps in the lodge with servants, in the ashes by the fire, his body wrapped in rags.

Never has any sailor passed our shores in his black craft until he has heard the honeyed voices pouring from our lips, and once he hears to his heart's content sails on, a wiser man. … We know all the pains that the Greeks and Trojans once endured on the spreading plain of Troy when the gods willed it so — all that comes to pass on the fertile earth, we know it all!'

I will shrivel the supple skin on your lithe limbs, strip the russet curls from your head and deck you out in rags you'd hate to see some other mortal wear; I'll dim the fire in your eyes, so shining once — until you seem appalling to all those suitors, 460 even your wife and son you left behind at home.

But the suitors know, they've caught some godsent rumor of master's grisly death! That's why they have no mind to do their courting fairly or go back home in peace.

And I? Zeus flashed an inspiration through my mind, though I wish I'd died a soldier down in Egypt then! … He feared the wrath of Zeus, the god of guests, the first of the gods to pay back acts of outrage.

You know how the heart of a woman always works: she likes to build the wealth of her new groom — of the sons she bore, of her dear, departed husband, not a memory of the dead, no questions asked.

With that man's overbearing spirit —I know it, know it all too well —he'll never let you go, he'll come down here and summon you himself.

Six whole days we sailed, six nights, nonstop and then, when the god brought on the seventh day, Artemis showering arrows came and shot the woman — headfirst into the bilge she splashed like a diving tern and the crewmen heaved her body over, a nice treat for the seals and fish, but left me all alone, cowering, sick at heart . . .

From Dulichion, fifty-two of them, picked young men, six servants in their troop; from Same, twenty-four, 280 from Zacynthus, twenty Achaeans, nobles all, and the twelve best lords from Ithaca itself.

Flushed with beauty, Melantho mocked him shamelessly — Dolius was her father but Penelope brought her up; she treated her like her own child and gave her toys to cheer her heart. But despite that, her heart felt nothing for all her mistress' anguish now.

Odysseus' heart went out to his grief-stricken wife but under his lids his eyes remained stock-still — they might have been horn or iron — his guile fought back his tears.

So he vowed and Athena set off uncontrollable laughter in the suitors, crazed them out of their minds —mad, hysterical laughter seemed to break from the jaws of strangers, not their own, and the meat they were eating oozed red with blood — tears flooded their eyes, hearts possessed by grief.

I taught myself the craft, but a god has planted deep in my spirit all the paths of song — songs I'm fit to sing for you as for a god.

No clean death for the likes of them, by god! … Then, as doves or thrushes beating their spread wings against some snare rigged up in thickets —flying in for a cozy nest but a grisly bed receives them — so the women's heads were trapped in a line, nooses yanking their necks up, one by one so all might die a pitiful, ghastly death . . .

So by day she'd weave at her great and growing web — by night, by the light of torches set beside her, she would unravel all she'd done. Three whole years she deceived us blind, seduced us with this scheme

Homer's work is a performance, even in part a musical event. Perhaps that is the source of his speed, directness and simplicity, that Matthew Arnold praised —and his nobility too, elusive yet undeniable, that Arnold pursued but never really caught. Surely it is a major source of Homer's energy, the loft and carry of his imagination that sweeps along the listener together with the performer.

So the original form of Homer's work, though a far cry from a work of literature as we know it now, is not exactly a song, pure and simple, either. It may be more the record of a song, building, perhaps, over the poet's entire lifetime —not spontaneity outright but what Marianne Moore would call "a simulacrum of spontaneity."

Not only is Homer often less formulaic than might appear, but the formulas themselves are often more resonant, more apt and telling in their contexts, than the "hard Parryites" argued for at first.

According to what perifrôn Penelope is doing at the time, the sense of the epithet may go from the heroine's guardedness, her circumspection, to her self-possession, to her gift for great good wisdom, and her willingness to give that wisdom voice. With pepnumenos Telemachus, many qualities, from his wariness, to his growing poise, to his level-headed sense in action as well as speech, may be involved. And with polumêtis Odysseus, the epithet may extend from the hero's craft and cunning (murderous cunning when required), to his skill of hand or expertise at quick disguise and spinning yarns, to his zest for exploit and adventure.

3.485. Athena came . . . / to attend her sacred rites: What happens in the following passage is a sacrifice to the gods that is also a feast for the human worshipers (this was the way meat was eaten in the ancient world). The animal is placed at the altar, and the sacrificers wash their hands to establish purity for the ritual. They scatter barley on the victim, then stun the animal with a blow on the head, pull back its head and cut its throat over the altar. The animal’s skin is taken off and a portion of the meat prepared for the gods. This is a choice portion, the meat of the thighbones: it is wrapped in a double fold of fat and the outside covered with small pieces of meat from different parts of the animal. This portion is burned over the fire —the smoke and savor go up to the gods above. Wine is poured over it, a libation. The sacrificers at last begin their meal —with the entrails, which they have roasted on forks over the fire.

11.669. Tantalus: Homer takes for granted the audience’s knowledge of Tantalus’ offense. Later accounts of it differ in detail, but food and drink play a part in most of them. One version has Tantalus, who was a confidant and often invited guest of the gods, invite them to his palace for a feast and serve up to them the cooked flesh of his son Pelops, as a test of their divine powers of perception. They all refused the meat, except Demeter, who gnawed on a shoulder. After Tantalus was dispatched to his everlasting punishment in Hades —doomed, fittingly enough, to eternal thirst and hunger —Pelops was put back together again and brought to life; the missing part of his shoulder was replaced by a marble prosthesis, which was on display centuries later at Olympia, the site of the games founded by Pelops.