Ritual Scenes in the Iliad : Rote, Hallowed, or Encrypted as Ancient Art?

Abstract

To analyze ritual scenes in the Iliad, one first must contend with the myriad scenes scholars have deemed ritualistic. These include not only prayer, supplication, sacrifice, and oathmaking, 1 but also gift exchanges and hospitality, 2 speechmaking and taunting, 3 grieving and funeral ceremonies, 4 and dressings and armings. 5 Indeed, the whole performance of the Iliad has been described as a ritualized feature of Totenkult (Seaford 1994; Derderian 2001) or, less comprehensively, a performance of Todesdichtung permeated with themes of lament, lament itself being identified as a micro-ritual with discernible performance features (Tsagalis 2004). Expressly or not, Homerists have attuned their ears to rituals in the poem ever since Parry and Lord discovered the performance-contexts for bards in the Balkans (for example, Lord 1960:13-29). By analogy with those performances, the Iliad represents an artifact of an extensive tradition of ritual performance: the ritual performed was the poem. Although ritual is basic to oral-traditional performance and to many features of Homeric life, one cannot presume that ritual scenes simply reflect lived traditions outside of the poem. Given the likely evolution of the poems, the claim is just too broad. Whose rituals? Which side of the Mediterranean? Which generation of poets? Further, as Katherine Derderian notes of the poem's funeral rituals, they must be at least in part fictionalized (2001:9). We can be reasonably sure that funeral rituals did not occur in hexameter, for instance, or not wholly so. In this essay I ponder to what extent ritual scenes in the poem might reflect actual ritual traditions, by examining those scenes in the light of ritual performance theory. I will argue that ritual scenes are composed with unique constraints that reflect the crystallization of especially ancient ritual traditions. Thus, they reflect compositional pressures beyond those of other kinds of typical scenes.

What's Religious about the Iliad?

“…Understanding the Homeric poems is complicated, first, by their age. Both epics are arguably as old as the Bronze Age (Latacz ), possibly stemming from unwritten Mycenaean praise songs (Ford ) and containing formulae reaching deeply into the Indo‐European nebulae (Watkins , Nagy 1990a:7–35) or, alternatively, stemming from lays composed in the Greek colonies of Asia Minor during the so‐called Dark Age and borrowing themes from earlier epics further east (S. Morris , Bryce , Kitts 2013b). Whatever the initial sources, the epics are thought to have matured into lengthy oral poems performed in recitative registers (Nagy 1990b:41, Ford :401), a distinct metrical style (dactylic hexameter), and a specialized art–language with formulaic sequencing and traditional themes (Ford , Nagy 1990b:17–51).…”

“… Notice that Biblical and Near Eastern allusions to a Chaoskampf , wherein cosmic powers collide on earth, are never dismissed as comic (Fishbane , Day , Ortlund , Noegel , Wyatt , Kitts 2013b), even when the biblical god scoffs would be foes (Ps. 2.4–6), or Leviathan laughs at the lance which tries to kill him (Job 41).…”