Chapter 3. Nausicaa and the Daughters of Anius: Terms and Limits of Epic Rivalry

Intertextual associations are based on the repetition of material treated in text A and whose reuse in text B will immediately allow the reader to make the connection to text A. In this way, a new ‘reading’ will emerge, one which does not depend solely on text A or text B, but on their symbiosis in a new intertext, AB, that will emerge in the reader’s mind. In oral poetry, such a symbiosis is not created by helping the listener evoke a ‘specific’ text representing the crystallization of a given episode or version. Epic songs may be alluding to themes or topics falling outside their plot-framework but belonging to the plot-framework of other epic traditions. Since these traditions may be reconstructed due to later, post-Homeric treatments of the same mythical material, then we may be able to reconsider latent allusions to other versions of an episode or incident that the Homeric song-tradition deliberately leaves lurking in the background. Intertextuality is here not the result of an authorial, poet-centered policy, but an almost in-built characteristic of oral poetry. Selecting their material from multiple traditions concerning Odysseus, the bards who decide to sing his ante- and post-Iliadic mythical lore are well equipped to incorporate characteristics alluding to non-Odyssean episodes of Odysseus’ heroic saga. Post-Homeric epics, whose content scholars have meticulously tried to reconstruct using material from various sources, are a valuable aid, since they are undoubtedly based on epic versions that were uninterruptedly sung during the formative period of the Homeric poems. [1]

In this light, cross-referencing may well be at work in traditional oral poetry, provided that we understand cross-references not as indicating text-oriented allusions but tradition-dependent associations. Nagy has eloquently summarized this viewpoint in the following way: One important issue in respect to cross-references of the type described above is their sequence-ignoring character. The very notion of intertextuality is, [3] in fact, consonant to this very idea. It has been argued that by evoking a single aspect or incident of a story not exploited by the Homeric epics at the moment of performance, the bard does not demand from his audience to have mastered enormous quantities of mythological material, but to focus their attention on a single point. [4] Compressed narrative, on the other hand, disrupts the chronological sequence in which a given episode is placed and conjures in the audience’s mind not just the particular detail at hand, but also the framework and, perhaps, even the tradition with which this incident is associated. Since familiarity with characters and the entire mythical nexus concerning a given hero is required, I strongly reject the idea of a poet imposing a heavy interpretive burden on his audience’s shoulders. When talking about traditional mythical material, we do not need to think of an audience comprised of well-informed students of Greek myth. Such a distorted picture is typical of the modern sense of ‘mythology’, according to which acquaintance with mythical material is attained only after meticulous study of the relevant myths. An ancient audience was able to fill the gaps every time they were presented with a compressed narrative, because that was the process mythical material developed. There was no compendium of myths from which a given poet would select a story and tailor it to his needs. Links and aberrations, associations and deviations among various mythical traditions, grew out of their performative use in oral contexts, one of which was epic singing. We do not need to postulate a supremely competent audience to argue that the average listener must have heard many epic performances. In fact, what we define as ‘competence’ within a performance-context is simple acquaintance.

It is as if, to employ a metaphor from the field of textual criticism, we are dealing with a palimpsest (a codex rescriptus), which has been re-written in the same place as an earlier text that has been now erased. Thus, the codex we possess can help us read two texts, both the earlier and the present one. To that extent, the two texts, which may well be completely unrelated, share a peculiar form of symbiosis through the medium on which they have been written. Traces of the older text may be still discernible, provided that we look ‘below’ the present text to recover the erased one. Extending this analogy to the field of oral poetics, I employ the oxymoronic term ‘oral palimpsest’ in order to allude to the co-existence, in our Iliad and Odyssey, of episodes or incidents belonging to other song-traditions current during the formative period of the Homeric epics. Like the erased text on a palimpsest, traces of other song-traditions may be still recovered in the Iliad and the Odyssey. This time, though, such recovery can be achieved not through modern laser techniques, as it is the case in palaeography, but through a sophisticated system of cross-referencing, which involves what Martin has happily called a ‘selection-of-detail’ principle. [5] Selecting details from a mythical episode known to the audience presupposes a process of suppression of certain aspects that the current version wants to eliminate. The reasons explaining this suppression-policy often have to do with the particular mythical version a given epic intends to foster and promote, as well as with its effort to differentiate itself from other traditions to which it may be related through its interest in the same characters. The tradition of the Odyssey, to state a relevant example, may have aimed at ‘usurping’ Odysseus from all other rival traditions dealing with the same hero. In all other traditions where Odysseus is present, the king of Ithaca hardly features as the main character. He is one of many heroes, whose fate is connected either to the preparation and departure for Troy or the Trojan War itself, or his adventures after his reunion with Penelope. Making Odysseus the main hero of a whole song-tradition such as the Odyssey, though, was not the only means by which this tradition attempted to highlight its importance. Odysseus had to become the hero of the Odyssey by acquiring characteristics that would distinguish him not only from other heroes of the tradition of the Trojan War, but also from his rival epic personas featured in other epic songs. Under this scope, a positively evaluated Odysseus may have been the ‘narrative product’ of the Odyssean song-tradition that aimed at promoting its ‘one man’s show’, i.e. a version with only Odysseus as the protagonist. Selecting the appropriate details and suppressing others became, therefore, an effective policy on the part of the Odyssean tradition, so as to highlight the importance of its own Odyssean Odysseus.

The compressed narrative the hero offers to Nausicaa in Odyssey vi 160–167 is one case in which the mechanics of cross-referencing are amply employed in order to conjure a rival version of Odysseus’ mythical lore and subsequently appropriate it to an Odyssean perspective.

One of the most impressive features of the meeting between Nausicaa and Odysseus in Odyssey vi is the hero’s reference to his journey to Delos and the young palm-tree he saw next to Apollo’s altar there. This piece of information has instigated a serious debate concerning both its origin and its function in the Nausicaa-Odysseus episode. The relevant verses run as follows (Odyssey vi 160–167): According to Hainsworth, “Odysseus appears to allude to his voyage to Troy (or Aulis), but a visit to Delos is otherwise quite unknown.” [6] There is, however, a scholium by Aristarchus (EPQ ad Odyssey vi 164) referring to a visit of Odysseus and Menelaus (followed by the entire Greek fleet) to Delos to seek the daughters of Anius, who were able to relieve the famine of the Greek army by producing food:

The study of the myth of the Oinotropoi is of central importance for exploring the mythical apparatus upon which Odysseus’ compressed narrative at Odyssey vi 160–167 is founded. The following is a list of all the ancient sources referring to this episode:

(a) In the scholia on Lycophron’s Alexandra 570 (197 Scheer) we read about an incident that, according to Pherecydes (FGrHist 3 F 140 = EGM fr. 140), belonged to the plot of the lost epic Cypria (PEG 1, fr. 29 = EGF fr. 19). Lycophron’s Alexandra 570 (197 Scheer): Two other scholia on Lycophron’s Alexandra 580 (200 Scheer) and 581 (200 Scheer) are also relevant:

(b) There was also a lost epyllion by the neoteric Hellenistic poet Euphorion, whose title was Anius. [7] This poem’s content had to do with Dionysus’ priest, Anius, who was able to feed the entire Greek army through the help of his daughters, the Oinotropoi. Since Euphorion is known for his taste in episodes and characters featured in the Epic Cycle, it can be plausibly argued that he would have drawn some of the material concerning Anius from the Cypria. [8]

(c) According to Tzetzes’ scholia (on Lycophron’s Alexandra 570 [198 Scheer]: μέμνηται δὲ καὶ Καλλίμαχος τῶν Ἀνίου θυγατέρων ἐν τοῖς Αἰτίοις and 580 [200 Scheer]: μαρτυρεῖ δὲ ταῦτα καὶ Καλλίμαχος) Callimachus too dealt with the story of the Oinotropoi in the Aetia (fr. 188 Pf.).

(d) Apollodorus (Epitome 3.10) refers to the daughters of Anius, who had received from Dionysus the gift of producing olive, seeds, and wine: θυγατέρες Ἀνίου τοῦ Ἀπόλλωνος Ἐλαῒς Σπερμὼ Οἰνώ, αἱ Οἰνότροποι λεγόμεναι· αἷς ἐχαρίσατο Διόνυσος ποιεῖν ἐκ γῆς ἔλαιον σῖτον οἶνον. [9]

(e) Ovid (Metamorphoses XIII 632–674) refers to the four daughters of Anius who were commanded by Agamemnon to feed the Greek army. In order to escape, two of them fled to Euboea and two to Andros. In a state of complete desperation, they prayed to Dionysus (669: ‘Bacche pater, fer opem!’), who transformed them into white doves. [10]

The above information concerning the episode of the Oinotropoi clearly shows that there were at least two different versions of this story. Divergence is based on two aspects: (a) the place where the Oinotropoi saved the Greeks from starvation, and (b) the person or persons who played a key-role in summoning them. [11] According to the first version, which is mainly based on the scholia by Tzetzes on Lycophron’s Alexandra, the Oinotropoi saved the Greeks after coming to cape Rhoiteion, in the Troad. In this first version, it is either Palamedes (scholia on Lycophron’s Alexandra 581 [200 Scheer]), who follows the orders of Agamemnon and summons them to Troy, or Menelaus and Odysseus (EPQ ad Odyssey vi 164). According to the second version, which is also based on Tzetzes’ scholia on Lycophron’s Alexandra, Pherecydes (FGrHist 3 F 140 = EGM fr. 140) narrated the story of Anius, who, having prophesied to the Greeks that Troy would fall only in the tenth year after the departure of the Greek fleet from Aulis, suggested that they should stay with him at Delos. Anius reassured them that the Oinotropoi, his daughters, would nourish the Achaeans for nine years, after which they would sail to Troy and sack the city. This story, according to Tzetzes’ scholium, was told by the poet of the Cypria.

Some scholars [12] endorse the accuracy of Tzetzes’ scholium about Pherecydes’ narrating that the episode of the Oinotropoi was part of the Cypria, but others seem quite skeptical about it. Welcker [13] has argued that the Pherecydes-fragment did not belong to the Cypria, since Tzetzes’ scholium leaves no other alternative [14] but to believe that Anius indeed convinced the Greeks to stay at Delos for nine years. Immisch argues fiercely against Welcker by stating that one should not trust Tzetzes (as Welcker did) and should therefore read the conative imperfect ἔπειθε instead of the aorist ἔπεισε in Pherecydes (FGrHist 3 F 140 = EGM fr. 140). [15] This conjecture makes much more sense, since it is assumed that the Greeks did not stay at Delos but continued their voyage towards Troy. The scholium, in fact, does not say that the Greeks stayed at Delos for nine years and were subsequently fed by Anius’ daughters, but simply that Anius promised (ὑπέσχετο) the Greeks that if they stayed in Delos, his daughters would be able to feed the army. [16] Moreover, since the episode of the Oinotropoi is summarized in the aforementioned fragment in relation to the Cypria, it may have formed part, as Welcker had thought, of an isolated Delian myth. Immisch tries to corroborate his own view by arguing that, in the phrase μέμνηται δὲ τούτων καὶ ὁ τὰ Κύπρια συγγραψάμενος added by Tzetzes at the end of the scholium, the genitive τούτων refers to the daughters of Anius and not to the entire preceding passage. [17] Therefore, he concludes that the Pherecydes-fragment belonged to the Cypria.

The majority of modern scholars believe that the Pherecydes-fragment indeed refers to an episode that formed part of the Cypria. Still, there are a number of thorny issues that need to be convincingly solved. In fact, the question ‘Did the Oinotropoi episode form part of the plot of the Cypria?’ is linked to the question ‘In which part of Proclus’ summary should it be located?’ Before I embark on a detailed examination of all the relevant material, let me point to the fact that only the scholium on Lycophron’s Alexandra 570 (197 Scheer) is followed by an explicit reference to the Cypria. In the scholia on verses 580 (200 Scheer) and 581 (200 Scheer) the Cypria are not mentioned. Moreover, only Pausanias (X 31.2) explicitly refers to the drowning of Palamedes by Diomedes and Odysseus as belonging to the Cypria. [18] I will deal in due course with all of the suggestions made thus far and state all the problems linked with each proposal:

(a) If the Pherecydes-fragment formed part of the Cypria, then it would have to be placed, in all probability, after the first gathering of the army at Aulis and before the arrival of the Greek fleet at Teuthrania. [19] If one accepts the explanation offered by Immisch, who changed the aorist ἔπεισε into the imperfect ἔπειθε in the Pherecydes-fragment, then Anius’ prophecy would have to be placed exactly after Calchas’ prophecy, which also referred to the very same matter, namely the duration of the war. Calchas, in the episode coming just before the Teuthranian expedition, had prophesied to the Greeks (by interpreting the omen of the snake and the sparrows) what would happen to them. Prophecy [20] constitutes a principal feature of the Cypria, which clearly have a ‘hieratic’ tone. The potential narrative juxtaposition of two prophecies on exactly the same matter should not, though, raise suspicions about the authenticity or placement of the Anius episode, since in the Cypria there is another example of two prophecies placed one next to the other while foreshadowing the same events. According to Proclus’ summary, both Helenus (91–92 Severyns = 5 Kullmann: καὶ Ἕλενος περὶ τῶν μελλόντων αὐτοῖς προθεσπίζει) and Cassandra (93–94 Severyns = 7 Kullmann: καὶ Κασσάνδρα περὶ τῶν μελλόντων προδηλοῖ) clarify in advance what is going to happen.

(b) A more serious problem is connected to the episode of Palamedes’ death. If Pausanias is right in stating that he read in the Cypria that Palamedes was drowned by Diomedes and Odysseus while fishing (Pausanias X 31.2), then how are we to explain his (Palamedes’) summoning of the Oinotropoi from Delos (Lycophron Alexandra 581 [200 Scheer]) to relieve the Greeks from a famine at Troy? Almost every modern authority on the matter has interpreted Palamedes’ fishing as a sign of famine in the Greek camp. [21] If Palamedes was then killed by Diomedes and Odysseus during a famine, he must have already summoned the Oinotropoi from Delos according to Agamemnon’s order. In that case, what were the Oinotropoi doing in Troy if there was still a famine? If, on the other hand, we suppose that Palamedes’ summoning of the Oinotropoi to Troy was not narrated in the Cypria, [22] then the narrative function of the Greek army’s visit at Delos would be reduced only to a reiteration of the prophecy concerning the duration of the war. The only reasonable alternative is based on Kullmann’s suggestion, that interprets Palamedes’ fishing as indicating his effort to relieve the Greek army from a second famine, [23] which occurred towards the end of the Cypria, after the Oinotropoi had saved the Greek army from the first famine and only after the daughters of Anius had returned to Delos. The two famines should not make us suspicious about their authenticity, since Kullmann has rightly highlighted “an idiosyncrasy of the Cyclic Epics”, their fondness for Motivdubletten, [24] for example the double explanation of Achilles’ death and the double causation of Troy’s destruction by the summoning of both Philoctetes from Lemnos and Neoptolemus from Scyros etc. [25]

So, we may now return to the episode between Odysseus and Nausicaa in Odyssey vi, particularly to the reference of a palm tree Odysseus had seen in Delos next to Apollo’s altar. The ancient scholiast explains this by referring to a visit made to Delos by Menelaus and Odysseus to summon the daughters of Anius (ἐπὶ τὰς Ἀνίου θυγατέρας). This scholium (EPQ on Odyssey vi 164) points to a version of the myth of the Oinotropoi in which Menelaus and Odysseus have taken the place of Palamedes, who features in the Cypria. The phrase ἐπὶ τὰς Ἀνίου θυγατέρας, αἳ καὶ Οἰνότροποι ἐκαλοῦντο suggests that this can not be the Greek fleet’s visit to Delos narrated in the Cypria, as the Greeks did not go to Delos for the daughters of Anius (ἐπὶ τὰς Ἀνίου θυγατέρας), but found out about their extraordinary abilities only after Anius’ prophecy. Why, then, does the scholiast refer to Menelaus and Odysseus, but not to Palamedes? Obviously, because he employs a version that makes sense only as an exegetical scholium to the text of the Odyssey, where Odysseus refers, in an abbreviated narrative, only to himself as leader of the Greek fleet going to Delos. The Odyssey has every reason to ‘erase’ Palamedes, who is the great rival of Odysseus in the field of cunningness, but the question still remains as to what incident the scholiast is referring. In other words, why did the scholiast ‘avoid’ referring to Odysseus’ first visit to Delos with the Greek army, which was narrated in the Cypria? The answer is perfectly compatible, I think, with the aforementioned analysis. The scholiast could not have explained Odysseus’ abbreviated narrative by referring to the visit of the Greek army at Delos because at that point the Greek army was not suffering from starvation. The cross-textual reference the Odyssey unravels is based on the analogy the audience is expected to draw once Odysseus mentions the palm tree at Delos. Therefore, we are clearly dealing with two rival traditions [26] concerning the episode of the Oinotropoi, one belonging to the Cypria in which Palamedes summoned Anius’ daughters from Delos to Troy, and the other stemming from another oral tradition, unknown to us, where it was Menelaus and Odysseus who played the role Palamedes had undertaken in the Cypria. [27] The abbreviated form of Odysseus’ narrative to Nausicaa in Odyssey vi 160–167 implicitly indicates that the Delos incident was familiar to the audience. As a matter of fact, Odysseus’ condensed reference acquires its full semantic potential only when its intertextual perspective is taken into account.

In order to recover the intricate nexus of associations Odysseus’ abbreviated narrative conjures up, we need to place this reference within the entire encounter with Nausicaa. The following table shows the narrative similarities between the myth of the Oinotropoi and the Nausicaa-Odysseus episode:

In both stories, starvation plays a key role. The Greeks (led by Menelaus and Odysseus) search for the Oinotropoi, who will be able, according to Anius’ promise, to feed the army. Odysseus arrives at Scheria in a state of complete devastation and in urgent need of food. The hero’s feeling of hunger pangs constitutes a well-known feature of this episode, reflected even in later iconographical representations of Odysseus and Nausicaa, in which the Ithacan king is depicted as having a humped back. [28] Odysseus’ hunger can be clearly seen in: (a) Odyssey vi 133 (κέλεται δέ ἑ γαστήρ), when he is compared to a hungry lion ready to attack cattle or sheep and (b) Odyssey vi 249–250 (ἦ τοι ὁ πῖνε καὶ ἦσθε πολύτλας δῖος Ὀδυσσεύς // ἁρπαλέως· δηρὸν γὰρ ἐδητύος ἦεν ἄπαστος).

The Oinotropoi produced food and saved the Greek army. [29] In Odyssey vi 248 (πὰρ δ᾿ ἄρ᾿ Ὀδυσσῆϊ ἔθεσαν βρῶσίν τε πόσιν τε), Nausicaa and her attendants offer food to Odysseus.

The Oinotropoi are the great-great-grand-daughters of Dionysus (Dionysus > Staphylus > Rhoio [+ Apollo] > Anius [+ Dorippe] > Oinotropoi). In Lycophron’s Alexandra 577, it is explicitly stated that they were ‘taught’ by their great-great-grand father, Dionysus (called Πρόβλαστος in Lycophron’s text), ‘how to produce food crushed in a mill, how to make wine and ointment from oil’ (578–580). In the Odysseus-Nausicaa episode, Alden has traced a number of Dionysiac elements, which give a Dionysiac overtone to the story. [30] In fact, the overt references to Artemis are coupled with multiple covert associations to Dionysiac cult. [31] I offer the following list, which is based on Alden’s analysis: [32]

(a) The box (κίστη) containing the food Arete gives to Nausicaa (Odyssey vi 76) [33] is commonly used in Dionysiac ritual for the customary meal. [34]

(b) The removal of the headdresses by Nausicaa and her attendants also points to Dionysiac associations. In Iliad XXII 468–470, Andromache’s removal of her headband and veil implies that she is in a state of ecstatic frenzy, ‘like a maenad’ (μαινάδι ἴση). [35]

(c) The Nymphs are associated both with Artemis and Dionysus. [36] Before the 6th century BC the Nymphs occupy a prominent place, but they are subsequently substituted by the Maenads. [37] When amidst dancing female company, Dionysus’ sexuality is latent. Likewise, Odysseus’ sexuality in this episode is rather covert. Interestingly enough, the entire episode places special emphasis on Odysseus’ bath, which is made possible by ‘the soft olive-oil in a golden flask’ (vi 215: … χρυσέῃ ἐν ληκύθῳ ὑγρὸν ἔλαιον) Arete has given to Nausicaa and her attendants.

(d) The disruption of the game with the ball, the shrieking of the girls (vi 117), Odysseus’ awakening from sleep (vi 117), the hero’s sudden appearance (vi 127), the panic-stricken attendants running here and there (vi 138), the face-to-face meeting between Odysseus and Nausicaa, all these features taken together have Dionysiac overtones. They correspond fairly well to the anguished cries of the maenads, the awakening of the infant Dionysus by the Thyiads in Delphi, the frenzied attendants occupied by the spirit of the god, the face-to-face encounter with the ‘kommende Gott’. [38]

(e) The branch or leafy bough [39] that Odysseus breaks from the thicket to conceal his nudity is, of course, very apt for the occasion, due to its practical use. At the same time, such a leafy bough recalls the well-known θύρσος, which is typical in Dionysiac cult. The θύρσοι, which are often used by those participating in cultic practice, have a special significance for Dionysus. Alden rightly observes that Nausicaa’s attendants strikingly resemble Dionysus’ maenads, who run in panic chased by Lycurgus or pursued by Dionysus’ priest in the festival of the Agrionia in Orchomenos. [40] In two vases from Madrid, Dionysus is depicted carrying a tree [41] and in the famous Attic red-figure neck-amphora attributed to the Nausicaa Painter, Odysseus wears garlands of leaves on his head and holds two branches. [42]

(f) The palm [43] tree Odysseus refers to in Odyssey vi 163 is placed next to Apollo’s altar at Delos. Apollo is also linked to the story of the Oinotropoi, since he slept with Dionysus’ granddaughter, Rhoio, and was the father of Anius. The palm tree [44] is one of the most interesting features of this episode. It was very often used in art “as an iconographic representation of the eternal recycling of life.” [45] In Minoan-Mycenaean art, the sacred tree was often depicted as a fig or olive tree associated with a female deity, but “the palm tree seems to have been confined to other representations in which the female deity is not depicted.” [46] In Early Greek art, tree cult was not overtly expressed but was implicit, especially when the sacred tree became a recognizable feature of a sanctuary, like the osier tree at Hera’s sanctuary at Samos, the olive tree on the Acropolis at Athens, and Leto’s palm tree at Delos. In certain cases the sacred tree became synonymous to an oracle, as was the case with the oak in the oracle of Zeus at Dodona or the bay tree at Delphi. [47] In Archaic and later Greek art, the iconographic representation of a palm tree by an altar proliferated and was used, under the pressure of the aristocracy’s desire to activate its past, within the framework of myths, epics, and popular religious beliefs. [48] As the old tree on an altar is progressively replaced by the new motif, Dionysus and the vine make their appearance. The famous cup by Exekias depicting Dionysus aboard a ship is the best example of this change. Dionysus is surrounded (above) by seven bunches of grapes springing from the ship’s mast, which becomes a huge vine tree, and (below) by seven dolphins. The symbolism is more than explicit: Dionysus and the vine have replaced the Great Goddess of Minoan-Mycenaean art and the sacred tree. What lies beyond this representation is the cult of Dionysus Dendritis. [49] Dionysus has a special link to tree cult. The unmarried girls at Karyai in Laconia dance around a walnut tree, led by Artemis Karyatis. According to legend, Karya was a princess from Lacedaemon who was loved by Dionysus and was subsequently metamorphosed into a tree. The young girls who are called Karyatides [50] (daughters of the walnut tree, i.e. daughters of Dionysus) dance around the nut-bearing tree (καρύα) and hang themselves from its branches as an act of mimetic identification with this ‘Dionysiac’ tree. [51] The palm tree Odysseus mentions is called a φοίνικος νέον ἔρνος ἀνερχόμενον (fresh young palm tree shooting up). This rising palm tree may well be indicative of the theme of vegetation connected to the myth of the Oinotropoi. A growing fresh shoot of a palm tree next to Apollo’s altar bridges the beginning of the story of the Oinotropoi (Apollo impregnating Rhoio who is subsequently exiled by her father, Staphylus, the son of Dionysus) with the arrival of Anius at Delos. Dionysus has recompensed his granddaughter’s (Rhoio’s) exile by endowing her own granddaughters, the Oinotropoi, with the ability of producing food. The symbolism of vegetation inherent in the sacred tree next to an altar blends in effectively with the covert Dionysiac associations lying in the background of the myth of the daughters of Anius.

(g) Once Odysseus washed and dressed himself, Athena “made him taller and sturdier and caused the bushy locks to hang from his head thick as the petals of a hyacinth in bloom.” [52] Odysseus’ long hair bears a striking similarity with the long hair Pentheus acquires after being turned into a maenad by Dionysus. [53] Odysseus has, like Dionysus, acquired a greater stature; he has been changed into an almost new condition. All of this occurs only after Odysseus has washed off “the salt that encrusted his back and his broad shoulders, and [scrubbed] his head free of the scurf left by the barren sea.” [54] Likewise, the daughters of Proetus were saved from madness by Melampus, priest of Dionysus, “in the temple of Artemis at Lousoi, the place of washing.” [55]

(h) Nausicaa foresees that if she carries Odysseus upon her wagon, the people of Phaeacia might take him for a god who, having heard her prayers (πολυάρητος θεὸς ἦλθεν), has come from heaven to take hold of her. [56] The coming god (‘der kommende Gott’), [57] carried upon a ship-wagon from the sea [58] to the city before his intended sacred marriage (ἱερὸς γάμος) to the daughter of the ἄρχων βασιλεύς, [59] bears a striking similarity to Odysseus. He also comes from the sea, and, if carried upon Nausicaa’s wagon, he may be taken as the god who had listened to her prayers or as her would-be husband (Odyssey vi 282–284). Dionysus is considered hostile to endogamy. The myths of Erigone, Icarius’ daughter, and of Althaea, Oineas’ wife, as well as the ritual practice of the Anthesteria in Athens attest to this. [60] Odysseus, although posing a threat to Nausicaa’s future wedding with one of the Phaeacians (since he is after all a ξένος), will depart with a ship, Dionysus-like, from his Phaeacian hosts.

(i) The word συνέριθος (Odyssey vi 32–33: καί τοι ἐγὼ συνέριθος ἅμ᾿ ἕψομαι, ὄφρα τάχιστα // ἐντύνεαι …), employed for Athena as a disguised companion of Nausicaa, is also used for the same goddess as a ‘helpful servant’ of Dionysus by Telestes [61] in his Argo (quoted by Athenaeus, see PMG [805 (c)]: ἃν συνεριθοτάταν Βρομίῳ παρέδωκε σεμνᾶς // δαίμονος ἀερόεν πνεῦμ᾿ αἰολοπτέρυγον // σὺν ἀγλαᾶν ὠκύτατι χειρῶν (It was handed over as a most helpful servant / to Bromios by the uplifted wing-flashing breath / of the august goddess with the swiftness of her glorious hands). [62]

The wealth of Dionysiac associations found in the Nausicaa-Odysseus episode cannot be explained as an instant reflex of the narrative coordinates of the encounter between the Phaeacian princess and the king of Ithaca. The comparative examination of the myth of the Oinotropoi, who have clear Dionysiac overtones, and of the covert Dionysiac elements in the Nausicaa-Odysseus episode points to a lost oral tradition featuring the story of Odysseus’ visiting Delos in order to summon the daughters of Anius. In this tradition, which is partly reflected in the story of the Oinotropoi presented in the Cypria, the first visit of the Greek army at Delos as well as Odysseus’ and Menelaus’ second visit would have, in all probability, included numerous Dionysiac elements connected to the Oinotropoi and their relation to Dionysus. In this version, just as in the Odyssey, Odysseus arrived by sea, faced a terrible famine, and was in need of urgent help.

The Odyssey’s preoccupation with Dionysiac elements in the Nausicaa-Odysseus episode is in marked contrast to the complete absence of Dionysiac overtones in the rest of the epic. [63] The Odyssean tradition has employed material pertaining to an episode not featured in its plot (that of the Oinotropoi) and has narratively ‘accommodated’ it within the framework of the Nausicaa-Odysseus encounter.

In the first part of this chapter, I emphasized the difference between the roles of Palamedes in the Cypria and of Odysseus in another oral tradition, alluded to in the Odyssey through Odysseus’ abbreviated narrative about the palm tree he had seen at Delos. The Cypria may well reflect a rival oral tradition in which Palamedes, as Agamemnon’s envoy to Delos to summon the daughters of Anius, played Odysseus’ role. Are we able to trace even a single element showing or at least entertaining the possibility that the oral tradition of the Odyssey was aware of a rival oral tradition featuring Palamedes in the place of Odysseus, as is the case in the Cypria? In other words, are we able to find in the Odyssey a hint of a tradition endorsing the Cypria’s version of the story of the Oinotropoi?

This is an impossible jigsaw puzzle to solve. Still, there is a single feature that is, I hope, worth stating. Palamedes and his entire mythical entourage are associated with names pertaining to the world of the sea. His father was Nauplius and their family ruled over the area of Nauplion. His two brothers were Oeax and Nausimedon. Palamedes was famous for promoting human civilization (invention of numbers, alphabet, measures, and distribution of goods). Likewise, the Phaeacians in the Odyssey are also connected to the sea, as indicated by their names and their unsurpassed nautical proficiency. Moreover, the Phaeacians experience not only a high state of civilization, but also an unprecedented abundance of goods lavished incessantly upon them by the gods. [64] Is it then plausible that the Odyssey places the cross-textual reference of Odysseus’ visit to Delos within a Phaeacian framework because it aims, even more, at downplaying the preeminent role of Palamedes in the story of the Oinotropoi as presented by a rival oral tradition? I do not mean at all that the Phaeacian idyllic world has been invented for that reason, but that the Odyssean tradition has made Odysseus embed his Oinotropoi-oriented narrative in the Nausicaa episode (and not, say, in his false stories) in an attempt to more effectively ‘erase’ Palamedes’ presence in this myth. The abbreviated form of Odysseus’ reference to Delos is in stark contrast to the epic’s detailed presentation and description of the Phaeacian world to its audience. This may be an implicit indication that the former myth (Oinotropoi) was well known, whereas the latter (Phaeacians) was completely unknown. [65] Granted that the Phaeacian world was ‘invented’ by the Odyssean tradition, it becomes more plausible that an introduction to the idyllic world of Scheria would have been more appropriate if this world did not, Palamedes-like, pose a threat to the poem’s main hero. In this sea-oriented Phaeacian world, abundance is acquired not through Palamedian inventions and labor, but through a god-sent cornucopia. In fact, the Phaeacians are the only people Odysseus does not have to compete with. Their unparalleled proficiency at sea is almost ironically presented by the Odyssey, since their ships quickly fly to the ends of the world, thereby making Odysseus’ last journey on a Phaeacian ship from Scheria to Ithaca contrast his long, unsuccessful efforts to get home by his own means.

Thus, I maintain that both rival versions of the summoning of the Oinotropoi might have been known to the tradition of the Odyssey. Over centuries of compositional and thematic shaping, this epic tradition had incurred many poetic debts, which it adjusted to its own aim and scope. The epic’s ability to select, rework, and tailor various rival traditions to its own subject matter has once again been effectuated through a female figure, Nausicaa, who has been shaped not only intratextually but also intertextually. In this light, one can apprehend why the epic refuses to apologize for offering only vestigial remains of fragmented myths, turning the technique of appropriating just the required mythical material into a demonstration of its own preeminence.