American Journal of Philology

Homer elaborates "the most dramatic moment in the whole of the Iliad"¹ with a unique, disturbing, and pathetic simile. Only in the scene of Priam's unheralded arrival in Achilles' lodging does the predicament of a murderer seeking refuge in a strange land ever provide the material for a Homeric illustration.

(Il. 24.477–86)

The simile explicitly compares only the wonder experienced by the fugitive's host in the simile and by Achilles in the main narrative as each gazes upon his unexpected visitor. But since the narrator withholds this [End Page 1] link until the end of the simile, the implicit analogy between Priam and the murderer, both suppliants in a stranger's dwelling, seems at least equally prominent. Yet the tenor and the vehicle of this comparison are more notable for their dissimilarity than their resemblance: Priam is not a murderer,² he is not in a foreign land but in his own, the man he supplicates is an enemy.³ According to MacLeod, "The simile heightens the moment by contrasting a more usual situation with this one."⁴ Mark W. Edwards writes of the "shock effect" produced by the reversal of roles between Priam and Achilles.⁵ While these authors see dissimilarity as a functional element of the simile, they do not explore the effects, or potential effects, of an emotional intensification achieved through the particular contrasts presented by this simile alone.⁶

Upon close examination, the simile of the fugitive homicide reveals a multitude of internal and external associations that suggest mysterious, even uncanny interpretive density. It is hardly to be imagined that these associations could have been accurately recognized, much less interpreted, on a single hearing. Indeed, less acute listeners might not even have been troubled by the simile, while the more acute would have registered different disturbing subtleties and pondered them differently. Discussion here, therefore, does not aim at reproducing a single ideal reading of the passage, or at imputing to the poet techniques for eliciting such a reading. Instead it exposes a range of provocations which the simile offers to its audiences and suggests a range of interpretive responses. [End Page 2]

The concept of foiling seems promising for the interpretation of sharp contrasts such as those in the simile of the fugitive homicide. In foiling, one or both contrasted qualities are emphasized through their juxtaposition. We find this technique constantly employed in the priamel, a structure that Homer could combine with similes.⁷ Fränkel perceived that "an interplay of polar (absolute or extreme) opposites is a basic constituent of early Greek (especially archaic) thought and feeling. . . . as a consequence thought constantly operated with contrasting foils."⁸ But he scarcely applied this insight to Homeric similes, despite his extensive study of them.⁹ Porter has convincingly argued that in the numerous similes in the Iliad in which the carnage of the battlefield is compared to scenes of peace, "the grimness and bloodiness of the battlefield are inevitably rendered darker and more tragic by the constant brief glimpses we get in the similes of a world where milk flows, etc. . . . Conversely, these momentary glimpses of the world of peace are made more idyllic and poignant by the panorama of violence and destruction which surrounds them."¹⁰

The simile of the fugitive homicide is a bit more complicated than most of the juxtapositions discussed by Porter. Rather than comparing a scene of war to one of peace, this simile compares a scene comprising two elements, one violent, the other not (Achilles, Priam), to another scene of two elements, one violent the other nonviolent (the suppliant homicide and his host). Thus the comparison of violent and nonviolent is doubled. But Porter's basic principle of the mutual emphasis of peace and war through contrastive juxtaposition still applies. The comparison of Priam to a murderer seems to serve as a foil that emphasizes the harmlessness, indeed victimhood, of the elderly Trojan king. Priam's juxtaposition with the violent man he is supplicating would have the same effect: never could he be more powerless than when prostrate before the...