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 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 3/11/2015, SPi

HOMERIC EPIC AND ITS RECEPTION

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 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 3/11/2015, SPi

Homeric Epic and its

Reception
Interpretive Essays

SETH L. SCHEIN

1
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3
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# Seth L. Schein 2016
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First Edition published in 2016
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 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 3/11/2015, SPi

To Sherry and Daniel

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 3/11/2015, SPi
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 3/11/2015, SPi

Preface

THIS volume is addressed primarily to scholars and students of

ancient Greek literature, in particular those specializing in Homeric
epic and its reception. I hope that it will also be of interest to those
who read Homer in translation and to students of other literatures,
and with that in mind I have translated all the Greek in the main text
of the twelve chapters and almost all the Greek in the footnotes.
These chapters were written over a period of 45 years, during
which I have accumulated many personal and professional debts.
I acknowledge those who helped with individual essays in notes
placed at the end of each chapter, and I also would like to thank the
two anonymous readers for Oxford University Press for their con-
structive criticism and helpful suggestions. More generally I would
like to acknowledge the teaching of Charles Kahn and Howard Porter,
with whom I first studied the Iliad and Odyssey in Greek as an
undergraduate and graduate student at Columbia University, and of
Bruno Snell, with whom I studied ‘the Homeric language’ as a
graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, when he
was Sather Professor of Classical Literature. I also was privileged to
know and at one point work with Ioannis Kakridis, Professor of
Ancient Greek Philology at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki,
whose scholarship and personal example were inspiring. He intro-
duced me to the work of many outstanding European Homerists and,
in some cases, to the scholars themselves, and mainly through him
I came to feel that I was part of a larger community of Homerists
from many countries and spanning multiple generations.
Over the years I have benefited from the ideas, interpretations, and
encouragement of friends and colleagues too numerous to mention or
even to remember. I would, though, like to thank David Bouvier,
Pascale Brillet-Dubois, Georg Danek, Nancy Felson, Katherine Callen
King, Maria Serena Mirto, Sheila Murnaghan, Alex Purves, and
Laura Slatkin for their scholarship, support, friendship, and conver-
sation over the years on Homeric epic and its reception. I would also
like to thank Zoë Stachel for drafting the Indexes. I also am grateful
to the many students with whom I read and discussed Homer at
Columbia University, the State University of New York, College
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 3/11/2015, SPi

viii Preface
at Purchase, Queens College and the Graduate School of the City
University of New York, and the University of California at Davis, at
Santa Cruz, and at Berkeley. I benefited greatly from the libraries at
these institutions and the librarians who helped to make my scholarly
work possible.
I would like to thank the editors at Oxford University Press for
their expertise and professionalism. Hilary O’Shea and Charlotte
Loveridge welcomed and encouraged my work; Annie Rose prepared
the book for production; Kizzy Taylor-Richelieu and Emma Slaughter
were the Production Editors, who kept things on course and on
schedule.
I am especially grateful to Heather Watson for her salutary copy-
editing, which improved this book by making it more accurate, clear,
and consistent. Working with her has been enjoyable and instructive.
I would also like to thank Tom Chandler for his alert and beneficial
proofreading.
Finally, I would like to thank my parents, Albert Schein and
Sylvia Orlikoff Schein, for the copies of the Samuel Butler translation
of the Iliad and the Andrew Lang and Samuel H. Butcher translation of
the Odyssey that I read as a child and for their later encouragement
of my work.
I happily dedicate this book to my wife, Sherry Crandon, and our
son, Daniel Schein.
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 3/11/2015, SPi

Acknowledgements and Details

of Original Publication

Chapter 1. ‘The Death of Simoeisios: Iliad 4.473–489’, lightly revised

version of an article originally published in Eranos 74 (1976), 1–5;
reprinted with the kind permission of the Board of Editors of Eranos.
Chapter 2. ‘The Horses of Achilles in Book 17 of the Iliad’, lightly
revised version of a chapter originally published in M. Reichel and
A. Rengakos (eds.), EPEA PTEROENTA: Beiträge zur Homerforschung.
Festschrift für WOLFGANG KULLMANN zum 75. Geburtstag (Franz
Steiner Verlag: Stuttgart, 2002), 193–205; reprinted with the kind
permission of the Franz Steiner Verlag.
Chapter 3. ‘Odysseus and Polyphemos in the Odyssey’, revised and
expanded version of an article originally published in Greek, Roman
and Byzantine Studies 11 (1970), 73–83; reprinted with the kind
permission of the Editor of Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies.
Chapter 4. ‘Mythological Allusion in the Odyssey: Herakles and the
Bow of Odysseus’, lightly revised version of a chapter originally
published in F. Montanari and P. Ascheri (eds.), Omero tremila
anni dopo (Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura: Rome, 2002), 185–201;
reprinted with the kind permission of the Editors and of Edizioni di
Storia e Letteratura.
Chapter 5. ‘Divine and Human in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite’,
revised and expanded version of a chapter originally published in
R. Bouchon, P. Brillet-Dubois, and N. Le Meur-Weissman (eds.),
Hymnes de la Grèce antique: Approches littéraires et historiques (Maison
de l’Orient et de la Méditerranée: Lyon, 2012), 295–312; reprinted with
the kind permission of La Maison de l’Orient et de la Méditerranée.
Chapter 6. ‘Homeric Intertextuality: Two Examples’, lightly revised
version of a chapter originally published in J. N. Kazazis and
A. Rengakos (eds.), Euphrosyne: Studies in Ancient Epic and its Legacy
in Honor of Demetrios N. Maronitis (Franz Steiner Verlag: Stuttgart,
1999), 349–56; reprinted with the kind permission of the Franz
Steiner Verlag.
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x Acknowledgements and Original Publications

Chapter 8. ‘Milman Parry and the Literary Interpretation of Homeric
Poetry’, lightly revised version of a chapter originally published in
F. Létoublon (ed.), Hommage à Milman Parry: Le style formulaire de
l’épopée homérique et la théorie de l’oralité poétique (J. Gieben:
Amsterdam, 1998), 275–81; reprinted with the kind permission of
E. J. Brill Publishers.
Chapter 10. ‘Cavafy and Iliad 24: A Modern Alexandrian Interprets
Homer’, revised version of a chapter originally published in
K. C. King (ed.), Homer (Garland Publishing Company: New York,
1994), 177–89; reprinted with the kind permission of the Taylor and
Francis Group.
Chapter 11. ‘“War—What is it Good For?” in Homer’s Iliad and
Four Receptions’, revised and expanded version of an essay scheduled
to appear in V. Caston and S.-M. Weineck (eds.), Our Ancient Wars:
Rethinking War through the Classics (University of Michigan Press:
Ann Arbor, 2016); reprinted with the kind permission of the Univer-
sity of Michigan Press.
Chapter 12. ‘An American Homer for the Twentieth Century’, lightly
revised version of a chapter originally published in B. Graziosi and
E. Greenwood (eds.), Homer in the Twentieth Century: Between
World Literature and the Western Canon (Oxford University Press:
Oxford, 2007), 268–85; reprinted with the kind permission of Oxford
University Press.
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 3/11/2015, SPi

Contents

Abbreviations xiii

Introduction 1
1. The Death of Simoeisios: Iliad 4.473–489 5
2. The Horses of Achilles in Book 17 of the Iliad 11
3. Odysseus and Polyphemos in the Odyssey 27
4. Mythological Allusion in the Odyssey: Herakles and the
Bow of Odysseus 39
5. Divine and Human in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 55
6. Homeric Intertextuality: Two Examples 81
7. A Cognitive Approach to Greek Metre: Hermann’s
Bridge in the Homeric Hexameter and the Interpretation
of Iliad 24 93
8. Milman Parry and the Literary Interpretation of Homeric
Poetry 117
9. Ioannis Kakridis and Neoanalysis 127
10. Cavafy and Iliad 24: A Modern Alexandrian Interprets
Homer 137
11. ‘War—What is it Good For?’ in Homer’s Iliad and Four
Receptions 149
12. An American Homer for the Twentieth Century 171

Bibliography 189
Index of Passages 207
General Index 216
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Abbreviations

Cunliffe R. J. Cunliffe, A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, new edn.,

Norman, 1963 [1924]
DELG P. Chantraine, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque.
Histoire des mots, Paris, 1968–80. 2nd edn. with Supplement,
1999
Ebeling H. Ebeling et al., Lexicon Homericum, 2 vols. Leipzig, 1880–5.
Reprinted Hildesheim, 1963
GH P. Chantraine, Grammaire homérique, 3rd edn. 2 vols. Paris,
1958–63
LfgrE B. Snell et al. (eds.), Lexikon des frühgriechischen Epos,
Göttingen, 1955–2010
LSJ Greek–English Lexicon, compiled by H. G. Liddell and R. Scott,
revised by H. S. Jones, 9th edn., Oxford, 1925–40; revised
Supplement by P. G. W. Glare, 1996
RE G. Wissowa et al. (eds.), Pauly’s Real-Encyclopädie der
classischen Altertumswissenschaft, Stuttgart, 1894–1980
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 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 9/10/2015, SPi

Introduction

The twelve chapters of this book were written over the past forty-five
years. Chapters 1–6, 8, 10, and 12 are lightly revised (and in some
cases, expanded) versions of previously published papers. Chapters 7,
9, and 11 are new, though a shorter (by 30%) version of Chapter 11
will appear in Caston and Weineck (eds.) 2015. Most of the papers
were originally written for oral presentation. I have kept their original
form and occasionally informal tone in memory of the occasions on
which they were presented and as a tribute to the audiences’ helpful
comments, questions, and suggestions.
The twelve chapters illustrate my long-standing scholarly interests
in, and approaches to, the literary interpretation of Homeric poetry.
Since all but two of the previously published pieces first appeared in
conference volumes and Festschriften that are not to be found in most
North American college and university libraries and not readily
accessible online, I wanted to make them more widely available.
More important, I think that all twelve essays gain by being brought
together in a single volume that focuses on the Iliad, the Odyssey, and
the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite as literary works.
The chapters do not appear in chronological order of composition
or publication, but are grouped thematically and methodologically.
1–3 and 5 pay close attention to the diction, metre, style, and thematic
resonance of particular passages and episodes and combine close
reading with more general ideas and interpretations. Chapters 4, 5,
6, and 7 also focus on diction, style, and thematic resonance and test
the usefulness for literary interpretation of mythological allusion and
intertextuality, hexameter metrics, and the contrast between human-
ity and divinity. Chapters 8 and 9 focus on the work of Milman Parry
and Ioannis Kakridis, who founded the two most fruitful twentieth-
century scholarly approaches to Homeric epic: the study of the Iliad
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2 Introduction
and Odyssey as traditional oral formulaic poetry and of the ‘epic tech-
nique of oral versemaking’ (Parry, see Chapter 8) and the ‘Neoanalytical’
approach to the Homeric adaptation and transformation of traditional
mythology, folktales, and poetic motifs (Kakridis, see Chapter 9). Finally,
Chapters 10 and 11 discuss some of the most compelling poetic and
critical receptions of the Iliad since the late nineteenth century, by
Constantine Cavafy, Alice Oswald, Christopher Logue, Simone Weil,
and Rachel Bespaloff, while Chapter 12 studies the institutional recep-
tion of the Iliad and Odyssey in colleges and universities in the United
States over the past two centuries.
*
Some of the interpretive pathways that I explore in this book go back
to my discovery, when I read the Homeric epics as a graduate student,
of the scholarly work of Parry, Kakridis, and Hermann Fränkel, who
demonstrated the fourfold colometric structure of the Homeric hex-
ameter.1 Together, the contributions of these three scholars in the
1920s and 1930s provided a basis for new kinds of literary Homeric
scholarship: they enabled Homerists to get past the ‘weary, stale, flat
and unprofitable’ debates between Analysts and Unitarians that had
dominated Homeric scholarship since the late eighteenth century.
Fränkel and Parry showed, in different ways, that the language, metre,
and style of Homeric epic were traditional and had changed only
minimally over many centuries of oral composition and performance,
and therefore that it is difficult, perhaps impossible, by these criteria
alone, to draw significant conclusions about the contested authenti-
city of particular passages or to attribute specific parts of the poem to
different authors or different eras. Kakridis, on the other hand,
showed how the narrative and mythological inconsistencies and so-
called illogicalities, which Analysts had seen as signs of the work of
different poets at different times, should not be ignored or dismissed
out of hand, as they were by most Unitarians, but should be under-
stood as traces of a single poet’s distinctive appropriation and adap-
tation of traditional narrative or mythological motifs for his own
artistic purposes. It took about another half-century for the debates
between Analysts and Unitarians to give way to more fruitful inter-
pretive approaches (see p. 129), and when things finally changed, it

1
Fränkel 1960 [1926].
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 9/10/2015, SPi

Introduction 3
was largely because of the work of Fränkel, Parry, and Kakridis and
scholarship that their writings inspired.
In their discussions of metre and formulaic style, neither Fränkel
nor Parry offered much in the way of literary interpretation, but their
discoveries established a new foundation for such interpretation,
grounded in a truer understanding than had previously existed of
the poems’ metrical, linguistic, and stylistic norms. Kakridis did offer
literary interpretation, but his greatest contribution was to show how
mythological allusion and what today one might call intertextuality
help to shape Homer’s narrative and serve his poetic purposes. Both
Fränkel and Parry, in different ways, made it possible to appreciate
in detail how Homeric epic generates and satisfies audiences’ and
readers’ expectations and desires for the fulfilment of metrical, styl-
istic, and narrative norms and patterns that had been established over
many centuries of poetic tradition, before the Iliad and Odyssey, as we
know them, were written down in the late eighth or early seventh
century BCE. Even more interesting, at least to me, is that Fränkel and
Parry made it possible for audiences and readers to perceive and
appreciate the poetic significance of departures from these norms,
just as Kakridis showed that deviations from traditional mythology
and contradictions in narrative details are best understood as evi-
dence of a creative poet’s distinctive aims and achievements.
Since the 1920s and 1930s, there has been a vast amount of
scholarship on Homeric poetry from which all students of the epics
can now profit, even though no one person can read and profit from
all of it. The essays in this book have benefited, in particular, from
scholarship on the language and style of the epics, their narrative
strategies and techniques, their treatment of time and space, their
representations of social institutions, practices, and values, and the
ways in which they engage listeners and readers artistically and
ethically.
After much consideration, I decided not to revise the nine previ-
ously published essays in any fundamental way, since their arguments
still seem valid. I have, however, corrected errors, made numerous
stylistic improvements, sometimes inserted a sentence or two or even
a whole paragraph, and rewritten and reorganized parts of Chapter 5.
I have not systematically updated the footnotes and bibliography,
though I have made a number of small changes and added new
references here and there to work published since a particular paper
was written, if it seemed especially useful to readers. I have also added
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4 Introduction
a short bibliographical postscript to Chapter 3 (the earliest essay in
the book). The original dates of composition of the previously pub-
lished chapters are as follows: 1: 1976, 2: 2002, 3: 1970, 4: 2002, 5:
2012, 6: 1999, 8: 1998, 10: 1994, 12: 2007.
*
I feel fortunate to have been working on Homeric epic during five
decades of outstanding scholarly achievements, which have provided
new resources for my own work and the work of all Homerists
interested in the literary interpretation of the Iliad and Odyssey.
These achievements include the completion of the Lexikon des früh-
griechischen Epos (1955–2010); the revised editions (1962) by
B. Marzullo of the Homer concordances of G. Prendergast and
H. Dunbar, and the computer-generated concordances to both
poems by J. Tebben (1994, 1998); the edition of the Iliad scholia by
H. Erbse (1969–88); P. Chantraine’s Dictionnaire étymologique de la
langue grecque (1968–80, Suppl. 1999); the six-volume Cambridge
commentary on the Iliad, with individual volumes by various scholars
under the general editorship of G. S. Kirk (1985–93), and the three
volume Oxford commentary on the Odyssey, with individual volumes
by various scholars under the general editorship of A. Heubeck
(1988–92, translated with revisions from the six-volume Fondazione
Lorenzo Valla edition and commentary, 1981–6); the recent editions
of the Iliad by M. L. West and the Iliad and Odyssey by H. van Thiel,
the in-progress, multivolume Basel Gesamtkommentar on the Iliad
by various authors, and the smaller-scale commentaries on indi-
vidual books of both poems, published by Cambridge University
Press and Oxford University Press; The Homer Encyclopedia, edited
by M. Finkelberg (2011); and the creation, sophistication, and ever-
increasing availability of texts, commentaries, and other scholarly
resources in electronic form, including the Chicago Homer (at
<http://digital.library.northwestern.edu/homer/>), the Homer Mul-
titext Project (at <http://www.homermultitext.org>), the Thesaurus
Linguae Graecae (at <http://www.tlg.uci.edu>), and the Perseus
Project (at <http://www.perseus.tufts.edu>).2

2
I am grateful to Nancy Felson, Sheila Murnaghan, and Alex Purves for comments
on an initial draft of this Introduction.
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 9/10/2015, SPi

The Death of Simoeisios: Iliad 4.473–489

The description of the death of Simoeisios at 4.473–89, which has

been generally neglected by students of the Iliad,1 is the richest and
most exquisite of many passages which recapitulate an important
theme of the poem: the cost in human terms of heroic achievement.
The death of the Trojan youth is, on a smaller scale, analogous to the
tragic destiny of Hektor and of Troy itself as they are portrayed
elsewhere in the poem.
In the Iliad, war is never without a terrible beauty that results from
Homer’s feeling for human brilliance in swift, violent killing and his
simultaneous sense of the loss that the killing involves. On the one
hand, war is the medium of human achievement: bravery and excel-
lence in battle win wealth, honour, and glory, and thus endow life
with meaning.2 On the other hand, the brilliant, flashing action with
which Homer’s warriors kill and which, in a sense, represents for the
poet the fullest realization of human potential, necessarily involves
the death of another warrior or other warriors: limbs that had them-
selves been active become cold and still. Human feelings of love for
and solidarity with comrades, family, and native land are suddenly
ended. Homer never becomes naively sentimental or thoughtlessly
brutal about death. He balances equally the greatness of the slayer and
the humanity of the slain, and shows us the beauty of each. This can
be seen clearly in the Simoeisios episode.

1
Friedrich 1956: 65 and Fenik 1968: 152 note, respectively, the ‘Mitgefühl’ and
‘peculiar pathos’ aroused by the description of Simoeisios’ death. Cf. Komninou-
Kakridi 1947: 44. Strasburger 1954: 37 ff. discusses the passage in light of others that
involve ‘Erweiterungen der Herkunft’ of the victims and contain similes. The present
essay owes much to Strasburger’s perceptive book.
2
Cf. Sarpedon’s speech to Glaukos at Il. 12.310–28.
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6 The Death of Simoeisios

Ł’
ƺ’ Łø ıƒe ºÆ Ø АYÆ ,
M Ł  ŁÆºæe Ø Ø , ‹   Åæ
 ”ÅŁ ŒÆØ FÆ Ææ’ ZåŁÅØØ Ø 475
ªÆ’, K ÞÆ  ŒFØ –’  BºÆ NŁÆØ.
 hŒ Ø Œº  Ø Ø , Pb  ŒFØ
ŁææÆ çº Ø IøŒ, ØıŁØ  ƒ ÆNg

ºŁ’ ’ `YÆ ªÆŁ ı  ıæd ÆØ.
æH  ªæ Ø NÆ º BŁ Ææa ÆÇe 480
Ø˙ IØŒæf b Ø’ þ ı 庌 
ªå
qºŁ· › ’ K Œ ÅØØ åÆÆd  ÆYªØæ u ,
l Þ ’ K ƒÆBØ
º ªº Ø çŒØ
ºÅ, Iæ  ƒ ZÇ Ø K’ IŒæ ÅØ çÆØ·
c  Ł’ ±æÆ Ūe Icæ ÆYŁøØ ØæøØ 485
KÆ’, ZçæÆ Yı ŒłÅØ æ،ƺºœ çæøØ.
  ’ ±Ç Å ŒEÆØ  Æ E Ææ’ ZåŁÆ .
 E  ¼æ’ ŁÅ Ø Ø  KæØ
`YÆ Ø ª . . .

Then Ajax, son of Telamon, killed the son of Anthemion,

unmarried, blooming Simoeisios, whom once his mother
coming down from Ida beside the banks of the Simoeis 475
gave birth to, when she followed along with her parents to see
the flocks.
Therefore they called him Simoeisios. Nor did he give a return
to his dear parents for rearing him, but his life was brief,
conquered by the spear of great-hearted Ajax.
For as he was moving in the front ranks, Ajax hit him in the
chest beside 480
the right nipple; straight through his shoulder the bronze spear
went, and he fell to the ground in the dust like a black poplar,
which has grown in the lowland of a great marsh,
smooth, but branches grow at its very top;
and which a man who makes chariots cuts down with the
shining 485
iron, so he can bend it into a wheel for a very beautiful chariot,
and it lies hardening beside the banks of a river.
Such then was Anthemion’s son, Simoeisios, whom Ajax,
sprung from Zeus, killed.

This seventeen-line passage is framed in normal ring-compositional

style. In 473 and again in 488–9 it is stated that Ajax killed Simoeisios.
It is notable that Ajax is described by the proper adjective ºÆ Ø
(‘son of Telamon’) in 473 and merely by Ø ª (‘sprung from Zeus’)
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 9/10/2015, SPi

The Death of Simoeisios 7

in 489, while Simoeisios in each case is called the ‘son of Anthemion’—
Łø in 473 and ŁÅ in 488. In the case of Ajax the
patronymic merely tells us which Ajax is in question and there is no
need to repeat it, but Simoeisios’ repeated patronymic calls attention to
itself. It suggests the word ¼Ł (‘flower’) and thus associates the youth
with the gentle beauty and natural growth of a flower.3
This vegetal association is reinforced by the comparison of Simoei-
sios’ fall beneath Ajax’s bronze spear to that of a tree cut down by the
‘shining iron’ of a chariot-maker. Just as the chariot-maker puts a
complete end (KÆ’, 486) to what had been a living poplar that
then lies drying, so Ajax ends the life of the youth, whose body, as
dead bodies do, will become dry and hard. That the chariot-maker
cuts down the tree in order to make an instrument of war, a chariot, is
ironically appropriate to Simoeisios’ own effort to be a hero in war: he
is killed æH  . . . NÆ (‘moving in the front ranks’, 480).
Simoeisios is called ŁÆºæ (‘blooming’, 474), an etymologically
vegetal word (cf. Łº , ‘a young shoot or branch’) used elsewhere in
the Iliad of ‘blooming’ or ‘warm’ or ‘lusty’ young men, especially
husbands.4 But he is also M Ł  (‘unmarried’, 474). The juxtaposition
of adjectives, virtually an oxymoron, suggests a youth both blooming
and potentially a husband, warmth and energy that might have been
directed toward a fruitful, procreative life but were instead turned
toward war, where death put an end to warmth, flowering, and
potential. The sense of non-fulfilment is strengthened by the detail
that Simoeisios did not repay his dear parents for rearing him
(ŁææÆ, 478 = Attic æ çEÆ, ‘gifts in return for rearing a child’).5
The vignette about Simoeisios’ birth is as moving as the details of
his death. Like many other vignettes and similes in the Iliad, it moves
from the realm of battle and death to a world of peacetime and
everyday life. His mother had been visiting her parents’ flocks on

3
The greater Ajax in the nominative is ºÆ Ø `YÆ 21 times at the end of the
hexameter and `YÆ Ø ªc (or, in the vocative, `rÆ Ø ª ) five times at the
beginning of the line. Therefore some scholars would doubtless ‘explain’ the epithets
in 473 and 489 merely as normal formulaic language, signifying in each case no more
than ‘Ajax’, which seems to me simplistic. For a theory of the formula and of oral
composition that takes into account questions of ‘denotative and poetic meaning’, see
Nagler 1967: 269–311, revised and expanded in Nagler 1974: 1–63.
4
Young men: Il. 3.26, 10.259, 11.414, 14.4, 17.282; husbands: 6.430, 8.156, 190
(and a wife, 3.53). The word is also used of tears (2.266, 6.496, 24.709, 794), a voice
choked by tears (17.696, 23.397), and, less tenderly, Ares’ thighs (15.113).
5
4.477–9 Pb  ŒFØ . . . e  ıæd ÆØ = 17.301–3.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 9/10/2015, SPi

8 The Death of Simoeisios

Mt. Ida, an activity no longer possible during the war, and gave birth
to him on the banks of the Simoeis River. One feels the rhythm of a
normal, peaceful pastoral life, and there is a particular significance to
the river as birthplace. As a source of fertility for the Trojan plain and
a landmark associated with the city, the Simoeis, like the Skamandros
River, serves as a kind of landscape symbol of Troy itself. Simoeisios’
death is felt, indirectly and on a small scale, as the death of Troy.6
The detail (487) that the poplar lies hardening by the banks of a
river,  Æ E Ææ’ ZåŁÆ , in itself not especially significant, echoes
Ææ’ ZåŁÅØØ Ø (475), and thus associates the fall of the tree
more closely with the death of the youth and almost makes visible the
gradual drying and stiffening of his body. Likewise, one can associate
the description of the poplar, ºÅ, Iæ  ƒ ZÇ Ø K’ IŒæ ÅØ
çÆØ (‘smooth, but branches grow at its very top’, 484), with that
of Simoeisios. We visualize the smooth body of an adolescent, hairless
except for the top of his head. This vividness makes the whole scene
more poignant, as does the somehow moving detail that Ajax’s spear
struck beside the right nipple. The bronze spear, passing straight
through the shoulder, coldly destroys that which is tender, warm,
rooted in life like the poplar. Yet the youth is destroyed by the highest
Homeric excellence, heroic Iæ, both his own (æH  . . . NÆ,
‘moving in the front ranks’, 480) and that of Ajax, whose honour and
glory are based on just such killing of lesser warriors. And the chariot
for the sake of which the poplar is cut down is æ،ƺºœ (‘most
beautiful’, 486).
The Simoeisios passage is but one of many such vignettes and similes
about young men that occur as Homer narrates their deaths. None of
the others is so carefully wrought, but each, to some extent, makes a
reader aware of what the war, with its splendid killing, costs in human
terms. It is significant that almost all the young victims are Trojans, for
the greatest cost of the war is to Troy itself, whose eventual destruction

6
Cf. the battle between Achilles and the river Skamandros in Book 21, where at
first Skamandros calls to Simoeis to rise in defence of Troy (21.308 ff.), and where his
ultimate surrender to Hephaistos explicitly symbolizes the fall of the city. See
Whitman 1958: 140. The death of Simoeisios, by its poetic elaboration, is made far
more significant than the deaths of the superficially similar Satnios (14.442 ff.), who
was also named after the river by whose banks he was born, and of Skamandrios
(5.49), Ilioneus (14.489 ff.), and Tros (20.463 ff.), whose names similarly suggest Troy
or the Trojan landscape. To some extent, every Trojan death prefigures the fall of
Troy. Cf. n. 7.
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 9/10/2015, SPi

The Death of Simoeisios 9

is clearly prefigured by that of Hektor (22.410f., 24.728ff.).7 Indeed,
Hektor’s visit with Andromache and Astyanax in Troy in Book 6 is, as
it were, an expanded version, set in the action of the poem, of a vignette
describing how a man had gone to war, leaving his wife and child
whom he was never to see again. Homer achieves a similar effect by the
description at 22.147ff. of how Achilles pursued Hektor past the twin
springs of Skamandros and the washing troughs ‘where the wives and
beautiful daughters of the Trojans used to wash / their shining gar-
ments before, in peacetime’ (22.155–6). Here Homer suspends an
image of the normal, domestic life of the Trojans ‘before the sons of
the Achaians came’ in the midst of the climactic episode of the war and
of the poem. The effect of this juxtaposition is to remind a listener or
reader of the social cost of Achilles’ supreme heroic act. Hektor dies
fighting not only for glory but for a life of peace and tender domesticity,
a life of which he and Andromache are the prime exemplars and which,
in the Iliad, is characteristically Trojan.
‘The whole Iliad, we should not forget, is from beginning to end a
poetry of death (Todesdichtung).’8 In the deaths of minor figures like
Simoeisios and major warriors like Hektor, Homer expresses his
profound perception of the cost of the heroism that the Iliad cele-
brates and of the poem’s representation of the tragic nature of the
human condition.

7
Cf. Strasburger 1954: 125: ‘The Trojans constitute the far greater number of the
fallen, because they are from the start the weaker ones, the losers hastening towards
their destruction . . .’. It is no coincidence that, with one exception (5.559 f.), all the
warriors who fall like trees are on the Trojan side: 13.178 ff., 13.389 ff. = 16.482 ff.,
14.414 ff., 17.53 ff.; cf. 13.436 ff.
8
Reinhardt 1951: 338 = Reinhardt 1960: 13.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 9/10/2015, SPi
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 9/10/2015, SPi

The Horses of Achilles in Book 17

of the Iliad

The scene in which the horses of Achilles stand immobile on the field of
battle, weeping for the dead Patroklos, and Zeus asks himself why the
gods involved them in the miseries of mortal existence (17.426–55),
memorably expresses the poem’s fundamental contrast between div-
inity and humanity and anticipates its emphasis in the final seven
books on the mortality and death of Achilles. Although, like the rest
of the Iliad, this scene is composed of traditional formulas and themes,
as a whole it is ‘unparalleled’ and ‘unlike anything else in the poem’.1 In
this chapter, through close attention to its diction, style, and thematic
resonance, I attempt to elucidate the significance of this remarkable
episode for the overall interpretation of the Iliad.
The scene with the horses takes place at a point in the narrative
when the two armies have taken turns pushing one another back from
the body of Patroklos (17.270–80, 316–32, 342–3) and are locked in
desperate, relentless combat (384–422). The scene is introduced by
twenty-five lines that are noticeably unusual in their diction, syntax,
and the action they describe—lines that help to establish the context
in which the passage about the horses should be understood.
17.400–1 sum up, as it were, the desperate battle raging over the
corpse of Patroklos since the beginning of the Book, and sound the
note of divine responsibility for human suffering in a deadlocked
battle:
E Zf Kd —Æ
挺øØ I æH
 ŒÆd ¥ø / X Æ
Ø
HØ
K
ı  ŒÆŒe  (‘Such an evil toil of men and horses did Zeus /
draw tight over Patroklos on that day’).2
Æ ø, ‘draw tight’, and its

1
Fenik 1974: 180.
2
Cf. 13.358–60, with the comment by Janko 1992: 92 ad loc.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 9/10/2015, SPi

12 The Horses of Achilles

near synonym
ø are regularly used in descriptions of deadlocked
combat, usually with explicit reference to a god or gods as responsible
for the human struggle (11.336, 13.359, 14.359, 16.662; 12.436 =
15.413, 17.543, 736, 20.101). Lines 400–1, however, are stylistically
and formulaically atypical in several ways. For example, it is unusual
for a genitive or genitives at the end of one line to be governed by a
word (, ‘toil’) in the third colon of the following line, and
unparalleled that X Æ
Ø in 401 is followed simply by the demonstra-
tive
HØ (‘on that day . . .’) rather than by a ‹
 clause (‘on the day
when . . .’).3 Most striking, however, is the phrase I æH
 ήd
¥ø (‘of men and horses’), which is unique in Homeric poetry,
where ¥ø
 ŒÆd I æH (‘of horses and men’) is the usual formu-
laic phrase (8.214, 10.338, 17.740, 21.16). The reversed order of the
nouns, with ¥ø coming emphatically at the end of the line,
anticipates the focus on the horses of Achilles in 426ff., and the
multiple stylistic anomalies call attention to these lines and heighten
a listener’s or reader’s focus on what follows.
Lines 401–11 move from the action on the battlefield to the mind
of Achilles:

P ’ ¼æÆ 
Ø
XØ  —
挺
ŁÅ
Æ E åغº ·
ººe ª æ Þ’ I ıŁ H æÆ
 Ł ø,

åØ o æø·
 Ø h 
 º
 Łı HØ

Ł , Iººa Çøe KØåæØ çŁ
Æ  ºÅØ Ø 405
ił I
 Ø, Kd P b
e º
  Æ,
KŒæ Ø 
ºŁæ ¼ı Ł, P  f ÆP
HØ·
ºº ŒØ ªaæ
 ª Å
æe K Ł
  çØ IŒ ø,
l ƒ Iƪªºº Œ ˜Øe ª ºØ Å Æ.
c

 ª’ h ƒ Ø ŒÆŒe
  ‹  K
åŁÅ 410

Åæ, ‹

Ø Þ ƒ ºf çº
Æ
 þºŁ’ K
ÆEæ.
Achilles was not yet
afraid that Patroklos was dead, because the fighting
was taking place a great distance away from the ships,
beneath the walls of Troy; he never expected in his heart
that he was dead, but that he would return alive, 405
after going right up to the gates, for he didn’t at all expect
that he would sack the city without him, or even with him;
for often, listening apart, he had learned this from his mother,

3
Edwards 1991: 100 on 400–1. On X Æ
Ø
HØ . . . , see de Jong 1987: 234–5.
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 9/10/2015, SPi

The Horses of Achilles 13

who would report to him the intention of great Zeus.

Then, however, his mother did not tell him how great an evil 410
had happened, that the comrade who was by far the dearest to
him had perished.

It is relatively rare in Iliadic narrative to be told at such length what

a character is thinking, as opposed to learning this from his or her
words in direct discourse. Here the report of Achilles’ thoughts sets
the scene with the horses in the context of his personal loss and of the
futility associated with being the son of Thetis. Nowhere else do we
hear that Thetis ‘would report to [Achilles] the intention of great
Zeus’, though we see her doing so at 24.133–7. This detail arouses pity
for Achilles on the part of a listener or reader by making him seem
hopeful and unaware of impending disaster.4 It anticipates Achilles’
recollection at 18.9–11 that Thetis had told him that ‘the best of the
Myrmidons would leave the light of life at the hands of the Trojans, /
while I am still alive’, as well as his frustration with all Zeus had
accomplished for him, because ‘my dear comrade perished, / Patrok-
los, whom I honoured beyond all comrades / equally to my own head’
(18.80–2).
The unusually extended indirect report of Achilles’ thoughts in
401–11 is followed by two comments in direct discourse, describing
the thoughts of a representative Greek (416–19) and a representative
Trojan (420–2), as the two armies ‘relentlessly pressed one another at
close quarters and killed each other’ (øº b Kªåæ 

 ήd
Iºººı K æØÇ, 413).5 There is a strange absence in these anonym-
ous statements: both speakers are thinking of Achilles, but neither
actually refers to him.6 The Greek considers that immediate death
would be ‘much more profitable’ (Œæ Ø) than the loss of glory in
retreating to the ships and allowing the Trojans to drag the corpse of
Patroklos back to their city and ‘win the boast of triumph’ (ŒF 
Iæ ŁÆØ, 419). The Trojan does not even mention winning or losing
the corpse or glory, but simply says, ‘Even if it is destiny ( EæÆ) that

4
Cf. the bT Scholia cited by Edwards 1991: 101 on 404–11: ‘[Homer] often arouses
sympathy like this when the greatest sufferers are unaware of disaster and are borne
up by loving hopes . . .’. Cf. Fenik 1974: 179.
5
As parallels to these comments by anonymous members of the opposing armies,
Edwards 1991: 103, cites 3.297–301, 319–23; 7.178–80, 201–5.
6
Mirto 1997: 1294.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 9/10/2015, SPi

14 The Horses of Achilles

we all be killed in the same way / beside this man, let no one pull back
from the fighting’ (421–2).
These desperate statements are followed by a remarkable comment
on the part of the poem’s (implied) narrator: ‘thus they fought, and
the iron din / reached the bronze heaven through the barren air’ (S
Q b æÆ
, Ø æØ ’ Oæı ƪ e / å ºŒ PæÆe xŒ Ø’
ÆNŁæ I
æıª
Ø, 424–5). Only here in the Iliad and Odyssey does
the word I
æ ª
, ‘barren’(?), designate the sky rather than the sea.7
Furthermore, though iron is used elsewhere of the stubborn strength,
spirit, or heart of a warrior (22.357, 24.205, 521; Od. 5.191, 12.280),
and the heaven is iron which the Suitors’ ‘wanton violence and force’
(oæØ
 Å
) reached (Od. 15.329 = 17.565) and bronze when the
Greeks are struggling in battle (5.504), only here does ‘iron’ refer to
the harsh, incessant sound of the battle, while ‘bronze’ seems to
suggest a medium that amplifies this loud noise (Oæı ƪ , 424).8
These metallic metaphors provide a grim, pitiless background to the
pitiful weeping of the horses of Achilles (427, 437–8) and the com-
passion of Zeus (441ff.).
The two horses stand motionless, far from the battle, ‘weep[ing]
since the two of them first learned that their charioteer [Patroklos,
who use to guide the horses when Achilles took part in the fighting] /
had fallen in the dust beneath man-slaughtering Hektor’ (427–8):

g ’ h
’ ił Kd BÆ Kd ºÆ
f  Eºº 


MŁº
Å NÆØ h
’ K º  
’ åÆØ ,
Iºº’ u

ºÅ Ø   , l
’ Kd
øØ
Iæ 
ŒÅØ
ŁÅ
 Mb ªıÆØŒ, 435
S  I çƺø æ،ƺºÆ çæ å
,
h Ø KØ Œ łÆ
 ŒÆæÆ
Æ· ŒæıÆ  çØ
Łæ a ŒÆ
a ºç æø åÆ Ø Þ ıæ Ø Ø
ØåØ ŁøØ· ŁÆºæc ’ K ØÆ
 åÆ
Å
Ç ªºÅ KæØF Æ Ææa Çıªe I ç
æøŁ. 440

7
See, though, the Homeric Hymn to Demeter 67 and 457, where I
æıª
Ø
similarly modifies ÆNŁæ. In both these instances the unexpected appearance of the
adjective reflects Demeter’s viewpoint: in 67 the negatively charged I
æıª
Ø cor-
relates with her despair at hearing ‘the voice of her daughter through the barren air, as
if she were suffering violence’; in 457 Demeter rushes through the air that is ‘barren’ in
the absence of her daughter to meet Persephone for the first time since her abduction.
8
Edwards 1991: 101. Cf. Mirto 1997: 1294: ‘. . . gli epiteti che ornano la
descrizione . . . del fragore, che dal campo di battaglia raggiunge il cielo, sembrano
evidenziare l’inesorabile crudeltà del massacro.’
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
pattern, basted down, and hemmed at the dotted lines, 1¹⁄₂ in. from
the edge. Sew the front to the curved sides. Allowance for shrinkage,
when the bag is washed and fireproofed, has been made in these
sizes.

Fig. 1 Fig. 7
Fig. 5
Fig. 2 Fig. 8

Fig. 3 Fig. 6 Fig. 9

Fig. 4

This Homemade Skylight was Made at a Cost of $3, Gives Satisfactory

Service, and Is Not Unsightly
 For fireproofing the bag, the following formula is good: water, 60
oz., ammonium phosphate, 4 oz., ammonium chloride, 8 oz. Soak
the fabric half an hour, wring it out slightly, and hang it up to dry.
Cut a hole, 6 in. square, in the lower half of the case for the door F,
Fig. 5. The door is of galvanized sheet iron, 7 in. square, covered on
one side with imitation leather and provided with a leather handle.
The door slides in guides of mount board, or metal, as shown in Fig.
4. Figure 8 shows the notch below the door to allow play for the
spring of the flash lamp, in place in Figs. 5 and 6. Mine was made for
cartridges, but by attaching a pan of heavy tin, I use it for flash
powder.
The leather socket, into which the top of the holder G, is slipped, is
shown in detail in Fig. 7. Suitcase catches, D, lock the apparatus in
open or closed position. The roof E, is supported by two folding desk
slides.
To fasten the bag in place, slip a cheap yardstick, or strip, cut to
the proper length, in each of the hems at the edges, and set them
snugly inside and against the sides of the open case and under the
edge of the roof. Fasten them with screws, as shown at the edges in
Fig. 5. The bag is easily removed by withdrawing the screws and the
strips, for washing and fireproofing it again. The front must hang
away from the lamp before the charge is fired, or the bag may be
burned. After firing the flash, the skylight is carried out and the
smoke expelled.
 Fuel Box in Seat Filled from Floor Trapdoor

The Fuel is Placed in the Box by Passing It Up through the Trapdoors in the
Floor

A fuel box for the fireplace may be easily arranged so that it is

unnecessary to carry the fuel through the living rooms, thus avoiding
soiling floors and rugs. It may be installed, as shown, for a summer
cottage, or even in the living room of a home. The fuel box is built
under the seat of a comfortable settle, and the wood, coal, etc., are
placed in the fuel compartment by passing it up through trapdoors in
the floor at the center of the box. The fuel is piled at each side of the
trapdoor behind a low partition, and the trapdoors are closed when
not in use. The seat of the fuel box is divided at the middle and
hinged to swing back. Suitable cushions should be provided for the
seat.—M. P. Norton, Chicago.
 Homemade Relay of Inexpensive Materials
A practical relay was made of odds and ends gathered in the
workshop. The base is of wood, ³⁄₄ by 3 by 6 in. The magnets A are
made of two wire nails driven into the base, the heads projecting 1¹⁄₂
in. They are wound with six layers of fine insulated No. 25 gauge
wire, as shown in the small sketch. The ends of these magnet wires
are carried to the two binding posts B and C, taken from dry-cell
carbons.
 Nails, a Screw Hook, and Similar Common Materials, were Used in Making
This Relay

The armature D is a piece of soft iron, ¹⁄₂ by 2¹⁄₂ in., screwed to the
armature lever E, which is a ¹⁄₂ by 4¹⁄₂-in. piece of wood. A piece of
tin is tacked to the opposite end F, and a ¹⁄₈-in. hole is bored through
the lever, 2¹⁄₂ in. from the front end. Nail a wooden block, G, to the
base, slotted to accommodate the lever, so that when the latter is
pivoted in the slot, the armature will lie directly over the magnet
heads. Fit a wooden stop, H, under the end of the lever, so that the
armature is held ¹⁄₈ in. above the magnets, by a brass spring, J,
connected to the tin, F, and the binding post, K, with copper wire.
Arrange the brass hook, L, so it comes in contact with F when the
armature bears down upon the magnets. Connect this hook to the
binding post, M. When current flows through the magnets, the
armature is pulled down and the contact of the hook, L, with the tin,
F, completes a secondary circuit.—L. R. Hardins, Harwich, Mass.

¶A nutcracker may be used as a substitute for a pipe wrench or

pliers, and its toothed handles grip round objects quite firmly.
 A Photographic Printing Machine
By L. B. ROBBINS

A printing machine for “gaslight” papers, to be used in localities not

equipped with gas or electricity and where printing is to be done
after daylight, is shown in the sketch. The measurements given are
only approximate, as conditions will determine its size. That shown is
made as follows: First procure a 6¹⁄₂ by 8¹⁄₂-in. or 8 by 10-in. printing
frame. Remove the brass clips from the pad and fasten one end of
the pad to the frame, by a pair of small hinges, with the glass in the
frame. Procure a box, about 12 by 15 in., by 8 in. deep, with one side
open. Cut a rectangular opening through the 12 by 15-in. side a bit
smaller than the printing frame, and secure the frame in place over
the opening with screws. Saw a slot ³⁄₄ in. wide through the top of the
box—the end nearest the hinged end of the printing frame pad—
running it the full width and about 3 in. from the front.
 Photographic Printing may be Done Rapidly by the Systematic Use of This
Machine

Nail cleats along the inside of each side of the box, placing them
vertical and parallel, and about ³⁄₄ in. apart, so as to form a slide
groove in conjunction with the slot. This groove is to receive a frame
or curtain constructed of stock, 2 in. wide and ¹⁄₂ in. thick. The
outside dimensions of the curtain are a trifle smaller than the inside
measurements of the box itself. Cover the frame with orange paper,
and when finished insert it through the slot in the top of the box.
Build a frame as indicated, on the outside of the box. Along the
inside of the uprights fasten cleats, thick enough to come flush with
the ends of the slot. These serve to steady the curtain when raised.
Make a suitable baseboard and secure the box to it. Then with sheet
tin construct a lamp house extending from the back of the box and of
sufficient size to accommodate a round-wick lamp. Leave an
opening in the top to admit the chimney, provide holes for ventilation,
and a door by which the lamp may be adjusted. When completed,
paint the interior of the box and lamp house white, to intensify the
printing quality of the light. Tie a piece of stout cord to a screw eye
inserted in the upper end of the sliding curtain, lead it through two
pulleys fastened as shown, and down to the hand lever. The latter is
pivoted at the rear end by a bolt. Attach a spring to the lower end of
the hinged pad on the printing frame. This holds the pad out of the
way when not in use. A curtain-roller spring is suitable for this
purpose.
To operate the machine, place the negative and paper in position,
and, with the left hand, bring the pad down. Pull down the hand lever
with the right hand, raising the orange curtain. When the required
exposure is made, release the lever, shutting off the direct light.
While nearly all light is shut out by means of the lamp house, the
paper may be handled safely and easily by means of that admitted
through the orange curtain. By systematic arrangement and handling
of materials, it is surprising what an amount of work can be turned
out by the aid of this machine, especially if one person attends to the
exposing and another to the developing.
 A Small Variable Condenser

Diagram for a Small Variable Condenser

The condenser shown in the diagram combines the large capacity

of a fixed condenser with the gradual capacity variation of a variable
one. It is suitable for a wireless receiving circuit, or to shunt around
the vibrator of an induction coil, by making the units considerably
larger. It is made up of several fixed condensers, connected in
parallel, a lever being the means whereby the capacity is varied.
Five or more units may be used, each being a small condenser, built
up of 10 sheets of waxed paper and nine sheets of tin foil. A
convenient size for the tin foil is 6 by 4 in., and for the paper, 5¹⁄₂ by
4¹⁄₂ in. The latter should be a good grade of very thin linen paper and
should be carefully prepared by dipping it in hot paraffin. The sheets
of tin foil and paper in each unit are piled up alternately, allowing
about ¹⁄₂ in. on each tin-foil strip to project beyond the paper for
making connections. The pile is covered with heavy paper, and a
heated flatiron is passed on the top of each unit until the paraffin
begins to melt. Upon cooling, the units are compact.
The connections necessary are shown in the diagram. The
condenser units C, D, E, F, G, each have one side connected to a
common terminal A. The other sides of the condensers are
connected to the copper strips H, J, K, L, M. They are ¹⁄₂ in. wide and
¹⁄₁₆ in. thick. A copper lever, ¹⁄₈ by ¹⁄₂ by 8 in., is pivoted on one end
so that it will connect two or more of the condensers in parallel. The
pivoted end is connected to the terminal B. The dotted line shows
different positions of the lever. The apparatus is mounted in a
wooden box.—Peter J. M. Clute, Schenectady, N. Y.
 Lighting a Candle without Touching the Wick
A candle may be lighted without the match flame touching the
wick, as follows: Light the candle, let it burn a bit; then blow it out. A
small column of smoke will rise from the wick. Touch the match flame
to this, a little above the wick, and it will ignite, travel down, and
relight the wick from the burning oil gas.
Emergency Lifting Device of Rope and Lever
 When block and tackle, chain hoists, or similar equipment are not
at hand, the simple arrangement shown in the sketch is useful for
lifting heavy loads. Make the lever A of a piece of 2 by 4-in. stuff, and
cut notches into it for the ropes, as indicated. From a suitable
support, B, fix the ropes C and D to the lever A at the proper
notches, permitting the ends C-1 and D-1 to be drawn down and
fastened to the floor or other support as required in raising the load.
Fix the rope E to the load W, and suspend it from the lever A at the
proper notch by means of a loop, E-1. To raise the load, bear down
on the end of the lever when it is in its original position A-1, bringing
it to the position A-2. This will bring the lower rope to position E-2.
Draw up the slack in rope D, to bring the loop to position D-2, and
fasten it. Then lift the lever A from its position A-2, to the position A-
3, and draw up the slack in rope C to bring the loop up to position C-
2. The lower rope will be brought to position E-3. By repeating this
process, the load may be raised gradually. The ropes may, of course,
be of various lengths within the range of the support and the
operators.
 Mucilage Brush and Container Made of a Test
Tube

An ordinary test tube, about ⁵⁄₈ by 6 in. in size, may be made into a
mucilage container and brush that economizes the material and
does not get the fingers sticky. The end of the tube is covered with a
piece of soft cloth after the tube is filled, as shown in the sketch. A
convenient way to care for the device is to keep it in a small tumbler.
—A. H. Carrington, Trenton, N. J.
 Holder for Household Ice Pick
An ice pick is often a source of danger, if left lying about the home,
and should be kept at a place convenient to the ice box, where it will
not be likely to cause injury. The small bracket on which the ends of
the roller curtain are supported is a satisfactory holder for the pick. It
may be fastened to the wall with nails, or screws, so that the pick
may be suspended in the center hole.—Robert J. Donnelly,
Cincinnati, Ohio.
Swing Made of Hickory Sapling