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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 May 2011
this chapter concerns the competitive dynamics of one series and three pairs of similes in the Iliad's character-text. I first examine the implicit figurative confrontations at work in a conversation that has long captured the attention of critics. In the teikhoskopia of book 3, in which the Trojans look at the assembled Greek army, all the scene's participants speak at least one simile. I then turn to how the poet sets up more pronounced and explicit contests over simile. I explore first the exchange between Paris and Diomedes in book 11 and then two instances of these sorts of “dueling similes” between members of the same side: Odysseus' and Nestor's words to the troops in book 2 and Achilleus' rejection of Agamemnon's offer in book 9 to which Phoinix responds.
SIMILES IN THE TEIKHOSKOPIA
A close reading of the similes in this episode can begin with the narrator's contention that the Trojan elders who sit with Priam resemble cicadas:
γήραϊ δὴ πολέμοιο πεπαυμένοι, ἀλλ' ἀγορηταὶ
ἐσθλοί, τεττίγεσσιν ἐοικότες, οἵ τε καθ' ὕλην
δενδρέῳ ἐφεζόμενοι ὄπα λειριόεσσαν ἱεῖσι·
τοῖοι ἄρα ρώων ἡγήτορες ἧντ' ἐπὶ πύργῳ.
through old age to be sure having ceased from war, but as public speakers,
good, similar to cicadas, who in a wood
sit on a tree and emit their delicate voice:
of this sort the leaders of the Trojans sat at the tower.
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