ABSTRACT
As we’ve addressed to some degree already, time is or, rather, cannot be completely linear in the oral milieu. That does not preclude the recognition that human life follows a relatively unbendable trajectory, from infant, to youth, to adult, to elder; or that one event happens before another. But because oral cultures are not able to track these numerically—to configure, for example, that 11,000 bce precedes the nineteenth century ce, which itself precedes the years 1215 and 1812—how can a story ever really have a beginning that is lodged definitively and tangibly in historically situated time? Indeed, the relative incapacity of pinning time down may be one of the reasons that an oral bard like Homer began his epical recounting entirely in media res, which is the Latin way of saying that he narratively thrust his listeners straight “into the middle of things.” In the case of the Iliad, for instance, we don’t begin “at the beginning” of the decade-long Achaean siege of Troy. Nor are we provided any sort of time-date-place preamble or helpful placement-related exposition, let alone any setup of “Once upon a time, a baby called Achilles was born …” Rather, we are plunked right into the middle of a feud between Achilles and his Trojan enemies. Even more, we are thrust at once into a mood: Rage—Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles, murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses, hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls, great fighters’ souls, but made their bodies carrion, 53feasts for the dogs and birds, and the will of Zeus was moving toward its end. Begin, Muse, when the two first broke and clashed, Agamemnon lord of men and brilliant Achilles. What god drove them to fight with such a fury? Apollo the son of Zeus and Leto. Incensed at the king he swept a fatal plague through the army—men were dying and all because Agamemnon spurned Apollo’s priest. Yes, Chryses approached the Achaeans’ fast ships to win his daughter back, bringing a priceless ransom and bearing high in hand, wound on a golden staff, the wreaths of the god, the distant deadly Archer. 1
