ABSTRACT
A deep shift has taken place between Homer and Sophocles, within the continuity of their dialogue and of their language. The epic patterning is obvious in Sophocles’ text, and we must recognize only by its absence any comforting mention of the divine care and love which in Homer flows from the gods to their chosen heroes. Gods have a special voice that sometimes makes them recognizable even when they appear in disguise. Neoptolemus's thought now rings close to Herodotus’, when he spoke of the incomprehensible interventions of the gods. As the author have illustrated in three recent papers, the Iliad and the Odyssey use different emphases in presenting the physical figure of the gods when the divine beings intervene among mortals and are perceived as being there (epiphany). Even Athena’s ground for her epic epiphany to Odysseus, her philia, belongs, as we have seen, to the allusive construction in Ajax.
