Houses in The Odyssey

Dorothea Gray

doi:10.1017/S000983880000241X

Houses in The Odyssey

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009

Dorothea Gray

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Dorothea Gray: Affiliation:
St. Hugh's College, Oxford

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Three contributions have been made recently to the understanding of the house of Odysseus. In 1949 Professor L. R. Palmer1 revived the theory that a door at the back of the megaron led into the womena's quarters, a two-storied building with storerooms on the ground floor and stairs leading up to Penelope's rooms. ‘If only we resist the temptation to use Mycenaean palaces as the mise-en-scène for Homer's story’ (p. III), we recognize a house type which was widely diffused over the Indo-European world from Neolithic to medieval times.

Type: Articles
Information: The Classical Quarterly , Volume 5 , Issue 1-2 , May 1955 , pp. 1 - 13

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S000983880000241X [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Classical Association 1955

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^{page 1 note 1} ‘The Homeric and the Indo-European House’, Transactions of the Philological Society, 1948 (1949), pp. 9a f. Plan on p. 95. Here after Palmer.

^{page 1 note 2} Homer and the Monuments (1950), pp. 406 f. Plan on p. 408. Hereafter Lorimer. The book was in the press before Professor Palmer's article became available.

^{page 1 note 3} ‘Notes on the Homeric House’, J.H.S. lxxi (1951), pp. 203 f. Hereafter Wace. Professor Wace takes account of Professor Palmer's article.Google Scholar

^{page 1 note 4} Wace, A. J. B., Mycenae (1949), pp. 91 f. and pis. 32–34.Google Scholar

^{page 1 note 5} Also given in J.H.S. lxxi. 206 and 208.Google Scholar

^{page 1 note 6} ‘On the Plan of the Homeric House’, J.H.S. xx (1900), pp. 128 f. Hereafter Myres. Sir John Myres and Miss Lorimer have died since this article was written. My debt to them both is immeasurable, though I have ventured to disagree on some details.Google Scholar

^{page 2 note 1} Larimer, p. 407.

^{page 2 note 2} Palmer, p. 98.

^{page 2 note 3} Chantraine, Grammaire homérique, ii, pars. 129, 161.

^{page 3 note 1} I apologize for these statistics, but it is no use simply asserting that my impression on reading the Odyssey is that the prepositional phrases are interchangeable.

^{page 4 note 1} Myres, pp. 141, 143.

^{page 5 note 1} Lorimer, pp. 419 f., cf. B.S.A. xlviii (1953), p. 12.Google Scholar

^{page 5 note 2} C. W. Blegen, ‘The Palace of Nestor’, A.J.A. Ivii (1953), p. 61.Google Scholar

^{page 6 note 3} For Mycenae see Wace, p. 211.

^{page 7 note 1} Wace, pp. 203 f.

^{page 7 note 2} ‘Karphi: A City of Refuge of the Early Iron Age in Crete’, B.S.A. xxxviii (1937-1938), p. 77: Nos. 8, 9, 11, and 14 on pl. ix.Google Scholar

^{page 7 note 3} Wace, pp. 210 f.

^{page 7 note 4} See plan facing p. 12. The only purpose of this plan is to make the text easier to follow. Many arrangements are possible.

^{page 7 note 5} Palmer, p. 94.

^{page 7 note 6} Wace, p. 204.

^{page 8 note 1} Palmer, pp. 94 f.

^{page 8 note 2} Plan reproduced in Lorimer, p. 409, fig. 60. The of both Great and Little Megaron leads on to a forecourt.

^{page 8 note 3} Palmer, pp. 93 f. Add a 104

^{page 8 note 4} Palmer, p. 93.

^{page 8 note 5} Entrance to and both have , and the vocabulary for passing through is similar, except that is used only of leaving the megaron. Megaron door must be meant in θ 304, 325, κ 220, ξ 34, v 355, σ 10, 101, 386, ø 299, χ 474. O 184, T 212, and χ 71: gate of in a 103, 119, γ 493, δ 20, η 4, 0 146, 191, π, 12, Л 777, Ω 323. In σ 496 the house seems to open into the street.

^{page 8 note 6} Palmer, pp. 96 f.

^{page 9 note 1} Palmer, p. III.

^{page 9 note 2} So Myres, p. 136.

^{page 9 note 3} Lorimer, p. 413. This position was suggested by Bassett, S. E., ‘The Palace of Odysseus’, A.J.A. xxiii (1919), pp. 288 f.Google Scholar

^{page 10 note 1} Wace, pp. 209 f.

^{page 10 note 1} Blegen, , Korakou, pp. 79 f. and figs. 112 and 121. Ground plans are uncertain.Google Scholar

^{page 10 note 3} B.S.A. xxxviii. 71 and 73; Nos. 138–40 and No. 2 on pl. ix. The megaron type house, Nos. 137 and 141, had no inner room.Google Scholar

^{page 10 note 4} Blegen, , A.J.A. lvii. 61.Google Scholar

^{page 10 note 5} p 85 f., τ 384 f. The formula for a lady washing before going upstairs sounds more like a Mycenaean bathroom, σ 750–1 = p 48–9.

^{page 11 note 1} Plan reproduced in Lorimer, p. 41 o, fig. 61.

^{page 11 note 2} I.L.N., 28 Feb. 1953, pp. 328–9.

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