Etymology is a perilous way to get at a word’s meaning. The way that a word is derived historically is not always a clue as to how a word is at some time used by a particular speaker or community. In some grumpy types, the derivation even becomes a normative pronouncement about how a word ought to be used, which may in fact play no part in an author’s awareness or choice. Think of ‘wicked’ in Boston, or ‘bloody’ (‘by Our Lady’?) in London. In the case of Greek μῦθος, however, generally rendered ‘word’ or ‘speech’ or ‘command’ in Homer, there would be some interest, I shall argue, if there were a connection with the verb μύω or μυέω, ‘to close one’s eyes.’ I have heard this verb’s root connected to the post-Homeric word μυστήριoν, referring to the mysteries. To be fair such a connection is not as solidly grounded as it might be linguistically, and it must be classed as speculative. But it comes with an attractive quasi-logic, which often makes us succumb to etymologies. The initiate, who may for a time be blindfolded, all the same comes to see and witness certain things in the practice of the Mysteries that the uninitiated cannot see, at various levels including (let us say) the literal. Hence the initially closed eyes of the initiate come to be associated with second sight, a heightened kind of seeing.
I think there is good reason to wonder if the journey of the Odyssey is cast as a series of initiations into a variety of mysteries in the wanderings and adventures before the landing on Ithaca. The arc of the whole comedy could be seen as hieros gamos, the winning and ritualised achievement of a ‘sacred marriage’. But Homer does not entertain the word mysterion. And his usage of the word μῦθος in ubiquitous interactions does not seem to point us in that direction.
Inference from usage in historical context seems the best way to get at a word’s essence. Richard P. Martin offers us this definition of ‘muthos’ in Homer: “a speech-act indicating authority, performed at length, usually in public, with a focus on full attention to every detail.”1 He is evidently proud of this formulation. Here is Aristotle:
a definitive formula ought not merely to show the fact, as most definitions do, but to contain and exhibit the cause. But in practice the formulae of our definitions are like conclusions; for instance, what is squaring a rectangle? The construction of an equilateral rectangle equal to an oblong rectangle. Such a definition is merely a statement of the conclusion. But if a man says that squaring a rectangle is the finding of a mean proportional, he is giving the underlying cause of the thing to be defined. (De Anima, 413a14-21)
Martin’s definition seems like ‘the construction of an equilateral rectangle equal to an oblong,’ a collection of attributes of the finished fact at the last step of the proof, rather than an account which manifests the cause or key step. My own induction from Homer’s usage suggests a root sense of ‘disclosure’. Perhaps this notion squares the rectangle (ac) like a mean proportional (b) (if a:b::b:c, ac=b2). Speech is an expression of what was before hidden or unformed within the speaker so that it becomes manifest and concrete, like the juice expressed from an orange. ‘Express’ and ‘expression’ would be good candidates for translating the verb μυθέομαι and the noun μῦθος, except that they focus on the process rather than the concrete result, the speech, which starts to have an effect on the world through its disclosed intentions. In this sense of disclosure or revelation, as the essential act of speech, there can be seen to be a connection to a later sense of the opening of the initiate’s eyes to revealed truth in the course of ritual and sacrament. What was hidden or secret is revealed, the thought or feeling inside becomes speech outside.
The sense of ‘command’ which we must often give in English to Homer’s use of μῦθος, is not therefore intrinsic to the word itself. Instead, it follows not from the speech but the speaker. If the speaker is someone important, then his or her disclosure, a revelation of will or desire, becomes naturally a command for the subservient people to whom the disclosure is directed, or who are within earshot. The status of the speaker is what lends a speech authority, not the speech itself. That μῦθος itself speaks to the act of expression, rather than the act of command, is somewhat poignantly suggested by this description of Penelope’s response in Book 17, who not for the first time is being given orders by Telemachus—this time to go and bathe: τῆι δ’ ἄπτερος ἔπλετο μῦθος (17.57), ‘in her the mythos remained unwinged.’ It would be a defensible reading of his interactions with her to say that Telemachus would generally prefer that Penelope not express herself.
The whole scene is highly fraught: Telemachus has just returned from his journey, against his mother’s will, to Pylos and Sparta. All she wants is for him to recount (καταλέγειν) what he has witnessed on the way. Telemachus does not want to bother with a grievous recollection (he says); he evades her curiosity by turning the tables on their status, assuming his newfound authority with her, and telling her to go bathe and make sacrifice. But on his side, he already knows that Odysseus is home, and he is concealing this fact. What is more, he seems deliberately to mislead Penelope by saying he has brought with him a stranger, whom he has left at somebody else’s house. How could this not suggest to her that Telemachus means his father? We know, however, that it is actually an odd fugitive prophet named Theoclymenus. Is Telemachus deliberately trying to toy with his mother, giving her misleading clues? What seems clear is that she must not be permitted into his confidence. Whether this is because Penelope’s ignorance is essential to his father’s plan, or whether it is because Telemachus just does not trust his mother, is not clear. But Telemachus’ reaction to Penelope’s simple request cannot but stir some deep reflection, and indeed anxiety, inside Penelope.
That is why the line above cannot be rendered simply, ‘her word was unwinged’—i.e., she stayed silent. If μῦθος properly means the will made concrete in speech, expressed and revealed, then Homer’s half-line serves to capture the suppression not only of speech, but all the thought, intent, and anxiety behind it. The whole point of a μῦθος is that it is a word or speech expressed and uttered, not a word in the empirical-phonetic or the abstract sense—like a word in the dictionary. Hence Homer’s use quite marvellously captures Penelope’s articulate repression; it is not some inchoate silence or passive reticence, but implies a deeply pregnant self-control. A μῦθος needs to be outside! To be heard and perhaps responded to.
Inference from usage to determine a word’s meaning is usually guided by oppositions: that is, what are the words in a given context from which μῦθος is distinguished, or to which it is opposed? From before Plato’s time, and famously within him, μῦθος is opposed to λόγος. This opposition is post-Homeric. Note that they are both words for ‘word’. All the same, there is an opposition between them that still seems operative today. On the side of logos are ratio, the rational, reason, account, speech, and word. The Gospel translation ‘In the beginning was the Word’ is not wrong for λόγος, but do consider the other options. So many of our modern studies and sciences are suffixed with a form of logos (biology, psychology, etc.). A logos is a rational account. In light of this opposition, μῦθος becomes associated with what is non-rational, a kind of speech that is, as we would say, non-scientific. It comes to be translated ‘story’, and even in the classical world, mythos can mean ‘myth’ in its disparaging sense.
Homer is not from the classical period, however, and the mythos-logos opposition was not at all present in his usage. It might be hard for us to comprehend a world where one did not distinguish myth from reason, but I am hard pressed to imagine how to translate either of these concepts into Homeric Greek. Perhaps one could map their ranges on to lie and truth? On the other hand, Homer has his own two words for ‘word’: but these are μῦθος and ἔπος. The latter is straightforwardly the internal object of the verb to speak, εἰπεῖν. In the same way speech is the internal object of the verb to speak; one speaks a speech and walks a walk. If you will, ἔπος refers to speech objectively, without the subjective implications of disclosure or revelation. It is matter-of-fact in a certain way. Words (ἔπεα) are routinely ‘winged’, not romantically so. ‘Winged’ is an epithet, not a predicate adjective, a characteristic quality that articulates, rather than predicates, the fact that words must somehow travel through air, as though they had wings, in order to be heard at a distance. In strong contrast, to say that a μῦθος turns out to be unwinged is a decided predication, verging almost on paradox. It conveys a potent hidden event, just as μῦθος itself connotes the exposition of what was hidden or unknown about a speaker’s intent before the speech. Sometimes ἔπος seems to refer to a line of hexameter verse. But here again it is referring to the language in its objective aspect, as a thing with syllables and accents, not to the speaker and the expression from within of what was heretofore unknown about her thought. Hence for Homer there is also an opposition between two words for word, mythos-epos, disclosure/speech, but not the classical one. And in turn the classical opposition, mythos-logos, myth/reason, still perhaps active today, was not yet a living opposition for Homer.
I shall have more to say, at the right time—the end of Book 12—about Homer’s own use of the leg-/log- root of logos. καταλέγειν, a verb meaning ‘recount’, whence our word ‘catalogue’, plays a major role in Homeric storytelling. Odysseus himself coins a word combining mythos and logos. But as you may have guessed, his coinage does not mean what ‘mythology’ means to us today. Stay tuned …
Richard P. Martin, The Language of Heroes: Speech and Performance in the Iliad, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989, 9-10.