the staunching of odysseus' blood: the healing power of magic

8/13/2019 The Staunching of Odysseus' Blood: The Healing Power of Magic

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The Staunching of Odysseus' Blood: The Healing Power of MagicAuthor(s): Robert RenehanSource: The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 113, No. 1 (Spring, 1992), pp. 1-4Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/295121.

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AMERICANJOURNAL OF PHILOLOGYTHE STAUNCHING OF ODYSSEUS' BLOOD:THE HEALING POWER OF MAGIC

For Ronald K. Tompkins, M.D.iQoS6g yaQ avNQCoXXVc6v avtalog aUxov

The episode in the nineteenth book of the Odyssey, wherein theold nurse Eurykleia recognizes her master Odysseus, who has returnedincognito to his homeland after an absence of twenty years, is amongthe most familiarpassages in the poem. The epic poet tells us that it wasby a scar above the knee that she recognized Odysseus and goes on torecount how he got that scar. Once, as a young man, he went huntingwith the sons of Autolykos (that is to say, with his maternal uncles) onMount Parnassus. They came upon a great boar in a dense thicket andOdysseus killed it with his spear-but not before the boar had goredhim badly with his tusk. The sons of Autolykos then tended to Odys-seus' wound; here are the relevant verses, Od. 19.455-58:

TOV sE/v&a' AiToX.KxoUvai6eg (Xikol a&tiLtEvovOTO,W(TeLXlv ' 'O6VoUioga&[UtovogavTLOeoLo6oroav E7LoCaTLEvog,jaoL6f 6' al[RaXEkaLVovE(XE0OVXlX.W. B. Stanford in his note to Od. 19.457-58 observes: "EJtaoL&ixTX: and they stayed the dark blood with an incantation'. Formed di-rectly from E'-&ae?6co'sing over', the noun refers to a blood-staunch-ing spell chanted over the wound, a practice known in many parts ofEurope. I have heard a circumstantial description of the process from aRussian cavalry officer who witnessed an immediate stoppage of bloodfrom a sabre-wound in this way . . ." What we have here is a very

TheOdysseyof Homer, ditedwithgeneralandgrammaticalntroductions, om-mentary, nd indexesby W.B. Stanford,vol. 22(London1958)334. Stanford ites a fewAmericanournal f Philology 131992) -4 ? 1992 y TheJohnsHopkinsUniversity ress

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ROBERT RENEHANclear example of the combination of "rational" medicine and "irra-tional" magic in the treatment of an injury.The sons of Autolykos stopthe bleeding (1)by expertly (iEaLoxatvwg) bandaging the wound and (2)by chanting an incantation. To such magico-medical practitioners itwas not enough merely to bind the wound only, for the incantation wasan integral and essential part of the treatment. Since most wounds, ifproperly bandaged, stop bleeding soon enough, it is easy enough, by anatural mental confusion, to attribute a curative efficacy to the incanta-tion which regularly accompanied the bandaging on the principle of posthoc, ergo propterhoc. Such an outlook was, and still is in some cultures,widespread.2Friedrich Pfister, in his article Epode in RE, Supplementband IV(1924), col. 325, actually interprets dTeL.YV. . . bYoav eLoratr vcognot of a literal binding/bandaging, but of a magical binding by means ofa spell. It is certainly true that the verb 6ow (more usually xaTaa6wo) anbe so used, but to take it in this way here distorts the natural flow of theGreek of lines 456-58, which clearly describe two distinct, but related,acts, namely the skillful bandaging of the wound and the checking of thebleeding by an incantation. Note that 6&loav and EoXE0ovhave separateobjects (('dTekiiv, al[ax). For bandaging in Homer see II. 13.599-600:axUTinsc. XEiQa] 6E SUV?6rqoevEio 4QE@elog&aCm0p, oEV66v0n iva&a oL 0eQajrcov ?XE JOLiEVLtXkaov.It is curious that the eminent medical historian Henry Sigeristaccepts Pfister's interpretation. In his well-known History of Medicinehe has written the following: "There is relatively little mention of magicin the Homeric epics although the ancient Greeks believed in magicpassages from Greek and Roman authors (chiefly after van Leeuwen) for the use ofincantations in ancient medicine. None of his parallels, however, refers explicitly to thestaunching of blood.2For a good account of incantations throughout history see the collection of en-tries s.v. "Charms and Amulets" by B. Freire-Marreco and others in Encyclopaedia ofReligion and Ethics, ed. James Hastings with the assistance of John A. Selbie and otherscholars, vol. 3 (New York 1928) 392-472. More recent, but much less detailed, is theaccount s.v. "Incantation" by Theodore M. Ludwig in The Encyclopaedia of Religion,Mircea Eliade, Editor in Chief, vol. 7 (New Yorkand London 1987) 147-52. For a partic-ularly clear example of the combination of medicine and incantatory magic in ancientGreece, see Plato, Theaet. 149C-D: xai R/]v xai 6t6booaai ye ati uaial (aelaxtax xcaEIrgibovaat 6vavt yctt yiQeLEv TETag (6ivag xai caXkaxwEcQxTa&v I3poUkovtaLJOLEVXTX.While this passage occurs in a literary work, not a historical document, there can be nodoubt that it reflects actual contemporary practice. The same, of course, is true of theOdyssey passage.

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THE STAUNCHINGOF ODYSSEUS'BLOODand, like everyoneelse in antiquity,practicedsome ... A truly magicrite, however, s mentioned n a passageof the Odyssey .. Odysseus'companions,the sons of Autolycus, bound his wound and staunchedthe dark blood, EtaoLbI, with a spell. The stopping of a hemorrhagethroughthe recitingof an incantationmust be an old Indo-Europeanrite, since it is foundfromGermany o India."3 igeristhimselfadduceda fascinating example from India which has been preserved in theAtharvavedaI.17.1);t begins: "The maidensthatgo yonder, he veins,clothedinredgarment, ike sisters withouta brother,bereftof strength,theyshall stand still "Here, significantly, e goes on to addatonce, "Atthe same time[emphasismine],as the manualpartof the ritual,a poul-tice of dust, sand, and mudwas applied."4The use of incantations, n conjunctionwith dressingsand other"rational"medicalpractices,to staunchthe flow of blood survivesalsoin the OldIrishtradition,thereby extendingthe evidencefor this cus-tomto the western imitsof the ancientworld.A particularlynterestingexampleoccursin the famousOld Irishepic, TdinBo Cuailngeor "Cat-tle raid of Cooley."Here is the relevantpassage, from the "CombatofFerdia and Cuchulainn" episode (Comrac FirDiad ocus Con Culainn)inthe versionof Cecile O'Rahilly:

... Physiciansand doctors came to examine and watch them and toattend on them that night, for, because of the dreadfulnessof theirwounds andgashes, of theircuts and manystabs, all they could do forthem was to applyspellsandincantationsand charms o themto staunchthe bleedingand haemorrhage nd to keep the dressingsin place . .5

3A History of Medicine, vol. 2: Early Greek, Hindu, and Persian Medicine (Oxford1961) 3. See p. 37,n. 34 of this same volume for Sigerist'sacceptanceof Pfister's nter-pretationof 6/Ioavin Od. 19.457as meaning hatthey boundthe woundnot with ban-dages, butwith a magicspell.4Sigerist note3 above)159.TheAtharvavedas "a collectionof 731hymns,pray-ers, incantations,and charms ntwentybooks. It is somewhat aterthantheRigvedaandmayhavebeencomposedaround1200B.C." p. 151).FortheGerman videncesee GustavEhrismann, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur bis zum Ausgang des Mittelalters, ErsterTeil. Die Althochdeutsche Literatur (Munich 1954) 99-120, especially 107-9. (Sigeristrefersto this work on p. 37,n. 36.)5TdinB6 Cuailnge from the Book of Leinster, ed. Cecile O'Rahilly (Dublin 1967,repr.1970) 24. Thisepisodewas notanoriginalpartof the Tdin.See O'Rahilly,TheStoweVersion f TdinB6 Cuailnge Dublin1961, epr.1978) xiv-xxix. As shestates,this section"mustoriginallyhave beenanindependentale, later nserted n the Tain" p. xxiv). Thelast phrasehere, "andto keep the dressings n place"is not quitecertain,because the

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ROBERT RENEHANThe original Irish version of the relevant section goes as follows:.. .acht iptha ocus ele ocus arthana do churriudo thairmesc afola ocus

a fuiligthe .. ., literally, ". . . but put spells (iptha) and incantations(ele) and charms (arthana) against them to stop the blood and bleed-ing. .. "6It thus appears that this practice is attested from India to Ireland,which is to say from the eastern to the western periphery of the ancientIndo-European sphere.7 That the Irish example occurs in an epic narra-tive makes it an especially appropriate parallel for the Homeric passagefrom which we started. We have here one more illustration of the impor-tance, for comparative purposes, of the Old Irish material.8

ROBERTRENEHANUNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA BARBARA

meaning of the original Irish (a ngae cr6) is disputed. See O'Rahilly, Book of Leinster,note to lines 3168-69 (pp. 324-25) and id., Stowe Version, Glossary s.v. gae (p. 236).Nevertheless, that the incantation, although required by the culture, was not used inisolation is clear from other passages. See the Leinster recension, lines 3123-25: "Thencame folk of healing and curing to heal and cure them, and they put herbs and healingplants and a curing charm into their wounds and cuts, their gashes and many stabs" (tr.O'Rahilly).6Lines 3167-68 of the Book of Leinster recension (note 5 above). See also O'Ra-hilly, The Stowe Version (note 5 above), lines 2933-94, act iptha ocus arthana do curfriudo toirmiosg a bfola ocus a bfuiligthi. This differs, apart from some minor orthographicalpoints, only in having two rather than three nouns for 'incantation' or 'charm' (iptha,arthana). No one English noun corresponds exactly to these terms. Compare P. S. Din-neen, Focl6ir Gaeilge agus Bearla. An Irish-English Dictionary2 (Dublin 1927) s.v. or-tha (=artha): "a collect, prayer or incantation, a curse, an amulet or charm... o.na fola, the blood-stopping charm . . . ioptha agus eile agus orthanna do chur leo dothoirmeasc na fola, to apply charms, amulets and spells to them in order to stop theblood .. ." While no reference is given, this last citation obviously derives from the Tdin.

7Naturally, I do not mean to imply that such incantatory practices are unique toIndo-European, for they are not. But the pattern of distribution among Indo-Europeanspeakers suggests, although it does not prove, that the practice was familiar to thembefore the diaspora.8For a recent discussion of medical practices in early Ireland see the paper byWendy Davies, "The Place of Healing in Early Irish Society," in Sages, Saints and Story-tellers. Celtic Studies in Honour of Professor James Carney, ed. Donnchadh O'Corrain,Liam Breatnach, Kim McCone (Maynooth 1989)43-55. Incantations are discussed on pp.49-50 (with notes 35-39); the passage from the Tain adduced above is not mentioned.

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the staunching of odysseus' blood: the healing power of magic

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