Pindar's Homer is not "our" Homer

Abstract

I argue that the figure of Homer in the lyric songmaking of Pindar is envisioned as the poet of all epic, not only of the Iliad and the Odyssey as we know them. At the core of my argumentation here is the earliest reconstructable meaning of the word kuklos (κύκλος) as applied to the Epic Cycle. In terms of such an application, kuklos refers to all poetry composed by Homer. Such a meaning of kuklos as the sum total of Homeric poetry goes back to a metaphorical use of the word in the sense of ‘chariot wheel’. In Homeric diction, kuklos actually means ‘chariot wheel’ (Iliad 23.340, plural κύκλα at 5.722). Connected with this idea of kuklos as a chariot wheel is the meaning of the name ‘Homer’, that is, of Homēros (Ὅμηρος). This name is a nomen loquens or ‘speaking name’ derived from the noun homēros, to be explained etymologically as a compound meaning ‘the one who fits/joins together’. In terms of this etymological explanation, Homēros(Ὅμηρος) is a metaphor: the poet Homer is ‘the one who fits [the song] together’—as if the song were ‘the Cycle’ in the sense of a kuklos or ‘chariot wheel’. Homer as the master poet ‘fits together’ pieces of song that are made ready to be parts of an integrated whole just as a master carpenter or joiner ‘fits together’ or ‘joins’ pieces of wood that are made ready to be parts of a chariot wheel