Egbert Bakker’s commentary on Odyssey IX marks the tenth volume of the Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics series on Homer, and the fifth on the Odyssey itself.[1] Especially since Odyssey IX is among the most famous books of the poem, it is surprising that a commentary on this book had not been published until now in this series which has been running for decades. Bakker’s volume is especially welcome for its narratological focus. He has produced a volume of sturdy scholarship, which will be useful for students encountering Homer for the first time and experienced scholars alike.
After brief prefatory material, this volume contains a lengthy “Introduction” of seventy-one pages, which both situates Book IX and Odysseus’ Apologos, or narration of his travels in Books IX through XII, against the rest of the poem and thoroughly discusses ways in which language, linguistics, and meter work in concert in the formation of the Homeric text. This is followed by the Greek text of Odyssey IX, commentary, a list of works cited, a subject index, and an index of Greek words.
This reader has found the most exciting part of the volume to be the latter part of the “Introduction,” in which Bakker provides a particularly thorough and in-depth discussion of Homeric language and meter (see also Irene de Jong’s equally helpful discussion in the volume on Iliad 22). This section showcases in an exemplary way Bakker’s ability to provide information needed for the student first reading Homer while also offering advanced scholarship on Homeric textual criticism for more experienced scholars. For example, in “Section 9,” on the Homeric dialect, Bakker provides separate lists of Ionic and Aeolic elements in Homeric languagebefore discussing why a Homeric singer might choose to use one dialect over another at any given point. Yet, in contrast to Parry’s argument that Aeolic forms are used only metri causa in Homer instead of equivalent Ionic forms, Bakker helpfully suggests that forms other than Ionic may be used “for their own sake,” such as “to stand apart…as ‘special speech’ that evokes the heroic past” (p. 4).[2] Or again, in “Section 10” on Homeric meter, Bakker first provides a brief and standard introduction to dactylic hexameter before a thorough discussion of advanced metrics, such as how considerations of various cola and line divisions can influence word and dialectical choice.
This concise and comprehensive discussion on meter and diction reaches a climax at the end of the “Introduction,” where Bakker argues that, just as the genesis of Homeric language is conditioned by the nature of oral performance, so too is every written reproduction of Homeric poetry itself a performance (pp. 68-69). The author thus prepares his readers to encounter a critical text of Odyssey IX constructed by himself as a performance, as opposed to the text of a given earlier editor with a few variations. The critical apparatus allows the reader to observe Bakker’s innovations within the traditions of Homeric textual performance by noting simply whether variants are to be found in the manuscript tradition, in the papyri, in ancient authors, or only from modern editors. The commentary shows further clarity for Bakker’s performative choices in constructing the text. For instance, while the manuscript tradition is ambiguous about the presence of the nominative, ἐγώ, in line 360, Bakker argues that the first-person pronoun is needed (and metrically permissible) at this point during a crucial verbal interchange between Odysseus and the Cyclops (p. 190). The ἐγώ in line 360 thus forms part of a sequence, discussed earlier in Bakker’s note on line 345, in which Odysseus emphatically uses ἐγώ five times within about thirty-five lines (9.345-365) to stress his own agency within this crucial episode of the poem (pp. 186-187).
These notes in the “Commentary” regarding Odysseus’ agency are a good example of how well unified the different sections of this volume are. In the “Introduction,” for example, Bakker provides an overall view of how Book IX fits into both Odysseus’ Apologos and the poem as a whole. As he argues, the Apologos “is qua narration an action in the plot of [the ‘matrix’] story, and hence its content is not neutral” (p. 9). Consequently, Bakker encourages readers to consider how Odysseus constructs the Apologos as a carefully controlled narrative which he uses to help convince the Phaeacians to grant him safe passage home to Ithaca (pp. 10-11). Thus, the emphasis on Odysseus’ agency in lines 345-380, while Odysseus offers the Cyclops Maron’s wine as part of his plan to escape, works well with Bakker’s reading of the Apologos from a Colonialist point of view, through which Odysseus highlights through narration his “superior mētis” over the savage Cyclops (pp. 31-34, with quotation from p. 35).
The unity and usefulness of Bakker’s volume is also enhanced by its noting of “interformular” connections between Book IX and other portions of the Odyssey, the Iliad, or other works of Archaic Greek poetry. For instance, the volume guides readers to consider Ajax in the Iliad as an analogue for the Cyclops (pp. 67-68), to compare the Cyclops’ cave with Eumaeus’ hut (p. 146), and to consider the Cyclopean way of life against that of the men of the Hesiodic Golden Age (pp. 29-30, 189-190). Such references provide readers with multiple contexts within which they may interpret the Odyssey against other poetic monuments of early Greek literature. In a way helpful to students, Bakker sidesteps much of the critical debate regarding repetitive language in Archaic Greek poetry[3] by instead referring to interformularity as “Homeric epic’s version of intertextuality” and including references to two of his own publications on the subject[4] for those interested in pursuing interformular theory further.
One element for teachers to consider regarding this volume is Bakker’s choice of punctuationfor “appositional syntax” in his version of this Homeric text. Specifically, on the basis of a cognitive understanding of Homeric poetry as orally composed, Bakker argues for a view in which nouns are often in apposition to the subject or object of a verb (pp. 54-55). For example, in line 1, τὸν δ’ ἀπαμειβόμενος προσέφη, πολύμητις Ὀδυσσεύς, he takes πολύμητις Ὀδυσσεύς in apposition to the subject implied in προσέφη, and thus translates, “and him in answer he-addressed, many-minded Odysseus” (p. 55). Accordingly, Bakker places a comma between προσέφη and πολύμητις Ὀδυσσεύς. While such choices are reasonable and based on generations of well-documented scholarship, students earlier in their Greek studies may have trouble distinguishing between taking πολύμητις Ὀδυσσεύς as a subject or as a noun in apposition to an implied subject. For teachers of Greek students not far advanced in their studies, therefore, I would recommend suggesting standard readings of such nouns simply as subjects, unless they note that their students are up to the challenge.[5]
I have noted a few typos, but only one which may cause difficulty with understanding the material. After claiming that “cases of hiatus combined with brevis in longo occur when the original s-sound and the digamma [of the reflexive pronoun ὅς] are observed together,” the Greek text cited appears with two digammas (= “ἀπὸ (ϝϝ)ἕο”) instead of with a sigma followed by a digamma (= ἀπὸ (σϝ)ἕο)(p. 49). Otherwise, I have found one factual error regarding Greek grammar. In the commentary on the formulaic phrase “ἀθεμίστια εἰδώς” in line 189, the text takes ἀθεμίστια as “nominative plural” instead of neuter accusative plural (pp. 148-149).
Sadly, the hardcover copy of the book I received was bound unevenly in the cover, with the page block nearly protruding above the front cover and making the text on the front appear slanted up to the right. The well-developed and exceedingly helpful content within the volume deserves better binding.
Overall, then, Bakker has produced a comprehensive commentary to one of the most famous books of Homer’s Odyssey, complete with an exciting introduction to Homeric textual criticism. The commentary builds upon both modern and ancient commentary traditions, including the scholia and Eustathius. One who studies Odyssey IX by following Bakker’s commentary will be rewarded with a depth of insight not only into critical discussion of the book but also into Homeric textual criticism in general. I highly recommend the volume for those wishing to teach Homeric Greek, especially for its concise glossary of the use of particles in Homer (pp. 59-63). Bakker’s view of particles as “discourse markers signposting the flow of speech” I believe will prove helpful for students seeking to gain a thorough knowledge of Homeric language. I foresee using Bakker’s discussion of Homeric meter from a cognitive viewpoint as useful in my own courses for teaching a range of subjects, from ancient Greek music to word order in poetry more generally.
Notes
[1] Other volumes on Homer in the series so far include the following: Il. I (2022) by Seth Schein, Il. 3 (2019) by A. Bowie, Il. 6 (2010) by Barbara Graziosi and Johannes Haubold, Il. 22 (2012) by Irene de Jong, Il. 24 (1982) by Colin MacLeod, Od. 6-8 (1995) by A. Garvie, Od. 13-14 (2013) by A. Bowie, Od. 17-18 (2010) by Deborah Steiner, Od. 19-20 (2008) by R. Rutherford. More appear to be near publication, including Il. 4 (2026) by Seth Schein, Il. 23 (2026) by A. Kelly, and Od. 11 (2026) by Richard Hunter and Rebecca Laemmle.
[2] Parry, M. 1971. The making of Homeric Verse: the collected papers of Milman Parry, ed. A. Parry, Oxford. Bakker cites pp. 338, 342-355.
[3] See, for instance: Nelson, T. 2023. Markers of Allusion in Archaic Greek Poetry. Cambridge Classical Studies. Cambridge University Press; Edmunds, L. 2016. “Intertextuality without Texts in Archaic Greek Verse and the Plan of Zeus.” Selecta Classica 27: 1–27.
[4] Bakker, E. 2013. The meaning of meat and the structure of the Odyssey. Cambridge. pp. 157-169; Bakker, E. 2022. “Interformulaic Homer: evidence from the ‘wild’ papyri,” in A. Ercolani and L. Lulli, eds. Rethinking orality II: The mechanisms of the oral communication system in the case of archaic epic, Berlin, 19-40.
[5] In support of this point, one of the editors of this review pointed out that their undergraduate students generally enjoyed this volume yet found Bakker’s tranlsation of Od. 9.1 “confusing.”