Achilles at Scyros and the Cypria: Tradition And Myth in the Epic Cycle

Pietro Verzina

In this paper I will analyze the episode of Achilles at Scyros with special reference to the lost epic Cypria, trying to reach the narrative substance of the episode by considering it part of an oral tradition. [1] This traditional story has attracted recent attention [2] , mostly aimed at the definition of the relationship between the sources and the attribution of the episode to specific poems. It is my belief that, beyond this necessary reconstruction which I myself will deal with in section 1, the story deserves a further and deeper analysis which may help to understand some characteristics of the narrative, composition and elaboration of Cyclic poetry.

In the first two sections of the paper I will try to reconstruct the episode through its variants, placing them in the right context in order to understand the narrative and structural characteristics of the Cypria; I will stress in section 2 how this epic elaborates the relevant traditional narrative in order to adapt it to its plot by means of what we may call oral technique. In section 3 my goal will be to illustrate in a more general sense that this episode and its function can be related to some specific motifs and themes and to certain idea of the Hero that are closely related to the conception of the poem itself.

The reconstruction of the traditional tale of Achilles at Scyros in the Cyclic poems requires as a starting point a review of the sources. We may leave aside for the moment the separate story recalled by a passage of the Iliad (9.666–668) that makes reference to Achilles’ sack of Scyros: part of the scholia considers this Scyros only a place of the same name of the more famous Aegean island. Such a tradition is not linked to the Cycle by any source, and, on the contrary, is seen as non-Cyclic by the relevant scholium [3] .

There are, on the other hand, several sources that tell of Achilles’ peaceful stay on the island of Scyros, a more famous story which is also recalled by later authors [4] and that we can link to the Cyclic poems. We can outline the narrative of this story from some mythological scholia to the Iliad (D-scholia), namely Schol. D Iliad 19.326 (IV, 222, 29 Dindorf) (= Cypria fr. 19 [I] Bernabé = fr. 4 incerti loci Davies), which is the only one that ascribes it to the “Cyclic poets” (παρὰ τοῖς κυκλικοῖς); and Schol. D Iliad 1.417, which has a less detailed hint and does not reveal its source; it is convenient (and we will see why below) to also include in this group of sources Ps. Apollodorus’ narrative (Bibliotheca 3.13.8), although it is probably taken from a source that is later than archaic epic [5] .

This version states that Achilles, after a prophecy about his death in the Trojan war, was hidden on Scyros by one of his parents and disguised as a girl before the beginning of the war; there he met king Lycomedes’ daughter Deidameia and begot Neoptolemus. Next, with recruiting for the army underway, Odysseus reveals the identity of the son of Peleus by placing some weapons and some feminine garments in the front of the door: Achilles unintentionally took up the weapons, so Odysseus was able to unmask the hero and drive him towards his fate.

These sources, as well as later remakes, encompass a few minor variants, concerning at most which of his parent dealt with his hiding [6] and the details of the procedure by which Achilles was discovered (which concerns in any case his military vocation [7] ). However, a firm unity can be seen in this tradition (and this is sufficient enough for the purpose of my research) in regards to the fact that the stay on the island precedes in the fabula the departure of the Greek army, the first gathering at Aulis and the beginning of any military operation.

It is not so in Proclus. Here is the text of the grammarian with the story in its context:

This account can be completed with two verses cited by Schol. B Iliad 19.326a¹ (IV 636 Erbse) ( = Ilias Parva fr. 24dub [I] Bernabé = Ilias Parva fr. 4 Davies), a fragment whose attribution to the Lesches’ poem is debated (see below):

According to Proclus and this fragment, after the erroneous campaign in Mysia, where Achilles wounds Telephus, a storm scatters the Achaean fleet. Achilles arrives at Scyros, probably driven by the storm itself [8] ; there he marries Deidameia and next heals Telephus at Argos. This was the story contained in the Cypria, which also mentioned a son of Achilles and Deidameia, whom Lycomedes used to call “Pyrrhus” and Phoenix “Neoptolemus” (Pausanias 10.26.4 = fr. 21 [I] Bernabé).

To summarize, we can identify two different versions of the story and select the characteristic elements of each one:

It is easy to see that the only incompatibilities between the two versions are: 1) the temporal and logical placement of the episode in the fabula (not only in the story) of the Trojan War: before (A₁) and after (A₂) the departure of the army; 2) the reasons for the arrival at Scyros, either an initiative of one of Achilles’ parents (a detail much reiterated in A₁ [9] ) or a storm (A₂). For the rest, the obscure details of A₂ are in theory fillable with some of the details of A₁, as we will better see below. For this reason the sources that do not deal with the cause for the arrival at the island, namely Schol. T Iliad 9.668b (II, 538 Erbse) = Cypria fr. 19 (II) Bernabé (οἱ μὲν νεώτεροι [10] ἐκεῖ τὸν παρθενῶνά φασιν, ἔνθα τὸν Ἀχιλλέα ἐν παρθένου σχήματι τῇ Δηιδαμείᾳ κατακλίνουσιν κτλ.) or the similar Schol. D Iliad 1.131 might address either version or both. Every possible relationship between these two versions remains to be examined.

The first question is from where Schol. D Iliad 19.326 took A₁. If we establish that A₂ belongs without any doubt to the Cypria, we have to consider the results of some scholars [11] who believed that A₁ too must be included in the same poem [12] and that both stories were somehow integrated into the narrative. The most creative in that sense is the hypothesis of Severyns 1928:290–291 [13] , who believes that in the Cypria Achilles went to Scyros twice: according to him the first time he seduced and impregnated Deidameia (A₁ segment) and the second time he returned to Scyros because of a storm and he married Deidameia (A₂ segment), in a sort of “bourgeois happy ending” [14] . This reconstruction had a certain success among scholars, but a different hypothesis of reconstruction also exists asserting that both stories were part of the Cypria [15] .

There are some plausible reasons to think that A₁ featured in the Cypria: the D-scholium mentions “Cyclic poets” and the Cypria was the only Cyclic poem dealing with pre-iliadic stories that ancient grammarians knew [16] ; furthermore, the Cypria contained the recruitment of Odysseus and the travels of the sons of Atreus throughout Greece to recruit other heroes [17] . However, none of these arguments make certain the attribution of A₁ to the poem.

The first reasoning (much controversialized and debated), can be easily criticized: in addition to the consideration that Proclus does not mention the recruitment of Achilles (A₁) whereas he does mention that of Odysseus [18] , we can infer that the D-scholium might have taken A₁ from another poem or from other sources: the sentence παρὰ τοῖς κυκλικοῖς is sufficiently vague to allow this hypothesis [19] . Davies 1998 has serious doubts that this text can be considered a fragment of the Cypria and does not place it in this poem (fr. 4 incerti loci) [20] . Any Cyclic poem can be considered the source of an analeptic story about Achilles’ early years as displayed in A₁: in the Ilias Parva Neoptolemus had a big role and it would have been natural for such a poem to include a memory of the origins of this hero who had lived and grown up on Scyros. The role of Neoptolemus, who was necessary for the fall of Troy, recalls the role of his father, who for the same reason had to be recruited [21] . The poem also featured an apparition of Achilles’ ghost at his own tomb in the presence of Neoptolemus (Iliadis Parvae Argumentum lines 11–12 Bernabé, Papyrus Rylands 22, lines 9–10 Bernabé) and fr. 5 Bernabé tells how the son of Peleus learned how to use his spear, and this is probably another analepsis dealing with Neoptolemus [22] . These elements recall Achilles’ fate to die in the Trojan War. The placement of A₁ in the Ilias Parva as an analepsis is therefore a likely guess [23] . The problem, however, is that the above-mentioned Schol B Iliad 19.326 a¹ (IV 635 Erbse) ( = Ilias Parva fr. 24dub [I] Bernabé = Ilias Parva fr. 4^A Davies) attributes A₂, and not A₁, to the poem by Lesches. But most scholars do not accept this attribution [24] : the context wherein the scholium locates the fragment, which encompasses a reference to Telephus and the Theutranian expedition, is suspiciously similar to the plot of the Cypria; therefore, someone has ascribed the fragment to this poem [25] . I do not venture such a hypothesis here; nevertheless, a hypothetical A₁+A₂ is not more plausible for the Cypria than for the Ilias Parva, a poem which after all in the opinion of Burgess 2001:24 and 143 might have originally narrated (just as the Cypria did) the complete story of the Trojan War.

Therefore the Ilias Parva could include A₁ and the content of Schol. D Iliad 19.326 (IV, 222, 29 Dindorf) (= Cypria fr. 19 [I] Bernabé) can be attributed to this poem (as Davies 1988, cf. fr. 4 incerti locis, is inclined to think). Anyway, this is not the only possible solution: other hypothesis help to understand the character of the story. A₁ deal with the hero’s fate and it is closely related to his death; therefore it could be included as an analepsis in a poem that featured the death of Achilles, for example, the Aethiopis, where Θέτις ἀφικομένη σὺν Μύσαις καί ταῖς ἀδελφαῖς θρενεῖ τὸν παῖδα (Aethiopidis Argumentum lines 20-21 Bernabé): Thetis recalls the personal story of Achilles and his departure to war when she mourns her son in advance in Iliad 19.54–60 [26] . In the Nostoi there were many circumstances in which Neoptolemus might have remembered his father: he came to his land, met Thetis and Peleus etc.; this poem, moreover, contained a Nekuia [27] , which might have included a reference to the fate of the son of Peleus, like the Nekuia of the Odyssey did (cf. 24.15–97). Therefore, the reason for the lack of any reference to A₁ in Proclus’ argumenta is easy to understand: A₁ in the Cycle belonged to a flash-back (perhaps more than one flash-back in more than one poem), and the grammarian may have overlooked such narrative segments. Proclus in a couple of cases does allude to digressions and elements that are not part of the sequence of events [28] ; however, it seems that, as a general rule, his summaries do not focus the attention on the parts of the fabula that do not follow a straight chronological order in the story elaborated in the poems [29] . In any case the attribution of A₁ to the Cypria is very unlikely: if A₁ suits any Cyclic poem, why insist on attributing it to the plot of the Cypria, if it produces an evident inconsistency with Proclus’ summary of this poem?

The recruitment of Odysseus is an episode equivalent to A₁ and in the Cypria it alone is able to express the human wish of the Achaeans to avoid a war that will be fatal to them or make them suffer greatly (see also below). The recruitment of Achilles might have been non problematic in the Cypria [30] , and, as we will see below, such a version suits this poem very well. The narrative of a willing departure of Achilles from Phthia without the opposition of his parents is Homeric (Iliad 11.765–213 etc.) [31] , but it seems that such an episode was traditional and we can reconstruct an old alternative tradition (with the involvement of Thetis instead of Peleus) featuring Achilles’ departure from Phthia [32] : such an episode is also implied in a seventh century BCE vase painting [33] and in some sixth century BCE ones [34] whose sources are probably Cyclic. The departure of Achilles from the house of his father is featured in a play by Euripides that is strictly related to the Cypria: Iphigenia in Aulis 812 [35] . However, on the strength of the narrative of Proclus, it seems that the recruitment of Achilles at Phthia was reported as a brief allusion in the poem, and that it was narrated in the form of a summary, not as a scene, just like the non-problematic [36] recruitment of other warriors.

Therefore it cannot be proved by any means that A₁ and A₂ were both part of the plot of the Cypria. By examining how the sources handle those two stories we can understand more.

Firstly, Apollodorus, who certainly had the Cypria among his sources, but also something else, reports only one version (A₁): like in many other instances [37] , in Epitome 3.18 (in the context of an account very similar to that of Proclus and depending in large part on the Cypria), he does not talk of A₂ and of Scyros after the storm because in Bibliotheca 3.13.8 he has already reported in detail A₁, taken from a different source. Therefore the two stories are not complementary, but alternative and, moreover, very similar. The author of the Bibliotheca was interested only in mythical details, not in descriptions of particular works; since A₁ and A₂ probably contained only trivial differences or since A₂ would not have added anything new, he (or the compiler of the Epitome) overlooked it. The difference had only a narrative and structural relevance that was only significant in the particular plot of the Cypria. As we have seen, the only substantial difference between A₁ and A₂ was the temporal and logical placement of the episode in the timeline of the fabula of the Trojan war. This explains the difference between Proclus’ summary and Apollodorus’ Epitome, and this is probably why, in later remakes of the story, we find a substantially uniform version of the episode of Scyros, although, as it is well known, most authors certainly also had the Cypria among their sources.

Schol. B Iliad 19.326a¹ (IV 636 Erbse) (= Ilias Parva fr. 24dub [I] Bernabé), despite its partial unreliability (see above), is the only early source that (although very briefly) explicitly compares the two versions. It says: “Someone (τινὲς μέν) [38] says that it was Thetis who brought [Achilles] to Scyros; on the contrary (δέ) the poet of the Little Iliad [39] says that he arrived there by ship coming away from the land of Thelephus.” Indeed, as I have already said, what brought Achilles to Scyros is the only difference that surely existed between the two variants: the scholium reports only this difference, as if it were the only difference worth mentioning and as if the rest would be more or less identical. Moreover, the scholiast knew both A₁ and A₂, but (unless this is due to his imperfect knowledge or awareness of the sources) he does not know any version that covered both stories at the same time and that integrated them into a single plot (for example with a former journey and a subsequent return). As a matter of fact, he considers A₁ and A₂ alternative versions.

The hypothesis of the presence and integration of both A₁ and A₂ in the plot of the Cypria, in particular Severyns’s opinion that the episode of Scyros was split into two episodes in this poem, cannot be accepted. Nevertheless, this hypothesis may suggest something: such an imaginative story can only be conceived as an arrangement of the traditional tale into a complete narrative of the Trojan war. This implies that the poet of the Cypria highly elaborated the traditional tale in order to adapt the myth to the plot of his poem. A timeworn idea of Cyclic poetry has lead to the view of the Epic Cycle as a kind of basis, a sort of mythological handbook that must be, in any case, equivalent to a fixed myth. The updating of Neoanalysis with some of the findings of Oral Theory has lead to the redefinition not only of the relationship between Homer and Trojan myth, but also of the relationship between Cyclic poetry and tradition; in other words Homer does not derive from the Cycle nor the Cycle from Homer; on the contrary they both derive from a traditional myth that they are moderately free to elaborate on (of course the Homeric elaboration is considered deeper and superior) [40] . A tendency to elaborate is what ancient, and a part of modern, scholarship often ascribes, as a matter of fact, to the Cycle, but formerly it was conceived as a literary elaboration, which originated from the text of the Homeric poems. On the contrary, in conformity with a more up-to-date view, we can assume that elaboration in the Cyclic poems is realized according to the devices of oral composition and on the basis of a Trojan tradition that can be conceived as independent from Homer.

It can be noticed in many points of the Cypria that the use of traditional material depends on the structure and on the idiosyncratic aims of the poem and of its plot. The episode of Scyros is a key point to understanding this fact, but what we must consider and take into account is that the use of traditional elements follows the principles of oral composition and multiformity.

On the whole, I consider the results of part of recent scholarship (Tsagalis 2008:259, Tsagalis 2012:257–269 and 278–281, Fantuzzi 2012:26–27) correct and acceptable, according to which the versions that I have named A₁ and A₂ are mutually exclusive (Tsagalis talks of them as rival). However in my opinion a further analysis is possible in order to define the relationship between the two versions in the context of the tradition of the Trojan war. We may also scrutinize, as much as possible, their potential genetic relationship in a context of oral poetry. It is my impression that the primary traditional version that we see most faithfully represented in A₁, in which Achilles is hidden on Scyros before the beginning of the expedition to Troy, was elaborated as A₂ in order to be used in a specific narrative that covered the whole war (what we see represented in the plot of Cypria) by means of a “novelistic” [41] storm device (see also below).

Using A₁ among the other recruitments and before the departure of the army, might have protracted the episode too much, or produced a redundancy, as the recruitment of Odysseus was able to express by itself the motif of the heroes’ reluctance to go to war in the poem. The Epic Cycle is very tolerant of doublets [42] , but the use of contiguous doublets may be considered particularly evident and redundant [43] ; we can assume that at this stage of the story (before the departure) oral storytelling used the two motifs, Achilles’ and Odysseus’ defection, alternatively. Not even in Ps. Apollodorus, which also reports the recruitment of Odysseus (Epitome 3.7), are the two recruitments grouped or connected, and nor do we find such a connection represented in any of the most ancient sources. As I have already said, the narrative of the recruitment of Achilles in the Cypria (and possibly in other poems with a similar structure), as seems to be implied in the account of Cypriorum Argumentum line 30 Bernabé, might have only been alluded to among the others (in form of summary and by means of a few lines), and probably consisted of Achilles’ willing departure from Phthia; this version recounted a “neutral” recruitment, without any of the distinctive elements that Homer elaborated in Iliad 11. We can imagine that he poet of the Cypria (or of the version of this poem that we know through Proclus) knew A₁ [44] , but that he decided to use only the equivalent oral motif of Odysseus’ fake madness (a potential doublet) as a recruitment story and to move the popular story of Achilles at Scyros from one point in time in the fabula to another. The expressive and structural reasons for this elaboration are understandable as features of oral composition.

The move of the episode of Scyros, however, has even more sense if we consider the point where the story is eventually placed in the Cypria. Apollodorus (Epitome 3.18), indeed, reports a detail that is very important for the reconstruction of the structure of the poem: after the storm that follows the Mysian expedition, the Achaean chiefs return home; eight years elapse before they leave again (Epitome 3.18 μετὰ ἔτη ὀκτώ, 19 μετὰ τὴν ῥηθεῖσαν ὀκταετίαν) [45] , or maybe seven if we read this number as the folk sequence “for seven years and in the eight” [46] (cf. Odyssey 7.259–262). However, a period of eight years also seems to be a traditional or folk-tale motif used in Greek myth, as Apollodorus himself attests [47] .

Apollodorus does not have any narrative or structural reason to insert such a detail into his narrative: therefore this detail must be traditional (cf. Iliad 24.765–766): it is reported by the mythographer with reference to the ten year period [48] between the abduction of Helen and the arrival of the Achaean troops at Troy. The expedition leaves in the second year after the abduction of Helen [49] , and in this way we obtain a ten year period.

This detail is perfectly fitting to the Cypria, even though Proclus does not inform us how long the army traveled for. In contrast with a generalized view of this poem, the Cypria shows a high structural consistency [50] . It is clearly divided into three relatively equal parts [51] : 1) divine prehistory and origins of the war, 2) preparation and journey to Troy and 3) war on the battlefield. Each part is separately organized. I will restrict myself to the analysis of the second part, to which the relevant episode belongs.

The narrative of the Cypria is to be viewed as very similar, in regards to the structure and the theme, to the books 9–12 of the Odyssey [52] , that is the so-called Apologue of Odysseus: the narrative and thematic analogies between the Cypria and this part of the Homeric poem are numerous [53] . Obviously the second part of the Cypria, telling of the journey to Troy, is the most similar to the Apologue: it talks about adventures in the Aegean sea, it consists of a similar number of episodes [54] and, if we divide the poem into three parts, it is very likely that is was contained in four books just like the Apologue [55] .

In the Odyssey the narrative time is organized as follows: the journey of Odysseus, which is completely recounted in Odyssey 9–12, lasts ten years; the story consists of two years of scenic and singulative narration and eight years reported as ellipsis or summary [56] . In other words, the Apologue is formed of a scenic account of two years complemented by a non-scenic allusion to a period of eight years.

In the Odyssey the eight year period is represented by the sum of the stays at Kalypso’s (seven years, cf. Odyssey 7.259) and Kyrke’s (one year, cf. Odyssey 10.467–469) [57] islands (two evident doublets [58] ), episodes that Odysseus himself (Odyssey 9.29–33) mentions and groups as overall cause and amount of his delay. The two years of scenic and singulative account, divided into more or less independent episodes (Polyphemus, Sirens etc., of course with differences in rhythm and length between them), coincide with Odysseus’ adventure by sea. This succession of scenic accounts of events and empty unitary periods during which the time passes and little happens may be viewed as a device that ancient epic storytelling uses to perform the passing of the traditional length of ten years. Moreover, every empty period is represented as a stay of the protagonist on a far-away island where he is detained by a sentimental relationship. This must be a motif related to the Travel theme in ancient epic.

The traditional tale says that from the arrival of Helen at Troy to the arrival of the Achaean troops in the same place ten years elapsed; therefore the second part of the Cypria (troops provision and journey to Troy) covered ten years. I believe that the four central books of the Cypria and Odyssey 9-12 share a fixed model of ratio between fabula and story that was typical of travel poems, which encompass a similar number of episodes, a similar overall length and a similar alternation of scene and ellipsis.

Therefore, the point of the Cypria where the empty period of eight years can be best placed is the sojourn of Achilles on Scyros. As in the Odyssey, the passing of time coincides with a stay of the hero on an island where he has a sentimental relationship: Scyros is Achilles’ Ogygia/Aiaia [59] .

Moreover, a rather long stay of Achilles on Scyros was perhaps already a traditional element, as it seems to also belong to A₁ [60] . But it is evident that a delay caused by the stay of the hero at the place of a woman is not only a traditional motif, but also, as Odysseus shows, an archaic narrative device closely related to folk-tale numbers and to an inherent 8+2 structure.

The passing of seven or eight years at this point may solve many questions; many details of A₂ can be related to the organization of the plot of the poem.

One of the major problems concerning Scyros is the age of Neoptolemus, which Severyns 1928:289 [61] tried to solve with the hypothesis of a double stay (see above), suggesting that Neoptolemus was beget on Scyros before the departure for the Trojan War (A₁ segment). My hypothesis avoids the need for a double stay on Scyros: if Neoptolemus is begot at the point when Achilles has just arrived at Scyros driven by the storm, and then at least seven or eight years pass before the Achaeans reach Troy (A₂), he will be approximately eighteen when he fights at Troy, i.e. in the last year of the war. Schol. T Iliad 9.668b (II Erbse) indeed reports such an age for the fighting Neoptolemus: εἴκοσι δὲ ἔτη ἐστὶ πάσης τῆς παρασκευῆς τοῦ πολέμου, ὥστε δύναται ὁ Νεοπτόλεμος ὀκτωκαιδεκαέτης στρατεύειν. This scholium depends on different accounts, but an age of eighteen for Neoptolemus is clearly a traditional detail and is consistent with the Cypria, from which it might derive: if, like in Apollodorus (Epitome 3.18), the fleet departed in the second year after the abduction of Helen and Neoptolemus was born shortly afterwards, then the calculation of his age resulted simple and intuitive for the hearers: it is enough to add the years of the war to the years of Achilles’ stay on Scyros: they are traditional numbers (10+8) (see also above).

Neoptolemus was mentioned in the Cypria, therefore the question of his age had to be raised in this poem. There are two different explanations for the name of this character in the Trojan tradition: he was either named so because his father fought in the war as a young man, or because he himself did so (cf. Cypria fr. 21 Bernabé). The Cypria seems to have agreed with the first explanation, as explicitly told by fr. 21 Bernabé [62] . It is meaningful that Apollodorus insists on Achilles’ young age reporting the episode of Scyros in Bibliotheca 3.13.8 (cf. Epitome 3.17). This must be considered another element of the story pattern: in A₁ Achilles has not yet fought. This detail is adapted to the plot of the Cypria in the development of A₂: Achilles is very young in the poem, as his parents’ marriage occurred at the time of the judgment of Paris; he is of course younger than the other heroes [63] . Before the arrival at Scyros he has fought in Mysia, probably his first military campaign, where he distinguished himself by wounding king Telephus [64] . The name given to Neoptolemus, who is born shortly after the Mysian adventure, may have been, in the plot of Cypria, related to his fathers’ very first battle [65] .

Another element of interest is Deidameia. This character in the Cypria is a sign of Achilles’ long-term plan: why decide to marry a woman whom you will leave shortly after? It is not credible that Achilles married Deidameia and then returned home. As for the relationship with Deidameia, the majority of earlier sources uses verbs that simply imply sexual love [66] . But the major sources of A₁ (the D-scolium) and A₂ (Proclus) use strongly opposing verbs: the former has (like later sources) φθείρας [67] ; the latter has γαμεῖ [68] . As noted above, Severyns and others considered those acts complementary in the poem, whereas Tsagalis 2012, 263 considers the two verbs as irreconcilable elements of rival traditions. In my view there is a variation from seduction to marriage in the elaboration of A₁ into A₂, which makes sense in the arrangement of the particular plot of the Cypria (see also below, section 3). The detail of the relationship between Achilles and Deidameia must have been a basis for many variants and many embellishments in ancient poetry (marriage, sexual assault, seduction). But above all the marriage version was certainly what best suited the Cypria: Achilles married Deidameia because he planned to remain on the island and to desert the war, and this is consistent with his eight year stay: a deceptive seduction or a sexual assault are less compatible with a long sojourn in the same place [69] . Therefore, the poet of the Cypria needed a long-term relationship, i.e. a marriage.

Another element of adaptation of the story to the poem might deal with the cause of the arrival at Scyros. If in the Cypria the arrival on the island was due to an accident (the storm) and not to the awareness of Achilles’ fate by his parents, it is possible that the poet of the Cypria suppressed the traditional tale of an early prophecy about Achilles when the hero was a child foretelling that he would die on the Trojan ground. Such a prophecy was the cause of the arrival at Scyros in A₁. Things are different in A₂ and in the Cypria: in this poem the hero’s fate was perhaps determined by an event that took place after the episode of Scyros, namely the slaying of Apollo’s son Tennes on Tenedos [70] . This story also implies the concern of Thetis (that is an element of the motif, as A₁ shows), who predicted to his son that he would die if he killed Tennes (which Achilles went on to do in spite of that); the tale of the killing of Tennes as the cause of Achilles’ death, if it was in the Cypria, may have replaced the prophecy of Achilles’ fate that characterized A₁. In fact, Achilles arrived at Scyros by accident in A₂, and the episode of Tennes recounted in the Cypria would be at odds with an early prophecy according to which Achilles’ fate was already stated in his childhood and depended simply on his presence at Troy. Moreover, the absence of such an early prophecy is consistent with the non-problematic recruitment of the hero (see above), just like in Iliad 11.771–779 [71] .

We have seen how the Cypria used and elaborated a traditional story, which was perhaps originally independent, according to the needs of its plot. We can now analyze some less evident elements not reported by Proclus but possibly included in A₂, and consider their potential narrative uses.

Usually it is taken for granted that A₂ and the adventure of Scyros in the Cypria did not include some elements characteristic of A₁, namely a prophecy, a disguise etc. [72] However, if we consider the stories as manifestations of an oral motif and presuppose a strict thematic relationship between them, we can assume the existence of many common elements more or less explicitly featured in each one, as far as motif transference implies the retention of many recognizable traits.

Aristonicus of Tarentum (FgrHist 57 F 1 = Cypria fr. 19 [III] Bernabé) says that Achilles was called Πυρρά when he lived at the court of Lycomedes disguised as a woman [73] . It is usual in ancient epic that a child is named after his father’s characteristics, as the name “Neoptolemus” itself shows (see above). Is it also possible that the name Pyrrhos given in the Cypria to Achilles’ son by his grandfather (Cypria fr. 21 Bernabé) was given in memory of a paterna virtus, i.e. with reference to the condition and to the fake name of Achilles during the generation of Neoptolemus? [74]

I think however that the name Πύρρos given to the child cannot alone prove the occurrence of a disguise of Achilles in the Cypria and in A₂ . In this matter, the information given by Eustathius (Eustathiua apud Cramer Anecdota Graeca Par. 3.26 = fr. 4 incerti loci Davies) is interesting: introducing the first line of Ilias Parva fr. 29dub Bernabé (i.e. A₂) he says: ἐκ Δηϊδαμείαν τῆς Λυκομήδους, ἥν διέφθειρεν ἐν Σκύρωι ταῖς παρθέναις συνδιατρίβων. Eustathius reads almost exclusively A₂ and in this case he talks about the disguise. However the presence of the verb διαφθείρω, which is characteristic of A₂ (see above) and the fact that Eustathius read the Cycle only in fragments may suggest a contamination of sources. However, the cohabitation of Achilles with the maidens was a widespread detail that inspired many different stories [75] . The possibility that the motif was alluded to in A₂ or that some kind of παρθενῶν featured in the Cypria remains plausible and we will see its importance below.

Consider now the next segment of the Cypria. Telephus has been wounded by Achilles [76] , so the son of Peleus is the only man who can heal him according to an oracle by Apollo (Cypriorum Argumentum line 41 Bernabé, Apollodorus Epitome 3.19). Help for Telephus is acute for the progression of the expedition against Troy: he has to guide the Achaean fleet, which, without the aid of a guide, cannot reach Troy, as Ps. Apollodorus explicitly states [77] . The Achaeans, who on the first occasion mistake their route, cannot make it by themselves, and have much need of Telephus. Only Achilles can heal him and make him an ally, therefore Achilles must be brought to Argos [78] .

In A₁ a prophecy by Calchas, a seer endowed by Apollo and an interpreter of the god’s will, says that the war cannot begin without Achilles [79] . This implies a view of Achilles as a kind of talisman (just like Philoctetes and his bow [80] ), but the inner logic of the story must also have implied the motif of his strength and his unique ability to kill Hector [81] . In any case the importance of Achilles for the war was a fundamental element in the tradition of the Trojan War. It is such a prophecy that in A₁ drives the Achaeans to Scyros to take Achilles, and it is an oracle by Apollo in A₂ that drives them to Scyros in order to take Achilles to Argos: without him, in both stories, they cannot go ahead. The prophecy/oracle by Apollo may be part of the original story-pattern. In A₂ it is made consistent with the plot of the poem and it is used to connect the Scyros episode to the story of Telephus. But what is most important is that Telephus and Calchas, who in A₁ and A₂ are responsible by means of divine knowledge of the calling of Achilles to war, are in some respects two manifestations of the same motif. This can also be seen in other aspects of these figures: both Calchas and Telephus, according to different traditions (which Ps. Apollodorus attempts to conciliate in Epitome 3.20 and which are represented principally by Iliad 1.68–73 and the Cypria) had the role of guide for the Achaeans to Troy.

The oracle/prophecy may also have had, as in Statius Achilleid 1.496–497, the function of revealing the place where Achilles concealed himself (and, in A₂, that he was still alive).

Thereafter, Achilles must leave Scyros. But he is now married and intends to live on the island, where he remained for eight years. He now has a son, and, just like Odysseus, he does not want to leave him to go to war; he indeed misses him very much when he is at Troy in Iliad 19.326–333. This detail is probably part of the tradition reporting the marriage and the long stay on the island. Some later sources insist on Achilles’ wish to remain on Scyros in order not to leave his wife [82] . This detail might be a late autoschediasm, but it does show a possible development of the story which is not alien to the sentiments of epic heroes (see also below).

In order to avoid the recruitment, Achilles may also have disguised himself in A₂, just like Odysseus did. A disguise and a cohabitation with maidens can in a sense be considered dishonorable and these details are usually seen as very alien to Homeric morality. In any case, we will see below that, if we leave morality aside, this detail may be considered an important motif of epic narrative.

It is evident that many elements of the motif of the recruitment of Odysseus (which we may call O) coincide with the story of Scyros: we are dealing with motif transference and doublets. A₁, A₂ and O are all manifestations of the motif of the hero’s defection, and in their elaboration we can find many residual elements.

It is extremely meaningful that both Neoptolemus and Telemachus are born at the time of the departure of their fathers and that they are named after those very circumstances. Tsagalis 2012:267–268 [83] thinks that the Cypria contrasted an anti-heroic and negative Odysseus, who tried to avoid recruitment, with Achilles’ high sense of duty, since the latter (as I myself believe) did not try to avoid the departure from Phthia, like in the Iliad. I think that such a contrast is unlikely in the Cypria, as much as the stories regarding the two heroes can be considered closely related doublets. Achilles, after knowing Deidameia, began to desire fervently to remain on Scyros with his wife and his son (otherwise he would have left the island or tried to escape from it), and this is consistent with the problematic epic relationship between duty and individuality that we can also observe in Homer (see also below). In the Iliad Achilles has been willingly recruited at Phthia, but he shows a deep nostalgia for Scyros and for his son, even though he has returned to the battle and does not intend to leave Troy anymore (Iliad 19.326–333). In the fabula of the Iliad we can see an Achilles who leaves willingly for the war and who later procures relationships and loved ones on Scyros, that he subsequently abandons in order to participate in the war. Therefore in the Homeric fabula we see a cohesive and diachronic development of feelings obtained trough the use of motifs (willing recruitment, desire to remain on Scyros), a development that (of course through different elaboration in details) must also have been in the fabula of the Cypria.

In the end, it is evident that A₁ and A₂ and O are placed in very similar contexts in which the army must be completed before the departure: it is extremely meaningful that in the Cypria there was a gathering at Aulis (the second, a doublet of the first one) also after the episode of Scyros (A₂).

All this proves that in the Cypria arrangement of the plot, motif transference and use of traditional and folk-tale elements [84] can be viewed as parts of an orally composed story. Therefore, we can list the following story-pattern elements related to Achilles (I use parenthesis for the elements that are explicitly attested only in A₁ and square brackets for the elements that might have been featured only in it):

• a) a stay on Scyros at the court of Lycomedes
• b) (a wish of the hero to avoid the recruitment [and his fate])
• c) (a disguise [and a cohabitation with girls])
• d) a relationship with Deidameia and the birth of a son who is named after his father’s deeds
• e) an oracle/prophecy by the guide of the Achaeans regarding the need of Achilles in the war
• f) (an unmasking by Odysseus and an unwilling departure to war)
• g) the completion and the gathering of the army and a subsequent departure of the fleet.

We can recognize many of these traits in the episode of the recruitment of Odysseus (O) by simply substituting places and characters.

Those elements can be mixed in a different logical and chronological combination, but they remain recognizable elements of the same motif. Minor details, such as the involvement of Lycomedes, the heroes entrusted with the recruitment of the hero and their device, the evolution of the relationship with Deidameia, or which parent hid Achilles on the island may be considered non-essential, as it happens in oral composition by improvisation (the opposite, in fact, would be strange). These details are useful to understand the relationships between the sources, but do not help to understand the core of the relevant motif.

The combination of such elements and the addition of unessential details produce different stories, which in indirect tradition seem to belong to a multiform story. In this case however we cannot talk of a multiform poem (or, to be precise, a multiform poem is not what we have from the major sources): it is very likely that all the sources that we have were able to read only an A₂ version of the Cypria (see above), that is the poem as we know it from Proclus [85] . Rather, we can consider the motif of Achilles at Scyros (or, maybe, the motif of the hero who is unwilling to go to war) as a multiform: it is an oral motif included in the poems in different forms in accordance with the needs of performance and of plot arrangement, remaining in any case completely recognizable.

We have seen that the traditional tale of Achilles at Scyros is connected to some motifs and that the elaboration of the story complies with some specific devices. We can analyze in more depth both the story and its elaboration in order to find in them traces of some specific models that are typical of epic composition and that can lead us to a deeper understanding of the story.

In the preceding section I have suggested a possible relationship between the Scyros episode and Odysseus’ travels. In A₂ Achilles is driven to Scyros by rough water. In the Odyssey Odysseus’ arrival and adventures on the main islands (at least Scheria, Aiaia and Ithaca) seem to follow a well-defined narrative pattern, consisting of, among other elements, disoriented arrival, disguise or secret identity used to approach an important local woman, sex and marriage [86] . The existence and diffusion [87] of this oral pattern may also have influenced or (at least in part) determined the elaboration of the Scyros episode as A₂: in this version we can find some thematic affinities or at least a similar overall organization, depending above all on the placement of the story in context of a sea journey.

The influence of the pattern may be a possibility and cannot be proved, but what is most important is that, in any case, the storm, the shipwreck and the only textual fragment of A₂:

whose wording we may compare with:

(about Odysseus’ fictitious landing at Crete during the journey to Troy) [88] , are eloquent evidences that in A₂ the episode of Scyros acquired some features of an adventure by sea and that its elaboration also followed thematic lines of thought and composition. I consider also the eight year period one of these features.

Therefore, the elaboration of the story in the Cypria is also important for thematic reasons, which we may analyze leaving apart some questions, such as priority, in order to simply try to understand the meaning of the episode in context and its mythical significance.

The typical pattern of Withdrawal (or Absence) and Return may also be of interest in this matter. Such a pattern has been recognized and analyzed in archaic Greek epics after the seminal work of Lord 2000, especially in the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Homeric Hymn to Demeter [89] and some embedded stories such as Meleager’s withdrawal in Iliad 9. The pattern is also recognizable in some minor epic instances, with several variables in its components [90] . Moreover, the Withdrawal pattern is often related to, and partially coincides with, the theme of Journey [91] , as we see most clearly in the Odyssey.

In general, the pattern coincides with a typical sequence that is widespread in many oral cultures and may be associated with some specific elements. The basic concept of this sequence is the separation of the Hero from his world, and his entrance into an extraordinary land; thereafter he passes some existential point of no return and reenters into his society. The model is related to the idea of Death and Resurrection (sometimes the Journey entails a katabasis [92] ) and may represent the coming to maturity of a young Hero [93] ; for this reason the pattern often entails a reference to a symbolic death and a symbolic rebirth. The definition separation-initiation-return [94] can be also useful to understand its significance.

The Greek examples of withdrawal insist on the separation of the Hero from his community, which is often linked to the loss of someone beloved to him or to a catastrophic event: Demeter is deprived of her daughter and Achilles of his slave, and this causes a quarrel between the protagonist and the community; in the Odyssey, the element of the loss of loved ones has been identified in the death of Odysseus’ companions after his shipwreck, although this event is not the cause of Odysseus’ absence from Ithaca [95] ; in identifying the presence of an Absence and Return pattern in the Odyssey that is comparable with the other occurrences, it must be admitted that this particular stage is “not so clear-cut as in the Iliad” [96] . It is evident that, in regards to a context of absence-from and conflict-with the community, the Odyssey offers an alternative setting: instead of a quarrel, the Hero’s absence here is caused by a catastrophic and traumatic event that causes his separation and isolation: a shipwreck, which best suits a context of journey and which results in a long stay on an almost deserted island (Ogygia: see especially Odyssey 5.11–20); as we shall see below, this variant is very important to my interpretation.

The Hero’s separation from his community is a necessarily long absence [97] that causes havoc (that is, need or concern) in the world that he has left, as we can see in the Hymn, in the Iliad (including the story of Meleager in Iliad 9) and in the Odyssey [98] ; subsequently, there are search efforts [99] or embassies to take him back; without the absent Hero the community usually cannot accomplish its duty, like in the Iliad [100] ; in the Hymn, most symbolically, the world withers; in the detachment of the Hero a parent is often somehow involved, or at least parentage is a recalled motif (see Iliad, Hymn to Demeter, Meleager).

Motifs such as of hospitality and of living amongst maidens are also often linked to the pattern, as we see in the cases of Odysseus in Odyssey 6 and of Demeter in the Hymn; these motifs are often associated with the idea of marriage [101] . The Hero, who has been removed from his world, sojourns in a place characterized by dissimilarity and strangeness. Sometimes the motif of disguise is related to this world and is the sign of the relationship between the Hero and such an environment; as the case of Demeter best demonstrates (see especially Hymn to Demeter 94–111, 192–201, 302–315 etc.), the disguise and the concealment/isolation may mark the alienation of the hero’s identity and, subsequently, of his social function; in any case, disguise, deceit and unmasking are often linked to withdrawal and long absence motifs [102] . The return is often obtained by means of embassies [103] and coincides with a reconciliation of the Hero and his world; in the tales related to bride-stealing the return is often marked by a final remarriage acknowledged by the community.

This Absence and Return and Journey motifs have, as I have already said, an evident metaphoric (or even allegoric) and symbolic force. It may already be explicitly evident in ancient narrative poetry that those patterns actually trace a psychological process. This is in part what happens in the Iliad, where Achilles’ spiritual development is particularly evident [104] . However, the relationship of the Hero with his ego is more or less noticeable in every mythic form of these structures. As his concealment indicates, the Hero’s withdrawal is an alienation from self [105] .

Even if we do not accept a complete identification, the meaning and the form of the Withdrawal pattern can illuminate, in my opinion, the essence of the story of Achilles at Scyros as it is represented in the Cypria (A₂). After the catastrophic event of the shipwreck, Achilles, like Odysseus in Odyssey 5 and 6, has lost his companions, has been separated from his world and proceeds to live amongst maidens from whom he receives hospitality. This separation depends essentially on the shipwreck, but it is also true that in the Cypria and in the other poems of the Cycle where he features, like in the Iliad (and for Odysseus in the Odyssey), Achilles is persistently viewed as an isolated figure [106] . Of course, the absence of any offence or of a quarrel (and, by implication, of any remedy to it) does not allows us to define this a pure “angry withdrawal” [107] motif, but definitions are not my principal concern: what matters is that the Withdrawal motif helps us to understand the sense of Achilles’ absence. Achilles’ separation from his group is determined by a traumatic event which separates him from the others [108] , and the essential point is that the trauma (i.e. Achilles’ continued isolation) will, without a doubt, last until a necessary reconciliation (i.e. Achilles’ return after Odysseus’ embassy). The existence of this reconciliation is the strongest evidence that a break of social solidarity does also exist: as he is needed, Achilles’ absence may be conceived as acting against the group [109] ; the withdrawal and the crisis caused by it are, in themselves, the sign that an “alienation of affection” and a turn from social to private sphere [110] have occurred. In the episode of Scyros as interpreted in the Cypria the distance between the hero and his community is particularly evident. As in the case of Odysseus’ permanence on Aiaia (cf. Odyssey 10.472–474) and, especially, on Ogygia (where he is alone and far from men), the stay on an island has a particular symbolic force marking the hero’s social isolation.

Achilles remains on Scyros for eight years. The absence of the best of Achaeans from his companions, as we have seen above, causes havoc and need among the others; according to a prophecy, in A₁ the war cannot go on without Achilles; the need for Achilles is dramatized in A₂ by means of the story of the oracle and of Telephus’ wounding, which Achilles has the duty to heal in order to procure an ally and a guide. Without Achilles the Achaeans cannot go on, and they do not do so for many years. Any potential harm which occurs to the community during the hero’s absence (and which in the Withdrawal pattern usually takes the form of a devastation) falls into the hero’s responsibilities [111] .

Meanwhile, from Achilles’ point of view the withdrawal indeed appears as an escape from fate, even if he is not yet aware of this. On the island Achilles betrays his roles of hero and of warrior, as he get married and devotes his life to his family, escaping from war and death. In this phase the Hero is inactive. We see that Odysseus is particularly inactive when he is on the shore of Calypso’s island and in Kyrke’s bed (cf. Odyssey 5.13 κεῖται 5.151 etc.), tempted to renounce his ultimate triumph (in his case, the nostos) and kleos [112] . This cowardly languishing of the Hero obviously leaves few traces in the representation of the character of Achilles in the Iliad (wherein, moreover, the episode of Scyros is significantly partially omitted: see above and below). In the metaphoric journey of the Iliadic hero the motif of inactivity is concealed and integrated in the general motif of the menis, but its traces can be seen in Iliad 9 and in passages like Iliad 1.488–492 (cf. Odyssey 5.151, 10.468 ἥμεθα) or Iliad 9.410–416, where abstinence from the battle, which Achilles feels strongly about and regrets, is conceived as inactivity and indolence, and as a refusal of fate and duty [113] ; in Iliad 9 leaving Troy and returning to Phthia would mean, in the essence of the story, abandoning the choice of kleos in order to live a normal and unwarlike life [114] . Significantly Phoenix considers Achilles’ wrath as inactivity when he talks about the corresponding Meleager’s wrath, who κεῖτο παρὰ μνηστῇ ἀλόχῳ καλῇ Κλεοπάτρῃ (Iliad 9.556, cf. 565, cf. Odyssey 5.13 κεῖται) [115] . Achilles wastes his time in the same way with Deidameia on Scyros [116] . In the Cypria Achilles is perhaps considered dead by the Achaeans [117] , and his stay on Scyros represents a form of death which presupposes a rebirth. Achilles’ transvestitism represent a deprivation of the role of the warrior, a disappearance of the Hero; Achilles’ concealment and his harmful social isolation correspond to the alienation of his self (see also below). Overcoming this phase of refusal, which must only be a phase, is a spiritual and psychological necessity; as Diomedes says of Achilles in Iliad 9.702–703, he will return to the battlefield when his heart or a god urge him to. This necessity is the essence of the development (and existence) of both life and narrative. Scyros is only a stage, just like it is an island between Greece and Troy: it is not by chance that in A₂ Scyros is represented as a stop-over during the Journey.

Achilles will return when he is ready. Therefore, the Hero, before he can return, is tested. Odysseus exhibits some weapons and some feminine garments: Achilles takes up the weapons (in a moment of simulated danger, as some sources specify), and so suddenly reconfirms himself as a warrior [118] . Achilles’ choice is unintentional, i.e. subconscious: he retrieves in the deepness of his own spirit his lost essence, the Hero whom he himself considered forever lost.

Odysseus’ trick is, as a matter of fact, a test [119] that symbolizes a turning point in Achilles’ heroic life. The re-appropriation of the armor has a symbolic meaning in the Return of the Warrior motif, as his armor is part of his identity, and this is evident in the Iliad when Achilles returns to the battlefield [120] and in the Odyssey, when Odysseus retrieves his bow and undergoes a sequence of tests about his own identity. Like in Iliad 18, Achilles’ return signifies a re-appropriation of the hero’s own role and acceptance of fate and of death [121] . I will further develop this argument later on.

Another element related to the Withdrawal story pattern is marriage [122] , which is often connected to the motif of hospitality [123] . Therefore, the marriage between Achilles and Deidameia, featured and developed especially in A_2,, as we have seen, corresponds to an element of the pattern. Obviously, Deidameia functions as a character that detains the Hero from destiny and societal world, and not as the re-conquered bride (see below); she is an obstacle, not an ending. She resembles, as I suggested above, the Homeric Kirke, Calypso, or Nausicaa (the former offering to Odysseus an eternal affair and the latter two a marriage that would stop the hero’s return and kleos) [124] , and not the Homeric Penelope or Briseis. Nevertheless, in the Cypria both Achilles’ and Odysseus’ refusals of recruitment can be understood in light of a typical thematic issue, within which the Cypria’s Penelope and Deidameia seem to be parallel elements. Consider the reconstructed motivations of the behaviors of the heroes given above (section 2): at the moment of the departure of Odysseus from Ithaca and of Achilles from Scyros, we can single out a contrast between conjugal homilia and war [125] . Homilia is to be understood as private life and relationship, which is often represented by the warrior-spouse-son triangle [126] . Both the recruitments, as we have seen, were represented as the end of conjugal life, interrupted by an intense military scene consisting of a gathering of the army [127] ; in this sense Penelope-Telemachus (as they featured in the Cypria) and Deidameia-Neoptolemus are corresponding doublets. Therefore we can see in the marriage with Deidameia (which, as I have stressed, becomes a marriage in the elaboration of A₂, strengthening the implicit parallelism with Odysseus’ departure from Ithaca) a force that is directly, from a thematic and narrative point of view, opposed to war; in such, this love relationship works against Achilles’ destiny and way to his kleos, which is “rolled up into one” [128] with the hero’s reintegration into his social group and his responsibility to protect it; private life (love story, marriage, family) is a restraint that the hero must overcome, just like Hector, in Iliad 6, must leave the couple Andromache-Astyanax in order to go towards his own destiny on the battlefield ἀρνύμενος πατρός τε μέγα κλέος ἠδ’ ἐμὸν αὐτοῦ (Iliad 6.446) [129] and must put community rather than family first . In the Iliad the life at Phthia that Achilles claims to desire when he wants to leave Troy would also imply marriage (cf. Iliad 9.393–400, where it is opposed to death in battle, v. 393). A normal life is opposed to a heroic life, and private/normal life including marriage and family life is represented as a temptation for the hero before his acceptance of death (see also below); in the Iliad, Achilles renounces an impossible private life when he accepts to return to the battlefield; nevertheless, in the Iliad itself (Iliad 19.328–333) he seems to have forsaken the possibility of seeing his son again a long time before the death of Patroclus, when he firstly accepted to go to Troy and die there: it is extremely significant that Achilles recalls Neoptolemus and his own painful life choice (going to war) at the same time; the farewell to his son represents Achilles’ first acceptance of fate and renouncement of private life, therefore it is significant that it is recalled in the important book 19 of the Iliad, when the hero returns to the battlefield. In the Cyclic story of his early years, renouncing his juvenile marriage with Deidameia represents for Achilles “the wrenching loss (of innocence, of one’s familiar identity) that accompanies the process of mature confrontation with real life” [130] and by means of which the Hero becomes, in C. Sowa’s words, “a sadder but wiser person” [131] .

Marriage as aim and ending has a completely different semantic value. As I have said, in the Withdrawal and Journey story patterns, the return determines a reintegration of the Hero into his social world and usually (in the tales related to bride-stealing) a finale through a remarriage acknowledged by the society. In the Cypria, the return of Achilles from Scyros and his responsibilities at Argos imply the reintegration of the hero into his society; moreover, his return is followed by the episode of the sham marriage with Iphigenia [132] . We cannot say that in the Cypria this marriage marks Achilles’ return, but it could be meaningful that in Iliad 9 and 19 a marriage between Achilles and a daughter of Agamemnon (which might represent a specific motif used in the Trojan tradition, wherein Iphigenia is often associated to Achilles) is offered as a possible solution for his return on the battlefield; also in the Iliad this marriage does not materialize and this possibility has a merely symbolic meaning: receiving Agamemnon’s daughter as bride-to-be would signify the reintegration of Achilles amongst the Achaeans. Therefore, after the second gathering at Aulis, where Achilles has a central role, we can see some signs of the reintegration of the Hero into his society, the motif of the marriage with Iphigenia originally being, possibly, an eloquent element of this stage of the pattern.

In general, we can view the two marriages, one to Deidameia that goes unacknowledged, and one with Iphigenia which instead serves to strengthen the coherence of the group, as polarized expressions of the individual’s behavior in relation to society, within or outside the social norm; and, by implication, as determiners of his position within or outside the social group.

All this helps us to understand that the A₂ version has been elaborated as a complete cycle and according to specific models of thinking: it develops some ingredients of the same or of a similar meaning that were already part of the significance of the original story A₁ and takes them to the extreme. The return of Achilles to the war expedition, however, does not exactly match a Return, as the adventure is yet to begin: Achilles returns amongst his companions, but he does not return home and to his world. He instead goes ahead to war: the end of the episode could absolutely not be the end of the poem and of the story.

The Withdrawal pattern as represented in A₂ works as an independent story or completed episode from the arrival at Scyros until the second gathering at Aulis. Other single episodes (e.g. Paris’ Journey in the first part of the poem) evidently follow stand-alone patterns [133] , and such a kind of parataxis and composition by theme is what we expect from oral composition.

But in the plot of the Cypria and, in general, in the Trojan tradition (that is to say, in a hypothetical fabula of the Trojan war based on the version A₁) the episode of Scyros is nothing but the initial stage of a wider journey and of a wider myth. The relevant episode is appropriate to represent an initial stage, as this is its original essence, which we best know from A₁; I believe that, in despite of the re-elaboration, the episode also maintains this significance in the Cypria (A₂), wherein it is placed in a similar context, before a gathering at Aulis and the ultimate departure (see above, section 2): since the Cypria had two general departures, it complemented both of them with an episode of the same meaning – Odysseus’ and Achilles’ engagements. For this reason, in the analysis I am about to give it will be clear that the story of Scyros as a first departure to war shares many thematic and semantic elements with the story of Achilles’ withdrawal after the storm and his return among the Achaeans.

A test or a kind of transition point just before the Hero’s departure to an adventure is an important feature of many folktale or mythic structures. We can see an example of this in Propp’s scheme: function IX, which corresponds to the dispatch of the Hero (see especially IX, 3 [134] ) and XI – The Hero leaves Home are closely related to the following group of stages (I have selected the sub-variants that most closely match our story, even if I do not intend to support any strictly formalist interpretation of the Trojan tradition): the Hero is tested by a donor (XII, 1 [135] ) and reacts by withstanding the test (XIII, 1) and acquiring a magical agent (XIV [136] ) that may be crucial in fighting the villain; afterwards (XV) he is able to reach the place where he will fight for the object of the search (XV, 2: by travelling on the ground or on water [137] ).

Even if we do not use formalism or other approaches, we may simply observe that in most tales departure is not (narratively or conceptually) a smooth phase; it consists of decision, choice, acceptance, effort and enhancement, in other words change; narratively, it may be punctual or expanded and developed. This point is well represented, in the Trojan tradition, by Scyros. The concealment, the test by Odysseus and the bestowing of the weapons and of the spear, a magic object which can wound and heal [138] , which only Achilles can use (like his armor [139] ) and that will mortally wound Hector, cannot therefore be considered only an element of episodic relevance; the meaning of this part is to be considered as a component of the whole, and, as we shall see, a remarkable one.

Achilles’ coming to maturity featured in the very first stage of the expedition expresses, in a complete narrative of the war, a first step, a development of the Hero’s personality and personal story, through an initial refusal before the acceptance of destiny and the beginning of the Journey.

It might be useful here to recall Joseph Campbell’s traditional concept of the “Refusal of the Call” [140] , simply in order to exemplify again how, in tracing mythical pattern and structures, scholars tend to single out a phase of transition and determination, which is part of the whole, as the beginning of the Journey. The Hero undergoes a fundamental phase of incubation which occurs in the very first part of the story, just before the departure, and which is characterized by inactivity, delay and refusal of destiny and of the story that is to begin; this phase is followed, as a rule, by a necessary passing from passivity to activity (Campbell calls it “The Crossing of the First Threshold” [141] ), which represents the acceptance, after an inducement, of the adventure and of one’s own destiny.

His disguise and his life amongst the maidens are, in a sense, the symbol and the dramatization of Achilles’ temporary disorientation in the course of his life; a confusion that brings about an effort to understand and retrieve his own identity. There are some interesting tragic fragments [142] in which Achilles is reproached on Scyros for playing with feminine works, such as “hand-knitting” and embroidery, instead of fighting war, and similar topics feature in later remakes [143] . The relationship with Deidameia is closely related to this issue. In addition to what I have said about marriage as temptation and restraint, I would add that the long period spent at a place of a woman, which we can relate to the idea of “sexual servitude” [144] , is often (and, for our idea of sexuality, paradoxically) connected to the risk of becoming passive and effeminate, or, if we want to use Hermes’ warning words to Odysseus before he meet Kirke, κακὸς καὶ ἀνήνωρ [145] . Heracles’ submission to Omphale is, in fact, represented by transvestitism and weaving, a motif that we can easily relate to the Scyros episode [146] . It is meaningful that in Statius Achilleid 1.260–263 Thetis, the protective mother, tries to convince Achilles that transvestitism would not be a bad thing by alluding to the episode of Herakles and Omphale. For her, of course, it is the best thing that her son can do [147] . Furthermore, this helps us to understand why Thetis encourages Achilles’ relationship with Deidameia [148] and why this relationship is a temptation and obstacle for Achilles’ enhancement: as Thetis tries to effeminate her son and to straighten his infantilism (see also below), this might be considered contradictory, but it is not, as (at least in such cases) relationships with women and sex result in effeminacy and isolation.

After the test by Odysseus, and the choosing of the weapons, Achilles, like in the Iliad, accepts his destiny, exits from his mother’s protection, and overcomes infantilism and the prison that is represented by parental concern [149] .

Anthropology and psychoanalysis lead us to recognize in Achilles’ choice an emancipation from the maternal womb and from motherly protection, represented in general by femininity. As rituals of different cultures associated with the entrance into society and adulthood demonstrate, the taking off of feminine-childish clothes and the wearing of masculine ones signifies a rite of passage where puberty is viewed as a rebirth [150] . In the tradition of the Trojan war, the young [151] Achilles becomes the hero whom everyone knows only when he leaves the island of Scyros and removes the women’s clothing as if he could take off his infantile ego which is linked to the mother [152] .

Development of personality is a result of the passage from maternal breast to the sphere of the father (the hero Peleus), a very well known principle in psychoanalysis and anthropology (see below): this is particularly perspicuous in this Euripides’ fragments:

It is evident here that emphasis is given to the exchange of functions: according to Odysseus’ stimulating reproach (ἐπίπληξις), on Scyros Achilles dedicates his time to needlework and to feminine occupations, instead of accepting a life as a warrior and thus making himself worthy of his valiant father, whose genos is represented as a light that must remain lit. In fact, the “kleos of the father(s)” also marks the eventual acceptance of destiny (after a refusal or a restraint) in Homeric epic [153] , which is also a step from isolation into the social world: social world and destiny are conceived as absolutely inseparable (see above), and the Father represents both.

The passage from one sphere to the other is expressly signified by the weapons, which are Peleus’ inheritance and symbolize Achilles’ destiny and identity [154] : the youth removes the Mother’s clothes and puts on the Father’s ones, thus becoming Achilles. Achilles’ spear can also be considered a phallic and paternal symbol [155] , which is strongly opposed to the sphere of the Mother: see Euripides TrGrF 880 and the extremely meaningful verses by Statius (Achilleid 1.40–42) that report an exclamation about Achilles by Thetis, precisely when the goddess is planning to send her son to Scyros:

It is also important not to forget that the same spear that is passed from Peleus to Achilles (see Iliad 16.140–144 = 19.388–389) will also determine Neoptolemus’ initiation (see above). The story of Neoptolemus’ maturity totally coincides with the story of Achilles, since he too will exit from youth when he goes to Troy, leaving Scyros and his mother [157] and following in his father’s footsteps; the sign of this is the receiving of his fathers’ spear, also in this case from Odysseus, as we see in Iliadis Parvae Argumentum lines 10–11 Bernabé (see also above); at the same time he enters into the social world. In some anthropological examples, the infantile-maternal phase ends precisely when the father symbolically bestows to his son the control of the phallus. [158]

The Lacanian principle of transition from Mother to Father (whose application to Sophoclean tragedy has been a recent object of interest [159] ) may be useful not only to understand the significance of the figure of the Father in Achilles’ coming to maturity; but also to ascertain the presence of a paternal principle in the Scyros episode, wherein it seems (at least in the sources we have) to feature only implicitly; and, in general, to reveal its importance in Trojan myth.

According to this view, the Father represents the societal Law, as he prevents incest between Mother and Son; he embodies the principle of culture as opposed to the principle of nature; nature in this sense is conceived as non-regulated desire and selfishness, and belongs to the sphere of the Mother [160] , to whose body the child is formerly tied in a “mirror-like” relationship. The principle of the Father determines the overcoming of a self-centered ego absorbed in desires and narcissism, imposing the introjection of a principle of otherness (represented by language) [161] , and then marking his entering into the social and external world: it establishes a truthful and inevitable way and order of things, the telos [162] , which is opposed to the confusion and contingency (tukhe) produced by the “fatherless” and represented by the Mother [163] . The metaphor of light in opposition to darkness, which we have seen in Euripides’ fragment (TrGrF 683a), can be considered a characteristic and emblematic feature of this conception of the Father [164] : in the name of Father Achilles retrieves his own identity, as the name of the Father sheds light on the way of the Son, bringing about the acknowledgment and the introjection of the telos in him; towards this telos he, retrieving himself, proceeds to direct his life unselfishly.

The absence and elusiveness of the Father during the “latent period” of immaturity (the life on Scyros) is the presuppose to the building and recovery of his meaning, of his eventual manifestation in life as Law [165] . Uncovering and accepting the paternal principle is therefore understandable as the acquisition by the Hero of a new and straight view of the story and of existence. This transition is expressed in myth as the turning point of the story and of heroic life, when Achilles starts to see his own existence, and the story of Troy, teleologically: thus he leaves a daily cycle of appetitive timewasting, a chaotic and non-oriented life which would lead to nothing, and accepts to actively take his place in the order of things: Scyros is contingency and passage, Troy is fate and target.

The passage from one sphere to the other in an archetypal structure such as the story of the Trojan expedition acquires a substantial relevance that is even deeper than the mere Peleus-Achilles relationship and the effects of the former on the self-realization of the latter (see e.g. Iliad 11.783–784): it involves the sign of Father Zeus, often represented in the sources as the teleological agent of the Trojan war and as the force that establishes and determines its course and its goal, as well as the establisher of Achilles’ destiny within its scope [166] ; furthermore, I have stressed above the importance of the Apollonian oracles and prophecies, in whose indications the hero’s destiny (death and glory at Troy) is integrated into the destiny of the war and of the story (the fall of Troy, for which Achilles is needed): as Pietro Pucci has shown [167] , the Apollonian light is a revelation of paternal Law, that is the telos as a truthful and inevitable destination.

Therefore, after this revelation, the story of Troy itself acquires a meaning and a determination. In the first part of the story oracles and prophecies take shape in order to illuminate Achilles’ destiny, his inevitable pathway; at the same time, they mark the acknowledgement of the fall of Troy as the telos of the story (see also the portent of the sparrows during the first gathering at Aulis), in whose scope Achilles and Odysseus are necessary elements; they are not only part of the army as military units, but also integral parts of an unitary destiny.

Odysseus, compelled to reveal his identity as a Trojan hero and induced to accept his fate of absence from home for many years, has understood this just before, and in turn, as in a chain reaction, engages Achilles in it. The simple fall of the disguises could not alone force the heroes to participate in the war and to accomplish their duties, if it were not a sign of change: the unveiling of the Heroes’ true self in the eyes of the others and of themselves means that, trough their identities, their destinies have been eventually accepted and will be actively pursued. This is also the sign that, subsequently, the fate of Troy has in turn been determined and will be fulfilled: Achilles will die at Troy and afterwards Troy will fall, in complete accordance with the unique and immutable destiny that corresponds to the plot of the story. It is also significant that the same heroes who had tried to oppose destiny before the departure, actively prevent, at a later stage, the premature return (i.e. surrender) of the troops, a return that would be “contrary to destiny” (cf. Iliad 2.155–156 ἔνθά κεν Ἀργείοισιν ὑπέρμορα νόστος ἐτύχθη, / εἰ μή …). Odysseus, in fact, holds back the Achaeans at Troy in Iliad 2.155–210, and Achilles does the same in the Cypria (Argumentum line 61 Bernabé) [168] .

Therefore, the use of the episodes of the recruitments just before the collective departure, understood as a defining element of this particular stage in the whole meaning of the story, is extremely telling. Scyros is a threshold for Achilles, but it is also the first threshold of the Trojan war adventure.

The Iliad (with Briseis) and the Odyssey (with Penelope) can be read as bride-stealing stories, which typically consist of an abduction and a final remarriage [169] . In the Cypria the main abduction of the poem is that of Helen, the abducted bride par excellence, or at least the main and original abducted bride of the tradition. Since this poem recounts in a plain and narratively uncomplicated manner the whole story of Troy or so [170] , in the Cypria we can best retrace the meaning and structure of an original story of quest [171] .

Achilles, in this poem, is extremely closely related to Helen. She is Menelaus’ wife, but Menelaus is not her co-protagonist: the protagonist is Achilles, who is born, as she is, for the war [172] . The destiny of Helen is in Achilles’ hands, and Achilles’ refusal in the first part of the poem coincides, as we have seen, with a general refusal by his whole society. This is without a doubt true, but in the general narrative of the Cypria it is the whole army, as an ensemble, that represents a Hero-protagonist [173] , and not Achilles. Achilles, indeed, dies before of the end of the war. He accomplishes his own story and fulfills his destiny with his death, but is not able (and not supposed) to bring the whole story to completion, whose protagonist must therefore be the Achaean army. In this way, with a collective protagonist, we can recognize a folk-tale structure in the Epic Cycle, which implies a departure, a victory and a return [174] . The initial situation is subverted with the abduction of Helen. This causes a ‘lack’ which is the catalyst of the story and which engages all the Achaean world, causing the dispatch of the Hero(es). [175]

The Achaean army is therefore called to a trial, but it hesitates; this is evident in Menelaus’ reaction to the infidelity of his wife: he needs to be comforted, and is tempted by the wine [176] , even though it is his encounter with Nestor, his Mentor, that convinces him to react [177] ; the other heroes (Odysseus, Achilles) refuse to defend the honor of Greece, and they conceal themselves, before or after the unsteady false step represented by the Theutranian expedition. These autonomous episodes of Menelaus’, Odysseus’ and Achilles’ refusals, are equivalent in their meaning. As I have already said, I do not accept a hypothetical contrast between a reluctant Odysseus and an enthusiastic Achilles in the Cypria. Folk-tale structures and the principles I have taken into account above help us to see that Odysseus’ reluctance at Ithaca and Achilles’ concealment at Scyros are actually expressions of the same thing at the same stage of the process. [178]

These refusals represent the varied ingredients of a general refusal: it is the whole Achaean world that hesitates, even if Achilles has a primary role and it is he who actually brings about the hibernation of his society. After a weak and hesitant departure and an embarrassing mistake, during which the army moves in darkness and misses its destination, the troops return home, live with their failure and renounce their revenge for eight years. This stage may be viewed as a general refusal, and as a general test. Achilles’ return represents the acceptance of the adventure for everybody, which is obtained by means of the healing of Telephus, which will provide, through the light of Apollo, the direction of the actual destination, Troy; the act of healing is done by Achilles but is wanted and solicited by everyone (as we see in the fragments of Euripides’ Skyrioi) and benefits everyone. Therefore, the departure of the Achaeans is the result of a development, of the passing of a phase. After this departure, the army-Hero procures allies (Telephus, Anius), and then proceeds to the recapture of Helen. The army is on the verge of death when, in the last year of war, Achilles will not fight, the camp is in a state of famine and the allies of the Trojans arrive [179] . Then the army faces the enemies and, without Achilles (who dies just before the finale, which a protagonist should not do [180] ) regains Helen and comes to the final stage, the return(s).

The interweaving that we see between choralism and protagonism highlights the fact that in the “choral” primordial myth there are already traces of a certain tendency that we see completely developed in Homer, where the main patterns are employed for individual protagonists, i.e. Achilles and Odysseus. As G. Nagy [181] points out, the development of the concepts of Achilles’ and Odysseus’ kleos and protagonism in their respective poems is an important feature of Homeric poetry in opposition to the Cyclic form of epic: each Homeric poem determinates its own meaning and subject by asserting and singing its own “best of the Achaeans” [182] . We do not find such a development in Cyclic myth, and above all in the Cypria, where emphasis is given to the whole Trojan expedition, and the heroics of the single characters are therefore limited or merged. However, if we conceive the form and structuration of the Cypria logically and poetically anterior to that of the Homeric poems and consider the use of the patterns, we can possibly see a stage in this poem in which some particular heroes are acquiring a special importance: they are becoming “the best of the Achaeans,” not only as characters (that is people who are simply the strongest or the most cunning among the group) but also as the subjects of the song. This may also be viewed as an acquisition of unity by the Trojan tradition that we can observe in progress [183]

It is therefore not by chance that we already find so many affinities between Achilles and Odysseus in the Cycle, as we have seen. In Homeric poems the two heroes are the main characters, but in the Cycle they are “less protagonist”; nevertheless they are both present and show traces of the protagonism of the Hero, which follows some narrative patterns. Perhaps it is also not by chance that in the Cypria Achilles and Odysseus, in addition to being corresponding doublets, meet each other precisely at the decisive point, i.e. the departure to the war and to their own fates, whose threshold is Scyros.

Another important non-Homeric episode consisting of an interaction between Achilles and Odysseus was also featured in a lost play by Sophocles (Syndeipnoi, TrGrF 562–571 Radt), where the two heroes quarreled at a banquet. Odysseus negotiates Achilles’ participation in the Trojan expedition and blames him for being a coward (fr. 566): interestingly enough, these are the same issues that we find in the Scyros episode [184] . Many scholars have suggested that the episode featured in the lost Syndepnoi may correspond to the banquet on Tenedos featured in the Cypria [185] ; however, I will not insist on this possibility, as the mere existence of the Trojan story alluded in Sophocles’ fragment and its thematic closeness to the Scyros episode is per se telling. G. Nagy has discussed the possible connection between this traditional tale (or, more generally, the theme of a contrast between Achilles and Odysseus) and the quarrel alluded in the first song of Demodokos at Odyssey 8.75–82 [186] , which can be considered an example of non-Homeric poetry [187] ; this song seems to recall the important traditional motif of the debate over taking Troy by might (Achilles) or artifice (Odysseus); a motif that is representative of the main thematic lines of the Trojan tradition [188] , converging sometimes in a “traditional enmity” [189] between the two heroes. Could this antithesis somehow shed light on the thematic setting of the Cypria?

It may be noted that in extra-Homeric traditions, including the Cypria, Achilles and Odysseus appear together at some (narratively and thematically) decisive points, namely when participation in the war and victory are brought into question. As I have already recalled, both the characters hold back the Achaeans in the Cypria and the Iliad respectively, preventing their premature return, as if they shared a symbolic (and multiform) traditional function: the war (and the story of Troy) depends on them. This also means that the victory and the fulfillment of destiny depends, at least in part, on their deeds and aristeiai; their specific abilities will culminate, in fact, in the killing of Hector (might) and in the Trojan horse (artifice), the two major decisive events. Therefore, we might conjecture that both the characters (together) seem to be predominant also in the extra-Homeric tradition. Achilles’ and Odysseus’ aristeiai are not only elements of the story as symbolic qualities (Achilles is strong, Odysseus is clever), but also the two main themes which permeate respectively the Iliad and the Odyssey; Demodokos seems to control both of them, whereas Homer develops them separately [190] . Unlike the Iliad and the Odyssey, neither of the two heroes and neither of their aristeiai could be thematically prevailing in the Cypria and in the traditions that included both the Ithaka and the Scyros episode: in these traditions both the heroes were necessary, complementing one another; and this is particularly evident in the Scyros episode, wherein, as we have seen, Achilles’ power is strictly connected to Odysseus’ capability of artifice [191] , which allows the full release and the presence of the former; correspondingly, in the Cypria battle and journey, as main themes respectively related to Achilles and Odysseus, are balanced. On the other hand, I have shown above (section 2) how either recruitment might have been used alone (that is alternatively) in other oral epics, perhaps depending on the thematic setting of the performance.

Lastly, it is extremely understandable that Homer somehow censors the episode of the recruitment at Scyros; both the Iliad and the Odyssey, in any case, mention Neoptolemus and Scyros, and we can imagine that this could bring to mind the episode of the concealment to the audience. The scholia, however, point out that Homer represents (or, we may say, reinterprets) Scyros only as a military conquest by Achilles [192] . In general, in the plot of the Iliad we see an overall different Achilles, who, instead of undergoing a necessary hesitation, a human weakness from which an authentic life can arise, apparently withdraws from war for reasons of pride. But, after all, the Iliad is based on a refusal, and the episode of Scyros could perhaps contribute to the understanding of its essential meaning.