The tragic irony of a particle : Agamemnon’s νόστος and the use of που in the διάπειρα episode (Il. 2.136)

This article argues that the particle που in Agamemnon’s διάπeιρα is not used as a logically superfluous “variable”, as is often the case in the Homeric poems, but as an attitudinal particle which is deliberately used to underline the tragic irony of Agamemnon’s reference to the Greeks’ wives sitting around at home waiting for their husbands to return home. Whereas δή and καὶ δή in the preceding lines mark the evidentiality of Agamemnon’s remark about the lapse of time and the sorry state of the ships, the use of που marks a certain uncertainty, real or feigned, about the situation at home to his audience, the assembled Greek army. For Homer, the use of που provides a subtle way of reinforcing the tragic irony inherent in Agamemnon’s reference to the wives of the Greeks, including his own wife Clytaemnestra. The particular colometry of lines 136-137 is instrumental to Homer’s highlighting of the most salient words to drive his dramatically ironic message home to his own audience: που, ἡμέτeραι and ποτιδέγμeναι.