Thersitical and Trophonian

Bill Long

Exploring Classical Names

Dozens of words have come into our language, mostly as adjectives, derived from characters of the Classical Greek and Latin worlds. These worlds were familiar to our forebears, and the mere mention of a name, such as Cataline or Brutus, would have conjured up vivid images of betrayal and murder. Most classical allusions/names have been lost or fallen into disuse, but some have survived, such as reference to "platonic" friendships , "sapphic" verses, or "hectoring" an opponent. I have no illusions about restoring a broad societal interest in classical names; but at least I can try.

Thersites

It always seemed strange to me that Thersites/thersitical dropped out of the language, though the OED has attests its use once in the 20th century. After all, reference to Stentor's magnificent voice, mentioned in Book V of the Iliad, bequeathed the adjective "stentorian" to us, so that one often hears reference to the stentorian voice of House doorkeeper who intones, "Mr. Speaker, the President of the United States." Thersites appears in Book II of the Iliad, arguably before one can get too bored to lay down the book. And, to top it off, his abuse of Agamemnon before the assembled troops makes him a much more memorable creature than Stentor. Nevertheless, he has been lexically short-shrifted.

Here was the situation in the Iliad. Agamemnon, the lord of men, tried to test the mettle of the Greek troops by urging them to retreat home. After Agamemnon's speech, Thersites arose and railed at the leader. He is described as a bandy-legged, homely hunchback with one club foot and clumps of scraggly hair. He does not conceal his absolute scorn for the leader whom he accuses of taking all the best spoils of war from men (i.e., Achilles) who are superior to him. Odysseus then arises and beats Thersites into silence.

Thersites' tirade has given us the adjective "thersitical," which refers to a person who mounts an abusive, reviling or scurrilous verbal attack on another. I think it is a great word. It is probably the most severe term of abuse from classical names we can muster--it surpasses the "Homeromastix" Zoilus and the critical Momus. I, for one, am all for reviving it.

However, there is a problem. Though Homer portrays Thersites as a lower-class, ugly person who unjustly rails at his superiors, why do we have to adopt the Homeric view of Thersites so that "thersitical" would mean scurrilous? Why not see him as something of a bold and revolutionary character, who had enough courage, rather than simply unmitigated gall, to point out the hypocrisy of leaders?

But I think I am asking for too much, don't you? First of all, people don't know the word "thersitical." It would be enough of a challenge just to get them to accept it and understand it in the sense the dictionary says. Then, if I wanted to redefine the nature of the word, an exercise which I think is completely legitimate, I might have to fight the fussy fustian verbal fundamentalists who want to preserve the "true meaning" of a term. But if personality has a certain plasticity to it, why can't we shape it to our needs?

Trophonian

Trophonius has a story too, though it must be pieced together from the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, the geographer Pausanias and other ancient sources. He was a sneaky guy who built, along with his brother Agamedes, a treasury vault for King Hyrieus, but he inserted a removable stone in the wall so that he or his brother could remove it and steal the king's treasures. Ultimately Agamedes was trapped inside the vault and, to avoid being identified in the plot, Trophonius cut off his brother's head. While running away, he was swallowed up by the earth.

At the point where he was swallowed by the earth [Lebadea in western Boeotia] a cult of Trophonius developed. As the Oxford Classical Dictionary tells it, "What caught the imagination was the bizarre means of communication [between the worshiper and Trophonius]: there was no medium; instead the consultant, after suitable and lengthy preliminaries, descended underground and confronted the god himself. The experience was spectacular, frightening, notorious and expensive."

So powerful and awe-inspiring was the experience that anyone who consulted him was reputed never to smile again. Thus, one can refer to someone who never smiles as having a "Trophonian visage." Or, we might use it in the following sentence. "We all remember the solemn trophonian pallor of the 9/11 rescue workers." It not only suggests that the faces were unsmiling at the time but that possibly the faces would never smile again. Don't you think it is time we recapture "trophonian"?