“Stricken to Silence”: Authoritative Response, Homeric Irony, and the Peril of a Missed Language Cue

The formula2 "Thus he spoke, but they in fact all were stricken to silence" (translation ommitted)3 occurs sixteen times in Homer4 and has received significant treatment in a number of recent studies focusing on its referential force. Its "connotative level of signification" (Kelly 2007:6) has been projected in part for the Iliad, and important themes and functions have been suggested. Silvia Montiglio (1993:175-78) has considered the formula's meaning within the Iliad both etymologically and more generally, and found that it suggests "une rupture anormale," "la dechirure" of the normal communication process. John Miles Foley has linked the formula in the Iliad with the speech that precedes it, since "each initial speech proposes or reports a radical, usually unexpected action" (1995:13) that promises either the winning or losing of kleos. Foley's research further demonstrates that the formula leads, immediately or inevitably, to the "qualification if not dismissal of the proposed or reported action" (15) that precedes the silence formula. Raymond Person (1995) uses conversation analysis to suggest that the formula marks that a speaker will follow with a "dispreferred response," essentially a response that is delayed and mitigated. Adrian Kelly's study (2007:85-86) of the formula in the Iliad highlights the relationship between the speech that immediately precedes the formula and the speech that ensues, in terms of agreement or disagreement.5