The Ghost Giving Up the Mind: Psukhe, Eidolon, and Phrenes in the Iliad

Homer, Il. 23.103-4

“Wretches, really someone in Hades’ home
is a spirit and ghost but there are no phrenes at all inside them.”

ὢ πόποι ἦ ῥά τίς ἐστι καὶ εἰν ᾿Αΐδαο δόμοισι
ψυχὴ καὶ εἴδωλον, ἀτὰρ φρένες οὐκ ἔνι πάμπαν·

Schol ad Il. 23.104a-b ex

A: “Soul and ghost, “but the thoughts were not completely present inside them”

Patroklos converses thoughtfully and with understanding. This line, then, is inserted from the Odyssey [where it does not exist]. For there [Homer] makes the psykhai into shadowy ghosts with no share of understanding.

Either he means that thoughts [phrenes] are not perceptive, but they are some part of the organs within the body as is said elsewhere: “they kept the phrenes and liver inside” and elsewhere “there really where the thoughts go/are”. Therefore this is the whole body from a part. Thus says Aristophanes the grammarian. But there is a diplê: Homer depicts the souls of the unburied as still preserving thought.”

[lemma] Some [say] that phrenes are the body. For the phrenes are a portion of the body. But he means that he did not obtain them as long as he was stretched out. But, it is better that the dead do not have thoughts. For he criticizes [Achilles] that he does not care. And, certainly, the unburied often give prophecies. Or, it could also be, that they are present, but not completely.”

Did. (?) | ψυχὴ καὶ εἴδωλον, <ἀτὰρ φρένες οὐκ ἔνι πάμπαν>:
Ariston. ἐμφρόνως καὶ συνετῶς διείλεκται πάντα ὁ Πάτροκλος. ἐνσέσεισται οὖν
ἐκ τῆς ᾿Οδυσσείας ὁ στίχος (ubi non exstat)· ἐκεῖ γὰρ τὰς ψυχὰς εἴδωλα σκιώδη φρονήσεως ἀμέτοχα ὑπέθετο. ἢ φρένας λέγει οὐ τὸ διανοητικόν, ἀλλὰ μέρος τι τῶν ἐντὸς σώματος, ὡς καὶ ἀλλαχοῦ „ἔν τε φρένες ἧπαρ ἔχουσι” (ι 301) καὶ πάλιν „ἔνθ’ ἄρα τε φρένες ἔρχαται” (Π 481). ἔστιν οὖν ἀπὸ μέρους τὸ ὅλον σῶμα. οὕτως ᾿Αριστοφάνης ὁ γραμματικός (fr. 87, p. 227 N. [= p. 191 Sl.]). | ἡ διπλῆ δέ, ὅτι τὰς τῶν
ἀτάφων ψυχὰς ῞Ομηρος ἔτι σωζούσας τὴν φρόνησιν ὑποτίθεται. A
ex. ἀτὰρ φρένες οὐκ ἔνι πάμπαν: φρένες T τινὲς σῶμα· μέρος γὰρ σώματος αἱ φρένες. τοῦτο δὲ εἶπε, παρ’ ὅσον ἐκταθεὶς οὐκ ἔλαβε. κάλλιον δέ, ὅτι φρένας οἱ τεθνεῶτες οὐκ ἔχουσιν· ἐμέμφετο γὰρ ὡς ἠμελημένος (cf. Ψ 69—74). b(BCE3E4)T καὶ
μὴν οἱ ἄταφοι προμαντεύονται. T ἢ εἰσὶ μέν, οὐ μὴν πάμπαν.

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