As we will now see, the gods are well aware of the ongoing pollution, and they counteract it by way of purification, which takes the form of preserving the body of Hector from the mistreatment intended by Achilles. Right after Achilles declares once again at I.23.183 that he will expose his enemy’s body as prey to be devoured by dogs, the Master Narrator firmly contradicts him at I.23.184: no, the dogs will not be devouring the body of Hector. And why? Because the gods will not allow it. Aphrodite herself is keeping the hellish hounds away from the corpse, I.23.185–186. And the goddess is applying to Hector’s skin a salve that is ambrosio- ‘immortalizing’, thus keeping it intact and saving the beautiful flesh from any disfigurement—no matter how many times Achilles will drag the corpse behind his speeding chariot, I.23.186–187. (On the word ambroto-/ambrosio- in the sense of ‘immortalizing’, not ‘immortal’, see the relevant comment on I.16.670.) So, the goddess of sexual beauty has kept the naked body of Hector beautiful to the point of becoming sexually attractive: Hector is now the definitive beau mort, the beautiful corpse, since his dead body has been made beautiful by way of a beautiful death, une belle mort. (See HC 4§266, with bibliography on the French terminology; see also the relevant comment on I.17.050–060.) For the first time here at I.23.184–191, we see that the body of Hector was never even disfigured—despite the horrific visions of disfigurement that the Master Narrator allowed to be imagined at I.22.395–405 and even later at 1.23.1–64. (See especially the comment on I.22.395–405.) Now, all those darkly horrific visions of ugliness recede in the beautiful light of divine intervention. Not only does Aphrodite apply her immortalizing salve to Hector’s flesh, I.23.186–187, but Apollo does even more, enveloping the hero’s entire body in a divine glow that will shield it from all decay and pollution, I.23.188–191. And by now we can see that the action of the gods in perfectly preserving the dead body of Hector is an act of perfect purification that counteracts the self-pollution of Achilles in mistreating the corpse. We have already seen that the polluted thoughts of Achilles had even compromised the ritual of cremation for Patroklos. But now we will see that the saving of Hector’s body by the gods will lead to an overall purification that will in the course of time counteract not only the specific pollution of mistreating the corpse of Hector but also the overall pollution that has compromised the ritual of cremating the corpse of Patroklos. And the gods will accomplish this overall purification by saving Hector’s body as a ritually idealized corpse that is worthy of a ritually ideal cremation—which will actually take place in Iliad 24. Even before we reach the narration of that ideal cremation in Iliad 24, eight points need to be made already now about the picturing of Hector’s body as a ritually idealized corpse here at I.23.184–191:
Point 1. The etymology of the noun sōma, conventionally translated as ‘body’, is relevant to the ritual idealization of Hector’s corpse in Iliad 23. To make this argument, I start by returning here to the basic idea that Hector’s corpse is ideal because it was saved for a ritually ideal cremation—and thus saved from the horrors of exposition to dogs and birds.
Point 2. That said, I propose that this idea of something that is saved matches the etymology of sōma, which I explain as an action-noun derived from a verb that survives as sōzein in classical Greek prose, meaning ‘save’. This relatively late form of the verb, sōzein, is already attested in Homeric poetry (as at O.05.490: σώζων), though the dominant use of the same verb in this poetry preserves an uncontracted (and thus older) shape of the root, which is sa(w)o- (as at I.24.035: σαῶσαι). The contracted (and thus newer) shape of the root, which is sō-, occurs normally in the “weak” metrical positions of the Homeric hexameter (that is, in the second long of a sequence long-long, which derives from a sequence long-short-short), but there is already an attestation of this same shape in a “strong” metrical position (that is, in the first long of a sequence long-long or in the long of a sequence long-short-short): in this case, the root is attested in the adjective sōs, meaning ‘safe or ‘saved’, at I.22.332 (σῶς ἔσσεσθ’). Similarly, the root of the noun sōma is attested in a “strong” metrical position throughout its occurrences in Homeric hexameter. In terms of my proposal, then, sōma was an action-noun derived from a contracted form of its verb-root: so, from sō-, not from sao-. As an action-noun derived from a verb meaning ‘save’, it would have originally meant ‘saving’ —and then later became concretized to mean ‘the thing saved’. Here is a semantic parallel: the action-noun sperma, derived from the verb-root sper- meaning ‘sow’, originally meant ‘sowing’—and then later become concretized to mean ‘a thing that is sown’, that is, ‘seed’. An ideal corpse, then, in terms of the etymology I propose, is a thing that is saved.
Point 3. In Homeric diction, this word sōma as applied to heroes refers to a ‘body’ that is already dead but needs to be saved from mistreatment or from dangers in general. The clearest example is at I.22.342: Hector, mortally wounded by Achilles and already on the verge of death, is making a final plea to Achilles, asking him to show mercy not to the dying Hector but to the dead Hector that he will be after he has died, and this dead Hector is called here the sōma of Hector. To say it another way, Achilles is asked to show mercy to the sōma of Hector after Hector is already dead and his body is already a corpse. That is why Hector is pleading for his sōma to be returned to Troy, where the Trojans can arrange for it to have the proper ritual of cremation, I.22.342–343. Such an arrangement is anticipated already at I.07.079–080.
Point 4. By making this plea, Hector is at the same time pleading for his body not to be exposed as prey for dogs to devour, I.22.339: ‘don’t let the dogs at the ships of the Achaeans ravage me’ (μή με ἔα παρὰ νηυσὶ κύνας καταδάψαι Ἀχαιῶν). Here the future corpse of Hector is starkly equated with the present self of Hector. He is not even saying here, ‘don't let the dogs devour my body’, but instead he says more simply, ‘don't let the dogs devour me’. This idea of the dead body as the self has already been highlighted in the comment at I.01.003–005.
Point 5. As for the outcome of Hector’s plea here, I have already analyzed in the comment on I.22.346–348 the savage response of Achilles, who declares his certaintly that, yes, he will expose Hector’s corpse as prey for dogs and birds to devour, I.22.248 (also I.22.354). But I concentrate here only on the wording of the original plea that provoked the response. In terms of this wording, the sōma is something that needs to be saved for cremation and thus saved from harm. The sōma must be saved. It needs salvation. And, ideally, the sōma is in fact saved. That is the ritualized ideal that we see reflected in the etymology, to be interpreted as ‘the thing that is saved’.
Point 6. I find it relevant to add, however, that Homeric diction can also turn the meaning of sōma upside down: in two contexts, I.03.023 and I.18.161, sōma refers to a carcass that is being devoured by a ravenous lion that holds on to it and won’t let go. For wild animals, then, the sōma is something that must be saved for devouring. For humans, by contrast, the sōma is something that must be saved from being devoured by wild animals—and thus saved for cremation.
Point 7. In Homeric poetry, the saving of the corpse for cremation translates into a salvation of the self by way of cremation. Hector’s cremation in the heroic age, as we will see it described in Iliad 24, will become a model for all cremations in the post-heroic age. And this cremation of Hector in Iliad 24 will undo the pollutions that had compromised the cremation of Patroklos in Iliad 23. These pollutions will be purified by way of narrating the cremation of Hector, which will be done right and which will therefore be free of pollution. In the future, as the cremation of Hector demonstrates, there will be no more polluting of cremation as a ritual, as there had been at the cremation of Patroklos. No longer will there by any human sacrifices. No longer will the mistreatment of corpses be condoned. The polluting of rituals like cremation in the heroic age of myth will be superseded by the purifying of these same rituals in the post-heroic age of ritual, which is the era of the Homeric present, when rituals can be done right.
Point 8. The rituals of the post-heroic age include not only the aristocratic and vastly expensive practice of cremation. They include also the wildly popular medium of epic performance as exemplified by the Homeric poetry of the Iliad. If epic performance is ritualized, which is what I argue, then the actual narration of all the events that supposedly took place in the heroic age is a ritual in and of itself. And, as a ritual, epic performance can be a form of purification in its own right. Whatever events are narrated in Homeric poetry, the performance of these events, good or bad, is purified simply by way of being narrated. It is in this context that we can view the five salient points of dysfunctionality in the preparations of Achilles for the funeral of Patroklos, as listed in the comment on 1.23.01–064. In retrospect, all five of these points show examples of pollution. And all five of these examples can ultimately be counteracted by the purifying power of narration in epic performance. Epic narration can purify pollution.