Iliad 09.002

The name Phúza, which is a personification of phúza ‘running away out of fear’ is described here at I.09.02 as the hetaírē ‘companion’ of Phóbos, which is a personification of phóbos ‘turning and running out of fear’. The immediate context is that the Trojans are now winning while the Achaeans are losing, I.09.1–2. The verse-final feminine form hetaírē, a morphologically leveled replacement of the older feminine form hétairă, likewise meaning ‘companion’, occurs only here in the Iliad. In this case, the morphological leveling can be explained as a replacement of the alternation *-́i̯ă-/-i̯ā́- by way of non-alternating *-i̯ā́-. In the Odyssey as well, feminine hetaírē occurs only once, O.17.271. Elsewhere in the Homeric tradition, feminine hetaírē occurs only in Homeric Hymn to Hermes 31 and 478. In all three of these other occurrences as well, hetaírē is verse-final. The application of hetaírē to Phúza here at I.09.02 is comparable to the application of the vocalically rhyming form krataiḗ to Moîra, personification of moîra in the sense of ‘fate, destiny’. This form krataiḗ, which is likewise verse-final, is found nine times in the Iliad but not once in the Odyssey. For the occurrences, see the comment on I.05.083. As in the case of hetaírē, this feminine form krataiḗ can be explained as a morphologically leveled replacement of an older feminine form, to be reconstructed as *krataí-u̯i-ă and meaning ‘whose power [*u̯i-] has the upper-hand [krátos]’. In this case as well, the morphological leveling involves a replacement of the alternation *-́i̯ă-/-i̯ā́- by way of non-alternating *-i̯ā́-.