トロイアの木馬に関する覚え書き

Abstract

In the debate about how to deal with the wooden horse, the Trojans are divided into three groups: one insists that it should be dedicated to Athena, another wants it to be burnt down or broken in pieces with an ax, while yet another suggests that they should throw it down from the cliffs. It may seem strange that the opinions of those who object to the first idea should split up in this way. Hurling it down from a precipice is a well attested form of disposing of a scapegoat; and the Trojan horse episode may, as Burkert opines, reflect a wartime ritual in which an animal is sent off towards the enemy camp as a scapegoat to bring doom to them. One could surmise, then, that the above-mentioned disagreement over how to destroy the wooden horse was, in its archetypal form, that between those who were eager to sacrifice the (real) horse sent by the enemy and those who insisted that it should be pitched down a precipice as polluted. The opinion that they should install the wooden horse in their citadel was added to these after a horse that carries disaster was transformed as a result of rationalization into a wooden one with soldiers hiding inside.