The category of multilevelness is the main description pivot for the development depiction of the psychic world36 and is used to capture its hierarchical disposition. While reading Iliad and Odyssey 'a is easy to notice, that the world of feelings is described by the poet in the vertical, hierarchical and multilevel perspective.
An example for this may be laughter and smile. Alas I searched the overall interpretation of laughter and smile in Homer's eposes to no avail, so I cannot refer to it at the moment37. Here is my personal attempt to apply distinction upon levels of laughter, carried out by K. Dąbrowski to the texts of Iliad and Odyssey.
Laughter changes depending on the level it is referring to. And so the laughter of Tersytes' army at its leader, who had been beaten by Odysseus (II, 270: hedu gelassan, Chapman: laught delightsomely, Pope: -, Lang - Leaf - Myers: laughed lightly) I would put on the first level, which is described by Dąbrowski as follows: (...) Laughter is primitive, loud, brutal, physiological. It is frequently evoked by watching someone's misfortune or humiliation (...) Laughter has the character of a collective release of primitive emotions38.
Sardonic laughter of Odysseus after Ctesippus had tried to hit him with a calf leg (ct above) (20, 301-302: medeise de thumo39 / sardanion mala toion, Chapman: A laughter raising most Sardaman, Pope: The chief indignant grins a ghastly smile, Butcher - Lang: smiled right grimly in his heart) may be situated on the second level: Laughter becomes calmer and less coarse. It is more psychological and often subdued.40 (...)41.
Laughter of Hector and Andromache evoked by their son's fright (cf. above) (VI, 471: ek d' egelasse, Chapman: Laughter affected, Pope: With secret pleasure each fond parent smiled, Lang-Leaf-Myers: Then his dear father laughed aloud, and his lady mother) would suit the third level by Dąbrowski: Laughter becomes more differentiated, quiet and subtle. There is a distinct kind of smile which begins to predominate over loud laughter. The smile reveals a history of grave experience and an increasing introvertization. (...) experiences of shame and guilt, concern for responsibility, and desire for reparation in relation to someone who was, or could have been, harmed and hurt (...)42.
Laughter of Hector looking in silence for the last time at his son (VI, 404: meidesen idon es paida siope. Chapman: Hector, though griefe bereft his speech, yet smil'd upon his joy., Pope: Silent the warrior smiled, Lang - Leaf- Myers: So now he smiled and gazed at his boy silently) may again be compared to the fourth level in Dąbrowskian model: Collective laughter disappears; it is replaced by subtle individual laughter and most often by an individual smile which is moral, esthetic, a smile toward the ideal, a smile of mutual understanding in the most subtle things. The past history of suffering and agony can be clearly discerned in such empathic smile.43
Finally the laughter through tears of Andromache (VI, 484: dakruoen gelasasa, Chapman: his mother, whose faire eyes fresh streames of love's salt fire, Pope: She mingled with a smile a tender tear, Lang - Leaf- Myers: smiling tearfully) refers to the highest level: Smile is autonomous and authentic (...) It is a smile of the highest empathy in recognizing and appreciating the existential unrepeatibility of „I" and the unrepeatibility of „Thou". (...) a smile (...) is both existential and transcendental. (...) But it can also be a smile that radiates joy, yet not without the awareness of and compassion for human sorrow.44
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