Statistically Validating Homeric Clusters of Translatable Oral Characteristics

Translatable oral characteristics can be translated between poetic languages that are linguistically or metrically very different. This paper begins with describing an effort of manually clustering such characteristics and listing the passages in which they co-occur. Following this process, five non-trivial clusters have been discovered in the Iliad. The clusters are non-trivial in the sense that they have many semantically diverse characteristics, are often detailed, are few in number, and are widely applicable. As such, they contrast with trivial clusters of semantically close characteristics, like king, wealth, and gold. The discovery of three of these non-trivial clusters is supported by chi-square tests of independence. They are conjectured to have origins in separate Mycenaean, Aeolian, and Ionian oral traditions. Nevertheless, the statistical investigation is about the existence of these three non-trivial clusters, not their geographical origins. A list of 21 statistically significant results is obtained, of which 13 are extremely significant, while only 4 are not significant. Given that no trivial concept, type-scene, or story explains the clusters, their existence, meaning, contours, and origins should be of primary concern for Homerists, as they probably have much historical and literary value.