ILIAD

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BOOK 1 NOTES

Achilles

Son of Peleus

Lives in Phthia

Agamemnon

Son of Atreus

House in Argos

Argives killed by Apollo

Claims to love the daughter of Chryses more than his own wife, Clytemnestra

Son of Jove (another name for Zeus) and Leto

Apollo

Priest whom Agamemnon dishonored

Chryses

Chryses' daughter: Briseis

Apollo answers Chryses' prayer and for nine whole days shoots his arrows among the people

Calchas: son of Thestor

"hecatomb"

(in ancient Greece or Rome) a great public sacrifice, originally of a hundred oxen.

an extensive loss of life for some cause.

Minerva, sent by Juno, stops Achilles from fighting Agamemnon

Nestor

King of Pylos

"facile speaker of the Pylians"

Son of Neleus, whom Aga. honored above all others

Aga's trusty messengers:

Talthybius & Eurybates

Patroclus = dear comrade of Achilles

Where did Briseis come from?

In These, at the strong city of Eetion, the Achaeans sacked it

Achilles' mom (Thetis) saved the son of Saturn = Zeus, by using the hundred-handed monster = Briateus

Achilles now wants war after losing Briseis, being dishonored by Aga.

Juno makes fun of Zeus for helping the Trojans so much.. problem for Thetis.

Vulcan = cunning workman (son of Zeus and Juno) in Olympus

Olympus has a banger:

Thanks to Vulcan for calming things down

Apollo struck his lyre, and the Muses lifted up their sweet voices

BOOK 2

Jove sends a dream to Agamemnon to help Achilles

"Tell him to get the Achaeans instantly under arms, for he shall take Troy. There are no longer divided counsels among the gods; Juno has brought them to her own mind, and woe betides the Trojans."

Aga. now knows he must take Troy

Aga. claims that he will not take Troy to the people of Argos

The Trojans have Helen

Ulysses = peer of Jove in counsel

son of Laertes

The ugliest man of all of Troy?

Thersites

Ripping Aga. apart for leaving Troy. Achilles and Ulysses hate him.

They have been at Troy for 9 long years

Nestor is now promoting to stay and take the city of Troy b/c Zeus is on their side

Jove sends Iris (fleet as the wind) to the Trojans (Priam)

speaking with the voice of Priam's son Polites:

"war is at hand"

the largest host ever seen.

Hector

son of Priam

Commander of the Trojans

Aeneas

Venus bore to Anchises - on the slopes of Mt. Ida

Brothers: Archilochus and Acamas (very skilled in war)

Men of Telea were led by Pandarus

Son of Lycaon

Taught by Apollo to use a bow

BOOK 3

Paris (Alexandrus) is set to fight Menelaus for Helen

Helen points out Ulysses (Odysseus), Agamemnon, AjaxIdomeneus

She cannot find her own brothers: Castor and Pollux (she is unaware that they are both dead in their hoe of Lacedaemon)

the Scaean gates

Antenor is Priam's right-hand man

Paris vs. Menelaus

Venus saves Paris

"but Venus snatched him up in a moment (as a god can do), hid him under a cloud of darkness, and conveyed him to his own bedchamber."

Venus brings Helen to her bedroom to find Paris

Aga. claims Menelaus won the fight and won Helen.

BOOK 4

Agamemnon refuses supplication

Adrestus hugged his knees and begged him, pleading, “Take me alive, Atrides, take a ransom [ápoina] worth my life! Treasures are piled up in my rich father’s house, father would give you anything, gladly, priceless ransom… His please were moving the heart [thûmós] in Menelaus. Just at the point of handing him to an aide to take him back to the fast Achaean ships when up rushed Agamemnon, blocking his way and shouting

Glaucus and Diomedes: Xeniê Restored

Homer underscores the importance of those institutions that the Greeks flout in this battlefield encounter: even in their frenzy, “eager for battle,” the warriors piously observe the code of xeniê, the institution of guest-friendship, civil treatment of strangers.

(6.164-75)

Unlike the heroes in aristeía, who are ágrios, “wild (as animals)”, Diomedes professes no desire to fight the gods. He and Glaucus belong to the human community; each is “a man who eats the crops of the earth” (6.166). Both are members of generations (geneê), mortal themselves but born of undying stock.

Geneê (generation) - how you are related to other men by 2 different conception of generation (longitudinal and latitudinal)

Bonds of guest friendship: humans

Mortals are like leaves: full of fire eating the fruits of the field and then fade away

As one geneê dies, another is born

Contracting parties = dear friends, kin, phílos

Xeniê ->Treat strangers as though they were kind, Protect strangers enforced by Zeus (the guardian of guests, went among men as a beggar to test how they treat strangers

Gift-Exchange and Commodity-Exchange

As members of one of these lineages, they are bound by bonds of guest-friendship established long before. The institution of xeníê acknowledges these claims of kinship, lineage, and paternity. Diomedes answers Glaucus:

“Splendid - you are my friend (xeinos) my guest from the days of our grandfathers long ago!... They gave each other handsome gifts of friendship (seinêia)… So now I am your host and friend (philos) in the heart of Argos you are mine in Lycia when I visit in your country… We are sworn friends (xeinoi) from our fathers’ days till now”(6.257-8,261,268-9)

But the son of Chronus, Zeus, stole Glaucus’ wits away. He traded his gold armor for bronze with Diomedes, the worth of a hundred oxen just for nine. (6.282-2)

Gifts symbolize relationships. A guest-gift is not spent, but saved; it “marks the start of friendship/the ties that bind” (Odyssey 21.40-50)

Hector in Troy: Three Women

Hector meets three women - his sister-in-law Helen, his wife Andromachê, and his mother Hecuba - who try to keep him from returning to the battle. But Hector declines: he would fell shame (aidôs), unlike the shirker Paris, indifferent to nemesis, “the withering scorn of men” (6.416), who lingers in the women’s quarters showing off his weapons instead of using them to defend the city. Helen hates herself and Paris; she wishes for a husband who feels shame.

Prium = super dad

Many sons, dozen daughters

Community = kinsmen outside of the immediate family

Hector risks his life to defend relations (kinsmen) who were not immediate kin

Helen says Paris is shameless, the withering scorn of men

Paris is unmanly, rich and beautiful

We find Paris continuously in the women’s quarters showing his weapons off

Helen hates herself and Paris

Hector’s Nóstos to Andromachê

Hector’s brief homecoming returns him to his role as husband and father. His is a true marriage blessed with a son, unlike the false marriage of Helen and Paris, which is barren and the wife wishes her husband dead. Hector is Andromakhe’s only kin: her father, mother, brother, and husband (509-10) have all fallen to Achilles.

Andromachê, too, pleads with Hector to defend the city, not to seek glory on the battlefield: “Reckless one,” she warns, “your own fiery courage [mênos] will destroy you” (6.492-3). Hector, too, must choose between the short and glorious life of warrior or the long and inglorious life of the pátêr. He knows that he is doomed.

…

The Costs of Kléos: Hector and His Son

Hector has no illusions about the fate of Troy, but he can think of no other wish for his son except for a warrior’s renown:

(6.569-74)

But the son doesn’t recognize the warrior as his father.

(6.556-62)

By assuming the hero’s task of defending his wife and child, Hector becomes terrifying to his own son.

The Warrior and Mortality:

Hector tries to reassure Andromachê:

(6.580-4)

Iliad 7 Reasserts the Heroic Code

Hector’s terms for single combat preserves the victim’s right to the purification of funeral.

7.90-4)

If that man takes my life with his sharp bronze blade, he will strip my gear and haul it back to his ships. But give my body to friends to carry home again, so Trojan men and Trojan women can do me honor with fitting rites of fire once I am dead.

Words that Homer usually uses to describe cremation/burial

Relationship between the hero and the man that he kills

Moirai

Spoils and Funeral

Warfare is ruled by a code of honor that grants the victor the spoils (géras) but demands that the victim;s body can be given its own géras of purification, funeral

the more gēras a man acquired, the more kleos (fame) and arete (excellence and courage) he was considered to have

The Two Kinds of Death

Natural Death: The warrior is like a predator who leaves the body of his victim for the carrion-eaters, feeding it to the dogs and birds to deny it the purification of the funeral pyre. Such shameful conduct risks outraging the gods.

Cultural Death: The victim is granted funeral, a ritual of purification in which the remains subject to decay are burned away and the psuchê, the cultural identity of the dead man, repairs to Hadês. Funeral is the fallen warrior’s due:

(7.472-3)

(7.383-5)

(7.471-3)

Funeral is supposed to be consolation

Let fire soothe them quickly (let fire give them pity)

Lecture 5 (2/11/20)

Iliad 9: The Choices of Achilles

Book 9 explores the moral stance that Achilles has adopted. Homer has made the hero’s moral error the keystone of his poem. In Book 9 he is given a chance to righ the error he makes in Book 1. He refuses. He is wrong, but from an excess of rectitude.

The Judgment of the People

Diomedes speaks for Homer: Zeus gives Agamemnon the honor [

Nestor, the keeper of Achaean conscience, backs Diomedes: he invokes …

…

Agamemnon’s Apology

Agamemnon, Nestor tells him, has dishonored one whom the immortals honor.

(9.130-2)

Gift of honor = géras

A hero should be “great-hearted,” but “yielding to one’s great heart” causes reckless folly.

Agamemnon apologizes:

(136-45)

Madness = atê

Holds dear = philêsêi

“repay” =

Inhuman rage = “evil phrên”

He promises to recompense Achilles with regal generosity. Achilles has no logical reason to refuse him. But he also demands that Achilles submit to his superior rank, and he never mentions Achilles’s name. He makes no moral apology but insists on his perks as a king.

(F 189-192)

Let him submit to me = dmêthêtô

Relentless = adámastos

The Embassy to Achilles

The first speaker, Odysseus appeals to Achilles’s intelligence. He vividly evokes the disaster facing the Greeks and warns Achilles of the grief he will feel if he lets the Achaeans go down to defeat:

(301-3)

Grief = ákhos

Remedy = ákos

Appealing to Achilles’s respect for his father, he cites Peleus’s parting words: the gods grant skill in battle, but a warrior must temper that strength with wisdom, check his angry spirit:

(309-11, 316)

Thûmós

Friendship = …

Odysseus’s Appeal

Odysseys ends his speech by appealing to that philotês shared bu the community of warriors. If Achilles cannot remit his wrath against Agamemnon, he should take pity on his comrades, who “will honor you, honor you like a god” (366)

Odyssey’s speech is essentially choric. To Odysseus heroism is a social and personal obligation. Odyssesus’s words bring to the surface the dilemma that now confronts Achilles: conflict b/t his personal integrity and social obligation.

But throughout Odysseus recognizes that Agamemnon’s compensation may not be enough to soothe Achilles’s injured feelings: his reason may not prevail against the irrational and incalcualable thûmós

Achilles’s Reply

“No, what lasting thanks… soldiers to win their wives as prizes.” (383-97)

Likely an original composition by Homer… the person that is somehow the source of the text that was written down in all of its fullness in the very beginnings of Greek literacy

Lasting thanks = charis

Same lot = moîra

Honor = tîmê

Achilles is outraged

Achilles declares that he will declare to his hometown (which means to perish)

Achilles’s Challenge to the Heroic Code

But as soon as Achilles decides that wealth and ease are the only goods, he spurns the wealth that Agamemnon offers: even it has no value

(9.470-3)

Heartbreaking outrage = thumalgéa lobe

“no, not if his gifts outnumbered all the grains of sand and dust in the earth - no, not even then could Agamemnon bring my fighting spirit [thûmós] round until he pays me back, pays full measure for all his hearbreaking outrage!”

No value is absolute; all fail him:

(9.488, 493-7)

“I say no wealth is worth my life!... Cattle and fat sheep can all be had for the raiding, tripods for all the trading, and tawny-headed stallions. But a man’s life breath [psukhê] cannot come back again - no raiders in force, no trading brings it back, once it slips through a man’s clenched teeth.”

Death robs all possessions of their value

The Choice of Achilles

(9.499-505)

“Mother tells me, the immortal goddess Thetis with her glistening feet, that two fates [“two kinds of destiny”] bear me on to the day of death. If I hold out here and I lay siege to Troy, my journey home is gone, but my glory [kléos] never dies If I voyage back to the fatherland I love my pride, my glory [kléos] dies… true, but the life that’s left me will be long, the stroke of death will not come on me quickly.”

Thethia - the land of slow death, no glory

Troy = quick death, glory forever

Death is the cost of glory

The ambassadors are struck/shocked - impossible

Phoenix’s Speech

Phoenix’s personal history (543-86) parallels Achilles’s with Agamemnon; both quarrel over a woman. Just as Phoenix nearly killed his father but was stopped by a god (9.458-9), so Achilles nearly killed Agamemnon (1.188-94), and just as Phoenix was alienated from his family and went into exile, so Achilles withdraws from his hétaîroi. Phoenix thus personifies man’s relatedness to man, philótês (481, 486).

Phoenix, too, begs Achilles to relent:

(601-2)

“beat down your mounting fury [thûmon megan]… It’s wrong [“not fated”] to have such an iron, ruthless heart”

The gods have greatness, honor, and might but they bend. Homer exploits the parallels b/t Phoenix and Achilles to stress the cost of Achilles’s wrath.

The Parable of the Prayers

(9.609-24)

“We do have Prayers, you know… crazed and blinded until he’s paid the price”

Blinding Ruin = átê

Phoenix appeals to Achilles (9.624-38): “No one could blame your anger, not before” (639). But now Achilles should honor (tîmê) the daughters of Zeus and accept the supplication of his friends. Phoenix represents the voice of the folk; he is the conscience of the people, like Nestor before him.

The Paradeigmata of Meleager

The mythological inset of Meleager also parallels the events of the Iliad. Set before Achilles to convince him to set aside his wrath, it introduces the ethical principle of philotês. Homer modifies the legend to make Meleagros’s hétaîroi most dear (philtatoi) to him just as Odysseus, Phoenix, and Ajax, Achilles’s hétaîroi, want to be his philtatoi (9.630, 642), most dear to him. And just as Cleopatra is closest to Meleagros (9.712-20), so Patroclus is to Achilles. Cleopatra’s name significantly inverts the two elements of Patroclus’s: patêr and kléos, the words the distill the essence of Achilles’s choice.

Achilles’s Reply to Phoenix

Phoenix warns Achilles: if he returns to defend the ships, his comrades will honor him with gifts like a god. But if he waits, he will lose the gifts and the tîmê like Meleager. Achilles replies:

(9.738-56)

Achilles still demands an absolute, irrevocable tímê Zeus. He and he alone …

Ajax, the Defense of the Greeks, Speaks:

(9.767-85)

“Achilles - he’s made his own proud spirit [megalêtora thumon] wild in his chest so savage, not a thought for his comrades’ love - Hard, ruthless man [skhêtlios]… Why any man will accept the blood-price paid for a brother murdered, a child done to death… curbs his pride, his smoldering bengeful spirit, [“the injured man’s heart and his headstrong thûmós”] once he takes the price. You - the gods have planted a cruel, relentless fury [“implacable thûmós”] in your chest! All for a girl… Achilles, put some human kindness [“gracious thûmós] in your heart. Show some respect [

Lecture 6 (2/13/20)

[Missed due to PT]

The Plan of Zeus

Hector's folly plays out ironically as Zeus announces his doom:

"And let Apollo drive... the beetling heights of Troy through Athena's grand design." (15.75-90)

Power = ménos

Heart = phrénas

Enraged = [made chólos]

Zeus traces a series of deaths that will end in the destruction of Troy: he chooses to envelope his narrative in dramatic irony instead of suspense. Zeus’s prophecy expresses that sense of inexorable doom awaiting all men: the fact of their mortality.

Dehumanizing the Hero in Aristéia

Homer increasingly likens the warrior in aristeía to a savage beast driven by blood lust to raven the sheepfold, the shepherd’s flocks and herd. The hero’s wrath is like the blood lust of a predator.

The Trojans resemble ... (?)

(672-82)

Hector's Fall into Savagery

Hector quickly falls prey to the dehumanizing effects of aristéia upon the hero

From Aristeía to Húbris

In his aristeía Hector turns savage and threatens to defile the bodies of his victims:

“I’ll put that man to death… before our walls.” (15.411-3)

Now he threatens Ajax (13.952-62)

"your blustering threats, you clumsy ox - what loose talk, what rant!... you will die with the rest... - cut down by the beaked ships."

The corpse, left uncooked, denied his place in culture, is aeikêa, “unseemly, disgraceful”

Hector Now Seeks Kléos

Hector, "Holder" of the city, fights to fire the Greek ships. He blames the Trojan elders' "cowardice" for defending his patrê at the city gates instead of seeking kléos on the open field of battle:

"all thanks to our city elders. What cowards [kakêti geróntôn]! Whenever I longed to fight at the ships' high sterns the old men kept me back, they held the troops in check."

Patroclus Embodies Achilles's Philotês

He is Achilles's humanity, his mortal side. He represents that philótêslove for his comrades, his community, that Achilles rejects. He fills the role of patêr abandoned by Hector, taking on the symbolic role of the healer. He laments for the terrified Greeks (397-8) in the same words that Homer uses of Ares learning of the death of his son (15. 113-4), undertaking a second embassy to stir Achilles to return to battle: The persuasion of a comrade has its powers" (15.474). The choice of Achilles - glory or return, kléos or nóstos - ignores a third option, embodied in Hector and Patroclus, of fighting defensively, not to win kléos but to defend the hero's pátrê.

Patroclus Rebukes Achilles

"you are intractable, Achilles... your temper's so relentless" (16.32-40)

anger = chólos

disaster = [aeikea loigon, shameful ruin"]

You heart of iron! = [êlees, "pitiless"]

relentless= [apênês, cruel]

Patroclus rebukes Achilles's savagery, taxing Achilles with inhumanity: he is "pitiless." unnatural; his parents must be the sea or sheer rock. He has no feelings.

Achilles's Charge (orders/instructions) to Patroclus

Like all heroes in aristeia, Achilles insists, Patroclus must not enrage the gods; he must accept his human limits. Patroclus must not fight for glory (88); he must save the timê and kûos for Achilles (84), not diminish them (atimos, 90), by battling the gods or taking the city himself.

Although he has spurned Agamemnon's gifts, Achilles remains captive to the code he has renounced. He wishes that both sides could perish so that he and Patroclus together could claim the time of sack Troy.

Patroclus's Aristeía

Patroclus is Achilles's surrogate, his other, merely human, self.

Achilles's spear functions as a sign of his semi-divinity: no other man but Achilles can wield it (16.167-70).

Achilles's supernatural horses also function as a sign: a team compounded of mortal and immortal horses (173-84), bred out of the elemental powers of storm and wind, they are the offspring of an anomalous union between mortal and immortal.

Death of Sarpedon

Zeus laments:

"And Zeus the son of Cronus with Cronus' twisting ways... Or beat him down at Patroclus' hands at last?" (16.512-21)

Hera replies:

dear as he is to you... These are the solemn honors owed the dead." (16.535-43)

ambrosia = food of the gods, no death

2/18

Patroclus Embodies Achilles's Philotês

He is Achilles's humanity, his mortal side. He represents that philotês, love for his comrades, his community, that Achilles rejects. He fills the role of patêr abandoned by Hector, taking on the symbolic role of the healer. He laments for the terrified Greeks (397-8) in the same words that Homer uses of Ares learning of the death of his son (15.113-4), undertaking a second embassy to stir Achilles to return to battle: "The persuasion of a comrade has its powers" (15.474). The choice of Achilles - glory or return, kléos or nóstos - ignores a 3rd option, embodied in Hector and Patroclus, of fighting defensively, not to win kléos but to defend the hero's pátrê.

Patroclus Rebukes Achilles

"But you are intractable... your temper's so relentless" (16.32-40)

anger = cholos

You heart of iron! = nêlees, "pitiless"

relentless = apênês, cruel

Patroclus rebukes Achilles's savagery, taxing Achilles with inhumanity: he is "pitiless," unnatural; his parents must be the sea or sheer rock. He has no philotés.

Achilles's Charge and Patroclus's Folly

When Patroclus begs to enter the field of combat, the narrator stresses his folly; he is seeking his own death:

"Lost in his own great innocence [nêpios, "fool]... Condemned to beg...

Achilles's Charge to Patroclus

Like all heroes in aristeia, Achilles insists, Patroclus must not enrage the gods; he must accept his human limits. Patroclus must not fight for glory (88); he must save the timê and kûdos for Achilles (84), not diminish them (atoms, 90), by battling the gods or taking the city himself.

Patroclus's Aristêia

Patroclus is Achilles's surrogate, his other, merely human, self.

Achilles's spear functions as a sign of his semi-divinity: no other man but Achilles can wield it.

Achilles's supernatural horses also function as a sign: a team compounded of mortal and immortal horses (150-4), bred out of the elemental powers of storm and wind, his team of horses is the offspring of an anomalous union between mortal and immortal.

Death of Sarpedon

Zeus laments:

"And Zeus the son of Cronus... Or beat him down at Patroclus' hands at last" (16.512-21)

Hera replies:

"dear as he is to you... These are the solemn honors owed the dead" (16.535-43)

[THIS IS ALL REPEATED FROM LAST CLASS IT SEEMS]

Patroclus's Atê

Patroclus, "blind in his fatal frenzy" (16.802), forgets Achilles's charge, his own mortal limits and the dictates of Fate (684-91).

Patroclus falls because he has exceeded his human limits.

The Heroes' Vaunts

Hector threatens Patroclus with defilement: "the vultures shall eat you" (16.976). Thus he kills his victim in two ways: by taking his natural life and denying him his cultural life.

Patroclus's reply (985-1000):

now the victory is your. A gift of the son of Cronus, Zeus - Apollo, too - they brought me down with all their deathless ease, they are the ones who tore my armor off my back.

Patroclus denies Hector his full triumph denying him full kûdos he should win for killing Patroclus. Moîra has killed him; Hector is but an accessory after the fact.

Patroclus prophesies: death and fate stand hard by Hector, fated to fall by Achilles's hand.

(998-1000)

"Already I see looming up beside you - death and the strong force of fate, to bring you down at the hands of Acaues's royal son..."

Iliad 17: Fight over the Body of Patroclus

The simile (17.5-6) likens the hero protecting the body of a fallen comrade to a mother cow, lowing over her first-born calf, that bond of love between mother and child.

Mother & son = natural

Father & son = cultural

Characters are always compared to forms of nature

Hector's Atê

actor intends to defile Patroclus's body instead of honoring his victim with those rituals of purification, the funeral pyre and the burial mound in his homeland - as Hector himself had defined the hero's obligation in Book 7.

Até also refers to an action performed by a hero that leads to their death or downfall

Ajax Protects Patroclus's Body

"Ajax.. stood fast now like a lion... folds of his forehead frowning down his eyes." (17.150-5)

Even the lone predator feels philotês.

Achilles's Ignorance

While Achilles remains ignorance of Patroclus's death, his divine horses weep: they acknowledge the human compassion that he both embodies and occasions.

Thetis's Lament

Thetis laments for Achilles:

"Thetis launched the dirge... he is racked with anguish" (18.59-74)

She recognizes that now that Patroclus is gone, Achilles must choose the sort life that ends gloriously, with death in battle. She mourns for Achilles, not Patroclus.

The Irony of Timê from Zeus

Achilles has been granted from everything he asked for in Book 1, but the outcome has been ironically, tragically, the opposite of his wish:

"All those burning desires...

Achilles Embraces Death

Achilles's grief: ákhos, "grief," is the etymon of his name:

"A black cloud of grief... tearing his hair, defiling it with his own hands."

...

Thetis Prohesies Achilles' Death

"You're doomed of short life... struck down by mighty Hector." (F 111-21)

Patroclus's death is the price that Achilles pays for the harm he has caused his comrades, the visible cost of his timê.

He renounces his wrath:

"If only strife... flare in outrage - " (126-7)

strife = éris

anger = chólos

What we are witnessing now is the invention of guilt

Nobody feels what Achilles feels about the death of Patroclus

This is like an intervention

NEED NOTES FROM 2/20

BOOK 22

Priam's Appeal to Hector

Priam appeals to his son to fight only to defend the city

(22.69-70 77-90)

Priam imagines his own end as carrion, his organs of paternity eaten by his own dogs

Hecuba's Appeal

Hecuba bares the breast that nurtured her son and begs him for aidôs and pity:

(97-108)

"have some respect... d will tear you, bolt your flesh!

aídeô = "feel shame, regard, mercy, respect

Hector is immersed in bonds of kinship and compassion just as Achilles is emptied of his

Hector Refuses

Hector is unmoved

In his cholos and menos,

Hector's Debate

(118-31, 146-56)

"No was out. If I slip... Zeus awards the glory!"

glory = eükleiôs

eleêsei = "pity"

respect = aidôs

shame = aidéomai

biê = strength

átasthaliê = reckless pride

Scholias (critic): the poet shows how disastrous this philos for timê is for he doesn't want to be called a coward. He wanted to kill one evil with another

that timê that all struggle to extract from each other is the highest virtue that they all covet becomes the downfall of each character

Zeus Debates

(200-16, 249-54)

"and the father of men and gods broke forth among them now... dragging him down to the strong House of Death - and god Apollo left him."

doom = aisêi

the scales represent Hector's fate, this fate is fixed

The Heroes Debate the Treatment of the Corpse

Hector offers pact not to defile (aeikiô) or shame the fallen warrior's body

"Come, we'll swear to the gods, the highest witnesses... Swear you'll do the same."

(301-7)

mutilate = aeikiô

binding pacts = harmonia

But Achilles brutally refuses the pact:

"There are no binding oaths between men and lions... all you killed in the fury of your spear!"

(307-21)

lone = phileô

courage = aretê

"Now you'll pay [apotinô] at a stroke for all my comrades' grief..."

Hector's Atê and Achilles' Vaunt

Hector must be tricked into standing up to Achilles. He realizes his delusion: Athena has entrapped him in atê. Still he faces his doom, seeking unfading fame, glory even in the moment of his death:

"My time has come! At last the gods have called me down to death... en to come will hear of down the years!"

(349-62)

Achilles threatens Hector with the shameful natural death of defilement:

Hector again pleads like a suppliant for decent treatment of his body:

Achilles Answers and Hector Prophesies

Achilles's furious reply denies all civilized life, the very practice of cooking food that separates man from animals:

(406-17) "Beg no more, you fawning dog... the dogs and birds will rend you - blood and bone!"

Hector now sees that Achilles is without compassion and risks the anger [mênis] of the gods for disrespect, his act of shame.

(430-2)

The House of Hates = where the dead forget the dead

The Trojans Mourn Hector

Hector's death means the fall of Troy, and the Trojans foresee their doom. Andromachê laments Hector's atê:

"that fatal headstrong pride [agênoriês, "manliness," always in reproach] that always seized my Hector... giving ground to no man in his fury [menos]!" (537-40)

She foresees her son's life as a fatherless son:

"Now you go down to the House of Death, the dark depths of the earth, and leave me here to waste away in grief, a widow lost in the royal halls - and the boy only a baby, the son we bore together, you and I so doomed. Hector, what help are you to him, now you are dead?... pain and labor will plague him all his days to come... And he hangs his head low, humiliated in every way.. Now what suffering, now he's lost his father - Astyanax! The Lord of the City, so the Trojans called him, because it was you, Hector, you and you alone who shielded the gates and the long walls of Troy..." (560- )

Iliad 23: Funeral Games for Patroclus

The liminal, anomalous status of the unburnt and unburied, neither dead nor alive.

(23.76-110) "the ghost of stricken Patroclus drifted up... Never bury my bones apart from yours, Achilles, let them lie together."

soothing rites of fire = fire ordained by the will of the gods

Grim death = kêr

fate = Moira

Achilles' Failed Embrace

Achilles mourns as a father mourns for a son who dies young:

(222-5) "all night long the swift Achilles,... so Achilles wept as he burned his dear friend's bones."

Achilles feels human loss, grief; he reaches out to embrace his humanity but finds only emptiness.

(23.114-27) "Oh come closer! Throw our arms around each other, just for a moment... a ghost, a phantom - true, but no real breath of life.

ghost = psuchê

Achilles cut his hair in funeral mourning

The Funeral Games

The problem of the just reward or géras that begins the Iliad, seeting off Achilles' wrath, returns in the games. Wrath can now be averted, and the rift in the community healed.

The chariot race: the quarrel over prizes recalls Achilles' quarrel with Agamemnon at the start of the poem

The poem?

The boxing match

Spear game

Iliad 24: Father and Son

Achilles's sorrow and the mutilation of Hector's body: sleepless, not fully human, in sorrow for Patroclus, he seeks relief defiling the corpse of the man who killed him, but vengeance is not cathartic. "Working outrage" cannot undo his pollution or return him to the human community

"The he'd yoke his racing team to the chariot... the gods in bliss looked down and pitied Priam's son."

Apollo saves Hector's body from decay and mutilation

Gods and Men

Apollo: the gods are cruel (skhetlios:, "pitiless"). Achilles is not righteous but savage (agrios), like the predatory lion maddened by his own power (biê) and valor

Zeus Commands

Zeus is angered (that Achilles rages madly.

Achilles's Death-in-Life

Thetis mourns him as if he were already dead. He refrains from food, sleep, and sex.

Priam and Hecuba Lament

Priam defiles himself in grief: he rolls in dung. Zeus pities him and sends Iris to tell him to supplicate Achilles:

(221-2) "Let him have no fear of death, no dread in his heart... Whoever begs his mercy he will spare with all the kindness in his heart."

Hecuba's reply represents merely human wisdom, thinking what everybody would.

(213-4) "this is the doom.. That would avenge Hector..."

Priam Rejoices that the Gods Pity Hector

The gods save Hector's body from natural decay, mutilation and corruption.

(488-99) "but his body has not decayed, not in the least..."

Priam Supplicates the Man that Killed His Son

Doing what no other man has done: kiss the hands of the man that killed so many sons.

(588-91) "The majestic king of Troy slipped past the rest... I put to my lips the hands of the man who killed my son."

The God's Two Jars

(605-46) "Poor man, how much you've borne - pain to break the spirit!... You will never bring him back to life - sooner you must suffer something worse."

The Threat of Polluting Wrath

(648-54 "Don't make me sit on a chair... since now you've spared my life."

(667-9) "A dark glance... may break the laws of Zeus!"

(684-7) "He feared that, overwhelmed by the sight of Hector... cut the old man down and break the laws of Zeus"

Achilles and Priam return from their sympathetic identification with the defilement of death to human status: "time to rest, to enjoy the sweet relief of sleep"

The Three Laments for Hector

The three laments for Hector follow naturally on the return of his body.

This section also looks back to Book 6 and fulfills what was left in suspense there. The three women whom Hector met and spoke to in the earlier book are the three who mourn him here. The three women's laments sum up major themes of the whole poem. There has and will be suffering for the Trojans (as Andromache makes clear); but in the midst of it the gods have shown their friendship (Hecuba); and Troy's greatest warrior in the end, like Achilles, wins praise for his kindness (Helen).

Helen's Lament for Hector

"Hector! Dearest to me of all my husband's brothers... all the countrymen cringe from me in loathing!" (895-912)

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