The Iliad

by Homer

Helen, daughter of Zeus, the only character who has been both Greek and Trojan.

She's also half divine so she is truly a two-worlder

They fear, above all, being humiliated (cursed with a negative name), or forgotten and nameless.

"Men fear ridicule the way women fear violence" - Gloria Steinem

You keep complaining, but I tell you this, and swear that it will surely come to pass, if I find out that you continue acting as stupidly as you are doing now, I hope my head stops resting on my shoulders, and let Odysseus no more be called 260 the father of Telemachus, unless I grab you, rip your cloak and tunic off, 320 expose your private parts, and beat you up, humiliating you with blows. I shall force you to leave the meeting place and go back to the swift ships, weeping and ashamed.”

Ouch. This sounds a lot like Zeus commanding Hera to sit down and be quiet, and threatening her with violence, but this is worse

Odysseus has often done great things. He forms good plans and marshals troops for war. But now he has performed his greatest service for all of us—he silenced that rude windbag!

Sad how insults hurt us more than anything. A pure windbag would be merely boring. This one is hurling words at authority.

Menelaus, 700 who came to Troy with sixty ships. His troops were arming separately. He walked among them, self-confidently urging them to war. He had the greatest yearning for revenge 590 for Helen’s suffering and struggles.

Helen's sufferings have been mentioned at least twice, as if she were a man. The other women are just spoken of as trophies. Or perhaps her sufferings are emphasized as a way to argue that she went to Troy unwillingly?

Paris and Menelaus, friend of Ares, will fight a duel for you with long spears. You will be called the winner’s loving wife.”

Called loving? Her body and emotions will be designated.

that crazy lunatic, who has no notion of right and wrong. So, father Zeus, will you get angry with me if I roughly strike Ares, and drive him from the battlefield?”

Hera speaking here, and equating right and wrong entirely with her desire. "There is certainly not more suffering behind Beowulf than there is behind the Iliad; but there is a consciousness of good and evil which Homer lacks." (C.S. Lewis, "A Preface To Paradise Lost")

Of all the gods who live on Mount Olympus 890 you are the one I hate the most. You always enjoy hostility and war and battle. 1170 You have the spirit of your mother in you, Hera, who will not yield or be controlled, and I can scarcely check her with my words.

Ares is Olympus' Paris. Everybody in his own home hates him. And he's widely reviled outside his home too. He is friends with Aphrodite, who is almost an outsider herself (not undesired but certainly disrespected), so in a way he has his own Helen.

Alone and lost, he wandered across the Alean plain, heartsick with grief, 270 avoiding any human habitation.

From "Beowulf" (Maria Dahvana Headley translation): And so the last survivor mourned, making his way from emptiness to emptiness, listing his sins one by one, wandering the world woefully, until death came welling in, to wash him from the rocks.

Hector, you are my father and my mother. 430 You are my brother, and the vigorous man whose bed I share.

Never a better "I love you"

no one matters more to me than you. No pain that anyone in Troy will suffer, not even Hecuba or high king Priam, not even all my many noble brothers, who will be slaughtered by our enemies and fall amid the dust in days to come— no pain of theirs affects me more than yours.

He is saying in his own way that she is his mother and father and brothers

I would not want to strike a man like you by sneaking up and taking you by surprise. I want to try to hit you in fair fight, openly, face to face.”

Faramir in Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings": "‘I would not snare even an orc with a falsehood." From a letter by JRR Tolkien to his publisher: "Thus, as the Second Age draws on .... The better and nobler sort of Men are in fact the kin of those that had departed to Númenor, but remain in a simple ‘Homeric’ state of patriarchal and tribal life."

tear down their wall and hurl it in the sea 590 and cover this long beach with sand again. You can obliterate this great Greek wall.”

Shades of Babel. This speech is fire.

And even if you reach the lowest depths of earth and sea where Iapetus and Cronus sit deprived of all the pleasures of the wind and sun, 480 the rays of Helius Hyperion, surrounded by the depths of Tantarus. Even if you go there, I shall remain indifferent to your discontentedness.

Dantean doctrine

They will make offerings and honor him as if he were a god. Beneath his scepter they will fulfill his laws and pay rich dues. And I shall give him this if he gives up his anger. Let him bow down and submit.

This is essentially Satan's offer to Christ in the desert, except that Agamemnon's offer is prompted by desperation.

they found him cheering himself with music. He was playing a well-tuned lyre of ornate craftsmanship, whose bridge was silver, which he got as war loot 240 when he destroyed the town of Eetion. It brought him joy. He sang heroic stories of famous men.

Agamemnon doesn't even think to offer Achilles a musical instrument, offering only obvious gifts: women, land, crops, money, power, worship Achilles, of all people, is Homer. He is a bard.

You laid a lavish spread. But we did not come here with thoughts of dinner. 230 290 My lord, we see great danger. We are frightened. Our ships may be destroyed—the odds are even— unless you dress yourself in will to fight.

Later Achilles will want to fight and Odysseus will insist the men have dinner first. After that, the men will want to press the victory and Achilles insists they have first food and the funeral games. Achilles is NEVER completely in step with the army.

I do not think the son of Atreus or any of the Greeks can change my mind,

"I wish I could make you understand. But I’m not coming back. Nothing can make me change my mind." - Luke Skywalker, "The Last Jedi"

fought my way through many bloody days, struggling with men to rob them of their women.

He's sick of this, and now he's offered more women. Interesting that he has just likened himself to a mother bird, who's been plucking women as morsels to feed her children, presumably male.

To me, no wealth is worth a person’s life. Not even all the treasure that they say 520 the thriving town of Troy once held inside,

Achilles and his gold, Spider-Man's control ...

But human life does not come back again after it passes through the fence of teeth.

The speaker is Achilles, making one of his arguments for staying angry and refusing to fight. He realizes later (Book XIX): "many Greeks would not have died and taken the boundless earth between their teeth, defeated by enemies, while I was full of wrath."

Or if I go home to my own dear country, I lose my glory but I gain long life.

This is the dilemma that Wilson likens to that faced by Odysseus on Calypso's island. In his tent Achilles is already snatching at the quiet life.

Respect our presence underneath your roof. 640 840 We came as emissaries from the Greeks and out of all the Greeks, we hope to be the ones you care about and love the most.”

Beware of Greeks bearing gifts

If I go with him, we could emerge from blazing fire and come home safe, thanks to his cleverness.”

Famous last words of Odysseus' men. But you go with him if you like, Diomedes.

Never again would he return or bring news from the ships to Hector.

Dolon is a redshirt. But in Star Trek he would at least be accompanied.

So there he fell and slept the sleep of bronze.

GOAT line

You make them shiver, like goats that bleat and tremble at a lion.”

This is self-smack talk, putting down his own people and complimenting the enemy

You brag like this because you grazed my foot. 510 I barely noticed it—as if a woman or foolish child had slapped me.

Here you go, Paris, this is proper smack talk

I heard a cry that came from brave, steadfast Odysseus. It sounds as if the Trojans, in the crush of battle, have hemmed him in and overpowered him. He is alone.

The Horn of Gondor (Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings"). "There were cries, and among them, to his horror, he could distinguish the harsh voices of Orcs. Then suddenly with a deep-throated call a great horn blew, and the blasts of it smote the hills and echoed in the hollows, rising in a mighty shout above the roaring of the falls. ‘The horn of Boromir!’ he cried. ‘He is in need!’ He sprang down the steps and away, leaping down the path."

You tell me to put all my trust in birds who flutter by. But birds are meaningless! I do not worry about them at all, whether they fly towards the sun and dawn, 240 eastward to right of us, or westward, left, 290 towards the darkness. Let us trust instead the plan of mighty Zeus who rules us all, the lord of mortals and immortal gods. Patriotism is the one true bird.

Modern, monotheistic, scientific, and secular

Hector grabbed a boulder, which was lying 550 before the gates.

Trojans need no wooden horse to get inside a defensive wall.

and by the bed we share, 40 our lawful marriage bed, which I would never betray—

Smack!

The aid of Zeus 490 can easily be recognized by humans.

Hector speaking. His faith is better than his god.

“Patroclus! What is this? What do you mean? I do not care about a prophecy. 50 I know of none.

Echoes Hector's words about birds

Words are for council meetings. War needs hands. This is no time to talk. We need to fight.”

Patroclus, you Klingon

She made his arms and legs more powerful, and set in him the courage of a fly, who works so hard and so persistently, yearning to bite a human being’s flesh 730 because she loves the taste of human blood. This was the boldness that the goddess put inside the inmost heart of Menelaus, and then he stood above the dead Patroclus and threw his shining spear.

"No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be who have tried it." (Herman Melville, "Moby-Dick")

I loved him like my head, my life, myself. I lost him, killed him. Hector slaughtered him,

Achilles, you were his first killer, Hector only his fourth

I provided no light or help to him or anybody. Many were overpowered by glorious Hector, 130 while I sat here beside the ships, so useless, a burden on the earth,

Remorse

If only conflict were eliminated from gods and human beings! I wish anger did not exist. Even the wisest people are roused to rage, which trickles into you sweeter than honey, and inside your body 110 it swells like smoke—

Wisdom

but let me win great glory. Let me make Trojan women mourn forever, and let Dardanian women, thickly wrapped in folded fabrics, use both hands to wipe a ceaseless flood of tears from their soft faces. Let them know how long I was gone from war.

back to brutal

You said that you would make me be the lawful wife of godlike Lord Achilles,

Briseis speaking to the dead Patroclus. Patroclus is Darcy. The closest thing in this pre-Christian epic to a modern gentleman, or knight.

So I will weep for you unceasingly 300 now you are dead—because you always were so kind to me.”

She has nothing similar to say to Achilles

The tongues of human beings twist and turn and there are many different types of speech. The field of language spreads out far and wide. 250 People will talk of you as you of them. 330 Why do we need to quarrel with each other,

Aeneas bringing the philosophy

Achilles held his shield on his firm arm a distance from himself. He was alarmed.

Aeneas, take pride

even if he has hands like fire—like fire!—

Lovely note of respect for Hector, who set the Greek ships on fire

three times he struck nothing but air. And on the fourth attempt, godlike Achilles gave a furious scream and let his words fly forth and said, “You dog, you got away from death again!

Kylo Ren in "The Last Jedi"

Rouse all your currents. Stir up a mighty wave, like a tsunami. Raise up the stones and rocks and make them roar. Together, we shall stop this fearsome man who is so powerful for now, whose rage is godlike. I believe he will not profit from his good looks, his strength, or his fine armor, which very soon will lie beneath our water, right at the bottom, covered by the mud, 430 so that the Greeks will never find his bones,

Ents!

Hephaestus turned his bright blaze to the river, and all the trees and plants were soon on fire— 350 tamarisks, willows, elm trees, celandine, rushes and galingale, which grew along the lovely riverbanks—all burning up.

As Treebeard might have said, a god should know better!

He will kill me unarmed,

As you killed Patroclus

Each time he tried to dash towards the Dardan gates and seek protection underneath the well-built walls, 260 hoping the Trojans on the top might save him by hurling weapons at his enemy, each time, Achilles got ahead of him, and forced him to turn back towards the plain. As in a dream, the chase goes on forever— 200 you never catch, you never get away— so ran Achilles, always just behind, feet pounding but unable to catch up, and Hector was unable to escape.

Like the river, Scamander, chasing and pounding Achilles