Iliad through Book 14

[Everyman]

Good old Nestor again. My hero. Even at his age he takes up spear and shield to defend the ships, but decides that his better place might be to lend his aged wisdom to Agamemnon. Once again Agamemnon is ready to turn tail and run, but Odysseus is outraged, and the leaders agree, despite their wounds, to return to battle at least to inspire their fighters if not to risk further injury.

(How many children who learned, as I did, the little ditty “he who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day” realized that it was over 2,500 years old, with Agamemnon at 81 saying “He who flees fares better than he who dies.”)

Poseidon is still aiding the Greeks, including giving a mighty roar or shout as of ten thousand men to inspire the Greeks.

And now comes another of those famous passages in the Iliad. Hera sees her brother (also her brother-in-law since she and Zeus are brother and sister - so much for the sin of incest!) and approves of his support for the Greeks. But fearing that Zeus will intervene, stop Poseidon, and re-energize the Trojans, she devises her famous plan to seduce Zeus to distract him from the battle. And it works! (Lots that can be said here! Including Hera lying to Zeus about where she’s going and what she’s planning).

First she has to prepare, and I love the comparison between the way she girds herself for seduction and the way Homer describes warriors girding themselves for battle. Her weapons are not shield and spear, but shimmering hair, loose fitting gown, earrings, teasing veil, and Aphrodite’s offering of the embroidered band of passion. (Sleep, though, is reluctant to help her until she promises him Pasithea. Not explained is what right Hera has to do this, but...)

Then comes the fascinating and widely discussed passage of Zeus touting all his infidelities as though they are going to soften Hera’s heart toward him, to tell her how none of his other conquests has touched his heart as she does. Is this guy clueless about women, or what?

But Hera’s plan works, Zeus goes to sleep after exhausting his passion, and Hera sends Sleep down to tell Poseidon that he has free rein. As Poseidon rallies the Greeks, so also Hector rallies the Trojans, and some of the fiercest fighting of the battle ensues with another marvelous set of similes:

as the two sides met with a tremendous noise,
louder than ocean surf booming on shore, driven there
from the depths by the harsh North Wind, louder, too,
than roaring fire as it jumps to burn the trees
in some mountain clearing, louder than the wind
which howls through the highest branches of some oak tree,
a wind which at its worst makes the most piercing noise—
that’s how loud the shouting came from Trojans and Achaeans,
terrifying screams, as they went at each other.

And now Ajax wounds Hector, who is rescued by his warriors and moved to the back of the battle. Is there a single paramount warrior on either side now unwounded?

More wonderful trash talk at about 450 and the following lines as the warriors take turns taunting each other.

Thanks to Hera’s duplicity and Poseidon’s help, things have turned the way of the Greeks at last.

[[deleted user]]

Everyman wrote: First she has to prepare, and I love the comparison between the way she girds herself for seduction and the way Homer describes warriors girding themselves for battle. Her weapons are not shield and spear, but shimmering hair, loose fitting gown, earrings, teasing veil, and Aphrodite’s offering of the embroidered band of passion.

Oh, that's good. I hadn't seen that analogy, but I like it very, very much.

[[deleted user]]

Patrice wrote: "Agamemnon...he's lost heart...again. And I'm not sure that he's wrong. The reasoning that I think Odysseus uses, that they've lost so many men already it would be a terrible shame to leave the fi..."

As Everman noted: How many children who learned, as I did, the little ditty “he who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day” realized that it was over 2,500 years old, with Agamemnon at 81 saying “He who flees fares better than he who dies.”)

But....Agamemnon seems downright eager to flee and fare and fight no more. And he's the nominal head of the expedition. I don't get it either.

[[deleted user]]

I enjoyed Book 14. Hence my leapfrogging over 13. For now anyway.

Misc:

Nestor. He shows well in Book 14. The Argvies are lucky to have him. He's the first leader who seems seriously interested in ascertaining the military facts.

"I am off to a lookout point to learn the truth" (Fagles 14.9)

- - - -

??? At Fagles 14.10: Nestor "seized the well-wrought shield of his son, Thrasymedes breaker of horses--it lay in a corner, / all glowing bronze, while the boy used his father's."

I'm wonderering if the son would really have been still a "boy," and why? is the son using his father's shield. It strikes me that it must have importance or significance...but I can't quite make out why.

- - - -

Shame-based society.

Plenty of examples given in this Book. EDIT added: actually, I found more examples in Book 13.

Agamemnon now how Hektor is winning, "How shameful.....And they have no stomach left to fight to the end against the warships' sterns" (Fagles 14.60).

Mmmm. This doesn't explain why Agamemnon twice before "gave orders" for the men to sail away, but, addressing only this third instance, maybe Agamemnon believed, truly, that his Argive had "no stomach left to fight."

[[deleted user]]

Wounds/Healers

Nestor concurs with Agamemnon concerning what dire straits the Argives are in, "True, true. A disaster's right upon us.....

Put heads together--what shall we do now? --
if strategy's any use. Struggle's clearly not,
The last thing I'd urge is to throw ourselves into battle.
How on earth can a wounded man make war?"

This rather appealed to me because it hearkened back to those lines in Book 11:

"a good healer is worth a troop of other men," {which would be Achilles}

"But I won't neglect you, even so, with such a wound," {which was Achilles' alter ego, Patroclus}

Now although Nestor speaks of a "man" we can also read his deeper meaning: that the army itself is sorely wounded and needs a healer. And remember, Achilles is a healer, Therefore, the army needs Achilles.

I think this is Nestor speaking diplomatically. But though the whole rest of the army knows the need for Achilles, Agamemnon isn't yet ready to admit it. He blames Zeus for the situation: "so it must please the Father's overweening heart to kill the Achaeans here, our memory blotted out a world awa from Argos!" {mmm: might Agamemnon have an "overweening heart" as well? I'll have to google that.)

"[Zeus] ties our hands and lames our fighting spirit."

I think that next line indicates that Agamemnon is instructing his men to disregard any signs or omens from Zeus. Agamemnon still wants to be in control. "So come, follow my orders. All obey me now..

And then he goes very far again, it seems to me, and says something counter to the cultural basis of his society and counter to the military code of his society:

"No shame in running" But there IS. There is a line in this very book concerning the shame, the dishonor that would be had in running (and being speared in the back).

No shame in "fleeing disaster." But there IS. I'll try to find the lines that support that.

"even in pitch darkness." I had earlier thought that when the battles had ceased with the coming of darkness, the reason was because it was difficult to see and fight in the darkness. But now I wonder whether there might be some sort of "shame" in fighting in pitch darkness....where one can't be seen and recognized...no glory to be had.

And what a response from Odysseus:

"With a dark glance the shrewd tactician Odysseus
wheeled on his commander: 'What's this, Atrides,
this talk that slips from your clenched teeth?

YOU are the disaster.

Would to god you commanded another army,
a ragtag crew of cowards, instead of ruling us.

Your plan will kill us all!"

(Fagles 14. about 100)

[[deleted user]]

At 3 Patrice wrote: "They shrouded their bodies in gleaming bronze. The armour is their shroud.

"

I really like that.

If one uses that image, that the bronze armor is a shroud, then would stripping the armour off of dead soldier be analogous to grave robbing?

[Juliette]

Everyman wrote: "Then comes the fascinating and widely discussed passage of Zeus touting all his infidelities as though they are going to soften Hera’s heart toward him, to tell her how none of his other conquests has touched his heart as she does. Is this guy clueless about women, or what?
.."

It's like watching a sit-com and the guy is trying to woo the girl and you're yelling at the tv "WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?"
I kept banging my head with the heel of my hand. Is he just so overwhelmed by the aura of love that she created that he loses his head?
At least he didn't make it easy for her.

[Silver]

Juliette wrote: "Everyman wrote: "Then comes the fascinating and widely discussed passage of Zeus touting all his infidelities as though they are going to soften Hera’s heart toward him, to tell her how none of his..."

Though we do have to keep in mind that Zeus is residing in a culture in which I do not think that any woman truly expects her husband to be faithful for her, and the fact that men will sleep with other woman is taken for granted.

Of course this does not mean the women like it, or altogether accept it, but it is the world they live in and it is something that I think is understood. There concept of monogamy did not really exist at this time. So if a woman was going to try to find some semblance of happiness or contentment in her married life, knowing she can do nothing about her husbands infidelities, that such is just the way of life, her only recourse is to take solace in the belief that at least perhaps her husbands love for her might be something more, and something deeper than what he feels for other women whom he has had relations with.

Zeus really is not telling Hera anything knew when he tells her about his list of infidelities, and as much as Hera might rage against him because of his unfaithfulness I do not think she has any expectation that he will change.

So to the modern eye it might seem to be laughable, in a world where infidelities are an accepted part of the culture, well pledging to your wife, that she is the one who truly has his heart the most among all his vast assorted women, is about as romantic as you are going to get.

[[deleted user]]

Hera. No spoilers; but long. (view spoiler)[

I had the same reaction, Juliette. Thinking, "THIS is going to make Hera reciprocate Zeus's lust?" "THIS is how you seduce women?" And I figure...maybe it's the power...Zeus has always been the highest god... (I tell you, I was incredulous when I read stories in the 70s that said that Henry Kissinger was quite the ladies man.)

That entire Hera Episode was interesting.

"At last one strategy struck her mind as best:
...to lie by...naked and make immortal love"

And I wondered if and how immortal love might differ from mortal love? And whether the gods are afflicted with some god-like "Seven Year Itch"... How many centuries can gods remain faithful...or even happy with one another?




"Aphrodite the daughter of Zeus replied at once"

Homer may have used this descriptive of Aphrodite elsewhere in the Iliad, I'm not sure, but when I saw it here, it was jarring, because Hera wants to go against Zeus. Hera is using his own daughter to undermine him. And Aphrodite replies that she will of course do as Here asks "since you are the one who lies in the arms of mighty Zeus." Looks like irony to me.



Then we get that rather erotic passage:

"...she loosed from her breasts the breastband...
There is the heat of Love,
the pulsing rush of Longing, the lover's whisper,
...thrusting...throbbing, rising voice...
ravishing openwork..."...fulfillment.



Suddenly unmentioned was Hera with the white arms. I relished the seemingly contradictory adverbial/adjectives here being used to describe Hera.

"Quick with treachery noble Hera answered"
"And filled with guile the noble Hera answered"
"Teeming with treachery the noble Hera led him on"


At 1, Everyman wrote: Sleep, though, is reluctant to help her until she promises him Pasithea. Not explained is what right Hera has to do this, but...)

I know! Same situation as with Helen/Paris. Are women such absolute objects that they can so easily be traded or claimed...Helen, Brisies, Pasithea...

I had to ponder this scene. You know, Sleep had been so firmly, firmly adamant that he was not going to help Hera with her scheme: "Not I--I would not get too close / to the son of Cronus, much less put him under, / not unless the Father gave the command himself. / A commission of yours taught ME my lesson once"

...and then, seemingly all of a sudden--"Eyes widening, noble Hera coaxed him further"--suddenly Sleep is VERY anxious to help.

"'On with it!'" --Sleep cried, thrilled by the offer...
'Pasithea, she's the one--
all my days I've tossed and turned for HER!'"

Do you think that maybe Hera let a little of Aphrodite's love/lust potion slip in near enough to Sleep to inflame him. Can whoever controls Aphrodite's potion control not only who will lust but who will be lusted after? Hera, after all, was the one who brought the the younger Graces into the conversation.



Back to that long speech Zeus gave naming many of his sexual conquests. I don't know. The Greeks and Trojans--and by extension, I would assume, the gods--at that time seemed to live in such a boasting culture. Like the boasting was a virtue (almost??). Maybe...in some bizarre 12th century BC man-centered society, maybe Zeus saw his words as a great compliment to Hera.

"Never has such a lust for goddess or mortal woman
flooded my pounding heart and overwhelmed me so"

If the pleasure of the male was the be-all-end-all goal/job/mission, then Zeus is telling Hera that she is really, really accomplishing the goal. What had Aphrodite said? "You won't return, I know, your mission unfulfilled." Good job, Hera, you're doing what a woman should do for me [Zeus] better than than any other woman has ever done for me. Good job.

Again...I don't, but maybe we should try to see Zeus as some sort of god-like, elevated George Clooney? George Clooney, too, has a long string of women that he has loved and let go. Yet he seemingly has no problems in finding newer, younger women to replace them. Is it the power? Zeus has power. Is it his physcial attractiveness? I would think that Zeus had physical attractiveness? Does the fact that he has "conquered" many women actually have some sort of appeal for women? As in, he's had lots of women...but now he wants me...therefore, I must be really special? That's what Zeus is doing here. Saying he's had plenty of women...but somehow Hera, today, is really something.

Again...I probably can't articulate this as well as I would like, but...consider...the Greek and the Trojan fighters both strip the armor from those they kill. And the fact that they can take the armor from another and keep it for themselves adds to their OWN honor...makes them greater men themselves. Whatever they take from others enhances them...in their own eyes and in the eyes of the others in their culture.

Maybe in a similar way, when Zeus, in boasting about all these other women he's "conquered"... he is really pointing out to Hera how high his stature is...he's pointing out the value that he has accumlated to himself as a man (monogamy not being a cultural virtue)... so, really, he's not only complimenting Hera on her ability to arouse him, he's reminding her that she's getting a good deal, too, that he is manly man.

(hide spoiler)]

[[deleted user]]

At 10Silver wrote: "..."

I was writing and didn't see your post...but Yes. I really liked the way you explained how that scene might have looked to people from that time!

[[deleted user]]

Patrice wrote: .I thought it was very deliberately funny! Human nature can't have changed that much. He knows hera gets jealous. And Hera did not seduce him out of love or passion. it was total manipulation. They even said that she felt hatred for him. The way I read it, I thought it showed how clueless Zeus was. How stupid and innocent in a way. while Hera is all strategy and scheming. Who was really the powerful one?.."

Nice question: Who was really the powerful one?

In early books, we saw Zeus threatening Hera physically. To get his own way. Now we see Hera...manipulating...to get her own way. A part of me wants to say, "oh, physical violence is worse than manipulation. But then I think, mmm, if Hera had the physical power to make others to what she wants, why, she would use that too."

There's so much emphasis on "my own." Almost every man's concern for his own honor, Zeus's concern when it comes to his own sons...

Lol...maybe you're right Patrice, maybe human nature doesn't change much...and we're all still mostly concerned about "our own"...maybe we just have a more sophisticated way of manipulating....even when we "fairly" negotiate....maybe we do it because...just like Hera knew that sex was the best way of getting her way...maybe we think that in our culture negotiating is the best way to get some of what we want...and since we don't have absolute strength, getting some of what we want some of the time is the best we can do. I don't know. But when you wrote that human nature doesn't change...got me wondering.

[Silver]

I do not think human nature has really greatly changed, but I do think that a woman would be less offended/outraged by Zeus's words living in a world where there was virtually no expectation of monogamy than a woman living in a world where monogamy has become the accepted norm.

[Thomas]

Adelle wrote: "No shame in "fleeing disaster." But there IS. I'll try to find the lines that support that.
"

Or perhaps Agamemnon is doing the same thing he did earlier in Book 2 -- inspiring the troops by testing their resolve. Reverse psychology, applied in a very ham-fisted way... but it seems to work.

Does Fagles really translate "You are the disaster" ?? ...that's not in the Greek at all. It's a nice dramatization, but Odysseus is not that direct. One of the things that I find really interesting is that Agamemnon continues to command respect from the assembled Greeks.

[Silver]

Patrice wrote: "Silver wrote: "Juliette wrote: "Everyman wrote: "Then comes the fascinating and widely discussed passage of Zeus touting all his infidelities as though they are going to soften Hera’s heart toward ..."

I do not know if the Greeks were polygamous persae, but I think it was fairly common, and accepted within the society that men would have many slave women they would sleep with and have various relationships outside of their marriage. While there may be an awareness of the fact that the women did not like it, I just do not believe any woman at this time would genuinely believe that her husband would be solely faithful to herself. There are too many examples of this not being the case. Agamemnon has countless slaves, Odysseus has many affairs on his way home to his wife. I think it would be a very naive woman who did not know that war meant that there husbands would essentially partake in rape and the taking of slaves. Infidelity was a part of the culture, I do not think that infidelity was an deception but the norm. And while the women might not like it, there is no real indication that society at large disproved of it.

[[deleted user]]

Thomas wrote: "Does Fagles really translate "You are the disaster??.."

He does. He does.

[Thomas]

Patrice wrote: "thomas, are you reading it in the greek?"

I read Book 1 in Greek (very slowly, with a lot of help from a commentary) but other than that I've just been looking at lines that interest me or that sound odd in translation.

[Thomas]

Adelle wrote: "Thomas wrote: "Does Fagles really translate "You are the disaster??.."

He does. He does."

I think I see what he's translating now. Odysseus says "Now I blame you wholly in your heart for saying such things." That is still not as strong as "You are the disaster," but it's certainly fault finding. But then Agamemnon backs off -- maybe because he didn't mean it in the first place, or maybe because his confidence has been shaken so badly. Agamemnon is a slippery fish.

[Everyman]

Patrice wrote: "But why is Agamemnon always turning tail? Is this to make sure that we understand that he is truly despicable? "

I'm fascinated by Homer's presentation of Agamemnon. At times he seems so unleaderlike, so vacillating, at others so impulsive, almost irrational, at others he's shown as a commanding leader, a valiant fighter, worthy of his leadership role. I can't really get my arms around him; it's too complex.

I wonder to what extent Homer's portrait of him is colored by the myth of his return home after the war. His wife certainly didn't see him in a very heroic role, did she?

[Everyman]

Adelle wrote: "And what a response from Odysseus:

"With a dark glance the shrewd tactician Odysseus
wheeled on his commander: 'What's this, Atrides,
this talk that slips from your clenched teeth? "

Does this suggest that Agamemnon maybe learned something from his dust-up with Achilles? Might he not normally have lashed out at Odysseus as he did against Achilles for confronting him and challenging his leadership rights? But this time, after Odysseus is done, he accepts the rebuke and
"So now let us hear a better plan from someone,
whether young or old. I will gladly listen."
Jordan @ 14.107

This seems to show a maturity and willingness to listen to others that was totally missing in Book 1. Part of why, as I mentioned above, I'm quite confused about Homer's presentation of Agamemnon.

[Everyman]

Juliette wrote: "I kept banging my head with the heel of my hand. Is he just so overwhelmed by the aura of love that she created that he loses his head? "

Love that image! But I wonder whether it isn't more total cluelessness, or maybe such total arrogance arising from the aura of total power. But it certainly makes the highlight reel for "How not to win friends and influence women."

[Everyman]

Thomas wrote: "Does Fagles really translate "You are the disaster" ?? ...that's not in the Greek at all. It's a nice dramatization, but Odysseus is not that direct. "

Jordan has it
"What kind of talk is this from Atreus' son?
Disgraceful!"

Lattimore:
"Son of Atreus, what sort of word escaped your teeth's barrier?
Ruinous!"

Johnston:
“Son of Atreus, how can such words as these
come from your mouth? I’m finished with you."

Murray:
"“Son of Atreus, what a word hath escaped the barrier of thy teeth! Doomed man that thou art, "

It does seem that Fagles has perhaps preferred the dramatic to the more accurate. I love that two of the translators speak of the "barrier" of his teeth. Is that literal from the Greek, Thomas? (Don't we have another member who said they also read Greek? I forget who, but I remember it being said!)

[Bill]

Everyman wrote I'm fascinated by Homer's presentation of Agamemnon. At times he s..."

I said some of this just a little while ago on Book 13, #55 but...specifically...

I don't think Homer's Agamemnon is complex and many-sided. I think he's not a coherent character.

I can't say I know this is true, but it feels like Homer sometimes writes coherent characters and sometimes simply attributes behavior or motivation to characters because it will help move the story along IF the character behave in a certain way. At other times, I suspect he's mixing in a bunch of different stories in his repertoire and picks what seems interesting without worrying about whether it creates an entirely consistent character.

With regard to the latter there's the story of Odysseus, which Priam, tells where he's staring at his feet, looking wholly unimpressive, but when he speaks being a great orator. Nothing anywhere else in Homer suggests Odysseus as shy or afraid of public speaking -- nor does it seem to fit his character. So -- I just filed it under Homeric inconsistencies in that file cabinet in my brain.

That doesn't seem like Odysseus and appears no where else. I think it was just a general story that Homer attached to Odysseus.

Agamemnon is in constant contradiction. He's the hothead. He's the individual constantly sending home the troops. He's the glorious figure whom Helen speaks well of. There's the individual courageous in battle, who loves his brother. There's the Agamemnon of his aristeia. There's the Agamemnon spurring on the troops trying to distinguish between who needs prodding and who doesn't (and not always getting it right, which seems wonderfully realistic. Agamemnon is neither particularly bright or insight about other people.)

I'm perfectly happy to give Homer a break on this. He was writing at the beginning of a written tradition, and he was writing 3,000 years ago, in a very different culture.

[Juliette]

At some point we had discussed the issue of knowing how this book ends and how it doesn't really change the reading of it. I just finished reading The Book Thief and loved this quote from it that fits in very nicely:
"Mystery bores me. It chores me. I know what happens and so do you. It's the machinations that wheel us there that aggravate, perplex, interest, and astound me."

[Thomas]

Everyman wrote: "It does seem that Fagles has perhaps preferred the dramatic to the more accurate. I love that two of the translators speak of the "barrier" of his teeth. Is that literal from the Greek, Thomas? (Don't we have another member who said they also read Greek? I forget who, but I remember it being said!) "

Yes, it is. "Herkos" is a fence or wall. And as usual Lattimore is closest to the original -- "oloumenos" means ruinous, and it resonates with the first lines of the work, or at least it does with me. It's the same word used to describe Achilles' rage in the second line of the poem.

(I'm on the road this week... I'll be checking in from time to time, but if we have other Greek geeks out there, please feel free to step in!)

[[deleted user]]

Juliette wrote: "At some point we had discussed the issue of knowing how this book ends and how it doesn't really change the reading of it. I just finished reading The Book Thief and loved this quote ........machinations.."

Thanks, Juliette. Yes! When we already know the ending, it IS the hows and whys along the way that keep us interested.

(I can't see the word machinations without thinking of Machiavelli.)

[Bill]

Yes. There but there are contradictions that are believable and others that are not.

[Everyman]

Bill wrote: "I'm perfectly happy to give Homer a break on this. He was writing at the beginning of a written tradition, and he was writing 3,000 years ago, in a very different culture. "

For myself, I don't think Homer needs a break. I think he was a consummate story teller. I think he knew exactly what he was doing. We've already had a discussion of the cycles he introduces, and I suspect that there will be more. I find h is portrayal of the battle scenes, in particular, magnificently constructed to present the duality of the divine and human interacting in a way which the humans were mostly ignorant of but we are given the vision to see working out.

I think he is every bit as much in control of his material as another blind (accepting the tradition of Homer's blindness) poet, Milton, in Paradise Lost (which I'm sorry but I can't remember whether you read with us).

In most of the major characters, I find Homer masterful at presenting the complexity of human character but in a way which is internally coherent. Achilles is quick to anger, and can sustain his anger with ferocity, but he is also very tolerant of those who come in some trepidation, even fear, to carry out the command of Agamemnon, and is exceptionally courteous to the Embassy even as he rejects its plea. Odysseus is shown as a man of wise counsel and strategy, but also as one who is pure violence when that is called for. And on and on.

I see no reason why his portrayal of Agamemnon should not be as both complex and internally coherent as his portrayal of the other characters he is working with. Thus, I think that my failure to "wrap my mind around him" is more my fault than Homers, and I am hoping that the wiser minds here will help me see where I am going wrong.

[Bill]

Everyman wrote, In most of the major characters, I find Homer masterful at presenting the complexity of human character but in a way which is internally coherent.

I agree with you. But MOST does not equal ALL and Aggs is a mess at times. And I think there are also other inconsistencies with smaller characters.

Not all the time. I thought Book IV (?) where Agamemnon is rally the troops I thought it was quite brilliant that Agamemnon sometimes got it right and sometimes wrong.