The Iliad

There are some books that you just have to read if you want to understand the source of a large grouping of references and allusions in our culture. As I read, I’ll talk about what I’m reading to my friends. I was mentioning Achilles’ death to my wife, and she said, “oh, that’s where the name Achilles’ Tendon comes from…”. Greek literature explains a lot of the idioms and names even that are baked into our language, as well as many of our tropes: I’ve heard speeches or sermons mention the myth of Sisyphus many times, still as relevant today as it was thousands of years ago. For those reasons alone, I am immensely grateful I read the Iliad.

I’m also grateful for the epic feeling it has, for the theme of the sad and brutal nature of war (is this the first book with the theme “war is hell”? not sure, but it’s certainly one of the most notable early works with this theme).

I also appreciate how, while the story is narrated from the perspective of the Greeks—it’s clear we are meant to want them to win over the Trojans—this does not mean that Homer portrays all the Greeks as ideal heroes and all of the Trojans as evil villains. In fact, great lengths are taken to show how much of an asshole Achilles is and how noble that Hector is. These two (each of which represent the best of each side—at least, the best militarily, in Achilles’ case) are oppositely aligned with how you would think. Achilles, the best warrior for the “good” side, is narcissistic, selfish, arrogant, and profane in how he treats the living and the dead. Hector, the best warrior for the “bad” Trojans, is a family man, is loved by all, is noble and just and temperate. When Achilles kills Hector (spoilers) you actually feel pretty sad; this isn’t just a patriotic “boo-yeah, take that” kind of book.

Since I don’t have the pleasure of knowing how to read Greek, I had to read this in translation (not ideal for something that’s poetry). So unfortunately I know that there’s a whole aspect to this that I completely missed out on.

Another word about the particular translation I read (the big gold book with the Iliad and the Odyssey together published by Fall River with the silhouette of a ship on the front cover). It’s not great. It is meant to be a more “natural” translation, which I’m fine and good with, rather than necessarily being as literal as some. That’s fine. What sucks is certain phrases are in this translation like “all big and bigly” and “all huge and hugely.” Yes I kid you not, those are in there. I’m guessing that they chose to translate it that way because that probably shows something about how it was worded in Greek….but certain things just don’t translate well. As a translator, there are certain things you just need to not do literally or it sounds awful and really distracts the reader.

The main detracting aspect of the Iliad, for me, was that it’s too long. You know how in Dragonball Z every episode started to feel the same? That’s how this book is from about the 40% mark to the 80% mark. It’s extremely repetitive. Another bunch of people die, and many of them are given a paragraph elegy of what they were known for in their life, usually closed by a remark about how all of their fill-in-the-blank (whether they had a lot of money or friends or whatever) couldn’t save them from death in the end. Repeat this five more times in a row. Then have the Greeks get pushed back a little further. Then have some hero spur people to greater action with their words. Then go back to listing a bunch of people dying, repeat ad nauseum. Again. And again. And again. Times fifty. It’s just too much; you could just skip over most of that and be none the worse; the plot isn’t progressing, we’re still just waiting for most of the book for Achilles to save the Greeks.

There is a huge host of heroes, especially on the Greek side. I like that. Diomed, Sarpedon, the two Ajaxes, Odysseus, Agamemnon, the Spartan dude Menelaus, Patroclus, Hector, Achilles. Each of these have their limelight moments and each one has certain things that they’re better at. That’s kind of co ol. A couple of important people actually die before the end. And Hector of course, the second most important person in the whole book. Most of this book is a list of Hector’s triumphs over the Greeks and constant allusion/foreshadowing that he will die in the end at Achilles hands and Achilles will die also. It’s stated so many times that it’s kind of interesting how different the Greeks viewed suspense in literature than we do.

The gods feature a lot. They are constantly fighting with each other in petty squabbles. For some reason they are intensely preoccupied with the fight of the Greeks vs the Trojans, like they have nothing better to do than watch this spectator sport and mess with it occasionally. It feels kind of random and whimsical, not really that helpful to the story from my perspective, but I’m sure for the Greeks reading in Homer’s time it was probably more meaningful. I don’t like how the gods just randomly whisk people away in a mist or do other abilities that apparently are universal to all gods and have nothing to do with their particular gifting.

A big part of what I experienced while reading the Iliad happened when reading the passages written about someone dying. Homer does tons of these. He will describe the spear piercing through their head just below the forehead, piercing all the way through their bones and brains and coming out the backside or something pretty graphic and detailed like that. Then he’ll talk about what this person was known for, how they had a lot of friends back home because they owned a tavern, or they were known for winning some battles against their neighbors, etc, and oftentimes there’s some comment about how none of their fill-in-the-blank could save them now from dying. I read these passages as a mixture of sadness and graphic brutality.

The meaning I read into these is: war is Hell, man is mortal, nothing you do in life can save you from your predestined end, no matter how impressive your life has been up until that point.

There’s a lot of the fatalism philosophy throughout other passages in the Iliad that inform my take on these death passages. By fatalism I mean the idea (which you often see in Greek philosophical works as well as their myths) that one’s death (and other major events in one’s life) have been predetermined by spiritual powers outside of our control, determined perhaps since long before we were even born.

This idea is no longer popular in Western culture, especially in America, we prefer the myth (literary usage of the term) that man can choose his own destiny. I think we can lose balance. Reality is that there are many huge powers in the world that are very much outside of our control, which should be evident to anyone regardless of your spiritual beliefs, and at some level we have to make peace with that reality in our lives. We don’t get to control when we die. We have some say in it, we can eat healthier and choose to not smoke, etc, but still, you could die of heart complications after giving birth to a child, as just happened to a friend of my wife’s the other day. It’s a very sad story and having to cope with things like that is a fundamental part of the human condition I think.

So I think the Iliad has value for speaking to that theme, although I hardly think it covers it very exhaustively.

My main complaint is just that it’s too repetitive.

I also wonder a lot about Homer’s intent. According to scholars, they think this was written a few hundred years after these events took place. But it’s written with a lot of details that make it feel pretty historical, all of these specific people with their backstories and so forth. It seems odd that Homer would make up all of these details wholecloth. I like to imagine that perhaps it was written during the time that these events happened, and he merely used these stories about the gods and these miraculous events in the battles as ways of explaining events that people witnessed that didn’t make a lot of sense.

War has lots of chaos in it, weird things happening all the time, and we need a way to make sense of these things that heavily impact us, like our best friend dying, or inexplicably losing a conflict that you thought you would win, or some enemy of ours seeming to just miraculously never get injured when your efforts would yield great results with anyone else. If I look at it this way, Homer’s story makes sense; if I side with the scholars it just doesn’t. So I choose to believe that Homer wrote about events that happened in his lifetime.

There’s a lot of beautiful turns of phrase and epic scenes and other passages that also made this worth reading. I’ve made an index of them for myself so that in the future I can refer to that instead of having to read the whole thing again. Because l’m lazy, there’s only so much time, and frankly it was a slog to read sometimes. But I’m still glad I read it. I honestly feel like it’s kind of overrated when compared to some other ancient literature that speak to more themes and transcend through time and space better. But, I'm reading it in translation and not getting the full affect of the poetry.

And also, it’s still quite the epic. Not one I always understand, but still, quite the epic undertaking, and done in prehistory, a precursor to so much else. Cheers, Homer, for all that you did and the way you paved to so much more in the world of literature that can all be passed back to you. Thank you so much for what you did. The world was changed because of you.

1) '''Take me alive, son of Atreus, and accept A worthy ransom from the treasure stored In my father's palace, bronze, gold, wrought iron. My father would lavish it all on you if he heard I was still alive among the Achaean ships.'

The speech had its intended effect. Menelaus was about to hand him over To be led back to the ships, but Agamemnon Came running over to call him on it:

'Going soft, Menelaus? What does this man Mean to you? Have the Trojans ever shown you Any hospitality? Not one of them Escapes sheer death at our hands, not even The boy who is still in his mother's womb. Every Trojan dies, unmourned and unmarked.'''

2) ''His shout split the air: 'Move, Trojans! Let's tear down this Greek fence And make a bonfire out of their ships!'

They heard him, all right, and swarmed Right up the wall, climbing to its pickets With spears in their hands, while Hector Scooped up a stone that lay by the gates, A massive boulder tapering to a point. It would take two men to heave it onto a cart#- More than two as men are now#-but Hector Handled it easily alone. Zeus Lightened it for him, so that the stone Was no more to Hector than the fleece Of a ram is to a shepherd who carries it Easily in his free hand. This was how Hector carried it up to the gates, A set of heavy double doors, solidly built And bolted shut by interlocked inner bars. Standing close to these towering doors, Hector Spread his feet to get his weight behind the throw And smashed the stone right into the middle. The hinges broke off, and the stone's momentum Carried it through, exploding the doors And sending splintered wood in every direction. Hector jumped through, a spear in each hand.

His face was like sudden night, And a dark gold light played about the armor That encased his zealous bones. No one Could have stopped him, except the gods, In his immortal leap through the ruined gate, And his eyes glowed with fire. Wheeling around In the throng, Hector called to his Trojans, Who needed no persuasion, to scale the wall. Those who couldn't swarmed through the gate. And the Greeks? In rout to their hollow ships, With a noise like the damned stampeded into hell.''

The movie just leaves out all of the minor battles, ship names, and men of men who know men of a land ruled by that man. They challenge or quarrel with those men, and other men (from places of man) witness it and recall it to still other men from the place of the cloudgatherer’s daughter’s rumored favorite warrior on one side of the war's man. I was excited for this, but it felt like the previous sentence most of the time. Maybe revisiting it someday will be more enjoyable.

The gory action scenes were great. I mean I loved reading the variety of ways a man's head can be severed during battle. I'm partial to details about spinal fluid sputtering out of the still standing body. So when it comes to violent action scenes Homer gets it. Unfortunately, I had very little to hang onto as the chapters wore on (and they wear, believe me they wear) so the majority of this epic was dull and honestly just boring. I'm sure if I had more academic preparation I could appreciate subtle changes in rhyme scheme to match the content and I'm sure that could even be riveting.

I was unprepared. It dragged.

Great story but there is a lot of extraneous detail. Unless you're a Greek historian and plan to make a chart of all the people in the book you could probably skip a large chunk of it with damaging the story.

1) ''Thus Telemachus. And Pallas Athena
Touched the suitors' minds with hysteria.
They couldn't stop laughing, and as they laughed
It

seemed to them that their jaws were not theirs,
And the meat that they ate was dabbled with blood.
Tears filled their eyes, and their hearts

raced.
Then the seer Theoclymenus spoke among them:
'Wretches, what wicked thing is this that you suffer?
You are shrouded in night from

top to toe,
Lamentation flares, your cheeks melt with tears,
And the walls of the house are spattered with blood.
The porch and the court

are crowded with ghosts
Streaming down to the undergloom. The sun is gone
From heaven, and an evil mist spreads over the land.'''

2)

''Odysseus picked up
The arrow from the table and laid it upon
The bridge of the bow, and, still in his chair,
Drew the bowstring and the

notched arrow back.
He took aim and let fly, and the bronze-tipped arrow
Passed clean through the holes of all twelve axeheads
From first to

last. And he said to Telemachus:
'Well, Telemachus, the guest in your hall
Has not disgraced you. I did not miss my target,
Nor did I take

all day in stringing the bow.
I still have my strength, and I'm not as the suitors
Make me out to be in their taunts and jeers.
But now it

is time to cook these men's supper,
While it is still light outside, and after that,
We'll need some entertainment#-music and song#-
The

finishing touches for a perfect banquet.'

He spoke, and lowered his eyebrows. Telemachus,
The true son of godlike Odysseus, slung

on
His sharp sword, seized his spear, and gleaming in bronze
Took his place by his father's side.''

1) '''Take me alive, son of Atreus, and accept
A worthy ransom from the treasure stored
In my father's palace, bronze, gold, wrought iron.
My father would lavish it all on you if he heard
I was still alive among the Achaean ships.'

The speech had its intended effect.
Menelaus was about to hand him over
To be led back to the ships, but Agamemnon
Came running over to call him on it:

'Going soft, Menelaus? What does this man
Mean to you? Have the Trojans ever shown you
Any hospitality? Not one of them
Escapes sheer death at our hands, not even
The boy who is still in his mother's womb.
Every Trojan dies, unmourned and unmarked.'''

2) ''His shout split the air: 'Move, Trojans!
Let's tear down this Greek fence
And make a bonfire out of their ships!'

They heard him, all right, and swarmed
Right up the wall, climbing to its pickets
With spears in their hands, while Hector
Scooped up a stone that lay by the gates,
A massive boulder tapering to a point.
It would take two men to heave it onto a cart#-
More than two as men are now#-but Hector
Handled it easily alone. Zeus
Lightened it for him, so that the stone
Was no more to Hector than the fleece
Of a ram is to a shepherd who carries it
Easily in his free hand. This was how
Hector carried it up to the gates,
A set of heavy double doors, solidly built
And bolted shut by interlocked inner bars.
Standing close to these towering doors, Hector
Spread his feet to get his weight behind the throw
And smashed the stone right into the middle.
The hinges broke off, and the stone's momentum
Carried it through, exploding the doors
And sending splintered wood in every direction.
Hector jumped through, a spear in each hand.

His face was like sudden night,
And a dark gold light played about the armor
That encased his zealous bones. No one
Could have stopped him, except the gods,
In his immortal leap through the ruined gate,
And his eyes glowed with fire. Wheeling around
In the throng, Hector called to his Trojans,
Who needed no persuasion, to scale the wall.
Those who couldn't swarmed through the gate.
And the Greeks? In rout to their hollow ships,
With a noise like the damned stampeded into hell.''