CLAS 353
August 29, 2024

Odysseus & Polyphemus (proto-Attic amphora, ca. 650 BCE)

Homer, Odyssey 1.1ff. (trs. S. Lombardo): story of Odysseus's homecoming = nostos; postwar reconstruction of identity, community, culture on the island of Ithaka

SPEAK, MEMORY—
             Of the cunning hero,
The wanderer, blown off course time and again
After he plundered Troy’s sacred heights.

                                                                      Speak
Of all the cities he saw, the minds he grasped,
The suffering deep in his heart at sea
As he struggled to survive and bring his men home
But could not save them, hard as he tried—
The fools—destroyed by their own recklessness
When they ate the oxen of Hyperion the Sun,
And that god snuffed out their day of return.

                                                Of these things,
Speak, Immortal One,
And tell the tale once more in our time.


Homer, Iliad (cont.)

[Iliad 2-15: Achilles's vow not to fight until Trojans reach Greek ships; ebb & flow of battle; Trojans pressing Greek camp & ships, Iliad 16]

Death of Sarpedon (red-figure vase, ca. 510 BCE; cf. Iliad 16.709ff.)

• heroic code: Lycian Sarpedon to Glaucus on aristocratic privileges & social responsibilities of Homeric warriors; zero-sum competition for glory (kleos), honor (timê); mortality (compensation?)
  
  Iliad 12.315-28
  Well, now we have to take our stand at the front,
  Where all the best fight, and face the heat of battle,
  So that many an armored Lycian will say,
  'So they're not inglorious after all,
  Our Lycian lords who eat fat sheep
  And drink the sweetest wine. No,
  They're strong, and fight with our best.'
  Ah, my friend, if you and I could only
  Get out of this war alive and then
  Be immortal and ageless all of our days,
  I would never again fight among the foremost
  Or send you into battle where men win glory.
  But, as it is, death is everywhere
  In more shapes than we can count,
  And since no mortal is immune or can escape,
  Let's go forward, either to give glory
  To another man, or get glory from him.

• Achilles's pre-war choice (Thetis,"And now I will never / Welcome him home again to Peleus' house", 18.62-3); independence in Iliad 1 as exceptional individual struggling within community; hero of god-like insight (Iliad 24)?
  
  
  GROUPS (Iliad 16, 18)
  
  
  [Iliad 19-21: Achilles's revenge & aristeia ("display of excellence"), Greeks counter Trojan attack & advance on Troy]
  
  
• Achilles v. Hector – duel around walls of Troy (Iliad 22)
  
  Iliad 22.7-10 (omniscient narrator)
  In the dead air between the Greeks
  And Troy's Western Gate, Destiny
  Had Hector pinned, waiting for death.
  
  
  Neoptolemus Kills Priam (black-figure vase, 520-510 BCE; cf. Aeneid 2)
  
  
• Priam's unpersuasive speech to Hector (22.45ff.): "Show some pity for me . . . one day some Greek soldier will stick me / With cold bronze and draw the life from my limbs . . ."
  
  
• Hector's final plea to Achilles: "I beg you, Achilles, by your own soul / And by your parents, do not / Allow the dogs to mutilate my body . . ." (22.375-6); ransom offer & Achilles's reply?
  
  
• Hector's dying words: "And I will have my vengeance on that day / When Paris and Apollo destroy you / In the long shadow of Troy's Western Gate" (22.398-400)
  
  
• Greeks retreat, mourn Patroclus, mutilate Hector's body
  
  
  Achilles Drags Hector's Body (Roman mosaic, 3rd century CE)
  
  [Iliad 23: funeral games for Patroclus]
  
  
• Achilles continues to defile Hector's body, Iliad 24
  
  
• Priam visits Achilles: Achilles's insights (shared human experience?)
  
  Iliad 24.544-51 (following Priam's appeal)
  He spoke, and sorrow for his own father
  Welled up in Achilles. He took Priam's hand
  And gently pushed the old man away.
  The two of them remembered. Priam,
  Huddled in grief at Achilles' feet, cried
  And moaned softly for his man-slaying Hector.
  And Achilles cried for his father and
  Patroclus. The sound filled the room.
  
  
  Ransom of Hector (black-figure vase, 520-510 BCE)
  
  
• shared grief, meal; Achilles accepts ransom & cleanses body, truce, Priam's departure
  
  
• Hector's funeral: laments of Trojan women (Andromache, Hecuba, Helen) & Priam, fractured community joined in ritual, "That was the funeral of Hector, breaker of horses" (24.860)