Read Mythology of the Iliad and the Odyssey Online
Authors: Karen Bornemann Spies
Mythology of the Iliad and the Odyssey (5 page)
Achilles’ response astounded Odysseus and the other messengers. Phoenix spoke out. “Sail home? Is this the plan you have been hatching, Achilles? Have you no courage left? I, who have treated you like a son, have never given you the advice to run from danger.”
And so, Agamemnon’s messengers brought him word that Achilles’ proud spirit had overruled his love for his fellow warriors and that he refused to join the Greeks in battle. All during the night, Agamemnon struggled over what to do. Should the Greeks fight on or should they leave Troy in disgrace? Agamemnon tore at his hair, unable to sleep. Finally, he sought the counsel of Nestor. Together, they roused all the warriors. With Nestor’s advice adding weight to Agamemnon’s words, the Greeks decided to go into battle against the Trojans the next day.
Clad in armor of gleaming bronze, Agamemnon led his troops. Although they fought with great courage, the Greeks lost many warriors. Slashed by a sharp spear, Agamemnon returned to his ship to tend his wounds. When Hector saw that Agamemnon was no longer fighting, he rallied his men and drove the Greeks back to the very beaches where their ships were moored.
From his camp, Achilles watched the fighting, certain that the Achaeans would again beg him to rejoin the battle. He sent Patroclus to ask Nestor which Greeks had suffered wounds.
“Why does Achilles seek word of his comrades when he will not even help them in battle?” Nestor asked Patroclus. The wise old warrior knew that Achilles was only searching for bad news about the Greeks.
Patroclus, though he remained friendly to Achilles, could no longer bear to watch the Greeks suffer such huge losses. He begged Achilles to lend him his armor. “If the Trojans see your armor,” Patroclus said, “they may confuse me for you. They may let up in their fierce fighting.”
Achilles agreed to his friend’s request. “As a man dishonored, I will not fight unless the battle comes near my own ships. But you may take my armor. And I will order my troops to follow you into battle. Just do not go near the walls of Troy, where Hector is strongest. I wish you well, my friend.”
Patroclus donned the gleaming armor of the mighty Achilles. The Trojans recognized it right away and fled in fear, because they thought that Achilles had rejoined the Greeks. At first, Patroclus fought with all the valor of his friend. He led the Myrmidons bravely, even killing Sarpedon, son of Zeus.
But Patroclus forgot the warning of Achilles and came near the slope leading to the walls of Troy, where Apollo stood. Three times Patroclus charged the high wall and three times Apollo hurled him back. The fourth time, Apollo cried out with words of terror, “Go back, Patroclus. Fate has not willed that the walls of Troy fall before your spear.”
As Patroclus backed away, Apollo whispered to Hector. “Why stop your fighting now? This is your chance to drive the Greeks into the sea. Drive your chariot straight at Patroclus. I, Apollo, shall give you glory!”
Hector whipped his stallions into a fury, and the steeds charged at Patroclus. Apollo knocked Patroclus’ helmet off his head. As Patroclus, dazed, fell toward the ground, Hector rammed him with his spear. Horror filled the Achaeans as they realized that the armor of Achilles had not been enough to protect Patroclus.
As Patroclus struggled to breathe, he warned Hector, “Even now as I lay dying, know that you, too, shall soon follow me in death. Already I see the strong force of fate rising up to bring you down at the hands of Achilles!” Then Patroclus breathed his last, and his soul flew down to Hades, the land of the dead.
Hector stood over the body of Patroclus, planted his heel on Patroclus’ chest, and pulled out his spear. He stripped Achilles’ armor from Patroclus’ body and put it on himself. As Hector put on the armor, Zeus watched and foretold his doom:
Poor soldier. Never a thought of death weighs down
your spirit now, yet death is right beside you...
You don the deathless arms of a great fighter—
and all other fighters tremble before him, true,
but you, you killed his comrade, gentle, strong...
never again will you return from battle,
Hector....
(17.230-238)
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Q:
What caused the quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles?
A:
Achilles called for the Greek army leaders to meet to convince Agamemnon to let Chryseïs go. Agamemnon was furious that he had to give up the girl, so he took for himself Achilles’ slave girl, Briseïs.
Q:
How did Achilles react to Agamemnon’s action?
A:
Achilles was so angry with Agamemnon that he withdrew from the fighting and refused to let his troops fight with the Greeks.
Q:
After Achilles withdrew from the fighting, which two warriors faced each other in one-on-one combat? What happened?
A:
Menelaus and Paris fought as their armies watched. Just as Menelaus was about to drag Paris back to the Greek camp, Aphrodite rescued Paris.
Q:
What did Agamemnon offer Achilles in return for coming back? How did Achilles answer?
A:
Agamemnon offered rich treasure and the return of Briseïs. Achilles was insulted, because he considered Agamemnon’s offer to be bribery. He refused to rejoin the Greeks.
Q:
Which warrior then wore Achilles’ armor and what happened to him?
A:
Patroclus borrowed the Achilles' armor and led the Myrmidons into battle. At first, the Greeks were winning. Then, Hector killed Patroclus and put on Achilles’ armor.
Although some historians may have expressed doubts about the actual existence of Troy and the Trojan War, according to translator Robert Fagles:
... the Greeks of historic times who knew and loved Homer’s poem had none. For them history began with a splendid Panhellenic expedition against an Eastern foe, led by kings and including contingents from all the more than one hundred and fifty places listed in the catalogue in Book 2. History began with a war. That was an appropriate beginning, for the Greek city-states, from their first appearance as organized communities until the loss of their political independence, were almost uninterruptedly at war with one another.
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Fagles also noted that Homer’s epic examined the effects of war on the individual:
The
Iliad
accepts violence as a permanent factor in human life and accepts it without sentimentality, for it is just as sentimental to pretend that war does not have its monstrous ugliness as it is to deny that it has its own strange and fatal beauty, a power, which can call out in men resources of endurance, courage and self-sacrifice that peacetime, to our sorrow and loss, can rarely command. Three thousand years have not changed the human condition in this respect; we are still lovers and victims of the will to violence, and so long as we are, Homer will still be read as its truest interpreter.
6
Achilles is the main character in Homer’s
Iliad
and his temper is evident at the beginning. His life was destined to end prematurely, according to writer and publisher Roberto Calasso:
Instead of a god who would live longer than other gods, he became a man who would have a shorter life than other men. And yet, of all men, he was the closest to being a god.... Achilles is time in its purest state, drumming hooves galloping away. Compressed into the piercing fraction of a mortal life span, he came closest to having the qualities the Olympians lived and breathed: intensity and facility. His furious temper, which sets the
Iliad
moving, is more intense than that of any other warrior, and the fleetness of his foot is that of one who cleaves the air without meeting resistance.
7
When the Greek forces were gathering for battle, two major warriors did not appear, Odysseus and Achilles. This occurred, according to classicist Barry B. Powell, because Odysseus’ wife, Penelope, had recently had a child, Telemachus, and “Odysseus had lost his taste for war.”
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When Agamemnon and Menelaus sent messengers to fetch Odysseus,
... they were astonished to find him on the seashore, dressed like a madman, following a plow to which was hitched a horse and a jackass. Palamedes, son of Nauplius, was not deceived. Famed, like Odysseus, for his cleverness, he had invented the alphabet, dice, numbers, and astronomy. Palamedes seized Telemachus from Penelope’s arms, raced to the beach, and cast the child into the sand before the blade of the plow: If Odysseus were mad, he would plow on, but if sane, he would spare his infant son. Odysseus stopped the plow and joined the expeditionary force.
9
A seer prophesied that Troy could not be captured without Achilles, but that he would die in battle. According to classicists Mark P. O. Morford and Robert J. Lenardon, Achilles’ mother, Thetis, tried an unusual method to keep him from serving in the Greek forces:
To circumvent his early death, she [Thetis] tried to prevent his going by disguising him as a girl and taking him to the island of Scyros, where he was brought up with the daughters of Lycomedes, king of the island.... Odysseus and Diomedes exposed Achilles’ disguise at Scyros. They took gifts for the daughters of Lycomedes, among them weapons and armor, in which Achilles alone showed any interest. As the women were looking at the gifts, Odysseus arranged for a trumpet to sound; the women all ran away, thinking it was a battle signal, but Achilles took off his disguise and put on the armor.
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ACHILLES VERSUS HECTOR
INTRODUCTION
The role of fate plays an important part in “Achilles Versus Hector.” Achilles knew that his death had been foretold. An oracle, or prophet, prophesied that if Achilles fought at Troy, he would die soon after Hector’s death. As such, Achilles’ death represents the classic tragedy of the death of each human being. Achilles might strive his hardest, but ultimately, he would die, and he knew it. This attempt by mankind to overcome death became a common theme of many Greek myths.
1
Another important theme of the myth is the role of the gods. The Olympians interacted with each other and with the human characters. They took sides in the conflict and sometimes even joined in the actual fighting. They tried to affect the outcome of the war by helping a favorite hero or harming one from the opposition. Often, they showed less heroism than the humans for whom they were supposed to set examples.
This story contains two episodes, known as
theomachies
, in which the gods actually fought with each other on the battlefield. Athena and Hera joined with Diomedes, a prince of Argos, in fighting with Aphrodite and Ares. Diomedes wounded Aphrodite, who fled in tears to Mount Olympus. Diomedes also wounded Ares, who received no sympathy about his injuries when he complained to Zeus. In another episode, Hera attacked Artemis, who burst into tears. Thus, the theomachies point out how ridiculous the gods appear when they try to battle like mortals. At the same time, the theomachies demonstrate the difference between human suffering and the minor nature of the divine injuries.
2
The death of his friend Patroclus filled Achilles with deep grief—and feelings of revenge. “The very prophecy that my mother revealed to me has come to pass. She said that the best of my Myrmidons would fall at the hands of Trojans while I was alive. I could not prevent this from happening, even though I warned dear Patroclus not to battle Hector.” Achilles rubbed soot and ashes over his face. He rolled in the dirt and tore at his hair and cried out in grief.
His mother, the sea nymph Thetis, heard his cry and swam up from her cave deep in the sea. “Why so sad, my son?” she asked.
“Hector has killed my dear friend, Patroclus. I must return to battle and kill Hector in revenge for slaying my comrade,” Achilles said. “Please do not try to hold me back, even though it is fated that my death will follow soon after that of Hector.”
In tears, Thetis replied, “You are right, my son, you must save your exhausted comrades from defeat. But your own armor is in the hands of the Trojan prince, Hector. Please wait one more day until you return to battle. I will have Hephaestus, the armorer of the gods, craft you a new set of armor.”
Achilles agreed to wait, but was eager to help the Achaeans recover the body of Patroclus with no further delay. Without any armor, Achilles stood before the Trojans and gave a great war cry. The Trojans panicked and retreated. The Achaeans moved in quickly, retrieved Patroclus’ body, and swept from the battlefield.
The Trojans discussed what they should do next. Some wanted to retreat within the safety of the walls of Troy rather than fight out in the open now that Achilles had returned to the battlefield. But Hector had tasted of success in battle. “No more should we hide behind our walls. We have driven the Greeks back to their ships. Surely victory is within our grasp. I will meet Achilles in hand-to-hand combat.”
Hector’s fellow Trojans roared in agreement at his pronouncement. Little did they know that his advice would prove to be folly.
That night, while Achilles and his men prepared Patroclus’ body for a funeral, Thetis flew up to Mount Olympus to get Achilles’ new armor. Hephaestus had forged a massive shield, a gleaming breastplate, and a sturdy helmet. After Achilles donned the splendid armor, he went to where the Greek leaders were gathered. “Agamemnon, was it better for both of us and for our comrades that we fought over a slave girl?” he asked. “Instead, let us direct our anger toward our true enemy, the Trojans.”
Agamemnon offered Achilles the gifts he had promised him before, but he would not accept blame for his actions. “Achilles, the gods made me act the way I acted. But what is done is done. Let us stop talking and return to battle!”