The War That Killed Achilles (18 page)
Read The War That Killed Achilles Online
Authors: Caroline Alexander
Deceptively, the actions of the gods blend perfectly with those of men. When Hera and Athene descend to fight for the Achaeans, and Apollo and Ares for the Trojans, for example, the gods are wholly assimilated into the ranks of mortals. They come as allies, distinguished from the diverse peoples gathered to fight at Troy only by the type of assistanceâimmeasurably greaterâthat they are able to render. Their aspirations, even their pride and anger, are in accord with those of their mortal comrades. It is this commonality of emotional and moral character, as much as the physical human disguises they so often assume, that allows the gods of the
Iliad
to infiltrate the company and confidence of mortal men.
Iliad
to infiltrate the company and confidence of mortal men.
No testimonials of any kind survive to tell us whether an audience of Homer's time was scandalized or entertained by such an irreverent depiction of divinity; the survival of the
Iliad
itself can be taken as evidence of a kind that audiences at some level “approved.” Some later audiences, however, did not. Three and a half centuries after Homer, Plato famously banned the works of Homer from his ideal republic on the grounds that shameful “stories about gods warring, fighting, or plotting against one another” were unsuitable material for the training of young souls as just citizens.
16
But others, perceiving that the nature of the Homeric gods tempered the nature of Homeric man, were more generous.
Iliad
itself can be taken as evidence of a kind that audiences at some level “approved.” Some later audiences, however, did not. Three and a half centuries after Homer, Plato famously banned the works of Homer from his ideal republic on the grounds that shameful “stories about gods warring, fighting, or plotting against one another” were unsuitable material for the training of young souls as just citizens.
16
But others, perceiving that the nature of the Homeric gods tempered the nature of Homeric man, were more generous.
“I feel indeed,” wrote “Longinus,” in his first-century-A.D. treatise
On the Sublime,
“that in recording as he does the wounding of the gods, their quarrels, vengeance, tears, imprisonment, and all their manifold passions Homer has done his best to make the men in the
Iliad
gods and the gods men.”
17
On the Sublime,
“that in recording as he does the wounding of the gods, their quarrels, vengeance, tears, imprisonment, and all their manifold passions Homer has done his best to make the men in the
Iliad
gods and the gods men.”
17
Â
Of all the antics performed by the gods in the
Iliad,
few are as mischievous, memorable, and ultimately disconcerting as those depicted in the extended scene in Book Fourteen traditionally known as
Diòs apátÄ,
or “the deception of Zeus.”
18
The scene begins when Hera observes that Poseidon, unnoticed by Zeus, whose attention has drifted, has managed to deploy himself among the Achaeans. Supportive of Poseidon's cham pioning of the Achaeans, Hera decides to help his efforts with a scheme of her own to “beguile the brain in Zeus”:
Iliad,
few are as mischievous, memorable, and ultimately disconcerting as those depicted in the extended scene in Book Fourteen traditionally known as
Diòs apátÄ,
or “the deception of Zeus.”
18
The scene begins when Hera observes that Poseidon, unnoticed by Zeus, whose attention has drifted, has managed to deploy himself among the Achaeans. Supportive of Poseidon's cham pioning of the Achaeans, Hera decides to help his efforts with a scheme of her own to “beguile the brain in Zeus”:
And to her mind this thing appeared to be the best counsel,
to array herself in loveliness, and go down to Ida,
and perhaps he might be taken with desire to lie in love with her
next her skin, and she might be able to drift an innocent
warm sleep across his eyelids, and seal his crafty perceptions.
She went into her chamber, which her beloved son Hephaistos
had built for her, and closed the leaves in the door-posts snugly
with a secret door-bar, and no other of the gods could open it.
There entering she drew shut the leaves of the shining door, then
first from her adorable body washed away all stains
with ambrosia, and next anointed herself with ambrosial
sweet olive oil, which stood there in its fragrance beside her,
and from which, stirred in the house of Zeus by the golden
pavement,
a fragrance was shaken forever forth, on earth and in heaven.
When with this she had anointed her delicate body
and combed her hair, next with her hands she arranged the shining
and lovely and ambrosial curls along her immortal
head, and dressed in an ambrosial robe that Athene
had made her carefully, smooth, and with many figures upon it,
and pinned it across her breast with a golden brooch, and circled
her waist about with a zone that floated a hundred tassels,
and in the lobes of her carefully pierced ears she put rings
with triple drops in mulberry clusters, radiant with beauty,
and, lovely among goddesses, she veiled her head downward
with a sweet fresh veil that glimmered pale like the sunlight.
Underneath her shining feet she bound on the fair sandals.
19
to array herself in loveliness, and go down to Ida,
and perhaps he might be taken with desire to lie in love with her
next her skin, and she might be able to drift an innocent
warm sleep across his eyelids, and seal his crafty perceptions.
She went into her chamber, which her beloved son Hephaistos
had built for her, and closed the leaves in the door-posts snugly
with a secret door-bar, and no other of the gods could open it.
There entering she drew shut the leaves of the shining door, then
first from her adorable body washed away all stains
with ambrosia, and next anointed herself with ambrosial
sweet olive oil, which stood there in its fragrance beside her,
and from which, stirred in the house of Zeus by the golden
pavement,
a fragrance was shaken forever forth, on earth and in heaven.
When with this she had anointed her delicate body
and combed her hair, next with her hands she arranged the shining
and lovely and ambrosial curls along her immortal
head, and dressed in an ambrosial robe that Athene
had made her carefully, smooth, and with many figures upon it,
and pinned it across her breast with a golden brooch, and circled
her waist about with a zone that floated a hundred tassels,
and in the lobes of her carefully pierced ears she put rings
with triple drops in mulberry clusters, radiant with beauty,
and, lovely among goddesses, she veiled her head downward
with a sweet fresh veil that glimmered pale like the sunlight.
Underneath her shining feet she bound on the fair sandals.
19
Like a mortal hero, Hera is arming for battle and her detailed head-to-toe preparations, reversing the usual feet-first heroic formula, suggest a kind of tongue-in-cheek arming scene: “First he placed along his legs the fair greaves. . . . Over his powerful head he set the well-fashioned helmet.”
Armed like a warrior, Hera sets forth to conquer a hated adversaryâher husband. And like a strategizing general, she solicits allies. For her plan to succeed, she needs both the seductive charms of Aphrodite and the complicity of Sleep. To both of these deities, Hera spins a story, “with false lying purpose,” about needing their help to reconcile discord that has arisen between the sea gods Okeanos and his wife, Tethys.
20
From Aphrodite, Hera extracts the loan of the goddess's charm, apparently an amulet, on which “are figured all beguilements, and loveliness / is figured upon it, and passion of sex is there, and the whispered / endearment that steals the heart away even from the thoughtful.” From Sleep, bribed by the promise of marriage to one of the Graces, Hera extracts a pledge to descend upon Zeus after she has seduced him.
20
From Aphrodite, Hera extracts the loan of the goddess's charm, apparently an amulet, on which “are figured all beguilements, and loveliness / is figured upon it, and passion of sex is there, and the whispered / endearment that steals the heart away even from the thoughtful.” From Sleep, bribed by the promise of marriage to one of the Graces, Hera extracts a pledge to descend upon Zeus after she has seduced him.
Her attack meticulously prepared, Hera now drifts casually past her lord, where he sits alone on towering Ida. “Zeus who gathers the clouds saw her, / and when he saw her desire was a mist about his close heart,” and, as planned, he suggests they lie together. Answering him again “with false lying purpose,” Hera protests that they cannot do so on the peaks of Ida in the open where “ âeverything can be seen.' ”
Then in turn Zeus who gathers the clouds answered her:
“Hera, do not fear that any mortal or any god
will see, so close shall be the golden cloud that I gather
about us. Not even Helios can look at us through it,
although beyond all others his light has the sharpest vision.”
“Hera, do not fear that any mortal or any god
will see, so close shall be the golden cloud that I gather
about us. Not even Helios can look at us through it,
although beyond all others his light has the sharpest vision.”
So speaking, the son of Kronos caught his wife in his arms. There
underneath them the divine earth broke into young, fresh
grass, and into dewy clover, crocus and hyacinth
so thick and soft it held the hard ground deep away from them.
There they lay down together and drew about them a golden
wonderful cloud, and from it the glimmering dew descended.
underneath them the divine earth broke into young, fresh
grass, and into dewy clover, crocus and hyacinth
so thick and soft it held the hard ground deep away from them.
There they lay down together and drew about them a golden
wonderful cloud, and from it the glimmering dew descended.
So the father slept unshaken on the peak of Gargaron
with his wife in his arms, when sleep and passion had stilled him.
with his wife in his arms, when sleep and passion had stilled him.
The length of this sequence and the luxurious pace at which it is unfolded suggest that it was a set piece, undoubtedly famous in its own day; one of its jokes is the utilitarian use Zeus makes of his trademark cloud gathering. Similar stories about the trickery of the gods are found in Hesiod and the Homeric Hymns, while in the
Odyssey
the poet Demodokos sings a lengthy story “about the love of Ares and sweet-garlanded Aphrodite,” who are caught in adultery.
21
Odyssey
the poet Demodokos sings a lengthy story “about the love of Ares and sweet-garlanded Aphrodite,” who are caught in adultery.
21
As a piece of pure entertainment, the Deception serves the dramatic function of breaking what would otherwise have been a long, unrelieved battle narrative. The scene begins while fierce fighting is under way, and when Zeus awakens, he opens his eyes to see Hektor, who had been almost killed by a boulder hurled by Aias, “lying in the plain, his companions sitting / around him, he dazed at the heart and breathing painfully, / vomiting blood,” with carnage all around. While Zeus slept, Poseidon has done much damage to the Trojans. At face value, then, the Deception is simply an amusing interlude within a long, grim sequence.
But it is its very function
as
an interlude that is most disconcerting. Men are fighting for their lives, suffering mutilating wounds, and dyingâand Zeus the father, distracted, is heedless of them.
as
an interlude that is most disconcerting. Men are fighting for their lives, suffering mutilating wounds, and dyingâand Zeus the father, distracted, is heedless of them.
Â
Â
Of greater interest than the nature of the gods per se is the nature of their relationship with mortal men. The Olympians of the
Iliad
know everything about the mortals they look down upon; Zeus himself is
eurúopa,
“far-seeing,” a direct legacy of his origins as the all-seeing God of the Bright Sky, to whose celestial vantage the events on earth are laid bare.
22
Rarely indolent, usually zestful and opinionated, the extended family of Zeus aggressively engages with the mortal world. In disguise, the Olympians move, speak, and act freely among men, partaking of the human experience. There is nothing about the men and women at Troy that the gods do not know, even to foreknowledge of their individual fates.
Iliad
know everything about the mortals they look down upon; Zeus himself is
eurúopa,
“far-seeing,” a direct legacy of his origins as the all-seeing God of the Bright Sky, to whose celestial vantage the events on earth are laid bare.
22
Rarely indolent, usually zestful and opinionated, the extended family of Zeus aggressively engages with the mortal world. In disguise, the Olympians move, speak, and act freely among men, partaking of the human experience. There is nothing about the men and women at Troy that the gods do not know, even to foreknowledge of their individual fates.
By contrast, despite the busy flow of divine activity that drums through their lives, the Homeric heroes and heroines know very little about their gods. Few could claim to know what a god looks like, as most encounters take place with the deity in disguise. There are exceptions: Helen famously recognizes Aphrodite, despite her masquerade as an old servant woman, by the “round, sweet throat of the goddess / and her desirable breasts and her eyes that were full of shining.” Likewise, Poseidon's disguise as the seer Kalchas is betrayed by his footprints: “ âthis is not Kalchas, the bird interpreter of the gods,' ” Aias the son of Oïleus says to Telamonian Aias, “ âfor I knew / easily as he went away the form of his feet, the legs' form / from behind him. Gods, though gods, are conspicuous.' ”
By and large, however, the men at Troy fight in a kind of fog of existential ignorance, never knowing where or who the gods are or what divine activities and plans already under way may affect their own actions. Nor do they know what they must do for their supplications and prayers to be received. A very few incidents appear to suggest that Zeus, at least, punishes the wicked, which, if true, would furnish some minimal guidance for gaining his favor and avoiding his wrath. Menelaos, for example, rants at the Trojans for taking Helen away: “ âwretched dogs, and your hearts knew no fear / at all of the hard anger of Zeus loud-thundering, / the guest's god, who some day will utterly sack your steep city.' ” On closer look, however, in this and other such cases, it is clear that punishment is to be meted out by Zeus only in his capacity as patron of a specific institution: he is
Zeus Orkios,
“Zeus who upholds oaths,” or
Zeus Xenia,
the god of guest friendship.
23
Zeus' loyalty, then, is in fact to himself in his particular cultic aspects, not to a principle of overarching justice.
Zeus Orkios,
“Zeus who upholds oaths,” or
Zeus Xenia,
the god of guest friendship.
23
Zeus' loyalty, then, is in fact to himself in his particular cultic aspects, not to a principle of overarching justice.
If no clear principles sway the gods, how can mortals fathom their divine will? Seers, the interpreters of omens and dreams like Kalchas, on occasion provide guidance by clarifying a particular god's wishes, as Kalchas does so effectively at the outset of the epic, divining the cause of Apollo's plague. But the
Iliad
also takes pains to demonstrate that omens can be problematic, as is seen in a critical, extended exchange between Hektor and the wise Poulydamas. As the two men stand on the edge of the Achaeans' defensive ditch, deliberating whether to cross it, an immense eagle appears overhead, carrying a “gigantic snake, blood-coloured, / alive still and breathing.” Writhing upward, this monstrosity bites its captor, causing the eagle to drop it to the ground, where it lands conspicuously on the field of battle. Turning to Hektor, Poulydamas cautions his brother not to venture against the Achaeans in the face of this evil portent:
Iliad
also takes pains to demonstrate that omens can be problematic, as is seen in a critical, extended exchange between Hektor and the wise Poulydamas. As the two men stand on the edge of the Achaeans' defensive ditch, deliberating whether to cross it, an immense eagle appears overhead, carrying a “gigantic snake, blood-coloured, / alive still and breathing.” Writhing upward, this monstrosity bites its captor, causing the eagle to drop it to the ground, where it lands conspicuously on the field of battle. Turning to Hektor, Poulydamas cautions his brother not to venture against the Achaeans in the face of this evil portent:
Looking darkly at him tall Hektor of the shining helm answered:
“Poulydamas, these things that you argue please me no longer.
Your mind knows how to contrive a saying better than this one.
But if in all seriousness this is your true argument, then
it is the very gods who ruined the brain within you,
you who are telling me to forget the counsels of thunderous
Zeus, in which he himself nodded his head to me and assented.
But you: you tell me to put my trust in birds, who spread
wide their wings. . . .
One bird sign is best: to fight in defence of our country.”
“Poulydamas, these things that you argue please me no longer.
Your mind knows how to contrive a saying better than this one.
But if in all seriousness this is your true argument, then
it is the very gods who ruined the brain within you,
you who are telling me to forget the counsels of thunderous
Zeus, in which he himself nodded his head to me and assented.
But you: you tell me to put my trust in birds, who spread
wide their wings. . . .
One bird sign is best: to fight in defence of our country.”
The incident contains a menacing, tragic irony. Zeus had indeed earlier sent his personal messenger, Iris, to declare to Hektor that “ âZeus guarantees power to you / to kill men, till you make your way to the strong-benched vessels, / until the sun goes down and the blessed darkness comes over.' ” Day is far from over when the baneful snake drops with a thud at the feet of the Trojans. The snake is an omen to be heeded, clearly, but on the other hand Hektor's directives came from Zeus. Nonetheless, as the epic audience knows, it is Poulydamas, not pious, trusting, “Zeus-loved” Hektor, who reads the situation correctly; Hektor's delusion will destroy him.
The dual perspective of gods and men is a hallmark of Homeric epic and the basis of much of the
Iliad
's pathos. Sometimes this is played out as a kind of split-screen drama, like the Deception, unfolding actions that take place simultaneously on Olympos and on earth. Sometimes this epic perspective has a darker function, disclosing the fundamental ignorance in which even the most heroic mortals must operate. When Hektor pounds on the gates of the Achaean palisade, he believes that victory is within his graspâafter long years of suffering and effort, salvation appears to be within reach; his city is surely saved, he can return to his home, to his wife and childâbut we, the epic's audience, know what Zeus knows, that Hektor's glory is transient, is in fact only a means to an end, the end being the honor of Achilles, Hektor's enemy. Similarly, Agamemnon rises from sleep inspired by a dream that assures him Troy is his for the taking; but we, the audience, know what Zeus knows, that this was a false dream sent by the father of gods and men to lure the Achaeans into a trap, in which many will die.
Iliad
's pathos. Sometimes this is played out as a kind of split-screen drama, like the Deception, unfolding actions that take place simultaneously on Olympos and on earth. Sometimes this epic perspective has a darker function, disclosing the fundamental ignorance in which even the most heroic mortals must operate. When Hektor pounds on the gates of the Achaean palisade, he believes that victory is within his graspâafter long years of suffering and effort, salvation appears to be within reach; his city is surely saved, he can return to his home, to his wife and childâbut we, the epic's audience, know what Zeus knows, that Hektor's glory is transient, is in fact only a means to an end, the end being the honor of Achilles, Hektor's enemy. Similarly, Agamemnon rises from sleep inspired by a dream that assures him Troy is his for the taking; but we, the audience, know what Zeus knows, that this was a false dream sent by the father of gods and men to lure the Achaeans into a trap, in which many will die.
More tragic than such episodes of outright delusion is the men's pervasive, entrenched, fatalistic acceptance that the gods are tricky. “ âThis time Menelaos with Athene's help has beaten me,' ” says Paris languidly, following his inconclusive duel with Menelaos; “ âanother time I shall beat him. We have gods on our side also.' ” “ âZeus son of Kronos has caught me badly in bitter futility,' ” Agamemnon groans shortly before he dispatches the Embassy to Achilles. “ âHe is hard: who before this time promised me and consented / that I might sack strong-walled Ilion and sail homeward. / Now he has devised a vile deception.' ” Most terrible of all is Hektor's simple insight of what will be his final battle: “ âAthene has tricked me.' ”
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