The Iliad – Chapter 1

In this chapter, we are introduced to a major theme in the very first stanza:

“Rage–Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles,

murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,

hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls,

great fighters’ souls, but made their bodies carrion,

feasts for the dogs and birds,

and the will of Zeus was moving towards its end.

Begin, Muse, when the two first broke and clashed,

Agamemnon lord of men and brilliant Achilles.” (Illiad 77)

So all of these disastrous events seem to have been sparked by Achilles becoming not just mad but enraged by Agamemnon. What set this off? An argument over a girl. Namely a girl gotten in war who was the daughter of a priest of Apollo.

But before we get too into looking into what happened, one theme we also need to take a look at is also in this first stanza: “the will of Zeus”. Were the events that happened the will of Zeus? Does even Zeus have limits on how much he can shape events? In these events, how much of a free agent are Achilles, Agamemnon, and the rest?

But going back to Achilles’ rage, it all started when Agamemnon refused to return Chryseis to her father, a priest of Apollo, even though offered a large ransom. This was a bad idea. The father prayed to Apollo, and the sun god sent pestilence into the camp. After several days of this, Hera inspires Achilles to ask a seer the cause. The cure is to return Chryseis to her father along with a sacrifice for Apollo, expecting no reward in return. Agamemnon is furious at this and says if he is going to be forced to loose his girl, he wants Achilles girl Briseis. This in turn enrages Achilles who says he will then refuse to fight anymore until the Trojans are at his ships. As his ships are the furthest from Troy, this puts Agamemnon in a dangerous situation. Still, he caries with his threat. Achilles in turn prays to his mother the goddess Peleus asks Zeus to favor the Trojans until Agamemnon recognizes Achilles’ worth. This sets Zeus at odds with Hera who favors the Greeks.

The first thing to notice is how dangerous this rage is. There are a good twenty references to rage, anger, etc. in this chapter alone, at least eight of which belong to Achilles. On one level, Hera’s anger with Zeus mirrors Achilles’ anger with Agamemnon. How human the emotions of the gods seem here. On the other, Achilles’ anger is the most danger because it is unremitting. He basically swears an oath not to fight the Trojans any more until Agamemnon admits his fault. It is only Athena who stops Achilles then and there from killing Agamemnon.

Still, Achilles is not the only one at fault. Agamemnon has plenty of anger himself, and his answers to Achilles are “in haste”. (Iliad 87) As Achilles says later of Agamemnon, “The man is raving-with all the murderous fury in his heart./He lacks the sense to see a day behind, a day ahead, and safeguard the Achaeans battling by the ships.” (Iliad 89) Achilles is of course right – Agamemnon is not considering carefully the consequences of his actions. Hector is still out there. The irony is that the same is true for Achilles. Neither of them is thinking clearly.

And what will be the result of all of this? As Zeus says, “Disaster.” (Iliad 95) Many Greeks will die before Achilles relents and Zeus and Hera will be at odds until this is resolved as well.

But what is really going on here? Why all this fury? Agamemnon’s pride is wounded when he is forced to give up Chryseis, and he wounds Achilles’ pride by taking Briseis. Agamemnon is a king and the leader of the Greek forces, but Achilles is the greatest warrior. One gets the feeling that these two have been nipping at each other during this long war (when not fighting Trojans of course), and that this incident is the last straw for both of them. In any case, clearly neither has read President Ezra Taft Benson’s talk on pride.

These themes of pride and of anger are old ones. Lucifer wanted God’s honor and glory (pride – Moses 4:1), and when his plan was rejected he became angry and rebelled. (Abraham 3:27-28)

In The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien in the ninth chapter, Feanor’s masterwork and prized possessions, the Silmarills, are stolen by the dark lord Morgoth. He and his sons swear a terrible oath to pursue with vengeance any who withhold the Silmarills from them. This brings disaster on the elves who follow Feanor and return to Middle-earth, and it is the primary way which Morgoth uses to keep his enemies divided.

In the Star Wars prequels, Anakin Skywalker is filled with pride. He knows he is the strongest of the Jedi and feels this is not recognized. This leads to anger against those he feels have wronged him, and disaster follows.

In Babylon 5, at the beginning G’Kar is filled with anger towards the Centauri for the way they enslaved his world. The only reason this does not lead to disaster is because G’Kar is a deeply spiritual person. This eventually leads him to find forgiveness for his enemies.

In all these cases, those with such unrelenting anger are wrathful with cause. They all have been wronged to a greater or lesser extent. However, in each case it is their pride that has been most greatly wronged. Their anger leads to disaster, not just for those around them but for themselves as well. Yes, even Achilles will be harmed by his own anger. The only one to escape this fate is G’Kar, who manages to find forgiveness.

What can we learn from this first chapter for today? There are lots of angry people in the world these days. They have reasons, at least from their own point of view, for their anger. Anger can be an appropriate response in some cases. However, anger when it becomes unrelenting is dangerous because it can all to easy blind the person who is angry and lead to disaster. We should learn from Achilles and prevent this from happening to us.

*****

This week’s descriptive adjectives.

Achilles: Peleus’ son – 1; brilliant – 1; headstrong runner – 1; matchless runner – 1; proud runner – 1; swift runner – 4; god-like – 1; blazing – 1

Agamemnon: lord of men – 3; fighting son of Atreus – 1; son of Atreus – 4

Apollo: god of the silver bow – 2; distant archer – 1; deadly archer – 1; distant deadly archer – 2; the archer – 4

Leto: sleek haired – 1

Hera: white armed – 5; goddess of the golden throne – 1

Hector: man-killing – 1

Odysseus: versatile – 1; tactful – 1

Zeus: Cronus’ son – 6; father of men and gods – 1; Olympian lord of lightning – 1

Hephaestus: master craftsman – 1; the god of fire – 1; famous crippled smith – 1

The Iliad Preview

We are going to begin our study of the classics with The Iliad by Homer. This is the edition I am using if you wish to use the same one.

In preparing for going through The Iliad, I came across this quote by Alexander Pope: “Homer makes us Hearers, and Virgil leaves us Readers.” I want us to be thinking of this quote as we go through The Iliad, The Odyssey, and The Aeneid.

But this brings us to the first point. Was The Iliad first orally spoken or was it written down? It turns out there is evidence for both. There are certain set phrases, including the characteristics of the various heroes and gods, that can be interchanged depending on the needs of the rhythmic pattern. However, according to scholars, there also appear contradictions in The Iliad that are the type of contradictions that would have been discovered if it had been written down. The best guess is that it is a written poem by a poet using the tools of oral tradition.

Next, there is the authorship. The Iliad is attributed to an ancient Greek poet named Homer who tradition tells us was blind. The fact of the matter is that we know nothing about Homer, even if there was a person named Homer. This is because the poem was created in the late 8th or early 7th century B.C., and there is very little we know from that period in Greece history. What we can tell from The Iliad itself is thTat it uses different dialects and specialized vocabulary which complicates the dating and authorship of the work.

What about The Iliad as a poem? It has twenty-four chapters that were written in hexameter, which means it has six metrical units per line.

As for the manuscript history of The Iliad, the printed versions go back to printers in Italy. The manuscripts these printings were based on were brought to Italy from Byzantium shortly before it fell in 1453. Byzantium had kept the knowledge of the Roman Empire since that empire fell in the west around 500 A.D. And the Romans in turn had learning from the Greeks. During this process, the manuscript would have been copied any number of times.

Finally, what is the poem about? Iliad literally means “a poem about Ilium” or Troy. The Trojan War lasted for a decade, but The Iliad itself narrates only a few weeks towards the end of that war. If it is a poem about Troy, then it tells what lead to Troy’s fall, though not the fall itself.

As we read The Iliad there is one final point we must remember. Whatever modern day scholars may say about the historicity of this work, to the ancient Greeks this was real history to them.

Next time will be chapter 1. Enjoy!

 My rendering of Greece and Troy to give us some sense of the scene.

Welcome!

Welcome to Cindy’s Classic’s Corner! What is the inspiration for this blog? I blame Arthur Henry King. I very recently read his book The Abundance of the Heart. I should probably do a post just on that book someday. But to suffice it to say, he grew up without many books, but most of those books were classics and they profoundly affected him. He talked about what he considered some of the greatest classics, and I realized that I had not read most of them.

So this blog will go through the classics. Most of them, especially to begin with, will be new to me. At other times I will talk about old favorites.

But the most important thing I want to do with this is to have fun. Yes, I believe the classics can be fun. So how will I make the classics fun? First, by making references to current popular culture. For example, I might point out how Anakin Sywalker is as broody as Hamlet. If I can make a reference to Star Wars, Doctor Who, Marvel, or DC I will.

Second, if there is a Tolkien connection to be made, I will make it. I am getting my second masters in Tolkien and Medieval Studies from Signum University. Along with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien was a Philologist specializing in Anglo-Saxon and related languages who taught at Oxford for many years. What you may not know is the fact that Tolkien as an undergraduate started in the Classics. He ended up almost failing because he was spending all his time studying Gothic or Finnish or Welsh instead of Greek and Latin like he was supposed to. However, thanks to this experience Tolkien was influenced (perhaps more than he liked to admit) by the classics of Greek and Roman literature.

Second, and more important, I am going to look at these works from the perspective of a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You may have heard us called Mormons before. This means I am going to relate these works to the scriptures, meaning The Bible and The Book of Mormon.

While it would be ideal if we could go through these works in their original language, this is not going to happen. I know Portuguese, and even in that I am slow. I expect many of my readers will not know the original language themselves. So to help me keep on a schedule and to help you my readers we will be using English translations. However, if you do know the language a particular work is originally in, feel free to follow along in the original language, and I would be particularly interested in your observations.

I welcome comments, but please keep things civil. I hope this will be a fun and enlightening experience for all of us!