Classics and the Western Canon discussion

Book 11 is the start of the longest day of battle. Agamemnon starts with his aristeia; it is an almost classic aristeia -- we see him in detail arming himself, then he goes out and fights magnificently, killing countless Trojans, having a career day, until at last he gets wounded and has to withdraw temporarily. Gradually other Greek heroes get wounded and also have to withdraw, and the battle starts going very badly for the Greeks.

Achilles still sits out the fighting, but he is concerned enough to send Patroclus out to see how the battle is going; Patroclus gets distracted from his mission by going to aid a wounded comrade.

This seems to me to be a superb account of hand to hand combat in pre-gunpowder days. First this fighter, then that fighter, have moments of great valor while others experience times of fear and cowardice. The battle ebbs and flows. Troops get discouraged, are roused back by stirring speeches, commanders get confused by the fog of war. This and the following books seem to me some of the finest battle literature ever written.

Did anyone else get the sense than when reading the opening pages of this book, the description of Agamemnon's armor, that Homer was anticipating Women's Wear Daily -- and perhaps fashion writing in general?

Bill wrote: "Did anyone else get the sense than when reading the opening pages of this book, the description of Agamemnon's armor, that Homer was anticipating Women's Wear Daily -- and perhaps fashion writing i..."

Uh, no. [g]

I can't get the notion of Women's Wear Daily out of my mind

And then Alcmene, fashion forward, awoke
to prepare for battle. First she bathed her long-tresses
Which flowed down her back to just below her shoulder
Full of body, even without using product,
She put on her mother's vintage Yves St. Laurent,
Not from his workshop but drawn by Yves himself
While a muse filled his brain with whispers
Many suggestions of line and color.
The fabric, woven by Arachne before Athena
Transformed her, now two delicate shoulder straps of
Iris-colored purple expanded to cover her bosom
Though the neckline was low and showed them off.
Gathered at waist...

Just a draft and very quickly done...but still...and it would explain stripping the fashions from the dead.
.

Patrice,

I was thinking of you this morning -- reading much more moving examples than that.

My short answer -- and really I think we could go on in circles about this -- is that part of the greatness of Homer is that this is no comic book treatment of battle. Homer isn't flinching from the brutal aspects of war at all.

But I don't think recognizing war even in its most brutal aspects as he does suggests that he doesn't think wars should be fought, and we should all just get along.

I think he thinks it's glorious for the winners and tragic for the losers. And I believe that's what he thinks life is. I don't think he thinks to change it. I don't even think that would have occurred to him.

Bill wrote: "Did anyone else get the sense than when reading the opening pages of this book, the description of Agamemnon's armor, that Homer was anticipating Women's Wear Daily -- and perhaps fashion writing i..."

Not Women's Wear Daily, but it did strike a little odd to me. This is the second time that Agamemnon is being described in dressing, but in more detail. Has there been another given this much attention to thier dress?

Patrice wrote: "Juliette wrote: "Bill wrote: "Did anyone else get the sense than when reading the opening pages of this book, the description of Agamemnon's armor, that Homer was anticipating Women's Wear Daily --..."

I wonder if the reason why such emphasis is placed specifically on Agamemnon's dress is because of his status?

Patrice, I think ritual is the right word. Perhaps in a sense they are preparing themselves for possible death. I have no idea.

Silver, I think he has this elaborate dress because of his position and wealth and it signifies that as well -- and think his audience would be interested in hearing it described. Me not so much -- but then, yes. In some cases (view spoiler)[ the shield of Achilles fashioned by Hephaestus (hide spoiler)] it is the opportunity to produce a work of imagination. It's a little hard at this distance without knowing the fine points of 13th century.

Bill wrote: "Patrice, I think ritual is the right word. Perhaps in a sense they are preparing themselves for possible death. I have no idea.

Silver, I think he has this elaborate dress because of his position ..."

All the dressing up scenes remind me of romance novels. May I quickly add that I've never read romance novels other than those written by my sister, but she always goes into detail about what the heroine puts on for the day. It's padding, I guess.

Laurele wrote: "Bill wrote: "Patrice, I think ritual is the right word. Perhaps in a sense they are preparing themselves for possible death. I have no idea.

Silver, I think he has this elaborate dress because of ..."

I think it may also be just a way of giving the reader an idea of the dress, and the "ritual" of dressing before battle. The choice of showing Agamemnon as the one dressing might be one, it would take too long to show the detail of everyone dressing, and two because of his status, he may have more elaborate dress which may make his dressing habits more interesting, and perhaps more distant/unknown to the common audience?

In a way I suppose it is no different than how much interest we take in the fashion of our celebrities, people want to hear about the fashion of the King's and heroes of their day.

Patrice wrote: "It seems to me that Agamemnon has found his heart.
After the terrible night of fear and anticipation he has changed and no longer holds back, letting others do the fighting for him. He is a lion. ..."

And it appears that Achilles has found his heart, or something approaching it. He is watching the battle with great interest, in part because the Greeks are routed, but in part because he sees friends injured. Maybe he feels like a great athlete who has been sidelined by an injury, watching the game and wishing he could be in it.

There is some extraordinary writing. Here's one example

They killed with the bronze, and among them powerful Agamemnon       
went onward always slaying and urged on the rest of the Argives.
As when obliterating fire comes down on the timbered forest
and the roll of the wind carries it everywhere, and bushes        
leaning under the force of the fire’s rush tumble uprooted,        
so before Atreus’ son Agamemnon went down the high heads
of the running Trojans, and in many places the strong-necked horses
rattled their empty chariots along the causeways of battle,        
and longed for their haughty charioteers, who were lying
along the ground, to delight no longer their wives, but the vultures.

Lattimore, Richmond; Martin, Richard; Homer, (2011-09-19). The Iliad of Homer (p. 257). University of Chicago Press. Kindle Edition.

There is frequently as with Iphidamus the sense of woman back home. In this case, a woman he never even got to sleep with and vice versa. Homer is aware of the connection between men and women, and uses it to great effect in this book.

(I particularly liked the bride-price -- 100 oxen, a thousand head of goats and sheep. This must have been some babe!)

I didn't read too much into the descriptions of Agamemnon dressing. I rather think it's a device to show how much thought and care he is putting into the coming battle. I've read descriptions like that throughout literature. Perhaps it's jarring to us because generally is is women who are so depicted, but it makes equal sense in a male context.

And, Bill, a woman only has one bosom. To cover 'her bosoms' she must have very odd anatomy indeed.

Rosemary,

Well, I was kidding, but I think that the descriptions were interesting to the original audience.

You're right about the bosom thing, of course. Two breasts, one bosom. Three French hens. Two calling birds. One partridge.

I was joking myself about that, please know [g].

At 5 Patrice wrote: "It seems to me that Agamemnon has found his heart.... He is a lion. .Agamemnon has turned into a hero. But it's only after he has suffered. He has been humbled.

.."

Yes! He's fighting fiercely! His offer has been rejected by Achilles (and also, I think, everything...army, treasure, women, life itself... is at stake. Whether or not he still retains the official title of "the greater" ... it is his very life that is now on the line.)

Laurele wrote: "Bill wrote: "Patrice, I think ritual is the right word. Perhaps in a sense they are preparing themselves for possible death. I have no idea.

Silver, I think he has this elaborate dress because of ..."

I was thinking that it reflected how much importance Agamemnon put in externals, in the symbols of his power and position. That he enjoyed showing off his own status. Laugh: but...he would probably be wearing "kingly garb" (GQ) no matter what his personality was.

Bill wrote: "There is some extraordinary writing. Here's one example

They killed with the bronze, and among them powerful Agamemnon       
went onward always slaying and urged on the rest of the Argives.
As wh..."

Or this line, from Fagles:

"And the men like gangs of reapers slashing down
the reaping-rows and coming closer, closer across
the field of a warlord rich in wheat or barley--
swaths by the armfuls falling thick-and-fast--
so Achaeans and Trojans closed and slashed..." (11.75)

Bill wrote: "Just a draft and very quickly done...but still...and it would explain stripping the fashions from the dead."

Amusing, but I think the stripping armor had perhaps two main purposes. One, of course, it was valuable in its own right, and it sounds as though the best warriors might have gone through a bunch of armor over time. But second, it kept the armor from becoming available to another member of the opposing army. Oh, and maybe also it was just a sort of insult to the dead?

I think the valuable in its own right is absolutely key,
because so much of the armor is extraordinary. I think Homer is providing us with a kind of weaponry porn.

And the nature of armor is that people try to penetrate it.

And then spears got thrown and are not recoverable so having a collection is a good idea.

But what other significance it had -- who knows?

**What strikes me as strange is that people had time to do this in the middle of a battle. It would seem to me that you'd make an excellent target.

Patrice wrote: "I thought it might be a kind of trophy. The way Indians scalped people."

Bingo! According to Hansen and Quinn's Greek: An Intensive Course: "According to ancient etymology, a tropaion (trophy) was set up on the field of battle at the point where the victors forced the defeated enemy to turn and run (cf. the verb trepo, "make turn"). It consisted of a representative sample of the defeated enemies' weapons and was sacred and hence inviolable. No victory was complete until the victors had commemorated their victory by setting up a trophy."

This is a later use of the term -- I don't think we see trophies set up like this in Homer. Weapons and armor were far too valuable to leave on the field at this time. But soldiers fighting in later years must have remembered their Homer when they were setting up their trophies.

Everyman wrote: "Amusing, but I think the stripping armor had perhaps two main purposes. One, of course, it was valuable in its own right, and it sounds as though the best warriors might have gone through a bunch of armor over time. But second, it kept the armor from becoming available to another member of the opposing army. Oh, and maybe also it was just a sort of insult to the dead?
..."

I just assumed it was a part of war. Every single historical book I've ever read that has battles in it (from Rome to England to Asia...) there's always the stripping of the armor (and/or valuables). Wasn't it how the soldiers/fighters were paid? I don't think Agamemnon is paying these men to fight.

Adelle wrote: "Bill wrote: "There is some extraordinary writing. Here's one example

They killed with the bronze, and among them powerful Agamemnon       
went onward always slaying and urged on the rest of th..."

The reapers remind me again of Tolstoy.

Laurele wrote: "..The reapers remind me again of Tolstoy. ."

Patrice, too, has been put in mind of Tolstoy. And I read somewhere..not here on Goodreads...that others have seen something in War and Peace and makes them think of the Iliad. For myself, I just don't have that feeling. I read War and Peace probably when I was in high school. Maybe that's why I don't see a connection?

I read War and Peace during the summer and fall of 2010 -- and I'd been out of high school a while in 2010. I read Anna Karenina about four years ago.

I also know that Tolstoy didn't consider War and Peace a novel, but an "epic." Tolstoy knew Greek (and French and German and English and who knows what other languages.) He considered Anna Karenina his first novel. There may be parallels there, And Tolstoy may have had The Iliad in mind.

But it was an epic based on his family, on his particular reading on Russian history, and the mode was high realism not heroic. Homer's narrative despite references to 9-10 years is brief -- Tolstoy's stretches over years. Homer's epic is primarily from the point of the invaders. Tolstoy's is from the point of view of the defenders. Half the main characters in Tolstoy are women.

And in all of The Iliad , there's not one single line of French. :-)

I don't see it. I simply don't see it at all. I'm not saying there are no parallels, I'm sure some can be pointed out. But really these are two profoundly different works and I don't see a major parallel.

I wouldn't believe it if Tolstoy said it. I don't believe a lot of what Tolstoy said. Not least of which, all happy families are alike and unhappy families different, that Shakespeare and Chekhov were terrible playwrights, and that the divinely ordained role for women is motherhood.

Bill wrote: "I read War and Peace during the summer and fall of 2010 -- and I'd been out of high school a while in 2010. I read Anna Karenina about four years ago.

I also know that Tolstoy didn't consider..."

Oh, yes, the too books are very, very different., like many other books that remind me of each other in certain ways.

I tell you...what I remember mostly of War and Peace was neither war nor peace. What always comes first to mind for me is Pierre, there in the drawing room, where he's adding up the numbers of the letters in his name, and not being satisfied, and then adding up the numbers using the French version of his name.

Surely that can't be the what Tolstoy would have wanted his readers to think of first. ("It's not. And stop calling me Shirley.")

Ah, Pierre! Dear, sweet, bumbling Pierre!

Bondarchuck's W&P is a great one.

Patrice wrote: ".."

lol. No, it wasn't assigned. I read it because it was "a great book." It took me FOREVER. Smile. But I have good memories of reading it. It was winter. We heated our house with wood and coal. I mostly read that book sitting in front of the heat vent with a quilt over me. (I could almost feel that Russian winter.)

And yes, Pierre. Never saw the movie. Guess I best get on that.

Laurele wrote: "Ah, Pierre! Dear, sweet, bumbling Pierre!"

Yes, sweet, bumbling Pierre. He got the money, and he got the pretty girl (Natalia Rostov is my favorite character in the book.) And in the end, he even knocked off the excess weight. Nikolai got Tolstoy's Mom. And Andrei got dead.

Maybe that's the origin of the "lucky Pierre" joke. ;-)

But back to the Iliad. At 6 Patrice wrote: "Line 4

"the wearisome goddess of hate" that leads to battle.
Doesn't sound to me like this is an endorsement for battle. No glory, no marching bands, no great cause.
Just "the wearisome goddess ..."

"wearisome goddess of hate" does NOT sound like an endorsement.

Falges reads: "But Zeus flung Strife on Achaea's fast ships, / the brutal goddess flaring his storm-shield, / his monstrous sign of war in both her fists"

But I have to think that Homer means these lines more as a "descriptive" of war than as an indictment. I say this because the book is glory, glory, glory, "Zeus is handing me glory, awesome glory."

And the men are never as elevated, as near to being gods, as when they are "all in" with a sword in one hand, a shield in the other, and a worthy warrior to wound or kill in front of them. "shining Hector," "now Zeus gave him glory"; or Ajax, "striding on like a god," "so glorious Ajax swept the field;" or "Euaemon's shining son Eurypylus" dashing in for the kill.

Patrice wrote: "LOL! Hysterical.

I fell in love with Pierre way before Natasha noticed him but was amazed by the other women in the class who hated him! No accounting for taste.

I believe Pierre was Tolstoy...."

Yes, more or less, although it's not really a self-portrait.

Actually, Natalia was Tania, Sophia's younger sister until the epilog. Then he switched to Sophia. You might like the biography of Sophia Tolstoy that came out...last year? Two years ago? I started it -- enough to get that comment -- but got distracted.

Line 1-2:

"Now Dawn rose up from bed by her lordly mate Tithonus, / bringing light to immortal gods and mortal men."

Tithonos was a Trojan. So perhaps Homer includes him here because the Greeks are dreading dawn and the Trojans are most anxiously looking forward to it.

(also...in later poems...Tithonos was the man who turned into a cricket, remember? Eos, Dawn, had asked Zeus to make him live forever....but as always the devil is in the details... Tithonos did live forever, but as Eos didn't specify that he should stay young, he got older and older and smaller and smaller...until he was a cricket.)

Bill! You probably already know this: Tennyson wrote a poem about him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithonus

http://www.online-literature.com/donn...

Couple of things:

If those hearing Homer already know the story....then Homer is emotionally reeling them in at Fagles 11.535:

Odysseus is speaking. He's just mortally wounded Socus. And he taunts him:

"But I, if I should die,
my comrades-in-arms will bury me in style!"

And the audience will be thinking straight away of someone who will NOT be buried in style by his comrades-in-arms.

2) This might simply be modernist thinking on my part. Still. It ties in so very well. Fagles at 11.602, 603, and 607:

Paris has just shot Machaon, "striking the healer with an arrow."

"Achaeans breathing fury feared for Machaon now:
what if the tide turned and Trojans killed the healer?
...
a good healer is worth a troop of other men."

Achilles, too, is a healer.

I haven't read the diaries, Patrice. Of course, Sophia might not have been the best source. Who wouldn't want to be Natalia Rostov? :-)

As Cary Grant once said, "Even I would like to be Cary Grant." That's one of my favorite lines.

Adelle,

Thanks. Actually, I didn't know either the story or the poem.

But it's extremely close to that of the Sybil who asked for as many years as there were grains of sand in her hand and forgot to ask for youth.

Before you sign a deal with the gods, you really need a good lawyer. :-(

Bill wrote: "Before you sign a deal with the gods, you really need a good lawyer. :-(

Exactly!

As Cary Grant once said, "Even I would like to be Cary Grant..."

What a great line! And you know, he probably would have liked to have been Cary Grant. (Patrice read Dyan Cannon's book.)

Dear Cary: My Life with Cary Grant

Adelle,

By the way, when I try to add book/author I don't get the cover. I just get the link. Is there a trick to that?

I read the summary of "Dear Cary" though. There was a line, "Happy Ever After proved elusive.'

After I picked my self from the floor from laughing, I thought, "Isn't it though?" :-)

Did someone already write about the missed opportunity here in Book 9? I don't think this is my own observation; pretty sure I read somewhere that this was a missed opportunity.

Fagles 11.718. The Greeks are being beaten back. Achilles says to Patroclus, "now I think they will grovel at my knees, / our Achaean comrades begging for their lives. [So it would seem that this is what Achilles wanted...as he said in Book 1...as he indicated in Book 9.] The need has reached them."

And Patroclus goes to find out what the situation is. And Nestor speaks with him. Nestor tells Patroclus to talk with Achilles. "The persuasion of a comrade has its powers. But if down deep some prophecy makes him balk [then] at least let Achilles send Patroclus into battle."

And at this point Eurypylus says there is "No hope." The Greeks at this point surely, surely know they need Achilles. PERHAPS they would be willing to acknowledge this. Perhaps at this point even Agamemnon would be willing to acknowlede this.

But Patroclus doesn't remember or doesn't heed the FIRST part of what Nestor had said to him. He does NOT try to persuade Achilles.

And he fails to return to Achilles when Achilles is waiting, Achilles is anticipating that the Greeks will now recognize his worth.

Patroclus stays with the wounded Eurypylus.
Eurypylus says "Machaon needs a good strong healer himself, he's racked with pain" And Patroclus says to Eurypylus.." I won't neglect you...with such a wound."

Well....I just believe that the gods themselves directed that arrow to Eurypylus...to waylay Patroclus....to keep him from delivering the message he has been urged to report.


And I think Homer is saying that the Greeks, too, need a strong healer, that the Greek army, too, is racked with pain. And in the very sentence prior to "Machaon needs a good strong healer" Homer has Eurypylus describe Achilles as a healer.


Had Patroclus delivered Nestor's message...timely, accurately, persuasively, then Achilles, knowing THEY KNOW there is "No hope," might have been willing to heal the breach between himself and Agamemnon, he might not have neglected then his warrior comrades...sorely wounded as they are without him.

Bill wrote: "Adelle,

By the way, when I try to add book/author I don't get the cover. I just get the link. Is there a trick to that?



It is, indeed, tricksy. When you go in to add the book, at the bottom of the screen, you are given the option of choosing "link" or "cover," and I think the default is "link." The trick is that if you want both the cover and the link, you have to, in effect, do the procedure twice. Add the cover. Go to "add book/author" a second time, and add the link.

Sadly, I shall have to read through Nestor's story again as I know there were a couple of points I wanted to bring forward...lol...and I only remember one of them.

This Nestor with the convenient stories.

1) He presents his stories as being parallel with Achilles' situation. But they AREN'T parallel. Nestor, wise tactitian, simply presents them that way.

Nestor says he killed Itymoneus ... "I was rustling their cattle in reprisal, you see"

Gotta love that "you see." It brings Patroclus in closer to him emotionally....makes him unconsciously more willing to hear in the story what Nestor wants him to hear.

So Nestor's story has something about dividing spoils (cf Achilles and Agamemnon) and about how there were reprisals and things went badly. (Or have I read not clearly understood this story?)

But in Nestor's story the feud broke out because he killed someone directly. Achilles didn't kill anyone. (No Greeks, anyway.) He simply stopped fighting for them.

2)Nestor reaches in and touches Patroclus emotionally yet again, evoking friedship and father:

"My friend, remember your father's last commands?"

3)Was Patroclus's father...was Achilles' father...so terribly hard of hearing? How loudly were they wont to speak? Especially in a father-son last words conversation?

Nestor says that he and Odysseus were in the halls and heard everything:

"The old horseman Peleus urging his son Achilles,
Now always be the best, my boy, the bravest,
and hold your head up high above the others"

And Achilles HAS been the best. But Agamemnon refuses to acknowledge that fact.

And Nestor tells Patroclus that HIS father had said,
"My child,/
Achilles is nobler than you with his immortal blood
but you are older. He has more power than you, by far, but give him sound advice, guide him, even in battle.
Achilles will listen to you--for his own good."{NICE touch: Do it for his own good}
adding,
"So the old man told you."

???? And that would have SEEMED to have been the logical place to end this speech. It would have seemed to have been the most powerful ending. But Nestor continues. Why? Does a look come over the face of Patroclus, a look that says, 'What are you talking about?' because Nestor then adds, "You've forgotten."

Nestor has befriended Patroclus. And although Achilles is clearly the alpha of the two (in fighting, in gifting women to Patroclus, in greeting the guests that come to the tent, in ordering food and wine prepared), Nestor has "established" that Patroclus's own father, in his last commands to his son, has elevated Patroclus to the one who should be giving advice to Achilles.

Now go persuade him!

"So old Nestor urged
and the fighting spirit leapt inside Patroclus--"

I think this was discussed on one of the earlier threads- that this being boys' book :) there's lots of fighting, ARMOUR and beautiful women. Homer seems to be talking a lot about clothing in this and the previous book- Book 10 suddenly talks a lot about animal skins. I guess partly its to appeal to the men, but also partly because armour weapons etc symbolised something greater, maybe Homer's intention is to re-emphasise Agamemnon's stature/status as a great king, through the description of his war-gear?
Thanks for all the information on what armour could have symbolised, these are the things that make it interesting
Hector earlier requests that even though his armour might be taken, his body be returned, which makes it clear that it would have been a common practice

Patrice, It looks like the main library has that movie. I put a hold on it last night. Thank you for the recommendation. Adelle

Adelle wrote, "But in Nestor's story the feud broke out because he killed someone directly. Achilles didn't kill anyone. (No Greeks, anyway.) He simply stopped fighting for them."

This worth noting because not killing Agamemnon was the chief thing Achilles was commanded/asked not to do.

1) Athena stays his hand. She specifically says Achilles can abuse him but not murder him.

2) Nestor in counseling Agamemnon and Achilles tells Agamemnon not to take Briseis and Achilles not to kill Agamemnon. The concern again is murder.

3) Aias blames Achilles for not accepting the gifts of Agamemnon by comparing it to accepting blood money, which one even accepts for the death of a child.

The poem seems to reflect a concern with killing and clan (?) vengeance, as an ultimately self-defeating way to resolve loss and hurt. It seems to suggest some kind of social transition.

And Achilles -- (view spoiler)[ while ultimately ravenous in revenge on the Trojans and Hektor for the death of Patroklos (hide spoiler)] -- does not kill other Achaians.

He only sits about the battle to make the point that Agamemnon refuses to accept -- the battle cannot be won without Achilles and it can be won with him.