*
[Aside: Just saw Wolfgang Petersen's Troy with my students here in Taipei. A worthwhile film in general. Although Petersen's plot departed from Homer
and the Greek legends, he did a worthy job bringing the spirit of the epic to
film. And Brad Pitt gave us an
impressive Achilles.
Did I
say Petersen kept to the spirit of Homer?
I should have qualified a bit: He did so until the last fifteen minutes. I'm eager to cut the last fifteen
minutes, just cut it right off the end of the film. Achilles running through the burning city crying
"Briseis! Briseis!" was
an unfortunate idea. A sad change
of character.
Killing
off Menelaus was forgivable. But
not killing off Achilles a bit earlier was not quite forgivable. It clouded the hero's stark meaning:
something Pitt had worked so hard to bring forth. And what's with that donut shop cashier called in to be
Aeneas?
But everything until the Achaeans crawl from the horse was well
done.
Official film site at: http://troymovie.warnerbros.com/ --E.]
*
"Homer" is the poet of the two great surviving
Greek epics, the Iliad
and the Odyssey. The Iliad is often compared to tragedy, the Odyssey to comedy.
Scholarly arguments about Homer and his poems started in
ancient times and continue to this day.
The main problem is that we know nothing about Homer himself. He may have lived around 800 B.C. or
somewhat earlier or later. One
common legend about him was that he was blind. Various cities claimed to be his birthplace. Beyond this, there is no solid
information.
Some scholars believe the two epics were not in fact
composed by the same poet. The Iliad is usually dated earlier than the Odyssey.
Other scholars believe the two epics were the work of many poets. According to this view, different oral
poets contributed different parts of the stories to scribes who wrote them down
and who then harmonized them into the two epics we have, choosing the best of
the various versions.
The Trojan War was the most famous war in the ancient
Western world. Scholars debate
about how or if the Trojan War really happened, but regardless of the actual
history of the war, detailed legends still survive in writing. It is these legends that ancient Greeks
and Romans understood to be the "history" of the Trojan War.
The reason there are legends of the war but little reliable
history is very simple. If the
Trojan War happened, it probably happened around 1200 B.C. But at the time of the war nothing was
written down. The earliest
writings we have about the war are Homer's epics, which were written down
around four centuries later. That
makes 400 years of storytelling.
According to legend, the war began because of a beautiful
woman. The princess Helen,
daughter of Leda and Zeus, was known to be the most beautiful woman in all
Greece. As such, she had many
suitors. Many of the suitors were
powerful kings or princes, and they all came to Sparta to win her hand. Her step-father, King Tyndareus, didn't
know which to choose: to choose one would anger the others, and war would result. Finally one of the suitors, wise Odysseus
from Ithaca, offered a solution.
He told King Tyndareus to force all the suitors to make a solemn oath:
whoever was chosen by the king to be Helen's husband, the other suitors would
support him. And if anyone tried
to break up the new marriage, the other suitors would come to the couple's
rescue. Thus the suitors all took
the oath, and King Tyndareus could safely announce his decision. He would give Helen to Menelaus,
brother of Agamemnon.
Meanwhile, across the Aegean Sea, the Trojan prince Paris had
just received a promise from the goddess of love, Aphrodite. The three goddesses Hera, Athena and
Aphrodite had come to Paris and asked him to judge which of them was the most
beautiful (this is the famous story of the Golden Apple). Aphrodite promised Paris that if he
chose her, she would give him the world's most beautiful woman in return. Paris chose Aphrodite, and the goddess
told him he would have to cross the sea and go to Sparta in Greece. Once he was there, she would help him
to get Helen from her husband Menelaus.
Paris stole Helen from Menelaus and took her back to
Troy. When Menelaus realized his
wife had left with the foreigner, he and his brother Agamemnon sent out
messengers to remind all the Greek suitors of their solemn oath to defend the
marriage. Since it would be
shameful to break a solemn oath, most of the Greeks agreed to go to Troy.
The war lasted ten years, much longer than the Greeks had
expected. It finally ended when
the clever Odysseus, the same man who had suggested the oath, came up with the
idea of the wooden horse (known afterwards as the Trojan Horse). The city of Troy was destroyed, nearly
all the Trojan men were killed and the women taken as slaves, and Helen was
taken back to Sparta by her husband Menelaus.
Homer's
Iliad
The Iliad
holds a unique place in Western literature: it is commonly recognized as the
greatest work of Greek literature, and it is also believed to be the first work
of Greek literature that was written down. Though Greek literature continued for centuries after the Iliad was written, no writer could ever
achieve something greater than that very first work.
The Iliad
does not cover the whole story of the Trojan War. Instead it presents just one episode of the war: the
conflict between Achilles and Agamemnon that occurred in the war's ninth year.
Agamemnon was the commander of the Greek armies that went to
Troy. As a commander, he was
arrogant and selfish, and often let his pride cloud his judgment. Achilles was the greatest warrior of all
the Greeks. He was hot-tempered
and also very proud.
During the war, when girls were captured from the enemy they
were kept as slaves. Girls were
considered part of the war booty.
Agamemnon had one such slave girl named Chryseis. Achilles had a girl named Briseis.
The father of Agamemnon's slave girl was a priest of
Apollo. When the priest came to
ransom back his daughter from Agamemnon, the Greek commander insulted him and
told him if he came back again he would be killed. As the priest left the Greek camp, he prayed to Apollo to
get revenge on the Greeks.
Apollo listened to the priest's prayer. The Greeks began to die from a disease
sent to them by the god.
Finally Agamemnon realized he would have to give the girl back. But he decided that he, as commander,
could not be left without a girl.
It would be a dishonor. So
he told Achillles he would take his girl, Briseis, to replace Chryseis.
Achilles was enraged by this decision. He announced that he would no longer
help Agamemnon in his war against the Trojans. After Agamemnon took Briseis, Achilles refused to fight.
This was good news for the Trojans. Achilles was the greatest Greek
warrior. With Achilles out of the
battle, the Trojan side began to dominate.
Hector was the greatest of the Trojan warriors. Although not as great a warrior as
Achilles, with Achilles refusing to fight there was no Greek warrior who could
stand up to Hector. The Trojans
fought their way closer and closer to the Greek camp. If they could manage to burn the Greek ships, the Greeks
would have no hope: they would not be able to get back to Greece; their morale
would be broken and their cause would be lost. . . .
The Iliad
is a story about many things. For
one, it is about the power of fate, and how one cannot avoid one's fate. Achilles knows that if he stays to
fight at Troy he is fated to die there.
He is told by his mother that he has a choice: If he stays at Troy, he
is fated to die, but his fame will live forever. If he returns home, if he leaves the war, he will live a
long life, but he will lose his fame.
The Iliad
is also about the horrors of war: how men are broken under the
kill-or-be-killed mechanics of wartime.
(One of the best essays ever written on the Iliad focuses on this aspect of the poem. See Simone Weil: "The Iliad: Poem
of Might.") The Iliad is a very interesting war story in that
it is sympathetic to both sides.
Although a work of "Greek" literature, the Iliad does not present the Trojans as being
morally worse than the Greeks.
They may be the enemy, but they are presented with the same sympathy and
dignity as the Greeks. (How many
modern war stories, or war movies, can reach this level of humanism?)
Perhaps most obviously, the Iliad is a poem about the struggle of two
characters, Agamemnon and Achilles.
Though both on the same side, the two men come to hate each other, and
their conflict nearly leads to Greek defeat.
The Iliad
begins with the poet's famous evocation of the Muse:
Anger be now your song, immortal one,
Achilles' anger, doomed and ruinous,
that caused the Achaeans loss on
bitter loss
and crowded brave souls into the
undergloom,
leaving so many dead men--carrion
for dogs and birds; and the will of
Zeus was done.
. . . .
Around the 9th c. B.C. Greeks from Euboea established the
first Greek colonies in Italy.
According to some scholars (cf. especially Barry Powell), the Odyssey was most likely composed on Euboea
between 800 and 750. Its audience
was one of men who often listened to seamen who had traveled to the far
West.
In fact Odysseus' adventures were from early times identified with geographic features around Italy: Calypso's Ogygia with Malta, Polyphemus' island with Sicily, Scylla and Charybdis with the Straits of Messina, etc.
Homer ("Homer") must have heard many sailors' tales or perhaps even traveled west himself.
In Homer's Odyssey the adventures of the hero Odysseus are arranged around a
vision of moral purpose and national identity. At times Odysseus nearly forgets his goal--to return to
Ithaca and his family. At other
times he is shown as the lonely Greek who stands against the alien and barbaric
customs of the foreign places in which he wanders.
Like the Iliad,
the Odyssey begins
with an evocation of the Muse:
Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell
the story
of that man skilled in all ways of
contending,
the wanderer, harried for years on
end,
after he plundered the stronghold
of the proud height of Troy.
. . . .
Odysseus is away from home twenty years: ten at Troy, three
lost at sea, and seven on Calypso's island. (Calypso: "concealer".) The following is a basic chronological plan of the events
narrated in the Odyssey:
The Cicones in Ismarus;
The Lotus Eaters;
Polyphemus;
Aeolus;
The Laestrygonians;
Circe on Aeaea;
Cross the river Ocean to the land of the
dead to meet Tiresias;
The Sirens;
Scylla and Charybdis;
The Cattle of Helius;
Calypso on Ogygia ("the navel of the
Sea");
Near Scheria, island of the Phaeacians,
his boat is wrecked by Poseidon;
Saved by Ino/Leukothea;
Arrives on Scheria;
Nausicaa;
Narration to the Phaeacians;
Return home;
Eumaeus;
Reveals himself to Telemachus;
Recognized by Argus;
Meets the suitors, led by Antinous;
Meeting with Penelope;
Euryclea washes his feet;
Penelope arranges for the Contest of the
Bow;
Massacre of the suitors;
Penelope's ruse of the bed.
Though this is a chronological list of the events as they
occurred, note that it does not represent the order of narration in the Odyssey.
In his epic, Homer begins the story in the middle, allowing Odysseus to
narrate to the Phaeacians the adventures he's undergone up to that point. For a poet (or poets) working in the
8th century B.C., this represents a very sophisticated plot device.
In Western literature the character Odysseus is always cast
in one of two ways: either he is glorified as a restless and clever seeker
after the truth of the world; or he is damned as a treacherous deceiver, a denier
of the heart. Among the ancients,
Homer casts him in the first mode; Sophocles (in Philoctetes), Euripides and Vergil all cast him in
the second mode.
In the Middle Ages, the great Italian poet Dante sides with his Roman
model Vergil and casts Odysseus in the negative way. (cf. Inferno,
canto 26)
In the modern period, Tennyson's poem "Ulysses" puts the hero and his restlessness in a mainly positive light. Joyce's Leopold Bloom, the 20th century's most famous evocation of Odysseus, is a merely likable Dublin salesman.
Eric Mader
Taipei, 2004
Email: inthemargins03@hotmail.com
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