Homer, “Doh!” The first great intellectual work of Western civilization. I have started this many times and could never make it all the way through. I have probably read almost all of this work, but only in fragments. I will take it at an easy pace, and try and see what I can garner this time around.
Book One
“Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus’ son Achilleus
and its devastation, which put pains thousandfold upon the Achaians,
hurled in their multitudes to the house of Hades strong souls
of heroes, but gave their bodies to be the delicate feasting
of dogs, of all birds, and the will of Zeus was accomplished
since that time when first there stood in division of conflict
Atreus’ son the lord of men and brilliant Achilleus.”
Thus it begins.
“He came as night comes down. . .”
Describing Apollo moments before he visits his rage upon the Danaans (led by Achilleus) after Agamemnon dishonored Apollo’s priest by refusing to return his daughter and to go forth against Priam’s city.
What is a “hecatomb”? A public sacrifice of 100 oxen to the gods.
Kalchas, son of Thestor, the bird interpreter (Bk 1, v. 69). I am fascinated by the idea of a bird seer. I recall the movie “The Man Who Would be King” (Sean Connery and Michael Caine acting out the Rudyard Kipling short story) in which the ancient Kafiristan priests were divining by reading the innards of birds. As an aside, I must record my favorite line from that movie: “. . .Danny never let go of Peachy’s hand and Peachy never let go of Danny’s head.” Kalchas is smart to make Achilles promise to protect him before divining.
Apparently the terms "augur" and "auspices" both derive from the ancient art of bird divination. Thus the phrases "this does not auger well" and "he came under good auspices" have ancient roots.
“Seer of evil: never yet have you told me a good thing.” – Agamemnon to Kalchas (v. 106).
But isn’t this the way of ALL prophesy. I can’t recall a single prophesy in scripture or history that portends a pleasant or positive happening. Furthermore, isn’t most prophesy in some aspect a form of supplication. The prophesy is not . . . This will happen. It is usually . . . This will happen, UNLESS. It is this “unless” that which empowers a prophesy more than the foreknowledge of the event itself. You must ask, when considering a prophesy, just what exactly is it that the prophet (or his divine source) wishes to accomplish? The first word that comes to my mind is “obedience.”
Agamemnon threatens to take Achilleus’ prize, “the fair cheeked Briseis,” in replace of having to return Chyseis, the daughter of Apollo’s priest, in order to appease Apollo. Achilleus is about to kill Agamemnon when Hera sends Athene to intervene. Athene advises Achilleus that he cannot slay Agamemnon, but that he can verbally abuse him as much as he desires. I love the following insult (v. 225):
“You wine sack, with a dog’s eyes, with a deer’s heart . . . .” Achilleus to Agamemnon.
What drives this fearful jealous desire of mankind to be recognized (i.e. Andy Warhol’s proverbial fifteen minutes)? Agamemnon is afraid of giving up his prize (Chyseis) for fear of appearing less than those generals who kept theirs. Thus he goes after Achilleus’ prize (Briseis). But for Athena’s warning, Achilleus would have killed him in order to protect his prize. Yet later, driven to tears of rage, he begs his mother, Thetis, to petition Zeus to help the Trojans beat his own countrymen so that they may be punished for failing to properly honor him and allowing Agamemnon to take his slave girl.
This is all nuts!!! Agamemnon is a bad leader, and Achilleus is a petulant leader. I wonder what that lowly Achaian grunt thinks about all of this, the one who is going to be the spear bearer in the very first line of infantry, the one who’s only prize is a dry spot of sand where he can beat off in the night before the morning comes and he is ordered to clear Agamemnon’s path with his spilt guts.
It strikes me that the anecdote of Odysseus delivering Chryseis back to her father (v. 430 - 488) feels as if it was written in a different voice than the rest of the poem up to that point. It has almost a proselyte feel to it, particularly in the details of the feast of Apollo. It is striking how the depiction of the sharing of the wine at Apollo’s feast is so reminiscent (or should I say prescient?) of the Marriage at Canna or the Last Supper.
I find Hera’s son Hephaistos intriguing. He urges his mother to stop resisting Zeus and his plans for the Achaians, and recounts an episode when he stood against Zeus on her behalf. He says that Zeus grabbed him by the foot and threw him from the “magic threshold” and that “all day long I dropped” and that he then landed in Lemnos at sunset and that his injuries were tended by the Sintian men.
What is all this then? What is the magic threshold? Where is Lemnos? Who are the Sintian men who took care of him? What did Hera do in the first place to get this all started?
Hephaistos was a smitty to the gods, and he apparently crafted all of their homes up on Mount Olympus, even Zeus' home. Yet as he was pouring drinks for all of the other gods, “uncontrollable laughter went up as they saw Hephaistos bustling about the palace.” Why would Hephaistos cause such laughter? Was it his limp? Was he an object of their ridicule?
Book One
“Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus’ son Achilleus
and its devastation, which put pains thousandfold upon the Achaians,
hurled in their multitudes to the house of Hades strong souls
of heroes, but gave their bodies to be the delicate feasting
of dogs, of all birds, and the will of Zeus was accomplished
since that time when first there stood in division of conflict
Atreus’ son the lord of men and brilliant Achilleus.”
Thus it begins.
“He came as night comes down. . .”
Describing Apollo moments before he visits his rage upon the Danaans (led by Achilleus) after Agamemnon dishonored Apollo’s priest by refusing to return his daughter and to go forth against Priam’s city.
What is a “hecatomb”? A public sacrifice of 100 oxen to the gods.
Kalchas, son of Thestor, the bird interpreter (Bk 1, v. 69). I am fascinated by the idea of a bird seer. I recall the movie “The Man Who Would be King” (Sean Connery and Michael Caine acting out the Rudyard Kipling short story) in which the ancient Kafiristan priests were divining by reading the innards of birds. As an aside, I must record my favorite line from that movie: “. . .Danny never let go of Peachy’s hand and Peachy never let go of Danny’s head.” Kalchas is smart to make Achilles promise to protect him before divining.
Apparently the terms "augur" and "auspices" both derive from the ancient art of bird divination. Thus the phrases "this does not auger well" and "he came under good auspices" have ancient roots.
“Seer of evil: never yet have you told me a good thing.” – Agamemnon to Kalchas (v. 106).
But isn’t this the way of ALL prophesy. I can’t recall a single prophesy in scripture or history that portends a pleasant or positive happening. Furthermore, isn’t most prophesy in some aspect a form of supplication. The prophesy is not . . . This will happen. It is usually . . . This will happen, UNLESS. It is this “unless” that which empowers a prophesy more than the foreknowledge of the event itself. You must ask, when considering a prophesy, just what exactly is it that the prophet (or his divine source) wishes to accomplish? The first word that comes to my mind is “obedience.”
Agamemnon threatens to take Achilleus’ prize, “the fair cheeked Briseis,” in replace of having to return Chyseis, the daughter of Apollo’s priest, in order to appease Apollo. Achilleus is about to kill Agamemnon when Hera sends Athene to intervene. Athene advises Achilleus that he cannot slay Agamemnon, but that he can verbally abuse him as much as he desires. I love the following insult (v. 225):
“You wine sack, with a dog’s eyes, with a deer’s heart . . . .” Achilleus to Agamemnon.
What drives this fearful jealous desire of mankind to be recognized (i.e. Andy Warhol’s proverbial fifteen minutes)? Agamemnon is afraid of giving up his prize (Chyseis) for fear of appearing less than those generals who kept theirs. Thus he goes after Achilleus’ prize (Briseis). But for Athena’s warning, Achilleus would have killed him in order to protect his prize. Yet later, driven to tears of rage, he begs his mother, Thetis, to petition Zeus to help the Trojans beat his own countrymen so that they may be punished for failing to properly honor him and allowing Agamemnon to take his slave girl.
This is all nuts!!! Agamemnon is a bad leader, and Achilleus is a petulant leader. I wonder what that lowly Achaian grunt thinks about all of this, the one who is going to be the spear bearer in the very first line of infantry, the one who’s only prize is a dry spot of sand where he can beat off in the night before the morning comes and he is ordered to clear Agamemnon’s path with his spilt guts.
It strikes me that the anecdote of Odysseus delivering Chryseis back to her father (v. 430 - 488) feels as if it was written in a different voice than the rest of the poem up to that point. It has almost a proselyte feel to it, particularly in the details of the feast of Apollo. It is striking how the depiction of the sharing of the wine at Apollo’s feast is so reminiscent (or should I say prescient?) of the Marriage at Canna or the Last Supper.
I find Hera’s son Hephaistos intriguing. He urges his mother to stop resisting Zeus and his plans for the Achaians, and recounts an episode when he stood against Zeus on her behalf. He says that Zeus grabbed him by the foot and threw him from the “magic threshold” and that “all day long I dropped” and that he then landed in Lemnos at sunset and that his injuries were tended by the Sintian men.
What is all this then? What is the magic threshold? Where is Lemnos? Who are the Sintian men who took care of him? What did Hera do in the first place to get this all started?
Hephaistos was a smitty to the gods, and he apparently crafted all of their homes up on Mount Olympus, even Zeus' home. Yet as he was pouring drinks for all of the other gods, “uncontrollable laughter went up as they saw Hephaistos bustling about the palace.” Why would Hephaistos cause such laughter? Was it his limp? Was he an object of their ridicule?
Here is more on Hephaistos. I think he would be an interesting subject for a short story or poem.
3 comments:
Hello Mike, simply done, to you plus Simon from the Via the web.
Also visit my page :: Genital Warts Remedy
That can be done each Ed although you ought
to concentration more on a evaluate web site per
se.
Feel free to surf my web site :: Removing Genital Warts
My brother proposed I'd like this weblog. They has been right. The following absolutely designed our time. You can not picture the time I had put together invested trying to find this specific.
Here is my web-site ; socialmediadigger.co.uk
Post a Comment