The Homeric Epics: Iliad and Odyssey War Pigs I'm Coming Home TROY! The Trojan Women

Going to War, and Coming Home Again “Swift-footed” Achilleus  “Resourceful” Odysseus: Two ways of being a (“brilliant”) epic Hero Making a Name (the glory + the curse) vs. being a Nobody Heroic action and the role of Pity The question(s) of Change: What (or who) changes? How? How is change represented? Epic Conventions: Style, Structure and Significance

Greek Origins: The Homeric Epic Recalling / Retelling the Past: Epic vs. History (Thucydides) Conventions of (Homeric) Epic Style: epic description: a kind of “realism” (e.g. the wagon) epic simile: forging relations between unlike things Epic Form: Orality  Writing the epic song as performance how the poet ‘moves’ an audience

The rage of BRACHILLES… TROY! or, The rage of BRACHILLES…

Epic Simile: the human as inhuman Iliad, XX: As inhuman fire sweeps on in fury through the deep angles Of a drywood mountain and sets ablaze the depth of the timber And the blustering wind lashes the flame along, so Achilleus Swept everywhere with his spear like something more than a mortal Harrying them as they died, and the black earth ran blood…

…Or as when a man yokes male broad-foreheaded oxen To crush white barley on a strong-laid threshing floor, and rapidly The barley is stripped beneath the feet of the bellowing oxen, So before great-hearted Achilleus the single-foot horses Trampled alike dead men and shields, and the axle under The chariot was all splashed with blood and the rails which encircled The chariot, struck by flying drops from the feet of the horses, From the running rims of the wheels. The son of Peleus was straining To win glory, his invincible hands spattered with bloody filth. [490-503]

Epic conventions: relations and actions (Gods  Men  Things) Humans as Inhuman (Men  Things) Achilles’ inhumanity (less than human, more than human) de- humanizes others, treats them + makes them not-human …and this is precisely the path to “glory”… Epic Simile: Representing and imagining heroic action Epic Song: Performance and Inspiration (from Gods  Men) Epic invocation: appeal to Gods for help with poetic action Plato’s argument (Ion)

Soc: I wish you would frankly tell me, Ion, what I am going to ask of you: When you produce the greatest effect upon the audience in the recitation of some striking passage, such as the apparition of Odysseus leaping forth on the floor, recognized by the suitors and casting his arrows at his feet, or the description of Achilles rushing at Hector, or the sorrows of Andromache, Hecuba, or Priam, are you in your right mind? Are you not carried out of yourself, and does not your soul in an ecstasy seem to be among the persons or places of which you are speaking, whether they are in Ithaca or in Troy or whatever may be the scene of the poem? Ion: That proof strikes home to me, Socrates. For I must frankly confess that at the tale of pity, my eyes are filled with tears, and when I speak of horrors, my hair stands on end and my heart throbs.

The Softer Side of Achilleus? the Hero as Poet-Singer [Iliad, IX] Now they came beside the shelters and ships of the Myrmidons And they found Achilleus delighting his heart in a lyre, clear-sounding Splendid and carefully wrought, with a bridge of silver upon it, Which he won out of the spoils when he ruined Eëtion’s city. With this he was pleasuring his heart, and singing of men’s fame, As Patroklos was sitting over against him, alone, in silence, Watching Aiakides and the time he would leave off singing.

Now these two came forward, as brilliant Odysseus led them, And stood in his presence. Achilleus rose to his feet in amazement Holding the lyre as it was, leaving the place where he was sitting. In the same way Patroklos, when he saw the men come, stood up. And in greeting Achilleus the swift of foot spoke to them: “Welcome. You are my friends who have come, and greatly I need you, Who even to this my anger are the dearest of all the Achaians.” So brilliant Achilleus spoke, and guided them forward, And caused them to sit down on couches with purple coverlets… [Iliad, IX, 182-200]

Enter Odysseus… Like Achilles, “brilliant,” both similar + different… Who is Odysseus? What is he known for? Odysseus, “sacker of cities” Odysseus of the “crafty designs” The many, varied adventures of O’s Return: The Episodic Epic What kind of Hero is Odysseus? A pitiful one? (One who feels pity? Or is to be pitied? Both? Neither?)

‘Caught between a rock and a hard place’: Skylla and Charybdis [Odyssey, XII] We in fear of destruction kept our eyes on Charybdis, but meanwhile Skylla out of the hollow vessel snatched six of my companions, the best of them for strength and hands’ work, And when I turned to look at the ship, with my other companions, I saw their feet and hands from below, already lifted High above me, and they cried out to me and called me By name, the last time they ever did it, in heart’s sorrow.

And as a fisherman with a very long rod, on a jutting Rock, will cast his treacherous bait for the little fishes, And sinks the horn of a field-ranging ox into the water, Then hauls them up and throws them on the dry land, gasping And struggling, so they gasped and struggled as they were hoisted Up the cliff. Right in her doorway she ate them up. They were screaming And reaching out their hands to me in this horrid encounter. That was the most pitiful scene that these eyes have looked on In my sufferings as I explored the routes over the water. [XII, 251-9]

Odysseus looked about his own house, to see if any man still was left alive, escaping the black destruction; But he saw them, one and all in their numbers, lying fallen In their blood and in the dust, like fish whom the fishermen Have taken in their net with many holes, and dragged out Onto the hollow beach from the gray sea, and all of them Lie piled on the sand, needing the restless salt water; But Helios, the shining Sun, bakes the life out of them. Like these, the suitors now were lying piled on each other. [XXII, 381-389]

There she found Odysseus among the slaughtered dead men, Spattered over with gore and battle filth, like a lion Who has been feeding on an ox of the fields, and goes off Covered with blood, all this chest and his flanks on either Side bloody, a terrible thing to look in the face; so Now Odysseus’ feet and the hands above them were spattered. [XXII, 401-6]

Homeric Epic: QUESTIONS for discussion Of Gods and Men (and Things): The human and the ‘inhuman’ Performance and glory: The question of having (or making) vs. not having a “Name” On poets and heroes The question of pity: Who has / “feels” it? the characters? (heroes? non-heroes?) or us? What does pity “do”? What does it cause and/or change?