Words&Dirt

Homer’s The Iliad plays a critical role in Ada Palmer‘s amazing Terra Ignota series, so while I wait for the last book to come out I thought it might be fun to familiarize myself with some of her source material. Knowing only the bare basics of Greek history and mythology, I found this a strange but engaging journey into the weird world of Western antiquity. This review will focus not on providing a plot summary or analysis of events (such can be found elsewhere in abundance), but rather on a few particular themes and passages that caught my attention.

Before getting into the actual text, I’ll note that I was lucky to have Robert Fitzgerald’s translation recommended to me by a friend who also owns a local bookstore. Not only is this translation easy to read and follow, but it also leads off with an excellent Introduction by Andrew Ford. He sets the scene nicely, emphasizing the dominant role of honor in how The Iliad‘s conflicts arise and unfold. “What is being affirmed and re-created in the collection and rewarding of booty is honor,” Ford writes. “Status in this society must be personally asserted, proved by action, and made manifest in the goods one wins” (xxv).

Although of course there are many worthy interpretative strategies for any classic text, I agree with Ford that understanding The Iliad through the framework of honor culture is optimal. This is perhaps best articulated by Aeneas as he prepares to do battle with story’s main hero, Achilles:

My mind is set
on honor. Words of yours cannot throw me off,
not till our spears have crossed. Come, on with it!
We’ll have a taste of one another’s bronze! (Book 20, lines 290-3)

The uncompromising character of honor culture, which leads our heroes to all manner of suffering and destruction, can be difficult for the modern mind to grasp. This is especially true when grappling with the most archaic elements of Homer’s epic poem, which involve tiresome lists of fathers and sons who participate in the Trojan War, complete with gruesome play-by-plays describing how so-and-so’s cousin got killed, gained esteem, resolved an old grudge, etc. Unless you’re a hardcore Greek scholar, it’s hard to imagine readers actually enjoying these sections, and unfortunately they take up much of the book’s considerable length––nearly 600 pages all told. One helpful way to think about the central role of honor in The Iliad is to remember that the list of ways to live a “good” and “honorable” life as a man in ancient times was pretty short compared to today. Winning renown and rewards in battle, even at the cost of death, was one of the only ways for men to “successfully” navigate the world.

Along with their readiness to glorify the act of war, Homer’s characters sometimes demonstrate an intimate understanding of its tragic aspects. My favorite example of this is a statement made by Sarpedon to Glaukos:

Ah, cousin, could we but survive this war
to live forever deathless, without age,
I would not ever go again to battle,
nor would I send you there for honor’s sake!
But now a thousand shapes of death surround us,
and no man can escape them, or be safe.
Let us attack––whether to give some fellow
glory or to win it from him. (Book 12, lines 362-9)

Sarpedon’s attitude––plunging from dreamy optimism to resigned realism––feels familiar in our time, when war is seen as the least desirable form of conflict resolution. It also demonstrates the psychologically-ensnaring nature of honor culture, how it traps men in zero-sum tribalism with no tangible alternative to violence.

Given The Iliad‘s overpowering focus on heroic men and their troubles in warfare, I was happy to find several references to the plight of less powerful people, including common soldiers, women, and children. In one stirring speech, Hector, defender of Troy, identifies the nobler side of sacrifice in war:

If one finds
his death, his end, in some spear-thrust or cast,
then that is that, and no ignoble death
for a man defending his own land. He wins
a peaceful hearth for wife and children later,
his home and patrimony kept entire,
if only the Akhaians sail for home. (Book 15, lines 570-6)

This sentiment is challenged later in the poem by Hector’s wife, Andromache, as she laments his death at the hands of vengeful Achilles:

Now under earth’s roof to the house of Death
you go your way and leave me here, bereft,
lonely, in anguish without end. The child
we wretches had is still in infancy;
you cannot be a pillar to him, Hektor,
now you are dead, nor he to you. And should
this boy escape the misery of the war,
there will be toil and sorrow for him later. (Book 22, lines 569-76)

You’ve been torn from life,
my husband, in young manhood, and you leave me
empty in our hall. The boy’s a child
whom you and I, poor souls, conceived; I doubt
he’ll come to manhood. Long before, great Troy
will go down plundered, citadel and all,
now that you are lost, who guarded it
and kept it, and preserved its wives and children.
They will be shipped off in the murmuring hulls
one day, and I along with all the rest. (Book 24, lines 867-76)

Even though she acknowledges Hector’s past successes in protecting Troy, Andromache is left with only despair in his absence. These passages demonstrate a more nuanced understanding of the dynamics and consequences of war than we might assume if we only read the blood-stained battle scenes. They also reveal a grand irony at the core of Homer’s narrative: to die in battle, either for raw glory or protection of one’s kin and country, is to exit irretrievably from the only stage on which such things matter in the first place––the stage of life itself.

One cannot comment on The Iliad without saying something about the curious and cruel behavior of the Greek Gods. Much like the men over whose lives they squabble, these avatars of nature’s whimsy are insufferably vain, petty, and capricious. As literary devices, they are harsh reminders that life’s outcomes are ultimately products of luck and circumstance, and never freely chosen. The hapless humans are constantly being thwarted and betrayed by the gods they so ardently worship, and any man who wins favor will find his triumphs disappointingly ephemeral. This is captured nicely by the passing comments of an unnamed soldier:

You might have heard one, glancing at the next man,
mutter:
“What is to come? Bad days again
in the bloody lines? Or can both sides be friends?
Which will it be from Zeus, who holds the keys
and rationing of war?” (Book 4, lines 94-9)

Whatever comes, these men know that their fates are not their own. Whether this makes them wiser than today’s humans––so smugly settled in our layered nests of self-determination––remains an open question.

But what of Achilles, The Iliad‘s swaggering protagonist? He is splendid, to be sure, surpassing all others both in stubbornness and skill. For a hero whose legend has persisted and grown stronger over centuries, he is surprisingly absent from much of the story. But his passion, his grief at the loss of his beloved Patroclus, and his military prowess shine forth unforgettably in Fitzgerald’s translation. There’s lots to love and loath in this complex fighter, but my favorite quality is his devotion to honesty and truth:

I owe you a straight answer, as to how
I see this thing, and how it is to end.
No need to sit with me like mourning doves
making your gentle noise by turns. I hate
as I hate Hell’s own gate that man who hides
one thought within him while he speaks another.
What I shall say is what I see and think. (Book 9, lines 378-84)

I’m glad to have given this classic a full reading. Next up, I plan to explore a couple contemporary versions: Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles and Stephen Fry’s Troy. 

Rating: 7/10