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Unit
2: The Embassy to Achilles in Iliad
9.
Readings:
Central:
Iliad
9
Additional:
Iliad
10-15
On-line
video:
Dialogue
2
Dialogue
3
(If
you do not have RealVideo installed, go to
Getting
Started.)
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DIALOGUE
II NOTES
(Highlights
of Dialogue Two)
Scroll Nine
presents us with more of the moral
issues of the Iliad, for here we
see what is at stake in Achilles'
choice not to return to battle along
with the other Achaeans. In the scroll,
Agamemnon decides he cannot win without
Achilles and sends an embassy of
Achilles' friends, but he formulates
the terms for the settlement of their
quarrel in such a way that Achilles
cannot accept the terms without
compromising his own heroic
identity.
When Ajax
realizes that Achilles will not accept
Agamemnon's offer, he tells Achilles
that he is hard-hearted, for even
someone who has lost a near and dear
relative will accept compensation for
that relative, but Achilles won't
accept compensation for a "mere girl."
Neither Achilles nor Ajax yet sees the
big picture of what is at stake, but
the fact that Achilles has to refuse
this offer of compensation to maintain
his heroic status will lead to his
becoming a man of constant sorrow, and
he will experience the most unbearable
grief.
Achilles must
make a choice between having a safe
homecoming and a long life or, as he
says at Iliad 9.413, his safe
homecoming will be destroyed but he
will have a glory that is unwilting
(=preserved forever in poetic tradition
like a beautiful flower that never
loses its sheen, hue, saturation,
aroma, and this flower is his epic). In
return for being contained in this
beautiful flower of a song, he will
have to give up his homecoming, his
life.
This is the
choice Achilles must make as the
central hero of his own epic. By making
this choice, he will have to disappoint
his best friends and comrades in arms,
and this is why Ajax is so outraged.
But at that moment, Ajax thinks that
what is at stake is "just a
girl."
Achilles has
no choice: he may not see the
implications of his choice, and Ajax
certainly does not. We may start to see
what the implications are because we
have already read the litigation scene
on the Shield. But we will still have
to determine who the dead man in that
scene is.
The stakes
involved are becoming clear: Achilles
must let down his friends and preserve
his status as the central figure of
this epic. But the cost will be high,
for he will not only let his friends
down, but he will lose the person who
is nearest and dearest to him, his
other self, Patroklos (whose name means
'the glory of the ancestors'). The loss
will be great: once Achilles hears of
the death of Patroklos, we will begin
to appreciate how he has relearned his
own value system and how he rethinks
what the price of a life is. But for
more on that, we will have to wait
until next week's dialogue.
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1. In scroll 9 of the
Iliad, Phoenix tells the story of Meleager
to Achilles in an attempt to bring Achilles back
into the war. The overall message of his story is
that Meleager, in a situation similar to that of
Achilles', stayed home and only returned when it
was too late to get the gifts that were initially
offered to him. Meleager receives no compensation
for his efforts. How are the Greek ideas about
compensation and reciprocity (kharis) and
justice connected in this story? How does this
story relate to other examples of reciprocity and
exchange that we have read in scroll I and on the
shield? Does Meleager get justice?
2. After Phoenix tells the
story of Meleager, Achilles continues to refuse to
return to battle and help his comrades. Ajax, who
considers himself one of Achilles' nearest and
dearest comrades, is outraged. He reacts to the
words of Achilles by telling Odysseus that they
might as well leave, since they won't ever be able
to persuade Achilles. Ajax says to Odysseus:
"Achilles is savage and remorseless; he is cruel
and cares nothing for the affection
[philotês] that his comrades lavished
upon him more than all the others. He is
implacable--and yet if a man's brother or son has
been slain he [=that man] will accept a
fine [poinê] by way of amends from
him that killed him and the wrong-doer having paid
in full remains in peace in his own district
[dêmos], but as for you, Achilles,
the gods have put a wicked unforgiving spirit
[thumos] in your breast, and this, all
about one single girl, whereas we now offer you the
seven best we have, and much more into the
bargain." (Iliad IX.628-639).
Several responders last
week offered the suggestion that the scene on the
shield is 'in the future' with respect to the
strife between Achilles and Agamemnon and its
mechanism for resolution. What do the words of
Ajax, however, imply about the expectations of
Achilles' comrades for how this dispute should be
settled? On the other hand, is the dispute about
the affection of Achilles' comrades, or about 'one
single girl'? What has Achilles come to see as at
stake or the 'price' involved in his choice about
whether to return to the war?
3. *Bonus question from
optional reading* Scroll 3 presents the duel
between Paris and Menelaus, the two husbands of
Helen. In this scroll, the duel is described as
being for "Helen and all her possessions" (see
3.70, 3.91, 3.282, 3.285, and 3.458; see also
22.114). Last week, we saw how the argument over
the woman Briseis between Agamemnon and Achilles is
similar to the war over Helen between Paris and
Menelaus (and all their friends). Is the one-on-one
duel between Paris and Menlaus similar to
litigation in any way? And in Scroll 9, Achilles is
offered Briseis back with the addition of many
material goods by Agamemnon to rejoin the fighting.
What is the importance of material goods in these
disputes, and how do they factor in to a 'just'
resolution of either dispute?
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DIALOGUE III
NOTES
(Highlights
of Dialogue Three)
Part I. In the
first dialogue and in the discussion for
the first week of Homer's Poetic Justice
we explored the ways in which the shield
serves as a microcosm for the Iliad
as a whole. A successful decoding of the
shield at the same time decodes the moral
agenda behind the entire
Iliad.
Micronarratives
like that of the shield can be found
throughout the Iliad. These
micronarratives, like the shield, interact
with the larger context or macronarrative
and carry all kinds of messages for both
the characters and the
audience.
A good example of
such a narrative is the story of Meleager,
which the old man Phoenix tells to
Achilles in the embassy of Iliad IX
in attempt to bring Achilles back into the
war. As you read Phoenix's story note the
following:
1. There are
multiple levels of narrative: Phoenix's
story reaches even beyond the immediate
context of scroll
IX to
encompass meaning for events that will
happen much later. Phoenix' point in
telling the story gets subsumed to the
poet's larger goals.
2. Just as with
the shield, we can make direct connections
between the figures in the Meleager story,
and the characters in the larger narrative
in the Iliad.
3. The
Iliad represents only one of countless
epic traditions that once flourished in
ancient Greece. In the Meleager story we
can detect compressed references to a
possible epic of Iliadic proportions about
Meleager (cf. IX 555ff.: "He was incensed
with his mother Althaia, and therefore
stayed at home with his wedded wife fair
Cleopatra, who was daughter of Marpessa
daughter of Euenos, and of Ides the man
then living.")
What is the story
behind Meleager's anger? The poet and his
intended audience know, because they know
the larger epic tradition about Meleager.
Depending on the mood of poet and
audience, compressed stories\ like the one
of Meleager in the Iliad could be expanded
without limit.
Phoenix himself
is represented much like an epic poet when
he begins his tale: "I totally recall
[memnmai] this event of the past -
it is not a new thing - and how it
happened. You are all near and dear
[philoi], and I will tell
it in your presence. The Curetes and the
Aetolians were fighting..."
Phoenix' story
revolves around the idea of compensation,
but also the importance of one's nearest
and dearest companions, that is his
comrades, in a warrior's ascending scale
of affection. Meleager's ascending scale
got confused when he decided to stay home
with his wife. Achilles' ascending scale
seems to be similarly out of order. How
can we relate these two important concepts
to our discussion about justice? For the
Greeks the idea of helping one's friends
and receiving compensation for that effort
are not as inconsistent with each other as
we might think. When we read this story we
should think about whether Meleager was
treated unjustly. If so, what does that
mean for Achilles?
Part II. As we
continue to think about how
micronarratives speak to the larger issues
in the Iliad, we can look back at
Scroll Three and the duel between Paris
and Menelaus. This story, which logically
belongs much earlier in the war than the
tenth year that the Iliad focuses on,
shows how the epic can reincorporate
material outside its immediate
context.
When Helen is
brought to the walls to watch this duel,
we also see another kind of micronarrative
at work. Priam asks Helen about each of
the Greek heroes (as though he wouldn't
recognize them after ten years), and this
gives Helen a chance to talk about
Agamemnon and Odysseus in her own words.
And it is Helen's
words in this scene which show us another
aspect of the micronarrative. The scene
begins with a buzz of excitement (the
metaphor is the sound of cicadas) when
Helen arrives, and Priam tells her to come
and sit with him, for he doesn't blame her
for the war. But as Helen tells him about
the Greek heroes, she blames herself for
the war in very harsh terms and in a way
that no one else in the epic does. Thus
this micronarrative is not only a way to
bring in material that belongs outside of
the epic's context temporally speaking,
but it also allows a different viewpoint
of what the issues of the Trojan War are
to be expressed.
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