Plot summary:

• 1. Plague. Anger of Achilles
• 2. Agamemnon's dream. Trial of the Achaeans. Catalogue of Ships.
• 3. Swearing of oaths. Viewing from the Walls. Combat of Paris and Menelaus.
• 4. Breaking of the oaths. Agamemnon reviews his troops.
• 5. Aristeia of Diomedes.
• 6. Glaucus and Diomedes. Hector and Andromache.
• 7. [Combat of Hector and Ajax. Burial of the dead. Building of wall and trench.
• 8. The Trojans advance. Zeus stops the interference of Hera.]
• 9. Embassy to Achilles
• 10. Dolon episode.

The battle is joined only in book 4. Catalogue in book 2, Viewing from the Walls in 3, and Agamemnon's review of his troops in 4 all serve to emphasize the monumental scale of the encounter: importance, in Homer, is often conveyed by amplitude. Amplitude is essential for lending an impression of the huge scale of the heroism, suffering, etc. We are convinced by the end of book 4 that this is no ordinary conflict being joined. This amplitude is so important to Homer that he is willing to violate ordinary logical, temporal sequence to achieve (such as in the illogicality of the Viewing from the Walls episode).

Hector & book 6 revisited:

1. How does the domestic scene here contrast with those we've seen elsewhere (i.e., the scenes on Olympus, as at the end of book 1)?

a humanness, not a caricature

a kindness towards Helen; realistic assessment of the military situation; warmness towards wife and son

parting statement on the mortality of man and the necessity to do one's duty in life (and what is then essential to the state of being a god? Ardie Kissinger & Geoff Geibel: why do the immortal gods spend so much time fighting over mortal humans?) -p. 212

2. Importantly, and differently from stories like the Epic of Gilgamesh: Homer brings us to the other side, and lets us see Hektor not as he is seen by the Greeks but as he is seen by the Trojans: rather as if we are suddenly allowed to see things from the point of view of Humbaba (in Gilgamesh); or Goliath (in the Old Testament: who might after all have looked very different to the Philistines!).

The Embassy to Achilles

Review of some central terms:

• atê - "blind folly": clouds a man's sense of what is right and makes him err against his will: both Agamemnon and Achilles exhibit this in book 1
• geras - the "prize" which is the objective sign of timê
• timê - "honor" in the sense of the status, respect, or dignity that the community assigns you: similar to our word "prestige"
• kleos - the "fame" or "glory" the hero seeks, but this too is oddly bound up with objective signs of the glory: see the odd details in the Dolon episode, where Diomedes and Odysseus seem equally interested in the "glory" of the daring exploit and the "glory" of the prized horses they bring back as the sign of that exploit
• hybris (or hubris) - the "arrogance" of a man that does not know his limits: he does not regard the motto of the temple of Apollo at Delphi, to "know thyself", that is, to understand how one is limited by the mortal condition: we are not gods, we are social animals that must confine ourselves to prescribed social behaviors, etc.

Events leading up to the embassy (books 7 & 8)

Duel between Hector and Ajax (book 7)

• The very civilized and formal duel, with its "happy ending" (no one dead, gifts exchanged) sets up an effective contrast for the very uncivilized, savage duel between Hector and Achilles in book 22, where Achilles will reject all the usual courtesies
• The stature of Hector is emphasized, and Ajax is introduced and highlighted as one of the greatest of the Greek warriors

Offer by Paris of returning all but Helen, with other gifts, to end the war (book 7)

• Ironic: Greeks think they are about to win, thus reject, but they are in fact about to be mauled

The description and famous simile that closes book 8 (p. 249-50)

• Note the "zoom" from a distant view of a scene to a closeup: watch fires twinkling in the distance, circles of men sitting around the fires, horses chomping on their feed (cf. the great cluster of similes that introduces the Catalogue in Book 2: the advancing army is blaze of gleaming bronze, a noisy flock of migrating birds, an innumerable swarm of glies about a milk pail; then, as the captains come into view, a great herd of goats divided up by shepherds; and, finally, as the view narrows to the great commander, Agamemnon: a bull standing proudly over his herd of cattle.)
• This draws vivid attention to the Trojan success, and the imminent threat of their army encamping next to the Achaean camp: and thus sets up the embassy

Review of the Donlan reading of the embassy scene:

Gift exchange, gift giving, gifts as the basis of timê in the shame culture, in a way very different from our internal evaluation of "worthy" in our guilt culture

cf. Meleager, centrality of gifts is the "moral" to the tale (pp. 269ff)

cf. p. 283: close (indivisible!) relationship between kleos and geras, "glory" and "gift": similarly, later in the Dolon episode, p. 293

The "gift attack"

Agamemnon, pp. 255-256

Odysseus, pp. 259-261: what is different about Odysseus' speech? (1) beginning, (2) end

Achilles' reply: a radical?

Achilles' reply, which verges on advocacy of open rebellion:

pp. 262-265

Rebellion? -262, 264

The "choice of Achilles" - 265

A new kind of timê - 272

The irony of the embassy: 263 (Achilles), 273 (Ajax)

"We are the unwilling, led by the unqualified, doing the unnecessary for the ungrateful" - Vietnam veterans

Achilles and Vietnam: ¶ bears brunt of fighting but Agamemnon pulls rank ¶ Ag. gives him, in effect, a "demotion" (reducing his geras) ¶ fails to gain the support of the men, and "demoted", Achilles becomes "marked man" ¶ Once Achilles, leaves, Achaeans win every face-off, but are losing the war (cf. Vietnam!): leads to great frustration

Extended similes in Homer

[I here use liberally examples from Mark Edward's book, Homer, Poet of the Iliad; but the conclusions are my own.]

Unknown in other early epics (200 in Iliad, 40 in Odyssey, almost all uniquei wording and content)

• Time: present
• Place: Greek home or countryside
• Characters: ordinary people, like women, shepherds, not heroes, kings, deities

Why is it that warriors attack not like gods or giants, but like lions or wolves falling on a sheepfold, or like wasp or persistent flies (rather humble images)?

Look at the "fly from a child" simile in 4.116ff (p. 149f) [An ancient critic commented, "The mother indicates Athene's favor towards Menelaus, the fly suggest the ease with which it is swatted away and darts to anouther place, the child's sleep shows M. being caught off guard and the weakness of the blow." - but surely there is more: suggestiveness of the tone? for example]

The picture rather depicts the vastness of nature with (rather like a Japanese painting) a tiny, powerless human figure (the moon, stars, and hills dwarf the shepherd, 8.555 = p. 249f)

The setting is one of hills, sea, stars, rivers, storms, fires, and wild animals, and against it the lives of shepherds, plowmen, woodcutters, craftsmen, harvesters, donkeys, oxen, housewives, mothers, and children

Fundamentally a technique of expansion (in book 21, Trojans are frightened "like fawns"; in book 4, the Greeks are frightened "like fawns, / which weary of running over the wide plain / stand still, and there is no courage in their hearts."), a means of creating a vivid, colorful, satisfying pause in the forward movement of the narrative. It can be a way of suggesting long duration, as for example in the marching of the armies in Book 2, or the pursuit of Hector by Achilles in book 22.

But the "narrative technique" argument (favored by Edwards) seems to me not to get to the bottom of the matter. To do that, we need to reconsider the fact that over 80% of the similes occur in the Iliad, not the Odyssey, and to ask ourselves what overall effect they lend to the epic.

The battlescape (my term):

• (1) What do we know about the landscape in which this epic takes place? Note how exceptionally stark and austere, how extraordinarily featureless, rather like an artsy b&w photograph, or a minimalist stage set. No trees, excepting an oak by the Scaean Gate of Troy, and a wild fig tree, no hills, no weather, no creatures. We only have elements that are very symbolic: gate, walls, ships, sea-edge: all boundary conditions.
• (2) What do we know about the soldiers? What about the necessary logistical support for the army? What about the daily interaction of the men, those many long hours away from battle? That is, how detailed a picture do we really have of the army as opposed to the heroic leaders?
• (3) Now compare to this (a) the world of the gods; (b) the world of the similes. What conclusions can you draw from this comparison?