Homer's The Odyssey, translated by Emily Wilson discussion

This thread is for discussion of Book 24 of The Iliad.

I wasn't prepared for the sudden end of Book 24. It appears Briseis stayed with Achilles, and did not return to Troy with Priam.

So we do not have the sack of Troy in this story. Where is it played out? And can another story sustain the death of Achilles at the start and still carry on?

Trish wrote: "I wasn't prepared for the sudden end of Book 24. It appears Briseis stayed with Achilles, and did not return to Troy with Priam.

So we do not have the sack of Troy in this story. Where is it play..."

Some of it is in the Odyssey but most of the sources for the story aren’t Homer at all, but in the various works of the Epic Cycle.. and summations of it from other authors.

I don’t think Achilles’ presence is as strong anywhere else but here though. The focus changes a bit more in the other stories.

Also, Virgil's The Aeneid includes the story of the Trojan horse, the sack of Troy, the escape of Aeneas and his entourage.

There is an exquisite statue by Bernini of Aeneas escaping from Troy while carrying his father, Anchises, on his back, and his son, Ascanius, clinging to him. Anchises is carrying the Penates (household gods). The statue is housed in the Galleria Borghese in Rome. I got to see it when we went to Italy a few years ago. Both this statue and his statue of the rape of Persephone were stunning. I stood there with mouth agog and tears streaming down my face like a blithering idiot. I have loved Bernini ever since.

https://universalheretic.files.wordpr...

(Kris, I hope this is not off topic. If it is, please feel free to delete it.)

Not off topic at all!!

Tamara wrote: "There is an exquisite statue by Bernini of Aeneas escaping..."

Omg, how gorgeous. Thanks for pointing me to The Aeneid. And Emma, I am sad to see Achilles go. He was such a strong presence and had such a following. He, like the other leaders & rulers, seemed to know they were being played by the gods, but carried on, hoping things would play out in their favor. They had to act as though they had control. Geesh, I feel that.

Trish wrote: "Tamara wrote: "There is an exquisite statue by Bernini of Aeneas escaping..."

Omg, how gorgeous. Thanks for pointing me to The Aeneid. And Emma, I am sad to see Achilles go. He was such a strong p..."

You’ll can get a bit more of him in the Little Iliad but next up is Odysseus... it’s so much more about man’s physical and spiritual journey to himself/Home. To me Achilles is entirely knowable, with his set character and immovable demands. Odysseus is twisty and the way he’s portrayed as either clever (positive) or sly/persuasive (more negative) says as much about contemporary society as him.

I honestly CANNOT WAIT to read Wilson’s translation.


But like you, I was surprised on my first read not to get the horse and the rest in this book, it felt abrupt and jarring. Considering this came out of an oral tradition, it seems like a strange place to stop. What do you think?

Yes, I was thinking of the oral tradition and the place it stops. If the audience already knew Achilles died at Troy, and we must assume they did, it must have felt like a TV series: end of Season One. Very more-ish to stop with Priam taking the body back.

Re the translations, I am going through five or so translations, particularly at moments of crisis, and find I prefer Fagles after all. Mitchell and Green are fast, Alexander's is not as poetic as I'd like, Fitzgerald's seems to be missing something, and Lattimore is just so cumbersome. Fagles seems to have the poetry and the clarity both.

I look forward to Wilson's translation of Odyssey as well.

One of my favorite scenes in the whole Iliad is when Priam meets with Achilles to ask for Hektor's body so he can give him a proper burial. I think it is such an incredible scene.

A proud, old man comes to beg his son's killer for his son's body vs. a young man, consumed with rage at the death of his beloved. Achilles is reminded of his own father. He knows he's going to die at Troy. He'll never see his father again.

They meet, they talk, they connect. Achilles even asks Priam how many days he needs to bury Hektor so he can stop the fighting in the interim. They part on terms of mutual respect.

I find it to be one of the most moving and powerful scenes in the Iliad.

Tamara wrote: "One of my favorite scenes in the whole Iliad is when Priam meets with Achilles to ask for Hektor's body so he can give him a proper burial. I think it is such an incredible scene...."

Yes. I think for me it is remarkable because it is so short. Just a couple of lines, really, and the whole thing plays out.

When Achilles warns Priam not to press too hard about taking Hektor and then "bounds out of the tent" to check Hektor's body and ask the maids to clean him and anoint his corpse with oil, I thought I saw in one of the accounts that Apollo and some other gods had not allowed Hektor to become too disfigured nor too decomposed...he was basically intact, despite the rough treatment being dragged behind the cart.

But then he was wrapped, and his father wouldn't have seen him, I suppose, at least until this own family cleaned and wrapped the body anew.

Tamara wrote: "I find it to be one of the most moving and powerful scenes in the Iliad..."

Totally agree, Tamara.

Another scene to which I give similar weight for being moving and powerful is when the infant son of Hektor and Andromache cries and Hektor removes his fearsome helmet to sooth him. Like Achilles and Priam, so overlaid with what it means to be human.

Other non-Homeric stories may give us wonderful dramatic set pieces, but before two of the foundational pieces of Western literature that it are so easy to dismiss within the educational experiences of many of us, the Iliad and the Odyssey amaze me more and more each time I revisit them. And that is not to say but what many sections may bore or frustrate or ...., sometimes seeming to have totally different significance, less or more, on the next encounter.

Incidentally, here is a broad overview timeline of literature. Will try (another day) to find others that help us to place some of these pieces in history: http://www.essential-humanities.net/a...

Lily wrote: "Incidentally, here is a broad overview timeline of literature. Will try (another day) to find others that help us to place some of these pieces in history..."

Very cool. Thanks.

Another reason now for my desire to read the Aeneid.

Lily wrote: "Tamara wrote: "I find it to be one of the most moving and powerful scenes in the Iliad..."

Totally agree, Tamara.

Another scene to which I give similar weight for being moving and powerful is wh..."

fascinating timeline.

Emma wrote: " To me Achilles is entirely knowable, with his set character and immovable demands. Odysseus is twisty and the way he’s portrayed as either clever (positive) or sly/persuasive (more negative) says as much about contemporary society as him...."

Just finishing up Alexander's The War That Killed Achilles: The True Story of Homer's Iliad and the Trojan War, and she says something intriguing that answers your comment above, Emma.

She says that there were events and indicators not covered in the scope of the Iliad, happening outside of it's time constraints, that show Achilles before the death of Patroklus was sensitive to those he fought in battle: he didn't take anything personally and he let fighters return home once they were defeated and gave up their armor.

I definitely had some sense of this complexity in the man while reading, given that Briseis could have left but didn't, given that Priam's visit made an impression, given that he cared so deeply about Patroklus. His blindness in battle after the death of Patroklus Alexander attributes to a type of PTSD often found on battlefields.

Anyway, you are undoubtedly right that Odysseus is even more complex a character; that is apparent in the Iliad as well, the few times he comes to the fore. Think I have a soft spot for Achilles and didn't want him to be dismissed as "so much rage."

Trish wrote: "Emma wrote: " To me Achilles is entirely knowable, with his set character and immovable demands. Odysseus is twisty and the way he’s portrayed as either clever (positive) or sly/persuasive (more ne..."

What you say about Odysseus strikes me as so true even from the limited amount I've encountered him so far in The Iliad (I'm in Bk 12). I have a strong feeling that I will be meeting a more complex man than I have met on past readings of The Odyssey. So glad for these discussions.