Homer's The Odyssey, translated by Emily Wilson discussion

This thread is for discussion of Book 13 of The Iliad.

A section that struck me is Menelaus crying out to the men of Troy after striking down Pisander:

"So home you'll run from our racing ships, by god,
all as corpses--see, you death-defying Trojans?
Never sated with shattering war cries, are you?
Nor do you lack the other brands of outrage,
all that shame you heaped on me, you rabid dogs!
No fear in your hearts for the quaking rage of Zeus,
the thundering god of host and welcome stranger--
one day he'll raze your lofty city for you.
You Trojans who stole away my wedded wife
and hoards of riches too--for no reason, none--
my queen of the realm who hosted you with kindness.
And now you rampage on among our deep-sea ships,
wild to torch our hulls and kill our heroes--well,
you'll be stopped, somewhere, mad as you are for combat!
Zeus, Father Zeus, They say you excel all others . . .
all men and gods, in wisdom clear and calm--
but all this brutal carnage comes from you.
Look how you favor them, these reckless Trojans,
their fury always in uproar--no one can ever slake
their thirst for blood, for the great leveler, war!
One can achieve his fill of all good things,
even of sleep, even of making love . . .
rapturous song and the beat and sway of dancing.
A man will yearn for his fill of all these joys
before his fill of war. But not these Trojans--
no one can glut their lust for battle!"
So he cried
and staunch Atrides stripped the gear from the corpse
and heaving the bloody bronze to eager comrades
swing to attack again, frontline assault.
(lines 713-741)

There is so much pain, passion and anger evident here and the poetry is wonderful at evoking the changing moods.

Sue wrote: "There is so much pain, passion and anger evident here and the poetry is wonderful at evoking the changing moods.
..."

I suspect you have told us which translation you are reading, Sue, but which one is this?

Sorry I forgot to include that, Lily. I'm reading Fagles' translation.

Sue wrote: "Sorry I forgot to include that, Lily. I'm reading Fagles' translation."

Thx, Sue. Was just too lazy to go searching or to try matching to my copy.

Sue wrote: "There is so much pain, passion and anger evident here and the poetry is wonderful at evoking the changing moods...."

It almost evokes sympathy in me for Menelaus, who I perhaps have always held accountable as a contributor to his wife's susceptibility to Paris.

You Trojans who stole away my wedded wife
and hoards of riches too--for no reason, none--
my queen of the realm who hosted you with kindness.
And now you rampage on among our deep-sea ships,
wild to torch our hulls and kill our heroes--well,
you'll be stopped, somewhere, mad as you are for combat!

But didn't Menelaus help instigate the travels to Troy to wage war?

I think, no I know, that I need a firmer background in how everything began. I would imagine Menelaus would have definitely helped get the travels underway, but somehow Agamemnon seems the greater instigator. Perhaps because he is king?

Sue wrote: "I think, no I know, that I need a firmer background in how everything began. I would imagine Menelaus would have definitely helped get the travels underway, but somehow Agamemnon seems the greater ..."

Don't know for sure, but I believe Agamemnon was older brother and questions of family honor and responsibility were at stake. Not going to go researching, but will watch for information.

Sounds right to me too. I'll be watching too.

I'm realising now how much I don't know about this story and I'm actually a bit surprised. I think I thought all of the back story was imprinted somewhere on my brain.

If I remember correctly, when Helen became of marriageable age, suitors came from all over the place to win her hand in marriage. Her father was concerned because he didn't want to offend the suitors who didn't get selected. So one of the suitors (I think it was Odysseus), suggested all the suitors should make a pact to abide by Helen's selection for a spouse. And part of that commitment entailed defending Helen and/or her future spouse should anything happen. Helen selected Menelaus.

When Helen ran off with Paris (thanks to Aphrodite's meddling), Menelaus' older brother, Agamemnon, formed an army and called upon the Greeks to honor their commitment to defend Menelaus.

In some versions of the story, some of the Greeks tried to get out of their promise. Odysseus pretended he was a field worker when the Greeks came looking for him; Achilles was disguised as a young girl. Once their identities were discovered, they all got on their ships and sailed off to Troy. Few of them lived happily ever after.

Another interesting little "fact" about Helen is that she is the daughter of Zeus.

Zeus had disguised himself as a swan (he was always disguising himself or generating a fog so Hera couldn't see his philandering). He swooped down and raped Leda. Out of their union Helen was born.

Helen's sister, Clytemnestra, married Agamemnon. With her lover's help, she murdered Agamemnon when he came home from Troy because he had sacrificed their daughter, Iphigenia. That's why he is so distrusting of women when Odysseus meets him in the underworld in the Odyssey.

A beautiful poem by W. B. Yeats' captures the rape of Leda. It is one of my favorite poems.

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/l...

Thanks for all of this background, Tamara. I don't believe I knew about that pact. I love the part with Achilles dressed like a girl. Heroes aren't always heroic!

Sue wrote: " I love the part with Achilles dressed like a girl. Heroes aren't always heroic! "

OOPS! Did you really mean the logic implied in that sequence, Sue, i.e., that being a girl was inconsistent with heroism?

Is hiding rather than fighting always not heroic? (My mind jumps back to the deep acrimony of the days of the Vietnam War, when a number of Americans fled rather than engage in what they considered an unjust war. I still carry that with con and pro feelings.)

Here is one description from a story of Achilles:

"The core myth of Achilles on Skyros as presented in ancient sources was thus. Rather than allow her son Achilles to die at Troy as prophesied, the nymph Thetis sent him to live at the court of Lycomedes, king of Skyros, disguised as another daughter of the king or as a lady-in-waiting, under the name Pyrrha "the red-haired", Issa, or Kerkysera. There Achilles had an affair with Deidamia, one of the daughters of Lycomedes, and they had one or two sons, Neoptolemus and Oneiros.. Since another prophecy suggested that the Trojan War would not be won without Achilles, Odysseus and several other Achaean leaders went to Skyros to find him. Odysseus discovered Achilles by offering gifts, adornments and musical instruments as well as weapons, to the king's daughters, and then having his companions imitate the noises of an enemy's attack on the island (most notably, making a blast of a trumpet heard), which prompted Achilles to reveal himself by picking a weapon to fight back, and together they departed for the Trojan War. In some versions, Deidamia dressed as a man followed him."

"Not existing in Homer's epic poem Iliad, the episode is written down in detail in some later versions of the story, particularly the Achilleid by the Roman poet Statius." From Wikipedia, Achilles on Skyros.

Achilles is such a story of a mother attempting to keep her son alive. Thetis seems to have been ferocious. Besides dipping Achilles in the River Styx by the heel to protect him, there is another story of her attempting to "fire-proof" her children, unfortunately killing them in the process until another goddess intervened.

I was being a bit tongue in cheek, Lily, especially given the image that Achilles maintains at Troy. If he was being hidden by his mother that's a different story, to my mind.

And I definitely agree that not fighting can be the heroic choice. I was in college as the VietNam War peaked in the late 60s and the question of leaving the country, becoming a conscientious objector, etc were discussed constantly though they were publicly derided.

And I see no correlation between gender and heroism as I don't think anyone should. I was discussing this as a facet of one story of a myth in which I found it amusing that the now extremely heroic Achilles once hid dressed as a girl. If I'd known the background story, then I wouldn't have found it amusing. In these conversations, I don't frequently have the time/ability to research all the back stories.

Often I am simply so struck with the poetry that I want to comment.

Sue, I think it's great you are commenting -- sharing reactions and insights is exactly what the discussion forum is for! And none of us know all the back stories -- commenting opens up discussion and often leads to members sharing what they know, which helps everyone.

And that's what I so enjoy about this group, Kris, the openness to thought and ideas. Perhaps I reacted a bit sensitively to Lily's comment about heroism, etc. One of the negatives of online discussions is the inability to actually see a person's face, hear their voice.

I am really loving all the new details I am picking up that I likely never knew!

Sue wrote: "Perhaps I reacted a bit sensitively to Lily's comment about heroism, etc. One of the negatives of online discussions is the inability to actually see a person's face, hear their voice...."

I thought you reacted marvelously to my rather abrupt reaction to your comments, Sue. I love it when discussions here go deeper than the surface; in fact, anyone who knows me has some sense of the too many hours I spend trying to help (provoke?) that to happen. Once in awhile (maybe more often than I know?), I goof. I hoped that my "OOPs" would signal that it hadn't come across to me that you fundamentally were in sync with what I read in your words, which was really what I was asking behind my response. Your response confirmed my guess, but you might have taken an entirely different tact and laid into me. It has happened -- and I've had to deal.

And, yes, here we are pretty much restricted to words and emoticons. But we do also sometimes "get to know" each other a bit, too. Thank you for being here and engaging in that, Sue. Kris says it well @17.

You, and others, may find this article about Lauren Collins and her memoir When in French: Love in a Second Language at least tangentially relevant to our discussions here about words, translations, meaning, and even identity. https://www.vogue.com/article/when-in...

I learned about Lauren Collins in her January 1, 2018, interview of Leïla Slimani in The New Yorker. I am not familiar with any of Collins' other work, like "Degrassi: The Next Generation" (2001), "Kroll Show" (2013) and "Take the Lead" (2006).

Thanks for your gracious message, Lily. I'm enjoying getting to know you while also working out expressing myself even more deeply (without being overly cautious and not me) in these discussions. I'm looking forward to our future discussions and getting to know you better. This group promises lots of opportunity.

Oh, and I will check out the New Yorker article too. My reading schedule is definitely being filled up!