The Iliad and the Odyssey (Classics of World Literature) (5 page)

The one did nuptials celebrate,

Observing at them solemn feasts; the brides from forth their bow’rs

With torches usher’d through the streets; a world of paramours

Excited by them, youths and maids in lovely circles danc’d,

To whom the merry pipe and harp their spritely sounds advanc’d.

Also depicted is an arbitration over a blood price – such things can be mediated in the non-military world – and the second city at war, with gods helping the defenders. Elsewhere a pastoral scene is disturbed by an ambush, agricultural scenes of ploughing and harvest, herding of cattle, with a bull the prey of lions, and of sheep. The last scenes, like the first, are of festivities, a dance floor with finely dressed young people, revolving in song and dance, and the Ocean encircling everything.

When it is finished, Thetis takes the shield, with the rest of the shining armour, to Achilles, who will never again see everyday human scenes such as those depicted.

Book 19

Achilles, terrifying and radiant with passion, takes and delights in the armour. He gives Patroclus’ body treatment suited to a hero and gathers his forces; he publically remits his anger against Agamemnon and sorrows for all the dead who have fallen because of their strife. Agamemnon publicly acknowledges that he was in the wrong but ‘not I but destinies, And Jove himself, and black Erinnys’ [Fury] are responsible, who inflicted delusion; he likens himself to Zeus, who was similarly deluded by Hera in order to gain precedence for Eurystheus rather than Heracles. However, he acknowledges that it is for him to make amends, as proposed before by the envoys in Book 9. This time Achilles does not spurn them; they are for Agamemnon to give or not, as he thinks fit, but the important task now is to get back to the fighting.

Achilles vows not to eat or drink until he has avenged Patroclus; he cannot attend to such things until he has discharged the fury in his heart. Pragmatic Odysseus advises that Achilles’ mind should be set at rest by an oath sworn by Agamemnon that he has not touched Briseis and that the troops should eat first. Many men die; the best thing is to bury them, mourn them and then eat and drink to have strength to carry on fighting. Achilles is subverting the wise order of things. After a sacrifice, the council ends with Achilles musing on the delusions that led to his anger and conflict with Agamemnon, and whether it was Zeus’ plan to bring destruction on so many Greeks.

Briseis, brought back by the Myrmidons, is overcome with weeping to see the body of Patroclus; she remembers his unfailing kindness from the day when Achilles, having killed her husband and three brothers, captured her – and his promise that Achilles would heal the wound he had made by marrying her and that he would preside over their wedding feast. The women around share her laments, overtly for Patroclus but each also for herself. Achilles’ mind too turns to his own griefs. He thinks of the past, and of his father and his son Neoptolemus who will not see him again. Athene takes pity on him and instils nectar to keep him from fainting.

Armed in his new armour he goes out to his horses and exhorts them to look after him better than they did Patroclus – to bring him safely from the battlefield. One horse answers, in human speech, absolving them from blame for his death which is now shortly to come.

Book 20

The return of Achilles compels the attention even of the gods. Zeus calls an assembly to revoke his decree of non-interference, a formal mirroring of the assembly of the Greeks in Book 19. He fears that Achilles will go beyond fate and storm Troy, and so allows the gods free rein to favour whichever side they wish: Hera, Pallas Athene, Poseidon, Hermes and Hephaestus to the Greeks; Ares, Phoebus Apollo, Artemis and Aphrodite to the Trojans. His plan seems now to have been fulfilled.

Achilles’ first major encounter is with Aeneas, whom he taunts with being marginalised by king Priam and with the reminder of a previous encounter when the gods saved him. Aeneas replies that he is well able to exchange insults, like a child or a fishwife, but now is the time for action, not taunts. Achilles’ five-fold shield protects him from a deadly thrust. Poseidon intervenes, perceiving that Aeneas will lose the encounter in the false confidence given by Apollo’s words – though the god ‘did never mean To add to his great words his guard against the ruin then Summoned against him . . . What fool is he!’ Poseidon saves Aeneas for his destined end – to be the progenitor of a mighty [Roman] race who will dominate Troy in generations to come. Achilles is disgusted to find his foe evaporate.

Apollo warns Hector not to confront Achilles, but when Achilles cuts down his latest victim, Polydorus, ‘exquisite of foot’ – Hector’s youngest brother and Priam’s favourite – he can bear it no longer and goes for him. Hector, like Aeneas, replies shortly to Achilles’ taunts and throws his spear. Three times Athene blows it away from Achilles and turns it back to Hector’s feet. Three times Achilles’ deadly charge is lost in the mist in which Apollo surrounds Hector. After the fourth, Achilles turns to slaughter lesser men.

One young man is killed as he is reaching out to Achilles’ knees:

With free submission . . . O poor fool, to sue to him . . .

In his hot fury. He was none of these remorseful men,

Gentle and affable, but fierce at all times, and mad then.

As inhuman fire, so Achilles sweeps everywhere with his spear, ‘inaccessible’ (ie refusing pleas for mercy); as oxen crush corn on the threshing floor, so Achilles tramples dead men.

Thus to be magnified,

His most inaccessible hands in human blood he dyed.

Book 21

Achilles chases the Trojans up to the river Xanthus and pollutes the water with blood,

Twelve fair young princes then

He chose of all to take alive, to have them freshly slain

On that most solemn day of wreak, resolv’d on for his friend.

He hands them over like startled fawns, bound, and resumes his killing. A young man – Priam’s young son Lycaon – is unable to escape Achilles. His recent history is recounted in the same way as many previous young victims, serving both to give a sense of reality and potential to the life that is going to be cut short, and as a memorial of that life. But the biography this time is relevant – he has been captured before by Achilles who has accepted ransom for him; he is therefore protected from harm at Achilles’ hands by the sacred obligation of host to protect the guest from harm. Achilles is bemused to see in the river a youth he has consigned either to the sea or to a land far away; Lycaon is terrified. He runs under Achilles’ spear thrust to grab his knees in supplication: the ritual gesture of submission that should be respected. He pleads for respect for his position and for the bond, for pity for his mother (not the same one as Hector’s) whose other son Achilles has just slain, for mercy.

Achilles is without mercy. No longer is he prepared to ransom or spare Trojans, especially not a son of Priam’s.

‘Die, die, my friend. What tears are these? What sad looks spoil thy face?

Patroclus died, that far pass’d thee: nay, seest thou not beside

Myself, ev’n I, a fair young man, and rarely magnified . . .

Death, and as violent a fate, must overtake ev’n me.’

Lycaon stops trying to ward off the inevitable; Achilles kills him and tosses him into the river with a dreadful taunt:

‘Go, feed fat the fish with loss

Of thy left blood; they clean will suck thy green wounds, and this saves

Thy mother tears upon thy bed . . .

. . . perish then, till cruell’st death hath laid

All at the red feet of Revenge for my slain friend . . . ’

This butchery offends the divine river, choked with his corpses; Achilles will move the site of his killing but it will not stop until he or Hector has the mastery.

Achilles, like something more than mortal, sweeps down on more Trojans. The river calls to Apollo and his fellow river to bury him and his arms, his renown lost forever, in their depths; Achilles fights on, carried along by the billowing, debris-filled flood. Hera intervenes by sending Hephaestus to burn up the river. Scamandrus, his waters seething, gives up his supernatural battle with Achilles. Hephaestus is called off by Hera; ‘it was not fit A god should suffer so for men.’

Athene and Ares, still feeling quarrelsome, fight childishly among themselves. Ares [god of war!] is worsted and has to be comforted by Aphrodite. Hera now sets Athene on and smiles to see how Athene pushes the goddess of love in the chest, sending her flying on top of Ares. Poseidon exhorts Apollo to join in the rough and tumble, but Apollo refuses to fight for ‘wretched men that flourish for a time Like leaves’. In the middle of laughing at the gods, we are reminded of the human condition and of why Achilles, like Glaucus in Book 6, risks everything for ‘his renown’.

Artemis calls her brother Apollo a coward, Hera calls her a shameless hussy and boxes her ears, which sends her crying and telling tales to her father, Zeus.

Away from this playground scrapping, the not-so-wretched ‘Rabid Achilles with his lance, still glory being the goad That pricked his fury’, carries on killing Trojans as they flee to Troy. Priam orders the gates to be opened for them and Apollo goes to their aid.

Agenor is sent to hold up Achilles; when he sees him, he debates whether there is any escape route. He concludes that there is none, and that his only chance is to fight, since Achilles is, after all mortal. He challenges him: ‘Thy hope is too great, Peleus’ son . . . fool’ to hope to take Troy before it is destined. He succeeds in hitting him, but is spirited away before a return blow. Apollo in Agenor’s form distracts Achilles, leading him up hill and down dale, while the Trojans get safely into the city.

Book 22

Book 22 brings the combat to the death between the preeminent fighters on the two sides, a resolution set up yet frustrated by the unresolved duels in Books 3 and 7. The combat is between Achilles, of the Greeks the most single-minded and best fighter, caring only for his honour, and Hector, the bulwark of Troy. The events of the
Iliad
have however complicated and undermined the two heroes’ standing. Hector by his rash, ill-tempered decision has endangered many Trojans; Achilles by standing on his honour and refusing Agamemnon’s reparation has allowed many friends and Patroclus to go to their deaths. A sense of personal tragedy pervades the confrontation. Hector, who cares only for his honour as a hero and protector of his family and Troy, has made a fatal misjudgement, has exposed himself to their censure. Achilles, who cares only for his own personal honour and his own men, has compromised both by his intransigence. Hector, spurred on before by the consciousness of those watching from the walls of Troy, is now shackled by it; Achilles, who declared that he cared nothing for the aims of the war but only for his integrity and heroic name, has become an inhuman, vengeful force.

Gods and Hector’s dependants look down on him, as he decides to stand his ground rather than retreat through the closing gates: he waits like a venom-filled

. . . dragon, when she sees a traveller bent upon

Her breeding den . . . sits him firm, and at his nearest pace

Wraps all her cavern in her folds, and thrusts a horrid face

Out at his entry . . .

But when Achilles comes,

. . . now near

His Mars-like presence terribly came brandishing his spear.

His right arm shook it, his bright arms, like day, came glittering on

Like fire-light, or the light of heav’n shot from the rising sun.

This sight outwrought discourse, cold fear shook Hector from his stand.

No more stay now, all ports were left, he fled in fear the hand

Of that fear-master, who, hawk-like, air’s swiftest passenger,

That holds a timorous dove in chase, and with command doth bear

His fiery onset; the dove hastes, the hawk comes whizzing on,

This way and that he turns and winds, and cuffs the pigeon;

And till he truss it, his great spirit lays hot charge on his wing:

So urg’d Achilles Hector’s flight, so still fear’s point did sting

His troubled spirit; his knees wrought hard; along the wall he flew . . .

The gods beheld them, all much mov’d; and Jove said: ‘O ill sight!

A man I love much I see forc’d in most unworthy flight . . . ’

Zeus debates, as when he saw Sarpedon going to his death, whether to intervene. Athene’s reply is the same as Hera’s was then: alter Fate? Do it then, but all the rest of us gods shall not approve. Zeus retracts, Athene flies down. Hector runs as if in a nightmare, not able to outpace his pursuer, Achilles keeping between him and the gates. Three times they circuit the walls, while Achilles prevents Greeks from interfering, lest they detract from his full glory. On the fourth, Zeus sets their ‘two fates of bitter death’ into his golden scales, and Hector’s is the heavier. Apollo forsakes Hector; Athene goes to him, disguised as his brother come to help, and they turn to face Achilles.

Hector tries to reach an agreement that the winner will not defile the loser’s body, but will return it respectfully. Achilles rejects these ‘fair and temperate terms’, saying that no conditions can be laid down between them, any more than between predator and prey. Hector should look to his ‘hunger for slaughter’: Athene will ensure that he pays with his life for the friends he slew.

Achilles casts his spear and misses; Hector seizes on this sign that Achilles is not after all an instrument of the gods and taunts him. He throws his spear, which misses, and turns to his brother ‘Deiphobus’ for a replacement. He sees that he is alone, and knows that the gods have cheated him and summoned him deathwards. There is no way out. But he can at least die nobly. He draws his sword and swoops like an eagle.

Hector is protected by the armour he stripped from Patroclus; only the neck is vulnerable; Achilles strikes and Hector drops in the dust. Achilles vaunts over him, ‘fool’ to think himself safe when he killed Patroclus:

‘ . . . the dogs and fowls in foulest use

Shall tear thee up, thy corse expos’d to all the Greeks abuse.’