Matthew, I really enjoyed this post. I’m curious if Book 19 in The Iliad and The Odyssey mirror one another. I’ll have to look at the more closely.
Your post and the one Shari wrote yesterday are definitely in conversation with one another. The topics are not the same and yet they seem to be conversing. I’m going to reflect on it more today and come back to the comments section this afternoon. First, I have to go encourage 7th graders to hang in there one more week and that’s taking all my mental energy this moment. 😂😂
Love this. I hadn’t seen the painting, Briseis Given Back to Achilles by Peter Paul Rubens, 1630. The Horses depicted in the painting are incredible, and do look as if they can, and do, speak.
I do wonder if this is a truce of desperation more than a reconciliation. It's just that defending the honor of his fallen friend is of greater importance than defending his own honor of being wronged.
I don't know how much carnage awaits us in the next book, but I can only imagine how much worse it would be if they were all hungry and sleep deprived. Way to go Odysseus.
(Also, it's probably just me, but every time Automedon is mentioned, I picture a transforming robot of some kind! It's just me, isn't it. 😂 Child of the 80's I guess.)
Hey, this was stunning. Your take on Achilles’ armour as emotional armour really hit home. I loved how you drew timeless parallels between ancient and modern life so well. It's a beautiful, thoughtful read that makes Homer feel vivid and urgent again.
The question about the horse. I felt that the horse represented, slow down buddy, you know you are going to die. Maybe it's the last reminder before he goes into battle.
My initial thoughts when reading the first half of the chapter were around the fact that neither of these two men were willing to take responsibility for an argument that has caused untold suffering and deaths on the Achean’s side. It was infuriating. Both acted childish, spoilt and irresponsibly. When I read the Iliad at school I remember being very pro Achilles, but now I’m very much rolling my eyes.
Great chapter though, felt like the calm before the storm of the final act
And thank you Matthew for your in depth look at Aphrodite, it’s so interesting to think about how her image has been coopted into such a simplistic view. Overall I loved this week.
I think this is my favourite chapter so far. It has all the spectacle of Greek myth with the presentation and donning of the armour, the ominous talking horses and animal sacrifice to the gods. (The talking horse did make me think of Mr. Ed)
But it also has the psychological response to grief, love, kindness - who says the psychological novel was born in the 19th c.
I found it interesting that in the Fagles translation the deity blamed for Agamemnon’s self deception is translated as “Ruin” where is in the Wilson translation it’s “Delusion” - made me think of how often self- delusion leads to ruin and how much suffering is caused by personal delusion.
Madeleine Miller does a good job of extrapolating Breisis words in this chapter into a whole novel in “Song of Achilles”.
The reconciliation between Achilles and Agamemnon felt more like expediency that heart-felt regret and forgiveness. Agamemnon takes no responsibility for his acts, but instead blames fate. Yet, Achilles accepts the excuse and is ready move on. Can Achilles truly forgive Agamemnon without Agamemnon accepting responsibility.
The prophecy by the horses is haunting. The fact that they have been made to speak and foretell Achilles death adds an element of mystical doom for Achilles that is now beyond a doubt. Even though we're in a milieu of gods who talk to mortals, have sex with mortals, intercede in mortal affairs, prophecy coming from a horse's mouth is a compelling symbol of immortal power.
Matthew, I meant to leave this comment when I first liked this post. Your opening quotation, "“I have no taste for food—what I really crave / is slaughter and blood and the choking groans of men” opens up this thinking in me. Its spirit, if not knowledge of the lines themselves, would have inspired the writers of the famous line from the Conan the Barbarian film, "What is best in life? To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women." Just as the creation of S&S figures like Conan himself were modern attempts to draw on an ancient, epic ethos of warring, righteous vengeance, those Conan lines move the ethos out of the field of any specific wrong prompting revenge to an ideal of living itself. So much of the modern culture of comic books, video games, and action movies seeks to resurrect this, and in contrast to that developmental stage in human culture, we might wonder why so many in the modern world, well beyond that developmental stage, feel vicariously stimulated by imaginatively recreating it. I remember when I read Paradise Lost for the first time. Beneath my recognition of the magnificent poetry, there was a kid in me who used to read comic books who said to himself in surprise, on encountering Satan's grandiloquent rage for retribution, "OMG! This is like the most fantastic Thor comic I've read!"
Matthew, I really enjoyed this post. I’m curious if Book 19 in The Iliad and The Odyssey mirror one another. I’ll have to look at the more closely.
Your post and the one Shari wrote yesterday are definitely in conversation with one another. The topics are not the same and yet they seem to be conversing. I’m going to reflect on it more today and come back to the comments section this afternoon. First, I have to go encourage 7th graders to hang in there one more week and that’s taking all my mental energy this moment. 😂😂
Love this. I hadn’t seen the painting, Briseis Given Back to Achilles by Peter Paul Rubens, 1630. The Horses depicted in the painting are incredible, and do look as if they can, and do, speak.
I do wonder if this is a truce of desperation more than a reconciliation. It's just that defending the honor of his fallen friend is of greater importance than defending his own honor of being wronged.
I don't know how much carnage awaits us in the next book, but I can only imagine how much worse it would be if they were all hungry and sleep deprived. Way to go Odysseus.
(Also, it's probably just me, but every time Automedon is mentioned, I picture a transforming robot of some kind! It's just me, isn't it. 😂 Child of the 80's I guess.)
Hey, this was stunning. Your take on Achilles’ armour as emotional armour really hit home. I loved how you drew timeless parallels between ancient and modern life so well. It's a beautiful, thoughtful read that makes Homer feel vivid and urgent again.
The question about the horse. I felt that the horse represented, slow down buddy, you know you are going to die. Maybe it's the last reminder before he goes into battle.
My initial thoughts when reading the first half of the chapter were around the fact that neither of these two men were willing to take responsibility for an argument that has caused untold suffering and deaths on the Achean’s side. It was infuriating. Both acted childish, spoilt and irresponsibly. When I read the Iliad at school I remember being very pro Achilles, but now I’m very much rolling my eyes.
Great chapter though, felt like the calm before the storm of the final act
And thank you Matthew for your in depth look at Aphrodite, it’s so interesting to think about how her image has been coopted into such a simplistic view. Overall I loved this week.
I also found the multiple sources for the birth of Aphrodite and her various roles and symbols really interesting.
I think this is my favourite chapter so far. It has all the spectacle of Greek myth with the presentation and donning of the armour, the ominous talking horses and animal sacrifice to the gods. (The talking horse did make me think of Mr. Ed)
But it also has the psychological response to grief, love, kindness - who says the psychological novel was born in the 19th c.
I found it interesting that in the Fagles translation the deity blamed for Agamemnon’s self deception is translated as “Ruin” where is in the Wilson translation it’s “Delusion” - made me think of how often self- delusion leads to ruin and how much suffering is caused by personal delusion.
Madeleine Miller does a good job of extrapolating Breisis words in this chapter into a whole novel in “Song of Achilles”.
The reconciliation between Achilles and Agamemnon felt more like expediency that heart-felt regret and forgiveness. Agamemnon takes no responsibility for his acts, but instead blames fate. Yet, Achilles accepts the excuse and is ready move on. Can Achilles truly forgive Agamemnon without Agamemnon accepting responsibility.
The prophecy by the horses is haunting. The fact that they have been made to speak and foretell Achilles death adds an element of mystical doom for Achilles that is now beyond a doubt. Even though we're in a milieu of gods who talk to mortals, have sex with mortals, intercede in mortal affairs, prophecy coming from a horse's mouth is a compelling symbol of immortal power.
Matthew, I meant to leave this comment when I first liked this post. Your opening quotation, "“I have no taste for food—what I really crave / is slaughter and blood and the choking groans of men” opens up this thinking in me. Its spirit, if not knowledge of the lines themselves, would have inspired the writers of the famous line from the Conan the Barbarian film, "What is best in life? To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women." Just as the creation of S&S figures like Conan himself were modern attempts to draw on an ancient, epic ethos of warring, righteous vengeance, those Conan lines move the ethos out of the field of any specific wrong prompting revenge to an ideal of living itself. So much of the modern culture of comic books, video games, and action movies seeks to resurrect this, and in contrast to that developmental stage in human culture, we might wonder why so many in the modern world, well beyond that developmental stage, feel vicariously stimulated by imaginatively recreating it. I remember when I read Paradise Lost for the first time. Beneath my recognition of the magnificent poetry, there was a kid in me who used to read comic books who said to himself in surprise, on encountering Satan's grandiloquent rage for retribution, "OMG! This is like the most fantastic Thor comic I've read!"