An Introduction to Homer's Iliad

Stephen Smith

Foreign.

Jeremiah Regan

Welcome to the Hillsdale College Online Courses Podcast. I am Jeremiah Regan. And I'm Juan Davalos. We are back with something a little different. Today we're going to look at a couple of lectures from our course, Great Books 101, Ancient to Medieval. This is one of the first courses that we produced, and it's related to the core course that our undergraduate students take where they learn the key literature of the Western tradition. We're doing this special episode on the Iliad, and next week we'll do another on Homer's Odyssey because we have full courses coming out on both of those works. The Iliad will be taught by Stephen Smith, who also delivers the Iliad lecture in Great Books 101. And the Odyssey course features Ben Whelan, the son of David Whelan, the professor featured in the Great Books lecture on the Odyssey. So we're giving you a preview, two great lectures from the archives to prepare you for full courses that are coming out in the summer of 26. And of course, you may have seen that there's a big movie, a big blockbuster movie coming out in Hollywood, which is on Homer's Odyssey. The movie is called Odyssey, produced by Christopher Nolan, and it's gonna be a big blockbuster. So if you go watch that movie and you want to actually learn more about Homer's Odyssey and get the full story, then I encourage you to definitely enroll in our online course, which will go into much more depth. For now, we'll give you a preview of the Iliad, which chronologically falls before the Odyssey. It is the story of war, of rage, of martial virtue and the pursuit of honor on the battlefield that serves as a contrast to the way of life depicted in the Odyssey, which we'll discuss next week. But. But Dr. Smith takes us through the great artsmanship, the great craftsmanship of Homer in telling this story about the greatest warriors of all time. So enjoy this lecture on Homer's epic poem, the Iliad.

Stephen Smith

So where to begin with Homer's Iliad? Common sense. Place to start is with the author and the title. What does Iliad mean? It means a poem about Ilium or about Troy. And this poem centers on the Trojan War, an event that took place around 1200 B.C. now, regarding Homer, there's been a good deal of discussion of the authorship of the poems, a discussion I don't really want to get into today. But the poem obviously has oral roots. It was obviously performed, but it's also, in my opinion, clearly by Homer, a poet we think lived around the 8th century BC so much discussion is offered of Homer and the composition of the poem. But the edition that we're using today, Robert Fagel's Iliad, offers this as after summarizing the dispute as a conclusion. All of this is of course speculation, but so are all other attempts to explain the origin of the Iliad that has come down to us. We shall never be able to answer all the questions it raises with any certainty and must rest content with this fact that a great poet marshaled the resources of an age old traditional art to create something new. The epic of Achilles rage and Hector's death, which has been a model for epic poetry ever since. So I'll more or less consistently call the author of this poem Homer and put aside the controversy over the composition of the poem and how it came down to us. So Homer's Iliad. I guess there's a couple other things to get you a little bit excited about reading this poem. Great judge, from antiquity, Aristotle described Homer's poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey as constructed as well as possible. They come as close as possible to the ideal for a poem. So Aristotle, author of the Nicomachean Ethics and other texts, no mean judge. In fact, someone in modernity remarked that to think well is to think like Aristotle. So his opinion of this poem in particular, very high. And then in the Middle Ages, Dante Lighieri, the author of the Divine Comedy, writes this. Well, it's in the Inferno, and he sees the shade of Homer and says this. Behold the one whose right hand wields the sword. Behold the one who comes before other poets as their lord, that is Homer, the sovereign. One of my favorite lines on behalf of Homer, that is the bard supreme, that is Homer. So when we approach this poem, we're approaching the first great epic and perhaps the best, Aristotle and Dante, with high, high praise. So what's the background of the poem? As you may know, the Trojan prince Paris abducted Helen, wife of Menelaus, a Greek, and brought her back to Troy. Now, abduct is kind of a strong word for the Iliad. The more you read the elite, it starts to look like Helen in Paris. Well, as they say, it takes two to tango. It looks like an affair in Homer's judgment. And when Trojan Paris takes Helen back to Troy, the Trojan War begins. Helen is the face that launched a thousand ships and her abduction begins the war. Now, as far as this poem goes, one of the surprising things when you read it for the first time, of course, it's my hope that that's exactly what you'll do is after listening to these brief remarks, you'll notice that you don't get the complete account of the war. In fact, you get about 55 days in year 10 of the Trojan War. Really right about the. A little bit before the death of one of the main characters and a little bit before the fall of Troy itself. Whenever I teach to text, students are often disappointed by this. They want the whole story, they want beginning to end, but they get instead what Homer gives them, which again, is about 55 days or so. So you don't get the beginning of the war, you don't get the end of the war. You just get what Homer wants to give you, which is 55 days or so. Now, whenever I pronounce characters names, I'm going to follow the pronunciation guide in this edition of the Iliad. Just a little note my approach to the Iliad. What I want to suggest today is that Homer, this great poet, represents and probes the world of the Iliad and the souls living and striving and dying in it.

Jeremiah Regan

Why?

Stephen Smith

Why represent them? Why probe them? The poem is not a simple reflection of the cultural values of the heroes. It's actually considerably more philosophical than that. But it's important to see that it both represents this world, these souls, these heroes, their value, their education, their culture, and probes them or examines them. I think, finally, the Iliad itself offers to the reader the kind of education that Homer's heroes lack and a lack that in many cases destroys them. So again, I hope this brief introduction to the text will intrigue you and make you run out and get a copy of Homer's Iliad to read and enjoy. So I've divided the talk today into seven parts. The poem of rage, poem of desire, poem of delusion, poem of disaster, Poem of death. This is very cheerful. Poem of responsibility and evasion. Then finally, poem of glory. So what I want to do is just briefly work through what I consider some essential high points of the text and share them with you and share some thoughts with you. So, first poem of rage. In the FAGL's translation, rage is the first word of the poem, and I want to read it out loud because it's so important. It's a very famous opening, usually commands a pause in the classroom. And in Fago's rendition, it's particularly grand. So here's how the poem opens. Rage, goddess, sing the rage of Peleus son Achilles, murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaians countless losses Hurling down to the house of death. So many sturdy souls, great fighters, souls but made their Bodies, carrion, feasts for dogs and birds. And the will of Zeus was moving toward its end. It's a famous opening, identifying the subject of the poem quite simply as rage. Now, students often wonder, how is it possible to write an epic on anger? So what kind of rage are we talking about? The rage of Achilles. When you approach a text like this one, the best dispositions you can have is that of wonder. Homer's not going to explain in the opening lines why he thinks the rage of Achilles is worth writing an epic on. You have to discover that and learn that through the reading of the book and careful reflection on it. So never be afraid of wonder when you study these great literary works. It's really the essential passion that's at the heart of learning. Plato says it's the beginning of philosophy. It's also the passion that keeps philosophy going. So the rage of Achilles is the subject of this poem. And Homer throws in the will of Zeus. The rage of Achilles is obviously violent, murderous, doomed. It's described in great detail. The will of Zeus considerably more mysterious. All we know is it's moving and it's moving toward its end. And one clear, violent rage, the other mysterious, Both of them worth our wonder as we begin the book. So, poem of rage. The poem begins with a great and a famous quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles. Agamemnon is the king of the Greeks. Achilles is a king in his own right, but a lesser king. He's the greatest warrior at Troy. The Greeks are dying at the beginning of the poem from a plague because King Agamemnon has refused to return the daughter of the priest of Apollo. Everyone urges him to. He refuses. The plague strikes the camp sent by Apollo. Now the quarrel breaks out when Achilles and the Greeks urge Agamemnon to return the girl. Agamemnon, who is a proud soul at the best of times, perhaps erupts in anger and says he won't give her back. Then he begins to come around and he says with a threat, I'll give her back, but I'm going to take another prize that is her equal. And you know, Achilles, I may just take your prize. So the fight between them involves the wages of the war, I suppose the prize of honor in this case, a young lady named Briseis. Achilles is outraged by this, and the quarrel breaks out between them. He almost kills Agamemnon, but then is stopped and decides to withdraw from the war and retreat to his tent, smoldering with rage. Now, at first, it can seem like this quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles is completely ridiculous. Students often think, are these guys just a bunch of adolescents fighting over a girl? This is rather mortifying, rather embarrassing. But there's an important dispute between Agamemnon and Achilles. Agamemnon is the king. He has a scepter. He is sort of excellent by custom and by office, Achilles is the greatest warrior. He's excellent by nature. By his own abilities, he is brilliant. Achilles, Agamemnon is the lord of men. So the fight at the beginning involves not only the girl, but which of these men is the best man, the king, by custom or Achilles. They both think, as you'll find out when you read it, they both think, I am the best, I am the greater man. And the quarrel breaks out for these reasons. So at the beginning, that's how things start. Now, the rage of Achilles, the poem of rage. Is that all? How could that begin an epic poem? Well, when you read a little bit more in book one, something pretty astonishing happens. Achilles retreats to the side of the sea and he has a conversation with his mother. And in this conversation, he makes the first and maybe the most famous of the prayers in the poem. I want to read it to you because this is really, I think, the beginning of the rage of Achilles. So he's smarting, he's mortified, he feels humiliated. His honor has been taken from him. He's angry, and he offers this prayer to his mother. Turns out Achilles mother is a goddess and Zeus owes her a favor, always helpful. Remind him of that mother. Go sit beside Zeus. Grasp his knees, persuade him somehow to help the Trojan cause, to pin the Achaeans back against their ships, to trap them round the bay and mow them down so all can reap the benefits of their king, Agamemnon. So even he can see how mad he was to disgrace Achilles, the best of the Achaians. Now, that prayer is the most important thing, I think that happens in book one. What did he ask for in his humiliation and his anger? He asked for the destruction of his own friends and countrymen. He disgraced me. Mow them down. Why? So that he and they can know I am the best. So the prayer is both desire for revenge, I suppose, desire for justice, but also for self exaltation, but at the cost of his countrymen's lives. So for many readers, Achilles has a point in the quarrel up to a certain point. But when he makes this prayer, everyone goes, hey, hold on a second. You just prayed for the death of the Achaians for the sake of your Honor and glory. The first casualty of the rage of Achilles is friendship, common good. When Zeus hears the prayer, he utters his first word in the poem. He's a big character in the poem, right? Disaster. And later in the poem, this prayer will be described as the disastrous prayer that Achilles made. So everything comes from this prayer that he makes in his rage. And he prays for the death of his friends and his countrymen. So the rage of Achilles begins in that way. And again Zeus greets it with this word. Disaster in the poem commences on that note. Now the second point poem of desire, one of the master themes of the whole poem. In a way, what's behind Achilles rage is desire. In the 20th century, William Faulkner, the great American novelist, said that his specialties was writing about the human heart in conflict with itself. And we see this on display quite powerfully in the Iliad. I want to look at just three examples on this poem of desire theme. The first, of course, Achilles longs for his own glory, longs for honor, for self exaltation. But that's not all there is to Achilles. It turns out he's quite attached to his home as well, and he longs to escape death. And one of the most important things to realize about Achilles, the more we get into the poem I mention his mother is a goddess. Well, his father is a mortal man, so he's sort of a mixed breed, I suppose. He has a mortal father, he's doomed to die, but he has that immortal mother. And because of that, he has real immortal longings in him. But those longings create a conflict between the longing for glory and the longing for home. He says in book nine, very famously, two fates bear me on to the day of death. And I want to look at that text for a second look at page 265. This is the embassy to Achilles in book nine. So Achilles has been sitting out after the prayer and after the quarrel, and the Greeks come to him, trying to persuade him to re enter the war. But to the point poem of desire. Mother tells me, the immortal goddess, that two fates bear me on to the day of death. If I hold out here and lay siege to Troy, my journey home is gone, but my glory never dies. If I voyage back to the fatherland I love my pride, my glory dies, that's true. But the life that's left me then will be long. The stroke of death will not come quickly. So for Achilles, as he says, I could stay here and win great glory, but die young. I could go home, enjoy long life, but obscurity now, one of the funny things about the poem, as I mentioned at the beginning, we're in year 10 of the war, 55 days, more or less the action of the poem. The Greeks have been in Troy for a decade, trying to break the city. One of the most funny things about Achilles is he keeps saying, yeah, I could go home tomorrow. I could leave. Two fates, bear me to the day of death. Stay here, fight and die, but win glory, go home. Long life in obscurity. But the reality is he's been there for nine, 10 years. So which desire is stronger in him? Clearly, the longing for glory. But you wouldn't want to overlook how much he longs for home and how much he longs to escape death. That's what makes him a deep character. Actually, I mentioned a couple other examples. We haven't talked about the Trojans at all. I mentioned Paris abducting Helen, so why don't we take them first? Helen and Paris, they too, souls of strong desire. They long for beauty, for eros, for erotic desire, and for escape. They're two of the most famously frustrating characters in the poem. Helen, as I mentioned in Homer's account, looks like a willing abductee. Her main activity in the poem is berating herself, staying at Troy and weaving a gorgeous robe, a work of art on which she depicts all the suffering that folks have endured for her sake. So she's quite a character. She describes the war this it was all for me, or it is all for me, whore that I am. And for this mad, blind Paris, oh, the two of us. Zeus planted a killing doom within us, so even for generations still unborn, we will live in song. So she likes to describe herself as doomed. She likes to describe herself as a whore. She likes to describe her husband as blind and mad. But neither of them make any changes to their character or to their approach. So they have this capacity for seeing the truth and yet remain as they are. One of the more frustrating things in the poem.

Scott Bertram

Hey there, it's Scott Bertram, host of the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour and happy America 253. We celebrate with a special America 250 Independence Day special. Two professors from Hillsdale join us this week. Dr. Khalil Habib, Associate professor of politics, talks about the American founding and his recent essay, the Importance of the 4th of July according to the Adams Family. That's John and John Quincy Adams. And Bill Maclay, the Victor Davis Hansen Chair in Classical History and Western Civilization, here discusses the importance of measured patriotism in his recent piece, Memory and America's birthday. It's a very special America 250 edition of the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. Find it at podcast hillsdale. Edu or wherever you get your audio. You know the Robertson family from the hit TV show Duck Dynasty. Now Hillsdale College offers you the the unique opportunity to learn alongside the Robertsons as they dive deep into Hillsdale's online course, the Genesis Story. Every Friday on the Unashamed Podcast, the Robertsons will share their insights and perspectives, learning from Hillsdale professor of English Justin Jackson. Take a trip down south to Louisiana for this one of a kind learning experience we call what a Shamed Academy. Visit unashamedforhillsdale.com and enroll today. That's unashamed f o r hillsdale.com to experience the Genesis story alongside the Robertsons.

Stephen Smith

What about Paris? He looks like a great warrior. My sons were asking me earlier who would play Paris in the movie. He looks like a great warrior. He's got the glistening locks, all these weapons, a reflex bow, double spears. But according to his brother Hector, no pith within him. So he's a beautiful exterior, handsome exterior, but no real pith. And at the beginning of the poem, he meets Menelaus, Helen's husband, and they have an almost duel. But Paris escapes in kind of cowardly fashion with the help of Aphrodite. He gets back to Troy and his wife berates him. She's like, you are such a coward. I can't believe I'm married to you. You wouldn't even fight men. Allow us to which he says, you know, honey, everything you're saying about me is true. But let's do this. Let's go back to bed. Let's lose ourselves in love. Never has longing for you overwhelmed me so, not even then. The first time I swept you away, that was nothing for how I hunger for you now dear Irresistible longing lays me low. Now what usually lays you low in the Iliad would be a spear or being killed violently. What brings about your death here? In Paris and Helen's case, it's their desire. So, poem of desire. You have Achilles and his desire, Helen and Paris, desire. And their desire launched the war. The last example I'd give is Hector. Hector, the prince of Troy. The best defense of the city. The mighty opposite of Achilles. In Homer's depiction, he's also a family man. There's a very tender scene in book six between his wife and his newborn son. And in that scene, Hector emerges. He looks like the opposite of Achilles in a way. He's very concerned with Troy and The common good. He's fighting for others, for his family. He's a man of honor, he's a great warrior. But his wife says something quite striking when she sees him come back from battle. Instead of saying, oh, honey, it must have been a tough day at the office, she says, o reckless one, my Hector, your own fiery courage will destroy you. So the first thing that his wife says in the poem is not, you are the one who defends Troy. You are this, you are that. She prophesies his self destruction because of his recklessness and his own fiery courage. Later, after his death, spoiler alert, she will say, did Achilles put an end to the fatal headstrong pride that would always seize my husband? This wife knows her husband quite well, it turns out, and there's considerably more to Hector than the defense of Troy or love of the family. He's a man of fire as well, of headstrong pride and of keen desire for glory. Now, all of these forms of desire are wild in the poem. The tragic forms of reminds me of something Homer writes later in the Odyssey. In that poem, Odysseus goes to the underworld and he wants to know, how do we get home again after all this wandering? How do we do it? And Tiresias tells him, if you could only learn how to curb your wild desire and your crew, you might just see your home again. But that's the real challenge in the poems of Homer is that desire is almost irresistible. It's powerful. It's at the heart of who we are. It also has this destructive tendency, this wild tendency. Who can curb it? Who can rule it, who can direct it? The characters struggle mightily with it. Now, another big theme in the poem is delusion and deception. I'm going to be on the lookout for examples of characters blaming the gods. It becomes kind of comical at a certain point. Helen and Paris, we mentioned their affair started the war. So when you hear Priam, the king of Troy, say to Helen, come here dear, sit next to me. I don't hold you to blame. I hold the gods to blame. It's hard not to. Not to be amazed, actually. Or Agamemnon, it looks like he's the cause of the quarrel at the beginning of the poem in book one. But he blames Zeus, he blames ruin, he blames anyone but himself for his own actions. In fact, in class this past semester, we were joking that if Zeus could make a T shirt, it would say don't blame me on it. He could circulate it to the characters in the Iliad, even Paris, the beautiful Paris, the kind of Fabio figure in the poem. He says, hey, look to his brother. I didn't vote for these good looks. I didn't vote for being Paris. It's just a gift of Aphrodite. Don't blame me. So this theme in the poem is just as important as the others. Why do the characters locate responsibility somewhere other than in their own will or their own freedom? Reminiscent perhaps of the text of Genesis, the woman you gave me gave me the fruit. Or Shakespeare's King Lear. This is the excellent foppery of the world that when we are sick in fortune, often the surfeit of our own behaviors we make guilty of our disasters. The sun, the moon and the stars, anything but ourselves. So freedom and responsibility, quite an important theme here. I mentioned delusion and deception. So the key delusion is the blame game. But deception, truth telling and lying, very important as well. Ares, the God of war, is described as duplicitous, two faced, a liar. But Achilles is particularly sensitive on this point of truth telling and lying. In that same embassy scene I mentioned earlier, he meets Odysseus, the hero of the Odyssey, and they have a little brief exchange that's very famous. This is on page 262. Royal Son of Laertes, Achilles says, I must say what I have to say straight out, I must tell you how I feel and how this whole thing will end. So in his own understanding, his own self image, Achilles is the kind of guy who just tells you how it is, tells it like it is, you know, perhaps smooth as a train wreck, that type. But here's the famous I hate that man like the very gates of death, who says one thing with his lips but holds another in his heart. I will say it outright, that's what seems best to me. Will Agamemnon win me over? Never. So for Achilles, the most hateful thing, as hateful as death is insincerity or lying. Now most people who read, many people who read the scene recognize some irony. Odysseus strong suit is tale telling, wily behavior, verbal dexterity. He's the great rhetorician. He's not exactly the most truthful person you'll ever meet in literature. So for Achilles to say this to Odysseus has seemed to many kind of witty. But I think that misses the more serious point, which is how do we judge? Or what is Achilles own truthfulness like? His point of pride is I'm the truth teller. I'm the one who tells it like it is. I hate liars. All These lines make particularly painful what happens in the second part of the poem where Achilles in fact will withhold, even directly lie to his best friend about something that he knows. So again, just to keep it all straight, there's a quarrel in book one. Achilles makes his prayer. He's sitting out of the war. He will not come back. He says, I hate like the gates of death, the one who says one thing with his lips and holds another in his heart. But as the poem unfolds, Zeus grants Achilles prayer. So as book after book unfolds, death after death, battle after battle, the Greeks are being pushed back and the Trojans are winning. And this brings the poem to a crisis. Point to Achilles. It looks like he's about to get what he wanted the whole time, which is his own exaltation. But at this desperate moment, one of the most remarkable things in the plot happens. The Greeks are all wounded, they're dying, and old King Nestor intervenes. It turns out Achilles has a best friend, Patroclus, or Patroclus, who's with him in the tent. He tells Patroclus, is there any way, if Achilles won't help us, that you could go back to him and say, send me instead. Let me wear your armor, Achilles. Let me fight. That would scare the Trojans. They think it was you. And we'd be able to create a little breathing room in this terrible, terrible moment in the war. Now, at this moment, Achilles pauses and the question is asked directly to him. Is there some prophecy that you know deep down, Achilles, something that's making you balk? If so, say it outright. To which Achilles says, no, there's no prophecy at all. I think you should do this. I think this plan will work. And so he sends his best friend into battle wearing his own armor. And of course, as you'll find out when you read it, I hope his best friend dies in battle. Now, I mentioned truth telling and lying. Well, it turns out Achilles has been keeping something to himself pretty successfully for the 10 years they've been in Troy. A prophecy he learned from his mother that goes like, while you live, Achilles, the best will die. Now, Achilles is particularly preoccupied with being the best man. He really keenly desires that title. So he hasn't mentioned this prophecy to anyone. He's kept it to himself. Now, his best friend, Patroclus, is not only his best friend, but probably the most admired man in the Greek army. When he dies, the grieving over him is pretty extraordinary. He was supposed to be a counselor to Achilles. He's supposed to Help Achilles. He's not as strong as Achilles, but he has judgment and he has kindness. Now if anyone in Achilles circle of friends would have qualified as the other best guy, this is probably his friend Patroclus. So when he's asked, do you know of any reason, is there anything holding you back? And he says no. He's sending his friend into battle with this prophecy haunting his mind and he's lying to him. Now of course I mentioned Patroclus will meet his death in the poem at the hands of Hector, one of the sadder moments in the poem. And Achilles, while this is happening, is back at his tent waiting and waiting for the news. And as Homer puts it very simply, while he was waiting, while he was presuming that Zeus was still fulfilling everything he wanted in book one, his best friend on earth lay dead. And this brings about finally the re entry of Achilles into the battle. But it's a disaster personally for Achilles. The death of his best friend and an example of his own double dealing. When he prayed for all the Achaians to be mowed down, that was a very general request. He probably didn't think, does that include my best friend? Zeus grants the prayer and indeed it does include the best friend. And he dies. So when we get to this key moment in the text, Achilles comes to a crisis point. He's sitting out, he sends his best friend, the best friend dies. He withheld the knowledge. What's going to happen next? Now, for my money, when the news reaches Achilles that his friend is dead, and of course that he bears some responsibility for this, we have the best moment in the poem so far. Your friend is dead. Achilles hears it, he falls to the ground, he pours dirt over his head, fouls his white shirt, and then has a second important scene with his mother. And if you love irony, this is a great scene. His mother comes and she's Achilles, why are you crying? What sorrow touches your heart? Zeus has accomplished everything you wanted. Just as you raised your hands and prayed that day. All the sons of Achai are pinned against the ships. Everybody's dying. This is it. And groaning deeply, Achilles answered, oh, my dear mother. True. All those burning desires Olympian Zeus brought to pass, all of them have been fulfilled. But what joy to me. My dear comrade is dead. Patroclus, the man I love beyond all other comrades, loved as my own life. I've lost him. Hector killed him. So this is a moment of agony for Achilles, a moment of perhaps self knowledge. But as I mentioned earlier, characters in the Iliad have a Remarkable capacity for discerning the truth and remaining as they are. So here is the golden moment, I suppose, for Achilles to examine himself, to grow in self knowledge. But instead he focuses entirely on Hector. Hector the murderer. Hector the man who destroyed the dearest life I've known. I must go back into battle. I must kill Hector now. At that point, it's true, Hector does kill Patroclus. But any careful reader would know that Achilles himself bears considerable responsibility as well. But in any event, on that note, he says, I'm reentering the war. And his mother says, my son, don't you know another prophecy? As soon as you kill Hector, your own death is imminent. Your death follows his. And Achilles says, I don't care. I'm going back into war. And he does, with a tremendous amount of violence and success. So he's going to get some new armor. He lost his armor to Hector and he's going to go on a bit of a rampage. His war cry is extraordinary. Turning to death and outrage. Achilles, extreme rage takes all sorts of forms. When he cries aloud three times. 12 trojans die on their own spears. It's quite a cry. He kills many, many Trojans. And perhaps most graphically, he tries to fill a river with dead bodies and stop the flow of the river altogether. At which the river God finally cries out, you are greater than any man, Achilles. You are greater in outrage too. Why are you cramming all my lovely? Flow with corpses. I am filled with horror. Stop. So as he gets into battle again, men start dying, the river starts getting flowed, filled with corpses. And even the gods are a target of Achilles rage. Apollo tries to stop him at one point and Achilles says, ah, you a God. I'd pay you back if only I had the power. So the end of the rage. What he wants is kind of radical right. Every single Trojan to die. He says at one point, to stop the flow of a beautiful river with dead bodies, to strike directly at the God Apollo and kill him. And this is before he's met Hector. So when he finally does meet Hector, his famous duel unfolds. And Achilles will get what he wants in a way which is the defeat of Hector in battle. One of the best single books in the whole poem. Book 22 features Hector's deliberations. Should he face Achilles or should he retreat to the city? Everyone wants him to retreat. Achilles is obviously having some success in battle, but Hector can't do it. And he will stay outside the city walls. His father yelling, his mother yelling, everyone telling him to come back inside. And in this translation, he just says very simply, no way out, and Achilles will kill him. So at this point in the poem, Achilles has re entered the war. He's killed a tremendous number of people. He's raging. He's killed Hector and avenged himself for the death of Patroclus. But at this moment, which should be the high point if you're Achilles, there is no greater prize in battle. There's no greater glory you can win at Troy than defeating Hector. So what does Achilles do? He defeats him. He glories over him, and then very quickly, he turns to outrage. He pierces his ankles, ties him behind the horse's chariot and drags his body through the dust. It's fascinating how Homer shows that Achilles high point almost instantly becomes a low point. It goes from glory to outrage like that. And at this point, we're almost to the end of the narrative that Homer has set up. Achilles prayed in book one, he sent Patroclus into battle. That was a disaster. He re enters battle, he kills Hector. He's got the body. He's dragging it around. Where will this end? And I think what's quite powerful come to the last portion of the talk. It only ends through this very quiet and beautiful book 24. So when you come to the end of the poem, it's always good to remember the beginning. The subject was the rage of Achilles on the one hand, and the will of Zeus moving toward its end. So we shouldn't be surprised that when the rage ends and the will of Zeus is fulfilled, the poem ends. There's really a good deal of sense in how it's made. So where does the rage of Achilles lead him? By book 24, we're told he's unable to sleep. We're told he wanders along the sea aimlessly. We're told he drags the body of Hector round and round his friend's funeral pyre for 12 straight days. He just can't let Hector's body be buried for some reason. So 12 days. Imagine how shocking this would be, dragging a human body around for 12 days. So this is where the rage of Achilles finally leads him, to this restless, aimless, kind of outrageous form of life. Now, at this point, finally, the gods can't take it anymore. Day 12 comes. We can't let him keep treating Hector's body like this. We have to do something. And at this point, Zeus agrees and says, okay, tell him he must give the body back. Tell him this must end. He also adds one curious thing. He says, in doing so, I will grant Achilles glory. So again, we're at a low point for Achilles. And yet now Zeus uses, surprisingly, the language of glory. There is no fighting in book 24. No one dies. No way to gain glory through battle. What kind of glory could Achilles possibly attain? At the end of the poem, Zeus says he will. So what happens in book 24? Now for my money, book 24 is one of the high points of western literature you mentioned. It's very quiet, very powerful and really very moving. Hector's father, King Priam, is obviously very upset about how the body is being treated. He decides he's going to go under the COVID of darkness to Achilles himself and ask for the body. Back he goes with the help of Hermes and he arrives suddenly in the tent of achilles. Now, after 10 years of war, it's really an astonishing moment. The king of Troy appears in Achilles tent with a simple request. Could you please stop? Could you please give me my son's body back? I want to bury it. We're told in the tent they've just finished supper when Priam walks in, kneels down before Achilles and kisses him. The majestic king of Troy slipped past the rest and kneeling down beside Achilles, clasped his knees and kissed his hands. Those terrible man killing hands that had slaughtered Priam's many sons in battle. Awesome. Homer says, wonderful. As when madness seizes a man. So in a way it's kind of crazy, given Achilles feats in battle, to actually go and supplicate him, it's beautiful, it's crazy, it's awesome are the words that he uses. Priam then speaks. He prays his heart out to Achilles. Same page. Remember your own father, great godlike Achilles, as old as I am, past the threshold of deadly old age. It's all for my boy Hector that I've come to your ships now to win him back from you, I bring a priceless ransom. Revere the gods, Achilles. Pity me in my own right. Remember your own father. I deserve more pity. I have endured what no one on earth has done before. I put to my lips the hands of the man who killed my son. And he kisses Achilles hands. Now, at this point, which is so powerful, the last thing you might think after listening to this is kissing Achilles, kissing his hands. That's exactly what Priam does. Those words stirred within Achilles a deep desire to grieve for his own father. Taking the old man's hand, he gently moved him back. And overpowered by memory, both men gave way to grief. Priam wept for his son, freely throbbing, crouching before Achilles Achilles wept himself, now for his father, now for his dead friend once again. And their sobbing rose and fell throughout the house. Some of the most surprising things that could happen. Priam and Achilles share this moment of weeping. And when we're told, the desire for it passes from them, they have a conversation. When brilliant Achilles had his fill of tears and a longing for weeping had left him, he rose from his seat, raised the old man by the hand, and filled with pity now for his gray head and gray beard, he spoke out, winging words flying straight to the heart. You poor man, how much you've borne. Pain to break the spirit. What daring brought you here to face me? You have a heart of iron. So Achilles is moved by, not by martial glory, but by Priam begging for his son's body back. Now the rest of the scene, a very quiet ending, is full of significance and I think finally reveals the glory that Zeus was talking about. Priam says, look, take the ransom, bring it back home again. Now we know Achilles is probably not going home again. But instead of flying into a rage, Achilles actually governs himself. And doesn't. He then bathes the body of Hector. He says very simply to his serving women, bear it aside, bathe and anoint it. He can't see his son. So all the little details at the end are crucially important. Achilles doesn't fly into a rage. For example, when home is mentioned, even though he's sure to die now in Troy, he governs himself. He thinks too of Priam. He's very considerate. He directs his serving women to bathe the body of the dead man. Priam must not see his son this way. Achilles then lifts the body of Hector up himself and puts it on the wagon. He even goes so far as to serve the king a meal. A sentence as simple as Achilles served the meat suggests that quite a transformation has started in Achilles. And finally he tells the old man, I will hold myself back as long as you need. Be precise about it. How long do you need to bury your son? So what's powerful about the ending in book 24, in all these little ways, is that Achilles, the man of rage, the man who made that prayer at the beginning, the man who sent his friend to his death, the man who killed and treated Hector's body so outrageously here at least, begins to act differently, to change. This is the one exception, I think, in the poem. Some of the other characters experience a moment of truth, moment of possible change, but don't quite change here. Achilles freely changes. Zeus had said, I will grant him glory. Perhaps the final glory of Homer's Iliad is the beginning of virtue in Achilles, or the beginning of a new way of life. The last image we have of Achilles, actually in the whole poem, after all of the rage, after all of the death and violence, is sleeping in his tent at peace. So that really the final wonder is Achilles half man, half God, Achilles haunted by death, Achilles given to rage, into outrageous prayers, experiencing peace of soul, and again, the beginning of a new way of life. So if there's glory here at the end, it is the glory of Achilles, freedom and the freedom from his rage. So I hope you've enjoyed that overview of the poem, and I hope you can sense just how worthwhile a reading experience this first and perhaps greatest of the epics really is.

Jeremiah Regan

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