NotesBook3Iliad

Notes on Iliad Book 3

there is a battle formation of the rank and file: they stand by each other
this is how a war would have been fought at most times: by masses of soldiers, not so much by individual combats. Homer doesn't emphasize this, but occasionally seems to show that he knew it.

similes of Menelaus and Paris in battle: from natural world, but human world mixed in (the lion is being hunted by humans, the snake almost trod on by a human)

Hektor rebukes (a standard type of speech) Paris, and Paris says he is right to do so and agrees to a man-on-man battle with Menelaus for possession of Helen
this seems radically out of place in the 9th year of a war to reclaim Helen, no? Coulda shoulda happened earlier, no?

simile for Hector's heart (Greek says heart, Lombardo says mind): an axe blade: simile from world of humans

lambs are to be sacrificed to mark the pledge that whoever wins the duel will take Helen and the war will be over
note that Talthybios, Agamemnon's herald, is sent: Talthybios was the one who took Briseis from Achilles. He and Eurybates Agamemnon's go-fers.

Shift scene to HELEN
Iris, shape of Laodike, comes to her: Iris means "rainbow," a messenger goddess.
at 140, Helen is said to be filled with desire for Menelaus! Iris puts her up to it: the gods seem to use her like a pawn by arousing lust in her
again, a perfectly human psychological phenomenon is attributed to a god's influence: compare Athena pulling back Achilles from killing Agamemnon, or Agamemnon's dream. This is clearly a narrative device, but also an aspect of divinity: it perfuses human lives. "Ordinary" things can be godly influenced happenings.

The teichoscopia: view from the walls, a famous instance that fits into a type scene not unlike the catalog
Priam and other elders watch from the walls and ask Helen about the Greeks. She tells them who is who.
amazingly, they think that her beauty absolves both sides of blame for fighting for her. It is a perfectly good reason to go to war, apparently.
but they'd rather not be at war and want to send her back

Helen's speech: she wishes she had never left and come to Troy: Priam says the gods are to blame, not her.

Odysseus and Menelaus came to Troy before the war, about Helen! Must have been a diplomatic mission to try to avert the war?
Homer (and mythology) is littered with this sort of echo-like thing.
Think of how Heracles took Troy in the generation before this one: an echo of the current war. These echoes or parallels make things more interesting and related in interesting ways. Almost like alternative realities: what could have been.

decision by lot: that would become very important in Greek democracies, unlike modern versions

Paris has lost the duel, but Aphrodite saves him
she breaks the chin strap
she covers Paris with a cloud and whisks him away
to his bedroom
and then fetches Helen to the bedroom
Helen calls her on it: she recognizes Aphrodite thru her disguise as a mortal woman : she says "I don't want to go lie with Paris: YOU DO IT!"
Aphrodite rages, Helen is frightened, and Helen goes.
IS this regular ordinary human psychology made external and attributed to divine action? Hard to say: Helen would seem almost to have a split personality, then.

Helen castigates Paris and tells him to go back and fight.
But then she does an about face and tells him not to
Ordinary human psychology?
Incredibly poignant picture of the two of them making love as never before and Menelaus raging like a lion in the field of battle.