NotesOnBook3Iliad

Iliad Book 2

This is one way of conceiving of divinities: Aphrodite has a personality, a childhood, and a plot to her life, but she is in a way like Dream: she is simply LOVE as an influence on humans. Considered as just LOVE, she is a force, a phenomenon, a power that affects humans. It could be considered internal to humans, but making it a god makes it external to humans (or does it? where do gods exist, after all?)

Note that NESTOR is the wise counselor again, but this time in Agamemnon's dream.
Zeus deceived Agamemnon via Dream.

Note that the divine action has a parallel perfectly human explanation: you could tell this story without using divinity, and it would be much the same! You just would say "Agamemnon dreamt that Nestor came and told him...."

Why would an oral poet like these scenes?
He could have them ready up his sleeve and deliver them while considering where to go next. They sort of give him room to think perhaps.
But they also serve a good function for the narrative: they are interesting and give it detail and "reality."

Agamemnon repeats the dream to the counsel of leaders
this speech-repetition happens a lot
thinking space for oral poet?
welcome repetition for audience: familiar lines they can smile in recognition of?

Hera gets Athena to go down and make the Greeks stop preparing to leave Troy: Athena persuades the leaders to fight once more against Troy.
Note that a goddess again does something that could have had a perfectly human explanation: often, the gods seem like externalized thoughts that are struggling with other thoughts and win the day.

THERSITES: MY HERO: THE ONLY GREEK IN HOMER WITH ANY SENSE!
POOR THERSITES
What is going on? This episode seems entirely anachronistic: it seems like Thersites is an Athenian used to democracy and participating as an equal citizen with other citizens, as if he can speak truth to power and it will be taken as valuable debate. Poor man.
he is ugly === NOT NOBLE
he is lame === NOT NOBLE
he has no noble birth === NOT NOBLE
his hair is ugly === NOT NOBLE
but he is right! DOESN'T MATTER
227 he points out that the soldiers are the ones who did the work of winning the prizes that were allotted to the leaders
Woodie Guthrie would like him! Unions would like him!

Odysseus' horrible horrific speech against Thersites: apparently we are meant to take it as reasonable, but not one real argument or sensible thing is said in it: it's just rank abuse of a poor man for being ugly and not agreeing. Odysseus is a horrible bully. But Odysseus is NOBLE.

DO NOT TAKE THIS AS A NEGATIVE CRITICISM OF Iliad: RATHER, IT IS PART OF HOMER'S ATTRACTION AND EVEN GENIUS TO INCLUDE THERSITES. I JUST HAPPEN TO LIKE HIM IMMENSELY.
DID THE GREEKS QUESTION THE HOMERIC ETHICAL CODE? YES THEY DID: DEMOCRACY AROSE IN GREECE, BUT IT AROSE 200 YEARS after we think these poems took their pretty much final form. THIS MAY BE AN ANACHRONISTIC BIT THROWN IN LATER. OR MAYBE NOT? HOW COULD ONE TELL REALLY?
I think it is important to notice the rank and file and what they do in the epics: they are there, just not front and center. Arguably, they are in fact the ones who fight the war, in spite of the concentration on one-on-one combat of named characters.
300

Odysseus recounts the story of how a snake ate 8 baby birds and then the mother, at an altar, and then Kalchas interpreted it as a sign that it would take 8 years of fighting and then in the 9th year Troy would be taken.

Agamemnon threatens to punish any who hang back from the fighting
VERY interesting side note about Greek history: later, in the Persian War, a criticism raised against the Persians was that they whipped their soldiers into battle.
Apparently, that is just what Agamemnon promises to do.
Where will Agamemnon be?
Hanging back and looking for stragglers? how admirable (NOT).

MUSE delivers CATALOG OF SHIPS
there is an "I": the narrator speaks as "I"!
a set piece for a bard to show off
think of the pageantry of the opening ceremony of the Olympics
think of all those ceremonies in which name after name is read out
would it be tedious and boring to the audience? hard to imagine that it would. Each name was probably familiar.
think of introducing the players of each team before a game.
little stories, and lots of little details alluding to stories

the story of Thamyris the singer whose memory was taken away because he challenged the muses!!
Protesilaus, who had been the first Achaian to die at Troy
Philoktetes, who had been left wounded on an island, but whose bow was needed to win the war

note the hint: soon they were to remember Philoktetes: Homer doesn't tell the story but just alludes to it.

the bits and bobs of details that allude to stories tell us clearly that those other stories were well known: the audience will have enjoyed hearing those little details and connecting the dots, sort of like at a concert where a musician improvises and moves from melody to melody and the crowd roars when they recognize it.

isolated allusion to the fact that the allies of the Trojans speak many different languages!