“They
swarmed like bees that come forth from some hollow cave and flit in countless
throng among the spring flowers, bunched in knots and clusters; even so did the
mighty multitude pour from ships and tents to the assembly” (Iliad 2.88) Pretty image, I thought.
Priam said at Iliad 3:185 “When I was in Phrygia I saw much horsemen, the people of Otreus and of
godlike Mygdon, who were camping upon the banks of the river Sangarios; I was
their ally, and with them when the Amazons, peers of men, came up against them,” Now they would have been an epic to hear!
“There
are two whom I can nowhere find, Castor breaker of horses, and Pollux the
mighty boxer; they are children of my mother, and own brothers to myself.
Either they have not left Lacedaemon or else, though they have brought
their ships, they will not show themselves in battle for the shame and disgrace
that I have brought upon them.” She knew not that both these heroes were
already lying under the earth in their own land of Lacedaemon. (Iliad 3.236 ) I think this is one of the saddest moments in
the Iliad.
“Still,
taunt me not with the gifts that golden Aphrodite has given me; they are
precious; let not a man disdain them, for the gods give them where they are
minded, and none can have them for the asking” (Iliad 3:64)
Maybe that is good advice for us all.
“My own three favorite cities,” answered the ox-vision goddess Hera, “are
Argos, Sparta, and Mycenae. Destroy them whenever you may be displeased with
them. I shall not defend them and I shall not care."( Iliad 4:50) Was Mycenae
already in ruins by the time Homer sang
of its doom?
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