TFBT: Random Notes on Metamorphesis, Chapters 12-13.

 

The Monthly Book Club at the Kosmos Society  is reading Ovid’s Metamorphosis, Chapters 12-13.  I haven’t read the book in years except when looking up references.   But I know enough of it that I’ve come  across confusing “errors” constantly.  My friend Helene suggests that Ovid follows different traditions that Homer.  Rather I see sloppy plagiarism and typos.

The Dark Green Snake

At Aulis the heart-broken Achaeans in route to Troy  were trapped by adverse winds.  In reading Ovid’s description of what happen next, it sounded a lot like Homer’s. 

First Ovid;  “The Greeks saw a dark-green snake sliding into a plane tree that stood near to where they had begun the sacrifice.   There was a nest with eight young birds in the crown of the tree, and these the serpent seized and swallowed in its eager jaws, together with the mother bird, who circled her doomed fledglings.   They looked at it wonderingly, but Calchas, the seer, son of Thestor, interpreted the truth, saying: ‘We will conquer, Greeks, rejoice! Troy will fall, though our efforts will be of long duration,’ and he divined nine years of war from the nine birds.  The snake, was turned to stone,  (Ovid Chapter 12)”

Now look at Homer; “Then we saw a sign; for Zeus sent a fearful serpent out of the ground, with blood-red stains upon its back, [310] and it darted from under the altar on to the plane-tree. Now there was a brood of young sparrows, quite small, upon the topmost bough, peeping out from under the leaves, eight in all, and their mother that hatched them made nine. The serpent ate the poor cheeping things, [315] while the old bird flew about lamenting her little ones; but the serpent threw his coils about her and caught her by the wing as she was screaming. Then, when he had eaten both the sparrow and her young, the god who had sent him made him become a sign; for the son of scheming Kronos turned him into stone,  we stood there wondering at that which had come to pass. Seeing, then, that such a fearful portent had broken in upon our hecatombs, Kalkhas right away declared to us the divine oracles. ‘Why, flowing-haired Achaeans,’ said he, ‘are you thus speechless? Zeus has sent us this sign, [325] long in coming, and long before it be fulfilled, though its fame [kleos] shall last forever. As the serpent ate the eight fledglings and the sparrow that hatched them, which makes nine, so shall we fight nine years at Troy, but in the tenth shall take the town” Iliad 1.135

Not exactly plagiarism; but the keys elements and where they appear in the tale makes me a little suspicious that Ovid didn’t have a copy of the Iliad in hand as he wrote his version

Nereus

Next Ovid was bad mouthing the famously kind Nereus, which made me think he knew less  about Greek Mythology than I thought. “Nereus continued to be boisterous on the Aonian waters,”.  Ovid Book 12 Most mythologist over the millennia have followed Hesiod who says

  “Pontus,  the great sea, was father of truthful Nereus who tells no lies, eldest of his sons. They call him the Old Gentleman (Gerôn) because he is trustworthy, and gentle, and never forgetful of what is right, but the thoughts of his mind are mild and righteous.  Hesiod, Theogony 233 ff  

Plus let’s keep in mind that it is the winds that make the sea Boisterous not the sea-gods as mentioned by Virgil in the famous “Quo ego” scene at Aeneid 1:135

Achilles famous Pelion spears

Another error struck me with Ovid’s description of Achilles famous Pelion spears. “Achilles examined the spear to see if the iron point had not been dislodged.”  Shouldn’t that be bronze?

It’s Thebe with No “S”!

Then Achilles said,  “when I caused Tenedos and Thebes, the city of Eetion…"  Really?  Confounding King Eetion’s city of Thebe with “Thebes” is common but I expected better Ovid.   Eeetion is the King of Placian Thebe in Cilicia and father of Hector’s wife Andromache.  (Homer Iliad 6.396 & 417)

Nestor

Finally, we read that Nestor is over two hundred years old.  Really? Nestor speaking “have lived for two centuries and now am living in my third.”  (Ovid, Meta. Chapter 12) Homer accurately, universally acknowledged and more logical is Homer’s statement. Two generations of men born and bred in sandy Pylos had passed away under his rule, and he was now reigning over the third (Iliad 1.250] This is clearly plagiarism of the worst sort, sloppy!

Nice lines

• “Tell on, old man, eloquent wisdom of our age,.
• “they drew out the night in talk, and valour was the theme of their conversation. Of battles was their talk, the “enemy's and their own, and 'twas joy to tell over and over again in turn the perils they had encountered and endured”  

 

 

 

TFBT: Beautiful Text and Iliad 17.436

For my Homeric Vocabulary class on Friday I had to pick out some "favorite" text for us to translate.  I did a search of "beautiful" to see what had moved me in the past.  Here are the flowers I picked from my literary garden (blog) just for you.

  “Will it ever happen again that our ancient Troy will know the day-long revelries the love pledges and companionship, the strumming of the lyres and the wine cups circling, passed to the right, in sweet contention while on the open waters the sons of Atreus make for Sparta, gone from the shores of Ilium?” Rhesus 360-369

 “Scamander, my native stream! Upon your banks in bygone days, unhappy maid, was I nurtured with fostering care; but now by Cocytus and the banks of Acheron, I think, I soon must chant my prophecies  Agamemnon by Aeschylus  1157-1161

Writing by Pindar on a Sicilian oread; “white-capped Aetna, nursing all year long her brood of stinging snow, within her secret depths pure springs of unapproachable fire erupt -  her rivers in daytime pour forth billows of glaring smoke, while at night the blood-red , rolling blaze whirls boulders crashing onto the flat plain of the sea”  Pythian 1 20-24

Iliad 17: [436 they immovably with the beauteous car, bowing their heads down to the earth. And hot tears ever flowed from their eyes to the ground, as they wept in longing for their charioteer, and their rich manes were befouled, [440]

Thus [Agamemnon] spoke. And the son of Peleus  felt grief and the heart within his shaggy chest was divided whether to draw the sharp sword at his thigh and make the others get up and scatter while he kills the son of Atreus or whether to check his anger and restrain his heart”.  Iliad 1:188-192

Iliad 1: 476 when the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared they again set sail for the army of the Achaeans. Apollo sent them a fair wind,  so they raised their mast and hoisted their white sails aloft. As the sail bellied with the wind the ship flew through the deep blue water, and the foam hissed against her bows as she sped onward. When they reached the wide-stretching army of the Achaeans.

TFBT: Random Notes from Iliad XVI

I read Book XVI today; the Death of Patroclus. It rained buckets naturally so it wasn’t difficult to decided to stay inside and read. Very sad. This time my emphasis was on looking for similes and metaphors. Particularly after just reading Rhesus I noted how often the Achaians are compared to a pack of wolves 155-164,276,351-355 making Dolon’s choice of apparel even more untimely and inappropriate. Here also glorious Homer compares men to trees; 482-4,632-5,765-771.  I noted with sadness that Patroclus and Hector are compared to wild animals fighting and dying “over a little spring of water” (825)

 

“till I (Zeus) have accomplished the desire of the son of Peleus, according to the promise I made by bowing my head on the day when Thetis touched my knees and besought me to give Achilles, ransacker of cities, honor.” Iliad 15.74  I just find that pretty

 

“have you had news from Phthia?” Iliad 16.13  In recent discussions at Hour 25, Janet asked if there weren’t any trips back and forth to Greece in all those long nine and a half years.  Achilles question above makes it appear that such travel was conceiveable thing to the Achaeans before Troy.

Did I notice Homeric plagarism?  Preparing for a discussion tomorrow I re-read Book XVI of the Iliad and found;  “the mighty slayer of Argos was enamored of her as he saw her among the singing women at a dance held in honor of Artemis the rushing huntress of the golden arrows; he therefore – Hermes, giver of all good – went with her into an upper chamber,”  Iliad 16.181  Now compare to the Homer Hymn to Aphrodite 117 “But then, the one with the golden wand, the Argos-killer, abducted me, taking me from a festival of song and dance in honor of Artemis, the one with the golden arrows.”

They came swarming out like wasps whose nests are by the roadside, and whom silly children love to tease, whereon any one who happens to be passing may get stung – or again, if a wayfarer going along the road vexes them by accident, every wasp will come flying out  in a fury to defend his little ones- even with such rage and courage did the Myrmidons swarm from their ships, Iliad 16.259  Just another line of poetry I thought pretty. 

TFBT: Jasper Griffin’s “The Epic Cycle”

On a long flight after a great get-away weekend with my wife, I delighted in re-reading The Epic Cycle and the Uniqueness of Homer by Jasper Griffin.  I found this fourteen page essay somewhere on my Nook.  You can find it at JSTOR by clicking the link above.  (If you do not have institutional access to JSTOR you can read it on line simply by registering at MyJSTOR.) 

If you take the glory of Homer for granted, here is the place to renew your sense of awe and appreciation for “the exceptional genius which went into the creation of …the Iliad.”   

Griffin insists that between Homeric and Cyclic a distinction did exist. “The strict, radical, and consistently heroic interpretation” of the Iliadic world made it quite different from the Cycle, with its miracles, un-tragic attitude towards mortality, exoticism, romance and flattering, flowery, less-dense style of composition.   If you need proof of his opinion; the second half of the essay is a careful analysis, stylistically of Cyclic fragments.  

He observes “The Iliad is notably more cautious with the fantastic.” Then uses Aristotle to point “out that Homer puts many things into the mouths of his characters, when he himself does not wish to vouch for their truth, most notably in the stories told by Odysseus… The fantastic, the miraculous, and the romantic, all exceeded in the Cycle the austere limits to which the Iliad confines them.” 

“Even more, in the accommodating world of the Cycle death itself can be evaded.”  My friend Maya M¹ refers to this phenomena as “scholia as savior”.   Griffin then summons Patroclus’ ghost, (Iliad 23. 69) to expound that in Homeric epic “the dead do not return”.  “For the Iliad, human life is defined by the double inevitability of age and death; for the gods, men's opposite, immortality and eternal youth are inseparable.  Men must die:” 

Just a sampling of contrasts he notes are that The Iliad;  

• excludes low human types and motives.
• knew and suppressed the story about Achilles’ impenetrable armor.  Hence the reason Apollo knocked it off Patroclus (Iliad xvi) so Hector can kill him. 
• Fragments xviii and xix of the Cypria explain Chryseis was captured by the Achaeans when her city of Chryse was not because she was visiting Thebe at the time.
• In the Cycle, but not in Homer, homicides need to be purified; Griffin suggests this is due to the influence of Delphi.

The contrasts help to bring out the greatness and the uniqueness that is Homer.

 

___________________________________________ 

¹ Maya M is the blogger at Maya Corner  where  “ I write about things that interest me, in as politically incorrect style as I like.”  She is a frequent contributer to Bill’s Classical Studies.  She writes “ I had some interest in mythology as a child, and "Ancient Greek Legends and Myths" by Nikolay Kun was among my favorite books. However, this interest was nothing out of the ordinary. My education had no leaning to classics, except for the mandatory review of ancient Greek literature in 9th grade. I was truly engaged only about 2 years ago, when a kid to whom I am a teaching aide got to the above mentioned 9th grade. My student seemed just bored by mythology and ancient literature, but I looked at them with new eyes and was fascinated. My background in biology naturally predisposed me to science-fiction rewriting of some myths, but I try also to understand what they meant to their original audience in the pre-scientific, "daimon-haunted" world.

 

 

 

TFBT: The Doloneia

 I finished reading “Interpreting Iliad 10: Assumptions, Methodology, and the Place of the Doloneia within the History of Homeric Scholarship” by Casey Dué and Mary Ebbott.  If I hadn’t thought there was something fishing about the Doloneia before, I do now.  The gist of the article is that every Homeric expert since the beginning of written history (and maybe a few experts before then) doubt the appropriateness of the Book X of the Iliad.  The exception to this rule seem to be less than a handful. 

For those that don’t know the story; Odysseus and Diomedes sneak across enemy lines in the dark, capture and slay a Trojan trying to do the same, kill King Rhesus and his companions in their sleep and steal their horses. 

Hour 25 discussed the “Poetics of Ambush” during the “Nagy and Friends” dialogue yesterday.  As listened, I wondered what the whole point of the Doloneia was plot wise.   I recalled something Warren Beatty said.  Yeah,  Warren Beatty. 

During the filming of the documentary “Truth or Dare” Madonna chose to talk to her doctor on camera rather than privately.  “Beatty chides ‘You don’t want to talk off camera.  You don’t want to live off camera.  There’s nothing to say off camera.  Why would you say something off camera?”  (“Picture Perfect: Life in the Age of the Photo Op” by Kiku Adatto)

Likewise, why would Odysseus and Diomedes do anything “off-camera”?  If the point of epic is “unwilting glory” what is the point of doing anything in the dark.  The Muses can’t see in the dark, even Hecate who lives in darkness carries around a torch or two.  If the poets and your peers can’t see you in action and immortalize the event in word and son, what is the point of doing it?  What is the point of the Doloneia in the song about Achilles building a name, “whose short-lived splendor shall outlast the world.“  (A. G. Butler)

TFBT: Nestor’s Aristeia in the Iliad

In the Eleventh Book of the Iliad, the Trojans armed with fire surge towards the beached boats of the Achaeans (Greeks).  Achaean warrior after warrior falls before the onslaught lead by Hector and Paris, princes of Troy.  After rescuing one of the most vital of these heroes, aged Nestor gives a lengthy speech; a bitter diatribe against Achilles, the hero of the Iliad.  Achilles sulked in his tent for most of the epic to that point.    I suggest that this speech has nothing to do with Achilles and everything to do with Nestor. 

The speech in question is prompted by Achilles sending his best friend Patroclus to ask of Nestor how things are going.  Nester responds to Patroclus in Book 11: 656-803 of the Iliad.  The speech begins with justifiable comments about Achilles indifferences to the suffering of his fellow Achaeans, then recounts Nestor’s greatest exploits as a young man and then ends with recommendations on what Achilles could do beside sulking in his tent.    

He is renown among the Achaeans for his eloquence and wise counsel. “Nestor, sweet of speech, the clear-voiced orator of the Pylians, from whose tongue flowed speech sweeter than honey. Two generations of mortal men had passed away in his lifetime, who had been born and reared with him before in sacred Pylos, and he was king among the third." (Iliad 1.247) He might not be strong enough to heft and throw a spear or to pull back a bow string, but he can provide vital strategic advice, lead by example, marshal his troops and vitally at this point in the story, drive a chariot. 

First in his speech,  Nestor complains that mighty Diomedes took a sharp arrow in the foot, Odysseus received a wound in the side by a spear thrust, Agamemnon took a spear thrust to the lower arm, and  Eurypylus too was struck by an arrow in the thigh, “and this man beside (Machaon) have I but now borne forth from the war smitten with an arrow from the string. Yet Achilles, valiant though he be, careth not for the Danaans.” (Iliad 1.660. “ Danaans“ is another poetic term for the Greeks.)    Oddly he does not mention warriors injured earlier in the epic like Menelaus after the botched duel with Alexander. ( Book 4.104)  Nestor only references those he personally could not aid this particular day.  This is an elderly  man complaining that Achilles did not do what Nestor could not do himself.   

Next,  comes a lengthy tale about a war in Pylos during Nestor’s youth.  The story  in no way compares to situation the Danaans find themselves in currently, nor compares to Achilles current situation.  I would follow ”The Paradigmatic Nature of Nestor's Speech in Iliad 11” by Victoria Pedrick in suggesting that this is Nestor’s aristeia in the Iliad.  An aristeia is a warriors finest moment in battle.  This is the moment when a hero is most akin to the gods.  This is his moment of kleos (glory) and if it happens in the Iliad, a chance at unending fame.  If Protesilaus (Iliad 2.695) and Ipidamas (Iliad 11.221) can both come to Troy in order to attain kleos in the Iliad, why not Nestor?  As Pedrick points out this is the moment in the battle for the ships, where Nestor’s great aristeia affects Patroclus’ return to battle and the course of the war forever. From the moment of Nestor’s aristeia, the tide of battle turns, the Trojans will soon be routed and Hector’s fate sealed.  

And finally Nestor suggests what Achilles should do or should let Patroclus do. It sounds a lot like what Nestor wishes he could do.  In tone it recalls (Iliad 1.255) when Nestor whined that men better than those of the current age use to listen to his advice. 

In summary I would suggest that, like Nestor’s famous speech about chariot-racing in Book 23 which has nothing to do with chariot-racing; Nestor’s famous speech about Achilles in Book 11 has nothing to do with Achilles and everything to do with Nestor.

TFBT: Random Notes from 9.CB22.1x

I speak as it is borne in upon me from the sky, Odyssey 1:202

“She it was who now lighted Telemakhos to his room, and she loved him  better than any of the other women in the house did, for she had nursed him when he was a baby. He opened the door of his bed room and sat down upon the bed; as he took off his khiton he gave it to the good old woman, who folded it tidily up  and hung it for him over a peg by his bed side,” Odyssey 1.434-41  I just thought it was a moving scene.

“[Demodokos], setting his point of departure , started from the god.”  Odyssey 8.99 

Reference to two different therapon in two different books.  Is it plagarism, if you repeat yourself?

·        ”…the son of Capaneus (Sthenelus, charioteer of Diomedes)…gave them to Deïpylus his dear comrade, whom he honoured above all the companions of his youth, because he was like-minded with himself;” Iliad 5:318

·        ”…a herald attended him, a little older than he, and I will tell thee of him too, what manner of man he was. He was round-shouldered, dark of skin, and curly-haired, and his name was Eurybates; and Odysseus honored him above his other comrades, because he was like-minded with himself.” Odysseus 19:24

As for the other five ships, they were taken by winds and seas to Egypt, where Menelaos gathered much gold and substance among people of an alien speech. Meanwhile Aegisthus here at home plotted his evil deed. For seven years after he had killed Agamemnon he ruled in golden Mycenae, and the people were obedient under him, but in the eighth year Orestes came back from Athens to be his bane, and killed the murderer of his father. Then he celebrated the funeral   of his mother and of false unwarlike Aegisthus by a banquet to the people of Argos, and on that very day Menelaos of the great cry came home, with as much treasure as his ships could carry.  Odyssey 3:300-311  Talking about timing!

The tradition of Homeric poetry is a tradition of “civilised” people, “civilised” being they who are conscious about rationale or their reasoning powers when allowed to choose between options. They who listen to Homeric poetry actually choose to listen to the sufferings and sorrows of the Trojan war as if they’re listening to the Gods speaking, who are the ultimate civilised personas in the entire spectacle performed by the Homeric Poet. The Poet’s memnemai (total recall) is another pointer that the Gods are speaking and not humans; of course, the Poet’s having made contact(mental or otherwise) with the state of mind(sophoi defined as intellectually skilled, agathoi defined as morally qualified, and philoi defined as emotionally attuned)of Zeus, the Supreme among Gods, is something that heightens the power of the spectacle.  Thumri 9.22CB.1x

TFBT: Master Narrator; Zeus/Homer/Achilles

"But because it's right in the middle of the Iliad, it means that the perfect memory of the muses is channeled by whoever says anything".  Nagy's quote about Phoenix from Hour 8.CB22.1x helped me formulate a vague notion that's floated around my head for a while.  I would suggest that in the Iliad, there is a relationship between Zeus, Homer and Achilles. They are all, at times, aspects of the Master Narrator.  

It can escape no one's notice that on several occasions in the Iliad, the Olympians appear to be Zeus' nectar-swilling extended family gazing down on some entertainment he arranged for the family reunion.   Clearly, Homer is the Master Narrator, the master of the medium.   On occasion, Zeus seems to be Homer's mouthpiece, moving the narrative around like when he sent all the gods to do battle on the plain before Troy.  Achilles with his choice to make, moves the plot as much as Homer or Zeus does. 

I was shooting for a sports metaphor, but that didn't work. Instead let me propose;  Zeus the Master Narrator sitting in the sky boxes with his family watching the concert he produced.  Homer as the Master Narrator is the director and composer standing between the audience and symphony.  And Achilles as the Master Narrator is the star and soloist of the show. (A little aside here, I propose the same relationship between Zeus, Homer and Odysseus in the Odyssey.  The point of mentioning this is I once heard  Prof McGrath once say that somewhere around 80% of the his epic his narrated by Odysseus.).  

The role of the Master Narrator shifts from Zeus to Homer to Hero and back again.  The Master Narrator as Zeus is a god who sees what the other gods are doing.  The Master Narrator as Homer hears from the Muses who sees and tells him, what the gods are doing. Hence the Master Narrator as Achilles accesses the same skill and sees Athena in Book I of the Iliad when no other mortal does.  Likewise the Master Narrator as Achilles uses the dual tense in the Embassy Scene because he is clearly not calling Odysseus; near and dear, so the Master Narrator as Homer does the same.

Kind of a wild theory I know.

TFBT: The God Demophon

(Dēmophōn) was nourished in the palace, and he shot up equal to a superhuman force, not eating grain, not sucking from the breast. But Demeter used to anoint him with ambrosia, as if he had been born of the goddess, and she would breathe down her sweet breath on him as she held him to her bosom. Homeric Hymn to Demeter 235-238

When I read “and he shot up equal to a daemon”, I recalled (Iliad 18) where Thetis says, “I gave birth to a son who was without fault and powerful conspicuous among heroes; and he shot up like a young tree.”  Thetis lovingly brought “forth a son, of strength mightier than his father, whose hand should launch a shaft more powerful than the bolt of thunder or the fearsome trident” (Pindar, Isthmian Ode 8)

Demeter was not in a loving mood. “ But grief yet more terrible and savage came into the heart of Demeter, and thereafter she was so angered with the dark-clouded Son of Cronus that she avoided the gathering of the gods” (HHD 90)  When Hera was once angry with Zeus, she too went apart from the gods and giving notice to the powers below prayed; “ Harken you now to me, one and all, and grant that I may bear a child apart from Zeus, no wit lesser than him in strength--nay, let him be as much stronger than Zeus as all-seeing Zeus than Cronus.’(Homeric Hymn 3 to Pythian)  The product of Hera’s terrible, savage anger with Zeus was the giant monstrous Typhon; conqueror of Olympus

Although Demeter appeared to be doing something good in the way she brought up Demophon, not all the gods’ gifts are freely given.  The Titan Prometheus was one of the sons of Iapetus.  These brothers led the second generation Titans in the war against the Olympians called the Titanomachy.  He ended up switching side, becoming the benefactor of mankind and the cause of Thetis’ marriage to Peleus.   In “Hesiod's Cosmos”  Jenny Strauss-Clay suggests that Prometheus gifts to us of fire and the best cuts of the sacrifice were not altruistic, but rather "presupposes a reciprocal counter-gift on the part of men, presumably their support of Prometheus in the contest between the Titan and Zeus" (p107)

The poets give no ulterior motive into Demophon’s baptism into ambrosia and fire.  But, what future did this terrible goddess, savagely starving mankind to death, angry with Zeus, standing apart from the gods intend when her foster son, the god Demophon, reached maturity?

 

 

 

TFBT: The Unrighteous Request

“the unrighteous prayer that Thetis

had made of him, Zeus” (Iliad 15:599)

 

Thetis is just a mother, trying to do the best for her only child.  She is a Nereid, a gentle wave-goddess of the Mediterranean Sea.  Homer call her, Thetis the “silver-footed”.  So, I was somewhat surprised to find her request characterized by “presumptuous” in some translations of the Iliad (A. T. Murray) 

 I find “unrighteous” surprisingly judgmental for a poet so famously non-judgmental.  In the Iliad there are no bad guys, just people, some of them quite honorable, doing the best they can in a bad situation.  Contrary to popular belief it isn’t really about the Trojan War.  It is about the anger of Thetis’ son, Achilles, That is often the subtitle of the Iliad; “The Wrath of Achilles”.  Her son Achilles is the greatest hero of the age and in the opening scene of the Iliad he is unrighteously insulted by Agamemnon the leader of the Greek forces at Troy.  Her request to Zeus the king of the gods, is simply that he right this wrong. 

 That doesn’t seem too “unrighteous”.  Plus, the wrath of Achilles is pretty much the story line of the Iliad.  When his wrath is quenched in mutual tears with King Priam the story ends.  The plot line of the Iliad turns on “Thetis’ unrighteous request”.  Without her request, there would be no story for Homer to sing.    

 So I decided to look at the Greek version  to better understand why Homer called her request for justice; “unrighteous”.  If I read the Greek correctly, (If!) the word in Homeric Greek is  ἐξαίσι-ος .   Which means; beyond what is ordained or fated,   This is the famous “beyond-destiny” the “hyper moron” I’ve discussed elsewhere.   TFBT: Hyper-moron or Beyond Destiny, Part II

 “Beyond-destiny”  is an event the gods cannot allow to happen for their own sakes; an event contrary to the Will of Zeus or whatever little side plot one of his kinfolks has going; or contrary to the decrees of Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos, the three Fates.  So, regardless of the English translations, Thetis’ request is not unrighteous, it is just outside the scheme of things.   

 And what is the scheme of things?  What is the Will of Zeus?  In the lost epic “Cypria”.  Mother Earth begs Zeus to relieve her of the burden the tribes of demi-gods living on her surface.  In answer Zeus and the goddess of order Themis, mother of the Fates conspire to wipe the heroes from the world with wars at Thebes and Troy.

 So who is Thetis to overthrow the decrees of destiny?  She is the foster  daughter of Hera, the sharp tongued Queen of Olympus.  It was Thetis who rescued King Zeus when his enemies bound him, and they dared not raise a finger to object.  It was Thetis who rescued the smithy of the gods Hephaestus when he was tossed from Olympus .  It was Thetis who rescued the wine god Dionysius.  And it was Thetis who could be mother to the next king of the gods.  Instead she was the mother of Achilles, star of the Iliad and the plot of the Iliad seemed to center on the Will of Thetis.

 

 For further information on Thetis, I would recommend  Laura Slatkin’s  book The Power of Thetis.

 

 

 

TFBT: Random Notes for 3CB22.1x

Iliad 9:115 And the lord of men, Agamemnon, answered, "You have reproved my derangement (ate) justly. I was wrong. I own it. " and also "But Zeus of the aegis the son of Kronos afflicts me with bootless wranglings and strife. Achilles and I are quarrelling about this girl, in which matter I was the first to offend; (Iliad 2.376)  but later when Achilles is present Agamemnon can’t bring himself to say it again or be so gracious at Iliad 16: 919 “But I am not responsible. No, those who are really responsible are Zeus and Fate and the Fury  who roams in the mist. They are the ones who, at the public assembly, had put savage derangement [atē] into my thinking on that day when I myself deprived Achilles of his honorific portion.  But what could I do? “

Suicide watch? “I could not bear to stay in my father’s house with him so bitter against me. My cousins and clansmen came about me,  and pressed me sorely to remain; many a sheep and many an ox did they slaughter, and many a fat hog did they set down to roast before the fire; many a jar, too, did they broach of my father’s wine. Nine whole nights did they set a guard over me taking turns to watch, and they kept a fire always burning, both in the cloister of the outer court and in the inner court at the doors of the room wherein I lay; but when the darkness of the tenth night came,  I broke through the closed doors of my room, and climbed the wall of the outer court after passing quickly and unperceived through the men on guard and the women servants. I then fled.”  Iliad 9: 464

Just writing I find beautiful; “Thus [Agamemnon] spoke. And the son of Peleus  felt grief and the heart within his shaggy chest was divided whether to draw the sharp sword at his thigh and make the others get up and scatter while he kills the son of Atreus or whether to check his anger and restrain his heart”.  Iliad 1:188-192

3CB22.1 Lenny Muellner: “There's another one that's more complex to unpack. But in the expression "same as a maenad," mainadi isē, which itself is a play on another, as one of the members of our board of readers, Sean Signore, has shown, it’s a play on another expression which you apply to heroes at the climax of their valor— daimon isos”  I believe I saw “mainadi ise” written as “maindais”.  I hope to find Signore’s comments.  “Daimon isos”; godlike is often used of heroes about to meet their end (telos).  I believe the topic at hand when Muellner shared the quote was Andromache fainting away at the sight of Hector’s corpse.  I’ll be looking for similar examples elsewhere.

Halo?  “Zeus seated on topmost (Mt.)Gargaros with a fragrant cloud encircling his head as with a diadem." Iliad 15: 153

“Had he (Poseidon)  not done so those gods who are below with Kronos would have come to hear of the fight between us” . Iliad 15:224  Is this the first hint in Greek literature that the Titans though bound in Tartarus could revolt?  In the Homeric Hymn to Apollo Hera slaps the Earth and prays, “‘Hear now, I pray, Gaia (Earth) and wide Ouranos (Sky) above, and you Titans   who dwell beneath the earth about great Tartarus”. How uneasy rest the crown upon Olympus!

Good proverb, “A man does well to listen to the advice of a friend.” Iliad15:404 

A moving speech; If any of you is struck by spear or sword and loses his life, let him die; he dies with honor who dies fighting for his country; and he will leave his wife and children safe behind him, with his house and allotment unplundered  Iliad 15:495

“the unrighteous prayer that Thetis had made of him, Zeus” (Iliad 15:599)  These are Homer’s word spoken as the narrator.  I find them surprisingly judgmental for a poet so famously non-judgmental.  I’ll have to think on this.   

  This is Achilles speaking to that compulsive liar Odysseus.  This one of the thing I find likable about the son of Peleus.  "As hateful to me as the gates of Hades is on who says on e thing while he hides another in his heart; therefore I will say what I mean.”  Iliad 9:313