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Distinction between reason, emotion (and science?) Homer, Plato, and the Iliad….
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Distinction between reason, emotion (and science?) Homer, Plato, and the Iliad…
The Iliad and Homer were often mentioned in ancient writings. Many fragments of ancient editions exist, including some from the Greek scholar Aristarchus who was one of the librarians of the great Library at Alexandria, and who issued an edition of the complete Iliad about 100 BCE. The oldest existing complete version is a manuscript called the “Venetus A” copied out about 900 - 1000 CE, brought to Venice about 1400 CE and preserved at St Marks library.
Book I Part 1 The Iliad of Homer 800BC Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, thatbrought countless ills upon the Achaeans. Many a brave soul didit send hurrying down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield aprey to dogs and vultures, for so were the counsels of Jovefulfilled from the day on which the son of Atreus, king of men,and great Achilles, first fell out with one another. A cup by the Byrgos painter done about 480 BCE as reproduced by the modern painter David Claudon. King Priam comes to beg Achilles to give him the body of his dead son, Hector after he has been defeated and disgraced..
RISD Museum: Sarcophagus (burial structure) from a Roman city in the Eastern Mediteranean, about 100 CE. The scene is one of the most famous parts of Homer’s Iliad. On the left the Greek Achilles and the Trojan Hector fight, Hector is killed and Achilles drags his naked body behind his chariot. To the right Hector’s father King Priam, the Goddess Athena and Hector’s wife Andromache observe the action.
The Iliad of Homer – composed about 800 BCE, translated by Samuel Butler (Book XXII - in the previous part of the story, the Greek hero Achilles’ friend and lover, Patroclus, disguises himself in Achilles’ armor and fights the Trojan Hector. He is killed and Achilles, angry at his death, seeks out Hector for revenge. At first Hector avoids Achilles but at last they confront each other. Hector speaks to Achilles…) Let us, then, give pledges to one another by our gods, who are the fittest witnesses and guardians of all covenants; let it be agreed between us that if Jove (Ruler of the Gods) vouchsafes me the longer stay and I take your life, I am not to treat your dead body in any unseemly fashion, but when I have stripped you of your armor, I am to give up your body to the Achaeans (Greeks). And do you likewise if you defeat me you will give up my body to the Trojans." Achilles glared at him and answered, "Fool, prate not to me about covenants. There can be no covenants between men and lions, wolves and lambs can never be of one mind, but hate each other out and out . Therefore there can be no understanding between you and me, nor may there be any covenants between us, till one or other shall fall and glut grim Mars (the God of War) with his life's blood. Put forth all your strength; you have need now to prove yourself indeed a bold soldier and man of war. You have no more chance, and Athena (the Goddess) will forthwith vanquish you by my spear: you shall now pay me in full for the grief you have caused me on account of my comrade whom you have killed in battle." He poised his spear as he spoke and hurled it. Hector saw it coming and crouched down so that it flew over his head and stuck in the ground beyond; Athena (the Goddess) then snatched it up and gave it back to Achilles without Hector's seeing her; Hector thereon said to him, "You have missed your aim, Achilles, peer of the gods, and Jove has not yet revealed to you the hour of my doom, though you were sure that he had done so. You were a false-tongued liar when you deemed that I should forget my valor and quail before you. You shall not drive spear into the back of a runaway- drive it, should heaven so grant you power, drive it into me as I make straight towards you; and now for your own part avoid my spear if you can- I wish you would receive the whole of it into your body; if you were once dead the Trojans would find the war an easier matter, for it is you who have harmed them most." He poised his spear as he spoke and hurled it. His aim was true for he hit the middle of Achilles' shield, but the spear rebounded from it, and did not pierce it. Hector was angry when he saw that the weapon had sped from his hand in vain, and stood there in dismay for he had no second spear. With a loud cry he called Diphobus and asked him for one, but there was no man; then he saw the truth and said to himself, "Alas! the gods have lured me on to my destruction. I deemed that the hero Deiphobus was by my side, but he is within the wall, and the Goddess Athena has tricked me; death is now indeed exceedingly near at hand and there is no way out of it- for so Jove willed it. My doom has come upon me; let me not then die ingloriously and without a struggle, but let me first do some great thing that shall be told among men hereafter.“ http://classics.mit.edu/Homer/iliad.22.xxii.html is a link to an online copy of Book XXII Homer’s story is full of details about one battle after another: who fought, exactly what happens to them, where and how they were wounded, how the blood gushed out from their sliced entrails, or the brains spilt out under the edge of their helmet after their head was crushed by a jagged rock, etc, etc. The Greeks knew first hand what war looked like, and Homer laid it all out for them.)
RISD Museum. Roman style sarcophagus of about 100 CE. On the left, Hector fights Achilles, but is killed and to the right is shown being dragged behind Achilles chariot. Obviously this is a vital part of Western Culture today, as shown by the recent version of the story filmed in 2006. Book XXII The Iliad of Homer, composed 800 BCE Achilles drew his spear from the body and set it on one side; then he stripped the blood-stained armor from Hector's shoulders while the other Greeks came running up to view his wondrous strength and beauty; and no one came near him without giving him a fresh wound. Then would one turn to his neighbor and say, "It is easier to handle Hector now than when he was flinging fire on to our ships" and as he spoke he would thrust his spear into him anew. …On this Achilles treated the body of Hector with contempt: he pierced the sinews at the back of both his feet from heel to ankle and passed thongs of ox-hide through the slits he had made: thus he made the body fast to his chariot, letting the head trail upon the ground. Then when he had put the good armor on the chariot and had himself mounted, he lashed his horses on and they flew forward . The dust rose from Hector as he was being dragged along, his dark hair flew, and his head once so handsome was laid low on earth, for the gods had now delivered him into the hands of his foes to do him outrage in his own land…. Thus was Hector dishonored in the dust. His mother tore her hair, and flung her veil from her with a loud cry as she looked upon her son. His father made piteous moan, and throughout Troy the people fell to weeping and wailing.
Small cast bronze (tin and copper alloy) of about 400 BCE, RISD Museum. There can be little doubt that the artist who created this statue and the warriors whom he was modelling were completely familiar with Homer’s story
This painting in the main gallery at the RISD museum depicts the wedding of Peleus and Thetis. Thetis was a goddess at the home of the gods, Mt Olympus. Some of the male gods pursued her but Jove, the Ruler of the Gods, had heard a prophesy that her son would be much greater than his father. So Jove commanded Thetis to marry a mortal, in order to prevent her from having a son by one of his rival gods. Thetis was reluctant to marry a mortal, of course, but after some rough courtship she agreed to marry King Peleus. This was a heck of a party for both mortals and immortals. Thetis’ son turned out to be none other than the great hero Achilles. This painting was done in the Renaissance period of the 1500s to 1600s when people in Western Europe were rediscovering the learning of the Greeks and art and architecture from the Classical period of Rome and Greece was all the rage.
Brad Pitt plays the part of Achilles in the 2004 version of the movie “Troy.” We can try to imagine, which piece of art produced in the year 2008 will still hold the imagination of the world 3200 years from now?
"No other poet, no other literary figure in all history for that matter, occupied a place in the life of his people such as Homer's. He was their pre-eminent symbol of nationhood, the unimpeachable authority on their earliest history, and a decisive figure in the creation of their pantheon.... Plato [Republic 606E] tells us that there were Greeks who firmly believed that ... a man ought to regulate the whole of his life by following this poet.“ p. 5 The World of Odysseus, by M.I. Finley
What Plato actually said: He was writing about what the ideal city would be like – his idea of an Utopia. He says that some men want to guide their lives by Homer, but does Plato think that is a good idea? From Plato's Republic, section 606e, translation of P. Shorey 'Then, my friend Glaucon,' said I (Plato), 'when you meet lovers of Homer who tell us that this poet has been the educator of Hellas (Greece), and that for the conduct and refinement of human life he is worthy of our study and devotion, and that we should order our entire lives by the guidance of this poet, we must love and salute them as doing the best they can, and concede to those people that Homer is the most poetic of poets and the first of tragedians, but we must know the truth, that we can admit no poetry into our city save only hymns to the gods and the praises of good men. For if you grant admission to the honeyed muse in lyric or epic, then pleasure or pain will be lords of your city instead of law and that which shall from time to time have approved itself to the general reason as best.' (606e-607a)
