The Iliad and the Odyssey (Classics of World Literature) Read Free

themselves and what should be suppressed in their duty of care to others: Achilles is affected by his attempt to divorce his personal loyalty to Patroclus and his Myrmidons from the claims on him of his comrades-in-arms – Ajax, Diomedes etc. Meanwhile Hector’s rashness in going against Polydamas’ advice is shown as personal rather than tactical; his death at Achilles’ hands is brought on at least in part through his sense that he has let down those he has been trained to regard, the people of Troy. He is a prince, not a hero, and his rush to assert himself as a hero is a mistake that destroys him.
    Chapman’s understanding of these issues may be informed by Renaissance, Roman-derived ideas on the Stoic hero’s need to align state and private duty; it may be informed by his knowledge of Elizabethan rather than Greek society (although his notes show his competence in Greek, it is not clear how comprehensive a Greek scholar he was). In any case, the result is that he holds up to his heroes exemplary models, by whose standards the heroes fail. The point of contact with Greek society is that Homer’s heroes also have a consciousness ( aidos ) by which they judge their own behaviour: Hector, for example, examines himself on his reasons for not fleeing Achilles and concludes that he is inhibited by his failing as a leader of men and by the elders watching him. The Greek text, in emphasising his aidos, hissensibility of what is expected of him, carries a strong sense that at the last he is in some way crippled by this consciousness. In a sense, therefore, Chapman engages with the problem of the hero in society in the same way as the heroes themselves do.
    The Story of the Iliad
    The Iliad is one of the stories of ‘Ilium’ – Troy. It is the story of the tragic consequences of Achilles’ ‘baneful wrath’. The story is set in the ninth year of the war fought by the Greeks against the Trojans for harbouring Paris and the runaway wife Helen. The King of Mycenae, Agamemnon, and his brother Menelaus, the wronged husband, lead a coalition of forces under their various chiefs from all round Greece against Hector, son of King Priam of Troy. Hector too leads allies – from Greek-speaking Asia Minor, and from North of the Troad (the Dardanelles) – including the sympathetically portrayed Sarpedon.
    The main story, of the consequences of Agamemnon’s insult to the best Greek fighter, Achilles, and Achilles’ withdrawal, starts Book 1. The story broadens to include Mount Olympus where the gods feast unconcerned, to the women and old men in Troy, to the heroes and casualties of the battlefield. The main story comes back in Book 9, when Agamemnon, realising that he cannot manage without Achilles, sends a delegation to soothe Achilles’ hurt pride. The rest of the tragedy comes from Achilles’ refusal to be soothed. In Book 13, Patroclus begs Achilles to let him appear in Achilles’ armour to give heart to the Greeks; he throws caution to the wind, and Book 16 has his and Sarpedon’s tragic deaths. The rest of the epic concerns Achilles’ incapacity to deal with the death of his beloved friend Patroclus – with his insane vengeful rage as he tries to find appropriate compensation for the death. Even human sacrifice and the killing of Patroclus’ killer Hector are insufficient: he carries on violating Hector’s dead body. In Book 23 he has to accept that the only thing he can do for Patroclus is to bury him with fine funeral games, games over which he presides, negotiating and rewarding rival claims to excellence. The Iliad finishes with the frail Priam’s visit to ‘man-slaying’ Achilles to beg back the body of Hector. They join in tears of common grief, in a shared sense of tragic pity, as Priam weeps over the hands that killed his son and Achilles over the reminder of his own father, soon to weep over his son now doomed to die at Troy.
    Book 1
    The trouble starts with a girl. The Greek commander Agamemnon is