Mythology

Delahoyde & Hughes

 

HOMER'S ILIAD:

BOOK XIII: Battling for the Ships

"We don't murder, we kill. There's a difference."

--Lee Marvin in The Big Red One

Questions for Book XIII:

Why is Poseidon on the side of the Greeks against the Trojans?

What is the grisliest wounding you've read about?

Who is the son of Ares?

Can war be ethical?

Poseidon intervenes in disguise as Calchas, but with his godlike powers, and Ajax recognizes the sense of a divinity in their midst. The adrenaline is contagious.

Note the confluence of literal and metaphor: Hector is compared to a boulder (12.164), and recently the heaving of boulders was literal material.

The wounds are especially grisly in this book. One warrior is seen "slashing away the whole vein / that runs the length of the back to reach the neck-- / he severed it, sheared it clear" (13.632-634). It doesn't matter that there is no such vein (except maybe in shrimps). Another guy gets it "between the genitals and the navel--hideous wound, / the worst the god of battles deals to wretched men" (13.657-658). Yet another is hit "between the eyes, / the bridge of the nose, and bone cracked, blood sprayed / and both eyes dropped at his feet to mix in the dust" (13.708-710).

The reality of war plays out defined in part by the passion of friendship and the chaos of fighting--warriors struggle to defend their comrades and retrieve the bodies of fallen warriors. In this book, the Greek warrior Indomeneus, captain of the Cretans, is no slouch. His prowess in battle continues for many stanzas. The encounter in battle between the men backing up Indomeneus and the Trojans backing up Aeneas is particularly interesting because it shows the use of the poetic formula. That is, the descriptions of the fighting are highly formulaic. Two heroes meet in the melee of battle, they utter words, one hurls a spear, which usually misses; the other reciprocates--second spear usually hits this warrior or another close by and the victor boasts, the victim dies, and his armor is stripped from him. Then Homer moves to a fresh encounter.

There are variations: chariots, swords, wounded rather than killed outright . . . carried to safety by comrades.

The encounter is only one aspect of the fighting. How the events are marshaled and how the warriors move towards each other. How one side closes in defense, or is routed by some hero. And how they flee like deer. How chariots are driven over corpses. How the hero searches for a special companion or enemy. How gods appear on the battlefield.

The heroic code by which heroes live and die is meant to make war, as much as possible, ethical. The ideology of war frames events in high ideals--fighting for a noble and righteous cause, respect among equals, courtesy, and playing by the rules of the field and society.

It is also important to recognize that many of the death scenes provide information about the marriage or promised marriage of a daughter to a particular warrior. When Indomeneus slays Othryoneus, we learn that he was to marry Priam's daughter Cassandra and the bride-price was mighty work in battle. If male heroes are trapped in a nightmare of war at least it is one of their choosing. Women are the real victims and are used freely as loot--the booty of war--and given as prizes. Yet women in general have a powerful but silent function in war--every heroic action is measured by its relationship to the female and the domestic. Heroes cannot acquire Kleos without the presence of a community defined by-in-large by women. That is, the intrinsic value of male heroic action depends on the domestic, a realm controlled by women. The presence of the story about one's wife, as part of the warrior's death and agony, creates a moral continuity and correspondence between heroic and agrarian life. Another excellent example of this correspondence can be seen in the death of Alcathous (13. 495-499).

Discuss the concept that war can be ethical. What happens when the heroic code breaks down?