Mythology

Delahoyde & Hughes

 

HOMER'S ILIAD:

BOOK XVII: Menelaus' Finest Hour

Questions for Book XVII:

Why is there such fierce fighting over the dead body of Patroclus?

Describe the new side of Zeus we get to see in this book.

Menelaus shields Patroclus' body. The Trojan Euphorbus (who first speared Patroclus) exchanges threats with Menelaus in a formulaic confrontation which ends in Euphorbus' death.

Hector spurred on by Apollo threatens Menelaus who gives ground; Hector seizes Achilles' armor, which he straps on--the flashing helmet emphasized again. Pay attention to the imagery of fire and how it extends throughout the Iliad and defines heroism.

The tug-of-war for Patroclus' body is pretty grisly. And how weird is it for Achilles that Hector will appear before him in Achilles' own armor? It's the closest practical situation to a doppelgänger phenomenon: Achilles sort of seeing a mirror image of himself, and being in a relationship of homicidal antagonism with this other self.

Zeus offers a lament for Hector ahead of time (17.230ff). He even seems to have some heartfelt compassion for the plight of mortality (17.515f) -- that is, in an address to the crying horses. Yes, Achilles' chariot horses weep over the death of Patroclus, and Zeus meditates on the fact that humans have a special agony all their own. Why is Patroclus' body so important?

The fight for Patroclus' body follows.

an enormous tug-a-war. As when some master tanner
gives his crews the hide of a huge bull for stretching,
the beast's skin soaked in grease and the men grab hold,
bracing round in a broad circle, tugging, stretching hard
till the skin's oils go dripping out as the grease sinks in,
so many workers stretch the whole hide tough and taut--
so back and forth in a cramped space they tugged,
both sides dragging the corpse and hopes rising
Trojans hoping to drag Patroclus back to Troy,
Achaeans to drag him back to the hollow ships
and round him always the brutal struggle raging. (17. 450-460)

What is the result of associating this struggle for Patroclus' body with the art of tanning hides in a extended simile? What is Homer doing here?

The Greeks recover his body. Achilles however does not know that Patroclus is dead.