MythologyDelahoyde & Hughes
HOMER'S ILIAD:
BOOK XVIII:The Shield of Achilles
Questions for Book XVIII:
Achilles' shield presents a comprehensive picture of life in the Homeric age. Do the scenes on it throw light on the meaning of war? Do they make the tragic pattern of the Iliad more apparent? What is the point of describing the shield for several pages?
We get a mythological explanation for a timeless phenomenon: according to Homer why are the masses such idiots? (Or, in other words: in their own assembly, why do the Trojans listen to Hector instead of to Polydamas the seer, according to Homer?)
Achilles senses the news about Patroclus' death and receives it. Notice Greek expression of grief (18.24ff) -- rather melodramatic! He cries to Thetis again, and then has an interesting moment:
If only strife could die from the lives of gods and men
and anger that drives the sanest man to flare in outrage--
bitter gall [becomes] sweeter than dripping streams of honey,
that swarms in people's chests and blinds like smoke--
just like the anger Agamemnon king of men
has roused within me now . . .Enough.
Let bygones be bygones. Done is done.
Despite my anguish I will beat it down,
the fury mounting inside me, down by force.
but now I'll go and meet that murderer head-on,
that Hector who destroyed the dearest life I know.
For my own death, I'll meet it freely --whenever Zeus
and the other deathless gods would like to bring it on! (18.126-138)Some lines here are repeated from Book XVI, and will be again in Book XIX, showing that Achilles is still stuck in this mode. But his awareness also grows. Anger is addictive, as Achilles admits her; yet he still keeps cycling. Following this he begins to rage against Hector.
Patroclus’s character? Patroclus is describes as?
When Achilles unleashes his war-cry, goofiness results. Charioteers lose control and die. Among the Trojans, Polydamas recommends a retreat, but Hector wants to continue the attack.
So Hector finished. The Trojans roared assent,
lost in folly. Athena had swept away their senses.
They gave applause to Hector's ruinous tactics,
none to Polydamas, who gave them sound advice. (18.361-364)So Homer explains mass idiocy: an etiological explanation for the success of several sleazeball politicians, for example, or of Britney Spears.
Hephaestos owes Thetis, so he agrees to forge new armor for Achilles. The description of the shield is famous.
The Shield:
Interestingly, there seems to be no real discernible center to the shield, and although we get initially two divisions and the first impulse is to expect a diptych depicting war and peace or something similar, each of these two depictions quickly blur such dualities, so that there are sensitive moments associated with conflict and moments of contention associated with the marriage scene. Anything else would be oversimplifying life artificially. The depiction is of the entire larger vision of the intricate life of the culture and the world. It shows that there's really something at stake here to be fighting about.
If there's no center to the shield, then this has implications for Homer's depiction of war. The assumption we inherit is that Helen is at the center of the war. But would the war end if the Trojans simply turned her over to Menelaus now? Or is the tapestry too intricately woven? The central blame is Helen, but most individuals are involved in this for widely different motives. Besides, we've seen Paris and Helen earlier -- a pretty grim picture to serve as the center of an epic war.
Yet this is a realistic assessment of war, in which it is largely assumed there is a center operating as a central motive, whether it is something like "the safety of the Kuwaiti people," "oil interests,"; or even something so convoluted politically and weird that we'll never know about it -- still, we assume something serves as the center.
The Trojan War, as described by Homer in this epic, involves a human side: not just men and war and boasting, but also the admission of fear and scenes of domestic life (Hector's family), not in a sentimentalized version further acknowledging the glory of war. Nor does Homer sentimentalize the pain or the degradations or the grisly deaths or even use these towards some propagandistic end. So it's a more complete and responsible depiction that doesn't underestimate the intelligence of its readers. There's not one single center to the war, just as there's not one single god for the Greeks.
The last description on the shield are those of a dance -- the archetypal symbol for the joy of life itself -- and the "Ocean's River" encircling at the outer rim -- perhaps a symbol for total inclusiveness and eternity, and for the stability of the larger perspective. (But of course the ancient Greeks didn't have the technology to obliterate the environment or kill the gods.)