*The Iliad

The Iliad -Homer (Robert Fagles Translation)
I really enjoyed this great and bloody tale by Homer. The translation was seething and alive. I hope I never forget the scintillating use of epithets in The Iliad. Bernard Knox explained in the very thorough and enlightening introduction that repetition and epithet and other literary devices were tools that Homer used to help “memorize” such a long story. Something like, Variations on a Theme. Which is an inspiring and freeing concept to an artist. This book, water-crinkled and ragged, accompanied me through an afternoon of storms at ten thousand feet on the snowy climes of Mt. Shasta. It accompanied me also closer to sea-level on stormy, desolate plateau of sadness and sickness. The diversions and details have survived many thousands of years to still horrify and delight. My favorite moment was perhaps when Achilles’ mother, Thetis, wanting to properly arm him for battle, coaxes the god of fire, Hephaestus, to forge an unheralded panoply for her son and Homer expounds the details of the brilliant shield for one hundred and forty some lines, describing castle scenes, wedding feasts, wars, young men in love, exceeding in form to the point that on the golden shield, where the harvesters plowed the field, “the earth churned black behind them, like earth churning / solid gold as it was.”
My first question is, why did Achilles initially give up Briseis? There is some understanding that he is under deep, honorable obligation to obey Agamemnon at any cost, even if it means hating him through the obeisance. But, as we see that Achilles rage is unquenchable even after his revenge is completely carried out (dragging Hector’s body behind his chariot for nine whole days), there is a sentiment that Achilles longed for more battle than was posed to him by fighting the Trojans. He needed more drama, and more war. And so he submitted to giving up Briseis and spent the entire war plotting to get her back and to pay back Agamemnon and then to revenge Patroclus and still, never, will his rage be sated. I wonder, then, where such “anxiety” comes from? Why will Agamemnon not accept as amends Helen from Paris and call of the war? The characters all lacking a God of peace. Lacking a ultimate reason, even on Earth, and battling, thus, to no foreseen end.
“Beware the toils of war… / the mesh of the huge dragnet sweeping up the world.”
“fighters killing, fighters killed, and the ground streamed blood.”
“the earth that feeds us all.”
“his face dark / as the sudden rushing night but he blazed on in bronze / and terrible fire broke from the gear that wrapped his body, / two spears in his fists. No one could fight him, stop him, / none but the gods as Hector hurled through the gates / and his eyes flashed fire. And whirling round he cried to his Trojans, shouting through the ruck, / ‘The wall, storm the wall!’”

“no one can ever slake / their thirst for blood, for the great leveler, war! / One can achieve his fill of all good things, / even of sleep, even of making love… / rapturous song and the beat and sway of dancing. / A man will yearn for his fill of all these joys / before his fill of war. But not these Trojans-- / no one can glut their lust for battle.”
“both claw-mad for battle.”

And one love scene:
“With that the son of Cronus caught his wife in his arms / and under them now the holy earth burst with fresh green grass, / crocus and hyacinth, clover soaked with dew, so thick and soft / it lifted their bodies off the hard, packed ground…”

“A man’s tongue is a glib and twisty thing.”