The Iliad, Book 6

I apologize but this will be a short one today, just one book.  I’ll do more this weekend, I promise.

Summary, Book 6:

The battle is still raging, and now it is going in favor of the Achaeans.  Menelaus starts battling with Adrestus, a Trojan.  He is about to stab him with a spear, when Adrestus makes a tempting offer:  let me go and my rich father will pay a ransom.

Menelaus is into it and is about to make the deal when Agamemnon comes by.  And he has this to say:

“Menelaus, you soft-hearted man,
why are you sparing men’s lives like this?
In your own home, Trojans treated you
exceptionally well, did they not?
So don’t let any one of them evade
a terrible destruction at our hands—
not even the young child still carried
in his mother’s belly. Let no one escape.                                         
Let everyone in Troy be slaughtered,
without pity, without leaving any trace.”

This is more than Menelaus can bear.  He shoves Adrestus toward Agamemnon and Agamemnon does the deed.  Nestor sees that the battle is tilting toward the Achaeans and warns them not to take any loot just yet.  Focus on killing.  There will be plenty of time for looting and plundering later.

So now Helenus comes up to Hector and for some guy I’ve never heard of he has a lot to say… Oh, he’s another son of Priam (“and by far the best at reading omens”) so he’s Hector’s brother.  He suggests that Hector return to Troy and ask the women there, including his mother and sisters, to try to placate Athena by making offerings of their finest garments. (?)

Hector takes Helenus’s half-baked advice.  Meanwhile, Diomedes challenges a Trojan to one-on-one combat and a guy named Glaucus takes him up on it.  As they are circling each other, Diomedes basically asks him for his genealogy, but assures him that if he is mortal he will fight him.  Glaucus, in one of literature’s best stalls, actually gives him a family history.  And whaddaya know?  He’s an old friend of Diomedes’s dad!  This connection is apparently enough to warrant a strange agreement, despite Diomedes’s recent killing spree.  They will switch armour so that they know not to fight each other.

“With these words, the two men jumped out of their chariots,
clasped hands and pledged their mutual friendship.
Then Zeus, son of Cronos, stole Glaucus’ wits,
for he gave Tydeus’ son his golden armour,
worth one hundred oxen, exchanging that                                               
for armour made of bronze, worth only nine.”

Zeus, aren’t you supposed to be helping the Trojans?

Anyway, in the meanwhile, Hector reaches Troy and asks his mother, Hecuba, to make the offering to Athena.  He also includes this tribute to brotherly love:

“I’ll find Paris
and call him back, if he will to listen to me.                                               
If only the earth would open under him,
swallow him up! Olympian Zeus raised him
as trouble for the Trojans, for brave Priam,
for his children. If I could see Paris die,
heading down to Hades, then I could say                                        
my heart’s sorrows were over and forgotten.”

I can’t say I disagree.  Hecuba and some other women go and give their best dresses to Athena.  Not for nothing, but I am going to seriously question Helenus’s omen-reading abilities right about now.  Why would Athena want a bunch of dresses?  She’s a warrior goddess!  She wears armor!  She’s not exactly a girlie girl.  Now if this were Aphrodite, that might make sense.  But Athena?  Gosh, even I can read the tea leaves better than Helenus.  Anyway, Athena “refuse[s] their prayer.”

The good thing about this book is that I have finally found a character I like: Hector.  He finds Helen and Paris basically lounging with her attendants and really lets Paris have it.  It’s all Paris’s fault that they are in this mess, and yet he’s here dicking around while people are fighting.  Oddly, Paris seems to sort of agree that this is not cool.  Helen agrees wholeheartedly:

“I wish that on that day my mother bore me
some evil wind had come, carried me away,
and swept me off, up into the mountains,
or to the waves of the tumbling, crashing sea.                               
Then I would’ve died before this happened.
But since gods have ordained these evil things,
I wish I’d been wife to a better man,                                                            
someone sensitive to others’ insults,
with feeling for his many shameful acts.
This husband of mine has no sense now
and won’t acquire any in the future.
I expect he’ll get from that what he deserves.”

I don’t know if this is the intent, but Helen comes across as really disingenuous. If I recall the mythology correctly, she went with Paris of her own free will so she can feel free to STFU at any time.  And you just slept with Paris so there is obviously something you like about him.  I don’t feel like Helen is really worthy of the epic battle being fought in her name.  As my husband said, “She must be dynamite in the sack.”

Paris agrees to come back to battle and tells his brother he will be along.  Hector goes to say goodbye to his wife, Andromache, and their baby, since he is concerned he might never see them again.

The scene where Hector says goodbye to his wife and baby is horribly sad.  She begs him to stay, but he pulls the whole honor thing, which I get the feeling Hector genuinely means.  He has a vision of his wife being sold as a slave, and hopes that he is dead and buried by the time that happens.  He also hopes that at least when people see his enslaved wife, they will say what a valiant warrior her husband was.  Yes, that will be a dear consolation.

Aww, the baby is scared of Hector’s helmet.  But he’s Hector-of-the-shining-helmet!  Shouldn’t he be used to it.  Anyway, Hector prays to Zeus to make his baby as good a warrior as he is.  He and his wife say goodbye, and she looks back with tears.  Poor lady!

Enter Paris.  Leave it to this tool to spoil a poignant moment.  They head back to battle.

Notes:

I finally read something about these epithets that are used to describe the characters.  (E.g. “of the shining helmet”, “god-like”, “son of X”, “bright-eyed”, “white-armed”, etc.)  They serve a dual purpose.  A) They are memory devices so people can keep characters straight, since most epithets are not shared.  B) They allow for extra syllables when the character’s name alone does not provide enough syllables for the meter of the poem.  For some reason I find that hilarious.  And once I knew it, I couldn’t un-see it.  They are everywhere, and they are essentially pointless.

Hector is a cool guy, which of course means he is going to be pushing daisies by the time this is all over.

Paris and Helen are like Romeo and Juliet in a sense.  The central romantic/sexual relationship, and both parties are completely insufferable.

Sorry again for only getting to one book.  More to come!

-Lily