Agamemnon insists on fulfilling the concluded agreement, but the Trojan Pandarus breaks the truce by shooting an arrow at Menelaus, after which the first open battle ensues (fourth canto), Elephenor is killed by Agenor.
The war continues. However, neither the Achaeans nor the Trojans can gain the upper hand. Immortal gods help mortals. The Achaeans are patronized by Pallas Athena, Hera and Poseidon, the Trojans by Apollo, Ares and Aphrodite.
The fifth canto tells how, in a fierce battle, even the immortals Ares and Aphrodite are wounded by the Achaean Diomedes, led by Athena. Seeing the power of Pallas Athena, the leader of the Trojans, Hector, returns to Troy and demands rich sacrifices be made to the goddess. At the same time, Hector shames Paris, who has hidden in the rear, and encourages his wife Andromache.
Menelaus kills Pilemenes, but Sarpedon defeats the king of Rhodes, Tlepolemus.
Returning to the battlefield, Hector challenges the strongest of the Achaeans to a duel and challenges him to seventh song hosted by Ajax the Great. The heroes fight until late at night, but none of them can gain the upper hand. Then they fraternize, exchange gifts and go their separate ways.
Meanwhile, the will of Zeus leans towards the side of the Trojans and only Poseidon remains faithful to the Achaeans.
The Achaean embassy is sent to Achilles, whose army is inactive due to a quarrel between their leader and Agamemnon. However, the story of the misfortunes of the Achaeans, pressed to the sea by the Trojans, touches only Patroclus, a friend of Achilles.
The Trojans attack: Agenor kills Clonius, and Medont is struck down by Aeneas.
Attacking, the Trojans almost burn the Achaean fleet, but the goddess Hera, who is favorable to the Achaeans, seduces and puts to sleep her husband, the god Zeus, in order to save her favorites. Seeing the Achaean ship set on fire by the Trojans, Achilles sends his soldiers into battle under the command of Patroclus, dressed in the armor of Achilles, but he himself avoids the battle, holding his anger at Agamemnon. However, Patroclus dies in battle. First, Euphorbus hits him in the back with a spear, and then Hector strikes him death blow lance to the groin.
In the struggle for the body of Patroclus, Ajax Telamonides kills Hippophous and Phorcys, and Menelaus defeats Euphorbus. The Achaean Schedius dies at the hands of Hector.
The desire to avenge his friend brings Achilles back into the game, who, in turn, kills Hector by hitting him in the neck with a spear. At the end of the Iliad, a lawsuit unfolds over the body of Hector, which Achilles initially refused to hand over to the father of the deceased for burial.
For the burial of Hector and Patroclus, an eleven-day truce is established, and funeral games are organized.
Heroes of the Iliad
The second canto of the Iliad contains the Catalog of Ships of the Greeks, which indicates the names of many Greeks who took part in the war, as well as the areas from which they came. There is also a list of Trojans, but it is much inferior to the list of Greeks; only some heroes of the Iliad are indicated in it.
Achaeans
The Achaeans (Ἀχαιοί), also the Danaans (Δαναοί) and the Argives (Ἀργεĩοι), are also once called Hellenes - the collective name of the Greeks in Homer.
- Agamemnon - King of Mycenae, leader of the Greeks.
- Achilles - Leader of the Myromidians, a hero of semi-divine origin.
- Odysseus - King of Ithaca, the most cunning of the Greek military leaders, the hero of the Odyssey.
- Ajax the Great is the son of Telamon, second only to Achilles in military skill.
- Menelaus - King of Sparta, husband of Helen and brother of Agamemnon.
- Diomedes - son of Tydeus, King of Argos.
- Ajax the Lesser is the son of Oileus and a frequent ally of Ajax the Great.
- Patroclus is Achilles' best friend.
- Nestor - King of Pylos, trusted advisor to Agamemnon.
Homer's Iliad - full-scale artistic discovery, made in the cradle of world culture - Ancient Greece. The poet sang in majestic hexameter (poetic meter) the events of the Trojan War - the confrontation between the Greeks and the Trojans. This is one of the first epic poems in human history. The basis of the work is mythology, so the reader is presented with a two-level composition, where the course of the struggle on earth is predetermined on Olympus. It is all the more interesting to observe the characters of not only people, but also Gods.
In the 13th century BC, powerful tribes of the Achaeans came from the northern part of Greece and spread throughout Greek soil, occupying the southern coast and islands of the Aegean Sea. Mycenae, Tiryns and Pylos are the largest cities, each of which had its own king. The Achaeans wanted to get Asia Minor on the east coast, but the Trojan state was located there, the capital of which was Troy (Ilion). The Trojans interfered with the free trade of the Greeks in Asia Minor, since it was through Ilion that the Achaean trade routes passed. The thirst for the eastern coast and free access to trade became the cause of the war of 1200 BC. The bloody struggle went down in history as the Trojan War, and the Achaeans and Trojans became its participants. Troy was surrounded by a wall with battlements, thanks to which the Greeks spent 10 years besieging this city. Then the Achaeans built a huge horse, later called the Trojan, as a sign of admiration for the king of Ilion, and at night Greek warriors emerged from the wooden gift, opened the gates of the city and Troy fell.
Researchers and scientists have long drawn information about the events of the Trojan War from the works of Homer. The story became the basis of the poem "Iliad".
Topics and problems
Already in the first lines of the poem, Homer reveals the theme of the Iliad. One of the themes is the anger of Achilles. The problem of hatred is put forward by the author in a unique manner: he welcomes the belligerence of the warring parties, but at the same time laments the thoughtless losses. It is not for nothing that the goddess of discord plays a negative role in the work. This is how the author expresses his desire for peace. “The Wrath of Achilles” directs the course of the war, so we can rightfully call his emotional excitement the core basis of the work. It concentrates human weakness: we cannot resist when aggression takes hold of us.
For the first time, the hero burns with hatred for Agamemnon. The leader of the Greeks takes Briseis, the captive of Achilles, by force. From now on, the hero does not take part in battles, such is the punishment for the king. The Greeks immediately begin to suffer defeats one after another, and Achilles does not join the battle, even when the Trojans come close to his camp. Agamemnon returns Briseis to the hero, gifts are brought into the tent as an apology, but Achilles does not look at them. Bright feelings don't have time to occupy the hero's head, storyline Achilles' anger flares up again, this time because of the murder of his friend Patroclus. Since Achilles did not participate in the battles, and the Greek army suffered serious losses, Patroclus volunteered to help the soldiers, donning the armor of the demigod, receiving his soldiers and chariot. The thirst for military glory clouds the consciousness of young Patroclus, and, entering into battle with Hector, he dies.
Achilles thirsts for revenge, now he teams up with Agamemnon, because nothing brings him closer together than a common enemy. The hero challenges Hector to a fight, pierces the neck with a sword and brutally treats the enemy’s body, tying him to his chariot and dragging him all the way to the camp. He pays in full for his cruelty, because he also falls on the battlefield by the will of the gods. So the author condemns human aggression and willfulness.
The theme of honor is mainly explored through the opposing warriors Hector and Achilles, and the death of the Trojan leader foreshadows the fall of Troy. Achilles' act in relation to Hector's body is dishonorable, and therefore is punished by the gods. But the Trojan warrior was given due honors, because, according to Homer, he was a man of honor to the end.
The theme of fate is also touched upon by the author. Homer's heroes do not have free will; they are all hostages of their fate, destined by the gods. The inhabitants of Olympus completely control the lives of people, clarifying their relationships through them. The mythological consciousness of Homer’s contemporaries imagined the world this way—through the prism of myth. They did not consider a single action to be accidental, finding God’s providence everywhere.
The work's problematics include the basic human vices: envy, vindictiveness, ambition, greed, fornication, and so on. These criminal passions overcome even the gods. It all begins with the envy, vindictiveness and selfishness of the goddesses, continues thanks to the ambition, pride, greed and lust of people, and ends with their cruelty, cunning and stupidity. Each of these qualities is a problem, which, nevertheless, is eternal. The author believes that vices were born along with people and they too will disappear, as phenomena of the same order. In bad traits, he sees not only negativity, but also the source of the versatility of life. The poet, in spite of everything, glorifies people as they are.
Which translation is better to read?
The translation of Homer’s “Iliad” can certainly be considered a difficult creative work; each author tried to “touch” the events of Ancient Greece in order to fully convey and bring the reader closer to the original poem. There are 3 author’s translations that are in demand among readers - A.A. Salnikova, V.V. Veresaev and N.I. Gnedich.
- N.I. Gnedich sought to bring his translation closer to the Homeric style; he wanted to convey the atmosphere of the era using a high style, and, in our opinion, he succeeded. Gnedich’s “Iliad” is written in hexameter and is filled with archaisms and Slavicisms. It is in this translation that the reader can feel the expressiveness of the language and plunge headlong into the Ancient Greek world, despite the fact that the text is quite condensed. This translation is quite difficult to read due to the abundance of outdated words, and is intended for a “sophisticated reader.”
- V.V Veresaev replaced the words “eyes”, “breg”, “in the hosts” with simpler and more colloquial ones. Part of his translation was taken from Zhukovsky and Gnedin, and the author did not hide this; he believed that well-written fragments from other translators could be used in his own works. This translation is easier to read than N.I. Gnedich and is intended for the “inexperienced reader”.
- Translated by A.A. Salnikov, the evenness of the rhythm of the poetic work appears. Text adapted for modern reader and is not difficult to read. This translation is best suited for understanding the plot of the Iliad.
The essence of the work
Homer's Iliad describes the course of the Trojan War. It all begins at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis (the parents of Achilles), at which the goddess of discord throws a golden apple for the “most beautiful.” This serves as the subject of a dispute between Hera, Athena and Aphrodite, who ask the Trojan prince Paris to judge them. He gives the apple to Aphrodite, since she promised him the most beautiful of wives. It was then that Hera and Athena became irreconcilable enemies of Troy.
The reason for the war was the most beautiful of wives, Helen, promised by Aphrodite, who was taken away by Paris from her legal husband Menelaus. He would subsequently gather almost all of Greece to war against his offender. Achilles fights against Troy, but not for the sake of restoring justice and family reunification, he came to Troy for glory, because it is this war that will spread his name far beyond the borders of Greece.
The battles take place under the close supervision of the Gods, who, like puppets, control people, deciding the outcome of the battle.
Achilles was called to war by Agamemnon, but he is not a warrior for his King. Their mutual hatred of each other brings about their first fatal quarrel. The course of the war changes after Agamemnon forcibly takes Briseis, who belonged, in the form of a military trophy, to the hero. The forces of the Trojans sharply begin to outweigh after Achilles leaves the battles. Only the death of Patroclus arouses in the hero a real thirst for revenge. He plunges a sword into the throat of Hector (the son of the Trojan king, the killer of Patroclus), ties his body to a chariot and rides like that to his camp. Revenge clouds the hero's mind.
King Priam of Troy asks to give up his son's body, appealing to the feelings of Achilles, he manages to awaken compassion in the hero's soul, and he gives up the body, promising as many days of peace as it takes to bury Hector. The poem ends with a picture of the burial of the Trojan son.
Main characters
- Achilles- son from the last marriage of God and an earthly woman (Peleus and Thetis). He had incredible strength and endurance, his weak point was hidden in his heel. One of the main heroes of the Trojan War, he fought from the Greek side under the formal leadership of Agamemnon.
- Agamemnon- Mycenaean king. Selfish. His quarrel with Achilles is the central conflict of the Iliad.
- Hector- son of the Trojan king, fell at the hands of Achilles. A true defender of Troy, the theme of honor is revealed through this character.
- Elena- the culprit of the war, daughter of Zeus, wife of Menelaus.
- Zeus- God of Thunder, decides the outcome of the war.
- Priam- Trojan king.
- Patroclus- a friend of Achilles, whom he teaches military affairs. Dies at the hands of Hector.
- Briseis- Achilles' concubine, falls in love with the hero. It became the reason for the quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles.
- Menelaus- Elena's husband.
- Paris- Prince of Troy, abductor of Helen.
How does the poem end?
Homer's Iliad ends with a picture of the burial of Hector (son of Priam). His face is seen as a foreshadowing of the fall of Troy, although many more events will occur before the walls of the city are captured.
The Trojan King's grief for his son was great; he was ready to risk his life to say goodbye to Hector. Priam enters Achilles' tent unnoticed, the gods took care of this. The king brings gifts. Apollo asked the hero to pacify his cruelty, but his anger over the death of his friend does not subside. The Trojan king falls to his knees and appeals to Achilles’ feelings of compassion, talking about the hero’s father Peleus, who is also waiting for his son to return from the war alive, and Priam is now alone, because Hector was his only hope. The selflessness and despair that brought the King to his knees before the warrior touches the hidden corners of Achilles’ soul. The king asks for his son’s body to be buried with honors, they cry together, the anger subsides, and the hero gives Hector to Priam. Achilles also promises as many days of peace and military inaction as are required to bury the Trojan leader according to all the rules.
Troy cries over the body of the fallen warrior. The funeral pyre leaves only the ashes of Hector's body, which are placed in an urn and lowered into the grave. The scene ends with a funeral feast.
The meaning of the Iliad in culture
Homer, with his poems "Iliad" and "Odyssey", opens a new literary page in history.
In the Iliad, history and myths merge together, the gods are humanized, and people are as beautiful as gods. The theme of honor raised here by Homer will later be raised several times by other writers. Poets of the Middle Ages began to remake the poems “in their own way,” adding “Trojan Tales” to the “Iliad.” The Renaissance brought large number translators interested in the work of Homer. It was during this period that the work gained popularity and in one century took on a form close to the text that we can read now. In the age of enlightenment, a scientific approach to the poem, its content and author appears.
Homer not only opened a literary page in history, but also inspired and still inspires readers. From the Iliad and the Odyssey will appear artistic techniques, becoming the basis of the creativity of the Old World. And the image of a blind author will become firmly embedded in the idea of a writer of the European type.
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Time and place of creation of the Iliad and Odyssey
All this indicates the generic nature of Homeric society, which is on the verge of decay and transition to a slave system. In the poems “Iliad” and “Odyssey”, property and social inequality, the division into “best” and “worst” are already evident; Slavery already exists, which, however, retains a patriarchal character: slaves are mainly shepherds and household servants, among whom there are privileged ones: such is Eurycleia, Odysseus’s nanny; such is the shepherd Eumaeus, who acts completely independently, rather as a friend of Odysseus than as his slave.
Trade already exists in the society of the Iliad and Odyssey, although it still occupies little of the author’s thoughts.
Consequently, the creator of the poems (personified by the legendary Homer) is a representative of Greek society in the 8th–7th centuries. BC e., on the verge of transition from tribal life to state life.
The material culture described in the Iliad and Odyssey convinces us of the same thing: the author is well acquainted with the use of iron, although, striving for archaization (especially in the Iliad), he points to the bronze weapons of warriors.
The poems "Iliad" and "Odyssey" are written mainly in the Ionian dialect, with an admixture of Aeolian forms. This means that the place of their creation was Ionia - the islands of the Aegean Sea or Asia Minor. The absence of references to the cities of Asia Minor in the poems testifies to the archaic aspirations of Homer, glorifying ancient Troy.
Composition of the Iliad and Odyssey
In the poem “Iliad,” Homer sympathizes with the warriors of both warring sides, but the aggressiveness and predatory aspirations of the Greeks cause him condemnation. In Book II of the Iliad, the poet puts into the mouth of the warrior Thersites speeches condemning the greed of the military leaders. Although the description of Thersites’ appearance indicates Homer’s desire to express his condemnation of his speeches, these speeches are very convincing and essentially not refuted in the poem, which means we can assume that they are in tune with the poet’s thoughts. This is all the more likely since the reproaches hurled by Thersites to Agamemnon are almost similar to the grave accusations that Achilles brings against him (v. 121 ff.), and the fact that Homer sympathizes with the words of Achilles is beyond doubt.
The condemnation of war in the Iliad, as we have seen, sounds not only in the mouth of Thersites. The valiant Achilles himself, about to return to the army to avenge Patroclus, says:
“Oh, let the enmity perish from the gods and from mortals, and with it
Hateful anger, which drives even the wise into fury!”
(Ill., book XVIII, art. 107–108).
It is obvious that if the glorification of war and revenge had been Homer’s goal, then the action of the Iliad would have ended with the murder of Hector, as was the case in one of the “cyclic” poems. But for Homer, what is important is not the triumph of Achilles’ victory, but the moral resolution of his anger.
Life as depicted in the poems “Iliad” and “Odyssey” is so attractive that Achilles, met by Odysseus in the kingdom of the dead, says that he would prefer hard life day laborer to reign over the souls of the dead in the underworld.
At the same time, when it is necessary to act in the name of the glory of the homeland or for the sake of loved ones, Homer’s heroes despise death. Realizing that he was wrong in avoiding participation in battles, Achilles says:
“Idle, I sit before the courts, the earth is a useless burden”
(Ill., book XVIII, art. 104).
Homer's humanism, compassion for human grief, admiration for the inner virtues of man, courage, loyalty to patriotic duty and mutual affection of people reaches its clearest expression in the scene of Hector's farewell to Andromache (Il., book VI, art. 390–496).
Artistic features of the Iliad and Odyssey
The images of Homer's heroes are to some extent static, that is, their characters are illuminated somewhat one-sidedly and remain unchanged from the beginning to the end of the action of the poems "Iliad" and "Odyssey", although each character has his own face, different from the others: resourcefulness is emphasized in the Odyssey mind, in Agamemnon - arrogance and lust for power, in Paris - delicacy, in Helen - beauty, in Penelope - the wisdom and constancy of a wife, in Hector - the courage of the defender of his city and the mood of doom, since he, and his father, and his son, and Troy herself.
The one-sidedness in the depiction of heroes is due to the fact that most of them appear before us in only one situation - in battle, where all the traits of their characters cannot appear. Some exception is Achilles, since he is shown in a relationship with a friend, and in a battle with an enemy, and in a quarrel with Agamemnon, and in a conversation with the elder Priam, and in other situations.
As for the development of character, it is not yet available to the Iliad and the Odyssey and, in general, to the literature of the pre-classical period of Ancient Greece. We find attempts at such images only at the end of the 5th century. BC e. in the tragedies of Euripides.
As for the depiction of the psychology of the heroes of the Iliad and Odyssey, their internal impulses, we learn about them from their behavior and from their words; In addition, to depict the movements of the soul, Homer uses a very unique technique: the intervention of the gods. For example, in Book I of the Iliad, when Achilles, unable to endure the insult, takes out his sword to attack Agamemnon, someone from behind suddenly grabs him by the hair. Looking back, he sees Athena, the patroness of the tracks, who does not allow murder.
The detail and detailed descriptions characteristic of the Iliad and Odyssey are especially manifested in such a frequently used poetic device as comparison: Homeric comparisons are sometimes so developed that they turn into independent stories, divorced from the main narrative. The most common material for comparison in poems is natural phenomena: flora and fauna, wind, rain, snow, etc.:
“He rushed like a city lion, hungry for a long time
Meat and blood, which, driven by a brave soul,
He wants to break into the fenced-in fold of sheep to kill them;
And, although he finds rural shepherds in front of the fence,
With vigorous dogs and spears guarding their flock,
He, having not experienced it before, does not think of escaping from the fence;
Hiding into the yard, he kidnaps a sheep, or is himself under attack
The first one falls, pierced by a spear from the mighty hand.
This is how the soul of Sarpedon, like a god, aspired"
(Ill., book XII, art. 299–307).
Sometimes epic comparisons of the poems "Iliad" and "Odyssey" are intended to create the effect retardation, i.e., slowing down the narrative through artistic digression and diverting the attention of listeners from the main topic.
The Iliad and the Odyssey are related to folklore and hyperbole: in the XII book of the Iliad, Hector, attacking the gate, throws a stone at it that even the two strongest men would have difficulty lifting with levers. The voice of Achilles, running to rescue the body of Patroclus, sounds like copper pipe, etc.
The so-called epic repetitions also testify to the song-folk origin of Homer’s poems: individual verses are repeated in full or with slight deviations, and there are 9253 such verses in the Iliad and Odyssey; thus, they constitute a third part of the entire epic. Repetitions are widely used in oral folk art because they make it easier for the singer to improvise. At the same time, repetitions are moments of rest and relaxation for listeners. Repetitions also make it easier to hear what you hear. For example, a verse from the Odyssey:
“Young Eos with purple fingers rose from the darkness”
(translated by V. A. Zhukovsky).
turned the rhapsode's audience's attention to the events of the next day, meaning that morning had come.
The often repeated picture in the Iliad of a warrior falling on the battlefield often results in the formula of a tree being felled with difficulty by woodcutters:
“He fell like an oak tree or a silver-leafed poplar falls.”
(translated by N. Gnedich).
Sometimes a verbal formula is intended to evoke the idea of thunder, which occurs when a body dressed in metal armor falls:
“With a noise he fell to the ground, and the armor thundered on the dead man.”
(translated by N. Gnedich).
When the gods in Homer's poems argue among themselves, it happens that one says to the other:
“What kind of words flew out of your teeth!”
(translated by N. Gnedich).
The narrative is told in an epically dispassionate tone: there is no sign of Homer's personal interest; Thanks to this, the impression of objectivity in the presentation of events is created.
The abundance of everyday details in the Iliad and Odyssey creates the impression of realism in the pictures described, but this is the so-called spontaneous, primitive realism.
The above quotes from the poems “Iliad” and “Odyssey” can give an idea of the sound of hexameter - a poetic meter that gives a somewhat elevated, solemn style to the epic narrative.
Translations of the Iliad and Odyssey into Russian
In Russia, interest in Homer began to gradually manifest itself simultaneously with the assimilation Byzantine culture and especially increased in the 18th century, during the era of Russian classicism.
The first translations of the Iliad and Odyssey into Russian appeared during the time of Catherine II: these were either prose translations or poetic translations, but not hexametric ones. In 1811, the first six books of the Iliad were published, translated by E. Kostrov in Alexandrian verse, which was considered an obligatory form of epic in poetics French classicism, which dominated Russian literature at that time.
A complete translation of the Iliad into Russian in original size was made by N. I. Gnedich (1829), and the Odyssey by V. A. Zhukovsky (1849).
Gnedich managed to convey both the heroic character of Homer’s narrative and some of his humor, but his translation is replete with Slavicisms, so that end of the 19th century V. it began to seem too archaic. Therefore, experiments in translating the Iliad were resumed; in 1896, a new translation of this poem was published, made by N. I. Minsky, based on a more modern Russian language, and in 1949, a translation by V. V. Veresaev, in an even more simplified language.
Subjects famous works The Iliad and Odyssey are taken from a common collection of epic tales about the Trojan War. And each of these two poems represents a small sketch from a larger cycle. The main element in which the characters of the work “Iliad” operate is war, which is depicted not as a clash of the masses, but as the actions of individual characters.
Achilles
The main character of the Iliad is Achilles, a young hero, the son of Peleus and the goddess of the sea, Thetis. The word "Achilles" is translated as "swift-footed, like a god." Achilles is central character works. He has an integral and noble character, which personifies real valor, as the Greeks then understood it. For Achilles there is nothing higher than duty and honor. He is ready to avenge the death of his friend by sacrificing own life. At the same time, duplicity and cunning are alien to Achilles. Despite his honesty and sincerity, he acts as an impatient and very hot-tempered hero. He is sensitive in matters of honor - despite the serious consequences for the army, he refuses to continue the battle because of the insult caused to him. In the life of Achilles, the dictates of heaven and the passions of his own existence coincide. The hero dreams of fame, and for this he is also ready to sacrifice his own life.
Confrontation in the soul of the main character
Achilles, the main character of the Iliad, is used to commanding and managing, as he is aware of his strength. He is ready to destroy Agamemnon on the spot, who dared to insult him. And Achilles' anger manifests itself in a variety of forms. When he takes revenge on his enemies for Patroclus, he turns into a real demon-destroyer. Having filled the entire bank of the river with the corpses of his enemies, Achilles enters into battle with the god of this river himself. However, it is very interesting to watch how Achilles' heart softens when he sees his father asking for his son's body. The old man reminds him of his own father, and the cruel warrior softens. Achilles also bitterly misses his friend and sobs at his mother. Nobility and the desire for revenge fight in the heart of Achilles.
King Agamemnon, as well as the Spartan ruler Menelaus. Homer portrays both as not the most attractive characters - both do not miss the opportunity to abuse their position, especially Agamemnon. It was his selfishness that caused the death of Achilles. And Menelaus’s interest in the attack was the reason that the war broke out.
Menelaus, whom the Achaeans supported in battles, was supposed to take the place of the Mycenaean ruler. However, he turns out to be unsuitable for this role, and this place turns out to be occupied by Agamemnon. Fighting with Paris, he gives vent to his anger, which has accumulated against his offender. However, as a warrior he is significantly inferior to the other heroes of the poem. His actions prove significant only in the process of saving the body of Patroclus.
Other heroes
One of the most charming main characters of the Iliad is the old man Nestor, who loves to constantly remember the years of his youth and give his instructions to young warriors. Also attractive is Ajax, who with his courage and strength surpasses everyone except Achilles. Patroclus, the most close friend Achilles, who was raised with him under the same roof. While performing his exploits, he became too carried away by the dream of capturing Troy and died at the merciless hand of Hector.
An elderly Trojan ruler named Priam is not the main character of Homer's Iliad, but he has attractive features. He is a true patriarch who is surrounded by a large family. Having grown old, Priam cedes the right to command the army to his son, Hector. On behalf of all his people, the elder makes sacrifices to the gods. Priam is distinguished by such character traits as gentleness and courtesy. He even treats Elena, whom everyone hates, well. However, the old man is haunted by misfortune. All his sons die in battle at the hands of Achilles.
Andromache
The main characters of the poem “Iliad” are warriors, but in the work you can also find many female images. This is Hector’s wife named Andromache, his mother Hecuba, as well as Helen and the captive Briseis. The reader first meets Andromache in the sixth canto, which tells of her meeting with her husband, who returned from the battlefield. Already at that moment, she intuitively senses Hector’s death and persuades him not to leave the city. But Hector does not heed her words.
Andromache is faithful and loving wife who is forced to live in constant worry for her husband. The fate of this woman is filled with tragedy. When her hometown Thebes was devastated, Andromache's mother and brothers were killed by enemies. After this event, her mother also dies, leaving Andromache alone. Now the whole meaning of her existence is in her beloved husband. After she says goodbye to him, she mourns him along with the maids as if he had already died. After this, Andromache does not appear on the pages of the poem until the death of the hero. Sorrow is the main mood of the heroine. She foresees her bitter lot in advance. When Andromache hears screams on the wall and runs to find out what happened, she sees: Achilles dragging Hector’s body along the ground. She falls unconscious.
Heroes of the Odyssey
A common question that students are asked in literature classes is to name the main characters of the Iliad and the Odyssey. The poem "The Odyssey", along with the "Iliad", is considered to be the most important monument of the entire era of transition from the communal clan to the slave system.
The Odyssey describes even more mythological creatures than in the Iliad. Gods, people, fairy-tale creatures - Homer's Iliad and Odyssey are full of a variety of characters. The main characters of the works are both people and gods. Moreover, the gods take an active part in the lives of mere mortals, helping them or taking away their power. Main character"The Odyssey" is about the Greek king Odysseus, who returns home after battle. Among other characters, his patron, the goddess of wisdom Athena, stands out. Opposing the main character is the sea god Poseidon. An important figure is the faithful Penelope, the wife of Odysseus.
Homer's epic poems "Iliad" and "Odyssey" are the first monuments known to us. ancient Greek literature. They were created in the first third of the 1st millennium BC. Of course, they could not belong to the pen of only one author (Homer) and appear suddenly, as a result of individual creativity. If these brilliant works and compiled by one poet, who is conventionally called Homer, this work was based on the centuries-old creativity of the Greek people. It is no coincidence that Homer’s poems reflected a wide variety of periods. historical development ancient Greeks.
In principle, the Homeric epic describes the communal-tribal organization of society. But the period depicted in the poems is very far from the real communal-tribal collectivism of the ancients. Signs of highly developed private property, private initiative within the framework of clan organizations and slavery are already creeping into Homer's epic. True, slaves so far only perform the work of shepherds and house servants. But, if in the Iliad slavery is still patriarchal in nature, then in the Odyssey the degree of exploitation of slaves increases significantly.
Based on the foregoing, we note that Homer’s poems were written not just in an epic style, which reflects the communal-tribal formation, but in its later variety - a free or mixed epic style. Unlike the earlier, strict epic style, free style reflects the period of the emergence of private property, the appearance on the stage of an individual personality, although not yet completely divorced from tribal community, but already aware of herself as an independent hero. This hero often acts on his own initiative and sometimes even enters into battle with the gods, like Diomedes, who wounded Aphrodite and the god of war Ares himself. Diomedes, as a hero of the late, free epic style, is ready to fight even with Apollo, and Odysseus in the second Homeric poem (Odyssey, canto 5) is not inferior to the god of the sea himself, Poseidon.
Sometimes the independence of the Homeric hero instills fear in the gods. In this regard, when the gods consult among themselves, discussing future fate King Odysseus of Ithaca, Zeus admits that people are in vain blaming the gods for their misfortunes. If they had not acted contrary to fate, they would have avoided many troubles. Concerned about Odysseus' excessive independence, the gods decide to return him to Ithaca, otherwise he will return there regardless of the will of the gods, thanks to his own perseverance and determination.
Such behavior of the hero, of course, is not allowed in the strict epic style, which reflected the life of ancient Greek society, welded into a monolithic collective. This collective subordinated absolutely every personal life, and individual human life was considered only in connection with the activities of the entire collective. An individual human life in itself had no value; only the entire collective as a whole mattered; it seemed to represent a single organism, and human lives entered into it as cells. The same structure of relationships exists in some phenomena of living nature, for example, in an anthill. In the 20th century shining example similar organization of society is the Stalinist totalitarian state.
There is a whole series of myths associated with the Trojan events. The poems "Iliad" and "Odyssey" are only small parts of this vast Trojan mythology. The Iliad describes only a few episodes, covering 51 days of the ten-year siege of the Asian city of Troy by the Greeks. According to all the rules of the genre, this is a heroic poem. “The Odyssey,” as researchers of the Homeric epic say, at first, apparently, was not part of the Trojan cycle and was just an analogy of the adventurous fairy-tale mythology of the Argonauts. Reworking the myths about Odysseus, Homer introduced into a purely adventure narrative the idea of the hero returning to his homeland from under the walls of defeated Ilion. Thus, main idea“The Odyssey” is the hero’s love for his homeland, for his wife, for the family hearth, which is desecrated by obsessive suitors seeking Penelope’s hand.
It is no coincidence that these motives of heroism and love for the motherland predominate in the poems. The fact is that the Homeric epic took shape at a time when the once strong Greece was ravaged by Dorian tribes invading from the north of the Balkan Peninsula. By creating his poems, which incorporated ancient songs, myths and historical legends, Homer wanted to remind the Achaeans (there was no single name for the Greek people at that time) of their glorious heroic past, to awaken in them love for their homeland and the will to resist the invaders. Therefore, Homer represents the generation of ancient heroes, in contrast to his contemporaries enslaved by the Dorians, as endowed with all sorts of virtues - a worthy role model.
Here we can recall the “Tale of Igor’s Campaign”, similar in meaning to Homer’s poems, by an unknown ancient Russian author, whose work warned the Russian princes mired in civil strife on the eve of the Mongol-Tatar invasion.
2. Gods
In Homer's epic, myth and historical reality, truth and fairy-tale fiction are closely intertwined. It is no coincidence that at first even the reality of the ancient existence of the city of Troy itself was questioned. But then, in the 70s of the last century, the German archaeologist-enthusiast Heinrich Schliemann discovered ruins in the north of Asia Minor ancient city Iliova (Troy).
Based on ancient greek myths, the Iliad and the Odyssey are densely populated with Olympian gods. Olympus and earth live in close unity. In Homer's poems, the world appears in mythological form as a single tribal community led by Zeus.
The ancient Greeks believed that the immortal celestial beings were fully endowed with the entire gamut human feelings that they interfere in the lives of the heroes, determine the fate of those who live on earth.
In addition to their virtues, the gods also have all the human shortcomings that Homer mercilessly ridicules. They, just like people, quarrel, scold, and sometimes even fight. The gods are vindictive and vengeful. But they are also concerned about the fate of the heroes fighting under the walls of Ilion. After all, according to the ideas of the ancient Greeks, generations of heroes descend from Zeus, who is called by Homer “the father of men and gods,” or from his relatives. Some heroes are directly related to the gods. Like, for example, Achilles - the son of the sea goddess Thetis, the Lycian king Sarpedon, who is the son of Zeus and the goddess Europa, and others.
The epic always deals with events so significant for the destinies of entire peoples that, by the will of the ancient singers - the Aeds (Homer was also considered a blind singer), the gods necessarily intervene in these events. The events that caused the Trojan War are also clearly of a cosmic nature. The myth tells that the Earth, burdened with a huge human population, turned to Zeus with a request to reduce the human race. Zeus heeded the request of the Earth and started a war between the Greeks and Trojans. The reason for the war was the abduction of the wife of the Spartan king Menelaus, Helen, by the Trojan prince Paris. The angry Menelaus, together with his brother Agamemnon, gathers a Greek army and sails on ships to Ilion.
In the Iliad and Odyssey, as well as in the entire Trojan cycle, the gods take a direct part in events. The motivation for all the personal actions of the heroes comes from the outside. What, for example, was the reason for Achilles’ anger at the leader of the Greek army, Agamemnon? Wrath, which brought the Achaeans, as it is said in the poem: “suffering without counting” and “many strong souls of heroes” who sent them to Hades. The reason for the quarrel between the two heroes was the captive, daughter of the priest Chryses, Briseis, whom Agamemnon took from Achilles. By the will of Apollo, he was forced to give his captive Chryseis to her father Chryses. Thus, the culprit of the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon turned out to be the god Apollo, who sent an evil disease to the Achaean army and thereby forced Agamemnon to return the daughter, captured from him, to the priest of the temple of Apollo in Troy.
Also, other actions of heroes and life situations are motivated by the will of the gods. When, for example, during a duel, Menelaus grabbed Paris by the helmet and dragged him to the Achaean camp (Iliad, song 3), the goddess Aphrodite broke the helmet strap and freed Paris. But the belt could have broken on its own, without the intervention of Aphrodite, who patronized Paris.
The gods not only intervene in human life, they direct people’s thoughts and actions in the direction they need. As a result of the decision of the gods and the direct influence of Pallas Athena, who sympathizes with the Achaeans, the Trojan Pandarus shoots at the Greek camp, treacherously violating the recently concluded truce. When the Trojan Priam comes to Achilles’ tent to ask for the body of his son Hector, he goes to meet him. Here, all the actions of Priam and Achilles are inspired by the gods.
However, the Homeric epic should not be understood to mean that man in himself means nothing, and that the true heroes are the gods. Homer hardly took mythology literally and represented man as just a pathetic plaything of the gods. Without a doubt, Homer puts human heroes in the first place in his poems, and his gods are only a generalization of human feelings and actions. And if we read about how the deity invested some action in this or that hero, then this should be understood in such a way that this action is the result of a person’s own decision. But this decision came to him so subconsciously that even the hero himself considers it divine predestination. And although the strict epic style implies that all thoughts, feelings and actions of a person are inspired by the gods, Homer, on this strict epic basis, gives infinitely diverse types of relationships between heroes and gods. Here there is the complete subordination of man to the divine will, and the harmonious unification of the divine and human will, and a rude attack by man on one or another Olympian god.
In Homer's poems there is almost not a single episode where the gods, who are, as it were, the main culprits of events in the lives of the heroes, do not act. The gods are at enmity with each other just like the Achaeans and the Trojans, divided into two camps. The Trojans are constantly patronized by Apollo, Ares, Aphrodite, the Achaeans - Pallas Athena, the wife of Zeus Hera, Thetis. This doesn't happen by accident. The fact is that the Trojan mythology of the ancient Greeks reflected the complex process of mutual assimilation of the cultures of the Balkan and Asia Minor Greeks that was taking place at that time. As a result of this assimilation, gods, so to speak, of Asian origin appeared in the pantheon of Olympian deities. These are Apollo, Artemis, Ares, Aphrodite, who constantly sympathize with the Trojans. When Zeus allows the gods to enter the war, they all immediately side with the defenders of Ilion. This is natural for the psychology of the ancients. After all, according to their concepts, the gods are also members of their tribal communities and are subject to the requirements of community ethics, which, first of all, obliges them to defend their homeland.
Homer laughs at the gods very often. He even depicts the famous battle of the gods not in a heroic, but rather in a humorous way. And indeed, is it really possible to take such a battle of the gods seriously, when Apollo and Poseidon shook land and sea so much that they
“Hades, the ruler of the underworld, came into horror underground,
In horror, he jumped from the throne and screamed loudly to
Poseidon, the earth shaker, did not open the bosom of the earth..."
Comics reach the level of burlesque when the sublime is depicted as base. In burlesque style, Homer almost always describes scenes taking place on Olympus. He has gods mostly they feast and laugh. An example is the first song of the Iliad, where Hera’s marital jealousy is described. Zeus intends to beat his jealous wife, and the bandy-legged freak Hephaestus makes the feasting gods laugh by rushing around the house with a goblet of wine.
Strong in the poems of Homer and satirical motives. Thus, the Cyclopes in the poem “Odyssey” are depicted as a caricature and satire of people living without any laws. The images of some gods and heroes are also satirical. And although humorous and satirical tendencies are just a touch in the diverse palette of shades with which Homer describes the gods and heroes, this is precisely why he received criticism in his time. Already at that time, Homer was condemned by some contemporaries from the point of view of religion and morality. Many ancient Greeks were offended by what seemed to them the frivolity with which Homer endowed his gods and heroes with almost all human weaknesses and vices. The main detractors of the blind singer were the Pythagoreans and Orphics. Along with them, Xenophanes critically assessed the works of Homer. He wrote: “Everything that people have that is dishonest and shameful was written to the gods by Homer and Hesiod: theft, adultery and mutual deception.” Plato also considered Homer’s myths about the gods to be just thin lies, and Heraclitus, in general, called for Homer to be expelled from public meetings and even punished with rods!
Alas, this is probably the fate of all geniuses, which from century to century justifies the statement that “there is no prophet in his own country.” The Jews did not accept Christ, in Rus' archpriest Avvakum was burned at the stake, and what to go far, in our country in the 20th century more than one prophet was expelled abroad or put behind bars. At least the same Solzhenitsyn.
But let’s not exaggerate; Homer, of course, had his admirers. They considered his poems the center of wisdom, rewrote and memorized them. They perceived Homer as an ideal and role model. Roman heroic poetry, in particular the poetry of Virgil, also developed under the influence of Homer. However, it is not yet known who would have prevailed if book publishing in those days had been similar to ours. I’m afraid that “The Iliad” and “Odyssey” would not have been published then, and if they had been published, it would probably have been with large bills. But Homer, fortunately, had another way out - he sang his poems. (Like Vysotsky in our time).
4. Heroes
If Homer's gods, as noted above, carry all the features ordinary people and the poet, at times, reduces his description of the activities of the gods to sarcasm (as if justifying famous saying, that from the great to the ridiculous is one step), then he equally endows some heroes with the traits of gods. This is Achilles, born from the goddess Thetis, invulnerable to arrows and spears, whose armor is made by the god Hephaestus himself. Achilles himself is like a god. From one of his screams, the Trojan troops flee in horror. And what is the description of the spear of Achilles worth:
“It was hard
That strong, huge ash tree; none of the Achaeans
Couldn't move; only Achilles shook it without difficulty..."
Of course, Homer's poems, created in the era of communal-tribal disintegration, show the heroes in their new quality. These are no longer heroes of a strict epic style. Traits of subjectivism, instability, and effeminacy creep into the characters of Homer's heroes. The psychology of some of them is very capricious. The same Achilles, undoubtedly the main character of the Iliad, throughout the entire poem knows only that he is capricious, harming his own compatriots over trifles, and when Hector kills his best friend Patroclus, he falls into a real rage. He puts his personal interests above patriotic duty. Although, according to the laws of the strict epic style, he had to fight not out of revenge, but out of duty to his homeland.
Achilles is probably one of the most complex figures all ancient literature. His character reflected all the contradictions of that era of transition from the communal-tribal form of society to slavery. In Achilles, along with insane cruelty and thirst for revenge, tender feelings for Patroclus and for his mother, the goddess Thetis, coexist. Significant in this regard is the scene when Achilles cries with his head on his mother’s lap.
Unlike the cunning and treacherous Odysseus, Achilles is straightforward and brave. Even knowing about his bitter fate to die young, he still undertakes this dangerous trip to Ilion. Meanwhile, as already mentioned, this is the hero of a later epic, when the ideals of harsh heroism were already a thing of the past, and the hero’s capricious personality, very selfish and nervous, was in line. Instead of the former primitive collectivism, an individual personality appeared on the stage. Namely, a person, and not just a hero, since according to the laws of the tribal community, every man must be a hero. Every man was expected to fight bravely for his community, and cowardice on the battlefield was considered the greatest disgrace.
But in view of the fact that the basis of Homer's work lies heroic mythology, the personality in his poems is still in a strong connection with his family and tribe, he represents a single whole with them. A different portrayal of personality would go beyond the epic and show a picture of later classical slavery.
The son of the Trojan king Priam, Hector, strictly observes the rules of communal ethics. Unlike the hysterical Achilles, he is strict, fearless and principled. His main goal is to fight for his homeland, for his people, for his beloved wife Andromache. Like Achilles, he knows that he must die defending Troy, and yet he openly goes into battle. Hector is the epitome of an epic hero with almost no flaws.
Agamemnon, unlike Hector, is endowed with numerous vices. He is also a brave warrior, but at the same time weak-willed, greedy and, so to speak, a morally unstable subject. Sometimes a coward and a drunkard. Homer often tries to belittle him, to present him from an ironic perspective. Along with the Olympian gods, Homer also makes fun of the heroes. In general, the Iliad can be interpreted as a satire on the Achaean kings, especially Agamemnon and Achilles. Of course, the leader of the Achaeans, Agamemnon, is not as capricious and petty as Achilles, because of whose selfish resentment the Greeks suffered such great losses. He is in many ways more principled and honest, but still cannot be considered a classic epic hero. Agamemnon, in some way, matches the eternally feasting and laughing Olympian gods.
And finally, Odysseus, as Homer says, “is equal in intelligence to God.” His image cannot be understood in a simplified way, as the image of only a diplomat and practitioner, and even more so, a cunning and adventurer. The adventurousness of the image of Odysseus in the second Homeric poem would have had its rightful place if the hero had not had a selfless love for his native hearth, “the smoke of his native land” and for Penelope waiting for him in Ithaca. But we must not lose sight of the time of creation of the Odyssey, that is, the period of decomposition of tribal relations. In this regard, in Homer's epic, willy-nilly, some features of the new, emerging social order were reflected - slavery.
The synthesis of myth, fairy tale and real life led to one goal - the creation of the image of a new hero, who absorbed the features necessary for an active person in the era of the exploration of new lands, the development of navigation, crafts, slavery and trade. It is no coincidence that Homer turns to a clearly adventurous plot. In Odysseus, he was attracted primarily by intelligence, enterprise, dexterity, patience and courage - everything that was required for a hero of modern times. Indeed, unlike the rest of the Achaean kings, Odysseus also wields a carpenter’s ax when building a raft for himself, as well as a battle spear. People obey him not by order or the law of the tribal community, but by the conviction of the superiority of his mind and life experience.
Of course, Odysseus is practical and cunning. He gladly receives rich gifts from the Phaeacians and, on the advice of Pallas Athena, the hero’s patron, hides these treasures in a cave. Once in Ithaca, he falls with emotion at his native land, but at that moment his head is full of cunning plans for how to deal with insolent suitors.
But Odysseus is fundamentally a sufferer. No wonder Homer constantly calls him “long-suffering.” He is more of a sufferer than even a cunning man, although Odysseus’s cunning seems to be limitless. It is not for nothing that in the Iliad he often acts as a spy, disguised as he makes his way into Troy, besieged by the Achaeans. The main reason for Odysseus’s suffering is an insurmountable longing for his homeland, which he cannot achieve due to the will of circumstances. The gods take up arms against him: Poseidon, Aeolus, Helios and even Zeus. Terrible monsters and cruel storms threaten the hero with death, but nothing can restrain his craving for his native Ithaca, love for his father, wife, and son Telemachus. Odysseus did not even hesitate in his choice when, in exchange for his homeland, the nymph Calypso promised to grant him immortality and eternal youth. Odysseus chooses a path home to Ithaca full of hardships and dangers. And, of course, it doesn't fit well with this tenderly loving husband and the father the role of a bloodthirsty killer who mercilessly deals with the suitors, filling the entire palace with their corpses. What can you do, Odysseus is a product of his cruel era, and the suitors would not have spared him either, if Odysseus had fallen into their hands.
To summarize what has been said, we note that the immortal creations of Homer had a huge influence on all subsequent world literature. The influence of Homer's poems on Roman literature was strong. At all, heroic epic- this is a historically logical stage in the artistic exploration of the world, which arose in the ancient and Middle Ages at the decisive, turning points in the destinies of peoples. These include, in addition to Homer’s poems “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign,” the Indian “Mahabharata” and “Ramayama,” Icelandic sagas, the tales of the Nibelungs of the ancient Germans, the Kyrgyz “Manas,” the Karelian-Finnish “Kalevala” and much more. How to stylize something like this epic poem One might note “Thus Spake Zarathustra” by Friedrich Nietzsche. Of the works of the 20th century, as an epic, without a doubt, can be considered “ Quiet Don» Mikhail Sholokhov.
“The works of Homer are an excellent encyclopedia of antiquity,” wrote the poet N. I. Gnedich, who first translated the Iliad into Russian in 1829. Zhukovsky, Belinsky, and Gogol admired Homeric poems.
Homer's epic has not lost its relevance in our time - in the era of the collapse of patriarchal-communal Stalinist barracks socialism and the emergence of something new, still incomprehensible, but certainly better. Gone are the days of thoughtless glorification of the so-called glorious revolutionary past. The pantheon of “Kremlin gods” has noticeably diminished. The strict epic style in describing our past victories and achievements was replaced by a mixed style of criticism and satire. The ancients were right: from the great to the ridiculous - one step. The main thing is not to tear yourself away from your homeland. After all, the road to Ithaca is so long.
