Iliad Does Pity Become a Hero by Devangini Mahapatra Chauhan - Book Report/Review Example

Iliad - Does Pity Become a Hero By Devangini Mahapatra Chauhan Besides being a legendry poet from ancient Greece, Homer is a personality whose workis a benchmark for literary work that defines the phrase par excellence. His poems date back to the 7th or 8th century and have an almost haunting quality in their elements of relentless strength and power. Homer has been credited with demonstrating the nuances of various warrior like qualities through his heroes. While rumoured to be blind, Homer was known as an Ionian poet with great foresight and amazing clarity in his work. Homer's work reflects a certain style that revolves around qualities like simplicity in expression and a rapid translation of prose into plain speak. Therefore, the study of Homer is relevant in today's scholarly and scientific pursuits. (www.wikipedia.com) An epic poem to match the excellence demonstrated by Homer in The Odyssey, the Iliad is a story of a struggle. Set in a period of time when sieges and power struggles were the norm of the day, Iliad can be translated to mean "perception of the lion". Poles apart from each other in content and illustration of varying elements, both poems have been produced by the same poet to show his degree of versatility. (Jong, 1999. p 3 to 7)1 While the Iliad and the Odyssey have been considered as the most important works in Ancient Greek literature especially in the classic Greek period, they have also served as a strong platofrm for the inspection of Greek pedagogy in antiquity. Traditionally, they have formed the center of the rhapsode's repertoire where their recitation has been held as a central part of Greek religious festivals. The book would be spoken or sung all night where modern readings last around 14 hours. On such an occasion, the audiences would be found to be attending those parts that they particularly enjoyed. There have been numerous examplkes of scholars of the written word treating the Iliad and Odyssey as literary poems, where they belive Homer to be a writer like any other. This belief saw a change in the late 19th century and the early 20th century where a classic scholar by the name of Milman Parry, found great artistic and extraordinary elements in the peculiar features of Homeric style. In particular, this scholar paid attention to the stock epithets and the often extensive repetition of words, phrase and even entire pieces of text. While he argued that these features held the key to the artistic ability of oral composition, he also came to the conclusion that a poet employs a set of certain phrases because of the ease with which they could be applied to delivering a certain meaning in terms of grammatical conntonations. (Jong, 1999. p 15 to 22) In the modern world, there have been many authors who have studied and written about Homer's work. Popular among these is the depiction of Iliad by Richard Lattimore, who occupied the position of professor emeritus of Greek at the Bryn Mawr College. He was credited with turning Iliad into a fascinating modern day read in classic Greek studies. Crisp and clear, his text forms an important part of many Greek studies around the world. In his Iliad, Homer has tried to showcase the definition of strength. Beginning with the word wrath, the poem implies the war of Trojan, which is a point of reference throughout the poem. The poem revolves around a series of events that are belived to have taken place during the tenth and final year in the siege by the Greeks of the city of Ilion, or Troy. In this context, the word "Iliad" means "pertaining to Ilion" or Ilium in Latin. (Lattmiore, 1951. p59 to 66) As a brief summation, Lattimore has demonstrated that the action of the Iliad covers a few weeks of the tenth and final year of the Trojan War without paying special attention to the background and early years of the war which began with Paris' abduction of Helen from King Menelaus and ended with the death of Achilles and the subsequent fall of Troy. The first word of the Iliad is "rage" or "wrath". This word announces the major theme of the Iliad: the wrath of Achilles. When Agamemnon, the commander of the Greek forces at Troy, dishonors Achilles by taking Briseis, a slave woman given to Achilles as a prize of war, Achilles becomes enraged and withdraws from the fighting for almost all of the story. Without him and his powerful Myrmidon warriors, the Greeks suffer defeat by the Trojans, almost to the point of losing their will to fight. Achilles re-enters the fighting when his dearest friend Patroclus is killed by the Trojan prince Hector. Achilles slaughters many Trojans and kills Hector. In his rage, he then refuses to return Hector's body and instead defiles it. Priam, the father of Hector, ransoms his son's body, and the Iliad ends with the funeral of Hector. The Iliad consisted of a variety of themes besides being a study in the real elements of herosim. Of the many themes in the Iliad, the one that held the most important implications for the changing face of herosim, as per Lattimore, was the idea of moral choice. In the story, Achilles is believed to see only two choices before him where chasing his destiny was concerned. The first of these revolved around the fact that he can live a long, untouched and yet famed life at home. The second choice presented before him was for him to die young and gloriously as a mercenary warrior. In this regard, ancient Greece was a playground for the display of anyone and everyone with a taste for military adventuring which in truth qualified for pillage and plunder. While this may have been a way of life in pre-Homeric times, there are many ruins of thick-walled cities and fortresses in the region which stand in silent testimony to the fear that must have characterized life in the ancient world. (Kirk, 1989. p 1 to 11)2 In this context, there is a strong question pointing to whether or not a purely rationalistic thought process is enough to guide human behaviour in general. Lattimore examines this point in his book through the actions of the hero. Therefore, we may ask at this juncture - does pity become a hero In ancient times, where military extertise took centerstage and where truth was defied in favour of courage, this kind of reasoning might stand to logic. But the fact remains that Homer, in his typically forward thinking way, made a point in favour of pity through the actions of his hero. Herosim does not necessarily mean that the person involved with subscribe wholly and solely to ruthlessness. It means that the hero will have strength of character when it comes to feeling from deep within himself - enough to take pity and to forgive. In the face of rising adversity, the hero beckons his heart to show him the way and not just his war waging skills. Coming back to military adventuring, many men regarded this as the more attractive choice as opposed to staying home in the safety of regular work on the farm. Pity seems to have no place for these so called heroes where death in battle was believed to be a one way ticket to honor and glory. While there were important values during that time, more important than even right and wrong, Lattimore presents his characters with an alomost resounding yet silent quality of humanity. He does so by exploring one of the most remarkable elements of the Iliad which revolves around the way that Achilles, especially in Book 9, both embraces concepts of honor and glory and also rejects them. It should be noted that, despite being the central antagonist in the story, Hector probably best displays the qualities of an ancient Mediterranean hero. (Lattimore, 1951. p 198 to 210) At the start of the Iliad, it has been shown that the Greeks have held Chryseis, the daughter of Apollo's priest Chryses, as their captive. This has been done with the aim of presenting her as a reward to Agamemnon. As a fitting response to this act, Apollo, the ever caring father, has sent a plague to teach the Greeks a lesson or two. It is now upto these Greeks to go forth and force Agamemnon to return Chryseis to her father so that the deadly plague may go back to wherever it came from. In this act is the first stirring of pity. But this comes from a father who has been subject to the pain of losing his daughter and not from a hero in particular. So does this qualify as having no moral worth Now the adventure hungry Agamemnon captures Briseis, whom the Achaeans had given to Achilles as a profit from the war. As the greatest warrior of the age, Achilles, the greatest warrior of the age, follows the advice of his goddess mother, Thetis, and withdraws from battle in revenge. In this context, the progression of this piece of work is marked by acts of pity and forgiveness. Therefore, it may be seen that the concept of herosim has evolved over the ages to accommodate ideals like compassion as well as inclination towards choosing to stand uprihgt in the event of moral evaluation. As the poem moves forward, one sees instances of Achilles' pride and arrogance as he stands upto the Trojan prince Hector, son of King Priam, a husband and father who fights to defend his city and his family. While Hector's funeral marks the end of the poem, one also sees how Achilles devotes a night without warfare to a father names Kind Priam who must bury his son. Was it pity or compassion In an age where warfare was everything, both these qualities were intermingled to bring out the true essence of heroism as depicted by Achilles. (Gaskin, 2002. p. 147 to 166) 3 Through a careful study of Homer's work, Lattimore has been seen to devotes long passages to a realistic account of the war and the seige in terms of entering a lietrary or artistics sphere as far evolving various qualities within even the best warriors is concrened. Apart from naming the fighters and giving an account of their taunts and battle-cries, he also lets loose as far as the more gruesome and gory details are concerned. So as far as pity goes, the author depicts how the death of a hero goes forth to lead to further violence. Where a quality like pity and its depiction in the actions of the hero is concerned, the Iliad boasts of a remarkable religious and supernatural undertone in context of a human element. While soldiers in both sides in the war are extremely pious, where both armies have heroes who are incarnations of divine beings, they resort to frequent sacrifices to the Gods. Also, a consultation of priests and prophets to decide their actions was the norm of the day. In this way, there is a scope for pity and compassion to be displayed for the love of God or for the wrath of the same - considering the fact that the poem starts with the word wrath. Therefore, this work shows a character of ethical concern in the qualities of heroism depicted. References: 1. Cairns, D L. (2002). Oxford Readings in Homer's Illiad. Oxford University Press (USA) 2. Easterling, et al. (1989) The Cambridge History of Classical Literature - Early Greek Poetry. Cambridge University Press. (London) 3. Jong, Irene J. E. (1999). Homer. Routledge (London) 4. Lattimore, Richmond. (1951) The Iliad of Homer. Pheonix Books. (London) 5. Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia. URL: www.wikipedia.com (Accessed on: 22nd February, 2007) Read More