Here are some tips for reading the Iliad. On the first page of your reading journal keep a list of the characters and whose side they are fighting for, Troy or the Greeks. Also keep a list of names, the Greeks and Trojans are called by several names, as well as the individual people. It's also a good idea to have a basic idea of Greek mythology.

The Iliad drips with testosterone. Where does it get a romantic image from? There is no romance in either the Iliad or the Odyssey. The Iliad begins with an argument between Achilles and Agamemnon over a woman they call Briseis. She is one of Achilles spoils of war. We laments many times how he won her from her family on one of the many Achaean campaigns into the surrounding country around Troy. Agamemnon takes her from Achilles who then refuses to fight with the Greeks. Achilles goddess mother then goes to Zeus and has him side with the Trojans because of the dishonor done to her son. Homer, being Greek, has an obvious bias to the Greeks because even though he says the Trojans are winning any affront to a Greek hero is met with equal violence to the Trojans so you have to assume that while the Greek heroes are far superior the victory is happening at the level of the common soldier who is faceless and barely mentioned in the Iliad. The violence is graphically described and through the whole thing I kept thinking that this ten year war is being fought over one runaway wife. It seems unlikely to me. Since we know that there is a historical Troy and a war leveled the city I read this thinking of real people. When Achilles says that he will overthrow the city and kill every man and his male children and capture all the women I feel these are real people being spoken about. And I don't believe that they fought over Helen. But her story with Paris is not my idea of romance. By the time we join their story they have been together nine years, she's a fish wife and he's a weeny unable to face her husband Menelaus in battle. I never for a moment believed that it is true love that Achilles speaks of when he laments the loss of Briseis. Its as unromantic as any story I've ever heard. She is his rape victim (for I don't believe a woman would willingly lay with a man who's just killed her entire family and kidnapped her).

I didn't like Achilles, he's a meathead, not my idea of a hero. He finally comes back to the battle after Hector kills his friend Patroklos. Achilles takes it very personally, which seemed unsportsmanlike. Its a war. I can understand revenge but the humiliation of his body after Hectors manly speech as they face off it just seemed petty. The most moving scene is when Priam goes to Achilles to beg for his sons body back. Achilles looks at the old man, a king and a father, who has been reduced to begging to the man who killed his son, and thinks of his own father, and though he swore he would never give the body back he is touched and gives Hector to his father.

The Iliad does not end as you would expect it to. There is no mention of the Trojan horse and in fact Troy hasn't been sacked. They tell us it will be, always there is the sense of destiny, heightened by the involvement of the gods, but we do not see it happen. It ends with the burial of Hector.

Note- I'm going to Seattle for the weekend with my husband. We'll be back late on Monday. I'll continue my thoughts on Homer next Friday from the Iliad through the Odyssey. I'm reading the Greek Lyrics now and hope to be finished Wednesday and then I'll be on to the Analects of Confucius. Have a good weekend.