Get to grips with Homer’s Iliad in five minute chunks in this blog series! If you’re an A Level Classics or Ancient History student, each of these blog posts is a five-minute summary of some of the main topics you will need for your exams. For university-level scholars or independent researchers, we’ve included clickable links to useful literature, primary sources and canonical scholarship you’ll need to know.
In this post, explore the emotions of the Iliad!
Jacques-Louis David’s Andromache Mourning Hector
Lust
In a sense, the story of the Trojan war begins with lust. Aphrodite understands the power of this emotion in her clever plot to make Paris choose her in the beauty competition Click the link to read about how this started the Trojan War in our introduction to the Iliad!
Here calls love and desire “the powers by which [Aphrodite] subdue[s] mankind and gods alike.” Aphrodite ensures that Paris’ lust is satisfied throughout the war by ordering Helen to go to bed with him. Helen, however, does not seem to return this emotion.
At one point, Helen refuses to go to bed with Paris when Aphrodite commands it. Aphrodite is enraged, threatening to desert Helen in her anger. Helen submits, but scolds Paris nonetheless, saying, “I was hoping you had fallen to the great soldier who was once my husband!”
Perhaps Helen gives us a clue about her own feelings herself in the Iliad when she tells Hector, “I am a shameless, evil-minded and abominable creature.” Helen wishes herself dead, but “…since the gods have ordained things to this evil end, I wish I had found a better husband, one with some feeling for the reproaches and contempt of his fellow men.”
There has been a lot of scholarly debate about Helen’s real feelings for Paris, from Homer’s epics to modern-day portrayals. There were many such debates in the Greek world, too. Fifth-century sophist Gorgias produced the Encomium on Helen as a defence of Helen’s actions.
Gorgias argues that Helen should not be blamed for her elopement with Paris if the fate, gods, human violence, convincing arguments, or eros (love) compelled her. Gorgias wrote the piece as a rhetorical exercise and as an amusement for himself, but it sparked debate about what Helen’s story tells us about human agency, free will and the power of words.
Jacques-Louis David’s The Loves of Paris and Helen
The action of the Iliad also begins with lust: Agamemnon and Achilles’ lust for timê as they argue over Briseis. Love is also alluded to: Achilles hints that he has grown to love Briseis herself.
Grief
Grief drives a lot of the action in the Iliad. Achilles’ grief for Patroclus moves him to fight. Achilles actually undergoes physical changes during the grieving process: a fire fed by Athena blazes from his head.
Gavin Hamilton’s Achilles Lamenting the Death of Patroclus
Hector grieves for his family in anticipation of his own death in battle and is grieved for in return by Priam, who faces the terrible Achilles in order to retrieve his son’s corpse. As Priam says, “I have brought myself to do a thing that no-one else on earth has done – I have raised my lips to the hand of the man who killed my son.”
The gods themselves are not immune to these emotions. Zeus grieves Hector’s death in advance, saying, “I have a warm place in my heart for this man who is being chased before my eyes round the walls of Troy. I grieve for Hector. He has burnt the thighs of many oxen in my honour, both on the rugged heights of Ida and the lofty citadel of Troy.”
Zeus grieves for his son Sarpedon (as do the Trojans) and engulfs the battlefield in “a dreadful night” when he dies. Thetis grieves for Achilles even before he dies, weeping when she explains his fate.
Menis
Menis is wrath; all-consuming anger that is usually associated with the gods, or godlike people. The Iliad itself opens with, “I sing of the wrath of Achilles…”
Achilles is angry because he has been insulted and spends much of the epic sulking in a tent and refusing to fight. This leads to his friend Patroclus and the Myrmidons (Achilles’ troops) going out to fight without him, which ultimately leads to Patroclus’ death at the hands of Hector.
Peter Paul Rubens’ The Wrath Of Achilles
This leads to more wrath from Achilles. After killing Hector, Achilles treats Hector’s corpse shamefully, dragging it along behind his chariot and leaving the corpse face down. The gods are appalled: “Dead though Hector was, Apollo still felt pity for the man and saved his flesh from all pollution. Moreover, he wrapped him on his golden aegis, so that Achilles should not scrape his skin when he was dragging him along.”
Of course, the gods also exhibit rage at points in the Iliad. When she is teased by Zeus for being lazy, Athena puts on a spectacular show of rage. Homer tells us, that, enraged, she speeds “down from the peaks of Olympus like a meteor…tossing out innumerable sparks”!
In our final post, learn about family, friends and the ancient concept of hospitality in the Iliad!
For A Level Students
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