Iliad rambling
Dec. 20th, 2009 10:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
toujours_nigel
I have just finished Nature and Culture in the Iliad. Yes, I'm not sure wtf I was reading it, either. Anyhoo. I hadn't really thought about it that way, quite, but Akhillos comes back to humanity not in his own community, but at the hands of his enemy, no? Which is creepy, yes, and poignant, and breaks my heart every damn time. But it means that he never comes back to community, not really, because, well, Priam is a Trojan (why, yes, I am Captain Obvious) and he goes, and the entire scene is set outside human circles, really, and only happens because, since Akhillos is a goddess' son, they can't just steal Hector's corpse, and it's such a different scene, for all its beauty, than all the others where men or corpses are ransomed.
When Akhillos and Priam weep together and eat together, they aren't sharing anything save a sense of desolation, one's a father who's lost the son he most depended on, the other will never be someone his father can depend on. He doesn't come to life, not really, he just, i don't know, lets go of his rage, finally. He knows he will die, but he's known that anyway, it's how he'll die that's driven him. And now the dead call to him, and, god, Patroklos asking for his funeral is another of the scenes that breaks me, because he's ready to go, all he he wants is to have his ashes mingled with Akhillos' and Akhillos can't let go. He can't even let go after the games, and that whole ceremony is supposed to make him loose his hold on the dead--he gives Patroklos all his hair, dies metaphorically on his pyre, and still can't let go. Patroklos is what keeps him human, because he isn't really, goddess mother and near invincibility and all. In a way (kill me now, before I descend into sap) Patroklos is to him what Hector is to Andromache, his only real connection to society, at least once he withdraws from battle. Patroklos brings him news, Patroklos hears him talk, he gets angry when Patroklos runs late on errands, etc. Patroklos is his human self, greatest of the Myrmidons (save him), the man who is to go to Pthia and be a comfort to their fathers and help raise his son--because Akhillos, of course, will die. And so Patroklos must live.
Patroklos dying cuts him off from human contact entirely--his friends cannot console him, his wife (and I love how Briseis mourns Patroklos, and the idea that he consoled and comforted her during her captivity just brings forth the gentleness in Patroklos, the man who weeps for death while dealing death) is distraught--as it draws him closer to the human fate of mortality. Godlike Akhillos becomes beastly, but he's, well, he's given himself over to death by now, hasn't he? He has a few aims, yeah--he wants to kill Hector, and to hold Patroklos' games--but it isn't that he's expecting to go home. Which, of course, is what makes the scene with Priam so achingly beautiful.
When Akhillos and Priam weep together and eat together, they aren't sharing anything save a sense of desolation, one's a father who's lost the son he most depended on, the other will never be someone his father can depend on. He doesn't come to life, not really, he just, i don't know, lets go of his rage, finally. He knows he will die, but he's known that anyway, it's how he'll die that's driven him. And now the dead call to him, and, god, Patroklos asking for his funeral is another of the scenes that breaks me, because he's ready to go, all he he wants is to have his ashes mingled with Akhillos' and Akhillos can't let go. He can't even let go after the games, and that whole ceremony is supposed to make him loose his hold on the dead--he gives Patroklos all his hair, dies metaphorically on his pyre, and still can't let go. Patroklos is what keeps him human, because he isn't really, goddess mother and near invincibility and all. In a way (kill me now, before I descend into sap) Patroklos is to him what Hector is to Andromache, his only real connection to society, at least once he withdraws from battle. Patroklos brings him news, Patroklos hears him talk, he gets angry when Patroklos runs late on errands, etc. Patroklos is his human self, greatest of the Myrmidons (save him), the man who is to go to Pthia and be a comfort to their fathers and help raise his son--because Akhillos, of course, will die. And so Patroklos must live.
Patroklos dying cuts him off from human contact entirely--his friends cannot console him, his wife (and I love how Briseis mourns Patroklos, and the idea that he consoled and comforted her during her captivity just brings forth the gentleness in Patroklos, the man who weeps for death while dealing death) is distraught--as it draws him closer to the human fate of mortality. Godlike Akhillos becomes beastly, but he's, well, he's given himself over to death by now, hasn't he? He has a few aims, yeah--he wants to kill Hector, and to hold Patroklos' games--but it isn't that he's expecting to go home. Which, of course, is what makes the scene with Priam so achingly beautiful.
