I love Ancient Greek poetry. They wrote such embodied, dramatic stuff. The best fiction is about matters of life and death, to paraphrase Tobias Wolff. And the Greeks totally nailed the life-and-death thing. Homer, or some guy with the same name, composed the Blockbusters of his day.
The Illiad Gets Real
The Iliad, for example, starts with the tale of two men fighting over one woman. What's at stake: HONOR: one warrior's wounded pride & what he's going to do about it. READ: ACTION is character. Achilles refuses to fight for the Achaeans (Greeks) because his mistress/spoil from war was taken from him, and given to a lesser warrior and not-altogether competent leader.
Starting to understand why kids don't read the Iliad in Public High Schools? Almost impossible to give the Iliad a Victorian or Right-Wing Christian White-Wash. Kids might really get into the story. And that would be terrible. What if they learn something inappropriate?
But seriously, Doesn't the basic Iliad story transcend time and place? Who hasn't been in a situation(s) where the Guy in Charge is a moron who gets the biggest salary/perks while you're out in the field dealing with real-world problems, kicking and busting your a-s for The Company?.
And when there are cutbacks, who gets hit the hardest? The competent guys doing the actual work, right?
So, Mr. Mediocre, Agamemnon, has to give up his slave-girl, Chryseis, who happens to be a Mighty Priest's daughter, for the good of the Achaean Legion. Agamemnon can't get out of doing his part; he's got to give Chryseis up, or take it up with the Gods, who have been raining fire & brimstone on the Greeks for weeks. And what does Agamemnon do? Mr. Mediocre turns around and demands the woman of Achilles, aka BEST WARRIOR of ALL TIME.
BUT, Achilles has grown fond of his slave woman, Briseis, whom he won in a fair fight. Well, fair by the standards of the time. Agamemnon already has a wife, and if he gets Briseis, he'll have two key women, and Achilles will have none. Furthermore, what a show of disrespect in front of the troops!
So Achilles says: Fine, Agamemnon, take my woman. But, I'm done with you. I'm leaving the battlefield, and I'll be "working" on the Pleasure Principle. Granted, Homer says it more gracefully. Read for yourself...
The Iliad IGNITES...
"Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought
countless ills upon the Achaeans. Many a brave soul did it send
hurrying down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs and
vultures...
...Achilles scowled at [Agamemnon] and answered, "You are steeped in insolence and
lust of gain. With what heart can any of the Achaeans do your bidding,
either on foray or in open fighting? I came not warring here for any
ill the Trojans had done me. I have no quarrel with them. They have not
raided my cattle nor my horses, nor cut down my harvests on the rich
plains of Phthia; for between me and them there is a great space, both
mountain and sounding sea. We have followed you, Sir Insolence! for
your pleasure, not ours--to gain satisfaction from the Trojans for your
shameless self and for Menelaus. You forget this, and threaten to rob
me of the prize for which I have toiled, and which the sons of the
Achaeans have given me. Never when the Achaeans sack any rich city of
the Trojans do I receive so good a prize as you do, though it is my
hands that do the better part of the fighting. When the sharing comes,
your share is far the largest, and I, forsooth, must go back to my
ships, take what I can get and be thankful, when my labour of fighting
is done. Now, therefore, I shall go back to Phthia; it will be much
better for me to return home with my ships, for I will not stay here
dishonoured to gather gold and substance for you."
And Agamemnon answered, "Fly if you will, I shall make you no prayers
to stay you. I have others here who will do me honour, and above all
Jove, the lord of counsel. There is no king here so hateful to me as
you are, for you are ever quarrelsome and ill-affected. What though you
be brave? Was it not heaven that made you so? Go home, then, with your
ships and comrades to lord it over the Myrmidons. I care neither for
you nor for your anger; and thus will I do: since Phoebus Apollo is
taking Chryseis from me, I shall send her with my ship and my
followers, but I shall come to your tent and take your own prize
Briseis, that you may learn how much stronger I am than you are, and
that another may fear to set himself up as equal or comparable with me."
....
[Achilles draws his sword to kill Agamemnon, but is stopped by goddess Minerva.]
The son of Peleus again began railing at the son of Atreus, for he
was still in a rage. "Wine-bibber," he cried, "with the face of a dog
and the heart of a hind, you never dare to go out with the host in
fight, nor yet with our chosen men in ambuscade. You shun this as you
do death itself. You had rather go round and rob his prizes from any
man who contradicts you. You devour your people, for you are king over
a feeble folk; otherwise, son of Atreus, henceforward you would insult
no man. Therefore I say, and swear it with a great oath--nay, by this
my sceptre which shalt sprout neither leaf nor shoot, nor bud anew from
the day on which it left its parent stem upon the mountains--for the
axe stripped it of leaf and bark, and now the sons of the Achaeans bear
it as judges and guardians of the decrees of heaven--so surely and
solemnly do I swear that hereafter they shall look fondly for Achilles
and shall not find him. In the day of your distress, when your men fall
dying by the murderous hand of Hector, you shall not know how to help
them, and shall rend your heart with rage for the hour when you offered
insult to the bravest of the Achaeans."
Click to read the Iliad online, via the Project Gutenberg
Don't worry. Agamemnon gets "his due" when he returns home to Greece, but that's a whole other epic! Did I mention that Agamemnon had his daughter sacrificed to the Goddess of Hunting? They don't make Patriarchs like they used to. Thank God. The Atreus Dynasty is seriously messed up. SEEK: Clytemnestra -- One Tough Mother
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