Ancient Epic (Homer and Vergil) PDF

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8/23/2017

1320: Section 3: Ancient Epic (Homer and Vergil)

USU 1320: History and Civilization A Guide To Writing in History and Classics Home Syllabus

©Damen, 2015 Index of Chapters Course Description

SECTION 3 History and Literature: Ancient Epic, Homer and Vergil While history encompasses many a fiction, fiction can also embrace much history. Homer, the earliest Western author whose work survives, shows this very clearly. His epics, The Iliad and The Odyssey, are literary tales steeped in historical realities, revealing much about life and times in early Greece. Many centuries later, another ancient author, Vergil who was the greatest of Roman poets, also preserves a complex and sophisticated picture of politics in his own day, even if his epic, The Aeneid, is on the surface a mythical saga. In sum, what-really-happened-in-the-past does not have to be packaged as history to deliver an accurate picture of life long ago.

People, Places, Events and Terms To Know: Homer Epic The Iliad Troy Ilium Achilles Agamemnon Hector Priam Sack of Troy Trojan Horse The Odyssey Clytemnestra

Odysseus (Ulysses) Penelope Zeus Hera "The Seduction of Zeus" "Odysseus and Argus" Weak Joins Milman Parry Oral Bard Oral Formulas Rhapsodes Vergil The Aeneid

Augustus Aeneas Venus Pius In Medias Res Juno Jupiter Dido Carthage Priam Pyrrhus Pompey Turnus

I. Introduction: Literature and History History and literature share much in common, not only the written word but the exploration of humanity. If history sets out to tell explicitly what-really-happened-in-the-past, fictional stories do much the same by engaging the readers' imagination and appealing to their sense of logic about what's possible or likely to have happened. That is, to be effective, literary works depend on the readers' ability to see some larger truth behind the façade of made-up characters and situations and to connect fiction with fact because of the story's immediacy and pertinence to the audience's world. Thus, literary authors hope the reader will connect with their work somehow and see that it's not just a story but, as Vergil puts it, sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt ("there are tears for what's happened and mortal matters touch the mind"). In the end, history and literature have a similar agenda, to reflect truth—however imperfectly—and, in doing so, illuminate the human condition. Literary and historical styles are not all that different, either, since the principles which drive and govern literature also inform history to some extent. For instance, if a historian's work does not provide some readership with a certain level of reading enjoyment, it tends not to be read, making its impact just that much less widespread and instrumental in the formulation of our understanding the past. Indeed, a good story lies at the heart of every influential historical work, so it behooves historians not only to examine the substance of http://www.usu.edu/markdamen/1320Hist&Civ/chapters/03EPIC.htm

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literature for the history it may contain but also to study the methods used by writers of fiction in advancing their art. With that in mind, we will look at two of the greatest authors in ancient Western civilization: Homer and Vergil. They rank among the best "singers of tales" who've ever lived. The epics they composed contain and use history liberally and, by visiting these works, we learn much about the past and the ways in which history and literature overlap.

II. Homer A. The Epic Poet Homer was called by the Roman writer Quintilian "the river from which all literature flows." Homer is indeed among the first and finest literary voices in European civilization. However, that his work is of such an extraordinary quality, exhibiting a fully developed sense of narrative and human psychology, is somewhat ironic. It means that with Homer Western literature emerges into history full-blown, which gives us little chance to gauge the evolution of literature in the West. That is, by being so superlative at so early a date—some would argue no writer has ever surpassed the quality of Homer's narrative—he is not only the beginning but also the culmination of Western literature, and it's all been downhill from there! Whatever one's opinion, it is certainly worth the effort to learn ancient Greek just to read Homer in the original. With such acclaim surrounding him, several important questions concerning Homer have naturally accrued over the years. Who was he? How could he be so good an author, living when he did? As brilliant and realistic as his characters and situations seem, is it possible that his epics reflect actual history? These are the questions which swirl like dust around our feet as we walk the Elysian fields of Homeric epic.

B. The Iliad and The Odyssey An epic is a long, narrative poem in which the central character, usually depicted as a hero of some sort, struggles against great odds—sometimes death literally—to achieve a noble end. Most often, the story involves gods or, at least, the supernatural in some respect, which serves to aggrandize humanity in its all-too-often vain quest for heaven and immortality. The hero's inevitable failure only underscores the tragedy of mortal weakness inherent in us all. In capturing all at once this sense of human grandeur and frailty, Homer's works are unsurpassed. Homer is the author of the two epics preserved entire from ancient Greece: The Iliad and The Odyssey. In The Iliad, the Greeks have sailed across the sea to besiege the Trojans in their walled fortresscity of Troy, also called Ilium (hence The Iliad). The story centers around Achilles, the greatest of the Greek warriors at Troy, but when Agamemnon, the leader of the Greek expedition, insults and enrages him, he stops fighting, a devastating blow to the expedition. The theme of The Iliad is Achilles' anger at Agamemnon, a short but explosive outburst which nearly undermines the Greeks' efforts to bring down Troy. For the majority of this epic, Achilles refuses to fight until in Book 16 his best friend Patroclus begs to go into combat in his place and, after Achilles reluctantly agrees, is killed by the greatest of the Trojan warriors, Hector. With his rage now redirected at Hector, Achilles forgives Agamemnon and returns to the fighting. http://www.usu.edu/markdamen/1320Hist&Civ/chapters/03EPIC.htm

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There, he brutally slaughters all Trojan defenders he meets, including Hector whose body he refuses to surrender for burial but instead relentlessly tortures and abuses. Homer's epic ends with the meeting of Achilles and Priam, Hector's father, the elderly King of Troy. Achilles, at last, consents to return Hector's body to Priam who buries his son amidst much lamentation, for with the death of their greatest defender the Trojans know their doom is sealed. Contrary to common belief, The Iliad does not recount the famous Sack of Troy or the story of the Trojan Horse. Those stories were included in other Greek epics now lost. Indeed, the most famous version of this story to emerge from antiquity comes not from a Greek at all but the later Roman poet Vergil. The Odyssey, Homer's other surviving epic, takes place after the Trojan War, as the Greeks return home—or try to—actually very few make it back to Greece alive or, if they do, live very long after getting home. For instance, the commander Agamemnon returns safely to his hometown Mycenae, only to have his treacherous wife Clytemnestra murder him the very day of his homecoming while he's in his bath. This couple had marital difficulties prior to the war, and during the ten years he was off fighting at Troy, she took up with another man. So, before he can discover her infidelity, she kills him. Thus, the central character of The Odyssey is not the commander of the Greek forces or their best warrior but Odysseus (in Latin, Ulysses), a very different sort of hero from the violent, angry Achilles. Odysseus is a "thinking" man who doesn't rush home like Agamemnon but ultimately sneaks back into town. Also unlike Agamemnon, Odysseus returns to a faithful but beleaguered wife, Penelope, whose very name has come to represent marital fidelity. At the opening of the epic, Odysseus has been away from his homeland Ithaca for nearly twenty years, and in the meantime lazy, greedy suitors have descended on the noble Penelope. They are seeking her hand in marriage, because with it come Odysseus' kingdom, power and wealth. With a mind no less subtle than her husband's, Penelope has managed for many years to hold off these suitors, as she waits and hopes for her husband's return. When at last he does, he defeats and kills them.

C. The Tone of Homer's Work: From Comedy to Tragedy One of the most remarkable traits of Homer's work is its modernity. That the characters' motivations and reactions seem so realistic—especially their insecurities and negative qualities: their greed, petty jealousy and stubbornness—makes Homer's work accessible and very appealing even to an age as far removed from ancient Greece as ours. And a crucial element in this charm is that Homer's epics display the full range of human emotion, from comic to tragic, and in some unexpected places. 1. The Iliad, Book 14: "The Seduction of Zeus" For instance, in the midst of the grave and gruesome Iliad, Homer finds humor in, of all places, the gods' interactions. In Book 14 (near the midpoint of the epic), the Greeks have been suffering from the absence of Achilles on the battlefield and because Zeus, the most powerful god and the head of the Olympian pantheon, has lent his support to the Trojans as a favor to Achilles' mother, an attractive sea-nymph. For several reasons, this situation enrages Hera, the queen of heaven and Zeus' wife, who detests the Trojans and favors the Greeks in the Trojan War. Typical of polytheistic deities, Zeus and Hera quarrel and oppose each other in the management of the universe they oversee purportedly together. For instance, Zeus has a mission, as he sees it, to assert his masculine authority and document his creative powers broadly—in other words, he has many love affairs with goddesses, nymphs and mortal women—the result of which is no shortage of semi-divine heroes at large on earth. As far as Hera is concerned, all of these liaisons and their miscreant offspring are illegitimate, and her husband's management of the war—mismanagement as far as she's concerned!—must be stopped. Therefore, the queen of the cosmos conceives a plan for distracting her husband and opponent long enough that her agents on earth can help out the beleaguered Greeks. She decides, moreover, that the proper way to pay him http://www.usu.edu/markdamen/1320Hist&Civ/chapters/03EPIC.htm

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back for both misjudgments is to seduce him herself—it's typical of comedy that the lustful husband's punishment for philandering is that he ends up making love to his own wife, the one female he doesn't want to bed!—she assumes that, while they're otherwise engaged, he'll be distracted from the war and won't notice if her henchmen inflict some damage on the Trojans. But to make this work, Hera can't just walk up and throw herself at him—he would be immediately suspicious —she must make him want her so bad he doesn't have any idea it's all her plan to subvert his. That requires underhandedness and understanding and underwear. So she visits the goddess of sex and borrows a special garment of hers, the "girdle of Aphrodite" which makes the woman wearing it irresistibly attractive to men. She, then, goes to Mount Ida near Troy, where her husband is sitting and watching the war unfold below. With that, the stage is set for Homer's comical version of their divine encounter, the so-called "Seduction of Zeus" (Iliad 14.292-351): And riding the wind the goddess went to Gargaron, the peak of Ida, and Zeus the master of clouds gazed upon her and as he did, desire wrapped around his crafty heart, just like when they first embraced in love and went to bed again and again, when their parents weren’t home. He stood in front of her and spoke, calling her by name: “Hera, what’s this? Why come down here from Olympus? Where’re your horses, and your chariot? Didn’t you ride?" Keeping her true purpose hidden, Queen Hera said: “I’m off to the end of the well-wooded earth, to visit Ocean, creator of gods, and Mother Deep, who opened their home to me when I was young and needed them. Just a short visit. They’re having a quarrel and need me to resolve it. It seems like forever since they gotten in bed together or loved each other, so pressing is the anger in their heart. My horses? There, I left them in the mountain folds below. They’re waiting to convey me across the ocean blue. You’re the one I’ve come down from Olympus for, So you wouldn’t make a scene later if I left without telling you where I was going, the house of the roaring Sea.” Zeus the master of cloud said in reply to her: “Hera, you can go down there later, but for now come here! Let’s turn ourselves to love, to bed. No hunger for goddess or woman like the one I feel right now has ever consumed and enslaved my heart. No, not Ixion’s wife. I used to be madly in love with her and she produced Peirithoos. He's as wise as any god. And there was Danae, daughter of Acrisius – she had her ankles – and she gave birth to Perseus. Who hasn’t heard of him? Or the daughter of Phoenix? Everyone knows about her. She gave me Minos and his brother Rhadamanthys, almost gods. And Semele? Was she more enticing? No! And that other girl from Thebes, Alcmene? That’s right, she bore fearless Hercules. And Dionysus? Semele gave birth to him. He makes mortals happy. Even Lady Demeter! Can she braid her hair? But no! Not Leto either, famous as she is. Not even you yourself! Oh, how I love you now! Sweet passion has a hold on me.” Keeping her true purpose hidden, Queen Hera said: “Fearsome child of Titan, what are you talking about? You long to lie in love right now, to bed down on this mountain peak, where everyone can see us? http://www.usu.edu/markdamen/1320Hist&Civ/chapters/03EPIC.htm

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What if one of the undying gods should spy us in our slumber? Surely he would go and tell the rest of them. You really expect me to get up out of this bed and walk into your house? No! I don’t deserve that. But if you’re that eager and love is in your heart, we have a chamber which your loving son Hephaestus made. You’ll find it very well constructed, safe and sound-proof. We can go lie there, seeing bed is what you’re after.” Zeus the master of cloud said in reply to her: “Hera, don’t worry about the gods or any human spying on us. I’ll conjure up a cloud to hide in. See? It’s made of gold. The Sun could not shine through this if he wanted to, not even with his hottest rays of light.” And as the Titan’s child swept that his wife into his arms, the earth beneath them spouted lush with tender grass, and clover sparkling in the dew, a hedge of hyacinth around them, soft and saffron, reaching low to high. On this they lay, resting in the splendor of the golden cloud, amidst a glistening mist of rain. And the Father fell sound asleep on Gargaron’s peak, bested by slumber and love, holding his bedmate close.

Clearly, a comical passage! Note how Hera almost loses her temper when Zeus starts listing off his mistresses and the children they bore him but, given her plan, has to settle for reminding him about Hephaestus, one of the few legitimate sons he's sired. It all ends in what looks to be a stereotypical, beatific, flower-strewn scene of bliss among Homer's "blest Olympians" but is, in reality, a hefty helping of underhanded intrigue and sexual politics. 2. The Odyssey, Book 17: "Odysseus and Argus" At the other end of the emotional spectrum is a heart-wrenching passage from Book 17 of The Odyssey. Odysseus has at last returned to his homeland Ithaca but, rather than simply walking in the door and announcing his presence, he's decided, like the crafty thinker he is, to scope out the situation first. So, he disguises himself as a beggar and, along with a friendly and loyal swineherd Eumaios who does not recognize Odysseus as his long-lost king, the wanderer goes for the first time in twenty years to visit his palace and home. There he sees the ravages that have been perpetrated on his kingdom by the greedy, boorish suitors who have been courting his wife and abusing his wealth for many years. Among those ruins, the first thing that catches his eye is a dog named Argus (or Argos). Odysseus had raised Argus as a puppy but now so many years later the hound lies sick and mistreated at the gates of the palace. Of all those waiting at home for Odysseus to return, Argus is the first to recognize his master. Here is Homer's rendition of the touching reunion of "Odysseus and Argus" (Odyssey 17.290-327): As they were talking, a dog lying on the ground raised its head and ears. Argus was his name. Stout of heart, Odysseus owned him once. He’d raised the hound himself before he left and went to war in Troy the blessed. Back then, young hunters took him when they went into the wilderness pursuing goats and deer and rabbits. Now he was despised, without his master to defend him. He lay on a pile of manure in front of the doors, a giant heap of cow and donkey dung, waiting for the servants of Odysseus to spread it in the fields. There he was, the dog Argus, covered in ticks and fleas, but when he realized that Odysseus was near, he wagged his tail and bowed his ears, both ears, no longer able to get up and greet his master. http://www.usu.edu/markdamen/1320Hist&Civ/chapters/03EPIC.htm

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Seeing this from far away, he hid his tears so Eumaius wouldn’t notice, and he spoke these words: “Eumaius, I’m amazed they let this dog lie there like that. His form is excellent – or was. I couldn’t say for sure if he was swift, but judging from appearances … Those dogs that people keep today are just for show. Looks are all our masters care for any more.” And you answered, Eumaius swineherd, saying: “True! But that dog there belongs to someone dead and gone. If he still had the form and strength he had when Odysseus his master left for Troy, you’d see in a second how fast and strong he was. Nothing got away from him, no matter how far or deep into the woods it ran, if he was on its trail. And look at him now. What a pitiful sight! His master died in some foreign land. The women slaves, they won’t care of him. Servants! When no one’s there to oversee them, they don’t believe they have to do their job. He robs men of half their strength, Zeus who watches over everything, that day they lose their freedom.” So he spoke and went inside the dwellings of the palace, heading straight into the courtyard where the well-born suitors were. Argus, however, his time was up and the shadow of death took hold of him, having seen his master finally, having waited twenty years.

The force of The Iliad and The Odyssey, their resplendent humanity and complex psychology, have assured them enduring prominence in the canon of Western literature. But could they be more than must-reading? Is there history behind them, truth within the fiction? To answer questions like these, we must first know all we can about the author.

D. Who is Homer? Of the poet known as Homer, the Classical Greeks and Romans record little worth mentioning, at least to anyone seeking historical fact. Ancient tradition states he was blind. A number of cities claimed to be his birthplace and various scholars in antiquity assigned his birth date to several different centuries. One modern writer jokes that only shows his mother suffered several false starts before finally giving birth. For the historian, the gap ...