Day 4

Well I'm going through a few title possibilities to get worked out the best way to title these daily reading update posts. I think I like the simpleness of "day x" which will go from day 1 to day 366 (leap year!).

I had a banner day yesterday and made up some ground. 53 pages! (pages 120-172 of the Iliad) Booyah!

So the goal was 148 pages by day 4, and the reality is 116. Not bad! If I keep it up I'll be caught up today or tomorrow or soon.

Still reading the Iliad. It has gotten a bit more difficult. I wasn't expecting it to focus so much on the battle. I still like it as it flits from warrior to warrior, but it's less of a moving story at this point and more of a list of different individual fights in the battle. So you finish one and then it jumps to another, usually about someone you really already know nothing about.

So yes it's a bit more boring in this part. And it's gone on longer than I would've thought. I just hope that this is not what most of the book is! There are little interesting parts scattered in, such as when Aphrodite comes to rescue the one warrior and gets stabbed by Diomedes I think, and then returns to Olympos where she is consoled.

But I liked the beginning where there was a story that moved forward and now it feels like we're bogged down in a slow-moving battle.

I am loving Homer's nature similes. He is quite masterful at it in my opinion. They are so evocative. Here's the very first example I highlighted:

.....

Like the swarms of clustering bees that issue forever

in fresh bursts from the hollow of the stone, and hang like

bunched grapes as they hover beneath the flowers in springtime

fluttering in swarms together this way and that way,

so the many nations of men from the ships and the shelters

along the front of the deep sea beach marched in order

.....

So you get this vivid image of swarms of bees in nature, but not mean, just hovering around flowers in the springtime, fluttering here and there. And to this he compares the various army companies on the beach marching (they are on their way to assembly, not battle at the moment). So you get a very simple panoramic image in your head of many, many warriors on a beach, arranged into different companies, and you see them all from far away, the companies moving this way and that as if they were swarms of bees in the springtime.

Here's another example:

Now through old age these fought no longer, yet were they excellent

speakers still, and clear, as cicadas who through the forest

settle on trees, to issue their delicate voice of singing.

Such were they who sat on the tower, chief men of the Trojans.

This one I love because here are these old, respected advisors in a tower of Ilion, watching the battle below, too old to fight. Yet he describes them so poetically, as if they are these cicadas who after the work of flying (or for the men the work of battle when they were younger) now settle onto trees and sing delicately, as for the old men their job now is to issue forth good advice with their voices.

There are many others, which I've highlighted my favourites and just shared two with you. To me, besides the grand scope of the story and the history of it, the best thing so far about the Iliad are these beautiful nature similes that pop up unexpectedly here and there.

Also, I wonder or perhaps assume that Homer figured that most in his day were familiar with the backgrounds of many of the people and actions in this story. So because of this the story starts in the middle of life, in the middle of war, in the middle of the story basically, and when the story suddenly jumps to different, new characters it speaks of them as if they should already be old acquaintances to us.

After I'm finished with the Iliad, I'll research the history a bit, so for now I am not sure his reasoning for the way he tells his story. Was it because he assumed everyone knew all the relevant details he's left out so didn't need to explain, or was it a stylistic or poetic choice in the way the story unfolds?

Either way, I am impressed by the way the story unfolds. I really like how we slowly learn that the war is all about Helen really, and that's just one example. I wouldn't exactly call it nonlinear, though maybe it is I don't know, but I'd just call it a withholding of information that slowly expands the story for us as we learn more, since it basically starts mid-story.

And for now, I'll leave you with my absolute favourite line of the story so far. These people can be direct in their speaking, but still a few lines here and there catch one off guard. I have to wonder how this came out in other translations, but in the Lattimore it's hilarious; I laughed out loud and kept chuckling about it all day, and still am. It's Helen of Troy, the woman who left her husband and ran away with beautiful Paris, who started this long war. We finally meet her and in this scene Priam the king of Troy (her father-in-law) and Helen and others are watching the battle happening in the field from the tower. Priam doesn't recognise someone on the Achaian side, so, since Helen is from there, asks her to come tell him who it is. Here is Helen's full, long-ish response (to give you an idea of how the funny part just pops out unexpectedly):

"Always to me, beloved father, you are feared and respected;

and I wish bitter death had been what I wanted, when I came hither

following your son, forsaking my chamber, my kinsmen,

my grown child, and the loveliness of girls my own age.

It did not happen that way: and now I am worn with weeping.

This now I will tell you in answer to the question you asked me.

That man is Atreus' son Agamemnon, widely powerful,

at the same time a good king and a strong spearfighter,

once my kinsman, slut that I am. Did this ever happen?"

Slut that I am! And how she just slips it in there at the end. I want to slip that into things I say now. Well, until next time, slut that I am!