Lecture 4 If Agamemnon is so keen to get Achilles back into the fight why doesn t he go appeal to him himself Has to do w Agamemnon s perception of himself as king Definitely Hubris thinks that b c he s king he s far superior to Achilles Odysseus left s t of Agamemnon s speech out of his embassy to Achilles Didn t tell Achilles that Agamemnon said Let him take all that stuff as long as he submits to me He s not sorry Role of king royal spot can t put himself on the line to that extent Has to use surrogate Odysseus The Heroic Code Sarpedon Give our enemy glory or win it for ourselves Sarpedon Patroclus are PARADIGMATIC HEROES Img crater mixing bowls 2 winged figures Sleep Death carrying Sarpedon w Hermes in background directing them to carry Sarpedon off Hermes messenger escorts souls of dead to underworld Patroclus Sarpedon have deaths the 2 deaths are parallel Img crater vase of some sort Depicts Patroclus death guy in back w armor shield Hector or Achilles I m not 100 sure which Img Achilles Hector fighting e o w spears Hector is the one character who fights for more than himself fights for family city Battle is marked by his really human moments Hector runs from Achilles at first Athena disguises herself as Deophobus gets him to stand fight Once Hector realizes that Deophobus is not really there he realizes how alone he really is He realizes that this is the end he still has to fight Hector is wearing Achilles armor which only fuels his anger reminds him of Patroclus death Achilles thinks of himself Hector not as warriors but as animals Img vase The Final Battle Athena in middle Hector R w sword Achilles L w spear Hector increasingly recognizes his own position wants to die bravely Final battle seen from Hector s p o v until the very last moment Makes HECTOR the one you sympathize with Achilles realizes that Hector s death doesn t satisfy him If anything it makes him more angry Achilles is ok w dying early as long as he gets glory It s Patroclus death that he has a hard time accepting That s why he has such a hard time letting Hector go Img vase Achilles dragging Hector s body behind his chariot Attempts to disfigure body in this way but gods refuse to let that happen Hector s death was a trad l death with an unusual end Bk 22 funeral funeral games for Patroclus Accepting Patroclus death means giving up Hector s body Giving up Hector s body means accepting Patroclus death Img grey silver bowl w handles The ransom of Hector s body Series of imgs depicting the ransom of Hector s body Achilles reclining on a couch over body of Hector Priam beseeching Achilles w wagon full of booty Why does Achilles surrender Hector s body 1 He has to b c the gods tell him to i Thetis is sent down to tell Achilles that when Trojans try to make amends he must accept give up Hector ii Problem if that s all there were to this wouldn t ultimately be interesting to us 1 Would imply that humans are puppets of the gods a Decision has to play itself out in human terms as well 2 He needs to i He thinks of his father Peleus realizes that his father will never have the chance to bury him or to see him ii By recognizing Peleus in Priam he recognizes Hector in himself 1 Realizes the pwr of the death of a son iii Achilles has to admit that he Hector are quite similar iv Then he waxes poetic 1 Tells Priam 2 stories a Zeus 2 storage jars good bad b Naiobi 2 Insists on having Priam stay for baquet 3 He is able to i Matter of self recognition ii Tells his guys to prep Hector s body w o Priam seeing 1 Didn t want Priam to anger him bring out the old angry achilles a Shows his quickness of temper refusal to yield We are reminded of what Hector means to city family at his burial Burial of Hector Ultimately also about burial of Achilles anger what the whole poem was about Poem is a tragedy in the that Achilles is the difficult one he survives lives till end of book at least What happens to us is ultimately a matter of choice we pay for our choices No other character has the same complexity of decision horror of his choices as Achilles Idea of Choice Homer s poem is curious b c Talking about a time earlier than itself Realities of world it describes are well known but we know little about the time Homer wrote it in How homeric poetry lives on Diff bet representation of homeric heroes bet Homer Euripides