On Homer

The Iliad. Trans. Robert Fagles. London: Penguin, 1990.

The Iliad of Homer is a long, riveting depiction of warfare and the futility of human affairs. Its language is often violent, but always clear and measured, employing the repeated formulas of epic that lull the reader into a distant time and space. The world of the wine-blue sea transcends ordinary life in order to reflect it; it is a world of dark memories, sorrowful meditations, and eternal questions that lack immediate answers. One can read Homer as philosophy, as an existential statement, or just as beautiful poetry and storytelling. In some ways, Western history, literature, and philosophy all begin in Homer, poetry being the ancestor of all thought.
There are six dark truths that emerge from the Iliad, all of them relating to the overarching theme of strife. These six main themes are acted out by different characters. There are of course other themes as well and better examples, but for now these six are what captivate me. First, The Iliad suggests that man struggles with the divine. This is comically acted out by Diomedes in Book V, and not as comically by Achilles in Book XXI. Man stands in opposition to the divine, even if he cannot overcome it. It also shows that, despite the power of the divine to order existence and intervene in human affairs, there is something essential, independent and free in the human will, something that belongs to humans alone. Perhaps this is a shadow of free will, or a limited version of it—there are other aspects of the epic that do not support such a notion, such as questions of fate. The second important theme is that of Ruin, of which Phoenix speaks in Book IX, during the episode of the embassy to Achilles: “Ruin, maddening, blinding Ruin. But Ruin is strong and swift—She outstrips them all by far, stealing a march, leaping over the whole wide earth to bring mankind to grief” (268). Ruin possesses great power over human life; it is a defining characteristic of existence. Though in Homer’s words, the domain of Ruin seems to be confined to humanity, it is not difficult to extend this to the universe, which astronomers in the last century claimed was winding down towards extinction. Man also struggles against this corruption and destruction. A third theme, which is in many ways also an overarching theme, is the pointlessness of our endeavours. This is most clearly seen in the drama of Achilles, who sense that striving is pointless: “Why must we battle Trojans, men of Argos?” (262). A fourth theme presents itself in the warfare amongst the Olympians, the frightening hint that there is chaos in heaven. This can be interpreted any number of ways. It could mean that divinity itself contains contradictions; it could also mean that the various elements of the universe, which the gods represent, are in conflict with each other. Thus, in Books XIII, XIV and XV, Poseidon the god of the sea fights against Zeus, a sky god and mountain god who controls thunder and lightning and rain, and rules over other gods, complaining: “Three brothers we are, all sprung from Cronus, all of us brought to birth by Rhea—Zeus and I, Hades, the third, lord of the dead beneath the earth. The world was split three ways. Each received his realm. When we shook the lots I drew the sea, my foaming eternal home, and Hades drew the land of the dead, engulfed in haze and night, and Zeus drew the heavens, the clouds and the high clear sky, but the earth and Olympus heights are common to us all. So I will never live at the beck and call of Zeus!” (393-394). A fifth and most disturbing theme is the power of Sleep and Night over the divine: “old night that can overpower all gods and mortal men” (378). Perhaps this is another way of stating that Ruin overcomes all.

Some of the best incidents in the Iliad involve Hephaestus, the smith god of the forge, who tries to mediate amongst the Olympian gods. Hephaestus is a cripple, wed to an adulteress; he too is able to fight, coming to the aid of Achilles by driving back the river with wildfire: “the elms burned, the willows and tamarisks burned and the lotus burned” (531). More importantly, Hephaestus is an artist and craftsman, a worker who through art engages in world-making: “with a silver shield-strop run from edge to edge five layers of metal to build the shield itself, and across its vast expanse with all his craft and cunning the god creates a world of gorgeous immortal work. There he made the earth and there the sky and the sea and the inexhaustible blazing sun and the moon rounding full, and there the constellations, all that crown the heavens, the Pleiades and the Hyades, Orion in all his power too and the Great Bear that mankind also calls the Wagon” (483). Even within this world that Hephaestus makes on the shield of Achilles, strife is inescapable: “And Strife and Havoc plunged in the fight, and violent Death—now seizing a man alive with fresh wounds, now one unhurt, now hauling a dead man through the slaughter by the heels, the cloak on her back stained red with human blood. So they clashed and fought like living, breathing mean grappling each other’s corpses, dragging off the dead” (485). Wherever Homer looks, he sees struggle, struggle which often has no reward. There is only inescapable sorrow in all of his worlds, real or imagined.