No Trojan horse

>no Trojan horse
>So called ""hero"" Achilles gets cucked to the max
>2nd chapter is literally a list of names
>Paris is a lil' bitch
>Helen is a cock hungry slut

Why is this good again?

Other urls found in this thread:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_War#Sack_of_Troy
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posthomerica
classics.mit.edu/Quintus/ftroy.mb.txt
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/miau#Noun_2
theoi.com/Text/Pausanias1B.html#2
twitter.com/AnonBabble

>HE READS POETRY FOR THE PLOT
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

>He reads poetry in a different language than the author intended it to be read

EXACTLY MY NIGGA

DID YOU LEARN HOMERIC GREEK LIKE MYSELF TOO?

WE UP

>he reads poetry meant to be preformed live by poet

wew lad

not feeling how the poetry should be performed when you read it

what's the point to read it otherwise, you can read prose instead

According to my classics teacher, the point of the list of names was basically to be patronage to various cities where it was read or some shit like that. People listening would hear it and think "oh, I get that reference!"

You won't enjoy the greeks unless you work backwards. Going from Animorphs and Suddenly Susan etc to Homer is retarded

Seriously though where can I read about Troy getting sacked

>He doesn't perform the illiad infront of his qt Korean wife

>no Trojan horse
Wait what?

Aeneid, books 2-6 iirc

it's retold closer to the end of ovid's metamorphoses and in the beginning of virgil's aeneid and as for the more authentic sources they are pretty scattered

also check some of the sources which were here en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_War#Sack_of_Troy

also en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posthomerica exactly what you want, but it was written in the late antiquity like 1000 years past homer

Athena left the high mansions of the Blest,
Clothed her in shape of a maiden tender-fleshed,
And came to ships and host. Over the head
Of brave Epeius stood she in his dream,
And bade him build a Horse of tree

classics.mit.edu/Quintus/ftroy.mb.txt

The Iliad is about a rapist who gets mad his sex slave gets stolen from him. After getting cucked, Achilles cries to his mommy and mopes by his tent till his homo boy toy is killed off. Achilles throws a hissy fit and kills off the only heroic character in the book. That's the story

that's why we need feminism

to write other, better, epic poems than this sexist and rapist one

It's only alluded to in the Iliad, is briefly mentioned in the Odyssey and is most detailed in the Aeneid.

>It's only alluded to in the Iliad
really? where exactly?

Epeios pops up a few times near the end. He also wins his fight by knockout during Patroklos' funeral games, alluding to him being the one to "knock out" the Trojans.

so you claim that since the future builder of the horse hit some other greek in the jaw it means an allusion that he is about to build the horse?

it's ridiculous

next you will tell me that since 'horse breaking' hector died it means that it's time to build the trojan horse and so it is another allusion

nope, trojan horse is not mentioned or alluded in iliad

I can't guarantee it wasn't simple coincidence, but his name does also quite literally mean "horseman" so...

actual good response. Please don't post again (secretly I want you to (this is actually reverse psychology (no it's not)))

Next you'll tell me that the death of Mr. Hands was actually a piece of performance art celebrating the rout of the Trojans.

Paris raped Helen by order of the Gods. Agamemnon was trying to get his wife back.

Achilles "hissy fit" is the best part.

have you read iliad? the rapist which he mentions it's achilles

Sounds gay

btw don quixote has a list of names too, he recites it before attacking two flocks of sheep

...never vanquished Timonel of Carcajona, prince of New Biscay, who comes in armour with arms quartered azure, vert, white, and yellow, and bears on his shield a cat or on a field tawny with a motto which says Miau, which is the beginning of the name of his lady, who according to report is the peerless Miaulina, daughter of the duke Alfeniquen of the Algarve; the other, who burdens and presses the loins of that powerful charger and bears arms white as snow and a shield blank and without any device, is a novice knight, a Frenchman by birth, Pierres Papin by name, lord of the baronies of Utrique; that other, who with iron-shod heels strikes the flanks of that nimble parti-coloured zebra, and for arms bears azure vair, is the mighty duke of Nerbia, Espartafilardo del Bosque, who bears for device on his shield an asparagus plant with a motto in Castilian that says, Rastrea mi suerte." And so he went on naming a number of knights of one squadron or the other out of his imagination, and to all he assigned off-hand their arms, colours, devices, and mottoes, carried away by the illusions of his unheard-of craze; and without a pause, he continued, "People of divers nations compose this squadron in front; here are those that drink of the sweet waters of the famous Xanthus, those that scour the woody Massilian plains, those that sift the pure fine gold of Arabia Felix, those that enjoy the famed cool banks of the crystal Thermodon...

fuck you bitch

There's a lot of scholarship regarding "list poetry" in oral epics because basically every Indo-European descended culture has them.

Here's one of my favorite arguments, distilled into green text:

>only the best oral poetry succeeds
>success means repetition, imitation, and eventually canonization (I.e. We only have mega successful oral poetry left to read)
>the best poet was he who could compose the most impressive, beautiful lines for the longest amount of time in a coherent narrative that people wanted to hear
>list poems, used sparingly in a narrative, are perfect:
>the poet shows off his ability and impressed with his memory with every subsequent participant (all the detail about every ship he can remember -- imagine a teacher rattling off every general's name in a battle. It would impress!)
>gets people super fucking hyped to hear about their own hometown's contribution to the myth (think of how cool it is to see your hometown in a movie)
>builds the epic tension (think of M.L.K. Jr's I Have a Dream conclusion, "let freedom ring from" the Alleghenies of PA to the Rockies of CO to the slopes of CA to stone mountain of GA to lookout mountain of TN and every moll hill in Mississippi... From every mountainside, let freedom ring. it's very condensed list poetry building tension of an epic speech.)
>it's super easy to memorize a bunch of places and make up names to fit the poetic structure, or add epithets
>Easy + effective = successful

I'll watch this thread for a while if you've got questions. This is one of my favorite things to study!

That does make sense, never really thought about it before.

>work of literature thousands of years old doesn't conform to my 21st century standards
>it's shit lol

If you don't accompany your performance of the Iliad with a lyre, you might as well not read it at all.

do plebs really not like lists of names and epithets and genealogies? I could read that shit all day.

Have you seriously not read the Iliad? Who are you people who know about and post on an obscure literature forum, but haven't read the fucking Iliad?

>and bears on his shield a cat or on a field tawny with a motto which says Miau

Is the "Miau" thing a joke? I ask because I don't know what "meow" is in Spanish and am wondering if it's just a coincidence.

plebs don't even know who their great-grandfather was.
They can't comprehend the patrician joy of reading page after page of genealogy. The sheer delight of turning the page and seeing it continue on and on

>illiad
>he hasn't killed himself

it's a beginning of the name of his lady who probably was a catgirl :3

obviously it's a joke, miau is universally understood as a cat's cry at least in the european languages since it's onomatopoeic in its etymology (i heard that only greek and japanese cats speak nya instead of mya, dunno why)
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/miau#Noun_2

also in spanish:

>y trae en el escudo un gato de oro en campo leonado, con una letra que dice: Miau, que es el principio del nombre de su dama, que, según se dice, es la sin par Miulina, hija del duque Alfeñiquén del Algarbe

Not a coincidence. He had the name because Troy had a massive thing for horses. They revered them and were famed for their horse rearing, it is even mentioned by Homer at one point.

Why did you think the Greeks built a horse?

pausanius already thought that the horse was simply a battle ram

No, they don't. I'd use the word epic but I might get b&

> runs away like a bitch when defied.
> heroic

Pausanius the Spartan or Pausanius the Roman?

It is a kind of useless assumption. If the story is a history to the extent that it represents real events we know it is plagued by inaccuracy, we may as well ask if the "Horse" actually existed.

Or we can take it as a dramatic legend and not ruin it with boring hidden meanings.

neither
pausanias the geographer from 2 a.d.

>[1.23.8] There is the horse called Wooden set up in bronze. That the work of Epeius was a contrivance to make a breach in the Trojan wall is known to everybody who does not attribute utter silliness to the Phrygians. But legend says of that horse that it contained the most valiant of the Greeks, and the design of the bronze figure fits in well with this story. Menestheus and Teucer are peeping out of it, and so are the sons of Theseus.

theoi.com/Text/Pausanias1B.html#2

So the Roman

>So called ""hero"" Achilles gets cucked to the max

You missed him humiliating Agamemnon into giving Briseis back plus an absolute fortune, then single-handedly destroying the entire Trojan army to the point where the river-god of Scamander got pissed off his stream was being choked with the corpses of Achilles' enemies?

how is he 'the roman' if he was a greek and apparently from lydia

I liked it. From what I remember, it was fun making the comparison between the book and the movie. I was surprised by how honest the film was (obviously, it still was totally different).

I liked how Athena just destroyed Hector and then Achilles proceed to drag his body around, taking all the credit.

pic related is modern french translation.

>we should lower our standards just because something is old

K.

Diomed, the two Ajaxs, and Hector. Those four heros are great representations of ideals. The rest is just well written poetry with an epic story.

The Trojan Epic: Posthomerica by Quintus

Takes place immediately after the death of Achilles and ends with the Greeks leaving after sacking Troy.

He was born under Hadrian and spent his entire life in the Roman Empire

>homer

More like Homo. LMAAAAOOOOO

Nice lol

How do you know the authors intended it not to?

>written in Greek
>implying that the poetic devices used by author can be appreciated in English

the odyssey obviously

but homeric poetry wasnt written

When reading The Iliad, being interested in ancient history helps. It is an appetising look at of Mycenean culture, as well as dark age Greece.

However, the Odyssey is the better book by Homer. It can be enjoyed on more levels than The Iliad; as a look at loyalty, growing up, happiness, and man's fate. There is all kinds of exotic places and creatures to read about so it can be enjoyed more simply as an adventure tale.

Odysseus is also more interesting than Achilles because he is more complicated, and more human.

But If you don't like Iliad, try Odyssey and then look at Iliad again, or try a different translation. There are many out there, and each will present the story in a way to emphasise a different tone or aspect of Homer.

Also, the material in these books has endured for thousands of years, longer than the Hebrew Bible and the Quran. It is worth being familiar with these stories and characters because they and their ideals will be referred to an awful lot in subsequent literature and history. The Romans thought they were descended from the Trojans, as did the British. Do you think that Infinite Jest will be read in AD 5016?

If nothing else it may fool the women you associate with that you are not an insensitive and ill-cultured swine if you can relate to the stories of Helen and Paris and Odysseus and Penelope.

If you don't build a time machine and go back to be present at the first time it was spoken, you might as well be reading the phone book.

despite the languages differ, i believe that the original prosody can be closely reproduced in most of the cases

(unless it's some shitty language like french, i recently re-read poe's le corbeau in french, in english and in russian, god, how frogs mutilated the meter to fit their poor language while omitting half of the rhymes, russians obviously kept those since they always do it)

>the Odyssey is the better book by Homer. It can be enjoyed on more levels than The Iliad; as a look at loyalty, growing up, happiness, and man's fate. There is all kinds of exotic places and creatures to read about so it can be enjoyed more simply as an adventure tale.

no

>The Iliad ending with Hektor's death makes a couple important points. Foremost among them is that it shows that Homer, to some extent, approves of Hektor's character. We know that Achilles acted dishonorably with Hektor's corpse. We know that he acted honorably with Patroklos. We know that he will die in Troy. Yet in spite of so much focus on Achilles throughout the poem, Hektor's character is the one that shines through. When Achilles returns Hektor's corpse the people of Troy mourn and honor him, showing that it's his character--his ideal--that lives on, whereas Achilles' rage, while initially caused by his outrage at being dishonored, came to be dishonorable itself when he paraded such a great man's corpse around. Nowhere else in the Iliad do you see anything like that, either. People take the armor off of those they slay in order to show their prowess and glory in killing, but none spit on the spirit of a person the way Achilles did. When Hektor duels Aias both conduct themselves in perfect order, and when the fight is broken up they exchange gifts and Hektor says "These two fought and gave no quarter in close combat, yet they parted friends." Contrast this to Hektor's duel with Achilles. After they run around Troy three times, according to my notes, Hektor "requests that they form a pact of, no matter who the victor is, the loser should have his body returned to his own people, but Akhilleus vehemently refuses."

>I read a very compelling explanation for the actions of Achilles in Fagles introduction. Achilles is a god-like warrior, and with that comes his god-like self absorption. All the gods are so petty and parochial, and in the same way Achilles thinks of nothing but his honour and is eternally spiteful like a god. Meanwhile Hector not only thinks of honour, but his duty, his country, his family. He is much more human, but that is what makes him great. Achilles isn't declining into some beast, he is a god in decline toward humanity. His dealings with Priam represent this transformation. I've always liked this interpretation because it shows that though the gods are deathless and powerful, mortals are in many ways greater. Their actions have greater consequence because they must face death. The gods fighting on the battlefield and then crying to Zeus about being hurt is pretty funny.

>It sounds like, and I think I can see this in hindsight, that because Achilles is half-god, half-mortal, all of his qualities are exaggerated quite a lot. His loving qualities towards Patroklos, for example, results in him going crazy by murdering and disgracing Hektor, but he also wants to pay homage to his friend to the extent that he does, with many contests, boys, and so on. Is he really a god in decline toward humanity though? His dealings with Priam are certainly significant, but do they show a transformation (from god to mortal), or do they show that he's a multifaceted guy? I would go with the latter because of his reaction to Patroklos dying and their friendship throughout--the fact that they're established as already being great friends shows that there is a very human side to Achilles that isn't evident in the gods. The closest we could say to a god truly loving a man, I think, is Athena in the Odyssey, but if Odysseus were to die can we really support saying that she would treat his death in the same way Achilles treats Patroklos'?

i dunno how fagles call achilles god-like when achilles himself calls himself a mortal

So the immortals spun our
lives that we, we wretched men live on to bear such torments
— the gods live free of sorrows. There are two great jars that
stand on the floor of Zeus's halls and hold his gifts, our
miseries one, the other blessings. When Zeus who loves the
lightning mixes gifts for a man, now he meets with misfortune,
now good times in turn.

fagles' translation btw

>god-like = immortal

are you retarded

what is a demigod

have you ever even read greek mythology

it's not about immortality

what is it about then

>I liked how Athena just destroyed Hector and then Achilles proceed to drag his body around, taking all the credit.
That was a let down though any detailed fight would be very difficult to show just how great they were.
Also Hector did the same thing when Apollo killed Patty.

Homer calls him god-like, who cares about Fagles?

Why would it matter what the author intended?

>from 2 a.d
Wow, such authority on Homeric Greece.

>boohoo I don't want to die to Sarpedon ;_; there is no Cleos to be found there.
>heroic

Let's be honest though, the Iliad is fkn great

And then Achilles cries like a little bitch that Xanthos is about to bumfuck his ass.

>excluding Patrokles, Sarpedon, Achilles

y u mad Plato

You have to consider that Achilles lived in a very different age where Kleos and Time were all you had in Ancient times to become >immortal.

Achilles isn't neglectful towards his fellow Greeks, at times in the Iliad he even shows empathy for those that went out to fight. But he just can't bear the dishonor that was brought upon him. In this, Patrokles is his alter ego, the person that still instills Achilles with humanity partly because Achilles loves him. When Patrokles dies however, all humanity died with Achilles and he has become as if he were a god; Achilles doesn't care about dieiing anymore, when he confronts one of the younger sons of Priam, before he stabs him in the throat, it is obvious that he has disavowed any attachment to life itself. When he tells Patrokles that he will offer 12 Trojan sons at his funeral pyre doesn't this strike you as a man who has last all of his good humanity? Achilles has become death in this sense, not only because he knows that he will die, since when Thetis wheeps at Patrokles' corpse it is because she weeps for Patrokles, no, she weeps for her 'perfectly born son' that shall be cut down in the prime of his being, but also because he brings death to so many Trojans that stood in his way bar Aeneas. In this we are shown what it means to confront life and death, what it is to be human. And this has transcended through time and that still rings to modern readers today.

It is very much about immortaly. I would even argue that the entirety of the Iliad is about immortality, or the lack thereof and how we humans face our death, being fully conscious that we will one day cease to exist. What is the meaning of this brief and harsh life?

agreed, good writeup

Hektor was going to throw Patroklos to the dogs though. And he ran like a cowardly bitch instead of facing his death like a man.

>not recognizing the Latin spelling

whats wrong with adaptions? the Greeks did it endlessly

Look, another fucking pleb who can't appreciate Homer.

>Please support Veeky Forums by disabling your ad blocker on *.Veeky Forums.org/*, purchasing a self-serve ad, or buying a Veeky Forums Pass.

instead of writing prettily packed bullshit you could bother to read the quote

it's about gods being free of sorrows while for humans zeus sends either only sorrows or sorrows mixed with blessings, i.e. it's not about immortality, it's about fate

and also achilles called himself one of the 'wretched men'

They call it the Illiad because my flow is so sick

What is the opinion on audiobooks for things like this that were originally "read" aloud?

That's the way Paris is suppose to be you mongoloid. He's basically comic relief.

If you want to listen to some monotone droning, the audiobook may be the thing for you

>the audiobook
>implying one audiobook

It will depend completely on the translation.

I wrote that first green-text paragraph there, it was a very nice thread.

From the end of book 16:

Then, gloring above him, [Hektor] addressed [Patroklos]:
"Easy to guess, Patroklos, how you swore
to ravage Troy, to take the sweet daylight of liberty from our women and to drag them
off in ships to your own land - you fool!
Between you and those women there is Hektor's
war team, thundering out to fight! My spear
has pride of place among the Trojan warriors,
keeping their evil hour at bay.
The kites will feed on you, here on this field.
Poor devil, what has that great prince Akhilleus
done for you? He must have told you often
as you were leaving and he stayed behind,
'Never come back to me, to the deep sea ships,
Patroklos, till you cut to rags
the bloody tunic on the chest of Hektor!'
That must have been the way he talked, and won
your mind to mindlessness."

Patroklos replies taunting Hektor a little more, then prophesies that he'll die soon ("This day your death stands near, and your immutable end, at Prince Akhilleus' hands."

Patroklos dies, and then:
Even in death Prince Hektor still addressed him:
"Why prophesy my sudden death, Patroklos?
Who knows? Akhilleus, son of bright-haired Thetis,
might be hit first; he might be killed by me."

Then he fucks off.

I don't think there is anywhere where Hektor talks about disgracing Patroklos' body. Can you point me to the right direction if you know where it is?

I've only listened to Ian McKellan's Odyssey audiobook in the Fagles translation and I enjoyed it immensely.

Nice lol

>Helen is a cock hungry slut
>not good

user you disgust me

I've got a question, where did you study this? I find it interesting, did you read something along the lines of a Norton Anthology?

Not him but, I took Greek in high school.

Wish I took it more seriously tbqh

Altering your standards isn't the same as lowering them, shitlord.

Book Seventeen, line 125

But Hektor, when he had stripped from Patroklos the glorious armor,
dragged at him, meaning to cut his head from his shoulders with the sharp bronze,
to haul off the body and give it to the dogs of troy; but meanwhile
Aias came near him, carrying like a wall his shield,
and Hektor drew back to the company of his own companions

and of course he bragged to Patroklas about the birds eating him, and he stripped his armor to wear, and basically Hektor is an unlikable cock.
Lattimore, btw.

>back to the company of his own companions

who backed his back :3

it also reads as plain text

Absolutely Haram