I don't tend to use this word much, but really I can only describe The Iliad as fucking awesome

Honor is a patriarchal value that has no place in modern society. Calling it beautiful (or beautifully developed) is tantamount as declaring yourself a white supremacist.

lol

Not an argument.

read The Odyssey twice and love it

can't wait to get this eventually

The Greek for love is Phil and horse is Hippos, so the name Philip means horse lover, and yet to say "horse lover" is much more tedious. Which is why there's a movement among classicists to embrace transliteration, because with only a modest understanding of greek roots, it is possible to get the gist of the name without bogging down the reader in endlessly wordy translations. This has already happened with Chinese, although if you ask me they need to go further and put in the accent marks.

Please do, user. Some of the other anons are right, it might seem choppy and jarring because there's a lot of references to specific Greek soldiers and their names, but if you have some patience, I think you'd enjoy it immensely.

Pope

>This has already happened with Chinese
You mean with the courtesy names?

This is a bait post, but a lot of people on Veeky Forums and elsewhere don't really get the Greek concept of honour.

Perhaps their most prized figure was Ulysses, whom the Greeks considered honourable precisely because he had a great deal of cunning/etc (which the Romans would later whitewash out of him, because it did not conform to their idea of honour).

Where did you learn so much about Greece, anons?

My university had a course called "exegesis of Greek sources" in which most of these cultural aspects were explored as we went through archeological findings like inscriptions, artifacts etc. Not sure how it would be called in English precisely.

i genuinely believe anyone who hates The Iliad either hasn't finished it or hasn't even read it and only relies on the same-old same-old criticisms of it to try and back up their claims

The reason was probably for the bard singing the epic to easily fill out the hexameter bar without thinking much. It is weird to read but made perfect sense for the poem in its oral form.

The Illiad is much better than the Odyssey in general. It might seem counterintuitive, but a war story actually resonates much better with modern audiences than a very culture-specific story of one idealized character that boils down to GET IN THE BOAT ODYSSEUS.

its like an anime in book form

Diomedes fighting reads like straight out Dragon Ball

it's very, very different th

in what way?

It's like watching Saving Private Ryan instead of reading Aladdin.

Eh, what. Odysseus not Ulysses (his latin name) was not the embodiment of Arete. There are tons of books from esteemed professors on this subject matter. And I rather take their opinion over yours.

Before we start a flame war, I'd also like to point out that meaning of Arete change dramatically during the hellenistic and roman period. So it's all a matter time period and sources I guess.

there are only two stories: The Odyssey and the Crucifixion
The Iliad is about sacrifice

why is poseidon such a dick bros

>poseidon when literally anything happens

In the Oddysey, Oddyseus fucks up his son's day and is a general nuisance so I think it's fair.

that one eyed fuck had it coming

You'd be pissed too if some smug asshole blinded your retarded son.

Should I even buy this? Why read a fucking translated poem? Is it only read for pseud credit?

It's a good poem brent

>Not readying Homer
wtf

>Pseud credit for reading a poem children read in highschool.

if this is not bait and your srsly asking this yourself you prolly don't read books anyway so just leave

The Achaeans were a bunch of thugs robbing hardworking people and then writing raps about it. Around danaans never relax!

I thought i was dumb but i also imagined certain soldiers going super saiyan. Hector and Diomedes especially

Most retarded post of the day award goes to...

Last thread on the iliad I saw was filled with hate for it, what the heck

Why would you go out of your way not to read Homer? Sounds like something a pseud would do.

How is Aeneid? Is it basically just ancient fanfiction?

how is the english versions of this? I'm reading a swedish translation (Lagerlöf) and it is pretty tough to get through. I often have to read sentences three times to understand them

are*, fuck

For all its merits, can Pope's version really even be considered a translation?

I feel that the Iliad also has a higher and more modern sense of morality, showing the war as terrible and stupid, with no good guys or bad guys - whereas the Odyssey, on the other hand, glorifies Odysseus' annihilation of the suitors in a very simplistic way. The difference is so stark that it makes me seriously doubt that the two poems were created by the same mind (or group of minds).

You're not wrong.

who cares it's great, just because you read Pope's doesn't mean you can't read another one another time.

High school level reading comprehension. Battles are shown as brutal but the excitement and thrill of violence is present. If anything, the book is well aware death awaits for everyone.

Pretty easy to follow, reading the fizbgerald translation at the moment

Hector is a fucking bro. Fuck Achilles.

>Battles are shown as brutal but the excitement and thrill of violence is present.
Yes, but in a realistic way. It's present but as sort of an animalistic response to necessity, a jolt of adrenaline and a hero narrative of dubious value. And the enemy in the Iliad is never a dehumanized alien being... he is presented always as just another poor fool, another pawn in the games of greater powers.

Patroclos was a bro. Huck Hector.

Of course the suitors are the bad guys. They didn't go to fight in the war but wanted to take the hero's wife for themselves without any merit. I see it them as the presence of injustice in the world. Odysseus got lucky and got help from the gods and reclaimed what was his (note that the years of war meant nothing at all to him in the end). Meanwhile something similar or even worse happened to Agamemnon but he didn't get the outcome he would have deserved.

The logic is consistent though. In war both sides may be honorable, both defenders and aggressors (exacting retribution for previous aggression). It's fair, face to face war, not sniveling treachery (disregarding book ten). Courting another man's wife before he is even confirmed dead, though? Not to mention plundering his property and cowardly ganging up and scheming against his son? Abominable. That's why they die like dogs.

Bättre om du läser Fagles eller Fitzgerald brorsan

tru

>brorsan
I don't speak any Swedish but I'll bet that's the word for bro. Sounds nice too, English should adopt it.

Whether they're good guys or not, the point is that even if you see them as bad guys, they are undeveloped, just bad guy cartoons. In the Iliad all significant characters on all sides are made to seem human, with three-dimensional fully human motivations.

Actually in the Iliad no side is honorable, and if anything the Trojans are more honorable than the Greeks. The Greeks are not honorable - they are willing to kill a bunch of innocent people in order to punish one wealthy guy's crime. Achilles is not honorable - he's vain and selfish. So are the gods. The Trojans are not fully honorable, but they come closer than anyone else. And I don't think this is a modern take on the material - I think it's how the material came across 2500 years ago, too, as a realistic depiction of the ugly reality behind the pretty stories, not as a superficial glorification of war.
As for what he suitors were plotting, it's no worse than a bunch of things that Odysseus did. Remember that one of the very first things Odysseus did after he left Troy was loot and pillage some random innocent town along the way.

Wrong. Study more Ancient greek history.

Please stop projecting your modern values onto the Greeks.

Bad guys from cartoons want to destroy the whole world because fuck why. The suitors, even if we don't know them, have the understandable motivation of wanting to seize power and get laid. As I said, they represent the injustice in the world and the pettiness present in the time of peace, around which nonetheless tragedies as big as those from war happen.

Lagerlöfs översättning är över genomsnitt jämfört med de flesta översättningar, men Fagles eller Pope är bättre ändå.

The Trojans were Greeks too, dude. They were coastal Anatolian Greeks. Same language, same religion. Also, the Trojans are willing to wage war, letting their own citizens suffer because "one wealthy guy" - the pussy ass faggot Paris - can enjoy his contraband piece of ass every night.

Both the Iliad and the Odyssey present two sides in conflict, both of which are basically flawed people, not heroes. In the Iliad, the flawed selfish Greeks fight against the flawed selfish Trojans. In the Odyssey, the flawed selfish Odysseus fights against the flawed selfish suitors. However, the Iliad presents the victory of one over the other as a bloody, ugly tragedy. The Odyssey presents it as the culmination of a simplistic action movie-style hero narrative.

I don't think I am. One of the things that makes the Iliad great is that it stands head and shoulders above most content of its time in the moral sphere as well as the artistic. Nobody comes off looking good in it. The gods are cruel and selfish. The Greeks are basically just one step above pirates. Paris is a coward. Hector makes poor decisions. Priam is incompetent. It is psychologically realistic and avoids simplistic hero narratives.

Yes but the suitors are more flawed as they just sat on their asses and didn't go to war and now want to steal from their leader.

Also, the way you are reading these books is very modern. The main attraction in reading ancient texts is that you can wonder what they meant to the people that read them back then. You know they adored both the Iliad and the Odyssey, so what you and others in this thread say about the morality of the characters is actually a glimpse into the way of thinking of people from 3000 years ago, not a flaw in the way the epics were constructed

Ni menar att den är trevligare på engelska ändå? Tänkte att det skulle vara skönare att köra på svenska men ni verkar ju vara överens

This is the nicest post I've seen in a couple of days, you make sure to have a nice day

Don't forget based Hera totally putting Zeus in his place

Här är en jämförelse av ett ganska berömt passage, först från Fagles, och sen från Lagerlöf:

"Down the Trojans came like a squall of brawling gale-winds
blasting down with the Father’s thunder, loosed on earth
and a superhuman uproar bursts as they pound the heavy seas,
the giant breakers seething, battle lines of them roaring,
shoulders rearing, exploding foam, waves in the vanguard,
waves rolling in from the rear. So on the Trojans came,
waves in the vanguard, waves from the rear"

"Samtliga störtade fram likt orkanen av rasande vindar,
som under tordönsbrak ifrån Zeus nedstormar till jorden
och uppå havet slår tjutande ner, och otaliga vågor
rulla då sjudande fram över rymden av brusande djupet,
välvda, med skumvit kam, de ena bakefter de andra:
likaså troerna tätt, de ena bakefter de andra"

Jag föredrar definitivt Fagles tolkning här. Kraften, repetitionen, och metaforen till havet som finns i orginal grekiskan är mycket starkare, även om Lagerlöf också försöker fånga samma känsla, och som sagt, jämfört med de flesta översättningar är han ganska duktig, men inte lika duktig som Fagles.

En liten sak att tillägga, Fagles är mycket bättre på att härma ljuden som finns i orginalet.

Just denna linje "battle lines of them roaring,
shoulders rearing, exploding foam" lägger fokus på "roaring", "rearing", och "foam", det nästan skummar i munnen när man läser det högt. Lagerlöf missar detta helt, och de flesta översättningar missar detta helt. Det är definitivt ett av mina favoritstycken från Iliaden.

Yes. In what way is it not a translation?

>The Achaeans were a bunch of thugs robbing hardworking people and then writing raps about it

My sides have reached Olympus

Hector saying goodbye to his family is the best scene in all literature. Completely wrecked me first time I read it, just wasn't expecting those feels, completely timeless.

Du har en bra poäng, ska beställa Fagles från bokbörsen. Tycker att flytet i läsningen av Fagles går behagligare också. Tack för citatet!

Lattimore

>I don't think I am
You really are, though. Read any analysis of Greek mythology.

Learn Greek and read it in the original idiot

>Patroclos
Who does this? It's Patroclus or Patroklos

t. Cuckoo. Even if you don't think it's morally justified, surely you must see how Odysseus has no problem slaying these men. After 20 years away from his wife and son he returns to Ithaca only to find a bunch of perverts in his house trying to take his home and family from him.

The Odyssey was told around the camp fire during festivals around women and children. The Iliad was told to warriors to get their blood pumping and their will fortified on the eve of battle.

Wrong. Both were told infact together with the other lost pieces from the epic cycle.

While the Homeric poems (the Iliad in particular) were not necessarily revered scripture of the ancient Greeks, they were most certainly seen as guides that were important to the intellectual understanding of any educated Greek citizen. This is evidenced by the fact that in the late fifth century BC, "it was the sign of a man of standing to be able to recite the Iliad and Odyssey by heart."[52] Moreover, it can be argued that the warfare shown in the Iliad, and the way in which it was depicted, had a profound and very traceable effect on Greek warfare in general. In particular, the effect of epic literature can be broken down into three categories: tactics, ideology, and the mindset of commanders. In order to discern these effects, it is necessary to take a look at a few examples from each of these categories.

kek, no
Odysseus was the hero of the tale, and got a second tale, too! Odysseus is the Greek embodiment of 'the successful man', 'the hero'.
Achilles and Hector were chumps in greek eyes: they died. Odysseus won. Odysseus is the epitome of the Greek Hero.

In regards to tactics, isn't more of a celebration/exploration of Greek ingenuity and craftiness rather than hard tactical lessons? I know the Homeric poems have issues with accuracy in regards to weapons, materials, and other more concrete details. They should be viewed as morality stories saying "to be Greek is to be crafty/resourceful/observant" rather than "Copy these tactics or similar ones to win battles"

There are other epics we've lost to time about other heros. He's not the star of the show but one of the many celebrated heroes of Greek mythology with his own poem. That's a grossly modern and uniformed view of these stories.

American professor of Classics at Harvard University, specializing in Homer and archaic Greek poetry, director of the Center for Hellenic Studies, writes a subject matter on the book on this very topic called The Best of the Achaeans. I'll take his words over yours to be honest.

chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/5439

The Odyssey can afford to let Odysseus put the question in this form, if indeed the narrative is confident of his heroic destiny in the Odyssey. Since his prime heroic act in the Odyssey is the killing of Achaeans who are pursuing his wife, Penelope is truly the key to his kléos. Penelope defines the heroic identity of Odysseus. Significantly, the expression Ἀχαιῶν ὅς τις ἄριστος ‘whoever is best [áristos] of the Achaeans’ is restricted in the Odyssey to the single question: “who will marry Penelope?” (Odyssey xvi 76, xviii 289, xix 528; cf. xx 335). The Homeric audience is being conditioned for the aristeíā of Odysseus.

From the page I linked. Basically Odysseus becomes the best of Achaeans in the Odyssey because he kills the suitor and frees his wife and gets his Nostos. His home!

Because he is already denied his Kleos. Eternal glory which was taken by Achilles. This is something that they touch upon in the Odyssey.

. In the First Nekuia of Odyssey xi, when Odysseus meets the shade of Achilles, he addresses Achilles as ‘best of the Achaeans’ (φέρτατ᾽ Ἀχαιῶν: Odyssey xi 478). But the Odyssey then has Achilles saying that he would rather be alive and the lowliest of serfs than to be dead and the kingliest of shades (Odyssey xi 489–491). As Klaus Rüter sees it, [37] Achilles seems ready to trade places with Odysseus, whose safe homecoming will be marked by a painful transitional phase at the very lowest levels of the social order. The words of Achilles in the First Nekuia are ironically conjuring up the glorious days of the Iliad when he had said:
ὤλετο μέν μοι νόστος, ἀτὰρ kλέος ἄφθιτον ἔσται I have lost a safe return home [ nóstos ], but I will have unfailing glory [ kléos ].

This is also why it was such an honor to die for your society in ancient greece. Achilles did it.

More to say, these two books together are so fucking deep. It's basically about finding your purpose in life. Either you find glory or you root a home. This is basically why Achilles is so "angry" the entire iliad. He is afraid that he wont get his Kleos and that Agamemnon is trying to steal it. He considers the entirety of going back home to his Nestos, but realizes that when Patroklus dies, there is no home to be found. Therefore he just goes on a rampage, a rampage worthy the history books.

Although Hector is amazing , I think it's unfair to hate on Achilles. He had dickhead Agamemnon busting his balls. I think I'd be just as pissed.

Iliad or Odyssey ?

Iliad

Yeah,Hera is an underrated greek goddess imo, able to persuade zeus passive aggressively rather than threaten like blockhead zeus does

You're in an Iliad thread, guy.

So glad we have an Iliad thread dedicated to a good discussion as well as people expressing their love for it here. I see The Iliad on Veeky Forums usually when people express their disdain for it - usually because of the ship catalogue and also all of the Greek soldiers, their fathers and their hometown names. It's very refreshing to see people expressing their appreciation for this poem.