I think φίλεω should be translated "treat well" or the like most of the time, rather than "love". There might well be exceptions to this, but most of the time it's about the way of acting rather than inner sentiments.
About the Iliad being an anti-war poem... I disagree. The Iliad isn't anti-war or pro-war. I think for Homer the whole question would have been absurd. For him, war was a fact of life. I don't think the idea of a world without war ever crossed his mind – that's a modern idea. For him, war was a source of great suffering and also of great glory, and he shows both these aspects of war better than anyone else. Or better than almost anyone at least.
Bart wrote:I think φίλεω should be translated "treat well" or the like most of the time, rather than "love". There might well be exceptions to this, but most of the time it's about the way of acting rather than inner sentiments.
Are you sure? The first entrance for φιλέω in Cunliffe is 'to hold in affection'. 'Treat with kindness or hospitality' or 'entertain hospitably' comes only fourth. LSJ also gives 'welcome or entertain a guest' as in ξεῖνον ἐνὶ μεγάροισι φιλέωμεν (Od. 8,42). If I had to make a choice I would translate as 'welcome as a guest' here. Luckily enough I haven't.
mwh wrote:Alice Oswald makes very powerful use of the Iliadic deaths of VIPs and non-entities alike in her poem Memorial, in which she presents each death in the order of its occurrence in the narrative but cuts out the narrative itself, the deaths being interspersed with similes. As in Homer, some have mini-obits, others are just names in a quick-fire list. You lose the Homeric sense of sequentiality (the Sarpedon-Patroklos-Hektor-[Achilles] chain, for instance), but what might seem little more than a gimmick really works. The pathos is immense.
Qimmik wrote:One needs to read the entire Iliad to put the events in the early books in perspective.
Qimmik wrote:You are not the first reader to be puzzled by the Glaukos - Diomedes exchange. It seems to end in some sort of joke
Il 6.232ff.
ὣς ἄρα φωνήσαντε καθ᾽ ἵππων ἀΐξαντε
χεῖράς τ᾽ ἀλλήλων λαβέτην καὶ πιστώσαντο:
ἔνθ᾽ αὖτε Γλαύκῳ Κρονίδης φρένας ἐξέλετο Ζεύς,
ὃς πρὸς Τυδεΐδην Διομήδεα τεύχε᾽ ἄμειβε
χρύσεα χαλκείων, ἑκατόμβοι᾽ ἐννεαβοίων.
mwh wrote:Dispiriting to read interpretations that contradict the unequivocal authorial statement.
Homer and Tolstoy have in common a manly love and a manly horror for war. They are not pacifists, they are not bellicists, rather they know and they tell war for what it is. Their perpetual oscilation between a flagrant humanity which consumes itself in the joy of violence and the detachment of sacrifice where the return to the One is condensed. You would look in vain in the Iliad or in War and Peace for an explicit condemnation of war as such. You can wage war, suffer it, revile it or praise it — just not judge it. Only silence answers — or rather the impossibility for words as such — and that disillusioned look that the dying Hector at last casts at Achilles, or which Prince Andrew seems to project beyond his own death.
Bart wrote:mwh wrote:Dispiriting to read interpretations that contradict the unequivocal authorial statement.
Which is?
mwh wrote:Which is that Zeus deprived Glaukos of his frenes.
MiguelM wrote:Just a quick note on the Iliad as a war poem, reading this I thought of the beginning of an essay by Rachel Bespaloff called From Troy to Moscow, which reads thus:Homer and Tolstoy have in common a manly love and a manly horror for war. They are not pacifists, they are not bellicists, rather they know and they tell war for what it is. Their perpetual oscilation between a flagrant humanity which consumes itself in the joy of violence and the detachment of sacrifice where the return to the One is condensed. You would look in vain in the Iliad or in War and Peace for an explicit condemnation of war as such. You can wage war, suffer it, revile it or praise it — just not judge it. Only silence answers — or rather the impossibility for words as such — and that disillusioned look that the dying Hector at last casts at Achilles, or which Prince Andrew seems to project beyond his own death.
Bart wrote:mwh wrote:Which is that Zeus deprived Glaukos of his frenes.
True enough, but not the whole story. It is Homer that makes Zeus deprive Glaukos of his frenes. So, though the statement about Glaukos and his frenes is unequivocal enough, it still leaves questions and room for interpretation. For example, why does Homer end such a curious episode in such a curious way? Is it a joke, as Qimmik suggests, or something else. But yes, I agree that most of the explanations I mentioned seem far-fetched.
RIP.Homer as Lorin Maazel?
Qimmik wrote:... surely the teichoskopy in Book 3, where Helen identifies the major Greek heroes for the Trojan elders from the walls of Troy would have occurred early in the war, not in the 10th year.
Qimmik wrote:You are not the first reader to be puzzled by the Glaukos - Diomedes exchange. It seems to end in some sort of joke -- Glaukos is a fool for exchanging his gold armor for bronze armor (if I remember correctly) -- but no one seems to understand the joke.
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