The Iliad - what is it really about?

what is the iliad about what is it actually about I mean this one is about 350 pages but I mean the plot well a lot of you will be thinking yourselves I know what the ads about everyone knows what the Iliad is about is the story of the Trojan War isn't it you know our Paris abducts Helen from King Menelaus of Sparta takes us a Troy King Menelaus goes to his brother Agamemnon Agamemnon with my scene he says boy and his brother says you're right we're not having this and he puts together a massive fleet - a thousand ships and they go to Troy and they fight a long war and then they make a wooden horse and they take the wooden horse into the city and they come out of the wooden horse and let the rest of the army in and the city then is sacked and all that sort of stuff it's the story the Trojan War only it isn't and thank a lot of people buying this by it start reading get a little bit confused and then realize oh we're already deep into the war when this starts and they go all the way to the end they slog through it and they're so disappointed no wooden horse that's right it ends before Achilles dies so we don't get him being shot in the heel or any of that and it ends before anyone even has the idea of making a wooden horse so what is the Iliad about then well perhaps I should say first that the Iliad is a stupendously important book it was the nearest thing in the ancient world to the Bible various people like Alexander the Great are known to have carried copies of it around with them at all times and a huge amount of the Library of Alexandria you know the one that burnt down you can tell how middle-class you are by on how aggrieved you are and how much you wince every time you someone mentions the fact that the Library of Alexandria burned down ah ah only it hadn't those go anyway a lot of those scrolls in that library were in fact commentaries on this a bit like a lot of medieval literature was commentaries on the Bible and was theology dominated University and courses similarly this was the dominant book of its day far more so than the Odyssey which is much more like a modern novel in a lot of ways now this looks like a novel it's a long ish novel by the number of words but actually it was an epic poem that would be performed over several nights by a poet quite often we are told that they would beat a stick to a strict rhythm as they spoke through the rhythmic words and it would take a few nights for them to get all the way through this and yes they wouldn't have a script to work from they had to memorize the entire lot a feat that was made possible by an oral tradition and the fact that there are a lot of standard phrases and repetitions within the the rhyme itself and when this was composed which was somewhere between the 700 and 500 BC the first writing down that we know of was 500 and something BC when this was put together it was assumed that the listeners all knew the story so we can dive straight in everybody knows that Paris is abducted Helen and taken her to Troy that's that's that's happened already and everybody knows that Achilles will die at some point and there'll be a wooden horse and what have you that is not what this is about this is a story set over quite a short period during the war all right so that's what it's not about what actually is it about well it's there is a story which I'll just very quickly summarize which is Achilles who was the greatest fighter on the Achaeans side he gets annoyed with Agamemnon and says write that I'm not going to fight loads of people go to him and say I'll go on fight there's an awful lot of fighting to do you love it really come on you want to fight don't you and he said oh no I'm going to sulk here instead and various people tried to persuade him and they fail and after a while Patroclus his friend he feels the pressure so much that he dresses up as Achilles and he goes to fight but gets killed by Hector who was the greatest warrior on the Trojan side and at that point whoa Hercules he's really put out and he puts on some brand new armor made for him by the god I have faced us and he goes into battle and starts winning for the qian's and he eventually kills Hector and and then they have some funeral rites and so forth and sort of the store and you think why is that that's such a great story but I'm going to say that it's actually about two other things it's about two other things I've just told you the basic plot but the first is the way it treats war what how it talks about the subject of war and fame and manhood and so forth a weird thing about it is that it is constantly glorifying war it makes very very clear that these are heroes that the war was tremendously interesting and that this was the way to get Fame and the gods are tremendously interested in what's going on in the Trojan War all the gods of Olympus that all transfixed by events during the war oh look at that hair is having attacking that hair and so forth the individual acts of heroism by the various heroes fascinate them and the gods start taking sides and even started started worrying amongst themselves because they're supporting one side rather than the other this is the crucible of the of Fame this is the this is the way a man shows his worth in front of the gods and entertains us all with his his glorious bloodletting and at the same time this is the weird thing at exactly the same time it is glorifying war which it does all the way through it is simultaneously drawing our attention again and again to the tragedy of war so many good men get killed for what and they even talk to each other what are we actually fighting for is this are we just fighting for Helen is that it is it that why we're all here fighting for year after year so many of us dying what's it all for and there are so many tragic deaths and I'm just going to give you an example of one tell me now you muses who inhabit mansions on Olympus who was he who first encountered Agamemnon whether of the Trojans themselves or of their allies renowned it was either Damas son of antenor great and mighty who was nurtured in Thrace rich of soil the mother of sheep Kai sees his mother's father reared him there in the halls while he was but a little child then when he came to the measure of his glorious youth the father of Theano fair of face tried to keep him there and offered him his own daughter but a bridegroom newly weds he went from his bridal chamber after the tidings of the coming of the Achaeans with 12 beaked ships that followed after him these trim ships he left in / cote but himself came by land to illios he it was that then encountered Agamemnon son of Atreus when they had come in on set against each other Atreus his son missed and his spear was turned aside but i fynd armas smoked him on the girdle below the courcelette and himself pressed on trusting to his heavy hand but pierced not the gleaming girdle for long ear that the point struck on the silver it was bent like lead then wide-ruling Agamemnon caught the spear with his hand and drew it towards him furiously like a lion and snatched it out of the hand of IV darkness and smote his neck with the sword and unstrung his limbs so even there he fell and slept a sleep of bronze most piteously far from his wedded wife helping the folk of the city far from his bride of whom he had known no joy and much had he given for her first a hundred kind he gave and thereafter promised a thousand goats and sheep together wear off he had herds unspeakable then did Agamemnon strip him and went bearing his goodly harness into the throng of the Achaeans so there you have it a sort of mini tragedy than just one paragraph of text in this that character who's never mentioned before then and never mentioned again after we he just he just pops into the narrative and we just get to know him and sort of like him and sympathize with him and he's dead and isn't that tragic that's that's like a little potty tragedy right there I think it for me that I picked it out because I think it's the best example but there are many others like it or people dying and there are poignant moments for instance when Hector's going out to face Achilles and we all know the story so we all know he's going to die right his wife is pouring a bath for him because he goes out and fights he comes back and he likes a bath when he gets back in we all know that he's never going to take that bath there are all sorts of little poignant details like that highlighting again and again the tragedy of war how the women and the people of the city suffer and that is a tremendous contrast and so if you think that our it's just about people killing each other well yeah it is an awful other people charging around the battlefield and killing each other and and and saying gosh look at me aren't I great I'm so famous and good at killing people yes they do but it's constantly tinged with that tragedy all the way through so that's one thing about it the glory versus tragedy of war and the other thing is this scene which is actually pictured on the front of this addition here do you see that's an old man begging something of a younger man that's prior the king of Troy and that's Achilles this scene was in the film with Brad Pitt and Peter O'Toole Troy and it's the sort of scene which I feared they might not have put in but actually not only did they put it in but they made it clear how important the scene it was perhaps more than anything the Iliad is about this scene if you remember Petraeus died and his friend Achilles was tremendously upset by this and he doesn't just kill Hector he goes absolutely berserk e rages around the battlefield at one point he gets 12 Trojan captives who he later kills sacrifices around that the the barrow of petrol CLIs but that doesn't bring him peace at one point he fights a river god oh yes he had a battle with a river and the river manifests as a god and then another fire God starts drying up the plane by sending down fires because of the floods and so forth he got floods and fires god-like battles of rage but he doesn't find peace he puts Hector's body behind his chariot and drags him around but this doesn't get him to find peace they bury Patroclus he doesn't find peace he sacrifices all this stuff on patrol is his tomb and makes it clear how much he loved this guy and how how devastated he was to have lost his friend in this particular way and he doesn't find peace killing his friends killer doesn't bring him peace what brings in peace is this scene prime as an old man and one night he with a colleague gets into a wagon put some ransom in the wagon and quietly goes out this is tremendous risk he's taking goes out to the Achaeans camp and finds a kill Easy's hut and he enters it kneeled at his feet kisses the hands that murdered his son and he says that I am an old man and I had fifty sons once but most are dead now many by your hand and I had the greatest of sons I had Hector who was magnificent and you killed him please may I just bury him please can you just give me this one thing give me my son's body so that I can take him back and bury him and Achilles is absolutely stunned he marveled at him it confused at first who what you've walked into my tent you know who I am do you know how much danger you're in and then oh he's at my feet is kissing my hands what he marvels at the bravery of this King this old man and he finally gets peace by saying to the man yes you may have the son your son's body back and he even negotiates a truce of 12 days I think it is so that they have enough time to gather firewood and go through all the various rituals and give Hector the tamer of horses the burial and the very last words are thus held they the funeral for Hector tamer of horses it just stopped there that is how Achilles finally finds peace through forgiving an old man taking pity on an old man seeing almost the feathers spirit and bravery in some ways and seeing the tragedy of what he's done and it's it's almost I mean I'm not a Christian but you could say that is it's almost like a Christian message in there somewhere it's forgiveness brings peace not glory in war not killing people it's suddenly seeing this humanity appreciating the humanity of your enemy and just extending that mercy to your enemy that's what brings Achilles peace and that's what the Iliad is about

Channel: Lindybeige

Views: 917,933

Rating: 4.9499545 out of 5

Keywords: the iliad, iliad, odyssey, homer, ancient, archaic, greek, myth, legend, priam, troy, trojan war, achilles, tragedy, poem, epic, book, about, subject, criticism, literature, literary, analysis, plot, story

Id: aofPdMbXzUQ

Length: 14min 16sec (856 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 04 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/Engels777]

This was the best succinct explanation of the Iliad I have heard.

[u/silverpanther17]

I've read the Iliad a couple times through in my life and at the surface this theme of the Rage of Achilles (μῆνιν, menin, literally the first word of the epic) serves as only a single theme of the book. This video easily could have been instead focused on the Will of Zeus (βουλή, boule), to which Homer invokes the Muses just as he does to Achilles' Rage, or about the Honor of war and of fighting nobly (τιμή, time) and the Glory that such fighting brings (κλέος, kleos), or the rejection of mere Possessions and Physical Reward (Γῆρας, geras) for this honor and glory, or how such glory gained can, in a way, make a worthy man Immortalized Eternally (κλέος αφθιτον, kleos aphthiton) through the very oral tradition by means of which The Iliad has been passed down.

This video is excellent in terms of what it set out to do: destroying the simple idea that The Iliad is a book about the Trojan War. However, The Iliad has remained in the zeitgeist for 3 millennia for the simple reason that it is dense. The story touched so well on so many themes that populated the ancient world that it's the best glimpse into the past as much for the scholars of the Greek Classical era as it is for us today.

And that final note concerning the Odyssey is spot on.