homer/not homer simpson

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Anyone else a fan of Homer author of The Iliad and The Oddessy. I haven't actually read them myself but I am still a fan of the stories. There is a movie coming out based on The Illiad called Troy.:D

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Any Homer fans out there?

[sun-star]

I like the Odyssey. I listened to it on as an audiobook and found it really engrossing :)

[hectorberlioz]

oh yes, I like homer's stuff a lot.

[Ornelírë Mistë]

In class we are reading selections from the Illiad and the Oddessey, and I like them very much. I read a part in the Oddessey today about the dog Odysseus left behind when he went to Troy. Then 20 years later he comes back, and the dog recognizes him and then dies. *tear*
The movie looks good but Orlando Bloom.

[hectorberlioz]

i liked the look of the movie, except the 'ahem ahem' part with orlando bloom.

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The movie looks good but Orlando Bloom. He isn't the best actor, but he is good in LotR.

[Earniel]

I liked Homerus' Illiad and Odyssey a lot, it started me on the road of reading about mythology.

Although the first time I read the unabridged version of the Illiad I really had to urge myself to continue to read through that lenghty explanation of nearly every ship in the Greek fleet. :rolleyes: I quite liked how all the different Greek gods fought out their own private little disagreements on the battlefield as well.

I was mayorly disappointed that the Illiad stops right after Achilleus' death. Where was the famous bloody horse of Troy!? I was angry about that for a very long time and had to piece together what happened afterwards from several different sources. That was not so funny then, but now I find my ranting from back then rather hilarious. :p

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I always liked the Trojans best. I've started reading The Iliad, not very far yet:D

[ayarella]

:) I read parts of the odyssey when i was 9. Homer was said to be the first story teller. He was not an author because he was blind and stories were passed down in those days. :) I loved the story and read it recently.

[b.banner]

I finished the Iliad and Oddesey(abridged):D

[Lalaith_Elf]

i love his work. i've read both the oddessy and the illiad, and i do classics for A level, so im getting to read them again:D but they're diffrent translations so it's good to read diffrent versions of the same story. very interesting:)

[Dreran the Green]

Originally posted by OrnelÃ*rë Mistë
In class we are reading selections from the Illiad and the Oddessey, and I like them very much. I read a part in the Oddessey today about the dog Odysseus left behind when he went to Troy. Then 20 years later he comes back, and the dog recognizes him and then dies. *tear*
The movie looks good but Orlando Bloom.

Right now we're studying the Oddessey in english class as well. Actually, I'm doing a project about that same selection. The dog's name is Argus, isn't it?

The movie looks awesome from the trailer. I was very happy to hear Sean Bean will be in it...love that actor.:)

[Falagar]

I agree, the movie looks really promising! :) I haven't finished the Illiad yet, working on it.

[Lalaith_Elf]

the movie does look good... but i'm worried they'll mess it up cos they don't wanna kill off any of the 'big name' actors.
i'm looking forward to it:)

[Dreran the Green]

My guess is bradd pitt is going to die, because I heard a rumour that bloom's character will live, and they'll be on opposing sides, won't they?

[Lalaith_Elf]

I KNEW IT!!!!!! they cannot let paris live becasue orlando bloom is playing him....:mad:

... and yes they're on diffrent sides. paris is a trojan and the guy who stole helen and achillies is the best warrior on the greeks side, fighting for agamemnon and menelaus to win back helen

[Earniel]

I fear that movie.... Why is there always this seemingly need for movies to look like being made for dumb people so that the original story nearly always has to lose its shades of grey?

If the go around changing the fates of the characters..... bah worthless. Paris has to die. Can't get around that. Down with the ninny womaniser. :p Orlando Bloom or no.
Though if they were filming the real iliad in its entirety they would have to stop right after Achilles' death and not film the destruction of Troy. Like they would ever do that.....

[Shadowfax]

I read The Odyseey about a month ago for the first time (the first thing I've read by Homer too). I really liked it, and it was much moe interesting than I thought it would be. I think it's a great story, as many others have pointed out.

[Falagar]

Currently on song 13, have finished 4-5 songs in the last two-three days. Still working on it. ;)

[Falagar]

Is it just me or is Hektor's death really tragic? And I have no longer any remorse for Achilleus...

[Earniel]

Yeah, Hektor's death is pretty tragic. Homer went through great lenght (at least in my translation) to praise Hektor's courage, prowess with weapons and leader skills. The poor guy just happened to be on the wrong side of the war.

[Falagar]

Felt especially sorry for his father...haven't finished with the book yet, but so far at least three of his sons have died that I can remember.

[GrayMouser]

Originally posted by Falagar
Felt especially sorry for his father...haven't finished with the book yet, but so far at least three of his sons have died that I can remember.

Well, he had fifty...

[GrayMouser]

My favorite character always used to be Odysseus, but re-reading it Hector has taken that place.

The scene where his son is frightened by his helmet; and there's Hector knowing that it's going to turn out badly; his son will be killed and his wife sold into slavery....but he's got to carry on anyway.

[Falagar]

Originally posted by GrayMouser
Well, he had fifty...
Didn't know that...But Hektor was the greatest! :)

My favorite character has thus far (Book/Song 22 or 23 currently) been Aias/Ajax...

[Beren3000]

This thread deserves a bump. In fact, I was planning to bump it when my "Faramir and Hector" thread was going on, but I forgot.

Is it just me or is Hektor's death really tragic?
I agree with you there, Hector's death is very tragic, the most tragic part is when he begs Achilles not to throw his body to the dogs. There's this really moving sentence that Hector says in the selection in my literature book; when he realises his end has come he says: "The Gods call deathward..." how good is that!
And I have no longer any remorse for Achilleus...
However, I disagree with this; most probably you've finished the book by now (unless you're a VERY slow reader :D ) and I think that your opinion of Achilles has perhaps changed? If it hasn't, let me change it for you: Achilles was a GOOD man, he just killed Hector and defiled his body in a fit of rage, but look how respectfully he treats Priam after. Btw, another moving part is when Praim tells Achilles "...I have brought myself to do what no one else has done before: I raised to my lips the hands that killed my son." (Or something like that :o)

In fact, what I think is so great about The Iliad is that you can't really take sides with either the Greeks or the Trojans, each side had enough justification to do as it did. Or at least that's how I see it. What do you guys think?
Btw, since the movie is already out, what do you guys think of it now?
I loved it, but my English teacher hated it and was disgusted with Brad Pitt's being casted as Achilles. Thougths?

[Last Child of Ungoliant]

I was mayorly disappointed that the Illiad stops right after Achilleus' death. Where was the famous bloody horse of Troy!? I was angry about that for a very long time and had to piece together what happened afterwards from several different sources. That was not so funny then, but now I find my ranting from back then rather hilarious. :p
on a slight correctional note, the Trojan Horse was an addition to the story of the Trojan war by much later Greek 'historians', and did not appear in either the war itself, or Homer's account titled the Illiad, which was written many hundreds of years after the war itself.

i love the oddysey

[Earniel]

I had guessed it wasn't part of Homer's tale of the war but I didn't know it was added only so much later. I always viewed it as part of the body of Greek myths.

[Manveru]

havent read the iliad or the odyssey but i really want to
saw troy and thought it was awesome tho

[Rían]

I finished the Iliad recently and liked it very much - lovely strong language and moving descriptions. I really liked Hektor, the tamer of horses *sob*

I got a little tired of all the descriptions of various gory deaths, tho.

[Rían]

about 1/4 way thru the Odyssey and enjoying it so far ... I love the repetitive descriptive adjectives - very melodic, and you can see how it really works with it being an oral work.

[Curubethion]

Isn't Homer, like, Manny Ramirez's best friend? ;)

[Elanor]

I read the Iliad and the Oddysey several years ago, just for fun. My favorite character was Odysseus, by far, and his family (Penelope and Telemachus). Athena's awesome too.

[francod]

hands down. He is one of the few people who acts out of love for others rather than himself.

[Finrod Felagund]

I have been wanting to read the Oddysey and Iliad for a long time...took them out of the library, but just never got arround to it. I will though...I promise...

[rohirrim TR]

just finished reading Iliad, and the Odyssey. I don't know if it was translation or what but Iliad was way better than the Odyssey.

Hector OWNS!

[Rían]

ah, Hector .... *sigh*

[The last sane person]

I feel even worse for Hector's father. Had fifty sons and lost em ALL! I first read the Illiad when I was 10. I fell in love with that and read the Odessy right after. But really, I feel much more empathy for the Trojan side. The Greeks were a bunch of pompus asses really. Agamemnon, Achillies the lot of them. Perhaps old Nestor and cunning Odyseius (cant spell) were the only ones that kept their cool.

[rohirrim TR]

the trojan war is a lot like the civil war to me, really hard to villifie one side or the other they were equally glorious and equally brutal, the only real villain would be Paris I suppose Although Helen would get second prize in that contest as well. Poor Hector victim of circumstances.

[sun-star]

Agamemnon and Menelaus deserve the blame IMO, self-important war-mongerers both. I kind of feel sorry for Helen, because although she did behave badly she's punished enough for it, almost more than anyone. The women suffer so much more than the men - poor Andromache and Hecuba in particular!

[rohirrim TR]

well Agamemnon was arrogant but not really evil and its kind of unfair to call any one of them "war mongerers" they were a warrior society, that was how they lived almost a part of their culture.

Menelaus was pretty much provoked, he may have been vengeful but I still think it might be stretching it to call him a war monger.

It had a really easy solution, the trojan war, send Paris and Helen on a cruise and then the greeks could have had a nice sea battle some afternoon and be done with it. :rolleyes:

[sun-star]

Well, even in a warrior society it's possible to distinguish between different motives for fighting. Menelaus' motive was revenge, but Agamemnon had no such reasons and yet prolonged the siege for ten years.

[rohirrim TR]

misplaced sense of honor perhaps?

[Earniel]

Well, even in a warrior society it's possible to distinguish between different motives for fighting. Menelaus' motive was revenge, but Agamemnon had no such reasons and yet prolonged the siege for ten years.
There was the oath, if I have my myths lined up correctly. Since so many men wanted to marry Helena and obviously only one was going to, her family feared it would lead to war. So they had all the suitors swear to aid the future-husband. I believe Agammemnon also swore that oath. In any case, he also was Menelaos's brother.

[sun-star]

You're right, I'd forgotten about the oath (though I don't think Homer mentions it).

[Earniel]

No indeed, Homer doesn't mention it, since I believe the Ilias starts when the Greeks are already camped near Throy, the ninth year of the war or something? But I checked with my mythology encyclopedia and it mentions the oath too, so it must be mentioned in classical texts somewhere.

Similarly, Homer neither mentions the famous horse, IIRC. Something which frustrated me to no end when I was younger :rolleyes: because I couldn't get my hands on any text that told the whole tale of the fall of Throy.

[rohirrim TR]

I know I was wondering about that after reading it, my copy ended with the death of Hector and it kinda seemed incomplete. :confused:

[Earniel]

Ditto on my copy. I take it the Iliad itself just doesn't go any further. The tale about the horse I eventually found in Vergillius' Aenaes. But I can't remember whether that included Achilles' demise as well.

[rohirrim TR]

I'll have to check that one out.

[Willow Oran]

Time to bump this.:)

No indeed, Homer doesn't mention it, since I believe the Ilias starts when the Greeks are already camped near Throy, the ninth year of the war or something? But I checked with my mythology encyclopedia and it mentions the oath too, so it must be mentioned in classical texts somewhere.



He does sort of mention it whe he says that Helen has marriage ties to many of the Achaeans.

I found it interesting to see just how strong family ties are portrayed. Half the deaths in the battle scenes come about as vengence for somebody's cousin/brother/son etc.
It was also interesting to see just how maternal so many of the battle metaphors were. Lots of warriors defending their comrades as a mother lion/wolf defends her cubs and similar images.

And it was very odd the way the mentions of iron were distributed. Given that the Iliad is supposedly set in the Bronze Age we wouldn't expect any, and through the first 18 chapters at least there appear only two,which can easily be written off as slips made by later performers. But in then during the Funeral Games, Achilles offers lumps of iron as prizes and both he and Priam are described in the last few chapters as having hearts of iron. To me this increase seems to indicate that the ending pieces of the Iliad were more heavily 'edited' over time than the earlier parts.
Did anybody else catch this or other interesting anomalies/trends?

[Earniel]

It was also interesting to see just how maternal so many of the battle metaphors were. Lots of warriors defending their comrades as a mother lion/wolf defends her cubs and similar images.
After reading, I sort of had an image of the war on the battle field as mainly consisting of a tug of war over dead bodies and hitting those who were pulling on the other side of the body. Rather disturbing way of fighting.

And it was very odd the way the mentions of iron were distributed. Given that the Iliad is supposedly set in the Bronze Age we wouldn't expect any, and through the first 18 chapters at least there appear only two,which can easily be written off as slips made by later performers. But in then during the Funeral Games, Achilles offers lumps of iron as prizes and both he and Priam are described in the last few chapters as having hearts of iron. To me this increase seems to indicate that the ending pieces of the Iliad were more heavily 'edited' over time than the earlier parts.
Did anybody else catch this or other interesting anomalies/trends?
Does the iron gets mentioned particularly in relation to weapons? My knowledge of the exact historic time frame is weak, but could it be possible that iron was known at least a little while before it could be properly used? I always was taught that the first iron known to men likely came from meteorites. It would definitely be more accessible then mined and processed iron. Hmm, that could mean Achilles actually offered up two meteorites at the funeral games. Cool.

But then again Homer is considered to be born far later after the Trojan War. Could iron be more integrated by Homer's time? It'll be difficult to establish, considering there is still uncertainty about when Homer lived.

[Willow Oran]

At one point the tug-of-war image goes literal, it's like the kill wasn't complete unless you got the guy's armor as well. Nevermind that it would have had holes in it...

Definitely more often in lump form, though one of the earlier mentions gives Pandarus an iron tipped arrow. I think I agree with Achilles having set out meteorites. One of the pieces is described as "a rough lump of iron that mighty Eetion used to hurl." Implying that if it was used as a weapon it was of the "warrior smash!" variety.

I can't help but wonder if parts of the story told in the Iliad are even older than we think. While there are many lengthy descriptions of bronze/silver/gold armor and weapons, there's also quite a lot of rock throwing going on, with the combatants often throwing rocks before throwing their spears. It just struck me as odd.

And is "god given gold" a different metal from normal gold? An early passage ridicules a warrior for "wearing gold like a girl" and then later we've got Achilles stopping spears with the gold layer of his shield. If it were just one I'd put it just to poetic license, but it's not and they must surely have known that gold is too soft and too heavy to be effective as armor.

[Earniel]

At one point the tug-of-war image goes literal, it's like the kill wasn't complete unless you got the guy's armor as well. Nevermind that it would have had holes in it...
Indeed, the body tugging just struck me as rather disturbing. But it is a sign of all times, I suppose. The high war lords and kings got the lands to carve up when they won, but each soldier saw war fare too as a 'business' opportunity to amass some treasure themselves. When Odysseus and Diomedes go after the wagon and horses of a troyan-supporting king, they waste no time grabbing a few little somethings for themselves along the way, if I recall correctly.

I can't help but wonder if parts of the story told in the Iliad are even older than we think. While there are many lengthy descriptions of bronze/silver/gold armor and weapons, there's also quite a lot of rock throwing going on, with the combatants often throwing rocks before throwing their spears. It just struck me as odd.
Interesting point, now that you mention it, there were quite a few rocks being thrown around. I suppose that maybe at the time, forged weapons were considerably expensive, so if you could take out an opponent with a well-aimed, cheap rock, so much the better.

As for the story's age, I believe some say that Homer drew heavily on already existing oral stories and myths to write the Illiad. Some story elements may this way be very old indeed.

And is "god given gold" a different metal from normal gold? An early passage ridicules a warrior for "wearing gold like a girl" and then later we've got Achilles stopping spears with the gold layer of his shield. If it were just one I'd put it just to poetic license, but it's not and they must surely have known that gold is too soft and too heavy to be effective as armor.
The 'wearing gold like a girl' might have referred to a very fashionable way of wearing gold objects, something the other very virile-feeling men would look down on.

I think that the 'god given gold' was only different in the way that a devine smith would be higher skilled than ordindary mortal ones, so the armour made by Hephaistos would probably be considered as better made and offering more protection.

The gold layers mentioned is probably only gilting. As you said it is far too soft, and probably also too expensive to use in large qualities for armour, even for high-ranking warriors. More likely the second layer of metal, or cured skin below the gold, did most of the stopping.

[Willow Oran]

See, I thought the gold was just gilding too, but here are the passages:

"Aeneas' war spear broke through
two layers of the shield, but the gold layer,
Hephaestus' special gift, stopped it.
And there were still two more, for the lame god
had welded five: two bronze, two tin,
and the gold that stopped the ash-wood spear."

then later

"One [spear] hit Achilles shield but did not penetrate,
stopped by the layer of god-given gold."

If it were just gilding, it's placement in the middle of the shield makes no sense. Possibly the other layers slowed the spear down enough that it just looked like the gold layer stopped it, but that shouldn't have been a consistent effect.
Could also be that he's trying to imply that the divine favor stopped the spear when metal wouldn't, that might make the most sense.

[Earniel]

Oooh, sneaky Hephaistos, a gold layer within, now that I never thought about. You're right, it can't be simple gilting then. Could the gold layer be an alloy with some other metal, so that it looks golden but is was in fact sturdier? Maybe I rather should see if I can check what and how the ancient greeks' shields were actually made of. A gold layer within the different layers of a shield just doesn't make much sense to me.

[Willow Oran]

Yeah, if it's hidden it can't just be decorative, and gold is both too soft and too heavy to be very practical for anything but decoration on a shield.

Now, the emphasis placed on it being a special gift from Hephaestus could mean that it was imbued with divine spear repellent or something, or it could refer to an alloy, possibly made using new technology that at the time seemed godlike. Only I don't know of any such advances in metalwork around that time period. So it's a puzzle. Sneaky gods indeed!:rolleyes:

[Gwaimir Windgem]

I have to say, I prefer the Aeneid. Sure, Virgil majorly rips off Homer, but one of the biggest additions he makes is genuinely gripping drama. The death of Priam in book II cut me to the core, as did the whole Dido story.

[Earniel]

For some reason I didn't quite like Aenaes. Not in the Illiad (and Colleen McCullough's novelisation 'the Song of Troy' that I read later only confirmed that opinion) and it carried over to the Aeneid. All that drama with Dido and all I could think of was 'Silly woman, he's so not worth it....'

[Willow Oran]

It's cause Aeneas is a jerk. And a pansy. The guy had to rescued from battle with Diomedes by Aphrodite.:p

Now, of the Aeneid, I've only read Chaucer's take, but because that brought it into the english tradition I was able to do a comparative analysis of Aeneas and Aragorn in order to explore the nature of heroism and romance. Aeneas would be the bad example.;)

[Earniel]

I asked my sister the archaeologist if she knew anything about bronze-age greek shields. Her speciality is more Egyptian/Mesopotamian but she could help me a little further:

To her knowledge, no shield like the one described for Achilles (several layers of different metal) has ever been found. A thick layer of gold could in theory be enough to stop a spear, but considering they could then have used bronze instead just as easily, there'd be no reason to use gold specifically.

Such heavy shields would have been extremely unpractical as well. Normally a shield was only covered with metal on the outside, while the inside was often wood, or woven reed that was even more light and manoeuvrable.

The descriptions of the weaponry in the Illiad may therefore most likely be considered geared at describing Achilles' known unbeatability instead of actuality.

Gold was also a rare metal, most average storytellers (the origins of the Illiad story before Homer) likely knew nothing of its unpractical nature for warfare. It was the metal of kings and heroes, it would therefore makes sense that Achilles carried it. And it was more often than not considered inbued with magical properties.

With this in mind, I think we can conclude the gold layer is not a reference to a new metalurgic improvement/discovery, but most likely a literairy inclusion to beaf up Achilles' repuation.