Reading the Iliad

There was a moment when I was reading The Iliad that I thought to myself, “This is it. This is what the epic is really all about.” Somehow it all seemed to come down to one particular scene and all the rest was just leading up to it. Why I had that epiphany, I’ll explain in due course. But what struck me is that the real message of this epic poem was almost hidden by all the thousands of lines that came before it.

I don’t get that many such bright moments when I read, although I read a lot. In this instance, I was in my third attempt to read The Iliad, in parallel with numerous commentaries and explanations, bolstered by some online reading.

My problem has always been in finding a suitable translation from the many available. A New York Times article from earlier this year, written by classicist and translator Emily Wilson, noted,

Each of these translations — along with dozens more — suggests a different understanding of the central themes of courage, marriage, fate and death.

The Yale Review of also noted,

Most important in a contemporary translation of Homer’s Iliad is its ability to compel readers to read on, all the way through, line by line, attentively and with feeling. Many English Iliads fail this test. Some mangle Homer through “a mistaken ambition for exactness” (Donald Carne-Ross’s withering criticism of Richmond Lattimore’s Homer translations), losing readers’ attention for whole sections of the poem. Others previously passed this test, but now the language is no longer contemporary (Robert Fitzgerald’s still-estimable 1974 translation of the Iliad falls into this category). A translation that motivates rereading has the capacity to foster interpretative curiosity, the quality at the heart of all good study. This is the kind of translation of Homer that I covet as a teacher and for my own enjoyment.

That sentence that begins with “A translation that motivates…” is important. I had previously tried to finish the Lattimore and Fagles translations, the former decades ago, the latter about a decade past (I have the Rieu translation and have had the Fitzgerald, but frankly cannot recall reading them). But the story never grabbed me, not like The Odyssey did. Too much bloodshed and death, too violent, too much testosterone, too many self-aggrandizing, self-justifying and chest-beating speeches. And too many names; every page seems to list more names of mostly unfamiliar and forgettable people who seldom if ever return to the poem, and even then seldom do anything memorable, but yet still get into history despite that.

Like Emily Greenwood, in the Yale Review, confirmed:

The Iliad’s extensive battle scenes, replete with names that hardly trip off the modern tongue, can quickly bog readers down.

But… as Johanna Hannik wrote in Slate, reviewing Emily Wilson’s recent translation, that “manliness” appealed to the ancient Greeks, although it may be more polarizing today:

Socrates refers, in the Platonic dialogue Hippias Minor, to a widespread notion that the Iliad is superior to the Odyssey because its star, Achilles, is a manlier man than Odysseus.

There wasn’t, in the translations I tried previously, a character among the Greeks I liked or could empathize with for more than a passing moment — including Achilles. The “heroes,” among the Greeks and most of the Trojans, are all bloodthirsty, but also petty and selfish: more concerned with personal honour, reputation, loot, and accomplishments than collective goals such as winning the bloody war. I even struggled relating to the often heroic and noble but sometimes thickheaded (and arrogant) Trojan prince, Hector, (empathy being a “woke” attribute that conservative readers — if there are any left these days — avoid).

I expect a lot from Emily Wilson’s newest translation, given both the success of her recent version of The Odyssey, and my own appreciation of her style. As Charlotte Higgins wrote in The Guardian, and predictably, conservatives attacked it even before it was published, much as they attacked the Barbie movie without having seen it:

…a weight of expectation on her work that was entirely absent when she brought out the Odyssey. And in the US there’s already pre-publication carping from voices on the right that her interpretation will be too woke, too feminist, too politically correct.

Not that one expects more from conservatives. More would be rational, reasoned, and considered. After all, they’re the people banning books, words, and history for the sake of a toxic, misogynist, pro-fascist, and racist ideology they glean from Fox Newz or other extremist propaganda sources. Hardly surprising that they attacked it before it was even published. Nor that they have actually never read what they bloviated on. But I digress.

Seque: I also recently read Song of Achilles, a 2011 novel by Madeline Miller, based on Homer’s Iliad, which makes Achilles and Patroclus highly sympathetic characters.  Miller does not hew strictly to Homer, but her version does not veer far from other classical sources. Excellent novel. This encouraged me to pick up The Iliad again. I also read Barry Strauss’ book, The Trojan War: A New History, and Robert Graves’ The Greek Myths.

Natalie Haynes reviewing Emily Wilson for the BBC wrote,

Every generation finds The Iliad anew: it holds up a mirror to the times in which it is read, as well as the time in which it was created and the one in which it is set.

I appreciate that The Illiad provides a classical insight into the nature of war and violence, even today as we witness the ongoing attack on Ukraine by the fascist Russians and the bitter struggle between Hamas and Israel. Can we find inspiration or even answers in Homer? Perhaps, but I doubt the warring parties are reading it.

Generally, many of the classics can be mirrors when we allow them to be, assuming a new translation presents them in contemporary form. But are they, I wonder, still taught in high schools where they might have the biggest impact? Or have Horace, Seneca, Homer, Herodotus, Cicero, Euripides, Plutarch and the rest been shuffled to the stratosphere of higher learning where they might preach to the choir? it’s hard for the classics to provide much-needed mirrors or life lessons when they’re unknown. Johanna Hanink commented, “Today relatively few readers come across Homer at all, and fewer still do so before one of his poems appears on a syllabus.” I won’t digress further into the failure of modern education, however…

Translations often seem to come in waves, and from 2011 to 2015, there were four versions of The Iliad published by translators Anthony Verity, Barry Powell, Caroline Alexander, and Peter Green (I have the latter two) plus Emily Wilson’s this year. All have attempted to give it a contemporary tone, lift it up from the solid but fusty pre-Lattimore editions into popular acceptance, albeit from different perspectives. For a layperson like myself, it’s not easy to choose which edition will be the best read. Emily Wilson’s is the latest, and based on her edition of The Odyssey, and the subsequent reviews of her Iliad, it seems to be the most readable of them.

When I tried the Iliad again, I opened Caroline Alexander’s translation (2015). I got much further along, but still bogged down in places. Spoiler alert: because of my previous reading, I admit to skimming through a bit to try and get to its heart and the content previously unread. Not skipping, but not paying quite as much attention to the lists and speeches as I had previously.

I still don’t like it as much as Homer’s other epic, but I understand it better these days, in part because of Alexander’s translation and notes, but also my supplementary reading (read this comparison of translations to appreciate some of the complexities and subtleties of translations). That included Alexander’s previous book, The War That Killed Achilles: The True Story of Homer’s Illiad and the Trojan War (2009). Plus I re-read the introductions and end notes to all the versions I have.

Alexander’s translation into English is one of about 100 in the past 400 years, since George Chapman’s 1611 edition. As far as I know, Alexander’s is the first translation of The Iliad into English by a woman. I had been waiting for Emily Wilson’s translation to be published in a more affordable paperback edition because I found her edition of The Odyssey excellent.

In the meantime, I found Alexander’s edition online and decided to read it first. I’ll have to be content to read Wilson’s articles, reviews and interviews about her translation until the paperback comes out (readers will recall how much I enjoyed her version of The Odyssey). As Johanna Hanink wrote in Slate about Wilson:

Emily Wilson has not only produced fresh and limpid new translations of two foundational ancient poems. She has also given a new generation of readers the tools to approach Homer, with comfort and confidence, for the very first time. For those who knew the poems already, she lets Homer speak to them in a new voice. And though her Iliad may not prove enough to restore the poem to its preeminence, Homer himself reminds us that fortune’s twists and turns are out of human hands.

I’ve long known, as I expect you have, the skeleton of the story (or stories, since there are more than those in Homer) about the Trojan War. The “Trojan horse” has been a cultural and social meme for as long as I can recall, albeit not always for the right reason. All of it was part of our elementary or high school school education, I seem to recall; Greek myths and all that. Not sure if it is still taught these days, though. It’s been in movies and other stories, even a fairly stodgy movie despite a stellar cast including Brad Pitt (although the Director’s Cut version is, I’ve read, considerably better than the theatrical release… Another digression…)

Greeks, Trojans, a ten-year seige, Helen, Paris, Hector, Achilles, assorted gods and goddesses, a plague, treachery, weeks of battle and killing, and of course the wooden horse… but the latter is not in this epic.* The Illiad has a lot in it, but not the wooden horse. Not all of what we know of the Bronze Age siege came from Homer, though; most of the tale is woven through several poems and stories spread over centuries of telling (some fragmentary, some lost). The Iliad takes place over a few months in the ninth year of the siege, before the “Trojan horse” of Odysseus was used to finally break into the city.

Did it really happen that way? Archeologists and historians agree Troy was sacked and destroyed around 1300 BCE, but were Homer’s characters historical fact or legend? Were Greeks (aka Myceneans) involved? Is it history or allegory? And how much does it matter?

The Iliad isn’t really about the war or the siege any more than the movie Casablanca is about WWII. The war is the ever-present background, inescapable, sometimes overpowering, but it’s really about a handful of people involved in that war; their emotions, their fears, their grievances, their anger, their loves and families… there is no grand strategy, no D-Day style assault, just small, personal fights.

Perhaps because it’s such a short timeframe, there is only one well-documented example of guerilla warfare in Homer. Diomedes and Odysseus went out to spy on the Trojans at night. They captured Dolon, a Trojan scout; in order to save his life, he revealed details about his camp and reinforcements. Diomedes, however, then killed him. The two Greeks then snuck into the camp, where Diomedes killed 12 sleeping Thracians and their king, while Odysseus stole some of their horses. For a story replete with declarations of honour and valour, this chapter seems sordidly out of place.

Emily Wilson was asked in a recent BBC interview why we have to keep discovering Homer. Wilson responded,

…a retranslation is an invitation for a rereading at a different cultural moment and with different literary and aesthetic and cultural sensibilities. The questions that Homeric scholars ask of the original poems now are different from what people were getting out of the Homeric poems in the early 20th Century…
The Iliad [is] a poem partly about climate disaster, or about celebrity culture. All these things that we’re preoccupied by, like, ‘what’s the relationship between humans and technology?’ The Iliad is all about that. And of course, The Iliad has different things to say from what we might say about any of those things, and about ‘why is everyone so angry all the time?’ because that’s the case in our culture, but it’s also the case in The Iliad.

That’s in large part true of other classics as well: we read them through the lens of ourselves; our own cultures, situations, feelings, and education. Well, except CONservatives, who prefer to ban books rather than read them. Aside from them, every generation deserves a new translation of the classics to suit today’s moods, views, and politics. Not just Homer, of course.

As Wilson says in the interview, The Iliad is also about masculinity, often in a violent, confrontational, and toxic display (which, you’d think, CONservatives would appreciate). Wilson says the language suggests “an excess of masculinity, and the poem is exploring, ‘can you be too much of a man?'” Homer’s women are often powerless to change the course of events, pawns in the games men play. Seems like perfect fare for today’s CONservatives, eh? That is, if they actually read books.

Seque: Another book I recently read is Pandora’s Jar: Women in the Greek Myths, by Natalie Haynes, who “puts the female characters on equal footing with their menfolk. The result is a vivid and powerful account of the deeds — and misdeeds — of Hera, Aphrodite, Athene, and Circe.” While not specific to The Iliad, it does provide a lot of insight into Helen and some of the goddesses. And it’s both an entertaining and well-informed read.

But what struck me most in The Iliad was not all the smiting and smoting in it, but rather a singular scene where Priam, king of Troy, sneaks into the Greek camp to visit Achilles, alone in his tent.

Background: Hector, King Priam’s son, killed Patroclus, Achilles’ best friend (and possibly lover). Although he had vowed not to fight until Agamemnon apologized for a petty slight, Achilles — the “best” of the Greeks and a formidable killing machine — had recently killed Hector in revenge, and desecrated the body by dragging it behind his chariot around the city’s walls. Achilles remained in a rage over Patroclus’ death, and wouldn’t give up the body.

Got that? Okay, maybe you should read the epic, too.

After several days while Achilles continues to abuse his son’s body, Priam sneaks into the Greek camp, risking his life to do so. He begs Achilles to return his son for a proper burial. Achilles hesitates, tamps down his rage, then listens. And that, at least for a brief moment, changes everything.

The scene with Achilles and Priam has Achilles breaking out of the uber-masculine-kill-’em-all mode and actually showing some empathy. And that matters. A lot. Although it is the antithesis of CONservative values: to feel for someone else, without empathy, we are not fully human. The violent, unrepentant Achilles is reminded of his own father’s fears and anxiety for his son, and relents. It is easily the most moving moment in an epic thick with violence and killing. Achilles apologizes to his dead friend Patroclus for dishonoring him by returning Hector’s body. But yet he lets Priam take it.

For me, that was the whole point of the lengthy poem: to expose the vulnerability, the caring being buried inside Achilles. It redeems him, albeit briefly, and we get to see him as a human, not simply a killing machine. Especially poignant is that Achilles knows then that he will soon die: a prophecy said he would die shortly after Hector’s death. But he couldn’t help himself from killing him. His death will be written elsewhere. But knowledge of his impending death makes Achiiles’ moment with Priam more powerful and emotional.

And that was, for me, the epiphany: after almost a decade of brutal war spent slaughtering opponents, Achilles retained enough of his humanity to respond with empathy to Priam. Homer took us down this long, dark, often dismal, bloody path to show us this moment. The epic ends with Hector’s funeral and Troy’s mourning, the war unresolved, the fighting soon to resume.

I eagerly await Wilson’s version (in paperback).

~~~~~

* The story is in other works. From Interesting Literature:

The fullest account of the Trojan Horse found in an ancient text is in a Greek epic poem. No, not Homer’s Iliad, nor yet the Odyssey, but instead the Posthomerica (i.e. ‘after Homer’), an epic poem by Quintus of Smyrna.

And from Ancient Literature:

The story of the Trojan horse is not actually included in The Iliad. The event is referred to in Homer’s Odyssey, but the main source for the story is Virgil’s Aeneid.

And also:

The Trojan horse is briefly mentioned in the seventh book of the Odyssey epic. The passage says that the hero Odysseus and a group of Greek soldiers hid in the Trojan horse in order to launch a surprise attack on the Trojans.

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