WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.700 align:middle line:84% The poem follows the woman in her grief. 00:00:02.700 --> 00:00:05.670 align:middle line:84% So we know-- so I'll just read the whole passage now. 00:00:05.670 --> 00:00:08.490 align:middle line:84% Odysseus was overcome as he heard him 00:00:08.490 --> 00:00:10.380 align:middle line:84% and his cheeks were wet with tears. 00:00:10.380 --> 00:00:12.960 align:middle line:84% He wept as a woman weeps when she throws herself 00:00:12.960 --> 00:00:14.940 align:middle line:84% on the body of her husband who has fallen 00:00:14.940 --> 00:00:18.480 align:middle line:84% before his own city and people, fighting bravely in defense 00:00:18.480 --> 00:00:20.560 align:middle line:90% of his home and children. 00:00:20.560 --> 00:00:23.920 align:middle line:84% She screams aloud and flings her arms about him 00:00:23.920 --> 00:00:26.200 align:middle line:84% as he lies gasping for breath and dying. 00:00:26.200 --> 00:00:30.070 align:middle line:84% But her enemies beat her from behind about the back 00:00:30.070 --> 00:00:33.280 align:middle line:84% and shoulders and carry her off into slavery 00:00:33.280 --> 00:00:35.560 align:middle line:90% to a life of labor and sorrow. 00:00:35.560 --> 00:00:37.900 align:middle line:84% And the beauty fades from her cheeks. 00:00:37.900 --> 00:00:41.650 align:middle line:84% Even so piteously did Odysseus weep. 00:00:41.650 --> 00:00:43.330 align:middle line:84% That's an amazing image, I think. 00:00:43.330 --> 00:00:45.490 align:middle line:84% And it's because we're reading usually 00:00:45.490 --> 00:00:48.610 align:middle line:84% quite fast, we don't always, always 00:00:48.610 --> 00:00:50.380 align:middle line:90% realize how powerful it is. 00:00:50.380 --> 00:00:53.200 align:middle line:84% And only Alcinous, the king of the Phaeacians 00:00:53.200 --> 00:00:56.680 align:middle line:84% hears this stifled lamentation and infers 00:00:56.680 --> 00:01:01.360 align:middle line:84% that this might well be the subject of the song itself. 00:01:01.360 --> 00:01:03.820 align:middle line:84% The simile isn't content simply to illuminate 00:01:03.820 --> 00:01:06.650 align:middle line:84% its immediate visual and emotional context. 00:01:06.650 --> 00:01:09.610 align:middle line:84% The woman Odysseus is likened to reminds 00:01:09.610 --> 00:01:13.300 align:middle line:84% us of one particular woman amongst all the Trojan women we 00:01:13.300 --> 00:01:16.540 align:middle line:84% have encountered, and that is of course Andromache, 00:01:16.540 --> 00:01:19.950 align:middle line:90% the widow of Hector. 00:01:19.950 --> 00:01:21.520 align:middle line:90% So it's quite amazing. 00:01:21.520 --> 00:01:25.470 align:middle line:84% You get the Greek hero compared to the widow of the Trojan 00:01:25.470 --> 00:01:27.270 align:middle line:90% hero. 00:01:27.270 --> 00:01:29.550 align:middle line:84% She laments, but her lamentations 00:01:29.550 --> 00:01:33.240 align:middle line:84% are interrupted by her captors who herd her and her sister 00:01:33.240 --> 00:01:35.490 align:middle line:90% into captivity and slavery. 00:01:35.490 --> 00:01:37.450 align:middle line:84% This we know from other contexts. 00:01:37.450 --> 00:01:40.860 align:middle line:84% So the poet fades out the simile with a simple finality. 00:01:40.860 --> 00:01:44.100 align:middle line:84% And the beauty fades from her cheeks, a cruder translation, 00:01:44.100 --> 00:01:47.340 align:middle line:84% I believe it's Fagles, says, while with most pitiful grief, 00:01:47.340 --> 00:01:49.650 align:middle line:90% her cheeks are wasted. 00:01:49.650 --> 00:01:51.150 align:middle line:84% The metaphor, it's worth noting, is 00:01:51.150 --> 00:01:52.800 align:middle line:90% conducted in the present tense. 00:01:52.800 --> 00:01:55.890 align:middle line:84% The action is in the past, but the metaphor is in the present. 00:01:55.890 --> 00:01:58.560 align:middle line:84% And that often happens with Homer, 00:01:58.560 --> 00:02:03.460 align:middle line:84% that he brings the metaphorical element up pretty close. 00:02:03.460 --> 00:02:07.520 align:middle line:84% The impact of Demodocus's poem on Odysseus is to make it real, 00:02:07.520 --> 00:02:11.030 align:middle line:84% to make his own experience real, to bring it back to life. 00:02:11.030 --> 00:02:14.830 align:middle line:84% And no man is capable of being unmoved 00:02:14.830 --> 00:02:18.490 align:middle line:90% by the sound of this fate. 00:02:18.490 --> 00:02:22.060 align:middle line:84% And to be unmoved in a sense in the way 00:02:22.060 --> 00:02:24.910 align:middle line:90% that Andromache was moved. 00:02:24.910 --> 00:02:27.970 align:middle line:84% The experience belongs not to the victorious Greeks, 00:02:27.970 --> 00:02:29.320 align:middle line:90% but to their foes. 00:02:29.320 --> 00:02:33.370 align:middle line:84% And yet after victory they can feel for and more importantly 00:02:33.370 --> 00:02:37.680 align:middle line:90% feel with their victims. 00:02:37.680 --> 00:02:40.680 align:middle line:84% This is also I think the power of the Homeric poems 00:02:40.680 --> 00:02:44.310 align:middle line:84% themselves, that they are about wars and victors 00:02:44.310 --> 00:02:48.180 align:middle line:84% but the victims have a palpable, and at some points, 00:02:48.180 --> 00:02:51.750 align:middle line:84% an equal reality with the victors. 00:02:51.750 --> 00:02:55.050 align:middle line:84% Though the insistently male orientation of "The Iliad" 00:02:55.050 --> 00:02:57.750 align:middle line:84% has been noted before, there is even 00:02:57.750 --> 00:03:01.140 align:middle line:84% in that poem, a strong sense that in the world that 00:03:01.140 --> 00:03:04.350 align:middle line:84% underpins the epic deeds of the main story 00:03:04.350 --> 00:03:08.010 align:middle line:84% there exist people whose heroism on a different scale merits 00:03:08.010 --> 00:03:10.380 align:middle line:84% inclusion if only by way of simile. 00:03:10.380 --> 00:03:12.780 align:middle line:84% And so we come across another really strange simile 00:03:12.780 --> 00:03:15.810 align:middle line:84% in "The Iliad" in Book 12, and again using 00:03:15.810 --> 00:03:18.270 align:middle line:90% Samuel Butler's version. 00:03:18.270 --> 00:03:21.960 align:middle line:84% "Even so, the Trojans could not route the Achaeans, 00:03:21.960 --> 00:03:23.700 align:middle line:90% who still held on. 00:03:23.700 --> 00:03:26.520 align:middle line:84% And as some honest, hardworking woman 00:03:26.520 --> 00:03:29.400 align:middle line:84% weighs wool in her balance and sees 00:03:29.400 --> 00:03:31.830 align:middle line:84% that the scales be true, for she would 00:03:31.830 --> 00:03:35.910 align:middle line:84% gain some pitiful earnings for her little ones, 00:03:35.910 --> 00:03:38.880 align:middle line:84% even so was the fight balanced evenly between them 00:03:38.880 --> 00:03:42.000 align:middle line:84% till the time came when Zeus gave the greater 00:03:42.000 --> 00:03:45.270 align:middle line:84% glory to Hector son of Priam, who 00:03:45.270 --> 00:03:49.530 align:middle line:84% was first to spring towards the wall of the Achaeans." 00:03:49.530 --> 00:03:53.520 align:middle line:84% What, we may ask, once this startling image has 00:03:53.520 --> 00:03:57.660 align:middle line:84% had its incongruous impact, is this spinner, 00:03:57.660 --> 00:04:01.110 align:middle line:84% a mother with hungry children, perhaps a widow since she's 00:04:01.110 --> 00:04:04.560 align:middle line:84% the sole provider, or a woman whose husband is away at war, 00:04:04.560 --> 00:04:06.930 align:middle line:84% what is she doing, this Penelope who 00:04:06.930 --> 00:04:09.780 align:middle line:84% weaves and weaves in the thick of battle, 00:04:09.780 --> 00:04:12.120 align:middle line:84% not only with the heroes but with Zeus 00:04:12.120 --> 00:04:16.410 align:middle line:84% himself, to whom she ultimately is the point of comparison? 00:04:16.410 --> 00:04:19.410 align:middle line:84% Is she another one of the bereaved? 00:04:19.410 --> 00:04:22.410 align:middle line:84% As we feel that in a sense Odysseus 00:04:22.410 --> 00:04:23.850 align:middle line:90% is in that earlier passage. 00:04:23.850 --> 00:04:27.133 align:middle line:84% In Book 8, we have already seen Zeus with his golden scales. 00:04:27.133 --> 00:04:28.800 align:middle line:84% And the scales come time and time again. 00:04:28.800 --> 00:04:31.080 align:middle line:84% But these are the scales we remember. 00:04:31.080 --> 00:04:34.190 align:middle line:84% Even heroes can be even handed in describing their foes. 00:04:34.190 --> 00:04:35.940 align:middle line:84% And again, this even handedness isn't only 00:04:35.940 --> 00:04:38.640 align:middle line:84% Homer's, it belongs to the heroes themselves. 00:04:38.640 --> 00:04:40.320 align:middle line:84% Standing on the battlements Priam 00:04:40.320 --> 00:04:43.050 align:middle line:84% notes how much larger the gathering of men 00:04:43.050 --> 00:04:47.100 align:middle line:84% is than when he and his armies fought in Phrygia, as allies 00:04:47.100 --> 00:04:48.450 align:middle line:90% against the Amazons. 00:04:48.450 --> 00:04:52.590 align:middle line:84% He spots Odysseus and describes him as a fleecy and ram-like 00:04:52.590 --> 00:04:55.260 align:middle line:90% man, keeping his ewes in line. 00:04:55.260 --> 00:04:57.840 align:middle line:90% Again, really weird image. 00:04:57.840 --> 00:05:00.810 align:middle line:90% So he's like a ram. 00:05:00.810 --> 00:05:03.030 align:middle line:84% Antenor, another character on the wall, 00:05:03.030 --> 00:05:06.030 align:middle line:84% interposes and he recalls how Odysseus and Menelaus 00:05:06.030 --> 00:05:08.850 align:middle line:84% came to discuss Helen with Priam before the war began. 00:05:08.850 --> 00:05:11.040 align:middle line:84% And he recalls how well they spoke, 00:05:11.040 --> 00:05:15.690 align:middle line:84% first Menelaus, and then Odysseus who seems slow 00:05:15.690 --> 00:05:19.050 align:middle line:84% witted to begin with but then became eloquent and dazzled 00:05:19.050 --> 00:05:20.250 align:middle line:90% and persuaded them. 00:05:20.250 --> 00:05:26.100 align:middle line:84% So it is a powerful image of impartiality 00:05:26.100 --> 00:05:29.040 align:middle line:90% that we come away with. 00:05:29.040 --> 00:05:33.510 align:middle line:84% What do I imagine we should learn from "The Iliad" 00:05:33.510 --> 00:05:37.650 align:middle line:84% as modern readers, as modern poets? 00:05:37.650 --> 00:05:39.990 align:middle line:84% What can we learn from such an old poem, which 00:05:39.990 --> 00:05:43.440 align:middle line:84% is pre-dramatic, pre-psychological, 00:05:43.440 --> 00:05:48.980 align:middle line:84% which in many ways is alien to us 00:05:48.980 --> 00:05:51.140 align:middle line:84% even though because of familiarity we 00:05:51.140 --> 00:05:53.160 align:middle line:90% think we understand it. 00:05:53.160 --> 00:05:55.820 align:middle line:84% The first thing that we should I think dwell on 00:05:55.820 --> 00:05:58.550 align:middle line:84% is the fact that the poem was probably not 00:05:58.550 --> 00:06:00.020 align:middle line:90% produced by an individual poet. 00:06:00.020 --> 00:06:03.980 align:middle line:84% It was produced as you're aware, probably 00:06:03.980 --> 00:06:07.370 align:middle line:84% as part of an oral tradition, a series of poets, 00:06:07.370 --> 00:06:10.550 align:middle line:90% singer poets, composed it. 00:06:10.550 --> 00:06:16.760 align:middle line:84% It was then transmitted as a text by performers. 00:06:16.760 --> 00:06:19.580 align:middle line:84% It was formulaic, oral formulaic, 00:06:19.580 --> 00:06:23.990 align:middle line:84% and it was possible for people to remember great chunks of it 00:06:23.990 --> 00:06:26.700 align:middle line:90% and to repeat it from memory. 00:06:26.700 --> 00:06:28.790 align:middle line:84% This is not a particularly unusual feature 00:06:28.790 --> 00:06:30.050 align:middle line:90% of early poetry. 00:06:30.050 --> 00:06:32.510 align:middle line:90% It happened with Nahuatl poetry. 00:06:32.510 --> 00:06:35.330 align:middle line:84% It happens with old English poetry, 00:06:35.330 --> 00:06:36.890 align:middle line:84% with Beowulf and the other poems. 00:06:36.890 --> 00:06:38.960 align:middle line:90% So it is from an oral tradition. 00:06:38.960 --> 00:06:41.540 align:middle line:84% But when we reflect on this, what is an oral tradition? 00:06:41.540 --> 00:06:45.020 align:middle line:84% What is a tradition where we cannot identify an author, 00:06:45.020 --> 00:06:48.590 align:middle line:84% where there is no one at whose door we can lay responsibility 00:06:48.590 --> 00:06:49.640 align:middle line:90% for the poem? 00:06:49.640 --> 00:06:52.703 align:middle line:90% There is no I in the Iliad. 00:06:52.703 --> 00:06:53.870 align:middle line:90% There is occasionally a you. 00:06:53.870 --> 00:06:55.988 align:middle line:84% Strangely enough, the poet occasionally 00:06:55.988 --> 00:06:57.530 align:middle line:84% addresses for example with Patroclus, 00:06:57.530 --> 00:07:00.110 align:middle line:84% several times he says you did this, you did that. 00:07:00.110 --> 00:07:02.720 align:middle line:90% But very seldom does he-- 00:07:02.720 --> 00:07:05.600 align:middle line:84% but no at no point does he speak as an I. 00:07:05.600 --> 00:07:07.100 align:middle line:84% Well, at the very beginning he does. 00:07:07.100 --> 00:07:10.160 align:middle line:84% But it's a kind of generalized I. 00:07:10.160 --> 00:07:12.050 align:middle line:84% So in a sense it's an authorless poem. 00:07:12.050 --> 00:07:12.960 align:middle line:90% It is a spoken poem. 00:07:12.960 --> 00:07:15.620 align:middle line:84% It's a poem which belongs to a tradition. 00:07:15.620 --> 00:07:17.990 align:middle line:90% It belongs to a Greek tradition. 00:07:17.990 --> 00:07:20.510 align:middle line:84% But it's about a period in which the Greeks themselves 00:07:20.510 --> 00:07:24.600 align:middle line:90% were not particularly cultured. 00:07:24.600 --> 00:07:27.930 align:middle line:84% It's about a period when the Greeks were piratical 00:07:27.930 --> 00:07:29.520 align:middle line:90% if you like, predatory. 00:07:29.520 --> 00:07:34.470 align:middle line:84% When the East, Troy and the cities of the East, 00:07:34.470 --> 00:07:37.440 align:middle line:84% were prosperous and settled and rich. 00:07:37.440 --> 00:07:42.660 align:middle line:84% And people came with excuses of various kinds to prey on them. 00:07:42.660 --> 00:07:46.080 align:middle line:84% So it was a period when the Greeks were not 00:07:46.080 --> 00:07:50.108 align:middle line:84% particularly distinguished for culture if you like. 00:07:50.108 --> 00:07:51.900 align:middle line:84% It's also a period when the Greeks were not 00:07:51.900 --> 00:07:53.690 align:middle line:90% particularly united. 00:07:53.690 --> 00:07:55.440 align:middle line:84% When they come to Troy they have a culture 00:07:55.440 --> 00:07:57.900 align:middle line:84% which is remarkably united, with allies coming to fight 00:07:57.900 --> 00:07:59.590 align:middle line:90% with it to defend it and so on. 00:07:59.590 --> 00:08:02.790 align:middle line:84% But the Greeks themselves come from a variety 00:08:02.790 --> 00:08:05.610 align:middle line:84% of different places, a variety of different backgrounds. 00:08:05.610 --> 00:08:07.920 align:middle line:84% And as Achilles makes quite clear, 00:08:07.920 --> 00:08:09.360 align:middle line:84% he is in a position where he could 00:08:09.360 --> 00:08:12.600 align:middle line:90% be free to go home at any time. 00:08:12.600 --> 00:08:14.100 align:middle line:84% Whereas the Trojans have no choice. 00:08:14.100 --> 00:08:16.440 align:middle line:84% The Trojans are compelled to defend themselves. 00:08:16.440 --> 00:08:18.190 align:middle line:90% The Greeks are there by choice. 00:08:18.190 --> 00:08:20.100 align:middle line:84% So there's this complete difference 00:08:20.100 --> 00:08:23.100 align:middle line:84% of cultures, this complete difference of motive, 00:08:23.100 --> 00:08:25.110 align:middle line:90% if you like. 00:08:25.110 --> 00:08:30.070 align:middle line:84% The power of this impersonal writing, 00:08:30.070 --> 00:08:35.080 align:middle line:84% which fully as it were, dignifies the Trojans 00:08:35.080 --> 00:08:40.840 align:middle line:84% and to some extent the Greeks is achieved by various means. 00:08:40.840 --> 00:08:43.960 align:middle line:84% First of all, there is, with the absence 00:08:43.960 --> 00:08:46.990 align:middle line:84% of a narrative voice as such, the characters 00:08:46.990 --> 00:08:48.800 align:middle line:84% themselves speak often in their own voices. 00:08:48.800 --> 00:08:51.850 align:middle line:84% There's a great deal of speaking going on in the poem, 00:08:51.850 --> 00:08:54.220 align:middle line:84% speaking which reveals character, 00:08:54.220 --> 00:08:56.020 align:middle line:90% speaking which reveals-- 00:08:56.020 --> 00:08:59.320 align:middle line:84% which is pre-dramatic but it can be quite dramatic. 00:08:59.320 --> 00:09:01.840 align:middle line:84% And characters are known through their speech. 00:09:01.840 --> 00:09:04.150 align:middle line:84% That reminds us of Ben Jonson's famous statement: 00:09:04.150 --> 00:09:05.290 align:middle line:90% speak that I may see thee. 00:09:05.290 --> 00:09:07.000 align:middle line:84% They become visible through the ways in which they speak. 00:09:07.000 --> 00:09:09.125 align:middle line:84% And each of them is differentiated in their speech, 00:09:09.125 --> 00:09:11.938 align:middle line:84% differentiated in terms of the length of the length 00:09:11.938 --> 00:09:14.230 align:middle line:84% the phrase, the use of meter, even in terms of diction. 00:09:14.230 --> 00:09:16.510 align:middle line:84% So there is a great deal of differentiation of character. 00:09:16.510 --> 00:09:18.698 align:middle line:84% There is also a sense in which nothing is described. 00:09:18.698 --> 00:09:19.490 align:middle line:90% Things are enacted. 00:09:19.490 --> 00:09:21.782 align:middle line:84% It's a language of enactment rather than a description. 00:09:21.782 --> 00:09:23.800 align:middle line:84% There are lots of formulas in the writing. 00:09:23.800 --> 00:09:26.410 align:middle line:84% As we know, there are lots of lines which are repeated. 00:09:26.410 --> 00:09:27.100 align:middle line:84% There are lots of lines which are 00:09:27.100 --> 00:09:28.600 align:middle line:84% repeated between "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey." 00:09:28.600 --> 00:09:30.190 align:middle line:84% So there are oral formulas which make 00:09:30.190 --> 00:09:31.360 align:middle line:90% the language more memorable. 00:09:31.360 --> 00:09:33.190 align:middle line:90% There are lots of epithets. 00:09:33.190 --> 00:09:36.370 align:middle line:84% So people are called by a series of adjectives and a noun, 00:09:36.370 --> 00:09:38.740 align:middle line:84% which describe them, which evoke them in a way, which 00:09:38.740 --> 00:09:39.918 align:middle line:90% is not always appropriate. 00:09:39.918 --> 00:09:41.210 align:middle line:90% And there are the epic similes. 00:09:41.210 --> 00:09:42.460 align:middle line:90% We just looked at two of them. 00:09:42.460 --> 00:09:46.690 align:middle line:84% We've looked at the image of Odysseus 00:09:46.690 --> 00:09:51.815 align:middle line:84% as a woman as a weigher, of a woman with the scales. 00:09:51.815 --> 00:09:54.190 align:middle line:84% So I think these are all ways in which the characters are 00:09:54.190 --> 00:09:54.690 align:middle line:90% presented. 00:09:54.690 --> 00:09:56.920 align:middle line:84% But none of them is presented in a psychological way. 00:09:56.920 --> 00:09:58.600 align:middle line:84% I think that we strain, I think if we 00:09:58.600 --> 00:10:00.580 align:middle line:84% try to identify a psychology in Achilles, 00:10:00.580 --> 00:10:02.320 align:middle line:84% though he has very strong motives, 00:10:02.320 --> 00:10:04.510 align:middle line:84% though he has very strong actions, 00:10:04.510 --> 00:10:08.190 align:middle line:84% I think we would be straining it to say, he has a psychology. 00:10:08.190 --> 00:10:10.440 align:middle line:84% The poem is also in a sense, though pre-dramatic, it's 00:10:10.440 --> 00:10:10.840 align:middle line:90% very staged. 00:10:10.840 --> 00:10:12.250 align:middle line:84% There are four areas of activity. 00:10:12.250 --> 00:10:14.020 align:middle line:84% At the top of everything else, there's Olympus with the gods, 00:10:14.020 --> 00:10:15.700 align:middle line:84% with a very limited cast of gods. 00:10:15.700 --> 00:10:18.008 align:middle line:84% And then there is the Greek camp with the ships 00:10:18.008 --> 00:10:20.050 align:middle line:84% as it were, fringing it the area before the ships 00:10:20.050 --> 00:10:20.723 align:middle line:90% and battlements. 00:10:20.723 --> 00:10:23.140 align:middle line:84% And there is the wide plain between the camp of the Greeks 00:10:23.140 --> 00:10:25.240 align:middle line:84% and Troy, between the two rivers. 00:10:25.240 --> 00:10:26.860 align:middle line:90% And that is the plain of battle. 00:10:26.860 --> 00:10:27.920 align:middle line:84% And the rivers themselves of course, 00:10:27.920 --> 00:10:29.295 align:middle line:84% are quite clearly differentiated. 00:10:29.295 --> 00:10:30.940 align:middle line:90% And then there's Troy itself. 00:10:30.940 --> 00:10:32.690 align:middle line:84% Behind Troy, there are mountains again. 00:10:32.690 --> 00:10:34.460 align:middle line:84% These are where the gods act as well. 00:10:34.460 --> 00:10:35.350 align:middle line:90% So these are the four zones. 00:10:35.350 --> 00:10:36.700 align:middle line:84% There's the top of the amphitheater 00:10:36.700 --> 00:10:37.300 align:middle line:90% where the gods watch. 00:10:37.300 --> 00:10:38.717 align:middle line:84% And we watch with them in a sense. 00:10:38.717 --> 00:10:43.940 align:middle line:84% Then the Troy and the camp and the battle place. 00:10:43.940 --> 00:10:45.670 align:middle line:90% So this is the stage area. 00:10:45.670 --> 00:10:48.220 align:middle line:84% And then there is a very clear time organization. 00:10:48.220 --> 00:10:51.730 align:middle line:84% And that I think is one of the miracles of "The Iliad" 00:10:51.730 --> 00:10:53.920 align:middle line:84% is the way in which it concentrates in time. 00:10:53.920 --> 00:10:56.770 align:middle line:84% It chooses the few days in the 10 years of the Trojan War 00:10:56.770 --> 00:10:58.450 align:middle line:84% when the Trojans for a very brief moment 00:10:58.450 --> 00:11:00.350 align:middle line:90% had the better of things. 00:11:00.350 --> 00:11:02.320 align:middle line:84% And so it's again, it's odd that a Greek poem 00:11:02.320 --> 00:11:05.570 align:middle line:84% should choose the time when the Trojans almost, as it were, 00:11:05.570 --> 00:11:06.820 align:middle line:90% are victorious. 00:11:06.820 --> 00:11:08.980 align:middle line:84% It's not the most dramatic or necessarily 00:11:08.980 --> 00:11:12.010 align:middle line:84% the most crux-y if you like of the days, 00:11:12.010 --> 00:11:13.390 align:middle line:90% but there we are there. 00:11:13.390 --> 00:11:16.430 align:middle line:84% There are 21 days that pass in the opening scenes. 00:11:16.430 --> 00:11:19.000 align:middle line:84% Another 21 days pass in the closing scenes. 00:11:19.000 --> 00:11:22.930 align:middle line:84% But most of what happens from Book 2 to Book 23 00:11:22.930 --> 00:11:25.360 align:middle line:84% takes place during the four days, four days 00:11:25.360 --> 00:11:26.950 align:middle line:90% and three nights. 00:11:26.950 --> 00:11:30.520 align:middle line:84% The central day dawns in Book 11. 00:11:30.520 --> 00:11:32.622 align:middle line:90% And it sets in Book 18. 00:11:32.622 --> 00:11:34.330 align:middle line:84% So there's quite a long chunk of the poem 00:11:34.330 --> 00:11:37.990 align:middle line:84% is in one day, almost a third of the whole poem. 00:11:37.990 --> 00:11:43.870 align:middle line:84% So we start in kind of fast motion then time slows down. 00:11:43.870 --> 00:11:46.810 align:middle line:84% And we get an increase of activity 00:11:46.810 --> 00:11:49.990 align:middle line:84% and then time speeds up again towards the end. 00:11:49.990 --> 00:11:52.570 align:middle line:84% The opening books give us information obliquely 00:11:52.570 --> 00:11:54.280 align:middle line:90% but with quite a lot of power. 00:11:54.280 --> 00:11:57.460 align:middle line:84% And the ending point us towards inevitable defeat, 00:11:57.460 --> 00:12:00.750 align:middle line:90% the inevitable Trojan defeat. 00:12:00.750 --> 00:12:04.585 align:middle line:84% So can we say that Homer sides with Troy? 00:12:04.585 --> 00:12:06.210 align:middle line:84% Because it's on his side of the Aegean, 00:12:06.210 --> 00:12:07.585 align:middle line:84% assuming that Homer ever existed. 00:12:07.585 --> 00:12:11.880 align:middle line:84% He's always supposed to come from Asia Minor. 00:12:11.880 --> 00:12:14.550 align:middle line:84% Or can we-- or is it wrong to talk in these terms? 00:12:14.550 --> 00:12:16.995 align:middle line:84% I suggest that it's wrong to talk in these terms. 00:12:16.995 --> 00:12:19.560 align:middle line:90% 00:12:19.560 --> 00:12:24.800 align:middle line:90% The poem begins with Achilles. 00:12:24.800 --> 00:12:26.660 align:middle line:84% It ends with the death of Hector. 00:12:26.660 --> 00:12:29.360 align:middle line:84% It begins with the ransoming of a child, Chryseis, 00:12:29.360 --> 00:12:32.330 align:middle line:84% and it ends with the ransoming of a child's body, 00:12:32.330 --> 00:12:34.550 align:middle line:90% Priam ransoming Hector's body. 00:12:34.550 --> 00:12:36.530 align:middle line:84% But again I don't think that in any way 00:12:36.530 --> 00:12:39.170 align:middle line:84% we are right to talk about the poem taking sides. 00:12:39.170 --> 00:12:43.810 align:middle line:84% It is presentation, not representation. 00:12:43.810 --> 00:12:47.200 align:middle line:84% Troy is, as I've said before a handsome and a civilized city 00:12:47.200 --> 00:12:49.690 align:middle line:90% between two rivers. 00:12:49.690 --> 00:12:52.840 align:middle line:84% Epithets describing it include with broad streets, 00:12:52.840 --> 00:12:56.710 align:middle line:90% horse pasturing, and marble. 00:12:56.710 --> 00:13:01.270 align:middle line:84% By contrast, the Greek camp is temporary, without a history, 00:13:01.270 --> 00:13:03.580 align:middle line:90% without elegance. 00:13:03.580 --> 00:13:07.450 align:middle line:84% Though because time has passed, some of the defenses 00:13:07.450 --> 00:13:08.770 align:middle line:90% are quite substantial. 00:13:08.770 --> 00:13:12.430 align:middle line:84% They're built and breached during the course of the poem. 00:13:12.430 --> 00:13:15.160 align:middle line:84% The bivouacs seemed to be mapped in Homer's mind. 00:13:15.160 --> 00:13:18.880 align:middle line:84% And with Ajax at one end and Achilles at the other 00:13:18.880 --> 00:13:20.950 align:middle line:84% and with intelligence and as it were, 00:13:20.950 --> 00:13:23.530 align:middle line:84% vanity at one end, and a kind of stupidity at the other. 00:13:23.530 --> 00:13:24.970 align:middle line:90% They have temporary women. 00:13:24.970 --> 00:13:27.730 align:middle line:84% And they're flanked by the ships, which remind us 00:13:27.730 --> 00:13:29.140 align:middle line:90% of arrival and departure. 00:13:29.140 --> 00:13:31.510 align:middle line:84% There's a lot of stylization going on here is really 00:13:31.510 --> 00:13:34.580 align:middle line:90% what I'm trying to say. 00:13:34.580 --> 00:13:36.970 align:middle line:84% The big difference, I think, between the two 00:13:36.970 --> 00:13:40.450 align:middle line:84% is one of civilization and lack of civilization. 00:13:40.450 --> 00:13:43.810 align:middle line:84% And the big difference between Olympus and the military camps 00:13:43.810 --> 00:13:46.810 align:middle line:84% is the restriction as it were, of the numbers of people 00:13:46.810 --> 00:13:49.420 align:middle line:84% involved and of course, the fact that the Olympians, apart 00:13:49.420 --> 00:13:53.290 align:middle line:84% from having quite a jolly sexual life, which goes on 00:13:53.290 --> 00:13:57.760 align:middle line:84% through the poem, are also above the above the fray and only 00:13:57.760 --> 00:13:59.950 align:middle line:84% just occasionally get involved in battle itself. 00:13:59.950 --> 00:14:03.220 align:middle line:90% 00:14:03.220 --> 00:14:07.310 align:middle line:84% And what makes the killings tolerable and intolerable 00:14:07.310 --> 00:14:11.720 align:middle line:84% I think is the way in which the poet humanizes the victims. 00:14:11.720 --> 00:14:13.940 align:middle line:84% They're in every respect better than their victors, 00:14:13.940 --> 00:14:19.160 align:middle line:84% except that they are less powerful and less strong. 00:14:19.160 --> 00:14:21.620 align:middle line:84% Because I'm rather overrunning, I just I 00:14:21.620 --> 00:14:27.590 align:middle line:84% wanted to end with the most Homeric of the modern poets 00:14:27.590 --> 00:14:28.200 align:middle line:90% if you like. 00:14:28.200 --> 00:14:30.770 align:middle line:84% And that is a poet called Edwin Muir, 00:14:30.770 --> 00:14:36.680 align:middle line:84% who wrote a very brilliant poem about the death of Hector. 00:14:36.680 --> 00:14:39.860 align:middle line:84% It's called "The Ballad of Hector in Hades." 00:14:39.860 --> 00:14:42.060 align:middle line:84% And I'd just like to look at that. 00:14:42.060 --> 00:14:48.960 align:middle line:84% And just as a way of, in a sense, showing the kind of debt 00:14:48.960 --> 00:14:52.980 align:middle line:84% that we can owe to Homer if we take the lessons of his poems 00:14:52.980 --> 00:14:54.390 align:middle line:90% seriously. 00:14:54.390 --> 00:15:00.920 align:middle line:84% And the lessons have to do with withdrawing the subjectivity, 00:15:00.920 --> 00:15:03.380 align:middle line:84% our subjectivity as writers sufficiently from the poem 00:15:03.380 --> 00:15:06.350 align:middle line:84% to allow the reader to invest in them, 00:15:06.350 --> 00:15:08.570 align:middle line:84% the creation of, if you like, templates 00:15:08.570 --> 00:15:11.510 align:middle line:90% rather than of strong images. 00:15:11.510 --> 00:15:13.850 align:middle line:84% And I think that what Homer teaches, 00:15:13.850 --> 00:15:17.053 align:middle line:84% I wish I'd had slightly more time to develop it. 00:15:17.053 --> 00:15:18.470 align:middle line:84% I think that what Homer teaches us 00:15:18.470 --> 00:15:22.070 align:middle line:84% is that our prejudices in contemporary poetry in favor 00:15:22.070 --> 00:15:26.780 align:middle line:84% of a voice and image can be as restricting 00:15:26.780 --> 00:15:31.810 align:middle line:84% if you like as the decorums of 18th century approaches. 00:15:31.810 --> 00:15:35.140 align:middle line:84% There are rules which we obey without necessarily reflecting 00:15:35.140 --> 00:15:36.040 align:middle line:90% on them. 00:15:36.040 --> 00:15:38.900 align:middle line:84% And we can come back to that in questions if we wish. 00:15:38.900 --> 00:15:41.320 align:middle line:84% So this is the Edwin Muir's poem "The Ballad of Hector 00:15:41.320 --> 00:15:44.250 align:middle line:90% in Hades." 00:15:44.250 --> 00:15:48.750 align:middle line:84% Yes, this is where I stood that day beside this sunny day. 00:15:48.750 --> 00:15:53.520 align:middle line:84% The walls of Troy are far away and outward comes no sound. 00:15:53.520 --> 00:15:58.020 align:middle line:84% I wait, on all the empty plain, a burnished stillness lies, 00:15:58.020 --> 00:16:03.070 align:middle line:84% save for the chariot's tinkling hum and a few distant cries. 00:16:03.070 --> 00:16:04.810 align:middle line:90% His helmet glitters near. 00:16:04.810 --> 00:16:07.480 align:middle line:90% The world slowly turns around. 00:16:07.480 --> 00:16:12.590 align:middle line:84% Some new slight compels my feet from the fighting ground. 00:16:12.590 --> 00:16:13.640 align:middle line:90% I run. 00:16:13.640 --> 00:16:17.330 align:middle line:84% If I turn back again, the Earth must turn with me. 00:16:17.330 --> 00:16:19.490 align:middle line:84% The mountains planted on the plain, 00:16:19.490 --> 00:16:22.220 align:middle line:90% the skies clamped to the sea. 00:16:22.220 --> 00:16:26.150 align:middle line:84% The grasses puff a little dust where my footsteps fall. 00:16:26.150 --> 00:16:30.650 align:middle line:84% I cast a shadow as I pass the little wayside wall. 00:16:30.650 --> 00:16:34.460 align:middle line:84% The strip of grass on either hand sparkles in the light. 00:16:34.460 --> 00:16:38.240 align:middle line:84% I only see the little space to the left and to the right. 00:16:38.240 --> 00:16:40.340 align:middle line:84% And in that space, our shadows run. 00:16:40.340 --> 00:16:42.800 align:middle line:90% His shadow there and mine. 00:16:42.800 --> 00:16:44.930 align:middle line:84% The little flowers, the tiny mounds, 00:16:44.930 --> 00:16:47.600 align:middle line:90% the grasses frail and fine. 00:16:47.600 --> 00:16:52.400 align:middle line:84% But narrower still and narrow my course is shrunk and small. 00:16:52.400 --> 00:16:57.170 align:middle line:84% Yet vast as in a deadly dream and faint the Trojan wall. 00:16:57.170 --> 00:17:01.100 align:middle line:84% The sun up in the towering sky turns like a spinning ball. 00:17:01.100 --> 00:17:03.230 align:middle line:84% The sky with all its clustered eyes, 00:17:03.230 --> 00:17:05.420 align:middle line:90% grows still with watching me. 00:17:05.420 --> 00:17:08.930 align:middle line:84% The flowers, the mounds, the flaunting weeds, wheel 00:17:08.930 --> 00:17:11.210 align:middle line:90% slowly round to sea. 00:17:11.210 --> 00:17:15.140 align:middle line:84% Two shadows racing on the grass silent and so near, 00:17:15.140 --> 00:17:19.819 align:middle line:84% until his shadow falls on mine and I am rid of fear. 00:17:19.819 --> 00:17:22.220 align:middle line:90% The race is ended far away. 00:17:22.220 --> 00:17:24.170 align:middle line:90% I hang and do not care. 00:17:24.170 --> 00:17:26.839 align:middle line:84% While round bright Troy, Achilles 00:17:26.839 --> 00:17:30.860 align:middle line:84% whirls, a corpse with streaming hair. 00:17:30.860 --> 00:17:32.510 align:middle line:84% What Muir has created in this poem 00:17:32.510 --> 00:17:36.590 align:middle line:84% is a sense of that last day of Hector's life, 00:17:36.590 --> 00:17:39.770 align:middle line:84% that day in which he realizes he's going to be defeated 00:17:39.770 --> 00:17:41.870 align:middle line:90% and begins by fleeing. 00:17:41.870 --> 00:17:45.470 align:middle line:84% He flees the way that a deer does 00:17:45.470 --> 00:17:49.010 align:middle line:84% or a hare does away from his assailant. 00:17:49.010 --> 00:17:51.800 align:middle line:84% He flees because he wants to survive. 00:17:51.800 --> 00:17:55.010 align:middle line:84% But he also stops, betrayed of course by a goddess 00:17:55.010 --> 00:17:56.630 align:middle line:90% to hold his ground. 00:17:56.630 --> 00:17:59.150 align:middle line:84% And he thinks that he will fight. 00:17:59.150 --> 00:18:01.700 align:middle line:84% He thinks before he fights that he will actually surrender. 00:18:01.700 --> 00:18:03.075 align:middle line:84% He thinks he'll go up to Achilles 00:18:03.075 --> 00:18:04.817 align:middle line:84% and say, I'm really sorry, Achilles. 00:18:04.817 --> 00:18:05.900 align:middle line:90% We'll give you back Helen. 00:18:05.900 --> 00:18:07.067 align:middle line:90% We'll give you lots of gold. 00:18:07.067 --> 00:18:08.360 align:middle line:90% Just go away and leave us. 00:18:08.360 --> 00:18:11.270 align:middle line:84% Then he realizes that he's murdered, he's killed, 00:18:11.270 --> 00:18:13.400 align:middle line:84% Patroclus and that he has no chance. 00:18:13.400 --> 00:18:14.720 align:middle line:90% And so he faces his fate. 00:18:14.720 --> 00:18:16.010 align:middle line:90% But first he flees. 00:18:16.010 --> 00:18:18.440 align:middle line:84% And his flight is parallel of course 00:18:18.440 --> 00:18:21.020 align:middle line:84% to the flight of Patroclus, the chase of Patroclus 00:18:21.020 --> 00:18:23.750 align:middle line:90% around the walls of Troy. 00:18:23.750 --> 00:18:27.440 align:middle line:84% And as Homer or the oral tradition 00:18:27.440 --> 00:18:31.640 align:middle line:84% as it were, describes his flight around Troy so brilliantly, 00:18:31.640 --> 00:18:33.020 align:middle line:90% the city of Troy is evoked. 00:18:33.020 --> 00:18:35.930 align:middle line:84% Three times he goes round and each time more detail is seen. 00:18:35.930 --> 00:18:38.390 align:middle line:84% And each time you have the sense of the people 00:18:38.390 --> 00:18:43.700 align:middle line:84% of Troy looking down on the fleeing Hector and the chasing 00:18:43.700 --> 00:18:44.330 align:middle line:90% Achilles. 00:18:44.330 --> 00:18:46.730 align:middle line:84% And you have the sense that Hector 00:18:46.730 --> 00:18:49.820 align:middle line:84% is longing for them to do something to stop Achilles. 00:18:49.820 --> 00:18:52.700 align:middle line:84% Achilles keeps edging him away from the wall. 00:18:52.700 --> 00:18:55.170 align:middle line:84% So that he can't, as it were, be stopped. 00:18:55.170 --> 00:18:59.270 align:middle line:84% It's a very powerful image of fear, but of fear overcome. 00:18:59.270 --> 00:19:06.370 align:middle line:84% And of course a fate faced, though not overcome. 00:19:06.370 --> 00:19:09.900 align:middle line:84% There is this, I guess the gist of what I'm trying to say 00:19:09.900 --> 00:19:14.280 align:middle line:84% is that there is this amazing and beautiful, if you like, 00:19:14.280 --> 00:19:15.720 align:middle line:90% objectivity about Homer. 00:19:15.720 --> 00:19:18.510 align:middle line:90% 00:19:18.510 --> 00:19:24.270 align:middle line:84% He's willing for his heroes to have negative motives. 00:19:24.270 --> 00:19:27.570 align:middle line:84% He's willing for his heroes to want to survive even when 00:19:27.570 --> 00:19:28.890 align:middle line:90% they know they're going to die. 00:19:28.890 --> 00:19:33.690 align:middle line:84% And he's willing for great cities 00:19:33.690 --> 00:19:36.510 align:middle line:84% to be destroyed without sentimentality, 00:19:36.510 --> 00:19:38.790 align:middle line:84% with a sense that this is what happens, 00:19:38.790 --> 00:19:42.840 align:middle line:84% that this is the way that history works. 00:19:42.840 --> 00:19:47.130 align:middle line:84% And this is the way the gods, in their brutality as it were, 00:19:47.130 --> 00:19:48.930 align:middle line:90% treat men. 00:19:48.930 --> 00:19:50.970 align:middle line:90% And this is the say-- 00:19:50.970 --> 00:19:53.850 align:middle line:84% and there is no point really in sentimentalizing. 00:19:53.850 --> 00:19:56.730 align:middle line:84% No poet I think after Homer has been 00:19:56.730 --> 00:19:59.490 align:middle line:90% so unsentimental, so objective. 00:19:59.490 --> 00:20:02.610 align:middle line:84% If you read Virgil you get the great and beautiful 00:20:02.610 --> 00:20:04.710 align:middle line:90% elegiac sadness of "The Aeneid." 00:20:04.710 --> 00:20:09.240 align:middle line:84% It has nothing in common at all with the power of "The Iliad" 00:20:09.240 --> 00:20:11.757 align:middle line:90% or "The Odyssey." 00:20:11.757 --> 00:20:13.340 align:middle line:84% That's all I really want to say and we 00:20:13.340 --> 00:20:16.780 align:middle line:84% might want to ask questions and have a discussion.