Western Literature Week Three

     The Iliad

Twelve immortals

Aphrodite[Venus] was the goddess of love, beauty, and fertility

Ares[Mars] was the god of the war

Artemis[Diana] was the virgin goddess of the hunt

Athena[Minerva]was the goddess of crafts and the domestic arts and those of war

Demeter[Ceres] was the goddess of agriculture

Dionysus[Bacchus] was the god of wine

Hephaestus[Vulcan] was the lame god of fire and crafts, mental, and volcanoes

Hera[Juno] was the goddess of marriage

Hermes[Mercury] was the messenger of god

Poseidon[Neptune] was the god of sea, earthquakes and horses

Zeus[Jupiter] was the supreme god of the Olympians

Book: Metamorphoses

The Metamorphoses is a Latin narrative poem by the Roman poet Ovid, considered his magnum opus. It is considerably long, relating over 250 narratives across fifteen books. It is composed in dactylic hexameter, the meter of both the ancient Iliad and Odyssey. The more contemporary epic Aeneid , and it treats with the high literary subject of myth.  

Term explanation

Foreshadow: It is a literary device by which an author hints what is to come. It is used to avoid disappointment, and sometimes used to arouse readers. A hint that is designed to mislead the audience is referred to as a red herring.

The Iliad

It is an ancient Greek epic poem in dactylic meter, traditionally attributed to Homer. It tells of the battles and events during the week of a quarrel between king Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles.

Agamemnon was the son of king Atreus and queen Aerope of Mycenane, the brother of Menelaus, the husband of Clytemnestra.

Achilles was a Greek hero of Trojan war and greatest warrior of Homer’s Iliad.

Stories

Agamemnon and Achilles

The rage of Achilles—After Greek won a war, they got lots of women as trophies. Brises was Achilles’s award but Agamemnon took away, so Achilles refused to attend the war and stayed in his camp all the time.

Achilles and Patroclus

The death of Patroclus, Achilles’s boyfriend—One day, Patroclus wore the armor and went out the camp when Achilles was sleeping. Hector saw the armor and he thought that was Achilles instinctively so he shot Patroclus to death. Achilles was really grieved.   

Apollo sent a plague

He sent a plague because of Chryseis. Agamemnon took Chryseis as a prize. Achilles was one of the Achaeans’ most valuable warriors, claims Briseis. Chryseis’s father a man named Chryseis who serves as a priest of the god of Apollo, begs Agamemnon to return his daughter and offers to pay an enormous ransom. When Agamemnon refuses, Chryseis prays for help. Apollo sends a plague upon the Greek camp, causing the death of many soldiers.

Persephone’s abduction

Persephone: She is the daughter of Zeus and Demeter. She is the queen of the underworld.

Hades: He was the ancient Greek god of the underworld.

One day while Persephone was gathering wild flowers, she was abducted by Hades, the god of underworld where the dead live.

Demeter met Hecate, the goddess of withcraft, who told her that she had heard Persephone calling out one day, and suggested she ask Helios. Helios told who abducted Persephone. And Demeter complained to Zeus. Zeus refused to intervene, so                 

Demeter withdrew from her role as goddess. Without her no crops could grow, and the resulting famine threatened the extinction of the human race. Eventually Zeus said that Hades would let Persephone to go. When Persephone was reunited with her mother, Demeter asked if she had eaten anything while she was in the underworld. Persephone admitted she had eaten a pomegranate seed. Because of this, she now spends one-third of each year in the underworld.

Pomegranate

Achilles’ heel

Achilles: he was a Greek hero of the Trojan War and the central character and greatest warrior of Homer’s Iliad. His mother was the nymph Thetis, and his father, Peleus, was the king of the Myrmidons.

Achilles’ heel: is a weakness in spite of overall strength, which can actually or potentially lead to downfall.

The origin of Achilles’ heel

When Achilles was a baby, it was foretold that he would die young. To prevent his death, Thetis took Achilles to the River Styx.

Styx: a river in Greek mythology that formed the boundary between Earth and the Underworld.

Golden apple of Discord 

The goddess Eris tossed in the midst of the feast of the gods at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis as a price of beauty, thus sparking a vanity- fueled dispute among Hera, Athena and Aphrodite that eventually led to the Trojan War.

Hera: she is the queen of the gods. Her chief function was the goddess of women and marriage.

Athena: she is the goddess of wisdom.

Aphrodite: she is the Greek goddess of love, beauty.

To the Fairest

In some latter sources, Eris inscribed on the apple for the fair or the fairest before tossing it.

Notes on Trojan War

Greek

A. Atreus:

a. Agamemnon and Clytemnestra—Iphigenia, Electra, Orestes

b. Menelaus [Sparta] and Helen

B. Peleus[human] and Thetis[Goddess]—[Achilles and Patroclus]

C. Odyssey[Nausicaa, Crice, Calyspo] and Penelope—Telemachus

D. Persephone, Demeter, Ceres, Hades

Trojan War

Priam and Hecuba

A.    Hector and Andromache

B. Cassandra and Apollo

C. Paris and Helen

Aeneas

Eris at the wedding of Achilles’ parents

Prophets with disability [Tiresias]

Other issues      

Complication

Odyssey: He is a character in ancient Greek literature. He is the king of Ithaca and the hero in the Trojan War. He married Penelope and they had a son called Telemachus. 

 

Menelaus: he was a king of Mycenaean Sparta, the husband of Helen of Troy. He is the leader of the Greek army during the War.

Vocabulary

destiny: what happens in the future: the things that someone or something will experience in the future  

destination: a place to which a person is going or something is sent

voc: to call

invocation: the act of asking for help or support especially from a god

ig: get started

ignite: to set on a fire