The Iliad - Book 4 - The truce erupts in war
- Reading time: about 40 minutes
- Zeus, the supreme god, favors the Trojans as does
Aphrodite. Hera and Athena are on the Achaeans' side.
- IliadStructure.ppt
- Meeting of gods: Zeus, Hera, and
Athena.
- Book 3 ends with a seeming Achaean
victory. It seems that Menelaus beat Paris and so
should get Helen back and then the war would be over.
However, Aphrodite rescued Paris and so the duel
turned out to be inconclusive. So Book 4 begins with
the question of how to settle the issue. Zeus is
logical and believes that the Achaeans won. But he
also taunts Hera by declaring Achaean victory. She is
provoked.
- Zeus and Hera struggle for supremacy
in calling the shots. Hera seems to yield to the more
powerful Zeus, her husband and brother, yet it is her
plan that Zeus agrees to in a sort of compromise. He
will send Athena down to provoke the Trojans to break
the truce and start up the war again. Thus, although
for a moment, it may have seemed that Troy would not
fall, we now resume the inexorable progression toward
Troy's fall. Does this light-hearted treatment of the
gods' quarrel undermine the tone of seriousness of
Troy's impending doom? The entire Book 4 builds
toward the battle that occurs at the end of the
book.It starts with the light-hearted squabble
between husband and wife and ends with the deadly
serious slaughter of "real" men. Observe
how Homer builds to the climax at the end of the book
and reflect in a journal entry on his writing tactics
as he builds a picture of the first battle of the war
that we see. [Discuss Il 04 Homer leads up to war]
- Athena tricks Trojan Pandarus to
break the truce
- Athena appeals to Pandarus's vanity
and foolish greed. He's not hard to persuade, though.
He yields to the temptation and shoots an arrow at
Menelaus. Notice the extensive passage that describes
Pandarus's act of readying his bow. Note too how
carefully the wounding of Menelaus is described.
- The first result of Pandarus wounding
Menelaus is Agamemnon's renewed anger at the Trojans.
He blames himself for trusting the truce and exposing
Menelaus to harm. He recommits himself, therefore, to
Troy's fall and Priam's death.
- 252: Now begins the first major
battle of the war that we see.
- The Trojans begin to move forward.
- On the Greek side, we meet Idomeneus;
then the two Ajax--Great Ajax and Little Ajax (the
plural of Ajax is Aeantes, on line 321); Nestor, a
great, old, experienced fighter who gives specific
instructions to his troops;
- 393: Agamemnon seems to reprimand
Odysseus and call him lazy and greedy. This, of
course, angers Odysseus. Agamemnon backs off and
says, "Just kidding--I was just testing
you."
- We haven't met Diomedes yet, but he is
the key fighter in the first third of the epic. Seth
Schein says
- Diomedes is the perfect
embodiment of traditional heroic values
(Whitman)
- Diomedes in Bk 5 &
6 is a straightforward and morally
uncomplicated hero.
- When Agamemnon sees Diomedes,
he challenges him and says Diomedes's father was a
great fighter, probably better than Diomedes.
Diomedes respects Agamemnon and understands
Agamemnon's role and tactics (478 ff).
- Appreciate Homer's description,
the literal one on 485 of Diomedes and then the
simile on 490, of the amassed troops ready for
battle. Here is the great Greek warrior, Diomedes,
and the implacable Greek army coming on.
- Contrast the similes applied to
the Achaeans and the Trojans (490 and 503).
- 510: Ares is the war god, son
of Zeus and Hera, a god of the Trojans (Mars in
Latin).
- 517: Homer's incredible
description of battle. Take some time to think about
how well Homer describes the fighting, both the
literal description as well as the unstated
implications of his words. [Discuss Il 04 Homer's description of war]