Why does Achilles reject the embassy in book 9? (Catherine Project 3)

 Catherine Project, Spring 2024, Homer -- Response 3, Il. 9-12

QUESTION: Why does Achilles reject the embassy in book 9? In the initial quarrel Athena promised threefold gifts later if he didn’t fight Agamemnon (1.213), and Achilles asked his mother to help the Trojans pin the Greeks against the ships and make Agamemnon regret that he dishonored Achilles (1.407-412). Now Agamemnon is offering to make amends with ample rewards, including Briseis herself (9.273-4). Why doesn’t Achilles take it? Isn’t this what he wanted?


A few thoughts as to why Achilles rejects the embassy:

  • Agamemnon’s offer is heavy on gifts and light on any remorse. Odysseus tactfully omits Agamemnon’s demand that Achilles recognize him as superior (9.158-61, not repeated at 300f). But even so the omission of any regret or admission of wrongdoing probably rubs Achilles the wrong way.
  • “Hearts in younger men are frivolous” (3.108). In the Iliad Achilles is a young man. He is destined to live a short life (1.352, 416, 505) – so he can’t be very old – and he was still a child (nêpios) nine years earlier when he went to war (9.440). In this reading I noticed his youth, or at least impetuousness, more than I have in the past (perhaps a sign of my own maturation):
    • his demand for radical honesty (9.312-3)
    • a tendency to extremes that are quickly dropped (e.g. the claim that Briseis is his ‘spearwife’ [340-3], his offer to Phoenix to take half his kingdom [616])
    • tactlessness in referring to himself as a ‘vagaband’ (648) after hearing Phoenix’s story where he really was a vagaband (478-782)
    • Maybe because of his youth he feels the anger more strongly, or possibly because of his youth he is less willing to waver from a previous (fairly rash) decision.
  • Achilles has no intimates to tell him to give up his anger. Phoenix tells the story of Melager to try to persuade Achilles to return to battle, where Meleager is begged by friends and family, culminating in his wife Cleopatra’s successful appeal. But Achilles has no genuinely close friends and family, and certainly no wife: Achilles is isolated. While the other Myrmidons play games, he fumes (2.771-779). His only companion is Patroclus, who sits outside with him besides the hut and ship, apparently constantly (1.329-346, 9.185-191). But despite the similarity in their names (Cleo-patra ~ Patro-clus), and despite Nestor’s belief that Patroclus could persuade Achilles (11.789-792), the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus seems too unequal and lacking in intimacy for Achilles to listen to Patroclus, even if Patroclus did say something. And Patroclus rarely says anything: he listens to Achilles’ lyre “silently” (9.190), and the only words Patroclus says to Achilles throughout our reading is the remarkably humble one-liner “What do you wish with me, Achilles? Why do you call me?” (11.605). Patroclus is even scared of Achilles’ anger if he takes too long returning from Nestor’s hut (11.652-3). I very much doubt even Patroclus could persuade Achilles to return to battle.
  • Achilles’ claim that he has two possible fates (9.410-416; probably accurate, cf. Euchenor, 13.663f) discourages compromise. When you’ve given up a long, happy life in exchange for immortal glory (kleos aphthiton), you want the reward of the ultimate glory and honor – not a bit less.
  • Maybe he doesn’t need seven Lesbian women (270-2) when he already has one (9.664)


FAVORITE BOOK OF THIS WEEK’S READING: 9.


ANOTHER QUESTION

  • Book 10 (the ‘Doloneia’) has since antiquity often been thought to be an addition to the Iliad (e.g. the most recent critical edition of the Iliad by M.L. West excludes it). Is book 10 an ‘original’ part of the Iliad, or is it a later addition?
    • for me the bathtubs are a clear indicator of bad fan fiction (10.576).

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why does Odysseus reject Calypso’s offer to stay with her forever? (Catherine Project 8)

 Catherine Project, Spring 2024, Homer -- Response 8,  Od. 5-8 When Calypso tells Odysseus he may go home now if he wishes, she repeats her offer (apparently offered many times before) that Odysseus could instead stay with her, be lord of the household, and be immortal (Od. 5.208-210; cf. 5.135-6, 7.255-7, 23.333-8); Calypso thinks that Odysseus wants to see his wife, even though Calypso is more beautiful. Odysseus readily admits that Calypso, as an immortal goddess, is more beautiful, but even so he wants to see his home and his day of homecoming.  Putting aside what Calypso gets out of the deal (epic’s male perspective assumes Calypso would of course want Odysseus), I personally have always found it hard to understand Odysseus’ response and choice here. Immortality with a beautiful, loving goddess on an island paradise (5.63-76) would seem pretty close to the ideal human condition, even by the Od.’s standards. What Calypso offers sounds a lot like what is promised t...
Read more

Achilles Tatius

Outline of the whole work at https://docs.google.com/document/d/11rmnyWDzCEN2surASr83wxULyQeh06K6y8eQQQ84Xrc/edit?usp=sharing Some closing thoughts on Achilles Tatius: Quite a mix of genres: paradoxography, geography, ecphrasis, legal speech/rhetoric, light philosophy. At times the narrative is clearly being constructed in order to provide an excuse for some setpiece, e.g. the description of the phoenix that ends book 3. Book placement: as that phoenix anecdote exemplifies, books often end in a high point, e.g. book 5 ends in the climactic lovemaking between Kleitophon and Melite. Women are underdeveloped in the text: we rarely see things from their perspective, and even when we do (e.g. Leucippe’s narration at the end of the work or Melite’s pleas in book 5), their motivations are thin. Leucippe is particularly bad – she never really arises above the level of passive, beautiful love interest. The work plays with the cliches of love (perhaps a motivating force for the genre as a whole)...
Read more

Solon 27

Solon 27 A child, still young, grows his teeth and throws them out in his first seven years (0-7). When god fulfills the next seven (8-14), he shows the signs of hebe. In the third (15-21), his beard and limbs grows, changing the skin's flower. In the fourth (22-28), everyone is by far the best in strength, when men reach the peaks of arete. In the fifth (29-35), it's time for a man to think about marriage and to seek the generation of children. In the sixth (36-42), a man's mind sharpens about everything, and he no longer wants to do dumb things. In the seventh (43-49) and eighth (50-56), he is by far the best in mind and tongue. Of both there are fourteen years. In the ninth (57-63), he still is able, but his tongue and wisdom are softer toward great arete. If he should achieve the tenth (64-70) and reach his full measure, not untimely would he obtain death's share. 
Read more