The False Dichotomy of Modern Projection Upon Homeric Epic; or some ways in which these two books are misread by academic soul crooks.
That Achilles and his rage over having his prize woman taken is unrealistic, is one standard misread. One need only look at the battle of Goliath’s Well, the defeat of the Mongols in 1250 by a Mameluke whose name is forgotten and his right hand man, Baybars. Baybars did the dirty work and had his pretty slave girl taken by the Sultan. Since he was not bound by ancient tradition, he made himself Sultan—an empire lost and gained over a point of HONOR, for a prize woman. Modern people read honor as loyalty; as bended-knee cuckery and adherence to stiff tradition. For the ancient heroes, honor was, as Arrian stated, “The power of his name,” when discussing Alexander.
I have discussed in the historical notes to the Areid, the Epic of the Agrianes, that Alexander regarded The Iliad as the only book we need for war, in 336 B.C. Things like stones really killed people, especially when the Agrianes were slinging them into your face at twenty paces, were truths of The Iliad. Modern academics say otherwise. Even the best modern translator of ancient poetics, Richmond Lattimore, who I will consult in Part 4, wrote that Tytreus, the adopted Spartan poet, did not understand war. This was a symptom of Lattimore’s culture, a blinder, worn by modern men who have not beaten down brutes and banged witches into submission, enjoyed slave girls and priestesses kneeling in obedience to the masculine will. Academics shy from concourse with whores, who are the only women that it is easy for a man to get honest answers on questions concerning the flock of potential harpies that are her sisters.
I think our modern lack has been sufficiently plumbed in Parts 1, 2 and above.
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Dating the Epics
This vast body of Bronze Age Lore was the subject of poets and historians from the 1100s B.C. down through A.D. 400s, and the beautiful work of Quintus Smyrnus in The Fall of Troy, [1] which tells the story of what happened after Priam got Hector’s body back. The earlier 9 years does not survive—not because it was not a subject of poetics, but because the death of 6 great libraries over the course of 700 years, resulted in only the most often copied works surviving in total form. We are left with Classical Compositions most popular among the elite.
These works focus on migration and racial survival after Troy and five other of the seven Bronze Age Empires fell. Alexander did not take a copy of The Odyssey, the modern mind thinks, because it had not been written yet. There was no point, The Odyssey was a sprawling body of lore on migration and feud, not a war story. Alexander was going to war. He modeled himself after Achilles in battle. But on campaign, he modeled himself after Odysseus, especially in his night attacks. If The Iliad would have been a WWII story, Odysseus and Diomedes would have been the action stars. But in Antiquity, the army whose leader led from the front, automatically cut enemy troop morale in half—like bringing Brock Lesner to a bar fight—the regular thugs are already looking for the back door when he comes in the front. That was the power of Achilles. The craft of war, was presented in The Iliad through Odysseus, Hector and others. Alexander combined all of these. If, he had lived to conduct his Arabian and African expeditions by sea, I bet he would have had the poets compile the strands of The Odyssey and annotate it for him, as, in the mid 300s B.C., the story of Odysseus, the Mourned Chief, the Lord of Sorrows, the man who was “never at a loss,” seems to have existed in various forms.
It is my thought that The Iliad was composed by the Homerids, who included possible numerous Homers, being the lead poet, the father of the harp-telling clan. Hesiod, “Ode-singer” a contemporary, certainly did Theogony and Works and Days, with his Shield of Herakles most likely attributed to him by a descendant or admirer, not completed by the harried, homeless and murdered old poet, but known to have been recited by him and not written.
Ernst Junger thought that Homer was not literate, and that his assistants probably committed his masterwork to writing. In Part 4 I will workout the summary and probably composition of The Odyssey based on now 5 reads, and over 30 audio listens.
But first, how was something like The Iliad put together?
Harpers were expected to know certain stock works and to write some of their own, much as a composer of hymns or symphonies in the 1700s was expected to be able to evaluate and present tradition and add his own contribution. An epic the length of The Iliad or The Odyssey, works of identical structural length, would not all be recited by one man.
We have 24 books to sing to a king!
A conductor would present the work and sing Book 1.
Book 2 would then be sung by his under study.
If this were merely father and son, perhaps it goes on like this, with the veteran harper assisting his apprentice over rough spots.
However, if Homer were lucky enough—perhaps aged and blind and illiterate, as Junger thinks—to have numerous sons, perhaps nephews, maybe a younger brother, or a Phoenician-trained scribe to write down the versus to assist in the training of his troop, then now we have a big show. The voices, styles and memnonic ability of each Homerid could assign him his own cycle. Perhaps the lead on each book does the narration, and the other poets, or “song-stitchers” sing certain voices, one man perhaps even dressing the part and doing all of Achilles dialogue., another Agamemnon and so on?
Perhaps, Homer, does all of the narration when his troupe are yet young and they cut their teeth on playing characters. Perhaps, one of the Homerids is a daughter, or a granddaughter? This would give a pleasing voice to Helen and Brisais, to Hector’s doomed bride, to Silver-footed Thetis, Stormy-eyed Athena, to the other goddesses of heaven? In such a performance, there is a lot of work for a woman—though she, like Mary Shelly in her first work, would work in the protective shadow of the man credited with the work.
This is why I listen to audio books, especially for ancient verse, listening to Beowulf over 50 times now, the Song of Roland over 30. I am trying to learn these poems as they were learned by those who first wrote them, a slave most likely, like he who scribed Gilgamesh. I would be sold to keep accounts at a brothel, as I have not the elastic memory of youth. In addition, it should be said that in memorizing and singing spoken language, women are as good as men. This is one of the rare areas where there is an equality.
I have long thought that The Odyssey was begun by Homer and finished by a daughter of his. I now think it is more complicated than that, just as The Iliad was not worked out over a decade by one man equally adept on the harp, in composition, in performance, and in writing. That is how good rock bands used to do it. But, there was usually more than one song writer, and men who played while others sang. Such efforts are committed by young men in groups, who generally fail to remain creative after age 40 and then spend the declining years performing the works of their youth—no wonder they kill themselves.
So, in light of the fact that the hobo poet Hesiod, was put off his farm and then murdered while wandering, as we suppose Homer did, let us think in terms of the Homerid’s, who, like Hesiod’s father, were natives of Greek Asia, but were not murdered while on the run, working together, helping Dad from town-to-town as his sight failed, trying to finish his work while his ears could still judge our recitation. At some point, a daughter, niece, or daughter-in-law-is going to be imposed upon to do the voice of Thetis, maybe even put on silver-gilded sandals, and now we have something that a carny of the 1930s could understand, maybe like The Ballad of Billy the Kid?
The only of the five section of The Odyssey i think might be lain at a woman's foot is the time of Odysseus among the Phaecians, where the princess and queen have much social authority.
the sections are:
-Telemachy, last written about the prince and his mum, probably composed by a sissy
-Phaecian Interlude, also late written, perhaps by a woman or sissy
-Land of the Midnight Sun, most ancient section
-Return of Odysseus, second oldest section
-Divine Intervention, probably written third to tie in the two earliest works
Ryan, I hope this helps. I think this is an important topic, as most of those who debate these books have perhaps read them once, if at all.
Notes
-1. The Dyonisica, also written about A.D. 450, was a story written and sung in Alexander’s time, 800 years earlier! Alexander reckoned his Indian expedition was just because Dionysus had conquered there aforetime, the poets finding evidence! The books we have been fortunate to have were the final editions of Antiquity.
