Africa's Best Read
‘The Iliad’, which was composed thousands of years ago, still offers us insight into the way people behave — which is why the classics matter
The Greek armies set sail for Troy and lay siege to the city for 10 years, during which time their mission is hindered by the intervention of Olympian gods, Trojan heroism, and most pertinently of all, the withdrawal from the battlefield of their greatest warrior, Achilleus , leader of the Myrmidons., by tradition blind, worked with this story as the basis for the epic that stands at the forefront of Western literary culture,.
“Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus’ son Achilleus/ and its devastation, which put pains thousandfold upon the Achaians,/ hurled in their multitudes to the house of Hades strong souls/ of heroes, but gave their bodies to be the delicate feasting/ of dogs, of all birds …” Awful, but the reality of Homer’s world and even more so of the much earlier times of which he sang. And, shameful as it is, that is often the reality of our world today too.is a text for the present. The awesome assemblage of men and arms that is the Achaian invasion force, the relentless siege that will end in the butchery of Trojan men and boys and the seizure and enslavement of women and girls has far too many analogues in the past to need naming.
Similes involving nature grab the hearer/reader and stay in the memory, such as: “Like the swarms of clustering bees that issue forever/ in fresh bursts from the hollow in the stone, and hang like/ bunched grapes as they hover beneath the flowers in springtime/ fluttering in swarms together this way and that way,/ so the many nations of men from the ships and the shelters/ along the front of the deep sea beach marched in order/ by companies to the assembly, and Rumour walked blazing among them,...
Lest we forget, the bloodshed and the savagery are ostensibly to prise Helen from the clutches of Paris. Driven by grief, Achilleus is as filled with rage and wrath, but directed at Hektor and the Trojans rather than at Agamemnon.
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