Homeric Metaphor, a sample analysis

Sample Outline

Book 17 l. 645

Her gray eyes afire, the goddess Pallas thrilled

that the man had prayed to her before all other gods.

She put fresh strength in his back, spring in his knees

and filled his heart with the horsefly’s raw daring-

brush it away from a man’s flesh and back it comes,

biting, attacking, crazed for sweet human blood.

With such raw daring she filled his dark heart

and he bestrode Patroclus, flung a gleaming spear-

and there was a Trojan, Eetion’s son called Podes,

well-bred, wealthy, and Hector prized him most

in all the realm- a first-rate drinking friend...

As he sprang in flight the red-haired captain hit him,

splitting his belt, and bronze went ripping through his flesh...”

I. This is a simple, almost one-sided metaphor

a) Menelaus’ persistent, fearless attacks against a much larger body (the Trojan army)

is compared to a fly’s furious and mindless harassments

b) Menelaus is given these qualities by a god (Athena) and is seen, through this

metaphor, from a god’s perspective. Men are trifles, annoying, ultimately

of little consequence.

c) Even the greatest of warriors is not considered of much worth- only Agamemnon

Ajax and Achilles are greater than Menelaus. None of them have any intrinsic

humaniy, dignity, or honor.

1- gods can just “brush away” human concerns, but these concerns do persist

and are annoying. The gods do not understand human concerns and troubles.

2- This is an excellent example of the relationship of gods and men

d) Menelaus’ value lay only in his sacrifices to Athena- he “prayed to her above

all other gods...”

1- she will help him, but for her own reasons, not his, and certainly not out of

any concern for him. His sacrifice to her may well cause him trouble with other

gods. No human can win in this situation.

e) Flies are also associated with death, rot, corpses, disease, mindlessless, annoyance

and anonymity. Hardly what one associates with heroes.

f) This is in total contrast to what little we learn of his victim: Podes, dear to Hector,

“a first-rate drinking friend”. From the god’s perspective a man may be a pest,

and a useful fool on occasion, but to another man, he is a friend, a comrade, a

joy and a comfort. The god’s cannot relate to this at all.

g) Doesn’t Menelaus’ lust for human blood make him less for human, rather like a

fly? Doesn’t the god’s power make him less than human? And doesn’t this make

the gods themselves seem like carrion, flies, or vultures lusting after human death?

An Index of Homeric Metaphor

Here is a list of homeric metaphor, found in books 1-21

II. l. 560 ("as seasoned goatherds split their wide ranging flocks into packs with ease...")

IV. l. 489 ("as a heavy surf assaults some roaring coast, piling breaker on breaker...")

V. l. 96 ("down the plain he stormed like a stream in spate, a routing winter torrent...")
l. 574 ("remember the wind that scatters the dry chaff, sweeping over the...threshing floor...")
l.637 ("fresh as two young lions off on the mountain ridges, twins reared by a lioness...")

VII. l. 70 ("wave on wave of them settling...shuddering into a dense, bristling glitter...)

VIII. l. 641 ("hundreds strong, as stars in the night sky glittering round the moon's brilliance blaze...")

IX. l.4 ("as crosswinds chop the sea where the fish swarm...")

X. l. 5 ("like Zeus' bolts when the lord of bright-haired Hera flashes lightning...")
l. 215 ("like sheepdogs keeping watch on the flocks in folds...")
l. 420 ("they sprang in pursuit as a pair of rip-tooth hounds bred for the hunt...")
l. 561. ("as a lion springs on flocks unguarded, shepherd gone, pouncing on goats or sheep...")

XI. l. 132 ("think how a lion, mauling the soft weak young of a running deer....")
l. 200 ("yet stragglers still stampeded down the plain like cattle driven wild by a lion lunging...")
l. 490 ("likehounds and lusty hunters closing, ringing a wild boar till out of his thicket lair...")
l. 558 ("like tawny jackals up in the mountains swarming round a horned stag just wounded...")
l.664 ("like a tawny lion when hounds and country field hands drive him out of thier steadings...")

XII. l. 155 ("both warriors...rose like oaks that rear their crests on a mountain ridge...")
l. 170 ("like wild boars, a pair of them up on the hilltops...")
l. 502 ("they held tight as a working widow holds the scales...")

XIII. l. 236 ("as two lions seizing a goat from under the guard of circling rip-tooth hounds...")
l.388 ("as gale-winds swirl and shatter under the shrilling gusts...")
l. 454 ("and down the Trogan fell as an oak or white poplar falls...")
l. 546 ("he stood his ground like a wild mountian boar..."
l. 659 ("hugging the shaft he writhed, gasping, shuddering like some wild bull...")
l. 680 ("high as the black skin beans and chick-peas bounce and leap...")
l. 814 ("close as a brace of wine-dark oxen matched in power...")

XIV. l. 19 ("as a huge ground swell boils up on the open seas...")
l. 467 ("not so loud the breakers bellowing out against the shore...")

XV. l. 322 ("think how dogs and huntsmen off in the wilds rush some antlered stag ...")
l. 425 ("with the same ease some boy at the seashore knocks sand castles down...")
l. 479 ("he turned tail and broke like a rogue beast that's done some serious damage")
l. 717 ("they closed ranks, they packed like a stone wall...")
l. 731 ("like a murderous lion mad for kills, charging cattle grazing across the flats...")

XVI. l. 8 ("like a girl, running after her mother, begging to be picked up...")
l. 186 ("hungry as wolves that rend and bolt raw flesh...")
l. 306 ("they swarmed forth like wasps from a roadside nest")
l. 455 ("and all in an onrush dark as autumn days when the whole earth flattens black...")
l. 575 ("as the bull a marauding lion cuts from the herd...")
l. 745 ("but they still kept swarming round and round the corpse like flies...buzzing over the brimming pails")
l. 880 ("and the two went tussling over the corpse as lions up on the mountain ridges...")
l. 959 ("as when some lion overpowers a tireless wild boar up on a mountain summit...")

XVII. l. 59 ("there he lay like an olive slip a farmer rears to strength on a lonely hilltop...")
l.69 ("Menelaus fierce as a mountain lion sure of his power...")
l. 126 ("like a great bearded lion the dogs and field hands drive back from the folds...")
l. 153 ("Ajax...stood fast now like a lion cornered round his young when hunters cross him...")
l. 323 ("right through the front he plowed like a wild boar ramping up in power...")
l. 450 ("as when some master tanner gives his crews the hide of a huge bull for stretching...")
l. 593 ("as a burly farmhand wielding a whetted ax, chopping a field-ranging bull behind the horns...")
l. 648 ("and filled his heart with the horsefly's raw daring...")
l. 739 ("but dragged his heels like a lion leaving sheepfolds...")
l. 816 ("they swept in like hounds that fling themselves at a wounded boar...")

XVIII. Could the "Shield of Achilles" be one massive homeric metaphor?

XIX. l. 422 ("thick and fast as the snow comes swirling down from Zeus...")

XX. l. 558 ("Achilles now like inhuman fire raging on through the mountain gorges...")

XXI. l. 290 ("as a farmhand runs a ditch from a dark spring, sluicing the gushing stream...")
l. 659 ("as a panther springs forth from her thicket lair to stand and face the huntsman...")

The paper

Be sure to bring in the metaphor you plan to write about to Wednesday's class.
We will be reading "The Death of Hektor" and "Achilles and Priam" in class on Wed and Fri.
Your outline will be due on Monday.

The Outline

I will be posting a sample of outline for the paper Monday evening.
The assignment will begin thus: Choose a homeric metaphor that you understand. Then read my outline with your choice in mind.

Paper Coming Up!

Be forewarned! First I will demand an Outline, then a first draft. The paper will be short- only 2 pages- but it must be clear and stuffed with ideas.

It will be quite similar to the test.

We are presently considering Book Sixteen- please be sure to read it carefully.

Your Test for Friday...

Identify and describe the use of the following:

Book Eleven: Agamemnon's Day of Glory

l. 97-117


Homeric Metaphor
The irony of this metaphor
Realistic, naturalistic portrayal of death
The formal, non-realistic portrayal of death
The bitter irony that begins the passage
Metaphor as a reflection of everyday life in the 8th century B.C.E.

l. 188-227

Role of the Gods
How gods appear to men

l. 166-188

The metaphor presenting Agamemnon as an inhuman force
Trojans presented as domestic or domesticated

Book Five: Diomedes Fights the Gods

l. 321-346

Naturalism
"Tee-may"
The Age of Heroes

l. 985-1015

Athena and Ares as different aspects of war
The character of the gods: Can gods be courageous?
Gods as unable to alter fate

Exam Will Be on Friday

Friday's exam will be in the following format:

You will be given four passages from either "Diomedes Fights the Gods" or "Agamemnon's Day of Glory". You will be given a list of the formal elements that Homer uses throughout the Iliad.

Break down each passage into these formal elements and describe how they function.

For instance: Describe the epithets, metaphors, and aristeia in the scene where Agamemnon girds himself for battle. Show how the Trojans are portrayed. How does the metaphor relate to Homer's audience?

You will have to have your own copy of the text.