What the gods do to man...

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...”
(Fagles, bk 17 l. 645)

I have been approaching the Iliad this time around through its elaborate metaphors- the so-called Homeric Metaphors. These tropes interrupt the flow of the narrative. They are usually quite long, with several embedded phrases. On occasion there are embedded phrases within embedded phrases.

They work to multiple purposes. They interrupt and surprise the reader (or listener), adding variety. They often are of a constrasting tone (for instance, in the midst of a ferocious battle, a man is killed horribly- a spear through the neck- and he falls, laying there "like an olive slip a farmer rears to strength on a lonely hilltop...the winds stir it softly, rustling from every side, and it bursts with silver shoots...out of nowhere a wind in gale force comes storming. Rips it out of its trench, stretches it out on the earth..." This contrasting tone creates emotional complexity. In this, as in many other examples, it is also a mini-narrative, illustrating the care of the warriors parents in raising him, his own past, the futility of war, and the relative peace of death.

This type of metaphor also contrasts the age of heroes (13century b.c.e) to that of his own audience Homer's (8th century b.c.e.), by both comparing the action to familiar, every day life (cultivating olive trees, tending sheep) and using that mundane comparison to heighten the remoteness of that age.

This metaphor is worthy of remark on numerous levels. It is simple: Menelaus compared to a fly. Red-haired Menelaus, lord of the war cry, the fourth or fifth greatest warrior on the terrifying plains of Troy is reduced, for a moment, to a fly. Mindless, persistant, annoying. He is given these qualities by a god, Athena, or perhaps is only merely seen by the god in that manner: a trifle annoying, unusually persistant, destined to be swept away. There is no attempt at understanding the man- he is as pointless as he is incomprehensible. He can have no intrinsic dignity or honor.

But like a fly, human concerns return persistently to the gods, despite their desire to brush them aside. This illustrates the unbridgable gap between gods and men. Athena cares only because he aggrandized her, he sacrificed to her "above all other gods". This is his value. Ironically, it seems as if the gods have only a flickering existance without human sacrifice. Yet she will help him for only her own reasons and this may well cause trouble for him later, as the other gods may become jealous. No human can win in this situation. It is truly a bleak view of the man's condition. Not incidently, the fly's brief life compares with our as our own moment does with a god's immortality.

We are left also with what the fly is associated with: death, disease, feces, mindlessness, and anonymity. The slow rot of nature. This is hardly the willful, courageous hero.

This is in strong contrast to what he learn of Menelaus's victim, Podes (po-deez). He is dear to Hector, "a first rate drinking friend". From a god's perspective man may be a pest and a useful fool, but to fellow man he is friend, comrade, joy and comfort. The gods cannot relate to this at all. They do not, in the Iliad at any rate, have these pleasures in their vast immortal lives.

Doesn't Menelaus, only a moment before a great warrior and hero, now seem diminished and degraded? He is afraid, he prays to Athena, she responds by giving him the qualities of a nasty horsefly. He forgets his fear. He kills a good man. He lusts for human blood. Is he now less than human, has he lost something? And have the gods, even as they diminish a man, themselves become like carrion, vultures lusting after human death?