With apologies to Bonnie Tyler and her power ballad 'I need a hero!' and to all who await posts of books 5, 7, 8, and 11, etc. They will be a case of 'better late than never', as Agamemnon said to Menelaus when Troy at last fell...
Book 12 features a key passage about the nature of heroism.
We have met Sarpedon, a son of Zeus, as the leader of the Lycians in Book 2 and we have seen him fight in Book 5. His lineage featured in the conversation between Glaucus and Diomedes in Book 6. Sarpedon will come to be a crux character in Iliad 16...
In Book 12, Sarpedon stops to talk with Glaucus, son of Hippolochus (lines 301-328: Hammond, adapted).
"Glaucus, why is it that we two are held in the highest honour in Lycia,
with pride of place,
the best of the meat,
the wine-cup always full,
and all look on us as gods,
and we have for our own use a great cut of the finest land by the banks of the Xanthus,
rich in vineyard and wheat-bearing plough-land?
That is why we should now be taking our stand at the front of the Lycian lines and facing the sear of battle, so that among the heavy-armoured Lycians people will say:
"These are no worthless men who rule over us in Lycia,
these kings we have who eat our fat sheep and drink that choice of our honey-sweet wine.
No, they have strength too and courage, since they fight at the front of the Lycian lines."
Dear friend, if we were going to live for ever, ageless and immortal, if we survived this war, then I would not be fighting in the front ranks myself or urging you into the battle where men win glory.
But, as it is, whatever we do the fates of death stand over us in a thousand forms, and no mortal can run from them -- so let us go, and either give his triumph to another man, or he to us."
As with Hector in Iliad 6, what matters in the Homeric world is what people will say during your lifetime and how you will be remembered after your death. Here, what you get to eat and drink gives you an obligation to stand in the front ranks, as a πρόμᾰχος.
We may look ahead to the portraits of Astyanax in Iliad 22, the boy 'who would sit on his father's knees and eat nothing but marrow and the rich fat of sheep' (lines 500-501) ...
Book 12 features a key passage about the nature of heroism.
We have met Sarpedon, a son of Zeus, as the leader of the Lycians in Book 2 and we have seen him fight in Book 5. His lineage featured in the conversation between Glaucus and Diomedes in Book 6. Sarpedon will come to be a crux character in Iliad 16...
In Book 12, Sarpedon stops to talk with Glaucus, son of Hippolochus (lines 301-328: Hammond, adapted).
"Glaucus, why is it that we two are held in the highest honour in Lycia,
with pride of place,
the best of the meat,
the wine-cup always full,
and all look on us as gods,
and we have for our own use a great cut of the finest land by the banks of the Xanthus,
rich in vineyard and wheat-bearing plough-land?
That is why we should now be taking our stand at the front of the Lycian lines and facing the sear of battle, so that among the heavy-armoured Lycians people will say:
"These are no worthless men who rule over us in Lycia,
these kings we have who eat our fat sheep and drink that choice of our honey-sweet wine.
No, they have strength too and courage, since they fight at the front of the Lycian lines."
Dear friend, if we were going to live for ever, ageless and immortal, if we survived this war, then I would not be fighting in the front ranks myself or urging you into the battle where men win glory.
But, as it is, whatever we do the fates of death stand over us in a thousand forms, and no mortal can run from them -- so let us go, and either give his triumph to another man, or he to us."
As with Hector in Iliad 6, what matters in the Homeric world is what people will say during your lifetime and how you will be remembered after your death. Here, what you get to eat and drink gives you an obligation to stand in the front ranks, as a πρόμᾰχος.
We may look ahead to the portraits of Astyanax in Iliad 22, the boy 'who would sit on his father's knees and eat nothing but marrow and the rich fat of sheep' (lines 500-501) ...
PJ
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