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Iliad 17: A fight over a corpse...

on December 17, 2018

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World of the Hero: What makes a passage an epic piece of writing?

The Practice Paper's Odyssey passage question was 'Explain what makes Passage B an epic piece of writing'. The passage was Odyssey 23.224–245: ‘But now you have faithfully described the secret of our bed, which no one ever saw but you and I and one maid, Actoris, who was my father’s gift when first I came to you, and was the keeper of our bedroom door. You have convinced my unbelieving heart.’ Her words stirred a great longing for tears in Odysseus’ heart, and he wept as he held his dear and loyal wife in his arms. It was like the moment when the blissful land is seen by struggling sailors, whose fine ship Poseidon has battered with wind and wave and smashed on the high seas. A few swim safely to the mainland out of the foaming surf, their bodies caked with brine; and blissfully they tread on solid land, saved from disaster. It was bliss like that for Penelope to see her husband once again. Her white arms round his neck never quite let go. Rosy-fingered Dawn w...

Human sacrifice and in the World of the Hero and Aeneid X and XI

In Aeneid XI 81-82, we are shown Aeneas sacrificing some prisoners of war at the cremation of Pallas. Aeneas follows through on his taking of these two groups of four prisoners in X 517-520.[[1]] What are we to make of this? Part of the answer is that Aeneas ~ Achilles, while Pallas ~ Patroclus (just as Turnus ~ Hector), at this stage of the Aeneid . Let us begin with the Homeric passages, the latter of which was depicted in red-figure vase-painting (perhaps) of the Classical period. Iliad XXI 26-33: 'Achilles, when the work of slaughtering them had tired his arms, selected twelve young men and took them alive from the river to pay the price for the lord Patroclus' death. He drove them, like fawns, onto the bank, and tied their hands behind them with the stout leather straps with which their own knitted tunics were equipped. Then he left them for his followers to take down to the hollow ships, and in his eagerness for slaughter threw himself at the enemy again....

The text of Aeneid XI 149 and 151

A picture, they say, speaks a thousand words. That is certainly true when it comes to the details of manuscripts. Seeing for yourself trumps another saying. The Oxford Classical Text (henceforth, 'OCT') of Aeneid XI 149-151 reads: sed venit in medios. feretro Pallante reposto procubuit super atque haeret lacrimansque gemensque, et via vix tandem voci laxata dolore est: The exam board's endorsed edition has Pallanta (accusative), not Pallante (ablative). That edition has dative voci , just as per the OCT. The authority for Pallanta is M 2 . That means the second hand in the fifth-century M(edicean) manuscript of Virgil in the Laurentine Library at Florence (Florentinus Laur. xxxix. 1 // Plutei 39.01) and folio 192 recto thereof, to be precise. The parchment is fine... vellum... made from animal skins. Above is some of that side of that leaf. What remains of the top right-hand corner shows discoloration due to the residue of hair follicles. Spare a though...

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Iliad 17: A fight over a corpse...

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