city or otherwise of this claim, and of the possible significance of its ass. Cross- cultural Homer's blindness as caused by a vision of Achilles; see below. .. which is recalled later when Proclus attacks those who believe Homer to have been blind as .. this Helen believes that poetry is made possible by vision and by writin.
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I was born too late. Where's the Tardis when you need it?
Helen by Euripides
View all 71 comments. Jun 07, J. Keely rated it it was amazing Shelves: Pablo Picasso spent his entire life trying desperately to do something new, something unique. He moved from style to style, mastering and then abandoning both modern and classical methods, even trying to teach his trained artist's hand to paint like a child. In , four French teens and a dog stumbled upon a cave that had lain hidden for 16, years.
Inside, they found the walls covered in beautiful drawings of men and animals. When the Lascaux caves were opened to the public, Pablo Picasso vi Pablo Picasso spent his entire life trying desperately to do something new, something unique.
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When the Lascaux caves were opened to the public, Pablo Picasso visited them, and as he stared at the prehistoric hunting scenes, was heard to remark in a despondent tone: The Iliad is equally as humbling to a writer, as complex, beautiful, and honest as any other work. The war scenes play out like a modern film, gory and fast-paced, the ever-present shock of death. Though some have been annoyed at how each man is named or even given a past before his death, this gives weight to the action.
Each death is has consequence, and as each man steps onto the stage to meet glory or death, Homer gives us a moment to recognize him, to see him amidst the whirling action, and to witness the fate Zeus metes. The psychological complexity and humanism of this work often shocked me. Homer's depiction of human beings as fundamentally flawed and unable to direct their own lives predicts existentialism.
The even hand he gives both the Trojans and the Argives places his work above the later moralizing allegories of Turold, Tasso, or even Milton. Of course, Homer's is a different world than theirs, one where the sword has not yet become a symbol for righteousness. In Homer, good men die unavenged, and bad men make their way up in the world. Noble empires fall to ravenous fire and the corpses of fresh-limbed young men are desecrated. Fate does not favor the kind, the weak, the moral, or even the strong. Fate favors some men now, others later, and in the end, none escapes the emptiness of death.
Though Homer paints some men as great, as noble and kind and brave, these men do not uphold these ideals for some promised paradise, but simply because they are such men. There is something refreshing in the purity of the philosophy of living life for yourself and yet expecting no entitlement for your deeds. A philosophy which accepts the uncontrollable winds of fate; that when the dark mist comes across our eyes, no man knows whence he goes.
Later traditions make other claims: In thousands of years of thinking, of writing, of acting, have we gained nothing but comforting, untenable ideals? Then Picasso was wrong, we have invented something, but it is only a machine which perpetuates itself by peddling self-satisfaction. I read and enjoyed the Fagles translation, which may not be the most faithful, but strikes that oft-discussed balance between joy of reading and fidelity. He makes no attempt to translate the meter into English, which is a blessing to us.
The English language does a few meters well, and Homer's is not one of them. The footnotes were competent and interesting, though I could have stood a few more of them; perhaps I am in the minority. I also thoroughly enjoyed Knox's introductory essay. I would normally have had to research the scholarly history of the book myself, and so Knox's catch-me-up was much appreciated.
View all 39 comments. At my college graduation, the speaker was a gruff professor. I liked this professor in general, and his graduation speech was a grand: He decided to inform us, however, that anyone who had not read The Iliad and At my college graduation, the speaker was a gruff professor. He decided to inform us, however, that anyone who had not read The Iliad and The Odyssey should not be graduating from college. I was one of those lucky lucky?
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I decided to rectify the situation as soon as possible, and I spent an indefinite number of hours in the next few, sunny weeks laying in a hammock on my porch, the boy I loved commiserating with me about this wonderful book. It is a warm, sharp memory. That was mumble mumble years ago, and this summer, I thought that since I just graduated again, I would read it again. It was a good choice. Warm, summer days in the hammock with limb-chopping, flashing helms, and mountain goats rushing down the hillside.
Something about that quote, about this book, and about the way this book reminds me of that quote, makes my blood beat close to my skin. That is how this book feels to me. The Iliad is the almost-death of Achilles, the almost-destruction of Troy, and reading it is an almost-panic-attack, an almost-sob. It is the absent top step in a flight of stairs.
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But, oh man, that flight of stairs. How do you even make that? This story is about a bunch of guys fighting over some women fleshlights and jewelry. Mostly the women fleshlights. As you probably know, the war initially started because Paris, a Trojan, stole Helen, who was the iPhone 5 of fleshlights, from Menelaus, an Argive. The Argives are at their ships; the Trojans are in Ilium, behind the city walls.
The story opens with Agamemnon, the king of the Argives, having stolen a fancy new fleshlight from Achilles, who is a child of a water nymph. Achilles refuses to continue fighting if Agamemnon is going to take his fleshlight. Then, Achilles has this beautiful, beautiful moment where he questions the very nature of fighting over fleshlights. We are all pawns in the petty squabbles of the gods. The gods are easily my favorite parts of this story, though it is not really about them in a certain way. It is not really about them in the way that any discussion of a god is not really about the god.
On the one hand, it is about how our lives are just pawns in this squabbling, incestuous, eternal Thanksgiving dinner in the sky. On the other hand, it is still about the pawns. The gods are compelling on their own, but my heart tries to escape my chest not because of their story, but because, yes, humans do live and die by some kind of petty lottery run by a rapist married to his sister. And maybe there is someone bold and wonderful in the sky, like the grey-eyed Athena, but we still live and die by the thunder of a maniacal drunk uncle.
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Yes, that seems true. So, in the midst of the chopping of limbs, the shatteringly beautiful similes, death after death, and the machinations of the dysfunctional immortal family, this story is about the betrayal of Menelaus and the death of Achilles. The thing that is absolutely, hands-down the most insane about this story to me is that those two events are deeply vivid in my mind in connection to this book, but neither of them actually happens here. How is that possible?! My blood does that thing where it tries to get out of my skin just from thinking about that.
I can picture Achilles's death so vividly, picture lying in that hammock and reading it after I graduated from college, but that never happened. Homer just planted the seeds of his death in my brain, and they grew from my constant pondering over them.
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This is a story that I could think about for days: We say that something eternal, God or the gods, cause violence because they control our fate, they appear to us as birds and as wisdom and lead us on our night-blind path of life, but they lead us erratically: Homer describes those motivations for violence so beautifully. But, ultimately I think that is all bullshit, and I think the bullshitness of it is there in this story, too. It is there in Achilles challenging Agamemnon. It is there in Achilles mourning Patroclus.
Anyway, though, people are not violent because we were betrayed or because of supernatural trickery. Our violence is ours; it is our choice and our responsibility. Life is barbarous and cruel around us, but that is its nature, and we can only shape ourselves through and around it. When we expect life to be gentle and obedient, we are usually doing nothing more than justifying our own cruelty.
It is blood-poundingly, eye-achingly told. As my professor said, everyone should read this, and if you can read it in the sun, lying in a hammock after your graduation, all the better. View all 18 comments. May 05, Alison rated it it was amazing. But now I know that the best way to keep insomnia at bay is to get out of bed, hitch up my chariot, tie the corpse of my mortal enemy to the back, and drive around for a few hours, dragging him, until I cheer up and can go back to sleep. The Iliad is unmatched, in my reading, for works that describe the bloody, ridiculous, selfish lengths people will go in order to feel better.
The Iliad suggests that even at its most glorious, war can be advocated only by people with the emotional lives of spoiled four-year-olds For more thoughts, see my post: View all 20 comments. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy Ilium by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles. View all 4 comments. Jan 17, Riku Sayuj rated it it was amazing Shelves: There might be some truth to this, a universal truth.
Significantly however, this is not how the ancients understood it. They understood war as the catastrophe that it is. Strabo, the Roman geographer, talking about the Trojan wars, puts it thus: Precisely because of this the Blake exclamation might have been more valid than it had a right to be. This is why there is a need to revisit the original tragic purpose of the Epic - most commentators would say that as above this original purpose was against ALL wars. But there is much significance to the fact that the epic celebrates the doomed fight of two extinct peoples.
The Iliad starts on the eve of war and ends on the eve of war. In that clash of the Titans, the epic defines itself and creates a lasting prophecy. In Medias Res The Iliad opens in medias res , as it were, as if the epic-recitation was already on its way and we, the audience, have just joined. The art of Iliad is then the art of the entrance, the players enter from an ongoing world which is fully alive in the myths that surround the epic and the audience. The poem describes neither the origins nor the end of the war.
After the initial skirmish with Agamemnon and the withdrawal that forms the curtain-raiser, Achilles plays no part in the events described in Books 2 through 8; he sits by his ships on the shore, playing his harp, having his fun, waiting for the promised end. On the other hand, Achilles is almost non-human, close to a god. Zeus and the Gods know the future, they know how things are going to unfold. Among the mortals fighting it out in the plains of Ilium, only Achilles shares this knowledge, and this fore-knowledge is what allows him in the guise of rage to stay away from battle, even at the cost of eternal honor.
Fore-knowledge is what makes Achilles who is the most impetuous man alive wiser than everyone else. Hector on the other hand takes heed of no omens, or signs, nor consults any astrologer. He is the rational man. He is the ordinary man. But everything Hector believes is false just as everything Achilles knows is true - for all his prowess, Hector is as ordinary a soldier as anyone else except Achilles , privy to no prophecies, blind to his own fate.
That he can save Troy all by himself. The Metamorphosis Like other ancient epic poems, the Iliad presents its subject clearly from the outset. Indeed, Homer names his focus in its opening word: But, it also charts the metamorphosis of Achilles from a man who abhors a war that holds no meaning for him to a man who fights for its own sake.
On the other side, it also charts how the civilized Hector, the loving family man and dutiful patriot Hector becomes a savage, driven by the madness of war. Before that, an interlude. That is when Achilles delivers his famous anti-war speech.
The reply is a long, passionate outburst; he pours out all the resentment stored up so long in his heart. He rejects out of hand this embassy and any other that may be sent; he wants to hear no more speeches. Not for Agamemnon nor for the Achaeans either will he fight again. He is going home, with all his men and ships. But though it might seem as preordained, it is useful to question it closely.
The confrontation is crucial and deserves very close scrutiny. We must ask ourselves - What brings on this confrontation? On first glance, it was fate, but if looked at again, we can see that Homer leaves plenty of room for free-will and human agency - Hector had a choice. But not Achilles - instead, Achilles' choice was exercised by Patroclus. This calls for a significant re-look at the central conflict of the epic: Patroclus and Hector instead are the real centerpiece of the epic - Achilles being the irresistible force, that is once unleashed unstoppable.
It is a no-contest. Hence, the real contest happens before. This is because, that unleashing depended entirely on Hector and Patroclus - the two heroes who only went into battle when their side was in dire straits - to defend. Both then got caught up in the rage of battle, and despite the best of advice from their closest advisors, got swept up by it and tried to convert defense into annihilation of enemy - pursuing kleos! It is worth noting the significant parallels between Hector and Patroclus, while between Hector and Achilles it is the contrasts that stand forth.
Hector, instead of just defending his city, surges forth and decides to burn the Achaean ships. Now, the Achaean ships symbolize the future of the Greek race. Homer implies that the mass death of these leaders and role models would have meant the decimation of a civilization. Which means that the Achaeans cant escape - in effect, Hector, by trying to burn the ships is in effect calling for a fight to the death!
This decision was taken in the face of very strong omens and very good advice: In the battle at the trench and rampart in Book Twelve, The Trojans Storm the Rampart , Polydamas sees an eagle flying with a snake, which it drops because the snake keeps attacking it; Polydamas decides this is an omen that the Trojans will lose. He tells Hector they must stop, but Hector lashes out that Zeus told him to charge; he accuses Polydamas of being a coward and warns him against trying to convince others to turn back or holding back himself.
Hector is driven on by his success to overstep the bounds clearly marked out for him by Zeus. Thus, sadly, Hector pays no heed and surges forth. Which is the cue for the other patriot to enter the fray - for Patroclus. Thus Patroclus too shows that knows no restraint in victory; his friends too warned him in vain, and he paid for it with his life. By this time Hector had no choice, his fate was already sealed.
Achilles was about to be unleashed. In his soliloquy before the Scacan gate, when he expects to die by Achilles' hand, he also has his first moment of insight: But he decides to hold his ground for fear of ridicule, of all things! So even as all the other Trojans ran inside the impregnable city walls to shelter, Hector waited outside torn between life and honor contrast this with Achilles who had chosen life over honor, the lyre over the spear, so effortlessly earlier.
Hector instead waits until unnerved, until too late. And then the inevitable death comes. What better invocation of what war means? I ask again, what better book to read for the centenary year for The World War I? This is very poetic and poignant, but it is time for more questions: Again, why start and end on the eve of battle? Because that is the only space for reflection that war allows.
Before the madness of the fury of war or of disaster descends like a miasmic cloud. The two men who could have effected a reconciliation , who had a vision beyond war, are dead. Achilles' death is left to the audience to imagine, over and over again, in every context as required. Once Hector committed his folly, once Patroclus rushed to his death, and once Achilles is unleashed, the rest is fixed fate, there is no stopping it.
So Homer begins and ends in truce, but with destruction round the corner - as if the cycle was meant to be repeated again and again, stretching backwards and forwards in time - Troy I, Troy II, … to Troy VI, Troy VII, … where does it end? The epic leaves us with the real doomsday just over the horizon, horribly presaged by it, in true prophetic fashion. In another ancient epic, Gilgamesh , the death of a friend prompts a quest which ends in wisdom and an affirmation of life; in The Iliad, the death of the fabled friend leads to a renunciation of wisdom and a quest for death itself! In Gilgamesh, the hero learns the follies of life and rebuilds civilization; in The Iliad, Achilles comes into the epic already armed with this knowledge and moves towards seeking death, choosing to be the destroyer instead of the creator.
The Iliad is an epic of unlearning. It mocks optimistic pretensions. In The Iliad, the participants learn nothing from their ordeal, all the learning is left to the audience. View all 43 comments. Read as part of my degree and as part of my love of classics, however it didn't compare to The Odyssey which I adored - possibly due to the lack of mythological creatures and rather more battles and lists of ships and names, which made it that much harder to struggle through. Still a great read as one of the original classics but I would choose The Odyssey over the Iliad anytime.
View all 6 comments. After reading The Illiad I faced a quandary- how do you review one of the most important and enduring works of creativity in human history? What can you say that hundreds of thousands of others haven't? My answer to this question is that I must join the chorus of those who have come before me and sing the praises of what is one of the best stories I have ever read, as fascinating and gripping now as it no doubt was when it was penned nearly three millennia ago.
There are many reasons why this book After reading The Illiad I faced a quandary- how do you review one of the most important and enduring works of creativity in human history? There are many reasons why this book has endured. It is a story of love, hate, vengeance, fate, pettiness, grief and war, bloody and prolonged war - a microcosm of human life and the furies that drive us to excess.
You know the story. Paris steals Helen away to Troy. Agamemnon and the Greeks raise and army and lay seige to that great city. Achilles, the greatest warrior history has ever seen, fights and dies, a poison arrow embedded in his ankle. The Greeks roll a massive wooden horse up to Troy's gates, and the war ends in trickery and massacre. You know all this, but trust me, you don't know it the way The Illiad tells it. This is a glorious read, the brutal blows and shrieks of war leap from the page, and the human passions that drive the protaganists are vivid and compelling.
You will read this book and wonder at how something from another time, translated from it's original tongue, can so totally enthrall a modern reader. It's powerful, heady stuff. So many images from this story are carved into my synapses. Hector and Achilles stalking the battlefield like avatars of death, scything down opponents in their tens.
Priam begging Achilles for the return of his son's mangled body. Heroes cut down mid-fight, their souls headed for the underworld, their deaths mourned even by the gods on Olympus, who watch and guide the battle from above. There are a handful of books that every reader must experience - books that are milestones in human culture. The Illiad is one of these books. I don't know how I lived more than three decades before I read it, and it makes me nostalgic for a time I never lived through, when a high school education in the classics was something that everyone received.
View all 13 comments. Feb 25, Loretta rated it it was ok Shelves: This was a terribly hard read for me. I struggled to finish it, but finish it I did. View all 22 comments. The story of the siege of Troy is one of heroism and tragedy. Metabiology offers as well a visionary sense of time and chance and many like subjects dear to philosophy. As with other geniuses, Dr. In large part, Jack and Dr. Hirsch speak for themselves.
This is a kind of autobiography of my early days as a writer and of my search for a language that trumpeted my youth. All texts have been revamped with inventions and variations that rhapsodize beyond the original scores to sing with improved art. The short novel herein of Beautiful Soup, in some ways my ideal version of that story, brings this piece as close to perfection as I can make it. This version also appears on Kindle in Perfection: The short novel Between Lives novelizes my play of the same name and I greatly enjoyed perfecting it as a short novel.
The play version appears in Pleasures of the Night. He beats me flat in every way but metaphysics. The longest poem, an elegy for Deborah Digges, shows her spirit as her three-headed pet dog Cerberus leads her from childhood into the underworld of poetry, mortality, midlife griefs and suicide. Come fly with me, the poem beckons.
Gabriel is a transcendental painter who gives the others a contact high. Wanting to see angels and to be one, he struggles with his own God-bothering: Released after landing in Bellevue, he lives affectionately but warily with Rosalie, who is temporarily switched off Browning and onto Mobilization for Youth. She put out a highly-acclaimed verse translation of The Odyssey. She's now working on a verse translation of The Iliad. It makes sense that she, having a strong background in Euripides, would go to Homer.
All in all, I highly recommend that readers read this play at least once. Jul 22, Michelle rated it liked it. Dec 08, Ananya Ghosh rated it liked it Shelves: Since I had loved Medea by Euripides, I instantly decided on reading Helen when I saw it in the list of options for my assignment. But this wasn't as alluring or powerful as Medea had been. The story follows the Greek Queen Helen who faces a personal tragedy as she becomes the reason behind the Spartan War because of Paris' lust for her.
While throughout history, Medea was blamed for the war and Paris' lust, Eu Since I had loved Medea by Euripides, I instantly decided on reading Helen when I saw it in the list of options for my assignment. While throughout history, Medea was blamed for the war and Paris' lust, Euripides is known to be sympathetic to his female characters and thus gives a version of the story that shows Helen as a poor character played out by destiny and Gods' whims and shows Gods to be biased and moody and using humans as characters in their play.
Zeus and Aphrodite bear the brunt, yay! But the whole plot was dealt with very lukewarm dialogues and action and with what I've read of Euripides, I expected better, though this was not bad. Still recommend this if you are into Greek drama. Mar 07, Suzanne rated it really liked it Shelves: Some people see this play as a kind of feminist or proto-feminist text. There is nothing remotely feminist about it. Euripides doesn't question or examine the underlying values, misogyny and double standards like he does in Medea of a society that blames Helen for the Trojan War e.
In this play Helen doesn't deserve to be blamed and hated precisely because she didn't go to Troy ; it is assumed that if she had gone to Troy with Paris, that placing the blame on her would be entirely right, proper and justified. Therefore Euripides' Helen offers nothing new or radical in its attitude towards women. Rather it reinforces the patriarchal view of a "good" woman: Jan 20, Sveta rated it it was amazing Shelves: Surely I have never been robbed of my wife from the cave!
The play has a happy ending — although it contains some element of a tragedy - were the beloved spouses are re-united and go back together to their own homeland. It is shocking to know that the war, which led to tremendous destruction and loss, was based on a mere illusion, through the manipulation of gods, but at the same time that reveals the craziness of war and the devastating consequences it can bring on people and cities. I loved the trick by Helen, which helped her win back her husband, while reflecting her wittiness and creative thinking; and I also loved the story of Zeus and Leda.
The translation is beautiful and readable, and I enjoyed read it. Nov 24, Manuel Alfonseca rated it liked it. Interesting counterpart to The Iliad, where Euripides follows the alternative legend, that Helen never went with Paris to Troy the gods replaced her by a phantom with her appearance , while she was brought to Egypt, there to await Menelao's arrival after the destruction of Troy, in this way solving the apparent discrepancy between The Iliad and The Odisea, when Telemachus arrives in Sparta and finds there Helen reintroduced as queen as though nothing had happened.
This book has influenced other Interesting counterpart to The Iliad, where Euripides follows the alternative legend, that Helen never went with Paris to Troy the gods replaced her by a phantom with her appearance , while she was brought to Egypt, there to await Menelao's arrival after the destruction of Troy, in this way solving the apparent discrepancy between The Iliad and The Odisea, when Telemachus arrives in Sparta and finds there Helen reintroduced as queen as though nothing had happened.
This book has influenced other authors, among them C. Lewis, who wrote a fragment "After ten years" which he never finished, and is published in The Dark Tower and Other Stories. Feb 28, Matthew rated it it was amazing. It is often felt that men are more indulgent to a woman with a pretty face, but one of the more unusual instances of this is Helen of Troy, a woman of unusual beauty who never existed outside of fiction.
Nobody has ever really seen her, yet men act as if they have. A savage and prolonged war was fought after Helen eloped with Paris, the son of the Trojan king, leaving her Spartan husband Menelaus behind. That alone might seem to be cause for condemnation, but a number of male writers have been s It is often felt that men are more indulgent to a woman with a pretty face, but one of the more unusual instances of this is Helen of Troy, a woman of unusual beauty who never existed outside of fiction.
That alone might seem to be cause for condemnation, but a number of male writers have been surprisingly lenient to Helen, making excuses for her behaviour or assigning a happy ending to her. There are other less happy outcomes, including one where she is hanged, but the woman whose actions caused so many deaths is often excused as if her reputed beauty is itself enough to soften hearts. The Odyssey shows Helen safely back home in Sparta living happily with her husband, and expressing regret for her actions, which are viewed sympathetically by the men.
This version makes Helen the sympathetic intended victim, and Menelaus the villain. There Menelaus came across as oafish and brutal, dragging Helen away by the hair to punish her. This may reflect the fact that Sparta was unpopular in Athens at a time when the two states were at war with one another. It seems strange that Menelaus should fight a war for ten years only to savagely treat the woman that inspired his fighting, but it possible that the conflict and the death of so many men has embittered him.
As for Helen, it is uncertain how we should regard the famous beauty. Euripides presents two countering arguments. The first is from Helen herself, who suggest that she could not control her actions because they were the work of the goddess Aphrodite. If this is the case, then Helen is as much a victim as any of the other Trojan women who are reduced to servitude by the conquering army.
In this play, Euripides does not firmly take sides but merely presents the two views.
In this account, Helen is blameless for the events that happened at Troy for a simple reason — she was never even there. Instead she was spirited away to Egypt, and forced to live there while a second Helen made out of air took her place. While Helen is not an anti-war play, it certainly builds on the negative depiction of war in Women of Troy.
That play showed the atrocities of war, but this one shows its futility. Men were literally fighting over air. The Chorus at one point suggests that the whole conflict could have been resolved by courteous diplomacy. Whether it was fought for a woman or for air, the war hardly seems justified.
Menelaus reappears in this play, and he too is a more sympathetic character. He is still trying to return home from Troy, but has been detained by the gods for 17 years. He is shipwrecked in Egypt where he discovers the real Helen, a chaste woman who has been true to him all these years. However a further problem arises. The Egyptian king Theoclymenus wishes to marry Helen for himself, and he kills Greeks who pass into his country.
The couple finally find a way to escape by duping Theoclymenus into believing that Menelaus is dead, and that Helen needs to carry out funeral rites for him at sea. They then take over the ship, kill the Egyptians and escape. This bloodthirsty finale shows that Euripides is no pacifist. The play is regarded as a comedy, and some elements can be treated that way. Its final happy ending offers reassurance too. However there are tragic elements underlying it. Helen has been trapped in exile for many years, and the Greeks and Trojans have fought for nothing.
At the root of this is the arbitrary will of the gods. They had decided to take Helen away and provoke the war, but gods are changeable. Just as the Greek-loving Athene turns against the victors in The Trojan Women, so Hera, the defender of the Trojans, suddenly comes out in favour of Menelaus in this play. It may be a reflection of decline in the beliefs in the old gods that dramatists such as Euripides provide a constant critique of them. Helen is essentially a rewrite of Iphigenia in Tauris, another Euripides play.
It is astonishing that two figures connected with the Trojan Wars should apparently turn up again many miles away from the conflict, but too late to prevent the revenge killings done in their name, but there it is. It is a peculiar play that vindicates Helen by the most improbable means. However there is something strangely comfortable in the idea that the husband and wife are able to achieve a reconciliation that cancels out the apparent reasons for their separation.
Jan 06, Keely rated it liked it Shelves: