Lines 290-303
εἰ δέ μιν αἰχμητὴν ἔθεσαν θεοὶ αἰὲν ἐόντες,
τούνεκά οἱ προθέουσιν ὀνείδεα μυθήσασθαι;"
τὸν δ' ἄρ ὑποβλήδην ἠμείετο δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς·
"ἦ γάρ κεν δειλός τε καὶ οὐτιδανὸς καλεοίμην,
εἰ δὴ σοὶ πᾶν ἔργον ὑπείξομαι, ὅττι κεν εἴπῃς·
ἄλλοισιν δὴ ταῦτ' ἐπιτέλλεο, μὴ γὰρ ἐμοί γε
[σήμιν'· οὐ γὰρ ἐγώ γ' ἔτι σοι πείσεσθαι ὀίω.]
ἄλλο δέ τοι ἐρέω , σύ δ' ἐνὶ φρεσὶ βάλλεο σῇσιν·
χερσὶ μὲν οὔ τοι ἐγώ γε μαχήσομαι εἵνεκα κούρης
οὔτε σοὶ οὔτε τῳ ἄλλῳ, ἐπεί μ' ἀφέλεσθε' γε δόντες·
τῶν δ' ἄλλων, ἅ μοι ἔστι θοῇ παρὰ νηὶ μελαίνῃ,
τῶν οὐκ ἄν τι φέροις ἀνελὼν ἀέκοντος ἐμεῖο.
εἰ δ' ἄγε μὴν πείρησαι, ἵνα γνώωσι καὶ οἵδε.
αἶψά τοι αἶμα κελαινὸν ἐρωήσει περὶ δουρί."
As if the gods, who are always there, made him a spearman
Did they then grant him the right to shout out insults?"
And breaking in, divine Achilles replied to him:
"For indeed I would be called a coward and a good for nothing,
If then I shall yield to you in everything, whatever you may say;
Then give your orders to others, for me you do not command;
For I think that there is yet one more who will not obey you.
And I will tell you another time, and dash this about in your heart:
Surely I will not fight you with my hands on account of the girl,
Not with you, nor with any other, since what is taken
Is only what was given me; But concerning what else is mine
Beside my fast, black ship, these you would not carry off,
Seizing them against my will. Up now! Come try indeed!
So that these should rejoice all the more.
Surely your black blood will quickly flow around my spear."
Thus ends the verbal portion of this disastrous quarrel with Achilles threatening to paint his spear black with Agamemnon's blood if his minions should attempt to seize any of his possessions, save Briseis. His logic is interesting here: though he treasures the maiden and stakes such a great deal of his personal pride on Agamemnon's not having her, in the end he decides not to spill blood over this saying that what is being taken from him was a gift from the armies and not a thing that was truly his own and therefore inviolable.
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These last 2 posts make me go back to the opening word of The Iliad: rage. And I like what you said about it in one of your first posts:
ReplyDelete"This epic poem begins with Rage, and this needs no comment from me as it's eloquence has been celebrated throughout the millenia. The only thing I would mention is a grammatical point which actually suprised me: the Greek word for rage μῆνις is here in the accusative case, which makes it the direct object of the verb sing ἄειδε. So, the poet is not beseeching his goddess muse to sing about Achilles' mad rage, but in fact to sing the rage itself, along with its dreadful consequences for the Achaean host. This must have given the poet's hearers a sense that the wrath of Achilles would permeate every line of the poem. I am certain they were not disappointed... "
Concerning menis, Professor Eva Brann says, "Achilles, even at a mature thirty-three or four is in his essence a youth, indefeasibly though counterfactually youthful. What is young is his passionate pride, his all-concentrating wrath, the menis, that deeply mindful, minding, remembering anger at an insult and an injustice to which his poem is devoted." - from "Homeric Moments" (2002 Paul Dry Books)
Thank you for the comment. You're right of course, and so is Professor Brann. That "all-concentrating wrath" is, in a sense, the meat of the poem itself. I think that in his opening invocation of the goddess muse the poet, whoever he was, was calling upon the goddess to make the rage itself come alive through the words he is about to sing.
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