An enduring tale of fate and power

At some point in the mid-90s, I went mad for the Greeks. The ancient Greeks.

It was sparked off by watching Michael Wood’s In Search of The Trojan War that was broadcast on BBC World around that time. I watched all six parts, mouth agape, the first time and then also caught the repeat broadcasts. I then found a copy of The Illiad that had been bought a few years before — it was E V Rieu’s Penguin Classics translation — and set about reading it.

I knew the broad bones of the story. There was Paris who stole Helen from her husband and there was Achilles, the tragic hero of the Trojan war. There were the side characters who emerge, flawed and admirable, through the mists of time.

Then there was the poet who is supposed to have authored it and who is as compelling a reason to read it as any: Homer. He didn’t write it, history teachers around the world stress, because he was blind and he was a bard. He sang or recited the poems — and it was only much later, when his poems were passed on from generation to generation, that they were written down. Homer was already a legend for the people of 8th century BC when scholars believe the first texts of The Illiad and The Odyssey were written down. And the incidents he was referring to in both The Illiad and The Odyssey were themselves from the Bronze Age. Given that there’s so little known of Homer and his life, it’s all still very much a debate who composed what and when.

But reading The Illiad is to forget about things like authorship and to be immersed in a world of larger-than-life heroes and the (surprisingly petty-minded) gods and goddesses who guide their fates. The events in The Illiad actually take place a few weeks into the 11th year of the Trojan War. And stops well before the war itself is brought to an end — hence events like the sack of Troy and that horse — don’t actually find a mention in the poem.

The futility of war

Looming large over the story is the figure of Achilles and his feud with Agamemnon, the King of Mycenae and Helen’s brother-in-law. It’s Agamemnon’s arrogant demands (including taking Achilles’ captive, Briseis, for himself) and general brutishness that sets off a series of events over a span of few weeks that the poem describes. By the end of this period, Achilles will lose his close companion Patroclus and Troy will lose a shining prince and its greatest warrior, Hector.

Though filled with descriptions of military manoeuvres and stratagems that makes The Illiad almost feel like a war manual, it’s the human tragedies that gives it emotional heft. The loss of promise, the deaths of those taken before their time, the futility of war — those are themes that will last as long as humans on this planet do. And why The Illiad continues to have enduring power.

The author is a Bangalore-based writer and communications professional with many published short stories and essays to her credit.

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