Delahoyde & Hughes Orpheus HOMER'S ILIAD: BOOK XI

Questions for Book XI:

• Old Nestor recalls his glory days as a young warrior at length in front of Patroclus after the woman he has won, Hecamede, serves the Greeks strong Pramnian wine. What is the point of telling this story?
• Name one ingredient, besides the wine, in mulled Pramnian wine.

The arming of Agamemnon is epic ritual. There will be an even more formalistic and drawn out arming of Achilles later. After some battlefield vollies, Agamemnon is wounded:

But soon as the gash dried and firm clots formed,
sharp pain came bursting in on Atrides' strength--
spear-sharp as the labor-pangs that pierce a woman,
agonies brought on by the harsh, birthing spirits,
Hera's daughters who hold the stabbing power of birth--
so sharp the throes that burst on Atrides' strength. (11.313-318)

Homer here uses birth for his epic simile with war, with pain as the common denominator. Agamemnon withdraws.

Hector now advances. Diomedes hits him, but Paris wounds Diomedes. Odysseus is also hurt, and Ajax beset. Achilles watches. He sends Patroclus off to Nestor to find out who has been wounded.

Pramnian wine is served. (I don't know what's so special about Pramnian wine; I take it to be parallel to Romulan ale somehow.) Disgustingly, the Greeks dump "shredded goat cheese" and barley in this drink (11.754ff).

Nestor bitterly asks Patroclus why Achilles should care who's hurt, and he launches into his old war stories. He makes clear that the underlying assumption in this culture is that males have an intrinsic impulse to be part of battles, and he mentions his frustrations in being kept from battle in his youth. Obviously this is all a narrative nudge to Patroclus, like Paul's grandfather to Ringo in A Hard Day's Night. It works and Patroclus is fired up for war by the end of the book.

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Iliad: Book XII
Iliad Index
Orpheus: Greek Mythology