Delahoyde & Hughes
Orpheus

HOMER'S ILIAD:
BOOK XII

Questions for Book XII:

We first hear of the destruction of the rampart which will take place in the future. It's a peculiar flashforward, possibly for a momentary melancholic perspective. We will later get flashforwards related to individuals. Here we get only a taste of the future desolation on the wider scale.

A bird omen occurs. An eagle flying by with a serpent in its beak is bitten by the prey. The bird shrieks and flings the serpent amid the Trojan warriors. Polydamas interprets this in a grim way, which seems appropriate. Hector, on the other hand, may be growing reckless; he rejects this as an omen.

Bird-signs!
Fight for your country--that is the best, the only omen!
(12.280-281)
The Trojans are doing well and indeed by the end of the book have pushed the Greeks back to their ships.
No one could fight him, stop him,
None but the gods as Hector hurtled through the gates
And his eyes flashed fired. And whirling round
he cried to his Trojans, shouting through the ruck.
"The wall, storm the wall!" They rushed to obey him,
some swarming over the top at once, others streaming in
through the study gateways--Argives scattering back in terror,
back by the hollow hulls, the uproar rising, no way out, no end--
(12.540-547)
This is exciting and impressive, but must strike us with a note of doom, because we know that this is as far as the Trojans will be allowed to progress in this war.

Iliad: Book XIII
Iliad Index
Orpheus: Greek Mythology