Delahoyde & Hughes Orpheus HOMER'S ILIAD: BOOK XIV

Questions for Book XIV:

• The first portion of this book might be called "The Arming of Hera," but what does this involve?
• Homer includes an etiological myth for why we sleep at night. Explain.

The Greeks are in trouble and Agamemnon is acting bipolar (esp. 14.78ff). Hera is disturbed by this and hatches a plan to distract Zeus from his current aid to the Trojans. Sex is her weapon, and the language of sex and war blurs in this book.

She "arms" herself with oils and perfumes and a love potion. Pretending to be going off to visit relatives, Zeus asks her what's her hurry. "Never has such a lust for goddess or mortal woman / flooded my pounding heart and overwhelmed me so. / Not even then, when I made love to Ixion's wife ... / not when I loved Acrisus' daughter ..." (14.379ff) -- and he keeps listing the lusts in his past to which this moment is superior -- not really very politic seduction rhetoric!

The Greeks seem pretty paranoid about women. Zeus, like Paris many books ago, says, "let's lose ourselves in love!" (14.378), and now adds, "irresistible longing lays me low!" (14.393). In other words, sexual passion implies a loss of self and a surrender to superior power, which reads as a grim prospect. Afterwards, Zeus is "conquered by Sleep / the strong assaults of Love" (14.420-421) -- more military language.

But fertility results with the grass and flowers on earth from this divine encounter (14.414f), and now the Greeks rally. Hector is hit.

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Iliad: Book XV
Iliad Index
Orpheus: Greek Mythology