Analogies for altered state, fixed future, control-loss in Iliad

This page has quotations from select commentaries. In some I have added emphasis via underline to draw attention to particular phrases and ideas. My comments are in bold. For more information, including citations, see my page References for posts commenting on Homeric scholarship.

Note that the present page is a work in progress. I am currently working on sorting significant quotations and commenting on them. Perhaps in the future I will organize this page into an essay.

---

The vividness of Homeric poetry impressed itself on the audience like a divine presence:

“[T]he Iliad has repeatedly been compared to the most vivid and visual means of expression…. To the poet of the Iliad, and his early audiences, vividness was a sign of divine presence, a gift of the Muse. Homeric poetry was … a kind of epiphany.” (G&H 24)

---

Andromache fears the death of Hector and her own death in striking language (commenting on 6.411):

“σεῦἀφαμαρτούσηι: an arresting expression; Andromache provides the only parallel at 22.505. Forms of (ἀφ-)αμαρτάνω … mean ‘miss a goal or target’ rather than ‘lose something’ …. Andromache extends the use of this verb to personal bereavement: if Hector dies, her life no longer has a goal… χθόνα δύμεναι ‘sink beneath the earth’; no direct parallels but cf. [6.19], [6.281-2], 3.322, 7.131 (δῦναι δόμον Ἄϊδος εἴσω), 23.100-1 (ψυχὴ δὲ κατὰ χθονὸς…ὤιχετο).” (G&H 196)

The first expression implies that death of Hector will cause his wife to lose all sense of goal-directed action.

The second expression, “To sink beneath the earth”, as a description of dying alludes to the embeddedness of the local control system, normally perceived as separate and free to move, in the block universe.

---

Commenting on a snake simile used in the duel between Paris and Menelaus, 3.33-5:

“The man’s/Paris’ terror takes up three lines in an ABAB pattern: a panicky jump backwards (ἀπέστη, 33), trembling (τρόμος, 34), another retreat (ἀνεχώρησεν, 35) and pallor (ὦρχος, 35). There are only two snake-similes in the Iliad, but they are significantly placed, here in the first battle of the epic and in the last between Hector and Achilles (22.93-7).” (B 99)

The two snake similes in the Iliad are reserved for structurally important first battle and the significant last battle. 

Commenting on 3.33, δράκοντα:

“[In the Iliad] the snake is always associated with Trojan discomfort and Greek success, and often connected with omens. At Aulis, a snake eating a mother sparrow and her eight chicks presaged (σῆμα, 308) the ultimate Greek victory (2.308-32). Snakes appear on Agamemnon’s armour, donned before his aristeia, both on the corselet, on which three snakes reared up ‘like rainbows … which Zeus fixes in the clouds to be a portent (τέρας) to men’ (11.26-8), and on the shield-strap with its three-headed snake (38-40). A snake, again a τέρας (12.209), appears in the battle by the ditch, gripped in the talons of an eagle but ultimately escaping; this acts as a warning to Hector not to advance too far, and is ignored (200-43). Finally, Hector is compared to a snake as he prepares for his last battle with Achilles (22.93-5). Furthermore, in the Iliou Persis, snakes killed Laocoön and a son in his vain attempt to alert the Trojans to the truth about the Horse (Arg. 1c); according to Apollodorus (epit. 5.18) Apollo sent them as a σημεῖον […]. It may be therefore that snakes were symbolically associated with the fall of Troy in the various traditions.” (B 99)

Troy’s fall is fated like the snake-shaped worldline. The snake causes trembling and fear [=unsteadiness of autonomous control power, fear at site of snake-shaped worldline, monocausal course, single possibility extending into the fixed future] and death.

---

Commenting on 3.57 λάϊνον … χιτῶνα

“‘you would already have put on a cloak/corselet of stone’, a striking and unique phrase, describing stoning, a communal punishment… The image develops the idea of the earth as a garment for the dead: cf. Aesch. Ag. 872 χθονὸς τρίμοιρον χλαῖναν ‘three-fold cloak of earth’, Pi. Py. 11.16 γᾶν ἐπιεσσόμενος ‘about to be cloaked in earth’.” (B 105)”

Whatever the truth about the phrase developing from the punishment of stoning, here we have a metaphor for embeddedness in rock used of death. The claim to autonomous control power is punished in the altered state, stoned and buried in the block universe, embedded in spacetime, trapped in the prison of perceptibles impressed upon the mind.

Commenting on 6.19, τὼ…ἐδύτην:

“‘they both sank into the earth’… Hades, as the abode of the deceased, was situated beneath the earth.” (G&H 82)

The abode of the dead agents is in the earth = rock = spacetime block universe.

---

Commenting on a striking expression for death at 22.212, ῥέπε δ᾽Ἕκτορος αἴσιμον ἧμαρ :

“instead of saying ‘Hector’s death-fate’ sank, the narrator turns to a much weighier expression ‘Hector’s day of doom’ sank. There are a number of such periphrases, including ‘day of freedom’ (ἐλεύθερον ἧ.), ‘day of slavery’ (δούλιον ἧ.), ‘day of return’ (νόστιμον ἧ.), and ‘day of orphanage’ (ἧ. ὀρφανικόν: 490).” (dJ 113-114)

---

“Animals in the Homeric similes are not usually under the control of human beings, and when they are, they may display a will of their own… cf. 11.558-62 (a stubborn donkey), and 20.403-5 (a bull that needs to be dragged to the altar).” (G&H 227)

A stubborn, resistant animal represents either the mind’s initial concept of self-control, one that resists control by another, or, in the proper context, may represent our inability to control directly our self-control.

---

“Warriors are often described as helpless at the moment of their death.” (G&H 81)

The warriors are “helpless” at the moment of death because death is a metaphor for the loss of the accustomed sense of personal control agency often described as “egodeath.”

---

“Adrestos’ fall symbolises defeat: in Homer, and more generally in Near Eastern and Mediterranean art and literature, victors typically stand on the chariot, whereas defeated warriors fall and lie next to the wheels.” (G&H 87)

The victor in the battle for cybernetic control stands in the vehicle.

---

A famous comparison spoken by Glaukos to Diomedes in Iliad, Book 6 likens the generations of humans to leaves. With this comparison, Glaukos illustrates that future outcomes are beyond individual human control. Diomedes had instead emphasized human choice in shaping the course of an individual’s life.

“Diomedes emphasised human choice, Glaukos likens human beings to leaves entirely at the mercy of the winds and seasons.” (G&H 117)

“For all that Glaukos boasts about his ancestors and feels he must not shame them ([6.206-11]), the overall effect of his genealogical account tallies with his opening simile: human fortunes are changeable and beyond individual control.” (G&H 118)

“Glaukos invests the story of Bellerophontes with great significance, but it is hard to see what conclusions should be drawn from it. At least two readings are suggested within Glaukos’ speech itself: that of his father Hippolochos, who uncompromisingly demands that Glaukos live up to the family’s glorious past (cf. [6.206-11]); and that implied by Glaukos’ simile of the leaves, which presents fate as variable and ultimately beyond human control (cf. [6.146-9]).” (G&H 120)