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- Hi, everyone, Steve here,
and I'm recording from home.

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Specifically, for this version of the
course, because usually

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at this point in the long semester
we would watch an interview

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I recorded a couple of years ago
with professor Tom Palaima

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of the Classics department.

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And, I love this interview,
and you can still go and watch it,

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but it's also quite long, and we're
trying to read a lot of the "Iliad"

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in a short amount of time.

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So I wanted to record a shorter
lecture where I'm going to talk about

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this book, overview the plot,
overview some of the key

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episodes and interactions and
themes.

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And then, if you're still
interested, we've left

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the interview with Professor Palaima
on the site, and you

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can watch that, completely
optional; there are no quizzes

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or instapolls attached to those
lectures specifically, but

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for the time being,
we'll just focus on this.

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And, where we are in this part
of the lecture series on the "Iliad"

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is in "Iliad" Book 6.

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And in thinking about how
to read this poem, the selections that

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we wanted, we thought about
whether we would include

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Book 6 or skip over it, and I think
this book is really important.

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It's really important not so much from
a plot perspective, but more from

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a thematic perspective and thinking
about what Homer is trying

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to accomplish in the "Iliad," what
the "Iliad" is about, and where we

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stand in relation to that.

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And the topic of this lecture is
war and violence in the "Iliad,"

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focusing specifically on that book.

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So, that's what we're going to cover,
and in Book 6, we've leapt a little bit

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from where we left off.

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Where we left off was in the middle
of Book 2, the episode around

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Agamemnon telling the troops
that he plans to take them home

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and abandon the war effort, and
the upstart rebel of the Greek

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army attempts to chastise
Agamemnon, publicly gets beaten.

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So then, we have all that
episode, and then we have

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a series of descriptions of the
ships of the Greeks.

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Books 3, 4, and 5,
are then battle books,

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battle narratives; there are some
memorable episodes in these,

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perhaps you've had a chance
to read them yourself.

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We have things like the duel between
Menelaus and Hektor, or sorry,

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Menelaus and Paris, which ends in a
draw.

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The Greeks and Trojans briefly truce
while that draw is going on, but then

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they break out into fresh warfare.

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And leading up to Book 6,
Diomedes, one of the Greek heroes,

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is inspired and filled with strength
by the Goddess Athena and he is on

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a rampage.

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So, Achilles is now off the field,
he's withdrawn from battle, and

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the Greeks at the moment are
enjoying something of an ascendancy,

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and it's not going to last forever,
and when we get to Book 9,

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which is our next book
we'll see that there are considerable

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reversals in this regard.

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But what we have in Book 6
are really two parts.

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The book is split into two very
distinct movements, or acts

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if you like, and in the first act
we see the Greeks rampaging

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on the field of battle.

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We see the opening episode is
one in which Menelaus,

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Agamemnon's brother, briefly
considers sparing a Trojan

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who he has at his mercy, and
Agamemnon criticizes him for

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thinking about clemency, for
thinking about Mercy.

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We have this interesting episode
that we're definitely going

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to come back to, in which Diomedes
the Greek and Glaukos the Trojan,

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exchange gifts with one another on
the battle field, and that's where

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they were going to end up.

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But the reason that this book
is useful for us, in this particular

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sequence is that the second half
of the book takes place behind

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the walls of Troy, in the city of Troy
itself, and so up until this point

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the poem has been a very
Greek-centric poem.

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It's been one that's focused on
the squabble between

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Agamemnon and Achilles, the doings
of the Greeks on the battlefield.

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There are some Trojan perspectives,
but like for example there's

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a famous sequence in which Helen
is asked by Priam, King of the Trojans

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to tell him about the leading fighters
of the Greek army.

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So we see Priam and Helen interacting
with one another.

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But in this, we get a much more
extended sequence that is really

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focused on the figure of Hektor,
the leading fighter of the Trojans.

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The figure who, just as Achilles 
is to the Greeks, Hektor is

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for the Trojans, and he is invited
by one of his cousins who is

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a priest called Helenus to go and
propitiate the Gods, propitiate Athena,

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and he comes inside the city walls
covered with gore and the mess,

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the pollution of battle, and he's
encountered by his mother,

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he's encountered by Helen and
Paris, and finally we have this

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very memorable sequence, in which
he interacts with his wife Andromache,

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and Astyanax, his young toddler
son.

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And all of this is very important for us
because the "Iliad" becomes in this

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book a poem not simply about
the Greeks and their attempts to

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conquer the city of Troy, but a poem
that has very much two focuses,

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that doesn't want to leave us solely
from that one dimensional perspective

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of the invaders, and their cause,
but looks at the defendants,

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Trojans in their desperate attempts
to survive, not to conquer, not to

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win spoils, but just to live.

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And as such, we get an entirely
different perspective.

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We get the perspective of women
importantly.

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We notice that up until this point,
in the selections that we've read

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we haven't had any speaking female
characters.

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A lot of the action of Book 1 is
of course about female characters,

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the slave women, Briseis
and Chryseis, but they don't

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speak at all.

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We have goddesses who speak,
but here we'll have mortal women

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Hektor's mother, and his wife,
Andromache.

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The heart of this sequence, is
the interactions between Hektor

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and his wife.

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And we learn about their relationship
of course, and we also learn about

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Hektor and I think that it's unfortunate
about the abbreviation, the

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abbreviated version of the poem that
we're reading, that we're not reading

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the entire thing, that we don't get as
much of Hektor as is in the poem

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as a whole.

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And Hektor is really one of the
central characters, that, especially

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with Achilles being off the field,
for much of the first half

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of the poem, he's off sulking in
his tent, not participating in

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the war, Hektor really comes to
the fore, such that if we think

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about who the main character of the
"Iliad" is, you could say it's Achilles,

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of course the opening line draws us
directly to Achilles, the wrath of

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Achilles is the topic of the poem,
but Hektor is... stands shoulder

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to shoulder with Achilles, and his
story in this poem is

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as equally important and more
important in some parts than

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whatever is going on with
Achilles and the other Greek fighters.

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And we really get that first sight of
what's going on for Hektor,

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and what his arc is about is very
much informed by this interaction

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he has with his wife, when he sees
his wife, she pleads with him

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to remain behind the city walls
and not to go back out to fight,

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where she worries that he is
going to meet his death.

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And it's very pathetic scene,
as in filled with pathos,

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filled with pity, we feel a
tremendous amount of

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sympathy with I think both
Andromache and Hektor.

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And particularly we see the
way that Hektor is torn apart

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by what he sees as kind of
conflicting duties between what

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he owes to his city, to his
community, which, as

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the greatest fighter of the Trojans,
he is duty bound to protect them.

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Not only as the greatest fighter,
but also as the son of the king.

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But also to his family, to whom we
get a real sense of deep love

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and affection.

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And this quote here really sums it up.

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Andromoche says to Hektor:
"I have none but you!

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Be merciful! Stay here upon
the tower!

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Do not bereave your child and
widow me!"

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And Hektor, in his response
says that he is compelled to go

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back out and fight, and not so much
in recognition of his duty to the

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community as on its own but also
in his duty to protect Andromache

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and their son.

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He says: "Not by the Trojans' anguish
on that day am I so overborne in mind

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"as by your own grief, when some armed
Akhaian takes you in tears,

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your free life stripped away."

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And what he's saying is that he doesn't
worry so much about his own death,

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as he does worry about what that death
will mean for the fate of his city.

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He knows that without him as the leader,
without him as the greatest fighter,

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Troy is doomed.

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But that raises a terrible paradox at
the heart of Hektor's personal struggle

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that we'll see all the way through the
poem.

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Particularly as we reach the end of
Hektor's story in Book 22, a fair ways

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from where we are now.

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What Hektor struggles with
is that he knows that his only

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possible course of action as a
dutiful Trojan is to go out and fight.

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But he also knows that that
decision entails eventually

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the destruction of Troy, because
his fighting probably means his death,

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and we as audience members in the poem,
probably know if we know

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the story of Troy,
that that's going to come.

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I mean even if we don't know about
Hektor's fate, then we know that

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Troy will fall.

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Troy is going to fall, and Troy is
going to fall in some part because

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of Hektor.

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And so, his duty is also going to
entail his destruction

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and the destruction of everything
that he loves, sooner or later.

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But he has, he feels, no other
choice.

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And, so we see, in this poem,
the desperate straits

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that the Trojans are put into
day after day.

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And Andromache is really an
extraordinary character

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in this regard.

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Andromache gives something of
her own story, her own autobiography.

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We find out that she was someone
who lived outside the city, and her

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community was the victim of the
early phases of the Greek invasion.

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And her family was completely
destroyed by the Greeks,

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that she says: "My father, great Achilles
killed, when he besieged and

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"plundered Thebe, our high town,
citadel, of Kilikians.

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"He killed him, but reverent at last
in this, did not despoil him.

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"Body, gear and weapons forged
so handsomely, he burned, and

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heaped a barrow over the ashes."

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I give you this quote because what
I want to say about this book

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and what I want to do in
the next part, and I look over

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the rest of the book
and think about its analysis

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is look at the ways that
what Homer is doing in this book,

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by showing us the Trojans,
by showing us behind the walls

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of the Trojans, by giving us this
community who are the defenders,

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who are fighting for their survival,
wants to show us what the cost

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of this war is.

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And the cost is partly the human toll,
is the deaths of the people who were

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involved in it.

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Andromache's father.

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Andromache's own trauma in seeing
the death of her father, and being

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forced behind the walls of Troy,
out of her home, where she is

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solely dependent on Hektor,
who himself is faced with

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a terrible choice, a terrible
duty that he has to face.

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But also, there is a social cost.
There is a destruction of the things

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that make society work.

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The rituals, the relationships,
the way of being that war destroys,

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that it perverts, that it debases,
and Homer wants to ask us

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if there is anything left
in those social relationships

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and the very human dignity that
it confers.

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And what's interesting about this
quotation in particular, is that it

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ties up both of these things
and leaves us lingering.

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That Andromache asks,
Andromache says:

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"My father was killed by Achilles."

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Her town was destroyed,
her society doesn't exist anymore

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in some sense, even though she's
a Trojan, she was a part of the smaller

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village or town community,
Kilikians.

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But then she also gives us the
detail that Achilles didn't

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despoil her father;
he didn't subject her father to

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the indignity of pillaging
his body and leaving him

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a naked corpse on the
battlefield.

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Something held Achilles back,
something gave him that

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sense of reservation that we'll
see in other parts of the book

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war does not allow.

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So, let's look at the way that
Homer leads us through this

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ebb and flow of seeing the horrors
of war and seeing places

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where people can choose a different
path, where even though they are

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tempted towards violence and
destruction, they still might

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have something different
at their disposal.

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So first of all I think it's worth
just lingering there, thinking

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about the destruction of war and
the destruction of social relationships.

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Again, we have this idea of just
human loss.

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The relationships are literally destroyed,
because humans die and and that

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00:15:35,651 --> 00:15:37,777
impacts those around them.

221
00:15:37,777 --> 00:15:42,543
But we also have the kind of 
desecration of human relationships

222
00:15:42,543 --> 00:15:48,752
as well, the way that categories of
relationships, so parent, child

223
00:15:48,752 --> 00:15:52,440
sister, husband, brother, wife,
become something entirely

224
00:15:52,440 --> 00:15:53,432
different.

225
00:15:53,432 --> 00:15:56,639
We see that earlier in the book when
Hektor first enters the city and

226
00:15:56,639 --> 00:16:00,428
his mother Hecuba, even though he's
an adult male, she tends to him

227
00:16:00,428 --> 00:16:05,073
desperately as though a mother
would to any child, from a

228
00:16:05,073 --> 00:16:11,374
position of caring, of tenderness,
wanting to take care of him,

229
00:16:11,374 --> 00:16:16,230
and Hektor has to kind of shrug
that off and say not now, I have other

230
00:16:16,230 --> 00:16:17,532
things to do.

231
00:16:17,532 --> 00:16:19,719
He's also covered with gore from
the battlefield.

232
00:16:19,719 --> 00:16:23,049
But we have this funny - I say
funny - it's kind of funny almost

233
00:16:23,049 --> 00:16:27,236
"ha ha" but it's curious in that
Hektor and Andromache at the

234
00:16:27,236 --> 00:16:35,727
end of their conversation turn to
Astyanax, their child, and

235
00:16:35,727 --> 00:16:40,305
this is what happens: "as he said
that Hektor held out his arms to

236
00:16:40,305 --> 00:16:45,244
take his baby, but the child squirmed
around on the nurse's bosom, and

237
00:16:45,244 --> 00:16:49,783
began to wail, terrified by his father's
great war helm -- the flashing bronze,

238
00:16:49,783 --> 00:16:55,834
the crust with horsehair plume,
tossed like a living thing at every nod.

239
00:16:55,834 --> 00:16:59,049
His father began laughing, and his
mother laughed as well."

240
00:16:59,503 --> 00:17:02,272
So it is a little sweet sequence, and by
the way this is one of the very few

241
00:17:02,272 --> 00:17:05,336
moments in the entire "Iliad"
where people laugh.

242
00:17:05,872 --> 00:17:09,301
So it's worth paying attention to.
But what it's about is that

243
00:17:09,301 --> 00:17:16,448
Astyanax, who's a baby, who's a
tiny child, is terrified of his father,

244
00:17:16,448 --> 00:17:20,207
that his father is unrecognizable,
as a soldier.

245
00:17:20,795 --> 00:17:28,728
And so that relationship is
made impossible in some sense

246
00:17:28,728 --> 00:17:31,064
by what Hektor has to do.

247
00:17:32,602 --> 00:17:38,832
Now the flip side of this is what we
see on the Greek side, and we know

248
00:17:38,832 --> 00:17:43,727
that this threat is very real, because
outside the city walls we see the

249
00:17:43,727 --> 00:17:47,944
behavior of the Greeks in the first
half of the poem, and this is no

250
00:17:47,944 --> 00:17:53,289
place better summed up, than what
happens when Menelaus is confronted

251
00:17:53,289 --> 00:17:57,798
by a Trojan who he has at his mercy,
and the Trojan attempts to ransom

252
00:17:57,798 --> 00:17:58,778
his life.

253
00:17:58,778 --> 00:18:02,980
He says, if you spare me, you can hold
me hostage, my father is fabulously

254
00:18:02,980 --> 00:18:07,802
wealthy, he'll pay you, give you lots of
pillage and plunder.

255
00:18:07,802 --> 00:18:12,357
And Agamemnon embarrasses,
humiliates his brother, as he is

256
00:18:12,357 --> 00:18:17,434
considering this, and what he says,
the king of the Greeks, says

257
00:18:17,434 --> 00:18:22,126
something that is so brutally
violent, we can't help but see

258
00:18:22,126 --> 00:18:27,047
what is on the other side of
this tender family moment

259
00:18:27,047 --> 00:18:30,082
between Andromache, Hektor,
and Astyanax.

260
00:18:30,082 --> 00:18:32,615
He says "what now soft heart."
He's saying this to his brother

261
00:18:32,615 --> 00:18:36,753
Menelaus, "were you so kindly
served at home by Trojans?"

262
00:18:36,753 --> 00:18:42,617
Referring to the fact that Menelaus'
wife Helen was abducted or went

263
00:18:42,617 --> 00:18:46,771
away with the Trojans to Paris.

264
00:18:46,771 --> 00:18:50,559
"Why give a curse for them?
Oh, Menelaus, once in our hands

265
00:18:50,559 --> 00:18:54,157
"not one should squirm away
from death's hard fall!

266
00:18:54,157 --> 00:18:58,812
"No fugitive, not even the manchild
carried in a woman's belly!

267
00:18:58,812 --> 00:19:03,255
"Let them all without distinction
perish, every last man of Ilion,

268
00:19:03,255 --> 00:19:06,715
without a tear, without a trace."

269
00:19:06,715 --> 00:19:12,783
And Agamemnon's unbelievable
cruelty, his unbelievable violence

270
00:19:12,783 --> 00:19:19,038
which extends all the way to an
unborn child, is something that

271
00:19:19,038 --> 00:19:25,684
punctuates that experience of
family tenderness we see behind

272
00:19:25,684 --> 00:19:26,897
the walls.

273
00:19:27,933 --> 00:19:34,079
And so, we have these two aspects of
violence and war that Homer wants to

274
00:19:34,079 --> 00:19:38,491
show us, we see the actual destruction
of relationships, we see in the

275
00:19:38,491 --> 00:19:46,581
relationship between Hektor and
Astyanax his son, the way that

276
00:19:46,581 --> 00:19:49,037
a relationship that in peacetime would
have ben experienced with intimacy

277
00:19:49,037 --> 00:19:52,353
joy, tenderness, is twisted into something
that for Astyanax is terrifying.

278
00:19:54,008 --> 00:19:57,087
But then also we see something in
the way that these relationships

279
00:19:57,087 --> 00:20:02,222
and the social rituals that undergird them
are impacted,

280
00:20:02,222 --> 00:20:08,447
and the book opens with this character
called Axylos Teuthranides, that's a bit

281
00:20:08,447 --> 00:20:13,025
of a mouthful, and it describes his death
via the hands of the Greek hero Ajax,

282
00:20:13,025 --> 00:20:14,002
or Aias.

283
00:20:14,938 --> 00:20:18,866
So I'm going to read this to you:
"Aias then slew Axylos Teuthranides

284
00:20:18,866 --> 00:20:23,231
from the walled town Arisbe.
A rich man and kindly, he befriended

285
00:20:23,231 --> 00:20:28,970
all who passed his manor by the road.
But none of those could come between him

286
00:20:28,970 --> 00:20:35,925
and destruction now, as the Akhaian
killed him, killing with him Kalesios,

287
00:20:35,925 --> 00:20:40,145
his aide and charioteer --
leaving two men dead to be choked

288
00:20:40,145 --> 00:20:41,264
in earth."

289
00:20:42,494 --> 00:20:48,768
And, I'll lead you to the interview
with Professor Palaima in this because

290
00:20:48,768 --> 00:20:51,431
he talks a lot about this and how
fundamental it is.

291
00:20:51,431 --> 00:20:56,089
Because what it draws attention to
just on the surface of the poem

292
00:20:56,089 --> 00:20:59,301
is this character who's described in
very flattering terms.

293
00:20:59,301 --> 00:21:03,125
He's kindly, he befriended all who
passed his manor by the road.

294
00:21:03,125 --> 00:21:06,961
But none of them could help him
now. No one was available.

295
00:21:06,961 --> 00:21:10,398
Or maybe if they were, they were too
terrified to stand in between

296
00:21:10,398 --> 00:21:11,895
him and his death.

297
00:21:13,076 --> 00:21:17,943
And what it particularly refers to is 
a Greek concept of friendship that

298
00:21:17,943 --> 00:21:21,700
is maybe little bit obscured in
translation, but this idea of

299
00:21:21,700 --> 00:21:24,113
he befriended all who passed
his manor.

300
00:21:25,210 --> 00:21:28,065
Everyone who came past,
he made friends with.

301
00:21:28,065 --> 00:21:36,985
This refers in Greek to the concept of
Xenia, of being a Xenos, which is the idea

302
00:21:36,985 --> 00:21:40,833
of friendship towards strangers,
towards people you don't know.

303
00:21:40,833 --> 00:21:45,358
We get the English word from it
Xenophobia, which is a Greek phrase

304
00:21:45,358 --> 00:21:48,194
meaning the fear of strangers.

305
00:21:48,194 --> 00:21:52,523
But it's actually more than that, because
it ties up not only the idea of

306
00:21:52,523 --> 00:21:59,045
the relationship between insiders and
outsiders, but the very possibility

307
00:21:59,045 --> 00:22:04,431
of host and guest relationships.
We can translate Xenophobia

308
00:22:04,431 --> 00:22:08,648
as something also like
"guest-fear," or "host-fear"

309
00:22:08,648 --> 00:22:10,422
or "hospitality-fear."

310
00:22:10,600 --> 00:22:15,524
Because it ties up all of these ideas,
this fundamental, social mechanism

311
00:22:15,524 --> 00:22:22,428
in antiquity, in the Greek world,
that you owe to people you don't know

312
00:22:22,428 --> 00:22:28,148
an elementary level of
respect, dignity and hospitality.

313
00:22:29,612 --> 00:22:33,932
And this character cultivated that
throughout his life, but in war,

314
00:22:33,932 --> 00:22:39,512
it was absolutely meaningless,
and the possibility of hospitality

315
00:22:39,512 --> 00:22:42,970
towards a stranger as a social good
is completely wiped out.

316
00:22:42,970 --> 00:22:52,589
So, we have three ways in which
the war destroys society.

317
00:22:52,589 --> 00:22:55,477
Again, summing up, we have
the destruction of people,

318
00:22:55,477 --> 00:23:00,084
the destruction of, the perversion
of relationships,

319
00:23:00,084 --> 00:23:09,011
and the destruction of the possibility of 
quasi-ritualized social interaction

320
00:23:09,011 --> 00:23:11,622
under this idea of guest-friendship.

321
00:23:12,073 --> 00:23:15,598
So, you might look at this, and think,
"Well this is terribly pessimistic.

322
00:23:15,598 --> 00:23:18,914
This is miserable," and think that
what Homer's presenting to us

323
00:23:18,914 --> 00:23:24,197
is the idea of war, not only as
something that is destructive

324
00:23:24,197 --> 00:23:28,872
in its own terms, but maybe even
is terrifying because it reveals

325
00:23:28,872 --> 00:23:34,294
what we fear we are, that stripped
of all of our social inhibitions,

326
00:23:34,294 --> 00:23:38,371
social relationships, and customs,
and institutions, there's nothing

327
00:23:38,371 --> 00:23:42,959
but violence and cruelty and
destruction.

328
00:23:43,794 --> 00:23:47,063
But there's one other part of this,
and I'll leave you with this,

329
00:23:47,063 --> 00:23:52,145
this last little bit of the poem,
of Book 6, that's right in the middle,

330
00:23:52,145 --> 00:23:54,380
right at the turning point between
when we see the Greek world

331
00:23:54,380 --> 00:23:58,229
and the Trojan world, and that's this
interaction between

332
00:23:58,229 --> 00:23:59,810
Diamedes and Glaukus.

333
00:23:59,810 --> 00:24:02,221
Diamedes is a Greek, and he's
been infused with the strength

334
00:24:02,221 --> 00:24:07,842
of Athena, so he's rampaging.
He's at the apex of his warrior

335
00:24:07,842 --> 00:24:14,288
heroism, and he meets Glaukus, who's
a Trojan, and normally Glaukus would

336
00:24:14,288 --> 00:24:15,213
die immediately.

337
00:24:15,213 --> 00:24:18,940
But what happens instead is
that Diamedes asks

338
00:24:18,940 --> 00:24:23,911
Glaukus who he is and who his
family is, and Glaukus stands out

339
00:24:23,911 --> 00:24:26,929
on the battlefield, he has magnificent
armor and Diamedes is curious

340
00:24:26,929 --> 00:24:28,917
about this, so Glaukus tells his
story.

341
00:24:29,578 --> 00:24:34,355
And it turns out that he's descended
from a hero called Bellerophon.

342
00:24:34,355 --> 00:24:37,876
And he tells the story of
Bellerophon, this mythical hero,

343
00:24:37,876 --> 00:24:43,127
who has his own stories that
we can read about outside of the "Iliad."

344
00:24:43,127 --> 00:24:49,179
And Diamedes realizes that his
ancestors were guest friends

345
00:24:49,179 --> 00:24:55,097
with Bellerophon as well, that they
were bound by this institution

346
00:24:55,097 --> 00:25:01,131
of Xenia, that this institution that
so terribly failed Axylos

347
00:25:01,131 --> 00:25:05,079
at the beginning of the book, and
Diamedes doesn't decide

348
00:25:05,079 --> 00:25:09,809
to violate that, but instead says,
well since our ancestors were

349
00:25:09,809 --> 00:25:14,492
bound by this institution, we should
not be enemies, but we should

350
00:25:14,492 --> 00:25:18,505
exchange gifts and respect the
fact that at one time, our families

351
00:25:18,505 --> 00:25:19,624
were at peace.

352
00:25:20,020 --> 00:25:25,578
So they exchange armor as a
sign of this friendship.

353
00:25:25,578 --> 00:25:30,241
And what's interesting is that
if Homer had left us with that,

354
00:25:30,241 --> 00:25:34,463
maybe we'd have a different poem,
maybe we'd have a poem that

355
00:25:34,463 --> 00:25:39,284
was a little bit optimistic, but even
here Homer says something that

356
00:25:39,284 --> 00:25:42,656
is a little bit curious, he says that
"both men jumped down to confirm

357
00:25:42,656 --> 00:25:46,432
the pact, taking each other's hands.
But Zeus had stolen Glaukus' wits away

358
00:25:46,432 --> 00:25:51,264
the young man gave up golden gear
for bronze, took nine bulls' worth

359
00:25:51,264 --> 00:25:53,248
of armor worth a hundred."

360
00:25:54,877 --> 00:25:59,551
And so, he even in this moment where
we think maybe there is some hope,

361
00:25:59,551 --> 00:26:05,088
Homer kind of pulls away and says that
actually Glaukus was fooled, that he

362
00:26:05,088 --> 00:26:12,025
got really shabby armor in exchange
for giving away his really fancy

363
00:26:12,025 --> 00:26:14,451
golden gear.

364
00:26:14,451 --> 00:26:19,629
It's not quite at this level, but in terms
of modern warfare, if like Glaukus

365
00:26:19,629 --> 00:26:25,506
gave away his automatic rifle, his
automatic weapon and in exchange

366
00:26:25,506 --> 00:26:29,416
got from Diamedes like a pea shooter
or water pistol, or something like that.

367
00:26:29,732 --> 00:26:33,965
Like that's the joke, that Homer is
trying to say.

368
00:26:35,135 --> 00:26:39,165
And I think that's what's so interesting
about this, is that all the way through

369
00:26:39,165 --> 00:26:45,490
the poem, Homer isn't trying to say
he's optimistic or pessimistic,

370
00:26:45,490 --> 00:26:47,458
or that he's pro war or anti war.

371
00:26:47,458 --> 00:26:53,037
The war is just a fact of life, but it
really falls to us, by showing us

372
00:26:53,037 --> 00:26:55,674
the Greeks and the Trojans,
both sides, by showing us

373
00:26:55,674 --> 00:27:00,596
Xenia, its collapse. Guest friendship,
its collapse, its restitution.

374
00:27:00,596 --> 00:27:04,578
And also showing in this one
particular transaction, that there

375
00:27:04,578 --> 00:27:09,593
is a kind of a twist here too, that
Diamedes got away with something

376
00:27:09,593 --> 00:27:15,379
that he wouldn't have done if he
hadn't stopped, and we have to

377
00:27:15,379 --> 00:27:17,789
wonder to ourselves, what Homer
means by this.

378
00:27:17,789 --> 00:27:21,740
What does it mean that Zeus had
stolen Glaukus' wits away?

379
00:27:21,740 --> 00:27:25,055
Does it mean that Glaukus should
have stayed and fought?

380
00:27:25,055 --> 00:27:27,427
Probably meeting his death?

381
00:27:27,427 --> 00:27:33,309
Does it mean that Glaukus should
have found some other way to

382
00:27:33,309 --> 00:27:35,755
resolve this conflict?

383
00:27:35,755 --> 00:27:37,972
Who knows?

384
00:27:39,363 --> 00:27:42,481
And I think that the point is
we get to have our own reactions

385
00:27:42,481 --> 00:27:48,002
to this, and we can have different
responses at different points

386
00:27:48,002 --> 00:27:51,733
that we read the poem. It's kind of
a mark of where we are.

387
00:27:51,733 --> 00:27:55,416
So I invite you to think about what's
your response.

388
00:27:55,416 --> 00:27:59,469
Maybe you just reject Zeus altogether,
or maybe Zeus is the fault here.

389
00:27:59,469 --> 00:28:03,093
Maybe Diamedes did establish
something meaningful.

390
00:28:03,093 --> 00:28:06,141
And what does that say about
us?

391
00:28:06,141 --> 00:28:09,278
How are we reacting to the violence?
To the tenderness?

392
00:28:09,278 --> 00:28:14,183
To the comedy? To the possibility
of social relationships

393
00:28:14,183 --> 00:28:17,713
existing in some form even amidst
all this violence?

394
00:28:19,014 --> 00:28:23,128
So, that's Book 6, I do think it's an
extraordinary book.

395
00:28:23,128 --> 00:28:26,709
I do think that the poem would
be very different without it.

396
00:28:27,422 --> 00:28:31,469
And if you're interested, I do invite
you to contemplate Tom Palaima's

397
00:28:31,469 --> 00:28:38,988
perspective, he's a historian of war,
he's a great scholar on the "Iliad"

398
00:28:38,988 --> 00:28:42,272
and of recent representations of
war as well.

399
00:28:42,272 --> 00:28:45,661
So, if you are curious, then very much
do take a look.

400
00:28:45,661 --> 00:28:51,814
But otherwise, this has been Book 6,
and now we'll jump along to Book 9.