Читать книгу Stories from the Iliad - H. L. Havell - Страница 4

In order to understand the structure of the Iliad, we must keep fast hold of the guiding clue which is supplied by the author in the first line of his poem. The subject, he tells us, is the Wrath of Achilles. The motive of the greatest of epics is wrath—blind, unreasoning fury, which knows no law, and acknowledges no right. Keeping this in view, we are able to explain what seems at first sight to be a strange anomaly in the conduct of the story—the absence of the hero from the scene of action during three-fourths of the narrative. For Achilles is not less the hero of the Iliad than Odysseus is the hero of the Odyssey, and in both cases the character of the man determines the structure of the poem. Odysseus is a man of middle age, in the maturity of his splendid powers, with his judgment refined by experience, and his passions cooled by time. From the moment when he sets sail from Troy he remains faithful to the fixed desire of his heart. All the malice of Poseidon, all the spells of Circe, all the loveliness of Calypso, cannot shake him from his resolve to return to his home in Ithaca, and live out his life in calm domestic happiness and peace. Yet he is entirely free from the narrowness which commonly belongs to a fixed idea. He knows the uncertainty which attaches to all human hopes, and is as ready to enjoy the passing hour as the youngest sailor of his crew. He has the hungry intellect, which would fain take all knowledge into its compass, and the spirit of soaring enterprise, which delights in discovery and daring adventure. But above all he has the patient, constant human heart, faithful through all turns of fortune to one sober ideal. It is this steadfastness of purpose and sweet reasonableness in the hero which gives to the narrative of the Odyssey its smooth and pellucid flow, and makes it the most delightful of all story-books.

Achilles, on the other hand, is the incarnation of the spirit of youth, with its passionate pride, its acute sensibility, and its absorption in self. He is like one of the great forces of nature—unreasoning, elemental, mighty to create or destroy. His inaction is as tremendous as his action. He is offended, and the Greeks, deprived of his aid, are brought to the brink of ruin—his friend is slain by Hector, and the current of his fury, thus directed into a new channel, sweeps the whole Trojan army before it in havoc and rout.

This, then, is the plan of the Iliad—to describe the effects of Achilles' anger, first on the Greeks, then on the Trojans. A brief review of the story will show how the plan is worked out. In the ninth year of the war, the Greeks have taken a small town in the neighbourhood of Troy, and Agamemnon has received a maiden named Chryseis as his share of the spoil. Chryses, the maiden's father, comes to the Grecian camp to ransom his child, but he is rudely repulsed by Agamemnon, and invokes the vengeance of Apollo, whose priest he is, on the Greeks. Apollo sends a pestilence on the camp, and Agamemnon is compelled in consequence to restore Chryseis, but he recompenses himself by seizing another maiden, named Briseis, awarded to Achilles as a prize at the capture of the same city. Achilles vows vengeance on the whole Greek army for this outrage, and Thetis, his mother, obtains a promise from Zeus, the supreme god of Olympus, that her son's vow shall be fulfilled to the letter. Accordingly Zeus sends a false dream to Agamemnon, bidding him lead the whole army against Troy, with the assurance of a decisive victory. Agamemnon obeys the summons in all good faith, and the two armies meet on the plain before the city. But just as the general encounter is about to begin, Paris offers to meet Menelaus in single combat, and a truce is made in order that the duel may take place. They fight, and Menelaus is victorious, but Paris is saved from death or capture by the intervention of Aphrodite.

Menelaus now claims the fulfilment of the conditions of the truce—the restoration of Helen with all her wealth. But before the point can be debated, Pandarus, a Trojan, at the instigation of Athene, aims an arrow at Menelaus, and wounds him in the side. This treacherous act leads to an immediate renewal of hostilities, and in the battle which follows the Trojans are reduced to such straits by the powers of Diomede that Hector goes on a mission to the city, to institute a solemn supplication in the temple of Athene, in the vain hope of diverting her anger from the Trojans. Having accomplished his errand, he returns to the field, bringing with him Paris, who, since his defeat by Menelaus, has been dallying in Helen's bower; and then follows a duel between Hector and Ajax, in which the Greek champion has the advantage. At the suggestion of Nestor, the Greeks fortify their camp with a moat and rampart; and this brings us to the end of the seventh book.

Hitherto the Greeks have had a decided advantage in battle with the Trojans, and nothing has been done to carry out the promise which Zeus made to Thetis. But now the father of gods and men begins to take decisive measures to fulfil his pledge; the gods are forbidden to interfere between the rival armies, and in the next day's battle the Greeks are driven back in panic to their camp, while the Trojans, contrary to their custom, keep the field all night, intending to attack the Greek stronghold in full force next day. So despondent are the Greeks that an embassy is sent with an offer of magnificent gifts to Achilles, if he will lay aside his anger and come to the help of his distressed countrymen. Achilles refuses all compromise, and the rest of the night is occupied by the bold raid undertaken by Diomede and Odysseus on the Thracian camp.

At the opening of the eleventh book our attention is concentrated on the valorous exploits of Agamemnon, who is at length compelled to retire by a severe wound in the arm; Diomede is pierced through the foot by an arrow from the bow of Paris, and Odysseus, Machaon, and Eurypylus are also disabled. Patroclus is sent by Achilles to inquire of Nestor concerning the fortunes of the Greeks, and Nestor then makes the suggestion which marks the turning-point in the first act of the great epic drama: if, he says, Achilles will not go to the field himself, at least let him send Patroclus to lead the Myrmidons[1] against the Trojans. Nothing comes of the proposal for the present, but it is to bear fatal fruit both for Patroclus and Achilles in the near future. The Greeks are again driven behind their defences, and a furious struggle ensues, at the end of which the gates of the camp are demolished, and the Trojans, led by Hector, are on the point of setting fire to the ships.

[1] The followers of Achilles

At this moment the attention of Zeus is withdrawn from the battle, and Poseidon seizes the opportunity to interfere in favour of the Greeks. By his influence the scale is turned again, Hector receives fearful injuries from a huge stone hurled by Ajax, and the Trojans are driven headlong across the plain. Zeus is lulled to sleep by the contrivance of Hera, and when he awakens it is to find his whole scheme of vengeance on the point of being frustrated. In great anger he sends a peremptory message to Poseidon to withdraw from the battle, and lays his commands on Apollo, who brings back Hector, healed and whole, to the field, and leads the Trojans once more to the assault of the camp. In spite of the desperate valour of Ajax, the Greeks are driven back to their ships, and the Trojans bring torches, with the intention of burning the whole fleet.

Then at last Achilles, yielding to the earnest entreaty of Patroclus, sends him to the aid of the Greeks, equipped in his own armour, and leading the whole force of the Myrmidons. Patroclus easily drives the Trojans back from the camp, and slays Sarpedon, one of the bravest warriors among the allies of Troy; but he himself falls by Hector's hand, and the armour of Achilles passes into the possession of his slayer. A tremendous struggle ensues over the body of Patroclus, which is only ended by the appearance of Achilles himself, who comes, attended by strange prodigies, to the wall, and, by the mere terror of his presence, scares the Trojans from the field, and saves his friend's body from outrage.

The rest of the story may be briefly told. By the intercession of Thetis, Hephæstus, the divine smith, makes a splendid suit of armour for Achilles, and, after a solemn scene of reconciliation with Agamemnon, Achilles leads the Greeks to battle. The whole torrent of his fury is now turned upon the Trojans, and, after a wholesale massacre of lesser victims, he meets Hector in single combat, slays him, and drags his body behind his chariot to the camp. The funeral obsequies of Patroclus are celebrated with great pomp, and then Achilles, who is possessed by a demon of rage and grief, continues for a space of twelve days to wreak his vengeance on the lifeless body of Hector, which he drags repeatedly behind his car round the tomb of Patroclus. The gods interpose to make an end of this senseless fury, and Hector's body, which has been miraculously preserved from harm, is restored to Priam, who comes in the night, under the conduct of Hermes, and redeems the corpse with a heavy ransom. With the burial of Hector the poem reaches its conclusion.

Such, in the briefest and baldest outline, is the story of the Iliad. Space does not allow us to discuss the various objections which have been raised against some of the details of the narrative, still less to enumerate the reconstructions and mutilations to which the great epic has been subjected in the dissecting-room of criticism. Where opinion is still so much divided, we may be allowed to state our conviction that the Iliad, though wanting the structural perfection of the Odyssey, is one poem, and the work of one master mind.