#iliad book 5

[katerinaaqu]

No one absolutely no one:

Athena and Diomedes in Iliad:

[emmikay]

Odysseus: You fought two gods after being shot in the shoulder?

Diomedes: Well, yes.

Odysseus: It’s just a little hard to believe.

Diomedes: Not really. One thing I have learned doing this - there's no drug like adrenaline.

[lady-stardust-incarnate]

A brief summary of how each character is doing at the end of the trojan war

Menelaus - alive!!! (somehow)

Helen - alive! was gonna get killed but she's too hot for that

Achilles - dead

Patroclus - dead

Paris - dead, shot in the dick (ha)

Hector - dead, body absolutely desecrated (you were a dick for that Achilles)

Agamemnon - alive then dead (you were a queen for that Clytemnestra)

Odysseus - blublublublub (jk he gets Penelope and Telemachus back but not before slaughtering most of the nobles of Ithica, there's kind of a whole book on it)

Ajax - dead

Penthesilea - dead

Diomedes - cucked (aphrodite's punishment for fucking up her wrist)

Aeneas - bringing the squad to Italy (there's kind of a whole book on it)

[ex35life]

I love how in Book 5 of the Iliad, Athena basically tells Ares, "Look bro, let's sit this one out and let the mortals kill each other so we don't piss Dad off." And Ares just shrugs and follows her to chill on the beach and watch the war.

And that lasts for about .5 seconds before Athena gets involved again.

[lyculuscaelus]

How easy it was to blame all these misadventures the Achaeans suffered upon their homecoming on a man in revenge for his son.

Yes, we know what Palamedes did, and we know that he deserved it. We know that the disaster near Cape Caphereus did happen, and Nauplius was the one behind this. But we have not learned of anything else about the other part of Nauplius’s revenge from any sources earlier than pseudo-Apollodorus’s Epitome (and we know that the entire chapter 6 of Epitome is very likely tampered by Tzetzes already). Since, to be fair, Homer wasn’t the only one who neglected all this resettlement of Achaean heroes.

There was no mention of the name “Nauplius” in Proclus’s summary of the epic Nostoi, and the only chance for him to show up is in “the description of the storm around the Capherian rocks”. We know that Nauplius would make an appearance in the Nostoi through, again, pseudo-Apollodorus. But nothing more. The corruption of Argive wives did not happen in the Epic Cycle, and both the Nostoi and the Odyssey did not elaborate on any exile of any Achaean leader especially Diomedes.

And Aegialeia was still a steadfast wife of Diomedes in Homer’s epics. And Clytemnestra could still find her justice in her lament for Iphigeneia in Aeschylus’s and Euripides’s plays. Any role Nauplius could play in this would be redundant—prudent Aegialeia simply wouldn’t comply, and Clytemnestra wouldn’t need him to convince her.

So, why the attribution then? A likely explanation would be the attempt to connect the hero with those foundation myths in places outside the Mainland Greece like Magna Graecia. And what better way to get the hero there than exile? And what better way to exile a hero than the betrayal of their wife if they had one? (Well there are better ways but you know what I mean) The thing is, why did it have to be Nauplius? I mean, the tragedy at Cape Caphereus was infamous indeed. I could totally see people blaming Nauplius the Wrecker for more things than simply lighting a false beacon and throwing rocks. So now we have our avenger Nauplius traveling around Greece contriving the corruption of Argive wives and causing shipwreck for the returned fleet and in some versions even bringing false news to Anticleia which led to her suicide (again, not the version in the Odyssey)…Nauplius just seemed to be such a convenient device to connect these events.

But does that have to be the only case for their nostoi? I mean, Homer certainly did not include anything about this exile in his epics, and we could totally have our Nauplius simply causing shipwreck, without messing up with other heroes’ families. Is it tragic? Certainly. But in the meantime, it is cathartic. Heroes like Diomedes, Idomeneus, Philoctetes still get to stay in their homeland, even if it’s just in a few versions—one of them being Homer’s version.

[specialagentartemis]

Ares whining to daddy that Athena is Zeus’s favorite and it’s not faaaaair

it’s kind of true though, is the funny thing. Zeus to Ares like “you’re hateful to me because you are uncontrollable and cause such strife and violence!” then turns around to Athena and goes “that’s fine sweetie, you can trick the Trojans into breaking their truce and starting the bloodshed up again, you can ride beside Diomedes to guide his spear to stab Aphrodite and Ares, you can do whatever you want forever, I support you <3”

[epigonoi]

tfw your dad died when you were like four and you spent the next ten years of your life training to avenge him and when you do avenge him you just move on to the next war. and then the next. all you have known is war. and everyone wants you to be more like your father. he is a warning of all that you could become. you don't remember him. you are your father's son. you know you are nothing like him. you both were pawns in the gods' games.

[pelideswhore]

Paris: How would you describe my leadership skills?

Hector: Nonexistent.

Hector: Otherwise, excellent.

[komnnetto]

Ares: Why did you allow your daughter to hurt me? :(

Zeus: Bc she’s my fav

[fluentisonus]

people on that poll saying they're voting for hera bc she's a milf as though aphrodite is not famously a milf. learn your milfstory

[adriles]

still feels weird every time somebody recalls my infamous “rage". feels bad to be defined by the grief fueled frenzy so easily induced in me

[starlitsequins]

my dad is reading the iliad for the first time and came to me after book 16 and we were on drastically different wavelengths...there i was all excited about him finally witnessing patroclus slaughtering everyone and there he was horrified at the violence...look sometimes you just have to let the aristeia take you and forget your morals

[finelythreadedsky]

i'm fundamentally opposed to book titles in translations of ancient epics ('beguilement on mount ida,' 'a hero's son awakens,' 'the olive tree bed,' 'camilla's finest hour,' 'juno served by a fury') bc it just seems like too much to me to presume you know what single thing the book is really about, but christopher logue is allowed to do it

[thatthinginthemoss]

I have no problem with how people headcanon Remus and Sirius' sexualities but I think you need to really think about why you are choosing a certain sexuality and how that affects your perception.

I have been in this fandom for almost ten year (which is jarring for me) and I have seen how the sexualities have changed how they are both perceived. Remus was more often than not headcanoned as being gay and he was a soft boy who was quiet and didn't really take part in the pranks and he was focused on academics and was occasionally sarcastic and always had this "feminine" quality about him in both artworks and writings. Sirius was more often than not headcanoned as being bisexual and he was brash and loud and a "ladies man" who slept around and didn't care about pissing people off.

Now these have switched, and while they still do retain some of the original common traits, they are mostly swapped and I find it interesting that characters headcanoned as gay are suddenly soft and nervous and quiet and always end up feminised in some way, which ordinarily would not be a problem however it seems to come up again and again with gay characters. It is also interesting how characters headcanoned as bisexual become brash and mean and sleep around.

This fandom has a serious problem with playing into stereotypes about sexualities without even realising it and often defending it by saying you're queer so it's fine. It's not, if anything when you're queer you should be trying harder to break the stereotypes surrounding your own sexuality.

Anyway, just think about why you're choosing a sexuality for a character and how you perceive them before and afterwards.

[oflights]

top five books

gahhh i love and hate this lol. love because i love to evangelize about the books i love, and hate because i love sO MANY BOOKS

okay, again in no order because how could i rank these?? also i added another restriction because i could not actually handle coming up with only a top five that included classic lit (if someone else wants to ask me that one so i can have another meltdown, feel free).

anyway, these are top five books that i've read in the past five years!! linking to my goodreads reviews for receipts.

A Brightness Long Ago by Guy Gavriel Kay

Lent by Jo Walton

The Which Way Tree by Elizabeth Crook

She Who Became the Sun/He Who Drowned the World by Shelley Parker-Chan

Piranesi by Susanna Clark

ask me top 5 anything! 📖📚

[dilutedh2so4]

Paris - the effeminate second-born son, the one abandoned at birth and raised as a shepherd, the one who would bring doom to his family and to his city, the "impossible man" as his older brother calls him

And yet Hector - for all the insults and righteous rage he has towards him - still aches for Paris because, despite being separated from birth and bringing all this suffering, Paris is still his brother

Talked about Agamemnon and older sibling’s role the other day, so I just finish the whole spiel with younger siblings too, namely Menelaus and Paris.

Both of them are Helen’s husbands, sons of mighty kings and brothers of powerful men. A lot of things, which were not their birthright, were granted to them,e.g the throne of Sparta for Menelaus (by marrying Helen), and Helen herself for Paris. They’re both somewhat pathetic in people’s eyes, especially when compared to their brothers.

But the difference is, Menelaus is willing to step out of the shadow, while Paris comfortably stays in it.

Menelaus in Iliad was active in combat. He agreed to settle scores one on one with Paris. He protected and retrieved the corpse of Patroclus, and volunteered for the night raid, and he had his own voice so to say. He used what was granted and built up an identity for himself. Among the kings and warriors, he was still average at best, but his enthusiasm was very noticeable.

Paris, not so much. When battling with Menelaus, his body armor was borrowed from one of his brothers. Even after being rescued from being killed, he stayed put in the room with Helen, letting his own brothers fight for his behalf as the oath was broken, until Hector dragged him out again.

Younger siblings are raised within the shadow of their older family members, but it’s also their choice to either step out of it or stay. It’s also ironic that Hector actively tried to force Paris to stand up and fight for himself, while Agamemnon tried his best to not let Menelaus loose and run around trying to unalive himself in the process.