Social Values and Commentary Flashcards
“No-one can match..>”
“No-one can match the honours dealt a king, a sceptred King to whom great Zeus gives glory…because he rules more men”
How is the potential duel received? Book 3
“the Achaean and Trojan forces both exulted, hoping this would end the agonies of war”
‘A fighter prays for…’
‘A fighter prays for blood-kin to avenge his death’
[of Patroclus] Death and parents
‘Never would be repay his loving parents now for the gift of rearing…’
Agamemnon vs Menelaus
‘just for the sake of rivalry, soldier’s pride, don’t rush to fight with a better man’
What does Achilles insist in Book 21
To know the ancestry of the people he fights
Who decides not to fight because of their family history of guest-friendship? What do they exchange? What is the irony?
Diomedes and Glaucus; trading symbolic armour; irony as beforehand Diomedes says “why ask about my birth? Like the generations of leaves, the lives of mortal men…” – but it is his heritage which saves him, foregrounding its importance
What did Paris break and how?
The rules of guest-friendship, by taking Helen from Menelaus while there
How is Odysseus’ and Agamemnon’s feud resolved in Book 4
Resolved with words only - “may the gods make all our bluster come to nothing”
After Ajax’s and Hector’s duel
Trade gifts, part “bound by pacts of friendship”
Opposition in assembly
“I will be the first to oppose you…here in assembly, King, where it’s custom”
Nestor, on Achilles
“He’ll reap the rewards of that great courage of his alone - weep his heart out far too late”
Polydamas on Hector’s leading style
Criticises him as it is “never right for a common man to speak against you, King, never in common council, and god forbid in war”
How does Achilles rebut Phoenix, who was ‘like a father’ to him?
“What do I need with honour such as that? I say my honour lies in the great decree of Zeus”
