On Shame And Yearning (pt.2)

another three 🌲

based on a book about Czech forests (Naše pralesy) first part here

ClassicsTober Day 5: Chiron

Everyone you raised.

time passes

One of the funniest real-world things to mix with the Iliad is that in Hittite society bird omens/reading birds was like.

A really important divination method.

Maybe not THE most important but it was big and it was complex and involved.

And then you have Hektor "fuck your bird signs" of Troy.

?????

hey remember that absolutely gut wrenching part in the iliad when hector is running for his life from achilles, totally out of sorts, completely outmatched, thinking he’s been abandoned by Troy and everyone he loves, until he sees his brother, deiphobos—his dearest brother, the only person who showed up to fight by his side—and feels so much relief because he doesn’t have to face achilles alone—and thanks him for being the only one in Troy stand beside him? and so hector goes to achilles with new courage, hurls a spear at him, misses, is so discouraged, but nonetheless turns to his brother to ask for a new one because so long as deiphobos is there, there’s hope. but he’s gone. and hector, as he stands facing the death that has been destined for him since before he was born, has this moment of realization that no one ever came to help him. no one is standing beside him, and deiphobos is still behind the Trojan wall watching hector die alone like everyone else. what he saw was just Athena’s cruel trick to get him killed.

yeah, so, that makes me cry.

"And down in Hades, your father will care for all the rest" -from Euripides' "The Trojan Women"

I will never be free of the Hector sadness. also Scamandrius was technically the last king of Troy which is something I think about sometimes and feel normal and sane.

“Moreover, the language she uses of herself evokes the heroes of Greek epic and specifically Achilles - “equal to the gods, save for death alone”. Death gives Polyxena the opportunity to confer herolike status upon herself, while condemning the Greeks for the life and the assault they would have subjected her to.”

— Casey Dué, The captive woman’s lament in Greek tragedy

thank you troy 2004 for helping me objectify the trojan princes

Speaking of how Troy 2004 has personally offended me:

They took sandpaper and went to town on Hector. Smoothed out all his imperfections because how can good man also be bad man sometimes oh no my brain can't deal with that.

Also they didn't make him nearly as scary as he should be. Hector in the iliad is the. Scariest. The achaeans are terrified of him. Like he's the guy that walks on the battlefield and people run for their lives. He can lift boulders. He gets his ribcage smashed and gets back up like ten minutes later (granted, that's apollo, but in the god-less universe of troy they could've used it to make him even scarier) He doesn't go home all clean, he goes home and talks to his wife and holds his son while covered in gore. It's stressed that nobody but Achilles can beat him. He nearly burns the ships. He boasts and commits hybris after killing Patroclus.

Hector is the unbeatable war machine that makes mistakes sometimes, that morphs into a loving, smiling dad when he sees his son. The unbeatable war machine that's keeping an entire city safe, that gets scared and runs for his life when he knows he's in actual danger. That in the second-to-final moment has to be tricked into bravery, to stand and fight, so he has the chance at the final moment to recover from that and be supremely brave again and run straight to death, with his mind set on glory. Because he's extremely human right to the end. And his pride is as huge as his feeling of duty and love.

Also they took away that great scene where he's like "fuck your bird signs" he was such a legend for that in the iliad.