Week Five: HOMER
Accepting Death and Limiting Vengeance; Civilization from Humanity or by Divine Command
October 10, 8 PM -9:30 pm
Both the Odyssey and the Iliad end with gods having to restrain the bloodthirsty vengeance of heroes. The demand of his friendship with Patroclus leads to insatiable vengeance by Achilles against Hector for killing him (24.592-594). Does the bitterness of Patroclus’ death for Achilles also arise from the bitterness of seeing his own death (e.g. 19.328-339)? Achilles kills Hector and repeatedly mutilates his body, but Zeus commands the return of the body to his father Priam (24.113-116). Without a divine command, would common humanity alone—as the sympathy of Achilles for Priam’s suffering in losing his son Hector, as he imagines his own father Peleus suffers without him (24.503-512)—be sufficient to overcome the savagery of Achilles’ vengeance and loyalty to his friend? Consider, for example, Achilles’ kindness to Priam, beyond Zeus’ commands (24.656-672). Or are the gods needed because decency and civilization is not natural (24.560-570, 24.582-586), as the example of the Cyclops seemed to suggest? Is common human sympathy alone sufficient to establish decent behavior between men of different clans or nations?