Under Water / The Iliad

February 25, 2008

At first, I thought this piece of medieval artwork was a depiction of Homer in Hades (since that was the page title of the website).

However, the jpeg file reads “Alexander Under Water” — and I’ve no further info on it (argh!).

Homer’s day is usually dated in the range of 850 - 750 BC.

More than 30,000 lines of the ancient Homeric songs (namely The Iliad and The Odyssey) survive today. Many scholars believe these verses were originally sung or recited from memory in live performance.

Homer’s “poetic style” is a technology: a system of mnemonic devices, helping the performer to remember the words.

This is an excerpt from The Iliad, in which the poet invokes a muse to aid him in telling the story of the rage of Achilles, the greatest Greek hero to fight in the Trojan War.

Thus did he pray, and Apollo heard his prayer. He came down furious from the summits of Olympus, with his bow and his quiver upon his shoulder, and the arrows rattled on his back with the rage that trembled within him. He sat himself down away from the ships with a face as dark as night, and his silver bow rang death as he shot his arrow in the midst of them. First he smote their mules and their hounds, but presently he aimed his shafts at the people themselves, and all day long the pyres of the dead were burning.

Posted in old world, poems