Achilles is usually presented too boringly and monotonously. This, they say, is the epic ideal of the warrior-hero, and almost everyone ends up with it. In fact, Homeric Achilles is one of the most complex figures in all ancient literature and, perhaps, not only ancient literature.

Achilles bandaging the wounded Patroclus. Kilik (glass). 5th century BC e.

In the first stage of his tragedy, when he is in a quarrel with Agamemnon, he behaves rather passively. His action here is mainly "anger" against his offender. But now he has reconciled, now he is again ready to engage in battle with the Trojans. This is where a lot of things begin that do not immediately combine into one whole image, but when combined, it makes it unexpectedly original.

First of all, it is a military thunderstorm, a huge destructive force, bestial revenge, bloodlust and cruelty. But, on the other hand, the whole point of this blood, this atrocity lies in the most tender friendship with Patroclus, because of whom he starts all this massacre. The image of a beloved friend, the most tender, heartfelt image lives in the soul of Achilles along with animal fury and inhumanity, and these two principles not only reinforce one another, but also receive their only meaning - one from the other.

For Achilles, for example, it is very characteristic that after appearing near the moat in a wild and ferocious form and after the panic caused by his terrible cry among his enemies, he (Iliad, XVIII, 235) "sheds hot tears" over the corpse of his faithful comrade. In addition, Achilles in Homer and in general are characterized by soft and gentle features, which in no case should be forgotten when describing him. He is pious and often prays to the gods (such is his famous libation and prayer. Zeus for Patroclus entering the battle, XVI, 220-248), at a critical moment Zeus hears him (XXII, 273-298), winds appear through his prayer (XXIII, 192-225); he is restrained, for example, when he deals with the messengers of Agamemnon, considering them completely innocent (I, 335), and at another time (IX, 196 syllable) even treating them kindly; even in the heat of his anger, he does not forget about the Greeks, sends Patroclus to find out about the wounded (XI, 597 syllables), he is struck by the fire that started on the Greek ships, and he not only allows Patroclus to speak, but even hurries him up with his speech (XVI, 126–129); he is a loving son, often helplessly turning to his mother and crying around her, as, for example, after an insult received from Agamemnon (I, 348-427) or after the announcement of the death of Patroclus (XVIII, 65-144).

This antithesis is the most salient feature Achilles. On the one hand, he is angry, quick-tempered, vindictive, merciless in war; he is a beast, not a man, a soulless element, not a human heart, so Patroclus is quite right when he says to him (XVI, 33-35):

You are cruel at heart. Your father was not Peleus the horseman,

Mother is not Thetis goddess. You were born on the sparkling sea.

A solid rock - from them you have a cruel heart.

Yes, and Peleus himself was, of course, quite right when he said to Achilles, sending him to war (IX, 254-258):

My son, Athena and Hera will give you strength and courage,

If they so desire; and you are your proudest spirit

Curb in the heart; be kind to the person.

Flee evil run, and there will be more of you

On the other hand, however, Achilles has a tender and loving heart, his very anger makes some kind of naive impression, and this whole image of a hero and giant sobbing near his mother or near a dead friend is even touching. Here is how he reacts to the news of the death of a friend (XVIII, 22-27):

A black cloud of sorrow covered Peleev's son.

In a handful with both hands, taking smoky ashes,

He sprinkled his head with them, disfiguring his beautiful appearance.

He stained his whole fragrant tunic with black ash,

Himself, - big, stretched out over a large space, - he lay

In gray dust and tormented his hair, disfiguring them.

This antithesis of a stern fighter and a tender heart is the very first and main thing that we find in Achilles. She shows us that in Achilles we really have something spontaneous, as if irresponsibly irrational. Both brutality and a tender heart are mixed in it, like cloudy and clear weather in nature. The psyche of Achilles is basically elemental; and this spontaneity is very healthy, powerful, striking in its primitive freshness.

So, a warrior, a fighter, a hero, a fearless knight and often a beast - this is the time; and a tender heart, love, frequent inner naive helplessness - these are two.

Thirdly, in the spiritual experience of Achilles, something that rarely anyone can combine at all coincides, this is the command of fate and their own raging and gurgling of life. He knows that he will not return from under Troy, and yet he undertakes a difficult and dangerous campaign. Before a decisive battle, the horses predict his imminent death, appointed by fate, but this does not stop him at all (XIX, 420 syllable):

What are you, Xanth, prophesying death to me? It's not your concern!

I myself know well that fate is destined for me to die

Here, away from father and mother. But I won't go

From the battle, until the Trojans taste their fill of war!

So he says, gloomy and angry, to his prophetic horse. In the heat of battle, when Lycaon asks him for mercy, he again recalls his own lot, and we do not know whether he kills Lycaon in the heat of battle passion or whether this is his obedience to fate. He says (XXI, 106-113):

Darling, die same and you! Why are you so upset?

Patroclus lost his life - and yet he was much better than you!

Do you not see how great and beautiful I myself am?

I am a noble son of a father, born from an immortal goddess, -

Death, however, with a mighty fate, and they are waiting for me.

Morning will come, or evening, or noon, - and in a bloody battle

Some Trojan warrior will rip out my soul,

Or striking with a spear, or striking with an arrow from a bowstring.

Achilles has a secret knowledge, a secret vision of his destiny. He is not just a blind destroyer. His consciousness is destiny itself, realizing itself in man. Impersonal spontaneity is framed here as an intimate-personal experience.

Fourthly, this "love of fate" (as the Stoics will later say) is turned by Achilles into a whole philosophy of life. In his response to Priam's request (Iliad, XXIV, 518-551), he creates a whole construction about the happiness and unhappiness of human life and expresses a strongly pessimistic view of man: they themselves are carefree" (syllable 525). And it's not just a theory. Achilles, this beast and wild hurricane of war, understands that Priam with his murdered son Hector and he, Achilles, with his murdered friend Patroclus are essentially one and the same, and he knows the futility of any human lamentation: "Well, calm down. and sit down in an armchair," he says (syllable 522). "No matter how sad, we will leave our sorrows to rest hidden in the heart!" A warm and gentle feeling of humanity, a sense of the common destiny of all people lives in the unbending warrior's heart. And here we see how Achilles is transformed in the scene with Priam. He asks Priam not to poison his soul with new requests, fearing that he would lose his temper and violate his friendliness to Priam and the covenant of Zeus (570). On the other hand, in order not to offend the old king with the sight of Hector and, again, not to arouse an angry reaction in himself to the possible indignation of Priam, he orders to secretly put the corpse of Hector in order, wash, anoint, dress and put on a beautiful chariot (580-590 ). And after that, he generously treats Priam, and both of them are surprised at the mutual beauty and godliness for a long time (599-633). And all this is not at all because he forgot about his late friend in a moment of sudden surging sentimentality. No, he remembers him very well and even turns to him with a prayer not to be angry and with a promise to please him in the future (592-595). Not only that, fearing that someone would not see Priam and make a fuss about the arrival of the enemy in the Greek camp, Achilles puts Priam to spend the night not in the house, but in the yard, with great honors. And finally, he even asks how many days the mourning and burial of Hector will last in Troy, so as not to attack the Trojans during this time. And in the future, the Trojans, without any fear, within the prescribed 11 days, go beyond the city walls to bury the hero, believing noble word Achilles. All this generally shows that Achilles really has an experience of universal human destiny and with all intimacy feels the general equality of people in front of her.

Fifthly, it must be said directly that from this deep and complex image of Achilles, in the end, it emanates a kind of sadness, a kind of sadness, that special antique noble sadness that rested on the whole centuries-old attitude of antiquity. The voluptuousness of battle, tender friendship and love, devotion to the will of fate, absolute personal fearlessness in the face of the empty and languid eternity of Hades, and, finally, an intimate feeling of humanity and humanity - all this is merged in Achilles into one vital impulse, into one social instinct, into one indivisible and monolithic well-being. Achilles is a complex nature, in a truly ancient sense, in a truly Homeric sense, a complex and rich nature.

Sixthly, finally, they often forgot to put forward a mythological basis in Achilles, humanizing him too much and reducing him to the image of an ordinary, albeit incredibly strong man. If we manage to combine in our imagination everything that was said above about Achilles, also with the mythic nature of his image, then we will get a truly Homeric, truly epic character, distinguished by all those basic properties of the epic, which were pointed out as the principles of epic poetry in general.

The ancient naivety of scientists saw in Achilles either the Thessalian water demon (Müllengoff, Roscher, Usener), or lightning (E. G. Meyer). There is enough mythology in the very image of Achilles, even if such abstract-metaphysical violence is not performed on him. First of all, he is the son of the goddess, the sea princess, the Nereid Thetis, and Thetis herself already plays some especially mysterious role in Greek mythology, because, according to predestination, if Zeus entered into marriage with her, then her son would overthrow Zeus himself. As you know, Zeus avoided this marriage only thanks to the warning of Prometheus. Further, Achilles' father is close to the centaur Chiron, who is the tutor of Achilles. Mother, in order to harden her son and make him immortal, bathes him in the underground river Styx; and his body, indeed, becomes invulnerable, with the exception of the famous heels. The sight of Achilles himself is so terrible and demonic that when Achilles, without any weapons, appears over the moat and starts screaming, all the Trojans who fought around the corpse of Patroclus immediately scatter in panic (Iliad, XVIII, 203-234). And the former weapon of Achilles (XVI, 70), and especially the new one, prepared not by human hands, but by the god Hephaestus himself, causes panic among enemies (XIX, 12-23). Achilles struggles with the elements of nature (XXI). Pallas Athena herself dresses his powerful shoulders in an aegis, and (XVIII, 205 syllable)

The goddess of goddesses thickened over her head golden

A cloud around itself lit a dazzling flame

so that (214) "the light from the head of Achilles reached the ether." Achilles talks with the gods, and the gods take care of him. When he draws his sword at Agamemnon in a fit of anger, Athena restrains him (I, 188-200) and when he does not eat or drink for a long time, indulging in sorrow and tears for Patroclus, Zeus sends Athena to reinforce him with nectar and ambrosia (XIX, 338 –354).

All these and similar demonic features in the image of Achilles, so pronounced in Homer, but not always appreciated enough, significantly complement the above characterization of Achilles, making him a true hero of the epic with all the main features of Homer's aesthetic worldview in general.

Finally, if we touched on the most ancient basis of the appearance of Achilles, which Homer does not forget to talk about with all the classicism of the image of Achilles, then we should also recall those features of the later already overripe epic, where we have before us not just a disclosure inner life the personality of Achilles, which is absent from the ancient and harsh heroes, but also the depiction of various kinds of whims of Achilles, his instability and stubbornness, his excessive anger and promotion of his personal interests above his patriotic duty, to which he devotes his whole life, his unprincipledness as in the question of concubine Briseis, and in the question of revenge for Patroclus, while he had to fight not at all because of revenge after the murder, but because of his duty to his homeland in general. His heroism, his devotion to the interests of the motherland, his ardent patriotism, his courage and fearlessness form the central content of his character. They are not subject to any doubt, they make him the greatest hero not only of Greece, but of world history. Without this selfless heroism, Achilles would not at all exercise the primacy of the general over the individual, that is, he would not be an epic hero at all. However, this. the central content of his character, on the one hand, is rooted in the distant mythical past and in the immemorial chthonic antiquity. And, on the other hand, his character is a product of a later subjectivistic development, when the ideals of severe heroism were already a thing of the past, and the next step was a capricious and wayward subject with all the egoistic and nervous features of his unstable inner life. Here, too, Homer is true to his main epic style, namely, his retrospective-summarizing tendency, which forced him in his artistic images to sum up the most diverse stages of community-clan development.

This is the main aesthetic sharpening of the artistic style of Homer, especially seen in the image of Achilles.

Achilles as a character is nothing but a new example of that preliminary characterization of the epic that we had at the beginning: Achilles is a mythical being. This is a mythical creature of an elemental-bodily nature, both in the sense of a pure element, and in the sense of its plastic design; the mythical, plastic, spontaneously bodily image of Achilles is epic in Homer, that is, externally, impersonal, since everything essential is invested in Achilles only by the gods and fate, and he himself is basically only aware of his predestination. Elements, plasticity, mythicity, fate and predestination and awareness of this fate, leading from animal life through a tender heart to sadness and doom, including the capricious and selfish psychology of the hero who is already beyond the boundaries of the epic - this is what Homer in general and his Achilles. This entire socio-historical complex, starting from chthonic mythology and ending with capricious psychology and civilization, must be understood as something unified and indivisible, not as a mechanical sum, but as a living and indecomposable organism.

Chapter Fourteen

Homer's Iliad: The Wrath of Achilles

Main characters

Achilles- A mighty Greek warrior whose anger served to create the Iliad.

Agamemnon- Leader of the Greeks.

Hector- The Greatest Trojan Warrior.

Priam- King of Troy.

Odysseus- A cunning intriguer, tactician and warrior.

Big Ajax- Brave Greek warrior.

Paris- The son of Priam, kidnapped Helen.

Menelaus- Elena's husband.

Elena- Abducted by Paris, her abduction triggered the Trojan War.

Hecuba- Wife of Priam, mother of Hector.

Andromache- Hector's wife.

Homer is a poet, standing at the origins of not only Greek, but also European literature, his name is inextricably linked with the heroic epic and the mythological tradition of the Greeks, in which the myth of the Trojan War occupies a central place. We do not know exactly who Homer was, and whether he wrote the Odyssey, but as far as the Iliad is concerned (the way of life and customs described in it), we can assume that this epic poem was created in the 8th century before new era. Homer, when writing it, used songs and heroic tales, relying on the epic traditions, it seems, of the Mycenaean culture (1600-1100), which developed in the era of the developed Bronze Age, and, apparently, because, at the time of the creation of the Iliad, the Greeks lived in Iron Age, Homer's heroes carry bronze weapons.

Information about the Mycenaean culture, characterized by high level crafts, production and luxurious buildings that adorned cities such as Mycenae and Pylos, have come down to us, however, not thanks to Homer's poems, but in connection with the discovery of archives with clay tablets filled with inscriptions in Linear B. In "Feast", a work Xenophon, one of the characters named Niceratus knows by heart the entire poem of Homer. Of course, he had an extraordinary memory, but it was thanks to memorization in ancient times that songs, myths and heroic tales were passed down from generation to generation. Over time, they may have been altered before reaching us in the form that we know. The reciters of the distant past knew their recitations by heart and were akin to modern jazzmen participating in jam sessions, who, performing a work without deviating from harmony and structure, can afford improvisation due to the fact that they played the theme more than once or twice.

Homer in the Iliad only talks about the tenth, last year the Trojan War, and each mythographer sets out all the events of previous years in his own way, m therefore, it is impossible to establish for certain the entire sequence of events during the years of the siege of Troy. The Iliad, written in hexameter, contains 15,693 lines. Even in ancient times, the poem was divided into twenty-four songs - according to the number of letters in the Greek alphabet.

In the tenth year of the siege of Troy - from which the Iliad begins - the priest of Apollo Chris came to the camp of the Greeks and asked for a ransom to return his daughter Chryseis, who was captured by the Greeks during one of the sorties, after which she went to Agamemnon. After Agamemnon rejected the request of Chris, and even insulted him, Chris appealed to Apollo with a plea to avenge the insults and insults inflicted by the Greeks. Apollo heeded the prayer of Chris and sent pestilence on the Greek soldiers. Then Achilles convened a popular assembly to decide how to propitiate the gods. To the displeasure of Agamemnon, the soothsayer Kalchas told that the gods were angry with the Greeks for not returning the daughter of Chryseis to the priest of Apollo. Agamemnon reluctantly returned Chryseis to his father, after which the pestilence stopped. However, Agamemnon did not let up and demanded compensation for the return of Chryseis. Achilles reproached Agamemnon for self-interest, recalling that Briseis, another captive, had already departed for him. However, Agamemnon (who was higher than Achilles in terms of position in the army) began to threaten that with his power he would compensate for the losses incurred due to what Achilles had inherited.

Achilles answered angrily:

No, we came for you, we amuse you, on Trojans

Honor, looking for Menelaus, you, a dog-like man!

But you, shameless, consider this nothing and despise everything,

You threaten me that you will steal my reward,

Feats of burdensome retribution, the most precious gift of the Achaeans to me?

No, despite the fact that the heaviest burden of languid warfare

My hands are raised, always, as the section comes,

The richest gift to you, and I with a small, pleasant

I return to the camp without grumbling when I am exhausted by the fighting.

Now I am going to Phthia: for me it is incomparably more pleasant

To return to the house on fast ships; shamed by you

I do not intend for you to multiply booty and treasures here.

Achilles almost grappled with Agamemnon, but Athena appeared to prevent the duel. Enraged, Achilles went with his friend Patroclus to the tent, and after he comforted him, he turned to his mother, the goddess Thetis, for help.

She called to Zeus:

Revenge my son, O Zeus! He is the shortest of all Danaev,

But Agamemnon, the ruler of men, dishonored him:

He himself stole the award from him, and rules over it.

But avenge him you, heavenly providence, Kronion!

Grant overcoming to the Trojan warriors, until the Achaeans

They will not honor the son and they will not exalt his honor.

This concludes the first canto of the Iliad. After a quarrel with Agamemnon, Achilles, along with his army, consisting of myrmidons, temporarily withdrew from the fighting, which made it possible to show valor to other Achaean leaders: Menelaus, Greater Ajax and Diomedes. The third song tells about the duel of Menelaus with Paris, and in the seventh song - about the duel of Big Ajax with Hector. But these fights did not bring victory to either side. Among the Greeks, Diomedes most distinguished himself, wounding Aphrodite and the god of war Ares, who stood up for the Trojans. After that, the Greeks decided to build a defensive wall to secure the camp and ships.

The battles between the Greeks and the Trojans continued. Before the next battle, the Trojan Hector, the most prominent son of Priam, saying goodbye to his wife Andromache, was most worried that if Troy fell, Andromache would go to the Greeks, and says that in this case

... you copper-plated Achaean,

Shedding tears, will lead to captivity and steal freedom!

And, slave, in Argos you will weave for a foreigner,

Carry water from the springs of Misseis or Hyperea.

But let me perish and be covered with dust of the earth

Before I see your captivity and hear your plaintive cry!

However, when the battle resumed, luck accompanied the Trojans. They pushed the Greeks behind the wall erected by those and, as the eighth song of the poem tells, they camped near the Greek ships.

Alarmed, Agamemnon realized that the quarrel with Achilles was a mistake and, on the advice of Nestor, wise with life experience, sent Ajax, Odysseus and Phoenix to appease Achilles with expensive gifts and a promise to return Briseis if he again enters the war.

Achilles greeted the envoys of Agamemnon cordially, but refused to reconcile with him, accompanying his disagreement with the following words:

I abhor him for nothing and I impute myself to nothing!

If at ten and twenty times he offered me treasures,

How much he still has and how much more he will accumulate,

Even though everything that the Egyptians bring to Orchomenus or Thebes,

City, where riches without estimates are stored in the cloisters of citizens,

A city in which there are a hundred gates, and from each of them two hundred

Military men in chariots, on fast horses leave;

Or at least how much he would give me, how much sand and dust here, -

Atrid Agamemnon will not bend my heart and this,

Before all the soul-tormenting resentment is blotted out!

Despite all further persuasion, Achilles remained adamant and only said that he would then again oppose Troy when the Trojans got to the Greek ships and began to set them on fire.

The ninth canto of the Iliad is devoted to these events, and the tenth ode tells of the night outing of Odysseus and Diomedes. In the eleventh to eighteenth songs of the poem, further battles between the Greeks and the Trojans are told, in which Agamemnon, Diomedes, Odysseus, Euripides and the healer, the son of Asclepius Machaon, were injured. Of the best Greek warriors, only Big Ajax remained in service, which allowed the Trojans to break through the defenses of the Greeks and push them back to the ships. Help for the Greeks came from Hera and Poseidon. Hera, who hated the Trojans, took Zeus to the marital bed, where in the end the god fell asleep, and Poseidon managed to turn the tide of the battle in favor of the Greeks. But their triumph did not last long. The awakened Zeus intervened in the course of the battle, and the Greeks, under the blows of Apollo and Hector, began to retreat again.

Patroclus, the favorite of Achilles, decided to correct the state of affairs. Appearing to Achilles, he told about the deplorable situation of the Greeks and tried to persuade him to enter the war again. When he refused, Patroclus asked Achilles for armor, hoping that if he puts on them, the Trojans will mistake him for Achilles and, retreating, will leave the battle. Achilles gave Patroclus not only armor, but also subjugated his myrmidons to him, and then (calling Menetides) admonished like this:

... Repel destruction from the courts;

Strike bravely, but our adversaries will not burn with fire

Our ships and what we desire will not be deprived of our return.

But obey, I put a covenant on my heart,

So that you exalt me ​​with glory and great honor

In the host of the Danae. So, so that Dana and the beautiful maiden

They gave it themselves and offered many magnificent gifts,

Reflect the battle from the courts and return, Menetides, return!

Even when the glory would be granted by the Thunderer,

You without me, Menetid, do not dare to strike at all

Brave Trojans, and you will not humiliate my honor more.

Putting on the armor of Achilles and standing at the head of the myrmidons, Patroclus saved the ships, put the enemy to flight and personally defeated many Trojans, including the famous Sarpedon, the favorite of Zeus. However, Patroclus, carried away by the battle, forgot the instruction of Achilles, who ordered him to return as soon as the enemy retreated from the Achaean camp. Apollo helped the Trojans again. Euphorbus, sneaking up behind Patroclus, struck him with a gift with a spear in the back, and Hector finished him off at the walls of Troy. In the ensuing battle over the murdered Patroclus, Hector removed the armor of Achilles from him, while the Greeks recaptured the body of Patroclus and carried it to the camp.

Upon learning of the death of Patroclus, Achilles fell into despair; he was also tormented by pangs of conscience: after all, it was he who sent Patroclus to his death. But these feelings were replaced by anger and rage towards Hector, who had finished with Patroclus. Now Achilles wanted only one thing: to fight Hector as soon as possible and avenge Patroclus. Achilles was held back by one thing: he did not have suitable armor. Then Thetis went to Hephaestus and he hastily forged new armor and a shield for Achilles, decorated with various scenes from military and civilian life.

Having received both, Achilles convened a popular assembly, at which he announced his intention to continue the war with the Trojans and invited Agamemnon to forget about the quarrel.

Agamemnon went to meet Achilles, finding an excuse for himself:

Often they blamed me, but I, O Achaeans, are not guilty;

Zeus Aegioch, and Fate, and Erinnis wandering in the darkness:

The gods filled my mind at the council with gloomy turmoil

On the unfortunate day I stole the reward from Pelid.

What would I do? The mighty Goddess has done everything,

Daughter of the Thunderer, Resentment that blinds everyone,

Terrible; her feet are tender; she does not touch them

dust of the earth; she walks on the heads of men,

Mortal ulcers; and another and in the network easily catches.

After that, Agamemnon ordered to immediately give Achilles all the gifts promised for reconciliation.

When Achilles was already looking forward to how he would avenge the death of Patroclus, Xanthus, the prophetic horse, began to dissuade him from a duel with Hector, who told Achilles that if he killed Hector, he would die himself.

After listening to Xanthus, who was interrupted by the Erinyes, Achilles replied:

Meanwhile, Hector hoped that the Trojans were about to win a decisive victory, and rejected the advice to hide behind the fortress walls of Troy, not being afraid that Achilles, at the head of his myrmidons, again entered the battle. Zeus allowed the gods to take part in the battle on the side of the Greeks or Trojans, and when the army of Achilles crushed everyone in its path, Poseidon had to save Aeneas from death, and Apollo had to keep Hector from reckless actions.

Achilles was in the thick of the battle. Here is how Homer describes his unbridled onslaught, comparing Achilles with a demon:

As if like a terrible fire in the deep wilds rages,

Surrounded by a dry mountain, and the boundless forest burns;

The wind, raging around, waves the deadly stone, -

So he, raging with his lance, rushed around like a demon;

Driven, hit; the field flowed with black blood.

Achilles slew so many Trojans that the river god Scamander, because Achilles filled up the river with corpses, set out to drown him, but Hephaestus took the side of Achilles and dried up the river with a sizzling flame. Meanwhile, Athena got the better of Aphrodite and Ares, Poseidon won a war of words against Apollo, and Hera reduced Artemis to tears. With the exception of Hector, all the Trojans took refuge behind the fortress walls.

Blaming himself for the death of many Trojans and feeling the general condemnation of his fellow tribesmen, who watched him from the fortress wall with gloomy foreboding, Hector decided to fight Achilles, accompanying the risky intention with these words:

… I destroyed the Trojan people with my recklessness.

ABOUT! I am ashamed of Trojans and long-dressed Trojans!

The latest citizen can say in Ilion:

Hector ruined the people, relying on his strength! -

So the Ilionians will say. A hundred times more noble

To resist and, having killed the son of Peleev, return

Or in the battle with him before Troy gloriously die!

However, when Hector finally saw Achilles, he was frightened and started to run around Troy, circling the city three times. Meanwhile, Zeus threw two lots of death onto the golden scales, one for Achilles, the other for Hector, and the bowl with the lot of Hector's death went down. The god Apollo left Hector, and the goddess Athena approached Achilles, promising him victory over Hector.

... like a star between the stars in the dusk of the night shines,

Hesperus, who is fairest and brightest in heaven,

So Pelid's spear sparkled, with which

In his right hand he shook, intent on Hector's life.

Finally, Hector stopped to meet Achilles, who in the ensuing fight dealt him a fatal blow with a spear. After that, Achilles tied the body of Hector to his chariot and dragged it around Troy, and then dragged him to his camp.

This is where the description of the battles and fights in the Iliad ends, and in the last two songs of the poem, Homer tells about the funeral of Patroclus and Hector.

Achilles gave Patroclus a magnificent funeral. Animals and captive Trojans were sacrificed to the hero over a high funeral pyre. Then the funerary games took place, which included competitions in running, archery, fisticuffs, wrestling, weight throwing, and chariot racing.

Still mourning the death of his favorite, Achilles every morning dragged Hector's body behind the chariot around the tomb of Patroclus, but Apollo, whose help Hector repeatedly used during his lifetime, saved the body of the fallen from mutilation and decay. Finally, Zeus ordered Hermes to bring Priam to the Greek camp to ransom Hector's body.

Meeting with Achilles in his tent, Priam addressed him with these words:

"Brave! you are almost gods! take pity on my misfortune,

Remember Peleus father: I am incomparably more pitiful than Peleus!

I will experience what no mortal has experienced on earth:

Husband, murderer of my children, I press my hands to my lips!

So saying, he aroused deplorable thoughts about his father;

Taking the elder's hand, he quietly turned it away from him.

Both of them remembering: Priam - the famous son,

Wept bitterly, at the feet of Achilles prostrated in the dust;

King Achilles, sometimes remembering his father, sometimes his friend Patroclus,

He cried, and their mournful groan was heard all around the house.

But when the noble Pelid enjoyed tears

And the desire to cry from his heart receded, -

He quickly arose and raised the prostrate old man by the hand,

Deeply touched by both his white head and his white beard;

He began to speak to him, directing winged speeches:

"Ah, unfortunate! you have experienced many sorrows in your heart!

How did you decide, alone, to appear at the Myrmidon courts

Husband before the eyes, which sons you have famous

Conquered many? In your chest, old man, an iron heart!

But calm down, sit down, Dardanion; and no matter how sad we are

Let us hide in our hearts and make our sorrows silent.

Homer then describes Hector's funeral. His death is mourned by Hecuba, Andromache, and, somewhat surprisingly, Helen, who exclaims sorrowfully:

Hector! most respected brother-in-law, kinsman, dearest to the heart!

But from you I did not hear an evil, offensive word.

Even when another who reproached me from home,

Whether a proud brother-in-law, or a young sister-in-law,

Or the mother-in-law (and the father-in-law is always, like a father, welcome to me),

You admonished them with advice and made everyone kinder

Your meek soul and your meek conviction.

That is why I am crying about you and myself, the most unfortunate!

None for me, not a single one in Ilion the vast

Friend or comforter: I am equally hated by everyone!

This is where the Iliad ends. Homer begins the poem with words addressed to the Muse: "Anger, goddess, sing to Achilles, son of Peleus"; and anger is sung. But the Trojan War after the burial of Patroclus and Hector is not over. fighting resumed and led to the death of Achilles and the fall of Troy.

It is usually believed that the Iliad is a poem for men about men, about their valor and courage. However, this work tells not only about the military successes of the Greeks, but also about their defeats. In addition, the poem glorifies the high feelings of the characters: love for relatives, friends, anxiety for them.

So, in the sixth song of the poem, Homer describes the scene that happened after the return of Hector from the battlefield, in which the hero does not even think about his male superiority:

... the brilliant Hector rushed to hug his son;

But the baby is back, the rich-haired nurse to the bosom

He crouched down with a cry, frightened by his gracious father's appearance,

Frightened by bright copper and shaggy-haired comb,

Seeing him terribly bobbing on top of the helmet.

The sweetly kind parent and tender mother smiled.

The helmet from the head is immediately removed by the divine Hector,

He lays him down on the ground, magnificently shining, and taking him in his arms

Dear son, kisses, shakes him and, lifting,

So he says, imploring both Zeus and other immortals.

Rivers - and he puts his beloved wife in his arms

dear son; pressed the child to the fragrant bed

Mother smiling through her tears. Husband was heartbroken

Embraced her.

Sentimentality is also colored by Achilles' conversation with his mother, in which the hero mourns Patroclus, and Thetis, suffering, anticipates the imminent death of her son.

“I know, mother, Zeus the Thunderer fulfilled everything for me.

But what a joy it is when I lost Patroclus,

Dear friend! Of all my friends, I loved him the most;

I valued them as my head; and I lost it!

Hector the murderer stole from him that huge armor,

Marvelous, bestowed by the gods, a precious gift to Peleus

On the day, as, goddess, they threw you on your deathbed,

Oh, why did you not remain a nymph of the immortal sea!

Oh, why didn’t Peleus choose a mortal wife for himself!

Now you must also experience endless sorrow,

Sorrow for the dead son, whom you will not see

In the father's house! for my heart does not command me

To live and be human in society, if Hector,

The first, struck by my copy, will not spew out the soul

And he won’t pay me for the robbery of Patroclus, the dearest!”

The mother, shedding tears, again said to him:

“You will soon die, O my son, judging? by what you say!

Soon after the son of Priam, the end is prepared for you.”

With a heavy sigh, fleet-footed Achilles answered her:

“Oh, yes, I will die now, when a friend is not given to me

Save yourself from the killer! Far, far from my dear homeland

He fell; and, truly, he called me, but I will save you from death!

But still, it should be remembered that the Iliad is a poem about the wrath of Achilles. This anger is due to the Greek concept Tim, which is associated with honor, dignity, the need to receive compensation for damage and deal with enemies. In the concept of heroes, honor requires retribution and becomes the main human value. The ultimate goal of heroes who have a highly developed self-esteem is to win great fame and respect for themselves. Failures and insults are taken hard. When Odysseus discusses with Agamemnon his quarrel with Achilles, he reproaches him because this quarrel can lead to a military defeat for the Greeks, and then after a ten-year war they will return home empty-handed, which is extremely reprehensible. Odysseus does not go into details and does not make an attempt to establish the culprit in the quarrel, he wants to prevent harmful consequences.

Not in honor of the heroes of the "Iliad" and cowardice. When Paris avoids a duel with Menelaus, Hector rebukes him:

Do you hear the rows of curly-headed Danae laughing, who considered

Brave you first fighter, judging by? by beautiful sight.

Your appearance is beautiful, but neither strength in your soul, nor courage in your heart!

You were such, but you dared in seaworthy ships

To sail the stormy sea, with a crowd of amiable minnows,

To enter into an alien tribe and steal from distant countries

Glory to their wives, and sister, and daughter-in-law of battle-bearing husbands,

Woe unto thy father, and to the people, and to the whole kingdom,

To the joy of the Achaeans of the enemies, but to oneself in reproach!

Why didn’t he meet King Menelaus with a weapon?

In the opinion of Hector, Paris, having evaded the duel with Menelaus, showed cowardice, but when the same Paris stole Elena from Menelaus, he committed a heroic deed. Paris' refusal to fight humiliates the Trojans, and allows the Greeks to mock the enemy, and therefore Hector condemns him. Thus, the actions of the heroes are judged partly on the basis of stereotypes of the way of acting inherent in real men, and partly on the circumstances that bring harm or benefit.

Achilles, unlike Paris, cares about his reputation. True, modern readers may consider that many of his actions are due to a thirst for revenge, personal interests, and even childishness. Thus, the English writer Clive S. Lewis believed that Achilles, from whom a slave was taken away, “is only slightly superior to a capricious child,” who was taken away a toy. However, there are more fundamental reasons for Achilles' anger: his Tim- scrupulousness in matters of honor, intolerance to trample on one's own dignity and the loss of the good obtained by military labor. Achilles persistently defends his honor and rights, surpassing other heroes in this, and even self-confidently declares to Patroclus:

If, O eternal Zeus, Apollo and Pallas Athena,

If both the sons of Troy and the Achaeans, no matter how many there are,

All destroyed each other, and we are only, having escaped death,

We alone would have swept away the proud Trojan towers!

Tim may also have a specific meaning. When Sarpedon explains to his friend Glaucus, the son of Hippolochus, why so many heroes gathered in the Greek army, he talks about the system that existed at that time life values, which provided the heroes with property benefits and great respect, but emphasizes that in order to benefit from this system, it is necessary to fight the enemy in the forefront.

Son of Hippoloch! Why are we all distinguished

A place of honor, and a brush, and a bowl full of feasts

In the Lycian kingdom they look at us as inhabitants of the sky?

And why do we own a great inheritance under Xanth,

The best land, richly bearing grapes and wheat?

We, the leaders, between the front heroes of the Lycian

One must stand and be the first to fight in the blazing battle.

The mentor of Achilles Phoenix also speaks of the importance of material wealth, when he recommends not only to continue to fight with enemies, but also to accept gifts from Agamemnon for the damage suffered:

... for the gifts of the famous

Come out hero! And the Argives will honor you as a god.

If you are without gifts, but out of need you take up arms,

You will not lack such an honor, even though you will scold the decider.

If Achilles had not received compensation for the damage caused to him by Agamemnon, the Greeks would simply not understand why Achilles made concessions.

The rivalry between the heroes of the Iliad is an important driving force in the narrative. At the center of the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon is the topical question: who is more worthy of military booty: the best warriors or their leaders (regardless of whether they are right or not)? Wise with life experience, Elder Nestor tries to reason with his opponents:

You, Agamemnon, no matter how powerful, do not deprive Achilles

Virgins: the Achaeans gave it to him as a reward.

You, Achilles, refrain from proudly bickering with the king;

Until now, not a single one has acquired such an honor

The scepter-bearer king, whom Zeus exalted with glory.

You are famous for courage, the mother goddess gave birth to you;

But he is the strongest here, the ruler of innumerable peoples.

Humble your heart, Agamemnon: I, an old man, I beg you,

Set aside your anger on Pelid the hero, who is the strongest

All of us, the Achaeans, are a stronghold in the destruction of the Trojan war.

It can be understood that in the world of Homer, the skill of a warrior was only one of many virtues that satisfied the concept Tim. Wealth, courage, the ability to make the right decision and force him to listen were equally important in order to gain a worthy position in society.

The heroes of Homer's "Iliad" can be compared with the players of a sports team, in which during the competition contradictions between personal ambitions and the interests of the team are constantly noted. At the same time, everyone treats the opponent in the same way - it is necessary to gain the upper hand over him, and the opponent himself strives for the same. And when the game takes place in front of the audience, it becomes the driving force for gaining popularity and recognition. And, of course, in case of defeat, all explanations are useless, only the winners are not judged.

Hector, having decided to meet with Achilles in single combat, clearly understands that his chances of success are extremely small, but nevertheless, in order not to drop his own dignity, he does not change decision even after Andromache's plea to give up the fight.

Hector replies:

Public approval served as an essential motivation for the accomplishment of heroic deeds, and public censure reduced to a painful lot, and Hector, having entered the duel with Achilles, did what was expected of him.

The death of Hector should have brought contentment to Achilles, but this did not happen. Achilles knew that after the death of Patroclus, he himself would soon die. Hector, going out to fight with Achilles, could not foresee fate, and Achilles looked into the eyes of death.

Achilles once said to Patroclus:

We are both destined to bloody the earth alone

Here, on the Trojan coast! And me, who returned from the battle,

In the house of the fathers, the elderly will never meet Peleus,

Not a kind mother, but here the grave will cover!

But if after you, O my Patroclus, I go down to the grave,

I will bury you with honor; but not before I fall here

Armor and head of Hector, proud of your death!

After the death of Patroclus, Achilles decided to take revenge on the man who killed his closest friend. But he risks his life not to win eternal glory for himself, but because he considers himself guilty for the death of Patroclus. Achilles cannot get rid of mental suffering, and therefore it seems surprising that he eventually becomes sympathetic to Priam, but everything falls into place when you agree with the author of the Iliad that life is higher than vengeance, and humanity is higher than extermination objectionable.

Legacy of the Iliad

The events described in the Iliad cannot be called historically reliable, and yet they are alive in the memory of generations.

At the end of the tragedy of Euripides "The Trojan Women", when Troy is destroyed, the choir of Trojan women mournfully laments:

However, the "name of the homeland" - Troy - did not sink into oblivion. The Iliad allowed the Greeks to look into their past, although it was far from unclouded. The Trojan War was a real war, not crusade and not " local conflict". The death of Hector served as a signal for the destruction of Troy, which led to the death of men and the enslavement of women. In the Greek world, this case is not isolated. The same bitter fate befell other ruined cities. It was the era of total war.

Homer's "Iliad" became a common Greek property and subsequently became a model for the Roman national epic and numerous epics of modern European literature. In the 1st century BC, the Roman poet Virgil composed the Aeneid, written in imitation of the Iliad. Virgil begins his poem with the words “arma uirumque cano” (“I sing battles and my husband”), where the word arma symbolizes the Iliad.

Until the 15th century, the Iliad was read mainly in the Byzantine East, and in the West, the Romance of Troy, written by Benoit de Saint-Maure in the 12th century, gained fame, a work that was followed by many imitations in European literature. With the advent of the Renaissance, Homer ceased to satisfy the tastes of the general public, although at that time George Chapman translated the Iliad into English language, and she inspired Shakespeare to create the tragedy "Troilus and Cassandra" The French philologist Jules Cesar Scaliger valued Virgil much higher than Homer, whose works he considered "absurd and funny, purely Homeric." The English poet John Dryden believed that Virgil's Aeneas was written out incomparably more vividly and boldly than any hero of the Iliad. In 1714, Antoine de La Motte made an “improved” translation of the Iliad into French, freeing the poem from “barbarisms”: the insidious willfulness of the gods and goddesses and the rude antics of the heroes of the work.

In the 17th century, Homer's poems were identified with the primitiveness of the ancient world, but a hundred years later, under the influence of Robert Wood (who wrote "An Essay on Homer's Original Genius" in 1767), Homer was again recognized as an inimitable genius. Images of scenes from his writings appeared on Wedgwood china, in late XVIII century, the German poet Johann Heinrich Voss, using the old German hexameter, translated the Odyssey (1781) and the Iliad (1793), and in 1801 the French artist Jean Ingres painted a picture based on the plot of the ninth song of Homer's Iliad. Since that time, Homer's poem began to have a strong influence on classical world literature. In 1808, Goethe wrote "Achilles" in hexameter, an essay dedicated to the death of an ancient Greek hero.

In the Victorian era, Homer began to be studied in an English comprehensive school, and in the second half of the 19th century, during the construction of the Prince Albert memorial, along with the reliefs of Shakespeare, Dante and Milton, an avant-garde relief of Homer appeared on the frieze.

In 1905, the Greek poet Konstantinos Cavafy (1863-1933) wrote the wonderful poem "Troy":

Here are our efforts, the efforts of the doomed.

Sometimes luck will smile, a little luck

He will smile at us, and immediately descend to us

And boldness, and great hopes.

But something always stops us.

Achilles in the ditch appears before us

And with thunderous cries it terrifies us.

In our efforts we are like the defenders of Troy.

We hope that with determination and courage

We rock evil machinations avert

And behind the wall we will continue our battle.

When the great time comes,

Determination and courage leave us;

The soul in us is agitated, weakened;

We run around the Trojan walls, escaping,

And flight is all that remains for us.

The works of Homer were also remembered during the First World War. Describing the battle on the Gallipoli peninsula, the English poet Rupert Brooke, based on the fact that the war zone was not far from Troy, wrote:

They say Achilles moved...

Guns are awakened by volleys,

Priam and his sons rise

And again they rush to the walls.

Another English poet, Patrick Shaw-Stewart, also wrote about the horrors of the battle on the Gallipoli peninsula, who in his essay recalled the heroes of Homer's Iliad:

Hell is everywhere,

Hell everywhere...

Elena fatal,

Why the inviting look?

Achilles came under Troy,

Angry, jumped into battle ...

And only three days to rest

All we have with you.

First World War continued, but the writers did not remember more than Homer. The English writer John Buchan remarked: “To sing the glory of heroes is appallingly out of place. That's why I don't open Homer now."

Homer was remembered after the Second World War. George Steiner, an English philologist, wrote:

Every time we destroy a city, every time we see people fleeing from a raging fire, this horror is reminiscent of the events described by Homer. When I was in Berlin in 1945 and surveyed the city destroyed by bombs, I had a desire to re-read the Iliad, because in contemporary literature and in the literature that preceded it, one cannot find such a broad and colorful story about the horrors and tragedy of the war.

Homer in the Iliad does not condemn violence, but, as Simone Weil, a French religious thinker, believed, not only the victims described in the poem evoke sympathy, but also the winners, because strength does not lead to the triumph of the individual.

She wrote:

Nothing more perfect has been created in European literature than the very first epic poem that appeared in our country. Homer will become an epic genius for Europeans when they realize that one cannot escape from a predetermined fate, that one cannot admire strength, hate an enemy, despise losers and sufferers. Another question is when that time will come.

Not everyone shares Simone Weil's views. George Steiner wrote:

There is something attractive in the description of the battle: the beauty of the battle, the choreographic movements of warriors fighting with swords, throwing spears or jumping from war chariots, the beauty of a flexible body grappling with the enemy ... The showiness of the Nazi youths marching through the Nuremberg stadium with lit torches in their hands is maddening scene in the Greek spirit. This can be confusing, but to truly understand Homer, one must face life.

In 2005-2006, the artist Anselm Kiefer, for whom Greek mythology is one of the esoteric sources of inspiration, painted two paintings under the same title "News of the Fall of Troy". The first picture, seven and a half meters in size, is a landscape - a vast open plain, strewn with either fiery flowers, or miniature lights, against which eight signal fires are burning, testifying to the fall of Troy and notifying Clytemnestra waiting in Mycenae about this event. In the second picture, the plot is more obvious, because the location of the signal fires is explained geographical names applied to a white stripe stretching from Ilion to the house of Atrids.

In 2004, director Wolfgang Petersen staged the blockbuster Troy, which allowed analysts to draw an analogy between two attacks on Troy with two attacks on Iraq by the United States with the participation of the allies. It is unlikely that Petersen expected that his film would be looked at from such an unexpected angle; it is worth saying that the comparison of analysts does not look convincing. Indeed, Iraq as an enemy of the aggressor is much weaker than Troy; enemies in the Trojan War have a common language, religion and culture; the first war in the Persian Gulf is nothing like the siege of Troy by Hercules, when Lamaeodon ruled there. The reason behind the second attack on Iraq (the search for weapons of mass destruction) is not comparable to the kidnapping of Helen by Paris, which was the reason for the Trojan War. And yet, an attempt to draw an analogy between two attacks on Troy with two attacks on Iraq shows that the theme of the Trojan War is relevant in our time.

Petersen tried to read the Iliad correctly, but still made a few changes to the plot, apparently for commercial reasons. So, in the picture there is no hint of an intimate relationship between Achilles and Patroclus. Achilles adheres to the usual sexual orientation: at the beginning of the film, he wakes up sharing a bed with two playful women. Petersen has Achilles and Patroclus as cousins, consistent with Pseudo-Hesiod's version. Briseis in the blockbuster is the cousin of Paris and Hector (Chryseis is not shown in the film). After Briseis is captured, she tries to kill Achilles in the tent, but the episode ends decently: Achilles seduces her. Atrids are overweight people of mature age, reminiscent of manners and clothing of the Vikings, famous for robbery. Agamemnon is a convinced conqueror. Menelaus is eager to settle the score with the Trojans harboring Helen, but at the end of the film, Hector kills him; Patroclus borrows the armor of Achilles without permission and thereby relieves him of responsibility for the death of his cousin and frees him from the bitter feelings caused by remorse. The meeting of Achilles with Priam only remotely reflects the events described in the twenty-fourth song of the poem and is accompanied by the speeches of the heroes with deviations from the original text. A quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon takes place, and the film ends with Agamemnon killing Priam, Briseis killing Agamemnon, and Paris hitting Achilles (having hit his wounded heel with an arrow) and fleeing with Briseis. The Trojan War in the film takes not ten years, as Homer says, but, as far as one can understand, a month or two. Petersen created an entertaining adventure film, unfortunately lacking in depth of understanding ancient Greek mythology. And yet, despite the weaknesses of the film, its characters in some actions cause sympathy. So, Achilles goes to reconciliation with the enemy, shows sensitivity.

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ACHILLES is the central figure of the work, the personification of military prowess, courage and firmness. The leader of the Achaeans, who have been besieging Troy for 10 years, Agamemnon inflicts an insult on Achilles, because of which he refuses to fight on the side of the Achaeans. This leads to numerous defeats of their troops. However, when Patroclus, a friend of Achilles, dies at the hands of Hector, Achilles forgives the offense and reconciles with Agamemnon. The valiant ACHILLES is under the patronage of the goddess Athena, performs feat after feat in battle and finally kills Hector, which predetermines the final victory of the Achaeans. Achilles is a typical mythological epic hero, a brave warrior, for whom nothing is more important than military prowess, honor and pride. He fights on the side of the Achaeans not so much as to return to the Spartan king Menelaus his wife Klena, who was kidnapped by Paris, which caused the war, as much as he strives get yourself the immortal glory of a warrior. He presents his life as an uninterrupted chain of exploits on the battlefield. He prefers constant risk and a glorious death on the battlefield to home comfort and peace, a serene life.

Characteristics of the heroes based on the work of "The Iliad" by Homer | Achilles

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Achilles is a hero of ancient Greek mythology, best known for the episode of participation in Homer wrote about this character in his Iliad. And although the Iliad is considered an epic work describing the war against Troy, in fact, this is a story about a quarrel between Achilles and it was she who led to the events that decided the outcome of the ten-year siege of the city.

Origin of Achilles

Achilles was a hero. And initially, not even because of their actions. Just the heroic fate of Achilles was destined already at birth. After all, according to Greek myths, the offspring, which appeared as a result of the connection of the immortal gods with mortal people, became a hero. He himself did not possess immortality, however, he could count on the protection of his celestial relatives and, as a rule, had outstanding abilities, mainly in combat.

Achilles' mother was the sea nymph Thetis, and his father was Peleus, who reigned over the Myrmidons. Therefore, often in the Iliad the hero is called Pelid (which means the son of Peleus). Not quite an ordinary marriage between an earthly man and an immortal nymph is also explained in myths. Thetis was brought up by Hera, and when Zeus tried to seduce the young nymph, she, in gratitude for the care that her legal wife showed her, refused the voluptuous Olympian. As punishment, Zeus married Thetis to a mortal.

Achilles heel

As time went on, children were born to Thetis and Peleus. To check whether they were immortal or not, Thetis lowered the newborn into a cauldron of boiling water. So the first six sons died. The seventh was Achilles. It was his father who saved him from the unenviable fate of his brothers, taking his son away from his wife in time. After that, Thetis leaves her husband and returns to live at the bottom of the sea. But she continues to closely monitor the life of her son.

According to another myth, Thetis lowered the little Achilles into the waters of the sacred Styx, which flows in the kingdom of Hades. This gave the child invincibility. Only the heel - the place that his mother held tightly to - remained vulnerable. From here comes set expression"Achilles' heel", which conveys the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe weak point of a person.

After the departure of his wife, Peleus sends his little son to be raised by the centaur Chiron. He feeds him with the bone marrow of animals instead of mother's milk. The boy grows up and diligently comprehends the science of owning weapons. And according to some reports, the art of healing.

Visiting Likomed

Chiron, who, among other things, also possessed the gift of a soothsayer, informs Thetis that if her son avoids participating in the upcoming Trojan war, then he is destined for a long life. If he goes there, the Greeks will win, but Achilles will die. This prompts Thetis to send her son to another island - Skyros, and hide him between the daughters of King Lykomed. For greater safety, Achilles lives there disguised in women's clothing.

Such behavior seems somewhat unusual for a hero who yearns for immortal glory. However, it is worth remembering that at that time the young man was barely fifteen years old. By the time described by Homer in the Iliad, Achilles had become a mature, experienced warrior. After all, the siege of the impregnable city lasted twenty years. And all this time the Greeks did not sit idle on the spot. They attacked nearby cities and ravaged them. For now, it was a young man. Bold, but obedient to the instructions of his divine mother.

Meeting with Odysseus

Meanwhile, a chain of events leads to the mustering of troops for the war against Troy. Priest Kalhant announces that if the son of Peleus does not participate in the campaign, the Greeks will face a crushing defeat. Then the Achaean leaders hastily equip Odysseus and send him after Achilles to the island of Skyros.

Realizing that going against the immortal celestials with brute force is more expensive for himself, Odysseus resorts to cunning. He introduces himself as an ordinary wandering merchant and enters the palace of Lycomedes. Having laid out his goods in front of the king's daughters, Odysseus puts among the jewels and richly decorated weapons.

At the appointed moment, the people of Odysseus, on his orders, gave an alarm. All the girls rushed in all directions, only Achilles was not taken aback. This gave him away. The young man grabbed a weapon and ran towards imaginary enemies. Declassified by Odysseus, Achilles agrees to join the military campaign and takes with him his beloved friend Patroclus, with whom they grew up together.

Sacrifice of Iphigenia

And now the huge Greek fleet, which now includes a detachment of Myrmidons on fifty warships led by Achilles, is advancing to Troy. The immortal inhabitants of Olympus also participate in all the unfolding events. Moreover, some of them support the Trojans, and some are on the side of the Greeks. Due to the next tricks of the gods supporting the defenders of Troy, the Greek fleet, immobilized by the lack of a fair wind, stands off the coast of the island of Aulis.

Kalhant pronounces another prediction: a fair wind will blow only if Agamemnon, the leader of the Greek army, who started a campaign against Troy, sacrifices his daughter Iphigenia. The father was not bothered by this. He saw the problem only in how to deliver the girl to the island? Therefore, messengers are sent to Iphigenia with the message that she has been given as wife to Achilles and must come to Aulis for marriage. The description of the portrait of Achilles, the hero of ancient Greek mythology, does not leave her indifferent and the girl arrives on the island for a wedding. Instead, it goes straight to the altar.

One version of the story claims that Achilles himself knew nothing of the insidious plan. And when he found out, he rushed to defend the deceived princess with a weapon in his hands. But earlier myths tell that the son of Peleus did not show any sentimentality, because he himself was eager to quickly sail to Troy. And if the gods require sacrifice, then who will argue with them? In fairness, it should be noted that Iphigenia was still saved. True, not a hero, but the one who replaced the girl with a doe.

Meeting with the Amazon

But be that as it may, the sacrifice was set off, and the Greeks arrived safely at Troy. Thus began the long siege of the impregnable city. As already mentioned, Achilles did not sit idly by. He became famous already at the very beginning of the war, gaining glorious victories one after another over the cities surrounding Troy and nearby islands. According to the son of Priam, subsequently killed by Achilles, he did not meet during this time with the impudent and successful invader. And Achilles continued to hone his mastery of weapons.

In one of the next raids, Achilles enters into a fight with the queen of the Amazons, Pentiselia, who at that time was hiding on the mainland from the revenge of her fellow tribesmen. After a difficult struggle, the hero kills the queen and, prying off the helmet with the end of the spear, which hid the entire upper part of the face, throws it off the woman. Struck by her beauty, the hero falls in love with her.

Nearby is one of the Greek warriors - Tersit. According to Homer's unflattering descriptions, a very unpleasant subject. He accuses Achilles of lust for the dead and gouges her eyes out with a spear. Without thinking twice, Achilles turns around and kills Thersites with one blow to the jaw.

Briseis and Chryseis

In another campaign, the Greeks capture Briseis, which Achilles keeps as a concubine. In mythology, it is described that a young woman is not at all burdened by her position. On the contrary, she is always loving and tender.

At this time, Agamemnon also enjoys the fruits of the raids. Among other things, the beautiful girl Chryseis is presented to him as a share of the booty. But her father comes to the camp, begging to be allowed to ransom her daughter. Agamemnon taunts him and kicks him out in disgrace. Then the inconsolable father prayed for help to Apollo and he sends an epidemic to the Greeks. All the same soothsayer Kalhant explains the cause of misfortunes and says that the girl should be released. Achilles ardently supports him. But Agamemnon does not want to give in. Passions are heating up.

Discord with Agamemnon

In the end, Chryseis is still released. However, the vengeful Agamemnon, holding a grudge, decides to take revenge on Achilles. Therefore, as compensation, he takes Briseis away from him. Enraged hero, refuses to continue to take part in the war. From this moment, events begin to develop rapidly, as the Iliad describes it. The duel of Achilles and Hector is inexorably approaching. As well as the tragic denouement to which it will lead.

Achilles' inactivity

The Greeks suffer defeat after defeat. But the offended Achilles does not give in to anyone's persuasion and continues to do nothing. But once the defenders of Troy pushed the opponents back to the very shore. Then, having heeded the persuasion of his friend Patroclus, Achilles agrees that he led the Myrmidons into battle. Patroclus asks permission to take the armor of a friend and receives it. In the ensuing battle, Hector is a Trojan prince, mistaking Patroclus in the armor of Achilles for famous hero, kills him. This provokes a duel between Achilles and Hector.

Fight with Hector

Upon learning of the death of Patroclus, a heartbroken Achilles intends to take cruel revenge. He rushes into battle and sweeps away all the mighty warriors one by one. The characterization of Achilles, which Homer gives him in this episode, is the apogee of the hero's whole life. It was the moment of immortal glory he longed for. Alone, he turns the enemies back and drives them to the very walls of Troy.

In horror, the Trojans hide behind the strong walls of the city. All but one. The noble Hector is the only one who decides to fight back the son of Peleus. But even this battle-hardened warrior is horrified at the approach of his furious enemy and turns to flight. Achilles and Hector circled Troy three times before they met in mortal combat. The prince could not resist and fell, pierced by the spear of Achilles. Tying the corpse to his chariot, he dragged the body of Hector to his camp Achilles. And only genuine grief and humility of the inconsolable father of Hector, King Priam, who came to his camp unarmed, softened the heart of the winner, and he agreed to return the body. However, Achilles accepted the ransom - as much gold as the prince of Troy, Hector, weighed.

Death of a hero

Achilles himself dies during the capture of Troy. And this is not without the intervention of the gods. Apollo, who is disgusted by the disrespect of a mere mortal towards him, invisibly guides an arrow fired by Paris, Hector's younger brother. The arrow pierces the hero's heel - his only weak point - and turns out to be deadly. But even dying, Achilles continues to strike many more Trojans. His body is carried out of the thick of the battle by Ajax. Achilles was buried with all honors, and his bones were put in a golden urn along with the bones of Patroclus.

Achilles (Achilles) - main character poems, a stern and implacable warrior. In response to the insult inflicted on him by Agamemnon, the supreme leader and leader of the Achaean army, who had been besieging Troy for 10 years, A. refuses to participate in the war. Because of this, the Achaeans suffer one defeat after another. But when the leader of the Trojans, Hector, kills a friend of A. Patroclus, A. forgets about his offense and reconciles with Agamemnon. The mighty A., who is patronized by the goddess Athena, shows miracles of courage on the battlefield and kills Hector in a duel, whose death marks

The final defeat of the Trojans. The image of A. bears the typical features of a mythological epic hero, a courageous warrior, in whose value system the most important thing is military honor. Proud, quick-tempered and proud, he participates in the war not so much in order to return to the king of Sparta Menelaus his wife Helen, kidnapped by Paris (this was the reason for the war with Troy), but to glorify his name. A. yearns for more and more feats that will strengthen his glory as an invincible warrior. He sees the meaning of his life in constantly risking his life. A. despises a quiet life at home and prefers death in battle to a serene old age.

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