© David Claudon, 2001.

 

New Characters and Names Introduced

• Meriones

Thought Questions:

• Why in the heat of battle do the soldiers take the time to try to strip their victim's armor off?
• How does Idomeneus view the coward and the brave? (Lines 324-346)? Does his suggestion that the brave die nobler deaths prove out during this book?
• If Zeus is the elder-born, as Homer says in line 413, does that match with the mythology genealogy you were taught?

Quiz on the Book:

1. Does Poseidon take his horses and battle-car with to the Achaean encampment?
2. Which is not one of the attributes of Poseidon does Homer keep stressing? (a) a loud voice, (b) blue hair, (c) earthquakes, (d) sea foam white armor
3. Who are the first two men Poseidon inspires to fight? (a) Achilles and Patroclus, (b) Telamonian Ajax and Little Ajax, (c) Agamemnon and Nestor, (d) Teucer and Telamonian Ajax
4. Why does Meriones need a new spear?
5. Where does Meriones get the spear?
6. What Trojans does Idomeneus compete with killing several men in the process?
7. What is Hector's strategy at the end of the book?

Book 14: Hera Outflanks Zeus

Overview

Nestor, Diomedes, Odysseus and Agamemnon decide to rejoin the battle, spurred on by Poseidon. Hera seduces Zeus and make him sleep. Poseidon stirs up the men with Zeus out of the picture.

...she twisted her braids with expert hands, and sleek,luxurious,
shining down from her deathless head they fell, cascading.
Then round her shoulders she swirled the wondrous robes
that Athena wove her, brushed out to a high gloss
and worked into the weft an elegant rose brocade. She pinned them acorss her breats with a golden brooch
then sashed her waist with a waistband
floating a hundred tassels, and into her earlobes,
neatly pierced, she quickly looped her earrings,
ripe mulberry-clusters dangling in triple drops
and the silver glints they cast could catch the heart.
Then back over her brow she draped her headdress,
fine fresh veils for Hera the queen of gods,
their pale, glimmering sheen like a rising sun,
and under her smooth feet she fastened supple sandals.

New Characters and Names Introduced

• Sleep
• Xanthus

Thought Questions:

• What does Hera do, which suggests what Achaean women did, to become alluring?
• How did the gods make an oath that was binding?
• Several times Homer talks about men's eyeballs falling out of their sockets in being killed or their heads being severed and rolling like balls at someone's feet. What effect do these have on you, the reader?

Quiz on the Book:

1. Why did the ships of Diomedes, Odysseus, and Agamemnon have better defenses than the others?
2. What suggestion regarding the ships does Agamemnon give which arouses Odysseus' anger?
3. What advice does Diomedes give the others?
4. What's unusual about the doors to Hera's rooms?
5. What does Aphrodite give Hera to help her?
6. How does Hera convince Sleep to help her?
7. What does Zeus have to do on the mountain before Hera will give herself to him?
8. How does Poseidon learn that Zeus is asleep and no threat?
9. What happens to Hector which causes him to "vomit dark clots"?

Book 15: The Achaean Armies at Bay

Overview

Zeus awakens and discovers how Hera had tricked him. She goes back to Olympus and sends Iris and Apollo to him. Hector revives and leads his men in the strongest wave yet.

New Characters and Names Introduced

Thought Questions:

• What story does Zeus tell of his punishment of Hera for her treatment of Heracles?
• If Zeus can predict the future outcome (lines 67-89), what does that suggest about Homer's view of free will?
• How do the other gods view Zeus?

Quiz on the Book:

1. What agreement does Zeus demand Hera make with him?
2. What makes Poseidon agree to stop fighting?
3. How does Apollo help the Trojans regarding the trench and the rampart?
4. How do the Achaean leaders react to Hector's advance?
5. What symbolic physical appearance of Hector happens as hecharges ahead ready to burn one of the ships?
6. What does Ajax use to protect the ships?

• Automedon
• Roan Beauty
• Dapple
• Euphorbus

Thought Questions:

• Why does Achilles not want Patroclus to have too much success?
• Once again, the question arises, do men have free will or is their destiny set from long before they are born?
• What do the unique deaths of Sarpedon and Patroclus suggest about their importance?

1. What caution does Achilles give about Patroclus getting too much glory?
2. What causes Ajax to finally give up defending the ships?
3. What's the only weapon of Achilles that Patroclus didn't take?
4. Where do the new troops that Patroclus leads into battle come from?
5. What does Achilles use to pray to Zeus?
6. How does Hera convince Zeus not to save Sarpedon?
7. How is Sarpedon's death and after death different than other men?
8. Who helps Glaucus return to battle to protect Sarpedon's body?
9. In what ways is Patroclus' death unique in the book

• Antilochus (not introduced here, but important here)

Thought Questions:

• Hadn't Zeus already known that Hector was to die before he bows his head in line 240?
• Are men just the playthings of the god(s) as the books suggest?

1. In protecting Patroclus' body, who is the first Trojan killed that brags how he deserves the armor?
2. What god creates problems by spurring on and helping Hector?
3. Why is Glaucus willing to let Hector face defeat?
4. Which Achaean doesn't help Menelaus protect the body? (a) Telamonian Ajax, (b) Lesser Ajax, (c) Idomeneus, (d) Agamemnon
5. What military strategy do the Acheans adopt which helps them lose fewer men than the Trojans around Patroclus' body?
6. What one thing had Thetis not told Achilles?
7. What unusual thing do Achilles' horses do when Automedon takes them away?
8. Who is sent back to the shore to try to get Achilles to join in the battle?
9. What's the last image of the book?

Book 18: The Shield of Achilles

Overview

Achilles mourns for his dead friend, comforted by his mother. He is spurred on to save Patroclus' body and proceeds to frighten the Trojans by his war-cry and appearance. Night falls and at a Trojan conference, Hector vows to fight the next morning there. Hephaestus creates armor for Achilles.

A dark cloud of grief came shrouding over Achilles.
Both hands clawing the ground for soot and filth,
he poured it over his head, fouled his handsome face
and black ashes settled onto his fresh clean war-shirt.
Overpowered in all his power, sprawled in the dust,
Achilles lay there, fallen . . .
tearing his hair, defiling it with his own hands.

New Characters and Names Introduced

• Charis

Thought Questions:

• Does Thetis act with the same resolve as Hecuba in sending her son to battle?
• How do we know how deeply Achilles feels for Patroclus?
• With the appearance of Charis, how is our knowledge of Hephaestus' mythology questioned. (Think of the story told in The Odyssey about Hephaestus, Aphrodite, Ares, and the Golden Net.)
• Are the handmaids "all cast in gold but a match for living, breathing girls" one of the first references to what we know as robots?
  

Quiz on the Book:

1. Who, besides Thetis, comes to mourn with Achilles?
2. What prophecy does Thetis tell Achilles again about the death of Hector?
3. What does Thetis go to get?
4. What urges Achilles on into battle to save Patroclus' body?
5. What two things does Pallas Athena do for Achilles to frighten the Trojans?
6. What was Polydamas' proposal?
7. What actions are performed with Patroclus' body?
8. Why does Hephaestus say he will help Thetis?
9. What's unusual about the shield forged for Achilles?