Gods and Mortals
Uploaded by john03 on Oct 26, 2011
This paper gives two examples from the Iliad of the ways in which godly intervention can have disastrous consequences for mortals. (3 pages; 1 source; MLA citation style.
I Introduction
The ancient gods (who are still around, laughing at us I’m sure) were far more accessible than today’s deities. They appeared to mortals, made love with them, sometimes bribed them or incited them to war; it was a different age, and gods walked on earth. However, if the gods were more easily available, they were no less capricious and self-centered than our modern ones, and interactions between gods and mortals often left the mortals dead, turned into trees, pregnant or otherwise disagreeably surprised.
This paper briefly cites two examples of the way in which the gods’ intervention in human affairs had tragic results, as recounted in ancient poetry.
II Discussion
One of the best examples of the way in which a god’s wrath causes tremendous injury can be found in the beginning of Homer’s Iliad. There we read that the war began with the clash of Agamemnon and Achilles, and Homer asks “What god drove them to fight with such a fury?” The answer? A god: “Apollo the son of Zeus and Leto.” (1: 9-10). It seems that Chryses, priest of Apollo, had a beloved daughter named Chryseis who was taken as a captive by Agamemnon. When Chryses goes to Agamemnon and offers him a rich ransom if he’ll return the girl, Agamemnon refuses, despite the fact that his friends and colleagues urge him to accept, and despite the fact that a seer tells Agamemnon plainly that it is Apollo’s will that the girl be returned to her father.
Agamemnon sends Chryses away, and the old man prays to Apollo to punish him for his stubbornness. Apollo hears him: “Down he strode from Olympus’ peaks, storming at heart / with his bow and hooded quiver slung across his shoulders. / The arrows clanged at his back as the god quaked with rage, / the god himself on the march and down he came like night.” (1: 51-54). Apollo, whom Homer repeatedly calls the “distant, deadly Archer” begins to shoot at the Greeks, first at their mules and dogs, but then at the men; Homer says he “cut them down in droves.” (1: 59). Apollo kept up his...