CLASS 40 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Odysseus, Type Scene, Aristeia
Classics 40 Mythology
4/11/18
●Divine intervention of different types
○Third invocation to the muse for poetic inspiration
○Zeus plan for the whole war
○Apollo plague
○Hera puts into achilles’ mind to call an assembly
○Athena comes down to stop achilles killing agamemnon and tells him of divine
love for him, so he should stay out of battle
○Thetis intervenes with zeus
■Previous story of thetis saving zeus from other gods
○Hera against trojans
■Previous story of judgment of Paris
●Book 2
○EVIL DREAM sent by zeus to agamemnon
○Rumor walks among the army
○Athena intervenes with odysseus
○Muses as memory tell the poet about the different groups
●Gods and mortals
○How to know the will of gods?
○Holy men, prophets, interpreters of dreams
○Kalchas, the best of the bird interpreters
■Who knew of all things that were, the things to come, and the things past
■Still needs promise of protection
■Divine in the political world
●Anger of achilles
○What’s at stake in the fight between agamemnon and achilles
○What are the values
○Achilles calls him a coward
○Who doesn’t go to war
●Values
○Political power: chain of command
○Value: goods
○Women as “war prizes” “spear brides”
○Honor
○War power: achilles threatens to and actually does leave the war, so the greeks
will die
●Theristes the commoner
○Rhetoric
■Theristes of the endless speech
■Disorderly words
Document Summary
Third invocation to the muse for poetic inspiration. Hera puts into achilles" mind to call an assembly. Athena comes down to stop achilles killing agamemnon and tells him of divine love for him, so he should stay out of battle. Previous story of thetis saving zeus from other gods. Evil dream sent by zeus to agamemnon. Muses as memory tell the poet about the different groups. Kalchas, the best of the bird interpreters. Who knew of all things that were, the things to come, and the things past. What"s at stake in the fight between agamemnon and achilles. War power: achilles threatens to and actually does leave the war, so the greeks will die. Similar scene that repeats in different contexts. Whose elements make the audience except a specific outcome. Like a dating scene or fight scene it repeats. They build on the fact that you know what"s going to happen.
