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Gods and Goddesses Intervention Paragraph Assess the significance of the Gods in Homer's Iliad and Odyssey The Role of Gods and Goddesses in the Fate and Destiny of Characters in Homer’s The Iliad Homer’s The Iliad is an epic poem written about the events that transpired during the war between the Achaians and Trojans and the fates of the warriors and civilians. What is Fate? Britannica.com defines fate as an inevitable and often adverse outcome, condition, or end. Homer expresses the idea that the gods and goddesses intervene in the fates and destinies of the warriors during battle and in their everyday lives. Frequently throughout The Iliad, Homer has Zeus or another god depict the fate of a character. These fates are irreversible and final. No matter how much a character tries they cannot be changed. In Book I, Homer already depicts godly intervention in the lives of the characters. During one of the Achaians many raids on cities located near Troy, they captured two enemy maidens, Chryseis and Briseis. Chryseis was awarded to Agamemnon (Commander-in-chief of the army) and Briseis to Achilles’ (Achaians best warrior). Upon this action, the father of Chryseis, Chryses pleads with Agamemnon for her safe return. Agamemnon refuses to return her. Therefore Chryses prayed to Apollo who then brought a plague on the Achaian camp. Thesis: The theme of godly intervention is critical in the sense that without intervention, the plot would not be as it is presented by Homer. Throughout the epic, gods and goddesses intervene at critical times either to either to impose “justified” … redemption or to act as a refuge to the mortals. Gods and goddesses are bias; therefore, they favor certain characters in the epic. Without godly intervention, the plot would not progress as elaborately intended. The characters wouldn’t be able to accomplish their missions on their own without the safety net of the gods and goddesses. Perhaps one of the most remarkable parallels is between Zeus’ inability to keep the other gods in check and Agamemnon’s leadership. In Book II, Agamemnon’s attempt to test his troops’ morale very nearly leads to a full-scale revolt. In the opening of Book IV, Zeus is forced to back down from his suggestion that they should put an end to the war, and ends up making a compromise agreement with his wife. Indeed, three times in the Iliad Hera is able to change Zeus’ mind by uttering words such as “we other gods will not all applaud you” (IV, p. 53). This parallels Agamemnon’s inability to rule unilaterally—he has no more power to make decisions than the other Greek heroes. His argument that the Achainas should retreat, for example, is demolished by Diomedes in Book IX. Clearly both other gods and other heroes have a role to play in decision-making. Indeed, Zeus admits that the cooperation of the other gods is essential for the success of his plan to bring Odysseus home (Od., I, p. 5), just as Agamemnon must rely on the support of the other Greek leaders. The characters themselves realise that the will of Zeus is not absolute and as a consequence Assess the significance of the Gods in Homer's Iliad and Odyssey they pray to “father Zeus and Athene and Apollo” (Il., II, p. 28, italics mine).3 On the other hand, however, both Zeus and Agamemnon share important positions in their respective societies. Agamemnon, despite his failings, is regarded as a king cherished by Zeus (Il., II, p. 24) and the respect the other gods have for Zeus is clear: they rise to greet him (Il., I, p. 16), and acknowledge the fact that his decisions carry more weight than any of theirs (Od., op. cit.). Homer also portrays the gods with human flaws. These flaws are especially evident in the comic episodes, especially Zeus’ falling into Hera’s trap of seduction (Il., XIV), and Demodocus’ telling of the story of Ares and Aphrodite. Additionally, however, there seem to be rather more serious limitations on the gods’ influence on man. Odysseus tells us that “the gods, after all, can do anything” (Od., X, p. 151), but here the poet seems to know more than his characters because Homer reveals some very real limitations on the gods’ powers. Although they have enormous influence in determining the course of events on earth, they never completely transcend human limitations.4 Aphrodite may be adept at the “work of love”, but her foray into the fighting ends in disaster because, as Zeus chides, “war’s work, my child, is not your province” (Il., V, p. 78). Homer seems to be playing on the ironic difference between the way the gods think about themselves and the way they actually behave. By the end of the Iliad, he has almost completely debunked Apollo’s declaration that there is no similarity between gods and men by the construction of parallel situations which illustrate the various flaws of the gods, in a way which was no doubt a source of amusement for his contemporary audience. Nevertheless, in drawing our attention to the flaws and frivolities of the world of the gods, Homer highlights a fundamental difference between god and man: the latter is condemned to live a short, miserable life, while the former have an existence free of responsibility, suffering, and death. The juxtaposition between these two worlds is an important theme in the Iliad, and is explored poignantly in the relationship between Achilleus and his divine mother Thetis. Achilleus’ life is “short lived and miserable” (I, p. 13). He meets his mother four times in the Iliad, and each time his situation becomes progressively more dire. By the second meeting he has lost his best friend Patroklos, and by the third meeting it is clear that he is fated to die. By contrast, Thetis’ leads a rather static life and he has responsibility for his actions; Thetis, however, is unchanged throughout the story—she lives in a static world without any of the gravity of the human world. Another important parallel is developed in the quarrels between men and those between gods. There are no consequences of the quarrel between Zeus and Hera, but when Achilleus and Agamemnon quarrel, the possible consequences are the deaths of thousands of men, the pride and reputation of the heroes, and the outcome of the war. The fragility of human life is captured well by Odysseus: Assess the significance of the Gods in Homer's Iliad and Odyssey Of all the creatures that breathe and creep about on Mother Earth there is none so helpless as man… when the blessed gods bring him troubles he has no choice but to endure them with a patient heart. The reason is that the view we mortals take of this earthly life depends on what Zeus, the father of gods and men, sends us day by day.5 (Od., XIIX, p. 277) There are numerous such passages in both the Iliad and the Odyssey, and in each one of them the speaker acknowledges that although the gods have the ability to grant man prosperity and health, they just as often bring him misfortune and suffering. It is not surprising, then, that there are also passages in which the heroes suggest that the gods can and should reach more often into the jar of gifts. Menelaos’ lamentation, “Father Zeus, they say your wisdom is beyond all others… and yet you are the source of all this” (XIII, p. 215), foregrounds the fundamental problem that both gods and suffering can exist together; a tension that centuries after Homer would become known as the problem of evil. However, although the problem is a universal one, the answer the Ancient Greeks gave to it is unique. They accepted unconditionally the existence of both gods and suffering—it did not lead them to doubt the existence of the gods, but rather to affirm them as the source not only of all good but also of all evil. These flaws notwithstanding, we are left with no doubt about the gods’ supreme power. Zeus’ thoughts are deathless (XXIV, p. 390) and his “mind is always stronger than the mind of men” (XVII, p. 279). Men, in contrast to the gods, “are like leaves” (XXI, p. 346). This extraordinary Simile encapsulates the tragic view of life presented in the Iliad: it is fragile and short, and even the greatest heroes will one day fade. The gods, for all their similarities with the world of men, will never suffer death. It is appropriate then that they should occupy the domain “between earth and the starry heaven” (V, p. 86)—neither wholly human or wholly divine, they lead astonishingly human lives but in a world with entirely different parameters. In the Iliad the gods are very much concerned with human affairs. One reason for this involvement is the fact that many gods and goddesses who have mated with mortals have human children or human favorites participating in the war. The gods take sides in the war in accordance with their like or dislike of one side or the other. For example, Athene and Hera, who lost a beauty contest judged by the Trojan prince Paris, are fiercely anti-Trojan, while the winner Aphrodite dotes on Paris and favors the Trojans in the war. The interest and involvement of the gods in human affairs have an important effect on the action of the Iliad. The gods universalize the action of the poem. Because the gods take interest in human affairs, the events described in the Iliad are not just particular actions of little significance, Assess the significance of the Gods in Homer's Iliad and Odyssey but take on a universal meaning and importance that would have been missing without the gods.
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