S: We have a million questions.

H: Ask one.

S: Achilles?

H: Yes, that is an excellent topic. How shall we think about him? How shall we think about the whole Trojan War?

S: Should we think about Achilles as the most glorious, strongest, bravest warrior there ever was? Or as a petulant, selfish, spoiled child who sulks in his tent if he does not get his own way?

H: Achilles was the most glorious warrior there ever was, but I would not call him a child. He was an adult in conflict because he was forced to play a role that he did not really want to play. He did not die because he wanted glory so much. He did not die because he cared about Helen, or Greece, or winning the war. He died because he was so angry about the death of Patroklos. When we see him in Hades, do you remember what he says to Odysseus?

S: Odysseus calls him the most blessed man who ever was or ever will be.

H: Yes, but what Achilles says to him is that he would rather be a farmer on someone else’s land than a glorious hero and king in Hades.

S: But he has immortal fame!

H: I think he would rather have had many more mortal years. Where did that glory get him? Where did it get any of them? Where did it get Agamemnon? What was the result of the most famous war of all time? The destruction of a great city. Untold suffering. Death on the way home. Death when they returned home. What did all of that accomplish?

S: But you recount the details of all the fighting and destruction and make it seem so grand. Did you write the epic of war to say that war is terrible?

H: I think we must ask ourselves the most basic of questions: What are our lives for? Some place deep in my poems, there is an understanding that home and family are the goals of life. Listen to the poems of war, but live lives of peace. Let Odysseus do the wandering for you. Let him have Calypso and Circe, while you stay home. Better the fire of your own hearth than the fire of a burning city.

S: But the story of war is the story of history.

H: Only one kind of history. There is a better kind that needs to be written.

S: We have so many further questions. Will you really be so good as to answer us?

H: If I can. Remember, I was inspired by the Muses and may not understand everything myself. I will do my best.

S: In that case, we would love to understand the episode of the Sirens (Odyssey 12.39ff.). Who were they? Were they goddesses? Monsters? Animals? What were they?

H: You have asked me one of the most difficult questions. I could talk about so many aspects of that part of my tale. What is important is not who or what they were, or what their melody was, but the words that they sing, and what Odysseus hears, and how he reacts, and what his sailors see in their leader.

S: But before you explain that, don’t we need to know who they were?

H: No - let me continue. Here are the words that Odysseus hears:

Odysseus, bravest of heroes,
Draw near to us, on our green island,
Odysseus, we’ll teach you wisdom,
We’ll give you love, sweeter than honey.
The songs we sing, soothe away sorrow,
And in our arms, you will be happy.
Odysseus, bravest of heroes,
The songs we sing, will bring you peace.

(Cf. the slightly modified version later transmitted in Odyssey 12.184-188.)

S: We know the story. To him, the Sirens look as beautiful as Helen. He wants to get lost in the arms of the Sirens The words and the music enchant his heart. He wants to plunge into the water and swim to the island. He strains against the ropes which hold him to the ship’s mast; he strains so hard that the bonds cut deeply into the skin on his back and arms.

H: You do know the story well. But now we get to what I want to teach you, the relationship between Odysseus and his men. They cannot hear him, but they see him urging them to free him. Since based on Circe’s warning, he had given them careful instructions, they expected him to react like this, and they row harder to get away.

S: Now you have come to our question. To his sailors, who cannot hear the song because of the beeswax in their ears, the Sirens seem like hungry monsters with horrible, crooked claws. The sailors can see that there is a great heap of dead men's bones lying all around, with the flesh still rotting off them.

But Odysseus is enchanted with the sweetness of their song. To him, they sit beside the sea, combing their long golden hair. Which is it? Are they beautiful women or monsters?

H: To Odysseus, the leader who seeks fame and glory, who thinks great things about himself, the words of the song draw him to the island like iron to a magnet. Odysseus is like so many leaders, who are so consumed by themselves that they are consumed. What is most important is that we see Odysseus as his crew sees him, writhing and pathetic, prepared to destroy everyone around him for a moment of vanity.

S: You are Cassandra.

H: I beg your pardon.

S: You are Cassandra.

H: I only mention her a few times. She is barely a minor figure. I mentioned her as a virgin daughter of Priam, as bewailing Hector's death, as chosen by Agamemnon as his slave mistress after the sack of Troy, and as being killed by Clytemnestra over Agamemnon's corpse after Clytemnestra murders him on his return home.

S: You are avoiding my point. The Iliad is the work of a Cassandra. In a way, I think you avoid making her a more important character so that no one voices what you are really saying.

H: I think you have other stories about Cassandra in your mind that I do not have in my work.

S: Exactly. You know those stories, too, more than I do, and yet you did not develop her character. Before the fall of Troy took place, Cassandra foresaw that if Paris went to Sparta and brought Helen back as his wife, her arrival would bring the downfall and destruction of Troy. Despite the prophecy and ignoring Cassandra's warning, Paris still goes to Sparta and returns with Helen. While the people of Troy rejoice, Cassandra, angry with Helen's arrival, furiously snatched away Helen's golden veil and tore at her hair.

H: I do not have this. Do you know how and why she was given the gift of prophecy?

S: Apollo was struck by her beauty and gave her the gift. Some stories say there was a deal so that she would have sex with him, and then she refused, while others say he gave it to her without any prior agreement, and she refused. When she refused, he placed a curse on her, ensuring that nobody would believe her warnings. Cassandra was left with the knowledge of future events but could neither alter these events nor convince others of the validity of her predictions.

H: Why do you say I am Cassandra?

S: Because your work is about war, and it is a warning against war. And if Cassandra is out in front of everything that happens, all the characters and all of their actions are absurd. Instead, you inhabit the characters with all kinds of emotions and qualities and faults, so that they become people.

H: This is what I tried to do.

S: Cassandra is not one of the people you give such flesh to, because she represents our morality, our moral conscience, which issue warnings. Cassandra is moral conscience, predicting ill to come and warning that punishment will follow, and grief arise. Cassandra points out moral failings and their consequences, all of which opposes Apollo. And so everyone thinks she is out of her mind.

H: What, then, is Apollo?  

S: The lust for power. When Apollo wants to subdue Cassandra, it is Power that wants to overcome morality. He hates her because she will not give in to him. So he makes it so that no one will listen to their conscience and so they go do horrible things such as killing and warring.

H: When people do not listen, they are refusing to believe what at the same time they know to be true, and their denial is a wall protecting them from what is real.

One hard part is to place that wisdom in verse, to put it into other people’s voices.

But that is not the hardest part.

S: What is the hardest part?

H: The hardest part, knowing what you know, is not to go mad.

S: Can we talk about the Catalogue of Ships?

H: Of course. I am very proud of it. I asked the Muses for special inspiration, and I believe I received it.

S: No doubt. Some might think it is a boring list, but we see great artistry. You compare the army to a fire blazing on a distant mountain; to leaves and flowers showing their beauty in peace; to flocks of geese and cranes, to different kinds of birds which are the different clans coming together. But then you compare the army to a swarm of flies; they now have uniformity. You close the catalogue of Greeks with the same simile with which you open it, comparing the army to fire. The whole poem is an artistic whole.

H: I thank the Muses for their help.

S: But what is it really about? There is a message here. This is why you worked so hard to make this a whole.

H: You understand. The panorama of “the Greeks,” of one nation of nations, is exactly my goal.

S: Because the reality of “Greeks” coming together as one is a fantasy, or at least a rarity. Only a common enemy can bring them together.

H: Yes, but is this not what I should be doing, to use art to teach, to teach unity through strength and strength through unity? When Greek kings squabble over pride and spoils, is this not beneath them? When Greek kingdoms fight over nothing, is this not the greatest waste? What good is glory if you stand over a dead man who should have been your neighbor and friend?  

So yes, I bring the mighty panorama of splendor to show what we could have been, and I still hope, we could be, if we would be worthy of the ideals that we say we believe in.

S: This is the fire blazing on the distant mountain ...

S: We are fascinated to think about how you went about creating your work. Obviously, you had a great deal of material to work with, many stock epithets, stories, descriptions.

H: Centuries worth. So much that I had to narrow it down to the tenth year of siege and develop it from there.

S: The two main characters of your two great works are Achilles and Odysseus.

H: Again, I did not create the characters. I presented what was passed down to me.

S: Yes, but there seems to be a great deal that you do with what was passed down. For example, it was passed down that Priam came to Achilles to retrieve Hector’s body, but you have given us what may be the most touching scene in either of your works.

H: I cannot disagree with you. It is a powerful moment. We see the honorable and noble king, no longer acting like a lofty monarch but like any grieving, desperate father looking for a bit of mercy. 

S: Achilles, for his part, is not unmoved. But Achilles is a figure who seems to be trapped in his own space between the gods, whom he respects, and humans, from whom he seems distant.

H: Yes, but do you see him in the Odyssey where he says it would be better to be alive as a slave than a king in the underworld?

S: We don't believe him. He was so trapped in his noble destiny that he became his destiny.

H: Yes, that speech does ring a little hollow. I wanted to say that there is no great glory in being dead. But to go back to Priam and Achilles, there is a message I was trying to convey.

S: That we should have mercy?

H: Yes, but more: We may have a chance to stop our endless wars when every king sees every soldier as his son.

S: We are confused with what you say at different points in your works about immortality.

H: There are many things to say. It is obviously one of the important subjects for every human being.

S: We count four kinds of immortality. One is through children.

H: This is a possibility for almost all of us.

S: In Odyssey, Odysseus visits Hades. We asked you last time about his dialogue with Achilles. So, does this mean that all of us go to Hades in the afterlife? There seems to be the prospect that Achilles will reach Elysium. Which is it? Will Achilles stay in Hades or live in the eternal bliss of Elysium?

H: I would add a third kind of immortality for Achilles, of which I have him explicitly aware, that he will live on through the epic about him. His deeds and his glory will go on forever through the Iliad and other works about him.

S: Yes, that and the immortality through children are clear to see. But we still ask, Hades or Elysium?

H: You are asking in a simplistic manner. Another possibility is that of being immortalized through being venerated in the cult. The word Elysium literally means a sacred place which was struck by the thunderbolt.

S: Let us ask this way. Odysseus was wandering in the realms of the extreme west when he came to Aeaea, island of Circe. From there, he is sent on his way to the underworld by traveling beyond the sea until he reaches the cosmic river Oceanus (Odyssey 11.21-22). On his way back from the underworld, he has to leave Oceanus before returning to Aiaia, which you now describe as in the extreme east, and he comes to the abode of Eos and sunrise (Odyssey 12.1-4). And you say that Elysium is situated on the banks of Oceanus, from which the wind Zephyrus blows to reanimate mortals (Odyssey 4.567-68).

H: What is your question? Is there a relationship between Hades and Elysium? Yes. And let me mention Heracles, who abides on Olympus (Odyssey 11.602). The bones of Achilles and Patroclus are placed together in a golden amphora that Hephaestus made and Dionysus gave to Thetis (Odyssey 6.130-40). The preservation of bones is a way to show that the hero will ultimately be regenerated. So, Achilles will achieve immortality.

S: We are more confused than ever.

H: That is because you do not understand that all of this is poetry.

S: We’d like to ask you about a passage in Book 24 where three gods have a debate.

H: Do you mean after Achilles has killed Hector? Achilles is still weeping for Patroclus; nothing for him has really changed. He has power over human beings, but the power means nothing to him. Still, Achilles keeps re-enacting his victory over Hector, and no other human being can stop him from continuing to attack the dead Hector. The gods must get involved.

S: Yes, we want to ask about the discussion among the gods, Apollo, Hera, and Zeus. It starts with Apollo who sees what is happening and wants to stop it. We feel that this passage is very important and that it is Apollo whose words are central.

H: But Hera disagrees with him.

S: Still, we are focused on what Apollo says. He argues that there are norms, there are ways that things should be done, so that things that have been disruptive can be become normal, decent, in order, once again.

H: You are quite right. Apollo plays this role in Book 1 as well, when he sends the plague on those who offended his priest. But he relents from his wrath and stops the suffering. Here, too, one sees wrath, this time of Achilles, but he will not desist, and Hera is on his side.  She says that the gods should feel connected to Achilles because they came to Peleus’s wedding and should feel bound to him by bonds of ceremony and kinship. Still, notice that Zeus listens to both and decides that Thetis should appeal to her son to accept Priam’s sad entreaty.

S: This is our point: Apollo only asks of Achilles what he was willing to do himself: relent from his wrath, however justified, so that the order of things may be restored. In both cases, this is his goal.

H: Yes, this is what I meant. When we think of the gods and the conflicts between them, and we think of humans and the conflicts between them, we should hope that the gods will help us to do what we have trouble doing ourselves, relenting of our wrath and thirst for revenge. Only then will we have order and peace in our lives.

S: We want to talk about the scene towards the end of the Odyssey when, back in Ithaca, Odysseus wakes from his long sleep. 

H: Yes, Athena has surrounded him with mist to protect him, so at first, he doesn't recognize his surroundings. He thinks that the Phaeacians tricked him and brought him to some foreign land.

S: That is on the first level, but we think you mean more with that moment when one does not recognize his own land.

H: You give me pleasure by seeing levels of meaning.

S: When you do not recognize your own land, it is either because you have changed, or your country has changed.

H: Odysseus, after twenty years and war and adventures, is a different person than he was before. And Ithaca, after twenty years, must be different, too. A generation is a long time.

S: All that is true, but many of us have had the frightening experience that even though we have always lived in our land, and never gone on adventures, we wake up and our land has changed so much that we do not know where we are. No goddess has brought a mist to mystify us. And we are not disguised.

H: Now I understand what you mean. We are who we have always been, with the same love for our country, with the same values that we were raised with, with the same patriotic feeling for our nation, and everything around us has changed. People are cruel to each other. There is no civil discourse. There is no commonality.

S: Exactly. So, great poet, what do we do when we wake up in a land that we do not recognize?

H: My story shows you the way. Just like Odysseus, you must be smart. You must think carefully and strategically. You may have to don disguises, act like a beggar and swallow your pride, until you can find a way to win. Odysseus could not just say, “Here I am, Ithaca,” and make everything change in a minute.

S: And Penelope?

H: Penelope is the true virtue of our land, waiting for us to come and claim what is rightfully, and righteously, ours.

S: We want to ask you about something that you said in our last conversation. It is bothering us. You talked about donning disguises to get your country back.

H: Yes, let’s stay with the end of the Odyssey, when Odysseus wakes up and does not recognize that he is in his own land. If you mean that I emphasize the theme of disguise and identity in this part, you are on the right path.

S: Athena appears in the guise of a young shepherd, and tells Odysseus that he is in Ithaca, after all. Odysseus conceals his joy and tells the young shepherd…

H: ….whom he does not recognize as Athena…

S: … that he is a fugitive from Crete, who is wanted for killing a man who tried to steal from him. Odysseus follows Agamemnon's advice and keeps his identity hidden from the moment he steps onto home soil. The story he tells Athena is one of many alternate identities he constructs while he is disguised in his own court. Like many of the stories told in the Odyssey, the fugitive story is both true and untrue: many of the details are made up, but Odysseus did kill the Cyclops for trying to ‘steal’ his life, and he is a fugitive from Poseidon. He says that the Phaeacians took pity on him and brought him to Ithaca while he slept. Athena's mist was another kind of protective disguise, that ensured that Odysseus will be safe while he is sleeping.

H: Now Athena changes into a woman, praises Odysseus for his cunning, and reveals her real identity as a goddess. She explains that she will help Odysseus conceal his identity, even though he will have to suffer further even under his own roof. So far we have merely reviewed the story; what do you want to know?

S: Who is Odysseus? Which of the stories are true? He tells stories that we would not know from the narrative.

H: Let me ask you: What is anyone’s true identity? Are you who you imagine yourself to be? Who you wanted to be? How many of us are in disguise, pretending to be people we are not? Is this life that you are living, the life that you are living in your thoughts and dreams?

S: Yes, these questions flow in the general direction of what we are trying to ask, but we are still thinking about the king of a land who disguises himself to reclaim his throne. Is that what we have to do when someone has taken control of our country in ways we would never have imagined possible? Going back to our previous conversation, when you wake up in your country and it is no longer yours, you said that you must use strategies and disguises. Why can’t you just present yourself and the truth?

H: Now I understand what is bothering you so much. You must face the facts. If truth and righteousness would have been enough, your country would never have become unrecognizable in the first place. When the truth has become obscured in a web of lies, you must use every device, every strength you have, and yes, tell every tale you can think of, until the moment comes when your real identity and the real story will rid your land of the corrupt power-seekers, and set your country free again.

S: As we read the Iliad, we often feel like we are in the battle scenes, and we think about individual soldiers, fighting next to their friends and countrymen. More than fighting for Greece or kings or kingdoms, we feel the strong bonds of friendship and loyalty between the men on the ground.  Did this theme just emanate from the narrative, or was it on your mind?

H: Certainly. I was thinking about this throughout. The camaraderie between warriors, and of course, I emphasize Achilles and Patroclus, highlights the deep emotional connections that underpin the Iliad. Patroclus's death serves as a catalyst for Achilles's return to battle, driven by a deep sense of grief but also a deep sense of loyalty (and maybe some guilt).

S: By guilt, I assume you mean that because Achilles refuses to fight, enraged by Agamemnon's insult; it is Patroclus who steps into the breach, donning Achilles' armor and leading the Myrmidons into battle. His death is a turning point for Achilles, whose grief and rage propel him back into the fray, showcasing how friendship can motivate and transform a warrior.

H: We feel Achilles's grief at the loss of Patroclus, driving him to avenge his friend's death despite, we should remember, knowing what the consequences will be for him. This loyalty is more than theirs alone; it is a reflection of the values held by Greek society, where honor and such fidelity are paramount.

S: Would you agree that Patroclus had it right, and Achilles had it wrong?

H: Do you mean in putting his countrymen above himself? I see Achilles as complex, but Patroclus does seem to care more about his countrymen. Other friendships also play crucial roles. The camaraderie between Hector and his comrades, such as Polydamas, underscores the importance of mutual support in times of war.

S: And honor? Friendship is closely linked to the concept of honor. Warriors fight not only for personal glory but also to honor their friends and comrades.

H: Yes, and don’t forget Fate. The theme of friendship also intersects with the concept of Fate. The relationships between characters are often influenced by the gods, who play a significant role in shaping the epic's events. The bonds of friendship are not just human connections but are entwined with the divine and the inevitable. Achilles' fate, for instance, is closely tied to his friendship with Patroclus, with their bond influencing the course of the narrative, but is also deeply intertwined with the broader themes of honor and fate.

S: But what happens when you have an Agamemnon, the leader who only cares about himself? I am not sure he even cares about his brother Menelaus.

H: The soldier exemplifies what we should do in times of war and peace. Care about your friend and your community. And hope that the egos of kings do not destroy us all.