It is the gods, not fate, who are concerned with the activities of human life in both the “>Odyssey<-” and the “>Iliad<-”. The human action is so central that it quite absorbs the gods, as though they had no other responsibilities. We get a sense of this divine participation from the very beginning of the ” Iliad “Hera prompts Achilles to call the assembly (1.54); Athene checks his resolve to attack Agamemnon (1.188ff.); Zeus sends to Agamemnon a dream bidding him rally the Achaeans (2.16); Athene prompts Odysseus to prevent them from boarding the ships (2.182ff.); she silences the army to let him speak (2.281); Aphrodite drives Helen to Paris (3.420). Most notable throughout the poem is a hero’s might increased by a god (4.439, 4.515, 5.1-2, 5.122, 5.125, etc.). In all these cases, the god achieves nothing supernatural but simply stimulates existing potentialities. It could not be otherwise. Human acts or states of being so stand out in their native quality that no external agency is allowed to affect their true nature. Yet a man’s fierce resilience may be quite baffling and may suggest some unsuspected power. Human free-will is something natural an mysterious at the same time. If the matter is seen in this light, it is pointless to inquire how far in Homer a man is responsible for his acts and how far he is influenced by the gods. Any intense moment of experience may seem imponderable. Whence comes a sudden excitement that gives us added strength? It certainly comes from a deep unsounded source in which we may feel a divine power. With equal pertinence Homer says, ‘the spirit within him compelled him’ or ‘a god compelled him.’ Initiative is not taken for granted; it does not come mechanically. A body’s energy is no different in this respect. For instance, the two Ajaxes, touched by Poseidon, marvel at the way their feet and hands seem to yearn and move on their own account (13.73ff.). Near the end of the <+”>Iliad<-”>, we find the best instance of gods participating in a human initiative (24.23ff.). Apollo pleads the cause of Hector on Olympus: his body must be saved from Achilles’ indignities and returned to Troy. The gods agree. Zeus decides that Priam will go to Achilles with the ransom and that Achilles will accept. Is then the great scene between Achilles and Priam predetermined? We might say that it is the other way around: the human cry reaches heaven and incites the gods to action. In any case, neither Achilles nor Priam acts passively. Pent-up emotions find their way out and prompt the ransom. We have seen how Achilles is affected; as for Priam, he says to Hecuba, ‘From Zeus an Olympian messenger came . . . and powerfully, within myself, my own spirit and might bid me go’ (24.194ff.). The gods do not weaken the human resolution but give it, rather, a greater resonance. We may look in the same way at the so-called divine machinery. It has been observed that the action of the<+”> Iliad<-”> could be conceived even without any intervention of the gods. Others argue that nothing happens in the poem without the prompting of a god. The wrath of Achilles is explainable in its own right; and yet Apollo and Zeus come into the picture. Do we have a divine plan or simply a human quarrel with dire consequences? Neither alternative can be exactly true. Achilles’ wrath is momentous, and its import cannot be measured in ordinary human terms. Thus any sudden important happening spells bewilderment; it suggests a god. Human and divine power merge together. Gods and men are interdependent. This view is confirmed by the way Homer paints the gods when they are left to themselves. For in their Olympian abodes (as in 1.571ff.) they pale into a desultory immortality. The Olympian scenes are the only ones in which anything frivolous takes place. It is from the human action that the gods draw their life-blood. By being so frequently associated with specific heroes, they themselves become human and even end up resembling their heroes. Apollo shares in the generous versatility of Hector, while Athene is associated with the prepossessing stateliness of Achilles and Diomedes. Such relations are no matter of course. What connects these pairs is actual contact, accessibility, recognition, and closeness. These immortals are more at home on earth than in heaven. Although they are far from being omniscient or omnipotent, they make up for any such deficiencies through their intense presence at crucial moments – as when Achilles, on the point of attacking Agamemnon, is checked by Athene: And amazed was Achilles, / he turned, and instantly knew the goddess Pallas Athena; / and dread was the light of her eyes. (1.199ff.) The goddess stands out much more powerfully here than when, for example, she chides Aphrodite on Olympus (5.420ff.). To be dramatically effective, a god must appear suddenly, as if from nowhere – often taking the shape of a friend or relative but always somehow recognisable. The anthromorphic appearance is tinged with personal appeal. We have a mysterious familiar image. The imponderable element in life’s incidents thus finds a persuasive way of manifesting itself. It is no wonder that Homer, a lover of visual forms, gave the gods such prominence, leaving out as much as possible the shadowy idea of an all-encompassing fate. The gods of the<+”> Iliad<-”> are thus characters in their own right. Of course, they draw their importance from popular cults and mythology, but essentially they play a dramatic part and thus help to imbue religion with the warmth of human emotions. Hector’s Apollo is quite different from Chalcas’s god of prophecy or from the local god of Chrysa, Killa, or Tenedos; the Athene of Achilles or Diomedes is quite different from the goddess of cities or from the patron of arts and crafts. No gods can play a major role in Homer unless they have a personal appeal and power. This condition tends to minimise or exclude those gods that are too particularly identified with a certain sphere of activity to take a generally appealing physiognomy. Poseidon is so closely identified with the sea, is ineffective in the battles of books 13 and 14. You might expect Ares to be an important god in a poem that deals with war; but, no, he has no personality, as his name is almost synonymous with war. Artemis remains in the backgr ound. Demeter and Dionysus are almost absent. The sun god is only appealed to in oaths. Aphrodite is only important in relation to Helen. Zeus, Apollo, and Athene are quite different. Even quite apart from their actions in the Homeric poems, they were more persuasive and free: Zeus, father of gods and men, sky god, weather god; Apollo, the god of song and healing as well as prophecy; Athene, goddess of embattled cities as well as wisdom. Their broad range thus extends beyond any particular province and yet intensifies their personal singularity. Even among the gods, individual forcefulness is proportionate to universal appeal. It is no wonder that in giving vent to some wild desire the characters often say, ‘Would that it were, o father Zeus and Athene and Apollo’ (2.371, 4.288, 7.132, 16.97). Homer’s treatment of the gods is no different from that of the human characters. Just as the characters are not idolised, the gods also are not worshipped with any mystical reverence or set aside in remote splendour. Apollo is nowhere more imposing than at Hector’s side in book 15, Athene nowhere more powerful than with Diomedes in book 5. A clear, bright presence is a hallmark of the gods – and of everything else – in Homer. Action and function are all-important. The minor gods also appear with the same effect. Hermes guides Priam to Achilles. Hephaestus builds Achilles’ shield. Iris bears the messages of Zeus. The Hours open the gates of Olympus. Themis calls the gods and serves at the divine banquet. Even these gods are removed from the shadowy background of popular cults or beliefs; they acquire clarity of outline on the strength of what they actually do. What accounts for the special effectiveness of the Homeric gods is their participation in the everyday activities of life. Such action is far more characteristic of their personalities than their rare exhibitions of extraordinary power in rescuing a hero (3.380, 5.445, 20.325). They usually behave like men and women. They have, at least, the same passions, the same emotions. Yet they are immortal. Homer hardly dwells on their immortality, but the feeling is always there; a divine quality thence flows into actions shared by gods and men.Divine quality? What kind of quality? What id the religious message of the “>Iliad<-”? There is certainly no providential design in the <+”>Iliad<-”>, no struggle for the transcendental cause. The Homeric gods have a different sphere. Their power lies in the immediate present. What we see is a divine immanence in things. What could be more repellent to common religious feeling than the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon revolving around a question of booty? And yet the deepest instincts are brought into action, passions and resolutions rise to full power; surely the crisis cannot be taken for granted; a god must lurk in these unleashed energies. The gods watch, witness, participate, and help bring events to a crisis. Their movements are as free as human action is fluid in its ebb and flow. They are poetically conceived according to the needs of the moment, not subjected to any rule. We can find no theology here. Louder and stronger than any ritual prayers, we hear a cry prompted by the occasion – that of Glaucus (16.514ff.) or of Ajax (17.645ff.). The gods listen, and in most cases they respond. But let us not expect them to be just or fair (Athene tempts Pandarus in 4.92ff. and dupes Hector in 22.226ff.). Their strength lies in intensifying the sense of life, and yet in doing so they inevitably increase the poignance of what is at stake, including the issue of right and wrong. All serious poetry of early Greece involves the gods. The presence of divine agents, visibly at work in what happens, enables the poet to show the meaning of events and the nature of the world. In the”> Iliad <-”we find a rich
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