Feeling the Need...the Need for an Iliad Post

So seeing as I was unable to attend Monday's lecture, and couldn't possibly post another time on love, I've decided to go with a blurb on a few interesting things that I found in the Iliad. I recently picked it up, dusted the darn thing off (since I haven't read it since before the holiday break!) and resumed my reading at Book Six. In one sitting I managed to read on until Book Ten and along the way found some interesting things...

#1.
In Book Six, from lines 474- 503, Hektor's wife Andromakhe gives a rather moving and foretelling speech to him. She is worried for Hektor's life if Akhilleus returns to battle and can see herself becoming a widow. She is already an orphan because Akhilleus killed both her parents and all of her brothers before she married Hektor.

How creepy is that? That the man that killed her immediate and blood related family will also go on to kill her husband? I found that rather chilling...but if you hadn't already seen the movie or finished the text then I totally just ruined it for you and you may not have had the same interpretation of that speech that I did! If you didn't know that Hektor was killed then:

a. I'm sorry for ruining the end of the Iliad for you! But you had to know that it was coming.
b. You may have just thought that Andromakhe is a bit on the crazy paranoid side!

#2.
Now this occurrence happened twice so far during me read and I found it rather bizarre and if anyone has any input on why it happened then please pass it on!

So once in Book Six between Diomedes and Hippolokhos, and then again in Book Seven between Hektor and Aias during the heat of battle these two combatents just walked away! They chatted for a while in both cases and exchanged some minor blows but then decided to call it quits...why?! In the example in Book Six, then men exchanged armor as a sign of peace which I understand as a demonstration of faith. But I don't get why there was the demonstration of faith? There is a war being waged and these men just walked away? I really don't get it.

#3.
This last bit is about a fantastic image created in Book Eight, lines 380- 387:

Hektor, elated, leading the attach.
You know the way a hunting dog will harry
a wild boar or a lion after a chase,
and try to nip him from behind, to fasten
on flank or rump, alert for an opening
as the quarry turns and turns; darting like that,
Hektor harried the long-haired men of Akhaia,
killing off strangers one by one.

Hektor is dipicted as a wild animal who is ravinous for the kill. He chases down his prey, the Akhaians, skillfully and masterfully. Picking them off one by one when the moment is right. This image of hunting is repeated constantly throughout the Iliad, both to describe the Trojans and the Akhaians, and I think that it is an effective image. I think that it is usedful because the people at the time the Iliad was originally told would have had much experience in the way of hunting because that would have been the way that they obtained their meat. So the men could have related to Hektor's actions and motivation. Also, war is very much like hunting in the way that one side is the killer while the other is the lamb for the slaughter.

sv