Remnants of the Iliad

Recently finished reading the Iliad and thought I would post one last blog on it. So here goes:

Throughout the text, I had noticed the use of vivid imagery and have posted on a number of them previously. But the one that I shall quote and analyze below, radiated more than any of the other images that I've posted on previously.

In Book 22, lines 30-34 we find this description of Hektor being chased by Akhilleus:

And aging Priam was the first to see him
sparkling on the plain, bright as that star
in autumn rising, whose unclouded rays
shine out amid a throng of stars at dusk -
the one they call Orion's dog, most brilliant

So the image itself is beautiful! We have Hektor's armour being compared to the brilliance of a star in the night sky. Priam, the father looking upon his son in his final moments of exuberance just like a star gazer enjoying the last moments of night time before the dawn comes and extinguishes the star for the evening. Yet here in the Iliad, the dawn is embodied in Akhilleus who will come and through the use of a spear and sword extinguish Hektor's flame forever.

It also begs further research into what is being said about that constellation. So I managed to drudge up some background information on the constellation of Orion, which is really a number of different stars that make up the one larger constellation. So Orion's dog that Homer makes mention of is really the star Sirius, which is one of the brightest stars in the sky. Yet the information that I found indicated that Sirius reaches its brightest point in mid February which really isn't during the autumn months, so a bit of a conflict there. But then again the Iliad is an ancient story, so perhaps with the advent of the modern lunar calendar the time of Sirius' rising changed from what they would have considered autumn to our modern day February.

With respect to Orion himself, he was known to the Greeks circa. 500 BC as the warrior son of Poseidon. Obviously since Orion is not present in the battle at Troy, we can conclude that he was killed. I found two variations on his death.

One story involves Orion being killed by the sting of a scorpion, which doesn't really fit into him being assigned to reign from the heavens. The other story involves Orion falling in love with Apollo's sister Artemis. This relationship displeases Apollo so greatly that he conspires to trick Artemis into killing her lover. Apollo's plot is successful and Artemis shots Orion in the head with an arrow, for she mistook him to be someone else. Artemis is so consumed with grief that she places her fallen lover in the darkest part of the sky so that his star may shine brighter than all the others. Orion's dog, Sirius followed his master into death and trails behind him in the sky.

So to be compared to the brightest star in the heavens would certainly exemplify how highly thought of Hektor is by his family and countrymen. This idea is not hard to see throughout the text when he is continually called something to the affect of: the best soldier in the Trojan army, or the protector of Troy. Further his greatness can be witnessed by how hard the Trojans take his death. It was as if the sun had gone out, leaving the Trojans in a dark state with no light coming soon to rouse them from their eternal darkness.

sv

Information Taken from:

http://www.online-mythology.com/orion/
http://www.coldwater.k12.mi.us/lms/planetarium/myth/orion.html
http://www.answers.com