Misogyny: You know, for kids II

Oh, Homer*:

'I think I will go to Telemachos, you bitch, and tell him
how you are talking, so that he will cut you to pieces.'

-Odyssey, Book XVIII, li. 338-9

That's harsh, Odysseus. But just.

*Translation Richmond Lattimore.

Putting a Good Book Down

I've been reading the Iliad.

I can't take it any more at the moment. I'm going to take a break. I realize at this point, that while there are parts that I like, I'm just reading it for tone. No plot, character, even dialogue is getting through.

Sadly, I've come to realize it's going to be one of those books I admire and respect, but can't love. And I do admire and respect. It's got an amazing structure, for one.

But the thing is, I thought the Odyssey was amazing. It actually touched me. I'll write how it touched me some other time, but...

The Iliad... this is my second go at reading it. I first read the first 8 books back in September/October for a course before abandoning it as unneeded to get by. Now 8 more books. So I do plan on reading those last 8 books, just not at the moment.

Next in the queue, though, is Marisha Pessl's Special Topics in Calamity Physics; should be much more palpable. I can already taste the palp.

Top Five II: Similes of Homer

1.The aged Priam was the first of all whose eyes saw him
as he swept across the flat land in full shining, like that star
which comes on in the autumn and whose conspicuous brightness
far outshines the stars that are numbered in the night's darkening,
the star they give the name of Orion's Dog, which is brightest
among the stars, and yet is wrought as a sign of evil
and brings on the great fever for the unfortunate mortals.
Such was the flare of the bronze that girt his chest in his running.
--Iliad, Book XXII, li. 25-32

2. Holding this shield in front of him, and shaking two spears,
he went onward like some hill-kept lion, who for a long time
has gone lacking meat, and the proud heart is urgent upon him
to get inside of a close steading and go for the sheepflocks.
And even though he finds herdsman in that place, who are watching
about their sheepflocks, armed with spears and with dogs, even so
he has no thought of being driven from the steading without some attack made,
and either makes his spring and seizes a sheep, or else
himself is hit in the first attack by a spear from a swift hand
thrown.
--Iliad, Book XII, li. 298-307

3. As when a man who works as a blacksmith plunges a screaming
great axe blade or plane into cold water, treating it
for temper, since this is the way steel is made strong, even
so Cyclops' eye sizzled about the beam of the olive.
--Odyssey, Book IX, li. 391-394

4. Now the son of Telamon with the long spear stabbed him under
the ear, and wrenched the spear out again, and he dropped like an ash tree
which, on the crest of a mountain glittering far about, cut down
with the bronze axe scatters on the ground its delicate leafage;
--Iliad, Book XIII, li. 177-180

5. so the rafts's long timbers were scattered, but now Odysseus
sat astride one beam, like a man riding on horseback,
and stripped off the clothing which the divine Kalypso had given him,
and rapidly tied the veil of Ino around his chest, then
threw himself head first in the water, and with his arms spread
stroked as hard as he could.
--Odyssey, Book V, li. 370-375

N/A: Homeric Hymns (for obvious reasons)
Note: All translations Richmond Lattimore.