the rainbow

Greeks and Troyans fighting for the corpse of Patroklos - detail (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

No more men die in book 6, so Oswald jumps to the beginning of Book 7, where Paris and Hector re-enter battle after visiting their wives and Paris has killed his man, Menesthius, in the first 10 lines.   She mentions his mother Phylomedusa but not his father, here as elsewhere emphasizing women wherever they're named (and it's rare enough) and describes Paris as "running in a love-rage towards him/ With the smell of Helen still on his hands".  And it's here that she uses the simile from book 17, of Athena coming to the Greeks like a rainbow, a "bright banner of disruption" sent by Zeus, to stir them up to fight for Patroclus' body.  And again, what?

In context, aside from (again) assimilating a simile from a famous death, Patroclus, to the death of someone who gets 3 lines in the Iliad and that is all, ever, his name is mentioned only here once at his death - but in context, it seems as if Paris, or perhaps indeed Helen, is the rainbow, the one that perhaps only portends a minor disruption of work, a summer storm; or perhaps portends a war.  If Paris, he portends both a war, and the death of Menesthius; more than a minor disruption.  you can't tell until the omen, a rainbow, Helen, Paris running across a field towards you, is fulfilled.

Or ... (later thought) ... obviously Helen is an interruption to Paris' work, a 'bright banner of disruption' - as we are reminded by Hector, scolding him for running off to shag Helen when he should be out here killing people.  As we are reminded by Oswald, who has Paris running towards poor Menesthius with Helen still on his hands.  Duh. Helen is Paris' rainbow; Paris is Menesthius'; Athena has not yet come to the Greeks.

Related articles

• Rainbow! Quick get the camera!

• A Trojan Love Story (thedailybeast.com)