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| Achilles between Diomedes and Odysseus at Scyros. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Again, we aren't told which side these men are on (they're all Trojans), or who killed them ( Diomedes killed the first one, was shot in the foot by Paris and withdrew, wounded; Odysseus, surrounded by Trojans, kills the rest, fighting desperately). Oswald is only concerned with the deaths.
Agastraphus gets no simile, and the next three are given in a list; they get more of a description in Homer, especially Chersidamas, whom Odysseus stabs under his shield as he leaps down from his chariot, and he falls in the dust (ἐν κονίῃσι), clutching the earth with his hand. Oswald uses a simile to supply this bit of narrative, taking it from Book 23, Patroclos' funeral games, when Epeios strikes Euryalos so hard that he leaps up like a fish thrown out of the water by the north wind, that lands on the shore:
" Like a fish in the wind
Jumps right out of its knowledge
And lands on the sand" (Oswald p. 42)
Marvellous translations as usual; for example, Odysseus taunting the dead Socus "φθῆ σε τέλος θανάτοιο κιχήμενον, οὐδ’ ὑπάλυξας.", "The end of death got ahead of you, and you didn't evade it" turns into
"poor SocusNicely encapsulates Socus running away (he was caught in the back by Odysseus' spear), trying to evade the ending that caught him anyway.
Trying to get away from his own ending
Ran out his last moments in fear of the next ones". (Oswald p. 43)
There follows a very interesting interaction between narrative and simile, and I'm struggling with it. In Homer Odysseus taunts Socus that birds will strip his flesh, beating their wings around him, and his parents will never close his eyes for him in death. Oswald describes the birds eating him mouthful by mouthful, and then this simile:
"Like when the wind comes ruffling at last to sailors adriftMy first reaction is, what does this have to do with anything? The simile comes from the beginning of Book 7, where the brothers Hector and Paris re-enter the battle, as welcome to the weary Trojans as a fresh breeze to sailors worn-out with rowing. To add to the confusion, in context, the ruffling wind seems to refer most immediately to the vultures, gathering to strip their dead flesh. Oswald has here done what she frequently does, and flipped the simile around, so what was subject becomes object and what was object becomes - something else entirely. I think it goes something like this:
Trying to manage the broken springs of their muscles
And lever and lift those well-rubbed oars
Making tiny dents in the ocean"(Oswald p. 43)
simile | in Iliad | in Memorial |
| breeze | the two Trojan brothers, Hector and Paris | the fluttering ("ruffling") of the birds around the dead Socus (and Charops) |
| weary with rowing | weary with fighting | weary with fighting (or running from death?) |
| sailors | Trojan warriors | the two Trojan brothers, Charops and Socus |
So two Trojan brothers as subject, longed-for helpers, become two Trojan brothers as object, helpless dead; the weariness of fighting is increased and the activity is futile ("making tiny", i.e. futile, "dents in the ocean"), and the helping breeze becomes the ruffling feathers of the vultures around the bodies; the end of death is welcome. Except not, because Socus was running, and the breeze doesn't help the sailors, though it does, I suppose, end their labour.
Inclined to wonder if I'm over-thinking. I am assuming, for one thing, that every time Oswald uses a simile from elsewhere in the Iliad, we can reasonably consider as significant both its present and its previous context and referents; she has placed the simile where it makes sense in her poem, but has also chosen it from a context that also casts light on its meaning in its present position. Perhaps however she just picks similes that make sense where she puts them, and doesn't much care where they come from. Or perhaps she doesn't always care. I'm dubious about that, though; the context seems significant far too often. I think the problem I'm having here is that it doesn't make a lot of sense to me in its present context in Memorial. Well, mark for later consideration.
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