Euchenor goes to heaven

English: Arabian mare standing in a show halter pose (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Was prepared to find nothing much interesting happening here, but Oswald has cleverly turned another simile on its ear.  The simile about the well-fed, pampered aristocrat of horses, happily breaking its halter and running off to the river and where the mares are, is applied by Homer to Paris when he runs off home to visit Helen in the middle of a battle in Book 6 (granted, with Aphrodite's help); Paris is exactly that pampered, over-nourished, over-sexed, gleaming, self-centred figure, beautiful but wholly dedicated to his own pleasure, and inclined to break his halter and run away from his duty when he sees a mare.  

But here the simile is turned round and it is used of Euchenor, whom Paris has just killed. (So once again, subject to object, or object to subject; Euchenor, the object of the arrow, becomes the subject of the simile, whose former subject was the man who killed him).  Euchenor was happy to die because his father the seer told him it was die gloriously and quickly at Troy or miserably of illness at home.  So he knew this was going to happen.  And the simile is of a horse breaking free of its halter - its duty, its life - and going running on, a young happy horse, forever, in Paradise. 

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more Trojans die

Achilles between Diomedes and Odysseus at Scyros. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Agastraphus, (Agastrophus in Homer), Thoon, Ennomus, Chersidamas, Charops, Socus.  


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 Socus
Trying to get away from his own ending
Ran out his last moments in fear of the next ones". (Oswald p. 43)

Nicely encapsulates Socus running away (he was caught in the back by Odysseus' spear), trying to evade the ending that caught him anyway.


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 adrift
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)

My 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:

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

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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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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.

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death of Adrestus; axe and spear

Antalya Archaeological Museum. Ancient Roman sarcophagus of Aurelia Botania Demetria ( 2nd century AD ): Aphrodite is concealing Paris who is defeated by Menelaos. Odysseus is looking at the szene. Deutsch: Archäologisches Museum in Antalya. Römischer Sarkophag der Aurelia Botania Demetria ( 2.Jhdt.n.Chr. ): Aphrodite verbirgt Paris, der von Menelaos geschlagen worden ist. Odysseus sieht zu. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

More and more I'm finding that the use of the similes is engaging me; when I originally read this poem I barely noticed them and couldn't figure out what they were for.  Here Oswald tells us about the death of Adrastus at Menelaus' hands; he begged for his life and nearly persuaded Menelaus but Agamemnon came up and told him to show Trojans no mercy; after all, had Trojans been good to his house?  Better to kill them all.  And that was that. Menelaus' spear swung like a sundial indicator, the decision wavering in the balance, but then it fell.

 She continues with the simile of an axe, that a shipwright uses to cut timbers for a boat, and it swings his arm for him as "an iron decision", as Menelaus' spear is an 'iron decision' for Adrestus, and swung Menelaus' wavering heart.  But the interesting thing is that the simile of the shipwright's axe shows up in the Iliad, only this time it is unwavering and unflinching; Paris uses this image to describe Hector's heart, constantly under Hector's control, adding force to his will - and how unlike Paris' heart, which tends to lead him to sneak off home to shag his wife.  But then, Aphrodite's like that, and there's no point complaining.

So the simile, originally spoken by Paris, to describe another Trojan hero's unwavering heart, is used by Oswald to describe the wavering weapon of Helen's last (Greek) husband, who has to be talked into killing by Agamemnon; eventually the axe/spear makes the decision for the man.  How does this fit the overall strategy?  That Adrastus could have lived; it underlines how indecisive and impotent Menelaus is, rather like Paris in fact; huh - got it - in both cases we are looking at 2 brothers, and the leader/warrior one has to talk the other one into fighting.  And in both cases the second brother is or has been married to Helen.That's the association that connects the two.

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