Distinction between reason, emotion and science

1
Distinction between reason, emotion (and
science?) Homer, Plato, and the Iliad
2
The Iliad and Homer were often mentioned in
ancient writings. Many fragments of ancient
editions exist, including some from the Greek
scholar Aristarchus who was one of the librarians
of the great Library at Alexandria, and who
issued an edition of the complete Iliad about 100
BCE. The oldest existing complete version is a
manuscript called the Venetus A copied out
about 900 - 1000 CE, brought to Venice about 1400
CE and preserved at St Marks library.
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Book I Part 1 The Iliad of Homer 800BC Sing, O
goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus,
thatbrought countless ills upon the Achaeans.
Many a brave soul didit send hurrying down to
Hades, and many a hero did it yield aprey to
dogs and vultures, for so were the counsels of
Jovefulfilled from the day on which the son of
Atreus, king of men,and great Achilles, first
fell out with one another.
A cup by the Byrgos painter done about 480 BCE as
reproduced by the modern painter David Claudon.
King Priam comes to beg Achilles to give him the
body of his dead son, Hector after he has been
defeated and disgraced..
4
RISD Museum Sarcophagus (burial structure) from
a Roman city in the Eastern Mediteranean, about
100 CE. The scene is one of the most famous
parts of Homers Iliad. On the left the Greek
Achilles and the Trojan Hector fight, Hector is
killed and Achilles drags his naked body behind
his chariot. To the right Hectors father King
Priam, the Goddess Athena and Hectors wife
Andromache observe the action.
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The Iliad of Homer composed about 800 BCE,
translated by Samuel Butler (Book XXII - in
the previous part of the story, the Greek hero
Achilles friend and lover, Patroclus, disguises
himself in Achilles armor and fights the Trojan
Hector. He is killed and Achilles, angry at his
death, seeks out Hector for revenge. At first
Hector avoids Achilles but at last they confront
each other. Hector speaks to Achilles) Let us,
then, give pledges to one another by our gods,
who are the fittest witnesses and guardians of
all covenants let it be agreed between us that
if Jove (Ruler of the Gods) vouchsafes me the
longer stay and I take your life, I am not to
treat your dead body in any unseemly fashion, but
when I have stripped you of your armor, I am to
give up your body to the Achaeans (Greeks). And
do you likewise if you defeat me you will give up
my body to the Trojans." Achilles glared at him
and answered, "Fool, prate not to me about
covenants. There can be no covenants between men
and lions, wolves and lambs can never be of one
mind, but hate each other out and out .
Therefore there can be no understanding between
you and me, nor may there be any covenants
between us, till one or other shall fall and glut
grim Mars (the God of War) with his life's blood.
Put forth all your strength you have need now to
prove yourself indeed a bold soldier and man of
war. You have no more chance, and Athena (the
Goddess) will forthwith vanquish you by my spear
you shall now pay me in full for the grief you
have caused me on account of my comrade whom you
have killed in battle." He poised his spear as
he spoke and hurled it. Hector saw it coming and
crouched down so that it flew over his head and
stuck in the ground beyond Athena (the Goddess)
then snatched it up and gave it back to Achilles
without Hector's seeing her Hector thereon said
to him, "You have missed your aim, Achilles, peer
of the gods, and Jove has not yet revealed to
you the hour of my doom, though you were sure
that he had done so. You were a false-tongued
liar when you deemed that I should forget my
valor and quail before you. You shall not drive
spear into the back of a runaway- drive it,
should heaven so grant you power, drive it into
me as I make straight towards you and now for
your own part avoid my spear if you can- I wish
you would receive the whole of it into your body
if you were once dead the Trojans would find the
war an easier matter, for it is you who have
harmed them most." He poised his spear as he
spoke and hurled it. His aim was true for he hit
the middle of Achilles' shield, but the spear
rebounded from it, and did not pierce it. Hector
was angry when he saw that the weapon had sped
from his hand in vain, and stood there in dismay
for he had no second spear. With a loud cry he
called Diphobus and asked him for one, but there
was no man then he saw the truth and said to
himself, "Alas! the gods have lured me on to my
destruction. I deemed that the hero Deiphobus was
by my side, but he is within the wall, and the
Goddess Athena has tricked me death is now
indeed exceedingly near at hand and there is no
way out of it- for so Jove willed it. My doom
has come upon me let me not then die
ingloriously and without a struggle, but let me
first do some great thing that shall be told
among men hereafter. http//classics.mit.edu/Ho
mer/iliad.22.xxii.html is a link to an online
copy of Book XXII Homers story is full of
details about one battle after another who
fought, exactly what happens to them, where and
how they were wounded, how the blood gushed out
from their sliced entrails, or the brains spilt
out under the edge of their helmet after their
head was crushed by a jagged rock, etc, etc. The
Greeks knew first hand what war looked like, and
Homer laid it all out for them.)
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RISD Museum. Roman style sarcophagus of about 100
CE. On the left, Hector fights Achilles, but is
killed and to the right is shown being dragged
behind Achilles chariot. Obviously this is a
vital part of Western Culture today, as shown by
the recent version of the story filmed in 2006.
Book XXII The Iliad of Homer, composed 800 BCE
Achilles drew his spear from the body and set
it on one side then he stripped the
blood-stained armor from Hector's shoulders while
the other Greeks came running up to view his
wondrous strength and beauty and no one came
near him without giving him a fresh wound. Then
would one turn to his neighbor and say, "It is
easier to handle Hector now than when he was
flinging fire on to our ships" and as he spoke he
would thrust his spear into him anew. On this
Achilles treated the body of Hector with
contempt he pierced the sinews at the back of
both his feet from heel to ankle and passed
thongs of ox-hide through the slits he had made
thus he made the body fast to his chariot,
letting the head trail upon the ground. Then when
he had put the good armor on the chariot and had
himself mounted, he lashed his horses on and they
flew forward . The dust rose from Hector as he
was being dragged along, his dark hair flew, and
his head once so handsome was laid low on earth,
for the gods had now delivered him into the hands
of his foes to do him outrage in his own land.
Thus was Hector dishonored in the dust. His
mother tore her hair, and flung her veil from her
with a loud cry as she looked upon her son. His
father made piteous moan, and throughout Troy the
people fell to weeping and wailing.
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Greek helmet, about 500 to 400 BCE, RISD Museum
8
Small cast bronze (tin and copper alloy) of about
400 BCE, RISD Museum. There can be little doubt
that the artist who created this statue and the
warriors whom he was modelling were completely
familiar with Homers story
9
This painting in the main gallery at the RISD
museum depicts the wedding of Peleus and
Thetis. Thetis was a goddess at the home of the
gods, Mt Olympus. Some of the male gods pursued
her but Jove, the Ruler of the Gods, had heard a
prophesy that her son would be much greater than
his father. So Jove commanded Thetis to marry a
mortal, in order to prevent her from having a son
by one of his rival gods. Thetis was reluctant to
marry a mortal, of course, but after some rough
courtship she agreed to marry King Peleus. This
was a heck of a party for both mortals and
immortals. Thetis son turned out to be none
other than the great hero Achilles. This
painting was done in the Renaissance period of
the 1500s to 1600s when people in Western Europe
were rediscovering the learning of the Greeks and
art and architecture from the Classical period of
Rome and Greece was all the rage.
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Brad Pitt plays the part of Achilles in the 2004
version of the movie Troy. We can try to
imagine, which piece of art produced in the year
2008 will still hold the imagination of the world
3200 years from now?
11
"No other poet, no other literary figure in all
history for that matter, occupied a place in the
life of his people such as Homer's. He was their
pre-eminent symbol of nationhood, the
unimpeachable authority on their earliest
history, and a decisive figure in the creation of
their pantheon.... Plato Republic 606E tells us
that there were Greeks who firmly believed that
... a man ought to regulate the whole of his life
by following this poet. p. 5 The World of
Odysseus, by M.I. Finley
12
What Plato actually said He was writing about
what the ideal city would be like his idea of
an Utopia. He says that some men want to guide
their lives by Homer, but does Plato think that
is a good idea? From Plato's Republic, section
606e, translation of P. Shorey 'Then, my friend
Glaucon,' said I (Plato), 'when you meet lovers
of Homer who tell us that this poet has been the
educator of Hellas (Greece), and that for the
conduct and refinement of human life he is worthy
of our study and devotion, and that we should
order our entire lives by the guidance of this
poet, we must love and salute them as doing the
best they can, and concede to those people that
Homer is the most poetic of poets and the first
of tragedians, but we must know the truth, that
we can admit no poetry into our city save only
hymns to the gods and the praises of good men.
For if you grant admission to the honeyed muse in
lyric or epic, then pleasure or pain will be
lords of your city instead of law and that which
shall from time to time have approved itself to
the general reason as best.' (606e-607a)