4. The Mênis of Achilles and the First Book of the Iliad
From the Mênis of Zeus to the Mênis of Achilles via the Mênis of Apollo
ὅππως δὴ μῆνίς τε χόλος θ᾽ ἕλε Πηλεΐωνα
Λητοῦς τ᾽ ἀγλαὸν υἱόν· ὁ γὰρ βασιλῆϊ χολωθεὶς … [9]
Sing to me now, Muses who have homes on Olympus,
how mênis and khólos seized both the son of Peleus
and the glorious son of Leto; for he, angered at the king …
This was a variant prologue to the Iliad known to Aristoxenus, so its legitimacy cannot be simply dismissed. I do not maintain that it is preferable to the standard one, only that traditional poems are by definition multiform, so that an appreciation of the expressive and poetic value in textual variants like this one can enhance our understanding of the nuance of the received text and of the compositional process in general. It would be senseless to consider this variant the product of some secondary editorial intervention, since it is a prologue composed in traditional epic style whose content is simply different from that of the received text. [10] It raises these questions: What is the relationship between the mênis of Achilles and the mênis of Apollo? How and why are they linked in the narrative structure of the first book and in this alternative prologue? And why does the received text suppress the relationship between the mênis of Achilles and Apollo?
αὐτὰρ ἔπειτ’ αὐτοῖσι βέλος ἐχεπευκὲς ἐφιεὶς
βάλλ’· αἰεὶ δὲ πυραὶ νεκύων καίοντο θαμειαί.
ἐννῆμαρ μὲν ἀνὰ στρατὸν ᾤχετο κῆλα θεοῖο,
First he went back and forth at the mules and the keen dogs,
and then, letting loose his pointed weapon at the bodies,
he struck: pyres of the dead were burning continually everywhere.
For nine days the shafts of the god went back and forth along the army.
The narrative effect of the kêla theoîo ‘shafts of the god’ on the bodies is to cremate them. The expression kêla theoîo becomes still more relevant to its context when we realize that the noun kêla being translated ‘shafts’ is a plausible derivative of the same root as the verb in the previous line, kaíonto ‘were burning’. [18] A variant of this expression, kêla Diós, “kêla of Zeus,” is used at Theogony 708 of the thunderbolts hurled by Zeus at the Titans, and in Iliad 12.280 the phrase tà hà kêla, “those kêla of his (Zeus’s)” describes aspects of a snowstorm. English lacks a generic term for weapons that are “thrown pieces of fire,” if one can speak of such a thing, but in epic diction the association of this noun with fire is alive. It survives even in secondary derivatives of the noun kêla, such as purì kēléōi, “blazing fire,” a phrase used four of the seven times it occurs to refer to fire as a weapon of war, specifically, the fire that the Trojans set to the Achaean ships (8.217, 235, 22.374, and 15.744, where the form attested is kēléiōi, a metrical variant due to the formula being shifted from after to before the penthemimeral caesura). [19] So “shaft” is not an accurate way to render either the {101|102} connotations or the denotations of this term. [20] The closest word in English is perhaps bolt, which can be used of thunderbolts and also to denote cross-bow arrows, or the word firebrand, which denotes a flaming piece of wood used as a weapon of destruction.
The Mênis of Achilles or the Mênis of Agamemnon
ἢ Αἴας ἢ Ἰδομενεὺς ἢ δῖος Ὀδυσσεὺς
ἠὲ σὺ Πηλεΐδη πάντων ἐκπαγλότατ’ ἀνδρῶν,
ὄφρ’ ἥμιν ἑκάεργον ἱλάσσεαι ἱερὰ ῥέξας.
and let some man of counselor rank be the captain,
either Ajax or Idomeneus or godlike Odysseus,
or even you, son of Peleus, most hostile of all men,
so that you may sacrifice and appease the far-worker for us.
Agamemnon is by now baiting Achilles and turning to the language of insult. It is possible for him to do so because the essential outlines of the conflict between them have already been defined. Agamemnon’s resentment that his sovereign authority is under violent attack by a hero who is his social inferior is set off against Achilles’ resentment of Agamemnon’s disrespect for him and his contempt for the rules of exchange and communal distribution that sustain the social hierarchy itself.
σύμπαντας· τότε δ’ οὔ τι δυνήσεαι ἀχνύμενός περ
χραισμεῖν, εὖτ’ ἂν πολλοὶ ὑφ’ Ἕκτορος ἀνδροφόνοιο
θνήσκοντες πίπτωσι· σὺ δ’ ἔνδοθι θυμὸν ἀμύξεις
χωόμενος ὅτ’ ἄριστον Ἀχαιῶν οὐδὲν ἔτεισας.
at some point a yearning for Achilles is bound to come upon the sons of the Achaeans,
on all of them put together; and then for all your anguish you [singular] will not at all be able
to ward off [devastation], when many, beneath man-slaying Hector,
fall dying: but you [singular] will rip at the heart within yourself
in your anger that you [singular] paid no honor at all to the best of the Achaeans.
τὴν μὲν ἐγὼ σὺν νηΐ τ’ ἐμῇ καὶ ἐμοῖς ἑτάροισι
πέμψω, ἐγὼ δέ κ’ ἄγω Βρισηΐδα καλλιπάρῃον
αὐτὸς ἰὼν κλισίηνδε, τὸ σὸν γέρας, ὄφρ’ ἐῢ εἰδῇς
ὅσσον φέρτερός εἰμι σέθεν, στυγέῃ δὲ καὶ ἄλλος
ἶσον ἐμοὶ φάσθαι καὶ ὁμοιωθήμεναι ἄντην.
As Phoebus Apollo is depriving me of Chryseis,
I will send her off with my ship and my companions,
but I will go myself to your hut and get fair-cheeked Briseis,
that géras of yours, so that you may know well
how much better [ phérteros ] I am than you, and so that another
would also dread to appear as my equal and be likened to me face to face.
At the same time as Agamemnon is basing his mênis on Apollo’s, he is using the same language that Zeus uses in book 15 to threaten Poseidon with mênis and make him stand down from his desire to be treated as an equal:
μή μ’ οὐδὲ κρατερός περ ἐὼν ἐπιόντα ταλάσσῃ
μεῖναι, ἐπεί ἑο φημὶ βίῃ πολὺ φέρτερος εἶναι
καὶ γενεῇ πρότερος· τοῦ δ’ οὐκ ὄθεται φίλον ἦτορ
ἶσον ἐμοὶ φάσθαι, τόν τε στυγέουσι καὶ ἄλλοι.
Let him [Poseidon] consider then in his heart and spirit,
so that strong [ kraterós ] as he is he will not dare to await
my onset, since I assert that I am much better [ phérteros ] than him in force
and earlier in birth; yet his dear heart does not care about
appearing equal to me, whom others also dread.
In effect, Agamemnon is adducing both Apollo and Zeus, whose timḗ he claims at the beginning of his speech, as models for his mênis, although the comparison of his words to Zeus’s suggests a problem that again evokes the succession myth in the Theogony.
λίσσομ’ Ἀχιλλῆϊ μεθέμεν χόλον, ὃς μέγα πᾶσιν
ἕρκος Ἀχαιοῖσιν πέλεται πολέμοιο κακοῖο.
Son of Atreus, you stop [παῦε] your ménos; and I personally
implore you to let go of your khólos at Achilles, who is a
great barrier in evil war for all the Achaeans.
Actually, Nestor only aims to put an end to Agamemnon’s mênis; the words ménos and khólos are regularly attested as terms that cross-refer to it. [43] He tells him not to take away Briseis but to leave her as the Achaeans gave her, to Achilles. True, that would remove the cause of Achilles’ mênis, but that is a consequence of his advice, not its primary goal. Nestor immediately tells {111|112} Achilles not to rile Agamemnon on the grounds that he is his superior, so that the two injunctions establish a context of ending Agamemnon’s mênis at Achilles, not vice versa. First Nestor reinforces Agamemnon’s contrast between who is phérteros (Agamemnon) and who is karterós (Achilles). Then he concludes with the lines just quoted, a direct plea to Agamemnon to end his mênis and recognize Achilles’ value in war to the whole social group.
χερσὶ μὲν οὔ τοι ἔγωγε μαχήσομαι εἵνεκα κούρης
οὔτε σοὶ οὔτε τῳ ἄλλῳ, ἐπεί μ’ ἀφέλεσθέ γε δόντες·
τῶν δ’ ἄλλων ἅ μοί ἐστι θοῇ παρὰ νηῒ μελαίνῃ
τῶν οὐκ ἄν τι φέροις ἀνελὼν ἀέκοντος ἐμεῖο·
εἰ δ’ ἄγε μὴν πείρησαι ἵνα γνώωσι καὶ οἵδε·
αἶψά τοι αἷμα κελαινὸν ἐρωήσει περὶ δουρί.
I will tell you [singular] another thing, and you store it in your mind:
For my part, I will not fight you [singular] hand-to-hand for the girl,
not you [singular] nor anyone else, since you [plural] who gave her to me took her away.
But as for the other things that I have beside my swift black ship,
you [singular] may not take a single one of them away against my will;
go on, try it, to let these others here know as well:
then your black blood will spurt up around my spear.
ἄλλο δέ τοι ἐρέω, καὶ ἀπειλήσω τό γε θυμῷ·
αἴ κεν ἄνευ ἐμέθεν καὶ Ἀθηναίης ἀγελείης
Ἥρης Ἑρμείω τε καὶ Ἡφαίστοιο ἄνακτος
Ἰλίου αἰπεινῆς πεφιδήσεται, οὐδ’ ἐθελήσει
ἐκπέρσαι, δοῦναι δὲ μέγα κράτος Ἀργείοισιν,
ἴστω τοῦθ’ ὅτι νῶϊν ἀνήκεστος χόλος ἔσται.
Ὣς εἰπὼν λίπε λαὸν Ἀχαιϊκὸν ἐννοσίγαιος,
δῦνε δὲ πόντον ἰών, πόθεσαν δ’ ἥρωες Ἀχαιοί.
Justly offended though I now am, yet I will in fact give in [ hupoeíxō ];
but I will tell you another thing, and I will make this threat from the heart:
if without me and Athena who leads the host
and Hera and Hermes and lord Hephaistos [47]
he intends to spare steep Ilium and will not be willing
to destroy it utterly and grant great might to the Argives,
let him know this, that the anger [ khólos ] between us two will be incurable.
So speaking the earth-shaker left the Achaean host
and went and plunged into the sea, and the Achaean warriors missed him.
The Real Mênis of Achilles
χρειὼ ἐμεῖο γένηται ἀεικέα λοιγὸν ἀμῦναι
τοῖς ἄλλοις· ἦ γὰρ ὅ γ’ ὀλοιῇσι φρεσὶ θύει,
οὐδέ τι οἶδε νοῆσαι ἅμα πρόσσω καὶ ὀπίσσω,
ὅππως οἱ παρὰ νηυσὶ σόοι μαχέοιντο Ἀχαιοί.
…if ever once again [ dḕ aûte ]
a need for me should arise to ward off unseemly destruction [ loigós ]
for these others: truly he [Agamemnon] is raging in his destructive mind,
nor does he know how to think [ noêsai ] at once forward and backward,
so that the Achaeans may fight for him safely beside the ships.
εὐχομένης ὅτ’ ἔφησθα κελαινεφέϊ Κρονίωνι
οἴη ἐν ἀθανάτοισιν ἀεικέα λοιγὸν ἀμῦναι,
ὁππότε μιν ξυνδῆσαι Ὀλύμπιοι ἤθελον ἄλλοι
Ἥρη τ’ ἠδὲ Ποσειδάων καὶ Παλλὰς Ἀθήνη·
ἀλλὰ σὺ τόν γ’ ἐλθοῦσα, θεά, ὑπελύσαο δεσμῶν,
ὦχ’ ἑκατόγχειρον καλέσασ’ ἐς μακρὸν Ὄλυμπον,
ὃν Βριάρεων καλέουσι θεοί, ἄνδρες δέ τε πάντες
Αἰγαίων‘, ὃ γὰρ αὖτε βίην οὗ πατρὸς ἀμείνων·
ὅς ῥα παρὰ Κρονίωνι καθέζετο κύδεϊ γαίων·
τὸν καὶ ὑπέδεισαν μάκαρες θεοὶ οὐδ’ ἔτ’ ἔδησαν.
τῶν νῦν μιν μνήσασα παρέζεο καὶ λαβὲ γούνων
I often heard you speaking proudly of it in my father’s halls,
when you used to say how you alone among the immortals
warded off unseemly devastation [ loigós ] for the dark-clouded son of Kronos,
when the other Olympians were wanting to tie him up,
Hera and Poseidon and Pallas Athene;
but you went to him, goddess, and set him free from the bonds,
swiftly calling up to great Olympus a Hundred-Hander,
one whom the gods call Briareos but all men
Aigaion—for he also is greater in strength than his father—
who sat beside the son of Kronos and exulted in his glory;
and the blessed gods feared him and no longer tied him up.
Reminding him of these things, sit beside him and take him by the knees.
Achilles goes on to specify what Thetis should ask Zeus to do on his behalf, namely, help out the Trojans and bottle up the Achaeans so that they will be killed. Then the Achaeans will all get the full benefit of their king, and Agamemnon himself will realize his mistake in paying no honor to “the best of the Achaeans” (408–12).
μήνι’ Ἀχαιοῖσιν, πολέμου δ’ ἀποπαύεο πάμπαν·
Sitting beside your swift-going ships
have mênis at the Achaeans and cease completely from war.
After a digression describing in detail Odysseus’s trip to hand over Chryseis, the ritual performed on Chryse to appease Apollo, and the voyage back to Troy, the narrator returns once again to Achilles before taking up the episode of Thetis’s trip to Olympus on his behalf:
διογενὴς Πηλῆος υἱός, πόδας ὠκὺς Ἀχιλλεύς·
οὔτε ποτ’ εἰς ἀγορὴν πωλέσκετο κυδιάνειραν
οὔτε ποτ’ ἐς πόλεμον, ἀλλὰ φθινύθεσκε φίλον κῆρ
αὖθι μένων, ποθέεσκε δ’ ἀϋτήν τε πτόλεμόν τε. {122|123}
And sitting beside his swiftgoing ships he had mênis,
the Zeus-descended son of Peleus, swift-footed Achilles.
Neither was he visiting the man-ennobling assembly
nor was he going to war, but he was wasting away his own dear heart
staying there, and he was longing for the war cry and the battle.
Book 1 and the Mênis of Zeus
μή νύ τοι οὐ χραίσμωσιν ὅσοι θεοί εἰσ’ ἐν Ὀλύμπῳ
ἆσσον ἰόνθ’, ὅτε κέν τοι ἀάπτους χεῖρας ἐφείω.
Now sit down and be silent, and obey my command,
lest all the gods on Olympus be of no help to you
coming nearer, when I lay my untouchable [65] hands upon you.
Once again Zeus asserts his authority to punish a rebellious member of the divine community without fearing the response of her peers: he is prepared to take on all comers. The context and the diction recall several instances of {124|125} the mênis theme, especially the sequence in Iliad, book 15, that began with Zeus’s threat to repeat his punishment of Hera despite her support from others and concluded with Poseidon’s backing down to Zeus’s superior force while threatening to activate the pro-Achaean gods against him if he went so far as to cancel the sack of Troy. The situation that Hera fears is also beginning to resemble the one in Achilles’ tale of his mother’s achievement: an alliance between Thetis and Zeus over against an alienated faction of the divine community consisting once again of those who favor the Achaeans in the war.
δεινὴν ἐγρεκύδοιμον ἀγέστρατον ἀτρυτώνην,
πότνιαν, ᾗ κέλαδοί τε ἅδον πόλεμοί τε μάχαι τε·
Ἥρη δ’ Ἥφαιστον κλυτὸν οὐ φιλότητι μιγεῖσα
γείνατο, καὶ ζαμένησε καὶ ἤρισεν ᾧ παρακοίτῃ,
ἐκ πάντων παλάμῃσι κεκασμένον Οὐρανιώνων.
He himself gave birth to sparkling-eyed Athena from his head,
frightening, strife-stirring, host-leading, tireless
mistress whom noise and wars and battles please;
but Hera gave birth without having sex to Hephaistos,
since she was very angry and competed with her husband—
Hephaistos, who surpassed all the children of Ouranos in cunning handiwork.
This passage about Zeus’s last wife (λοισθοτάτην … ἄκοιτιν [921]) as against Metis, his first, polarizes the distinction between their respective offspring as well as their deviant begetting. Athena is presented in her aspect as a goddess of war and violence, a masculinized female born from a male, whereas Hephaistos is an “unfathered” male who excels in cleverly contriving cunning things, in other words, in mêtis, a trait that the Theogonic myth persistently associates with females, specifically with the creation of children. If this male with mêtis cannot procreate a child as Zeus did upon swallowing Metis, he is at least a master of noncelestial fire whose crafts-{125|126}manship is such that he can even create objects that move by themselves. [66] His genealogy as yet another potentially dangerous son of Zeus—and he is Zeus’s son despite the absence of sexual relations between his parents—makes his role in this context in the Iliad especially appropriate. As an effort to quell the dispute between his parents, his speech is a variation on Nestor’s prior attempt to end the quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles. But unlike Nestor, Hephaistos succeeds. Recalling the language of Zeus’s foreboding to Thetis, he first speaks with regret of the loígia érga, “deeds of devastation,” that are about to take place if the quarrel continues, [67] and he points out to his mother what Zeus can do if he wishes:
ἐξ ἑδέων στυφελίξαι· ὁ γὰρ πολὺ φέρτατός ἐστιν.
ἀλλὰ σὺ τὸν γ᾽ ἐπέεσσι καθάπτεσθαι μαλακοῖσιν·
αὐτίκ’ ἔπειθ’ ἵλαος Ὀλύμπιος ἔσσεται ἡμῖν.
If the Olympian lightning-hurler just wishes
to smite us from our seats — — for he is by far the best;
instead restrain [68] him with gentle words;
then the Olympian will immediately be gracious [69] to us.