Let them say I walked with giants
Not to go in to chronological order of a tale that has more than 3000 years in its behind, the war of Troy has evoked certain observations when I looked at it. When I happened to be a student of English Literature in my graduation, we had a brief introduction of war of Troy as part of beginnings of modern drama, Homer as father of modern drama. Iliad and Odyssey are two lengthy poetic narrations by Homer who believed to live around 9th Century of BC in Greek. We were told that Iliad is about the war that lead to the fall of Troy and Odyssey is about the return journey of Agamemnon who lead the Greeks in that war and the life after Troy.
After a long gap of say about 15 years I am able to lay my hands on to the subject again. What surprised me is that the capacity of a 3000 years old story to ignite fresh thoughts about the persons and personalities apart from what had happened, why it was like so ! May be that is the beauty of an epic like Ramayana and Mahabharata, what we have had. At least in the case of Ramayana we had a writing figure Valmiki, though we can’t ascertain his authenticity. But in the case of Mahabharata, the writer, Vyasa still looks at least for me as a fictitious persona.
Coming back to the original story, the mythological narration can be found at http://www.royalty.nu/legends/Troy.html. I wish to just take some aspects only basically which surrounds the characters of Hector and Achilles, Priam, the king of Troy.
Hector : Tactically right
Eldest son of Praim ( king of Troy) a loyal country man and an effective commander who has an eye on the activities of Paris, his own brother who became so close to Helen, the wife of Menelaus, the Greek king Agamemnon’s brother. After the ceremony ( read the above link) night before Paris and his brother moves to Troy meets Helen and seduces her and also impresses her to elope with him to Troy where they can live a loving and peaceful life. Helen follows Paris directions and enters in to the ship that sailed to Troy in guise. On sea, Paris informs the same to Hector who becomes angry and also fears consequences. As soon as they arrives in Troy the picture unfolds in the Priam’s court where they decided even to fight for Paris’s love. In the court Hector warns the consequences and proposes to hand over Helen back to Menelaus and enter in to treaty to save the people and the country from the perils of war. But nobody hears as the Chief Priest also sides with Priam and encourages war. Through out this episod the Priam’s priest ill advices the rulers of Troy including taking the wooden horse wherein the Trojans sealed themselves in to city. Hector argues well having the tactical understanding after overseeing the war with Greeks for some years. He finds that the advances so far made by Troy military is due to divisions in the Agamemnon’s allies banking on the sea. For some time Achilles won’t take part in the war with his men. With out Achilles and his men, the Greek soldiers lost morale and starts running. Following the ill advise from chief priest and some other allies of small tribes Priam enters in to a deadly battle. One more aspect of Hector also I like. He is not only loyal to his people and a good commander. He is also upholds the moral principles. After killing Achilles’ friend thinking that he was Achilles, Hector confesses the same and gets himself ready to face the consequences lonely. He warns his wife to escape before the Greek army plunders city. In one on one fight Hector braves Achilles and dies in front of Troy city gates while his whole court is overlooking . He also refuses his archery to slew arches at Achilles while he roads on his chariot. After going through the personality of Hector one can sum up his character as morally right.
Achilles : The brave boy who always sides with the Greek in the troublesome period of Greek’s civilisation at his early stage secures en number of victories including the famous one of Troy. He and Agamemnon are completely opposite. Due to stiff differences with Agamemnon over Agamemnon’s wish to have Bresis, the Troy’s princes, Achilles asks his men not to take part in war for some years. Exactly those are the years when the Troy recorded some advances. After killing Hector, Achilles asks Greek army to return to the sea. Bresis tries her best to see that Achilles not to return to war filed. But with an ambition of conquering Troy, Agamemnon does not agrees for that. History has two opinions on the events that followed Hector’s death. Some says including Homeric verses that Greek army was vanished due to the spread of plague. Some says that after certain sections of Greek army vanishes, realising the problem Agamemnon and Achilles decides to make a giant size wooden horse by destroying the boats and shield themselves from plague. After some time Priam looks at the empty beaches where the wooden horse stands alone. The wooden horse enters in to Troy city and the men of Greek comes out on night and lit fire and sacks everyone who comes across and steels what ever they found worth including the destruction of the famous Apollo, the sun god’s temple.
Priam : Who happened to be unifier of Troy rule by conquering several tribal chiefs establishes well knit society in Troy. His only weakness is to follow the advices of his priest. Thus he paves way for the destruction of the empire which he built.
Menelaus and Agamemnon : Are zealous of Hector and Troy kingdom and waits for an opportunity. Helen’s elopement with Paris gives them opportunity to siege the Troy, which finally ends by doing so after a decade of war.
One more important thing we can find here is the culture of victorious army looking the temples for treasures. Thus we need not to find the BJP’s arguments in India about the Muslims rulers destroying hindu temples, a valid one. This phenomenon can be seen all along the history in spite of continental differences.
Similarities between Mahabarata and War of Troy : There are so many commonalities in both these wars. Both, if at all they had happened, happened in the late Bronze Age of human civilisation. The narrations of both the Homer and Vyasa are of same in nature. The disputes arises though over the retention and expansion of empires, reaches final stage over the question of Women ! Like in Mahabarata, in War of Troy also diplomacy precedes the war. Like in Mahabarata, both sides mobilises support of tribal chiefs of that time in and from the surrounding areas. Only difference is that war of Troy happens on the banks of Aegean Sea where as Mahabarata was basically land based war. In war of Troy we can’t find the usage of Elephants in war where as in Mahabarata we do. In both cases the so called Gods oversees the war with enormous interests while some taking either sides and others staying as on lookers.
What ever it may about the reality of these wars, we can say that they had happened, if at all they were, at a time when the role of women started being confined from principle owner of home to subordinate owner of home. In anthropological studies this is the period where we can see the evolution of human civilisation from the stage of women dominated to male dominated one, which is still surviving till today !
The dramatic dialogue Achilles tells to Bresis few minutes before his death is that “ Let them say I walked with giants “. This has in his minds the heated debates he enters in to with Agamemnon after initial victories over Troy where Agamemnon thunders “ History will remember Kings not foot soldiers”
What ever may history says, we can say that the age of Troy, and Indraprastha are gigantic steps in the evolution of human civilisation. Hence we can accept that Achilles’ saying by interpreting that all the characters of war of Troy are walked with giants !
Not to go in to chronological order of a tale that has more than 3000 years in its behind, the war of Troy has evoked certain observations when I looked at it. When I happened to be a student of English Literature in my graduation, we had a brief introduction of war of Troy as part of beginnings of modern drama, Homer as father of modern drama. Iliad and Odyssey are two lengthy poetic narrations by Homer who believed to live around 9th Century of BC in Greek. We were told that Iliad is about the war that lead to the fall of Troy and Odyssey is about the return journey of Agamemnon who lead the Greeks in that war and the life after Troy.
After a long gap of say about 15 years I am able to lay my hands on to the subject again. What surprised me is that the capacity of a 3000 years old story to ignite fresh thoughts about the persons and personalities apart from what had happened, why it was like so ! May be that is the beauty of an epic like Ramayana and Mahabharata, what we have had. At least in the case of Ramayana we had a writing figure Valmiki, though we can’t ascertain his authenticity. But in the case of Mahabharata, the writer, Vyasa still looks at least for me as a fictitious persona.
Coming back to the original story, the mythological narration can be found at http://www.royalty.nu/legends/Troy.html. I wish to just take some aspects only basically which surrounds the characters of Hector and Achilles, Priam, the king of Troy.
Hector : Tactically right
Eldest son of Praim ( king of Troy) a loyal country man and an effective commander who has an eye on the activities of Paris, his own brother who became so close to Helen, the wife of Menelaus, the Greek king Agamemnon’s brother. After the ceremony ( read the above link) night before Paris and his brother moves to Troy meets Helen and seduces her and also impresses her to elope with him to Troy where they can live a loving and peaceful life. Helen follows Paris directions and enters in to the ship that sailed to Troy in guise. On sea, Paris informs the same to Hector who becomes angry and also fears consequences. As soon as they arrives in Troy the picture unfolds in the Priam’s court where they decided even to fight for Paris’s love. In the court Hector warns the consequences and proposes to hand over Helen back to Menelaus and enter in to treaty to save the people and the country from the perils of war. But nobody hears as the Chief Priest also sides with Priam and encourages war. Through out this episod the Priam’s priest ill advices the rulers of Troy including taking the wooden horse wherein the Trojans sealed themselves in to city. Hector argues well having the tactical understanding after overseeing the war with Greeks for some years. He finds that the advances so far made by Troy military is due to divisions in the Agamemnon’s allies banking on the sea. For some time Achilles won’t take part in the war with his men. With out Achilles and his men, the Greek soldiers lost morale and starts running. Following the ill advise from chief priest and some other allies of small tribes Priam enters in to a deadly battle. One more aspect of Hector also I like. He is not only loyal to his people and a good commander. He is also upholds the moral principles. After killing Achilles’ friend thinking that he was Achilles, Hector confesses the same and gets himself ready to face the consequences lonely. He warns his wife to escape before the Greek army plunders city. In one on one fight Hector braves Achilles and dies in front of Troy city gates while his whole court is overlooking . He also refuses his archery to slew arches at Achilles while he roads on his chariot. After going through the personality of Hector one can sum up his character as morally right.
Achilles : The brave boy who always sides with the Greek in the troublesome period of Greek’s civilisation at his early stage secures en number of victories including the famous one of Troy. He and Agamemnon are completely opposite. Due to stiff differences with Agamemnon over Agamemnon’s wish to have Bresis, the Troy’s princes, Achilles asks his men not to take part in war for some years. Exactly those are the years when the Troy recorded some advances. After killing Hector, Achilles asks Greek army to return to the sea. Bresis tries her best to see that Achilles not to return to war filed. But with an ambition of conquering Troy, Agamemnon does not agrees for that. History has two opinions on the events that followed Hector’s death. Some says including Homeric verses that Greek army was vanished due to the spread of plague. Some says that after certain sections of Greek army vanishes, realising the problem Agamemnon and Achilles decides to make a giant size wooden horse by destroying the boats and shield themselves from plague. After some time Priam looks at the empty beaches where the wooden horse stands alone. The wooden horse enters in to Troy city and the men of Greek comes out on night and lit fire and sacks everyone who comes across and steels what ever they found worth including the destruction of the famous Apollo, the sun god’s temple.
Priam : Who happened to be unifier of Troy rule by conquering several tribal chiefs establishes well knit society in Troy. His only weakness is to follow the advices of his priest. Thus he paves way for the destruction of the empire which he built.
Menelaus and Agamemnon : Are zealous of Hector and Troy kingdom and waits for an opportunity. Helen’s elopement with Paris gives them opportunity to siege the Troy, which finally ends by doing so after a decade of war.
One more important thing we can find here is the culture of victorious army looking the temples for treasures. Thus we need not to find the BJP’s arguments in India about the Muslims rulers destroying hindu temples, a valid one. This phenomenon can be seen all along the history in spite of continental differences.
Similarities between Mahabarata and War of Troy : There are so many commonalities in both these wars. Both, if at all they had happened, happened in the late Bronze Age of human civilisation. The narrations of both the Homer and Vyasa are of same in nature. The disputes arises though over the retention and expansion of empires, reaches final stage over the question of Women ! Like in Mahabarata, in War of Troy also diplomacy precedes the war. Like in Mahabarata, both sides mobilises support of tribal chiefs of that time in and from the surrounding areas. Only difference is that war of Troy happens on the banks of Aegean Sea where as Mahabarata was basically land based war. In war of Troy we can’t find the usage of Elephants in war where as in Mahabarata we do. In both cases the so called Gods oversees the war with enormous interests while some taking either sides and others staying as on lookers.
What ever it may about the reality of these wars, we can say that they had happened, if at all they were, at a time when the role of women started being confined from principle owner of home to subordinate owner of home. In anthropological studies this is the period where we can see the evolution of human civilisation from the stage of women dominated to male dominated one, which is still surviving till today !
The dramatic dialogue Achilles tells to Bresis few minutes before his death is that “ Let them say I walked with giants “. This has in his minds the heated debates he enters in to with Agamemnon after initial victories over Troy where Agamemnon thunders “ History will remember Kings not foot soldiers”
What ever may history says, we can say that the age of Troy, and Indraprastha are gigantic steps in the evolution of human civilisation. Hence we can accept that Achilles’ saying by interpreting that all the characters of war of Troy are walked with giants !
No comments:
Post a Comment