The Iliad Book 5 Diomedes Fights the Gods
The gods are heavily involved in the fighting. Zeus hasn't fulfilled his promise to Thetis yet. Athena helps Diomedes go on a rampage. Tydeus' son even stabs Aphrodite (with Athena's full permission) and Ares (not with the goddess's permission, but I suspect she doesn't care too much).
[Spoiler (click to open)]Athena grants Tydeus' son Dimoedes strength and daring so that he can win himself glory. He kills Phegeus, son of the Trojan Dares, a wealthy decent priest of Hephaestus. The god of fire saves his brother Idaeus, who was also in the chariot.
Athena lures Ares away from the fighting, telling him they should let Zeus decide which warriors to honor. Meanwhile the Greeks are trouncing the Trojans. Each captain kills his target: Agamemnon, the giant chief of the Halizonians Odius; Iodemeneus, Phaestus, Maeonian Borus' son of Tarne; Menelaus, Scamandarius, Strophius's son, trained at the hunt by Artemis; Meriones, Phereclus, skilled in craft with Pallas Athena's love, crafter of Paris' ships those "trim launchers of death, freighted with death / for all of Troy and now for the shipwright too: / what could the man know of all the gods' decrees?"; Meges, Pedaeus, Antenor's beloved illegitimate son nursed by his wife to please her philandering husband; Euaemon's son Eurypulus, Hypsenor, son of Dolopion, Scamander's priest. Gory descriptions of death.
Diomedes - Down the plain he stormed like a stream in spate
a routing winter torrent sweeping away the dikes:
the tight, piled dikes can't hold it back any longer,
banks shoring the blooming vineyards cannot curb its course-
a flash flood bursts as the trains from Zeus pour down their power,
acre on acre the well-dug work of farmers crumbling under it-
so under Tydides' force the Trojan columns panicked now,
no standing their ground, massed, packed as they were.
Mildly wounded by Pandarus' arrow, Diomedes prays to Athena to allow him revenge by the love she bears his father. Athena strengthens him and gives him the power to recognize the gods. She advises him that he's only allowed to fight Aphrodite.
Now, long ablaze as he was to fight the Trojans,
triple the fury seized him-claw-mad as a lion
some shepherd tending woolly flocks in the field
has just grazed, a lion leaping into the fold,
but he hasn't killed him, only spurred his strength
and helpless to beat him off the man scurries for shelter,
leaving his flocks panicked, lost as the rampaging beast
mauls them thick-and-fast, piling corpse on corpse
and in one furious bound clears the fenced yard
Diomedes kills Astynous, frontline captain Hypiron, Abas, Polyidus, Xanthus, Thoon, Echemmon, Chromius (last two sons of Priam) . . . The poem makes much of the feelings of bereaved fathers. An old prophet who read no dreams for his sons leaving for Troy, a father wasting away with old age as his sons grew into men who would "never breed more sons to leave his riches to". Diomedes "ripped the dear life out of both and left their father / tears and wrenching grief." Their birthright would be carved out among distant kin, indicating that what happens in the fighting has larger implications for other kingdoms.
Aeneas urges Lycaon's son Pandarus to take down the rampaging fighter. Aeneas doesn't recognize Diomedes (in the heat of battle or is Diomedes not famous yet?). Pandarus tells him that it looks like Tydeus' son and that he suspects that he's rampaging with a god by his die. He tells him about the arrow that failed to stop him and laments that he didn't follow Lycaon's advice to bring his chariot. In general, he laments the lack and poor quality of equipment available to him. Seems like people have been going to war with inadequate equipment and ignoring the advice of wiser people who have done it before since the beginning of humanity.
Aeneas checks him sharply: "No talk of turning for home! No turning the tide". They come up with a compromise plan: Pandarus will ride while Aeneas drives his own chariot. Seeing them coming, Diomedes' companion Sthenelus warns him not to charge the master archer and the son of Aphrodite. Like Aeneas replying to Pandarus, Diomedes rejects retreat as an option.
Pandarus' spear fails to injure Diomedes and Diomedes kills him with a spear through the face. Describing the confrontation between Aeneas and Diomedes, the narrator references "weak as men are now" so the narrator looks on the past as the greatest, heroic generation. That's also a really familiar idea. Diomedes smashes Aeneas' pelvis with a boulder. Aphrodite attempts to bear her son away, but not before Diomedes stabs her wrist and yells
Daughter of Zeus, give up the war, your lust for carnage!
So, it's not enough that you lure defenseless women
to their ruin? Haunting the fighting, are you?
Now I think you'll cringe at the hint of war
If you get wind of battle far away.
Aphrodite retreats to her mother Dione. Her mother soothes her asking who abused her. "Why, it's as if they had had caught you in public, / doing something wrong . . ." (Like starting a war by helping her favorite run away with someone's wife?) Her mother reminds her that many of the deathless gods have been injured before and reassures her that men who fight gods don't live long. Dione heals her daughter. Athena mocks the goddess suggesting that she's been seducing more Greeks to run away with Trojans and accidentally pricked her wrist on a pin. Zeus smiles fondly and tells Aphrodite that the works of marriage and longing, not war, are for her.
Apollo rescues Aeneas, telling Diomedes to stop this madness of attempting to fight gods. Apollo leaves a copy of Aeneas behind and incites Ares to join the fight against Diomedes. Ares rouses the Trojans to rescue their (supposed) comrade Aeneas. Sarpedon charges Hector to be more forceful and act out on his boasts; the idea of Troy being razed "should obsess you, Hector, night and day".
More fighting. This is exhausting even for a reader. Trojans aided by Ares vs. Greeks abetted by Athena and Hera. Athena even gets in Diomedes' chariot to do some fighting. Stabbed by Diomedes, Ares flees to Zeus to tattle on Athena, calling her the senseless murderous curse brought into the world by Zeus himself. Zeus tells Ares that he hates him most of the gods - whining, lying, two-faced - and that he has his mother Hera's uncontrollable rage, but Ares is his son and he can't stand to see him suffer so Zeus orders the god of healing to attend to Ares.
After stopping Ares, Hera and Athena return to Olympus.
During all this slaughtering, Diomedes' companions are collecting the horses and chariots abandoned by their late owners. Nothing stops plundering.
[Spoiler (click to open)]Athena grants Tydeus' son Dimoedes strength and daring so that he can win himself glory. He kills Phegeus, son of the Trojan Dares, a wealthy decent priest of Hephaestus. The god of fire saves his brother Idaeus, who was also in the chariot.
Athena lures Ares away from the fighting, telling him they should let Zeus decide which warriors to honor. Meanwhile the Greeks are trouncing the Trojans. Each captain kills his target: Agamemnon, the giant chief of the Halizonians Odius; Iodemeneus, Phaestus, Maeonian Borus' son of Tarne; Menelaus, Scamandarius, Strophius's son, trained at the hunt by Artemis; Meriones, Phereclus, skilled in craft with Pallas Athena's love, crafter of Paris' ships those "trim launchers of death, freighted with death / for all of Troy and now for the shipwright too: / what could the man know of all the gods' decrees?"; Meges, Pedaeus, Antenor's beloved illegitimate son nursed by his wife to please her philandering husband; Euaemon's son Eurypulus, Hypsenor, son of Dolopion, Scamander's priest. Gory descriptions of death.
Diomedes - Down the plain he stormed like a stream in spate
a routing winter torrent sweeping away the dikes:
the tight, piled dikes can't hold it back any longer,
banks shoring the blooming vineyards cannot curb its course-
a flash flood bursts as the trains from Zeus pour down their power,
acre on acre the well-dug work of farmers crumbling under it-
so under Tydides' force the Trojan columns panicked now,
no standing their ground, massed, packed as they were.
Mildly wounded by Pandarus' arrow, Diomedes prays to Athena to allow him revenge by the love she bears his father. Athena strengthens him and gives him the power to recognize the gods. She advises him that he's only allowed to fight Aphrodite.
Now, long ablaze as he was to fight the Trojans,
triple the fury seized him-claw-mad as a lion
some shepherd tending woolly flocks in the field
has just grazed, a lion leaping into the fold,
but he hasn't killed him, only spurred his strength
and helpless to beat him off the man scurries for shelter,
leaving his flocks panicked, lost as the rampaging beast
mauls them thick-and-fast, piling corpse on corpse
and in one furious bound clears the fenced yard
Diomedes kills Astynous, frontline captain Hypiron, Abas, Polyidus, Xanthus, Thoon, Echemmon, Chromius (last two sons of Priam) . . . The poem makes much of the feelings of bereaved fathers. An old prophet who read no dreams for his sons leaving for Troy, a father wasting away with old age as his sons grew into men who would "never breed more sons to leave his riches to". Diomedes "ripped the dear life out of both and left their father / tears and wrenching grief." Their birthright would be carved out among distant kin, indicating that what happens in the fighting has larger implications for other kingdoms.
Aeneas urges Lycaon's son Pandarus to take down the rampaging fighter. Aeneas doesn't recognize Diomedes (in the heat of battle or is Diomedes not famous yet?). Pandarus tells him that it looks like Tydeus' son and that he suspects that he's rampaging with a god by his die. He tells him about the arrow that failed to stop him and laments that he didn't follow Lycaon's advice to bring his chariot. In general, he laments the lack and poor quality of equipment available to him. Seems like people have been going to war with inadequate equipment and ignoring the advice of wiser people who have done it before since the beginning of humanity.
Aeneas checks him sharply: "No talk of turning for home! No turning the tide". They come up with a compromise plan: Pandarus will ride while Aeneas drives his own chariot. Seeing them coming, Diomedes' companion Sthenelus warns him not to charge the master archer and the son of Aphrodite. Like Aeneas replying to Pandarus, Diomedes rejects retreat as an option.
Pandarus' spear fails to injure Diomedes and Diomedes kills him with a spear through the face. Describing the confrontation between Aeneas and Diomedes, the narrator references "weak as men are now" so the narrator looks on the past as the greatest, heroic generation. That's also a really familiar idea. Diomedes smashes Aeneas' pelvis with a boulder. Aphrodite attempts to bear her son away, but not before Diomedes stabs her wrist and yells
Daughter of Zeus, give up the war, your lust for carnage!
So, it's not enough that you lure defenseless women
to their ruin? Haunting the fighting, are you?
Now I think you'll cringe at the hint of war
If you get wind of battle far away.
Aphrodite retreats to her mother Dione. Her mother soothes her asking who abused her. "Why, it's as if they had had caught you in public, / doing something wrong . . ." (Like starting a war by helping her favorite run away with someone's wife?) Her mother reminds her that many of the deathless gods have been injured before and reassures her that men who fight gods don't live long. Dione heals her daughter. Athena mocks the goddess suggesting that she's been seducing more Greeks to run away with Trojans and accidentally pricked her wrist on a pin. Zeus smiles fondly and tells Aphrodite that the works of marriage and longing, not war, are for her.
Apollo rescues Aeneas, telling Diomedes to stop this madness of attempting to fight gods. Apollo leaves a copy of Aeneas behind and incites Ares to join the fight against Diomedes. Ares rouses the Trojans to rescue their (supposed) comrade Aeneas. Sarpedon charges Hector to be more forceful and act out on his boasts; the idea of Troy being razed "should obsess you, Hector, night and day".
More fighting. This is exhausting even for a reader. Trojans aided by Ares vs. Greeks abetted by Athena and Hera. Athena even gets in Diomedes' chariot to do some fighting. Stabbed by Diomedes, Ares flees to Zeus to tattle on Athena, calling her the senseless murderous curse brought into the world by Zeus himself. Zeus tells Ares that he hates him most of the gods - whining, lying, two-faced - and that he has his mother Hera's uncontrollable rage, but Ares is his son and he can't stand to see him suffer so Zeus orders the god of healing to attend to Ares.
After stopping Ares, Hera and Athena return to Olympus.
During all this slaughtering, Diomedes' companions are collecting the horses and chariots abandoned by their late owners. Nothing stops plundering.