Agony and Ecstasy: The Fullmetal Iliad, Book 1 (Roy/Ed)

[sea_priest3ss]

Title: Agony and Ecstasy: The Fullmetal Iliad (Book 1)
Author: priestess_grrrl
Series: FMA
Pairing: RoyxEd
Rating: NC-17, Book 1: PG-13
Warnings: Um, it’s the Iliad. Blood, death, war, angst. Major character deaths.
Apologies to: Homer, Robert Fagles, Hiromu Arakawa, Manowar for the title
Dedication: To rainjoyous, who shares my love of everything Classical and

Comments

[sea_priest3ss]

Thanks, sweetie! hahaha, fanfic Goddesshood... Why, thank you. I love it when it burns hot in me like this, it's just... glorious. It's killing me, but what a way to go...!

Honestly I can't believe I'm really pimping Robert Fagles. I remember when his Odyssey first came out, and me and one of my fellow Classicists laughed for 20 minutes over "a man of many twists and turns" for polytropos. (It does mean "many turns" but somehow the addition of "twists" just struck us as particularly hilarious). My other favorite is when he has Akhilles address Patroklos as "O My Rider" (for hippeus, horseman). My rider? I mean, did his editor not take him aside and be like, "Um, the thing is, Robert, I don't know if you were going for yaoi on purpose here or what, but..." *giggles*

By all that is proper and scholarly, I should be pimping Lattimore (the standard translation that is very close to the Greek; Lattimore was a famous scholar). My sensei would be appropriately horrified. But the thing is, I taught out of the Fagles at Ohio State, and it got a really good reception, and I mean, these were a bunch of football state school kids. It's just really approachable, easy to read and very poetic. I didn't want to believe it at first, but it's just true. It won all sorts of awards when it came out, and I really think he deserves it.

The first translation I read when I was a kid was Samuel Butler's ye olde translation, actually, and I ended up a Greek scholar, so hey, what the heck. Still, though, I'd be remiss if I didn't hold up Lattimore as the scholarly standard.

Anyway, enough scholarly blah blah blah: thanks so much for reading, honey! More soon! ^_^

[ekaterin24]

"Oh, My Rider!" Omigosh!! So very slashy!

Sadly our library system doesn't have the Fagles but we do have Lattimore so I'll be a good intellectual snob and try that translation. If I'm not happy I'll try ILL for Fagles.

I like your scholarly blah blah blah, especially since my education in classical language and lit is somewhat lacking, especially for a former English major.

[citharadraconis]

Hee hee. Glad to see Fagles apparently (if subconsciously) agrees with Plato about Patroklos being the erastes...

[sea_priest3ss]

There is actually a fascinating debate among scholars as to whether Patroklos was erastes or eromenos (assuming they were sexual at all), and how this is pivotal to our understanding of the Iliad. If you ever get a chance to pick up Dover's Greek Homosexuality, it's worth reading (he's brilliant: I'll never forget his copious notes in the back of The Frogs explaining exactly why the rana ridibundus species could not possibly make the sound of bre-ke-ke-kex koax koax in the way it was generally assumed to be pronounced).

Anyway, maybe you're already familiar with his work, but it's really interesting: he points out how if Akhilles was erastes and Patroklos eromenos, then the katabasis Akhilles undergoes is this epic role reversal: Patroklos becomes the lover/the dominant partner/the teacher in death. But if Patroklos was erastes all along, then his death is a student-to-teacher lesson for Akhilles, warning him of the dangers of his excessive pride and anger.

My personal take on it, which becomes extremely interesting when you consider Ed and Al, is that Patroklos was first and foremost Akhilles' therapon. He's there to cool him down when he gets too hot, to remind him that he's human and vulnerable, to humble him when he needs to be humbled, to be the only one who truly understands him. Whether he played that role as eromenos or erastes is up for debate. He is older than Akhilles in Homer. But he's also much more passive, which fits the eromenos role.

And if you look outside Homer, you have that wonderful hurt/comfort scene from that glorious Sosias cup which is one of my very favorite works of art. Akhilles' face is stunning (both of their faces are). And it's so rare to see raw emotion portrayed like that in ancient art. But there you clearly have them in the role of the erastes taking care of his little wounded eromenos (though I supposed you could argue the opposite). Of course, that's kind of like taking fanart of Roy and Ed fucking and claiming that as proof that Arakawa-sensei had envisioned them together all along. It's so funny: the seme/uke debate has been going on since antiquity, and nobody realizes...!

Anyway, more than you wanted to know, probably, but I find this topic fascinating, in case you couldn't tell...! ^_^

[citharadraconis]

Not at all more than I wanted to know--that's wonderful! I really haven't encountered much about the topic myself, and now I know I really need to read that Dover book. Also, that cup is gorgeous. I'm hoping to be in Germany for a while this summer, and I may just have to take a trip to Berlin and see it...