Friday, November 22, 2024
Not My Quarrel
Homer, Iliad 1.152-157 (Achilles speaking to Agamemnon; tr. Richmond Lattimore):
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I for my part did not come here for the sake of the TrojanSimon Pulleyn on lines 154-156:
spearmen to fight against them, since to me they have done nothing.
Never yet have they driven away my cattle or my horses,
never in Phthia where the soil is rich and men grow great did they
spoil my harvest, since indeed there is much that lies between us,
the shadowy mountains and the echoing sea.
οὐ γὰρ ἐγὼ Τρώων ἕνεκ᾽ ἤλυθον αἰχμητάων
δεῦρο μαχησόμενος, ἐπεὶ οὔ τί μοι αἴτιοί εἰσιν·
οὐ γὰρ πώποτ᾽ ἐμὰς βοῦς ἤλασαν οὐδὲ μὲν ἵππους,
οὐδέ ποτ᾽ ἐν Φθίῃ ἐριβώλακι βωτιανείρῃ 155
καρπὸν ἐδηλήσαντ᾽, ἐπεὶ ἦ μάλα πολλὰ μεταξὺ
οὔρεά τε σκιόεντα θάλασσά τε ἠχήεσσα.
This catalogue of reasons why one might fight gives us an insight into the world outside Troy. At 11.668-762, Nestor gives a long account of military action that came about because of cattle-rustling. This is not an unepic subject: great heroes guard herds, and several Ulster epics revolve around precisely this issue. It was a common feature of Mediterranean life, judging by the parallel in 1 Samuel 12:3: ‘Whose ox have I taken? or whose ass have I taken? or whom have I defrauded?’