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Mythological Paradeigma in the Iliad

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

M. M. Willcock
Affiliation:
Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge

Extract

AN inquiry into the use of paradeigma in the Iliad must begin with Niobe. At 24. 602 Achilles introduces Niobe in order to encourage Priam to have some food. The dead body of the best of Priam's sons has now been placed on the wagon ready for its journey back to Troy. Achilles says (I paraphrase), ‘Now let us eat. For even Niobe ate food, and she had lost twelve children. Apollo and Artemis killed them all; they lay nine days in their blood and there was no one to bury them, because Zeus had turned the people into stone. On the tenth day the gods buried them. But she managed to eat some food, when she was tired of weeping. And now among the mountains, although turned into stone, she still broods over her sorrows. But come, let us also eat. You can weep for your son again later’ (24. 601–19).

Information

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1964

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