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The Might of Words
A Philosophical Reflection on “The Strange Death of Patroklos”
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2024
Extract
These are the words Achilles speaks to Hektor, whom he has just struck with a fatal blow. He reminds the son of Priam how, after stripping Patroklos’ fallen body, Hektor made off with the fallen man's armour, which is Achilles’ own.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © 1998 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)
References
Notes
1. The Iliad of Homer, trans. with an introduction by Richmond Lattimore (Chicago and London, 1951).
2. Simone Weil, “The Iliad, Poem of Might,” in Intimations of Christianity among the Ancient Greeks, ed. and trans. Elisabeth Chase Geissbuhler (London and New York, 1957), pp. 24-59; La Source grecque (Paris, 1953), pp. 11-46; in Oeuvres complètes II, “Ecrits historiques et politiques” (Gallimard, 1989), 3, pp. 227-253.
3. Simone Weil, “The Iliad, Poem of Might,” p. 44; La Source grecque, p. 31; Oeu vres complètes, p. 244.
4. Gregory Nagy, The Best of the Achaeans: Concepts of the Hero in Archaic Greek Poetry (Baltimore and London, 1979).
5. Weil, “The Iliad,” p. 24; La Source grecque, p. 11.
6. Ibid., “The Iliad,” p. 25; La Source grecque, pp. 12-13.
7. See Simone Weil, Oeuvres complètes, (note 2 above), p. 53.
8. Richard P. Martin, The Language of Heroes: Speech and Performance in the Iliad (Ithaca and London, 1989).
9. It should be noted that the distinction between might and power, which can be found for example in the work of Hannah Arendt, was already developed before the theorization of the political; the distinction already takes shape in Nestor's speech to Achilles and Agamemnon in the first book of the Iliad, where Achilles is called the strongest (karteros) because he is the offspring of a goddess, whereas Agamemnon is the more powerful or the one who rules (pherteros) because he commands more men.
10. Martin, (see note 8 above), p. 42.
11. Ibid., ch. 2, “The Heroic Genres of Speaking.” On page 66, we read: “I submit that the Greek equivalent for ‘important speech of social control' is muthos.”
12. Iliad, Book IX, 442-443; see also Martin, chapter 3, “Heroes as Performers.”
13. Martin, (see note 8 above), p. 90.
14. Victor Turner, From Ritual to Theater: The Human Seriousness of Play (New York, 1982), p. 9.
15. The translation is Richmond Lattimore's (Iliad, Book I, 248).
16. Simone Weil, “The Iliad, Poem of Might,” p. 51; La Source grecque, p. 36; in Oeuvres complètes, (see note 2 above), p. 248. However, several centuries after Homer, the siege of Troy was to be seen by the Greeks as manifesting the con flict between Europe and Asia. Is this to be understood as the effect of the war against the Persians? In any case, as Pierre Vidal-Naquet aptly remarks in his introduction to the Iliad, “ even this notion must be nuanced. ”There were always, within the Greek world itself, facts to counter this vision of things“ (Paris, 1975, p. 76). He then enumerates a series of well-documented facts that attest to the heroization and even the worship of Hector among the Greeks. Thus the pertinence of Simone Weil's remarks on the fairness of the Iliad are confirmed.
17. For an interpretation of the poem as a whole and Hector's importance within it, see the fine study by James M. Redfield, Nature and Culture in the Iliad: The Tragedy of Hector (Chicago, 1975).
18. Simone Weil, “The Iliad,” pp. 48-49; La Source grecque, pp. 35-36; Oeuvres com plètes, (see note 2 above), p. 248.
19. Gregory Nagy, (see note 4 above), p. 102; Nagy cites D. Sinos, “The Entry of Achilles into Greek Epic” (Ph. D. dissertation, The Johns Hopkins University, 1975). In Nagy, see in particular part II, chapter 6, “Lamentation and the Hero.”
20. Simone Weil, “The Iliad, Poem of Might,” p. 52; La Source grecque, pp. 39; in Oeuvres complètes, (note 2 above), p. 251.