From the Iliad - Again

Man, the Iliad really looks down on women.

"...me, who am a nasty bitch evil-intriguing, how I wish that on that day when my mother first bore me the foul whirlwind of a storm had caught me away and swept me to the mountain, or into the wash of the sea deep-thundering where the waves would have swept me away..." -- Helen, p. 162, book 6

Okay, Helen... you're a total hottie, there's a war being fought over you, and all you can say is "I wish I'd died so men wouldn't fight over me"? For reals? You could have, um, not slept with Paris... but no matter. I doubt she really thought that of herself; no woman I know would be that self-deprecating in her situation. I mean, we're all self-deprecating sometimes, but most of us usually stick with calling ourselves bitches - which we, as self-respecting, intelligent women, have been told by society that we are.

It's a little sad, I guess is what I'm trying to say.

And later on -- see this post: http://talkingstove.blogspot.com/2008/09/notes-to-self.html -- Andromache falls all over the place telling Hektor/Hector how FUCKING AWESOME he is. Gross. C'mon, ladies. Respect yourselves.

From the Iliad

"He...handed him murderous symbols, which he inscribed in a folding tablet, enough to destroy life, and told him to show it to his wife's father, that he might perish." -- p. 157, book 6

So, this king dude wants to kill this other guy for no real reason... but rather than do it himself, he writes a letter to his father in law and hands it to the guy he wants dead. The guy then delivers it to the father in law, who reads it and sends the guy on various quests, doing various heroic deeds, in hopes that he'll die. (He doesn't.)

But the insinuation, in Homer, is that the writing itself will kill the guy. (Who, if you're curious, is Bellerophontes.) The writing is so powerful that it could kill Bellerophontes simply because he cannot read. How ironic! This man carries his own death sentence to someone who will carry it out, and he does so because, due to his inability to read, he doesn't know it's a death sentence.

:awesome: