team-mate

Prefiguring Peleides to come,
brave Diomedes drove the Trojans back,
in shining gold, a blazing earth-bound sun
against a battlefield in red, and black.
Onlookers are excused if they mistook
this apparition for Apollo's face.
But less than halfway through this epic book,
apotheosis would be out of place.
This mortal hero--not the super sort--
can't hold a candle to the sea nymph's son.
His aristeia's glorious, but short
this nova'd peaked before the siege was done.
Staunch bulwark when Achilles quit the game,
but only specialists still know his name.

Xenia

The golden armor Glaucos gave in trade,
sealed obligations to his dad's friend's son.
Where no constabulary renders aid,
through kinship ties, the Grecian works was run.
Absconding with the Spartan's lovely queen,
the Trojan's faux pas couldn't be ignored.
Such damage to the cuckold's self-esteem,
would doom the whole Aegean world to war.
While Priam got no succor from his liege
to drive marauders from his city gate,
the ad hoc coalition laying siege,
had not yet dreamt that Greeks might form a State.
To Homer, social mores don't exclude
those Asians Greeks had sailed so far to fight.
To stint on hospitality's just rude,
and worthy adversaries do what's right.
Outstanding in the company of kings
proud Diomedes shines in golden bling.

impertinence

Sweet Aphrodite did fair Helen dirt;
her chosen marriage never earned this test.
Before it's over, everyone gets hurt;
unsparing of the meanest, or the best.
Great Hector calls his brother out by name
an emissary mustn't play the hick
no son of Priam can deflect such blame;
disaster follows thinking with one's dick.
To reprimand a goddess took real grit;
the other Greeks were far more circumspect.
But they're not bartered like some gambler's chit
no knowing in whose bed they'll end up next.
The wall that Plato drew between two worlds,

meant nothing to this Mycenaean girl.

on Excellence

the subtlety that Agamemnon lacked,
Odysseus brought to the camp, in spades.
One bore the scepter, but can't stop an ax;
his wife took care that old accounts get paid.
For Trojans, leadership's more unified;
their project isn't subject to debate.
Great Hector isn't blinded by his pride;
Achaeans face his unitary State.
The largest fleet might be the biggest thing
that set Atreides above the rest.
A scant foundation to proclaim him'King',
when all acclaimed Peleides the best.
Before Athenians defined who's"free",
blind Homer saw the faults of monarchy.

Marry well

Her sister'd maddened half the men of Greece,
but Klytemnestra's no great prize to wed.
Her husband won at war, but died in peace;
that garland's useless when you've lost your head.
Twin Tyndarids proved equally unchaste;
One ran off with a pretty Asian lad.
To marry for a famously fair face,
to Homer's mind, is bound to turn out bad.
Odysseus brought home the best of wives,
Penelope, who matched his famous wit.
While other paid for glory with their lives,
the man of many ways proved the most fit.
When we recall the Mycenaean world
the tales turn on Tyndareus' girls.

the Agamemnon

Her sentinels report: the watchfires flare;
king Agamemnon's coming home from war!
Aegysthos, who had shirked his duty there,
starts planning to slink out the postern door.
It's Klytemnestra lays the bolder plan:
she'll lay the crimson carpet for his tread,
surpassing Helen to betray her man;
she'll take not just his honor, but his head.
Cassandra's prophecy's a waste of breath;
they put no credence in such future facts.
She's heard the swirling blood; she's smelled the death
She's seen the subtle net, the gleaming ax.
Peleides died young, but won renown;
Odysseus pushed through to win long life.
But Atreus' heir just gets hewn down
mere barnyard livestock to his fancy wife.
The meta-narrative can criticize
heroic figures, painting them life-sized.

Who Governs?

The camp falls silent;Nestor stands to speak
this Argonaut knows much that's gone before.
Experience is precious to these Greeks,
who'd never contemplated ten years' war.
He'd left a son Telemachus' age
to fight for Helen, whom he'd never wooed.
But with Achilles seething in his rage
the enterprise may utterly be screwed.
The ego Agamemnon can't control
precludes commanding loyalty from men
who see which kings could better play the role
without inflaming rancor, yet again.
If leadership's not vested in the wise,
the greatest squabble, for the merest prize.

the good wife

No towel dried her husband from his bath;
fair Klytemnestra swathed him in her net.
The victor's victim to his woman's wrath;
their firstborn's not some kid whom she'd forget.
Aegysthos lurked just off the killing floor;
no royal blood would stain his dainty hand.
To stay at home while others sailed to war,
the playwright marks this one as not a man.
Her cousin labors tireless to reweave
the shroud that she'd unpicked by candlelight.
The faithful wife who's careful to deceive
the villains violating what is right.
The textile arts, deployed for good, or ill,
no less than bronze, can bind a wound...or kill.

Plausible Deniability

Zeus nods his head; Olympus toes the line;
gods won't engage this combat any more.
Hereafter, they'll just meddle with men's minds,
while Greeks and Trojans prosecute their war.
Athena deems this ruling went her way;
the contest will be played out on her field.
She's picked the champions whom she can sway
and doesn't need the fools who doubt She's real.
That leaves the demigod; what man could stand
against Achilles, when he deigns to fight?
Apollo wrought a bow for Paris' hand;
His breath just nudged an arrow in its flight.
Our hands are all gods have, to work their will
but Eros plays us all like puppets, still.

family feud

Dire Klytemnestra's not one to forgive
her husband gallivanting like he's Zeus,
with Trojan women, thinking they might live
beneath her roof! She won't take such abuse.
If Agamemnon ever could forget
Iphigenia, pleading for her life,
he can't escape his own Queen's well-knit net.
Surviving war, he's fodder for his wife.
"Great King" abroad, proved mortal once back home
No loyal minions guard the royal neck.
Pink from his bath, unarmored, and alone,
her axe proved more than towels could deflect.
While better men won fame at distant Troy,
Thyestes was avenged by his glib boy.

What endures

Immortal horses balked at being blamed,
and told Achilles what Apollo'd done.
No Trojan spearman'd stained his boyfriend's name;
against Olympus, no man could have won.
Too young to bid for Helen's fabled charms,
no oaths compelled this pair to sail to war.
Each happy to sleep in the other's arms,
they'd come to settle Sparta's cuckold's score.
The Trojans never really stood a chance,
once Agamemnon'd rallied all of Greece.
Since Paris failed to keep it in his pants,
the House of Priam'd nevermore know peace.
Domestic bliss was never in their fates;
their mingled ashes guard the trade-route straits.

as Below, so Above

Fleet Hermes offered to take Ares' place
snared by Hephaestos in the smith-god's bed.
Imagining the Goddess' embrace
bright ichor floods his visage hectic red.
The cuckold seems less sanguine for his part
deluded he might be the only one
to stoke the fires in Aphrodite's heart.
As if she'd given thought beyond what's fun.
Athena saw no reason here for mirth;
she'd seen such passions playing out before.
On high Olympus, or on lowly Earth
the fleeting love's prelude to grinding war.
No less than his Achaean kings and queens
Homeric gods seem hormone-addled teens.

fame

Had Menelaus satisfied the wife
who'd chosen him from all the lords of Greece,
his generation might have skipped the strife,
and frittered lives away in boring peace.
Had Paris died, or--better--not been born,
catastrophe need not have smitten Troy.
The Spartan King would not have earned those horns
from some perfidious young sailor boy.
Had Agamemnon been less insecure,
Achilles would have kept his trophy girl.
They'd be forgotten; nothing would endure
to edify the Hellenistic world.
But stars aligned, and Homer found his theme:
the Western Canon's oldest fever-dream.

generation gap

Immortal Thetis can't have aged a day
since Peleus first claimed her for his bed.
Her first-born's flesh had mouldered into clay,
before she would concede that he lay dead.
Mortality's a "gift" in Tolkien's eyes
to never weary of the tolling years.
A sacred thing, to love what has to die;
to season feasts of pleasure with hot tears.
The immortality Achilles won
was not the sort a mother'd hoped to share.
His glory glows as long as songs are sung,
but she prefers he'd left one heir, one Spare.
Fleet-footed sea-nymph brooding in her fjord
know all too much of mortals, and their wars.

values

Sing, Goddess of the man-destroying wrath
Peleides unloaded on his liege.
'Though Aphrodite'd set them on this path,
Her brother Ares revels in this siege.
When Agamemnon seized his better's girl
he gave offense, no less than Priam's son.
For Homer's audience, in Homer's world,
one had to know what simply isn't done.
Exquisite Helen only dimly grasps
the carnage men inflicted in her name.
Whole worlds pre-empted for a piece of ass,
while paltry few won literary fame.
Penelope's the only worthy prize;
the poet's insight's clear, despite blind eyes.

"Women are like crystals"

Fleet Hermes laughed at Ares, snared by Love.
For now, the latter's spear seems safely sheathed.
Suspended from the brazen springe above,
while Aphrodite cursed and writhed beneath.
The cuckold's not as sanguine at their plight
he'd hoped to come up empty with this net.
Consorting with the Cypriote one night
no god nor mortal's likely to forget.
Loud Menelaos dared, 'though he'd been warned
to wed the fairest maiden in all Greece.
Predictably, his brow's adorned with horns,
his generation's not cut out for peace.
The Western canon's grandest epic text
makes no pretense that war's not twin to sex.

count no woman happy until she be dead

Andromache endured the fall of Troy;
her heir and husband brutally struck dead.
Awarded to the victor's tween-aged son,
expected to consort with him in bed.
When Paris judged one goddess to be best
set his whole city-state against long odds.
To snatch a wife's a grave sin for a guest,
outraging not just Greece, but all the gods.
Fair Helen turned the heads of all the guys,
except Achilles, far off in the North.
Condemned to always be some master's prize,
a thing of value, bartered back and forth.
As ornamental parts to fill a scene;
the role was perilous, to play the queen.

the editor's art

Achilles let fair Thetis teach his son
fierce hatred for the royal house of Troy.
Andromache had hoped the worst was done
until she met the feral red-haired boy.
Sage Chiron'd taught his father how to heal;
nine Muses taught him song, and dance, and more.
This lion's cub seems not so much to feel
as to subsist on carnage, gore, and war.
It's not enough her lord and son lie dead;
the tyke will never get a proper pyre.
She's now consigned to warm her victor's bed;
her high estate now rides the sucking gyre.
Euripides leaves such a scene off-stage;
what Homer wouldn't treat, he too won't touch.
The hero's scion's plainly not of age;
to picture him with women's just too much.
The artist frames his work with end, and start;
and Homer's still unrivaled in this art.

prologue

Achilles found the harem kinda fun;
his mother'd never dressed him in such bling!
A hundred foster mothers for his son
repaid the nights he had to serve the king.
Tiresias foretold; he must be found
to fetch fair Helen back from strong-walled Troy.
Those battlements were never coming down
unless they brought the sea nymph's darling boy.
Odysseus stepped up (disguised, of course)
to dangle high adventure to the lad
before he'd dreamed to build a wooden horse
or thought to duck the draft by playing mad.
The audience should know what went before
to understand blind Homer's song of War.

injudicious

Barbaric Hector gave Greek values voice
upbraiding Paris for the fall of Troy.
Olympians had punted on this choice,
demurring to a Trojan shepherd boy.
When goddesses contend, no choice is right;
the Special Master's doomed before he speaks.
To claim the dame deemed best in mortals' sight
condemns his city-State to death by Greeks.
Fair Aphrodite tried to shield her whelp
down in the melee, where the blows fell thick.
not even Ares could have been much help;
there's no good end to thinking with one's dick.
Penelope works tireless at her loom;
she'll wait another lifetime, if she must.
Two souls so knit, they share a single doom
True love's not predicated on mere lust.
Blind Homer's not enthralled by flashy looks;
His vision's clear--to those who'll plumb his books.