First Iliad Post

Passage:

"Now Dawn the yellow-robed scattered over all the earth. Zeus

who joys in the thunder made an assembly of all the immortals

upon the highest peak of rugged Olympose. There he

spoke to them himself, and the other divinities listened:

'Hear me, all you gods and all you goddesses: hear me

while I speak forth what the heart within my breast urges.

Now let no female divinity, nor male god either,

presume to cut across the way of my word, but consent to it

all of you, so that I can make an end in speed of these matters.

And any one I perceive against the gods' will attempting

to go among the Trojans and help them, or among the Danaans,

he shall go whipped against his dignity back to Olympos;

or I shall take him and dash him down to the murk of Tartaros,

far below, where the uttermost depth of the pit liew under

earth, where there are gates of iron and a brazen doorstone,

as far beneath the house of Hades as from earth the sky lies.

Then he will see how far I am strongest of all the immortals.

Come, you gods, make this endeavour, that you all may learn this.

Let down out of the sky a cord of gold; lay hold of it

all you who are gods and all who are goddesses, yet not

even so can you drag down Zeus from the sky to the ground, not

Zeus the high lord of counsel, though you try until you grow weary.

Yet whenever I might strongly be minded to pull you,

I could drag you up, earth and all and sea and all with you,

then fetch the golden rope about the horn of Olympos

and make it fast, so that all once more should dangle in mid air.

So much stronger am I than the gods, and stonger than mortlas.'

So he spoke, and all of them stayed stricken to silence,

stunned at his word, for indeed he had spoken to them very strongly."



analysis:

I think this passage is important because it helps with the characterization of Zeus. Up until this point (well at least in the books we've read so far) Zeus isn't mentioned that much. Yeah, we have the "mortals" in the books calling out to Zeus or whatever, but we don't really get to know Zeus very well. Here, Zeus is shown as a strong character with an even stonger personality, very much the father figure, the man of the house, whatever you want to call it- that's Zeus in this passage. Zeus is saying that he has the muscle power to back up what he's saying (quite literally) and he's ready to do whatever it takes to keep the unruly children (the other gods) in line. Personally, I thought this passage was very interesting. Someone once told me that in almost every play or story that had Zeus in it, Zeus was almost always portrayed as a weak god who can't make up his mind and always wants to get in the ladies' pants (well I guess togas in this case). So far this is the Zeus that I've read about and the Zeus I've experienced in the other stuff I've read. So it was interesting, refreshing if you will, to read about a Zeus that was completely different, who is actually being a stern father figure and a god that the mortals seem to pray to or look up to the most.
-katthegreat08