Iliad, Book 15 — Zeus Awakes; the Tide Returns Against the Greeks

Reading Troy — chapter 15 of 74 · Iliad, Book 15

Iliad, Book 15 — Zeus Awakes; the Tide Returns Against the Greeks (Day 26 of the Iliad, dusk; ~1184 BCE traditional date for the Trojan War; Mount Ida, Olympus, the plain before Troy, and the Greek camp at the ships)

Zeus wakes on Ida. He sees the Trojans in flight, Hector lying spitting blood on the plain, Poseidon openly leading the Greek charge. He understands at once. He turns on Hera with one of his most terrifying speeches — do you remember when you hung Heracles in mid-air with anvils on his feet, and I rescued him and hurled you down with anvils on your own? — and tells her plainly: Hector will return to the field, the Greeks will be driven back to the ships, Patroclus will go out in Achilles's armour and be killed by Hector, Achilles will kill Hector to avenge Patroclus, and after that the Greeks will take Troy by Athena's plan; I will not let up of my anger or let any other god help the Greeks until the request of Achilles is fulfilled, as I promised Thetis at the first. The whole second half of the Iliad — Books 16 through 22 — is contained in this single speech.

Hera, beaten, flies back to Olympus and reports. Iris is sent to Poseidon with Zeus's order: leave the field at once or face Zeus's wrath. Poseidon grumbles — we are three brothers all sons of Cronos: I, Zeus, Hades; we divided the world by lot, sea and sky and underworld; the earth is common to us all; Zeus has no right to order me about — but he yields, for the elder may be persuaded of the younger (Zeus is in fact younger than Poseidon in the Homeric reckoning, but the senior in honour). Apollo is sent to Hector. He finds him still sitting in the dust where Ajax's stone left him, conscious now but spent. Apollo pours strength into him — take heart, the Trojans shall not break under the Greeks today — and Hector rises like a stallion that has fed at the manger and breaks his halter, runs to the river he loves, head high, mane streaming (the same simile applied to Paris in Book 6, now to Hector at the moment of his return).

Apollo himself comes down to the field. He carries the aegis — Zeus's terrible storm-shield, fringed with tassels of pure gold, each tassel worth a hundred oxen — and shakes it once at the Greek line. The Greeks recoil as if struck. Apollo walks down the wall and with the toe of his foot kicks the foundation-stones, as a child at play on the beach knocks down what he has built with sand. The wall and the ditch are levelled in a single passage; the Trojans pour across without resistance.

Hector then leads the longest, most ferocious push of the day. The Greeks are driven back across the ditch, across the wall's wreckage, across the open ground, to the ships themselves. They form a defensive ring at the first row of ships — the Greeks stood firm at the ships as a flock of starlings stands when the hawk comes upon them. Telamonian Ajax climbs onto the deck of one of the foremost ships with a great twenty-two-cubit ship-fighting pike and stands on the deck, as a man riding many horses leaps from one to another over the racing teams, walking from deck to deck driving Trojans away with the long pike. Patroclus, meanwhile, has heard Eurypylus is dying and run to him; the news of the Greek collapse has finally reached him too. He turns to leave Eurypylus's tent to go to Achilles.

Hector reaches the first ship — that of Protesilaus, the first Greek killed at the war's landing nine years earlier (his ship never used since). Hector grabs the stern-post and calls for fire. Bring fire! This day shall make all the previous days seem small. The Trojans pour torches forward; Ajax stands above on the deck, the long pike now broken, swinging the snapped handle as a club, the Trojans climbing the side; he kills twelve men trying to set the ship alight. The book closes on Hector at the stern of Protesilaus's ship calling for fire, and Ajax above him fighting alone on the deck — the cycle's most condensed single image of the Greek crisis at its highest pitch, with the next book's arming of Patroclus already in motion behind the wall.

Analysis

The book that contains the rest of the Iliad

Zeus's morning-after-Ida speech to Hera is the cycle's most extraordinary single piece of formal prophecy. He names, in order, every event of the next seven books: Hector will return to the field; Patroclus will go out in Achilles's armour; Hector will kill Patroclus; Achilles will kill Hector; Greeks will take Troy by Athena's plan. The Iliad is the only ancient war-epic that places its plot-summary inside the text three-quarters of the way through. Why? Because Homer's claim is that the events are fated, not plotted — Zeus's speech is not a synopsis written by the poet for the reader, it is Zeus stating what must happen. The distinction matters. The Iliad's last seven books are not in suspense for what will happen but for how it will happen — every detail of execution, every speech-act of acceptance or defiance, every named obscure killed along the way. Zeus's Book-15 prophecy is the cycle's clearest single demonstration that suspense in Homer is not about outcome but about manner.

Apollo as wall-destroyer

Watch the image of Apollo levelling the Greek wall with the toe of his foot, as a child at play on the beach knocks down what he has built with sand. The image is one of the cycle's three or four most quoted similes (after the campfires-stars of Book 8, the leaves-of-men of Book 6, and the Ilioneus-poppy of Book 14). Its meaning is that the wall the Greeks built in Book 7 and defended through Books 12–14 was a sand-castle in the eye of the god. The forecast in Book 12 (the rivers will wash the wall into the sea after the Greeks sail) is fulfilled in image before it is fulfilled in fact. Apollo with his toe is the cycle's clearest single picture of the divine ratio of effort to effect: what mortals build in days, gods unbuild in seconds, and the unbuilding is done casually, in the gesture of a child's play. The Aeneid will quote the image directly in its account of the sack of Troy (Aeneid 2.624–631, where Aeneas sees gods themselves at work pulling Troy apart — Neptune with his trident, Juno at the gates, Pallas at the citadel).

The aegis

Apollo's aegis-shake at the Greek line is the cycle's only sustained description of the storm-shield in action. The aegis appears six times in the Iliad — three times carried by Athena (Books 2, 5, 18), three times by Apollo (Books 15, 21, 24), once described as Zeus's (Book 17). Each appearance terrifies the army opposed. The object is variously described as a goatskin (the literal meaning of aigis), as a tasselled storm-shield, and as a fringed cloth; the cycle is inconsistent but consistent in its function: when shaken, the aegis routs an army. The Posthomerica and Aeneid both use it sparingly (Athena's aegis in Posthomerica 5; Pallas's aegisque sonans in Aeneid 8). Book 15's aegis is the cycle's largest single demonstration of the object's effect, and the simile is exact: as a child knocks down the sand-castle.

Hector as stallion, again

The simile of Hector returning to the line like a stallion that has fed at the manger and breaks his halter, runs to the river he loves, head high, mane streaming is famous for being the only Iliad simile reused twice. It was first applied to Paris in Book 6, when he came out of his bedroom to rejoin Hector at the gate. Now it is applied to Hector himself, returning to the line after Apollo's healing. The reuse is one of Homer's most studied moves. Aristarchus thought one of the two passages must be interpolated; modern scholars accept both as original and read the doubling as deliberate. The simile pairs the two brothers as parallel stallion-figures, the one (Paris) the lover, the other (Hector) the warrior — both at full stride into action when they are most themselves. The reuse rhymes the two brothers at the cycle's structural midpoint, and the rhyme will be paid off in Book 22 (Hector's death) and Posthomerica 10 (Paris's death).

Ajax on the ships

Telamonian Ajax fighting from deck to deck across the row of beached ships, walking along the gunwales with his long ship-fighting pike like a man riding many horses leaps from one to another over the racing teams, is the cycle's most condensed single picture of defensive heroism. The Iliad rarely allows one warrior to dominate a defensive position so completely. Ajax's stand on the ship is the cycle's image of the bulwark-warrior at his structural function — the man-shaped wall at the ship-shaped wall. The simile of horse-vaulting (an actual Mycenaean and classical equestrian display) is one of Homer's most agile pieces of athletic observation, and it pairs Ajax with the kind of dexterity his bulk rarely allows him on the field. The Posthomerica's Ajax-suicide draws its tragic force partly from this Book-15 image: the warrior who saved the ships could not save himself from the judgement of Achilles's arms.

Butler's prose and the prophetic speech

Zeus's prophetic speech in Book 15 is one of the test cases for Butler. The Greek is solemn, formal, retrospective; Butler renders it in plain English future-tense: Patroclus shall be killed by Hector, Achilles shall kill Hector, after which the city shall fall. The plainness is exactly right; this is not a vision but a statement of what must occur. Pope made the speech grander; Lattimore keeps the cool. Butler's prose is the right model for a passage that is the cycle's clearest demonstration that what the gods say is what happens — no ornament, no qualification, no contingency. The reader who wants to feel the weight of the Iliad's plot-architecture should read this speech in Butler. The plot is laid out; the rest of the poem will execute it.

What to watch for

Watch Ajax. He fights all of Book 15 alone or near-alone on the ships. He will fight all of Book 16 holding the ships until Patroclus arrives. He will hold the line in Book 17 over Patroclus's corpse. The Posthomerica's Ajax-suicide (Book 5) is the breaking of this pillar, and the picture of him on the deck calling for the long pike that has snapped under his hands is the picture against which his suicide must be read. Watch Patroclus — he is in motion now, finally; from the moment he leaves Eurypylus's tent he is on the path to his death. Watch the Greek wall. Apollo's toe has erased it. The next ship-side fighting will be done with the wall not as a defensive line but as wreckage in the sand. The cycle's only built sanctuary, gone in three lines. And watch Zeus's promise to Thetis — as I promised her at the first — which makes the seven books that follow not a fresh decision of the gods but the long-delayed fulfilment of the wrath's first sentence. The cycle's middle is the wrath; the cycle's end is the wrath's consequences; and Book 15 is the hinge.

Echoes across the cycle

Backward echoes

Book 15 is Book 8 with the gods' attention returned to the war. Zeus on Ida, who in Book 8 lifted the golden scales and tipped them against the Greeks, here wakes from Hera's seduction-trick and re-tips the field with prophecy rather than scales. The Book-8 ban on divine intervention is reaffirmed but now with executive force: Iris carries the order, Poseidon yields, Apollo descends with the aegis. Apollo's healing of Hector pays off Hector's wound from the close of Book 14 (Ajax's stone). The simile of Hector as the stallion that has fed and broken his halter is the second appearance of a simile first used in Book 6 for Paris — Homer pairs the brothers across nine books at the moment Hector returns to the field. The wall, built in Book 7, breached in Book 12, defended in Books 13–14, is here levelled by a god's casual gesture; the forecast of Book 12 ("the rivers will wash it away") is fulfilled in image. Zeus's anvil-memory of his punishment of Hera connects backward to Book 14's Sleep-aside about the Heracles homecoming; both passages are the cycle's references to the pre-Iliadic divine politics.

Forward echoes

Inside the Iliad. Zeus's prophecy contains every major event of Books 16–22: Patroclus's death (Book 16), the fight over the body (Book 17), the shield (Book 18), reconciliation (Book 19), theomachy (Book 20), Achilles at the river (Book 21), the death of Hector (Book 22). The Greek wall, levelled here, is not rebuilt; the Iliad's last books are fought from the ships outward, and the wall exists only as wreckage in the sand. Apollo's intervention here is the divine pattern that governs the rest of the cycle's god-on-mortal relationships: a god heals a favourite (Apollo for Hector here, Athena for Achilles in 22, Aphrodite for Aeneas in 5 and 20), then lets him die (Hector in 22, eventually) or be exempted from death (Aeneas in 20). Ajax on the ships here is the bulwark-warrior whose long defensive struggle will continue through Books 16 and 17 and end with the loss of Patroclus and the recovery of his body.

Into the Posthomerica. Quintus reads Apollo's wall-destruction as the structural model for his own god-engineered architectural ruin: the storm at the end of Posthomerica 14, where Poseidon levels the Greek beach-monuments and washes the survivors off course, is the same god-with-toe-on-sand-castle pattern. Quintus's Apollo in Posthomerica 3 (where Apollo guides Paris's arrow into Achilles) is built on Book 15's portrait of Apollo as the god who decides outcomes by physical intervention. Ajax's ship-deck stand here is the cycle's structural anchor for Quintus's Ajax in Books 1, 2, and 4 — the great defender of the Greek line whose own suicide in Book 5 is the breaking of the pillar Book 15 establishes. The Posthomerica is built largely on Iliad-15's image of Ajax as bulwark; without that picture, the suicide does not weigh.

Into the Aeneid. Virgil reads Apollo's wall-destruction directly. Aeneid 2.604–623 is one of the cycle's most extraordinary passages: Venus shows Aeneas the gods themselves at work pulling Troy down — Neptune at the walls, Juno at the gates, Pallas on the citadel, Jupiter pouring strength into the Greeks. The whole passage is Virgil's Roman re-staging of Iliad 15's Apollo-with-the-toe. The Iliad's gods sided one army; the Aeneid's gods are explicitly visible to mortals tearing down the city of the army they sided. Virgil also reads Zeus's prophetic Book-15 speech as the model for Jupiter's prophetic speech in Aeneid 1.257–296 (the great pageant of Roman destiny to Venus) — both speeches are the cycle's father-of-gods laying out what must happen for the next several books, both deliver the plot as fated rather than contingent.

Into the Odyssey. Zeus's Book-15 speech is the structural model for the council-of-the-gods speeches that open Odyssey 1 and 5 — the same god, the same prophetic mode, the same staging of mortal action as the inevitable execution of divine intention. Apollo's casual wall-destruction here is the structural seed for Poseidon's wrecking of Odysseus's raft in Odyssey 5 — same god-with-effortless-power-against-mortal-craft pattern. Patroclus turning at last from Eurypylus's tent toward Achilles is the model for the moment in Odyssey 16 when Odysseus turns from Eumaeus's hut toward the palace, the long detour ending, the action about to begin. Ajax on the ships, fighting alone on the deck while the cycle's other captains lie wounded behind him, is the structural prefiguration of Odysseus in his own hall (Odyssey 22), fighting alone with his bow while his enemies attack from below. The Iliad's most concentrated single defensive icon is the Odyssey's most concentrated single offensive icon, and Book 15 is the source.

Cast in this chapter

On stage

• Zeus — wakes on Ida; threatens Hera with the anvil-memory; speaks the long prophecy of the next seven books
• Hera — beaten by Zeus's threat; flies back to Olympus and reports
• Poseidon — ordered by Iris to leave the field; grumbles about the brothers' lottery but yields
• Iris — carries Zeus's order to Poseidon
• Apollo — heals Hector; shakes the aegis at the Greek line; levels the wall with the toe of his foot
• Hector — recovered, returns to the line like a stallion; leads the push to the ships; calls for fire at Protesilaus's stern
• Ajax Greater — fights deck to deck with the twenty-two-cubit pike; the cycle's defensive icon
• Patroclus — leaves Eurypylus's tent at last and turns toward Achilles's

Mentioned / off-stage

• Achilles — named throughout Zeus's prophecy as the cycle's pivot; still in his tent
• Thetis — Zeus names her promise: as I promised her at the first
• Heracles — Zeus's anvil-memory of the past punishment of Hera
• Protesilaus — first Greek killed at the war's landing nine years earlier; his ship is the one Hector reaches at the close
• Eurypylus — the wounded captain Patroclus has been tending; his name shared with the Posthomerican Eurypylus is one of Quintus's quoted resonances
• Helen — the cause; not named in this book

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This post is part of Reading Troy, a slow daily readalong through the four canonical Trojan-cycle epics — Homer's Iliad, Quintus Smyrnaeus's Posthomerica, Virgil's Aeneid, and Homer's Odyssey — read in chronological narrative order.