NEURONNORUEN

Saturday, February 20, 2016

The bloody war in Iliad and some thoughts

The HBO popular series "Game of thrones" are full of bloody scenes. After reading Iliad, I found this tradition of violence in literature is in fact originated from the epics 3000 years ago. Here are some examples:

"The blade sank so deep that the head was held on by nothing but the skin..."

"the bronze point of the spear went clean through it beneath the brain, crashing in among the white bones and smashing them up. His teeth were all of them knockout out and the blood came gushing in stream from both his eyes; it also came gurgling up from his mouth and nostrils..."

"The stone hit him on the forehead and drove his brows into his head for the bone was smashed, and his eyes fell to the ground at his feet."

"...so that the bloody brain came oozing out through the crest-socket."

"...hit him on the jaw under the ear; the end of the spear drove out his teeth and cut his tongue in two pieces..."

If you think the cause of the war is the jealousy of women, you will see the Trojan war absurd, but that is the human history. When I finished reading the epic as a moderner, I have more compassion goes to Hector and Trojan people; on the contrary, I couldn't like Achilles as the great Iliad hero, for his arrogant and brutal, selfish personality. Also, the epic 3000 years ago made it clear that heroes are unequal, the heroes from god family tree are more important than the heroes from human descendent. How can I like it this way in 3000 years later?