Tag Archives: Ferdowsi

Focus (Iliad Book XVI)

Book XVI of the Iliad is where Patroclus

  • comes out to fight in Achilles’s armor,
  • kills Zeus’s son Sarpedon,
  • pushes on to the walls of Troy,
  • is killed by Hector.

In 2019, I gave a fair summary of the book, saying the story was that of Icarus. This time, I shall look at some other details:

  • Achilles continues his struggle for equality.
  • His mother sent him off with a chest of warm clothes.
  • Boys have always taunted wasps.
  • As if he were a boy, Hera tells Zeus, “What if everybody else did the same thing?” when he considers saving his son.
  • Automedon’s response to a problem is not autonomic, but autonomous.
  • Glaucus has a personal relationship with God.
  • It is Zeus’s mind that takes our own off things we mean to do.

A squatting man aims his mobile at several crows who are confronting a cat on a concrete wharf. Beyond them is the Bosphorus, leading out to the Black Sea beneath a suspension bridge between Europe and Asia
Kireçburnu, Sarıyer, Istanbul, Friday, March 10, 2023
The cat whom the crows were harrassing soon walked off

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Masculinity (Iliad Book XV)

In Book XIV of the Iliad, Hera distracted Zeus while Poseidon helped the Achaeans fight off the Trojans. Now, in Book XV, Zeus takes control again. He tells Apollo to let the Trojans, under the leadership of Hector, come to the point of burning the Achaean ships.

On a billboard by the sea, a young man with bare shoulders thrusts as us a dark blue bottle of shampoo and shower gel. The background of the advertisement is black.
Sarıyer, European Istanbul, March 6, 2023

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