The Bronzed (with) Age
Rob James
Returning to the Greek and Roman epics with the wisdom and the weight of the years.
April 11, 2025
I first read tales of the Trojan War in Rex Warner’s and Edith Hamilton’s popular treatments when I was a kid. I was exposed to snippets over the years in cartoons about the horse and in sword-and-sandal movies like Troy. I read parts of the Aeneid in college but it seems to have passed through me like a neutrino. Decades later, I am making my way through James Joyce’s Ulysses and in the critical guidebooks I come across titles like “Nausicaa” and “the Laestrygonians.” The jig is finally up—my lack of thorough familiarity with these works has been outed.
So I called an audible, suspending my reading of Joyce, and went back and read the Odyssey—and while I was at it, since I am nothing if not a completist, the Iliad, the Aeneid, the related Greek works, and (why not?) the rest of Virgil. (I worked primarily from the Robert Fagles and Richmond Lattimore translations, the Gareth Hinds graphic novels (I have no shame or pride—I love graphic retellings of classic works), and War Music by Christopher Logue.) These notes are in part a summary but the living part of them is my ongoing commentary on the works themselves, their later cultural references, and their impact on me.
In brief, these are tales of the “Achaeans,” sometimes called the Argives or the Danaans to confuse you; in other words, the Greeks in their archaic petty kingdoms not city-states. The action is said to take place around 1100-1000 bce, after the Sea Peoples had come and gone from the eastern Mediterranean. The Greek works are said to be based on oral traditions from around 700-600 bce; maybe there was a single blind bard Homer, maybe not. They were reduced to writing in the newfangled Semitic alphabet around 550 bce.
It is hard to say what is truth, what is religion, and what is fiction, as if that matters. It is also hard to know when to start or stop this kind of summary, since each of the characters and their relatives has both a back story and a future story—often more interesting than the part they play in these epics. Here I omit most of the tales of the gods and their meddling in the affairs of humans. All the deities rooting for the Greeks or the Trojans more or less cancel out like units in the numerator and denominator of a math fraction.
Paris is the son of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy (Ilium). Their daughter Cassandra and son Helenus warn Hecuba the boy will be Troy’s downfall, and in one telling his story essentially becomes that of Snow White: the queen orders Agelaus to kill Paris; he takes heart and abandons the baby in the forest; a she-bear provides milk; and nine days later he adopts Paris to be raised as a cowherd in the boonies of Mt. Ida. Paris falls in love with the wood-nymph Oenone, who has powers of prophecy and healing. He leaves her to go to town, judges a bull contest fairly against his own interest even though the winning bull is really Ares, and is recognized and welcomed back as a prince of Troy.
The gods attend the wedding of mortal Peleus and the sea-nymph Thetis, the future parents of Achilles (of whom it was prophesied he would have either long life or glory, not both), to which all were invited except Eris, the goddess of Discord, who in spite rolls an apple marked kallisté (for the fairest). The goddesses resolve that fair Paris should award the prize (the “judgment of Paris”). Hera offers him Asia, Athena combat skills and wisdom, and Aphrodite the most beautiful woman in the world. Paris obviously picks door #3, turning Hera and Athena into foes of Troy.
Alas, Helen (daughter of Zeus via Leda) is already married to Greek king Menelaus; at the suggestion of Odysseus Helen’s father had secured the oaths of all Greeks to come to the defense of her husband. Paris seduces and runs off with her. Menelaus (doubly offended, as the host of his impudent houseguest Paris and husband of abducted Helen) calls in all the chits. Odysseus fakes insanity and Achilles fakes being a woman, but they are both caught out and summoned.
The Greeks assemble at Aulis twice and on the second occasion wait for a favorable breeze. Menelaus’ brother king Agamemnon sacrifices his own daughter Iphigenia to bring on a mighty wind (some say (like Abraham and Isaac) he switched in an animal for her at the last second and she hightailed it to Tauris, meeting her exiled brother Orestes there; that explains the later poems or plays on Iphigenia at either Aulis or Tauris). As Christopher Marlowe later writes, Helen’s is “the face that launch’d a thousand ships/and burnt the topless towers of Ilium.”
En route Heracles’s friend Philoctetes is bitten by a snake, causing a smelly wound, and he is exiled on Lemnos (the Greeks eventually need to retrieve him, as it turns out he is essential to the end of the war). The Greeks land on a beachhead of the Trojan kingdom, and the war goes on for nine-plus years. The focus is on a handful of days in the tenth and final year.
THE ILIAD
“Sing to me, O Muse, of the rage (menis) of Achilles.”
1. In that tenth year, the Apollonian priest Chryses offers goods for return of his daughter Chryseis, captive of Agamemnon, who refuses. Beseeched by Chryses, Apollo launches a vicious plague on Greeks. Achilles prevails on Agamemnon to release the girl, but to soothe his ego Agamemnon takes in recompense another girl, Briseis, from Achilles. The offended Achilles famously sulks in his tent, refusing to come out and fight (whether by himself, or through his friend Patroclus, or through his Myrmidon army).
2. Bolstered by Zeus, Agamemnon summons but tests his troops, and after retrieving them from the test, attacks. (Odysseus interviews then berates the common soldier Thersites, whose GI gripes about officers are universal!)
3. Hector rebukes his brother Paris for starting all this mess. Paris offers to end the war in single combat with Menelaus. Truce is declared. Paris is about to be defeated but just in the nick of time, Aphrodite rescues him and whisks him away before a decision is declared.
4. Hera wants Troy to be utterly destroyed. Pandarus grazes Menelaus, whereupon Agamemnon says the truce is over; war resumes.
5. Lots of fighting. Diomedes drives the Trojans back to their city gate. Aphrodite rescues Aeneas. Stentor is a Greek with a very loud voice!
6. Hector gets Paris back. Hector bids farewell to his wife Andromache and their son Scamandius, also known as “protector of the city” Astynax. It is a touching scene in which father removes his scary helmet and kisses his son.
7. Hector and Ajax fight to a draw. Paris offers goods but not Helen; Greeks say no.
8. The Trojans score victories.
9. The Greeks are desperate, “shuddering in the grip of Panic, following on the heels of Rout.” Agamemnon sends an embassy (Odysseus, Ajax and old Phoenix) to offer Briseis and seven women from Lesbos to Achilles to induce him to resume the fight. Still feeling dishonored, Achilles says not until the Trojans bring flames to his own ships.
10. Diomedes and Odysseus scout and find and kill the recently-arrived Trojan allies the Thracians.
11. Buoyed, Agamemnon and the Greeks drive the Trojans back to their city gates. But with Agamemnon wounded, the Trojans fight back. Patroclus goes from Achilles’ tent to the war camp and is inspired by a speech of old king Nestor.
12. The Trojans drive the Greeks all the way back to the Greek beach wall.
13. Poseidon bucks up the Greeks.
14. More meddling by the gods.
15. Hector recovers. Patroclus resolves to encourage Achilles to rejoin the fight.
16. Patroclus urges on Achilles, who finally agrees Patroclus can fight, wearing his armor (though not carrying his spear). But Achilles says Patroclus should come right back after the Trojans are repulsed, and should not pursue them back to their city gates. Patroclus with the Myrmidons repulses the Trojans, who are terrified of Achilles’ armor. Patroclus fatefully pursues them back to their city gates (I saw that coming) and there is slain by Hector.
17. Hector takes the armor of Achilles from the body of Patroclus. The Greeks fight mightily and take Patroclus’s body back.
18. When Achilles hears of the death and indignified treatment of Patroclus’ body and armor, he roars in rage. (The term menis, “rage,” is used in reference only to the gods and Achilles, not to any other mortal.) Thetis visits Achilles and the die is cast; he will in fact live a short but glorious life. Ignoring sound advice, Hector camps on the plain not back behind the city gates. The forge-god Hephaestus fashions a new set of armor and a new shield for Achilles.
19. Achilles and Agamemnon make up, or at least agree to fight together. Achilles is indifferent to return of Briseis and the other booty—in fact, he is pretty much indifferent to everything except exacting revenge for the death of Patroclus. He fasts while the Greek army feasts. Briseis mourns for Patroclus too.
20. Gods help on both sides. Achilles slaughters half the Trojans all by himself, clogging the river Scamander until even the river god futilely rebels. Again, Aeneas is spirited away from danger, this time by Poseidon. (No wonder the Romans liked Aeneas as a god-favored ancestor.)
21. The Trojans open their city gate to let their army back in; Achilles is deceived by Apollo, barely allowing that getaway.
22. Hector faces Achilles but flees; he is chased around the city. Achilles catches up with him and stabs him in the neck. Mortally wounded, Hector reminds Achilles that he too will die, but Achilles refuses to grant Hector the dignity of burial rites. He strips Hector of armor, lashes his body to the back of his chariot, and rides daily around city. Andromache mourns the death of her husband and the impending fate of her family.
23. The ghost of Patroclus asks Achilles to give his body a proper burial. A funeral is held (sacrifice of many animals and even twelve men), with funeral games and prizes.
24. Protected by Zeus, King Priam visits Achilles at night and pleads for Hector’s body. Achilles relents and the two lament their losses. Priam leaves with Hector’s body before dawn. A twelve-day truce is declared for the Trojans to commemorate Hector. “So they buried Hector, tamer of horses” (note that horse-taming is a peacetime craft).
My first take on the Iliad, in the autumn of my years, is to reflect on the folly of rage. We think our anger and intensity lend themselves to passion and victory, but in the end they surely lead as does any other path to death. Second, that crumbling sound you hear is this separation of faith from myth. I am reminded of Arnold’s Dover Beach. Who could possibly worship these clowns? Homer seems a rather cynical observer of Olympus.
What happens after the Iliad? Paris shot an arrow and killed Achilles in his vulnerable heel. Odysseus retrieves the stinky but essential Philoctetes, who shoots and kills Paris. Odysseus devises the Trojan Horse. Despite unheeded warnings from princess Cassandra and Laocoön (“I fear the Greeks even when they bring gifts”), the Trojans take the horse inside (indeed, it’s too big for the city gate and the Trojans have to make a hole in their city wall to take it in). Greek soldiers emerge and take the city in bloody hand-to-hand combat. Achilles’ son Neoptolemus kills Priam. Menelaus kills Helen’s new husband and almost kills Helen, but instead takes her back to Sparta. Agamemnon takes Cassandra, Odysseus takes Hecuba. As to the youngest heirs, Astynax is hurled from the city walls, while princess Polyxena is burned. The Trojan women are taken off as slaves.
Then come the Nostos, many homecomings. Among them, Agamemnon sails with Cassandra to Argos, where Aegisthus (lover of Agamemnon’s wife and Helen’s sister Clytemnestra) kills them; Electra and Orestes avenge their father’s death. But that and the other tales of the House of Atreus are tragedies for another day (and blog post).
THE ODYSSEY
“Sing to me, O Muse, of that man of many troubles, Odysseus, skilled in all ways of contending…”
1. Heeding Athena’s pleas, Zeus tells Hermes to go to Ogygia and free Odysseus from his captivity in the arms of Calypso. Disguised as a soldier, Athena travels to Ithaca to encourage Odysseus’s son Telemachus to leave home (cue James Joyce’s Stephen Dedalus), find his father, and contest the suitors contending for the hand of his mother Penelope. (The suitors have been eating mom and son out of house and home waiting for the presumed widow to pick which one of them to marry; Penelope has been warding them off by weaving and then unweaving a shawl, but they have caught on to that ruse.) The main suitor Antinoos is an insolent ass. The older and wiser Mentor, well, “mentors” Telemachus.
2. At a council of Ithacans, Telemachus and Mentor are unsuccessful in getting local help; they secretly sail away.
3. T&M sail to Pylos to meet old king Nestor, who tells them that Achilles’ son Neoptolemus (also known as Pyrrhus) survived the voyage home, but that Agamemnon was slain by his wife’s lover Aegthistus and avenged by Orestes (as I say, that’s another story).
4. T&M go overland to Sparta to see ginger king Menelaus, who tells of his wrestling Proteus, the shape-shifting (hence “protean”) old man of the sea, until the shape-shifter confirmed the death of Ajax and the still living Odysseus, being still abroad.
5. Meanwhile, Hermes arrives on Ogygia and forces Calypso to let Odysseus go. O builds a raft, but Poseidon (still mad over blinding of his son Polyphemus, see book 9 in my italicized flashback section) crushes the little vessel. O swims to the island of the Phaecians.
6. Unlike her beachcombing companions, unafraid Nausicaä welcomes this naked man washed up on the Phaecian beach. She takes O to the palace of her father, king Alcinoos.
7. O meets king Alcinoos and the court.
8. Games are held. O is teased as an old man, but shows he still has major athletic skillage. At the court of king Alicinoos, he is asked to tell his tale. [Camera blurs] We go back in time…back in time…
9. Back to Troy, at the end of the war. O leaves with six ships, barely escaping the Ciconians. They sail to the land of the Lotus Eaters, where many of the crew savor the fruit and abandon all desire. O and a smaller crew barely escape. (The secret throughout Homer is always to travel with lots of “Star Trek red shirts,” extras who are briefly introduced then quickly die in successive adventures.) Across the sound is the cave of the gigantic one-eyed Polyphemus, whose rich foodstuffs are raided by the crew. This cyclops imprisons them and devours several men until O, calling himself Outis (Nobody), gets P drunk, puts his eye out, and engineers an escape. (When Polyphemus calls for help and the other cyclopses (plural?) ask what’s wrong, Polyphemus says that Nobody is hurting him—whereupon the others go back to their caves shaking their heads. Bronze Age language humor, I guess.) O finally reveals his real name when at sea, allowing Polyphemus to tell his dad Poseidon (see book 5), so that was probably not a good idea. They make it to the realm of king Aeolus.
10. King Aeolus gives O a bag capturing all the unfavorable winds, but (like Pandora) O’s curious greedy crew open it, blowing them right back ashore. They encounter the Laestrygonian cannibals. Sailing again, they come to the beautiful home of Circe. All but one of O’s crew taste her charmed meals and are turned into pigs. Hermes tells O how to resist her and how to rescue them. Overcome, Circe agrees to help O and his crew escape, telling him he first must see the blind seer Tiresias in Erebus, the Land of the Dead.
11. In the Land of the Dead, O sees his mother and many other shades (Minos, Orion, Sisyphus, Tithyus, Tantalus). O tells Achilles his son Neoptolemus acquitted himself well in the Trojan Horse. Tiresias tells him to sail to the island of the cattle of Helios the sun god, but not to harm them; to defeat the suitors; and then to take an oar so far inland that locals don’t even know what it is, and there make a sacrifice to Poseidon to atone for his transgressions against the sea and the cyclops. O returns to the land of the living.
12. O sails past the Sirens; the rowing men plug their ears so they can’t hear and O is strapped to the mast so that, though he hears their beautiful song, he can’t act on it and thereby steer the sailors toward their rock and their deaths. (Knowingly preventing yourself from doing something you yourself might want to do is an interesting trope. Many paintings depict this scene, and Jon Elster wrote a classic book on this mix of rationality and irrationality.) O sails between the hydra-like “devil” Scylla and the deadly whirlpool “deep blue sea” Charybdis, giving up six sailors as inevitable unavoidable losses to Scylla’s six maws. Arriving on land, the starving crew naturally kill some of the sun cattle (again, I saw that coming), inspiring the wrath of Zeus, who eventually overthrows their ship. All die except O, who swims past Scylla and Charybdis again and is vomited up upon the shore at Ogygyia, where he meets Calypso. [Camera blurs again]
13. We already know how O gets from Ogygia to Phaecia (books 5-8). So that’s the end of O’s tale told to king Alcinoos and his court. We are now back in “real time.” O is given a ship, with which he finally sails to Ithaca. It has been ten years since the end of the Trojan War.
14. O disguised as an old beggar comes to Eumaeus, an old expat swineherd.
15. Meanwhile, Telemachus and Mentor return from Sparta where they’ve been all this time with Menelaus. (The timeline between Telemachus and O seems a bit wonky.) The duo go to Eumaeus and meet the beggar, who despite appearances claims he is O.
16. O reveals his true image, and father and son reunite. They plot. Meanwhile, the suitors hear of T&M’s return and the suitors plot to kill them; plots abound everywhere. Telemachus goes to Penelope and tells her the plan.
17. O appears as a beggar at the palace gates. His dying dog Argos recognizes the beggar as O from puppy-days. The suitors tease the beggar.
18. The mighty Irus is bested in boxing by the surprisingly muscled beggar.
19. Telemachus hides the suitors’ weapons but forgets to lock the storeroom. The old nurse Eurycleia recognizes the beggar as O from an old leg wound scar. The beggar comes to Penelope.
20. More teasing of the beggar.
21. Penelope offers herself to him who can string O’s bow and shoot an arrow through twelve axe-head-loops in a row. None of the suitors can, but the beggar can and does.
22. The beggar shape-shifts into O and first kills Antinoos (that was way overdue). O, T&M and Eumaeus kill the suitors. The minstrel and the herald are spared. The traitorous maids have to clean up the bloody mess, and then themselves are killed. (It is not mentioned who cleans up that bloody mess.)
23. O, now transformed back into the image of O, reunites with a still suspicious Penelope. How do you prove that you are you? In this case, he describes the bed they built in the forest, one bedpost being a tree.
24. O seeks peace with the suitors’ families (and presumably eventually far inland with Poseidon). Tearful reunion of O and his aged father Laertes. Athena blesses the peace.
Tennyson’s “Ulysses” gets bored running a kingdom again and pines to go back adventuring with his buddies. It is a wonderful poem for anyone to read later in life. Read the last few lines out loud, in fact.
The Odyssey is a never-surpassed cinematic adventure; I look forward to Christopher Nolan’s movie version (the flashback is made for Nolan’s type of filmmaking). One can always root for the good guy Odysseus, despite his many faults and his essential, characteristic “twistiness.”
I appreciate that there is less meddling by the gods in the Odyssey than in the Iliad. Indeed, I think the story could be told “straight no chaser” without the intervention of deities. The father-son story runs throughout but is interrupted by all of the supernatural occurrences. It is no slight to say that James Joyce traces that paternal-filial arc better in his own works.
(I also made a good faith skim of the other big works of the Greek Bronze Age. The Homeric Hymns and Hesiod’s Theogeny and Shield of Herakles struck me as conventional tellings of the origins and attributes of the gods, though I can admire the poetry distant from the religion. Hesiod’s rural calendar Works and Days, on the other hand, is absolutely marvelous! What an insight into the mindset of the era (though lamenting the passage from a golden age through silver, bronze, heroic, and base iron), and into mainland and agricultural central Greece contrasted with Homer’s maritime and martial Aegean. It is above all an ode to good honest earnest labor, whether behind the plow or in any other field. Richmond Lattimore’s translation with trot is wonderful.)
THE AENEID
Written by Virgil 29-19 bce. T.S. Eliot: “the classic of all Europe.” The character Aeneas is a bit player in the Iliad, though one who is well favored by the gods. He is described as “pious,” something one would not say of Achilles or Odysseus. Virgil created a founding myth for Rome and the Julio-Claudian dynasty (tracing to Venus’ grandson Iulus, an alternative name for Aeneas’ son, Ascanius).
Arma virumque cano … “I sing of arms and a man…”
1. Juno/Hera resents the Trojans and the Romans since they will some day in the future level her city Carthage. Aphrodite/Venus’s and Anchises’ son Aeneas is fleeing Troy but Juno’s storm destroys his fleet; the remnants make it to north Africa and Carthage and queen Dido.
2. Aeneas tells Dido of cunning Odysseus/Ulysses’s Trojan Horse. Hector’s ghost encouraged Aeneas to leave. (By the way, Neoptolemus in Roman lore is Pyrrhus.) Aeneas leaves with his father Anchises on his back and his son Ascanius in tow. In the departure, his wife, Creusa, is killed, leaving him a widower.
3. Aeneas tells Dido his ships made it to Delos, where Apollo tells him to find the land of their forefathers. The seer Helenus tells him to go to Italy (Ausonia, Hesperia) and see the old woman Sibyl in Cumae. They pick up a survivor of the cyclops Polyphemus. Anchises dies.
4. Aeneas and Dido are in love, Dido thinks they marry. Jupiter/Zeus reminds Aeneas of his destiny. Dido is heartbroken, predicts eternal strife between Carthage and Aeneas’ city (prophesy of Hannibal and the Punic Wars between Carthage and Rome), and commits suicide (a great subject for later grand operas).
5. Aeneas sails to Sicily, where he holds funeral games commemorating the death of Anchises. The latter’s ghost encourages Aeneas to go the underworld for more prophecies (that sounds familiar…). Before entering he obtains the fabled bough of gold near the Sibyl’s cave, to give to Proserpina/Persephone, part-time queen of Pluto/Hades.
6. With help of Sibyl, Aeneas goes to the underworld. He sees the dead on the banks of Acheron/Styx, and is ferried across by Charon passing by Cerberus. He learns the fates of the wicked, including Tartarus and Dido. He beholds the green fields of Elysium and greets his father, Anchises. You can see why Dante picked Virgil to be his own guide to the afterlife
7. Returning to the land of the living, Aeneas sails to Latium and befriends King Latinus. Oracles tell Latinus to marry his daughter to a stranger and not to neighboring King Turnus. Hostilities break out between the two kingdoms.
8. Aeneas seeks the support of neighboring Tuscans in the impending war. At the site that will become Rome he meets a friendly ex-Greek, king Evander of Arcadia, and his son, noble prince Pallas. Venus has the forge-god Vulcan create a shield with predictions of Roman history (hey, this sounds familiar…).
9. Turnus attacks the Trojan camp; the Trojans return the favor.
10. Battle. Pallas is slain by Turnus. Aeneas slays Turnus’s lieutenant.
11. Armistice for Pallas’ funeral. Amazon Camilla, ally of Aeneas, is brave (“Fierce young girl,/who is the first and who the last your spear cuts down?”) but is killed by a cowardly Arruns.
12. Aeneas is injured but cured by Venus. Aeneas defeats Turnus in single combat. Aeneas is tempted to spare Turnus’ life, but at the last minute sees that Turnus is wearing Pallas’ belt. Enraged, Aeneas slays him.
Aeneas’ son Anchises/Iulus is said to be the ancestor of Remus, and of his brother Romulus who supposedly in 753 bce founds the city of Rome. Iulus founds the Julian dynasty carrying down to the time of Virgil himself. Soon thereafter, we leave the territory of myth altogether, and enter the realm of history.
I would say that the Aeneid is a finer work of poetry as poetry, more “classic” in T.S. Eliot’s meaning (i.e., a model for emulation) than anything in the Iliad or the Odyssey. On the other hand, the story as story feels derivative, engineered, and wooden. It is not as human as Homer.
APPENDIX: THE REST OF VIRGIL
It has nothing to do with the Bronze Age, but while I am at it I might as well polish off Virgil (70 bce-19 ce). (Original spelling Vergilius has been spelled Virgil since 300 ce!)
He and his brother may have lost the family farm when Octavian/Augustus resettled his veterans in Italy; that type of loss is mourned in the Eclogues. Octavian’s agent Maecenas encouraged him to write the Georgics. Then he took nineteen years to write the Aeneid. Epitaph: “Mantua gave me life, the Calabrians took it away, Naples holds me now; I sang of pastures, farms, and commanders.”
Eclogues (<Gk “selections” or “extracts”): there are ten of them, dialogues or songs of herdsmen dealing with confiscation of land (!), love, singing, religion, mythology. #5 praises pastoral life like Milton’s Lycidas; #10 has the line omnia vincit amor (“love conquers all”).
Georgics (<Gk “working the earth”). A four-part how-to guide for raising crops, trees, livestock, and honeybees (with some stories thrown into the narratives).
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Now the fun begins. It is compensatory and pop culture time! If you have read this summary, not even the original works, you will now be familiar with:
the face that launched a thousand ships, a “mentor,” why a strong kitchen cleanser is named Ajax, a “stentorian voice,” an Achilles heel, an unheeded prophetess Cassandra, a windbag, a Trojan horse, a Protean shape-shifter, lotus eaters losing all desire, saving oneself from one’s own desire to follow the call of the Sirens, being caught between the devil and the deep blue sea (even “caught between the Scylla and Charybdis” in the pretentious Sting lyric of a Police song), an old dog recognizing his disguised master, the golden bough, being ferried across the river Styx by Charon to Cerberus and Hades, a blind seer named Tiresias, the sibyl of Cumae, and the divinity of Julius Caesar (and I suppose his adoptee Augustus).
Examples of extended allegories include Joyce’s Ulysses; 2001: A Space Odyssey (not too much connection beyond “a trip”); and the Coen brothers’ O Brother Where Art Thou?, in which Ulysses (George Clooney) returns to Penny (Holly Hunter) after encountering a blind seer, seductive sirens, and the one-eyed monster John Goodman.
Many works of art have been crafted based on the epics over the millennia; check out Wikipedia. I enjoyed Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles, told from the standpoint of the hero’s friend now lover Patroclus; it recalls The Wide Sargasso Sea told from the standpoint of the first wife of Jane Eyre’s Mr. Rochester. But then Miller wrote another book based on Circe, and others wrote from the standpoint of Penelope, Briseis, the Trojan Women, Jim in Huckleberry Finn…. What’s next, I, Bluto by the antagonist of Popeye? Regina George’s story from Mean Girls? Write your own dang story, I say.
Okay, pop culture reverie and rant are over. And now both you and I are ready for James Joyce.