I’m stuck on a History question and need an explanation.

this is a course of ancient world film. prof asked to watch the movie and read a 4 page reading about film and answer needed to be explained properly with examples elaborated. work limit(800-900) for hole document. i also uploaded the course guideline in which she explained more about journals what she expect in the answers.

Homer’s Iliad – Selections

Patroclus begs Achilles to use his armour– Achilles agrees (Book 16 Lines 1-107)

While they fought for their ships, Patroclus came to Achilles and stood by him weeping, his face like a sheer rock where the goat trails end and dark spring water washes down the stone. Achilles pitied him and spoke these feathered words:

“What are all these tears about Patroclus? You’re like a little girl, pestering her mother to pick her up, pulling at her hem as she tries to hurry off and looking up at her with tears in her eyes until she gets her way. That’s just what you look like, you know. You have something to tell the Myrmidons? Or myself? Bad news from back home? Last I heard, Menoetius, your father, and Peleus, mine, were still alive and well. Their deaths would indeed give us cause to grieve. Or are you broken-hearted because some Greeks are being beaten dead beside our ships? They had it coming. Out with it, Patroclus – don’t try to hide it. I have a right to know.”

And with a deep groan you said to him Patroclus:

“Achilles, great as you are, don’t be vengeful. They are dying out there, all of our best – or who used to be our best – they’ve all been hit and are lying wounded in camp…

What is it? If some secret your mother has learned from Zeus is holding you back, at least send me out, let me lead a troop of Myrmidons and light the way for our army. And let me wear your armour. If the Trojans think I am you, they’ll back off and give the Greeks some breathing space, what little there is in war. Our rested men will turn them with a shout and push them back from our ships to Troy.”

That was how Patroclus, like a child begging for a toy, begged for death. And Achilles, angry and deeply troubled:

“Ah, me noble friend, what a thing to say. No, I’m not in on a divine secret. Nor has my mother told me anything from Zeus. But I take it hard when someone in power uses his authority to rob his equal and strip him of his honour. I take it hard. The girl the Greeks chose to be my prize – after I demolished a walled city to get her – Lord Agamemnon, son of Atreus, just took from my hands, as if I were some tramp. But we’ll let that be. I never meant to hold my grudge forever. But I did say I would not relent from my anger until the noise of battle lapped at my own ships’ hulls. So it is on your shoulders now. Wear my armour and lead our Myrmidons into battle….

Hit them hard Patroclus, before they burn the ships and leave us stranded here. But before you go, listen carefully to every word I say. Win me my honour, my glory and my honour from all the Greeks….

[But] once you have made some daylight for the ships, you come back where you belong. The others can fight it out on the plain. O Patroclus, I wish to Father Zeus and to Athena and Apollo that all of them, Greek and Trojans alike, every last man on Troy’s dusty plain were dead, and only you and I were left to rip Ilion down, stone by sacred stone.”

Grief and rage of Achilles at the death of Patroclus (Book 18 Lines 18-38, 82-135)

Antilochus was in tears when he reached him and delivered his unendurable message:

“Son of wise Peleus, this is painful news for you to hear, and I wish it were not true. Patroclus is down, and they are fighting for his naked corpse. Hector has the armour.”

A mist of black grief enveloped Achilles. He scooped up fistfuls of sunburnt dust and poured it on his head, fouling his beautiful face. Black ash grimed his fine-spun clock as he stretched his huge body out in the dust and lay there tearing out his hair with his hands. The women, whom Achilles and Patroclus had taken in raids, ran shrieking out of the tent to be with Achilles, and they beat their breasts until their knees gave out beneath them. Antilochus, sobbing himself, stayed with Achilles and held his hands – he was groaning from the depths of his soul – for fear he would lay open his own throat with steel.

…

Achilles answered [Thetis]:

“Mother, Zeus may have done all this for me, but how can I rejoice? My friend is dead, Patroclus, my dearest friend of all. I loved him, and I killed him. And the armour – Hector cut him down and took off his body that heavy, splendid armour, beautiful to see, that the gods gave to Peleus as a gift on the day they put you to bed with a mortal. You should have stayed with the saltwater women, and Peleus should have married a mortal. But now – it was all so you would suffer pain for your ravaged son. You will never again welcome me home, since I no longer have the will to remain alive among men, not unless Hector loses his life on the point of my spear and pays for despoiling Menoetius’ son.”

And Thetis, in tears, said to him:

“I won’t have you with me for long, my child, if you say such things. Hector’s death means yours”.

From under a great weight, Achilles answered:

“Then let me die now. I was no help to him when he was killed out there. He died far from home, and he needed me to protect him. But now, since I’m not going home, and wasn’t a light for Patroclus or any of the rest of my friends who have been beaten by Hector, but just squatted on my ships, a dead weight on the earth…

As for my own fate, I’ll accept it whenever it pleases Zeus and the other immortal gods to send it. Not even Heracles could escape his doom… If it is true that I have a fate like his, then I too will lie down in death. But now to win glory and make some Trojan woman or deep-breasted Dardanian matron wipe the tears from her soft cheeks, make her sob and groan. Let them feel how long I’ve been out of the war. Don’t try, out of love, to stop me. I won’t listen.”

Achilles defiles Hector’s body – Iliad 22.438-455

But it was shame and defilement Achilles had in mind for Hector. He pierced the tendons above the heels and cinched them with leather thongs to his chariot, letting Hector’s head drag.

He mounted, hoisted up to the prize armour, and whipped his team to a willing gallop across the plain. A cloud of dust rose where Hector was hauled, and the long black hair fanned out from his dead, so beautiful once, as it trailed in the dust.

In this way, Zeus delivered Hector in to his enemies’ hands to be defiled in his own native land.

Watching this from the wall, Hector’s mother tore off her shining veil and screamed, and his father groaned pitifully, and all through town the people were convulsed with lamentation, as if Troy itself, the whole towering city, were in flames.

Priam visits Achilles – Iliad 24.500-510, 535-551.

The old man went straight to the house where Achilles, dear to Zeus, sat and waited. He found him inside. His companions sat apart from him, and a solitary pair, Automedon and Alcimus, warriors both, were busy at his side. He had just finished his evening meal. The table was set up.

Great Priam entered unnoticed. He stood close to Achilles, and touching his knees, he kissed the dread and murderous hands that had killed so many of his sons.

…

[Priam speaks] “And the only one who could save the city you’ve just killed as he fought for his country, my Hector. It is for him I have come to the Greek ships, to get him back from you. I’ve bought a fortune in ransom. Respect the gods, Achilles, think of your father, and pity me. I am more pitiable. I have borne what no man who has walked this earth has ever yet borne. I have kissed the hand of the man who killed my son.”

He spoke, and sorrow for his own father welled up in Achilles. He took Priam’s hand and gently pushed the old man away. The two of them remembered. Priam, huddled in grief at Achilles’ feet, cried and moaned softly for his man-slaying Hector. And Achilles cried for his father and for Patroclus.

The sound filled the room.

Troy (2004) – Viewing Journal Questions

1. Read the selections of the Iliad posted in the ‘additional readings’ folder. How accurately does the film capture these key moments of the narrative?

• What does it mean to be “a hero” in this film?Does it live up to the Homeric notion of heroism, as explored in this week’s class slides?

• The film drastically condenses the timeline of the events of the Trojan War – in your opinion, how does this condensed timeline effect our interpretation of the unfolding events? Do you think this was a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ choice for the screenplay?