The gods of The Iliad are shown to have tremendous power beyond the realm of human ability. However, this power is not without its limits. In The Iliad, Homer depicts a pantheon of Greek gods with human-like limitations, both in their interactions with humans and each other, and in their dealings with fate. This serves to expose the human condition, by showing that the origin of life is not unlike life itself. Homer depicts the limitations of the gods with regards to human interaction in a number of ways. According to Emily Kearns in The Gods in Homeric Epics, Homer shows the gods as interacting with humans in ways that “seem less plausible, more fantastic, and which at the same time evoke Gods who are more like humans [such as] sexual and …show more content…
In The Iliad: An Unpredictable Classic Donald Lateiner says that the gods “involuntarily comment on their own mental and emotional foibles and fallibility in their horseplay and interplay with the ephemeral bodies of human toys and pets” (21). Certainly this is the case with regards to Zeus, who is described as commonly falling into sexual temptation with mortal women (Homer 14.354-368). In addition, Hera’s anger drives her to seduce Zeus (14.182-190), Athena spurs on Diomedes to attack Aphrodite (5.148-153), and Dione says she will kill Diomedes because he attacked Aphrodite, even though it was Athena who gave him permission (5.466-476). While some of these actions may be seen as the right of the gods, they all have consequences for other members of the story and can be classified as wrong. The ease with which these deities fall into temptation is a major limitation that keeps them from being truly omnipotent. If Zeus were not so susceptible to Hera’s charms, he would have been able to prevent the turning of the battle, at least for a time. By depicting the gods as not fully omnipotent, Homer reminds readers that even gods are not immune from the temptations of mortal man. All will be tempted, and all will occasionally fall; that is part of being …show more content…
However, because they sometimes know what fate has ordained, they have the ability to manipulate it, or use it for their own purposes. For example, Athena (as instructed by Hera) does not want Achilles to kill Agamemnon (1.220-230). Instead, she gives him instructions to back out of the war, tantalizing him with the promise of even greater riches (1.242-252). As Margo Kitts says in What’s Religious about the Iliad, “We, the audience, know the cruelty in her promise of three times the riches to come, given the sacrifice of Patroklos which ultimately will impel Achilles to fight, win those riches, and then face death” (228). While Athena gets what she wants—Agamemnon alive and the fall of the Trojans at the hand of Achilles—the humans pay the price. However, even though the gods may be able to make use of fate to meet their desires, they cannot overrule it. This is clear when Zeus watches Sarpedon die, because it is fated to happen. Although he would prefer to save his son, in order to “avoid disturbing fate and unleashing a clash of meddling parent-gods, [Zeus] must settle for spiriting away the corpse and weeping down divine tears of blood” (Kitts 227). These limitations are similar to those that keep humans from changing fate. While mortal man may know what fate has ordained—through prophesy or revelation, perhaps—he cannot change it. He may, however, use it to his advantage. For instance,
In the beginning of the epic poem, Zeus claims that mortals blame the gods for all of their miseries. “Ah how shameless- the way these mortals blame the gods. From us alone, they say, come all their miseries, yes, but they themselves, with their own reckless ways, compound their pains beyond their proper share” (Homer 1.37-50). Zeus is claiming that
The Greek gods were portrayed as humans, which meant that they were not perfect. That is, the gods made mistakes, felt pain (e.g. Aphrodite in love with the mortal Adonis), and succumbed to anger and their tempers (e.g.
The myths which prove the contradictory behavior of the gods, acting as both benefactors and tormentors of man, can readily be explained when viewed in light of the prime directive for man, to worship the gods and not “overstep,” and the ensuing “Deus ex Mahina” which served to coerce man to fulfill his destiny as evidenced by the myths: “Pandora,” “Arachne, and “Odysseus.” Humankind and it’s range of vision over the gods beauty and power portrayed them to be benefactors but unseemingly it depicted their affliction towards humans.
When we look at Greek Mythology we often run into the gods of that era. Sometimes they are merely backdrops to the human element of the story but in stories such as The Odyssey the gods play a prominent if not vital role to the central themes of the story.
The presence of God in our belief system is something that many cultures have taken for granted. In Odyssey book, this presence of God or Goddess is even tangible because in this epic, mortals have the abilities to talk them, to see them and to feel their presences around them. Since the beginning of the epic, Odysseus has always been helped by Athena (goddess) who is Zeus’ daughter and Zeus who admired the man’s faith, courage, strategy and intellect.
Religion was deeply intertwined the culture of the ancient Greeks. In their stories, they prayed to the gods to satisfy their needs and offer assistance in their endeavors, and the gods would occasionally appear to select Greeks to give counsel, gifts, or other forms of aid. Alternatively, if the desires or endeavors of a mortal or mortals displeased one or more of the gods, they would also interfere with the fulfillment of their goals. In Homer’s Odyssey, the gods appear to or interfere with both Telemachus and Odysseus, either to help or hinder them in their journeys. Although the gods are responsible the difficulty Odysseus faces returning from Troy, they are equally responsible for motivating and assisting Odysseus and Telemachus in their respective travels. If not for divine interference, neither Odysseus nor Telemachus would have journeys to make.
In the Odyssey there is a distinct relationship that is shared between the mortals and the Gods. In the link with Christian faith, the Gods in the Odyssey are physically present. The Gods help, lend assistance, support and mentor the mortals. They can be ‘compared to that of a guardian angel’ (FORP). In comparison, the gods have their favourites which my result in the negativity towards a mortal from a particular God. As so the mortals are at the mercy of Gods. Majority of the time the mortals benefit greatly from the Gods and can be seen to transform for the better.
In Homer’s The Odyssey there is another mention of Zeus, the god of hospitality and when Odysseus reaches the cave of the Cyclopes, he tells Polyphemus, “Zeus protects all suppliants and strangers—as god of guests, he cares for all respected visitors “(Bauschatz, 31). The Cyclopes reply expresses that he can care less about the Gods because he believes the Cyclopes hold more power. Towards the end, Polyphemus prays to Poseidon and he throws in Odysseus way but this demonstrates how much interaction the Gods have with the
The gods in power, like Zeus, exhibit bias, dishonor, betrayal, deception, and many other humanly characteristics. One memorable scene is when Zeus and Poseidon are in conflict with each other over the Achaens versus the Trojans. Zeus controls the battle by “lifting the famous runner Achilles’ glory higher,” (Homer 13: 404). Zeus plays both sides in this scene, acting like a double agent which is dishonorable. Zeus’s bias is prevalent throughout the poem; specifically, he is “bent on wiping out the Argives, down to the last man,” (Homer 12: 81-82). Just like mortals such as Agamemnon and Achilles view each other with suspicion and intolerance, the gods experience identical emotions of wariness, anger, and irritation. This human-like behavior is not restricted to Zeus. Later in the text, Hera lies to Aphrodite to use her powers to manipulate her own husband Zeus. If one looks at Hera as a heavenly entity, her reaction may not make sense, but when it is viewed as a manifestation of human emotion, it become almost reasonable. Her scheming response to Zeus’s meddling with the war is spurred by her support for the Trojans. Hera’s manipulation and Aphrodite’s ego don’t stand alone as examples of this divine humanity. These instances suggest that the deities are being presented in this unique way to help explain behavior of the humans in The
the Gods in the affairs of humanity is much greater in the Iliad then in the
One of the most compelling topics The Iliad raises is that of the intricate affiliations between fate, man and the gods. Many events related by Homer in his epic poem exhibit how these three connections interweave and eventually determine the very lives of the men and women involved in the war. Homer leaves these complex relationships slightly unclear throughout the epic, never spelling out the exact bonds connecting men's fate to the gods and what can be considered the power of fate. The motivation for the ambiguousness present in The Iliad is not easily understood, but it is a question that enriches and helps weave an even greater significance of the results into Homer's masterpiece. I feel that the interaction between man, god, and fate can be shown to be one great fluidity that ultimately leaves life mysterious, giving much more depth and complexity to the bonds between the three.
In The Iliad, the gods and goddesses have completely different roles. The females are usually the ones in the battle fighting, while the male gods are putting courage into hearts, but that isn’t to say that is all that they do. This is a completely different role than the mortals have. While the men are out in battle, the women are knitting and cooking. The women are also described so that it seems like they are property and not humans, and that they don’t have any feeling. Where the female gods act and are treated as if they are equal, if not ranked higher.
To begin with, the ancient Greeks explained the creation of the universe, in particular the Earth and its elements, by a system of anthropomorphism in which their gods are human-like and are representatives of these elements. For example, Zeus is the god of heaven while Hades is the underworld lord (Hesiod, p.145). Unlike the Christians’ god who is “flawless”, the ancient Greeks’ divinities are portrayed as humans and are far from perfect. Their gods behave like ordinary people except they are immortal and have supernatural powers. Like any human being, the Greeks’ gods have love, jealousy, sadness, etc. For instance, in Euripides’ Bacchae, Zeus falls in love with Semele, which makes Hera becomes jealous and tries to kill Semele and Dionysus (Euripides, p.209). The Greeks even have a physically imperfect god, Hephaestus. This is to say that the gods’ attitude toward mortals is affected by how people treat them as the Greeks’ gods have emotions like humans.
Over the course of the play, Artemis does not interfere in the actions of Aphrodite, which shows that the gods, while divine, do have restrictions; in this case, it shows the gods cannot interfere with each other. (1328-1330) The gods are sometimes evil and revengeful, though, as can seen by what Artemis has to say about Aphrodite: "I'll wait till she loves a mortal next time, and with this hand - with these unerring arrows I'll punish him." (1420-1422) The relationship of mankind and the gods also needs to be discussed. This relationship seems to be a sort of give-and-take relationship, in part. The Greeks believed that if they gave to the gods, through prayer and sacrifices, that the gods would help them out.
Greek mythology has systematically included the intervention of gods and goddesses in matters of the mortal world, and Homer’s The Iliad is no different. The story is littered with divine intervention, with both positive and negative outcomes for the humans involved.