LIT 104 Mythology And The Epic Tradition Analysis

Talha Efe CENETOĞLU

Res. Assist. Gülay Gülpınar Özoran

ELIT 104 Mythology and the Epic Tradition

June 10, 2015.

THE GREEKS, THE TROJANS AND THE TROJAN WAR

The great epic hero Hector, who is known to be the son of the King Priam, kills Patroclus with the aid of the God of Archery, Apollo. Achilles’ arms are lost, and even though the corpse is saved with an hard struggle. And because of his loss, Achilles swears to give up his anger, accommodates himself to Agamemnon, and on the next day, furnished with the new and splendid armor by Hephaestus at the request of Thetis, takes the revenge of the death of his fellow on the Trojans and finally on Hector himself.

In The Iliad, Homer finalizes with the funeral of Patroclus and the funeral games established

He and his men especially land here out of desparation, as they need water and food. They get inside to explore a big cave that was just found. Inside of the cave, they find a cache of cheese and wine. But they do not take it immediately, they want to learn who the owners are. And so Odysseus decides to stay in the cave, awaiting its owner's return. An enormous, lumbering Cyclops gets inside the cave, and he feels angry about the intruders. Polyphemus, the Cyclops, kills two of Odysseus's men and eats them. Later, Odysseus arranges a very cunning plan. He tells the Cyclops that his name is actually Nobody. And he inebriates the Cyclops, then blinds him while he is asleep. Polyphemus starts to shout, "Nobody blinded me!" but as it sounds ridiculous, no one comes to help him.After that, Odysseus and his men escape from the cave. Odysseus next goes to Aeolia, home of Aeolus who is the god of the winds. Aeolus bottles up the bad winds and gives Odysseus a bag which is filled with them to help Odysseus go home safely.But, Odysseus' men become greedy and decide to open the bag and they cause the winds to blow them back to Aeolia. As Aeolus fears that their journey to home is looks like cursed by the gods, he sends Odysseus and his men on their way to the Island of the Laestragonians. And there his men face ravage by ravenous cannibals. But still he and some of his men survives the attack.

And as soon as they land there he warns his men that whatever happens they should never touch to the cattles. Later, a rage of a storm appears, and they cannot leave the island. They can find nothing to eat as well. As they are too desperate, Odysseus starts to pray for the rain to stop, but it does not happend an he eventually passes out. Meanwhile, his men thinks that rather than dying they should kill, eat, and sacrifice some parts of the cattle, and they do it. But Helios is angered and the cattle, while roasting start to moo and come back to life. Helios as he is filled with wrath asks Zeus to punish the men. And Zeus does so by destroying the ship of Odysseus and slaying his men. But Odysseus is left alive as Zeus knew that he was not responsible for the death of the cattles. Odysseus was left floating on his ship's wreckage. He floats aimlessly for a long time of period, until he eventually comes back to Scylla and Charybdis. Odysseus avoided perils, with the aid of Zeus. He saved Odysseus from Scylla by hiding him from the view of Scylla. And Odysseus did save himself from Charybdis by grabbing hold of a fig tree and waiting for the right time for the wreckage of his ship to