Gilgamesh & Iliad
Program in Cultures, Civilizations, and Ideas Humanities 111: Antiquity Fall 2010 Due 25. 11.
2010 at 17:30 via email. Academic Dishonesty Do not cheat. Do not help others cheat. Do not submit the work of others as your own. Students who turn in substantially identical written work in terms of content, structure, vocabulary, or phrasing will be severely penalized. Academic dishonesty or plagiarism will result in an F for the course and further disciplinary action, including expulsion from the university. Students are urged to familiarize themselves with university policy at http://www.
rovost. bilkent. edu. tr/procedures/AcademicHonesty. htm.Instructions: Choose FIVE of the following seven pairs of passages and identify the text/reading and author of each, then compare and/or contrast the two passages based on the concepts, themes, and larger questions we have discussed in class (10 points each/50 total). Avoid summarizing the contents or retelling the background to the story, but note that sometimes the contexts of the passages are important for explaining why they are important in similar ways.
a. b. Author ______Homer_______________________ Author ______Homer_______________________Title _______ – Book 16_____________ Title _______ The Iliad – Book 16_____________ a. “Look what a springy man, a nimble, flashy tumbler! Just think what he’d do at sea where the fish swarm – why, the man could glut a fleet, diving for oysters! Plunging overboard, even in choppy, heaving seas, just as he dives to gound from his war-car now.Even these Trojans have their tumblers – what a leap! ” b. He hooked him by that spearhead over the chariot-rail, hoisted, dragged the Trojan out as an angler perched on a jutting rock ledge drags some fish from the sea, ome noble catch, with line and glittering bronze hook..
. his mouth gaping around the glittering point and flipped him down face first, dead as he fell his life breath blown away. The passages are similar to each other because Patroclus insults his enemies in both of the passages. In the first passage he insults Cebriones, the driver of Hector and in the second one he insults Thestor. Patroclus is disobeying ’ instructions because he is overconfident and too ambitious that he thinks that he will get the city and kill all of the Trojans. The main concept of these two passages is violence.Patroclus slays everyone he sees and regards his enemies as inferior.
Patroclus loses his human feelings and become a butcher. Homer tells the story by comparing the slaughter to fishing, and this is a tragicomic comparison. 7. 5/10 c. d. Author ___________________________________ Author ______Homer_______________________ Title __Xenophanes of Colophon – Fragments___ Title _______ The Iliad – Book 14_____________ c. “One God, greatest among gods and men, not at all like mortals in body or mind.
As a whole he sees, as a whole he thinks and as a whole he hears.And always he stays in the same place, not moving at all, nor is it fitting for him to travelin different directions at different times d. .” “Give me love, give me Longing now, the powers you use to overwhelm all gods and mortal men! I am off to the ends of the fruitful, teeming earth to visit Ocean, fountainhead of the gods, and Mother Tethys who nourished me in their halls and reared me well. ” In passage c there is a god that significantly greater among all humans and the other gods. He is different from all. The passage glorifies this god.
Since the greatest god is Zeus, the mentioned god here is he.In addition, Hera goes to Aphrodite and asks help from her in order to deceive Zeus in the passage d. There is a contradiction here. Zeus can be betrayed because of some desires belonging to human kind, even though he is the greatest one. The gods in Iliad have some features like intrigues and double-dealings which are belonging to humankind. In other words, the gods are not impeccable. However, there is a significant difference between the gods and humans.
When Hera asks help from Aphrodite, although they are in different sides of the war, she helps Hera.The gods are generally happier than the mortals, and they do not have spite against each other as much as the mortals. 8/10 e. f. Author ______Gilgamesh____________________ Author ______Gilgamesh____________________ Title __The – Tablet 11______ Title __The Epic of Gilgamesh – Tablet 11______ e. “The gods did smell the savour, the gods did smell the savour sweet, the gods gathered like flies around the man making sacrifice. ” f.
“Even the gods took fright at the Deluge, they left and went up to the heaven of Anu, lying like dogs curled up in the open. ”From the first passage, it can be understood that the gods need humans as a servants. The gods needs the sacrifices of humans. In addition, in the second passage we see the great power of the gods that they are able to destroy completely the humankind. They have such a great power that even they are scared of the deluge they sent. However, the gods are regretful because they recognize that they had a mistake and they need the humankind. The gods are immortal and the humankind should be immortal as well.
Thus, they give immortality to Uta-napishti and his wife to ensure the existence of the humankind. /10 g. h. Author ______Homer_______________________ Author ______Homer_______________________ Title _______ The Iliad – Book 6______________ Title _______ The Iliad – Book 6______________ g. “So now I am your host and friend in the heart of Argos, you are mine in Lycia when I visit in your country. Come, let us keep clear of each other’s spears, even there in the thick of battle . .
. But let’s trade armor. The men must know our claim: we are sworn friends from our fathers’ days till now! ” h. “My comrades – fighting Danaans, aides of Ares – no plunder now!Don’t lag behind, don’t fling yourself at spoils just to haul the biggest portion back to your ship. Now’s the time for killing! Later, at leisure, strip the corpses up and down the plain. ” In the first passage Diomedes and Glaucus do not fight when they recognized that their grandfathers are friends and these two men are sworn friends for long time. There is no violence between them because they respect their fathers and give more importance to friendship than honor and the desire of wining the war.
They trade their armors and do not care about the honor issue although the materials of the armors are different.By doing this they want to show that their level of honor is same. On the other hand, Nestor gives importance to violence in the second passage. Nestor and Agamemnon’s first priority is not honor as well, and they do not care about the falling of the city. They only focused on violence and killing every Trojan that they see. When Menelaus thinks about taking ransom, Agamemnon urges him to kill only. The highest level of violence can be seen here; however, Diomedes and Glaucus are thinking in exactly opposite way.
Their priorities are different although they are in the same war. 8. /10 i. j. Author ______Homer_______________________ Author ______Homer_______________________ Title _______ The Iliad – Book 22_____________ Title _______ The Iliad – Book 9______________ i. “I would die of shame to face the men of Troy and the Trojan women triling their long robes . .
. Someone less of a man than I will say, ‘Our Hector – staking all on his own strength, he destroyed his army! ’ So they will mutter. So now, better by far for me to stand up to Achilles, kill him, come home alive or die at his hands in glory out before the walls. ” j. Mother tells me, he immortal goddess Thetis with her glistening feet, that two fates bear me on to the day of death. If I hold out here and I lay siege to Troy, my journey home is gone, but my glory never dies. If I voyage back to the fatherland I love, my pride, my glory dies .
. . true, but the life that’s left to me will be long, the stroke of death will not come on me quickly. The passages are similar because the main concept of both passages is fighting for honor. However, Achilles’ and Hector’s reasons of fighting and their priorities are different. Achilles fights only for his glory and honor.He does not help his comrades just because Agamemnon dishonored him.
Achilles’ first priority is his honor and glory for which he has worked so hard. However, Hector fights not only for his honor but also for the people of Troy. Hector cares about what people thinks about him. Both Hector and Achilles confront a dilemma about fighting or not because both of them know that if they fight they will die soon but have glory and honor at the same time. Hector considers the shame he will face, if he does not fight. On the other hand, he knows that if he fights and kills Achilles or even he dies, he will get honor.Thus, he chooses to fight.
However, Achilles’ uncontrollable rage orients him to fight. These two main heroes of the story have important affect on the result of the war.. 9/10 k. l. Author ______Gilgamesh____________________ Author ______Gilgamesh____________________ Title __The Epic of Gilgamesh – Tablet 7_______ Title __The Epic of Gilgamesh – Tablet 4_______ k. ‘Why, my friend, does your heart talk profanity .
. .? [the dream] was special, great the anxiety. [Your feverish lips] were buzzing like flies, [the misgivings were] great, the dream was rare.To the one who survives {the gods] leave grieving: the dream leaves sorrow to the one who survives. The great gods [I’ll] beseech in supplication, let me seek out [Shamash,] I’ll appeal to your god. l.
‘The dream that I had was an utter confusion: heaven cried aloud, while earth did rumble. The day grew still, darkness came forth, there was a flash of lightning, fire broke out . . . [Having heard the words of his friend,] Enkidu gave the dream meaning, saying to Gilgamesh: [My friend,] your dream is a good one, fine is [its message. ]’ 41/50 = %82 (B-)gamesh
