The Iliad by Homer (second reading)

Thanks to Robert Fagles, I could at last really enjoy Homer’s The Iliad! (this is a very-very late post—I finished the book on May, but due to our moving-preparations lately, I haven’t been able to write a proper review for more than two months. My memory of the book has quite faded, but I’d try to recall things which I found interesting).

Years before, I have read the abridged translation of The Iliad. I knew this is a great epic poem that you should read at least once before you die. But unfortunately, this Indonesian edition that I read re-wrote the epic to a prose. Maybe it’s because my fellow citizen rarely read poems, so the publisher decided to sell it as a mere story book to make it more saleable (*sighing hard). Nevertheless, I quite enjoyed it at that time, but still didn’t get the epic. I knew that I must read the epic one day. But, honestly, I slightly dread of reading an epic poem—hence my delaying of getting to it sooner. Then I stumbled upon this Robert Fagles’ translation, and finally….read this epic poem! ^_^

Now I can say that I love The Iliad! Since it is about war, some passages can be much similar. And the names… they were so much, at the end I couldn’t follow anymore, who was on which side (apart from the big heroes). Take that aside, it was a heroic story written beautifully as a poem. Often I couldn’t help reciting it when I was alone.

Do you tend to take side when reading war stories? I do. From the beginning, I took side with the Trojan. I have no respect for most of Achaean top chiefs—especially Agamemnon, Achilles, and Menelaus. They were selfish and arrogant; and thinking how disputes about women could cause (or alter the course of) a war—! Menelaus is probably the worse—he’s such a cry-baby! When a man lost his wife because another man stole her, he should challenge him to duel, and end it between them. But no, Menelaus ran to his brother, and never stopped him when he decided to start the war. No, I could never take side with the Greeks! And Achilles… what a spoiled little brat he is!

My favorite passage is when Hercules stopped at his house for the last time, meeting his wife and playing with his son. I know he is a temperate man (maybe his only flaw), but I think I loved him more than the others because of this scene. He deserved to be a hero. While his dear little brother….. meh! -_-

That was all that I still remember from The Iliad—definitely a worthy reading, a great epic. I still have to reread The Odyssey—which I have first read also from abridged turn-to-prose Indonesian translation—but with slightly less excitement that I have felt for The Iliad. Hopefully I am wrong!

Dante’s Purgatorio – Final Review

I was struggling through this second part of The Divine Comedy: Purgatorio. Unlike Inferno—with a vivid description of Hell and some recognized figures—Purgatorio is more like an abstract image of divine actions. It is full of allegories representing many acts and symbols from Bible, that the poem is often boring and tedious.

After leaving Hell/Inferno, Dante, still with his guide Virgil, enters the Purgatorio. The setting of Purgatorio is of course different with Inferno. Dante imagined purgatory as a mountain that has many levels. At the bottom is Ante-Purgatory, then seven terraces where souls are being punished and purged. The more the mount ascend, Dante gets more spiritual growth. The mountain top is the Earthly Paradise, and after this one, Dante is purified from his sins and deserves to enter the Paradise (the third part).

We already know from Inferno that it was Beatrice who initiated this journey for Dante, and she even chose Virgil—the Roman poet—to be his guide. Now in Purgatorio, Beatrice shows herself in the middle of the journey, and even guides Dante at certain point after Virgil leaves them, near their end of journey. Another poet called Statius also accompanies Dante.

The poem itself is of course still beautiful; and this is the only aspect that kept me reading. So, if you just want to read a poem, this might be your choice. But, if you want to get what Dante talks about, you can hardly depend on the poem only. Fortunately, thanks to the digital era, there are many reading guides for these kinds of complex classics works. I was lucky to have found this site from which I learned a lot of things I would never thought about before. I think Purgatorio is more like a theological study about the Church than a poem; no wonder several people stuck on it although they can get through Inferno. Shortly, Purgatorio is a great work of poem, but needs a huge determination to finish it.

To get a better idea of the contents, you can read my summaries: Ante-Purgatory – Terrace1~2 – Terrace 3~5 – Terrace 6~7 – The Earthly Paradise.

Three stars for Purgatorio, and now I really hope Paradiso would be much better than this…

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*I read ebook from Gutenberg Project*

*This book is counted as:*

2^nd book for Narrative Poem Reading Challenge

48^th book for The Classics Club Project

Dante’s Inferno – Final Review

Like Dante, “midway upon the journey of our life/I found myself within a forest dark…”, I too felt like being plunged into darkness when I decided to read a narrative poem of Dante’s The Divine Comedy, end of last month. Being a complete newbie in poems, I just braced myself to read Dante’s Inferno, the first of three parts. At first it seemed like I was going to enjoy the poem, but when I reached the middle, I doubted whether I’d ever finish it. There were many historical persons and events that Italian people in 14^th century—or at least whoever studied Italian history—would have been very familiar with, but it was very annoying for us in modern days to follow Dante’s journeys without having to consult wiki or google almost every each circle! Besides that, the poetic lines were also intriguing me along the reading, that at the second half of the poem, I consulted more often a Dante’s translation site I’ve found on the internet; it’s indeed really helpful!

What intrigued me most of Dante’s journey in Hell is the opening stanza, where Dante confessed that he didn’t know how he could have suddenly arrived in Hell.

Midway upon the journey of our life

I found myself within a forest dark,

For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

Dante warns us (who are in the midway upon our journey of life) to reflect where we are ‘standing’ right now. Perhaps we have done so many wrongs and sins in the past, that if God takes our life this very minute, we would go straight to Hell. And yes, how often it is that we find ourselves suddenly far away from the purity that God had granted us when we were born? Suddenly we find ourselves in the dark forest and could no longer see the straightforward pathway to Him. Here and now, it’s time to pause and resume our past journey to be able to rediscover that straightforward pathway to salvation. Reading The Divine Comedy might be the best choice to help us in our own struggles. Dante is very lucky that Beatrice—the woman he loved—took the initiative to send Virgil to guide him in a dangerous and terrifying journey to Inferno (but we are also lucky that Dante ever published this poem!), so that he could warn many people in the world.

Dante portrayed the Hell as a giant funnel built underground that leads to a narrow pit. It was Lucifer, who, when fallen so heavily from heaven, his body (head first) thrust deep down the earth and created the funnel. The narrowest and deepest pit contained of Lucifer’s head, and it held souls with the most severe sin and received the most savage punishment. From the Hell’s gate to the pit there were nine circles with different grades—of course—the deeper the circle, contained the more severe sinners with more severe punishments.

What makes Inferno more interesting—and in a way fit to bear ‘Comedy’ in the title—is how Dante put a lot of historical and mythical characters into each circles. Here you’d find respectable personages like poets, philosophers, and political leaders, historical and mythical figures (Julius Caesar, Brutus and Cassius, Achilles, etc.) were punished in different circles. In a way, it widened your knowledge, because you will be forced to dig about their stories to understand their sins and how Dante punished them so fittingly. It’s quite comforting, for example, to find that Brutus and Cassius were punished far below Julius Caesar; actually you would be surprised to find with whom Dante kept Brutus and Cassius here!

Dante is very detailed in describing each circle’s condition and the severity of the punishments, that it made me often shuddered just to imagine it; for we might read and imagine it in few minutes, but the souls must bear it ceaselessly and endlessly. You will be cringed only by thinking of it! And Dante ‘punished’ the sinners with the same means as the sins they had performed, how interesting it is!

I learned later from Matthew Pearl’s historical fiction: The Dante Club, that Dante has a military background before writing The Divine Comedy, because he fought with the army at a war (I forgot which war). That’s how he learned how some torments would create such tortures to men; something that either a physician or a soldier who survived a war would have known.

In the end, I think I still owed Dante to delve deeper in his poem. I have been more familiar with it now, and in the future I can use the translation (from poetic to prose) to help me exploring the beauty of Dante’s narrative poem. Until then, four stars for Inferno, and I can’t wait to proceed to Purgatorio!

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I read e-book from Project Gutenberg, translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

This book is counted for:

1^st book for Narrative Poem Reading Challenge

7^th book for New Authors Reading Challenge 2013

7^th book for The Well-Educated Mind Self-Project

45^th book for The Classics Club Project