hey welcome back today we're going to be looking at The Iliad book nine when we last laughed off things were looking pretty Grim for the Greeks the Trojans had had their day Zeus was definitely siding with them and now that the Greeks have been driven all the way back behind their fortifications night has come and they're trying to decide what to do in response to the very bad day they had but before we get into the content of book nine let's look at the major characters in this section we're going to see Agamemnon respond to defeat and what Agamemnon looks like when his pride and rage haven't gotten him very far in short this is a much more crushed Agamemnon who's dealing with the consequences of his own actions we're also going to continue with Nestor who is the old man with all the good advice and he's going to be the one who's going to try to talk Agamemnon down and come up with a plan to help them respond to their situation we'll also see diameters here as the voice of courage and continued hope in the face of trouble especially since diameters is the only one who's really done good work lately we're going to see Odysseus performing the role he's most known for that is using his slick tongue his eloquence his speaking ability to try to smooth things out we're also going to see Ajax the big beefy Warrior who is not at all eloquent but knows how to make a quick blunt statement and we're going to meet a character named Phoenix who is an older man who is a father-like figure for Achilles he trained up Achilles when Achilles was younger finally after not showing up since all the way back there in book one in spite of being supposedly the central character of The Iliad Achilles is going to come back and achilles is going to be stubborn as ever but he's also going to help us to explore some complex themes he doesn't want to fight and a big part of that is his rage and anger at Agamemnon but we'll see other conflicting ideas about why he thinks maybe he should sit out the rest of the war alright let's look at the action in this section and I say action but nothing really happens in book nine instead book nine is very much a dialectic a discussion between characters when we last laughed off Knight had just Fallen everyone was in poor spirits and in fact book nine opens with the image of the personification of panic stirring up the people the achians hearts were torn inside their chests it says and Agamemnon calls all of his leaders together to have a meeting but he's not a very commanding presence this time instead of stirring up his men instead of shouting for them to to fall in line he's actually streaming tears from his eyes and he's basically ready to give up diamonies isn't having it though he stands up and says you can't just give up you called me out for not being brave enough at the very beginning of this whole fight and look what I've accomplished and now who lacks courage fine quit and go home but the rest of us are gonna stay I will stay until everybody else leaves I'm gonna keep fighting even if it's just me and stanella's here and everybody seems to agree with diameters he trials them back up a bit but Nestor says everybody everybody and whippersnappers you need to listen to Old Man Nestor let's all calm down and have a feast and then we can maybe so everybody sits down to have their evening meal try to cool off and then Nestor proposes you know what we need to do you know what our problem is all of our problems began when Agamemnon and achilles had that fight and that's where all of our troubles begin you know Agamemnon if you just kind of swallow your pride and humbly go to Achilles and beg his forgiveness and give him lots of nice presents maybe he will forgive you and then join back and turn things around for us and Agamemnon who is rather broken at this moment agrees that's no lie old man a full account you give of all my acts of Madness mad blind I was not even I would deny it why look that man is worth an entire Army the fighter Zeus holds deer with all his heart how he exalts him now and mauls akio's forces but since I was blinded lost in my own inhuman rage now at last I am bent on setting things to write I'll give a Priceless Ransom paid for friendship so Agamemnon is finally ready to come around he has very much changed his tune since book one and achilles is finally getting what he wants this is the moment when everybody is gonna come crawling to him as he hoped would happen back in book one that's what he prayed to his mother for that's what fetus went to Zeus for that the achaeans would lose the Trojans would win and achilles friends would come crawling to him begging for his help now it's happening he's finally getting what he wanted let's see how it goes so Agamemnon then lists almost two pages of gifts he's going to give to Achilles and they are very very extensive loads of treasure loads of girls the best pickings of Troy his own daughter in marriage basically anything Achilles wants give it to him just let him side with us again please I'll even give him back pricius I haven't even touched her all this I would extend him if he will end his anger let him submit to me only the god of death is so relentless death submits to no one so Mortals hate him most of all the gods let him bow down to me I am the Greater King I'm the elderborn I claim the greater man so you know just let him bow down to me again let him serve me again submit to me again nobody's this stubborn the only person that's stubborn is death and Nestor applauds the the generous offer that Agamemnon makes and he lines up some of the best of the heroes in the Greek army particularly those guys that Achilles likes the best maybe if they go talk to him they'll be able to talk him around and so he sends Phoenix first because Phoenix has a personal relationship with Achilles which we'll see in a moment he sends Odysseus because Odysseus is the best talker and he sends Ajax who's just a big pile of muscle but you know Achilles likes him and he comes up to Odysseus particularly and be like make sure you talk him around you're the one who's got to do this and so they head out to the tent of Achilles what is Achilles doing he is sitting there playing a liar creating music and this is probably significant because all these other guys eyes are making War they have been fighting slaughtering killing and here Achilles is on the other hand sitting out and creating art there is a bit of tension between peace and War the peaceful artistic Pursuit Of Music versus the violent Pursuit Of War and this image of tension between these two kinds of ideas is going to set the tone for the rest of the conversation Achilles seeing several of his old friends coming to visit them invites them all in and sets out a nice dinner for them of course they've just had a dinner at agamemnon's expense and now they are thankful for another dinner but they are ready to get to business and so Odysseus leads and begins to speak and we get this sort of traditional poetic pattern where each of the three characters gets a speech to Achilles and achilles gets a response to each of them the first is Odysseus who is the best speaker an Odysseus argument Begins by thanking Achilles for the delicious dinner but that their minds are elsewhere on their troubles how Zeus has sided with the Trojans Hector is a terror to all of them and we may lose everything now unless you help us and he says Achilles if you don't help us now you will miss your opportunity it's a great opportunity to swoop in and be the hero he also reminds him that his father gave him advice before he set out your father peleus warned you to check your pride and your rage and to pursue friendship and victory instead all these quarrels they're just going to bring you grief and then he lays out the offer that Agamemnon says in fact he repeats it verbatim with that repetition of poetry and he concludes by saying and even if you really can't stand Agamemnon anymore at least pity your friends and come kill Hector for us Achilles responds rather extensively to Odysseus's argument first of all he says he really can't stand Agamemnon and nothing will persuade him to support Agamemnon anymore none of these gifts appeal to me at all especially after what he's done and he makes a rather poignant Counterpoint here Agamemnon took his girl away from him and what are they all fighting for in the first place they're fighting because Menelaus had his wife stolen so how is that any different how am I supposed to be on your side Agamemnon when you treat me the same way your enemies treated you from me alone Achilles of all akians he seizes he keeps the bride I love why must we battle Trojans men of Argos why did he muster an army lead us here that son of atreus why why in the world if not for Helen with her loose and lustrous hair are they the only men alive who love their wives those sons of atreus never any decent man a man with sense loves his own cares for his own as deeply as I I loved that woman with all my heart though I won her like a trophy with my spear but now that he's torn my honor from my hands robbed me lied to me don't let him try me now I know him too well he'll never win me over pretty solid counter argument and then he laughs at them because he says Ah Hector never got so brave and got so close when I was around and you know what I think I'm going to leave I think I'm going to pack up my boats and head on home see you later no I don't want any of his presents no I don't want to marry his stupid daughter after all none of the presents will matter if I side with him let me tell you a key story my mother fetus knows my future there are two possibilities number one I stay and fight and win all kinds of Glory but die number two I live out a long forgettable life that nobody really remembers I am fated but there's still a choice involved and so we see this key moment Achilles is saying I have I am bound to faint and that may mean that I get all kinds of Glory but it means I die or it may mean that I live in obscurity but live alone rather Pleasant to life and so he is weighing those two things just as we started this interaction with music versus War life versus death peace versus destruction and he ends by saying you all probably should leave too there's no way you're gonna win your toast oh but Phoenix if you want to hitch a ride with me I'll be glad to take you home right now okay so Achilles is not interested in any of the gifts but that was only the first argument now he's going to hear from Phoenix and Phoenix we find out is a man who was taken in by Achilles father peleus and was given charge of rearing Achilles and training him up to become a great fighter and so Phoenix has a lot of influence over Achilles as a kind of father figure and so Phoenix then makes his play and his plea begins with a rather long story about his own life the conflict he had with his father over his father's mistress and now ultimately he had to escape and run away but how he was taken in by pelius and then he appeals to Achilles as a kind of father figure I trained you up I was a father for you hoping that you would defend me as I got older and here you are kind of running away and he talks about the dangers of not accepting a prayer of forgiveness he says everybody makes mistakes and then when we make mistakes we want to pray for forgiveness please please forgive of us that's what Agamemnon did and now he's praying for your forgiveness and prayers are like the daughters of Zeus if you don't respect them then you come to ruin you don't want to come to ruin because you rejected the prayers of Agamemnon do you and then he tells this long story about a character named melagar who held out too long and didn't defend his home and family until it was really too late and then he expended himself but for nothing don't be like malagar Achilles then in turn responds to Phoenix's argument and the problem with Phoenix's arguments are that they don't really drive him to action yes I care about you Phoenix is a father figure in fact that's why I'm inviting you to you know go ahead and ditch this war with me but your appeal to the prayers of Agamemnon just let that drop agamemnon's prayers are never going to affect me and that whole avoiding ruin thing well that's what I'm doing right now if I choose to fight fragmentone I know I'm gonna die so walking away from Magnum is actually a good thing for me your arguments don't actually apply to me very well and then he has practical is like make Phoenix a nice bed in his tent so that the three of them can you know talk about it in the morning but there's one more person who's got to appeal to Achilles and that is Ajax his speech is pretty short it's more like a grunt he just turns to Odysseus and says let's let's go he's not gonna listen to us Achilles too stuck up and hard-hearted he doesn't want to win any Glory he didn't care about friends and achilles says well you know what I just can't get over what Agamemnon did and I'm not going to ever ever submit to Agamemnon again I don't care if the Trojans come and burned down every single ship and Hector marches through the whole line I'm not gonna fight him until he tries to burn my ship and so then they all take a cup of wine and pour it out for Zeus and head back home except for Phoenix who stays the night and achilles and patricus each take their favorite girl and snuggle down the emissaries returned to Agamemnon with the bad news and Odysseus repeats sections back basically verbatim and everyone looks pretty sad afterwards but diamety stands back up and says eh he'll fight when he's good and ready for now let's line up let's get ready let's get back to work and everybody agrees and settles down for the night except for the night's not over and we still have some more mischief to get up to in book 10. what about the key features of book nine well I already mentioned the examples of repetition the big long speech of presence that Agamemnon offers is repeated verbatim biodicious as well as bits of Achilles reply are repeated back by Odysseus there's also the fun themes where we have War versus peace and the difficult decision between one's duty to defend one's friends and whether or not a sacrifice is worth it it's all very complex and some of that I think is embodied in the symbol of Achilles liar the liar represents music and art the opposite of violence and bloodshed which Achilles seems to be choosing now finally there's lots of really fun personification I mentioned at the very beginning how panic and Route are personified stirring up the Greek camp but also in Phoenix's speech there's the personification of the prayers as the daughters of Zeus as well as ruin who seems to be a character lurking ready to grab the person who ignores prayers and of course there's the overall argument structure of this which mirrors a lot of other argument structures in literature thanks for watching next time we'll see what other Mischief Odysseus and diameters can get into in the night when we look at book 10 you can click to subscribe or watch another video and I'll see you next time bye-bye