BLUES: Its gender politics are gruesome throughout!

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2024

What about our own? Can we modern-day, tribal humans possibly learn to see ourselves more clearly? 

Can we learn to see ourselves more clearly through the auspices of the western world's earliest war poem? Can those of us in our own blue tribe take advantage of such opportunities?

If so, The Iliad beckons! It's the story of a ten-year siege—a seemingly endless siege of Troy conducted by a vast assembly of Achaean (Argive; Greek) armies. 

Judged by contemporary standards, the gender politics of the epic is awful.

But then too, just take a look at us! Before we consider our society's current political sieges, let's revisit that siege of Troy.

As we've already noted, the gender politics of The Iliad are horrible right from the jump:

Book One of the ancient war poem is called "The Rage of Achilles" in the Robert Fagles translation. That rage is brought on by a slight to Achilles' honor.

That slight is occasioned when Agamemnon, lord of men, is forced to return his sexual slave to her father, a priest to Apollo. He proceeds to seize Achilles' sexual slave to make up for his loss.

Thus insulted, Achilles repairs to his tents and refuses to fight. This creates the central problem of the ancient poem:

The Achaeans know they will never conquer the towering walls of Troy until Achilles, their greatest warrior, agrees to return to the fight.

Judged by contemporary norms—at least, judged by stated contemporary norms—the sexual politics here are awful. That said, it isn't until Book Three of the epic that we learn why this siege ever took place. 

Once again, the sexual politics are painful and gruesome, as judged by supposed modern standards.

Why have the Achaeans armies wasted nine of ten years of their lives fighting and dying on the plains before the walls of Troy? In Book Three, we're finally told! We'll let the leading authority on the war poem offer a brief synopsis:

Exposition (Books 1-4)

[...]

(3) The armies approach each other, but before they meet, Paris offers to end the war by fighting a duel with Menelaus, urged by Hector, his brother and hero of Troy. 

Here, the initial cause of the entire war is explained: Helen, wife of Menelaus, and the most beautiful woman in the world, is either through seduction or by force, taken by Paris from Menelaus' home in Sparta. 

Menelaus and Paris agree to duel. Helen will marry the victor.

All in all, that's about as old-world as it gets. 

For the record, Hector and Paris are the sons of Priam, the Trojan king. Menelaus is one of the sons of Agamemnon, lord of men and commander of the Argive forces.

At some point in the past, Paris has run off with Helen, the wife of Menelaus. Inevitably, Helen is understood to be "the most beautiful woman in the world."

The ten-year siege has been undertaken due to this insult to Achaean honor. As in the case of the sexual slaves in Book One, so too here: 

Helen is prized for her astonishing beauty. Such was the traditional framing of women's role in this ancient poem.

Book One turns on an offense to honor occasioned by the theft of a sexual slave. In Book Three, we learn that this ten-year siege has resulted from an offense to honor caused by the loss of the world's most beautiful woman.

This is old-world sexual politics in its most old world. That said, a more modern strain of humanity enters the poem in Book Three when we're taken inside the walls of Troy and we see the way Helen relates to her father-in-law, King Priam.

Was Helen stolen away by Paris, or was her flight consensual? Within the translation of Rober Fagles, we'll go with the latter construct.

As we enter the world of Book Three, Achaean and Trojan armies are about to wage their latest battle on the plains outside Troy. Helen is called to the walls of Troy by the intercession of a goddess. 

We begin to get a glimpse of who Helen actually is:

And now a messenger went to white-armed Helen too,
Iris, looking for all the world like Hector's sister

[...]

And Iris came on Helen in her rooms
weaving a growing web, a dark red folding robe,
working into the weft the endless bloody struggles
stallion-breaking Trojans and Argives armed in bronze
had suffered all for her at the god of battle's hands.

Helen is weaving a robe which records "the endless bloody struggles...suffered all for her." The goddess tells her to come to the walls of Troy, "so you can see what wondrous things they're doing," in effect on Helen's behalf.

Helen is more decent than that. At this point, the poem's first "live tears" take form:

And with those words
the goddess filled her heart with yearning warm and deep
for her husband long ago, her city and her parents.
Quickly cloaking herself in shimmering linen,
out of her rooms she rushed, live tears welling,
and not alone—two of her women followed close behind.
Aethra, Pittheus' daughter, and Clymene, eyes wide,
and they soon reached the looming Scaean Gates.

When Helen reaches the walls of Troy, she joins her father-in-law. The old men of the realm are gathered around their king:

And there they were, gathered around Priam.

[...]

The old men of the realm held seats above the gates.
Long years had brought their fighting days to a halt
but they were eloquent speakers still, clear as cicadas
settled on treetops, lifting their voices through the forest,
rising softly. falling, dying away.

Chirping like cicadas, the old men marvel at Helen's "terrible beauty." As they do, they inevitably extend a clear hint of blame.

That said, Priam is deeply humane, in the ancient and the modern fashion—and Helen, a "dear child" to her (second) father-in-law, is soon shedding hot tears:

They murmured low
but Priam, raising his voice, called across to Helen,
"Come over here, dear child. Sit in front of me.
so you can see your husband of long ago,
your kinsmen and your people.
I don't blame you. I hold the gods to blame.
They are the ones who brought this war upon me,
devastating war against the Achaeans."

And Helen the radiance of women answered Priam.
"I revere you so, dear father, dread you too—
if only death had pleased me then, grim death,
that day I followed your son to Troy, forsaking
my marriage bed, my kinsmen and my child,
my favorite, now full-grown,
and the lovely comradeship of women my own age.
Death never came, so now I can only waste away in tears.

If only death had taken her then, this many subsequent deaths in battle would never have come! So speaks the radiance of women, whose role in this ancient drama is tied to her impossible beauty in a way unlikely ever to be undone. 

Among the Achaean troops, the insult to honor has occasioned ten years of tribal rage. Inside the walls of Troy, Priam speaks kindly to his "dear daughter," but she can't escape the framing placed upon her by the gender politics of this time.

Everyone knows whose side he's on in this ancient poem. The honor of the Achaeans has been offended against. Those inside the walls of Troy are fighting for their survival.

Here today, within our modern sieges, red tribe armies are conducting a siege of the Biden White House. Our own blue armies have been conducting a lengthy siege against former president Trump:

Starting on March 25, we blues will hurl ourselves against the fact that the aforementioned Trump allegedly had consensual sexual relations, on one occasion years ago, with an amazing "porn star"—with a consenting adult woman who wasn't his actual wife.

Starting on March 25, the candidate will be prosecuted, perhaps in somewhat unusual ways, for related behaviors. As we hurl ourselves into this complaint, to what extent have human conduct and human impulse actually changed?

The siege of Troy was a war of the Late Bronze Age. Our current armies are conducting their dueling sieges in our own Information Age.

As we've noted in recent weeks, red tribe armies engage in all manner of dissembling and disinformation when they conduct their assaults on the Biden White House. Unfortunately, that doesn't necessarily mean that their basic complaints lack merit.

Tomorrow, we'll start to look at the ways of our blue tribe's armies. We'll even start to ask you to take the Modern Tribal Challenge:

Can you conceive of the possibility that the tribunes who vote the way we blue denizens vote may at times be less than fully insightful, possibly even less than fully honest?

Can you imagine taking that challenge? Also, can we possibly see ourselves a bit more clearly as we thumb the pages of antique works of fiction?

Is there any chance of doing that? We think our own blue tribe is flawed, perhaps in dangerous ways.

Inevitably, you will decide. 

Tomorrow: Her "beloved colleagues and viewers"