'A Thousand Sorrows'

Of Ichor and War 4: Considering the Metaphysics of Homer's Iliad

In the 18th to 20th books of The Iliad, considering the triumphs of Hector and the Trojans, the dogged determination of the Battle Brothers Ajax, the death of Patroclus and the awakening of Achilles, Zeus knows two additional names in the narrator's voice, including Steward of Battle. In this capacity, the Almighty demonstrates more pity for men than he does kinship with the lesser powers. There is also the fact that this central divinity has as many faces as all of his attendant Olympians combined.

Many lesser powers, layers of the supernatural rising out of creation such as Tempest, Oceanus, the myriad nymphs and the rivers, up through power dynamics such as Discord, Panic and wicked feminine Blindness, and to include far-acting angelic powers, and also the Avengers, those old powers cast down by the ascendant powers—those titans imprisoned deeper than the shadowy haunts of the dead—act upon and through miserable men. Zeus All-seeing has little empathy for the lesser powers and sympathy only for his sweetest daughters among the immortals, such as Athena Bright-eyed and Thetis Silver-footed, mother of doomed Achilles.

But for man, and their harried subjugation under the meddling forces of those powers earthly ancient, egoistic and heaven-sent, Thunder-bolt Zeus has pity. In the words of Homer, “God's will,” meaning always the eternal all-knowingness personified by Zeus, is ever cruel on the human scale. For in the brief struggle of every man, the Mind Eternal witnesses the one single force working on wretched mankind, that also holds power over him—Fate, weaving on her twisting loom.