Achilles as epic hero and the idea of total recall in song.

Achilles (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The key word for this hour is memnēmai, which means ‘I have total recall’ in special contexts and ‘I remember’ in ordinary contexts. The special contexts involve memory by way of song.

We looked again at a story within a story. This time the one told by Phoenix. There were five slow readings for this hour that we looked at in detail.

There were also three books or scrolls of the Iliad to read. I am not sure why III, VI and IX and not some in sequence. I read scroll II and it is mainly a list of all the Argives’ ships and who lead them and where they had come from. There was one story in there though that told of the prophesy of Kalkhas. He interpreted a snake eating nine sparrows as the nine years they would fight at Troy before taking the town. There is also the story of Zeus sending the false dream to Agamemnon which incites him to turn back and attack Troy. I thought that was worth reading and put some parts into context for me.

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