The Iliad is pure fucking metal!

[Jim Necroslaughter]

What a bloodbath!  The body count must be in the thousands!  Heroes, Gods, sacrifices, prayers, death, blood, weapons, shields - black metal wishes it were as badass as The Iliad!  Aesthetically, The Iliad is pure fucking metal!

But the lord of men Agamemnon sacrificed a fat rich ox,
five years old, to the son of mighty Cronus, Zeus,
and called the chiefs of all the Argive forces:
Nestor first and foremost, then King Idomeneus,
the Great and Little Ajax, Tydeus' son Diomedes
and Odysseus sixth, a mastermind like Zeus.
The lord of the war cry Menelaus came uncalled

Those are the main players for the Achaens, minus Achilles who is crying over a chick back at his boat.  On the Trojan's side you have King Hector and his bitch brother, Paris.

Quickly notching the sharp arrow on the string
he swore to Apollo, Wolf-god, glorious Archer,
he'd slaughter splendid victims, newborn lambs
when he marched home to Zelea's sacred city.

How refreshing to read a book where the characters have no second thoughts.

At last the armies clashed at one strategic point,
they slammed their shields together, pike scraped pike
with the grappling strength of fighters armed in bronze
and their round shields pounded, boss on welded boss,
and the sound of struggle roared and rocked the earth.
Screams of men and cries of triumph breaking in one breath,
fighters killing, fighters killed, and the ground streamed in blood.
Wildly as two winter torrents raging down from the mountains,
swirling into a valley, hurl their great waters together,
flash floods from the wellsprings plunging down in a gorge
and miles away in the hills a shepherd hears the thunder-
so from the grinding armies broke the cries and crash of war.

At last, a book where battle is celebrated and both sides are given their due.  This is like a Graveland album.  You're not IN the battle, you're ABOVE the battle, surveying everything.  It's grim but it's also glorious, you can't help but smile, because this is as it should be.

Brothers Agamemnon and Menelaus teach us about teamwork:

And the iron warrior brought his brother round-
rough justice, fitting too.
Menelaus shoved Adrestus back with a fist,
powerful Agamemnon stabbed him in the flank
and back on his side the fighter went, faceup.
The son of Atreus dug a heel in his heaving chest
and wrenched the ash spear out.

HAHAHAHAAA!

Here's an excerpt from my favorite chapter, "Marauding Through the Night."  Diomedes and Odysseus team up for a daring mission into hostile territory at night!  They pray to the Gods for good fortune:

Their prayers rose and Pallas Athena heard them.
Once they'd appealed to Zeus' mighty daughter,
into the black night they went like two lions
stalking through the carnage and the corpses,
through piles of armor and black pools of blood.

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

[Petrarca]

How refreshing to read a book where the characters have no second thoughts.

I think that this may offer a key insight into the discussion of "masculine personality" that's been going on around here.

Ancient heroes have such a clear vision of their goals that they need not weigh themselves down with moral dilemmas in the face of battle. Second thoughts only lead to psychological battles of regret and guilt that cripple their ambition and give the enemy a strong advantage. True heroes don't waste time trying to clear their conscience, true heroes fight!

I've been reading through some of the Icelandic sagas and have noticed a trend. Not surprisingly, Pagan characters start to second guess themselves more as the Christian influence on their culture becomes more and more prevalent. It's a sad portrait of how the tribes lost their heroism as they became bogged down with Christian morality. It contradicted the worldview that shaped and strengthened their societies, and thus weakened their sustainability.

Edit: most of the above is probably bullshit

[istaros]

How refreshing to read a book where the characters have no second thoughts.

I think that this may offer a key insight into the discussion of "masculine personality" that's been going on around here.

I quite liked that impression as well. Really sums it all up, doesn't it? Don't waffle, waddle, vacillate, or hesitate. Go forth. Conquer. Achieve. It's rather unfortunate that the only way to express this idea in a way that current Western culture would accept it, instead of accusing it of being Cro-Magnon block-headed testosterone-laden short-sighted insensitive nonsense, is to phrase it along the lines of something like "don't be afraid to be wrong once in a while."

[Jim Necroslaughter]

I've been reading through some of the Icelandic sagas and have noticed a trend. Not surprisingly, Pagan characters start to second guess themselves more as the Christian influence on their culture becomes more and more prevalent. It's a sad portrait of how the tribes lost their heroism as they became bogged down with Christian morality. It contradicted the worldview that shaped and strengthened their societies, and thus weakened their sustainability.

Awesome!  I'm a big fan of the Sagas, myself.  What you say is very interesting and observant.  I can't say I recall the second-guessing, off the top of my head, but I'm sure you are right.  It's been a few months since I last immersed myself in the sagas and I'm going to keep this in mind when I pick it back up.

And yes, I think The Iliad and The Icelandic Sagas can both teach us a lot about masculinity.

[Petrarca]

Awesome!  I'm a big fan of the Sagas, myself.  What you say is very interesting and observant.  I can't say I recall the second-guessing, off the top of my head, but I'm sure you are right.  It's been a few months since I last immersed myself in the sagas and I'm going to keep this in mind when I pick it back up.

I may be speculating a little too much on this, but I hope to make it into a working theory. At this point it's mostly a gut reaction I had after reading The Story of Hrafnkell and The Saga of Volsungs.

If only this was my homework...

[Undermind]

Yes, but where is the sodomy?!

[Dead_Soul]

"Yes, but where is the sodomy?!"

Well, we don't really know what Zeus to Hera while they were in that cloud....

[David_Brent]

Ancient heroes have such a clear vision of their goals that they need not weigh themselves down with moral dilemmas in the face of battle. Second thoughts only lead to psychological battles of regret and guilt that cripple their ambition and give the enemy a strong advantage. True heroes don't waste time trying to clear their conscience, true heroes fight!

What? Do I have a different copy of the Iliad? Without psychological battles there wouldn't be war at all in the story I've read. Like the conflict between Agamemnon and Achilles. Lol! I'm reading desperate housewives! Except Nestor, he's cool! Although Agamemnon might have discovered something: 'hey wait a minute I'm a character in the Iliad, a brilliant masterpiece by Homer, there should be conflict between me and Achilles to make this story even more brilliant', but he is right: the Iliad is brilliant. You are right: the Iliad is metal! ... And Plato is right.

[Petrarca]

Without psychological battles there wouldn't be war at all in the story I've read.

This is true, but it leads me to question whether such battles demonstrate a strength or a weakness of the characters engaged in them. A lesson I got from reading the Illiad / Odyssey is that everyone must eventually face their weakness [Achille's Heel], and I think that the psychological conflicts often serve to reveal some of these weaknesses.

[Jim Necroslaughter]

Awesome!  I'm a big fan of the Sagas, myself.  What you say is very interesting and observant.  I can't say I recall the second-guessing, off the top of my head, but I'm sure you are right.  It's been a few months since I last immersed myself in the sagas and I'm going to keep this in mind when I pick it back up.

I may be speculating a little too much on this, but I hope to make it into a working theory. At this point it's mostly a gut reaction I had after reading The Story of Hrafnkell and The Saga of Volsungs.

If only this was my homework...

Well it certainly makes intuitive sense.  Thanks for pointing out those sags in particular.

[Veritas]

Ancient heroes have such a clear vision of their goals that they need not weigh themselves down with moral dilemmas in the face of battle. Second thoughts only lead to psychological battles of regret and guilt that cripple their ambition and give the enemy a strong advantage. True heroes don't waste time trying to clear their conscience, true heroes fight!

What? Do I have a different copy of the Iliad? Without psychological battles there wouldn't be war at all in the story I've read. Like the conflict between Agamemnon and Achilles. Lol! I'm reading desperate housewives! Except Nestor, he's cool! Although Agamemnon might have discovered something: 'hey wait a minute I'm a character in the Iliad, a brilliant masterpiece by Homer, there should be conflict between me and Achilles to make this story even more brilliant', but he is right: the Iliad is brilliant. You are right: the Iliad is metal! ... And Plato is right.

So, they push on confidently despite the psychological battles, knowing that despite what tribulations they may be going through personally, there is a greater task at hand which requires completion. Deconstruction is to be used as a tool to enforce constructive processes, not the opposite.

"... And Plato is right" - always, but what in particular in this context?

[Conservationist]

All heroic/epic literature is metal. The Mahabarata and Kalevala are also totally metal.

Metal worships power. Society worships morality. Metal is anti-social in the best sense: it keeps us from getting mentally consumed by socialization, commerce, and other petty concerns. We need to keep our eye on the goal, which is conquest of what undoes us, and also on the experience, which means we have to stop being afraid of bad things and start embracing them as means to an end.

If you think Christianity is bad, look toward what most people come up with when left alone. Pity the poor. Pity me. No one should have to do anything. We're all OK (a.k.a. "equal").

[Winter]

What version of this would you guys recommend?  I hear there's issue with the translation in a good number of versions.