Please forgive if I’m being a pest… This speech of Hector’s also caught my eye in book 7, though for me it was his stress on stripping armor that seemed remarkable.
Armor (τεῦχος) comes up a lot in the first part of this book. During the duel, the narrator takes the trouble to tell us how Menelaus put on, then removed his armor; then we’re told that Aias puts his on. (Are we ever told, by the way, why they had their armor off in the first place?)
Armor is a theme of Nestor’s speech: how Lycourgos stripped the armor from Areithoos and then gave it to his henchman Ereuthalion, whom Nestor defeated as a young man.
Also, these mentions of stripping armor come a book after Diomedes and Glaukos have so dramatically exchanged theirs in token of friendship.
Prospectively the theme of armor resonates with Patroclus using Achilles’ armor and the fight over it once he is slain — and this speech, in which Hector emphasizes the importance of returning the body of the fallen, both reminds us of what is to happen to his own corpse, and resonates with the end of book 7 itself, where they have a truce to collect bodies. (We’re lead to think that when a warrior is killed he becomes these two things, a corpse and armor, as opposed to say body and soul).
I am so very curious about the two duels, in 3 and 7, which are such obvious book ends, so ripe for contrast but what are we to take from it? As you say, this second duel is much more meaningless and futile than the first, which latter might have really ended the war had the gods not interfered and whisked Paris off. This second duel the gods were responsible for, but there were no stakes — honor and armor is all. Neither single combat nor a negotiated settlement will solve this conflict.
Something I noticed about the duel between Ajax and Hector, pertaining to armor: they attack each other three times a piece — a cast spear, a jabbed spear, and a thrown stone — and none are misses or, say, glancing blows from the helmet; but *each time* Aias’ shield is hit and *resists* the attack, and Hector’s shield is hit and *compromised* by the attack, until finally the stone thrown by Aias causes Hector’s shield to crumple in on itself entirely. What does that suggest?
Also notable is that Aias wounds Hector in the neck in this passage, which is where Achilles later wounds him. If this is how Hector fares against the Achaean’s *second* best, we’re lead to wonder, how is he likely to fare against the first?
Please forgive if I’m being a pest… This speech of Hector’s also caught my eye in book 7, though for me it was his stress on stripping armor that seemed remarkable.
Armor (τεῦχος) comes up a lot in the first part of this book. During the duel, the narrator takes the trouble to tell us how Menelaus put on, then removed his armor; then we’re told that Aias puts his on. (Are we ever told, by the way, why they had their armor off in the first place?)
Armor is a theme of Nestor’s speech: how Lycourgos stripped the armor from Areithoos and then gave it to his henchman Ereuthalion, whom Nestor defeated as a young man.
Also, these mentions of stripping armor come a book after Diomedes and Glaukos have so dramatically exchanged theirs in token of friendship.
Prospectively the theme of armor resonates with Patroclus using Achilles’ armor and the fight over it once he is slain — and this speech, in which Hector emphasizes the importance of returning the body of the fallen, both reminds us of what is to happen to his own corpse, and resonates with the end of book 7 itself, where they have a truce to collect bodies. (We’re lead to think that when a warrior is killed he becomes these two things, a corpse and armor, as opposed to say body and soul).
I am so very curious about the two duels, in 3 and 7, which are such obvious book ends, so ripe for contrast but what are we to take from it? As you say, this second duel is much more meaningless and futile than the first, which latter might have really ended the war had the gods not interfered and whisked Paris off. This second duel the gods were responsible for, but there were no stakes — honor and armor is all. Neither single combat nor a negotiated settlement will solve this conflict.
Something I noticed about the duel between Ajax and Hector, pertaining to armor: they attack each other three times a piece — a cast spear, a jabbed spear, and a thrown stone — and none are misses or, say, glancing blows from the helmet; but *each time* Aias’ shield is hit and *resists* the attack, and Hector’s shield is hit and *compromised* by the attack, until finally the stone thrown by Aias causes Hector’s shield to crumple in on itself entirely. What does that suggest?
Also notable is that Aias wounds Hector in the neck in this passage, which is where Achilles later wounds him. If this is how Hector fares against the Achaean’s *second* best, we’re lead to wonder, how is he likely to fare against the first?