Fate

• B1 - Athene prevents Achilles from killing Agamemnon


  “Athene stood behind Achilles and seized him by is auburn hair”
• B3 - Aphrodite rescues Paris 


  “… and broke the strap made of leather… the helmet came away empty”
• B3 - Aphrodite orders Helen to go to Paris


  “obstinate wrench! don‘t get on the wrong side of me…”

  “Helen, child of Zeus, was terrified”
• B4 - Athene tells Pandarus to shoot at Menelaus 


  “you would cover yourself in glory and put every trojan in your debt” -> example of kleos
• B4 -Athene protects Menelaus 


  “like a mother brushing away a fly from her gently sleeping child” -> (divine intervention) as if the arrow is nothing - Immortality v mortality
• B16 - zeus does not save sarpedon 


  Hera argues why should Zeus change fate if the other gods cannot

  
  

  -> “Are you proposing to reprieve from the pains of death Mortal man whose destiny has long been settled?”

  
  

  ->Shows that even gods have to follow fate
• Achilles has to choose between ”two fates”: 1. To be a hero and die, or 2. To be a coward and live. Achilles chooses to die and be remembered honourably (importance of Kleos to heroes)
• SCHOLAR OPINION: Gregory Nagy - fate is not a moral force but rather an ”impersonal and inescapable power”
• SCHOLAR OPINION: Bernard Knox - fate is a means in which homer explores “the limitations of human agency” -> characters must navigate their actions within these constraints