War music Book

As the subtitle of War Music tells us, this is not so much a translation as a modern poetic reworking of parts of the Iliad, and as such it stands as a great, if incomplete, literary masterwork in its own right.

I've just re-read it as part of my preparation for a group read of Emily Wilson's The Odyssey in March, and was struck anew by its breath-taking imagery, which taps into the modern as well as the classical world, especially in the imagery of warfare and armaments. One of the most vivid of these images for me comes in this passage as the Greek army prepares for war after the death of Patroclus:
'Now I shall ask you to imagine how
Men under discipline of death prepare for war.
There is much more to it than armament,
And kicks from those who could not catch an hour's sleep
Waking the ones who dozed like rows of spoons;
Or those with everything to lose, the kings,
Asleep like pistols in red velvet.'

Here it's the 'kings asleep like pistols in red velvet' that made me stop and look at what the image might signify. The pistols I see are set on a hair trigger, ready to spring, inlaid and burnished, with a massive kick-back and slow to reload. Beautiful and dangerous to user and opponent.

Immediately after this passage comes a reflection on the temporary equality of warriors - at this remove what I read as a terrible indictment of greed and war:
'Moments like these absolve the needs dividing men.
Whatever caught and brought and kept them here
Is lost: and for a while they join a terrible equality,
Are virtuous, self-sacrificing, free:
And so insidious is this liberty
That those surviving it will bear
An even greater servitude to its root:
Believing they were whole while they were whole, while they were brave;
That they were rich, because their loot was great;
That war was meaningful, because they lost their friends.'

One thing I particularly want to note this time is the device Logue uses to symbolise the dehumanisation of women. Apart from the principal, named queens and princesses (eg Helen, Hecuba, Briseis) all women are referred to as shes. War captives, slaves, the women to whom men feel entitled in whatever capacity they choose, are shes. They are part of the loot the men claim and share, not people.

Achilles, who withdrew from the war because Agamemnon had taken his captive tribute she, Briseis, complains to Odysseus who has been sent to persuade back into the fighting:

'King,
I have been a fool. The bliss self-righteousness provokes
Addled my mind.'
Odysseus nods.
'Remembering my given she,
It would have been far better for us both
If Artemis had pinned her dead.'

So even Briseis is really just a she, and the deaths of many Greek men would have been avoided if Briseis had been killed instead of fought over.

Achilles eventually agrees to resume the fight, to make peace with Agamemnon as long as Agamemnon reciprocates.

We could see this as a summary of treaties immemorial, created from 'mouthfuls of soft air' and often as fleeting.

'Ever since men began in time, time and
Time again they met in parliaments,
Where, in due turn, letting the next man speak,
With mouthfuls of soft air they tried to stop
Themselves from ravening their talking throats;
Hoping enunciated airs would fall
With verisimilitude in different minds,
And bring some concord to those minds; only soft air
Between the hatred human animals
Monotonously bear towards themselves.
No work was more regarded in our times,
And nothing failed so often. Knowing this,
The army came to hear Achilles say:
'Pax, Agamemnon.' And Agamemnon's: 'Pax'.'

Highly recommended.