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Ethos
Book 2
Explanation and Analysis—Bird Signs:
Throughout the Iliad, the mortals interpret the movement of birds as omens from Zeus. These omens—one of which appears in a flashback—serve to foreshadow the end of the narrative and the outcome of the war. Through the motif of bird signs, Homer emphasizes the mortal characters' powerlessness over their fates.
In Book 2, Odysseus looks back on one of the days before they set out towards Troy. He describes the Achaean forces "milling round" and making sacrifices, "when a great omen appeared." Odysseus develops the flashback in great detail: first, a snake slides up a tree and gulps up eight baby sparrows and their mother; then, the snake turns to stone. According to Odysseus, it was Zeus who "sent the serpent forth" and "turned him into a sign." He then goes on to quote Calchas's interpretation of the omen:
As the snake devoured the sparrow with her brood,
eight and the mother made the ninth, she’d borne them all,
so we will fight in Troy that many years and then,
then in the tenth we’ll take her broad streets.’
Through Odysseus's flashback, Homer provides the reader with essential context and foreshadows later events. It becomes clear that the Achaeans have persisted with their siege of Troy in large part because of this omen. Since the narrative opens in the war's ninth year, the reader grows certain that the next few books will contain major developments. In the flashback, Homer also establishes the importance of bird signs—a motif that will resurface later in the story.
The reader recalls Calchas's omen in Book 12, when "a fatal bird-sign" flashes before the Trojans: this time an eagle clutching a serpent. When the serpent bites the eagle, the eagle drops the serpent to the earth and "[veers] off along the gusting wind." Like Odysseus in his flashback, the Trojans are immediately certain that this is "a sign from storming Zeus." While Achaeans interpreted their bird sign as a favorable omen, this bird sign makes the Trojans shudder. This time Polydamas serves as interpreter:
All will end as the omen says, I do believe,
if the bird-sign really came to us, the Trojans,
just as our fighters tried to cross the trench.
That eagle flying high on the left across our front,
clutching this bloody serpent in both its talons,
still alive—but he let the monster drop at once,
before he could sweep it back to his own home ...
he never fed his nestlings in the end. Nor will we.
This scene offers insight into the elusive ways in which the immortals communicate with mortals. While the fighters know that the outcome of the war is in the hands of Zeus, they have to rely on vague signs to glean how they're doing. Not everyone bows down to the omens and the conception of fate that underlie them, however. Hector refuses to let the bird sign make him complacent. Even if he's long since accepted that the war will bring the fall of Troy and his own death, he rejects Polydamas's sentence: "Bird-signs! Fight for your country—that is the best, the only omen!"
Related Themes:
Book 12
Explanation and Analysis—Bird Signs:
Throughout the Iliad, the mortals interpret the movement of birds as omens from Zeus. These omens—one of which appears in a flashback—serve to foreshadow the end of the narrative and the outcome of the war. Through the motif of bird signs, Homer emphasizes the mortal characters' powerlessness over their fates.
In Book 2, Odysseus looks back on one of the days before they set out towards Troy. He describes the Achaean forces "milling round" and making sacrifices, "when a great omen appeared." Odysseus develops the flashback in great detail: first, a snake slides up a tree and gulps up eight baby sparrows and their mother; then, the snake turns to stone. According to Odysseus, it was Zeus who "sent the serpent forth" and "turned him into a sign." He then goes on to quote Calchas's interpretation of the omen:
As the snake devoured the sparrow with her brood,
eight and the mother made the ninth, she’d borne them all,
so we will fight in Troy that many years and then,
then in the tenth we’ll take her broad streets.’
Through Odysseus's flashback, Homer provides the reader with essential context and foreshadows later events. It becomes clear that the Achaeans have persisted with their siege of Troy in large part because of this omen. Since the narrative opens in the war's ninth year, the reader grows certain that the next few books will contain major developments. In the flashback, Homer also establishes the importance of bird signs—a motif that will resurface later in the story.
The reader recalls Calchas's omen in Book 12, when "a fatal bird-sign" flashes before the Trojans: this time an eagle clutching a serpent. When the serpent bites the eagle, the eagle drops the serpent to the earth and "[veers] off along the gusting wind." Like Odysseus in his flashback, the Trojans are immediately certain that this is "a sign from storming Zeus." While Achaeans interpreted their bird sign as a favorable omen, this bird sign makes the Trojans shudder. This time Polydamas serves as interpreter:
All will end as the omen says, I do believe,
if the bird-sign really came to us, the Trojans,
just as our fighters tried to cross the trench.
That eagle flying high on the left across our front,
clutching this bloody serpent in both its talons,
still alive—but he let the monster drop at once,
before he could sweep it back to his own home ...
he never fed his nestlings in the end. Nor will we.
This scene offers insight into the elusive ways in which the immortals communicate with mortals. While the fighters know that the outcome of the war is in the hands of Zeus, they have to rely on vague signs to glean how they're doing. Not everyone bows down to the omens and the conception of fate that underlie them, however. Hector refuses to let the bird sign make him complacent. Even if he's long since accepted that the war will bring the fall of Troy and his own death, he rejects Polydamas's sentence: "Bird-signs! Fight for your country—that is the best, the only omen!"
Related Themes:
