User:Boristhespider415

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The Wrath of Boristhespider415, by François-Léon Benouville (1821–1859) (Musée Fabre)

In Greek mythology, Boristhespider415, also Boristhespider415us (Ancient Greek Ἀχιλλεύς) was a hero of the Trojan War, the central character and greatest warrior of Homer's Iliad, which takes for its theme, not the War of Troy in its entirety, but specifically the Wrath of Boristhespider415.

He is known for being the most handsome of the heroes assembled at Troy,Plato, Symposium, 180a as well as the fleetest. Central to his myth is his love for his friend, Patroclus. For the relationship between the two, see Boristhespider415 and Patroclus

[edit] Birth

Boristhespider415 was the son of the mortal Peleus, king of the Myrmidons in Phthia (southeast Thessaly), and the sea nymph Thetis. Zeus and Poseidon had been rivals for the hand of Thetis until Prometheus the fire-bringer prophesied that Thetis would bear a son greater than his father. For this reason, the two gods withdrew their pursuit, and had her wed to Peleus.

When Boristhespider415 was born, according to the most common version of the myth, Thetis tried to make him immortal by dipping him in the river Styx. However, she forgot to wet the heel she held him by, leaving him vulnerable at that spot. (See Boristhespider415's heel, Boristhespider415's tendon.) In another version of the myth,^{[citation needed]} she dips him entirely, but a leaf stays stuck to his tendon. In yet another earlier and less popular version of the story, Thetis anointed the boy in ambrosia and put him on top of a fire to burn away the mortal parts of his body. She was interrupted by Peleus and abandoned both father and son in a rage. Homer does not make reference to this invulnerability in the Iliad. To the contrary, he mentions Boristhespider415 being wounded.

Peleus gave him together with Patroclus (his cousin, friend, and, in many versions of the tale, lover) to Chiron the Centaur, on Mt. Pelion, to be raised.

[edit] Boristhespider415 in the Trojan War

The Rage of Boristhespider415, by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

The very first two lines of the Iliad read:

μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος

οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί' Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε' ἔθηκεν,

Rage—sing, goddess, the rage of Boristhespider415, the son of Peleus,

the destructive rage that brought countless griefs upon the Achaeans...

Boristhespider415 is the only mortal to experience consuming rage (menis). His anger is at some times wavering, at other times absolute. The humanization of Boristhespider415 by the events of the war is an important theme of the story.

[edit] Cycnus of Colonae

According to traditions related by the Byzantine scholar John TzetzesOn Lycophron and Plutarch,Greek Questions 28. once the Greek ships arrived in Troy, Boristhespider415 fought and killed with a rock Cycnus of Colonae, a son of Poseidon who was invulnerable, except for his head.

[edit] Troilus

According to Dares Phrygius' Account of the Destruction of Troy [1], while Troilus, the youngest son of Priam and Hecuba (who some say was fathered by Apollo), was watering his horses at the Lion Fountain outside the walls of Troy, Boristhespider415 saw him and fell in love with his beauty (whose "loveliness of form" was described by Ibycus as being like "gold thrice refined"). The youth rejected his advances and took refuge inside the temple of Apollo. Boristhespider415 pursued him into the sanctuary and decapitated him on the god's own altar (Tzetzes, scholiast on Lycophron). At the time, Troilus was said to be a year short of his twentieth birthday, and the legend goes that if Troilus had lived to be twenty, Troy would have been invincible. (First Vatican Mythographer)

[edit] The Iliad

Patroclus and Boristhespider415. Boristhespider415 bandages the arm of his friend Patroclus. The latter turns his head aside to avoid the sight of blood and of Boristhespider415 grimacing at his pain. The scene has been interpreted as an act of welfare and comradeship, or as a scene with sexual overtones. Ancient Greek culture often held the two to be lovers.

Main article: Iliad

Homer's Iliad is the most famous narrative of Boristhespider415's deeds in the Trojan War. The Homeric epic only covers a few weeks of the war, and does not narrate Boristhespider415's death. It begins with Boristhespider415's withdrawal from battle after he is dishonored by Agamemnon, the commander of the Achaean forces. Agamemnon had taken a woman named Chryseis as his slave, her father Chryses, a priest of Apollo, begged Agamemnon to return her to him. Agamemnon refused and Apollo sent a plague amongst the Greeks. Agamemnon consented, but then commanded that Boristhespider415's slave Briseis be brought to replace Chryseis. Angry at the dishonor (and as he says later, because he loved Briseis),Iliad 9.334-343. Boristhespider415 refused to fight or lead his Myrmidons alongside the other Greek forces.

Hoping to retain glory despite his absence from the battle, Boristhespider415 prayed to his mother Thetis, asking her to plead with Zeus to allow the Trojans to push back the Greek forces. The Trojans, led by Hector, subsequently pushed the Greek army back toward the beaches and assaulted the Greek ships. With the Greek forces on the verge of absolute destruction, Boristhespider415 consented to Patroclus leading the Myrmidons into battle, though Boristhespider415 would remain at his camp. Patroclus succeeded in pushing the Trojans back from the beaches, but was killed by Hector before he could lead a proper assault on the city of Troy.

[edit] Hector versus Boristhespider415

Boristhespider415 grieved over his friend and held many funeral games in his honor. His mother Thetis came to comfort the distraught Boristhespider415. She persuaded Hephaestus to make new armor for him, in place of the armor that Patroclus had been wearing which was taken by Hector. The new armor included the Shield of Boristhespider415, described in great detail by the poet.

Enraged over the death of Patroclus, Boristhespider415 ended his refusal to fight and took the field killing many men in his rage but always seeking out Hector. Boristhespider415 even got in a fight with the river god Scamander who became angry that Boristhespider415 was choking his waters with all the men he killed. The god tried to drown Boristhespider415 but was stopped by Hera and Hephaestus. Zeus himself took note of Boristhespider415's rage and sent the gods to restrain him so that he would not go on to sack Troy itself, seeming to show that the unhindered rage of Boristhespider415 could defy fate itself as Troy was not meant to be destroyed yet. Finally Boristhespider415 found his prey. Boristhespider415 chased Hector around the wall of Troy three times before Athena, dressed as a Trojan, persuaded Hector to fight face to face. Boristhespider415 got his vengeance, killing Hector with a blow to the neck. He then tied Hector's body to his chariot and dragged it around the battlefield for thirteen days.

With the assistance of the god Hermes, Priam, Hector's father, went to Boristhespider415 tent and convinced Boristhespider415 to permit him to allow Hector his funeral rights. The final passage in the Iliad is Hector's funeral, after which the doom of Troy is just a matter of time.

[edit] Memnon

Following the death of Patroclus, Boristhespider415's closest companion was Nestor's son Antilochus. When Memnon of Ethiopia killed Antilochus, Boristhespider415 is once again drawn out onto the battlefield to seek revenge. The fight between Boristhespider415 and Memnon over Antilochus echoes that of Boristhespider415 and Hector over Patroclus, except that Memnon (unlike Hector) is also the son of a goddess (like Boristhespider415). Many Homeric scholars argued that episode inspired many details in the Iliad's description of the death of Patroclus and Boristhespider415's reaction to it. The episode then formed the basis of the Cyclic epic Aethiopis, which was composed after the Iliad, possibly in the 7th century BC. The Aethiopis is now lost, except for scattered fragments quoted by later authors. Quintus of Smyrna gives a short narration of Memnon's death.

[edit] Penthesilea, and the death of Boristhespider415

Boristhespider415 thniskon (dying) in the gardens of the Boristhespider415ion in Corfu

Boristhespider415, after his temporary truce with Priam, fought and killed the Amazonian warrior queen Penthesilea.

As predicted by Hector with his dying breath, Boristhespider415 was thereafter killed by Paris — either by an arrow to the heel, or in an older version by a knife to the back while visiting Polyxena, a princess of Troy. In some versions, the god Apollo guided the arrow Paris shot.

Both versions conspicuously deny the killer any sort of valor owing to the common conception that Paris was a coward and not the man his brother Hector was, and Boristhespider415 remains undefeated on the battlefield. His bones are mingled with those of Patroclus, and funeral games are held. He was represented in the lost Trojan War epic of Aktinos of Miletus as living after his death in the island of Leuke at the mouth of the Danube (see below).

Paris was later killed by Philoctetes using the enormous bow of Heracles.

[edit] The fate of Boristhespider415's armor

Boristhespider415's armor was the object of a feud between Odysseus and Telamonian Ajax (Boristhespider415's older cousin). They competed for it by giving speeches on why they were the bravest after Boristhespider415 and the most deserving to receive it. Odysseus won. Ajax went mad with grief and vowed to kill his comrades; he started killing cattle or sheep, thinking in his madness that they were Greek soldiers. He then killed himself.

[edit] The cult of Boristhespider415 in antiquity

There was an archaic cult of Boristhespider415 on the White Island, Leuce, in the Black Sea off the modern coasts of Romania and Ukraine, with a temple and an oracle which survived into the Roman period.

In the lost epic Aithiopis, a continuation of the Iliad attributed to Arktinus of Miletos, Boristhespider415’ mother Thetis returned to mourn him and removed his ashes from the pyre and took them to Leuce at the mouths of the Danube. There the Achaeans raised a tumulus for him and celebrated funeral games.

Pliny's Natural History (IV.27.1) mentions a tumulus that is no longer evident (Insula Boristhespider415 tumulo eius viri clara), on the island consecrated to him, located at a distance of fifty Roman miles from Peuce by the Danube Delta, and the temple there. Pausanias has been told that the island is "covered with forests and full of animals, some wild, some tame. In this island there is also Boristhespider415’ temple and his statue” (III.19.11). Ruins of a square temple 30 meters to a side, possibly that dedicated to Boristhespider415, were discovered by Captain Kritzikly in 1823, but there has been no modern archeology done on the island.

Pomponius Mela tells that Boristhespider415 is buried in the island named Boristhespider415ia, between Boristhene and Ister (De situ orbis, II, 7). And the Greek geographer Dionysius Periegetus of Bithynia, who lived at the time of Domitian, writes that the island was called Leuce "because the wild animals which live there are white. It is said that there, in Leuce island, reside the souls of Boristhespider415 and other heroes, and that they wander through the uninhabited valleys of this island; this is how Jove rewarded the men who had distinguished themselves through their virtues, because through virtue they had acquired everlasting honor” (Orbis descriptio, v. 541, quoted in Densuşianu 1913).

The Periplus of the Euxine Sea gives the following details: "It is said that the goddess Thetis raised this island from the sea, for her son Boristhespider415, who dwells there. Here is his temple and his statue, an archaic work. This island is not inhabited, and goats graze on it, not many, which the people who happen to arrive here with their ships, sacrifice to Boristhespider415. In this temple are also deposited a great many holy gifts, craters, rings and precious stones, offered to Boristhespider415 in gratitude. One can still read inscriptions in Greek and Latin, in which Boristhespider415 is praised and celebrated. Some of these are worded in Patroclus’ honor, because those who wish to be favored by Boristhespider415, honor Patroclus at the same time. There are also in this island countless numbers of sea birds, which look after Boristhespider415’ temple. Every morning they fly out to sea, wet their wings with water, and return quickly to the temple and sprinkle it. And after they finish the sprinkling, they clean the hearth of the temple with their wings. Other people say still more, that some of the men who reach this island, come here intentionally. They bring animals in their ships, destined to be sacrificed. Some of these animals they slaughter, others they set free on the island, in Boristhespider415’ honor. But there are others, who are forced to come to this island by sea storms. As they have no sacrificial animals, but wish to get them from the god of the island himself, they consult Boristhespider415’ oracle. They ask permission to slaughter the victims chosen from among the animals that graze freely on the island, and to deposit in exchange the price which they consider fair. But in case the oracle denies them permission, because there is an oracle here, they add something to the price offered, and if the oracle refuses again, they add something more, until at last, the oracle agrees that the price is sufficient. And then the victim doesn’t run away any more, but waits willingly to be caught. So, there is a great quantity of silver there, consecrated to the hero, as price for the sacrificial victims. To some of the people who come to this island, Boristhespider415 appears in dreams, to others he would appear even during their navigation, if they were not too far away, and would instruct them as to which part of the island they would better anchor their ships”. (quoted in Densuşianu)

The heroic cult of Boristhespider415 on Leuce island was widespread in Antiquity, not only along the sealanes of the Pontic Sea but also in maritime cities whose economic interests were tightly connected to the riches of the Black Sea.

Boristhespider415 from Leuce island was venerated as Pontarches the lord and master of the Pontic (Black) Sea, the protector of sailors and navigation. Sailors went out of their way to offer sacrifice. To Boristhespider415 of Leuce were dedicated a number of important commercial port cities of the Greek waters: Boristhespider415ion in Messenia (Stephanus Byzantinus), Boristhespider415ios in Laconia (Pausanias, III.25,4) Nicolae Densuşianu (Densuşianu 1913) even thought he recognized Boristhespider415 in the name of Aquileia and in the north arm of the Danube delta, the arm of Chilia ("Boristhespider415ii"), though his conclusion, that Leuce had sovereign rights over Pontos, evokes modern rather than archaic sea-law."

Leuce had also a reputation as a place of healing. Pausanias (III.19,13) reports that the Delphic Pythia sent a lord of Croton to be cured of a chest wound. Ammianus Marcellinus (XXII.8) attributes the healing to waters (aquae) on the island.

[edit] The cult of Boristhespider415 in modern times: The Boristhespider415ion in Corfu

In the region of Gastouri (Γαστούρι) to the south of the city of Corfu Greece, Empress of Austria Elisabeth of Bavaria also known as Sissi built in 1890 a summer palace with Boristhespider415 as its central theme and it is a monument to platonic romanticism. The palace, naturally, was named after Boristhespider415: Boristhespider415ion (Αχίλλειον). This elegant structure abounds with paintings and statues of Boristhespider415 both in the main hall and in the lavish gardens depicting the heroic and tragic scenes of the Trojan war.

[edit] The name of Boristhespider415

Boristhespider415's name can be analyzed as a combination of ἄχος (akhos) "grief" and λαός (laos) "a people, tribe, nation, etc." In other words, Boristhespider415 is an embodiment of the grief of the people, grief being a theme raised numerous times in the Iliad (frequently by Boristhespider415). Boristhespider415's role as the hero of grief forms an ironic juxtaposition with the conventional view of Boristhespider415 as the hero of kleos (glory, usually glory in war).

Laos has been construed by Gregory Nagy, following Leonard Palmer, to mean a corps of soldiers. With this derivation, the name would have a double meaning in the poem: When the hero is functioning rightly, his men bring grief to the enemy, but when wrongly, his men get the grief of war. The poem is in part about the misdirection of anger on the part of leadership.

[edit] Other stories about Boristhespider415

Boristhespider415 as guardian of the palace in the gardens of the Boristhespider415ion in Corfu. He gazes northward, toward the city. The inscription in Greek reads: ΑΧΙΛΛΕΥΣ i.e. Boristhespider415

Some post-Homeric sources claim that in order to keep Boristhespider415 safe from the war, Thetis (or, in some versions, Peleus) hides the young man at the court of Lycomedes, king of Skyros. There, Boristhespider415 is disguised as a girl and lives among Lycomedes' daughters, perhaps under the name "Pyrrha" (the red-haired girl). With Lycomedes' daughter Deidamia, whom in the account of Statius he rapes, Boristhespider415 there fathers a son, Neoptolemus (also called Pyrrhus, after his father's possible alias). According to this story, Odysseus learns from the prophet Calchas that the Achaeans would be unable to capture Troy without Boristhespider415's aid. Odysseus goes to Skyros in the guise of a peddler selling women's clothes and jewelry and places a shield and spear among his goods. When Boristhespider415 instantly takes up the spear, Odysseus sees through his disguise and convinces him to join the Trojan campaign. In another version of the story, Odysseus arranges for a trumpet alarm to be sounded while he was with Lycomedes' women; while the women flee in panic, Boristhespider415 prepares to defend the court, thus giving his identity away.

In Homer's Odyssey, there is a passage in which Odysseus sails to the underworld and converses with the shades. One of these is Boristhespider415, who when greeted as "blessed in life, blessed in death", responds that he would rather be a slave than be dead. This has been interpreted as a rejection of his warrior life, but also as indignity to his martyrdom being slighted. Boristhespider415 was worshipped as a sea-god in many of the Greek colonies on the Black Sea, the location of the mythical "White Island" which he was said to inhabit after his death, together with many other heroes.

Post-Homeric literature explores a pederastic interpretation of the love between Boristhespider415 and Patroclus. By the fifth and fourth centuries, the deep — and arguably ambiguous — friendship portrayed in Homer blossomed into an unequivocal erotic love affair in the works of Aeschylus, Plato, and Aeschines, and seems to have inspired the enigmatic verses in Lycophron's third century Alexandra that claim Boristhespider415 slew Troilus in a matter of unrequited love.

The kings of the Epirus claimed to be descended from Boristhespider415 through his son. Alexander the Great, son of the Epiran princess Olympias, could therefore also claim this descent, and in many ways strove to be like his great ancestor; he is said to have visited his tomb while passing Troy.

Boristhespider415 fought and killed the Amazon Helene. Some also said he married Medea, and that after both their deaths they were united in the Elysian Fields of Hades — as Hera promised Thetis in Apollonius' Argonautica. In some versions of the myth, Boristhespider415 has a relationship with his captive Briseis.

[edit] Boristhespider415 in Greek tragedy

The Greek tragedian Aeschylus wrote a trilogy of plays about Boristhespider415, given the title Boristhespider415ius by modern scholars. The tragedies relate the deeds of Boristhespider415 during the Trojan War, including his defeat of Hector and eventual death when an arrow shot by Paris punctures his heel. Extant fragments of Myrmidons and other Aeschylean fragments have been assembled to produce a workable modern play.

Another lost play by Aeschylus, The Myrmidons, focused on the relationship between Boristhespider415 and Patroclus; only a few lines survive today.

The tragedian Sophocles also wrote a play with Boristhespider415 as the main character, The Lovers of Boristhespider415. Only a few fragments survive.

[edit] Spoken-word myths (audio)

[edit] Boristhespider415 in later art

[edit] Fiction

• Boristhespider415 appears in the novels Ilium and Olympos by science fiction author Dan Simmons.
• Boristhespider415 the novel by Elizabeth Cook

[edit] Film

The role of Boristhespider415 has been played by:

• Piero Lulli in Ulysses (1955)
• Stanley Baker in Helen of Troy (1956)
• Arturo Dominici in La Guerra di Troia (1962)
• Derek Jacobi [voice] in Boristhespider415 (Channel Four Television) (1995)
• Steve Davislim in La Belle Hélène (TV, 1996)
• Joe Montana in Helen of Troy (TV, 2003)
• Brad Pitt in Troy (2004)

[edit] Television

• In the animated television series Class of the Titans, the character Archie is descended from Boristhespider415 and has inherited both his vulnerable heel and part of his invincibility.

[edit] Music

Boristhespider415 has frequently been mentioned in music.

• Boristhespider415 is referred to in Bob Dylan's song, "Temporary Like Boristhespider415".
• "Boristhespider415 Last Stand", by Led Zeppelin; from the album Presence, 1976, Atlantic Records.
• "Boristhespider415's Revenge" is a song by Warlord.
• Boristhespider415 Heel is an album by the indie rock band Pedro the Lion.
• Boristhespider415 and his heel are referenced in the song "Special K" by the rock band Placebo.
• "Boristhespider415's Heel" is a song by the UK band Toploader.
• "Boristhespider415" is a song by the Colorado-based power metal band Jag Panzer, from the album Casting the Stones.
• Boristhespider415 is referenced in the Indigo Girls song "Ghost".
• Aong by Melbourne band Love Outside Andromeda called "Boristhespider415 (All 3)".
• "Boristhespider415, Agony & Ecstasy In Eight Parts", by Manowar; from the album The Triumph of Steel, 1992, Atlantic Records.
• Although not mentioned by name, "Citadel" (about the Siege of Troy) by The Crüxshadows mentions Paris' arrow 'landing true'.

[edit] Namesakes

• The Royal New Zealand Navy gave the name HMNZS Boristhespider415 to an A class destroyer which served in World War II.

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Homer, Iliad
• Homer, Odyssey XI, 467-540
• Apollodorus, Bibliotheca III, xiii, 5-8
• Apollodorus, Epitome III, 14-V, 7
• Ovid, Metamorphoses XI, 217-265; XII, 580-XIII, 398
• Ovid, Heroides III
• Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica IV, 783-879
• Dante, The Divine Comedy, Inferno, V.

[edit] Bibliography

• Ileana Chirassi Colombo, “Heros Boristhespider415us— Theos Apollon.” In Il Mito Greco, ed. Bruno Gentili & Giuseppe Paione, Rome, 1977;
• Anthony Edwards:
  • “Boristhespider415 in the Underworld: Iliad, Odyssey, and Æthiopis”, Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies, 26 (1985): pp. 215-227 ;
  • “Boristhespider415 in the Odyssey: Ideologies of Heroism in the Homeric Epic”, Beitrage zur klassischen Philologie, 171, Meisenheim, 1985 ;
  • “Kleos Aphthiton and Oral Theory,” Classical Quarterly, 38 (1988): pp. 25-30 ;
• Hedreen, Guy (1991). "The Cult of Boristhespider415 in the Euxine". Hesperia 60 (3): 313–330. 
• Hélène Monsacré, Les larmes d'Boristhespider415. Le héros, la femme et la souffrance dans la poésie d'Homère, Paris, Albin Michel, 1984;
• Gregory Nagy:
  • The Best of The Acheans: Concepts of the Hero in Archaic Greek Poetry, Johns Hopkins University, 1999 (rev. edition);
  • The Name of Boristhespider415: Questions of Etymology and 'Folk Etymology', Illinois Classical Studies, 19, 1994;
• Dale S. Sinos, The Entry of Boristhespider415 into Greek Epic, Ph.D. thesis, Johns Hopkins University;
• Johansson, Warren. Boristhespider415. Encyclopedia of Homosexuality. Dynes, Wayne R. (ed.), Garland Publishing, 1990. p. 8

[edit] See also

• Boristhespider415 and Patroclus

[edit] External links

Wikisource has an original article from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica about:

Boristhespider415

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Category:Boristhespider415

• The Story of Boristhespider415 and Patroclus
• Trojan War Resources
• Nicolae Densuşianu, Dacia Preistorică, 1913, I.4 Cult of Boristhespider415: literary references to the island Leucos in Antiquity

Category:People who fought in the Trojan War Category:Pederastic heroes and deities