The climax of the fighting in the Iliad is now approaching. Patroklos is about to enter the war, and the Will of Zeus is about to be fulfilled.

Ajax defending the ships of the Greeks. After a drawing by John Flaxman. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

When gods swear by the waters of the underworld river Styx, as the goddess Hērā does here, I.15.037, their oath must be irrevocable and therefore absolute. The basis for the absoluteness of the oath is the absolute imperishability of the material substance that has been chosen as the basis for the oath. That substance is the water of this river. And the imperishability is signaled by the adjective aphthito- ‘imperishable’, which is actually used as the epithet of the Stygian waters at Hesiod Theogony 805. Further, aphthito- ‘imperishable’ at Hesiod Theogony 397 is the epithet of Styx as a personified female divinity. On the epithet aphthito- ‘imperishable, unwilting’, see the comments on I.02.325, where further attestations are also cited.

Zeus here reaffirms what he wishes or wills, that is, he reaffirms his plan. And this Plan of Zeus, which is the wish or Will of Zeus, will be coextensive with the plot or narrative arc of the Iliad, starting with the original promise of Zeus to Thetis at the beginning of the epic, at I.01.524–530. What the god had then promised, that he will honor Achilles by letting the Achaeans lose until the fire of Hector reaches their beached ships, had been signaled when Zeus originally nodded his head at I.01.524–530. Now at I.15.075 Zeus refers again to this nodding of his head as he briefly retells the plot or narrative arc extending from the time of inception, which was the time when he had originally nodded. That narrative arc now extends not only to the present time of his retelling but also into a future time that has not yet been narrated in the Iliad: within this time-frame of future events, Poseidon will stop interfering on behalf of the Achaeans, I.15.056–058, and then Hector will be re-energized by Apollo and will thus stop the present momentum of the Achaeans, chasing them back to their beached ships, I.15.059–064, and then Achilles will send out Patroklos to stop the Trojans, I.15.064–065, and then Patroklos will be killed by Hector, I.15.065—but not before Patroklos himself kills many heroes fighting on the Trojan side, I.15.066–067, and among those killed heroes will be Sarpedon, who is the son of Zeus himself, I.15.067—and then, to top it all off, Achilles will experience anger [kholos] over the killing of Patroklos by Hector and will kill Hector, I.15.068. In the course of this almost breathlessly rapid retelling of the plot by Zeus, the foretelling of events yet to happen touches on the upcoming drama of the god’s personal loss of Sarpedon, who is his own human son. But the drama of this divine loss is still being elided for the moment, since Zeus at present is saying only that Sarpedon will be killed by Patroklos. The god is not yet saying that Sarpedon is his own beloved son. But that is not all. All has not yet been retold, even at this point, at I.15.068, which signals the killing of Hector by Achilles. The god’s retelling of the plot in the form of a foretelling is not yet completed at this point. The retelling by Zeus continues even further, starting with I.15.069: after Achilles kills Hector, Zeus will plan to bring about a reversal for the Trojans, who will now be driven back from the beached ships that they had threatened to destroy under Hector’s leadership, and the story of this paliōxis ‘driving back’, I.15.069, is described in the god’s wording as if it were some kind of an artifact that Zeus himself has fashioned in the mode of an artisan: the key word is teukhein ‘make-as-an-artisan’ (τεύχοιμι), I.15.070, which takes the noun paliōxis ‘driving back’ as its direct object, I.15.069. After this story of the paliōxis ‘driving back’, fashioned by Zeus in the mode of some divine artisan who creates the story by narrating the story, there will be a relentlessly consequential narrative that will lead all the way to the very end, which is, the destruction of Troy, I.15.070–071. This ending, however, extends beyond the time-frame that will be narrated in the Iliad. And such an ending, perhaps surprisingly, is said by Zeus to result from the boulai ‘plans’ of the god’s divine daughter, the goddess Athena, I.15.071 (Ἀθηναίης διὰ βουλάς). Why does Zeus speak here about the plans of Athena, as if they were not his own plans? It is because the plans of the goddess are by implication coextensive with the plans of her divine father as well. But Zeus is not yet finished with the announcement of his plan. Having indicated the outer limit of the epic plotline, which is the destruction of Troy at I.15.071, Zeus now returns to the present, indicating how it will extend into the immediate future of the Iliad. I will not cease my anger [kholos] against the Achaeans, the god declares at I.15.072, and I will not let any other god intervene on their behalf, I.15.073, until the wish of Achilles is fulfilled, I.15.074. That wish, as we already know, is that the Achaeans will keep losing until the fire of Hector reaches their beached ships. But Zeus here does not repeat the wording of that wish, even though he has promised to make the wish happen. Instead, he simply declares that he had made for Achilles a promise by way of nodding his divine head, I.15.075, and that this promise had been formulated for him by Thetis, the mother of Achilles, I.15.076–077. What Zeus had promised, the god says, was that Achilles should be ‘given honor’, as expressed by the verb tīmân, I.15.077 (τιμῆσαι).

The god Apollo is about to be engaged here in the act of en-pneîn ‘breathing into’ the hero Hector something called menos ‘mental power’, I.15.060. See the comment on I.15.262.

The rapid retelling by way of foretelling here, starting from the time when Achilles will send forth Patroklos to stop the attack of the Trojans and continuing all the way to the time when Troy will be destroyed by the Achaeans, is a compressed narration that extends beyond the narrative arc of the Iliad as we know it. The outlines of such a compressed epic narrative, formulated here as the Plan of Zeus, resemble what we see in the surviving plot-summaries of the epic Cycle. On the epic Cycle, see the inventory of Words and Ideas. The narrative as narrated here by the god Zeus himself shows “the bare outlines of distinct phases in the development of the Iliad as a composition subject to ongoing recomposition-in-performance” (HTL 83).

The use of the word boulai ‘plans’ at I.15.071 (Ἀθηναίης διὰ βουλάς) conveys not only the idea of Athena’s divine planning as a prime motivation for the overall epic plotline but also the idea of intelligence as a prime characteristic of this goddess (see BA 24). On connotations of intelligence by way of the word boulē in the sense of ‘planning’, see the comments on I.10.043–052, to be supplemented by the comments on I.11.200 and on I.11.627.

analysis of the moment Achilles sends Patroklos to fight (i.e. whether it is when he relents), here, with regard to Zeus’ prediction of Patroklos’ death

analysis of the moment Achilles sends Patroklos to fight (i.e. whether it is when he relents), here, with regard to Zeus’ prediction of Patroklos’ death