Briseis Puns

(Yes, I know that I'm theorizing about millenia old works instead of studying for my classics final. Stop judging me.)

In the Iliad, when Menelaus takes away Achilles's war bride, Briseis, Achilles loses his absolute shit. He refuses to fight, refuses to allow him men to fight, and has his mother Thetis ask Zeus to make the Greeks lose without him. Achilles's explanation for this is that Agamemnon insulted his honor, and that he loves Briseis. However, when Agamemnon publicly apologizes, and offers the return of Briseis alongside mountains of treasure, Achilles refuses. That's a bit odd if all he cared about was his honor, and it certainly shows he didn't love her that much. In fact, Achilles then announces that he'll be leaving, which will mean Zeus kills the entire Greek army, and also will lead to Achilles having a shameful and pathetic life (due to prophecy shit). Why get so spiteful over a girl he didn't care about?

Achilles became so enraged because Agamemnon seizing Briseis triggered a flashback to one of the most painful moments of his life, seeing Iphigenia killed.

A bit of context: Iphigenia was Agamemnon's teenage daughter, who had to be sacrificed in order to allow the Greek fleet to sail to Troy. A young Achilles (only about 15-16) was horrified by this, and made a passionate speech to the Greek army, trying to rouse them in her defense by speaking of honor and virtue. They then try to kill him. Achilles was prepared to die in order to defend her, but in the end, he was forced to watch helplessly as Agamemnon's men lead her away to her death.

And what causes Achilles to flip his shit in the Iliad? Watching Agamemnon's men take a girl he'd sworn to defend away from him, while he watched powerlessly. Iphigenia's death was the moment Achilles lost his innocence and joy for war. He'd grown up hearing songs about these mighty, noble heroes: Ajax, Nestor, Odysseus... and then watched them all casually agree to slaughter a 14 year old girl so that they could go wage a pointless war and get some gold. Worse, Achilles was implicated in the murder, since Agamemnon lured Iphigenia there by promising she'd be married to Achilles. Then, about a decade later, Agamemnon tries to pull the exact same shit again.

Edit: Just remembered that when Agamemnon tries to apologize, what does he do? Offers his second daughter in marriage to Achilles. If Achilles wasn't already convinced, that pushed him over the edge.

i finished reading the whole book and im confused about their relationship. Answers would be very much appreciated

After a heated discussion about who deserves the prizes, on p.14 Achilles just LETS Agamemnon’s henchmen take his prize (Briseis) from him with no attempt to stop them.

He complains on the next page to the gods that Agamemnon stole her by force, but he LET her be taken.

I was just wondering why that was?

Any insights will be helpful. Thanks!

P.S: Sorry if I have used the wrong flair.

You know, before I remembered that Mr. Benioff write the screenplay for Troy (one of my favorite movies), I was mentally comparing Briseis (the priestess who became Achilles’ lover) to Brienne.

Neither woman ever expected to be with any man.

Yet both were seduced by men who were both hero and villain.

At the end of Troy, when Achilles dies, Briseis is crying over him and Achilles says to her... it’s beautiful ...”You gave me peace in a lifetime of war.”

Brienne may not get the chance to be with Jaime as he dies, but I am positive he would say the exact same thing.

Jaime knew, on some level, he was doomed, just like Achilles did. But the time spent with Brienne wasn’t wasted. In fact, just the opposite. It was all that was truly good and beautiful in his life... Brienne was Jaime’s escape from a life troubled by endless conflict.

I just hope Brienne figures that out if Jaime doesn’t get to tell her.

But I think, if I can look at it that way, I can be happy for Jaime when he dies and the war - his war - finally ends. And I can be happy for Brienne, who had a few nights of something magical to remember as she marched on.

A moment or two of magic in this life is worth a hell of a lot more than a lifetime of nothing special.

I just finished 'The Silence of the Girls' by Pat Barker and can not get over how I feel about the name now. It's pronounced Bri-SAY-iss, but I also saw one that was Bri-SAY-ees and I really like both. What are your thoughts on it as well as any other Iliad-related or mythological names?

> And the woman went with them unwillingly:

(When Agamemnon's two servants take her from Achilles's cabin.)

In this sentence the poet treats Briseis differently than he treated her and Chryseis in the first 347 lines of the poem:

1. Briseis is called woman (γυνὴ), whereas until now neither she nor Chryseis were called so. In fact Chryseis was called in relation to her father daughter/child (θυγάτηρ, παῖς), and both she and Briseis were called gift of honor (γέρας) and when the men bothered to speak of them as human beings, they called them simply maiden (κόρη). But now the poet, Homer himself, calls one of the slave-girls (when the other one isn't a slave anymore) woman, in relation to herself, not to her male masters.

2. Homer explicitly tells us that Briseis went with Agamemnon's two servants against her wishes (ἀέκων). But wait a mintute: she's a slave! and moreover a female, in times that women were kinda like cattle. Why did Homer bother to tell us about her feelings? I think pre-modern/ancient texts about marrying and selling of women by their fathers or masters usually did not bother to tell the reader about the woman's wishes.

Maybe the clause in line 348 came in order to defy against men's treatment of women as property?

I interpret Homer so that the two captive maidens Chryseis and Briseis aren't very much characters by themselves but allegorical characters:

Chryseis represents physical immortality and divinity whereas Briseis represents a great honor.

Here's my analysis:

1. Agamemnon wants to have Chryseis in his home but the god Apollo quickly forces him to give her up: Agamemnon politically is almost a god: he's a pretty powerful king with many allies that are his subordinates de-facto and yet, he's a mere mortal and cannot attain godhood, and this is symbolized by the fact that a god easily defeats him. Chryseis is really the divinity he desires to have but hasn't.

2. Agamemnon, while grieving over Chryseis, decides to take a captive-girl of one of his following three less powerful (politically) allies: Achilles, Ajax or Oddyseus: The stolen captive he wants to get is really the honor he "steals" from his vassals. As an attempt to compensate himself for his inability to be an immortal god, Agamemnon allows himself too much even for a high king and treats his allies with pompousness and doesn't give them the honor they deserve for their important role in the war: he feels that even though he isn't a god, he must be worshipped as a god by other humans. What is called "inferiority complex".

3. Achilles comes to know from Agamemnon's speech that there is a good chance his captive Briseis will be taken from him, and he doesn't like it and thinks to leave the war for good: Achilles sees that he doesn't get from Agamemnon, and maybe from the other Achaean lords, his due honor as the strongest fighter, and he feels there is a chance the war won't give him the honor he so much desires, that is his whole reason for coming to fight in Troy at the first place. So why to stay and not to live the comfortable life in his father's palace?

4. When Achilles declares he's going back to Phthia, Agamemnon in response declares that it's his final decision to take the captive woman not from Ajax nor from Oddyseus but from him, as a punishment: Briseis is the honor Achilles so much desired all his life to have, but cannot be attained but by participating in a great war. As long as Achilles was in Troy as a warrior, there was still a vague chance that someday Agamemnon and the rest of the Achaeans will recognize how much a hero he is, even though that day has to come yet (represented in Iliad by the chance that Agamemnon would take Ajax's or Oddyseus's slave girl instead of his). But at

You know, before I remembered that Mr. Benioff write the screenplay for Troy (one of my favorite movies), I was mentally comparing Briseis (the priestess who became Achilles’ lover) to Brienne.

Neither woman ever expected to be with any man.

Yet both were seduced by men who were both hero and villain.

At the end of Troy, when Achilles dies, Briseis is crying over him and Achilles says to her... it’s beautiful ...”You gave me peace in a lifetime of war.”

Brienne may not get the chance to be with Jaime as he dies, but I am positive he would say the exact same thing.

Jaime knew, on some level, he was doomed, just like Achilles did. But the time spent with Brienne wasn’t wasted. In fact, just the opposite. It was all that was truly good and beautiful in his life... Brienne was Jaime’s escape from a life troubled by endless conflict.

I just hope Brienne figures that out if Jaime doesn’t get to tell her.

But I think, if I can look at it that way, I can be happy for Jaime when he dies and the war - his war - finally ends. And I can be happy for Brienne, who had a few nights of something magical to remember as she marched on.

A moment or two of magic in this life is worth a hell of a lot more than a lifetime of nothing special.

> And the woman went with them unwillingly:

(When Agamemnon's two servants take her from Achilles's cabin.)

In this sentence the poet treats Briseis differently than he treated her and Chryseis in the first 347 lines of the poem:

1. Briseis is called woman (γυνὴ), whereas until now neither she nor Chryseis were called so. In fact Chryseis was called in relation to her father daughter/child (θυγάτηρ, παῖς), and both she and Briseis were called gift of honor (γέρας) and when the men bothered to speak of them as human beings, they called them simply maiden (κόρη). But now the poet, Homer himself, calls one of the slave-girls (when the other one isn't a slave anymore) woman, in relation to herself, not to her male masters.

2. Homer explicitly tells us that Briseis went with Agamemnon's two servants against her wishes (ἀέκων). But wait a mintute: she's a slave! and moreover a female, in times that women were kinda like cattle. Why did Homer bother to tell us about her feelings? I think pre-modern/ancient texts about marrying and selling of women by their fathers or masters usually did not bother to tell the reader about the woman's wishes.

Maybe the clause in line 348 came in order to defy against men's treatment of women as property?

I interpret Homer so that the two captive maidens Chryseis and Briseis aren't very much characters by themselves but allegorical characters:

Chryseis represents physical immortality and divinity whereas Briseis represents a great honor.

Here's my analysis:

1. Agamemnon wants to have Chryseis in his home but the god Apollo quickly forces him to give her up: Agamemnon politically is almost a god: he's a pretty powerful king with many allies that are his subordinates de-facto and yet, he's a mere mortal and cannot attain godhood, and this is symbolized by the fact that a god easily defeats him. Chryseis is really the divinity he desires to have but hasn't.

2. Agamemnon, while grieving over Chryseis, decides to take a captive-girl of one of his following three less powerful (politically) allies: Achilles, Ajax or Oddyseus: The stolen captive he wants to get is really the honor he "steals" from his vassals. As an attempt to compensate himself for his inability to be an immortal god, Agamemnon allows himself too much even for a high king and treats his allies with pompousness and doesn't give them the honor they deserve for their important role in the war: he feels that even though he isn't a god, he must be worshipped as a god by other humans. What is called "inferiority complex".

3. Achilles comes to know from Agamemnon's speech that there is a good chance his captive Briseis will be taken from him, and he doesn't like it and thinks to leave the war for good: Achilles sees that he doesn't get from Agamemnon, and maybe from the other Achaean lords, his due honor as the strongest fighter, and he feels there is a chance the war won't give him the honor he so much desires, that is his whole reason for coming to fight in Troy at the first place. So why to stay and not to live the comfortable life in his father's palace?

4. When Achilles declares he's going back to Phthia, Agamemnon in response declares that it's his final decision to take the captive woman not from Ajax nor from Oddyseus but from him, as a punishment: Briseis is the honor Achilles so much desired all his life to have, but cannot be attained but by participating in a great war. As long as Achilles was in Troy as a warrior, there was still a vague chance that someday Agamemnon and the rest of the Achaeans will recognize how much a hero he is, even though that day has to come yet (represented in Iliad by the chance that Agamemnon would take Ajax's or Oddyseus's slave girl instead of his). But at

You know, before I remembered that Mr. Benioff write the screenplay for Troy (one of my favorite movies), I was mentally comparing Briseis (the priestess who became Achilles’ lover) to Brienne.

Neither woman ever expected to be with any man.

Yet both were seduced by men who were both hero and villain.

At the end of Troy, when Achilles dies, Briseis is crying over him and Achilles says to her... it’s beautiful ...”You gave me peace in a lifetime of war.”

Brienne may not get the chance to be with Jaime as he dies, but I am positive he would say the exact same thing.

Jaime knew, on some level, he was doomed, just like Achilles did. But the time spent with Brienne wasn’t wasted. In fact, just the opposite. It was all that was truly good and beautiful in his life... Brienne was Jaime’s escape from a life troubled by endless conflict.

I just hope Brienne figures that out if Jaime doesn’t get to tell her.

But I think, if I can look at it that way, I can be happy for Jaime when he dies and the war - his war - finally ends. And I can be happy for Brienne, who had a few nights of something magical to remember as she marches on.

A moment or two of magic in this life is worth a hell of a lot more than a lifetime of nothing special.