Theme Of Glory In The Iliad

Homer reveals his ideas of glory through the use of similes, comparing great men to flora and natural forces, conveying the idea that glory comes from these forces themselves. These similes Homer uses in The Iliad exemplify how glory obtained in battle is nothing compared to the glory and immortality of nature. Homer purposely juxtaposes the images of nature, using diction to intensify their glory, to images of men fighting for glory. During battles, especially when warriors are gaining immense glory, many similes about plants and natural forces appear. In book XII, two Trojan warriors arising to the front line in battle are compared to “oaks that rear their crests on a mountain ridge, / standing up to the gales and driving rains, day

In book XI, Nestor gives a speech in which he reflects back on his time as a warrior. During this dialogue, he compares him charging the enemy lines to “a black tornado” (XI. 888). A tornado is powerful and full of force, and Nestor uses this to describe himself as such (Weil). A tornado is full of glory because it is well known by all people for its destructive force, such force that only a god can even become close in equaling it. Just like a flood would, a tornado destroys all in its path, with no mercy because it is inanimate. Parallel to the life of a tornado, Nestor was a glorious warrior in his prime. But now that he is older, he no longer has great glory. He rather commands respect for his mass amount of knowledge, and in this way still holds some glory. The fame he still has is not anywhere close to the glory he held in his prime though. This loss of glory is also like a tornado: it is glorious in its power while it lives, but after it is gone it does not instill as much fear in the hearts of people. The path of destruction it leaves ends the glory of that specific tornado, but the stories passed along about it increase the glory in the concept of a tornado (Ready). The fact that Nestor, an older man with the most knowledge, chose to use a tornado to describe his glorious time as a warrior highlights the fact that he believes natural forces to hold true

When warriors are killed, the glory they have acquired throughout their lifetime gets transferred to their killer. While glory is usually lost throughout time for warriors and other items, like glorious structures, death during war is a major reason of why many warrior’s glory is cut short. Paralleling to this loss of glory, glory can be lost from plants. When they are killed, they lose their glory. An example of this from the text is during book XIII, when warriors are killed and their fall to the earth is juxtaposed to “down he went like a tall ash on a landmark mountain ridge that glistens far and wide” (XIII. 213-214). Just like the warrior, the ash tree is being cut down, and its glory is ending. The tree no longer braces the forces on that mountain ridge, and instead will be burned or left to decompose. This shows that just as the warriors can lost their glory, so can plants. Another place this tree metaphor is used to explain a loss of glory, and life, is when a warrior is decapitated, and his head is described “rolling through the carnage like a log” (XI. 170). A log is but a husk of the former tree it used to be, devoid of both life and glory. While nature does embody true glory, its glory can be easily lost when disrupted by a stronger force (Weil). But, unlike humans, the plant’s glory is kept alive through its species, which created plants