|
Palazzo Milzetti |
|
I Miti |
|
Achilles
| The Picture The picture we are going to describe is "Achilles cries over the dead corps of his friend Patroclus while Tethys comes to comfort him bringing the new weapons". It was painted directly on the ceiling of the Achilles Gallery. The main characters are: Achilles, Patroclus and Tethys; prominent characters of the Greek mythology. Achilles is the invincible hero, son of Peleus, king of Myrmidons, and Tethys, who together with her brother Ocean are told to be the Titans Couple. Patroclus is the son of Menenzio and Stenele. He is Achilles’ bosom friend as they grew up together, sharing fun, joy and difficulties. Chirone, the centaur, and Phoenix brought up Achilles. By hiding him among the daughters of Licomedys, king of Sciro, dressed up as a girl, he would have avoided to fight in the Troian war, where he might have found his death. In fact knowing his future destiny his mother tried to prevent him from the labours, the desperation of a courageous warrior. As a boy he fell in love with one of the girls, Deidamia; they had a son Pirrus. In spite of his mother’s plans, Ulysses found Achilles and induced him to join the war. The picture deals with Patroclus’ death after a cruel battle between Greeks and Troians. At first Patroclus was wearing Achilles’ weapons pretending to be him and hoping this way to scare his enemies, then he went into the battle. Secondly Hector, the famous Trojans warrior, mistaking Patroclus for Achilles, made him succumb. As soon as Achilles got to know what had happened, burst out his desperation and his cries were so loud that Tethys herself heard his mourning. She arrived bringing him the new arms, which had been made by Vulcan, to substitute the old ones. Many authors belonging to the neo-classical age wrote about Achilles and the main characters of the Greek mythology. They revivaled the characteristics of the classical period: balance, harmony, rationality and anthropocentrism. Making some examples, Alexander Pope, Lord Byron, John Keats and Shelley took some characters and themes from classical literature.
|
|
| LORD
BYRON: "Don Juan - Canto The Fourth" LXXIV 585 But let me change this theme, which grows too sad, 586 and lay this sheet of sorrows the shelf; 587 I don’t much like describing people mad, 588 For fear of seeming rather touch’d myself 589 Besides, I’ve no more on this head to add; 590 And as my Muse is a capricious elf, 591 We’ll put about, and try another tack 592 With Juan, left half-kill’d some stanzas back. LXXV 593 Wounded and fetter’d, "cabin’d, cribb’d, confin’d", 594 Some days and nights elaps’d before that he 595 Could altogether call the past to mind; 596 And when he did, he found himself at sea 597 Sailing six knots an hour before the wind; 598 The shores of Ilion lay beneath their lee 599 Another time he might have lik’d to see’em, 600 But now was not much pleas’d with Cape Sigeum. LXXVI 601 There, on the green and village-cotted hill, is 602 (Flank’d by the Hellespont, and by the sea) 603 Entomb’d the bravest of the brave, Achilles; 604 They say so—(Bryant says the contrary): 605 And further downward, tall and towering still, is 606 The tumulus—of whom? Heaven knows! ‘t may be 607 Patroclus, Ajax, or Protesilaus; 608 All heroes, who if living still would slay us.
|
 |
| Analysis The myth of Achilles appears in the fourth canto of Lord Byron’s Don Juan. The images which come to the mind of Don Juan, who had been deadly wounded some stanzas before, half asleep and half still forlorn are those of ancient epic landscapes hosting the tombs of mythological heroes (line 594: some days and nights past... before) and when he did he found himself at sea. The description swifts onto an open sea sailing the shores of Ilion, whose "lee" evoke past and heroic events and what’s more the word "lee" has a double meaning: it may imply a favourable wind stream as well as a sort of shelter. Certainly here the alliteration in L suggests both meanings but it reinforces the evocative suggestion of the landscape. What better place could host "the bravest of the brave" (whatever Mr. Bryant an archaeologist of the time might have stated). In this passage we could also detect a situational irony, because there is a contradiction between the unknown graves and the fame, force and importance of the warriors (lines 603-608). We got the impression of a wide bay where the ship followed by the "foam free" (St. Coleridge); the landscape must have been clear, majestic, seen in daylight: these images convey quietness and a natural fluctuation of life. Everything recalls greatness, immortality and force (references to Ajax and Patroclus), as if the magic of epic time could inspire Don Juan and his author (we know it is a biographic vision of the hero). Even if the rhyme pattern not regularly hints at the heroic couplet the stress pattern also regularly alternating jambic blank verse and jambic pentameter seems to reinforce the greatness of this vision from classicity. According to the themes of the stanzas, the language is very cultivated: tumulus for grave, slay for to murder, towering for high. |
|
Palazzo Milzetti |
|
Inizio pagina |
|
