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Сильный гнев vs сильная личность, или еще раз о ссоре Ахиллеса и Агамемнона
Episodes from “the Iliad” concerning the conflict between Agamemnon and Achilles are analysed. Their quarrel and its results can be metaphorically defined as a model of wrath, with its lessons being given and learned not only by the participants themselves, but also by the witnesses. With the word "wrath" the poem begins and it is repeatedly presented in it, followed by different epithets. “The Iliad” is a work that justifies or at least explains why strong personalities are subject to intense wrath, since the wrath of gods and people leading the Trojan campaign. The alignment of forces on and off the battlefield is caused by heros’ attitude to wrath: some lose control of it, while others search for ways of taming it. The central character of the poem is strong, courageous and charismatic Achilles, who inspired many generations of politicians and warriors. His propensity for wrath and his success or failure in overcoming it and all the consequences of such, serves as one of the main themes of “the Iliad”. This topic is traditionally interpreted Achilles’ growing up: he learns how choose right behavioral strategies and act like a matured man. All other stories, even the story of Menelaus, Paris and Helen, are put within the main story of Achilles and his wrath.
The wrath of Achilles is a complex phenomenon that combines a whole range of anger-like emotions that originally manifest themselves in a conflict with Agamemnon. In the first part of the article, this conflict is viewed as wrath quarrel with a transition to personalities, where Achilles chooses between the power of words and the power of arms in favor of the latter. On the one hand, everything obtained in the devastated cities is divided among the leaders in fairness, and on the other hand, Chryseis and Briseis taken as concubines upset the balance of justice between Achilles and Agamemnon. Achilles invites Agamemnon to return Chryseis, and Agamemnon threatens Achilles to take Briseis from him; each defines their actions as a lesson to be learned by the rival. Further events show that Agamemnon will overcome his anger almost without consequences and learn his lesson quite easily by choosing a new behavioral strategy. This isn’t true for Achilles, who will go a long way to overcome his anger and learn his lesson only shortly before death.
The second part of the article analyzes the consequences of the quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles, with suppression of wrath giving them opportunities for personal growth. The participants in the embassy - Phoenix, Odysseus and Ajax - turn to Achilles with instructive speeches, urging them to subdue their wrath and pointing out that Agamemnon has already done this. Phoenix and Odysseus want to paternally reason with Achilles, using the authority of his real father Peleus and pointing to Agamemnon as the father of Achilles in wartime conditions. However, Ajax turns out to be the best convincer, who does not touch the parental topic, but makes Achilles reflect about correlation of the power of words and the power of weapons.
The third part of the article discusses the origins of Achilles' wrath behavior, which are determined by excessive closeness with his mother. In “the Iliad”, Thetis is not excluded from the life of Achilles. She is present both before the Trojan War and during it, and firstly she supports his wrath and then offers to abandon it. In one of the dialogues with his mother, Achilles claims that he has subdued his wrath and successfully mastered the warrior education program, although he turned out to be weaker in words than in battles. Constantly returning to the quarrel with Agamemnon, Achilles formulates the lessons that he learned from authority and which turn out to be connected with the criticism of wrath in archaic and classical Greece, where wrath in the family and wrath in the city are compared and contrasted.