In The Business, We Call This Foreshadowing
The Five-Minute Iliad, #6
This is another ongoing series as I do a slow-read of THE ILIAD by Homer, translated by Rouse. Previous installments: book 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
Other Butt-Kicking
Before we check in on the main event, let’s catch up elsewhere: the battle rages on and it’s a who’s-who of killing who and who else. Odysseus gets a shout-out along with several other figures who I assume have important lineage but I don’t have the time to look them all up. Menelaus also starts stacking bodies and he’s about to show mercy to someone who pleads for it, until Agamemnon rides up alongside him and says “Bro, don’t show mercy, that’s weak sauce!” and Menelaus ends up killing the dude.
Diomedes Meets a Bro
When we last saw our rascally Achaians, they had unleashed their most unholy killing machine Diomedes upon the Trojans, and he dang near ended Rome before it ever had the chance to start when he almost crushed Aeneas to death under a huge boulder. He wounded Aphrodite, stabbed Ares in the gut, and continued to hack his way through the Trojans. Bro did not F around and had yet to find out.
As he continues his uncontested rampage through the Trojans, he comes across an absolute unit of imperial quality named Glaucos, and the two walking tanks pause their butt-kicking to exchange a bit of charismatic dialogue.
It was all the rage back then to recount your genealogy prior to throwing down, because your duty as a man of your house was to add to that house’s glory. As long as you were adding to it, you could also borrow from it. Ergo, Diomedes would announce that his father Tydeus was super awesome and tough, and that he was that guy’s son, which also made him super awesome and tough.
Opposite Diomedes, Glaucus was like “Oh yeah? Scan this action: My grandfather Bellerophon killed a chimera, pwn’d several Solymans, and even slapped the Amazons back into the kitchen. He went on to have aggressively chaste sons, one of whom was my father, which makes me awesome by lineage.”
Diomedes’ ears perked up: “Glaucus?”
“Bro!”
“BRO!”
They were so stoked that they made a promise not to fight each other, despite being on opposite sides, and would only kill each others’ allies. To cap off this bro-reunion, they even swapped armor and wore each other’s standards. This really annoyed Zeus, who was Glaucus’ patron, because Glaucus’ armor was gold and Diomedes’ was bronze. The exchange rate was roughly the same as a ham sandwich to a living cow. He must have watched that swap from Olympus and been like “ZEUSDAMMIT GLAUCUS!!!”
Meanwhile: Hector!
Hector, the noble and righteous champion of Troy, takes a quick break from the frontlines to go make sure all the women and children have a way out of the city, because Diomedes is coming and he is bringing Hades with him. An entire chariot of butt-whipping is about to descend upon the Trojans. Hector tries to put on a brave face for his soon-to-be-widow Andromache and their infant son, but Andromache sees right through it and she knows she’s about to be single again. Which sucks, because Hector is pretty cool, like the Gaston of his day (every guy there would like to be him), so there’s really no way for her to level up after that.
Then Hector checks in on his brother Paris, who ducked out of his duel with Menelaus to hook up with Helen, and he chides the little cad and tells him to get back in the fight. Paris is like “Ah man…aiight I guess I better.” So they saddle up and ride back to the frontlines, and to their deaths.
That part is not declared outright, but the heavy-handed “non-farewell” to Andromache is a not-subtle hint of what is to come for Hector.
In the business, we call this foreshadowing.
Go read my boy’s adventure novel FOSSIL FORCE, set in the Utah desert, featuring four friends who use ancient power armors to defend the surface from a hollow-earth invasion.