fate in homer essays

fate in homer essays Besides the Olympian family of deities, there exists the concept of fate, moira, asia, that which is pepromenon. It is referred to interchangeably as a concept and as personified being(s), or a daimon. This figure, as Dietrich puts it are of a superhuman nature and each continually in the epic poems exerts its influence over the actions, and thoughts, success and failure of the human characters fate, however, is not a condition of action or its cause. It is, by definition only apparent after the fact, unless a god has made it clear, and in hectors last speech to Andromache fatalism is not a view of the future but a way of not thinking about it In a majority of the cases in the Iliad, Moira is concerned with death. I wish to look at it context of its death association but it is also instrumental in determining a mans destiny, such as that of Aineas . J.S Clay sees moira as the over all shape of a mans life and can linguistically be used to denote ones share as of respect. Since death is the invariable lot of men, moira frequently means death, although, there are other such words used such as mori, and oloe, ones fated drstruction. The Iliad being a poem of war, the acquired meaning of death seems most pertinent here as death was the most natural meaning in times of war. On many ancient grave inscriptions found, the word moira is often combined with the word thanatos in the Form of thanatos kai moira Dodds asserts that Moira should be written mot with a capital M if associated with ones personal lot, without understanding why a certain thing happened, only when it is signified as a personal goddess who dictates to Zeus or a cosmic destiny like the Hellenistic Heimarmene. Although the Moirae are three, fate is one; and although each man has his own fate, it is nevertheles...