Summary: Book 3
The Trojan army marches from the city gates and advances
to meet the Achaeans. Paris, the Trojan prince who precipitated
the war by stealing the beautiful Helen from her husband, Menelaus,
challenges the Achaeans to single combat with any of their warriors. When
Menelaus steps forward, however, Paris loses heart and shrinks back
into the Trojan ranks. Hector, Paris’s brother and the leader of
the Trojan forces, chastises Paris for his cowardice. Stung by Hector’s
insult, Paris finally agrees to a duel with Menelaus, declaring
that the contest will establish peace between Trojans and Achaeans
by deciding once and for all which man shall have Helen as his wife.
Hector presents the terms to Menelaus, who accepts. Both armies
look forward to ending the war at last.
As Paris and Menelaus prepare for combat, the goddess
Iris, disguised as Hector’s sister Laodice, visits Helen in Priam’s
palace. Iris urges Helen to go to the city gates and witness the
battle about to be fought over her. Helen finds the city’s elders,
including Priam, gathered there. Priam asks Helen about the strapping
young Achaeans he sees, and she identifies Agamemnon, Ajax, and
Odysseus. Priam marvels at their strength and splendor but eventually
leaves the scene, unable to bear watching Paris fight to the death.
Paris and Menelaus arm themselves and begin their duel.
Neither is able to fell the other with his spear. Menelaus breaks
his sword over Paris’s helmet. He then grabs Paris by the helmet
and begins dragging him through the dirt, but Aphrodite, an ally
of the Trojans, snaps the strap of the helmet so that it breaks
off in Menelaus’s hands. Frustrated, Menelaus retrieves his spear
and is about to drive it home into Paris when Aphrodite whisks Paris
away to his room in Priam’s palace. She summons Helen there too.
Helen, after upbraiding Paris for his cowardice, lies down in bed
with him. Back on the battlefield, both the Trojans and the Greeks
search for Paris, who seems to have magically disappeared. Agamemnon
insists that Menelaus has won the duel, and he demands Helen back.
Summary: Book 4
Meanwhile, the gods engage in their own duels. Zeus argues
that Menelaus has won the duel and that the war should end as the
mortals had agreed. But Hera, who has invested much in the Achaean cause,
wants nothing less than the complete destruction of Troy. In the
end, Zeus gives way and sends Athena to the battlefield to rekindle
the fighting. Disguised as a Trojan soldier, Athena convinces the archer
Pandarus to take aim at Menelaus. Pandarus fires, but Athena, who
wants merely to give the Achaeans a pretext for fighting, deflects
the arrow so that it only wounds Menelaus.
Agamemnon now rallies the Achaean ranks. He meets Nestor, Odysseus,
and Diomedes, among others, and spurs them on by challenging their
pride or recounting the great deeds of their fathers. Battle breaks
out, and the blood flows freely. None of the major characters is
killed or wounded, but Odysseus and Great Ajax kill a number of
minor Trojan figures. The gods also become involved, with Athena
helping the Achaeans and Apollo helping the Trojans. The efforts
toward a truce have failed utterly.
Analysis: Books 3–4
While the first two books introduce the commanders
of the Achaean forces, the next two introduce the Trojan forces.
Priam, Hector, Paris, and Helen of Troy (formerly, of course, queen
of Sparta) all make their first appearances in Book 3,
and their personalities begin to emerge. In particular, Paris’s
glibness throws him into stark contrast with Hector and many of
the Achaean leaders whom the audience has already encountered. While
the sight of Menelaus causes Paris to flee, Hector, much more devoted
to the ideal of heroic honor, criticizes him for the disgrace that
he has brought upon not only himself but also the entire Trojan
army. Paris’s fight with Menelaus proves embarrassing, and he must
be rescued—not by any particularly fierce deity but rather by Aphrodite,
the goddess of love (she is even referred to, in Book 5,
as the “coward goddess” [5.371]). Though
Paris sulkily blames his misfortune in the fight on the gods whom
he claims aided Menelaus, Homer himself makes no mention of these
gods, and the suffering that Menelaus undergoes in the fight suggests
that he had no divine help. But perhaps most outrageous is Paris’s
retreat to his marriage bed. While the rest of the Trojan army is
forced to fight for the woman whom he stole from the Achaeans, he
sleeps with her. This affront to the heroic code of conduct disgusts
even the Trojan rank and file, who, we read, “hated [Paris] like
death” (3.533).
