Achilles and the Caucasus - Université de Montréal

Achilles and the Caucasus (K. Tuite) — août 17, 2007 — pg. 10
Achilles’s parents circulate between these two regions. Thetis, a
Nereid whose home is beneath the sea, leaves her watery domain
to marry Peleus (after he impregnates her in a cavern by the
seacoast), and then returns abruptly after Peleus interrupts her
attempt to immortalize Achilles. Peleus in a sense follows the
reverse trajectory when he engages in the hunt: leaving the oikos in
search of game in the forests or mountains, then returning home
with his kill. When the two meet for the first time, Thetis, the
hunted, takes on the form of various natural phenomena (fire,
water, wind) and wild animals, while Peleus, the hunter, holds on
until she yields. This opposition between a goddess associated with
the natural world, and a human who exploits the riches of that
world, will be of importance in the comparison proposed below.
The child exploits the riches of nature like his father, living off
the flesh of wild animals, but unlike him he does not return to the
oikos. He is in a liminal state, neither fully at home in nature like
his mother, nor in human society like his father. 15 Homer appears
to have been aware of this second duality in Achilles’ nature, since
he represents the shield Thetis commissioned for her son as
adorned with a microcosm of the Homeric world, in five
concentric circles, moving from nature to society and back to
nature (Iliad 18: 478-608). From the center outward these depict:
(i) the earth and the sea, surrounded by the sun, moon and stars;
(ii) two cities, one in peace, the other in war; (iii) a royal demesne
surrounded by fields, vineyards and pastures; (iv) a dancing-place,
with young people dancing in a circle; (v) the mighty River
Oceanos encircling the whole. As interpreted by Redfield, the
shield moves from nature to culture, then to agricultural production
(the inclusion of nature in culture); then culture, and finally nature
once again, at the outer limit. “The whole consists in a symmetrical
equals; (iii) a limited degree of commerce, associated with foreigners
(“Phoenicians”) (see also Finley 1981: 211-32).
15 The centaur Cheiron, who raises and educates Achilles, is an especially
striking case in point, reflecting in his very body — half-human, half-horse —
the conjunction of the human and the savage which lies at the heart of the
Thessalian Achilles saga (cp Escher 1899, Bethe 1921).