In the Fall of 1979, I entered UNC-Chapel Hill as a freshman. My first class was in Greek and was, appropriately enough, the study of the Iliad taught by the wonderful and learned professor H. Kenneth Snipes. There I was on the first day of college reading what was arguably the first line of the first work of all Western literature written by the oldest and deadest of famous white men. Last night I pulled from my shelf that same Greek textbook of the Iliad prompted by an upcoming study of it in English with my Great Books classmates from the Fall of 1980.
The first word of that first line is "Μῆνιν" and the lines proceeds famously with "ἄειδε, θεὰ, Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος." What a start! The key to the poem's meanin' may lie in its "μῆνιν." If so, what is its best translation?
Most translators have rendered "μῆνιν" as "anger" or "wrath." The usage of wrath has been adopted by the greatest of all translators, Alexander Pope, in recognition of the usage of "μῆνιν" more frequently by the gods and goddesses. "Μῆνιν" is clearly not a normal anger and, as the poet's story unfolds, we see how abnormal the anger is. As I meditated on "μῆνιν," two events from my own life came to mind.
When I first moved to my home, the neighborhood was pretty rundown and crime was noticeable. One night, I heard the sound of my ancient Suburban starting. I jumped out of bed and ran down the stairs and out of my house. There I saw three men with my "Hellen" (ironically for the discussion here, her name) and went, well, crazy. I don't know the right words to describe how I ran straight at the group of men. Two of them fled immediately to their own truck, but the third tried to drive off in MY vehicle. However, barefoot and in my boxer shorts, I gave pursuit, successfully grabbed the luggage rack and hung on while shouting the driver what I was going to do to him. He swerved to lose me, went off the road, hit a stop sign and then swerved again. This time I lost hold of the luggage rack, but with a quick four or five sprints, I reattached myself. As I shouted through the driver side window while hanging with one hand and pounding with the other, he looked at me with a mixture of astonishment and fear. We went another couple of blocks before he crashed Hellen into a bridge and jumped out the passenger side. I ran after him, but slipped because the soles of my feet were covered with blood. The value of my suburban? Maybe $5,000. What was that?
My children were crying when the police dropped me back at the house. We often discussed my response. While it was clearly "crazy," it was a certain kind of crazy. My response had been connected with a deep sense of injustice, of losing something of "mine." I had personalized everything - it was "Hellen," and it was in my neighborhood and it was people I could see. In my response, I did not think about my safety, the value of the car or the challenges of the thieves. The intersection of indignation and anger and justice was rooted viscerally - much like I see in David Attenborough videos of animals protecting their domain. "Wrath" or "anger" don't describe the moment nor even the English cognate "manic", but "μῆνιν" somehow fits my situation as well as the story of Achilles.
Later I had another similar experience. One night I recognized that my briefcase had been stolen while some workers had been at my house. I called the workers and got a description. The following day after going to the bank to close my account, I came home to see a person of a similar description walking on the street. I went up to this powerfully built man and told him that he stole my suitcase. When he denied it, I opened my flip phone and told him to explain it to the police. With that he took off running and I took off after him. After about three blocks of running, he looked back and stopped. He told me, "you must be a warrior for Jesus." I told him that I just wanted my briefcase back. He said that he knew who stole it. We went back to my Suburban (somethings never change!) and drove over to a housing project. We went into an apartment where about six men were sitting in the living room. I announced "I don't want any trouble, I just came here to get my briefcase" and, incredibly, one of the men got up, went to a bedroom and retrieved it.
Again, the elements are the same as the prior experience, but the comment "a warrior for Jesus" highlights the profundity of the conviction. The clarity of this conviction is what characterizes "μῆνιν." This situation was not "anger", not "wrath," not "mania" but something deeply religious, something deep in my value system. It felt like a society that permits this is not a society and I was a piece of that societal fabric. It's this sense of "μῆνιν" that I believe defines the Iliad, defines those two experiences of mine, but continues to defy translation beyond "a certain kind of crazy." What is a better way to define Western civilization?
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