دانلود کتاب آژاکس تلامونی – اسطوره در یونان باستانی و کلاسیک

Who is this noble and huge man that surpasses the Argives with his head and wide shoulders? Like Priam, I have always been seized by wonder, when encountering Ajax. Helen answers: ‘This is the mighty Ajax, bulwark of the Achaeans’. It is a succinct answer that she gives, but one that is characteristic of Ajax’s portrayal in the Iliad and the Odyssey. The Homeric poems are our earliest extant literary source mentioning Ajax, son of Telamon. Although the hero plays a central role in several important episodes in the Iliad, he himself remains somehow shrouded in mystery, as if Zeus refused to dispel the darkness surrounding him. No matter how memorable his Iliadic moments are, nothing really happens to him in the poem. Yes, he fights a duel against Hector, he appeals to Achilles, he desperately defends the Greeks’ ships, and he even rescues Patroclus’ body. But what constitutes his personal story? What is his background? In the Odyssey, what we learn about Ajax is, by contrast, as crucial as it is condensed. In the Νέκυια, when Odysseus meets the hero in Hades, we understand that he died at Troy.¹ The encounter is short but unforgettable, as the angry soul of Ajax proudly refuses to speak to Odysseus. For the first time, we get the sense that the hero also had his own story. His behaviour, however, is difficult to understand with the limited information provided by the Homeric poems alone. Ajax’s great silence may be more sublime than any word,² but, for all that, it is not very instructive.