Fra poetica e filologia: il dibattito sull’Olimpo nel XXIV libro dell’Iliade

Homer, in the last book of the Iliad, portrays the fury of Achill on Hector’s body, which is protected by Apollo but dragged by Achill in the dust around Patroclus’ tomb: the scene is blocked, persistently repetitive and, to find the solution, Homer draws our attention to the Olympus. In the council of the Gods that follows, an intense and harsh dialogue between Apollo, Hera, and Zeus takes place. The final decision is to lay the foundation of an extremely dangerous meeting between Achill and Priamus, in order to stop the fury of Achill and to favour the restitution of Hector’s body. Many traits emerge in the text which anticipate the Odyssey and which have urged since ancient time the commitment of philology. In any case, it is possible to conceive the council of the Gods as an important contribution to poetics: what Apollo is proposing to Zeus is to transform Achill into the new hero of the Odyssey, who is more flexible, more human, not blocked in his fixed, rather stiff dimension. The perspective of the Iliad comes to an end, as Hera hints by referring to the role that Apollo played in the Peleus and Thetis’ wedding, and Homer prepares the great plot of the Odyssey.