Appendices Summary of the Iliad At the opening of the poem, the Greeks have already besieged Troy for nine years in vain; they are despondent, homesick, and decimated with disease. They had been delayed at Aulis by sickness and a windless sea; and Agamemnon had embittered Clytemnestra, and prepared his own fate, by sacrificing their daughter Iphegenia for a breeze. On the way up the coast, the Greeks had stopped here and there to replenish their supplies of food and concubines; Agamemnon had taken the fair Chryseis, Achilles the fair Briseis. A soothsayer now declares that Apollo is withholding success from the Greeks because Agamemnon has violated the daughter of Apollo's pries

Helen of Troy Painting by Evelyn de Morgan (detail) The Siege of Troy Introduction "There are four very great events in history, the siege of Troy, the life and crucifixion of Christ, the exile of Krishna in Brindavan and the colloquy with Arjun on the field of Kurukshetra. The siege of Troy created Hellas, the exile in Brindavan created devotional religion (for before there was only meditation and worship), Christ from his cross humanised Europe, the colloquy at Kurukshetra will yet liberate humanity. Yet it is said that none of these four great events ever happened." from Thoughts and Aphorisms — Sri Aurobindo What is the siege of Troy and w

Notes Homer To the ancients the poet was foremost a seer, an inspired artist capable of revealing hidden truths to his race or nation. No bard greater exemplifies this than Homer, the man credited with composing the most outstanding of Greece's epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Who was Homer? No one knows for sure. Later Greeks believed that he was a blind minstrel from the island of Chios. In ancient times his authorship of both epics was undisputed. Modern investigation of Homer's texts showed many inconsistencies of fact, style, and language between the two poems and led to serious questions about authorship. Today, however, most scholars believe that both poems were co

Acknowledgements This monograph is part of a series on Value-oriented Education centered on three values: Illumination, Heroism and Harmony. The research, preparation and publication of the monographs that form part of this series are the result of the cooperation of the following members of the research team of the Sri Aurobindo International Institute of Educational Research, Auroville: Abha, Alain, Anne, Ashatit, Auralee, Bhavana, Christine, Claude, Deepti, Don, Frederick, Ganga, Jay Singh, Jean-Yves, Jossi, Jyoti Madhok, Kireet Joshi, Krishna, Lala, Lola, Mala, Martin, Mirajyoti, Namrita, Olivier, Pala, Pierre, Serge, Shailaja, Shankaran, Sharanam, Soham, Suzie, Vara

Zeus (Bronze statue 470 460 BC) Achilles and Priam This passage is the final chapter of Homer's Iliad. It describes the events that followed upon Prince Hector's defeat by Achilles and how the gods intervened to soften Achilles heart so that he would give the vanquished prince the honor and respect he so richly deserved. The games were over now. The gathered armies scattered, each man to his fast ship, and fighters turned their minds to thoughts of food and the sweet warm grip of sleep. But Achilles kept on grieving for his friend1, the memory burning on... and allsubduing sleep could not take him, not now, he turned and twisted, side to side, he lo

Illumination, Heroism and Harmony Preface The task of preparing teaching-learning material for value oriented education is enormous. There is, first, the idea that value oriented education should be exploratory rather than prescriptive, and that the teaching learning material should provide to the learners a growing experience of exploration. Secondly, it is rightly contended that the proper inspiration to turn to value-orientation is provided by biographies, autobiographical accounts, personal anecdotes, epistles, short poems, stories of humour, stories of human interest, brief passages filled with pregnant meanings, reflective short essays written in well-chisell