Logics of Myth: Meleager in lliad

Abstract

This article is exploring the logic in the myth of Meleager as it presents itself in the episode of the embassy in Iliad. It also endeavors to recover the part of the myth that can be considered as principally paradigmatic and worthy to be reused from Homer and to be incorporated at the time of the embassy in the Iliad. It is searching the way that the usefulness of this myth is promoting within the iliadic recitation. And the important question is whether the paradigmatic part of the myth functions as an instrument in the hands of the poet in order to compose an exhortative speech and to demonstrate that the structure of heroic conduct remains stable and revives with the simple repetition in different recitations.
The proposition οn which we make our argumentation is that the embassy in the case of Meleager comes to offer a solution in the situation that has been provoked by the inertness of the institutional power of Agamemnon. That means that this part of the myth supports the movement of his indirect recipient, Achilles. And that moment an application of a new manner of action occurs in which the institutional level is replaced by traditional stories of ancestors and these ones can only survive within their transformation and when they take in consideration contemporary dimensions of thought: such as the possibility that the epic man has to choose the manner in which he will achieve glory or eponymy.