Blowing in the Wind

 

  Blowing in the Wind

When rosy-fingered dawn appeared, they weighed anchor and sailed toward the army of the Achaeans. And Apollo, he who strikes from afar, sent them a favourable wind and they raised the mast and set out the white sails. The wind filled the middle sail and the heaving seas churned greatly around the keel sending the ship forward as it plowed through the waves.

The winds play a vital role in Homer’s narratives. In ancient Greece, winds were not just atmospheric or meteorological phenomena, but were considered to be deities, and referred to as the Anemoi or wind gods, corresponding to the four cardinal directions on the compass. The first was Boreas, the North Wind, known for bringing cold winter air and storms. Notus, the South Wind, was associated with the heat and rainstorms of the late summer season. Eurus, the East Wind, was linked to turbulent weather and the autumn. The most gentle of all the winds was Zephyrus the West Wind, who brought the light breezes of springtime and early summer. In the garden of King Alcinous on Scheria, the West Wind blows constantly and brings some fruit to life and ripens others. We know from the Odyssey that the keeper of the winds was Aeolus. He kept the winds in a bag which he gave to Odysseus to use on his journey. His crew inadvertently opened the bag, thinking that Odysseus was hoarding treasure in it, and released all the winds which subsequently blew them off course.

Homer equated the blowing of the wind with things divine and like the Greeks of his time would have recognized that the winds came down from the realm of the gods. Iris the messenger of Zeus, was always referred to by Homer as wind-swift or wind-footed. When Achilles was preparing the funeral pyre of his beloved Patroclus, he stood with his hands extended and offered prayers to the North and West Winds that they would come down from above and fan the flames of his friend’s pyre. That prayer was heard in Olympus and acted upon by the winds. After they had done their work, they raced back home over the Thracian Sea and as they did so, the waters seethed with rage. Sometimes the winds were seen as evil as when Telemachus was talking about Odysseus and told Athena that the wind-snatchers have taken him away without glory.

Most often Homer described the winds as fair, warm or gentle or quite the opposite as raging, seething, roaring, dreadful, cruel, blustering or ruffling and often referred to places such as Ilium as being windy. His audience knew about winds and could identify with the blowing of the breezes. The concept was familiar to them and this is something that they would have experienced many times throughout various times of the year. The Homeric simile was a device that Homer used to draw in his audience and have them connect with his narrative. He did so by comparing the unfamiliar with the familiar. People knew about winds but they may not have ever seen an army in full fighting mode. Homer used the blowing of the winds on several occasions to create the most descriptive similes in the Iliad to make his point and to capture the full attention of his listeners.

And the whole assembly was stirred up, just like the long waves of the Icarian Sea are excited when the East Wind and the North Wind have rushed forth from the clouds of father Zeus. And just like when the West Wind blows strongly on a rich field of corn and bends the ears, so also was the whole assembly moved and the soldiers rushed to the ships with a great shout.

Thus he spoke and the Argives let out a massive shout like waves which roar against a great rock when the South Wind whips them up, as a jutting promontory is lashed by the winds and waves from the left and the right.

Just as when the South Wind spreads a curtain of mist on the tops of the hills and the result is better for thieves in the night instead of shepherds, and a man cannot see any father than he can toss a rock, such as this was the cloud of dust that was raised up under their feet as they went and they quickly passed over the plain.

He seized all of these leaders of the Danaans and thereafter the whole throng, just like when the West Wind drives the mass of clouds of the white South Wind and besets them with a violent storm. Many swollen waves roll onwards and the spray is cast and scattered beneath the wild raging wind. In the same way were many of those warriors laid low by Hector.

Like the East Wind and the South Wind strive with one another in shaking a deep wooded area of oak and ash and long-barked cherry in a mountain glade and they dash against one another with their long branches in a wondrous din and there is a great crashing of broken branches, so the Trojans and Achaeans sprung at each other for the kill with neither side having any thought about ruinous flight.

            As one might expect in the Odyssey, because much of the narrative takes place at sea, many of Homer’s references to winds have to do with their impact on sailing, such as when we are told, the flashing-eyed Athena sent them a fair wind, a strongly blowing Zephyr that sounded over the wine-dark sea. Moments later in the same passage we are told, the wind filled the middle of the sail and the dark waves echoed loudly with the sound of the prow cutting through them as the ship went on its way. Poseidon, the great earth-shaker is often the deity who is responsible for rousing the winds. When he does, nothing good comes of it and generally it spells disaster for our hero and his crew. The same is true when Zeus riles up the winds.

So he spoke and gathered the clouds and taking his trident in his hands, he roused up the sea and stirred up the blasts of all kinds of winds and hid all the land and the sea with clouds and night descended from the heavens. The East Wind and the South Wind clashed together and the fierce-blowing West Wind and the North Wind, born in the clear sky, rolled a great wave before him.

In this way has Zeus covered the heavens with clouds and has troubled the sea and has swept all manner of blasting winds on me and utter destruction befalls me.

It seems at times that all the winds worked together to buffet Odysseus from every direction:

Just like in autumn when the North Wind blows the thistles over the plain and carries them along clinging to one another, so did the winds push his raft this way and that over the sea. Now the South Wind blew it to the North Wind to drive it along and then the East Wind would give it up to the West Wind to push it forward.

            The gods of the winds were powerful but it appears that they were subject to the will of the greater gods, as when Athena directs which winds to blow to ensure that Odysseus reaches Phaeacia.

But Athena, the daughter of Zeus, had other plans. She stopped the blowing of the other winds and ordered them all to cease and desist but she roused up the swift North Wind and broke up the waves in front of him so that Zeus-fostered Odysseus might come to the land of the Phaeacians who loved to row and thereby escape from his fate and death.

            In summary, we can say that references to the winds in the Iliad are mainly placed there to provide for the basic foundation of the Homeric simile used to describe the movement of fighting forces on the battlefield. The winds themselves play no significant role in the epic narrative. The Odyssey is however an entirely different matter. The winds in the latter epic serve a critical role as a manifestation of divine power, as a driving force for the plot and as a symbol of the unpredictable nature of fate and the challenges of the natural world, especially those that affect sailors on the sea. The winds can be seen operating in two ways. In some cases they are benevolent forces that help to speed the way home for the hero and to assist him with his Nostos. At other times they are destructive storms that impede progress toward the ultimate destination and the reestablishment of the Oikos.

            In the Odyssey, the winds serve as the agents of the gods’ will, both helping and hindering the hero. They play a major role in the development of the plot and their constant blowing tests the character and the leadership of Odysseus. In essence, the winds are far more than just weather phenomena. They are dynamic forces that drive the narrative in different directions, explore themes of the fallibility of humans, and emphasize the power of the gods over the human condition.