style="font-size:15px;"> Walking around the weaving mill or sharing a bed with me.
Go away and do not anger me, long live you will return!»
In the same way – without any prompting – Agamemnon decides to take away Briseis from Achilles:
«… He, having called Talfibius and Eurybates before him,
Faithful minions and messengers, the angry one commanded:
«March, faithful messengers, into the canopy
Achilles Pelides;
Taking my hands, present Briseida to me immediately:
If he does not give it back, he will return it – I myself will expel it.:
With strength I will come to him, and the disobedient will be more sorrowful.»
When the troops of the Achaeans and Trojans converge and line up in front of each other, Paris, the abductor of Elena, decides to come forward and challenge a brave warrior of the enemy’s army to single combat. The gods are silent at the same time.
«… Alexander came forward from the Trojans, equal to the celestial,
With a leather parda on the frame, with a bow crooked behind his shoulders
And with a sword at his hip; and in his hands two copper-fingered spears
Proudly hesitating, he summoned all the bravest from the Danai,
Go out against him and fight a fierce battle.»
From the side of the Achaeans, Menelaus, the «legitimate» husband of Elena, comes out, delighted with the opportunity to take revenge on an enemy, also not prompted by anyone from above. Seeing him, Paris cowardly hides behind the backs of his comrades: «But, only Priamid saw him,
Alexander bogovidny,
Between the front flashed, his heart trembled;
Quickly he retreated to a host of friends, avoiding death.
It’s like a traveler seeing a dragon in
the gorges of the mountains,
He spins backwards and trembles with horror
with all his members,
He quickly leaves and his pallor
covers his cheeks, —
So running away, the Trojan
of the proud plunged into the crowd
The image of red Paris, terrified
Atreus’ son.»
Well, these are all ordinary human actions, not set by the gods in any way. If they were set, everything would look different.
In a word, the heroes of the Iliad act both this way and that – and following the voice of the gods, and of their own free will. It would be in vain to try to calculate how often. Even if someone had made such a calculation (hard work), the results would definitely not have said anything. We have no reason to deviate from the usual notion of what the role of the gods is in the Iliad. They are the same participants in events as people. Gods are subject to ordinary human passions – love, hate… Therefore, they endlessly interfere in human life – punish some, protect others, push people against each other… There are quarrels between them every now and then. The Olympian gods are almost tangible inhabitants of the Earth for the Hellenes, only more powerful and beyond the control of death.
Not only do the gods keep their word to people, but people also keep their word to the gods. Well, of course, if advice and orders are flying from Olympus to the low – lying earth, requests and pleas are flying back. Achilles begs Thetis to intercede for him and put in a word to Zeus to punish Agamemnon:
«Mother! when you are strong, stand up for your brave son!
Now ascend to Olympus and pray to the almighty Zeus…»
However, people sometimes tell the gods exactly how to act in order to satisfy their humble human pleas. Actually, none other than Achilles tells Zeus, through the medium of Thetis, how to punish Agamemnon for his, Achilles, disgraced honor – to involve him in a war with the Trojans:
«Remind Zeus of that and pray, hugging his knees,
May he, the father, desire to fight for the Pergamians in battles,
But the Argives, pushing down to the very ships and to the sea,
To strike death, and the Argives will enjoy their king;
This king himself is a powerful, arrogant Atreides, let him know,
How criminal he is, the bravest Achaean is so dishonored.»
And the thunderer Zeus obeyed the advice of a mortal.
So between gods and people in the Iliad, as they would say now, there is an almost equal exchange of information. Achilles also confirms this, saying to Athena, who admonishes him not to enter into an open quarrel with Agamemnon:
«It is necessary, O daughter of Zeus, to observe your commands.
No matter how fiery my anger, but submission will be more useful:
Whoever is subdued by the immortals, the immortals will listen to him.»
In a word, not everything in the Iliad is as it seems to Jaynes. This time there is no reason to make archaeological excavations, to search for «Troy» – to find out what is real hidden behind the advice and hints of the gods.
But still, we are not really talking about gods, but about the structure of the brain.
«The emergence of the bicameral brain was a historical necessity,» says Janes. – When a tribe reached the number of about thirty people, new forms of communication and social control became necessary. I assume that the hallucinations of the bicameral brain were this social control. The individual heard the real command of the leader and carried it out. And when the lord died, his voice became a hallucination. Such a voice could «think» and solve the problems that a person faced.»
Come on, is it serious? Hallucinations instead of consciousness! How could a person survive being held captive by fantastic visions, even if generated by reality? After all, he had to navigate in reality every minute, every second, so as not to die.
Realizing this weakness of his theory, Janes tries to plug the gap. He writes that over time, hallucinations have become inconvenient for human control. He even names the time when this happened – around 1480 BC. Then there was an eruption of volcanoes on the islands of Santorini. A giant wave passed along the shores of the Aegean Sea, causing terrible destruction. Crowds of refugees, fleeing, rushed inland. Under these conditions, hallucinations could no longer support refugees, they needed some more realistic way of orientation. And so the impetus was given to the development of modern consciousness.
But
