Latest news with #Iliad
New Indian Express
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- New Indian Express
Turning back time to learn about royal games
While many of us think of games as something limited to two or four people around the table in a family, in ancient times, games had far wider connotations, not just in India. For example, in Greek and Roman traditions, funerary games were competitions held in honour of the deceased person, often a hero or a noble figure, as part of their funeral rites. This is graphically described in Homer's Iliad, when Achilles organised elaborate games to honour his fallen friend, Patroclus. The purpose of these games was to pay tribute to the dead, to appease the gods as the games were seen as offerings, and of course, to display wealth and power. Closer to home, in India, games were very much a part of the Rajasuya ceremonies. The Rajasuya ceremony was one of the most prestigious and elaborate royal rituals in ancient times. It was a consecration ceremony performed by the king to assert his sovereignty. The purpose of the Rajasuya was to legitimise the king's rule through divine sanction and assert his supremacy over other kings who were invited to attend and who offered tribute. It helped to unify the realm under a single authority.
Fox News
15-05-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Q & Trey: The Debt Ceiling Is The Limit
It might not always be true, but money talks. Trey answers questions on Congressional authority to raise the debt ceiling and the Pentagon funding flights to Guantanamo Bay amid the migrant crisis. Plus, he reveals who he believes to be the true hero in Greek poet Homer's 'Iliad'. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Homer's Iliad is a rap battle
Homer's Iliad is one of the foundational stories of European civilisation. The Iliad is a long poem – an epic – thought to have first been put down in writing in the eighth century BC, though the story is set several hundred years before, perhaps as early as the 12th or 13th century BC. It explores a few crucial violent weeks within a much longer war between an alliance of Greek city-states and the city of Troy over Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world. In it, we find ancient Greek gods and humans sharing a common reality. They concurrently star as the central characters of both a mythological and an earthly dramatic encounter, on which the fate of a people rests. In his work, public philosopher Cornel West argues that there is a 'gangster' inside all of us. The challenge, West teaches, is to learn to keep these 'gangster elements' in check so that we can still live with decency and integrity in an often violent and unjust world. This struggle, I contend, is at the heart of both Homer's Iliad and the art of battle rap. This article is part of Rethinking the Classics. The stories in this series offer insightful new ways to think about and interpret classic books and artworks. This is the canon – with a twist. Battle rap is an art form where two or more MCs confront one another in a freestyle rap that includes boasts, insults, wordplay and disses (related to but not to be confused with rap beefs like the Kendrick Lamar and Drake feud). The history of this kind of verbal jousting goes back at least to flyting – poetic duels usually involving rhyming insults, widespread in northern Europe in the late medieval era. (See Assassin's Creed Valhalla for its recent reimagining.) And it also has African roots. But its latest iteration is thought to have emerged in the hip-hop scene in New York in the 1980s. The 1981 Busy Bee versus Kool Moe Dee battle at the Harlem World club in New York is an important part of hip-hop lore. Read more: It was arguably the 2002 film 8 Mile, however, that starred real battle rap legend, Eminem, that made the art form well known beyond hardcore rap aficionados. Today it is a pop culture streaming event, with millions of followers and official leagues. The object of a battle rap is to display flow, braggadocio and quick wit. Humour is often a plus, but lyrically dexterous, rhythmic, creative 'burns' are the name of the game. Both art forms encourage us, the listeners, to react, reflect and ultimately select with which speaker to side. We are thrust into the centre of the action without much of a narrator to explain things. Both the Iliad and rap battles are part of the oral poetic tradition, since we think the Iliad was orally recited for generations before it was put down in writing. They are therefore both addressed to a live audience. The Iliad is a story of war between Greeks and Trojans, but also of 'beefs'. Menelaus versus Paris over the hand of Helen. Achilles versus Agamemnon, the king of the Greeks who wrongs him by expropriating one of his slaves. And Achilles versus Hector, the Trojan prince who kills Patroclus, Achilles's closest friend. The high moment of the poem is arguably the encounter between Achilles and Hector. Before they battle to the death, Hector offers Achilles a deal: whoever wins won't disrespect the other's body. In response, Achilles belows: 'Curse you, Hector, and don't talk of oaths to me. Lions and men make no compacts, nor are wolves and lambs in sympathy: they are opposed, to the end. You and I are beyond friendship: nor will there be peace until one or the other dies.' Achilles is calling out Hector's attempt at showing nobility of character, because Hector tries to separate the duty to wage conflict from rage and disrespect of his enemy. Achilles flatly rejects the proposal. For him, the only reason to fight is to satiate his grief-induced rage and so no respect can be given even after death. Ultimately, Achilles kills Hector and desecrates his body, but Hector was clearly the better man. Two worldviews collide. Which one should we side with? In a battle rap, the question of how we judge which MC to be victorious is always at stake. Do we side with the MC who best 'rocks the mic' by pleasing the audience, or the one who more lyrically and intelligently cuts the opponent to the bone? Here are five more themes shared by The Iliad and battle rap. Battle rap has made gifted MCs into street rap legends. Long before record deals were the prize, MCs battled for respect and street fame. This pursuit of legendary status also lies at the very heart of The Iliad, as Achilles is warned by his mother, the goddess Thetis, that he will die if he fights in the Trojan war, but in return his 'glory never dies'. Battle rappers and the warriors in The Iliad act in their own name but they also represent wider groups heralding from different places. They all, in some way, carry responsibility for and aim to bring reflected fame to their respective communities. Most battle raps take the form of a take down of the opponent, but the real object is to demonstrate verbal prowess. Simply entertaining will not cut it. 'You now have to make sense of what you say, in order for us to give you the power,' summarises hip-hop legend KRS-One. The Iliad opens with a muse telling the audience that the epic will recount the 'wrath of Achilles', but in fact we find skilful interventions in speech that make us wonder whether the reasons for conflict can ever justify the grief it causes. What is truly worth living and dying for are central themes in The Iliad, as in battle rap. There we find talk of loyalty, honour, respect, courage, friendship and fame. The overt answers given can be taken as embraces of a certain kind of toxic masculinity where dominance, rage, cunning and violence are celebrated, but maybe these answers subtly point to their ultimate hollowness. Lurking behind the repeated injunction to 'be the best', battle rap and Homer's epic invite the question of what is truly worth admiring: skill, dominance, wealth, integrity, courage, beauty, truth, justice, love or glory? They provide no singular answer. Instead, we are left to sit within what West calls the 'funk of life' – the mess of it all. From there, we can see that the stories we tell ourselves have the power to shape and define our actions and our very lives. So the main question becomes: at a time when simplistic stories of violence and domination are presented to us as easy answers to complex social realities, can we create new and richer stories of our own? This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Joshua Forstenzer's work receives funding from the Yale Center for Faith and Culture as part of its Templeton-funded Life Worth Living project (
Reuters
08-05-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Telecom Italia CEO says tie-up with Iliad remains possible
MILAN, May 8 (Reuters) - Telecom Italia (TIM) ( opens new tab will continue to explore the possibility of a tie-up with French-owned rival Iliad as it remains convinced that consolidation is needed to make Italy's telecoms sector sustainable, its boss said on Thursday. "We will continue to pursue the possibility of a deal with Iliad," TIM Chief Executive Pietro Labriola told analysts in a call after it released quarterly earnings. However, he added that it would not be a nightmare for TIM if an alternative tie-up happened between Iliad and rival Wind Tre.
Time of India
26-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Music fuels the emotional core of any production: Iman Das
Music drives the emotional core of any production by adding feelings that words can't always express. It helps the audience connect with the story and remember it,' shares musician Pandit Iman Das , who has composed 43 original tracks for Amrito-Sandhane , a Greek mythological drama created by Indrani Baksy, that is set to be staged in the city. Excerpts: 'A common thread in world mythology is the suffering of women' You Can Also Check: Bengaluru AQI | Weather in Bengaluru | Bank Holidays in Bengaluru | Public Holidays in Bengaluru Iman shares, 'The narrative unfolds as a journey starting in Greek mythology and has four parts. It looks at how women are shown to suffer in different myths from around the world. A central character, drawing inspiration from the Mahabharata guides us through these stories, beginning with Greek mythological characters from works like the Iliad. The narrative then progresses to the Mahabharata. Ultimately, across these various mythological facets, the recurring theme is that women often emerge as the ultimate losers.' 'The music is the very foundation of this production' He adds, 'I composed 43 tracks for this drama, ranging from Greek, African, and Phoenician music to Indian music. When discussing with the director, she asked for a unifying piece connecting all four scripts through world music . I realized the ocean is the only element linking Greece, Africa, the Indian Ocean, and India. Leveraging the beauty of raga music, I found a scale equivalent to the Phrygian mode in Western music and composed a piece symbolising the interconnectedness of these seas.'
