Nestor (mythology)

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Nestor and Patroclus

In Greek mythology, Nestor of Gerênia (Greek: Νέστωρ) was the son of Neleus and Chloris, and the King of Pylos. He became king after Heracles killed Neleus and all of Nestor's brothers and sisters. His wife was either Eurydice or Anaxibia; their children included Perseus, Peisistratus, Thrasymedes, Pisidice, Polycaste, Stratichus, Aretus, Echephron and Antilochus.

[edit] Biography

Nestor was an Argonaut, helped fight the centaurs, and participated in the hunt for the Calydonian Boar. He and his sons Antilochus and Thrasymedes fought on the side of the Achaeans in the Trojan War. Though Nestor was already old when the war began, believed to be about 110, he was noted for his bravery and speaking abilities. In the Iliad he often gives advice to the younger warriors, and advises Agamemnon and Achilles to reconcile. He is too old to engage in combat himself, but he leads the Pylian troops, riding his chariot, and one of his horses is killed by an arrow shot by Paris. He also had a solid gold shield. Homer frequently calls him by the epithet "the Gerenian horseman." At the funeral games of Patroclus, Nestor advises Antilochus on how to win the chariot race. Antilochus was later killed in battle by Memnon.

In the Odyssey, Nestor has safely returned to Pylos, whereto Odysseus's son Telemachus travels to inquire about the fate of his father. Nestor receives Telemachus kindly and entertains him lavishly, but is unable to furnish any information on his father's fate. Nestor's wife Eurydice (a mythological figure separate from Orpheus's wife of the same name) and their remaining living sons appear in the Odyssey as well—Echephron, Stratius, Perseus, Aretus, Thrasymedes and Peisistratus. They also had a daughter, Polycaste. Here, too, Homer's admiration of Nestor is tempered by some humour at his expense: Telemachus, having returned to Nestor's home from a visit to Helen of Troy and Menelaus (where he has sought further information on his father's fate), urges Peisistratus to let him board his vessel immediately to return home rather than being subjected to a further dose of Nestor's rather expansive sense of hospitality.

[edit] Nestor's advice

Although Homer clearly intends his readers to perceive Nestor as an "elder statesman"-type figure worthy of respect, there are occasional flashes of humor at Nestor's expense in the Iliad, as any advice he gives to the other combatants typically serves as a pretext for his first providing his listeners with a garrulous, long-winded exposition of his own past glorious feats in similar circumstances. Homer never actually calls Nestor a bore, but the reader is left with the impression that Homer considers him as such nonetheless.^{[citation needed]}

Nestor’s advice in the Iliad has also been interpreted to have sinister undertones. For example, when Patroclus comes to Nestor for advice in Book 11, Nestor gets Patroclus to view disguising as Achilles as urgent. Karl Reinhardt, in Die Iliad und ihr Dichter, argues that this is contrary to what Patroclus really originally wanted – in fact, he is only there to receive information on behalf of Achilles about the wounded Machaon^[1]. Reinhardt notes that an “unimportant errand left behind by an all-important one…Patrocles’ role as messenger is crucial and an ironic purpose permeates the encounter.”^[2]

It is interesting to note that Homer offers contradictory portrayals of Nestor as a source of advice. On one hand, Homer portrays Nestor as a wise man; Nestor repeatedly offers to advice to the Achaeans that has been claimed to be anachronistic in Homer’s time – e.g. arranging the armies by tribes and clans or effectively using chariots in battle.^[3] Yet at the same time Nestor’s advice is frequently ineffective. Some examples include Nestor completely buying into the dream Zeus plants in Agamemnon in Book 2 and urging the Achaeans to battle, instructing the Achaeans in Book 4 to use spear techniques that in actuality would be disastrous^[4], and in Book 11 giving advice to Patroclus that ultimately leads to his death. Yet Nestor is never questioned, and actually frequently praised.^[5]

Hanna Roisman, in Nestor the Good Counselor, explains that the characters in the Iliad ignore the discrepancy between the quality of Nestor’s advice and its outcomes is because in the world of the Iliad, “outcomes are ultimately in the hands of the ever arbitrary and fickle gods…heroes are not necessarily viewed as responsible when things go awry.” In the Iliad, people are judged not necessarily in the modern view of results, but as people.^[6] Therefore, Nestor should be viewed as a good counselor because of the qualities he possesses as described in his introduction in Book 1 – as a man of “sweet words,” a “clear-voiced orator,” and whose voice “flows sweeter than honey.”^[7] These are elements that make up Nestor, and they parallel the elements that Homer describes as part of a good counselor in Book 3.150-152. Therefore, “the definition tells us that Nestor, as a good advisor, possesses the three features…that it designates.”^[8] Nestor is a good counselor inherently, and the consequences of his advice has no bearing on that, a view that differs from how good counselors are viewed today.

[edit] Historical notations

Excavations in the late 20th century in Pylos uncovered a wine cellar reportedly belonging to King Nestor. The cellar had an estimated capacity of 1,250 gallons with several remnants of pithoi, large Greek storage jars. ^[9]

The National Museum of Athens displays a two-handled wine cup made of pure gold that legend ascribes as belonging to Nestor. ^[10]

[edit] References

• Iliad I, 248; II, 370; IV, 293.
• Odyssey III, 157, 343.
• The Merchant of Venice Act I, Scene I, Line 55.

[edit] See also

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Nestor (mythology)

1. ^ Reinhardt, Karl. Die Iliad und ihr Dichter (Gottingen 1961) 258-61.
2. ^ Pedrick, Victoria. The Paradigmatic Nature of Nestor's Speech in Iliad 11. Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974-), Vol. 113. (1983), pp. 55-68.
3. ^ G. S. Kirk, The Iliad: A Commentary, 1. Books 1–4 (Cambridge, 1987).
4. ^ N. Postlethwaite, Homer’s Iliad: A Commentary on the Translation of Richmond Lattimore (Exeter, 2000) on 4.301–9.
5. ^ Examples include Iliad 2.372; 4.293; 11.627
6. ^ Roisman, Hanna. “Nestor the Good Counselor.” Classical Quarterly 55.1 17–38 (2005) Printed in Great Britain.
7. ^ Iliad 1.247-253
8. ^ Roisman, Hanna. “Nestor the Good Counselor.” Classical Quarterly 55.1 17–38 (2005) Printed in Great Britain.
9. ^ Hugh Johnson, Vintage: The Story of Wine pg 36. Simon and Schuster 1989
10. ^ ibid