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The Iliad tells the story of the war at Troy between the Greeks and the Trojans. It is an epic poem, which is attributed to the poet Homer, a Greek who is thought to have composed it around 800-750 BCE. The Trojan War is thought to have occurred much earlier, around 1250 BCE, during the Aegean Bronze Age.
Remarkably for such an ancient work, the Iliad has a great many parallels with the modern sport of golf. The Greeks and the Trojans spent all day battling each other in equipment that would not be entirely out of place on the links today. The primary weapon of the warrior at Troy was a long spear. Spears consist of spearheads at the end of wooden shafts, much as a golf club consists of a clubhead at the end of a shaft. An amazing parallel!. The spearhead itself was made of metal, as are the heads of modern metal woods on golf clubs. The shaft of the spear was wood, but one must remember that this was more than three thousand years ago. If spears were still in wide use today, no doubt their shafts would be graphite or titanium, for extra distance.
The warriors at Troy did battle primarily on foot, but they were driven to the battle in chariots, much like today’s golfer rides to his ball in a golf cart, and disembarks to make his shot. The Greek and Trojan heroes were also accompanied to battle by servants who, among other things, carried extra spears, an obvious precursor to the caddy. The warriors at Troy dressed in heavy bronze armor that was used only for battle, and taken off immediately thereafter. Can this remind one of anything other than golf clothes? How often do you see a golfer (or anyone else) wearing knickers for an evening of bar hopping around town?
Other than fighting, the primary occupation of the heroes at Troy was talking about fighting. Their secondary and tertiary occupations were drinking and eating after fighting. What could be more like a golfer than this?
The Greeks spent ten years fighting the Trojan War. A round of golf takes longer than almost any major sport other than cricket. The Super Bowl is decided in less time than the average foursome takes to shoot eighteen at the municipal course. Troy is at the mouth of the Dardanelles strait, near modern Istanbul in Turkey and some distance from mainland Greece, so the Greeks had to sail a long way to get there. Once they were there, the Trojans greeted them by trying to kill them. How like the golfer who makes the once in a lifetime pilgrimage to St. Andrews or Pebble Beach, only to shoot 115.
The Iliad was originally written in Ancient Greek, but is available in many translations. Among these are Alexander Pope’s translation in rhyming verse; the translation by Richmond Lattimore, which is among the closest to the literal Greek; and the recent well-received translation by Princeton professor Robert Fagles. All of these are available at Amazon.com, one of the sponsors of Waggle.com, as are many other translations. In fact, a man who called himself T.E. Shaw once translated the other poem attributed to Homer, the Odyssey. Shaw was a pseudonym for T.E. Lawrence, who is better known to history as Lawrence of Arabia. Arabia is a country that has a lot of sand, much like that in bunkers on golf courses. Another amazing golf parallel!
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