O my Rider

[poliphilo]

Homer travels from court to court. Every place he performs his poem he adds in a section about glorious ancestors to please the local audience. That's how the poem builds up. And that's why there are so many people in it who appear out of nowhere, get praised, do a little killing or dying and then are never heard from again.

I've just got to the death of Patroclus. And now the catalogue of war turns into something more truly dramatic- because this guy matters.