Here we have Helen’s cuckolded husband Menalaus screaming at God in the most colourful terms. I like the idea of those lazy gods hanging out in heaven with too much time on their hands and being therefore sworn at as ‘time-free trash’. Or is it just that, being immortal, they are timeless? Trash, all the same, as far as this enraged human king is concerned.
He has gone down on both his knees, naked, on both his knees,
Shaking his fists at Heaven, and shouting out:
‘God God – Meek, Time-Free Trash,
Your hospitality is mocked.
And so are You. And so is Greece. And so am I.’
Source: Christopher Logue, War Music: An account of Books 1-4 and 16-19 of Homer’s Iliad, London: Faber and Faber, 2001, p. 119
