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In Greek mythology, Thersites (Greek: ) was a soldier of the Greek army during the Trojan War. In the ''Iliad'', he does not have a father's name, which may suggest that he should be viewed as a commoner rather than an aristocratic hero. However, a quotation from another lost epic in the Trojan cycle, the ''Aethiopis'', gives his father's name as Agrius. Homer described him in detail in the ''Iliad'', Book II, even though he plays only a minor role in the story. He is said to be bow-legged and lame, to have shoulders that cave inward, and a head which is covered in tufts of hair and comes to a point. Vulgar, obscene, and somewhat dull-witted, Thersites disrupts the rallying of the Greek army: "He got up in the assembly and attacked Agamemnon in the words of Achilles (him greedy and a coward ) . . . Odysseus then stood up, delivered a sharp rebuke to Thersites, which he coupled with a threat to strip him naked, and then beat him on the back and shoulders with Agamemnon's sceptre; Thersites doubled over, a warm tear fell from his eye, and a bloody welt formed on his back; he sat down in fear, and in pain gazed helplessly as he wiped away his tear; but the rest of the assembly was distressed and laughed . . . There must be a figuration of wickedness as self-evident as Thersites-- the ugliest man who came to Troy-- who says what everyone else is thinking".〔''The Rhetoric of Morality and Philosophy'' by Seth Benardete, 1991, pp. 100–101.〕 He is not mentioned elsewhere in the ''Iliad'', but it seems that in the lost ''Aethiopis'', Achilles eventually killed him "for having torn out the eyes of the Amazon Penthesilea that the hero had just killed in combat."〔analyses et réflexions sur Gorgias by Luc Brisson, p152〕 In his Introduction to ''The Anger of Achilles'', Robert Graves speculates that Homer might have made Thersites a ridiculous figure as a way of dissociating himself from him, because his remarks seem entirely justified. This was a way of letting these remarks, along with Odysseus' brutal act of suppression, remain in the record. That Odysseus is described as beating Thersites, not with any object of his own, but rather with Agamemnon's sceptre, certainly seems to leave the implications of the event open to the listener's imagination or point of view. ==In later literature== Thersites is also mentioned in Plato's ''Gorgias'' (525e) as an example of a soul that can be cured in the afterlife; and in ''The Republic'' he chooses to be reborn as an ape. According to E. R. Dodds, "There he is not so much the typical petty criminal as the typical buffoon; and so Lucian describes him."〔''Gorgias'', ed. by E. R. Dodds, 1959, p. 382.〕 Along with many of the major figures of the Trojan War, Thersites was a character in Shakespeare's ''Troilus and Cressida'' (1602) in which he is described as "a deformed and scurrilous Grecian" and portrayed as a comic servant, in the tradition of the Shakespearian fool, but unusually given to abusive remarks to all he encounters. He begins as Ajax's slave, telling Ajax, "I would thou didst itch from head to foot and I had the scratching of thee; I would make thee the loathsomest scab in Greece." Thersites soon leaves Ajax and puts himself into the service of Achilles (portrayed by Shakespeare as a kind of bohemian figure), who appreciates his bitter, caustic humor. Shakespeare mentions Thersites again in his later play ''Cymbeline'', when Guiderius says, "Thersites' body is as good as Ajax' / When neither are alive." Laurence Sterne writes of Thersites in the last volume of his Tristram Shandy chapter 14, declaring him to be the exemplar of abusive satire, as black as the ink it is written with. In Part Two of Goethe's ''Faust'' (1832), Act One, during the Masquerade, Thersites appears briefly and criticizes the goings-on. He says, "When some lofty thing is done / I gird at once my harness on. / Up with what's low, what's high eschew, / Call crooked straight, and straight askew," 〔Trans. Wayne, Philip, copyright 1959 (Penguin Books).〕 The Herald, who acts as Master of Revels or Lord of Misrule, strikes Thersites with his mace, at which point he metamorphoses into an egg, from which a bat and an adder are hatched. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Thersites」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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