Homer still holds up because he repeats this same narrative echo in the form of advice over and over:
“Hey, lesser God, go and give that mortal these instructions.”
“Sure thing. Hey, you! Zeus says, ‘instructions’ (verbatim).
“Gee thanks. Hey, wife or friend or whatever, Zeus says ‘instructions’ (verbatim), what do you think?”
“Damn, you better follow ‘instructions’ (verbatim).”
Reader: You fool!
“I’m no fool!” [disregards instructions, dies]*
- except for Priam.