The
Iliad ( ,
Iliás) is an
epic poem in
dactylic hexameters, traditionally
attributed to
Homer. Set in the
Trojan War, the ten-year siege of Ilium by a
coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events
during the weeks of a quarrel between King
Agamemnon and the warrior
Achilles. Although the story covers only a few
weeks in the final year of the war, the
Iliad mentions or
alludes to many of the Greek legends about the siege.
Along with the
Odyssey, also
attributed to Homer, the
Iliad is among the oldest extant
works of Western literature, and its written version is usually
dated to around the eighth century
BC . The
Iliad contains approximately 15,700 lines, and is written
in a literary amalgam of several
Greek
dialects. The authorship of the poem is disputed.
Synopsis
Note: Book numbers are in parentheses and come before the
synopsis of the book.

The first verses of the
Iliad
(1) After the invocation to the
Muses, the
story begins
in media res
towards the end of the Trojan war between the Trojans and the
besieging Greeks.
Chryses, a Trojan priest
of
Apollo, offers the Greeks wealth for the
return of his daughter
Chryseis, a captive
of
Agamemnon, Greek leader. Although most
of the Greek army is in favour, Agamemnon refuses. Chryses prays
for Apollo's help, and Apollo causes a plague throughout the Greek
army. After nine days of plague,
Achilles,
the leader of the
Myrmidon contingent,
calls an assembly to solve the plague problem. Under pressure,
Agamemnon agrees to return Chryseis to her father, but also decides
to take Achilles's captive,
Briseis, as
compensation. Angered, Achilles declares that he and his men will
no longer fight for Agamemnon, but will go home.
Odysseus takes a ship and brings Chryseis to her
father, whereupon Apollo ends the plague. In the meantime,
Agamemnon's messengers take Briseis away, and Achilles asks his
mother,
Thetis, to ask
Zeus that the Greeks be fought to breaking point by the
Trojans, so Agamemnon will realise how much the Greeks need him.
Thetis does so, Zeus agrees, (2) and sends a dream to Agamemnon,
urging him to attack the city. Agamemnon heeds the dream but
decides to first test the morale of the Greek army by telling them
to go home. The plan backfires, and only the intervention of
Odysseus, inspired by
Athena, stops the rout.
Odysseus confronts and beats
Thersites, a
common soldier who voices discontent at fighting Agamemnon's war.
After a meal, the Greeks deploy in companies upon the Trojan plain.
The poet takes the opportunity to describe each Greek contingent.
When news of the Greek deployment reaches king
Priam, the Trojans too sortie upon the plain. In a
similar list to that for the Greeks, the poet describes the Trojans
and their allies. (3) The armies approach each other on the plain,
but before they met,
Paris offers
to end the war by fighting duel with
Menelaus. While
Helen tells
Priam about the Greek commanders from the
walls of Troy, both sides swear a truce and promise to abide by the
outcome of the duel. Paris is beaten, but
Aphrodite rescues him and leads him to bed with
Helen before Menelaus could kill. (4) Pressured by
Hera's hatred of Troy, Zeus arranges for the Trojan
Pandaros to break the truce by wounding
Menelaus with an arrow. Agamemnon rouses the Greeks, and battle is
joined. (5) In the fighting,
Diomedes kills
many Trojans and defeats
Aeneas, whom again
Aphrodite rescues, but Diomedes attacks and wounds the goddess.
Apollo faces Diomedes, and warns him against warring with gods.
Many heroes and commanders join in, including
Hector, and the gods supporting each side try to
influence the battle. Emboldened by Athena, Diomedes wounds
Ares and puts him out of action.
(6) Hector rallies the Trojans and stops a rout; Diomedes and
Glaukos, Greek and Trojan, find
common ground and exchange unequal gifts. Hector enters the city,
urges prayers and sacrifices, incites Paris to battle, bids his
wife
Andromache and son
Astyanax farewell on the city walls, and rejoins
the battle. (7) Hector duels with
Ajax, but nightfall interrupts the fight
and both sides retire. The Greeks agree to burn their dead and
build a wall to protect their ships and camp, while the Trojans
quarrel about returning Helen. Paris offers to return the treasure
he took, and give further wealth as compensation, but without
returning Helen, and the offer is refused. A day's truce is agreed
for burning the dead, during which the Greeks also build their wall
and trench. (8) The next morning, Zeus forbids the gods from
interfering, and fighting begins anew. The Trojans prevail and
force the Greeks back to their wall while Hera and Athena are
forbidden from helping. Night falls before the Trojans can assault
the Greek wall. They camp in the field to assault at first light,
and their watchfires light the plain like stars.

Iliad, Book VIII, lines 245–53,
Greek manuscript, late 5th, early 6th centuries AD
(9) Meanwhile, the Greeks are desperate. Agamemnon admits his
error, and sends an embassy composed of Odysseus, Ajax,
Phoenix, and two heralds to offer Briseis
and extensive gifts to Achilles, who has been camped next to his
ships throughout, if only he would return to the fighting. Achilles
and his companion
Patroclus receive the
embassy well, but Achilles angrily refuses Agamemnon's offer, and
declares that he would only return to battle if the Trojans reach
his ships and threaten them with fire. The embassy returns
empty-handed.(10) Later that night, Odysseus and Diomedes venture
out to the Trojan lines, kill the Trojan
Dolon, and wreak havoc in the camps of some
Thracian allies of Troy. (11) In the morning, the
fighting is fierce and Agamemnon, Diomedes, and Odysseus are all
wounded. Achilles sends Patroclus from his camp to enquire about
the Greek casualties, and while there Patroclus is moved to pity by
a speech of Nestor. (12) The Trojans assault the Greek wall on
foot. Hector, ignoring an omen, leads the terrible fighting. The
Greeks are overwhelmed in rout, the wall's gate is broken, and
Hector charges in. (13) Many fall on both sides. The Trojan seer
Polydamas urges Hector to fall
back and warns him of Achilles, but is ignored. (14) Hera seduces
Zeus and lures him to sleep, allowing
Poseidon to help the Greeks, and the Trojans are
driven back onto the plain. (15) Zeus awakes and is enraged by
Poseidon's intervention. Against the mounting discontent of the
Greek-supporting gods, Zeus sends Apollo to aid the Trojans, who
once again breach the wall, and the battle reaches the ships.
(16) Patroclus could stand to watch no longer, and begs Achilles to
be allowed to defend the ships. Achilles relents, and lends
Patroclus his armour, but sends him off with a stern admonition to
not pursue the Trojans, lest he take Achilles's glory. Patroclus
leads the Myrmidons to battle and arrives as the Trojans set fire
to the first ships. The Trojans are routed by the sudden onslaught.
Patroclus, ignoring Achilles's command, pursues and reaches the
gates of Troy, where Apollo himself stops him. Patroclus is set
upon by Apollo and
Euphorbos, and is
finally killed by Hector. (17) Hector takes Achilles's armour from
the fallen Patroclus, but fighting develops around Patroclus's
body. (18) Achilles is mad with grief when he hears of Patroclus's
death, and vows to take vengeance on Hector; his mother Thetis
grieves, too, knowing that Achilles is fated to die if he kills
Hector. Achilles is urged to help retrieve Patroclus's body, but
has no armour. Made brilliant by Athena, Achilles stands next to
the Greek wall and roars in rage. The Trojans are dismayed by his
appearance and the Greeks manage to bear Patroclus's body away.
Again Polydams urges Hector to withdraw into the city, again Hector
refuses, and the Trojans camp in the plain at nightfall. Patroclus
is mourned, and meanwhile, by Thetis's request,
Hephaistos fashions a new set of armour for
Achilles, among which is an magnificently wrought
shield. (19) In the morning, Agamemnon
gives Achilles all the promised gifts, including Briseis, but he is
indifferent to them. Achilles fasts while the Greeks take their
meal, and straps on his new armour, and heaves his great spear. His
horse
Xanthos prophesies to
Achilles his death. Achilles drives his chariot into battle.
(20) Zeus lifts the ban on the gods' interference, and the gods
freely intervene on both sides. Burning with rage and grief,
Achilles's onslaught is terrible, and slays many. (21) Driving the
Trojans before him, Achilles cuts off half in the river
Skamandros and proceeds to slaughter them and
fills the river with the dead. The river, angry at the killing,
confronts Achilles, but is beaten back by Hephaistos's firestorm.
The gods fight among themselves. The great gates of the city are
opened to receive the fleeing Trojans, and Apollo leads Achilles
away from the city by pretending to be a Trojan. (22) When Apollo
reveals himself to Achilles, the Trojans have retreated into the
city, all except for Hector, who, having twice ignored the counsels
of Polydamas, feels the shame of rout and resolves to face
Achilles, in spite of the pleas of Priam and
Hecuba, his parents. When Achilles approaches,
Hector's will fails him, and he is chased around the city by
Achilles. Finally, Athena tricks him to stop running, and he is
caught and killed by Achilles. Achilles takes Hector's body and
dishonours it. (23) The ghost of Patroclus comes to Achilles in a
dream and urges the burial of his body. The Greeks hold a day of
funeral games, and Achilles gives out the prizes. (24) Dismayed by
Achilles's continued abuse of Hector's body, Zeus decides that it
must be returned to Priam. Led by
Hermes,
Priam takes a wagon out of Troy, across the plains, and enters the
Greek camp unnoticed. He grasps Achilles by the knees and begs to
have his son's body. Achilles is moved to tears, and the two lament
their losses in the war. After a meal, Priam carries Hector's body
back into Troy. Hector is buried, and the city mourns.
The major characters
- See also: :Category: Deities in the
Iliad
The many characters of the
Iliad are catalogued; the
latter-half of Book II, the “Catalogue of Ships”, lists commanders
and cohorts; battle scenes feature quickly-slain minor
characters.
- The Achaeans ( ) — aka the
Hellenes (Greeks), Danaans (Δαναοί), and
Argives (Ἀργεĩοι).
- The
Trojan
men
- Hector — son of King Priam; the foremost
Trojan warrior.
- Aeneas — son of Anchises and
Aphrodite.
- Deiphobus — brother of Hector and
Paris.
- Paris — Helen’s
lover-abductor.
- Priam — the aged King of Troy.
- Polydamas — a prudent commander whose
advice is ignored; he is Hector’s foil.
- Agenor — a Trojan warrior who attempts to
fight Achilles (Book XXI).
- Dolon ( ) — a spy upon the Greek camp
(Book X).
- Antenor — King Priam’s
advisor, who argues for returning Helen to end the war; Paris
refuses.
- Polydorus — son of Priam and Laothoe.
- The Trojan women
- Hecuba ( ) — Priam’s wife; mother of
Hector, Cassandra, Paris, and others.
- Helen ( ) — Menelaus’s wife; espoused
first to Paris, then to Deiphobus.
- Andromache ( ) — Hector’s wife;
mother of Astyanax ( )
- Cassandra ( ) — Priam’s daughter;
courted by Apollo, who bestows the gift of prophecy to her; upon
her rejection, he curses her, and her warnings of Trojan doom go
unheeded.
These Olympic deities advise and manipulate the humans; excepting
Zeus, they fight the Trojan War. (See
Theomachy.)
Themes: the substance of heroism
Nostos
Nostos
(
νόστος — homecoming) occurs seven times in the
poem (II.155, II.251, IX.413, IX.434, IX.622, X.509, XVI.82);
thematically, the concept of
homecoming is much explored
in Ancient Greek literature, especially in the post-war homeward
fortunes experienced by Atreidae, Agamemnon, and Odysseus (see the
Odyssey), thus,
nostos is impossible without
sacking Troy — King Agamemnon’s motive for winning, at any
cost.
Kleos
Kleos
(
κλέος — glory, fame) is the concept of
glory earned in heroic battle; for most of the Greek
invaders of Troy, notably
Odysseus,
kleos is earned in a victorious
nostos
(homecoming), yet not for Achilles, he must choose
one
reward, either
nostos or
kleos. In Book IX
(IX.410–16), he poignantly tells Agamemnon’s envoys — Odysseus,
Phoenix, Ajax — begging his reinstatement to battle about
having to choose between two fates (
διχθαδίας
κήρας — 9.411).
The passage reads:
Richmond Lattimore
translates:
For my mother Thetis the goddess
of silver feet tells me
I carry two sorts of destiny toward the day of my death.
Either,
if I stay here and fight beside the city of the Trojans,
my return home is gone, but my glory shall be everlasting;
but if I return home to the beloved land of my fathers,
the excellence of my glory is gone, but there will be a long
life
left for me, and my end in death will not come to me quickly.
In foregoing his
nostos, he will earn the greater reward
of
kleos aphthiton (
κλέος ἄφθιτον — fame
imperishable). In the poem,
aphthiton
(
ἄφθιτον — imperishable) occurs five times (II.46,
V.724, XIII.22, XIV.238, XVIII.370), each occurrence denotes an
object (i.e. Agamemnon’s sceptre, the wheel of
Hebe’s chariot, the house of Poseidon, the throne of
Zeus, the house of
Hephaistos);
translator
Lattimore renders
kleos aphthiton as
forever
immortal and as
forever imperishable — connoting
Achilles’s mortality by underscoring his greater reward in
returning to battle Troy.
Timê
Akin to
kleos is
timê
(
тιμή — respect, honour), the concept denoting the
respectability an honourable man accrues with accomplishment
(cultural, political, martial), per his station in life. In Book I,
the Greek troubles begin with King Agamemnon’s dishonourable,
unkingly behaviour — first, by
threatening the priest
Chryses (1.11), then, by
aggravating them in disrespecting
Achilles, by confiscating Bryseis from him (1.171). The warrior’s
consequent rancour against the dishonourable king ruins
the Greek military cause.
Wrath

The Wrath of Achilles (1819), by
Michel Drolling.
The poem’s initial word,
μῆνιν
(
mēnin — wrath, rage, fury), establishes the
Iliad’s principal theme: The
Wrath of
Achilles. His personal rage and wounded soldier’s vanity
propel the story — the Greeks’ faltering in battle, the slayings of
Patroclus and Hector, and the fall of Troy. In Book I, the Wrath of
Achilles first emerges in the Achilles-convoked meeting, between
the Greek kings and
Calchas, the Seer. King
Agamemnon dishonours Chryses, the Trojan Apollonian priest, by
refusing with a
threat the restitution of his daughter,
Chryseis — despite the proffered ransom of “gifts beyond count”;
the insulted priest prays his god’s help — and a nine-day rain of
arrows falls upon the Greeks. Moreover, in that meeting, Achilles
accuses Agamemnon of being “greediest for gain of all men”. To
that, Agamemnon replies:
But here is my threat to you.
Even as Phoibos Apollo is taking away my Chryseis.
I shall convey her back in my own ship, with my own
followers; but I shall take the fair-cheeked Briseis,
your prize, I myself going to your shelter, that you may learn
well
how much greater I am than you, and another man may shrink
back
from likening himself to me and contending against me.
After that, only Athena stays Achilles’s wrath. He vows to never
again to obey orders from Agamemnon. Furious, Achilles cries to his
mother, Thetis, who persuades Zeus’s
divine intervention —
favouring the Trojans — until Achilles’s rights are restored.
Meanwhile, Hector leads the Trojans to almost pushing the Greeks
back to the sea (Book XII); later, Agamemnon contemplates defeat
and retreat to Greece (Book XIV). Again, the Wrath of Achilles
turns the war’s tide in seeking vengeance when Hector kills
Patroclus. Aggrieved, Achilles tears his hair and dirties his face;
Thetis comforts her mourning son, who tells her:
So it was here that the lord of men Agamemnon angered
me.
Still, we will let all this be a thing of the past, and for all
our
sorrow beat down by force the anger deeply within us.
Now I shall go, to overtake that killer of a dear life,
Hektor; then I will accept my own death, at whatever
time Zeus wishes to bring it about, and the other immortals.
Accepting prospective death as fair price for avenging Patroclus,
he returns to battle, dooming Hector and Troy, thrice chasing him
’round the Trojan walls, before slaying him, then dragging the
corpse behind his chariot, back to camp.
Fate
Fate (
κήρα —
destiny, fate) propels most of the events of the
Iliad.
Once set, gods and men abide it, neither truly able nor willing to
contest it. How fate is set is unknown, but it is told by the
Fates and Seers such as
Calchas. Men and their gods continually speak of
heroic acceptance and cowardly avoidance of one’s slated fate. Yet,
it does not determine every action, incident, and occurrence, but
does determine the outcome of life — before killing him, Hector
calls Patroclus a fool for cowardly avoidance of his fate, by
attempting his defeat; Patroclus retorts:
No, deadly destiny, with the son of Leto, has killed
me,
and of men it was Euphorbos; you are only my third slayer.
And put away in your heart this other thing that I tell you.
You yourself are not one who shall live long, but now already
death and powerful destiny are standing beside you,
to go down under the hands of Aiakos’ great son,
Achilleus.
Here, Patroclus alludes to fated death by Hector’s hand, and
Hector’s fated death by Achilles’s hand. Despite
free will, each accepts the outcome of his life,
yet, no-one knows if the gods can alter fate. The first instance of
this doubt occurs in Book XVI; seeing Patroclus about to kill
Sarpedon, his mortal son, Zeus says:
Ah me, that it is destined that the dearest of men,
Sarpedon,
must go down under the hands of Menoitios’ son Patroclus.
About his dilemma, Hera asks Zeus:
Majesty, son of Kronos, what sort of thing have you
spoken?
Do you wish to bring back a man who is mortal, one long since
doomed by his destiny, from ill-sounding death and release
him?
Do it, then; but not all the rest of us gods shall approve
you.
In deciding — between losing a son or abiding fate — Zeus, the King
of the Gods, allows it. This motif recurs when he considers sparing
Hector, whom he loves and respects. Again, Athena asks him:
Father of the shining bold, dark misted, what is this
you said?
Do you wish to bring back a man who is mortal, one long since
doomed by his destiny, from ill-sounding death and release
him?
Do it, then; but not all the rest of us gods shall approve
you.
Again, Zeus appears capable of altering fate, but does not,
deciding instead to abide set outcomes; yet, contrariwise, fate
spares Aeneas, after Apollo convinces the over-matched Trojan to
fight Achilles. Poseidon cautiously speaks:
But come, let us ourselves get him away from death, for
fear
the son of Kronos may be angered if now Achilleus
kills this man. It is destined that he shall be the survivor,
that the generation of Dardanos shall not die. . . .
Divinely-aided, Aeneas escapes the wrath of Achilles and survives
the Trojan War. Whether or not the gods can alter fate, they do
abide it, despite its countering their human allegiances, thus, the
mysterious origin of fate is a power beyond the gods. Fate implies
the primeval, tripartite division of the world that Zeus, Poseidon,
and Hades effected in deposing their father,
Cronus, for its dominion. Zeus took the Air and the
Sky, Poseidon the Waters, and Hades the
Underworld, the land of the dead — yet, they
share dominion of the Earth. Despite the earthly powers of the
Olympic gods, only the Three Fates set the destiny of Man.
The Iliad as oral tradition
In antiquity, the Greeks applied the
Iliad and the
Odyssey as the bases of
pedagogy;
literature central to the educational-cultural function of the
itinerant
rhapsode, who composed
consistent epic poems from memory and improvisation, and
disseminated them, via song and chant, in his travels and at the
Panathenaic Festival of
athletics, music, poetics, and sacrifice, celebrating Athena’s
birthday.
Originally, Classical scholars treated the
Iliad and the
Odyssey as written poetry, and Homer as a writer, yet, by
the 1920s,
Milman Parry (1902–1935)
demonstrated otherwise; his investigation of the oral Homeric style
—
stock epithets and
reiteration (words, phrases,
stanzas) — established those
formulae as
oral tradition artefacts easily applied to an
hexametric line; a two-word stock epithet (e.g. “resourceful
Odysseus”) reiteration complements a character name by filling a
half-line, thus, freeing the poet to compose a half-line of
original formulaic text to complete his meaning. In
Yugoslavia, Parry and his assistant,
Albert
Lord (1912–1991), studied the oral-formulaic composition of
Bosniac oral poetry, yielding the
Parry/Lord thesis that established
Oral tradition studies, later
developed by
Eric Havelock,
Marshall McLuhan,
Walter Ong, et al.
In
The Singer of Tales
(1960), Lord demonstrates likeness between the tragedies of the
Greek Patroclus, in the
Iliad, and of the
Sumerian Enkidu, in the
Epic of Gilgamesh, and
refutes, with “careful analysis of the repetition of thematic
patterns”, that the Patroclus storyline upsets Homer’s established
compositional formulae of “wrath, bride-stealing, and rescue”,
thus, stock-phrase
reiteration does not restrict his
originality in fitting story to rhyme. Like-wise, in
The Arming
Motif, Prof. James Armstrong reports that the poem’s
formulae yield richer meaning because the “arming motif”
diction — describing Achilles, Agamemnon, Paris, and
Patroclus — serves to “heighten the importance of . . . an
impressive moment”, thus,
reiteration “creates an
atmosphere of smoothness”, wherein, Homer distinguishes Patroclus
from Achilles, and foreshadows the former’s death with positive and
negative turns of phrase.
In the
Iliad, occasional syntactic inconsistency is an
oral tradition effect — for example, Aphrodite is
“laughter-loving”, despite being painfully wounded by Diomedes
(Book V, 375); and the divine representations, mixing Mycenaean and
Greek Dark Age (ca. 1150–800 BC)
mythologies, parallel the hereditary basilee nobles (lower social
rank rulers) with minor Olympic gods, such as Scamander et
al.
The
Venetus A, created in the 10th
century, is the oldest existing manuscript of Homer's Iliad.
The relationship between Achilles and Patroclus

Achilles and Patroclus.
Classical-era, historical, and contemporary scholars have
questioned the true nature of the relationship between Achilles and
Patroclus, arguing that the evidence is equivocal for perceiving
and defining it as either
platonic or
homosexual, although
Aeschylus does portray them so in Fragment 134a.
Necessarily, critics perceive and interpret that manly relationship
with their own mores (social, cultural, sexual), thus,
fifth-century BC Athenian scholars perceived it as
pederastic (then an accepted male relationship),
like-wise the others perceived it as either a platonic warrior-bond
or as a homosexual pairing of like-age men — despite Homer’s
description of Trojan women as war prizes, hence, the
sexual-orientation speculation evinced by Achilles’s outrage at
King Agamemnon’s confiscation of Bryseis, his war-prize
concubine.
Warfare in the Iliad
Despite Mycenae and Troy being maritime powers, the
Iliad
features no sea battles. So, the Trojan shipwright (of the ship
that transported Helen to Troy),
Phereclus, fights afoot, as an infantryman. The
battle dress and armour of hero and soldier are well-described.
They enter battle in
chariots, launching
javelins into the enemy formations, then dismount — for
hand-to-hand combat with sword and a shoulder-borne
hoplon
(shield). The Ajax the Greater, son of Telamon, sports a large,
rectangular shield (
σάκος) with which he protects
himself and Teucer, his brother:
- Ninth came Teucer, stretching his curved bow.
- He stood beneath the shield of Ajax, son of Telamon.
- As Ajax cautiously pulled his shield aside,
- Teucer would peer out quickly, shoot off an arrow,
- hit someone in the crowd, dropping that soldier
- right where he stood, ending his life—then he’d duck back,
- crouching down by Ajax, like a child beside its mother.
- Ajax would then conceal him with his shining shield.
- (Iliad 8.267–72, Ian Johnston, translator)
Ajax’s cumbersome shield is more suitable for defence than for
offence, while his cousin, Achilles, ports a large, rounded,
octagonal shield that he successfully deploys along with his spear
against the Trojans:
- Just as a man constructs a wall for some high house,
- using well-fitted stones to keep out forceful winds,
- that’s how close their helmets and bossed shields lined
up,
- shield pressing against shield, helmet against helmet
- man against man. On the bright ridges of the helmets,
- horsehair plumes touched when warriors moved their heads.
- That's how close they were to one another.
- (Iliad 16.213–7, Ian Johnston, translator)
In describing infantry combat, Homer names the
phalanx formation, but, most scholars do
not believe the historical Trojan War was so fought. In the
Bronze Age, the chariot was the main
battle transport-weapon (e.g. the
Battle of Kadesh). The available evidence,
from the Dendra armour and the Pylos Palace paintings, indicate the
Mycenaeans used two-man chariots, with a long-spear-armed principal
rider, unlike the three-man Hittite chariots with short-spear-armed
riders, and unlike the arrow-armed Egyptian and Assyrian two-man
chariots. Nestor spearheads his troops with chariots; he advises
them:
- In your eagerness to engage the Trojans,
- don’t any of you charge ahead of others,
- trusting in your strength and horsemanship.
- And don’t lag behind. That will hurt our charge.
- Any man whose chariot confronts an enemy’s
- should thrust with his spear at him from there.
- That’s the most effective tactic, the way
- men wiped out city strongholds long ago —
- their chests full of that style and spirit.
- (Iliad 4.301–09, Ian Johnston, translator)
It should be noted, that Homer does little to actually glorify war.
Although depictions are graphic, it can be seen in the very end
that victory in war is a far more somber occasion, where all that
is lost becomes apparent. On the other hand, the funeral games are
a lively entertaining and harmless affair, for the dead man's life
is celebrated. This overall depiction of war runs contrary to many
other ancient Greek depictions, where war is an aspiration for
greater glory.
Mythologic characters
In the literary
Trojan War of the
Iliad, the Olympic gods, goddesses, and demigods fight and
play great roles in human warfare. Unlike practical Greek religious
observance, Homer’s portrayals of them suited his narrative
purpose, being very different from the polytheistic ideals Greek
society used. To wit, the Classical-era historian
Herodotus says that Homer, and his contemporary,
the poet
Hesiod, were the first artists to
name and describe their appearance and characters.
In
Greek Gods, Human Lives: What We Can Learn From Myths,
Mary Lefkowitz discusses the
relevance of divine action in the
Iliad, attempting to
answer the question of whether or not divine intervention is a
discrete occurrence (for its own sake), or if such godly behaviours
are mere human character metaphors. The intellectual interest of
Classic-era authors, such as
Thucydides
and
Plato, was limited to their utility as “a
way of talking about human life rather than a description or a
truth”, because, if the gods remain religious figures, rather than
human metaphors, their “existence” — without the foundation of
either dogma or
a bible of faiths — then allowed Greek
culture the intellectual breadth and freedom to conjure gods
fitting any religious function they required as a people.
The Iliad in the arts and literature
Subjects from the Trojan War were a favourite among ancient Greek
dramatists.
Aeschylus' trilogy, the
Oresteia, comprising
Agamemnon,
The Libation Bearers, and
The Eumenides, follows
the story of Agamemnon after his return from the war.
William Shakespeare used the
plot of the
Iliad as source material for his play
Troilus and Cressida,
but focused on a medieval legend, the love story of
Troilus, son of King Priam of Troy, and
Cressida, daughter of the Trojan soothsayer
Calchas. The play, often considered to be a comedy, reverses
traditional views on events of the Trojan War and depicts Achilles
as a coward, Ajax as a dull, unthinking mercenary, etc.
Robert Browning's poem
Development discusses his childhood introduction to the
matter of the
Iliad and his delight in the epic, as well
as contemporary debates about its authorship.
Simone Weil wrote the essay
The Iliad or the Poem of
Force in 1939 shortly after the commencement of
WWII. Its been claimned the essay describes how the
Iliad demonstrates the way force, excercised to the extreme in war,
reduces both victim and aggressor to the level of the slave and the
unthinking automaton.
The 1954
Broadway
musical
The
Golden Apple by librettist John Treville Latouche and composer
Jerome Moross was freely adapted from
the Iliad and the Odyssey, re-setting the action
to America
's Washington
state in the years after the Spanish-American War, with events
inspired by the Iliad in Act One and events inspired by
the Odyssey in Act Two.
Christa Wolf's 1983 novel
Kassandra is a critical engagement with the
Iliad. Wolf's narrator is Cassandra, whose thoughts we
hear at the moment just before her murder by Clytemnestra in
Sparta. Wolf's narrator presents a feminist's view of the war, and
of war in general. Cassandra's story is accompanied by four essays
which Wolf delivered as the Frankfurter Poetik-Vorlesungen. The
essays present Wolf's concerns as a writer and rewriter of this
canonical story and show the genesis of the novel through Wolf's
own readings and in a trip she took to Greece.
A number of comic series have re-told the legend of the Trojan War.
The most inclusive may be
Age
of Bronze, a comprehensive retelling by writer/artist
Eric Shanower that incorporates a
broad spectrum of literary traditions and archaeological findings.
Started in 1999, it is projected to number seven volumes.
Bob Dylan recorded a song entitled
"
Temporary Like Achilles"
for his 1966 album "
Blonde On
Blonde".
Led Zeppelin recorded a
song entitled "
Achilles Last
Stand" for their 1976 album
Presence.
Power metal band
Blind Guardian composed a 14 minute song
about the
Iliad, "
And Then There Was Silence",
appearing on the 2002 album
A Night at the
Opera.
Heavy metal band
Manowar composed a 28 minute medley, "Achilles,
Agony and Ecstasy in Eight Parts", in their 1992 album,
The
Triumph of Steel. Other heavy metal bands inspired by the
epos:
Manilla Road "The Fall Of Iliam";
Stormwind "War Of Try";
Virgin Steele composed a rock opera in two
parts called
The Fall Of House Atreus;
Jag Panzer "Achilles";
Arcane "Agamemnon";
Warlord
"Achilles Revenge";
Tierra Santa "El
Caballo De Troya".
An epic science fiction adaptation/tribute by acclaimed author
Dan Simmons titled
Ilium was released in 2003. The novel
received a
Locus Award for best science
fiction novel of 2003.
A loose film adaptation of the
Iliad,
Troy, was released in 2004, starring
Brad Pitt as Achilles,
Orlando Bloom as Paris,
Eric Bana as Hector,
Sean
Bean as Odysseus and
Brian Cox as
Agamemnon. It was directed by German-born
Wolfgang Petersen. The movie only loosely
resembles the Homeric version, with the supernatural elements of
the story were deliberately expunged, except for one scene that
includes Achilles' sea nymph mother, Thetis (although her
supernatural nature is never specifically stated, and she is aged
as though human). Though the film received mixed reviews, it was a
commercial success, particularly in international sales. It grossed
$133 million in the United States and $497 million worldwide,
placing it in the 64th top-grossing movie of all time.
S.M. Stirling's
Island in
the Sea of Time series contains numerous characters who
are clearly the "original versions" of those appearing in the
Iliad. Odysseus himself plays a major role in the third
and last book,
On the
Oceans of Eternity. The twentieth-century characters are
quite aware of this and make rather frequent reference to it. One,
for example, comments that "a big horse ought to be present at the
fall of Troy", and another uses the glory that the poem would have
brought its protagonists to turn one of them against his
master.
Alesana's "The Third Temptation of Paris" is based on the theft of
Helen and the subsequent consequences.
English translations
George Chapman published his
translation of the
Iliad, in instalments, beginning in
1598, published in “fourteeners”, a long-line ballad metre that
“has room for all of Homer’s figures of speech and plenty of new
ones, as well as explanations in parentheses. At its best, as in
Achilles’ rejection of the embassy in
Iliad Nine; it has
great rhetorical power”. It quickly established itself as a classic
in English poetry. In the preface to his own translation, Pope
praises “the daring fiery spirit” of Chapman’s rendering, which is
“something like what one might imagine Homer, himself, would have
writ before he arrived at years of discretion”.
John Keats praised Chapman in the sonnet
On First
Looking into Chapman's Homer (1816).
John Ogilby’s mid-seventeenth-century
translation is among the early
annotated
editions;
Alexander Pope’s 1715
translation, in heroic couplet, is “The classic translation that
was built on all the preceding versions”, and, like Chapman’s, it
is a major poetic work, in its own right. William Cowper’s
Miltonic, blank verse 1791 edition is highly
regarded for its greater fidelity to the Greek than either the
Chapman or the Pope versions: “I have omitted nothing; I have
invented nothing”, Cowper says in prefacing his translation.
In the lectures
On Translating
Homer (1861),
Matthew Arnold
addresses the matters of translation and interpretation in
rendering the
Iliad to English; commenting upon the
versions contemporarily available in 1861, he identifies the four
essential poetic qualities of Homer to which the
translator must do justice:
[i] that he is eminently rapid; [ii] that he is
eminently plain and direct, both in the evolution of his thought
and in the expression of it, that is, both in his syntax and in his
words; [iii] that he is eminently plain and direct in the substance
of his thought, that is, in his matter and ideas; and, finally,
[iv] that he is eminently noble.
After a discussion of the metres employed by previous translators,
Arnold argues for a poetical dialect hexameter translation of the
Iliad, like the original. “Labourious as this meter was,
there were at least half a dozen attempts to translate the entire
Iliad or
Odyssey in hexameters; the last in 1945.
Perhaps the most fluent of them was by J. Henry Dart [1862] in
response to Arnold”.
Translators and translations
In 1870, the US poet William Cullen Bryant published a blank verse
version, that
Van Wyck Brooks
describes as “simple, faithful”. Moreover, since 1950, there have
been several English translations.
Richmond Lattimore’s version is “a free
six-beat” line-for-line rendering that explicitly eschews “poetical
dialect” for “the plain English of today”; it is literal, unlike
older verse renderings.
Robert
Fitzgerald’s version strives to situate the
Iliad in the musical forms of English poetry; his forceful
version is freer, with shorter lines that increase the sense of
swiftness and energy. In comparison, Lattimore’s rendering might
seem dull and plodding, where Fitzgerald’s “voice . . . [is]
sometimes a better reflection of the nuances and connotations in
the original Greek than [is] Lattimore’s” voice.
Robert Fagles and
Stanley Lombardo
are bolder in adding dramatic significance to Homer’s conventional
and formulaic language; generally, Fagles’s fidelity to the
original is greater, while Lombardo employs a distinctly American,
colloquial, “steet verse” idiom that has been criticised as
out-of-tune with Homer’s original diction.
Rodney
Merrill’s accentual, dactylic hexameter more accurately
reproduces the poem’s original Greek sound and sense “by following
the Homeric line, in its shape as well as its meter” with greater
fidelity than previous translations.
Herbert Jordan’s is a line-for-line
blank verse translation that the poet
Henry Taylor says “moves quickly and fluidly”
and that Bruce Louden (
The Iliad: Structure, Myth, and
Meaning) says includes “the most vivid translation ever done
of the ‘Catalogue of Ships.’”
Given the strictures of iambic pentameter, Jordan does not
translate many of the original epithets and patronyms because the
object of his
figurative
translation “is to capture the essence of Homer’s individual lines,
not to render the Greek literally” (p.ix). “With this in mind, if
we take, by way of example, the phrase
ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν
Ἀγαμέμνων, we find that rather than translating this stock
epithet exactly the same way every time it appears (as indeed
Lattimore does), Jordan either omits Agamemnon’s epithet, or
translates [it] variously as ‘high king,’ ‘high-commander,’
‘warrior-chief,’ ‘chief warrior,’ ‘chief Greek warrior,’ ‘lord,’
‘supreme commander,’ ‘far-ruling,’ ‘the king,’ and even ‘Atrides.’
The same is [true] for all the other stock phrases in the poem.
Stock expressions, such as ‘so he spoke’ (
ὥς
ἔφατο) are almost entirely omitted. Whole line repetitions
in the Greek appear differently in English. . . . Jordan’s
translation ‘Each man’s heart steeled to support his comrades’, at
line 9, is eminently better to read than [is] Lattimore’s painfully
literal ‘Stubbornly minded each in his heart to stand by the
others.’ (Fagles comes out best with the graphic ‘Hearts ablaze to
defend each other to the death.’) Jordan’s
Iliad is a very
easy, vivid read. . . . [I]t is perhaps the most readable of all
the verse translations of the
Iliad to date. Yet it should
be stated that what we read in this translation is not a true
reflection of Homer. A reader discovering the
Iliad for
the first time in Jordan’s translation would miss much of the oral
tradition that the
Iliad inherently reflects. . . . Those
seeking a more literal translation should look elsewhere.”
English translations: a partial list
(see the complete list in
English translations of
Homer)
- George Chapman, 1598 and 1615 —
verse
- John Ogilby, 1660
- Thomas Hobbes, 1675 — verse:
full text
- John Ozell, William Broome, and William Oldisworth,
1712
- Alexander Pope, 1713 — verse:
full
text
- James Macpherson, 1773
- William Cowper, 1791: full
text
- Theodore Alois Buckley,
1851 — prose: full text
- Lord
Derby, 1864 — verse: full
text
- J. Henry
Dart, 1862 — hexameter verse
- William Cullen Bryant,
1870 — verse
- Walter Leaf, Andrew Lang and Ernest Myers, 1873 — prose:
full
text
- Samuel Butler, 1898 —
prose: full text (many typographic errors, confusing to
read).
- A.T. Murray, 1924 — —prose with facing Greek text: full
text of translation
- Alexander Falconer, 1933
- Sir William Marris, 1934 — verse
- W.H.D. Rouse, 1938 — prose
- William Benjamin Smith
and Walter Miller, 1944
— verse, in dactylic hexameter
- E.V. Rieu,
1950 — prose
- Alston Chase and William G.
Perry, 1950 — prose
- Richmond Lattimore, 1951
-verse: full text with interlinear Greek text
- Ennis Rees, 1963 — verse
- Robert Fitzgerald, 1974 —
verse
- Martin Hammond, 1987 — prose
- Robert Fagles, 1990 — verse
- Stanley Lombardo, 1997 —
verse
- Ian Johnston, 2002 — verse: full text
- Rodney Merrill, 2007 — verse, in dactylic hexameter
- Herbert Jordan, 2008 — verse
- John Jackson, 2008 — Parsed Interlinear: text:parts blocked out
Notes
- Vidal-Naquet, Pierre. Le monde d’Homère (The World of
Homer), Perrin (2000), p.19
-
http://athome.harvard.edu/programs/nagy/threads/concept_of_hero.html
- http://www.uh.edu/~cldue/texts/introductiontohomer.html
-
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0009-837X%28200201%2997%3A1%3C61%3AKAR%3E2.0.CO%3B2-9
- Iliad IX 410–16
- Homer. The Iliad. Richmond Lattimore, translator.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1951)
-
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0009-837X%28200201%2997%3A1%3C61%3AKAR%3E2.0.CO%3B2-9
- Rouse, W.H.D. The Iliad (1938) p.11
- Homer. The Iliad, Richmond Lattimore, translator.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1951). 1.13.
- Homer. The Iliad, Richmond Lattimore, translator.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1951). 1.122.
- Homer. The Iliad. Richmond Lattimore, translator.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1951). 1.181–7.
- Homer. The Iliad. Richmond Lattimore, translator.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1951). 18.111–16.
- Fate as presented in Homer's "The Iliad",
Everything2
- Iliad Study Guide, Brooklyn College
- Homer. The Iliad. Richmond Lattimore, translator.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1951). 16.849–54.
- Homer. The Iliad. Richmond Lattimore, translator.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1951). 16.433–4.
- Homer. The Iliad. Richmond Lattimore, translator.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1951). 16.440–3.
- Homer. The Iliad. Richmond Lattimore, translator.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1951). 22.178–81.
- Homer. The Iliad. Richmond Lattimore, translator.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1951). 20.300–4.
- The Columbia Encyclopedia, Fifth Edition (1994)
p.173
- Porter, John. The Iliad as Oral Formulaic Poetry (8
May 2006) University of Saskatchewan; accessed 26 November
2007.
- Lord, Albert. The Singer of Tales Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Harvard University Press (1960) p.190
- Lord, Albert. The Singer of Tales Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Harvard University Press (1960) p.195
- Iliad, Book XVI, 130–54
- Armstrong, James I. The Arming Motif in the Iliad. The
American Journal of Philology, Vol. 79, No. 4. (1958),
pp.337–54.
- Toohey, Peter. Reading Epic: An Introduction to the Ancient
Narrative. New Fetter Lane, London: Routledge, (1992).
- Robot Scans Ancient Manuscript in 3-D,
Wired.
- Hornblower, S. and Spawforth, A. The Oxford Companion to
Classical Civilization pp.3, 352
- Hornblower, S. and Spawforth, A. The Oxford Companion to
Classical Civilization (1998) p.347
- Iliad 3.45–50
- Iliad 5.59–65
- Keegan, John. A History of Warfare (1993) p.248
- Iliad 6.6
- Cahill, Tomas. Sailing the Wine Dark Sea: Why the Greeks
Matter (2003)
- Homer’s Iliad, Classical Technology
Center.
- Lefkowitz, Mary. Greek Gods, Human Lives: What We Can Learn
From Myths (2003) New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press
- Taplin, Oliver. “Bring Back the Gods”, The New York
Times 14 December 2003.
- IMDB. "All Time Worldwide Box Office Grosses", Box
Office Mojo
- The Oxford Guide to English Literature in Translation,
p.351
- The Oxford Guide to English Literature in Translation,
p.352
- The Oxford Guide to English Literature in Translation,
p.354
- Calum Maciver,Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2009.01.15
References
External links
- D. B. Monro, Homer: Iliad, Books I-XII, with an Introduction, a
Brief Homeric Grammar, and Notes (3rd ed., 1890)
- D. B. Monro, Homer: Iliad, Books XIII-XXIV, with Notes
(4th ed., 1903)
- D. B. Monro, A Grammar of the Homeric Dialect (2nd ed.,
1891)
- Iliad, online version of the work by
Homer (English). Pope translation.
- Iliad in Ancient Greek: from the Perseus Project (PP), with the Murray and Butler translations
and hyperlinks to mythological and grammatical commentary; via the Chicago Homer, with the Lattimore
translation and markup indicating formulaic repetitions
- Links to translations freely available online are included in
the list above.
- The Iliad: A Study Guide
- Classical images illustrating the
Iliad. Repertory of outstanding painted vases, wall
paintings and other ancient iconography of the War of Troy.
- Comments on background, plot, themes, authorship,
and translation issues by 2008 translator Herbert Jordan.
- Homer: Iliad Books 1-12, & 13-24, ed. by Monro,
3rd Ed.: © Oxford Univ. Press 1902, parsed interlinear eBook for
Palm Handheld
- The
Iliad study guide, themes, quotes, teacher
resources